cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Public Policy, Economic Inequality, and Poverty: The United States in Comparative Perspective*

Objective. This article compares recent levels and trends in economic inequality in industrialized nations, largely those belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We also examine the effects of government policies and social spending efforts on inequality. Method. We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study and the U.S. Congressional Budget Office to measure disposable money income on an annual basis for 30 nations around the end of the 20th century. We also convert the incomes of a set of rich nations into real 2000 U.S. dollars, using a standard measure of purchasing power parity to examine absolute differences in income inequality. Results. The United States has the highest overall level of inequality of any rich OECD nation at the beginning of the 21st century. Moreover, increases in the dispersion of total household income in the United States have been as large as, or larger than, those experienced elsewhere between 1979 and 2002. Government policies and social spending have lesser effects in the United States than in any other rich nation, and both low spending and low wages have a great impact on the final income distribution, especially among the nonelderly. Conclusion. We speculate on the role policy plays in the final determination of income inequality. We argue that these differences cannot be explained by demography (single parents, immigrants, elders) but are more likely to be attributed to American institutions and lack of spending effort on behalf of low-income working families.
Prescribed fires in Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana steppe have minor and transient effects on vegetation cover and composition

Question What is the impact of prescribed fires on the cover and composition of vegetation in Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana steppe?Location: United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, United States Sheep Experiment Station, eastern Idaho (44°14′44″ N, 112°12′47″ W).Methods: Multiple prescribed fires were lit in 2002 and 2003 in an Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana (mountain big sagebrush) steppe ecosystem that was relatively free of exotic plants. Measurements of cover components and plant species frequencies were taken pre- and for 2 to 3 years post-fire.Results: Cover of forbs and grasses returned to pre-fire levels after two years. Shrub cover declined from 36 to 6% in the first year post-fire. Fire reduced the frequencies of three species, A. tridentata ssp. vaseyana, Festuca idahoensis, and Cordylanthus ramosus, of rangeland plants. Frequencies of four plant species, Hesperostipa comata, Polygonum douglasii, Chenopodium fremontii and Chenopodium leptophyllum increased, but only P. douglasii increased for more than a year.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that in an Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana steppe ecosystem without significant non-native species or anthropogenic disturbances vegetative cover and species composition of the herbaceous community are only minimally altered by fire. The herbaceous component returned to pre-fire conditions within three years of a fire.Nomenclature: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Plants database http//plants.usda.gov/
Provenance-Aware Tracing ofWorm Break-in and Contaminations: A Process Coloring Approach

To investigate the exploitation and contamination by self-propagating Internet worms, a provenance-aware tracing mechanism is highly desirable. Provenance unawareness causes difficulties in fast, accurate identification of a worms break-in point, and incurs significant log inspection overhead. This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of process coloring, an efficient provenance-aware approach to worm break-in and contamination tracing. More specifically, process coloring assigns a "color", a unique system-wide identifier, to each remotely-accessible server or process. The color will then be either inherited by spawned child processes or diffused indirectly through process actions (e.g., read/write operations). Process coloring brings two major advantages: (1) It enables fast color-based identification of a worms break-in point even before detailed log analysis; (2) It naturally partitions log data based on their colors, effectively reducing the volume of log data that need to be examined for worm investigation. A tamper-resistant log collection method is developed based on the virtual machine introspection technique. Our experiments with a number of real-world worms demonstrate the advantages of processing coloring.
Transport Modeling in a Finite Fractured Rock Domain

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a U.S. Department of Energy facility intended to demonstrate the safe disposal of transuranic nuclear waste. The WIPP is located in the thick halite beds of the Salado Formation in the Delaware Basin of southeastern New Mexico. Overlying the repository is the Culebra Dolomite Member of the Rustler Formation, a dolomitic unit containing accessory minerals such as calcite, gypsum, and clays. The Culebra is the predominant continuous water-bearing unit in the area. Part of the scientific demonstration of the safety of WIPP involves understanding and estimating what might happen should the WIPP inadvertently be intruded by exploration boreholes long after the WIPP has been decommissioned. Should such a breach occur, it is possible that dissolved transuranic waste could be transported up a borehole and into the Culebra, through which it could eventually reach the accessible environment. The rates and mechanisms for actinide transport in Culebra Dolomite are being investigated as a component of repository performance assessment. The two primary mechanisms for delaying solute release from a double porosity system are called physical and chemical retardation, both of which retard solute migration relative to bulk water flow. Physical retardation occurs when solutes diffuse out of the advective transport regions (fractures) and into diffusive transport regions (matrix). Results of hydrologic field tests suggest that the Culebra behaves as a double porosity medium. Chemical retardation occurs when chemical interactions between dissolved species and mineral surfaces remove solutes from the aqueous phase. Some fracture surfaces in the Culebra are clay-lined, and, because clays can have a large potential for chemical interactions with solutes (e.g., ion exchange or adsorption), it is possible that fracture linings alone may cause significant retardation of any actinides that could reach the Culebra. This report examines these two features in Culebra transport: delimiting the parameter space where a fully two-dimensional model is needed, and examining the importance of clay linings during transport. Numerical simulations with the FMT (Fracture Matrix Transport) finite difference model in a finite, idealized double porosity system were performed to: 1) delineate parameter values for which a set of two coupled one-dimensional equations is insufficient to describe behavior and a fully two-dimensional representation is needed, 2) compare chemical retardation by ion exchange for fractures with and without a clay lining, and 3) compare physical and chemical retardation by ion exchange as a function of fracture velocity. The simulations differ from others in that the matrix is finite, and thus can become saturated with tracers introduced into the domain. The modeling suggests that the chemical retardation caused by clay linings may not be important in a double porosity system. Over a wide range, a single parameter group essentially determines the complexity of the model.
Atlantic Climate Variability and Its Associated Atmospheric Circulation Cells

Abstract Phenomena important for Atlantic climate variability include the Atlantic zonal equatorial mode, the tropical Atlantic meridional gradient mode, and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). These climate phenomena and their associated atmospheric circulation cells are described and discussed using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis field and the NCEP sea surface temperature (SST) from January 1950 to December 1999. Atmospheric divergent wind and vertical motion are used for the identification of atmospheric circulation cells. During the peak phase of the Atlantic equatorial mode, the Atlantic Walker circulation weakens and extends eastward, which results in surface westerly wind anomalies in the equatorial western Atlantic. These westerly wind anomalies are partly responsible for warming in the equatorial eastern Atlantic that occurs in the second half of the year. The Atlantic equatorial mode involves a positive ocean–atmosphere feedback associated with the Atlantic Walker circulation, similar to the Pacific...
Trekking through Siberia: managing cold data in a memory-optimized database

Main memories are becoming sufficiently large that most OLTP databases can be stored entirely in main memory, but this may not be the best solution. OLTP workloads typically exhibit skewed access patterns where some records are hot (frequently accessed) but many records are cold (infrequently or never accessed). It is still more economical to store the coldest records on secondary storage such as flash. This paper introduces Siberia, a framework for managing cold data in the Microsoft Hekaton main-memory database engine. We discuss how to migrate cold data to secondary storage while providing an interface to the user to manipulate both hot and cold data that hides the actual data location. We describe how queries of different isolation levels can read and modify data stored in both hot and cold stores without restriction while minimizing number of accesses to cold storage. We also show how records can be migrated between hot and cold stores while the DBMS is online and active. Experiments reveal that for cold data access rates appropriate for main-memory optimized databases, we incur an acceptable 7-14% throughput loss.
Anomalous Variation in Mitochondrial Genomes of White-crowned (Zonotrichia leucophrys) and Golden-crowned (Z. atricapilla) Sparrows: Pseudogenes, Hybridization, or Incomplete Lineage Sorting?

JASON D. WECKSTEIN, 13 ROBERT M. ZINK,1 RACHELLE C. BLACKWELL-RAGO,1 AND DOUGLAS A. NELSON2 'Bell Museum of Natural History, and Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, 100 Ecology Building, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108-6097, USA; and 2Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics, and Department of Zoology, 1735 Neil Avenue, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1293, USA
Military Applications of Location Analysis

Over time, the decision-making needs of military commanders have had a strong influence upon the development of the field of operations research and analytic problem solving. The challenge of correctly positioning military units and resources within a geographical setting has vexed commanders and their staffs for thousands of years. However, it is only in the last 70 years that optimization methods have developed to the point where analysts can apply them to accomplish such goals. Along the way toward solving these narrowly defined military-focused problems, the advancement of the field has benefitted as generalizable techniques are extended beyond their origins to countless non-military applications. For example, military analysts first solved complex problems regarding routes for convoys of ships, code breaking, and materiel allocation mathematically during World War II ultimately leading to the development of linear and mathematical programming techniques by wartime scientists. Location analysis knowledge was similarly benefitted by the war, as commanders required the ability to spatially position munitions to destroy a target and covering a search area to find the enemy. The benefit is reciprocal however, as military strategy and planning since World War II have literally been redefined by the operations research field’s ability to solve larger and more complex problems.
Financial Markets and Imperfect Competition

I demonstrate in this article that there are benefits to introducing certain financial markets in an economy with strategic agents. I consider a two-sector 'oligopoly' model and show that in the symmetric Nash equilibrium, there are inefficiencies when compared to the Walrasian equilibrium, and consequently the resulting Nash equilibrium is not Pareto optimal. I show that by using a swap arrangement, this inefficiency may be eliminated irrespective of the 'thinness' of the markets.
Study of Defect Structures in 6H-SiC a/m-Plane Pseudofiber Crystals Grown by Hot-Wall CVD Epitaxy

Structural perfection of silicon carbide (SiC) single crystals is essential to achieve high-performance power devices. A new bulk growth process for SiC proposed by researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center, called large tapered crystal (LTC) growth, based on axial fiber growth followed by lateral expansion, could produce SiC boules with potentially as few as one threading screw dislocation per wafer. In this study, the lateral expansion aspect of LTC growth is addressed through analysis of lateral growth of 6H-SiC a/m-plane seed crystals by hot-wall chemical vapor deposition. Preliminary synchrotron white-beam x-ray topography (SWBXT) indicates that the as-grown boules match the polytype structure of the underlying seed and have a faceted hexagonal morphology with a strain-free surface marked by steps. SWBXT Laue diffraction patterns of transverse and axial slices of the boules reveal streaks suggesting the existence of stacking faults/polytypes, and this is confirmed by micro-Raman spectroscopy. Transmission x-ray topography of both transverse and axial slices reveals inhomogeneous strains at the seed–epilayer interface and linear features propagating from the seed along the growth direction. Micro-Raman mapping of an axial slice reveals that the seed contains high stacking disorder, while contrast extinction analysis (g·b and g·b×l) of the linear features reveals that these are mostly edge-type basal plane dislocations. Further high-resolution transmission electron microscopy investigation of the seed–homoepilayer interface also reveals nanobands of different SiC polytypes. A model for their formation mechanism is proposed. Finally, the implication of these results for improving the LTC growth process is addressed.
Faber polynomial coefficients of bi-subordinate functions

Abstract A function is said to be bi-univalent in the open unit disk D if both the function and its inverse map are univalent in D . By the same token, a function is said to be bi-subordinate in D if both the function and its inverse map are subordinate to certain given function in D . The behavior of the coefficients of such functions are unpredictable and unknown. In this paper, we use the Faber polynomial expansions to find upper bounds for the n -th ( n ≥ 3 ) coefficients of classes of bi-subordinate functions subject to a gap series condition as well as determining bounds for the first two coefficients of such functions.
Titer Compounding of Neoprene Latex

Abstract The practical importance of free alkali content on the processing and storage life of Neoprene latexes, both raw and compounded, is demonstrated. It is shown that titer measurements are more sensitive than pH measurements for establishing the alkali level of Neoprene latex, that increasing amounts of alkali increase markedly the life of both raw and compounded latexes, that increasing amounts of alkali decrease the original viscosity of compounds and reduce very much the viscosity increase which takes place during aging but, that, within the ranges checked, the alkali content has little effect on the physical properties of films. A procedure for measuring accurately and adjusting easily the free alkali content of raw latex to a desired level is suggested.
A Pail of Cream

As a writer, I have led two lives. In my guise as a historian, I have published carefully documented books and essays about seventeenthand eighteenth-century America, using the first person singular only in prefaces. But over the same span of years, I have had a second, less visible life as a personal essayist. In dozens of short piecesdescriptive, argumentative, satiric, and occasionally sentimentalI have written about everything from the interpretation of a New Testament verse to standing in line in a fabric store. Most of these pieces have appeared in periodicals associated with the "unsponsored sector" of contemporary Mormonism, a loosely related group of intellectuals, writers, and feminists linked to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. In most places, when a stranger comes up to me and says, "I loved your book," I assume they mean A Midwife's Tale, my history of the eighteenth-century Maine midwife Martha Ballard. In Mormon country, the same comment often refers to All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir, a collection of essays coauthored with the Utah poet Emma Lou Thayne.1 Sometime in fifth grade, I decided I wanted to be a writer. When I was in high school I began submitting my best poems to Seventeen, cherishing the occasional words of encouragement I received with rejection slips. In my senior year, the editors invited me to write a short piece for a feature on how teens in various parts of the United States celebrated Christmas. I suppose they picked me because I lived in a town with a name that evoked the smell of cookies baking, even though it was named for a sugar beet factory that had long since closed. "Sugar City Magic" was published in December 1957 during the first quarter of my sophomore year at the University of Utah. For the most part Seventeen's editors were satisfied with my effort to turn the mundane facts of life in a small western town into local color. They kept my description of my dad buying Christmas nuts at the Sugar City Mercantile, "a combination grocery store, butcher shop, shoe store, dry goods store, dress shop and summer fishing headquarters," and my reference to an elderly neighbor who came to our house on the day before Christmas "with her traditional present: sugared doughnuts." But they
Yoga-based psychotherapy groups for boys exposed to trauma in urban settings

Background • Children who experience abuse and neglect and are exposed to adverse life events are at risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems. They may display variable internalizing and externalizing symptoms, such as posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and aggression. Yoga may be able to regulate body-brain pathways that cause stress following traumatic experiences, thereby reducing adverse mental and physical sequelae. OBJECTIVE • The objective of this preliminary study is to examine changes in functioning following meetings of a yoga-based psychotherapy group (YBPG) for boys with a history of interpersonal trauma exposure. METHODS/Design • The study was a prospective, intervention cohort study. Setting • The study occurred at an urban-based mental health center focusing on treatment of children exposed to interpersonal trauma in their communities and families. Participants • Participants were 10 boys, aged 8-12 y, who primarily were African-Americans (70%) and who had a history of trauma. Intervention • The YBPG was a 12-wk, yoga-based, group therapy, integrated with mental health treatment that was trauma informed and evidence-based. Outcome Measures • Measures of attendance and interpersonal functioning-the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale 2 (BERS-2) and patient satisfaction surveys-were collected. The pre- and post-YBPG, paired t test; Wilcoxon's signed rank test; and effect sizes were calculated to assess change in interpersonal functioning following the YBPG, as reported by the parents and children. RESULTS • The BERS-2 scores yielded clinically and statistically significant mean improvements on the parents' ratings of participants' (1) Interpersonal Strength, Intrapersonal Strength, and Family Involvement scores, with mean improvements on those subscales being 1.4 (P =.007), 1.9 (P =.012), and 1.4 (P =.045) points, respectively; and (2) Strength Index scores, with a mean improvement of 8.7 (P =.004). The effect size was in the large range. In addition to significant improvements posttreatment, the parents' mean rating score of their children's functioning was closer but still lower than the children's self-reports on all subscales. The attendance rate for the YBPG was among the highest for group therapies at the center. CONCLUSIONS • The study provided preliminary evidence for the feasibility of YBPG as an effective intervention for boys exposed to trauma in urban settings. Language: en
Ignatian Pedagogy for Social Entrepreneurship: Twelve Years Helping 500 Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs Validates the GSBI Methodology

In frontier economies, social entrepreneurship has emerged as a successful strategy to pursue sustainable development goals. By creatively blending business strategy, technology innovation and a deep understanding of customer need, social enterprises provide a pathway out of poverty, an alternative to private charity and government aid. Social entrepreneurs are developing strategies to make available distributed energy products, clean cooking and clean water technologies, and sustainable livelihoods. Social entrepreneurship is a pro-poor economic development strategy that promotes the common good. Many social entrepreneurs describe their work with terms like “calling” or “moral purpose” or “vocation,” harkening the emphasis in the Ignatian spiritual exercises on “making an election.”
Use of a Glucose Management Service Improves Glycemic Control Following Vascular Surgery: An Interrupted Time-Series Study

Article-at-a-Glance Background The optimal method for obtaining good blood glucose control in noncritically ill patients undergoing peripheral vascular surgery remains a topic of debate for surgeons, endocrinologists, and others involved in the care of patients with peripheral arterial disease and diabetes. A prospective trial was performed to evaluate the impact of routine use of a glucose management service (GMS) on glycemic control within 24hours of lower-extremity revascularization (LER). Methods In an interrupted time-series design (May 1, 2011–April 30, 2012), surgeon-directed diabetic care (Baseline phase) to routine GMS involvement (Intervention phase) was compared following LER. GMS assumed responsibility for glucose management through discharge. The main outcome measure was glycemic control, assessed by (1) mean hospitalization glucose and (2) the percentage of recorded glucose values within target range. Statistical process control charts were used to assess the impact of the intervention. Results Clinically important differences in patient demographics were noted between groups; the 19 patients in the Intervention arm had worse peripheral vascular disease than the 19 patients in the Baseline arm (74% critical limb ischemia versus 58%; p = .63). Routine use of GMS significantly reduced mean hospitalization glucose (191mg/dL Baseline versus 150mg/dL Intervention, p p = .05). Following removal of GMS involvement, measures of glycemic control did not significantly decrease for the 19 postintervention patients. Conclusions Routine involvement of GMS improved glycemic control in patients undergoing LER. Future work is needed to examine the impact of improved glycemic control on clinical outcomes following LER.
Path-Difference Median Trees

Synthesizing large-scale phylogenetic trees is a fundamental problem in evolutionary biology. Median tree problems have evolved as a powerful tool to reconstruct such trees. Given a tree collection, these problems seek a median tree under some problem-specific tree distance. Here, we introduce the median tree problem for the classical path-difference distance. We prove that this problem is NP-hard, and describe a fast local search heuristic that is based on solving a local search problem exactly. For an effective heuristic we devise a time efficient algorithm for this problem that improves on the best-know (naive) solution by a factor of n, where n is the size of the input trees. Finally, we demonstrate the performance of our heuristic in a comparative study with other commonly used methods that synthesize species trees using published empirical data sets.
Ethical Non-Naturalism and Normative Properties

Ethical non-naturalism, as I shall understand it, is the view that there are real ethical properties and facts that are not among the natural properties and facts of the world. This is to say that ethical properties (such as moral Tightness or goodness) and facts (such as the fact that an act is wrong, or that a certain consideration is a reason for acting) are neither among the properties and facts that are the proper subject of scientific inquiry, nor constructible from those that are. They are instead sui generis. Ethical non-naturalists are thus ethical realists who reject naturalistic construals of ethical properties and facts.
Consistency of Self-Reported Concussion History in Adolescent Athletes

Abstract Relying on self-reported concussion injury history is common in both clinical care and research. However, young athletes may not provide consistent medical information. To date, little is known about the reliability of self-reported concussion history in high school students. This study examined whether student athletes reported their lifetime history of concussions consistently over time. Self-reported concussion history was examined in 4792 student athletes (ages 13–18) from Maine who completed a preseason health survey on two occasions (median re-test interval = 23.7 months; standard deviation = 7.3; interquartile range = 12.4–24.5). Consistency of self-reported concussion history was determined by differences in the number of concussions reported during the second survey. Inconsistent concussion history was defined primarily by a decrease in the number of lifetime concussions reported at the second testing, compared with at the first testing. The majority of the sample (80.3%) reported no cha...
Evaluation of a pharmacist-led outpatient direct oral anticoagulant service.

Purpose The impact of a pharmacist-led direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) service on prescription appropriateness and patient adherence was simultaneously evaluated. Methods In this retrospective analysis, patients age 18 years or older for whom a DOAC was prescribed from September 20, 2013, through December 31, 2014, were identified through electronic medical record review of all DOAC prescriptions within the University of Michigan Health System. Patients had their DOAC therapy managed by a pharmacist-led DOAC service or by their physician (usual care). Primary endpoints included the percentage of patients who had appropriate DOAC therapy prescribed at baseline and at follow-up appointments at 3–6 months. Secondary endpoints included mean medication possession ratios (MPRs). Results A total of 258 patients were included in the study, with 129 in each group. Patients in the pharmacist-led DOAC service were significantly more likely to have an appropriate combination of DOAC and dosage prescribed for their indication at baseline compared with the usual care group ( p = 0.009), a finding that persisted at follow up ( p = 0.016). There was no significant difference between groups in the number of patients determined to have an appropriate DOAC prescribed for an approved indication (independent of dose) in the pharmacist-led service (95.3%) versus usual care (93.0%) at baseline. Patients in the pharmacist-led service had a greater mean adjusted MPR compared with the usual care group ( p = 0.0014) over a median follow-up period of 248 days. Conclusion A pharmacist-led DOAC service increased appropriate dosing of DOACs at baseline and follow up as well as patient adherence to therapy.
The Yale Fitness Intervention Trial in female cancer survivors: Cardiovascular and physiological outcomes

Abstract Background Induced premature menopause and cardio-toxic therapy increase cardiovascular disease risk in female cancer survivors. Objective To compare the effects of a 12 month aerobic-resistance fitness center intervention to home based physical activity on cardiovascular function and metabolic risk factors. Methods Subjects (N = 154) who had completed primary and/or adjuvant chemotherapy (past 3 years) were randomized to a fitness center intervention or a home based group. The fitness center intervention was a structured thrice weekly aerobic (30 min brisk walking treadmill in target heart range) combined with resistance (30 min of lower body strength training) exercise program, supervised for the first 6 months. The home based group received national guidelines for 30 min moderate intensity exercise most days of the week. Fasting serum samples were collected at baseline, 6 and 12 months for insulin, glucose, lipids and hemoglobin A-1C. A graded exercise stress test was also performed at baseline and 6 months. Results The majority of subjects were white (85.7%), had breast cancer (83.1%) and the average age was 51.9 years. Subjects in the fitness center intervention had significantly improved time on treadmill (p = .039), improved heart rate recovery at 1 min (p = .028), greater MET minutes/week (p ≤ .0001), a trend for improved insulin resistance (p = .067) and stable insulin levels (p = .045) compared to the home based physical activity group. Conclusions Exercise represents a potential cardiac risk reduction intervention for cancer survivors. Clinical Trials.gov NCT01102985 .
Identification of the Most Important Sustainability Topics in Seaports

Preparing a sustainability report has become more and more popular among a wide range of industries, including shipping and seaports. For the majority of Polish ports preparing a formal CSR strategy is a new challenge. The aim of this article was to compare the way that selected European seaports chose to report and identify the most important topics of their sustainable activity. In order to answer the research questions the multi-case study of selected European ports was prepared. The strategy and identified topics in seaports that have prepared sustainability reports can be used in a benchmarking process. Such a comparison can help Polish seaports avoid mistakes in preparing such reports by themselves in the future. The analysis showed that the most important sustainability topics are connected with employment and air emissions. There were also themes specific for seaports activity such as maintaining the water depths. Involvement of the port stakeholders in prioritization process made the topics order suited all parties concerned in port operations.
THE INFLAMMATORY IMPOSTER: FOCAL MYOCARDITIS MASQUERADING AS ACUTE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION

Acute myocarditis often mimics acute myocardial infarction (MI) and can present a diagnostic dilemma. A 16-year-old healthy female presented with vomiting, malaise and bradycardia. Workup revealed inferolateral ST-elevation and troponin >200 ng/mL. She was transferred to pediatric intensive care
Glucose Metabolism as a Pre-clinical Biomarker for the Golden Retriever Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Metabolic dysfunction in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is characterized by reduced glycolytic and oxidative enzymes, decreased and abnormal mitochondria, decreased ATP, and increased oxidative stress. We analyzed glucose metabolism as a potential disease biomarker in the genetically homologous golden retriever muscular dystrophy (GRMD) dog with molecular, biochemical, and in vivo imaging. Pelvic limb skeletal muscle and left ventricle tissue from the heart were analyzed by mRNA profiling, qPCR, western blotting, and immunofluorescence microscopy for the primary glucose transporter (GLUT4). Physiologic glucose handling was measured by fasting glucose tolerance test (GTT), insulin levels, and skeletal and cardiac positron emission tomography/X-ray computed tomography (PET/CT) using the glucose analog 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-d-glucose ([18F]FDG). MRNA profiles showed decreased GLUT4 in the cranial sartorius (CS), vastus lateralis (VL), and long digital extensor (LDE) of GRMD vs. normal dogs. QPCR confirmed GLUT4 downregulation but increased hexokinase-1. GLUT4 protein levels were not different in the CS, VL, or left ventricle but increased in the LDE of GRMD vs. normal. Microscopy revealed diffuse membrane expression of GLUT4 in GRMD skeletal but not cardiac muscle. GTT showed higher basal glucose and insulin in GRMD but rapid tissue glucose uptake at 5 min post-dextrose injection in GRMD vs. normal/carrier dogs. PET/ CT with [18F]FDG and simultaneous insulin stimulation showed a significant increase (p = 0.03) in mean standard uptake values (SUV) in GRMD skeletal muscle but not pelvic fat at 5 min post-[18F]FDG /insulin injection. Conversely, mean cardiac SUV was lower in GRMD than carrier/normal (p < 0.01). Altered glucose metabolism in skeletal and cardiac muscle of GRMD dogs can be monitored with molecular, biochemical, and in vivo imaging studies and potentially utilized as a biomarker for disease progression and therapeutic response.
Physiatric Practice in Freestanding Rehabilitation Hospitals

Physiatric practice in inpatient settings traditionally has been provided in freestanding rehabilitation hospital and distinct-part hospital units within acute medical-surgical hospitals. Because of the differences in program size, hospital organizational structure, and practice responsibilities, each venue presents the physiatrist with opportunities and each presents unique risk in a changing rehabilitation world. These differences of opportunity and risk are discussed in light of current economic and political changes.
Borrelia burgdorferi and Other Borrelia Species

The genus Borrelia comprises two major groups of spirochetes with at least 35 validated species. The first group contains Borrelia species within the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato complex, which is transmitted by the hard ticks Ixodes and is associated with Lyme disease or Lyme borreliosis. The second group of spirochetes includes Borrelia species transmitted mainly by soft ticks Argasidae with a few exceptions and is associated with human relapsing fever. The genus Borrelia possesses several genetic and phenotypic characteristics that are unique among prokaryotes. Borrelia species exist in nature in enzootic cycles primarily involving ticks and a wide range of animal and bird hosts. Both B. burgdorferi and relapsing fever borreliae have a linear chromosome of approximately 910 kb and multiple linear and circular plasmids in a single cell. In this chapter, the key phenotypic and genetic features (including genome and other molecular characteristics) of Borrelia species, their association with clinical diseases, and diagnosis are discussed.
Brokering College Opportunity for First-Generation Youth: The Role of the Urban High School

Social capital research has demonstrated the value of relationships and networks to enhance college opportunity for first-generation students. While most work has focused on individual students and...
Educator Insights: Euro Disney—What Happened? What Next?:

In its first 18 months of operation, Euro Disney, a new theme park outside Paris, France, lost almost $1 billion. How could an improved version of a highly successful enterprise like Disneyland in ...
Plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF) in intraoral bone grafting procedures: A systematic review

Abstract Purpose This systematic review aimed at assessing the effects of PRGF in new bone formation, soft tissue healing and post-operative pain and swelling in sites that underwent ridge preservation, ridge augmentation and maxillary sinus augmentation procedures. Materials and methods A comprehensive literature search employing seven databases was conducted by two independent reviewers. Only randomized and non-randomized controlled clinical trials using PRGF alone or in combination with bone grafting materials were selected. Results Overall, 919 studies were identified, of which a total of 8 articles were included in the qualitative analysis. Two of the selected studies reported on ridge preservation, one on ridge augmentation and five on maxillary sinus augmentation. Positive results were recorded for soft tissue healing and post-operative pain and swelling following these procedures. However, outcomes of PRGF on new bone formation post extraction and on maxillary sinus augmentation when combined with other biomaterials were conflicting. Meta-analysis could not be conducted for any variables due to the heterogeneity of selected studies. Conclusion Limited evidence exists on the effects of PRGF in different intraoral bone grafting procedures, with some benefit reported on soft tissue healing and post-operative symptomatology. As this platelet concentrate is commonly used in clinical practice, further research is needed to fully assess its clinical indications and effectiveness.
Sleep mediates the association between adolescent screen time and depressive symptoms.

Abstract Objective This study examined the associations between four types of screen-based activities and depressive symptoms among adolescents. We further investigated whether sleep characteristics (ie, insomnia symptoms and sleep duration) mediate these associations. Methods Data come from 2865 U.S. adolescents (mean age = 15.53, SD = 0.73, 51.8% male) in the age 15 follow-up of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Adolescents completed surveys regarding sleep duration and insomnia symptoms, typical daily duration of four screen activities (social messaging, web surfing, TV/movie watching, and gaming), and depressive symptoms. We constructed a multiple mediation model to elucidate the associations between age 15 screen time, sleep and depressive symptoms, while adjusting for age 9 depressive symptoms. Results Structural Equation Modeling analyses revealed that the association between screen time and depressive symptoms is partially or fully mediated by sleep. For social messaging, web surfing and TV/movie watching, the three sleep variables fully mediated the positive association between screen time and depressive symptoms. For gaming, the three sleep variables acted as partial mediators in the model, accounting for 38.5% of the association between gaming and depressive symptoms. Conclusions Our results highlight both screen-based activities and sleep behaviors as potential intervention targets to reduce depressive symptoms among adolescents.
Double-Gate FDSOI Based SRAM Bitcell Circuit Designs with Different Back-Gate Biasing Configurations

Power saving techniques have become essential for modern digital systems. Large on-chip SRAM memories are used in these systems and therefore it is necessary to optimize SRAM bitcell circuit to minimize the power consumption. In addition to this, it is equally important to design SRAM cell with high reliability and stability. Power gating technique with sleep transistor if applied to SRAM cell will degrade the performance of the cell. In this paper, Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FDSOI) device based SRAM designs are proposed which eliminate the requirement of sleep transistors to reduce the power consumption. This reduces overall complexity and overheads of power gating memory designs. Based on this approach seven SRAM bitcell configurations are presented in the paper. Performance metrics of different SRAM configurations are evaluated and compared in HSPICE.
Darwinian Hedonism and the Epidemic of Unhealthy Behavior

Psychological hedonism - the idea that people tend to act in ways that maximize pleasure and minimize displeasure - has a decidedly poor reputation among academics who study human behavior. Opinions range from outright rejection to those who believe it to be intuitively obvious, but untestable and therefore unhelpful. In this book, the author introduces an empirically testable and useful theory of psychological hedonism based on contemporary theory and research in the emerging field of affective neuroscience. He goes on to argue that people are genetically endowed with a tendency towards psychological hedonism as a function of Darwinian processes. This view of psychological hedonism in light of its Darwinian origins - thereinafter referred to as Darwinian hedonism - is essential to address the growing global epidemic of unhealthy behavior, such as poor diet, physical inactivity, and substance use.
Evaluating the Potential of a Dual Randomized Kaczmarz Solver for Laplacian Linear Systems

A new method for solving Laplacian linear systems proposed by Kelner et al. involves the random sampling and update of fundamental cycles in a graph. Kelner et al. proved asymptotic bounds on the complexity of this method but did not report experimental results. We seek to both evaluate the performance of this approach and to explore improvements to it in practice. We compare the performance of this method to other Laplacian solvers on a variety of real world graphs. We consider different ways to improve the performance of this method by exploring different ways of choosing the set of cycles and the sequence of updates, with the goal of providing more flexibility and potential parallelism. We propose a parallel model of the Kelner et al. method, for evaluating potential parallelism in terms of the span of edges updated at each iteration. We provide experimental results comparing the potential parallelism of the fundamental cycle basis and our extended cycle set. Our preliminary experiments show that choosing a non-fundamental set of cycles can save significant work compared to a fundamental cycle basis.
It's in the Bag.

IF YOU have ever assigned a problem that brought forth a "so what?" response from your students, you will recognize the feeling I had after observing the reaction to a homework exercise dealing with mathe matical expectation. These students were members of an elementary course in proba bility and statistics, an all-college elective that requires only three years of high school mathematics as a prerequisite. The assigned problem is as follows (Zu waylif 1970, p. 64): An urn contains 4 red and 6 blue marbles. Three marbles are to be drawn in succession and with re placement. If you get $2 for each red marble and $1 for each blue marble, how much should you pay for the right to play in order to make the game equitable?
My NSFW video has partial occlusion: deepfakes and the technological production of non-consensual pornography

Although open source software (OSS) lowers barriers to participation, it is also a site of toxic geek masculinity, which can be seen in the emergence of non-consensual fake pornography, or deepfake...
Filtering perceptions of climate change and biotechnology: values and views among Colorado farmers and ranchers

Though a small fraction of the US citizenry, agricultural producers are directly responsible for the stewardship of almost half of the country’s land. This group is therefore an especially important one to understand from the standpoint of how they process and respond to science as it relates to agroecological phenomena. Data from a sample (n = 111) of farmers and ranchers located in the US state of Colorado are used to expand our understanding of how food producers process scientific claims. These insights, I argue, help us think through public understandings of science more generally. Using semi-structured interviews, the paper unpacks an identified asymmetry in how respondents perceive climate science and the science associated with genetically modified food and seed. These tensions are interrogated with the help of a novel methodological design that generated data converted to shading matrices—also known as heat maps. The heat maps illuminate certain cultural values among respondents, which were reinforced by motivated reasoning. This allows for an interrogation of tensions and inconsistencies in respondents’ remarks about a variety of scientific claims. The heat maps, coupled with the qualitative data, allow for an exploration into how respondents perceive certain salient socio-technical issues.
bench4gis: Benchmarking Privacy-aware Geocoding with Open Big Data

Geocoding, the process of translating addresses to geographic coordinates, is a relatively straight-forward and well-studied process, but limitations due to privacy concerns may restrict usage of geographic data. The impact of these limitations are further compounded by the scale of the data, and in turn, also limits viable geocoding strategies. For example, healthcare data is protected by patient privacy laws in addition to possible institutional regulations that restrict external transmission and sharing of data. This results in the implementation of “in-house” geocoding solutions where data is processed behind an organization’s firewall; quality assurance for these implementations is problematic because sensitive data cannot be used to externally validate results. In this paper, we present our software framework called bench4gis which benchmarks privacy-aware geocoding solutions by leveraging open big data as surrogate data for quality assurance; the scale of open big data sets for address data can ensure that results are geographically meaningful for the locale of the implementing institution.
Dibutyltin alters immune cell production of the pro‐inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL) 1β and IL‐6: role of mitogen‐activated protein kinases and changes in mRNA

Dibutyltin (DBT) is used to stabilize plastics and as a deworming agent in some poultry. It is found in human blood (levels as high as 0.3 μM). Interleukin (IL) 1β (IL-1β) and IL-6 are pro-inflammatory cytokines produced by lymphocytes, monocytes, and other cells. Elevated levels of IL-1β and IL-6 have been associated with pathologies including rheumatoid arthritis and cancers. DBT was shown to decrease IL-1β and IL-6 secretion from immune cells at higher concentrations while causing increases at lower concentrations. However, it was not clear if these changes were due to DBT's alteration of the secretory process or due its ability to change cellular synthesis/production of these proteins. This study addresses this question, as well as mechanisms for any observed changes in synthesis/production. Monocyte-depleted peripheral blood mononuclear cells (MD-PBMCs) were exposed to DBT at concentrations of 5, 2.5, 1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1, and 0.05 μM for 1, 6, and 24 h and the production (combination of secreted and intracellular levels from the same cells) of both IL-1β and IL-6 were measured. Effects of selected DBT exposures on cytokine production were also examined in PBMCs and DBT's effects were similar when monocytes were present. The 24-h exposures to DBT decreased production of both IL-1β and IL-6 at the two highest concentrations but increased production at lower concentrations. Both decreases and increases in cytokine production appear to be explained by DBT-induced changes in mRNA levels. DBT-induced increases in cellular production of the cytokines appear to require p38 and ERK1/2 MAPK pathways.
The determinants of employers’ use of temporary contracts in the frictional labor market

This paper focuses on the following two primary reasons that employers use temporary contracts: to flexibly adjust employment and to screen workers. A search‐matching framework is used to not only address employers’ endogenous choices in using temporary contracts, but also numerically identify the situations in which these contracts are likely to be used as a screening tool for permanent positions. This numerical exercise demonstrates that reducing employment protections in permanent jobs, reducing benefits for unemployed workers and raising the conversion probability from temporary to permanent employment will increase the relative proportion of employers who use temporary contracts as a screening device.
Seeing What We Expect to See in COVID-19.

I appreciate the effort among your staff that must be required to keep the articles in the American Journal of Neuroradiology current as we learn more about the potential for CNS involvement with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections. The article in the September 2020 issue, “Anosmia in