cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Millennials and Wars: Iraq and Afghanistan

This chapter focuses on specific uses of the military: fighting war and terrorism. Great differences are uncovered regarding military-affiliates’ attitudes toward the war in Iraq but less for Afghanistan. The findings point to similarities and differences that are case specific relative to the specific war or type of war. Millennial youth today are aligned and conformed to the larger American society. The American antiwar youth movement of today may be simply military avoidance.
Effect of Hyaluronidase on Inflaniination

Summary1. Hyaluronidase modifies the inflammatory response of tissue due to certain oil and water-soluble irritants. 2. Hyaluronidase affects the vascular response. The spread of trypan blue in the tissues representing increased vascular permeability. appears earlier and is greater when the irritants are administered with hyaluronidase: and where the nature of the irritant is such as to produce hemorrhages. the areas of these hemorrhages are also greater and occur earlier. 3. Hyaluronidase does not alter the solubility or absorption of an oil-soluble irritant. 4. Use of hyaluronidase with oil or water-soluble irritants eliminates edema from the classical picture of inflammation. This may have practical applicability where prevention of edema resulting from contact with irritants is important. 5. These studies also indicate that hyaluronidase is a useful tool for investigating the edema aspect of the inflammatory reaction.
Searching for Blue Oceans: Mental Representation and the Discovery of New Strategies

This paper studies how managers come up with new strategies by reinterpreting a popular management tool, Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS), from the perspective of theories of mental representation and search. We formally explore this issue by developing a parsimonious simulation model of the process of discovery of new products. Our model infuses BOS with cognitive considerations (such as the role of mental representations and search) and BOS infuses previous search models of the Carnegie tradition with managerially meaningful search primitives (the addition and deletion of product/service attributes, and varying attribute levels). The model presented here sheds light on several questions: (i) under what conditions is a method like BOS more likely to be a successful search strategy? (ii) how to improve the chances of discovering valuable strategies? and (iii) how much risk is incurred by searching using a BOS-like heuristic? Additionally, by analyzing the risk and return of strategies, our model also provides ad...
Gastrointestinal bleeding and intracranial hemorrhage in concomitant users of warfarin and antihyperlipidemics.

Abstract Background Drug interactions, particularly those involving warfarin, are a major clinical and public health problem. Minimizing serious bleeding caused by anticoagulants is a recent major focus of the United States (US) Department of Health and Human Services. This study quantified the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) and intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) among concomitant users of warfarin and individual antihyperlipidemics. Methods The authors conducted a high-dimensional propensity score-adjusted cohort study of new concomitant users of warfarin and an antihyperlipidemic, among US Medicaid beneficiaries from five states during 1999–2011. Exposure was defined by concomitant use of warfarin plus one of eight antihyperlipidemics. The primary outcome measure was a composite of GIB/ICH within the first 30days of concomitant use. As a secondary outcome measure, GIB/ICH was examined within the first 180days of concomitant use. Results Among 236,691 persons newly-exposed to warfarin and an antihyperlipidemic, the crude incidence of GIB/ICH was 13.2 (95% confidence interval 12.7 to 13.8) per 100person-years. Users were predominantly older, female, and Caucasian. Adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) for warfarin and individual statins were consistent with no association. Warfarin+gemfibrozil was associated with an 80% increased risk of GIB/ICH within the first month of concomitant use (aHR=1.8, 1.4 to 2.4). Warfarin+fenofibrate was associated with a similar increased risk (aHR=1.8, 1.2 to 2.7), yet with an onset during the second month of concomitant use. Conclusions Among warfarin-treated persons, the use of fibrates―but not statins―increases the risk of hospital presentation for GIB/ICH.
Abstract 151: Transcriptome-wide expression profiling of long noncoding and small nucleolar RNAs in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas identifies novel transcripts associated with survival

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) persists as one of the most common and deadly malignancies, with early detection and effective treatment still posing formidable challenges. To expand our currently sparse knowledge of the epigenetic alterations involved in this disease and identify potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets, we globally profiled the dysregulation of small nucleolar (snoRNA) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) in head and neck tumors. Using next-generation RNA-sequencing data from 40 pairs of tumor and matched normal tissues, we profiled lncRNA expression by mapping each RNA-seq library to a reference annotation containing 32,108 lncRNAs. Using edgeR, we found 19,681 lncRNA transcripts significantly differentially expressed by a fold change magnitude ≥ 4 with a false discovery rate Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Thomas K. Honda, Angela Zou, Vicky Yu, Hao Zheng, Selena Kuo, Maarouf Saad, Yinan Xuan, Pranav Singh, Jessica Wang-Rodriguez, Weg M. Ongkeko. Transcriptome-wide expression profiling of long noncoding and small nucleolar RNAs in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas identifies novel transcripts associated with survival. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 151. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-151
Task preference, affective response, and engagement in L2 use in a US university context:

While learners’ engagement has been recognized as important for second language (L2) learning in task-based language teaching (TBLT), how engagement is manifest in learners’ L2 use during task perf...
Proper holomorphic self-mappings of hartogs domains in

In this paper it is proved that every paper holomorphic self mapping of a certain Hartogs domain is biholomorphic.
KLF4 Plays an Essential Role in Corneal Epithelial Homeostasis by Promoting Epithelial Cell Fate and Suppressing Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition

Purpose The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that KLF4 promotes corneal epithelial (CE) cell fate by suppressing the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), using spatiotemporally regulated CE-specific ablation of Klf4 in Klf4Δ/ΔCE (Klf4LoxP/LoxP/Krt12rtTA/rtTA/Tet-O-Cre) mice. Methods CE-specific ablation of Klf4 was achieved by feeding Klf4Δ/ΔCE mice with doxycycline chow. The wild-type (WT; normal chow-fed littermates) and the Klf4Δ/ΔCE histology was compared by hematoxylin and eosin-stained sections; EMT marker expression was quantified by quantitative PCR, immunoblots, and immunofluorescent staining; and wound healing rate was measured by CE debridement using Algerbrush. KLF4 and EMT markers were quantified in human corneal limbal epithelial (HCLE) cells undergoing TGF-β1-induced EMT by quantitative PCR, immunoblots, and immunofluorescent staining. Results The epithelial markers E-cadherin, Krt12, claudin-3, and claudin-4 were down-regulated, whereas the mesenchymal markers vimentin, β-catenin, survivin, and cyclin-D1 and the EMT transcription factors Snail, Slug, Twist1, Twist2, Zeb1, and Zeb2 were up-regulated in the Klf4Δ/ΔCE corneas. The Klf4Δ/ΔCE cells migrated faster, filling 93% of the debrided area within 16 hours compared with 61% in the WT. After 7 days of wounding, the Klf4Δ/ΔCE cells that filled the gap failed to regain epithelial characteristics, as they displayed abnormal stratification; down-regulation of E-cadherin and Krt12; up-regulation of β-catenin, survivin, and cyclin-D1; and a 2.5-fold increase in the number of proliferative Ki67+ cells. WT CE cells at the migrating edge and the HCLE cells undergoing TGF-β1-induced EMT displayed significant down-regulation of KLF4. Conclusions Collectively, these results reveal that KLF4 plays an essential role in CE homeostasis by promoting epithelial cell fate and suppressing EMT.
Cerebral Protection during Cardiopulmonary Bypass: Devices and Techniques to Prevent Air Embolism

The subject of optimum cerebral protection during cardiopulmonary bypass is far from resolved [1]. However, in recent years important strides have been made in understanding which devices and techniques protect best. Air, or gas embolism (massive or micro) from the extracorporeal circuit has been implicated in neurologic dysfunction in patients following cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Prevention of air embolism has been the focus of surgeons and perfusionists since the advent of open-heart surgery in the 1950s. The dangers and consequences of air embolism, however, have been reported in the literature many centuries prior to the advent of open-heart surgery. The manifestations may be subtle or gross, transient or permanent, depending on several factors including volume and type of gas, rate of infusion, and methods of treatment used when air embolism is recognized. Technique considerations for minimizing gaseous microemboli include choice of circuit components and methods of their operation. Use of arterial filters and membrane oxygenators has been suggested for decreasing gaseous microemboli. In cases of air embolism, safety devices on the CPB circuit may limit the extent of patient injury.
Baseline susceptibility of spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) to four key insecticide classes.

BACKGROUND The invasive drosophilid pest, Drosophila suzukii Matsumura, is affecting berry production in most fruit-producing regions of the world. Chemical control is the dominant management approach, creating concern for insecticide resistance in this pest. We compared the insecticide susceptibility of D. suzukii populations collected from conventional, organic or insecticide-free blueberry sites. RESULTS The sensitivity of D. suzukii to malathion and spinetoram declined slightly across the 3 years of monitoring, whereas it was more consistent for methomyl and zeta-cypermethrin. The sensitivity of D. suzukii to all four insecticides (LC50 and LC90 values) did not differ significantly among the blueberry fields using different management practices. CONCLUSIONS The baseline sensitivity of D. suzukii has been characterized, allowing future comparisons if field failures of chemical control are reported. The concentration achieving high control indicates that effective levels of control can still be achieved with field rates of these four insecticides. However, declining susceptibility of some populations of D. suzukii to some key insecticides highlights the need for resistance monitoring. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry
Underrepresentation of adolescents with respiratory, mental health, and developmental disabilities using American Community Survey (ACS) questions.

Abstract Background Disability prevalence estimates are used to identify populations, establish priorities and allocate funding for a broad range of federal, state, and local initiatives. Increasingly, these estimates are based on a set of six questions developed and tested for use in the American Community Survey (ACS). A key assumption about the ACS disability screeners is that they sufficiently capture the entire population of people with disabilities, but some studies indicate that certain disability groups are underrepresented. Objectives The objective of this study is to explore potential underrepresentation of certain disability groups identified by the ACS disability questions. Methods We compared disability prevalence rates from two data sources for adolescents with disabilities, aged 14 to 16, who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI, n = 2051). The Social Security Administration (SSA) provided disability determination data for each adolescent, and adolescents (or proxy-rater) provided baseline self-report data about functional limitation based on the six ACS disability questions. Results Approximately 17% of the sample did not endorse any ACS questions. Excluding SSA categories with cell counts less than 10, the top five conditions not captured by ACS questions included respiratory conditions (38%), mood disorders (28%), other mental disorders (27%), schizophrenic and other psychotic disorders (27%) and developmental disorders (20%). Conclusions Our findings suggest that people with mental health and developmental disabilities and those with respiratory conditions are among those groups under-represented by the ACS disability questions. Changes or additions to ACS questions should be considered to ensure that all disability groups are addressed in public health planning.
Gene drives and the expanding horizon of governance

Like other areas of emerging science and technology that trigger prolonged public debate over their transformative prospects, gene drives simultaneously generate prospects for new knowledge, hoped-...
Elucidating the Effects of Metal Complexation on Morphological and Rheological Properties of Polymer Solutions by a Dissipative Particle Dynamics Model

When a salt is added to a polymer solution, metal cations may coordinate with polymer ligands forming interchain and intrachain links. Metal coordination leads to drastic changes of polymer morphology, formation of clusters, and, ultimately, a sol–gel transition that affect the solution rheology. Although metal coordination is ubiquitous in polymeric systems, the physical mechanisms of coordination-induced morphological and rheological changes are still poorly understood due to the multiscale nature of this phenomenon. Here, we propose a coarse-grained dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) model to study morphological and rheological properties of concentrated solutions of polymers in the presence of multivalent cations that can coordinate the polymer ligands. The coordinating metal is introduced as a 3D complex of planar, tetrahedral, or octahedral geometry with the central DPD bead representing the metal cation surrounded at the vertices by either four or six dummy beads representing coordination sites, s...
In vitro anti-mycobacterial activity of some new amino-glycoside antibiotics.

Summary Four new aminoglycoside antibiotics, namely gentamycin, amikacin, tobramycin and sisiomycin were tested against several pathogenic strains of so-called ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ mycobacteria. Only amikacin exhibited considerable in vitro anti-mycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and not against other mycobacterial pathogens. None of the other three antibiotics exhibited activity against any of the mycobacteria at low concentrations.
Formalized Knowledge Representation to Support Integrated Planning of Highway Projects

The objective of this paper is to propose an ontology capable of supporting a structured coordination of spatial-temporal conflicts in highway projects plans. For many highway agencies, there are different functional groups in charge of capital projects planning, safety, design and construction, maintenance and rehabilitation, and short-term operational tasks. However, many of these functional groups tend to have a “siloed” approach to planning. Integrated planning is therefore challenged by the existence of multiple incompatible legacy systems and the lack of a standardized knowledge representation format for planned highway projects information. Current literature and existing formal representations fail to address the level of information coverage and depth to support the integrated planning of highway projects. Accordingly, this study proposes an ontology-enabled knowledge representation which allows relevant planned projects information and inter-project conflicts to be processed in a standard computer interpretable manner. Ontology development was done through the analysis of project attributes of more than 30 highway agencies, review of existing ontologies, and interviews with team leads of different functional groups of highway agencies. The proposed representation was validated via logical consistency checks and competency questions evaluations in the Protege environment. Future work will aim to employ this ontology to capture and implement tacit integrated projects planning knowledge for improved decision support.
How Preservice Teachers Transform Pedagogical Discomfort into Multicultural Knowledge for Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline

This study examined how preservice teachers transform discomforting experiences into multicultural awareness for disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. The study was conducted from 2016 to 2017 at an urban private university in the mid-Atlantic region. The design for the research draws from Yin’s steps to conducting a collective case study and is framed by Zembylas’ notion of pedagogical discomfort as a tool for advancing preservice teachers’ multicultural knowledge. Participants comprised three preservice teachers enrolled in a 4-year teacher education program who volunteered to tutor students in the school-to-prison pipeline. Data consisted of a survey, individual interview, focus group, and weekly reflective journals. Findings evidence the discomforting experience of tutoring students in the school-to-prison pipeline served as a transformative tool for advancing preservice teachers’ multicultural knowledge for developing pedagogies that are inclusive of the experiences of students’ lives and histories.
Recycling Discarded Histories to Chronicle Identities: Making Art from Waste in Mozambique

Contemporary Mozambican artists who utilize recyclia as media create artworks that chronicle their society through bits and pieces of its discarded histories. Creating quintessentially Mozambican art, symbolic materials become potent signifiers of this developing nation. This article explores multivalent themes including object materiality, recycling, art making in Africa, and post-conflict resolution to determine why and how Mozambican artists utilize post-consumer waste. Factors including past wars, poverty, and a quest for creative expansion have contributed to widespread use of recycling as an artistic practice in Mozambique, despite artists’ varied economic, social, and educational levels. Mozambican artists who recycle their nation’s pre-used remnants not only connect to past cultural and artistic practices; they continue these traditions within contemporary contexts. By creating artwork from cast-off materials, artists illustrate how recycling permeates all levels of society, including its broad expansion into art making, and how the use of reprocessed materials both inspires and instills a sense of pride in artistic practices. Themes addressed in artwork made from recyclia include politics, social commentary, and cultural heritage. Artists include Fiel, who transforms destroyed weapons of Mozambique’s past wars into powerful tools for peacebuilding and post-conflict resolution; Carmen, who uses her old dresses to create hanging fabric pieces that capture shadows creating dissonance between light and dark; Joao, who calls for donations of jeans on Facebook that he will patch together and use as a variegated background supports for painting; and Pekiwa, who critiques Mozambican society through his use of recycled boats, windows, and doors.
A 128-Gb/s 1.3-pJ/b PAM-4 Transmitter With Reconfigurable 3-Tap FFE in 14-nm CMOS

This article describes a 128-Gb/s pulse amplitude-modulation 4-level (PAM-4) transmitter (TX) implemented in a 14-nm CMOS FinFET technology. Equalization is provided by a fully reconfigurable 3-tap baud-spaced feed-forward equalizer (FFE). The TX uses a segmented tailless current mode logic (CML) driver topology. The key architectural and circuit techniques include the thermometer-encoded driver slices, the clock phase selection circuits to perform segment reassignment to different FFE taps, and coarse–fine tuning of the FFE tap weights. The measured energy efficiencies for PAM-4 signaling are 1.33 pJ/b at 128 Gb/s with 1-Vppd output amplitude and 1.0 pJ/b at 112 Gb/s with 0.6-Vppd output amplitude. These results represent the highest data rate and best energy efficiencies reported to date.
Soil compaction from cut-to-length thinning operations in young redwood forests in northern California

In northern California, United States, a cut-to-length (CTL) system was recently used for the first time to harvest young redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (Lamb. ex D. Don) Endl.) forests. Landowners ...
La acústica de los instrumentos musicales de viento - metal

espanolEl movimiento de los labios, la variedad de materiales, las valvulas o pistones, el numero de agujeros y muchos otros factores, influyen en la acustica de los instrumentos de viento - metal. Su sonido depende tanto del instrumento en si como del musico que lo toca. Aunque los instrumentos de viento - metal no se clasifican como aparatos cientificos, hay efectos que son prueba de que la fisica esta en todas partes, incluso en los lugares mas inesperados como una trompeta. EnglishThe movement of the lips, the variety of materials, the valves, the number of holes and many other factors influence the acoustics of the wind instruments. Their sound depends as much on the instrument itself as on the performance of the player. Although brasswind instruments are not classified as scientific devices, there are effects that prove that physics is everywhere, even in the most unexpected places like a trumpet.
Ranking Graduate Programs: Alternative Measures of Quality

Numerical measures of quality were used to rank US graduate programs in chemical engineering. The results were compared with the reputational ranking based on a survey conducted by the National Research Council. The numerical ranking and the NRC reputational ranking are in very good agreement for the highest ranked programs, but are less well correlated for lower ranked programs. It is proposed that the numerical rankings, which are based on publications, citations, research support, and honors, are a better measure of quality, especially for smaller programs and programs whose quality is changing significantly.
The human mitochondrial enzyme BCO2 exhibits catalytic activity toward carotenoids and apocarotenoids.

The enzyme β-carotene oxygenase 2 (BCO2) converts carotenoids into more polar metabolites. Studies in mammals, fish, and birds revealed that BCO2 controls carotenoid homeostasis and is involved in the pathway for vitamin A production. However, it is controversial whether BCO2 function is conserved in humans, because of a 4-amino acid long insertion caused by a splice acceptor site polymorphism. We here show that human BCO2 splice variants, BCO2a and BCO2b, are expressed as pre-proteins with mitochondrial targeting sequence (MTS). The MTS of BCO2a directed a green fluorescent reporter protein to the mitochondria when expressed in ARPE-19 cells. Removal of the MTS increased solubility of BCO2a when expressed in Escherichia coli and rendered the recombinant protein enzymatically active. The expression of the enzymatically active recombinant human BCO2a was further improved by codon optimization and its fusion with maltose-binding protein. Introduction of the 4-amino acid insertion into mouse Bco2 did not impede the chimeric enzyme's catalytic proficiency. We further showed that the chimeric BCO2 displayed broad substrate specificity and converted carotenoids into two ionones and a central C14-apocarotendial by oxidative cleavage reactions at C9,C10 and C9‘,C10‘. Thus, our study demonstrates that human BCO2 is a catalytically competent enzyme. Consequently, information on BCO2 becomes broadly applicable in human biology with important implications for the physiology of the eyes and other tissues.
SACC - A property driven approach to expose undesired behaviors among system’s components

In recent years, there has been an increase in automation of safety critical systems such as self-driving cars, caretaking robots, or rescue drones. With increase in automation, the risk of systems behaving in an undesired manner has also risen. Most safety analysis approaches predominantly concentrate on identifying or assessing how the failure of a component can affect the behavior of a system based on the system’s requirements. Yet, undesired behaviors can also occur when multiple components concurrently exert opposite effects on a shared resource. To identify safety-critical issues due to undesired concurrent component behaviors, we propose a property-driven approach called safety assessment for concurrent components (SACC). SACC uses a combinatorial technique that considers the requirements specification of a system, expressed as the states and properties of the system’s components for identifying undesired combinations of component behaviors. To evaluate SACC, we performed a study using a requirements document on a caretaking robot. Our results show that SACC identified 38%-80% more undesired system behaviors when compared to the control techniques.
Three-Dimensional Superconducting Resonators at T <20 mK with Photon Lifetimes up to τ =2 s

Very-high-quality-factor superconducting radio-frequency cavities developed for accelerators can enable fundamental physics searches with orders of magnitude higher sensitivity, and they can also offer a path to a 1000-fold increase in the achievable coherence times for cavity-stored quantum states in three-dimensional circuit QED architecture. Here we report measurements of multiple accelerator cavities of resonant frequencies of ${f}_{0}=1.3$, 2.6, 5 GHz down to temperatures of about 10 mK and field levels down to a few photons, which reveal very long photon lifetimes up to 2 s, while also further exposing the role of the two-level systems (TLS) in niobium oxide. We also demonstrate how the TLS contribution can be greatly suppressed by vacuum heat treatments at 340--450 ${}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}\mathrm{C}$.
Hidradenitis suppurativa in patients of color is associated with increased disease severity and healthcare utilization: A retrospective analysis of 2 U.S. cohorts.

Background Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is known to disproportionately affect patients of color; however, there is a paucity of evidence on how its disease profile varies between races and ethnic groups. Objective Explore potential race-dependent differences in the disease profile of HS. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on HS patients at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. Data were compared in terms of demographics, disease severity, and healthcare utilization between races in adults identified to have at least 2 encounters coded for HS. Validation was conducted using Optum's de-identified Clinformatics Data Mart Database of national insurance claims. Results Our cohorts consisted of 939 HS patients seen at Stanford and 13,885 HS patients taken from the national dataset. Black and Hispanic patients had greater healthcare utilization compared to White patients. In addition, Hispanic patients at our institution also had significantly increased disease severity compared to their White counterparts (χ2 P = .009). Hispanic patients entered tertiary care at an earlier age (Stanford mean: 30.8 years for Hispanics vs 38.7 for Whites; P Limitations These cohorts may not be representative of the entire HS patient population. Conclusion Our findings suggest that patients of color may have greater healthcare utilization and disease severity compared to other groups.
Closing Reflection: The Way Forward

One of the most difficult challenges facing the Biden administration will be undoing a profoundly unwise entanglement of policy decisions. To understand the true dimension of that problem, it helps to look at the document that most succinctly captures the thinking behind the Trump administration’s policy regarding the pandemic: The Great Barrington Declaration. Although it was not published until October 2020, it summarized the thinking of the administration’s most hyper-libertarian advisors, including Dr. Scott Atlas, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar. The authors, a loose collective of epidemiologists and doctors, proposed a strategy they called Focused Protection. They asserted that “current lockdown policies” are causing “irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.” A second major challenge for the Biden administration will be the degree to which deeply contested hierarchies of legitimacy, and a jabbering bewilderment of competing sources, all laying claim to “truth” assisted the propagation of deadly confusion about basic medical science. This paper was prepared as part of "COVID-19 Policy Playbook: Legal Recommendations for a Safer, More Equitable Future," a comprehensive report published by Public Health Law Watch in partnership with the de Beaumont Foundation and the American Public Health Association.
Learning Knowledge-Rich Sequential Model for Planar Homography Estimation in Aerial Video

This paper presents an unsupervised approach that leverages raw aerial videos to learn to estimate planar homographic transformation between consecutive video frames. Previous learning-based estimators work on pairs of images to estimate their planar homographic transformations but suffer from severe over-fitting issues, especially when applying over aerial videos. To address this concern, we develop a sequential estimator that directly processes a sequence of video frames and estimates their pairwise planar homographic transformations in batches. We also incorporate a set of spatial-temporal knowledge to regularize the learning of such a sequence-to-sequence model. We collect a set of challenging aerial videos and compare the proposed method to the alternative algorithms. Empirical studies suggest that our sequential model achieves significant improvement over alternative image-based methods and the knowledge-rich regularization further boosts our system performance. Our codes and dataset could be found at https://github.com/Paul-LiPu/DeepVideoHomography.
Spinal Deformities in the Adolescent Athlete.

Idiopathic scoliosis will be noted in 2% to 3% of typically developing athletes. Sports physicals are an opportunity to screen for spinal deformity and to promote healthy involvement in activities. Bracing is effective at limiting further progression if a curve progresses beyond 20°. If spinal fusion is performed, most surgeons allow return to noncontact and contact sports by 6 to 12 months. There are many other conditions associated with scoliosis that require a more nuanced approach and assessment of the entire patient. Patients with Down syndrome should be examined for myelopathy before participation and a lateral radiograph obtained if concerned for instability.
Racial Disparities in Crime Victimization during the COVID-19 Lockdown

The study examines racial differences in crime victimization rates among Black, Hispanic and White individuals during the stay-at-home order in Dallas city, TX. The study is based on sample of 85,958 calls for service recorded by Dallas Police Department between February 13, 2019, and April 30, 2020, where victims have been identified and their race is known. The findings suggest that Blacks were less likely to experience unintended drop in crime rates during the lockdown and also less likely to see decline in crimes against property when compared to both White and Hispanic victims. At the same time Blacks were more likely to experience increase in crimes committed at the apartments during the lockdown with Black females experiencing higher increase than Black males. There were no differences in crime victimization for incidents occurred in public places and crimes against persons.
Novel Use of Long, Large-Caliber, Fenestrated Stents for Endoscopic Transpapillary Gallbladder Stenting for Therapy of Symptomatic Gallbladder Disease.

Symptomatic gallbladder disease (SGBD) has a high prevalence in the general population, and early cholecystectomy is considered definitive therapy for patients with symptomatic cholelithiasis [1, 2]. Conservative therapy is recommended for those patients in whom surgery is contraindicated or considered high risk [3–5]. Nonsurgical gallbladder drainage methods include percutaneous and endoscopic drainage techniques [5]. While percutaneous transhepatic gallbladder catheter drainage (PCD) is efficacious, it has risks of puncture-related adverse events and tube dislodgement and results in significant patient discomfort [5, 6]. PCD is usually a temporary step until the patient is fit for surgery, symptoms resolve or drainage can be internalized by endoscopic transpapillary gallbladder stenting (ETGS) which involves placement of an internal transpapillary stent. ETGS has technical and clinical success rates comparable to PCD with the advantage of internal drainage; however, its limitations include the potential for stent migration or occlusion requiring stent exchange, cystic duct or gallbladder perforation, and recurrence of symptomatic biliary disease [5–10]. ETGS has been previously described mainly using rigid, double-pigtail polyethylene plastic stents of diameter 5–7 Fr and length 10–15 cm, with inherent limitations in drainage, flexibility, and patency [5–10]. Johlin pancreatic wedge stents (JS) (Wilson-Cook Medical, Winston-Salem, NC, USA) are made of Sof-Flex material, which is a softer polyurethane and polyethylene blend. They are fenestrated with large, multi-side holes along the length of the stent and are available in 8.5 and 10 Fr diameters and variable lengths up to 22 cm (Fig. 1). JS for ETGS have theoretical advantages over conventional stents, including soft material with conformability to tortuous cystic ducts, the presence of side holes, and large caliber allowing potentially longer patency. We report our initial experience using JS for ETGS.
Fracture behavior of SiC whisker-reinforced Al2O3 with modified interfaces

Carbon-coated SiC whiskers have been examined as a function of coating thickness for reinforcement in Al_2O_3. A compliant carbon layer at the whisker/ matrix interface modifies the residual stress due to thermal expansion mismatch and changes the interfacial chemistry. The fracture behavior of this material has been observed using 4-point bending for strength and the double cantilever beam technique for fracture toughness and R-curve behavior. The strength and R-curve behavior of composites with and without whisker coatings of carbon are presented to evaluate the effect of modified interfaces on the mechanical performance of whisker composites.
Recent Progress in Lorentz Transmission Electron Microscopy - Applications to Multi-Ferroic Materials

After a brief review of the basic methods of Lorentz transmission elec- tron microscopy (LTEM), including the Transport-of-Intensity formalism for phase reconstruction, we present a few examples of the application of LTEM to multi- ferroic materials, in this case ferromagnetic shape memory alloys. We discuss ob- servations of magnetic domain walls pinned to anti-phase boundaries in Ni2MnGa, and domain wall behavior under an in-situ applied magnetic field in Fe-Pd-Co.
Chapter 1 Oxygen availability: sensory systems

Publisher Summary To maintain oxidative metabolism active animals must be able to sense and respond to changes in environmental O 2 availability and metabolic O 2 demand. This is especially true for aquatic animals such as fish because they are subject to extreme spatial and temporal changes in ambient or environmental O 2 tensions. In addition, energetic activities (i.e., migration, pursuing prey, and fleeing predators) require that fishes regulate the delivery of O 2 internally to metabolically active tissues. This chapter focuses on chemoreceptors that are sensitive to O 2 and alter the performance of fish's cardiovascular and ventilatory systems to maintain oxidative metabolism in the face of decreasing environmental O 2 availability, compromised O 2 uptake ability and/or increased metabolic demand. Most experimental evidence indicates that cardiovascular and ventilatory functions are predominately driven by O 2 in aquatic animals. Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) also appears to have direct effects on cardioventilatory reflexes in teleost fishes and elasmobranchs but these effects are more variable and less intense than the responses to O 2 .
Digital and Physical Materiality of Information Technologies: The Case of Fitbit Activity Tracking Devices

This paper explores the role of digital and physical materiality in relation to the use of Fit bit activity tracking devices. Materiality concerns properties of a technology that transcend space, time, and particularities of the contexts. Our objective, in particular, is to examine how digital and physical properties may play a role in shaping user's perception and actions around the use of Fit bit devices. The primary findings are (1) both digital and physical material properties of the device together provide a material framework, which constrains and enables users' activities, and (2) both forms of materiality are contingent upon the design/form of the device. As a result the materiality of digital information cannot be studied without examining its entwining with the information technology that records, processes, shares, and represents it.
Autonomic Consequences of Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results not only in motor and sensory deficits but also in autonomic dysfunctions. The disruption of connections between higher brain centers and the spinal cord, or the impaired autonomic nervous system itself, manifests a broad range of autonomic abnormalities. This includes compromised cardiovascular, respiratory, urinary, gastrointestinal, thermoregulatory, and sexual activities. These disabilities evoke potentially life-threatening symptoms that severely interfere with the daily living of those with SCI. In particular, high thoracic or cervical SCI often causes disordered hemodynamics due to deregulated sympathetic outflow. Episodic hypertension associated with autonomic dysreflexia develops as a result of massive sympathetic discharge often triggered by unpleasant visceral or sensory stimuli below the injury level. In the pelvic floor, bladder and urethral dysfunctions are classified according to upper motor neuron versus lower motor neuron injuries; this is dependent on the level of lesion. Most impairments of the lower urinary tract manifest in two interrelated complications: bladder storage and emptying. Inadequate or excessive detrusor and sphincter functions as well as detrusor-sphincter dyssynergia are examples of micturition abnormalities stemming from SCI. Gastrointestinal motility disorders in spinal cord injured-individuals are comprised of gastric dilation, delayed gastric emptying, and diminished propulsive transit along the entire gastrointestinal tract. As a critical consequence of SCI, neurogenic bowel dysfunction exhibits constipation and/or incontinence. Thus, it is essential to recognize neural mechanisms and pathophysiology underlying various complications of autonomic dysfunctions after SCI. This overview provides both vital information for better understanding these disorders and guides to pursue novel therapeutic approaches to alleviate secondary complications.
Mississippi River water in the Florida Straits and in the Gulf Stream off Georgia in summer 2004

[1] A coherent plume from the Mississippi River was detected in MODIS imagery in July–October 2004 extending from the eastern Gulf of Mexico into the Florida Straits (FS), and reaching the Gulf Stream (GS) off Georgia. The plume was sampled from ships in the FS and the GS. In early August, the plume was about 10–20 km wide in the western FS and about 50 km wide off Georgia. The FS ship survey (16–26 August) documented a 50 km, 10–20 m deep band with anomalies in surface salinity (−0.8), temperature (0.5°C), and surface chlorophyll concentration (2×) relative to FS waters outside the plume. Nutrient concentrations were only slightly higher in the FS plume and there was no apparent increase in colored dissolved organic matter. We estimate that the plume carried some 23% (∼2778 m3 s−1) of the Mississippi River discharge between July and September 2004 into the GS.
Isolation of mutations that act in trans to alter expression from a yeast hsp70 promoter

Transcription of SSA1 (formerly YG100), a member of the hsp70 gene family in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, increases dramatically upon heat shock. An expression vector in which the promoter of SSA1 is fused to the Escherichia coli galactokinase gene (galK) was constructed and transformed into a galactokinase-deficient yeast strain. The transformants grew on galactose at 23 degrees C, but increased expression of the SSA1-galK fusion gene inhibited growth of cells on galactose at 37 degrees C. Selection for survivors under nonpermissive conditions yielded a class of mutants, termed HSR (for heat shock regulation), which showed reduced levels of expression of the hsp70-galK gene fusion as determined by measurement of galactokinase activity. Similar effects on beta-galactosidase activity were obtained when an SSA1-lacZ fusion vector was introduced into the mutants, suggesting action in trans through the SSA1 promoter. Analysis of Northern (RNA) blots demonstrated that the reduction in expression was a result of decreased mRNA levels for the fusion gene. In addition, mRNA levels of the endogenous SSA1 gene are reduced in an HSR mutant. Genetic analysis has shown that these mutations act in trans and affect both transcription from the SSA1 promoter and turnover of the fusion transcript. These are the first trans-acting mutations known to affect directly the transcriptional regulation and transcript stability of heat shock genes in eucaryotes.
Complexity of Normal Form Properties and Reductions for Term Rewriting Problems Complexity of Normal Form Properties and Reductions for Term Rewriting Problems

We present several new and some significantly improved polynomial-time reductions between basic decision problems of term rewriting systems. We prove two theorems that imply tighter upper bounds for deciding the uniqueness of normal forms (UN$^{=}$) and unique normalization (UN$^{→}$) properties under certain conditions. From these theorems we derive a new and simpler polynomial-time algorithm for the UN$^{=}$ property of ground rewrite systems, and explicit upper bounds for both UN$^{=}$ and UN$^{→}$ properties of left-linear right-ground systems. We also show that both properties are undecidable for right-ground systems. It was already known that these properties are undecidable for linear systems. Hence, in a sense the decidability results are "close" to optimal.
On the Hot Corrosion of Nickel at 700 °C

The reaction of nickel with Na2SO4 was studied in an O2–0.1SO2 atmosphere at 700 °C, conditions typical of type II hot corrosion. The interaction of NiO with the sulfate was thermodynamically analyzed and compared with the dissolution–precipitation process known to occur at higher temperatures. Here the dissolution stage was short-lived due to a positive solubility gradient for Ni2+. The relatively fast growth of a NiO layer above a nickel sulfide layer was attributed to the inward molecular transport of SO2–SO3 through the porous NiO. The influence of environmental variables was further assessed by reacting nickel with and without Na2SO4 in air and then with no deposit in O2–0.1SO2. The roles of the deposit and atmosphere on the boundary conditions affecting the oxidation–sulfidation process were discussed on the basis of the observed reaction paths.
The role of snow cover affecting boreal-arctic soil freeze–thaw and carbon dynamics

Abstract. Northern Hemisphere permafrost affected land areas contain about twice as much carbon as the global atmosphere. This vast carbon pool is vulnerable to accelerated losses through mobilization and decomposition under projected global warming. Satellite data records spanning the past 3 decades indicate widespread reductions (~ 0.8–1.3 days decade−1) in the mean annual snow cover extent and frozen-season duration across the pan-Arctic domain, coincident with regional climate warming trends. How the soil carbon pool responds to these changes will have a large impact on regional and global climate. Here, we developed a coupled terrestrial carbon and hydrology model framework with a detailed 1-D soil heat transfer representation to investigate the sensitivity of soil organic carbon stocks and soil decomposition to climate warming and changes in snow cover conditions in the pan-Arctic region over the past 3 decades (1982–2010). Our results indicate widespread soil active layer deepening across the pan-Arctic, with a mean decadal trend of 6.6 ± 12.0 (SD) cm, corresponding to widespread warming. Warming promotes vegetation growth and soil heterotrophic respiration particularly within surface soil layers (≤ 0.2 m). The model simulations also show that seasonal snow cover has a large impact on soil temperatures, whereby increases in snow cover promote deeper (≥ 0.5 m) soil layer warming and soil respiration, while inhibiting soil decomposition from surface (≤ 0.2 m) soil layers, especially in colder climate zones (mean annual T ≤ −10 °C). Our results demonstrate the important control of snow cover on northern soil freeze–thaw and soil carbon decomposition processes and the necessity of considering both warming and a change in precipitation and snow cover regimes in characterizing permafrost soil carbon dynamics.
Nanoprobe NMR spectroscopy and in vivo microdialysis: new analytical methods to study brain neurochemistry.

Abstract Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to study the chemical composition of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) microdialysate from the rat brain. In vivo microdialysis techniques were used in several brain regions including the frontal cortex, amygdala, striatum, nucleus accumbens and third ventricle and dialysate samples (20 μl) were subsequently analyzed by one and two-dimensional 1 H NMR experiments using a Varian nanoprobe. Neurochemical resonances were assigned on the basis of published chemical shifts [Lindon et al., Ann. Rep. NMR Spectrosc. 38 (1999) 1–88], correlation experiments and addition of standard compounds. Glucose, lactate, formate, pyruvate, creatinine, γ-hydroxybutyrate, acetate, glutamate, glycine, tyrosine, isoleucine, leucine, alanine and choline were some of the neurochemicals unambiguously assigned. Additional studies in the frontal cortex showed that amino acids such as glutamate, alanine and isoleucine were sensitive to local tetrodotoxin (TTX) infusion. The NMR spectra were also subjected to multivariate statistical methods to compare the different brain regions examined. To our knowledge, the present experiments are the first to describe the combination of nanoprobe NMR technology with in vivo microdialysis for the analysis of brain neurochemistry in freely-moving rats.
A Framework for Multiresolution Optimization in a Parallel/Distributed Environment

A novel framework for multi-resolution optimization methodology is developed for parallel/distributed simulation environments. The architecture is constructed with multiple clusters hierarchically arranged with each level solving different degrees of abstracted problems. Creation and deletion of clusters are executed dynamically during the search operation. A higher level cluster evaluates a wider search space with low resolution, whereas a lower level cluster investigates a smaller search space which is more promising for containing the global optimum. Each cluster consists of acontroller(expert system) andagents(GA), where the agents evaluate the parameters of the problem of variable structure which allocates more computing resources to promising search subspaces. This article describes the prototyping of thehierarchical distributed genetic algorithms(HDGA) in an object-oriented simulation environment and provides preliminary experimental results. The results are promising, and many theoretical questions concerning robustness of the approach are raised for future research.