cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Examining Ionic Liquid Effects on Mononuclear Rearrangement of Heterocycles Using QM/MM Simulations.

The mononuclear rearrangement of heterocycles (MRH) reaction of the Z-phenylhydrazone of 3-benzoyl-5-phenyl-1,2,4-oxadiazole into 4-benzoylamino-2,5-diphenyl-1,2,3-triazole derives a sizable rate enhancement in the 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate [BMIM][BF4] ionic liquid as compared to the hexafluorophosphate-based [BMIM][PF6] and conventional organic solvents. However, the origin of the rate difference between [BMIM][BF4] and [BMIM][PF6] has proven difficult to rationalize as no experimental trend relates the physical properties of the solvents, e.g., polarity and viscosity, to the rates of reaction. QM/MM calculations in combination with free-energy perturbation theory and Monte Carlo sampling have been carried out for the MRH reaction to elucidate the disparities in rates when using ionic liquids, methanol, and acetonitrile. Activation barriers and solute–solvent interactions have been computed for both an uncatalyzed and a specific base-catalyzed mechanism. Energetic and structural analy...
Why Is Accounting Information Important to Bondholders

The authors investigate the relevance of accounting information for bondholders. Their results imply that credit markets access firms’ default information through accounting signals. This information is reflected through cash flow (CF) and discount rate (DR) news. Specifically, the sensitivity of bond prices to news increases as firms get closer to default, owing to increasing firm-level credit risk or because aggregate credit conditions worsen. However, the latter is more important. Thus, the importance of a given accounting signal depends on 1) the mix of CF and DR news it reflects; 2) the firm’s proximity to default; and 3) the aggregate credit conditions. The authors incorporate these insights into a dynamic trading strategy that earns significant risk-adjusted returns. These results are robust after controlling for liquidity and transaction costs.
Locations of initial failure in the lower cervical spine: a finite element investigation

The cervical region of the spine is the superiorly located vertebrae that make-up the neck. Like the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, it is prone to diseases. The geometry of the vertebral bodies is both intricate and delicate as it includes bony and soft tissue musculature. The cervical vertebrae protect the spinal cord while maintaining flexibility and allowing movement in all directions. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained to access patient charts, computed tomography (CT), and limited magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. 15 finite element (FE) models were developed from various CT/MRI images. The FE models were homogenous, continuum, linear elastic models that were separated into two hierarchical structures. A comparison was made between a degenerated disc model and a model that considers a disc replacement with various materials used in artificial disc replacement devices. The models were loaded with 2% global strain and analyzed for maximum and minimum principal strains. Strain was analyzed because its uniformity is independent of anatomical position. Yield strain was used as an indicator of failure initiation in the vertebral bodies with benchmark values of 400 and −450 × 10−6 for max and min principal strains, respectively. The results of this FE study show that failure based on yield criteria initiates in the trabecular core, which had higher strain levels than that of the cortical shell. It also indicates that the introduction of the much stiffer disc replacement material increases the strain values of the vertebral bodies by approximately ten times. This information will be important in the development of devices in identifying regions of failure initiation and how endplate materials affect the failure and subsidence of the vertebral bodies.
Abstract 2097: Grainyhead-like 2 (GRHL2) regulates epithelial plasticity and stemness in oral cancers

Purpose: Grainyhead-like 2 (GRHL2) is one of the three mammalian homologues of Drosophila Grainyhead involved in epithelial morphogenesis. GRHL2 also controls epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation. Our objective was to evaluate the role of GRHL2 in oral carcinogenesis and the underlying mechanism. Experimental Design: GRHL2 expression was evaluated in multiple oral cancer cell lines and tissues of oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs) by qRT-PCR, western blot assay, immunohistochemistry and laser-captured microdissection assay. The effects of shRNA-mediated GRHL2 knockdown were evaluated by tumor spheroid assay, colony formation assay, gene promoter luciferase assay and immunofluorescent staining and chromatin immunoprecipitation assay. In vivo the effect of GRHL2 loss on cancer cell tumorigenicity was evaluated by tumor xenograft assay. Results: GRHL2 expression was elevated in cells and tissues of oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs) compared with normal counterparts. Knockdown of GRHL2 resulted in the loss of in vivo tumorigenicity, cancer stemness, and epithelial phenotype of oral cancer cells. GRHL2 inhibition decreased oral cancer cell proliferation and colony formation. GRHL2 regulated the expression of miR-200 family and Octamer-binding transcription factor 4 (Oct-4) genes through direct promoter DNA binding. Overexpression of miR-200 genes in the oral cancer cells depleted of GRHL2 partially restored the epithelial phenotype, proliferative rate and cancer stemness. Conclusion: GRHL2 plays pivotal role in the maintenance of the transformed phenotype in OSCCs. Downregulation of GRHL2 leads to the decrease of tumorigenicity, cancer stemness of oral cancer cell, in which miR-200 and Oct-4 genes partially mediate the tumorigenic effects of GRHL2 in OSCC. This study was supported in part by the grants R56DE024593 and Jack Weichman Endowed Fund. Citation Format: Wei Chen, Shebli Mehrazarin, Ki-Hyuk S Shin, Yi-Ling Lin, Reuben H. Kim, No-Hee Park, Mo K. Kang. Grainyhead-like 2 (GRHL2) regulates epithelial plasticity and stemness in oral cancers. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 2097. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-2097
Loss of Growth Arrest DNA Damage 45b (GADD45b) Enhances Oncogenicity in BCR/ABL-Induced Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia

Growth arrest DNA damage 45b (GADD45b) is upregulated during myeloid lineage terminal differentiation. It is also involved in G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in response to exogenous stress stimuli. To investigate the effect of GADD45b in the development of leukemia, lethally irradiated mice were reconstituted with either wildtype or gadd45b null myeloid progenitors which retrovirally expressed 210-kD BCR/ABL fusion oncoprotein. We found that both wildtype and gadd45b null myeloid progenitors expressing BCR/ABL induced chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML)-like disease between 11days to 22days after bone marrow transplantation in recipients. However, gadd45b null recipients had a shorter latency (11days–19days) compared to those of wildtypes (14days–22days). This result implies that GADD45b acts as a supressor of CML. Data will be presented on further analyzing the phenotypes of these mice.
Forgetting District Six

The third chapter takes up the remaking of the city in the image of white national purity in the mid-twentieth century. To accomplish this the apartheid Regime had to remove the bodies of the impure or racially mixed from the center of the city, push them outside the visual frame of the city and raze their neighborhoods. The chapter takes up the perspective of those who were removed. “Forced removals” became a shared disruption in the mediations of the past, a way to mark spatial distinctions of inside and outside. It is to this group I turn in asking the question how does the built environment of the city, where inside and outside are maintained, continue to shape embodied mediations of memory and memory work? One of the goals of this chapter is to develop an embodied approach to memory in order to challenge the now common view that history and memory, remembering and forgetting, exist in binary opposition.
Exercise Performance and 22q11.2 Deletion Status Affect Quality of Life in Tetralogy of Fallot.

Objective To identify mediators of health status and quality of life (QOL) in children and adolescents aged 8-18 years old following surgical repair for tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), including resource use, exercise performance, and 22q11.2 deletion status. Study design We performed a corollary study to a cross-sectional analysis of subjects following repair for TOF that completed cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, cardiopulmonary exercise tests, and instruments assessing health status and QOL. General linear models were used to test for mediation. Results A total of 29 of 151 (19%) patients carried a 22q11.2 deletion. Parents of children with a deletion compared with those without a deletion reported worse physical and psychosocial functioning on the Child Health Questionnaire. The patients with a 22q11.2 deletion and their parents reported lower total and Disease Impact scores compared with the group without a deletion on the Pediatric Cardiac Quality of Life Inventory. Medical care use negatively correlated with measures of health status/QOL. Greater maximum work correlated with better patient health status and QOL, regardless of deletion status. Exercise performance mediated the association between deletion status and parent-reported outcomes (unstandardized effects ranging from 2.4 to 4.2) and patient-reported Disease Impact (0.99; 95% CI 0.02-2.70). Conclusion Children and adolescents following repair for TOF seem to suffer significant challenges to their health status and QOL, which is amplified markedly in the context of the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, and related to exercise performance.
Model of Chronic Equine Endometritis Involving a Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm

Bacteria in a biofilm community have increased tolerance to antimicrobial therapy. To characterize the role of biofilms in equine endometritis, six mares were inoculated with lux-engineered Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains isolated from equine uterine infections. Following establishment of infection, the horses were euthanized and the endometrial surfaces were imaged for luminescence to localize adherent lux-labeled bacteria. Samples from the endometrium were collected for cytology, histopathology, carbohydrate analysis, and expression of inflammatory cytokine genes. Tissue-adherent bacteria were present in focal areas between endometrial folds (6/6 mares). The Pel exopolysaccharide (biofilm matrix component) and cyclic di-GMP (biofilm-regulatory molecule) were detected in 6/6 mares and 5/6 mares, respectively, from endometrial samples with tissue-adherent bacteria (P 0.05) in the number of inflammatory cells in the endometrium between areas with and without tissue-adherent bacteria. Neutrophils were decreased (P < 0.05) in areas surrounding tissue-adherent bacteria compared to those in areas free of adherent bacteria. Gene expression of interleukin-10, an immune-modulatory cytokine, was significantly (P < 0.05) increased in areas of tissue-adherent bacteria compared to that in endometrium absent of biofilm. These findings indicate that P. aeruginosa produces a biofilm in the uterus and that the host immune response is modulated focally around areas with biofilm, but inflammation within the tissue is similar in areas with and without biofilm matrix. Future studies will focus on therapeutic options for elimination of bacterial biofilm in the equine uterus.
Una historia del pensamiento indianista Ukhamawa Jakawisaxa

The objective of this article is to show the contribution that the autobiography os the Aymara leader, Luciano Tapia has made to the official Bolivian history and at the same time to expose the foundations of his indianista thought. The characteristics of his thought deal with the recognition of his own culture, the transposition of Andean notions to an urban context, the imbalance of political praxis with the notion of complementarity of theory and praxis, thought as an event, and ethinicity as a process instead of identity. I have done research in the Archives of the Camara de Diputados in La Paz and I have consulted academic articles on Andean culture and history.
Structural evolution and stability of non-crosslinked fiber networks with inter-fiber adhesion

Adhesion plays an important role in the mechanics of nanoscale fibers such as various biological filaments, carbon nanotubes and artificial polymeric nanofibers. In this work we study assemblies of non-crosslinked filaments and characterize their adhesion-driven structural evolution and their final stable structure. The key parameters of the problem are the network density, the fiber length, the bending stiffness of fibers and the strength of adhesion. The system of fibers self-organizes in one of three types of structures: locked networks, in which fibers remain in the as-deposited state, cellular networks, in which fibers form bundles and these organize into a larger scale network, and disintegrated networks, in which the network of bundles becomes disconnected. We determine the parametric space corresponding to each of these structures. Further, we identify a triangular structure of bundles, similar to the Plateau triangle occurring in foams, which stabilizes the network of bundles and study in detail the stabilization mechanism. The analysis provides design guidelines and a physical picture of the stability and structure of random fiber networks with adhesion.
Polyvictimization and externalizing symptoms in foster care children: The moderating role of executive function

Prior research has identified the role of childhood maltreatment in externalizing problems and executive function (EF) deficits, but minimal work has been done to characterize the effects of co-occurring maltreatment types, defined as polyvictimization. Here, we sought to characterize the association between polyvictimization and externalizing problems in a sample of foster care children aged 3-4 years (N = 84) and examine how EF may mediate or moderate that relationship. A moderation model was supported in that only polyvictimized children with EF scores 1.62 or more standard deviations below the mean were at heightened risk for clinically severe externalizing problems, while no association between polyvictimization and externalizing problems were observed for children who scored at the mean or above on the EF measure. Findings highlight that EF may serve as a resilience factor indicating that individual differences in polyvictimized children's EF skills help to predict variability in externalizing problems. Future research on designing and optimizing intervention programs that target EF skills may mitigate the development of maladaptive outcomes for polyvictimized children.
Brittle compressive failure of salt-water columnar ice under biaxial loading

The brittle failure of saline columnar ice was investigated under biaxial compression at and −10° and −40°C over the range 0 ≤ R A R t. The transition stress ratio, R t changes from ≈0.2 at −10°C to ≈0.1 at −40°C. The failure mode changes from axial splitting to shear faulting in the loading plane for 0 < R A < R t. Above R t failure changes to a combined mode of splitting across the columns and shear faulting out of the loading plane. The failure-stress envelope is of a truncated Coulomb-type. Damage studies show wing cracks and local fragmentation of grains involving the brine pockets. The results are explained in terms of Coulombic sliding and Hertzian crack mechanics.
Machine Learning and Energy Minimization Approaches for Crystal Structure Predictions: A Review and New Horizons

Predicting crystal structure has always been a challenging problem for physical sciences. Recently, computational methods have been built to predict crystal structure with success but have been limited in scope and computational time. In this paper, we review computational methods such as density functional theory and machine learning methods used to predict crystal structure. We also explored the breadth versus accuracy of building a model to predict across any crystal structure using machine learning. We extracted 24 913 unique chemical formulas existing between 290 and 310 K from the Pearson Crystal Database. Of these 24 913 formulas, there exists 10 711 unique crystal structures referred to as entry prototypes. Common entries might have hundreds of chemical compositions, while the vast majority of entry prototypes is represented by fewer than ten unique compositions. To include all data in our predictions, entry prototypes that lacked a minimum number of representatives were relabeled as “Other”. By s...
Nocturia in Women With Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is underdiagnosed in women compared with men. Women have a tendency to underreport or present with atypical symptoms such as behavior changes, insomnia, fatigue, and depression. Nocturia, waking up from sleep 2 times or more to void, has been shown to be associated with OSA, but it is not an included symptom in commonly used screening questionnaires in primary provider offices. About 50% of patients with OSA have nocturia, and treatment of OSA improves it. Recognition of nocturia as a relevant symptom of OSA is important for primary providers to provide timely referral for the diagnosis of OSA.
Porous Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells: Final Report, 24 May 1999--24 May 2002

The initial focus of this project was to build on previous work performed in our group and investigate the use of porous polycrystalline silicon (Psi) as an active material in a solar cell to take advantage of potential bandgap tuning, light trapping, and blue-harvesting photoluminescence effects. However, through our work on various substrate materials, we have found that the electrical characteristics of thick (several microns) PSi layers needed for active devices are extremely sensitive to the substrate doping profiles and crystalline morphology. This sensitivity makes reproducibility difficult even in a well-controlled research environment, and therefore, prospects for commercial thick-film PSi devices are limited. We have now focused our investigation on the use of thin PSi layers for antireflective coating applications. By isolating these layers in the heavily doped surface region of a solar cell, the electrical properties of the p-n junction are relatively unaffected. Provided that good electrical contacts can be made to the material under the porous layer, the electrical properties of the PSi film are not critical, and only the optical properties need to be optimized.
Rhetoric and Dialectic: Some Historical and Legal Perspectives

The thesis is defended that rhetoric is not, as is often said, a discipline which is hierarchically subordinate to dialectic. It is argued that the modalities of the links between rhetoric and dialectic must be seen in a somewhat different light: rhetoric and dialectic should be viewed as two complementary disciplines. On the basis of a historical survey of the views of various authors on the links between rhetoric and dialectic, it is concluded that efforts to establish clear boundaries or unequivocal conceptual or moral hierarchical relationships between the two disciplines have failed and that therefore, they must be conceived as being mutually dependent.
Critical Points under Constraints

In many variational problems one must find critical points of a given functional ϕ ∈ C1(X, ℝ) in the presence of constraints, that is, critical points of ϕ restricted to a set M ⊂ X of constraints. Naturally, in order to be able to talk about critical points of ϕ|M, the set M must have a differentiable structure. Typically, in the case of a finite number of constraints, M is of the form M = {u ∈ X | Ψ (u) = 0, j = 1,..., k} where Ψj ∈ C1(X, ℝ), j = 1,...,k.
POLYMER ELECTROLYTE FUEL CELL SYSTEMS FOR SPECIAL APPLICATIONS

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) have experienced significant interest for many applications over the last few decades, ranging from portable power generation in sub-watt to several hundred watts range, to automotive propulsion and stationary power generation. Due to lower noise and heat signature, portable PEFCs became the center of attention in mission critical systems, e.g. as a portable battery recharging system. PEFC systems present a unique alternative for portable power generation at around 200–500 W. Due to intrinsic compact design requirement, however, there are several challenges remaining to be tackled in the system level as well as the stack design and operation. Particularly, fuel storage for these systems still remains a challenge, as compressed or liquid hydrogen do not meet volume, weight and safety requirements. In addition, water management presents another issue since the amount of water that can be carried for humidification of the polymer electrolyte (i.e. polymer electrolyte membrane, PEM) is limited. The operation of a PEFC is based on the electrochemical oxidation of hydrogen on the anode side and electrochemical reduction of oxygen on the cathode side (Eqs. (1) and (2)). PEFC Electrochemical Reactions:
A Dual B-scan for Attenuation Acoustical Imaging

Extensive work has been done on medical ultrasonic imaging. Echocardiography is very us6ful in detecting intracardiac thrombus. However, the pulse-echo technique suffers from a rather high incidence of false positive diagnoses due to the backscatter and attenuation. The reflected ultrasound signal from a target by the conventional ultrasound pulse-echo technique, such as the B-scan, is determined by the reflection coefficient at the interface as well as the attenuation of the substance along the path. It is therefore impossible to retrieve these two types of information separately by the knowledge of a single reflected signal. Additional information is required to separate the two types of information. The work reported here is the development of a method to obtain the necessary information by a second reflected signal from the opposite side of the object.
Working to the Beat: A Self-Regulatory Framework Linking Music Characteristics to Job Performance

With changes in musical technology, it is increasingly common for employees to listen to music at work. Research from a wide variety of scientific fields has demonstrated that music affects our beh...
A 0.4-V 0.93-nW/kHz Relaxation Oscillator Exploiting Comparator Temperature-Dependent Delay to Achieve 94-ppm/°C Stability

This paper presents the analysis and design of a relaxation oscillator that counteracts the complementary-to-absolute-temperature (CTAT) property of the comparator delay with the proportional-to-absolute-temperature (PTAT) property of the RC core to realize temperature-stabilized operation. By using a feedback bias network to linearize the comparator CTAT delay, thus improving the overall temperature stability by 20 $\times $ , this technique enables a comparator with ~20 $\times $ less bandwidth and an overall oscillator with ~5 $\times $ lower power than conventional approaches. In a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ silicon on insulator CMOS process, this design consumes 1.14 nW from a 0.4-V supply operating at 1.22 kHz, with a temperature coefficient (TC) as low as 40 ppm/°C ( $\mu = 94$ ppm/°C for $n = 5$ ) achieving state-of-the-art efficiency (0.93 nW/kHz) for kilohertz-range relaxation oscillators.
Predicting venous thromboembolism in hospitalized cancer patients: a risk assessment tool.

6598Background: Quality panels and regulators have focused on inpatient venous thromboembolism (VTE) as a priority preventable illness. VTE is very prevalent in cancer but risk varies, predictors a...
What structures are seen by a T cell in the immune response to a lupus autoantigen

In this decade we have witnessed substantive progress in solving a number of the fundamental enigmas in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) that thwart progress towards achieving the goal of inducing disease remission in all patients with this challenging disease. This issue of the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases contains a paper by Zhao et al 1 , ‘Nature of T cell epitopes in lupus antigens and HLA-DR determines autoantibody initiation and diversification’, which greatly advances understanding of four critical aspects of SLE that are included among these enigmas: Why is the susceptibility to develop SLE associated with the Major Histocompatibility class II allele desinated ﻿ HLA-DR3? What role does the recognition by specific T cell clones of self-peptides presented by HLA-DR3 molecules play in the process of epitope spreading that drives the progressive intensification of a seemingly inconsequential autoimmune response to become a virulent life-threatening autoimmune disease? What roles do the peptides of the diverse commensal and environmental antigens of a person’s environment play in this progressive intensification? Lastly, what events are involved in the transition from asymptomatic autoimmunity to the heterogeneous organ involvement of clinical disease? The paper addresses these questions by analysing in detail the characteristics of both the B cell and T cell immune response to Smith antigen (Sm). It especially focuses on the particular peptides recognised by the clonally specific T cell receptors (TCRs) of the T cell clones proliferating in HLA-DR3 transgenic mice during the response to immunisation by Sm, by elegantly exploiting the property of murine T cells to be readily immortalised as hybridomas. Several intriguing findings in this paper that address …
MicroRNA-375 Suppresses the Growth and Invasion of Fibrolamellar Carcinoma

Background & Aims Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) is a rare liver cancer that primarily affects adolescents and young adults. It is characterized by a heterozygous approximately 400-kb deletion on chromosome 19 that results in a unique fusion between DnaJ heat shock protein family member B1 (DNAJB1) and the alpha catalytic subunit of protein kinase A (PRKACA). The role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in FLC remains unclear. We identified dysregulated miRNAs in FLC and investigated whether dysregulation of 1 key miRNA contributes to FLC pathogenesis. Methods We analyzed small RNA sequencing (smRNA-seq) data from The Cancer Genome Atlas to identify dysregulated miRNAs in primary FLC tumors and validated the findings in 3 independent FLC cohorts. smRNA-seq also was performed on a FLC patient-derived xenograft model as well as purified cell populations of the liver to determine whether key miRNA changes were tumor cell–intrinsic. We then used clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) technology and transposon-mediated gene transfer in mice to determine if the presence of DNAJB1-PRKACA is sufficient to suppress miR-375 expression. Finally, we established a new FLC cell line and performed colony formation and scratch wound assays to determine the functional consequences of miR-375 overexpression. Results We identified miR-375 as the most dysregulated miRNA in primary FLC tumors (27-fold down-regulation; P = .009). miR-375 expression also was decreased significantly in a FLC patient-derived xenograft model compared to 4 different cell populations of the liver. Introduction of DNAJB1-PRKACA by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 engineering and transposon-mediated somatic gene transfer in mice was sufficient to induce significant loss of miR-375 expression (P Conclusions We identified miR-375 as the most down-regulated miRNA in FLC tumors and showed that overexpression of miR-375 mitigated tumor cell growth and invasive potential. These findings open a potentially new molecular therapeutic approach. Further studies are necessary to determine how DNAJB1-PRKACA suppresses miR-375 expression and whether miR-375 has additional important targets in this tumor. Transcript profiling: GEO accession numbers: GSE114974 and GSE125602.
Efficient concolic testing of MPI applications

Software testing is widely used in industry, but its application in the High Performance Computing area has been scarce. Concolic testing, that automates testing via generation of inputs, has been highly successful for desktop applications and thus recent work on the COMPI tool has extended it to MPI programs. However, COMPI has two limitations. First, it requires the user to specify an upper limit on input size – if the chosen limit is too big, considerable time is wasted and if the chosen limit is too small, the branch coverage achieved is limited. Second, COMPI does not support floating point arithmetic that is common in HPC applications. In this paper, we overcome the above limitations as follows. We propose input tuning that eliminates the need for users to set hard limits and generates inputs such that the testing achieves high coverage while avoiding waste of testing time by selecting suitable input sizes. Moreover, we enable handling of floating point data types and operations and demonstrate that the efficiency of constraint solving can be improved if we rely on the use of reals instead of floating point values. Our evaluation demonstrates that with input tuning the coverage we achieve in 10 minutes is typically higher than the coverage achieved in 1 hour when input tuning is not used. Without input tuning, 9.6-57.1% loss in coverage occurs for a real-world physics simulation program. For the physics simulation program, using our floating-point extension that uses reals covers 46 more branches than without using the extension. Also, we cover 122 more branches when solving floating-point constraints using reals rather than directly using floating-point numbers.
A Sliver of Hope: Analyzing Voluntary Licenses to Accelerate Affordable Access to Medicines

As a result of global AIDS activism, governments' latent and exercised powers to bypass pharmaceutical monopolies, and halting pharmaceutical industry accommodation, a new form of voluntary licensing has emerged focused on first permitting and then facilitating generic production of certain pharmaceutical products for sale and use in many but not all low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These so-called "access" licenses are pluralistic in detail and not free of commercial motivations for either originators or generic producers, but they do differ from arms-length, purely commercial licenses that have been broadly used in the industry for decades. Although the first of these access licenses were negotiated bilaterally by innovators at the receiving end of AIDS activism and threats of government action, including the issuance of compulsory or government-use licenses, the leading model of more public-health oriented voluntary licenses can be traced to the formation of the Medicines Patent Pool [MPP] under the financial sponsorship of Unitaid in 2010. The primary goals of this Article are: (a) to increase understanding of the history and evolution of access licenses and their key terms and conditions, including their impacts on access to medicines in territories included in and excluded from the licenses; (b) to identify and assess best-practice licensing terms for delivering meaningful access to medicines, including the impact of voluntary licensing practices on registration and uptake, and (c) to make policy recommendations on measures that can be taken to improve terms and conditions of access licenses, including those of the MPP. Despite the achievements of access licenses in increasing generic competition, accelerating access to newer HIV and HCV medicines in many LMICs, and reducing prices and saving money, the exclusion from coverage of significant populations in upper-middle income countries with significant disease burdens, restrained resources, and high levels of inequality, is deeply problematic. Offsetting the wholesale work that access licenses accomplish in creating aggregated markets for accelerated generic competition is concern about industry's power to bifurcate LMICs to maintain hegemony in the most commercially appealing markets and to weaken political will to oppose unworthy patents and to otherwise overcome monopoly control. As a consequence, the net plus value of voluntary licenses as an access strategy is contested. However, any fair assessment of voluntary licensing strategies must address the complementarity of this strategy with the strengths and weakness of other access strategies, including law reform, use of patent opposition procedures, and grant of compulsory and government use licenses. Although this complementarity is briefly addressed in the conclusion, more work and evidence is needed to identify optimal strategies.
P-038 Shifts in patient volumes following the addition of endovascular thrombectomy capability

Background and purpose There is considerable interest among existing stroke hospitals to add endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) capability as a means to attract and retain stroke patient referrals. In this work, we quantify changes in patient volumes when adding EVT capability to an existing stroke center. Methods In MATLAB 2017a Simulink, we simulated adding EVT capability to an existing primary stroke center (PSC) in a system comprising one PSC and one comprehensive stroke center (CSC), using a three different routing paradigms. In the Nearest Center paradigm, patients are initially sent to the nearest center regardless of capability, while in EVT First, patients are sent to the nearest EVT-capable center. In Rhode Island, patients with FAST-ED ≥4 are sent to an EVT-capable center, while the others are sent to the nearest center. Results In EVT First, adding EVT capability to a PSC increases patient capture by the PSC from 0% to 66.58% within its service area, representing an increase from 0% to 22.09% receiving IV tPA only, 0% to 8.25% receiving EVT only, 0% to 23.15% receiving IV tPA and EVT, and 0% to 13.09% receiving neither. In Rhode Island, adding EVT capability increases patient capture by the PSC from 5.45% to 66.58%, representing an increase from 3.68% to 22.09% receiving IV tPA only, 0% to 8.25% receiving EVT only, 0% to 23.15% receiving IV tPA and EVT, and 1.72% to 13.09% receiving neither. In Nearest Center, adding EVT capability maintains patient capture by the PSC at 66.58% and retains 29.44% of patients that would otherwise transfer for EVT. Conclusion Adding EVT capability to an existing PSC can dramatically shift patient volume from existing EVT capable centers, especially with routing models that permit bypass of nearby hospitals for more capable centers. These data may inform clinical and financial planning efforts at stroke centers considering adding EVT capability. Disclosures M. Zhou: None. A. Kansagra: None.
Transient Focal Ischemia Significantly Alters the m 6 A Epitranscriptomic Tagging of RNAs in the Brain

Background and Purpose— Adenosine in many types of RNAs can be converted to m6A (N6-methyladenosine) which is a highly dynamic epitranscriptomic modification that regulates RNA metabolism and funct...
Length of Cloud Application Use on Functionality Expectation, Usability, Privacy, and Security: A Case of Google Docs

Background: Newcomers to cloud applications typically have to overcome concerns of privacy (confidentiality control) and security (safekeeping). On the one hand, end-users may be accustomed to cloud applications’ privacy and security (habituation). On the other hand, these applications quickly adapt to end-user needs on those concerns (reciprocal habituation). Does the old proverb “Custom makes all things easy” apply to privacy and security concerns about cloud application use? Method: This study focuses on Google Docs as an example of standardized, common cloud applications and collects data from 211 of its users. Results: The results show that length of use has significant associations with better usability perception and increased functionality expectation. In turn, improved usability perception leads to decreased security risk concern, while increased functionality expectation increases privacy concerns. Interestingly, usefulness perception is not influenced by privacy concern. Conclusions : Overall, the length of Google Docs use is associated with higher usefulness and increased adoption through greater usability and decreased security concern. Thus, when it comes to standardized, common cloud applications, the old proverb is valid with some exception. Also, “custom” is mutual between cloud applications and their users.
A Couples-Based Approach for Increasing Physical Activity Among Adults With Type 2 Diabetes: A Pilot Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial.

PurposeThe purpose of the study was to examine feasibility outcomes and obtain initial efficacy data on an intervention testing collaborative implementation intentions (IIs) for physical activity (...
Stories of North Omaha: Conveying Identities, Values, and Actions through Storytelling in a Public Meeting

This study uses discourse analysis from a Language and Social Interaction (LSI) perspective to analyze the personal stories that were told during the North Omaha Development Project (NODP) public meeting. Personal stories may not intuitively seem to be important in public meetings because they center on individual, personal experience, rather than discussing issues in public terms. However, stories help people to create and negotiate their identities, demonstrate their values, and indicate what actions ought to be taken to enact those values in meaningful ways. In the NODP public meeting, presenters and audience members told stories that demonstrated the important distinction between community members and outsiders, and offered competing notions of the community values and appropriate actions that should be taken to address neighborhood poverty. This analysis offers insights into how public participation scholars can view stories told in public meetings as well as practical implications for officials convening public meetings.
Rapid dealiasing of undersampled, non-Cartesian cardiac perfusion images using U-net

Compressed sensing (CS) is a promising method for accelerating cardiac perfusion MRI to achieve clinically acceptable image quality with high spatial resolution (1.6 × 1.6 × 8 mm3 ) and extensive myocardial coverage (6-8 slices per heartbeat). A major disadvantage of CS is its relatively lengthy processing time (~8 min per slice with 64 frames using a graphics processing unit), thereby making it impractical for clinical translation. The purpose of this study was to implement and test whether an image reconstruction pipeline including a neural network is capable of reconstructing 6.4-fold accelerated, non-Cartesian (radial) cardiac perfusion k-space data at least 10 times faster than CS, without significant loss in image quality. We implemented a 3D (2D + time) U-Net and trained it with 132 2D + time datasets (coil combined, zero filled as input; CS reconstruction as reference) with 64 time frames from 28 patients (8448 2D images in total). For testing, we used 56 2D + time coil-combined, zero-filled datasets (3584 2D images in total) from 12 different patients as input to our trained U-Net, and compared the resulting images with CS reconstructed images using quantitative metrics of image quality and visual scores (conspicuity of wall enhancement, noise, artifacts; each score ranging from 1 (worst) to 5 (best), with 3 defined as clinically acceptable) evaluated by readers. Including pre- and post-processing steps, compared with CS, U-Net significantly reduced the reconstruction time by 14.4-fold (32.1 ± 1.4 s for U-Net versus 461.3 ± 16.9 s for CS, p < 0.001), while maintaining high data fidelity (structural similarity index = 0.914 ± 0.023, normalized root mean square error = 1.7 ± 0.3%, identical mean edge sharpness of 1.2 mm). The median visual summed score was not significantly different (p = 0.053) between CS (14; interquartile range (IQR) = 0.5) and U-Net (12; IQR = 0.5). This study shows that the proposed pipeline with a U-Net is capable of reconstructing 6.4-fold accelerated, non-Cartesian cardiac perfusion k-space data 14.4 times faster than CS, without significant loss in data fidelity or image quality.
A survey of the $$L^p$$ L p regularity of the Bergman projection

Although the Bergman projection operator $${\mathbf{B}}_{\Omega }$$ is defined on $$L^2(\Omega )$$ , its behavior on other $$L^p(\Omega )$$ spaces for $$p\not =2$$ is an active research area. We survey some of the recent results on $$L^p$$ estimates on the Bergman projection.
Overcoming a Poor Early Response with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Skills

Early response to treatment is a robust predictor of outcome in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression. When clients show a poor early response, therapists may understandably be concerned. We examine how early CBT skill development might be used to help inform therapists about patients’ prognoses in such circumstances. In a sample of 95 clients participating in CBT for depression, we examine the role of the development of CBT skills by asking whether a client’s prognosis depends not only on early response, but on its interaction with CBT skill development. We found support for the hypothesized interaction in predicting posttreatment depression and anxiety symptoms. For those who experienced modest early CBT skill improvements, early symptom improvement was strongly predictive of posttreatment outcome. However, for those who experienced more substantial early CBT skill improvements, early symptom change was not as strongly related to their posttreatment symptoms. Our findings extend the literature on early response predicting outcome by showing that when clients experience more limited early symptom change, outcome depends considerably on the degree to which they are learning CBT skills. For clients with greater CBT skill improvements, a relatively positive treatment outcome is still common.
The Turtle Deserves a Star.

tional methods to respond to the influence of computing technology. This report states that "the major influence of technology on mathematics education is its potential to shift the focus of instruction from an emphasis on manipulative skills to an emphasis on developing concepts, relationships, structures, and problem-solving skills." The use of the computer language Logo offers an excellent opportunity to use technology to help develop the problem-solving skills advocated in mathematics. This article
Relationship of Optimism, Pessimism, and Dysfunctional Career Thoughts in Breast Cancer Survivors from the Bahamas

A breast cancer diagnosis can lead to life-altering biopsychosocial changes and challenges for breast cancer survivors (BCS). Particularly salient is body image perception and its associated biopsy...
Green Roofs in Shortgrass Prairie Ecoregions

This chapter examines four case studies of conservation sites and nine green roofs located in the Shortgrass Prairie and Rocky Mountain ecoregions. The shortgrass prairie once covered the Great Plains from the Texas Panhandle in the south to Alberta, Canada, in the north, and from western Kansas in the east to Montana in the west. With 300–400 mm of annual precipitation, the shortgrass prairie vegetation is much shorter in stature than the mixed-grass or tallgrass prairies, however, it is ecologically significant. Topographic relief has a dramatic effect on plant diversity, as the natural vegetation of open plains tend to be simple compositions where drainages and transitions to dry habitats can be highly diverse. The Rocky Mountains form a massive range with many ecoregions including mountain meadows and alpine plant communities. Ecoregional green roofs located in Laramie, Wyoming, Boulder, Colorado, Denver, Colorado, and the Rocky Mountains represent 347 taxa in total, 274 of which are native to the ecoregions in this chapter.
Rapid and Scalable COVID-19 Screening using Speech, Breath, and Cough Recordings

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts have been made to rapidly scale diagnostic tests to increase access and throughput. Though the primary mechanism for testing has been wet tests, several recent studies have shown that acoustic signatures of COVID-19 can be used to accurately discriminate between positive and negative subjects. These methods show promise of wide scale access and more regular and rapid testing, but are faced with several questions involving the robustness of the methods and the sanitary nature of forced cough recordings. Here we propose an alternative method to triage patients using acoustic signatures in speech and breathing sounds. Using a crowd-sourced database with sound recordings from self-identified COVID-19 positive and negative subjects, we develop a simple method that can be applied to analyze sounds that can be deployed in a system to unobtrusively detect COVID-19. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) and relAtive specTrA perceptual linear prediction (RASTA-PLP) features are evaluated independently and conjointly with two different classification techniques, random forests (RF) and deep neural networks (DNN). The optimal results are achieved for speech and breathing sounds using a combination of MFCC and RASTA-PLP, with an area-under-the-curve (AUC) of 0.7938 for detecting COVID-19 via speech sound analysis, and 0.7575 for detecting COVID-19 via breathing sound analysis. This is compared to an AUC of 0.6836 for cough sounds using MFCCs alone. These results show promise in future deployment of a rapid screening tool using speech recordings as the world moves to contain future outbreaks and accelerate vaccination efforts.
“She’s just another pretty face:” sexual harassment of female photographers

This article examines sexual and gendered harassment among professional female editorial photographers, whose experiences have largely been under-researched. It draws on semi-structured interviews ...
Fundamental analysis of harmonic reflection in microwave frequency triplers: Research Articles

Harmonic reflection is a vital technique for microwave frequency multiplier design, including the design of frequency triplers. In this article, principles of frequency tripler design with reflector networks are analyzed via harmonic-balance simulation of an idealized MESFET/HEMT transistor model. The use of an idealized model allows fundamental mechanisms of 3f0 output power and conversion-gain improvement via reflector networks to be characterized. Several reflector configurations are analyzed including: a 3f0 input reflector; a f0 output reflector; and a combination of both reflectors. The effects of reflector offset length on tripler performance are analyzed in terms of conversion gain, output power, reflected power, and time-domain waveforms. As a result of this work, a greater understanding of harmonic-reflector networks and their importance to tripler design is achieved. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2006.
Anomalous Thermal Behavior of an Amorphous Organic Sediment

Using transient heating in the cylindrical probe configuration, the thermal conductivity of four organic lake sediments was measured. Each specimen contained over 90% water as a fraction of total weight. Organic matter in three of the specimens was fibrous and not greatly decomposed; at a temperature of 5C, thermal conductivity of these ranged from 2–5% higher than that of pure water. A fourth specimen was gelatinous and gave conductivity values from 1% to 20% less than that of water, with an apparent dependence on heat input. The insitu environment of this specimen was known to be different from that of the others.