cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
INFORMATION AND UNCERTAINTY IN REMOTE PERCEPTION RESEARCH

Abstract This article has four purposes: 1) to present for the first time in archival form all results of some 25 years of remote perception research at this laboratory; 2) to describe all of the analytical scoring methods developed over the course of this program to quantify the amount of anomalous information acquired in the experiments; 3) to display a remarkable anti-correlation between the objective specificity of those methods and the anomalous yield of the experiments; and 4) to discuss the phenomenological and pragmatic implications of this complementarity. The formal database comprises 653 experimental trials performed over several phases of investigation. The scoring methods involve various arrays of descriptor queries that can be addressed to both the physical targets and the percipients' description thereof, the responses to which provide the basis for numerical evaluation and statistical assessment of the degree of anomalous information acquired. Twenty-four such recipes have been employed, with queries posed in binary, ternary, quaternary, and ten-level distributive formats. Thus treated, the database yields a composite z -score against chance of 5.418 ( p = 3 × 10 −8 , one-tailed). Numerous subsidiary analyses agree that these overall results are not significantly affected by any of the secondary protocol parameters tested, or by variations in descriptor effectiveness, possible participant response biases, target distance from the percipient, or time interval between perception effort and agent target visitation. However, over the course of the program there has been a striking diminution of the anomalous yield that appears to be associated with the participants' growing attention to, and dependence upon, the progressively more detailed descriptor formats and with the corresponding reduction in the content of the accompanying free-response transcripts. The possibility that increased emphasis on objective quantification of the phenomenon somehow may have inhibited its inherently subjective expression is explored in several contexts, ranging from contemporary signal processing technologies to ancient divination traditions. An intrinsic complementarity is suggested between the analytical and intuitive aspects of the remote perception process that, like its more familiar counterpart in quantum science, brings with it an inescapable uncertainty that limits the extent to which such anomalous effects can be simultaneously produced and evaluated.
Language and Affect

In a seminal overview of semantics, Lyons (294) breaks down the notion of "linguistic meaning" into three components: descriptive meaning (frequently termed "referential," "propositional," "notional,�' or "denotative")-i.e. the mapping of linguistic signs onto the entities and processes they describe; social meaning, consisting of the social categories (gender, social class, ethnicity, situation, etc) represented in language; and expressive (or "affec­ tive" or "emotive") meaning, representing the speaker's or writer's feelings, moods, dispositions, an4 attitudes toward the propositional content of the message and the communicative context. Variants of this model have been proposed by such authors as Malinowski (296), Sapir (364), Jesperson (242), Buhler (81), Bally (19), Ullman (426), Firth (138), and members of the Prague School (155, 362, 433, 434), although details of conceptualization can diverge significantly from author to author. For example, what other writers call "affect" is subsumed in Halliday's funCtional model (182, 183) in part by the interpersonal (i.e. that through which "social groups are delimited, and the individual is identified and reinforced," 182: 143) and in part by the textual (that which gives coherence to discourse). Similarly, affect straddles several categories in Jakobson's model of language functions (235; cf 91). In addi­ tion, not all writers agree that "meaning" and "semantic" are appropriate labels for affective components of language (e.g. 275, 445). A strict distinction among referential, social, and affective meanings rests
Bayesian Measures of the Minimum Detectable Concentration of an Immunoassay

The minimum detectable concentration (MDC) is one of the most important properties of an assay. It is a statement about the smallest physical quantity an assay can reliably measure, and is used in assay design and quality control assessments. A plethora of measures of the MDC have been reported in a widely scattered literature. Many of these were developed at a time when accuracy and relevance had to be sacrificed for computational feasibility. This paper identifies limitations of existing measures and demonstrates how Bayesian inference may be used to overcome these limitations. Several new measures of the MDC are developed. These are conceptually simpler than existing measures, and are free of analytical approximations. The recent advances in Bayesian computation make them efficient to evaluate. A procedure developed in this paper measures the difference in the quality of two assays and shows that the new Bayesian measures perform better than existing measures.
Imagining Religious Freedom: Potentials and Pitfalls in the “Land between Two Rivers”

This article explores the complex reality of religious freedom in post-war Iraq. It examines the constitutional parameters of religious freedom in a democratizing Iraq, while also demonstrating how the muddy realities of sectarian intolerance and violence continue to impede the realization of this essential liberty in “the land between two rivers.”
DKLAG6: a code based on continuously imbedded sixth-order Runge-Kutta methods for the solution of state-dependent functional differential equations

Abstract This paper discusses a new family of sixth-order continuously imbedded Runge-Kutta-Sarafyan methods and a mathematical software package DKLAG6 for the numerical solution of systems of functional differential equations with state-dependent delays. The methods used are based on piecewise polynomial approximants which are used for error estimation and stepsize selection, to handle the necessary interpolations for delayed solution values, to handle the rootfinding associated with locating the delay-induced points of derivative discontinuity, and to perform other rootfinding tasks in a manner similar to other well-known rootfinding ordinary and delay differential equation solvers. DKLAG6 is applicable to problems with vanishing and nearly vanishing delays and may be used for neutral systems containing delayed derivatives. Basic features of DKLAG6 are summarized and its typical performance is illustrated using examples with different types of delays. Comparative test results are given for DKLAG6 and its predecessor DKLAG5 which is based on fourth- and fifth-order continuously imbedded Runge-Kutta-Sarafyan methods.
Presence Of Voltage-Gated Potassium Channel (VGKC)-Complex Antibody In A Case Of Genetic Prion Disease (P5.231)

OBJECTIVE: To report the second case in the literature of positive voltage-gated potassium channel (VGKC)-complex antibody in case of definite genetic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). BACKGROUND: VGKC-mediated encephalitis is a recently recognized entity which often mimics the clinical presentation of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Several recent reports suggested that the presence of VGKC-complex antibody is a true marker of neurological autoimmunity and a predictor of a positive response to immunomodulating therapy. DESIGN/METHODS: Retrospective review of medical records, brain autopsy, and genetic analysis. RESULTS: A 67- year-old woman was admitted with two weeks of worsening speech difficulty and impaired right arm and leg use. There was a personal history of hypertension, lumbar spinal stenosis and peptic ulcer disease. Her father had died of a progressive neurological illness, with a presumptive diagnosis of ALS. Clinical evaluation revealed expressive aphasia, ideomotor apraxia and alien limb phenomenon involving her right arm and leg. CSF analysis revealed a normal cell count, elevated tau levels and minimally elevated protein. Brain MRI showed gyriform hyperintensity on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) confined to the cerebral cortex of the left insula, posterior temporal, anterior parietal, lateral frontal and paracentral frontal gyri. No hypermetabolic foci were noted on whole body Positron emission tomography. Serum paraneoplastic antibody evaluation was positive for VGKC-complex antibody by radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIA) with a titer of 406 picomole (pM) (normal <20pM). No clinical improvement was noted after sequential treatment with pulse steroids (3-day course of 1000 mg/day of methylprednisolone) and Intravenous Immunoglobulin. Hospital course was noted for brief subclinical seizures, progressive encephalopathy and aphasia. She ultimately died 4 months post-symptom onset. Brain autopsy confirmed the diagnosis of CJD. Genetic analysis revealed an E200K-129M mutation in the Prion Protein-encoding gene, the most common genetic CJD mutation in North America. CONCLUSIONS: A positive VGKC-complex antibody should not be regarded as unequivocal evidence of autoimmune- mediated limbic encephalitis, as it can also be present in CJD. Study Supported by: None. Disclosure: Dr. Jammoul has nothing to disclose. Dr. Lederman has nothing to disclose. Dr. Tavee has nothing to disclose. Dr. Li has nothing to disclose.
Collaboration for the Provision of Services

Abstract This paper conducts a review of the extant literature to examine community collaboration in the provision of human services. The authors conducted a systematic research synthesis to organize literature around how community organizations should position themselves in order to maximize the benefits of collaborative relationships while enhancing service provision. Evaluation of the literature reveals 30% of the articles could be classified as empirical. Due to limitations of the studies no definitive statements could be made regarding the nature of collaboration and what works in the collaborative process; however, some generalizations are suggested. Gaps in the literature include lack of rigorous empirical studies that identify best practices, the type of training needed to prepare staff and members of organizations for participation in the collaborative process, and differing management models and practices to determine which forms of governance system achieve the best results.
In Escherichia coli, MreB and FtsZ Direct the Synthesis of Lateral Cell Wall via Independent Pathways That Require PBP 2

In Escherichia coli, the cytoplasmic proteins MreB and FtsZ play crucial roles in ensuring that new muropeptide subunits are inserted into the cell wall in a spatially correct way during elongation and division. In particular, to retain a constant diameter and overall shape, new material must be inserted into the wall uniformly around the cell's perimeter. Current thinking is that MreB accomplishes this feat through intermediary proteins that tether peptidoglycan synthases to the outer face of the inner membrane. We tested this idea in E. coli by using a dd-carboxypeptidase mutant that accumulates pentapeptides in its peptidoglycan, allowing us to visualize new muropeptide incorporation. Surprisingly, inhibiting MreB with the antibiotic A22 did not result in uneven insertion of new wall, although the cells bulged and lost their rod shapes. Instead, uneven (clustered) incorporation occurred only if MreB and FtsZ were inactivated simultaneously, providing the first evidence in E. coli that FtsZ can direct murein incorporation into the lateral cell wall independently of MreB. Inhibiting penicillin binding protein 2 (PBP 2) alone produced the same clustered phenotype, implying that MreB and FtsZ tether peptidoglycan synthases via a common mechanism that includes PBP 2. However, cell shape was determined only by the presence or absence of MreB and not by the even distribution of new wall material as directed by FtsZ.
Content-based multiple bitstream image transmission over noisy channels

We propose a novel combined source and channel coding scheme for image transmission over noisy channels. The main feature of the proposed scheme is a systematic decomposition of image sources so that unequal error protection can be applied according to not only bit error sensitivity but also visual content importance. The wavelet transform is adopted to hierarchically decompose the image. The association between the wavelet coefficients and what they represent spatially in the original image is fully exploited so that wavelet blocks are classified based on their corresponding image content. The classification produces wavelet blocks in each class with similar content and statistics, therefore enables high performance source compression using the set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) algorithm. To combat the channel noise, an unequal error protection strategy with rate-compatible punctured convolutional/cyclic redundancy check (RCPC/CRC) codes is implemented based on the bit contribution to both peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and visual quality. At the receiving end, a postprocessing method making use of the SPIHT decoding structure and the classification map is developed to restore the degradation due to the residual error after channel decoding. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme is indeed able to provide protection both for the bits that are more sensitive to errors and for the more important visual content under a noisy transmission environment. In particular, the reconstructed images illustrate consistently better visual quality than using the single-bitstream-based schemes.
Young children's comprehension of modal expressions

The present study assessed children's knowledge of how speakers use modal auxiliaries such as might and have to to indicate their degree of belief in the truth of their statements (epistemic modality), and to socially regulate behavior (deontic modality). We also considered whether modals comprise a semantic system that is progressively attained in a way similar to other semantic systems. Children aged 3 to 5 years were given two tasks: one that assessed comprehension of modal expressions for the epistemic domain (here, the spatial location of objects), and one that assessed comprehension of such expressions for the deontic domain (i.e., permission for the restrictions on behavior). Results showed that even 3year-olds comprehend partial aspects of meaning of epistemic expressions considered individually. Development occurred primarily between the ages of 3 and 4 in the ability to make judgments of the relative strength and synonymy of pairs of modal expressions. These results, which show a progressive attainment of the meaning of modals, indicate metacognitive and social cognition ability not usually attributed to preschoolers.
Continuous stress fields by the finite element–difference method

Standard finite elements yield a stress field that is discontinuous across interelement boundaries. In this paper, results given by standard finite elements are postprocessed by an efficient iterative scheme that makes use of nodal strains, finite difference operations and interpolations that augment (and may differ from) the shape functions used to generate the element stiffness matrix. Various types of interpolation are considered. Each leads to a continuous stress field that is more accurate than the unprocessed stress field.
Population Bias in Geotagged Tweets

Geotagged tweets are an exciting and increasingly popular data source, but like all social media data, they potentially have biases in who are represented. Motivated by this, we investigate the question, 'are users of geotagged tweets randomly distributed over the US population'? We link approximately 144 million geotagged tweets within the US, representing 2.6m unique users, to high-resolution Census population data and carry out a statistical test by which we answer this question strongly in the negative. We utilize spatial models and integrate further Census data to investigate the factors associated with this nonrandom distribution. We find that, controlling for other factors, population has no effect on the number of geotag users, and instead it is predicted by a number of factors including higher median income, being in an urban area, being further east or on a coast, having more young people, and having high Asian, Black or Hispanic/Latino populations.
The software/wetware distinction. Comment on "Toward a computational framework for cognitive biology: unifying approaches from cognitive neuroscience and comparative cognition" by W. Tecumseh Fitch.

Fitch [5] has not only articulated a growing consensus, after decades of ideological quarreling, about how to put cognitive science together, but in the process has attempted to advance the unification process with some bold strokes of his own. His proposal [4] that we take seriously the perspective which replaces “spherical neurons” (McCulloch Pitts logical neurons and their close kin) with neurons that are micro-agents with agendas and computational talents of their own, has been taken up by a variety of theorists, including myself [2,3]. Now his dendrophilia hypothesis promises to distill the core truths energizing the heated debates about the innate equipment that distinguishes the cognitive competences of our species from all others. Whether this promise can be kept is a wide-open empirical question, but Fitch has given us enough specification to justify a serious investment in answering it. One particularly useful achievement of the essay is Fitch’s banishment of a host of outdated ideologies: the learned vs. innate dichotomy, the autonomy thesis, boxology, and other oversimplifications that have largely outlived their usefulness. I applaud all of these exorcisms save one: there is still much value in the software/hardware distinction when it is applied to human minds, as I will try to show briefly. Fitch wastes little time dismissing the distinction:
Nonlinear finite element model updating for damage identification of civil structures using batch Bayesian estimation

Abstract This paper presents a framework for structural health monitoring (SHM) and damage identification of civil structures. This framework integrates advanced mechanics-based nonlinear finite element (FE) modeling and analysis techniques with a batch Bayesian estimation approach to estimate time-invariant model parameters used in the FE model of the structure of interest. The framework uses input excitation and dynamic response of the structure and updates a nonlinear FE model of the structure to minimize the discrepancies between predicted and measured response time histories. The updated FE model can then be interrogated to detect, localize, classify, and quantify the state of damage and predict the remaining useful life of the structure. As opposed to recursive estimation methods, in the batch Bayesian estimation approach, the entire time history of the input excitation and output response of the structure are used as a batch of data to estimate the FE model parameters through a number of iterations. In the case of non-informative prior, the batch Bayesian method leads to an extended maximum likelihood (ML) estimation method to estimate jointly time-invariant model parameters and the measurement noise amplitude. The extended ML estimation problem is solved efficiently using a gradient-based interior-point optimization algorithm. Gradient-based optimization algorithms require the FE response sensitivities with respect to the model parameters to be identified. The FE response sensitivities are computed accurately and efficiently using the direct differentiation method (DDM). The estimation uncertainties are evaluated based on the Cramer–Rao lower bound (CRLB) theorem by computing the exact Fisher Information matrix using the FE response sensitivities with respect to the model parameters. The accuracy of the proposed uncertainty quantification approach is verified using a sampling approach based on the unscented transformation. Two validation studies, based on realistic structural FE models of a bridge pier and a moment resisting steel frame, are performed to validate the performance and accuracy of the presented nonlinear FE model updating approach and demonstrate its application to SHM. These validation studies show the excellent performance of the proposed framework for SHM and damage identification even in the presence of high measurement noise and/or way-out initial estimates of the model parameters. Furthermore, the detrimental effects of the input measurement noise on the performance of the proposed framework are illustrated and quantified through one of the validation studies.
Clinical Utility of Rapid Molecular-Based Influenza Testing

Background. Diagnosing influenza in the emergency department (ED) remains a challenge because clinicians have not had, until recently, reliable tests to accurately and rapidly diagnose influenza; however, rapid diagnosis is crucial to begin antiviral therapy in patients with, or at risk of influenza-related complications, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A new generation of rapid molecular-based tests, including Xpert Flu (Cepheid), have recently demonstrated high sensitivity (95%) and specificity (99%), allowing for timely and accurate influenza diagnosis and improved use of antivirals in the ED. We sought to evaluate the impact of rapid molecular-based influenza testing on clinician decision-making for antiviral administration in ED patients with, or at increased risk for, influenza-related complications.
Area and Perimeter Bisecting Lines of a Triangle

SummaryAny triangle has between one and three lines that bisect both the area and the perimeter. We determine the conditions for each possible number.
Ellison, Ralph (1914–94)

Ralph Ellison was one of the most gifted novelists, essayists, and cultural critics of the twentieth century. His major contributions included the critique of the role of black folklore and literature in black life, the uses of black cultural expressions such as jazz, the blues, and the spirituals in shaping American aesthetics, and his analysis of the intricate, complex, and conflictive relations between the black subculture and the larger white society. Keywords: African American; art; culture; diversity; sociology of popular culture
The Construction of Hybrid Cloning Vectors and the Improvement of Transformation Efficiency in the Cyanobacteria, Anacystis Nidulans R2 and A. Nidulans R2-SPC

Cyanobacteria, although procaryotes, perform oxygenic photosynthesis in a process similar to that observed in the chloroplasts of higher plants but are more amenable to genetic manipulation. The unicellular strains, Anacvstis nidulans R2 and A. nidulans R2-SPc, can be transformed by exogenous plasmid or chromosomal DNA at a high frequency, allowing for molecular genetic manipulations. This laboratory has been concerned with improving the frequency of transformation in A. nidulans and with the construction of hybrid cloning vectors which will allow the controlled expression of genes cloned into these vectors. We report here the construction of three different hybrid cloning vehicles which will allow us to assess the effects of genetic manipulations on the functioning of the photosynthetic apparatus. We also report the use of low iron medium to improve the efficiency of transformation.
Android application programming: conference tutorial

As smartphones and mobile devices become ubiquitous, students are showing increasing interest in programming these devices, and many CS departments are adding mobile computing electives to their curriculum. Google's Android OS is a freely available and popular smartphone platform where applications are implemented in Java using the Android SDK.
Theory 3: Sequential Games I: Perfect Information and no Randomness

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” —Soren Kierkegaard Example 1 NIM(6) Six stones lie on the board. Black and White alternate to remove either one or two stones from the board, beginning with White. Whoever first faces an empty board when having to move loses. The winner gets $1, the loser loses $1. What are the best strategies for the players? Student Activity Try your luck in applet AppletNim7 against a friend (hit the “Start new with 6” button before you start). Or play the game against the computer in AppletNim7c . Play ten rounds where you start with seven stones. Then play ten rounds where you start with nine stones. Then play ten rounds where you start with eight stones. Discuss your observations. In this chapter we look at a class of simple games, namely sequential games. They are games where the players move one after another. Among them we concentrate on games of perfect information, where players know all previous decisions when they move. Randomness will be included after the next chapter. We will learn a little terminology, see how to display the games either as a game tree or a game digraph, and how to analyze them using “backward induction” provided the game is finite. We conclude by discussing whether the solution found by backward induction would be what real players would play, by discussing another approach for sequential games, by discussing the special roles two-person zero-sum games play here, and by discussing briefly the well-known sequential games chess, checkers, and tic-tac-toe.
A method to assess the radiated susceptibility of printed circuit boards

Printed circuit boards (PCB) are subject to external electromagnetic interference. A validation tool to efficiently predict the worst-case induced voltages and currents is invaluable in the process of making PCB designs pass the immunity test for electromagnetic compliance. This paper proposes to use a 2.5-D hybrid finite-element-method (FEM) solver to characterize the radiated far field and use the reciprocity-based method to calculate the induced port voltages and currents due to an incident plane wave. This method can be used to analyze any full-size PCB. Good agreement with the results from a 3-D full-wave FEM is obtained at low frequencies, where the 2.5-D assumption for the fields in the PCB applies. Furthermore, the calculation time and memory consumption are significantly reduced.
An Architecture for Agile Systems Engineering of Secure Commercial Off-the-Shelf Mobile Communications

The federal government has long had a need for highly secure communications. The National Security Agency NSA is responsible for the wide range of technologies to secure these communications. They realized, recently, that the development times for government encryption technology was not keeping pace with the rapid evolution of commercial mobile technologies; together with a realization that commercial technologies exist to meet the requirements for the federal government. Specifically, NSA has published specifications on their website to operationalize these capabilities. Commercial Solutions for Classified CSfC, the NSA term for commercial off-the-shelf COTS secure communications, coupled with published capability packages allows a developer to field a secure communications solution rapidly built entirely on COTS technology. The architecture, proposed in this paper, will address the rapidly evolving commercial mobile security market and will address fully leveraging commercial technologies to field the latest technologies in the shortest amount of time and at the lowest cost. With the NSA move to commercial technologies and the commercial market moving to enhanced security for "standard commercial users," there is an emerging convergence of these two approaches. The initial work has revealed effective architectural constructs to support the wide range of emerging applications of this promising approach from NSA.
Creating an Evidence-Based Advising Program for Exams: a Student-led 10-Step Approach

Despite the significance of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) in medical resident selection, there are few reports of evidence-based medical school advising programs for the USMLE and similar exams. Here, we describe a reproducible 10-step evidence-based, student-led process for developing an exam advising program, centered around a local needs assessment, literature review, multi-year study behaviors survey linked to meaningful score outcomes, and intentional dissemination of data to students. Student leadership promoted improved response rates, dissemination of findings, and student-centered programming. This 10-step approach is generalizable to development of advising programs for any standardized medical examination.
The SQL-based all-declarative FORWARD web application development framework.

The vast majority of database-driven web applications perform, at a logical level, fundamentally simple INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE commands. In response to a user action on the browser, the web application executes a program that transitions the old state to a new state. The state is primarily persistent and often captured in a single database. Additional state, which is transient, is maintained in the session (e.g., the identity of the currently logged-in user, her shopping cart, etc.) and the pages. The programs perform a series of simple SQL queries and updates, and decide the next step using simple if-then-else conditions over the state. The changes made on the transient state, though technically not expressed in SQL, are also computationally as simple as basic SQL updates. Despite their fundamental simplicity, creating web applications takes a disproportionate amount of time, which is expended in mundane data integration and coordination across the three layers of the application: (a) the visual layer on the browser, (b) the application logic layer on the server, and (c) the data layer in the database. Challenge 1: Language heterogeneities. Each layer uses different and heterogeneous languages. The visual layer is coded in HTML / JavaScript; the application logic layer utilizes Java (or some other language, such as PHP); and the data layer utilizes SQL. Even for pure server-side / pure HTML-based applications, the heterogeneities cause impedance mismatch between the layers. They are resolved by mundane code that translates the SQL data into Java objects and then into HTML. When the front end issues a ∗Supported by NSF awards IIS 1018961, IIS 0917379 and a Google gift. †The license grant at the bottom of the first column does not confer by implication, estoppel or otherwise any license or rights under any patents of authors or The Regents of the University of California.
Examining the Incidence and Presentation of Melanoma in the Cardiothoracic Transplant Population.

Importance The immunosuppression vital to maintaining transplanted organs comes with an increased incidence of cutaneous neoplasms. Understanding the genesis of malignant melanoma (MM) in transplant subpopulations is necessary for adequate disease surveillance. Objective To determine the incidence and timing of presentation of MM in the cardiothoracic (heart and/or lung) transplant (CTT) population. Design, Setting, and Participants This was a retrospective cohort study of 1164 patients who underwent a CTT from 2001 through 2016 with a median follow-up time of 4.3 years. The study was performed at a single academic, tertiary referral center. The retrospective database was used to identify 1164 patients who underwent a CTT at Duke University Hospital from 2001 to 2016. Ten patients were excluded from the study owing to a history of MM, resulting in 1154 patients in the study. Five patients who developed MM after CTT were identified. Exposures Exposures included tacrolimus, prednisone, and mycophenolate mofetil. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome measurement was the MM incidence. Secondary outcomes included time to diagnosis and survival. Results Five of 1154 patients who underwent a CTT (0.4%) developed biopsy-proven MM at a median follow-up time of 4.3 years after transplantation at a median age of 64.5 years (range, 31.0-74.0 years). Of the 1154 patients, 923 (80%) were men. Their mean (SD) age range was 63.8 years (27.2-68.2 years). Four patients (80%) presented with stage I disease while 1 (20%) presented with stage IV disease at a median time of 2.5 years (range, 0.1-5.3 years) after transplant compared with a median time of 6.2 years (range, 0.9-8.7 years) in Duke University’s renal transplant population at a median follow-up time of 6.6 years. Two patients died after transplant, 1 owing to complications of the transplant and 1 owing to metastatic MM. Conclusions and Relevance Representing one of the largest reported studies of patients with CTT developing MM, our findings suggest that the CTT population experiences an incidence of MM similar to that of other solid organ transplant recipients and with a median of 2.5 years from transplant to melanoma diagnosis. While the small scale of our study prevents far-reaching conclusions, further study is warranted to better understand the incidence, timing, and clinical ramifications of melanomagenesis in the CTT population.
A Review of Commercially Available Point-of-Care Devices to Concentrate Bone Marrow for the Treatment of Osteoarthritis and Focal Cartilage Lesions.

ObjectiveMesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a promising cell-based therapy treatment option for several orthopedic indications. Because culture expansion of MSC is time and cost intensive, a bedside...
Family Support Ecomaps

Abstract The study reports on information from 67 court records in one judicial district. These were cases in which child-support decisions were requested for reasons other than divorce, and that often involved a variety of complex family situations. The cases were described by combining genograms with ecomaps and financial information, a method that visually portrays on one page the human, physical, social, and financial resources for children. The patterns across cases underlined the importance of having complete financial information in the court records in order to make support decisions realize the values of accuracy and consistency in decision procedures.
Diagnosis in Old Age

Disorders of old age cover a broad range and admixture of illnesses and dysfunctions. They range from the relatively universal reactions of mild depression and anxiety to both internal and external loss through the functional psychotic disorders and organic brain syndromes. Other physical diseases typically accompany and contribute to behavioral dysfunction. Prompt, accurate assessment and treatment are crucial at the first signs of disorder. Delay in providing treatment can result in transient dysfunction becoming irreversible regardless of whether the origin of the disorder is found in psychological, biological, and/or sociological stress. Unfortunately, geriatric patients have rarely received the careful evaluation needed (Butler, 1975; Eisdorfer & Stotsky, 1977).
The Hydrotime Concept in Seed Germination and Dormancy

The hydrotime concept has been developed to describe the relationship between water potential (ψ) and seed germination rates. In analogy with thermal time, hydrotime is the accumulated ψ units (MPa) above a base or threshold value (ψb) multiplied by the time of imbibition at that ψ. The germination rate (inverse of time to radicle emergence) increases linearly as the seed ψ increases above ψb. As ψb values vary among individual seeds, the amount by which the ψ exceeds ψb also varies among seeds, resulting in the typical right-skewed sigmoid germination time courses. Factors which influence seed germination kinetics alter the mean ψb of the seed lot, with higher (more positive) values resulting in an inhibition of germination or imposition of dormancy and lower (more negative) values being associated with rapid germination and high vigour. The induction or alleviation of dormancy involves physiological shifts in the ψb distribution, allowing a seed population to track both long-term and short-term environmental conditions to enhance seedling survival.
Electronic Medical Devices; A Primer for Pathologists

Abstract Context.—Electronic medical devices (EMDs) with downloadable memories, such as implantable cardiac pacemakers, defibrillators, drug pumps, insulin pumps, and glucose monitors, are now an integral part of routine medical practice in the United States, and functional organ replacements, such as the artificial heart, pancreas, and retina, will most likely become commonplace in the near future. Often, EMDs end up in the hands of the pathologist as a surgical specimen or at autopsy. No established guidelines for systematic examination and reporting or comprehensive reviews of EMDs currently exist for the pathologist. Objective.—To provide pathologists with a general overview of EMDs, including a brief history; epidemiology; essential technical aspects, indications, contraindications, and complications of selected devices; potential applications in pathology; relevant government regulations; and suggested examination and reporting guidelines. Data Sources.—Articles indexed on PubMed of the National Lib...
Spontaneous sterilization in experimental Staphylococcus epidermidis endophthalmitis.

We created a standardized model of endophthalmitis in the aphakic rabbit eye using a laboratory strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis of known characteristics (ATCC 155). Eyes were injected with the following number of organisms: 170, 3760, 8750, 170,000 and 460,000. Serial quantitative cultures, clinical grading of infection and histopathologic studies were performed on days 1, 2,3,7 and 14. Bacteria appeared to multiply rapidly during the first 24 hr with peak recovery at 8 to 24 hr. Fewer bacteria were cultured on the third day after injection, and positive cultures were rare after the third day. Inflammatory scores were initially higher with each increased number of injected bacteria and tended to increase for the first 3 to 5 days. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 31:181-186,1990 Coagulase-negative staphylococci are a group of gram-positive cocci that are common flora on the skin and in the conjunctival sac. They are frequently identified on clinical culture reports as Staphylococcus epidermidis, although this is only one of the various species included within the group. In recent years, Staphylococcus epidermidis has been increasingly reported as a cause of postoperative and traumatic endophthalmitis, now accounting for 30 to 60% of clinical series. 1 " 4 Several laboratory investigations of experimental staphylococcal endophthalmitis have focused on treatment aspects. 5 "" Many variables in bacterial concentration, strain virulence and clinical grading exist in these studies. We have, therefore, created a standardized model of the disease in the aphakic rabbit eye using a strain of known virulence. Quantitative sequential cultures, a quantitative clinical grading system and histopathological correlation are used. This model provides new information about the pathophysiology of the disease and provides a standardized infection that may be exploited in studies of various treatment approaches.
A Deductive Method for Diagnostic Analysis of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems

Reliability and safety assurance are of supreme importance in the implementation of digital safety-critical control systems. A deductive method integrated with simulation-based fault injection and testing is presented for out-of-range permanent software fault localization. For fault modeling, an input–output mapping scheme is proposed to characterize the behavior of software modules and represent failure modes in an analogous manner to hardware state definitions. The Markov/cell-to-cell-mapping scheme is used for diagnostics. The diagnostic process is illustrated by several case studies for a boiling water reactor feedwater control system. The case study results show that the diagnostic algorithm is capable of software fault localization in the presence of both single and multiple faults.
Sex Bias in Interventional Clinical Trials.

Abstract Introduction: Prior studies have shown that sex bias exists with subject enrollment in clinical trials, with more men being enrolled than women. The objective of this study was to identify...
Topological Insulator Thin Films as Terahertz Plasmonic Materials

The surfaces of topological insulators contain two-dimensional massless Dirac electrons. In topological insulator thin films, electrons on the top and bottom surfaces couple. Plasmons can be excited using these coupled electrons and show resonances in the terahertz with exceptionally large mode indices and long lifetimes.
Learning-based CBCT correction using alternating random forest based on auto-context model.

Purpose Quantitative Cone Beam CT (CBCT) imaging is increasing in demand for precise image-guided radiotherapy because it provides a foundation for advanced image-guided techniques, including accurate treatment setup, online tumor delineation, and patient dose calculation. However, CBCT is currently limited only to patient setup in the clinic because of the severe issues in its image quality. In this study, we develop a learning-based approach to improve CBCT's image quality for extended clinical applications. Materials and methods An auto-context model is integrated into a machine learning framework to iteratively generate corrected CBCT (CCBCT) with high-image quality. The first step is data preprocessing for the built training dataset, in which uninformative image regions are removed, noise is reduced, and CT and CBCT images are aligned. After a CBCT image is divided into a set of patches, the most informative and salient anatomical features are extracted to train random forests. Within each patch, alternating RF is applied to create a CCBCT patch as the output. Moreover, an iterative refinement strategy is exercised to enhance the image quality of CCBCT. Then, all the CCBCT patches are integrated to reconstruct final CCBCT images. Results The learning-based CBCT correction algorithm was evaluated using the leave-one-out cross-validation method applied on a cohort of 12 patients' brain data and 14 patients' pelvis data. The mean absolute error (MAE), peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), normalized cross-correlation (NCC) indexes, and spatial nonuniformity (SNU) in the selected regions of interest (ROIs) were used to quantify the proposed algorithm's correction accuracy and generat the following results: mean MAE = 12.81 ± 2.04 and 19.94 ± 5.44 HU, mean PSNR = 40.22 ± 3.70 and 31.31 ± 2.85 dB, mean NCC = 0.98 ± 0.02 and 0.95 ± 0.01, and SNU = 2.07 ± 3.36% and 2.07 ± 3.36% for brain and pelvis data. Conclusion Preliminary results demonstrated that the novel learning-based correction method can significantly improve CBCT image quality. Hence, the proposed algorithm is of great potential in improving CBCT's image quality to support its clinical utility in CBCT-guided adaptive radiotherapy.
Cost Analysis of All-Polyethylene Compared to Metal-Backed Implants in Total Knee Arthroplasty

INTRODUCTION The growing trends of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) foreshadow an inevitable increase in the financial burden on healthcare expenditure estimated to almost nine billion dollars annually. This study aims to demonstrate the potential savings when using all-polyethylene (AP) compared to metal-backed (MB) tibial components and describes the cost variability amongst three major commercially available implants. MATERIALS AND METHODS The cost of AP versus MB implants was analyzed using a large nationwide database, Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI). Cost of femoral components and patellar buttons were excluded. The three manufacturers included in the study were DePuy, Smith&Nephew, and Stryker (Zimmer data was not available for analysis). RESULTS Our results show that AP components were significantly less costly in comparison to other manufacturers, and the average AP price was $1,009. The average MB (baseplate plus liner) price was $2,054 (p<0.01). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the means of the AP components showed no significant difference in prices among the three studied manufacturers (p=0.946). DISCUSSION Our results demonstrate that, regardless of the manufacturing company, AP tibial components are significantly cheaper than their MB counterparts. A literature review revealed that, when indicated, AP implants are not inferior to MB in terms of survivorship or outcome. The average savings was more than $1,000 per TKA when multiplied even by a small portion of the large volume of TKAs completed annually. This can translate into millions of dollars in savings in healthcare expenditures. With the impending legislation of the bundled-payment initiative, orthopaedic surgeons should be aware of less costly implant options that can positively impact outcomes and/or quality of care.
Science Signaling Podcast: 13 January 2009

This is a conversation with John Scott and Wei Wong, authors of a Research Article published in the 23 December 2008 issue of Science Signaling . They discuss their work showing that the scaffold protein muscle A kinase-anchoring protein (mAKAP) is important for localizing components that mediate the cellular response to hypoxia to the nuclear envelope. This compartmentalization of the hypoxia signaling machinery poises the hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) for action in the nucleus in response to limiting oxygen conditions.
Formation of an Asian American Nonprofit Organization through the Partnership between Corporate Employee Resource Groups and Community Organizations

ABSTRACTUsing the case study approach, this paper examines the formation of a pan-Asian American ethnic agency between leaders of corporate employee resource groups and Asian American subgroup ethn...
Mindfulness-based group intervention in adolescents at-risk for excess weight gain: A randomized controlled pilot study.

Abstract Objectives To assess feasibility/acceptability of a mindfulness-based approach to excess weight prevention in adolescents at-risk for excess weight gain. To pilot test efficacy of a mindfulness-based intervention for improving food reward sensitivity, stress-eating, executive function (EF), and BMI/adiposity. Methods A pilot randomized controlled trial was conducted with 12–17y adolescents at-risk for excess weight gain based on above-average weight (body mass index [BMI]≥70%ile) or parental history of obesity (BMI≥30 kg/m2). Adolescents were randomized to a mindfulness-based (n = 29) or health education control group (n = 25) that met for six weekly one-hour sessions. Feasibility/acceptability were determined from attendance and acceptability survey ratings. At baseline, six-week and six-month follow-up, adolescents’ perceived stress was measured with the Perceived Stress Scale, food reward sensitivity with a behavioral task, stress-eating during a laboratory test meal, and EF with the parent-reported Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function and NIH Toolbox. At the same intervals, BMI indices and body fat by air displacement plethysmography were assessed in a fasted state. Results Median session attendance was 6:6 sessions in both conditions; program acceptability ratings were above-average. Compared to health education, adolescents in mindfulness had lower food reward sensitivity at six-months (Cohen's d = 0.64, p = .01). There were no between-condition differences in BMI (mindfulness vs. health educationΔsix-months 95%CI 0.20, 1.52 kg/m2 vs. 0.21, 1.62 kg/m2) or adiposity (−3.64, −0.61% vs. −4.31, −1.04%) changes. Conclusions A mindfulness-based group intervention is feasible/acceptable among adolescents at-risk for excess weight. In this pilot sample, mindfulness and health education were equivocal for BMI/adiposity outcomes. Future trials with a larger, adequately-powered sample and longer-term follow-up are necessary to test efficacy of a mindfulness-based intervention for food reward sensitivity, stress-eating, EF, and stabilizing growth trajectories in youth at-risk for adult obesity.
Abortion exile: navigating Mexico’s fractured abortion landscape

This paper develops the concept of ‘abortion exile’ to understand the situation of women who are forced to travel for abortion services because the procedure is outlawed, stigmatized, unaffordable ...