cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Unintended pregnancy risk and contraceptive use among women 45-50 years old: Massachusetts, 2006, 2008, and 2010

Background Little is known about unintended pregnancy risk and current contraceptive use among women ≥45 years old in the United States. Objectives The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of women ages 45-50 years old at risk for unintended pregnancy and their current contraceptive use, and to compare these findings to those of women in younger age groups. Study Design We analyzed 2006, 2008, and 2010 Massachusetts Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, the only state in the United States to collect contraceptive data routinely from women >44 years old. Women 18-50 years old (n = 4930) were considered to be at risk for unintended pregnancy unless they reported current pregnancy, hysterectomy, not being sexually active in the past year, having a same-sex partner, or wanting to become pregnant. Among women who were considered to be at risk (n = 3605), we estimated the prevalence of current contraceptive use by age group. Among women who were considered to be at risk and who were 45-50 years old (n = 940), we examined characteristics that were associated with current method use. Analyses were conducted on weighted data using SAS-callable SUDAAN (RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC). Results Among women who were 45-50 years old, 77.6% were at risk for unintended pregnancy, which was similar to other age groups. As age increased, hormonal contraceptive use (shots, pills, patch, or ring) decreased, and permanent contraception (tubal ligation or vasectomy) increased as did non-use of contraception. Of women who were 45-50 years old and at risk for unintended pregnancy, 66.9% reported using some contraceptive method; permanent contraception was the leading method reported by 44.0% and contraceptive non-use was reported by 16.8%. Conclusion A substantial proportion of women who were 45-50 years old were considered to be at risk for unintended pregnancy. Permanent contraception was most commonly used by women in this age group. Compared with other age groups, more women who were 45-50 years old were not using any contraception. Population-based surveillance efforts are needed to follow trends among this age group and better meet their family planning needs. Although expanding surveillance systems to include women through 50 years old requires additional resources, fertility trends that show increasingly delayed childbearing, uncertain end of fecundity, and potential adverse consequences of unplanned pregnancy in older age may justify these expenditures.
Tools of Government

This is a chapter in a forthcoming book, "Tools of Government: A Public Management Handbook for the Era of Third-Party Government, edited by Lester M. Salamon (New York: Oxford U.P.). It was written to dovetail with other chapters on direct government, contracting, tax expenditures, regulation, insurance, information, grants, loan guarantees, etc. Aimed primarily at non-lawyer public administrators and public policy analysts and students, the chapter takes a very schmatic view of tort liability, emphasizing its use as one of a number of risk management devices available to policymakers. It begins with a vignette illustrating the possible policy uses of tort liability, defines its basic features, notes some trends and patterns of tort liability, discusses the conditions in which its use is most appropriate and the relevant political factors bearing on this. It then considers tort liability's basic mechanics, "design options," management challenges, suggestions for overcoming these challenges, and the like.
Of Reasonable Readers and Unreasonable Speakers: Libel Law in a Networked World

Social-media libel cases require courts to map existing defamation doctrines onto social-media fact patterns in ways that create adequate breathing space for expression without licensing character assassination. This Article explores these challenges by investigating developments involving two important constitutional doctrines — the so-called opinion privilege, which protects statements that are unverifiable or cannot be regarded as stating actual facts about a person, and the actual malice rule, which requires defamation plaintiffs who are public officials or public figures to prove that the defendant made a defamatory statement with knowledge of, or reckless disregard for, its falsity. Given the critical role these two constitutional doctrines play in protecting free expression, it is especially crucial that courts apply them in social-media cases with due regard for the unique aspects of the medium. This article’s analysis of early social-media cases reveals that many — though by no means all — courts addressing these cases appreciate that social media are different than the media that preceded them. However, some of these courts have floundered in adapting constitutional doctrines. The Article addresses the most difficult new issues faced by courts and offers specific prescriptions for adapting the opinion privilege and actual malice rule to social media. It recommends that the opinion privilege be applied based on a thorough understanding of both the internal and external contexts of social-media expression and that this broad reading of the opinion privilege be offset by a narrow reading of actual malice in cases involving delusional or vengeful social-media speakers.
Vibration Suppression Based on Adaptive Feedforward Control With Infinite Impulse Response Filter

This paper presents adaptive feedforward control for vibration suppression based on an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter structure. The vibration signal and the output signal are available for the algorithm to adaptively update the parameters of the vibration transmission path (VTP) dynamics. Two designs for parameter adaptation are proposed. They provide different methods to get the necessary signals for parameter adaptation of the IIR filter which is different from the conventional finite impulse response (FIR) filter adaptation design. Performance of the proposed designs is compared with the conventional Filtered-x Least Mean Square (FxLMS) method on a hard disk drive (HDD) benchmark problem. The simulation results show that the proposed designs have smaller 3σ value and peak to peak value at steady state.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
RESULTS OF ANKLE ARTHRODESIS FOR TREATMENT OF SUPRAMALLEOLAR NONUNION AND ANKLE ARTHROSIS

Seven patients with supramalleolar nonunions after tibial plafond fractures underwent ankle arthrodesis combined with surgical treatment of the nonunion. Stabilization of the nonunion and the ankle consisted of medial and lateral plating for two hypertrophic cases and medial external fixation for five atrophic cases. Two of the atrophic nonunions were infected, and the distal tibia below the nonunion was resected and distraction osteogenesis from a proximal level was used to fill the resulting defect. Both the nonunion and ankle arthrodesis healed in six patients in an average of 7.9 months (range, 4-20 months). The nonunion failed to heal in one patient and required a below-knee amputation. The average cost of care was $66,491 per patient. Before surgery, the average patient ankle score was 25 (range, 15-50), and at a median of 35 months' follow-up the average score was 64 (range, 18-79 months). Three patients had scores in the "good" range, two in the "fair" range, one in the "poor" range, and one was rated a treatment failure. The SF-36 scores were significantly lower than age-matched population-based normal subjects. Limb salvage was possible in six of these seven patients, but the treatment times were long, complications frequent, and the cost of care high.
A diploid rat liver cell culture. 1. Characterization and sensitivity to aflatoxin B1

A method for culturing and cloning a cell line derived from rat hepatic tissue is described. The cloned cells in culture were diploid, epithelioid in morphology, and synthesized tyrosine aminotransferase. The cytotoxic effects of the hepatocarcinogen aflatoxin B1 on these cells were compared to the effects on an established cell culture. The diploid culture was found to be more resistant to the toxin as measured by cell counts and residual protein as well as by [14C]uridine incorporation.
Entropy, Information and Compressive Sensing in the Quantum Domain

An introduction to compressive sensing and quantum imaging will be given. I will then show that compressive sensing can solve important problems in some applications of quantum imaging.
Rational Catalyst Design: A Multifunctional Mesoporous Silica Catalyst for Shifting the Reaction Equilibrium by Removal of Byproduct

Bifunctional mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) catalysts for esterification reaction, containing a Bronsted acid site of diarylammonium triflate (DAT) and a pentafluorophenyl propyl (PFP) group, were synthesized and thoroughly characterized. Their high reactivity is attributed to the formation of a surface-bound hydrophobic layer of PFP molecules, which facilitates the extrusion of one of the reaction products (water) from the mesopores by suppressing water adsorption onto the surface, thereby shifting the reaction equilibrium to completion.
A Research on the Wetland Plant Community Structure and the Species Diversity of the Changbai Mountain at Different Altitudes

This research area is Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve.The result showed that there were 142 species 83 genera 37 families wetland plants in the wetland in the north slope of Changbai Mountain,103 species 71 genera 33 families in the south,and 132 species 83 genera 37 families in the west.The west slope and the southern slope of the plant families,is a high similarity.And in the field survey and record the important value terms,based on the northern slope of Changbai Mountain,we did the determination and classification of the southern slope,at different altitudes on the western slope of the wetland plant community structure name and kind.According to the number of three different altitudes upward slope wetland plots species investigation and analysis,summed up the diversity of wetland plants in Changbai Mountain with the trend of elevation gradient.
Ambivalent engagement: relational connection and depthful dwelling in a site of conscience

ABSTRACTStudies of how individuals psychologically experience Holocaust-related exhibits or installations are relatively rare, in part because such investigations lie at the crossroads of Holocaust education and visitor or museum studies. The current study arose out of a unique opportunity during which the authors’ university hosted a traveling exhibit of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race. One hundred and ninety-four participants responded to a qualitative question regarding the impact of the exhibit. A descriptive form of thematic analysis was used to identify patterns in the data, resulting in three superordinate themes (closed, open, and ambivalent engagement). These themes describe how participants oriented themselves toward the exhibit, negotiating a complex interplay that included a passive to active continuum. Our critical analysis suggests that it may be helpful to view participants as ambivalent or even contradictory human agents, struggling wi...
The Purpose of the University

The university—with more than an 800-year history—has taken on many purposes on behalf of many external stakeholders. These purposes have accumulated over different points in time for the benefit of different stakeholders. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that these purposes—having been “grafted” together—are, at best, non-synergistic, and at worst, conflicting (e.g., research versus teaching, fielding a competitive football team versus academic integrity). Business schools operate on that same principle. They have various stakeholders and are pliable in taking on non-synergistic purposes requested by stakeholders and benefactors.
3D printing in neurosurgery: A systematic review.

Background The recent expansion of three-dimensional (3D) printing technology into the field of neurosurgery has prompted a widespread investigation of its utility. In this article, we review the current body of literature describing rapid prototyping techniques with applications to the practice of neurosurgery. Methods An extensive and systematic search of the Compendex, Scopus, and PubMed medical databases was conducted using keywords relating to 3D printing and neurosurgery. Results were manually screened for relevance to applications within the field. Results Of the search results, 36 articles were identified and included in this review. The articles spanned the various subspecialties of the field including cerebrovascular, neuro-oncologic, spinal, functional, and endoscopic neurosurgery. Conclusions We conclude that 3D printing techniques are practical and anatomically accurate methods of producing patient-specific models for surgical planning, simulation and training, tissue-engineered implants, and secondary devices. Expansion of this technology may, therefore, contribute to advancing the neurosurgical field from several standpoints.
Disease gene prioritization by integrating tissue-specific molecular networks using a robust multi-network model

Accurately prioritizing candidate disease genes is an important and challenging problem. Various network-based methods have been developed to predict potential disease genes by utilizing the disease similarity network and molecular networks such as protein interaction or gene co-expression networks. Although successful, a common limitation of the existing methods is that they assume all diseases share the same molecular network and a single generic molecular network is used to predict candidate genes for all diseases. However, different diseases tend to manifest in different tissues, and the molecular networks in different tissues are usually different. An ideal method should be able to incorporate tissue-specific molecular networks for different diseases. In this paper, we develop a robust and flexible method to integrate tissue-specific molecular networks for disease gene prioritization. Our method allows each disease to have its own tissue-specific network(s). We formulate the problem of candidate gene prioritization as an optimization problem based on network propagation. When there are multiple tissue-specific networks available for a disease, our method can automatically infer the relative importance of each tissue-specific network. Thus it is robust to the noisy and incomplete network data. To solve the optimization problem, we develop fast algorithms which have linear time complexities in the number of nodes in the molecular networks. We also provide rigorous theoretical foundations for our algorithms in terms of their optimality and convergence properties. Extensive experimental results show that our method can significantly improve the accuracy of candidate gene prioritization compared with the state-of-the-art methods. In our experiments, we compare our methods with 7 popular network-based disease gene prioritization algorithms on diseases from Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database. The experimental results demonstrate that our methods recover true associations more accurately than other methods in terms of AUC values, and the performance differences are significant (with paired t-test p-values less than 0.05). This validates the importance to integrate tissue-specific molecular networks for studying disease gene prioritization and show the superiority of our network models and ranking algorithms toward this purpose. The source code and datasets are available at http://nijingchao.github.io/CRstar/ .
Functional and Structural Characterization of Factor Xa Dimer in Solution.

Previous studies of blood coagulation factor Xa (bovine) showed that binding of water soluble phosphatidylserine (C6PS) to factor Xa (FXa) leads to Ca2+ dependent inactive (∼1000-fold inactivation) dimer formation. We show now that human factor Xa activity is also regulated by C6PS-induced dimerization in the presence of 5 mM Ca2+ We also report that the FXa dimer is inactive: despite the fact dimerization does not block the active site; in part because it does block a substrate exosite; the dimer interface involves lysine residues that boarder the active site and exosites, and the structure of FXa in the dimer is altered relative to the monomer. We have measured initial rates of prothrombin activation (using synthetic thrombin substrate S-2238) at varying FXa and substrate concentrations to show that the kcat/Km decreased (kcat decreased significantly and Km increased slightly) with an increase in FXa dimer formation. The observed significant decrease in kcat indicates that dimerization affects the alignment of substrate with the active site, perhaps through altering substrate binding or through altering the structure of the active site. Amidolytic activity of monomeric FXa (using synthetic substrate S-2765) decreased in response to C6PS binding, while that of the dimer increased slightly. This indicates that dimerization did not block the active site but may alter its conformation. CD and mass spectrometry showed that both Ca2+ and C6PS binding alter FXa structure and that dimerization further alters structure. Acetylation of exposed lysine residues and analysis of MS patterns obtained under conditions that favor either monomer or dimer FXa revealed that the dimerization buries lysines residues 222 and 224 (chymotrypsin numbering) that boarder the active site and are in putative exocytes. We used MS data, fluorescence energy transfer data for active site labeled FXa, to model the FXa dimer structure based on a FXa monomer model (from Gla-domainless Xa X-ray structure and Gla-EGFn with Ca2+) but the requirement that known membrane binding sites or paired FXa molecules would be located in plane was failed. Our lack of success supports our other measurements suggesting that the structure of FXa in a dimer is very different from that in a monomer. Supported by grant from the NHBL (HL 072827 to BRL).
Antitranspirant Treatments of Stock Plants do not alter Growth and Adventitious Rooting of Shoots of ‘Montaigne’ Lilac and White Fringetree

Abstract Antitranspirants were evaluated for their effectiveness as a stock plant treatment to improve adventitious rooting of softwood cuttings of Syringa vulgaris L. ‘Montaigne’ (Montaigne lilac) and Chionanthus virginicus L. (white fringe tree). New shoots of S. vulgaris ‘Montaigne’ and C. virginicus were sprayed with one of two film-forming antitranspirants including Clear Spray® (aqueous acrylic emulsion) and sodium silicate; or Atrazine®, a herbicide that acts as a stomate-regulating antitranspirant. Shoot caliper of antitranspirant-treated lilacs increased more slowly than controls. Thirty days after treatment cuttings were taken from both taxa. All treatments resulted in 80 to 85% rooting of cuttings in lilac after 6 weeks, but cuttings from Clear Spray®-treated plants rooted more quickly. Chionanthus virginicus cuttings treated with Clear Spray® had significantly lower rooting (16%) than cuttings taken from Atrazine® treated plants (50%). In a subsequent experiment, antitranspirant treatment had ...
Acetylcholine Receptors: Purification, Structure and Interaction with Insecticides

The acetylcholine (ACh) receptor is a regulatory protein in the postsynaptic membrane, which upon binding of the transmitter ACh, changes its conformation and induces increased ion flux across the membrane through opening of gates or channels, leading to changes in membrane potential. Cholinergic transmission in insects plays a vital role. Its importance is underscored by the fact that the majority of insecticides in use today are anticholinesterases. These cause accumulation of ACh, resulting in excessive stimulation of the ACh-receptor followed by blockade of transmission and death of the animal. Other insecticides, such as nicotine, act directly on the ACh-receptor, but they are poor anti-ACh-esterases (Fujita et al., 1970).
The “Flat Diaphragm”: Does the Degree of Curvature of the Diaphragm on Postoperative X-Ray Predict Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Recurrence?

Abstract Purpose: The appearance of the diaphragmatic curvature and the rib insertion level of the diaphragm on postoperative chest X-ray (CXR) may predict recurrence. Our purpose was to examine the relationship between the curvature of the diaphragm on postoperative CXR and recurrence. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of left-sided, Bochdalek congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) surgical repairs from 2004 to 2015 at a single institution. We developed a tool to measure the flatness of the diaphragm on postoperative CXR, termed the diaphragmatic curvature index (τ). The primary outcome of interest was recurrence after surgical repair. Results: Of the 127 patients identified, 54% (n = 69) had a primary repair, while 46% (n = 58) required a patch repair. The overall recurrence rate was 21.3% (n = 27). There was no difference in median lateral rib insertion level in patients with and without recurrence or those who had a primary or patch repair. The overall median diaphragmatic curvature index wa...
New-Onset Cardiovascular Morbidity in Older Adults With Stage I to III Colorectal Cancer

PurposeWe sought to determine the long-term risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)—stroke and myocardial infarction—and congestive heart failure (CHF) in older patients with colorectal cancer, as well as to understand the roles that preexisting comorbidities and cancer therapy play in increasing this risk.Patients and MethodsWe evaluated individuals from the SEER-Medicare database with incident stage I to III colorectal cancer at age older than 65 years between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2011 (n = 72,408) and compared these patients with a matched cohort of Medicare patients without cancer (n = 72,408).ResultsMedian age at diagnosis of colorectal cancer was 78 years (range, 66 years to 106 years), and median follow-up was 8 years since diagnosis. The 10-year cumulative incidence of new-onset CVD and CHF were 57.4% and 54.5% compared with 22% and 18% for control, respectively (P < .001). The interaction between hypertension and chemotherapy was significant (P < .001) for CVD, and that between diabetes...
Fred Block and Margaret R. Somers: The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi’s Critique

The beginning of the twenty-first century has been a period of relatively rapid economic, social, and political change. As in any parallel setting, change has enriched some and immiserated others. ...
Failed Hopes of Education: Revisiting the Relevancy of Education as a Method of Diminishing Recidivism.

This article describes how, generally, the majority of inmates will recidivate again within five years of being released from incarceration. Recidivism represents cyclical criminality that affects all American communities. Despite substantial expenditures toward the warehousing of inmates within the corrections system, less emphasis is directed toward leveraging vocational and career educational programs as resources through which recidivism rates may be reduced societally. However, in 2015, the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program was announced as an experimental program whereby prisoners may access Pell funding for educational purposes. Given the advent of this experimental program, this article reviews some historical literature and recommends future directions regarding education among corrections settings.
Mass spectrometry-based approach for protein biomarker verification

The search for protein biomarkers has been a highly pursued topic in the proteomics community over the last decade. This relentless search is due to the constant need for validated biomarkers that could facilitate disease risk stratification, disease diagnosis, disease prognosis, and disease monitoring as well as drug development, which ultimately would improve our quality of life. The recent development of proteomic technologies, including the advancement of mass spectrometers with high sensitivity and speed, has greatly advanced the discovery of potential biomarkers. Before these potential biomarkers can be developed into valid assays to be used in clinic, one of the bottlenecks lies in the development of well-established high-throughput verification assays to screen the many biomarker candidates identified in the discovery stage to prioritize the handful that are not only valid but also specific and sensitive enough to enter into the validation stage. Recently, the mass spectrometry–based approach using multiple-reaction monitoring mass spectrometry (MRM-MS) in combination with isotope-labeled internal standards has been extensively investigated as a tool for high-throughput protein biomarker verification purpose. In this chapter, we provide an update on recent developments and applications of the mass spectrometry–based approaches toward biomarker verification efforts as well as discussions on their current limitations.
Sleep, pain, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the research evidence of the bidirectional relation. Current models of pain processing and modulation are briefly discussed as background for a subsequent review of the research evidence about possible gating of pain signals during sleep and about sleep loss effects on pain perception. Research findings from experimental animal and human studies have revealed that sleep exerts minimal sensory gating of physiological pain stimuli, yet perception and motor responses to pain stimuli are reduced during sleep by mechanisms that are poorly understood. Lower pain thresholds and tolerance are common after sleep loss, but the mechanisms or alterations in pain processing that underlie these changes are not known. Electroencephalographic (EEG) studies of sleep in animal models of chronic pain can be attributable to pain processing in the CNS and provide insights into pain related sleep disturbance. Pain, sleep disturbance and fatigue are the most common symptoms of fibromyalgia (FM) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and sleep has been the most extensively studied using both subjective and objective measures in these disorders. The case definitions, prevalence, models of pathogenesis, pathophysiology, and current treatment recommendations are also discussed.
The Sensitivity of Expected Spanning Trees in Anisotropic Random Graphs

Consider graphs on the vertex set V={1, 2, …, n}, 1 < n < ∞, in which the edge between vertices i and j occurs with probability pij=pji, O≤pij≤ 1, independently for all edges. Let P=(pij) be the n × n symmetric matrix of edge probabilities with pij=0, i=1, …, n. Let T be the random number of spanning trees. E(T\P) denotes the redundancy, i.e., the expected number of spanning trees in random graphs with edge probability matrix P. An explicit (determinantal) formula for the sensitivity of the redundancy to changes in any edge probability, namely, ∂E(T\P)/∂pij, shows that this sensitivity equals the redundancy of random graphs in which vertices i and j have been collapsed to a single vertex or are connected with probability 1. There is an analogous formula for directed graphs.
Finite media: environmental implications of digital technologies

Finite Media provides a comprehensive and rigorous account of the ways digital technologies and innovations manifest as environmental crises. Cubitt organizes this book into four large chapters: ‘E...
Targeted Therapeutics for Transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy: Time to Move Forward

Introduction Deposition of wild type or mutant transthyretin (TTR) amyloid fibrils causes TTR cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CA). Targeted therapeutics (TT) for ATTR-CA include TTR stabilizers (tafamidis, dilfunisal) and oligonucleotide drugs (Revusiran, Patisiran and Inotersen).TTR stabilizers prevent dissociation of amyloid tetramers and thereby limit the deposition of amyloid fibrils. Oligonucleotide drugs inhibit hepatic synthesis of transthyretin. Recent studies have demonstrated improved outcomes with TT in patients with ATTR-CA. Hypothesis We performed a pooled analysis to study the safety and efficacy of TT in patients with ATTR-CA. Methods We searched PubMed for all studies comparing the safety and efficacy of targeted therapeutics (TT) with placebo in patients with ATTR-CA. Primary outcomes were 1) all-cause mortality, 2) cardiac hospitalizations, 3) serious adverse events and 4) change in global longitudinal strain. Random effects model with Mantel-Haenszel method was used to analyze the data. Results We identified six studies which reported at least one of the outcomes comparing TT and placebo. One study was stopped prematurely due to increased mortality in the TT arm. Pooled analysis included 1164 patients, of which 691 patients received TT and 473 patients received placebo. When compared to placebo, TT significantly reduced all-cause mortality [OR 0.39 (95% CI: 0.16 - 0.97, P =0.04)]. Pooled analysis after exclusion of aforementioned prematurely terminated study also showed decrease in all-cause mortality with TT[OR 0.27 (95% CI: 0.10 - 0.71, P =0.008)]. There was no difference in serious adverse events with TT [OR 1.06 (95% CI: 0.78 - 1.44, P =0.72)]. A trend towards improvement in global longitudinal strain with TT (mean difference -0.69 (95% CI: -1.44 - 0.05, P =0.07) was noted. Only two studies reported the effect on cardiac hospitalizations. Conclusions In patients with ATTR-CA, TT reduced all-cause mortality and were well-tolerated as compared to placebo.
Does an Introduction of a Paid Parental Leave Policy Affect Maternal Labor Market Outcomes in the Short Run? Evidence from Australia’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme

This paper studies how an introduction of paid parental leave (PPL) affects maternal labor market outcomes in the short run. Using a reform in Australia, the PPL scheme, that gave the primary caregiver of a child born or adopted on or after January 1 2011, $672.70 a week for a maximum of 18 weeks, this paper develops theoretical predictions of the effect of PPL on maternal labor market outcomes, and tests these predictions using confidential data from the Australian Pregnancy and Employment Transitions Survey. The theoretical results imply that after the introduction of PPL, hours of work in the pre-birth period should decrease for mothers who will qualify for PPL, and increase for mothers who are attempting to qualify for PPL. Post birth, the theoretical results imply that more mothers are out of work and on leave than would have been in the absence of PPL. The empirical results suggest that the PPL scheme had no significant effect on labor market outcomes pre birth or post birth.
Nanophotonic tantala waveguides for supercontinuum generation pumped at 1560 nm.

We experimentally demonstrate efficient and broadband supercontinuum generation in nonlinear tantala (Ta2O5) waveguides using a 1560 nm femtosecond seed laser. With incident pulse energies as low as 100 pJ, we create spectra spanning up to 1.6 octaves across the visible and infrared. Fabricated devices feature propagation losses as low as 10 dB/m, and they can be dispersion engineered through lithographic patterning for specific applications. We show a waveguide design suitable for low-power self-referencing of a fiber frequency comb that produces dispersive-wave radiation directly at the second-harmonic wavelength of the seed laser. A fiber-connectorized, hermetically sealed module with 2 dB per facet insertion loss and watt-level average-power handling is also described. Highly efficient and fully packaged tantala waveguides may open new possibilities for the integration of nonlinear nanophotonics into systems for precision timing, quantum science, biological imaging, and remote sensing.
‘Our students do not get that equal chance’: teachers’ perspectives of meritocracy

This study explores how Singapore social studies, geography and history teachers make meaning of the concept of meritocracy and its role in the education system. The findings indicate the participa...
Proxy Punishment: Consequences of Informal Sanctions among Families of Offenders In Japan

This study demystifies the nature of societal reactions to crime in Japan and their consequences on the family members of those who have trouble with the law. Over a 20-month period in metropolitan areas in Japan, participant observation and in-depth interviews were conducted with 50 mothers, fathers, wives, and sisters of those who had broken the law. Major findings include the role that the media and criminal justice authorities play in triggering the informal labeling of offenders’ kin. Families’ strong ties to communities also rendered them particularly vulnerable to the effects of informal sanctions, even more so than offenders themselves. Finally, this study reveals ironies of Japan’s low crime rate and its use of informal sanctions, highlighting the fundamental importance of offender rehabilitation and reentry.
Oxidant O 2 and Oxidant N 2 O Indices of Flammability and Their Additive Effect

The oxygen (oxidant O 2 ) index of flammability is accepted as a useful, easily reproducible, and inexpensive method of assigning relative flammability ratings to various materials. There have been reports of the ignition of plastic and rubber endotracheal tubes during anesthesia for surgery when an ignition source is in close proximity. Ignition sources include lasers for laryngeal surgery and pharyngeal electrocautery. Such procedures are often performed in oxygen- (O 2 ) and nitrous-oxide- (N 2 O) enriched atmospheres. This study determines and compares the oxidant O 2 index of flammability for three materials commonly used in endotracheal tubes: polyvinylchloride, red rubber, and silicone. Since nitrous oxide also supports combustion, we introduce the oxidant nitrous oxide (N 2 O) index of flammability for the same three materials. Indices were determined using a technique similar to the one previously described for the oxygen index of flammability. The oxidant O 2 index of flammability for polyvinylchloride endotracheal tubes is 0.263, for silicone endotracheal tubes, 0.189, and for red rubber endotracheal tubes, 0.176. The oxidant N 2 O index of flammability for polyvinylchloride endotracheal tubes is 0.456, for silicone endotracheal tubes, 0.414, and for red rubber endotracheal tubes, 0.374. The indices are linearly additive when O 2 and N 2 O are combined. This study suggests the possibility of developing other indices of flammability using other oxidants and predicting the effect of combining oxidants.
Financial Sector Stress and Risk Sharing: Evidence from the Weather Derivatives Market

I examine the effect of financial sector stress on risk sharing in a novel setting: the CME’s weather derivatives market. The structure of the market allows me to disentangle price movements due to financial sector stress from price movements due to fundamentals. Contracts, which are typically priced near their actuarially fair value, experience significant price declines during periods of financial sector stress. Contracts with greater margin requirements and total risk are the most affected. The results provide causal evidence of the effect of financial sector stress on the pricing of exchange-traded financial contracts and risk sharing in the economy. Received July 21, 2017; editorial decision July 22, 2018 by Editor Philip Strahan. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.
Leveraging a health information exchange to examine the accuracy of self-report emergency department utilization data among hospitalized injury survivors.

Background Accurate acute care medical utilization history is an important outcome for clinicians and investigators concerned with improving trauma center care. The objective of this study was to examine the accuracy of self-report emergency department (ED) utilization compared with utilization obtained from the Emergency Department Information Exchange (EDIE) in admitted trauma surgery patients with comorbid mental health and substance use problems. Methods This is a retrospective cohort study of 169 injured patients admitted to the University of Washington’s Harborview Level I Trauma Center. Patients had high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder and depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and alcohol comorbidity. The investigation used EDIE, a novel health technology tool that collects information at the time a patient checks into any ED in Washington and other US states. Patterns of EDIE-documented visits were described, and the accuracy of injured patients’ self-report visits was compared with EDIE-recorded visits during the course of the 12 months prior to the index trauma center admission. Results Overall, 45% of the sample (n=76) inaccurately recalled their ED visits during the past year, with 36 participants (21%) reporting less ED visits than EDIE indicated and 40 (24%) reporting more ED visits than EDIE indicated. Patients with histories of alcohol use problems and major psychiatric illness were more likely to either under-report or over-report ED health service use. Discussion Nearly half of all patients were unable to accurately recall ED visits in the previous 12 months compared with EDIE, with almost one-quarter of patients demonstrating high levels of disagreement. The improved accuracy and ease of use when compared with self-report make EDIE an important tool for both clinical and pragmatic trial longitudinal outcome assessments. Orchestrated investigative and policy efforts could further examine the benefits of introducing EDIE and other information exchanges into routine acute care clinical workflows. Level of evidence II/III. Trial registration number ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02274688.
The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on BMI in Children and Adolescents: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic created circumstances with the potential to increase rates of overweight and obesity. We aimed to assess whether there were significant increases in BMI among a sample of children and adolescents during the year 2020 compared to the two years prior to the pandemic. Methods: For this retrospective cohort study, data was obtained from the electronic medical records of 8398 children 3-17 years of age who attended 3 consecutive well visits between June 1 and October 31 in 2018, 2019 and 2020 in a single center in the Midwest. Generalized linear mixed models were used to calculate the differences in average BMI and obesity rates over the three years. Findings: Between 2019 and 2020, the mean BMI for the whole sample increased 3.2 percentile points (from the 70·5 th to the 73·7 th percentile; p < 0·001) compared to an increase of 0.8 percentile point between 2018 and 2019 (p = 0·008).The proportion of children and adolescents with obesity rose from 13% in 2019 to 15·2% in 2020 (p < 0·001) compared to no significant increase from 2018 to 2019. Significant disparities in BMI were observed between socioeconomic and ethnic groups. Interpretation: Significant increases in BMI and obesity rates occurred in 2020 in this sample. We propose that the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic contributed significantly to these increases. Funding: No funding or grant support related to this research was obtained. Declaration of Interest: None to declare. Ethical Approval: The study protocol was approved by the Joint Pediatric Institutional Review Board of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
A New Genus of Captorhinid Reptile (Amniota: Eureptilia) from the Lower Permian Hennessey Formation of Central Oklahoma, and a Consideration of Homoplasy in the Family Captorhinidae

A new captorhinid reptile is described on the basis of materials originally assigned to Captorhinikos parvus Olson, 1954, as well as newly discovered and more complete materials from the same locality. All the specimens are from the lower Permian Hennessey Formation in central Oklahoma. Newly described specimens include a suite of nearly complete skulls allowing confident and thorough description and reconstruction of the skull. The new Oklahoman captorhinid is distinguished from all other members of the family by the unique combination of being the smallest known mature member of the family, the lack of the supratemporal, and possession of multiple maxillary and dentary tooth rows despite its very small size. A new genus, Rhodotheratus, is named to include Captorhinikos parvus, as the new combination, Rhodotheratus parvus (Olson, 1954). A phylogenetic analysis places Rhodotheratus parvus within more basal members of the eureptilian family Captorhinidae. This placement suggests that multiple maxillary and dentary tooth rows must have developed independently at least three times within the family. The interpretation of Rhodotheratus as a small, but well-ossified and mature, adult member of the family demonstrates the first significant example of miniaturization in the family and demonstrates further that the family is a dramatic example of diversification within basal Amniota.
Identities, concentrations, and sources of pesticide exposure in pollen collected by managed bees during blueberry pollination

Bees are critical for crop pollination, but there is limited information on levels and sources of pesticide exposure in commercial agriculture. We collected pollen from foraging honey bees and bumble bees returning to colonies placed in blooming blueberry fields with different management approaches (conventional, organic, unmanaged) and located across different landscape settings to determine how these factors affect pesticide exposure. We also identified the pollen and analyzed whether pesticide exposure was correlated with corbicular load composition. Across 188 samples collected in 2 years, we detected 80 of the 259 pesticide active ingredients (AIs) screened for using a modified QuEChERS method. Detections included 28 fungicides, 26 insecticides, and 21 herbicides. All samples contained pesticides (mean = 22 AIs per pollen sample), with pollen collected from bees on conventional fields having significantly higher average concentrations (2019 mean = 882.0 ppb) than those on unmanaged fields (2019 mean = 279.6 ppb). Pollen collected by honey bees had more AIs than pollen collected by bumble bees (mean = 35 vs. 19 AIs detected at each farm, respectively), whereas samples from bumble bees had higher average concentrations, likely reflecting differences in foraging behavior. Blueberry pollen was more common in pollen samples collected by bumble bees (25.9% per sample) than honey bees (1.8%), though pesticide concentrations were only correlated with blueberry pollen for honey bees. Pollen collected at farms with more blueberry in the surrounding landscape had higher pesticide concentrations, mostly AIs applied for control of blueberry pathogens and pests during bloom. However, for honey bees, the majority of AIs detected at each farm are not registered for use on blueberry at any time (55.2% of AIs detected), including several highly toxic insecticides. These AIs therefore came from outside the fields and farms they are expected to pollinate. For bumble bees, the majority of AIs detected in their pollen are registered for use on blueberry during bloom (56.9% of AIs detected), though far fewer AIs were sprayed at the focal farm (16.7%). Our results highlight the need for integrated farm and landscape-scale stewardship of pesticides to reduce exposure to pollinators during crop pollination.
Real-time MLton: A Standard ML runtime for real-time functional programs

There is a growing interest in leveraging functional programming languages in real-time and embedded contexts. Functional languages are appealing as many are strictly typed, amenable to formal methods, have limited mutation, and have simple but powerful concurrency control mechanisms. Although there have been many recent proposals for specialized domain-specific languages for embedded and real-time systems, there has been relatively little progress on adapting more general purpose functional languages for programming embedded and real-time systems. In this paper, we present our current work on leveraging Standard ML (SML) in the embedded and real-time domains. Specifically, we detail our experiences in modifying MLton, a whole-program optimizing compiler for SML, for use in such contexts. We focus primarily on the language runtime, reworking the threading subsystem, object model, and garbage collector. We provide preliminary results over a radar-based aircraft collision detector ported to SML.
The Jenkins paradox: A complex system, yet only a timid step towards PR

Matthew Soberg Shugart argues that criticisms of broadly proportional electoral systems are beside the point when set against the Jenkins Commission's AV‐plus proposals.
DNA replication in eucaryotic nuclei. Evidence suggesting a specific model of replication.

Abstract Isolated S phase CHO nuclei continue DNA replication in vitro with 3 H-dTTP for a short time, Over a wide range of amount of DNA synthesized in vitro, half of the completely denatured, 3 H-labeled DNA sediments as small pieces, and half sediments as a spectrum of larger DNAs. Under moderately denaturing conditions, up to 30% of the isotope elutes from hydroxyapatite as single-stranded small pieces. The remaining isotope sediments in sucrose gradients as double-stranded DNA with a bimodal distribution—a broad 20–30S peak and larger segments which are more than 50S. Evidence is presented that there is little, if any, ligation of the small pieces to a size comparable to the bulk DNA under the given conditions of incubation. These data suggest that DNA is replicated continuously or in large pieces on one strand and as small pieces on the other.
Inflation, investment and the neutrality of money: A short note

Abstract One argument made against inflation is that it discourages new investment because calculating depreciation allowances and inventories on the basis or original costs overstates profits and taxes and results in a lack of finance for new investment. This note shows that, in addition, inflation lowers the rate of return on prospective investment independently of the question availability of finance.
Maximum Security Correctional Officers: An Exploratory Investigation into Their Social Bases of Power

Correctional officers are responsible for maintaining prison order, establishing institutional security and managing inmate behavior. To accomplish these goals, officers are sometimes required to deploy available bases of power, which are mechanisms of behavioral control used to achieve certain objectives, and include reward, referent, legitimate, coercive and expert. While power bases have been researched at length across numerous organizational settings, they have received comparatively less attention within corrections. Using questionnaire data from a statewide population of maximum security correctional officers (N = 559), several ordered logistic regression models were estimated in order to explore the power bases upon which officers rely the most, as well as the antecedents to this decision. Referent and legitimate power ranked highest concerning their ability to control inmates, while measures of officer risk perceptions and work-related attitudes significantly predicted their power base reliance. To ensure inmate compliance with institutional regulations, it is recommended that correctional officers utilize softer forms of power such as referent and legitimate.