cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Heparin during Diagnostic Cerebral Angiography, Is It Safe? (P05.253)

Objective: This study aimes at identifying the safety of different techniques in administering heparin during diagnostic cerebral angiography (DCA). Background Unfractionated heparin is commonly used during DCA to reduce thromboembolic complications. In heparin insensitive patients, pressurized heparinized saline is always connected to the arterial sheath. Further heparin bolus for DCA is employed by few interventionalist. We sought to identify if these different techniques impact outcomes. Design/Methods: We reviewed all DCA procedures in our database for the past 2 years. We excluded procedures which were immediately followed by neurointervention, spinal angiograms, and cases with insufficient documentation. Procedures divided into 3 groups, those received heparinized flush for the femoral artery sheath; those who received additional intravenous heparin bolus (3000-5000 IU); and those who had a second heparinized saline flush for the diagnostic catheter. Endpoints included any atheroembolic complications and serious groin complications (bleeding requiring a transfusion, retroperitoneal hemorrhage, or femoral artery tear requiring vascular repair). Results: The final cohort included 1143 DCA performed on 959 patients. Among those 1037 patients had heparinized saline flush for the groin sheath; 62 patients had received additional intravenous heparin bolus; and 44 patients had 2 heparinized flush lines without heparin bolus. The incidence of any atheroembolic complications occurred in 7 patients (0.6%) and any serious groin complications in 6 patients (0.5%). All of these complications occurred in those who had heparinized saline for the arterial sheath only compared to the other groups (P > 0.05). Conclusions: At our institution, the incidence of any complications with DCA was low. Furthermore, there was no statistical evidence that administration of intravenous heparin bolus or a second heparinized saline line would increased serious groin bleeding or cause less atheroembolic complications. Disclosure: Dr. Kitchener has nothing to disclose. Dr. Amer has nothing to disclose. Dr. Kaushal has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bienemann has nothing to disclose. Dr. Callison has nothing to disclose. Dr. Vora has nothing to disclose. Dr. Edgell has nothing to disclose.
Regulation of body temperature in the rock hyrax, Heterohyrax brucei.

The effects of ambient temperature on the body temperature, oxygen consumption, heart rate, breathing rate, evaporative water loss, and behavior of Heterohyrax brucei from the vicinity of Nairobi, Kenya, were studied. The mean rectal temperature of animals at rest in the absence of heat stress was 36.4° C, and telemetered abdominal temperatures of a normally active individual in an outdoor inclosure ranged from slightly below 35 to almost 37°. No periods of profound nocturnal hypothermia were observed. However, body temperature was labile and markedly affected by ambient temperatures, especially above 30°. Following exposures of 60 to 90 minutes to temperatures from 0 to 42.5°, the upper and lower limits of observed body temperatures were separated by 7 to 8°. Exposure to direct sunlight produced marked hyperthermia, increased rate and amplitude of breathing (mean resting rate, 37 per minute), sweating on the soles of the feet, and a marked decrease in tonus of skeletal muscles. The lower critical temperature was near 25°, but because of an anomalous decline in oxygen consumption at temperatures above 35°, no upper critical temperature was apparent. The standard metabolic rate was 0.52 milliliter O2 (gram hour)−1, which is about 20 per cent below the level predicted on the basis of body weight. Mean minimal total thermal conductance was 0.184 calories (gram hour ¼)−1. Above 25°, evaporative water loss increased directly with Ta. At an ambient temperature of 42.5° and a water vapor pressure of 12 millimeters Hg, the hyraxes evaporated enough water to dissipate all their metabolic heat production. About 22 per cent of the water was evaporated from the feet, which sweated profusely during heat stress. The mean minimum heart rate of 118 per minute occurred between ambient temperatures of 24 and 35°. This rate is about 52 per cent of that predicted on the basis of size. Heart rate increased at both higher and lower temperatures. Despite their labile body temperatures, low metabolic rate, and high thermal conductance rock hyraxes maintain body temperatures in the usual mammalian range with a minimum expenditure of energy. Thermoregulation is facilitated by the equable climate in which they live and by their use of patterns of behavior which contribute to control of body temperature. These include diurnality, basking, restricted periods of surface activity, gregarious fossorial habits, and huddling.
Factors affecting piping plover chick survival in different brood- rearing habitats

The decline of piping plover (Charadrius melodus) populations and subsequent listing as a threatened species has been attributed, in part, to low chick survival. During 1988-90, we observed piping plover chicks daily to evaluate hypotheses of differential food resources, predation, and disturbance explaining differences in chick survival in 3 habitats on Assateague Island National Seashore (AINS), Maryland. Chicks reared on the bay beach and island interior had higher daily survival rates (0.97, 0.99 vs. 0.87; P < 0.001), higher foraging rates (13.3, 10.8 vs. 5.9 attempts/min; P < 0.001), and spent more time foraging (76, 80 vs. 37%, P < 0.004) than chicks reared on the ocean beach. Terrestrial arthropod abundance on the bay beach and island interior was greater than on the ocean beach in 5 of 6 cases (P < 0.01). Amphipods, however, were more abundant on ocean beaches than in bay and island interior habitats each year (P ≤ 0.03). Chicks 4-5 days old that were reared on the bay beach or island interior habitats were heavier than those reared on the ocean beach (8.5, 7.8 vs. 6.5 g; P < 0.01). Overall disturbance rates did not differ among habitats (behavioral observations; P = 0.29). The number of predator trails did not differ among the 3 habitats (P = 0.2). Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) trails were more numerous in the island interior and ocean beach (P < 0.001), ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata) burrows were more numerous on ocean beach (P < 0.001), and gull (Larus spp.) and raccoon (Procyon lotor) trails were more numerous on bay beach (P < 0.001 and P = 0.001, respectively). Piping plover chicks moved from ocean beach nest sites to the bay beach and island interior along ephemeral, vegetation-free paths created during winter storms by waves surging across the island. These paths should be maintained to enable piping plover chicks to move to the island interior and bay habitats where chick survival is greatest. Preserving access to high quality brood-rearing habitat will ensure reproductive rates that will sustain the local population and contribute to the species' recovery.
Investigation on effect of 'a tobacco-free city' project in 8 tertiary hospitals of Wuxi City

Objective To contrast the intervention effect of implementation 'a tobacco-free cities' project in 8 tertiary hospitals of Wuxi City.Methods A self-administered questionnaire was used before and after the intervention,employees who worked at hospitals enrolled this survey by randomly selected.Results After the intervention,the on-going smoking rate was decreased from 7.94% to 6.88%;smoking rate for males was declined from 23.64% to 21.28% and from 0.19 to 0 for females;the smoking rate for smokers of employees smoked at prohibited smoking locations felled from 23.44% to 19.09%;the rate of second-hand smoking exposure was reduced from 17.06% to 14.88%.Meanwhile the rate of knowing knowledge on harmfulness of smoking and passive smoking was improved.Knowing on non smoking indoors,approving non smoking for employees and for patients/visitors increased from 85.30%,80.83% and 64.52% to 93.50%,80.8% and 76.63%,respectively.The proportion of employees who had not received any training on quitting smoking intervention for patients decreased from 52.32% to 16.41%;status of patients' cigarettes consumption had not inquired by medical workers in the past 3 months declined from 16.68% to 11.82%.Conclusion A better result has achieved in implementing 'a tobacco-free city' project at hospitals.Moreover,it is necessary to strengthen training on tobacco use for medical workers as well as non-smoking publicity and enforcement levels for medical sectors.
The contribution of TT Fujita to the understanding of tornado suction marks, spots, swaths, and vortices

For years USA Plains state residents wondered why tornado events resulted in the destruction of one neighborhood house while leaving neighboring houses almost untouched. Research conducted during t...
Speech and Language Technology in Education: The Perspective from SLA Research and Practice.

This paper weighs the implications of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research and practice for Speech and Language Technology in Education (SLaTE). It describes the different psychological processes of implicit learning, explicit learning, and explicit instruction, and reviews educational research into the benefits and limitations of each. It considers how SLA differs from first language acquisition and, therefore, why implicit learning from usage does not suffice for SLA. It outlines the range of types of knowledge necessary for fluent nativelike proficiency, and how this requires a balanced learning curriculum that provides opportunities for implicit learning from meaning-based usage and explicit attention to form in use contexts. It then considers what SLaTE might offer in each of these domains.
Screening for prostate cancer. Does it make a difference

Susan's father, Sidney Smith, is 63 years old. Recently he has heard on radio and television talk shows that a new test, the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA), is now available to check for prostate cancer. During his general check-up visit to your office, he mentions this test and wants to know more. He is in excellent health and his urinary review of systems reveals only a slight decrease in the intensity of his urinary stream. On examination he has moderate prostate enlargement but no palpable nodules. His stool test is Hemoccult negative. The remainder of his examination is normal.
Further Advancement: The Pros and the Cons

Further advancement has attraction, but there is often a price to pay for it by you and your family. Examine the pros and cons carefully.
SU‐F‐E‐11: Perception and Implementation of Collaborative Documentation Technologies Among Medical Physics Educators and Industry Professionals: A Current Practice Survey

Purpose: Collaboration on documents and manuscripts plays a central role in conveying medical physics concepts between interdisciplinary teams, necessary for knowledge-building, acquiring funding, and translating scientific concepts to applied medical solutions. Conventional tools and emerging internet-based solutions are used in generating and disseminating physics documents among teams. This research aimed to gain insights on how medical physics professionals and educators are using collaborative documentation software and team practices. Methods: An online survey based on a modified version of the Noel & Roberts (2004) collaborative documentation survey in ’Computer Supported Cooperative Work’ was used to collect data from 102 industry practitioners and educators engaged primarily in medical physics. Items includes 30 scaled and qualitative assessments of software use, inputs, time spent on documentation tasks and related activities (meetings, leadership, task assignment, etc.), number of collaborators, documentation volume and practices, revision and publication strategies, and attitudes toward documentation software. Results: Of 102 respondents, 74 completed all survey sections, and 58/74 (78%) reported using collaborative document technologies, but only 35% of these were fully satisfied with the technology. A total of 27/58 (47.37%) reported collaborative documentation tools assisted in meeting established deadlines. Most collaborative documentation projects spanned weeks, and required a commitment of 17.68 hours/week (2 – 80, median 15). Between 2–100 synchronous meetings lasting 1–5 hr/meeting were required, most commonly held before starting writing (43.64%) to discuss technical contents (85.96%), document requirements (61.40%), assign tasks (54.39%), or resolve team conflicts (52.63%). Results were presented as a visual infographic, potentially useful as a teaching aid. Conclusion: While reportedly easy to use, most online collaborative tools did not fully meet physicist documentation needs, including deficiencies in security, load times, information presentation capabilities, and role assignment. These insights can help improve collaborative documentation software development and training programs for new authors in medical physics fields. The author is an employee of GE Healthcare. This study was completed through the author’s academic doctoral work and no funding or other interests were provided by the author’s employer.
Thrips and Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus in a Mississippi Peanut Field

Two species of thrips, Frankliniella fusca, the tobacco thrips, and western flower thrips (WFT), capable of vectoring tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), were collected from a peanut field in Coahoma County, Mississippi in 1992. Results of repeated sampling indicated that the numbers of tobacco thrips were high in the spring and very low late in the growing season. Numbers of WFT were low in the spring and higher late in the season. The percentage of plants developing symptoms of TSWV peaked at 11% early in the season and rose sharply to 75% in late August. The seasonal distribution of the two thrips vectors and the incidence of symptomatic plants indicates that the disease may have been vectored by tobacco thrips early in the summer and by WFT late at the end of August.
Fabrication and convergent X-ray nanobeam diffraction characterization of submicron-thickness SrTiO 3 crystalline sheets

The creation of thin SrTiO3 crystals from (001)-oriented SrTiO3 bulk single crystals using focused ion beam milling techniques yields sheets with submicron thickness and arbitrary orientation within the (001) plane. Synchrotron x-ray nanodiffraction rocking curve widths of these SrTiO3 sheets are less than 0.02°, less than a factor of two larger than bulk SrTiO3, making these crystals suitable substrates for epitaxial thin film growth. The change in the rocking curve width is sufficiently small that we deduce that dislocations are not introduced into the SrTiO3 sheets. Observed lattice distortions are consistent with a low concentration of point defects.
MicroRNA Signatures Associated with Cytogenetics and Outcome in Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Abstract MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs of 19–25 nucleotides in length that are negative regulators of gene expression. Findings over the last few years indicate that microRNAs are involved in fundamental cellular process, including development and hematopoietic differentiation. Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disorder that is characterized by proliferation of immature cells. Although there are well defined molecular subtypes of AML, the pathogenesis in the majority of cases is largely unknown. Focusing on known genes will not likely suffice to uncover the nature of the AML. The integration of a whole genome approach including non-coding RNA gene products may lead to an improve understanding of the biology of AML. Methods: To determine whether microRNAs are associated with known cytogenetic abnormalities and biological features in AML, we evaluated the microRNA expression profiles of 176 samples of adult AML with intermediate and poor risk cytogenetics and 10 CD34+ cells from healthy donors using a microarrays platform. After normalization, data were analyzed using significance analysis of microarrays and prediction analysis of microarrays software. An independent set of 28 patients with AML was used to validate the signatures using quantitative real time PCR. Treatment response was evaluated in 29 newly AML diagnosed patients 4 to 6 weeks after induction chemotherapy with idarubicin and cytarabine by bone marrow examination. Complete remission was defined as less than 5% blasts in the bone marrow. Otherwise it was categorized as resistant disease. Results: We found several microRNAs differentially expressed between CD34+ cells and all the AML samples. A subset of these microRNAs reflects the differentiation stage of the leukemias and correlate with the French-American-British classification of AML. Likewise, microRNAs are closely associated with the prevalent cytogenetic abnormalities. A common signature including the over expressed miR-20; miR-17, miR-25 and miR-191 are associated with short overall survival, while miR-29b is found down-regulated in patients with resistant disease. Furthermore, we proved experimentally that miR-29b regulates negatively MCL-1, a critical apoptosis regulator, which has been found up-regulated and associated with relapse and chemotherapy resistance in leukemia. Conclusions: MicroRNAs expression in AML is closely associated with differentiation stage, morphology and cytogenetics. A subset of MicroRNAs is correlated with survival and treatment response.
Post-transplant Complications: Hypertension, Renal Dysfunction, Diabetes Mellitus, Malignancy, Arrhythmias, Osteoporosis, Sexual Dysfunction

Apart from morbidity related to the allograft, post-transplant complications are often related to the long-term use of immunosuppressive therapy. In addition, post-transplant morbidity may also be related to the medical conditions that lead to the need for heart transplantation in the first place. In this chapter, we review the incidence, pathophysiology and management approaches to key post-transplant complications – hypertension, renal dysfunction, diabetes mellitus, malignancy, arrhythmias, osteoporosis and sexual dysfunction.
Preclinical activity of ofatumumab (OFA) in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo models.

e18537 Background: MCL is characterized by an aggressive clinical course and inevitable development of refractory disease despite early intervention that often includes: immunotherapy (e.g., rituxi...
Deep Learning in Cancer and Infectious Disease: Novel Driver Problems for Future HPC Architecture

The adoption of machine learning is proving to be an amazingly successful strategy in improving predictive models for cancer and infectious disease. In this talk I will discuss two projects my group is working on to advance biomedical research through the use of machine learning and HPC. In cancer, machine learning and in deep learning in particular, is used to advance our ability to diagnosis and classify tumors. Recently demonstrated automated systems are routinely out performing human expertise. Deep learning is also being used to predict patient response to cancer treatments and to screen for new anti-cancer compounds. In basic cancer research its being use to supervise large-scale multi-resolution molecular dynamics simulations used to explore cancer gene signaling pathways. In public health it's being used to interpret millions of medical records to identify optimal treatment strategies. In infectious disease research machine learning methods are being used to predict antibiotic resistance and to identify novel antibiotic resistance mechanisms that might be present. More generally machine learning is emerging as a general tool to augment and extend mechanistic models in biology and many other fields. It's becoming an important component of scientific workloads. From a computational architecture standpoint, deep neural network (DNN) based scientific applications have some unique requirements. They require high compute density to support matrix-matrix and matrix-vector operations, but they rarely require 64bit or even 32bits of precision, thus architects are creating new instructions and new design points to accelerate training. Most current DNNs rely on dense fully connected networks and convolutional networks and thus are reasonably matched to current HPC accelerators. However future DNNs may rely less on dense communication patterns. Like simulation codes, power efficient DNNs require high-bandwidth memory be physically close to arithmetic units to reduce costs of data motion and a high-bandwidth communication fabric between (perhaps modest scale) groups of processors to support network model parallelism. DNNs in general do not have good strong scaling behavior, so to fully exploit large-scale parallelism they rely on a combination of model, data and search parallelism. Deep learning problems also require large-quantities of training data to be made available or generated at each node, thus providing opportunities for NVRAM. Discovering optimal deep learning models often involves a large-scale search of hyperparameters. It's not uncommon to search a space of tens of thousands of model configurations. Naive searches are outperformed by various intelligent searching strategies, including new approaches that use generative neural networks to manage the search space. HPC architectures that can support these large-scale intelligent search methods as well as efficient model training are needed.
The Nation's Oral Health Inequities: Who Cares….

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various reports within the issue on topics including oral health inequities impacting elderly people and incarcerated individuals in America, public health in the U.S. and access to affordable and preventive oral health care services.
Experimental considerations of CVD diamond film measurements using time domain thermoreflectance

Diamond has the highest known thermal conductivity of any known bulk material, but the properties of synthetic diamond films often fall far short of this high level. The DARPA program Thermal Transport in Diamond Films for Electronics Thermal Management brings together researchers from five universities to comprehensively characterize the thermal transport and material properties of CVD diamond thin films in an effort to better how to further improve the thermal transport properties and understand how accurately these properties can be measured using time domain thermoreflectance and Raman spectroscopy. Here we summarize the results of the thermal measurements of diamond conducted via time domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) using two different systems and discuss some difficulties of accurately measuring the thermal conductivity of micron-thick anisotropic films that often have high surface roughness. We also report that in certain cases the thermal conductivity and thermal boundary conductance of CVD diamond films has been improved to the point of making them highly attractive for thermal management of high power electronic devices.
Effective education and communication strategies to promote environmental engagement

Communicators of climate science seek ways to better educate and motivate individuals to personally commit to sustainable, energy-saving activities. However, critical psychological and social barriers to conservation make this task challenging. Behavioural scientists are well aware of the difficulties that individuals and groups have in responding effectively to information surrounding climate change and have used these insights to develop a number of techniques to aid in persuading people of the importance of the issue and motivating adaptive behavioural responses. This article consolidates research findings from behavioural economics, decision science, and social psychology to explore key insights and evidence around effective climate change education strategies aimed at enhancing conservation behaviours, including analyses of cognitive bias, social influences, values, and communication strategies. In addition, we note international, academic-private partnerships that have used interventions suggested by behavioural science to dramatic effects. We conclude by addressing implications for policymakers.
Autoencoder node saliency: Selecting relevant latent representations

Abstract The autoencoder is an artificial neural network that performs nonlinear dimension reduction and learns hidden representations of unlabeled data. With a linear transfer function it is similar to the principal component analysis (PCA). While both methods use weight vectors for linear transformations, the autoencoder does not come with any indication similar to the eigenvalues in PCA that are paired with eigenvectors. We propose a novel autoencoder node saliency method that examines whether the features constructed by autoencoders exhibit properties related to known class labels. The supervised node saliency ranks the nodes based on their capability of performing a learning task. It is coupled with the normalized entropy difference (NED). We establish a property for NED values to verify classifying behaviors among the top ranked nodes. By applying our methods to real datasets, we demonstrate their ability to provide indications on the performing nodes and explain the learned tasks in autoencoders.
The Role of Weltanschauung in Problem Solving and Inquiry

There is a story to the effect that the students of a famous mathematician presented him with the sequence 32, 38, 44, 48, 56, 60 and asked for the next member. It was also stipulated that the properties of the sequence were very well known to the professor and that the generating principle was quite simple. The mathematician, failing to find anything but a fairly complicated polynomial fit, gave up. The answer was “Meadowlark,” this being the next stop on the city’s subway -- elevated after 60th Street. The problem was “fair,” because the professor rode this conveyance daily and hence “knew” very well the principle of the sequence.
Epilepsy; Drug Treatment Principles

Antiepileptic drug selection is most dictated by the expectation that the drug will control or maximally prevent seizures. Evidence-based studies confirm that some drugs are superior for certain seizure types such as absence and myoclonic. Differences in efficacy for partial onset seizures are often modest, so the choice of drug may be decided by other factors such as expected adverse effects, comorbidities, pharmacokinetics, age, gender, and cost. No drug of choice exists for each seizure type. Rather careful individualized selection is indicated.
Introduction to Welfare Economics and General Equilibrium Analysis

In the earlier chapters we dealt with the behavior of individual agents be they consumers or producers. We also dealt with markets for individual goods. In this chapter we discuss the simultaneous behavior of all agents. The discussion attempts to clarify the relationship between what is “good” for the group and what is “good” for its individual constituents. When we speak of this relationship we are in the realm of welfare economics. This will be done in Section 2. In our discussion we will assume that “good for the society” means Pareto efficient. What is “good for individuals” will mean a general competitive equilibrium. In the absence of externalities, in addition to some other less striking assumptions, it is shown that the two “good” coincide. We call attention to the shallowness of the philosophic import of this result which may be stated as follows: If every member of society is an island into themselves, then what is best for society coincides with what is best for the individual. (How else can it be?)
Tekkotsu: Cognitive Robotics on the Sony AIBO.

Tekkotsu (the name means “framework” in Japanese) is an application development framework for the Sony AIBO robot that endeavors to provide an intuitive set of primitives for perception, manipulation, and control. The framework also addresses some of the human-robot interaction problems faced by mobile robot application developers. See www.Tekkotsu.org. The contributions of this work lie in three areas:
Multiplicative Functions with First and Second Means

In Chapter six we proved, amongst other things, the following elegant result of Delange: Let g(n) be a complex-valued multiplicative arithmetic function for which |g(n)| < 1, (n = 1, 2,…). Then there is a non-zero mean-value $$ {\text{A = }}\mathop {lim}\limits_{n \to 8} {\text{ }}n^{ - 1} \sum\limits_{m = 1}^n {g(m)} $$ if and only if the series $$ \sum {p^{ - 1} (g(p) - 1)}$$ taken over all the primes p is convergent, and for at least one positive integer k, g(2 k )≠ − 1. It is important that the limit A is assumed non-zero.
Reduced Lower Extremity Functioning Is Associated With an Increased Rate of Being a Nondriver: The National Health and Aging Trends Study.

Background Driving a motor vehicle is an important aspect of mobility for older adults. Limited lower extremity functioning performance, as measured by the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), has been associated with various negative health outcomes, but little is known about the association of SPPB scores with driving status. Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether lower (poorer) SPPB scores are associated with an increased rate for being a current nondriver among a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling older adults. Design The National Health and Aging Trends Study is a longitudinal cohort study. Methods A population of 5935 participants, surveyed annually from 2011 to 2014 for the National Health and Aging Trends Study, was used to examine the relationship between SPPB and driving status. Using weighted data, multivariable Poisson regression with generalized estimating equations was used to calculate the rate ratios, adjusting for covariates and clustering due to the complex survey design. Results Participants with a low (poor) SPPB score (0-5) had a rate for being a current nondriver 2.01 times the rate (or 101% increase) of those with a high (good) SPPB score (10-12) (adjusted 95% confidence interval = 1.78-2.26). Limitations Current nondrivers were not asked whether they planned to resume driving if they had not driven in the previous year. Conclusions Unlike other factors, such as cognitive decline, lower SPPB scores (poorer lower extremity functioning) are significantly associated with an increased rate of being a current nondriver and are a modifiable risk factor. Further research is needed to examine whether optimum exercises and other physical therapist interventions focused on improving lower extremity strength and balance ultimately improve driving outcomes.
Urologic malignancies: A comparison of outcomes after index surgery between academic and community hospitals.

489Background: To compare the rate of hospital based outcomes in patients with urologic malignancies who underwent surgery as part of treatment in academic and community hospitals. Methods: We revi...
Behavioral preference for viewing drug v. pleasant images predicts current and future opioid misuse among chronic pain patients.

BACKGROUND The USA is currently enduring an opioid crisis. Identifying cost-effective, easy-to-implement behavioral measures that predict treatment outcomes in opioid misusers is a crucial scientific, therapeutic, and epidemiological goal. METHODS The current study used a mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal design to test whether a behavioral choice task, previously validated in stimulant users, was associated with increased opioid misuse severity at baseline, and whether it predicted change in opioid misuse severity at follow-up. At baseline, data from 100 prescription opioid-treated chronic pain patients were analyzed; at follow-up, data were analyzed in 34 of these participants who were non-misusers at baseline. During the choice task, participants chose under probabilistic contingencies whether to view opioid-related images in comparison with affectively pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral images. Following previous procedures, we also assessed insight into choice behavior, operationalized as whether (yes/no) participants correctly self-reported the image category they chose most often. RESULTS At baseline, the higher choice for viewing opioid images in direct comparison with pleasant images was associated with opioid misuse and impaired insight into choice behavior; the combination of these produced especially elevated opioid-related choice behavior. In longitudinal analyses of individuals who were initially non-misusers, higher baseline opioid v. pleasant choice behavior predicted more opioid misuse behaviors at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that greater relative allocation of behavior toward opioid stimuli and away from stimuli depicting natural reinforcement is associated with concurrent opioid misuse and portends vulnerability toward future misuse. The choice task may provide important medical information to guide opioid-prescribing practices.
Cationic Copolymerization of o-Phthalaldehyde and Functional Aliphatic Aldehydes

There has been a resurgence of research related to poly(phthalaldehyde) (PPHA) in the past several years because of the demonstration of long room-temperature lifetime and its low ceiling temperatu...
DehydrationRather Than HF Capture Explains Performance Improvements of Li-IonCells by Ceramic Nanoparticles

Instability of nickel-rich layered oxides at high voltages is an impediment to their wider use in Li-ion batteries. HF generated via LiPF6 hydrolysis accelerates corrosion, further destabilizing th...
Fast Multitaper Spectral Estimation

Thomson’s multitaper method using discrete prolate spheroidal sequences (DPSSs) is a widely used technique for spectral estimation. For a signal of length N, Thomson’s method requires selecting a bandwidth parameter W, and then uses K ≈ 2NW tapers. The computational cost of evaluating the multitaper estimate at N grid frequencies is O(KN log N). It has been shown that the choice of W and K which minimizes the MSE of the multitaper estimate is W = O(N−1/5) and K = O(N4/5). This choice would require a computational cost of O(N9/5 log N). We demonstrate an ϵ-approximation to the multitaper estimate which can be evaluated at N grid frequencies using $O\left( {N{{\log }^2}N\log \frac{1}{\varepsilon }} \right)$ operations.
Functional Alterations Associated with Structural Abnormalities in Adults with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Background: The combination of structural and functional analyses is a biologically valid approach that offers methodological advantages in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) neuroimaging science. The paucity of studies combining these methods constitutes an important knowledge gap. In this study, we investigate structural abnormalities and their associated functional differences in a developmentally homogeneous ASD cohort. Methods: Whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses were performed on 28 ASD participants and 38 age-matched typically developing healthy controls (HC) to derive gray matter (GM) volume differences. The anatomically relevant clusters identified by VBM served as seed regions of interest (ROI) for resting-state functional-connectivity (RsFc) analysis. Results: Whole-brain VBM analyses revealed significant right lateralized GM volume abnormality in the ASD group, with lower GM volumes in cerebellar lobules VIIb/VIIIa (cluster 1) and significantly higher GM volumes in posterior middle/superior temporal gyri (Brodmann area [BA] 21/22, cluster 2) compared with HC. Whole-brain RsFc analysis in high-functioning ASD (HF-ASD) revealed significant hypoconnectivity of the cerebellar VBM cluster with the right cerebral cortical regions of superior parietal lobule (BA 7) and occipital pole (BA 19) (overlapping with dorsal attention and visual networks, respectively). Cerebral cortical VBM cluster (cluster 2) revealed significant hypoconnectivity in HF-ASD with other task-positive cerebral cortical including the left lateral prefrontal cortex (frontoparietal network) and some aspects of the insula (ventral attention network) and ectopic positive connectivity (lack of anticorrelations) with posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex (default mode network). Conclusions: The cerebro-cerebellar intrinsic functional dysconnectivity based on the whole-brain VBM-derived ROIs may advance our understanding of the compensatory mechanisms associated with ASD and offer cerebellum as a potential target for diagnostic, predictive, prognostic, and therapeutic interventions in ASD. Our findings also provide additional support indicating that functional abnormalities as indexed by RsFc exist in ASD, and highlight that there is likely a relationship between structural and functional abnormalities in this disorder. Impact statement Our findings indicate that functional differences as indexed by resting-state functional connectivity exist in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and highlight that there is likely a relationship between structural and functional abnormalities in this disorder. Future developments in neuroimaging research should continue investigating structural and associated functional differences in ASD, and in this way complement the behavioral characterization of this disorder, potentially improving diagnosis, prognosis, and prediction.
Sightseeing the Anthropocene: tourism, moorland management, and The Hound of the Baskervilles

Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles is profoundly shaped by tourist practices that uncover or occlude histories of human-caused environmental degradation. Its genesis, plot, receptio...
Clinical and radiographic resolution of multifocal brain abscesses secondary to Fusobacterium.

A 77-year-old immunocompetent man with progressive headache and confusion was admitted. MRI revealed numerous abscesses (figure 1). CSF revealed a white blood cell count of 1,250 cells/mm3 (65% neutrophils) and negative microbial cultures. Brain biopsy showed gliosis, but no organisms. The patient was discharged on vancomycin and ceftriaxone, but his encephalopathy worsened. Repeat brain biopsy sent for universal PCR revealed Fusobacterium sp . Antibiotics were changed to meropenem for 2 months. Four months later (figure 2), the patient returned to working as an architect. Universal PCR is complex and expensive, but it may provide increased diagnostic utility in challenging cases.1
The scale dependency of spatial crop species diversity and its relation to temporal diversity

Increasing crop species diversity can enhance agricultural sustainability, but the scale dependency of the processes that shape diversity and of the effects of diversity on agroecosystems is insufficiently understood. We used 30 m spatial resolution crop classification data for the conterminous United States to analyze spatial and temporal crop species diversity and their relationship. We found that the US average temporal (crop rotation) diversity is 2.1 effective number of species and that a crop’s average temporal diversity is lowest for common crops. Spatial diversity monotonically increases with the size of the unit of observation, and it is most strongly associated with temporal diversity when measured for areas of 100 to 400 ha, which is the typical US farm size. The association between diversity in space and time weakens as data are aggregated over larger areas because of the increasing diversity among farms, but at intermediate aggregation levels (counties) it is possible to estimate temporal diversity and farm-scale spatial diversity from aggregated spatial crop diversity data if the effect of beta diversity is considered. For larger areas, the diversity among farms is usually much greater than the diversity within them, and this needs to be considered when analyzing large-area crop diversity data. US agriculture is dominated by a few major annual crops (maize, soybean, wheat) that are mostly grown on fields with a very low temporal diversity. To increase crop species diversity, currently minor crops would have to increase in area at the expense of these major crops.
Macrophage Biology in Cardiovascular Diseases

Macrophages have a key functional role in the pathogenesis of various cardiovascular diseases, such as atherosclerosis and aortic aneurysms. Their accumulation within the vessel wall leads to susta...
Examining three narratives of U.S. history in the historical perspectives of middle school (emergent) bilingual students

Abstract This study examined the historical perspectives of eleven emergent bilingual and bilingual students at two middle schools. Data analysis revealed that the participants’ perspectives on U.S. history reflected three schematic narrative templates focused on nation-building, equality, and discrimination. The participants primarily employed the (in)equality narratives when discussing aspects of U.S. history directly linked to their identities. The findings add to the extant research on student historical perspectives and use of schematic narrative templates. The findings further suggest that engaging (emergent) bilingual students in examining multiple perspectives and conducting critical history inquiry can contribute to notions of culturally and linguistically responsive social studies instruction.
No License, No Problem – Is Qualcomm’s Ninth Circuit Antitrust Victory a Patent Exhaustion Defeat?

The Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in FTC v. Qualcomm (9th Cir., Aug. 11, 2020) is generally viewed as a resounding victory for Qualcomm. But in praising Qualcomm’s egalitarian approach toward rival chip makers, the Ninth Circuit points out that instead of granting licenses to these rivals, Qualcomm merely “declines to enforce its patents” against them “even though they practice Qualcomm’s patents”. As such, the Ninth Circuit states that Qualcomm’s “policy toward rival chipmakers could be characterized as ‘no license, no problem’”. Yet, from the standpoint of patent exhaustion, this approach could actually be a very big problem, not only for Qualcomm, but for all patent licensors seeking to extract revenue from the most lucrative point in the supply chain.
Load Capacity of Tethered Floating Membrane Cylinder

AbstractThe nonlinear problem of an inflated, partially-floating membrane cylinder with a bottom load is studied by perturbation and numerical integration. The solutions can be classified into stag...
Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Chaotic Symbol Dynamic 16-APSK for Secure Broadcast

Decision regions of any signal constellation can be easy to rearrange by an iterative chaotic map according to the technique of chaotic symbol dynamic. To meet the desired capability of security broadcast, Euclidean distances of one signal constellation are varied within two adjacent symbols that results in difference levels of identification received symbols under new decision regions at the receiver. Toward this goal, two circular rings-based signal constellation of 16-ary amplitude phase shift keying (16-APSK) is newly proposed along with chaotic symbol dynamic; the output of the proposed iterative chaotic map reduces the radius of the outer ring of 16-APSK which results from the difficulty of verification worthwhile symbols from unauthorized users. At bit error probability (BEP) of 10-3, the gap of transmission power is expected to 3 dB between chaos and unchaos cases and it confirms the security enhancement of the proposed method over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Rician fading channels. This transmission power degradation also can be compensated by the conventional convolution code without longer code-word length and bandwidth.
Superior vena cava stenosis presenting with bendopnea

Bendopnea, or dyspnoea with bending forward, is a recently described symptom of heart failure that is associated with elevated ventricular filling pressures. Here, we describe a case of superior vena cava (SVC) stenosis that presented with bendopnea and resolved with SVC recanalisation. We suggest that SVC stenosis be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients who experience bendopnea.
MGA and PGF₂α for Estrus Synchronization

Our goal in studying estrous cycle control is to develop a low cost system that will elicit a highly fertile, tightly synchronized estrous response in a large percentage of the treated animals. Melengestrol acetate (MGA), an inexpensive oral progestogen, is currently approved and used to suppress estrus and promote growth in feedlot heifers. Even though MGA effectively synchronizes estrus in cattle, the estrus following MGA treatment is subfertile while the fertility of subsequent estrus periods is normal (Zimbelman et al., 1966; DeBois et al., 1970). This decreased fertility has limited the use of MGA for estrous synchronization. It is well known that prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) is only effective for estrous synchronization in cows between days 5 and 15 (the luteal phase) of their estrous cycle. Recent research has shown that stage of cycle within this luteal phase further affects both estrous response and the interval to estrus following PGF2a injection, with early cycle animals (days 5-9) having a lower percentage response and showing heat sooner (a shorter interval to estrus) than late cycle animals (King et al., I 982). Another study shows that PGF2α injected during the late stage of the cycle (days 10-15) may result in a more fertile estrus than if it were injected in the early stage of the cycle (Bearden and Fuquay, 1984). Thus, by manipulating a group of heifers to increase the percentage in the late stage of their estrous cycle when PGF2α is injected, estrous response and degree of synchrony, as well as fertility would theoretically be improved.
The Effect of Pay Transparency on Narcissists: Can Personality Type Predict Reciprocity?

Government regulations and popular media push companies to be more transparent about employee wage information. Yet firms often attempt to keep this information secret because, when wage dispersion exists, transparency decreases total employee productivity. The fair-wage effort hypothesis (FWEH) models this phenomenon (Akerlof and Yellen 1990). Productivity decreases because, on average, when employees learn they are paid less than others, they engage in negative reciprocity. At the same time, on average, employees who learn they are paid more than others do not engage in positive reciprocity. I hypothesize and find that the personality trait of narcissism, particularly one of its three behavioral factors, entitlement and exploitiveness, moderates the strength of individual employees’ reciprocal responses (Ackerman et al. 2011). Narcissism increases negative reciprocity and decreases positive reciprocity. I test the hypotheses using an experiment on Amazon Mechanical Turk in which I manipulate pay levels and transparency.
Acoustic performance evaluation of an advanced UH-1 helicopter main rotor system

An experimental investigation of the high-speed impulsive noise characteristics of an advanced main rotor system for the UH-1 helicopter has been conducted. Models of both the advanced main rotor system and the UH-1 main rotor system were tested at one-quarter scale in the Langley 4- by 7-meter (V/STOL) Tunnel using the General Rotor Model System (GRMS). Tests were conducted over a range of simulated flight and descent velocities. The tunnel was operated in the open-throat configuration with acoustic treatment to improve the acoustic characteristics of the test chamber. In-plane acoustic measurements of the high-speed impulsive noise demonstrated a 7 to 8 dB reduction in noise generation is available by using the advanced rotor system on the UH-1 helicopter.
Chemotherapy response score: Validation of a three-tier system to quantify histopathologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in ovarian carcinoma.

e17539Background: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) with interval debulking surgery is considered for patients with advanced-stage ovarian carcinoma (OC) who are not ideal candidates for primary debu...