cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Improving Diagnosis from Past Prognosis in Structural Health Monitoring

This paper presents a method of improving the accuracy of current diagnosis by using the prediction from previous inspection results. A major drawback of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems is that the uncertainty in inspection results is large compared to that of manual inspection. However, unlike manual inspection, SHM can take frequent measurements and trace crack growth. By taking advantage of this fact, higher accuracy about current crack size can be achieved. First, using the previous SHM measurements and the crack propagation model, we predict statistical distribution of crack sizes at the next SHM inspection cycle. Then, this predicted distribution is combined with the SHM measurement at the next cycle by using the Bayesian approach for more precise measurement. That is, the propagated distribution from the previous inspection is used as a prior and the variability at the current inspection is used to build the likelihood function. The uncertainty in measurements is modeled by a lognormal distribution, and several different prognostic approaches are considered for the construction of prior distribution. Results for through-the-thickness crack in a plate show substantial improvements in accuracy.
NUMERICAL SIMULATION RESEARCH OF WATER & ASSISTANT & NITROGEN GAS DISPLACING OIL EXPERIMENTATION

The displacing oil experimentation of water assistant nitrogen gas is mainly used to compare and determine the displacement efficiency and effect under the different displacement way. Following the fluid phase behavior modeling, a numerical simulation research of water assistant nitrogen gas displacing oil experimentation is completed by using a compositional Model and a good matching is reached. The main purpose of the research is to modify the relative permeability curve and the capillary pressure curve, and provide the practical data of percolation characteristics for the whole reservoir numerical simulation.
Approaching rational epitope vaccine design for hepatitis C virus with meta-server and multivalent scaffolding

Approaching rational epitope vaccine design for hepatitis C virus with meta-server and multivalent scaffolding
Additional observations on "pathologic" bradycardia.

Although stethoscopic evaluation of the fetal heart rate (FHR) has been used for over 70 years for the early detection of fetal distress, it has limited value for this purpose. With the development of electronic techniques, specific FHR patterns indicating umbilical cord compression and uteroplacental insufficiency have been observed. Past and recent fetal animal studies support the concept that ominous FHR patterns indicating fetal asphyxia exist. This is particularly true of fetal rhesus monkey studies where in utero partial asphyxia was associated with the FHR pattern of late deceleration and subsequent fetal monkey brain damage at autopsy. In view of current developments, the present direction of research and clinical use of fetal monitoring seems not unreasonable.
Sexuality in Europe: Reconceiving sexuality 1900???1914

At the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, a number of factors came together to make sex a highly public topic. One factor was growing media attention to the issue of prostitution. This attention was intensified by military and government authorities’ worry about the perceived spread of venereal diseases, and by public fascination with titillating stories of sex trafficking. The rise of a women's movement also spiked concern with prostitution. The movement challenged the entirety of the entrenched double standard of sexual morality, and above all expressed anger at the nonchalance with which authorities and the male public alike appeared to accept prostitution as simply a natural supplement to the institution of marriage. A second crucial factor was the growing desire for fertility control. Across European nations, couples sought to limit family size using a variety of measures and, despite the fact that contraceptive strategies often clashed with longings for pleasure, birthrates in all nations and all classes of society began dropping. Medical doctors and government authorities alike paid close attention to this phenomenon. Intersecting with these two developments was a third: an increasing voyeuristic public interest in scandals surrounding same-sex activities – many of them involving high-ranking military officials, members of the aristocratic elites, and celebrities. What once had been a rather unremarkable feature of some individuals’ sexual habits became fodder for mass gossip. Same-sex scandals also fueled speculation about human sexual predilections more generally – as, at the same time, increased efforts at policing and repression of same-sex activities were met with newly organized resistance from individuals who came to think of their preferences as an important part of their identities.
Application of flat panel OLED display technology for the point-of-care detection of circulating cancer biomarkers

Point-of-care molecular diagnostics can provide efficient and cost-effective medical care and they have the potential to fundamentally change our approach to global health. However, most existing approaches are not scalable to include multiple biomarkers. As a solution, we have combined commercial flat panel OLED display technology with protein microarray technology to enable high-density fluorescent, programmable, multiplexed biorecognition in a compact and disposable configuration with clinical-level sensitivity. Our approach leverages advances in commercial display technology to reduce pre-functionalized biosensor substrate costs to pennies per cm2. Here, we demonstrate quantitative detection of IgG antibodies to multiple viral antigens in patient serum samples with detection limits for human IgG in the 10 pg/mL range. We also demonstrate multiplexed detection of antibodies to the HPV16 proteins E2, E6 and E7, which are circulating biomarkers for cervical as well as head and neck cancers.
Mapping our Milky Way

Our position in the Milky Way's disk gives us a detailed and close-up view of a fairly typical large spiral galaxy. We begin this chapter by looking at the Sun's immediate vicinity. Examining the closest stars gives us a sample of the disk stuff, and we can ask how many stars of each luminosity, mass, composition, and age are present. Combining this information with theories of stellar evolution, we investigate the star-forming past of the solar neighborhood. In Section 2.2 we venture further afield. Measuring stellar distances allows us to map out the Milky Way's structure: the thin and thick disks, the metal poor halo, and the central bulge. Star clusters, where all the members were born together, with the same initial composition, are especially useful; comparing their color–magnitude diagrams with the predictions of stellar models yields the age and composition jointly with the cluster's distance. We find that the youngest stars belong to the disk, and are relatively rich in elements heavier than helium, whereas the stars of the metal-poor halo are extremely old. Most of the Milky Way's stars and almost all of its gas lie in the disk, orbiting the center like the planets around the Sun. Section 2.3 deals with the Galaxy's rotation: how we measure it, and how we use it to find the distribution of gas within the disk.
Evaluation of the microbiological quality of ricotta cheese commercialized in Santa Catarina, Brazil

Ricotta cheese has low fat and salt contents and a high quantity of proteins. The diversity of the nutrients and the high water content are factors that favor the development of microorganisms in this product. In this context, the aim of this study was to evaluate the microbiological quality of ricotta commercialized in the western region of Santa Catarina State, Brazil. Thirty samples, comprising 10 different brands of ricotta, were collected and sent to the Food Microbiology Laboratory at the Instituto Federal Catarinense (IFC), Campus Concordia for microbiological analysis to determine the presence of Salmonella sp., Listeria sp., coagulase-positive Staphylococcus and thermotolerant coliforms. Of the 30 samples, the results for 33.3% were not within the parameters established by current legislation, that is, they were not fit for human consumption. This high percentage was due to contamination by thermotolerant coliforms, with 10 samples containing this group of microorganisms. One sample was contaminated with Listeria grayi, and for the other microorganisms investigated, (Salmonella sp. and coagulase-positive Staphylococcus) the results were satisfactory. This study characterizes the hygiene-sanitary conditions of ricotta commercialized in the western region of Santa Catarina State, highlighting the need for greater care during the production of this product.
Acoustic attenuation imaging of tissue bulk properties with a priori information

Attenuation of ultrasound waves traversing a medium is not only a result of absorption and scattering within a given tissue, but also of coherent scattering, including diffraction, refraction, and reflection of the acoustic wave at tissue boundaries. This leads to edge enhancement and other artifacts in most reconstruction algorithms, other than 3D wave migration with currently impractical, implementations. The presented approach accounts for energy loss at tissue boundaries by normalizing data based on variable sound speed, and potential density, of the medium using a k-space wave solver. Coupled with a priori knowledge of major sound speed distributions, physical attenuation values within broad ranges, and the assumption of homogeneity within segmented regions, an attenuation image representative of region bulk properties is constructed by solving a penalized weighted least squares optimization problem. This is in contradistinction to absorption or to conventional attenuation coefficient based on overall insertion loss with strong dependence on sound speed and impedance mismatches at tissue boundaries. This imaged property will be referred to as the bulk attenuation coefficient. The algorithm is demonstrated on an opposed array setup, with mean-squared-error improvements from 0.6269 to 0.0424 (dB/cm/MHz)2 for a cylindrical phantom, and 0.1622 to 0.0256 (dB/cm/MHz)2 for a windowed phantom.
The MIFstep in parthanatos

If we knew how cells die, we might be able to prevent cell death, thereby saving vital tissues and organs in diseases as diverse as heart attack, stroke, diabetes, liver and kidney failure, and neurodegenerative diseases of the brain. Indeed, it has become clear from recent studies on anastasis, or reversal of apoptotic cell death ( 1 ), that cells can survive many severe insults and recover completely. On page 82 of this issue, Wang et al. ( 2 ) show that cell death can be prevented by blocking the breakdown of DNA that is a hallmark of a set of related cell death subtypes, grouped under the name of parthanatos ( 3 ).
Leadership Style and Qualities in Africa: A Literature Review

Africa’s recent population transition may either result in an economic success or a disaster depending on how policies and actions are implemented. Leadership effectiveness, therefore, is an important consideration for the future of African development. This chapter provides an understanding of leadership in the African context. The concept of leadership is first defined and traditional Western theories and models, including trait and situational theories, are then briefly reviewed. Indigenous theories of African leadership, such as Ubuntu, are also examined. Finally, future directions in the area of leadership are discussed.
Bidirectional Transcriptional Inhibition as Therapy for ALS/FTD Caused by Repeat Expansion in C9orf72

Hexanucleotide repeat expansion in the bi-directionally transcribed C9orf72 gene is the most frequent cause of familial ALS and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Kramer et al. (2016) report in Science that targeted reduction in the transcription elongation factor SUPT4H1/SUPT5H reduces both sense and antisense repeat-containing RNAs and their associated neurodegeneration.
The Last Years

On the face of it, Palmerston’s defeat in 1858 signalled the beginning of the end of his public life. His advanced age alone militated against his return to office. Now in his seventies, suffering from chronic gout and seemingly exhausted by his labours, he was being written off by Members of Parliament as early as 1855. The 1857 parliamentary election had given him a lease on life, but it was unlikely that the forces that coalesced to bring him down in February 1858 would succeed him. Although the new Tory ministry under Lord Derby’s leadership still lacked the strength of a majority, in comparison the Opposition was in disarray. Palmerston’s leadership of the opposition in the House of Commons appeared merely titular. He headed a shadow cabinet and held party meetings but beyond that he was seen as a spent force, unable to command a following.1 Russell was still his obvious rival and their clashing ambitions, catalysed by their differences over parliamentary reform, stood in the way of any reconciliation. When opportunities did arise to attack the ministers, poor communication among Opposition leaders and clever deceptions by Disraeli allowed the government to snatch victories from the jaws of defeat. The opposition, for example, roundly attacked the Tories’ version of an India Bill in May 1858, but it survived when the opposition leaders’ efforts disintegrated into squabbling. This was described well by the radical Trelawny, when he said ‘we are merely on the stage on which a fencing match or triangular duel is taking place between the great party leaders opposed to the Ministry’.2 Well-conceived but badly executed censure motions aimed at the ministers were awkwardly withdrawn by the opposition, fearful that divisions would only reveal the weakness in their ranks. As the 1858 session proceeded, Lord Derby’s sober, moderate government produced a series of modest but important reforms, suggesting that enlightened improvements could be realized without the overseeing assistance of the Whigs.3 The property qualifications for MPs were abolished, postal services between the United States and Ireland were established, minor concessions were given to Catholics, and peace was maintained abroad.
Low serum albumin levels prior to pediatric allogeneic HCT are associated with increased need for critical care interventions and increased 6-month mortality.

Poor nutritional status in HCT patients is a negative prognostic factor. There are no pediatric studies evaluating albumin levels prior to HCT and need for critical care interventions. We hypothesized that pediatric patients with low albumin levels, routinely measured 30 days (±10 days) prior to allogeneic HCT, have a higher risk of critical care interventions in the post-transplant period. We performed a 5-year retrospective study of pediatric patients who underwent allogeneic HCT for any indication. Patients were categorized based on albumin level. Hypoalbuminemia was defined as <3.1 g/dL. A total of 73 patients were included, with a median age of 7.4 years (IQR 3.3, 13.2). Patients with hypoalbuminemia had higher needs for critical care interventions including non-invasive ventilation (44% vs 8%, P=.01), mechanical ventilation (67% vs 17%, P<.01), and vasoactive therapy (56% vs 16%, P=.01). Patients with hypoalbuminemia also had a higher 6-month mortality (56% vs 17%, P=.02). Our data demonstrate that children undergoing allogeneic HCT with hypoalbuminemia in the pretransplant period are more likely to require critical care interventions and have higher 6-month mortality. These findings identify an at-risk population in which nutritional improvements may be instituted prior to HCT in hopes of improving outcomes.
The Effects of Education on Business Ownership: A Longitudinal Study of Women.

This study uses a national longitudinal sample of women to examine variations in the likelihood of entering, staying, and reentering self-employment by level of educational attainment. The study found that each likelihood increased with increasing levels of education. This finding supports the notion that less-educated women may face financial or human capital constraints which limit their business pursuits. The study also identified to what extent differences in each likelihood contributed to the overall difference in the likelihood of being self-employed between more- and less-educated women. Of the three, differences in the likelihood of entry accounted for most of the overall difference in the likelihood of being self-employed between the more and less educated.
Death and the Tax Benefit Rule

The Viewpoint argues that the Tax Court in Estate of Backemeyer erroneously allowed a double deduction for farm supplies instead of applying the tax benefit rule. The Viewpoint also proposes an alternative remedy to treat expensed items as having no basis because they are not capital to which the basis step-up of section 1013 applies.
Executive Interview: Karen Thornton

Interview with The George Washington University’s Karen Thornton, director of the Government Procurement Law and Master of Science in Government Contracts programs. This article presents background about the school's mission to educate, develop, and expand the acquisition community. Emphasis is placed on the school's role in generating scholarship and building leadership and professional skills in and out of the traditional classroom.
Machine Perfusion of Organs

Transplant organ supplies are insufficient to meet the demands, resulting in prolonged patient wait times and waitlist mortality. Offering improved organ preservation, assessment, and resuscitation, machine perfusion of organs can enable the use of marginal organs, thereby expanding the donor pool. The technology is based on the common principle of continuous provision of oxygen and nutrients. Perfusion settings and components vary widely in terms of pump pulsatility, temperature control, oxygen provision, oncotic agents, and pharmacologic supplementation. While this technology was first pioneered in the 1960s, it has seen a recent resurgence. Hypothermic renal perfusion is the most clinically advanced area of perfusion and a source of continued innovation. Liver, heart, and lung perfusion techniques have been introduced into the clinical realm as safe alternatives, and evidence demonstrating clinical efficacy and superiority is accumulating. Machine perfusion of the pancreas and small intestine is being explored predominantly in preclinical models. Machine perfusion of limbs offers improved opportunities for limb transplantation and autologous replantation. Machine perfusion is a promising option to salvage function in marginal organ grafts and may enable prediction of organ function or dysfunction after transplantation.
Part-Time Entrepreneurship and Risk Tolerance

This paper looks at the relationship between part-time entrepreneurship and risk tolerance. Part-time entrepreneurs split their time between entrepreneurial ventures and wage employment. I offer a simple model of entrepreneurial entry where individuals choose part-time, instead of full-time, entrepreneurship because they want to gain basic experience. This might be product, industry or market experience; or one related to individual-specific characteristics. People with a lower level of risk tolerance will need to first spend time acquiring this experience, and hence opting for an initial part-time involvement, before growing a full-size business. Empirical tests of the model implications are included.
Behavior Analysis and a Modern Psychology

Psychology has purportedly undergone two revolutions since becoming a science—one in the first decades of the 20th century, the other a half-century later. These were the behavioral and the cognitive revolutions, respectively. Although behaviorism is now presumably dead and cognitivism ascendant, cognitivism is not today modern in psychology. It is not modern because (a) it is not naturalistic, placing behavior and mind in different ontological categories—material and immaterial; (b) it adheres to a world view better fitted to the physical than the life sciences—mechanism; and (c) it is, ironically, little more than a standard form of behaviorism—methodological behaviorism. Not even behaviorism, though, naturalized psychology, for two reasons. First, where behaviorism was a stimulus-response (S->R) psychology, it was unable to account for purposive or intentional action, especially in language and cognition. Second, although objective, behaviorism has vacillated between being metaphysical and methodological. In metaphysical behaviorism, behavior is what psychology studies, as well as its subject matter, whereas in methodological behaviorism, behavior is what psychology studies, but it is not its subject matter—its subject matter is generically the mind. In the end, mainstream behaviorism became a methodological behaviorism, whose dominant form was, by mid-century, mediational behaviorism (e.g., Hull, Spence, Tolman) where hypothetical constructs (e.g., expectancies, drives) mediated the relation of stimuli to responses in an S->O->R psychology.
Selective Abortion of Females: An Analysis of Some Emerging Parental Choices

During the last two decades, the technology for the in vivo detection of the gender of a fetus has become available, to various degrees, in many less developed countries and newly industrialized countries. Subject to the limited availability of data, it appears that in several of these countries an emerging use of this technology is in selectively aborting female fetuses. Regardless of what the present extent of such abortions might be, a likely effect of some ongoing technological trends is that increasingly larger proportions of parents will in the future be able to selectively abort females if they wish to do so. This paper considers parents whose propensity for sons is sufficiently high that they use, or will use in the future, gender-detection technology with the primary motivation of potentially exercising the choice of selectively aborting females. The paper focuses on parental choices concerning conceptions and selective abortions. These two choices are dynamically linked (e.g., whether a set of parents choose to undertake a conception depends partly on what their future choice concerning abortion will be when they learn the gender of the fetus). The paper analyzes some qualitative properties of these choices and attempts to assess some associated patterns of behavior concerning conceptions and selective abortions that the parents undertake and daughters that they choose to have. This includes assessing how the behavior of a set of parents might depend on the number of sons they have, the propensity for sons they have, and the costs and inconveniences of abortions they face.
Abstract 3557: Beta-hydroxybutyrate inhibits oncogenic signaling and cellular motility in pancreatic cancer cells

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a devastating malignancy with a five-year survival rate less than 7%. It is characterized by a plethora of metabolic and signaling pathways, which plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Caloric restriction and ketogenic diets have been shown to be beneficial in the management of several kinds of malignancies including pancreatic cancer. During caloric restriction or ketogenic diet supplementation, blood level of ketone bodies (beta-hydroxy butyrate or BHB, acetoacetate, acetone) gets elevated in the body. Among, these ketone bodies, BHB, the most abundant ketone body in mammals has been shown to act as the modulator of several signaling and inflammatory pathways. We have evaluated the effect of BHB on oncogenic signaling pathways and motility of pancreatic cancer cells. We observed reduced activation of key oncogenic signaling pathways, including mTOR. We also observed inhibition of cellular motility in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, we observed reduced expression of c-Myc, a key oncogene and a downstream effector molecule of mTOR. Correspondingly, we also observed reduced expression of several c-Myc target genes. We have also evaluated the effect of BHB on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers and observed altered expression of EMT markers like N-cadherin and E-cadherin. We also evaluated the effect of BHB on the expression of inflammatory cytokines in the pancreatic cancer cells and observed that BHB treatment leads to the reduction of expression of several inflammatory cytokines including IL6 and IL1-beta. Overall, our findings suggest that BHB inhibits inflammatory signaling in pancreatic cancer cells and reduces the cellular motility by modulating the expression of EMT regulators. Citation Format: Surendra K. Shukla, Nina V. Chaika, Pankaj K. Singh. Beta-hydroxybutyrate inhibits oncogenic signaling and cellular motility in pancreatic cancer cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3557.
Dispersive Asymptotics for Linear and Integrable Equations by the \(\overline {\partial }\) Steepest Descent Method

We present a new and relatively elementary method for studying the solution of the initial-value problem for dispersive linear and integrable equations in the large-t limit, based on a generalization of steepest descent techniques for Riemann-Hilbert problems to the setting of \({\overline {\partial }}\)-problems. Expanding upon prior work (Dieng and McLaughlin, Long-time asymptotics for the NLS equation via \({\overline {\partial }}\) methods, arXiv:0805.2807, 2008) of the first two authors, we develop the method in detail for the linear and defocusing nonlinear Schrodinger equations, and show how in the case of the latter it gives sharper asymptotics than previously known under essentially minimal regularity assumptions on initial data.
Ideologies of language among ELLs on the US-Mexico border: the case of a transitional bilingual programme

This article presents findings of a qualitative study about students’ language ideologies in a transitional bilingual education (TBE) programme located in the US-Mexico border. Although officially regarded as ‘TBE’, results show that both ideologies and practices resemble an English monolingual form of education where only the English language is valued and used for instruction. This qualitative study investigates the experiences of 4th grade EBs in this setting in which students appropriated monoglossic language ideologies and discourses of transition displayed by teachers and school district policies. However, students also displayed their agency when they actively sought spaces within and outside the school context to access their entire linguistic repertoire to communicate with friends and family. The complexity of students’ internalised ideologies of language and their performed ideologies became visible through observations and interviews conducted in this study.
Making investors feel good during earnings conference calls: The effect of warm-glow rhetoric:

In recent years, earnings conference calls have become a popular disclosure tool through which top managers can provide more information to the market regarding the quarterly earnings of their firm...
Trends in the Prevalence of Exposure to e-Cigarette Aerosol in Public Places Among US Middle and High School Students, 2015 to 2018.

This survey study examines trends in and factors associated with exposure to secondhand smoke from combusted tobacco and secondhand aerosol from electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) among US youth from 2015 to 2018.
Expression of Lymphocyte Activation Gene 3 (LAG-3/CD223) by Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia B Cells.

Abstract The clinical course of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is variable. DNA-microarray studies have shown that the gene-expression patterns of CLL cells with unmutated IgVH genes are similar to those of cells with mutated IgVH genes, but that the patterns of both are distinct from those of other leukemias and lymphomas. Nevertheless, the two subtypes of CLL can be distinguished by the differential expression of a small number of genes, one of which encodes ZAP-70, an intracellular tyrosine kinase with a critical role in T-cell receptor signaling. Further analysis of the mutation status of IgVH genes and ZAP-70 expression revealed that CLL patients with B cells expressing ZAP-70 and unmutated IgVH genes had a more aggressive disease. LAG-3 (CD223) is thought to play a role in immune responses mediated by T and NK cells. LAG-3, a CD4 homolog, is a ligand for MHC class II antigens. Similar to ZAP-70, LAG-3 is selectively expressed on activated T and NK cells and has recently been shown to be expressed on T-cell activated B cells. We compared the gene expression profiles of the B cells purified from 15 CLL patients using the Affymetrix HG-U133 plus 2.0. This analysis revealed LAG-3 and parathymosin differentially expressed at higher levels by the CLL cells expressing ZAP-70 and unmutated IgVH genes. LAG-3 and parathymosin are located on chromosome 12p13 with head-to-tail orientation. To examine for surface expression of LAG-3, we performed flow cytometry on these same 15 CLL samples using an anti LAG-3 mAb (CD223). We found LAG-3 expressed at high levels by the CD5/CD19 B cells of 4/8 (50%) cases that expressed ZAP-70 and unmutated IgVH genes. Conversely, the samples with B cells lacking ZAP-70 and with mutated IgVH genes did not express LAG-3 (0/7). All samples (15/15) expressed high level of MHC class II antigens, as assessed by flow cytometry. LAG-3 may interact with MHC class II molecules expressed by CLL cells to form an autocrine loop that may further enhance the activation of ZAP-70-expressing CLL B cells. Further analysis is needed to delineate the role of LAG-3 in the pathogenesis and/or progression of this disease.
Trump’s Dilemma: Explaining the President’s War on His Own Executive Branch

One of the most striking characteristics of the Trump administration has been the frequency and vehemence with which the President has sought to undermine the expertise, operational capacity, credibility, and legitimacy of his own federal departments and agencies. In some cases, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of State, Trump sought to attack the civil service through massive cuts in staff and budget, silencing of scientific experts, and a depletion of morale that drove career professionals out of government service. In other cases, such as the US intelligence agencies, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the President engaged in direct public attacks on the credibility and legitimacy of government agencies and their leaders. The Governor’s Dilemma framework allows us to explain why, and how, an American President could devote so much of his energy to undermining the competence of his intermediaries. “Trump’s Dilemma” derives from the fact that the President-Elect came to office with views so far outside mainstream traditions of American public policy that he feared that executive departments and agencies – the so-called “Deep State” – would resist his dramatic policy shifts, or even directly threaten his position as President by revealing damaging information or prosecuting the President or his advisors for violations of federal law. In the face of this dramatical goal divergence, together with the perceived failure of traditional principal-agent controls, Trump responded by moving aggressively to undermine the competence of many of his own departments and agencies.
Generalized Sketch Families for Network Traffic Measurement

Traffic measurement provides critical information for network management, resource allocation, traffic engineering, and attack detection. Most prior art has been geared towards specific application needs with specific performance objectives. To support diverse requirements with efficient and future-proof implementation, this paper takes a new approach to establish common frameworks, each for a family of traffic measurement solutions that share the same implementation structure, providing a high level of generality, for both size and spread measurements and for all flows. The designs support many options of performance-overhead tradeoff with as few as one memory update per packet and as little space as several bits per flow on average. Such a family-based approach will unify implementation by removing redundancy from different measurement tasks and support reconfigurability in a plug-n-play manner. We demonstrate the connection and difference in the design of these traffic measurement families and perform experimental comparisons on hardware/software platforms to find their tradeoff, which provide practical guidance for which solutions to use under given performance goals.
Foretelling the Future: Predicting STI Diagnosis and Its Implications for Ending the HIV Epidemic among Black Men Who Have Sex with Men

Despite evidence of the link between STI and HIV transmission, STI rates remain alarmingly high, particularly among racial/ethnic minorities. This study examined the relationship between earlier STI diagnoses (gonorrhea and chlamydia) and future STI acquisition and its implications for HIV prevention among a sample of urban Black men who have sex with men (Black MSM). Data from a cohort of 600 Black MSM (15–29 years of age) residing in a medium-size Southern city enrolled in a HIV prevention intervention were analyzed. We used multivariate logistic regression to assess the association between STI diagnosis (baseline: Time 1) and subsequent STI diagnosis (90-day post-diagnosis: Time 2). Repeated measures analyzed at Time 1 and Time 2 included condomless sex, insertive and receptive sex, concurrent sexual partnerships, multiple partners, and age of partner. Independent of socio-demographic factors, we found having a prior GC/CT increased the likelihood of a future GC/CT by a factor of 15 (OR = 15.2, p = 0.01). Participants were statistically more likely to have been diagnosed with an extragenital STI (OR = 2.3, p = 0.05). Present findings suggest that time of initial STI diagnosis is a critical period in which to intervene to reduce future STI/HIV acquisition. Screening guidelines should be expanded to include testing for extragenital infection. STI screening and treatment and counseling programs should be culturally appropriate to account for the unique needs and the social and environmental context of the population. Additional research is needed to design STI prevention interventions that address social and environmental factors to reduce sexual risk behaviors that increase HIV vulnerability for Black MSM.
Threshold for Tonic Motor Effects from Random Waveform in a Rat Experimental Model of Frontal Cortex Stimulation.

BACKGROUND Brain stimulation is utilized to treat a variety of neurological disorders. Clinical brain stimulation technologies currently utilize charge-balanced pulse stimulation. The brain may better respond to other stimulation waveforms. This study was designed to evaluate the motor threshold of the brain to stimulation with various waveforms. METHODS Three stimulation waveforms were utilized on rats with surgically implanted brain electrodes: pulses, square waves, and random waveform. The peak-to-peak stimulation voltage was increased in a step-wise manner until motor signs were elicited. RESULTS The random waveform had the highest motor threshold with brain stimulation compared to the other waveforms. Random waveform stimulation reached maximum voltage without motor side effects while stimulating through both 1 and 8 electrodes. In contrast, the stimulation thresholds for motor side effects of the other two waveforms were on average less than half of the maximum voltage and lower for stimulation through 8 electrodes than stimulation through 1 electrode (p < 0.0005). CONCLUSION The random waveform was better tolerated than the other waveforms and may allow for the use of higher stimulation voltage without side effects.
Risk Factors for Weight Gain Following Switch to Integrase Inhibitor-Based Antiretroviral Therapy.

Background Treatment initiation with integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs) has been associated with excess weight gain. Whether similar gains are seen after switch to INSTIs among virologically suppressed persons is less clear. We assessed pre/post-INSTI weight changes from AIDS Clinical Trials Group participants (A5001 and A5322). Methods Participants who were in follow-up from 1997-2017 and switched to INSTI-based antiretroviral regimens were included. Piecewise linear mixed-effects models adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, baseline BMI, nadir and current CD4+ T-cell count, smoking, diabetes and follow-up time with suppressed HIV-1 RNA examined weight and waist circumference change before and after first switch to INSTIs. Linear spline models with a single knot at time of switch accounted for nonlinear trends. Results The 972 participants who switched to INSTIs were 81% male and 50% nonwhite with a median age at switch of 50 years, CD4+ T-cell count 512 cells/μL, and BMI 26.4 kg/m2. Restricting to persons with suppressed HIV-1 RNA at switch (n = 691), women, blacks, and persons ≥60 years experienced greater weight gain in the 2 years after versus before switch. In adjusted models, white or black race, age ≥60, and BMI ≥30 kg/m2 at switch were associated with greater weight gain following switch among women; age ≥60 was the greatest risk factor among men. Trends for waist circumference were similar. Conclusions Yearly weight gain increased following switch to INSTIs, particularly for women, blacks, and persons aged ≥60. Concomitant increases in waist circumference suggest that this weight gain is associated with an increase in fat mass.
PSMA- and GRPR-targeted PET: Preliminary Results in Patients with Biochemically Recurrent Prostate Cancer

1249 Objectives: Novel radiopharmaceuticals are evaluated for the diagnosis of biochemically recurrent prostate cancer (BCR PC). Here, we compare the gastrin releasing peptide receptors (GRPR) - targeting 68Ga-RM2 with the prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) - targeting 18F-DCFPyL and 68Ga-PSMA11. Previously reported data is not included. Materials and Methods: Twenty-four patients underwent both 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI and 68Ga-PSMA11 PET/CT; 68Ga-RM2 imaging started 41-66 minutes (mean±SD: 50±16.9) after injection of 3.7-4.2 mCi (mean±SD: 4±0.1); 68Ga-PSMA11 imaging started at 45-107.9 minutes (mean±SD: 66.7±14.9) after injection of 3.5-5.4 mCi (mean±SD: 4.1±0.4). The mean delay time between 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI and 68Ga-PSMA11 PET/CT was 9.6 days. Another 23 patients underwent both 68Ga-RM2-PET/MRI and 18F-DCFPyL PET/CT; 68Ga-RM2 imaging started 39-59 minutes (mean±SD: 49..5±5.8) after injection of 3.6-9.8 mCi (mean±SD: 4.30±1.47); 18F-DCFPyL imaging started at 61.9-103.2 minutes (mean±SD: 75.3±12.6) after injection of 7.3-9.9 mCi (mean±SD: 9.±0.8). The mean delay time between 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI and 18F-DCFPyL PET/CT was 13.3 days. SiPM-based PET/MRI or PET/CT scanners were used, depending on the funding source. Maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) were collected for all detectable lesions. Results: PSA ranged 0.2-21.5 ng/ml (mean±SD: 4±5.1) in the 24 patients who underwent both 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI and 68Ga-PSMA11 PET/CT. 28 and 34 lesions were detected by 68Ga-RM2 PET and 68Ga-PSMA11 PET, respectively. 25 lesions in 13 patients were identified by both radiopharmaceuticals. The mean SUVmax ranged 1.6-51.2 (mean±SD:14.7±12.5) for PSMA and ranged 2.5-52.5 (mean±SD: 10.7±11.6) for RM2 (P=0.096). Three lesions in 2 patients were RM2-avid only (all lymph nodes) and 9 lesions in 7 patients were PSMA avid only (7 lymph nodes, 1 skeletal and 1 lung nodule). PSA ranged 0.2-9.8 ng/mL (mean±SD: 2.8±2.7) in the 23 patients who underwent both 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI and 18F-DCFPyL PET/CT. 32 and 48 lesions were detected by 68Ga-RM2 PET and 18F-DCFPyL PET, respectively. 28 lesions in 12 patients were identified by both radiopharmaceuticals. The mean SUVmax ranged 1.7-79.3 (mean±SD: 22.2±23) for DCFPyL and ranged 1.7-46.8 (mean±SD: 7±9.2) for RM2 (P<0.01). Four lesions in 2 patients were RM2 avid only (1 adrenal and 3 skeletal); 17 lesions in 6 patients were DCFPyL avid only (7 lymph nodes, 9 skeletal and 1 prostate). Conclusions: 68Ga-RM2 and 18F-DCFPyL/68Ga-PSMA11 are promising radiopharmaceuticals in the evaluation of BCR PC. Identifying patients for whom these two classes of radiopharmaceuticals are complementary may ultimately allow for personalized medicine. Further evaluation in larger cohorts is needed to confirm our data.
Coarse sediment dynamics in a large glaciated river system: Holocene history and storage dynamics dictate contemporary climate sensitivity

The gravel-bedded White River drains a 1279 km2 basin in Washington State, with lowlands sculpted by continental glaciation and headwaters on an actively glaciated stratovolcano. Chronic aggradation along an alluvial fan near the river’s mouth has progressively reduced flood conveyance. In order to better understand how forecasted climate change may influence coarse sediment delivery and aggradation rates in this lowland depositional setting, we assessed the contemporary delivery and routing of coarse sediment through the watershed; this assessment was based on a rich set of topographic, sedimentologic, and hydrologic data from the past century, with a focus on repeat high-resolution topographic surveys from the past decade. We found that most of the lower river’s contemporary bed-load flux originates from persistent erosion of alluvial deposits in the lower watershed. This erosion is a response to a drop in local base level caused by a major avulsion across the fan in 1906 and then augmented by subsequent dredging. The 1906 avulsion and modern disequilibrium valley profiles reflect landscape conditioning by continental glaciation and a massive mid-Holocene lahar. In the proglacial headwaters, infrequent large sediment pulses have accomplished most of the observed coarse sediment export, with exported material blanketing downstream valley floors; during typical floods, transported bed material is largely sourced from erosion of these valley floor deposits. Throughout the watershed, we observe decadal-scale coarse sediment dynamics strongly related to the filling or emptying of valley-scale sediment storage over 102−104 yr time scales, often in response to major disturbances that either emplace large deposits or influence their redistribution. Paraglacial responses in large watersheds are suggested to be inherently complicated and punctuated as a result of internal landform interactions and stochastic/threshold-dependent events. We argue, in combination, that Holocene disturbance, storage dynamics, and human flow modification make coarse sediment fluxes in the lower White River relatively insensitive to decadal climate variability. Results highlight the degree to which river sensitivity to contemporary disturbance, climatic or otherwise, may be contingent on local and idiosyncratic watershed histories, underscoring the need to unpack those histories while demonstrating the utility of watershed-scale high-resolution topography toward that end.
Enhanced CAR-T activity against established tumors by polarizing human T cells to secrete interleukin-9

CAR-T cell therapy is effective for hematologic malignancies. However, considerable numbers of patients relapse after the treatment, partially due to poor expansion and limited persistence of CAR-T cells in vivo. Here, we demonstrate that human CAR-T cells polarized and expanded under a Th9-culture condition (T9 CAR-T) have an enhanced antitumor activity against established tumors. Compared to IL2-polarized (T1) cells, T9 CAR-T cells secrete IL9 but little IFN-γ, express central memory phenotype and lower levels of exhaustion markers, and display robust proliferative capacity. Consequently, T9 CAR-T cells mediate a greater antitumor activity than T1 CAR-T cells against established hematologic and solid tumors in vivo. After transfer, T9 CAR-T cells migrate effectively to tumors, differentiate to IFN-γ and granzyme-B secreting effector memory T cells but remain as long-lived and hyperproliferative T cells. Our findings are important for the improvement of CAR-T cell-based immunotherapy for human cancers. Antigen-specific IL9-secreting CD4 Th9 and CD8 Tc9 cells have been previously characterized for their anti-tumour properties. Here, the authors show that ex vivo polarized Th9/Tc9 human CAR-T cells display increased anti-tumor activity in pre-clinical haematological and solid cancer models compared to conventional IL-2 activated CAR-T cells.
Perceptions of dermatology and dermatologists by residency program directors of other medical specialties.

Abstract More data are needed to characterize the perceptions of dermatology by nondermatologist physicians in order to address how current perceptions may be improved. Residency program directors of 21 medical specialties were contacted by e-mail and directed to a survey created with Research Electronic Data Capture software. Data from survey responses were collated and analyzed. A total of 80 residency program directors completed the survey. Physicians who worked more frequently with dermatologists were more likely to describe dermatologists positively. Most physicians believed dermatologists manage skin conditions, but fewer knew that they also manage hair, nail, or mucosal conditions. Cross-specialty collaboration between nondermatologists and dermatologists is associated with positive perceptions of dermatology. Further collaboration could provide the opportunity to educate physicians regarding the conditions treated by dermatologists and how their expertise may benefit patient care.
Relationship between maternal age and labor induction duration and outcomes in nulliparous women

To determine the relationship between maternal age and labor induction duration among nulliparous women.This retrospective cohort study included nulliparous women with non-anomalous, term, singleto...