cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Medical leech therapy in plastic reconstructive surgery

The use of Hirudo medicinalis in clinical practice has increased in recent years. The primary indication in plastic surgery has traditionally been venous congestion. However, other reported clinical applications were in varicose veins, thrombophlebitis, and osteoarthritis. In this review, we summarize recent data elucidating the role that medicinal leeches play in the field of plastic surgery.
A Bayesian method for calibrating computer models to test data

Model calibration is an inverse problem in which unknown model parameters are to be inferred from test data. Due to the ill-posed characteristics of inverse problems, model calibration is a challenging problem. This article presents an inverse method based on the statistical inverse theory. In this method multiple formulations for calibration are used simultaneously, and their results are averaged according to how likely each formulation is. The inverse method is applied to calibration of a computer model of a turbojet engine. It is demonstrated that the method accurately estimates the model parameters with limited amount of noisy data. It is also demonstrated that the method is capable of identifying possible alternative solutions and that using multiple competing formulations gives rise to more accurate and conclusive results than using single general formulation.
Poverty and Witch Killing

Many observers have noted that poverty and violence go hand in hand. There is a strong negative relationship between economic growth and crime across countries, as well as across districts in India, and a link between low income and the occurrence of civil war.1 Yet existing studies are typically unable to resolve the key econometric identification issues of omitted variable bias and endogeneity. To illustrate, the unobserved quality of local government institutions may affect both income growth and crime rates, and poverty could lead to violence if desperate people with "nothing to lose" commit more crimes, but violence itself may in turn affect economic productivity. This paper uses local rainfall variation to identify the impact of income shocks on murder in a rural Tanzanian district.2 Extreme rainfall-resulting in drought or floods-is exogenous and is associated with poor harvests and near-famine conditions in the region, and a large increase in the murder of "witches": there are twice as many witch murders in years of extreme rainfall as in other years. The victims are nearly all elderly women, typically killed by relatives. These econometric results, across 11 years in 67 villages, provide novel evidence on the role of income shocks in causing violent crime, and religious violence in particular, and also provide insights into witchcraft-an important social phenomenon in Africa rarely studied by economists. The view that economic conditions are a driving force behind witch murders is bolstered by the fact that most witch killing in Tanzania takes place in poor rural areas largely dependent on rain-fed agriculture, and that most victims in our sample are from poor households. However, it is difficult to definitively disentangle this income shock theory from alternative socio-cultural explanations. The concentration of Tanzanian witch murders in a region dominated by one particular ethnic group (the Sukuma), and the especially high number of witch murders in villages where indigenous religious beliefs are strong both point to the important role of non-economic factors. Economic theories and cultural theories are perhaps best viewed as complements: the empirical findings demonstrate the power of economics to rationalize a phenomenon that has previously been understood almost solely through a socio-cultural lens.3
BMI1, stem cell factor acting as novel serum-biomarker for Caucasian and African-American prostate cancer.

Background Lack of reliable predictive biomarkers is a stumbling block in the management of prostate cancer (CaP). Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) widely used in clinics has several caveats as a CaP biomarker. African-American CaP patients have poor prognosis than Caucasians, and notably the serum-PSA does not perform well in this group. Further, some men with low serum-PSA remain unnoticed for CaP until they develop disease. Thus, there is a need to identify a reliable diagnostic and predictive biomarker of CaP. Here, we show that BMI1 stem-cell protein is secretory and could be explored for biomarker use in CaP patients.
Importance of the time interval between surgery postoperative radiation therapy in the combined management of head & neck cancer

Abstract Twenty-two patients with advanced carcinomas of various head and neck sites were treated with surgical resection followed by elective postoperative radiation therapy. No patient had gross residual or recurrent disease at the time radiation therapy was started. The time interval from surgery to the start of radiation therapy varied from two and one half weeks to sixteen weeks; the median was seven weeks. Doses of radiation varied from 4500 rad to 5400 rad in five to five and one half weeks. One patient was lost to follow-up. Of the remaining twenty-one patients ten were alive with no evidence of disease (NED) at two to four years (48 %). We observed that 7 of 10 (70 %) of patients whose radiation therapy was started within seven weeks after surgery, were alive free of disease; however, only 3 of 11 (27 %) of those in whom there was a delay of seven weeks or more survived free of disease. Furthermore, in the former group there were virtually no local or regional recurrences, regardless of the stage of the disease, while in the latter group the incidence of local or regional recurrences was 64 %. These data suggest that delay in the start of postoperative radiation therapy, even in the absense of gross recurrent tumor, might adversely affect the results of combined surgical and radiotherapeutic management of head and neck cancers.
Exercise standards. A statement for health professionals from the American Heart Association.

The purpose of this report is to provide revised standards and guidelines for the exercise testing and training of individuals free from clinical manifestations of cardiovascular disease as well as those with known cardiovascular disease. These guidelines are intended for physicians, nurses, exercise physiologists, specialists, technologists, and other healthcare professionals involved in the regular exercise testing and training of these populations. This report is in accord with the “Statement on Exercise” published by the American Heart Association in Circulation (1992;86:340-344). These guidelines are a revision of the 1990 standards1 of the AHA that addressed the issues of exercise testing and training. An update of background, scientific rationale, and selected references are provided, and current issues of practical importance in the clinical use of these standards are considered. ### The Cardiovascular Response to Exercise Exercise, a common physiological stress, can elicit cardiovascular abnormalities not present at rest and can be used to determine the adequacy of cardiac function. Because exercise is only one of many stresses to which humans can be exposed, it is more appropriate to call an exercise test exactly that and not a “stress test.” This is particularly relevant considering the increased use of nonexercise stress tests. #### Types of Exercise Three types of muscular contraction or exercise can be applied as a stress to the cardiovascular system: isometric (static), isotonic (dynamic or locomotory), and resistive (a combination of isometric and isotonic).2 3 Isometric exercise, defined as a muscular contraction without movement (eg, handgrip), imposes greater pressure than volume load on the left ventricle in relation to the body’s ability to supply oxygen. The cardiovascular response to isometric exercise is difficult to grade. In addition, cardiac output is not increased as much as in isotonic exercise because increased resistance in active muscle groups limits blood flow. Isotonic exercise, defined as muscular contraction resulting in movement, primarily …
On estimating functional gene number in eukaryotes.

MANY recent studies have been concerned with the construction of biological model systems to describe adequately regulation of gene action during development of eukaryotes1–5. The number of genes in mammals and Drosophila has been suggested to be 1 to 2 orders of magnitude less than the amount of available DNA per haploid genome could provide2–7. Although Drosophila and mammalian nuclei contain enough unique DNA to specify for respectively 105 and 106 genes of 1,000 nucleotide pairs8,9, it has been argued that a much lower estimate of functional gene number is more reasonable2–7. Conversely, these conclusions indicate that more than 90% of the eukaryotic genome may be composed of nonfunctional or noninformational “junk” DNA. Here we demonstrate these estimations have not been fundamentally proven; rather they are based on simplifying assumptions of questionable validity, in some cases contradictory to experimental data.
Kinetic Modeling of Switchgrass-Derived Xylose Oligomers Degradation during Pretreatment in Dilute Acid or in Water

Switchgrass hemicellulose can be converted into sugars, such as xylose, for biobased product manufacturing. However, during pretreatment, the hemicellulose can also be converted into xylose oligomers, furfural and formic acid, which are detrimental to subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. Pretreatment conditions that maximize xylose production from hemicellulose, while also minimizing xylose oligomers, furfural, and formic acid generation, would improve the economics of biobased product manufacturing by increasing yields and reducing enzyme and microorganism costs. The current study utilized switchgrass purified-xylose oligomers as model compounds to follow xylose oligomers, and furfural generation during pretreatment, using 0 to 1 wt % acid sulfuric acid at temperatures of 160 and 180 °C. The resulting kinetic data were used in simple first order rate expressions. On the basis of the empirically derived Arrhenius models but not verified by experimental data, maximum xylose yields can be obtai...
Radical Preacher Training

The primary concern of this article is radical preaching training—ongoing training in local churches. The ground of this pedagogy is a blend of necessity and reaction. The necessity springs from the lack of manageable ongoing formation for preachers in a rural region of Iowa, which lacks educational institutions related to preaching. The reaction is the fruit of my denominational context, Catholic, which remains confused about who should be preaching, when he or she should preach, and how he or she should be trained. The inherent relationship of spirituality and preaching underlie the investigation not only for the preachers themselves, but for the people they serve.
COMPLEMENT IN ENDOTOXIN SHOCK: EFFECT OF DECOMPLEMENTATION BY AGGREGATED GAMMA GLOBULIN.

SummaryIt has been postulated that the initial hemodynamic alterations in canine endotoxin shock are due to an immune mechanism (antigen-antibody) involving complement. Partial decomplementation of dogs follwoing intravenous injection of heataggravated human globulin, enhanced rather than decreased the lethal effect of endotoxin. The results of the present experiments suggested that because of the macromolecular size of the heated globulin anaphylaxis was produced, and in this manner the anaphylactic action of endotoxin was enhanced.
Automaticity of Unconscious Response Inhibition: Comment on Chiu and Aron (2014)

A recent study (Chiu & Aron, 2014) suggested that unconscious response inhibition is maintained when subliminal stimuli are mixed with supraliminal stimuli that are associated with response inhibition (mixed session), but it is abolished when they are presented alone (single session). However, awareness of the subliminal stimuli is likely to differ in the 2 sessions because of priming of awareness--awareness for subliminal stimuli is elevated (e.g., no longer subliminal) when mixed with supraliminal stimuli (Lin & Murray, 2014a). Here, in a novel design, we measured the awareness level in both sessions and found that the session-dependent effect was due to an awareness difference: The effect disappeared when awareness was comparable and emerged only when awareness was different. Arguments based on the lack of correlation between awareness and unconscious effects are refuted because typical correlation analysis underestimates the true correlation because of range restriction and it speaks only about individual differences that cannot explain within-subject effects (e.g., stimulus context here). Our findings also point to an attention-based mechanism underlying priming of awareness: Supraliminal trials are less attention-demanding, allowing for more attentional resources for subliminal trials in the mixed than single sessions. We discuss 2 implications. First, unconscious effects depend on top-down task sets and bottom-up stimulus strength. Second, to properly demonstrate unconscious processing, we stress the importance of having equivalent trial sequences between the main and awareness tests, promote a conjunction method that can strengthen inference, and discuss establishing a limit for equivalence between observed and chance performance.
Research on Working Condition of Key Components for Fixed Series Compensation in 1 000 kV UHVAC Power Transmission Project

Based on the extension project of 1 000 kV AC power transmission demonstration project from Changzhi via Nanyang to Jingmen and utilizing electromagnetic transients program(EMTP) the working conditions of key components for fixed series compensation in 1 000 kV UHVAC power transmission under internal faults,namely the faults occurred between the circuit breakers at both sides of the line where the series compensation locates,and the external fault,namely all faults except internal faults,are researched.It is first proposed to use the combination of metal oxide varistor(MOV) with parallel gap as the overvoltage protection measure for UHVAC fixed series compensation: during the external fault the overvoltage is only suppressed by MOV while the parallel gap does not act;during the internal fault the spark gap and by-pass switch act,thus the capacitor and MOV are bypassed.The overvoltage protection level for UHVAC series compensation is 2.3 pu;the maximum energy dissipation level of the MOV for the series compensation of No.1 transmission line from Changzhi to Nanyang and that for the series compensation of No.1 transmission line from Nanyang to Jingmen are 57 MJ per phase and 45 MJ per phase respectively;the damping circuit composed of reactor and MOV with resistance connected in series is used as the discharging damper for the series compensation capacitor and the natural vibration frequency of capacitor discharging circuit is about 300 Hz;during short-circuit fault the maximum discharging current of spark gap for UHVAC series compensation and bypass switch is 153 kA.
Inhibition of growth of human ovarian cancer in nude mice by luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone antagonist Cetrorelix (SB-75*)†‡

Objective To report on the in vitro and in vivo inhibitory effects of LH-releasing hormone (LH-RH) antagonist Cetrorelix (SB-75; Asta Medica, Frankfurt-Main, Germany) against a panel of human ovarian carcinomas. Interventions In vitro studies: the effect of SB-75 was measured using a standardized chemo-sensitivity assay in the following ovarian cancer cell lines: UCI 101; UCI 107; PA-1; NIH: OVCAR 3; UCLA: 222; A2780, parental; A2780-CR, cisplatin resistant; A2780-DR, doxorubicin resistant; and the human breast cancer cell line, MCF-7. Results were expressed as percent growth inhibition determined by crystal violet photometric analysis. In vivo studies: the antiproliferative effect of this agent was examined using UCI-107, a primary epithelial ovarian carcinoma cell line, in a nude mouse model. On day 0,10 × 10 6 UCI 107 cells were implanted subcutaneously into 20 intact female athymic nude mice (5 to 6 weeks old). On day 8, the mice were randomly divided into two groups of 10; control mice were implanted with miniosmotic pumps filled with a vehicle solution consisting of 5.2% mannitol in saline; and treated animals received pumps filled to deliver continuous administration of SB-75 at 60 µ g per mouse per day. Results In vitro studies: direct inhibition of cell proliferation by SB-75 was not observed at concentrations ranging from 1 nM to 100 µ M (exposure lasting three to four cell doublings) with the exception of MCF-7, which demonstrated a 33% inhibition at the latter concentration. In vivo studies: on day 16, caliper measurements were taken from subcutaneous tumor nodules in SB-75-treated and untreated mice and a significant difference of 270% in mean tumor volume was observed. End point was determined, on day 30, when control tumor volume approached 10,000 mm 3 . At that time the difference in mean tumor volumes increased to 600%, indicating a substantial antiproliferative effect had been achieved in the SB-75-treated group. Conclusion Our in vitro findings show direct inhibition by SB-75 on proliferation of human breast cancer cells. This direct inhibition in vitro was not observed in our ovarian cancer cell lines. However, in vivo SB-75 caused a significant inhibition of growth of human epithelial ovarian cancer. This may be a result of inhibition of the pituitary gonadal axis and gonadotropin secretion. Our results warrant further investigation.
Bulk band dispersion in Ti 2 O 3 and V 2 O 3

We report here a comprehensive study of the bulk electronic structure of single-crystal ${\mathrm{Ti}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ and ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ using both angle-integrated and angle-resolved photoemission and synchrotron radiation. The electronic structure of these materials is of particular interest because of the metal-insulator transitions which they undergo. Slight (0.4 eV) dispersion of the cation 3d bands is observed in both materials, supporting a band model for their electronic structure. Large discrepancies are observed between the measured band dispersion and published calculations for both materials. The O 2p emission is too broad to permit extraction of unambiguous band dispersions. Resonant photoemission is observed from cation 3d states in both ${\mathrm{Ti}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ and ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ as the photon energy is swept through the cation 3p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}3d optical-absorption edge. A valence-band satellite is resolved in the angle-integrated photoemission spectra from ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$; resolving this feature shows that the actual width of the O 2p band in ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ is almost 2.5 eV narrower than previous studies indicated.
Effectiveness of a poison center: Impact on medical facility visits

To estimate the effectiveness of a poison center by determining the number of potential medical facility visits for childhood poisonings which are prevented, and to determine how callers learned about the poison center in order to help guide future public educational efforts, a cross-sectional telephone survey was done. A systematic sample of caretakers of children < 6-y-of-age living in Harris County, TX, and who called the poison center about a poisoning incident between February 1993 and January 1994, was taken. One hundred sixty-six/197 eligible caretakers (84%) completed the survey. Of the 166 caretakers, only 5 (3%) were referred by the poison center to a medical facility for treatment, although 6 (3.6%) actually sought medical attention. The remaining 160 (96.4%) were successfully managed at home. The majority of these (74%) required no intervention and the remaining 26% required only minimal treatment, including ipecac, dilution, irrigation or observation. Of the 160 caretakers managed at home, 69 (43%) would have sought medical attention for the child at a health care facility if the poison center did not exist, and of those 81% would have gone to an emergency center or hospital for evaluation. Callers learned about the poison center most often from family/ friends, doctors, Mr Yuk stickers, television, previous use, or pharmacists. Poison centers decrease health care costs by preventing unnecessary medical facility visits for minor childhood poisonings which can be successfully managed at home. Methods effective in educating the public about poison centers should be continued and other methods explored to increase poison centers' use.
The drug treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder

Many individuals with a history of psychological trauma continue to react to current life stresses as a recurrence of the original trauma, even though they rarely make a conscious connection between present distress and past trauma. Their hyperreactivity, reliving experiences, and difficulty in modulating the intensity of their anxiety, aggression and interpersonal attachments are sources of continuing stress to both themselves and their environment. Pharmacological treatments are often necessary to blunt the intensity of their response to subsequent stressors. Our knowledge about the drug treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is still very limited. Existing reports are pretty much limited to one particular population with chronic PTSD: Vietnam veterans. Even less is known about effective pharmacological management of acute PTSD. While many psychotropic agents have been proposed for the treatment of various symptoms of PTSD, carefully controlled studies are lacking to clarify the relative merits of particular psychotropic agents on the various post-traumatic symptoms. Impressions in open studies have utilized global ratings, rather than studied the effects on specific symptoms. The animal model of inescapable shock provides a good model for understanding the biological alterations produced by overwhelming trauma, and suggests a variety of pharmacological treatment interventions. Elucidation of traumatic childhood antecedents of certain forms of adult psychopathology will provide clearer links between existing knowledge about effective pharmacological management and the treatment of post-traumatic states.
Three Clowns of Ethnography: Geertz, Levi-Strauss, and Derrida

S'interrogeant sur la possibilite (ou l'impossibilite) et les modalites de la representation en ethnographie, l'A. soutient que l'ecriture ethnographique s'inscrit necessairement dans le registre de la tromperie ou de la supercherie, attitude analogue aux traditions de bouffonnerie ou de clownerie des societes traditionnelles. Il suggere que cette position, inconfortable, est au coeur de l'ethnographie, et s'interroge sur les conditions de reussite d'une telle entreprise, ou l'ecriture s'inscrit aussi dans l'ironie. Analysant les clowneries de C. Geertz, C. Levi-Straus et J. Derrida, il tente de trouver une solution au paradoxe de la subjectivite et de la representation.
SU-F-I-12: Region-Specific Dictionary Learning for Low-Dose X-Ray CT Reconstruction

Purpose: Dictionary learning based method has attracted more and more attentions in low-dose CT due to the superior performance on suppressing noise and preserving structural details. Considering the structures and noise vary from region to region in one imaging object, we propose a region-specific dictionary learning method to improve the low-dose CT reconstruction. Methods: A set of normal-dose images was used for dictionary learning. Segmentations were performed on these images, so that the training patch sets corresponding to different regions can be extracted out. After that, region-specific dictionaries were learned from these training sets. For the low-dose CT reconstruction, a conventional reconstruction, such as filtered back-projection (FBP), was performed firstly, and then segmentation was followed to segment the image into different regions. Sparsity constraints of each region based on its dictionary were used as regularization terms. The regularization parameters were selected adaptively according to different regions. A low-dose human thorax dataset was used to evaluate the proposed method. The single dictionary based method was performed for comparison. Results: Since the lung region is very different from the other part of thorax, two dictionaries corresponding to lung region and the rest part of thorax respectively were learned to better express the structural details and avoid artifacts. With only one dictionary some artifact appeared in the body region caused by the spot atoms corresponding to the structures in the lung region. And also some structure in the lung regions cannot be recovered well by only one dictionary. The quantitative indices of the result by the proposed method were also improved a little compared to the single dictionary based method. Conclusion: Region-specific dictionary can make the dictionary more adaptive to different region characteristics, which is much desirable for enhancing the performance of dictionary learning based method.
Assessing the Mental Health Impact of the 2011 Great Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Radiation Disaster on Elementary and Middle School Children in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan

Background On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off of Japan’s Pacific coast, which was followed by huge tsunamis that destroyed many coastal cities in the area. Due to the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, malfunctions occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi (Fukushima I) nuclear power plant, resulting in the release of radioactive material in the region. While recent studies have investigated the effects of these events on the mental health of adults in the region, no studies have yet been performed investigating similar effects among children. Methods and Findings This study aims to fill that gap by: 1) assessing the mental health of elementary and middle school children living within the Fukushima prefecture of Japan, and 2) identifying risk and protective factors that are associated with the children’s mental health scores. These factors were quantified using an original demographics survey, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and the Impact of Event Scale–Revised (IES-R), the latter two of which have been previously validated in a Japanese setting. The surveys were distributed to approximately 3,650 elementary and middle school students during the months of February and March, 2012. The data suggests that those children who had been relocated to the city of Koriyama had significantly higher SDQ scores than those children who were native to Koriyama (p < .05) as well as a control group that lived outside of the Fukushima prefecture (p < .01). Using a multivariate regression, we also found that younger age and parental trauma were significantly correlated with higher SDQ scores (p < .001), while gender, displacement from one’s home, and exposure to violence were not. Conclusions These results suggest that, among children affected by natural disasters, younger children and those with parents suffering from trauma-related distress are particularly vulnerable to the onset of pediatric mental disturbances.
Current status of chimeric antigen receptor engineered T cell-based and immune checkpoint blockade-based cancer immunotherapies.

Adoptive cell therapies with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) engineered T cells (CAR-T) and immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI)-based cancer immunotherapies have lately shown remarkable success in certain tumor types. CAR-T cell-based therapies targeting CD19 can now induce durable remissions as well as prolong disease-free survival of patients with CD19 positive treatment refractory B cell malignancies and ICI-based therapies with humanized monoclonal antibodies against the T cell inhibitory receptors CTLA-4 and PD-1 as well as against the PD-1 ligand, PD-L1, can now achieve durable remissions as well as prolongation of life of a sizeable fraction of patients with melanoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma and non-small cell cancers. Most importantly, these immuno-therapeutic treatment modalities have raised the possibility of achieving long-term “containment” as well as “cures” for certain types of cancer. While this represents major advances in cancer immunotherapy, both modalities come with considerable toxicities, including fatalities. Although more work will be needed to bring CAR-T cell-based therapies to the bedside for most major cancers and a good deal more will be needed to make ICI—alone or in combination with other treatment modalities—work more consistently and across most major cancers, these two treatment modalities stand out as superb examples of successful translation of bench research to the bedside as well as represent real progress in the field of cancer immunotherapy.
Efficient and Secure On-Chip Reconfigurable Voltage Regulation for IoT Devices

The emergence of internet of things (IoT) devices is challenging the conventional design targets for integrated systems such as performance, power efficiency, and cost. With the proliferation of IoT devices, ensuring safe operating margins will become more crucial due to the limited power budget and physical constraints. Additionally, IoT devices are vulnerable to hardware attacks as they may be easily accessible to an attacker. The limitations when combined with the cost constraints make the design of security measures for the IoT devices quite challenging. In this perspective paper, reconfigurable voltage regulators are investigated to simultaneously improve the overall power efficiency of the system and provide enhanced security against certain side-channel attacks. A brief survey of randomized reconfiguration of voltage regulators to scramble to power consumption profile is proposed. The randomized reconfiguration makes the the synchronization of the attack more difficult for the attacker, boosting the security benefits of conventional voltage regulators with negligible power and area overhead.
A Review of the Relationship Between Hoof Trimming and Dairy Cattle Welfare

A narrative integrative review on the evidence for hoof trimming found 16 articles on efficacy, frequency, and associations with behavior and physiologic parameters. Review of these studies revealed (1) hoof trimming is associated with behavior and physiologic changes; (2) increasing the frequency of hoof trimming seems to decrease the incidence of hoof lesions; (3) there is limited research to support any particular technique; and (4) descriptions of the hoof trimming techniques used is inadequate in most articles. To increase scientific support for hoof trimming practices, current knowledge gaps in technique, timing, and frequency of hoof trimming need to be addressed.
The First Case of Mumps-Associated Achalasia.

To the Editor: The pathogenesis of inflammation and subsequent degeneration of esophageal inhibitory neurons in patients with achalasia leading to impaired lower esophageal sphincter relaxation and smooth muscle contraction, classically aperistalsis, remains uncertain. Some investigators hypothesize an antibody-mediated process triggered by neurotropic viral infections, particularly herpes simplex virus (HSV), varicella zoster, and measles (1). We describe here the first case of mumps-associated achalasia in a 23-year-old female presenting with dysphagia.
TESTOSTERONE LEVELS ACHIEVED BY MEDICALLY TREATED TRANSGENDER WOMEN IN A UNITED STATES ENDOCRINOLOGY CLINIC COHORT.

ABSTRACT Objective: Most transgender women depend on medical treatment alone to lower testosterone levels in order to align physical appearance with gender identity. The medical regimen in the United States typically includes spironolactone and estrogens. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to assess the testosterone suppression achieved among transgender women treated with spironolactone and estrogens. Methods: Testosterone and estradiol levels were extracted from the electronic medical records of 98 anonymized transgender women treated with oral spironolactone and oral estrogen therapy at the Endocrinology Clinic at Boston Medical Center. Results: Patients starting therapy required about 9 months to reach a steady-state testosterone, with significant heterogeneity of levels achieved among patients. Patients with normal body mass index (BMI) had higher testosterone levels, whereas patients with obese BMI had lower testosterone levels throughout treatment. Stratification of patients by age or sp...
Hallux saltans due to stenosing tenosynovitis of flexor hallucis longus: dynamic sonography and arthroscopic findings.

Triggering of the toes is rare, with isolated cases reported in the literature involving predominantly the flexor hallucis longus (FHL) tendon, a condition known as “hallux saltans” (HS). We report the dynamic sonographic findings of a 42-year-old female with a 2-month history of ankle pain and triggering of right hallux, consistent with HS. Sonography demonstrated tenosynovitis and focal thickening of FHL at the level of hindfoot, with a fibrous band adjacent to the tendon. Dynamic ultrasound showed triggering and snapping of FHL tendon during hallux flexion and extension, respectively. We present comprehensive documentation of this rare entity, including sonographic still images and cine clips, as well as correlation with arthroscopic surgical findings.
Identification and Evaluation of Medical Translator Mobile Applications Using an Adapted APPLICATIONS Scoring System.

Abstract Importance: With an increasing number of patients requiring translator services, many providers are turning to mobile applications (apps) for assistance. However, there have been no published reviews of medical translator apps. Objective: To identify and evaluate medical translator mobile apps using an adapted APPLICATIONS scoring system. Design: A list of apps was identified from the Apple iTunes and Google Play stores, using the search term, “medical translator.” Apps not found on two different searches, not in an English-based platform, not used for translation, or not functional after purchase, were excluded. The remaining apps were evaluated using an adapted APPLICATIONS scoring system, which included both objective and subjective criteria. App comprehensiveness was a weighted score defined by the number of non-English languages included in each app relative to the proportion of non-English speakers in the United States. Setting: The Apple iTunes and Google Play stores. Participants: Medical...
Evaluation and Management of Pediatric Chest Pain, Syncope, and Murmur in the Emergency Department

The three most common reasons for referral to the cardiologist’s office for new patients are chest pain, syncope, and a heart murmur. These same three complaints or findings are frequent reasons for children to be brought to an emergency room or urgent care facility. In this chapter, typical cases for each are presented followed by a guide to the workup and management of each. As most of these will be non-cardiac in origin, it is important to distinguish the common non-cardiac causes from the uncommon true cardiac etiologies and to know when to intervene or contact cardiology urgently for the latter. Algorithms for the evaluation and management for each are provided.
Genetic, Biochemical, and Molecular Approaches to Volvox Development and Evolution

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses various genetic, biochemical, and molecular approaches for the development and evolution of Volvox . All members of the genus Volvox possess two, and only two, distinctive cell types—mortal somatic cells and immortal germ cells. But it is in Volvox carteri that this distinction is most clearly established in very early development, and hence the challenge of elucidating the mechanisms for establishing such a dichotomy is fundamentally presented in the chapter. The existence of two entirely different and interdependent cell types—somatic cells specialized for motility and germ cells specialized for reproduction—neither of which could succeed by itself in perpetuating the germ plasm in nature, raises Volvox to the level of a multicellular organism with complete division of labor. The chapter discusses the qualities of V. carteri f . Nagariensis, which was recommended as a model for exploring the molecular-genetic control of development. Two asexual spheroids (individuals) of V. carferi strain HK 10 are illustrated in the chapter. The chapter also describes the visible events of embryonic development and reviews what has been learned from experimental and genetic analysis concerning the control of various important component steps. Six kinds of probes that hybridize with distinct families of middle repetitive DNA sequences have been used to probe Southern blots of genomic DNA in a search for restriction fragment-length polymorphisms (RFLPs) that might be useful for the sort of genetic analysis described in the chapter.
Spin polarons in La 1-x Sr x CoO 3 single crystals

Nanoscale inhomogeneity in ${\text{La}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\text{Sr}}_{x}{\text{CoO}}_{3}$ has been investigated in single-crystal samples for $0.05\ensuremath{\le}x\ensuremath{\le}0.30$ using $^{139}\text{L}\text{a}$ and $^{59}\text{C}\text{o}$ NMR to probe local magnetization. In contrast to polycrystalline samples, single crystals exhibit ferromagnetism only above the metal-insulator critical concentration ${x}_{C}=0.17$. However, over the entire doping range, the single crystals exhibit an unusually broad and asymmetric distribution of hyperfine fields, evidencing (local) spin-polaron formation that persists to temperatures as high as 200 K, well above the glass transition reported previously from bulk magnetization. Above ${x}_{C}$ the asymmetry decreases rapidly with increasing doping as polarons overlap to give rise to long-range ferromagnetism. A modified phase diagram is presented. The key features of the data are reproduced by a simple model in which Sr dopants trigger spin-polaron formation, a physical picture first proposed by de Gennes [Phys. Rev. 118, 141 (1960)].
SAFETY CRITERIA FOR INTENDED OR EXPECTED NON-LETHAL ELECTRICAL SHOCKS

ABSTRACT Safety criteria are developed for intended or expected electrical shocks based on a comparison of the electric shock outputs to levels considered non-hazardous, such as that from an electric fence controller or from a continuous 6 mA, 60 Hz shock. The true r.m.s. value of the current for a periodic pulse type shock cannot always be compared to the effect of the same 60 Hz r.m.s. current because higher frequency components of the pulse output have a lesser effect on the human body. Periodic pulse type shocks are evaluated by obtaining an effective value for the current taking into account the attenuation of the effect of frequency components above 1 kHz on the human body.
Theory of dipole radiation near a Dirac photonic crystal

We develop an analytic formalism to describe dipole radiation near the Dirac cone of a two-dimensional photonic crystal slab. In contrast to earlier work, we account for all polarization effects and derive a closed-form expression for the dyadic Green's function of the geometry. Using this analytic Green's function, we demonstrate that the dipolar interaction mediated by the slab exhibits winding phases, which are key ingredients for engineering topological systems for quantum emitters. As an example, we study the coherent atomic interactions mediated by the Dirac cone, which were recently shown to be unusually long range with no exponential attenuation. These results pave the way for further, rigorous analysis of emitters interacting in photonic crystals via photonic Dirac cones.
Assessing the Intersection of Neighborhood Change and Residential Mobility Pathways for the Chicago Metropolitan Area (2006–2015)

Residential mobility processes remain largely a black box for housing policy researchers. Whereas neighborhood sociodemographic indicators provide insight into the types of push and pull factors th...
Noninvasive automatic determination of mean arterial pressure

A new instrument for the indirect noninvasive measurement of mean arterial pressure (m.a.p.) has been constructed and evaluated in man. The instrument does not require an external microphone or transducer and determines m.a.p. rather than systolic and diastolic pressure. Instead, the method employs the point of maximal oscillations as an indicator of m.a.p. The instrument automatically inflates a standard blood pressure cuff and determines the m.a.p. by measuring the cuff pressure oscillations as the cuff pressure is reduced by discrete increments. Cuff deflation in discrete increments, instead of continuously, allows the oscillation data obtained at each cuff pressure to be tested for artefacts and averaged, greatly enhancing artefact-rejection ability. The m.a.p. is selected as the lowest cuff pressure at which the oscillation amplitude is a maximum. The instrument was tested on the bicep and ankle in a series of 28 studies involving 17 human subjects with intra-arterial catheters. Averaging the mean errors from each of the 28 studies, there was an overall mean error of — 0·23 mmHg, with a standard deviation of 4·21 mmHg. The correlation coefficient was 0·98. The instrument was found to give good results in a wide variety of clinical subjects and physiologic states.
Alternative Facts and Entomological Engagement

In a media environment saturated with information, simply providing facts, no matter how well researched, will not be enough to persuade and inform citizens. Adopting the techniques of interpretation and engagement will help entomologists create more compelling messaging.
Radiation maps of ocean sediment from the Castle Bravo crater

On March 1, 1954, the United States conducted its largest thermonuclear weapon test in Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands; the detonation was code-named “Castle Bravo.” Radioactive deposits in the ocean sediment at the bomb crater are widespread and high levels of contamination remain today. One hundred thirty cores were collected from the top 25 cm of surface sediment at ocean depths approaching 60 m over a ∼2-km2 area, allowing for a presentation of radiation maps of the Bravo crater site. Radiochemical analyses were performed on the following radionuclides: plutonium-(239,240), plutonium-238, americium-241, bismuth-207, and cesium-137. Large values of plutonium-(239,240), americium-241, and bismuth-207 are found. Comparisons are made to core sample results from other areas in the northern Marshall Islands.
Equipment and Monitoring for Pediatric Anesthesia

Changes in age, size and physiology affect equipment choices in pediatric anesthesia. The T-piece is the classic anesthetic circuit, but the circle circuit is most commonly used. A circle circuit for children has a small compression volume, and includes a small rebreathing bag making it easier for the anesthetist to assess lung compliance during manual ventilation. Pressure controlled ventilation is the classic mode for children. Volume-controlled ventilation was avoided because of the effects of compression volume, changes in fresh gas flow and leaks around the endotracheal tube. However, modern anesthetic machines compensate for these effects and there is less advantage of pressure ventilation. It is probably more important to concentrate on ventilation parameters and maintenance of lung volume rather than the mode of ventilation. Pressure support ventilation is now routinely used during spontaneous ventilation in children who are otherwise vulnerable to increased work of breathing from resistance in the breathing circuit and airway device. There are several types of warming equipment used to prevent hypothermia in children, but forced air warmers are the most effective method to prevent and reverse hypothermia. Monitoring in infants and neonates poses unique problems. Capnometry must measure small, rapid breaths, and may be affected by a leak around an uncuffed tracheal tube. Depth of anesthesia monitoring is not accurate below 3 years of age.
Re-municipalization in the US: a pragmatic response to contracting

We conduct a national survey of US local governments and find service outcomes – quality, cost savings and efficiency – are the primary drivers of re-municipalization, not political pressures. Logi...
Improving the Accuracy of Diabetic Retinopathy Severity Classification with Transfer Learning

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a major cause of blindness in Diabetic patients, and its early detection benefits diagnosis and subsequent treatment methods. In this work, a convolutional neural network uses the VGG-16 model as a pre-trained neural network for fine-tuning, and, thereby classifying the severity of DR. The model also uses efficient deep learning techniques including data augmentation, batch normalization, dropout layers and learn-rate scheduling on high resolution images to achieve higher levels of accuracy. An average class accuracy (ACA) of 74%, sensitivity of 80% at a specificity of 65% and area under the curve (AUC) of 0.80 have been achieved, which are higher than previously reported results obtained using other pre-trained networks or models.
Photophysical Properties and Electronic Structure of Zinc(II) Porphyrins Bearing 0-4 meso-Phenyl Substituents: Zinc Porphine to Zinc Tetraphenylporphyrin (ZnTPP).

Six zinc(II) porphyrins bearing 0–4 meso-phenyl substituents have been examined spectroscopically and theoretically. Comparisons with previously examined free base analogues afford a deep understan...
Computational phase microscopy

Computational imaging involves the joint design of imaging system hardware and software, optimizing across the entire pipeline from acquisition to reconstruction. Computers can replace bulky and expensive optics by solving computational inverse problems. This talk will describe new microscopes that use computational imaging to enable 3D, aberration and phase measurement using simple hardware that is easily adoptable and advanced image reconstruction algorithms based on large-scale optimization and learning.
How Helpful Is aEEG? Context and User Experience Matter.

Objective The aim of the study is to model amplitude-integrated electroencephalography (aEEG) utility to diagnose seizures in common clinical scenarios. Study Design Using reported neonatal seizure prevalence and aEEG sensitivities and specificities, likelihood ratios (LRs) and post-test probabilities were calculated to quantify aEEG utility to diagnose seizures in three typical clinical scenarios. Results Prevalence data supported pretest probabilities for neonatal seizures of 0.4 in neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), 0.27 in bacterial meningitis, and 0.05 in extreme prematurity. Reported sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 90% for seizures with expert aEEG interpretation yielded a positive likelihood ratio (LR+) of 8.7 and a negative likelihood ratio (LR−) of 0.17. Reported sensitivity of 65% and specificity of 70% with intermediate interpretation yielded LR+ 2.17 and LR− 0.5. Reported sensitivity of 40% and sensitivity of 50% with inexperienced interpretation gave LR+ 0.8 and LR− 1.2. These translate the ability to move pretest to post-test probability highly dependent on user expertise. For HIE, a pretest probability of seizure of 0.4 moves to a post-test probability of 0.85 when aEEG is positive for seizures by expert interpretation, and down to 0.1 when aEEG is negative. In contrast, no useful information was gained between pretest and post-test probability by aEEG interpreted as negative or positive for seizure at the inexperienced user level. Similarly, in the models of meningitis or extreme prematurity, incremental information gained from aEEG ranged widely based on interpreter experience. Conclusion aEEG is most useful to screen for neonatal seizures when used in conditions with high seizure prevalence, and when interpretation has a sensitivity and specificity as reported for expert users. In contrast, aEEG can become negligible in providing meaningful clinical information when applied in conditions having lower seizure prevalence or when interpretation has low accuracy. Appropriate patient selection and high quality interpretation are essential for aEEG utility in neonatal seizure detection. Key Points
Podcasting services in academic libraries: A case study

This article will discuss the podcasting environment at the University of Utah, which takes place in the Audio Studio of the Marriott Library. As academic libraries implement innovative technologie...