cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Age and Disability Biases in Pediatric Resuscitation Among Future Physicians

This study examined whether biases concerning age and/or disability status influenced resuscitation decisions. Medical students were randomly chosen to read 1 of 4 vignettes, organized in a 2 (age: infant vs school-age) × 2 (disability: preexisting vs no preexisting) between-subjects design. The vignettes described a pediatric patient experiencing an acute episode who required resuscitation. Following resuscitation, patients with existing disability would continue to have disability, whereas those without would develop disability. Participants indicated whether they would resuscitate, given a 10% chance of success. There was a significant main effect of disability: Medical students displayed a preference for resuscitating previously disabled children compared with previously healthy children when prognosis was held constant, F(1, 121) = 4.89, p = .03. This differential treatment of the two groups cannot easily be morally justified and poses a quandary for educators.
The Contingent Value of Embeddedness Self-affirming Social Environments, Network Density, and Well-being

Social capital theorists claim that belonging to a densely knit social network creates a shared identity, mutually beneficial exchange, trust, and a sense of belonging in that group. Taken together with the empirical research on the importance of social support and social integration for individuals’ well-being, there is reason to expect that the density of one’s personal social network should be positively related to well-being. However, using a unique data set on extensive personal social networks from a convenience sample of 198 young adults, the author finds that the relationship between network density and well-being is significantly more complex. Specifically, results suggest that the effect of network density on self-evaluations of efficacy and worth depends on whether or not individuals belong to self-affirming social environments. For those who belong to self-affirming social environments, network density increases self-esteem and self-efficacy, which is consistent with social capital theorists’ ...
Protein Synthesis in the Rat Anterior Pituitary. III. The Fate of Total Protein, Prolactin and Growth Hormone Labeled in an in Vitro Incubation*

Rat anterior pituitaries were incubated in vitro 10 min with a 3H-amino acid mixture and then transferred to chase medium without label for 1, 3, and 6 hr. During the first hour of chase there was a much slowed but continuing incorporation of label into total protein, prolactin (PRL) and growth hormone (GH). However, if puromycin was added to the chase medium, there was a drop in the level of all labeled protein species during the first hour of chase. Total label (pituitary plus medium) in all labeled protein species then stabilized during the remaining 5 hr of chase. During the 6-hr chase in non-puromycin medium there was an apparent greater medium gain of labeled total protein and PRL than was lost from the pituitary. Conversely, in puromycin chase medium there was a greater 6-hr loss of pituitary cpm than could be accounted for by medium gain. However, if medium gains were compared to pituitary losses only during the last 5 hr of chase, then the two were equivalent for both puromycin and non-puromycin ...
MUTATIONS AFFECTING FUNCTIONS OF THE DROSOPHILA GENE GLUED

Glued mutations in Drosophila comprise an essential complementation group with complex developmental effects. The original Glued mutation ( Gl) has dominant nonlethal effects in heterozygous flies, principally on the morphogenesis of the visual system. Gl also has a recessive lethal effect early in development. Mutations that reverse the dominant visual effects of Gl (GlR mutations) were induced by γ-radiation or by insertions of the transposable P element. The GlR(G) mutations induced by γ-radiation do not reverse the lethal effect of Gl; these appear to be null mutations, some of which (and possibly all) delete segments of the Glued region. The GlR(P) mutations induced by insertion of the P element also reverse concomitantly a recessive lethal effect of Gl, suggesting that both the recessive and dominant effects are controlled by the same gene. The reversal of a lethal effect of Gl by the P element is remarkable, since it indicates that an essential gene function can be restored by insertion of unrelated DNA. Another class of lethal Glued mutations was induced in the normal Gl+ strain by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS). The EMS mutations belong to the same essential complementation group as Gl, but do not have the strong dominant effects of Gl on the visual system.—The GlR(P) mutations provide a molecular marker for the Glued gene, which was used to map the gene to the 70C2 band of chromosome 3L by in situ hybridization of a P element probe to polytene chromosomes from the GlR(P) strains and also to isolate clones of Glued genomic DNA for molecular studies of the normal gene and the various Glued mutations.
Real-time simulation of dynamic vehicle models using a high-performance reconfigurable platform

With the increase in the complexity of models and lack of flexibility offered by the analog computers, coupled with the advancements in digital hardware, the simulation industry has subsequently moved to digital computers and increased usage of programming languages such as C, C++, and MATLAB. However, the reduced time-step required to simulate complex and fast systems imposes a tighter constraint on the time within which the computations have to be performed. The sequential execution of these computations fails to cope with the real-time constraints which further restrict the usefulness of Real-Time Simulation (RTS) in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. In this paper, we present a methodology for the design and implementation of RTS algorithms, based on the use of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology. We apply our methodology to an 8th order steering valve subsystem of a vehicle with relatively low response time requirements and use the FPGA technology to improve the response time of this model. Our methodology utilizes traditional hardware/software co-design approaches to generate a heterogeneous architecture for an FPGA-based simulator by porting the computationally complex regions to hardware. The hardware design was optimized such that it efficiently utilizes the parallel nature of FPGAs and pipelines the independent operations. Further enhancement was made by building a hardware component library of custom accelerators for common non-linear functions. The library also stores the information about resource utilization, cycle count, and the relative error with different bit-width combinations for these components, which is further used to evaluate different partitioning approaches. In this paper, we illustrate the partitioning of a hardware-based simulator design across dual FPGAs, initiate RTS using a system input from a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) framework, and use these simulation results from our FPGA-based platform to perform response analysis. The total simulation time, which includes the time required to receive the system input over a socket (without HIL), software initialization, hardware computation, and transfer of simulation results back over a socket, shows a speedup of 2 × as compared to a similar setup with no hardware acceleration. The correctness of the simulation output from the hardware has also been validated with the simulated results from the software-only design.
Reflected Radiance Measured by NOAA 3 VHRR as a Function of Optical Depth for Saharan Dust

Abstract A near-linear relationship is described between aerosol optical depth for Saharan dust over the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean and radiance measured aboard the NOAA 3 satellite by the VHRR.
Pathways to mental health-related quality of life for parents of children with autism spectrum disorder: roles of parental stress, children’s performance, medical support, and neighbor support

Abstract Parental mental health-related quality of life affects the ability of a family to cope with and adapt to the presence of a disability in a family member, such as their child. Therefore, understanding variables that influence parental mental health-related quality of life in families of children with autism spectrum disorder is important. The purpose of this study was to examine the pathways to parental mental health-related quality of life, focusing on the variables of parental stress, children’s performance, medical support, and neighbor support. These variables were hypothesized to be interrelated with one another and directly or indirectly associated with parental mental health-related quality of life. Samples of this study were 429 parents of children with autism spectrum disorder aged 6–17 years in the United States. These parents were selected from the respondents interviewed over the telephone by the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health. The item indicators selected from the survey were used to construct latent variables for the investigated variables. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Results showed that parental stress, children’s performance, medical support, and neighbor support played important roles in the pathways. Implications and limitations are discussed.
Application of cooled radiofrequency ablation in management of chronic joint pain

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a minimally invasive neurotomy technique that can provide sensory ablation in patients with chronic pain. Cooled RFA, however, can create larger lesions compared with traditional RFA. Size of lesions plays a more important role in neurotomy of articular nerves where neural anatomy is not as predictable. We review the literature present about cooled radiofrequency neurotomy of articular branches of joints in patients with chronic pain of sacroiliac, hip, or knee joints. Sacroiliac joint pain is a significant etiology of low-back pain whereas low-back pain can be experienced by up to a third of the population. Chronic hip and knee pain can result in huge healthcare expenses as well as disability. The patients with chronic hip and knee pain might not be good candidates for arthroplasty surgeries because of their other comorbidities. Moreover, they might have persistent pain postoperatively. We also explain the technique used for neurotomy of articular branches in these joints.
Asynchronous SAR logic design using majority vote comparison for configurable SAR ADCs

A low-power configurable design for an asynchronous SAR ADC that is suitable for analog front-end of sensor ASICs is presented. The proposed architecture employs a majority vote based comparator capable of providing programmable noise performance. The proposed asynchronous digital logic determines the majority vote by employing two counters at the comparator differential output. Simulation result shows that the total number of votes in a 12-bit ADC can be reduced by 42% using a split-counter majority voter. Further reduction is possible by allocating the number of votes non-uniformly with more votes closer to LSB cycles. Simulation results show that the total number of votes can be reduced by 65% in a 12-bit ADC with the non-uniform vote allocation. When compared to a non-voting conventional 12-bit SAR ADC with the same overall performance, the comparator power is reduced by 46%.
Reliability assessment of a hospital quality measure based on rates of adverse outcomes on nursing units

The purpose of this study was to develop methods for assessing the reliability of scores on a widely disseminated hospital quality measure based on nursing unit fall rates. Poisson regression interactive multilevel modeling was adapted to account for clustering of units within hospitals. Three signal-noise reliability measures were computed. Squared correlations between the hospital score and true hospital fall rate averaged 0.52 ± 0.18 for total falls (0.68 ± 0.18 for injurious falls). Reliabilities on the other two measures averaged at least 0.70 but varied widely across hospitals. Parametric bootstrap data reflecting within-unit noise in falls were generated to evaluate percentile-ranked hospital scores as estimators of true hospital fall rate ranks. Spearman correlations between bootstrap hospital scores and true fall rates averaged 0.81 ± 0.01 (0.79 ± 0.01). Bias was negligible, but ranked hospital scores were imprecise, varying across bootstrap samples with average SD 11.8 (14.9) percentiles. Across bootstrap samples, hospital-measure scores fell in the same decile as the true fall rate in about 30% of cases. Findings underscore the importance of thoroughly assessing reliability of quality measurements before deciding how they will be used. Both the hospital measure and the reliability methods described can be adapted to other contexts involving clustered rates of adverse patient outcomes.
Comparison of the results of bacterial cultures from multiple sites in chronic osteomyelitis of long bones : a prospective study

We evaluated the results of aerobic, anaerobic, and fungal cultures of specimens that had been obtained from multiple sites in thirty patients who had traumatic osteomyelitis with a sinus track. In each patient, we obtained specimens of material from the sinus track; specimens of purulent fluid, of soft tissue, and of bone obtained from curettage; and specimens from the bed of the involved bone. More than one organism grew on culture of the specimens from twenty-one of the patients; more than three organisms, from those of eleven patients; and ten organisms, from those of two patients. The same organisms grew on culture of the specimens from every site in only fourteen (47 per cent) of the thirty patients. We recommend that specimens of material from the sinus track; specimens of purulent material, of soft tissue, and of bone obtained from curettage; and specimens from the bed of the involved bone be obtained for culture before the treatment of chronic osteomyelitis with a draining sinus, so that as many of the infecting organisms as possible will be identified.
Think Positive: Towards Twitter Sentiment Analysis from Scratch

In this paper we describe a Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DNN) approach to perform two sentiment detection tasks: message polarity classification and contextual polarity disambiguation. We apply the proposed approach for the SemEval2014 Task 9: Sentiment Analysis in Twitter. Despite not using any handcrafted feature or sentiment lexicons, our system achieves very competitive results for Twitter data.
A convergent genealogy? Space, time and the promise of horizontal politics today

While the surge in horizontalist activism of the last few years has drawn upon both Marxist and anarchist traditions, post-Marxist literature offers a useful guide for evaluating the strategic opportunities available to the movements today. Focusing on the camp and the event as its conceptual reference points, this article contrasts the relative merits of the spatial and chronological strategies of the movements, concluding ultimately in favour of a longer-term strategy of withdrawal, or ‘exodus’, for its ability to sustain parallel forms of community and provide longer-term support for radical politics. We conclude with a brief commentary applying these arguments to the predicaments faced today by movements in Spain and Greece.
Augmented Learning with Augmented Reality

Perhaps no other digital technology has the potential for revolutionizing the educational experience as augmented reality (AR). In this chapter the philosophical, pedagogical, and conceptual underpinnings are unpacked regarding learning with AR. Specifically, AR is defined and the evolution detailed. Next, some of the common usages of the technology are described, recommendations given, and finally the future educational implications are presented.
Application of multiplex polymerase chain reaction to rapidly detect insect-resistant transgenic rice

Through optimizing the concentration of mediate liquid,annealing temperature,primers,etc.,multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method was designed for simultaneously detecting CaMV35S promoter,NOS terminator,hpt (hygromycin B phosphotransferase gene),insect-resistante gene Cry1Ac,Cry1Ab,CpTi which is frequently used in transgenic rice.The result show that the high efficiency PCR system was obtained when the primer is 0.2 μM for each,and annealing temperature is 58 ℃.The final concentration of PCR buffer is 2.0x for detection of CaMV35S,NOS,Bt;the final concentration of PCR buffer is 1.5x for detection of CaMV35S,NOS,Bt and CpTi;the final concentration of PCR buffer is 1.0x for detection of CaMV35S,NOS,Bt and hpt.And the limits of detection are 0.1%.This method was stable,reliable,rapid and accurate for testing different transgenic rice.
Head and Neck Soft Tissue Sarcomas Treated with Radiation Therapy

Head and neck soft tissue sarcomas (HNSTSs) are rare and heterogeneous cancers in which radiation therapy (RT) has an important role in local tumor control (LC). The purpose of this study was to evaluate outcomes and patterns of treatment failure in patients with HNSTS treated with RT. A retrospective review was performed of adult patients with HNSTS treated with RT from January 1, 1998, to December 31, 2012. LC, locoregional control (LRC), disease-free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), and predictors thereof were assessed. Forty-eight patients with HNSTS were evaluated. Five-year Kaplan-Meier estimates of LC, LRC, DFS, and OS were 87, 73, 63, and 83%, respectively. Angiosarcomas were found to be associated with worse LC, LRC, DFS, and OS. Patients over the age of 60 had lower rates of DFS. HNSTSs comprise a diverse group of tumors that can be managed with various treatment regimens involving RT. Angiosarcomas have higher recurrence and mortality rates.
Executive Function in Pediatric Sleep-Disordered Breathing: A Meta-analysis.

Objectives Evaluate the association between pediatric sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and executive functioning. Methods We searched multiple electronic databases for peer-reviewed journal articles related to pediatric SDB and executive functioning. We included studies that assessed SDB via polysomnography, included objective or questionnaire measures of executive function, and had an age-matched control group. Fourteen articles met inclusion criteria with a total sample of 1697 children ages 5 to 17 years (M=9.81 years; SD=0.34). We calculated an overall effect size for each of the five executive domains (vigilance, inhibition, working memory, shifting, and generativity) as well as effect sizes according to SDB severity: mild, moderate, severe. We also calculated effect sizes separately for objective and subjective questionnaires of executive functioning. Results We found a medium effect size (-0.427) for just one of five executive function domains on objective neuropsychological measures (generativity). In contrast, effect sizes on all three executive domains measured via questionnaire data were significant, with effect sizes ranging from medium (-0.64) to large (-1.06). We found no difference between executive domains by severity of SDB. Conclusions This meta-analysis of executive function separated into five domains in pediatric SDB suggested lower performance in generativity on objective neuropsychological measures. There were no differences associated with SDB severity. Questionnaire data suggested dysfunction across the three executive domains measured (inhibition, working memory, shifting). Overall, limited evidence suggested poorer performance in executive function in children with SDB according to objective testing, and subjective ratings of executive function suggested additional worsened performance. (JINS, 2016, 22, 839-850).
Leading with humility: Developing a culture of success!

Authentic leadership is critical to spearheading the advancement of young surgeons in their developmental stages as they acquire the skill sets necessary to lead successful careers in surgery. It is predicated on the understanding of the aptitudes, learned skills, dedication, patience, agreeableness, and nurturing of one's cognitive and emotional intelligence. Resilience and humility are a few of the attributes required to master for those who hope to become leaders and mentors within surgery. Perspectives on learning and leadership from the young trainee to the seasoned surgeon, both of which are considered students of surgery, are presented here. Traits of great leaders are discussed in the hope of creating a culture that fosters the development of surgical mentors in the next generations to come. The following core competencies are addressed in this article: Interpersonal skills and communication, Professionalism, Systems based practice.
Auditing the Physical Activity and Parkinson Disease Literature Using the Behavioral Epidemiologic Framework.

Abstract Motor and nonmotor symptoms associated with Parkinson disease place individuals at greater risk of sedentary behaviors and comorbidities. Physical activity is one modifiable means of improving health and reducing the risk of morbidity. We applied a behavioral framework to classify existing research on physical activity and Parkinson disease to describe the current evolution and inform knowledge gaps in this area. Research placed in phase 1 establishes links between physical activity and health-related outcomes; phase 2 develops approaches to quantify physical activity behavior; phase 3 identifies factors associated with implementation of physical activity behaviors; phase 4 assesses the effectiveness of interventions to promote activity; and phase 5 disseminates evidence-based recommendations. Peer-reviewed literature was identified by searching PubMed, Google Scholar, and EBSCO-host . We initially identified 287 potential articles. After further review, we excluded 109 articles, leaving 178 included articles. Of these, 75.84% were categorized into phase 1 (n = 135), 10.11% in phase 2 (n = 18), 9.55% into phase 3 (n = 17), 3.37% into phase 4 (n = 6), and 1.12% into phase 5 (n = 2). By applying the behavioral framework to the physical activity literature for people with Parkinson disease, we suggest this area of research is nascent with more than 75% of the literature in phase 1. Level of Evidence III
Interregional Wage Differentials in the United States: A Survey

Over forty years ago, Klarman (1943) argued that income differences between regions could be explained fully by variations in community size and other factors that distinguish workers and working conditions. Nevertheless, most subsequent empirical investigations have concluded not only that there are substantial interregional differences in real wages earned by similar workers, but also that these differences have persisted over comparatively long periods of time (Easterlin, 1961) and have been unresponsive to migration flows (Borts, 1960). In fact, Klarman’s argument was at one point labelled an “extreme view” by Fuchs and Perlman (1960) and Hanushek (1981, p. 241) observed that “... virtually every micro-data human capital study of schooling-earnings relationships that allows regional variation (through regional dummy variables or stratification) finds significant differences .. . .” More recent evidence, however, supports Klarman’s original finding. For example, Gerking and Weirick (1983), Farber and Newman (1987), and Dickie and Gerking (1987) demonstrate that interregional differences in average wages result primarily from aggregating heterogeneous labor types and that returns to labor market characteristics are geographically invariant.
Operationalizing Multidisciplinary Assessment and Treatment as a Quality Metric for Interventional Pain Practices.

Objective Quality improvement (QI) is an underutilized approach among pain medicine specialists to improve comprehensive pain assessment and the delivery of multimodal pain care. We report the results of a QI program that utilized peer review and financial incentives to improve these processes in interventional pain clinics. Design Retrospective chart review. Setting Eight academic and community-based practices that included separate hospital-based and non-hospital-based interventional pain clinics. Subjects Results of chart audits by nine academic pain medicine physicians. Methods An audit of a random sample of each pain physician's charts was periodically examined for mention and discussion of specific components of multidisciplinary pain care. A portion of the physician's incentive payment was withheld if less than 70% of charts were compliant. The rates of compliance after the intervention for the group were compared. Results Before this program was instituted, an audit of 10 patient charts from each of the nine pain medicine physicians revealed only a 13% baseline rate of compliance. After the audit system was implemented, 90% of all patient charts were compliant during the first 12-month period (P < 0.01 for the change in rate of compliance). Conclusions The results of this QI project suggest that pain clinics can make this value-based transition and offer high-quality multidisciplinary assessment and treatment, with good compliance among a group of physicians in primarily intervention-based practices.
Gravitationally bound condensates formed by bosons with potential energy V (A) = Λ$^{4}$[1–cos(A/f)]

We review our recent work on gravitationally bound condensates formed by Hermitian bosons interacting with a potential energy Λ4[1 − cos(A/f)]. We have used an expansion method to simplify the equations of motion. The expansion parameters are the binding energy of the condensed bosons, and the ratio between the scale of the Bose field f and the Planck mass. Applying our analysis to QCD axions, we find that the condensates have a limiting mass of O(1019) kg and a size of O(100) km.
Rico: A Mobile App Dataset for Building Data-Driven Design Applications

Data-driven models help mobile app designers understand best practices and trends, and can be used to make predictions about design performance and support the creation of adaptive UIs. This paper presents Rico, the largest repository of mobile app designs to date, created to support five classes of data-driven applications: design search, UI layout generation, UI code generation, user interaction modeling, and user perception prediction. To create Rico, we built a system that combines crowdsourcing and automation to scalably mine design and interaction data from Android apps at runtime. The Rico dataset contains design data from more than 9.7k Android apps spanning 27 categories. It exposes visual, textual, structural, and interactive design properties of more than 72k unique UI screens. To demonstrate the kinds of applications that Rico enables, we present results from training an autoencoder for UI layout similarity, which supports query- by-example search over UIs.
A Developmental approach to the Life Cycle of the Family

A suggested perspective offers a way of telescoping the conceptually ephemeral interface between individual growth and a potent social environment — the family
African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence

The push for independence in African nations was ultimately an incomplete process, with the people often left to wrestle with a partial, imperfect legacy. Rather than settle for liberation in name alone, the people engaged in an ongoing struggle for meaningful freedom. Phyllis Taoua shows how the idea of freedom in Africa today evolved from this complex history. With a pan-African, interdisciplinary approach, she synthesizes the most significant issues into a clear, compelling narrative. Tracing the evolution of a conversation about freedom since the 1960s, she defines three types and shows how they are interdependent. Taoua investigates their importance in key areas of narrative interest: the intimate self, gender identity, the nation, global capital, and the spiritual realm. Allowing us to hear the voices of African artists and activists, this compelling study makes sense of their struggle and the broad importance of the idea of freedom in contemporary African culture.
Prosthetists' perceptions of information obtained from a lower limb prosthesis monitoring system: a pilot study.

Introduction Prosthetists have limited knowledge of their patients' use of a prosthesis outside of the clinical environment. Prosthesis-mounted monitors can be used to directly measure patients' prosthesis use and activity. Prosthetists' opinions regarding potential clinical applications for sensor-based information may inform further development of this technology. A pilot study was conducted to assess prosthetists' perceptions of prosthesis use and activity information obtained by a monitoring system. Materials and methods Three local prosthetists were recruited to participate in the study. One patient with transtibial amputation from each prosthetist volunteered to wear limb presence and activity monitors for two weeks. Collected data were used to determine prosthesis use and activity. Each prosthetist completed a survey, examined clinical reports of their patient's prosthesis use and activity, and participated in a semi-structured interview. Survey results and interview transcripts were analyzed to identify and compare prosthetists' perceptions. Results Prosthesis use and activity varied among patients. Prosthetists over- and under-estimated patient activity, relative to measurements recorded by the monitors. All three prosthetists selected multiple clinical applications for the prosthesis use and activity information in the survey, and several additional applications were suggested during the interviews. When presented with multiple report formats, prosthetists found features of each to be clinically useful. Conclusions Prosthesis-mounted monitors may provide prosthetists with a better understanding of their patients' prosthesis use and activity. Information provided by the monitoring system may inform clinical decisions and promote evidence-based practices.
Unusual Metastatic Patterns of Prostate Adenocarcinoma

While prostatic adenocarcinoma is associated classically with osseous or lymphatic metastasis, it can present clinically with protean manifestations. We describe 4 cases that demonstrate unusual patterns of metastatic spread, including isolated supraclavicular mass, pleural effusion, suprapubic and genital skin metastasis, and priapism. Newer immunohistochemical staining techniques for prostate specific antigen and prostatic acid phosphatase can assist in localization of the metastatic adenocarcinoma to a prostatic origin.
Transcriptivism: An ethical framework for modern linguistics

Descriptivism is a methodologically efficacious framework in the discipline of linguistics. However, it categorically fails to explicitly account for the moral responsibilities of linguists, as moral agents. In so doing, descriptivism has been used as a justification for indifference to instances and systems of linguistic violence, among other moral shortcomings. Specifically, many guidelines for descriptive ethics stipulate that a linguist â€œdo no harmâ€ but do not necessarily require the linguist to prevent harm or mitigate systems of violence. In this paper, I delineate an ethical framework, transcriptivism, which is distinct from research ethics and covers the line of philosophical inquiry related to questions of the moral agency of linguists and their moral responsibility. The potential for this new framework is demonstrated through a case study of conflicting Tennessee language ideologies regarding gender-neutral pronoun usage as well as an analysis of misgendering as an act of linguistic violence.
Selection of Air Force Officers — Profiles, Criteria, Testing

The article presents an explanation of the selection process for German Air Force (GAF) officers in general, and those for flying duty in particular. The text includes an overview of the entire selection and training process, the desired profiles and characteristics of GAF officers, criteria for evaluating current officers, and statistics which show the results of this process.
A swarm-based approach to dynamic coverage control of multi-agent systems

Abstract In this paper, we propose a swarm-based dynamic coverage scheme where we consider groups of coverage agents that behave as swarms for completing the coverage task. Agents are deployed to uncovered regions via swarming control where a leader agent selects a target position that is in an uncovered region while all other agents are commanded to swarm around the leader agent’s target position. Coverage and swarming control inputs are decoupled, meaning that only one of them is active at a given time. Through the decoupling of these control inputs, we attain simpler control problems that we analyze separately for different behavior modes and provide stability results for the overall control schemes through Lyapunov-like analysis for two different cases: swarms of kinematic unicycle agents and multiple swarms of single-integrator agents. In addition to the coverage objective, we design control inputs for collision and static obstacle avoidance and proximity maintenance.
Effects of locoweed (Oxytropis sericea) on growth, reproduction, and serum hormone profiles in young rams.

Sixteen ram lambs (5 mo old, average BW = 49 +/- 1.4 kg) received a control diet (50% concentrate, 13.1% CP) or a diet containing 7, 14, or 21% locoweed (LW, DM basis). Rams were housed in individual pens (2.5 x 3.5 m) in an enclosed facility (14 h light, 10 h dark) with free access to feed and water. After 35 d of LW feeding, rams fed the 21% LW diet ate 1.3 to 1.6 kg/d, whereas rams fed the other three diets ate 1.6 to 2.0 kg/d. On d 35, BW (mean +/- SE) were 58.3, 57.2, 57.2, and 55.4 (+/- 1.5 kg/d) for ram lambs receiving 0, 7, 14, and 21% LW, respectively (P > .20). An inverse relationship for BW (P .50) on d 35. One month after the end of LW feeding, a linear (P = .06) decrease in sperm motility and scrotal circumference was observed relative to percentage of prior dietary LW. These data suggest that LW exerts adverse effects on the testes of young rams that may not be evident until several weeks after LW consumption ends.
Vascular and Lymphatic Tumors and Malformations

Tumors and malformations of the blood vessels are subject to wide variation in their nomenclature and even in criteria for their diagnosis. Those which are likely to be encountered in the practice of orthopedics involve both soft and hard tissues of the trunk and extremities.
Corrosion Concerns? Trends in Metal-on-Polyethylene Total Hip Arthroplasty Revision Rates and Comparisons Against Ceramic-on-Polyethylene up to 10 Years of Follow-Up.

Abstract Background We compared the revision risk between metal-on-polyethylene (MOP) and ceramic-on-polyethylene (COP) total hip arthroplasty patients and evaluated temporal changes in short-term revision risks for MOP patients. Methods Primary MOP (n = 9480) and COP (n = 3620) total hip arthroplasties were evaluated from the Medicare data set (October 2005 to December 2015) for revision risk, with up to 10 years of follow-up using multivariate analysis. Temporal change in the short-term revision risk for MOP was evaluated (log-rank and Wilcoxon tests). Results Revision incidence was 3.8% for COP and 4.3% for MOP. MOP short-term revision risk did not change over time (P ≥ .844 at 1 year and .627 at 2 years). Dislocation was the most common reason for revision (MOP: 23.5%; COP: 24.8%). Overall adjusted revision risks were not different between MOP and COP up to 10 years of follow-up (P ≥ .181). Conclusions Concerns with corrosion for metal heads do not appear to result in significantly elevated revision risk for MOP at up to 10 years. Corrosion does not appear as a primary reason for revision compared to other mechanisms.
Does every newborn need an imaging study after a fall? Case series and literature review

Objective: This study examines the clinical and radiographic information from neonates who sustained a newborn fall (NF) to identify risk factors for the NF and the presence of skull fracture and i...
Clinical Characteristics Predict the Yield of Head Computed Tomography Scans among Intoxicated Trauma Patients: Implications for the Initial Work-up.

Background and Aims: Alcohol intoxication may confound the clinical assessment of the trauma patient. Head computed tomography (h-CT) is the standard imaging technique to rule out intracranial injury in most intoxicated trauma patients. The objective of this study was to determine whether certain clinical findings (computed clinical score [CCS]) could predict the h-CT yield, admission, and neurosurgical consultation (NSC) among intoxicated trauma patients. Materials and Methods: This is a 4-year retrospective cohort study (2013–2017) of trauma patients who presented to our level 1 trauma center emergency department with alcohol intoxication. For each patient, a computed clinical score (CCS) was generated based on the following findings: age ≥50 years, Glasgow Coma Scale
Chapter 6 – STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the measures of statistical significance. The chapter presents the method of computing Chi square (χ2), which is a useful measure of significance. It can be used to examine data displayed in tabular form, and it is handy for quickly reexamining data presented by others. Chi square does not imply causation, but indicates the probability that the relationship occurred by chance. Moreover, χ2 does not provide the meaning of the association. It must be interpreted from other facts. While χ2 is easy to use and to interpret, caution must be exercised when the table cells have low expected frequencies. χ2 is also designed for nominal and ordinal data. However, even with various limitations, the χ2 test is a useful measure of statistical significance that can be applied quickly and that would provide useful results. Tests of statistical significance are used to draw conclusions from the data being examined.
Synthesis of assurance cases for software certification

As software is rapidly being embedded into major parts of our society, ranging from medical devices and self-driving vehicles to critical infrastructures, potential risks of software failures are also growing at an alarming pace. Existing certification processes, however, suffer from a lack of rigor and automation, and often incur a significant amount of manual effort on both system developers and certifiers. To address this issue, we propose a substantially automated, cost-effective certification method, backed with a novel analysis synthesis technique to automatically generate application-specific analysis tools that are custom-tailored to producing the necessary evidence. The outcome of this research promises to not only assist software developers in producing safer and more reliable software, but also benefit industrial certification agencies by significantly reducing the manual effort of certifiers. Early validation flows from experience applying this approach in constructing an assurance case for a surgical robot system in collaboration with the Center for the Advanced Surgical Technology.
Developing Competencies for Emotional, Instrumental, and Informational Student Support During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Human Relations/Human Resource Development Approach

The ProblemThe COVID-19 pandemic required many college and university faculty members to transition quickly from traditional classroom instruction to virtual, online learning. Aside from mastering ...
Re-engineering The Clinical Research Enterprise in Response to COVID-19: The Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) experience and proposed playbook for future pandemics

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the clinical research enterprises at the 60 Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Hubs throughout the nation. There was simultaneously a need to expand research to obtain crucial data about disease prognosis and therapy and enormous limitations on conducting research as localities and institutions limited travel and person-to-person contact. These imperatives resulted in major changes in the way research was conducted, including expediting Institutional Review Board review, shifting to remote interactions with participants, centralizing decision-making in prioritizing research protocols, establishing biobanks, adopting novel informatics platforms, and distributing study drugs in unconventional ways. National CTSA Steering Committee meetings provided an opportunity to share best practices and develop the idea of capturing the CTSA program experiences in a series of papers. Here we bring together the recommendations from those papers in a list of specific actions that research sites can take to strengthen operations and prepare for similar future public health emergencies. Most importantly, creative innovations developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic deserve serious consideration for adoption as new standards, thus converting the painful trauma of the pandemic into “post-traumatic growth” that makes the clinical research enterprise stronger, more resilient, and more effective.
The association between myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD): Analysis of Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database.

e19033Background: The co-occurrence of MDS and IBD has been gradually recognized in the literature. Yet, large-scale national studies are required to investigate this observed association further. ...
The CPA Exam is Changing: Are the Professors Ready?

Accounting professors will now be accountable for teaching their students to think critically, analyze, and evaluate information. The pressure to change accounting higher education cannot be ignored with the new version of the CPA exam, released in April 2017, which now tests analysis and evaluation skills. Have the professors made the changes in their classrooms that will help their students to be successful with this format of questioning? This research seeks to find whether professors have indeed embraced pedagogy that will enhance students’ ability to develop higher order thinking skills. The study begins by explaining changes to the CPA exam. The study provides literature review of the accounting education process, traditional methods of teaching accounting, suggested methods of teaching accounting for enhancement of critical thinking, and identified reasons for resistance to changing teaching methods. The survey is designed to identify current teaching methods in accounting classrooms. The survey seeks to discover what methods are being used to develop higher order thinking skills. The results show that lecture and demonstration of problems are still the predominant method of instruction in accounting classrooms, and these methods are not typically endorsed by research in terms of developing critical thinking, analysis and evaluation skills.
The Battle against Anarchist Terrorism: An International History, 1878–1934

Introduction 1. The origins of anarchist terrorism 2. Conspiracies, panics, agent provocateurs, mass journalism, and globalization 3. International action against subversives: 1815-89 4. The terrorist '90s and increasing police cooperation: 1890-8 5. The first International Conference on Terrorism: Rome 1898 6. 1900: three assassination attempts and the Russo-German Anti-Anarchist Initiative 7. The murder of President McKinley, 1901 8. The St Petersburg Protocol, 1901-4 9. Multilateral anti-anarchist efforts after 1904 10. The decline of anarchist terrorism, 1900-30s Appendix Bibliography.
Female Reproduction Cycles and Social Behavior in Primates

Publisher Summary The menstrual cycle is a distinguishing character of the primates, and innovation in reproductive processes has been accompanied by rapid divergence, giving a wide range of anatomical, behavioral, and probably physiologidal characters. Variations in female willingness to mate range in magnitude from small or absent to periodic complete disruptions of normal behavior, and their timing from brief episodes precisely related to endocrine changes within the menstrual cycle, through as yet unexplained fluctuations with about the same periodicity as the menstrual cycle but varying in relationship with it, to fluctuations that are more usefully related to seasonal changes than to menstrual cycles. The simpler the social situation and the more restricted the physical environment of the animals, the better the correlation between hormone levels and behavior. It is clear that these correlations exist, but also that they must be extremely labile, responding to environmental influences of every kind from the food supply to the previous learning experience of the female. As a result, there are few examples of behavior changes that could reliably be predicted, in many individuals, from knowledge of endocrine changes in group-living female primates, with differences between cycling, pregnancy, and lactation interval being more reliable than changes within the menstrual cycle. The chapter discusses various studies, to investigate the relationship between all types of social behavior and female reproductive cycles in primates, which fall into four main types: (1) there are field studies, (2) there are studies of caged groups of relatively undisturbed animals, (3) there are laboratory studies on highly manipulated animals, and (4) there are laboratory studies where not only are the conditions under which behavior takes place rigidly controlled, but also is the endocrinal status of the animals, by castration and replacement therapy.
Efficient wavelength conversion based on difference frequency mixing in LiNbO/sub 3/ waveguides with integrated coupling structures

Summary form only given. We have demonstrated efficient wavelength conversion using difference frequency mixing within the 1.5-/spl mu/m communications band in periodically-poled lithium niobate waveguides containing an integrated waveguide taper and directional coupler. Static wavelength conversion loss of 7 dB, a large signal dynamic range, and conversion bandwidth >54 nm have been observed. By improving the device fabrication process (such as waveguide uniformity), 0 dB wavelength conversion loss should be possible using a diode laser pump.
Inadequate pharmacotherapeutic data for drugs used in children: what can be done?

Although infants and children are affected by many acute and chronic diseases, nearly 80% of the drugs approved in the US for use in adults have not been labelled for paediatric use. This leads to the ‘off-label’ use of drugs which may produce suboptimal efficacy or harmful effects.
Obstetrics in the very young adolescent.

Abstract In a retrospective study obstetric experience with 137 primigravidas 14 years of age and younger was compared to that with a control group of older women. Acute toxemia, uterine dysfunction, one-day fever, and infant cardiovascular system anomalies occurred more frequently in the very young adolescent group. Complications which were frequently associated with each other in the adolescents were uterine dysfunction with idiopathic bilirubinemia, fetal distress with anemia, and fetal distress with asphyxia neonatorum and respiratory distress syndrome.
Optimal mode changes for highway transportation safety

The problem of designing a decentralized advance hazard warning system for highway transportation systems entails the development of efficient switching controllers. In this paper, we represent the vehicle dynamics by a finite number of modes, each of which is represented by a low order transfer function and a constant time delay. The problem of highway safety analysis then gets translated into that of the stability analysis of a parameterized hybrid system. We present an analysis framework and some preliminary original results.
Removal of wire bond die using a three step process

The focus of this paper is the description of three processes that can be used for the removal of wirebond attached devices. The equipment described is relatively simple to install and can easily be used by manufacturing personnel. These cost effective methods of reworking this type of device are useful when multi-chip modules require repair after testing or where other defects have been found. Instead of discarding the module, a replacement can be made. Replacement procedures make effective use of engineering parts that may require changes. This is true for single chip modules as well. >