cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Exciting middle and high school students about immunology: an easy, inquiry-based lesson

High school students in the United States are apathetic about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and the workforce pipeline in these areas is collapsing. The lack of understanding of basic principles of biology means that students are unable to make educated decisions concerning their personal health. To address these issues, we have developed a simple, inquiry-based outreach lesson centered on a mouse dissection. Students learn key concepts in immunology and enhance their understanding of human organ systems. The experiment highlights aspects of the scientific method and authentic data collection and analysis. This hands-on activity stimulates interest in biology, personal health and careers in STEM fields. Here, we present all the information necessary to execute the lesson effectively with middle and high school students.
Pheromonal influences on sociosexual behavior in young women

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of a synthesized putative female pheromone was conducted with regularly menstruating, university women (N=36, mean age=27.8). The pheromone formula was derived from earlier work investigating the underarm secretions of fertile, sexually active, heterosexual women. A vial of either synthesized pheromone or placebo was selected blindly and added to a subject's perfume. Subjects recorded seven sociosexual behaviors and reported them weekly across three menstrual cycles. Beginning with Day 8 of each cycle, the first cycle contained a 2-week baseline period followed by an experimental period of as many as 3 weeks each from the next two cycles for a maximum of 6 weeks. The 19 pheromone and 17 placebo subjects did not differ significantly in age, weight, body mass index, dating status or ethnicity nor in reported accuracy, back-filling data, perception of a positive effect or perfume use. Placebo subjects were significantly taller than pheromone subjects. Except for male approaches, subjects did not differ significantly at baseline in average weekly sociosexual behaviors. A significantly greater proportion of pheromone users compared with placebo users increased over baseline in frequency of sexual intercourse, sleeping next to a partner, formal dates and petting/affection/kissing but not in frequency of male approaches, informal dates or masturbation. Three or more sociosexual behaviors increased over baseline for 74% of pheromone users compared with 23% of placebo users. We conclude that this synthesized pheromone formula acted as a sex attractant pheromone and increased the sexual attractiveness of women to men.
Music performamatics: interdisciplinary interaction

This paper describes how a graphical user interface (GUI) programming course offered by the Dept. of Computer Science (CS) was paired with a general teaching methods course offered by the Dept. of Music in an attempt to revitalize undergraduate CS education and to enrich the experiences of both sets of students. The paper provides details on the joint project done in these classes and the evaluation that assessed its effect on the curriculum, students, and professors.
In Common Predicament: Conflict Between Groups

Their [the Perfectionists’] views, which they never concealed, excited the hostility of the people [of Putney] to such a degree that they were mobbed and driven out of the place; and in the spring of 1848 they joined some persons of like faith and practice at Oneida, in Madison County, New York. Here they began community life anew, on forty acres of land, on which stood an unpainted frame dwelling-house, an abandoned Indian hut, and an old Indian saw-mill. They owed for this property two thousand dollars. The place was neglected, without cultivation, and the people were so poor that for some time they had to sleep on the floor in the garret which was their principal sleeping-chamber (Nordhoff, 1875, p. 260).
Current update on primary pancreatic lymphoma

This article reviews the computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET) CT findings of primary and secondary pancreatic lymphomas and discusses the role of endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration in diagnosis and management. Pancreatic lymphoma has certain characteristic imaging features which may help distinguish it from the more common pancreatic adenocarcinoma. It is critical to make an accurate diagnosis, as the management of these two conditions is vastly different.
Adapting machine learning techniques to censored time-to-event health record data

Display Omitted Right-censored outcomes are common in biomedical prediction problems.We discuss adapting machine learning (ML) algorithms to these outcomes using IPCW.IPCW is a general-purpose approach which can be applied to many ML techniques.ML with IPCW leads to more accurate predictive probabilities than ad hoc approaches. Models for predicting the probability of experiencing various health outcomes or adverse events over a certain time frame (e.g., having a heart attack in the next 5years) based on individual patient characteristics are important tools for managing patient care. Electronic health data (EHD) are appealing sources of training data because they provide access to large amounts of rich individual-level data from present-day patient populations. However, because EHD are derived by extracting information from administrative and clinical databases, some fraction of subjects will not be under observation for the entire time frame over which one wants to make predictions; this loss to follow-up is often due to disenrollment from the health system. For subjects without complete follow-up, whether or not they experienced the adverse event is unknown, and in statistical terms the event time is said to be right-censored. Most machine learning approaches to the problem have been relatively ad hoc; for example, common approaches for handling observations in which the event status is unknown include (1) discarding those observations, (2) treating them as non-events, (3) splitting those observations into two observations: one where the event occurs and one where the event does not. In this paper, we present a general-purpose approach to account for right-censored outcomes using inverse probability of censoring weighting (IPCW). We illustrate how IPCW can easily be incorporated into a number of existing machine learning algorithms used to mine big health care data including Bayesian networks, k-nearest neighbors, decision trees, and generalized additive models. We then show that our approach leads to better calibrated predictions than the three ad hoc approaches when applied to predicting the 5-year risk of experiencing a cardiovascular adverse event, using EHD from a large U.S. Midwestern healthcare system.
SIMPLIFIED TREATMENT OF CANCER OF THE BREAST.

It is time that we take steps to eliminate the needless morbidity associated with the treatment for breast cancer. Standard radical mastectomy is not indicated unless axillary nodes can be shown to be involved, and even then a modified operation in which the nodes are dissected without removal of the muscles probably will give as good a result, with less morbidity. Regional lymph nodes are important to immunologic resistance, and this “immunity” may be destroyed by either removal or irradiation. A study of patients with clinical stage I cancer has demonstrated that radical mastectomy offers no advantage over simple mastectomy followed by delayed axillary dissection if and when involvement of nodes becomes apparent.
Political aesthetics and embodiment: Sung protest in post-apartheid South Africa

In South Africa, freedom songs and accompanying dances played a critical role in mass mobilizations to combat apartheid and they continue to flourish post-apartheid. Using ethnographic studies of c...
Multiplex Social Network Ties and Psychological Climate

Structuration theory suggests that the social context influences employees, and employees in turn influence the social context. Social influence research argues that this occurs as a result of soci...
3D Imaging with Structured Illumination for Advanced Security Applications

Three-dimensional (3D) information in a physical security system is a highly useful dis- criminator. The two-dimensional data from an imaging systems fails to provide target dis- tance and three-dimensional motion vector, which can be used to reduce nuisance alarm rates and increase system effectiveness. However, 3D imaging devices designed primarily for use in physical security systems are uncommon. This report discusses an architecture favorable to physical security systems; an inexpensive snapshot 3D imaging system utilizing a simple illumination system. The method of acquiring 3D data, tests to understand illumination de- sign, and software modifications possible to maximize information gathering capability are discussed.
Cinematic Perspectives on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

The cinema today has become the great storehouse for the psychological images of our time. It serves many of the same functions for contemporary audiences as tragedy served for the ancient Greeks in the fifth century B.c.1 Not only do films provide catharsis, they also unite audiences with their culture and its mythological dimensions n the same way that Aeschylus or Sophocles provided meaning for the citizens of Athens centuries ago.
An experimental investigation of the ultimate strength of laterally constrained rock beams

The design and performance of an apparatus to examine the ultimate load capacity of laterally constrained rock beams is described. Using this apparatus, an extensive series of tests was performed to study the effect of various parameters on the behavior of such beams. Some sample results are presented.
Distributed collaborative localization of multiple vehicles from relative pose measurements

We propose a distributed algorithm for estimating the poses (positions and orientations) of multiple autonomous vehicles in GPS denied scenarios when pairs of vehicles can measure each other's relative pose in their local coordinates. Currently, navigation of an autonomous vehicle in GPS denied scenarios is achieved by integrating relative pose measurements between successive time instants that are obtained from onboard sensors, such as cameras and IMUs. However, this suffers from a high rate of error growth over time. We seek methods to ameliorate this error growth by using cooperation among a group of vehicles. Measurements of relative pose between certain pairs of vehicles provide extra information on their poses, which can be used for improving localization accuracy. We designed a distributed algorithm to fuse all the relative pose measurements to compute a more accurate estimate of all the vehicles' poses than what is possible by the vehicles individually. The algorithm is fully distributed since only neighboring vehicles need to exchange information periodically. Monte Carlo simulations show that the error in the location estimates obtained by using this algorithm is significantly lower than what is achieved when vehicles estimate their poses without cooperation.
Critical rhetoric’s truth-telling function

The relationship between rhetoric and philosophy reveals competing orientations that guide what a subject can say about a domain of things and how that saying is informed by discourses of truth. In...
Hysterectomy-corrected cervical cancer mortality rates reveal a larger racial disparity in the United States.

BACKGROUND The objectives of this study were to determine the age-standardized and age-specific annual US cervical cancer mortality rates after correction for the prevalence of hysterectomy and to evaluate disparities by age and race. METHODS Estimates for deaths due to cervical cancer stratified by age, state, year, and race were derived from the National Center for Health Statistics county mortality data (2000-2012). Equivalently stratified data on the prevalence of hysterectomy for women 20 years old or older from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey were used to remove women who were not at risk from the denominator. Age-specific and age-standardized mortality rates were computed, and trends in mortality rates were analyzed with Joinpoint regression. RESULTS Age-standardized rates were higher for both races after correction. For black women, the corrected mortality rate was 10.1 per 100,000 (95% confidence interval [CI], 9.6-10.6), whereas the uncorrected rate was 5.7 per 100,000 (95% CI, 5.5-6.0). The corrected rate for white women was 4.7 per 100,000 (95% CI, 4.6-4.8), whereas the uncorrected rate was 3.2 per 100,000 (95% CI, 3.1-3.2). Without the correction, the disparity in mortality between races was underestimated by 44%. Black women who were 85 years old or older had the highest corrected rate: 37.2 deaths per 100,000. A trend analysis of corrected rates demonstrated that white women's rates decreased at 0.8% per year, whereas the annual decrease for black women was 3.6% (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS A correction for hysterectomy has revealed that cervical cancer mortality rates are underestimated, particularly in black women. The highest rates are seen in the oldest black women, and public health efforts should focus on appropriate screening and adequate treatment in this population. Cancer 2017;123:1044–50. © 2016 American Cancer Society.
Simple space-domain features for low-resolution sEMG pattern recognition

In recent years, low-cost, low-power myoelectric control systems such as the Myo armband from Thalmic Labs have become available and unlocked tremendous possibilities for myoelectric controlled applications. However, due to the embedded system constraints, such sEMG control devices typically samples sEMG signals at a lower frequency. It is in doubt whether existing sEMG feature extraction methods are still valid on such low-resolution sEMG data. In addition, the feature extraction algorithms implemented on embedded devices must have low computational complexity in order to meet the real-time requirement. This paper aims to investigate effective features for low-resolution EMG pattern recognition. In particular, a set of novel computational efficient space-domain (SD) features (referred to as simple SD (SSD) features) have been developed to exploit the spatial relationships of sEMG signals recorded from the sensor array on the Myo armband. The proposed SSD feature set was evaluated with a linear discriminant analysis (LDA)-based classifier on a 9-gesture dataset. The experimental results indicate that using the SSD features increased the classification accuracy by 5% compared to using Hudgins' time-domain features.
EFFECTIVENESS OF THINK-PAIR-SHARE STRATEGY ON ACHIEVEMENT IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AT SECONDARY LEVEL

Thinking is an internal mental process that uses information as inputs, integrates that information in to previous learned materials and the result may be knowledge or may be nothing (Arjun, 2014). Realization of all the above facts necessitates the emergence of a new method which gives more important to independent thinking, so the present study focuses on the “ EFFECTIVENESS OF THINK-PAIR-SHARE STRATEGY ON ACHIEVEMENT IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AT SECONDARY LEVEL”.The hypotheses formulated for the present study are: 1)There is no significant difference between the pretest scores of the experimental group and the control group 2) There is no significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of experimental group 3) There is no significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the control group 4) There is no significant difference between the posttest scores of the experimental group and the control group 5) There is no significant difference between think-pair-share strategy with existing method. The sample consists of 60 students 30students are considered as experimental group and 30students are considered as control group. Statistical techniques used: t test and ANCOVA. The result indicated that there was significant difference between pretest and posttest achievement scores of the experimental group and control group.itwas found that teaching based on think-pair-share strategy is an effective method for teaching social science.
Long-term Patient-Reported Outcomes in Postmastectomy Breast Reconstruction.

Importance Previous outcome studies comparing implant and autologous breast reconstruction techniques have been limited by short-term follow-up, single-center design, and a lack of rigorous patient-reported outcome data. An understanding of the expected satisfaction and breast-related quality of life associated with each type of procedure is central to the decision-making process. Objective To determine outcomes reported by patients undergoing postmastectomy breast reconstruction using implant or autologous techniques 2 years after surgery. Design, Setting, and Participants Patients were recruited from 11 centers (57 plastic surgeons) across North America for the Mastectomy Reconstruction Outcomes Consortium study, a prospective, multicenter trial, from February 1, 2012, to July 31, 2015. Women undergoing immediate breast reconstruction using implant or autologous tissue reconstruction after mastectomy for cancer treatment or prophylaxis were eligible. Overall, 2013 women (1490 implant and 523 autologous tissue reconstruction) met the inclusion criteria. All patients included in this analysis had 2 years of follow-up. Exposures Procedure type (ie, implant vs autologous tissue reconstruction). Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcomes of interest were scores on the BREAST-Q, a validated, condition-specific, patient-reported outcome instrument, which were collected prior to and at 2 years after surgery. The following 4 domains of the BREAST-Q reconstruction module were evaluated: satisfaction with breasts, psychosocial well-being, physical well-being, and sexual well-being. Responses from each scale were summed and transformed on a 0 to 100 scale, with higher numbers representing greater satisfaction or quality of life. Results Of the 2013 women in the study (mean [SD] age, 48.1 [10.5] years for the group that underwent implant-based reconstruction and 51.6 [8.7] years for the group that underwent autologous reconstruction), 1217 (60.5%) completed questionnaires at 2 years after reconstruction. After controlling for baseline patient characteristics, patients who underwent autologous reconstruction had greater satisfaction with their breasts (difference, 7.94; 95% CI, 5.68-10.20;P Conclusions and Relevance At 2 years, patients who underwent autologous reconstruction were more satisfied with their breasts and had greater psychosocial well-being and sexual well-being than did those who underwent implant reconstruction. These findings can inform patients and their clinicians about expected satisfaction and quality of life outcomes of autologous vs implant-based procedures and further support the adoption of shared decision making in clinical practice.
Hemoglobin S Polymerization: Primary Determinant of the Hemolytic and Clinical Severity of the Sickling Syndromes

We examined the extent to which the intracellular polymerization of sickle hemoglobin (HbS) can account for the severity of anemia and of vaso-occlusive manifestations in the various sickling syndromes. Polymer formation in sickle cell disease depends principally on the intraerythrocytic hemoglobin composition and concentration. In our studies, the polymer fraction in sickle red cells was determined from reported mean values for hemoglobin composition and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) in 12 groups of patients with sickle hemoglobinopathies (homozygotes for HbS, with and without coexistent alpha-thalassemia or various forms of the hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin [HPFH], beta+-, beta 0-, and delta beta-thalassemia, and heterozygotes for HbS with HbA). The calculated HbS polymer fractions at full deoxygenation and at physiologic oxygen saturation values were closely correlated with mean blood hemoglobin concentrations. In addition, polymer fraction correlated with the ranking of the sickling syndromes by vaso-occlusive severity. We find that polymer fraction accounts for about 80% of the variability in hemolytic and clinical severity. The method of analysis presented here provides a quantitative and systematic means of assessing the role of polymer formation in the pathophysiologic manifestations of the sickling syndromes. Our results support the hypothesis that the intracellular polymerization of HbS is the primary determinant of the severity of both anemia and clinical symptomatology in the sickle hemoglobinopathies.
Kinetics and Modeling of Anaerobic Treatment and Biotransformation Processes

Anaerobic treatment is one of the oldest biological treatment processes having first been practiced over a century ago. A sound knowledge of kinetics is a must for the rational design, performance optimization, stable operation, as well as better process control for the successful application of anaerobic treatment technologies. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of long-established, fundamental knowledge as well as the current status of kinetics and modeling of anaerobic treatment and biotransformation processes. After a short description of the salient aspects of the four conversion subprocesses (i.e., hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis), as well as discussion of ultimate biodegradability considerations, mathematical expressions for the kinetics of each subprocess and a summary of kinetic values are provided. Then, concepts used for the modeling of anaerobic treatment processes spanning from simple ones, based on the rate-limiting step approach, to more complex, structured models are summarized. Anaerobic biotransformation considerations relative to the role of the biotransformed compounds in the overall microbial metabolism (i.e., growth-linked vs. cometabolic biotransformation) are discussed and then kinetics and modeling of biotransformation processes that take such considerations into account are discussed. Two illustrative examples related to microbial reductive dehalogenation are provided.
Current Issues on Language Education for Young Hearing-Impaired Children

In 1961 Suzuki and Ogiba [1] reported the Conditioned Orientation Reflex (COR) audiometry. This hearing test made it possible to obtain reliable audiogram from young children under three years of age. At that time, however, there was no means of habilitation for such a young child in Japan. Under these circumstances I found “home training” as an early intervention service might methodologically be the best to the parents and their child. The main purpose of my home training program is to facilitate acquisition of language in young hearing-impaired children. My home training program started in 1968 [2]. Since then, more than 2500 young hearing-impaired children have participated in this program.
Reforming Poor Women: The Cultural Politics and Practices of Welfare Reform

This article employs participant observation and interviewing at a community-based job readiness program operating under welfare reform to explore how attempts at cultural retraining (that is, bringing presumably deviant behavior in line with dominant cultural norms) are delivered, received, and interpreted by welfare-reliant women. This study finds that poor women—the targets of these reforms—largely resist cultural retraining, but, ironically, assert its usefulness for welfare-reliant women generally. These ethnographic data support and expand upon previous interview and focus group studies that have encountered the same attribution paradox among welfare-reliant women.
Tolerance Representation and Analysis in Industrial Inspection

In this work we address the problem of tolerance representation and analysis across the domains of industrialinspection using sensed data, CAD design, and manufacturing. Instead of using geometric primitives in CAD models todefine and represent tolerances, we propose the use of stronger methods that are completely based on the manufacturingknowledge for the objects to be inspected. We guide our sensing strategies based on the manufacturing process plans for theparts that are to be inspected and define, compute, and analyze the tolerance of the parts based on the uncertainty in thesensed data along the different toolpaths of the sensed part. We believe that our new approach is the best way to unifytolerances across sensing, CAD, and CAM, as it captures the manufacturing knowledge of the parts to be inspected, asopposed to just CAD geometric representations.
Up and out: A multifaceted approach to characterizing urbanization in Greater Saigon, 2000–2009

Abstract In this case study of Greater Saigon, two types of satellite data are used to estimate the rate of change in urban spatial expansion, both horizontally and volumetrically (horizontal and vertical components), and integrates them with socioeconomic data to examine the correlates and potential causes of both kinds of change. We employ new data products – the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) derived largely from Landsat and a Dense Sampling Method (DSM) product based on QuikSCAT – in combination with data from the 1999 and 2009 censuses of Vietnam. Unlike past studies, we examine horizontal and volumetric changes in urban form and pay particular attention to the role of migration in locations experiencing those different types of change. We find these two types of urban change occur at different rates and in different localities, with the highest rates of horizontal change occurring to the north of administrative Saigon. In contrast, we find the highest rates of volumetric change in the areas north of the central districts but mostly within administrative Saigon. In-migration is strongly associated with horizontal change, whereas increases in population density appears to drive volumetric change, controlling for other factors. Positive volumetric change is associated with necessary amenities of modern urban living, often in high-rise buildings found in dense population centers like Saigon: the increasing presence in households of computers, air conditioners, piped water, and gas fuel. Use of these new integrated data hold promise to shed new light on both the built-environment and social dimensions of urbanization in low- and middle-income settings.
Seizure as the Presenting Symptom for Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome.

Abstract Background Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) is a complement-mediated disease manifesting in thrombocytopenia, microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, and acute kidney injury. It has a higher incidence of extrarenal manifestations, including central nervous system findings like seizure or stroke, pancreatitis, and cardiac manifestations. Case Report We present a case of an unimmunized 14-month-old girl presenting with generalized seizure and ultimately diagnosed with aHUS. Why Should an Emergency Physician Be Aware of This? These atypical neurological symptoms can cause the diagnosis to be commonly missed in the emergency department. The etiology of approximately 60% of patients with aHUS can be attributed to genetic mutations in complement regulators including factor H, membrane cofactor protein, factor I, activator factor B, or C3. Although previously treated with plasma transfusion and immunosuppressants, eculizumab is a newer treatment that has been changing prognosis and management of aHUS, but it should be administered within 48 h of symptom onset for best efficacy.
Encounter on the Great Plains: Scandinavian Settlers and the Dispossession of Dakota Indians, 1890-1930. By Karen V. Hansen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 360 pp. 978-0-1997-46811, Hardcover, $40.95. 978-0-1906-24545, Softcover, $31.95. e-Book available through third party distributors.

In the closing pages of Encounter on the Great Plains Karen V. Hansen, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University, offers readers the opinion of Bjorne Knudson, a second-gene...
Climate Change in the Tropics: Ecological and Evolutionary Responses at Low Latitudes

Climate change is affecting every ecosystem on Earth. Though climate change is global in scope, literature reviews on the biotic impacts of climate change have focused on temperate and polar region...
Resurgent authoritarianism and the international rule of law

Modern rule of law and post-war constitutionalism are both anchored in rights-based limitations on state authority. Rule-of-law norms and principles, at both domestic and international levels, are designed to protect the freedom and dignity of the person. Given this “thick” conception of the rule of law, authoritarian practices that remove constraints on domestic political leaders and weaken mechanisms for holding them accountable necessarily erode both domestic and international rule of law. Drawing on political science research on authoritarian politics, this study identifies three core elements of authoritarian political strategies: subordination of the judiciary, suppression of independent news media and freedom of expression, and restrictions on the ability of civil society groups to organize and participate in public life. According to available data, each of these three practices has become increasingly common in recent years. This study offers a composite measure of the core authoritarian practices and uses it to identify the countries that have shown the most marked increases in authoritarianism. The spread and deepening of these authoritarian practices in diverse regimes around the world diminishes international rule of law. The conclusion argues that resurgent authoritarianism degrades international rule of law even if this is defined as the specifically post-Cold War international legal order.
The Effect of Toileting Position in Uroflow Curves in Young Healthy Nulliparous Women.

The objective of our study was to determine the effect of voiding positions on uroflow parameters in young, healthy nulliparous women with no pelvic floor disorders. Material and Methods. From December 2017 to February 2018, we performed a single-institution cross-sectional study with 30 healthy volunteers comparing uroflow curves in sitting and hovering positions. 49 participants were initially prescreened with a validated tool questionnaire for pelvic floor disorders and 30 participants who had absent symptoms were included for the final analysis. From the selected participants, demographics were collected and comparisons between the sitting and hovering position groups regarding the maximum flow rate (Qmax), average flow rate (Qave), voided volume (VV), and time to peak flow (TQmax) were conducted using either the paired t-test or the Wilcoxon rank sum test. In addition, linear regression analysis was performed to determine whether height, BMI, and age have significant impact on the log-transformed average of the pre- and postvalues of either Qmax, Qave, VV, or TQmax, as the average of these values are not normally distributed. Results. There were no statistical differences between the hovering and sitting position groups on the maximum flow rate ( ), average flow rate ( ), voided volume ( ), and time to peak flow ( ). BMI had borderline significant impact on Qave with value = 0.0531. Conclusion. Different voiding toileting habits do not affect the most commonly used uroflow parameters in young healthy nulliparous patients. Results need to be corroborated by a larger scale study considering the small sample size of our study.
P455 Awareness, knowledge and willingness to use HIV PrEP among MSM and TG people in bali, indonesia

Background World Health Organisation in 2014 has recommended Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) as HIV prevention tool for men who have sex with men (MSM) along with other prevention strategies. Before PrEP implementation is introduced in Indonesia, it is vitally important to have an evidence base about the awareness, knowledge and acceptability among MSM and transgender people and the differences in knowledge and PrEP acceptability based on sexual risk factors of MSM and transgender people. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted between July and November 2017 in an MSM clinic in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. The key outcomes were exploring the awareness, knowledge and willingness to use PrEP among MSM and transgender people in Bali, Indonesia and determining demographic and sexual risk factors associated with knowledge and willingness to use PrEP. Results A total of 164 participants were recruited into the study but only 124 participants were eligible and included in the analysis. Of these, 69 out of 124 (55.6%) participants had never heard about PrEP. Among those 55 (44.4%) participants who had heard about PrEP, education and occupation were the only factors associated with PrEP knowledge. Men with the University education showed higher knowledge scores (29.2) and were more likely to use PrEP compared with men with lower education levels. 73 out of 124 participants (58.9%) were willing to take PrEP in the future and education was the only factor associated with PrEP willingness. Conclusion This is the first study to report data on awareness, knowledge and willingness to use PrEP in Bali and is only the second such study conducted in Indonesia. Consistent with similar studies in other countries, this study found limited knowledge of PrEP among MSM and transgender participants. As PrEP is not yet publicly available in Indonesia, it is crucially important to prepare the community by education and disseminating accurate information. Disclosure No significant relationships.
Demographics and management of outpatient concussion visits among neurologists and non-neurologists: 2006-2016.

Aim Describe the patient demographics and management of outpatient concussion visits, focusing on neurologists. Materials & methods We used the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey to provide national estimates on the demographics and clinical decisions of concussion visits from 2006 to 2016, which were identified with International Classification of Disease-9/10 codes. Results From 2006 to 2016, there were an estimated 11 million visits nationally. Neurologists saw significantly more patients over 18 years old and more nonacute care compared with non-neurologists. Neurologists performed imaging and prescribed new medications at similar rates as non-neurologists. Non-neurology subspecialties had a significant increase in visits during the study period. Conclusion Neurologists saw older patients and more subacute patient care with similar rates prescribing new medications and imaging. Non-neurology subspecialists are more involved in concussions than previously.
Retrospectives: Regulating Banks versus Managing Liquidity: Jeremy Bentham and Henry Thornton in 1802

At nearly the same moment, Jeremy Bentham and Henry Thornton adopted diametrically opposed approaches to stabilizing the financial system. Henry Thornton eloquently defended the Bank of England's actions as the lender of last resort and saw its discretionary management of liquidity as the key stabilizer of the credit system. In contrast, Jeremy Bentham advocated the imposition of strict bank regulations and examinations, without which, he predicted, Britain would soon experience a systemic crisis—which he called "universal bankruptcy." There are strong parallels but also dramatic differences with our recent attempts to reduce systemic risk within financial systems. The Basel III bank regulatory framework effectively intertwines Bentham's and Thornton's diametrically opposed approaches to stabilizing banks. Yet Bentham's and Thornton's concerns regarding the stability of the wider financial system remain alive today due to financial innovation and the politics of responding to financial crises.
A variable precision hardware acceleration for scientific computing

Most of the Floating-Point (FP) hardware units support the formats and the operations specified in the IEEE 754 standard. These formats have fixed bit-length. They are defined on 16, 32, 64, and 128 bits. However, some applications, such as linear system solvers and computational geometry, benefit from different formats which can express FP numbers on different sizes and different tradeoffs among the exponent and the mantissa fields. The class of Variable Precision (VP) formats meets these requirements. This research proposes a VP FP computing system based on three computation layers. The external layer supports legacy IEEE formats for input and output variables. The internal layer uses variable-length internal registers for inner loop multiply-add. Finally, an intermediate layer supports loads and stores of intermediate results to cache memory without losing precision, with a dynamically adjustable VP format. The VP unit exploits the UNUM type I FP format and proposes solutions to address some of its pitfalls, such as the variable latency of the internal operation and the variable memory footprint of the intermediate variables. Unlike IEEE 754, in UNUM type I the size of a number is stored within its representation. The unit implements a fully pipelined architecture, and it supports up to 512 bits of precision, internally and in memory, for both interval and scalar computing. The user can configure the storage format and the internal computing precision at 8-bit and 64-bit granularity This system is integrated as a RISC-V coprocessor. The system has been prototyped on an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) platform and also synthesized for a 28nm FDSOI process technology. The respective working frequencies of FPGA and ASIC implementations are 50MHz and 600MHz. Synthesis results show that the estimated chip area is 1.5mm2, and the estimated power consumption is 95mW. The experiments emulated in an FPGA environment show that the latency and the computation accuracy of this system scale linearly with the memory format length set by the user. In cases where legacy IEEE-754 formats do not converge, this architecture can achieve up to 130 decimal digits of precision, increasing the chances of obtaining output data with an accuracy similar to that of the input data. This high accuracy opens the possibility to use direct methods, which are more sensitive to computational error, instead of iterative methods, which always converge. However, their latency is ten times higher than the direct ones. Compared to low precision FP formats, in iterative methods, the usage of high precision VP formats helps to drastically reduce the number of iterations required by the iterative algorithm to converge, reducing the application latency of up to 50%. Compared with the MPFR software library, the proposed unit achieves speedups between 3.5x and 18x, with comparable accuracy.
Reverse Size-Dependent Electrooxidation of Gold Nanoparticles Coated with Alkanethiol Self-Assembled Monolayers

The oxidation potential of weakly stabilized, citrate-coated Au and other spherical metal nanoparticles (NPs) shifts negative by an amount proportional to 1/radius due to a size-dependent negative ...
Sustainable Exploitation of Agro-Food Waste

The efficient use of agricultural and agro-industrial waste, i.e., converting waste materials into value-added products, is crucial to an effective bioeconomic strategy for sustainable development. A new value chain from agro-food waste is proposed, assessing the need to prioritize high-value by-products and based on the availability of effective and efficient technologies. Real-scale applications of controlled hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) in the processing of underutilized resources and agro-food waste are reviewed, due to their several advantages in shorter process times, higher energy efficiency, higher yields and enhanced extraction rates, and higher stability of the products, including superior retention of bioactive compounds. Part of this chapter focuses on the important case study of the integral valorization of citrus fruit processing waste, in particular citrus peels discarded by the juice industry, as a source of extremely valuable micronutrients, endowed with extraordinary antioxidant, broad-spectrum antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral activities.
The Association of Prenatal Vitamins and Folic Acid Supplement Intake with Odds of Autism Spectrum Disorder in a High-Risk Sibling Cohort, the Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation (EARLI)

We examined maternal prenatal vitamin use or supplemental folic acid intake during month one of pregnancy for association with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation, an enriched-risk pregnancy cohort. Total folic acid intake was calculated from monthly prenatal vitamins, multivitamins, and other supplement reports. Clinical assessments through age 3 years classified children as ASD (n = 38) or non-ASD (n = 153). In pregnancy month one, prenatal vitamin use (59.7%) was not significantly associated with odds of ASD (OR = 0.70, 95%CI 0.32, 1.53). Sample size was limited and residual confounding was possible. Given the estimated effect sizes in this and previous work, prenatal vitamin intake during early pregnancy could be a clinically useful preventative measure for ASD.
Endovascular aneurysm repair conversion is an increasingly common indication for open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair.

Abstract Objective Although endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) reintervention is common, conversion to open repair (EVAR-c) occurs less frequently but can be associated with significant technical complexity and perioperative risk. There is a paucity of data highlighting the evolution of periprocedural results surrounding EVAR-c and change in practice patterns, especially for referral centers that increasingly manage EVAR failures. The purpose of this analysis was to perform a temporal analysis of our EVAR-c experience and describe changes in patient selection, operative details, and outcomes. Methods A retrospective single-center review of all open abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs was performed (2002-2019), and EVAR-c procedures were subsequently analyzed. EVAR-c patients (n = 184) were categorized into two different eras (2002-2009, n = 21; 2010-2019, n = 163) for comparison. Logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards modeling were used for risk-adjusted comparisons. Results A significant increase in EVAR-c as an indication for any type of open aneurysm repair was detected (9% to 27%; P 3 declined (P = .05). There was no difference in prevalence (50% vs 43%; P = .6) or number (median, 1.5 [interquartile range (IQR), 0-5]) of preadmission EVAR reinterventions; however, time to reintervention decreased (median, 23 [IQR, 6-34] months vs 0 [IQR, 0-22] months; P = .005). In contrast, time to EVAR-c significantly increased (median, 16 [IQR, 9-39] months vs 48 [IQR, 20-83] months; P = .008). No difference in frequency of nonelective presentation (mean, 52%; P = .9] or indication was identified, but a trend toward increasing mycotic EVAR-c was observed (5% vs 15%; P = .09). Use of retroperitoneal exposure (14% vs 77%; P Conclusions EVAR-c is now a common indication for open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Patients frequently present nonelectively and at increasingly later intervals after their index EVAR. Despite increasing technical complexity, decreased complication risk and comparable survival can be anticipated when patients are managed at a high-volume aortic referral center.
Contraceptive plans before pre-operative assessment and at procedure in surgical abortion patients

OBJECTIVE To describe changes in contraceptive method plans pre-appointment, after counseling, and post-procedure in patients having an abortion. STUDY DESIGN We reviewed electronic medical records of University of California, Davis Health patients who had an operating room abortion from January 2015 to December 2016. We excluded persons with procedures for fetal anomaly or demise. We extracted patient demographics and contraceptive plans reported at each encounter (telephone intake, pre-operative appointment, and day of abortion). We evaluated individual contraceptive plans across the encounters, identified patient characteristics that contributed to plan change, and created a multivariable logistic regression model for predictors of contraception method plan change from telephone intake to post-procedure. RESULTS The 747 patients had a mean gestational age of 16 4/7 ± 5 0/7 weeks with 244 (32.7%) <15 weeks and 235 (31.5%) ≥20 weeks. At telephone intake, 273 (36.4%) wanted a long-acting method (139 [50.9%] intrauterine device [IUD]; 99 [36.3%] implant; 35 [12.3%] unspecified), 11 (3.9%) permanent contraception, and 248 (33.2%) a less effective or no method; 215 (28.8%) stated they were undecided. Most (357/433 [82.4%]) patients who planned a reversible method based on the telephone intake obtained that or a similar method. Of the 273 patients planning a long-acting method, 258 (94.5%) received an IUD (158 [40.9%]) or implant (100 [36.6%]). Of the 215 undecided patients, 88 (40.9%) received an IUD and 55 (25.6%) an implant. No demographic factors predicted a change in method plan. CONCLUSIONS Most patients will receive the method they initially identified at the telephone intake after an abortion, especially those planning an IUD or implant. Undecided patients are commonly open to discussing options.
The Devil Is in the Details: Crime and Victimization Research with the National Crime Victimization Survey

In this essay I discuss some of my research experiences with the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Having used the data for more than 15 years to conduct various types of analyses, I have learned that the more I use the data, the more questions I have, not just about the various methodological properties of the NCVS, but about other survey data sets that serve as the foundation for a good deal of criminological research. Much of what we currently know about the factors associated with crime and victimization is based on these types of social surveys, and the methodological features of any data set can have important effects on the substantive patterns uncovered in the data.
Pipelined dynamics SISD system organization

The paper describes a pipelined SISD computer system which employs a dynamic data processing unit to execute four fixed point arithmetic operations. A look-ahead instruction scheduling is developed using a simple tagging scheme, which eliminates the tag comparison hardware used in the existing pipelined systems. The branch overheads are reduced by using two instruction streams in a synchronized operation. >
Abstract P266: Change in the Association Between Serum Lipids and Coronary Heart Disease among Middle-Aged Adults: Observational Data from the Pre- and Post-Statin Era.

Dyslipidemia is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) and is usually treated with statins. Few observational studies have examined associations between lipids and CHD in the era of widespread statin use. The objective of the current analysis was to contrast the association between serum lipids and incident coronary heart disease (CHD) among middle-aged adults before and after statin use became widespread. Methods: We analyzed data from 14,590 Atherosclerosis Risk In Communities (ARIC) study participants who were recruited in 1987-1989 (pre-statins), and 13,196 REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study participants (9,578 not taking statins) who were recruited in 2003-2007 (post-statins). Our analysis was restricted to participants 45 to 64 years of age without a history of CHD at baseline. Total and HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) and fasting triglycerides (TG) were measured at baseline and used to calculate LDL-C, non-HDL-C, total-to-HDL-C ratio and total-to-TG ratio....
Biotechnology Intellectual Property – Bioethical Issues

Biotechnology intellectual property consists of patents and trade secrets held on organisms, genes and products derived from them. Intellectual property law has been applied to biotechnological innovations and there are ethical concerns raised by its protection of biotechnological inventions. Keywords: patent; intellectual property; ethics; biotechnology