cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Management of Acute Renal Failure

Acute renal failure invariably follows a physiologic insult which results primarily in injury to the uriniferous tubules. It may have a variety of causes which operate either by a direct toxic action or by producing renal ischemia.The following factors should be considered in managing a patient with acute renal failure: fluid replacement; caloric intake; electrolyte, blood chemistry and hematologic abnormalities; infection; cardiovascular and other complications; artificial dialysis; the diuretic phase; and prognosis.The patient's recovery depends principally on the type of initial insult, the physiologic state of the kidneys before the insult, and judicious management by the physician.
Correlation between aerial insecticide spraying to interrupt west nile virus transmission and emergency department visits in Sacramento County, California.

OBJECTIVES Insecticides reduce vector-borne pathogen transmission but also pose health risks. In August 2005, Sacramento County, California, underwent emergency aerial ultralow-volume (ULV) application of pyrethrin insecticide to reduce the population of West Nile virus (WNV)-infected mosquitoes and thereby interrupt enzootic and tangential transmission. We assessed the association between aerially applied pyrethrin insecticide and patterns of emergency department (ED) visit diagnoses. METHODS We used geographic information systems software to determine ZIP Code-level exposure to pyrethrin. We used logistic regression models to examine the relationship between exposure status and three-digit International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Edition, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes (785 in total) for all ED visits (n=253,648) within Sacramento County in 2005 and for specific diagnostic clusters (e.g., respiratory, gastrointestinal, skin, eye, and neurologic). All models were adjusted for age, gender, race/ethnicity (individual level), median income, ozone, and temperature (ZIP Code level). RESULTS Exposure to aerially applied insecticide was not associated with clusters of respiratory, gastrointestinal, skin, eye, and neurologic complaints in adjusted models but was inversely associated with ICD-9-CM code 799 ("other ill-defined morbidity and mortality"), with adjusted odds ratios (AORs) ranging from 0.31 to 0.36 for 0-3 lag days (95% confidence interval 0.17, 0.68). Spraying was also directly associated with ICD-9-CM code 553 ("other abdominal hernia"), with AORs ranging from 2.34 to 2.96 for 2-3 lag days. CONCLUSIONS The observed significant ICD-9-CM code associations likely represented chance findings. Aerial ULV pyrethrin applications were not associated with ED visits for specific diagnoses or clusters of diagnoses.
3.23 Stoichiometric Auxiliary Ligands for Metals and Main Group Elements: Ligands for Silicon

The notion of using chiral ligand-modified silanes as reagents and catalysts in asymmetric chemical synthesis has been around at least since the foundational discoveries of the Mukaiyama aldol and Hosomi–Sakurai allylation reactions. Yet before 2002, there was only a single example of a chiral ligand-modified silane that engaged in reaction chemistry resulting in high levels of enantioselectivity. Unlike many other main group elements and most metals, silicon is not inherently possessed of significant Lewis acidity – such reactivity must be induced. In 2002, it was demonstrated that such reactivity could be easily induced in silanes by the very act of attaching chiral ligands (typically 1,2-aminoalcohols and 1,2-diamines) to them. This breakthrough has led in the last decade to the development of numerous highly enantioselective transformations promoted or catalyzed by chiral ligand-modified silanes.
Vertically scaled, high reliability EEPROM devices with ultra-thin oxynitride films prepared by RTP in N/sub 2/O/O/sub 2/ ambient

Vertical scaling of FLOTOX EEPROM cells for producing high density, low voltage programmable, reliable memories is achieved by thinning the tunnel insulator in the EEPROM cell. Factors which limit scaling of tunnel oxides, such as program-erase cycling induced leakage current, are examined in detail for insulators in the practical thickness range of 60-90 AA. We have also developed a new RTP oxynitridation process using gas mixtures of O/sub 2/ and N/sub 2/O, providing us robust ultra-thin tunnel insulators. The performance of memory cells fabricated with tunnel dielectrics using conventional, furnace grown, dry thermal oxides and the new RTP oxynitridation process are compared. The latter group of devices are found to have superior retention, endurance and programming characteristics. We demonstrate that the scalability of the cell is improved by using the oxynitride tunnel films. >
Survival of Listeria monocytogenes During the Manufacture and Storage of Nonfat Dry Milk.

The ability of Listeria monocytogenes to survive in skim milk during spray drying and to persist in nonfat dry milk during storage was examined. Concentrated (30% solids) and unconcentrated skim milks were inoculated with ca. 105 to 106 L. monocytogenes /ml and spray dried (inlet temperature, 165 ± 2°C; outlet temperature 67 ± 2°C) to a moisture content of 3.6 to 6.4%. The nonfat dry milk was packaged in moisture-resistant film and stored at 25°C for up to 16 wk. A reduction of ca. 1 to 1.5 log10 L. monocytogenes /g occurred during the spray drying process, irrespective of whether the milk was concentrated or not before spray drying. The organism progressively died during storage at 25°C, with a >4-log10 CFU/g decrease occurring within 16 wk of storage.
Predicting Dynamic Modulus of Asphalt Concrete From Binder Rheological Properties

This study proposes a completely new regression-based predictive model to estimate dynamic modulus (|E*|) of asphalt concrete (AC) from the dynamic shear modulus (|Gb*|) and binder phase angle (δb) of the asphalt binder used in the AC mix. Other parameters related to the aggregate gradation and volumetrics are also incorporated in the model. In this study, a total of ten AC mixes with four binders having different Performance Grades (PG) and sources were collected from the manufacturing plants. The AC mixes were compacted and cored to cylindrical specimens. After that, the samples were tested in the laboratory for |E*| and AC phase angle (ϕ) at different temperatures and loading frequencies. The collected binders were tested for |Gb*| and δb using dynamic shear rheometer (DSR). The statistical assessment showed that a fairly accurate estimation of |E*| and ϕ can be obtained by using these new predictive models.
Experience Sampling as a Method for Studying In Situ Organizational Communication

The communication flows in organizations seem to be in constant state of flux, and this is particularly true when thinking about how the various strategies and mediated practices people use to interact with peers. As organizations work to establish healthy communication workflows, they need insight into how communication around projects exists in situ (i.e., as it happens in the moment) to better understand and support the employee experience so work can get done. The employee experience with communication across different events, settings, and ideologies plays an important role in meeting the intended outcomes of project work, and learning about the in situ communication practices of teams and individual employees remains an important consideration for organizational researchers. This article describes a method for studying in situ communication in the workplace called experience sampling. The goal for this article is to explain how experience sampling can be used to study communicative events in the workplace by drawing from two datasets of original research. From the use of experience sampling depicted in these case studies, the article indicates lessons learned about using experience sampling to study worker’s in situ communication in the workplace.
Stage I uterine carcinosarcoma: Matched cohort analyses for lymphadenectomy, chemotherapy, and brachytherapy.

Abstract Objective To determine if lymphadenectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are associated with survival benefit among women with stage I uterine carcinosarcoma. Methods Women with stage I uterine carcinosarcoma ( n =5614) were identified from the 1998–2013 National Cancer Data Base. Kaplan-Meier survival estimates and Cox proportional-hazards regression models were used to evaluate predictors of overall survival. Effects of these predictors were also estimated using propensity score matched analyses for lymphadenectomy, adjuvant chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Results 42.0% (2360/5614) of women in the cohort received no adjuvant radiation or chemotherapy. Black race and positive surgical margin status were associated with decreased survival by multivariable Cox regression. Among women with pathologically node-negative disease, the hazard of death increased 5% (4–7%) per each one centimeter increase in tumor size ( P =1.9×10 −10 ). From matched cohort analyses, omitting lymphadenectomy was associated with decreased median (interquartile range) survival: 45.2 (36.4–57.6) versus 73.9 (63.8–91.6) months, hazard ratio (HR) (95% CI) 1.38 (1.20–1.59), P =9.4×10 −6 . Hazard of death decreased by 3% (1–5%) for each five lymph nodes removed ( P =0.01). Multiagent chemotherapy and vaginal brachytherapy were associated with decreased hazard of death (HR (95% CI) 0.62 (0.54–0.73), P =1.1×10 −9 and HR (95% CI) 0.83 (0.70–0.97), P =0.02, respectively). Highest five-year survival was observed after brachytherapy and multiagent chemotherapy (74.1% (68.3–80.3%), P −16 ). Conclusion Lymphadenectomy to at least 15–20 removed nodes is associated with increased survival of women with node-negative uterine carcinosarcoma. Adjuvant "cuff and chemo" with vaginal brachytherapy and multiagent chemotherapy is associated with increased survival.
Black And Hispanic Patients Receive Hospice Care Similar To That Of White Patients When In The Same Hospices.

Little is known about racial and ethnic variation in the quality of hospice care. We used data on 292,516 respondents for 2015–16 from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Hospice Survey to assess how the patient and family experience of hospice care differed among black, Hispanic, and white patients. We found that, on average, black and Hispanic patients received care from poorer quality hospices. Within a given hospice, we found that friends and relatives who served as caregivers of black and Hispanic patients reported significantly better hospice care experiences than their peers serving as caregivers of white patients on five of seven outcomes. However, caregivers of black and Hispanic patients reported receiving their desired level of emotional and religious support less often than caregivers of white patients did. As more black and Hispanic patients enroll in hospice care, it is critical to ensure that they have access to high-quality, culturally competent hospice serv...
The dipole moments of some supposedly symmetrical molecules

This study was undertaken because many careful dielectric constant measurements at radio frequencies have indicated the possession of small but appreciable dipole moments for supposedly symmetrical molecules1,2.
First Report of Fusarium culmorum Causing Fusarium Head Blight of Wheat in Wisconsin

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) of wheat is economically important as it causes significant yield loss, reduces seed quality, and often contaminates grain with mycotoxins, threatening both animal and human health. Fusarium head blight is caused by several Fusarium species, known as the Fusarium head blight disease complex (Xu and Nicholson, 2009). In June 2016, as part of an FHB survey across Wisconsin, we observed symptoms typical of FHB in a winter wheat field (Triticum aestivum L.) located in Door County, Wisconsin. Temperatures were cooler than average and wet during anthesis at this location. Ten symptomatic heads were collected from one production field in Door County. On average, diseased heads showed 40% symptomatic spikelets. Individual heads exhibited bleached kernels and pinkish-orange sporulation typical of that of FHB. Symptomatic kernels were surface-disinfested in 95% ethanol and 0.06 % sodium hypochlorite. Five seeds per head from the ten heads sampled were chosen randomly and placed in a Petri...
Secrecy and the making of CFSP

How can we understand the role of secrecy in the making of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)? This article analyses the nature of secrecy and questions some of the main...
Usability through system-user collaboration: design principles for greater erp usability

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become essential in industry, yet the potential value created through system use can be illusive due to poor usability Extensive interviews with users revealed that the underlying complexity of these systems manifests itself in unintuitive interfaces that are challenging to use Given the lack of progress made with traditional design approaches, we propose a different tactic based on a system-user collaborative approach This entails that the system acts as a collaborative partner by sharing knowledge, providing task-specific support, and adapting to user behaviors Based on this collaborative view, we derive a set of principles for guiding the design of ERP systems and provide concrete examples demonstrating (1) how a lack of collaborativeness contributes to various usability problems, and (2) how our proposed design principles can be used to enhance the collaborativeness and, hence, the usability of ERP systems.
Sewerage Infrastructure: Fuzzy Techniques to Manage Failures

An approach is presented to model the deterioration of buried, infrequently inspected infrastructure, using scarce data. The robustness of the process is combined with the flexibility of fuzzy mathematics to arrive at a decision framework that is tractable and realistic. In applying this approach to sewerage infrastructure, the scoring scheme was converted using current guidelines. A rule-based model is used to replicate and predict the possibility of failure. The model can be used to plan the renewal of the asset subject to maximum risk tolerance. The concepts are demonstrated using data obtained from Canadian municipalities.
A METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE PREFERRED ORIENTATION OF CRYSTALLITES NORMAL TO A SURFACE

Many polycrystalline materials exhibit anisotropy in their thermal, electrical, optical and mechanical properties owing to preferred orientations in crystallite packing. A knowledge of the directions and degree of preferred orientation is essential in understanding and predicting the physical properties of these materials. The directions of preferred orientation in a specimen are a function of crystallite shape and the process used to form the body. In extruded or rolled materials it is common to find two types of orientation, one normal to the surface of the body, the second within the surface in the rolling or extrusion direction1,2. Fabrication techniques based on casting, deposition or pressing, however, will introduce preferred orientations normal to the surface only, with crystallite directions within the surface at random.
Cultivating Meaningfulness at Work

The experience of work as meaningful, evoking a positive sense of purpose, is consistently associated with beneficial work-related and general well-being outcomes. This chapter briefly overviews the sources, mechanisms, and correlates of meaningful work before summarizing three theoretical frameworks that may help explain the experience of meaningful work. Although research investigating meaningful work has proliferated in recent years, comparatively little scholarly attention has focused on strategies workers use to foster a sense of meaningfulness. Drawing from theory and research within social psychology, we propose three steps employees might take to increase their sense of their work as meaningful.
“Wear It Loud”: How and Why Hearing Aid and Cochlear Implant Users Customize Their Devices

We investigate the role of aesthetic customization in managing sociocultural issues of assistive technology (AT) use. First, we examined an online forum dedicated to customized hearing aids and cochlear implants to understand the breadth of activity occurring in this space. Next, we conducted a series of interviews to understand motivational factors and sociocultural outcomes related to expressive AT. We found that community members discussed customization tools and techniques, shared their customizations, and provided each other with encouragement and support. Community members customized their devices as a means of self-expression that demonstrated the wearer's fashion sense, revealed favorite sports teams and characters, and marked holidays and personal milestones. We also found that aesthetic customization worked on multiple levels to create personal and meaningful relationships with one's AT and with other AT users, and also to manage societal expectations regarding hearing loss. Our findings may inform the design of assistive technologies that better support personalization, customization, and self-expression.
Temporally-Resolved Ultrafast Hydrogen Adsorption and Evolution on Single Platinum Nanoparticles

The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) was studied on single platinum nanoparticles (NPs) using a microjet NP collision system. By ejecting NPs onto a closely positioned ultramicroelectrode (UME), one can study single-particle collision electrochemistry in acid concentrations as high as 3 M or 750 mM on the electrode surface. This is nearly 2 orders of magnitude greater than previously reported in NP-collision studies. The use of high-bandwidth recording and higher acid concentration allows us to temporally resolve the ultrafast hydrogen adsorption and evolution processes in HER on single colliding Pt NPs. Moreover, the electroactive surface area (EASA) and roughness factor ( Rf) of single Pt NPs can be readily derived from the integrated hydrogen adsorption charge. The use of high acid concentrations is critical toward obtaining a full monolayer of adsorbed hydrogen before overlapping with the evolution process. This method allows one to study electrochemical and electrocatalytic behavior of metal NPs in a chemical environment that is close to that used in real applications, for example, fuel cells and electrolyzers.
Human Factors Engineering Contributions to Infection Prevention and Control.

Objective:This article provides a review of areas that present significant challenges in infection prevention and control and describes human factors engineering (HFE) approaches that have been app...
Evolution of Hierarchical Structure and Reuse in iGEM Synthetic DNA Sequences

Many complex systems, both in technology and nature, exhibit hierarchical modularity: smaller modules, each of them providing a certain function, are used within larger modules that perform more complex functions. Previously, we have proposed a modeling framework, referred to as Evo-Lexis [21], that provides insight to some fundamental questions about evolving hierarchical systems.
Communication and the Economy: History, Value, Agency

In Communication and the Economy: History, Value and Agency, editors Joshua S. Hanan and Mark Hayward assemble 12 original essays from 18 communication scholars in order to “offer a number of new c...
Charcoal Distribution Chain in Kisumu, Kenya

Charcoal is a major bioenergy source in Kenya but has become significantly more expensive in recent times due to the logging ban placed by the Kenyan government. The ban an ineffective but tardy solution to the country's fast depleting forest halted local charcoal production and shifted the business to neighboring countries. This paper outlines the charcoal market, it's distribution channels and alternative cooking fuels used in Kisumu, Kenya as explored by the GreenBriq team. GreenBriq is a social venture that plans to undertake two consequential problems in Western Kenya; the lack of a cheap sustainable cooking fuel and the overpopulation of water hyacinth on shorelines of Lake Victoria. GreenBriq resolves both problems by coupling them and creating water hyacinth briquettes which are designed to be used as a cheap cooking fuel. The team travelled to Kenya in May 2018 to test hypotheses made while outlining their business model and to conduct surveys that would aid the understanding of the charcoal market within Kisumu, Kenya. The team discovered the three players that facilitate distribution: the suppliers who import and/or export from Uganda, the brokers they sell to in Kisumu and the market retailers that sell to the consumer. The transportation of charcoal has become difficult due to the ban and costly in terms of unofficial tariffs demanded by custom officers and other regulators. The losses fall primarily on retailers and ultimately the end users. Other alternative fuels produced from charcoal dust and made into briquettes have failed to take large shares of the market due lack of consistency in supply, inability to meet demand, and lack of brand popularity in the market which can be accredited to their chosen channels of distribution. The goal is for GreenBriq to use the current distribution chain to sell and distribute water hyacinth briquettes in order to market the fuel appropriately and gain acceptance.
The Immune System in Critical Illness and Injury

During the onset of critical illness or injury, initial attention is focused on supporting vital parameters for patient survival including oxygenation and tissue perfusion. Successful navigation past the primary insult often results in the patient with massive systemic inflammation and multi-organ dysfunction, thus at high risk for progression to organ failure, or secondary infection. It has become increasingly evident that the activation (or deactivation) state of the immune system is highly relevant to the prognosis of every critically ill or injured patient, not just those patients initially presenting with bacterial sepsis. Both the innate immune system, first described by Metchnikov in 1884 with his observations of phagocytosis, and the adaptive immune system are interconnected to sense and respond to invasion of the host by any pathogen. The outcome of these integrated the cellular and humoral responses can range from immediate termination of the microbe at site of invasion, with minimal systemic insult, to profound uncontrolled inflammation and organ damage, to systemic immunoparalysis and death from nosocomial sepsis. A broad overview of host defense is provided below with some discussion of how dysregulation of immune function impacts outcome in the critically ill patient.
HRI stress signaling and HbF production.

In this issue of Blood, Huang et al have identified activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) as a novel regulator of fetal γ-globin gene expression in human cells by repressing BCL11A transcription.
Structure of the FA core ubiquitin ligase closing the ID clamp on DNA.

The Fanconi anemia (FA) pathway is essential for the repair of DNA interstrand crosslinks. Central to the pathway is the FA core complex, a ubiquitin ligase of nine subunits that monoubiquitinates the FANCI–FANCD2 (ID) DNA clamp. The 3.1 A structure of the 1.1-MDa human FA core complex, described here, reveals an asymmetric assembly with two copies of all but the FANCC, FANCE and FANCF subunits. The asymmetry is crucial, as it prevents the binding of a second FANCC–FANCE–FANCF subcomplex that inhibits the recruitment of the UBE2T ubiquitin conjugating enzyme, and instead creates an ID binding site. A single active site then ubiquitinates FANCD2 and FANCI sequentially. We also present the 4.2-A structures of the human core–UBE2T–ID–DNA complex in three conformations captured during monoubiquitination. They reveal the core–UBE2T complex remodeling the ID–DNA complex, closing the clamp on the DNA before ubiquitination. Monoubiquitination then prevents clamp opening after release from the core. Cryo-EM structures of the Fanconi anemia core complex reveal insights into the remodeling of the FANCI–FANCD2 DNA clamp, which is essential during the repair of DNA interstrand crosslinks.
Impact of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection on Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy Outcomes in a Large Nationwide Sample.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM) or stress-induced cardiomyopathy is characterized by transient wall-motion abnormalities often preceded by physical or emotional stress. Various baseline medical comorbidities were associated with worse outcomes, theoretically due to their effect on chronic stress exposure. The effect of concurrent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection on outcomes of TCM has not been well-established. METHODS/MATERIAL We conducted a US-wide analysis of TCM hospitalizations from 2006 to 2014 by querying the National Inpatient Sample database for the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision TCM code, baseline characteristics, and inpatient outcomes. TCM patients with HIV were compared to TCM patients without HIV. Multivariate regression models were constructed to account for potential confounders. RESULTS We identified 123,050 patients hospitalized with TCM; of those patients, 304 had positive HIV status. In an unadjusted analysis, in-hospital outcomes were worse in TCM patients with HIV infection in terms of development of acute kidney injury (16.8% vs 33.3%, P-value 0.002), use of invasive mechanical ventilation (18.3% vs 34.5%, P-value 0.003), and mortality (5.3% vs 17.1%, P-value <0.0001). After adjusting for age, gender, and comorbidities, there was no significant difference in the captured outcomes. CONCLUSION TCM patients with concurrent HIV had numerically worse outcomes. After adjusting for potential confounders, the statistical significance no longer existed, suggesting that statistical difference was primarily driven by difference in baseline sociodemographic parameters and coexisting comorbidities.
Development and Implementation of Preoperative Optimization for High-Risk Patients With Abdominal Wall Hernia.

Importance Real-world surgical practice often lags behind the best scientific evidence. For example, although optimizing comorbidities such as smoking and morbid obesity before ventral and incisional hernia repair improves outcomes, as many as 25% of these patients have a high-risk characteristic at the time of surgery. Implementation strategies may effectively increase use of evidence-based practice. Objective To describe current trends in preoperative optimization among patients undergoing ventral hernia repair, identify barriers to optimization, develop interventions to address these barriers, and then pilot these interventions. Design, setting, and participants This quality improvement study used a retrospective medical record review to identify hospital-level trends in preoperative optimization among patients undergoing ventral and incisional hernia repair. Semistructured interviews with 21 practicing surgeons were conducted to elicit barriers to optimizing high-risk patients before surgery. Next, a task force of experts was convened to develop pragmatic interventions to increase surgeon use of preoperative optimization. Finally, these interventions were piloted at 2 sites to assess acceptability and feasibility. This study was performed from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2019. Main outcomes and measures The main outcome was rate of referrals for preoperative patient optimization at the 2 pilot sites. Results Among 23 000 patients undergoing ventral hernia repair, the mean (SD) age was 53.9 (14.3) years, and 12 315 (53.5%) were men. Of these, 8786 patients (38.2%) had at least 1 high-risk characteristic at the time of surgery, including 7683 with 1, 1079 with 2, and 24 with 3. At the hospital level, the mean proportion of patients with at least 1 of 3 high-risk characteristics at the time of surgery was 38.2% (95% CI, 38.1%-38.3%). This proportion varied widely from 21.5% (95% CI, 17.6%-25.5%) to 52.8% (95% CI, 43.9%-61.8%) across hospitals. Interviews with surgeons identified 3 major barriers to improving this practice: lost financial opportunity by not offering a patient an operation, lack of surgeon awareness of available resources for optimization, and organizational barriers. A task force therefore developed 3 interventions: a financial incentive to optimize high-risk patients, an educational intervention to make surgeons aware of available optimization resources, and on-site facilitation. These strategies were piloted at 2 sites where preoperative risk optimization referrals increased 860%. Conclusions and relevance This study demonstrates a stepwise process of identifying a practice gap, eliciting barriers that contribute to this gap, using expert consensus and local resources to develop strategies to address these barriers, and piloting these strategies. This implementation strategy can be adopted to diverse settings given that it relies on developing and implementing strategies based on local practice patterns.
Ethereum Smart Contracts: Vulnerabilities and their Classifications

Smart contract (SC) is an extension of BlockChain technology. Ethereum BlockChain was the first to incorporate SC and thus started a new era of crypto-currencies and electronic transactions. Solidity helps to program the SCs. Still, soon after Solidity’s emergence in 2014, Solidity-based SCs suffered many attacks that deprived the SC account holders of their precious funds. The main reason for these attacks was the presence of vulnerabilities in SC. This paper discusses SC vulnerabilities and classifies them according to the domain knowledge of the faulty operations. This classification is a source of reminding developers and software engineers that for SC’s safety, each SC requires proper testing with effective tools to catch those classes’ vulnerabilities.
An adaptive neural architecture optimization model for retinal disorder diagnosis on 3D medical images

Abstract Neural architecture design is one of the critical tasks for deep neural models because of the high variety of structure options. This research proposes an adaptive neural architecture optimization (ANAO) model to optimize the convolutional neural network (CNN) structure based on neural blocks, which are collected from the existing state-of-the-art CNNs. An integer programming model is proposed for the optimization process, where the objective is to maximize the designed model accuracy and convergence speed. Constraints are constructed to restrict the CNN design requirements. To enhance the training efficiency of the designed CNN model, a novel objective function is proposed, which considers the accuracy and the training convergence trend. A recurrent neural network is applied to evaluate the performance of the candidate models to boost the efficiency of the optimization process. A heuristic process is proposed to conduct the optimization. The proposed ANAO model is applied for the retinal disorder diagnosis. Eight state-of-the-art CNNs are tested for comparison with the proposed ANAO model from both accuracy and convergence trend perspectives. Experimental results show that the proposed ANAO model can optimize the CNN architecture to adaptively fit a given dataset and achieve quite high-level performance.
Probing intermediate temperature heat release in autoignition of C3-C4 iso-alcohol/gasoline blends

Abstract This work reports an experimental and modeling study on the blending effects of C3–C4 iso-alcohols, namely iso-propanol and iso-butanol, on the characteristics of intermediate temperature heat release (ITHR) for a research-grade gasoline (FACE-F) in a rapid compression machine operating at diluted/stoichiometric fuel loading, compressed pressure of 43 bar, and compressed temperatures from 700 to 970 K. Changes in ITHR behavior are characterized through ITHR extent and evolution at 0 to 30 vol% iso-alcohol blending levels. Experimental observations reveal the strong promoting and decelerating effects on ITHR extent and evolution, respectively, within the low-temperature regime for both iso-alcohols, with stronger effects seen for iso-propanol; within the intermediate-temperature regime, the influence of both iso-alcohols diminishes greatly. Comprehensive chemical kinetic modeling is undertaken using a recently developed gasoline surrogate/alcohol model in conjunction with a five-component gasoline surrogate (FGF-LLNL), with good agreement obtained with the experiments for all the blends. Sensitivity, rate of production and flux analyses highlight the importance of chemical kinetic interactions via both fuel-specific and non-fuel-specific reactions. Disabling all the chemical kinetic interactions between iso-alcohol and FGF-LLNL in carbonated/non-fuel-specific species leads to somewhat extended ITHR duration and reduced ignition reactivity. Direct comparison between FGF-LLNL/iso-propanol and FGF-LLNL/iso-butanol blends is also made, where iso-propanol and iso-butanol are found to influence ITHR characteristics via significantly different chemical kinetic interactions.
A Bayesian approach to the analysis of asymmetric association for two-way contingency tables

Recently, a subcopula-based asymmetric association measure was developed for the variables in two-way contingency tables. Here, we develop a fully Bayesian method to implement this measure, and examine its performance using simulation data and several real data sets of colorectal cancer. We use coverage probabilities and lengths of the interval estimators to compare the Bayesian approach and a large-sample method of analysis. In simulation studies, we find that the Bayesian method outperforms the large-sample method on average, and provides either similar or improved results for the real data analyses.
Government Debt, Deficit and Social Security

The conventional argument against deficit spending holds that it will crowd out private investment spending, and that the resultant reduction in the capital stock leads to an eventual efficiency loss1. Long-term public debt thus creates a burden on future generations. However, national emergencies, investment opportunities and intergenerational altruism are several reasons why rational voters and their governments may issue public debt. Debt allows a country to cope with an emergency, like war, without dramatic changes in its tax structure. Deficits may be preferred to the large economic distortions associated with balanced-budget finance. In developing nations the emergency may be a lack of capital, physical or human, and public debt sold to foreigners could be a way of financing profitable investments in productive capital. When the resulting productive increases exceed the financial costs this kind of debt can be efficient. But, in the long run and in the absence of shocks, public debt implies a loss of welfare. The impact of public debt has been much discussed in recent years due to the secular rise in the debt of the US government; see Fig. 11.1. The explanation of observed differences in public debt may lie in redistribution rather than efficiency. We simplify discussion by a conceptually separation; Sections 11.2, 11.3 and 11.4 deal with efficiency effects alone and the following sections with equity alone.
Ideals of compact sets associated with Borel functions.

We investigate the connection between the Borel class of a function $f$ and the Borel complexity of the set $\T(f)=\{C\in\comp(X)\colon f\rest_C\text{ is continuous}\}$ where $\comp(X)$ denotes the compact subsets of $X$ with the Hausdorff metric. For example, we show that for a function $f\colon X\to Y$ between Polish spaces; if $\T(f)$ is $F_{\sigma\delta}$ in $\comp(X)$, then $f$ is Borel class one.
The Never-Ending Controversies of Screening Mammography: What Is the Appropriate Callback Rate for Women Undergoing Screening Mammographic Examination?

See referenced original article on pages 1590–4,this issue.Address for reprints: Rachel F. Brem, M.D., De-partment of Radiology, The George WashingtonUniversity Medical Center, 2150 Pennsylvania Av-enue NW, Washington, DC, 20037; Fax: (202) 741-3029; E-mail: rbrem@mfa.gwu.eduReceived January 9, 2004; accepted January 16,2004.
A Review of “The Modern Web: Multi-Use Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript”

Written by experienced Web developer and author Peter Gasston, The Modern Web explains the newest Web technologies that allow developers to design for phones as well as huge HDTVs. The book is divi...
Activity planning for the Mars Exploration Rovers

Operating the Mars Exploration Rovers is a challenging, time-pressured task. Each day, the operations team must generate a new plan describing the rover activities for the next day. These plans must abide by resource limitations, safety rules, and temporal constraints. The objective is to achieve as much science as possible, choosing from a set of observation requests that oversubscribe rover resources. In order to accomplish this objective, given the short amount of planning time available, the MAPGEN (Mixed-initiative Activity Plan GENerator) system was made a mission-critical part of the ground operations system. MAPGEN is a mixed-initiative system that employs automated constraint-based planning, scheduling, and temporal reasoning to assist operations staff in generating the daily activity plans. This paper describes the adaptation of constraint-based planning and temporal reasoning to a mixed-initiative setting and the key technical solutions developed for the mission deployment of MAPGEN.
SU-FF-I-61: Gypsum Barrier Shielding Estimates for Two Cone-Beam CT Systems Dedicated to Head Imaging

Purpose: Cone‐beam CT is becoming increasingly popular for bone imaging of the head. Shielding practices for CT defined in NCRP Report No. 147 do not directly apply to a cone‐beam system, but standard methods for radiographic systems are also inadequate for the highly filtered x‐ray beams in cone‐beam CT systems. This study evaluates the use of published 120kVp CT transmission curves for gypsum [Simpkin 1990] to estimate required shielding for two cone‐beam CT systems at different energies in comparison to measured transmission data. Method and Materials: The head CTDI phantom was used with an E‐Woo Technologies Master3DS dental CT at 90kVp and a Xoran Technologies MiniCAT at 120kVp to produce scattered radiation. Transmission of scattered radiation through two 3‐foot by 3‐foot sheets of standard 5/8‐inch (16mm) gypsum wallboard was measured with an 1800 cc ionization chamber.Results: For the Master3DS, transmission through 2 layers (32mm) of gypsum wallboard was 0.30. The estimated shielding from the 120kVp transmission curves for a 1968 mAs/week workload and 2 mR/week permitted exposure at 2.09m distance was 32mm gypsum. The corresponding exposure determined with the measured transmission was 1.3 mR/week, indicating a calculated shielding over‐estimate of 22mm of gypsum. For the MiniCAT, transmission through 32mm of gypsum wallboard was 0.51. The estimated shielding from the 120kVp transmission curves for a 960 mAs/week workload and 2 mR/week permitted exposure at 1.46m distance was 32mm gypsum. The corresponding exposure determined with the measured transmission was 2.2 mR/week, indicating a calculated shielding under‐estimate of 4 mm gypsum. Conclusion: The transmission curve data for gypsum at 120kVp overestimates the shielding requirement for this 90kVp cone‐beam system, but slightly underestimates the shielding requirement for the 120kVp system. However, since lead is more likely to be necessary to shield the 120kVp system, a minor underestimate for gypsum may be insignificant.
THE LIFETIME OF A DEEPLY BOUND H DIBARYON AND THE CYGNUS-X-3 EVENTS

Abstract The explanation of the Cygnus X-3 events which involves a strange-quark star emitting the doubly strange H dibaryon requires the H to have a lifetime of greater than ten years. We calculate the ΔS =2 H→ NN for an H bound below ΛN threshold, and find τ H ⪅6 days.
Thermoelasticity When the Material Coupling Parameter Equals Unity

Analytical solutions of three problems in coupled thermoelasticity are presented for the case when the material coupling parameter equals unity. The problems considered are: (a) Danilovskaya’s problem of a step function in temperature at the surface; (b) a step function in surface strain; and (c) constant velocity impact. Solutions are presented for the case of thin bars (one-dimensional stress) and are obtained by the Laplace-transform technique. There is great simplification in the equations when the material coupling parameter equals unity which permits the straightforward inversion of the transformed solutions. The results demonstrate significant deviations from the corresponding uncoupled solutions.
Variance reduction in estimating the mean flow time in open queueing network simulations

The number of replications required to produce a satisfactory confidence interval for the mean flow time through a queueing network can be prohibitively large unless an effective variance reduction technique is used. A variance reduction technique is developed specifically for the estimation of mean flow time and the corresponding sample variance is analyzed. Several examples are shown with variances reduced to as much as one percent of the variance of the original process.
The thermoelectric power of pure copper

Abstract Measurements of the absolute thermoelectric power S of very pure copper samples (with residual resistivity ratios as low as 3·1 × 10−4) have been carried out between ∼0·l°K and ∼350°K. Several specimens were found to exhibit marked negative anomalies in S between 8°K and 9°K, whereas a very pure sample of natural copper gave small but positive values of S at low temperatures. By emphasizing that S depends on the relative importance of the various scattering mechanisms we have been able to show that the anomalies occur whenever scattering by traces of iron becomes dominant, other impurities being of only minor importance. Moreover we are able to account for the occurrences of similar anomalies, as well as the resistance minima, in dilute alloys of oxygen-containing copper with various solutes (e.g. Ga, Ge, Sn …) not in terms of these particular solutes directly, but only in so far as they separate traces of iron from its oxide, thereby bringing it into solid solution. At about 70°K there is a posi...
INHIBITION OF THYROTROPIN RELEASING HORMONE-MEDIATED SECRETION OF THYROTROPIN BY HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE

The serum thyrotropin (TSH) response to thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) was measured in ten patients with short stature prior to, during and after the administration of clinical grade human growth hormone (hGH). TRH-stimulated TSH secretion was significantly lower than baseline values after the ninth consecutive day of hGH administration, and returned to baseline levels 14 days after hGH had been discontinued. Serum thyroxine concentrations did not vary during the study, but the mean serum level of triiodothyronine increased during administration of hGH, and remained elevated after hGH had been discontinued. Clinical grade hGH was found to contain trace quantities of immunoassayable TSH. These data have not elucidated the mechanism by which clinical grade hGH inhibits TRH-mediated TSH secretion.
Scintillation: mechanisms and new crystals

The physical mechanisms active in inorganic scintillators used for medical imaging are reviewed briefly. These include relaxation of electronic excitation following initial absorption of high-energy radiation, thermalization of electrons and holes, formation of excitons, charge carrier trapping on defects and self-trapping, transfer of excitation to luminescence centers, and emission of detectable light. Materials include intrinsic and activated insulating crystals and semiconductors involving several different luminescent centers and radiative processes. Fundamental limitations of scintillator performance and nonradiative processes arising from native defects and impurities that can limit scintillation light output are discussed. The properties of several recently reported scintillating crystals are also presented.
The pleasure principle

The list of "concepts that psychology really can't do without" includes such notions as neuronal connectionism, degrees of consciousness, mental representation of information, and dissociation. Of the pantheon of contributors to the history of psychology, Aristotle outranks all others in terms of the number of critical concepts he introduced, including the notion of the association of ideas, the law of frequency and the affiliated concept of memory strength, the notion of stage theories of development, the idea of distinguishing types of mental processes or faculties, the idea of scales of nature and comparisons between humans and animals, and last but not least, the pleasure principle. Unfortunately, computers don't always provide an unmixed increase in pleasure. Recent evidence suggests, contrary to what we might hope or suppose, that the computerization of the modern workplace has actually led to productivity declines. The negative impacts are likely due, at least in part, to the user unfriendliness of computers.
Finite element analysis of metal forming processes with arbitrarily shaped dies

Abstract A method of discretizing the die boundary conditions is considered for the analysis of metal forming processes by the rigid viscoplastic finite element method. The method is natural to the finite element method and general enough to treat the boundary conditions of arbitrarily shaped dies in a unified way. Solutions of the spike forging process are obtained by using the method. The deformation mechanics of the spike forging process are discussed and the solutions are compared with experiments.
Ethyl alcohol reduces cardiac output, stroke volume, and end diastolic volume in the embryonic chick

It has been established that ethanol causes both human congenital cardiac malformations and structural intracardiac abnormalities in the embryonic chick. In view of a theory that reduced embryonic tissue hemodynamics are associated with the development of malformations, we attempted to determine whether or not a) ethanol altered cardiac blood flow and b) altered hemodynamics were a function of ethanol dose in the chick embryo. Cardiac function in Hamburger-Hamilton stage 19 chick embryos was recorded on videotape before and up to 10 hours after exposure to graded doses of ethanol. Parameters of cardiac function, including cardiac output, were determined from videotaped images by means of computer assistance. Cardiac output decreased in a linear fashion with dose for up to 3 hours after exposure to ethanol. The maximum relative percent decrease in cardiac output was directly related to the dose of ethanol administered. Furthermore, the time required after ethanol treatment for mean cardiac output to return to pretreatment and control values was also dose-dependent--lower doses of ethanol required less time for mean cardiac output to return to pretreatment and control values. Although relatively high doses of ethanol depress cardiac rate, we attribute the significant decrease in cardiac output primarily to parallel dose-dependent decreases in both stroke volume and end diastolic volume. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis that reduced embryonic cardiac blood flow during cardiogenesis is associated with the development of ethanol-induced intracardiac defects in chick embryos.
Hans Spemann, Nobel Laureate 1935

Fifty years ago, in October 1935, Hans Spemann received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for ‘his discovery of the organizer effect in embryonic development’. The organizer experiment by Spemann and Hilde Mangold was published in 1924 under the title ‘On Induction of Embryonic Primordia by Implantation of Organizers from a Different Species’1. It was the crowning event of Spemann’s 25-year search for the developmental mechanisms that create the pattern of the major organ systems in vertebrate embryos. The actual experiment was performed on early amphibian embryos by H. Mangold as the project for her PhD thesis. Her tragic death in an accident shortly after the publication of the paper deprived her of her share in the world-wide recognition of the experiment as one of the most important in embryology2.