cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fast shear compounding using directional filtering and two-dimensional shear wave speed calculation

Shear compounding illuminates the shear wave imaging field with differently angled shear waves from which elasticity maps can be reconstructed and compounded to increase SNR and contrast. However, the shear imaging frame rate may be reduced by the need for multiple separate generations and detections of the differently angled shear waves. To preserve frame rate and increase efficiency of shear compounding, this study proposes a fast shear compounding method by producing multiple shear waves with different angles at different spatial locations simultaneously to obtain a full field-of-view (FOV) two-dimensional (2D) compounded shear elasticity map with only one push and detection cycle. A 2D shear wave speed calculation method was developed to accurately measure the speed of angled shear wave propagation. A robust estimation method proposed by Anderssen-Hegland was adapted to improve the smoothness of local shear wave speed estimation while preserving the spatial resolution. A multi-directional filter was designed to fit each propagation direction of shear waves. A final shear wave speed map could be obtained by compounding shear wave speed maps reconstructed from all directions. An inclusion phantom experiment showed a smooth compounded shear wave speed map with three types of inclusions resolved with sharp boundaries and good contrast to the background. Results showed good agreement between the measured inclusion stiffness and nominal values. These results indicate that the proposed shear compounding method is effective in providing compounded shear elasticity maps with a large FOV and good contrast while preserving a high shear wave imaging frame rate.
Informational Odds Ratio: A Useful Measure of Epidemiologic Association in Environment Exposure Studies

The informational odds ratio (IOR) measures the post-exposure odds divided by the pre-exposure odds (ie, information gained after knowing exposure status). A desirable property of an adjusted ratio estimate is collapsibility (ie, the combined crude ratio will not change after adjusting for a variable that is not a confounder). Adjusted traditional odds ratios (TORs) are not collapsible. In contrast, Mantel-Haenszel adjusted IORs generally are collapsible. IORs are a useful measure of disease association in environmental case-referent studies, especially when the disease is common in the exposed and/or unexposed groups.
Exploring the profit-reliability trade-off in Amazon's spot instance market: A better pricing mechanism

In Amazon's spot instance (SI) market, the volatility of the two important parameters, namely spot price (SP) and inter-price time (IPT), affects not only the market's profit, but also its service reliability. Thus, it is important for the cloud service provider to understand how SP and IPT impact the profit-reliability trade-off in the SI market. To the best of our knowledge, such a trade-off has not been studied in existing liter-ature. In this paper, we model Amazon's SI market as a modified repeated single-price auction and study the profit maximization problem using a graph model. We prove the NP-Completeness of the corresponding offline decision problem. Moreover, we propose an order-statistics based online pricing (OSOP) algorithm that can effectively evaluate and tune the profit-reliability trade-off by on-the-fly adapting SP and IPT. In our approach, SP and IPT are determined in real time based on the order statistics of the latest historical bids and the profit-reliability trade-off desired by the service providers. Our experiments show that the proposed OSOP mechanism (on average) achieves as high as ≈19% profit gain as compared to the current algorithm, with negligible reliability loss. Moreover, the mechanism also achieves a favorable trade-off between profit and service reliability, at which point our mechanism (on average) achieves ≈ 12% profit gain and ≈ 8% reduction in unexpected service interruption penalty as compared to the current algorithm.
Survival of Timber Rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus): Investigating Individual, Environmental, and Ecological Effects

Abstract: A major effort in species conservation is the construction of life-history models to better predict, identify, and respond to population changes. Yet demographic studies linking individual, environmental, and ecological factors to survival are rare. We used radio telemetry to monitor 47 adult Timber Rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) during five active seasons and four overwinter periods from April 2007–November 2011 in south-central Indiana, USA. The study period serendipitously encompassed an oak (Quercus spp.) mast failure and subsequent 50% decline in prey abundance, allowing us to test hypotheses about ecological effects on survival. We detected 10 mortalities. The causes of mortality during active seasons included predation (n = 5), human persecution (n = 2), and vehicle strike (n = 1). Variation in active season survival was explained best by the interaction of sex and prey availability along with an effect of marking cohort. Seasonal survival estimates ranged from 0.720–0.983 with f...
Photochemically Induced Intramolecular Six‐Electron Reductive Elimination and Oxidative Addition of Nitric Oxide by the Nitridoosmate(VIII) Anion

UV photolysis of the nitridoosmate(VIII) anion, OsO3 N(-) , in low-temperature frozen matrices results in nitrogen-oxygen bond formation to give the Os(II) nitrosyl complex OsO2 (NO)(-) . Photolysis of the Os(II) nitrosyl product with visible wavelengths results in reversion to the parent Os(VIII) complex. Formally a six-electron reductive elimination and oxidative addition, respectively, this represents the first reported example of such an intramolecular transformation. DFT modelling of this reaction proceeds through a step-wise mechanism taking place through a side-on nitroxyl Os(VI) intermediate, OsO2 (η(2) -NO)(-) .
How engineers can conduct cost-benefit analysis for PHM systems

Individuals who work in the field of prognostic and health management (PHM) technology have come to understand that PHM can provide the ability to effectively manage the operation, maintenance and logistic support of individual assets or groups of assets through the availability of regularly updated and detailed health information. Naturally, prospective customers of PHM technology ask, `How will the implementation of PHM benefit my organization?' Typically, the response by individuals in the field is, `Anecdotal evidence indicates that PHM decreases maintenance costs, increases operational availability and improves safety'. This information helps the prospective customer understand the practical benefits of the technology but that customer stills needs more information to justify their investment in the technology. The customer needs a calculated return on investment (ROI) figure for their particular asset that provides financial assessment of the benefit of the investment. The data, time and expertise required to conduct a rigorous cost benefit analysis makes the effort seem daunting to the average engineer with little to no financial analysis training. The reality is that with a cursory understanding of the asset operation, maintenance and logistic issues, a useful cost benefit analysis can be conducted by engineers without business school training. The purpose of this paper is to provide a general methodology for conducting a preliminary cost benefit analysis that calculates an ROI for PHM implementation. The paper will discuss the general types of information needed for the analysis, the quantifying of expected benefits and the types of supporting data required to validate the benefit assumptions as well as an outline for the costing of the PHM technology
Domain-Specific Regulation of Recombination in Caenorhabditis elegans in Response to Temperature, Age and Sex

It is generally considered that meiotic recombination rates increase with temperature, decrease with age, and differ between the sexes. We have reexamined the effects of these factors on meiotic recombination in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans using physical markers that encompass >96% of chromosome III. The only difference in overall crossover frequency between oocytes and male sperm was observed at 16°. In addition, crossover interference (CI) differs between the germ lines, with oocytes displaying higher CI than male sperm. Unexpectedly, our analyses reveal significant changes in crossover distribution in the hermaphrodite oocyte in response to temperature. This feature appears to be a general feature of C. elegans chromosomes as similar changes in response to temperature are seen for the X chromosome. We also find that the distribution of crossovers changes with age in both hermaphrodites and females. Our observations indicate that it is the oocytes from the youngest mothers—and not the oldest—that showed a different pattern of crossovers. Our data enhance the emerging hypothesis that recombination in C. elegans, as in humans, is regulated in large chromosomal domains.
An In-Field-Maintenance Framework for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper introduces a framework for in-field-maintenance services for wireless sensor networks. The motivation of this work is driven by an observation that many applications using wireless sensor networks require one-time deployment and will be largely unattended. It is also desirable for the applications to have a long system lifetime. However, the performance of many individual protocols and the overall performance of the system deteriorate over time. The framework we present here allows the system or each individual node in the network to identify the performance degradation, and to act to bring the system back to a desirable coherent state. We implement and apply our framework to a case study for a real system, called VigilNet [5]. The performance evaluation demonstrates that our framework is effective and efficient.
An optimal volume ellipsoid algorithm for parameter set estimation of time varying systems

In this paper, we investigate how parameter set estimation (PSE) can be applied to time varying systems. Parameter set estimation identifies a set of estimates which are feasible with the measured data and a priori information. For application to adaptive robust control and adaptive signal processing, it is important the size of this set be as small as possible. We will investigate how an optimum volume ellipsoid strategy for time invariant systems can be extended to time varying systems. >
Chemical Analog-to-Digital Signal Conversion Based on Robust Threshold Chemistry and Its Evaluation in the Context of Microfluidics-Based Quantitative Assays

In this article, we describe a nonlinear threshold chemistry based on enzymatic inhibition and demonstrate how it can be coupled with microfluidics to convert a chemical concentration (analog input) into patterns of ON or OFF reaction outcomes (chemical digital readout). Quantification of small changes in concentration is needed in a number of assays, such as that for cystatin C, where a 1.5-fold increase in concentration may indicate the presence of acute kidney injury or progression of chronic kidney disease. We developed an analog-to-digital chemical signal conversion that gives visual readout and applied it to an assay for cystatin C as a model target. The threshold chemistry is based on enzymatic inhibition and gives sharper responses with tighter inhibition. The chemistry described here uses acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and produces an unambiguous color change when the input is above a predetermined threshold concentration. An input gives a pattern of ON/OFF responses when subjected to a monotonic sequence of threshold concentrations, revealing the input concentration at the point of transition from OFF to ON outcomes. We demonstrated that this threshold chemistry can detect a 1.30-fold increase in concentration at 22 °C and that it is robust to experimental fluctuations: it provided the same output despite changes in temperature (22–34 °C) and readout time (10-fold range). We applied this threshold chemistry to diagnostics by coupling it with a traditional sandwich immunoassay for serum cystatin C. Because one quantitative measurement comprises several assays, each with its own threshold concentration, we used a microfluidic SlipChip device to process 12 assays in parallel, detecting a 1.5-fold increase (from 0.64 (49 nM) to 0.96 mg/L (74 nM)) of cystatin C in serum. We also demonstrated applicability to analysis of patient serum samples and the ability to image results using a cell phone camera. This work indicates that combining developments in nonlinear chemistries with microfluidics may lead to development of user-friendly diagnostic assays with simple readouts.
Internet use in a Nigerian suburban setting

Purpose – To investigate internet usage in a Nigerian suburban setting – Abraka Delta State.Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a questionnaire to collect data from 150 respondents.Findings – Revealed the personal characteristics of the respondents, different aspects of their internet use such as duration of internet usage access time, motivation for using the Net, search engines employed, internet skills acquisition, frequency of internet use, evaluation of internet information content, problems encountered while using the internet as well as way forward.Originality/value – The findings will assist the LIS world to know the patterns of internet use in developing world and provide the needed data that will assist policy makers and stakeholders to seek ways of making the dwellers better users of the Net.
Fiber-optic endomicroscopy system for high-resolution nonlinear imaging of biological tissue

A flexible fiber-optic endomicroscopy system was developed for nonlinear optical imaging of biological samples. Double-clad fiber and photonic bandgap fiber were employed in the endomicroscope for femtosecond pulse delivery, dispersion compensation, nonlinear optical signals collection and fast beam scanning. Three-dimensional imaging of biological tissues based on second harmonic generation and two-photon excited fluorescence was performed with the endomicroscope. The depth-resolved imaging results strongly suggest the potential of this flexible fiber-optic microscope system for real-time assessment of both epithelial and stromal structures in luminal organs.
Compaction Through Buckling in 2D Periodic, Soft and Porous Structures: Effect of Pore Shape

Soft cellular structures that comprise a solid matrix with a square array of holes open avenues for the design of novel soft and foldable structures. Our results demonstrate that by simply changing the shape of the holes the response of porous structure can be easily tuned and soft structures with optimal compaction can be designed.
An iterative improvement algorithm for low power data path synthesis

We address the problem of minimizing power consumption in behavioral synthesis of data-dominated circuits. The complex nature of power as a cost function implies that the effects of several behavioral synthesis tasks like module selection, clock selection, scheduling, and resource sharing on supply voltage and switched capacitance need to be considered simultaneously to fully derive the benefits of design space exploration at the behavior level. Recent work has established the importance of behavioral synthesis in low power VLSI design. However, most of the algorithms that have been proposed separate these tasks and perform them sequentially, and are hence not able to explore the tradeoffs possible due to their interaction. We present an efficient algorithm for performing scheduling, clock selection, module selection, and resource allocation and assignment simultaneously with an aim of reducing the power consumption in the synthesized data path. The algorithm, which is based on an iterative improvement strategy, is capable of escaping local minima in its search for a low power solution. The algorithm considers diverse module libraries and complex scheduling constructs such as multicycling, chaining, and structural pipelining. We describe supply voltage and clock pruning strategies that significantly improve the efficiency of our algorithm by cutting down on the computational effort involved in exploring candidate supply voltages and clock periods that are unlikely to lead to the best solution. Experimental results are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm. Our techniques can be combined with other known methods of behavioral power optimization like data path replication and transformations, to result in a complete data path synthesis system for low power applications.
A Rapid Method for Producing Highly Purified Cryptosporidium parvum Oocysts

Most procedures that have been described for purifying Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts are designed to either identify the parasites in clinical specimens or isolate oocysts from a small volume of feces from infected animals. The present study describes a rapid method for purifying high numbers of C. parvum oocysts from feces of infected calves that contains minimal contaminating fecal material and bacteria. The isolation method is based on differential flotation of C. parvum oocysts in NaCl, followed by ether extraction to solubilize lipids in calf feces. This procedure regularly yields >109 purified C. parvum oocysts within 1–2 days of feces collection.
Lineament Analysis near French Creek, Northwestern Pennsylvania: ABSTRACT

We are attempting to characterize the nature of linear topographic features in the vicinity of French Creek, northwestern Pennsylvania. Straight valleys that trend north to northwest and that are partially filled with glaciofluvial deposits distinguish prominent lineaments in Crawford, Venango, and Mercer Counties. The traces of these linear valleys are 1-15 mi (1.6-24 km) long and 10-4,000 ft (3-1,220 m) wide. The vertical extents of the lineaments are assumed to be proportional to their lengths. We assume that the topographic lineaments mark easily eroded zones coincident with fractures. The French Creek lineaments have been plotted on a Landsat photo, glacial map, regional map, and topographic maps. Subsurface structural and isopach maps may show facies changes or anomalous thickness across the lineaments. Geochemical surveys determine if there is any enhanced vertical migration of hydrocarbons along a lineament, and very low-frequency magnetic surveys would indicate any increase in groundwater concentration associated with the fracture zones. Well log data on initial production and breakdown pressures have been compared to lineament positions for possible correlations. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1925------------
Compact dual-linearly polarized UWB antenna for VHF/UHF applications

A compact dual-linearly polarized UWB antenna was successfully designed and fabricated for continuous application over the VHF/UHF band. Repeatability of the design is shown by similar results from two separate design prototypes. Improved performance can be derived by better fabrication methods. The antenna design is currently being optimized for improved performance.
Preclinical Experience with AMD3100 for Mobilization of Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells

The SDF-1/CXCL12–CXCR4 axis is involved in a number of functional activities of hematopoietic stem (HSC) and progenitor cells (HPC). This includes migration, chemotaxis, homing, and survival. AMD3100, also known as Plerixafor or Mozobil, is a small molecular weight Bicyclam known to specifically antagonize the binding of stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1)/CXCL12 to one of its receptors, CXCR4. This chapter reviews preclinical studies demonstrating the first proof-of-principle that AMD3100 is a potent and rapid mobilizer of HSC/HPC to the blood in mice and that AMD3100 synergizes with the main HSC/HPC-mobilizing agent, granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) to greatly enhance G-CSF-induced mobilization of HSC/HPC. Preclinical studies, which led to clinical evaluation of AMD3100 were possible in part because of the nonspecies specificity of AMD3100 which allowed for mobilization studies first in mice, and subsequently in dogs and monkeys, including transplantation of the mobilized cells into conditioned animals of their own species. Preclinical studies in higher animals and the first, and subsequent human clinical studies with AMD3100 are described. Also, discussed are the use of AMD3100 with other mobilizing agents, such as GRO-β, and potential uses of AMD3100 to enhance engraftment of HSC, to treat inflammatory disorders involving SDF-1/CXCL12–CXCR4 interactions, and as a tool to dissect out cell and intracellular events mediated by SDF-1/CXCL12.
Epiglottic masses identified on CT imaging: A case report and review of the broad differential diagnosis:

Epiglottic masses may be cystic, granulomatous, infectious, benign or malignant neoplastic, or manifestations of a systemic disease. When large in size, the airway may become obstructed, and when accompanied by suspicious features such as cartilaginous invasion, extension to the pre-epiglottic or para-glottic spaces, or lymphadenopathy, the radiologist must consider malignancy as a primary differential diagnosis. However, when only benign features are identified, the differential diagnosis is broad. We present a 65-year-old female with an incidental 1 cm exophytic, pedunculated, papillomatous lesion on the laryngeal surface of the epiglottis discovered upon endoscopic evaluation for dyspepsia and heartburn. Because of her risk factors for malignancy, CT scan was requested and revealed only benign features. Subsequent excisional biopsy revealed a benign squamous papilloma; however, multiple additional differential considerations were entertained preoperatively.
Task recognition from joint tracking data in an operational manufacturing cell

This paper investigates the feasibility of using inexpensive, general-purpose automated methods for recognition of worker activity in manufacturing processes. A novel aspect of this study is that it is based on live data collected from an operational manufacturing cell without any guided or scripted work. Activity in a single-worker cell was recorded using the Microsoft Kinect, a commodity-priced sensor that records depth data and includes built-in functions for the detection of human skeletal positions, including the positions of all major joints. Joint position data for two workers on different shifts was used as input to a collection of learning algorithms with the goal of classifying the activities of each worker at each moment in time. Results show that unsupervised and semisupervised algorithms, such as unsupervised hidden Markov models, show little loss of accuracy compared to supervised methods trained with ground truth data. This conclusion is important because it implies that automated activity recognition can be accomplished without the use of ground truth labels, which can only be obtained by time-consuming manual review of videos. The results of this study suggest that intelligent manufacturing can now include detailed process-control measures of human workers with systems that are affordable enough to be installed permanently for continuous data collection.
TRIPLE CORRELATIONS IN THE $sup 56$Fe(p,$gamma$$gamma$)$sup 57$Co REACTION

Approximately seventy resonances were observed for the $^{56}\mathrm{Fe}(p,\ensuremath{\gamma})^{57}\mathrm{Co}$ reaction in the range of proton energy from 1300 to 1800 keV. Gamma-ray energy measurements performed with scintillation and lithium-drift silicon spectrometers yield 6.040\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.030 MeV for the $Q$ value of the $^{56}\mathrm{Fe}(p,\ensuremath{\gamma})^{57}\mathrm{Co}$ reaction and show the existence of intermediate states in $^{57}\mathrm{Co}$ at 1.381\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.010, 1.506\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.020, 1.760\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.020, 1.921\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.020, 2.136\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.020, 2.60\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03, 2.74\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03, 2.80\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03, 2.88\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03, 3.11\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03, 3.18\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03, 3.27\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03, and 3.52\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03 MeV. Triple-correlation measurements performed with a double sum-coincidence spectrometer permit ${J}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}$ assignments of ${\frac{3}{2}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, ${\frac{5}{2}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, ${\frac{5}{2}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, and ${\frac{5}{2}}^{+}$ to the intermediate states in $^{57}\mathrm{Co}$ at 1.38, 1.76, 1.92, and 2.14 MeV, respectively. These measurements were performed at resonance energies of 1525, 1598, 1622, 1637, 1645, and 1800 keV, where the capturing states at the 1637- and 1800-keV resonances are assigned a ${J}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}$ value of ${\frac{5}{2}}^{+}$, and for the others ${J}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}$ is ${\frac{3}{2}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$. Ambiguities exist for the $\frac{E2}{M1}$ amplitude ratios for all of the mixed secondary gamma-ray transitions observed in these studies. All measurements were in agreement with the established value of ${\frac{7}{2}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ for the ground state of $^{57}\mathrm{Co}$.
Microfluidic fabrication of perfluorohexane-shelled double emulsions for controlled loading and acoustic-triggered release of hydrophilic agents.

The ability of low boiling point liquid perfluorocarbons (PFCs) to undergo a phase change from a liquid to a gas upon ultrasound irradiation makes PFC-based emulsions promising vehicles for triggered delivery of payloads. However, loading hydrophilic agents into PFC-based emulsions is difficult due to their insolubility in PFC. Here, we address this challenge by taking advantage of microfluidic technologies to fabricate double emulsions consisting of large aqueous cores and a perfluorohexane (PFH) shell, thus yielding high loading capacities for hydrophilic agents. Using this technology, we efficiently encapsulate a model hydrophilic agent within the emulsions and study its response to ultrasound irradiation. Using a combination of optical and acoustic imaging methods, we observe payload release upon acoustic vaporization of PFH. Our work demonstrates the utility of microfluidic techniques for controllably loading hydrophilic agents into PFH-based emulsions, which have great potential for acoustically tri...
Analysis of Robust Stability for Uncertain T-S Stochastic Fuzzy Systems

This paper deals with the problem of robust stochastic stability for uncertain T-S stochastic fuzzy systems, which are a class of uncertain nonlinear stochastic differential systems. Parametric uncertainties in both drift part and diffusion part are considered in the paper. By means of stochastic Lyapunov function and some matrix lemmas, two sets of sufficient criterions for global robust mean-square exponential stability of the systems are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The developed methods are illustrated by a numerical example.
Analysis on Fault Tree of Mine Self Caused Fire Disaster

Application of fault tree principle is applied to analysze the natural fire disaster in underground mine in order to find the min cut-set and path-set from the mine self caused fire disasters.This paper maks an analysis on the important degree of the structure to master the cause and law of the mine self caused fire disaster and to provide the scientific basis to prevent the mine self caused fire disaster.
Therapeutic Ureteral Obstruction and Renal Artery Embolization

Two relatively unique techniques have been used in 4 cases to treat gross hematuria that might otherwise have resulted in nephrectomies. The techniques include ureteral obstruction with a Fogarty catheter and renal artery embolization.
Business and Consumer Economic Wellbeing

In the marketplace, consumers and businesses are two major players. Consumers play dual roles to contribute to the economy, most of whom working for businesses to earn incomes and purchasing products from businesses. A perfect market works when participating players follow a set of rules that ensure efficient and fair operation of the economy. In reality, the market is imperfect and both good and bad business behaviors occur. Good business behavior is defined as business practices that are not only consider their own interests but also consumer interests or interests of other parties directly or indirectly involved in the transactions. Bad business behaviors are defined as business practices that hurt consumer wellbeing and public interests such as marketing frauds and rip offs. This chapter reviews several concepts that lead to good business behaviors such as corporate social responsibility and quality of life marketing, etc. It also examines the research literature relevant to marketing frauds, rip offs, and consumer victims.
Evidence-based Recommendations for the Evaluation of Palpitations in the Primary Care Setting

Palpitations are a symptom of many cardiac and noncardiac conditions. The patient's history, physical examination, appropriately directed laboratory tests, and basic electrocardiogram are helpful in evaluating palpitations and may be essential to finding a diagnosis. There are many outpatient options for the evaluation of palpitations caused by a presumed cardiogenic cause. These evaluation tools include Holter monitor, event monitor, transtelephonic electrocardiographic monitor, treadmill exercise stress test, echocardiography, and electrophysiologic studies. Most patients can be evaluated as an outpatient, but there are reasons, such as hemodynamic compromise, that may require admission to an inpatient setting to complete the diagnostic workup.
Innate Immune Responses to Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains one of the greatest threats to human health. The causative bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is acquired by the respiratory route. It is exquisitely adapted to humans and is a prototypic intracellular pathogen of macrophages, with alveolar macrophages being the primary conduit of infection and disease. However, M. tuberculosis bacilli interact with and are affected by several soluble and cellular components of the innate immune system which dictate the outcome of primary infection, most commonly a latently infected healthy human host, in whom the bacteria are held in check by the host immune response within the confines of tissue granuloma, the host histopathologic hallmark. Such individuals can develop active TB later in life with impairment in the immune system. In contrast, in a minority of infected individuals, the early host immune response fails to control bacterial growth, and progressive granulomatous disease develops, facilitating spread of the bacilli via infectious aerosols. The molecular details of the M. tuberculosis-host innate immune system interaction continue to be elucidated, particularly those occurring within the lung. However, it is clear that a number of complex processes are involved at the different stages of infection that may benefit either the bacterium or the host. In this article, we describe a contemporary view of the molecular events underlying the interaction between M. tuberculosis and a variety of cellular and soluble components and processes of the innate immune system.
Milestones: a rapid assessment method for the Clinical Competency Committee

INTRODUCTION Educational milestones are now used to assess the developmental progress of all U.S. graduate medical residents during training. Twice annually, each program's Clinical Competency Committee (CCC) makes these determinations and reports its findings to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The ideal way to conduct the CCC is not known. After finding that deliberations reliant upon the new milestones were time intensive, our internal medicine residency program tested an approach designed to produce rapid but accurate assessments. MATERIAL AND METHODS For this study, we modified our usual CCC process to include pre-meeting faculty ratings of resident milestones progress with in-meeting reconciliation of their ratings. Data were considered largely via standard report and presented in a pre-arranged pattern. Participants were surveyed regarding their perceptions of data management strategies and use of milestones. Reliability of competence assessments was estimated by comparing pre-/post-intervention class rank lists produced by individual committee members with a master class rank list produced by the collective CCC after full deliberation. RESULTS Use of the study CCC approach reduced committee deliberation time from 25 min to 9 min per resident (p < 0.001). Committee members believed milestones improved their ability to identify and assess expected elements of competency development (p = 0.026). Individual committee member assessments of trainee progress agreed well with collective CCC assessments. CONCLUSIONS Modification of the clinical competency process to include pre-meeting competence ratings with in-meeting reconciliation of these ratings led to shorter deliberation times, improved evaluator satisfaction and resulted in reliable milestone assessments.
Munda mimetic reduplication

The Munda languages of South Asia exhibit sound symbolism in their use of mimetic reduplication, to which they devote a surprisingly large percentage of their lexicons, typically upwards of ten percent. We present an extensive empirical typology of mimetic reduplication in seven Munda languages: Ho, Kera Mundari, Kharia, Mundari, Remo (Bondo), Santali, and Sora (Savara). Munda Mimetic forms can depict sensory qualities of sound, space, movement, texture, smell, taste, temperature, feelings, and sensations. The typology of mimetic reduplication in Munda varies across syntactic class, semantic domain and phonological form. This can shed light on the breadth of diverse structures in Munda languages, and may also be extrapolated to other languages and other examinations of reduplication and/or mimesis. This work provides a wealth of data to researchers of mimesis and reduplication, challenging the definition of what it means for forms to be sound-symbolic or reduplicated. Resume: Les langues Munda de l’Asie du Sud presentent un symbolisme sonore dans leur utilisation de la reduplication mimetique, qui constitue un pourcentage tres eleve – typiquement plus de dix pour cent – de leur lexique. Nous presentons ici une typologie empirique abondante de la reduplication mimetique dans sept langues Munda: le Ho, le Kera Munari, le Kharia, le Mundari, Le Remo (Bondo), le Santali, et le Sora (Savara). Les formes mimetiques des langues Munda peuvent representer les qualites sensorielles du son, de l’espace, du mouvement, de la texture, de l’odorat, du gout, de la temperature, des sentiments et des sensations. La typologie de la reduplication mimetique Munda varie selon la categorie syntaxique, le domaine semantique et la forme phonologique. Cela peut eclairer la diversite des structures dans les langues Munda, et peut egalement s’appliquer a d’autres langues et a d’autres etudes de la reduplication ou de la mimesis. Ce travail fournit aux chercheurs d’abondantes donnees de mimesis et de reduplication, et complique la definition de ce que cela signifie quand on dit que les formes sont symboliques de maniere sonore, ou encore redupliquees.
Brownian ratchet mechanisms of ParA-mediated partitioning.

• Recent investigations have converged upon a new model in which ParA-type partitions as a Brownian ratchet.
Family-Based Next-Generation Sequencing Analysis

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has been extensively used in genomic study and clinical diagnostic arena in the past decade. With the decreasing cost of NGS, family-based sequencing analysis has been increasingly used to identify causal genes for Mendelian disorders and to aid the rare variants association analysis for common complex traits. By incorporating relatedness among family members, several family-based variant calling algorithms have been developed to increase variant calling accuracy, and showed superior performance comparing with naive calling algorithms. Using parent-offspring trio sequencing, numerous causal genes and risk alleles for neuropsychiatric and other disorders have been successfully identified. In addition, family-based NGS can help to increase the statistic power for rare variants association analysis for common complex traits. Family-based NGS is also found to be particularly useful in clinical diagnostic laboratories. Comparing with proband-only sequencing, family-based NGS helps to quickly narrow down variants inheritance, increasing the diagnostic yield and decreasing the turnaround time of clinical tests. In this review, we will first discuss the methodology for family-based NGS analysis, focusing on variant calling, and then review the application of such design in research and clinical settings.
On Being Bad and Good: My Brilliant Friend Muriel Dimen

This essay focuses on Muriel Dimen’s work on ambivalence as an important factor in female identity formation through a parallel with Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend novels.
Robotic Pancreaticoduodenectomy: Technical Approaches and Outcomes

Pancreatic surgery, including the pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), remains one of the most challenging technical procedures for surgeons today. The morbidity of the procedure has remained high despite advances in operative technique. The application of minimally invasive approaches to many surgical specialties has led to decreased perioperative morbidity, sparking interest in minimally invasive PD. Magnified binocular view, articulating instruments, and elimination of surgeon tremor afford unique advantages to the robotic PD. This chapter highlights the approach to the robotic PD and summarizes outcomes available within the literature. Early experiences with robotic PD have shown that oncologic outcomes are equivalent to open PD with regard to lymph node retrieval and margin negative resections. Postoperative complication rates, including pancreatic fistula, are equivalent to or improved with the robotic technique, and mortality is similar. Postoperative length of stay has also been shown to be decreased. Operative times have largely been longer when compared to the open approach, but have been shown to decrease with increasing operative experience. Similarly, operative costs are often higher, but shorter postoperative hospitalizations and trends towards decreases in some complication rates may allow for comparable total costs. As with any new surgical technique, continued rigorous analysis of operative measures and patient outcomes is necessary to ensure that patient safety and quality remain a primary focus.
A functional approach to understanding and treating military-related moral injury

Abstract The term moral injury has been coined to describe the suffering that may develop following a violation of deeply held moral beliefs and values and subsequent difficulties in functioning. Yet despite an increase in research and intervention approaches for this topic, the relationship between moral injury and mental health diagnoses such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) remains unclear and concern exists that, in some cases, moral injury might be used to unnecessarily pathologize moral processes. With the goal of further refining the construct, we argue that moral injury is a condition distinct from PTSD and other disorders and, using a functional approach, propose enhanced definitions for the terms, morally injurious event , moral pain , moral injury, and moral healing . Consistent with these new definitions, we then argue for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a feasible and promising treatment for moral injury and present initial qualitative data supporting the intervention.
GExp: Cost-aware Graph Exploration with Keywords

We demonstrate GExp, an interactive graph exploration tool that uses keywords to support effective access and exploration of large graphs. GExp interleaves keyword query suggestion, which generates keyword queries that expand the original query, and query evaluation, that returns the answers to suggested queries for feedback. It advocates (1) cost-aware exploration, which suggests keyword queries that have low answer cost (thus high answer quality), and (2) incremental query evaluation to update the query answers with a bounded time cost. It differs from prior systems in its ability to identify and leverage substructures that augment original answers for query expansion and evaluation with provable cost bounds. A unique feature of GExp is that users can trade the quality of query answers with their evaluation cost by tuning the bound of answer cost in an ad-hoc manner. We demonstrate how GExp supports graph exploratory with three established keyword query classes with bounded time cost, and guarantees on result quality, using real-world knowledge bases and information networks.
Acquiring Intensifier Variation Abroad: Exploring "Muy" and "Bien" in Spain and Mexico.

Research on nativelike variation in second language (L2) systems indicates that learners studying abroad may adapt to regional norms as they build sociolinguistic competence (e.g., Kanwit & Solon, 2013; Salgado‐Robles, 2014). Spanish exhibits variation between the intensifiers muy [very] and bien [very] across numerous dialects. Recent research has shown greater preference for bien in Latin America than in Spain (Brown & Cortes‐Torres, 2013; Kanwit, Teran, & Pisabarro Sarrio, 2017). Nevertheless, variable intensification in L2 Spanish remains uninvestigated. Data showed that learners studying in Merida, Mexico, selected bien significantly more than did learners in Oviedo, Spain, at the conclusion of a 6‐week stay abroad. This parallels the significantly higher selection on the same task by local Spaniards compared to local Mexican native speakers. Nonetheless, independent linguistic variables played a less straightforward role.
Progress and Promise in Plant Physiological Ecology

The study of plant physiological ecology has experienced an explosive development in the past decade. Work has centered primarily on those mechanisms by which plants acquire and utilize resources, particularly carbon and water and, to a much lesser degree, nutrients. Techniques have been developed for assessing costs and benefits of various organic compounds and plant structures; however, problems remain to be solved in this area. Various plant “strategy” groupings have been functionally characterized, although further refinements and extentions to tropical plants are needed. Methods for unraveling past performances of plants have been developed and are being used increasingly. The effects of biological interactions in structuring plant communities recently have received greater attention, particularly plant-herbivore and plant-pollinator interactions, and will be studied more in the coming years. However, further studies of the mechanistic basis of plant-plant interactions are needed.
A Nanostructured Lipid Carrier for Delivery of a Replicating Viral RNA Provides Single, Low-Dose Protection against Zika.

Since the first demonstration of in vivo gene expression from an injected RNA molecule almost two decades ago,1 the field of RNA-based therapeutics is now taking significant strides, with many cancer and infectious disease targets entering clinical trials.2 Critical to this success has been advances in the knowledge and application of delivery formulations. Currently, various lipid nanoparticle (LNP) platforms are at the forefront,3 but the encapsulation approach underpinning LNP formulations offsets the synthetic and rapid-response nature of RNA vaccines.4 Second, limited stability of LNP formulated RNA precludes stockpiling for pandemic readiness.5 Here, we show the development of a two-vialed approach wherein the delivery formulation, a highly stable nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC), can be manufactured and stockpiled separate from the target RNA, which is admixed prior to administration. Furthermore, specific physicochemical modifications to the NLC modulate immune responses, either enhancing or diminishing neutralizing antibody responses. We have combined this approach with a replicating viral RNA (rvRNA) encoding Zika virus (ZIKV) antigens and demonstrated a single dose as low as 10 ng can completely protect mice against a lethal ZIKV challenge, representing what might be the most potent approach to date of any Zika vaccine.
Effect of the Affordable Care Act on breast cancer presentation at a safety net hospital.

Abstract Introduction The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandated the expansion of Medicaid in order to increase access to health care services. We examined the effect of the ACA on breast cancer screening and diagnosis at a Los Angeles safety net hospital. Methods We performed a retrospective review of breast cancer patients treated at our institution. We compared two cohorts: patients diagnosed with breast cancer in the years 2011–2012 (pre-ACA) vs. 2015–2016 (post-ACA). Results There were no differences in number of screening mammograms performed, age at diagnosis, mammography-detected cancers, or clinical stage at diagnosis. There was a significant decrease in the number of patients who reported as self-pay (34% vs. 6%, p Conclusion In the 2-year period following ACA implementation, there was limited impact on breast cancer presentation at a safety-net hospital. Long-term follow-up across different healthcare systems is necessary to fully evaluate the global impact of the ACA on breast cancer care.
Government Regulation of the Food Supply and LabelingOpen image in new window

Consumers want the assurance that they have a sure, safe, and sanitary food supply. They want deceptive claims and fraudulence to be nonissues for them to face in everyday life. Therefore, for centuries, governments throughout the world have regulated the food supply. Federal, state, and local government, their regulation, enforcement, as well as the educational materials they offer, assist in providing a safe food supply. The intent of this chapter is to view government regulation of the food supply and labeling. However, a safe and sound food supply is still dependent, not alone on a government agency or program yet also upon the individual!
Emotional reactivity to daily stress, spousal emotional support, and fasting blood glucose among patients with type 2 diabetes

Stress is associated with higher blood glucose in patients with diabetes, but the strength of this association varies considerably across patients. The current daily diary study of 129 patients with type 2 diabetes examined whether individual differences in emotional stress reactivity were associated with fasting blood glucose and whether emotional support provided by spouses moderated this association. Greater stress reactivity was related to greater variability in patients' fasting glucose readings and, among patients with less support, to higher fasting glucose levels. Investigating individual differences in emotional stress reactivity may help to clarify the role of stress in blood glucose control.