cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Novel bacterial structures in human blood. II. Bacterial variants as etiologic agents in idiopathic hematuria.

Abstract Novel bacterial structures have been demonstrated in lysed blood filtrates placed in special culture media from patients with idiopathic hematuria. These structures converted rapidly to gram-positive coccal (streptococcal and staphylococcal-like), coccobacillary and filamentous, bacterial forms in vitro from 96 per cent of the patients studied. Blood cultured conventionally yielded negative findings. Although structures (dense bodies) were demonstrated in normal control blood specimens (albeit in lesser numbers) few converted to classical bacteria in vitro (7 per cent). Erythromycin therapy appeared to correlate with disappearance of hematuria and inability to revert rapidly the variant forms to classical bacteria in vitro. It is suggested that continual bombardment of the blood by bacteria entering from the mouth or other sites may lead to the development of variant bacterial parasitism. In an effort to survive the deleterious host effects the organisms may convert to persisting osmotically stable variant bacterial forms (dense bodies). Development of a disease state may be conditioned by some existing or developing abnormality in the host (immunologic, physiologic and/or biochemical). Furthermore, changes (genetic?) that might take place in the organisms per se during their transition to variant forms and adaptation to life in vivo may not allow certain host environments to adapt to these new forms, possibly leading to a pathogenetic role in renal diseases whose etiologies have long been enigmas.
Alternative Splicing in Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Diferentiation

This chapter provides a review of recent advances in understanding the importance of alternative pre-messenger RNA splicing in stem cell biology. The majority of transcribed pre-mRNAs undergo RNA splicing where introns are excised and exons are juxtaposed to form mature messenger RNA sequences. This regulated, selective removal of whole or portions of exons by alternative splicing provides avenues for control of RNA abundance and proteome diversity. We discuss several examples of key alternative splicing events in stem cell biology and provide an overview of recently developed microarray and sequencing technologies that enable systematic and genome-wide assessment of the extent of alternative splicing during stem cell differentiation.
Twentieth Century Latin America

The beginning of the twentieth century marks an important turning-point in Latin America’s relations with the rest of the world. In 1900 the dominant outside influence in that region was wielded by France and Britain, whose primary concern was commercial and financial gain rather than political dominance. By 1918, as a result of the First World War, Europe’s power over the destiny of Latin American affairs had lessened; that of the United States (whose power on a world scale was now unmatched) had grown. Henceforth, the external relations of the disunited Latin American states would be greatly influenced by the policies of their more united northern neighbor.
Stochastic Adaptive Control-Integrating Research and Teaching*

Abstract This paper focuses on innovative methods of teaching stochastic adaptive control with students who represent all science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The Stochastic Adaptive Control course has been developed based on the authors’ research area and it demonstrates the power, beauty and excitement of stochastic adaptive control as a field that spans STEM. Teaching is shown as a stochastic process that changes in time. The course has been taught at the mathematics department for the last 20 years by the team of mathematics and engineering faculty. The course is very popular, attracts junior and senior undergraduate and graduate students, and leads towards honors theses for undergraduates, and masters and doctoral theses for graduate students. Best practices leading to the success are presented.
The Distributed Nonlinear Stochastic World of Networks

Currently there is much interest in networks. This includes queueing network models of manufacturing systems, as well as wired and wireless networks used for communication. At their heart, networks too are just dynamical systems, often stochastic, nonlinear, and distributed. Many of the issues of interest for such systems can be said to be what they have always been for dynamical and controlled dynamical systems — stability, stabilizability, performance analysis, and optimal control. We illustrate this with respect to problems of much contemporary attention, by examining the stability problem for re-entrant lines, and the determination of the information theoretic capacity of wireless networks. We illustrate how the modem emphasis in the former area is on computational proofs of stability, and in the latter area is in the establishment of scaling laws.
The Relationship of Predeployment Child-focused Preparedness to Reintegration Attitudes and Ptsd Symptoms in Military Fathers With Young Children

Research shows that lower negative reintegration attitudes relate to lower levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among service members. Furthermore, mission preparedness has been shown to buffer the effects of combat exposure on PTSD development. The current study aims to extend the preparedness for deployment research into the family domain by examining the effect of predeployment child-focused preparedness on military fathers’ reintegration attitudes and PTSD symptoms. Correlations were conducted to examine the relationship between predeployment child-focused preparedness, reintegration attitudes, and PTSD symptoms among military fathers with young children (N = 30). Findings indicate that preparing one’s young children prior to deployment is positively related to fathers’ less negative reintegration attitudes following the deployment. Additionally, participants who engaged in predeployment child-focused preparation were significantly less likely to meet the clinical cut-off for PTSD compared to those who did not engage in any preparation for their young children. Implications for the potential positive impact of predeployment child-focused preparation on the family system are discussed, particularly as a buffer against PTSD among reintegrating service members.
Anuran occupancy of created wetlands in the Central Appalachians

Evaluating the adequacy of created wetlands to replace the functions of lost natural wetlands is important because wetland mitigation is a major tool used to offset wetland losses. However, measurements such as vegetative cover and presence of wildlife may not provide sufficient evidence that created wetlands are functioning properly and thus examining the ecology of wetland biota such as that of amphibians may be a more useful surrogate for function. The objectives of this study were to compare the occupancy and detection of calling anurans in created wetlands relative to beaver-created wetlands. Five-, 10-min, and broadcast call surveys were performed at 24 wetlands throughout the Central Appalachians once every month from March through August of 2009 and 2010. Occupancy modeling was used to estimate the occupancy and detection of individual species, incorporating relevant environmental variables. The occupancy of anurans did not differ between human-created and beaver (Castor canadensis)-created wetlands. Detection of anurans was largely unaffected by call survey type, but several environmental covariates had a significant effect on the detectability of calling anurans. Our results suggest that the function of providing adequate chorusing habitat for adult anurans is being fulfilled by the created wetlands that we examined.
Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy: Exemplar of an mtDNA Disease

The report in 1988 that Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) was the product of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations provided the first demonstration of the clinical relevance of inherited mtDNA variation. From LHON studies, the medical importance was demonstrated for the mtDNA showing its coding for the most important energy genes, its maternal inheritance, its high mutation rate, its presence in hundreds to thousands of copies per cell, its quantitatively segregation of biallelic genotypes during both mitosis and meiosis, its preferential effect on the most energetic tissues including the eye and brain, its wide range of functional polymorphisms that predispose to common diseases, and its accumulation of mutations within somatic tissues providing the aging clock. These features of mtDNA genetics, in combination with the genetics of the 1-2000 nuclear DNA (nDNA) coded mitochondrial genes, is not only explaining the genetics of LHON but also providing a model for understanding the complexity of many common diseases. With the maturation of LHON biology and genetics, novel animal models for complex disease have been developed and new therapeutic targets and strategies envisioned, both pharmacological and genetic. Multiple somatic gene therapy approaches are being developed for LHON which are applicable to other mtDNA diseases. Moreover, the unique cytoplasmic genetics of the mtDNA has permitted the first successful human germline gene therapy via spindle nDNA transfer from mtDNA mutant oocytes to enucleated normal mtDNA oocytes. Such LHON lessons are actively being applied to common ophthalmological diseases like glaucoma and neurological diseases like Parkinsonism.
Optical tug-of-war tweezers: shaping light for dynamic control of bacterial cells (Invited Paper)

We design and demonstrate new types of optical tweezers with lateral pulling forces that allow full control of biological samples with complex geometric shapes. With appropriate beam shaping, the dual tug-of-war tweezers effectively hold and stretch elongated biological objects of different sizes, and the triangular tug-of-war tweezers with threefold rotational symmetry steadily hold asymmetric objects in the plane of observation and exert stretching forces along three directions. We successfully apply these tweezers to manipulate microparticles and bacterial cells in aqueous media.
A generalized normal flow method with online step controls for pushover analysis of nonlinear softening structures

Abstract This paper introduces a robust path-following method for pushover analysis of softening structures due to geometric and/or material nonlinearities. The proposed method is a generalized form of the conventional normal flow method (NFM) that provides dimensional consistency in the correction iterations and improves the convergence properties of the algorithm. The generalized NFM is further enhanced by two online step control processes, namely, the Convex Step-size Control (CSC) process and the Hyper-Plane Step Control (HPSC) process. The CSC process introduces a set of inequality constraints on the step size to form a convex solution space and (i) enhance the convergence properties of the algorithm by preventing overshooting in highly nonlinear areas, and (ii) improve robustness of the path-tracing process by controlling the resolution of the traced equilibrium path (or spacing/distance between successive equilibrium points) making it unlikely to miss (highly nonlinear) sections of the path. The HPSC process introduces a hyper-plane boundary in the solution space to prevent backward path-tracing. The performance of the proposed generalized NFM with the CSC and HPSC processes is validated through examples with structures exhibiting snap-back and snap-through response due to geometric and material nonlinearities. The proposed method is also compared with existing path-following methods typically used for the pushover analysis of nonlinear structures.
Sexual and Gender Minority College Students and Tobacco Use in Texas.

Introduction Most research regarding sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations is limited to examination of cigarette or general tobacco use or does not examine heterogeneity across SGM groups other than lesbian or gay and bisexual individuals. This study examined differences in the odds of current use and age of initiation of five tobacco/nicotine products among three groups of SGM young adults who self-identified as (1) gay or lesbian, (2) bisexual, and (3) queer, transgender, or "other," compared to their heterosexual peers. Methods Participants were 4252 college students aged 18-29 years from 24 colleges in Texas who completed an online tobacco use survey. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to examine the odds of SGM participants currently using each tobacco product. Multilevel linear regression models were used to examine the association of current product users' SGM status with self-reported age of each product's initiation. All models were adjusted for sociodemographic factors and accounted for students clustered within each college. Results At least one SGM group had significantly greater odds of currently using every tobacco product type compared to heterosexual participants, except hookah. There were few differences across groups in age of initiation. However, queer, transgender, and "other-" identified participants initiated e-cigarettes 1.34 years younger than heterosexual participants, and bisexual participants initiated smokeless tobacco 3.66 years younger than heterosexual participants. Conclusions Findings highlight some significant tobacco use disparities among SGM young adults compared to their heterosexual peers. Longitudinal studies with larger group sizes will identify prospective predictors of sustained SGM-related tobacco use disparities. Implications This study extends the current literature by including the sexual and gender minority identity options of queer, transgender, and "other," highlighting disparities in tobacco use between young adults in these subgroups compared to their heterosexual peers, particularly in noncigarette tobacco product use. Findings underscore the need for the Food and Drug Association and other health agencies to tailor health communication efforts specific to sexual and gender minority populations pertaining to the risks and harms surrounding tobacco product use.
High Frequency Earthquake Strong Ground Motion in Laterally Varying Media: The Effect of a Fault Zone

Crustal heterogeneity and the effects of a complex earthquake source may account for observations of strong ground motion not easily explained by simplified source models in a laterally homogeneous medium. Both the effects of a complex source and lateral heterogeneity can be examined using a forward modeling technique that combines distributed, non-uniform slip on a fault plane with dynamic ray tracing in a three dimensional medium. Iterative paraxial ray tracing is used to solve the two point ray tracing problem. The validity of the results are limited to relatively high frequencies at which ray theory provides and accurate approximation to the Green’s function; however, these frequencies are often those of greatest interest in seismic engineering
Identifiability of conservative linear mechanical systems

With a sufficiently great number of sensors and actuators, any finite dimensional dynamic system is identifiable on the basis of input-output data. It is presently indicated that, for conservative nongyroscopic linear mechanical systems, the number of sensors and actuators required for identifiability is very large, where 'identifiability' is understood as a unique determination of the mass and stiffness matrices. The required number of sensors and actuators drops by a factor of two, given a relaxation of the identifiability criterion so that identification can fail only if the system parameters being identified lie in a set of measure zero. When the mass matrix is known a priori, this additional information does not significantly affect the requirements for guaranteed identifiability, though the number of parameters to be determined is reduced by a factor of two.
The Patient’s Informal Caregiver

The majority of care for patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) takes place beyond hospital or clinic walls. Most patients share this unique experience in a committed relationship with another person. This person, often the patient’s spouse, cares for the patient by supporting their physical and emotional healing. However this often comes with a price. This chapter reveals how the role of the informal caregiver can take a toll on a person’s physical, emotional and spiritual health. Health care providers (HCPs) must take notice and act in ways that support these people in order for optimal patient outcomes to occur. This chapter focuses on the informal caregivers (ICs) responses in the provision of care for patients with ICDs and LVADs and offers recommendations to support them. Distinctions will be made as there are some differences in informal caregiving based on the type of device the patient has i.e., ICD or LVAD.
Experimental and theoretical investigations of the gas adsorption sites in rht-metal–organic frameworks

rht-metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) represent a highly popular class of MOFs in the world of porous crystalline materials. MOFs belonging to this family consist of M2+ ions coordinated to hexatopic organic linkers containing three coplanar isophthalate-based moieties. rht-MOFs are a promising platform of MOFs because they display open-metal sites through the [M2(O2CR)4] clusters, high surface areas, and tunable pore sizes and chemical functionalities. They have been shown to exhibit high uptake for various energy-related gases, such as H2 and CO2. Detailed insights into the gas sorption mechanisms and binding sites in these MOFs can be made by way of experimental techniques, including neutron powder diffraction (NPD) and inelastic neutron scattering (INS), and theoretical methods, such as Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and electronic structure calculations. In this highlight, we review the important experimental and theoretical studies that have been performed to investigate the favorable gas sorption sites in these MOFs. A better understanding of the gas sorption mechanisms in rht-MOFs and related structures can allow for the rational design of new materials that are tailored for specific applications.
Why Information Systems Projects are Abandoned: A Leadership and Communication Theory and Exploratory Study

It is estimated that about one third of all information systems (IS) development projects are abandoned before completion. The resulting financial damage in the United States alone is about $100 bi...
An increase in Tc under hydrostatic pressure in the superconducting doped topological insulator Nb0.25Bi2Se3

Abstract We report a positive hydrostatic pressure derivative of the superconducting transition temperature in the doped topological insulator Nb0.25Bi2Se3 via dc SQUID magnetometry in pressures up to 0.6 GPa. This result is contrary to reports on the homologues CuxBi2Se3 and SrxBi2Se3 where smooth suppression of Tc is observed. This difference may be attributable to an electronic structure composed of multiple bands whereas the other materials in the superconducting doped Bi2Se3 family are believed to be single-band.
Systems of Social Control

This chapter will define the concepts of peace and violence, deconstructing the notion that violence and its supposed antithesis peace exist in opposition of one another, and provides an explanation of human behavior related to the use or nonuse of violence across time and space. The chapter will explore some of the ways that peace is established and maintained in modern societies and utilize historic and ethnographic accounts to look at past societies. The goal is to highlight how violence can be a form of social control, but to demonstrate that violent interactions are only one way to controlling the populace. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of how peace and violence are intimately tied to one another and temporally defined. Shifts in periods of peacefulness and war are deeply tied to the changes in social, political, ideological, and environmental factors and thus cyclical in nature.
Can cyber risk management insurance mitigate healthcare providers’ intentions to resist electronic medical records?

Purpose: A recent exploratory study investigated healthcare providers’ EMR resistance behaviors. Findings revealed that cyber-attack, was a major contributor to resistance. This phenomenon did not ...
Genomics Resources for Peanut Improvement

Peanut or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), an allotetraploid species, recently became the focus of a global genomics initiative with the goal of developing genome-wide molecular resources to facilitate breeding. Publicly available reference genome sequence of peanut’s diploid progenitors (peanutbase.org) is enabling expansion of genotyping tools for genetic mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for disease resistance and reproductive traits. Gene models supported by transcriptome data from cultivated peanut and its wild relatives empower the association of allelic variants with putative function, establishing a foundation for gene-based selection. This review summarizes recent advances and emerging impacts.
A Comparison of Satellite-Derived Sea Surface Salinity and Salt Fluxes in the Southern Ocean

Sea surface salinity (SSS) derived from the multi-satellite missions, NASA’s Aquarius/SAC–D and Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP), and ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) are compared and used to estimate horizontal advective salt fluxes in the Southern Ocean (SO). In comparison with an Argo product, all three satellites estimate similar SSS in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes (30° S–45° S) with low variability among the products. At high latitudes, there are temporal patterns of bias (relative to Argo) in Aquarius during Austral summer and in SMOS during Austral winter. Differences in the satellite products and Argo exist along coastal boundaries, low temperatures, and strong currents. Satellite-derived salinity indicates low temporal–mean standard deviations with Aquarius (0.215) and moderate standard deviations with SMOS (0.294) and SMAP (0.325) against Argo in the SO. Differences in satellite-derived zonal and meridional SSS gradients are large; standard deviation values are 2.52 and 1.49 × 10−6 psu m−1, respectively, and similarly located within the sub-tropical salinity maxima, Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and coastal zones. Differences in the horizontal advective fluxes are on average small, but large variability greater than 275 mm month−1 indicates errors of similar magnitude to the estimated Argo flux. Based on these results, the use of satellite-derived salinity may prove to be a useful resource for observing salinity and horizontal salt fluxes, outside the inaccuracies associated with the high latitudes and coastal currents between the various remotely sensed products, and could significantly influence the results depending on the product.
Long-Term Outcomes of Adults With Heart Failure by Left Ventricular Systolic Function Status

Patients with heart failure (HF) and preserved (HFpEF) or borderline preserved ejection fraction (HFbEF) outnumber patients with HF and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), but limited data exist on outcomes in community-based populations of these patients. We examined clinical outcomes in a diverse population of adults with HFrEF, HFbEF, and HFpEF. All adults with diagnosed HF from 2005 to 2012 in Kaiser Permanente Northern California were categorized by left ventricular systolic function as HFpEF (EF ≥50%), HFbEF (EF 41-49%), or HFrEF (EF ≤40%). Demographics, clinical characteristics, and therapies were obtained from electronic records. Outcomes included death, HF hospitalization, and HF-related emergency department (ED) visit. In 28,914 eligible HF patients, there were 52% HFpEF, 16% HFbEF, and 32% HFrEF, with mean age 72.8 years and 45% women. During median follow-up of 3.5 years, crude rates (per 100 person-years) of death, HF hospitalization, and HF-related ED visit were 14.5 (95% CI 14.3 to 14.7), 15.8 (15.5 to 16.0), and 38.2 (37.8 to 38.5), respectively. Compared with HFrEF patients, adjusted hazard ratios of death, HF hospitalization, and HF-related ED visit for HFpEF patients were 0.82 (0.79 to 0.85), 0.72 (0.68 to 0.75), and 0.94 (0.90 to 0.99), respectively, and for HFbEF patients were 0.84 (0.79 to 0.88), 0.79 (0.73 to 0.84), and 0.90 (0.84 to 0.96), respectively. In conclusion, within a large community-based HF cohort, adjusted rates of death, HF hospitalization, and HF-related ED visits were similar in HFpEF and HFbEF patients, but higher in HFrEF patients. Regardless of systolic function, however, long-term mortality and morbidity in all HF patients remain high, reinforcing the need for novel strategies to improve long-term outcomes.
Pointing teachers in the wrong direction: understanding Louisiana elementary teachers’ use of Compass high-stakes teacher evaluation data

Spurred by Race to the Top, efforts to improve teacher evaluation systems have provided states with an opportunity to get teacher evaluation right. Despite the fact that a core reform area of Race to the Top was the use of teacher evaluation to provide on-going and meaningful feedback for instructional decision making, we still know relatively little about how states’ responses in this area have led to changes in teachers’ use of these sources of data for instructional improvement. Self-determination theory (SDT) and the concept of functional significance was utilized as a lens for understanding and explaining patterns of use (or non-use) of Compass-generated evaluation data by teachers over a period of 3 years in a diverse sample of Louisiana elementary schools. The analysis revealed that the majority of teachers exhibited either controlled or amotivated functional orientations to Compass-generated information, and this resulted in low or superficial use for improvement. Perceptions of the validity/utility of teacher evaluation data were critical determinants of use and were multifaceted: In some cases, teachers had concerns about how state and district assessments would harm vulnerable students, while some questioned the credibility and/or fairness of the feedback. These perceptions were compounded by (a) the lack of experience of evaluators in evaluating teachers with more specialized roles in the school, such as special education teachers; (b) a lack of support in terms of training on Compass and its processes; and (c) lack of teacher autonomy in selecting appropriate assessments and targets for Student Learning Target growth.
Transcriptional control of epidermal stem cells

Transcriptional regulation is fundamentally important for the progression of tissue stem cells through different stages of development and differentiation. Mammalian skin epidermis is an excellent model system to study such regulatory mechanisms due to its easy accessibility, stereotypic spatial arrangement, and availability of well-established cell type/lineage differentiation markers. Moreover, epidermis is one of the few mammalian tissues the stem cells of which can be maintained and propagated in culture to generate mature cell types and a functional tissue (reviewed in [1]), offering in vitro and ex vivo platforms to probe deep into the underlying cell and molecular mechanisms of biological functions.
Weak convergence and approximations for partial differential equations with random process coefficients

For a parabolic equation with wide bandwidth coefficients, it is shown that the solution converges weakly to that of a stochastic PDE driven by an infinite dimensional Wiener process as the bandwidth tends to infinity. The treatment is novel and purely probabilistic. The solution to the "wide band" coefficient system is represented as a conditional expectation of a functional of a certain diffusion. By a weak convergence argument, the conditional expectation (and its mean square derivatives) converges weakly to a conditional expectation of a functional of a "limit" diffusion. It is then shown that this "limit" functional satisfies the appropriate stochastic PDE. The infinite dimensional Wiener process is represented explicitly in terms of the original system noise. No coercivity or strict ellipticity conditions are required. The result provides a partial justification for the use of infinite dimensional Wiener processes in distributed systems. Since the method is based on weak convergence arguments for Ito-type equations with wide bandwidth coefficients and "PDE methods" are avoided, it is likely that the technique will find greater use in the analysis of infinite dimensional stochastic systems. The methods have already proved to be very useful in studying approximations to non-linear filtering problems with wide bandwidth observation noise [10].
Treatment of Substance Use Disorders in Mexican American Families

Although Mexican Americans make up one of the largest U.S. minorities, comprising 11% of the general U.S. population, substance use treatment models often fail to incorporate cultural factors that ...
Association of on-treatment plasma HGF levels with overall survival (OS) in patients (pts) with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) treated with interferon alpha (INF) +/- bevacizumab (BEV): Results from CALGB 90206 (Alliance).

4522Background: Elevated baseline HGF levels were associated with shorter OS in pts treated with BEV+INF. We evaluated on-treatment HGF levels to describe treatment-related changes and associations...
Efficient Linear Millimeter-Wave Distributed Transceivers in CMOS SOI

Two $K_{u}$ - to V-band distributed amplifiers (DAs) based on nMOS and nMOS/pMOS gain stages and a distributed transceiver front end (DTFE) are presented for ultra-wideband power and low-noise amplification in a 45-nm RF CMOS silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. Supply scaling of gain stages through high-pass filter sections achieves high efficiency while maintaining a broadband 50- $\Omega $ match. The nMOS DA has a gain of 13 dB over a 3-dB bandwidth of 10–82 GHz and a minimum noise figure (NF) of 5.3 dB. The measured peak output power is 17.2 dBm with a peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 17.4% at 50 GHz. The hybrid DA allows higher operating voltage and distortion cancelation of scaled pMOS devices to an achieve output power of 17.5 dBm with PAE of 20.2% and low third-order intermodulation and amplitude–phase nonlinearities. The DTFE utilizes time-domain duplexing to drive a shared antenna port for transmit (TX) and receive (RX) modes. It achieves TX gain of 11.7 dB from 12–76 GHz with peak output power of 17 dBm and PAE of 14.2%. RX gain is 9 dB from 11–77 GHz with a minimum NF of 6.2 dB. The 5-GHz wideband 16-QAM is demonstrated in the amplifier circuits for data rates exceeding 20 Gb/s.
When will the longest expansion end

What might cause the current expansion to come to an end? Without a negative shock, expansions go on and on. The economy is now enjoying even faster growth due to the tax cuts, the bipartisan budget deal, and the increase in the stock market. A reversal of the fiscal stimulus will not bring us to a recession, nor is a stock market collapse patently obvious, and the debt burden is not excessive. However, the Phillips Curve is not dead yet: inflation is on a slow, steady movement upward, and will be above the Fed’s overly benign forecast. How the Fed reacts to higher inflation, and how financial markets react to what the Fed does will determine the severity of the next recession, but there will be recession starting sometime in 2021.
Pre-service Teachers' Beliefs: Impact of Training in Universal Design for Learning

Seventy-seven pre-service teachers enrolled in an introductory special education course completed a questionnaire on their beliefs about learning, teaching, and disability, before and after completing one of two randomly assigned training modules on Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Module A presented UDL as a strategy for meeting the specific needs of students with disabilities in a general education setting. Module B presented UDL as a framework to support all learners in the general education classroom through the creation of communities of learners. The Beliefs About Learning, Teaching, and Disability Questionnaire (BLTDQ) was administered with five subscales rated on a 6-point Likert-type scale that measure pre-service teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching, as representative of their epistemological beliefs, beliefs about disability (from pathognomonic to interventionist) and the role of the teacher in the general education classroom. Analyses of these results suggest that a significant change toward interventionist beliefs about learning, teaching, and disability occurred for participants who completed either module on UDL. Additionally, a small to moderate, positive relationship was identified between pre-service teachers’ beliefs about disability and their epistemological beliefs, with the strength of this relationship increasing following their training in UDL. These findings suggest that training in UDL can have a powerful and positive impact on pre-service teachers’ interventionist epistemological beliefs and beliefs about disability. Shifts toward interventionist beliefs are more likely to result in teaching practices that are more supportive of students with disabilities in general education classrooms. Implications for teacher preparation and study limitations are also discussed.
The chronopolitics of racial time

This paper begins with a general discussion of chronopolitics and how I intend to apply the term in connection with Eviatar Zerubavel’s “time maps,” using familiar religious and secular examples to...
A Loop-Shaping Method for Frequency-Based Design of Layer-to-Layer Control for Laser Metal Deposition

Additive manufacturing processes fabricate parts in a layer-by-layer fashion, depositing material along a predefined path before incrementing to the next layer. Although the thickness of any given layer is bounded, in-layer dynamics can couple with layer-to-layer dynamics such that height defects amplify from one layer to the next. This is considered instability in the layer domain. By considering each layer as an iteration, additive processes can be categorized as repetitive processes. Although Repetitive Process Control (RPC) algorithms exist that can stabilize the process and converge to desired reference, it is typically assumed that the reference and disturbance are constant from layer to layer. In this paper, the problem of tracking references (layer thicknesses) that change from layer to layer is considered. The bandwidth of the changing references is considered bounded in both the spatial and layer domains. A loop-shaping design process is then considered, in which the bounds are mapped to a bound on the two-dimensional sensitivity function and projected onto weighting filters in an LQR control formulation. The layer-to-layer controller is then constructed from traditional LQR methods. The controller is demonstrated on a simulation of laser metal deposition for a wavy wall build having frequency content in both the spatial and layer domains.
A comparison of childhood asthma case definitions based on parent-reported data.

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study was to compare research definitions of childhood asthma based on parent-reported data. Methods We conducted a multicenter, prospective cohort study of 921 infants hospitalized for bronchiolitis. Follow-up was conducted via biannual parent interviews. Asthma definitions were developed using parent-reported data: clinician diagnosis by the age of 5 years (“broad definition”), clinician diagnosis by the age of 5 years with either asthma medication use or asthma symptoms during the age of 4–4.9 years (“epidemiologic definition”), clinician diagnosis by the age of 5 years with either long-term inhaled corticosteroid use or asthma symptoms during the age of 4–4.9 years (“strict definition”), and a “flexible definition” met by any two of the three criteria in the epidemiologic definition. Asthma outcome definitions were evaluated using unadjusted associations with known major asthma risk factors and validated against the medical record in a subset (n = 116). Results Asthma prevalence for the broad definition was 294 of 875 (34%); epidemiologic definition, 235 of 859 (27%); strict definition, 229 of 859 (27%); and flexible definition, 364 of 826 (44%). Risk factors had similarly strong associations with definitions that required clinician diagnosis and weaker associations with the flexible definition. The epidemiologic and strict definitions had the highest specificity (96%) and positive predictive value (92%). Conclusions The parent report of clinician-diagnosed asthma correlates well with known asthma risk factors.
THE NEED FOR GOVERNMENTAL INEFFICIENCY IN PLATO’S REPUBLIC

In Book II of Plato’s Republic, Socrates discusses the cities of necessity and luxury (372d–373a). Discussions of these cities have often focused on citizens desiring more than they need, which creates a demand for luxury. Yet the second part of the equation, which is not usually recognized, is that there must be sufficient supply to meet this demand. The focus of this article is on the importance of supply in the discussion of the first two cities in Book II of the Republic. This article argues that the way Plato models the cities makes it the case that a surplus above levels of necessity will be generated from time to time. That the unwanted surplus cannot be spontaneously disposed of entails that the first two cities are institutionally incomplete. A government is needed in order to coordinate the disposal of the surplus supply the city will produce.
Cytotypes of the Simulium arcticum species complex in the American Pacific Northwest

The larval polytene chromosomes of 17 of the 22 known cytotypes of the Simulium arcticum Malloch complex were analyzed and compared at 59 collection sites in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Cytotypes range from those that were broadly distributed, such as IIL-9, which was found at 25 different sites, to those that were found at only one or two sites, such as IIL-73·74. Cytotypes are “clustered” in a geographic sense, suggesting that once a new cytotype is described, if it is found again, it will be found nearby. The cytotype S. arcticum IIL-9 was found at 11 of the 25 sites where S. arcticum IIL-19 exists. Finally, based on its sibling species status and widespread distribution throughout the Pacific Northwest, Simulium brevicercum may be an early ancestor of the complex given that it occurs at 44 of the 59 sites sampled. The observations and conclusions of this research are scientifically important because previous research suggests that reproductive isolation may have begun among these cytotypes at these sites, and unless their locations are reported, they cannot be studied further. Future work should incorporate a multiomic approach to study the putative initial divergences within this complex.
Immunologic response of mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in adolescent kidney transplant recipients.

In the general population, mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are highly efficacious. Early reports suggest a diminished antibody response in immunosuppressed adult solid organ transplant (SOT) patients, but this has not been reported in pediatrics. Adolescent kidney transplant recipients (KTR) at our center who received both doses of an mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine had SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein antibody presence evaluated 4–8 weeks after their second dose of the vaccine as part of routine clinical care. Thirteen of 25 fully vaccinated patients (52%) had a positive spike antibody. Median age of participants was 19 years old (IQR 18–20) and the median time from transplant was 5 years (IQR 4–9 years). KTR were treated with an immunosuppression regimen including a calcineurin inhibitor, corticosteroid, and antimetabolite (9 with mycophenolate, 3 with azathioprine, and 1 without an antimetabolite due to viremia). Of those who had an antibody response, fewer had a mycophenolate-containing immunosuppressant regimen than non-responders. There was a trend toward better vaccine response and higher anti-S antibody titers at lower doses of mycophenolate. Three patients with prior COVID-19 infection all had a positive antibody response. Our results suggest vaccine response in adolescent KRT is lower than that of the general population, but similar to that previously described in adult SOT patients and slightly better than that seen in adult KTR. This data demonstrates vaccination is safe and supports immunizing KTR who remain hesitant. Future studies should focus on better understanding of the cellular immune response to vaccination and strategies to enhance vaccine immunogenicity in pediatric SOT patients.
Native-Nonnative Voice Conversion by Residual Warping in a Sparse, Anchor-Based Representation

Voice conversion (VC) techniques can be used to synthesize utterances from second language learners to appear as if they have a native accent, providing learners with an ideal target to imitate in pronunciation training. In prior work, we presented a low-resource technique called SABR (Sparse, Anchor-Based Representation of Speech), which uses acoustic “anchors”—one per English phoneme—to represent an utterance as a sparse, linear combination of nonnegative weights. SABR produces intelligible speech, but its compact size limits the acoustic quality of the synthesis, in large part due to the significant residual left out by the compact model. In this article, we propose SABR+Res, which uses a linear combination of frequency warp transforms to convert the source residual spectrum to be closer to that of the target speaker and use it in synthesis. We evaluate the proposed method on speakers from the ARCTIC and L2-ARCTIC databases and compare them to state-of-the-art exemplar and frequency-warping VC methods. We find that SABR+Res had the lowest objective VC error for native-to-nonnative conversion and was preferred in subjective tests. Additionally, when compared to the baseline systems, SABR+Res had a much higher synthesis quality on native-to-nonnative speakers, performing similarly to native-to-native speaker pairs. We discuss the implications for the residual warping system and applying the residual transform to other exemplar-based systems.
The ART clock: temporal limits to assisted reproduction

Abstract Conceptualizations of the ‘biological clock’ in popular imaginary in the USA centre on the temporal limits of fertility, with assisted reproductive technology (ART) an increasingly proposed answer to these constraints (at least in the public imaginary). In this study, I analyse how surrogates in the USA understand their own bioavailability for others’ reproductive needs in the commercial ART market vis-a-vis their own reproductive trajectories. Based on interview data with gestational surrogates, I propose a new concept of the ‘ART clock’ to capture how time shapes the experiences of reproductive workers in the US fertility clinic. My findings point to four important ART time-related issues: (i) women desiring to extend their own ‘biological clocks’ via surrogacy; (ii) significant time being needed to achieve and sustain third-party pregnancy; (iii) women extending their total reproductive time via repeat surrogacy ‘journeys’; and (iv) temporal constraints to surrogacy reproduction regarding time of year, the day-to-day time effort, the number of surrogacy journeys, the total number of pregnancies, and surrogates’ age and the ages of their children. Each of these aspects point to important ways that reproductive desire and time shape the labour of reproductive workers, highlighting temporal constraints to assisted reproduction and limits to ART as a solution to delayed reproduction and the biological clock.
Some Useful Ideas and Background Theories

Accounts are given of Thomas Reid’s views on abstraction and classification, of Melvil Dewey’s Relative Index, and of the thesaurus of Peter Roget. Some useful background is developed relating to the organization of information. This includes an explanation of ontologies, natural kinds, taxonomies, concrete objects and abstractions, alphabetical order, citation order, filing order, the Triangle of Meaning, elementary graph theory, a fragment of elementary data structures, indexes, Tables of Contents, back-of-the-book indexes, annotation and tag languages, topics and polytopicality, free and controlled vocabularies, and information retrieval thesauri.
Choice of personal assistance services providers by medicare beneficiaries using a consumer-directed benefit: rural-urban differences.

Purpose: To examine the impact of an experimental consumer-choice voucher benefit on the selection of independent and agency personal assistance services (PAS) providers among rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities. Methods: The Medicare Primary and Consumer-Directed Care Demonstration enrolled 1,605 Medicare beneficiaries in 19 counties in New York State, West Virginia, and Ohio. A total of 839 participants were randomly assigned to receive a voucher benefit (up to $250 per month with a 20% copayment) that could be used toward PAS provided by either independent or agency workers. A bivariate probit model was used to estimate the probabilities of choosing either type of PAS provider while controlling for potential confounders. Findings: The voucher was associated with a 32.4% (P < .01) increase in the probability of choosing agency providers and a 12.5% (P= .03) increase in the likelihood of choosing independent workers. When the analysis was stratified by rural/urban status, rural voucher recipients had 36.8% higher probability of using independent workers compared to rural controls. Urban voucher recipients had 37.1% higher probability of using agency providers compared to urban controls. Conclusions: This study provided evidence that rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities may have very different responses to a consumer-choice PAS voucher program. Offering a consumer-choice voucher option to rural populations holds the potential to significantly improve their access to PAS.
NURBS and Grid Generation

This paper provides a basic overview of NURBS and their application to numerical grid generation. Curve/surface smoothing, accelerated grid generation, and the use of NURBS in a practical grid generation system are discussed.
PET and Radiotherapy

In the late 1800s radioactivity and X-rays were discovered. The uses of radioactive treatment developed over subsequent years and in the early 1900s some of the standard radiotherapy principles were devised. Experimentation led to the law of Bergonie and Tribondeau which states that radiosensitivity is highest in tissues with a high mitotic index. Other scientists from this time described the dependence of radiation response to oxygen. Further advancement in radiation production equipment and computer assisted treatment planning then occurred. This brought us the radiotherapy practice of today that is able to generate controlled radiation doses and deliver radiation to precise tissue areas, thus optimizing desired radiation dosage.