cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
“Voluntourism” and Helping Babies Breathe®: Capacity Building in Rwanda

Abstract Sustainability is considered by many to be the “Holy Grail” of international medical missions; however capacity building is fast becoming the new goal of these projects as more are focusing on the development and strengthening of human and institutional resources. After a chance meeting in Rwanda in 2008, a nurse from the University of Kansas Hospital and the Executive Director of Global Engagement Institute teamed up to bring neonatal projects to the country of Rwanda in east central Africa. Three years later, the discovery of a program called Helping Babies Breathe® (HBB), led them on a path to capacity building by working with the Rwandan Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Kigali Health Institute (KHI) to incorporate the HBB program into curriculum in the nursing and midwifery programs at KHI.
Using Social Media Data as Research Data

Social Media (SM) is becoming a normal part of everyday life. The information generated from Social Media (SM) data is becoming increasingly utilized as a communication channel for market trend, brand awareness, breaking news, and online social interaction between person to person. SM is also rapidly growing and maturing [1]. Further, SM is becoming a reliable tool for interdisciplinary industries like banks, travel, healthcare, biotech, software, sports etc.SM data can also be used as a research tool to apply in different areas of Humanities, Art, Science and Engineering. There are unlimited possibilities using Social Networking Site (SNS) to collect, process and evaluate data. This paper reviews the current state of Social Networking Sites and Text-based Language Processes, and how it can be used to generate valuable information.
On the symmetric information rate of CPM in the finite blocklength regime

Continuous phase modulation (CPM) is a family of bandwidth-efficient signaling schemes with memory. In this paper we introduce a simulation-based method to compute a lower bound, namely the dependence testing (DT) bound, on the maximum achievable rate of general CPM schemes under finite blocklength, probability of error, and equiprobable input distribution constraints. The proposed method utilizes a posteriori probabilities (APPs) of the state transitions on the trellis that models the CPM modulator. The bound on the maximum achievable rate is then used to lower bound the spectral efficiency of CPM schemes under the finite blocklength constraint. For the numerical results, we focus on minimum-shift keying (MSK) modulation, and compute the DT bound for MSK as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We simulate a serially concatenated convolutional code (SCCC) using MSK as the inner code, which performs within 1.1 dB of the DT bound theoretical curve for various coding rates.
Reflections on concepts of employment for modern information fusion and artificial intelligence technologies: situation management, decision making under varying uncertainty and ambiguity, sequential decision-making, learning, prediction, and trust

Information Fusion (IF) is fundamentally an estimation process that attempts to automatically form a best approximated state of an unknown true world situation, typically from both observational and contextual data. To the degree possible, this process and its algorithms and methods also employ any deductive knowledge that model the evolutionary dynamics of the focal elements of interest in this world. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are often directed to similar goals, and employ similar informational and knowledge components. For many modern problems of interest, there are factors that result in observational data whose quality is unknown, and for which the a priori deductive knowledge models are non-existent or weak. Moreover, even for conventional IF applications where uncertainties of interest are known or estimable, the Concepts of Employment that involve sequential estimation and decisionmaking dynamics have not been very well studied and integrated into the frameworks of understanding for the use of such IF capability. This talk will review a number of interrelated topics that bear on the thinking of how IF technologies will be used in these stressful and critical environments. It will review a previously-proposed overarching Situation Management process model, the modern (and controversial) literature on decision-making under severe uncertainty, aspects and implications of sequential operations on decision-making, as well as Learning and Prediction dynamics as they bear on IF applications. Some remarks will also be included on the dynamics of human trust in automated systems, a topic under current study at the Center for Multisource Information Fusion at Buffalo.
Policy Statement on Social Security

The Financial Economists Roundtable (FER) is a group of senior financial economists who have made significant contributions to the finance literature and seek to apply their knowledge to current policy debates. The Roundtable focuses on microeconomic issues in investments, corporate finance, and financial institutions and markets, both in the United States and internationally. Its major objective is to create a forum for intellectual interaction that promotes in depth analyses of current policy issues in order to raise the level of public and private policy debate and improve the quality of policy decisions. FER was founded in 1993 and meets annually. Members attending an FER meeting discuss specific policy issues on which statements may be adopted. When a statement is issued, it reflects a consensus among the majority of the attending members and is signed by all members supporting it. The statements are intended to increase the awareness and understanding of public policy makers, the financial economics profession, the communications media, and the general public. FER statements are distributed to relevant policy makers and the media. The following statement on "Social Security" was discussed at FER's annual meeting in July 1997 and released on March 31, 1998.
FGF23 from bench to bedside

There is a strong association between elevated circulating fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF23) levels and adverse outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) of all stages. Initially discovered as a regulator of phosphate and vitamin D homeostasis, FGF23 has now been implicated in several pathophysiological mechanisms that may negatively impact the cardiovascular and renal systems. FGF23 is purported to have direct (off-target) effects in the myocardium, as well as canonical effects on FGF receptor/α-klotho receptor complexes in the kidney to activate the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, modulate soluble α-klotho levels, and increase sodium retention, to cause left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). Conversely, FGF23 could be an innocent bystander produced in response to chronic inflammation or other processes associated with CKD that cause LVH and adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Further exploration of these complex mechanisms is needed before modulation of FGF23 can become a legitimate clinical target in CKD.
Binding of angiotensin by neurohypophysis and adenohypophysis in vivo and in vitro.

SummaryFollowing intra-arterial injection of 125I-labeled angiotensin I in vivo (which is presumed to be converted to angiotensin II), there was similar and significant accumulation of label by both lobes of pituitary. Other regions of brain including hypo-thalamus showed very little uptake of label. In vitro incubations of both pituitary lobes with angiotensin I showed that neurohy-pophysis bound more hormone per unit weight than adenohypophysis, and that a portion of the binding in both lobes was saturable. Studies with angiotensin II in vitro showed that both lobes could concentrate label equally to a level five times that of the medium. A plateau in binding occurred at 30 min for both lobes, which is consistent with the interpretation that a portion of this binding is also saturable. However, most actions of angiotensin II occur within 5 min, so the peak in binding at 30 min may not be related to a physiological action of angiotensin II on neurohypophysis or adenohypophysis. Thus, the physiological co...
O(1D) kinetic study of key ozone depleting substances and greenhouse gases.

A key stratospheric loss process for ozone depleting substances (ODSs) and greenhouse gases (GHGs) is reaction with the O(1D) atom. In this study, rate coefficients, k, for the O(1D) atom reaction were measured for the following key halocarbons: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) CFCl3 (CFC-11), CF2Cl2 (CFC-12), CFCl2CF2Cl (CFC-113), CF2ClCF2Cl (CFC-114), CF3CF2Cl (CFC-115); hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) CHF2Cl (HCFC-22), CH3CClF2 (HCFC-142b); and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) CHF3 (HFC-23), CHF2CF3 (HFC-125), CH3CF3 (HFC-143a), and CF3CHFCF3 (HFC-227ea). Total rate coefficients, kT, corresponding to the loss of the O(1D) atom, were measured over the temperature range 217–373 K using a competitive reactive technique. kT values for the CFC and HCFC reactions were >1 × 10–10 cm3 molecule–1 s–1, except for CFC-115, and the rate coefficients for the HFCs were in the range (0.095–0.72) × 10–10 cm3 molecule–1 s–1. Rate coefficients for the CFC-12, CFC-114, CFC-115, HFC-23, HFC-125, HFC-143a, and HFC-227ea reactions were...
Combined volume control set-piggyback system for intermittent intravenous therapy.

A new method for intermittent administration of i.v. fluids which maintains the advantages of the piggyback system but at a lower cost than the piggyback system is described. The system uses a volume control chamber as a replacement for a minibag or minibottle to deliver doses of different medications. The volume control set, when attached in the prescribed fashion, permits the flow from the primary i.v. solution to resume automatically when the volume control chamber is empty. One large-volume container of i.v. fluid can be used to dilute many doses of different drugs in the volume control chamber rather than one small-volume container per dose. No significant difficulties have been encountered with the mechanics of the system, and nursing response has been favorable.
The effect of enteral feedings supplemented with pectin on the healing of colonic anastomoses in the rat

The effect of the addition of pectin to an elemental diet on the healing of experimental colonic anastomoses was investigated. Transection and anastomosis of the ascending colon and feeding gastrostomy were performed in 24 Sprague-Dawley rats. All rats then received an elemental diet, and 12 of them had 1% (w/v) citrus pectin added to their diet. On the seventh postoperative day, animals that received pectin-supplemented diets had significantly greater bursting pressures at the anastomoses (266 versus 234 mm Hg, p less than 0.04) and significantly lower colonic mucosal pH (6.2 versus 6.8, p less than 0.001) than animals that received the elemental diet only. The colons from animals fed pectin also had significantly higher hydroxyproline content at the anastomosis than those of the control animals (46.6 versus 40.7 micrograms hydroxyproline nitrogen/mg tissue nitrogen, p less than 0.05). The decreased intracolonic pH is consistent with the hypothesis that improved healing is a local effect mediated by the presence of short-chain fatty acids resulting from the fermentation of pectin.
Increased intraocular pressure following endarterectomy

Two patients are presented with neovascularization of the iris due to ischemia secondary to decreased blood flow through the carotid arteries. Panretinal photocoagulation was followed by regression of the new iris blood vessels to a greater extent in one patient than in the other. Following carotid endarterectomy, intraocular pressure increased, and, in one case, filtering surgery was required. Possible mechanisms for the rise in intraocular pressure following carotid endarterectomy are discussed.
Conclusion: The Articulation of Desire and Consumerism in the Master Text

The negative hermeneutic project that underlies the information and analysis in this book has sought to foreground as well the positive pole of desire that structures this pervasive form of gendered mass culture. Jameson’s insistence that the ideological and the utopian in cultural texts cannot be understood apart from one another is key to analyzing the cultural leadership that women’s magazines exercise. Compelling, but necessarily transitory pleasures work to win credibility for these master narratives, thereby securing the publishers’ and advertisers’ commercial goals.
Matching What You Want With What Is Available

Having gotten this far in the book, you should have a pretty fair idea about the shape of your peg (you) and the hole (practice) it should fit into. Although we use this analogy, choosing the right practice is not as straightforward as “fitting a round peg in a round hole.” The problem is that the shape of the peg and the hole rarely match perfectly. How then do you go about getting the best possible fit?
Poly- Versus Mono-Energetic Dual-Spectrum Non-Intrusive Inspection of Cargo Containers

In this paper, based on an invited talk at SORMA (May 2016), we present an overview of x-ray sources, detectors and system configurations for non-intrusive inspection (NII) of cargo containers. Our emphasis is on dual-energy x-ray NII for detecting high-atomic-number ( $\text {Z}\geq 72$ ) materials such as tungsten shielding and special nuclear materials (SNM). Standard single-energy (MeV and above) x-rays needed to penetrate and image cargo provide little SNM contrast, whereas dual-energy x-ray NII is demonstrated as a way to improve the selectivity of materials with Z $\text {Z}\geq 72$ . For two possible dual-energy x-ray source technologies—polyenergetic dual-energy (PDE) and quasi-monoenergetic x-ray sources (QMXS)—we investigate their trade-offs and future prospects using experimental and simulated results. The reduced scatter and larger separation of low- and high-energy photons provided by QMXS offers improved high-Z material contrast, but practical considerations such as flux and pulse rate need to be solved before making a deployable system. Straight-ray simulations show factor of four increases in contrast for QMXS over PDE scans of tin (Z=50) and iron (Z=26) relative to a uranium plate (Z=92) behind 20 cm of iron simulated cargo.
Turbulence Measurements from Compliant Moorings. Part I: Motion Characterization

AbstractHigh-fidelity measurements of turbulence in the ocean have long been challenging to collect, in particular in the middle of the water column. In response, a measurement technique has been developed to deploy an acoustic Doppler velocimeter (ADV) to midwater locations on a compliant mooring. A variety of instrumentation platforms have been deployed as part of this work with a range of dynamic motion characteristics. The platforms discussed herein include the streamlined StableMoor buoy (SMB), the Tidal Turbulence Mooring (TTM) system based on a conventional 0.9-m spherical buoy, and a 100-lb sounding weight suspended from the stern of a research vessel. The ADV head motion is computed from inertial motion sensors integrated into an ADV, and the spectra of these signals are investigated to quantify the motion of each platform. The SMB with a single ADV head mounted on the nose provided the most stable platform for the measurement of tidal turbulence in the inertial subrange for flow speeds exceeding...
Cascaded bridgeless totem-pole multilevel converter with model predictive control for 400 V dc-powered data centers

A cascaded bridgeless totem-pole multilevel converter and its model predictive control (MPC) are proposed for the power interface of 400 V dc-powered data centers. Wide bandgap devices such as gallium nitride (GaN) or silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs with very low reverse recovery charge are utilized in the proposed totem-pole converter to reduce the switching loss. DC bus voltage error can be effectively mitigated by adopting the proposed MPC strategy when compared with a conventional proportional-integral (PI) control; the proposed MPC also exhibits smaller overshoot and much faster response when the load changes, and can operate at lower switching frequencies, thus further reducing switching losses. Furthermore, it is easier to balance the dc-bus voltages in each module using the proposed MPC control. The simulation and hardware-in-loop test results of conventional PI and proposed MPC controllers are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed converter and its control algorithm.
LB1.71 Vaginal microbiota controls epithelial cell proliferation and susceptibility to c. trachomatis infection

Introduction Dysbiotic states of the vaginal microbiota, including bacterial vaginosis (BV), are characterised by a paucity of Lactobacillus spp., the presence of an array of anaerobes, a pH >4.5, and are associated with increased susceptibility to STIs. The mechanisms by which vaginal microbiota protect or increase the risk to STIs remain unknown. By characterising the in vivo host miRNA response to different types of vaginal microbiota, we gained insight into functions that play a role in epithelial homeostasis. Understanding the molecular mechanisms driving vaginal dysbiosis may help develop strategies reduce the risk of STIs. Methods Leveraging prospectively collected daily vaginal swab samples, miRNA-seq profiling was used to gain insight into host regulatory mechanisms controlled by vaginal microbial communities. Random Forest miRNA feature ranking was used to identify miRNAs expressed in response to different types of vaginal microbiota. In vitro , VK2 epithelial cells were exposed to vaginal bacteria culture supernatants, and miRNA expression was measured by qPCR, while cyclin D1 was measured by Western blot. Cell proliferation was quantified using scratch and EdU assays. Cell proliferation’s effect on C. trachomatis infection was performed on cervical A2EN epithelial cells. Results We leveraged daily collected vaginal samples in conjunction with a machine learning approach to discover eight miRNAs differently controlled by vaginal microbiota. Of these, expression of miR-193b, known to regulate host cell proliferation, was increased by Lactobacillus spp.-dominated microbiota. Recently, in vitro , VK2 cells exposed to Lactobacillus -conditioned supernatants exhibited reduced proliferation, high miRNA-193b expression and decreased abundance of cyclin D1. Importantly, epithelial cell proliferation was required for efficient C. trachomatis infection. Conclusion These findings contribute to the vaginal microbiota’s role in cellular homeostasis and susceptibility to STIs, which may lead to improved preventive strategies by modulating vaginal microbiota composition.
Conducting a Solution Focused Anxiety Management Class: “The Nuts and the Bolts”

The practical details of planning and facilitating a solution focused anxiety management class are reviewed in this chapter. There is discussion of how to describe the program, with a handout that can be given to potential participants. The chapter covers how the book might best be used by different readers, including therapists teaching the program; therapists using it with individual clients; class participants; and people who are interested in learning the solution-focused philosophy, principles, and tools on their own. Common challenges encountered when teaching solution focused anxiety management—and solution-focused ways of managing them—are also addressed in this chapter.
Account-Giving in the Eyes of the Manager: Successful Management of Failing Events in Multinational Organizations (MNOs):

Employees in multinational organizations (MNOs) face differences in accounts provided by other members, yet an inappropriate account could damage the account-giver’s career. This study examines acc...
JUNCTIONAL ECTOPIC RHYTHM AFTER ATRIOVENTRICULAR NODAL REENTRANT TACHYCARDIA ABLATION: AN UNDER-RECOGNIZED COMPLICATION

Ablation is an effective treatment for atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT). The occurrence of junctional ectopic rhythm (JER), including junctional ectopic tachycardia (JET), following AVNRT ablation has been described as an extremely rare phenomenon, but may be underestimated. We
Quantifying Relative Potency in Dose-Response Studies

Relative potency is an important concept in the comparative evaluation of chemicals via dose-response studies. For example, toxicologists use relative potency estimates to rank chemicals with respect to a given response endpoint, to convert doses of one chemical to equivalent doses of another chemical, and to combine information across studies and endpoints when calculating toxic equivalency factors. The conventional definition of relative potency, arising historically from dilution assays, is a ratio of equi-effective doses, that is, those doses that produce the same mean response. Specifically, the ratio is the dose of a reference chemical divided by the dose of a test chemical. In an analytical dilution assay, relative potency is constant regardless of the mean response used to select equi-effective doses. Nevertheless, researchers often observed data that were inconsistent with constant relative potency and desired ways to characterize non-constant relative potency. This article reviews various approaches for quantifying relative potency when it cannot be regarded as constant, including modifications to the usual definition. In particular, we focus on recent proposals that describe the relative potency of two chemicals as functions of dose or of response.
Förster Resonant Energy Transfer Signatures in Optically Driven Quantum Dot Molecules

The present chapter discusses the optical signatures of Forster resonant energy transfer (FRET) in optically pumped and electrically gated quantum dot molecules (QDMs). To this end, an excitonic dressed Hamiltonian is constructed and the level occupation of each exciton is calculated as function of the pump laser energy and applied electric field. Level occupation maps can offer a systematic way of identifying FRET signatures through the analysis of the spectral weight and level anticrossing behavior of each exciton that is pumped in the QDM. The resulting level occupation maps show a clear splitting of the spatially-direct excitons and nontrivial satellites following the spectral lines of the spatially-indirect excitons. These lines are clearly visible starting at the molecular resonance regime up to a regime where charge tunneling is suppressed. In this sense, FRET induces a non-trivial behavior on the spatially-indirect excitons, which is reflected by a robust signature that can be coherently controlled to avoid the detrimental effects of charge tunneling and direct exciton recombination. In addition, our work suggests that FRET optical signatures in QDMs can be addressed via pump-probe differential transmission or level anticrossing PL spectroscopy.
Ribonoscopy and Personalized Medicine

As pointed out in Sect. 12.6, microarrays can be used to measure either DNA or RNA from cell samples (see Fig. 12.5). Hence, it may be useful to coin two words, ribonoscopy and deoxy-ribonoscopy to distinguish between these two types of measurements. Conflating these two different measurements can lead to logical errors in interpreting microarray data (Ji et al. 2009a). The term “ribonoscopy” is composed of two stems – “ribo-” meaning ribonucleic acid or RNA, and “-scope” meaning to look carefully or to see – and hence “ribonoscopy” literally means “to carefully look at RNAs” (rather than genes or DNA) with respect to the changes in both their sequences (or kinds, quality) and abundances (also called levels or concentrations, quantity). More formally ribonoscopy can be defined as
H45 The steps tool: an easy to use assessment measure that highlights impairments impacting stair safety

Individuals with HD have progressive motor, cognitive and behavioral impairments that contribute to difficulty with stair negotiation leading to falls on stairs. To assess stair safety, we developed a tool called the Step Test Evaluation of Performance on Stairs (STEPS) that allows systematic observation of movement and analysis of stair performance. The purpose of this study was to examine 1) the agreement of STEPs ratings between healthcare professionals who were experienced versus novice in movement analysis, and 2) STEPS items with the lowest ratings indicating areas to target fall prevention interventions. Methods Forty ambulatory individuals with a diagnosis of HD (mean age 50.35) participated. Three observers (2 experienced physical therapists (PTs) and one nurse with minimal experience in movement analysis) concurrently rated live performances of the STEPS. Results The nurse’s average total STEPS ratings did not significantly differ from the experienced PTs’ ratings with a difference of -0.05 (CI=-0.53, 0.43; p=0.83). Out of 16 items, the agreement between all raters was less than 75% for continuity of ascent (69%) and descent (72%), foot placement during ascent (74%) and eccentric control of the knee during descent (74%). Individuals with HD were most likely to have difficulty during ascent/descent of stairs with foot placement and trunk stability. Additionally many clients exhibited deficits in balance and eccentric control of the knee during descent. Conclusions Observation for continuity of movement has greater inter-rater variability than other STEPS items. Principal impairments that may negatively impact stair performance in HD are foot placement and control of descent along with trunk stability. Healthcare providers other than PTs can quickly be trained to use the STEPS tool reliably. Future areas to study would be whether therapy aimed at improving foot placement, trunk control and eccentric quadriceps strength would improve safety on stairs.
A Mouse Model for Chronic Intermittent Electronic Cigarette Exposure Exhibits Nicotine Pharmacokinetics Resembling Human Vapers.

Electronic cigarettes (E-cig) use is increasing rapidly, particularly among youths. Animal models for E-cig exposure with pharmacokinetics resembling human E-cig users are lacking. We developed an E-cig aerosol exposure system for rodents and a chronic intermittent delivery method that simulates E-cig users who vape episodically during wakefulness and abstain during sleep. Mice were exposed to E-cig in a programmed schedule at very low, low, medium, or high doses defined by duration of each puff, number of puffs per delivery episode and frequency of episodes in the dark phase of a 12/12-h circadian cycle for 9 consecutive days. The plasma nicotine/cotinine levels and their time courses were determined using LC/MS-MS. We assessed the body weight, food intake and locomotor activity of Apolipoprotein E null (ApoE-/-) mice exposed to chronic intermittent E-cig aerosol. Plasma nicotine and cotinine levels were positively correlated with exposure doses. Nicotine and cotinine levels showed a circadian variation as they increased with time up to the maximum nicotine level of 21.8 ± 7.1 ng/mL during the daily intermittent E-cig exposure in the 12-h dark phase and then declined during the light phase when there was no E-cig delivery. Chronic E-cig exposure to ApoE-/- mice decreased body weight, food intake and increased locomotion. Our rodent E-cig exposure system and chronic intermittent exposure method yield clinically relevant nicotine pharmacokinetics associated with behavioral and metabolic changes. The methodologies are essential tools for in vivo studies of the health impacts of E-cig exposure on CNS, cardiovascular, pulmonary, hepatic systems, metabolism and carcinogenesis.
Nonclinical Immunotoxicity Testing in the Pharmaceutical World: The Past, Present, and Future

An examination for potential direct or indirect adverse effects on the immune system (immunotoxicity) is an established component of nonclinical testing to support safe use of new drugs. Testing recommendations occur in various regulatory guidance documents, especially ICH S8, and these will be presented. Key evaluation usually occurs in toxicology studies with further investigative work a consideration if a positive signal is seen. Expectations around whether findings may occur are related to the type of compound being developed, including a chemically synthesized small molecule, a small molecule oncology drug, a biopharmaceutical, an oligonucleotide, a gene therapy/stem cell product, a vaccine, or reformulation of drugs in liposomes or depots. Examples of immunotoxicity/immunogenicity findings will be discussed for all of these types of compound. Overall, it can be concluded that our main tool for evaluation of potential immunotoxicity/immunogenicity for a new drug still remains standard toxicology study testing with key assessment for effects on clinical pathology and lymphoid organs/tissues (weights and cellularity). Additional evaluation from studies using a T cell-dependent antibody response (TDAR) and lymphocyte phenotyping is also valuable, if needed. Thus, using the tools from the past, it is the role of toxicologists to work with clinical teams now and in the future, to interpret findings from nonclinical testing to possible adverse findings in humans.
Screening with convex menus and optimal flow taxation

Abstract This paper considers a family of screening problems in which the principal is constrained to offer only convex menus. Applications include: (i) optimal flow taxation when individuals can substitute consumption and leisure inter-temporally; (ii) optimal product design for a linear-pricing monopolist; (iii) non-exclusive-cum-linearly-priced annuity markets. A modified version of a Myerson (1979)-Mirrlees (1971) direct mechanism—in which standard incentive compatibility constraints are replaced by “no-convexification” constraints—can be used to compute optimal allocations in this family of problems. In the flow taxation application, the optimal tax schedule necessarily features progressive marginal tax rates, typically features “distortions at the top,” and can be analyzed by adapting standard ironing techniques.
Impact of Primary Ambulatory Thromboprophylaxis (PATP) with Low-Molecular Weight Heparins (LMWHs) on Survival in Patients with Locally Advanced or Metastatic Lung Cancer (LC) Receiving Chemotherapy

Introduction: LC is the leading cause of cancer mortality in USA. PATP was provided in experimental trials to decrease the venous thromboembolism (VTE) rates and to provide anti-tumor effect with ultimate aim to improve survival in patients with solid cancers as VTE is the second leading cause of death in cancer patients. We undertook a systematic review and meta- analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to determine the impact of PATP with LMWHs on overall survival (OS) in patients with locally advanced or metastatic LC. Methods: We performed a comprehensive literature search using MEDLINE and EMBASE databases through July 26, 2019. The references of all potential studies were also reviewed for any additional relevant studies. RCTs utilizing PATP with LMWHs in patients with locally advanced or metastatic lung cancer were incorporated in the analysis. A generic inverse variance method was used to calculate the estimated pooled hazard ratio (HR) for progression or metastasis free survival and OS with 95% confidence interval (CI). Heterogeneity was assessed with Cochran's Q -statistic. Random effects model was applied. Results: A total of 3,452 patients with lung cancer from six RCTs were included in our meta-analysis. The prophylactic doses of bemiparin, dalteparin, tinzaparin, nadroparin and intermediate dose of enoxaparin were used in the studies. The duration of LMWH ranged from 3 to 6 months. The randomization ratio was 1 to 1 in all studies. The I2statistic for heterogeneity was 64, suggesting moderate heterogeneity among RCTs. The pooled HR for OS was not statistically significant at 1.02 (95% CI: 0.83-1.26; P = 0.83). In a subset of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients, the pooled HR for OS was 1.03 (95% CI: 0.72-1.48; P = 0.85). The HR for OS was noted at 1.70 (95% CI: 0.70-4.15; P = 0.24) in patients with limited stage SCLC. In a subset of non-small cell lung cancer, the pooled HR of OS was 1.00 (95% CI: 0.79-1.26; P = 0.98). The pooled HR for progression or metastasis free survivalwas 1.03 (95% CI: 0.86-1.24; P = 0.74) according to an analysis of 5 RCTs. Conclusions: Our meta- analysis demonstrated that no survival advantage was noted with the addition of PATP with LMWHs to routine standard chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic LC, regardless of histology types as well as stages of SCLC. Download : Download high-res image (115KB) Download : Download full-size image Disclosures Oo: Medical Education Speakers Network: Honoraria; Janssen and Janssen: Other: Research: site co-investigator .
Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, part II: Progress toward Healthy People 2020 objectives for 4 common cancers.

BACKGROUND The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries collaborate to provide annual updates on cancer occurrence and trends in the United States and to address a special topic of interest. Part I of this report focuses on national cancer statistics, and part 2 characterizes progress in achieving select Healthy People 2020 cancer objectives. METHODS For this report, the authors selected objectives-including death rates, cancer screening, and major risk factors-related to 4 common cancers (lung, colorectal, female breast, and prostate). Baseline values, recent values, and the percentage change from baseline to recent values were examined overall and by select sociodemographic characteristics. Data from national surveillance systems were obtained from the Healthy People 2020 website. RESULTS Targets for death rates were met overall and in most sociodemographic groups, but not among males, blacks, or individuals in rural areas, although these groups did experience larger decreases in rates compared with other groups. During 2007 through 2017, cancer death rates decreased 15% overall, ranging from -4% (rural) to -22% (metropolitan). Targets for breast and colorectal cancer screening were not yet met overall or in any sociodemographic groups except those with the highest educational attainment, whereas lung cancer screening was generally low (<10%). Targets were not yet met overall for cigarette smoking, recent smoking cessation, excessive alcohol use, or obesity but were met for secondhand smoke exposure and physical activity. Some sociodemographic groups did not meet targets or had less improvement than others toward reaching objectives. CONCLUSIONS Monitoring trends in cancer risk factors, screening test use, and mortality can help assess the progress made toward decreasing the cancer burden in the United States. Although many interventions to reduce cancer risk factors and promote healthy behaviors are proven to work, they may not be equitably applied or work well in every community. Implementing cancer prevention and control interventions that are sustainable, focused, and culturally appropriate may boost success in communities with the greatest need, ensuring that all Americans can access a path to long, healthy, cancer-free lives.
Satisficing Search and Algorithmic Price Competition

The rising prevalence of algorithmic pricing in industry calls for a closer study of market outcomes that arise when these algorithms interact in a competitive environment. In this paper, we study the impact of boundedly rational customer choice on the landscape of joint demand curves in competition, and its consequences on the properties of competing pricing algorithms derived from the online convex optimization framework. In particular, we study price competition in a duopoly under a new customer behavior model motivated by online platforms offering perfectly substitutable services, e.g., ride-hailing. In this model, a customer samples the firms in an idiosyncratically preferred order until she finds one priced below her willingness-to-pay. We exhaustively characterize the equilibrium profile of the resulting pricing game when customers' willingness-to-pay distribution has a monotone hazard rate. We show that these games are plagued by a particular strictly-local Nash equilibrium, in which the price of the firm with a smaller market share is only a local best-response to the competitor's price, when a globally optimal response with a potentially unboundedly higher payoff is available. Through numerical experiments, we show that price dynamics resulting from distributed online gradient descent may often converge to this undesirable outcome, causing the smaller firm to incur linear regret relative to its best-response price. Our results thus suggest that algorithms that adaptively rely on local information for pricing, despite faring well in monopolistic settings, may suffer from serious drawbacks in competitive environments. We finally propose and test a practical resolution of this concern in the context of our model.
11 – Radiation Detectors

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the important features of a few popular types of detectors. Most of them are based on the ionization produced by radiation, with the resulting currents passing through an electrical circuit and displayed on a meter or similar indicator. The number of particles of radiation arriving and noted in a given period is obtained by the devices called counters. Measurement of radiation is required in all facets of nuclear energy—in scientific studies, in the operation of reactors for the production of power, and for protection from radiation hazard. Detectors are used to identify products of nuclear reactions, to measure neutron flux, and to determine the amount of radioisotopes in air or water. The kind of detector employed depends on several factors: the particles to be observed—electrons, gamma rays, neutrons, ions, or combinations of them; the energy of the particles; and the environment in which the detector is to be used.
Growth hormone activity in human pregnancy: I. Serum sulfation factor

Abstract The serum sulfation factor, which is thought to be an index to growth hormone activity, is not increased in normal, pre-eclamptic, or diabetic pregnant women in late pregnancy. In cord blood, the serum sulfation factor is somewhat lower than in control or maternal sera. The fact that the serum sulfation factor is not increased in late pregnancy does not prove that growth hormone activity is not increased. The sulfation factor is only an indirect index and there are other hormonal features of pregnancy that might well vitiate the assay.
Quarterly earnings announcements and intra-industry information transfer from the Pacific to the Atlantic

Abstract In this study, we explore intra-industry information transfer of quarterly earnings announcements for six major developed markets including the United States. Using an event study methodology, we find that the average cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of peer firms exhibit a positive and significant relationship with the CARs of announcing firms in the same country and industry over the three-day window surrounding quarterly earnings announcements. During periods of high past market volatility, earnings announcements demonstrate magnified information spillover effects on peer firms. Also, our results suggest that announcing firms with larger market capitalization generate greater intra-industry information transfer.
Optimizing Management of Type 2 Diabetes and Its Complications in Patients With Heart Failure.

Diabetes is an independent risk factor for heart failure (HF), with current trends indicating that nearly half of patients with type 2 diabetes will develop this complication. The presence of diabetes also worsens the prognosis of those with HF; people with both conditions have nearly double the mortality rate of those with HF who do not have diabetes (1–3). Additional risk factors for the development of HF in people with diabetes include increasing age, longer duration of disease, insulin use, ischemic heart disease, peripheral artery disease, nephropathy, poor glycemic management, hypertension, obesity, and higher levels of N-terminal pro b-type natriuretic peptide (2,4,5). Recently, HF, including diabetic cardiomyopathy, has become a more well-recognized complication of diabetes, with a prevalence rivaling that of established cardiovascular disease (CVD). Clinical interest in the management of type 2 diabetes in the presence of HF has grown with the publication of cardiovascular outcomes trials (CVOTs) for sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors demonstrating HF-related benefits and other trials showing heightened risk with the use of certain other antihyperglycemic therapies. To understand the interrelatedness of diabetes and HF, it is important to understand the pathophysiology of HF in people with diabetes. Structural heart disease via cardiac ischemia and infarction, also known as ischemic cardiomyopathy, is a documented complication of hyperglycemia. Yet, ischemic events are not a requirement for the development of HF in people with diabetes. The presence of systolic or diastolic dysfunction in people with diabetes, in the absence of common causes such as coronary artery disease, hypertension, or valvular heart disease, is termed “diabetic cardiomyopathy” (5). The development of diabetic cardiomyopathy is multifactorial, with insulin resistance, changes in cellular metabolism, and hyperglycemia-induced advanced glycation end products triggering a cascade of deleterious effects that contribute to hypertrophy, fibrosis, autonomic dysfunction, and …
The effect of working from home on major time allocations with a focus on food-related activities.

Telecommuting has been on the rise in the U.S. and working from home may affect how workers allocate their time over the course of a day. In this paper, using a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) framework, we examine differences in time spent in major activities between individuals who worked from home and away from home. We use data on prime working-age adults (age 25-54 years old) who participated in the 2017-18 Leave and Job Flexibilities Module of the American Time Use Survey. Results show that prime working-age American adults who worked from home during their diary day spent less time working and on personal care, but more time on leisure, sleeping, and on food production and consumption than those who worked away from home. For instance, among individuals with a spouse or partner present, those who worked from home spent 25 more minutes engaged in food production and 48 more minutes eating and drinking at home than did individuals who worked away from home, which are large relative to the sample averages of 33 and 31 min, respectively. These results show that there is important variation in the daily time allocation of workers in their prime working years and suggest in particular that working from home may allow for substantially more time to produce food and consume food at home, which may provide teleworkers with health benefits since home-produced meals tend to be lower in calories and higher in nutrients than meals prepared away from home.
Funding sources are under-reported in randomised clinical trials of biological treatments in sports medicine: a systematic review

Importance There have been numerous publications involving the use of biologics in sports medicine injuries. However, a lack of clarity exists with reporting industry affiliations and sources of funding. Objective The purposes of this study were (1) to determine the frequency of reporting of funding sources in randomised clinical trials evaluating the clinical effects of biological treatments in sports medicine and (2) to evaluate potential relationships between reported clinical results and affiliated funding sources. We hypothesised that funding sources would be under-reported and the favourability of the results would be associated with the specific type of funding received. Evidence review A systematic search of MEDLINE and Embase databases was performed to identify funding sources and favourability of conclusions reported for all randomised clinical trials that compared a biological treatment to a standard treatment for sports medicine-related injuries. Industry affiliation was defined as a funding source or author affiliation with the company that provided the biological product being studied. Extracted data included the reported purpose, conclusion, funding sources, researcher industry affiliations, sample size, minimum follow-up (FU) and the outcome metrics used. Two-tailed t-tests and logistic regression analyses were performed for analysis. Findings Ninety-eight studies met our inclusion criteria and included a total of 5898 subjects with a minimum FU of 6 weeks–24 months. These studies investigated shoulder, knee, foot and ankle, and elbow issues. Forty-eight of the 98 studies (49%) did not report the source of study funding. In total, 47 of the 98 studies (48%) reported favourable results, and 5 of these studies (10.6%) reported industry affiliations. Published studies with unknown funding sources reported conclusions in favour of the biological treatment significantly more often than those with reported funding sources (p=0.015). Conclusions and relevance Nearly half of the included studies did not disclose funding sources, and studies with unknown funding sources more frequently reported results in favour of the biological treatment. Clinical reports of randomised trials should emphasise reporting of funding sources to ensure data transparency and interpretability of results. Future initiatives should focus on developing standard international criteria for reporting research funding in scientific publications. Level of evidence II
POLANCO: Enforcing Natural Language Network Policies

Network policies govern the use of an institution’s networks, and are usually written in a high-level human-readable natural language. Normally these policies are enforced by low-level, technically detailed network configurations. The translation from network policies into network configurations is a tedious, manual and error-prone process. To address this issue, we propose a new intermediate language called POlicy LANguage for Campus Operations (POLANCO), which is a human-readable network policy definition language intended to approximate natural language. Because POLANCO is a high-level language, the translation from natural language policies to POLANCO is straightforward. Despite being a high-level human readable language, POLANCO can be used to express network policies in a technically precise way so that policies written in POLANCO can be automatically translated into a set of software defined networking (SDN) rules and actions that enforce the policies. Moreover, POLANCO is capable of incorporating information about the current network state, reacting to changes in the network and adjusting SDN rules to ensure network policies continue to be enforced correctly. We present policy examples found on various public university websites and show how they can be written as simplified human-readable statements using POLANCO and how they can be automatically translated into SDN rules that correctly enforce these policies.
An Atlas of H-alpha and R Images and Radial Profiles of 29 Bright Isolated Spiral Galaxies

Narrow-band H-alpha+[NII] and broadband R images and surface photometry are presented for a sample of 29 bright (M_B < -18) isolated S0-Scd galaxies within a distance of 48 Mpc. These galaxies are among the most isolated nearby spiral galaxies of their Hubble classifications as determined from the Nearby Galaxies Catalog (Tully 1987a).