cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fear of Failure

In a society focused on achievement and success, the possibility of failure is often minimized or denied. Nevertheless, the very nature of a competitive society is that success can only be attained by a few. Although many individuals strive for success, others behave in ways that minimize the risk of failure, even at the cost of attaining success. The concept of fear of failure has been investigated from widely different perspectives, resulting in an enormous literature. This chapter focuses on four perspectives: (1) the psychodynamic conceptualization of fear of failure; (2) fear of failure as viewed by the need achievement literature; (3) fear of failure versus fear of success; and (4) fear of failure as an antecedent of academic procrastination. Each perspective has used different ways of assessing fear of failure and has conceptualized a specific model. Gender differences, and, when applicable, racial differences are reviewed, as is the research on fear of failure according to each model. Finally, each section provides implications for intervention.
Nasal Soft Tissue Infections

Nasal soft tissue infections usually manifests as a simple, localized infection of the vestibule or nasal tip and is typically due to common bacterial skin flora such as Staphylococcus aureus. The nose, with its hair-bearing regions anteriorly, is conducive to both bacterial colonization and infection. Although nasal vestibulitis has not been mentioned much in the literature, nasal bacterial colonization has be extensively studied in an effort to understand and reduce the incidence of both community acquired and hospital acquired soft tissue infections that may have its bacterial origins in the flora of the anterior nasal cavity. Colonization with S. aureus, both methicillin-susceptible and methicillin-resistant, has been shown to have a three to six time increased risk of health-care associated infection when compared to intermittent or non-carriers of S. aureus. Treatment with intranasal topical mupirocin has been shown to be effective for decolonization as well as for resolution of active infection. This chapter will briefly touch upon diagnosis and treatment of nasal vestibulitis with a detailed focus on the role of nasal carriage on infections caused by bacteria such as S. aureus.
Hormone replacement therapy in young women with surgical primary ovarian insufficiency

Bilateral oophorectomy performed in women before they are menopausal induces surgical primary ovarian insufficiency, an acute and chronic deficiency of the hormones normally produced by the ovaries. Without hormone replacement therapy (HRT) most of these women develop severe symptoms of estrogen (E) deficiency and are at increased risk for osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, dementia, and the associated increases in morbidity and mortality. In cases in which a hysterectomy has been performed at the time of bilateral oophorectomy transdermal or transvaginal E2 replacement therapy without cyclic progestin replacement is the optimum hormonal management for these women. There is substantial evidence this approach even reduces the risk for breast cancer. Unfortunately, unwarranted fear of all menopausal HRTs has become widespread following the reports of the Women's Health Initiative studies. This fear has led to a steep decline in use of E therapy, even in women in whom HRT is clearly indicated. Discussion of possible ovarian conservation in women who are premenopausal is an integral part of the preoperative planning for any women undergoing hysterectomy. Timely and effective HRT for women who will experience surgical primary ovarian insufficiency is clearly indicated.
Analysis of Accumulated Jitter in a Digital Transmission System

This paper provides a method for predicting the accumulation of timing jitter in a digital transmission system. Earlier research concentrated on either of two principal sources of timing jitter - regenerative repeaters or pulse-stuffing multiplexer/demultiplexers - as separate entities. Here, the timing jitter accumulation is analyzed from source to sink with almost any sequential combination of repeater chains, multiplexers, switches and demultiplexers. The timing jitter analysis provided by this paper can be used to predict the jitter accumulation in various system configurations to predict the most jitter effective sequence of elements.
Cerebrovascular Activity of Peptides Generated by Central Nervous System

Abstract Peptides exert a wide spectrum of functions in the central nervous system. Some of them are secreted by neurons and act like signals for neighboring cells and were first described as neuropeptides. Others originate from the neurovascular unit and can act on diverse components of this neurovascular unit such as neurons, astrocytes, endothelial cells, or myocytes. During the last decades, the understanding of the roles of these peptides and their receptors in physiological as in pathological states allowed the elaboration of strategies of neuroprotection. Herein we highlight the functions in the central nervous system of the peptides endothelins and kinins, and the opportunities offered by these molecules in translational research.
Assessment of resistance definitions used for blast analysis of unreinforced masonry walls

Over recent decades, three distinct methods have evolved that are currently being used to generate resistance functions for single-degree-of-freedom analyses of unreinforced masonry walls subjected...
NLST screening criteria performance in Asian-American lung cancer patients.

e12525 Background: In the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), CT screening in high-risk patients improved survival. Entry criteria included 1) age 55-74, 2) 30 pack year smoking history and 3) cu...
A Decade of Colonization: The Spread of the Asian Tiger Mosquito in Pennsylvania and Implications for Disease Risk

In recent decades, the Asian tiger mosquito expanded its geographic range throughout the northeastern United States, including Pennsylvania. The establishment of Aedes albopictus in novel areas raises significant public health concerns, since this species is a highly competent vector of several arboviruses, including chikungunya, West Nile, and dengue. In this study, we used geographic information systems (GIS) to examine a decade of colonization by Ae. albopictus throughout Pennsylvania between 2001 and 2010. We examined the spatial and temporal distribution of Ae. albopictus using spatial statistical analysis and examined the risk of dengue virus transmission using a model that captures the probability of transmission. Our findings show that since 2001, the Ae. albopictus population in Pennsylvania has increased, becoming established and expanding in range throughout much of the state. Since 2010, imported cases of dengue fever have been recorded in Pennsylvania. Imported cases of dengue, in combination with summer temperatures conducive for virus transmission, raise the risk of local disease transmission.
Correlation Between Teratogenic and Mutagenic Effects of Chemicals in Mammals

Teratology is the discipline dealing with the causes and the development of congenital malformations. As used here, congenital malformations are gross structural anomalies of prenatal origin. In the widest sense, teratogens include endogenous factors (i.e., point mutations or chromosomal aberrations) as well as exogenous agents. There has been a tendency to forget these facts, as teratology has come to be associated with “environment,” whereas properly it should carry no such connotation.
Causes of Normal Mortality in Commercial Egg Laying Chickens

In a large population of animals, it is normal to have some die each day from causes not related to disease, which is often referred to as natural causes. In poultry production, this phenomenon is commonly referred to as daily mortality. In egg-producing chickens, many of the natural causes of death are associated with making an egg. The causes of normal mortality in commercial egg-laying chicken flocks have been described very little to date. A commercial chicken egg farm, housing approximately two million single-comb white leghorn chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) in 16 egg-producing flocks, was visited on a monthly basis to monitor bird health, body conditioning, skeletal integrity, and causes of daily mortality in an attempt to provide early detection of health abnormalities. A representative sample of daily mortality from each flock was necropsied to determine the cause of death. Reported herein is a summary of visits for a period of 38 mo from June 2011 to July 2014. The top 15 causes of normal mortality, in rank order of prevalence, were determined to be the following: egg yolk peritonitis, hypocalcemia, gout, self-induced molt, salpingitis, caught by spur, intussusception or volvulus (twisted intestine), cannibalism (pick out), tracheal plug, septicemia, fatty liver syndrome, internal layer, layer hepatitis, persecution, and prolapsed vent. Other causes noted were hyperthermia (during summer), trauma, coccidiosis, ovarian neoplasia, being egg bound, urolithiasis, peritonitis (not egg yolk induced), leg fracture, caught in the structure, tumor (other than ovarian origin), wing fracture, exsanguination, and cardiomyopathy.
Step up for quality research.

In response to calls for change from within and outside the scientific community, funding agencies, journals, and professional societies are developing new requirements to promote reproducibility and integrity in research. Amid this activity, the voices of academic institutions—both their leadership and rank-and-file faculty—have largely been quiet. Yet journals, societies, and funding agencies are not in the laboratory, clinic, or field. They do not analyze data, write manuscripts, or prepare figures. Institutions that comprise the global academic community can do more to help their researchers produce the highest-quality results. The three areas of actions, described below, echo points highlighted in the recent U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, Fostering Integrity in Research , as well as at the 2017 World Conference on Research Integrity in May.
A study demonstrating whether the percentage of residual activity post 18F-FDG admininstration can be predicted for technologists with varying years of experience.

2726 Objectives The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) recommend that Positron Emission Tomography - Computed Tomography (PET/CT) technologists record the exact amount of activity administered to their patients. A prospective study was conducted to see how the percentage of activity remaining in the syringe post 2-deoxy-2-[18F]-fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) administration varied for technologists with varying years of experience in PET/CT. Methods Syringes containing patient doses of FDG were assayed prior to administration and re-assayed after administration by a technologist with greater than ten years of experience, a technologist with less than ten years of experience, and a student technologist with zero years of experience. Data was collected from thirty syringes per subject (for a total of ninety syringes) over a two-month period. Differences and percentages were calculated using the decay-corrected true residual activity and the standard residual activity (11.1MBq(0.3mCi)) used by the technologists in the PET/CT department at an urban university hospital. For each subject, the true residual activity and the standard residual activity were compared via t-tests. An ANOVA test (p Results The p-values for the most experienced technologist (p>0.05) do not demonstrate a significant difference between the true residual activity in the syringe and standard residual activity, whereas the p-values for the less experienced technologists (p Conclusions The residual activity for the technologist with the most years of experience is predictable but not for the technologist with less experience and the student technologist with zero years experience. An overall standard residual activity cannot be used for all technologists.
Surgeon Variation in Intraoperative Supply Cost for Pancreaticoduodenectomy: Is Intraoperative Supply Cost Associated with Outcomes?

Background With increased scrutiny on the quality and cost of health care, surgeons must be mindful of their outcomes and resource use. We evaluated surgeon-specific intraoperative supply cost (ISC) for pancreaticoduodenectomy and examined whether ISC was associated with patient outcomes. Study Design Patients undergoing open pancreaticoduodenectomy between January 2012 and March 2015 were included. Outcomes were tracked prospectively through postoperative day 90, and ISC was defined as the facility cost of single-use surgical items and instruments, plus facility charges for multiuse equipment. Multivariate logistic regression was used to test associations between ISC and patient outcomes using repeated measures at the surgeon level. Results There were 249 patients who met inclusion criteria. Median ISC was $1,882 (interquartile range [IQR] $1,497 to $2,281). Case volume for 6 surgeons ranged from 18 to 66. Median surgeon-specific ISC ranged from $1,496 to $2,371. Greater case volume was associated with decreased ISC (p 0.227 for both), but was associated with delayed gastric emptying (p = 0.004) and postoperative pancreatic fistula (p Conclusions In a single-institution cohort of 249 pancreaticoduodenectomies, high-volume surgeons tended to be low-cost surgeons. Across the cohort, ISC was not associated with outcomes. At the surgeon level, associations were noted between ISC and complications, but these may be attributable to unmeasured differences in the postoperative management of patients. These findings suggest that quality improvement efforts to restructure resource use toward more cost-effective practice may not affect patient outcomes, although prospective monitoring of safety and effectiveness must be of the utmost concern.
Elementary Applied Partial Differential Equations with Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems. By Richard Haberman

(1985). Elementary Applied Partial Differential Equations with Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems. By Richard Haberman. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 92, No. 6, pp. 441-443.
Proven strategies that increase participation of high school students in computing: conference tutorial

Much has been written about the decrease in the number of students pursuing computing in colleges. Since most students develop an opinion about computing before reaching college, it is beneficial for faculty who want to increase their enrollment to do outreach aimed at a younger audience. To help encourage high-school/university interactions, the Development Committee of the Advanced Placement Computer Science A Course has proposed and organized this and similar sessions for several regional and national meetings. This session will present ideas on how colleges can work with high school teachers and others to promote computer science to high schools students. This session will proceed in two main sections: 1) Ideas that have worked for members of the Advanced Placement Computer Science A Development Committee, and 2) Brainstorming with session attendees to explore alternative ideas for outreach and to identify further approaches.
A KNN Query Processing Algorithm over High-Dimensional Data Objects in P2P Systems

In this paper, we propose a quad-tree based distributed multi-dimensional data index (QDBI) for efficient data management and query processing in P2P system. In which, each peer use a MX-CIF quad-tree to generate index items of their high-dimensional data, and index items are organized into one dimensional ring structure, super-peers dynamically join the ring, the routing connections among super-peers are created, which are similar to Chord ring, thus forms a semantics-based structured super-peer network, and an efficient KNN query processing algorithm is proposed for high-dimensional data objects based on the index structure. Experiments show that the index structure and the KNN query algorithm have well search performance and scalability.
Complete Genome Sequence of an Influenza C Virus Strain Identified from a Sick Calf in the United States

Influenza C virus (ICV) has been identified for the first time from bovine respiratory disease complex (BRDC) samples in the United States. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of the strain C/bovine/Montana/12/2016, identified from a nasal swab sample collected from a sick calf with clinical signs of respiratory disease in Montana.
Prevention of hemodialysis catheter infections: Ointments, dressings, locks, and catheter hub devices

Tunneled central venous catheters used for the provision of hemodialysis are associated with excess morbidity and mortality. Catheter related exit site and blood stream infections are major risks of their use. Although catheter-avoidance is the best strategy to reduce infections and mortality in the hemodialysis population, the use of catheters remains unacceptably high. In this review, the existing clinical practice guidelines for the prevention of hemodialysis catheter associated infections are outlined, and a comprehensive evidenced-based summary of interventions is provided. This includes details about the use of topical antimicrobial ointments and dressings, intranasal ointment application, prophylactic use of antibiotic and non-antibiotic catheter lock solutions, and catheter hub devices for the prevention of catheter blood stream infections.
Opportunities of Porous Organic Polymers for Radionuclide Sequestration

Nuclear power is critical in addressing the growing energy demand required for an improved quality of life. Its sustainable development, however, rests on the accessibility of fuel material and the ability to manage a nuclear fuel cycle safely and efficiently. Recently, porous organic polymers (POPs) have been shown to provide improved radionuclide sequestration performance over traditional porous materials in terms of both uptake capacity and selectivity. These materials also exhibit improved stability and are readily functionalized, rendering them promising materials for a number of emergent applications. This Opinion demonstrates achievements in engineered POPs for nuclear fuel mining and remediation of representative radioactive species, along with discussions of the underlying design strategies and principles. Future research opportunities and implementation barriers are also discussed with the hope of inspiring additional scientists to engage in this emerging area of research.
GPS-Free Operation of Ships and Aircraft Utilizing Terrestrial Satellites

Modern aerial and naval navigation systems utilize the GPS technology extensively to retrieve the own position information automatically, which in turn is fed into other navigation and warfare systems through a serial link. A failure of the GPS system would result in a significant loss in speed and accuracy of any navigational calculation, making it nearly impossible to maintain a reliable and automated operation in air or at sea. This paper investigates the feasibility of utilizing the long range radar transmissions incident on vehicle's electronic support system measures (ESM)that is composed of direction finders. By simple triangulation of the Radars uncertain directions and adaptive filtering, an alternative automated local positioning system (LPS)would be very useful in case of a GPS-free operation. In this paper, we evaluate the operation of the proposed LPS technique by simulation. A certain number of terrestrial Radars were randomly located on land and a ship is simulated to navigate on the open seas. The islands and land structures that would prevent the Radar beams to reach the ship were taken into account and the blockage of such rays were calculated using image processing of the Navigation maps pixel values. The triangulation and positioning errors were calculated and the noise was cancelled by adaptive filtering using linear Kalman filter. With the simulation experiments, we show that such an LPS system is feasible and could be integrated to the ships ESM systems to provide an automated and reliable own ship position information in case of a GPS failure.
Parenting and discipline in post-conflict Sierra Leone.

Abstract Background While the literature on physical punishment concludes that it has negative effects on children, the practice remains common in many countries. In post-conflict countries with nongovernmental organizations (NGO) operating in child protection, traditional disciplinary practices may conflict with international child rights agendas. The country of Sierra Leone has a unique history of conflict, abject poverty, low literacy, and weak governance – often, NGO agents are responsible for providing social services that the government is unable to consistently provide. Objective We examined how Sierra Leonean caregivers think about appropriate discipline for children, and whether they perceived any changes in their attitudes toward disciplinary practices since the end of the war. Participants and Setting We collected data from parents and caregivers in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas of Sierra Leone’s four districts. Methods We used focus groups (12 groups, n = 92) and individual interviews (n = 21) to collect data in 2013. Focus groups and interviews were conducted by research assistants fluent in Krio and English. We used a thematic content analysis approach. Results We found that physical discipline—“beating”—was widely acceptable and common. A few parents mentioned other means of discipline, such as withholding food. Parents widely agreed that parenting had changed since the war, and reported that child rights movements supported by NGOs had made it more difficult to discipline their children in traditional ways. Conclusions Discipline was seen a central component of child-rearing and a means of ensuring safe and proper development. This may be a protective mechanism in the precarious, high poverty environment of post-war Sierra Leone. The negative responses of parents to NGO efforts to reduce physical punishment and other forms of child abuse suggest that grassroots approaches are needed to address this pervasive problem.
Tesla and the Future of Autonomous Driving

An investor, Janice Zhuk, examines Tesla's quarterly safety data that includes the number of miles it took to register one accident among Tesla cars driving with autopilot versus those without autopilot. The data set is small, so the validity of any statistical analysis may be compromised. The data allow one to run a simple t-test comparison of means. Because of the small sample size, the case invites a discussion on the hypothesis of the regression model, in particular, the normality of the residuals. Excerpt UVA-QA-0911 Rev. Jul. 24, 2019 Tesla and the Future of Autonomous Driving Janice Zhuk was an investor who for the past 20 years had success investing in new technology. Getting in on the ground floor meant being comfortable with uncertainty. Her newest interest—a fleet of shared robotaxis. As ideas around electric vehicles (EV) and autonomous vehicles (AV) moved into development, she closely followed just about everything in the works. With Toyota, Ford, and Tesla investing in EV and AV, Zhuk had much to follow, but Tesla was her favorite. How could Zhuk resist the emotion the firm's flamboyant CEO, Elon Musk, ignited around AV and his claim that by 2020, Tesla would have a million self-driving robotaxis on the road? And with a billowing $ 2.35billion stock and bond boost in early May 2019, it looked like Tesla had investors' attention. Musk himself announced he would buy $ 25 million more in shares (102,880), pushing the deal to $ 2.7 billion. Three days later, the capital raise was closed—it had been oversubscribed. Reacting with less emotion, Zhuk kept data on each step artificial intelligence made toward self-driving. She focused on autopilot and the question of safety—since Tesla was transparent around some data collection, she checked in. How was it going? . . .
A spoonful of sugar: commentary on an article by Annette L. Adams, PhD, MPH, et al.: "surgical outcomes of total knee replacement according to diabetes status and glycemic control, 2001 to 2009".

Nine years of data from Kaiser Permanente’s arthroplasty registry are reviewed in the study by Adams et al. The authors report on the relative risk of complications in patients with diabetes, and they also differentiate between patients with well-controlled and poorly controlled hyperglycemia. In brief, the authors assessed all patients undergoing primary total knee arthroplasty and categorized them according to glycemic status. They then examined postoperative surgical outcomes, including the need for revision, deep infection, and venous thromboembolic disease, as well as incident myocardial infarction and all-cause rehospitalization. With the exception of thromboembolic disease, one year of follow-up was used. The study cohort included 40,491 patients; 81.3% were identified as not having had diabetes mellitus prior to the index surgery, 12.5% as having had controlled diabetes (hemoglobin [Hb] A1c level of <7.0%), and 6.2% as having had uncontrolled diabetes (HbA1c level of ≥7.0%). Within one year, 10,969 patients or 27.1% were rehospitalized for any reason, 1.1% or 464 required revision, 0.7% developed a deep infection, and 1.0% developed a myocardial infarction. When adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, and comorbidity score, there …
Oppressive Sameness and the Novels We Need: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Challenge to Postcolonial Readerly Desires in the Twenty-First Century

My love affair with Tambudzai Sigauke began in 1998 when I first read Nervous Conditions in college. Nestled in a postcolonial literature syllabus dominated by male-dominated authors and tragic str...
Is There a Clinical Role For Smartphone Sleep Apps? Comparison of Sleep Cycle Detection by a Smartphone Application to Polysomnography

Study Objectives:Several inexpensive, readily available smartphone apps that claim to monitor sleep are popular among patients. However, their accuracy is unknown, which limits their widespread cli...
Modeling of Transient Thermal-Hydraulic Phenomena in a Once-Through Steam Generator During Auxiliary Feedwater Injection

A phenomenological model is developed for the transient thermal-hydraulic processes on the secondary side of a once-through steam generator during auxiliary feedwater (AFW) injection. Detailed modeling of the thermal-hydraulic processes above the top tube support plate (TSP) is particularly emphasized. The nonuniform distribution of the AFW on the secondary-side tubes is represented by dividing the secondary side into a number of tube groups. For each tube group, the quasi-steady-state conservation equations representing the flow of a falling liquid film and steam on the secondary side and the primary coolant on the primary side are numerically solved for each time step, thereby providing the axial variation of flow rates and temperatures in the primary and secondary sides. Modeled processes include cooling due to the impingement of the AFW jet on the tubes, the forced convection/boiling heat transfer at the liquid film-tube interface, evaporation and condensation at the film-gas interphase, countercurrent flow limitation in the TSP passages, and the formation of a swollen two-phase pool above the top TSP. The aforementioned model for the thermal-hydraulic phenomena above the top TSP is incorporated into a transient model for the entire steam generator where the secondary side is divided into four regions. Global conservationmore » equations representing the transient behavior of each region are numerically solved. Model predictions are compared with a typical test from the Multiloop Integral System Test experiments. Parametric and sensitivity calculations are also reported.« less
Policy Gradient Optimization of Thompson Sampling Policies.

We study the use of policy gradient algorithms to optimize over a class of generalized Thompson sampling policies. Our central insight is to view the posterior parameter sampled by Thompson sampling as a kind of pseudo-action. Policy gradient methods can then be tractably applied to search over a class of sampling policies, which determine a probability distribution over pseudo-actions (i.e., sampled parameters) as a function of observed data. We also propose and compare policy gradient estimators that are specialized to Bayesian bandit problems. Numerical experiments demonstrate that direct policy search on top of Thompson sampling automatically corrects for some of the algorithm's known shortcomings and offers meaningful improvements even in long horizon problems where standard Thompson sampling is extremely effective.
Reproductive Sequelae of Parental Severe Illness Before the Pandemic: implications for the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective To investigate, with pre–COVID-19 data, whether parental exposure to severe systemic infections near the time of conception is associated with pregnancy outcomes. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting Population-based study covering births within the United States from 2009 to 2016. Participants The IBM MarketScan Research database covers reimbursed health care claims data on inpatient and outpatient encounters that are privately insured through employment-sponsored health insurance. Our analytic sample included pregnancies to paired fathers and mothers. Interventions(s) Parental preconception exposure (0–6 months before conception) to severe systemic infection (e.g., sepsis, hypotension, respiratory failure, critical care evaluation). Main Outcome Measure(s) Preterm birth (i.e., live birth before 37 weeks) and pregnancy loss. Result(s) A total of 999,866 pregnancies were recorded with 214,057 pregnancy losses (21.4%) and 51,759 preterm births (5.2%). Mothers receiving intensive care in the preconception period had increased risk of pregnancy loss, as did fathers. Mothers with preconception sepsis had higher risk of preterm birth and pregnancy loss, and paternal sepsis exposure was associated with an increased risk of pregnancy loss. Similar results were noted for hypotension. In addition, a dose response was observed for both mothers and fathers between preconception time in intensive care and the risk of preterm birth and pregnancy loss. Conclusion(s) In a pre–COVID-19 cohort, parental preconception severe systemic infection was associated with increased odds of preterm birth and pregnancy loss when conception was soon after the illness.
Forecasting Electric Load by Aggregating Meteorological and History-based Deep Learning Modules

Accurate day-ahead (or 24-hours ahead) electric load forecasting for power systems is crucial for system’s optimal operations. In evolving smart distribution grids, the importance of precise electric load forecast in day-ahead is even more important for distributed energy management systems (DERMS) and demand response (DR) programs, which are used by the independent system operators (ISO) and power utilities (PU) for day-ahead system planning and optimal operations. This paper captures both dynamic members’ interdependencies and the impact of meteorological factors on the load sequence. In this regard, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is applied to use the historical load sequences to forecast the 24 hours ahead values of the system load. On the other hand, a Deep Feedforward Neural Network (DFNN) is applied to map the forecasted meteorological parameters to the upcoming 24-hourly values of the system load. Finally, based on the historical errors of these two engines, a Beta distribution generates a probabilistic weight for aggregating the forecasted values at each hour. The proposed forecasting model performs better than single engines based on Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) metric when applied to day-ahead load forecasting for the city of Toronto.
Capsaicin-induced depolymerization of axonal microtubules mediates analgesia for trigeminal neuropathic pain

Pain management in craniofacial neuropathy is a major clinical challenge. Trigeminal neuralgia and painful post-traumatic trigeminal neuropathy are two major trigeminal neuropathic pain that need to be addressed. Capsaicin a specific agonist of transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), a Ca2+-permeable ion channel, that is enriched in nociceptors. The capacity of capsaicin to ablate TRPV1-expressing nociceptive terminals has led to an FDA-approved therapy treat neuropathic pain conditions. We showed that capsaicin induces ablation of nociceptive nerve terminals through TRPV1/Ca2+/calpain-mediated mechanisms, which is necessary for long-lasting analgesia for neuropathic pain. However, the mechanisms underlying capsaicin-induced ablation and analgesia to achieve pain control are not fully understood. In this study, we hypothesize that capsaicin increases depolymerization of microtubules, which induces axonal ablation and analgesia for trigeminal neuropathic pain. To test the hypothesis, we determined the effects of microtubule stabilizer; paclitaxel, which binds to microtubules and stabilizes microtubules against depolymerization, on capsaicin-induced axonal ablation and analgesia for trigeminal neuropathic pain in mice. Paclitaxel decreased capsaicin-induced ablation of axonal terminals in-vitro in time-lapse imaging of axonal terminals from microfluidic chamber. Capsaicin increases the proportion of free tubulin in dissociated sensory neurons, which was inhibited by paclitaxel treatment, suggesting capsaicin increases depolymerization of microtubules. Subcutaneous injection of capsaicin to facial skin attenuated mechanical allodynia in mice with chronic constriction injury of the infraorbital nerve (ION-CCI). In contrast, co-administration of paclitaxel and capsaicin did not produce analgesic effects. Results from the present study supports that TRPV1-microtubule interactions can determine capsaicin-induced ablation of nociceptive terminals and the extent of capsaicin-induced analgesia, which further supports that capsaicin-induced ablation of nociceptive terminals is necessary for analgesia. Further understanding of TRPV1/Ca2+-dependent mechanisms of capsaicin-induced ablation and analgesia may help to improve the efficacy of this treatment. Support/grant information: NIH R01 DE027731 and R35 DE030045 Support/grant information: NIH R01 DE027731 and R35 DE030045.
Minimally invasive ultrasound-guided technique for central venous catheterization via the external jugular vein in pigs.

OBJECTIVE To describe an ultrasound-guided technique for central venous catheter placement via the external jugular vein (EJV) in pigs. ANIMALS 96 healthy Landrace–Poland China barrows (approx 16 w...
Isolation of a Nonpathogenic Strain of Citrobacter sedlakii Which Expresses Escherichia coli O157 Antigen

A nonpathogenic strain of Citrobacter sedlakii which expresses the Escherichia coli O157 antigen is described. The discovery of this strain emphasizes the necessity of additional biochemical and/or toxigenicity testing when isolates react with E. coli O157 latex reagents.
Neuroimaging patterns of ischemic stroke after percutaneous coronary intervention

Objectives We sought to determine neuroimaging patterns, ischemic mechanisms, and functional outcomes of ischemic stroke related to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) over a 16-year period. Background: Stroke is a feared complication of PCI, associated with poor patient outcomes. The majority of strokes that occur after PCI are ischemic rather than hemorrhagic. However, mechanisms of cerebral ischemia in this setting are incompletely understood. Methods We performed a retrospective single-center cohort study of patients with radiologically confirmed ischemic stroke occurring after PCI (PCI-stroke), between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 2009. Using brain imaging, infarctions were subclassified by radiological pattern and arterial territory as embolic, small subcortical, or hemodynamic. Modified Rankin Scale scores were used to assess functional outcome at 3 and 6 months. Results Radiologically confirmed PCI-stroke was identified in 35 patients. The majority of strokes (91%) revealed an embolic pattern, while the remaining strokes were small subcortical infarctions (9%). Watershed strokes with exclusive borderzone involvement, indicative of a hemodynamic mechanism, were not identified, despite the presence of periprocedural hypotension in 23% of patients. The middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory was affected most frequently (80%), and all patients suffering a complete MCA territorial infarction (14%) died in the hospital. Functional outcome among survivors of PCI-stroke was typically favorable in those who had single rather than multiple vascular territory involvement. Conclusions The vast majority of radiologically confirmed ischemic strokes related to PCI are embolic. MCA territory strokes are most common and uniformly fatal when the entire MCA territory is affected. Functional outcomes in survivors of PCI-stroke are improved when only a single arterial territory is affected. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Molecular Markers of Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment among Mexican Americans

Background Mexican Americans face a significant health disparity when it comes to Alzheimer's disease (AD) as they present with higher rates of the disease and develop AD at an earlier age compared to other ethnic groups. Recent work identified a proteomic profile of AD among this population; however, no work to date has sought to examine the biological profile of pre-AD among Mexican Americans. Objective This study aims to identify an amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) proteomic profile among Mexican Americans. Methods Data were analyzed from 284 Mexican American participants (aMCI, n = 73; normal controls, n = 211) from the Health & Aging Brain among Latino Elders study. Fasting serum samples were analyzed using a multi-plex biomarker assay platform. A biomarker profile was generated using random forest analyses. Results Among aMCI cases, the biomarker profile was found to be largely inflammatory with the top three markers shown to include TNFα, IL10, and TARC. The overall diagnostic accuracy of the biomarkers in detecting aMCI was 96% (sensitivity = 0.82; specificity = 0.97). Inclusion of clinical variables with the selected biomarkers did not impact the overall detection accuracy (area under the curve = 0.96) but led to a slight improvement in specificity (specificity = 0.99) and decrease in sensitivity (sensitivity = 0.74). Conclusion The biomarker profile of aMCI was shown to be different from our previously generated AD profile among Mexican Americans, which was largely metabolic in nature. The findings implicate a possible interplay between inflammatory and metabolic processes and additional work is needed to further examine this.
Finite Element-Based Structural Reliability Assessment Using Efficient Directional Simulation

Reliability analysis of structural systems often requires finite element (FE)-based simulation to estimate failure probabilities. Common simulation methods, even those incorporating variation reduction techniques, usually involve a very large number of FE analyses to achieve acceptable accuracy. A recently developed directional approach significantly improves the efficiency of directional simulation by utilizing deterministic point sets to preserve the underlying joint probability distribution of the random vector describing the structure and by employing neural networks to focus the simulation effort in the significant regions. This paper investigates the application of this method to structural system reliability analysis. The method is illustrated using deformation-based system limit states, proposed for performance-based engineering, for two plane steel frames.
Effect of Thyrotropin-Induced Desensitization of Bovine Thyroid Adenylate Cyclase on the Nucleotide Regulatory Protein

The stimulation of adenylate cyclase by TSH was decreased 50-60% in crude membranes prepared from homogenates of bovine thyroid slices that had previously been incubated for 2 h with the hormone. The diminished response was not associated with any significant change in the binding capacity or affinity for 125I-labeled TSH. The apparent affinities of the desensitized adenylate cyclase for TSH or GTP were not different from those of the enzyme prepared from thyroid slices that had been incubated without TSH. Decreased adenylate cyclase responses to NaF, cholera toxin, or guanyl-5'-yl-imidodiphosphate were also observed in the desensitized membrane, whereas the enzyme responses to prostaglandin E1, GTP, or forskolin were not decreased. However, desensitization caused no decrease in the cholera toxin-catalyzed ADP ribosylation of the 40,000 mol wt polypeptide guanine nucleotide-binding component of the adenylate cyclase. The desensitized membranes showed basal adenylate cyclase activity similar to that of the control membranes using adenyl-5'-yl-imidodiphosphate as substrate in the absence of a nucleotide-regenerating system. These results suggest that the in vitro TSH-induced desensitization of thyroid adenylate cyclase reflects an alteration in the activation processes of the nucleotide regulatory protein.
Sampling series for differentiable functions of polynomial growth

The famous Shannon-Whittaker sampling theorem states that if ƒ(t) = ∝−ππe−itu F(u) du, F ϵ L2 [−π, π] then ƒ can be represented by a sampling sum as f(t)=∑n=∘∘f(n)sinπ(t−n)π(t−n) It is shown here that certain functions of polynomial growth can be approximated by a generalized sampling sum and a rate of convergence of the sum to the function is given.
Recognizing stereotypical motor movements in the laboratory and classroom: a case study with children on the autism spectrum

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) frequently engage in stereotyped and repetitive motor movements. Automatically detecting these movements in real-time using comfortable, miniature wireless sensors could advance autistic research and enable new intervention tools for the classroom that help children and their caregivers monitor and cope with this potentially problematic class of behavior. We present activity recognition results for stereotypical hand flapping and body rocking using data collected from six children with ASD repeatedly observed in both laboratory and classroom settings. In the classroom, an overall recognition accuracy of 88.6% (TP: 0.85; FP: 0.08) was achieved using three sensors. Challenges encountered when applying machine learning to this domain, as well as implications for the development of real-time classroom interventions and research tools, are discussed.
Structure–Activity Relationships for Side Chain Oxysterol Agonists of the Hedgehog Signaling Pathway

Oxysterols (OHCs) are byproducts of cholesterol oxidation that are known to activate the Hedeghog (Hh) signaling pathway. While OHCs that incorporate hydroxyl groups throughout the scaffold are known, those that act as agonists of Hh signaling primarily contain a single hydroxyl on the alkyl side chain. We sought to further explore how side chain hydroxylation patterns affect oxysterol-mediated Hh activation, by performing a structure–activity relationship study on a series of synthetic OHCs. The most active analogue, 23(R)-OHC (35), demonstrated potent activation of Hh signaling in two Hh-dependent cell lines (EC50 values 0.54–0.65 μM). In addition, OHC 35 was approximately 3-fold selective for the Hh pathway as compared to the liver X receptor, a nuclear receptor that is also activated by endogenous OHCs. Finally, 35 induced osteogenic differentiation and osteoblast formation in cultured cells, indicating functional agonism of the Hh pathway.
Cultivating the uncultivated: a community genomics perspective

Current isolation methods access only a small subset of the total microbial diversity. Although an isolate traditionally has been required for genomic characterization, the advent of sequencing of entire natural microbial communities enables culture-independent genomic analysis. Information about the genetic potential of uncultivated organisms can be used to predict the form of metabolic interdependencies and nutritional requirements. We believe that this could provide the information necessary to bypass bottlenecks that have inhibited cultivation of many microorganisms. However, it might not be practical or possible to isolate all of the vast number of microbial species and strains for laboratory-based characterization. Ultimately, cultivation-independent genomic and genomically enabled approaches could provide a way to directly analyze microbial activity in its geochemical and ecological context.
Intracerebral Hemorrhage in a Term Newborn With Hyperviscosity

Intracerebral hemorrhage in full-term infants is infrequent and has most often been associated with birth asphyxia or trauma.1.2This report describes a full-term newborn infant, born after an uncomplicated delivery, in whom a large intracerebral hemorrhage developed within the first 12 hours of life. The infant had the clinical and laboratory features of the hyperviscosity syndrome,3and an association with cerebral hemorrhage is postulated. Report of a Case.—The patient was a 2,880-g male born after 38 weeks of gestation to a 17-year-old gravida 1 woman following an uncomplicated pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Artificial rupture of membranes was performed four hours prior to spontaneous, controlled vaginal delivery. Total labor was 14 hours. Apgar scores were 8 and 9 at one and five minutes, respectively. The baby was noted to have minimal respiratory distress in the first hour after birth. In 24% oxygen, an arterial blood sample showed Po
Measurement of Incident Intensity of UV Radiation Delivered by Optical Fibers

Fiber optics are being used more and more frequently to deliver light to a sample for remote spectroscopic analysis, or to induce photochemistry or photoablation on an otherwise inaccessible sample, e.g., living tissue. For accurate quantitative results, the photon flux at the sample must be known. This paper presents two techniques for simple and accurate measurement of the intensity of ultraviolet light in the range 260 to 369 nm delivered to a distant sample by a fused-silica optical fiber. One technique uses a home-built evanescent wave coupler near the sample to couple excitation light into a monitoring fiber; the other uses a twin-fiber system, with equal amounts of source radiation launched into an excitation and a monitoring fiber. In each method, two Rhodamine B quantum-counter photomultiplier tube detectors are used simultaneously to assess the effectiveness with which the incident intensity is monitored. A critical evaluation of the results is presented. The twin fiber method is, theoretically, very simple; in practice, however, it is difficult to obtain a good wavelength-independent match between the two outputs. The evanescent wave coupling is also wavelength-dependent, but the observed results are in agreement with the predictions of simple evanescent field theory.
A highly sensitive immunoassay resistant to autoantibody interference for detection of the diabetes-associated autoantigen glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 in blood and other biological samples.

Background: Glutamic acid decarboxylase-65 (GAD65) is a major autoantigen in autoimmune diabetes and is discharged from injured islet β cells. GAD65 may also be released by transplanted islets undergoing immunological rejection. To test hypotheses regarding the utility of GAD65 as a biomarker for transplant rejection or diabetes-associated islet damage and also regarding the timing and instigators of GAD65 release in humans or animal models, a sensitive assay capable of measuring GAD65 in serum or plasma will be necessary. Ideally, this assay would also be resistant to interference by anti-GAD65 autoantibodies. Methods: A novel, magnetic bead-based assay was developed based on GAD65 capture by a monoclonal antibody directed to the only region of the protein known not to be significantly targeted by autoantibodies. A subsequent denaturation step allows sensitive immunodetection to proceed using anti-GAD65 polyclonal antibodies that would otherwise potentially be blocked by bound autoantibodies. Results: Th...