cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Motor Skill Competence and Physical Activity in Preschoolers: A Review.

Objectives Preschoolers 3-5 years of age are in a crucial stage of motor skill competence. While preschoolers develop their motor skill competence through engagement in physical activity, a majority of them fail to meet guideline-recommended physical activity level. This study reviews scientific evidence on the relationship between motor skill competence and physical activity among preschoolers. Methods This systematic review followed the PRISMA framework. Keyword and reference search were conducted in PubMed, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria included-age: 3-5 years of age; setting: preschool environment (e.g., preschool, childcare, head start); main outcomes: motor skill competence and physical activity; study design: cross-sectional study, case-control study, retrospective cohort study, prospective cohort study, or randomized controlled trial; language: English; and article type: peer-reviewed publication. Results Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria, including 6 randomized controlled trials and 5 cross-sectional studies. Studies were conducted in 5 countries: United States (5), United Kingdom (2), Australia (2), Switzerland (1), and Finland (1). Eight out of the 11 studies included in the review reported a significant relationship between motor skill competence and physical activity. The specific pattern and strength of the relationship tend to differ by gender, physical activity intensity, motor skill type, and day of the week (weekdays versus weekends). Conclusions An association has been consistently documented between motor skill competence and physical activity. Future research is warranted to elucidate the underlining causal link, examine potential heterogeneity, and determine the role of environment in the relationship between motor skill competence and physical activity among preschoolers.
Students with Learning Disabilities and Computer-Based High-Stakes Testing.

As schools move into a new era of technology, assessment is evolving as well. With the introduction of high-stakes tests based on the Common Core State Standards, annual assessments are increasingl...
Socio-Economics: Toward a New Synthesis (Studies in Socio-Economics)

This work is organized in seven sections around major themes of socio-economics. The first section outlines socio-economics in an historical perspective, drawing on the "Methodenstreit" in the German school of economics at the turn of the century. Four additional essays view economic behaviour from the perspective of psychology, sociology and values outside the realm of economics. The second section of the book explores the process of choice and goals made by the variety of economic factors, among them factors that influence choices, values and motivations outside economics. The next two sections, each containing three papers, examine executive leadership and entrepreneurship from the broader socio-economic perspective. Section five includes papers that deal with the role of institutions in the modern political economy. It develops an institutional theory of markets, firms, human values in economic behaviour and investment in ethnic goals and morality. Section six focuses on the modern corporate culture considering collective human capital. The final three papers examine the boundaries that embrace the processes and activities of firms. They consider the bonds and relationships that develop between firms and organizations in the modern political economy.
Potassium Citrate and Calcium Stones: Benefit or Risk?

Nephrolithiasis is a common urological disease that will affect 5–10 % of adults during their lifetime. The natural history of nephrolithiasis is characterized by recurrence, with almost 50 % of patients recurring within 5 years of their initial stone event. Each stone episode can cause significant pain, decreases productivity, and, if not treated appropriately, may lead to renal dysfunction. Medical therapy has been used for many years in the prevention of stone growth/recurrence. Potassium citrate is an oral alkalizing agent that has been used as the mainstay of medical nephrolithiasis management in the last three decades. With the recent increase in calcium-phosphate stone formation, concern has been raised that potassium citrate may be contributing to this finding.
Recent Progress in Chronic Neutrophilic Leukemia and Atypical Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

We reviewed recent diagnostic and therapeutic progress in chronic neutrophilic leukemia (CNL) and atypical chronic myeloid leukemia (aCML). We summarized recent genetic data that may guide future efforts towards implementing risk-adapted therapy based on mutational profile and improving disease control and survival of affected patients. Recent genetic data in CNL and aCML prompted modifications to the World Health Organization (WHO) diagnostic criteria, which have improved our understanding of how CNL and aCML are different diseases despite sharing common findings of peripheral granulocytosis and marrow myeloid hyperplasia. The overlap of recurrently mutated genes between aCML and CMML support considering CSF3R-T618I mutated cases as a distinct entity, either as CNL or CNL with dysplasia. Ongoing preclinical and clinical studies will help to further inform the therapeutic approach to these diseases. Our understanding of CNL and aCML has greatly advanced over the last few years. This will improve clarity for the diagnosis of these diseases, provide a strategy for risk stratification, and guide risk-adapted therapy.
The Every Student Succeeds Act: Strengthening the Focus on Educational Leadership:

Purpose: This article offers (a) an overview of the attention federal policy has invested in educational leadership with a primary focus on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), (b) a summary of the critical role school leaders play in achieving the goals set forth within federal educational policy, and (c) examples of how states are using the opportunity afforded by the focus on leadership in ESSA. Findings: Through the examination of federal policy and existing research in this arena, we review the level of attention paid to educational leadership within Elementary and Secondary Education Act, its reauthorizations, and other federal education legislation. ESSA provides an enhanced focus on educational leadership and acknowledges the importance of leaders in achieving federal goals for education. Furthermore, ESSA acknowledges the importance of developing a strong leadership pipeline and, thus, allows states and districts to use federal funds to support leadership development. In this article, we deline...
Influences of acephate and mixtures with other commonly used pesticides on honey bee (Apis mellifera) survival and detoxification enzyme activities.

Acephate (organophosphate) is frequently used to control piercing/sucking insects in field crops in southern United States, which may pose a risk to honey bees. In this study, toxicity of acephate (formulation Bracket®97) was examined in honey bees through feeding treatments with sublethal (pollen residue level: 0.168 mg/L) and median-lethal (LC50: 6.97 mg/L) concentrations. Results indicated that adult bees treated with acephate at residue concentration did not show significant increase in mortality, but esterase activity was significantly suppressed. Similarly, bees treated with binary mixtures of acephate with six formulated pesticides (all at residue dose) consistently showed lower esterase activity and body weight. Clothianidin, λ-cyhalothrin, oxamyl, tetraconazole, and chlorpyrifos may interact with acephate significantly to reduce body weight in treated bees. The dose response data (LC50: 6.97 mg/L) revealed a relatively higher tolerance to acephate in Stoneville bee population (USA) than populations elsewhere, although in general the population is still very sensitive to the organophosphate. In addition to killing 50% of the treated bees acephate (6.97 mg/L) inhibited 79.9%, 20.4%, and 29.4% of esterase, Glutathione S-transferase (GST), and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activities, respectively, in survivors after feeding treatment for 48 h. However, P450 activity was elevated 20% in bees exposed to acephate for 48 h. Even though feeding on sublethal acephate did not kill honey bees directly, chronic toxicity to honey bee was noticeable in body weight loss and esterase suppression, and its potential risk of synergistic interactions with other formulated pesticides should not be ignored.
Coalition from the Inside Out: Women of Color Feminism and Politico-Ethical Coalition Politics

AbstractThis article turns to 1980s US women of color feminism to develop a notion of politico-ethical coalition politics as an alternative to contemporary articulations of activist coalition polit...
Structural health monitoring for DOT using magnetic shape memory alloy cables in concrete

Embedding shape memory alloy (SMA) wires in concrete components offers the potential to monitor their structural health via external magnetic field sensing. Currently, structural health monitoring (SHM) is dominated by acoustic emission and vibration-based methods. Thus, it is attractive to pursue alternative damage sensing techniques that may lower the cost or increase the accuracy of SHM. In this work, SHM via magnetic field detection applied to embedded magnetic shape memory alloy (MSMA) is demonstrated both experimentally and using computational models. A concrete beam containing iron-based MSMA wire is subjected to a 3-point bend test where structural damage is induced, thereby resulting in a localized phase change of the MSMA wire. Magnetic field lines passing through the embedded MSMA domain are altered by this phase change and can thus be used to detect damage within the structure. A good correlation is observed between the computational and experimental results. Additionally, the implementation of stranded MSMA cables in place of the MSMA wire is assessed through similar computational models. The combination of these computational models and their subsequent experimental validation provide sufficient support for the feasibility of SHM using magnetic field sensing via MSMA embedded components.
Neural differences of inhibitory control between adolescents with obesity and their peers.

Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress prepotent responses and resist irrelevant stimuli, is thought to play a critical role in the manifestation and maintenance of obesity in adolescents. Adolescence is a unique developmental stage characterized by significant maturational changes in cortical structures (i.e., prefrontal cortex: PFC) that relate to inhibitory control processes. The current study investigated the behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of inhibitory control in adolescents with obesity. We compared 18 normal-weight and 22 adolescents with obesity on performance and electroencephalography (EEG)-based measures during a Go/NoGo task. We investigated N2 and P3 event-related potential (ERP) components. Adolescents with obesity showed lower accuracy compared to their normal-weight peers in NoGo trials where greater amounts of inhibitory control effort were required (p = 0.03). Adolescents with obesity had larger NoGo N2 amplitude relative to the Go N2 amplitude (p = 0.03), whereas this difference was not observed in the healthy weight sample. Furthermore, a lower self-efficacy of individual’s ability to control eating behaviors in challenging situations (as measured by the Weight Efficacy Lifestyle-Short Form) directly correlated with larger NoGo N2 amplitudes for both obese (p = 0.03) and normal weight groups (p = 0.01). These findings suggested that obesity in adolescence is associated with a decreased ability to modulate cognitive conflict during the inhibitory control processing. The individual differences in conflict monitoring during situations where greater amounts of inhibitory control effort were required might provide an explanation for overeating behaviors in obese adolescents.
Assessment of Energy Efficiency Technologies: Case of Heat Pump Water Heaters

Technology Assessment (TA) is an approach used to evaluate and characterize technologies for multiple perspectives. Prior research used TA to model the future state of technologies (technological forecasting) or the future diffusion of technologies (technology adoption). This abstract will assess an emerging energy efficiency technology in the United States (US). A hierarchical decision model is used for the assessment. The technology of interest in this case is the heat pump water heater (HPWH). By providing much improved efficiency when compared to regular water heaters, HPWHs contribute to sustainability of the future energy supply. This approach can easily be duplicated for any other region or technology. Technology assessment results provide an insight into manufacturers as well as policy makers on what attributes to focus for faster adoption of this technology toward a sustainable future.
Inequity and Intrinsic Motivation

Kevin, who has always loved to act, got his first job in a 3-month run of a new play. He was further pleased to find out that the theater paid well above the going rate. However, 4 days before the scheduled closing the manager discovered that she’d be unable to pay the cost for the remainder of the run. Attendance had been down and there just wasn’t any money. Either the show would have to close or the cast would have to work without pay.
Two Different Rapid Decorrelation in Time Limits for Turbulent Diffusion

A turbulent diffusion model in which the velocity field is Gaussian and rapidly decorrelating in time (GRDT) has been widely used recently in an endeavor to understand the emergence of anomalous scaling behavior of physical fields in fluid mechanics from the underlying stochastic partial differential equations. The utility of the GRDT model is the fact that correlation functions of the passive scalar field solve closed partial differential equations; the usual moment closure obstacle is averted. We study here the sense in which the GRDT model describes turbulent diffusion by a general, non-Gaussian velocity field with nontrivial temporal structure in the limit in which the correlation time of the velocity field is taken to zero. When the velocity field is rescaled in a particular manner in this rapid decorrelation limit, then a limit theorem of Khas'minskii indeed shows that the passive scalar statistics are described asymptotically by the GRDT Model for a broad class of velocity field models. We provide, however, an explicit example of a “Poisson blob model” velocity field which has two different well-defined rapid decorrelation in time limits. In one, the passive scalar correlation functions converge to those of the GRDT Model, and in the other, they converge to a distinct nontrivial limit in which the correlation functions do not solve closed PDE's. We provide both mathematical and heuristic explanations for the differences between these two limits. The conclusion is that the GRDT Model provides a universal description of the rapid decorrelation in time limit of general non-Gaussian velocity field models only when the velocity field is rescaled in a particular manner during the limit process.
IBT: Emergence of New Treatment Evaluation Measures and Procedures

Traditional concepts of alcoholism not only prescribe certain treatment goals but also have strongly influenced treatment outcome evaluation. For example, traditional concepts usually portray the alcoholic as unable to control his or her drinking. Consequently, in evaluations of treatment effectiveness, drinking behavior is often portrayed as either abstinent (sober) or drunk. This dichotomous representation of drinking behavior is typically characteristic of most alcoholism treatment outcome studies (see reviews by Crawford and Chalupsky, 1977; Hill and Blane, 1967; Sobell and Sobell, 1975a). A host of similar problems have plagued the evaluation of all alcohol treatment outcome variables. Until recently, this can be attributed partly to the nearly nonexistent involvement of professionals and scientists in this field.
The meaning of death to adolescents in an American Indian community.

BACKGROUND A high rate of premature death exists among young Native Americans in North America. To understand the qualitative effect of this phenomenon, we undertook this study to explore the meaning of death to adolescents in a Salish American Indian community. METHODS Standard methods of ethnography were employed: community entry, open-ended in-depth interviews using key informant sampling, audiotape and field note transcription, review of field notes for key themes, and community feedback. Interviews were conducted with seven elders and 21 adolescents in a Pacific Northwestern American Indian community selected by key informants. Probe questions and narrative accounts primarily focused on personal experience with premature death among family and peers. RESULTS The primary themes in the study were the subjects' personal exposure to death, alcohol and drugs. Spirit Sickness (a culturally defined illness experience), and healing. CONCLUSIONS There are persistent beliefs in Spirit Sickness among adolescents and young adults in the Salish Indian community. Personal exposure to death is a precipitant of this potentially fatal illness experience. Clinicians working with Salish Native Americans should recognize potential beliefs in this illness experience among the youths.
The Geography of Devotion in the British Library Map Psalter

The article investigates how two thirteenth-century T-O maps in the British Library Map Psalter interact with their textual setting. The maps occupy the two sides of a single folio. On the recto is...
Determination of water permeability for a moisture transport model with minimized batch effect

Abstract Values of water permeability for cementitious materials reported in the literature show a large scatter. This is partially attributed to the fact that materials used in these studies are different. To eliminate the effects of cements, specimen preparation, curing conditions and other batch effects, this study employs a single cement paste to prepare all specimens for a variety of permeability determination methods, such as beam-bending, sorptivity, Katz–Thompson and Kozeny-Carman equations. Permeabilities determined by these methods are then used in a moisture transport model. Compared with the measured mass loss curves, we found that permeability determined by the beam-bending method is more suitable for the moisture transport model than the other methods. The difference results from the use of a saturated specimen in the beam-bending method, while specimens in the other methods are dried (or rewetted). As already shown in the literature, the microstructure of the dried or rewetted specimens is altered and different to the original microstructure of the water saturated specimens. In addition, we found that drying tests for the inverse analysis method must be done at high RHs (63% in this study) to reduce the effect of vapor diffusion on the determination of water permeability.
UNIT 1.3 Hybridization Histochemistry of Neural Transcripts

Expression of genes is manifested by the production of RNA transcripts within cells. Hybridization histochemistry (or in situ hybridization) permits localization of these transcripts with cellular resolution or better. Furthermore, the relative amounts of transcripts detected in different tissues or in the same tissues in different states (e.g., physiological or developmental) may be quantified. This unit describes hybridization histochemical techniques using either oligodeoxynucleotide probes (see Basic Protocols 1 and 2, Alternate Protocol 1) or RNA probes (riboprobes; see Basic Protocols 3 and 5). These methods include a more recent approach using commercially available sets of oligodeoxynucleotide pairs for colorimetric and fluorescent detection (see Basic Protocol 2), as well as a method for detection of the Y chromosome using either mouse or human riboprobes (see Basic Protocol 5). Additional methods include colorimetric detection (see Basic Protocol 4) and tyramide signal amplification (TSA) of digoxigenin-labeled probes (see Alternate Protocol 2), and autoradiographic detection of radiolabeled probes (see Basic Protocol 6). Finally, methods are provided for labeling oligodeoxynucleotide (see Support Protocol 1) and RNA (see Support Protocol 2) probes, and verifying the probes by northern analysis (see Support Protocol 3). © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The association between hospitals’ risk-adjusted emergency department visits and survival and costs in kidney cancer patients.

609Background: As payers turn to alternative payment models, including the CMS Oncology Care Model, risk-adjusted emergency department (ED) visits are being incorporated as a quality. Yet little is...
Microbial Ecology of the Western Gull (Larus occidentalis).

Avian species host diverse communities of microorganisms which have important roles in the life of birds, including increased metabolism, protection from disease, and immune system development. Along with high human populations and a diversity of human uses of coastal zones, anthropogenic food sources are becoming increasingly available to some species, including gulls. Anthropogenic associations increase the likelihood of encountering foreign or pathogenic bacteria. Diseases in birds caused by bacteria are a substantial source of avian mortality; therefore, it is essential to characterize the microbiome of seabirds. Here, we determined both core and environmentally derived microbial communities of breeding western gulls (Larus occidentalis) from six colonies in California and Oregon. Using DNA extracted from bacterial swabs of the bill, cloaca, and feet of gulls, 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed targeting the V4 region. We identified a total of 8542 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from 75 gulls. Sixty-eight OTUs were identified in gulls from all six colonies with the greatest representation from phyla’s of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. Overall, microbial richness based on Chao’s Abundance-based Coverage Estimator (ACE) index was similar for all colonies (mean = 2347 OTUs) with the smallest coastal colonies having the highest richness (mean = 2626 OTUs) and the largest colonies, located farther off-shore, having the lowest (mean = 2068 OTUs). This survey represents the most in-depth assessment to date of microbes associated with western gulls, and the first study to identify both species-specific and environmentally derived bacteria across multiple populations.
What is a Nutritional Lifestyle

Note from the Section Editor: Food can be yet one more troublesome part of our PH patients' lives. Providing resources can help them and their caregivers plan, obtain, prepare, and enjoy nutritious...
Reaching for the 'Low Hanging Fruit': The Pressure for Results in Scientific Research–A Graduate Student's Perspective

The pressure for results applied by some research funders concerns some academicians. Sometimes, for example, a sponsor requests preliminary data that the researcher is not ready to release. This paper presents three interviews — two with researchers and one with a representative from industry — dealing with these issues and makes recommendations on the basis of those interviews. It also looks briefly at the different norms that exist in industry and academia for research and communication and the tensions these can cause for a scientist working simultaneously in both realms.
Read Me Last: Constructing a Scholarly Catchment Through a Black Feminist Reading

In this commentary, I highlight the importance of my role, your role, our role in engaging this special issue, “STEM Learning: For Whom and Toward what ends?,” as researchers, scholars, and, above ...
Mental Control in Musical Imagery: A Dual Component Model

Hearing music in your head is a ubiquitous experience, but the role mental control plays in these experiences has not been deeply addressed. In this conceptual analysis, a dual-component model of mental control in musical imagery experiences is developed and discussed. The first component, initiation, refers to whether the musical imagery experience began voluntarily or involuntarily. The second component, management, refers to instances of control that occur after the experience has begun (e.g., changing the song, stopping the experience). Given the complex nature of this inner experience, we propose a new model combining and integrating four literatures: lab-based auditory imagery research using musical stimuli; involuntary musical imagery; mental rehearsal and composition in musicians; and in vivo studies of musical imagery in everyday environments. These literatures support the contention that mental control of musical imagery is multi-faceted. Future research should investigate these two components of mental control and better integrate the diverse literatures on musical imagery.
Floating On—If Not Up—Ward

In this memoir, the poet and scholar Tyrone Williams recounts his upbringing in Detroit in a Black working-class family in the Sixties, and reflects on social mobility, and the relationship between his own work and his father’s work.
The Hermit Kingdom's Chinese Reforms: The North Korean Foreign Investment Regime

North Korea reveals a surprising openness to capitalism in its foreign investment laws. This understudied aspect of the country could carry decisive policy implications for sustainably ending the Korean War and the Korean nuclear crisis. There are nevertheless doubts on whether these laws truly signal that the “hermit kingdom” wants to integrate the “global village.” This is where a comparison with the pioneer in communist opening-up, China, can provide key insights into North Korean legal and economic strategy. The paper compares how the two countries designed the general conditions for investment, the framework of their special economic zones, the property rights they promise investors, and the options for settling disputes. It demonstrates that North Korea has closely followed the Chinese model on all of these issues. A neoliberal model would have aimed to maximize inbound foreign investment flows by removing barriers to investment as quickly as possible. China’s developmental model, by contrast, only lifts those barriers incrementally in a bid to nurture local industries and to protect the country’s economic, legislative, territorial and judicial sovereignty. The paper demonstrates that North Korea’s current reluctance to remove certain barriers to investment is not conclusive evidence that it does not intend to further open up. On the contrary, the parallels with China suggest the North Korean foreign investment regime can be leveraged for integration into the global economy. This would give North Korea a stake in the current world order and hence an incentive to follow its rules.
A General Overview on Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria and its pathogenicity

The first case of bacterial infection was recorded in 1862, while it was first isolated in 1882 from the scientist Gessard, who was called Bacillus pyocyaneus. The most common infections caused by bacteria are the first bacteremia in patients with serious burns, chronic lung injuries in patients with cystic fibrosis, and acute ulcerative keratitis in people who use contact lenses. The gastrointestinal tract is an important gateway for entry into the blood infection caused by bacteria, and the bacteria cause endocarditis, where the bacteria infects the heart valves from the direct invasion of the bloodstream, as it causes meningitis and brain abscesses, and it can invade the central organ The inner and nasal sinuses can also be accessed from a site far from the injury, such as the urinary tract. Other pathogenic infections caused by bacteria are pulmonary injuries, as bacteria are the most common disease associated with lung injuries. They are caused by bacteria Hospitalized lung with a mortality rate greater than 70%. Bacteria are a common cause and acquired by hospitals for urinary tract infections due to their ability to adhere to urinary epithelial cells in the bladder, as they cause cystitis and urinary tract infections. The percentage of deaths caused by bacteria can reach 50% due to many factors, including weak body defenses and bacteria resistance to anti-life as well as the production of bacteria, enzymes and external toxins.
LGBTQ Siblings and Family of Origin Relationships

LGBTQ-parent families exist in broad family networks where members actively participate in their roles as children, siblings, aunts or uncles, cousins, partners/spouses, parents, and grandparents. This chapter centers the sibling relationship of children and parents in LGBTQ-parent families against the backdrop of evolving definitions of family ties, further situating siblings within a myriad of contexts to capture their fluctuating and unique interactions at various points across the life course. Attending to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and social class affords distinct opportunities for understanding how individual and relational processes are impacted by occupying multicultural as well as marginalized identities. Inclusion of extant literatures in LGBTQ family research and sibling and family of origin research reveals enduring processes in LGBTQ sibling and family of origin relationships, exposing understudied topics and offering promising new insights afforded by the employment of diverse theoretical frameworks as applied to the study of LGBTQ families.
Effects of Lower Body Positive Pressure Treadmill Training on Balance, Mobility and Lower Extremity Strength of Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Pilot Study.

Aim There is growing evidence that confirms the benefits of partially supporting a person's body weight during exercise. Lower body positive pressure (LBPP) unweighting is a new method of providing partial body weight support. This pilot study aims to investigate the effect of LBPP treadmill training on balance, mobility and lower extremity strength in community-dwelling older adults. Subjects Five community-dwelling females aged 60-85 years with no neurological conditions or musculoskeletal injuries within the past year. Methods The subjects participated in twice-weekly treadmill training sessions using LBPP at 80% of body weight. They exercised using their self-selected speed and incline for 20 min each session for 8 wks. Pre- and post-test measures included measures of balance, mobility and lower extremity strength. Results Average self-selected speed more than doubled from initial to final training session. All subjects exercised within their safe limits, with no unsafe increases in blood pressure or heart rate, and no complaints of extremity pain or muscle soreness throughout the entire training period. Wilcoxon signed ranks test results showed statistically significant improvement in lower extremity strength. Conclusions In a sample of community-dwelling older adult females, an 8-wk regimen of treadmill exercise with LBPP unweighing resulted in improvements in lower extremity strength. The study provides preliminary support for the safe and effective use of LBPP treadmill training in community-dwelling older adults. Improvement in lower extremity strength may have significant implications in maintaining balance and mobility and decreasing fall risk in this population.
A statistical model for the product energy distribution in reactions leading to prompt dissociation

Abstract Direct dynamics calculations have been performed for three reactions: C3H8 + H → i-C3H7 + H2, C3H8 + H → n-C3H7 + H2, and C2H3 + O2 → HCO + CH2O. The fraction of the population for the radical products that promptly dissociates is computed. The results for C3H8 + H are qualitatively similar to previous results for C3H8 + OH, but the new results exhibit a slightly higher branching fraction for prompt dissociation products, owing to the fact that a greater fraction of the internal energy in the transition state ends up in the radical. For C2H3 + O2 → HCO + CH2O, the fraction of HCO that promptly dissociates is in excess of 99%. Consequently, the main product for C2H3 + O2 at lower temperatures should be written as H + CO + CH2O and not HCO + CH2O. These results are then compared with four previous systems: CH2O + H → HCO + H2, CH2O + OH → HCO + H2O, C3H8 + OH → i-C3H7 + H2O, and C3H8 + OH → n-C3H7 + H2O. Based upon these seven system, several statistical models are presented. The goal of these statistical models is to predict the fraction of the transition state energy that ends up in the rovibrationally excited radical. On average, these statistical models provide an excellent prediction of product energy distribution. Consequently, these models can be used instead of costly trajectory simulations for predicting prompt radical dissociation for larger species.
Detection of bacterial pathogens using home oropharyngeal swab collection in children with cystic fibrosis.

BACKGROUND: Collection of respiratory cultures for airway microbiology surveillance is an essential component of routine clinical care in cystic fibrosis (CF). The COVID-19 global pandemic has necessitated increased use of telehealth, but one limitation of telehealth is the inability to collect respiratory specimens. We initiated a protocol for at-home collection of oropharyngeal (OP) swabs from children with CF. METHODS: Home respiratory specimen collection was offered during telehealth encounters. Home OP swab kits were sent to participating families via mail with instructions for collection and return. Specimens were returned by overnight shipping or dropped off at a hospital lab for processing and culture. We evaluated demographic data and compared culture results from the home-collected specimen to the most recent specimen collected in clinic. We also tracked the frequency of newly identified Pseudomonas aeruginosa. RESULTS: Home OP swab kits were sent to families of 33 children with CF (range 1.5-19 years). OP swab kits were successfully returned from 19 children (range 1.5-19 years). One or more CF pathogens grew from 79% of the specimens. For four individuals, the home collected specimen demonstrated the new growth of P. aeruginosa. CONCLUSIONS: Home collection of OP swabs for bacterial culture is feasible in children with CF across a range of ages. Most home-collected specimens demonstrated growth of one or more CF pathogens and results were similar to recent in-clinic specimens, suggesting acceptable sample collection technique. Anti-pseudomonal therapy was initiated for four children based on the growth of P. aeruginosa from the home respiratory specimen.
Filoplume morphology covaries with their companion primary suggesting that they are feather-specific sensors

Do birds detect and respond to forces acting on feathers through filoplumes, which appear to be unique mechanosensory feathers? If filoplumes function as sensors, their morphology should covary with the morphology of their companion feather to better detect feather movements and position. We explore covariation in filoplumes and primaries across 5 species of birds that vary in body size, molt strategy, and the functional life span of their primaries (Green-winged Teal [Anas crecca], Ring-billed Gull [Larus delawarensis], Turkey Vulture [Cathartes aura], Red-tailed Hawk [Buteo jamaicensis], and Red-winged Blackbird [Agelaius phoeniceus]). Filoplumes never extended beyond the coverts and inserted immediately adjacent to the base of their companion primaries, positioning them to detect subtle changes in feather vibration or movement. Far more variation in filoplume number and morphology was due to species differences than to individuals or position in the wing. Across species, filoplume length and number increased with calamus length of primaries. In the 2 species with growing primaries, the number and length of filoplumes were only weakly associated with molting primaries, suggesting that filoplumes were not replaced when their companion primary was replaced. Further, filoplumes associated with a growing primary were not replaced synchronously, leaving others to sense primary position and movement. Finally, filoplume number and length were greatest in Red-tailed Hawks, a species that carries individual feathers for multiple years, but links between filoplume morphology and molt strategy await broader comparative studies. Taken together, the morphology of filoplumes and their replacement schedule relative to their associated primary suggests that they are sensors, capable of detecting subtle differences in the position and movement of their companion feathers.LAY SUMMARYHow do birds detect and respond to forces acting on feathers, which have no nerves? One idea is through unique mechanosensory feathers called filoplumes.Filoplumes resemble hairs with downy tufts at their tips. They are found immediately adjacent to every contour and flight feather and are thought to transmit information about feather position and movements.We explore links between filoplume morphology and flight feathers in five species of birds. We find that, across species, filoplume morphology matches feather morphology as expected if they function as effective sensors. We also find that the replacement of filoplumes is staggered and not strongly tied to their companion feather, which would allow for the overall sensory function to be maintained.Our findings support the idea that filoplumes may function as sensors of feather position and condition. If these suppositions hold, we predict strong associations between flight ecology, molt strategy, and filoplume morphology.
Test coverage metrics for the network

Testing and verification have emerged as key tools in the battle to improve the reliability of networks and the services they provide. However, the success of even the best technology of this sort is limited by how effectively it is applied, and in today's enormously complex industrial networks, it is surprisingly easy to overlook particular interfaces, routes, or flows when creating a test suite. Moreover, network engineers, unlike their software counterparts, have no help to battle this problem—there are no metrics or systems to compute the quality of their test suites or the extent to which their networks have been verified. To address this gap, we develop a general framework to define and compute network coverage for stateless network data planes. It computes coverage for a range of network components (\EG, interfaces, devices, paths) and supports many types of tests (e.g., concrete versus symbolic; local versus end-to-end; tests that check network state versus those that analyze behavior). Our framework is based on the observation that any network dataplane component can be decomposed into forwarding rules and all types of tests ultimately exercise these rules using one or more packets. We build a system called Yardstick based on this framework and deploy it in Microsoft Azure. Within the first month of its deployment inside one of the production networks, it uncovered several testing gaps and helped improve testing by covering 89% more forwarding rules and 17% more network interfaces.
Management of Interrupted Aortic Arch

The introduction of prostaglandin E1 in the late 1970s revolutionized the management of interrupted aortic arch. Complete resuscitation should proceed over several days if necessary before surgery is undertaken. One-stage primary neonatal repair with direct arch anastomosis and ventricular septal defect closure is the preferred surgical approach. Selective cerebral perfusion with near-infrared monitoring is being used with increasing frequency. Although repair of interrupted arch is physiologically corrective, it should not be viewed as fully corrective because of the high incidence of important late left ventricular outflow tract obstruction. This may respond to a simple surgical reintervention such as subaortic resection, but in some cases, an extensive procedure to enlarge the left ventricular outflow tract is necessary. However, procedures directed against subaortic stenosis should rarely be used as part of the initial surgical management during the neonatal period. Careful developmental follow-up is needed for all patients because of the high incidence of DiGeorge syndrome, which frequently manifests as moderately severe developmental delay.
Discriminative interpolation for classification of functional data

The modus operandi for machine learning is to represent data as feature vectors and then proceed with training algorithms that seek to optimally partition the feature space S ⊂ ℝn into labeled regions. This holds true even when the original data are functional in nature, i.e. curves or surfaces that are inherently varying over a continuum such as time or space. Functional data are often reduced to summary statistics, locally-sensitive characteristics, and global signatures with the objective of building comprehensive feature vectors that uniquely characterize each function. The present work directly addresses representational issues of functional data for supervised learning. We propose a novel classification by discriminative interpolation(CDI) framework wherein functional data in the same class are adaptively reconstructed to be more similar to each other, while simultaneously repelling nearest neighbor functional data in other classes. Akin to other recent nearest-neighbor metric learning paradigms like stochastic k-neighborhood selection and large margin nearest neighbors, our technique uses class-specific representations which gerrymander similar functional data in an appropriate parameter space. Experimental validation on several time series datasets establish the proposed discriminative interpolation framework as competitive or better in comparison to recent state-of-the-art techniques which continue to rely on the standard feature vector representation.
Single-Collision Chemistry

Even if the rate law and the mechanism of a reaction have been determined there are still many unanswered questions of chemical interest. The rate law only accounts for the overall phenomenology. The mechanism provides a model for the basic steps in the reaction. The molecular properties which determine whether or not reaction occurs can only be inferred from other chemical knowledge. Our previous discussion leads to only two very general, and hardly informative, conditions for reaction: molecules must interact (collide) and must have sufficient energy.
Structural Characterization of the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Gn Tail Provides Insight into Virus Assembly

The RNA virus that causes the Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a tick-borne pathogen of the Nairovirus genus, family Bunyaviridae. Unlike many zoonotic viruses that are only passed between animals and humans, the CCHF virus can also be transmitted from human to human with an overall mortality rate approaching 30%. Currently, there are no atomic structures for any CCHF virus proteins or for any Nairovirus proteins. A critical component of the virus is the envelope Gn glycoprotein, which contains a C-terminal cytoplasmic tail. In other Bunyaviridae viruses, the Gn tail has been implicated in host-pathogen interaction and viral assembly. Here we report the NMR structure of the CCHF virus Gn cytoplasmic tail, residues 729–805. The structure contains a pair of tightly arranged dual ββα zinc fingers similar to those found in the Hantavirus genus, with which it shares about 12% sequence identity. Unlike Hantavirus zinc fingers, however, the CCHF virus zinc fingers bind viral RNA and contain contiguous clusters of conserved surface electrostatics. Our results provide insight into a likely role of the CCHF virus Gn zinc fingers in Nairovirus assembly.
Standard clinical practice underestimates the role and significance of erythropoietin deficiency in sickle cell disease

Summary In sickle cell disease (SCD), vigorous reticulocytosis is required to partially compensate for chronic hemolytic anaemia. Consequently, early renal damage, insufficient to cause azotemia but sufficient to cause erythropoietin deficiency and chronic relative reticulocytopenia (chRR), could have severe clinical consequences. chRR was defined as reticulocytes <250 × 109/l despite haemoglobin <9 g/dl on ≥ two occasions ≥4 weeks apart. The influence of multiple variables including chRR on time from first clinic visit to death was evaluated in 306 SCD patients. In univariate analyses, fetal haemoglobin, indices of renal damage (serum creatinine, proteinuria), chRR and age, were associated with rate of death. In multivariate analysis, only age and chRR (Hazard ratio 3·6, 95% CI 2·049–6·327, P < 0·0001) were significant, underlining that chRR could be an early and important clinical consequence of renal damage. Even in chRR patients with normal serum creatinine levels, low haemoglobin and low reticulocyte counts were associated with low erythropoietin levels. In the general population, evaluation of erythropoietin levels is prompted by the combination of anaemia and abnormal serum creatinine. In SCD patients, this standard approach can miss a substantial risk factor for early death. chRR could be a practical and important criterion for diagnosis of erythropoietin deficiency in SCD.
The Cbln family of proteins interact with multiple signaling pathways

J. Neurochem. (2012) 121, 717–729. Abstract Cerebellin precursor protein (Cbln1) is essential for synapse integrity in cerebellum through assembly into complexes that bridge pre-synaptic β-neurexins (Nrxn) to post-synaptic GluRδ2. However, GluRδ2 is largely cerebellum-specific, yet Cbln1 and its little studied family members, Cbln2 and Cbln4, are expressed throughout brain. Therefore, we investigated whether additional proteins mediate Cbln family actions. Whereas Cbln1 and Cbln2 bound to GluRδ2 and Nrxns1-3, Cbln4 bound weakly or not at all, suggesting it has distinct binding partners. In a candidate receptor-screening assay, Cbln4 (but not Cbln1 or Cbln2) bound selectively to the netrin receptor, (deleted in colorectal cancer (DCC) in a netrin-displaceable fashion. To determine whether Cbln4 had a netrin-like function, Cbln4-null mice were generated. Cbln4-null mice did not phenocopy netrin-null mice. Cbln1 and Cbln4 were likely co-localized in neurons thought to be responsible for synaptic changes in striatum of Cbln1-null mice. Furthermore, complexes containing Cbln1 and Cbln4 had greatly reduced affinity to DCC but increased affinity to Nrxns, suggesting a functional interaction. However, Cbln4-null mice lacked the striatal synaptic changes seen in Cbln null mice. Thus, Cbln family members interact with multiple receptors/signaling pathways in a subunit composition-dependent manner and have independent functions with Cbln4 potentially involved in the less well-characterized role of netrin/DCC in adult brain.
Myocardial infarction due to intracoronary embolization of percutaneous coronary intervention packaging.

Intracoronary device loss is occasionally encountered and removal is commonly performed at the time of the procedure. We report a case of removal of a retained coronary balloon protective plastic tubing inadvertently left in the coronary artery for a month and associated with myocardial infarction. Optical coherence tomography was used to visualize the foreign body prior to removal with a snare. To our knowledge this is the first report of a removal of disposable packaging equipment after prolonged intracoronary dwell time. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Magnetic confinement of cosmic clouds

The role of the magnetic field in the confinement or compression of interstellar gas clouds is reconsidered. The virial theorem for an isolated magnetized cloud in the presence of distant magnetic sources is reformulated in terms of moments of the internal and external currents, and an equilibrium condition is derived. This condition is applied to the interaction between isolated clouds for the simple- and artificial-case in which the field of each cloud is a dipole. With the simplest of statistical assumptions, the probability of any given cloud being compressed is calculated as ~ 10%, the magnetic field acting as a medium which transmits the kinetic pressure between clouds. Even when compression occurs the magnetic pressure \(\frac{1}{2}B^2\) may decrease on leaving the cloud surface.