cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Prediction of tibial nonunion at the 6-week time point

Abstract Introduction Intramedullary (IM) nail fixation is a common operative treatment, yet concerns regarding the frequency of complications, such as nonunion, remain. Treatment of tibial shaft fractures remains a challenge, and little evidence of prognostic factors that increase risk of nonunion is available. The aim of this study was to develop a predictive model of tibial shaft fracture nonunion 6 weeks after reamed intramedullary (IM) nail fixation based on commonly collected clinical variables and the radiographic union score for tibial fractures (RUST). Methods A retrospective case-control study was conducted. All tibial shaft fractures treated at our level I trauma center from 2007 to 2014 were retrospectively reviewed. Only patients with follow-up until fracture healing or secondary operation for nonunion were included. Fracture gaps ≥3 mm were excluded. A total of 323 patients were included for study. Results Infection within 6 weeks of operation, standard RUST, and the Nonunion Risk Determination (NURD) score had statistically significant associations with nonunion (odds ratio > or Conclusion Three variables predicted nonunion. Based on these variables, we created a clinical prediction tool of nonunion that could aid in clinical decision making and discussing prognosis with patients.
Copper-promoted nitrogen-doped carbon derived from zeolitic imidazole frameworks for oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract Rational design of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) electrocatalysts based on earth-abundant elements is critical important towards sustainable energy applications. Among various reported ORR electrocatalysts, transition metal-nitrogen doped carbon (TM-N/C) materials such as Fe-Nx/C and Co-Nx/C exhibit excellent catalytic activity. Nevertheless, comprehensive understanding of these TM-N/C electrocatalytic systems is still lacking, which demands extension of investigation to other TM-N/C systems (Cu, and Mn, etc.). Herein, we developed a Cu promoted nitrogen-doped carbon (Cu-N/C) via high temperature pyrolysis of Cu-adsorbed zeolite imidazole frameworks (Cu@ZIF-8). The Cu-N/C electrocatalyst exhibited satisfactory ORR activity with half-wave potential of 0.813 V in 0.1 M KOH electrolyte. Moreover, it also showed excellent methanol tolerance and long-term stability. The enhanced ORR electrocatalytic performance is attributed to the strong synergetic effect between Cu(II)-N ligands and Cu0 NPs, sufficient active sites, and fast mass transfer.
The impact of Massachusetts health reform on breast cancer surgery.

e18629Background: There are substantial disparities in breast cancer treatment by insurance and socioeconomic status. Women with private insurance are more likely to undergo reconstruction post-mas...
SETD2 mutations in primary central nervous system tumors

Mutations in SETD2 are found in many tumors, including central nervous system (CNS) tumors. Previous work has shown these mutations occur specifically in high grade gliomas of the cerebral hemispheres in pediatric and young adult patients. We investigated SETD2 mutations in a cohort of approximately 640 CNS tumors via next generation sequencing; 23 mutations were detected across 19 primary CNS tumors. Mutations were found in a wide variety of tumors and locations at a broad range of allele frequencies. SETD2 mutations were seen in both low and high grade gliomas as well as non-glial tumors, and occurred in patients greater than 55 years of age, in addition to pediatric and young adult patients. High grade gliomas at first occurrence demonstrated either frameshift/truncating mutations or point mutations at high allele frequencies, whereas recurrent high grade gliomas frequently harbored subclones with point mutations in SETD2 at lower allele frequencies in the setting of higher mutational burdens. Comparison with the TCGA dataset demonstrated consistent findings. Finally, immunohistochemistry showed decreased staining for H3K36me3 in our cohort of SETD2 mutant tumors compared to wildtype controls. Our data further describe the spectrum of tumors in which SETD2 mutations are found and provide a context for interpretation of these mutations in the clinical setting.
Mental health indicators in APEC

Background:The World Economic Forum (2011) concluded that the economic impact of mental illness is the single most important contributor among all non-communicable diseases to loss of productivity....
Urbanizing India’s frontier: Sriganganagar and canal-town planning on the Indus plains

Irrigation projects implemented by British colonial engineers transformed environment, economy, and society in the Indus basin during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to construc...
Circulating adipose stromal cells as a response biomarker in phase II energy balance trials of obese breast cancer survivors and high-risk women

Circulating adipose stromal cells (CASC) are thought to be increased in obesity and facilitate angiogenesis, and tumor metastases. CASC were identified from buffy coat peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by flow cytometry as CD34brightCD31− CD45− and CASC frequency was compared to adiposity measures in 33 women at increased risk for breast cancer. Feasibility of CASC as a response biomarker for a diet and exercise intervention in ten breast cancer survivors was then explored. For 33 high-risk women, median CASC frequency was 9.7 per million PBMCs and trended positively with body mass index, fat mass index (FMI), and percent android fat. Correlation was significant when BMI was dichotomized at > versus < 35 kg/m2 (p = 0.02). For ten breast cancer survivors with a median BMI of 37 kg/m2, median CASC frequency was 16.4 per million PBMCs. In univariate analyses, change in BMI, total fat and visceral fat were significantly correlated with change in CASC frequency. On multivariate analysis, change in visceral adipose had the strongest association with change in CASC frequency (p < 0.00078). The association between the reduction in visceral adipose tissue and the decrease in frequency of circulating adipose stromal cells suggests that the latter might be a useful biomarker in clinical trials of obese breast cancer survivors undergoing a weight loss intervention.
Collaborative Clustering Of Subjects And Radiomic Features For Predicting Clinical Outcomes Of Rectal Cancer Patients

Most machine learning approaches in radiomics studies ignore the underlying difference of radiomic features computed from heterogeneous groups of patients, and intrinsic correlations of the features are not fully exploited yet. In order to better predict clinical outcomes of cancer patients, we adopt an unsupervised machine learning method to simultaneously stratify cancer patients into distinct risk groups based on their radiomic features and learn low-dimensional representations of the radiomic features for robust prediction of their clinical outcomes. Based on nonnegative matrix tri-factorization techniques, the proposed method applies collaborative clustering to radiomic features of cancer patients to obtain clusters of both the patients and their radiomic features so that patients with distinct imaging patterns are stratified into different risk groups and highly correlated radiomic features are grouped in the same radiomic feature clusters. Experiments on a FDG-PET/CT dataset of rectal cancer patients have demonstrated that the proposed method facilitates better stratification of patients with distinct survival patterns and learning of more effective low-dimensional feature representations that ultimately leads to accurate prediction of patient survival, outperforming conventional methods under comparison.
Current state of transcatheter tricuspid valve repair

Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is a common valvular heart disease affecting >1.6 million people in the United States (US) and >70 million people worldwide. The age- and sex-adjusted prevalence of more than or equal to moderate TR in the US is estimated to be 0.55%. One-year mortality increases with increasing severity of TR. Yet, the majority of patients with severe TR are managed medically in the absence of another indication for cardiac surgery, and isolated tricuspid valve (TV) surgery remains infrequent. To address this unmet clinical need, various transcatheter TV therapies are now being developed as an alternative to surgery in extreme- and high-risk patients with severe functional TR. Transcatheter TV repair devices are aimed at improving leaflet coaptation either directly by bringing the leaflets together (leaflet/coaptation devices) or indirectly by repairing the dilated annulus (annuloplasty devices). In this review, we describe the current state of transcatheter TV repair therapies and summarize the available data on the efficacy and safety of various devices. Procedural and clinical outcomes of transcatheter TV repair therapies are expected to improve in the coming years with technological advancement, newer device iterations, and increased experience in this field. Appropriate patient selection, optimal timing of intervention, and evaluation of long-term outcomes and device durability will be key in ongoing and future studies.
Teacher as Stranger: “Releasing” Imagination for Teaching Controversial Public Issues

This study utilized the term "teacher as stranger" from Maxine Greene's (1973) Teacher as Stranger to explore how teachers teach contemporary controversial public issues in Taiwan (e.g., national identity, sovereignty, and ethnic issues). Using a case study design, this study documents how six social studies teachers make curricular decisions about teaching controversial public issues and create possibility for their students to imaginatively engage controversial public issues. Findings illuminate that teachers challenge the stereotype of Asian teachers as always following centralized curriculum; these teachers instead collaborate authentic curricular resources and decenter the exam-centric and curriculum-centric classroom space. In sum, this study, refracted through the national context of Taiwan, helps us understand the possibility of Taiwanese teachers’ curricular-instructional decisions and increased autonomy and authority.
An elastic-plastic analysis of fatigue crack closure in modes I and II

In this paper, an efficient elastic-plastic finite element procedure to analyze crack-closure and, its effects on fatigue crack growth under general spectrum loading, is presented. A hybrid-displacement finite element procedure is used to properly treat the stress and strain singularities near the crack-tip; and crack-growth under cyclic loading is simulated by the translation of certain 'core' elements, near the crack-tip, in which proper stress and strain singularities were embedded. Both pure mode I and mode II types of cyclic loading are considered. In the mode I case, four types of cyclic loading, viz., constant amplitude block loading, high-to-low block loading, low-to-high block, and a single overload in an otherwise constant amplitude block loading are considered; whereas in mode II, only a constant amplitude block loading is considered. Detailed results are presented for the crack-closure and opening-stresses, crack-surface deformation profiles, etc., in each case. Certain observations, based on the present numerical results, concerning various factors that cause crack growth acceleration or retardation under general spectrum loading, are presented and discussed.
Two fatty acid-binding proteins expressed in the intestine interact differently with endocannabinoids

Two different members of the fatty acid-binding protein (FABP) family are found in enterocyte cells of the gastrointestinal system, namely liver-type and intestinal fatty acid-binding proteins (LFABP and IFABP, also called FABP1 and FABP2, respectively). Striking phenotypic differences have been observed in knockout mice for either protein, for example, high fat-fed IFABP-null mice remained lean, whereas LFABP-null mice were obese, correlating with differences in food intake. This finding prompted us to investigate the role each protein plays in directing the specificity of binding to ligands involved in appetite regulation, such as fatty acid ethanolamides and related endocannabinoids. We determined the binding affinities for nine structurally related ligands using a fluorescence competition assay, revealing tighter binding to IFABP than LFABP for all ligands tested. We found that the head group of the ligand had more impact on binding affinity than the alkyl chain, with the strongest binding observed for the carboxyl group, followed by the amide, and then the glycerol ester. These trends were confirmed using two-dimensional 1 H-15 N nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to monitor chemical shift perturbation of the protein backbone resonances upon titration with ligand. Interestingly, the NMR data revealed that different residues of IFABP were involved in the coordination of endocannabinoids than those implicated for fatty acids, whereas the same residues of LFABP were involved for both classes of ligand. In addition, we identified residues that are uniquely affected by binding of all types of ligand to IFABP, suggesting a rationale for its tighter binding affinity compared with LFABP.
News Flashpoints: Networked Journalism and Waves of Coverage of Social Problems

In this article, we propose to study news flashpoints. Flashpoints are bursts of news attention that are unique to the networked news environment, in which various forces vie to influence public di...
Endocrine changes in children with pancreatic damage:an up-to-date review

The variety of primary or secondary pancreatic diseases or injuries in children can cause the changes of pancreatic endocrine function,leading to the structural damage of pancreatic endocrine cells and the dysfunction,which can worsen the disease progression and prognosis.The etiology of pancreatic damage is complex,little is known about the pathogenesis.But the change of pancreatic endocrine function caused by pancreatic damage has clinical significance.Based on current studies and animal experiments,this review covered the etiology and pathogenesis of pancreatic endocrine dysfunction in children with pancreatic damage,which would help promote the cognitive level and the research development in this new field and provide new ideas for the research of pancreatic damage. Key words: Pancreatic damage; Beta cells; Pathogenesis
Numerical Testing of a New Positivity-Preserving Interpolation Algorithm.

An important component of a number of computational modeling algorithms is an interpolation method that preserves the positivity of the function being interpolated. This report describes the numerical testing of a new positivity-preserving algorithm that is designed to be used when interpolating from a solution defined on one grid to different spatial grid. The motivating application is a numerical weather prediction (NWP) code that uses spectral elements as the discretization choice for its dynamics core and Cartesian product meshes for the evaluation of its physics routines. This combination of spectral elements, which use nonuniformly spaced quadrature/collocation points, and uniformly-spaced Cartesian meshes combined with the desire to maintain positivity when moving between these necessitates our work. This new approach is evaluated against several typical algorithms in use on a range of test problems in one or more space dimensions. The results obtained show that the new method is competitive in terms of observed accuracy while at the same time preserving the underlying positivity of the functions being interpolated.
Why do Mistaken Identification Rates Increase When Either Witnessing or Testing Conditions get Worse

I examined why mistaken identifications increase when either witnessing or testing conditions get worse. In Experiment 1 (N = 633), participants watched either a clear or degraded version of a simulated crime. In Experiment 2 (N = 1266), all participants watched the same version of the crime, but were then randomly assigned to either a clear or noise-degraded lineup. After indicating which lineup member best matched their memory for the culprit, participants indicated how well that lineup member matched their memory for the culprit. Degraded conditions led to fewer culprit identifications from present lineups and more mistaken identifications from absent lineups. Degrading witnessing/testing conditions resulted in lower memory ratings for the culprit, but memory ratings for the best-matching innocent person were statistically equivalent under clear and degraded conditions. These results suggest that the reason mistaken identifications increase when witnessing/testing conditions get worse is because witnesses lower their criterion for making an affirmative identification.
A Public–Private Networking and Partnership Model: The Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science

This article profiles public–private partnerships and networks established by the public, residential, STEM-focused Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Kentucky. Authors discu...
JAK inhibitors in the treatment of atopic dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin disorder associated with heterogenous presentation and often immense patient burden. Safe, targeted treatment options are currently limited. This focused review of the published literature, including clinical trial results, case reports, and abstracts, as well as presentations from scientific meetings and data from industry press releases, describes the use of topical and systemic Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors in the treatment of AD. New topical JAK inhibitors include ruxolitinib (JAK1/2) and delgocitinib (pan-JAK). Ruxolitinib cream met all primary and secondary endpoints in phase 3 clinical trials for mild-to-moderate AD with minimal treatment-emergent adverse events. Delgocitinib ointment was recently approved in Japan for pediatric and adult AD. Oral JAK inhibitors include baricitinib (JAK1/2), abrocitinib (JAK1-selective), and upadacitinib (JAK1-selective). All 3 met primary and secondary endpoints across numerous trials for moderate-to-severe AD. Treatment-emergent adverse events were mainly mild to moderate and included acne, nausea, headache, upper respiratory tract infection, and to a lesser degree, herpes infection and selected laboratory abnormalities. JAK inhibitors hold great promise as the next generation of targeted AD therapy. While their outstanding efficacy is balanced by a favorable safety profile in clinical trials, real-world data are needed to better understand long-term safety, durability, and treatment success.
A short-term preliminary evaluation of ventral hernia repair using a new prosthetic mesh

BACKGROUND: Syneco® (W.L. Gore and Associates, Flagstaff, AZ) is a new permanent synthetic mesh made of a combination of an absorbable synthetic component and a permanent synthetic component that can be used intraperitoneally or within the abdominal wall layers. Currently, there are little data on outcomes related to this mesh product. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this project is to review our medical center’s outcomes using Synecor® mesh in ventral hernia repair. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed all patients at our single medical center undergoing ventral hernia repair using Synecor® mesh included in the Americas Hernia Society Quality Collaborative (AHSQC) database from April 2016 through September 2019. Demographic, perioperative, and short-term outcomes (surgical site infection [SSI], surgical site occurrence [SSO], surgical site occurrence requiring procedural intervention [SSOPI]) were reviewed, and descriptive statistics were calculated. RESULTS: Forty-eight patients who underwent ventral hernia repairs using Synecor® mesh met study inclusion criteria. The average age of our patient population was 59 years (range: 29-78) with 50% female and 85% Caucasian. Ninety-six percent of cases were classed as clean cases. Comorbidities were present in 73% of patients. Open repairs were completed in 56% of cases and included retrorectus repair in 67% and transversus abdominis muscle release (TAR) in 30% of open cases. Repairs were laparoscopic in 27% of cases and robotic in 17%, with 85% having closure of the defect during repair. At 30 days follow-up, the rate of SSI was 8%, SSO 17%, and SSOPI 13%. There was an overall complication rate of 29%, a hernia recurrence rate of 4%, and an average follow-up of 97 days (range: 0 days to 1 year). CONCLUSION: Synecor® mesh is a new synthetic mesh that can be used for ventral hernia repair in an open, laparoscopic, or robotic approach. Short-term, preliminary results appear favorable; however, more study is needed to fully evaluate this new mesh prosthetic.
Type 4 Pili in the Families Moraxellaceae and Neisseraceae

This chapter reviews studies on type 4 pili from the species Moraxella bovis, Moraxella lacunata, and Moraxella nonliquefaciens of the family Moraxellaceae and Eikenella corrodens, Kingella denitrificans, and Kingella kingae of the family Neisseriaceae. K. kingae was originally classified as Moraxella kingii and was then transferred to the new genus Kingella within the family Neisseriaceae in 1976. Further studies with M. nonliquefaciens, M. bovis, and M. kingii confirmed the association between the "spreading-corroding" (SC) colony type and piliation. Researchers studied thin sections of M. bovisin the electron microscope and concluded that the pili were distributed peritrichously around the cell. When M. bovis Epp63 was propagated on 5% sheep blood agar, one N-type and six distinct piliated colony types were observed. Thus, pellicle formation can be used as an enrichment procedure to isolate the often rare variants switching from the nonpiliated to the piliated state. The competence for DNA transformation in piliated E. corrodens has also been demonstrated. Further studies on the function and genetics of type 4 pili may lead to a better understanding of the roles that they play in so many bacterial species.
Stress-induced changes in immune cell distribution and trafficking: Implications for immunoprotection versus immunopathology

Effective immunoprotection requires rapid recruitment of leukocytes into sites of surgery, wounding, infection, or vaccination. Immune cells circulate continuously on surveillance pathways that take them from the blood, through various organs, and back into the blood. This circulation is essential for the maintenance of an effective immune defense network (Sprent and Tough, 1994).The numbers and proportions of leukocytes in the blood provide an important representation of the state of distribution of leukocytes in the body and of the state of activation of the immune system. A stress-induced change in leukocyte distribution within different body compartments is perhaps one of the most underappreciated effects of stress and stress hormones on the immune system.
Utilización de servicios médicos de Arizona por residentes de México

Arizona physicians practicing in the four counties bordering Mexico were surveyed regarding the use of their services by residents of Mexico. One hundred eight-eight (79%) of the 239 respondents to the mail survey reported seeing at least one Mexican resident per week during 1988. Ninety-nine of these physicians (53%) practiced in Tucson; 89 (47%) practiced elsewhere in the four border counties. The mean number of Mexican resident patients seen per week was nine (9% of total) for border physicians and 5 (6% of total) for Tucson physicians. The most frequent responses from border physicians asked to list the most common health conditions of their Mexican resident patients were injury and poisoning (21%) and circulatory diseases (11%), while the most frequent responses of Tucson physicians were circulator diseases (10%) and digestive diseases (9%). Problems and solutions in the border care health system are mainly related to quality of care and health care financing.
A novel low-complexity zero-power periods transmission technique for fast collision detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

In Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), transmitters sense the control channel to detect collided packets. However, such decisions at the transmitter are not an accurate indicator of collision that may occur at the receiver. In this paper, we propose a suite of novel, yet simple and power-efficient scheme to detect a collision at the receiver side without the need for full-decoding of the received packet. Our novel scheme aims at detecting collision through fast examination of the signal statistics of a short snippet of the received packet via a relatively small number of computations over a small number of received IQ samples. Hence, operating directly at the output of the receiver's Analog-to-Digital-Converter (ADC) and eliminating the need to pass corrupted packets through the entire demodulator/decoder line-up. Accordingly, our novel approach not only reduces processing complexity and hence power consumption, but it also reduces the latency incurred to detect a collision since it operates on only a small number of samples - that may be chosen to be in the beginning of a received packet - instead of having to buffer and process the entire packet as is the case with a full-decoding approach. We also present a complexity and power-saving comparison between our novel scheme and a conventional full-decoding approach to demonstrate the significant power and complexity saving advantage of our scheme.
Within-person coupling of changes in cortisol, testosterone, and DHEA across the day in adolescents

We comprehensively examined within-person and between-person associations between cortisol and DHEA and cortisol and testosterone across the day. Data are from a sample of 213 adolescents aged 11–16 (M = 13.7, SD = 1.5 years) from the Northeastern US who were oversampled for psychopathology symptoms. Six repeated measures of hormone levels across 3 days were used to test three specific questions of cortisol-DHEA and cortisol-testosterone associations within individuals (coupling) across the day, and one question of cortisol-DHEA and cortisol-testosterone diurnal slopes were associated between adolescents. Results consistently revealed positive cortisol-DHEA and cortisol-testosterone coupling across the day, often more pronounced in girls relative to boys. Cortisol and DHEA slopes were positively associated, whereas cortisol and testosterone were negatively associated between-adolescents. Findings suggest multiple mechanisms and highlight the multifaceted nature of associations of hormone changes during adolescence and importance of considering both axes for between- and within-person aspects of neuroendocrine development.
Additive nonparametric regression estimation via backfitting and marginal integration: Small sample performance

In this paper, we conducted a Monte Carlo investigation to reveal some characteristics of finite sample distributions of the Backfitting (B) and Marginal Integration (MI) estimators for an additive bivariate regression. We are particularly interested in providing some evidence on how the different methods for the selection of bandwidth, such as the plug-in method, influence the finite sample properties of the MI and B estimators. We are also interested in providing evidence on the behavior of different bandwidth estimators relatively to the optimal sequence that minimizes a chosen loss function. The impact of ignoring the dependency between regressors is also investigated. Finally, differently from what occurs at the present time, when the B and MI estimators are used ad-hoc, our objective is to provide information that allows for a more accurate comparison of these two competing alternatives in a finite sample setting.
Megawatt solid-state electronics

Abstract This paper reviews some of the key challenges in developing solid-state electronics operating at power levels from approximately 0.1 to beyond 1 MW. Applications exist in this range of power for military and commercial applications alike. The technology of great interest is wide-band-gap semiconductors, particularly SiC, which is well known for its superior electrical strength and thermal conductivity compared to the traditional power semiconductor, Si. These properties can be utilized to have significant benefits at both the device and systems level.
4-(3-Chloro-5-(trifluoromethyl)pyridin-2-yl)-N-(4-methoxypyridin-2-yl)piperazine-1-carbothioamide (ML267), a potent inhibitor of bacterial phosphopantetheinyl transferase that attenuates secondary metabolism and thwarts bacterial growth.

4′-Phosphopantetheinyl transferases (PPTases) catalyze a post-translational modification essential to bacterial cell viability and virulence. We present the discovery and medicinal chemistry optimization of 2-pyridinyl-N-(4-aryl)piperazine-1-carbothioamides, which exhibit submicromolar inhibition of bacterial Sfp-PPTase with no activity toward the human orthologue. Moreover, compounds within this class possess antibacterial activity in the absence of a rapid cytotoxic response in human cells. An advanced analogue of this series, ML267 (55), was found to attenuate production of an Sfp-PPTase-dependent metabolite when applied to Bacillus subtilis at sublethal doses. Additional testing revealed antibacterial activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and chemical genetic studies implicated efflux as a mechanism for resistance in Escherichia coli. Additionally, we highlight the in vitro absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion and in vivo pharmacokinetic profiles of compound 55 t...
Self-reported sleep duration and weight-control strategies among U.S. high school students.

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine if self-reported sleep duration was associated with weight-control behaviors among US high school students. DESIGN National Youth Risk Behavior Survey. SETTING United States, 2007. PARTICIPANTS US high school students (N = 12,087). MEASUREMENTS Students were asked if they had engaged in several weight-control behaviors during the 30 days before the survey to lose or maintain weight. Self-reported sleep duration categories included very short (≤ 5 h), short (6 or 7 h), referent moderate (8 or 9 h), and long (≥ 10 h). Sex-specific logistic regression analyses with race/ethnicity, grade, and body mass index category as covariates were conducted using SUDAAN to account for complex study design. RESULTS Approximately half the students reported short sleep duration (51.8% of males and 54.3% of females), whereas very short sleep durations were reported by another 14.8% of males and 16.9% of females. Among males, very short sleepers were significantly (P < 0.05) more likely than moderate sleepers to report dieting (36.3% versus 26.1%), fasting (14.2% versus 4.3%), and purging (4.3% versus 1.1%) to lose or maintain weight during the 30 days before the survey. Among females, the respective very short, short, and moderate sleepers varied (P < 0.05) in dieting (59.9%, 55.0%, and 47.5% respectively), fasting (28.3%, 15.2%, and 10.3%, respectively), and taking diet pills (13.3%, 6.8%, and 4.3%, respectively). Prevalence of purging was significantly higher only for very short sleepers (12.3%, 6.0%, and 3.9%, respectively). CONCLUSION Self-reported short sleep duration was associated with dieting and three unhealthy weight-control behaviors in this population. If our findings are confirmed, intervention studies should be conducted to examine the effect of educational interventions.
Momentum transfer from waves to particles

Abstract Momentum transfer from an electromagnetic or electrostatic wave to an electron is calculated in the presence of friction, and it is shown that it can be comparable to the one obtained from the ponderomotive force.
Dynamic characterization of multi-axis dynamometers

Abstract In this paper, we present a comprehensive technique for accurate determination of three-dimensional (3D) dynamic force measurement characteristics of multi-axis dynamometers within a broad range of frequencies. Many research and development efforts in machining science and technology rely upon being able to make precise measurements of machining forces. In micromachining and high-speed machining, cutting forces include components at frequencies significantly higher than the bandwidth of force dynamometers. Further, the machining forces are three-dimensional in nature. This paper presents a new experimental technique to determine the three-dimensional force-measurement characteristics of multi-axis dynamometers. A custom-designed artifact is used to facilitate applying impulsive forces to the dynamometer at different positions in three dimensions. Repeatable and high-quality impulse excitations are provided from a novel impact excitation system with a bandwidth above 25 kHz. The force measurement characteristics are presented within 25 kHz bandwidth using 3 × 3 force-to-force frequency response functions (F2F-FRFs), which capture both direct and dynamic cross-talk components to enable fully three-dimensional characterization. The presented approach is used to characterize the dynamic behavior of a three-axis miniature dynamometer. The effects of force-application position, artifact geometry, and dynamometer-fixturing conditions are explored. Moreover, the relationship between the force-measurement characteristics and structural dynamics of the dynamometer assembly is analyzed. It is concluded that the presented technique is effective in determining the force-measurement characteristics of multi-axis dynamometers. The changes in dynamometer assembly that affect its structural dynamics, including artifact (workpiece) geometry and especially the fixturing conditions, were seen to have a significant effect on force-measurement characteristics. Furthermore, the force-measurement characteristics were seen to change substantially with the force-application position. The presented technique provides a foundation for future compensation efforts to enable measuring forces within a broad range of frequencies.
Community Development in Rural Mexico: The Social Psychological Effects of Adult Education1

A field study compared the social-psychological impact of two traditional adult education programs (certification and literacy) with a socio-ecologically oriented approach in three rural Mexican community types (Ejido, Hacienda, Cabecera) varying in structure and degree of isolation. The primary findings revealed interactions between community and program for the luck/fate dimension of locus of control and for a measure of social efficacy. Community type was the critical factor affecting program impact on luck/fate locus of control beliefs: Residents of the most unstructured and isolated community (Ejido) showed the greatest shift toward internality. Program focus produced significant changes in feelings of social efficacy in two of the three communities. The socio-ecological program contributed most to social competence in the Hacienda community, whereas the certification program had the greatest positive impact in the Cabecera community. The findings are discussed in terms of the relevance of the ecological approach to community intervention in developing countries such as Mexico.
Note on the Practical Computation of Proper Values

It has been suggested by Householder [1] and by Householder and Bauer [2] that orthogonal similarity transformations of matrices are particularly stable with respect to the practical computation of proper values. It is the purpose of this note to examine this question and to demonstrate in terms of a “condition number” to be defined below a sense in which this conjecture is true.Broadly speaking, any problem may be termed “ill-conditioned” for which the solution is acutely sensitive to slight variations in the parameters of the problem. Examples of ill-conditioning occur in many contexts. Computers are familiar with the phenomenon as it manifests itself, for example, in the study of matrix inversion. Since our purpose is to study the conditioning of matrices specifically for the proper value problem, it is convenient to have a nomenclature and notation which will avoid confusion with conditioning as it is used in other senses.
Right Ventricular Response to Intensive Medical Therapy in Advanced Decompensated Heart Failure

Background—Right ventricular (RV) systolic dysfunction is a strong predictor of adverse outcomes in heart failure, yet quantitatively assessing the impact of therapy on this condition is difficult. Our objective was to compare the clinical significance of changes in RV echocardiographic indices in response to intensive medical treatment in patients admitted to the hospital with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF). Methods and Results—Serial comprehensive echocardiography was performed in 62 consecutive patients with ADHF, and adverse events (death, cardiac transplantation, assist device, heart failure rehospitalization) were prospectively documented. RV peak systolic strain was assessed using speckle-tracking longitudinal strain analysis as the average of the basal, mid-, and apical segment of the RV free wall. Other conventional parameters of RV function (RV fractional area change, RV myocardial performance index, tricuspid annular peak systolic excursion, and tissue Doppler peak tricuspid annular s...
Appropriateness of collaborations between industry and the medical profession: physicians' perceptions.

Abstract Background Physicians' ratings of the appropriateness of collaboration and of receiving payment for collaboration with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries may differ. Methods We administered an anonymous, cross-sectional survey to a convenience sample of faculty and postgraduate physicians from all departments within the 11 hospitals affiliated with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and New Jersey. We examined 12 collaborations with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries using 4-point Likert scales, ranging from very appropriate to very inappropriate. Results Surveys were distributed to physicians within 35 departments at 11 hospitals; 590 surveys were completed by physicians at 9 hospitals, yielding a 67% response rate. Physicians' assessment of appropriateness varied among the different collaborations, ranging from nearly all rating developing a drug or device (92%) and designing a drug/device trial (91%) as appropriate to fewer rating preparing a manuscript of a drug/device trial (60%) and recruiting patients for a drug/device trial (65%) as appropriate for physicians not involved in trial design. Physicians consistently rated receiving payment for collaboration as appropriate less often than they rated the collaboration itself as appropriate and ratings varied among the collaborations. For example, 81% rated receiving payment to develop a drug or device as appropriate, whereas 38% rated receiving payment to recruit patients for a drug/device trial when the physician was not involved in trial design as appropriate. Conclusions Physicians' broadly perceived most collaboration with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, and of receiving payment for collaboration, as appropriate.
Paroxetine for social anxiety and alcohol use in dual-diagnosed patients

The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy and tolerability of paroxetine to matched placebo in adults with co-occurring social anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorder. Outcome measures included standardized indices of social anxiety and alcohol use. Fifteen individuals meeting DSM-IV criteria for both social anxiety disorder and alcohol use disorder were randomized to treatment. Paroxetine (n = 6) or placebo (n = 9) was given in a double-blind format for 8 weeks using a flexible dosing schedule. Dosing began at 20 mg/d and increased to a target dose of 60 mg/d. There was a significant effect of treatment group on social anxiety symptoms, where patients treated with paroxetine improved more than those treated with placebo on both the Clinical Global Index (CGI) and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (Ps < or = 0.05). On alcohol use, there was not a significant effect of treatment on quantity/frequency measures of drinking, but there was for the CGI ratings (50% paroxetine patients versus 11% placebo patients were improvers on drinking, P < or = 0.05). This pilot study suggests that paroxetine is an effective treatment for social anxiety disorder in individuals with comorbid alcohol problems, and positive treatment effects can be seen in as little as 8 weeks. Further study is warranted to investigate its utility in helping affected individuals reduce alcohol use.
Lattice gas models for nonideal gas fluids

Abstract A lattice gas model with a nonideal gas equation of state is presented. Transitions between the solid and gas phase are described. Computer simulations of applications of this model to shock waves are discussed. Generalization of this model to liquid crystal flow is also outlined.
Multinational Parent Companies’ Influence over Human Resource Decisions of Affiliates: U.S. Firms in Mexico

This study provides empirical evidence for the relationship between the degree of influence U.S. parent companies have over the human resource decisions of their Mexican affiliates and the affiliates’ resource dependencies on the parent company. Both wholly-owned and Joint venture affiliates are examined. Resource dependence was the factor most closely related to parent influence over affiliate human resource decisions. The importance of an affiliate to a parent company, the nationality of affiliate managers, and the type of ownership arrangements were also found to affect parent influence, but to lesser extents than resource dependencies.
Genes for the major protein antigens of the leprosy parasite Mycobacterium leprae

Leprosy, a chronic infectious disease afflicting between 10 and 15 million people, is caused by the obligate intracellular parasite Mycobacterium leprae. Although M. leprae was the first identified bacterial pathogen of man, basic biochemical, immunological, diagnostic and therapeutic investigations have been severely limited because it remains one of the few human pathogens that have not been cultured in vitro. An M. leprae recombinant DNA expression library was constructed to provide a source of genes encoding proteins relevant for such studies. Monoclonal antibodies directed against M. leprae specific antigens have been used to isolate the genes encoding the five most immunogenic protein antigens of the leprosy bacillus. We report here that M. leprae specific epitopes recognized by all of 13 monoclonal antibodies tested were produced by recombinant phage in Escherichia coli.
Energy Efficient Distributed Detection via Multi-Hop Transmission in Sensor Networks

Most existing works on distributed detection have assumed that a bank of independent dedicated channels or a multi-access channel is used for transmitting local decisions to the fusion center. Such a transmission scheme could result in significant energy expenditure when sensors are far from the fusion center. The natural solution to energy-efficient distributed detection is to use multi-hop transmission with information fusion at intermediate nodes. In this paper, we investigate three options for multi-hop fusion schemes: Multihop Forwarding (MF), Multihop Histogram Fusion (HF) and Multihop LLR Fusion (LF). For the simplest MF scheme, the quantized observations are sent to the fusion center along the shortest path tree without further processing at relaying nodes. For HF, each sensor transmits the histogram of the observations of its descendants and itself, which achieves further energy reduction relative to MF when the number of quantization bits is small. For LF, the normalized log-likelihood ratio (LLR) values for subsets of nodes are computed and propagated along the minimum spanning tree, such that the fusion center acquires an estimate of the normalized LLR of all sensors' observations, which is used to decide the hypothesis. We show that LF exhibits the most favorable energy scaling laws with the network size among these schemes. Simulation results suggest that multihop fusion schemes significantly reduces the transmission energy compared with direct transmission, with LF requiring the least energy to achieve the same detection performance.
A Naturally Occurring Plant Cysteine Protease Possesses Remarkable Toxicity against Insect Pests and Synergizes Bacillus thuringiensis Toxin

When caterpillars feed on maize (Zea maize L.) lines with native resistance to several Lepidopteran pests, a defensive cysteine protease, Mir1-CP, rapidly accumulates at the wound site. Mir1-CP has been shown to inhibit caterpillar growth in vivo by attacking and permeabilizing the insect's peritrophic matrix (PM), a structure that surrounds the food bolus, assists in digestion and protects the midgut from microbes and toxins. PM permeabilization weakens the caterpillar defenses by facilitating the movement of other insecticidal proteins in the diet to the midgut microvilli and thereby enhancing their toxicity. To directly determine the toxicity of Mir1-CP, the purified recombinant enzyme was directly tested against four economically significant Lepidopteran pests in bioassays. Mir1-CP LC50 values were 1.8, 3.6, 0.6, and 8.0 ppm for corn earworm, tobacco budworm, fall armyworm and southwestern corn borer, respectively. These values were the same order of magnitude as those determined for the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin Bt-CryIIA. In addition to being directly toxic to the larvae, 60 ppb Mir1-CP synergized sublethal concentrations of Bt-CryIIA in all four species. Permeabilization of the PM by Mir1-CP probably provides ready access to Bt-binding sites on the midgut microvilli and increases its activity. Consequently, Mir1-CP could be used for controlling caterpillar pests in maize using non-transgenic approaches and potentially could be used in other crops either singly or in combination with Bt-toxins.
Tenosynovitis Caused by Mycobacterium kansasii Associated with a Dog Bite

A 68-year-old man with adult-onset diabetes mellitus suffered an accidental puncture wound to the palm of his hand while playing with his pet dog. He received cephalosporin prophylaxis for 1 week. No inflammation occurred. Six months later, a mass developed near his elbow. It was removed. Histopathology revealed granulomas containing acid-fast bacilli (AFB). No culture was done. Swelling and decreased motion of the wrist and fingers developed. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed inflammation of the flexor compartment of the hand, wrist, and forearm. Surgical incision and drainage yielded purulent material, granulomatous inflammation, with AFB. Cultures yielded Mycobacterium kansasii. Several surgical procedures were required; M kansasii was recovered. He received isoniazid and rifampin for 1 year and prolonged rehabilitation. After 4 years, he was relatively asymptomatic, with good function of wrist and fingers. We believe this to be the first report of tenosynovitis caused by M kansasii in association with a dog bite.