cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Detecting circular RNAs: bioinformatic and experimental challenges

The pervasive expression of circular RNAs (circRNAs) is a recently discovered feature of gene expression in highly diverged eukaryotes. Numerous algorithms that are used to detect genome-wide circRNA expression from RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data have been developed in the past few years, but there is little overlap in their predictions and no clear gold-standard method to assess the accuracy of these algorithms. We review sources of experimental and bioinformatic biases that complicate the accurate discovery of circRNAs and discuss statistical approaches to address these biases. We conclude with a discussion of the current experimental progress on the topic.
Hand Pain in a Golfer: A Case Report of a Metacarpal Stress Injury and a Review of the Literature Regarding Return to Play in Grip Athletes

A 19-year-old golfer presented to the sports clinic with a 2-week history of dominant-hand pain after several months of daily golf. He had a metacarpal stress fracture. This case discusses the athlete's return-to-play timeline as well as reviews the current limited literature guiding return to play in grip athletes.
Atomistic modeling at experimental strain rates and timescales

Modeling physical phenomena with atomistic fidelity and at laboratory timescales is one of the holy grails of computational materials science. Conventional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations enable the elucidation of an astonishing array of phenomena inherent in the mechanical and chemical behavior of materials. However, conventional MD, with our current computational modalities, is incapable of resolving timescales longer than microseconds (at best). In this short review article, we briefly review a recently proposed approach—the so-called autonomous basin climbing (ABC) method—that in certain instances can provide valuable information on slow timescale processes. We provide a general summary of the principles underlying the ABC approach, with emphasis on recent methodological developments enabling the study of mechanically-driven processes at slow (experimental) strain rates and timescales. Specifically, we show that by combining a strong physical understanding of the underlying phenomena, kinetic Monte Carlo, transition state theory and minimum energy pathway methods, the ABC method has been found to be useful in a variety of mechanically-driven problems ranging from the prediction of creep-behavior in metals, constitutive laws for grain boundary sliding, void nucleation rates, diffusion in amorphous materials to protein unfolding. Aside from reviewing the basic ideas underlying this approach, we emphasize some of the key challenges encountered in our own personal research work and suggest future research avenues for exploration.
Current State of Bedside Glucose Meter Testing

As arguably the most measured analyte in clinical chemistry, glucose remains a topic of great discussion. The measurement of glucose is relatively straightforward and robust in the central laboratories, whereby glucose in plasma or serum and other body fluids is quantified using enzymatic-spectrophotemetric–based methods. At the bedside, glucose is most routinely assessed with handheld meters using test strips that measure whole blood glucose in an enzymatic-electrochemical manner. Test strip methods have come a long way since the early days; current generation glucose meters provide rapid measurement (<10 seconds) of glucose, in small volumes of whole blood (<10 μL), using a variety of specimen types (arterial, venous, capillary, and neonatal heel-stick whole blood). The operation of the device is purposefully designed to be intuitive and simple. Meter features such as operator management, wireless connectivity to the laboratory/hospital information system, and QC testing features are all important quality assurance parameters characteristic of today's hospital glucose meters. Historically, glucose meter testing did not start in the hospital; it started in physicians' offices around 1970 with the Ames Reflectance Meter. Over time, the glucose meter evolved in both design and technology, finding its way into the hands of patients, quickly becoming a very useful tool for the self-management of diabetes. Eventually, these glucose meters migrated into …
Impact of HPC Cloud Networking Technologies on Accelerating Hadoop RPC and HBase

The performance of Hadoop components can be significantly improved by leveraging advanced features such as Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) on modern HPC clusters, where high-performance networks like InfiniBand (IB) and RoCE have been deployed widely. With the emergence of high-performance computing in the cloud (HPC Cloud), high-performance networks have paved their way into the cloud with recently introduced Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) technology. With these advancements in HPC Cloud networking technologies, it is high time to investigate the design opportunities and impact of networking architectures (different generations of IB, 40GigE, 40G-RoCE) and protocols (TCP/IP, IPoIB, RC, UD, Hybrid) in accelerating Hadoop components over high-performance networks. In this paper, we propose a network architecture and multi-protocol aware Hadoop RPC design, that can take advantage of RC and UD protocols for IB and RoCE. A hybrid transport design with RC and UD is proposed which can deliver memory scalability and performance for Hadoop RPC. We present a comprehensive performance analysis on five bare-metal IB/RoCE clusters and one SR-IOV enabled cluster in the Chameleon Cloud. Our performance evaluations reveal that our proposed designs can achieve up to 12.5x performance improvement for Hadoop RPC over IPoIB. Further, we integrate our RPC engine into Apache HBase, and demonstrate that we can accelerate YCSB workloads by up to 3.6x. Other insightful observations on performance characteristics of different HPC Cloud networking technologies are also shared in this paper.
Post-disaster fertility: Hurricane Katrina and the changing racial composition of New Orleans

Large-scale climate events can have enduring effects on population size and composition. Natural disasters affect population fertility through multiple mechanisms, including displacement, demand for children, and reproductive care access. Fertility effects, in turn, influence the size and composition of new birth cohorts, extending the reach of climate events across generations. We study these processes in New Orleans during the decade spanning Hurricane Katrina. We combine census data, ACS data, and vital statistics data to describe fertility in New Orleans and seven comparison cities. Following Katrina, displacement contributed to a 30% decline in birth cohort size. Black fertility fell, and remained 4% below expected values through 2010. By contrast, white fertility increased by 5%. The largest share of births now occurs to white women. These fertility differences-beyond migration-driven population change-generate additional pressure on the renewal of New Orleans as a city in which the black population is substantially smaller in the disaster's wake.
Deepening democracy?: Demarcation, traditional authorities, and municipal elections in South Africa

Abstract Since the end of apartheid in South Africa, municipal elections often have been overlooked. Many analysts have discussed the significance of the national elections, but few have analyzed municipal elections. I argue that local elections are important indicators of democratic consolidation and the deepening of democratic procedures in South Africa. This article examines two issues that shaped recent municipal elections: the electoral demarcation process and the role of the traditional leaders. My analysis provides important lessons for democratic consolidation and representation in South Africa. Given the evidence of higher voter turnout and greater institutionalization of the democratic practice at the local level, traditional authorities may serve as a democratizing function in local politics. Moreover, this article suggests that focus on democratic consolidation should not be limited to the national level of politics. And, finally, the results of this study support the view that consolidation should be considered a continuum.
ATM directs DNA damage responses and proteostasis via genetically separable pathways

The protein kinase ATM is a master regulator of the DNA damage response but also responds directly to oxidative stress. Loss of ATM causes ataxia telangiectasia, a neurodegenerative disorder with pleiotropic symptoms that include cerebellar dysfunction, cancer, diabetes, and premature aging. We genetically separated the activation of ATM by DNA damage from that by oxidative stress using separation-of-function mutations. We found that deficient activation of ATM by the Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 complex and DNA double-strand breaks resulted in loss of cell viability, checkpoint activation, and DNA end resection in response to DNA damage. In contrast, loss of oxidative activation of ATM had minimal effects on DNA damage–related outcomes but blocked ATM-mediated initiation of checkpoint responses after oxidative stress and resulted in deficiencies in mitochondrial function and autophagy. In addition, expression of a variant ATM incapable of activation by oxidative stress resulted in widespread protein aggregation. These results indicate a direct relationship between the mechanism of ATM activation and its effects on cellular metabolism and DNA damage responses in human cells and implicate ATM in the control of protein homeostasis.
Target sequence capture of nuclear-encoded genes for phylogenetic analysis in ferns.

Author(s): Wolf, Paul G; Robison, Tanner A; Johnson, Matthew G; Sundue, Michael A; Testo, Weston L; Rothfels, Carl J | Abstract: Premise of the Study:Until recently, most phylogenetic studies of ferns were based on chloroplast genes. Evolutionary inferences based on these data can be incomplete because the characters are from a single linkage group and are uniparentally inherited. These limitations are particularly acute in studies of hybridization, which is prevalent in ferns; fern hybrids are common and ferns are able to hybridize across highly diverged lineages, up to 60 million years since divergence in one documented case. However, it not yet clear what effect such hybridization has on fern evolution, in part due to a paucity of available biparentally inherited (nuclear-encoded) markers. Methods:We designed oligonucleotide baits to capture 25 targeted, low-copy nuclear markers from a sample of 24 species spanning extant fern diversity. Results:Most loci were successfully sequenced from most accessions. Although the baits were designed from exon (transcript) data, we successfully captured intron sequences that should be useful for more focused phylogenetic studies. We present phylogenetic analyses of the new target sequence capture data and integrate these into a previous transcript-based data set. Discussion:We make our bait sequences available to the community as a resource for further studies of fern phylogeny.
On the uniqueness of some girth eight algebraically defined graphs, Part II

Abstract Let F be a field. For a polynomial f ∈ F [ x , y ] and positive integers k and m , we define a bipartite graph Γ F ( x k y m , f ) with vertex partition P ∪ L , where P and L are two copies of F 3 , and ( p 1 , p 2 , p 3 ) ∈ P is adjacent to [ l 1 , l 2 , l 3 ] ∈ L if and only if p 2 + l 2 = p 1 k l 1 m and p 3 + l 3 = f ( p 1 , l 1 ) It is known that Γ F ( x y , x y 2 ) has no cycles of length less than eight. The main result of this paper is that Γ F ( x y , x y 2 ) is the only graph Γ F ( x k y m , f ) with this property when F is an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero; i.e. over such a field F , every graph Γ F ( x k y m , f ) with no cycles of length less than eight is isomorphic to Γ F ( x y , x y 2 ) . We also prove related uniqueness results over infinite families of finite fields.
Influence of grain type and oil concentration of dried corn distillers’ grain with solubles on ruminal fermentation and in vitro gas production in cattle fed high-concentrate diets

To determine the effects of grain type (rolled-corn vs. rolled-barley) and dried corn distillers’ grains with solubles (DDGS) oil concentration (low = 4.5% vs. moderate = 7.9%) on ruminal pH, ammon...
A Better Story: An Embodied-Design Argument for Generic Manipulatives

Mathematics education practitioners and researchers have long debated best pedagogical practices for introducing to students new concepts. We report on results from analyzing the behaviors of 25 Grade 4–6 students who participated individually in tutorial activities designed to compare the pedagogical effect of manipulating objects that are either generic (non-representational, not signifying specific contexts, e.g., a circle) or situated (representational, signifying specific contexts, e.g., a hot-air balloon). The situated objects gave rise to richer stories than the generic objects, presumably because the students could bring to bear their everyday knowledge of these objects’ properties, scenarios, and typical behaviors. However, in so doing, the students treated the objects’ only as framed by those particular stories rather than considering other possible interpretations. Consequently, these students did not experience key struggles and insights that the designers believe to be pivotal to their conceptual development in this particular content (proportionality). Drawing on enactivist theory, we analyze several case studies qualitatively to explicate how rich situativity filters out critical opportunities for conceptually pivotal sensorimotor engagement. We caution that designers and teachers should be aware of the double-edged sword of rich situativity: Familiar objects are perhaps more engaging but can also limit the scope of learning. We advocate for our instructional methodology of entering mathematical concepts through the action level.
Emerging Adults’ Risk-Taking Behaviors: Personal and Social Predictors

The purpose of the present study was to investigate associations between emerging adults’ perceptions of their peers’ involvement in risky behavior, ability to resist peer influence, self-efficacy beliefs to resist risk-taking behaviors and personal traits—sensation seeking and emotion regulation—, and frequency of involvement in risky sex, drugs, and alcohol. The 437 participants were diverse undergraduates from a large urban university. The results showed strong associations. Self-efficacy to resist risks and peer involvement in risks, each played a significant role in relations.
Towards Effective Functional Connectome Fingerprinting

The ability to uniquely characterize individual subjects based on their functional connectome (FC) is a key requirement for progress towards precision neuroscience. The recent availability of dense scans from individuals has enabled the neuroscience community to investigate the possibility of individual characterization. FC fingerprinting is a new and emerging problem where the goal is to uniquely characterize individual subjects based on FC. Recent studies reported near 100% accuracy suggesting that unique characterization of individuals is an accomplished task. However, there are multiple key aspects of the problem that are yet to be investigated. Specifically, (i) the impact of the number of subjects on fingerprinting performance needs to be studied, (ii) the impact of granularity of parcellation used to construct FC needs to be quantified, (iii) approaches to separate subject-specific information from generic information in the FC are yet to be explored. In this study, we investigated these three directions using publicly available resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the Human Connectome Project. Our results suggest that fingerprinting performance deteriorates with increase in the number of subjects and with the decrease in the granularity of parcellation. We also found that FC profiles of a small number of regions at high granularity capture subject-specific information needed for effective fingerprinting.
Performance and Workload Trends: The Effects of Repeated Exposure to “High” Demand Tasks:

The N-back and Surrogate Reference Task (SuRT) are frequently used to evaluate the workload potential of secondary driving tasks as high cognitive and visual demand benchmarks. This paper examines ...
Simulated responses of tile-drained agricultural systems to recent changes in ambient atmospheric gradients

Abstract Agricultural systems in the U.S. Midwest have undergone rapid changes in atmospheric gradients of ambient nitrogen (N) deposition and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in recent decades. Despite potential impacts on soil-plant-atmospheric interactions, observed changes in these gradients have not been routinely considered in modeling studies, which could lead to biased results. This study evaluated the impacts of variation in nitrate concentration in rain water and ambient CO2 concentration on field-scale hydrology, nitrogen (N) dynamics, and crop yields in two tile-drained fields under a corn-soybean rotation in Illinois. A calibrated Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM) coupled with Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) was used to simulate the impacts of ten scenarios over 10 years. Scenarios included a baseline with default values in RZWQM and each of the following three scenarios reflecting the actual changes for nitrate concentration (0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 mgN L−1), ambient CO2 concentration (360, 380, and 400 ppm), and combined effects (0.4 mgN L−1and 360 ppm, 0.3 mgN L−1and 380 ppm, and 0.2 mgN L−1and 400 ppm). Nitrate concentration in rain water demonstrated a moderate impact on N dynamics (e.g. nitrate losses to tile drainage increased up to 5.8% compared to the baseline scenario), while it had a small impact on field-scale hydrology and crop yield. In contrast, increasing ambient CO2 concentration showed a significant impact on cropping system N dynamics and soybean yields (e.g. biological N fixation and soybean yields increased up to 29.1% and 24.6%, respectively, compared to the baseline scenario), whereas it had little impact on hydrology and corn yields. The combined effects scenarios showed that decreased nitrate concentration in rain water may partially be related to the slight improvements in water quality in Illinois during the last decades. Considering the recent changes in both nitrate and CO2 concentrations, the overall annual nitrate losses through water (i.e., nitrate losses in runoff, seepage, and tile drainage) decreased by 0.1 kgN ha−1 and 1.3 kgN ha−1 at two tile-drained fields. This study highlights the importance of proper consideration of atmospheric gradients in agricultural systems modeling procedure for accurately estimating crop productivity and environmental performance in tile-drained agricultural landscapes.
A Scalable Multi- TeraOPS Deep Learning Processor Core for AI Trainina and Inference

A multi-TOPS AI core is presented for acceleration of deep learning training and inference in systems from edge devices to data centers. With a programmable architecture and custom ISA, this engine achieves >90% sustained utilization across the range of neural network topologies by employing a dataflow architecture and an on-chip scratchpad hierarchy. Compute precision is optimized at 16b floating point (fp 16) for high model accuracy in training and inference as well as 1b/2b (bi-nary/ternary) integer for aggressive inference performance. At 1.5 GHz, the AI core prototype achieves 1.5 TFLOPS fp 16, 12 TOPS ternary, or 24 TOPS binary peak performance in 14nm CMOS.
Dual Subtitles as Parallel Corpora

In this paper, we leverage the existence of dual subtitles as a source of parallel data. Dual subtitles present viewers with two languages simultaneously, and are generally aligned in the segment level, which removes the need to automatically perform this alignment. This is desirable as extracted parallel data does not contain alignment errors present in previous work that aligns different subtitle files for the same movie. We present a simple heuristic to detect and extract dual subtitles and show that more than 20 million sentence pairs can be extracted for the Mandarin-English language pair. We also show that extracting data from this source can be a viable solution for improving Machine Translation systems in the domain of subtitles.
Proper scoring rules with general preferences: A dual characterization of optimal reports

Abstract Proper scoring rules incentivize truthful probability reports from risk-neutral individuals. For individuals with much more general preferences (including risk and ambiguity aversion) we use duality techniques to characterize the optimal report in any proper scoring rule. We apply this characterization to several well-known families of preferences, and provide several applications. In particular, for the case of CARA and CRRA preferences we (1) can back out true beliefs from optimal reports, (2) show that the quadratic scoring rule minimizes deviations from truthfulness, and (3) provide a two-step procedure in which the agent reports her risk aversion parameter and her belief truthfully.
Elastic Variation of Quasi-One-Dimensional Cubic-Phase GaN at Nanoscale

The elastic properties of the cubic (c-) phase GaN confined in a nanoscale one-dimensional (1D) v-grooved Si(001) substrate are investigated. Along a ∼900 nm-wide v-groove formed with two facing Si(111)-type facets, sub-micrometer-wide c-GaN is achieved by the hexagonal- to c-phase (h–c) transition from the h-GaN which plays the role of an interlayer in its epitaxy on Si. The resulting nonplanar stack of c-GaN/h-GaN on Si has complicated stress distribution. This work focuses on the elastic properties the c-GaN, which are critically affected by its low dimensionality, and presents experimental evidence for it with an analytical stress modeling. A reciprocal lattice map reveals that the c-GaN in each groove consists of several micrometer-long single crystals which are microscopically tilted from each other in their serial coalescence, as its unit structures. The corresponding micrometer-scale lateral correlation length, dc, results from the h–c transition that is interrupted by the groove imperfections gen...
Using Quality Improvement Methodology to Reduce Sedations for Mri in a Quaternary Care Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Background: Brain MRI is an important tool in the diagnosis and management of neonates with possible brain injury. In our large quaternary care neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), MRIs are performed for the identification of white matter lesions in preterm infants, prognostication in hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, peri-operative evaluation of patients with meningomyeloceles and hydrocephalus among other indications. Patients are often sedated in order to obtain high quality images, but sedation carries risks of complications. As part of the development of a Neonatal …
Foreign Aid and State-Society Relations: Theory, Evidence, and New Directions for Research

A prominent body of scholarship views revenue extraction by the state as a catalyst for the creation of representative institutions. States in the developing world, however, extract less revenue from their citizens than states in wealthy countries. One reason for this discrepancy is the presence of foreign aid. This special issue explores both theoretically and empirically how foreign aid flows affect citizens’ perceptions of and interactions with the state, and what this might imply for the development of state capacity and state-society linkages. Until recently, the conventional wisdom held that foreign aid would undermine these linkages, eroding state legitimacy and impeding the development of state capacity. The contributions in this special issue find limited evidence for such adverse effects. Citizen awareness of aid does not directly undermine state legitimacy or decrease citizen engagement with the state. Aid may, however, reduce state investment in institutions, producing inferior institutional outcomes that challenge citizen confidence and therefore indirectly hinder the growth of state-society linkages. If aid is weakening state-society relations, it is largely because of its effects on state institutions rather than its effects on citizen attitudes or behaviors. The contributions to the special issue use a variety of methods to generate these findings, including single-country surveys, informational experiments, donation games, in-depth interviews, and cross-country analyses. Together they address multiple ongoing debates in the literature on aid and state-society relations, while also pointing to promising avenues for future research.
Geospatial Clustering for Balanced and Proximal Schools

Public school boundaries are redrawn from time to time to ensure effective functioning of school systems. This process, also called school redistricting, is non-trivial due to (1) the presence of multiple design criteria such as capacity utilization, proximity and travel time which are hard for planners to consider simultaneously, (2) the fixed locations of schools with widely differing capacities that need to be balanced, (3) the spatial nature of the data and the need to preserve contiguity in school zones, and (4) the difficulty in quantifying local factors that may arise. Motivated by these challenges and the intricacy of the process, we propose a geospatial clustering algorithm called GeoKmeans for assisting planners in designing school boundaries such that students are assigned to proximal schools while ensuring effective utilization of school capacities. The algorithm operates on polygonal geometries and connects them into geographically contiguous school boundaries while balancing problem-specific constraints. We evaluate our approach on real-world data of two rapidly growing school districts in the US. Results indicate the efficacy of our approach in designing boundaries. Additionally, a case study is included to demonstrate the potential of GeoKmeans to assist planners in drawing boundaries.
Entrepreneurs with Disabilities: Making a Difference in Society Through Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship as it relates to the persons with disabilities work force is an underexplored area. This chapter examines the connection between these two phenomena—disability and social entrepreneurship. A case analysis of two distinct businesses owned and operated by persons with disabilities was conducted as this is a relatively new trend with many unexplored directions. Findings demonstrate that persons with disabilities pursue entrepreneurship opportunities for many of the same reasons their neurotypical counterparts pursue self-employment (flexibility, accommodating workflows, control over one’s career trajectory, etc.). It appears that many entrepreneurs with disabilities also pursue forms of social entrepreneurship as a means to give back to their communities. In the cases examined in this particular chapter, two distinct businesses are formed due to a lack of occupational opportunities. And in each of these cases, a portion of profits earned is directly donated to support vocational training and employment coaching for persons with disabilities. This chapter seeks to explore these findings and the research underpinning social entrepreneurship and disability and to offer new directions for additional scholarship.
Isolation of Genes Containing Adenylate-Forming Catalytic Domains in Syringomycin Biosynthesis by Pseudomonas Syringae PV. Syringae

The economically important plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae produces the potent phytotoxin, syringomycin, which contributes to virulence in a wide range of crops [1,2]. The primary structure of syringomycin has been determined (Fig. 1, [3,4]) and, characteristically, it was shown that the toxin is not a single molecule but a mixture of closely related lipodepsinonapeptides. The cyclic peptide portion that constitutes the polar head of the toxins are identical in all of the molecules whose structure has been determined to date; the hydroxylated fatty acid tail is, however, variable in length. The peptide portion of the molecule is novel in that it contains amino acids in both the D- and the L- isomeric forms and because some of the amino acids are derivatised by chlorination and hydroxylation [3,4].
Fragmented Care in the Treatment of Rectal Cancer and Time to Definitive Therapy.

Background The National Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer (NAPRC) emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach for treating rectal cancer and has developed performance measures to ensure that patients receive standardized care. We hypothesized that rectal cancer patients receiving care at multiple centers would be less likely to receive timely and appropriate care. Study Design A single institution retrospective review of a prospectively maintained database was performed. All patients undergoing proctectomy and ≤1 other treatment modality (eg radiation and/or chemotherapy) for Stage II/III rectal adenocarcinoma were included. Unified care was defined as receiving all modalities of care at our institution, and fragmented care was defined as having at least 1 treatment modality at another institution. Results From 2009 to 2019, 415 patients met inclusion criteria, with 197 (47.5%) receiving fragmented care and 218 (52.5%) receiving unified care. The unified cohort patients were more likely to see a colorectal surgeon before starting treatment (89.0% vs 78.7%, p Conclusions This retrospective cohort study suggests patients with rectal cancer receiving fragmented care are at an increased risk of delays in care without any impact on disease-free survival. These findings need to be considered within the context of ongoing regionalization of rectal cancer care to ensure all patients receive optimal care, irrespective of whether care is delivered across multiple institutions.
The Cost Effectiveness of Mental Health Treatment in the Lifetime of Older Adults with HIV in New York City: A Markov Approach.

There are noticeable gaps in knowledge regarding the cost and effectiveness of integrated medical and behavioral services for older adults with HIV. Their lifespan is close to the population’s level but their quality of life has sharply declined due to depression and substance use. Mental health disorders are widespread among an aging population with HIV. The aim of this study was to build a decision analytic model to evaluate medical interventions with and without mental health treatment using primary data of 139 older adults with HIV and health outcomes from the literature. We tracked the progression of depression and cumulative deaths among older adults with HIV using a Markov model with 50 annual cycles through three health states. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses addressed uncertainty in estimating the parameters and around the model’s assumptions. An integrated medical and behavioral care system is cost effective at a willingness to pay of $50,000 per QALY compared with medical care only. The incremental cost was $516,452 and the incremental effectiveness was 38.8 quality-adjusted life-years (QALY), with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $13,316 per QALY. Appropriate and efficacious referrals to integrated medical + behavioral services, either in the same facility or connected to their primary care doctor, are instrumental to reverse loses in quality of life and avoid premature death. If mental health is left unattended, HIV would progress, causing declines in quality of life and ultimately triggering premature death. Reliable data on the cost and effectiveness of different types of HIV integrated services are needed.
Coconspirators, 'Coventurers,' and the Exception Swallowing the Hearsay Rule

In recent years, prosecutors - sometimes with the blessing of courts - have argued that when proving the existence of a “conspiracy” to justify admission of evidence under the Coconspirator Exception to the Hearsay Rule, they need show only that the declarant and the defendant were “coventurers” with a common purpose, not coconspirators with an illegal purpose. Indeed, government briefs and court decisions specifically disclaim the need to show any wrongful goal whatsoever. This Article contends that such a reading of the Exception is mistaken and undesirable. Conducted for this Article, a survey of thousands of court decisions, including the earliest English and American cases concerning the Exception as well as approximately 2500 federal court opinions discussing the Exception since its federal codification in 1975, makes clear that a “conspiracy” under the Exception must involve wrongful acts. First, courts and commentators have for centuries described the Exception as concerning illegal or illicit conduct. Second, because the drafters of the Federal Rules of Evidence (and analogous state codes) intended to adopt the common law understanding of the Exception when codifying it in Rule 801(d)(2)(E), encroachment beyond the historical boundaries of the Exception violates existing rules of evidence. Third, such revisionism could also violate the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, which has been interpreted to prohibit admission of “testimonial” hearsay in criminal trials. To adhere to the historical definition of the Coconspirator Exception to the Hearsay Rule, prosecutors should stop arguing that the conspiracy joined by the declarant and defendant may include purely lawful conduct, and courts encountering such arguments should reject them, lest they find themselves conducting new trials after the rights of convicted defendants find vindication on appeal. Civil litigants should also resist the revisionist interpretation of the Exception, which threatens immense and unnecessary discovery burdens.
Absolute Voting Rules

A fully specified voting rule must state both a multiplier (for example, a majority or a supermajority) and a multiplicand (for example, a majority of the votes cast or a majority of all members eligible to vote in the institution). The theory of voting rules developed in law, political science, and economics typically compares simple majority rule with alternatives such as supermajority rule. This sort of comparison picks up variation in the multiplier alone. In this paper, by contrast, I consider variation in the multiplicand. The focus is on absolute voting rules, whose multiplicand is all members eligible to vote in the institution. I compare absolute voting rules to voting rules that use a standard multiplicand, under which only those present and voting are counted. The thesis is that under a range of circumstances, absolute voting rules prove normatively superior. Absolute voting rules can insure majorities against strategic behavior by minorities, combine supermajoritarian effects with majoritarian symbolism, and liberate voters from accountability when it is socially desirable to do so.
Living on Fumes: Digital Footprints, Data Fumes, and the Limitations of Spatial Big Data

Amid the continued rise of big data in both the public and private sectors, spatial information has come to play an increasingly prominent role. This article defines big data as both a sociotechnical and epistemic project with regard to spatial information. Through interviews, job shadowing, and a review of current literature, both academic researchers and private companies are shown to approach spatial big data sets in analogous ways. Digital footprints and data fumes , respectively, describe a process that inscribes certain meaning into quantified spatial information. Social and economic limitations of this data are presented. Finally, the field of geographic information science is presented as a useful guide in dealing with the “hard work of theory” necessary in the big data movement.
Signal Constellation Design for Cross-Phase Modulation Dominated Channels

In this paper, we introduce an optimal signal constellation design algorithm suitable for wavelength-division-multiplexed systems dominated by cross-phase modulation ( ${\rm XPM} $ ) , which is called XPM-OSCD. Additionally, a corresponding demodulation scheme is also proposed in order to better compensate for the nonlinear phase errors. In this scheme, the cumulative log-likelihood function is used as the optimization criterion. The signal constellations obtained by this algorithm significantly outperform conventional quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM).
The AAS Program of Electronic Publication

At the outset we need to make clear what we mean by electronic publishing. Heck (1996a, 1996b) has been saying for some time that “publishing” means much more than making the traditional journals available electronically. We agree. Electronic publishing must include everything we distribute over the net; everything from peer-reviewed journals, to basic data, to general information. At the AAS, we have seen the effects of this new world in which it is possible to bring a whole continuum of digital information to the desktops of working scientists and scholars. Full electronic access to a wide range of information is already producing a new working environment. I predict that our newly developed ability to access not only the peer-reviewed journals, but also original data, intermediate results, tables of information and unrefereed preprints will change the way research is done in subtle, but powerful ways.
Surface conductance and microwave scattering in semicontinuous gold films

Semicontinuous gold films 4 nm to 12 nm thick were characterized using patterned coplanar waveguides over a frequency range of 100 MHz to 20 GHz. Such films can form two dimensional fractal aggregates mixed with dielectric voids with unusually large electromagnetic absorption. Surface conductance and microwave absorption were obtained from the measured scattering parameters using a microwave transmissionâ€reflection model. Within the percolation coverage of gold nanoparticles, when the surface conductance increases from 10 -5 S to 10 -3 S, the film properties transition from dielectric to metallic, and the corresponding microwave transmittance falls far more rapidly than the classical skin depth model would suggest. The resulting microwave absorption attains a peak value in this range, which results from an inhomogeneous localization of an electromagnetic field in fractal structures. The dielectric to metallic transition can be easily identified experimentally from an abrupt change in the phase of the reflection scattering parameter S 11 . The results demonstrate a convenient easurement technique to study electromagnetic properties of surfaceâ€enhanced semicontinuous metallic films for thin broadband absorbers with minimized reflection, and for other microwave applications.
The Relationship between Law Review Citations and Law School Rankings

Much recent scholarship has focused on the US News rankings and other ranking systems; other scholarship has focused on citations of law journals. This paper combines those two areas. It explores the connections between US News rankings (particularly the peer assessment scores) and citations of schools' main law reviews by journals and by courts. There are high correlations between the US News peer assessment scores and citations of main law reviews by journals for the US News top 50 schools. For comparison purposes, the paper also looks to Brian Leiter's rankings and finds a similar correlation. However, the strength of the correlations decrease for US News third and fourth tier schools. There is a weaker correlation between US News peer assessment scores and court citations across all US News tiers. The paper considers some of the implications of the correlations for law school rankings and suggests that, perhaps, future rankings should include citations as a factor in assessing the quality of law schools. One table illustrates how differently the third and fourth tiers of US News would look if law review citations were the basis for ranking law schools. A final table provides a ranking of law reviews based on journal citations.
VARIATION IN FIBER, PROTEIN, AND LIPID CONTENT OF SHRIMP FEED—EFFECTS ON GUT PASSAGE TIMES MEASURED IN THE FIELD

Abstract The effect of varying levels of fiber, protein, and lipid feed component levels on gut passage time (GPT) and gut passage rate (GPR) of Farfantepenaeus aztecus (Perez Farfante & Kensley 1997), Litopenaeus setiferus (Perez Farfante & Kensley 1997), and Litopenaeus vannamei (Perez Farfante & Kensley 1997), was examined in field feeding trials in a tidal creek and shrimp culture pond. Feeding trials were conducted in flow-through enclosures and feeds were thoroughly mixed with inert fluorescent latex beads to facilitate observation of the feed location within the guts of the shrimp. Rather than being able to continuously view feed passage through the shrimp guts (as is possible in the laboratory), we developed indirect methods that allowed us to obtain periodic “snapshots” of feed movement through shrimp guts at 10-min intervals, which were then used to calculate GPT and GPR. We expected to observe differences in GPTs because invertebrates are known to adjust their gut passage dynamics and GPTs shou...
A Neural Representation of Sequential States Within an Instructed Task

In the study of the neural basis of sensorimotor transformations, it has become clear that the brain does not always wait to sense external events and afterward select the appropriate responses. If there are predictable regularities in the environment, the brain begins to anticipate the timing of instructional cues and the signals to execute a response, revealing an internal representation of the sequential behavioral states of the task being performed. To investigate neural mechanisms that could represent the sequential states of a task, we recorded neural activity from two oculomotor structures implicated in behavioral timing—the supplementary eye fields (SEF) and the lateral intraparietal area (LIP)—while rhesus monkeys performed a memory-guided saccade task. The neurons of the SEF were found to collectively encode the progression of the task with individual neurons predicting and/or detecting states or transitions between states. LIP neurons, while also encoding information about the current temporal interval, were limited with respect to SEF neurons in two ways. First, LIP neurons tended to be active when the monkey was planning a saccade but not in the precue or intertrial intervals, whereas SEF neurons tended to have activity modulation in all intervals. Second, the LIP neurons were more likely to be spatially tuned than SEF neurons. SEF neurons also show anticipatory activity. The state-selective and anticipatory responses of SEF neurons support two complementary models of behavioral timing, state dependent and accumulator models, and suggest that each model describes a contribution SEF makes to timing at different temporal resolutions.
Prescriptions for high school administrative teams

Purpose – Despite the widespread use of teams and extensive research regarding school‐based teams, there is a paucity of research regarding team‐theory applied to high school administrations. This paper aims to explore the team structures and conditions of a public high school administration that has demonstrated success with a heterogeneous student population.Design/methodology/approach – This is a case study employing multiple approaches within a qualitative particularistic case study methodology. The participants were the members of a public high school administration, plus the employees of the school. The study used surveys, semi‐structured interviews, and coded observations to examine the structures and conditions of the administration as a team.Findings – The findings suggest practical strategies of value to school leaders seeking to increase the likelihood for administrative team success. A qualitative case study of a public high school administration revealed the presence of five enabling conditio...
Membrane selectivity for an aqueous system by dynamic osmometry

Commercial and fractionated samples of poly(ethylene glycol) and a sample of Dextran were used as standards to show the limitation of a cellulose acetate membrane for osmotic pressure determination of molecular weight in an aqueous system. The leakage of this membrane was much greater in the aqueous system than in organic solvents.
Definitions of Learning Disabilities from Adults with Learning Disabilities: The Insiders' Perspectives

Definitions of learning disabilities typically include the perspectives of professionals from educational, psychological, medical, and sociopolitical fields. Decision-makers in learning disabilities have rarely solicited the views of an important population of individuals who live with this label, adults with learning disabilities. This article presents responses from a sample of successful adults with learning disabilities who were asked to define the term learning disabilities. In addition to a number of constructs found in many existing definitions, responses include perceptions and conceptualizations that are only available from first-hand experience of living with learning disabilities into the adult years. Even when these perceptions evidence technical inaccuracies, their personal nature offers important insights into the effects of learning disabilities throughout the lifespan. Future attempts to arrive at a uniform definition of learning disabilities, especially in adulthood, should include or at ...
Coal blending—with acceptance sampling

Abstract This paper presents a blending problem with 1. (a) integer constraints on minimum usage and 2. (b) acceptance sampling with penalty function and rejection. A combination of a “core” integer programming analysis with supporting simulation of stochastic outcomes allows an orderly search for the preferred cost-risk combination.
Theory of the circular-disc printed-circuit antenna

A planar conducting structure, an electrically small distance above a ground plane, can be constructed to radiate in the direction normal to its plane while still retaining its low-profile characteristics. A circular disc structure is analysed theoretically to provide aid in the design of such antennas. The currents, fields, total radiated power, directive gain, losses, Q-factor and efficiency are all calculated at several frequencies for various values of the thickness, permittivity, and loss tangent of the dielectric material that separates the antenna from the ground plane.
Use and Support of Multicultural and Antiracist Education: Research-Informed Interdisciplinary Social Work Practice

Multicultural education (MCE) and antiracist education (ARE) are the primary curricula through which school educators are combating the effects of racism and bigotry. To assist in the efforts of the educators, social workers need an understanding of MCE and ARE objectives, assumptions, and current research to guide their practice. This article discusses the differences between MCE and ARE and presents the findings of a study conducted in five northwestern United States school districts. It examines curricula, policies, and practices used to address racism and bigotry among elementary, middle, and high school students; attempts to discover underlying barriers to implementing antiracist and antibigotry curricula; and reveals the perspectives of teachers, administrators, counselors, and social workers. Implications for social work practice, policy development, and research are discussed.
Cognitive structures, cognitive processes, and cognitive-behavior modification: II. judgments and inferences of the clinician

This paper discusses some of the cognitive processes involved in clinical decision making. First, some common shortcomings in human information processing that might affect the clinician are addressed. These include confirmatory bias and prototype matching, use of the availability and representativeness heuristics, and problems with illusory correlations. Then, some ways in which the clinician can minimize the biasing effects of cognitive structures and resulting cognitive processes are suggested. If we can agree that clinicians may be more or less biased in their clinical judgment, then the most important future step is to design research studies that can evaluate the efficacy of different inferential approaches in clinical practice.