cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Midgut Hemolytic Activity of the Horn Fly, Haematobia Irritans (Diptera: Muscidae)

Horn fly midgut homogenates readily lysed bovine erythrocytes when suspended in isotonic buffer. After the midgut homogenates were subjected to diisopropyl ether: butanol (60:40 V/V) extractions, there was a loss of activity from the homogenates commensurate with an increase in hemolytic activity in the organic solvent fractions. Thin-layer chromatography and gas-liquid chromatography techniques were used to separate and identify the components with hemolytic activity in the organic solvent extracts. These components were identified as free fatty acids (FFA). When the extracted homogenates were reconstituted with the solvent extracts or with the isolated FFA, hemolytic activity was restored.
Online Exchange Mechanism of Organ Network

An online exchange mechanism is proposed based on the kidney assignment network to maximize both the post-operation benefits of patients and the number of potential kidney resources when some patients have living donors who are not suitable in clinical experiments. Two buffers are built up to sort the information of common patients and those who loss living donors,separately. The pairs of patients and their un-suitable donors are waiting to enter the buffers. The exchange circles are checked firstly to implement exchanges among patients and living donors. Then the exchange route covering common patients is considered to make both assignment and exchange,and all patients and traditional kidney resources are taking into account in assignment. The mechanism is able to find out more resources through rising the priority levels of patients under allowance of laws. The result of competitive analysis shows that the mathematical expectation competitive rate is influenced by HLAmm distribution,is p.d. to certain value in theory,and the assignment network can control the expectation of HLAmm sum in 3.13 times of optimal one. The average improvement rate is 2.80,that means,average of HLAmm will decrease 35.6% by using the proposed mechanism.
Thermodynamics Properties of Ternary Bath of Coloring Hot--Dip Galvanization

The activities and activity interaction parameters of two kinds of ternary alloy baths, Zn-Mn-Me and Zn-Ti-Me, were calculated by using an integral model and an analytic expression of activity coefficient. The results indicate that the activity of color generation element Mn or Ti was increased as adding Ni or Cu, where the effect of Ni is superior to Cu, however, Ti decreased the activity of Mn in Zn-Mn bath, and existed the opposite behavior for Mn in Zn-Ti. There is an inevitable relationship between the activity of components and color generation effectiveness. That is to say, the elements which can increase the activities of color generation elements would be in favor of improving the combination properties of hot-dip bath, and finally improving color generation effectiveness. Therefore, Mn, Ni, and Cu are favorable elements for coloring hot-dip bath, and the advantages and disadvantages of Ti are related with its concentration, which is consistent with the results of technology experiments.
Notes from the Discussion Group on "Evaluation".

Group Members: Harold Cohen, Maggie Boden, Dave Brown, Paul Brown, Oliver Deussen, Philip Galanter. These notes represent approximately what was discussed by the group members over a period of several hours over two days. There has been some attempt to organize the material, but little attempt to expand it to make it coherent—we rambled, so do the notes. The notes, and this report, were recorded, organized, and elaborated into this form by Dave Brown.
Lacustrine 87 Sr/ 86 Sr as a tracer to reconstruct Milankovitch forcing of the Eocene hydrologic cycle

Abstract The Green River Formation (GRF) provides one of the premier paleoclimate archives of the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (∼50 Ma), representing the apex of the early Cenozoic greenhouse climate. Rhythmic lake-level variability expressed in the GRF has inspired numerous hypotheses for the behavior of the Eocene hydrologic cycle, including its linkage to astronomical forcing, solar variability, and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). However, the lack of sufficient proxy data to document atmospheric water-mass transport and the geographic pattern of evaporation/precipitation/runoff has made it difficult to discriminate between different models for astronomical forcing. Variable 87Sr/86Sr ratios of bedrock that encompass the GRF provide an opportunity to reconstruct the spatial expression of the Eocene hydrologic cycle and its linkage to lake level. Here Sr isotope data from the Wilkins Peak Member, a rhythmic succession that has been demonstrated to record Milankovitch forcing of lake levels, indicate that high lake levels reflect an increased proportion of runoff from less radiogenic rocks west of the basin, eliminating a number of the existing astronomical-forcing hypotheses. The 87Sr/86Sr variability is consistent with a change in mean ENSO state, which is predicted by climate models to be linked to orbital-insolation. Thus, the 87Sr/86Sr data reveal a coupling of high frequency (ENSO) and low frequency (astronomical) climate variability, and also predict the existence of sizable astronomically-forced alpine snowpack during the last greenhouse climate. More broadly, this study demonstrates the utility of 87Sr/86Sr as a powerful tool for reconstructing the deep-time hydrologic cycle.
Metabolic Derangements Associated with Diuretic Use: Insulin Resistance, Dyslipidemia, Hyperuricemia, and Anti-androgenic Effects

Publisher Summary Thiazide diuretics remain the cornerstone of antihypertensive therapy, and are shown to reduce morbidity and mortality in hypertensive populations throughout the world. However, their use has been associated with a high incidence of endocrine disturbances including glucose intolerance. Ever since glucose intolerance induced by thiazide diuretics was reported, a variety of thiazides, as well as loop diuretics have been reported to cause mild glucose intolerance, overt hyperglycemia, and rarely nonketotic hyperosmolar states. More recently, the clinical importance of insulin resistance in relation to cardiovascular morbidity has been identified. It is now known that insulin resistance is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction. The fact that many untreated lean and obese hypertensives exhibit underlying tissue resistance to insulin indicates that this may be a predisposing factor to glucose intolerance and development of overt hypoglycemia during treatment with thiazides and furosemide. Therefore, a better understanding of the mechanism of this effect may ultimately result in an improvement in the patient's outcome during treatment.
The relationship between humor styles and forgiveness

Research has shown that a factor in a victim’s forgiveness of an offender is the victim’s ability to make more positive, or at least less negative, attributions of the offender’s behavior and that perspective-taking can be a factor in facilitating that process. Self-enhancing humor has been found to be positively correlated with perspective-taking empathy and aggressive humor found to be negatively correlated with perspective-taking empathy. Therefore it was predicted that self-enhancing humor would be positively correlated with forgiveness and aggressive humor negatively correlated with forgiveness. The Humor Styles Questionnaire, the Absence of Negative and Presence of Positive subscales of the Forgiveness Scale, and the Forgiveness Likelihood Scale were administered to 112 college undergraduates. Self-enhancing humor was significantly and positively correlated with all of the forgiveness measures, aggressive humor and self-defeating humor were significantly and negatively correlated with some of the forgiveness measures and affiliative humor was not significantly correlated with any of the forgiveness measures. The results were interpreted in terms of previous findings for humor styles, perspective-taking empathy, depression, self-esteem and anxiety. Future research involving the extent to which other personality variables, such as perspective-taking empathy, mediate the relationship between self-enhancing humor and forgiveness was suggested.
Tissue-specific functional effect prediction of genetic variation and applications to complex trait genetics

Over the past few years, large scale genomics projects such as the ENCODE and Roadmap Epigenomics have produced genome-wide data on a large number of biochemical assays for a diverse set of human cell types and tissues. Such data play an important role in predicting the functional effects of noncoding genetic variation. We discuss here unsupervised approaches to integrate these diverse annotations for specific tissues and cell types into a single predictor of tissue-specific functional importance. We provide a global view of the sharing of functional variants across large number of tissues and cell types, and demonstrate that functional variants in promoters are more likely to be shared across many tissues compared with enhancers. A multidimensional scaling analysis based on functional scores in multiple tissues reveals clear patterns of similarity between certain tissue types, including similarity between primary tissues derived from the same embryonic tissue of origin. Using eQTL data from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project we show that eQTLs in specific GTEx tissues tend to be most enriched among the functional variants in relevant tissues in Roadmap. Furthermore, we show how these integrated functional scores can be used to derive the most likely tissue-/cell-type for a complex trait using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and derive a tissue-based correlation map of various complex traits. Finally, we show how the tissue-specific functional scores in conjunction with GWAS summary statistics can shed light on genes and biological processes implicated in a complex trait. Functional scores are available for every possible position in the hg19 human reference genome for 127 tissues and cell types assayed in Roadmap Epigenomics.
Litigation risk and cash holdings

We use a unique hand-collected dataset on corporate lawsuits to examine the relationship between litigation risk and cash holdings. We find that an increase in litigation risk is associated with a significant increase in cash holdings. In addition, we document a positive relationship between the level of cash holdings and lawsuits related to the violations of labor, intellectual property, contracts, securities, environmental, product liability, medical liability, and other laws.
Abstract P270: Automating Processes to Expedite Medical Record Review in Research

Problem. Heart failure (HF) clinical trials often use medical record review data to determine HF related hospital events, such as emergency room visits and readmissions. However, reviewing medical records for each hospital event can be daunting. The purpose of this project was to expedite medical record review processes using an automated method for identifying potential HF related hospital events. Methods. A stepwise procedure was developed for obtaining electronic information of all consented HF clinical trial participants' hospital events. First, an electronic list of all study participants was generated from a study data base and electronically sent to the Medical Records department each month. Next, a list of all emergency room visits and hospitalizations, including admission and discharge dates, discharge disposition, and diagnosis and procedure codes was electronically generated by the Medical Records department. A trained cardiovascular research nurse reviewed the abstracted coding and billing dat...
Optimal Control of a Three-Stand Continuous Cold Rolling Mill

Abstract This paper presents a new approach to the optimum design of cold rolling mills. The model takes advantage of slow variation of the winding reel radius and transforms an initially non linear system into a parametric family of linear systems. In the first stage of design procedure the threetime-scale method [7] is applied and the model is decomposed in “ slow,” “ basic” and “fast” subsystems. In this way the dimensionality of the model is considerably reduced. Then the state regulator method is applied to design an optimum control. The resulting Riccati equation is simplified by an application of “ e-coupling” and “ radius-imbedding” techniques. Using this method a control program is developed for the example of an existing three-stand continuous cold rolling mill. The results of computer simulation of the whold control system are included. Finally a FORTRAN program of all the operations to be performed on process computer is given.
Characteristics and long-term outcomes of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma after solid organ transplantation.

Abstract Introduction Immunosuppression after solid organ transplant prevents graft rejection, but leads to increased incidence of various malignancies including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Outcomes of patients with post-transplant HNSCC are unknown. Materials and methods We retrospectively identified patients who developed HNSCC after solid organ transplant between 1995 and 2010. Adults with pathology-proven HNSCC and adequate follow up were included. Median overall survival and progression free survival were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method. The prognostic effect of variables was studied with Cox proportional hazards models. Results Thirty-three patients met study inclusion criteria. The median time to diagnosis of HNSCC after transplant was 5.9 years. The primary site was oral cavity in 15 patients, oropharynx in 10, larynx in 3, hypopharynx in 2, parotid in 2 and unknown in 1 patient. Eighty-eight percent underwent upfront surgical resection. Of those, sixty-six percent received adjuvant therapy. Six percent of patients had definitive chemoradiation. Treatment was well tolerated and did not lead to graft rejection. The 5-year overall survival rate was 45% and 37% for localized and locally advanced disease respectively. Seventy-five percent of patients with oropharyngeal tumors were HPV-positive and they had better outcomes (5-year overall survival rate of 67%). In multivariate analysis, age ≥60 years was a negative predictor of survival (HR 2.7; 95% CI, 1.1–6.5; P = 0.03). Conclusions Patients with post-transplant HNSCC have relatively poor survival and high risk of locoregional and distant recurrence. HPV- positive oropharyngeal tumors continue to have better outcomes in this population.
Household Structure and Dietary Patterns in the Afro-Ecuadorian Highlands:

Dietary patterns in contemporary societies have been a primary focus of nutritional and anthropological research. Class, occupation, income, and gender have been studied when analyzing dietary patterns and the roots of malnutrition and hunger; however, the effects of household structure have received less attention. The main purpose of our study was to obtain information on the diet of a highland Afro-Ecuadorian community and examine the relationship between household structure and dietary patterns. Survey questionnaires, in-depth questionnaires, and participant observation were utilized to examine how women in female-headed households compare with women in male-headed households in meeting the dietary needs of their families. There was no significant difference in food-acquisition patterns. Weekly expenditures for food in the two types of households were similar, despite different income levels. However, female-headed households had higher food-group scores and consumed more meals per day.
Abstract 17235: Physical Activity Reduces Cardiovascular Mortality in Albuminuria: The Strong Heart Study

Background: Prior studies have established that albuminuria is associated with increased cardiovascular (CV) mortality. While it is known that physical activity (PA) improves CV clinical outcomes, ...
Soil Shrinkage Characteristics as Affected by Solution Composition and Mineral Contents

Soil-shrinkage characteristics affect fluid transport and soil mechanical properties, with broad implications for environmental flows, crop production, and civil engineering designs. We quantified ...
Work-Related Injury and Management Strategies Among Certified Athletic Trainers

Context: Health care workers have high rates of musculoskeletal injuries, but many of these injuries go unreported to workers' compensation and national surveillance systems. Little is known regar...
Visualizations and Analysts

The challenges of CSA discussed in previous chapters call for ways to provide assistance to analysts and decision-makers. In many fields, analyses of complex systems and activities benefit from visualization of data and analytical products. Analysts use images in order to engage their visual perception in identifying features in the data, and to apply the analysts’ domain knowledge. One would expect the same to be true in the practice of cyber analysts as they try to form situational awareness of complex networks. Earlier, the Cognition and Technology chapter introduced the topic of visualization: its criticality to the users, e.g., cyber analysts, as well as its pitfalls and limitations. Now, this chapter takes a close look at visualization for Cyber Situational Awareness. We begin with a basic overview of scientific and information visualization, and of recent visualization systems for cyber situation awareness. Then, we outline a set of requirements, derived largely from discussions with expert cyber analysts, for a candidate visualization system.
EQUATIONS OF STATE FOR PHASE EQUILIBRIUM COMPUTATIONS

In these lectures we review the field of volumetric equations of state for pure fluids, their origin, the mixing and combining rules that allow their application to mixtures, and the use of such models for the calculation of phase equilibrium and thermodynamic properties.
Epidemiology of the Metabolic Syndrome in Youth: A Population-to-Clinical-Based Perspective

Recent studies have reported an association between childhood obesity and the development of a cluster of cardiometabolic disease risk factors characterized by variable combinations of insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and hypertension, which some have termed metabolic syndrome. In turn, this clustering is associated with the onset of type 2 diabetes and long-term atherosclerotic cardiovascular complications in both childhood and adulthood. In this chapter, we summarize the national prevalence estimates for metabolic syndrome in US youth based on various definitions that employ either a clinical threshold value for each component or a percentile threshold based on some combination of age, sex, and ethnicity. The national estimates are followed by a summary of large, key regional studies. The authors are aware that literally hundreds of small national and international clinical studies have estimated the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in youth, and summarizing them all is beyond the scope of this chapter.
Using Spreadsheets for Complex Business Simulations

Electronic spreadsheets are used as learning tools in business courses. As instructors have become more familiar with spreadsheets, they have used them increasingly to achieve their teaching objectives. Spreadsheet templates are also being used as business-simulation complements to aid in decision making by participants. The objective of this paper is to promote the development of business simulations using electronic spreadsheets as a programming language. A brief description of the parts of a Lotus-based simulation will be given, along with a summary of advantages and limitations found in the development of a complex business simulation.
Productivity Based Management in the Public Sector and in Regulated Industries

Most goods and services delivered by the public sector are not sold via the market place. In the absence of market transactions, the values of those services to recipients do not readily lend themselves to objective estimation. Hence, in the GNP accounts, the value of government services are stated at their cost. With government outputs measured by government inputs, productivity in government becomes stationary by definition. Accounting-wise, the efficiency of government operations is presumed never to improve or deteriorate. Conceptually, this macro-accounting treatment of government activity is neither realistic nor desirable, but it highlights the practical difficulties inherent in the measurement of nonmarketed services.
Addressing Modes; Instruction Set

The MC68000 has six addressing categories, each of which has variations that provide a total of 15 addressing modes, as shown in Table 4-1. Closer examination of these addressing modes reveals that they can be classified in four major groups, as follows: (1) Register Direct modes, (2) Memory Address modes, (3) Special Address modes, and (4) Program Control modes.
Physical properties of Earth materials

Knowledge of the physical properties of minerals and silicate melts is important because the Earth is dynamic, not static, and most of the geologic processes that occur in it are the results of motion. The movement causes disruption of equilibrium. For instance, density differences cause magma to rise so that both the magma and its country rock encounter new P—T regimes. The rate and mechanism of rise depends on many physical properties, including the density and viscosity of the magma and of the country rock. The rates at which the magma crystallizes and the country rocks react control how closely equilibrium is approached, and determine the rate at which heat is consumed or released by the process. Thus in order to develop large scale models for Earth processes, we must know the densities, viscosities, diffusion coefficients, crystal growth rates, and elastic properties of crystals and melts.
The impact of emerging technology on nursing care: warp speed ahead

While myriad forces are changing the face of contemporary healthcare, one could argue that nothing will change the way nursing is practiced more than current advances in technology. Indeed, technology is changing the world at warp speed and nowhere is this more evident than in healthcare settings. This article identifies seven emerging technologies that will change the practice of nursing; three skill sets nurses will need to develop to acquire, use, and integrate these emerging technologies; and four challenges nurse leaders will face in integrating this new technology.
Making It Nice: Kāvya in the Second Century

Around the second century of our era, kāvya steps out from the shadows. What was kāvya at this early moment? What ties together the kāvya produced within the Kuṣāṇa empire in North India, in Sanskrit, with that produced within the Sātavāhana empire of the South, in Prakrit? What ties the Buddhist kāvya of Mātṛceṭa, Aśvaghoṣa, and Kumāralāta to the Jain kāvya of Pālitta and the secular kāvya found in the Seven Centuries? One answer involves the idea of ornamentation (alaṃkāra): the features that, when worked into a text, transform it into an aesthetic object, not simply the “figures” of sound and sense with which this word would later be associated. In the Prakrit texts associated with the Sātavāhana court, ornamentation is essential—the Seven Centuries proclaims that all of its verses have it—but it was just as essential for it to be inconspicuous. The paradox of “artless artifice” was central to the aesthetic of these texts. In the Sanskrit texts of the North, the reverse was the case: massive effort was expended in making the artless appear artful, in casting the teachings and stories of Buddhism as kāvya. I will offer a few speculations about why the North and South took these different “paths,” and conclude by connecting them with the later discussion in Sanskrit poetics about the two “paths” of kāvya.
Crystallographic Study of the Reaction of Zinc Vapor with Fully Cd2+-Exchanged Zeolite X. Complete Reduction of Cd2+ by Zn, Extraction of SiO44- and AlO45- from the Zeolite Framework, and Reduction of Si4+ to Si

Zn vapor at 480 °C reduced all Cd2+ ions, and some Si4+ ions, in a single crystal of fully dehydrated fully Cd2+-exchanged zeolite X (Cd46Si100Al92O384 per unit cell). The product crystal has the approximate unit-cell composition Zn64Si96Al96O384·7SiO44-,1AlO45- (a0 = 24.713(3) A). The other products, Cd(g) and Si(s), left the crystal. Its structure was determined by X-ray diffraction in the cubic space group Fd3. Of the approximately 64 Zn2+ ions per unit cell, 57 are in the sodalite units (28 at site I‘, 23 at site II‘, and six on 2-fold axes opposite four-rings), and seven are at site II in the supercage. Seven orthosilicate ions and one orthoaluminate ion fill the eight sodalite units per unit cell. Some units of zeolite framework structure must have “dissolved” to provide these ions; the remaining framework structure must be enriched in aluminum, and cavern formation is proposed. Most orthosilicate oxygen atoms bridge between a Zn2+ ion at site I‘ (1.91 A) and another at site II‘ (2.08 A) and lie in...
Cinema in the ‘local perfect position’: children and education in the documentary work of Xhanfise Keko

Xhanfise Keko, the sole woman director of communist Albania, has recently been discovered by the international academic and critical community, and her films are, for the first time, reaching globa...
Prevalence of similar or worse symptom and osteoarthritis severity of index and contralateral knees prior to knee arthroplasty: A cross-sectional multicenter cohort study.

Abstract Background Patients considering knee arthroplasty (KA) and consulting orthopedic surgeons use different criteria to judge surgical appropriateness with surgeons placing high priority on osteoarthritis (OA) severity and age while patients place greatest emphasis on pain severity. In the face of fluctuating symptoms and high rates of bilateral knee OA, selection of the optimal knee for KA surgery can be challenging. This study examined osteoarthritis and symptom severity profiles of index versus contralateral knees of persons preparing for KA. Methods The nine-year Osteoarthritis Initiative data from 427 participants and five-year Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study data from 377 participants undergoing KA were included. The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index Pain, Function, and Stiffness Scales for both knees and radiographic readings were obtained at the visit prior to knee arthroplasty. Radar plots illustrated symptom and OA severity. Prevalence estimates of the proportion of contralateral knees with comparable or worse symptoms and OA severity relative to the index knee were reported. Results The prevalence of comparable or worse knee OA on the contralateral knees as compared with index knees is 26% (95% CI = 22%, 30%). Prevalence of the same or worse WOMAC Pain for the contralateral knees relative to the index knees is 17% (95% CI = 14%, 21%). Conclusions The prevalence of comparable/worse knee OA or symptoms on the contralateral knees relative to index knees of persons undergoing unilateral KA is substantial. Methods for selecting the surgical knee should be reconsidered for this substantial subgroup of patients.
Teleporting through virtual environments: Effects of path scale and environment scale on spatial updating

Virtual reality systems typically allow users to physically walk and turn, but virtual environments (VEs) often exceed the available walking space. Teleporting has become a common user interface, whereby the user aims a laser pointer to indicate the desired location, and sometimes orientation, in the VE before being transported without self-motion cues. This study evaluated the influence of rotational self-motion cues on spatial updating performance when teleporting, and whether the importance of rotational cues varies across movement scale and environment scale. Participants performed a triangle completion task by teleporting along two outbound path legs before pointing to the unmarked path origin. Rotational self-motion reduced overall errors across all levels of movement scale and environment scale, though it also introduced a slight bias toward under-rotation. The importance of rotational self-motion was exaggerated when navigating large triangles and when the surrounding environment was large. Navigating a large triangle within a small VE brought participants closer to surrounding landmarks and boundaries, which led to greater reliance on piloting (landmark-based navigation) and therefore reduced—but did not eliminate—the impact of rotational self-motion cues. These results indicate that rotational self-motion cues are important when teleporting, and that navigation can be improved by enabling piloting.
Meeting science meets public health: Results from the "Stress and Violence in fire-based EMS Responders (SAVER)" Systems Checklist Consensus Conference (SC3).

Abstract Introduction: In order to implement a systems-level Emergency Medical Services (EMS) workplace violence intervention, input from end users was critically needed. We convened the two-day Stress and Violence in fire-based EMS Responders (SAVER)” Systems Checklist Consensus Conference (SC3) using methods from meeting science (i.e., ThinkLets) to comprehensively and efficiently gather feedback from stakeholders on the completeness and utility of the draft checklist that would comprise the intervention. Methods: ThinkLets, a codified facilitation technique was used to aid brainstorming, convergence, organization, evaluation, and consensus building activities on the SAVER Systems Checklist among 41 national stakeholders during a two-day conference. A qualitative and quantitative process evaluation was conducted to measure the effectiveness of conference procedures. To verify checklist feasibility results from the conference, a second feasibility assessment was conducted with the four implementation sites. Conclusions: The quantitative conference evaluation results indicated most participants viewed the conference process favorably. Emergent themes reflecting on conference effectiveness and suggestions for improvements are described. The re-evaluation of the checklist’s feasibility completed by the SAVER study sites confirmed prior feasibility findings. SAVER study sites cast 45.5% of votes on checklist items to be most feasible, 34.9% as less feasible, and 19.6% as extremely difficult. Practical Applications: Multidisciplinary collaboration between public health, occupational health psychology, and meeting science led to the development of the SAVER Systems Checklist. The checklist underscores important needs for EMS policy and training development critical to responder safety as identified and supported by over 41 diverse subject matter experts. The incorporation of a widely used meeting science method, ThinkLets, into public health intervention design proved an effective and well-received approach to bring assessment, evaluation, and consensus to the SAVER Systems Checklist. These methods may hold benefit for other industries and disciplines that may not be familiar with such facilitation and consensus-building techniques.
The realities of practice change: Nurses' perceptions.

Aims and objectives To explore registered nurses' perceptions of practice change and describe factors that influence the adoption of practice changes. Background Nurses play a critical role in optimising patient outcomes. Healthcare organisations and nurses must do their part to achieve the Quadruple Aim, which requires nurses to change their practice. Nurses are ideally positioned to improve patient outcomes by changing their practice to align it with research evidence and organisational initiatives; however, this experience of practice change by nurses is grossly under-studied. Design A qualitative design, inductive content analysis, was used to understand nurses' perceptions of practice change. Methods Eleven registered nurses, who worked in one hospital system, participated in one-on-one semi-structured interviews. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ) were followed. Findings The 11 participants described 63 distinct experiences with practice changes. Their experiences with and perceptions of practice change are categorised as (1) There is A History; (2) It's A Lot of Work; (3) It Happens to Nurses; and (4) Doing Right for the Patient. Conclusion Nurses experience practice change as a central part of the work they do; it occurs frequently and multiple practice changes may co-occur. Nurses identify strategies, such as thoughtful planning, engaging nurses, and communicating the rationale for and the outcomes of the practice change, to facilitate changing practice. Relevance to clinical practice Involving nurses in practice changes could alleviate some inhibiting factors for adopting new practices. Local hospital and national policies should explore creative and practical ways to balance the competing needs of nurses providing direct care at the bedside and dedicated time to be engaged in practice change initiatives. With the ongoing focus on improving patient care and optimising patient safety, nurses should be viewed as highly valued members of the team when designing and implementing practice changes.
Donor-Derived Neuroendocrine Carcinoma Transmission to Two Kidney Transplant Recipients Demonstrated by Short Tandem Repeat Analysis: A Case Report

Cancer transmission from a donor organ to a transplant recipient is a rare but not infrequently fatal event. We report a case of lung cancer transmission from a deceased donor to 2 kidney recipients. Approximately 1 year after uneventful kidney transplantation, both recipients developed acute kidney failure. Computed tomography imaging of abdomen and pelvis for both recipients showed masses in the transplanted kidneys along with innumerable masses in the livers. Pathologic examinations for both cases demonstrated high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma with "mirror image" histologic findings in the transplant kidneys with liver metastases. Short tandem repeat (STR) analyses were performed to determine the origin of the tumors. STRs of both tumors were nearly identical to that of the donor, proving that both tumors were from the same donor. Immunohistochemical analyses showed that both tumors were positive for thyroid transcription factor 1, supporting a lung primary. One recipient died as a direct sequela to metastatic tumor, and the other required transplant nephrectomy and chemotherapy. Awareness of this largely nonpreventable complication and prompt molecular testing if cancer transmission is suspected are important.
Determinants and Consequences of Chief Information Officer Equity Incentives

The chief information officer (CIO) is responsible for bridging the gap between two critical domains—technology and business, making the CIO’s job uniquely different from other executives. As digital technologies become increasingly important to firms’ competitive success, boards of directors and senior executives seek to align the CIO role with overall firm’s objectives. Agency theory suggests that one way to create the alignment between an executive’s efforts and firm performance is to implement appropriate equity compensation incentives (i.e., those resulting from stock and stock options) tying the executive’s wealth to firm value. To date, research does not address what factors a firm should consider when designing CIO incentives and how these incentives influence firm performance. To address this major gap, we examine both the antecedents and performance consequences of CIO equity incentives. We assess organizational, environmental, and individual factors that influence CIO equity incentives and find that environmental and organizational factors are more important than individual CIO characteristics in the determination of CIO equity incentives. We also find that firms that create higher CIO equity incentives realize greater subsequent accounting and market performance. Our research contributes to the IT personnel literatures by showing how firms can use compensation policies to leverage the CIO role to enhance overall business performance.
Using Kollywood movies to teach economic development

Students are exposed to a variety of sources of information and entertainment during their undergraduate years, which presents opportunities since students are interacting with ideas and concepts in different settings. One such setting is international movies. Economic development is focused on developing countries; hence, when movies from developing countries are used in the classroom, they portray reality more vividly. This helps students learn about the developmental challenges confronting such countries. This paper looks at international movies in an economic development class, specifically Kollywood movies. The instructor was involved in the choice of Kollywood movies and provided guidance for each one.
Systemic Hypoperfusion Brain Injury

This chapter focuses on systemic hypoperfusion brain injury. Brain insults from systemic hypoperfusion form a spectrum of severity of brain damage. At the mild end of the spectrum, the sudden impairment of intracranial blood flow resulting from hypotension, cardiac arrhythmia, or cardiac outflow obstruction can produce the completely and rapidly reversible state of unconsciousness called syncope. More severe forms of systemic hypoperfusion, particularly when coupled with extracranial carotid or vertebral arterial stenosis, can produce watershed infarctions of the brain. Still more profound systemic hypoperfusion, such as that occurring during cardiopulmonary arrest, causes diffuse hypoxic-ischemic neuronal damage and can produce the tragic clinical syndromes known as the persistent vegetative state and brain death when severe. Watershed (or border-zone) infarctions can occur in settings of systemic hypotension. Severe systemic hypoperfusion, such as that occurring during cardiopulmonary arrest, injures brain neurons usually by a combination of hypoxemia and ischemia. Because, in retrospect, it is difficult to distinguish the relative contributions of hypoxemia and ischemia, the resulting diffuse neuronal impairment is called hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Depending primarily on the duration of cardiopulmonary arrest and the severity of hypoxemia and ischemia that results, hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy forms a spectrum of severity from states of mild cognitive impairment to brain death.
Typing vocal fold vibratory patterns in excised larynx experiments via digital kymography.

Objectives: Signal typing is central to the understanding of vocal fold vibratory patterns. Digital kymography (DKG) allows the direct observation of vocal fold vibratory patterns, and therefore, using DKG for vibratory signal typing may provide a useful complement to traditional signal typing techniques. Methods: Video data collected from 20 larynges excised from mongrel dogs were observed with DKG in order to find examples of type 1 (nearly periodic), type 2 (subharmonic), and type 3 (aperiodic) vibratory patterns. The time series, frequency spectra, and correlation dimensions were calculated for each signal type. Results: The type 1 pattern showed a periodic time series of glottal edges and a discrete frequency spectrum. The type 2 vibratory pattern displayed a time series of alternating high- and low-amplitude waves and a frequency spectrum that included a subharmonic (Fo/2) frequency component. Regular and symmetric vibratory patterns were observed in the type 1 and type 2 patterns. The type 3 vibratory pattern was characterized by an aperiodic time series of glottal edges, a broadband frequency spectrum, and irregular and asymmetric vibratory patterns. The correlation dimension estimates increased from type 1 to type 2 to type 3. Conclusions: Imaging with DKG demonstrated an ability to assign a signal type to various laryngeal vibrations. Signal typing techniques utilizing direct observation of the vocal folds could be useful in determining valid methods for the analysis of vocal fold vibrations.
Thermal biofeedback and lower extremity blood flow in adults with diabetes: is neuropathy a limiting factor?

Thermal biofeedback may be a useful adjunctive technique for enhancing cutaneous blood flow in patients with lower-extremity vascular complications of diabetes. However, autonomic, sensory, and/or motor neuropathies may impair vasomotion and limit the ability to alter blood flow and achieve significant foot warming with thermal biofeedback. We examined nerve function associated with four common types of diabetic neuropathy (sympathetic-autonomic, vagal-autonomic, sensory, and motor), hypothesizing that both sympathetic-autonomic and sensory neuropathies would limit the acquisition of biofeedback-mediated foot warming. Twenty-four participants with diabetes mellitus (19 with type II and 5 with type I) received a nerve conduction study and neurological evaluation of the upper and lower extremities. Hand temperature, foot temperature, and electrodermal gradient at the toes were monitored across six thermal biofeedback sessions. Participants were able to significantly raise p < .01) foot temperatures across sessions, an average of 2.2 degrees F. Consistent with our hypotheses, 41% of the variance in foot warming was explained by lower-extremity sympathetic-autonomic and sensory nerve function tests. This study demonstrated that a general diabetic population, including patients with mild-to-moderate neuropathy, can increase skin perfusion with thermal biofeedback. As hypothesized, lower-extremity sympathetic-autonomic and sensory neuropathies interfered with foot warming.
Alterations in heat loss and heat production mechanisms in rat exposed to hypergravic fields.

A review of studies investigating the thermal response of rats exposed to hypergravic fields well below maximum tolerance levels is presented. It is concluded that several lines of evidence indicate that the neural switching network for temperature regulation and cardiovascular channeling of blood flow is transiently affected during the first hour a rat is exposed to hypergravity. Moreover, even after one hour of exposure, when the core temperature has fallen several degrees, shivering and nonshivering thermogenesis are not fully activated. Only after prolonged exposure to hypergravic fields do heat production mechanisms recover sufficiently to bring the core temperature back to a normal level. Thus, the data indicate a more rapid recovery of effector mechanisms for heat loss than for heat production.
The M/M/s Queue

This article describes the M/M/s queueing system, or Erlang delay model, which is a stochastic service system with a Poisson arrival process and s (1 ≤ s < ∞) independent and identical servers, each of which serves customers in an exponentially distributed amount of time. Arriving customers join an infinite queue if they find all of the s servers busy. The main purpose of this article is to summarize the characteristics of the M/M/s system, namely the steady-state probability distribution of the number of customers in the system, the steady-state performance parameters, and steady-state delay probability which is computed using the well-known Erlang C formula. As a special case of the M/M/s system, we also discuss the M/M/s/c queue. Computational issues and some structural properties of the Erlang C formula are also discussed. Keywords: Little's law; mean performance; Erlang delay system; Poisson arrival process; Erlang C formula
Distribution of TRPC channels in a visceral sensory pathway

Until recently most of the published studies addressing the mechanisms of activation of TRPC channels have been carried out in heterologous expression systems. Lack of specific antagonists for the TRPC channels has hampered functional studies of endogenous channels. We approached the role of TRPC channels in native tissue with a study of the distribution of the channel proteins in the carotid chemosensory pathway in the rat. In a previous report we showed that TRPC3/4/5/6 and TRPC7 were present in neurons throughout the petrosal ganglion while TRPC1 was expressed in only a subpopulation of petrosal neurons, at least half of which projected to the carotid body. The TRPC proteins were differentially distributed to the branches of the axons that project centrally to the nucleus of the solitary tract and peripherally to the carotid body. The smallest unmyelinated sensory fibres projecting to the carotid body contained TRPC1/3/4/5 or TRPC6 but not TRPC7. TRPC1 and TRPC3 were concentrated in the larger diameter fibres. Interestingly, only TRPC1 and TRPC4 could be demonstrated in the final terminal endings within glomus cell clusters of the carotid body. In the central axon of the sensory neurons, both TRPC4 and TRPC5 were demonstrated in fibres exiting the solitary tract and projecting to the secondary relay neurons the nucleus of the solitary tract.
Meta-analytic procedures for social research

Introduction Defining Research Results Retrieving and Assessing Research Results Comparing and Combining Research Results Combining Probabilities Illustrations of Meta-Analytic Procedures The Evaluation of Meta-Analytic Procedures and Meta-Analytic Results
Type I IFN signaling promotes Coxiella burnetii infection (INM8P.446)

Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular pathogen and the cause of Q fever. The strain Nine Mile Phase I (NMI) is virulent whereas a laboratory passaged avirulent form is referred to as Phase II (NMII). Interferon (IFN)-γ is critical for protection from C. burnetii, but a role for type I IFN has not been determined. Type I IFN supports host protection from a related pathogen, Legionella pneumophila, thus we hypothesized that it would be similarly protective in C. burnetii infection. When murine macrophages were treated with IFN-α in vitro at infection, replication of NMII decreased, however, treatment 24 hours post-infection enhanced replication. Infection of spleen cells from type I IFN receptor (IFNAR)-deficient mice in vitro yielded fewer NMII genomic equivalents compared to wild type, with no change in IFN-γ expression. Thus, type I IFN signaling early in infection protected against NMII replication, but later signaling promoted replication. In vivo studies using the virulent NMI similarly suggested that IFNAR signaling promoted pathogenesis. IFNAR-deficient mice infected with NMI were significantly protected from weight loss compared to wild-type mice, although they had larger spleens and similar C. burnetii genomic equivalents. The data suggest that type I IFN signaling promotes infection with C. burnetii, contrary to the case with L. pneumophila. These results support abrogation of this pathway as a potential therapeutic approach to Q fever.
A Graph-Based Approach for Image Segmentation

We present a novel graph-based approach to image segmentation. The objective is to partition images such that nearby pixels with similar colors or greyscale intensities belong to the same segment. A graph representing an image is derived from the similarity between the pixels and partitioned by a computationally efficient graph clustering method, which identifies representative nodes for each cluster and then expands them to obtain complete clusters of the graph. Experiments with synthetic and natural images are presented. A comparison with the well known graph clustering method of normalized cuts shows that our approach is faster and produces segmentations that are in better agreement with visual assessment on original images.