cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Square Roots from A Table of Cosines

(1943). Square Roots from A Table of Cosines. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 190-191.
Pediatric Acute Leukemia Therapies Informed by Molecular Analysis of High-Risk Disease

The acute leukemias are the most common cancer of children, adolescents, and young adults. These diseases are characterized by a tremendous variability in clinical course, prompting a continuing search for accurate predictors of outcome. Using algorithms based on clinical features at presentation, response to therapy, and several molecular analyses, some patients are diagnosed with features of high-risk disease and comparatively greater risk for relapse. Molecular analyses of patients with high-risk acute leukemias have resulted in an improved understanding of how dysregulated cellular signaling can affect resistance to conventional therapy. Whereas exciting discoveries continue to be made in the identification of relevant molecular biomarkers and targeted therapies, the challenges and opportunities associated with these findings remain to be clearly defined in future clinical trials.
Transient Growth Analysis of Compressible Boundary Layers with Parabolized Stability Equations

The linear form of parabolized linear stability equations (PSE) is used in a variational approach to extend the previous body of results for the optimal, non-modal disturbance growth in boundary layer flows. This methodology includes the non-parallel effects associated with the spatial development of boundary layer flows. As noted in literature, the optimal initial disturbances correspond to steady counter-rotating stream-wise vortices, which subsequently lead to the formation of stream-wise-elongated structures, i.e., streaks, via a lift-up effect. The parameter space for optimal growth is extended to the hypersonic Mach number regime without any high enthalpy effects, and the effect of wall cooling is studied with particular emphasis on the role of the initial disturbance location and the value of the span-wise wavenumber that leads to the maximum energy growth up to a specified location. Unlike previous predictions that used a basic state obtained from a self-similar solution to the boundary layer equations, mean flow solutions based on the full Navier-Stokes (NS) equations are used in select cases to help account for the viscous-inviscid interaction near the leading edge of the plate and also for the weak shock wave emanating from that region. These differences in the base flow lead to an increasing reduction with Mach number in the magnitude of optimal growth relative to the predictions based on self-similar mean-flow approximation. Finally, the maximum optimal energy gain for the favorable pressure gradient boundary layer near a planar stagnation point is found to be substantially weaker than that in a zero pressure gradient Blasius boundary layer.
Bis-exo-2-norbornylboron triflate for stereospecific enolization of 3,3,3-trifluoropropionates.

The first boron-mediated enolization−aldolization of 3,3,3-trifluoropropionates has been reported. The preparation and application of bis-exo-bicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-ylboron triflate as a superior reagent for diastereospecific enolization has also been described.
Physiologic considerations in the newborn surgical patient.

Six aspects of newborn physiology–the birth weight gestational relationship, glucose metabolism, temperature regulation, calcium balance, infection, and fluid and electrolyte balance–are presented as examples of important consideration that must be understood to successfully manage the newborn surgical patient.
2011 Griffith Award Presentation

At Thomas M. Cooley Law School, a large cadre of adjunct professors blends teaching with active careers on the bench and in a great variety of practice settings. To show its gratitude for their dedicated service, in 1997 the law school created the Frederick J. Griffith III Adjunct Faculty Award, which is bestowed annually on one or more outstanding adjunct professors. These remarks, by the chair of the Griffith Award Selection Committee, explain the origin of the award and the selection criteria.
Malignant bone tumors

This chapter discusses the pathology, clinical manifestations, diagnostic evolutions, classification, and treatments of malignant bone tumors. The tumors constitute approximately 6% of all childhood malignancies. In the United States, the annual incidence in children under 20 years of age is 8.7 per million. Osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma comprise the most frequently encountered malignant bone tumors in children and adolescents. Osteosarcoma is a tumor in which the malignant spindle cell stroma produces osteoid. The factors that correlate with its existence are bone growth, genetic factors, and environmental factors. The histologic diagnosis of osteosarcoma is dependent on the demonstration of osteoid material associated with anaplastic stromal cells. Osteosarcoma is classified into: classic, telangiectatic, small cell, periosteal, and perosteal. The two therapeutic modalities currently used in the primary treatment are surgery and chemotherapy. Ewing sarcoma is a malignant tumor of bone in which the predominant feature is densely packed small cells with round nuclei without prominent nucleoli. The etiology of Ewing sarcoma is unknown. Ewing sarcoma is derived from primitive, pluripotent, postganglionic parasympathetic primordial cells. It is one of the small round blue-cell tumors of childhood. The treatment of Ewing sarcoma involves a multimodal approach, using surgery and radiation therapy for control of the primary lesion and chemotherapy for eradication of subclinical micrometastases.
Performance Enhancement and Mechanistic Studies of Magnesium–Sulfur Cells with an Advanced Cathode Structure

Magnesium–sulfur cells based on abundant, safe Mg and S are demonstrated with a cathode containing a preactivated carbon nanofiber (CNF) electrode matrix filled with sulfur active material and a CNF-coated separator. The CNF coating on the separator serves as a polysulfide trapper and an upper current collector for facilitating high sulfur utilization and enhancing the cycle life. Mechanisms regarding the performance enhancement and the charge–discharge processes of the Mg–S cells are investigated with spectroscopic, microscopic, and electrochemical analyses.
Global Overview of the Role of Nutraceuticals in Cancer

Cancer is a chronic disease of the genome that is influenced by nutritional factors at many stages of carcinogenesis, promotion and progression. A number of studies have demonstrated that dietary factors affect cancer risk. Previously these investigations have focused on macro- and micronutrients but more recent studies have explored the actions of non-nutritional phytochemicals and nutraceuticals. Investigations of the mechanisms of action of phytonutrients have led to pre-clinical studies with promising results. In the post-genomic era, the application of “omic” technologies provides further advances in nutraceutical research by utilizing integrative systems biology. In the future, well-designed clinical trials will help elucidate the role of nutraceuticals in the therapy and prevention of cancer and the role of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies in cancer management.
Effects of gray wolf‐induced trophic cascades on ecosystem carbon cycling

It is predicted that predator-induced trophic cascades could have important impacts on ecosystem carbon cycling. Yet the magnitude and direction of predator impacts on carbon cycling have not been widely quantified for terrestrial ecosystems. Here, we report on analyses of the potential for gray wolves to have cascading impacts on ecosystem carbon cycling. Our goal is to provide reasonable first approximations of their potential role in this fundamental ecosystem process. We find that gray wolves could lead to an increase in net ecosystem productivity (NEP) of 24.0–52.0 g C·m−2·yr−1 in Isle Royale's boreal forest, and a decrease in NEP of 30.03–102.88 g C·m−2·yr−1 in Yellowstone's grasslands. If such gray wolf impacts scale up to the broader North American boreal and grassland gray wolf range, these estimates suggest a potential for the indirect effects of wolves on yearly carbon fluxes to be on the same order of magnitude as the fossil fuel emissions of 6–20 million passenger cars per year. While considerable heterogeneity and uncertainty in gray wolf effects is likely to exist over both time and space, our results suggest that it may be worth examining in more detail the potential significance of the indirect effects of top predators on terrestrial ecosystem carbon using more systematic landscape-scale sampling in locations with and without wolves.
Plasmonic enhancement of amorphous silicon solar photovoltaic cells with hexagonal silver arrays made with nanosphere lithography

Nanosphere lithography (NSL) provides an opportunity for a low-cost and scalable method to optically engineer solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. For PV applications, NSL is widely used in rear contact scenarios to excite surface plasmon polariton and/or high order diffractions, however, the top contact scenarios using NSL are rare. In this paper a systematic simulation study is conducted to determine the capability of achieving efficiency enhancement in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells using NSL as a top contact plasmonic optical enhancer. The study focuses on triangular prism and sphere arrays as they are the most commonly and easily acquired through direct deposition or low-temperature annealing, respectively. For optical enhancement, a characteristic absorption profile is generated and analyzed to determine the effects of size, shape and spacing of plasmonic structures compared to an un-enhanced reference cell. The factors affecting NSL-enhanced PV performance include absorption, shielding effects, diffraction, and scattering. In the triangular prism array, parasitic absorption of the silver particles proves to be problematic, and although it can be alleviated by increasing the particle spacing, no useful enhancement was observed in the triangular prism arrays that were simulated. Sphere arrays, on the other hand, have broad scattering cross-sections that create useful scattering fields at several sizes and spacing intervals. For the simulated sphere arrays the highest enhancement found was 7.4%, which was fabricated with a 250 nm radius nanosphere and a 50 nm silver thickness, followed by annealing in inert gas. These results are promising and provide a path towards the commercialization of plasmonic a-Si:H solar cells using NSL fabrication techniques.
LED Die Bonding

This chapter addresses the materials for the first step of light-emitting diode (LED) packaging, i.e., LED die attach adhesives (DAAs) and other chip bonding materials. The most significant difference between conventional integrated-circuit (IC) chip DAAs and LED DAAs is that the optical role of LED DAAs becomes the most important factor in additional to the other functions of conventional DAAs, i.e., adhesion and reliability. Thus, the chapter addresses in details of the optical role and optical requirement of LED DAAs and other LED chip bonding materials, in additional to the other conventional aspects of DAAs.
General Versus Specific Methods for Classifying U.S. Students' Bullying Involvement: Investigating Classification Agreement, Prevalence Rates, and Concurrent Validity

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the differential functionality of 2 general self-report items compared with 18 specific self-report items for classifying U.S. students' bullyin...
Janus nanoparticles for T cell activation: clustering ligands to enhance stimulation

The in vitro activation of T cells by synthetic particles is a promising technique for adoptive cancer immunotherapy. While it is known that cell-surface receptors form clusters during T cell activation, the use of clustered ligands on synthetic particles to modulate T cell response is a largely unexplored concept. Building upon our previous finding that T cells respond differently to various micro-sized patterns of ligands, we here investigate the effect of nano-sized ligand clusters on T cell activation. Two-faced Janus nanoparticles were fabricated to display ligands of different functions in spatially segregated clusters on single nanoparticles. Going beyond our earlier qualitative study, here we precisely quantified and controlled the surface density and the total amount of ligands on single nanoparticles. We show that nanoparticles with clustered ligands activate T cells to a greater level than the ones uniformly coated with the same number of ligands. The enhanced effect is due to the increased local surface density of ligands. The results demonstrate that the spatial arrangement of ligands on particles influences the activation response of T cells and may be used as a new strategy to increase T cell stimulation in the presence of an insufficient amount of stimuli. This fundamental study also represents an initial step in using nanoscale Janus particles for manipulating immune cell responses.
The Checkpoint Ordering Problem

AbstractWe suggest a new variant of a row layout problem: Find an ordering of n departments with given lengths such that the total weighted sum of their distances to a given checkpoint is minimized. The Checkpoint Ordering Problem (COP) is both of theoretical and practical interest. It has several applications and is conceptually related to some well-studied combinatorial optimization problems, namely the Single-Row Facility Layout Problem, the Linear Ordering Problem and a variant of parallel machine scheduling. In this paper we study the complexity of the (COP) and its special cases. The general version of the (COP) with an arbitrary but fixed number of checkpoints is NP-hard in the weak sense. We propose both a dynamic programming algorithm and an integer linear programming approach for the (COP) . Our computational experiments indicate that the (COP) is hard to solve in practice. While the run time of the dynamic programming algorithm strongly depends on the length of the departments, the integer line...
Estimating the Accuracy of Automated Classification Systems Using Only Expert Ratings that are Less Accurate than the System

A method is presented to estimate the accuracy of an automated classification system based only on expert ratings on test cases, where the system may be substantially more accurate than the raters. In this method an estimate of overall rater accuracy is derived from the level of inter-rater agreement, Bayesian updating based on estimated rater accuracy is applied to estimate a ground truth probability for each classification on each test case, and then overall system accuracy is estimated by comparing the relative frequency that the system agrees with the most probable classification at different probability levels. A simulation analysis provides evidence that the method yields reasonable estimates of system accuracy under diverse and predictable conditions.
OP 48 Metabolic and hypertensive complications of pregnancy in women with nephrolithiasis

Introduction Kidney stones are associated with future development of hypertension, diabetes and the metabolic syndrome. The relationship between nephrolithiasis and pregnancy complications, including gestational dysglycemia and hypertension, has not previously been evaluated. Objectives We sought to assess whether kidney stone formation prior to pregnancy was associated with metabolic and hypertensive complications in pregnancy. We hypothesized that stone formation is a marker of metabolic disease and would be associated with maternal complications in pregnancy. Patients and methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of women who received prenatal care and delivered infants at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2011 to 2016. Women with abdominal imaging (CT or ultrasound) prior to pregnancy were included in the analysis.Women with chronic kidney disease, hypertension and diabetes were excluded. Pregnancy outcomes of women with documented kidney stones on imaging (stone formers, n = 79) were compared to women without stones on imaging (controls, n = 642). We performed a stratified analysis of pregnancy outcomes in women with high (>25 kg/m2) vs. normal (⩽25 kg/m2) BMI in the first trimester. Results Mean glucose levels after a 50-gram glucose challenge were higher in stone formers (127 ± 29 mg/dl vs. 118 ± 27 mg/dl, p = 0.02) despite similar baseline body mass index (27.3 ± 5.5 kg/m2 vs. 27.6 ± 6.4 kg/m2, p = 0.62). Rates of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy were higher in stone formers (16% vs 6%, p Conclusion In women without preexisting diabetes and hypertension, a history of nephrolithiasis was associated with gestational dysglycemia and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, especially in women with high first trimester BMI. Nephrolithiasis may be a marker of increased metabolic risk in women without traditional risk factors for pregnancy complications.
Paclitaxel Reduces Axonal Bclw to Initiate IP 3 R1-Dependent Axon Degeneration.

Summary Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a debilitating side effect of many cancer treatments. The hallmark of CIPN is degeneration of long axons required for transmission of sensory information; axonal degeneration causes impaired tactile sensation and persistent pain. Currently the molecular mechanisms of CIPN are not understood, and there are no available treatments. Here we show that the chemotherapeutic agent paclitaxel triggers CIPN by altering IP 3 receptor phosphorylation and intracellular calcium flux, and activating calcium-dependent calpain proteases. Concomitantly paclitaxel impairs axonal trafficking of RNA-granules and reduces synthesis of Bclw ( bcl2l2 ), a Bcl2 family member that binds IP 3 R1 and restrains axon degeneration. Surprisingly, Bclw or a stapled peptide corresponding to the Bclw BH4 domain interact with axonal IP 3 R1 and prevent paclitaxel-induced degeneration, while Bcl2 and Bclx L cannot do so. Together these data identify a Bclw-IP 3 R1-dependent cascade that causes axon degeneration and suggest that Bclw-mimetics could provide effective therapy to prevent CIPN.
Assessment of Twenty-First Century Skills: The Issue of Authenticity

Writing skills are assessed through writing tests, typing skills are assessed through typing; how do we assess critical thinking or collaboration? As interest in twenty-first century skills increases globally, and as skills goals are explicitly adopted into curricula, the inadequacy of our knowledge of how these skills develop becomes increasingly problematic. These goals reflect human processes, both cognitive and social, and this challenges many current assessment approaches. To highlight some of the issues associated with assessment of twenty-first century skills, a review of a sample of assessment tools was undertaken. The review provides some insights both into how far we have come as well as how far we have to go. The diversity of the tools and evaluation of these against authenticity dimensions highlights the challenges not only in design of assessment but in how teachers might design classroom learning experiences that facilitate development of twenty-first century skills.
Validating the TeleStroke Mimic Score: A Prediction Rule for Identifying Stroke Mimics Evaluated Over Telestroke Networks.

Background and Purpose—Up to 30% of acute stroke evaluations are deemed stroke mimics, and these are common in telestroke as well. We recently published a risk prediction score for use during teles...
Building the journalistic paradigm: Beyond paradigm repair:

This essay posits a corollary to the notion of paradigm repair that explores how a journalistic paradigm gets built and formed over time. The essay seeks to historicize paradigm repair, showing tha...
Microbial Keratitis Secondary to Therapeutic Contact Lens Wear

Therapeutic contact lenses are commonly used to treat various ocular surface conditions that require restoration or maintenance of the corneal epithelium. While this is a very successful treatment modality, it is not without risk. The primary risk associated with bandage contact lens wear is microbial keratitis. This paper will review the literature on the occurrence and outcomes of microbial keratitis in the setting of therapeutic contact lens use, including orthokeratology. Therapeutic contact lenses are used in various situations including ocular surface disease, post-keratorefractive surgery, and post-corneal crosslinking. Orthokeratology utilizes a rigid contact lens for therapeutic purposes. Though an uncommon occurrence in the setting of therapeutic contact lenses, microbial keratitis can occur and can lead to vision loss even in the setting of prophylactic topical antibiotics. Despite improvements in contact lens materials that would reduce infection rates, use of modern therapeutic contact lenses can still result in microbial keratitis, even with the use of prophylactic antibiotics. Although incidence rates for microbial keratitis in with therapeutic contact lens use are not available, numerous reports confirm that care must be taken when using therapeutic contact lenses to avoid sight-threatening infections.
“God, Home, and Country”: Women, Historical Memory, and National Identity in English Canada and the United States

The late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century witnessed efforts to carve out a space for women in the popular construction of national identity in both Canada and the United States. These effort...
NEW DISTRIBUTION RECORDS FOR GECKOS FROM WESTERN BEITBRIDGE DISTRICT, ZIMBABWE

(1992). NEW DISTRIBUTION RECORDS FOR GECKOS FROM WESTERN BEITBRIDGE DISTRICT, ZIMBABWE. The Journal of the Herpetological Association of Africa: Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 35-35.
Power in Text: Grammar and Language in Comparative Delegation

Throughout the political science and legal literatures, scholars often use statutes and national constitutions as key sources of data. However, most of these analyses rely on labor-intensive coding schemes, offering precise results but requiring long hours from trained researchers. Existing quantitative measures (e.g., word counts of particular documents) have produced insightful results, but provide imprecise measures for variables of interest. Computational linguistics techniques, including natural language processing (NLP), provide an alternative approach; because legal documents are written so systematically, these texts lend themselves well to automated analysis, allowing computers to extract information in a repeatable fashion. By combining NLP tools with existing coding schemes and close readings of individual documents, scholars can identify and measure key traits of particular texts, creating powerful and innovative measurement schemes.As a sample application of these techniques, I use NLP programming packages to develop a new measure for the level of executive discretion offered by a particular legal document. I conceptualize “discretion” as the average number of other players involved at each decision point in a statute or national constitution. I then use subject-object grammatical relationships to develop an alternative metric, which I implement in a Python script. Finally, I conduct validity tests on the measure, as well as on a competing approache from the literature. For my validity tests, I use data obtained from Elkins, Ginsburg, and Melton’s Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP), which hand-codes national constitutions based on a wide array of attributes. Using CCP data, I generate summary “discretion” statistics for a sample of post-1945 constitutions, which I treat as the “true values” for each document. I then compare the results for each of my measures to the CCP data. Generally speaking, I find that the NLP-based measure is more strongly correlated with these “true values” than the competing approach, highlighting the potential power of the tool.
The High-Risk Woman

At a recent national meeting of the American Cancer Society attended by 3000 women, the question was put to the audience by a speaker as to whether or not they follow the routine of breast self-examination. About half the women present raised their hands. Of this group, a number raised the question that they had multiple lumps in their breasts and really were unable to judge whether there was any change from month to month. The advice given these women was that they should not examine their breasts at all.
Growth kinetics of endosymbiont Wolbachia in the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius

The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius harbors the endosymbiotic microorganism, Wolbachia (wCle), in a gonad-associated bacteriome as an obligate nutritional mutualist. The obligatory nature of this association suggests that all individuals in C. lectularius populations would be infected with wCle. However, studies spanning the past several decades have reported variation in both infection frequency and relative abundance of wCle in field-collected samples of bed bugs. Since the growth kinetics of wCle is poorly understood, the objective of this study was to quantify wCle over the life cycle of two strains of C. lectularius. Our results highlight that wCle is dynamic during bed bug development, changing relative to life stage, intermolt stage, and blood-fed status. These results suggest new hypotheses about the coordination of Wolbachia growth and regression with its host's physiology and endocrine events. The observed quantitative modulation of wCle during the bed bug life cycle and during periods of starvation may explain the disparities in wCle infections reported in field-collected C. lectularius.
TDABC: Lessons from an Application in Healthcare

SYNOPSIS We estimate the costs of two substitutable medical procedures in a hospital as reported by a conventional two-stage system and from using TDABC concepts. Comparisons yield insights into th...
Co-Regulating Communication for Asynchronous Information Consensus

Muti-agentconsensus controllers typically use discrete communication and hence are restricted to fixed-rate or event-triggered communication. Fixed-rate communication suffers from inefficient use of communication and computational resources but is easy to implement, while event-triggered communication conserves resources but suffers from the ambiguity of all event-triggered systems-inability to distinguish failure from lack of new information. We propose a novel hybrid strategy of co-regulating communication with state disagreement amongst the agents obtaining the benefits of discrete fixed-rate and event-triggered consensus while mitigating the associated disadvantages. Our approach dynamically adjusts the communication rate in response to disagreement in the shared state variable, resulting in a discrete-time-varying, asynchronous network topology. We prove convergence properties of the proposed consensus algorithm, develop metrics to evaluate similar dynamic approaches, and demonstrate the results in simulation, showing our algorithm reduces communication resources, while maintaining fast convergence time.
Shape-Wilf-ordering of permutations of length 3

The research on pattern-avoidance has yielded so far limited knowledge on Wilf-ordering of permutations. The Stanley-Wilf limits sqrt[n](|S_n(tau)|) and further works suggest asymptotic ordering of layered versus monotone patterns. Yet, Bona has provided the only known up to now result of its type on ordering of permutations: |S_n(1342)| 6. We give a different proof of this result by ordering S_3 up to the stronger shape-Wilf-order: |S_Y(213)|<=|S_Y(123)|<=|S_Y(312)| for any Young diagram Y, derive as a consequence that |S_Y(k+2,k+1,k+3,tau)|<=|S_Y(k+1,k+2,k+3,tau)|<= |S_Y(k+3,k+1,k+2,tau)| for any tau in S_k, and find out when equalities are obtained. (In particular, for specific Y's we find out that |S_Y(123)|=|S_Y(312)| coincide with every other Fibonacci term.) This strengthens and generalizes Bona's result to arbitrary length permutations. While all length-3 permutations have been shown in numerous ways to be Wilf-equivalent, the current paper distinguishes between and orders these permutations by employing all Young diagrams. This opens up the question of whether shape-Wilf-ordering of permutations, or some generalization of it, is not the ``true'' way of approaching pattern-avoidance ordering.
Specific BK Channel Activator NS11021 Protects Rat Renal Proximal Tubular Cells from Cold Storage—Induced Mitochondrial Injury In Vitro

Kidneys from deceased donors used for transplantation are placed in cold storage (CS) solution during the search for a matched recipient. However, CS causes mitochondrial injury, which may exacerbate renal graft dysfunction. Here, we explored whether adding NS11021, an activator of the mitochondrial big-conductance calcium-activated K+ (mitoBK) channel, to CS solution can mitigate CS-induced mitochondrial injury. We used normal rat kidney proximal tubular epithelial (NRK) cells as an in vitro model of renal cold storage (18 h) and rewarming (2 h) (CS + RW). Western blots detected the pore-forming α subunit of the BK channel in mitochondrial fractions from NRK cells. The fluorescent K+-binding probe, PBFI-AM, revealed that isolated mitochondria from NRK cells exhibited mitoBK-mediated K+ uptake, which was impaired ~70% in NRK cells subjected to CS + RW compared to control NRK cells maintained at 37 °C. Importantly, the addition of 1 M NS11021 to CS solution prevented CS + RW-induced impairment of mitoBK-mediated K+ uptake. The NS11021-treated NRK cells also exhibited less cell death and mitochondrial injury after CS + RW, including mitigated mitochondrial respiratory dysfunction, depolarization, and superoxide production. In summary, these new data show for the first time that mitoBK channels may represent a therapeutic target to prevent renal CS-induced injury.
LED array reflectance microscopy for scattering-based multi-contrast imaging

LED array microscopy is an emerging platform for computational imaging with significant utility for biological imaging. Existing LED array systems often exploit transmission imaging geometries of standard brightfield microscopes that leave the rich backscattered field undetected. This backscattered signal contains high-resolution sample information with superb sensitivity to subtle structural features that make it ideal for biological sensing and detection. Here, we develop an LED array reflectance microscope capturing the sample’s backscattered signal. In particular, we demonstrate multimodal brightfield, darkfield, and differential phase contrast imaging on fixed and living biological specimens including Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), zebrafish embryos, and live cell cultures. Video-rate multimodal imaging at 20 Hz records real time features of freely moving C. elegans and the fast beating heart of zebrafish embryos. Our new reflectance mode is a valuable addition to the LED array microscopic toolbox.
Dosimetric Comparison of treatment plans computed with finite size pencil beam and monte carlo algorithms using the incise™ multileaf collimator-equipped cyberknife® system

Purpose: InCise™ multileaf collimator (MLC) was introduced for CyberKnife® (CK) Robotic Radiosurgery System (CK-MLC) in 2015, and finite size pencil beam (FSPB) was the only available dose computation algorithm for treatment plans of CK-MLC system. The more advanced Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculation algorithm of lnCise™ was initially released in 2017 for the CK Precision™ treatment planning system (TPS) (v1.1) with new graphic processing unit (GPU) platform. GPU based TPS of the CK offers more accurate, faster treatment planning time and intuitive user interface with smart three-dimensional editing tools and fully automated autosegmentation tools. The MC algorithm used in CK TPS simulates the energy deposited by each individual photon and secondary particles to calculate more accurate dose. In the present study, the dose disparities between MC and FSPB algorithms for selected Stereotactic Ablative Radiation Therapy (SABR) CK-MLC treatment plans are quantified. Materials and Methods: A total of 80 CK-MLC SABR plans computed with FSPB were retrospectively reviewed and compared with MC computed results, including plans for detached lung cancer (or tumors fully surrounded by lung tissues, n = 21), nondetached lung cancer (or tumor touched the chest wall or mediastinum, n = 23), intracranial (n = 21), and pancreas lesions (n = 15). Dosimetric parameters of each planning target volume and major organs at risk (OAR) are compared in terms of normalized percentage deviations (Ndev). Results: This study revealed an average of 24.4% overestimated D95values in plans using FSPB over MC for detached lung (n = 21) and 14.9% for nondetached lung (n = 23) lesions. No significant dose differences are found in intracranial (0.3%, n = 21) and pancreatic (0.9%, n = 15) cases. Furthermore, no significant differences were found in Ndevof OARs. Conclusion: In this study, it was found that FSPB overestimates dose to inhomogeneous treatment sites. This indicates, the employment of MC algorithm in CK-MLC-based lung SABR treatment plans is strongly suggested.
Venous reconstructive surgery

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the different aspects of venous reconstructive surgery. The direct surgery of veins has lagged behind the direct arterialization of the extremities and viscera partly because surgeons have been more fascinated with the drama of cardiac and arterial surgery and partly because of the genuine difficulties that attend venous reconstruction and anastomosis. The saphenous vein is used as a conduit to bypass contralateral common and external iliac venous occlusion. Exposure is gained through vertical incisions over the femoral veins and one-third of the incision extends above the inguinal ligament. The saphenous vein is removed from the thigh under direct vision, through multiple, discontinuous incisions. The preparation of the graft must be meticulous to avoid venous trauma. As much adventitia as possible is carefully removed to allow maximum venous dilation. All tributary veins are ligated and divided at least 2 mm from the main trunk to avoid the constriction of the trunk during dilation. The graft is gently distended with heparinized saline solution to check for inadvertent tears or leaks. Localized varicosities, if present, must be dealt with either by resection or external support using normal vein tissue.
Defining and Teaching Data Journalism: A Typology.

A thematic evaluation of data journalism courses resulted in a typology that parses the field and offers guidance to educators. At the center is pattern detection, preceded by data acquisition and ...
Knowledge Translation and WIC Food Package Regulation Change.

Knowledge Translation (KT) is the exchange, synthesis, and ethically-sound application of knowledge. A case study methodology is used to examine KT at the organizational level of the Special Supple...
Do people walk more in transit-accessible places?

While transit-oriented developments (TODs) are generally believed to promote the use of sustainable travel modes, the degree to which various components of TODs influence travel behavior is still debatable. This paper revisits Chatman’s (2013) question: “Does TOD need the T?” by addressing the effect of rail transit access in influencing walking behavior in TOD areas. In particular, we compare TODs to other similar areas, with rail transit access being the key variable, and examine whether people are more likely to walk in TODs for purposes other than transit use. This hypothesis is tested using traffic analysis zones (TAZs) in the Atlanta Metropolitan Region. First, we identify TAZs within rail catchment areas and use propensity scores to match them with other TAZs with similar built environmental characteristics except for rail transit access. We then conduct a statistical analysis comparing walking trips for both commuting and non-commuting trips in these two TAZ groups. Our results confirm that the likelihood of walking trips increases in transit-accessible TAZs compared to other similar areas without transit. Therefore, states and localities can maximize the benefits of pedestrian-friendly built environments by making rail transit access an important part of their planning and design.
Shorter heels are linked with greater elastic energy storage in the Achilles tendon.

Previous research suggests that the moment arm of the m. triceps surae tendon (i.e., Achilles tendon), is positively correlated with the energetic cost of running. This relationship is derived from a model which predicts that shorter ankle moment arms place larger loads on the Achilles tendon, which should result in a greater amount of elastic energy storage and return. However, previous research has not empirically tested this assumed relationship. We test this hypothesis using an inverse dynamics approach in human subjects (n = 24) at speeds ranging from walking to sprinting. The spring function of the Achilles tendon was evaluated using specific net work, a metric of mechanical energy production versus absorption at a limb joint. We also combined kinematic and morphological data to directly estimate tendon stress and elastic energy storage. We find that moment arm length significantly determines the spring-like behavior of the Achilles tendon, as well as estimates of mass-specific tendon stress and elastic energy storage at running and sprinting speeds. Our results provide support for the relationship between short Achilles tendon moment arms and increased elastic energy storage, providing an empirical mechanical rationale for previous studies demonstrating a relationship between calcaneal length and running economy. We also demonstrate that speed and kinematics moderate tendon performance, suggesting a complex relationship between lower limb geometry and foot strike pattern.
Understanding double descent through the lens of principal component regression

Several recent papers have studied the double descent phenomenon: a classic U-shaped empirical risk curve when the number of parameters is smaller or equal to the number of data points, followed by a decrease in empirical risk (referred to as ``second descent99) as the number of features is increased past the interpolation threshold (the minimum number of parameters needed to have 0 training error). In a similar vein as several recent papers on double descent, we concentrate here on the special case of over-parameterized linear regression, one of the simplest model classes that exhibit double descent, with the aim of better understanding the nature of the solution in the second descent and how it relates to solutions in the first descent. In this paper, we show that the final second-descent model (obtained using all features) is equivalent to the model estimated using principal component (PC) regression when all PCs of training data are included. It follows that many properties of double descent can be understood through the relatively simple and well-characterized lens of PC regression. In particular, we will identify a set of conditions that will guarantee final second-descent performance to be better than the best first-descent performance: it is the scenario in which PC regression using all features does not suffer from over-fitting and can be guaranteed to outperform any other first-descent model (any linear regression model using no more features than training data points). We will also discuss how this work relates to transfer learning, semi-supervised learning, few-shot learning, as well as theoretical concepts in neuroscience.
An Anatheistic Wager for Bioethics

Brummett (2021) argues that P2+ is necessary because it acknowledges the metaphysical claims ignored in P2’s approach in addressing parental refusal for treatment in certain pediatric cases that cl...
First Report of Compound Heterozygosity for Hb S ( HBB : c.20A>T) and Hb Haringey ( HBB : c.131A>G).

Sickle cell disease variants include hemoglobinopathies that result from inheritance of the sickle cell globin mutation with another globin mutation. The most common variants include the homozygous disease state (Hb SS disease), Hb S (HBB: c.20A>T)/Hb C (HBB: c.19G>A) disease and Hb S/β-thalassemia (Hb S/β-thal). Other rare/less common variants such as Hb S/Hb E (HBB: c.79G>A) and Hb S/HPFH [hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin (Hb)] disease exist. We report the first case of compound heterozygosity for Hb S and Hb Haringey (HBB: c.131A>G) in a 35-year-old male following a positive sickle screen test on hospital admission for pancreatitis. Ion exchange high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), Hb electrophoresis and genetic sequencing were utilized to identify a new sickle Hb variant: Hb S/Hb Haringey. Hb S/Hb Haringey is a newly discovered sickle cell variant which seems to portray a mild/benign clinical phenotype of sickle cell disease.
Investigation of an immobilization process for PFAS contaminated soils.

Abstract A two-phased bench-scale study was conducted to evaluate various sorbents for possible use as chemical stabilizing agents, along with cement solidification, for possible use in an in-situ solidification/stabilization (immobilization) treatment process for per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) contaminated soils. The first phase involved sorption experiments for six selected PFAS compounds diluted in a water solution, using five selected sorbents: granular activated carbon (GAC), activated carbon-clay blend, modified clay, biochar, iron (Fe)-amended biochar, and Ottawa sand as a control media. The second phase involved chemical stabilization treatment (via sorption), using the most effective sorbent identified in the first phase, followed by solidification of two soils from PFAS-contaminated sites. Physical solidification was achieved by adding cement as a binding agent. Results from the first phase (sorption experiments) indicated that GAC was slightly more successful than the other sorbents in sorption performance for a 3000 μg/L solution containing a mixture of the six selected PFAS analytes (500 μg/L concentration each of shorter- and longer-chain alkyl acids), and was the only sorbent used in the second phase of this study. While the GAC, activated carbon-clay blend, and modified clay sorbents showed similar sorption performance for the longer chain analytes tested, both the activated carbon-clay blend and modified clay, exhibited slightly less sorptive capacity than GAC for the shorter-chain alkyl acids. Immobilization effectiveness was evaluated by soil leachability testing using Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Method 1312, Synthetic Precipitation Leaching Procedure (SPLP) on the samples collected from two PFAS-contaminated sites. For the majority of the PFAS soil analytes, the addition of GAC sorbent (chemical stabilization) substantially reduced the leachability of PFAS compounds from the contaminated soil samples, and the addition of cement as a physical binding agent (solidification) further decreased leachability for a few of the PFAS compounds. Overall immobilization of PFAS analytes that were detectable in the leachate from two PFAS contaminated soils ranged from 87.1% to 99.9%. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider that the laboratory testing results presented here may have application to further pilot or limited field-scale studies within a broader suite of PFAS-contaminated site treatment options that are currently available for treating PFAS contaminated soils.
Progress Toward an Understanding of the Molecular Mode of Action of Phytochrome

Evidence concerning the possible existence of a receptor for Pfr (the physiologically active form of phytochrome), with which Pfr would bind before its morphogenic action may be expressed, is summarized. Two different associations between Pfr and particulate material are described. The most widely examined interaction, studied with extracts of Cucurbita pepo, appears to be artifactual. The other association has not yet been as well characterized, but possesses features which make it a candidate for a Pfr-receptor interaction.
Algebraic specifications of sensor data fusion systems

The main goal of research in sensory data fusion (SDF) is the development of a systematic approach (a methodology) to designing software systems for interpreting sensory information and for reasoning about the situation based on this information and upon available databases and knowledge bases. Towards this aim, a model-theoretic framework for SDF is developed. The framework postulates that data are embedded in data models, and information processing mechanisms are embedded in model operators. The classes of model operators and their significance in SDF are discussed. A prototype SDF system which fuses data from range and intensity sensors is presented, exemplifying the structures introduced in the framework. It is shown how system properties can be expressed and proved in the framework formalism. >
Implementation lessons and pitfalls for real‐time optimal control with stochastic systems

Summary Modern computational power and efficient direct collocation techniques are decreasing the solution time required for the optimal control problem, making real-time optimal control (RTOC) feasible for modern systems. Current trends in the literature indicate that many authors are applying RTOC with a recursive open-loop structure, relying on a high recursion rate for implicit state feedback to counter disturbances and other unmodeled effects without explicit closed-loop control. The limitations of using rapid, instantaneous optimal solutions are demonstrated analytically and through application to a surface-to-air missile avoidance control system. Two methods are proposed for control structure implementation when using RTOC to take advantage of error integration through either classical feedback or disturbance estimation. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
A Comparison of Virgo Cluster Absorption Along Two Sight Lines

3C 273 and RX J1230.8 + 0115 are fortuitously separated by only 54’ on the sky. Their sight lines pass through the Virgo Southern Extension, allowing a direct comparison of the absorption lines produced by gas (separated by 300 kpc) in the Virgo Cluster. Tripp et al. (2002) have recently presented a high S/N HST/STIS spectrum of 3C 273. Based on the detection of neutral (HI) and low ionization absorption (C II, Si II, & Si III) species at z = 0.00530, they constrain the physical conditions of the absorber to: [C/H] = -1.2-0.2 +0.3, [Si/C] = 0.2±0.1. log nH = -2.8±0.3, and an absorber thickness ∼ 70 pc. In these proceedings, we present spectra from a 27.2 ks HST/STIS-E140M exposure and a 4 ks FUSE snapshot of absorption features at z = 0.00577 toward RX J1230. From an inspection of Figure 1, marked differences in these two sight lines, are readily apparent. (1) Absorption over a wide range of ionization stages is detected toward RX J1230, and all ions show stronger absorption. This implies that the RX J1230 sight line intercepts more gas than the 3C 273 sight line. (2) The absorption along the two sight lines is offset by a mere 140 km s-1. This may indicate a common sheet-like structure intercepting both sight lines. (3) Overlays of the absorption profiles toward the two sight lines reveal that an additional structure may exist at υ < -50 km s-1. This component is prevalent in the RX J1230 sight line. In the 3C 273 sight line, there is a hint of it in HI, but it is not apparent in any other species.