cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Octree-based segmentation for terrestrial LiDAR point cloud data in industrial applications

Abstract Automated and efficient algorithms to perform segmentation of terrestrial LiDAR data is critical for exploitation of 3D point clouds, where the ultimate goal is CAD modeling of the segmented data. In this work, a novel segmentation technique is proposed, starting with octree decomposition to recursively divide the scene into octants or voxels, followed by a novel split and merge framework that uses graph theory and a series of connectivity analyses to intelligently merge components into larger connected components. The connectivity analysis, based on a combination of proximity, orientation, and curvature connectivity criteria, is designed for the segmentation of pipes, vessels, and walls from terrestrial LiDAR data of piping systems at industrial sites, such as oil refineries, chemical plants, and steel mills. The proposed segmentation method is exercised on two terrestrial LiDAR datasets of a steel mill and a chemical plant, demonstrating its ability to correctly reassemble and segregate features of interest.
Responding to Change: Introducing the New Business and Practice Improvement Section.

The Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program includes a 1% withhold with an opportunity to recoup the withhold based on performance in quality and cost measures, which will increase to 2% in 2017. 2 The Value Modifier will be implemented in 2017 with up to a 2% penalty for low quality, high cost health care based on Physician Quality Reporting System measures. Factors driving this movement toward value transparency include staggering health care costs in the U.S., underperformance relative to other countries on most dimensions of health care, the high rate of medical errors with serious consequences, and price variation between hospitals at the local and national level that appear unrelated to differences in the quality of care provided. 3,4 Aligning with the transition from volume to value will be critical for radiology practices regardless of the type of practice, though the timing of when to make the transition is uncertain. Also uncertain is how value in imaging will be defined so that it can be linked to reimbursement—it is clear that a great deal of work still needs to be done in identifying and implementing measures that truly reflect the quality of imaging services provided. There are a number of quality and cost measures important to our stakeholders that can be measured but cannot be linked to reimbursement. Then there are important services and “intangibles” radiologists offer that may be unknown outside of the field and simply cannot be measured on a dashboard or reported to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It is the entirety of these services, both measurable and immeasurable, that constitutes our added value to the health care system and its stakeholders. Yet even if we succeed in defining and measuring all of our value-added activities, we are then faced with the challenge of incorporating these important services, many of which are nonbillable and nonreimbursable, into alternative payment models that thus far have maintained the fee-for-service approach for reimbursing imaging services. 5 Major
Secretion of Orally Administered Radio-Iron in the Milk of Cows

ConclusionsIn the 2 cows studied, 1.5% and 2.5% of the radio-iron administered orally was secreted respectively in the milk during a 78-hour period.I am deeply indebted to Dr. M. D. Kamen for preparing the radioactive iron solution used and for counting the samples; to Dr. O. W. Schalm, Department of Veterinary Science, for the use of the cows and for the procurement of the blood and milk used; and to Dr. L. H. Duschak, Department of Mining Engineering, for use of high temperature ovens.
Church Elites and the Restoration of Civil Society in the Communist Societies of Central Europe

The active role played by churches in the pro-democracy move ments of Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, particularly in Poland and East Germany, challenges us to take a closer look at some of the as sumptions commonly held in the West about churches under commu nism. Marxist teaching does not proscribe religion, but rather considers religion to be primitive and superstitious, and predicts that religion will tend to disappear in an enlightened communist society.1 Western academics, apparently along with many communist officials, may have falsely assumed that those societies had been so thoroughly secularized and the churches there had been so effectively marginal ized as to pose no threat to political authority. Although the churches had not been abolished outright, they were strictly constrained by the communist governments and often severely repressed. The official policy of the communist governments of most of the countries of East ern Europe was to tolerate the churches for the social services they provided, while discouraging people from active participation. Nevertheless, churches managed to persist in the harsh environ ment of Soviet totalitarianism. They not only provided social and spiri tual services for the masses, they also played an important part in the prodemocracy movement which culminated in the democratic transfor mations of 1989. The churches in several of the countries of Eastern
Contact Chains for FinFET Technology Characterization

Electrical characterization remains a key element in technology development and manufacturing of integrated circuits. Contact chain is a well known part of the diagnostic set of test structures used across many generations of silicon processes. Implementation of such test structures becomes challenging in new technologies with 3-D devices, like FinFET. Contacts to active regions of such devices are inherently dependent on the architecture of epitaxial raised source and drain and for proper characterization require the presence of transistor gates, which set the environment for contacts. This paper describes a new type of test structure, so-called gated contact chains, developed for contact process characterization in FinFET technologies. Instead of simple chain of contacts, each structure contains a series of active devices with common gate electrode used to turn on the chain of transistors to enable measurement of chain resistance. To discriminate between chain failures caused by an open contact or by other mechanisms (e.g., bad transistor with very high threshold voltage) a series of measurement under various test conditions was performed and analysed. In order to overcome a limitation of the contact chain size and enable data collection from larger sample of contacts, we proposed to implement the gated chains in addressable arrays, increasing their density and failure rate observability. Finally, the paper presents the examples of electrical failure modes detected by those chains in FinFET process.
Rapid staining for the sperm penetration assay using a bisbenzimide dye

Our rapid staining method, accomplished by adding the vital fluorochrome bisbenzimide (Hoechst 33342) directly into the sperm droplet before fertilization, eases visual interpretation of sperm penetration and decondensation. For both within- and between-experiment comparisons, inclusion of bisbenzimide did not influence the overall SPA score or the progress of sperm-egg interaction. These results suggest that bisbenzimide can be used routinely to facilitate scoring of the SPA.
Adverse maternal exposures, methylation of glucocorticoid-related genes and perinatal outcomes: a systematic review

Aim: Maternal environmental exposures affect perinatal outcomes through epigenetic placental changes. We examine the literature addressing associations between adverse maternal exposures, perinatal outcomes and methylation of key genes regulating placental cortisol metabolism. Methods: We searched three databases for studies that examined NR3C1 and HSD11β1/HSD11 β 2 methylation with maternal exposures or perinatal outcomes. Nineteen studies remained after screening. We followed Cochrane's PRISMA reporting guidelines (2009). Results: NR3C1 and HSD11 β methylation were associated with adverse infant neurobehavior, stress response, blood pressure and physical development. In utero exposure to maternal stress, nutrition, preeclampsia, smoking and diabetes were associated with altered NR3C1 and HSD11 β methylation. Conclusion: NR3C1 and HSD11 β methylation are useful biomarkers of specific environmental stressors associated with important perinatal outcomes that determine pediatric and adult disease risk.
Removing barriers in using personal health record systems

Personal health record (PHR) is considered a crucial part in improving patient outcomes. However the adoption rate by the general public in the US still remains low. To find out the barriers in adopting PHR, we have surveyed articles related to personal health record system (PHRS) from 2008 to 2016 and categorized them into 6 different categories such as motivation, barriers, ownerships, interoperability, privacy, and security and portability. In this paper, we propose a framework that can help lift such barriers and motivate people to adopt PHRS so they can manage their health by monitoring and controlling their clinical data using PHRS.
Fumonisin production in corn by toxigenic strains of Fusarium moniliforme and Fusarium proliferatum

The fungi Fusarium moniliforme Sheldon and Fusarium proliferatum (Matsushima) Nirenberg produce a series of toxins on corn which include the fumonisins of which fumonisin B1 and B2 are considered to have cancer promoting activity. Both fungi produce similar ratios of the fumonisins B1 to B2. Other mycotoxins produced include moniliformin, fusarin C and fusaric acid. Fumonisin B1 has been shown to be responsible for most of the toxicological affects observed from ingesting corn infected by toxigenic isolates of these fungi. The distribution of the two fungi is generally similar, although F. proliferatum is isolated more frequently from sorghum than corn. They occur worldwide on other food crops, such as rice, sorghum, millet, several fruits and vegetables. Both fungi are ear rot pathogens of corn, thus, mycotoxin production occurs under field conditions, although it also may occur in storage. One or both fungi may have a frequency of occurrence of 90% or higher in corn; 90% of the F. moniliforme isolates produce the fumonisins. On corn and corn products the range of concentrations reported is 0.3 to 330 micrograms/g of corn-based product. These concentrations include both corn-based animal feed and human foods
Health Promotion for Young Adults With Serious Mental Illness.

Objective:Young adulthood represents a critical time to address elevated obesity rates and the risk of early mortality, particularly among people with serious mental illness. Few studies have assessed the benefits of lifestyle interventions targeting weight loss among these young adults. This study examined the impact of the 12-month In SHAPE lifestyle intervention on weight loss and fitness among overweight and obese young adults with serious mental illness (ages 21–30) compared with participants over age 30.Methods:Data were combined from three trials of the 12-month In SHAPE program delivered through community mental health centers. In SHAPE includes weekly fitness trainer meetings, a gym membership, and nutrition education. Primary outcomes were weight loss and change in fitness at 12 months.Results:Participants (N=194) had a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (53%) or a mood disorder (47%). The overall sample achieved significant weight loss and improved fitness; differences between young adults (N=29) ...
Properties of Optical Media

The preceding chapters have described the classical theory of light and outlined the quantum-theoretical basis for explaining its interactions with matter. This chapter describes certain significant properties of optical media known for many years.
Tweet Topic Classification Using Distributed Language Representations

Many classification tasks on short text, such as tweet, fail to achieve high accuracy due to data sparseness. One approach to solving this problem is to enrich the context of data by using external data sources, or distributed language representations trained on huge amount of data. In this paper, we present several tweet topic classification methods by exploiting different types of data: tweet text, tweet text plus entity knowledge base, word embeddings derived from tweet text, distributed representations of tweets, and topical word embeddings. The word embedding, topical word embedding and sentence representation models are generated from billions of words from tweets without supervision. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of applying distributed language representations to tweet topic classification task.
Voltage and Ca2+ Sensor Coupling Modulation by β Subunits in the BK Channel

BK channels are modulated by β-subunits (β1-β4) in a tissue-specific manner. The β1- and β2-subunits increase in the apparent Ca2+ sensitivity of BK can be explained by a stabilization of the voltage sensor domain (VSD) in its active configuration. However, whether β1 modifies the number of charges associated with the voltage sensor activation is still a matter of controversy. The purpose of our study is to determine the effects of the presence of β-subunits on the gating charge in the presence of Ca2+, and to evaluate the coupling between Ca2+-binding and VSD activation. The number of gating charges per channel was measured in BK channels formed by α-subunit alone and with the different β-subunits in Ca2+-free internal solutions. The maximum gating charge displaced was obtained from the charge-voltage (Q-V) curve and the total number of channels in the patch was determined using noise analysis. Furthermore, we evaluated the effect of β-subunits on the interaction between Ca2+ sensors and VSD in different Ca2+ concentrations. We found that the total number of charges per channel was 4.4, 3.0 and 4.2 e0 for BKα, BKα/β1 and BKα/β3b channels respectively. Increasing intracellular [Ca2+] in BKα (100 µM) promotes a significant leftward shift (∼-140 mV) of the Q-V curve. The calcium effect on voltage sensor in BKα becomes apparent at [Ca2+] ≥ 1 µM (∼∆V −30 mV). However, the leftward shift of the Q-V curve in BKα/β1 channels becomes evident in the nanomolar [Ca2+] range (100-500 nM). BKα/β3b channels behave as BKα channels. We conclude that: a) β1-subunit not only modifies the resting-active equilibrium of the voltage sensor but also decreases the total number of apparent gating charges; b) there is a strong coupling between voltage and Ca2+ sensors, this coupling is increased in the presence of β1-subunit.
Comparison of two cadaveric acellular dermal matrices for immediate breast reconstruction: A prospective randomized trial

AlloDerm RTU® and AlloMaxTM are two acellular dermal matrices (ADMs) used in implant-based breast reconstruction. In this study, we examined whether different processing methods for the ADMs lead to a disparity in histologic, clinical, and financial outcomes after breast reconstruction. Thirty patients undergoing implant-based breast reconstruction were randomized into AlloMax or AlloDerm arms (n = 15, each). ADM was placed at the time of immediate reconstruction. Patients were evaluated for complications on postoperative days 7, 14, and 30. During implant exchange, ADM biopsies were taken and compared histologically for vascular and cellular infiltration. Patient satisfaction was evaluated using the BRECON-31 questionnaire 1 year after implant exchange. A cost analysis was performed comparing the two ADMs. Patient demographics and complication rates were similar between the two groups (p > 0.05). Histologically, vessel density and fibroblast/inflammatory cell infiltrate were greater on the dermal side than on the implant side (p 0.05). The BRECON-31 satisfaction questionnaire yielded similar responses across all metrics between the two study arms. The negotiated price was slightly different when comparing the two ADMs, with no significant difference in ADM reimbursement. In this study, AlloDerm RTU and AlloMax were successfully used for implant-based breast reconstruction with comparable outcomes.
The colours of humanity: the evolution of pigmentation in the human lineage

Humans are a colourful species of primate, with human skin, hair and eye coloration having been influenced by a great variety of evolutionary forces throughout prehistory. Functionally naked skin has been the physical interface between the physical environment and the human body for most of the history of the genus Homo , and hence skin coloration has been under intense natural selection. From an original condition of protective, dark, eumelanin-enriched coloration in early tropical-dwelling Homo and Homo sapiens , loss of melanin pigmentation occurred under natural selection as Homo sapiens dispersed into non-tropical latitudes of Africa and Eurasia. Genes responsible for skin, hair and eye coloration appear to have been affected significantly by population bottlenecks in the course of Homo sapiens dispersals. Because specific skin colour phenotypes can be created by different combinations of skin colour–associated genetic markers, loss of genetic variability due to genetic drift appears to have had negligible effects on the highly redundant genetic ‘palette’ for the skin colour. This does not appear to have been the case for hair and eye coloration, however, and these traits appear to have been more strongly influenced by genetic drift and, possibly, sexual selection. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Animal coloration: production, perception, function and application’.
Parent Education for Young Children With Autism and Disruptive Behavior: Response to Active Control Treatment

This study examines parent and child characteristics in young children with autism spectrum disorder and disruptive behavior who showed a positive response to a parent education program in a randomized clinical trial of parent training. Children with autism spectrum disorder (N = 180) were randomized to parent training (PT) or parent education program (PEP) for 6 months. Using the Clinical Global Impression–Improvement scale, masked independent evaluators rated positive response in 68.5% of children in PT compared to 39.6% in PEP. We compared baseline characteristics and change in parental stress, strain, competence, and mental health for participants who showed a positive response to PEP (PEP-R) to those who did not (PEP-NR). We also compared change in child and parent measures for PEP-R participants to those who showed a positive response to PT (PT-R). At baseline, PEP-R and PEP-NR participants did not differ on any demographic or clinical characteristics. Parents in PEP-R reported significant reduction...
Investigation of immune cell markers in feline oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common oral cancer in the cat and presents as a locally aggressive lesion for which an effective therapeutic protocol remains elusive. Feline oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) shares many clinical characteristics with human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Accordingly, present studies were conducted to determine similarities for immune markers shared by feline OSCC and human HNSCC. Biopsies harvested from a feline patient cohort-1 (n = 12) were analyzed for lymphoid cell infiltrates by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results revealed unique patterns of T cell infiltration involving both neoplastic epithelium and stroma that were detected in most patient tumor biopsies (92%) examined by IHC staining for CD3. Intratumoral B cell infiltrates were detected within tumor stroma only, based on IHC staining for CD79a and CD20 for all patients within the same cohort-1. Infiltration of tumors by a regulatory CD4 T cell subset (Tregs) defined by expression of the forkhead transcription factor FoxP3, was also detected in biopsies from 57% of patients and involved infiltration of neoplastic epithelium and stroma. Patient biopsies were also examined for expression of immunomodulator cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 and revealed positive but weak staining of neoplastic epithelium in a significant proportion of cases (75%). Interestingly, COX-2 expression was detected in both neoplastic epithelium and stroma. Blood collected from a second cohort of feline OSCC patients (n = 9) revealed an increased frequency of circulating CD4+FoxP3+ T cells when compared to healthy adult controls (n = 7) (P = 0.045), although frequencies of CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ T cells were comparable between patients and healthy pet cat controls. Lastly, biopsies from feline OSCC patients were characterized for histologic subtype using a classification scheme previously described for human HNSCC. This analysis revealed the conventional subtype as the predominant variant (75%) with conventional subtypes split evenly between well differentiated and moderately differentiated carcinomas. Two cases were classified as papillary and one case as basaloid subtypes. Correlations between subtype, immune marker scores or circulating Treg frequencies and clinical characteristics or outcome were not detected, most likely due to small patient numbers within patient cohorts. However, findings from these studies provide a preliminary step in the characterization of immune and histologic markers that will be critical to defining prognostic immune markers for feline OSCC and potential targets for testing of immunotherapeutics also relevant to human HNSCC in future studies.
Primary and Metastatic Malignant Tumors of the Scalp An Update

In recent years there have been a number of interesting advances in several topics relating to the diagnosis and treatment of cutaneous lesions with particular applicability to primary and metastatic malignancies of the scalp. In this article we provide a general update of advances in this field, and cover the more salient points relating to a variety of malignant tumors that have been reported to appear on the scalp as primary or metastatic lesions. A search and review of the literature on PubMed was made to identify and discuss relevant points relating to diagnosis and treatment of primary and metastatic tumors of the scalp. We describe the anatomy of the scalp, epidemiology of scalp tumors, theories of field cancerization and field therapy, photodynamic therapy, excisional surgical techniques and reconstruction, lymphoscintigraphy, chemoprevention, as well as details relating to atypical fibroxanthoma, Brooke-Spiegler syndrome, nevus sebaceus, cutaneous lymphoma, and metastatic disease. There is a very broad differential diagnosis for scalp nodules, which includes many different benign and malignant diseases, and treatment should be tailored accordingly. Given the potential for poor prognosis with some of the more aggressive malignancies that can be found in this anatomic area, the importance of a thorough physical examination cannot be emphasized enough, and early detection is critical to provide patients with the best chance for a favorable outcome.
Combined morphological and molecular phylogeny of Ephemerellidae (Ephemeroptera)

This study represents the first combined molecular and morphological analysis for the mayfly family Ephemerellidae (Ephemeroptera), with a focus on the relationships of genera and species groups of the subfamily Ephemerellinae. The phylogeny was constructed based on DNA sequence data from 3 nuclear (18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, histone H3) and 2 mitochondrial (12S rDNA, 16S rDNA) genes, and 23 morphological characters. Taxon sampling for Ephemerellidae included exemplars from all 25 extant genus groups and additional representatives from those genera with the highest diversity. Ephemerellidae appears to consist of three major clades. Ephemerella, the largest genus of Ephemerellidae, and Serratella were not supported as monophyletic, and each had representatives in two of the three major clades. However, the genera Drunella and Cincticostella were supported as monophyletic. Lineages strongly supported as monophyletic include a grouping of the Timpanoginae genera Timpanoga, Dannella, Dentatella and Eurylophella, and groupings of the Ephemerellinae genera Torleya, Hyrtanella and Crinitella and the genera Kangella, Uracanthella and Teloganopsis. The placement of the Timpanoginae genus Attenella fell within Ephemerellinae, based on molecular and combined data, but it grouped with other Timpanoginae based on morphological data alone. Further study and analysis of Ephemerellidae morphology is needed, and classification should be revised, if it is to reflect phylogenetic relationships.
The Effects of a Modified PEERS Curriculum on Accurate and Novel Responding of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Social skill training for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently targets skill accuracy. However, restricted and repetitive social behaviors are infrequently addressed. The present study evaluated the efficacy of a modified version of the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) intervention for improving social skill accuracy as well as increasing novel responding in three children with ASD. The intervention was facilitated by graduate student researchers in a clinic-based setting, and targeted social skills included Two-way Conversation, Finding Similar Interests, and Starting a Conversation. A multiple baseline design across skills was utilized to evaluate the effects of the modified PEERS. Results demonstrated that the intervention was generally effective in improving skill accuracy across participants, as well as increasing novel responding in response to prompts delivered by both researchers and parents. The current study provides a model for modification of extant social skill training curricula to incorporate strategies that may address restricted and repetitive social behaviors in individuals with ASD.
Overcoming bureaucratic silos? Environmental policy integration in the Obama administration

ABSTRACTEnvironmental policy in the United States (US) is known for its media-specific approach to problems, and scholars have argued that this is ineffective. To combat these problems, some have a...
Emerging Complications Following Alternative Reservoir Placement during Inflatable Penile Prosthesis Placement: A 5-Year Multi-Institutional Experience.

Purpose:Alternative or ectopic reservoir placement has recently gained popularity among prosthetic surgeons to avoid injury to pelvic structures during inflatable penile prosthesis implantation. However, the true incidence of complications associated with these new techniques remains under studied. We performed a 5-year multicenter, retrospective study with the aim of evaluating complications related to alternative reservoir placement.Materials and Methods:We retrospectively reviewed the database of inflatable penile prosthesis surgery at 3 institutions from February 2011 to December 2016. The mechanism of failure and complications related to reservoir placement were analyzed.Results:A total of 974 inflatable penile prostheses were placed in the 5-year period by 3 surgeons, including 612 surgeries with alternative reservoir placement. Mean followup to the emergence of reservoir related complications was 20.4 months. There was no significant difference in complication rates between primary and revision cas...
Development and Demonstration Test for Floating Type Ocean Current Turbine System Conducted in Kuroshio Current

Ocean current known as Kuroshio Current flows in the vicinity of Japanese coastal area is the one of strongest ocean current all over the world. In order to realize power generation utilizing the Kuroshio ocean current, IHI has been developing the floating type ocean current turbine system. In this study, we have carried out technical development of the floating type ocean current turbine system, engineering, and construction of design rated output 100kW turbine demonstration prototype named ‘Kairyu’ in IHI. With using this Kairyu, the world first demonstration test in Kuroshio Current area located off Kuchinoshima Island of Kagoshima prefecture was conducted and completed on August-2017. As a result, we achieved installation procedure feasibility, submergence height and attitude stability in operating condition with control, and power generation output, and so on.
Random Node-Asynchronous Updates on Graphs

This paper introduces a node-asynchronous communication protocol in which an agent in a network wakes up randomly and independently, collects states of its neighbors, updates its own state, and then broadcasts back to its neighbors. This protocol differs from consensus algorithms and it allows distributed computation of an arbitrary eigenvector of the network, in which communication between agents is allowed to be directed. (The graph operator is still required to be a normal matrix). To analyze the scheme, this paper studies a random asynchronous variant of the power iteration. Under this random asynchronous model, an initial signal is proven to converge to an eigenvector of eigenvalue 1 (a fixed point) even in the case of operator having spectral radius larger than unity. The rate of convergence is shown to depend not only on the eigenvalue gap but also on the eigenspace geometry of the operator as well as the amount of asynchronicity of the updates. In particular, the convergence region for the eigenvalues gets larger as the updates get less synchronous. Random asynchronous updates are also interpreted from the graph signal perspective, and it is shown that a non-smooth signal converges to the smoothest signal under the random model. When the eigenvalues are real, second order polynomials are used to achieve convergence to an arbitrary eigenvector of the operator. Using second order polynomials the paper formalizes the node-asynchronous communication model. As an application, the protocol is used to compute the Fiedler vector of a network to achieve autonomous clustering.
Red blood cells donated by smokers: A pilot investigation of recipient transfusion outcomes.

Background Current regulations do not require blood collection facilities to ask donors about cigarette smoking, and the prevalence of nicotine and its metabolites in blood products is not well established. Although smokers have higher hemoglobin (Hb) levels, smoking may adversely affect the quality of donated red blood cells through higher carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) content and premature hemolysis. Study design and methods Red blood cell (RBC) unit segments from 100 unique donors were tested for nicotine and its metabolite cotinine by mass spectrometry and for COHb spectrophotometrically. Outcomes were evaluated retrospectively in adult non-bleeding patients receiving single RBC units. Results Thirteen of 100 RBC segments (13%) were positive for cotinine at levels consistent with current smoking (> 10 ng/mL). The cotinine positive RBCs showed significantly greater COHb content compared to cotinine negative units (median 3.0% vs. 0.8%, p = 0.007). For patients transfused cotinine-positive units, there was no significant change in their vital signs following transfusion and no transfusion reactions were observed. However, patients transfused cotinine-positive units showed significantly reduced hematocrit and hemoglobin increments (median +1.2% and +0.4 g/dL) following transfusion compared to patients receiving cotinine negative units (median +3.6% and +1.4 g/dL) (p = 0.014). Conclusion Thirteen percent of RBC units tested positive for cotinine at levels consistent with active smoking, accordant with the estimated national smoking rate of 15.5%. Cotinine-positive RBC units had greater COHb content and showed reduced hematocrit and hemoglobin increments following transfusion. These preliminary results should be validated in a larger cohort.
Query log compression for workload analytics

Analyzing database access logs is a key part of performance tuning, intrusion detection, benchmark development, and many other database administration tasks. Unfortunately, it is common for production databases to deal with millions or more queries each day, so these logs must be summarized before they can be used. Designing an appropriate summary encoding requires trading off between conciseness and information content. For example: simple workload sampling may miss rare, but high impact queries. In this paper, we present LOGR, a lossy log compression scheme suitable for use in many automated log analytics tools, as well as for human inspection. We formalize and analyze the space/fidelity trade-off in the context of a broader family of "pattern" and "pattern mixture" log encodings to which LOGR belongs. We show through a series of experiments that LOGR compressed encodings can be created efficiently, come with provable information-theoretic bounds on their accuracy, and outperform state-of-art log summarization strategies.
The impact of workplace harassment and domestic violence on work outcomes in the developing world

Abstract Workers’ mistreatment is a serious problem, particularly for disadvantaged populations in the global garment supply chain who are often subjected to human and labor rights violations. Workplace abuses are believed to originate from human resource management practices, which aim to reduce production costs and achieve inflated production targets. Improvements in worker well-being are often perceived as costs rather than investments. Family life might be an equally important contributor to workers’ well-being and factory outcomes, yet its impact often remains completely beyond the scope of interest of local factory management and the leadership of companies at the top of the supply chain. This study addressed the prevalence of workplace harassment (WH) and domestic violence (DV) in the garment industry in Mexico, Sri Lanka, China and Cambodia and the impacts of WH and DV on outcomes related to withdrawal from work (intentions to leave, quitting, and limited abilities to perform usual tasks), work attitudes (work engagement and job satisfaction) and self-reported work quality. Survey data from 5328 garment industry workers from four countries and information from personnel files are used. The relationships are modelled using linear, logistic or Cox proportional hazard regressions. The results from the longitudinal subsample substantiate the robustness of the findings. WH and DV are found to be significant stressors and affect withdrawal from work, work attitudes and work quality. Contrary to common belief, the findings do not reveal that WH and DV contribute to decisions to quit; however, they were found to impact intentions to leave. The results from the longitudinal sample corroborate the influence of WH and DV on work outcomes. The results of this study convey a message to global brands and factory managers to foster worker well-being, which may improve factory performance.
Gender-specific difference of in-vivo kinematics in patients with unilateral total hip arthroplasty:

Purpose:Asymmetric gait patterns are known to persist in patients with unilateral total hip arthroplasty (THA). Little is known about the effect of gender on gait asymmetry. This study aimed to det...
Are adverse childhood experiences associated with late-life cognitive performance across racial/ethnic groups: results from the Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences study baseline.

Objectives Evidence on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and late-life cognitive outcomes is inconsistent, with little research among diverse racial/ethnic groups. We investigated whether ACE exposures were associated with worse late-life cognition for all racial/ethnic groups and at different ages of exposure. Design Covariate-adjusted mixed-effects linear regression models estimated associations of: (1) total number of ACEs experienced, (2) earliest age when ACE occurred and (3) type of ACE with overall cognition. Setting Kaiser Permanente Northern California members aged 65 years and older, living in Northern California. Participants Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences study baseline participants, aged 65 years and older (n=1661; including 403 Asian-American, 338 Latino, 427 Black and 493 white participants). Results Most respondents (69%) reported one or more ACE, most frequently family illness (36%), domestic violence (23%) and parental divorce (22%). ACE count was not adversely associated with cognition overall (β=0.01; 95% CI −0.01 to 0.03), in any racial/ethnic group or for any age category of exposure. Pooling across all race/ethnicities, parent’s remarriage (β=−0.11; 95% CI −0.20 to −0.03), mother’s death (β=−0.18; 95% CI −0.30 to −0.07) and father’s death (β=−0.11; 95% CI −0.20 to −0.01) were associated with worse cognition. Conclusion Adverse childhood exposures overall were not associated with worse cognition in older adults in a diverse sample, although three ACEs were associated with worse cognitive outcomes.
Responsiveness of PROMIS and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) Depression Scales in three clinical trials

The PROMIS depression scales are reliable and valid measures that have extensive normative data in general population samples. However, less is known about how responsive they are to detect change in clinical settings and how their responsiveness compares to legacy measures. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the responsiveness of the PROMIS and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) depression scales in three separate samples. We used data from three clinical trials (two in patients with chronic pain and one in stroke survivors) totaling 651 participants. At both baseline and follow-up, participants completed four PROMIS depression fixed-length scales as well as legacy measures: Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item and 2-item scales (PHQ-9 and PHQ-2) and the SF-36 Mental Health scale. We measured global ratings of depression change, both prospectively and retrospectively, as anchors to classify patients as improved, unchanged, or worsened. Responsiveness was assessed with standardized response means, statistical tests comparing change groups, and area-under-curve analysis. The PROMIS depression and legacy scales had generally comparable responsiveness. Moreover, the four PROMIS depression scales of varying lengths were similarly responsive. In general, measures performed better in detecting depression improvement than depression worsening. For all measures, responsiveness varied based on the study sample and on whether depression improved or worsened. Both PROMIS and PHQ depression scales are brief public domain measures that are responsive (i.e., sensitive to change) and thus appropriate as outcome measures in research as well as for monitoring treatment in clinical practice. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT01236521, NCT01583985, NCT01507688
Louvain clustering integration within density-based graph classification (Louvain dbGC) in Schizophrenia

Several brain disorders are characterized by their silent manifestations that do not display clinical symptoms and are usually diagnosed at advanced stages in which the brain disease may be irrever...
Beware of Giant Tech Companies Bearing Jurisprudential Gifts

This essay responds to Privacy as Privilege by Rebecca Wexler (Harvard Law Review, forthcoming). Prof. Wexler argues that courts should stop construing the Stored Communications Act (SCA) to block criminal defense–side subpoenas for communications records. She has woven a narrative in which communication privacy collides with the ability of criminal defendants to mount a robust case. This story is not wrong; such collisions occur. The more important story, however, is a slightly different one. It originates from the same facts, and it also features disadvantaged criminal defendants. But they are not the main characters. Rather, the main characters are the giant tech companies that have routinely been served with defense subpoenas (under the SCA), appeared in court to contest those subpoenas, and won — securing “privacy victories” for their users. And the moral of the story, boiled down, is that we should beware of these victories; for they are not quite what they appear. A system in which the boundaries of communication privacy are negotiated at the behest of the very entities whose profit model relies on their erosion is not a healthy one. It may be preferable to a system in which no communication privacy is protected. But it merits little praise beyond that. In terms of genre, Wexler’s narrative is tragic. It conjures to mind a world in which two relatively powerless actors — criminal defendants and consumers — are pitted against one another, a conflict fated for zero-sum resolution. Longer term, however, the more important narrative is not a tragedy. It is a polemic. And its focus is not on the less powerful characters, but the more powerful ones: the surveillance state and its corporate handmaidens, both of whom would prefer all of us, as subjects of power, to imagine their relationship in oppositional rather than synergistic terms.
Bystanders to Prevent Peer Sexual Violence: Understanding Patterns of Prosocial Behavior Over Time from Early to Later Adolescence.

Programs to prevent peer sexual violence that encourage positive bystander intervention are proliferating. Yet, little is known about how these prosocial behaviors unfold over time across middle to later adolescence. The current study examined helpful bystander actions over three years among students in grades 7–10 (mean age 13.7, range 12–18) at baseline (N = 2539, 53.2% girls). Surveys assessed bystander behavior, social norms, and use of alcohol. Multilevel logistic regression examined patterns of change over time, as well as how changes in attitudes and binge drinking predicted changes in taking bystander action to prevent peer violence. Positive bystander behaviors overall decreased over time, consistent with previous work on bullying. Higher positive social norms and lower denial of sexual violence as a problem were associated with more positive helping behaviors across different waves of data. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of bystander intervention training for peer sexual violence prevention may be enhanced by developing strategies to work against the observed developmental decline in helping, perhaps by social marketing campaigns that can bolster positive social norms.
Compliance and Fidelity With an Injury Prevention Exercise Program in High School Athletics.

Background:Use of injury prevention programs (IPPs) by high school athletes has increased but their success in reducing injury depends on program compliance and fidelity of exercise performance.Hyp...
Risk-Aware Decision Making for Service Robots to Minimize Risk of Patient Falls in Hospitals

Planning under uncertainty is a crucial capability for autonomous systems to operate reliably in uncertain and dynamic environments. The concern of safety becomes even more critical in healthcare settings where robots interact with human patients. In this paper, we propose a novel risk-aware planning framework to minimize the risk of falls by providing a patient with an assistive device. Our approach combines learning-based prediction with model-based control to plan for the fall prevention task. This provides advantages compared to end-to-end learning methods in which the robot's performance is limited to specific scenarios, or purely model-based approaches that use relatively simple function approximators and are prone to high modeling errors. We compare various risk metrics and the results from simulated scenarios show that using the proposed cost function, the robot can plan interventions to avoid high fall score events.
Quercetin as a Modulator of the Cellular Neoplastic Phenotype

Quercetin (3,3′,4′,5,7-pentahydroxyflavone) is a widely distributed plant-derived flavonoid present in most vegetables and fruits, and it is therefore a common component of the human diet.1 Quercetin has been shown to exert multiple biochemical effects in mammalian cells, including the increase of cAMP levels,2 the inhibition of enzymatic activities such as protein kinase C,3,4 protein tyrosine kinases,5–7 and cAMP and cGMP phosphodiesterases,8,9 as well as the interaction with estrogen type II binding sites.10 These biological actions of quercetin may explain its predominantly inhibitory effect of tumor-derived cell lines,10–14 and its ability to arrest tumor cells in the G1 phase13,15 or, less frequently, in the G2 -M phase16 of the cell cycle. Although some reports17,18 indicate that quercetin could be carcinogenic under certain experimental conditions, the overwhelming evidence demonstrating its ability to inhibit the growth of tumor cells identifies quercetin as an anticarcinogenic phytochemical. Furthermore, the dosage of quercetin could be easily modified in the human diet to attain the appropriate levels for optimum cancer chemopreventive action.
Comparative pathology of Lassa virus infection in monkeys, guinea-pigs, and Mastomys natalensis

Experimental Lassa virus infections of squirrel monkeys, guinea-pigs, and the African multimammate rat, Mastomys natalensis, were studied virologically and pathologically. In the monkeys, early viral lymphoreticulotropism, hepatotropism, nephrotropism, and viraemia were noted. At the time of death, viral titres in nearly all target organs were associated with necrotic changes: splenic lymphoid necrosis, renal tubular necrosis, myocarditis, arteritis, and hepatocytic regeneration. In convalescent monkeys, organ titres diminished slowly, and viraemia persisted at 28 days. At this time, renal and splenic regeneration was occurring and a new lesion, choriomeningitis, was present.Guinea-pigs infected with Lassa virus developed respiratory insufficiency with pulmonary oedema, alveolar hyaline membranes, myocarditis, and focal calcification of myocardial fibres and hepatocytes. Dying animals contained Lassa virus in virtually every organ tested, whereas survivors at 56 days were free of virus and had high complement-fixing antibody titres.Infection of neonatal Mastomys did not cause any clinical disease or pathological lesions despite the presence of virus in the blood, lymph nodes, liver, spleen, lung, brain, urine, and throat secretions throughout the 74-day study. Infected adult Mastomys also remained normal but had virus in many organs. In one animal, virus persisted until the termination of the study at 103 days. Several animals developed a mild meningoencephalitis. The pattern of infection and virus shedding in M. natalensis is ideal for maintenance of the virus in nature; together with the epidemiological field data this emphasizes the incidental nature of the exposure and infection of man.
The Flowering of Automated Reasoning

This article celebrates with obvious joy the role automated reasoning now plays for mathematics and logic. Simultaneously, this article evidences the realization of a dream thought impossible just four decades ago by almost all. But there were believers, including Joerg Siekmann to whom this article is dedicated in honor of his sixtieth birthday. Indeed, today (in the year 2001) a researcher can enlist the aid of an automated reasoning program often with the reward of a new proof or a better proof in some significant aspect. The contributions to mathematics and logic made with an automated reasoning assistant are many, diverse, often significant, and of the type Hilbert would indeed have found most pleasurable. The proofs discovered by W. McCune’s OTTER (as well as other programs) are Hilbert-style axiomatic. Further, some of them address Hilbert’s twenty-fourth problem (recently unearthed by Rudiger Thiele), which focuses on the completion of simpler proofs. In that regard, as well as others, I offer challenges and open questions, frequently providing appropriate clauses to provide a beginning.