cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Judges, Juries, and Reviewing Courts

The purposes of this paper are to evaluate the standard and scope of appellate evidentiary review of fact findings made by juries and trial judges under Texas law, and to describe and to criticize the recent treatment of the duty and causation issues in tort litigation by the Texas Supreme Court. The court has not acknowledged that the standards of evidentiary review applied to jury findings have been changed and one prominent scholar has concluded otherwise, but an examination of the court's recent jurisprudence reveals that significant changes have been made in the application of the no-evidence standard of review traditionally applied by Texas courts in assessing the probative value of evidence to support jury findings. During roughly the same ten-year period, the Texas Supreme Court has otherwise modified the respective roles of judges, juries, and reviewing courts in Texas by revising its treatment of the duty and causation issues in tort cases. These companion developments have shifted the locus of the decision-making process away from juries and ultimately toward the appellate courts. Both the methods for deciding the duty and causation issues in civil litigation and the standards of review applied by reviewing courts to jury verdicts are of fundamental importance to the operation of the litigation process because these subjects control the division of adjudicative power among trial judges, juries, and reviewing courts. This paper explores and explains these important matters.
Browning in Processed Foods

Browning reaction causes a qualitative change of processed foods not only in color but also in taste, flavor, nutritive value etc. Therefore it is important to control the browning reaction in food processing. Control of browning reaction in several processed foods during processing and storage is discussed. They are as follows. (1) Repression of browning by decreasing of participating substances in amino carbonyl reactions. (2) Calculation of integrated browning degree by use of Arrhenius' equation and control of browning at the thermal process by the calculated browning degree. (3) Effect of temperature, oxygen and moisture on browning during storage.
Gender Moderation of the Intergenerational Transmission and Stability of Depressive Symptoms from Early Adolescence to Early Adulthood

Factors that might exacerbate or mitigate the transmission of depressive symptoms from parents to adolescents and the continuity of depressive symptoms into early adulthood are poorly understood. This study tested the hypothesis that the intergenerational transmission and stability of depressive symptoms would be stronger for girls than boys over adolescence and into early adulthood, while considering the possibility that the pattern of gender moderation might vary depending on parent gender and developmental timing. The participants were 667 rural Midwestern adolescents (52 % female) and their parents. Survey data on maternal and paternal depressive symptoms (at youth age 11) and on adolescent and young adult depressive symptoms (at youth ages 11, 18, and 21) were analyzed via multiple group structural equation modeling. Maternal depressive symptoms predicted increased late adolescent depressive symptoms for girls but not boys, and adolescent depressive symptoms were more stable in girls. Paternal depressive symptoms predicted increased late adolescent depressive symptoms for all youth. The findings suggest the need for early, tailored interventions.
An Evolutionary Analysis of Flightin Reveals a Conserved Motif Unique and Widespread in Pancrustacea

Flightin is a thick filament protein that in Drosophila melanogaster is uniquely expressed in the asynchronous, indirect flight muscles (IFM). Flightin is required for the structure and function of the IFM and is indispensable for flight in Drosophila. Given the importance of flight acquisition in the evolutionary history of insects, here we study the phylogeny and distribution of flightin. Flightin was identified in 69 species of hexapods in classes Collembola (springtails), Protura, Diplura, and insect orders Thysanura (silverfish), Dictyoptera (roaches), Orthoptera (grasshoppers), Pthiraptera (lice), Hemiptera (true bugs), Coleoptera (beetles), Neuroptera (green lacewing), Hymenoptera (bees, ants, and wasps), Lepidoptera (moths), and Diptera (flies and mosquitoes). Flightin was also found in 14 species of crustaceans in orders Anostraca (water flea), Cladocera (brine shrimp), Isopoda (pill bugs), Amphipoda (scuds, sideswimmers), and Decapoda (lobsters, crabs, and shrimps). Flightin was not identified in representatives of chelicerates, myriapods, or any species outside Pancrustacea (Tetraconata, sensu Dohle). Alignment of amino acid sequences revealed a conserved region of 52 amino acids, referred herein as WYR, that is bound by strictly conserved tryptophan (W) and arginine (R) and an intervening sequence with a high content of tyrosines (Y). This motif has no homologs in GenBank or PROSITE and is unique to flightin and paraflightin, a putative flightin paralog identified in decapods. A third motif of unclear affinities to pancrustacean WYR was observed in chelicerates. Phylogenetic analysis of amino acid sequences of the conserved motif suggests that paraflightin originated before the divergence of amphipods, isopods, and decapods. We conclude that flightin originated de novo in the ancestor of Pancrustacea > 500 MYA, well before the divergence of insects (~400 MYA) and the origin of flight (~325 MYA), and that its IFM-specific function in Drosophila is a more recent adaptation. Furthermore, we propose that WYR represents a novel myosin coiled-coil binding motif.
Zero Leverage and The Value in Waiting to Issue Debt

This article documents that the real option to have debt motivates some firms to remain debt-free, even when standard trade-off theory predicts that these firms should have leverage. The real option has a first-order effect similar to bankruptcy costs in addressing the zero-leverage puzzle, the observation that many firms seemingly forgo sizable debt benefits by remaining debt-free. The debt-free firms' value includes the option whose value is derived from future debt benefits and hedging bankruptcy costs. This article proposes an optimal timing model for having debt and finds support for the model's predictions through simulations and empirical analysis.
Measurement of factor VIII. A potential risk factor for vascular disease.

Factor VIII is a critical component of the coagulation system that is necessary for activation of factor X by factor IXa. Decreased levels of factor VIII are known to be associated with an increased risk of bleeding. It has been suggested that increased levels of factor VIII may be associated with thrombosis and atherosclerosis. Review of published studies indicates that the relationship between an increase in the level of factor VIII and atherosclerosis remains unclear at this time. While there is evidence that patients with atherosclerosis may have an increased level of factor VIII, it is unclear if this is a primary or secondary event and whether such an increase is predictive of clinical outcome
Posttraumatic growth and benefit-finding in lung cancer survivors: The benefit of rural residence?:

Rural cancer survivors report more distress than non-rural survivors. Little research has examined whether rural residence might also be linked to positive psychological outcomes. Rural (n = 117) a...
Shear Wave Velocity and Its Anisotropy of Polymer Modified High-Volume Class-F Fly Ash–Kaolinite Mixtures

AbstractThis study investigated the effects of polymers on the small-strain stiffness behavior of high volume Class-F fly ash–kaolinite mixtures. The shear wave velocity (Vs) and its anisotropy of organically modified fly ash–kaolinite mixtures were evaluated using a self-developed floating wall type consolidometer bender element (BE) testing system. Both synthetic polymers [polyethylene oxide (PEO)] and biopolymers (xanthan gum and chitosan) were used to modify the stiffness of fly ash–kaolinite mixtures. Shear waves generated and received by bender elements were measured to quantify the small-strain stiffness of the organically modified fly ash–kaolinite mixtures in three orthogonal directions, i.e., vh, hv, and hh. The results suggested that (1) as the fly ash content increased, Vs increased, while the Vs anisotropy, in terms of shear wave velocity ratio Vs−hh/Vs−vh, decreased; (2) a threshold fly ash content concept, which corresponds to the onset of continuous contact chains between fly ash particles...
Patient Perspectives on Deep Brain Stimulation Clinical Research in Early Stage Parkinson’s Disease

The FDA has approved a multicenter, double-blind, Phase III, pivotal trial testing deep brain stimulation (DBS) in 280 people with very early stage Parkinson's disease (PD; IDE#G050016). In partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, we conducted a survey to investigate motivating factors, barriers, and gender differences among potentially eligible patients for participation in a trial testing DBS in early PD compared to standard medical treatment. The majority of survey respondents (72%) indicated they would consider learning more about participating. Early PD patients are therefore likely to consider enrolling in trials of invasive therapies that may slow symptom progression and help future patients.
Parallel functional arrays

The goal of this paper is to develop a form of functional arrays (sequences) that are as efficient as imperative arrays, can be used in parallel, and have well defined cost-semantics. The key idea is to consider sequences with functional value semantics but non-functional cost semantics. Because the value semantics is functional, "updating" a sequence returns a new sequence. We allow operations on "older" sequences (called interior sequences) to be more expensive than operations on the "most recent" sequences (called leaf sequences). We embed sequences in a language supporting fork-join parallelism. Due to the parallelism, operations can be interleaved non-deterministically, and, in conjunction with the different cost for interior and leaf sequences, this can lead to non-deterministic costs for a program. Consequently the costs of programs can be difficult to analyze. The main result is the derivation of a deterministic cost dynamics which makes analyzing the costs easier. The theorems are not specific to sequences and can be applied to other data types with different costs for operating on interior and leaf versions. We present a wait-free concurrent implementation of sequences that requires constant work for accessing and updating leaf sequences, and logarithmic work for accessing and linear work for updating interior sequences. We sketch a proof of correctness for the sequence implementation. The key advantages of the present approach compared to current approaches is that our implementation requires no changes to existing programming languages, supports nested parallelism, and has well defined cost semantics. At the same time, it allows for functional implementations of algorithms such as depth-first search with the same asymptotic complexity as imperative implementations.
THE FERROMAGNETIC AND ANTIFERROMAGNETIC KINEMATIC INTERACTIONS AT LOW TEMPERATURE

A new method is developed to treat the ferromagnetic and the antiferromagnetic kinematic interactions. All the kinematic interactions can be represented by means of every order correlation functions. It is shown that the ferromagnetic system (s=1/2) does not involve the T 3 -term at low temperature. For the antiferromagnetic system, we find that the kinematic interaction is large than the dynamic interaction even at low temperature. Our theory is good for all spin values s as well.
Spatial pattern of soil organic carbon acquired from hyperspectral imagery at reynolds creek critical zone observatory (RC-CZO)

Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) is a key soil property and is important for understanding carbon storage and soil-vegetation dynamics. Hyperspectral imagery (imaging spectroscopy) providing detailed spectral signatures of vegetation and soil make it possible to continuously map SOC content over a watershed scale. In this paper, the Next Generation Airborne Visible / Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVTPJSng) was used with an unmixing algorithm, the Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis, to differentiate fractional cover of healthy vegetation, stressed vegetation and soil at the Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory (PC-CZO). The fractional cover information was used to remove noisy spectra and the resulting residual spectra were used to predict SOC by Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSP). The results showed that the root mean standard error and mean bias of the predicted SOC (%) are 0.75 and 2.4, respectively. We found the best relationship between SOC and spectra after filtering out the influence of green vegetation from mixed spectra. The resulting residual, spectra comprised of stressed vegetation and soil, contained enough information for mapping SOC distribution within the shrub dominated regions of the watershed. This may provide a method to better understand the interaction of soil and vegetation in semiarid ecosystems.
Use of Photoaffinity Labels as P2-Purinoceptor Antagonists

In recent years there has been considerable interest in the possible role of adenine nucleotides, such as ATP, as neuromodulators (Su, 1977; De Mey et al., 1979; Katsuragi and Su, 1982), neurotransmitters (Burnstock et al., 1970; Burnstock, 1979), or cotransmitters (Westfall et al., 1978; Fedan et al, 1981; Sneddon et al., 1982a). The chief impediment to accepting the notion that adenine nucleotides act as neuromodulators or neurotransmitters has been the unavailability of a specific pharmacological antagonist of responses to ATP (see, for example, Campbell and Gibbons, 1979). Although a number of compounds have been investigated in this regard, including 2-2′-pyridylisatogen, 2-2′-methoxyphenylisatogen, quinidine, apamin, and 2-substituted imidazolines, the antagonism afforded by these drugs in several autonomic nerve-smooth muscle preparations is nonspecific; i.e., in concentrations sufficient to antagonize responses to ATP, the responses to other agonists are also reduced (Weetman and Turner, 1977; Burnstock, 1979, 1983).
Assessing youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services: a systematic review.

Over the last quarter century, there has been an emergence of evidence-based research directed toward the development, implementation, and assessment of youth-friendly health services (YFHS) to improve the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services for young people. Despite these research efforts, evidence supporting the effectiveness of YFHS is limited, which may be attributed to a lack of consensus on how to define and measure youth-friendliness to track progress and evaluate outcomes. The purpose of this systematic review is to assess how youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services are measured worldwide. We conducted a systematic review of studies measuring youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services at health facilities published between January 2000 and June 2015 using PubMed, Web of Science, and POPLINE databases. Additional studies were identified by reviewing references of selected articles. Studies were screened to identify measurements and indicators that have been used to measure YFHS. Our review identified 20 studies from an initial search of more than 11,000 records, including six from high-income countries and 14 from low-and middle-income countries. The review identified 115 indicators used for measuring youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services. Our review found a lack of consistency in the tools and indicators used to measure YFHS. The three most frequently assessed domains were accessibility, staff characteristics and competency, and confidentiality and privacy. The majority of the indicators were not specific to young people’s needs and often reflected basic standards of care. This review shows the need for standardization and prioritization of indicators for the evaluation of YFHS. The results can be used to identify a core set of indicators that can be incorporated into a framework for assessing youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services. There is a need to further distinguish between those variables that may have greatest impact on the use of services by young people, such as respect and privacy, those that impact the quality of services offered, and those that have limited relevance. Conducting more rigorous studies using a refined set of indicators is critical to measure and compare the impact and effectiveness of YFHS efforts.
The malting and brewing quality of crosses of barley anthocyanogen-free mutants.

The malting and brewing quality of anthocyanogen-free mutants and segregates from crosses of barley were studied. The samples were brewed by a double mashing procedure using the hop variety Cascade...
Health and economic benefits of single-dose HPV vaccination in a Gavi-eligible country

Abstract Background Although guidelines for prophylactic human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination recommend two doses for girls ages 9–14 years, several studies have demonstrated similar protection with one dose. Our objective was to evaluate the long-term health and economic impacts of routine one-dose HPV vaccination compared to (1) no vaccination and (2) two-dose HPV vaccination in a low-income country. Methods We used a three-tiered hybrid modeling approach that captured HPV transmission, cervical carcinogenesis, and population demographics to project long-term health and economic outcomes associated with one-dose HPV vaccination (assuming 80% efficacy against HPV-16/18 infections under three waning scenarios) and two-dose HPV vaccination (assuming 100% efficacy over the lifetime) in Uganda. Costs included the vaccine program (dosage and delivery) costs over a 10-year period and cervical cancer costs over the lifetimes of the current population of Ugandan women. Health outcomes included number of cervical cancer cases and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (i.e., cost per DALY averted) were calculated and compared against the Ugandan per-capita gross domestic product. Results Routine one-dose HPV vaccination of 9-year-old girls required substantial upfront investment but was cost-saving compared to no vaccination when accounting for the cost-offsets from future cancers averted. Forty years after initiating routine vaccination and depending on assumptions of vaccine waning, one-dose HPV vaccination with equivalent coverage (70%) averted 15–16% of cervical cancer cases versus 21% with two-dose vaccination but required only half the upfront economic investment. Vaccination with two doses had an attractive cost-effectiveness profile except if one-dose vaccination enabled higher coverage (90% vs. 70%) and did not wane. Conclusions One-dose HPV vaccination resulted in cost-savings compared to no vaccination and could be cost-effective compared to two-dose vaccination if protection is longstanding and higher coverage can be achieved.
Ontogeny of Thyroid Hormone-Processing Systems in Rat Brain

Recent morphologic, biochemical and functional evidence supports a direct role for thyroid hormones in adult brain (1–4). Nevertheless, the concept that adult brain is unresponsive to thyroid hormones continues, at least in some quarters, to prevail. By contrast, a role for the hormone during brain development has, for some time, been assumed, even though observations suggesting a cause and effect relationship between triiodothyronine (T3) in the developing brain and a T3-dependent response have been presented only recently. Evidence that T3 nuclear receptors are homologous to the products of the C-erb A protooncogene family provides a compelling rationale for involvement of these receptors in early events associated with blast cell replication and specification. This rationale is now coupled with evidence that a high degree of T3 nuclear receptor occupancy coincides in time with the period of active neurogenesis in the fetal lamb (5). However, there is as yet no demonstrated link between T3 nuclear receptor complex formation and the somewhat later effects of the hormone on growth of nerve cell processes, synaptogenesis and myelin formation, and, as yet, no evidence for participation of the T3 nuclear receptor in adult brain activities.
The Self-Consistent Field Method for Crystals

In a self-consistent-field calculation,1 we start with assumed spin-orbitals ui, which can correspond either to spin up or spin down. We let the occupation number of the ith spin-orbital be ni, which would be unity for occupied spin-orbitals, zero for empty ones, in a Hartree-Fock scheme, but which in certain cases can be considered to be continuously variable between zero and unity. The charge density of spin up and spin down can be defined as $$\rho = \rho \uparrow + \rho \downarrow = \Sigma\left( {i \uparrow } \right){n_i}{u_i}*{u_i} + \Sigma \left( {i \downarrow } \right){n_i}{u_i}*{u_i}$$ (1) where Σ(i↑) indicates that we are summing only over the spin- orbitals with spin up, and similarly for Σ(i↓).
The influence of combined kidney-pancreas transplantation on the progression of diabetic retinopathy. A case series.

Purpose: To evaluate the impact of combined kidney and pancreas transplantation on the progression of advanced diabetic retinopathy. Methods: The changes in diabetic retinopathy severity in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus who had kidney-pancreas transplantation (n = 51) and in those who had kidney transplantation only (n = 21) were compared. Patients were invited to baseline and 1 year follow-up examinations. Fundus photographs were graded in a masked fashion using standardized protocols. Results: The mean age and duration of diabetes were similar for both groups. After combined transplantation, none of the patients used insulin, and their mean glycosylated hemoglobin was significantly lower (6.4% versus 10.6%) than those who underwent only kidney transplantation. There was a nonsignificant difference in overall progression of retinopathy for combined transplantation compared with kidney transplantation only (risk ratio=0.73; 95% confidence interval, 0.31,1.71). Conclusion: The authors found no evidence that the normalization of glycemia associated with a combined kidney-pancreas transplantation in patients with advanced proliferative diabetic retinopathy (mostly treated with photocoagulation) accelerated retinopathy progression. These data suggest that the normalization of glycemia associated with a combined kidney-pancreas transplantation does not have beneficial influence on the progression of advanced diabetic retinopathy.
Choosing Charters: Who Leaves Public School as an Alternative Sector Expands?

In recent years, the number of charter schools in Florida has doubled. We examine five years of data on students moving into these schools from the traditional public sector. We consider student attributes and the school and district contexts that they are leaving. The better students are performing relative to their peers, the less likely they are to move into a charter. There are higher rates of minority students in the charter sector, and Hispanics appear especially likely to transfer. On the other hand, special-needs students are less likely to be in charters. White students are more likely to enter a charter school with more white students than minority students who are more likely to move into charters with more minority students. These findings suggest that charter schools do not “cream skim” the best students away from the traditional sector, although there is evidence that charters do not provide an educational home for all.
Vision of Perfect Observation Capabilities

This chapter deals with the terms of discovery, orbit determination and characterization of NEOs and other Solar System objects. It discusses challenging problems related to orbit accuracy, accessibility and abundance of small NEOs, advantages and disadvantages of space-based and ground-based telescopes, and future perspectives of ideal Solar System observations. It covers what data is available, the fraction of discovered asteroids that have derived physical properties, and the expected increase in discoveries in the next decade.
Usefulness of Curcumin Analogs for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Alzheimer Disease

Abstract Curcumin, a yellow hydrophobic polyphenolic compound with antioxidant, antiinflammatory, and anticancer properties, is found in the spice turmeric. Curcumin can be delivered to the body tissues through oral, nasal, intraperitoneal, and intravenous injections. Curcumin is remarkably well tolerated by the body, but its bioavailability in the body tissues is very low. There are three major reasons for the low bioavailability: (1) its poor absorption, (2) its rapid metabolism, and (3) its rapid systemic elimination. The bioavailability of curcumin can be enhanced by using adjuvant (piperine), structural analogs, chemical complexation agents, liposomes, and nanoparticles. These approaches have not only resulted in longer circulation and increase in the cellular permeability but also resistance against metabolic processing leading to efficient delivery to tissues and higher half-life in the circulation. Usefulness of curcumin analogs for the treatment of neurological disorders will be discussed.
Measuring Neoliberalism: Development and Initial Validation of a Scale of Anti-Neoliberal Attitudes

Critics of neoliberalism argue that so-called meritocratic and identity-neutral social policies and political positions actually reinforce and exacerbate intersecting inequalities, namely racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and ethnocentrism/xenophobia. The purpose of these studies was to develop and initially validate a scale of neoliberal attitudes from a wide range of existing instruments that reflect anti-neoliberal theory. A series of three studies resulted in a 25-item instrument—the Anti-Neoliberal Attitudes Scale (ANAS)—that exhibits initial evidence of construct validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability. Exploratory factor analysis with students from two universities revealed a four-factor structure of Racism and Sexism Awareness, Communitarian Values, Multicultural Ideology, and Inequality Consciousness. However, a confirmatory factor analysis with an independent sample of undergraduate students suggests a bifactor model in which the general factor explains most of the variance and that the instrument should be treated as a single scale, rather than independent subscales. Significant correlations with measures of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation suggest convergent validity. Temporal stability was established via a test–retest analysis in an independent sample of undergraduate students. Finally, responses from a sample of MTurk workers provided evidence of the ANAS’s incremental validity when compared to an existing measure of neoliberal beliefs. Implications for future empirical work on the psychological dimensions of neoliberalism are discussed.
Indirect Effects of Social Support on Psychological Health Through Self-Esteem in Emerging Adulthood:

Social constructivist theory suggests that social support affects internalizing and externalizing problems by improving self-esteem. The differential impact of these variables has not been fully ex...
Theoretical Analyses of (n,xn) Reactions on 235U, 238U, 237Np and 239Pu for ENDF/B-VI

Theoretical analyses were performed of neutron-induced reactions on 235U, 238U, 237Np, and 239Pu between 0.01 and 20 MeV in order to calculate neutron emission cross sections and spectra for ENDF/B-VI evaluations. Coupled-channel optical model potentials were obtained for each target nucleus by fitting total, elastic, and inelastic scattering cross section data, as well as low-energy average resonance data. The resulting deformed optical model potentials were used to calculate direct (n,n’) cross sections and transmission coefficients for use in Hauser-Feshbach statistical theory analyses. A fission model with multiple barrier representation, width fluctuation corrections, and preequilibrium corrections were included in the analyses. Direct cross sections for higher-lying vibrational states were calculated using DWBA theory, normalized using B(El) values determined from (d,d’) and Coulomb excitation data, where available, and from systematics otherwise. Initial fission barrier parameters and transition state density enhancements appropriate to the compound systems involved were obtained from previous analyses, especially fits to charged-particle fission probability data. The parameters for the fission model were adjusted for each target system to obtain optimum agreement with direct (n,f) cross section measurements, taking account of the various multichance fission channels, that is, the different compound systems involved. The results from these analyses were used to calculate most of the neutron (n,n), (n,n’), and (n,xn) cross section data in the ENDF/B/VI evaluations for the above nuclei, and all of the energy-angle correlated spectra. The deformed optical model and fission model parameterizations are described. Comparisons are given between the results of these analyses and the previous ENDF/B-V evaluations as well as with the available experimental data.
Mapping XANES spectra on structural descriptors of copper oxide clusters using supervised machine learning

Understanding the origins of enhanced reactivity of supported, subnanometer in size, metal oxide clusters is challenging due to the scarcity of methods capable to extract atomic-level information from the experimental data. Due to both the sensitivity of X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy to the local geometry around metal ions and reliability of theoretical spectroscopy codes for modeling XANES spectra, supervised machine learning approach has become a powerful tool for extracting structural information from the experimental spectra. Here, we present the application of this method to grazing incidence XANES spectra of size-selective Cu oxide clusters on flat support, measured in operando conditions of the methanation reaction. We demonstrate that the convolution neural network can be trained on theoretical spectra and utilized to "invert" experimental XANES data to obtain structural descriptors-the Cu-Cu coordination numbers. As a result, we were able to distinguish between different structural motifs (Cu2O-like and CuO-like) of Cu oxide clusters, transforming in reaction conditions, and reliably evaluate average cluster sizes, with important implications for the understanding of structure, composition, and function relationships in catalysis.
Bulk and position-specific isotope geochemistry of natural gases from the Late Cretaceous Eagle Ford Shale, south Texas

Abstract A dataset of bulk and position-specific isotope compositions of shale gases from the Late Cretaceous Eagle Ford Shale, south Texas is reported. The chemical and bulk isotopic compositions of the seven samples in this study and those available from the literature show that across the play, produced natural gas from the Eagle Ford Shale preserves a wide range of gas compositions (wetness, ~5 to >90%) and δ13C values of C1–C3. The depth profiles of the isotopic compositions suggest that the western region of the Eagle Ford Shale deposit had experienced as much as 700–800 m of uplift-erosion or gas migration. The timing of and lost-gas fractions by gas expulsion events very likely affected their gas compositions and bulk isotope compositions. Some deep (>3000–3500 m), matured (%Ro > 1.5) gases with heavy δ13C(C1–C3) values indicate significant loss (>50%) of the early-stage gases. For the position-specific isotope deviations of propane, the ΔC2-1 values of the five samples show small decrease with well depths, while the ΔH2-1 values have a general increasing trend. Although some samples fall very close to the equilibrium model trajectories with reasonable calculated temperatures (138–148 °C), the position-specific isotope compositions of propane from the Eagle Ford Shale gases are likely results of thermal cracking of various organic molecules within the source rocks, which have different activation energy for cracking and non-statistical distributions of C/H isotope within them.
Synergistic use of SMAP and OCO-2 data in assessing the responses of ecosystem productivity to the 2018 U.S. drought

Abstract Soil moisture and gross primary productivity (GPP) estimates from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) provide new opportunities for understanding the relationship between soil moisture and terrestrial photosynthesis over large regions. Here we explored the potential of the synergistic use of SMAP and OCO-2 based data for monitoring the responses of ecosystem productivity to drought. We used complementary observational information on root-zone soil moisture and GPP (9 km) from SMAP and fine-resolution SIF (0.05°; GOSIF) derived from OCO-2 SIF soundings. We compared the spatial pattern and temporal evolution of anomalies of these variables over the conterminous U.S. during the 2018 drought, and examined to what extent they could characterize the drought-induced variations of flux tower GPP and crop yield data. Our results showed that SMAP GPP and GOSIF, both freely available online, could well capture the spatial extent and dynamics of the impacts of drought indicated by the U.S. Drought Monitor maps and the SMAP root-zone soil moisture deficit. Over the U.S. Southwest, monthly anomalies of soil moisture showed significant positive correlations with those of SMAP GPP (R2 = 0.44, p
mSphere Highlights Black In Microbiology Week

The inaugural Black In Microbiology Week (#BlackInMicro) is 28 September 2020 through 4 October 2020. Its mission is to "showcase the presence and accomplishments of Black microbiologists from around the globe, connect Black microbiologists with one another and foster a sense of community among them, and provide a forum for the discussion of racial disparities in microbiology and its subfields." Participation in this event will happen primarily over Twitter through the hashtag #BlackInMicro and over Zoom through registration on the website https://blackinmicrobiology.org/ An additional mission of Black In Microbiology Week is to amplify black scientists. Today, mSphere does this by presenting two mSphere of Influence commentaries from Black In Microbiology co-lead organizers Ariangela J. Kozik ("mSphere of Influence: frameshift-a vision for human microbiome research" [mSphere 5:e00944-20, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00944-20]) and Kishana Taylor ("mSphere of Influence: that's racist-COVID-19, biological determinism, and the limits of hypotheses" [mSphere 5:e00945-20, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00945-20]).
Nicaragua as a Sobering Illustration

Nicaragua is a country that has lost its way politically. The Revolution awakened hope and led to a mobilization of resources to address pressing problems. A daunting array of problems overwhelmed the Revolution. When the Sandinistas were voted out of power in open, competitive elections, new governors professed alternative strategies but were consumed by in-fighting and distracting by lining their pockets with ill-gotten gains. A Sandinista comandante returned to the presidency, but in time revealed that he, too, was an opportunist, and the country began to take on an eerie resemblance to the former Somoza regime. Nicaragua contemporary history is that of a dispirited circle of politics, illustrating a bankruptcy of political—and moral—leadership that is all too common today in the poorer countries of the world.
230. Analyse intraoperativer Fehlbeurteilungen der Resektionsränder beim Magencarcinom

814 Patienten wurden nach der AJCC-R-Klassifikation als RO klassifiziert. In 109 (13,3%) Fallen ergab die definitive histologische Untersuchung Tumor im Resektionsrand. Die Haufigkeit befallener Resektionsrander korrelierte mit der Tumorlokalisation und stieg an beim Kardiacarcinom, bei Tumorbefall des Gesamtmagens und auch beim Tumortyp III und IV nach Borrmann. Die proximale Resektion hatte die schlechtesten Ergebnisse. Zunehmende Tumorentdifferenzierung und ungenugender Abstand zwischen Tumor und Resektionsrand steigerten die Residualtumorrate. Deshalb sind bei grossen, proximal lokalisierten, undifferenzierten Carcinomen Schnellschnittuntersuchungen empfehlenswert.
Dividends and financial health: Evidence from U.S. bank holding companies

Abstract Using a large sample of U.S. bank holding companies from 1986 to 2020, we show that there is a positive relationship between banks' dividends lagged by one quarter and their financial health in the current quarter. We also find that this positive relationship is more pronounced for banks with lower capital adequacy and during the 2007–2009 financial crisis, indicating that it is more necessary for banks with these characteristics to use dividends to convey information regarding their financial health. Our additional analyses suggest that total payout is also positively associated with bank financial health, and that the positive relationship between dividends and financial health applies to private banks as well, but that the magnitude is weaker for them than for public banks. Our overall findings primarily complement a risk reduction hypothesis in corporate finance and bank payout policies.
Deep AI Enabled Ubiquitous Wireless Sensing: A Survey

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), many kinds of wireless signals (e.g., Wi-Fi, LoRa, RFID) are filling our living and working spaces nowadays. Beyond communication, wireless signals can sense the status of surrounding objects, known as wireless sensing, with their reflection, scattering, and refraction while propagating in space. In the last decade, many sophisticated wireless sensing techniques and systems were widely studied for various applications (e.g., gesture recognition, localization, and object imaging). Recently, deep Artificial Intelligence (AI), also known as Deep Learning (DL), has shown great success in computer vision. And some works have initially proved that deep AI can benefit wireless sensing as well, leading to a brand-new step toward ubiquitous sensing. In this survey, we focus on the evolution of wireless sensing enhanced by deep AI techniques. We first present a general workflow of Wireless Sensing Systems (WSSs) which consists of signal pre-processing, high-level feature, and sensing model formulation. For each module, existing deep AI-based techniques are summarized, further compared with traditional approaches. Then, we provide a view of issues and challenges induced by combining deep AI and wireless sensing together. Finally, we discuss the future trends of deep AI to enable ubiquitous wireless sensing.
Genitourinary Reconstructive Surgery Curriculum and Postgraduate Training Program Development in the Caribbean

Objectives: To describe the development of a genitourinary reconstructive fellowship curriculum and the establishment of the first genitourinary reconstructive and pelvic floor postgraduate training program in the Caribbean. Methods: In an effort to respond to the need for specialty-trained reconstructive urologists in the Dominican Republic, we developed an18-month fellowship program to train local surgeons. The process began with creation of a curriculum and partnership with in-country physicians, societies, hospitals, and government officials. We sought accreditation via a well-established local university, and fellowship candidates were selected. A database was maintained to track outcomes. Subjective and objective reviews were performed of the fellows. Results: The first fellow graduated in 2018, the second in 2020, and the third is currently in training. The curriculum was created and implemented. The fellowship has been successfully integrated into the health system, and the fellows performed 199 and 235 cases, respectively, during the program, completing all rotations successfully. They have been appointed to the national health system. Both graduates are now docents in the program and in the public system. Additional staff including radiologists, radiology technicians, nurses, urology residents (both Dominican and American), urology attendings, operating room staff, and anesthesia residents were trained as a result of the program. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first fellowship of its kind in the Caribbean. A novel curriculum was created and implemented, and the first 2 fellows have successfully completed all rotations. This training model may be transferable to additional sites.
Does Daily Self-Weighing Contribute to Postpartum Weight Loss? A Secondary Analysis of Daily Postpartum Weights among Women with Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy.

Objective This study was aimed to examine the impact of daily self-weighing via remote monitoring on postpartum weight loss. Study Design This was a secondary analysis of a nonrandomized controlled trial comprised of postpartum women with diagnosed hypertensive-related disorders in pregnancy who received a tablet device linked to Bluetooth-enabled equipment including a scale and blood pressure cuff. In addition to blood pressure monitoring, participants were instructed to perform daily self-weighing. The primary outcome of this study was to determine whether postpartum women who performed daily self-weighing lost more weight than those who did not, with a 42-day endpoint based on a 6-week postpartum visit weight. Results Overall, 214 women participated in this program and 214 received usual care. Median weight loss for women participating in the remote blood pressure monitoring system was 23.0 (interquartile range [IQR]: 17–30) pounds versus 23.0 (IQR: 17–29) pounds among controls. Weight loss did not vary by prepregnancy obesity (median: 20 pounds [IQR: 17–28 pounds] for nonobese and 23 [IQR: 17–30] pounds for women with obesity, p = 0.16). Women who weighed themselves more than half of follow-up days lost a median of 24 pounds (IQR: 17–30 pounds) compared with 20.5 pounds (IQR: 14–29 pounds), p = 0.06. Women who weighed themselves more than half of follow-up days lost a mean of 11.4% (standard deviation [SD] = 0.41%) of body weight compared with 9.1% (SD = 0.74%; p = 0.01). The amount of weight loss in the telehealth group was correlated with the number of daily weights performed (Pearson's correlation coefficient 0.164, p = 0.025). Postpartum weight loss for daily self-weighing participants was most notable in the first 2 weeks with ongoing weight loss up to the 42-day (6-week) endpoint of this secondary analysis. Conclusion Daily self-weighing alone may be insufficient to promote postpartum weight loss. However, there was a slight trend toward more weight loss with more frequent weighing. Key Points
Identification of Potential Freight Parking Locations in Urban Areas

Truck parking is a crucial element of the United States’ transportation system as it provides truckers with safe places to rest and stage for deliveries. Demand for truck parking spaces exceeds sup...
New perspectives on the epidemiology of bovine virus diarrhea - mucosal disease (BVD)

Based on what is currently known about BVD, the author recommends BVD vaccine as a regular part of the preventive medical program for cattle.
The Impact of Digitization on Print Book Sales: Analysis using Genre Exposure Heterogeneity

We study whether digitization, sparked by the launch of Amazon Kindle in late 2007, led to a reduction in print book sales. To estimate the impact, we exploit the quasi-experimental variation in the popularity of digital books across different genres or sub-genres such as fiction, non-fiction, juvenile, or religion. We employ a difference-in-differences identification strategy and use print sales data on almost the entire population of book titles published in the United States between 2004-15 across a variety of genres. We find that, on average, digitization decreased print sales of adult fiction books (the most popular genre in the e-book format) by about 30%. We also find that the effect is higher after the launch of the iPad, and stronger for the paperback version and low-selling books.
Total synthesis of colloidal matter

Atoms serve as an inspiration for colloidal self-assembly, whereby building blocks can combine and confer endless functionality using a few design principles, including directionality, valence and reversible binding. Tetrahedral structures inspired by the bonding of carbon atoms have long been targeted as candidates for metamaterials and are now becoming accessible through molecular mimetic colloidal building blocks. Beyond carbon mimics, increasingly complex particles are being synthesized that can be arranged in their own periodic table and used to generate forms of matter unique to colloidal systems. This Review presents a framework to describe the synthesis of these micrometre-scale colloids, in which the fundamental constituents are either combined through interparticle reactions or transformed through intraparticle reactions, in analogy to molecules in traditional synthetic chemistry. We build on this framework to illustrate how unique particle shape and surface chemistry leads to diverse assembly routes for these colloidal building blocks. Myriad complex colloidal particles have been engineered to investigate the growth of microscopic architectures from the bottom up. This Review provides a framework for the synthesis of such particles using an analogy to traditional total synthesis, describing how elementary particles are combined and transformed into new forms of colloidal matter.
Understanding degradation pathways in halide perovskite solar cells through operando x-ray scattering

In this talk, we present our methodology for both in-situ and operando X-ray characterization of full PSC device stacks. These methods were developed, in collaboration with researchers at SLAC and NREL, initially to study the device properties of MAPbI3 as a function of temperature. Since then, these methods have been applied to understand the phase stability of mixed A-site PSCs of the form XPbI3 where X = FA, Cs, and/or MA. More recently we have explored tin−lead PSCs devices, to better understand diminished device performance upon thermal treatment. This work showed a stable bulk structure of the perovskite absorber, suggesting that the degradation mechanism is dominated by the surface chemistry. This talk will provide a summary of the operando methods developed as well as a report on these past and more recent results.
What Do Nonprofits Value in Their Volunteers

This article investigates the idea that different nonprofit organizations, including human service organizations, value volunteers in different ways. We identify three benefits: financial, programm...
Strategies for Practical Expressway Control

A practical approach to the problem of expressway control is described. The method deals specifically with the first level control of individual bottlenecks. A simple risk function, based on easily measured traffic variables, is used as the control parameter. The control handles the dynamic fluctuations in traffic flow observed in the typical traffic stream and allows for varied operating conditions. It includes provision for traffic incidents. The method is compared to the other approaches to expressway control which are briefly reviewed. The issue of overall system control for a corridor is described but the control method does not attack this directly.