cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Is tumor size the limiting factor in a laparoscopic management for large ovarian cysts

To assess the feasibility and short-term surgical outcome of laparoscopic surgery among women with large ovarian cysts. We retrospectively evaluated consecutive 81 patients who received laparoscopic management for ovarian cysts with diameter ≥ 10 cm and without radiologic features suggestive of malignancy, from March 2008 to September 2011. Laparoscopic surgery was successful in 77 (95.1 %) of the total patients. The mean (range) operative time, estimated blood loss (EBL) and hospital stay were 107.6 (55–250 min), 226.9 (10–1300 mL) and 6.1 (4–15 days), respectively. The surgical procedures performed included salpingooophorectomy (SO) (n = 44), ovarian cystectomy (OC) (n = 22), adhesiolysis (n = 1), salpingectomy (n = 2) and total laparoscopic hysterectomy (TLH) with SO (n = 8). Conversion to laparotomy occurred with four patients. One patient had postoperative bleeding and one had minor complications associated with wound oozing at the umbilical port site. Histopathological examination revealed benign tumors in 76 patients (93.8 %), borderline ovarian tumor in three patients (3.7 %) and invasive epithelial ovarian cancer in two patients (2.5 %). Clinicopathological variables according to tumor size were not statistically different. Complications did not appear in any patients during the follow-up period. With proper patient selection, laparoscopy is a feasible and safe treatment for women with large ovarian cysts and tumor size did not have effect on laparoscopic management. However, surgeons should carefully consider the potential risk of malignancy in such patients.
Blaming Neither the Undeserving Poor Nor the Revanchist Middle Classes: A Relational Approach to Marginalization

Various critical theories have been developed to contest the culture-of-poverty and rational-choice approaches to urban marginalization. This essay identifies a gap between these theories and qualitative studies of the everyday lives of the poor. Due to a lack of connectivity among various scales in such studies, the intellectual crusade against the blaming of the poor may easily slide into a blaming of the middle class—a broad and undifferentiated label. As a result, it remains unclear exactly how neoliberal regimes and policies that punish the poor are actually becoming social realities, in part because the empirical claims offered up by critical theorists share many of the limitations of mainstream theories. Building from the presentation of an ethnographic vignette, this article maintains that a relational sociology of urban marginalization may help to overcome this problem, and in the process could strengthen critical theory.
FAVORABLENESS RATINGS OF FORCED-CHOICE STATEMENTS: APPLICANTS VS. NON-APPLICANTS

Summary This study reports on the effects of non-applicant ratings of the favorableness of statements to be included in an experimental forced-choice test for screening life insurance agent applicants. A comparison of the favorableness ratings of applicants with non-applicants revealed differences in the perceived favorableness of statements in the middle range of favorableness. It is suggested that the choice of raters may, in certain situations, be more important than previously reported.
Complete Generalization to Stimuli of Different Areas in a Grice-Type Apparatus

A total of 210 rats were trained to open a door inside a 50-sq.-cm. stimulus on a wall in a Grice-type apparatus. The door was made very hard to discriminate from the rest of the stimulus and the stimulus was frequently moved laterally to prevent rats from learning a specific movement pattern. Yet no generalization gradients were obtained when subgroups were tested on stimuli of other areas.
Normal Anatomy and Physiology of the Spinal Cord Dorsal Horn

The dorsal horn of the spinal cord receives afferent input from innocuous primary afferent neurons via collaterals from the dorsal columns. This input is integrated and relayed primarily by neurons in
Sailing away: the influences on and motivations of George Caspar Homans

Purpose – How do social factors motivate and influence scholars when they theorize? By exploring the life of George Homans, this paper aims to illustrate that theories are the products of the theorist, and as such are influenced by individual life experiences.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on a plethora of archival sources including many personal and autobiographical accounts, this manuscript synthesizes these sources thus providing clear insight into how personal factors and experiences impacted Homans's social exchange theory.Findings – This research concludes that Homans's journey into theorizing was an act of providence; that his early career, personal background, and social capital interacted with several factors beyond his control thus leading to his interest in social exchange processes.Originality/value – This is the first research endeavor exploring the context, sentiments and motivations of George Homans as he began to lay out social exchange theory.
Concerning right-hemisphere dominance for affective language.

In a series of stimulating articles that were recently published in theArchives, Ross et al 1-3 have claimed that "the right hemisphere is dominant for modulating the affective components of language." 3(p745) While it has been a few years since these articles first appeared, the issue is still in focus. As we interpret the data of Ross and colleagues, there is a strong form and a weak form of their hypothesis. The strong form is that the right hemisphere plays a privileged, if not critical, role in the modulation of prosody at the sentence level (intonation, fundamental frequency, or FO) in all speech production. The weaker form of this hypothesis is that the right hemisphere plays a privileged role in imparting emotional-affective modulation of speech, but it is not critical to implementation of normal intonation modulation in nonaffective contexts. The crucial difference between the weak and strong hypotheses
A simulation-based approach for risk assessment of facility layout designs under stochastic product demands

In traditional facility layout design method, the facility layout is governed by the flow intensity between departments, which is the product flow quantity between departments. A facility layout design must maintain its efficiency over time while coping with the uncertainty in product demand. An error in the product demand assessment can render the layout inefficient with respect to material handling costs. Analytical models for the determination of the risk involved in a facility layout design are difficult to derive when the problem of size and complexity increases. This paper presents a simulation-based method for predicting the uncertainty associated with the layout. The validation of the simulation approach against analytical procedures is first detailed. The methodology for the simulation based approach is provided. Three scenarios of increasing complexity and size are also detailed. Results from case studies have shown that the procedure results in reduction of risk as high as 80%.
Experimental Measurements of Path Length Sensitivity in Coherent Beam Combining by Spatial Filtering

The supermode behavior of lasers coherently coupled by a passive spatially filtered cavity has been experimentally measured as a function of path length error between laser cavities. A custom laser-diode pumped Nd:YAG laser is constructed containing two laser channels coupled by a spatial filter. The supermodes are seen to exhibit two different types of behavior depending on the magnitude of the relative path length error. When the path length error is small, the two supermodes present different cavity loss values and can be differentiated by gain. However, when the error exceeds a specific value, the two supermodes have identical loss and different resonant frequencies. Experiments show the two distinct regions predicted by theory, and quantitatively verify the loss, oscillation frequency, and modal power distribution of the supermodes as a function of path length error.
Scanning electron microscopy of casts of rat molar tooth pulp chambers.

Abstract Plastic casts of the pulp chambers examined by scanning-electron microscopy showed the configurations of the chambers to be more complex than expected. Projections of the pulp in mid-sagittal sections, previously interpreted as pulp horns, were found to be ridges extending beneath the enamel-free dentine of the lobes. The true pulp horns, which were more prominent in mandibular molars, were in the cone-shaped lobes, the heels and in the tubercles. The method would be useful in other investigations.
Mining Remote Image Repositories with Application to Mars Rover Stereoscopic Image Datasets

As of December 2008, the two Mars rover spacecraft Spirit and Opportunity have collected more than 4 years worth of data from nine imaging instruments producing greater than 200k images which includes both raw image data from spacecraft instruments and images generated by post-processing algorithms developed by NASA's Multimission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL). This paper describes a prototype software system that allows scientists to browse and data-mine the images produced from NASA's Mars Exploratory Rover (MER) missions with emphasis on the automatic detection of images containing rocks that are of interest for geological research. We highlight two aspects of our prototype system: (1) software design for mining remote data repositories, (2) a computationally efficient image search engine for detecting MER images that containing rocks. Datatype abstractions made at the software design level allow users to access and visualize the source data through a single simple-to-use interface when the underlying data may originate from a local or remote image repository. Data mining queries into the MER image data are specified over chronological intervals denoted (sols) as each interval is a solar day. As in other mining applications, an automatic detection and classification algorithm is used to compute a relevance score that represents how relevant a given recorded image is to the user-specified query. Query results are presented as list of records, sorted by their relevance score, which the user may then visualize and investigate to extract information of interest. Several standard image analysis tools are provided for investigation of 2D images (e.g., histogram equalization, edge detection, etc.) and, when available, stereoscopic data is integrated with the image data using multiple windows which show both the 2D image and 3D surface geometry. The combination of data mining and a high-quality visualization interface provides MER researchers unprecedented access to the recorded data.
The impact of governing structure on the pricing behavior and market structure of public institutions of higher education in the U.S

The governance structure of a state university system is the relationship between the individual institutions and the governing board. We hypothesize that the structure will impact both the pricing behavior as well as the market structure of the institutions. The more centralized the governance structure, the more aligned it will be with the interests of the state government. Assuming that the state’s interest is to educate in-state students, those who are most likely to remain in-state therefore generating future tax revenue for the state, institutions with more centralized governance structure are more likely to offer in-state students a lower tuition price relative to out-of-state students. This hypothesis is tested with an OLS model using data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) for the 1997–1998 academic year. We find that the ratio of out-of-state to in-state tuition is greatest among those institutions with the most centralized governance structures. They engage in the highest level of price discrimination relative to institutions with other types of governance structures. Using the classification of instructional programs, we calculate a weighted average of the percent of duplicate degrees for each type of governance structure. We find that as the governance structure becomes more centralized, the percentage of duplicate degrees in a field decreases across institutions within the same state. This suggests states with a more centralized structure have less homogeneous institutions and educational offerings.
Substrate Tunnels in Enzymes: Structure-Function Relationships and Computational Methodology

In enzymes, the active site is the location where incoming substrates are chemically converted to products. In some enzymes, this site is deeply buried within the core of the protein and in order to access the active site, substrates must pass through the body of the protein via a tunnel. In many systems, these tunnels act as filters and have been found to influence both substrate specificity and catalytic mechanism. Identifying and understanding how these tunnels exert such control has been of growing interest over the past several years due to implications in fields such as protein engineering and drug design. This growing interest has spurred the development of several computational methods to identify and analyze tunnels and how ligands migrate through these tunnels. The goal of this review is to outline how tunnels influence substrate specificity and catalytic efficiency in enzymes with tunnels and to provide a brief summary of the computational tools used to identify and evaluate these tunnels.
The Role of Aggressive Regional Therapy for Colorectal Liver Metastases

Surgical resection is the most effective treatment modality for liver metastases from colorectal cancer. However, most patients with liver metastases are not candidates for resection due to extensive intrahepatic disease. Approximately one-half of the patients who are able to undergo resection will eventually recur within the remnant liver. Hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) chemotherapy takes advantage of the arterial blood supply of colorectal liver metastases to increase tumor exposure to chemotherapy while minimizing systemic toxicity. HAI chemotherapy has been utilized in patients with unresectable disease in the neoadjuvant setting in an effort to convert them to resectability as well as in patients with resectable disease in the adjuvant setting in an effort to prevent recurrence. This article reviews the roles of HAI chemotherapy in an aggressive approach toward colorectal liver metastases.
The Lobbying Activities of Organized Interests in Federal Judicial Nominations

Techniques of modern lobbying provide organized interests a variety of tactical options. How does the mix of tactics employed by groups vary across different lobbying campaigns? When, and why, will groups use some tactics and not others? Prior research points to organizational structure and resources, features of the issue, and institutional forces as crucial determinants of lobbying. We analyze patterns of advocacy using data from a survey of interest groups about their activities on 15 federal nominations for judicial and related offices considered by the U.S. Senate from 1984 through 1991. We find that the overall amount of advocacy varies across nominations according to the importance of the office, as do the types of organizations involved-but lobbying tactics do not. We also find that organizational resources have some effects on the use of some tactics, but overall these effects are quite limited. Organizations of all types engage in multiple, often disparate, tactics. The absence of strong organiz...
The incremental utility of callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems in predicting aggression and bullying in a community sample of boys and girls

The current study tested whether callous-unemotional (CU) traits explained unique variance in measures of aggression and bullying, and in measures assessing cognitive and affective correlates to aggression, when controlling for conduct problem severity. In a sample of 284 ethnically diverse students (ages 9 to 14 years), a self-report measure of CU traits did not explain unique variance in self-report measures of reactive aggression but did interact with conduct problems in predicting proactive aggression, with conduct problems being more strongly related to proactive aggression in students high on CU traits. Conduct problems were also more strongly related to peer-reports of bullying in girls high on CU traits. Further, CU traits were negatively related to behaviors that defend victims of bullying, independent of conduct problem severity. Finally, conduct problems were more strongly related to anger dysregulation in students low on CU traits, and conduct problems were more strongly related to positive expectations for aggressive behavior in girls high on CU traits. These findings provide support for the proposal to include CU traits as a specifier for the diagnosis of conduct disorder.
Dynamic focusing in ultrasound hyperthermia treatments using implantable hydrophone arrays

A prototype 16-element needle hydrophone array has been designed, fabricated and characterized. The primary use of this array is to provide acoustic feedback during ultrasound hyperthermia treatments. This feedback can be used to compensate for patient motion and tissue inhomogeneities by controlling the phased array driving patterns. It can also be used in adaptive dynamic focusing, a procedure which enables the phased array to focus at points away from specified control points. The hydrophone array consists of a PVDF sheet, which covers a silicon substrate carrier that contains the signal electrodes of the individual acoustic sensors. A complete description of the hydrophone array and its characteristics is given in this paper. The aberration correction and motion compensation algorithms are also described, and some experimental results are shown. Finally, a Taylor series based adaptive dynamic focusing method for phased arrays based on a set of discrete hydrophone array measurements is described. This algorithm does not require any prior knowledge of the applicator geometry and all the parameters needed for correction can be measured directly at the hydrophone array sensor locations. >
Creep in Interlaminar Shear of an Oxide/Oxide Ceramic Matrix Composite at Elevated Temperature

Creep behavior in interlaminar shear of a non-oxide ceramic composite with a multilayered matrix was investigated at 1200°C in laboratory air and in steam environment. The composite was produced via chemical vapor infiltration (CVI). The composite had an oxidation inhibited matrix, which consisted of alternating layers of silicon carbide and boron carbide and was reinforced with laminated Hi-Nicalon™ fibers woven in a five-harness-satin weave. Fiber preforms had pyrolytic carbon fiber coating with boron carbon overlay applied. The interlaminar shear properties were measured. The creep behavior was examined for interlaminar shear stresses in the 16–22 MPa range. Primary and secondary creep regimes were observed in all tests conducted in air and in steam. In air and in steam, creep run-out defined as 100 h at creep stress was achieved at 16 MPa. Larger creep strains were accumulated in steam. However, creep strain rates and creep lifetimes were only moderately affected by the presence of steam. The retained properties of all specimens that achieved run-out were characterized. Composite microstructure, as well as damage and failure mechanisms were investigated.
Cloning and expression of three cecropin cDNAs from a mosquito cell line.

We have characterized full-length cDNAs encoding three isoforms of the antibiotic cecropin secreted by the C7–10 cell line from the mosquito, Aedes albopictus. The existence of two cecropin isoforms that differed from the previously described AalCecA was predicted by mass spectrometry and amino acid sequence analysis of peptides that eluted from reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography as a single peak just behind the previously described cecropin, AalCecA. Based on the amino acid sequence of the mature AalCecA peptide, we designed primers that amplified partial cDNAs encoding three different A. albopictus cecropins in reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reactions. Rapid amplification of cDNA ends was then used to complete the cDNA sequences of AalCecA, AalCecB and AalCecC, respectively. Each cDNA encoded a translation product containing a signal peptide, a pro region, and a mature cecropin peptide consistent with amino acid sequence data from chymotryptic digests. Although the mosquito cecropins shared 70–86% identity among each other, they shared only ∼40% identity to cecropins from Drosophila melanogaster. Each of the cecropins was expressed within 2 to 4 h after induction, and transcripts measuring 0.3 to 0.5 kb continued to accumulate over 24 h. The three cecropins were secreted in roughly equimolar proportions, and 30 to 90% of AalCecB was amidated at the terminal glycine residue. In contrast, amidated forms of AalCecA and AalCecC constituted a smaller proportion of these isoforms.
The city size distribution debate: Resolution for US urban regions and megalopolitan areas

Four phases of interest in the distribution of city sizes are identified and current conflict in the literature is shown to be a consequence of poorly-selected units of observation. When urban regions are properly defined, US urban growth obeys Gibrat’s Law and the city size distribution is strictly Zipfian rank-size with coefficient q = 1.0. Care has to be taken with definition of the largest urban-economic regions, however; the fit in the upper tail of the distribution is best when they are recognized to be megalopolitan in scale.
Alice and Bob and Whit and Martin: Public Key Crypto

The key exchange problem occurs with symmetric cipher systems because the same key is used for both enciphering and deciphering messages. This means that both the sender and receiver must have the same key and it must be distributed to them via a secure method. While this is merely inconvenient if there are only two correspondents, if there are tens or hundreds of people exchanging secret messages, then distributing keys is a major issue. Public-key cryptography eliminates this problem by mathematically breaking the key into two parts, a public key and a private key. The public key is published and available to anyone who wants to send a message and the private key is the only key that can successfully decipher a message enciphered with a particular public key. This chapter investigates the mechanisms used to implement public-key cryptography.
Development and Design of the EPR™ Core Catcher

The EPR™ is an evolutionary pressurized water reactor in the thermal range of 4,500 MWth, designed and marketed by AREVA NP. Currently, there are four EPR™ plants under design and construction: Olkiluoto-3 (OL3) in Finland, Flamanville-3 (FA3) in France, and Taishan 1&2 (TSN) in the People’s Republic of China.
Slurry-Induced Pad Wear Rate in Chemical Mechanical Planarization

In this study, the extent of the pad wear rate during the shallow trench isolation chemical mechanical planarization process was investigated for several combinations of the type of abrasive particles (i.e., colloidal and fumed silica), abrasive content, and abrasive concentration. Results showed a relation between pad wear rate and abrasive concentration for both fumed and colloidal slurries. Results indicated that the pad wear rate using the colloidal silica slurry was higher by approximately 42 and 6% at 3 and 25 wt % silica, respectively. Under the same abrasive content, pad wear rate for fumed slurry was 23% higher compared to colloidal slurry.
Long-term Physical Health Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Meta-Analytic Review

Objective The purpose of the present article was to systematically review the literature investigating the long-term physical health consequences of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Methods Literature searches yielded 31 studies comparing individuals with and without a history of CSA on six health outcomes: general health, gastrointestinal (GI) health, gynecologic or reproductive health, pain, cardiopulmonary symptoms, and obesity. Exploratory subgroup analyses were conducted to identify potential methodological moderators. Results Results suggested that a history of CSA was associated with small to moderate group differences on almost all health outcomes assessed, such that individuals with a history of CSA reported more complaints for each health outcome. Suggestive trends in moderating variables of study design and methodology are presented. Conclusions Results highlight the long-term physical health consequences of CSA and identify potential moderators to aid in the design of future research.
How Do People Value Life

Who should be saved when health resources are limited? Although bioethicists and policymakers continue to debate which metric should be used to evaluate health interventions, public policy is also subject to public opinion. We investigated how the public values life when evaluating vaccine-allocation policies during a flu epidemic. We found that people’s ratings of the acceptability of policies were dramatically influenced by question framing. When policies were described in terms of lives saved, people judged them on the basis of the number of life years gained. In contrast, when the policies were described in terms of lives lost, people considered the age of the policy’s beneficiaries, taking into account the number of years lived to prioritize young targets for the health intervention. In addition, young targets were judged as more valuable in general, but young participants valued young targets even more than older participants did.
Getting Things Done in the L1 and L2: Bilingual Immigrant Women's Use of Communication Strategies in Entrepreneurial Contexts

The article examines the communication strategies of four bilingual, immigrant women entrepreneurs within the context of their businesses. The analysis revealed that L1 and L2 use is crucial to the business success of the participants. L1 conversations consisted of largely private speech and directives. The women positioned themselves as powerbrokers by creating cultural bridges and community networks with their in-group workers while facilitating business interaction with out-group customers. L2 use consisted of the mastery of basic conversation openings and closings, and various rapport-building methods such as small talk and socially expanded talk. Rapport-building strategies enabled the women to create lasting relationships as well as extended opportunities for English-language development. The study found that immigrant women entrepreneurs have a mastery of the pragmatic functions of speech that allow them to be competent communicators who know how to go about their business and how to get things don...
Computer Simulation of Near Midair Collisions in the Terminal Environment

A computer simulation model of near midair collisions in a terminal environment is developed and its capability demonstrated in a simplified case. The motion of several aircraft is described with certain constraints imposed on the speed, flight path, and other parameters to restrict the aircraft movement to lie within actual operating limitations. The main purpose of this study is to test the feasibility of the approach as far as general complexity, computer execution time, and accuracy. The results indicate good agreement with applicable theoretical arguments as well as additional information relating frequency and severity of near midair collisions to miss distance and aircraft density .Also, the advantage of the computer simulation technique is discussed. MATHEMATICAL modeling of flight operations in the terminal environment for the purpose of studying air-toair conflicts has only lately been developed. Recent work has contributed a model which estimates the frequency of near midair collisions (NMACs) in a terminal area.1 Its purpose was to determine the computational workload of an automated collision avoidance system. In performing this task, turning rate, aircraft speed, rate of climb, warning time, type of flight (IFR or VFR),t and various other parameters were utilized. Another study has examined the number of aircraft operations and the number of reported NMACs for CY-1968 in each of the twenty-one large air transportation hubs.2 The results of this particular study was a terminal air traffic model which showed a high correlation for a quadratic relationship between aircraft population or density and the number of reported NMACs. This fact reinforces the hypothesis that a "gas model" is applicable. Alexander3 and Graham-Orr,4 using this approach have indicated that a square law exists between NMACs and aircraft density. However, a gas model has obvious limitations. Namely, aircraft do not possess a velocity spectrum comparable to gas molecules and, in general, lack the randomness to be treated in the macroscopic sense. In fact, the gas model approach is becoming a poorer approximation even for an upper bound since increased radar control of aircraft, including VFR aircraft, in terminal areas eliminates the randomness required for analytic solutions. Also implicit in some (not all) NMACs is the human element of surprise. One pilot may be startled by a "close" approach of another aircraft, while the other pilot would simply consider the approaching aircraft as routine traffic. Thus, obviously not all "close" approaches are reported as near midair collisions.
Newborn screening for metabolic disorders.

ur lives are often directed by chance occurrences. For Robert Guthrie, a lifelong interest in the cause of mental retardation came from a retarded son and a dedication to preventing mental retardation in phenylketonuria (PKU) came from the diagnosis of PKU in his wife’s mentally retarded niece. From these roots came Guthrie’s introduction f newborn screening for PKU 3 and, subsequently, to the much more inclusive newborn screening for metabolic disorders of oday. In this review, we endeavor to describe current newborn screening, the interrelationship between the public and private ectors, the range of metabolic disorders that can be covered by screening, with emphasis on recent expansion using tandem mass pectrometry (MS/MS), the reported outcomes of identified infants, and a number of issues that confront newborn screening.
Positive Emotional Style Predicts Resistance to Illness After Experimental Exposure to Rhinovirus or Influenza A Virus.

Objective: In an earlier study, positive emotional style (PES) was associated with resistance to the common cold and a bias to underreport (relative to objective disease markers) symptom severity. This work did not control for social and cognitive factors closely associated with PES. We replicate the original study using a different virus and controls for these alternative explanations. Methods: One hundred ninety-three healthy volunteers ages 21 to 55 years were assessed for a PES characterized by being happy, lively, and calm; a negative emotional style (NES) characterized by being anxious, hostile, and depressed; other cognitive and social dispositions; and self-reported health. Subsequently, they were exposed by nasal drops to a rhinovirus or influenza virus and monitored in quarantine for objective signs of illness and self-reported symptoms. Results: For both viruses, increased PES was associated with lower risk of developing an upper respiratory illness as defined by objective criteria (adjusted odds ratio comparing lowest with highest tertile 2.9) and with reporting fewer symptoms than expected from concurrent objective markers of illness. These associations were independent of prechallenge virus-specific antibody, virus type, age, sex, education, race, body mass, season, and NES. They were also independent of optimism, extraversion, mastery, self-esteem, purpose, and self-reported health. Conclusions: We replicated the prospective association of PES and colds and PES and biased symptom reporting, extended those results to infection with an influenza virus, and “ruled out” alternative hypotheses. These results indicate that PES may play a more important role in health than previously thought. Key words: emotions, influenza, disease susceptibility, common cold, rhinovirus, affect.
Effect of discretization on the accuracy of diffuse optical imaging

In this paper, we analyze the error resulting from the discretization of the forward and inverse problems in simultaneously reconstructed optical absorption and scattering images. Our analysis indicates the mutual dependence of the forward and inverse problems, the number of sources and detectors, their configuration and the location of optical heterogeneities with respect to sources and detectors affect the extent of the error in the reconstructed optical images resulting from discretization. One important implication of the error analysis is that poor discretization of one optical coefficient results in error in the other, resulting in inter-parameter "cross-talk" due entirely to discretization.
Where adults reported receiving influenza vaccination in the United States

Background Influenza vaccination coverage remains unacceptably low among persons aged ≥65 years and younger high-risk adults. This study assessed locations at which US adults receive influenza (flu) vaccinations and the relative roles that traditional and nontraditional vaccination settings play in influenza vaccine delivery. Methods We analyzed data on types of settings at which last flu shot was received, reported by adult respondents to the 1999 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, stratified by age group and medical condition. We used multivariable logistic regression to identify factors associated with nontraditional vaccination settings. Results In 1998-1999, reported influenza vaccination coverage was 19% for persons aged 18-49 years, 36% for persons aged 50-64 years, and 67% for persons aged ≥65 years. Seventy percent of flu shots received by persons aged ≥18 years were reportedly administered in doctors' offices and other traditional settings. Vaccination in nontraditional settings (eg, workplace, stores, community centers) was more likely for young, healthy, employed, white, college-educated adults who had not had a recent routine checkup. Conclusion Physicians should offer vaccination services at every opportunity. Increasing access to vaccination services in nontraditional settings should be considered as another strategy in pursuit of national vaccination coverage objectives.
Status of breeding and wintering Snowy Plovers in San Diego County, California, 1994-1999

Abstract We conducted intensive surveys of breeding and wintering Snowy Plovers (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) in San Diego County from 1994 through the winter of 1999. We found Snowy Plovers using 11 sites within the study area for nesting and at least 18 sites were used during winter months. Estimated breeding populations of Snowy Plovers within San Diego County fluctuated among years, and males always outnumbered females; fewer than 325 Snowy Plovers were present during any breeding season. Two sites consistently supported 65% of nesting pairs during this study, both at military installations. Nesting sites with fewer than five breeding pairs were unlikely to produce fledglings. Nest success over the entire area ranged from 50–58% and reproductive success was on average fewer than 0.5 fledglings produced per adult plover. Approximately 227–367 Snowy Plovers wintered within San Diego County from 1995–1999, which is within the range of winter population estimates from the mid-1980s. Neither breeding n...
An algorithm for fast edit distance computation on GPUs

The problem of finding the edit distance between two sequences (and its closely related problem of longest common subsequence) are important problems with applications in many domains like virus scanners, security kernels, natural language translation and genome sequence alignment. The traditional dynamic-programming based algorithm is hard to parallelize on SIMD processors as the algorithm is memory intensive and has many divergent control paths. In this paper we introduce a new algorithm which modifies the dynamic programming method to reduce its amount of data storage and eliminate control flow divergences. Our algorithm divides the problem into independent ‘quadrants’ and makes efficient use of shared memory and registers available in GPUs to store data between different phases of the algorithm. Further, we eliminate any control flow divergences by embedding condition variables in the program logic to ensure all the threads execute the same instructions even though they work on different data items. We present an implementation of this algorithm on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 GPU and compare against an optimized multi-threaded implementation on an Intel Core i7-920 quad core CPU with hyper-threading support. Our results show that our GPU implementation is up to 8x faster when operating on a large number of sequences.
Ultrasonic flaw detection based on mathematical morphology

The deterministic and statistical properties of morphological filters and their application in ultrasonic flaw detection have studied utilizing different structuring elements. It has been shown the effectiveness of the filtering process depends on the frequency content of input signals, the combination of morphological operations, and the parameters of the structuring elements. The statistical parameters (mean, variance, and skewness) of sequential morphological operations (i.e., dilation, closing, clos-erosion, and clos-opening) are examined in order to determine the noise suppression capability of morphological filters and their biasing effects. Experimental evaluation of morphological filters for flaw detection in the presence of strong scattering echoes is presented for A- and B-scans. The processed experimental results show that morphological filters can improve flaw visibility by suppressing microstructure scattering echoes. The performance of morphological filters is compared with that of recursive median filters and ensemble averaging using experimental data. Results indicate that morphological filters perform better than recursive median filters in preserving the geometric structure of the signal and can replace ensemble averaging which requires numerous measurements. >
Economic analyses of radiological procedures: a methodological evaluation of the medical literature.

Abstract Objective: Increasing pressure to curb health care costs has led to considerable interest in economic analyses, including both cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses. Numerous economic analyses of radiological procedures have appeared in both the radiology and non-radiology literature. The objective of this study was to evaluate the methodological quality of economic analyses of radiological procedures published in the non-radiology medical literature during the years 1990–1995. Methods: Original investigations from the medical (non-radiological) literature that include economic analyses of radiological interventions were identified from a computerized literature search. Each economic analysis article was evaluated by two independent reviewers for adherence to ten methodological criteria. The criteria were derived from review of the medical and radiological economic analysis methodology literature and consisted of the following: (1) Comparative options stated; (2) perspective of analysis defined; (3) outcome measure identified; (4) cost data included; (5) source of cost data stated; (6) long term costs included; (7) discounting employed; (8) summary measure provided; (9) incremental computation method used; and (10) sensitivity analysis performed. The results were compared to a previous study that evaluated the radiological literature. Results: Of the 56 articles in the medical literature that included economic analyses of radiological procedures, only eight (14%) conformed to all ten methodological criteria. The cost data (98%) and comparative options (89%) criteria exhibited high compliance, while the perspective of analysis (25%) and discounting (32%) criteria had relatively low compliance. Agreement between the reviewers was excellent (κ=0.88). Conclusions: Published economic analyses of radiology procedures usually do not meet accepted methodological standards.
Bladder Cancer Imaging

Bladder cancer is the second-most common genitourinary malignant disease in the United States, with an estimated 70,530 newly diagnosed cases and 14,680 cancer-related deaths in 2010. The incidence of bladder cancer increases with age, peaking between 50 and 70 years old. It is three times more common in men than in women, and twice more frequent in Caucasians than in African Americans.
Effects of Local Interfacial Debonding on the Stress Evolution in Aluminum Interconnects

The evolution of thermal stresses in aluminum interconnects, with the presence of local debonded areas between the aluminum line and the surrounding dielectric, is studied numerically. Local interfacial debonding is presumably due to contamination during the line patterning process. Various geometrical features of the interconnect and the debond segment are assumed, and the resulting stress fields are examined by recourse to two- and three-dimensional finite element analyses. Implications of the findings to the interconnect reliability, particularly stress-induced voiding in aluminum lines, are discussed.
High resolution imaging of the fibrous microstructure in bovine common carotid artery using optical polarization tractography

The biomechanical properties of artery are primarily determined by the fibrous structures in the vessel wall. Many vascular diseases are associated with alternations in the orientation and alignment of the fibrous structure in the arterial wall. Knowledge on the structural features of the artery wall is crucial to our understanding of the biology of vascular diseases and the development of novel therapies. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and polarization-sensitive OCT have shown great promise in imaging blood vessels due to their high resolution, fast acquisition, good imaging depth, and large field of view. However, the feasibility of using OCT based methods for imaging fiber orientation and distribution in the arterial wall has not been investigated. Here we show that the optical polarization tractography (OPT), a technology developed from Jones matrix OCT, can reveal the fiber orientation and alignment in the bovine common carotid artery. The fiber orientation and alignment data obtained in OPT provided a robust contrast marker to clearly resolve the intima and media boundary of the carotid artery wall. Optical polarization tractography can visualize fiber orientation and alignment in carotid artery.
A Multi-Robot Testbed for Adaptive Sampling Experimentation via Radio Frequency Fields

Adaptive navigation is the process by which a vehicle determines where to go based on information received while moving through the field of interest. Adaptive sampling is a specific form of this in which that information is environmental data sampled by the robot. This may be beneficial in order to save time/energy compared to a conventional navigation strategy in which the entire field is traversed. Our work in this area focuses on multi-robot gradient-based techniques for the adaptive sampling of a scalar field. To date, we have experimentally demonstrated multi-robot gradient ascent/descent as well as contour following using automated marine surface vessels. In simulation we have verified controllers for ridge descent / valley ascent as well as saddle point detection and loitering. To support rapid development of our controllers, we have developed a new testbed using wireless transmitters to establish a simple, large-scale, customizable scalar field based on the strength of the radio frequency field. A cluster of six land rovers equipped with radio signal strength sensors is then used to process sampled data, to make adaptive decisions on how to move, and to execute those moves. In this paper, we describe the technical design of the testbed, present initial experimental results, and describe our ongoing research and development work in the area of adaptive sampling and multi-robot control.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
Abstract 1731: Decreased cyclin B1 expression contributes to mitochondrial apoptosis in medulloblastoma.

Medulloblastoma, the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor, remains difficult to cure. Previously, we have shown that downregulation of MMP-9 and uPAR induces Chk1-mediated G 2 /M cell-cycle arrest in medulloblastoma cells. In this study, we observed that downregulation of MMP-9 in nude mice D283 xenografts downregulated the expression of cyclin B1. Increasing evidence indicates that the deregulation of cyclin B1 is involved in neoplastic transformation, suggesting that inhibition of cyclin B1 could be an attractive strategy for anti-tumor therapy. To determine the effect of downregulation of cyclin B1, we treated medulloblastoma cells with nocodazole, which is an anti-neoplastic agent. Nocodazole-treated cells have undergone G 2 /M cell-cycle arrest because of the mitotic spindle arrest. Prolonged arrest of cells in mitosis due to nocodazole treatment typically results in cell death by apoptosis. Hence, we confirmed the induction of apoptosis in medulloblastoma cells by TUNEL analysis. Immunoblot analysis of cell cycle checkpoint proteins Chk1, Chk2 and cyclin B1 revealed that they were downregulated in combination treatments of shMMP-9 with radiation. Further, apoptotic proteins BAD, BAX and BAK were highly upregulated, which shows the involvement of mitochondria-mediated apoptosis in our treatments. In vivo analysis of BAD molecules in D283 nude mice xenografts confirmed that downregulation of cyclin B1 induces BAD-mediated apoptotic death in medulloblastoma tumors treated with either shMMP-9 alone or in combination with radiation. With this study, we demonstrate that downregulation of cyclin B1 is an effective and specific approach to induce apoptosis for effective anti-tumor therapy against medulloblastoma. Citation Format: Venkata Ramesh Dasari, Swapna Asuthkar, Arun Kumar Nalla, Jasti S. Rao. Decreased cyclin B1 expression contributes to mitochondrial apoptosis in medulloblastoma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1731. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1731
Being in the Know Early Adolescents’ Knowledge of Who Bullies Whom

We tested the hypothesis that early adolescents’ (N = 951) knowledge of who bullies whom is differentially distributed across peers. Knowledge of bullying was assessed by asking middle school students to nominate grademates who bullied or were bullied using physical or relational means. We hypothesized that peers who were closer to bullies and victims in the grade-level friendship network, such as bullies, victims, their friends, and socially central youth, would be more knowledgeable than would peers who were socially distant. Findings revealed that approximately half of the adolescents were able to identify bullies and victims, and those who were most able to do so were socially closer, particularly victims and their friends. Bullies and their friends were less likely to name peers as bullies or victims.