cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Ethics of Mental Health Research

The ethics of mental health research with human subjects is grounded in the general philosophy of metaethics, particularly consequentialism (the doctrine that what makes right acts right is the good or bad results of the action). In addition, principalism (the doctrine that what makes right acts right is the degree to which they adhere to one or more broad ethical principles, e.g., beneficence) is a widely accepted philosophy among human subjects research ethicists. This article describes the origin and function of Institutional Review Boards (IRB), which preapprove research projects with human subjects. IRBs generally operate on principalist ethics, following the Helsinki Declaration and the US Belmont Report which articulated three foundational principles: respect for persons, beneficence, and non-maleficence. Categories of research review include exempt, expedited, and full. Categories of IRB action include approval, conditional approval, requirement of modifications, deferral of decision until further information is received, or disapproval. The development and application of these ethical standards are discussed in this article.
Power, Agency and Politics in Resource Rich Economies of Ghana and Nigeria

Across large swathes of the globe, political and economic changes have transformed the electoral landscapes of many states. New modes of communication like 'twitter diplomacy,' and continued shrinkage of borders have quickened the pace of interconnectedness while simultaneously undermining the locus of state authority. The ubiquitous pull of social media and subsequent restrictions in a number of states speak to the concerns of possible agency by marginalized classes or movements.This paper explores the quandary of resource capitalism amid new forms of authority wielded by state actors and how particular forms of tangible and intangible sources of power are being negotiated and re-negotiated in largely unequal politico-economic spheres. As the site of multiple transformations that include regionalism, heightened urban-rural cleavages, and 'runaway' development Ghana offers valuable lessons for other West African but in short, sub-Saharan nations. These new forces that I group under the umbrella of 'runaway' development are reflected in the rapid demand for resource rights for extractive industries in exchange for infrastructural projects that are troubling on an number of counts. While the pull of open, more participatory institutions is unmistakable, so are endemic patterns of continued 'co-optation' of key groups in society (for example through public goods access). Consequently this paper aims to broadly explore how political power is wielded by key interest groups as well as market dominant minorities who now play a key role in economic and to a lesser extent political governance. It will offer a new theoretical lens for framing these developments as well as the tenuous balance of contending forces that involve modes of power, political representation, patronage and collective action for emerging economies in West Africa (e.g. Nigeria and Ghana). This paper will argue that while the power to challenge prevailing loci of authority exists such as in the realm of social movements, new repositories of power for newly resource rich economies as well as preexisting ones are bound to culminate in a collision course of considerable proportions.
Globalization, Class and Culture in Global Systems

The work of Immanuel Wallerstein has been criticized by certain anthropologists for not having taken culture into proper account. He has been accused of the sin of political economy, a not uncommon accusation, a re?ex of the 80s and post-80s anthropological jargon that might ?nally today be exhausted. Years earlier a number of social scientists were engaged in a critical assessment of the social sciences from a distinctively global perspective. Wallerstein, Frank and others were at the forefront of this critique which had a powerful impact on anthropology. The global perspective was not a mere addition to anthropological knowledge, not a mere of extension of the use of the culture concept, i.e. before it was local and now it is global, before culture stood still, but now in the global age, it ?ows around the world. It was a more fundamental critique, or at least it implied a more fundamental critique. This critique could only be attained from a perspective in which the very concept of society was re-conceived as something very different, as a locus constructed within a historical force ?eld which was very much broader than any particular politically de?ned unit.
Angular-Momentum-Biased Nanorings To Realize Magnetic-Free Integrated Optical Isolation

We present the concept and practical design of nonreciprocal optical nanodevices that do not require magnetic materials or bias, but instead are based on a fully integrated nanophotonic ring resonator spatiotemporally modulated to impart angular momentum bias that, according to the Onsager–Casimir principle, can break time-reversal symmetry. On the basis of this idea, we discuss optimal designs for compact optical isolators exhibiting arbitrarily large isolation and low transmission loss, achieved by properly selecting the quality factor of the nanoring, the amount of angular momentum bias, and the gaps between ring and channel/drop waveguides. A practical implementation based on stepwise modulation and pin junctions is explored, showing strong nonreciprocal response in a simple, integrated design. These findings can enable the realization of on-chip, fully integrable nonreciprocal optical nanocomponents as a new paradigm in all-optical communication systems.
Hydrodechlorination of dichlorodifluoromethane on carbon-supported Group VIII noble metal catalysts

Activated carbon‐supported Group VIII noble metals formed CF2Cl2 oligomerization products under hydrodechlorination conditions. All the catalysts underwent deactivation during first 15–20 h on stream at 250°C independent of the H2 partial pressure, with steady‐state activity following the order: Pt > Pd ≫ Ir > Ru ≈Os ≈ Rh. The Pd/C catalyst exhibited high selectivity toward C2–C3 hydrocarbons (∼75% at CF2Cl2/H2 = 1). For the other catalysts except Pt, CF2=CF2 and CH2=CF2 were the main C2+ products.
Why Does Inequality Matter? Reflections on the Political Morality of Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century

In the Conclusion to Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty issues a call for a political and historical economics. Like Marx and the political economists before him, Piketty is interested in how markets work because he is interested in the rights and wrongs of institutional, especially legal, design. His is book is guided by a clear sense that economic inequality, especially inequality of wealth, raises serious prima facie problems of social justice. This essay is a critical investigation into the political morality underlying Capital in the Twenty-First Century that unravels and evaluates the different ways in which economic inequality may or may not matter.
The effect of follicle-stimulating hormone without additional luteinizing hormone on follicular stimulation and oocyte development in normal ovulatory women

Twelve normally menstruating women were stimulated with (1) human menopausal gonadotropins (hMG) containing follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) and (2) FSH only to induce growth of multiple follicles for oocyte retrieval. Maturation of the follicles and presumptively the oocytes was assessed by daily serum estradiol (E2) values, the response of the vaginal epithelium, and cervical mucus. The growth and number of follicles were measured by ultrasound daily. Human chorionic gonadotropin was administered as a surrogate LH surge. The hMG cycles were compared with the FSH-only cycles in relation to serum E2 and oocyte maturation, fertilization, transfer, and pregnancy rates. Five of eight cycles adequately stimulated with FSH only resulted in successful pregnancies. FSH without additional LH can initiate and maintain E2 function and allow oocyte maturation to proceed up to the terminal maturation, which is associated with the LH surge. The effect of LH may be to hasten follicular atresia in the developing cohort of follicles.
Anthropologie-Kritik und Humanismus

Egon Schutz stellt in diesen drei Aufsatzen eine Analyse postmoderner Positionen der Anthropologie-Kritik vor. Ausgehend von der Grundthese der humanistisch-anthropologischen Differenz werden anthropologische Wissenschaft und humanistische Praxis unterschieden. Das spannungsreiche Verhaltnis von Humanismus und Anthropologie kann auch unter Bedingungen postmoderner und poststrukturalistischer Kritik nicht einfach ubersprungen oder einseitig aufgelost werden. Vielmehr eroffnet sich darin ein Raum der Bildung. Schutz untersucht mit Nietzsche das prekare Verhaltnis von Ziel, Ziel-Anspruch, Wirklichkeit und Wahrheit in der Padagogik. In einem konzisen Uberblick werden im zweiten Aufsatz zentrale anthropologie- und humanismuskritische Argumente von Jaspers, Sartre, Heidegger, Fink, Levi-Strauss und Foucault zusammengetragen, um dann die humanistisch-anthropologische Differenz analytisch in Anschlag zu bringen. Der Text „Uberlegungen zum Gewissen“ versucht die Rehabilitierung der „leistenden Subjektivitat“ (Husserl) unter Bedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Moderne. Foucaults Diagnose vom „Verschwinden des Subjekts“ wird in dieser Hinsicht zustimmend aufgenommen und mit der Analytik des „Man“ von Heidegger zusammengebracht. Gewissen gilt Schutz als Streit, Gratwanderung und Ausdruck elementarer Urteilskraft.
Patriarchy, abortion, and the criminal system: policing female bodies

This paper argues for a broader consideration of the issue of abortion—one that stresses the centrality of the denial of reproductive rights in the patriarchal policing of women’s bodies and their sexuality. Globally, the estimates of abortion-related deaths in 2014 ranged from 22,500 to 44,000, and countless women are injured or left infertile by seeking illegal abortions. We briefly review international trends regarding abortion politics and then analyze closely women’s access to abortion in two countries: the United States and Bangladesh. Representing two very different contexts of the developed and the developing world, respectively, we contend that abortion services are being constrained by misogynistic politics that deny women control over their bodies. Finally, the paper reviews recent international efforts to establish abortion rights as part of a broader landscape of human rights. Notably, while there are some efforts in the global north to recriminalize both contraception and abortion, these pra...
Revision of the 1947 Agreement

During the early years of Philippine independence the question of the criminal jurisdictional arrangements of the 1947 agreement attracted little attention. The attempts to revise these arrangements had their beginning in July 1953 and continued periodically through August 1965. Within this twelve year period, four phases of negotiation are distinguishable, each of which will be discussed in this chapter. In the background of the revision attempts were the general problems of Philippine security and sovereignty. These problems will be discussed briefly.
Optical interconnect technology for multiprocessor networks

Networks for connecting processors to each other will require Gigabit/sec data rate; high speed setup; dense packaging, comparable to VLSI electronics; robustness, in terms of reliable components, low link bit-error-rate, and easy reconfigurability; and low cost. A GaAs based OEIC chip with all link adapter functions on one chip, a multichip carrier with self-aligned optics and opto- electronics, and multimode fiber arrays cable and connectors are optical technology elements that could be developed in the near term to provide such a multiprocessor network technology. However, component and link development work is still required to verify the technology's potential for reliability, volume manufacturability, and low cost.
Serum Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone Levels and Body Mass Index Percentiles in Children with Primary Hypothyroidism on Levothyroxine Replacement.

Objective To determine the association, if any, between thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels and body mass index (BMI) percentiles in children with primary hypothyroidism who are chemically euthyroid and on treatment with levothyroxine. Methods This retrospective cross-sectional study consisted of a review of medical records from RUSH Medical Center and Stroger Hospital, Chicago, USA of children with primary hypothyroidism who were seen in the clinic from 2008 to 2014 and who were chemically euthyroid and on treatment with levothyroxine for at least 6 months. The patients were divided into two groups based on their TSH levels (0.34- Results One hundred and forty-six children were included, of which 26% were obese (BMI ≥95%), 21.9% overweight (BMI ≥85- Conclusion In children diagnosed with primary hypothyroidism who are chemically euthyroid on treatment with levothyroxine, there is a positive association between higher TSH levels and higher BMI percentiles. However, it is difficult to establish if the higher TSH levels are a direct cause or a consequence of the obesity. Further studies are needed to establish causation beyond significant association.
Blood–Brain Barrier Driven Pharmacoresistance in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Challenges for Effective Drug Therapies

The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is essential for proper neuronal function, homeostasis, and protection of the central nervous system (CNS) microenvironment from blood-borne pathogens and neurotoxins. The BBB is also an impediment for CNS penetration of drugs. In some neurologic conditions, such as epilepsy and brain tumors, overexpression of P-glycoprotein, an efflux transporter whose physiological function is to expel catabolites and xenobiotics from the CNS into the blood stream, has been reported. Recent studies reported that overexpression of P-glycoprotein and increase in its activity at the BBB drives a progressive resistance to CNS penetration and persistence of riluzole, the only drug approved thus far for treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), rapidly progressive and mostly fatal neurologic disease. This review will discuss the impact of transporter-mediated pharmacoresistance for ALS drug therapy and the potential therapeutic strategies to improve the outcome of ALS clinical trials and efficacy of current and future drug treatments.
Comparison of Adjacency and Distance-Based Approaches for Spatial Analysis of Multimodal Traffic Crash Data

Abstract. Many studies have utilized the spatial correlations among traffic crash data to develop crash prediction models with the aim to investigate the influential factors or predict crash counts at different sites. The spatial correlation have been observed to account for heterogeneity in different forms of weight matrices which improves the estimation performance of models. But very rarely have the weight matrices been compared for the prediction accuracy for estimation of crash counts. This study was targeted at the comparison of two different approaches for modelling the spatial correlations among crash data at macro-level (County). Multivariate Full Bayesian crash prediction models were developed using Decay-50 (distance-based) and Queen-1 (adjacency-based) weight matrices for simultaneous estimation crash counts of four different modes: vehicle, motorcycle, bike, and pedestrian. The goodness-of-fit and different criteria for accuracy at prediction of crash count reveled the superiority of Decay-50 over Queen-1. Decay-50 was essentially different from Queen-1 with the selection of neighbors and more robust spatial weight structure which rendered the flexibility to accommodate the spatially correlated crash data. The consistently better performance of Decay-50 at prediction accuracy further bolstered its superiority. Although the data collection efforts to gather centroid distance among counties for Decay-50 may appear to be a downside, but the model has a significant edge to fit the crash data without losing the simplicity of computation of estimated crash count.
Surging wildfire activity in a grassland biome

Rapid changes in wildfire patterns are documented globally, increasing pressure to identify regions that may experience increases in wildfire in future decades. Temperate grassland and savanna biomes were some of the most frequently burned regions on Earth, however large wildfires have been largely absent from the Great Plains of North America over the last century. In this paper, we conduct an in-depth analysis of changes in large wildfire (>400 ha) regime characteristics over a 30 year period across the Great Plains. For the entire biome, (i) the average number of large wildfires increased from 33.4 + 5.6 per year from1985-1994 to 116.8 + 28.8 wildfires per year from 2005-2014, (ii) total area burned by large wildfires increased 400%, (iii) over half the ecoregions had greater than a 70% probability of a large wildfire occurring in the last decade, and (iv) seasonality of large wildfires remained relatively similar.
Effects of Laryngeal Activity on Articulation

This study examined the effects of three speech conditions (voiced, whispered, and mouthed) on global average measures of articulatory movement during sentence production. Participants were 20 adults (ten males and ten females) with no history of speech, language, or hearing disorders. They produced six target utterances in the three speaking conditions. Movements of the following articulators were recorded with an electromagnetic articulograph: Mid tongue, front of tongue, jaw, lower lip, and upper lip. The kinematic metrics were averages derived from movement strokes defined by minima in the speed record of each articulator. These measures revealed a number of significant changes between the voiced and mouthed conditions, with relatively few differences between voiced and whispered speech. Significant increases in sentence duration, articulatory stroke count, and stroke duration as well as significant decreases in peak stroke speed, stroke distance, and hull areas were found in the mouthed condition. These findings suggest that both laryngeal activation and auditory feedback play an important role in the production of normally articulated vocal tract movements, and that the absence of these may account for the significant changes in articulation between the voiced and mouthed conditions.
THE TREATMENT OF CLAW-FOOT

1. True claw-foot is due to a lesion of the spinal cord, usually spina bifida occulta or poliomyelitis, with resulting weakness of certain muscles of the foot. It is, therefore, a symptom and not an entity. 2. By systematic treatment some cases at least can be checked and others corrected with good functional feet resulting. 3. Transplantation of the toe extensors to the cuneiform bones will aid in keeping the sole flat and preventing a progressive cavus. 4. When wedge osteotomy is necessary to overcome the cavus, an anterior tarsal wedge will save function, and correct the deformity.
Laplanche, an introduction by Dominique Scarfone

In what we have come to know as his emblematic erudite and lucid style, Scarfone has offered us a remarkable introduction to Laplanche’s ideas and, most critically, to his way of thinking. This is ...
Section 4968 and Taxing All Charitable Endowments: A Critique and Proposal

Section 4968, recently added to the Internal Revenue Code,imposes a tax on the investment incomes of some college and university endowments. Critics of Section 4968 disparage this new tax as selectively targeting what are widely perceived as wealthy, politically liberal institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, M.I.T. and Stanford. There is a strong tax policy argument for taxing the net investment incomes of all charitable endowments including donor-advised funds, community foundations, all educational endowments, and foundations supporting hospitals, museums and other eleemosynary institutions. Like corporations and private foundations that currently pay revenue-generating income taxes,charitable endowments use public services and have capacity to pay tax. Such traditional tax policy criteria as equity and economic neutrality counsel that similar entities and persons should be taxed similarly. Just as corporations and private foundations pay income taxes to support federally-provided social overhead, by analogy, all charitable endowments, as similar entities, should pay similar taxes as well. Section 4968 falls far short of the goal of a comprehensive, revenue-generating tax on the universe of charitable endowments. Section 4968 is poorly designed to boot. Most anomalously, Section 4968 taxes some relatively small educational endowments while leaving other, much larger endowments untaxed. Important voices (most prominently, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell) defend Section 4968 as a regulation of university tuition policies. However, this defense of Section 4968 as a regulatory tax fails since Section 4968 does not regulate tuition or anything else. When it crafted Section 4968, Congress had before it the examples of the Code’s many taxes governing private foundations and other eleemosynary institutions. Had Congress sought to impose on college and university endowments a regulatory tax along these lines, it could have emulated these examples in the design of Section 4968. Congress did not. Section 4968 is best defended in political terms as an incremental step towards the kind of comprehensive tax on all charitable endowments suggested by conventional tax policy criteria. But, standing on its own, Section 4968 falls well short of this goal and is deeply flawed in its design. Section 4968 does not create a broad-based tax on eleemosynary endowments. It should be the harbinger of one.
Iontophoretic delivery of a telomeric oligonucleotide.

Purpose. To evaluate the feasibility of iontophoretically enhanced transdermal delivery of a phosphorothioate oligonucleotide across hairless mouse skin.
Different Sources of Stem Cells for Transplantation Therapy in Stroke

In search of therapies for stroke, substantial progress has been made with the use of stem cells. A constellation of embryonic and extraembryonic sources provides researchers with the ability to harvest stem cells. However, these derivations also provide their individual difficulties as the optimal conditions of use are still being determined. This review will outline the current knowledge, including benefits and challenges, of the many current sources of stem cells for stroke therapy.
The Search for Obesity Genes

Evidence from a variety of sources indicate that genes play a major role in determining proneness to obesity (Price, in press). Family, twin and adoption studies indicate that genes also play a role in determining levels of fatness or thinness in the normal range (Price, in press; Price & Gottesman, 1991; Sorensen, Price Stunkard, & Schulsinger, 1989). At least in adults, environmental influences appear to originate outside the family (Price & Gottesman, 1991, Sorensen, Price, Stunkard, & Schulsinger, 1989) and genes mediate response to the environment (Bouchard, Tremblay, Despres, Nadeau, Lupien, Theriault, Dussault, Moorgani, Pinault, & Fornier, 1990). Obesity associated with single gene mutations in animals and chromosome abnormalities in humans indicate that disruption or deletion of single genes or several contiguous genes can result in obesity, even in the absence of special obesity promoting diets (Friedman, Leibel, & Bahary, 1991; Johnson, Greenwood, Horwitz, & Stern, 1991; Price, in press). Possibly of more relevance to extreme obesity in humans are multi-genic models of obesity that appear to depend on both genotype and exposure to high fat diets (West, Waguespack, & Price, 1994). Thus, genes appear to influence proneness to obesity across a broad range of fat and thin phenotypes and to possess a range of susceptibility to the environmental influences of diet and exercise.
Hierarchical cache consistency in a WAN

This paper explores ways to provide improved consistency for Internet applications that scale to millions of clients. We make four contributions. First, we identify how workloads affect the scalability of cache consistency algorithms. Second, we define two primitive mechanisms, split and join, for growing and shrinking consistency hierarchies, and we present a simple mechanism for implementing them. Third, we describe and evaluate policies for using split and join to address the fault tolerance and performance challenges of consistency hierarchies. Fourth, using synthetic workload and trace-based simulation, we compare various algorithms for maintaining strong consistency in a range of hierarchy configurations. Our results indicate that a promising configuration for providing strong consistency in a WAN is a two-level consistency hierarchy where servers and proxies work to maintain consistency for data cached at clients. Specifically, by adapting to clients' access patterns, two-level hierarchies reduce the read latency for demanding workloads without introducing excessive overhead for nondemanding workloads. Also, they can improve scalability by orders of magnitude. Furthermore, this configuration is easy to deploy by augmenting proxies, and it allows invalidation messages to traverse firewalls.
Size Counts: Evolutionary Perspectives on Physical Activity and Body Size From Early Hominids to Modern Humans

This paper examines the evolutionary origins of human dietary and activity patterns, and their implications for understanding modern health problems. Humans have evolved distinctive nutritional characteristics associated the high metabolic costs of our large brains. The evolution of larger hominid brain size necessitated the adoption of foraging strategies that both provided high quality foods, and required larger ranges and activity budgets. Over time, human subsistence strategies have become ever more efficient in obtaining energy with minimal time and effort. Today, populations of the industrialized world live in environments characterized by low levels of energy expenditure and abundant food supplies contributing to growing rates of obesity. Analyses of trends in dietary intake and body weight in the US over the last 50 years indicate that the dramatic rise in obesity cannot be explained solely by increased energy consumption. Rather, declines in activity are also important. Further, we find that recent recommendations on physical activity have the potential to bring daily energy expenditure levels of industrialized societies surprisingly close to those observed among subsistence-level populations. These findings highlight the importance of physical activity in promoting nutritional health and show the utility of evolutionary approaches for developing public health recommendations.
Life Satisfaction and Public Finance: Empirical Analysis Using U.S. Micro Data

The objective of this paper is to explore various relationships between self-reported life satisfaction and state public finance in the U.S. The paper focuses on both government expenditure and revenue (especially tax) structures. This paper is the first of its kind to examine the relationship between individual life satisfaction and overall tax structure, and to consider the expenditure and tax structures together. Using life satisfaction data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System between 2005 and 2009, we find that government spending and revenue structures are related to individual life satisfaction as follows: First, the size of general expenditure is positively related to life satisfaction. Among different categories of expenditures, public health expenditure has a positive impact on life satisfaction. The impacts of education and welfare expenditures depend on specific categories within the expenditure. In addition, higher income groups report lower life satisfaction than does the lowest income group with a greater amount of general expenditure, especially with welfare expenditure. Second, with respect to government revenue, life satisfaction is lower with greater tax revenue, and higher with greater non-tax forms of financing expenditures, such as intergovernmental transfer. Among different categories of taxes, individual income tax has a negative impact on life satisfaction. In particular, compared to the lowest income group, higher income groups report lower life satisfaction with greater individual income tax. These results indicate that state public finance matters for individual life satisfaction, and the impact is different across income groups.
Learning and Action in Community Health: Using the Health Belief Model to Assess and Educate African American Community Residents about Participation in Clinical Research

The Learning and Action in Community Health project was implemented to gather preliminary data needed to inform community-engaged educational approaches to increase clinical research participation among racial minorities. The Health Belief Model was the theoretical framework utilized to develop the intervention and assessment tools. An educational session about clinical research and biorepository participation was designed using clinicaltrials.gov information and administered to adult, African American community residents (n = 60) in Atlanta, Georgia. Pre- and post-tests were collected and analyzed to assess changes in participants’ knowledge, perceptions, and willingness to participate in clinical studies and biorepositories. There were statistically significant changes in knowledge about joining a clinical study (p < 0.001) and registry or biorepository (p < 0.001). There was no statistically significant change in willingness to participate in clinical research or biorepositories after the educational session. Focus groups were conducted to gather feedback on the educational session and perceived barriers and benefits to participating in clinical research. Perceived benefits were improving health, receiving incentives, early detection of health issues, and access to care. Perceived barriers included fear, lack of knowledge, historical mistrust of research, and time constraints. Results have implications for subsequent community-engaged approaches to increasing minority participation in clinical research.
Speeding Up Affordance Learning for Tool Use, Using Proprioceptive and Kinesthetic Inputs

End-to-end learning in deep reinforcement learning based on raw visual input has shown great promise in various tasks involving sensorimotor control. However, complex tasks such as tool use require recognition of affordance and a series of non-trivial subtasks such as reaching the tool, grasping the tool, and wielding the tool. In such tasks, end-to-end approaches with only the raw input (e.g. pixel-wise images) may fail to learn to perform the task or may take too long to converge. In this paper, inspired by the biological sensorimotor system, we explore the use of proprioceptive/kinesthetic inputs (internal inputs for body position and motion) as well as raw visual inputs (exteroception, external perception) for use in affordance learning for tool use tasks. We set up a reaching task in a simulated physics environment (MuJoCo), where the agent has to pick up a T-shaped tool to reach and drag a target object to a designated region in the environment. We used an Actor-Critic-based reinforcement learning algorithm called ACKTR (Actor-Critic using Kronecker-Factored Trust Region) and trained it using various input conditions to assess the utility of proprioceptive/kinesthetic inputs. Our results show that the inclusion of proprioceptive/kinesthetic inputs (position and velocity of the limb) greatly enhances the performance of the agent: higher success rate, and faster convergence to the solution. The lesson we learned is the important factor of the intertwined relationship of exteroceptive and proprioceptive in sensorimotor learning and that although end-to-end learning based on raw input may be appealing, separating the exteroceptive and proprioceptive/kinesthetic factors in the input to the learner, and providing the necessary internal inputs can lead to faster, more effective learning.
Un “ecorrefugio” en la cuenca de la Laguna de Antofagasta (Puna Salada) entre 7900 y 6200 años AP

This paper deals with the impact that the transformation of the landscape and the environment had on groups that exploited the salt puna during a period of approximately two thousand years. Data from lithic assemblages from various levels at Cueva Salamanca 1 are presented and compared with data from other sites in the region of Antofagasta de la Sierra. It is proposed that during the Middle Holocene, the generalized aridity and the discontinuous distribution of resources in the puna would have contributed to a geographic circumscription of these hunter-gatherer groups who would have increased their interactions with groups from the eastern lowlands. Group dynamics, strategies of fusion-fission used during arid periods and their archaeological correlates are also discussed. It is concluded that problems of environmental variability would have been solved with social strategies of concentration and dispersion, as well as with contacts with groups inhabiting the eastern lowlands.
Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) germination and growth responses to light: implications for logging debris retention after forest harvesting

Scotch broom [Cytisus scoparius (L.) Link] is a large nonnative, leguminous shrub that threatens native plant communities by rapidly invading recently disturbed sites, competing vigorously for soil water and nutrients, and imparting soil legacy effects that inhibit native plants. In the Pacific Northwest, logging debris retention after forest harvesting prevents or slows C. scoparius invasions. A series of studies were conducted to determine potential mechanisms by which logging debris modifies the light environment to limit germination and growth of C. scoparius. In laboratory studies, seed germination did not vary significantly (P > 0.05): (1) between presence and absence of light for several temperature regimes, (2) when exposed to red (660-nm wavelength) versus far-red (730-nm wavelength) light, and (3) across a range of red/far-red light (R/FR) ratios. These results indicate that modification of the light environment by logging debris or plant canopies has little or no influence on C. scoparius germination. In a study to simulate effects of variable mass of logging debris, “heavy” debris (2 kg m−2) caused biologically relevant reductions in photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and R/FR relative to conditions under “light” debris (1 kg m−2). Cytisus scoparius germination did not differ significantly between simulated heavy and light debris; however, values of seedling root and shoot biomass under heavy debris were 16% and 71% of those observed under light debris, respectively. These results indicate that heavy debris limits biomass of C. scoparius seedlings, particularly roots, by reducing both PPFD and R/FR, which increases seedling vulnerability to summer drought or other stressors. Retention of heavy logging debris after forest harvesting has potential application on sites likely to be invaded by C. scoparius, as well as those sites with seedbanks containing C. scoparius.
Long-Term Outcomes of Adult Patients with Ependymoma (P6.150)

Objective: We sought to identify patterns and prognostic variables associated with clinical outcomes among adult ependymoma patients. Background: Ependymomas comprise roughly 2% of adult primary CNS neoplasms. They vary in presentation, behavior, and outcome. Management remains controversial and is often dependent on prognostic features. Design/Methods: This cohort was identified from a database registry including patients diagnosed and treated at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke between 12/31/2004 and 10/10/2016. Cases of adult ependymoma (≥18 yrs at diagnosis) were evaluated retrospectively for demographic information, pathology, treatment, and survival. We estimated time to event outcomes using Kaplan-Meier methods. Results: We identified 51 adult ependymoma patients. Mean age was 43.1 yrs (range 18–69) with a majority being males (58.8%). Time to progression for patients with ependymoma differed by grade and Ki67/MIB-1 index. Patients with anaplastic ependymoma (WHO grade III) had progression-free survival (PFS) of 2.7 yrs (95% CI: 1.2, ∞) in comparison to 8.6 yrs (95% CI: 3.2, 8.6) in patients with WHO grade II ependymoma. Ki-67/MIB-1≥3% conferred a more aggressive tumor type with PFS of 3.1 yrs (95% CI: 0.4, 4.0) vs 8.6 yrs (95% CI: 2.5, 8.6) when tumors had Ki67/MIB-1 Conclusions: Identifying patterns of progression and survival provides insight into the variable outcomes and prognostic factors in adult ependymoma. Disclosure: Dr. Vaslow has nothing to disclose. Dr. Peters has received personal compensation for consulting, serving on a scientific advisory board, speaking, or other activities with Agios, Novocure, and Abbvie. Dr. Kirkpatrick has nothing to disclose. Dr. McSherry has nothing to disclose. Dr. Herndon II has nothing to disclose. Dr. Lipp has nothing to disclose. Dr. Johnson has nothing to disclose. Dr. Ashley has nothing to disclose. Dr. DesJardins has nothing to disclose. Dr. Randazzo has nothing to disclose. Dr. Friedman has nothing to disclose.
Oxygen and Metabolism: Digesting Determinants of Antibiotic Susceptibility in the Gut

Summary Microbial metabolism is a major determinant of antibiotic susceptibility. Environmental conditions that modify metabolism, notably oxygen availability and redox potential, can directly fine-tune susceptibility to antibiotics. Despite this, relatively few studies have discussed these modifications within the gastrointestinal tract and their implication on in vivo drug activity and the off-target effects of antibiotics in the gut. In this review, we discuss the environmental and biogeographical complexity of the gastrointestinal tract in regard to oxygen availability and redox potential, addressing how the heterogeneity of gut microhabitats may modify antibiotic activity in vivo. We contextualize the current literature surrounding oxygen availability and antibiotic efficacy and discuss empirical treatments. We end by discussing predicted patterns of antibiotic activity in prominent microbiome taxa, given gut heterogeneity, oxygen availability, and polymicrobial interactions. We also propose additional work required to fully elucidate the role of oxygen metabolism on antibiotic susceptibility in the context of the gut.
Patterns of recombinant growth hormone therapy use and growth responses among children with chronic kidney disease.

Recombinant growth hormone (rGH) is an efficacious therapy for growth failure in children with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We described rGH use and estimated its relationship with growth and kidney function in the Chronic Kidney Disease in Children (CKiD) cohort. Participants included those with growth failure, prevalent rGH users, and rGH initiators who did not meet growth failure criteria. Among those with growth failure, height z scores and GFR were compared between rGH initiators and non-initiators across 42 months. Inverse probability weights accounted for differences in baseline variables in weighted linear regressions. Among 148 children with growth failure and no previous rGH therapy, 42 (28%) initiated rGH therapy. Of the initiators, average age was 8.9 years, height z score was 2.50 standard deviations (SDs) (0.6th percentile), and GFR was 44 ml/min/1.73m2. They were compared to 106 children with growth failure who never initiated therapy (8.8 years, −2.33 SDs, and 51 ml/min/1.73m2). At 30 and 42 months after rGH, height increased +0.26 (95%CI: −0.11, +0.62) and +0.35 (95%CI: −0.17, +0.87) SDs, respectively, relative to those who did not initiate rGH. rGH was not associated with GFR. Participants with growth failure receiving rGH experienced significant growth, although this was attenuated relative to RCTs, and were more likely to have higher household income and lower GFR. A substantial number of participants, predominantly boys, without diagnosed growth failure received rGH and had the highest achieved height relative to mid-parental height. Since rGH was not associated with accelerated GFR decline, increasing rGH use in this population is warranted.
Symptom Outcomes of Cancer Patients With Clival Metastases Treated With Radiotherapy: A Study of 44 Patients.

Background/aim To describe clinical features, radiotherapy (RT), and symptom outcomes in cancer patients with cranial nerve palsies associated with clival metastases. Patients and methods This is a retrospective review of patients with primary metastatic cancers who developed clival metastases and received RT (2000-2020). Results Of the 44 patients with primary cancers (manly breast, prostate and multiple myeloma cancers) and distal clival metastases, 32 patients (73%) also had cervical spine metastases. Of the 23 RT-treated patients, 65% and 35% received clivus only and whole brain RT, respectively. Post-RT symptom improvement was observed in patients with diplopia (5/6; 83%), headache (8/10; 80%), chin numbness (2/4; 50%), blurry vision (2/5; 40%), lateral gaze deficit (2/6; 33%), and tongue deviation (1/4; 25%). Conclusion Early detection and cranial nerve examination, in addition to RT treatment, should be considered in patients with breast, prostate, and multiple myeloma cancers, who developed cervical spine metastases.
Quantum Hall effect in a singly and doubly connected three-dimensional topological insulator

The surface states of topological insulators, which behave as charged massless Dirac fermions, are studied in the presence of a quantizing uniform magnetic field. Using the method of Lee, [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 196804 (2009)], the analytical formula satisfied by the energy spectrum is found for a singly and doubly connected geometry. This is, in turn, used to argue that the way to measure the quantized Hall conductivity is to perform the Laughlin's flux ramping experiment and measure the charge transferred from the inner to the outer surface, analogously to the experiment in Dolgopolov et al., [Phys. Rev. B 46, 12560 (1992)]. Unlike the Hall bar setup used currently, this has the advantage of being free of the contamination from the delocalized continuum of the surface edge states. In the presence of the Zeeman coupling, and/or interaction driven quantum Hall ferromagnetism, which translate into the Dirac mass term, the quantized charge Hall conductivity ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{xy}=n{e}^{2}/h$, with $n=0,\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1,\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}3,\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}5...$. Backgating of one of the surfaces leads to additional Landau level splitting and in this case $n$ can be any integer.
Recurrence Quantification Analysis

The complexity, nonlinearity, and nonstationarity of biological time series typically defy quantitative description. Living systems are governed by numerous, continuously changing, interacting variables in the presence of noise. Such conditions often challenge traditional methods such as Fourier transforms. An approach for assessing such nondeterministic complexity is recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). Strategies implementing quantification of recurrences have often been successful in diagnosing changes in nonstationary signals not easily detected by traditional methods. Keywords: recurrence; time series analysis; signal analysis
Comparative evaluation of the MRS test: A 4 to 6 hour screening test for detecting oxacillin-resistant staphylococci

Abstract A total of 131 strains of S. aureus and 25 strains of unspeciated coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) initially tested by automated methods for susceptibility to oxacillin were concurrently retested using standardized disk diffusion, reference 2% NaCl-supplemented broth microdilution, oxacillin salt agar, and the MRS test (a commercially prepared broth screening method). Compared to the reference broth microdilution test results, the MRS test was 97% sensitive for S. aureus , 95% sensitive for CNS, and 100% specific for all staphylococci. Results were available in 4 hr for S. aureus and S. aureus and 80% for CNS). Differences in manufacturers' agar affected results with most discrepancies resulting in a false-resistant interpretation. Although inoculum standardization was important for accurate susceptibility test results, overinoculation alone could not account for the 30 isolates falsely-resistant to oxacillin by the Vitek AMS or Abbott MS-2. Contaminants or card-fill problems may have also have been responsible for some of the discrepancies. The MRS test was considered to be an acceptable alternative screen or a supplement to other methods for same-day testing for ORS.
Energistic effects of task sequencing.

Each of five subjects performed a total of 25 cranking and walking tasks, 16 of which contained serial variation. The purpose was to test whether the caloric cost of a series of dynamic tasks performed sequentially could be predicted by summing the caloric cost of the individual tasks performed separately. The results indicate that, if work and recovery caloric values as measured by the integral method are considered for both sequential and separate tasks, such prediction is possible. However, when just the working caloric values as measured by the steady-state method are compared, such an equality cannot be assumed.
Plaque Formation by Strains of Spotted Fever Rickettsiae in Monolayer Cultures of Various Cell Types

Abstract Some strains of spotted fever rickettsiae could be distinguished by their ability or inability to form plaques in monolayer cultures of various mammalian and avian cell types.
Implementation of a re-usable adhesive in a novel automated page-turner

Reading is the oldest and simplest avenue for recreation and learning. Handicapped individuals should not be restricted to the limited book titles that have been converted to books on tape or e-books. Although there are commercially available page-turners, the manual models require some type of user dexterity while the automated models are over-complex and non-affordable. Therefore, a new design for an automated page-turner has been developed to fulfill this important need. The device implements a re-usable adhesive for increased functionality and novelty. The proposed design includes other significant improvements over the existing art and broadens the market for those in need of such a device. Improvements above current products are its single switch activation, simplicity and reliability. The page-turner will also be reversible, lightweight, require no preparation of the book and most importantly, be affordable.
Blind multiuser detection based on the fast relative newton algorithm

We introduce a multiuser detection algorithm for Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS-CDMA) systems that implements a fast relative newton algorithm in a quasi-maximum likelihood (quasi-ML) estimation framework. The symbol signals are estimated based on this quasi-ML criteria at reduced Bit-Error-Rate (BER) and reduced computational load. Specifically, we construct multiuser detectors based on this new algorithm as well as the leading RobustICA and FastICA algorithms. Then, we demonstrate the significant improvements in Bit error rate (BER) and computational speed achieved by this new algorithm in comparative simulation studies.
Supermarket innovation and retail market equilibrium

This case in marketing geography demonstrates the fragility of a retail food market at equilibrium. An innovative change in merchandising, executed with substantial speed succeeded in creating a desired peturbation of the market equilibrium, but resulted in an unsought and unexpected conclusion.
The n-type Gd-doped HfO 2 to silicon heterojunction diode

Gd-doped HfO2 films were deposited on p-type silicon substrates in a reducing atmosphere. Photoemission measurements indicate the n-type character of Gd-doped HfO2 due to overcompensation with oxygen vacancies. The Gd 4f photoexcitation peak at 5.5 eV below the valence band maximum is identified using both resonant photoemission and first-principles calculations of the f hole. The rectifying (diode-like) properties of Gd-doped HfO2 to silicon heterojunctions are demonstrated.