cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Unsteady locomotion: integrating muscle function with whole body dynamics and neuromuscular control.

By integrating studies of muscle function with analysis of whole body and limb dynamics, broader appreciation of neuromuscular function can be achieved. Ultimately, such studies need to address non-steady locomotor behaviors relevant to animals in their natural environments. When animals move slowly they likely rely on voluntary coordination of movement involving higher brain centers. However, when moving fast, their movements depend more strongly on responses controlled at more local levels. Our focus here is on control of fast-running locomotion. A key observation emerging from studies of steady level locomotion is that simple spring-mass dynamics, which help to economize energy expenditure, also apply to stabilization of unsteady running. Spring-mass dynamics apply to conditions that involve lateral impulsive perturbations, sudden changes in terrain height, and sudden changes in substrate stiffness or damping. Experimental investigation of unsteady locomotion is challenging, however, due to the variability inherent in such behaviors. Another emerging principle is that initial conditions associated with postural changes following a perturbation define different context-dependent stabilization responses. Distinct stabilization modes following a perturbation likely result from proximo-distal differences in limb muscle architecture, function and control strategy. Proximal muscles may be less sensitive to sudden perturbations and appear to operate, in such circumstances, under feed-forward control. In contrast, multiarticular distal muscles operate, via their tendons, to distribute energy among limb joints in a manner that also depends on the initial conditions of limb contact with the ground. Intrinsic properties of these distal muscle–tendon elements, in combination with limb and body dynamics, appear to provide rapid initial stabilizing mechanisms that are often consistent with spring-mass dynamics. These intrinsic mechanisms likely help to simplify the neural control task, in addition to compensating for delays inherent to subsequent force- and length-dependent neural feedback. Future work will benefit from integrative biomechanical approaches that employ a combination of modeling and experimental techniques to understand how the elegant interplay of intrinsic muscle properties, body dynamics and neural control allows animals to achieve stability and agility over a variety of conditions.
Pulse: a dynamic deadlock detection mechanism using speculative execution

Deadlock can occur wherever multiple processes interact. Most existing static and dynamic deadlock detection tools focus on simple types of deadlock, such as those caused by incorrect ordering of lock acquisitions. In this paper, we propose Pulse, a novel operating system mechanism that dynamically detects various types of deadlock in application programs. Pulse runs as a system daemon. Periodically, it scans the system for processes that have been blocked for a long time (e.g., waiting on I/O events). To determine if these processes are deadlocked, Pulse speculatively executes them ahead to discover their dependences. Based on this information, it constructs a general resource graph and detects deadlock by checking if the graph contains cycles. The ability to look into the future allows Pulse to detect deadlocks involving consumable resources, such as synchronization semaphores and pipes, which no existing tools can detect. We evaluate Pulse by showing that it can detect deadlocks in the classical dining-philosophers and smokers problems. Furthermore, we show that Pulse can detect a well-known deadlock scenario, which is widely referred to as a denial-of-service vulnerability, in the Apache web server. Our results show that Pulse can detect all these deadlocks within three seconds, and it introduces little performance overhead to normal applications that do not deadlock.
Acute care practices relevant to quality end-of-life care: a survey of Pennsylvania hospitals.

Background Improving end-of-life care in the hospital is a national priority. Purpose To explore the prevalence and reasons for implementation of hospital-wide and intensive care unit (ICU) practices relevant to quality care in key end-of-life care domains and to discern major structural determinants of practice implementation. Design Cross-sectional mixed-mode survey of chief nursing officers of Pennsylvania acute care hospitals. Results The response rate was 74% (129 of 174). The prevalence of hospital and ICU practices ranged from 95% for a hospital-wide formal code policy to 6% for regularly scheduled family meetings with an attending physician in the ICU. Most practices had less than 50% implementation; most were implemented primarily for quality improvement or to keep up with the standard of care. In a multivariable model including hospital structural characteristics, only hospital size independently predicted the presence of one or more hospital initiatives (ethics consult service, OR 6.13, adjusted p=0.02; private conference room in the ICU for family meetings, OR 4.54, adjusted p<0.001). Conclusions There is low penetration of hospital practices relevant to quality end-of-life care in Pennsylvania acute care hospitals. Our results may serve to inform the development of future benchmark goals. It is critical to establish a strong evidence base for the practices most associated with improved end-of-life care outcomes and to develop quality measures for end-of-life care to complement existing hospital quality measures that primarily focus on life extension.
Large Group Narrative Intervention in Head Start Preschools: Implications for Response to Intervention.

This study investigated the effect of a large group narrative intervention on diverse preschoolers’ narrative language skills with aims to explore questions of treatment efficacy and differential r...
The Effectiveness of Concept Mapping and Retrieval Practice as Learning Strategies in an Undergraduate Physiology Course.

Concept mapping and retrieval practice are both educational methods that have separately been reported to provide significant benefits for learning in diverse settings. Concept mapping involves diagramming a hierarchical representation of relationships between distinct pieces of information, whereas retrieval practice involves retrieving information that was previously coded into memory. The relative benefits of these two methods have never been tested against each other in a classroom setting. Our study was designed to investigate whether or not concept mapping or retrieval practice produced a significant learning benefit in an undergraduate physiology course as measured by exam performance and, if so, was the benefit of one method significantly greater than the other. We found that there was a trend toward increased exam scores for the retrieval practice group compared with both the control group and concept mapping group, and that trend achieved statistical significance for one of the four module exams in the course. We also found that women performed statistically better than men on the module exam that contained a substantial amount of material relating to female reproductive physiology.
Taxi! Role-Play Three

Sold as a set, this role-playing series encourages students to clarify different points of view when in leadership roles (UVA-OB-0921, 0922, and 0923). Before seeking solutions, students must get a clear, comprehensive picture of the problems at hand. Using the "want-got-gap" model works well. The material affords students an opportunity to develop persuasion techniques. The exercise involves three roles: 1) An executive with the Metropolitan Airports Commission at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who must ensure that taxi companies maintain a high level of quality customer service; within the past year the commission has received close to 4,800 complaints about taxi drivers who refused to transport passengers carrying alcohol; 2) One of 900 Islamic Somali taxi drivers whose mosque leader ruled it was against Islamic law to carry passengers with alcohol; 3) A passenger who, after a long journey, just wants to get home with a few bottles of wine, but struggles to find a taxi driver who will take him or her home.
Assessing the Impact of Postoperative Radiation Therapy for Completely Resected Limited-Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer Using the National Cancer Database

Abstract Introduction Surgical resection is being increasingly used for early-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC). However, there are sparse data regarding the role of adjuvant therapies, particularly postoperative radiation therapy (PORT). We investigated the impact of PORT on survival after complete surgical resection for SCLC using the National Cancer Database. Methods There were 3017 patients diagnosed with nonmetastatic SCLC between 1998 and 2011 who underwent R0 sublobar resection, lobectomy, or pneumonectomy. Patients were stratified by the use of PORT, and only those who received a minimum dose of 45 Gy were included. The overall survival (OS) of patients based on PORT use were analyzed by Kaplan–Meier analysis and compared using the log-rank test. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with survival. Results For the entire study population, the 5-year OS was significantly poorer with the addition of PORT (33.9% versus 40.6%; p = 0.005). When analyzed by subgroup, patients with pN0 stage had significantly decreased OS with PORT (39.3% versus 46.3%; p = 0.07) and patients with pN2 stage had significantly improved OS with PORT (29.0% versus 18.6%; p 0.001). No differences in OS were observed in patients with pN1 stage. On multivariate analysis, the hazard ratio for PORT in pN0 disease was 1.36 (95% confidence interval, 1.09–1.70; p 0.001) and the hazard ratio for PORT in pN2 disease was 0.60 (95% confidence interval, 0.45–0.80; p 0.001). Conclusion The use of PORT was associated with a deleterious effect on OS in patients with pN0 disease but significantly improved OS in patients with pN2 disease.
Lathyrus factor activity of beta-aminopropionitrile and related compounds.

Summaryβ-amino propionitrile will produce all the changes which have been described in rats fed 50% Lathyrus odoratus pea meal. None of the supplements fed with BAPN inhibited the development of skeletal deformities. Substitution of a methyl or acetyl into the amino group or a substitution of hydroxy for the amino group in BAPN results in a loss of biologic activity. Unlike BAPN which principally modifies bone development and produces marked skeletal deformity, Bis-β-(cyanoethyl)-amine exerts an early and pronounced influence on the central nervous system and subsequently produces lesser skeletal alterations.
Design and Development of a Self-Stabilizing, Autonomous Sailboat with Zero-Net Stored-Energy Use

We are developing a robotic boat capable of sailing semi-autonomously for two years on the open ocean. Our design is a monohull sailboat with a weighted keel, no rudder, a controlled-angle sail, and an air-rudder to passively control the boats orientation relative to the wind without active control. We are working to optimize sail, keel and air-rudder parameters to maximize directional stability and forward speed. Given the boats polar plot (speed vs. angle to the wind) we have begun the development of navigation schemes that utilize the ocean currents to travel more quickly and avoid obstacles. The boat controls will be powered by solar panels mounted on the deck. Taking latitude, season and cloud cover into account, the boat will need to function with a daily-average power budget of about 0.4 W. Continuous use of the major electrical components in the sailboat requires much more than 0.4 W: the sail and air rudder servos consume 1.2 W in full capacity mode together, the Arduino Mega micro-processor consumes 0.84 W, and the GPS consumes 0.15 W. Thus, we can only use these components for brief time intervals, leaving them asleep or off for most of the time. One past iteration of the boat incorporated a freely rotating sail and tail to produce an angle of attack that generated lift for forwards propulsion, with an active water rudder for steering. We will test other self-stabilizing designs by interchanging parts to allow (1) Free or angle-controlled main sail; (2) tail angle controlled by servo or by a passive mechanism; (3) The presence or absense of an air rudder on the boat in addition to the tail; (4) The presense or total absense of a traditional water rudder.
Summer undergraduate research: A new pipeline for pain clinical practice and research

Most medical schools fail to provide adequate training of clinicians in the treatment of pain. Similarly, despite the fact that over 1/3 of Americans suffer from chronic pain, National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for pain represents only ~1 % of the NIH budget. These issues may dissuade students from pursing pain in their clinical and research careers. To address these gaps in training and funding, we argue that exposing students to pain science early in their careers, at the undergraduate level, may be an effective method to develop a pipeline for future pain clinicians and scientists. To highlight our argument, we will describe our recent successful implementation of a cross-disciplinary and community-engaged biomedical summer research program. The Pain Undergraduate Research Experience (PURE) summer program involved both off-site and on-site experiences to expose undergraduate students to the range of careers in the pain field from basic science to clinical practice. The objective of the 10-week long PURE program was to evaluate whether a combination of basic science research, clinical practice visits, and patient interactions would increase student understanding of and exposure to the underlying science of pain. A pre-post cohort study was used without a comparison group. Entry and exit surveys were used to evaluate students’ perceptions about pain clinical practice and research, student interest in pain, and student confidence about communicating about pain and doing basic science pain research. Students reported significant increases to a number of questions in the survey. Questions were scored on 5 point Likert scales and there was significant increases in student understanding of what life is like with chronic pain (2.6 vs 4.3 post survey), their confidence in explaining pain to a patient (2.8 vs 4.1) or researcher (2.8 vs 4), and their comfort with pain terminology(2.8 vs 3.9). With the PURE program, we wanted to entice top undergraduates to consider pain as a future area of study, practice, and/or research. We present a model that can be easily implemented at research universities throughout the United States.
Underwater acoustic signal processing based on recurrence plot

The nonlinear features of an underwater acoustic signal were explored based on recurrence plot(RP) and recurrence quantification analysis(RQA).After calculating recurrence plots for the sinusoid,Gaussian distributed random noise,and Lorenz chaotic signal,the recurrence plots of radiated noise from two types of ships were studied quantitatively.Compared with their correlative dimensions,the quantitative features from RP exhibit a certain relationship with the chaotic features of the signal.Using these quantitative features,it is possible to identify and classify different types of ships.The research results will be helpful in the further study of underwater acoustic signals.
Agency of belief and intention

In this paper, I argue for a conditional parity thesis: if we are agents with respect to our intentions, we are agents with respect to our beliefs. In the final section, I motivate a categorical version of the parity thesis: we are agents with respect to belief and intention. My aim in this paper is to show that there is no unique challenge facing epistemic agency that is not also facing agency with respect to intention. My thesis is ambitious on two fronts. First, the parity thesis is a substantive thesis about the nature of belief and intention. I argue that there is a structural parity of belief and intention; the status of whether they are agential stands and falls together. Second, the parity thesis illuminates the nature of agency. It constrains what counts as a satisfactory account of agency: either we must accept agency of both belief and intention, or we must reject both. In the final section, I argue that we have prima facie reason to accept agency of belief and intention. Finally, I diagnose why there has been such resistance to epistemic agency. Epistemic agency is problematic, but its problems are problems with agency, not problems with epistemic agency.
Rodger H. Brown, MD.

Dr. Rodger Brown is an assistant professor in the Division of Plastic Surgery in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He completed his medical degree and integrated plastic surgery residency training at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Brown maintains a very diverse practice in both cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, with the majority of his practice focusing on breast reduction, breast reconstruction, Mohs reconstruction, body contouring, thoracic and abdominal wall reconstruction, and facial and lower extremity trauma. His research interests focus on improving clinical outcomes in plastic surgery. I want to thank Dr. Brown for serving as guest editor for this issue of Seminars in Plastic Surgery on techniques in breast reduction and mastopexy. We also appreciate the efforts made by each outstanding author for sharing with us their knowledge and expertise.
Carceral feminism: Linking the state, intersectional bodies, and the dichotomy of place

In this commentary, I use the notion of carceral feminism and the false dichotomy of the public and private sphere to reimagine how geographers interrogate the spatiality, legality, and embodiment ...
Stellate Cells and Portal Hypertension

The cell biology and an understanding of the pathogenesis of portal hypertension has evolved substantially over the last two decades, and is complex, involving cells and molecules both within the liver (intrahepatic) and outside of the liver (extrahepatic). Hepatic cells involved in intrahepatic portal hypertension include endothelial cells and stellate cells. Stellate cell contractility has been the subject of considerable interest because their perisinusoidal constriction appears to be a mechanism of blood flow regulation; in liver injury, enhanced constriction causes an increase in intrahepatic resistance. Vasoactive mediators have important effects on stellate cells; endothelin-1 and nitric oxide are the most prominent mediators. The effects of these vascular mediators on stellate cells are important not only because they modulate intrahepatic resistance, but also because they modulate fibrogenesis—endothelin in particular. Thus, an important underlying theme concerning vascular mediators in liver disease is that they play dual roles—in portal hypertension and in fibrogenesis. Abundant pre-clinical data suggest that strategies focused on the effects of vasoactive compounds on stellate cells will be useful for the treatment of portal hypertension and fibrosing liver disease. Importantly, however, because of systemic hemodynamic abnormalities in cirrhotics and potential adverse effects of vasoactive compounds in the peripheral vasculature, the best therapeutic agents would be expected to be liver specific.
CS in parallel: pre-conference workshop

CS 2013 brings parallelism into the CS curricular mainstream. The Message Passing Interface (MPI) is a platform independent, industry-standard library for parallel and distributed computing (PDC). The MPI standard includes support for C, C++, and Fortran; third parties have created implementations for Python and Java. This hands-on workshop introduces MPI basics using parallel patterns, including the single program multiple data (SPMD) execution, send-receive message passing, master-worker, parallel loop, and the broadcast, reduction, scatter, gather, and barrier patterns. Participants will practice the basics of MPI through 12 programming exercises. To assess the participants' abilities in applying the concept of PDC, several practical scenarios will be assigned. Participant are required to understand the scenarios, deduce a parallel solution to the problem in each scenario, and implement the solution in MPI. The intended audience is CS educators who want to learn about how message passing can be used to teach PDC. No prior experience with PDC or MPI is required; familiarity with a C-family language and the command-line are helpful but not required.
Root and shoot traits of bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) landraces and cultivars

In order to break the current grain yield barriers, breeders require genetic variation. Breeding for resistance to abiotic stresses may lead to better plant survival and improved grain yield. Exploring landraces may expand the genetic diversity of modern wheats. Five Turkish bread wheat landraces and 14 modern durum and bread wheat cultivars were evaluated for root and shoot biomass as well as grain yield for 2 years in three experiments. Root and shoot traits were measured in plants grown in 1 and 1.5 m PVC tubes in a glasshouse. Significant genotypic differences were found within and between landraces and modern wheats. Shoot biomass, total root biomass, shallow root weight, deep root weight, number of tillers per plant, and plant height were significantly greater in landraces compared to modern wheats. Correlation coefficients were positive between root biomass and shoot biomass (0.78), and number of fertile tillers (0.76). Plant height, shallow and deep root weights, as well as the total root biomass were positively correlated. Semi-dwarf and mid-height cultivars had greater grain yield than tall lines: winter wheats had greater harvest index, whereas intermediate (facultative) wheats had greater shallow root weights and total root biomass. Results highlight the mode of adaptation in landraces to water stress and suggest that landraces may be a valuable resource in breeding for altered root architecture.
A Scalable Probabilistic Change Detection Algorithm for Very High Resolution (VHR) Satellite Imagery

Detecting landscape changes using very high-resolution multispectral imagery demands an accurate and scalable algorithm that is robust to geometric and atmospheric errors. Existing pixel-based change detection approaches, however, have several drawbacks, which render them ineffective for VHR imagery analysis. A recent probabilistic change detection framework provides more accurate assessment of changes than traditional approaches by analyzing image patches than pixels. However, this patch (grid)-based approach produces coarse-resolution (patch size) changes. In this work we present a sliding window based approach that produces changes at the native image resolution. The increased computational demand of the sliding window based approach is addressed through thread-level parallelization on shared memory architectures. Our experimental evaluation showed a 91% performance improvement compared to its sequential counterpart on a sq. KM aerial image with varying window sizes on a 16-core (32 virtual threads) Intel Xeon processor.
Statistical Analysis of High-Level Features from State of the Union Addresses

A computational political science approach is taken to analyze the State of the Union Addresses SUA from 1790 to 2015. While low-level features, e.g. linguistic characteristics, are commonly used for lexical analysis, the authors herein illustrate the utility of high-level features, e.g. Flesch-Kincaid readability, for knowledge discovery and discrimination between types of speeches. A process is developed and employed to exploit high-level features which employs 1 statistical clustering k-means and a literature review to define types of speeches e.g. written or oral, 2 classification methods via logistic regression to examine the validity of the defined classes, and 3 classifier-based feature selection to determine salient features. Recent interest in the SUA has posited that changes in readability in the SUA are due to declining audience capabilities; however, the authors' results show that changes in readability are a reflection of changes in the SUA delivery medium.
Poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) blends with a poly(arylene ether ketone) for gas separation membranes

Abstract Poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) is utilized for gas separation membranes. It has a relatively high free volume with high gas permeabilities but suffers from low selectivities. PPO polymers with Mn's from 2000 to 22,000 g/mole were synthesized and blended with a poly(arylene ether ketone) derived from bisphenol A and difluorobenzophenone (BPA-PAEK). DSC showed that the blends with all but the lowest molecular weight PPO had two Tg's, thus suggesting that two phases were present. The ketone carbon and benzylic methyl groups on the BPA-PAEK and the PPO polymers crosslinked upon exposure to UV light. The gel fractions after UV exposure were high and the tensile properties were similar to the PPO control polymer that is currently used as a gas separation membrane. The crosslinked blends had improved gas selectivities over their linear counterparts. The 90/10 wt/wt 22k PPO/BPA PAEK crosslinked blends gained the most O2/N2 selectivity and maintained a high permeability.
La ley natural en el pensamiento de Jacques Maritain

The importance of the work of the French author Jacques Maritain is beyond doubt. He was one of the initiators of the personalist movement, and had a decisive influence on the Catholic Social Thought from Populorum Progressio (1967); he also inspired the emergence of a large number of Christian-inspired parties. One of the biggest highlights of his career was the participation in the preparatory works of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sponsored by the UN in 1948. That occasion offered him an extraordinary opportunity to discuss and make living philosophy of his thesis on natural law. This paper offers a critical review of Maritains’s thinking on natural law and analyzes his participation in the UN Declaration, which guarantees the importance of his philosophical development.
SOM-empowered graph segmentation for fast automatic clustering of large and complex data

Many clustering methods, including modern graph segmentation algorithms, run into limitations when encountering “Big Data”, data with high feature dimensions, large volume, and complex structure. SOM-based clustering has been demonstrated to accurately capture many clusters of widely varying statistical properties in such data. While a number of automated SOM segmentations have been put forward, the best identifications of complex cluster structures to date are those performed interactively from informative visualizations of the learned SOM's knowledge. This does not scale for Big Data, large archives or near-real time analyses for fast decision-making. We present a new automated approach to SOM-segmentation which closely approximates the precision of the interactive method for complicated data, and at the same time is very fast and memory-efficient. We achieve this by infusing SOM knowledge into leading graph segmentation algorithms which, by themselves, produce extremely poor results segmenting the SOM prototypes. We use the SOM prototypes as input vectors and CONN similarity measure, derived from the SOM's knowledge of the data connectivity, as edge weighting to the graph segmentation algorithms. We demonstrate the effectiveness on synthetic data and on real spectral imagery.
Anfänge der Rettungshausbewegung

Der Beitrag thematisiert Ursprunge der sich im 19. Jahrhundert herausbildenden Rettungshausbewegung, die mit ihrem christlich-sozialpadagogischen Ansatz masgeblichen Einfluss auf die Herausbildung einer modernen Kinder- und Jugendfursorge genommen hat und in Johannes Daniel Falk (1786-1826) einen ihrer Begrunder findet. Auf ihn hat sich wiederum Johann Hinrich Wichern (1808-1881) mit seiner Padagogik des Rauhen Hauses bezogen.
Scaling of species diversity and body mass in mammals: Cope’s rule and the evolutionary cost of large size

AbstractEquations are constructed describing the inverse correlation of species diversity and body mass in extant and Cenozoic mammals. Cope’s rule, the tendency for many mammal clades to increase ...
Total sleep deprivation does not significantly degrade semantic encoding.

Sleep deprivation impairs performance on cognitive tasks, but it is unclear which cognitive processes it degrades. We administered a semantic matching task with variable stimulus onset asynchrony (...
Escalation (May 23, 2014–August 31, 2014)

By the middle of May 2014, the West African Ebola outbreak appeared to be under control. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, new cases began to emerge. First as a trickle, and then as a flood, the number of confirmed and suspected cases increased rapidly. West African medical facilities did their best to cope with the outbreak. Initially they were able to handle the onrush of cases, but soon resources were stretched thin. Then doctors began to die from the disease. In some cities, corpses of Ebola victims lay in the streets. Rural areas were also hard-hit. Reporters described finding whole communities decimated by the virus. In a desperate bid to contain the outbreak, countries closed their borders and issued travel bans. Despite these efforts, Ebola continued to spread. By the end of August 2014, there were active Ebola cases in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal. In addition, a small number of Western healthcare workers had become infected and been transported to the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom for treatment. Overall, more than 3000 people had contracted Ebola. More alarmingly, the number of new cases continued to grow exponentially.
Economic costs of aneuploidy: some problems of measurement and conceptualization.

This chapter analyzes some problems in measuring economic burdens of aneuploidy. Examining the costs of aneuploidy requires an appropriate means of measurement or estimation. We reviewed studies in the light of debates over cost-benefit analysis, and suggest that some burdens have been misspecified or omitted (e.g., Ref. 32 and 36). We then suggest that if they are properly accounted for, reduction of aneuploidy risks can be shown to have major economic benefits. This suggests the importance of research directed toward reduction of such risks.
Cadherin-Mediated Cell–Cell Adhesion

Cell–cell adhesion complexes are essential for the organization and maintenance of complex tissues in multicellular organisms. Proteins that participate in cell–cell adhesion include the cadherin superfamily, immunoglobulin superfamily, and selectins. The cadherin superfamily of proteins forms calcium-dependent adhesion complexes that are involved in development, tissue morphogenesis, and homeostasis. These transmembrane glycoproteins are found throughout the metazoa. The four major subfamilies include classical cadherins, desmosomal cadherins, protocadherins, and atypical cadherins. These subfamilies differ by the organization of a conserved extracellular domain that contains many calcium-binding domains, intracellular proteins that bind to the cytoplasmic domain, and the connections to the cytoskeleton. Classical cadherins and desmosomal cadherins bind adaptor proteins called ‘catenins’, and assemble adhesion complexes termed ‘adherens junctions’ and ‘desmosomes’, respectively. During development, adhesion complexes sort cell types based on cadherin expression and organize cells into layers and complex tissues. Disruption of classical cadherin adhesion is implicated in the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in cancer cells and tumor invasiveness, and desmosomal cadherin function results in blistering diseases.
From Data to Action: Integrating Program Evaluation and Program Improvement

466 While program evaluation is widely recognized as a core function of public health, differences in definition of “good evaluation practice” often lead to evaluations that are time consuming and expensive, and, most importantly, produce findings that are not employed for program improvement. This chapter offers simple, systematic guidelines to maximize the likelihood that the time and effort to evaluate will be translated into program improvement. The goal that findings be used for program improvement is fundamental to the discipline of program evaluation. An old adage says it best: “Research seeks to prove; evaluation seeks to improve.” And evaluators have responded with a variety of approaches/frameworks whose central premise is “utilization-focused” evaluation—that no evaluation is good unless its results are used (1,2). This chapter emphasizes how early steps of a good evaluation process can build the conceptual clarity about the program that is needed to choose the right evaluation focus. It reinforces these points with case-specific advice for those doing STD interventions. Programs can be “pushed” to do evaluation by external mandates from funders or authorizers or they can be “pulled” to do evaluation by an internally felt need to examine and improve the program. STD programs are likely no different. State and local STD programs are pushed to evaluate by a mix of evaluation mandates in cooperative agreements or foundation mandates—which in turn reflect demands on foundations by their boards or on funding agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and Performance Assessment and Rating Tool (PART) processes.* Using the STD world as an example, CDC’s Division of STD Prevention (DSTDP) now explicitly lists program evaluation as an essential activity within the Comprehensive STD Prevention Systems (CSPS) framework, and recent DSTDP Performance Measures Guidance (3) commits CDC’s efforts to measuring performance and aligning with goals. This CDC emphasis is translated
Feasibility of office hysteroscopy in evaluation of women with postmenopausal bleeding and association with improved pathological diagnosis.

e17119Background: Endometrial sampling is critical in the evaluation of postmenopausal women for cancers of the uterine corpus. Hysteroscopy in the operating room is associated with monetary and ti...
Describing Food and Beverage Restaurants: Creating A Reliable Coding Tool.

Objective To develop an informed, reliable data collection tool to code restaurants found within the youth food environment. Methods Registered Dietitians were surveyed and academic literature review was reviewed to determine health centric food environment features. Features were incorporated into an electronic data collection tool. Inter-rater reliability was tested across coders of varying nutrition training on all restaurants located within a half-mile of three high schools. Results Sixteen restaurant food environment codes were generated. Data collection had a mean inter-rater reliability of 90.7% agreement (range=81.3-100%), suggesting that regardless of nutrition training, the restaurant food environment can be reliability coded. Conclusions Academic and public health professionals can use this tool to collect reliable, informed local restaurant food environment data.
Engineering engagement:: Perceived L2 development and short‐term service learning abroad

The current study compared perceived language gains between learners of different preprogram proficiencies, academic interests, and genders who participated in the same predeparture preparation and short‐stay service learning program abroad. L2 learners studying Spanish and computer science students participated in a semester‐long program to design two 1‐week technology summer camps for middle school students in the Dominican Republic, followed by a sojourn to the site where participants led all camp learning and social activities. Representative statements from the NCSSFL‐ACTFL Can‐Do Statements (2015) were used to measure students’ self‐assessed predeparture and postdeparture ability in the three modes of communication (interpersonal speaking, interpretive listening, and presentational speaking). Results demonstrated a statistically significant difference in self‐assessed language gain across the modes, with females and students with a higher predeparture proficiency reporting greater gains in perceived language development. Implications for instructional design and implementation of short‐term study abroad are discussed.
Every cloud has a silver lining but… “pathways to seeking formal-help and South-Asian immigrant women survivors of intimate partner violence”

AbstractIt takes an inordinate amount of resiliency for South Asian (SA) immigrant women survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV)/domestic violence (DV) to seek outside help. The purpose of aut...
Interactive NLP in Clinical Care: Identifying Incidental Findings in Radiology Reports

Background Despite advances in natural language processing (NLP), extracting information from clinical text is expensive. Interactive tools that are capable of easing the construction, review, and revision of NLP models can reduce this cost and improve the utility of clinical reports for clinical and secondary use. Objectives We present the design and implementation of an interactive NLP tool for identifying incidental findings in radiology reports, along with a user study evaluating the performance and usability of the tool. Methods Expert reviewers provided gold standard annotations for 130 patient encounters (694 reports) at sentence, section, and report levels. We performed a user study with 15 physicians to evaluate the accuracy and usability of our tool. Participants reviewed encounters split into intervention (with predictions) and control conditions (no predictions). We measured changes in model performance, the time spent, and the number of user actions needed. The System Usability Scale (SUS) and an open-ended questionnaire were used to assess usability. Results Starting from bootstrapped models trained on 6 patient encounters, we observed an average increase in F1 score from 0.31 to 0.75 for reports, from 0.32 to 0.68 for sections, and from 0.22 to 0.60 for sentences on a held-out test data set, over an hour-long study session. We found that tool helped significantly reduce the time spent in reviewing encounters (134.30 vs. 148.44 seconds in intervention and control, respectively), while maintaining overall quality of labels as measured against the gold standard. The tool was well received by the study participants with a very good overall SUS score of 78.67. Conclusion The user study demonstrated successful use of the tool by physicians for identifying incidental findings. These results support the viability of adopting interactive NLP tools in clinical care settings for a wider range of clinical applications.
Deep brain stimulation for orthostatic tremor: A single-center case series.

Background Orthostatic tremor (OT) is a high-frequency weight-bearing tremor of the legs and trunk associated with progressive disability and is often refractory to medications. Case reports suggest that thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) is effective. We report 5 female patients with medication-refractory OT who underwent bilateral thalamic DBS at the Mayo Clinic and assess factors associated with a successful DBS outcome. Methods Demographic, clinical, electrophysiology, and DBS data were abstracted. Outcomes were change in tremor-onset latency, standing time, standing ADLs, and patient and clinician global impression of change (PGIC; CGIC). Results All 5 patients had improved standing time (72 vs 408 seconds, p ≤ 0.001) and improved standing ADLs after surgery, without change in tremor-onset latency (16 vs 75 seconds, p = 0.14). Maximal benefit was reached up to 3 years after surgery and sustained for up to 6 years. CGIC was “much improved” in all; PGIC was “much improved” in 4 and “minimally improved” in 1. There were no major complications. Postoperative electrophysiology (n = 1) showed lower tremor amplitude and slower tremor ramp-up on vs off stimulation. Conclusions Bilateral thalamic DBS improved OT symptoms with benefit lasting up to 6 years. A modest increase in standing time of several minutes was associated with meaningful improvement in standing ADLs. Microlesional effect and bilateral stimulation are likely favorable features, while baseline standing time of several minutes may be unfavorable. These findings may inform clinician and patient counseling and require confirmation in larger studies.
The Use of Electrotherapeutics in Ophthalmology.

Purpose To present a perspective on the use of electrotherapeutics in the history of ophthalmology along with the development of novel contemporary ophthalmic instrumentation. Design Perspective study. Methods We reviewed historical journals, articles, and books discussing the use of electricity and electrotherapeutics in ophthalmology. Results Electrotherapeutic applications have been researched and used to treat ocular diseases as far back as the 18th century. By the 20th century, research in electrotherapeutics in ophthalmology had caught the eye of Edward Jackson, the first president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and first editor of the present (third) series American Journal of Ophthalmology. Edward Jackson published an extensive review on this topic and reported a variety of modalities used to treat ocular diseases. Conclusions While many early therapeutic uses of electricity did not produce effective and replicable results, studies on electrical stimulation of the eye provided the foundation for the development of clinically significant vision enhancing and restoring instrumentation.
Introduction to the Two Volumes: From Phenomenological Theory to the Concretum of Religious Experiencing

This is Introduction to The Problem of Religious Experience: Case Studies in Phenomenology, with Reflections and Commentaries. The book presents an updated overview of the problem of religious experience in phenomenology, from the time of Husserl to French phenomenology’s theological turn, which was followed by important publications such as Steinbock (2007), Depraz (2008), Alvis (2016 and 2018) and others. Significantly advancing understanding of religious experience, these studies nevertheless left open a question of what exactly makes religious experience what it is: that is, gives it a specific quality distinguishing it, for its subject, from all other experiences. In contemporary phenomenology, Dahl’s (2010) theory of interruptions and Barber’s (2017) theory of the appresentative mindset and the finite province of religious meaning comprise two most probable and mutually complementary answers to this question. Further, Introduction covers the contents of the two volumes, entitled respectively The Primeval Showing of Religious Experience and Doxastic Perspectives in the Phenomenology of Religious Experience. The case studies in Volume I proceed from the descriptive phenomenology of religious experience as it relates to subjectivity research (Part 1) to the relationship between religious experience, intersubjectivity, and alterity (Part 2). Part 2 also serves as a bridge to metaphysical, theological, and theistic approaches in Part 3 and Part 4. Along with the overview of the contents of the book, this Introduction presents Olga Louchakova-Schwartz’s (as editor of the book) synthetic meta-reflection on the findings, so that the findings in the book are coherently represented in light of contemporary debates in the philosophy of religion.
School Principals Putting Bullying Policy to Practice.

School principals must rely on state statutes and district policies to navigate reports of school bullying. Investigating reports to determine the outcomes may vary depending upon the districts def...
Predictors of Turnover Intention in U.S. Federal Government Workforce: Machine Learning Evidence That Perceived Comprehensive HR Practices Predict Turnover Intention:

This study aims to identify important predictors of turnover intention and to characterize subgroups of U.S. federal employees at high risk for turnover intention. Data were drawn from the 2018 Fed...
Critical Care Equipment Management Reimagined in an Emergency

Summary: The COVID19 pandemic created a surge in demand for critical care equipment against a backdrop of fast-moving geographic virus hotspots. A team from IBM Europe was put together to prove that a devolved healthcare system can be rapidly bridged by a mix of advanced and legacy technologies to provide a federated view of critical care equipment deployment and use during an emergency. This was achieved with the deployment of predictive analytics and blockchain, integrated with conventional hospital management system. The corollary investigation determined the manner in which this system can be harnessed in a postemergency recovery to provide a national supply chain efficiency backbone. Method: During a period of 2 weeks, a team of IBM consultants set up a technology sandbox environment to represent a network of an equipment manufacturer, a central national emergency monitoring center, and several hospitals managed by their respective trust organization. Within this environment, a hospital asset management system, Maximo, was configured to manage and track critical care equipment within a hospital; a blockchain traceability platform, IBM’s Blockchain Transparency System, was configured to ingest multiple hospital data reports; and a predictive analytic dashboard, Watson Analytics, would retrieve data from the blockchain platform to supplement other data sources to provide national views and support decision-making for the supply and movement of equipment. Three key principles in the design of this environment are speed, reuse, and minimal intrusion. Results: The hypothesis was to test whether the chosen technologies can overcome the challenges of misaligned demand and supply of critical care equipment during a national emergency. The execution of the tests led to successful simulation of three scenarios: (1) the tracking of the location and usage history of any single equipment that has been placed into the network; (2) the movement of equipment between independent hospitals is recorded and reported; (3) a real-time interrogation of the current location and status of all registered equipment. Conclusions: The successful completion of this proof of concept has demonstrated that emerging technology can be used to overcome poor macro level coordination and planning, which are the drawbacks of a devolved healthcare system. The corollary was that this proof also demonstrated that blockchain technology can be used to prolong the useful life of conventional technology.