cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
International Evidence On Purchasing Power Parity Theory: A Partial Equilibrium Empirical Investigation

This paper tests the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) theory in a partial equilibrium framework. Statistical tests are employed to test the PPP theory for floating exchange rates of the Australian and Canadian dollars, Swiss frank and the British pound. The study period spans the fourth quarter of 1974 through the fourth quarter of 2006. The Johansen and Juselieus test of cointegration supports a long-run relationship between inflation and exchange rate predicted by the PPP theory only for the bilateral exchange rates of the pound and the Australian dollar. This evidence suggests that the PPP in its strict theoretical sense in the case of the bilateral exchange rate of the US dollar and Australian dollar is rejected but not for the case of the exchange rate of the pound and US dollar. However, the Granger causality test further supports the findings of the cointegration test. It shows that in the short-run, the money supply and GDP ratios Granger cause the movements of this exchange rate.
Cyber-Physical Topology Language: Definition, Operations, and Application

Maintaining the resilience of a large-scale system requires an accurate view of the system's cyber and physical state. The ability to collect, organize, and analyze state central to a system's operation is thus important in today's environment, in which the number and sophistication of security attacks are increasing. Although a variety of "sensors" (e.g., Intrusion Detection Systems, log files, and physical sensors) are available to collect system state information, it's difficult for administrators to maintain and analyze the diversity of information needed to understand a system's security state. Therefore, we have developed the Cyber-Physical Topology Language (CPTL) to represent and reason about system security. CPTL combines ideas from graph theory and formal logics, and provides a framework to capture relationships among the diverse types of sensor information. In this paper, we formally define CPTL as well as operations on CPTL models that can be used to infer a system's security state. We then illustrate the use of CPTL in both the enterprise and electrical power domains and provide experimental results that illustrate the practicality of the approach.
Resveratrol preserves the function of human platelets stored for transfusion

Stored platelets undergo biochemical, structural and functional changes that lead to decreased efficacy and safety of platelet transfusions. Not only do platelets acquire markers of activation during storage, but they also fail to respond normally to agonists post-storage. We hypothesized that resveratrol, a cardioprotective antioxidant, could act as a novel platelet storage additive to safely prevent unwanted platelet activation during storage, while simultaneously preserving normal haemostatic function. Human platelets treated with resveratrol and stored for 5 d released less thromboxane B2 and prostaglandin E2 compared to control platelets. Resveratrol preserved the ability of platelets to aggregate, spread and respond to thrombin, suggesting an improved ability to activate post-storage. Utilizing an in vitro model of transfusion and thromboelastography, clot strength was improved with resveratrol treatment compared to conventionally stored platelets. The mechanism of resveratrol's beneficial actions on stored platelets was partly mediated through decreased platelet apoptosis in storage, resulting in a longer half-life following transfusion. Lastly, an in vivo mouse model of transfusion demonstrated that stored platelets are prothrombotic and that resveratrol delayed vessel occlusion time to a level similar to transfusion with fresh platelets. We show resveratrol has a dual ability to reduce unwanted platelet activation during storage, while preserving critical haemostatic function.
Visual-search observers for assessing tomographic x-ray image quality

Purpose: Mathematical model observers commonly used for diagnostic image-quality assessments in x-ray imaging research are generally constrained to relatively simple detection tasks due to their need for statistical prior information. Visual-search (VS) model observers that employ morphological features in sequential search and analysis stages have less need for such information and fewer task constraints. The authors compared four VS observers against human observers and an existing scanning model observer in a pilot study that quantified how mass detection and localization in simulated digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) can be affected by the number P of acquired projections. Methods: Digital breast phantoms with embedded spherical masses provided single-target cases for a localization receiver operating characteristic (LROC) study. DBT projection sets based on an acquisition arc of 60° were generated for values of P between 3 and 51. DBT volumes were reconstructed using filtered backprojection with a constant 3D Butterworth postfilter; extracted 2D slices were used as test images. Three imaging physicists participated as observers. A scanning channelized nonprewhitening (CNPW) observer had knowledge of the mean lesion-absent images. The VS observers computed an initial single-feature search statistic that identified candidate locations as local maxima of either a template matched-filter (MF) image or a gradient-template MF (GMF) image. Search inefficiencies that modified the statistic were also considered. Subsequent VS candidate analyses were carried out with (i) the CNPW statistical discriminant and (ii) the discriminant computed from GMF training images. These location-invariant discriminants did not utilize covariance information. All observers read 36 training images and 108 study images per P value. Performance was scored in terms of area under the LROC curve. Results: Average human-observer performance was stable for P between 7 and 35. In the absence of search inefficiencies, the VS models based on the GMF analysis provided the best correlation (Pearson ρ ≥ 0.62) with the human results. The CNPW-based VS observers deviated from the humans primarily at lower values of P. In this limited study, search inefficiencies allowed for good quantitative agreement with the humans for most of the VS observers. Conclusions: The computationally efficient training requirements for the VS observer are suitable for high-resolution imaging, indicating that the observer framework has the potential to overcome important task limitations of current model observers for x-ray applications.
Sex Attractants of Heliothis zea and H. virescens

The increasing number of problems arising from the presence of undesirable insecticide residues as well as the resistance developed by insects to insecticides have caused us to search for other effective means of controlling many insect pests. Hall (1963) suggested that potent chemical attractants, including those that elicit mating between the sexes (sex attractants), might be utilized in planning effective control programs. In 1963 we began studies at Brownsville, Tex., to detect sex attractants in some of the more important cotton pests. This report summarizes the results of our efforts to demonstrate the presence of sex attractants in the bollworm, Heliothis zea (Boddie), and the tobacco budworm, H. virescens (F.)
Epidemiological characteristics and molecular typing of Salmonella typhimurium in Shanghai

[Objective] To study the molecular epidemiological characteristics of Salmonella typhimurium(S.typhimurium) in diarrhea patients in Shanghai from 2006 to 2007. [Methods] A retrospective analysis from 2006 to 2007 was done to explore the source of food-borne S.typhimurium and make comparison in its drug resistance to antibiotics between food-borne and diarrhea strains.Data of S.typhimurium survey of patients on Global-Salm-Surv(GSS) and food were analysed,including serotype,drug resistance and pulsed field gel electrophoresis(PFGE). [Results] The number of diarrhea cases of S.typhimurium comfirmed by culture method was only next to that of S.enteritidis in cases of nontyphoidal Salmonella infection in Shanghai between 2006 to 2007.Food-borne S.typhimurium strains were mostly from poultry(64.4%) and meat products(17.8%).The antibiotic resistance of food-borne S.typhimurium was higher than those from clinical isolateed(P0.05).Seven food strains and 44 diarrheal strains were divided into 23 PFGE subtypes.The dominating subtypes were type1(8 strains),type2(6 strains),type29(4 strains),type49(8 strains) and type6(4 strains).Only in 7 cases,the diarrhea strains subtypes matched with food subtypes(4 strains were subtype 49,the other 3 strains subtype 6,15.9%,7/44.Strains of PFGE subtype 6,13.3%,6/45).Diarrhea strains PFGE subtype 1 were 2 cases and 6 cases in 2006 and 2007 respectively.Subtype 2 were 4 cases and 2 cases in 2006 and 2007 respectively. [Conclusion] Diarrhea with S.typhimurium has epidemiological characteristics of being highly sporadic and sporadic outbreak in Shanghai.The dominant clone types which do not match with strains from local food are PFGE subtype 2 and 1.The genetic homology are low between strains from contaminant local fresh animal meat and strains from diarrhea patients.We guess the origin of infection may be secondary food contamination by non-local patients.We suggest that epidemiological investigation should be enhanced to expose the latent infectious origin and transmission route.
Improved Threshold Multi-proxy Multi-signature Scheme with Shared Verification

With the problems of secreat leak and unrealized shared verification in Tzeng’s paper and Hsu’s,an improved scheme is proposed,by increasing signature and verification secret polynomials’ degree.This scheme can resist conspiracy attack effectively and actualize shared verification,as it has been justified using Lagrange interpolation and interrelated knowledge.
Information-based measure for influence characterization in dynamical systems with applications

In this paper, we introduce novel measure based on information to define influence in a dynamical system. The objective is to determine how a particular state (or a linear combination of states) in dynamical system influence or participate in the dynamics of another state (or a linear combination of states). An important parameter in determining the influence is the definition of the influence. We propose information or entropy-based measure for influence characterization. In particular, state x is said to influence or participate in the dynamics of state y, if the evolution of state x results in change in entropy or information content of state y. This work builds on our prior work on formalism for information transfer in dynamical network [1]. We discuss the applications of the developed framework for influence characterization in power system and social network. For power system, the proposed influence measure is used for the computation of participation factor of individual generator to the inter-area oscillation mode of the power system. For social network application, we use a Twitter network for influence characterization. The influence measure is used to understand the distribution of influential nodes and for influence-based clustering of the Twitter network.
Mapping LSE method on a grid. Software architecture and performance gains

Publisher Summary The chapter explores how least square extrapolation (LSE) can perform on a commercial code, without having any knowledge on the source code. It emphasizes this approach by using a basic network of workstation to compute the weighted solutions and then solves the minimization problem over the produce results. In computational fluid dynamics (CFD), a Posteriori error estimators are widely produced using Richardson extrapolation (RE) and variations of it. All these methods rely on the a priori existence of an asymptotic expansion of the error—such as a Taylor formula—and make no direct use of the PDE formulation. As a consequence, RE methods are extremely simple to implement. But in practice, meshes might not be fine enough to satisfy accurately the a priori convergence estimates that are asymptotic in nature. RE is unreliable or fairly unstable and sensitive to noisy data.
Progesterone treatment shows greater protection in brain vs. retina in a rat model of middle cerebral artery occlusion: Progesterone receptor levels may play an important role.

Background/objective To determine whether inflammation increases in retina as it does in brain following middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO), and whether the neurosteroid progesterone, shown to have protective effects in both retina and brain after MCAO, reduces inflammation in retina as well as brain. Methods MCAO rats treated systemically with progesterone or vehicle were compared with shams. Protein levels of cytosolic NF-κB, nuclear NF-κB, phosphorylated NF-κB, IL-6, TNF-α, CD11b, progesterone receptor A and B, and pregnane X receptor were assessed in retinas and brains at 24 and 48 h using western blots. Results Following MCAO, significant increases were observed in the following inflammatory markers: pNF-κB and CD11b at 24 h in both brain and retina, nuclear NF-κB at 24 h in brain and 48 h in retina, and TNF-α at 24 h in brain.Progesterone treatment in MCAO animals significantly attenuated levels of the following markers in brain: pNF-κB, nuclear NF-κB, IL-6, TNF-α, and CD11b, with significantly increased levels of cytosolic NF-κB. Retinas from progesterone-treated animals showed significantly reduced levels of nuclear NF-κB and IL-6 and increased levels of cytosolic NF-κB, with a trend for reduction in other markers. Post-MCAO, progesterone receptors A and B were upregulated in brain and downregulated in retina. Conclusion Inflammatory markers increased in both brain and retina after MCAO, with greater increases observed in brain. Progesterone treatment reduced inflammation, with more dramatic reductions observed in brain than retina. This differential effect may be due to differences in the response of progesterone receptors in brain and retina after injury.
Lipid Membrane Encapsulation of a 3D DNA Nano Octahedron

Structural DNA nanotechnology methods such as DNA origami allow for the synthesis of highly precise nanometer-scale materials (Rothemund, Nature 440:297-302, 2006; Douglas et al., Nature 459:414-418, 2009). These offer compelling advantages for biomedical applications. Such materials can suffer from structural instability in biological environments due to denaturation and nuclease digestion (Hahn et al., ACS Nano 2014; Perrault and Shih, ACS Nano 8:5132-5140, 2014). Encapsulation of DNA nanostructures in a lipid membrane compartmentalizes them from their environment and prevents denaturation and nuclease digestion (Perrault and Shih, ACS Nano 8:5132-5140, 2014). Here, we describe the encapsulation of a 50 nm DNA nanostructure having the geometry of a wireframe octahedron in a phospholipid membrane containing poly-(ethylene glycol), resulting in biocompatible DNA nanostructures.
Spin diffusion induced by pulsed-laser heating and the role of spin heat accumulation

We present a model for describing spin diffusion in normal-metal/ferromagnetic-metal heterostructures induced by pulsed-laser heating. The model is based on the assumptions that electronic heat currents give rise to the spin-dependent Seebeck effect and that ultrafast demagnetization generates spin accumulation with a rate proportional to the demagnetization rate measured. Spin-diffusion currents are then driven by gradients in spin accumulation and electron temperature. The model considers spin-dependent thermal conductivity and electron-phonon coupling, which can give rise to different effective temperatures for majority and minority spins, known as spin heat accumulation. We find that spin heat accumulation can significantly enhance the spin-dependent Seebeck effect.
Physiologic response of six plant species grown in two contrasting soils and irrigated with brackish groundwater and RO concentrate

ABSTRACTWith declining availability of fresh surface water, brackish groundwater is increasingly used for irrigation in the arid and semi-arid southwestern United States. Brackish water can be desalinated by reverse osmosis (RO) but RO results in a highly saline concentrate. Disposal of concentrate is a major problem hindering augmentation of inland desalination in arid areas. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of texture and saline water irrigation on the physiology of six species (Atriplex canescens (Pursh) Nutt., Hordeum vulgare L., Lepidium alyssoides A. Gray, Distichlis stricta (L.) Greene, Panicum virgatum L., and ×Triticosecale Wittm. ex A. Camus [Secale × Triticum]). All species were grown in two contrasting soils and irrigated with the same volume of control water (EC 0.9 dS/m), brackish groundwater (4.1 dS/m), RO concentrate (EC 8.0 dS/m). Several plant physiological measurements were made during the growing season including height, number of stem nodes, average internodal l...
Basal and Reflex Human Tear Analysis: II. Chemical Analysis: Lactoferrin and Lysozyme

Abstract Unstimulated basal tears and stimulated tears were collected from normal controls, keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS) patients, and contact lens (CL) wearers. Basal tear volume (Periopaper®) and reflex tear volume (Schirmer Strip®) were measured and tears eluted from their respective strip with a TMED-acetic acid buffer. Lactoferrin and lysozyme concentrations were measured in the eluates. Concentration of lysozyme in basal tears was: 65 ± 43 mg% in normals; 44 ± 26 mg% in KCS, and 81 ± 50 mg% in CL wearers. Concentration of lysozyme in reflex tears was: 160 ± 73 mg% in normals, 74 ± 41 mg% in KCS, and 186 ± 83 mg% in CL wearers. Concentration of lactoferrin in basal tears was 137 ± 102 mg% in normals, 154 ± 82 mg% in KCS, and 157 ± 80 mg% in CL wearers. Concentrations of lactoferrin in reflex tears was: 327 ± 187 mg% in normals; 171 ± 69 mg% in KCS, and 302 ± 160 mg% in CL wearers. The lactoferrin concentration in all tear samples was consistently higher (1.6–3.5 times) than lysozyme. In basal tears, lactoferrin concentrations were not significantly different in the three groups. In reflex tears, however, lactoferrin was significantly lower in KCS than normal or CL wearers. The concentration of lysozyme in both basal and reflex tears was significantly lower in the KCS when compared to normal or CL wearers. Lysozyme and lactoferrin concentrations in both basal and reflex tears were similar in CL wearers and normal controls. The sampling and elution of basal and reflex tears as described appears to be a feasible technique for analysis of lysozyme-and lactoferrin concentrations by the electroimmunodiffusion technique and has potential diagnostic value.
Do quantitative metrics derived from standard fluoroscopy phantoms used for quality control assess vendor-specific advancements in interventional fluoroscopy systems?

Approximately 9 million fluoroscopically-guided interventional procedures are performed annually in the USA. Recent technological advancements for interventional fluoroscopy systems have focused towards vendor-specific real-time image and signal processing. Hence, the purpose of this study was to evaluate if quantitative metrics derived from standard image quality phantoms, routinely used for quality control, are able to distinguish vendor-specific processing features for interventional fluoroscopy systems. Six standard image quality phantoms were used to measure contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), full-width-at-half-maximum (for determining edge blurring) and modulation transfer function, to analyze contrast detail characteristics, and to assess digital subtraction angiography (DSA) performance of six flat-panel detector based interventional fluoroscopy systems from Philips (with and without ClarityIQ) and Siemens. Phantom data were acquired at different dose modes and field-of-view settings. Fluoroscopy loops and digital subtraction acquisitions were saved (duration 3 seconds; repeated 3 times). Images were analyzed off-line using ImageJ. CNR measurements showed no differences between systems, whereas the contrast-detail analysis and edge blurring characterization showed relatively low performance of Philips Clarity systems compared to Siemens and Philips non-Clarity systems. Conversely, the modulation transfer function showed that the limiting spatial resolution was higher for the Philips systems relative to the Siemens suite. However, with the DSA phantom the performance of Siemens and Philips Clarity-systems was similar. In conclusion, depending on the image quality phantom used for comparing different systems, the results may differ and therefore, quantitative metrics derived from standard fluoroscopy phantoms lack the discriminatory ability to assess vendor-specific advancements in interventional fluoroscopy systems.
Strategies for the reduction of energy storage capacity for high penetration of wind and solar power

Wind and solar energy are currently the most promising carbon free sources of electrical energy. However, high penetration of solar and wind into the electrical grid will require energy storage due to the intermittent and unpredictable nature of these sources. Using the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) energy market in the central region of the United States for the years 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 as a case study, we show that the amount of storage required for a 100% wind and solar energy portfolio would correspond on average to approximately 4.5% of the load energy for the year. Allowing for 10% of this energy to be produced by other (necessarily dispatchable) sources, and using 20% over-generation of solar and wind, reduces this fraction to approximately 0.03%. Assuming optimistic capital costs for wind and solar capacity as well as storage capacity, a simple model shows that the corresponding ratio of storage to generation capital costs is reduced from 10 to 0.06.
Injury Costing Frameworks

Injury costing methods have become an important part of injury research. This chapter discusses the major conceptual frameworks used to guide costing studies and offers a brief guide to how one would go about costing injuries. Because some of the issues in costing are more technical than can be covered here, references to other texts in economic evaluation are provided.
The Effects of Perceptions of Economic Inequality on Policy Preferences: Evidence from Michigan

ABSTRACT Using survey data from a random sample of the Michigan adult population, we investigate the relationship between individuals' perceptions of income inequality, economic mobility, and labor-market discrimination, and their preferences regarding a wide variety of public policies. These include policies (such as cash payments for the poor) that are economic in nature, as well as other policies (such as abortion and the death penalty) that are not narrowly economic. Our results indicate that perceptions of income inequality, economic mobility, and labor-market discrimination play an important role in explaining the variation in policy preferences. These effects tend to be more important for issues on which the degree of political polarization is relatively small. However, in many cases, these perceptions also have significant effects for issues that are more polarized. Self-reported ideology has no significant effects on preferences toward the policies for which polarization is small, but ideology ha...
Carbon fluxes and interannual drivers in a temperate forest ecosystem assessed through comparison of top-down and bottom-up approaches

Despite decades of research, gaining a comprehensive understanding of carbon (C) cycling in forests remains a considerable challenge. Uncertainties stem from persistent methodological limitations and the difficulty of resolving top-down estimates of ecosystem C exchange with bottom-up measurements of individual pools and fluxes. To address this, we derived estimates and associated uncertainties of ecosystem C fluxes for a 100–125 year old mixed temperate forest stand at the Bartlett Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, USA, using three different approaches: (1) tower-based eddy covariance, (2) a biometric approach involving C flux measurements of individual ecosystem subcomponents, and (3) an inventory approach involving changes in major C stocks over time. Our analysis made use of 13 years of data, collected over the period from 2004 to 2016.Estimates of mean annual net ecosystem production (NEP) ranged from 120 to 133 g C m−2, demonstrating strong agreement among methods and suggesting that this aging forest acts as a moderate C sink. The use of multiple approaches to measure C fluxes and their uncertainties helped place constraints on difficult-to-measure processes such as aboveground contributions to ecosystem respiration and belowground allocation to mycorrhizal fungal biomass (which was estimated at 20% of net primary production).Analysis of interannual variability in C fluxes revealed a decoupling between annual wood growth and either current year or lagged NEP or GPP, suggesting that source limitation (C supply) is likely not controlling rates of wood production, at least on an interannual scale. Results also demonstrated a strong association between the maximum rate of C uptake during the growing season (Amax) and the length of the vernal window, defined as the period of time between soil thaw and the onset of photosynthesis. This suggests an important, but poorly understood, influence of winter and spring climate on mid-summer canopy physiology. Efforts to resolve the mechanisms responsible should be prioritized in light of ongoing and predicted changes in climate for the northeastern U.S. region, particularly during the winter and winter-spring transition period.
Food Preferences, Psychology and Physiology of

Human food choice is influenced by biological, psychological, and cultural factors. Because humans are food generalists, and because the food environment in the first world is so different from the ancestral human environment, innate predispositions play a minimal role. Humans principally learn to eat and like certain foods, and avoid others, with traditions being the main influence. Preferences can be based on the instrumental consequences of eating (e.g., nutritive or toxic properties of foods) or on liking for the taste. Mere exposure, pairing of foods with positive or negative consequences, or a variety of social influences foster liking or disliking. In the extreme, these and other forces turn an innate dislike, as for chili pepper, into a strong liking. Surprisingly, family influences on food preferences are very modest. Food functions in many ways, for example, as a social or moral entity; food preferences are therefore influenced by things such as the nature or origin of a food, and moral/religious attitudes, such as concerns about killing animals. In the developed world, with a surplus amount of foods, a wide variety of foods, and the conquest of most infectious diseases, concerns about food have focused more on obesity and the long-term consequences of diet. As a result, the pleasures of eating, especially in the United States, have become tempered by a fear of fat and food. The situation and person are both major determinants of choice, including the social setting, the time of day (e.g., breakfast vs dinner), eating at home or away from home, and the stage of life, from infancy to old age.
Pixel-based Machine Learning in Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Lung and Colon Cancer

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) for detection of lesions in medical images has been an active area of research. Machine learning plays an essential role in CAD, because representing lesions and organs requires a complex model that has a number of parameters to determine; thus, medical pattern recognition essentially requires “learning from examples” to determine the parameters of the model. Machine learning has been used to classify lesions into certain classes (e.g., abnormal or normal, lesions or non-lesions, and malignant or benign) in CAD. Recently, as available computational power increased dramatically, pixel/voxel-based machine learning (PML) has emerged in medical image processing/analysis, which uses pixel/voxel values in local regions (or patches) in images instead of features calculated from segmented regions as input information; thus, feature calculation or segmentation is not required. Because PML can avoid errors caused by inaccurate feature calculation and segmentation, the performance of PML can potentially be higher than that of common classifiers. In this chapter, MTANNs (a class of PML) in CAD schemes for detection of lung nodules in CT and for detection of polyps in CTC are presented.
“Ship? What Ship? I Thought I was Going to the Doctor!”: Patient-Centered Perspectives on the Health Care Team

Whatever other virtues it may have, the leading metaphor of this volume is definitely not patient-centered. The image of the physician as the captain of a ship, or of illness and treatment as an ocean voyage requiring the coordination of deck-hands, mates, officers, and nautical machinery, is a bureaucrat’s image. It reflects a preoccupation with administrative structure, organizational behavior, and the rational deployment of people and technology. It does not reflect the patient’s experience of illness.
Framework for K-12 Science Education

The Framework was developed by eighteen individuals who are well-known in their fields as well as four design teams that represent the four domains of science (life science, physical science, earth and space science, and engineering). The perceived need by the science and/or science education communities for new science standards, as well as a framework to undergird these new standards, stemmed from multiple reasons.
Brain dosimetry from locally advanced head and neck cancer radiotherapy: implications for neurocognitive outcomes research.

Radiation therapy (RT) for locally advanced head and neck cancer (LAHNC) can lead to many long-term complications, such as xerostomia, swallowing dysfunction, osteoradionecrosis, and vascular steno...
Detection of amyloid β oligomers toward early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract Amyloid β (Aβ) peptide accumulation in the brain is considered to be one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Here, we compare two analytical techniques for detecting neurotoxic Aβ1-42 oligomers - Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation (QCM-D) and Single Molecule Array (Simoa). Both detection methods exploit a feature of the monoclonal antibody bapineuzumab, which targets N-terminal residues 1–5 of Aβ with high affinity and use it as both a capture and detection reagent. Assays developed with the two methods allow us to specifically recognize neurotoxic Aβ1-42 oligomers and higher aggregates such as fibrils but discriminate against Aβ1-42 monomer species. We find that for detection of Aβ1-42 oligomers, Simoa was roughly 500 times more sensitive than the QCM-D technique with limits of detection of 0.22 nM and 125 nM, respectively.
Assessment of students' external representations of mmCIF entries and their biochemical knowledge

An assessment was developed using entries from the macromolecular Crystallographic Information File that was given to students in an upper level bioinformatics class at the end of the semester during a 2½ hour time period. Although all students completed the same questions, they were assessed on an individual protein they had worked on during the semester in the situated learning of the classroom as they completed computer-based tutorials and exercises using internet sources. The students' difficulties with the external representation of their protein were: not following directions, not understanding how to use the computational software, or a lack of knowledge about their protein. The students also were required to answer questions that required biochemical knowledge. The difficulties they experienced during the assessment can be attributed to factors, such as, their reasoning ability, understanding of the concepts, and the external representations of their protein. © 2018 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 46(6):634-643, 2018.
H1N1 vaccination and health beliefs in a rural community in the Southeastern United States: lessons learned

This article discusses a study of flu vaccine uptake and hesitancy in a rural community during the 2009–2010 H1N1 pandemic flu season. In it, we explore study participants’ understanding of the rel...
SpFlow: Memory-Driven Data Flow Optimization for Sparse Matrix-Matrix Multiplication

To improve the performance of sparse matrix-matrix multiplication (SpMM) running on a specialized architecture, orchestrating a data flow that maximizes data reuse in local memory is critical but challenging due to the irregular non-zero element locations and the wide range of sparsity. In this work, we proposed SpFlow, a memory-driven data flow optimization framework for SpMM. SpFlow can realize 54X fewer DRAM accesses and 97X fewer SRAM accesses on average than a GPU running the cuSPARSE kernel. And in comparison with a state-of-the-art accelerator, the performance can be improved by 3X, and SRAM accesses reduced by 5X on average.
Imidazolium-dysprosium-based magnetic NanoGUMBOS for isolation of hemoglobin

Abstract A novel imidazolium-dysprosium-based magnetic nanomaterial, i.e. [C 16 mim] 5 [Dy(SCN) 8 ] nanoGUMBOS ( nano materials fabricated from a g roup of u niform m aterial b ased on o rganic s alts), was prepared using a facile method for selective hemoglobin (Hb) isolation. In this nanomaterial, the imidazolium cation serves as a selective Hb affinity group, while dysprosium contributes paramagnetic properties. Through a combination of the advantages of ionic liquids, magnetic adsorbent, and nanoscale solid phase extraction, [C 16 mim] 5 [Dy(SCN) 8 ] nanoGUMBOS exhibit great selectivity toward Hb and a favorable extraction efficiency of 95.4% when 1 mL of 100 μg/mL Hb solution is processed with 0.6 mg of [C 16 mim] 5 [Dy(SCN) 8 ] nanoGUMBOS. As the Hb concentration increased to 800 μg/mL, the adsorption capacity approached ∼840 μg/mg. The adsorbed protein is recovered with an elution efficiency of 87% by using 1% SDS solution. This novel nanoGUMBOS solid-phase extraction procedure was successfully applied to selective isolation of Hb from human whole blood and verified using SDS-PAGE. This simple strategy is a novel approach towards fabrication and use of a nanoadsorbent for selective isolation of proteins.
Economic feasibility of a shade tree container production system.

Abstract An economic model was developed to estimate the feasibility of producing red oak (Quercus rubra) whips in an established container nursery. Cost per plant was compared for a simulated cont...
Incorporating Hope and Positivity Into Educational Policy

American students are underachieving relative to the nation’s investment in education. One explanation may be the lack of hope and positivity within America’s educational policies. These constructs...
Modification of rVWF with Polysialic Acid: Biochemical and Functional Characterization in Mice with VWD.

Post-translational glycosylation determines the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties of therapeutic proteins. While desialylation of FVIII/VWF (asialo-FVIII/VWF) has a significantly reduced half-life compared to normal FVIII/VWF complex (Sodetz et al 1977), we tried to introduce additional sialic acids on rVWF to obtain the opposite: prolonged survival of rVWF in the circulation. Additional sialic acid residues were introduced to rVWF by chemically attaching polysialic acid (PSA, colominic acid) to lysines on recombinant VWF. rVWF was purified from the cell culture supernatant of CHO cells co-expressing rFVIII and rVWF. Coupling of PSA was performed by terminal oxidation of the vicinal diols in PSA to aldehydes and binding to the primary amino groups in the VWF molecule by Schiff-base formation. Schiff-bases were stabilized by reduction with NaCNBH 3 under formation of a secondary amine. PSA-rVWF conjugates retained their multimeric structure but had slightly increased molecular sizes of the VWF sub-units due to bound PSA. The attachment of PSA to rVWF resulted in a decrease of RCo activity and a decrease in FVIII binding capacity to approximately 60%. Administration of PSA-rVWF at a dose of 100 units rVWF antigen per kg to VWF-deficient mice resulted in a 2-fold increase in the survival of rVWF as compared to non-modified rVWF. A secondary rise in endogenous murine FVIII after substitution of VWD mice with human VWF occurred elevating FVIII levels from 0.1 (baseline) to 0.4 IU FVIII/mL at 3 hours after application of both non-modified and polysialylated rVWF. Maximum levels of ~ 0.4 IU FVIII/mL were maintained for more than 20 hours in the group treated with PSA-rVWF despite the reduced FVIII binding capacity observed in vitro, while FVIII levels in mice treated with non-modified rVWF steadily declined and returned to their baseline level after 21 hours. The FVIII AUC was 5.3 and 3.3 IU/mL/hr for mice treated with PSA-rVWF and non-modified rVWF, respectively. We conclude that polysialylation of rVWF represents a method to prolong the survival of rVWF in the circulation.
Phase-change memory enables energy-efficient brain-inspired computing

As we embark on an era of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing, there is a pressing need for energy-efficient computing systems for highly data-centric AI related applications. It is becoming increasingly clear that to build efficient cognitive computers, we need to transition to novel architectures where memory and processing are better collocated. Computational memory is one such approach where the physical attributes and state dynamics of memory devices are exploited to perform certain computational tasks in place with very high areal and energy efficiency (Fig. 1) [1]. Phase-change memory (PCM) devices based on materials such as Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 are appealing for computational memory owing to their multi-level storage capability and potential scalability. In this paper, we present a brief overview of our work towards enabling energy-efficient brain-inspired computing using PCM.
Otitis Media Module in the Pediatric Preclerkship Educational Exercises (PRECEDE) Curriculum

Introduction The Johns Hopkins Pediatrics Clerkship developed the PRECEDE (preclerkship educational exercises) curriculum with the primary goal of offering students formative instruction in essenti...
Pharmacoprevention of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection

This article reviews the disparities in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) incidence, presents evidence on the efficacy of preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and nonoccupational postexposure prophylaxis (nPEP), provides an overview of clinical guidelines for prescribing PrEP and nPEP, discusses strategies to promote efficient use of these effective interventions, and reviews best practices in treatment retention for people at high risk for HIV. Nurses are optimally positioned to prevent new HIV infections. When working with sensitive topics such as sexual practices and substance use, nurses excel at building rapport, making shared decisions, and educating about risk reduction with an affirming, nonjudgmental approach.
Negative affect interference and fear of happiness are independently associated with depressive symptoms.

Objectives Reward devaluation theory (RDT) posits that some depressed individuals avoid positivity due to its previous association with negative outcomes. Behavioral indicators of avoidance of reward support RDT, but self-report indicators have yet to be examined discriminantly. Two candidate self-report measures were examined in relation to depression: negative affect interference (NAI), or the experience of negative affect in response to positivity, and fear of happiness, a fear of prospective happiness. Method Participants completed measures assessing NAI, fear of happiness scale, and depression online via Amazon's Mechanical Turk at three time points (N = 375). Multilevel modeling examined the relationship between NAI, fear of happiness, and depressive symptoms longitudinally. Results NAI and fear of happiness were both positively associated with depressive symptoms. They both uniquely predicted depressive symptoms when included within the same model. Conclusions These findings suggest that different conceptualizations of positivity avoidance are uniquely associated with depressive symptoms.
Quality of and Attention to Instructions in Telementoring

There is a long-standing interest in CSCW on distributed instruction - both in how it differs from collocated instruction as well as the design of tools to reduce any deficiencies. In this study, we leveraged the unique environment of laparoscopic surgery to compare the efficacy and mechanism of instruction in a collocated and distributed condition. By implementing the same instructional technology in both conditions, we are able to evaluate the effect of distance on instruction without the confounding variable of medium of instruction. Surprisingly, our findings revealed trainees perceived a higher perceived quality of instruction in the distributed condition. Further investigation suggests that in a distributed learning environment, trainees change their behavior to attend more to the provided instructions resulting in this higher perceived quality of instruction. Finally, we discuss our findings with regards to media compensation theory, and we provide both social and technical insights on how to better support a distributed instructional process.
The Envirome Web Service: Patient context at the point of care.

Abstract Patient context – the “envirome” – can have a significant impact on patient health. While envirome indicators are available through large scale public data sources, they are not provided in a format that can be easily accessed and interpreted at the point of care by healthcare providers with limited time during a patient encounter. We developed a clinical decision support tool to bring envirome indicators to the point of care in a large pediatric hospital system in the Kansas City region. The Envirome Web Service (EWS) securely geocodes patient addresses in real time to link their records with publicly available context data. End-users guided the design of the EWS, which presents summaries of patient context data in the electronic health record (EHR) without disrupting the provider workflow. Through surveys, focus groups, and a formal review by hospital staff, the EWS was deployed into production use, integrating publicly available data on food access with the hospital EHR. Evaluation of EWS usage during the 2020 calendar year shows that 1,034 providers viewed the EWS, with a total of 29,165 sessions. This suggests that the EWS was successfully integrated with the EHR and is highly visible. The results also indicate that 63 (6.1%) of the providers are regular users that opt to maintain the EWS in their custom workflows, logging more than 100 EWS sessions during the year. The vendor agnostic design of the EWS supports interoperability and makes it accessible to health systems with disparate EHR vendors.
Bounding Causal Effects on Continuous Outcome

We investigate the problem of bounding causal effects from experimental studies in which treatment assignment is randomized but the subject compliance is imperfect. It is well known that under such conditions, the actual causal effects are not point-identifiable due to uncontrollable unobserved confounding. In their seminal work, Balke and Pearl (1994) derived the tightest bounds over the causal effects in this settings by employing an algebra program to derive analytic expressions. However, Pearl's approach assumes the primary outcome to be discrete and finite. Solving such a program could be intractable when high-dimensional context variables are present. In this paper, we present novel non-parametric methods to bound causal effects on the continuous outcome from studies with imperfect compliance. These bounds could be generalized to settings with a high-dimensional context.
A cohort study of neuropsychological functioning in spouses of U.S. Gulf War veterans.

Abstract Aims Veterans of the 1991 Gulf War reported symptoms in their spouses that mirrored veterans' symptoms following their return from the war, including problems with attention and memory. Neuropsychological functioning in these spouses has not been examined with objective tests. This study sought to determine if these spouses exhibited deficits in neuropsychological functioning. Main methods Spouses of a national cohort of 1991 Gulf War deployed (n = 470) and non-deployed veterans (n = 524) were examined with neuropsychological tests in 1999-2001. Key findings Neuropsychological tests were factor analyzed yielding five factors: verbal memory, visual memory, attention/working memory, visual organization, and motor speed. Spouses of deployed and nondeployed veterans did not differ on mean factor scores, percentage of impaired factors, or individual test scores. Spouse attention/working memory was related to their having diagnoses of PTSD or anxiety disorders, or self-reported symptoms of current anxiety. Spouse visual memory was related to a diagnosis of current depression. Spouse motor speed was related to their own status of having chronic multisymptom illness (CMI). Significance Spouses of Gulf War deployed and nondeployed veterans demonstrated similar neuropsychological functioning, although spouses with psychiatric diagnoses and symptoms, or CMI demonstrated neuropsychological impairments characteristic of those conditions, suggesting that monitoring spouses for these conditions and impairments may be warranted. This pattern of relative weaknesses mirrors some of the previously reported findings for Gulf War veterans, although the veterans displayed neuropsychological impairments beyond what was accounted for by these conditions.
A computationally efficient framework for vector representation of persistence diagrams.

In Topological Data Analysis, a common way of quantifying the shape of data is to use a persistence diagram (PD). PDs are multisets of points in $\mathbb{R}^2$ computed using tools of algebraic topology. However, this multi-set structure limits the utility of PDs in applications. Therefore, in recent years efforts have been directed towards extracting informative and efficient summaries from PDs to broaden the scope of their use for machine learning tasks. We propose a computationally efficient framework to convert a PD into a vector in $\mathbb{R}^n$, called a vectorized persistence block (VPB). We show that our representation possesses many of the desired properties of vector-based summaries such as stability with respect to input noise, low computational cost and flexibility. Through simulation studies, we demonstrate the effectiveness of VPBs in terms of performance and computational cost within various learning tasks, namely clustering, classification and change point detection.
“He Wanted Everybody to Succeed”: Black Males, Relational Trust, and School Counseling

Based on qualitative interviews with 20 college-aged Black males who graduated from one single-sex public charter school, this study investigated how students made meaning from their secondary scho...