cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Lag-One Coherence as a Metric for Ultrasonic Image Quality

Reliable assessment of image quality is an important but challenging task in complex imaging environments such as those encountered in vivo . To address this challenge, we propose a novel imaging metric, known as the lag-one coherence (LOC), which leverages the spatial coherence between nearest-neighbor array elements to provide a local measure of thermal and acoustic noise. In this paper, we derive the theory that relates LOC and the conventional image quality metrics of contrast and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) to channel noise. Simulation and phantom studies are performed to validate this theory and compare the variability of LOC to that of conventional metrics. We further evaluate the performance of LOC using matched measurements of contrast, CNR, and temporal correlation from in vivo liver images formed with varying mechanical index (MI) to assess the feasibility of adaptive acoustic output selection using LOC feedback. Simulation and phantom results reveal a lower variability in LOC relative to contrast and CNR over a wide range of clinically relevant noise levels. This improved stability is supported by in vivo measurements of LOC which show an increased monotonicity with changes in MI compared to matched measurements of contrast and CNR (88.6% and 85.7% of acquisitions, respectively). The sensitivity of LOC to stationary acoustic noise is evidenced by positive correlations between LOC and contrast ( $r=0.74$ ) and LOC and CNR ( $r=0.66$ ) at high acoustic output levels in the absence of thermal noise. Results indicate that LOC provides repeatable characterization of patient-specific trends in image quality, demonstrating feasibility in the selection of acoustic output using LOC and its application for in vivo image quality assessment.
Animal production, insecticide use and self-reported symptoms and diagnoses of COPD, including chronic bronchitis, in the Agricultural Health Study.

Abstract Background Occupational exposure to animal production is associated with chronic bronchitis symptoms; however, few studies consider associations with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We estimated associations between animal production activities and prevalence of self-reported COPD among farmers in the Agricultural Health Study. Methods During a 2005–2010 interview, farmers self-reported information about: their operations (i.e., size, type, number of animals, insecticide use), respiratory symptoms, and COPD diagnoses (i.e., COPD, chronic bronchitis, emphysema). Operations were classified as small or medium/large based on regulatory definitions. Farmers were classified as having a COPD diagnosis, chronic bronchitis symptoms (cough and phlegm for ≥3 months during 2 consecutive years), or both. Polytomous logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results Of 22,491 participating farmers (median age: 59 years), 922 (4%) reported a COPD diagnosis only, 254 (1%) reported a diagnosis and symptoms, and 962 (4%) reported symptoms only. Compared to raising no commercial animals, raising animals on a medium/large operation was positively associated with chronic bronchitis symptoms with (OR: 1.59; 95% CI: 1.16, 2.18) and without a diagnosis (OR: 1.69; 95% CI: 1.42, 2.01). Ever use of multiple organophosphates, carbaryl, lindane, and permethrin were positively associated with chronic bronchitis symptoms. Conclusion Animal production work, including insecticide use, was positively associated with chronic bronchitis symptoms; but not consistently with COPD diagnosis alone. Our results support the need for further investigation into the role of animal production-related exposures in the etiology of COPD and better respiratory protection for agricultural workers.
iLOCuS: Incentivizing Vehicle Mobility to Optimize Sensing Distribution in Crowd Sensing

Vehicular crowd sensing systems are designed to achieve large spatio-temporal sensing coverage with low-cost in deployment and maintenance. For example, taxi platforms can be utilized for sensing city-wide air quality. However, the goals of vehicle agents are often inconsistent with the goal of the crowdsourcer. Vehicle agents like taxis prioritize searching for passenger ride requests (defined as task requests), which leads them to gather in busy regions. In contrast, sensing systems often need to sample data over the entire city with a desired distribution (e.g., Uniform distribution, Gaussian Mixture distribution, etc.) to ensure sufficient spatio-temporal information for further analysis. This inconsistency decreases the sensing coverage quality and thus impairs the quality of the collected information. A simple approach to reduce the inconsistency is to greedily incentivize the vehicle agents to different regions. However, incentivization brings challenges, including the heterogeneity of desired target distributions, limited budget to incentivize more vehicle agents, and the high computational complexity of optimizing incentivizing strategies. To this end, we present a vehicular crowd sensing system to efficiently incentivize the vehicle agents to match the sensing distribution of the sampled data to the desired target distribution with a limited budget. To make the system flexible to various desired target distributions, we formulate the incentivizing problem as a new type of non-linear multiple-choice knapsack problem, with the dissimilarity between the collected data distribution and the desired distribution as the objective function. To utilize the budget efficiently, we design a customized incentive by combining monetary incentives and potential task (ride) requests at the destination. Meanwhile, an efficient optimization algorithm, iLOCuS , is presented to plan the incentivizing policy for vehicle agents to decompose the sensing distribution into two distinct levels: time-location level and vehicle level, to approximate the optimal solution iteratively and reduce the dissimilarity objective. Our experimental results based on real-world data show that our system can reduce up to 26.99 percent of the dissimilarity between the sensed and target distributions compared to benchmark methods.
Multi-axis heterodyne interferometric for simultaneous observation of 5 degrees of freedom using a single beam

A multi-axis heterodyne interferometer concept is under development for observations of five degrees of dynamic freedom using a single illumination source. This paper presents a laboratory system that combines elements of heterodyne Doppler vibrometry, holography, and digital image correlation to simultaneously quantify in-plane translation, out-of-plane rotation, and out-of-plane displacement at the nanometer scale. The sensor concept observes a dynamic object by mixing a single optical field with heterodyne reference beams and collecting these combined fields at the image and Fourier planes, simultaneously. Polarization and frequency multiplexing are applied to separate two segments of a receive Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Different optical configurations are utilized; one segment produces a focused image of the optical field scattered off the object while the other segment produces an optical Fourier transform of the optical field scattered off the object. Utilizing the amplitude and phase from each plane allows quantification of multiple components of transient motion using a single, orthogonal beam.
Fibrous Dysplasia/McCune-Albright Syndrome: A Rare, Mosaic Disease of Gα s Activation.

Fibrous dysplasia/McCune-Albright syndrome (FD/MAS) is a rare disorder of striking complexity. It arises from somatic, gain-of-function mutations in GNAS, leading to mosaic Gα s activation and inappropriate production of intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). The clinical phenotype is largely determined by the location and extent of affected tissues, and the pathophysiological effects of Gα s activation within these tissues. In bone, Gα s activation results in impaired differentiation of skeletal stem cells, leading to discrete skeletal lesions prone to fracture, deformity, and pain. Extraskeletal manifestations include a variable combination of hyperpigmented macules and hyperfunctioning endocrinopathies. Distinctive age-related changes in disease development has key effects on histologic, radiographic, and clinical features. FD/MAS thus presents along a uniquely broad clinical spectrum, and the resulting challenges in diagnosis and management can be difficult for clinicians. This review presents FD/MAS in the context of a mosaic disorder of Gα s activation, providing an intellectual framework within which to understand, evaluate, and treat this interesting disease. It includes a comprehensive summary of current understanding of FD/MAS pathogenesis, and a detailed discussion of clinical presentation and management. Critical areas of unmet need are highlighted, including discussion of key challenges and potential solutions to advance research and clinical care in FD/MAS.
A New Approach Of Applying Deep Learning To Protein Model Quality Assessment

Computational protein structure prediction is an important problem in bioinformatics. In recent years, several deep learning methods have been developed for protein 3D model quality assessment (QA) and achieved promising results. In this paper, we propose a new approach of applying deep learning to the QA problem, called DeepPTQA: training one customized deep learning network for each target protein whose models are to be evaluated, i.e. the per-target training approach. For each target protein, a deep neural network is first trained using a labeled training set created based on templates of the target protein, and then applied to evaluate the quality of models of the target protein. We implemented this approach using new deep inception networks based on templates of the target protein. To predict the quality of a protein model, the deep networks use an extensive set of 1-D and 2-D features of the target protein and the target model, including predicted and real secondary structures, solvent accessibility, distance matrix, co-evolutionary information, to predict the model's true GDT-TS score, a widely used quality score in the range of [0, 1]. Experimental results using CASP targets show that DeepPTQA outperformed the best existing QA methods on the CASP Stage 2 QA task.
Haliotrematoides spp. (Monogenoidea: Dactylogyridae) Parasitizing the Gill Lamellae of Porgies, Calamus spp. (Perciformes: Sparidae), in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida, U.S.A., with the Description of Haliotrematoides bostryx n. sp. and Redescriptions of Haliotrematoides parvicirrus (Zhukov, 1983) a

Three species (1 new) of HaliotrematoidesKritsky, Yang, and Sun, 2009 (Dactylogyridae), are described from the gill lamellae of porgies, Calamus spp. (Perciformes: Sparidae), from the northern Gulf of Mexico off Florida: Haliotrematoides parvicirrus (Zhukov, 1983) Kritsky, Yang, and Sun, 2009, from littlehead porgy Calamus proridens Jordan and Gilbert and knobbed porgy Calamus nodosus Randall and Caldwell (both new host records); Haliotrematoides bostryx n. sp. from C. proridens (type host), C. nodosus, jolthead porgy Calamus bajonado (Bloch and Schneider), and grass porgy Calamus arctifrons Goode and Bean; and Haliotrematoides mediohamus (Zhukov, 1983) Kritsky, Yang, and Sun, 2009, from C. proridens, C. nodosus, and sheepshead porgy Calamus penna (Valenciennes) (all new host records). Locations from which H. parvicirrus and H. mediohamus were collected in the northern Gulf of Mexico represent new geographic records for these species.
Influence of Swell on Marine Surface-Layer Structure

AbstractThe influence of swell on turbulence and scalar profiles in a marine surface layer and underlying physics is examined in this study through diagnosis of large-eddy simulations (LES) that ex...
Are Playboy (and girl) Norms Behind the Relationship Problems Associated with Pornography Viewing in Men and Women

Research has indicated that pornography viewing is related to romantic relationship problems. However, the correlations across past studies have been small. We tested a model in which playboy norm ...
Fast Collision Detection for Motion Planning Using Shape Primitive Skeletons

In many robotics applications, the environment (robots and obstacles) often have very complex geometries. These result in expensive primitive computations such as collision detection which in turn, affect the overall performance of these applications. Approximating the geometry is a common approach to optimize computation. Unlike other applications of geometric approximation where it is applied to one space (usually obstacle space), we approximate both obstacle and free workspace with a set of geometric shape primitives that are completely contained within the space and represent its topology (skeleton). We use these “shape primitive skeletons” to improve collision detection performance in motion planning algorithms. Our results show that the use of shape primitive skeletons improves the performance of standard collision detection methods in motion planning problems by 20–70% in our 2D and 3D test environments regardless of motion planning strategy. We also show how the same shape primitive skeletons can be used with robots of different sizes to improve the performance of collision detection operation.
Abstract IA18: Molecular signatures of circulating tumor cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are shed from primary cancers, as well as from metastatic deposits, into the blood circulation, where they may travel either as single cells or as CTC clusters, facing both mechanical and oxidative stress. Only a small subset of CTCs remain sufficiently viable to initiate metastatic growth upon dissemination to distant organs; their detection in patients with localized invasive cancer may present an opportunity for early detection, while their analysis in advanced cases provides a “whole cell biomarker,” enabling single-cell DNA, RNA, and protein studies, as well as functional drug-sensitivity testing using cultured CTCs. We have applied microfluidic technologies to deplete normal hematopoietic cells from blood specimens of patients with cancer, enhancing the ability of unmanipulated CTCs to proliferate ex vivo and recapitulating features of metastatic-competent cancer cells. Cultured CTCs from patients with either breast cancer or melanoma are highly tumorigenic when injected orthotopically at low inoculum into immunosuppressed mice. However, they display sensitivity to ROS and appear to upregulate compensatory mechanisms that are not commonly observed in primary tumors. In addition, they may undergo prolonged dormancy when lodged within distant organs. By combining single-cell RNA seq of patient-derived CTCs together with CRISPR and other genome-wide screens for modulators of metastasis phenotypes, we have sought to identify novel vulnerabilities in these cellular initiators of metastasis. While CTCs transit only very briefly through the blood circulation, these exceptional conditions may present new therapeutic opportunities to suppress the metastatic recurrence of cancer. Citation Format: Daniel Haber, Xin Hong, Richard Ebright, Doug Micalizi, Aditya Bardia, Ryan Sullivan, Mehmet Toner, Shyamala Maheswaran. Molecular signatures of circulating tumor cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Liquid Biopsies; Jan 13-16, 2020; Miami, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2020;26(11_Suppl):Abstract nr IA18.
Factors affecting patient adherence to lung cancer screening: A multisite analysis.

ObjectiveTo identify factors associated with delayed adherence to follow-up in lung cancer screening.MethodsUtilizing a data warehouse and lung cancer screening registry, variables were collected f...
Clinician-Focused Overview and Developments in Polysomnography.

Polysomnography (PSG) represents a fundamental diagnostic tool used in the evaluation of sleep disorders. It represents a simultaneous recording of sleep staging, eye movements, electromyographic tone, respiratory parameters, and electrocardiogram. It is particularly helpful in the assessment of sleep-disordered breathing and its management, propensity for excessive sleepiness, complex behaviors during sleep, including motor disturbances of sleep, sleep-related epilepsy, and parasomnias. This review is intended to summarize the indications for PSG, the limitations and challenges of this diagnostic tool, indications for home sleep apnea testing options, and new developments and trends in polysomnography. The polysomnogram is fundamentally important in the evaluation of sleep-disordered breathing in the setting of cardiovascular comorbidities and neurologic conditions such as neuromuscular disease, stroke, and epilepsy and in the evaluation of dream enactment behavior in the setting of REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). Because RBD is predictive of neurodegenerative disorders, recent data highlights the importance of PSG in corroborating the diagnosis of RBD and identifying people who may be at risk. However, due to cost as well as limitations in access to care, further testing has been developed and implemented including the home sleep apnea test (HSAT). The evolution of consumer wearable devices has also been a growing trend in sleep medicine; however, few have received appropriate validation. PSG has been used in both the clinical and research settings and remains the gold standard clinical diagnostic test for suspected obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) or central sleep apnea (CSA). Clinicians must be familiar with the basic indications for a PSG but also recognize when it is absolutely required. At this time, the PSG is essential in the evaluation of nocturnal hypoventilation disorders of sleep, periodic limb movements of sleep, and central nervous system hypersomnia (in the absence of CSF hypocretin) when combined with the multiple sleep latency test (MSLT) and is probably the only way to help differentiate among complex behaviors during sleep, especially in the setting of RBD. The capacity to establish an early diagnostic risk of potential dementia would be of critical importance once neuroprotective agents become available.
Mental Health in the Workplace: A Continuing Conversation

Last year's panel generated a number of positive requests to continue our conversation in future conferences, and so we are once again offering a panel presentation and discussion on the subject of mental health in the workplace. Everyone has their own personal struggles; many of us have diagnosed mental health issues; and still too many have genuine health issues that remain undiagnosed. The good news is that there seems to be more open conversation around the issue of mental health within the workplace. However, we still have a ways to go, and many of us still find ourselves powering through our days without support, either because we don't think we need it, don't know how to request it, or because none exists. Maybe there's a better approach. This panel will once again be comprised of members of the SIGUCCS community who experience some form of mental health issue that has impacted their professional (and personal) lives. We will also have the perspective of a supervisor who has worked closely with one of his direct reports in order to accommodate their related needs. We'll spend our presentation time talking about how these conditions manifested themselves, their impact on our work, and how they were or are being addressed. We'll also talk about the importance of support structures in the workplace and how to seek them out. The remaining half of our time will be for open discussion: questions for members of the panel, or an opportunity for participants to share their own experiences. Please join in what we hope to be a safe environment for an important conversation.
Herd and Spatial Factors Affecting the Proportion of False-Positive Results on the Caudal Fold Tuberculin Test in Michigan Cattle

Bovine tuberculosis skin tests have been used successfully for control and eradication of bovine tuberculosis in the United States since the eradication program was begun in 1917. In 1992, there were only 10 states that had not achieved tuberculosis-free status. Unfortunately, bovine tuberculosis has become endemic in the cattle population in certain areas in the United States, including the northern part of the Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The caudal fold test is a key element of herd-level and individual animal screening. The specificity of the caudal fold tuberculin test is not perfect, and has been estimated to be approximately 89-96%. It is also evident that the specificity of the caudal fold tuberculin test is not a constant in different cattle populations. Variation in specificity may be due to differences in the amount and concentration of the tuberculin used for the test, regional variation in cross-reacting mycobacteria that cause false-positive results on the caudal fold tuberculin test, and variation in the interpretation of the test results by the testing veterinarians. The objective of this study was to use available data from the bovine tuberculosis testing program in Michigan to evaluate possible associations between the proportion of false-positive results on the caudal fold tuberculin test, and factors regarding geography and type of herd.
A Comparison Study of Single- and Multiple-Target Stimulation Methods for Eliciting Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials

A visual stimulator plays an important role in a steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based braincomputer interface (BCI). In conventional BCI studies, SSVEPs have been elicited by either a single stimulus whose flickering frequency varies across trials or multiple stimuli flickering at different frequencies simultaneously. It has been implicitly assumed that the SSVEPs generated by the single- and multiple-target stimulation methods are comparable. However, no study has directly compared their efficacy in eliciting SSVEPs. This study, therefore, performed a quantitative comparison of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and classification accuracy using 4-class SSVEPs generated by these two methods. The classification accuracy was estimated by three commonly-used target identification algorithms including calibration-free canonical correlation analysis (CCA)-based method and template-based methods with CCA- and task-related component analysis (TRCA)-based spatial filters. The results showed that the single-target stimulation method led to significantly higher SNR and classification accuracy than its multi-target counterpart.
Crude or Refined: Identifying Oil Price Dynamics Through the Crack Spread

This paper proposes a new methodology for differentiating oil demand and supply shocks using the information content of forward-looking market prices for crude oil and refined product crack spreads. Building upon the folk wisdom that demand and supply shocks have asymmetric pass through dynamics in energy financial markets, the paper provides two complementary identification schemes, based on sign restrictions and heteroskedasticity. Both approaches produce very similar historical decomposition of oil price movements. Our results suggest that the price rises of the late 1970s had a demand-driven component, the 1990-91 Gulf War shock reacted both to supply and precautionary demand shocks, and the recent price spike in 2008 was driven more by expectations of future supply constraints than immediate demand pressures. Oil demand and supply shocks, by our decomposition, are shown to have different impacts and reactions to macroeconomic variables such as industrial production, unemployment, core inflation, and the Fed Funds rate, with implications for formulating an effective policy response to oil shocks.
The Status of ξ-Scaling

The logic of the “ξ-scaling” analysis of inclusive lepton-hadron scattering is reviewed with the emphasis on clarifying what is assumed and what is predicted. The physics content of several recent papers, which purport to criticize this analysis, in fact confirm its validity and utility. For clarity, I concentrate on the orthodox operator product analysis of electroproduction, local duality and precocious scaling. Other physics discussed includes the successes of QCD in the rate of charm production in muon inelastic scattering and in the energy-momentum sum rule. Gluons carry 30 ± 8% of the proton’s energy-momentum at Q2 = 3.5 GeV2. (Several considerations make this considerably smaller than previous estimates; the largest of these is the inclusion of gluon bremsstrahlung effects.)
Cognitive Theory and Mental Development

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the subject of cognitive theory and mental development. Cognitive psychology's subject matter is people's mental states and processes. To expose these, it uses laboratory methods developed for the study of attention, memory, language, and perception, and especially the techniques of verbal learning experimentation. Its goal is to create generalized or nomothetic theory of human cognition. This chapter characterizes some of the changes in experimental psychology since 1950. Starting there allows, presenting a broad picture of the backdrop for the present state of affairs. The chapter describes the contemporary experimental psychology that is perhaps better called cognitive psychology, as having a poor match between its conception of scientific explanation and its methods for testing theory. The chapter explains two methods that hold some promise of meeting the implicit requirements of cognitive psychology's conception of scientific explanation. It is proposed that techniques of cognitive instruction and tests for individual differences can provide needed empirical validation for cognitive theory. The chapter also explains the methods that seem promising for general experimental psychology are being refined first by specialists in retardation and childhood.
X-lib plus library automation software: a case study of software development in a nigerian organization

Software designers in developing countries have increased the frequency of innovation and patenting. This trend reflects an effort to reduce dependence on imported western technology and encourage the development of indigenous alternatives. Although Library Automation Systems (LAS) perform similar functions the world over, they are primarily designed to meet the needs of their local populations. Indigenous LAS in developing countries for example, are more sensitive to literature in indigenous knowledge and languages than imported LAS. Indigenous LAS are, however, relatively few and far between in Africa. This study examined the development of X-LIB PLUS library automation software designed at the Raw Materials Research and Development Council in Abuja, Nigeria. Using a case study method, data were collected to describe the X-LIB PLUS development process and the factors that facilitated and challenged its creation. The study also identified the factors, which accounted for the adoption of X-LIB PLUS by libraries in Nigeria. It is hoped that the process and context of X-LIB PLUS development and diffusion described by this study could serve as models of software innovation and the organizational conditions that nurture such efforts in Africa.
Male adolescent with subdural parietal abscess: A probable complication of substance abuse

A 15-year-old adolescent male with a subdural parietal abscess as a probable complication of drug abuse is presented. Septic embolization after pulmonary vein necrotizing angiitis is discussed as a possible source of the abscess; however, mainlining drugs with subsequent vascular changes and emboli appear to be the cause.
Texas Case Law Update

This article discusses recent judicial developments relating to the Texas law of intestacy, wills, estate administration, trusts, and other estate planning matters. The discussion of each case concludes with a moral, i.e., the important lesson to be learned from the case. By recognizing situations that have led to time consuming and costly litigation in the past, estate planners can reduce the likelihood of the same situations arising with their clients.
Comparison of prostate and transition zone volume measured by the ellipsoid and planimetric methods with transrectal ultrasonography before seed implantation of prostate cancer.

A total of 122 men who were diagnosed with localized prostatic cancer underwent transrectal ultrasound and the volumes of their prostates and transitional zones were obtained using the planimetric method and the ellipsoid method. Mean age was 64.2 +/-13.4 (48.2-85.8), and mean preimplant prostate specific antigen was 6.01 +/- 2.35 mg/mL (0.92-15.5). The clinical stage was T1c in 70 patients, T2a in 46 and T2b in 6. Prostatic volumes and transitional zone volumes obtained by the planimetric method were 18 % and 39% greater than those obtained by the ellipsoid method, respectively. There were significant differences between the volumes obtained by the two different methods. However, there was a good correlation between the prostatic volume and the transitional zone volume obtained by both the ellipsoid method (r = 0.851) and the planimetric method (r = 0.908). The regression line of the prostate volume between these two methods was calculated as .
How Far is Too Far

The emergence of an autocratic regime in Chechnya, traditionally structured on polycentric elites from clans and regions, has been just one outcome of President Putin’s ethnic policies based on personal loyalty. The paper addresses this puzzle: why, against rigorous rhetoric and demonstration of tight control over Chechnya, this region is already de facto separated from Russia? Concentrating on the question of ethnicity and its relation to democracy in contemporary Chechnya, the main argument of the article is while ethnic politics has been partly the outcome of the authoritarian rule of President Putin, the way ethnicity has been instrumentalized by the Chechen elites and the federal authorities, have created serious obstacles for the rise and the consolidation of democracy in Russia. The paper concludes that under the circumstances of ideological vacuum, pervasive corruption, and further crack-down on civil liberties that became defining characteristic features for the present political regime under President Putin, Chechen ethnic nationalism is gradually transforming the republic from a de facto independent territory associated with Russia into a de jure independent state that could request recognition of its independence from other countries.
Using an Educational Electronic Documentation System to Help Nursing Students Accurately Identify Patient Data

Purpose This quantitative research study used a pretest/posttest design and reviewed how an educational electronic documentation system helped nursing students to identify the accurate “related to” statement of the nursing diagnosis for the patient in the case study. Methods Students in the sample population were senior nursing students in a bachelor of science nursing program in the northeastern United States. Two distinct groups were used for a control and intervention group. The intervention group used the educational electronic documentation system for three class assignments. Both groups were given a pretest and posttest case study. The Accuracy Tool was used to score the students' responses to the related to statement of a nursing diagnosis given at the end of the case study. The scores of the Accuracy Tool were analyzed, and then the numeric scores were placed in SPSS, and the paired t test scores were analyzed for statistical significance. The intervention group's scores were statistically different from the pretest scores to posttest scores, while the control group's scores remained the same from pretest to posttest. Implications The recommendation to nursing education is to use the educational electronic documentation system as a teaching pedagogy to help nursing students prepare for nursing practice.
The Uneasy Case for Transjurisdictional Adjudication

Federal courts often decide cases that include matters of state law, while state courts often decide cases that raise matters of federal law. Most of these cases are decided within the court system in which they originate. Recent commentary advocates more transjurisdictional adjudication through the expanded use of existing procedural devices, and development of new devices. Some commentators endorse greater use of certification by federal courts, while others advocate greater use of transjurisdictional procedural devices to increase the availability of a federal forum to resolve federal legal issues. In this Article, I call for refinement of this approach and argue that commentators have overlooked several looming obstacles. First, the ability of state courts to resolve issues of state law and federal courts issues of federal law relies upon the erroneous assumption that issues of federal and state law are readily separable. Second, the use of transjurisdictional procedural devices that send back to state court state law issues that federal courts otherwise would decide run the risk of admitting state court bias, or the appearance of bias, against out-of-state litigants. Third, commentators underestimate the extent to which transjurisdictional adjudication relies upon cooperation between court systems. Identifying these obstacles leads to a fuller recognition of the costs and benefits of transjurisdictional adjudication, which in turn is useful as a metric against which to measure existing and proposed transjurisdictional procedural devices and as an aid in refining existing devices.
A Review of “The Blackwell Companion to Globalization”

Peter O. Muller, Book Review Editor This addition to the Blackwell Companion series consists of thirty-five chapters from fifty contributors divided into three parts, with one general and three int...
Heavy dark matter annihilation from effective field theory.

We formulate an effective field theory description for $\mathrm{SU}(2{)}_{L}$ triplet fermionic dark matter by combining nonrelativistic dark matter with gauge bosons in the soft-collinear effective theory. For a given dark matter mass, the annihilation cross section to line photons is obtained with 5% precision by simultaneously including Sommerfeld enhancement and the resummation of electroweak Sudakov logarithms at next-to-leading logarithmic order. Using these results, we present more accurate and precise predictions for the gamma-ray line signal from annihilation, updating both existing constraints and the reach of future experiments.
Sensor allocation with guaranteed exponential stability for linear multi‐rate sampled‐data systems

Summary This paper addresses sensor allocation with guaranteed exponential stability for linear multi-rate sampled-data systems. It is assumed that a continuous-time linear plant is exponentially stabilized by a continuous-time linear controller. Given sensors with incommensurate sampling rates, the objective is to allocate each state to a sensor such that the resulting multi-rate sampled-data system remains exponentially stable. The main contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we propose sufficient Krasovskii-based conditions to partition the state vector among sensors such that exponential stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed. Second, the problem of finding a partition that guarantees exponential stability is cast as a mixed integer program subject to linear matrix inequalities. The theoretical results are successfully applied to two robotic problems: path-following in unicycles and hovering in quadrotors. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Cytotoxicity, in vitro models and preliminary in vivo study of dual physical and chemical gels for endovascular embolization of cerebral aneurysms

We report the evaluation of dual-gelling poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-based polymer systems as embolic agents for intracranial aneurysms. These hydrogels undergo gelation physically via temperature-responsiveness of poly(NIPAAm) and chemically through a Michael-addition reaction between thiol and vinyl functional groups on the copolymers. Cytotoxicity studies were performed for biocompatibility of the hydrogels. In vitro glass models were utilized to assess injectability and embolization using the gelling systems and an in vivo swine model was used as proof-of-concept for catheter delivery, injection, and occlusion properties of the hydrogels. Rheology creep tests were conducted for determination of viscoelastic behavior, and degradation of the hydrogels was also investigated. Live/dead and proliferation assays indicated good biocompatibility of the hydrogels. In vitro and in vivo assessment demonstrated that the hydrogels were easily delivered via catheters into the aneurysms. Slight recanalization was observed in vivo, with some adhesion of the gels to the balloon catheter seen in vitro. The materials show creep deformation occurring with time; however, the hydrogels did not degrade over the course of 1.5 year. With the possibility to engineer hydrogels bottom-up for particular applications, these studies show properties that need to be optimized for dual-gelling polymer systems to serve as liquid-to-solid embolic agents for aneurysm treatment.
Effect of diet on amino acid profiles during metamorphosis of the blowfly Phormia regina Meigen

Abstract To examine the effects of change in diet, a quantitative comparison has been made of the individual ninhydrin-positive substances of non-sterile meat-raised Phormia regina larvae, pupae, and adults with the corresponding stages raised on a sterile semi-defined casein diet. Despite considerable changes in the concentration of several components in the larva, it is concluded that in the biological, and not statistical, sense only taurine and possibly methionine and methionine sulphoxide titres are significantly altered by the change in dietary regimen.
INVERSION PROPERTY OF THE FUNDAMENTAL MATRIX IN TRAJECTORY PERTURBATION PROBLEMS

Inversion of ordinary linear differential equation in matrix form for application to class of trajectory perturbation problems
The requirement of ArcA and Fnr for peak expression of the cyd operon in Escherichia coli under microaerobic conditions

Transcriptional regulation of cyd, encoding the cytochrome d complex for O2 scavenging, was studied in Escherichia coli by monitoring ϕ(cyd-lac) expression under atmospheres containing 0–21% O2. Peak expression of this operon occurred under microaerobic conditions. Mutations in arcA (a trans-acting regulatory gene involved in aerobic respiration) greatly lowered ϕ(cyd-lac) expression under all conditions. Mutations in fnr (a trans-acting regulatory gene involved in anaerobic respiration) shifted the pattern of ϕ(cyd-lac) expression, lowering the microaerobic and aerobic expression. In an arcA fnr double mutant, ϕ(cyd-lac) expression became insignificant, irrespective of the availability of O2. It thus appears that the expression of the ϕ(cyd-lac) operon is under dual control by the two pleiotropic activators, ArcA and Fnr, which interact to give the peak microaerobic expression.
Domain Decomposition for 3D Boundary Elements in Non-Linear Heat Conduction

In this paper, we develop a domain decomposition, or the artificial sub-sectioning technique, along with a region-by-region iteration algorithm particularly tailored for parallel computation to address storage and memory issues arising from large-scale boundary element models. A coarse surface grid solution coupled with an efficient physically-based procedure provides an effective initial guess for a fine surface grid model. The process converges very efficiently offering substantial savings in memory. We discuss the implementation of the iterative domain decomposition approach for parallel computation on a modest Windows XP Pentium P4 PC-cluster running under MPI. Results from 3-D BEM heat conduction models including models of upwards of 85,000 nodes demonstrate that the BEM can practically be used to solve large-scale linear- and non-linear heat conduction problems using this algorithm.Copyright © 2003 by ASME
Experimentation and finite element simulation of adiabatic shear bands in controlled penetration impact

Abstract Distinct shear bands were generated in a controlled-penetration impact experiment. The experimental set-up included a projectile, an indentor, a stopper, and a backup ring. Impact tests with steel specimens of different flow stresses showed that the shear band length is directly proportional to the flow stress and the indentation depth, and inversely proportional to the back-up hole diameter. A finite element computer code simulation showed that shear bands could be formed without initial disturbances or defects. The calculated shear band length was in good agreement with the experimentally measured ones.
Oral Communication Excellence for Engineers and Scientists

Many of us have implemented oral communication instruction in our design courses, lab courses, and other courses where students give presentations. Others have students give presentations without instruction on how to become a better presenter. Many of us, then, could use a concise book that guides us on what instruction on oral communication should include, based on input from executives from different settings. This instruction will help our students get jobs and make them more likely to move up the career ladder, especially in these hard economic times. Oral Communication Excellence for Engineers and Scientists: Based on Executive Input is the tool we need. It is based on input from over 75 executives with engineering or science degrees, leading organizations that employ engineers and scientists. For the presentation chapter, the executives described what makes a “stellar presentation.” And for every other chapter, they gave input—on, for example, how to effectively communicate in meetings and in teams, how to excel at phone communication, how to communicate electronically to supplement oral communication, and how to meet the challenges of oral communication. They also provided tips on cross-cultural communication, listening, choosing the appropriate medium for a communication, elevator pitches, and posters; and using oral communication to network on the job. Oral Communication Excellence for Engineers and Scientists includes exercises and activities for students and professionals, based on instruction that has improved Georgia Tech’s students’ presentation skills at a statistically significant level. Slides demonstrating best practices are included from Capstone Design students around the country. Table of Contents: Introduction / Background Preparation / Presentation: Customizing to your Audience / Presentation: Telling your Story / Presentation: Displaying Key Information / Delivering the Presentation / Other Oral Communication Skills / Advanced Oral Communication Skills / References
How effective are current household recycling policies? Results from a national survey of U.S. households

Abstract This paper analyzes a unique dataset collected during a 2006 national survey of U.S. households to explore the effectiveness of common household recycling policies for metals, glass, and plastics: curbside recycling, drop-off recycling, deposit–refund systems (bottle bills), and marginal pricing for household waste. After estimating either generalized ordered logit or multinomial logit models, we find that the most important determinants of household recycling are people's attitudes toward recycling. Our results also suggest that omitting internal variables (perceived recycling obstacles and benefits as well as moral considerations) may bias policy coefficients. Socio-economic variables are typically not statistically significant, with the exceptions of young adults and of African Americans who tend to recycle less than others. Policies with the largest odds ratios are curbside recycling (which is further strengthened if recycling is mandatory), followed by the presence of drop-off collection centers nearby. Bottle bills are also statistically significant but their odds ratios are smaller, possibly because refunds are relatively small and typically do not change for years. Finally, marginal pricing appears to have a limited impact on recycling. These results suggest avenues for improving household recycling at a time when recycling rates appear to be plateauing.
A Globally Converging Secant Method with Applications to Boundary Value Problems

This paper presents a new algorithm for solving systems of nonlinear equations, which combines elements of the method of local variations with a sequential secant method. The new algorithm converges superlinearly and its convergence does not depend upon a good initial guess at a solution.
Embedded game analysis and international conflict control

The use of game theoretic models for understanding international relations has been widely criticized. In this paper we suggest that the theory of embedded differential games with optimal control is a productive methodology for responding to the critics. Several noncooperative differential game models with embedded objective functions are formulated. Concepts for obtaining undominated solutions based on the game structure, the quadratic objective functions and linear differential kinematic equations are discussed. The paper concludes that models with rich empirical reference can be formulated and productively used in understanding international conflict.
On the governing equations for a laminated plate

Abstract A set of plate equations for a laminated plate is derived. The assumption that the normal stress vanishes through the thickness of plate is taken. The shear and geometric correction coefficients are introduced to compensate the errors induced by the approximate plate displacement and the averaging process. Microstructure is present in the model. Harmonic wave propagation is investigated and solutions are compared with the exact solutions. Excellent agreement is found. Natural vibrations of a rectangular laminated plate are discussed and numerical results are presented.
Precise molded plastic ferrules for single-mode optical fibers

A unique process has been developed to mold precision plastic optical ferrules using a DuPont proprietary liquid crystal polymer. Optical performance of the plastic ferrules is similar to ceramic ferrules for single mode applications. This paper describes the unique molding process, the polymer system, and the optical performance of this novel plastic ferrule.
Ultrapure dialysate for home hemodialysis

Use of ultrapure dialysate (bacteria < 0.1 CFU/mL and endotoxin < 0.03 EU/mL) is associated with a reduction in inflammation and morbidity in patients treated with conventional thrice-weekly dialysis. The improved outcomes obtained with more frequent dialysis schedules have reawakened interest in home hemodialysis. More frequent dialysis also appears to reduce inflammation, and whether combining more frequent dialysis with use of ultrapure dialysate will have an additive effect on inflammation and its consequences remains unclear. Routinely producing ultrapure dialysate in a home environment with a conventional hemodialysis machine poses technical challenges related to the design of the equipment and the intermittent nature of hemodialysis. Solutions to these problems include use of a system in which the water-treatment equipment is fully integrated with the dialysis machine, use of dry-powder cartridges or sterile prepackaged liquids for bicarbonate concentrate, and use of a bacteria-retentive and endotoxin-retentive filter for final purification of the dialysate immediately before it enters the dialyzer. Alternatively, ultrapure dialysate may be achieved with newer machines designed specifically for home hemodialysis that use a new batch of dialysate for each treatment. The volume of dialysate available with these machines, however, currently limits their use to short-daily dialysis.