cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Barriers to Lung Cancer Screening With Low-Dose Computed Tomography.

Problem identification Despite lung cancer screening guidelines and insurance coverage changes, rates of lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography remain suboptimal among the eligible population in the United States. Literature search Electronic literature databases, including PubMed, CINAHL®, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar, were searched. Data evaluation After applying filter information and inclusion and exclusion criteria, 10 articles were reviewed. Methodological rigor was evaluated. Synthesis Based on the social-ecological approach, barriers to lung cancer screening at the individual level, including sociodemographic characteristics, financial cost, lack of knowledge, inaccurate beliefs about lung cancer screening, distrust of the medical system, stigma around smoking and lung cancer, negative attitudes about outcomes of lung cancer screening, and inconvenience of receiving lung cancer screening, were identified. Barriers at the health-system level included lack of information from primary care providers. Implications for practice Overcoming barriers to lung cancer screening at individual and health-system levels is essential to increase lung cancer screening uptake rates.
Motor Vehicle Crashes, Restraint Use, and Severity of Injury in Children in Nevada

Introduction Data from the population-based Nevada State Trauma Registry were used to examine rates and determinants of restraint use in children who were involved in a car crash and seriously injured. Patterns of injuries in these children are also assessed. Methods Data were obtained from children 14 years of age or younger who entered the Nevada State Trauma Registry because of a serious injury caused by a car crash. The study period was from January 1, 1989, to December 31, 1992. Results Average annual age-specific crash injury rates per 100,000 were higher in rural areas than in urban areas. In children younger than two years old, 61% were restrained at the time of the crash; however, only about one third of all children over the age of three were restrained. In ages 0-4 years, only 5.3 % of the African-American children were restrained at the time of the crash compared with 47.2% of the Caucasian children. Children who were not restrained were more likely to have more adverse outcomes and to have different types of injury compared with their restrained counterparts. Conclusions The use of restraining devices in children who suffer a serious injury in a motor vehicle crash continues to be low and appears to be related to specific demographic characteristics. The findings indicated that restraint use at the time of the crash was related to less severe injury as indicated by certain outcome variables.
Twenty Years of Progress Toward West Nile Virus Vaccine Development

Although West Nile virus (WNV) has been a prominent mosquito-transmitted infection in North America for twenty years, no human vaccine has been licensed. With a cumulative number of 24,714 neurological disease cases and 2314 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, plus a large outbreak in Europe in 2018 involving over 2000 human cases in 15 countries, a vaccine is essential to prevent continued morbidity, mortality, and economic burden. Currently, four veterinary vaccines are licensed, and six vaccines have progressed into clinical trials in humans. All four veterinary vaccines require multiple primary doses and annual boosters, but for a human vaccine to be protective and cost effective in the most vulnerable older age population, it is ideal that the vaccine be strongly immunogenic with only a single dose and without subsequent annual boosters. Of six human vaccine candidates, the two live, attenuated vaccines were the only ones that elicited strong immunity after a single dose. As none of these candidates have yet progressed beyond phase II clinical trials, development of new candidate vaccines and improvement of vaccination strategies remains an important area of research.
Tunable Metal Oxide Frameworks via Coordination Assembly of Preyssler-Type Molecular Clusters

We present the synthesis of metal oxide frameworks composed of [NaP5W30O110]14– assembled with Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, or Zn bridging metal ions. X-ray diffraction shows that the frameworks adopt the s...
Evaluating Improvements and Shortcomings in Clinician Satisfaction With Electronic Health Record Usability.

With the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), there is increased focus on addressing the challenges of EHR usability, ie, the extent to which the technology enables users to achieve their goals effectively, efficiently, and satisfactorily.1 Poor usability is associated with clinician job dissatisfaction and burnout and could have patient safety consequences.2,3,4 The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology established safety-enhanced design certification requirements for EHRs to promote usability. These requirements stipulate that vendors must conduct and report results of formal usability testing, including measuring satisfaction with the EHR system.5 Results are publicly available. While some vendors use a 5-point, ease-of-use rating scale, most vendors use the system usability scale (SUS), which is a validated posttest questionnaire that measures user satisfaction with product usability.6 The questionnaire provides a score (range, 0-100) based on a participant’s rating of 10 statements regarding a product’s usability.6 Higher scores indicate greater satisfaction with usability.6 Based on an analysis of more than 200 studies of various products in various industries, an SUS score of 68 is considered the average benchmark, and an SUS of 80 is considered the above-average benchmark.6 Recognizing the importance of satisfaction with EHR usability to clinician burnout and patient safety, reported product 2015 SUS scores for EHR systems were compared with 2014 SUS scores and with benchmarks to evaluate whether satisfaction is improving.2,3,4
Failed Lisfranc ORIF

Lisfranc injuries are injuries to the tarsometatarsal joint complex. There are many variations of injuries, including fractures to the base of the metatarsals, intercuneiform ligament disruptions and cuneiform fractures, and purely ligamentous injury dislocations. As this injury can vary in how it presents, a thorough physical exam, correctly diagnosing the injury with judicious review of imaging, and selecting an appropriate treatment plan are crucial to successful outcomes. Treatment can fail due to improper diagnosis, poor surgical techniques, and improper surgical implants, among other reasons. This chapter reviews common mistakes that can lead to the failed treatment of a Lisfranc injury. We offer surgical tips and present some of our own cases, showing successful outcomes in patients who have previously failed Lisfranc treatment.
Entrainment revisited: a commentary on.

Almost a century ago, Bishop proposed that brain oscillations reflect rhythmic fluctuations of neuronal populations between high and low excitability states (Bishop, 1932). While the implications o...
Model-Centered Assurance for Autonomous Systems

The functions of an autonomous system can generally be partitioned into those concerned with perception and those concerned with action. Perception builds and maintains an internal model of the world (i.e., the system’s environment) that is used to plan and execute actions to accomplish a goal established by human supervisors.
Changing Lanes: Tax Relief for Commuters

Tax law reaches all parts of life, and societal expectations about life’s activities often affect how the law is applied. As those expectations change, application of the law should be expected to change in turn. This Essay highlights changing societal views about commuting, particularly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, to demonstrate how even long-standing positions under the tax law can be quickly uprooted. Specifically, as working from home becomes standard, taxpayers should be afforded tax relief when required to commute into the workplace, despite the fact that the tax law traditionally has rejected such relief.
Multi-Year Budgeting: A Review of International Practices and Lessons for Developing and Transitional Economies

In recent years, many developed countries have moved to develop their annual budget process in a strategic multi-year framework. While a common feature of multi-year budgeting approaches is the inclusion of revenue forecasts and expenditures estimates for two or three years beyond the current year, multi-year budget practices vary substantially between countries. This article reviews multi-year budgeting practices in six developed countries (Australia, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States) and attempts to draw lessons from these experiences for the potential application of multi-year budget techniques by developing and transitional countries. We draw five lessons from the multi-year budget practices of developed countries that are relevant for developing and transitional economies: (1) a multi-year dimension could be a valuable fiscal policy and management tool for developing and transitional countries; (2) the approach chosen in each developing or transitional economy should reflect the country?s policy objectives, unique budget institutions and traditions, and administrative capabilities; (3) the introduction of a multi-year budget dimension is a gradual process; (4) the multi-year budget should be used to encourage the constructive involvement of line ministries in the budget process; and (5) the usefulness of the multi-year budget approach will crucially depend on the reliability and accuracy of the medium-term budget estimates.
A validated model for predicting live birth after embryo transfer

Accurately predicting the probability of live birth and multiple gestations is important for determining a safe number of embryos to transfer after in vitro fertilization. We developed a model that can be fit to individual clinic data for predicting singleton, twin, and total live birth rates after human embryo transfer. The predicted and observed rates of singleton and twin deliveries were compared in a tenfold cross-validation study using data from a single clinic. The model presented accounts for patient age, embryo stage (cleavage or blastocyst), type of transfer cycle (fresh or frozen) and uterine/universal factors. The standardized errors for rates of singleton and twin deliveries were normally distributed and the mean errors were not significantly different from zero (all p > 0.05). The live birth rates per embryo varied from as high as 43% for fresh blastocysts in the 35-year-old age group to as low as 1% for frozen cleavage stage embryos in the 43-year-old age group. This quantitative model or a simplified version can be used for clinics to generate and analyze their own data to guide the number of embryos to transfer to limit the risk of multiple gestations.
Early influenza vaccination rates decline in children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract Background This investigation sought to determine whether early season rates of pediatric influenza vaccination changed in a season when there was a concurrent COVID-19 pandemic. Methods This study used cohort and cross sectional data from an academic primary care division in Southcentral Pennsylvania that serves approximately 17,500 patients across 4 practice sites. Early season (prior to November 1) vaccination rates in 2018, 2019 and 2020 were recorded for children, age 6 months to 17 years. To explore the impact of COVID-19 on vaccination, we fit a model with a logit link (estimated via generalized estimating equations to account for clustering by patient over time) on calendar year, adjusted for race, ethnicity, age, and insurance type. We examined interaction effects of demographic covariates with calendar year. Results Early vaccination rates were lower in 2020 (29.7%) compared with 2018 and 2019 (34.2% and 33.3%). After adjusting for covariates and accounting for clustering over time, the odds of early vaccination in 2020 were 19% lower compared to 2018 (OR 0.81, 95% CI: 0.78–0.85). In 2020, children with private insurance were more likely to receive early vaccination than in 2018 (OR 1.51, 95% CI: 1.04–1.15), whereas children with public insurance were less likely to receive early vaccination in 2020 than in 2018 (OR 0.62, 95% CI: 1.38–1.65). Conclusions Early influenza vaccination rates declined in a year with a concurrent COVID-19 pandemic. Modeling that accounts for individual trends and demographic variables identified specific populations with lower odds of early vaccination in 2020. Additional research is needed to investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic impacted parental intent to obtain the influenza vaccine, or introduced barriers to healthcare access.
Admission C-Reactive Protein, WBC Count, Glucose, and Body Temperature in Severe Odontogenic Infections: A Retrospective Study Using Severity Scores

Structured Abstract Objectives The purpose of this study is to determine whether various serum marker levels [C-reactive protein (CRP), white blood cell (WBC) count, glucose] or body temperature at admission are associated with severity of odontogenic infections. Study Design This retrospective chart review of patients admitted to the hospital for treatment of severe odontogenic infections (SOIs) over a five-year period (2016- 2020) assigned patients with a severity score (SS) of greater than or equal to five to Group A and those with a SS of less than five to Group B. Serum marker levels and temperature at admission were collected, and comparisons between Group A and Group B were conducted for serum marker levels and body temperature at admission using two sample t-tests. Results The mean serum CRP and temperature at admission between the two groups was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). The mean WBC count and serum glucose at admission between the two groups was statistically significant (p = 0.001 and p = 0.036, respectively). Conclusions This study demonstrates that serum glucose and WBC at admission are significantly higher in patients with more severe SOIs. In addition, serum CRP and body temperature at admission are not adequate prognostic indicators of odontogenic infection severity.
On the curves of synthesis in plane, instantaneous kinematics

The kinematic geometry of the infinitesimally separated positions of a moving plane has been the subject of several relatively recent studies [1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. Amongst other matters, these are concerned with the loci of points, which may be identified with the paths of kinematic elements on the links of mechanisms selected to synthesize the motion. Classical kinematics (Burmester Theory) is concerned with circular paths, because of their association with the paths of the axes of the turning elements on links functioning as cranks. In recent times, investigations have been concerned with general paths of technical significance, such as conic sections [1, 3, 10] and cycloidal motions [9]. For the present study, we shall describe a single, uniform approach, which yields the loci for these and many other curves of technical interest.
Secondary Journalism Research: Bridging the Gaps.

This article looks at ways to strengthen the reach and significance of research being conducted by those who are interested in scholastic journalism. Common criticisms of this form of research is t...
The Purification and Properties of Detergent-solubilized Rat Liver Nucleotide Pyrophosphatase

Abstract Nucleotide pyrophosphatase was solubilized from the microsomal fraction of rat liver with Triton X-100 and was purified by ion exchange chromatography on DEAE-cellulose, gel filtration through Sepharose 4B and preparative disc electrophoresis in the presence of 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulfate. This procedure resulted in a final purification of 176-fold. Maintenance of enzymatic activity through the various stages of purification depended on the presence of detergent. When detergent was removed, enzymatic activity was lost and aggregation of protein was observed. The Triton X-100 solubilized enzyme appeared to reside in relatively large membrane fragments. These were reduced in size by treatment with sodium dodecyl sulfate. Disc electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate resolved these fragments into a number of components but enzymatic activity was decreased. When Triton X-100 was included, less resolution was achieved but enzyme activity was preserved. The hydrolysis of NADH catalyzed by the enzyme was competitively inhibited by UDP-glucose and ADP-ribose and the values of Ki for these materials as inhibitors agreed with their apparent Km values as substrates. In addition, the ratio of NADH pyrophosphatase activity to that using other substrates remained constant over several stages of purification. Segments of analytical disc gels which had been run in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate were incubated with various substrates and the locations of pyrophosphatase activity using NAD, NADPH, ADP-ribose, UDP-N-acetylglucosamine, and UDP-glucose were each compared to that using NADH as a reference substrate. All activities tested were coincident with that employing NADH. It is concluded on the basis of the experiments described that a single enzyme with broad specificity for nucleotide pyrophosphates is responsible for hydrolysis of all the nucleotide pyrophosphates tested.
The relationship between individual investor sentiment, stock return and volatility: Evidence from the Turkish market

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Turkish individual investor sentiment on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and to investigate whether investor sentiment, stock return and volatility in Turkey are related. Design/methodology/approach – This study used the monthly Turkish Consumer Confidence Index, published by the Turkish Statistical Institute, as a proxy for individual investor sentiments. First, Turkish market fundamentals were regressed on investor sentiments in order to capture the effects of macroeconomic risk factors on investor sentiments. Then, it used the impulse response functions (IRFs) generated from the vector autoregression (VAR) model to examine the effect of unanticipated movements in Turkish investor sentiment to both stock returns and volatility of the ISE. Findings – The generalized IRFs from VAR shows that unexpected changes in rational and irrational investor sentiment have a significant positive impact on ISE returns. This suggests that a positive inves...
Cutting Edge: IL-12 Induces CD4+CD25− T Cell Activation in the Presence of T Regulatory Cells

IL-12p40 cytokines have been implicated in the development of organ-specific autoimmune diseases as well as pathogen-specific adaptive immunity. In addition to inducing IFN-γ, IL-12 stimulates effector CD4+ T cells to express adhesion molecules and homing receptors that facilitate their migration to sites of inflammation. In this study, we expand upon those observations by demonstrating an alternative pathway by which IL-12 could promote Th1 inflammatory responses in mice, namely, by restoring proliferation and cytokine expression by effector T cells in the presence of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Treg). This effect of IL-12 was not replicated by IL-23 or IFN-γ and was dependent on signaling through the IL-12R expressed on CD25− responder cells, but not on Treg. Our studies suggest that IL-12 could act in concert with other proinflammatory factors to stimulate CD4+CD25− T cell activation in the presence of Treg.
Elimination of direct current distribution systems from new generating stations

This paper advances the concept that it may be both possible and advantageous to eliminate the traditional direct current distribution system from a new generating station. The latest developments in uninterruptible power supply (UPS) technology are what have made this option technically feasible. A traditional DC distribution system is compared to an AC distribution system supplied by a UPS to investigate the merits of the proposed approach.
Design of a novel assist interface where toddlers walk with a mobile robot supported at the waist

Mobility is a key factor in a child's early development. Children with mobility impairments, such as with cerebral palsy, spina bifida or Down syndrome have delayed independent mobility due to weak muscles and/or poor coordination. As a result, these children have considerably less chance to move independently compared with typically developing children of the same age. Lack of such independent mobility may result in delays in motor, social, emotional, perceptual, cognitive, and language skills. Although independent mobility can be provided by powered mobility devices, it does little to encourage development of motor functions required for gait. This paper details the design, fabrication, and evaluation of a novel mobility interface for a child to explore the environment when placed in a harness attached to the waist. Toddlers can maneuver the robotic walker through an interface that utilizes sensors to detect the translational and rotational motion of their body. We expect that toddlers will drive the walker by using their body motions. Feasibility of the system is demonstrated in this paper using experiment data from five typically developing toddlers. Further studies will demonstrate how special needs children will be trained to drive this walker and how such self-generated locomotion can benefit their long-term development.
Algorithms for scheduling periodic jobs to minimize average error

Several preemptive, priority-driven algorithms for scheduling periodic jobs on systems that support imprecise computations are described and evaluated. The algorithms are designed to keep the average error in the results produced over consecutive periods small. The approach taken here is to consider each task as consisting of two parts: a mandatory part that must be completed in order for the task to produce an acceptable result, and an optional part that refines the result produced by the mandatory part to reduce the error in the result. The mandatory parts of all tasks have hard deadlines; the rate-monotone algorithm is used to schedule them to meet all deadlines. The optional parts have soft deadlines; different algorithms are used to schedule the optional parts to minimize the average error. The performance of these algorithms is evaluated in terms of the average error over all jobs as a function of their total utilization factor. >
Screening procedure for Escherichia coli mutants deficient in ribonuclease I.

Strains of Escherichia coli that possess ribonucleic acid accumulated under relaxed growth conditions show a considerable increase in time before the onset of β-galactosidase inducibility. This time dependency can be related to the presence or absence of ribonuclease I.
Further characterization of the sodium-dependent nucleoside transporter (N3) in choroid plexus from rabbit

The Na+/nucleoside cotransporter in rabbit choroid plexus differs from Na+/nucleoside cotransporters in other tissues in terms of substrate selectivity and stoichiometry. The overall goal of this study was to further characterize the kinetics of this system (N3). Choroid plexus tissue slices obtained from rabbit brain were depleted of ATP and treated with valinomycin and K+. Na+/thymidine uptake at 30 s in the presence of an inside negative potential difference was significantly greater than in the absence of a potential difference. Na+/thymidine uptake was not significantly affected by replacing chloride with either thiocyanate or sulfate. The Km of Na+/guanosine uptake was 149, 85.2 and 30.5 microM in the presence of a 25, 50 and 100 mM Na+ gradient, respectively, whereas the Vmax was unaffected, suggesting that Na+ binds first to the cotransporter, then, the nucleoside. Therapeutically relevant base-modified nucleoside analogs, 5-fluorouridine, 2-chloroadenosine and 5-iododeoxyuridine, significantly inhibited Na+/thymidine uptake with IC50 values (mean +/- S.E.) of 12.0 +/- 2.3, 21.3 +/- 2.2 and 24.4 +/- 2.1 microM, respectively, whereas nucleoside analogs structurally modified on the ribose ring, 3'-azidothymidine, dideoxyinosine and dideoxycytidine (100 microM) did not. These studies suggest that Na+/nucleoside cotransport in the choroid plexus is electrogenic and is not dependent on chloride. This cotransporter, which is present in choroid plexus but not in renal brush-border membrane vesicles from rabbit, may play a role in the disposition of clinically relevant base-modified nucleoside analogs into and out of the brain.
Cellular electrophysiology of human epilepsy

The electrophysiological characteristics of neurons in human epileptic tissue are reviewed, with emphasis on experiments employing in vitro slice analysis of human neocortex and hippocampus. There is little evidence for an alteration in intrinsic properties of cortical or hippocampal neurons in human epileptic tissue. However, data support some decrease in functional inhibition and/or increase in synaptic excitation. In slices from epileptic brain, bursting discharge can be evoked under conditions that do not elicit such discharge patterns in normal animal tissue. Most bursts are generated from prolonged and/or enhanced EPSPs; spontaneous bursting activity, and all-or-none discharge (i.e., paroxysmal depolarizations) are rarely seen in vitro. Underlying structural alterations have been correlated with increased excitability, but cause/effect relationships have not been established. These data suggest that a variety of mechanisms may contribute to epileptogenicity in human cortical tissues.
Spectrum of gastrointestinal symptoms after laparoscopic fundoplication

A total of 82 patients underwent laparoscopic fundoplication between October 1991 and September 1993. Operative complications were unusual (7%), and the procedure in one patient was converted to an open procedure. Postoperative complications including dysphagia, gas bloat, and reflux recurrence were also unusual (less than 10% at 6 weeks). However, the majority of patients (96%) experienced some gastrointestinal side effects in the postoperative period. Such side effects included early satiety (96%), hyperflatulence (82%), nausea (15%), odynophagia (5%), and diarrhea (26%). The majority of these side effects faded during the mean follow-up of 13 months but persisted in a few patients. The incidence of these problems corresponds with the incidence reported in the literature for open fundoplications. The etiology of these side effects and treatment used is presented in this review.
“My big sister the town supervisor”: Family leadership training is not just for boys

This study investigates gender similarity in the effects of birth order upon political leadership. Town supervisors were the leaders studied as there are a considerable number of women who attain this level of leadership. Questionnaires about birth order and family size were gained from 66 women who were town supervisors in New York State in 1992, and compared to a randomly selected sample of 57 male town supervisors. It was found that women as well as men town supervisors were more likely to have been first born in their families. However, whereas gender does not apparently influence the relevance of birth order for leadership, it clearly does exert an influence on the level of political leadership attained. Women town supervisors gained their positions in towns that were considerably smaller than the towns led by the male supervisors. Discussion concerned the nature of family experiences that contribute to leadership training, including those that may be different for girls and boys. Further research is needed to clarify barriers to female assertion of political leadership at more senior levels, because as this study shows, female leadership is being trained in families.
Projections of the medial pulvinar to orbital cortex and frontal eye fields in the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta).

Abstract The projections of the medial pulvinar to frontal cortex in the rhesus monkey were studied using the Fink-Heimer and autoradiographic anterograde techniques. Both methods demonstrated two separate projections to the frontal lobe. One focus is located in the floor and both banks of the inferior limb of the arcuate sulcus (a portion of the frontal eye fields), while the second focus is located within and lateral to the orbital sulcus. The results indicate that the medial pulvinar, in addition to other thalamic nuclei, projects in a topographical manner to frontal cortex, an area known to receive various cortico-cortical projections.
Hypercharge and the cosmological baryon asymmetry.

Stringent bounds on baryon- and lepton-number-violating interactions have been derived from the requirement that such interactions, together with electroweak instantons, do not destroy a cosmological baryon asymmetry produced at an extremely high temperature in the big bang. While these bounds apply in specific models, we find that they are generically avoided. In particular, the only requirement for a theory to avoid these bounds is that it contain charge particles which, during a certain cosmological epoch, carry a nonzero hypercharge asymmetry. Hypercharge neutrality of the Universe then dictates that the remaining particles must carry a compensating hypercharge density, which is necessarily shared among them so as to give a baryon asymmetry. Hence the generation of a hypercharge density in a sector of the theory forces the Universe to have a baryon asymmetry.
Parallel Architecture Manipulators for Use in Masticatory Studies

There is considerable scientific and commercial interest in understanding the mechanics of mastication. In this paper, the authors develop quantitative engineering tools to enable this process by: i designing a general purpose mastication simulator test-bed based on parallel architecture manipulator, capable of producing the requisite motions and forces; and ii validating this simulator with a range of test-foods, undergoing various mastication cycles under controlled and monitored circumstances. Such an implementation provides a test bed to quantitatively characterize the mastication based on "chewability index". Due to the inherent advantages of locating actuators at the base ground in terms of actuator efforts and structural rigidity as well as benefits of using prismatic sliders compared to revolute actuators, the 6-P-U-S system was chosen. A detailed symbolic kinematic analysis was then conducted. For the practical implementation of the test-bed, the analytical Jacobian was examined for singularities and the design was adapted to ensure singularity free operation. A comprehensive parametric study was undertaken to obtain optimal design parameters for desired workspace and end effector forces. Experiments captured jaw motion trajectories using the high speed motion capture system which served as an input to the hardware-in-the-loop simulator platform.
Microtask crowdsourcing for disease mention annotation in PubMed abstracts.

Identifying concepts and relationships in biomedical text enables knowledge to be applied in computational analyses. Many biological natural language processing (BioNLP) projects attempt to address this challenge, but the state of the art still leaves much room for improvement. Progress in BioNLP research depends on large, annotated corpora for evaluating information extraction systems and training machine learning models. Traditionally, such corpora are created by small numbers of expert annotators often working over extended periods of time. Recent studies have shown that workers on microtask crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT) can, in aggregate, generate high-quality annotations of biomedical text. Here, we investigated the use of the AMT in capturing disease mentions in PubMed abstracts. We used the NCBI Disease corpus as a gold standard for refining and benchmarking our crowdsourcing protocol. After several iterations, we arrived at a protocol that reproduced the annotations of the 593 documents in the ‘training set’ of this gold standard with an overall F measure of 0.872 (precision 0.862, recall 0.883). The output can also be tuned to optimize for precision (max = 0.984 when recall = 0.269) or recall (max = 0.980 when precision = 0.436). Each document was completed by 15 workers, and their annotations were merged based on a simple voting method. In total 145 workers combined to complete all 593 documents in the span of 9 days at a cost of $.066 per abstract per worker. The quality of the annotations, as judged with the F measure, increases with the number of workers assigned to each task; however minimal performance gains were observed beyond 8 workers per task. These results add further evidence that microtask crowdsourcing can be a valuable tool for generating well-annotated corpora in BioNLP. Data produced for this analysis are available at http://figshare.com/articles/Disease_Mention_Annotation_with_Mechanical_Turk/1126402.
Inconsistencies of Ordered and Unordered Probability Models for Pedestrian Injury Severity

Data on crashes between a single vehicle and a pedestrian recorded in Florida from 2004 to 2008 were used to identify the factors affecting the level of pedestrian injury severity, given that an accident had occurred and to assess the consistency of the ordered (ordered probit) and the unordered (multinomial logit) models. Both models were applied to the same data set. For the impact of individual variables on the levels of pedestrian injury severity to be discerned for the ordered probit and the multinomial logit models, the marginal effects were calculated. The results of a comparison of the two models indicated that the two models were consistent when they suggested the impact of individual factors on the lowest and the highest levels of injury severity (no injury or a possible injury and fatal injury, respectively) but suggested opposing impacts for some factors on intermediate levels of injury severity (nonincapacitating and incapacitating injuries). Such an inconsistency has implications for pedestr...
Evaluating models of vowel perception.

There is a long-standing debate concerning the efficacy of formant-based versus whole spectrum models of vowel perception. Categorization data for a set of synthetic steady-state vowels were used to evaluate both types of models. The models tested included various combinations of formant frequencies and amplitudes, principal components derived from excitation patterns, and perceptually scaled LPC cepstral coefficients. The stimuli were 54 five-formant synthesized vowels that had a common F1 frequency and varied orthogonally in F2 and F3 frequency. Twelve speakers of American English categorized the stimuli as the vowels ∕ɪ∕, ∕ʊ∕, or ∕ɝ∕. Results indicate that formant frequencies provided the best account of the data only if nonlinear terms, in the form of squares and cross products of the formant values, were also included in the analysis. The excitation pattern principal components also produced reasonably accurate fits to the data. Although a wish to use the lowest-dimensional representation would dictate that formant frequencies are the most appropriate vowel description, the relative success of richer, more flexible, and more neurophysiologically plausible whole spectrum representations suggests that they may be preferred for understanding human vowel perception.
TeleMDID: Mobile technology applications for interactive diagnoses in teledermatology clinics

Over the past two decades, teledermatology has typically applied a hybrid model with both live-interactive and store-and-forward imaging technology during the diagnosis process. The primary challenges for teledermatology are integrations of diagnostic information and images captured by heterogeneous digital cameras used by the far sites, image sharing tools by the dermatologists and patients, and means for longitudinal diagnosis of skin diseases. These challenges not only cause disruptive clinic flow, but also limit the capability for the efficacy of diagnoses. The objectives of this study are to adapt mobile applications from in-person clinical to telehealth settings, and evaluate and compare its usability, effectiveness, and changes in clinic flow.
Measurement issues associated with conditional reasoning tests: An examination of faking

Abstract Conditional reasoning (CR) is a new item format that measures personality by indirectly assessing reliance upon the cognitive biases associated with specific traits ( James et al., 2005 ). Previous research suggests that, relative to self-report measures, responses on CR-based measures are more difficult to distort ( LeBreton, Barksdale, Robin, & James, 2007 ). The issue of response distortion in the context of CR-based measures was evaluated in two studies. Study 1 (within-subjects) and Study 2 (between-subjects) both investigated whether responses on a CR-based test of addiction could be faked when indirect assessment was upheld. Results of both studies indicated that, unlike a self-report measure of a similar construct, the CR-based measure was unaffected by response distortion.
A dual-detector based optical fluorescence imaging system

A dual-CCD based optical fluorescence system has been developed to facilitate ratio imaging. The system consists of two custom cameras capable of operating at 490 frames per second, with 128 by 128 detector elements, and 12 bits digitization. Tissue-simulating gel phantoms containing 5-(and-6)-carboxy seminaphthofluoresceins-1 (SNAFL-1) fluorescent dye were constructed. Using an excitation light at a wavelength of 489±11 nm and appropriate filtering, the fluorescence intensities of the dye-containing gel phantoms at different emission wavelengths were measured by the system. The dual-detector system can simultaneously collect two different intensity peaks. Gel phantoms with dye concentrations ranging from 0.00001 mg/mL to 0.1 mg/mL were used. Our results indicate that the dual-CCD fluorescence system is capable of detecting fluorescence signals at very low dye concentration (as low as 0.0001 mg/mL). To simulating real clinical situations, dye-containing gel was placed under normal gel of different thickness. Our results showed that the system can capture significant fluorescence signals of dye-containing gel under normal gel of a thickness up to 0.73 cm. The intensity ratios between different emission peaks were also measured. The system is a useful research tool in some biomedical experiments. Keywords: dual-detector system; fluorescence imaging; gel phantom; SNAFL-1 dye
Effects of chronic exposure to soft, acidic water on gill development and chloride cell numbers in embryo-larval brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis

Recruitment failure is considered to be a major factor contributing to the decline of fish populations in soft, acidic waters; direct mortality of embryo-larval fishes has been postulated as a major cause of the decline. Little is understood of the physiological consequences to embryo-larval fishes of prolonged exposure to soft, acidic waters; however, dysfunction of respiratory and ionoregulatory processes is suspected. In order to evaluate the effects of acid exposure on the respiratory and ionoregulatory systems of developing brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, differences in gill morphology and numbers of chloride cells were compared between groups cf developing embryo-larval fish continuously exposed to moderately hard well water (130.0 mg.l−1 as CaCO3, pH 7.94) or to reconstituted soft, acidic water (4.4 mg.l−1 as CaCO3, pH 5.25) designed to mimic acidic waters of northern Wisconsin acidified lakes. Exposures were maintained for up to 48 days (82 days after fertilization) during critical periods of growth and differentiation of branchial structures. The second right gill arch of each fish was examined for changes in the development of filaments and lamellae and for differences in numbers of chloride cells. Gills of fish that developed in soft, acidic water contained greater numbers of normal and degenerating chloride cells, exhibited hyperplasia of primary epithelium and multiple fusions of adjacent filaments and lamellar epithelium than the gills of control fish. Filament and lamellar lengths and numbers of lamellae per filament were significantly less (P
Copper reverses cardiomyocyte hypertrophy through vascular endothelial growth factor-mediated reduction in the cell size.

Abstract Previous studies have shown that dietary copper supplementation reversed heart hypertrophy induced by pressure overload in a mouse model. The present study was undertaken to understand the cellular basis of copper-induced regression of cardiac hypertrophy. Primary cultures of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were treated with phenylephrine (PE) at a final concentration of 100 μM in cultures for 48 h to induce cellular hypertrophy. The hypertrophied cardiomyocytes were exposed to copper sulfate at a final concentration of 5 μM in cultures for additional 24 h. This copper treatment reduced the size of the hypertrophied cardiomyocytes, as measured by flow cytometry, protein content in cells, cell volume and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy markers including beta-myosin heavy chain protein, skeletal alpha-actin, and atrial natriuretic peptide. Cell cycle analysis and cell sorting of p -histone-3 labeled cardiomyocytes indicated that cell division was not involved in the copper-induced regression of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Copper also inhibited PE-induced apoptosis, determined by a TUNEL assay. Because copper stimulates vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) production through activation of hypoxia-inducible transcription factor, an anti-VEGF antibody at a final concentration of 2 ng/ml in cultures was used and shown to blunt copper-induced regression of cell hypertrophy. Conversely, VEGF alone at a final concentration of 0.2 μg/ml reversed cell hypertrophy as the same as copper did. This study demonstrates that both copper and VEGF reduce the size of hypertrophied cardiomyocytes, and copper regression of cardiac hypertrophy is VEGF-dependent.
Effects of correlation matrix estimation on correlated source cancellation in beamformers

Abstract We examine the effects of using different methods to estimate the spatial correlation matrix of multi-epoch MEG time series data on the correlated source cancellation phenomenon in linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) beamforming. The method used to estimate the correlation matrix impacts the level of effective correlation between sources that is seen by the beamformer and the consequent performance. We present an analysis of correlated source cancellation based on a general framework for estimating the spatial correlation matrix. Our analysis is exact at all signal to noise ratios and is used to compare the performance obtained using different correlation matrix estimates. Thus, the analysis provides guidance on the selection of a correlation matrix estimation strategy. For example, over certain ranges of signal to noise ratio, we show that averaging across epochs before estimating the correlation matrix can create significant correlated source cancellation relative to estimating the correlation matrix from the single trial data. Simulations confirm the conclusions of the analysis.
Organic Mercury Identified as the Cause of Poisoning in Humans and Hogs

Atomic absorption spectrophotometry and neutron activation analysis showed the presence of mercury in organic extracts of seed grain and in tissues of hogs fed the contaminated grain. Mercury was also found in the urine, serum, and cerebrospinal fluid of humans who ate the contaminated pork. Mass spectral analysis confirmed the presence of organic mercury. This paper reports the first documented episode of indirect mercury poisoning in humans in the United States caused by the ingestion of contaminated meat from animals that had consumed mercury in their food supply.
Anatomical variations of the iliolumbar vein with application to the anterior retroperitoneal approach to the lumbar spine: A cadaver study

Objectives of this study include identification of lumbosacral venous variations, designation of a critical area of dissection for surgical exposure, and comparison between both male/female and right/left-sided anatomy. Attempts were made to provide anatomic nomenclature that accurately describes these structures. Thirty-eight iliolumbar venous systems in 20 cadavers (11 females/9 males) were dissected. Each system was identified as one of three patterns of variation: common venous trunk (combining ascending lumbar and iliolumbar venous systems) with distal veins, common venous trunk without distal veins, and venous systems without a common venous trunk. Dimensions including distances to the inferior vena cava (IVC) confluence, the obturator nerve, and the lumbosacral trunk, and venous stem length were obtained to aid surgical dissection. Differences between males and females and those between right and left sides were compared. Anterior lumbosacral venous variations could be organized into three groups. A Type 1 venous system (common venous trunk with distal veins) was most common (53% of systems). The anatomical name "lateral lumbosacral veins" adequately describes the anatomical location of these veins and does not assume a direction of venous flow or the lack of individual distal veins. A critical area bordered by the obturator nerve anteriorly, the psoas muscle laterally, the spinal column medially, and sacrum posteriorly within 8.2 cm of the IVC confluence should be defined to adequately dissect the lateral lumbosacral veins. Differences in male and female lateral lumbosacral venous anatomy do not alter surgeon's approach to the anterior lumbar spine.
Intelligent transportation systems benefit priorities: an application to the Woodrow Wilson bridge

Abstract This paper reports on an application of the probabilistic multi-dimensional scaling algorithm (PROSCAL) to assess the priority in benefits desired from various intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies that can be used on the proposed new Woodrow Wilson bridge. A survey of transportation professionals in the Washington Metropolitan Area gathered pair-wise comparison judgment data for nine potential benefits of ITS. From these collective preference orderings were computed, reflecting a robust prioritization of the perceived benefits. Results indicated that improved safety was the highest priority benefit followed by better traffic flow. The analysis demonstrated an alternative to conventional multi-attribute utility models in evaluating transportation decision making.
Sequential Predictive Control of Industrial Processes

A new digital control algorithm is based on optimization of control Variables over a multi-step extrapolation of the controlled variable profiles. The algorithm is suitable for industrial processes which often exhibit time delays and nonminimum phase behaviors. The control algorithm is formulated in terms of a state space transformation. On-line adaptation is made possible by coupling the algorithm with a least squares estimator. The adaptive version is required in applications where a reliable process model is not available or where process behavior is highly non-linear.