cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Implementation of a Diagnostics Consultation Service Improves Health Outcomes

Consultations with healthcare practitioners and consumers provide clinical laboratory scientists opportunities for evidence-based assessment of the impact of diagnostic information on health outcomes. Methods for characterization and impact of CLS consultations on health outcomes have not been reported. To address the role of CLS consultations in clinical decision support (CDS), consultation services have been established and evaluated in four healthcare delivery settings: consumer information (CI), diagnostic management intervention (DMI), patient care rounding intervention (PCRI), and utilization review (UR). CI involve interaction with consumers with questions about interpretation of diagnostics parameters and results. DMI are primarily inpatient and requiring hand-offs among multiple providers. PCRI can be simple or complex involving literature searches using hand-held devices and interaction with team members. UR is driven by laboratory information system data generated by locally-generated and published rules defining daily reports of errors and inappropriate test orders. Consultation interactions in each setting are characterized by variables: provider type, medical subject/diagnosis, diagnostic question, testing cycle phase, treatment phase (screen/monitor/diagnose), complexity (number of hand-offs and/or logic steps, and patient and financial outcomes. The data collected for each variable were analyzed from these encounters over a one-year period. From these consultations, priority for direction of clinical laboratory resources (material/human) and value (quality/cost) of information have been established. Implementing the Consultation Model, real time evidence from consultation services is combined with evidence from the literature, used to monitor for and correct patient safety concerns, and inform efforts to provide accurate, timely information for CDS and shared decision-making between consumers and healthcare providers.
An Exploration of Code Quality in FOSS Projects

It is a widely held belief that Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) development leads to the creation of software with the same, if not higher quality compared to that created using proprietary software development models. However there is little research on evaluating the quality of FOSS code, and the impact of project characteristics such as age, number of core developers, code-base size, etc. In this exploratory study, we examined 110 FOSS projects, measuring the quality of the code and architectural design using code smells. We found that, contrary to our expectations, the overall quality of the code is not affected by the size of the code base, but that it was negatively impacted by the growth of the number of code contributors. Our results also show that projects with more core developers don’t necessarily have better code quality.
Concepts in Cancer Therapeutics

Cancer therapy spans the disciplines of surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy. To these tumor-specific therapies may be added the general modalities of support therapy, including rehabilitation, and psychological therapy, and the multiplicity of non-specific therapies, such as pain management and transfusion. In more general terms, cancer therapy may be subdivided into two broad categories: curative therapy and palliative therapy. The former therapy usually consists of surgically excising the malignant lesion with the expectation of achieving cure. Radiotherapy has become recognized as another curative measure, particularly in treating Hodgkin’s disease and carcinoma of the cervix. Chemotherapy may have a role in curative therapy but is more properly applied in adjuvant therapy in connection with either radiation or surgery.
How Great Is the Arrhythmic Risk for Heart Failure Patients and Does Resynchronization Therapy Modify It

As our population progressively ages, congestive heart failure is emerging as a major public health problem [1]. There are currently almost 3 million people with congestive heart failure (CHF) in the United States and the number is rapidly increasing, with 400 000 new cases each year. Despite important advances in medical therapy, CHF is associated with a poor quality of life and carries an extremely high mortality [2–4]. Many of the deaths are sudden and presumed to be due to an arrhythmia. With recent developments in permanent pacing techniques and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), there is growing interest in the use of these devices as a means of reducing the incidence of sudden cardiac death in the heart failure population.
Fluid shear stress stimulates breast cancer cells to display invasive and chemoresistant phenotypes while upregulating PLAU in a 3D bioreactor.

Breast cancer cells experience a range of shear stresses in the tumor microenvironment (TME). However most current in vitro three-dimensional (3D) models fail to systematically probe the effects of this biophysical stimuli on cancer cell metastasis, proliferation, and chemoresistance. To investigate the roles of shear stress within the mammary and lung pleural effusion TME, a bioreactor capable of applying shear stress to cells within a 3D extracellular matrix was designed and characterized. Breast cancer cells were encapsulated within an interpenetrating network hydrogel and subjected to shear stress of 5.4 dynes cm-2 for 72 hr. Finite element modeling assessed shear stress profiles within the bioreactor. Cells exposed to shear stress had significantly higher cellular area and significantly lower circularity, indicating a motile phenotype. Stimulated cells were more proliferative than static controls and showed higher rates of chemoresistance to the anti-neoplastic drug paclitaxel. Fluid shear stress-induced significant upregulation of the PLAU gene and elevated urokinase activity was confirmed through zymography and activity assay. Overall, these results indicate that pulsatile shear stress promotes breast cancer cell proliferation, invasive potential, chemoresistance, and PLAU signaling.
RETAIN: An interpretable predictive model for healthcare using reverse time attention mechanism

Accuracy and interpretability are two dominant features of successful predictive models. Typically, a choice must be made in favor of complex black box models such as recurrent neural networks (RNN) for accuracy versus less accurate but more interpretable traditional models such as logistic regression. This tradeoff poses challenges in medicine where both accuracy and interpretability are important. We addressed this challenge by developing the REverse Time AttentIoN model (RETAIN) for application to Electronic Health Records (EHR) data. RETAIN achieves high accuracy while remaining clinically interpretable and is based on a two-level neural attention model that detects influential past visits and significant clinical variables within those visits (e.g. key diagnoses). RETAIN mimics physician practice by attending the EHR data in a reverse time order so that recent clinical visits are likely to receive higher attention. RETAIN was tested on a large health system EHR dataset with 14 million visits completed by 263K patients over an 8 year period and demonstrated predictive accuracy and computational scalability comparable to state-of-the-art methods such as RNN, and ease of interpretability comparable to traditional models.
Bayesian Nonparametrics for Non-exhaustive Learning.

Non-exhaustive learning (NEL) is an emerging machine-learning paradigm designed to confront the challenge of non-stationary environments characterized by anon-exhaustive training sets lacking full information about the available classes.Unlike traditional supervised learning that relies on fixed models, NEL utilizes self-adjusting machine learning to better accommodate the non-stationary nature of the real-world problem, which is at the root of many recently discovered limitations of deep learning. Some of these hurdles led to a surge of interest in several research areas relevant to NEL such as open set classification or zero-shot learning. The presented study which has been motivated by two important applications proposes a NEL algorithm built on a highly flexible, doubly non-parametric Bayesian Gaussian mixture model that can grow arbitrarily large in terms of the number of classes and their components. We report several experiments that demonstrate the promising performance of the introduced model for NEL.
RF performance improvement on 22FDX® platform and beyond

The paper describes manufacturing process and layout optimizations to improve RF performance of 22FDX® N/PFET devices, based on a comprehensive calibration of DC and RF figures of merit. Process and Device simulations of the individual and combined elements show ft/fmax improvement up to about 1.13/1.1x (NFET) and about 1.32/1.24x (PFET) over standard devices mainly driven by mechanical stress and parasitic R/C elements.
Back to Futures

We briefly introduce the semi-axiomatic sequent calculus for linear logic whose natural computational interpretation is session-typed asynchronous communication. This natural asynchrony allows us to endow it with a shared-memory semantics that is weakly bisimilar to its more standard message-passing semantics. We then show how to further refine the concurrent shared memory semantics into a sequential one. Exploiting the expressive framework of adjoint logic, we show how to combine instances of message-passing, shared-memory, and sequential languages into a coherent whole. We exemplify this by providing rational reconstructions for SILL and futures, two approaches for introducing concurrency into functional programming languages. As a byproduct we obtain a first complete definition of typed linear futures.
The Equation x′ ( t ) = Ax ( t ) + f ( t )

We consider in a Banach space X the differential equation $$ x'(t) = Ax(t) + f(t),t \in R $$ (4.1) .
Mechanism(s) of mitochondrial hyperoxidation after global cerebral ischemia.

In brain and other tissues, there has been a recent re-emphasis on the role of mitochondria in the cascade of events producing cell injury and death following anoxia/ischemia (e.g., Abe et al., 1995; Ankarcrona et al., 1995; Saris and Eriksson, 1995; Kluck et al., 1997; Yang et al., 1997).
Representing the representers: Non-Western depictions of Orientalists and Orientalism in Turkish, Mexican, and Bengali writing:

How do writers from regions with a historical experience of colonialism depict Western Orientalists in their work? What exactly does it mean to “reverse the gaze” and include the Orientalist within...
The effect on tether tension when using trees to redirect live machine tethers during forest harvesting on steep slopes

Ground based forest harvesting machines are being used on steeper slopes with the aid of tethers to help maintain traction and stability. It is common to position a base machine containing the tether winch above the forest harvesting machine. This configuration is termed a live tether. The live tethers may be run around rub trees to reduce the time required to reposition the tether. This study developed a new model that includes both friction and cutting forces to estimate cable tension on either side of the rub tree. A dataset collected in the field was used to estimate the parameters in the model. The model appears to be promising; however, further work is required on the interaction of the cable cutting surfaces and the surface toughness of the wood. In general, it was found that the difference in the tension on either side of the rub tree increased with increasing change in angle, that the cable on average cut 3 mm deeper with each 10 m of the cable travel, and that the difference in tension was not correlated with the depth cut into the wood.
Conformation and dynamics of ring polymers under symmetric thin film confinement

Understanding the structure and dynamics of polymers under confinement has been of widespread interest, and one class of polymers that have received comparatively little attention under confinement is that of ring polymers. The properties of non-concatenated ring polymers can also be important in biological fields because ring polymers have been proven to be a good model to study DNA organization in the cell nucleus. From our previous study, linear polymers in a cylindrically confined polymer melt were found to segregate from each other as a result of the strong correlation hole effect that is enhanced by the confining surfaces. By comparison, our subsequent study of linear polymers in confined thin films at similar levels of confinements found only the onset of segregation. In this study, we use molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the chain conformations and dynamics of ring polymers under planar (1D) confinement as a function of film thickness. Our results show that conformations of ring polymers are similar to the linear polymers under planar confinement, except that ring polymers are less compressed in the direction normal to the walls. While we find that the correlation hole effect is enhanced under confinement, it is not as pronounced as the linear polymers under 2D confinement. Finally, we show that chain dynamics far above Tg are primarily affected by the friction from walls based on the monomeric friction coefficient we get from the Rouse mode analysis.
A Report on the Use of Telehealth in Otolaryngology: In the Pre COVID-19 Era.

Objective: To investigate the integration of and barriers to the utilization of telehealth technology and its components (telemedicine, e-Health, m-health) in daily otolaryngologic practice before the SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at a tertiary academic center. A national survey of members of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery was administered. Descriptive analyses were performed to determine how telehealth was employed in otolaryngologists' practices. Results: A total of 184 surveys were completed. Telehealth technology was used by 50% of otolaryngologists surveyed. Regions with the largest percentage of physicians using telehealth were the Mid-Atlantic region (84%) and West Coast (67%). Most otolaryngologists indicated that they were familiar with telehealth or any of its components and how it is used in practice (52-83%), they had heard of telehealth or any of its components but were unsure what the terms specifically entailed (17-42%); 53% were satisfied with their current use of telehealth and electronic medical record (EMR); and 72% were comfortable utilizing smart devices for patient care. Most otolaryngologists (65%) indicated reimbursement as the biggest limitation to implementing telehealth, and 67% believed that typing was a hindrance to EMR utility. Conclusion: Half of the surveyed otolaryngologists used some form of telehealth at the time of the survey. The most commonly cited obstacle to physician adoption of telehealth was reimbursement. Although the adoption of telehealth technology was still limited in the field of otolaryngology based on this study, we are now seeing significant change due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Context of Crisis: Teacher social network effects during crisis-based organizational change

This exploratory study examines the ways in which teacher social networks vary by organizational context. The study draws on data collected in a large urban adjacent public school district in New E...
An updated approach to determine minimal clinically important differences in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Introduction Current medications for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) have not been shown to have impact on patient related outcome measures (PROMs) highlighting the need for accurate Minimal Clinically Important Differences (MCID) values. Recently published consensus standards for MCID studies support using anchor-based over distribution-based methods. The aim of this study was to estimate MCID values for worsening in IPF using only an anchor-based approach. Methods We conducted secondary analyses of three randomised controlled trials with different inclusion criteria and follow-up intervals. The Health Transition question in the Short Form Health Survey 36 (SF-36) questionnaire was used as the anchor. We used receiver operating curve to assess responsiveness between the anchor and ten variables (four physiologic measures and six PROMs). We used an anchor-based method to determine the MCID values of variables that met the responsiveness criteria (area under the curve≥0.70). Results Six minute walk distance (6 MWD), the St. George9s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), physical component score of SF-36 (SF-36 PCS), and University of California, San Diego, Shortness of Breath Questionnaire (UCSD SOBQ) met the responsiveness criteria. The MCID value for 6 MWD was −75 meters. The MCID value for SF-36 PCS was −7 points. MCID value for SGRQ was 11points. MCID value for the UCSD SOBQ was 11 points. Conclusions The MCID estimates of 6 MWD, SGRQ, SF-36, UCSD SOBQ using only anchor-based methods were considerably higher compared to previously proposed values. A single MCID value may not be applicable across all classes of disease severity or durations of follow-up time.
Cardiometabolic Phenotypic Differences in Male Offspring Born to Obese Preeclamptic-Like BPH/5 Mice

Preeclampsia (PE) is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy occurring in approximately 10% of women worldwide. While it is life threatening to both the mother and baby, the only effective treatment is delivery of the placenta and fetus, which is often preterm. Maternal obesity is a risk factor for PE, and the effects of both on offspring are long standing with increased incidence of cardiometabolic disease in adulthood. Obese BPH/5 mice spontaneously exhibit excessive gestational weight gain and late-gestational hypertension, similar to women with PE, along with fetal growth restriction and accelerated compensatory growth in female offspring. We hypothesized that BPH/5 male offspring will demonstrate cardiovascular and metabolic phenotypes similar to BPH/5 females. As previously described, BPH/5 females born to ad libitum-fed dams are overweight with hyperphagia and increased subcutaneous, peri-renal, and peri-gonadal white adipose tissue (WAT) and cardiomegaly compared to age-matched adult female controls. In this study, BPH/5 adult male mice have similar body weights and food intake compared to age-matched control mice but have increased inflammatory subcutaneous and peri-renal WAT and signs of cardiovascular disease: left ventricular hypertrophy and hypertension. Therefore, adult male BPH/5 do not completely phenocopy the cardiometabolic profile of female BPH/5 mice. Future investigations are necessary to understand the differences observed in BPH/5 male and female mice as they age. In conclusion, the impact of fetal programming due to PE has a transgenerational effect on both male and female offspring in the BPH/5 mouse model. The maternal obesogenic environment may play a role in PE pregnancy outcomes, including offspring health as they age.
Verbal Working Memory Error Patterns and Speech-Language Outcomes in Youth With Cochlear Implants.

Purpose: Verbal working memory (VWM) delays are commonly found in prelingually deaf youth with cochlear implants (CIs), albeit with considerable interindividual variability. However, little is know...
Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

It's the American dream: get a good education, work hard, buy a house, and achieve prosperity and success. This is the America we believe in-a nation of opportunity, constrained only by ability and effort. But during the last twenty-five years we have seen a disturbing "opportunity gap" emerge. Americans have always believed in equality of opportunity, the idea that all kids, regardless of their family background, should have a decent chance to improve their lot in life. Now, this central tenet of the American dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was. Robert Putnam-about whom The Economist said, "his scholarship is wide-ranging, his intelligence luminous, his tone modest, his prose unpretentious and frequently funny"-offers a personal but also authoritative look at this new American crisis. Putnam begins with his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. By and large the vast majority of those students-"our kids"-went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have had harder lives amid diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, drawing on a formidable body of research done especially for this book. Our Kids is a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence. Putnam provides a disturbing account of the American dream that should initiate a deep examination of the future of our country.
The Philosophy of Aron Gurwitsch

At various times I have had occasion to reflect on different aspects of the Philosophy of Aron Gurwitsch: on the critical center of his thought (“The Constancy Hypothesis in the Social Sciences”), on the bearing of some of the results of his thought on contemporary problems in transcendental phenomenology (“Heidegger and Transcendental Phenomenology,” “The Life-Concept and the Life-Conviction”), even on the philosophical attitude that seemed everywhere to underlie his thought (“Remarks on the Philosophical Attitude and Approach in the Philosophy of Aron Gurwitsch”), and, as a result of my last conversation with Aron Gurwitsch, on the “originality” of his transformation of the phenomenological problem of intentionality (“The Originality of Gurwitsch’s Theory of Intentionality”).2 In addition, the experience of translating some of Gurwitsch’s work into English provided a unique opportunity to explore many of his ideas with him (such as those in “The Phenomenology of Thematics and of the Pure Ego” dealing with the inner workings of Gestalt psychology as much as with the telos of the inner workings of his gradual transformation of basic ideas in Husserl concerning attention, the ego, and the internal organization of the noema.
Mitochondrial Cytochrome C- and Smac-Dependent Apoptosis in Cerebral Ischemia: Role of Oxidative Signaling

Mitochondria are known to be involved in the early stage of apoptosis by releasing cytochrome c, caspase-9 and second mitochondria-derived activator of caspases (Smac). We have reported that overexpression of copper/zinc superoxide dismutase (SOD1) reduced superoxide production and ameliorated neuronal injury in the hippocampal CA1 subregion after global ischemia. However, the role of oxygen-free radicals produced after ischemia/reperfusion in the mitochondrial signaling pathway has not been clarified. Five minutes of global ischemia was induced in male SOD1 transgenic (Tg) and wild-type (Wt) littermate rats. In the Wt animals, early superoxide production, mitochondrial release of cytochrome c, Smac and cleaved caspase-9 were observed after ischemia. Active caspase-3 was subsequently increased and 85% of the hippocampal CA1 neurons showed apoptotic DNA damage 3 days after ischemia. Tg animals showed less superoxide production and cytochrome c and Smac release. These results suggest that overexpression of SOD1 reduced oxidative stress, thereby attenuating the mitochondrial release of cytochrome c and Smac, resulting in less caspase activation and apoptotic cell death. Oxygen-free radicals may play a pivotal role in the mitochondrial signaling pathway of apoptotic cell death in the hippocampal CA1 neurons after global ischemia.
Impact of Cytomegalovirus Disease in D+/R– Kidney Transplant Patients Receiving 6 Months Low-Dose Valganciclovir Prophylaxis

Late-onset cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease remains common in CMV serology naive kidney transplant patients of CMV serology positive organs (D+/R-) despite the use of antiviral prophylaxis. We studied clinical efficacy of 6-month low-dose valganciclovir (VGCV) prophylaxis, risk factors for late-onset CMV disease and its impact on kidney transplant outcomes. Between October 2005 and December 2009, 166 consecutive D+/R- kidney alone and simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplant patients received VGCV 450 mg daily for 6 months after transplantation. After a median follow-up of 3.2 years, 30 cases of CMV disease occurred within the first 2 years after transplantation with a cumulative incidence of 11.5 and 18.1% at 1 and 2 years, respectively. The use of an induction agent with rabbit antithymocyte globulin and older donor age were factors associated with the risk of late-onset CMV disease (AHR 2.91, 95% CI 1.18-7.20, p = 0.021 and AHR 1.03, 95% CI 1.01-1.06, p = 0.016, respectively). Late-onset CMV disease was associated with increased risk for death-uncensored graft loss (AHR 2.95, 95% CI 1.15-7.61, p = 0.025). In conclusion, late-onset CMV disease continues to negatively impact kidney transplant outcome despite 6-month low-dose VGCV prophylaxis. Investigations focusing on novel preventive approaches should be emphasized.
Adaptive feedback control of time varying structures utilizing dual-core wireless sensing and actuation nodes

In traditional system designs for feedback structural control systems, the structure is assumed to be linear time invariant (LTI). However, extreme load events on the structure can damage the structure leading to violation of the time invariance assumption. This study proposes an online adaptive control strategy that tracks the time varying characteristics of a structural system with the optimal control law recursively derived for the system. Continuous system identification executed concurrently with derivation of optimal control laws is possible using the low-power, dual-core Martlet wireless node developed at the University of Michigan. The wireless platform executes online system identification recursively on one processor pipeline while a control law based on linear quadratic regulation (LQR) is derived and implemented concurrently on the second pipeline. By parallelizing the implementation of the LQR control law and system identification algorithm, the wireless sensing network is shown to be capable of learning and adapting to system changes in real-time. Simulation and experiments on a 4 story benchmark shear structure is utilized to show the validity and scalability of the proposed adaptive feedback control approach.
Breaking Lorentz Symmetry in Quantum Field Theory

Symmetry under the Lorentz group is a fundamental assumption of virtually any fundamental theory used to describe elementary particle physics. For instance, the standard model as well as many extensions including supersymmetry and grand unified theories preserve Lorentz symmetry. Under very mild assumptions, the postulates of a point particle theory that preserves Lorentz invariance lead to the conclusion that CPT is preserved [1]. In this talk, I will discuss the construction of quantum field theories that break Lorentz and CPT symmetry. There are both experimental and theoretical motivations to develop such theories. Many sensitive experimental tests of Lorentz and CPT symmetry have been performed. For example, high precision tests involving atomic systems [2, 3], clock comparisons [4], and neutral meson oscillations [5] provide stringent tests of Lorentz and CPT symmetry. In the past, each such experiment has bounded phenomenological parameters that lack a clear connection with the microscopic physics of the standard model. It is desirable to have a single theory within the context of conventional quantum field theory and the standard model that could relate various experiments and be used to motivate future investigations. On the theoretical side, low-energy remnant effects that violate fundamental symmetries may arise in theories underlying the standard model. One example is string theory in which nontrivial structure of the vacuum solutions may induce observable Lorentz and CPT violations [6, 7, 8]. Terms involving standard model fields that violate Lorentz and CPT symmetry are assumed to arise from a general spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism in which vacuum expectation values for tensor fields are generated in the underlying theory [9].
Different effects of zinc and copper deficiency on composition of plasma high density lipoproteins in rats

Male Sprague-Dawley rats (six per group) were fed an egg white-based diet containing 0 or 5 micrograms/g Cu with 1, 10, 100 or 1000 micrograms/g Zn. After 6 wk of feeding, the rats were killed, and the tissues were processed for trace element, lipid and lipoprotein analysis. Copper deficiency was associated with a higher concentration of plasma free cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and HDL apolipoproteins. Plasma total cholesterol was not significantly affected. No significant differences were noted in HDL lipid composition. However, HDL apo E and apo A-I concentrations were higher with copper deficiency. Lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) was not affected in a consistent manner by copper status. Varying the amount of zinc in the diet did not produce significant changes in plasma total cholesterol, plasma free cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, or HDL apolipoprotein concentrations. However, HDL from zinc-deficient rats were enriched in free cholesterol and depleted in triglycerides. Furthermore, the concentration of HDL apo C increased as the level of dietary zinc increased.
Sharing Physician Notes Through an Electronic Portal is Associated With Improved Medication Adherence: Quasi-Experimental Study

Background: In surveys, interviews, and focus groups, patients taking medications and offered Web portal access to their primary care physicians’ (PCPs) notes report improved adherence to their regimens. However, objective confirmation has yet to be reported. Objective: To evaluate the association between patient Internet portal access to primary care physician visit notes and medication adherence. Methods: This study is a retrospective comparative analysis at one site of the OpenNotes quasi-experimental trial. The setting includes primary care practices at the Geisinger Health System (GHS) in Danville, Pennsylvania. Participants include patients 18 years of age or older with electronic portal access, GHS primary care physicians, and Geisinger health plan insurance, and taking at least one antihypertensive or antihyperlipidemic agent from March 2009 to June 2011. Starting in March 2010, intervention patients were invited and reminded to read their PCPs' notes. Control patients also had Web portal access throughout, but their PCPs' notes were not available. From prescription claims, adherence was assessed by using the proportion of days covered (PDC). Patients with a PDC ≥.80 were considered adherent and were compared across groups using generalized linear models. Results: A total of 2147 patients (756 intervention participants, 35.21%; 1391 controls, 64.79%) were included in the analysis. Compared to those without access, patients invited to review notes were more adherent to antihypertensive medications—adherence rate 79.7% for intervention versus 75.3% for control group; adjusted risk ratio, 1.06 (95% CI 1.00-1.12). Adherence was similar among patient groups taking antihyperlipidemic agents—adherence rate 77.6% for intervention versus 77.3% for control group; adjusted risk ratio, 1.01 (95% CI 0.95-1.07). Conclusions: Availability of notes following PCP visits was associated with improved adherence by patients prescribed antihypertensive, but not antihyperlipidemic, medications. As the use of fully transparent records spreads, patients invited to read their clinicians’ notes may modify their behaviors in clinically valuable ways. [J Med Internet Res 2015;17(10):e226]
Principals, Power, and Policy: Enacting “Supplemental Educational Services”

Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools that do not make adequate yearly progress must offer afterschool tutoring, entitled “Supplemental Educational Services” (SES). Drawing on 40 months of ethnographic research and utilizing actor–network theory, this article shows principals co-opting the SES provisions to do what they determine is required for their schools, often in defiance of NCLB. It demonstrates how, within an increasingly centralized governance of public schools and heightened private intervention, principals emerge as powerful policy actors. [principal, policy, actor–network theory, NCLB, SES]
HIV-1 Diversity After a Class Switch Failure

Abstract The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the choice of a PI- or an efavirenz (EFV)-based HAART initial regimen impacts on the viral diversity after failure from a second, class-switch salvage regimen. Sequential HAART failures after a class switch were identified for which the genotypes showed evidence of signature mutations at each failure. Each second failure was required to be from a viral burden <400 RNA c/ml. Thirteen cases of sequential failure from an initial EFV-containing to a PI-containing regimen (EP), and 19 sequential failures from an initial PI-containing to an EFV-containing regimen (PE) were identified. The persistence of signature mutations from the first failure were evaluated at second failure and compared between the EP and PE groups. Phylogenetic trees were constructed for a subgroup of cases from existing genetic sequence information and branch length analysis was used to determine evidence of viral diversity between groups. For EP sequential therapy, 10 of 12 cases ...
Biological and Physical Properties of Fibronectin Pasteurized in the Presence of Stabilizers

Interest in human plasma fibronectin (Fn) as a potential clinical product for replacement therapy in septic patients has prompted the search for stabilizers to protect the protein from heat denaturation during pasteurization designed to inactivate hepatitis viruses. Fn was pasteurized (60 degrees C, 10 h) in the presence of either citrate, tricarballylate, sucrose or four mixtures of lysine, glucarate, gluconate or citrate which had been found to increase the denaturation temperature of Fn by greater than or equal to 19 degrees C. All but a citrate/gluconate mixture were effective in preventing aggregation as measured by dye fluorescence, light scattering, gel filtration and electrophoresis. Binding to gelatin was retained and immunological activity was only slightly diminished compared to a sample heated without stabilizers. Opsonic activity was measured as ability to mediate the uptake of 125I-gelatin-coated polystyrene beads by attached human monocytes. Fn heated without stabilizers underwent a transient increase in activity which was traced to formation of aggregates having elevated specific activities. Pasteurized samples had slightly elevated opsonic activities with no detectable aggregates present, while the unstabilized control was inactive. These results indicate that the physical properties of Fn as well as the functional activities of the gelatin- and cell-binding domains can be protected against thermal denaturation by various compounds.
Intrapatient variation in tobramycin kinetics in low birth weight infants during first postnatal week

Nineteen newborn infants receiving tobramycin, 2.5 mg/kg every 12 h were studied on two occasions at steady-state during the first week of postnatal age. The two studies were separated by two to four days. Total body clearance of tobramycin averaged 1.15 and 1.14 ml/min/kg (p>0.05), apparent volume of distribution averaged 0.82 and 0.68 l/kg (p>0.05), and elimination half-life averaged 8.6 and 7.1 h (p>0.05), during the first and second study, respectively. When the data were further analyzed based on the birth weight, tobramycin kinetics changed during the second study compared to the first study in very low birth weight infants. In eight infants ⩽1.5 kg birth weight, although total clearance of tobramycin was similar, the average apparent volume of distribution decreased from 1.04 l/kg during the first study to 0.73 l/kg during the second study (p<0.05) and elimination half-life from 11.1 h during the first study to 8.7 h during the second study (p<0.05). These data indicate that these infants may require a change in dosing interval with continued tobramycin therapy during the first week of postnatal age. Intrapatient variation in tobramycin kinetics should be considered, in addition to the interpatient variation reported previously, when monitoring the serum concentration to individualize tobramycin therapy in newborn infants ⩽1.5 kg birth weight.
Why do losses of polyatomic fragments strongly dominate losses of atoms at high internal energies? Methyl versus Cl. loss from the 2-chloropropane cation

Previous work demonstrates that rates of H . losses generally increase much less rapidly with increasing internal energy than do those of losses of polyatomic fragments. To determine whether this is also the case for the losses of other atoms, the dependencies of the rates of Cl . and CH 3 . losses from CH 3 CHClCH 3 + . on ion internal energy are compared. These dependencies were established experimentally by photoionization mass spectrometry. The reactant ion and the transition states were characterized by B3LYP/6-31G(d), B3LYP/6-311G(d,p), and MP2/6-31G(d) theories. The transition states located are at very long bond lengths and close in energy to the corresponding dissociation products. Rate constants as a function of internal energy were obtained by RRKM theory. According to both experiment and theory, above its onset, methyl loss increases much more rapidly with internal energy than does loss of Cl . . This stems from three vibrational frequencies being substantially lowered in the transition state for the former but not in the latter reaction as they are being transformed into rotations of the separated products. This produces a much more rapid increase in the RRKM sum of states for the transition state to CH 3 CHCl + + CH 3 . , and thus also in the rate of that reaction. This, together with previous work, establishes that losses of polyatomic fragments from ions in the gas phase generally increase much faster with increasing internal energy than do losses of atoms.
Social construction of adolescence by adolescents and parents

This chapter discusses and integrates the five preceding chapters and places them in context within the social sciences.
Contamination Study of Micro-Pulsed Plasma Thrusters

Abstract : Satellite designing trend is progressing towards building smaller satellites. Small satellites require micro propulsion devices for accurate control by the propulsion system. Micro-Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPTs) are highly reliable and simple micro propulsion systems that will offer attitude control, station keeping, constellation flying, and drag compensation for such satellites. As an unfortunate side effect, the plume induces contamination on spacecraft surfaces and may lead to significant problems with sensors and power generation. Solid particulates in the exhaust plume may deposit on spacecraft instrument and the solar array surfaces limiting or reducing the mission capability as well as the lifetime of a satellite. To better understand these contamination issues, a detailed characterization of the exhaust plume is necessary. This research employs PPTs, first developed at the Air Force Research Lab at Edwards AFB, CA, and is being operated in a simulated space environment, at the Air Force Institute of Technology micro-propulsion vacuum facilities.
Proffering Pork: How Party Leaders Build Party Reputations in Brazil

Despite its highly candidate-centered electoral law, recent studies have shown that Brazilian party leaders are more powerful, and Brazilian parties are more unified, than alleged by long-dominant scholarship. Examining post-War and contemporary democracy in Brazil, governed by the same federal legislative electoral law, this article provides a controlled test of the role of leadership and electoral law in driving party unity. The combination of leadership intervention to enforce unity, increased unity, and partisan tides in contemporary Brazil, in contrast to an absence of leadership intervention, lower unity, and no partisan tides in the post-War, provides strong support for the role of the leadership in generating unity, as emphasized in the collective action theory of party organization. The findings also suggest that a general theory of variation in party unity requires examining factors that lead to variation in party leaders' incentives to enforce unity, in addition to the current emphasis on backbenchers' incentives to defy the leadership.
Phosphatidic acid formation by phospholipase D is required for transport from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi complex

Abstract Background: Lipid molecules may play a regulatory role in the secretory pathway of mammals and yeast. The lipid hydrolase phospholipase D (PLD) is one candidate for mediating regulation of secretion, based on the location of this enzyme and its requirements for activation. Results: We found that primary alcohols, which block formation of phosphatidic acid (PA) by PLD, inhibited the transport of two different viral glycoproteins from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi complex in Chinese hamster ovary cells. Corresponding secondary alcohols, which are much less potent in blocking PA formation, were also less effective in blocking transport of the glycoproteins. The block in glycoprotein transport imposed by primary alcohols was reversed when PA, in the form of liposomes, was exogenously supplied to the culture medium. Conclusions: We suggest that the earliest site of regulation of membrane transport by PLD is within the intermediate compartment between the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi complex.
Emergency department diagnosis of critical aortic stenosis using bedside ultrasonography

An 88-year-old woman with a history of coronary artery disease, hypertension, and a history of a large left upper lobe lung mass presented to the Emergency Department (ED) from a nursing home with rapidly progressive shortness of breath and chest pain over 1 day with a rapid decline in mental status. Bedside color Doppler ultrasound para-sternal long-axis examination of the heart revealed severe aortic stenosis. Bedside pulsed-wave and continuous-wave Doppler ultrasound in the apical 5-chamber view revealed critical aortic stenosis using the simplified continuity equation. Bedside ED cardiac color Doppler, pulsed Doppler evaluation of the left ventricular outflow tract, and continuous-wave Doppler of the aortic valve were used to assist in the diagnosis of critical aortic stenosis.
6-Aminonicotinamide and 6-aminonicotinic acid metabolism in nucleated and nonnucleated erythrocytes.

Abstract Incubation of nicotinamide and nicotinic acid with chicken erythrocytes results in an increase of the diphosphopyridine nucleotide (DPN) concentration of the erythrocytes. In contrast with the human erythrocyte, where nicotinic acid is a far better precursor of DPN than nicotinamide, no difference was found in the chicken erythrocyte between nicotinamide and nicotinic acid as precursors of DPN. Acetone powders of human erythrocytes were found to be able to synthesize 6-amino-NMN and 6-aminonicotinic acid mononucleotide from 6-AN and 6-aminonicotinic acid, respectively. 6-Aminonicotinic acid has a high affinity for the enzymic system that converts it to 6-aminonicotinic acid mononucleotide. The affinity of 6-AN for the pathway that produces 6-amino-NMN is very low. No synthesis of 6-aminonicotinic acid-DPN or 6-amino-DPN could be detected in either human or chicken erythrocytes incubated with 6-aminonicotinic acid, even though quantities of 6-aminonicotinic acid mononucleotide accumulated. Incubation of 6-AN with either human or chicken erythrocytes resulted in the formation of small amounts of 6-amino-DPN and 6-amino-NMN. Whether the 6-amino-DPN formed was synthesized from 6-AN directly via DPNase or from 6-amino-NMN cannot be determined from the data.
Recent developments in the engineering aspects of rheology

This paper presents, in tabular form, a complete listing of the various types of behavior exhibited by real fluids as known at the present time. The position of non-Newtonian materials within this list is discussed in some detail. On the basis of this background the final part of the paper reviews recent developments in fluid mechanics (including fluid agitation) and heat transfer in systems exhibiting non-Newtonian behavior.
Real-time visual sensing system achieving high-speed 3D particle tracking with nanometer resolution

This paper presents a real-time visual sensing system, which is created to achieve high-speed three-dimensional (3D) motion tracking of microscopic spherical particles in aqueous solutions with nanometer resolution. The system comprises a complementary metal–oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) camera, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), and real-time image processing programs. The CMOS camera has high photosensitivity and superior SNR. It acquires images of 128×120 pixels at a frame rate of up to 10,000 frames per second (fps) under the white light illumination from a standard 100 W halogen lamp. The real-time image stream is downloaded from the camera directly to the FPGA, wherein a 3D particle-tracking algorithm is implemented to calculate the 3D positions of the target particle in real time. Two important objectives, i.e., real-time estimation of the 3D position matches the maximum frame rate of the camera and the timing of the output data stream of the system is precisely controlled, are achieved. Two sets of experiments were conducted to demonstrate the performance of the system. First, the visual sensing system was used to track the motion of a 2 μm polystyrene bead, whose motion was controlled by a three-axis piezo motion stage. The ability to track long-range motion with nanometer resolution in all three axes is demonstrated. Second, it was used to measure the Brownian motion of the 2 μm polystyrene bead, which was stabilized in aqueous solution by a laser trapping system.
Effects of economy and FDA intervention on the hearing aid industry.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the economy and the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) intervention on the hearing aid industry. Method: A 3-stage least squares r...
Modeling moisture and thermal transport in unsaturated porous media

Abstract This paper presents the development of a multidimensional model for simulating moisture and thermal transport in an unsaturated aquifer system using the i ntegrated c ompartment m ethod (ICM). The entire unsaturated zone is divided into a number of compartments with different sizes and shapes. The Philip-de Vries equations governing moisture movement and heat transfer are integrated over each of the compartments to yield a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The system is then solved by one of three optional time integration schemes. These include the split explicit, the implicit pointwise iteration, and the matrix inversion iteration schemes. The model is verified by comparing its simulations with those of known analytical computations for simplified cases. Results indicate that the ICM algorithm can indeed simulate moisture movement and heat transfer in accordance with the Philip-de Vries equations. The validation of the model is under further investigation.
Paddling with Individuals with Developmental Disabilities

Participation in leisurely physical activity can have physical, social, and emotional benefits (Peterson et al., 2008). Tandem flatwater canoeing is a great way to promote social interaction and ph...
Interindustry Employment Requirements in Nonmetropolitan Communities

Interindustry employment requirements are examined in nonmetropolitan communities ranging in population size between 1,000 and 15,000. A ten-sector economic base model is first used to estimate the demand for nonbasic employment in five different functional types of communities. A new and improved method for community impact assessment is then outlined. Here a distance-weighting procedure is applied to the various type-specific estimates of nonbasic employment so that a composite employment requirements matrix can be calculated for any study community. Finally, postimpact interindustry requirements are decomposed into two effects: preimpact employment requirements plus nonbasic employment shifts reflecting structural change. All estimates and findings are based on the Arizona Community Data Set.