cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Neurocognitive Outcomes in Relationship to Hippocampal and Brain Doses After Partial Brain Proton Radiation Therapy in Children

ranks will receive bonuses. In this study, we present an analysis of factors that predict for PG scores. Materials/Methods: PG scores were analyzed over a time span of 7 months including 71 patients and 1409 survey questions for an academic institution with two satellite centers. Multiple variables (i.e., age, performance status, diagnosis, treatment venue, presence of pain, concurrent chemotherapy) were analyzed for correlations with scores using the Independent T Test, Pearson Chi Square, and Fisher Exact Test. Results: 26 patients (36%) filled out all questions with scores of all 5, 16 patients (22%) had all 5s but incomplete survey, 39 patients (55%) had at least one non-5 score. 4 patients had a single non-5 score while 35 patients had multiple non-5 scores. For complete surveys, the median score was 104 (range 84 to 105), the average score was 102.5. Pain, increasing age, and treatment venue were predictive for non-5 scores. Conclusions: PG scores are becoming a vital metric as department reimbursement is tied into these scores. Patients with unsatisfactory scores tended to give non-5 scores across multiple questions, patients are seldom dissatisfied in a single area. We found several modifiable (treatment venue) and non-modifiable (older age and presence of pain) factors related to poor scores. While there is some potential methods for improving PG scores there are limitations, departments that see a disproportionate number of elderly palliative cases will likely have lower scores. Author Disclosure: A.B. Patel: None. T. LaCouture: None. K. Hunter: None. A. Tartaglia: None. G.J. Kubicek: None.
HAE update: epidemiology and burden of disease

Angioedema (AE) is characterized by swelling of the mucosa or submucosa and/or the subcutaneous tissue of the skin. Hereditary AE (HAE) is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder caused by dysfunctional C1 esterase inhibitor, which affects an estimated 1:10,000 to 1:50,000 patients. A survey study that was conducted between 2007 and 2008 to assess the burden of illness of HAE patients revealed they had significant decreases in physical and mental health, impaired work productivity, and a significantly greater amount of depression compared with patients afflicted with other chronic diseases. The cost of treating HAE is quite significant ranging from $14,000 a year for mild disease to $96,000 for severe disease. Given the changing paradigm for evaluation and treatment with the advent of increased recognition and availability of novel prophylactic and on-demand therapeutic agents, updated survey studies of this nature to assess burden of illness, quality of life, and associated treatment costs should be conducted to provide a better understanding of the optimal management of HAE patients in the United States.
Reflections on Habits, Buddhism in America, and Religious Individualism

The twentieth anniversary of the publication of Habits of the Heart, coinci dentally, coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the two Buddhist centers I write about in my book, Heartwood: The First Generation of Theravada Buddhism in America (Cadge 2005). Shortly after I was invited to speak on the 20th anniversary of Habits, the director of Cambridge Insight Meditation Center (CIMC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts-one of the two Buddhist centers I studied-asked me to speak at their twentieth anniversary party. I said yes to both invitations, though with a bit of hesitation. My hesitation stemmed primarily, as I said to the three hundred or so cele brants who gathered at CIMC on a steamy Sunday afternoon in July 2005, from the fact that I was not around for most of the history of CIMC. Nor was I aware of the discipline of sociology or the wide range of newspapers and other media in which Habits was reviewed when it was released in 1985. Rather, I was in ele mentary school getting ready for that not so happy move to the middle school and, at least in July of 1985 when CIMC opened, probably attending vacation bible school at the United Methodist church my family attended in suburban Philadelphia. Much has changed since 1985-in my life, in the field of sociology, in the structure and operation of CIMC (and the other Buddhist center I studied, a Thai Buddhist temple Wat Mongkoltepmunee near Philadelphia), and in the lives of the authors of Habits and the founders of CIMC. Thinking about the cen tral arguments made in Habits in relation to the history, structure, and evolution of CIMC, and Buddhism in America more broadly, has led me down some intriguing thought paths. Here I briefly share three of those. First, and most generally, I was struck in re-reading parts of Habits by the descriptions and characterizations of "Eastern religions" in its pages. Putting to the side the big fact that the voices and life experiences of post-1965 immigrants were largely missing from its pages, it was revealing to me to see Buddhism char acterized primarily as "counter-cultural." A few of the people described were seri
Rates of aminoacyl-transfer-ribonucleic acid synthesis in vivo and in vitro by bean leaves

1. A procedure for measuring rates of aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis in vitro and in intact leaves is presented. 2. Leaf discs showed rates close to those of intact leaves. 3. Cell-free preparations showed similar rates when assayed by pyrophosphate exchange, but actual aminoacyl-tRNA formation rates appeared to be much lower. Evidence is presented that dilution of supplied labelled amino acids was a major factor causing the low apparent rates. 4. Attempts to strip endogenous amino acids from plant tRNA resulted in low acceptor capability of the tRNA.
Induction of parturition in swine and epostane, a competitive inhibitor of 3 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase.

The ability of epostane, a competitive inhibitor of the 3 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3 beta-HSD) enzyme system, to decrease the peripheral levels of progesterone and induce sows to farrow was examined. Twenty-five sows were randomly divided into five groups. On d 109 of pregnancy, each sow received one of the following treatments: no epostane (Group C); one oral dose of 5 mg (Group O5) or 10 mg (Group O10) of epostane/kg of body weight; or a sc injection of 1 mg (Group I1) or 5 mg (Group I5) of epostane/kg of body weight. During the 24 h after treatment with epostane, the levels of progesterone were approximately one-half of pre-treatment levels. Progesterone was influenced (P less than .01) by treatments and time. The treatment X time interaction (P less than .05) appeared to be due mostly to the difference in response between the sows that received epostane or vehicle. Similar results were observed for estrogen. The interval from treatment to the birth of the first piglet for Groups C, O5, O10, I1 and I5 was 112, 31, 33, 77 and 32 h, respectively, and the intervals differed (P less than .01). Three gifts in Group I1, with an interval of 53, 124 and 133 h, were not considered to have been induced. The route of administration of epostane or dose did not influence (P greater than .05) the interval to the onset of farrowing. The interval from the birth of the first to the last piglet in a litter, the proportion of piglets born live and weaned, and the birth and weaning weights for the five groups were similar (P greater than .05). These results suggest that inhibitors of the 3 beta-HSD can be used to induce farrowing without adversely affecting either the sow or its litter.
DC Microgrid Protection: Using the Coupled-Inductor Solid-State Circuit Breaker

Since the great debate between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, our nation's power system has operated on alternating current (ac). This was chosen over direct current (dc) because of the need to increase voltage with ac transformers to a high value using transformers for long-distance power transmission. The system has served its purpose well, but now, many energy sources, such as solar panels, fuel cells, and batteries, supply dc voltage. Also, dc/dc power converters are commonly used to transform voltage and to interface these dc sources with a larger system. Because of this, local dc power systems (or microgrids) have become popular topics in research literature. It also turns out that interfacing a wind power generator to a dc system is simpler than interfacing it to an ac system because ac/dc conversion is needed for the former and ac/dc/ac conversion is needed for the latter. Although energy sources and power conversion are readily available for dc power systems, some highperformance applications require fast-acting dc circuit breakers, which are currently in the experimental phase. This article discusses options for high-performance dc circuit breakers and specifically details the coupled-inductor dc breaker. This breaker is demonstrated for fault protection in a notional dc microgrid.
Stochastic Models and Linear Tracer Kinetics

The purpose of a model is to verify whether some hypotheses made on a real system are valid (Rescigno and Beck, 1987), and subordinately to determine the values of some of the parameters that represent specific properties of the system under study (Zierler, 1981). For instance the model commonly used when dilution phenomena are expected, is a set of ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients, while when diffusion phenomena are the case, partial differential equations are to be used, finite difference equations for delay phenomena, etc.
The M8 Power Calibration Experiment (M8CAL)

The M8 calibration experiment was a series of 23 irradiations in TREAT performed to determine the relationship between the fission power generated in the TREAT core and the fission power generated in experiment fuel located in an in-core experiment vehicle and irradiated by core neutrons. The experiment was planned to provide the essential calibration information specifically needed for planning and analysis of the M8 test (and subsequent tests similar in geometry to M8) to be performed in the post-upgrade TREAT core. Irradiations were performed in TREAT cores loaded with a full-slotted (to optimize hodoscope performance) and with a half-slotted (to maximize energy deposition). Tests included a few selected low-power irradiations of fresh IFR-type U-Zr and U-Pu-Zr fuel pins supplemented by multiple irradiations of uranium-zirconium monitor wires ranging from low steady-state power to high-power maximal transients. This report describes the M8CAL test hardware, measurements, analysis assumptions, and methods used to deduce power coupling between the reactor and experiment fuel--including both absolute magnitudes and axial distributions. Power coupling results are reported for fresh IF fuel pins under high-power transient test conditions appropriate to the planned M8 transient test. In line with previous calibration data, measured dependence of power coupling on the specificsmore » of each irradiation is also shown to correlate well with the in-core axial locations of the TREAT control rods. Estimates are made for maximal test fuel energy deposition capabilty in controlled transients.« less
Multiattribute Utility Theory (MAUT)

In this chapter, we provide a review of multiattribute utility theory. We begin with a brief review of single-attribute preference theory, and explore preference representations that measure a decision maker’s strength of preference and her preferences for risky alternatives. We emphasize the distinction between these two cases, and then explore the implications for multiattribute preference models. We describe the multiattribute decision problem, and discuss the conditions that allow a multiattribute preference function to be decomposed into additive and multiplicative forms under conditions of certainty and risk. The relationships among these distinct types of multiattribute preference functions are then explored, and issues related to their assessment and applications are surveyed.
Nation and commemoration: “To remind ourselves that we are a united nation”: bicentennial celebrations in 1976 and 1988

When the United States celebrated the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence in 1976, and Australia commemorated the bicentenary of its European settlement in 1988, ritual and symbol were mobilized once again to characterize the imagined community of the “nation.” Many of the challenges to national integration which had once worried centennial organizers had been overcome. Regional political differences and geographic dispersion were no longer critical problems for claims about shared national identity. National political institutions, national markets, and international position were all better established than they had been in the centennials, in both countries. There had been significant growth in the capacity of the American state in the intervening century, as well as expansion and consolidation of the national economy, and the acquisition of a central geopolitical role. In Australia, formal federation had created the Australian state, an industrialized national economy had grown, and links with Britain had been attenuated by other geopolitical alliances and somewhat more diverse immigration. Further, patriots in both countries could draw on defining moments and formative experiences unknown in the centennials, like Gallipoli in Australia or the Cold War in the United States. But to organizers of the bicentennials, their tasks did not seem any simpler. In 1876, many Americans had hoped that the centennial would bring “the revival of a just and noble national pride.” By 1976, that revival seemed necessary again. “Amid the dissension that sometimes amounts to hate in our country today,” Americans were warned as their “Bicentennial Era” was launched on television in 1971, “it behooves us to remind ourselves that we are a united nation.” Centennial organizers might have said much the same thing.
Does the Open Payments Database Provide Sunshine on Neurosurgery

Background The Open Payments Database (OPD) was launched by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in 2014. Through this online searchable database, the public can explore physician-industry interactions. To date, there is no published literature on the accuracy of the database for neurosurgeons or any physician specialty. Objective To study the accuracy of published records and scope of industry-neurosurgeon relationships between neurosurgeons and industry within the OPD. Methods We searched 4.3 million records in 2013 and 11.41 million records in 2014 in the OPD for board-certified neurosurgeons verified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Delimit software was used to condense these data, Microsoft Access for database queries, and STATA to perform descriptive analyses. Results Of the 3240 neurosurgeons in the OPD in 2013, 2020 were identified correctly as neurosurgeons within the database (62%). Of the 3593 neurosurgeons in the OPD in 2014, 2433 were identified correctly as neurosurgeons (68%). Within the OPD in 2013, there were 72 066 attributed records for neurosurgeons; within the 2014 OPD, there were 160 563 attributed records for neurosurgeons. Total payments to neurosurgeons in 2013 (for the 9 months published in OPD): $61 802 659.37; in 2014: $117 127 824.00. Conclusion The OPD details physician interactions with industry and has multiple inaccuracies. Publicly availing inaccurate information through a searchable governmental website that can be accessed by patients and journalists alike has the potential to tarnish individual neurosurgeons and undermine professional credibility. Abbreviations CMS, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid ServicesOPD, Open Payments Database.
Overview of the NLPCC 2017 Shared Task: Open Domain Chinese Question Answering

In this paper, we give the overview of the open domain Question Answering (or open domain QA) shared task in the NLPCC-ICCPOL 2016. We first review the background of QA, and then describe two open domain Chinese QA tasks in this year’s NLPCC-ICCPOL, including the construction of the benchmark datasets and the evaluation metrics. The evaluation results of submissions from participating teams are presented in the experimental part.
Prospective Evaluation of Unrelated Donor Cord Blood and Haploidentical Donor Access Reveals Graft Availability Varies by Patient Ancestry: Practical Implications for Donor Selection

Abstract The availability of cord blood (CB) and haploidentical (haplo) donors in all patient populations is not established. We have investigated the addition of haplo-CD34+ cells to CB grafts (haplo-CBT) to speed myeloid engraftment. Thus, we have prospectively assessed CB and haplo donor availability in adult patients without 8/8 HLA-allele matched unrelated donors (URDs). Analysis of 89 patients eligible for haplo-CBT revealed 4 distinct patient groups. First, 6 patients (7% of total, 33% non-European) underwent CBT only as they had no suitable family members to type. In group 2, 49 patients (45% non-European) received haplo-CBT using the first haplo donor chosen. Group 3 (n = 21, 76% non-European) underwent CBT with/without haplo. In this group, the first haplo donor chosen failed clearance in 20 patients and transplantation was too urgent to permit donor evaluation in 1. Fifty-three haplo donors were evaluated (2 to 6 per patient) for 21 group 3 patients, and 43 of 53 (81%) haplos failed clearance for predominantly medical and/or psychosocial reasons. Group 4, (n = 13, 85% non-European with a high median weight of 96 kilograms) had no CB grafts with/without no haplo donors. Overall, African patients had the worst donor availability with only 65% having a suitable CB graft and only 44% having a suitable haplo donor. Additionally, in non-European patients, a greater number of haplos required evaluation/patient to secure a suitable haplo graft. Although these data should be confirmed in a larger study, it suggests that there are barriers to the availability of both CB and haplo grafts in adult patients without 8/8 URDs, especially in those with African ancestry, and has multiple practical implications for patient management.
From translocal to transnational: WHS articulations

Abstract This study examines South Korean print media coverage of two traditional Korean clan villages, Hahoe and Yangdong, both designated World Heritage Site (WHS) in 2010 after nomination to the tentative list in 2001. The study explores the representation of these villages by Korean mass media leading up, and after the process of WHS designation. Findings suggest that the evolution of articulations of heritage and tourism require an event or concern that disrupts the existing interests and needs, and calls upon social agents to consider future implications and opportunities. Some articulations remain for longer periods of time if they continue to serve the needs of the present. The sociocultural significance and implications of the findings are discussed.
Comparative Proteomic Analysis of Three Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) Host Cells.

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells have been widely used to express heterologous genes and produce therapeutic proteins in biopharmaceutical industry. Different CHO host cells have distinct cell growth rates and protein expression characteristics. In this study, the expression of about 1,307 host proteins in three sublines, i.e. CHO K1, CHO S and CHO/dihydrofolate reductase (dhfr)- , were investigated and compared using proteomic analysis. The proteins involved in cell growth, glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid cycle, transcription, translation and glycosylation were quantitated using Liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The key host cell proteins that regulate the kinetics of cell growth and the magnitude of protein expression levels were identified. Furthermore, several rational cell engineering strategies on how to combine the desired features of fast cell growth and efficient production of therapeutic proteins into one new super CHO host cell have been proposed.
High pressure transition in InSb

Abstract InSb (phase I) transforms at room temperature under a pressure of 23 kbars to a metallic phase (II) having a body-centered tetragonal structure with lattice constants a = 5.79 ± 0.03 and c = 3.15 + 0.03 A. An additional transition InSb I → IA was observed and was attributed to a higher order electronic transition. The InSb pressure-temperature phase diagram is discussed on a thermodynamic basis. The electrical behavior of phase II and the kinetics of the InSb I ⇄ II transformations were investigated and compared to the Sn α ⇄ β transformations. Approximate activation energies for the I → II and II → I reactions are reported and discussed in terms of various transformation mechanisms.
Beyond the Ivory Tower

Eight years later, I was reluctant to contact the participants for a third time. It had been 12 years since their graduation. However, I was deeply curious to find out what impact an elite education had on their lives. As alumni, they reflect on how an elite college education has changed their lives both personally and professionally. They also provide advice to low-income students and elite schools. This chapter provides an insight on how an elite college degree creates opportunity for social mobility among this population.
The Boxer Codex: Transcription and Translation of an Illustrated Late Sixteenth-century Spanish Manuscript Concerning the Geography, Ethnography and History of the Pacific, South-East Asia and East Asia

For the pre-Hispanic history and early colonial ethnohistory of the Americas, there is no more important source than the well-known corpus of surviving illustrated and pictographic codices that inc...
Cardiovascular Events in Alcoholic Syndrome With Alcohol Withdrawal History: Results From the National Inpatient Sample.

Abstract Background Epidemiologic studies suggest reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) events with moderate alcohol consumption. However, heavy and binge drinking may be associated with higher CVD risk. Utilizing the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, we studied the association between a troublesome alcohol history (TAH), defined as those with diagnoses of both chronic alcohol syndrome and acute withdrawal history and CVD events. Methods Patients >18 years with diagnoses of both chronic alcohol syndrome and acute withdrawal using the International Classification of Diseases-Ninth Edition-Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes 303.9 and 291.81, were identified in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample 2009-2010 database. Demographics, including age and sex, as well as CVD event rates were collected. Results Patients with TAH were more likely to be male, with a smoking history and have hypertension, with less diabetes, hyperlipidemia and obesity. After multimodal adjusted regression analysis, odds of coronary artery disease, acute coronary syndrome, in-hospital death and heart failure were significantly lower in patients with TAH when compared to the general discharge patient population. Conclusions Utilizing a large inpatient database, patients with TAH had a significantly lower prevalence of CVD events, even after adjusting for demographic and traditional risk factors, despite higher tobacco use and male sex predominance, when compared to the general patient population.
Interactions Between Physicians and Skilled Home Health Care Agencies in the Certification of Medicare Beneficiaries' Plans of Care: Results of a Nationally Representative Survey

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services form 485 (CMS-485) is typically used for certification of care plans for patients who receive Medicare skilled home health care (SHHC) services. In this...
The F domain of estrogen receptor α is involved in species-specific, tamoxifen-mediated transactivation.

Estrogen receptor α (ERα) is a major transducer of estrogen-mediated physiological signals. ERα is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, which encompasses ligand-dependent transcription factors. The C terminus of nuclear receptors, termed the F domain, is the least homologous region among the members of this family. The ERα F domain possesses 45 amino acids; however, its function remains unclear. We noticed that the homology of the F domains between mouse and human ERαs is remarkably lower (75.6% similarity) than that between the entire proteins (94.7% similarity). To assess the functionality of the ERα F domains, here we generated chimeric ERα expression constructs with mouse-human–exchanged F domains. Using cell-based in vitro assays, we analyzed the transcriptional coactivator interaction and ligand-binding domain dimerization activities of these mouse–human F domain–swapped ERαs. We found that the transcriptional activity of the mouse WT ERα is more potent than that of the human WT ERα in the human hepatoma cell line HepG2. 4-Hydroxytamoxifen (4OHT)-mediated transcriptional activity of mouse–human F domain–swapped ERαs was the inverse of the WT ERα activities but not estradiol-mediated transcriptional activities. Further experiments with constructs containing deletion or point mutations of a predicted β-strand region within the F domain suggested that this region governs the species-specific 4OHT-mediated transcriptional activity of ERα. We conclude that the ERα F domain has a species-specific function in 4OHT-mediated receptor transactivation and that mouse–human F domain–swapped ERα mutants enable key insights into ERα F domain structure and function.
Elements of Algebra. By John Stillwell

(1996). Elements of Algebra. By John Stillwell. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 103, No. 2, pp. 186-189.
The virtue of simplicity

It is known that IST (internal set theory) is a conservative extension of ZFC (Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice); see for example the appendix to [2] for a proof using ultrapowers and ultralimits. But these semantic constructions leave one wondering what actually makes the theory work—what are the inner mechanisms of Abraham Robinson’s new logic. Let us examine the question syntactically.
Homogeneous Catalysis of Oxidation Reactions Using Phosphine Complexes

Oxidation is one of the most important reactions in chemistry and biochemistry. Combustion of hydrocarbons drives much of our economy and transportation, and biological oxidation processes are fundamental to life and ecology. From an industrial viewpoint, oxidation reactions occupy a pivotal role in the conversion of hydrocarbons into required products, and indeed it has been estimated that over 50% of such processes involve hydrocarbon oxidations. (1)
DeepFuzz: Automatic generation of syntax valid C programs for fuzz testing

Compilers are among the most fundamental programming tools for building software. However, production compilers remain buggy. Fuzz testing is often leveraged with newlygenerated, or mutated inputs in order to find new bugs or security vulnerabilities. In this paper, we propose a grammarbased fuzzing tool called DEEPFUZZ. Based on a generative Sequence-to-Sequence model, DEEPFUZZ automatically and continuously generates well-formed C programs. We use this set of new C programs to fuzz off-the-shelf C compilers, e.g., GCC and Clang/LLVM. We present a detailed case study to analyze the success rate and coverage improvement of the generated C programs for fuzz testing. We analyze the performance of DEEPFUZZ with three types of sampling methods as well as three types of generation strategies. Consequently, DEEPFUZZ improved the testing efficacy in regards to the line, function, and branch coverage. In our preliminary study, we found and reported 8 bugs of GCC, all of which are actively being addressed by developers.
Design and Evaluation of an Idealized Porous Medium for Calibration of Permeability Measuring Devices

Calibration of permeability measuring devices or experimental setups remains an important concern of the flow modeling community of LCM processes (the set of technologies, including RTM and VARTM, ...
Association of the Dynamic Gait Index to fall history and muscle function in people with multiple sclerosis.

Background and purpose: This study examined the association of a commonly used gait assessment, the Dynamic Gait Index, with falls and lower extremity and trunk muscle function in people with multi...
What Do We Really Know About Adolescent Sexual Health Education: A Dimensional Concept Analysis

Adolescent sexual health education is a complex concept with multiple dimensions. Approximately 95% of adolescents report receiving sexual health education before graduating high school but the con...
Hydrogen gas therapy improves survival rate and neurological deficits in subarachnoid hemorrhage rats: a pilot study

The high morbidity, high mortality, and significant shortage of effective therapies for subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) have created an urgency to discover novel therapies. Human studies in Asia have established the safety of hydrogen gas in the treatment of hepatic, renal, pulmonary, and cardiac diseases. Mechanistically, hydrogen gas has been shown to affect oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis. We hypothesized that hydrogen therapy would improve neurological function and increase survival rate in SAH. High dose hydrogen gas (66% at 3 L/min) was administered for 2 hours at 0.5, 8, and 18 hours after SAH. This treatment increased 72-hour survival rate and provided 24-hour neuroprotection after SAH in rats. To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating that high dose hydrogen gas therapy reduces mortality and improves outcome after SAH. Our results correlate well with the proposed mechanisms of hydrogen gas therapy within the literature. We outline four pathways and downstream targets of hydrogen gas potentially responsible for our results. A potentially complex network of pathways responsible for the efficacy of hydrogen gas therapy, along with a limited mechanistic understanding of these pathways, justifies further investigation to provide a basis for clinical trials and the advancement of hydrogen gas therapy in humans. This study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Loma Linda University, USA (Approval No. 8160016) in May 2016.
Outcome of Conservative Management in the Treatment of Symptomatic Spondylolysis and Grade I Spondylolisthesis

Purpose: Bracing, thoraco-lumbar-sacral orthosis (TLSO), has been accepted as mainstay of treatment for symptomatic spondylolysis (SP) and grade I spondylolisthesis (SPL1). However increasing costs and patient noncompliance can make bracing prohibitive and difficult to manage. The purpose of our study was to determine if SP and SPL1 can be effectively treated using physical therapy and other non-bracing conservative management techniques in order to relieve pain and restore physical function. Methods: We performed a …
GPU-accelerated principal-agent game for scalable citizen science

Citizen science programs have been instrumental in boosting sustainability projects, large-scale scientific discovery, and crowd-sourced experimentation. Nevertheless, these programs witness challenges in submissions' quality, such as sampling bias resulting from citizens' preferences to complete some tasks over others. The sampling bias frequently manifests itself in the program's dataset as spatially clustered submissions, which reduce the efficacy of the dataset for subsequent scientific studies. To address the spatial clustering problem, programs use reward schemes obtained from game-theoretical models to incentivize citizens to perform tasks that are more meaningful from a scientific point of view. Herein we propose a GPU-accelerated approach for the Avicaching game, which was recently introduced by the eBird citizen science program to incentivize birdwatchers to collect bird data from under-sampled locations. Avicaching is a Principal-Agent game, in which the principal corresponds to the citizen science program (eBird) and the agents to the birdwatchers or citizen scientists. Previous approaches for solving the Avicaching game used approximations based on mixed-integer programming and knapsack algorithms combined with learning algorithms, using standard CPU hardware. Following the recent advances in scalable deep learning and parallel computation on Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), we propose a novel approach to solve the Avicaching game, which takes advantage of neural networks and parallelism for large-scale games. We demonstrate that our approach better captures agents' behavior, which allows better learning and more effective incentive distribution in a real-world bird observation dataset. Our approach also allows for massive speedups using GPUs. As Avicaching is representative of games that are aimed at reducing spatial clustering in citizen science programs, our scalable reformulation for Avicaching enables citizen science programs to tackle sampling bias and improve submission quality on a large scale.
Is there a Relationship between Industry Concentration and Patent Activity

The relationship between market concentration and quantity of patent activity may reveal more than the validity of Schumpeter’s (1942) hypothesis that innovation is greater in imperfectly competitive markets. Empirical estimates of the relationship may reveal the relative importance of different uses of patents, which include recovering R&D investment and obtaining strategic advantages over competitors. With a sample of over 1000 North American manufacturing firms, I explore this possibility and initially find a positive relationship between a firm’s industry concentration and number of granted patents. However, after controlling for R&D expenditure, this relationship disappears while R&D expenditure itself has a large positive impact on patent quantity. This suggests an indirect relationship between industry concentration and patent activity - R&D expenditure is positively related to industry concentration and patent activity is positively related to R&D expenditure, but given a level of R&D expenditure patent activity is independent of industry concentration. This indirect relationship suggests the predominant use of patents across manufacturing industries is to recover R&D investment. However, in particular industries where patents are used more frequently for strategic reasons it remains possible that industry concentration has a significant independent effect on patent activity. Further research, that isolates inter-industry differences in the use of patents, is needed to test this possibility.
Infraspinatus Tenotomy Improves Glenoid Visualization With the Modified Judet Approach

OBJECTIVES To determine if the addition of an infraspinatus tenotomy to the modified Judet approach (MJA) improves glenoid visualization. METHODS We performed an MJA on 14 human cadaveric shoulders. After exposing the glenoid, the boundary of the visualized glenoid surface was marked with a 1.8- and 2.0-mm drill bit before and after performing an infraspinatus tenotomy, respectively. The humerus was disarticulated, and the pre- and post-tenotomy drill marks were verified. The area of the entire glenoid, and each of the 4 quadrants [anterior-superior (AS), anterior-inferior (AI), posterior-superior (PS), and posterior-inferior (PI)] were analyzed using a custom image-processing program. The amount of glenoid exposure and percentage of area visualized before and after the tenotomy were compared. RESULTS Adding an infraspinatus tenotomy to the MJA significantly increased total glenoid area (cm) exposure by 33%, P < 0.0001. Three of 4 glenoid quadrants (PS, AS, and AI) had a significant increase in glenoid visualization, with the AS quadrant having the most substantial improvement after the tenotomy (+67%), P < 0.0001. CONCLUSIONS The results provide the percentage of glenoid fossa that can be seen using an MJA and demonstrate that visualization significantly improves after adding an infraspinatus tenotomy.
Product Usability and Capability Evaluation using Modified BAT-ARM Algorithm to Alleviate Feature Fatigue

The growth of online shopping in recent years have become most common factor for buying the products. As most customers prefers the products with more features for better usage, there are more chances of making customers unhappy due to unwanted features. This uncertain impact on the product from the customers is termed as Feature Fatigue. To avoid this a proper mechanism must be constructed to remove such dissatisfaction to alleviate Feature Fatigue (FF) of a product. In this paper an Improved BAT – Association Rule Mining (IB-ARM) algorithm is proposed for generating optimal rules to evaluate product usability and capability for alleviating FF. In IB-ARM algorithm Elitism operator is applied to propagate BAT optimal solution set. Finally, a Hybrid Ant Colony optimization and Artificial Bee Colony (ACO-ABC) algorithm is applied for Feature Fatigue analysis.
High-Risk Colorectal Surgery: What Are the Outcomes for Geriatric Patients?

The population is aging and more geriatric patients are undergoing surgery. The national burden and age-specific outcomes of previously defined high-risk colorectal procedures (HRCP) remain unknown...
Effects of Elevated Concentrations of Co-Existing Heavy Metals and PAHs in Soil on Phytoremediation

Abstract This study presents a series of laboratory experiments conducted to investigate the effects of elevated contaminant concentrations on phytoremediation of soils with mixed contaminants. A s...
The Relationship between Just World Beliefs and Life Satisfaction

An important and often unexplored factor shaping life satisfaction is one’s perception of the world as a “just” place. The “just world hypothesis” is predicated on the idea that the world works as a place where people get what they merit, an idea that often serves as a means for people to rationalize injustices. The research addressing just world beliefs has expanded into a four-factor model that categorizes just world beliefs for self and others into subcategories of distributive and procedural justice. Distributive justice involves evaluations of the fairness of outcomes, allocations, or distribution of resources, while procedural concerns evaluations of the fairness of decision processes, rules, or interpersonal treatment. This study explored the relationship between the four just world beliefs subscales and overall satisfaction with life and examined their associations with demographic variables including ethnicity, age, gender, religion, and social class. The relationships of demographic factors with justice beliefs and life satisfaction generally yielded very small effect sizes. However, respondents who identified themselves as middle and upper class reported higher levels of life satisfaction than those who identified themselves as lower class, with a medium effect size. Consistent with the results of earlier research, regressing life satisfaction on the four justice beliefs subscales indicated that the two self-subscales (distributive and procedural) were significantly predictive of life satisfaction, but the two other subscales (distributive and procedural) were not.
Imaging Magnetization Structure and Dynamics in Ultrathin Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 / Pt Bilayers with High Sensitivity Using the Time-Resolved Longitudinal Spin Seebeck Effect

With low magnetic damping and strong spin-orbit torques, thin-film heterostructures of ferromagnetic insulator plus normal metal are at the frontier of spintronics research---but how can we directly study the local, short-time response of the insulator? This capability is crucial to the science and engineering of active spintronic technology. Thus the authors develop a highly sensitive magnetic microscope that uses spin-heat interactions to monitor the magnetic dynamics in a very thin layer of ferromagnetic insulator, with temporal resolution better than 100 ps and spatial resolution better than 700 nm.
A Piecewise Contractive Map on Triangles

We study the dynamics of a geometric piecewise map defined on the set of three pairwise nonparallel, nonconcurrent lines in R2. The geometric map of study may be analogized to the billiard map with...
Impact of Patient Follow-Up with a Multidisciplinary Team After Bariatric Surgery in a Middle Eastern Academic Medical Center

Background: Successful bariatric surgery involves expertise from a multidisciplinary team. However, compliance with postoperative follow-up is often suboptimal and may impact weight loss. This stud...
The Effects of Chronic Exposure to Ambient Traffic-Related Air Pollution on Alzheimer's Disease Phenotypes in Wildtype and Genetically Predisposed Male and Female Rats.

Background: Epidemiological data link traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) to increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Preclinical data corroborating this association are largely from studies of...
A Simulation of the Faculty-Assignment Problem: An Integer Programming Approach

In this paper, the authors formulate and solve the integer programming model of the faculty assignment problem. This integer programming model is capable of assigning different faculty members to different task forces according to their productivities.
Caspases land on APP: One small step for apoptosis, one giant leap for amyloidosis?

Gervais et al. suggest that caspase cleavage of amyloid precursor protein (APP) may initiate a feedback loop that produces β-amyloid deposits in Alzheimer's disease.
Economic Assistance to Impoverished Americans

* * * This study examined the relationship between a measure of public assistance to poor families (adjusted for cost of living differences among SMSAs) and crime rates. The regression analyses controlled for the effects of several other economic and noneconomic factors thought to influence variation in crime rates and utilized census and other data for the S9 SMSAs for which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provided cost-of-living data in 1970. The results indicated that level of public assistance to poor families had an independent negative effect on the variation of several crime rates, including rates of homicide, rape, and burglary. The results suggest that a substantial reduction in the level of public assistance to the poor may contribute to significant increase in crime rates.
Airborne Gravity Measurements Over the Kelvin Seamount

In October 1989, the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office conducted airborne gravity measurements with a Bell Gravity Meter (BGM-3) onboard a Navy P-3 aircraft. These measurements were taken concurrently with a technical evaluation of a newly installed radar altimeter. The survey was flown over the Kelvin Seamount of the New England seamount chain. Navigation control was provided by an Electrically Suspended Gyro and Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite receivers. Eotvos corrections were computed from both the hand-smoothed navigation and the filtered GPS velocity data. Vertical acceleration corrections were computed from the radar altimetry data. The corrections were match filtered to the BGM-3 RC hardware filter prior to applying them to the raw observations. All parameters were sampled at a 1-Hz sample rate. Broadband noise ranging from a few seconds to about 90 seconds was observed in the corrected data and is assumed to be related to aircraft dynamics. The data were low passed to remove this noise. Crosstrack differences using the hand-smoothed navigation had a RMS of 4.6 mGals, while those derived from the filtered GPS data were slightly higher. Inversion of this airborne gravity data and the possible detection of ocean standing waves are also discussed.
Coupling radiative heat transfer in participating media with other heat transfer modes

The common methods for finding the local radiative flux divergence in participating media through solution of the radiative transfer equation are outlined. The pros and cons of each method are discussed in terms of their speed, ability to handle spectral properties and scattering phenomena, as well as their accuracy in different ranges of media transport properties. The suitability of each method for inclusion in the energy equation to efficiently solve multi-mode thermal transfer problems is discussed. Finally, remaining topics needing research are outlined.
Gradients of contractions in the opossum esophagus.

Contractions of longitudinal and circular smooth muscle strips from the opossum esophagus were monitored in vitro. Three types of experiments were performed. (1) KC1-induced contractions were recorded isometrically, and the time intervals between rhythmic contractions were measured by computer. In longitudinal muscle strips, the interval between contractions increased progressively from 1.95 sec for strips taken 6 cm from the gastroesophageal junction (GES) to 3.15 sec for strips taken 1 cm from the GES. There was no gradient in circular muscle strips. (2) Contractions were induced by transmural electrical stimulation. The ability of strips to follow stimuli at progressively shorter interstimulus intervals was determined. Circular muscle strips, but not longitudinal muscle strips, showed a gradient in the ability to follow high frequency stimulation. (3) The stimulus-response delay was determined with transmural electrical stimulation. For circular muscle strips, the delay increased from 0.8 sec for strips taken 12 cm from the GES to 2.2 sec for strips taken 1 cm from the GES. No gradient existed for longitudinal muscle strips. Thus, differences exist over very short segments of the esophagus, in the nerves, muscle, or both, which may partially account for peristaltic movements. A hypothesis is proposed about the nature of peristalsis in the smooth muscle of the esophagus.
Productive efficiency and energy use: An historical perspective

The paper discusses long-term trends in relationships between energy use and the overall productive efficiency of the American economy. While total energy consumption grew strongly during the twentieth century, the intensity of energy use (i.e. the energy/GNP ratio) fell persistently much of the time. Thus, there were simultaneous long-term improvements in labor productivity, total factor productivity,and energy productivity. The historical record appears to be at odds with conventional beliefs that gains in productive efficiency depend upon the rising intensity of energy use in production processes. A key role in bringing about these counter-intuitive results is assigned to what is referred to as the energy-technology-productivity nexus, in which the quality of particular energy forms such as electricity and liquid fuels (along with closely linked changes in energy-using technologies) played a critical part in leveraging the overall efficiency of production. As a result of these energy form-dependent improvements in productive efficiency, outputs grew more rapidly than all inputs, including the inputs of energy. The more recent past stands in sharp contrast to the long-term record. While energy efficiency (as measured by energy/GNP) showed strong gains during the late 1970's and early 1980's, the growth in overall productive efficiency was severely retarded. Implications for the future of suggested linkages between the quality of particular energy forms and technological progress are considered.
A Response to Anthony Fleury's “Liberal Education and Communication Against the Disciplines”: A View from the World of Writing

Parallel to current trends in communication across the curriculum (CXC), the field of writing across the curriculum (WAC) earlier experienced a shift from generalized writing-to-learn emphases to more discipline-specific writing research and instruction. Based on studies of course demands as well as of writing in the professions, the consensus among WAC teachers now recognizes that the teaching of writing in disciplines must align with the particular practices of those disciplines, though that alignment is not always easy to achieve. Some critics of this consensus echo concerns expressed in this issue by Fleury, that teaching in a discipline-specific manner will fragment the humanistic mission of teaching speaking or writing. Yet, students wrestling to learn discipline-specific rhetorics can yet accomplish the humanistic tasks of finding identity and even challenging prevailing language conventions.