cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Quantized correlation coefficient for measuring reproducibility of ChIP-chip data

Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by microarray hybridization (ChIP-chip) is used to study protein-DNA interactions and histone modifications on a genome-scale. To ensure data quality, these experiments are usually performed in replicates, and a correlation coefficient between replicates is used often to assess reproducibility. However, the correlation coefficient can be misleading because it is affected not only by the reproducibility of the signal but also by the amount of binding signal present in the data. We develop the Quantized correlation coefficient (QCC) that is much less dependent on the amount of signal. This involves discretization of data into set of quantiles (quantization), a merging procedure to group the background probes, and recalculation of the Pearson correlation coefficient. This procedure reduces the influence of the background noise on the statistic, which then properly focuses more on the reproducibility of the signal. The performance of this procedure is tested in both simulated and real ChIP-chip data. For replicates with different levels of enrichment over background and coverage, we find that QCC reflects reproducibility more accurately and is more robust than the standard Pearson or Spearman correlation coefficients. The quantization and the merging procedure can also suggest a proper quantile threshold for separating signal from background for further analysis. To measure reproducibility of ChIP-chip data correctly, a correlation coefficient that is robust to the amount of signal present should be used. QCC is one such measure. The QCC statistic can also be applied in a variety of other contexts for measuring reproducibility, including analysis of array CGH data for DNA copy number and gene expression data.
Analysing granulated brown sugar – panela – market in Western Honduras

Purpose – Starting from a territorial development project in Western Honduras (Copan and Ocotepeque), farmers aimed to increase and add value to agricultural production by producing and commercializing granulated brown sugar (panela). The Western Honduras sugar market was studied, from the supply and demand side, in order to particularly understand consumer preference which is considered a key to increase smallholder farmers’ income in rural areas. Design/methodology/approach – The research included a qualitative study by means of six visits for observation and data compilation to stores, four face-to-face open semi-structured interviews with store owners and a focus group with local producers to acquire a global picture of the main regional sugar market characteristics from the supply side. Moreover a quantitative analysis applying a Choice Experiment to study consumer preferences was performed acquiring higher knowledge from the demand side. Findings – First, it was found that Honduras sugar market coul...
Extending the Anomie Tradition An Assessment of the Impact of Trade Measures on Cross-National Homicide Rates

This study advances anomie theory by examining the effect of anomic societal conditions and indicators of globalization on national homicide rates. Globalization may generate anomie in two ways: (a...
Longevity, fecundity, and leaf stippling of Liriomyza trifolii (Diptera: Agromyzidae) as affected by lettuce cultivar and supplemental feeding

Resistance in lettuce, Lactuca sativa L., to the leafminer Liriomyza trifolii (Burgess) was evaluated in the laboratory. Four lettuce cultivars, ‘Tall Guzmaine’, ‘Valmaine’, ‘Floricos 83’ and ‘Parris Island Cos’, were used in an initial study and Valmaine and Tall Guzmaine were used in 2 additional studies. Significant differences in fecundity, as measured by the number of pupae produced, and in the total number of stipples were found, but these differences resulted from differences in adult survival. Female leafminers on Tall Guzmaine survived significantly longer and produced more pupae than adults on Valmaine, Parris Island Cos, and Floricos 83. When honey was provided as a dietary supplement along with Valmaine, no significant difference in adult survival was observed when compared with Tall Guzmaine without honey. Alternating Valmaine with Tall Guzmaine as the host plant in 1- or 2-d cycles resulted in significant reductions in the number of days survived, total number of pupae and total number of stipples compared with adults exposed only to Tall Guzmaine. A potential deficiency of a nutritional factor may be involved in conferring host plant resistance in Valmaine lettuce to L. trifolii .
Preliminary investigation on the invasion situation of ticks for the different hosts in Anyang and Hebi aeras

Objective To understand the invasion situation of ticks for the different hosts in Anyang and Hebi aeras,and provide scientific basis for the control and prevention of ticks in the area.Methods Survey of the invasion situation of ticks was implemented for five kinds of hosts including sheep,goat,cattles,donkey and dogs with the picked from the animals body surface method.Results The positive rate range of hosts for ticks were 0-71.43%.The positive rate of goat and sheep for ticks were 71.43%and 27.27% respectively.The positive rate of the other hosts for ticks was all 0.Conclusion The invasion situation of ticks on the different hosts was serious in Anyang and Hebi aeras.Importance should be attached to the control and prevention of vectors in public palaces in Henan.
A mathematical model of the self

I attempt here briefly to sketch a mathematical structure with properties analogous to key features of the self. This structure, while not easy to envision, is nonetheless as plausible a basis for theory as any science requires. I hope in this way to account for some aspects of the self that have long impeded systematic thinking on the subject.
Tranylcypromine: a review.

In the six years since it was added to the antidepressant agents, tranylcypromine has attracted wide attention because of toxic side reactions and disputed efficacy. It was the first clinically important nonhydrazine monoamine oxidase inhibitor, and it remains Widely used. This review attempts fully to present the history, pharmacology, clinical toxicology, and evidence for the degree of clinical value of the drug in the treatment of depression. The hypertensive syndrome most notable among the drug's adverse reactions probably occurs very infrequently but is largely an unpredictable phenomenon. Fifty-four of the fifty-six published clinical trials have been assessed. Many were uncontrolled, encumbered by other concurrent treatments and heterogeneous patient samples, or inadequately reported. Assessment of trials indicated that the drug alone was beneficial in reactive and psychoneurotic depressions, while it tended not to influence agitated, psychotic, or endogenous depressions. Where the drug was compared to other treatments for depreSsion, it was found equivalent or superior to other monoamine oxidase inhibitors in several trials, while it was generally inferior to iminodibenzyl compounds and to electroshock treatment. The findings support a view that tranylcypromine is not the treatment of choice for depression but that it may be indicated where other drugs or ECT have failed.
Procedural Protections for Patients in Capitated Health Plans

In the American health care system, payers are rapidly moving toward the use of capitation as the preferred method for paying for health care services for sponsored patients. n capitation, the payer pays a provider organization a set rate per patient to care for a group of patients. The provider organization assumes the risk of the actual costs of caring for these covered lives. The theory of capitation is that providers, by assuming risk, will have incentives to contain their costs. The provider entity that provides the care can take many corporate forms. A capitated provider can be a small group of physicians with admitting privileges at a single hospital or a complex integrated delivery network comprised of hospitals, physicians, and other health care professionals and institutions with integrated case management and data systems. Currently such integrated delivery networks assume a variety of organizational forms, ranging from traditional staff model health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in which physicians are employees of the health plan to physician hospital organizations (PHOs) in which physicians and hospitals join together for purposes of contracting with payers. Hospitals and physicians belonging to their medical staffs are motivated to form integrated delivery networks or other consolidated business organizations in order to contract with payers that seek providers willing to accept financial risk for the care of sponsored patients. Providers join such arrangements out of fear of losing patients if they do not.
Biodegradation of gasoline and BTEX in a microaerophilic biobarrier.

Continuous bioremediation of gasoline-contaminatedwater in a packed-bed biobarrier system underoxygen-limited conditions is discussed. This studywas part of an extensive effort to develop analternative technology for the in situbioremediation of hydrocarbons where there is alimited supply of oxygen. Protruded stainless steelpieces and granulated peat moss were used as packingmaterial to support microbial growth in twobiobarriers. The inoculum was an enrichment culture ofan indigenous microbial population from a soil sample.The biobarriers' inlet gasoline concentrations and thelinear liquid velocities were similar to thosecommonly found at in situ conditions. Gasolineremoval efficiencies ranged from 94% to 99.9% in thestainless steel-packed biobarrier, and from 86.6% to99.6% in the peat moss-packed biobarrier. Effluentgasoline concentrations below 0.03 mg/l were obtainedat gasoline loading rates less than 27.5 mg/l.d in thestainless steel-packed biobarrier. The remainingfraction of gasoline in the effluent consisted mainlyof three aliphatic compounds and not the aromaticcompounds. Both biobarrier packings supported nearcomplete removal of the most soluble aromatichydrocarbons of gasoline (BTEX) under all theconditions examined. The consumption of sulfate andthe presence of sulfate-reducing microorganismssuggested the presence of anaerobic metabolism duringthe degradation of gasoline. Up to 92% gasoline wasremoved during the first 3 cm of the biobarriers'length.
Toward a Critical Pedagogy of the Global

Common usage of the term globalization conflates two different meanings. On one hand, this term is shorthand for a specific set of economic and political initiatives undertaken by global elites as part of a new phase in the history of capitalism. In this usage, the term refers first of all to neoliberalism—the global disciplining of workers, the poor, and developing societies in order to respond to a crisis of accumulation in the leading capitalist societies—though secondarily it refers as well to the spread of transnational corporations and consumerism more generally. On the other hand, globalization is also used to refer to a more fundamental process of the withering of the nation-state system as the primary framework for organizing social and political life, and the worldwide cultural interpenetration that reorganizes human society and identities on a planetary scale. This second sense of the term is existential as well as political, and is more or less synonymous with globality. Of course, we live in a particular world, one dominated economically, politically, and culturally by very particular elites, which means that even if these two senses of globalization are different on paper, by and large they overlap in fact, since our experience of the shift to globality is essentially mediated by the powerful and by their vision of what a global society can and should look like.
Opto-box: Optical modules and mini-crate for ATLAS pixel and IBL detectors

The opto-box is a custom mini-crate for housing optical modules which process and transfer optoelectronic data. Many novel solutions were developed for the custom design and manufacturing. The system tightly integrates electrical, mechanical, and thermal functionality into a small package of size 35×10x8 cm3 . Special attention was given to ensure proper shielding, grounding, cooling, high reliability, and environmental tolerance. The custom modules, which incorporate Application Specific Integrated Circuits, were developed through a cycle of rigorous testing and redesign. In total, fourteen opto-boxes have been installed and loaded with modules on the ATLAS detector. They are currently in operation as part of the LHC run 2 data read-out chain. This conference proceeding is in support of the poster presented at the International Conference on New Frontiers in Physics (ICNFP) 2015 [1].
Localized cortical chronic traumatic encephalopathy pathology after single, severe axonal injury in human brain

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with repetitive mild impact traumatic brain injury from contact sports. Recently, a consensus panel defined the pathognomonic lesion for CTE as accumulations of abnormally hyperphosphorylated tau (p-tau) in neurons (neurofibrillary tangles), astrocytes and cell processes distributed around small blood vessels at sulcal depths in irregular patterns within the cortex. The pathophysiological mechanism for this lesion is unknown. Moreover, a subset of CTE cases harbors cortical β-amyloid plaques. In this study, we analyzed postmortem brain tissues from five institutionalized patients with schizophrenia and history of surgical leucotomy with subsequent survival of at least another 40 years. Because leucotomy involves severing axons bilaterally in prefrontal cortex, this surgical procedure represents a human model of single traumatic brain injury with severe axonal damage and no external impact. We examined cortical tissues at the leucotomy site and at both prefrontal cortex rostral and frontal cortex caudal to the leucotomy site. For comparison, we analyzed brain tissues at equivalent neuroanatomical sites from non-leucotomized patients with schizophrenia, matched in age and gender. All five leucotomy cases revealed severe white matter damage with dense astrogliosis at the axotomy site and also neurofibrillary tangles and p-tau immunoreactive neurites in the overlying gray matter. Four cases displayed p-tau immunoreactivity in neurons, astrocytes and cell processes encompassing blood vessels at cortical sulcal depths in irregular patterns, similar to CTE. The three cases with apolipoprotein E e4 haplotype showed scattered β-amyloid plaques in the overlying gray matter, but not the two cases with apolipoprotein E e3/3 genotype. Brain tissue samples from prefrontal cortex rostral and frontal cortex caudal to the leucotomy site, and all cortical samples from the non-leucotomized patients, showed minimal p-tau and β-amyloid pathology. These findings suggest that chronic axonal damage contributes to the unique pathology of CTE over time.
Recurrent, bilateral, and metastatic pheochromocytoma in a young patient with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome: A genetic link?

Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS) is a genetic disorder at chromosome 11p15 that leads to increased activity of insulin-like growth factor-2 (IGF2) and reduced activity, with no active copy of the inhibitor of cell proliferation, CDKN1C, resulting in excessive growth and increased risk of tumour formation. Isolated cases of patients with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and pheochromocytoma are reported in the literature; however, none have described a molecular or cytogenetic evaluation for associated genetic abnormalities. We present a case of an adolescent female with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome who developed recurrent, bilateral, and metastatic pheochromocytoma despite low-risk histopathology. Genotyping studies, which evaluated for genetic predisposition to pheochromocytoma or paraganglioma (PHEO/PGL), including the PGLNext sequencing panel of 12 associated genes, and a whole genome comparative genome hybridization microarray, were performed. Genomic studies were unexpectedly negative. Additionally, the histopathology of the PHEO/PGL of our patient had low-risk features, which is unusual in cases of metastases, occurring in less than 4% of cases.1 This case suggests that the BWS in itself could predispose to formation of a PHEO/PGL phenotype with aggressive behaviour. The following manuscript summarizes the case report, reviews pertinent literature, and proposes a possible mechanism for this association.
Management and Outcome of Residual Aortic Regurgitation After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation.

We aimed to evaluate the success rates of balloon valvuloplasty post-dilation (BVPD) and a second-valve deployment in reducing residual aortic regurgitation (AR) after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and its impact on outcome. Residual AR immediately post-TAVI in patients with aortic stenosis is a common condition that adversely affects outcome. Patients who underwent TAVI who had more-than-mild residual AR were managed either with medical therapy, re-intervention with BVPD, or a second valve. The clinical impact of these strategies was evaluated, and the anatomical features of patients with successful and unsuccessful intervention were compared. Among 572 patients with TAVI, 110 (19%) had significant residual AR after initial device deployment. Sixty patients were treated by BVPD (n = 49) or second-device deployment (n = 11), whereas 50 patients were treated medically. Successful reduction in residual AR to mild and below was achieved in 56% of the intervention group. Eccentric and calcified annuli were present in patients in whom residual AR remained despite re-intervention (p = 0.004). Interventions to reduce residual AR were independently associated with improved survival compared with conservative medical therapy (hazard ratio 0.45, 95% confidence interval 0.94 to 0.21, p = 0.03). BVPD or a second valve were safe and were not associated with increased rate of periprocedural complications. In conclusion, both BVPD and a second-valve deployment to reduce residual AR post-TAVI are effective and safe. The success rates are inversely correlated with the annulus eccentricity and calcification. These measures should be encouraged to reduce acute residual AR as they are associated with improved long-term survival.
Automatic classification of RDoC positive valence severity with a neural network.

Abstract Objective Our objective was to develop a machine learning-based system to determine the severity of Positive Valance symptoms for a patient, based on information included in their initial psychiatric evaluation. Severity was rated on an ordinal scale of 0–3 as follows: 0 (absent = no symptoms), 1 (mild = modest significance), 2 (moderate = requires treatment), 3 (severe = causes substantial impairment) by experts. Materials and methods We treated the task of assigning Positive Valence severity as a text classification problem. During development, we experimented with regularized multinomial logistic regression classifiers, gradient boosted trees, and feedforward, fully-connected neural networks. We found both regularization and feature selection via mutual information to be very important in preventing models from overfitting the data. Our best configuration was a neural network with three fully connected hidden layers with rectified linear unit activations. Results Our best performing system achieved a score of 77.86%. The evaluation metric is an inverse normalization of the Mean Absolute Error presented as a percentage number between 0 and 100, where 100 means the highest performance. Error analysis showed that 90% of the system errors involved neighboring severity categories. Conclusion Machine learning text classification techniques with feature selection can be trained to recognize broad differences in Positive Valence symptom severity with a modest amount of training data (in this case 600 documents, 167 of which were unannotated). An increase in the amount of annotated data can increase accuracy of symptom severity classification by several percentage points. Additional features and/or a larger training corpus may further improve accuracy.
Formal Volunteering among Vulnerable Older Adults from an Environmental Perspective: Does Senior Housing Matter?

Based on the premise that environmental support is an important facilitator for engagement in formal volunteering among vulnerable subgroups of older adults, we focus on older low-income individual...
Listeners Experience Linguistic Masking Release in Noise-Vocoded Speech-in-Speech Recognition

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether listeners with normal hearing perceiving noise-vocoded speech-in-speech demonstrate better intelligibility of target speech when the backgr...
State-building, Military Modernization and Cross-border Ethnic Violence in Myanmar:

This article explains cross-border uses of force against ethnic armed groups along Myanmar’s bloody borders with China and Thailand. I trace the history of Burma’s ethnic disputes, its state-societ...
Dynamic model-based N management reduces surplus nitrogen and improves the environmental performance of corn production

The US Midwest is the largest and most intensive corn (Zea mays, L.) production region in the world. However, N losses from corn systems cause serious environmental impacts including dead zones in coastal waters, groundwater pollution, particulate air pollution, and global warming. New approaches to reducing N losses are urgently needed. N surplus is gaining attention as such an approach for multiple cropping systems. We combined experimental data from 127 on-farm field trials conducted in seven US states during the 2011–2016 growing seasons with biochemical simulations using the PNM model to quantify the benefits of a dynamic location-adapted management approach to reduce N surplus. We found that this approach allowed large reductions in N rate (32%) and N surplus (36%) compared to existing static approaches, without reducing yield and substantially reducing yield-scaled N losses (11%). Across all sites, yield-scaled N losses increased linearly with N surplus values above ~48 kg ha−1. Using the dynamic model-based N management approach enabled growers to get much closer to this target than using existing static methods, while maintaining yield. Therefore, this approach can substantially reduce N surplus and N pollution potential compared to static N management.
ADRENAL SUPPRESSION SECONDARY TO INTERACTION OF COMBINED INHALED CORTICOSTEROID AND ANTIFUNGAL AGENT

Objective: Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are exogenous glucocorticoids that typically have minimal systemic effects at standard doses. They are metabolized by the cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzyme pathway in the liver; thus, they can cause unwanted side effects when used in conjunction with medications affecting this system. Here, we present a case of adrenal suppression (AS) secondary to combined usage of ICS and posaconazole, a known CYP450 inhibitor. Methods: Clinical and laboratory data were isolated and are presented. Results: A 9-year-old Caucasian female with history of hyper IgE syndrome. On chronic fluticasone and posaconazole for Aspergillus infection, she presented with fatigue and “facial puffiness” (cushingoid features). Low morning cortisol (0.3 μg/dL) prompted further evaluation. Low-dose (1 μg) adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-stimulation test with peak cortisol level <1 μg/dL. Other causes of hypocortisolism were ruled out. Started on physiologic hydrocortisone (10 mg/m2/day) and fluticas...
Graphs without theta subgraphs

Abstract Let θ 3 , 4 denote the graph consisting of three internally disjoint paths of four edges with the same pair of endpoints. In this paper, we give a lower bound of order n 5 / 4 on the greatest number of edges of any n-vertex θ 3 , 4 -free graph, matching an earlier upper bound by Faudree and Simonovits up to an absolute constant factor. The construction is algebraic in nature, arising from equations over finite fields, and is perhaps some evidence that the Turan Number for the octagon is also of order n 5 / 4 .
Calcium Carbonate-Induced Effects on Serum Ca X P Product and Serum Creatinine in Renal Failure: A Retrospective Study

Several lines of evidence, which we have summarized recently elsewhere (1) have lent support to the hypothesis, stated previously by us (2) as well as others, that progression of chronic renal failure may be in part attributable to the vicious circle depicted in Figure 1. The most impressive evidence pertinent to this hypothesis consists of clinical studies in which phosphate intake was restricted early in the course of chronic renal failure in man, in order to prevent renal osteodystrophy (3, 4). An unexpected result of these studies was that progression of renal insufficiency was much slower than in comparable series of patients. In addition, phosphate restriction can prevent the progression to terminal uremia of certain types of experimentally induced renal failure in rats (5, 6).
Theoretical Considerations and Practical Proposals

In the course of my remarks I shall be criticizing current legal education from the perspective of theoretical study, not as professional education per se. I do not believe practical thinking is less indicative of a high order of intellectual competence than theoretical inquiry. Nor is anything said here intended to cast blame on anyone. I feel like the late T. R. Powell must have felt when, asked why he did not criticize the Supreme Court, replied : "Why should I ? The Court has kept me alive for 40 years !" The law schools have done as much for me; besides I have had a share, if not in the construction, certainly in the maintenance of that interesting melange we call "the law school curriculum," even if some of my young plants have withered in the desert air.1 There are, moreover, many advantages in being a member of a law faculty, and I hope nothing I say will be interpreted as a lack of appreciation of them. Nor, finally, should anything I say be construed as a preference for foreign legal education. American legal education, like other American professional education engineering, medicine, dentistry is probably the best professional training in the world. A profusion of resources, the number and competence of teachers, the size of libraries, and the intensity of study on a graduate level comprise an aggregate which, I am confident, is excelled nowhere. It is this richness of talent and resources which gives rise to doubts about their use ; it is that which raises hopes that professional legal education can be greatly improved by reliance upon theoretical advances, e. g., in enlightening every technical subject, in the unification of numerous courses into a few organized fields, in providing over-all views of the curriculum and in many other ways. But, as stated, my principal present concern is the theoretical study of law. For persons of predominantly theoretical bent, there is considerable frustration in the environment of professional legal education. Of course, one must take care, in this age of psychological sophistication, to avoid making a scapegoat of one's vocation. Besides, not only is it impossible to separate theoretical from practical work, it may well be the case that some theorists find their best stimulation in the law schools. Despite this, and taking account of other positive factors that readily come to mind, it is still true, by and large, that the philosophical and cultural study of law does not find the conditions for its most propitious cultivation in the professional atmosphere of the law school. One gathers, e.g., that many students who would like to study law in the ways the humanities are studied are not drawn to the law school and among those who do enter, some return to the department of history, philosophy or political science.
Introduction to Metabolism

Metabolism comprises all of the chemical reactions that take place in a living system, be it a cell, a tissue, an organ, or an organism. Metabolic reactions are almost all enzyme-catalyzed and include transformations of energy and nutrients, syntheses and degradations, and excretions of waste products. Chemical changes concerned with the production, storage, and utilization of metabolic energy for biosynthesis are known as intermediary metabolism. Typically, intermediary metabolism includes all aspects of metabolism (including digestion) except those involved in the transfer of genetic information—replication, transcription, and translation.
ARVC: Imaging diagnosis is still in the eye of the beholder.

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy/dysplasia (ARVC/D) is both a fascinating and potentially lethal condition. The peculiar tendency of this cardiomyopathy to preferentially affect the right ventricle (RV) is very unique. Failure to accurately diagnose the disease places relatively young
Non-Expected Utility: What do the Anomalies Mean for Risk in Agriculture?

After more than a quarter century of analysis into its predictive value, the validity of the expected utility model (EU) is seriously called into question. These questions are particularly critical for agricultural economists since we have long relied on EU to assess behavior under the pervasive environment of risk in agricultural and natural resource issues. In this chapter, I will review some of the primary violations of EU, assess their implications, and consider various responses put forward in light of them. Questions addressed include: What is the nature of behavior violating EU as commonly applied? What do these anomalies tell us about modeling behavior under risk and what testable implications can be drawn from models incorporating them? Can we still use EU for some risky choices in light of these anomalies; i.e., how robust are the anomalies to (1) the design of the risky questions, (2) real payoffs, and (3) experimental vs. non-experimental risky questions?
Service-Learning in Public Affairs/Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation Jonathan Kozol/The Call of Service Robert Coles/Service-Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices Barbara Jacoby and Associates, eds./Experiencing Citizenship: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Political Science Richard M. Battistoni and William E. Hudson, eds.

(1998). Service-Learning in Public Affairs/Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation Jonathan Kozol/The Call of Service Robert Coles/Service-Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices Barbara Jacoby and Associates, eds./Experiencing Citizenship: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Political Science Richard M. Battistoni and William E. Hudson, eds. Journal of Public Affairs Education: Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 305-316.
The ENRICH Project: Blurring the Borders between Community and the Ivory Tower

In the spring of 2012, the author agreed to direct a project on environmental racism in Nova Scotia after meeting with Dave Ron, a social and environmental activist who had been involved for some time in the Save Lincolnville Campaign, a community-led initiative for the removal of the landfill near the African Nova Scotian community of Lincolnville. Thirsty for a new challenge that had the potential to effect real change in racially marginalized communities, she understood that the significance of the project lay in its uniqueness: few, if any, studies exist that examine environmental racism in both the Indigenous and Black communities in Canada. Given the dearth of research on environmental racism in Nova Scotia, particularly from the perspectives of these two communities, the project serves as a kind of case study for telling a particular kind of story situated in the Nova Scotian context and, in many cases, in the larger Canadian context. That project, which was later titled the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH) Project, is a community-based academic study of the socioeconomic and health effects of environmental racism in African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities. From its inception, the mission of the ENRICH Project has been to employ an interdisciplinary, multi-methodological approach that bridges the academy and community to support ongoing and new efforts by Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian peoples to address the social, economic, political, and health effects of disproportionate pollution in their communities.
Youth Exposure to Suicide Attempts: Relative Impact on Personal Trauma Symptoms.

Introduction The purpose of this study is to report the prevalence of youth lifetime exposure to suicide attempts by people close to them, and its association with personal nonvictimization adversities, suicidal ideation, thoughts of self-harm, and trauma symptoms. Methods Data were collected as part of the National Surveys of Children's Exposure to Violence, comprising three cross-sectional studies conducted in 2008, 2011, and 2014 in the U.S. assessing the experiences of children ages 1 month to 17 years. The current analyses utilized the self-report data from youth, ages 10–17 years (n=6,366), and was analyzed in 2017. Results Twelve percent (n=779) of youth said someone close to them had tried to kill themselves. Exposure varied by age: 4% of youth aged 10–12 years, 13% of youth aged 13–15 years, and 21% of youth aged 16–17 years reported such exposure. Exposure to suicide attempts also varied by sex with 8% of males and 16% of females reporting this experience. After adjusting for the total number of other types of adversity experienced, the association between exposure to suicide attempts and trauma symptoms (β=0.5, 95% CI=0.3, 0.7, p≤0.001); suicidal ideation (OR=2.4, 95% CI=1.4, 4.1, p≤0.001); and thoughts of self-harm (OR=3.1, 95% CI=1.9, 5.1, p≤0.001) remained significant, although attenuated. Conclusions Study findings that youth exposure to suicidal behavior is associated with negative emotional distress, and that it often co-occurs with other adversities and social risk factors, highlight the need to better understand the causal pathways among these risk factors to improve youth suicide prevention and response interventions.
Sequential processing of human proIL-1β by caspase-1 and subsequent folding determined by a combined in vitro and in silico approach

Purpose. Interleukin-1β is a multifunctional cytokine produced by activated monocytes and macrophages that requires caspase-1 (IL-1 converting enzyme/ICE) to process the 31kDa inactive precursor protein to the biologically active 17kDa peptide. This activation event involves ICE cleavage at Asp27 (site 1) and Asp116 (site 2). To address the sequential processing at ICE cut sites we combined in vitro analysis and molecular modeling to investigate the sequence of molecular events.
Passive Ownership and Earnings Manipulation

We examine the relation between passive ownership and financial reporting quality measured by Beneish’s (1999) earnings’ manipulation score (M-score). We find that passive ownership is negatively related to M-score and to the likelihood of being designated as a “manipulator” firm. However, these relations are muted when one of the four largest auditing firms audits the firm in the previous year. The evidence is consistent with the notion that passive owners act as monitors, but relinquish their monitoring role to the Big 4 auditing firms. We also find that higher passive ownership relative to total fund ownership yields higher risk-adjusted returns among firms with high M-scores. Passive ownership may offer greater monitoring benefit to the firms with high M-Scores than firms with low M-Scores.
A Deep Learning Approach for Heating and Cooling Equipment Monitoring

Condition monitoring is an important issue in system health management, and usually the first step leading to fault detection, diagnosis, and prognosis. It is often conducted through monitoring the time series of sensors, which usually includes outliers and change points. We adopt a deep learning model LSTM for monitoring the condition of boilers and chillers in a central heating and cooling plant. A two stage approach for condition monitoring is used: condition prediction and anomaly detection. In condition prediction stage, we use a LSTM model and three regression models: LASSO, SVR, and MLP to predict the energy efficiency of boilers and chillers. The experiments show that LSTM is able to establish a robust normal behavior of multiple boilers and chillers. LSTM reaches a lower prediction error than that of other three models in six out of nine boilers and chillers. In anomaly detection stage, we detect outliers or change points using the prediction errors from the LSTM model earlier than other models. This deep learning approach is applicable for real-time condition monitoring.
Enhanced solar radiation absorption by carbon dioxide in thermodynamic nonequilibrium: A computational study

Abstract The conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) into higher value products using solar energy can help fulfill the increasing need for fuels and chemicals while mitigating environmental emissions. Solar thermochemical conversion approaches rely on the absorption of radiative energy by a solid catalytic medium. The direct absorption of solar energy by CO2 before reaching the catalyst could lead to more efficient conversion. Greater solar photon absorption can be achieved through the use of an electrical discharge to drive CO2 to a low-temperature plasma state in which free electrons and heavy-species are in a state of Non-Local Thermodynamic-Equilibrium (NLTE). The absorption of solar energy by a plasma-enhanced solar reactor for atmospheric pressure CO2 conversion is analyzed via zero- and one-dimensional models. The models are comprised by the spectral radiative transfer equation (RTE) and energy conservation equations for electrons and heavy-species. Radiative properties are computed by a line-by-line radiative code and transport properties using kinetic theory. Simulation results for a representative 10 cm long solar-plasma reactor show up to 48% and 90% net-absorption of solar radiation by CO2 in NLTE at electron temperatures of 1 and 2 eV, respectively, and heavy-species temperatures of ~2000 K, common in solar thermochemical processes. In contrast, less than 0.2% of solar radiation is absorbed by CO2 in LTE under similar conditions. The results suggest that solar-plasma direct-receiver reactors, due to increased direct solar energy absorption, have the potential for greater efficiency CO2 decomposition processes.
The Second Law: The Entropy Growth Potential Principle and the Three-Place Relation in Heat Phenomena

Perfection in Gibbsian equilibrium thermodynamics has led to the impression that the Kelvin–Clausius formulation of MTH is flawless. In fact, perfection exists only in equilibrium thermodynamics whereas the Kelvin–Clausius synthesis failed as a project of synthesis of Carnot’s theory and MEH to formulate a theory that Carnot aspired to, i.e., engineering thermodynamics. An analysis of MTH’s failure is given in this chapter. This analysis arrives at the conclusion that the fundamental error was the equating of correlation with causality, thus, giving heat (and energy) causal agency, which belongs to the second law of thermodynamics in terms of a newly introduced concept, entropy growth potential. Correspondingly, processes that are in the reverse direction to spontaneous processes should be, instead of subject to strict limitation, understood in terms of the triadic relationship.
Great Lakes Fish Finder App; a tool for biologists, managers and education practitioners

Abstract As technology advances and smartphone use continues to rise, so do the opportunities for community members to collect valuable scientific data via their smart phones. While the iNaturalist project and phone application (app) are widely known and used, only a fraction ( 26 million observations logged to date represent fishes. To increase georeferenced observational data on fishes, the John G. Shedd Aquarium announces the Great Lakes Fish Finder (GLFF) phone application and iNaturalist project. The GLFF app contains helpful identification tips in its field guide and allows community-sourced species identification through iNaturalist.org. The georeferenced observations are open-source data allowing anyone to employ GLFF as a data collection tool and repository for their projects. We see the GLFF app as a mechanism for public engagement (anglers and the general community), that contributes useful data for researchers and resources managers, as well as a tool for educators. Ultimately, we envision the GLFF app as a tool for freshwater biodiversity conservation via public engagement.
Preliminary Observations of the Galaxy with a 7° Beam by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)

The FIRAS instrument on COBE has mapped almost the entire sky with a 7° beam and a spectral resolution of about 1 em-1 over the 1-100 em-1 range. Maps showing the strengths of the three main components: dust continuum, [C II] and [N II] are presented. A mean spectrum of the galactic emission is found. These results are used to compare the Milky Way to other galaxies.
Mind wandering: framework of a lexicon and musings on creativity

Abstract This chapter addresses some of the confusion and inconsistencies of language in the field of mind wandering. It emphasizes the importance of consistent terminology, referencing the field of creativity as an example of an area of study that faced a similar problem. In an attempt to unify past and present research, a framework of terms is proposed that identifies the general components of mind wandering. The proposed framework is then used to describe a real-world example of deliberate mind wandering as a tool for designing and problem-solving. Finely, one possible method of deliberate mind wandering is outlined as an example of how some components of mind wandering can be beneficial in everyday life.
The angiocrine Rspondin3 instructs interstitial macrophage transition via metabolic–epigenetic reprogramming and resolves inflammatory injury

Macrophages demonstrate remarkable plasticity that is essential for host defense and tissue repair. The tissue niche imprints macrophage identity, phenotype and function. The role of vascular endothelial signals in tailoring the phenotype and function of tissue macrophages remains unknown. The lung is a highly vascularized organ and replete with a large population of resident macrophages. We found that, in response to inflammatory injury, lung endothelial cells release the Wnt signaling modulator Rspondin3, which activates β-catenin signaling in lung interstitial macrophages and increases mitochondrial respiration by glutaminolysis. The generated tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediate α-ketoglutarate, in turn, serves as the cofactor for the epigenetic regulator TET2 to catalyze DNA hydroxymethylation. Notably, endothelial-specific deletion of Rspondin3 prevented the formation of anti-inflammatory interstitial macrophages in endotoxemic mice and induced unchecked severe inflammatory injury. Thus, the angiocrine–metabolic–epigenetic signaling axis specified by the endothelium is essential for reprogramming interstitial macrophages and dampening inflammatory injury. The angiocrine Rspondin3 is produced by endothelial cells (ECs) and controls growth and development. Malik and colleagues show that lung ECs produce Rspondin3 following injury and specifically direct interstitial macrophages into an anti-inflammatory and wound-healing program.
Atrial Fibrillation Prediction from Critically Ill Sepsis Patients.

Sepsis is defined by life-threatening organ dysfunction during infection and is the leading cause of death in hospitals. During sepsis, there is a high risk that new onset of atrial fibrillation (AF) can occur, which is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Consequently, early prediction of AF during sepsis would allow testing of interventions in the intensive care unit (ICU) to prevent AF and its severe complications. In this paper, we present a novel automated AF prediction algorithm for critically ill sepsis patients using electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. From the heart rate signal collected from 5-min ECG, feature extraction is performed using the traditional time, frequency, and nonlinear domain methods. Moreover, variable frequency complex demodulation and tunable Q-factor wavelet-transform-based time–frequency methods are applied to extract novel features from the heart rate signal. Using a selected feature subset, several machine learning classifiers, including support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF), were trained using only the 2001 Computers in Cardiology data set. For testing the proposed method, 50 critically ill ICU subjects from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC) III database were used in this study. Using distinct and independent testing data from MIMIC III, the SVM achieved 80% sensitivity, 100% specificity, 90% accuracy, 100% positive predictive value, and 83.33% negative predictive value for predicting AF immediately prior to the onset of AF, while the RF achieved 88% AF prediction accuracy. When we analyzed how much in advance we can predict AF events in critically ill sepsis patients, the algorithm achieved 80% accuracy for predicting AF events 10 min early. Our algorithm outperformed a state-of-the-art method for predicting AF in ICU patients, further demonstrating the efficacy of our proposed method. The annotations of patients’ AF transition information will be made publicly available for other investigators. Our algorithm to predict AF onset is applicable for any ECG modality including patch electrodes and wearables, including Holter, loop recorder, and implantable devices.
Use of an individualized algorithm for postoperative prescriptions in gynecologic oncology patients: prescribing practices, clinical encounters, and patient satisfaction

Objectives: There are multiple studies across surgical specialties documenting the prevalence and risks of opioid over-prescribing. Nonetheless, adequate pain control remains an important priority in the postoperative setting. There is a need for a standardized approach that balances the highly individual nature of pain with the patient and societal risks of opioid overprescribing. With this in mind, we set out to evaluate the impact of an individualized algorithm for postoperative prescriptions on opioid prescribing practices, pain-related post-discharge clinical encounters, and patient satisfaction. Methods: This was designed as a prospective cohort study conducted at a single tertiary-care comprehensive cancer center. The pre-intervention cohort included post-operative discharges from the gynecologic oncology service from July 1st through September 30th 2019. A personalized algorithm was designed and implemented starting on October 7th, 2019. Allowing for a period of implementation and normalization of this algorithm, the post-intervention cohort included post-operative patients from December 7th, 2019 until March 1st, 2020. The personalized algorithm included prescribing acetaminophen and ibuprofen to all patients unless there were contraindications, and opioid prescription based on a patient's length of stay and inpatient use of opioids. Patients with a /= 24 hours were provided a 5-day opioid pain medication supply calculated from their personal opioid use in the 24 hours prior to discharge. Data on post-operative encounters for pain medication refills were also collected. In addition, this intervention included restructuring the perioperative patient education and expectations. A detailed booklet about the perioperative experience was provided to each patient and reviewed at time of preoperative visit. Patient satisfaction pre- and post-intervention was prospectively assessed via written surveys at the post-operative visit. Survey results were compared between the groups. Results: A total of 107 pre-intervention and 90 post-intervention cases were assessed. Patient demographics and characteristics between the two cohorts were similar. The post-intervention group demonstrated a 25% reduction in the median number of opioids prescribed at discharge (p=0.16), mostly accounted for in the Conclusions: An individualized algorithm for post-operative discharge medication prescribing is a feasible concept in a gynecologic oncology population. Additional research is needed to explore an optimized algorithm.