cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Laparoscopic repair of a right paraduodenal hernia.

Background: Laparoscopic repair of a right paraduodenal hernia has never been described in the literature. A 24-year-old woman was admitted after 2 weeks of intermittent abdominal pain associated with nausea and vomiting. Physical examination was normal. Laboratory studies and upper endoscopy were normal. Computed tomography revealed that the small bowel was on the right side of the abdomen and the colon on the left, suspicious for malrotation. Subsequent upper gastrointestinal series with small bowel follow-through revealed the ligament of Treitz on the right with the small bowel encased within a probable hernia sac. A presumptive diagnosis of a right paraduodenal hernia was made.Methods and Results: Initial access was obtained with a 10-mm infraumbilical port followed by placement of 5-mm ports in the right and left upper and lower quadrants. The duodenum was identified and the small bowel was found encased within a hernia sac, which was opened widely from the duodenum to the pelvis. The hernia sac was opened laterally to avoid injury to the superior mesenteric vessels. The small bowel was then released from the sac into the peritoneal cavity. The entire bowel was inspected and no other abnormalities were noted. The patient had resolution of her abdominal pain and her postoperative course was uncomplicated. She was discharged home on postoperative day 3 and has since done exceptionally well.Conclusions: Paraduodenal hernia, a rare cause of small bowel obstruction, can present a diagnostic challenge. However, when the diagnosis is made preoperatively, a laparoscopic repair is a feasible and practical option.
Using The Tenets Of Problem Based Learning In The Development Of Small Group Experiences In The Rehabilitative Environment

Purpose. Professional health science educational programs have utilized numerous learning strategies including journals, practice patterns, problem-based learning (PBL), case-studies, and hypothesis-oriented algorithm for clinicians (HOAC) (Shepard et al., 2002). While, these learning strategies have found a place in the health science educational curriculums they have not been utilized in the clinic with patients. This essay provides a brief overview on the tenets of small group work associated with PBL and offers insight into how small groups may be used in the clinic as a teaching strategy. Importance. While this essay does not offer data to support the use of small group work as a learning technique for the promotion of patient problem solving it does provide a medium for the exchange of ideas which may lead to future research in this area.
Multilevel nerve compression and muscle imbalance in work-related neuromuscular disorders.

Background Work-related upper limb disorders have come under increasing scrutiny and become a frustrating problem. Methods A unifying hypothesis to explain the multiplicity of symptoms with work related neuromuscular disorders is outlined. This multifactorial problem includes physical, individual, and psychosocial factors. Abnormal postures and positions may compress nerves or may alter muscle length resulting in secondary compressive forces on nerves or in muscle imbalances. Evaluation should identify all nerve compression levels and muscle imbalance in the arm and cervicoscapular region. Management must include patient education, postural correction, and an exercise program to address the multiple nerve compression levels and muscle imbalance. Results and Conclusions The etiology of work related neuromusculoskeletal disorders is multifactorial and successful management must address all contributing factors. Appropriate conservative management will relieve symptoms in most patients. Surgery should be reserved for those few patients with evidence of a specific diagnosis who have failed conservative management. Am. J. Ind. Med. 41:343–352, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Alkyl hydroperoxide reductase has a role in oxidative stress resistance and in modulating changes in cell-surface properties in Azospirillum brasilense Sp245

An ahpC mutant derivative of Azospirillum brasilense Sp245 (strain SK586) that encodes an alkyl hydroperoxide reductase was found to be more sensitive to oxidative stress caused by organic hydroperoxides compared with the wild-type. In addition, the ahpC mutant strain had multiple defects in a large array of cellular functions that were consistent with alteration of cell-surface properties, such as cell morphology in stationary phase, Calcofluor White-, Congo Red- and lectin-binding abilities, as well as cell-to-cell aggregation and flocculation. All phenotypes of the ahpC mutant were complemented by in trans expression of AhpC, and overexpression of AhpC in the wild-type strain was found to affect the same set of phenotypes, suggesting that the pleiotropic effects were caused by the ahpC mutation. SK586 was also found to be fully motile, but it lost motility at a higher rate than the wild-type during growth, such that most SK586 cells were non-motile in stationary phase. Despite these defects, the mutant did not differ from the wild-type in short-term colonization of sterile wheat roots when inoculated alone, and in competition with the wild-type strain; this implied that AhpC activity may not endow the cells with a competitive advantage in colonization under these conditions. Although the exact function of AhpC in affecting these phenotypes remains to be determined, changes in cell morphology, surface properties, cell-to-cell aggregation and flocculation are common adaptive responses to various stresses in bacteria, and the data obtained here suggest that AhpC contributes to modulating such stress responses in A. brasilense.
A new species of hermit crab of the genus Parapagurodes (Decapoda: Anomura: Paguridae) from the Eastern Pacific, with a description of its first zoeal stage

A new species of the hermit crab genus Parapagurodes, is described and illustrated. This is the taxon described previously as simply Pagurus sp. from British Columbia, and as an ‘undescribed species of Pagurus’ from California. It is the first report of this genus from British Columbia, and the first complete description of its first stage zoea. A key to the species of the genus is provided.
An epithelial niche in the Drosophila ovary undergoes long-range stem cell replacement.

Summary Adult epithelial stem cells are thought to reside in specific niches, where they are maintained by adhesion to stromal cells and by intercellular signals. In niches that harbor multiple adjacent stem cells, such as those maintaining Drosophila germ cells, lost stem cells are replaced by division of neighboring stem cells or reversion of transit cells. We have characterized the Drosophila follicle stem cell (FSC) niche as a model of the epithelial niche to learn whether nonneighboring cells can also generate stem cell replacements. Exactly two stroma-free FSC niches holding single FSCs are located in fixed locations on opposite edges of the Drosophila ovariole. FSC daughters regularly migrate across the width of the ovariole to the other niche before proliferating and contributing to the follicle cell monolayer. Crossmigrating FSC daughters compete with the resident FSC for niche occupancy and are the source of replacement FSCs. The ability of stem cell daughters to target a distant niche and displace its resident stem cell suggests that precancerous mutations might spread from niche to niche within stem cell-based tissues.
On partially observed stochastic shortest path problems

We analyze a class of partially observed stochastic shortest path problems. These are terminating Markov decision process with imperfect state information that evolve on an infinite time horizon and have a total cost criterion. For wellposedness, we make reasonable stochastic shortest path type assumptions: (1) the existence of a policy that guarantees termination with probability one; and (2) the property that any policy that fails to guarantee termination has infinite expected cost from some initial state. We also assume that termination is perfectly recognized. We establish the existence of a stationary optimal policy along with the existence of a unique bounded solution to Bellman's equation. We also reveal the convergence properties of value and policy iteration. For the case where policies exist that do not guarantee termination, the dynamic programming operator fails to be a contraction mapping with respect to any norm, somewhat complicating the analysis.
Spatial sensitization of increments and decrements: a border-contrast process and a net-excitation process.

We investigated the spatially local factors that adjust the sensitivity of the human visual system within a small patch of visual space. A very small adapting field was varied in diameter to map out the strength and extent of the spatially local processes that adjust sensitivity for both increments and decrements. The results demonstrated antagonistic center:surround adaptation regions with a decremental test probe comparable to those demonstrated previously for incremental probes (Westheimer, G., 1965. Spatial interaction in the human retina during scotopic vision, Journal of Physiology 81, 812‐894; Westheimer, G., 1967. Spatial interaction in human cone vision, Journal of Physiology 190, 139‐154) implying comparable antagonistic adaptation regions in the ON and OFF channels. In addition to spatial interactions based on light adaptation, we report a weaker effect that is based on the location of a border (luminance edge) and is governed by the contrast of this edge. Finally, we show that these effects are elicited by both highly localized edges (1% ring pairs) and radial lines (Ehrenstein figure) as well. We conclude that both a border-contrast mechanism and a net-excitation mechanism govern the spatially local adaptation of the visual system and that this view fits well with the behavior of single units reported previously. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Intracellular pH buffering shapes activity-dependent Ca2+ dynamics in dendrites of CA1 interneurons

Voltage-gated calcium (Ca) channels are highly sensitive to cytosolic H+, and Ca2+ influx through these channels triggers an activity-dependent fall in intracellular pH (pHi). In principle, this acidosis could act as a negative feedback signal that restricts excessive Ca2+ influx. To examine this possibility, whole cell current-clamp recordings were taken from rat hippocampal interneurons, and dendritic Ca2+ transients were monitored fluorometrically during spike trains evoked by brief depolarizing pulses. In cells dialyzed with elevated internal pH buffering (high beta), trains of >15 action potentials (Aps) provoked a significantly larger Ca2+ transient. Voltage-clamp analysis of whole cell Ca currents revealed that differences in cytosolic pH buffering per se did not alter baseline Ca channel function, although deliberate internal acidification by 0.3 pH units blunted Ca currents by approximately 20%. APs always broadened during a spike train, yet this broadening was significantly greater in high beta cells during rapid but not slow firing rates. This effect of internal beta on spike repolarization could be blocked by cadmium. High beta also 1) enhanced the slow afterhyperpolarization (sAHP) seen after a spike train and 2) accelerated the decay of an early component of the sAHP that closely matched a sAHP conductance that could be blocked by apamin. Both of these effects on the sAHP could be detected at high but not low firing rates. These data suggest that activity-dependent pHi shifts can blunt voltage-gated Ca2+ influx and retard submembrane Ca2+ clearance, suggesting a novel feedback mechanism by which Ca2+ signals are shaped and coupled to the level of cell activity.
What Do We Really Need? Goals and Values, Security, and the Perception of Consumer Necessity

There is a general trend for consumer goods considered luxuries to become thought of as necessities. Although the luxury/necessity distinction is central to the fields of marketing and economics, little research has examined the perception of necessity as a psychological phenomenon. Three studies examined the relationship of the perceived necessity of a variety of consumer goods to goals, values, and insecurity. In Study 1, the number of goods considered necessities as opposed to luxuries correlated negatively with intrinsic and positively with extrinsic goal pursuit. In Study 2, this pattern generalized to the distinction between needs and wants, the extent to which participants reported needing their possessions, and to materialistic values. In Study 3, the perception of necessity mediated the relationship between anxious attachment and materialism, suggesting that needing consumer products has in part a basis in interpersonal insecurity. In turn, it may facilitate materialistic consumption.
Characterizing high school chemistry teachers' use of assessment data via latent class analysis

In this study, which builds on a previous qualitative study and literature review, high school chemistry teachers' characteristics regarding the design of chemistry formative assessments and interpretation of results for instructional improvement are identified. The Adaptive Chemistry Assessment Survey for Teachers (ACAST) was designed to elicit these characteristics in both generic formative assessment prompts and chemistry-specific prompts. Two adaptive scenarios, one in gases and one in stoichiometry, required teachers to design and interpret responses to formative assessments as they would in their own classrooms. A national sample of 340 high school chemistry teachers completed the ACAST. Via latent class analysis of the responses, it was discovered that a relatively small number of teachers demonstrated limitations in aligning items with chemistry learning goals. However, the majority of teachers responded in ways consistent with a limited consideration of how item design affects interpretation. Details of these characteristics are discussed. It was also found that these characteristics were largely independent of demographics such as teaching experience, chemistry degree, and teacher education. Lastly, evidence was provided regarding the content- and topic-specificity of the characteristics by comparing responses from generic formative assessment prompts to chemistry-specific prompts.
The Harm in Selecting Funds That Have Recently Outperformed

We empirically investigate the investment results of commonly used fund selection strategies that involve redeploying assets from underperforming to outperforming funds. Based on portfolios constructed using U.S. mutual fund data over typical three-year evaluation periods, we find that investors who chose funds with poor recent performance earned higher excess returns than those who chose funds with superior recent performance. Our findings pose a challenge for asset owners: If past performance is used at all in selecting funds, it is the best-performing funds that should be replaced. Realistically, however, a policy of replacing successful funds with poor performers is unlikely to gain widespread acceptance. Instead, the practical implication of our paper is that asset owners should focus on factors other than past performance. We offer alternate criteria for selecting funds.
Analysis of Animal Carcinogenicity Data

Animal carcinogenicity experiments are employed to test the carcinogenic potential of drugs and other chemical substances used by humans. Such bioassays are conducted in animals at doses that are generally well above human exposure levels, in order to detect carcinogenicity with relatively small numbers of animals. Animals are divided into several groups by randomization and treated with a test compound at different dose levels. A typical carcinogenicity study involves a control and 2 to 3 dose groups of 50 or more animals, usually rats or mice. Typically, a chemical is administered at a constant daily dose rate for a major portion of the lifetime of the test animal, for example, for 2 years. Sometimes, scheduled interim sacrifices are performed during the experiment. At the end of the study, all surviving animals are sacrificed and subjected to necropsy. For each animal in a given dose group, the age at death and the presence or absence of specific tumor types are recorded. Groups of animals are compared with respect to tumor development.
Wild Things

The children's book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak was animated using Alice version 2.0 for an introductory undergraduate 14-week programming course at Immaculata University. Using the software development lifecycle, the designers/developers collaborated on the requirements and design phases while the implementation phase was completed individually. The animation was designed and developed with the intent of applying objectoriented principles and reusing objects where appropriate.Three individual scenes were created using Alice version 2.0. Upon the completion of the scenes, a screen capture tool (Hypercam2), and an audio capture tool (River Past) were used to break down the animation. Those components were synchronized using Windows Movie Maker and then the animation was converted to a Flash file.• Scene 1 - Tommy's Bedroom: Tommy is sent to his room and his imagination creates a jungle that grows around him.• Scene 2 - Sailing the Ocean: Tommy imagines sailing across the sea towards an island and encounters wild things along the way.• Scene 3 - An Island Encounter: Tommy reaches the island and meets the wild things only to awaken back in his bedroom as his mother calls him for dinner.
Closed-Loop Plasma Active Control Technology (CLOPACT)

*† ‡ § ** Feedback flow control is regarded as a technology having immense potential for the future of the fluid dynamics industry. This field is in its infancy with many questions unanswered concerning the type and quality of information required for feedback. Previous studies at much lower Reynolds numbers have shown that velocity measurements gathered from the wake can be used to realize desired closed-loop performance. Additionally, the USAF Academy has demonstrated the effectiveness of Dielectric Barrier Discharge plasma actuators at inducing the lock-in phenomena at Reynolds numbers of up to 300,000. The main aim of this experimental investigation is to demonstrate that surface mounted sensors can provide information for effective feedback flow control of a circular cylinder at Reynolds numbers of 20,000-30,000. This study tests the practicality of feedback control by using body mounted pressure sensors and plasma actuators. Flow visualization was used to assess the integration of the plasma actuators and obtain necessary physical insight into the von Karman vortex street. Data was collected from both hot film velocity wake sensors and surface mounted pressure sensors. These measurements were analyzed to examine frequency and phase relationships between the surface and wake activity. The results showed a very distinct frequency match between the body and wake mounted sensors with respect to the fundamental von Karman shedding frequency. Also, both chord-wise and span-wise coherence were significantly improved when the plasma was introduced into the system. The results conclusively show that surface mounted sensors are promising candidates for effective feedback for flow control of a circular cylinder.
Internet Shopping Behaviors of Generation Y African-American Based on Apparel Production Involvement

This study investigates internet shopping behaviors of Generation Y African-Americans (GYAAs), based on their levels of apparel product involvement associated with internet shopping orientations, internet situational influences, internet behavioral intentions, and previous internet shopping experiences. Data were collected from African-American college students of several universities in southeastern United States. Of the total surveys collected, 240 completed surveys were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA), one-way ANOVA, chi-square, and phi-coefficient. This study attempts to understand internet shopping behaviors of GYAA. This research demonstrates that GYAAs have unique internet shopping behaviors toward on-line apparel products, showing that two involvement groups differ significantly in many ways. Internet shopping is highly attractive to high-involvement GYAA consumers due to its entertainment during their web-surfing as well as many other reasons such as its fashion-consciousness and personality rather than the reasons of convenience, expense, and familiarity, which are more sensitive to low-involvement GYAA consumers.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma and its Evolutionary Iteration

The logicians of the Middle Ages called paradoxes “insolubilia” — unsolvable problems for rational logicians —, and for some paradoxes they were right. If, for example, we define an egoist as being a non-altruist and an altruist as being a non-egoist, we run into a paradoxical situation when we have to explain how egoists (non-altruists) can behave altruistically. This is in nuce the paradox of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. But what happens if we repeat or ‘iterate’ such a paradoxical situation? Jourdain’s iterated card paradox is an illustrative example. “On the face side of a card there is written a true statement.” However, if you turn the card over there will appear the words: “On the other side of this card is written a false statement”. If we rely on common sense or on our logic and suppose that the statement on the front side is true, then the statement on the back side must be true, too; but, as a rational consequence of supposing the later statement to be true — which the logicians call proof by reductio ad absurdum —, the statement on the front must now be false! If we now assume that the statement on the front of the card is false, then the statement on the back must be false, too, and hence the statement on the front must now be true! Thus it is our logic which rationally connects the statements on both sides of the card and makes truth dependent on falsehood and falsehood on truth etc., ad infinitum. As Hofstadter (1978: 78) would say, we are trapped on a Moebius strip or an Escher staircase (Kreuzer, 1986).
Short-Term Mortality after First Epileptic Seizure

The short-term mortality in a prospective study of a cohort of 804 patients, aged 2 months to 94 years, with a first seizure was determined at the University Hospitals of Bordeaux and Montpellier, France.
Intrinsic Value in Stock Return

This paper develops a model which, in three forms, expresses expected stock return equating expected value generated by the firm. The hypothesis resulting from these models, that cash flow created by the firm is significant to stock return, is empirically tested using free cash flow scaled by assets to proxy for firm’s value creation. Cross-sectional and time-series results indicate that free cash flow is significant in explaining monthly stock returns. These results are robust to prior variables which are shown to explain monthly stock return or proxy for firm value creation, subsample splitting and across industries. Following these results, investing in a cash flow focused strategy leads to a significantly higher portfolio return.
Sign Language, Speech, and Communication Repair Abilities by Children with Congenital Deafblindness

Paul W. Cascella, Susan M. Bruce, and Ellen Trief Children with congenital deafblindness face serious challenges as they develop early com­ munication skills and the use of symbols (Bruce, 2005). These children have fewer op­ portunities to practice communication and they lack access to naturally occurring social cues, the actions of others, and information about context (Bruce, Godbold, & NaponelliGold, 2004; White, Barrett, Kearns, & GrishamBrown., 2004). These challenges are com­ pounded when children have preintentional, presymbolic, or idiosyncratic behaviors that may not be easily interpreted by their com­ munication partners and thus are not rein­ forced within socially contingent reciprocal activities (Schweigert, 2012). There are many reports that identify the communication of persons with deafblind­ ness. These reports are descriptive in nature, highlighting comprehension, gesture develop­ ment, communication actions (that is, forms) and purposes (that is, functions), and the col­ lection of verbal skills. Although varied in content, two trends emerge. One trend is that the majority of children with deafblindness utilize prelinguistic com­ munication, since they rely on vocalizations, body language, and gestures to convey protest, physical cooperation, calling, and answering (Bruce, 2003; Bruce et al., 2004; Hammeyer, 2014; Vervloed, vanDijk, Knoors, & vanDijk, 2006). Prelinguistic skills were also reported by Murray-Branch, Udavari-Solner, and Bailey (1991), who described a 23-year-old student with skills that were estimated to be at the
Motor adaptation as an optimal combination of computational strategies

To efficiently and accurately manipulate objects, the nervous system must adjust motor commands based on experience. Four major adaptive strategies that could help achieve this goal are: internal model formation of the environmental dynamics, minimizing force, trajectory planning, and selectively stiffening the arm. We measured motor adaptation to a robotic force field with and without a large background force requirement. We then developed a computational model of motor adaptation that allowed the relative contribution of the four strategies to be estimated. Motor adaptation was best modeled as a blend of strategies, with internal model formation playing a greater role when forces were smaller and predictable; impedance control had a higher priority when forces were smaller and unpredictable; force minimization was more important when forces were larger; and trajectory planning was involved in both large and small background force conditions. These results are consistent with the viewpoint that the nervous system effectively seeks to minimize a cost-function containing force, stiffness, and position error terms.
BACTERIOLOGICAL TESTING OF MILK FOR REGULATORY PURPOSES–USEFULNESS OF CURRENT PROCEDURES AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE

The present systems for bacteriological testing of raw milk for quality and regulatory purposes are briefly discussed. Recommendations are made to partially bridge the lack of relationship between test results and farm conditions. These suggestions include: (a) further standardization of “standard methods”; (b) an increase in training and supervision of testing personnel; (c) use of more milking time inspections; (d) the revision of routine agar plate count testing to include automation, selective media, and enhanced colony productivity by the use of lower incubation temperatures and longer incubation times; (e) making results of bacteriological testing more readily available and understandable to the producer and the fieldman; and (f) increasing the stringency of our bacterial standards for raw milk.
Hormones and Neuropeptide Receptor Heteromers in the Ventral Tegmental Area. Targets for the Treatment of Loss of Control of Food Intake and Substance Use Disorders

Hormones and neuropeptides represent biological correlates of internal homeostatic signals detected and integrated in the hypothalamus, which establishes a robust functional connection with the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The hypothalamus-VTA connection determines the ability of these signals to influence central dopaminergic neurotransmission and, therefore, their ability to increase responsiveness to their reward-associated stimuli and to establish appropriate associative learning. The hypothalamus also provides the main source of the multiple neuropeptides that are released in the VTA. With volume transmission of neuropeptides and hormones, extrasynaptic receptors within the VTA provide a fine-tune mechanism, which depends on the ability of molecularly different G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to form heteromers. GPCR heteromer is defined as a macromolecular complex composed of at least two different receptor units (protomers) with biochemical properties that are demonstrably different from those of its individual components. GPCR heteromers can provide unique allosteric properties to specific ligands, which provides new avenues for drug development. We have identified specific GPCR heteromers in the VTA that integrate orexin and CRF neurotransmission and opioid and galanin neurotransmission, which play a very significant role in the modulation of dopaminergic neuronal activity and which can constitute targets for the treatment of loss of control of food intake and substance use disorders.
Calcium ion-assisted lipid tubule formation

Self-assembled lipid tubules are unique supramolecular structures in cell functions. Lipid tubules that are engineered in vitro are of great interest for technological applications ranging from the templated synthesis of nanomaterials to drug delivery. Herein, we report a study to create long lipid tubules from a mono-unsaturated lipid, 1-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (SOPC), due to the effect of calcium ions. We found that calcium ions at mM concentrations promote the self-assembly of SOPC lipids into inter-connected hollow lipid tubes that are μm thick and as long as a few millimeters. Higher calcium concentration leads to an increase in the numbers of lipid tubules formed, but has little effect on tubule diameter. Calcium ions also stabilize lipid tubules, which break up upon the removal of ions. We showed that the lipid tubule-promoting effect is general for divalent ions. We were able to vary the morphology of lipid tubules from thin tube to “strings of pearls” structures or increase the tubule thickness by mixing SOPC with other lipids of different spontaneous curvature effects. Our results reveal that the divalent charges of calcium ions and the asymmetric mono-unsaturated structure of SOPC acyl chains act in combination to cause the formation of lipid tubules.
The Chicano Renaissance

In literature, journalism, and drama the Mexican American is nurtured and sustained by awareness of his artistic heritage and identification with his Indian past
Wage Differentials and Structure

The structure of wages in an economy refers to the fact that at any moment of time the avarage hourly earnings of different members of the working population varies usually quite substantially. This article discusses the way economists approach questions concerning the determinants of the structure of wages and why there exist wage differentials between workers with different characteristics (men versus women, older versus younger emploees, etc.).
Carbide surface coating of Co-Cr-Mo implant alloys by a microwave plasma-assisted reaction

A technique to grow a hard carbide surface coating on Co-Cr-Mo implant alloys used in artificial joints was developed. The carbide surface coating was applied to as-cast and forged Co-Cr-Mo alloys to improve their wear properties. The surface carbide layers were produced by reactions between the alloy surface and a methane-hydrogen mixed gas by a microwave plasma-assisted surface reaction. The new carbide layers showed “brain coral-like” surface morphology and appear to consist of mixed phases including Cr3C2, Cr2C, Cr7 C3, Cr23C6, and Co2C. The Vickers microhardness of thin carbide coatings (∼3 μm thick) was about HV 1100 regardless of the test location. The Vickers microhardness of thick carbide coatings (∼10 μm thick) showed a wide range of hardnesses from HV 1000 to HV 2100. Co-deposition of soot and diamond films occured on a small area of the forged alloy substrates and diamond particles were sparsely dispersed on as-cast alloy substrates. The carbide surface layer has the potential to increase the wear resistance of the Co-Cr-Mo alloy as a wear resistant coating.
On multi-level exclusive caching: offline optimality and why promotions are better than demotions

Multi-level cache hierarchies have become very common; however, most cache management policies result in duplicating the same data redundantly on multiple levels. The state-of-the-art exclusive caching techniques used to mitigate this wastage in multi-level cache hierarchies are the DEMOTE technique and its variants. While these achieve good hit ratios, they suffer from significant I/O and computational overheads, making them unsuitable for deployment in real-life systems. We propose a dramatically better performing alternative called PROMOTE, which provides exclusive caching in multi-level cache hierarchies without demotions or any of the overheads inherent in DEMOTE. PROMOTE uses an adaptive probabilistic filtering technique to decide which pages to "promote" to caches closer to the application. While both DEMOTE and PROMOTE provide the same aggregate hit ratios, PROMOTE achieves more hits in the highest cache levels leading to better response times. When inter-cache bandwidth is limited, PROMOTE convincingly outperforms DEMOTE by being 2x more efficient in bandwidth usage. For example, in a trace from a real-life scenario, PROMOTE provided an average response time of 3.42ms as compared to 5.05ms for DEMOTE on a two-level hierarchy of LRU caches, and 5.93ms as compared to 7.57ms on a three-level cache hierarchy. We also discover theoretical bounds for optimal multi-level cache performance. We devise two offline policies, called OPT-UB and OPT-LB, that provably serve as upper and lower bounds on the theoretically optimal performance of multi-level cache hierarchies. For a series of experiments on a wide gamut of traces and cache sizes OPT-UB and OPTLB ran within 2.18% and 2.83% of each other for two-cache and three-cache hierarchies, respectively. These close bounds will help evaluate algorithms and guide future improvements in the field of multi-level caching.
Engineering of a cationic coiled-coil protein bearing RGD-like ligands on proline-II helical spacers

A RAMP is a receptor-adhesive modular protein (RAMP) which is designed to bind to two (or more) receptors on the surface of the same cell at the same time [1, 2]. Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) is a peptide ligand present in some extracellular matrix proteins that binds to certain members of the integrin family of cell-surface receptors. JUDY and JUDF are RGD-like peptides containing 4-amidinobenzoic acid (J) and (U) that bind tighter than RGD to these integrins [3, 4]. We have engineered JUDY-Procoil, a 90-residue dimeric RAMP containing two JUDY ligands that are each attached to an coiled coil by two flexible linkers and a rigid proline-II helical spacer (Fig. 1).
50 years of TF&SC

Abstract On Technological Forecasting & Social Change's 50th birthday, the journal's second and current Editor-in-Chief remarks on TF&SC's progress, the changes in the technological, cultural, and geopolitical environments in which the journal operates, TF&SC articles' changing topics and origins, and where future TF&SC volumes may lead.
MRI does not predict pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Background This study assessed whether magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could accurately predict pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for patients receiving standardized treatment, pre- and post-NAC MRI on the same instrumentation using a consistent imaging protocol, interpreted by a single breast fellowship-trained radiologist. Methods A single-institution retrospective analysis was performed including clinical, radiographic, and pathologic parameters for all patients with breast cancer treated with NAC from 2015 to 2018. Radiographic complete response (rCR) was defined as absence of suspicious MRI findings in the ipsilateral breast or lymph nodes. pCR was defined as the absence of invasive cancer or ductal carcinoma in-situ in breast or lymph nodes after operation (ypT0N0M0). Results Data for 102 consecutive patients demonstrated that 44 (43.1%) had rCR and 41 (40.1%) had pCR. pCR occurred in 12 (25.0%) of 48 estrogen receptor positive (ER+) patients, 29 (53.7%) of 54 ER- patients, and 25 (52.1%) of 48 human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive patients. The positive predictive value for MRI after NAC was 84.5% and the negative predictive value was 72.7%. The accuracy rate for MRI was 78.6%. Of the 44 patients with rCR, 12 (27.3%) had residual cancer on the pathologic specimen after surgical excision. Conclusion rCR is not accurate enough to serve as a surrogate marker for pCR on MRI after NAC.
Natural Language Versus Formal Language

The comparison of natural languages and formal languages has become quite popular of late. The topic was on the program of the last International Congress for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science in Amsterdam, and also on the program of the 1968 New York University Institute of Philosophy. I have read the published results of both meetings [1], and I must say that I am not quite sure what all the fuss is about.
CHAPTER 6 – Software Interrupts

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on software interrupts. To round out the B6700 facility for inter-task communication, the system designers have provided a software interrupt capability that every systems and applications programmer is free to exploit as he desires. A software interrupt models a hardware interrupt in nearly every respect. In the case of a software interrupt, the signal is issued normally by another task in the task family; the recipient of the interrupt will have designated and defined, in advance, the procedure that should be executed upon receipt of the interrupt signal. The recipient task is free to ignore such signals by temporarily or permanently disabling a software interrupt, which is in almost strict analogy with the current practice of permitting the masking of hardware interrupts. If the recipient task is not actually executing at the time the software signal “arrives,” the system supervisor, acting on behalf of the would-be recipient, will effectively queue the interrupt signal so that an interrupt will be triggered the next time the recipient is awarded an actual processor to run on, provided that interrupt is currently enabled.
Diagnostic and therapeutic differences between immune checkpoint inhibitor-induced and idiopathic bullous pemphigoid: a cross-sectional study.

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is a serious, rare complication from immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). While most dermatologic immune-related adverse events (irAEs) present early and are mild, ICI-induced BP (ICI-BP) manifests months into therapy and can prompt ICI discontinuation and severe immunosuppression. Following irAE management guidelines, providers rely on systemic corticosteroids - which, at high doses, may confer poorer oncologic outcomes for ICI patients. Our study aims to identify diagnostic and therapeutic differences between ICI-BP and idiopathic BP (iBP) to assist providers in prompt recognition and management of this skin toxicity.
Integral LOCA fragmentation test on high-burnup fuel

Abstract Increasing the fuel burnup limit in light water reactors is sought to enhance fuel cycle economics and requires establishing a technical basis. Experimental observations of severe fuel fragmentation under loss-of-coolant-accident conditions at Halden and Studsvik had raised the need for additional considerations during the development of this technical basis. These test data suggested that the burnup threshold for high burnup fuel fragmentation may be influenced by pre-transient power. Additional loss-of-coolant-accident test data is therefore valuable to complement these tests and enhance the current state of understating. Oak Ridge National Lab has developed the Severe Accident Test Station capable of examining the oxidation kinetics and accident response of irradiated fuel and cladding materials for design basis accident and beyond design basis accident scenarios. Severe Accident Test Station provides various temperature profiles, steam, and the thermal shock conditions necessary for integral loss of coolant accident testing, defueled oxidation quench testing, and high-temperature beyond design basis accident testing. Severe Accident Test Station has been successfully installed and demonstrated in the Irradiated Fuels Examination Laboratory at Oak Ridge National Lab. Furthermore, descriptions of the in-cell re-fabrication capabilities and assembly of the loss-of-coolant-accident test train are provided. Installation of the Severe Accident Test Station system and in-cell re-fabrication restores United States capability to examine postulated and extended loss-of-coolant-accident conditions on spent fuel and cladding and provides a platform for evaluating advanced fuel and accident-tolerant fuel cladding concepts. Lastly, three in-cell integral loss-of-coolant-accident test were performed in the Severe Accident Test Station and compared to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sponsored loss-of-coolant-accident test as well as the original loss-of-coolant-accident test performed at Argonne National Lab. The results of these tests as well as all publicly available integral loss-of-coolant-accident test were used to validate a threshold for high burnup fuel fragmentation.
Trump v. The ACA

Before his incoherent response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus of President Trump's health policy agenda was the elimination of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which he has called a 'disaster'. The attacks on the ACA included proposals to repeal the law through the legislative process, to erode it through a series of executive actions, and to ask the courts to declare it unconstitutional. Despite these ongoing challenges, the ACA remains largely intact as the U.S. heads into the 2020 election. The longer term fate of the law, however, is uncertain and the outcome of the 2020 election is likely to have a dramatic effect on the direction of health policy in the U.S.
The Hidden Benefits: Medical Student Participation in Pathways Programs

Introduction: STEM-based pathway programs aim to increase underrepresented minority (URM) representation in healthcare. The successes of these programs are well established; they have been shown to foster URM interest in medicine, involve URM’s in research, and develop professional skills. A number of these programs have been implemented at medical schools, with medical students acting as mentors. These programs are uniquely positioned to provide tremendous value to URM students, yet research on the benefits of URM programs on medical student mentors is less abundant. Discerning what motivates medical students to participate in URM pathway programs …
Region of interest discovery using discriminative concrete autoencoder for COVID-19 lung CT images

The coronavirus pandemic, also known as COVID-19 pandemic, has led to tens of millions of cases and over half of a million deaths as of August 2020. Chest CT is an important imaging tool to evaluate the severity of the lung involvement which often correlates with the severity of the disease. Quantitative analysis of CT lung images requires the localization of the infection area on the image or the identification of the region of interest (ROI). In this study, we propose an automatic ROI identification based on the recent feature selection method, called concrete autoencoder, that learns the parameters of concrete distributions from the given data to choose pixels from the images. To improve the discrimination of these features, we proposed a discriminative concrete autoencoder (DCA) by adding a classification head to network. This classification head is used to perform the image classification. We conducted a study with 30 CT image sets from 15 Covid-19 positive and 15 COVID19 negative cases. When we used the DCA to select the pixels of the suspected area, the classification accuracy was 76.27% for the image sets. Without DCA feature selection, the traditional neural network achieved an accuracy of 69.41% for the same image sets. Hence, the proposed DCA could detect significant features to identify the COVID-19 infected area of lung. Future work will focus on surveying more data, designing area selection layer towards group selection.
Near-optimal Offline and Streaming Algorithms for Learning Non-Linear Dynamical Systems

We consider the setting of vector valued non-linear dynamical systems $X_{t+1} = \phi(A^* X_t) + \eta_t$, where $\eta_t$ is unbiased noise and $\phi : \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}$ is a known link function that satisfies certain {\em expansivity property}. The goal is to learn $A^*$ from a single trajectory $X_1,\cdots,X_T$ of {\em dependent or correlated} samples. While the problem is well-studied in the linear case, where $\phi$ is identity, with optimal error rates even for non-mixing systems, existing results in the non-linear case hold only for mixing systems. In this work, we improve existing results for learning nonlinear systems in a number of ways: a) we provide the first offline algorithm that can learn non-linear dynamical systems without the mixing assumption, b) we significantly improve upon the sample complexity of existing results for mixing systems, c) in the much harder one-pass, streaming setting we study a SGD with Reverse Experience Replay ($\mathsf{SGD-RER}$) method, and demonstrate that for mixing systems, it achieves the same sample complexity as our offline algorithm, d) we justify the expansivity assumption by showing that for the popular ReLU link function -- a non-expansive but easy to learn link function with i.i.d. samples -- any method would require exponentially many samples (with respect to dimension of $X_t$) from the dynamical system. We validate our results via. simulations and demonstrate that a naive application of SGD can be highly sub-optimal. Indeed, our work demonstrates that for correlated data, specialized methods designed for the dependency structure in data can significantly outperform standard SGD based methods.
Predicting Magnetic Remanence of NdFeB Magnets from Composition

The composition of NdFeB-type magnets has a great impact on their performance. To enhance the remanence of the magnet, Zr and Co are alloyed into the starting materials. To develop an empirical equation that calculates the remanence based on alloying elements, the multiple linear regression model is developed in this work. It elucidates the statistical relationship between alloying elements content and magnetic remanence for Zr/Co-alloyed NdFeB magnets. The model is simple and straightforward and has a high degree of accuracy and stability, which contributes to fast low low-cost magnetic remanence estimations.
The Mental Health System: Definitions and Diagnoses

The way we define health and well-being has shifted throughout human history. This chapter reviews three primary views of health and illness (pathogenic, salutogenic, and halogenic models) and how each view influences our understanding of mental health and illness. We discuss the idea that health and illness may be viewed both as a continuum of wellness, and as distinct, but related, concepts. Next, we review various theories of psychopathology (biological, psychological, and social theories) and introduce the current biopsychosocial theory of illness. Finally, we review the two primary nosologies used for diagnosing mental health conditions, and estimating their prevalence, in the United States.