cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Recombinative Generalization of Tacts Through Matrix Training with Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Foss (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76, 450–459, 1968a; Journal of Experimental Psychology, 77, 341–344, 1968b) compared overlap and non-overlap instruction to promote recombinative response generalization using a matrix training procedure. In the present study, we used a similar set of procedures to teach tacting of kitchen items and prepositions (i.e., relational autoclitics) to three females ages 13–20, diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. We taught some kitchen items/prepositions as tacts (e.g., “the strainer is to the right of the box”) according to a non-overlap instructional sequence. Subsequently, we taught more combinations in an overlap instructional sequence. Each training procedure was followed by probes of untrained relations. Two participants demonstrated recombinative generalization of untrained combinations following the first non-overlap phase, while the third participant demonstrated some response generalization of untrained relations after a few additional training sequences. All three participants demonstrated generalized tacting of object components while two participants showed generalized tacting of preposition components.
Stochastic Forward---Backward Splitting for Monotone Inclusions

We propose and analyze the convergence of a novel stochastic algorithm for monotone inclusions that are sum of a maximal monotone operator and a single-valued cocoercive operator. The algorithm we propose is a natural stochastic extension of the classical forward---backward method. We provide a non-asymptotic error analysis in expectation for the strongly monotone case, as well as almost sure convergence under weaker assumptions. For minimization problems, we recover rates matching those obtained by stochastic extensions of the so-called accelerated methods. Stochastic quasi-Fejer's sequences are a key technical tool to prove almost sure convergence.
Long running, consistent, web service transactions

This paper investigates the problem of providing long-running web service transactions that maintain consistency, high availability, and durability. Long running transactions involve human interaction as activities in the transaction. The human interaction increases the latency of the overall transaction. Implementation options are considered for managing limited resources held by a transaction that contain two or more web service requests separated by human interaction. In our previous work, we proposed a replica update propagation method called the Buddy System, which guaranteed consistency, durability and higher availability of web services. The previous work studied transactions composed of a single coarse-grained request. In this paper, the Buddy System is extended to allow long-running transactions comprising two or more web-service calls separated by human interaction.
Avian Flu, Asian-Americans, and the Proposed Cdc Federal Quarantine Regulations: A Recipe for Disaster

The United States has a dark history of discrimination during times of crisis and turmoil. Just in the last century, residents and citizens of the United States have been detained for alleged communist ties that were actually motivated by racist sentiments towards Russian and Eastern European immigrant status during the Palmer Raids, Japanese citizens were taken to internment camps during World War II solely due to their Japanese heritage, and currently thousands of immigrants from Arab or Muslim countries have been detained and questioned without any justification except their racial heritage in the name of the "war against terror." Such suspension of constitutional rights occurs just as often in public health emergencies, as it does in political ones. Two tools that public health officials use to attempt to contain the spread of a communicable disease are isolation and quarantine. Isolation is defined as the separation of persons who have a specific infectious illness from those who are healthy and the restriction of their movement to stop the spread of that illness. In contrast, quarantine refers to the separation and restriction of movement of persons, who, while not yet ill, have been exposed to an infectious agent and therefore may become infectious. Unfortunately, historically, the use of isolation and quarantine has often been inappropriate or ineffective.This paper examines the Federal Quarantine Regulations recently proposed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to address the potential Avian Flu pandemic. These proposed regulations contain numerous constitutional problems that will potentially impact all residents of the United States. Although this is harmful to all Americans, the probable discriminatory impact of those regulations on Asians and Asian-Americans in the United States in the case of an Avian Flu outbreak will be greater because of the geography of the virus and the history of discrimination against Asian Americans. This paper will outline the constitutional shortcomings of the proposed quarantine regulations and selected historical examples of discrimination against Asians during public health scares in the United States. This combination will be particularly troublesome for Asian-Americans if there is an Avian Flu pandemic, given that the majority of human cases of Avian Flu have originated in Asia.
SO-01PRIMARY INTRADURAL MALIGNANT PERIPHERAL NERVE SHEATH TUMOR: CASE REPORT AND REVIEW

Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST) is a rare sarcoma which is most commonly encountered in the extremities, and is often associated with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF-1). Primary intradural lesions are rarely reported, particularly in the pediatric population. A 15 year old girl was referred to neurosurgery with 18 months of axial low back pain radiating into her hips and thighs, and 3 months of a House-Brackmann 3 right facial droop associated with left sided impaired pupillary constriction and anisocoria. Neurologic exam was otherwise normal. Genetic testing for NF-1 was negative. Brain imaging was normal. Spine imaging revealed an intradural mass associated with the left L3 nerve root. The patient was taken to surgery for resection of the mass. A lesion intrinsic to that nerve was identified and subtotally resected due to concern for iatrogenic injury. Postoperatively, the patient did not develop any new neurologic deficit. Pathologic diagnosis was grade 3 (FNCLCC score 6 of 8) malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor. Staging CT/PET revealed 2 additional sites of disease in the nerve roots at C6/7 and C7/T1. Lumbar puncture was negative for malignant cells. The patient has subsequently initiated craniospinal proton beam radiotherapy. MPNSTs constitute 5-10% of all soft tissue sarcomas, with a peak incidence in the 7th decade of life. Up to half of these lesions are found in patients with neurofibromatosis type 1, in whom the peak incidence is in the 3rd or 4th decade. 19 cases of pediatric primary intradural MPNST have been previously reported. Surgical treatment is limited due to inability to achieve en bloc resection with wide margins within the intradural compartment. Outcomes have been poor, with 50% or less survival at 2 years despite aggressive multimodal therapies. Further optimization of adjuvant therapies is necessary to improve outcomes.
Comparison of Three Interacting V-Flames to a Single Bluff-Body Flame at Two Reynolds Numbers

The axial velocity profiles for three interacting bluff-body flames at Reynolds numbers of 4000 and 6000 are compared to a single-flame case at the same Reynolds numbers and equivalence ratio of φ=0.8. To facilitate a direct comparison between interacting and single-flame behaviors, an interacting flame case has been chosen to have a very similar time-averaged flow field as the single-flame configuration. While the inlet turbulence levels of the single-flame and interacting flame configurations are the same, the turbulence field development is different when multiple flames are present, leading to higher reactant Reynolds stresses along the c = 0.5 contour in the cross-stream direction when there is flame interaction. The principal directions are calculated and show that the flame surface normals tend to align with most compressive principal strain. Flame surface density is quantified for both flame configurations and indicates there is more flame wrinkling when flame interaction is present. The higher cross-stream Reynolds stresses cause increased flame wrinkling which results in faster flame brush growth when there is flame interaction. Flames are found to anisotropically redistribute turbulent kinetic energy, preferentially enhancing cross-stream fluctuations in the products. These results demonstrate that the multiple bluff-body flame behavior cannot be considered a superposition of the dynamics of the single bluff-body flame.
A comparative study on iodine nutrition and thyroid function of different population in urban and rural areas of Wuwei, Gansu province

Objective To understand the iodine nutrition and thyroid function of different population in urban and rural areas of Gansu province and provide evidence for iodine supplementation. Methods A cross-sectional survey was performed in urban and rural children, adults, pregnant women and breastfeeding women in Wuwei from April 2009 to January 2010. Urine and fasting blood samples were collected from the subjects. Urine iodine content was measured with arsenic cerium catalytic spectrophatometry. The thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) , free thyroid hormone (FT4) and three free triiodothyronine (FT3) were detected by using direct chemiluminescence immunoassy. Non parametric test was used to compare the urinary iodine and TSH group. t test was used to compare FT4, FT3. χ2 test was used to compare the rate. Results The medians of urinary iodine level (μg/L) were 358.6, 189.0, 255.4 and 239.5 in urban children, adults, pregnant women and breastfeeding women and 387.6, 258.5, 172.8 and 215.3 in rural children, adults, pregnant women and breastfeeding women respectively. The median of urinary iodine of urban adults was significantly lower than that in rural adults (Z=-4.020, P=0.000) and the medians of urinary iodine level of urban pregnant women was higher than that in rural pregnant women (Z=1.424, P=0.035). The mean value of FT3 in rural pregnant women and breastfeeding women were higher than that in urban groups (t=-3.933, P=0.000; t=-2.259, P=0.026). The mean value of FT4 in urban adults was higher than that in rural adults (t=3.539, P=0.001). The positive rate of TGAb and TMAb in rural pregnant women and breastfeeding women were 43.6%, 56.4% and 33.3%, 35.6%, respectively, which were higher than those in urban groups. Subclinical hypothyroidism in all thyroid function disorders was common in all the groups. No statistical significant difference in all thyroid function disorders were found in different population. Conclusion The iodine nutrition were in good status in both urban population and rural population, the children's iodine nutrition was surplus. Statistical differences existed in iodine nutrition status or thyroid hormone level between urban and rural adults, pregnant women and breastfeeding women. Key words: Iodine; Thyroid gland
Near infrared to ultraviolet anisotropic optical properties of single crystal SrLaAlO4 from spectroscopic ellipsometry

The anisotropic optical properties of single crystal SrLaAlO4 are investigated using spectroscopic ellipsometry over the range from 0.74 to 5.90 eV. Divided spectral range analysis of ellipsometric and Mueller matrix spectra are used to obtain the sample structural parameters (surface roughness thickness and void fraction). The ordinary and extra-ordinary optical properties in the form of complex dielectric function, ϵ = ϵ1 + iϵ2 (or complex index of refraction, N = n + ik), spectra are extracted from the same analysis. The observed birefringence is ∼ 0.025 in the transparent range. An upper limit for the indirect gap at 3.01 ± 0.01 eV and a critical point at 5.54 ± 0.01 eV are identified within the measured spectral range.
Fatigue and the Shiftworker: Firefighters Working on a Rotating Shift Schedule:

Fatigue has often been viewed as a simple variable that is positively correlated with time on task in the workplace and is produced mainly by physical activity. However, shiftwork researchers have demonstrated time-of-day differences for variables including sleepiness and mood, thereby challenging this notion of fatigue. Using a within-subjects design, the present study advances this research by searching for differences in time-of-day interactions in firefighters' sleep length, sleepiness, and mood ratings as a function of shift. We examined reductions in sleep length associated with shiftwork and used sleepiness and mood scales to assess the effects of these reductions. Participants completed surveys throughout a complete cycle of their shift schedule. The study showed that firefighters working on a rotating 8-h shift schedule will sleep less and will report lower positive mood scores, higher negative mood scores, and greater sleepiness ratings on the night shift. Additionally, it was shown that over the course of a shift (two weeks), firefighters were unable to adapt to changes in their sleep schedule. Finally, the significant interactions that were observed challenge the historical, singular notion of fatigue.
Associations Among Depressive Symptoms, Wellness, Patient Involvement, Provider Cultural Competency, and Treatment Nonadherence: A Pilot Study Among Community Patients Seen at a University Medical Center.

Treatment nonadherence is a pernicious problem associated with increasing rates of chronic diseases, escalating healthcare costs, and rising mortality in some patients. Although researchers have suggested numerous factors related to treatment nonadherence, several understudied aspects warrant attention, such as primary-care settings, provider cultural competence, and patient involvement. Adding to the research base, the present pilot study examined 88 primarily Black American and White American community patients from a large university medical center in the southern part of the United States. The study explored two research questions: (a) To what extent are there associations among depressive symptoms, wellness, patient involvement, cultural competency, and treatment nonadherence in a racially diverse community patient population? And (b) to what extent do the study exploratory variables and background characteristics predict treatment nonadherence, both separately and jointly? Depressive symptoms, the patient’s perception of a provider’s cultural competence, and marital/partnered status were found to be statistically significantly associated with treatment nonadherence, but not entirely in the directions expected.
The Space of Queer Masculinities in Karim Aïnouz’s Praia Do Futuro

This chapter devotes its attention to Praia do Futuro/ Futuro Beach, (Karim Ainouz, 2014), a film that had a controversial reception when released in Brazil, due to its exploration of homosexuality. It questions how queer spaces are reclaimed and frame the male bodies, and argues that while new representations of homosexual male subjects challenge the general marginalization of the queer community, they may not necessarily, or openly, create and legitimize the expression of queer identities outside of the limitations of a politics of the closet.
Integrated Control of an IPM Motor Drive and a Novel Hybrid Energy Storage System for Electric Vehicles

A dc bus voltage control for a motor drive that uses a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) for electric vehicle applications is proposed in this paper. The HESS is composed of a high energy density battery pack along with a high power density ultracapacitor. The motor drive of an interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor is conventionally designed based on a fixed dc bus voltage. However, with the voltage controllability of the HESS, it is possible to enhance the system efficiency by selecting the optimum dc bus voltage. Unlike conventional designs, the proposed HESS processes only a portion of the vehicle power through an interfacing dc/dc converter. This new concept reduces converter losses, enables full usage of the energy stored in the storage devices, and provides a boosting capability of the dc bus voltage. Consequently, the motor drive operates with maximum torque per ampere control for an extended operating range. An electric vehicle, equipped with a HESS and an IPM drive is simulated under different driving conditions. Experimental results of a prototype system are provided to verify the system effectiveness.
Scalable Write Allocation in the WAFL File System

Enterprise storage systems must scale to increasing core counts to meet stringent performance requirements. Both the NetApp® Data ONTAP® storage operating system and its WAFL® file system have been incrementally parallelized over the years, but some components remain single-threaded. The WAFL write allocator, which is responsible for assigning blocks on persistent storage to dirty data in a way that maximizes write throughput to the storage media, is single-threaded and has become a major scalability bottleneck. This paper presents a new write allocation architecture, White Alligator, for the WAFL file system that scales performance on many cores. We also place the new architecture in the context of the historical parallelization of WAFL and discuss the architectural decisions that have facilitated this parallelism. The resulting system demonstrates increased scalability that results in throughput gains of up to 274% on a many-core storage system.
Effects of Primo on Selected Bedding and Woody Landscape Plants

Abstract Primo (cimectacarb), applied as a foliar spray, suppressed shoot growth of four of six bedding plants and all four woody landscape species tested. However, phytotoxic symptoms occurred on the foliage of all bedding plants and two woody species and to flowers of three bedding plants and one woody species. Foliage and flowers of affected plants exhibited a loss of pigmentation that increased at higher rates of Primo, resulting in a bleached appearance.
Krylov Subspace Spectral Methods With Coarse-Grid Residual Correction For Solving Time-Dependent, Variable-Coefficient PDEs

Krylov Supspace Spectral (KSS) methods provide an efficient approach to the solution of time-dependent, variable-coefficient partial differential equations by using an interpolating polynomial with frequency-dependent interpolation points to approximate a solution operator for each Fourier coefficient. KSS methods are high-order accurate time-stepping methods that also scale effectively to higher spatial resolution. In this paper, we will demonstrate the effectiveness of using coarse-grid residual correction, generalized to the time-dependent case, to improve the accuracy and efficiency of KSS methods. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of this correction.
Poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) grafted temperature responsive PET membranes: An ultrafast method for membrane processing using KrF excimer laser at 248 nm

Abstract Temperature responsive membranes have garnered a lot of interest, recently, in different applications. A two-step novel method to fabricate temperature responsive polyethylene terephthalate (PET) – poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) pore-filled membranes using a 248 nm KrF excimer laser, is reported here. PET films can be selectively ablated in first step to obtain porous support membranes having highly ordered, regular, and well-defined pores over a range of pore sizes. The support membranes can then be pore grafted with PNIPAM hydrogel using the same pulsed excimer laser using a bottom-up approach. The grafting density of PNIPAM in the pores can be tuned by appropriately selecting the laser parameters, and water permeabilities ranging on over 6 orders, at room temperature, can be easily achieved within few seconds of grafting. The water permeabilities increase above the lower solution critical temperature (LCST) of PNIPAM as attributed to increase in effective pore size due to network deswelling inside the pores. The hydrogel network gets strongly grafted to the pore walls and remains mechanically stable inside the pores under the applied pressures. Diffusive transport of a small molecule is studied to evaluate membrane performance as temperature responsive barrier for controlled transport of solutes. The grafting is quantifiable by ATR-FTIR studies and the results can be correlated with chain growth in pulsed laser polymerization. The results establish our method as an efficient, fast, and economical method to fabricate thermo-responsive membranes.
[18F] AV-1451 uptake in corticobasal syndrome: the influence of beta-amyloid and clinical presentation

Corticobasal syndrome (CBS) is a phenotypic manifestation of diverse pathologies, including Alzheimer’s disease and 4-repeat tauopathies. Predicting pathology in CBS is unreliable and, hence, molecular neuroimaging may prove to be useful. The aim of this study was to assess regional patterns of uptake on [18F] AV-1451 PET in CBS and determine whether patterns of uptake differ according to beta-amyloid deposition or differing clinical presentations. Fourteen patients meeting criteria for CBS underwent Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB) and [18F] AV-1451 PET. Seven patients presented as CBS and seven presented with apraxia of speech (AOS) and later evolved into CBS. A global PiB summary was calculated and used to classify patients as PiB (−) or PiB (+). AV-1451 uptake was calculated in fourteen regions-of-interest, with values divided by uptake in cerebellar crus grey matter to generate standard uptake value ratios. AV-1451 uptake was considered elevated if it fell above the 95th percentile from a group of 476 cognitively unimpaired normal controls. Six of the 14 CBS patients (43%) were PiB (+), with three of these patients showing strikingly elevated AV-1451 uptake across many cortical regions. Of the eight PiB (−) patients, only those with AOS showed elevated AV-1451 uptake in supplementary motor area and precentral cortex compared to controls. No region of elevated AV-1451 uptake were observed in PiB (−) typical CBS patients without AOS. These results suggest that regional [18F] AV-1451 is variable in CBS and depends on the presence of beta-amyloid as well as clinical presentation such as AOS. PiB (+) CBS does not necessarily reflect underlying Alzheimer’s disease; however, the possibility some of these patients will evolve into Alzheimer’s disease over time cannot be excluded.
Factors That Support and Hinder Including Infants with Disabilities in Child Care

Children with disabilities take part in child care programs across the country every day. However, existing research is lacking on how infants and toddlers with disabilities are supported in these inclusion efforts, particularly from the perspectives of child care and early intervention (EI) providers. In this article, we describe the results of a statewide survey of U.S. child care and EI providers (N = 991; n = 620 child care providers, n = 371 EI providers) on their beliefs and experiences in inclusion and perceived factors that support and hinder the inclusion of very young children with disabilities in child care settings. Our study results indicate that although providers value inclusion and identify many benefits for children, families, and professionals, several barriers exist to effectively implement meaningful inclusion. Despite advances in legislation, policy, and recommended practices, little has changed in the inclusion of infants and toddlers; therefore, recommendations for policy, practice, and research are included. Recommendations include increased training and mentoring for providers and formal inclusion of child care providers in inclusion supported by state policy and continued research.
Performance of Limited Feedback Based NOMA Transmission in mmWave Drone Networks

Achieving high spectral efficiency (SE) is of paramount importance for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided wireless communication networks mainly due to the limited energy resources on board of a UAV. On the other hand, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is identified as an effective technology for enhancing SE. In this paper, we introduce NOMA transmission considering user distances as the available feedback, to UAVs serving as aerial base stations (BSs) at a large stadium potentially with several hundreds or thousands of mobile users. In particular, UAV-BS generates directional beams and multiple users each having a target rate based on their quality of service (QoS) requirements, are served simultaneously within the same beam employing NOMA transmission. User ordering for NOMA formulation is determined based on user distances and hence, users have to feedback only their distance information. We develop a comprehensive framework over which achievable outage probabilities and respective sum rates are derived rigorously for the distance feedback based NOMA strategy, which are verified through extensive simulations. Our analytical and simulation results show that NOMA with distance feedback can provide better sum rates compared to its orthogonal counterpart. Further, we identify optimal hovering altitudes for UAV-BS to maximize sum rates under different transmit power values.
Agronomically Relevant Traits Transferred to Major Crop Plants by Alien Introgressions

Extensive selection for increased crop productivity resulted in increased frequency of extreme traits that eroded diversity for a number of plant attributes making the present day crop genotypes vulnerable to changes in environmental conditions, biotic and abiotic stresses. The early domesticates and wild relatives of crop plants are rich sources of diversity and exhibit better performance under harsh climatic conditions as well as under high pathogen loads. The plant breeders have realized the need of broadening the genetic base of cultivated genotypes and have made genuine efforts to explore alien-diversity to breed genotypes for challenging environmental conditions, improved yield and quality. It is evident from these efforts that incorporation of the alien chromatin into the cultivated background is an important tool to improve plant productivity. In this chapter, we deal with available sources of diversity, methods of alien introgression, available breeding material and its implications in characterization of the alien genes, successful examples of alien-introgression and their contribution to the crop improvement.
Zone of weakness concept: A review and evaluation

The zone of weakness concept implies that there exist within the earth’s crust relatively weak zones which when differentially stressed will fail more readily than will the surrounding rock. Such zones are often inferred to determine the extent, orientation and style of younger deformation. Although the concept has been around a long time and is intuitively attractive, our ability to predict and explain younger deformation patterns based upon knowledge of older fabrics is poor. The concept is not rooted in adequate knowledge of specific strain mechanisms.
Optimizing Nuclear Material Accounting and Measurement Systems

AbstractThe ability to create nuclear weapons from 235U and 239Pu makes it imperative to closely account for these materials as they progress through a nuclear fuel cycle. Improved measurement syst...
Experiments with massively parallel constraint solving

The computing industry is currently facing a major architectural shift. Extra computing power is not coming anymore from higher processor frequencies, but from a growing number of computing cores and processors. For AI, and constraint solving in particular, this raises the question of how to scale current solving techniques to massively parallel architectures. While prior work focusses mostly on small scale parallel constraint solving, we conduct the first study on scalability of constraint solving on 100 processors and beyond in this paper. We propose techniques that are simple to apply and show empirically that they scale surprisingly well. These techniques establish a performance baseline for parallel constraint solving technologies against which more sophisticated parallel algorithms need to compete in the future.
Water Vapor Transport in Hydrophilic Polyurethanes

Water uptake and water vapor transmission rates have been obtained on two series of hydrophilic segmented polyurethanes based on MDI, butanediol, and several block copolymer polyethers with varying proportions of poly(ethylene oxide) PEO and poly(propyleneoxide) PPO. In series I the ratio of PEO to PPO is varied at fixed hard segment concentration. In series II the hard segment concentration is varied at a fixed 50/50 ratio of PEO to PPO. At constant hard block composition and decreasing amounts of PEO in series I polymers water uptake decreases from 58g/100g of polymer at pure PEO to 2g/100g of polymer for pure PPO. Transmission rates determined with water in contact with the upstream surface and 50% relative humidity downstream show a corresponding decrease. As hard block concentration is increased in II both water uptake and transmission rate decrease. The sorption isotherms are surprisingly simple concave upward curves which rise steeply at saturation. Analysis of the data on the basis of moles of water per EO unit provides a clear picture of the influence of compositional variations on the course of the sorption isotherms and shows that saturation water concentrations are not related in a simple manner to PEO concentration. The diffusion coefficients calculated from steady state transmission rates decrease with increasing water concentration in series I but increase with water concentration in series II. The apparently conflicting trends can be rationalized in terms of water clustering in the first case and the blocking effect of hard segment domains in the second. Comparisons are also made with results on a series of polyurethaneureas based on Hylene W and containing a mixture of separate PEO and PPO macroglycols which were studied by Tobolsky and coworkers for reverse osmosis.
Crossing the Line: High School Student Activism, the New York High School Student Union, and the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville Teachers’ Strike:

In the fall of 1968, 54,000 of 57,000 New York City teachers went on strike in what has since become known as the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Teachers’ Strike. With schools closed for thirty-six days, f...
Current Controversy: Spikes, Bursts, and Synchrony in Generalized Absence Epilepsy: Unresolved Questions Regarding Thalamocortical Synchrony in Absence Epilepsy:

Absence epilepsy is a disorder of thalamocortical networks. Animal models have provided detailed information regarding the core cellular, synaptic, and network features that contribute to the elect...
Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4)-Mediated Neuronal Death Following Intrastriatal Kainic Acid: Implications for Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is characterized by progressive, premature death of dopamine neurons in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra (1, 2, 3). Clinical symptoms appear when dopamine neuronal death reaches 50–60% and there is loss of 70–80% of striatal dopamine (4). The profile of dopamine neuronal death in Parkinson’s disease is progressive (5, 6), and it is thought that, after diagnosis, there is continued, gradual neuronal death over the remaining lifespan of the patient (7). Animal models of Parkinson’s disease have been developed to study mechanisms underlying nigral neuronal death and provide insights into the etiology of Parkinson’s disease. Here, we report a rat model that exhibits progressive death of nigral neurons following unilateral injection of kainic acid in the striatum. Further, we demonstrate the utility of this model to study mechanisms underlying nigral dopamine neuronal death and suggest a possible role for tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) in long-term death of these neurons.
Who developed the so-called Timoshenko beam theory?:

The use of the Google Scholar produces about 78,000 hits on the term “Timoshenko beam.” The question of priority is of great importance for this celebrated theory. For the first time in the world l...
Breaking a dark degeneracy: The gamma-ray signature of early matter domination

The Universe’s early thermal history is poorly constrained, and it is possible that it underwent a period of early matter domination driven by a heavy particle or an oscillating scalar field that decayed into radiation before the onset of big bang nucleosynthesis. The entropy sourced by this particle’s decay reduces the cross section required for thermal-relic dark matter to achieve the observed abundance. This degeneracy between dark matter properties and the thermal history vastly widens the field of viable dark matter candidates, undermining efforts to constrain dark matter’s identity. Fortunately, an early matter-dominated era also amplifies density fluctuations at small scales and leads to early microhalo formation, boosting the dark matter annihilation rate and bringing smaller cross sections into the view of existing indirect-detection probes. Employing several recently developed models of microhalo formation and evolution, we develop a procedure to derive indirect-detection constraints on dark matter annihilation in cosmologies with early matter domination. This procedure properly accounts for the unique morphology of microhalo-dominated signals. While constraints depend on dark matter’s free-streaming scale, the microhalos make it possible to obtain upper bounds as small as ⟨σv⟩≲10-32 cm3 s-1 using Fermi-LAT observations of the isotropic gamma-ray background and the Draco dwarf galaxy.
Selectively metropolised Monte Carlo light transport simulation

Light transport is a complex problem with many solutions. Practitioners are now faced with the difficult task of choosing which rendering algorithm to use for any given scene. Simple Monte Carlo methods, such as path tracing, work well for the majority of lighting scenarios, but introduce excessive variance when they encounter transport they cannot sample (such as caustics). More sophisticated rendering algorithms, such as bidirectional path tracing, handle a larger class of light transport robustly, but have a high computational overhead that makes them inefficient for scenes that are not dominated by difficult transport. The underlying problem is that rendering algorithms can only be executed indiscriminately on all transport, even though they may only offer improvement for a subset of paths. In this paper, we introduce a new scheme for selectively combining different Monte Carlo rendering algorithms. We use a simple transport method (e.g. path tracing) as the base, and treat high variance "fireflies" as seeds for a Markov chain that locally uses a Metropolised version of a more sophisticated transport method for exploration, removing the firefly in an unbiased manner. We use a weighting scheme inspired by multiple importance sampling to partition the integrand into regions the base method can sample well and those it cannot, and only use Metropolis for the latter. This constrains the Markov chain to paths where it offers improvement, and keeps it away from regions already handled well by the base estimator. Combined with stratified initialization, short chain lengths and careful allocation of samples, this vastly reduces non-uniform noise and temporal flickering artifacts normally encountered with a global application of Metropolis methods. Through careful design choices, we ensure our algorithm never performs much worse than the base estimator alone, and usually performs significantly better, thereby reducing the need to experiment with different algorithms for each scene.
Telemedicine in Neurosurgery: Lessons Learned and Transformation of Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background Before the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine utilization was mostly used for postoperative visits only in neurosurgery. Shelter-in-place measures led the rapid expansion of telemedicine to address the needs of the neurosurgical patient population. Our goal is to determine the extent of adoption of telemedicine across tumor, vascular, spine, and function neurosurgery and utilization for new patient visits. Methods A single-center retrospective cohort study of patients who received neurosurgical care at a tertiary academic center from February to April 2020 was conducted. Patients evaluated from March to April 2019 were included for comparison. A total of 10,746 patients were included: 1247 patients underwent surgery, 8742 were seen in clinic via an in-person outpatient visit, and 757 were assessed via telemedicine during the study period. Results A 40-fold increase in the use of telemedicine was noted after the shelter-in-place measures were initiated with a significant increase in the mean number of patients evaluated via telemedicine per week across all divisions of neurosurgery (4.5 ± 0.9 to 180.4 ± 13.9, P Conclusions Use of telemedicine drastically increased across all 4 divisions within neurosurgery with a significant increase in online-first encounters in order to meet the needs of our patients once the shelter-in-place measures were implemented. We provide a detailed account of the lessons learned and discuss the anticipated role of telemedicine in surgical practices once the shelter-in-place measures are lifted.
Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Types and Quality of Knowledge Used in Synthetic Modeling

Modeling is an important element of discovery and design processes because it can help individuals to comprehend and facilitate solutions to problems, mediate among mental and external representati...
Soil water repellency after wildfires in the Blue Ridge Mountains, United States

It is not well understood if wildfires induce soil water repellency in broadleaf deciduous forests, such as those endemic to the Blue Ridge Mountains of the eastern United States. In 2016, widespread wildfires provided an opportunity to study soil water repellency in this region. We selected sites in four locations with low to moderate burn severities, along with unburned controls. We estimated soil water repellency using water drop penetration time measurements from the surface (i.e. ash or organic) layer to ~5 cm within the underlying mineral layer. Two months after the fires, water repellency was detected in all locations and was greater in more severely burned sites. One location had the greatest water repellency in surface ash (frequency of occurrence: 68–74%), whereas the other locations showed greatest repellency at the ash–mineral interface (40–96%). Unburned soils rarely showed repellency (0–18%). Burned soils also exhibited water repellency 1 year post fire. The study results suggest that combustion of non-resinous foliage within litter layers can cause water repellency in deciduous forests, meaning that this condition is not exclusive to coniferous and dryland forests. The duration of impact depends on fire severity, and may enhance overland flow and sediment transport in affected landscapes.
Get PrEPPT (pre-exposure prophylaxis and pregnancy termination): an exploration of the values, attitudes and preferences regarding HIV and PrEP among women seeking abortion

Introduction Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for the prevention of HIV transmission is under utilised by women in the US. Women seeking abortion have a higher HIV prevalence than women who continue prenatal care and could benefit from HIV risk assessment and PrEP counselling. We assessed the knowledge, attitudes, and preferences of women seeking abortion care regarding their HIV risk and knowledge of PrEP, and identified individual and system barriers to PrEP access. Methods We performed a cross sectional descriptive study of English speaking women at a freestanding abortion clinic through an anonymous survey. Participants with indications for PrEP care included those who performed sex work, experienced a recent sexually transmitted infection, or had multiple sexual partners and inconsistent condom use. We performed descriptive statistics on response data; Wilcoxon tests were used to compare continuous variables across groups. Results 64 (32.3%) participants had indications for PrEP, but only 31 (16.1%) had previous knowledge of PrEP. After the concept was explained, attitudes towards PrEP were generally positive, and 54 participants (27.8%) would consider starting PrEP in the next 6 months. Participants were most interested in receiving PrEP care from their primary care provider rather than from an abortion clinic. Conclusions Among women seeking abortion, women vulnerable to HIV infection outnumbered those with PrEP knowledge by 2 to 1. Prior knowledge of PrEP as an HIV prevention method was low, but women found PrEP acceptable. While women reported preferring to receive PrEP from a primary care provider, the abortion clinic visit may also represent an important time for HIV education and risk screening.
Koopman Model Predictive Control-based Power System Stabilizer Design

This work proposes a novel design for power system stabilizers (PSS) based on recent developments in Koopman model predictive control. The design is completely data-driven and requires no equation-based models. Instead, it is based on Koopman operator theory, where a linear operator is identified from observed data by dynamic mode decomposition (DMD), and then utilized in model predictive control (MPC) framework. The effectiveness of the proposed PSS is validated in Kundur's 4-machine system under various disturbance conditions. The control performance is compared with conventional model-based PSSs. The data-driven PSS exhibits markedly enhanced ability to damp electromechanical oscillations and the transient stability of the power network is improved as a consequence.
A Predicament in Securing Blockchain Consensus via Controlling Cryptopuzzle Difficulty

Blockchain systems often employ proof-of-work consensus protocols to validate and add transactions into hashchains. These protocols involve competition among miners in solving cryptopuzzles (e.g. SHA-256 hash computation in Bitcoin) in exchange for a monetary reward. Here, we model mining as an all-pay auction, where miners’ computational efforts are interpreted as bids, and the allocation function is the probability of solving the cryptopuzzle in a single attempt with unit (normalized) computational capability. Such an allocation function captures how blockchain systems control the difficulty of the cryptopuzzle as a function of miners’ computational abilities (bids). In an attempt to reduce mining costs, we investigate designing a mining auction mechanism which induces a logit equilibrium amongst the miners with choice distributions that are unilaterally decreasing with costs at each miner. We show it is impossible to design a lenient allocation function that does this. Specifically, we show that there exists no allocation function that discourages miners to bid higher costs at logit equilibrium, if the rate of change of difficulty with respect to each miner’s cost is bounded by the inverse of the sum of costs of all the miners. Additionally, we also show that it is necessary to have allocation functions that decrease with increasing number of players. As a result, it is difficult to achieve decentralization and accomplish secure blockchain systems with global block difficulty which relies only on total hash rate.
Adaptation and Evolution of Decision Support Systems—A Typological Survey

There are many ways in which a literature survey can be done. One is to study the chronological order of development and another is to make a study of the developmental process itself. There is also a way of surveying the evolution in its different stages of growth with various adaptations made. This paper is an attempt to study the different stages of growth of the Decision Support Systems taking into consideration the different types based on its framework, its application, and its architecture. In each, a few models are evaluated to show the evolution of Decision Support Systems. Although there are many models of Decision Support Systems that have evolved with growth of technological advancements, a complete study of all the models is not the scope of the paper. Rather, the paper attempts to show that since the Decision Support Systems evolved with the adaptation of advancements in technological developments, the decision support system in the future will also evolve in the line of technological developments.
Part-Frequency Matrices, II: Recent Work

We illustrate the use of part-frequency matrices as a tool for combinatorial proofs of partition theorems. Several new theorems are rapidly proved, and progress is made toward replacing the proof of a known theorem proved by modular forms with a more combinatorial approach. A few lines of investigation are suggested. All currently-published papers known to the author that employ the idea are cited here.
Characterization of a new HLA-C*04 allele, C*04:112.

HLA-C*04:112 differs from HLA-C*04:01:01:01 by one nucleotide at position 270 resulting in an amino acid change, Lysine to Asparagine, at codon 66 of exon 2.
Snake fear and the pictorial emotional Stroop paradigm

The purpose of this study was to test a novel pictorial emotional Stroop paradigm that required participants to name the colors of filtered images on a computer screen. High (n = 20) and low (n = 20) snake-fearful participants color-named filters covering images of snakes (threat), cows (neutral), bunnies (positive), and blank screens. Each image appeared as if viewed through tinted sunglasses. The results revealed that both groups took longer to name the colors of filters covering bunnies as well as snakes relative to filters covering cows. Intensely snake-fearful individuals (n = 5), however, exhibited additional interference for snake pictures beyond that evoked by bunny pictures. Thus, pictorial cues having positive as well as negative emotional valence disproportionately captured attention. This paradigm shows promise as a nonlexical, ecologically valid approach to evaluating selective processing of emotional cues.
Migration Theory in the Domestic Context North-South Labor Movement in Brazil

Sugar cane has remained central to the Brazilian economy, and increasingly so as rising petroleum prices spark an increase in the demand for ethanol. As a world leader in sugar cane based ethanol production, Brazil has a need for low-skilled, low-wage workers in this industry. As petroleum prices rise, and with them the demand for biofuels, the incentives to produce more sugar cane in Brazil have fueled the demand for labor on plantations and in sugar mills. In Brazil's sugar-producing regions of the central and southeastern states, the labor demands in the fields are primarily filled by migrants. However, these migrants are not foreigners, but Brazilians who migrate seasonally from northern and northeastern states such as Maranhao, Bahia, Alagoas, Para, and Minas Gerais. Although these workers are Brazilians traveling and working in their home country, they face many of the difficulties that international migrants in other countries face, including discrimination, poor wages, and inhumane working conditions. This article discusses theoretical approaches to domestic sugar cane labor migration in Brazil.
Protecting Medicine in the 21st Century

C. Everett Koop is McInerny Professor of Surgery at Dartmouth Medical School, and Senior Scholar at the C. Everett Koop Institute, also at Dartmouth. From 1981 to 1989 he served as the United States Surgeon General and continues to educate the public about health issues through his writings. Dr.