cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The individualized approach to menopause management.

Most clinicians who care for women after the menopause are quite familiar with the benefits and risks of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) (1). They know that estrogen treatment relieves hot flashes, which can improve sleep, and that it reverses urogenital atrophy, to relieve dyspareunia. Clinicians are aware that estrogen treatment prevents postmenopausal bone loss, thereby reducing the risk of osteoporotic fractures. They know that estrogens have favorable effects on blood lipids and other cardiovascular risk factors (2), which can substantially lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death for postmenopausal women. Fortunately, prescribing HRT to many women is relatively straightforward and highly effective. Many women will do quite well with the first standard hormone regimen they are given. For example, some women who have severe hot flashes get significant relief from HRT and are not troubled by side-effects. Not every case is this easy, however. Many women experience problems with HRT, resulting in a high discontinuation rate. Thus, large numbers of women will require an individualized approach to hormone treatment, posing a formidable challenge to the clinician. I have identified five common but challenging scenarios. Each case is entitled by the exact words I frequently hear in my practice. These words are followed by the strategies I use in management—some solutions are based on the results of well-designed clinical trials, others derive from personal experience.
A Sword and a Shield: South Korea's Strategic Use of World Trade Organization Litigation

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has since its inception in 1995 produced a cohort of 108 “fully litigated” trade cases. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of this cohort of cases reveal that South Korea ranks first among all Asia Pacific nations in appearances as complainant. Similarly, Korea ranks first among the 13 most litigious WTO members in the relative frequency with which it converts WTO Consultation Requests to formal litigation. Furthermore, its litigation history reflects a strategy to employ the formal WTO litigation venue in the service of two key exports: steel and semiconductors. Through this strategy, Korea has challenged U.S. safeguard measures on steel and defended its own putative subsidization of semiconductor manufacturers from countervailing duties imposed by the United States, European Union, and Japan.
Voices of Latino male high school students on their disconnect with education: Perspectives of “drop-outs” and those on the brink

Latino male high school students are not achieving at the level of their considerable potential. And, as a result, they are not graduating at rates comparable to other student groups. Although much research has explored this phenomenon, one component has been conspicuously lacking: the voice of the Latino “drop-out” himself. This qualitative study addresses this void by allowing Latino males, who have dropped out or who are on the brink of dropping out, to speak for themselves. Their perspectives provide a reality-based foundation upon which educators can build pedagogical programs that work with, not against, the Latino male students.
Experiences with a CS1 for the health sciences

Computer Science (CS) educators are increasingly being tasked to design courses for specific groups of non-majors. This paper reports on an experiment with a CS1-style course for the health sciences. Experiences with offering this course to a cohort of specific health-science majors and with other non-majors are discussed. The results suggest that tailoring a course around a discipline-specific theme may make the course more attractive to students outside rather than inside of the specific discipline. The results also point to the persistent gender gap in CS, as well as the difficulty in translating student success into self-confidence.
The suppression of deprivation and antagonist-induced withdrawal in morphine-dependent rhesus monkeys☆

The capacity of morphine to suppress natural and precipitated withdrawal was compared in morphine-dependent rhesus monkeys. A similar severity of withdrawal was induced by 14-hr deprivation or precipitated by naloxone, naltrexone, cyclazocine, Win 44,441 or MR 2266. Regardless of the procedure used to induce withdrawal, behavioral signs were completely suppressed by a cumulative dose of 17.5 mg/kg morphine. Thus, an equivalent level of withdrawal induced by reversible antagonists is as sensitive to subsequent morphine administration as is deprivation-induced abstinence. This is in accordance with the theory that vacancy of opiate receptors normally occupied by morphine is related to the level of abstinence observed. In contrast to Win 44,441, however, an equivalent level of withdrawal precipitated by buprenorphine required 175 mg/kg morphine for complete suppression. This is more informative than comparing duration of action; when given as 24-h pretreatments, a high dose of Win 44,441 (10 mg/kg) was only slightly less effective than buprenorphine (3.2 mg/kg) in antagonizing morphine-induced stupor in normal monkeys. Comparison of the ability of morphine to suppress precipitated withdrawal provides evidence of the relative reversibility of antagonists in vivo and demonstrates the extraordinarily stable nature by which buprenorphine acts at opiate receptors.
Yeast Two-Hybrid Screening Identifies Binding Partners of Human Tom34 That Have ATPase Activity and Form a Complex with Tom34 in the Cytosol

In the accompany paper (Mukhopadhyay, A., Avramova, L. V. and Weiner, H., Arch. Biochem. Biophys.), it was shown that Tom34, a previously proposed putative translocase of the mitochondrial outer membrane, binds to the mature region of a precursor protein and appears to be a cytosol protein. Here Tom34 was used as bait in a yeast two-hybrid screening to search for its potential binding partners. Two of the identified proteins were the ATPase-related valosin-containing protein (VCP) and the lysosomal H(+)-transporting ATPase member M (ATP6M). Tom34 was found primarily in the cytosol while VCP and ATP6M were found in the cytosol as well as in nonmitochondrial organelles. Tom34 formed a approximately 400-kDa complex with them in the cytosol. Tom34 was found to possess a weak ATPase activity that did not change when associated with VCP. The tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) motif region of Tom34 (residue 201-256) was responsible for binding to the other proteins. Tom34 appears not to be a member of the mitochondrial outer membrane translocase family but might function as a chaperone-like protein during protein translocation.
Retrospective evaluation of instituted standard adequacy criteria for on‐site adequacy assessment of thyroid fine‐needle aspiration

This retrospective study was conducted to investigate the impact of using instituted standard criteria for on-site assessment of specimen adequacy on fine-needle aspiration (FNA) diagnosis of thyroid nodules. The study included a total of 1,031 thyroid FNAs that were performed and assisted with on-site adequacy assessment using instituted standard criteria from July 2006 to March 2009. Adequate specimens require the presence of at least six groups of follicular cells in total on Diff–Quik stained smears with a minimum of 10 cells in each group. Agreement on specimen adequacy between on-site and final assessment, nondiagnostic rate, distribution of cytologic diagnoses, and cytohistologic concordance for cases with surgical follow-up was evaluated. Implementing the instituted standard criteria resulted in 93% level of agreement on specimen adequacy between on-site and final assessment. Nondiagnostic rate upon final assessment was 10.7%. Cytohistologic concordant rate reached 93.9% and 82.3% for nonneoplastic and neoplastic lesions, respectively. Most importantly, this approach to standardization not only provided diagnostic consistency among cytopathologists, but also minimized confusions and enhanced effective communication. Thus, high satisfactions have been achieved from endocrinologists/radiologists who utilized our on-site assessment service and/or participated in the management of thyroid nodules. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2011;39:391–394. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
SUPERVISION AS A DISCIPLINED FOCUS ON SELF AND NOT THE OTHER: A DIFFERENT SYSTEMS MODEL

This Self-Based Supervision (SBS) model developed out of experience, and operates from a framework of nature and systems theory where language is a process of coordination among humans as living systems. With this specific understanding of language, supervision as conversation is the mode for experimentation with change. The model is presented conceptually and then described with examples of supervisees at different stages of supervision. Rather than being prescriptive, the author offers the model primarily as a stimulus for the further development of systems thinking and supervision. The article concludes that the systemic changes that occur in this supervision can extend to affect larger social systems as supervisees operate on principle and function as leaders.
Blood volumes in cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass

Purpose:Total blood volume (TBV) estimation potentially impacts various aspects of cardiac surgical care, including pharmacological and transfusion interventions, hemodynamic and volume management and perfusion equipment selection. TBV is commonly computed during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), using standardized formulae. We hypothesized that these equations fail to accurately predict individual blood volume variability. The aim of this study was to determine TBV with a dilution technique and compare the results to commonly utilized TBV calculations.Methods:After institutional review board approval, data was prospectively collected and analyzed for 101 patients undergoing open-heart surgery. Hematocrits (Hct) just prior to and immediately after the initiation of CPB were used to calculate the TBV. Results were compared to (1) the Allen formula and (2) weight-based standards (70 ml/kg for males (SM); 65 ml/kg for females (SF)).Results:The average dilution TBV (male: 4684 ± 1641 ml; female: 3027 ± 1067 ml; t...
O2 LEVELS MAY NOT DETERMINE GIGANTISM

![Figure][1] During the Palaeozoic some arthropod species grew to gigantic proportions. The rise of these giants strongly correlates with increased atmospheric oxygen concentrations (∼32% vs today's 21% O2). Among present day arthropods marine polar species show remarkable gigantism
Modeling & Monitoring of Product DPPM with Multiple Fail Modes

A method to model and de-rate product DPPM using existing production EFR (Early Failure Rate) and burn-in data is proposed. This approach incorporates multiple classes of reliability fail modes. Changes in process, test, or design may then be employed to optimize product outgoing defect levels. These changes will be based on the defect acceleration kinetic parameters, instead of just the reliability fail-fraction or wafer sort yield. Monitoring of low part-per-million defects is also critical in maintaining general quality and a new method is discussed.
Evaluation of Two New Crossbuck Designs for Passive Highway-Railroad Grade Crossings

Two new crossbuck designs for use at passive highway-railroad grade crossings were evaluated. The standard improved and the Buckeye cross-buck were evaluated in Ohio with respect to their potential to alter driver risk-taking behavior (Part I), their accident reduction potential (Part II), user acceptance (Part III), and with respect to their photometric performance at night (Part IV). It was found that the percentage of noncompliant drivers was about the same for both crossbuck designs, with slightly more conservative risk-acceptance times obtained for the Buckeye cross-buck. Based on the past 10 years of Ohio railroad crossing (RRX) accident history, the overall number of accidents at passive RRX has continued to drop. Since the statewide installation of the two new cross-buck designs, no accident reduction pattern could be attributed to one of the two crossbuck designs. A user acceptance survey indicated an overwhelming preference for the Buckeye crossbuck among the user groups surveyed. Photometric cr...
Changes in Mitochondrial Properties During Low Temperature Storage of Apples

Mitochondria were isolated from ‘Cortland’ and ‘Winesap’ apples stored at 90% RH and either 1° or 5°C. Respiratory control ratios of mitochondria isolated from ‘Nured Winesap’ apples stored at 5°C were consistently lower than from those stored at 1°C. Succinoxidase and Ca +2 ATPase activity was higher in mitochondria of ‘Cortland’ apples stored at 1°C. Large increases were observed in mitochondrial Ca +2 uptake after 4 wk storage of ‘Nured Winesap’ apples at 5°C and after 1 wk storage of ‘Cortland’ apples at 1°C. Although no symptoms of chilling injury were observed in the tissue of either cultivar, the mitochondrial response suggested chilling resistance in ‘Nured Winesap’ apples and chilling sensitivity in ‘Cortland’ apples.
Controller response times to surface safety alerts

To ensure that Air Traffic Control Tower-based surface safety systems are designed to appropriately take into account human response time, it is critical to understand controller responses in situations that are within the controller's operational envelope (i.e., situations that the controller would be expected/trained to handle as part of the job) but that are expected to elicit response times longer than those that would be expected in more typical air traffic control situations. This paper describes the conduct and results of a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) simulation in which participant controllers were exposed to one of two air traffic control situations within the operational envelope and their responses to a surface safety alert were measured. The results of this HITL simulation indicated the right tail-end of controller response behavior (defined as the time it takes a controller to detect the alert, make a decision about how to resolve the situation, and issue corrective instruction to a pilot) as around 13 seconds, which is almost twice as long as was measured in previous studies capturing controller response behavior in typical air traffic control situations. Language: en
Interrogating Privilege/Challenging the ‘Greening of Hate’

Some time ago, I walked into one of my classes and overheard someone reject the examination of mainstream Environmental Security (ES) discourse on ‘overpopulation’ and ‘mass immigration’1 through t...
HOW TREE SPECIES DIFFER AS RECRUITMENT FOCI IN A TROPICAL PASTURE

In a Neotropical pasture, I predicted that two characteristics of trees, type of fruit produced and amount of shade cast, would affect recruitment and growth of woody plants underneath them. I also predicted that woody plants that persisted in active pasture would affect the species assemblages under trees after pasture abandonment. To investigate these hypotheses, I examined the assemblages of recruits under several types of trees in active pasture and also under similar trees that were fenced off (enclosed) to simulate abandoned pasture. The trees were Ficus spp. (fleshy fruits, deep shade), Pentaclethra macroloba (dry fruits, deep shade), Cecropia spp. (fleshy fruits, sparse shade), and Cordia alliodora (dry fruits, sparse shade). Recruitment into “open” pasture plots (i.e., without trees) was also examined. In active pasture, the species assemblage of woody recruits depended on the tree under which they grew. The assemblage under Ficus was dense and diverse, under Cecropia and Cordia it was moderately...
Role of slotting fees and trade promotions in shaping how tobacco is marketed in retail stores

OBJECTIVE To examine how the retail environment in which tobacco is sold has changed because of the slotting fees and trade promotions paid by the tobacco companies. Public policy options for dealing with this environment are also evaluated. DATA SOURCES A literature review, telephone interviews, and observation. RESULTS The tobacco companies have been dramatically increasing the volume of slotting fees and trade promotions they pay to retailers, creating a more tobacco friendly retail environment containing self service displays and ample point-of-sale advertising. Critics express concern that these payments have kept prices lower and more varied than they might be otherwise, created more opportunities for pilferage and underage selling, and provided more youth exposure to tobacco promotions. Public policy makers could either ban these payments, institute policies designed to mitigate their harmful effects, or leave the situation as it is, relying on enforcement of existing statutes as well as market forces to reduce harm. Actions that might mitigate harmful effects would include putting minimum retail prices on tobacco products, banning self service displays, requiring retailers to be licensed, and adding more warning signs at the point of sale. CONCLUSION Additional research is needed before determining the most appropriate public policy stance.
Simulation and Development Environment for Multiple Heterogeneous UAVs

Autonomous ∞ight of a single Unmanned Aerial Vehicle has become routine for many research teams. Our interests include multi-vehicle operation as well as developing guidance and control algorithms for each vehicle. These algorithms also need to be implemented in ∞ight hardware and successfully ∞ight tested. A ∞exible simulation environment is one of the key ingredients towards this goal, more so if heterogeneous vehicles and ∞ight hardware are involved. This paper introduces an integrated simulation and development environment including a code generator, a standard vehicle interface library and unifled hardware that enables using the same ∞ight infrastructure for avionics ranging from over 10 lbs to just above 1 lb. The lower payload vehicles have severe restrictions on communications, and processing resources and are most often custom avionics. Reconflgurability for software-in-the-loop (SITL), hardware-in-the-loop (HITL), ∞ight and extension to multivehicle operations is emphasized, all using a common code base.
Alefacept (anti-CD2) causes a selective reduction in circulating effector memory T cells (Tem) and relative preservation of central memory T cells (Tcm) in psoriasis

Background Alefacept (anti-CD2) biological therapy selectively targets effector memory T cells (Tem) in psoriasis vulgaris, a model Type 1 autoimmune disease.
A CMOS square-law programmable floating resistor

A CMOS architecture for a floating linear resistor which exploits the square-law model of the MOS transistor is presented. The architecture is programmable by a DC control voltage, and it is fabricated in a 2-/spl mu/m p-well CMOS MOSIS process. The resistor occupies 210 /spl mu/m /spl times/ 270 /spl mu/m, consumes .4-4 mW with /spl plusmn/5 V supply and exhibits a signal-to-noise-ratio (at1% total harmonic distortion) of more than 100 dB over a 1-V range of the DC control voltage. >
“Tweaking and Geeking, Just Having Some Fun”: An Analysis of Methamphetamine Poems

There is a body of methamphetamine-themed poetry that speaks regretfully of the highly negative experiences of those in recovery from methamphetamine (MA) addiction or who feel trapped in an MA-using lifestyle. During ethnographic research in western Kentucky, the author collected two MA-themed poems from active MA users that differ from other MA poetry. They describe misadventures that occur during MA "binges." However, the text and tone of the poems are comically ironic and represent optimism rather than regret toward MA use. Analyzing these poems provides valuable insights into local patterns of MA use, related terminology, and attitudes toward MA use.
A simple theoretical study of the dissolution of block copolymer molecules into their own microphases

A simple theoretical treatment of microphase separation in block copolymers [S. Krause, Macromolecules, 3, 84 (1970)] has been extended to the case in which individual molecules of the block copolymer may dissolve in one or the other of the microphases. When the free energy driving force for microphase separation is near zero, the minimum free energy state of the system has a relatively high concentration of block copolymer molecules dissolved in one or in both of the microphases, depending partly on the percent composition of the block copolymer. The theoretical predictions are compared with experimental data in the literature.
Crowdsourcing from Scratch: A Pragmatic Experiment in Data Collection by Novice Requesters

As crowdsourcing has gained prominence in recent years, an increasing number of people turn to popular crowdsourcing platforms for their many uses. Experienced members of the crowdsourcing community have developed numerous systems both separately and in conjunction with these platforms, along with other tools and design techniques, to gain more specialized functionality and overcome various shortcomings. It is unclear, however, how novice requesters using crowdsourcing platforms for general tasks experience existing platforms and how, if at all, their approaches deviate from the best practices established by the crowdsourcing research community. We conduct an experiment with a class of 19 students to study how novice requesters design crowdsourcing tasks. Each student tried their hand at crowdsourcing a real data collection task with a fixed budget and realistic time constraint. Students used Amazon Mechanical Turk to gather information about the academic careers of over 2,000 professors from 50 top Computer Science departments in the U.S. In addition to curating this dataset, we classify the strategies which emerged, discuss design choices students made on task dimensions, and compare these novice strategies to best practices identified in crowdsourcing literature. Finally, we summarize design pitfalls and effective strategies observed to provide guidelines for novice requesters.
A Hard Day's Night: Hierarchy, History & Happiness in Legal Education

This Article presents a social history of the struggles of Boston's nontraditional students to break into the legal profession by studying in evening law schools. Suffolk Evening Law School was founded in 1906 as a counter-hegemonic institution, explicitly dedicated to the democratization of legal education by challenging the pedagogy and recruitment practices of Harvard and the other elite day schools. Twenty-first century graduates of the most prestigious day law schools continue to thrive in a relatively charmed legal environment, but the legal hierarchy has been destabilized by a growing emphasis upon achievement over ascription. Suffolk's evening law students, for example, often have a competitive advantage in fields such as intellectual property because the leading Boston law firms recruit disproportionately from the software engineers, biotechnology researchers, and other scientists who work as patent agents by day and study law at night. While the evening law school movement of the early twentieth century did much to replace ascription with meritocracy, the equal opportunity revolution remains incomplete because of the continuing influence of the legal stratification system upon the careers of the alumni of low ranking law schools.
Experimental Study of Energy Absorption of Fluid-Filled Honeycomb Structure

The work presented here is a continuation of the study performed in exploring the energy absorption characteristics of non-Newtonian fluid-filled regular hexagonal aluminum honeycomb structures. In the previous study, energy absorbing properties were investigated by using an air powered pneumatic ram, dynamic load cell, and a high speed camera. This study was conducted using a pneumatic ram which was designed to exploit only its kinetic energy during the impact. Experimental samples included an empty honeycomb sample and a filled sample as the filled samples showed the largest difference in energy absorption with respect to the empty samples in the previous study. Therefore, the filled samples were further investigated in this study by measuring the impact forces at the distal end as well as the damage on the impact end. Upon impact, the filled samples were able to reduce the damage area on impact end and were able to lower average and peak forces by 71.9% and 77.4% at the distal end as compared to the empty sample.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
The Desert: Land of Lost Borders

This is a very ambitious book. It not only covers all of the world’s deserts, which occupy about one-third of the earth’s land surface, but also sets out to challenge assumptions about the value an...
Acute selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors regulate the dorsal raphe nucleus causing amplification of terminal serotonin release

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were designed to treat depression by increasing serotonin levels throughout the brain via inhibition of clearance from the extracellular space. Although increases in serotonin levels are observed after acute SSRI exposure, 3-6 weeks of continuous use is required for relief from the symptoms of depression. Thus, it is now believed that plasticity in multiple brain systems that are downstream of serotonergic inputs contributes to the therapeutic efficacy of SSRIs. The onset of antidepressant effects also coincides with desensitization of somatodendritic serotonin autoreceptors in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), suggesting that disrupting inhibitory feedback within the serotonin system may contribute to the therapeutic effects of SSRIs. Previously, we showed that chronic SSRI treatment caused a frequency-dependent facilitation of serotonin signaling that persisted in the absence of uptake inhibition. In this work, we use in vivo fast-scan cyclic voltammetry in mice to investigate a similar facilitation after a single treatment of the SSRI citalopram hydrobromide. Acute citalopram hydrobromide treatment resulted in frequency-dependent increases of evoked serotonin release in the substantia nigra pars reticulata. These increases were independent of changes in uptake velocity, but required SERT expression. Using microinjections, we show that the frequency-dependent enhancement in release is because of SERT inhibition in the DRN, demonstrating that SSRIs can enhance serotonin release by inhibiting uptake in a location distal to the terminal release site. The novel finding that SERT inhibition can disrupt modulatory mechanisms at the level of the DRN to facilitate serotonin release will help future studies investigate serotonin's role in depression and motivated behavior. In this work, stimulations of the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) evoke serotonin release that is recorded in the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNpr) using in vivo fast-scan cyclic voltammetry. Systemic administration of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) causes both an increase in t1/2 and an increase in [5-HT]max in the SNpr. Local application of SSRI to the DRN recapitulates the increase in [5-HT]max observed in the SNpr without affecting uptake. Thus, SSRIs increase serotonin signaling via two distinct SERT-mediated mechanisms.
Ultrafast Dynamics of the SO2(H2O)n Cluster System

An investigation of the excited-state dynamics of SO2(H2O)n (n = 1-5) clusters following excitation by ultrafast laser pulses to 4.7 eV (coupled 1A2 and 1B1 states) and 9.3 eV (F band) is presented. The findings for the coupled 1A2 and 1B1 states are in good agreement with published computational work and indicate the division of the initial excited-state population into the double well produced by the coupled states. A photoinduced ion-pair formation process is proposed as a likely source of the observed dynamic behavior following the 9.3 eV excitation. Energetics calculations are also presented that support the ion-pair mechanism. A lack of cluster size dependence in the measured time constants indicate surface solvation of SO2 rather than a cluster structure with the SO2 molecule fully encompassed by water molecules.
Converting Paradoxs QBE Set Queries Into Access 2000 SQL

One of the most important promises of the move to an SQL-based accounting software package has been that it frees the accountant from the necessity of resorting to a programmer when retrieving information from the organization's database in response to unanticipated managerial needs. That promise is founded, in part, on the availability of a very high-level, visual relational query language interface known as Query By Example (QBE). Unfortunately, the implementation of QBE in Microsoft Access 2000 fails to support users in formulating complex queries involving set comparison that tend to arise in on-line analytical processing (OLAP) situations. And, while Paradoxs implementation of QBE makes the formulation of such queries quite intuitive, its built-in SQL translation feature fails to provide a clue on how to convert such queries into SQL. This paper presents a systematic approach based on formulating complex set queries in Paradoxs richer QBE notation and translating them into SQL queries that can be handled by Access 2000.
Chemical-sensitive graphene modulator with a memory effect for internet-of-things applications.

Modern internet of things (IoTs) and ubiquitous sensor networks could potentially take advantage of chemically sensitive nanomaterials and nanostructures. However, their heterogeneous integration with other electronic modules on a networked sensor node, such as silicon-based modulators and memories, is inherently challenging because of compatibility and integration issues. Here we report a novel paradigm for sensing modulators: a graphene field-effect transistor device that directly modulates a radio frequency (RF) electrical carrier signal when exposed to chemical agents, with a memory effect in its electrochemical history. We demonstrated the concept and implementation of this graphene-based sensing modulator through a frequency-modulation (FM) experiment conducted in a modulation cycle consisting of alternating phases of air exposure and ethanol or water treatment. In addition, we observed an analog memory effect in terms of the charge neutrality point of the graphene, Vcnp, which strongly influences the FM results, and developed a calibration method using electrochemical gate-voltage pulse sequences. This graphene-based multifunctional device shows great potential for use in a simple, low-cost, and ultracompact nanomaterial-based nodal architecture to enable continuous, real-time event-based monitoring in pervasive healthcare IoTs, ubiquitous security systems, and other chemical/molecular/gas monitoring applications. A graphene-based transistor that detects chemical agents and lengths of exposure could make 24-hour healthcare easier to achieve. Embedding wireless sensors into devices such as infection monitors is an important part of Internet-of-Things applications. But nanomaterials that are well suited to sensing environmental particles are difficult to integrate into conventional silicon circuits. Haiyu Huang from the University of Texas at Austin in the United States, Pai-Yen Chen from the Wayne State University in the United States and their colleagues —show that graphene field-effect transistors can offer simultaneous radio-frequency modulation, chemical sensing and memory effects in a single component. The team’s large-area, back-gated device demonstrates distinct shifts in voltage when introduced to reducing or oxidizing chemical gases, or to more complex substances such as protein biomarkers. These molecular-induced shifts in transistor operation also depend on earlier chemical exposures — an electrochemical history not retained by typical semiconductors.
Promoting Critical Thinking in Higher Education: My Experiences as the Inaugural Eugene H. Fram Chair in Applied Critical Thinking at Rochester Institute of Technology

From 2012 to 2015 I was the first Eugene H. Fram Chair in Applied Critical Thinking at Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester, NY. To the best of my knowledge it is the only such endowed position devoted solely to this at a major North American university. It was made possible by a generous 3 million dollar gift from an anonymous alumnus who wished to honor a retired faculty member who had taught for 51 years. The honoree was revered for his devotion to Bloom’s taxonomy and his academic rigor, which infused case studies and the Socratic method. A primary motivation for the chair was a belief that an alarming number of college graduates lack the necessary critical thinking skills in order to advance successfully in their careers. My responsibilities included collaborative leadership, advocacy and oversight for critical thinking across the entire campus. It provided a unique opportunity to reflect on the current state of critical thinking instruction–very broadly construed, as well as to examine its specific role at RIT, an institution with its own unique history, mission, and character.
Intracranial compliance as a bed-side monitoring technique in severely head-injured patients.

A recently developed monitoring technology makes an on-line assessment of intracranial compliance (ICC) possible. Aims of our research: 1. Course and values of ICC (critical threshold: 20 mmHg) and reduced cerebral oxygenation (brain tissue PO2 (PtiO2) 60 years) 0.6 ml/mmHg. 3. Adverse outcome was indicated best by high ICP (up to 45% of monitoring time) followed by low ICC (up to 41% of monitoring time). 4. TGDQ in ICC was 72% compared to 95% in ICP and 98% in Pti02. In predicting adverse outcome, ICP was equal to ICC. The different ICC in each age class points to the need of age-adjusted thresholds. Further refinements of ICC technology are needed to improve ICC data quality and therefore become a useful tool in neuromonitoring.
The Effects of Self-Reference and Context Personalization on Task Performance during Adaptive Instruction

An advantage of computer-based instruction is that student entered information can be saved and used throughout learning. Self-reference (tying information to the self) has been shown to have a positive impact on memory and learning. This study evaluates the impact of including self-reference and familiar popular culture names during the assessment phase of adaptive instruction. Participants engaged with a computer-based tutorial about solving logic grid puzzles and were assessed by completing additional puzzles. The assessment puzzles included the participant’s and friends’ names (self-reference), popular culture names, or generic names. Participants in the popular culture condition spent significantly less time solving the standard puzzle than those in the generic condition, with no difference in percentage correct. The inclusion of popular culture names may have facilitated more efficient task performance while maintaining quality of performance. It is envisioned that this strategy can be implemented i...
Leadership and Coordination in Legislatures: The "President" of the First American Congress: 1774-1789

We analyze the viability of the office of President of Congress as a source of leadership in the Continental and Confederation Congresses.1 Our primary interest is in institutionally grounded, as opposed to and separate from charismatic or personal, bases for leadership. We show that virtually every institutional support for leadership power recognized to be at work in the modern Congress was absent in the Continental Congresses. We trace the origins of these limitations on leadership power and potential to a series of decisions taken during 1774 and 1775 and substantially maintained and even elaborated over the fifteen-year history of the Congress. The result was that even though the institution was awash in "leaders," men like Virginia's Peyton Randolph, Massachusetts' John Hancock, and New York's John Jay, stable and effective "leadership" from the office of President of Congress proved to be impossible.
Local television news coverage of the affordable care act: Emphasizing politics over consumer information

Objectives. To examine the public health and policy-relevant messages conveyed through local television news during the first stage of Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation, when about 10 million Americans gained insurance.Methods. We conducted a content analysis of 1569 ACA-related local evening television news stories, obtained from sampling local news aired between October 1, 2013, and April 19, 2014. Coders systematically collected data using a coding instrument tracking major messages and information sources cited in the news.Results. Overall, only half of all ACA-related news coverage focused on health insurance products, whereas the remainder discussed political disagreements over the law. Major policy tools of the ACA—the Medicaid expansion and subsidies available—were cited in less than 10% of news stories. Number of enrollees (27%) and Web site glitches (33%) were more common features of coverage. Sources with a political affiliation were by far the most common source of information (> 40%), ...
Il pessimismo di Proust: un antidoto per Beckett

This essay focuses first, on the notion of generation mainly in Beckett’s works, and secondly shows that Proust’s conception of habit, seen as a soothing force, allows Beckett to break free from a view of history as repetition.
On \"Flipping\" a Large Signal Processing Class [SP Education]

Modern academy traces its roots back to the medieval universities established between the 12th and the 14th centuries [1]. Much has changed in the world of academia during the millennium that separates a modern university from a medieval one.
Life beyond Grades: Designing College Courses to Promote Intrinsic Motivation

This book raises the question of whether or not educators can promote intrinsic motivation among college students when they seem overwhelmingly focused on grades. Indeed, can there be life beyond grades? The answer is 'Yes'. A love of learning can coexist, even thrive, in the face of competing pressures from grades. Drawing on recent, ground-breaking classroom research, the authors articulate a new understanding of the causes of the stalemate between intrinsic and external motivation, so that a reconciliation between them can be achieved. Then the authors apply a powerful set of motivational and pedagogical principles to lay out a step-by-step blueprint for designing and teaching college courses that promote intrinsic motivation as a primary educational goal in its own right, above and beyond knowledge and skill acquisition. This practical blueprint draws on authentic case study examples from a variety of subject-matter disciplines.
Intraoperative implantation of a mesh of directional palladium sources (CivaSheet): Dosimetry verification, clinical commissioning, dose specification, and preliminary experience.

Abstract Purpose To present the clinical commissioning of a novel 103 Pd directional brachytherapy device (CivaSheet) for intraoperative radiation therapy. Methods and Materials Clinical commissioning for the CivaSheet consisted of establishing: ( 1 ) source strength calibration capabilities, ( 2 ) experimental verification of TG-43 dosimetry parameters, ( 3 ) treatment planning system validation, and ( 4 ) departmental practice for dose specification and source ordering. Experimental verification was performed in water with radiochromic film calibrated with a 37 kVp X-ray beam. Percentage difference ([measurements − calculation]/calculation) and distance to agreement (difference between film-to-source distance and distance that minimized the percentage difference) were calculated. Nomogram values (in U/100 Gy) for all configurations (up to 20 × 20 sources) were calculated for source ordering. Clinical commissioning was used on patients enrolled in an ongoing Institutional Review Board-approved protocol. Results A source calibration procedure was established, and the treatment planning system was commissioned within standard clinical uncertainties. Percentage dose differences (distances to agreement) between measured and calculated doses were 8.6% (−0.12 mm), 0.6% (−0.01 mm), −6.4% (0.22 mm), and −10.0% (0.44 mm) at depths of 2.3, 5.1, 8.0, and 11.1 mm, respectively. All differences were within the experimental uncertainties. Nomogram values depended on sheet size and spatial extent. A value of 2.4U/100 Gy per CivaDot was found to satisfy most cases, ranging from 2.3 to 3.3U/100 Gy. Nomogram results depended on elongation of the treatment area with a higher variation observed for smaller treatment areas. Postimplantation dose evaluation was feasible. CONCLUSIONS Commissioning and clinical deployment of CivaSheet was feasible using BrachyVision for postoperative dose evaluation. Experimental verification confirmed that the available TG-43 dosimetry parameters are accurate for clinical use.
Cine-cartography: The cinematic in Paul Vidal de la Blache

In this paper I argue that early French cinema and human geography were in many ways coextensive, drawing on many of the same resources and virtues of the languages that inform them. Using Paul Vidal de la Blache’s 1894 Atlas-general , I argue that Vidal’s maps represent the equivalent of individual shots in film and that the relationship between the maps is best understood using early theorizations of montage in cinema. Vidal’s own language provides a vocabulary for other scholars including Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze, who saw cinema and geography in similar terms. By reading images of France as dynamic rather than static, Vidal provides a mobile composite of information pulled from a host of images that together generate a meaningful narrative of French identity. Such a reading, I argue, means that the mental image of France is not fixed but open to many possibilities.
The Future of Social Security

(with an introduction by Daniel L. McFadden) The past and the present processes leading to social security legislation inform expectations regarding the future of social security, and with international comparisons, provide lessons to those who would learn them. (JEL H55)
Mycoplasma-related endobacteria within Mortierellomycotina fungi: diversity, distribution and functional insights into their lifestyle

Bacterial interactions with animals and plants have been examined for over a century; by contrast, the study of bacterial–fungal interactions has received less attention. Bacteria interact with fungi in diverse ways, and endobacteria that reside inside fungal cells represent the most intimate interaction. The most significant bacterial endosymbionts that have been studied are associated with Mucoromycota and include two main groups: Burkholderia-related and Mycoplasma-related endobacteria (MRE). Examples of Burkholderia-related endobacteria have been reported in the three Mucoromycota subphyla. By contrast, MRE have only been identified in Glomeromycotina and Mucoromycotina. This study aims to understand whether MRE dwell in Mortierellomycotina and, if so, to determine their impact on the fungal host. We carried out a large-scale screening of 394 Mortierellomycotina strains and employed a combination of microscopy, molecular phylogeny, next-generation sequencing and qPCR. We detected MRE in 12 strains. These endosymbionts represent novel bacterial phylotypes and show evidence of recombination. Their presence in Mortierellomycotina demonstrates that MRE occur within fungi across Mucoromycota and they may have lived in their common ancestor. We cured the fungus of its endosymbionts with antibiotics and observed improved biomass production in isogenic lines lacking MRE, demonstrating that these endobacteria impose some fitness costs to their fungal host. Here we provided the first functional insights into the lifestyle of MRE. Our findings indicate that MRE may be antagonistic to their fungal hosts, and adapted to a non-lethal parasitic lifestyle in the mycelium of Mucoromycota. However, context-dependent adaptive benefits to their host at minimal cost cannot not be excluded. Finally, we conclude that Mortierellomycotina represent attractive model organisms for exploring interactions between MRE and fungi.
Reduced Clostridium difficile Tests and Laboratory-Identified Events With a Computerized Clinical Decision Support Tool and Financial Incentive.

We hypothesized that a computerized clinical decision support tool for Clostridium difficile testing would reduce unnecessary inpatient tests, resulting in fewer laboratory-identified events. Census-adjusted interrupted time-series analyses demonstrated significant reductions of 41% fewer tests and 31% fewer hospital-onset C. difficile infection laboratory-identified events following this intervention. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2018;39:737–740
Is the Wada test necessary prior to epilepsy surgery

The Wada test was initially used to identify the hemisphere of language dominance prior to epilepsy surgery, but was subsequently applied to identify patients at risk of amnesia after temporal resection. The Wada test was later found useful in lateralizing the epileptogenic zone, predicting postoperative memory function, and predicting postoperative seizure control. The Wada test became more widely used, and in many centers became a standard component of the presurgical evaluation of epilepsy. Yet, several problems and disadvantages have surrounded the Wada test, including absence of standardized technique, overestimation of postoperative deficits, and risks and discomforts related to the invasive nature of the procedure. The Wada test may be omitted in patients who have excellent localization of the epileptogenic zone and who do not appear at risk for postoperative memory or language compromise. In addition, there is a promising alternative in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which has already demonstrated excellent agreement with the Wada test for language dominance. Progress is being made in memory fMRI as well. The Wada test identifies the capacity of one hemisphere to sustain memory, and language functions while the other hemisphere is inactivated, while fMRI identifies regions activated by language or memory tasks. Some of these activated regions may not be essential for the activating tasks. Before fMRI can fully replace the Wada test it has to specifically identify those activated regions that are essential for memory or language function, and also measure the memory reserves of the hemisphere contralateral to surgery.