cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Who Violates The Principles of Political Liberalism?: Religion, Restraint, and the Decision to Reject Same-Sex Marriage

Recent debates in political theory have seen political liberals advocate and defend a doctrine of restraint, according to which citizens may not rely solely on religious reasons when supporting their favored public policies. This debate notwithstanding, very rarely have social scientists assessed the extent to which citizens actually violate this doctrine. This article evaluates the “political decision-making” model of political liberalism. Data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults are used to test this model for legalization of same-sex marriage. Our analyses show that while only a very small percentage of U.S. support this policy solely on the basis of their religious convictions, roughly a quarter oppose it for religious reasons alone. Furthermore, we find that higher levels of religious service attendance and importance of religious faith as well as affiliation with evangelical and black Protestantism significantly increase the likelihood of same-sex marriage opposition entirely on religious grounds.
Analysis on monitoring measles antibody levels among healthy population in Xi'an city in 2009

Objective: To know the measles antibody levels among healthy population in Xi'an city and to evaluate the immunization status of measles vaccine,then to provide scientific basis for making immunization strategies and preventive measures. Methods:In 2009,according 7 kinds of age group,860 healthy persons ranged from 0 to 40 years old were selected by stratified random sampling method from 3 districts in Xi'an city. ELISA method was adopted to test measles antibody levels. Results: Among 860 healthy persons there were 843 persons having positive antibody( the positive rate was 98. 02%). The measles antibody GMC was 4 837. 19 U / ml.The antibody levels of 718 persons reached to the protective level( the protective rate was 83. 19%). There was significant difference among all age groups in the positive rates and the protective rates( χ2= 18. 057,P = 0. 006; χ2= 30. 510,P 0. 001). Compared to the immunized age groups,the population who were lower than 1 year old and who were more than 15 years old had the lower positive rate. Conclusion: The healthy population in Xi'an city has a high measles antibody level and basically formed the immunological barrier to prevent measles,which can make a positive effect on controlling measles. Measles vaccine supplementary immunization should be conducted for the key groups.
Improving API usability

Human-centered design can make application programming interfaces easier for developers to use.
Alternatives for Future Urban Land Policy

Given the land use situation in the United States, what are the policy alternatives facing the nation? Substantial parts of our population are disadvantaged by the land use policy that has emerged over the past several decades, primarily from the independent action of hundreds of local planning and zoning bodies. The various minority groups that have been effectively excluded from living in new housing in suburbs are naturally unhappy over their situation and strive to do something about it. But other sectors of the total electorate are also unhappy about the situation, and they, too, seek to do something about it. Land use measures are not solely responsible for the discrimination that exists or for the generally disadvantaged position of racial and ethnic minorities and the poor. Reform of land use planning and zoning alone will not cure the unsatisfactory conditions.
TU-FG-204-01: An Overview of ACR, Joint Commission, and the AAPM Practice Guidelines On CT Protocol Optimization.

The role of a medical physicist involved with clinical CT activities is changing rapidly. No longer is the physicist responsible for simply ensuring scanner QA. This shift is evident by looking at the trend to regulate more and more aspects of what activities must be performed to keep a CT practice within compliance. In this symposium, new guidelines from the ACR, Joint Commission, and several states will be addressed. An overview of these regulations will be provided. Then, three speakers will provide an in-depth account of how their CT protocol Optimization team functions. Lastly, a representative from the Joint Commission will provide recent surveyor education, experience, and trend information. Learning Objectives: 1.Understand the ACR, Joint Commission, and aspects of several state regulations/guidelines related to the clinical practice of CT. 2.Learn how a CT protocol optimization is organized and what tasks physicists perform from the perspective of four different institutions. T. Szczykutowicz, TPS provides CT protocols to GE Healthcare under a license agreement. TPS receives grant support from GE Healthcare.
Color Discriminating Pigments in Halobacterium halobium

As in the world of higher organisms, light is a key carrier of information in the microbial world, guiding the motion of single-celled prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. The archaebacterial species Halobacterium halobium uses chromoproteins chemically similar to our visual pigments (rhodopsins) to sense light and to distinguish its color (Spudich and Bogomolni, 1988). The purpose of this chapter is to review briefly progress on the molecular properties of the bacterial sensory rhodopsins since the first of these pigments (sensory rhodopsin I (SR-I)) came to light in 1982, and to present some recent work from our laboratory.
Impact of chronic disease on emotional distress in adult survivors of childhood cancer: A report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study

BACKGROUND The current study was performed to examine associations between childhood cancer therapies, chronic health conditions, and symptoms of emotional distress in adult survivors of childhood cancer. METHODS Participants included 5021 adult survivors of childhood cancer (mean age, 32.0 years [standard deviation, 7.6 years] with a time since diagnosis of 23.2 years [standard deviation, 4.5 years]) who completed measures assessing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress. Cardiac, pulmonary, and endocrine conditions were graded using the National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (version 4.03; grades 1-4). Structural equation modeling was used to examine hypothesized pathways between cancer treatment exposures, chronic health conditions, and symptoms of emotional distress. Multivariable models were used to estimate relative risks (RRs) for associations between chronic health conditions and distress. RESULTS Survivors with cardiovascular, endocrine, or pulmonary conditions were found to have a significantly higher prevalence of emotional distress symptoms. In path analyses and multivariable models, significant effects were observed between endocrine (β = .12 [P = .002] and RR, 1.3 [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.1-1.6]) and pulmonary (β = .13 [P<.001] and RR, 1.4 [95% CI, 1.1-1.7]) conditions and depression, and between cardiac (β = .13 [P = .001] and RR, 1.5 [95% CI, 1.2-1.8]) and pulmonary (β = .15 [P<.001] and RR, 1.6 [95% CI, 1.3-2.0]) conditions and anxiety. All treatment-related chronic health conditions were found to be associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms (cardiac: β = .09 [P = .004] and RR, 1.3 [95% CI, 1.2-1.5]; endocrine: β = .12 [P<.001] and RR, 1.3 [95% CI, 1.2-1.5]; and pulmonary: β = .13 [P<.001] and RR, 1.4 [95% CI, 1.2-1.6]). CONCLUSIONS Chronic health conditions resulting from childhood cancer therapies contribute to emotional distress in adult survivors. Targeted mental health screening efforts in this at-risk population appear warranted. Therapeutic approaches should consider the complex interplay between chronic health conditions and symptoms of emotional distress. Cancer 2016. © 2016 American Cancer Society.
Photodiode and inteference filter calibration using a monochromatic illumination and cryogenic calibration system

The SNAP mission will conduct a systematic error limited survey of Type Ia supernovae to measure dark energy in the universe. The final accuracy of the dark energy parameters will depend upon the calibration of the flight instrumentation. To perform ground-based characterizations of SNAP calibration hardware, we have built the Monochromatic Illumination and Cryogenic Calibration System (MICCS). There are two immediate purposes for MICCS. The first purpose is to transfer the NIST irradiance calibration of Si and InGaAs photodiodes to additional photodiodes that are operated at the nominal SNAP focal plane temperature of 140 K. These photodiodes will be used by detector characterization laboratories to measure the quantum efficiency of the SNAP flight detectors. The second purpose of MICCS is to characterize the transmission of interference filters at incident angles and temperature similar to that used on the SNAP focal plane. We examine periodic transmission variations in a set of commercial filters and develop an interpolation method to determine the filter bandpass at any angle relevant to the SNAP focal plane.
A framework of real-time seabottom target detection using acoustic sensors on AUVs

The use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) for Mine Counter Measures (MCM) is an area of active recent research. The excellent mobility of AUV creates allows for multi-aspect sonar view of the targets for improved detection, tracking and classification. However, the capacity of underwater communication limits the amount of online data transferring. Therefore, human aided detection by images, which usually needs enormous amount data collected by high resolution sonar systems, is not feasible to online applications. A new acoustic sensing framework is proposed for detection and tracking seabottom targets based on the Track-Before-Detect (TBD) technique. In contrast to the traditional methods, the new framework uses low frequency sensors on AUVs to fully characterize the seabottom targets. There are several advantages by using this framework: 1) compared to the traditional method of using sidescan image sonars, online detection is achieved by the lower frequency sensors and thus the comparatively small amount of data makes the onboard implementation feasible. 2) Without mosaicing the high resolution images by image registry methods, the TBD overcomes the navigation uncertainty and be able to localize the targets simultaneously in the fly. 3) Without losing sufficient acoustic information of targets, the low frequency sensors can fully characterize targets in interests, especially for the buried targets, and thus, help in declaring the detection intelligently. Results of a successful application of this method in the GOATS2002 experiment are demonstrated
Construction of the 16-meter large lunar telescope

A 16-m telescope which NASA is proposing building on the moon surface for extraterrestrial observations is discussed. The telescope operates in the UV/visible/IR ranges of the light spectrum and is capable of detecting planets the size of the earth which are many light years away. Results are presented of a study conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center to identify different design options for a pedestal to support the primary structure which supports the primary and secondary mirrors. Different foundation systems that can be used to anchor the telescope to the lunar surface are considered. Problems associated with constructing the telescope on the lunar surface are identified, solutions to these problems are suggested using presently available technologies, and new technologies are proposed.
Managing Patient’s Medications (Diabetes, Beta Blockers, NSAIDs, Anticoagulants)

Most patients undergoing surgery take medications on a daily basis. As our population ages, the number of patients on more than one chronic medication is increasing. Most of these medications are being taken for chronic medical populations, including hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, and diabetes. Oftentimes, surgeons and internists need to decide which medications should be continued in the perioperative period and which medications should be discontinued. Within the literature, there is little outcome data about the vast majority of medications patients take in the perioperative period. The decision to continue or discontinue a medication is also often determined by the conflicting concerns of surgeons, anesthesiologists, and internists. Therefore, there are varied management strategies due to lack of medical evidence. This chapter will focus on some of the most common medications. The recommendations are based on expert opinion and meta-analyses.
Restructuring Schools through Empowerment: Facilitating the Process:

School restructuring through participant empowerment has gained national attention. One restructuring effort, The Empowered School District Project, is a three-year endeavor to facilitate the creat...
Producing Victimhood: Landmines, Reparations, and Law in Colombia

This research theorizes Colombia's 2011 Victims’ and Land Restitution Law (the Victims’ Law) as a biopolitical program that intends to foster the lives of conflict-affected populations through providing an array of reparation measures. Based on fieldwork with internally displaced landmine victims in Colombia's Magdalena Medio region, I highlight how the Victims’ Law constitutes the identity of which populations count as “victims” worthy of reparations, how such parameters are contested, and how landmine survivors’ sense of themselves as “victims” is mediated via their experiences with the Victims’ Law and the reparation programs it provides. In particular, I highlight the possibilities and limitations of reparation measures that hinge on small-scale business incubation programs for landmine victims to show how a legally recognized victimhood category presupposes “self-responsible” neoliberal subjects who must confront contexts of conflict and state neglect.
Meta-Analysis of Sulfonylurea Therapy on Long-Term Risk of Mortality and Cardiovascular Events Compared to Other Oral Glucose-Lowering Treatments.

Among the most pressing clinical decisions in type 2 diabetes treatments are which drugs should be used after metformin is no longer sufficient, and whether sulfonylureas (SUs) should remain as a suitable second-line treatment. In this article we summarize current evidence on the long-term safety risks associated with SU therapy relative to other oral glucose-lowering therapies. The MEDLINE database and Clinicaltrials.gov were searched for observational and experimental studies comparing the safety of SUs to that of other diabetes medications in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus through December 15, 2015. Studies with at least 1 year of follow-up, which explicitly examined major cardiovascular events or death in patients who showed no evidence of serious conditions at baseline, were selected for inclusion in meta-analyses. SU treatment was associated with an elevated risk relative to treatment with metformin (METF), thiazolidinedione (TZD), dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor (DPP-4), and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist classes, either when compared alone (as a monotherapy) or when used in combination with METF. Significant findings were almost entirely derived from nontrial data and not confirmed by smaller, efficacy designed randomized controlled trials whose effects were in the same direction but much more imprecise. Although much of the evidence is derived and will continue to come from observational studies, the methodological rigor of such studies is questionable. A key challenge for evaluators is the extent to which they should incorporate evidence from study designs that are quasi-experimental.
Building Common Language, Experiences, and Learning Spaces with Lower-Track Science Students

Lower-track science classrooms have attracted a variety of prescriptive measures from assessment-driven content delivery to remediation. Given the student population is typically marginalized from the school culture in ways that transcend issues of content delivery or retention, it is not surprising that attempts to employ iterations of transmissional pedagogy fail. If teachers are to be successful in reengaging science students with histories of failure, certain shared social, emotional, and cultural connections must be established as mutual attributes of the science learning context. We employ a Bakhtinian framework to explore how teachers of lower-track students may participate in the co-construction of scientific knowledge in ways that mutually enrich science learning spaces for both parties. We discuss ways that teachers’ and students’ notions of self operate to change the representation of science and, subsequently, the process of learning.
A Study Comparing Traditional and Hybrid Internet-Based Instruction in Introductory Statistics Classes

Advances in technology coupled with increasing student enrollment numbers have led some universities to begin offering on-line classes. This paper discusses a study comparing a traditional offering...
Structural phase transformations and high-T/sub c/ superconductivity

There is an intimate if imprecisely understood connection between high Tc superconductivity and crystal structure instability. Most of the highest Tc superconductors (Tc ≈20K) discovered in the past 20 years have the so-called A15-type structure, which is marginally stable in the sense that many of the A15 compounds spontaneously distort at low temperatures into a lower symmetry structure. These distortions are driven by unstable low frequency phonon modes. It is believed that these “soft” phonon modes enhance the attractive interaction between electrons and thus tend to increase Tc. On the other hand (the argument goes) phase transformation which lower the symmetry introduce structural gaps at the Fermi surface of metals which compete with superconductivity and tend to decrease Tc.
What Is Inverse Performance Theory

Inverse Performance Theory is the study of the reconstruction of the performance process from a given performance. This is a completely natural situation, since we usually perceive music as listeners and have to imagine what the performance could express, what it conveys in its complex signification process.
Vibrational States and Nitrile Lifetimes of Cyanophenylalanine Isotopomers in Solution.

Nitrile lifetimes and the structure of the vibrational state space of four isotopomers of cyanophenylalanine in solution are calculated. While the frequency of the nitrile of the four isotopomers decreases in the order 12C14N, 12C15N, 13C14N, and 13C15N, the lifetime varies nonmonotonically with the change in frequency. The vibrational properties of the molecules that control the lifetime are examined. The specific resonances that contribute to the lifetime are tuned by isotopic substitution, and the magnitudes of the anharmonic constants involved in the coupling of vibrations that mediate the lifetime of the nitrile vary with CN mass. The nature of the modes coupled to the nitrile varies, as the frequency of the nitrile changes with isotopic substitution. For some CN frequencies the modes coupled to the CN are rather localized to the ring, while at other frequencies the modes coupled to the CN are more delocalized. Comparison of the calculated frequencies and lifetimes with recent experimental measuremen...
Accuracy Enhancement of Doppler Radar-Based Heartbeat Rate Detection Using Chest-Wall Acceleration

The theoretical and experimental study of a new noncontact heartbeat signal processing technique using a continuous-wave 2.4-GHz Doppler radar is presented in this paper. This system can detect the human heartbeat rate at 1m away from the human body. Experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed approach. The recorded data from ten healthy human subjects show an average heartbeat rate detection accuracy of more than 95% when compared with reference electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings. A theoretical analysis is also provided to support the proposed method and demonstrate that by exploiting the second derivative of the received signal which corresponds to the chest wall acceleration, the detection rate can be significantly increased. The proposed technique is robust and simple, and measurement results indicate its potential for being used for the development of reliable non-contact heartbeat rate monitoring systems.
Investigational drugs in phase II clinical trials for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis - potential new treatments on the horizon.

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Psoriasis is a common immune disorder for which there are many FDA-approved therapies. Older oral drugs had limited efficacy and considerable side effects. Biologics have been a major advance but require self-administered injections, and many patients prefer oral options. Because many patients fear needles, oral drugs are a welcome option. This review provides an update on oral drugs in Phase II development for psoriasis.Areas covered: A literature review was performed to identify these drugs by using search terms such as ‘psoriasis’, ‘agents’, ‘drugs’, and ‘phase 2 development’. Baricitinib and KDO 25 are the oral drugs that appear to hold the most promise due to the balance they maintain between efficacy and adverse effects. If a RORγt inhibitor can be identified that has no hepatotoxicity, then that may be the most promising new oral treatment.Expert opinion: Several new oral psoriasis medications are currently being investigated. One major challenge remains medication cost and in...
Abstract # 3145 Rage-associated S100a8/A9 levels associated with circulating proinflammatory cytokines and social well-being in patients with breast cancer over the first 12 months of treatment

Inflammation and social adversity have been linked to poorer long-term outcomes in breast cancer (BCa) patients, whereas greater social and family well-being (sfwb) relates to less inflammation and longer disease-free interval in BCa. S100A8A9 is a RAGE-related ligand that can up-regulate inflammatory and pro-metastatic processes and has been associated with increased risk of BCa metastasis. Here we examined associations between sfwb, s100A8A9 levels, and pro-inflammatory cytokines in 50 (M age = 53.65) distressed BCa patients in the weeks post-surgery (T1) and at 12-months (T2). Regression analyses controlling for age and disease stage showed lower S100A8A9 levels related to greater FACTsfwb at T1 ( β = -.353, p = .001) and T2 ( β = -.398, p =.01). S100A8A9 significantly related to T1 levels of IL6 ( β =.412, p = .008) and IL1 β ( β =.588, p = .001), and T2 levels of IL6 ( β =.486, p = .001) and IL-1 β ( β =.548, p = .001). Additionally, 12-month change in S100A8A9 was significantly related to 12-month change in IL6 ( β =.279, p = .001) and IL1 β ( β = .164, p =.001). These findings demonstrate that greater social and family well-being during BCa primary treatment is associated with lower levels of upstream and downstream inflammatory markers and point to the potential value of psychosocial interventions that target enhancement of social and family well-being during this time. .
The ‘Partnership’ Hoax: How the British Government Deprived Central Africans of their Rights

British governments connived with Rhodesian settlers to transform their ‘protected’ Central African wards into junior ‘partners’ of whites in an attempt to solve a series of Africa-wide problems th...
Deep phenotyping of attention impairments and the 'Inattention Biotype' in Major Depressive Disorder.

Background Attention impairment is an under-investigated feature and diagnostic criterion of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) that is associated with poorer outcomes. Despite increasing knowledge regarding mechanisms of attention in healthy adults, we lack a detailed characterization of attention impairments and their neural signatures in MDD. Methods Here, we focus on selective attention and advance a deep multi-modal characterization of these impairments in MDD, using data acquired from n = 1008 patients and n = 336 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Selective attention impairments were operationalized and anchored in a behavioral performance measure, assessed within a battery of cognitive tests. We sought to establish the accompanying neural signature using independent measures of functional magnetic resonance imaging (15% of the sample) and electroencephalographic recordings of oscillatory neural activity. Results Greater impairment on the behavioral measure of selective attention was associated with intrinsic hypo-connectivity of the fronto-parietal attention network. Not only was this relationship specific to the fronto-parietal network unlike other large-scale networks; this hypo-connectivity was also specific to selective attention performance unlike other measures of cognition. Selective attention impairment was also associated with lower posterior alpha (8–13 Hz) power at rest and was related to more severe negative bias (frequent misidentifications of neutral faces as sad and lingering attention on sad faces), relevant to clinical features of negative attributions and brooding. Selective attention impairments were independent of overall depression severity and of worrying or sleep problems. Conclusions These results provide a foundation for the clinical translational development of objective markers and targeted therapeutics for attention impairment in MDD.
Bi-Objective Routing for Robotic Irrigation and Sampling in Vineyards

Motivated by the use of robots in implementing new systems for precision irrigation, in this paper we consider a routing problem where the robot is tasked with collecting two unrelated rewards at once. While operating under a budget constraint limiting the number of locations it can visit, the robot needs to decide which locations to visit, to adjust water emitters and collect soil moisture samples to improve the inference model used to estimate soil water content. This problem can be cast as an instance of multi-objective orienteering, a computationally hard problem scarcely studied in the past. Building upon the heuristic solutions we recently developed for the single objective orienteering Problem, in this paper we develop and compare various solutions for the case involving two distinct but concurrent objective functions. The goal is to develop algorithms that are both efficient and easy to tune for a non-expert human user. Extensive simulations informed by our field experience show the effectiveness of the proposed solutions.
Testing General Versus Specific Behavioral Focus in Messaging for the Promotion of Sun Protection Behaviors

Background Recommendations for skin cancer prevention include behaviors such as using sunscreen, seeking shade, and wearing a shirt with sleeves, but the best way to persuasively communicate this information to the public is not clear. Purpose To test whether a messaging strategy using videos that focus on one specific behavior at a time versus a more general or multibehavior sun protection message is effective at changing attitudinal beliefs and intention with regard to sun protection behaviors. Methods Online experiment among non-Hispanic white 18-49 year old adults in the USA. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, each one with health messages on a different sun protection prevention behavior: "using sunscreen" (Condition 1, n = 259), "seeking shade" (Condition 2, n = 245), or "covering up" (Condition 3, n = 289). Condition 4 (the control, n = 251) is a multibehavior message that equally promotes sunscreen, seeking shade, and covering up and features a general message on sun safety. Results ANOVA and path analysis results suggest that messages which emphasize a single sun protection behavior compared with general sun safety messaging could potentially be a promising approach. The effectiveness of the videos in influencing attitudinal beliefs varied by behavior, with some gender and age moderation. There was an indirect effect on intention to use sunscreen. Conclusions This study advances our understanding of strategies for skin cancer prevention campaigns. Specifically, it suggests that focusing on a single sun protection behavior with targeted beliefs may be valuable as a first step in encouraging sun safety.
Host lipid alterations afterMacrophomina phaseolinainfection contribute to charcoal rot disease susceptibility in grain sorghum: Evidence from transcriptomic and lipidomic data

Lipids are involved in central metabolic processes and confer basic configuration to cellular and subcellular membranes. Lipids also play a role in determining the outcome of plant-pathogen interactions. Lipid based links that delineate either host resistance or susceptibility against necrotrophic microorganisms are poorly investigated and described. Macrophomina phaseolina (MP) is an important necrotrophic fungus which causes diseases in over 500 plant species including charcoal rot in sorghum. We used RNA sequencing and automated direct infusion electrospray ionization-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) to quantitatively profile the transcriptomes and lipidomes of a known charcoal rot resistant (SC599) and susceptible (Tx7000) sorghum genotype in response to MP inoculation. We found that MP is capable of significantly decreasing the phosphatidylserine, phytosterol, and ox-lipid contents in the susceptible genotype while significantly increasing its stigmasterol:sitosterol and monogalactosyldiacylglycerol: digalactosyldiacylglycerol ratios. None of the above was significantly affected in the resistant genotype, except for the significantly increased ox-lipid content. Our transcriptome and functional lipidome findings suggested the lethal impacts of MP inoculation on plastid- and cell- membrane integrity and the lipid based signaling capacity of the charcoal rot susceptible sorghum genotype, Tx7000. Findings also suggested the strong oxidative stress experienced by Tx7000 under MP inoculation and shed light on the potential lipid classes involved in induced charcoal rot disease susceptibility.
Prompting peers’ use of choices to promote communication in children with autism spectrum disorder

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of prompting a preschool student to use choice making with a peer identified with autism spectrum disorder. The researchers used a single case research design. Researchers provided prompting across three thematic play activities. Results show that there was an initial effect in the first activity, which may have resulted in a carry-over effect in the other two activities. While peer-mediated instruction can be an effective method for increasing the dosage of learning opportunities that children with autism spectrum disorder experience in early childhood settings, peers may need more training or ongoing support to sustain their interactions with the child in a meaningful way.
Rethinking the Combined and Individual Orders of Derivative of States for Differential Recurrent Neural Networks: Deep Differential Recurrent Neural Networks

Due to their special gating schemes, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) has shown greater potential to process complex sequential information than the traditional Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The conventional LSTM, however, fails to take into consideration the impact of salient spatio-temporal dynamics present in the sequential input data. This problem was first addressed by the differential Recurrent Neural Network (dRNN), which uses a differential gating scheme known as Derivative of States (DoS). DoS uses higher orders of internal state derivatives to analyze the change in information gain originated from the salient motions between the successive frames. The weighted combination of several orders of DoS is then used to modulate the gates in dRNN. While each individual order of DoS is good at modeling a certain level of salient spatio-temporal sequences, the sum of all the orders of DoS could distort the detected motion patterns. To address this problem, we propose to control the LSTM gates via individual orders of DoS. To fully utilize the different orders of DoS, we further propose to stack multiple levels of LSTM cells in an increasing order of state derivatives. The proposed model progressively builds up the ability of the LSTM gates to detect salient dynamical patterns in deeper stacked layers modeling higher orders of DoS; thus, the proposed LSTM model is termed deep differential Recurrent Neural Network (d2RNN). The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated on three publicly available human activity datasets: NUS-HGA, Violent-Flows, and UCF101. The proposed model outperforms both LSTM and non-LSTM based state-of-the-art algorithms.
Investigating Novices' In Situ Reflections on Their Programming Process

Prior work on novice programmers' self-regulation have shown it to be inconsistent and shallow, but trainable through direct instruction. However, prior work has primarily studied self-regulation retrospectively, which relies on students to remember how they regulated their process, or in laboratory settings, limiting the ecological validity of findings. To address these limitations, we investigated 31 novice programmers' self-regulation in situ over 10 weeks. We had them to keep journals about their work and later had them to reflect on their journaling. Through a series of qualitative analyses of journals and survey responses, we found that all participants monitored their process and evaluated their work, that few interpreted the problems they were solving or adapted prior solutions. We also found that some students self-regulated their programming in many ways, while others in almost none. Students reported many difficulties integrating reflection into their work; some were completely unaware of their process, some struggled to integrate reflection into their process, and others found reflection conflicted with their work. These results suggest that self-regulation during programming is highly variable in practice, and that teaching self-regulation skills to improve programming outcomes may require differentiated instruction based on students self-awareness and existing programming practices.
Investigating Visitor Engagement in Interactive Science Museum Exhibits with Multimodal Bayesian Hierarchical Models

Engagement plays a critical role in visitor learning in museums. Devising computational models of visitor engagement shows significant promise for enabling adaptive support to enhance visitors’ learning experiences and for providing analytic tools for museum educators. A salient feature of science museums is their capacity to attract diverse visitor populations that range broadly in age, interest, prior knowledge, and socio-cultural background, which can significantly affect how visitors interact with museum exhibits. In this paper, we introduce a Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework for predicting learner engagement with Future Worlds, a tabletop science exhibit for environmental sustainability. We utilize multi-channel data (e.g., eye tracking, facial expression, posture, interaction logs) captured from visitor interactions with a fully-instrumented version of Future Worlds to model visitor dwell time with the exhibit in a science museum. We demonstrate that the proposed Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach outperforms competitive baseline techniques. These findings point toward significant opportunities for enriching our understanding of visitor engagement in science museums with multimodal learning analytics.
Artificial intelligence and game theory controlled autonomous UAV swarms

Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) operating as a swarm can be deployed in austere environments, where cyber electromagnetic activities often require speedy and dynamic adjustments to swarm operations. Use of central controllers, uav synchronization mechanisms or pre-planned set of actions to control a swarm in such deployments would hinder its ability to deliver expected services. We introduce artificial intelligence and game theory based flight control algorithms to be run by each autonomous uav to determine its actions in near real-time, while relying only on local spatial, temporal and electromagnetic (em) information. Each uav using our flight control algorithms positions itself such that the swarm maintains mobile ad-hoc network (manet) connectivity and uniform asset distribution over an area of interest. Typical tasks for swarms using our algorithms include detection, localization and tracking of mobile em transmitters. We present a formal analysis showing that our algorithms can guide a swarm to maintain a connected manet, promote a uniform network spreading, while avoiding overcrowding with other swarm members. We also prove that they maintain manet connectivity and, at the same time, they can lead a swarm of autonomous uavs to follow or avoid an em transmitter. Simulation experiments in opnet modeler verify the results of formal analysis that our algorithms are capable of providing an adequate area coverage over a mobile em source and maintain manet connectivity. These algorithms are good candidates for civilian and military applications that require agile responses to the changes in dynamic environments for tasks such as detection, localization and tracking mobile em transmitters.
Hydrogen peroxide diffusion and scavenging shapes mitochondrial network instability and failure by sensitizing ROS-induced ROS release

The mitochondrial network of cardiac cells is finely tuned for ATP delivery to sites of energy demand; however, emergent phenomena, such as mitochondrial transmembrane potential oscillations or propagating waves of depolarization have been observed under metabolic stress. While regenerative signaling by reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced ROS release (RIRR) has been suggested as a potential trigger, it is unknown how it could lead to widespread responses. Here, we present a novel computational model of RIRR transmission that explains the mechanisms of this phenomenon. The results reveal that superoxide mediates neighbor-neighbor activation of energy-dissipating ion channels, while hydrogen peroxide distributes oxidative stress to sensitize the network to mitochondrial criticality. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of RIRR as a synchronizing factor across the dimensions of the adult heart cell and illustrate how a cascade of failures at the organellar level can scale to impact cell and organ level functions of the heart.
Calcium signaling instructs NIPBL recruitment at active enhancers and promoters via distinct mechanisms to reconstruct genome compartmentalization

During developmental progression the genomes of immune cells undergo large-scale changes in chromatin folding. However, insights into signaling pathways and epigenetic control of nuclear architecture remain rudimentary. Here, we found that in activated neutrophils calcium influx rapidly recruited the cohesin-loading factor NIPBL to thousands of active enhancers and promoters to dictate widespread changes in compartment segregation. NIPBL recruitment to enhancers and promoters occurred with distinct kinetics. The induction of NIPBL-binding was coordinate with increased P300, BRG1 and RNA polymerase II occupancy. NIPBL-bound enhancers were associated with NFAT, PU.1, and CEBP cis elements, whereas NIPBL-bound promoters were enriched for GC-rich DNA sequences. Using an acute degradation system, we found that the histone acetyltransferases P300 and CBP maintained H3K27ac abundance and facilitated NIPBL occupancy at enhancers and that active transcriptional elongation is essential to maintain H3K27ac abundance. Chromatin remodelers, containing either of the mutually exclusive BRG1 and BRM ATPases, promoted NIPBL recruitment at active enhancers. Conversely, at active promoters, depletion of BRG1 and BRM showed minimal effect on NIPBL occupancy. Finally, we found that calcium signaling in both primary innate and adaptive immune cells swiftly induced NIPBL occupancy. Collectively, these data reveal how transcriptional regulators, histone acetyltransferases, chromatin remodelers, and transcription elongation promote NIPBL occupancy at active enhancers while the induction of NIPLB occupancy at promoters is primarily associated with GC-rich DNA sequences.
Attention Guided Lymph Node Malignancy Prediction in Head and Neck Cancer.

Purpose Accurate lymph node (LN) malignancy classification is essential for treatment target identification in head and neck cancer (HNC) radiation therapy. Given the constraints imposed by relatively small sample sizes in real-world medical applications, to classify LN malignancy status accurately, we proposed an attention-guided classification (AGC) scheme that (1) incorporates human knowledge (ie, LN contours) into model training to guide model’s “learning” direction, alleviating the critical requirement of large training samples by deep learning approaches; and (2) does not require accurate delineation of LNs in the inference stage but can highlight the discriminative region nearby the LN, which is important for malignancy determination. Methods and Materials In the proposed AGC scheme, there is an attention-guided convolutional neural network (agCNN) module, followed by a classification convolutional neural network (cCNN) module. The input of the proposed AGC scheme is a region of interest (ROI) containing the LN and its surrounding tissues. The agCNN is designed to find the discriminative region in the ROI, which outputs an activation map whose voxel values indicate the importance of the voxels in malignancy prediction. Through multiplying the activation map with the ROI, we obtain the input for the cCNN, which finally outputs the LN malignancy probability. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, we performed experimental studies using positron emission tomography and contrast-enhanced computed tomography from 129 surgical HNC patients, including 791 LNs, with pathologic ground truth of malignancy status. To evaluate the performance, 5-folder cross validation was used. Results The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve values obtained by the proposed AGC scheme were 0.91, 0.93, 0.92, and 0.98, respectively, significantly outperforming conventional convolutional neural network and radiomics approaches at a significance level of .05 under a paired ROC comparison statistical test. Conclusions We developed an AGC scheme that can highlight the discriminative region in an image for LN malignancy prediction, outperforming a conventional radiomics method that requires accurate segmentation and a standard convolutional neural network model without involving segmentation.
The transition from inquiry to evidence to actionable clinical knowledge: A proposed roadmap

Rationale, aims, and objectives We consider the question "What should we do?" in the context of clinical research/practice. There are several steps along the way to providing a satisfactory answer, many of which have received considerable attention in the literature. We aim to provide a unified summary and explication of these "steps along the way". The result will be an increased appreciation for the meaning and structure of "actionable clinical knowledge". Methods We review the literature to identify pertinent works dealing with evidence production and translation into actionable clinical knowledge. We draw from insights in this literature about various aspects of reasoning relevant to clinical questions and integrate these into a unified approach to the processes that lead to actionable clinical knowledge. Results We collect, collate, and integrate some of the work by Bauer, Carper, Goldman, Haack, McHugh and Walker, and Upshur and colleagues and obtain guidelines to aid in the evidence-to-actionable-clinical- knowledge transition. Conclusions Clinical decision-making is not infallible, and the steps we can take to minimize error are context dependent. Medical evidence, produced as it is by human effort, can never be perfect. We will be doing well by assuring that the evidence we use has been produced by a reliable process and is relevant to the question posed.
Abstract 86: Increasing World-Wide Stroke Burden, 2010-2017

Introduction: Although stroke-related mortality decreased over the last 3- decades, there is concern that morbidity and death rates may have increased over recent years. Methods: World-wide data av...
Research Note: Comparing the Gay and Trans Panic Defenses

During the past fifty years, scholars have identified the following four ways that criminal defendants in the United States have used gay and trans panic defenses in murder cases involving victims ...
Patient specific predictive factors of vertebral artery injury following blunt cervical spine trauma.

Abstract Objective Determine patient and injury characteristics predictive of vascular injury (VAI) in blunt cervical spine (BCS) trauma to identify high-risk patients and propose an alternative screening protocol. Methods Patients presenting between 2014-2018 with BCS injury and cervical spine CT imaging were included. Demographics and injury characteristics of BCS injuries were collected. Univariate and multivariate analyses to determine risk factors for VAI were performed. Once factors associated with greater odds of VAI were identified, this information was used to create an alternative protocol for indicating CTA in patients who sustained BCS injury. Results A total of 475 patients were included. CTA of the neck was performed in 55.5% patients. In patients who received CTA, 18.2% had a contraindication to receiving anti-platelet therapy, and 25% were already receiving anti-coagulation therapy as an outpatient medication. VAI was found in 13.2% patients. In patients with VAI, 48.5% were already receiving anti-coagulation as outpatient medication. Acute kidney injury was found in 10.5% patients who had received CTA. Factors associated with greater odds of having VAI included transverse foramen involvement(p=0.0001), subluxation/displacement/dislocation of fracture(p=0.03), high energy mechanism(p=0.02), SLIC score >4(p=0.04), and concomitant lumbar spine injury(p=0.03). Using Modified Hawkeye Protocol, 40.2% of patients were indicated to receive a CTA, and 17 VAI were identified. Compared to Denver Criteria, CTAs were performed in 73 less patients(p=0.04). Conclusions Updated protocols utilizing evidence-based clinical parameters to predict chance of VAI may avoid unnecessary advanced imaging and contrast load to patients in the setting of BCS trauma.
Learning through explaining and engaging with others’ mathematical ideas

Educators, researchers, and policy makers recognize that student participation in classroom mathematics conversations, especially explaining one’s own thinking and engaging with others’ ideas, can ...
Bond Failure and Inelastic Response of Concrete

A two-dimensional model is proposed to investigate the effect of matrix-aggregate bond failure on the stress-strain response of concrete. Stresses at the interface between the matrix and the aggregate are found for progressive bond separation utilizing the solution to the Hilbert problem as outlined by Muskhelishvili. A tensile crack extension criterion from fracture mechanics is employed and stress-strain curves are generated. The dependence of the inelastic response on bond strength, mortar strength, and size and volume fraction of aggregate is shown.