cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A targeting sequence directs DNA methyltransferase to sites of DNA replication in mammalian nuclei

Tissue-specific patterns of methylated deoxycytidine residues in the mammalian genome are preserved by postreplicative methylation of newly synthesized DNA. DNA methyltransferase (MTase) is here shown to associate with replication foci during S phase but to display a diffuse nucleoplasmic distribution in non-S phase cells. Analysis of DNA MTase-beta-galactosidase fusion proteins has shown that association with replication foci is mediated by a novel targeting sequence located near the N-terminus of DNA MTase. This sequence has the properties expected of a targeting sequence in that it is not required for enzymatic activity, prevents proper targeting when deleted, and, when fused to beta-galactosidase, causes the fusion protein to associate with replication foci in a cell cycle-dependent manner.
Seasonal to interannual upper-ocean variability in the Drake Passage

Year-round monitoring of the upper-ocean temperature variability in Drake Passage has been undertaken since September 1996 through repeat expendable bathythermograph (XBT) surveys. The closely spaced measurements (6‐ 15 km apart) provide the e rst multi-year time series for examining seasonal to interannual variability in this Southern Ocean choke point. While the temperature sections reveal the seasonal variability in water mass formation of the upper layer, there was no seasonal signal evident below 200 m. Similarly, there was little seasonal cycle evident in the position of the Subantarctic Front, the Polar Front and the Southern Antarctic Circumpolar Current Front associated with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) in Drake Passage. Mesoscale eddy features are readily identie able in the XBT sections and in some sparse salinity sections, as distinct alternating bands separated by near-vertical isotherms of cold and warm core temperatures. The eddies can also be tracked in concurrent maps of altimetric sea surface height, with time scales of ;35 days and diameters of 50‐ 100 km, following a north to north-east trajectory with the main path of ACC e ow through Drake Passage. Both the XBT and the altimetric data suggest the eddies are mainly cone ned to the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone. To determine transport, an empirical relationship is derived between upper ocean XBT temperature and a baroclinic mass transport function from historical CTD casts collected in the Drake Passage. While in the temporal mean the strongest eastward transport is associated with the three major fronts in the ACC, the individual cruises strongly suggest a banded nature to the e ow through the passage. Some, although not all, of the eastward and westward bands of transport can be attributed to the presence of eddies. The high spatial resolution of the XBT measurements is more capable of distinguishing these countere ows than the typical 50 km resolution of historical hydrographic sections across Drake Passage. Commensurate with the position of the fronts, no real seasonal signal in Drake Passage transport is discernible, although there is substantial variability on interannual time scales. The Drake Passage XBT transport time series is strongly correlated to both zonal wind stress and wind stress curl in the southeast Pacie c Ocean.
Channel exploration for wireless media streaming with handoff and rebuffering control

In wireless media streaming from multiple access points, handoff control ensures optimal connectivity as the wireless environment fluctuates, while rebuffering control seeks to maximize user experience by avoiding playout jitters and prolonged freeze times. A joint policy aims to capture the interactions between these controls, but requires a fluctuating wireless environment to be estimated frequently, a process which can interrupt packet retrieval in many mobile applications. In this paper we develop a model for maximizing user QoE by optimally scanning wireless channels while making handoff and rebuffering decisions. We design a control scheme that utilizes partial knowledge of the wireless environment to decide when to explore alternative connections, when to handover to them, and when to exploit an access point while employing channel-aware rebuffering control. We develop a model for the general case of multiple access points, then computationally evaluate the system in specific relevant cases. We find that the resulting optimal control takes the form of threshold-based policies, and that it compares favorably to the omniscient policy with full knowledge of all channel states. We also find that the optimal decision regions can be greatly simplified with only a small decrease in optimality.
Preventive Detention of Sex Offenders

The new generation of sexual predator (SVP) laws, which provide long-term preventive civil confinement of sex offenders, present temptations for our elected representatives and challenges for our courts. During the past generation, society has come to believe that criminal penalties for violent crime or sexual abuse cases have been far too lenient. One predictable, and constitutionally uncontroversial, response has been a general increase in criminal penalties for sex abuse offenses. During the 1980s and 1990s, our State in fact consistently increased such penalties. Because these new laws could only act prospectively, the State faced the additional question of how and whether to respond to inmates already sentenced under previous law. Eventually, our State, like several others, passed an act providing for civil commitment of sex offenders awaiting release from their prison terms.
Grouped Orthogonal Matching Pursuit for Variable Selection and Prediction

We consider the problem of variable group selection for least squares regression, namely, that of selecting groups of variables for best regression performance, leveraging and adhering to a natural grouping structure within the explanatory variables. We show that this problem can be efficiently addressed by using a certain greedy style algorithm. More precisely, we propose the Group Orthogonal Matching Pursuit algorithm (Group-OMP), which extends the standard OMP procedure (also referred to as "forward greedy feature selection algorithm" for least squares regression) to perform stage-wise group variable selection. We prove that under certain conditions Group-OMP can identify the correct (groups of) variables. We also provide an upperbound on the l∞ norm of the difference between the estimated regression coefficients and the true coefficients. Experimental results on simulated and real world datasets indicate that Group-OMP compares favorably to Group Lasso, OMP and Lasso, both in terms of variable selection and prediction accuracy.
The electronic structure of metal/alkane thiol self-assembled monolayers/metal junctions for magnetoelectronics applications

Abstract Long-chain alkane thiols use in metal to organic self-assembled monolayer to metal junctions may be limited by orientational disorder, and photoemission studies suggest that several molecular layers may be needed for the dielectric layer to be effective. Several alkane thiols were investigated in a range of junctions areas 10–102 μm2. Top layer contact deposition, activated with Pd clusters resulted in a high yield of junctions that were not electrically shorted and are stable over a wide temperature range. Zero-bias anomalies, observed at low temperatures, are attributed to a Coulomb blockade associated with the Pd clusters.
Transdominant Activity of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Vpr with a Mutation at Residue R73

The 96-amino-acid-long human immunodeficiency virus type 1 virion-encoded accessory protein Vpr is of particular interest, as this protein, which is found in association with viral particles, can exert a regulatory effect on both virus replication and host cell function. Evidently, Vpr, through interaction with several host regulatory proteins, can modulate transcription from the viral long terminal repeat promoter. Expression of Vpr in cells results in deregulation of cell proliferation during the cell cycle pathway at the G2 stage. Vpr has unique structural features consisting of multiple functional domains. In this study, we have focused on the leucine/isoleucine-rich domain near the carboxyl terminus of Vpr at residue 73 (arginine) and have demonstrated that alterations at this residue result in ablation of transcriptional activity of Vpr and its ability to block cell cycle events at the G2 stage. Interestingly, substitution mutations at R73 have resulted in a peptide with dominant negative activities on wild-type functions in transcription and host proliferation events. Results from in vitro and in vivo protein-protein interaction studies have revealed that functionally inactive mutant Vpr can be associated with wild-type protein, presumably through the N-terminal regions of the protein which have been shown to be important for Vpr oligomerization. Thus, it is likely that complexation of the mutant Vpr with wild-type protein functionally inactivates Vpr. The importance of these findings in light of the development of therapeutic strategies is discussed.
TeraVision: a distributed, scalable, high resolution graphics streaming system

In electronically mediated distance collaborations involving scientific data, there is often the need to stream the graphical output of individual computers or entire visualization clusters to remote displays. This work presents TeraVision as a scalable platform-independent solution which is capable of transmitting multiple synchronized high-resolution video streams between single workstations and/or clusters without requiring any modifications to be made to the source or destination machines. Issues addressed include: how to synchronize individual video streams to form a single larger stream; how to scale and route streams generated by an array of M/spl times/N nodes to fit a X/spl times/Y display; and how TeraVision exploits a variety of transport protocols. Results from experiments conducted over gigabit local-area networks and wide-area networks (between Chicago and Amsterdam), are presented. Finally, we propose the scalable adaptive graphics environment (SAGE) - an architecture to support future collaborative visualization environments with potentially billions of pixels.
Controlled induction of focal adhesion disassembly and migration in primary fibroblasts

Fibroblast migration is an integral component of biological processes such as wound healing and embryogenesis. Previous experiments examining fibroblast locomotion from tissue explants have shown that migrating fibroblasts lack, or contain only transient, focal adhesions (focal contacts). Focal adhesions are specialized regions of tight cell-matrix interaction, assembled by a complex process of transmembrane signalling. Although the explant model has been used for studying several aspects of fibroblast locomotion, it is limited by the lack of control over migration, and only a small percentage of the cells actually locomoting. Therefore, we have developed an in vitro model for cultured fibroblast strains where the presence or absence of focal adhesions can be manipulated, and in the latter case 70% of these cells become locomotory. The stimulus used to decrease the percentage of cells containing focal adhesions, and hence enhance locomotion, was newborn rat heart-conditioned medium (HCM). Addition of HCM to rat embryo fibroblasts induced both chemokinesis and chemotaxis. Cells disassembled focal adhesions on a variety of extracellular matrix substrates after approximately 6 h of stimulation with HCM; conversely, removal of HCM promoted reformation of focal adhesions within 12-24 h. HCM-stimulated fibroblasts which lacked focal adhesions concomitantly lacked F-actin stress fibers and focal concentrations of vinculin and talin. Therefore, fibroblast migration can be readily controlled in an on-off manner through conditioned medium, which influences the absence or presence of focal adhesions.
Introduction to hydrogen storage

Hydrogen can be used as an efficient and sustainable energy source to produce power while minimizing local greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen has about three times the energy by mass compared to most hydrocarbon liquid fuels, but given its low density, it has low energy by volume. Therefore, the storage of hydrogen at high volumetric density is considered a critical enabling technology for the successful commercialization of hydrogen-based energy applications. Hydrogen may be stored in physical form under high pressure at ambient or subambient temperatures, or as a cryogenic liquid near its normal boiling point of 20 K. Additionally, hydrogen may be stored as a solution in metals, bonded to other elements as in hydrogen compounds or adsorbed as the diatomic molecule in porous solids.
Variability of ecological and autotrophic host specificity in a mycoheterotrophic system: Pterospora andromedea and associated fungal and conifer hosts

Abstract Few studies of tripartite mycoheterotrophic systems have examined ecological specificity across broad geographic ranges or addressed autotrophic host specificity. Pterospora andromedea was selected as an ideal candidate to examine ecological specificity of a mycoheterotrophic system as it is widely distributed, has been shown to have high levels of symbiont specificity with Rhizopogon subgenus Amylopogon , and is found with several autotrophic hosts. Pairs of P. andromedea + Rhizopogon spp. samples were co-collected across North America and were sequenced using trnL and ITS, respectively. Bayesian phylogenetic reconstructions between the co-collected taxa were used to examine ecological specificity, and for subsequent tests for autotroph specificity. P. andromedea lineages exhibited both high specificity and relaxed specificity for fungal symbionts and autotrophic hosts across the geographic landscape under allopatric and sympatric conditions. This strong evidence for geographic mosaics of specificity in mycoheterotrophic systems is an important future consideration in determining the evolutionary ecology of mycoheterotrophs.
Indian Aviation Leadership Engagement: Case Study in Leadership Development Using the Cynevin Framework

The paper presents a case study of a leadership development workshop facilitated by two American educators for a group of Indian aviation executives. The Indian aviation environment is quite complex and at times chaotic. The leadership development workshop was conducted as a sense-making exercise using Snowden’s Cynevin Framework. Pre-seminar and post-seminar survey comparisons indicated that the executives experienced significant shifts in attitude during the three-day workshop. Pre-seminar attitudes demonstrated little differentiation between sense-making and leadership action within complex and chaotic contexts. Post-seminar attitudes demonstrated a broader contextual understanding of sense-making and leadership in complex and chaotic environments. The executives left the workshop with a more nuanced understanding of contextually appropriate ways to make sense of and lead in the complex Indian aviation environment.
THE SAN PEDRO SALADO: A CASE OF PREHISTORIC MIGRATION

ABSTRACTThe concept of the Salado as a migration of people is reviewed. Data on the Salado of the San Pedro are presented and tested against theoretical expectations, with the result that the migration hypothesis is supported.
Shear heating during distributed fracturing and pulverization of rocks

We provide estimates of temperature changes produced in fault damage zones during brittle deformation associated with distributed cracking and pulverization. In contrast to localized faulting accompanied by significant frictional weakening, the relatively high friction coefficient on the multitudinous small cracks generated in the fracturing process can lead to significant shear heating. Simple calculations with parameter values constrained by laboratory experiments and simulations indicate that the temperature can increase during the generation of rock damage and pulverization by 100 °C or more. The results can help explain signatures of elevated temperature observed in geometrically complex fault zone sections with significant rock damage and regions with broad distributed deformation.
Review of Human Capacities and Moral Status by Russell DiSilvestro

To say that Russell DiSilvestro's Human Capacities and Moral Status lies outside the mainstream of contemporary bioethics would be something of an understatement. To be more precise, the conclusion...
Enzymes in the Digestive Tract of Mosquito Larvae.

Uvarov (1928) has briefly summarized the literature dealing with the enzymes of insects and points out that the available data are somewhat more numerous than might be expected. The majority of these observations, however, were merely qualitative tests on extracts of the digestive juice or sections of the digestive tract and little information exists as to the quantitative reactions of the enzymes detected. Wigglesworth (1927-1931) has recently made extensive qualitative and quantitative studies of certain insect enzymes. Phillips (1927) and Bertholf (1927) devised an entirely different method for determining the presence of these substances in the honey-bee. The insects, adults (Phillips) and larvae (Bertholf), were fed on chemically pure carbohydrates and a comparison made as to the length of their life in contrast to that of controls fed on water alone. Phillips believes that this is a much more exact method than testing extracts of the intestinal canal since he has demonstrated that the muscles surrounding the proventriculus contained glycogen. As it is commonly held that the enzyme splitting glycogen into glucose is the same as that which splits starch into glucose, the results obtained from biochemical tests of the digestive tract (intestinal wall included) might be misleading. Neither Phillips nor Bertholf excluded micro-organisms from the intestines of the insects and it is quite possible that bacteria, etc., were responsible for the hydrolysis of the particular carbohydrates which were able to maintain the insects alive.
Reproducing the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fifth Edition: Factor Model Results

One of the ways to increase the reproducibility of research is for authors to provide a sufficient description of the data analytic procedures so that others can replicate the results. The publishers of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fifth Edition (WISC-V) do not follow these guidelines when reporting their confirmatory factor analysis results. Consequently, scholars have been frustrated when they have tried to replicate the results in the WISC-V technical manual. I explain how the WISC-V publishers set the scale of their latent variables and demonstrate how to replicate the WISC-V models using the R statistical program.
Fine-needle aspiration of soft tissue perineurioma: A comparative analysis of cytomorphology and immunohistochemistry with benign and malignant mimics.

BACKGROUND Soft tissue perineurioma (STP) is a benign peripheral nerve sheath tumor demonstrating uniform perineurial cell differentiation. To the authors' knowledge, the cytomorphologic features of STP remain incompletely characterized, and the distinction between STP and its benign (intramuscular/cellular myxoma) and malignant (low-grade fibromyxoid sarcoma [LGFMS]) mimics is challenging. METHODS Fine-needle aspiration (FNA)/core needle biopsies of 25 low-grade myxoid spindle cell neoplasm cases including STP (5 cases), intramuscular/cellular myxoma (16 cases), and LGFMS (4 cases) were reviewed retrospectively for cytomorphologic and immunophenotypic comparison. RESULTS FNA smears of STP were hypocellular with scattered clusters of spindle cells with bland, slender nuclei; bipolar cytoplasmic processes; and scant myxoid to collagenous matrix. STP commonly lacked the abundant granular myxoid matrix material present in intramuscular/cellular myxoma (20% in STP vs 75% in intramuscular/cellular myxoma; P <.05), but these tumors were otherwise remarkably found to be similar on FNA smears. All STP and intramuscular/cellular myxoma cases lacked cytologic atypia, whereas 50% of LGFMS cases demonstrated mild nuclear atypia. EMA was positive in all STPs, but also was found to be at least focally positive in 60% of intramuscular/cellular myxoma cases (9 of 15 cases) and 75% of LGFMS cases (3 of 4 cases). MUC4 was found to be negative in all 15 intramuscular/cellular myxoma and 5 STP cases, but was positive in all 4 LGFMS cases. CONCLUSIONS STP, intramuscular/cellular myxoma, and LGFMS have significant cytomorphologic overlap. Immunohistochemical staining with EMA is not beneficial due to a lack of specificity. Negative MUC4 staining reliably excludes LGFMS. Therefore, a clinically meaningful approach to the FNA biopsy evaluation of a low-grade myxoid spindle cell neoplasm is to provide a differential diagnosis and to exclude a low-grade sarcoma. Cancer Cytopathol 2016. © 2016 American Cancer Society.
Radioimmunoassay kit evaluation and selection

This is the second continuing education article in a four-part series on radioimmunoassay. After reading and studying this article, the reader should be able to: 1) describe the procedures used for kit evaluation, including the utility of each experiment, 2) describe the requirements for each experiment, and 3) discuss acceptable results and pitfalls.
Palliative Care in Lung Cancer.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide and is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women in the USA. Symptom burden in patients with advanced lung cancer is very high and has a negative impact on their quality of life (QOL). Palliative care with its focus on the management of symptoms and addressing physical, psychosocial, spiritual, and existential suffering, as well as medically appropriate goal setting and open communication with patients and families, significantly adds to the quality of care received by advanced lung cancer patients. The Provisional Clinical Opinion (PCO) of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) as well as the National Cancer Care Network’s (NCCN) clinical practice guidelines recommends early integration of palliative care into routine cancer care. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of palliative care in lung cancer and will examine the evidence and recommendations with regard to a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to symptom management, as well as discussions of goals of care, advance care planning, and care preferences.
Another Bite at the Apple for Trade Secret Protection: Why Stronger Federal Laws Are Needed to Protect a Corporation's Most Valuable Property

Trade secrets are one of a corporation’s most valuable assets. However, they lack adequate protection under federal law, leaving them vulnerable to theft and misappropriation. As technology advances, it becomes easier and less time consuming for individuals and entities to access and steal trade secrets to a corporation’s detriment. Most often these thefts involve stealing trade secrets in an intangible form. Current legislation fails to adequately protect intangible trade secrets, leaving them vulnerable to theft. An amendment to the National Stolen Property Act that encompasses intangible trade secrets would close a loophole that currently exists relating to intangible assets, allowing for unanimity in similar cases of trade secret theft. Moreover, a federal civil statute would provide an overarching framework for civil trade secrets protection and would allow corporations with trade secret theft claims access to federal courts that can provide civil remedies and emergency relief for diverse parties from different states or countries.
Model Reduction of Large Scale Descriptor Systems Using Time Limited Gramians

A new technique for model order reduction of large scale continuous linear time invariant descriptor systems in limited time interval is proposed. The concept of time limited Gramians for descriptor systems is introduced for applications involving analysis, design or optimization in specific time interval. Balanced truncation based on magnitudes of Hankel singular values of the computed Gramians is performed to obtain the reduced order models in limited time interval. An approximate solution of time limited projected Lyapunov equations is developed and Cholesky factorisation of time limited Gramians is performed. Moreover, stability conditions for reduced order system are stated and two algorithms for stability preservation of reduced order models are presented. Results certify the successful application of the proposed techniques.
The effects of synoptic weather on influenza infection incidences: a retrospective study utilizing digital disease surveillance

The environmental drivers and mechanisms of influenza dynamics remain unclear. The recent development of influenza surveillance––particularly the emergence of digital epidemiology––provides an opportunity to further understand this puzzle as an area within applied human biometeorology. This paper investigates the short-term weather effects on human influenza activity at a synoptic scale during cold seasons. Using 10 years (2005–2014) of municipal level influenza surveillance data (an adjustment of the Google Flu Trends estimation from the Centers for Disease Control’s virologic surveillance data) and daily spatial synoptic classification weather types, we explore and compare the effects of weather exposure on the influenza infection incidences in 79 cities across the USA. We find that during the cold seasons the presence of the polar [i.e., dry polar (DP) and moist polar (MP)] weather types is significantly associated with increasing influenza likelihood in 62 and 68% of the studied cities, respectively, while the presence of tropical [i.e., dry tropical (DT) and moist tropical (MT)] weather types is associated with a significantly decreasing occurrence of influenza in 56 and 43% of the cities, respectively. The MP and the DP weather types exhibit similar close positive correlations with influenza infection incidences, indicating that both cold-dry and cold-moist air provide favorable conditions for the occurrence of influenza in the cold seasons. Additionally, when tropical weather types are present, the humid (MT) and the dry (DT) weather types have similar strong impacts to inhibit the occurrence of influenza. These findings suggest that temperature is a more dominating atmospheric factor than moisture that impacts the occurrences of influenza in cold seasons.
Améry's Duress

If truth hurts, this is no doubt because it is often enough forced on us. And the question as to whether the reception of “nice,” “easy” truths is similarly an outcome of coercion negates itself in its very formulation — we do not ask “why are things the way they are?” from a feeling of comfort; the plaintiff cry of “how, then, shall we live?” does not come to us out of a sense of security. Indeed, insofar as truth overtakes us and interrupts the conventions of our lives, it occurs to us quite apart from our ordinary desires and wants. We are thus faced with a paradox: what claim can truth make on a bein g that “doesn’t need it and doesn’t care about it—since it doesn’t at all concern his needs”? When one considers that the awareness of truth is indexed to lived experience, the paradox is only heightened.
Hiatal and paraesophageal hernia repair in pediatric patients

Hiatal and paraesophageal hernia (HH/PEH) can be congenital, resulting from embryologic abnormalities/genetic predisposition, or acquired, most commonly after gastroesophageal surgery such as fundoplication. Minimizing circumferential esophageal dissection at the time of Nissen fundoplication has been shown to decrease the risk of acquired HH/PEH from 36.5% to 12.2%. Gastrointestinal, respiratory, and constitutional symptoms, including anemia and failure to thrive, are common with high rates of associated gastroesophageal reflux. Chest x-ray is often abnormal and upper GI confirms the diagnosis. Treatment is surgical with the goal of reducing the hernia contents, excising the hernia sac, closing the crura, and performing an antireflux procedure. The laparoscopic approach is safe and effective.
Care of Traumatic Conditions in an Observation Unit

Patients presenting to the emergency department with certain traumatic conditions can be managed in observation units. The evidence base supporting the use of observation units to manage injured patients is smaller than the evidence base supporting the management of medical conditions in observation units. The conditions that are eligible for management in an observation unit are not limited to those described in this article, and investigators should continue to identify types of conditions that may benefit from this type of health care delivery.
National evaluation of multidisciplinary quality metrics for head and neck cancer.

BACKGROUND The National Quality Forum has endorsed quality-improvement measures for multiple cancer types that are being developed into actionable tools to improve cancer care. No nationally endorsed quality metrics currently exist for head and neck cancer. METHODS The authors identified patients with surgically treated, invasive, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in the National Cancer Data Base from 2004 to 2014 and compared the rate of adherence to 5 different quality metrics and whether compliance with these quality metrics impacted overall survival. The metrics examined included negative surgical margins, neck dissection lymph node (LN) yield ≥ 18, appropriate adjuvant radiation, appropriate adjuvant chemoradiation, adjuvant therapy within 6 weeks, as well as overall quality. RESULTS In total, 76,853 eligible patients were identified. There was substantial variability in patient-level adherence, which was 80% for negative surgical margins, 73.1% for neck dissection LN yield, 69% for adjuvant radiation, 42.6% for adjuvant chemoradiation, and 44.5% for adjuvant therapy within 6 weeks. Risk-adjusted Cox proportional-hazard models indicated that all metrics were associated with a reduced risk of death: negative margins (hazard ratio [HR] 0.73; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.71-0.76), LN yield ≥ 18 (HR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.89-0.96), adjuvant radiation (HR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.64-0.70), adjuvant chemoradiation (HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.79-0.88), and adjuvant therapy ≤6 weeks (HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.89-0.96). Patients who received high-quality care had a 19% reduced adjusted hazard of mortality (HR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.79-0.83). CONCLUSIONS Five head and neck cancer quality metrics were identified that have substantial variability in adherence and meaningfully impact overall survival. These metrics are appropriate candidates for national adoption. Cancer 2017. © 2017 American Cancer Society.
Multi-component fitting of cluster dynamics

Reaction dynamics in polyatomic systems and cluster assemblies are often complicated by multiple competing pathways. This chapter develops a method of modeling ultrafast reaction dynamics that permits the measurement of rate coefficients as well as the determination of the branching ratios of such competing processes. This method is based on a general understanding of the rate laws of chemical kinetics and the interaction of ultrafast laser pulses with molecular targets. This approach is applied to fit pump-probe experiments on sulfur dioxide and sulfur dioxide clusters. The influence of solvation on molecular dynamics is determined. The model is based on comparing the ratio of the amplitude coefficients of competing pathways, enabling a determination of their branching ratios.
On R. Skidelsky's Role in Promoting the Hicksian IS-LM Myth: How His Own Mathematical Confusion Concerning Keynes's Theory of Effective Demand D-Z Model and Keynes's IS-LP(LM) Model Completely Undermines His Claims About the General Theory

R Skidelsky’s complete misunderstanding of the role that formal mathematics played in the development of Keynes’s IS-LP (LM) model and his Theory of Effective Demand in the General Theory explains his confused and confusing comments about the development of the IS-LM model and his mistaken belief that Hicks was the one who developed and used mathematical modeling to formalize Keynes’s alleged “verbal” analysis in the General Theory. Exactly the opposite is the case. Keynes, not Hicks, created the IS-LP(LM) model in December,1933 and explicitly incorporated it in chapters 15 and 21 in section IV of both chapters of the General Theory. Chapters 15 and 16 of Skidelsky’s 1992 John Maynard Keynes: The economist as savior -1920-1937 are an intellectual and historical mess that make no sense once it is realized that Keynes created, developed, taught, and applied the IS-LP(LM) model some four years before Hicks’s 1937 article appeared in print in Econometrica. Dimand (2007, 2010), and later Rubin (2014, 2016), correctly realized what Skidelsky completely missed, which was that Keynes had constructed the first IS-LP (LM) model in December, 1933. It appears in the 1934 draft of the GT. By September, 1935, Keynes had integrated Y, aggregate Income, into the LP equation as it would appear on p.199 of the GT in chapter 15. Dimand correctly points out that this refutes Samuelson’s conjecture that Keynes did not understand his own model until he had read Hicks’s IS-LL interpretation in 1937, as well as the claims of the Robinson’s and Kahn that IS-LM was completely foreign to Keynes’s understanding of how an economic model is created in economics because he a was a partial equilibrium, Marshallian and not a general equilibrium Walrasian so that Keynes did NOT incorporate his 1933 formal, mathematical model into the GT because it was impossible to model uncertainty mathematically. Of course, Keynes had successfully modeled uncertainty mathematically in the A Treatise on Probability in both Part II and in chapter 26 with his c coefficient. Unfortunately, both Dimand and Rubin, while catching and rejecting one of J Robinson’s many myths about Keynes, fell for another one of her myths - that Keynes provided no formal mathematical model of IS-LP (LM) in the GT. Of course, it is all there in Section IV of chapter 15 and section IV of chapter 21. Both Dimand and Rubin simply overlooked Keynes’s modeling due to their acceptance of one of the many J. Robinson myths that she created about Keynes and the GT.
A silicon nitride grating coupler for efficent coupling bewteen waveguide and fiber

A compact grating with relaxed alignment tolerance for coupling between a fiber and a silicon nitride waveguide is presented. The measured peak coupling efficiency is 22% and the 3dB bandwidth is 58 nm. The fabrication of gratings does not require any etching of materials.
Coagulopathy in Severe Sepsis: Interconnectivity of Coagulation and the Immune System.

Abstract Background: Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) remains a challenging complication of infection with inadequate treatment and significant morbidity and mortality rates. Methods: R...
Introduction to Causal Inference

The goal of many sciences is to understand the mechanisms by which variables came to take on the values they have (that is, to find a generative model), and to predict what the values of those variables would be if the naturally occurring mechanisms were subject to outside manipulations. The past 30 years has seen a number of conceptual developments that are partial solutions to the problem of causal inference from observational sample data or a mixture of observational sample and experimental data, particularly in the area of graphical causal modeling. However, in many domains, problems such as the large numbers of variables, small samples sizes, and possible presence of unmeasured causes, remain serious impediments to practical applications of these developments. The articles in the Special Topic on Causality address these and other problems in applying graphical causal modeling algorithms. This introduction to the Special Topic on Causality provides a brief introduction to graphical causal modeling, places the articles in a broader context, and describes the differences between causal inference and ordinary machine learning classification and prediction problems.
Not All Pixels are Born Equal: An Analysis of Evasion Attacks under Locality Constraints

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have enabled success in learning tasks such as image classification, semantic image segmentation and steering angle prediction which can be key components of the computer vision pipeline of safety-critical systems such as autonomous vehicles. However, previous work has demonstrated the feasibility of using physical adversarial examples to attack image classification systems. \par In this work, we argue that the success of realistic adversarial examples is highly dependent on both the structure of the training data and the learning objective. In particular, realistic, physical-world attacks on semantic segmentation and steering angle prediction constrain the adversary to add localized perturbations, since it is very difficult to add perturbations in the entire field of view of input sensors such as cameras for applications like autonomous vehicles. We empirically study the effectiveness of adversarial examples generated under strict locality constraints imposed by the aforementioned applications. Even with image classification, we observe that the success of the adversary under locality constraints depends on the training dataset. With steering angle prediction, we observe that adversarial perturbations localized to an off-road patch are significantly less successful compared to those on-road. For semantic segmentation, we observe that perturbations localized to small patches are only effective at changing the label in and around those patches, making non-local attacks difficult for an adversary. We further provide a comparative evaluation of these localized attacks over various datasets and deep learning models for each task.
Examining the effects of negative performance feedback: the roles of sadness, feedback self-efficacy, and grit

We investigate the effects of performance feedback on a subsequent performance task and the mediating role of sadness. Drawing on the appraisal tendency framework, we expect that negative performance feedback increases sadness, which then spills over to negatively affect performance on a future task. In addition, we expect two individual traits—feedback self-efficacy and grit—to moderate the relationship, such that the negative effect of sadness on subsequent task performance is weakened for individuals with high feedback self-efficacy and high grit. We use face-based emotion recognition software to capture emotion expression during the delivery of positive and negative feedback. We find support for our mediated moderation model in a sample of 96 participants. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Implementing stratified care for acute low back pain in primary care using the STarT Back instrument: a process evaluation within the context of a large pragmatic cluster randomized trial.

Although risk-stratifying patients with acute lower back pain is a promising approach for improving long-term outcomes, efforts to implement stratified care in the US healthcare system have had limited success. The objectives of this process evaluation were to 1) examine variation in two essential processes, risk stratification of patients with low back pain and referral of high-risk patients to psychologically informed physical therapy and 2) identify barriers and facilitators related to the risk stratification and referral processes. We used a sequential mixed methods study design to evaluate implementation of stratified care at 33 primary care clinics (17 intervention, 16 control) participating in a larger pragmatic trial. We used electronic health record data to calculate: 1) clinic-level risk stratification rates (proportion of patients with back pain seen in the clinic over the study period who completed risk stratification questionnaires), 2) rates of risk stratification across different points in the clinical workflow (front desk, rooming, and time with clinician), and 3) rates of referral of high-risk patients to psychologically informed physical therapy among intervention clinics. We purposively sampled 13 clinics for onsite observations, which occurred in month 24 of the 26-month study. The overall risk stratification rate across the 33 clinics was 37.8% (range: 14.7–64.7%). Rates were highest when patients were identified as having back pain by front desk staff (overall: 91.9%, range: 80.6–100%). Rates decreased as the patient moved further into the visit (rooming, 29.3% [range: 0–83.3%]; and time with clinician, 11.3% [range: 0–49.3%]. The overall rate of referrals of high-risk patients to psychologically informed physical therapy across the 17 intervention clinics was 42.1% (range: 8.3–70.8%). Barriers included staffs’ knowledge and beliefs about the intervention, patients’ needs, technology issues, lack of physician engagement, and lack of time. Adaptability of the processes was a facilitator. Adherence to key stratified care processes varied across primary care clinics and across points in the workflow. The observed variation suggests room for improvement. Future research is needed to build on this work and more rigorously test strategies for implementing stratified care for patients with low back pain in the US healthcare system. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT02647658 ). Registered January 6, 2016,
Siting Energy Storage and Distribution Resources for Societal Benefit During Long-Term Outages

Natural or man-made disasters can disrupt electricity supply for long periods, resulting in significant human cost. We report an algorithm that designs microgrids with energy storage and distributed generation for societal benefit by assuring that critical services such as medical care, food, etc. have power throughout a long-duration outage. The algorithm employs search space decomposition, graph topology, and heuristics to efficiently find a high-quality solution, assuring even coverage of priority services. Energy storage plays a key role by enabling power delivery over a long duration without fuel resupply. We present an example demonstrating the algorithm’s ability to respond to critical service priorities, electric distribution constraints, geospatial threats, and various outage duration targets.
A Stochastic Multiagent Optimization Framework for Interdependent Transportation and Power System Analyses

We study the interdependence between transportation and power systems considering decentralized renewable generators and electric vehicles (EVs). We formulate the problem in a stochastic multiagent optimization framework considering the complex interactions between EV/conventional vehicle drivers, renewable/conventional generators, and independent system operators, with locational electricity and charging prices endogenously determined by markets. We show that the multiagent optimization problems can be reformulated as a single convex optimization problem and prove the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium. To cope with the curse of dimensionality, we propose the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM)-based decomposition algorithm to facilitate parallel computing. Numerical insights are generated using standard test systems in the transportation and power system literature.
Ultra-long-term toxicity of prostate brachytherapy

Abstract Purpose The true long-term toxicity associated with most radiation treatments is unknown. Prostate cancer patients survive decades after prostate cancer brachytherapy, with unclear long-term toxicity profiles. We therefore evaluated prostate cancer patients who had received I-125 brachytherapy treatment (14,400 cGy) 14–24 years prior and assessed their long-term quality of life based on urinary, bowel, and sexual function. Methods and Materials We performed a single-institutional, retrospective analysis of 39 men who received brachytherapy between 1996 and 2005. Analysis was based on physician evaluations, laboratory values, and International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) results. Results At last followup, the mean patient age was 80 years (median 81 years), with a mean of 17.8 years posttreatment followup. Fifteen percent of patients had experienced recurrence. Urinary symptoms were limited, with 0% of patients reporting dysuria, 13% reporting incontinence, and 33% on medication for urinary symptoms. Average times nocturia was 1.7 with mean IPSS of 6.4. With regard to bowel symptoms, 3% of patients reported incontinence, 8% noted diarrhea, 3% had rectal bleeding, 8% noted constipation, and no patients required prescription medication for bowel function. Thirty-nine percent of patients potent before treatment reported being potent with or without medication. Conclusions Prostate cancer survivors, postbrachytherapy treatment, have an overall good quality of life for many years to come. Urinary and bowel symptoms are limited, IPSS scores are generally low, and patients who consider sexual function important at their stage in life are frequently found to be potent. Overall, the long-term side effects of brachytherapy are limited at 14–24 years posttreatment.
Symptoms of COVID-19 in a population-based cohort study

Accurate diagnosis of potential SARS-CoV-2 infections by symptoms is one strategy for continuing global surveillance, particularly in low-resource communities. We conducted a prospective, population-based cohort study, the Arizona CoVHORT, among Arizona residents to elucidate the symptom profile of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 participants(16.2%) compared to laboratory-confirmed negative(22.4%) and untested general population participants(61.4%). Among the 1514 study participants, those who were COVID-19 positive were more likely to be Hispanic(33.5%) and more likely to report obesity > 30 kg/m2(34.7%) compared to COVID-19 negative participants(19.2%; 31.0%) and untested CoVHORT participants(13.8%; 23.8%). Of the 245 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, 15.0% reported having had no symptoms. Of those that did report symptoms, the most commonly-reported first symptoms were sore throat(19.0%), headache(15.5%), cough(12.7%), runny nose/cold-like symptoms(12.1%), and fatigue(12.0%). In adjusted logistic regression models, COVID-19 positive participants were more likely than negative participants to experience loss of taste and smell(OR:35.7; 95% CI 18.4-69.5); bone or nerve pain(OR:17.9; 95% CI 6.7-47.4), vomiting(OR:10.8; 95% CI 3.1-37.5), nausea(OR:10.5; 95% CI 5.5-19.9), and headache(OR:8.4; 95% CI 5.6-12.8). When comparing confirmed COVID-19 cases with confirmed negative or untested participants, the pattern of symptoms that discriminates SARS-CoV-2 infection from those arising from other potential circulating pathogens may differ from general reports of symptoms among cases alone.
News Framing of the Rohingya Crisis: Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage from Four Countries

The study examines prominent news frames, sources, and refugee characteristics present in coverage of the under-reported Rohingya refugee crisis across newspapers from four nations. Findings show v...
Hereditary and extremal orders

In this chapter, we consider hereditary orders, those with the simplest kind of module theory; we characterize these orders in several ways, including showing they have an extremal property with respect to their Jacobson radical.