cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Surgical Treatment of Renovascular Hypertension in the Pediatric Patient

Of 27 children who underwent surgical treatment for renovascular hypertension 16 (59 per cent) were cured, 5 (19 per cent) were improved and 6 (22 per cent) were failures. Improved results were obtained in patients with unilateral renal artery stenosis. Several reconstructive vascular procedures were used, and their relative efficacy and indications are discussed. Renovascular hypertension in children is a curable disease and revascularization with preservation of renal parenchyma should be the aim of surgical therapy in most cases.
Against nature: Kant's argumentative strategy

THE PROBLEM The problem is a problem of long standing. In the Presidential Address to the December 2001 Eastern Division American Philosophical Association Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, Virginia Held raised doubts about research programs in ethics that insist on naturalism . Held targeted recent efforts in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology to ground ethics in natural facts about human beings, and argued against philosophical projects – like those of Daniel Dennett, Paul Churchland, and Allan Gibbard – that seek to give ethics psychobiological foundations. She cautioned fellow feminist thinkers against embracing naturalism, congenial as embracing nature might seem, especially to thinkers – Held names Annette Baier – eager to revalue the ‘natural’ moral practices of care, and to generally reclaim the denigrated natural sphere – home to bodies, emotions, and the mundane, messy, as well as ‘sinful’ facts of reproduction – to which women have often been consigned. Held's argument, roughly, was that nature, by its very nature, cannot be turned to for answers about what is morally good, what evil, what called for, what forbidden. We rebel, as we should, against systems of gender hierarchy, no matter how rooted in ‘nature.’ We reject, as we should, callous selfishness, again no matter how natural. The normative, Held argued, cannot come from the natural; we should not try to ground moral oughts, her thought goes, in what ‘by nature’ is.
Biologic Material Hierarchy

The body is like an automaton which responds to inputs in such a way as to maintain its internal environment in a state required for survival. The fundamental element of the body is the cell. The body cells consist of a wide range of types, but all have common attributes such as requirements for energy and means of transport of metabolites and nutrients across their membranes. As far as ultrasonic imaging is concerned, the cells cause various amounts of scatter depending on their size, constituents, concentration, and hydration. Other components of the body of interest in this chapter are 1) molecules—proteins and lipids which when placed in solution with water, the most common molecule in the body, cause absorption of ultrasound in various degrees and variations in propagation speed; 2) tissues—aggregations of cells functioning for a relatively specific purpose; and 3) organs—aggregates of tissues dedicated to a general function.
Multifiltering Signal Detection and Statistical Power in Brain Activation Studies

Varying levels of image smoothing in relation to experimental effect size was assessed by computing voxel-based statistical power estimates on brain positron emission tomography (PET) activation data measured in subjects during the Wisconsin card sorting task. Forty normal subjects underwent regional cerebral blood flow measurements using [15O]water PET. In general, the amount of smoothing necessary to achieve maximal power varied widely, but systematically, across the brain, tending to follow known neuroanatomical constraints, such as the juxtaposition of functionally reactive brain tissue and vasculature as well as other natural boundaries. However, statistical power was more readily improved as sample size increased in all brain areas. Variations in the optimum filter size across the brain suggest that neuroanatomical structure should be carefully considered in the selection of filter size, but also indicate that the best way to improve the reliability of findings is with increased sample size.
Community-Level and Ecosystem-Level Effects of Environmental Chemicals

Traditionally, ecotoxicology has focused on the responses of individuals to contaminant exposure with some studies on populations. However, contaminants can affect entire communities and even ecosystems, although our understanding is limited in these areas. This chapter discusses some ways that contaminants interact with other stressors at the community-level and proposes some ways that ecosystems may be examined from an ecotoxicological perspective.
Genetic determinants in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and their influence on global personalized medicine

While sequencing studies have provided an improved understanding of the genetic landscape of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC), there remains a significant lack of genetic data derived from non-Caucasian cohorts. Additionally, there is wide variation in HNSCC incidence and mortality worldwide both between and within various geographic regions. These epidemiologic differences are in part accounted for by varying exposure to environmental risk factors such as tobacco, alcohol, high risk human papilloma viruses and betel quid. However, inherent genetic factors may also play an important role in this variability. As limited sequencing data is available for many populations, the involvement of unique genetic factors in HNSCC pathogenesis from epidemiologically diverse groups is unknown. Here, we review current knowledge about the epidemiologic, environmental, and genetic variation in HNSCC cohorts globally and discuss future studies necessary to further our understanding of these differences. Long-term, a more complete understanding of the genetic drivers found in diverse HNSCC cohorts may help the development of personalized medicine protocols for patients with rare or complex genetic events.
Maltreatment and diurnal cortisol regulation: A meta-analysis

Childhood maltreatment leads to a host of negative physical and mental health outcomes, with cortisol dysregulation implicated as a possible mechanism. Given inconsistencies across in the literature regarding the direction and magnitude of the association between maltreatment and diurnal cortisol regulation, the current meta-analysis of 27 studies aimed to examine the association between maltreatment and at least one of 3 indicators of diurnal cortisol regulation: wake-up cortisol levels, the cortisol awakening response (CAR), and/or the diurnal cortisol slope. Effect sizes were calculated using Hedges' g formula and were pooled using a random effects model. For the association between maltreatment and wake-up cortisol level, the aggregate effect size was g=0.08, p=0.26. Notably, effect sizes between maltreatment and wake-up cortisol were significantly larger (Qbetween=5.18, p=0.02) for studies of agency-referred samples, g=0.24, p=0.006, than studies for which maltreatment status was based on self-report, g=0.00, p=0.97, with maltreatment associated with reduced wake-up cortisol levels. For the association between maltreatment and the CAR and diurnal cortisol slope, the aggregate effect sizes were non-significant and none of the moderator variables were significant. Although results did not indicate a large and robust association between maltreatment and various indicators of diurnal cortisol, studies with more rigorous designs (i.e., agency-referred samples) showed a small, significant association between maltreatment and blunted wake-up cortisol levels, suggesting a pattern of hypocortisolism.
Intrinsic Resolution of Molecular Electronic Wave Functions and Energies in Terms of Quasi-atoms and Their Interactions

A general intrinsic energy resolution has been formulated for strongly correlated wave functions in the full molecular valence space and its subspaces. The information regarding the quasi-atomic organization of the molecular electronic structure is extracted from the molecular wave function without introducing any additional postulated model state wave functions. To this end, the molecular wave function is expressed in terms of quasi-atomic molecular orbitals, which maximize the overlap between subspaces of the molecular orbital space and the free-atom orbital spaces. As a result, the molecular wave function becomes the superposition of a wave function representing the juxtaposed nonbonded quasi-atoms and a wave function describing the interatomic electron migrations that create bonds through electron sharing. The juxtaposed nonbonded quasi-atoms are shown to consist of entangled quasi-atomic states from different atoms. The binding energy is resolved as a sum of contributions that are due to quasi-atom f...
Inception of self-interacting dark matter with dark charge conjugation symmetry

Abstract A new understanding of the stability of self-interacting dark matter is pointed out, based on the simplest spontaneously broken Abelian U ( 1 ) gauge model with one complex scalar and one Dirac fermion. The key is the imposition of dark charge conjugation symmetry. It allows the possible existence of two stable particles: the Dirac fermion and the vector gauge boson which acts as a light mediator for the former's self-interaction. Since this light mediator does not decay, it avoids the strong cosmological constraints recently obtained for all such models where the light mediator decays into standard-model particles.
Isothermal redox for H2O and CO2 splitting – A review and perspective

Abstract Solar thermal splitting of water or carbon dioxide is a promising technology for producing hydrogen or carbon monoxide. In a two-step cycle, a metal oxide is thermally reduced with concentrated solar radiation to release oxygen. The reduced metal oxide is then re-oxidized with steam or carbon dioxide to produce hydrogen or carbon monoxide, or simultaneously with both to produce syngas. The two-step redox cycle can be operated either as a temperature swing where there is a temperature difference between the reduction and oxidation steps or isothermally. This review article discusses various aspects of operating the redox cycle isothermally including redox cycle thermodynamics and overall system efficiency and describes solar reactor concepts based on isothermal operation.
Perceptions of Harm, Criminality, and Law Enforcement Response: Comparing Violence by Men Against Women and Violence by Women Against Men

ABSTRACTThe authors compare third-party evaluations of male violence against women and female violence against men with regard to perceived injury severity, criminal labeling, and recommending police contact. They determine if victim–offender gender directly influences third-party perceptions of injury, and test whether injury mediates victim–offender gender effects on assessments. Injury perception mediated but could not fully explain differences in labeling. Differences in police contact support remained significant after taking injury perceptions into account. Male and female respondents differed in injury evaluations in acts with male victims or female perpetrators, but not in injury rating of male perpetrator or female victim violence. Findings suggest gender stereotypes directly and indirectly influence third-party observers of violence, shaping assessments of injury and ability or willingness to criminalize violence.
An updated meta-analysis of pioglitazone exposure and bladder cancer and comparison to the drug's effect on cardiovascular disease and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.

Abstract Aim We performed a meta-analysis of epidemiological studies evaluating exposure to pioglitazone and the risk for bladder cancer and compared these results to the drug’s effects on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Methods Pubmed and Embase were searched for cohort and case control studies for all years through 2016. Results Data from 17 papers were analyzed. In cohort studies, 822 of 357,888 pioglitazone-exposed patients (0.23%) developed bladder cancer while 7691 of 2,898,682 unexposed (0.26%) did. In case control studies, 3219 of 1,146,916 patients (0.28%) developed bladder cancer. A random effects model showed no significant association between ever vs never use or with cumulative doses of pioglitazone. However, there was a significant association with 1–2 years (HR = 1.28 [1.08–1.55]) and >2 years (HR = 1.42 [1.14–1.77]) of exposure. The numbers needed to treat for one additional case of bladder cancer ranged from 899 to 6380 while to benefit CVD and NASH, 4–256 and 2–12, respectively. Conclusions Given the very small prevalence of bladder cancer in diabetic patients exposed (or not) to pioglitazone (
Unternehmenshaftung für Menschenrechtsverletzungen in den USA jenseits des Alien Tort Claims Act

Der Beitrag untersucht den status quo der Rechtsprechung in den USA zu Menschenrechtsklagegn gegen Unternehmen anhand der jeweils einschlagigen prozessualen Voraussetzungen und prozessrechtlichen Institute. Ausfuhrlich zeigt er zunachst die Voraussetzungen der personlichen Zustandigkeit von US-amerikanischen Gerichten, die erforderlich ist, damit ein Unternehmen verklagt werden kann. Problematisch ist dies insbesondere bei auslandischen Unternehmen. Dabei weist der Beitrag vor allem auf die einschrankenden Wirkungen des Urteils des US Supreme Court im Fall Daimler aus dem Jahre 2014 hin. Eine weitere Prozessvoraussetzung ist die sachliche Zustandigkeit. Diese wird fur Bundesgerichte u. a. im Alien Tort Claims Act begrundet, dessen Reichweite durch das Kiobel-Urteil des Supreme Court aus dem Jahre 2013 jedoch ebenfalls stark eingeschrankt wurde. Trotz dieser Urteile bestehen weiter Klagemoglichkeiten vor Bundes- und Staatsgerichten. Der Zugang zu den Gerichten der einzelnen Bundesstaaten erscheint dabei oft sogar noch leichter als der Zugang zu den Bundesgerichten. Allerdings sind Urteile von Staatsgerichten oft weniger effektiv und in ihrem Wirkungskreis beschrankt. Die Suche nach dem anwendbaren Recht wirft die Problematik der Bindung von Privatpersonen und Unternehmen an volkerrechtliche Normen auf, bezuglich der die Rechtsprechung in den USA uneinheitlich agiert. Schlieslich werden noch politisch begrundete Hurden fur Prozesse in den USA diskutiert. Dazu zahlen die political questions doctrine, die foreign affairs doctrine und die act of state doctrine sowie die international comity. Reimann schliest mit dem Hinweis, dass die USA volkerrechtlich verpflichtet sind, effektive Klagen bei Menschenrechtsverletzungen zu ermoglichen.
Recovery of Lithium from Brine with MnO 2 Nanowire Ion Sieve Composite

Lithium is anticipated to be a key, strategic material in the clean technology economy. The majority of lithium reserves are contained in continental brines and sea water (>60%). Currently the most economical approach to recover lithium from such resources is through selective adsorption. Spinel type lithium manganese oxide and lithium titanium oxide have demonstrated to be excellent candidate materials (after de-lithiation). However, due to the small size of the powders, they have limited industrial application and require immobilization. In this work, we examine the application of novel manganese oxide nanowire composites for the extraction of lithium from dilute solutions. Manganese oxide nanowires were synthesized and simultaneously immobilized on diatomaceous earth via hydrothermal method. Lithium manganese oxide were then formed by solid-state reaction, de-lithiated and tested for lithium ion adsorption.
Analysis of Hypothetical Promoter Domains of DKFZp564A1164, NPHS1 and HSPOX1 Genes

For this study, a high throughput method for identifying and testing regulatory elements was examined. In addition, the validity of promoters predicted by FirstEF was tested. It was found that by combining computer based promoter and first exon predictions from FirstEF (Davuluri et al., 2001) with PCR-based cloning to generate luciferase reporter constructs, and by testing reporter activity in cultured mammalian cells plated in a 96 well format one could identify promoter activity in a relatively high throughput manner. The data generated in this study suggest that FirstEF predictions are sometimes incorrect. Therefore, having a strategy for defining which FirstEF predicted promoters to test first may accelerate the process. Initially testing promoters that are at a confirmed transcription start site for a gene, at a possible alternate transcription start site or in a region of conserved sequence would be the best candidates, while promoters predicted in gene desert regions may not be as easy to confirm. The luciferase assay lent itself very well to the high throughput search, however the subcloning did not always go smoothly. The numerous steps that this traditional subcloning method requires were time consuming and increased the opportunities for errors. A faster method that skips many more » of the traditional subcloning steps, such as the Creator{trademark} system by Clontech is currently being investigated by our lab. The development and testing of substantially larger enhancer/silencer regulatory elements may not be possible at this time using these high throughput methods. These regulatory elements are generally GC rich making them more difficult to PCR and subclone. Additionally, confirming upstream untranslated first exons was not possible within this time scale using the SMART RACE protocol. It will be necessary to further explore the limitations within these procedures in order to confirm these and future regulatory elements. Alterations and modifications to these protocols, as well as investigating new techniques may be necessary. « less
Toward novel vaccines and therapies based on negative-strand RNA viruses

The study of negative-strand RNA viruses has suggested new strategies to produce more attenuated viruses. Reverse genetics has allowed the implementation of the strategies, and new or improved monovalent vaccines are being developed. In addition, recombinant viruses expressing foreign proteins or epitopes have been produced with the aim of developing multivalent vaccines capable of stimulating humoral and cellular immune responses against more than one pathogen. Finally, recombinant viruses that selectively enter cells expressing tumor markers or the HIV envelope protein have been engineered and shown to lyse target cells. Preclinical and clinical trials of improved and multivalent vaccines and therapeutic (oncolytic) viruses are ongoing.
Building a KM Foundation at Microsoft Consulting Services

A knowledge management (KM) system is the technology platform and infrastructure that an organization employs to share its knowledge. A successful KM system is one that is easily accessible by all knowledge workers in the organization. It should fit seamlessly into current (or proposed) workflow processes of the end users and is based on a sound understanding of the organization’s culture and technology infrastructure. The knowledge assets (KAs) held by the system need to be readily accessible to the user at anytime and any place. The most important measure of success for a KM system is use. The return on investment for KM is derived through the behaviors of the knowledge workers. The KM system’s value is in the enablement of those behaviors. This chapter focuses on technological aspects of a KM system, particularly the one built and used by Microsoft Consulting Services.
All-D-cecropin B: synthesis, conformation, lipopolysaccharide binding, and antibacterial activity.

Cecropin B (LCB) is a natural peptide with antibacterial and antifungal properties. The enantiomer of LCB, containing all-D amino acids (DCB), was synthesized to examine its antibacterial and binding properties. The conformation of DCB was compared to its enantiomer by circular dichroism. Both the L- and D-peptides showed an identical induction of α-helical secondary structure. However, binding studies between Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and DCB or LCB were studied with a dimethylmethylene blue spectrophotometric assay, showing the two enantiomeric peptides differed in their interaction with LPS. Antibacterial activity of DCB was determined against three Gram-negative bacteria, Pantoea agglomerans (ATCC 27996), Escherichia coli (ATCC 8739), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 17648), giving comparable results to LCB.
Estimation of the Fluxes Over the Ocean by the Covariance and Dissipation Methods

The development of reliable methods for measurement or estimation of the surface fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum over the ocean is of importance in many meteorological and oceanographic problems and programs. The GARP programs AMTEX I and II (Air Mass Transformation Experiment) in February 1974 and 1975 were organized investigations of the atmosphere and ocean responses to the outbreak of cold air from the mainland China across the Kurshio and Ryukyu Islands (Japan). Air-sea exchanges are large during these outbreaks, as wind speeds are of the order of ten m/s, air-sea temperature differences are about 5°C and, following occluded fronts, evaporation rates are also large. A portion of the AMTEX program was concerned with the measurement of surface fluxes by a variety of techniques at several locations under high wind, high flux level conditions.
Conocimiento profesional docente universitario. Estudio de caso en profesores universitarios de la Universidad de Valparaíso

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the professional knowledge for university teaching emerging from the processes of Curriculum Innovation. Using a qualitative methodology and a case study design, we analyse the experience of two university teachers at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Valparaiso. Following an inductive, interpretative, and analytical process, we obtained a set of meanings organised around two topics: Possibilities and demands of the university context; and development of the didactic knowledge of the discipline. The results of this study show, from a qualitative approach, that development of this kind of subjective knowledge creates a complex web where multiple analysis entries emerge, characterised by the fact that this is not a type of knowledge transmitted by traditional instructional methods. On the contrary, this professional teaching knowledge for the university teacher is a dynamic subjective construction, as well being situated in the institutional context, their experience and personal career, and their disciplinary knowledge.
Are missed- and kept-visit measures capturing different aspects of retention in HIV primary care?

ABSTRACTThe literature recognizes six measures of retention in care, an integral component of the HIV Continuum of Care. Given prior research showing that different retention measures are different...
Modulation of frontal gamma oscillations improves working memory in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder that is associated with cognitive deficits. Impairments in cognition occur early in the course of illness and are associated with poor functional outcome, but have been difficult to treat with conventional treatments. Recent studies have implicated abnormal neural network dynamics and impaired connectivity in frontal brain regions as possible causes of cognitive deficits. For example, high-frequency, dorsal-lateral prefrontal oscillatory activity in the gamma range (30-50 Hz) is associated with impaired working memory in individuals with schizophrenia.In light of these findings, it may be possible to use EEG neurofeedback (EEG-NFB) to train individuals with schizophrenia to enhance frontal gamma activity to improve working memory and cognition. In a single-group, proof-of-concept study, 31 individuals with schizophrenia received 12 weeks of twice weekly EEG-NFB to enhance frontal gamma band response. EEG-NFB was well-tolerated, associated with increased gamma training threshold, and significant increases in frontal gamma power during an n-back working memory task. Additionally, EEG-NFB was associated with significant improvements in n-back performance and working memory, speed of processing, and reasoning and problem solving on neuropsychological tests. Change in gamma power was associated with change in cognition. Significant improvements in psychiatric symptoms were also found. These encouraging findings suggest EEG-NFB targeting frontal gamma activity may provide a novel effective approach to cognitive remediation in schizophrenia, although placebo-controlled trials are needed to assess the effects of non-treatment related factors.
Discharge Prescription Patterns for Antiplatelet Therapy Following Lower Extremity Peripheral Vascular Intervention

Background: Despite current guidelines suggesting a benefit for dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) following peripheral vascular intervention (PVI), there are limited data on antiplatelet prescribing...
Systematic Approach in Intel SoC (System on Chip) Thermal Solution Design using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) Simulation

This paper focus on Intel System on Chip (SoC) thermal analysis challenges and novel methods in addressing Intel SoC under Internet of Things Group (IoTG) unique workloads. The workload challenges are coming from embedded. industrial and PC client market segments; where customers from these segments have different workloads hence different power dissipation (both dynamic and static power) within SoC Core and IPs. Conventional Design Methodology and Practices - prototyping and testing. are time consuming and don’t scale well with fundamentally different and diverse Internet of Things (IoT) workloads. IoTG Markets has shorter Product Life Cycle (PLC) and needed Targeted Thermal Solution. thus requires a quick-turn around time for evaluating these solutions. IoTG emphasize on pre silicon Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation and Co-development strategy to design and develop thermal solution and specifications. The thermal analysis was done in an incremental fashion. from lowest component level within the SoC. then platform and System level ingredients - considering heat flux. extended temperature. mutual heating and etc. This incremental process helped facilitate early validation of design decisions at every level (component. platform and system) and timely discovery of potential refinement leading to an optimal solution. Component level feasibility focuses on SoC power maps and heat-sink design. Platform level feasibility expands into form factor requirement and on-board component placements. System level feasibility envelope everything to fully capture the details of customer boundary conditions like operating ambient. system chassis and applications. Highlighting an example using CFD simulation start with component level analysis. then move on to platform level where board level components are introduced; and finally. system level where boundary conditions with specific use conditions are modeled. Iterations with pre-silicon use cases power assumption to assess thermal solution performance. Through this presentation. we would like to share a bottom up simulation design approach in solving complex thermal system.
In vivo imaging of methionine aminopeptidase II for prostate cancer risk stratification

Prostate cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide, yet limited tools exist for prognostic risk stratification of the disease. Identification of new biomarkers representing intrinsic features of malignant transformation and development of prognostic imaging technologies are critical for improving treatment decisions and patient survival. In this study, we analyzed radical prostatectomy specimens from 422 patients with localized disease to define the expression pattern of methionine aminopeptidase II (MetAP2), a cytosolic metalloprotease that has been identified as a druggable target in cancer. MetAP2 was highly expressed in 54% of low-grade and 59% of high-grade cancer. Elevated levels of MetAP2 at diagnosis were associated with shorter time to recurrence. Controlled self-assembly of a synthetic small molecule enabled design of the first MetAP2-activated positron emission tomography (PET) imaging tracer for monitoring MetAP2 activity in vivo. The nanoparticles assembled upon MetAP2 activation were imaged in single prostate cancer cells with post-click fluorescent labeling. The fluorine-18 labeled tracers successfully differentiated MetAP2 activity in both MetAP2 knockdown and inhibitor-treated human prostate cancer xenografts by micro-PET/CT scanning. This highly sensitive imaging technology may provide a new tool for non-invasive early risk stratification of prostate cancer and monitoring the therapeutic effect of MetAP2 inhibitors as anti-cancer drugs.
Dose reduction in PET imaging for Parkinson disease assessment based on synaptic changes

108 Objectives: Using [11C]UCB-J PET imaging to measure synaptic vesicle protein 2A (SV2A), our recent study provided the first evidence of synaptic loss in brainstem nuclei involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease (PD) in living patients. Lowering tracer dose reduces radiation exposure to patients however increases imaging noise, which could affect the separation of PDs from healthy controls (HCs). We developed a patch-based artificial neural network (ANN) and demonstrated its effectiveness in reducing noise while introducing minimal bias in PET images reconstructed from reduced count data. The goal of this study is to enhance the separability between PD and HC groups in reduced-dose SV2A imaging using a cascade ANN based denoising technique. Methods: Six pairs of demographically matched PD and HC subjects underwent PET scans on an HRRT. The list mode data were acquired for at least 60 min after the start of [11C]UCB-J administration. The full-count dataset of each subject was down-sampled by redistributing the coincidence events sequentially with 1 ms time steps, resulting in 10 noise realizations of 1/10-count datasets. Every set of the full-count or 1/10-count data were reconstructed into 21 dynamic image frames with degradation corrections using the MOLAR algorithm. We developed an ANN model and trained it with the 1/10-count and full-count dynamic image frames of another randomly selected HC subject. The ANN model served as a nonlinear multivariate regression function to form a mapping between the training inputs consisting of 100k 3D patches extracted from a 1/10-count frame and the desired outputs of the corresponding patches extracted from the full-count frame. Mimicking anisotropic diffusion filtering, the trained ANN model was applied multiple times in cascade to each of the 1/10-count dynamic image frames of all the PD and HC subjects, resulting in the ANN processed 1/10-count dynamic image frames. We used the simplified reference tissue model 2 (SRTM2) with the centrum semiovale as the reference region to estimate the binding potential (BPND) map from the dynamic frames. For PD assessment, the BPND mean values were estimated in 11 primary regions of interest and the BPND reduction between the HC and PD groups were then computed for each ROI. We conducted two-tailed t-tests for 6 HCs versus 6 PD patients of the full-count and of each 1/10-count noise realizations with and without the ANN processing to evaluate the difference between the HC and the PD groups. Results: From the full-count data, significant group (HC versus PD) differences were found of the BPND values in the substantia nigra (SN) (41% reduction from HC to PD, p
Unusual Neurological Manifestation of Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection in a Postpartum Woman: A Case Report

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the global spread of the disease (COVID-19) at present. Our understanding of the impact of the virus on the nervous system is limited. The involvement of CNS and neurological manifestations reports are further limited in obstetrical cases. We are reporting a case of an unusual presentation of COVID-19 infection in an admitted P2L2 postpartum woman who developed multiple episodes of seizures on postpartum day 8 of lower segment caesarean section, with no prior history of seizures or hypertension. This report will add to a rare neurological manifestation of COVID-19 in pregnancy. How to cite this article:Shakarwal S, Tyagi S, Sachdeva P, Aggarwal S. Unusual Neurological Manifestation of Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection in a Postpartum Woman: A Case Report. J Adv Res Med 2021;8(1):19-21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2349.7181.202103
Multi-Level Contrastive Learning for Few-Shot Problems.

Contrastive learning is a discriminative approach that aims at grouping similar samples closer and diverse samples far from each other. It it an efficient technique to train an encoder generating distinguishable and informative representations, and it may even increase the encoder's transferability. Most current applications of contrastive learning benefit only a single representation from the last layer of an this http URL this paper, we propose a multi-level contrasitive learning approach which applies contrastive losses at different layers of an encoder to learn multiple representations from the encoder. Afterward, an ensemble can be constructed to take advantage of the multiple representations for the downstream tasks. We evaluated the proposed method on few-shot learning problems and conducted experiments using the mini-ImageNet and the tiered-ImageNet datasets. Our model achieved the new state-of-the-art results for both datasets, comparing to previous regular, ensemble, and contrastive learing (single-level) based approaches.
Fiscal Challenges: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Budget Policy

Preface Part I. The Law and Politics of Fiscal Policy: Introduction 1. The Congressional budget process William Dauster 2. Budget gimmicks Cheryl Block 3. Transparency in the US budget process Elizabeth Garrett and Adrian Vermeule 4. European experiences with fiscal rules and institutions Jurgen von Hagen Part II. Understanding Federal Deficits and Public Debt: Introduction 5. Perspectives on federal deficits and debt Michael Boskin 6. Counting the ways: the structure of federal spending Howell Jackson 7. Starving the beast: the psychology of budget deficits Jonathan Baron and Edward McCaffery Part III. Budgeting and Fiscal Constraints at the State Level: Introduction 8. Budgetary arrangements in the 50 states: in search of model practices Juliet Musso, Elizabeth Graddy and Jennifer Grizard 9. The calculus of constraint: a critical review of state fiscal institutions Tracy Gordon 10. When does the ballot box limit the budget? Politics and spending limits in California, Colorado, Utah, and Washington Thad Kousser, Matthew McCubbins and Kaj Rozga Part IV. Intergovernmental Aspects of Budget Policy: Introduction 11. Dysfunctional or optimal institutions? State debt limitations, the structure of state and local governments, and the finance of American infrastructure Barry Weingast and John Wallis 12. Federal-state budgetary interactions David Super Part V. Judicial Powers and Budget Policy: Introduction 13. New property, entrenchment, and the fiscal constitution John Harrison 14. Courts, constitutions, and public finance: some recent experiences from the States Richard Briffault.
Victim Intervention Marketing: An Application of Social Activist Marketing in Opposition to Human Trafficking

Human trafficking’s most authoritative definitions suffer from internal inconsistencies and exploitation creep. This difficulty has caused all trafficking, rather than only its worst forms, to be categorized as slavery. We use victims’ voluntary, semivoluntary, and involuntary participation in human trafficking marketing channels and their related attitude-behavior consistencies to redefine human trafficking. This definition forms the conceptual foundation for a victim typology matrix, within which Frazier and Sheth’s (1985) influence strategies prescribe interventions. A sample of 190 United Nations’ cases supports the typology, and Chi-Square test results indicate a statistically strong relationship between the conditions under which victims enter and remain in human trafficking channels.
Facilitating CBR for Incompletely-Described Cases: Distance Metrics for Partial Problem Descriptions ?

A fundamental problem for case-based reasoning systems is how to select relevant prior cases. Numerous strategies have been developed for determining the similarity of prior cases, given full descriptions of the problem at hand, and situation assessment methods have been developed for formulating appropriate initial case descriptions. However, in real-world applications, attempting to determine all relevant features of a new problem before retrieval may be impractical or impossible. Consequently, how to guide retrieval based on partial problem descriptions is an important question for CBR. This paper examines the problem of assessing similarity in partially-described cases. It proposes a set of similarity assessment strategies for handling missing information, evaluates their performance and efficiency on sample data sets, and discusses their tradeoffs.
Bombing to Bargain? The Air War for Kosovo

Given the prominence of air power as a foreign policy tool, we attempt to clearly link the military process of dropping munitions on the target state to the accompanying diplomatic process between the attacker and the adversary. To explore the connection between the two processes, we look at the 1999 NATO bombing campaign over Kosovo, which allows us to isolate the influence of air power. Why were 78 days of NATO bombing needed to convince Milosevic to make concessions? Comparing expectations from both bargaining models and traditional coercive models, we find that the intensity of bombing, the duration of bombing, and mediation were important predictors of the Serbian government's behavior during the Kosovo crisis.
Beverly Vicker, M. S.: Sharing Information About Your Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder: What do Respite or Alternative Caregivers Need to Know?

Sharing Information About your Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder is an easy to read primer that details suggestions on how a parent should instruct a caregiver to supervise their child with autism. It is very well organized and detailed, but not particularly insightful. The introduction for the book comments, ‘‘An attempt has been made to keep the information on these pages short, easy-to-read and within the reading level of the typical respite worker (high school reading level)’’ (p. 4). The book is successful at that task, but as a consequence may have limited audience appeal. The brilliance of this book is its every day application and the easy to use worksheets. In this day of suits on copy write infringement, it is rare to find a book that so clearly encourages the reader to make copies of its pages. In fact, to assist in this endeavor, a CD is attached to the back of the book. The first section of the book is basically a series of lists of questions on topics designed to prod a parent as to what information they should share about their child. At times, it is repetitive, but the inventory of questions is organized in such a fashion that you can easily skip nonrelevant topics such as bathing, as many part time caregivers never bath their charge leaving that as a parental responsibility. The second section of the book is a series of simple essays on topics of high interest to caregivers. These essays are a type of Social Story for caregivers. ‘‘Why doesn’t the child look at me?’’ or ‘‘Why does this child talk on and on and on?’’ are relevant and useful tools to share with anyone who interacts with a child or adult with autism. The third section, detailing the case history of two families, is tedious to read, but may be useful as a point of reference. The fourth and final section of the book has nearly 30 pages of worksheets. Many of the pages are nearly blank with only a modest heading and it makes you wonder if they should have just saved the trees. The accompanying CD has all of the worksheets in two different formats, one as the author intended, and a second version that allows you to make individual edits, which is a very creative idea.
Principal Components Analysis

A concept that is closely related to linear regression (preceding chapter) is principal components [15.1]. Linear regression addressed the question of how to fit a curve to one set of data, using a minimum number of factors. By contrast, the principal components problem asks how to fit many sets of data with a minimum number of curves. The problem is now of higher dimensionality. Specifically, can each of the data sets be represented as a weighted sum of a “best” set of curves? Each curve is called a “principal component” of the data sets.
Inhibition of thymidine-5'-monophosphokinase from L5178Y mouse leukemia by diethystilbestrol and 17-ethynyl-beta-estradiol.

Diethylstilbestrol and 17-ethynyl-β-estradiol irreversibly inhibited thymidine-5'-monophosphokinase (EC [2.7.4.9][1]) which had been purified from L5178Y mouse leukemia cells. Preparations of TMP-kinase from mouse spleen, calf thymus, and Escherichia coli were not inhibited by these compounds. A high concentration of thymidylate protected TMP-kinase from inactivation by diethylstilbestrol but could not reactivate the inhibited enzyme. The inhibition of TMP-kinase by the synthetic estrogens was prevented by several sulfhydryl compounds of which dithiothreitol was most effective. The addition of dithiothreitol to the inhibited enzyme did not restore activity. Diethylstilbestrol-14C did not specifically associate with the enzyme protein in a partially purified TMP-kinase and the addition of the protective agents, dithiothreitol and thymidylate, did not alter the degree of binding. Treatment of the inhibition kinetics by the method of Ackermann and Potter showed that diethylstilbestrol did not titrate enzyme activity. Diethylstilbestrol caused no inhibition of thymidylate metabolism in L5178Y cells incubated in vitro nor of the development of ascitic tumor in the mouse. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to express their appreciation to Mrs. Sammie Cox for her skillful technical assistance. This research was supported by the United States Public Health Service (Grant No. CA-08236). [1]: pending:yes
How Chinese Rare Books Crossed the Pacific at the Outbreak of World War II: Some Reminiscences

In 1941, just before World War II began, some 30,000 volumes of rare books were shipped from China to the United States for safekeeping and microfilming. This was an important event in the history of Sino-American cultural relations and also for international sharing of Chinese rare resources, yet very few people know the story of how these rarities wereable to cross the Pacific Ocean during a time of world crisis. Twenty-six years later, I recalled this incident in an article in memory of the late Dr. T. L. Yuan revealing how I risked my life in order to accomplish this difficult mission.1 In that account, I mentioned how an accident made this shipment possible and how the last shipment reached the States was a puzzle, since the vessel supposedly carrying it was reported to have been captured by the Japanese navy. Today, over fifty years later, it still remains a mystery.
Comparison of Locoregional versus Extended Locoregional Radiation Volumes for Patients with Nonmetastatic Gastro-esophageal Junction Carcinomas

Introduction: To delineate an optimal clinical target volume (CTV) for gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancers by comparing locore- gional versus extended locoregional radiation (RT) volumes. Materials: This retrospective analysis examined 222 patients (111 matched pairs treated with locoregional versus extended locore- gional RT) with nonmetastatic GEJ carcinomas treated with concur- rent chemoradiation ± surgery. The CTV for locoregional volumes was defined as gross tumor volume + elective coverage of first-ech- elon nodes and sometimes the celiac axis. The CTV for extended locoregional volumes was defined as gross tumor volume + elective coverage of celiac and splenic (±porta) nodes. Variables used for matching included sex, stage, performance status, histology, receipt of induction chemotherapy, type of concurrent chemotherapy, RT modality, receipt of surgery, type of surgery, and Siewert classifica- tion. Regression models stratified by matched pairs were fit to esti- mate effect of RT volume on clinical endpoints. Results: Adjusting p values for multiple testing, patients treated with extended locoregional versus locoregional RT had increased odds of grade 2+ acute chemoradiation-associated gastrointestinal toxicity (odds ratio: 2.92, adj. p = 0.0447). However, differing RT volumes were not significantly associated with postoperative complication rates, pathologic T-stage, frequency of positive perigastric/regional nodes on surgical specimen, distant-metastases progression-free survival, locore- gional progression-free survival, or overall survival (adj. p > 0.05). Of the patients who did (n = 124) and did not (n = 72) receive elective celiac RT, two (1.6%) and two patients (2.8%), respectively, relapsed in the celiac nodes. No patients failed in the splenic or porta nodes. Conclusions: Most GEJ cancers can be safely treated without elec- tive inclusion of splenic/porta nodes.
Non-Bacterial Pneumonias

In recent years, evidence has accumulated of the successful application of present knowledge and of new developments in the field of diagnostic bacteriology and virology by the disentanglement with fair regularity of successive new entities from the ”scrap pile” commonly referred to as ”virus pneumonia,” ”interstitial pneumonia,” ”atypical pneumonia,” or ”non-bacterial pneumonia.” Many factors are responsible for the disentanglement and recognition of successive etiologic entities from the complex. The process has been facilitated, a) by the ready availability and common employment of chemotherapeutic and antibiotic agents for treatment, thereby eliminating effectively most bacterial agents; b) by the increasingly frequent use of roentgenography for the study of any case of suspected pneumonia; c) by the realization in hospital practice that the need is for more, rather than less, precise bacteriologic diagnosis because of the specificity of antibacterial agents and the possibility through adaptation of the appearance of resistant bacteria; and d) by the development and application of new diagnostic laboratory methods. This review of the non-bacterial pneumonias emphasizes: 1) The importance of the non-bacterial pneumonias as a component in the complex of pulmonary infection designated clinically and pathologically as pneumonia is of recent recognition. From five to 70 per cent of all pneumonias are non-bacterial. 2) The causative agents are known to include a wide variety of microbiologie agents and their products such as viruses, rickettsia, fungi, protozoa, toxins, and allergens. 3) The more usual pathological, roentgenological, and clinical pictures are essentially the same for this wide range of etiologic entities, but variable differences occur between successive cases of the same entity and of different entities. 4) Separation into etiological entities must be accomplished by laboratory studies. 5) The facilities available in many diagnostic laboratories are inadequate to cope with the problem of the isolation and specific identification of viruses. For this approach, a specialized laboratory, and, more particularly, specialized personnel are needed. Since the approach is simple and, in essence, that which is applied for the diagnosis of a bacterial disease, attempts should be made to establish a specific diagnosis by isolation of the virus from materials or tissues derived from the patient and by its identification or, when that is not possible, to establish the diagnosis in retrospect by assessing the patient's serum for specific antibodies. 6) The general recognition that such widely different biological agents as viruses, fungi, protozoa, and allergens may be the causative agents of non-bacterial pneumonia should stimulate the efforts of both the laboratorian and the clinician to direct their efforts toward making a specific diagnosis before antibiotic therapy is undertaken and not to be satisfied by nonspecific antibiotic ”shot-gun” therapy.