cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A survey of Delphi panelists after core outcome set development revealed positive feedback and methods to facilitate panel member participation.

Abstract Objectives The objective of this study was to elicit feedback on consensus methodology used for core outcome set (COS) development. Study Design and Setting An online survey of international Delphi panelists participating in a recent COS for clinical research studies evaluating acute respiratory failure (ARF) survivors was conducted. Panelists represented 14 countries (56% outside the United States). Results Seventy (92%) panelists completed the survey, including 32 researchers, 19 professional association representatives, 4 research funding representatives, and 15 ARF survivors/caregiver members. Among respondents, 91% reported that the time required to participate was appropriate and 96% were not bothered by reminders for timely response. Attributes of measurement instruments and voting results from previous rounds were evaluated differently across stakeholder groups. When measurement properties were explained in the stem of the survey question, 59 (84%) panelists (including 73% of survivors/families) correctly interpreted information about an instrument's reliability. Without a reminder in the stem, only 20 (29%) panelists (including 38% of researchers) correctly identified properties of a COS. Conclusion This international Delphi panel, including >20% patients/caregivers, favorably reported on feasibility of the methodology. Providing all panelists pertinent information/reminders about the project's objective at each voting round is important to informed decision making across all stakeholder groups.
Surgical Pathology of Hematopoietic Neoplasms

Hematopoietic neoplasms are a diverse group of clonal diseases, which arise from hematopoietic tissues. In recent years, evaluation of hematopoietic neoplasms has expanded beyond routine microscopic examination to include techniques such as flow cytometry, chromosome analysis, and molecular diagnostics. However, standard morphological examination remains a critical component of diagnosis. This article reviews the surgical pathology of normal hematopoietic tissues and commonly encountered hematopoietic neoplasms with an emphasis on morphological and immunophenotypic findings. In addition, characteristic cytogenetic and molecular features are discussed.
Simultaneous in vivo regeneration of neodermis, epidermis, and basement membrane

Full-thickness skin loss does not undergo complete spontaneous regeneration in mammals. To restore the normal function of skin, dermal and epidermal components can be supplied by grafting various substrates, concurrently or in stages. A tissue-engineering technique that combines disaggregated autologous keratinocytes and a highly porous, acellular collagen-glycosaminoglycan matrix has been shown in a porcine model to regenerate a dermis and epidermis in vivo. During regeneration, a basement membrane of normal appearance forms at the dermoepidermal junction, and vascularization of the construct occurs. Cell-seeded grafts can be produced with either uncultured or cultured keratinocytes and can be immediately applied in a single grafting procedure. The seeding process itself and the cell culture, when used, markedly expand the donor epithelial surface area, allowing large skin defects to be repaired using grafts created from very little donor tissue. This skin-substitute technology may have useful clinical applications.
Globalization and the German industrial production model

Globalization is transforming the German manufacturing production model. German manufacturing MNCs are shifting from servicing global demand via exports to a strategy of “produce where you sell” FDI expansion in emerging global markets. This strategy is generating recursive dynamics that are transforming the demographic and role composition of German home country production locations. This, in turn, poses challenges for the German systems of industrial relations and for industrial policy that are only beginning to be addressed. Overall, the article’s take home conceptual message is that contemporary manufacturing globalization processes are recursive: i.e.: actions taken outside of Germany, on all levels, have consequences for—and involve change in—organizations and practices within Germany.
Toward Predicting Communication Effectiveness

Voice plays an important role in effective communication. This paper investigates communication effectiveness using call center audio records, where each record contains a conversation between a sales representative and a customer. The outcome is considered positive if the conversation ended with an appointment being made and negative otherwise. Two methods are proposed to predict the outcomes. The first method uses traditional machine learning algorithms on a small set of commonly-used, well-known acoustic features of voice in psychology research (i.e. prosodic features). A data processing pipeline has been developed that consists of three major steps: 1) an audio record is split into segments by speaker turns; 2) acoustic features are extracted from each segment; and 3) classification models are trained on the acoustic features to predict conversation outcomes. The second method uses deep learning on a larger set of vocal features. Each audio segment is split into fixed-interval pieces, from which acoustic feature vectors are computed and are stacked in temporal order to form a feature matrix as input to deep convolution neural networks. Experimental results based on real call center data shows that acoustic features, such as Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), timbre and Chroma features, are good indicators of call success, much better than prosodic features. Temporal information in an audio record can be captured by deep convolutional neural networks for improved prediction accuracy, up to 82.6%.
No evidence to suggest foxhounds spread bovine TB.

The claim from Mr Pitt of the League Against Cruel Sports that foxhounds spread bovine TB (bTB) across the countryside ( VR , 18/25 August, 2018, vol 183, p 205), serves only to demonstrate a profound ignorance of the pathogenesis …
Obstetric Racism: The Racial Politics of Pregnancy, Labor, and Birthing

In this article, I analyze the birth stories of Black women living in the United States. Their birth stories describe various forms of racism during medical encounters while they were pregnant or during labor and delivery. In the global women's health arena, the issues raised are viewed as obstetric violence. However, obstetric racism-as both an occurrence and analytic-best captures the particularities of Black women's reproductive care during the pre- and post-natal period. Obstetric racism is a threat to positive birth outcomes. I argue that birth workers including midwives and doulas, mediate obstetric racism and stratified reproductive outcomes.
Coding for Private and Secure Multiparty Computing

We consider the problem of secure and private multiparty computation (MPC), in which the goal is to compute a general polynomial function distributedly over several workers, while keeping them oblivious to the content of the dataset, and preventing them from maliciously affecting the computation result. We demonstrate the role of Lagrange Coded Computing (LCC), a recently proposed coded computing technique that can be applied to general polynomial computations, on enabling secure and private MPC. We show that LCC offers both private and secure computation simultaneously, and is universal in the sense that all polynomials up to a certain degree can be computed on the same encoding. We also demonstrate that LCC achieves an optimal tradeoff between privacy and security, and requires a minimal amount of added randomness for privacy. Compared to prevalent algorithms in MPC (in particular the celebrated BGW scheme), we show that LCC significantly improves the storage, communication, and secret-sharing overhead needed for MPC.
Complex heritability in cardiomyopathy.

Human cardiomyocytes and mice edited to harbour gene variants found in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy reveal combinatorial genetic interactions that contribute to the complex genetic heritability of the disease.
Designing steel bridges for fire safety

Abstract While bridge fires can often lead to substantial losses, current codes and standards do not specify any provisions for fire resistance of load bearing structural members in bridges. In order to bridge this knowledge gap, this study presents a practical approach to overcome fire hazard in steel bridges of critical nature. The proposed approach comprises of two components namely, analytical and numerical. In the analytical component, fire risk in a steel bridge is assessed, through a specially derived fire-based importance factor that allows estimating vulnerability of a bridge to fire hazard. The second component integrates both simplified calculation method as well as highly nonlinear numerical analysis through a coupled finite element (FE) based simulation with the purpose of developing relevant strategies for mitigating fire risk and losses. The applicability of this approach is illustrated herein through a comprehensive case study on an actual steel bridge that underwent an intense fire incident. The aim of this study is first to present engineers and designers with a practical tool to identify steel bridges vulnerable to fire hazard and secondly to guide them into developing optimum solutions to mitigate large fire losses.
Classification and Prevalence of Microtia

The anatomy of the external ear is complex. The external ear develops from several branchial arches and can present with multiple developmental anomalies at birth. In this chapter, we discuss the classification and prevalence of microtia.
Ampullary adenocarcinoma: the current state of adjuvant therapies.

Periampullary cancers, including adenocarcinoma from the duodenum, pancreas, bile duct and ampulla, represent a spectrum of malignancies with varying biological behavior and outcomes. In particular ampullary adenocarcinoma (AAC) is a rare, poorly understood disease with an incidence of <1/100,000 cases, compromises only 0.2% of gastrointestinal cancers and is frequently grouped together with other periampullary cancers (1).
Risk Directed Importance Sampling in Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming with Hidden Markov Models for Grid Level Energy Storage.

Power systems that need to integrate renewables at a large scale must account for the high levels of uncertainty introduced by these power sources. This can be accomplished with a system of many distributed grid-level storage devices. However, developing a cost-effective and robust control policy in this setting is a challenge due to the high dimensionality of the resource state and the highly volatile stochastic processes involved. We first model the problem using a carefully calibrated power grid model and a specialized hidden Markov stochastic model for wind power which replicates crossing times. We then base our control policy on a variant of stochastic dual dynamic programming, an algorithm well suited for certain high dimensional control problems, that is modified to accommodate hidden Markov uncertainty in the stochastics. However, the algorithm may be impractical to use as it exhibits relatively slow convergence. To accelerate the algorithm, we apply both quadratic regularization and a risk-directed importance sampling technique for sampling the outcome space at each time step in the backward pass of the algorithm. We show that the resulting policies are more robust than those developed using classical SDDP modeling assumptions and algorithms.
Actionable Ventricular Tachycardia During In-Hospital ECG Monitoring and Its Impact on Alarm Fatigue.

BACKGROUND Ventricular tachycardia (V-tach) is the most common lethal arrhythmia, yet 90% of alarms are false and contribute to alarm fatigue. We hypothesize that some true V-tach also causes alarm fatigue because current criteria are too sensitive (i.e., ≥6 beats ≥100 beats/min [bpm]). PURPOSE This study was designed to determine (1) the proportion of clinically actionable true V-tach events; (2) whether true actionable versus nonactionable V-tach differs in terms of heart rate and/or duration (seconds); and (3) if actionable V-tach is associated with adverse outcomes. METHODS This was a secondary analysis in 460 intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Electronic health records were examined to determine if a V-tach event was actionable or nonactionable. Actionable V-tach was defined if a clinical action(s) was taken within 15 minutes of its occurrence (i.e., new and/or change of medication, defibrillation, and/or laboratory test). Maximal heart rate and duration for each V-tach event were measured from bedside monitor electrocardiography. Adverse patient outcomes included a code blue event and/or death. RESULTS In 460 ICU patients, 50 (11%) had 151 true V-tach events (range 1-20). Of the 50 patients, 40 (80%) had only nonactionable V-tach (97 events); 3 (6%) had both actionable and nonactionable V-tach (32 events); and 7 patients (14%) had only actionable V-tach (23 events). There were differences in duration comparing actionable versus nonactionable V-tach (mean 56.19 ± 116.87 seconds vs. 4.28 ± 4.09 seconds; P = 0.001) and maximal heart rate (188.81 ± 116.83 bpm vs. 150.79 ± 28.26 bpm; P = 0.001). Of the 50 patients, 3 (6%) had a code blue, 2 died, and all were in the actionable V-tach group. CONCLUSIONS In our sample, <1% experienced a code blue following true V-tach. Heart rate and duration for actionable V-tach were much faster and longer than that for nonactionable V-tach. Current default settings typically used for electrocardiographic monitoring (i.e., ≥6 beats ≥100 bpm) appear to be too conservative and can lead to crisis/red level nuisance alarms that contribute to alarm fatigue. A prospective study designed to test whether adjusting default settings to these higher levels is safe for patients is needed.
Characterization of a novel, low-cost, scalable ozone gas system for sterilization of N95 respirators and other COVID-19 related use cases.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), an elusive and highly pathogenic agent, has resulted in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affecting numerous populations worldwide. New studies investigating the tenacity of SARS-CoV-2 have highlighted its ability to persist on a myriad of surfaces for several days, including gowns and shoes. As a result, there is a global need for sterilization of a variety of potentially-contaminated items, ranging from clothing to personal protective equipment like face coverings. To this end, we have designed and constructed a cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable sterilization system that uses ozone gas to inactivate viral particles. We sought to determine the efficacy of the system in the sterilization of viral particles as well as its ability to sterilize N95 respirators for reuse. N95 respirators inoculated with P22 bacteriophage and sterilized in the ozone system showed a 6-log10 reduction in viral load when treated at 25 ppm for 150 minutes. Further, N95 respirators treated with five 150-minute cycles at 35 ppm for a total concentration-time product (CT) of 26,250 ppm⋅min in the ozone system showed comparable filtration efficiency to untreated N95 respirators in a 50 to 200 nmr particulate challenge filtration test. Interestingly, the surgical N95 respirators tested showed complete inactivation of fluid resistance and degradation of the elasticity of polyisoprene straps after five cycles in the sterilization system. Taken together, these data suggest that while our ozone system may negatively affect certain protective aspects of surgical N95 respirators, it does effectively sterilize viral particles and can be utilized for a multitude of other use cases, including sterilizing polypropylene face coverings after potential SARS-CoV-2 contamination. In addition to providing long-term environmental benefits, deployment of this system during the ongoing pandemic reduces the risk of COVID-19 community transmission while conserving monetary resources otherwise spent on the continuous purchase of disposable face coverings.
Does Local Therapy for Oligometastatic Disease in Lung Cancer Patients Improve Survival

The concept of oligometastasis was introduced nearly 50 years go, but was a rare occurrence in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) until recent years. Now with improved imaging technologies and more efficacious systemic therapies, more patients are presenting with low volume metastatic disease. Aggressive local therapy at the primary and metastatic site have been used for >40 years in NSCLC patient with isolated brain or adrenal metastasis with cure in 10–30%, but without prospective evidence for benefit, its use was not routine and many questioned its true benefit. A recent series of small prospective trials have demonstrated significant survival improvements with local consolidative therapy to all disease sites following first line chemotherapy, and brought this aggressive approach toward local control into the mainstream of care for stage IV NSCLC. In an era when local therapies can be delivered with minimal morbidity and mortality, there is increasing opportunity and evidence for benefit in carefully selected patients with oligometastatic and oligo-progressive NSCLC.
IoT Based Optimal UAV Tracking Method Considering Noise and Cyber Attacks

This paper proposes an optimal signal processing based UAV tracking algorithm considering noise and cyber attacks in sensory measurements. After representing the UAV dynamics into a state-space form, the UAV embedded IoT sensors and IoT gateways are used to obtain measurements at the control center. The prediction and correction based optimal Kalman filtering algorithm is proposed to know the UAV states such as velocity and pitch angle. Extensive numerical results show that the proposed algorithm can properly track the UAV states within 0.9-0.45 sec.
United States immigration detention amplifies disease interaction risk: A model for a transnational ICE-TB-DM2 syndemic

Detention and removal of unauthorised immigrants by United States (U.S.) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has steadily increased despite declining rates of unauthorised migration. ICE deta...
Malignancy Upgrade Rates of Radial Sclerosing Lesions at Breast Cancer Screening

Radial sclerosing lesions without associated atypia detected at screening had a low malignancy potential.
2013 Industry Leader Profile: Gerald D. Hines

Excerpt] Gerald D. Hines founded his namesake firm in Houston in 1957. Since then, the company has steadily grown into a global leader in real estate investment, development and management, and is one of the largest real estate organizations in the world, with offices in 104 cities in 18 countries, and controlled assets valued at approximately $23.8 billion. The firm has developed, acquired and managed properties totaling more than 488 million square feet of office, residential, mixed-use, industrial, hotel, medical and sports facilities, as well as large, master-planned communities and land developments.
Oscillation of a forced higher order equation

We state and prove two oscillation results which deal with bounded so- lutions of a forced higher order dierential equation. One proof involves the use of a nonlinear functional.
The Paradox of Being an Interim Dean: The Permanent Nature of a Transitory Position

EING an interim dean is not so much about being “interim” as it is about being the dean. Some of us who start out as interim actually become the permanent dean. Some of us know from the start that we will not become the permanent dean at our own school. Still, one’s time as interim dean is much more than serving as a placeholder for a new permanent dean. Many people, especially those outside of the law school, like alumni, will see you as the dean. On the other hand, those inside the law school often will want to make sure you are viewed as temporary. What I came to understand during my eighteen months as interim dean, is this—it is important to be mindful of the temporary nature of the position, but it is also inevitable, and, I believe valuable and important both for the institution and for you, to inhabit the transitory space as though it were permanent, and to find a way to make the deanship your own. Anyone in a new position takes some time to find his or her bearings, to feel comfortable and confident in the role. This can be especially challenging when one becomes interim dean because it is often an appointment that must be made quickly because something unexpected has suddenly happened to the current dean. In my case, the president of the university appointed our dean as the interim provost after the provost unexpectedly resigned. Our dean of four and one-half years was greatly respected, not only within the school, but also by our alumni and the legal community as a whole. It was unsettling, to say the least, that he was quite suddenly no longer our dean and that we had to find a replacement immediately. For some time after I became the interim dean, I felt like I was merely a placeholder. I had been reluctant to become the interim dean. I was comfortable as the associate dean for academic affairs—a position I had held for four and one-half years. But part of what made me see that I could be a good
Shifting Sands: The Jurisprudence of Integration Past, Present, and Future

The idea of integration as a positive social good has waxed and waned since the 1950s. During the civil rights era, the concept of integration was pressed onto the national consciousness via the vehicle of Brown v. Board of Education and its aftermath. Over time, the radical nature of integration as articulated in the Brown decision lost its force. Integration today, at least on the K-12 level, has few champions. What is surprising is that integration has recently received a substantial shot in the arm from an unlikely quarter. Late last term, the Supreme Court issued Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action program against constitutional challenge. Grutter suggests that integration is absolutely imperative if we as a society seek to be competitive in the twenty-first century. However, integration was affirmed in Grutter not because it was seen as enhancing the lives of minority group members, but rather because of its importance in enhancing the lives of Americans more generally. An appreciation of this key distinction will be vital if we wish to translate Grutter's affirmation of diversity into a new agenda that will support and champion integration into the future.
Burns in the head and neck: A national representative analysis of emergency department visits

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: Head and neck burns (HNBs) engender serious sequelae including airway edema, speech/swallowing dysfunction, sensory deficits, and scarring/disfigurement, often requiring significant reconstructive surgery. We used a nationally representative resource to estimate the number of visits to emergency departments (EDs), analyze burn types and demographic patterns, and identify specific consumer products involved. METHODS: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System was evaluated for the most recent 5-year period available. HNB ED visits were identified, and patient records were evaluated for consumer products facilitating injury, along with other ED visit and patient characteristics. RESULTS: From 2009 to 2013, 6,326 cases extrapolating to 233,431 ED visits nationally were identified. Males were predominantly impacted (64.1%). Although adults overall comprised the majority of patients (59.7%), children between 1 and 2 years of age had the highest incidence (21,544 ED visits nationally). The most common consumer products facilitating HNB included welding equipment, hot water, gasoline, bleaches, and cookware. Most injuries involved the face (55%), whereas the most common etiologies included thermal (40%), chemical (23%), and scald (22%) burns. Consumer products and injury patterns varied by patient age. CONCLUSIONS: HNBs significantly impact healthcare delivery, as over 200,000 visits reportedly presented to EDs over the 5-year period studied. Consumer products facilitating visits and associated patient demographics described may guide history, clinical examination, and identification of secondary injuries. In particular, age-specific patterns detailed may be included in consumer education and patient counseling to facilitate injury prevention, as office visits provide an opportunity to counsel patients. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2b Laryngoscope, 2015. Language: en
No Rational Basis: The Pragmatic Case for Marijuana Law Reform

This article presents a critique of marijuana prohibition and suggests some alternative regulatory approaches that would be more productive and consonant with justice. Part I relies on a forty-year empirical record to demonstrate that (1) reliance on a law enforcement approach has aggravated rather than mitigated the risks involved with marijuana use, and (2) criminalization, which results in the arrest of more than 700,000 Americans annually for possession of any amount of marijuana, is an inhumane and destructive response to an act that almost 100 million Americans have committed. Part II assesses the relative merits of several alternative reform policies, including both decriminalization and legalization under a regulatory scheme.
Antioxidant effect of spent, ground, and lyophilized brew from roasted coffee in frozen cooked pork patties

Abstract The ability of light and dark roasted coffee (1 g/kg) in varying application forms (spent ground [SCG], whole ground [WGC], or lyophilized brew [LBC]) to inhibit lipid and protein oxidation in cooked pork patties stored at −18 °C was monitored over 3 months. Malondialdehyde (MDA) for the negative control (NC) increased from 0.31 to 1.11 mg MDA/kg pork over 3 months, while pork with coffee or rosemary oleoresin had lower values at month 3 (0.054–0.40 mg MDA/kg pork). The NC had the highest values for hexanal, octanal, and nonanal (2.59, 0.10, and 0.13 mg/kg pork, respectively), while light and dark LBC in pork inhibited hexanal (0.37 and 0.39 mg/kg pork), octanal (0.017 and 0.021 mg/kg pork), and nonanal (0.036 and 0.048 mg/kg pork) to the same extent as rosemary oleoresin at month 3 (0.30, 0.015, 0.036 mg aldehyde/kg pork, respectively). Thiol content for all treatments remained relatively stable from month 0–3 (0.56–0.96 to 0.67–1.02), while metmyoglobin slightly increased (49–55% to 55–56%) over 3 months. The results suggest that adding coffee neither inhibited nor promoted protein oxidation in cooked pork patties but inhibited lipid oxidation resulting in comparable values to pork with added rosemary oleoresin.
Structural Insights into Smad Function and Specificity

Smads contain two conserved domains, MH1 and MH2. The MH1 domain of R-Smads (except Smad2) and Smad4 adopts a compact globular fold and recognizes specific DNA sequences via a novel β-hairpin. The fact that each MH1 domain only recognizes 3–4 base pairs of DNA governs the need for Smads to cooperate among each other and with other DNA-binding proteins. The MH2 domain forms a central β-sandwich capped by a three-helix bundle on one end and a loop/helix region on the other end. Structural analyses of TGF-β receptors and the MH2 domains have revealed an essential and conserved theme in signaling. Phosphorylation of the GS region in the type I receptor results in the generation of pS/pT-X-pS motifs, which facilitate recruitment of R-Smads by binding to a positively charged and conserved surface pocket on R-Smads. After phosphorylation, the pS-X-pS motif at the C-terminus of R-Smads assists their dissociation from the receptors and aids formation of homomeric as well as heteromeric Smad complexes by binding to the same surface pocket of neighboring Smads. The MH2 domain interacts with a large number of proteins through a hydrophobic surface groove known as hydrophobic corridor
Soft tissue metastasis in p16-positive oropharynx carcinoma: Prevalence and association with distant metastasis.

Summary Background Ungraded extracapsular spread (ECS) has been found non-prognostic in p16-positive, surgically-treated oropharynx squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC). However, soft tissue metastasis (STM), the highest ECS grade, is reported prognostic. Our study’s objective is to explore STM relative to distant metastasis (DM), the most frequent recurrence site in surgically-treated p16-positive OPSCC. Methods Primary p16-positive OPSCC patients undergoing transoral surgery (TOS) and neck dissections were identified from a prospectively-assembled database. DM and regional recurrence (RR) rates, and DM-free survival (DMFS) were compared in pN+ patients without STM (group I) and with STM (group II). Results Of 222 patients, 202 had pN+ disease: 147 (73%) in group I and 55 (27%) in group II. The DM rate was 6.7% (n = 15/222) overall. The DM rates were 4% (n = 6/147) vs. 16.4% (n = 9/55), RR rates were 2% (n = 3) vs. 5% (n = 3), and 5-year DMFS rates were 94.8% vs. 82.4%, in groups I and II respectively. STM was significantly associated with poorer DMFS (HR = 4.6, 95% CI: 1.65, 13.03, p = 0.004), an observation driven by its effect in the T3–T4 and not the T1–T2 subset. Amongst patients receiving adjuvant therapy, STM’s association with poorer DMFS was lost in multivariable analysis; high T-classification, however, remained significant (HR = 5.16, 95% CI: 1.43, 18.52, p = 0.012). Five-year DMFS for STM patients was 82.2% in chemoradiation (37% T3–T4) vs. 85.6% in radiation (35% T3–T4) group. Conclusions STM was significantly associated with DM and DMFS, but only in the T3–T4, not T1–T2 subset; no significant association was seen with RR. In patients receiving adjuvant therapy, only high T-classification was associated with DMFS, not STM. Chemoradiation used as adjuvant therapy was not associated with better DMFS in STM patients for any T-classification.
Global sensitivity of parabolic equation radar wave propagation simulation to sea state and atmospheric refractivity structure

Inadequate representation of the environment is a limitation for prediction of radar system performance as well as for validation of propagation codes. To improve understanding of how different environmental effects/parameters compete and compare, this study examines the sensitivity of radar wave propagation to a suite of environmental parameters for low grazing angle near-surface radar systems at 3–15 GHz at horizontal and vertical polarizations. A global sensitivity analysis method is used, which accounts for parameter interactions, and propagation is modeled using the parabolic equation method. Environmental parameters examined include eight sea state parameters and eight parameters characterizing the vertical structure and character of range-independent refractivity profiles. The relative importance of parameters varies more with frequency than polarization, and parameter interactions are found to be significant. Atmospheric mixed layer parameters are found to be the most sensitive, particularly the thickness of the mixed layer. The most significant ocean surface parameter is swell period, although sea directionality is important at 3 GHz and sea surface roughness and salinity are important at 9 and 15 GHz. Because of the spatial variability of sensitivity throughout the domain, regional analysis is performed to determine the most important parameters in different regions of the domain (1000 m in altitude and 60 km in range). These regional sensitivity results, along with those for the whole domain, provide guidance on prioritization of environmental characterization in numerical weather prediction and inversion studies (e.g., refractivity from clutter studies), which are two common methods currently used to address environmental effects on propagation.
Rich Sentiments and the Cultural Politics of Emotion in Postreform Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Linking socioeconomic and personal transformations, recent scholarship on neoliberalism in East and Southeast Asia has examined the role of various emotional experiences in reconfiguring selfhood toward values of personal responsibility and self-care. However, studies rarely focus on how such experiences come to be understood as specifically emotional themselves. In this article, I examine the growing use of emotion (cảm xuc) as a conceptual category to define the self and everyday life in a psychologistic idiom among middle-class residents of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. While more established discourses of sentiment (tinh cảm) define selfhood in relation to notions of obligation and care, the emerging model of emotion emphasizes individuated self-knowledge. However, instead of replacing sentiment, newer understandings of emotion have developed alongside and in relation to sentiment. In categorizing various feelings as explicitly “emotional” in nature, people participate in a self-fashioning project that cultivates an emotionally aware and expressive self that is informed by neoliberal sensibilities yet does not supplant socialist or Confucian models of selfhood. I argue that emotions are not only central to the subjective experience of the transition to a market-oriented economy but also that emotion as a category itself is a medium through which economic transformations reorganize selfhood more generally. [emotion, self, neoliberalism, ethnopsychology, Vietnam]
Objective and subjective socioeconomic status and health symptoms in patients following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Objective Recent research indicates that subjective socioeconomic status (SES) – the perception of one's own SES compared with other people – is an important predictor of cancer-related health outcomes. Subjective SES may function as a psychosocial mechanism by which objective SES affects health, well-being, and, more broadly, quality of life among cancer survivors. This study tested whether the association between objective SES and indicators of quality of life was mediated by subjective SES in a sample of cancer survivors who had undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Methods Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation survivors (N = 268) completed measures of objective and subjective SES, along with four measures related to quality of life (depressive symptoms, health-related quality of life, symptoms of generalized distress, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms). Results Higher objective SES was associated with greater quality of life across all four measures. Subjective SES mediated the relationship between objective SES and depressive symptoms (total indirect effect b = −0.09, 95% confidence interval [CI] [−0.15, −0.05]), generalized distress (total indirect effect b = −0.08, 95% CI [−0.13, −0.04]), health-related quality of life (total indirect effect b = 0.10, 95% CI [0.06, 0.17]), and posttraumatic stress disorder (total indirect effect b = −0.08, 95% CI [−0.14, −0.04]). Conclusions Findings extend work on subjective SES to cancer and suggest that SES gradients in patient outcomes after cancer may reflect not only material resources but also psychosocial factors related to rank within social hierarchies. Further research may provide insights useful for reducing disparities in this population. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Reply to McEvoy: The judicial system is based on a false understanding of the biology of human behavior

In my article I draw attention to the illogical nature of the belief in free will (1). If I understand the letter from McEvoy correctly, he does not dispute this conclusion (2). Rather, he addresses the difficulties in administering justice under a system in which it is conceded that free will is lacking. Although I agree that there are difficulties, I have provided an outline for an alternative form of justice. The option of remaining with the present system is not an attractive … 1E-mail: cashmore{at}sas.upenn.edu.
Ultrasound-guided periventricular stereotaxis.

Abstract Intraoperative ultrasound can aid the biopsy of deep intracranial lesions. It is, perhaps, less clear whether ultrasound could be useful in functional neurosurgery, where the target is not abnormal in echogenicity. As an example, we chose to investigate in a dog model the periventricular gray target, which is frequently the choice for the placement of electrodes to control intractable pain. Autopsies showed the placement of our electrodes with less than 1 mm of error in four of five brains and a 1.5-mm error in the fifth brain. The largest error was seen to occur on the video screen and was due to our failure to tighten the guide properly. The potential advantages of this technique over conventional stereotaxis include the avoidance of: ventricular catheterization, the injection of contrast agent into the ventricles, the necessity for a stereotactic frame, and multiple x-ray exposures. Also, with real time scanning the surgeon has instant visual confirmation of electrode placement and can observe quickly any significant hematoma formation.
Personality and Trust Fosters Service Quality

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which cognitive and affective trust mediate the service provider personality–service quality relationship, controlling for customer personality. Hypotheses were tested using a matched sample of 249 customer-service provider dyads. Service provider service orientation incrementally predicted customer cognitive trust in the service provider above and beyond customer agreeableness, which related significantly to affective and cognitive trust. Analyses further revealed that cognitive trust mediated the service provider service orientation–service quality relationship. Hiring service-oriented front-line employees may facilitate customer cognitive trust which in turn relates to service quality. In addition, training front-line employees to identify agreeable customers may facilitate the quick development of trusting relationships. This is the first study to simultaneously examine the impact of both the customer and the service provider personalities on customer trust and service quality in long-term relationships. Results demonstrated the role of cognitive trust as a mediator of the relationship between service orientation and service quality.
Characterization of the increase in vascular permeability induced by vascular permeability factor in vivo

1. Vascular permeability factor (VPF) is a protein secreted from a variety of human and rodent tumour and normal tissue cells. In addition to mediating angiogenesis and endothelial cell growth, VPF has been reported to be a potent mediator of increased microvascular permeability in vivo. In this study we have investigated these permeability changes in vivo using a quantitative model of local plasma leakage in rabbit skin. 2. Our results reveal that VPF is a potent mediator of plasma leakage which, in the rabbit, depends on a synergistic interaction with arteriolar vasodilators such as prostaglandin E2. The requirement for an exogenous vasodilator further suggest that VPF does not act to increase blood flow in this model. 3. We show that this response does not require the presence of circulating neutrophils and in this respect is similar to direct-action permeability increasing mediators such as histamine and bradykinin. Similarly, the time course of plasma leakage induced by VPF resembles that of direct-action mediators, where the greatest response occurs over the first 30 min. In contrast, the neutrophil-dependent plasma leakage induced by the active component of zymosan-activated plasma, C5ades arg, was maintained at a similar level over 2.5 h. 4. Further, using mediator antagonists and enzyme inhibitors we demonstrate that the mechanism of action of VPF is not via activation of histamine, kinin, or platelet-activating factor pathways.
Thermal Conductivity of α-Tetragonal Boron Nanoribbons

Elemental boron has many interesting properties, such as high melting point, low density, high hardness, high Young’s modulus, good oxidation resistance, resulting from its complex crystalline structure from its electron-deficient nature. Boron forms complex crystalline structures according to the various arrangements of B12 icosahedra in the lattice, such as α (B12 )- and β (B105 )-rhombohedral and α (B50 )- and β (B196 )-tetragonal boron polymorphs, among others. Even though considerable materials research has been conducted over the past half century on boron and boron-based compounds, investigating their unique structures and corresponding properties, our understanding of this complex class of materials is still poor, compared to some other well-studied materials with much simpler structures such as silicon. Thermal transport studies through bulk boron have been performed mainly on β-rhombohedral and amorphous boron, because of the difficulty to grow high quality bulk α-rhombohedral boron samples [1–3]. Some efforts have been made to measure B12 As2 , B12 P2 , AlB12 samples that have an α-rhombohedral form [2,3]. There is almost no information available on α-tetragonal boron. However, Slack predicted the thermal conductivity of α-boron should be ∼200 W/m-K at room temperature, which is 1/2 that of copper. Large phonon mean free path has been predicted for α-boron (from ∼200 nm at room temperature to 6 nm at the Debye temperature), which could lead to interesting thermal transport properties for low dimensional boron structures.Copyright © 2009 by ASME
'The Epitheatrical Cartoonist': Matthew Somerville Morgan and the World of Theatre, Art and Journalism in Victorian London

This article examines the vibrant cultural milieu inhabited by one of Victorian Britain's most famous cartoonists, Matthew Somerville Morgan. Morgan is well-known as the cartoonist who attacked Queen Victoria's withdrawal from public life (and her associations with John Brown), and the lifestyle of Albert, Prince of Wales, in the short-lived rival to Punch: the Tomahawk. Likewise, his post-1870 career in New York as cartoonist of the ‘Caricature War’ over the 1872 Presidential elections, and involvement with ‘Buffalo’ Bill Cody have been well-studied. However, his involvement with the world of the 1860s Victorian stage – and the social circles in which he moved – have not been given close attention. This broader social, cultural, and economic context is essential to understanding Morgan's role as a cartoonist-critic of politics, class, gender and art in Victorian Britain. Special attention is given to the ways in which Morgan's work as a theatrical scene-painter informed his other pursuits, including his ...
Cost of shoulder surgery

A cost analysis of four common shoulder procedures was performed to better advise patients and payers of the expected costs and to provide a foundation for future cost/benefit analysis. Four groups of 50 patients each were evaluated. Group 1 underwent primary, open rotator cuff repair. Group 2 underwent open, anterior instability repair. Group 3 underwent arthroscopic subacromial decompression. Group 4 underwent hemiarthroplasty or total shoulder arthroplasty. The surgical and anesthetic fees, hospital bills, and perioperotive consultation charges were obtained and tabulated for all patients. The average ages for groups 1 to 4 were 56, 32, 50 and 63 years, respectively. In group 1 37% of the patients had worker's compensation, 35% had private insurance, and 28% had Medicare. In group 2 64% of the patients had worker's compensation, and 36% had private insurance. In group 3 39% of the patients had worker's compensation, 48% had private insurance, and 13% had Medicare. In group 4 4% of the patients had worker's compensation, 43% had private insurance, and 53% had Medicare. For group 1 the average length of stay was 3 days, and the average total cost was $9444. For group 2 the average stay was 1.7 days, and the average cost was $8675. For group 3 the average stay was 0 days, and the average cost was $7246. For group 4 the average stay was 5 days, and the average cost was $16,323. We believe that these figures represent the direct costs of four common types of shoulder surgery in a private setting and that such data are important to decision-making in a changing health care environment.
Development of superconducting electrode capacitor using a YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-x/ thick film and Y/sub 2/BaCuO/sub 5/ dielectric

Different phases in the YO/sub 1.5/-BaO-CuO phase diagram were evaluated for dielectric properties and compatibility with subsequent firing of a YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7-x/ thick film. Y/sub 2/BaCuO/sub 5/
Occultation Observations of Saturn's B Ring and Cassini Division

The outer edge of Saturn's B ring is strongly affected by the nearby 2:1 inner Lindblad resonance of Mimas and is distorted approximately into a centered elliptical shape, which at the time of the Voyager 1 and 2 encounters was oriented with its periapse toward Mimas. Subsequent observations have shown that the actual situation is considerably more complex. We present a complete set of historical occultation measurements of the B-ring edge, including the 1980 Voyager 1 and 1981 Voyager 2 radio and stellar occultations, the 1989 occultation of 28 Sgr, two independently analyzed occultations observed with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1991 and 1995, and a series of ring profiles from 12 diametric (ansa-to-ansa) occultations observed in 2005, using the Cassini Radio Science Subsystem (RSS). After making an approximate correction for systematic errors in the reconstructed spacecraft trajectories, we obtain orbit fits to features in the rings with rms residuals well under 1 km, in most cases. Fits to the B-ring edge in the RSS data reveal a systematic variation in the maximum optical depth at the very edge of the ring as a function of its orbital radius. We compare the B-ring measurements to an m = 2 distortion aligned with Mimas, and show that there have been substantial phase shifts over the past 25 years. Finally, we present freely precessing equatorial elliptical models for 16 features in the Cassini Division. The inner edges of the gaps are generally eccentric, whereas the outer edges are nearly circular, with ae < 0.5 km.
Right ventricular strain analysis from three-dimensional echocardiography by using temporally diffeomorphic motion estimation

Purpose: Quantitative analysis of right ventricle (RV) motion is important for study of the mechanism of congenital and acquired diseases. Unlike left ventricle (LV), motion estimation of RV is more difficult because of its complex shape and thin myocardium. Although attempts of finite element models on MR images and speckle tracking on echocardiography have shown promising results on RV strain analysis, these methods can be improved since the temporal smoothness of the motion is not considered. Methods: The authors have proposed a temporally diffeomorphic motion estimation method in which a spatiotemporal transformation is estimated by optimization of a registration energy functional of the velocity field in their earlier work. The proposed motion estimation method is a fully automatic process for general image sequences. The authors apply the method by combining with a semiautomatic myocardium segmentation method to the RV strain analysis of three-dimensional (3D) echocardiographic sequences of five open-chest pigs under different steady states. Results: The authors compare the peak two-point strains derived by their method with those estimated from the sonomicrometry, the results show that they have high correlation. The motion of the right ventricular free wall is studied by using segmental strains. The baseline sequence results show that the segmental strains in their methods are consistent with results obtained by other image modalities such as MRI. The image sequences of pacing steady states show that segments with the largest strain variation coincide with the pacing sites. Conclusions: The high correlation of the peak two-point strains of their method and sonomicrometry under different steady states demonstrates that their RV motion estimation has high accuracy. The closeness of the segmental strain of their method to those from MRI shows the feasibility of their method in the study of RV function by using 3D echocardiography. The strain analysis of the pacing steady states shows the potential utility of their method in study on RV diseases.