cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Legalized Physician Assisted Death in Oregon—Eighteen Years’ Experience

Five US states have defined a legal pathway for their residents to choose physician-assisted death (PAD). The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was passed by citizen’s initiative in 1994 and, after a series of legal challenges, enacted in 1997. In 2008, through a voter-initiated referendum, Washingtonians passed an almost identical law. In 2009, the Montana Supreme Court held that a terminally ill, mentally competent patient’s consent to physician aid-in-dying protected the physician against a charge of homicide. In 2013, Vermont legalized PAD, the first to use the traditional legislative process (Vermont Health Department). California’s legislature also passed a PAD law in 2015, which is likely to be enacted in 2016. No other form of PAD – that is physician prescription and patient consumption of medications for the sole purposes of causing death – is legal in the United States at this time, though studies support that in other states physicians rarely prescribe medications to hasten death outside the law.
Value Capitalization Effects of Golf Courses, Waterfronts, Parks, Open Spaces, and Green Landscapes — A Cross-Disciplinary Review

This article is a cross-disciplinary literature review of eight environmental amenities and their marginal price effect on nearby residential property values. The purpose of the article is to prese...
Comparison of Post–Liver Transplantation Outcomes in Portopulmonary Hypertension and Pulmonary Venous Hypertension: A Single-Center Experience

Abstract Background In potential liver transplant candidates, pulmonary vascular diseases, including portopulmonary hypertension (PoPH) and pulmonary venous hypertension (PVH), can be associated with high morbidity and mortality. Although there are clear guidelines regarding management and transplant listing criteria for patients with PoPH, the listing criteria for PVH are not well defined. Objective The aim of this study was to describe and compare the perioperative and postoperative morbidity and mortality associated with PoPH and PVH in patients undergoing liver transplantation. Methods We conducted a retrospective observational study of all patients referred for liver transplantation to our center between 2005 and 2015 who underwent a right heart catheterization (RHC) for screening for pulmonary hypertension as suggested by initial echocardiography. Based on the RHC data, the patients were grouped into no pulmonary hypertension (No PH), PoPH, and PVH categories. In patients who underwent liver transplantation, we recorded vital status intraoperatively and at 30 days and 1-year post-transplant, and we recorded the incidence of postoperative cardiopulmonary and renal complications. Results Of the 134 patients who underwent RHC as part of the initial transplant evaluation, 50 patients were successfully transplanted. There was 1 intraoperative death in the PoPH group. No significant difference in mortality was noted between the No PH, PoPH, and PVH groups intraoperatively and 30 days after liver transplantation. At 1 year, the survival rates were 100%, 69.2%, and 94.1% in the No PH, PoPH, and PVH groups, respectively. With respect to cardiopulmonary and renal complications, no statistically significant difference was noted among the groups, though there was a trend toward increased post-transplant reversible pulmonary complications in the PVH group. Conclusion Our findings suggest that the post-transplant outcomes of patients with PoPH and PVH are similar. In light of the growing recognition of diastolic dysfunction and cirrhotic cardiomyopathy in decompensated cirrhotic patients at the time of transplant, the issue of pulmonary hypertension related to PVH will gain increasing importance as we assess these patients for transplantation. Therefore, future studies are needed to define evidence based guidelines to determine candidacy for liver transplantation in the context of PVH.
Quality of Life in Childhood Epilepsy in pediatric patients enrolled in a prospective, open-label clinical study with cannabidiol.

Summary Recent clinical trials indicate that cannabidiol (CBD) may reduce seizure frequency in pediatric patients with certain forms of treatment-resistant epilepsy. Many of these patients experience significant impairments in quality of life (QOL) in physical, mental, and social dimensions of health. In this study, we measured the caregiver-reported Quality of Life in Childhood Epilepsy (QOLCE) in a subset of patients enrolled in a prospective, open-label clinical study of CBD. Results from caregivers of 48 patients indicated an 8.2 ± 9.9-point improvement in overall patient QOLCE (p < 0.001) following 12 weeks of CBD. Subscores with improvement included energy/fatigue, memory, control/helplessness, other cognitive functions, social interactions, behavior, and global QOL. These differences were not correlated to changes in seizure frequency or adverse events. The results suggest that CBD may have beneficial effects on patient QOL, distinct from its seizure-reducing effects; however, further studies in placebo-controlled, double-blind trials are necessary to confirm this finding.
Automatic renal segmentation for MR urography using 3D-GrabCut and random forests

Purpose To introduce and evaluate a fully automated renal segmentation technique for glomerular filtration rate (GFR) assessment in children. Methods An image segmentation method based on iterative graph cuts (GrabCut) was modified to work on time-resolved 3D dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI data sets. A random forest classifier was trained to further segment the renal tissue into cortex, medulla, and the collecting system. The algorithm was tested on 26 subjects and the segmentation results were compared to the manually drawn segmentation maps using the F1-score metric. A two-compartment model was used to estimate the GFR of each subject using both automatically and manually generated segmentation maps. Results Segmentation maps generated automatically showed high similarity to the manually drawn maps for the whole-kidney (F1 = 0.93) and renal cortex (F1 = 0.86). GFR estimations using whole-kidney segmentation maps from the automatic method were highly correlated (Spearman's ρ = 0.99) to the GFR values obtained from manual maps. The mean GFR estimation error of the automatic method was 2.98 ± 0.66% with an average segmentation time of 45 s per patient. Conclusion The automatic segmentation method performs as well as the manual segmentation for GFR estimation and reduces the segmentation time from several hours to 45 s. Magn Reson Med 79:1696-1707, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
Civic Responsibility and Human Overpopulation: Does Good Citizenship Require Having Fewer Children?

Recently more environmentalists and ordinary citizens have begun to realize that the greatest danger facing the planet is human overpopulation. Simply stated, humans are outgrowing their own world. As the human population continues to grow, the available resources for humans and all other species shrink, making it more difficult for any species to prosper or sometimes even just survive. Human overpopulation also worsens most environmental problems. Yet with few exceptions, most countries around the world allow their citizens to have as many children as they desire, often taking the position that procreating is a basic human right. The notion of civic responsibility, though, offers an alternative to this approach. It suggests that the needs of the community ought to have more importance than the needs of any one individual. This paper thus asserts that it is necessary to redefine the global community by including all species and ecosystems as key parts of it. It argues, then, that civic responsibility demands that humans learn to respect and protect these other members of the community, especially by having as few children as possible. By doing so, people can help preserve the environment for all species.
Estudio comparativo de los valores diferenciadores que caracterizaron a la indumentaria de Marco Correa y de Nelly Alarcón entre los años 1968 y 1978 en Chile

This article gives an account on the study of the works of Marco Correa and Nelly Alarcon, both exponents of the phenomenon that Chilean fashion magazines called «Latin American fashion». This study is part of the research “Analysis of Chilean costumes between the years 1968 to 1978, identification of visual, technical and morphological traits that characterized the phenomenon of Latin American fashion”. Its main purpose is to understand the features of differentiation raised with respect to the prevailing fashion during the study period. A comparison between the two authors is made, with the sense of determining compositional distinctions of both proposals as referents for future generations, complying with the aim of contributing to the discussion about territorial design.
Symmetry obstruction to Fermi liquid behavior in the unitary limit

We show that a Fermi gas, in three dimensions, at temperatures above the superconducting phase transition $({T}_{c})$ but below the Fermi temperature $({T}_{F})$, cannot be described by Fermi liquid theory (FLT) in the unitary limit where the scattering length diverges. The result follows by showing that there are no effective field theory descriptions that both behave like a Fermi liquid and properly nonlinearly realize the spontaneously broken boost and conformal invariance of the system. We have also derived an exact result for the beta function for the coupling function in the unitary limit.
Long Term Observations of the Hα Chromospheric Network

Frequent filtergrams of the quiet sun at Hα + 0.65 A were taken from above the Arctic Circle during a period of 62 hr. Features observed in individual filtergrams or movies are described with the dynamic changes they undergo. Thirty filtergrams taken at 2-hr intervals are presented and the development of a typical supergranule is shown in some detail. A study of supergranules shows that they lose their identity in about 21 hr on the average.
Chemistry of the Amanita Peptide Toxins

Extraordinary advances in scientific methodologies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries enabled chemists to isolate and characterize biologically active molecules from all branches of the tree of life. Biochemicals (such as DNA, RNA, proteins, and lipids) that are essential for the basic cellular processes of life are known as primary metabolites, whereas other chemicals found in living organisms that have subsidiary roles, often in mediating interactions between organisms, are known as secondary metabolites, specialized metabolites, or natural products (Demain and Fang 2000). There are tens of thousands of known natural products, which are especially prevalent in some taxa of bacteria, fungi, and plants. Ecologically, natural products commonly behave as attractants, repellents, and behavioral modulators. Many have been adopted for human use, for example, caffeine and penicillin. The possible ecological functions of the Amanita cyclic peptide toxins are discussed in Chap. 6.
Cloud Computing and Big Data Analytics: What Is New from Databases Perspective?

Many industries, such as telecom, health care, retail, pharmaceutical, financial services, etc., generate large amounts of data. Gaining critical business insights by querying and analyzing such massive amounts of data is becoming the need of the hour. The warehouses and solutions built around them are unable to provide reasonable response times in handling expanding data volumes. One can either perform analytics on big volume once in days or one can perform transactions on small amounts of data in seconds. With the new requirements, one needs to ensure the real-time or near real-time response for huge amount of data. In this paper we outline challenges in analyzing big data for both data at rest as well as data in motion. For big data at rest we describe two kinds of systems: (1) NoSQL systems for interactive data serving environments; and (2) systems for large scale analytics based on MapReduce paradigm, such as Hadoop, The NoSQL systems are designed to have a simpler key-value based data model having in-built sharding, hence, these work seamlessly in a distributed cloud based environment. In contrast, one can use Hadoop based systems to run long running decision support and analytical queries consuming and possible producing bulk data. For processing data in motion, we present use-cases and illustrative algorithms of data stream management system (DSMS). We also illustrate applications which can use these two kinds of systems to quickly process massive amount of data.
Cardiac Morphologic Changes Produced by Ethanol

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the cardiac morphologic changes produced by ethanol. The term cardiomyopathy indicates heart muscle disease that does not result from coronary, hypertensive, valvular, congenital, or pulmonary heart disease. Alcoholic cardiomyopathy may be defined as heart muscle disease that occurs in chronic alcoholics and that is clinically characterized by a hypokinetic type of biventricular failure, frequent arrhythmias, and progressive unresponsiveness to therapy; exclusion of other types of heart muscle disease is essential for establishing the diagnosis in such patients. Cardiac disease was found to be present in 52(48%) of the 108 patients and was considered to be caused by atherosclerosis in 26(24%) patients, by hypertension in 9(8%), by rheumatic valvular disease in 5 (5%), and by cardiomyopathy in 12. The latter 12 patients constituted 32% of the group of 37 cirrhotics who were found to have no clinical or pathological evidence of hypertensive, valvular, or atherosclerotic heart disease. The hearts of these 12 patients showed considerable dilation of both ventricles, especially the right. Grossly visible scarring was found only in the 2 patients with the heaviest hearts (>600 g); these scars were confined to the inner half of the left ventricular wall and were not larger than 0.3 cm. Three hearts showed hemorrhages in the upper middle portion of the subendocardium of the left side of the ventricular septum.
25-Hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in dogs with naturally acquired blastomycosis.

Background Hypovitaminosis D is common in humans with tuberculosis, and adequate serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentrations may improve response to therapy. The pathomechanism of Blastomyces dermatitidis is similar to that of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but the 25(OH)D status of dogs with blastomycosis has not been investigated. Objectives To determine if dogs with blastomycosis have lower 25(OH)D concentrations compared with healthy controls and to explore the prognostic value of 25(OH)D concentrations in blastomycosis. Animals 35 control dogs (16 client-owned, healthy dogs and 19 healthy, random-source hound mixes) and 22 dogs with blastomycosis. Methods Prospective study. Serum concentrations of 25(OH)D, parathyroid hormone (PTH), ionized calcium were measured, and biochemistry and hematology profiles were performed. The 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations were compared between groups, and factors associated with 25(OH)D variation were investigated in dogs with blastomycosis. Dogs with blastomycosis were followed for up to 5 years after discharge and factors associated with survival were investigated. Results Dogs with blastomycosis had significantly lower concentrations of 25(OH)D and PTH and higher concentrations of ionized calcium than did control dogs. In dogs with blastomycosis, 25(OH)D concentrations were independently associated with neutrophil count, pCO2 , and with bone and skin involvement. The 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration was not associated with survival in dogs with blastomycosis, whereas lactate concentrations; bone, skin, and lymph node involvement; number of affected sites; and, presence of respiratory signs were associated with survival. Conclusions and clinical importance Dogs with blastomycosis had lower 25(OH)D concentrations than did healthy controls. Despite no impact on survival, investigating the effect of 25(OH)D supplementation on recovery is warranted.
Group Proposal: Hybrid Group for Direct Support Staff Working with Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The purpose of this paper is to explore the many challenges that face direct support staff that work with individuals with autism spectrum disorder and provide a comprehensive outline for a combined psychoeducational and process group, which addresses the needs of this population. The overarching goals of the group are to decrease staff stress and burnout and improve client quality of care overall. A 10-week agenda with resources and handouts as well as guidelines for ethical, cultural and group selection concerns are provided and ready to be implemented with this population. Keywords: direct support staff, autism spectrum disorder, stress, burnout, client care, group therapy
The role of humor in teaching for creativity

Abstract Although there are conceptual and empirical links between creativity and humor, there is no guarantee that a teacher who uses humor as an instructional strategy will support students’ creative expression. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the role that humor can play in teaching for creativity. I introduce a process model of teaching for creativity that posits how a teacher’s humor style can have a differential impact on students’ creative expression. More specifically the model asserts that students will be more likely to take the risks necessary for creative expression if they perceive their teacher’s humor style as affiliative (positive) and, in turn, will view the classroom as conducive to subsequent creative expression if teachers and peers respond to creative risk taking in a supportive rather than aggressive fashion. I discuss the various pathways of the process model and close with a brief discussion of directions for future research.
700. Identification and Whole-Genome Sequencing (WGS) of Meropenem-Vaborbactam (MV) Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (MVRKP) Among Patients Without Prior Exposure to MV: Collateral Damage

Background MV is a newly approved β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor combination (BLIC) for the treatment of complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI). Vaborbactam is a cyclic boronic acid BLI that was mainly developed as a potent inhibitor of KPC carbapenemases and other Ambler class A&C enzymes. Vaborbactam is inactive against metallo-β-lactamases (MBL) and certain Class D enzymes (e.g. OXA-2 and OXA-48). We encountered a case of MV-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (MVRKP)and sought to explore the various mechanisms of MV resistance within KP.
Midterm Outcomes following Acute Repair of Grade III Distal MCL Avulsions in Multiligamentous Knee Injuries.

There is limited evidence guiding management of medial collateral ligament (MCL) avulsions or functional disruptions distal to the medial joint line. This study aims to determine outcomes of a series of patients with grade III distal MCL injuries managed with acute surgical repair. Patients with grade III, distal MCL injuries, with or without multiligament involvement were identified. Demographic, clinical examination, and midterm patient-reported outcomes (PRO) data were collected. Clinical follow-up included physical examination and ligamentous stress testing at a minimum of 6 months. PROs included Lysholm's knee scoring scale, Tegner's activity score, and subjective International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) scores at minimum of 2 years follow-up. Of the 24 eligible patients, outcomes data were available for 20 (83%). Of the 20 included patients, 16 had a concomitant anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, 3 had ACL and posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) injuries, and 1 had an isolated MCL injury. Mean time from injury to surgery was 5 weeks. At mean clinical follow-up of 20.3 months, all patients showed valgus stability and satisfactory range of motion (ROM). Anteroposterior stability was normal in all but one patient who demonstrated a 2+ posterior drawer but with firm end points. At a mean follow-up of 5.7 years for PROs, mean Lysholm's score was 91.5 (standard deviation [SD] = 12.2), median Tegner's activity score was 7 (range, 4–9), and mean subjective IKDC score was 88.8 (SD: 9.9). The surgical repair of grade III distal MCL injuries delivered satisfactory clinical and functional outcomes. Future comparative studies with larger patient samples are needed.
Dynamic time segment selection in steady state visual evoked potential detection

The research in non-invasive Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) has led to significant improvements in the recent years. However, the user experience and the BCI illiteracy problem remain key issues to address for obtaining robust and resilient applications. In this paper, we address the choice of the time segment for the detection of steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) detection. The choice of this parameter is typically fixed and has a direct influence on the accuracy of detection, and therefore the information transfer rate. We propose to shift the problem of the time segment to the choice of the threshold for determining if a response has been properly detected. We consider an open-dataset of 10 participants to validate the rationale of the approach. The results support the conclusion that an adaptive time segment can lead to a better ITR on average across participants compared to a fixed time segment equal to the average of the mean adapted time segment for each subject. The ITR increases from 68.87 to 75.39 bpm with 12 targets, and from 54.20 to 72.66 bpm with 6 targets, highlighting the need of adaptive methods.
Simulations for Resource-Allocation Protocol Optimization for MIL-STD-188-186 over a UHF SATCOM Network

A simple simulation tool was previously developed to simulate the operation and performance of demand-assigned communication networks having time-varying data traffic patterns. Such networks use protocols to increase or decrease the resources allocated to a network node as the resource needs at that node change. These resource-allocation protocols have parameters such as numerical thresholds for requesting or releasing resources. The additional simulator development and execution described herein allows a comparison of performance metrics that result when using the existing MIL-STD-188-186 protocol versus using a proposed alternative protocol. The network behavior revealed by the simulation results also allows examining network performance trade-offs as values for the protocol parameters are adjusted. Although commercially available simulation tools could be used for these simulations, such tools are often expensive and sometimes complicated to adapt to new and not yet standardized protocols. The simple simulation tool that was previously developed is described in an earlier paper and is programmed as an Excel spreadsheet. It has now been adapted to allow comparing an existing resource-allocation protocol versus a proposed protocol for MIL-STD-188-186. The simulator allows examination of performance metrics such as the average number of assigned time slots per frame assigned to a transmitting node that has a specified message generation rate, the percentage of generated messages that are discarded prior to transmission due to being queued for an excessive time, and a histogram showing the percentage of messages transmitted with each possible message delivery time.
Colocalized Nanoscale Electrical and Compositional Mapping of Organic Solar Cells

Organic photovoltaics based on the bulk heterojunction is an emergent technology with the potential to enable low-cost, lightweight, and mechanically flexible energy conversion applications. Organi...
Weighing Giants: Taking Stock of the Expansion of China’s Defence Industry

Despite China’s rise on the world stage and rapid improvements in the quality and quantity of its arms production, little is truly known about Chinese defence groups’ performance. The existing lite...
Depression history as a predictor of outcomes during buprenorphine-naloxone treatment of prescription opioid use disorder

Abstract Background In the multi-site Prescription Opioid Addiction Treatment Study (POATS), the best predictor of successful opioid use outcome was lifetime diagnosis of major depressive disorder. The primary aim of this secondary analysis of data from POATS was to empirically assess two explanations for this counterintuitive finding. Methods The POATS study was a national, 10-site randomized controlled trial (N = 360 enrolled in the 12-week buprenorphine-naloxone maintenance treatment phase) sponsored by the NIDA Clinical Trials Network. We evaluated how the presence of a history of depression influences opioid use outcome (negative urine drug assays). Using adjusted logistic regression models, we tested the hypotheses that 1) a reduction in depressive symptoms and 2) greater motivation and engagement in treatment account for the association between depression history and good treatment outcome. Results Although depressive symptoms decreased significantly throughout treatment (p Conclusions Findings are consistent with the premise that greater engagement in treatment is associated with good opioid outcomes. Nevertheless, depression history continues to be associated with good opioid outcomes in adjusted models. More research is needed to understand how these factors could improve treatment outcomes for those with opioid use disorder.
Broadband and giant nonreciprocity at the subwavelength scale in magnetoplasmonic materials

We unveil a previously overlooked wave propagation regime in magnetized plasmonic (gyrotropic) materials with comparable plasma and cyclotron frequencies, which enables a giant and broadband (nondispersive) nonreciprocal response. We show that this effect is due to a natural form of dispersion compensation that ultimately originates from the subtle implications of the principle of causality for gyrotropic plasmonic media, which allows the existence of a low-loss frequency window with anomalous nonmonotonic dispersion for the extraordinary mode. This is in stark contrast with conventional nongyrotropic passive materials, for which the frequency derivative of the permittivity dispersion function is always positive in low-loss regions. These findings may pave the way for superior nonreciprocal components in terms of bandwidth of operation and compactness, with orders-of-magnitude reductions in size. As a relevant example, we consider indium antimonide (InSb) to theoretically demonstrate a deeply subwavelength, broadband, THz isolator operating under moderate magnetic bias and at room temperature.
Body Composition Post Pediatric Liver Transplant: Implications and Assessment

Liver disease has a negative influence on growth and development of children. Measurement of body composition as a component of nutrition status assessment in children before and after transplant would facilitate tailoring of nutrition therapy. A comprehensive literature search on pediatric liver transplant and body composition assessment was performed using a modified systematic approach. This review includes evidence specific to body composition of children undergoing liver transplant and a discussion of relevant body composition assessment methods for this population. Malnutrition is commonly seen in children with liver disease prior to transplant because of the disrupted metabolic pathways from liver dysfunction; however, malnutrition is not consistently diagnosed. Within 1 year of transplant, children tend to quickly recover with weight gain and linear growth. In some children, obesity and sarcopenia have been observed as long-term posttransplant outcomes. Body composition assessment tools have been utilized in diagnosing nutrition status in adults; yet there are limited studies that use these tools in the pediatric liver-transplant population. Technologies available to assess body composition include air displacement plethysmography, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, bioimpedance, and ultrasound. Total body potassium has been used for body composition assessment in adults and children post liver transplant; however, this method is not applicable in a clinical setting. We conclude that understanding posttransplant body composition could help clinicians diagnose and treat malnutrition.
Analysis of virulence phenotypes and antibiotic resistance in clinical strains of Acinetobacter baumannii isolated in Nashville, Tennessee

Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram-negative bacterium which causes opportunistic infections in immunocompromised hosts. Genome plasticity has given rise to a wide range of strain variation with respect to antimicrobial resistance profiles and expression of virulence factors which lead to altered phenotypes associated with pathogenesis. The purpose of this study was to analyze clinical strains of A. baumannii for phenotypic variation that might correlate with virulence phenotypes, antimicrobial resistance patterns, or strain isolation source. We hypothesized that individual strain virulence phenotypes might be associated with anatomical site of isolation or alterations in susceptibility to antimicrobial interventions. A cohort of 17 clinical isolates of A. baumannii isolated from diverse anatomical sites were evaluated to ascertain phenotypic patterns including biofilm formation, hemolysis, motility, and antimicrobial resistance. Antibiotic susceptibility/resistance to ampicillin-sulbactam, amikacin, ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, cefepime, gentamicin, levofloxacin, meropenem, piperacillin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, ticarcillin- K clavulanate, tetracyclin, and tobramycin was determined. Antibiotic resistance was prevalent in many strains including resistance to ampicillin-sulbactam, amikacin, ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, cefepime, gentamicin, levofloxacin, meropenem, piperacillin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, ticarcillin- K clavulanate, tetracyclin, and tobramycin. All strains tested induced hemolysis on agar plate detection assays. Wound-isolated strains of A. baumannii exhibited higher motility than strains isolated from blood, urine or Foley catheter, or sputum/bronchial wash. A. baumannii strains isolated from patient blood samples formed significantly more biofilm than isolates from wounds, sputum or bronchial wash samples. An inverse relationship between motility and biofilm formation was observed in the cohort of 17 clinical isolates of A. baumannii tested in this study. Motility was also inversely correlated with induction of hemolysis. An inverse correlation was observed between hemolysis and resistance to ticarcillin-k clavulanate, meropenem, and piperacillin. An inverse correlation was also observed between motility and resistance to ampicillin-sulbactam, ceftriaxone, ceftoxamine, ceftazidime, ciprofloxacin, or levofloxacin. Strain dependent variations in biofilm and motility are associated with anatomical site of isolation. Biofilm and hemolysis production both have an inverse association with motility in the cohort of strains utilized in this study, and motility and hemolysis were inversely correlated with resistance to numerous antibiotics.
Passive Exposure Sparsifies Neural Activity in the Primary Visual Cortex

A notable feature of neural activity is sparseness - namely, that only a small fraction of neurons in a local circuit have high activity at any moment. Not only is sparse neural activity observed experimentally in most areas of the brain, but sparseness has been proposed as an optimization or design principle for neural circuits. Sparseness can increase the energy efficiency of the neu- ral code as well as allow for beneficial computations to be carried out. But how does the brain achieve sparse- ness? Here, we found that when neurons in the primary visual cortex were passively exposed to a set of images over several days, neural responses became more sparse. Sparsification was driven by a decrease in the response of neurons with low or moderate activity, while highly active neurons retained similar responses. We also observed a net decorrelation of neural activity. These changes sculpt neural activity for greater coding efficiency.
On the weak lower semicontinuity of energies with polyconvex integrands

Let / : ft x R x R —> [0, oo) be a Borel measurable function such that /(x, u, •) is polyconvex in the last variable f for almost every x £ ft and for every u € R. It is shown that if / is continuous and F(u) := /n /(x,u(x),Vu{x))dx, u € VF^ft^R*), then F is weakly lower semicontinuous in W, p > N — 1, in the sense that F(xt) p > N 1. Precisely, it is shown that if F(u) := fK \det(Vu(x))\dx where if is a compact set, then F is weakly lower semicontinuous in W, N > p > N — 1 if and only if mea$(dK) = 0.
Semiquantitative Performance and Mechanism Evaluation of Carbon Nanomaterials as Cathode Coatings for Microbial Fouling Reduction

In this study, we examine bacterial attachment and survival on a titanium (Ti) cathode coated with various carbon nanomaterials (CNM): pristine carbon nanotubes (CNT), oxidized carbon nanotubes (O-CNT), oxidized-annealed carbon nanotubes (OA-CNT), carbon black (CB), and reduced graphene oxide (rGO). The carbon nanomaterials were dispersed in an isopropyl alcohol-Nafion solution and were then used to dip-coat a Ti substrate. Pseudomonas fluorescens was selected as the representative bacterium for environmental biofouling. Experiments in the absence of an electric potential indicate that increased nanoscale surface roughness and decreased hydrophobicity of the CNM coating decreased bacterial adhesion. The loss of bacterial viability on the noncharged CNM coatings ranged from 22% for CB to 67% for OA-CNT and was dependent on the CNM dimensions and surface chemistry. For electrochemical experiments, the total density and percentage of inactivation of the adherent bacteria were analyzed semiquantitatively as functions of electrode potential, current density, and hydrogen peroxide generation. Electrode potential and hydrogen peroxide generation were the dominant factors with regard to short-term (3-h) bacterial attachment and inactivation, respectively. Extended-time electrochemical experiments (12 h) indicated that in all cases, the density of total deposited bacteria increased almost linearly with time and that the rate of bacterial adhesion was decreased 8- to 10-fold when an electric potential was applied. In summary, this study provides a fundamental rationale for the selection of CNM as cathode coatings and electric potential to reduce microbial fouling.
Towards better evaluation for human language technology

Both research and evaluation in human language technology have enjoyed a big surge for the last fifteen years. Performance has made major advances, partially due to the availability of resources and the interest in the many evaluation forums present today. But there is much more to do, both in terms of new areas of research and in improved evaluation for these areas. This paper addresses the current state-ofthe-art in evaluation and then discusses some ideas for improving this evaluation.
Qualitative trend analysis of the principal components: application to fault diagnosis

Abstract Quick fault detection and diagnosis is very important for effective process operations management. Qualitative trend analysis (QTA), a data-driven semiquantitative technique, has been widely used for fault diagnosis (FD). Though QTA provides quick and accurate diagnosis - the increase in computational complexity of QTA with the increase in the number of sensors used for diagnosis - may prohibit its real-time application for very large-scale plants. In most of the chemical plants, the measurements are highly redundant and this redundancy can be exploited by performing principal component analysis (PCA) on the measured data. In this paper, we present a PCA-QTA technique for fault diagnosis in large-scale plants to reduce the computation time. Essentially, QTA is applied on the principal components rather than on the sensor data. The results are quite promising for the Tennessee Eastman (TE) process
DSP analog front end

A description is given of the TLC32040, a programmable analog interface system fabricated with advanced LinCMOS technology and capable of serving a significant portion of the speech and modem markets. Its versatility lends its use to a wide variety of digital signal processing (DSP) systems, providing each with a lower cost solution than its own volume could drive. The direct interface of TLC32040/1 to the TMS320C25 and TMS320C17 DSP processors is illustrated. >
Darwin on Aristotle

Charles Darwin's famous 1882 letter, in response to a gift by his friend, William Ogle of Ogle's recent translation of Aristotle's Parts of Animals, in which Darwin remarks that his “two gods,” Linnaeus and Cuvier, were “mere school-boys to old Aristotle,” has been thought to be only an extravagantly worded gesture of politeness. However, a close examination of this and other Darwin letters, and of references to Aristotle in Darwin's earlier work, shows that the famous letter was written several weeks after a first, polite letter of thanks, and was carefully formulated and literally meant. Indeed, it reflected an authentic, and substantial, increase in Darwin's already high respect for Aristotle, as a result of a careful reading both of Ogle's Introduction and of more or less the portion of Ogle's translation which Darwin says he has read. Aristotle's promotion to the pantheon, as an examination of the basis for Darwin's admiration of Linnaeus and Cuvier suggests, was most likely the result specifically of Darwin's late discovery that the man he already knew as “one of the greatest ... observers that ever lived” (1879) was also the ancient equivalent both of the great modern systematist and of the great modern advocate of comparative functional explanation. It may also have reflected some real insight on Darwin's part into the teleological aspect of Aristotle's thought, indeed more insight than Ogle himself had achieved, as a portion of their correspondence reveals.
Balmer- α and Balmer- β emission cross sections for low-energy H collisions with He and H 2

Absolute cross sections for the emission of Balmer-$\ensuremath{\alpha}$ and Balmer-$\ensuremath{\beta}$ radiations resulting from H + He and H + ${\mathrm{H}}_{2}$ collisions are reported for hydrogen-atom energies between about 50 eV and 2.5 keV. The polarizations of the emitted radiations are also reported. For hydrogen-atom energies above 200 eV, the contributions to these radiations from decay of the relatively long-lived $3s$ and $4s$ excited states of the projectile atoms are resolved. The results of the measurements are compared with other available data for these reactions, as well as with data for H impact on other target species.
Boundaries and violence: Repertoires of state action along the Bosnia/Yugoslavia divide

Boundary-related inequalities are perhaps starkest during war, where one’s location vis-a' -vis a boundary can mean the diierence between life and death. Drawing on 1997 ¢eld interviews in the former Yugoslavia, I explore the impact of the newly-created Bosnia/Yugoslavia border on the lives of Muslim Slavs during the ¢rst year of the Bosnian war. 3 On what became the ‘‘Bosnian’’ side of the border, Yugoslav authorities helped ethnic Serb paramilitaries launch a wave of ethnic cleansing, forcing tens of thousands of Muslims from their homes. 4 Miles away in the Sandzak, however, a partially Muslim area on the Yugoslav side of the boundary, the same authorities blocked forced displacement, prompting Serbian paramilitaries to engage instead in ethnic harassment, a perverse but less lethal phenomenon involving nationalist threats, attacks on Muslim property, and occasional murders or kidnappings. Although Sandzak’s 200,000 Muslims feared the Serbian paramilitaries living in their midst, the irregular ¢ghters, many of whom were active in the Bosnian ¢ghting, did not launch systematic attacks insideYugoslavia. Sandzak’s Muslims, in other words, were spared the destruction visited upon their Bosnian co-nationals, many of whom often lived only miles away. 5 For Sandzak’s Muslims, the new Bosnia/Yugoslavia territorial marker was enormously signi¢cant. Ironically, Muslims along the Bosnia/Yugoslav divide were safer if they were inside rather than immediately outside Serbian-dominated
Exploring genetic analysis of complex traits through the paradigm of alcohol dependence: Summary of GAW11 contributions

We discuss the Genetic Analysis Workshop 11 analyses of data from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism from a methodological perspective, concentrating on approaches and issues relevant to linkage and association studies of complex human phenotypes. Genome screening by parametric linkage, nonparametric linkage, association, and combined linkage/association methods are discussed. Issues particular to complex disease include etiologic heterogeneity, multivariate phenotype modeling, and parent-of-origin effects. Other methodological topics discussed are new and enhanced methods, ascertainment, weighting of nonindependent sib pairs, and data cleaning and validation.
Diagnostics Need Not Apply

Diagnostic testing helps caregivers and patients understand a patient’s condition, predict future outcomes, select appropriate treatments, and determine whether treatment is working. Improvements in diagnostic testing are essential to bring about the long-heralded promise of personalized medicine. Yet it seems increasingly clear that most important advances in this type of medical technology lie outside the boundaries of patent-eligible subject matter.The clarity of this conclusion has been obscured by ambiguity in the recent decisions of the Supreme Court concerning patent eligibility. Since its 2010 decision in Bilski v. Kappos, the Court has followed a discipline of limiting judicial exclusions from the statutory categories of patentable subject matter to a finite list repeatedly articulated in the Court’s own prior decisions for “laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas,” while declining to embrace other judicial exclusions that were never expressed in Supreme Court opinions. The result has been a series of decisions that, while upending a quarter century of lower court decisions and administrative practice, purport to be a straightforward application of ordinary principles of stare decisis. As the implications of these decisions are worked out, the Court’s robust understanding of the exclusions for laws of nature and abstract ideas seems to leave little room for patent protection for diagnostics.This essay reviews recent decisions on patent-eligibility from the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit to demonstrate the obstacles to patenting diagnostic methods under emerging law. Although the courts have used different analytical approaches in recent cases, the bottom line is consistent: diagnostic applications are not patent eligible. I then consider what the absence of patents might mean for the future of innovation in diagnostic testing.
A computational algorithm for robot dynamics

An efficient computational algorithm for a third-order robot model is derived. It is based on the Newton-Euler dynamics formulation and follows the method used in the algorithm for the second-order model. The computational complexity is linear with respect to number of degrees of freedom. It is concluded that the proposed algorithm may be used in both simulation and control. >
Mathematical decision support for rapid response policy and management decisions

Summary form only given as follows. The paper reviews the rapidly developing literature on the use of mathematical decision support in supporting rapid response policy and management decisions. An example of the use of a dynamic regional economic model to support local economic development decision making in the national capital region is used to demonstrate the concept.
Race, gender and pre-adolescent self-structure: a test of construct-specificity hypothesis

Abstract The present study is an attempt to determine if racial differences are uniformly present in various components of self-esteem structure. Racial differences in self-perceptions have been found in many studies among children and adolescents, but with inconsistent results. According to one explanation for these inconsistences, measures of “self-concept” in the literature are actually measures of different components of a construct with a hierarchical structure. Due to such construct differences, patterns of racial differences might be inconsistent across studies. In the present study it was hypothesized that although African American youth would have higher general self-esteem scores than Whites, racial differences in specific self-beliefs would not consistently favor one group over another. A sample of 637 (299 African American and 338 white) middle school students in two small southern towns were studied. As expected, African American pre-adolescents had significantly higher self-esteem scores. On only a few specific self-belief components, however, were there considerable differences between the two groups. The largest differences in favor of African Americans pertained to self-beliefs regarding appearance and attractiveness, and academic self-beliefs regarding. The reverse direction was present in relation to self-beliefs that reflected self-efficacy and control of events that happened to self.
Extrahepatic visualization in the distribution of falciform artery in posttreatment Bremsstrahlung images after radioembolization with 90Y microspheres

We report the case of a 39-year-old female with metastatic colorectal cancer. Pretreatment SPECT/CT imaging revealed extrahepatic tracer accumulation along the falciform artery distribution. Prior to the administration of 90Y microspheres, hepatic arterial anatomy was evaluated angiographically. It was not possible to identify the hepatic falciform artery so that no coil-embolization was performed. The patient tolerated the treatment well with only mild pain around the umbilicus during the procedure that spontaneously abated. As far as we know, this is the first report of Bremsstrahlung SPECT/CT images that has clearly shown that the microspheres accumulation in the anterior abdominal wall corresponds to hepatic falciform artery distribution on CT.
Chemical stability of phosphate conversion coatings on cold-rolled and electrogalvanized steels

Summary The attack of phosphate conversion coatings on cold-rolled (CRS) and electrogalvanized (EG) automotive steels in high and low pH solutions has been studied. Hopeite (HP) and phosphophyllite (PPH) crystals dissolve completely at pH below 3. HP also dissolves in alkali, whereas PPH is converted to a mixed oxide. The phosphate crystals have a pronounced texture which is influenced by the texture of the substrate. Certain orientations are more stable at high pH than others. There is a strong effect of the temperature on the chemical stability of the phosphate at high pH. The presence of NaCl increases the rate of phosphate attack at high pH. The mechanism of attack at high pH is a solid state reaction forming Zn(OH) 2 which is stabilized by iron, manganese and other ions resulting in the formation of complex zinc hydroxy compounds.
Variable temperature 207Pb NMR of PbTiO3

Abstract A variable temperature 207 Pb solid-state NMR study of lead titanate was conducted between −150 and 60°C. The isotropic lead chemical shift is only weakly dependent on temperature, probably because of changes in the average Pb–O distance, which is known to be correlated with the chemical shift. In contrast, the chemical shielding anisotropy increases markedly with lower temperature, and an excellent correlation is observed between the magnitude of the shielding anisotropy and the square of the tetragonal distortion parameter c / a −1. The chemical shift powder pattern remains axially symmetric over the entire temperature range, ruling out any substantial lowering of symmetry; it is unlikely, however, that the very small orthorhombic distortions detected in recent powder X-ray work can be observed by NMR.