cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Sri Lanka - Can conditional cash transfer programs serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when exposed to shocks?

This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, Can Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when exposed to shocks?, Conducted the program started in 1997 and still exists today in Sri Lanka. The study observed that Income shocks on poor households are known to induce parents to take their children out of school and send them to work when other risk-coping instruments are insufficient. CCT programs, where the condition is on school attendance, have been shown to be effective in increasing educational achievements and reducing child work. Shocks are highly prevalent and children have irregular periods of school enrollment. Children who are taken out of school are less likely to re-enroll.
A nonparametric test for observational non-normally distributed ophthalmic data with eye-specific exposures and outcomes.

Purpose: To extend the Wilcoxon rank sum test to the analysis of clustered observational data with a binary exposure variable where not all cluster members (or subunits) have the same exposure status, as in ophthalmologic data where fellow eyes may differ in exposure status. Methods: The Wilcoxon rank sum test statistic (Wc) is defined as the sum of ranks of all exposed subunits over all clusters. The large sample distribution of Wc is derived based on a two-stage permutation distribution approach which maintains the clustering structure of the exposure distribution in the original data. The procedure is applied to data from the Wisconsin Epidemiologic Study of Diabetic Retinopathy (WESDR) for assessing differences in retinopathy grade between eyes with high vs. low intraocular pressure (IOP). Results: Data analyses based on the WESDR data indicate significant positive associations between IOP and retinopathy grade as assessed by the clustered Wilcoxon test (p = 0.019), but non-significant effects with mi...
Reduction in drug requirements for hypertension by means of a cognitive-behavioral intervention

The purpose of the present study was to test the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral intervention as an adjunctive treatment of hypertension. To qualify for the study, subjects had to have an unmedicated clinic diastolic blood pressure ≥ 95 mm Hg. After qualification, minimal drug requirements were established using a diuretic and a β-blocker to control blood pressure at ≤90 mm Hg. Subjects were then randomized into a 6-week cognitive-behavioral intervention or a measurements-only control group. After the treatment phase, medication levels were reduced in all subjects by means of a systematic stepdown procedure. Subjects were followed for 1 year after the stepdown was completed. Addition of the cognitive-behavioral intervention was twice as effective as the control procedure in reducing drug requirements. At 12-months follow-up, 73% of the treatment group were at lower levels of medication than at the time of randomization, compared to 35% in the control group. Moreover, 55% of the treatment group remained completely free of medication, compared to 30% of the control group, at the 12-month follow-up. The reductions in medication were associated with maintained controlled levels of clinic, ambulatory, and home blood pressure. The addition of a standardized and inexpensive group-administered cognitive-behavioral intervention to the drug treatment of hypertension is beneficial as an adjunctive treatment in reducing drug requirements for patients with hypertension, thereby reducing the costs and potential side effects of antihypertensive medications.
Coding for Multiple Asymmetric Errors in One Channel of a Multichannel System

An efficient error correction code for correcting errors of one kind in an arbitrary N-character message is discussed. The coded check character is obtained by summing the weighted coded characters (columns of binary digits where each binary digit assumes a unique weight) within an entire record modulo a prime integer. This check character is then added to the record before transmission over a channel (e.g., magnetic tape). A single parity check is appended to each character of the record to make possible single error detection per character. The received message, perturbed by noise in a constant position or single track, is decoded by again adding up the received information plus check characters in a modulo p counter. Error location is achieved by solving for x in the expression ax mod p, when a, the number of parity checks that failed, and ax mod p, the contents of a mod p counter, are known. This type of residue check may be employed to indicate which track is in error. Thus, error correction can be performed on the characters containig parity check failures.
Problem Domain and Prospect Frame: Choice under Opportunity versus Threat

This investigation considered the impact of alternative problem domains on choice by crossing prospect frame (loss vs. gain) witth problem domain (threat vs. opportunity) in afactorial design. In responding to traditional framing problems, proble-msposing explicit threats), subjects faced with gain prospects have generally been thought to presuppose losses or shift their reference point downward. Abelson and Levi have suggested that, similarly, subjects might be expected to presuppose gains or shift their reference point upward when faced with problems that pose explicit opportunities. Choices in this study were consistent with this prediction. However, measures aimed at assessing the interpretations of framing problems did not support the presumed shifts in reference point. Moreover, evidence was found for a problem domain effect on overall risk seeking in one problem arena (obs), but no such effect was found in another problem arena (money).
The Effect of Inflation on Domestic Migrant Worker Households in China

Domestic migration workers and inflation are two phenomena attracting attention from worldwide scholars. The article endeavors to accomplish the following three tasks: a) describe the characteristics of inflation and immigration situations in China; b) study the effect of inflation on domestic immigrants' the expenditures; c) understand the effect of inflation on immigrants' happiness and satisfaction. The paper found out that in all the eight expenditure categories, only three categories (food, clothing and housing) are negatively affected by inflation. Other five expenditure categories (health and medical, house equipment, facilities and services, entertainment, educational and cultural activities, transportation and communication, tuition, and miscellaneous) are positively affected by inflation. The biggest reduction of expenditure is in transportation and communication with a coefficient of -0.025. The paper also found out that the lower income group's expenditure is more affected by inflation then higher income group. The paper showed that inflation didn't have a significant effect on people's feeling of happiness and their satisfaction. The China's Hukou is a record in the system of household registration required by law in the People's Republic of China system. The Hukou system divides the Chinese citizens into urban and rural residents. It was first set up in cities in 1951 and extended to rural areas in 1955. In the early years of the system, it served largely as a monitoring, not a control mechanism of population migration and movements. The disastrous Great Leap Forward and the famine helped the government set the full Hukou system as it is now understood. Despite significant modifications, especially since the early 1980s, the system remains to this day. After Chinese government started its economic reform in 1978, it caused the unexpected change rate of "floating population". From 1988 to 2003, the number of rural-urban migrants was quickly increased from 70 million to 140 million. Whether one has local urban Hukou—is at the center of migration processes and labor market segmentation in China. Since the rural migration is essential for the economics development, the authorities seem to be walking a fine line between social control and construction of the urban economy, much as has the United States in its various phases of loosening and tightening immigration
Efficient learning of relational models for sequential decision making

The exploration-exploitation tradeoff is crucial to reinforcement-learning (RL) agents, and a significant number of sample complexity results have been derived for agents in propositional domains. These results guarantee, with high probability, near-optimal behavior in all but a polynomial number of timesteps in the agent’s lifetime. In this work, we prove similar results for certain relational representations, primarily a class we call “relational action schemas”. These generalized models allow us to specify state transitions in a compact form, for instance describing the effect of picking up a generic block instead of picking up 10 different specific blocks. We present theoretical results on crucial subproblems in action-schema learning using the KWIK framework, which allows us to characterize the sample efficiency of an agent learning these models in a reinforcement-learning setting. These results are extended in an apprenticeship learning paradigm where and agent has access not only to its environment, but also to a teacher that can demonstrate traces of state/action/state sequences. We show that the class of action schemas that are efficiently learnable in this paradigm is strictly larger than those learnable in the online setting. We link the class of efficiently learnable dynamics in the apprenticeship setting to a rich class of models derived from well-known learning frameworks. As an application, we present theoretical and empirical results on learning relational models of web-service descriptions using a dataflow model called a Task Graph to capture the important connections between inputs and outputs of services in a workflow, with experiments constructed using publicly available web services. This application shows that compact relational models can be efficiently learned from limited amounts of basic data. Finally, we present several extensions of the main results in the thesis, including expansions of the languages with Description Logics. We also explore the use of sample-based planners to speed up the computation time of our algorithms.
Puzzle based teaching versus traditional instruction in electrocardiogram interpretation for medical students – a pilot study

Most medical professionals are expected to possess basic electrocardiogram (EKG) interpretation skills. But, published data suggests that residents' and physicians' EKG interpretation skills are suboptimal. Learning styles differ among medical students; individualization of teaching methods has been shown to be viable and may result in improved learning. Puzzles have been shown to facilitate learning in a relaxed environment. The objective of this study was to assess efficacy of teaching puzzle in EKG interpretation skills among medical students. This is a reader blinded crossover trial. Third year medical students from College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University participated in this study. Two groups (n = 9) received two traditional EKG interpretation skills lectures followed by a standardized exam and two extra sessions with the teaching puzzle and a different exam. Two other groups (n = 6) received identical courses and exams with the puzzle session first followed by the traditional teaching. EKG interpretation scores on final test were used as main outcome measure. The average score after only traditional teaching was 4.07 ± 2.08 while after only the puzzle session was 4.04 ± 2.36 (p = 0.97). The average improvement after the traditional session was followed up with a puzzle session was 2.53 ± 1.94 while the average improvement after the puzzle session was followed with the traditional session was 2.08 ± 1.73 (p = 0.67). The final EKG exam score for this cohort (n = 15) was 84.1 compared to 86.6 (p = 0.22) for a comparable sample of medical students (n = 15) at a different campus. Teaching EKG interpretation with puzzles is comparable to traditional teaching and may be particularly useful for certain subgroups of students. Puzzle session are more interactive and relaxing, and warrant further investigations on larger scale.
Poly-victimization and risk of posttraumatic, depressive, and substance use disorders and involvement in delinquency in a national sample of adolescents.

Abstract Purpose Adolescents exposed to multiple forms of psychological trauma ("poly-victimization," Finkelhor et al. Child Abuse Negl 2007;31:7–26) may be at high risk for psychiatric and behavioral problems. This study empirically identifies trauma profiles in a national sample of adolescents to ascertain correlates of poly-victimization. Methods Latent Class analyses and logistic regression analyses were used with data from the National Survey of Adolescents to identify trauma profiles and each profile's risk of posttraumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, substance use disorders, and delinquency involvement and deviant peer group relationships. Poly-victimization classes were also compared to classes with trauma exposure of lesser complexity. Results Six mutually exclusive trauma profiles (latent classes) were identified. Four classes were characterized by high likelihood of poly-victimization, including abuse victims (8%), physical assault victims (9%), and community violence victims (15.5%). Poly-victimization class members, especially abuse and assault victims, were more likely than do youth traumatized by witnessing violence or exposure to disaster/accident trauma to have psychiatric diagnosis and (independent of psychiatric diagnoses or demographics) to be involved in delinquency with delinquent peers. Conclusions Poly-victimization is prevalent among adolescents and places youth at high risk for psychiatric impairment and for delinquency. Moreover, poly-victimized youths' risk of delinquency cannot be fully accounted for by posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, or substance use problems, suggesting that adolescent healthcare providers should consider poly-victimization as a risk for behavioral and legal problems even when PTSD, depression, or addiction symptoms are not clinically significant.
Localization, Ion Channel Regulation, and Genetic Interactions during Abscisic Acid Signaling of the Nuclear mRNA Cap-Binding Protein, ABH1

Abscisic acid (ABA) regulates developmental processes and abiotic stress responses in plants. We recently characterized a new Arabidopsis mutant, abh1, which shows ABA-hypersensitive regulation of seed germination, stomatal closing, and cytosolic calcium increases in guard cells (V. Hugouvieux, J.M. Kwak, J.I. Schroeder [2001] Cell 106: 477-487). ABH1 encodes the large subunit of a dimeric Arabidopsis mRNA cap-binding complex and in expression profiling experiments was shown to affect mRNA levels of a subset of genes. Here, we show that the dimeric ABH1 and AtCBP20 subunits are ubiquitously expressed. Whole-plant growth phenotypes of abh1 are described and properties of ABH1 in guard cells are further analyzed. Complemented abh1 lines expressing a green fluorescent protein-ABH1 fusion protein demonstrate that ABH1 mainly localizes in guard cell nuclei. Stomatal apertures were smaller in abh1 compared with wild type (WT) when plants were grown at 40% humidity, and similar at 95% humidity. Correlated with stomatal apertures from plants grown at 40% humidity, slow anion channel currents were enhanced and inward potassium channel currents were decreased in abh1 guard cells compared with WT. Gas exchange measurements showed similar primary humidity responses in abh1 and WT, which together with results from abh1/abi1-1 double-mutant analyses suggest that abh1 shows enhanced sensitivity to endogenous ABA. Double-mutant analyses of the ABA-hypersensitive signaling mutants, era1-2 and abh1, showed complex genetic interactions, suggesting that ABH1 and ERA1 do not modulate the same negative regulator in ABA signaling. Mutations in the RNA-binding protein sad1 showed hypersensitive ABA-induced stomatal closing, whereas hyl1 did not affect this response. These data provide evidence for the model that the mRNA-processing proteins ABH1 and SAD1 function as negative regulators in guard cell ABA signaling.
Prototype RF cavity for the HISTRAP accelerator

HISTRAP, a proposed synchrotron-cooling-storage ring designed to both accelerate and decelerate very highly charged very heavy ions for atomic physics research, requires an RF accelerating system to provide +or-2.5 kV of peak accelerating voltage per turn while tuning through a 13.5:1 frequency range in a fraction of a second. A prototype half-wave, single-gap RF cavity with biased ferrite tuning was built and tested over a continuous tuning range of 200 kHz through 2.7 MHz. Initial test results establish the feasibility of using ferrite tuning at the required RF power levels. The resonant system is located entirely outside of the accelerator's 15-cm-ID beam line vacuum enclosure except for a single RF window which serves as an accelerating gap. Physical separation of the cavity and the beam line permits in situ vacuum baking of the beam line at 300 degrees C. >
EEG cortical imaging: a vector field approach for Laplacian denoising and missing data estimation

The surface Laplacian is known to be a theoretical reliable approximation of the cortical activity. Unfortunately, because of its high pass character and the relative low density of the EEG caps, the estimation of the Laplacian itself tends to be very sensitive to noise. We introduce a method based on vector field regularization through diffusion for denoising the Laplacian data and thus obtain robust estimation. We use a forward-backward diffusion aiming for source energy minimization while preserving contrasts between active and nonactive regions. This technique uses headcap geometry specific differential operators to counter the low sensor density. The comparison with classical denoising schemes clearly demonstrates the advantages of our method. We also propose an algorithm based on the Gauss-Ostrogradsky theorem for estimation of the Laplacian on missing (bad) electrodes, which can be combined with the regularization technique in order to provide a joint validation framework.
Transitioning to Postdivorce Family Life: A Grounded Theory Investigation of Resilience in Coparenting

children, regulating their emotional responses, and choosing battles about timeand money were more effective than those who had difficulty letting go of divorce anger or engaged in frequent conflicts. Implications for parent educators and clinicians are discussed.
Bradykinin prevents postischemic leukocyte adhesion and emigration and attenuates microvascular barrier disruption.

Although a number of recent reports indicate that bradykinin attenuates ischemia- reperfusion (I/R)-induced tissue injury, the mechanisms underlying its protective actions are not fully understood....
Feeding after recovery from 2-deoxyglucose injection: cerebral and peripheral factors

Rats increased food intake 6 h after peripheral and intracerebroventricular injections of 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) when plasma glucose concentrations had returned to normal from elevated levels. Rats with adrenal demedullation did not become hyperglycemic after injection of 2-DG and increased food intake more than normal animals after peripheral, but not ventricular, injections of 2-DG. Peripheral injections of 2-DG inhibited gastric emptying in normal, but not adrenal demedullated, rats. Intravenous infusions of epinephrine into normal rats, which mimicked some of the physiological effects of peripheral 2-DG injection, did not increase food intake. The results indicate that a prior disruption of cerebral metabolism is sufficient to elicit feeding in the absence of an adrenomedullary response and that increased gastric fill may restrain the increase in food intake produced by a previous cerebral emergency.
A Cross-corpus Study of Unsupervised Subjectivity Identification based on Calibrated EM

In this study we investigate using an unsupervised generative learning method for subjectivity detection in text across different domains. We create an initial training set using simple lexicon information, and then evaluate a calibrated EM (expectation-maximization) method to learn from unannotated data. We evaluate this unsupervised learning approach on three different domains: movie data, news resource, and meeting dialogues. We also perform a thorough analysis to examine impacting factors on unsupervised learning, such as the size and self-labeling accuracy of the initial training set. Our experiments and analysis show inherent differences across domains and performance gain from calibration in EM.
EMG OF LOCOMOTION IN GORILLA AND MAN

Although locomotion patterns in modern apes and man are clearly different, the principles which control the muscular factors are common. Specific muscles provide the motive force when a dynamic movement occurs, but the continuance of that activity during posture rarely is called for. Postural mechanisms exist which allow relaxation of muscles whenever inert mechanisms can bear the load; this state is surprisingly prevalent in both apes and man.
Dynamic parallelism for simple and efficient GPU graph algorithms

Dynamic parallelism allows GPU kernels to launch additional kernels at runtime directly from the GPU. In this paper we show that dynamic parallelism enables relatively simple high-performance graph algorithms for GPUs. We present breadth-first search (BFS) and single-source shortest paths (SSSP) algorithms that use dynamic parallelism to adapt to the irregular and data-driven nature of these problems. Our approach results in simple code that closely follows the high-level description of the algorithms but yields performance competitive with the current state of the art.
Use of Quantitative Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound to Assess Response to Antiangiogenic Therapy in Children and Adolescents With Solid Malignancies: A Pilot Study

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to investigate contrast-enhanced ultrasound assessment of tumor response to antiangiogenic therapy in children and adolescents with solid malignancies. SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Children with recurrent solid tumors who were enrolled in an institutional phase 1 study of antiangiogenic therapy underwent contrast-enhanced ultrasound of target lesions before therapy, on therapy days 3 and 7, and at the end of course 1. Acoustic data from target lesion ROIs were used to measure peak enhancement, time to peak, rate of enhancement, total AUC, AUC during wash-in (AUC1), and AUC during washout (AUC2). The Cox regression model was used to assess the association between changes in parameters from baseline to follow-up time points and time to tumor progression. Values of p ≤ 0.050 were considered significant. RESULTS. Target lesion sites included liver (n = 3), pleura (n = 2), and supraclavicular mass, soft-tissue component of bone metastasis, lung, retroperitoneum, peritoneum, ly...
Probe-Pad Placement for Prebond Test of 3-D ICs

3-D integrated circuits (3-D ICs) are emerging as a promising alternative to continue the scaling trajectory. They need to be tested before bonding (prebond) to ensure high stack yields. Several techniques exist for prebond test of 3-D ICs, and all of them require large probe pads for power delivery. We present the first probe-pad-aware 3-D IC placement framework, and this provides up to a 2% reduction in the wirelength and significant improvement with regard to testability metrics. In addition, we study several probe-pad configurations, and present a configuration that reduces the probe-pad count by 50% compared with adding a probe pad at every power/ground through-silicon-via location, while still being well within IR-drop constraints.
Abstract 3143: Epigenetic regulation of PTEN by miR-185 and miR-200b in liver cancer

PTEN is one of the most commonly lost tumor suppressors in human cancers. Deletion of PTEN in mice has been shown to induce steatohepatitis and the development of primary liver cancers (hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma). This study provides novel evidence for epigenetic regulation of PTEN in both hepatocellular carcinoma and cholagniocarcinoma cells. Treatment of the hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (Huh-7) and cholangiocarcinoma cells line (TFK-1) with the DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitor, Decitabine (1 mM), and the histone deacetylase inhibitor, Trichostatin A (TSA, 10mM), increased the expression of PTEN protein. Methylation specific qPCR assay shows that Decitabine/TSA treatment significantly reduced the methylation of the CpG islands located at the PTEN gene promoter. Furthermore, we have shown that miR-185 and miR-200b target DNMT-1 and -3A/3B, respectively, thus upregulating the expression of PTEN in hepatic cancer cells. Forced overexpression of miR-185 or treatment with mimic miR-185 abolished the expression of DNMT1 protein and enhanced the level of PTEN protein in both Huh-7 and TFK-1 cells. Accordingly, miR-200b overexpression or mimic treatment significantly decreased DNMT3A and DNMT3B protein levels and enhanced the expression of PTEN. These results demonstrate a novel epigenetic regulation of PTEN by miR-185 and -200b which is critical in hepatic carcinogenesis Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3143. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-3143
Small telescopes, big rewards.

The closing of Lick Observatory (“Lick Observatory in trouble as austerity starts to bite,” Y. Bhattacharjee, News & Analysis, 13 December 2013, p. [1299][1]) and all the major national optical telescopes on Kitt Peak National Observatory (“Money woes cloud future of workhorse U.S. telescopes
Cations Stiffen Actin Filaments by Adhering a Key Structural Element to Adjacent Subunits.

Ions regulate the assembly and mechanical properties of actin filaments. Recent work using structural bioinformatics and site-specific mutagenesis favors the existence of two discrete and specific divalent cation binding sites on actin filaments, positioned in the long axis between actin subunits. Cation binding at one site drives polymerization, while the other modulates filament stiffness and plays a role in filament severing by the regulatory protein, cofilin. Existing structural methods have not been able to resolve filament-associated cations, and so in this work we turn to molecular dynamics simulations to suggest a candidate binding pocket geometry for each site and to elucidate the mechanism by which occupancy of the “stiffness site” affects filament mechanical properties. Incorporating a magnesium ion in the “polymerization site” does not seem to require any large-scale change to an actin subunit’s conformation. Binding of a magnesium ion in the “stiffness site” adheres the actin DNase-binding lo...
The Coordination of Simultaneous Actions

The concept of a coordinative structure is discussed in light of recent experiments involving simultaneous multilimb actions. As in previous experiments, strong temporal relationships between limbs were demonstrated even when task requirements of each limb differed. In such mixed conditions, modulation effects were demonstrated as increased spatial error, increased temporal differences, and reduced correlations compared to same-task conditions. However, practice tended to reduce modulation effects while increasing temporal correlations and reducing temporal differences in groups performing mixed tasks. Although the effect of practice on spatial correlations was inconclusive, the fact that the spatial correlations were consistently lower than temporal correlations suggests that the distinction between essential and nonessential variables is plausible in simultaneous multilimb movements.
Tonsillectomy Bleed Rates across the CHEER Practice Research Network: Pursuing Guideline Adherence and Quality Improvement.

Objectives(1) Compare postoperative bleeding in the CHEER network (Creating Healthcare Excellence through Education and Research) among age groups, diagnoses, and practice types. (2) Report the inc...
Ma, Jean Sounding the Modern Woman: The Songstress in Chinese Cinema Durham: Duke University Press 296 pp., $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8223-5876-3 Publication Date: June 2015

Sounding the Modern Woman: The Songstress in Chinese Cinema takes the reader to the songstress, a subject, if not lost, at least overlooked in the scholarship of Chinese language cinema. Jean Ma, a...
UNIX and Perl to the Rescue!: A Field Guide for the Life Sciences (and Other Data-rich Pursuits)

Your research has generated gigabytes of data and now you need to analyse it. You hate using spreadsheets but it is all you know, so what else can you do? This book will transform how you work with large and complex data sets, teaching you powerful programming tools for slicing and dicing data to suit your needs. Written in a fun and accessible style, this step-by-step guide will inspire and inform non-programmers about the essential aspects of Unix and Perl. It shows how, with just a little programming knowledge, you can write programs that could save you hours, or even days. No prior experience is required and new concepts are introduced using numerous code examples that you can try out for yourself. Going beyond the basics, the authors touch upon many broader topics that will help those new to programming, including debugging and how to write in a good programming style.
Rural-Urban Differences in the Effect of Follow-Up Care on Postdischarge Outcomes.

Objective To assess rural–urban differences in quality of postdischarge care among Medicare beneficiaries, controlling for selection bias of postdischarge services. Data Sources The Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), Cost and Use Files from 2000 to 2010, the Area Resource File, Provider of Services File, and the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. Study Design Retrospective analysis of 30- and 60-day hospital readmission, emergency department (ED) use, and mortality using two-stage residual inclusion; receipt of 14-day follow-up care was the main independent variable. Data Extraction Method We defined index admission from the MCBS as any admission without a previous admission within 60 days. Principal Findings Noninstrumental variables estimation was the preferred estimation strategy. Fourteen-day follow-up care reduced the risk of readmission, ED use, and mortality. There were no rural– urban differences in the effect of 14-day follow-up care on readmission and mortality. Rural beneficiaries experienced a greater effect of 14-day follow-up care on reducing 30-day ED use compared to urban beneficiaries. Conclusions Follow-up care reduces 30- and 60-day readmission, ED use, and mortality. Rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries experience similar beneficial effects of follow-up care on the outcomes. Policies that improve follow-up care in rural settings may be beneficial.
Comparison of differential grouping and random grouping methods on sCCPSO for large-scale constrained optimization

Differential grouping (DG) is a pregrouping method in some unconstrained cooperative coevolutionary algorithms where the grouping scheme is predetermined, while random grouping (RG) is a method where the grouping schemes are dynamically changed according to some criteria. As the first nature-inspired method for large-scale constrained optimization, the e-constrained cooperative coevolutionary particle swarm optimization eCCPSO) algorithmic framework has been recently proposed and studied with different RG techniques, e.g., eCCPSOw2. This paper aims to compare the effectiveness of DG and RG methods applied on the eCCPSO framework, using eCCPSOw2 and two proposed DG implementations, i.e., eCCPSOdg and eCCPSOdg2, for large-scale constrained problems. The results show that, while eCCPSOw2 possesses the fastest convergence rate on the fitness values of most problems, eCCPSOdg2 has better constraint violations minimization ability when solving some problems with nonseparable equality constraints. In addition, an improvement of the DG method is proposed, increasing the speed to approximately twice the original.
A Failing Nation, a Struggling Institution: Higher Education in the Inter-War Period

As the institution faced struggles alongside the nation through the Great Depression and ideological adversaries abroad, higher education did not lose its reputation as a supporter of national interests. The focus was on how citizens should be educated to be contributors to the nation in its time of peril. Although nation lost its domestic economic stability, the identity of superiority was still supported by presidential discourse. This discourse represented the nation as morally and culturally superior, a nation of people who supported one another and their nation’s growth and endeavor to return to economic superiority, thus maintaining American superiority more broadly. Higher education was still considered as capable of contributing to the production of citizen-leaders to make this recovery a reality for the nation-state.
Caloric Analysis of Patients with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo

Objective The aim of this study is to compare nystagmus characteristics after caloric irrigation in patients with lateral canal (LC) and posterior canal (PC) benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) and to analyze the role of symptom duration. Materials and methods A prospective study was conducted in 65 patients with BPPV (20 LC and 45 PC) who were subjected to caloric testing. Average slow-phase velocity and nystagmus duration were analyzed. Results Caloric hypo-excitability was 20.4%. It was more evident in patients with apogeotropic-type LC-BPPV. The comparison of average slow-phase velocity of the nystagmus and nystagmus duration between selected types of BPPV for pathologic, non-pathologic, and the control ears after warm and cold stimulation was not statistically significant (p>0.05). No correlation was found between caloric results and symptom duration (p>0.05). Conclusion Some patients presented caloric hypo-excitability. Reliability of caloric testing to differentiate the ear with normal and abnormal vestibular function in different types of BPPV was low. No difference was found in the analysis of the impact of symptom duration. Caloric testing is not an ideal tool to study BPPV.
Mechanisms of TFAM-mediated cardiomyocyte protection.

Although mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) is a protective component of mitochondrial DNA and a regulator of calcium and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, the mechanism remains un...
Comparative Flight Activities and Pathogen Load of Two Stocks of Honey Bees Reared in Gamma-Irradiated Combs

Gamma irradiation is known to inactivate various pathogens that negatively affect honey bee health. Bee pathogens, such as Deformed wing virus (DWV) and Nosema spp., have a deleterious impact on foraging activities and bee survival, and have been detected in combs. In this study, we assessed the effects of gamma irradiation on the flight activities, pathogen load, and survival of two honey bee stocks that were reared in irradiated and non-irradiated combs. Overall, bee genotype influenced the average number of daily flights, the total number of foraging flights, and total flight duration, in which the Russian honey bees outperformed the Italian honey bees. Exposing combs to gamma irradiation only affected the age at first flight, with worker bees that were reared in non-irradiated combs foraging prematurely compared to those reared in irradiated combs. Precocious foraging may be associated with the higher levels of DWV in bees reared in non-irradiated combs and also with the lower amount of pollen stores in colonies that used non-irradiated combs. These data suggest that gamma irradiation of combs can help minimize the negative impact of DWV in honey bees. Since colonies with irradiated combs stored more pollen than those with non-irradiated combs, crop pollination efficiency may be further improved when mite-resistant stocks are used, since they performed more flights and had longer flight durations.
Listening Is Essential: An Experiential Exercise on Listening Behaviors:

Listening has been identified as an important part of the communication process. Despite this recognition, it is still undertaught in the undergraduate management classroom. This article presents a...
Hydrophobic contribution constants of amino acid residues to the hydrophobicities of oligopeptides.

Purpose. The main purpose of this study is to explore the additive-constitutive nature of common amino acids in their contribution to the partition coefficients of small peptides. Methods. The Log P values and other physico-chemical parameters of the peptides studied are taken from the literature. The frequency of appearance (ni) of each individual amino acid is calculated as the number of the amino acids in a given peptide. Results. The partition coefficients (Log P(oct./buff.) at PH 7) of 87 N-acetyl-peptide-amides have been correlated with the frequency of appearance of amino acids. From the correlation obtained, the de novo hydrophobic contribution constants of 19 amino acid residues are derived for the first time. The contribution constants are extended to 59 unmodified regular peptides with the inclusion of the pka values of both N-terminal and C-terminal amino acids. The models thus obtained have been validated with additional 27 peptides (both N-acetyl-peptide-amides and unmodified). Conclusions. The Log P of oligopeptides is very well correlated with the de novo hydrophobic contribution constants of amino acids. The models we have derived are reasonably accurate in predicting the hydrophobicities of new oligopeptides (≤tetrapeptides) at a fixed pH (e.g., 7).
The Common Beliefs Survey-III and the Situational Self-Statement and Affective State Inventory: Test-Retest Reliability, Internal Consistency, and Further Psychometric Considerations

The Common Beliefs Survey-III (CBS-III), a factored measure of general irrational beliefs, has satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. The Situational Self-Statement and Affective State Inventory (SSSASI), also with acceptable basic psychometric properties, assesses specific thoughts and feelings in response to vignettes describing frustrating events. Both inventories are potentially useful in assessing dimensions important to REBT, but information on test-retest reliability is needed. The CBS-III and the SSSASI were administered to 101 undergraduate students on two occasions, two or three weeks apart. Satisfactory test-retest reliability coefficients were obtained on all subscales of both inventories, but in the case of the SSSASI reliabilities were generally stronger when the same form of the test was used on both occasions (Form 1 presented the thoughts before the feelings, whereas Form 2 presented the feelings before the thoughts). Further exploration showed that responding to the thoughts before the feelings significantly attenuated scores on the feelings, but responding to the feelings before the thoughts had no effect on scores on the thoughts. This unexpected finding also held true in a previously unexamined data set obtained with a different sample of students several years earlier. Taking careful stock of one's emotional reactions before embarking on cognitive modification interventions seems essential to REBT, and it follows that asking questionnaire respondents to rate their affective states before they rate their self-statements could be desirable conceptually. These results provide empirical support for that strategy.
Data Driven Classification Using fMRI Network Measures: Application to Schizophrenia

Using classification to identify biomarkers for various brain disorders has become a common practice among the functional MR imaging community. Typical classification pipeline includes taking the time series, extracting features from them, and using them to classify a set of patients and healthy controls. The most informative features are then presented as novel biomarkers. In this paper, we compared the results of single and double cross validation schemes on a cohort of 170 subjects with schizophrenia and healthy control subjects. We used graph theoretic measures as our features, comparing the use of functional and anatomical atlases to define nodes and the effect of prewhitening to remove autocorrelation trends. We found that double cross validation resulted in a 20% decrease in classification performance compared to single cross validation. The anatomical atlas resulted in higher classification results. Prewhitening resulted in a 10% boost in classification performance. Overall, a classification performance of 80% was obtained with a double-cross validation scheme using prewhitened time series and an anatomical brain atlas. However, reproducibility of classification within subjects across scans was surprisingly low and comparable to across subject classification rates, indicating that subject state during the short scan significantly influences the estimated features and classification performance.
Self-reported navigation ability is associated with optic flow-sensitive regions' functional connectivity patterns during visual path integration.

Introduction Spatial navigation is a complex cognitive skill that varies between individuals, and the mechanisms underlying this variability are not clear. Studying simpler components of spatial navigation may help illuminate factors that contribute to variation in this complex skill; path integration is one such component. Optic flow provides self-motion information while moving through an environment and is sufficient for path integration. This study aims to investigate whether self-reported navigation ability is related to information transfer between optic flow-sensitive (OF-sensitive) cortical regions and regions important to navigation during environmental spatial tasks. Methods Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to define OF-sensitive regions and map their functional connectivity (FC) with the retrosplenial cortex and hippocampus during visual path integration (VPI) and turn counting (TC) tasks. Both tasks presented visual self-motion through a real-world environment. Correlations predicting a positive association between self-reported navigation ability (measured with the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale) and FC strength between OF-sensitive regions and retrosplenial cortex and OF-sensitive regions and the hippocampus were performed. Results During VPI, FC strength between left cingulate sulcus visual area (L CSv) and right retrosplenial cortex and L CSv and right hippocampus was positively associated with self-reported navigation ability. FC strength between right cingulate sulcus visual area (R CSv) and right retrosplenial cortex during VPI was also positively associated with self-reported navigation ability. These relationships were specific to VPI, and whole-brain exploratory analyses corroborated these results. Conclusions These findings support the hypothesis that perceived spatial navigation ability is associated with communication strength between OF-sensitive and navigationally relevant regions during visual path integration, which may represent the transformation accuracy of visual motion information into internal spatial representations. More broadly, these results illuminate underlying mechanisms that may explain some variability in spatial navigation ability.
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF AN ANTILOCK BRAKE CONTROL SYSTEM WITH ELECTRIC BRAKE ACTUATOR

This paper analyses the feasibility of an antilock brake control system using an electric brake actuator. The analysis is focused on the closed–loop control of wheel slip. Wheel and vehicle dynamics during longitudinal braking on uniform surfaces are first analysed to provide a model for performance evaluation using a linear feedback controller design with ideal feedback information from the vehicle, wheel and actuator sensors. The robustness of the linear controller is then analysed by a parametric study of the system's root locus. Since the linear controller was found to have difficulty solving the sensitivity problem, a nonlinear feedback control was then analysed. A formulation of sliding–mode control for the brake system is derived, and a simple solution to the brake control command is also proposed. Computer simulation results of both the linear and nonlinear controller are presented.
Dual-Issue Final-Offer Arbitration: Invariance of Pure Optimal Strategies Under Lp Metrics

We consider a final-offer arbitration problem between two players with two quantitative issues in dispute. We model the problem as a zero-sum game where the arbiter’s opinion is drawn from a bivari...
Emotional labour in non-governmental organisations: narrative analysis and theory expansion

The purpose of this paper is to explore emotional labour in the context of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) using word data from interviews of five NGO directors on their recruitment criteria when hiring staff. We analyse interview transcripts using semiotic clustering. First-order concepts are organised into second-order themes which are summarised as aggregate dimensions to develop a proposition and expand emotional labour theory. We find evidence of emotional labour in NGOs: modelling behaviour for clients, serving as mentors to new staff members, maintaining boundaries between self and clients, suppressing panic in crisis, cognitive reframing, and compartmentalisation. We provide evidence of emotional labour in NGOs, which contributes to emotional labour theory by focusing solely on this important sector of public service. Little research has been done on emotional labour in such organisations, and consistent with prior findings, we find aspects of emotional labour in NGOs can be rewarding and fulfilling as well.
Ethics Consultations Related to Opioid Use Disorder.

Background The opioid epidemic has resulted in an increased number of patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) hospitalized for serious medical conditions. The intersection between hospital ethics consultations and the opioid crisis has not received significant attention. Objective The aim of this study was to characterize ethics consult questions among inpatients with OUD at our institution, Massachusetts General Hospital. Methods We conducted a single-center retrospective cohort study of ethics consultations from January 1, 1993 to December 31, 2017 at Massachusetts General Hospital. Results Between 1993 and 2017, OUD played a central role in ethics consultations in 43 of 1061 (4.0%) cases. There was an increase in these requests beginning in 2009, rising from 1.4% to 6.8% of consults by 2017. Compared with other ethics cases, individuals with OUD were significantly younger (P Conclusion The growing opioid epidemic corresponds with a rise in ethics consultations for patients with OUD. Similar factors associated with OUD itself, including comorbid mental health diagnoses and concerns about relapse, contributed to the ethical complexities of these consults.