cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Estimating first-passage time distributions from weighted ensemble simulations and non-Markovian analyses.

First-passage times (FPTs) are widely used to characterize stochastic processes such as chemical reactions, protein folding, diffusion processes or triggering a stock option. In previous work (Suarez et al., JCTC 2014;10:2658-2667), we demonstrated a non-Markovian analysis approach that, with a sufficient subset of history information, yields unbiased mean first-passage times from weighted-ensemble (WE) simulations. The estimation of the distribution of the first-passage times is, however, a more ambitious goal since it cannot be obtained by direct observation in WE trajectories. Likewise, a large number of events would be required to make a good estimation of the distribution from a regular “brute force” simulation. Here, we show how the previously developed non-Markovian analysis can generate approximate, but highly accurate, FPT distributions from WE data. The analysis can also be applied to any other unbiased trajectories, such as from standard molecular dynamics simulations. The present study employs a range of systems with independent verification of the distributions to demonstrate the success and limitations of the approach. By comparison to a standard Markov analysis, the non-Markovian approach is less sensitive to the user-defined discretization of configuration space.
Imaging of aseismic fault slip transients recorded by dense geodetic networks

SUMMARY The large-scale continuous GPS networks that have emerged in the last decade have documented a wide-range of aseismic deformation transients that resulted from physical processes such as aseismic fault slip and magma intrusion. In particular, a new class of (M ∼7) slow earthquakes with durations ranging from days to months have been observed with GPS arrays located above the downdip portion of subduction zone thrust interfaces. Interpretation of the displacement time-series resulting from these events is not straightforward owing to the contaminating effects of multiple contributing signals such as fault-slip, local benchmark motion, seasonal effects, and reference frame errors. We have developed a time-dependent inversion algorithm based on the extended Kalman filter which can separate the various signals and allow the space‐ time evolution of these slow-slip transients to be studied in detail. We applied the inversion algorithm to the 1999 Cascadia slow earthquake. This event had two primary episodes of moment-release separated by a two week period in which relatively little moment-release occurred. The Cascadia event and other slow earthquakes share numerous similarities with both ordinary earthquakes and afterslip transients suggesting that they may represent fault slip under a conditionally stable regime.
The Federal Oil Spill Team for Emergency Response Remote Sensing, FOSTERRS: Enabling Remote Sensing Technology for Marine Disaster Response

Oil spills cause significant to devastating ecological, economic, and societal damage, requiring years to decades for recovery. In cases of floods such as those associated with Hurricane Katrina, both oil and marine debris can enter the ocean, with debris posing its own hazards and ecological damage. In other cases, massive debris introduction can occur from natural causes such as the great Japanese tsunami in 2011.
Stereoroentgenographic System With Portable Calibration Cage For Use In Clinical Medicine

For the past five years, we have been accumulating information on the performance of a stereoroentgenographic system developed for use in clinical medicine and first reported at the NATO Symposium on the Application of Human Biostereometrics. This system represents an adaptation of normal case coplanar stereometry and involves the use of a single emitter which is displaced in a controlled fashion between exposures. The system has been used primarily for the detection of applicance loosening and settling following the placement of total hip protheses and also for the detection of pseudorthosis following lumbo-sacral fusion. One major goal has been the development of a data acquisition and analysis system suitable for general hospital use which can be operated by technicians without specialized photogrammetric training. This report will focus on system design and on the delineation of technical problems encountered during routine clinical use of the system.© (1983) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Abstract B58: EGFR and IR/IGFR activation sustains ERK1/2 and AKT signaling independently of mutant Kras in pancreatic cancer cells lines

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer related death in the United States. Roughly 45,000 patients are diagnosed with the disease each year and of these patients 94% will not survive past 5 years. The most common genetic alteration associated with PDAC is an oncogenic mutation in the KRAS gene, which is believed to initiate the disease. Mutant Kras is generally thought to signal constitutively to its downstream effector proteins, such as Raf/MEK/Erk and PI3K/AKT. However, recently we and others have demonstrated that Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) signaling upstream of mutant Kras is necessary for unlocking its oncogenic potential in the pancreas, distinct from Kras driven tumorigenesis in the lung or colon. Unfortunately, while EGFR inhibition is effective in blocking pancreatic tumorigenesis in mice, it has limited benefit in treating human PDAC patients. Furthermore, it has been shown that wild-type Nras and Hras have indispensable signaling roles in cells expressing oncogenic Kras, and that both the mutant and WT Ras signals are required for cell growth. Here we show that pancreatic cancer cell lines containing oncogenic Kras still require upstream signaling to maintain high levels of both active Erk and AKT although these signals are not necessarily EGFR derived. We have identified a subset of pancreatic cancer cell lines that rely upon IR/IGFR signaling to maintain the high levels of Erk and AKT signaling required for continued cell growth. Additionally, this signaling appears to be independent of oncogenic Kras and instead correlates with the levels of active wild-type Nras and Hras. This data indicates that patients may benefit from the simultaneous inhibition of both the EGFR and IR/IGFR signaling pathways. Citation Format: Kenneth K. Takeuchi, Howard C. Crawford. EGFR and IR/IGFR activation sustains ERK1/2 and AKT signaling independently of mutant Kras in pancreatic cancer cells lines. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on RAS Oncogenes: From Biology to Therapy; Feb 24-27, 2014; Lake Buena Vista, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Res 2014;12(12 Suppl):Abstract nr B58. doi: 10.1158/1557-3125.RASONC14-B58
Pediatric obstetrical ethics: Medical decision-making by, with, and for pregnant early adolescents

Pregnancy in an early adolescent carries with it specific ethical considerations, in some ways different from pregnancy in an adult and from medical care of a non-pregnant adolescent. Obstetrical ethics emphasizes the right of the patient to autonomy and bodily integrity, including the right to refuse medical intervention. Pediatric ethics recognizes the right of parents, within limits, to make medical decisions for their children, and the right of a child to receive medical or surgical interventions likely to be of benefit to her, sometimes over her own objections. As the child gets older, and particularly during the years of adolescence, there is also a recognition of the right to an increasingly prominent role in decisions about her own healthcare. Pediatric obstetrical ethics, referring to ethical decisions made by, with, and for pregnant early adolescents, represents the intersection of these different cultures. Principles and approaches from both obstetrical and pediatric ethics, as well as a unified understanding of rights, obligations, and practical considerations, will be needed.
Numerical Study to Minimize Induced Drag by Boundary Layer Control.

ince the fuel crisis in the seventies and subsequent trend in fuel prices, aircraft drag reduction has become more important to keep airline operational costs under control. Cruise speed is usually designed to occur near the maximum lift to drag ratio where the induced drag equals the aircraft parasite drag. Then reducing induced drag by 20% will increase L/D by 11%. Such an improvement is possible by the addition of winglets. Additional improvements are possible by strategic placement of wing boundary layer control devices. Munk has shown, assuming an inviscid fluid, that for planar wings, an elliptic spanwise loading is optimum to minimize induced drag.
Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulations of a Pilot-Scale Transport Coal Gasifier: Evaluation of Reaction Kinetics

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory has developed a software platform titled Carbonaceous Chemistry for Computational Modeling (C3M) that can be used to seamlessly connect the reaction kinetics typically found in the gasification process to various computational fluid dynamic (CFD) packages, including MFIX, ANSYS-FLUENT, and BARRACUDA, for advanced gasifier simulation. In this study, a pilot-scale transport gasifier was simulated by employing the C3M platform to incorporate various kinetics into the CFD simulation. It was found that appropriate chemical kinetics for gasification reactions are key to the numerical prediction of syngas composition and the kinetics from Niksa Energy Associate’s PC Coal Lab yielded reasonable agreement to the experimental data. Using the C3M platform, different chemistry kinetics for coal devolatilization—generated by METC Gasifier Advanced Simulation (MGAS), Niksa Energy Associate’s PC Coal Lab (PCCL), Chemical Percolation Model for Coal Dev...
Ni- and Fe-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions of Phenol Derivatives

This review describes our laboratory’s efforts to develop transition metal-catalyzed cross-couplings of several unconventional phenol-based electrophiles. Specifically, we highlight herein the following four key transformations: (a) nickel-catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura couplings of aryl pivalates, carbamates, and sulfamates to construct sp2–sp2 C–C bonds; (b) iron-catalyzed Kumada couplings of aryl carbamates and sulfamates for the assembly of sp2–sp3 C–C bonds; (c) nickel-catalyzed amination reactions of carbamates and sulfamates to build aryl C–N bonds; and (d) nickel-catalyzed reductive cleavage reactions of aryl carbamates to achieve aryl deoxygenation and a rare method for cine substitution. We expect this review will enable the greater use of unconventional phenol-based cross-coupling electrophiles in industrial settings.
Correlation of Weapon Bay Resonance and Store Unsteady Force and Moment Loading

A store which is released from an internal bay is subjected to a highly unsteady ow eld which in uences the release characteristics for the store. The relationship between the acoustic modes present in the cavity and the force and moment loading on a store released from a bay are investigated through a CFD study using the OVERFLOW 2.1 solver. The acoustic modes of the cavity are calculated from the pressure uctuation histories along the cavity ceiling and walls. Empty cavity solutions are compared to the frequencies predicted by the Rossiter equation and to experimental data from the WICS database. Additionally, the cavity pressure uctuation spectra are compared to the force and moment loading spectra for a store located in the cavity in both the carriage position and the shear layer. It is determined that the presence of a store in the cavity does not alter the fundamental acoustic modes in the cavity. Also, the store force and moment loadings are observed to correlate with the cavity pressure uctuations. The store is subjected to a mean nose-up pitch moment from carriage through the shear layer.
Analysis of the result of self-evaluation of the female self-rating anxiety and self-rating depression in a Shanghai rural community

Objective: To learn the occurrences of anxiety and depression of the women in a rural community of Shanghai, to explore the possible influencing factors, so as to provide a basis to improve the mental health level of the women of Shanghai rural communities. Method: Trained investigators investigated those women face to face with self-rating depression scale and self-rating anxiety scale. Result: In those 501 women the prevalence of anxiety was 1.2% and the prevalence of depression was 5.2%, and six of them suffered from anxiety and depression at the same time. The women over the age of 50 had higher prevalence of depression than those 50 years old or below. The rate of depression was different among people who had different average monthly household income (P=0.047). The people over 50 years old had higher rate of depression than those 50 years old or below by test of logistic regression (OR=4.496,95% CI :1.118~18.078, P=0.034). Conclusion: The rates of anxiety and depression of women in a rural community of Shanghai are low, but the women over the age of 50 have higher prevalence of depression than those 50 years old or below.
Modeling the effects of within-person characteristic and goal-level attributes on personal project pursuit over time

Abstract The current study aims to overcome methodological constraints of previous goal pursuit research by exploring how people simultaneously rely upon person-level characteristic adaptations and unique goal-level attributes to pursue their personal projects. Undergraduate participants identified 10 projects they would pursue over an academic quarter and rated project meaningfulness, effort exerted, patience employed, and progress satisfaction at five time points. Multilevel structural equation models revealed the relative influence of person-level and project-level attributes on project appraisals. Person-level adaptations accounted for a large portion of variance in project pursuit appraisals, though significant project-specific trends were found over time as well, including mutual positive cross-lag influences between meaning, patience, and effort, and a negative predictive effect of progress satisfaction on meaning.
Genetic Dissection of Cardiac Remodeling in an Isoproterenol-Induced Heart Failure Mouse Model

We aimed to understand the genetic control of cardiac remodeling using an isoproterenol-induced heart failure model in mice, which allowed control of confounding factors in an experimental setting. We characterized the changes in cardiac structure and function in response to chronic isoproterenol infusion using echocardiography in a panel of 104 inbred mouse strains. We showed that cardiac structure and function, whether under normal or stress conditions, has a strong genetic component, with heritability estimates of left ventricular mass between 61% and 81%. Association analyses of cardiac remodeling traits, corrected for population structure, body size and heart rate, revealed 17 genome-wide significant loci, including several loci containing previously implicated genes. Cardiac tissue gene expression profiling, expression quantitative trait loci, expression-phenotype correlation, and coding sequence variation analyses were performed to prioritize candidate genes and to generate hypotheses for downstream mechanistic studies. Using this approach, we have validated a novel gene, Myh14, as a negative regulator of ISO-induced left ventricular mass hypertrophy in an in vivo mouse model and demonstrated the up-regulation of immediate early gene Myc, fetal gene Nppb, and fibrosis gene Lgals3 in ISO-treated Myh14 deficient hearts compared to controls.
Impact of Water Pollution on Coconut Cultivation in Vellore District, Tamil Nadu

In this paper the study on impact of water pollution with respect to coconut cultivation was done. Water is regarded as polluted when it is changed in quality or composition, directly or indirectly as a result of human activities. Coconut is the benevolent provider of the basic needs of millions of people across the globe, for their livelihood security. Coconut is grown in more than 93 countries of the world and Indonesia, Philippines, India are the major producing countries of the world. Forty-seven (47) of the seventy-seven ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) member countries produced 4.59 million tons of coconuts in 2009 on 1.7 million hectares. This represented 7.4 % of world production. Coconut in India is mostly a small holders crop contributing to about Rs. 83,000 million annually which is about 2 % of the contribution of agriculture and allied sectors with more than 10 million farming families dependent on the crop for their livelihood. India is one of the largest producers of coconut. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of water pollution on coconut production in Vellore District, Tamil Nadu. The important objectives of this study are to analyze the area, production and productivity of coconut in the study area and the need for fresh water irrigation for coconut cultivation. In order to obtain the objectives of this study, the secondary data was used for the period 2000–2013. This study is descriptive type in nature where simple percentage tables and diagrams were used for analysis purpose.
Transposition of the Intratemporal Facial to Hypoglossal Nerve for Reanimation of the Paralyzed Face: The VII to XII TranspositionTechnique

ImportanceThe hypoglossal nerve has long been an axonal source for reinnervation of the paralyzed face. In this study, we report our experience with transposition of the intratemporal facial nerve ...
Lighting up sound preferences: cross-modal influences on the precedence effect in treefrogs

Perception is frequently cross-modal, involving interactions among stimuli in multiple sensory modalities. Cross-modal integration of sensory stimuli is well established in humans and laboratory mammals, but the understanding of its mechanisms and evolution is limited by a lack of data from a broader taxonomic range in an ecological framework. Our aim in this study was to test whether the precedence effect, the bias in sound localization towards earlier arriving sounds, which is modulated by simultaneous visual stimulation in humans, is also susceptible to cross-modal effects of visual stimulation in two treefrog species, Hyla versicolor and Hyla cinerea. We used two-choice playback experiments to test whether female preferences for leading male advertisement call stimuli were enhanced or suppressed, respectively, by visual stimuli co-localized with leading or lagging call elements. In contrast to humans, strong female leader preferences were generally robust to cross-modal visual stimulation. We propose that divergence in both sensory systems and ecology has led to variation in the relative reliability of visual and acoustic cues of direction, which may explain the differences between humans and frogs. We argue that studies of cross-modal effects on sensory processing are an important tool for understanding the evolution of perceptual mechanisms.
Small Claims Courts: A Remedy Often Overlooked by Consumers

Consumers have several avenues of recourse to resolve dissatisfactions with the products or services provided by businesses. This study indicates that consumers are unfamiliar with the availability, practices, and procedures of the Small Claims Courts.
Status of the Computer Network Security Activities of the People’s Republic of China

Around 221 BC the Quin Dynasty began building the Great Wall in an effort to keep out the Mongol invaders. It did not work. In 1997, the People’s Republic of China is building an electronic wall to keep out undesirable Western electronic transmissions. This second wall also will not work, say many China experts. But the Chinese government believes it has to try. China’s main security concern is the INTERNET. To counteract the free-wheeling INTERNET, in February 1996 the Ministry of Public Security published constrictive regulations on INTERNET use. Though China has about 20 INTERNET Service Providers and, at least, six links connecting to the global INTERNET, the flow of information is regulated. These regulations force all international networks to run through limited channels set up by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT). Additionally, all users of international networks must register with MPT. The government believes that Chinese values are not compatible with Western freedoms. Publicly, officials have stressed the need to protect state secrets and shield the Chinese people from undesirable political and pornographic materials. These regulations forbid networking activities that harm the state and prohibit the use of the INTERNET for “producing, retrieving, duplicating and spreading information that may hinder public order.” Consequently, all international traffic--inbound and outbound--is filtered through government agencies and, eventually, through controlled information ports supported by Chinese-built firewalls. To achieve China’s goal, it will be necessary to have total cooperation and support from the INTERNET users, a difficult goal to achieve indeed.
Economic Considerations in Medical Biotechnology

The biotechnology revolution has coincided with another revolution in health care: the emergence of finance and economics as major issues in the use and success of new medical technologies. Health care finance has become a major social issue in nearly every nation, and the evaluation and scrutiny of the pricing and value of new treatments has become an industry unto itself. The most tangible effect of this change is the establishment of the so-called third hurdle for approval of new agents in many nations, after proving safety and efficacy. Beyond the traditional requirements for demonstrating the efficacy and safety of new agents, some nations, and many private health-care systems, now demand data on the economic costs and benefits of new medicines. Although currently required only in a few countries, methods to extend similar prerequisites are being examined by the governments of most developed nations. Many managed care organizations in the USA now prefer that an economic dossier be submitted along with the clinical dossier to make coverage decisions.
Courts and Social Policy

This article reviews the complex literature on the role of courts in social policy. It argues that there are three basic approaches to understanding the role of courts in social policy — gap studies, judicial mobilization studies and judicial feedback studies. Despite their differences, these different approaches converge on the idea that judicial policy-making looks a lot like other forms of policy-making. Identifying these parallels is a signature achievement, which has largely dispelled the “myth of rights” and has revealed the political and policy dimensions of ostensibly technical legal matters. Yet normalizing judicial policy-making — making it seem like other types of policy-making — threatens to render it a much less interesting subject to study. This suggests the time has come for law and policy scholars to return to core questions about what makes courts and judicial policy-making distinctive and study how these particular tilts and tendencies influence the policy-making processes.
Book reviewWhat is Addiction?, A Bradford Book, D. Ross, H. Kincaid, D. Spurrett, P. Collins (Eds.), The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2010), 448 pp

This book, edited by Ross, Kincaid, Spurrett, and Collins, includes the writings of several scholarly authors in the fields of research, prevention, and treatment of addiction that examine various ...
What is the Long-term Economic Societal Effect of Periprosthetic Infections After THA? A Markov Analysis.

Current estimates for the direct costs of a single episode of care for periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) after THA are approximately USD 100,000. These estimates do not account for the costs of failed treatments and do not include indirect costs such as lost wages. The goal of this study was to estimate the long-term economic effect to society (direct and indirect costs) of a PJI after THA treated with contemporary standards of care in a hypothetical patient of working age (three scenarios, age 55, 60, and 65 years). We created a state-transition Markov model with health states defined by surgical treatment options including irrigation and debridement with modular exchange, single-stage revision, and two-stage revision. Reoperation rates attributable to septic and aseptic failure modes and indirect and direct costs were calculated estimates garnered via multiple systematic reviews of peer-reviewed orthopaedic and infectious disease journals and Medicare reimbursement data. We conducted an analysis over a hypothetical patient’s lifetime from the societal perspective with costs discounted by 3% annually. We conducted sensitivity analysis to delineate the effects of uncertainty attributable to input variables. The model found a base case cost of USD 390,806 per 65-year-old patient with an infected THA. One-way sensitivity analysis gives a range of USD 389,307 (65-year-old with a 3% reinfection rate) and USD 474,004 (55-year-old with a 12% reinfection rate). Indirect costs such as lost wages make up a considerable portion of the costs and increase considerably as age at the time of infection decreases. The results of this study show that the overall treatment of a periprosthetic infection after a THA is markedly more expensive to society than previously estimated when accounting for the considerable failure rates of current treatment options and including indirect costs. These overall costs, combined with a large projected increase in THAs and a steady state of septic failures, should be taken into account when considering the total cost of THA. Further research is needed to adequately compare the clinical and economic effectiveness of alternative treatment pathways. Level II, economic and decision analysis.
What Are We Teaching in Diversity and Social Justice Courses? A Qualitative Content Analysis of MSW Syllabi

ABSTRACTDiversity and social justice are central to social work and related curricular content is mandated by accreditation standards. However, research regarding diversity and social justice courses remains limited. This study aimed to better understand how these courses are conceptualized through a qualitative content analysis of course descriptions and objectives from 27 MSW course syllabi. Findings were organized into themes related to knowledge, skills, and values-based content areas. Emergent themes highlighted that these courses center knowledge acquisition, are linked to professional socialization, and have self-awareness as a primary goal. Implications for social work education are discussed.
Inequalities about partial transpose and partial traces

We present inequalities related to partial transpose and partial traces of a positive semidefinite matrix.
Keeping Time with the Asteroids

The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) has discovered 5790 of 13,392 known near-Earth asteroids (as of writing), as well as tens of thousands from the main belt, and over 300 comets. Astrometric observations from the three CSS telescopes have contributed to computing the orbits of the great majority of the 700,000 known asteroids of all types. CSS remains the only NEO survey to have discovered asteroids prior to Earth impact.
Recent developments in visual field testing for glaucoma.

Purpose of reviewVisual field testing remains one of the most important tools for characterizing and monitoring vision loss in glaucoma. Despite its current mainstream use, new developments continue to emerge on its current use and potentially better methods for its testing and analysis. This review
Research in the rhetoric of economics: a critical review

ABSTRACTAlthough it has not always received much attention in the field of communication studies, a growing number of scholars now recognize the role of rhetoric in the constitution and maintenance...
Monolithically integrated 140 GHz TWT arrays

Initial work is presented on novel monolithic integration of key components for 140 GHz traveling- wave tube arrays.
ANTIBODIES TO INSULIN RECEPTORS: PROBES OF RECEPTOR STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION

ABSTRACT In several disease states in man circulating immunoglobulins have been shown to act on specific cell surface receptors for polypeptide hormones or neurotransmitters. In a rare insulin resistant disease, associated with very low insulin binding to endogenous insulin receptors, an immunoglobulin has been isolated that blocks insulin binding to cells and in addition mimics several of the biologic actions of insulin.
Amorphous Ferro- and Antiferromagnetism Within an RPA-CPA Theory

We consider the system to be governed by a Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian with vanishing external field, i.e. u→0 $$H = A\sum\limits_{f,p} {J(f,p)} {S_f}.{S_p} - \mu \sum\limits_I {S_f^z} $$ (1) Here A=−1 for the ferromagnetic case and +l for the antiferromagnetic case. The exchange integral between any site p and its surrounding shell of atoms (which we take to consist of z atoms on the average) is to be random with a probability distribution P(J) such that P(J) is zero outside the range J2>J >J1 and $$\int\limits_{{J_1}}^{{J_2}} P \left( J \right)dJ = 1. $$ (2) ( Note that it is the fluctuations in the neighboring environment, in general, and in the separation vectors (f-p) as compared with the corresponding vectors for a crystalline lattice of coordination z , in particular, which cause these fluctuations in the exchange integral J(f,p).
Exposing Corporate Tax Dodgers

This chapter describes landmark Levin-led investigations into how major U.S. corporations used complex tax gimmicks and offshore tax havens to dodge payment of U.S. taxes. The case studies detail deceptive conduct by Apple, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft, leading to billions of dollars in unpaid taxes. The chapter traces how those investigative findings inspired international outrage and sparked a variety of reforms to clamp down on multinational corporate profit-shifting.
O-GlcNAc Signaling Orchestrates the Regenerative Response to Neuronal Injury in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Summary Regrowth of an axon after injury is an inherently metabolic undertaking. Yet the mechanisms of metabolic regulation that influence repair following injury are not well understood. O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) is a post-translational modification of serines and threonines that functions as a sensor of cellular nutrients. Performing in vivo laser axotomies in Caenorhabditis elegans, we find that neuronal regeneration is substantially increased by disruptions of either the O-GlcNAc transferase or the O-GlcNAcase that decrease and increase O-GlcNAc levels, respectively. A lack of O-GlcNAc induces the AKT-1 branch in the insulin-signaling pathway to use glycolysis. In contrast, increased O-GlcNAc levels activate an opposing branch of the insulin-signaling pathway whereby SGK-1 modulates the FOXO transcription factor DAF-16 to influence mitochondrial function. The existence of this toggle-like mechanism between metabolic pathways suggests that O-GlcNAc signaling conveys cellular nutrient status to orchestrate metabolism in a damaged neuron and maximize the regenerative response.
Local Moduli of Scalar-flat Kähler ALE Surfaces

In this article, we give a survey of our construction of a local moduli space of scalar-flat Kahler ALE metrics in complex dimension 2.We also prove an explicit formula for the dimension of this moduli space on a scalar-flat Kahler ALE surface which deforms to the minimal resolution of C2/Γ, where Γ is a finite subgroup of U(2) without complex reflections, in terms of the embedding dimension of the singularity.
Gastrointestinal Bleeding Secondary to Portal Hypertensive Duodenopathy in a Patient with Decompensated Liver Cirrhosis

With alcoholic cirrhosis and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease continuously on the rise in the United States, there is also a corresponding rise in portal hypertension. Portal hypertensive duodenopathy (PHD) is a complication of portal hypertension not commonly seen in cirrhotic patients. We present a case of a 46-year-old man who presented with decompensated liver cirrhosis secondary to gastrointestinal bleed. The patient underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) with findings indicative of PHD. Patient subsequently underwent transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) with resolution of gastrointestinal bleed. We highlight TIPS as a management strategy in patients with PHD for whom less invasive measures are not effective.
Voces de Resistencia: Exploring Salvadoran Students’ Experiences and Needs in Higher Education:

This study aims to examine how historical and contemporary traumas, refugee experiences, and cultural adjustment affect first-generation Salvadoran students’ identities and experiences in higher ed...
Proceedings of the 2004 ACM workshop on Rapid malcode

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2nd ACM Workshop on Rapid Malcode. The problem of combating malicious self-propagating programs - worms - continues to hold pressing urgency due to the threat these pose to today's information infrastructure. This year's workshop follows up on the great interest engendered by last year's inaugural workshop. We again invited participation from researchers in the academic, commercial, and government communities, receiving 60% more papers than in 2003. From the 40 submissions, at the program committee meeting we selected nine papers, based on quality, focus, and the likelihood of stimulating productive discussion. The program committee also elicited three invited talks: from Carey Nachenberg of Symantec Research Labs ("From AntiVirus to AntiWorm: A New Strategy for a New Threat Landscape"), Helen Wang of Microsoft Research ("Anti-worm Efforts at Microsoft"), and Jedidiah R. Crandall of the University of California, Davis ("Minos: A Tool for Capturing and Analyzing Novel Worms for Unknown Vulnerablities"). We aim for the discussions stimulated by the presentations of these technical papers and invited talks to form the core of the workshop - a forum we anticipate will be exciting and energetic, but also sobering, as it is clear that a great deal of further work and research is needed to fully combat the threat.
ASSOCIATION OF SENSORY AND COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT WITH HEALTHCARE UTILIZATION AND COST IN MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES

The combination of sensory and cognitive impairment is increasingly prevalent among older adults and may be an important driver of healthcare cost due to functional disability and reduced self-care. This presentation focuses on the relationship between hearing and/or vision impairment and cognitive impairment with hospital admissions and healthcare cost using data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling adults. We show that the presence of sensory impairment is associated with increased risk of hospitalization regardless of dementia status. In adjusted models, annual total healthcare costs were generally higher among those with sensory impairments compared to those without sensory impairments. We will also discuss work related to the development of a prognostic model that provides estimates of hospitalization risk among older adults with self-reported hearing and/or vision impairment. This model may help inform allocation of health care resources to those at highest risk for adverse outcomes.
The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World. By Tim Marshall. 276 pp.; diagrs., ills., index. New York, NY: Scribner, 2018. $14.79 (hard), isbn: 978-1501183904

As the third in his “Politics of Place” series, Tim Marshall's publication of The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World couldn't have been released at a more perfect mom...
Minimally invasive surgery for intracerebral hemorrhage.

Author(s): Vitt, Jeffrey R; Sun, Chung-Huan; Le Roux, Peter D; Hemphill, J Claude | Abstract: Purpose of reviewSpontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is common, associated with a high degree of mortality and long-term functional impairment, and remains without effective proven treatments. Surgical hematoma evacuation can reduce mass effect and decrease cytotoxic effects from blood product breakdown. However, results from large clinical trials that have examined the role of open craniotomy have not demonstrated a significant outcome benefit over medical management. We review the data on minimally invasive surgery (MIS) that is emerging as a treatment modality for spontaneous ICH.Recent findingsThe use of MIS for supratentorial ICH has increased significantly in recent years and appears to be associated with decreased mortality and improved functional outcome compared with medical management. The role of MIS for posterior fossa ICH is ill-defined. Currently available MIS devices allow for stereotactic aspiration and thrombolysis, endoport-mediated evacuation, and endoscopic aspiration. Clinical series demonstrate that MIS can facilitate significant hematoma volume reduction and may be associated with less morbidity than conventional open surgical approaches.SummaryMIS is an appealing treatment modality for supratentorial ICH and with careful patient selection and technologic advances has the potential to improve neurologic outcomes and reduce mortality. Early and extensive hematoma evacuation are important therapeutic targets and current studies are underway that have the potential to change the management for ICH patients.
Estimation of variance components for bodyweight of grasscutters using expectation maximization algorithm of restricted maximum likelihood

The objective of this study was to estimate the variance components and heritability of bodyweight of grasscutters at 4, 6 and 8 months of age using EM algorithm of REML procedures. The data used for the study were obtained from the bodyweight records of 20 grasscutters from four families at 4, 6 and 8 months of age. The heritability of bodyweight of grasscutters at 4, 6 and 8 months of age were 0.14, 0.10 and 0.12 respectively. This implies that about 10 – 14 % of the phenotypic variability of body weight in this grasscutter population was accounted by additive genetic variance while environmental and gene combination variance made a larger contribution. The implication is that selection of grasscutters in this population should not be based on the information on the animals alone but also information fromits relatives.
Not Your Mule?: Disrupting the Political Powerlessness of Black Women Voters

On the one hundredth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, this Article reflects on the legacy of Black women voters. The Article hypothesizes that even though suffrage was hard fought, it has not been a vehicle for Black women to meaningfully advance their political concerns. Instead, an inverse relationship exists between Black women's political participation and their relative level of socioeconomic and political well-being. Taking recent national elections as a case study, the Article identifies two sources of Black women's political powerlessness: “caretaker voting” and the "trapped constituency problem.” The Article concludes that Black women's strong voter turnout coupled with their reliable support of the Democratic Party has had the perverse outcome of cementing their irrelevance in the electoral system. To disrupt this trend, the Article proposes a new path forward
Do Long-Term Shareholders Benefit from Corporate Acquisitions?

Using 947 acquisitions during 1970-1989, this paper finds a relationship between the post-acquisition returns and the mode of acquisition and form of payment. During a five-year period following the acquisition, on average, firms that complete stock mergers earn significantly negative excess returns of -25.0 percent whereas firms that complete cash tender offers earn significantly positive excess returns of 61.7 percent. Over the combined pre- and post-acquisition period, target shareholders do not earn significantly positive excess returns in stock mergers. In the top quartile of target to acquirer size ratio, target shareholders earn negative excess returns in stock mergers.
The influence of task-value scaffolding in a predictive learning analytics dashboard on learners' statistics anxiety, motivation, and performance

Abstract There is an increasing trend of learning analytics dashboards (LADs) being used to provide feedback to learners. However, there is little empirical evidence about the influence of their design features on learners' cognitive and affective outcomes, especially in high-anxiety courses such as statistics. To address this gap, this study employed a two-group experimental design applied to an authentic setting to assess the influence of task-value scaffolding in a LAD on learners' anxiety, motivation, and learning performance in an online statistics course. This semester-long experiment was implemented in two instances of the course offering (Fall/2019 and Spring/2020) and involved a total of 146 students. The results showed that task-value scaffolding had a negative impact on learners’ computation anxiety and attitudes towards statistics in comparison to the control group. On the other hand, the treatment had no significant influence on other aspects of statistics anxiety, motivation, and learning outcomes. Taken jointly, these results suggest that the use of task-value scaffolding embedded in LADs can have detrimental effects on learners. More experimental studies are necessary to understand the positive and negative effects of LADs with motivational scaffolding.
Associations between use of specific social media sites and electronic cigarette use among college students.

Objective: To examine dose-response associations between use of specific social media sites and the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and traditional cigarettes. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 298 first-year college students enrolled in the fall 2019 semester at a large state university. Heckman selection and Probit model were used to estimate associations between use of specific social media sites and e-cigarette/traditional cigarette use. Results: Each additional hour per day spent on Snapchat was associated with a 4.61% increase in the probability of lifetime e-cigarette use. In addition, among current e-cigarette users, more time spent on Snapchat was associated with more frequent e-cigarette use (marginal effects: 0.13, p = 0.001). Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram were not associated with traditional cigarette smoking. Conclusion: Snapchat was the only major social media platform associated with both lifetime and current e-cigarette use.
The computation of Gröbner bases on a shared memory multiprocessor

This article presents a system which computes Grobner bases on a shared memory multiprocessor. The basic idea is that each processor picks an element in the set of unreduced critical pairs, reduces the S-polynomial associated with it and updates the basis and the set of pairs according to the result. The originality of this algorithm relies on the small amount of synchronization it requires among the processes. The details of an implementation on a 16 processors Encore machine are given together with results of tests performed with well-known examples of the literature.
Relative prices and real factor rewards: A reinterpretation

Abstract Two devices are generally available to increase the reward of a productive factor: (i) a direct subsidy to the factor, and (ii) an alteration in relative commodity prices. The Stolper-Samuelson result, whereby method (ii) suffices to improve the real reward of a productive factor in a 2×2 setting with no joint production is shown to be valid in the n -commodity, n -factor model.
Introduction: The Growth of Cities and Urban Forestry

In the last 100 years, there have been two very dramatic changes in human society. First, our global population quadrupled to its present 6.3 billion, and second, we have become an urban species (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division, 2004). In 1900, 86% of humanity lived in the rural countryside, interacting directly with the natural world on a daily basis. However, as of 2006 over 50% of us now live at densities greater than 625 people per square kilometer in cities containing more than 100,000 individuals. United Nations predictions hold that by 2050 nearly two thirds of the estimated world population of 9 billion people will live in cities. This demographic shift has occurred at an uneven pace throughout the world, with Western industrialized nations having experienced it earlier, accounting for the fact that today about 75% to 80% of Europeans and North Americans are already city dwellers. Therefore, the lion’s share (90%) of the increase in urbanized humanity over the next few decades will occur in the developing nations, particularly those in Asia. Moreover, the number of large cities throughout the world is increasing rapidly. In 1900, there were only 19 cities with a million or more inhabitants. Today, there are over 400, with 564 projected by 2015 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division, 2004). There now are 19 megacities, with 10 million or more people each, whereas just 20 years ago there were only eight. Many of these cities are struggling to provide basic services such as drinking water, waste removal, sanitation, and shelter for their people. Other cities are not experiencing such crises as acutely, but nevertheless suffer chronically from vastly unequal allocation of resources and services to their citizens, hotter mesoclimates (urban heat-island effect), flooding, poor air and water quality, and intermittent water shortages that portend more serious scarcity in the future (Hinrichsen, 2002; Shao et al., 2006; Yang and Pang, 2006; Zhao et al., 2006). Cities, and therefore the majority of humanity, are becoming increasingly stressed by environmental and social factors that negatively impact our physical and psychological well-being. As the economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, stated: “The test of the quality of life in an advanced economic society is now largely in the quality of urban life. Romance
A support vector brain-machine interface for cortical control of directions

A closed-loop brain-machine interface system (BMI) was implemented using freely-moving rats. Instead of reproducing continuous natural limb movements as in many other BMI work, abstract supervisory control commands such as Go left, Go right, were extracted from neurons in the motor and premotor areas of the rats brain. The control output was thus formulated as a solution of a nonlinear support vector machine (SVM). Five male Sprague-Dawley rats were able to use such a BMI. Furthermore, evidence was found that the animal changed his behavior and neural activity during the use of the interface from the hand-control phase to the brain-control phase. The analysis showed that the animal adapted a subset of its neural activities to make his decisions more distinct in the SVM decision space from neural activities, which subsequently led to improved brain-control task performance. Two independent approaches, an SVM model sensitivity analysis and a model-free mutual information analysis, pointed to the same subset of neurons that were responsible for such changes