cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Europe: 1500–1914

In 1500 the unity of Christendom was still Europe’s ideal. Christian unity lasted as long as it did because of the constant challenge of the non-Christian world. In the seventh and eighth centuries it had been attacked by Muslim invaders who struck at Europe through Spain and later through the Balkans. In the ninth and tenth centuries Asiatic nomad Magyar horsemen had raided deep into Europe. From the eighth to the eleventh centuries Europe had been threatened by the pagan Vikings, whose dragon-prowed ships had penetrated its waterways, and whose plundering and murdering had spread terror throughout Christendom. In the thirteenth century Europe had been battered by the Mongols, who swept from the heartland of Asia through eastern Europe to the shores of the Adriatic. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Christian Europe had turned back the Turks at the gates of Vienna. Only with the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century did the Turks cease to threaten Europe and its unifying faith. By then the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire had long since passed the peak of their spiritual and temporal power; the unity of the Church had given way to the unity of the nation.1
Yoga Research and Public Health: Is Research Aligned With The Stakeholders' Needs?

Research on yoga is witnessing an unprecedented proliferation currently, partly because of great interest in yoga’s health utility. However, yoga research does not seem to be sufficiently public he...
INSECT IMMUNITY TO VIRUSES

Immunity to viruses that replicate in insect hosts is of interest from both basic and applied perspectives in terms of (1) increased understanding of fundamental processes involved in anti-viral immunity and viral counter-measures, (2) use of this knowledge to facilitate the means by which arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) of vertebrate hosts can be managed, and (3) exploitation of strategies used by viruses to overcome physiological barriers for pest management purposes. In this chapter, we review the anti-viral mechanisms against viruses that replicate in insects, including genetic resistance, physical and physiological barriers to infection, cellular and subcellular inhibition, humoral immunity and developmental resistance, and finally highlight some practical applications of this knowledge for management of agricultural pests and vector-borne disease.
Monoclonal Antibodies: Clinical Utility and the Misunderstood Epitope

Monoclonal antibodies are increasingly being employed in the clinical laboratory to aid in the diagnosis, prognosis, and selection of therapy for patients with a wide variety of hematopoietic malignancies and immunologic defects. The increased use of these reagents in the clinical setting has produced a number of surprises: receptors for these reagents are being found on unexpected cell types. This article discusses through both generalities and specific examples how these reagents are produced; why they are so costly compared to previously employed polyclonal reagents; what is the meaning of the apparent cross-reactions observed with these reagents; and suggests some strategies for using the reagents in the clinical setting.
Model Validation for Direct and Inverse Problems

Sophisticated acoustic models form the inner loop in most inversion schemes. Trust in these models has come from comparing their results to scale-model and at-sea experiments. The modeling is challenging, partly because ocean acoustic problems span a wide range of frequencies. At the high end we have sources squealing at megahertz frequencies, propagating sound just a few millimeters. This is the scenario for sing-around velocimeters used to measure the speed of sound in the ocean. At the low end sources rumble like the deepest organ notes at tens of Hertz making sound heard around the world. Such problems emerge for a new type of sing-around velocimeter proposed for monitoring global warming. Important decisions are made based on the models. Can they be trusted? We briefly review some of the efforts that have been made to answer this question.
Studies of compressive forces on L5/S1 during dynamic manual lifting

The lifting task is the major activity contributing to the risk of lower back injur}. The purpose of this study was to examine the mechanical stresses on the lower back during manual lifting and to analxze how people adapt to the stresses. This purpose was accomplished by approaching the mechanical stresses on the lower back from three different perspectives. The effects of manual lifting tasks were measured as: the fatigued condition, the knowledge of load and the prex ions lilts, and effort in lifting oxer a constraining barrier. A biomechanical model ( linked segment and rigid bodx i ua> applied to estimate the peak compressive forces at the L5/S1 (lower back) joint during the manual lifting tasks. Three-dimensional locations of joint markers were digitized using a Peak Video and Analog Motion Measurement System. A strain-gage force platform was used to determine the location, direction and magnitude of external ground reaction forces acting on the feet. The peak compressixe forces at the loxxer back xvere insignificantly different when individuals x\ere fatigued. Some indix iduals increased and others decreased when they were fatigued. Indixiduals tended to lift faster and bring the load closer to the body when fatigued. Individuals applied different techniques of lifting xxlien thex xxere fatigued. Individuals lifted and adapted differentlx during the subsequent lifts when lifting known or unknown loads of different masses. Lifting under an unknown condition generated greater stresses on the lower back, especially when the load was light. When lifting a light load, indix iduals adapted to the lifts by bringing the load closer to the body, which reduced the stresses on the loxxer back. Hoxvever. when the load was heavy, individuals adapted the lifts bx changing the lifting technique, which did not reduce the stresses on the loxver back. Lifting oxer a constraint barrier dex eloped greater forces on the lower back. Individuals required more Hexing of the loxxer back and less bending of the knees when lifting over the barrier. Individuals adapt to their internal or external lifting environment. These adaptations can increase or decrease the peak compressive forces.
A coiled-coil strategy for the directional display of multiple proteins on the surface of iron oxide nanoparticles

Current methods for attachment of proteins to inorganic nanoparticle surfaces utilize strategies that can destroy the tertiary structure of large proteins and/or do not allow for directional attachment, thereby diminishing functionality. We report a novel approach for the conjugation of proteins to iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) through coiled-coil interactions. With this strategy, coiled-coiled interactions drive attachment of the desired protein, fused to a K-coil peptide, and E-coil peptides linked to the IONP surface via a nanoparticle attachment peptide (NAP). Importantly, this method allows for directional attachment of proteins without the use of either chemical conjugation or extreme pH solutions and, thus, allows maintenance of correct protein structure with functional orientation relative to the IONP surface. In our studies, monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) were used as model proteins to demonstrate the coiled-coil approach can be utilized to attach large proteins to IONP surfaces while maintaining complex tertiary structures. These proof-of-concept studies showed EGFP- and mRFP-K-coil fusion proteins interacted specifically with E-coil-coated nanoparticles and multiple different proteins could be displayed on individual IONPs. We did not observe fluorescence after conjugation of fluorescent proteins to either E-coil-coated IONPs or dopamine-coated IONPs, which was likely due to quenching or FRET activity induced by the iron oxide core. However, substituting an E-coil-bound chromatography resin for E-coil-coated IONPs allowed the preservation of protein fluorescence following coiled-coil attachment of K-coil-fused mRFP, demonstrating the coiled-coil attachment strategy provided maintenance of the mRFP tertiary structure required for fluorescence. The coiled-coil nanoparticle attachment strategy developed herein should have broad applications in nanomedicine.
Rest-activity rhythm and sleep characteristics associated with depression symptom severity in strained dementia caregivers.

Summary Depression is associated with disturbances to sleep and the 24-h sleep–wake pattern (known as the rest–activity rhythm: RAR). However, there remains a need to identify the specific sleep/RAR correlates of depression symptom severity in population subgroups, such as strained dementia caregivers, who are at elevated risk for major depressive disorder. We assessed the cross-sectional associations of sleep/RARs with non-sleep depression symptom severity among 57 (mean age: 74 years, standard deviation: 7.4) strained dementia caregivers who were currently without clinical depression. We derived sleep measures from polysomnography and actigraphy, modelled RARs using a sigmoidally transformed cosine curve and measured non-sleep depression symptom severity using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HRDS) with sleep items removed. The following sleep–wake measures were associated with greater depression symptom severity (absolute Spearman's correlations ranged from 0.23 to 0.32): more time awake after sleep onset (WASO), higher RAR middle level (mesor), relatively shorter active periods (alpha), earlier evening settling time (down-mesor) and less steep RARs (beta). In multivariable analysis, high WASO and low RAR beta were associated independently with depression symptom severity. Predicted non-sleep HDRS means (95% confidence intervals) in caregivers with and without these characteristics were: normal WASO/beta = 3.7 (2.3–5.0), high WASO/normal beta = 5.5 (3.5–7.6), normal WASO/low beta = 6.3 (3.6–8.9) and high WASO/low beta = 8.1 (5.3–10.9). Thus, in our sample of strained caregivers, greater sleep fragmentation (WASO) and less sustained/sharply segregated resting and active periods (low RAR beta) correlate uniquely with depression symptom severity. Longitudinal studies are needed to establish whether these independent sleep–wake correlates of depression symptoms explain heightened depression risk in dementia caregivers.
Dynamic discrete energy-averaged model for magnetostrictive materials

Abstract This study develops a rate-dependent constitutive model which includes pinning site loss and eddy current loss for magnetostrictive materials. The static pinning site loss is described by an energy-weighted averaging framework; the stress- and field-induced eddy current loss is defined by Maxwell’s equations. Due to the eddy currents, the magnetic field in magnetostrictive materials is inhomogeneous especially when the excitation frequency is beyond the cut-off frequency. The model developed in this study is able to capture the stress- and field-induced magnetic diffusion. Analytical solutions are derived for magnetostrictive rods and minor loop responses. However, numerical solutions can be found for other geometries and large input amplitudes using the same modeling algorithm. The model is used to interpret flux density versus stress measurements of a highly-textured, 〈 1 0 0 〉 -oriented, polycrystalline Fe 81.6 Ga 18.4 rod under constant current biasing. The model accurately and efficiently reproduces the nonlinear magnetostrictive behavior up to 800 Hz, which is much higher than the cut-off frequency.
A PLC-γ1 Feedback Pathway Regulates Lck Substrate Phosphorylation at the T-Cell Receptor and SLP-76 Complex.

Phospholipase C gamma 1 (PLC-γ1) occupies a critically important position in the T-cell signaling pathway. While its functions as a regulator of both Ca2+ signaling and PKC-family kinases are well characterized, PLC-γ1’s role in the regulation of early T-cell receptor signaling events is incompletely understood. Activation of the T-cell receptor leads to the formation of a signalosome complex between SLP-76, LAT, PLC-γ1, Itk, and Vav1. Recent studies have revealed the existence of both positive and negative feedback pathways from SLP-76 to the apical kinase in the pathway, Lck. To determine if PLC-γ1 contributes to the regulation of these feedback networks, we performed a quantitative phosphoproteomic analysis of PLC-γ1-deficient T cells. These data revealed a previously unappreciated role for PLC-γ1 in the positive regulation of Zap-70 and T-cell receptor tyrosine phosphorylation. Conversely, PLC-γ1 negatively regulated the phosphorylation of SLP-76-associated proteins, including previously established L...
Self-Regulating Streaming Systems: Challenges and Opportunities

In recent years, stream processing systems have been deployed in almost every organization due to the explosion of large-scale analytics applications. Our discussions with users of these systems within Microsoft and Twitter have revealed that a major challenge with these frameworks is to tune them in order to meet the required performance and also maintain this level of performance over time. In this paper, we present the open problems and challenges in supporting streaming systems that self-regulate. Such systems automatically adjust their configuration to meet service level objectives (SLOs) even in the presence of external load variations or internal faults such as slow hardware. To address some of these challenges, we propose using machine learning techniques such as supervised learning and reinforcement learning which can potentially further improve the application management lifecycle. We believe that exploring machine learning in the context of self-regulating streaming systems is a rich area for future research with can impact the ways streaming applications are managed.
Use of hospice services among Medicare beneficiaries with acute and chronic leukemias.

68Background: Studies show lower rates of hospice use among patients (pts) with hematologic malignancies. Our objective was to describe trends in hospice use and in quality measures for end-of-life...
The dangers of the “Head Down” position in patients with untreated pituitary macroadenomas: case series and review of literature

Cavernous sinus syndrome is a rare phenomenon, characterized by simultaneous neuropathies of cranial nerves III–VI. Various pathological processes have been reported as precipitating etiologies, including infection, inflammation, vascular lesions, and neoplasms. We report a unique case series of cavernous sinus syndrome attributable to prolonged Trendelenburg or prone positioning during non-cranial procedures and review the pertinent literature to enlighten on this rare but catastrophic phenomenon. Retrospective case series. In the past year we encountered two patients who presented with acute cavernous sinus syndrome upon awakening from non-cranial operations. One patient underwent an extensive urologic resection of a bladder malignancy positioned in Trendelenburg for approximately 4 h. The second patient underwent a lumbar laminectomy and discectomy in prone position. Both patients were discovered to have infarcted large pituitary macroadenomas as the etiology of their acute ophthalmoplegias, and transnasal, transsphenoidal resection was performed acutely to decompress the cavernous sinus contents. Pathologic analysis of the resected specimens in each case confirmed necrotic, infarcted pituitary adenoma. Both patients made a complete recovery with no evidence of residual or recurrent tumor in short term follow-up. We report a brief case series of acute cavernous sinus syndrome resulting from dependent positioning during non-cranial operations in patients with pituitary macroadenoma. Although rare, this highlights a potential danger of “head down” positioning in patients with intracranial pathology—particularly in or around the sella and cavernous sinus. Despite multiple cranial neuropathies upon presentation, both patients made complete recovery following surgical decompression of the cavernous sinuses.
Safety and feasibility of the robotic platform in the management of surgical sequelae of chronic pancreatitis

The application of minimally invasive surgery to chronic pancreatitis (CP) procedures is uncommon. Our objective was to report the safety and feasibility of the robotic approach in the treatment of surgical sequelae of CP, and provide insights into the technique, tricks, and pitfalls associated with the application of robotics to this challenging disease entity. A retrospective review of a prospectively maintained database of patients undergoing robotic-assisted resections and/or drainage procedures for CP at the University of Pittsburgh between May 2009 and January 2017 was performed. A video of a robotic Frey procedure is also shown. Of 812 robotic pancreatic resections and reconstructions 39 were for CP indications. These included 11 total pancreatectomies [with and without auto islet transplantation], 8 Puestow procedures, 4 Frey procedures, 6 pancreaticoduodenectomies, and 10 distal pancreatectomies. Median age was 49, and 41% of the patients were female. The most common etiology for CP was idiopathic pancreatitis (n = 16, 46%). Median operative time was 324 min with a median estimated blood loss of 250 ml. None of the patients required conversion to laparotomy. A Clavien III–IV complication rate was experienced by 5 (13%) patients, including one reoperation. Excluding the eleven patients who underwent TP, rate of clinically relevant postoperative pancreatic fistula was 7% (Grade B = 2, Grade C = 0). No 30 or 90 day mortalities were recorded. The median length of hospital stay was 7 days. Use of the robotic platform is safe and feasible when tackling complex pancreatic resections for sequelae of chronic pancreatitis.
Beyond Walter Cronkite’s “And That’s The Way It Is”: Ten American Network News anchors’ swan songs

Television anchors are key public figures in the American news media, vital for the ratings success of their outlets. This study uses content analysis and framing theory to examine US network news ...
Strategic Decisions under Nonstationary Conditions: A Stopping-Control Paradigm

Long-range engineering planning involves multiple objectives and uncertainty about a future state of the environment that will evolve from the current state through nonstationary stochastic processes (climate change is one possible source of nonstationarity). The questions that often arise are: When is it optimal to stop waiting for a reduction of uncertainty and make a commitment to a plan ? What is the optimal magnitude of a control or design variable (size of the project) ? This decision problem is modeled as a finite horizon, discrete-time, continuous-state, nonstationary stopping-control process with Markovian forecasts of an uncertain state, Bayesian updating of distributions, and a multiattribute utility function representing the decision maker’s preference over outcomes. The model rests on Bayesian principles of rationality. Aspects arising uniquely from the nonstationarity of environmental processes are highlighted.
Frequency response by pulse reduction for the analysis of TRS spectra.

Biological systems can be analyzed by near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy in two ways: (1) A system can be characterized by studying its photon absorption and scattering as a lumped parameter system. A good example of this approach is the measurement of hemoglobin oxygen saturation (or other chromophore concentration) in an organ of the human body under various physiological conditions; (2) Heterogeneities in an organ can be located, for instance imaging of brain or breast tumors. Since the degree of light absorption by various chromophores (oxy/deoxy hemoglobin, cytochrome aa3, etc.) and that of its scattering by biological scatterers (mitochondria, fat particles, etc.) reflects the physiological state, it is important to obtain accurately the absorption and scattering coefficients of a homogeneous system. At the same time, accurate measurement of the intensity and the phase shift difference at specific positions relative to the surrounding tissue is crucial for imaging.
The Own-Rates Framework as An Interpretation of The General Theory : A Suggestion for Complicating the Keynesian Theory of Money

It is my belief that the far-reaching and in some respects fundamental differences between the conclusions of a monetary economy and those of the more simplified real-exchange economy have been greatly undersestimated by the exponents of the traditional economics; with the result that the machinery of thought with which real-exchange economics has equipped the minds of practitioners in the world of affairs and also of economists themselves has led in practice to many erroneous conclusions and policies. The idea that it is comparatively easy to adapt the hypothetical conclusions of a real wage economics to the real world of monetary economics is a mistake. It is extraordinarily difficult to make the adaption and perhaps impossible without the aid of a developed of theory of monetary economics. (Keynes 1933 p. 410)
STRONG S AND L SPACES UNDER MA

Publisher Summary This chapter describes strong S and L spaces under Martin's axiom. All spaces considered are assumed to be regular. An S-space is a space that is hereditarily separable (HS) and not hereditarily Lindelof (HL); an L-space is one that is HL and not HS. It is unknown whether it is consistent that there are no S- and L-spaces or, equivalently, whether it is consistent that for all X, X is HS if X is HL. Under continuum hypothesis (CH), many of the known constructions of S- and L-spaces can be modified to produce strong S- and L-spaces. The existence of (regular) strong S- and L-spaces is consistent with eCH as these spaces are preserved under forcing extensions with property K.
The Thermal Infrared

Thermal infrared (TIR) wavelengths compose the electromagnetic spectrum from approximately 2.5 μm to 14 μm. Atmospheric absorption dominates the TIR with the exception of two windows, one from approximately 2.5 μm to 5 μm, and another from 8 μm to 14 μm. Scanning systems rather than photographic products must be employed in the TIR, so TIR images can not be used for stereographic interpretation. Thermal scans are expensive, and contractors willing to conduct them are few. So make sure that there are good reasons to expect that thermal contrasts will give you an advantage in identifying hazards on the ground.
Anti-D from alloimmunization versus RhIG: detective work in the blood bank and transfusion medicine services.

Background The blood bank and transfusion medicine services (BBTMS) engages with electronic health records (EHRs), clinicians, and outside hospitals (OHs) to obtain comprehensive patient history to optimize care. Detection of anti-D in a pregnant patient underscores this work. Differentiating passive anti-D due to RhIG administration versus alloanti-D affects clinical decision making. The objectives of this study were to identify the required steps, barriers, and outcomes of anti-D investigations in obstetric patients. Study design and methods This retrospective case series reviewed nine pregnant patients over 24 months, for whom anti-D was identified with no reported RhIG history. Six steps were performed to ascertain anti-D history: 1) review the on-site EHR; 2) contact the on-site obstetrician, 3) review history from the automatic health information exchange (HIE) with OHs using the same EHR platform, 4) request information from OHs with a shared EHR platform and without automatic HIE, 5) contact the OH BBTMS, and 6) communicate with the outside ambulatory practice (OAP). Results The investigations revealed that eight of nine patients received RhIG before their presentation. Five patients received RhIG at an OH's emergency department and three at an OAP. One patient's history remained unknown after initial investigations; however, a subsequent sample unveiled a confounding alloantibody. Conclusion In the absence of a national HIE, continuity of care suffers through omission of critical information. Strategies to avoid confusing passive anti-D and alloanti-D include expanding HIE capabilities and use of patient identification cards with critical BBTMS information to include RhIG administration dates.
Stimulated Raman Imaging of Lipids Droplets

Lipids are abundant in C-H 2 groups. Thus in their Raman spectrum, the relatively isolated peaks associated with C-H bond vibrational states at 2845 cm-1 provide a unique signature for lipids inside a cell, distinguishing them from other chemical species. Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy allows vibrational contrast mechanism for imaging with high spectral and spatial resolution along with three-dimensional sectioning. SRS has proven to be particularly powerful for studying lipid rich structures. Additionally, lipid droplets (LDs) provide an especially strong signal for SRS microscopy.In this paper, the implementation of a microscope based on the femtosecond stimulated Raman scattering (f- SRS) spectroscopy not commercially available, working into the C-H region or O−H region (2800 − 3200 cm−1) in stimulated Raman gain (SRG) modality is outlined. In addition, an investigation of LDs in fixed adipocytes is reported.
A Practice Theory Approach to Understanding Poly-Tobacco Use in the United States.

This paper uses practice theory to explore a poorly understood phenomenon with important health implications: How and why an increasing number of young Americans regularly use multiple tobacco prod...
The expression and function of TRPV4 channels in primate retinal ganglion cells and bipolar cells.

The transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) channel may be opened by mechanical stimuli to mediate Ca2+ and Na+ influxes, and it has been suggested to mediate glaucoma retinopathy. However, it has been mostly unclear how TRPV4 activities affect the function of primate retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). We studied RGCs and bipolar cells (BCs) in the peripheral retina of the old-world primate using whole-cell current-clamp and voltage-clamp recordings, immunomarkers and confocal microscopy. RGCs were distinguished from displaced amacrine cells (ACs) by the absence of GABA and glycine immunoreactivity and possession of an axon and a large soma in the RGC layer. Strong TRPV4 signal was concentrated in medium to large somas of RGCs, and some TRPV4 signal was found in BCs (including PKCα-positive rod BCs), as well as the end feet, soma and outer processes of Mȕller cells. TRPV4 immunoreactivity quantified by the pixel intensity histogram revealed a high-intensity component for the plexiform layers, a low-intensity component for the soma layers of ACs and Mȕller cells, and both components in the soma layers of RGCs and BCs. In large RGCs, TRPV4 agonists 4α-phorbol 12,13 didecanoate (4αPDD) and GSK1016790A reversibly enhanced the spontaneous firing and shortened the delay of voltage-gated Na+ (Nav) currents under current-clamp conditions, and under voltage-clamp conditions, 4αPDD largely reversibly increased the amplitude and frequency of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents. In BCs, changes in the membrane tension induced by either applying pressure or releasing the pressure both activated a transient cation current, which reversed at ~ −10 mV and was enhanced by heating from 24 °C to 30 °C. The pressure for the half-maximal effect was ~18 mmHg. These data indicate that functional TRPV4 channels are variably expressed in primate RGCs and BCs, possibly contributing to pressure-related changes in RGCs in glaucoma.
Kinematic Analysis, Simulation and Manipulating of a 5-DOF Robotic Manipulator for Service Robot

Five degrees of freedom (5-DOF) robotic manipulator has the advantage of simple structure, flexible action, small volume, convenient operation and so on, which is widely used in many fields. A light weighted 5-DOF robotic manipulator with a three-finger end effector was designed and manufactured for service robot. In order to make the robotic manipulator more stable, faster and more accurate, a series of analysis and simulation of the 5-DOF robotic manipulator are carried out in this paper, including kinematic analysis of the mechanical arm, the mechanism analysis, motion analysis and force analysis of the end effector. In addition, the kinematical model simulation of the mechanical arm was employed, and the stress analysis and strain analysis were applied. A force control model of the end effector based on BP neural network algorithm was also presented to control the clip force. The effectiveness of the manipulator model was validated by corresponding experiments.
Advances in Financial Machine Learning: Lecture 7/10 (seminar slides)

Machine learning (ML) is changing virtually every aspect of our lives. Today ML algorithms accomplish tasks that until recently only expert humans could perform. As it relates to finance, this is the most exciting time to adopt a disruptive technology that will transform how everyone invests for generations. In this course, we discuss scientifically sound ML tools that have been successfully applied to the management of large pools of funds.
Automated applicator digitization for high-dose-rate cervix brachytherapy using image thresholding and density-based clustering.

Abstract Purpose The purpose of the study was to develop and evaluate an automated digitization algorithm for high-dose-rate cervix brachytherapy, with the goal of reducing the duration of treatment planning, staff resources, variability, and potential for human error. Methods An automated digitization algorithm was developed and retrospectively evaluated using treatment planning data from 10 patients with cervix cancer who were treated with a titanium tandem and ovoids applicator set. Applicators were segmented, without human interaction, by thresholding CT images to isolate high-density voxels and assigning the voxels to applicator and nonapplicator structures using HDBSCAN, a density-based linkage clustering algorithm. The applicator contours were determined from the centroid of the clustered voxels on each image slice and written to a treatment plan file. Automated contours were evaluated against manual digitization using distance and dosimetric metrics. Results A close agreement between automatic and manual digitization was observed. The mean magnitude of contour disagreement for 10 patients equaled 0.3 mm. Hausdorff distances were ≤1.0 mm. The applicator tip coordinates had submillimeter agreement. The median and mean dose volume histogram parameter differences were less than or equal to 1% for high-risk clinical target volume D90, high-risk clinical target volume D95, bladder D2cc, rectum D2cc, large bowel D2cc, and small bowel D2cc. The average execution time for the automated algorithm was less than 30 s. Conclusion The digitization of titanium tandem and ovoids applicators for high-dose-rate brachytherapy treatment planning can be automated using straightforward thresholding and clustering algorithms. The adoption of automated digitization is expected to improve the consistency of treatment plans and reduce the duration of treatment planning.
A Software Factory in the Cloud for Pandemics and other Disasters - Initial Results and Future Directions

Pandemics such as COVID-19 and other disasters in this age require a wide range of cyber-physical solutions such as web portals, mobile apps, IoTs, robots and drones. These solutions need to be customized for different geographical locations with different capabilities and should be produced quickly and at massive scales to meet the specific demands of the disasters. To complicate matters further, several government policies and industry guidelines regulate the deployment and use of such solutions. It is virtually impossible to handcraft the needed solutions individually and manually. A factory model is needed to rapidly build highly customized solutions very much like the auto factories that build millions of highly customized cars to satisfy needed safety requirements. In the same vein, this paper presents initial results from a software factory in the cloud that has produced a Smart Global Village (SGV) with more than 700 smart hubs for 130 countries that span 12 sectors, including disaster management. These highly customized smart hubs, created by using the SPACE Factory in less than 20 minutes per hub, also collaborate with each other that leads to highly creative B2B collaborations at global level. The paper discusses initial results from creating the SGV sandbox by using a factory model and outlines future research directions.
Electricity Market Restructuring and Retail Rates

State-regulated investor-owned utilities serve over 70 percent of electricity to final end-use retail consumers in the U.S. Prior to the 1990s, all states used a “cost of service (COS)” regulation regime in which investor-owned utilities were allowed to recover prudently incurred costs plus a rate of return on capital expenditures. From 1996-2000, some states passed electricity market “restructuring” that, over time, required utilities to separate the generation portion of their operations and allowed customers to purchase power from third party providers (commonly referred to as “retail choice”). This empirical research examines the effect of restructuring on electricity prices to final consumers. While these policies were generally advertised to reduce rates for final customers, in fact rates increased in restructured states relative to plausible counterfactual synthetic controls. We investigate plausible mechanisms for this finding; we find evidence that retail rates in restructured states are more responsive to natural gas price changes, the marginal fuel source during the period of analysis, and natural gas prices nationally increased in the post-restructuring era.
THE FIRMAMENT OF NEUROSCIENCE LOSES A SHINING STAR (in memoriam Oleh Hornykiewicz)

Oleh Hornykiewicz, one of the most accomplished neuropharmacologists of the 20th century passed away on May 26, 2020 at the age of 93. In 1939, Oleh’s father, a Ukrainian Catholic priest, fled with his young family from Soviet-occupied Ukraine and settled in Vienna. During his medical studies, Oleh became fascinated by pharmacology and in 1956 was awarded a fellowship to Oxford University (U.K.) where he worked with Dr. Hermann Blaschko, a pioneer in the study of enzymes of catecholamine synthesis and metabolism. At that time, it was still thought that dopamine was merely an intermediate in the synthesis of norepinephrine. Dr. Hornykiewicz demonstrated that even after its breakdown had been blocked, administration of dopamine or its precursor L-DOPA could elevate blood pressure in animal models. Dopamine was bioactive per se. Upon his return to Vienna in 1958, the young scientist began studying dopamine in the brain. Familiar with Parkinson’s Disease and intrigued by Arvid Carlsson’s finding that L-DOPA could counteract the akinesia of the reserpenized rat, Dr. Hornyckiewicz began to suspect that a dopamine deficiency mediated the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. He developed new techniques, applied these to the study of postmortem brains, and demonstrated that Parkinson’s disease was associated with a dopamine deficiency in the basal ganglia. Shortly afterwards, he and Walter Birkmeyer observed how the intravenous administration of L-DOPA could awaken mute and akinetic patients with Parkinson’s disease. For the first time, a discreet chemical was both implicated in a complex brain disorder and could be used as a treatment. This stands as one of the seminal discoveries in neuropharmacology. To this day, L-DOPA remains a mainstay in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.Over the following half-century Dr. Hornykiewicz continued his own work, generously mentored others and established brain banks in Vienna as well as in Toronto, Canada where he worked for many years. He received numerous awards, and was nominated for but not awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, in a decision that has remained controversial. He will remain forever, a brilliant star in the history of neuropharmacology.
Compact and automated particle counting platform using smartphone-microscopy.

Abstract The majority of existing advanced automated cell counter instruments used in laboratory settings are complex, expensive, and bulky. As a result, applications of these instruments have been limited to such laboratories. Meanwhile, in many rural areas and developing countries, clinical laboratories equipped with optical microscopy, hematology analyzers or commercial automated particle counters may not be readily accessible to everyone. However, in the same regions, the number of cell-phone users are rapidly increasing, suggesting a need to develop an easy-to-use and portable smart-phone based cell counting technology that can be leveraged in resource-limited areas. To this end, we present an automated, portable and easy-to-use smartphone-based particle counting platform designed to detect particles in a sample solution. This novel pump-less, flow-based portable technology utilizes a small lens attached to a smartphone camera to magnify particles passing through a microfluidic channel, and record a video using a smartphone camera application. The captured video is transmitted to a local computer to be processed through a custom-developed algorithm to perform particle counting. Using a total of 30 different test samples, we have shown that our technology can detect and count polystyrene beads as small as 16.2 μm with ~100% accuracy. We evaluated the performance of our new technology using different size particles and showed that the results are comparable to the tedious, manual - microscope based counting method. Although, we benchmark the performance of the platform using polystyrene beads, we emphasize the wide applicability of the platform to a wide range of biological, biomedical, and industrial applications.
A Deliberative Orientation to Governing Carbon Dioxide Removal: Actionable Recommendations for National-Level Action

Effective and legitimate governance of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) requires that the needs, interests, and perspectives of those liable to bear the burdens of CDR’s effects be present in decision-making and oversight processes. This ideal has been widely recognized in prior academic work. How, though, in a practical sense, is this deliberative aspect of CDR governance to be understood? In this policy brief, we look at the future incorporation of carbon removal pledges into the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of countries under the Paris Agreement, and we argue for and explore a deliberative orientation when it comes to the inclusion of CDR into country-level climate change response goals. The aim is to provide practical guidance on deliberation as a toolkit and set of practices.
Oligogenic combinations of rare variants influence specific phenotypes in complex disorders

Genetic studies of complex disorders such as autism and intellectual disability (ID) are often based on enrichment of individual rare variants or their aggregate burden in affected individuals compared to controls. However, these studies overlook the influence of combinations of rare variants that may not be deleterious on their own due to statistical challenges resulting from rarity and combinatorial explosion when enumerating variant combinations, limiting our ability to study oligogenic basis for these disorders. We present a framework that combines the apriori algorithm and statistical inference to identify specific combinations of mutated genes associated with complex phenotypes. Our approach overcomes computational barriers and exhaustively evaluates variant combinations to identify non-additive relationships between simultaneously mutated genes. Using this approach, we analyzed 6,189 individuals with autism and identified 718 combinations significantly associated with ID, and carriers of these combinations showed lower IQ than expected in an independent cohort of 1,878 individuals. These combinations were enriched for nervous system genes such as NIN and NGF, showed complex inheritance patterns, and were depleted in unaffected siblings. We found that an affected individual can carry many oligogenic combinations, each contributing to the same phenotype or distinct phenotypes at varying effect sizes. We also used this framework to identify combinations associated with multiple comorbid phenotypes, including mutations of COL28A1 and MFSD2B for ID and schizophrenia and ABCA4, DNAH10 and MC1R for ID and anxiety/depression. Our framework identifies a key component of missing heritability and provides a novel paradigm to untangle the genetic architecture of complex disorders.
Flavor and Dark Matter via the one Higgs

Abstract Three families of quarks and leptons, one Higgs to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.
Induction of resistance toPeronospora tabacinain tobacco leaf disks by leaf disks with induced resistance

Abstract Tobacco leaf disks with lesions caused by tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) or Peronospora tabacina and lesion-free disks from symptomless leaves of TMV-infected plants induced resistance to P. tabacina and Botrytis cinerea in leaf disks in an agar medium. The tobacco cultivar used in all experiments contained the N gene for resistance to TMV. Resistance was not induced by sodium salicylate (NaSA)-treated leaf disks, nor by NaSA added to the medium. The phytoalexins rishitin, lubimin and phytuberol were detected in the medium containing disks with lesions and they were associated with the inhibition of spore germination and growth of three fungi in the medium. However, phytoalexins were not required for the induction of resistance as they were not detected in the medium containing lesion-free disks from TMV-infected plants, and the medium containing these disks did not inhibit spore germination and growth of the fungi tested. These results provide evidence that disks containing lesions caused by TMV and P. tabacina and lesion-free disks from leaves of TMV-infected plants produce a volatile and/or release a diffusible signal(s), which is not a phytoalexin or NaSA, and this signal(s) induces resistance to P. tabacina . The putative signal is present in uninfected disks that have induced resistance.
Discriminatively Activated Sparselets

Shared representations are highly appealing due to their potential for gains in computational and statistical efficiency. Compressing a shared representation leads to greater computational savings, but can also severely decrease performance on a target task. Recently, sparselets (Song et al., 2012) were introduced as a new shared intermediate representation for multiclass object detection with deformable part models (Felzenszwalb et al., 2010a), showing significant speedup factors, but with a large decrease in task performance. In this paper we describe a new training framework that learns which sparselets to activate in order to optimize a discriminative objective, leading to larger speedup factors with no decrease in task performance. We first reformulate sparselets in a general structured output prediction framework, then analyze when sparselets lead to computational efficiency gains, and lastly show experimental results on object detection and image classification tasks. Our experimental results demonstrate that discriminative activation substantially outperforms the previous reconstructive approach which, together with our structured output prediction formulation, make sparselets broadly applicable and significantly more effective.
Surface current balance and thermoelectric whistler wings at airless astrophysical bodies: Cassini at Rhea

Sharp magnetic perturbations found by the Cassini spacecraft at the edge of the Rhea flux tube are consistent with field-aligned flux tube currents. The current system results from the difference of ion and electron gyroradii and the requirement to balance currents on the sharp Rhea surface. Differential-type hybrid codes that solve for ion velocity and magnetic field have an intrinsic difficulty modeling the plasma absorber's sharp surface. We overcome this problem by instead using integral equations to solve for ion and electron currents and obtain agreement with the magnetic perturbations at Rhea's flux tube edge. An analysis of the plasma dispersion relations and Cassini data reveals that field-guided whistler waves initiated by (1) the electron velocity anisotropy in the flux tube and (2) interaction with surface sheath electrostatic waves on topographic scales may facilitate propagation of the current system to large distances from Rhea. Current systems like those at Rhea should occur generally, for plasma absorbers of any size such as spacecraft or planetary bodies, in a wide range of space plasma environments. Motion through the plasma is not essential since the current system is thermodynamic in origin, excited by heat flow into the object. The requirements are a difference of ion and electron gyroradii and a sharp surface, i.e., without a significant thick atmosphere.
Remote maintenance for fusion: requirements vs. technology gap

Present remote-handling technology was developed in response to the remote maintenance (RM) requirements of the fission community's nuclear fuel recycle process. The technology must be enhanced to respond to the RM needs of future fusion applications. Current fusion RM needs determined from existing facilities and designs of future machines are discussed. The gap between the requirements and existing RM technology is exposed and ways of closing this gap are recommended. >
A History of Modern Iran: Muhammad Reza Shah's White Revolution

The monarchy has a special meaning for Iranian families. It is in our way of life. It has been an integral part of our history for 2,500 years. Empress Farah The shah's only fault is that he is really too great for his people – his ideas are too great for us. Assadollah Alam, court minister Interviewer: “Your Majesty, where have your supporters gone?” The shah: “Search me.” Press interview in 1978 STATE EXPANSION (1953–75) Muhammad Reza Shah continued after 1953 where his father had been forced to leave off in 1941. He restarted at full speed the drive to expand the three pillars that held up his state: the military, the bureaucracy, and the court patronage system. In many ways, his reign was a continuation of his father's – with some minor variations. Whereas the father had ruled in the age of fascism and talked bluntly of making trains run on time, the son lived at the height of the Cold War and thus shied away from the language of autocracy and racism. But even he, at the peak of his power, could not resist adding to his exalted list of royal titles the brand new one of Arya Mehr (Aryan Sun). Muhammad Reza Shah fulfilled Reza Shah's dream of building a massive state structure.