cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Arizona Cognitive Test Battery for Down Syndrome: Test-Retest Reliability and Practice Effects

A multisite study investigated the test-retest reliability and practice effects of a battery of assessments to measure neurocognitive function in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). The study aimed to establish the appropriateness of these measures as potential endpoints for clinical trials. Neurocognitive tasks and parent report measures comprising the Arizona Cognitive Test Battery (ACTB) were administered to 54 young participants with DS (7-20 years of age) with mild to moderate levels of intellectual disability in an initial baseline evaluation and a follow-up assessment 3 months later. Although revisions to ACTB measures are indicated, results demonstrate adequate levels of reliability and resistance to practice effects for some measures. The ACTB offers viable options for repeated testing of memory, motor planning, behavioral regulation, and attention. Alternative measures of executive functioning are required.
Cardiovascular and Metabolic Consequences of Testosterone Supplements in Young and Old Male Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats: Implications for Testosterone Supplements in Men.

Background The safety of testosterone supplements in men remains unclear. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that in young and old male spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), long‐term testosterone supplements increase blood pressure and that the mechanism is mediated in part by activation of the renin‐angiotensin system. Methods and Results In untreated males, serum testosterone exhibited a sustained decrease after 5 months of age, reaching a nadir by 18 to 22 months of age. The reductions in serum testosterone were accompanied by an increase in body weight until very old age (18 months). Testosterone supplements were given for 6 weeks to young (12 weeks‐YMSHR) and old (21–22 months‐OMSHR) male SHR that increased serum testosterone by 2‐fold in young males and by 4‐fold in old males. Testosterone supplements decreased body weight, fat mass, lean mass, and plasma leptin, and increased plasma estradiol in YMSHR but had no effect in OMSHR. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) was significantly higher in OMSHR than in YMSHR and testosterone supplements decreased MAP in OMSHR, but significantly increased MAP in YMSHR. Enalapril, the angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitor, reduced MAP in both control and testosterone‐supplemented YMSHR, but had a greater effect on MAP in testosterone‐treated rats, suggesting the mechanism responsible for the increase in MAP in YMSHR is mediated at least in part by activation of the renin‐angiotensin system. Conclusions Taken together with previous studies, these data suggest that testosterone supplements may have differential effects on men depending on age, cardiovascular and metabolic status, and dose and whether given long‐term or short‐term.
Tutorial: Accelerated testing for diagnostics and prognostics

Accelerated testing has been widely used in reliability estimation for highly reliable products. Among different accelerated testing techniques, accelerated degradation testing is probability the most powerful one. In such tests, the degradation measurements of a product or material under different conditions are collected over time and modeled using various methods. In this tutorial, different methods for modeling accelerated testing data will be introduced and some applications of the resulting models in fault diagnostics and prognostics will be presented.
Planning the Evaluation of Online Instruction

There are two types of evaluation, formative and summative. At this stage of the WBID Model, formative evaluation plans are fully developed and summative evaluation plans are developed to a preliminary state. The formative evaluation facilitates the revision of the prototype and its website as they are developed. This evaluation is enacted once the concurrent design stage begins and is then carried into the initial implementation of the online instruction, which would be considered a field trial. The second part of planning, the preliminary planning for summative evaluation, is an important feature of the WBID Model. It allows for data about the instructional situation to be collected prior to implementation. Often, valuable information is lost when data on the state of the instructional products or practices is not collected before a new innovation is introduced (Salmon and Gardner, Educational Researcher 15:13-19, 1986). The final planning for and conducting of summative evaluation occurs after full implementation.
Cultural Citizenship in India: Politics, Power, and Media, by Lion König

In this book, Lion Konig makes a strong case for the use of interdisciplinarity between political science and cultural studies in order to apprehend the complexities of concepts such as citizenship...
Adolescent fathers in the United States: their initial living arrangements, marital experience and educational outcomes

Data from a nationally representative longitudinal survey show that seven percent of young males aged 20-27 in 1984 had fathered a child while they were teenagers, more than three-quarters of them nonmaritally. One-third of those who were responsible for a nonmarital conception married within 12 months of conception, and half of all of the young men lived with their child shortly after the child's birth. Overall, young black men were more likely to have been responsible for a nonmarital first birth than were males of other racial backgrounds, and only 15 percent of black teenagers lived with their first child, compared with 48 percent of Hispanics, 58 percent of disadvantaged whites and 77 percent of nondisadvantaged whites. Multivariate analyses indicated that only black or Hispanic youths and those who fathered a child at age 16 or younger were significantly less likely to have lived with their first child; those who were raised Catholic were more likely to have done so. Further analyses revealed that living in a rural area, being relatively older at the child's birth, having been raised Catholic and having lived with both parents at age 14 were associated with an above average probability that white teenage fathers would live with their child, at least initially. However, none of the variables in the model were significant for blacks. Teenage fathers, regardless of their marital status at conception or age at first birth, were much more likely to have been high school dropouts than were other male teenagers. Those with a maritally conceived child had a particularly high drop-out rate--almost 62 percent. Among teenage fathers responsible for a nonmaritally conceived first birth that occurred before they received their diploma or GED certificate or received their diploma or GED certificate or they left school for the last time, those living with their partner shortly after the child's birth were less likely to have completed high school by 1984 than were those not living with their child. However, a multivariate analysis revealed that a teenage father's living with his child shortly after birth was not significantly related to his completion of high school, while being black was positively associated.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Fitting of simple approximation functions using nonlinear least-squares methods

Least-squares methods are described for fitting of approximation functions which contain two unknown constants. The functions are linear with respect to one of the constants and nonlinear with respect to the other. Linearization is compared to a nonlinear least-squares, algorithm. Advantages of the latter method are discussed and both methods are applied to an example problem.
Structure-Activity Relationships of Acrylate Esters: Reactivity Towards Glutathione and Hydrolysis by Carboxylesterase in Vitro

Acrylate esters are high volume, versatile chemicals in the plastics industry. Long)term industrial exposure to these esters has caused contact hypersensitivity and dermatitis, while laboratory studies have shown these esters to be strong irritants, sensitizers, clastogens, and some have been shown to be weak carcinogens (Andrews and Clary, 1986). Numerous members make up this class of chemicals sharing an α, β- unsaturated ester structure. The individual members differ from each other due to structural features added onto the α, β-unsaturated ester.
Abstract 528: Identification of MYC as a novel repressor of miR-29 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal malignant disease with a dismal 5-year survival rate of 8%. The lack of effective therapies reinforces the need to better understand molecular mechanisms in PDAC. In our previous work, we found that downregulation of miR-29 is a common phenomenon of PDAC, and its restored expression had a potent tumor-suppressive effect in pancreatic cancer cells. However, the mechanism associated with the loss of miR-29 in PDAC has yet to be elucidated. In our initial work, using PDAC cell lines, we found that miR-29 is downregulated independent of KRAS. In an effort to understand the transcriptional factors mediating miR-29 repression, we selected several transcription factors that have a role in PDAC pathogenesis and binding sites in the miR-29 promoter region. siRNA mediated knockdown (KD) of three candidate transcription factors, SMAD4, MYC, and Gli3 revealed that the KD of MYC resulted in the highest gain of miR-29 expression (2-fold increase). Furthermore, MYC nuclear localization negatively correlates with miR-29 expression in various pancreatic cancer cell lines, and treatment of pancreatic cancer cells with small-molecule MYC inhibitor resulted in a dosage-dependent increase of miR-29 expression. miR-29a/b1 locus located on human chromosome 7 has two canonical MYC binding motifs upstream of the miR-29 transcription start site, which were functionally validated via luciferase assay. Finally, autophagy has been shown to be upregulated by MYC and is known to mitigate stressors of the integrated stress response (ISR) pathway in cancer. In our previous work, we showed that miR-29 blocks autophagy in pancreatic cancer cells. Consistently, we found miR-29 overexpression led to decreased cancer cell viability in combination with gemcitabine and induced the ISR as indicated by increased phospho-eIF2α. Taken together, our results demonstrate that MYC plays a key role in the regulation of miR-29 expression in pancreatic cancer. Furthermore, our data indicate the potential use of miR-29 as a novel therapeutic agent for PDAC, and these results could help form the basis for future studies to develop a more targeted approach of miR-29 therapeutic administration. Citation Format: Jason Kwon, Kayla Quirin, Tricia Factora, Janaiah Kota. Identification of MYC as a novel repressor of miR-29 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 528.
Survival and longevity of a White-tipped Dove (Leptotila verreauxi) population in south Texas

The White-tipped Dove (Leptotilaverreauxi) is an understudied, secretive, game species in south Texas. We banded White-tipped Doves over a 2-year period in Estero Llano Grande State Park (ELGSP) near Weslaco, Texas. We used recent banding information to estimate the first annual survival and recovery rate information for this species in the United States. We collected morphological measurements of captured individuals in June and July 2015 and 2016. We documented a new longevity record for the species in 2016. The individual was a minimum of 9 years and 1 month at encounter as it was first banded in ELGSP in 2008 as an afterhatch-year individual. Our morphological measurements were within the range reported in previous studies. Preliminary annual survival estimates indicate higher annual survival than other Columbidae and low recovery rates.
Switching Deep Reinforcement Learning based Intelligent Online Decision Making for Autonomous Systems under Uncertain Environment

In this paper, finite horizon intelligent decision making problem has been investigated for autonomous systems especially under uncertain environment. According to latest studies, the uncertainty of environment will seriously affect the effectiveness of decision making especially for autonomous systems. To handle this issues, transfer learning and deep reinforcement learning has been presented recently. However, those existing Learning algorithms commonly needs a large set of state space which cause the algorithm to be time consuming and not suitable for real-time application. Therefore, in this paper, a library of polices trained using Deep Q-Learning under similar environments are built firstly. Then, a neural network is designed to estimate the environment. Using the learned environment, a novel of switching policy will be developed and integrated with the designed deep reinforcement learning which can efficiently stop learning according to the practical error tolerance. Meanwhile, through the novel policy evaluation method based on the environment estimator, the autonomous agent will select the best policy to followin an online manner. Eventually, simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed algorithm.
Gender-Stratified Prevalence of Psychiatric and Pain Diagnoses in a Primary Care Patient Sample with Fibromyalgia

Objective Comorbid psychiatric and pain-related conditions are common in patients with fibromyalgia. Most studies in this area have used data from patients in specialty care and may not represent the characteristics of fibromyalgia in primary care patients. We sought to fill gaps in the literature by determining if the association between psychiatric diagnoses, conditions associated with chronic pain, and fibromyalgia differed by gender in a primary care patient population. Design Retrospective cohort. Setting and subjects Medical record data obtained from 38,976 patients, ≥18 years of age with a primary care encounter between July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2016. Methods International Classification of Diseases-9 codes were used to define fibromyalgia, psychiatric diagnoses, and conditions associated with chronic pain. Unadjusted associations between patient demographics, comorbid conditions, and fibromyalgia were computed using binary logistic regression for the entire cohort and separately by gender. Results Overall, 4.6% of the sample had a fibromyalgia diagnosis, of whom 76.1% were women. Comorbid conditions were more prevalent among patients with vs without fibromyalgia. Depression and arthritis were more strongly related to fibromyalgia among women (odds ratio [OR] = 2.80, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.50-3.13; and OR = 5.19, 95% CI = 4.62-5.84) compared with men (OR = 2.16, 95% CI = 1.71-2.71; and (OR = 3.91, 95% CI = 3.22-4.75). The relationship of fibromyalgia and other diagnoses did not significantly differ by gender. Conclusions Except for depression and arthritis, the burden of comorbid conditions in patients with fibromyalgia is similar in women and men treated in primary care. Fibromyalgia comorbidities in primary care are similar to those found in specialty care.
Severe Obesity in the Pediatric Population: Current Concepts in Clinical Care.

This review describes (1) the clinical assessment of pediatric patients with severe obesity, including a summary of salient biological, psychological, and social factors that may be contributing to the patient’s obesity and (2) the current state of treatment strategies for pediatric severe obesity, including lifestyle modification therapy, pharmacotherapy, and metabolic and bariatric surgery. Lifestyle modification therapy alone is insufficient for achieving clinically significant BMI reduction for most youth with severe obesity and metabolic and bariatric surgery, though effective and durable, is not a scalable treatment strategy. Pharmacological agents in the pipeline may 1 day fill this gap in treatment. Treatment of severe pediatric obesity requires a chronic care management approach utilizing multidisciplinary teams of health care providers and multi-pronged therapies.
Minimally invasive spinal surgery.

In surgery, the concept of “first do no harm” has led to procedural advances to reduce collateral tissue damage during surgical procedures. While in spine surgery, specifically, this thought is not a particularly new one, we remain behind the curve in adoption of minimally invasive techniques.
Calcein permeability of liposomes mediated by type A botulinum neurotoxin and its light and heavy chains.

The mode of botulinum neurotoxin action involves binding of its heavy chain for internalization into the presynaptic end of a nerve cell through endocytosis. The low-pH conditions of endosomes trigger translocation of the light chain across the endosomal membrane to the cytosol, where the light chain cleaves specific target proteins involved in the docking and fusion of synaptic vesicles for acetylcholine release. In an effort to model the interaction of botulinum neurotoxin and its subunit chains with lipid bilayer at low pH during the translocation process, we have examined type A botulinum neurotoxin-mediated calcein release from asolectin liposomes. At equimolar concentration (0.1 μM), the neurotoxin and its heavy and light chains evoked 23%, 58%, and 28% calcein release, respectively. Calcein release was observed only when the cis-side (the side to which neurotoxin samples were added) pH was lowered to 4. Calcein release activity of the heavy chain was mostly blocked (76%) by a polyclonal antibody raised against the neurotoxin. Additionally, two peptide-specific polyclonal antibodies derived from the N-terminal and C-terminal halves of the heavy chain were also able to block the calcein release activity by 15–20%. In summary, these results suggest that calcein release from liposomes is specifically mediated by the heavy chain, and the light chain also integrates into the membrane. Implications of these results for the molecular mode of neurotoxin light-chain translocation across the endosomal membrane are discussed.
Rape Aggression Defense Course: Physical, Psychological, and Interpersonal Benefits Among Women With and Without Interpersonal Victimization Histories:

Women's self-defense training increases self-efficacy and reduces subsequent assaults, but self-defense training's effects on women's psychological and interpersonal functioning are understudied, particularly for women with histories of interpersonal victimization. This study examined the effects of a self-defense course on somatic symptoms, post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, anxiety, interpersonal problems, and locus of control among women with and without interpersonal victimization histories and explored how women's disinhibition of their aggression during simulated attacks predicts changes in their symptoms and functioning. In all, 82 women reported their symptoms and functioning before participation and 6 weeks after participation in a university-based Rape Aggression Defense course. Among the whole sample, participation in the course led to significantly decreased posttraumatic stress, somatic, and hostility symptoms and problems with being too nonassertive, overly accommodating, and self-sacrificing. Women who reported interpersonal victimization histories (n = 49) did not differ in the degree of improvements when compared with women without interpersonal victimization histories (n = 33). Greater disinhibition during the simulation predicted less improvement in some symptoms; moderation analyses showed that this association occurred only among those women with high baseline anxiety or hostility. These findings highlight the value of self-defense training in improving the health of women, including posttraumatic stress symptoms and interpersonal functioning, regardless of women's history of interpersonal victimization. Results also suggest the importance of considering women's baseline symptoms in modulating the degree of aggression that is optimally expressed during training.
Effect of Credit Rating on Trade Credit: Empirical Evidences from Pakistani Non-financial sector

The study investigated how non-financial businesses use trade credit in the context of borrowing restrictions in developing economies. Despite the tremendous changes in the trend, trade credits still have huge usage. Buyers and suppliers have moved from traditional trading systems to advancing automated and sophisticated business methods. Multi-dimensional aspects of business strategy also include trade credits. Trade credit has a huge change in supply and demand. Trade credit is used as the main source of financing in almost all regions of the world. World-renowned companies have access to financial lending, but they prefer trade credit because it provides them an edge against collateral held at financial institutions. This research includes some factors like trade credit and credit rating. In this study has unbalanced panel data from non-financial sector of Pakistan. The data range consists of 2008 to 2016 for 38 non-financial firms. Here, by using the fixed effect model examined how credit rating affects the trade credit supply and demand in case of large and small firms. The results show that account receivables and payables both increase in the case of large firm credit rating. They can easily use the trade credit process. In case of small firms, they also join this process or trade credit agreement for smoothing their business function, but they feel some difficulties from both sides.
Study on the Impact of differential protection for Transformer in Power Systems With Renewable Energy

Differential protection of transformer is the key part of relay protection in power system. The complicated characteristics of the fault current for the Doubly-fed induction generators(DFIGs) make the performance of the protection performance of transformer deteriorate greatly. Based on this, the current characteristics of the DFIG under fault conditions are studied considering the low-voltage ride-through control. Then, the impact mechanism of DFIG on differential protection of Transformers was analyzed. Finally, simulation examples in PSCAD/EMTDC verify the analysis results. The research results are useful to the configuration of relay protection in power system with DFIGs.
Real-Time Clustering for Large Sparse Online Visitor Data

Online visitor behaviors are often modeled as a large sparse matrix, where rows represent visitors and columns represent behavior. To discover customer segments with different hierarchies, marketers often need to cluster the data in different splits. Such analyses require the clustering algorithm to provide real-time responses on user parameter changes, which the current techniques cannot support. In this paper, we propose a real-time clustering algorithm, sparse density peaks, for large-scale sparse data. It pre-processes the input points to compute annotations and a hierarchy for cluster assignment. While the assignment is only a single scan of the points, a naive pre-processing requires measuring all pairwise distances, which incur a quadratic computation overhead and is infeasible for any moderately sized data. Thus, we propose a new approach based on MinHash and LSH that provides fast and accurate estimations. We also describe an efficient implementation on Spark that addresses data skew and memory usage. Our experiments show that our approach (1) provides a better approximation compared to a straightforward MinHash and LSH implementation in terms of accuracy on real datasets, (2) achieves a 20 × speedup in the end-to-end clustering pipeline, and (3) can maintain computations with a small memory. Finally, we present an interface to explore customer segments from millions of online visitor records in real-time.
Priority assignment in real-time active databases

Active databases and real-time databases have been important areas of research in the recent past. It has been recognized that many benefits can be gained by integrating real-time and active database technologies. However, not much work has been done in the area of transaction processing in real-time active databases. This paper deals with an important aspect of transaction processing in real-time active databases, namely the problem of assigning priorities to transactions. In these systems, time-constrained transactions trigger other transactions during their execution. We present three policies for assigning priorities to parent, immediate and deferred transactions executing on a multiprocessor system and then evaluate the policies through simulation. The policies use different amounts of semantic information about transactions to assign the priorities. The simulator has been validated against the results of earlier published studies. We conducted experiments in three settings: a task setting, a main memory database setting and a disk-resident database setting. Our results demonstrate that dynamically changing the priorities of transactions, depending on their behavior (triggering rules), yields a substantial improvement in the number of triggering transactions that meet their deadline in all three settings.
Electroconductive Nanobiomaterials for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

Regenerative medicine aims to engineer tissue constructs that can recapitulate the functional and structural properties of native organs. Most novel regenerative therapies are based on the recreation of a three-dimensional environment that can provide essential guidance for cell organization, survival, and function, which leads to adequate tissue growth. The primary motivation in the use of conductive nanomaterials in tissue engineering has been to develop biomimetic scaffolds to recapitulate the electrical properties of the natural extracellular matrix, something often overlooked in numerous tissue engineering materials to date. In this review article, we focus on the use of electroconductive nanobiomaterials for different biomedical applications, particularly, very recent advancements for cardiovascular, neural, bone, and muscle tissue regeneration. Moreover, this review highlights how electroconductive nanobiomaterials can facilitate cell to cell crosstalk (i.e., for cell growth, migration, proliferation, and differentiation) in different tissues. Thoughts on what the field needs for future growth are also provided.
Influence of mineralogical and chemical compositions on alkali-silica-reaction of Tennessee limestones

Abstract The paper aims to identify potential correlations between mineralogical and chemical compositions of AAR reactive dolomitic limestone aggregates from Tennessee and their expansion on ASTM C1293 for quick evaluation of reactivity. The chemical compositions of 26 limestones, namely the silica content (SiO2), showed a strong correlation with the expansion in the concrete prism test. The early and highly expansive limestones are characterized by a high clay/ mica content (>5%). The reactivity of Tennessee limestones is mainly caused by crypto/microcrystalline quartz, chert, and finely disseminated silica in carbonate and clay/mica matrices, and it can be reasonably evaluated using X-ray diffraction and chemical analysis coupled with petrographic examinations.
A Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach to Improving District Attendance Policy:

Collaborative problem-solving research approaches have the potential to support improvement in educational policy and practice beyond instruction, by facilitating the development of a shared unders...
Sheehan Syndrome Leading to Acute Systolic and Diastolic Heart Failure: A Case Report

Introduction Endocrinopathies involving the pituitary gland, thyroid gland, parathyroid glands, or adrenal glands cause reversible cardiomyopathies. Sheehan's syndrome, a rare post-partum cause of multiple simultaneous endocrinopathies, leading to cardiomyopathy is rare. We present a young woman with newly diagnosed Sheehan Syndrome, untreated for 6 years, leading to profound combined systolic and diastolic heart failure. Case Report A 28-year-old woman presented with history of hypothyroidism presented with weakness, cold intolerance, nausea, and vomiting. She was found to have hypotension, hypoglycemia, and hypothermia. Her AM cortisol and ACTH were low, concerning for a non-primary adrenal insufficiency. She noted that after her last pregnancy 6 years prior, she had amenorrhea, hair loss, fatigue, and facial swelling. She denied a history of post-partum hemorrhage or severe blood loss. But, an MRI of her brain showed she had flattening of her anterior pituitary, consistent with a partially empty sella. Records showed that she was first diagnosed combined systolic and diastolic heart failure (with an ejection fraction of 25%) of unknown origin 2 years prior. Another transthoracic echocardiogram was ordered, and revealed severe combined systolic and diastolic cardiomyopathy with an ejection fraction of 10%. Her heart failure was attributed to her panhypopituitarism. She was treated with hydrocortisone and levothyroxine for hormone replacement. She was treated with diuretics, digoxin, and an ACE inhibitor for her heart failure. Summary Panhypopituitarism leading to heart failure is rare. In panhypopituitarism, cardiac abnormalities have been attributed to growth hormone deficiency, hypothyroidism, and corticosteroid deficiency. In hypocortisolism, the pathophysiology is not completely understood and LV dysfunction rarely occurs. Hypothyroidism, most notably from the deficiency in T3, results in bradycardia, decreased myocardial contractility, and increased systemic peripheral resistance. Improvement of cardiac function has been noted with treatment of these deficiencies. Increased awareness that Sheehan's syndrome may lead to dilated cardiomyopathy can lead to increased diagnosis and treatment of this reversible cardiomyopathy.
Quantitative mapping of mRNA 3′ ends in Pseudomonas aeruginosa reveals a pervasive role for premature 3′ end formation in response to azithromycin

P. aeruginosa produces serious chronic infections in hospitalized patients and immunocompromised individuals, including cystic fibrosis patients. The molecular mechanisms by which P. aeruginosa responds to antibiotics and other stresses to promote persistent infections may provide new avenues for therapeutic intervention. Azithromycin (AZM), an antibiotic frequently used in cystic fibrosis treatment, is thought to improve clinical outcomes through a number of mechanisms including impaired biofilm growth and QS. The mechanisms underlying the transcriptional response to AZM remain unclear. Here, we interrogated the P. aeruginosa transcriptional response to AZM using an improved genome-wide approach to quantitate RNA 3′-ends (3pMap). We also identified hundreds of P. aeruginosa genes subject to premature transcription termination in their transcript leaders using 3pMap. AZM treatment of planktonic and biofilm cultures alters the expression of hundreds of genes, including those involved in QS, biofilm formation, and virulence. Strikingly, most genes downregulated by AZM in biofilms had increased levels of intragenic 3′-ends indicating premature transcription termination or pausing. Reciprocally, AZM reduced premature transcription termination in many upregulated genes. Most notably, reduced termination accompanied robust induction of obgE, a GTPase involved in persister formation in P. aeruginosa. Our results support a model in which AZM-induced changes in 3′ end formation alter the expression of central regulators which in turn impairs the expression of QS, biofilm formation and stress response genes, while upregulating genes associated with persistence.
Five-star rating system for acceptable quality and dose in CT.

• Recent papers have shown examples of the methodology involved in integrating image quality with radiation dose and assessing acceptable quality dose (AQD). • As a further step in that direction, translating a 5-point score into a 5-star rating shall be helpful for wider and uniform application and shall be in line with the popular use of the 5-star rating.
The impact of time duration between trades on the price of treasury note futures contracts

Recent research in finance has indicated that the institutional structure in which financial asset prices are determined can have a nontrivial impact on pricing. This report examines transaction level data for Treasury Note futures contracts traded at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) to identify institutional, or market microstructure, impacts on the pricing of these contracts. Relatively few articles have conducted empirical research on the microstructure of U.S. futures trading due to the limited availability of comprehensive transaction level data from the futures exchanges. This report uses the CBOT's Computerized Trade Reconstruction database, a comprehensive transaction level dataset, to identify the price impact of the time duration between trades in a manner analogous to that of A. Dufour and R. F. Engle (2000). Unique differences from prior research include the application to futures contracts with their relative higher frequency of trading, as well as the investigation of the price impact of the number of active traders present on the trading floor and the trading volume. Subsequent price and sign of trade significantly relate to the time duration between trades, the number of floor brokers, and the trading volume. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl. Fut Mark 24:965–980, 2004
A risk-based approach to forecasting component obsolescence

Abstract Prediction of electronic component obsolescence is a critical aspect of managing diminishing manufacturing sources and materials shortages (DMSMS). Systems with intended long operating lifetimes combined with shorter market-driven lifetimes of components therein drive the need for obsolescence management. This work defines and describes a Weibull-based conditional probability method, a risk-based approach to predicting microelectronic component obsolescence. The conditional probability method is used to determine the likelihood of a component becoming obsolete within a specified forecast horizon given that the component is still procurable at the time of analysis. The method is compared to a mean time to failure (MTTF)-based approach with a case study using a ten-year retrospective analysis. The case study demonstrates the viability of the conditional probability method and shows overall improved accuracy especially for more recent analysis periods. A risk-based approach also better enables component-to-component comparison which can help prioritize DMSMS efforts.
Pilot Evaluations of Two Bluetooth Contact Tracing Approaches on a University Campus: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: Many have proposed the use of Bluetooth technology to help scale up contact tracing for COVID-19. However, much remains unknown about the accuracy of this technology in real-world settings, the attitudes of potential users, and the differences between delivery formats (mobile app vs carriable or wearable devices). Objective: We pilot tested 2 separate Bluetooth contact tracing technologies on a university campus to evaluate their sensitivity and specificity, and to learn from the experiences of the participants. Methods: We used a convergent mixed methods study design, and participants included graduate students and researchers working on a university campus during June and July 2020. We conducted separate 2-week pilot studies for each Bluetooth technology. The first was for a mobile phone app (“app pilot”), and the second was for a small electronic “tag” (“tag pilot”). Participants validated a list of Bluetooth-identified contacts daily and reported additional close contacts not identified by Bluetooth. We used these data to estimate sensitivity and specificity. Participants completed a postparticipation survey regarding appropriateness, usability, acceptability, and adherence, and provided additional feedback via free text. We used tests of proportions to evaluate differences in survey responses between participants from each pilot, paired t tests to measure differences between compatible survey questions, and qualitative analysis to evaluate the survey’s free-text responses. Results: Among 25 participants in the app pilot, 53 contact interactions were identified by Bluetooth and an additional 61 by self-report. Among 17 participants in the tag pilot, 171 contact interactions were identified by Bluetooth and an additional 4 by self-report. The tag had significantly higher sensitivity compared with the app (46/49, 94% vs 35/61, 57%; P<.001), as well as higher specificity (120/126, 95% vs 123/141, 87%; P=.02). Most participants felt that Bluetooth contact tracing was appropriate on campus (26/32, 81%), while significantly fewer participants felt that using other technologies, such as GPS or Wi-Fi, was appropriate (17/31, 55%; P=.02). Most participants preferred technology developed and managed by the university rather than a third party (27/32, 84%) and preferred not to have tracing apps on their personal phones (21/32, 66%), due to “concerns with privacy.” There were no significant differences in self-reported adherence rates across pilots. Conclusions: Convenient and carriable Bluetooth technology may improve tracing efficiency while alleviating privacy concerns by shifting data collection away from personal devices. With accuracy comparable to, and in this case, superior to, mobile phone apps, such approaches may be suitable for workplace or school settings with the ability to purchase and maintain physical devices.
Use of Protein Coatings on Piezoelectric Crystals for Assay of Gaseous Pollutants

Preliminary studies utilizing biological substrates, such as enzymes and antibodies, as coatings for a piezoelectric crystal detector have proven successful. Immobilization of Cholinesterase and parathion antibodies allows for the detection of organophosphorous pesticides at the ppb level with the cholinesterase coatings exhibiting a more specific response to parathion. Excellent reproducibilities, coating lifetimes, response times and selectivities are observed. This research is the first use of proteins as coatings for the direct assay of gaseous compounds, thus making this method an attractive alternative to some conventional techniques currently in use.
Generating tests from UML specifications

Although most industry testing of complex software is conducted at the system level, most formal research has focused on the unit level. As a result, most system level testing techniques are only described informally. This paper presents a novel technique that adapts pre-defined state-based specification test data generation criteria to generate test cases from UML statecharts. UML statecharts provide a solid basis for test generation in a form that can be easily manipulated. This technique includes coverage criteria that enable highly effective tests to be developed. To demonstrate this technique, a tool has been developed that uses UML statecharts produced by Rational Software Corporation's Rational Rose tool to generate test data. Experimental results from using this tool are presented.
Consumer Aspects of International Marketing

The emergence of global consumption patterns and the complexity involved in dealing with the still remaining national differences attest to the importance of consumer research in international marketing. When considering the relevant conceptual and theoretical perspectives, the emic-etic juxtaposition should be carefully assessed in order to ensure the validity of subsequent findings and their relevance to corporate strategy. At the same time, when thinking about the practical aspects of assessing and satisfying consumer needs across the globe, issues such as the appropriate operationalization of constructs and the achievement of measurement equivalence across multinational samples should be at the center of international marketing research. Finally, the extensive literature on topics such as consumer ethnocentrism/cosmopolitanism, the country-of-origin effect, and global branding is informative to both academics and practitioners in suggesting that, despite local specifics, the global consumers' behavior is governed by universal psychological processes and cognitive biases. Keywords: global consumer; global brand; consumer culture; international marketing research
A vertical dyad linkage approach to leadership within formal organizations: A longitudinal investigation of the role making process

Abstract The use of an alternative to the research strategies employed for the past 20 yrs and more to investigate leadership produced results which question the traditional models and open new avenues for empirical exploration. Approaching leadership as an exchange relationship which develops within the vertical dyad over time during role making activities, this longitudinal study found that the degree of latitude that a superior granted to a member to negotiate his role was predictive of subsequent behavior on the part of both superior and member. Contrary to traditional views of leadership, superiors typically employed both leadership and supervision techniques within their units. With a select subset of their members, superiors developed leadership exchanges (influence without authority), and with others, superiors developed only supervision relationships (influence based primarily upon authority). Some of the many implications of these findings are discussed.
Emergency contraception knowledge among nurse practitioner students

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to ascertain the knowledge level of nurse practitioner (NP) students about emergency contraception (EC) and to explore attitudes about EC that may intersect with willingness to prescribe EC. DATA SOURCES: Four hundred and sixty-seven NP students completed a 30-item web-based survey using Vovici survey software. CONCLUSIONS: Students who reported formal content on EC in their program of study showed significantly better mean knowledge scores (t= 5.279 df = 459 p < .001). Gaps in NP students knowledge of EC mechanisms of action understanding of indications and contraindications were apparent. Younger students (F(3457) = 4.994 p < .002) those newer to nursing (F(4456) = 6.641 p < .0005) and womens health NP students (F(4445) = 3.488 p < .008) demonstrated significantly better knowledge. Attitudes regarding EC appeared to be tied to the respondents knowledge about EC. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Knowledge is an important factor in informing NP practice decisions. Clinicians need accurate evidence-based knowledge to provide health education and counseling to reproductive age women if unintended pregnancies are to be reduced. (c)2012 The Author(s) Journal compilation (c)2012 American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.
Analytical Characterization of Two-Step Braided Composites:

The fabric geometric models based on lamination analogy and stiffness averaging method are utilized to numerically characterize a 2-step braided composite. The model predictions were found to be in good agreement with results of mechanical tests performed in this study. The architecture of this material is investigated by identifying the geometric and braiding process parameters which include the linear density ratio between axial and braider yarns, the pitch length of braider yarn, the aspect ratio of axial yarn, and the aspect ratio of braider yarn. Parametric study showed a wide range of variability in the elastic constants of the composites. Results of the elastic properties are presented in the form of performance maps.
Testing for trends when there are changes in methods

Data from monitoring projects often include sampling or analytical changes that preclude trend analysis on the entire period of record. A modification of the nonparametric Kendall's test for monotonic trends, which accounts for such changes in the period of record, is described here. This approach blocks the data so that only data collected or analyzed under similar circumstances are compared. Alternatively, when appropriate data exist, data collected using the old method may be calibrated to values expected from the new method. Traditional trend tests may then be applied to resulting data sets. Results from simulations assessing both the power of the blocked test and the standard test performed on calibrated data are presented. The power of the blocked test exceeded the power of the calibration approach only when the calibration error was extremely large. Both the blocking and calibration approaches were applied to and compared for chemical data from Vermont lakes.
Synthesis and antiviral activity of 7-benzyl-4-hydroxy-1,5-naphthyridin-2(1H)-one HIV integrase inhibitors.

The medicinal chemistry and structure−activity relationships for a novel series of 7-benzyl-4-hydroxy-1,5-naphthyridin-2(1H)-one HIV-integrase inhibitors are disclosed. Substituent effects were evaluated at the N-1, C-3, and 7-benzyl positions of the naphthyridinone ring system. Low nanomolar IC50 values were achieved in an HIV-integrase strand transfer assay with both carboxylic ester and carboxamide groups at C-3. More importantly, several carboxamide congeners showed potent antiviral activity in cellular assays. A 7-benzyl substituent was found to be critical for potent enzyme inhibition, and an N-(2-methoxyethyl)carboxamide moiety at C-3 significantly reduced plasma protein binding effects in vitro. Pharmacokinetic data in rats for one carboxamide analogue demonstrated oral bioavailability and reasonable in vivo clearance.
Interpolation by analytic functions of bounded growth

In this paper we examine those sequences in a complex domain on which arbitrarily assigned values can be assumed by functions which are meromorphic or holomorphic in a certain domain and satisfy growth conditions. In §2 we discuss interpolation by meromorphic functions and obtain exact conditions for interpolation by functions of bounded characteristic in the unit disk and for interpolation by meromorphic functions of bounded order in the plane. In § 3 we consider interpolation by entire funztions and obtain bounds on the interpolating function in terms of the sequence of points and the sequence of values. Finally, in § 4, we obtain a necessary and sufficient cordition on a sequence so that all values whose growth rate is compatible with interpolation by entire functions of order ~< ~ can be so interpolated. The result is completely analogous to CARLESON'S theorem ([1], p. 196) for interpolation by bounded functions in the unit disk. Since the functions of order ~< ~o do not form a 13anach space the method of proof is different, though the arguments are simpler. Throughout the paper we use e for any arbitrarily small positive number and c for any sufficiently large constant, which may depend on the e in the expression (if any) but not on any other variables.
Effect of suspension and sedimentation on the amount of microbial colonization of salt marsh microdetritus

The relative density of bacterial colonization of small (5 to 40 μ diameter) suspended and sedimented detritus particles in salt marsh creeks was studied using an europium chelate-fluorescent brightener stain coupled with epifluorescent microscopy. Particles were obtained from four substations at each of three sites in salt marshes bordering the York River, Virginia. Coverage of detrital particles by bacteria was uniformly low, averaging 1.54%±1.83% of the particle surface area. Suspended particles larger than 10 μ diameter had lower bacterial densities than did sedimented particles in the same size ranges. It is speculated that microbial growth may be enhanced on sedimented particles both through lack of motion and access to greater nutrient concentrations.