cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Costal and Abdominal Respiratory Movements in Relation to Nervous Control of Breathing

Changes in body circumference associated with respiratory movements were simultaneously recorded in the dog at 6 different levels—3 costal and 3 abdominal. (Fig. 1.) Continuous registration of respiratory movements with this method showed variations in type from time to time in the same individual. Some of these changes were spontaneous; others were elicited by deliberate introduction of new variables.Analysis of measurements on 31 female and 73 male dogs failed to show any relation between sex and mode of breathing. Comparing the magnitude of increased costal circumference with the magnitude of increased abdominal circumference 34.3% of 106 dogs were found to breathe more with the chest than with the abdomen. Using our new method of comparing costal and abdominal accommodation of air by grossly correcting for the greater costal circumference and greater length of chest 79% were found to be costal breathers. The mean ratio of costal to abdominal accommodation for all of the dogs studied was 2.15 indicatin...
Field trials of Steinernema feltiae (Nematoda: Steinernematidae) for control of Alphitobius diaperinus (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) in commercial broiler and turkey houses

Infective juveniles of the All strain of Steinernema feltiae Filipjev were applied (100,000 per square meter) to the soil floors of one broiler and two turkey houses with known recent histories of infestation with lesser mealworm, Alphitobius diaperinus (Panzer). After addition of fresh litter and new flocks of birds, beetle populations increased more slowly in treated than in untreated houses on all three farms, but at 10–13 weeks posttreatment adult beetle populations were about equal in treated and untreated houses. Soil samples were bioassayed biweekly for presence of nematodes by adding beetle larvae. Nematodes persisted (63–87% beetle mortality) for 7 weeks posttreatment on two of the farms; on the third farm, beetle mortality was < 50% at 3 weeks posttreatment. When soil in plastic containers was treated at varying nematode rates and held for 6 months in a poultry house, beetle mortality ranged from 0 (103 nematodes per square meter) to 48.2% (105 nematodes per square meter).
Development of a statewide trauma system: classification of levels of care available to injured patients.

OBJECTIVE: To categorize the level of care offered in emergency settings at acute care hospitals in Kentucky. DESIGN: Survey mailed to all hospitals in the state. MEASUREMENTS/MAIN RESULTS: Hospital capabilities for both adult and pediatric patients were assessed by strict adherence to a set of preset objective requirements and by a subjective review of the resources available to the acutely injured patient, based on the responses to a mailed questionnaire. There are three level 1 and nine level 2 hospitals available to adults and two level 1 and seven level 2 hospitals available to children in Kentucky. Thirty-five counties are without an acute care hospital. Objective- and subjective-based classification were discordant in approximately 25% of hospitals. Current referral patterns reflect this categorization, but referral is most often directly to level 1 centers. CONCLUSIONS: We have established a set of criteria to categorize the level of care acutely available to injured patients in Kentucky which can be simply implemented. In developing statewide systems of care, strict adherence to preset criteria may not accurately reflect the true resources available. With the lack of a planned and organized system, current referral patterns reflect transfer of patients directly to level 1 centers, which may result in overtriage and underutilization of level 2 or level 3 hospitals.
Is There a Stronger Association Between Children and Happiness Among the Religious? Religion as a Moderator in the Relationship Between Happiness and Child Number

The literature on child number and happiness has progressed beyond simple associations and has begun to explore the roles of various attitudinal and environmental factors that moderate the relationship. Here the role of religiosity as a moderator in the relationship between happiness and child number is tested. This effect has not been examined before, which is surprising given the role that religion has been shown to play in child number more generally. I draw on both the psychology and demography literature to make a theoretical case that, as religiosity in the United States tends to be associated with pronatalist norms and culture, and as happiness is positively associated with fulfilling sociocultural imperatives, then, all things being equal, the more religious will have a higher happiness effect (or lower unhappiness effect) from their children than the less religious. Using General Social Survey data, my empirical analysis empirically confirmed this hypothesis, showing a positive and significant interaction term between self-identifying as very religious and child number. This interaction is partially mediated by another interaction term between higher ideal family size (measuring pronatalist tendencies) and number of children.
The View from the Edge: The Indian Ocean's Middle East

I first encountered the Indian Ocean on the shores of Makran. I thought I was at land's end, Asia's edge. The ocean hadn't entered my thoughts except as non plus ultra, an ending void. The map said Baluchistan, and I had come to find the Baluch. But I soon found Africans and Zikris, palm-frond huts and Omani passports, old soldiers (or mercenaries) from an overseas foreign legion and smugglers of whiskey, opium, and pharmaceuticals. Now China has built a port there; then, less than twenty years ago, they were still making dhows, subtle smuggling ships. Yet it was far from romantic. It was a rough and hard place where traders and fishers eked a marginal existence from the watery edge of a dust-powder desert. Karachi was thirty-six hours by bus then truck. But Pakistan was an abstract and suspect idea; locals talked more of Muscat. A year or two later, in the Tihama of Yemen, I watched as boatloads of Africans (refugees? job hunters? all men at any rate) ran ashore through the surf. My Arab colleagues, all from the highlands, said they arrived every day, and spoke ill of them. A while after that, in Muscat, I listened with curiosity to Arabic laced with Urdu (or was it Hindi, or Gujarati? They were just nouns, Wanderworter: terms that travel). In Iran, it was different sounds of the ocean I heard when urban friends gave me tapes of bandarī, the music of the ports.
Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) acquisition risk in an endemic neonatal intensive care unit with an active surveillance culture and decolonization programme

Summary Background Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a leading cause of healthcare-associated infection in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Decolonization may eliminate bacterial reservoirs that drive MRSA transmission. Aim To measure the association between colonization pressure from decolonized and non-decolonized neonates and MRSA acquisition to inform use of this strategy for control of endemic MRSA. Methods An eight-year retrospective cohort study was conducted in a level-4 NICU that used active surveillance cultures and decolonization for MRSA control. Weekly colonization pressure exposures were defined as the number of patient-days of concurrent admission with treated (decolonized) and untreated (non-decolonized) MRSA carriers in the preceding seven days. Poisson regression was used to estimate risk of incident MRSA colonization associated with colonization pressure exposures. The population-attributable fraction was calculated to assess the proportion of overall unit MRSA incidence attributable to treated or untreated patients in this setting. Findings Every person-day increase in exposure to an untreated MRSA carrier was associated with a 6% increase in MRSA acquisition risk [relative risk (RR): 1.06; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01–1.11]. Risk of acquisition was not influenced by exposure to treated, isolated MRSA carriers (RR: 1.01; 95% CI: 0.98–1.04). In the context of this MRSA control programme, 22% (95% CI: 4.0–37) of MRSA acquisition could be attributed to exposures to untreated MRSA carriers. Conclusion Untreated MRSA carriers were an important reservoir for transmission. Decolonized patients on contact isolation posed no detectable transmission threat, supporting the hypothesis that decolonization may reduce patient-to-patient transmission. Non-patient reservoirs may contribute to unit MRSA acquisition and require further investigation.
Analog-To-Digital Conversion of Differential Metabotropic Inputs to Lateral Septal Neurons by the Combined Action of TRPC4 and GIRK

In a neural network, neurons frequently receive multiple coincidental transmitter inputs representing varying activities of different brain regions. These inputs not only vary in the signal pathways they activate but also in the strengths for each of the pathways. However, it remains unclear how neurons decipher co-incident inputs of varying strengths and encode discernible output messages. The vast majority of neurotransmitters signal through G protein-coupled receptors, which activate heterotrimeric G proteins to alter neuronal function via a limited set of effectors, including G protein-activated and/or receptor-operated channels that are capable of modulating neuronal excitability. For receptors that couple to Gq/11 and Gi/o, whereas the activation of Gq/11-phospholipase C pathway, which hydrolyzes phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate, suppresses Gi/o-mediated activation of G protein-activated inwardly rectifying K+ (GIRK) channels, the phospholipase C signaling is required for Gi/o stimulation of the nonselective cation channel, Transient Receptor Potential Canonical 4 (TRPC4). Thus, coincident activation of Gq/11 and Gi/o pathways differentially affects GIRK and TRPC4 channel activities, shaping excitability in a manner that is very sensitive on the relative strengths of Gq/11 and Gi/o signaling. Using whole-cell slice recordings and agonist or electrical stimulation of lateral septal neurons, we demonstrate that varying stimulation intensities at Gq/11 and Gi/o-coupled receptors give rise to distinctive membrane potential waveforms that include burst firing, plateau depolarization and hyperpolarization of varying durations resulting from combined actions of TRPC4 and GIRK channels. These differential responses alter neuronal firing in distinguishable patterns. We propose that the conversion of concurrent Gq/11 and Gi/o signaling of differential strengths into discernible electrical responses by joint actions of TRPC4 and GIRK channels is vital for lateral septum to serve as the information processing center of cerebrum for higher-order brain functions.
Low-cost feedback-controlled syringe pressure pumps for microfluidics applications

Microfluidics are widely used in research ranging from bioengineering and biomedical disciplines to chemistry and nanotechnology. As such, there are a large number of options for the devices used to drive and control flow through microfluidic channels. Commercially available syringe pumps are probably the most commonly used instruments for this purpose, but are relatively high-cost and have inherent limitations due to their flow profiles when they are run open-loop. Here, we present a low-cost ($110) syringe pressure pump that uses feedback control to regulate the pressure into microfluidic chips. Using an open-source microcontroller board (Arduino), we demonstrate an easily operated and programmable syringe pump that can be run using either a PID or bang-bang control method. Through feedback control of the pressure at the inlets of two microfluidic geometries, we have shown stability of our device to within ±1% of the set point using a PID control method and within ±5% of the set point using a bang-bang control method with response times of less than 1 second. This device offers a low-cost option to drive and control well-regulated pressure-driven flow through microfluidic chips.
Morphological operations and re-projection based novel low-dose CT reconstruction scheme

Computed Tomography (CT) has been a major contributor in revolutionizing and commercializing the medical imaging industry. However, it does so with some significant drawbacks. Most of the commonly used CT reconstruction algorithms need heavy dose of hazardous X-ray radiations. Higher X-ray dose produces better reconstructed image resolution, whereas low radiation dose projection data induces artifacts in the reconstructed image. It also reduces the image quality of conventional CT reconstruction algorithms [1]. The paper presents a novel algorithm for efficient CT reconstruction from low radiation dose projection data. In the proposed method, the phantom is subjected to low X-ray dose and then the projection data is enhanced using a series of post-processing algorithms and a new interpolation technique. The proposed algorithm is supported by computer simulation and promising results were observed. The proposed algorithm reduces the radiation dose to great extent, with good quality reconstructed image.
Invited) Selective Atomic Layer Deposition of Cobalt for Back End of Line

Bis(N-tert-butyl-N'-ethylpropionamidinato) cobalt(II) (CoAMD) was evaluated as a precursor for selective deposition of cobalt on Cu versus traditional back end of line (BEOL) dielectric materials. Atomic layer deposition at 165 °C to 265 °C with CoAMD and H2 was performed on Cu, SiO2 and a carbon doped oxide (CDO). Experiments revealed that CoAMD deposits preferentially on Cu, which interacts favorably with AMD ligands, and is least reactive on CDO. Selectivity-enhancing passivants were vapor-deposited to improve ALD selectivity of CoAMD for Cu by silylation of possible dielectric-surface reactive sites, including free-hydroxyl groups and strained siloxane bridges. Trimethylchlorosilane, hexamethyldisilizane and bis-dimethylamino dimethylsilane were tested for passivation. Trimethylchlorosilane was most effective at reducing Co nucleation on SiO2 and CDO without hindering Co accumulation on Cu. Hexamethyldisilizane also reduced the surface reactivity of SiO2 and CDO but required considerably higher exposures than trimethylchlorosilane to effect the same passivation.
THE FUNNY SIDE OF DRUG DEALING: RISK, HUMOR, AND NARRATIVE IDENTITY

In this study, we explore the role humor plays in the narrated identities of drug dealers, in their negotiation of the threat of formal punishment, and in their cultural membership and authority. By drawing from interview and observation data gathered from 33 active drug dealers residing in St. Louis, Missouri, we find that humor facilitates identity work among illicit drug dealers in several ways. Humor is an important symbolic boundary marker distinguishing dealers from others they consider “stupid” or less circumspect. It also indicates dealers’ identities as “smart” and simultaneously establishes and validates their subcultural authority and membership in the symbolic group of “smart” dealers. Furthermore, drug dealers use denigrating humor in their narratives to distance their former and virtual identities from their present identities. Finally, humor also reduces dealers’ perceptions of the threats posed by police and potential snitches by casting dealers’ present identities and former reactions to the threat of punishment in a positive light. We conclude by discussing implications for narrative criminology, extant humor research, and current understanding of symbolic boundaries, identity work, and deterrence.
A review of sanitation technologies to achieve multiple sustainable development goals that promote resource recovery

In 2015 the global community approved the seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs). The SDGs include a goal regarding access to clean water and sanitation with specific targets such as providing access to adequate and equitable sanitation for all, improving water quality by reducing pollution, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater, and increasing recycling and safe reuse globally. There are opportunities to promote sanitation technologies that would achieve these sanitation targets and minimize health risk from exposure to pathogens while also achieving SDGs related to increased food security and sustainable management of waste and natural resources through the recovery of beneficial resources such as energy and fertilizer. To that end, the objective of this paper is to critically review literature that is supported by material flow diagrams developed for nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon, to determine the ability of existing sanitation technologies and strategies that are deployed in a centralized or decentralized manner to safely recover resources and thus achieve multiple sustainable development goals. The one strategy and six technologies are 1) dig and cover, 2) bucket latrine, 3) ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine, 4) double-vault composting latrine, 5) urine-diverting composting latrine, 6) pour-flush toilet connected to a septic tank, and 7) sewered toilet. Results showed the six sanitation technologies and one strategy could be grouped into three categories based on their potential to recover resources without further processes added to provide resource recovery. Group 1 (unimproved, no resource recovery), which included the baseline strategy of dig and cover and the unimproved technology of bucket latrines, demonstrated no ability to achieve resource recovery from human waste without further resource recovery treatment. Container based sanitation (not discussed here) may, however, be an appropriate method to safely dispose of excreta while also providing opportunities for resource recovery. Group 2 (improved, no resource recovery), which included the technologies ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine, pour-flush toilet with septic tank, and sewered toilet, were also shown to have no ability to recover resources without further resource recovery treatment. Group 3 (improved, resource recovery), which included double-vault composting latrine and urine-diverting compositing latrine), demonstrated the greatest ability to recover resources from human waste. However, policies to ensure safe handling of resources generated at onsite locations is needed and resource recovery processes can be integrated with treatment processes to recover embedded resources from bucket latrines, VIP latrines, pour-flush toilets with septic tanks, and sewered toilets. The results provide guidance to achieve multiple sustainable development goals through the implementation of sanitation technologies that have potential to recover beneficial resources.
Conversation with Silent Patients

In March 1976 the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Karen Quinlan’s father could be appointed her guardian in order to direct termination of her treatment because, although Karen was an adult, she was comatose and her physicians believed there was “no reasonable possibility” she would ever regain consciousness.1 Mr. Quinlan had sought advance judicial approval for this course; the court left unclear whether any judicial participation in such decision would be necessary for future cases or whether a person’s comatose state and the physicians’ gloomy prognosis would themselves justify such decision by immediate family without fear of subsequent civil or criminal liability.* In July 1976 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that such a decision to withhold treatment should be made directly by a judge in a declaratory proceeding rather than by some judicially appointed guardian.2 In this case, Joseph Saikewicz was a profoundly retarded, virtually uncommunicative 66-year-old man diagnosed as suffering from an incurable leukemia. His physicians sought and obtained judicial authorization to withhold an apparently painful course of chemotherapy that might have extended his life for six months to a year.
Nutritional Influences on One-Carbon Metabolism: Effects on Arsenic Methylation and Toxicity

Exposure to inorganic arsenic (InAs) via drinking water and/or food is a considerable worldwide problem. Methylation of InAs generates monomethyl (MMAsIII+V)- and dimethyl (DMAsIII+V)-arsenical species in a process that facilitates urinary As elimination; however, MMAs is considerably more toxic than either InAs or DMAs. Emerging evidence suggests that incomplete methylation of As to DMAs, resulting in increased MMAs, is associated with increased risk for a host of As-related health outcomes. The biochemical pathway that provides methyl groups for As methylation, one-carbon metabolism (OCM), is influenced by folate and other micronutrients, including choline and betaine. Individuals and species differ widely in their ability to methylate As. A growing body of research, including cell-culture, animal-model, and epidemiological studies, has demonstrated the role of OCM-related micronutrients in As methylation. This review examines the evidence that nutritional status and nutritional interventions can influence the metabolism and toxicity of As, with a primary focus on folate.
CERAMICS AND POTTERY

Ceramics, including pottery, are one of the most ubiquitous artifact categories recovered from archaeological sites. Archaeologists use ceramics to answer questions about the dating of sites, changes in technology, economic organization, identity, status, ideology, and the movement and/or interaction of past societies. This chapter provides an overview of ceramic technology and the many uses of pottery for archaeological interpretation.
Production and properties of lightweight alloys by mechanical alloying

Successful application of mechanical alloying to binary Al-Fe, binary Ti-AI, and ternary Ti-AI-Nb powders has resulted in the formation of supersaturated solid solutions, novel intermediate phases and also amorphous phases. Nanometer-sized grains have been produced in all the systems and were retained even after consolidation. Microstructural and crystal structure characterization of these phases have been carried out. Preliminary results indicate these materials to be very hard (and strong) and are expected to exhibit improved ductility.
Trading at Stale Prices with Modern Technology: Policy Options for Mutual Funds in the Internet Age

Open-end mutual funds usually rely on the closing prices of the assets they hold to compute their net asset value (NAV), a price at which funds stand ready to buy and sell their own shares. Since the underlying assets' closing prices might be hours or even days old, the fund's NAV can be stale. Though mutual funds are typically targeted at long-term (buy and hold) investors, stale prices create profitable trading opportunities in fund shares. Exploiting a stale-price trading strategy is especially lucrative in domestic small-cap or foreign equity funds. The impact from stale price trading is not trivial. Empirical evidence suggests that stale-price traders expropriate about a quarter of a billion dollars annually from buy and hold investors in international funds alone. The current regulatory scheme encourages the use of fair value pricing by funds in response to significant events, which are linked to large market moves. But while regulators focus on significant events, stale price traders are quietly bleeding long-term fund investors a little each day. This Article argues that every day is a significant event in funds where prices are stale and technology makes daily trading quick and easy. Strengthening the current regulatory scheme requires recognizing not only that fair value pricing might be a daily exercise, but that policies imposing costs on trading could help to reduce wealth expropriation made possible by stale prices and modern trading technology.
Design and Testing of a Self Coupling Hydrostatic Leadscrew

This paper discusses the design and preliminary test results of a new type of hydrostatic leadscrew [1]. Like other hydrostatic leadscrews, it experiences no wear, backlash, or friction and its axial resolution is limited only by the performance of the drive motor and position sensor. In addition, the hydrostatic leadscrew discussed herein is only rigid along the axis of motion so it cannot cause errors (e.g. straightness errors) due to misalignment between the actuator and the carriage; hence the leadscrew is self coupling even though its axial stiffness can easily be designed to be from 108 to 109 N/m. Previous designs did not address the need for self coupling [2,3,4,5,6] and therefore carriage straightness errors often had a component with a period equal to that of the leadscrew. Tests on a full scale testbed verified that the self coupling hydrostatic leadscrew met all its design requirements, and its large self-coupling capability makes it economical to manufacture and install.
Mendelian Randomization Studies Promise to Shorten the Journey to FDA Approval

Summary There has been a dearth of new drugs approved for cardiovascular disorders. The cost is prohibitive, averaging to $2.5 billion, and requiring 12.5 years. This is in large part due to the high failure rate, with only 5% approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Despite preclinical studies showing potential safety and efficacy, most fail when they go to clinical trials phase I to III. One cause for failure is the drug target, often discovered to be a biomarker rather than causative for the disease. Mendelian randomization (MR) studies would determine whether the drug target is causative and could save millions of dollars and time, and prevent unnecessary exposure to adverse drug effects. This was demonstrated in 3 clinical trials that were negative with 2 drugs, veraspladib and darapladib. MR studies during the trials showed the targets of secretory and lipoprotein-associated phospholipids A2 are not causative for coronary artery disease and predicted negative results. The requirement for MR studies is a genetic risk variant with altered function, randomized at conception that remains fixed throughout one’s lifetime. It is not confounded by dietary, lifestyle, or socioeconomic factors. It is more sensitive than randomized controlled trials because exposure to the risk factor is fixed for a lifetime. MR studies showed plasma high-density lipoprotein cholesterol is not a causative target of coronary artery disease, and neither is uric acid, C-reactive protein, and others. MR studies are highly sensitive in determining whether drug targets are causative, and are relatively easy, inexpensive, and not time consuming. It is recommended that drug targets undergo MR studies before proceeding to randomized controlled trials.
Pack Your Politics! Assessing the Vote Choice of Latino Interstate Migrants

While popular narratives regarding the destiny of demographics assume Latino interstate migrants will alter destination state politics as Latinos disperse across the states, no studies directly assess the empirical validity of the underlying assumption of migrant's political preferences. Moreover, established theories of domestic migrant preferences suggest a variety of potential individual-level behaviors that often diverge from the underlying assumption of a uniform introduction of more liberal voters. Employing data from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, this study presents an analysis on Latino interstate migrant voting behavior, while also overcoming a variety of data limitations in existing studies. Countering some previous findings that homophily, adaptation, or even a static liberal orientation describes migrant voting behavior, the results suggest that Latino interstate migrant preferences vary by the political context of their previous state of residence. The results imply that the destiny of demographics will be conditioned, to some extent, by the migratory patterns of Latinos and the dyad of departure and destination states. When Latinos leave liberal (conservative) states, they bring more liberal (conservative) policies. In short, Latinos seem to pack their politics when moving across state lines.
Modeling Turbulent Flows in Porous Media

Turbulent flows in porous media occur in a wide variety of applications, from catalysis in packed beds to heat exchange in nuclear reactor vessels. In this review, we summarize the current state of...
Application of Different Standard Error Estimates in Reliable Change Methods

OBJECTIVE This study attempted to clarify the applicability of standard error (SE) terms in clinical research when examining the impact of short-term practice effects on cognitive performance via reliable change methodology. METHOD This study compared McSweeney's SE of the estimate (SEest) to Crawford and Howell's SE for prediction of the regression (SEpred) using a developmental sample of 167 participants with either normal cognition or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) assessed twice over 1 week. One-week practice effects in older adults: Tools for assessing cognitive change. Using these SEs, previously published standardized regression-based (SRB) reliable change prediction equations were then applied to an independent sample of 143 participants with MCI. RESULTS This clinical developmental sample yielded nearly identical SE values (e.g., 3.697 vs. 3.719 for HVLT-R Total Recall SEest and SEpred, respectively), and the resultant SRB-based discrepancy z scores were comparable and strongly correlated (r = 1.0, p < .001). Consequently, observed follow-up scores for our sample with MCI were consistently below expectation compared to predictions based on Duff's SRB algorithms. CONCLUSIONS These results appear to replicate and extend previous work showing that the calculation of the SEest and SEpred from a clinical sample of cognitively intact and MCI participants yields similar values and can be incorporated into SRB reliable change statistics with comparable results. As a result, neuropsychologists utilizing reliable change methods in research investigation (or clinical practice) should carefully balance mathematical accuracy and ease of use, among other factors, when determining which SE metric to use.
An Interactive Map of Global Patterns of Worn Clothing Exports in the Recent Term

United Nations COMTRADE data are used to examine worn clothing trade flows over the most recent five years (2013-2017). The focal metric for analysis is export values expressed in U.S. dollars. Export data were queried using various time scenarios including: 2013-2017, 1996-2008 and pre and post Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) (1996-2005, 2006-2017, respectively). The five year period was selected based on the goal to identify current impacts and policy implications. To identify complex patterns of trade flows between exporting and destination countries, a visual tool is adopted. An interactive Sankey diagram presented in static form illustrates destination countries for the top seven global worn clothing exporters.
Comparative Analysis of Endoscopic Transorbital Approach and Extended Mini-Pterional Approach for Sphenoid Wing Meningiomas with Osseous Involvement: Preliminary Surgical Results

Objective Sphenoid wing meningiomas (SWMs) can be treated with complete surgical resection and the recently introduced endoscopic transorbital approach (ETOA) offers a minimally invasive alternative. In this study, the surgical outcome of ETOA and the extended mini-pterional approach (eMPTA) for SWMs with osseous involvement is compared. Methods From October 2015 to May 2019, 24 patients underwent surgery for SWMs with osseous involvement. Among them, tumor resection was performed by ETOA for 11 patients (45.8%) and eMPTA for 13 patients (54.2%). The tumor characteristics, surgical outcome and morbidity, and approach-related aesthetic outcome were analyzed and compared retrospectively between ETOA and eMPTA based on SWM classification. Results The location of SWMs was mostly the middle sphenoid ridge (group III) (45.8%), followed by the greater sphenoid wing (group IV) (29.2%). Simpson resection grades I/II were achieved in 9 of 11 patients (81.8%) with ETOA and 11 of 13 patients (84.6%) with eMPTA. There were no differences in tumor characteristics between the 2 approaches. Surgery time, surgical bleeding, and hospital length of stay were significantly shorter with ETOA. Three patients had transient surgical morbidities such as diplopia (n = 1), ptosis (n = 1), and cerebrospinal fluid leak (n = 1) after ETOA. No differences could be seen in surgical morbidities between ETOA and eMPTA. Conclusions ETOA can provide direct access to the sphenoid bone and resectability with a more rapid and minimally invasive exposure than does eMPTA. Maximal subtotal resection with extensive sphenoid bone decompression for tumors with cavernous sinus infiltration is the key to a good clinical outcome, regardless of the surgical approach.
Contingency in Context: A Study of Exemplary Reading Teachers’ Use of Planned Scaffolds in Secondary English Classes with Emergent Bilinguals

Planned instructional scaffolding—the temporary use of materials, routines and structures to support students in doing challenging academic work—is a critical component of English-language reading ...
High-throughput experimentation for microstructural design in additively manufactured 316L stainless steel

Abstract In the present study, a combination of high-throughput (HT) and low-throughput (LT) techniques was used to rapidly determine the processing window and generate processing maps for Selective Laser Melting (SLM) of 316L stainless steel. The HT method includes the fabrication of hundreds of hex nut-shaped specimens, each processed with a unique combination of laser power, scanning speed, and hatch spacing. An easily removable scaffolding permitted rapid sample extraction from the base plate, thus saving machining cost and time. Hardness and immersion density measurements were used for HT characterization to identify a processing window for maximum strength and density. Within the defined processing window, a low-throughput (LT) microstructural interrogation of specimens were performed. The microstructural analysis included quantification at various length scales (i.e., grains size and morphology, texture, primary dendrite arm spacing, and melt pool geometry analysis). Microstructure-based processing maps as a function of volumetric energy density were generated. The combination of HT and LT methods produced a predictive relationship between hardness and primary dendrite arm spacing using a Hall-Petch relationship. A model is proposed to explain the dependence of microstructure on the melt pool geometry. The HT method can be applied for the microstructural design of SLM-fabricated components in other alloys.
Transforming How Business Impacts People: Unlocking the Collective Power of Five Distinct Narratives

Narratives drive conversations. They serve a framing purpose and offer a lens through which we enter a discussion, make sense of an issue and find meaning in our world. Ultimately, they shape decisions. When it comes to conversations about how people are affected by business conduct and the global economy, a number of distinct narratives are influencing decision-makers today: the development narrative of sustainability; the political narrative of inequality; the economic narrative of stakeholder capitalism; the investment narrative of ESG performance; and the accounting narrative of human and social capital. All of these narratives co-exist, yet they also compete for attention. In this working paper, Caroline Rees explains why continuing down this siloed approach could result in each of these narratives becoming unnecessarily diluted and falling short of its aims. By contrast, she proposes that the narrative of business of human rights – grounded in global normative standards and a focus on those people most vulnerable to harm from business practices – can be of central relevance in bringing these other five narratives together, and helping them achieve a goal they all share: a world in which business gets done with respect for the basic dignity and equality of everyone.
Characteristics of U.S. Acute Care Hospitals That Have Implemented Telemedicine Critical Care.

Objectives Telemedicine critical care is associated with improved efficiency, quality, and cost-effectiveness. As of 2010, fewer than 5% of U.S. hospitals had telemedicine critical care, and fewer than 10% of ICU beds were covered. We evaluated recent telemedicine critical care implementation and bed coverage rates in the United States and compared characteristics of hospitals with and without telemedicine critical care. Design Cross-sectional study of 2018 American Hospital Association Annual Survey Database. Setting U.S. hospitals. Patients None. Interventions None. Measurements and main results We obtained data regarding telemedicine critical care implementation, ICU capability (defined as ≥ 1 ICU bed), other hospital characteristics, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, a measure of ICU market competition based on hospital referral regions. Among 4,396 hospitals (response rate 71%), 788 (17.9%) had telemedicine critical care, providing potential coverage to 27,624 (28% of total) ICU beds. Among 306 hospital referral regions, 197 (64%) had a respondent hospital with telemedicine critical care. Telemedicine critical care implementation was associated with being a nonprofit (odds ratio, 7.75; 95% CI, 5.18-11.58) or public (odds ratio, 4.16 [2.57-6.73]) compared with for-profit hospital; membership in a health system (odds ratio, 3.83 [2.89-5.08]; stroke telemedicine presence (odds ratio, 6.87 [5.35-8.81]); ICU capability (odds ratio, 1.68 [1.25-2.26]); and more competitive ICU markets (odds ratio per 1,000-point decrease in Herfindahl-Hirschman Index 1.11 [1.01-1.22]). Notably, rural critical access hospitals had lower odds of telemedicine critical care implementation (odds ratio, 0.49 [0.34-0.70]). Teaching status, geographic region, and rurality were not associated with telemedicine critical care implementation. Conclusions About one fifth of respondent hospitals had telemedicine critical care by 2018, providing potential coverage of nearly one third of reported ICU beds. This represents a substantial increase in telemedicine critical care implementation over the last decade. Future expansion to include more rural hospitals that could benefit most may be aided by addressing hospital financial and market barriers to telemedicine critical care implementation.
Exploration of Techniques for Rapid Activation of Glanceable Information in Head-Worn Augmented Reality

Future augmented reality (AR) glasses may provide pervasive and continuous access to everyday information. However, it remains unclear how to address the issue of virtual information overlaying and occluding real-world objects and information that are of interest to users. One approach is to keep virtual information sources inactive until they are explicitly requested, so that the real world remains visible. In this research, we explored the design of interaction techniques with which users can activate virtual information sources in AR. We studied this issue in the context of Glanceable AR, in which virtual information resides at the periphery of the user’s view. We proposed five techniques and evaluated them in both sitting and walking scenarios. Our results demonstrate the usability, user preference, and social acceptance of each technique, as well as design recommendations to achieve optimal performance. Our findings can inform the design of lightweight techniques to activate virtual information displays in future everyday AR interfaces.
Sparse data machine learning for battery health estimation and optimal design incorporating material characteristics

Abstract State of health estimation and optimal electrode design are two critical challenges in battery research, yet few work addressed them together. In this work we demonstrate a machine learning approach for next generation high capacity batteries with black phosphorus anodes. Experimentally 90 coin cells with various material properties are fabricated and cycled at different conditions, generating so far the most comprehensive dataset. For the first time, material characteristics are incorporated for state of health estimation in a data-driven framework. A virtual sample generator is developed to address sparse data by generating virtual samples, which significantly improves state of health prediction. Incorporating easy-to-measure material properties, the model is able to accurately predict state of health after a given number of cycles using only the first 2 cycles. The approach provides quantitative insights of feature importance, resulting in a multi-objective optimization framework for battery electrode design, achieving long cycling life, high active material loading and fast kinetics at the same time.
Lipotrope Deficiency and Persistent Changes in DNA Methylation

Dietary deficiency of lipotropes (choline, methionine, folate, vitamin B12) has long been associated with increased incidence of tumors. Copeland and Salmon first reported that long-term feeding of choline deficient diet increased incidence of tumor in the liver and other organs of the rat almost 50 years ago1. Subsequent studies demonstrated that the peanut meal they used in the diet was contaminated with aflatoxin2, and it was soon established that a variety of different diets deficient in choline and/or other lipotropes acted to promote carcinogen induced tumor development in the liver and other organs3–10. Later, through feeding of amino-acid defined diets tested for absence of exogenous carcinogens11, it was possible to prove that lipotrope deficiency alone was sufficient to cause development of tumors in the liver. However, the spectrum of tumors induced by lipotrope deficiency was much narrower than that seen in lipotrope-deficient animals treated with carcinogen and the diet actually seemed to inhibit appearance of some spontaneously arising tumors11
Hereditary spastic paraplegia

Publisher Summary This chapter describes hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) or the Strumpell–Lorrain syndrome, which is the heterogeneous group of clinically and pathologically related inherited disorders where the main clinical feature is progressive bilateral lower limb spasticity and weakness. HSP is a genetically and clinically diverse group of disorders whose primary feature is progressive spasticity and pyramidal weakness of the lower extremities. HSP might be more prevalent than estimated because of incomplete ascertainment of cases. The condition arises because of degeneration of the longest motor and sensory axons in the spinal cord. The clinical picture is dependent on whether the disorder is pure or complicated. The diagnosis is still clinical and based on the exclusion of other similarly presenting disorders. Investigations help in excluding other disorders rather than confirming the diagnosis. Genetic molecular testing plays a role in the diagnosis but is still far from being comprehensive. Therapy is mainly supportive, aiming at the maintenance of ambulation as much as possible.
Braggadochio and the Schoolroom Simile

AbstractBraggadochio travels through Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene collecting other men's ornamenta, a word that describes both the figures of rhetoric and the weapons of war. His story proceeds according to the paradigm of accumulation that dominated early modern pedagogy and underwrote its central claim that the collection of knowledge might facilitate social mobility. The early modern simile acted as an engine of accumulation and its copious productivity resisted the very abstraction upon which an art of thinking was predicated. Humanist pedagogy suggested that the success of a given composition depended upon disguising the labor of making. Having shown men the path “from cart to schoole, and from thence to Court,” George Puttenham also warns in his Arte of English Poesie (1589) that his students are in danger of returning whence they came: “being now lately become a Courtier,” the student must “shew not himself a craftsmen, & merit to be disregarded, and with scorne sent back againe to the shop or ot...
Improved high-speed counter-current chromatography with the multilayer coils connected in series : IV. Evaluation of preparative capability with large multilayer coils

In order to further extend the preparative capability of the apparatus, we have constructed a new centrifuge which can hold much longer multilayer coils for the separation of multigram quantities of samples. The performance of the apparatus has been successfully demonstrated in the separation of dinitrophenyl (DNP) amino acids using a two-phase solvent system composed of chloroform-acetic acid 0.1 M hydrochloric acid at a volume ratio of 2:2:1
The amino acid sequence of the α -chain of human fibrinogen

The amino acid sequence of the human fibrinogen α-chain reveals a structure that can be divided into three zones of unique amino acid composition. The middle of these contains the two primary α-chain cross-linking acceptor sites and consists of a remarkable series of internal duplications.
An analysis of error patterns in children's backward digit recall in noise

The purpose of the study was to determine whether perceptual masking or cognitive processing accounts for a decline in working memory performance in the presence of competing speech. The types and patterns of errors made on the backward digit span in quiet and multitalker babble at -5 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were analyzed. The errors were classified into two categories: item (if digits that were not presented in a list were repeated) and order (if correct digits were repeated but in an incorrect order). Fifty five children with normal hearing were included. All the children were aged between 7 years and 10 years. Repeated measures of analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) revealed the main effects for error type and digit span length. In terms of listening condition interaction, it was found that the order errors occurred more frequently than item errors in the degraded listening condition compared to quiet. In addition, children had more difficulty recalling the correct order of intermediate items, supporting strong primacy and recency effects. Decline in children's working memory performance was not primarily related to perceptual difficulties alone. The majority of errors was related to the maintenance of sequential order information, which suggests that reduced performance in competing speech may result from increased cognitive processing demands in noise.
A screen for nonconditional dauer-constitutive mutations in Caenorhabditis elegans

In Caenorhabditis elegans, formation of the developmentally arrested dauer larva is induced by high levels of a constitutively secreted pheromone. Synergy between two groups of incompletely penetrant dauer-constitutive (Daf-c) mutations has recently led to a proposal that these two groups of genes are partially redundant and function in two parallel pathways that regulate dauer formation. A possible weakness in this reasoning is that the mutations used to identify the synergy were specifically obtained as incompletely penetrant mutations. Here we use screens to identify new Daf-c alleles without any requirement for partial penetrance. Nevertheless, 22 of the 25 new mutations are incompletely penetrant mutations in 6 previously identified genes. Among these are mutations in daf-8 and daf-19, genes for which only one mutation had been previously identified. Also included in this group are three daf-1 alleles that do not exhibit the maternal rescue characteristic of other daf-1 alleles. Two of the 25 new mutations are fully penetrant and are alleles of daf-2, the one gene in which a fully penetrant mutation had been found earlier. Finally, one of the 25 new mutations is semidominant, temperature-sensitive, and identifies a new gene, daf-28. The results demonstrate that an incompletely penetrant Daf-c phenotype is characteristic of mutations in most Daf-c genes other than daf-2. This finding strengthens the hypothesis that a branched genetic pathway controls dauer formation.