cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Evaluating Program and Managerial Efficiency: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to Program Follow Through

A model for measuring the efficiency of Decision Making Units =DMU's is presented, along with related methods of implementation and interpretation. The term DMU is intended to emphasize an orientation toward managed entities in the public and/or not-for-profit sectors. The proposed approach is applicable to the multiple outputs and designated inputs which are common for such DMU's. A priori weights, or imputations of a market-price-value character are not required. A mathematical programming model applied to observational data provides a new way of obtaining empirical estimates of extrernal relations-such as the production functions and/or efficient production possibility surfaces that are a cornerstone of modern economics. The resulting extremal relations are used to envelop the observations in order to obtain the efficiency measures that form a focus of the present paper. An illustrative application utilizes data from Program Follow Through =PFT. A large scale social experiment in public school education, it was designed to test the advantages of PFT relative to designated NFT =Non-Follow Through counterparts in various parts of the U.S. It is possible that the resulting observations are contaminated with inefficiencies due to the way DMU's were managed en route to assessing whether PFT as a program is superior to its NFT alternative. A further mathematical programming development is therefore undertaken to distinguish between "management efficiency" and "program efficiency." This is done via procedures referred to as Data Envelopment Analysis =DEA in which one first obtains boundaries or envelopes from the data for PFT and NFT, respectively. These boundaries provide a basis for estimating the relative efficiency of the DMU's operating under these programs. These DMU's are then adjusted up to their program boundaries, after which a new inter-program envelope is obtained for evaluating the PFT and NFT programs with the estimated managerial inefficiencies eliminated. The claimed superiority of PFT fails to be validated in this illustrative application. Our DEA approach, however, suggests the additional possibility of new approaches obtained from PFT-NFT combinations which may be superior to either of them alone. Validating such possibilities cannot be done only by statistical or other modelings. It requires recourse to field studies, including audits e.g., of a U.S. General Accounting Office variety and therefore ways in which the results of a DEA approach may be used to guide such further studies or audits are also indicated.
Structural Determinants of Actinomyces sortase SrtC2 Required for Membrane Localization and Assembly of Type 2 Fimbriae for Interbacterial Coaggregation and Oral Biofilm Formation

As a pioneer colonizer of the oral cavity, Actinomyces oris expresses proteinaceous pili (also called fimbriae) to mediate the following two key events in biofilm formation: adherence to saliva deposits on enamel and interbacterial associations. Assembly of type 2 fimbriae that directly facilitate coaggregation with oral streptococci and Actinomyces biofilm development requires the class C sortase SrtC2. Although the general sortase-associated mechanisms have been elucidated, several structural attributes unique to the class C sortases require functional investigation. Mutational studies reported here suggest that the N-terminal transmembrane (TM) region of SrtC2, predicted to contain a signal peptide sequence, is cleaved off the mature protein and that this processing is critical for the proper integration of the enzyme at the cytoplasmic membrane, which is mediated by the extended hydrophobic C terminus containing a TM domain and a cytoplasmic tail. Deletion of this putative TM or the entire cytoplasmic domain abolished the enzyme localization and functionality. Alanine substitution of the conserved catalytic Cys-His dyad abrogated the SrtC2 enzymatic activity. In contrast, mutations designed to alter a “lid” domain that covers the catalytic pocket of a class C sortase showed no effect on enzyme activity. Finally, each of the deleterious mutations that affected SrtC2 activity or membrane localization also eliminated Actinomyces species biofilm development and bacterial coaggregation with streptococci. We conclude that the N terminus of SrtC2, which contains the signal sequence, is required for proper protein translocation and maturation, while the extended C-terminal hydrophobic region serves as a stable membrane anchor for proper enzyme functionality.
Re-Examining Gender Differences in Video Game Play: Time Spent and Feelings of Success

Research has shown that, among children, boys tend to play video games more than girls do. There are several theories addressing this phenomenon, including that stereotypes and lack of opportunity leave girls feeling inadequate with certain types of technology. No research has yet examined the interactive relationships between time spent playing and feelings of success in video games. The current study shows that, when accounting for this endogenous relationship, girls actually feel just as competent as boys at video games, but choose not to play as frequently. For boys, the increased play time leads to increased feelings of success and achievement, which then prompts more time playing. Links to other research offer the hypothesis that there may be biological bases in the increased sense of reward from achievement among boys; suggestions and implications are discussed in relation to the ongoing gender gap in technology-related fields.
Declining recurrence among ductal carcinoma in situ patients treated with breast-conserving surgery in the community setting

Introduction Randomized trials indicate that adjuvant radiotherapy plus tamoxifen decrease the five-year risk of recurrence among ductal carcinoma in situ patients treated with breast-conserving surgery from about 20% to 8%. The aims of this study were to examine the use and impact of these therapies on risk of recurrence among ductal carcinoma in situ patients diagnosed and treated in the community setting.
Are registry hospitals different? A comparison of patients admitted to hospitals of a commercial heart failure registry with those from national and community cohorts.

Background Clinical registries have been created to address questions that are difficult to answer with clinical trials. However, the applicability of registry findings to the general population has been questioned because of concerns over potential bias in the selection of participating hospitals. The purpose of this study was to determine if patients admitted to hospitals participating in a heart failure registry (ADHERE) are comparable with patients admitted to other hospitals, including those admitted to Framingham area hospitals. Methods We used a 20% random sample of all Medicare patients discharged during 1984 to 2001 to determine rates of hospitalization, procedure use, and survival after a first admission for heart failure (none in the prior 3 years). Hospitals were classified as participating in the ADHERE registry (n = 189), located within or near Framingham, MA (n = 9), or other (n = 5541). Results A total of 725702 first admissions were identified, including 80338 to ADHERE hospitals and 1716 to Framingham area hospitals. Minimal differences in patient characteristics were noted between patients admitted to ADHERE and non-ADHERE hospitals, although patients admitted to Framingham area hospitals were more likely to be white (95%) than were patients admitted to ADHERE (84%) or other hospitals (87%, P P P = .0004). After adjustment for patient characteristics, differences in outcome between ADHERE and non-ADHERE hospitals remained minimal. Conclusion Patients admitted with heart failure to ADHERE registry hospitals had similar baseline characteristics and outcomes to other patients.
Improving academic learning from computer-based narrative games

Abstract Although many strong claims are made for the power of computer games to promote academic learning, the narrative content of a game may reduce the learner's tendency to reflect on its academic content. The present study examines adding a low-cost instructional feature intended to promote appropriate cognitive processing of the academic content during play. College students played a computer adventure game in which they guided a character through a bunker in search of lost artwork, building electromechanical devices to open stuck doors along the way. In Experiment 1, students who filled out worksheets about wet-cell batteries before and during the game outperformed students who played the game without worksheets on a written explanation of how wet-cell batteries work (d = 0.92), multiple-choice comprehension questions about wet-cell batteries (d = 0.67), and open-ended transfer problems about wet-cell batteries (d = 0.74). In Experiment 2, participants who completed only the in-game worksheet outperformed the control group on a written explanation of wet-cell batteries (d = 0.59) and transfer problems (d = 0.67), whereas participants who completed only the pre-game worksheet did not outperform the control group on any measure. These findings point to the learning benefits of adding instructional features suggested by cognitive theories of learning.
Ischemic Renal Disease

The intrinsic ability of the kidney to regulate renal blood flow and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) over a wide range of perfusion pressures has fascinated physiologists for decades. These adaptive responses to physiologic and pathologic alterations in renal perfusion, known collectively as renal autoregulation, serve to maintain renal excretory function in settings of decreased renal blood flow, such as in states of volume depletion, hypotension, or reduced cardiac output. Another important and unique setting of renal hypoperfusion is that of renal arterial occlusive disease due to a fixed stenosis, a situation that typically presents with a chronic, gradual, and eventually critical reduction of perfusion. This physiologic stress depends on renal autoregulation to maintain GFR, but the ongoing global renal hypoperfusion appears to eventually produce chronic ischemic injury to the renal parenchyma through mechanisms that are not clearly understood. This latter prospect is clearly a threat to the viability of the kidney and appears to be an important cause of chronic and often irreversible kidney disease. An understanding of the limits, mechanisms, and the pharmacologic manipulation of renal autoregulation is important in this setting because the disordered physiology is silent. Likewise, an understanding of the pathophysiology of chronic ischemic injury is important in designing effective clinical strategies to treat this disorder.
Hazards of Radioisotopes

Radioisotopes, such as 14C and 32P, are unusual forms of elements containing the same number of protons and electrons as the normal form, but a differing number of neutrons. They are less stable than the normal form and decay spontaneously producing radioactivity. The introduction of the use of radioisotopes into biological research was one of the single most significant advances in research within at least the last several decades and possibly during the entire century. As a result of this development, today radioactive biological tracers, radioisotopes, are perhaps the most versatile, comparatively inexpensive, and easily used research tools available in biomedical research. Virtually every important discovery in biochemistry and molecular biology since these tracers were introduced was made using these substances; listing these advances would take pages. Examples of some of the techniques developed with the use of radioisotopes show their versatility and utility: radioimmunoassay; metabolic uptake studies using tracer techniques; autoradiography; exchange kinetics; radiochromatography; and radiometric analysis, to name a few.
FORECASTING WILDFIRE SUPPRESSION EXPENDITURES FOR THE UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE

The wildland fire management organization of the United States Forest Service (USFS) operates under policy and budget legacies that began nearly -100 years ago and a forest fuel situation that is all too current. The confluence of these three factors contributes to increased burning and firefighting costs for the agency, and increased concern from both the U.S. Congress and the public. Historically, the 10-year moving average of suppression expenditures has been used in USFS annual budget requests to Congress. But in a time when fire activity and costs are steadily rising, the IO-year moving average budget formula has translated into shortfalls in available suppression funds nearly every year since the mid-1990s. When the budgeted amount is insufficient, the agency continues to suppress fires by reallocating funds from other land management programs and by making subsequent requests to Congress for additional funding. A recent report from the U.S. General Accounting Office (renamed the Government Accountability Office in 2004) recommended a reevaluation of the budgeting system for wildfire suppression expenditures by the federal land management agencies (U.S. GAO, 2004). While many of the issues and critiques made by GAO are beyond the control of the agencies, the USFS has explored alternatives to current practices used in developing out-year budget requests for emergency fire suppression. We have two primary objectives in th is chapter. First, we seek to evaluate candidate forecast models of wildfire suppression expenditures. These time series models are constructed to allow suppression budget forecasts up to 3 years in advance of a coming fire season. These models are evaluated for their suit­ ability for budget documents presented to Congress. The structure of estimated models highlights the importance of accounting for intertemporal dynamics and stochasticity in wildfire suppression expenditures. Second, we demonstrate a method from the forecasting literature that quantifies some of the factors poten­ tially important in choosing among alternative models. The method applies loss functions to errors in forecasts, and our comparisons are between the 10-year moving average and our estimated time series models.
Eutocius’ Text of Dimension of the Circle

In the preceding chapters we have collated the primary medieval Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin versions of Dimension of the Circle and retrieved their lost prototypes, the Arabic AF* and the Greek DC*. From a comparison with the extant Greek text DC, we have perceived that DC is an edited version of DC*, which in its turn is an adaptation of Archimedean materials in Theon (T) and other commentators. We now consider the parallel evidence from Eutocius. As an inspection of passages from his Archimedes commentaries reveals, Eutocius did not utilize a very old form of the text for his source, as Heiberg assumed, but rather DC*.1
Serial Propagation of 3 Strains of Rabbit Fibroblasts; their Susceptibility to Infection with Vaccinia Virus.

SummaryTwenty-three strains of fibroblasts derived from normal rabbit and chick embryo tissue were serially propagated on glass in a variety of media. All except 3 strains failed to proliferate for more than 8 to 12 subcultures. The 3 successful strains were derived from adult testis, embryonic skin-muscle and adult muscle respectively and continue to proliferate at a constant rate after 38 to 61 subcultures. Vaccinia virus multiplies in all 3 strains of fibroblasts resulting in the complete destruction of cells.
Epitaxially guided assembly of collagen layers on mica surfaces.

Ordered assembly of collagen molecules on flat substrates has potential for various applications and serves as a model system for studying the assembly process. While previous studies demonstrated self-assembly of collagen on muscovite mica into highly ordered layers, the mechanism by which different conditions affect the resulting morphology remains to be elucidated. Using atomic force microscopy, we follow the assembly of collagen on muscovite mica at a concentration lower than the critical fibrillogenesis concentration in bulk. Initially, individual collagen molecules adsorb to mica and subsequently nucleate into fibrils possessing the 67 nm D-periodic bands. Emergence of fibrils aligned in parallel despite large interfibril distances agrees with an alignment mechanism guided by the underlying mica. The epitaxial growth was further confirmed by the formation of novel triangular networks of collagen fibrils on phlogopite mica, whose surface lattice is known to have a hexagonal symmetry, whereas the more...
Multisite Planning under Demand and Transportation Time Uncertainty: Robust Optimization and Conditional Value-at-Risk Frameworks

The operational planning of a multisite production and distribution network entails determining the daily production and shipment profiles for the supply chain under consideration. The generated profiles should provide a tight upper bound on the true production capacity of the supply chain to ensure the maximization of customer satisfaction along with the minimization of resource misallocation. With an operational planning time horizon of 1−3 months, it is also imperative to take into account pertinent parameter uncertainty, so that the production and shipment profiles are not only a tight upper bound on the supply chain’s production capacity but also immune to the different forms of system uncertainty, such as demand due date, demand amount, and transportation time uncertainty. These types of uncertainty have been explicitly considered by means of the robust optimization framework and conditional value-at-risk theory. An industrial case study has been undertaken to demonstrate the viability of the propos...
Seasonal and time of day variation related to the daily incidence of major traumatic injury in a large US city

BackgroundTrauma is a major burden on the healthcare system of Chicago with greater than 9000 major injuries annually. If fluctuations in trauma could be predicted by ecologic variables, more effec...
Engineering of Artificial pH Switch Proteins using Internal Ionizable Residues with Anomalous PKA Values

Many proteins act as pH sensors. They can respond to small changes in pH with a large conformational transition of functional significance. The thermodynamic basis of pH-driven conformational changes in proteins is well understood: a change in pH can drive a conformational transition when final and initial states have different affinity for H+. This requires that some ionizable groups titrate with different pKa values in the two states. Here we demonstrate how buried Lys or Glu residues with highly anomalous pKa values can be used for rational engineering of artificial pH switch protein that undergo global, cooperative unfolding in response to small changes in pH in the physiological range. This study was enabled by our previous demonstration that most Lys and Glu residues buried in the interior of staphylococcal nuclease titrate with highly anomalous pKa values as a consequence of being buried in the hydrophobic interior of the protein. The ionization of a single buried ionizable group is not sufficient to drive the unfolding of the protein, thus we engineered variants with two buried ionizable groups. The V66E/A109E and T62K/L125K variants of SNase were selected because, based on the pKa values measured for these buried residues, the protein was expected to act as a switch near pH 7. This was confirmed with equilibrium thermodynamic experiments. The double Glu variant was stable at low pH and unfolded at high pH and the double Lys variant was stable at high pH and unfolded at low pH, as expected from the nature of the shifts in pKa values. Crystallography and NMR spectroscopy were used to characterize the folded and unfolded states. This strategy for the design of artificial pH sensing proteins is completely general and transferable to other proteins.
A Genome-wide CRISPR Screen in Toxoplasma Identifies Essential Apicomplexan Genes.

Apicomplexan parasites are leading causes of human and livestock diseases such as malaria and toxoplasmosis, yet most of their genes remain uncharacterized. Here, we present the first genome-wide genetic screen of an apicomplexan. We adapted CRISPR/Cas9 to assess the contribution of each gene from the parasite Toxoplasma gondii during infection of human fibroblasts. Our analysis defines ∼200 previously uncharacterized, fitness-conferring genes unique to the phylum, from which 16 were investigated, revealing essential functions during infection of human cells. Secondary screens identify as an invasion factor the claudin-like apicomplexan microneme protein (CLAMP), which resembles mammalian tight-junction proteins and localizes to secretory organelles, making it critical to the initiation of infection. CLAMP is present throughout sequenced apicomplexan genomes and is essential during the asexual stages of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. These results provide broad-based functional information on T. gondii genes and will facilitate future approaches to expand the horizon of antiparasitic interventions.
Baseline Immunoglobulin E Levels as a Marker of Doxorubicin- and Trastuzumab-Associated Cardiac Dysfunction.

Rationale:There is a critical need to develop robust, mechanistic strategies to identify patients at increased risk of cancer therapeutics–related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD). Objective:We aimed to discover new biomarkers associated with doxorubicin- and trastuzumab-induced CTRCD using high-throughput proteomic profiling. Methods and Results:Plasma, echocardiograms, and clinical outcomes were collected at standardized intervals in breast cancer patients undergoing doxorubicin and trastuzumab cancer therapy. Thirty-one longitudinal plasma samples from 3 cases with CTRCD and 4 age- and cancer-matched controls without CTRCD were processed and analyzed using label-free liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. From these analyses, 862 proteins were identified from case/control pairs 1 and 2 and 1360 proteins from case/control pair 3. Proteins with a >1.5-fold change in cases compared with controls with a P<0.05 either at the time of CTRCD diagnosis or across all time points were considered candidate diagnostic...
The suppression of surfzone cross‐shore mixing by alongshore currents

Mixing by horizontal surfzone eddies is important to the cross-shore exchange of material through the surfzone. Surfzone cross-shore mixing for normally and obliquely incident waves, with very similar incident significant wave heights and directional spreads, is quantified using Boussinesq modeled drifter trajectories. For t 200 m) propagating at a velocity C different than the mean current velocity V(x)– the same mechanism that reduces mixing for mesoscale eddies.
Analysis of wide area user mobility patterns

In this paper, we present an analysis of user behavior and mobility patterns based on a trace of accesses to a department e-mail server. In contrast to previous studies, we consider a single service and examine how a user community connects to it while moving across a variety of different service providers' wireless and wired networks. By measuring an e-mail service, one that users access often, we were able to monitor a large number of sessions originating from a diverse set of locations. Our contributions include: a unique approach to extracting user mobility information from traces of client application interactions; a novel approach to modeling user behavior and mobility; and a demonstration of how such models can be used to generate synthetic traces. Overall, although some users are highly mobile, we find most users have a low degree of mobility - 70% of users access their e-mail from 2 or fewer unique locations. We also find that our observed session times are longer than those reported by previous mobility studies in wireless networks.
Virus Diseases of Tropical Vegetable Crops and Their Management

Viruses have long been known to be prevalent in plants in tropical and sub-tropical developing countries, particularly in staple crops such as cassava, rice, coconut and pulses. The need to address a wider range of vegetable crops was identified by the IPM-Innovation Lab. To meet these needs, a team of virologists was organized to work across countries and regions with IPM specialists to document virus disease problems in priority crops; mainly tomato and peppers, melons and various gourds and cucurbits, locally preferred vegetables such as eggplant (brinjal), okra (bhendi) and yardlong bean, and fruits (passion fruit, tree tomato). These crops constitute important sources of income and food sources, for many farmers, and were observed to be infected by a wide diversity of viruses. Demands for increased production, increased uniformity of vegetables grown for domestic and export markets, changes in production practices leading to scale up of production of seeds and seedlings, changes related to intensification and global climate change, and greater crop uniformity across regions, appear to be associated with crop losses due to viruses. This chapter summarizes more than two decades of research results to identify problems, and describes progress to enhance local capacity for in-country diagnosis and implementation of integrated disease management practices.
Automated Reconstruction of Neurovascular Networks in Knife-Edge Scanning Microscope Rat Brain Nissl Data Set

Analyzing mammalian brain image can help to understand the interaction between cerebral blood flow and its surrounding tissue. However, extracting the geometry of the vasculature and the cells is difficult because of the complexity of the brain. In this paper, we propose an approach for reconstructing the neurovascular networks from Knife-Edge Scanning Microscope (KESM) rat Nissl data set. The proposed method includes the following steps. First, we enhanced the raw image data using homomorphic filtering, fast Fourier transform, and anisotropic diffusion. Next, we initially extracted the vessel cross section from the image using dynamic global thresholding. Subsequently, we computed local properties of the connected components to remove various sources of noise. Finally, the proposed method connected small and large discontinuities in the vascular traces. To validate the performance of the proposed method, we compared reconstruction results of the proposed method with an existing method (Lim’s method [1, 2]). The comparison results show that the proposed method outperforms the previous method: faster and robust to noise.
Imaging in Drug Development: Animal Models, Handling and Physiological Constraints

In this chapter we delve into the primary components and operational issues that need to be considered in the setup and operation of a dedicated animal imaging facility with the use of PET, SPECT, CT, MR, and other platforms. The special conditions required for successful animal models, needs of the animals during imaging, and the avoidance of environmental and physiologic artifacts to the images are discussed.
Role-specific Self-efficacy as Precedent and Product of the Identity Model:

This article examines empirically ideas initially proposed in speculative work by Ervin and Stryker dealing with what could be understood about human social behavior and interaction by bringing together self-esteem and identity theories. Necessary to that task is distinguishing between two key and often conflated concepts of identity theory, salience and prominence. We argue that role-specific self-efficacy, embedded in self-esteem theory, is a precedent and a product of the identity theory model and global self-efficacy is a link from role-identities to the self-concept through the impact of global self-efficacy on prominence. Findings support a hypothesized feedback loop from role-specific self-efficacy to prominence to salience and back to role-specific self-efficacy.
Mice lacking liver-specific β-catenin develop steatohepatitis and fibrosis after iron overload

Background & Aims Iron overload disorders such as hereditary hemochromatosis and iron loading anemias are a common cause of morbidity from liver diseases and increase risk of hepatic fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Treatment options for iron-induced damage are limited, partly because there is lack of animal models of human disease. Therefore, we investigated the effect of iron overload in liver-specific β-catenin knockout mice (KO), which are susceptible to injury, fibrosis and tumorigenesis following chemical carcinogen exposure. Methods Iron overload diet was administered to KO and littermate control (CON) mice for various times. To ameliorate an oxidant-mediated component of tissue injury, N-Acetyl-L-(+)-cysteine (NAC) was added to drinking water of mice on iron overload diet. Results KO on iron diet (KO +Fe) exhibited remarkable inflammation, followed by steatosis, oxidative stress, fibrosis, regenerating nodules and occurrence of occasional HCC. Increased injury in KO +Fe was associated with activated protein kinase B (AKT), ERK, and NF-κB, along with reappearance of β-catenin and target gene Cyp2e1 , which promoted lipid peroxidation and hepatic damage. Addition of NAC to drinking water protected KO +Fe from hepatic steatosis, injury and fibrosis, and prevented activation of AKT, ERK, NF-κB and reappearance of β-catenin. Conclusions The absence of hepatic β-catenin predisposes mice to hepatic injury and fibrosis following iron overload, which was reminiscent of hemochromatosis and associated with enhanced steatohepatitis and fibrosis. Disease progression was notably alleviated by antioxidant therapy, which supports its chemopreventive role in the management of chronic iron overload disorders. Lay summary Lack of animal models for iron overload disorders makes it hard to study the disease process for improving therapies. Feeding high iron diet to mice that lack the β-catenin gene in liver cells led to increased inflammation followed by fat accumulation, cell death and wound healing that mimicked human disease. Administration of an antioxidant prevented hepatic injury in this model.
Solution to Detect, Classify, and Report Illicit Online Marketing and Sales of Controlled Substances via Twitter: Using Machine Learning and Web Forensics to Combat Digital Opioid Access

Background: On December 6 and 7, 2017, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hosted its first Code-a-Thon event aimed at leveraging technology and data-driven solutions to help combat the opioid epidemic. The authors—an interdisciplinary team from academia, the private sector, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—participated in the Code-a-Thon as part of the prevention track. Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and deploy a methodology using machine learning to accurately detect the marketing and sale of opioids by illicit online sellers via Twitter as part of participation at the HHS Opioid Code-a-Thon event. Methods: Tweets were collected from the Twitter public application programming interface stream filtered for common prescription opioid keywords in conjunction with participation in the Code-a-Thon from November 15, 2017 to December 5, 2017. An unsupervised machine learning–based approach was developed and used during the Code-a-Thon competition (24 hours) to obtain a summary of the content of the tweets to isolate those clusters associated with illegal online marketing and sale using a biterm topic model (BTM). After isolating relevant tweets, hyperlinks associated with these tweets were reviewed to assess the characteristics of illegal online sellers. Results: We collected and analyzed 213,041 tweets over the course of the Code-a-Thon containing keywords codeine, percocet, vicodin, oxycontin, oxycodone, fentanyl, and hydrocodone. Using BTM, 0.32% (692/213,041) tweets were identified as being associated with illegal online marketing and sale of prescription opioids. After removing duplicates and dead links, we identified 34 unique “live” tweets, with 44% (15/34) directing consumers to illicit online pharmacies, 32% (11/34) linked to individual drug sellers, and 21% (7/34) used by marketing affiliates. In addition to offering the “no prescription” sale of opioids, many of these vendors also sold other controlled substances and illicit drugs. Conclusions: The results of this study are in line with prior studies that have identified social media platforms, including Twitter, as a potential conduit for supply and sale of illicit opioids. To translate these results into action, authors also developed a prototype wireframe for the purposes of detecting, classifying, and reporting illicit online pharmacy tweets selling controlled substances illegally to the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Further development of solutions based on these methods has the potential to proactively alert regulators and law enforcement agencies of illegal opioid sales, while also making the online environment safer for the public.
Simulation of Sound Absorption by Scattering Bodies Treated with Acoustic Liners Using a Time-Domain Boundary Element Method

Reducing aircraft noise is a major objective in the field of computational aeroacoustics. When designing next generation quiet aircraft, it is important to be able to accurately and efficiently predict the acoustic scattering by an aircraft body from a given noise source. Acoustic liners are an effective tool for aircraft noise reduction, and are characterized by a complex valued frequency-dependent impedance, Z(w). Converted into the time-domain using Fourier transforms, an impedance boundary condition can be used to simulate the acoustic wave scattering of geometric bodies treated with acoustic liners. This work uses an admittance boundary condition where the admittance, Y(w), is defined to be the inverse of impedance, i.e., Y(w) = 1/Z(w). An admittance boundary condition will be derived and coupled with a time domain boundary integral equation. The solution will be obtained iteratively using spatial and temporal basis functions and will allow for acoustic scattering problems to be modeled with geometries consisting of both unlined and soft surfaces. Stability will be demonstrated through eigenvalue analysis.
Evidence for three Phytochromes in Avena

Shortly after the identification of phytochrome as a chromoprotein, Butler and Lane (1965) raised the question of whether the ‘bulk’ phytochrome detected in etiolated seedlings was physiologically functional, or whether only the much smaller amount of phytochrome that remains in continuous illumination might be active. The implication was that these two pools of phytochrome differed from one another, either in their physicochemical properties or in their cellular distribution and/or subcellular localization. Subsequently, Hillman (1967) in a seminal review suggested by analogy to other pigment-protein complexes “…the likelihood that several phytochromes may exist, differing only slightly in structure but significantly in biological activity.”
Financial Applications of Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods

Since Black and Scholes [2] applied a stochastic process of geometric Brownian motion to modeling the evolution of stock prices, and successfully developed an elegant mathematical theory for option pricing, financial modeling based on stochastic differential equations has become the theoretical underpinning for the practice of trading financial derivatives. Why theoretical prices derived from such stochastic models are so important in practice can be explained as follows: (1) Financial institutions need to know the theoretical price when engineering “new” financial products or when mark-tomarketing some nonliquid assets, because the market price of the product has never been observed before or because the assets have not been traded lately in the actual financial market; (2) They conduct a benchmark for comparing the theoretical price with the actual price. If the difference is not negligible, it implies an arbitrage profit opportunity or mispricing.
Is there any link between economic growth and earth's environment? Evidence from 127 countries for the period 2007–2015

We investigate the relationship between economic growth and the earth's environment in 127 developing countries spreading all across the globe (Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe, and Polynesia) from 2...
The Professionalization of Sports Coaching: A case study of a graduate soccer coaching education program

Abstract The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the curriculum and delivery of a graduate soccer coaching education program in the United States in the context of increased professionalization of sports coaching. The research goal was to contribute to the growing literature on formal sports coach education in university settings. Documents, observations, and conversations with faculty served as the data sources, with the coding of themes as the main form of data analysis strategy. The program adopted a problem-based approach to learning and linked new knowledge to students’ specific coaching context. Each cohort functioned as a community of practice with coaches learning from each other through reflective practices. This study has shown that collaboration between a higher education institution and a national sport coaching organization can be productive in a blended (online-residential) environment. Using a professionalization lens, this paper discusses the need for university programs to focus on ethics in order to move the professionalization process along. A follow-up study is recommended to gain more in-depth knowledge of the students’ perspectives on their experiences.
Graduate Students’ Perceptions of Translanguaging

Translanguaging, as an approach to language, bilingualism, and bilingual education, considers all linguistic resources available to learners without partitioning their use and is essential for promoting student learning in the twenty-first century. Knowledge of university students’ beliefs about language use must be uncovered and examined; however, existing research has predominantly investigated perceptions of students in universities outside of the USA. In the present study, graduate students’ views about translanguaging practices were examined. Data were collected through a survey instrument and then analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results show that graduate students’ beliefs about translanguaging are highly positive, particularly for social settings and L2 learnings.
Introduced elk alter traits of a native plant and its plant-associated arthropod community

abstract Introduced species are known to have large impacts on native ecosystems, by extirpating species,altering species interactions and changing community composition. The mechanisms by which intro-duced species impact native communities often include both direct and indirect effects. Here, wecombined observational ﬁeld surveys, an exclosure experiment, network analysis and structural equationmodeling to examine the direct and indirect effects of an introduced species on native communities.Speciﬁcally, we investigated how introduced elk indirectly impact the composition and co-occurrencepatterns within a community of plant-associated arthropods by directly altering the phenotype of anative plant, Solidago velutina. Surveying the arthropods associated with the plant's inﬂorescence, twomain patterns emerged. i) Using ﬁeld observations across 500 km 2 and an exclosure experiment,S. velutina growing in the presence of elk had 67e90% fewer ﬂowering ramets,15e85% lower percentageof ﬂowering ramets, 33e45% fewer ﬂorets per inﬂorescence and 25e45% lower sexual ramet biomass. ii)Using the same exclosures, the arthropod community on S. velutina in the presence of elk, had 45% fewerspecies, a 70% reduction in abundance and a signiﬁcant change to the species composition and co-occurrence network structure. The results from the network analysis suggested that introduced spe-cies' impacts on communities can be morethan changes in richness or abundance, but include changes tospecies interactions. Structural equation modeling showed that elk caused a decrease in inﬂorescencesize of S. velutina, which affected the arthropod community, suggesting that communities can changewithout extirpation of their host plant species. These results highlight the importance of changingintraspeciﬁc variation as a mechanism by which invasive species alter community composition andspecies interactions.© 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
Individual Growth and Development Indicators-Español: Innovation in the development of Spanish oral language general outcome measures

Abstract The population of Spanish-speaking preschoolers in the United States continues to increase and there is a significant need to develop psychometrically sound early language and literacy screening measures to accurately capture children’s ability in Spanish. In this paper, we describe the innovative design and calibration process of the new Individual Growth and Development Indicators-Espanol (IGDIs-E). We developed and tested two Spanish oral language measures: Identificacion de los Dibujos/Picture Naming and Verbos (Expresivo)/Expressive Verbs with 976 Spanish-speaking preschoolers (4–5-years old; 50% female) across five states. Children were tested in Spanish in fall, winter, and spring across two academic years. Results provide evidence that the new IGDIs-E are psychometrically sound with no significant bias between genders and dialects of Spanish spoken in the United States. Cumulative results, the utility of the final measures, and the implications for data-based decision making with Spanish-speaking preschoolers is discussed.
Through the woods

Many individuals find themselves taking care of a family member or loved one with a terminal illness. This narrative illustrates how my family and I navigated this caretaking process as a system and how this experience shaped my family-centered approach to care in medical settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
The Cost of Hauling Timber: A Comparison of Raster- and Vector- Based Travel-Time Estimates in GIS

1 List of Figures 4 List of Tables 5 Introduction 6 Research Question 6 Background 6 Spatial Methods for Measuring Transportation Costs 9 Method based on vector transportation data 9 Methods based on raster cost grids 12 Vector versus raster travel cost estimate methods 13 Case Study Methodology 15 Study Areas 15 Relative Accuracy Assessment Experiments 15 Uncorrected Dataset 16 Corrected Dataset 19 Travel-time Calculation Methodology 22 Origin and Destination Layers 23 Travel-time Calculations 24 Results 27 Travel-time Estimates 27 Discussion 32 Conclusion 38 References 39
Suspected appendicitis pathway continues to lower CT rates in children two years after implementation.

Abstract Background We implemented a protocol to evaluate pediatric patients with suspected appendicitis using ultrasound as the initial imaging modality. CT utilization rates and diagnostic accuracy were evaluated two years after pathway implementation. Methods This was a retrospective observational study of patients Results CT use decreased significantly following pathway implementation from 94.2% (130/138) to 27.5% (78/284; p Conclusions Adherence to a pathway designed to evaluate pediatric patients with suspected appendicitis using ultrasound as the primary imaging modality has led to a sustained decrease in CT use without compromising diagnostic accuracy.
Angel Sanz Briz and Giorgio Perlasca: competing narratives of heroism in rescuing Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust in the films The Angel of Budapest (2011) and Perlasca: The Courage of a Just Man (2002)

This article contrasts the Spanish The Angel of Budapest and the Italian Perlasca to demonstrate the process of constructing a national Holocaust hero. The two biopics have identical plots, albeit ...
Online scheduling via learned weights

Online algorithms are a hallmark of worst case optimization under uncertainty. On the other hand, in practice, the input is often far from worst case, and has some predictable characteristics. A recent line of work has shown how to use machine learned predictions to circumvent strong lower bounds on competitive ratios in classic online problems such as ski rental and caching. We study how predictive techniques can be used to break through worst case barriers in online scheduling. The makespan minimization problem with restricted assignments is a classic problem in online scheduling theory. Worst case analysis of this problem gives Ω(log m) lower bounds on the competitive ratio in the online setting. We identify a robust quantity that can be predicted and then used to guide online algorithms to achieve better performance. Our predictions are compact in size, having dimension linear in the number of machines, and can be learned using standard off the shelf methods. The performance guarantees of our algorithms depend on the accuracy of the predictions, given predictions with error η, we show how to construct O(log η) competitive fractional assignments. We then give an online algorithm that rounds any fractional assignment into an integral schedule. Our algorithm is O((log log m)3)-competitive and we give a nearly matching Ω(log log m) lower bound for online rounding algorithms.1 Altogether, we give algorithms that, equipped with predictions with error η, achieve O(log η (log log m)3) competitive ratios, breaking the Ω(log m) lower bound even for moderately accurate predictions.
Chemoradiation-related lymphopenia and its association with survival in patients with anal cancer.

3Background: While treatment-related lymphopenia (TRL) is common and associated with poorer survival in multiple solid malignancies, little data exists for anal cancer. We evaluated TRL and its ass...
Socio-cultural Tradition: From Theory to Research

There are many theories that try to understand the broad nature of communication and how it applies to the individual or society but because of the complex nature of the topic, traditions are formed to help organize and explain different viewpoints and concepts. Robert Craig developed a model that labelled and separated the field of communication into seven traditions (Littlejohn & Foss 34). The socio-cultural tradition is one of the worldviews. It is the study of one’s relationship as a whole to a culture rather than individual differences. This paper closely examines this tradition tracing its origin, showing how it conceptualizes communication and its problems, and juxtaposing it with other traditions. Beyond this, the paper shows how this tradition may be applied in social research: from paradigm to data analysis and interpretations. Keywords: Communication theory, social cultural tradition, social research.