cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Epidemiological Characteristics of Measles in Beitang District of Wuxi City from 2006 to 2010

[Objective]To analyze the epidemiological characteristics of measles in Beitang District of Wuxi City during 2006-2010,and provide scientific evidence for further control of measles incidence.[Methods]Descriptive epidemiological method was adopted to analyze the data of measles cases.[Results]A total of 65 cases of measles were reported in Beitang District of Wuxi in last 5 years.The incidence went high from March to May and the infected above 15 years old and under 1 year old accounted for 43.08% and 40.00% of the total cases respectively.The cases took on a" bi-directional trend".47.69% of the cases came from scattered children while the infected with no and unclear immune records took large share,reaching 80% of the total cases.[Conclusion]Based on the current status of measles and to achieve the goal set by the Ministry of Health to eliminate the measles,it is necessary to focus on increasing the coverage of vaccination and its promptness rate for the school-aged children,removing the emptiness of vaccination,giving the right orientation for the public and deepening children parents' confidence in vaccination.
Characterization of kinetoplast DNA minicircles of Leishmania infantum isolated from Wenchuan, Sichuan, China

Objective To analyze the sequence heterogeneity of kinetoplast DNA minicircles of Leishmania infantum isolated from Wenchuan, Sichuan. Methods Kinetoplast DNA minicircles were amplified using a pair of primers (KP1-KP2) from conserved regions of minicircles of L. infantum. The PCR products were then cloned into the pGEM-T vector and 20 positive clones were randomly selected for sequencing. Sequence alignment and open reading frame finding were done with DNAStar software. A phylogenic tree was constructed using MEGA software. Results A PCR product of about 850 bp was obtained using kinetoplast DNA of the Wenchuan strain of L. infantum as a template and KP1-KP2 as primers. Sequence alignment revealed a high level of nucleic acid identity with sequences from the L. donovani complex. One sequence had an open reading frame putatively coding for a protein of 69 amino acid residues. Conclusion There are sequence variations in kinetoplast DNA minicircles of the Wenchuan strain of L. infantum.
Analysis on the epidemiological characteristics of emergency public health events in Xinbei District of Changzhou city from 2006 to 2011

Objective To learn about the epidemiological characteristic of emergency public health events in Xinbei District from 2006 to 2011,so as to provide scientific evidence for prevention and control of public health emergencies.Methods The related information was collected from National public health emergency management information reporting system and was analyzed by descriptive epidemiological method.Results A total of 14 public health emergencies were reported from 2006 to 2011,including 476 cases and no death,totally 19 486 people were affected.The infectious diseases related events peaked in Mar and April.Food poisoning events peaked from September to November.Among these events,10 cases were infectious diseases related events(71.43%).4 cases were food poisoning events(28.57%);Conclusions Among events mainly happened in the school mostly in primary school.Infectious disease outbreak is the subject of public health emergencies.School is a place frequently occurred public health emergency events,We should focus on strengthening the school infectious disease and food poisoning prevention and control.
Intentional Excellence in the Baldwin Wallace University Neuroscience Program.

The Society for Neuroscience recognized Baldwin Wallace University’s (BWU) undergraduate Neuroscience program as their Program of the Year for 2012. This award acknowledged the “accomplishments of a neuroscience department or program for excellence in educating neuroscientists and providing innovative models to which other programs can aspire.” The Neuroscience program grew out of students interested in studying the biological basis of behavior. BWU’s neuroscience major is research-intensive, and all students are required to produce an empirically-based senior thesis. This requirement challenges program resources, and the demand for faculty attention is high. Thus, we developed an intentional 3-step peer mentoring system that encourages our students to collaborate with and learn from, not only faculty, but each other. Peer mentoring occurs in the curriculum, faculty research labs, and as students complete their senior theses. As the program has grown with over 80 current majors, we have developed a new Neuroscience Methods course to train students on the safety, ethics, and practice of research in the neuroscience laboratory space. Students in this course leave with the skills and knowledge to assist senior level students with their theses and to begin the process of developing their own projects in the laboratory. Further, our students indicate that their “peer mentorship was excellent,” “helped them gain confidence,” and “allowed them to be more successful in their research.”
Comprehensive prediction of drug-protein interactions and side effects for the human proteome

Identifying unexpected drug-protein interactions is crucial for drug repurposing. We develop a comprehensive proteome scale approach that predicts human protein targets and side effects of drugs. For drug-protein interaction prediction, FINDSITEcomb, whose average precision is ~30% and recall ~27%, is employed. For side effect prediction, a new method is developed with a precision of ~57% and a recall of ~24%. Our predictions show that drugs are quite promiscuous, with the average (median) number of human targets per drug of 329 (38), while a given protein interacts with 57 drugs. The result implies that drug side effects are inevitable and existing drugs may be useful for repurposing, with only ~1,000 human proteins likely causing serious side effects. A killing index derived from serious side effects has a strong correlation with FDA approved drugs being withdrawn. Therefore, it provides a pre-filter for new drug development. The methodology is free to the academic community on the DR. PRODIS (DRugome, PROteome, and DISeasome) webserver at http://cssb.biology.gatech.edu/dr.prodis/. DR. PRODIS provides protein targets of drugs, drugs for a given protein target, associated diseases and side effects of drugs, as well as an interface for the virtual target screening of new compounds.
An Isotropic Elastic Solid is a Simple Fluid

It is shown that the well-known constitutive equation for the Cauchy stress in an isotropic elastic material satisfies all of the conditions which, according to a theorem of Noll, characterize a material as a simple fluid.
The Sustainable, the Expendable, and the Obsolete

This is a preliminary exploration of the concept of sustainability and its potential usefulness to anthropologists. "Sustainable" is distinquished from "stable" and "viable" in terms of its implications of directionality of time, pointing both backward and forward. Given the time implications, the contexts of "sustainable Xs" (technology, activity, development, etc.) are crucial to explaining what happened to X in the past and prognosticating its future. The argument is illustrated by analyzing data on obsolete fishing practices on Kapingamarangi Atoll (Federated States of Micronesia), focusing on the contexts of change in political/religious organization in the twentieth century. Changing access to both new and old technology render many traditional fishing practices obsolete through replacement by new techniques and by neglect. The relationship between the obsolescence and the sustainability of fishing techniques changes over time, the change constrained by the Kapingamarangi concept of "knowing" and by fishermen's dependence on technology requiring cash outlay. Sustainability in this analysis is a concept most appropriate to the emerging field of political ecology.
Analysis of Dynamic Bending Using DIC and Virtual Fields Method

The present work is aimed to analyze the dynamic bending response of a copper specimen. The specimen is impacted in a three point bending configuration using a Hopkinson bar apparatus. The impact force is measured by the use of two piezoelectric load-cells located behind the supports of the three point bending fixture. Dynamic deformation response of the specimen is studied and analyzed through the use of ultra-high speed photography in conjunction with digital image correlation. To do this, an ultra-high speed HPV-X camera is utilized to capture images of the specimen during deformation time at a frame rate of 106 frames per second. Full-field distributions of in-plane displacement and strain components are studied and used to calculate the strain rate and acceleration distributions in the specimen. An analytical approach based on the Virtual Fields Method (VFM) is then implemented which allows for the calculation of inertia forces developed in the specimen. In addition, the method of virtual fields is used in this work to identify the rate-dependent constitutive response of the material at plastic deformation regime.
Single Precision Natural Logarithm Architecture for Hard Floating-Point and DSP-Enabled FPGAs

In this paper we will present a novel method for implementing floating point (FP) elementary functions using the new FP single precision addition and multiplication features of the Altera Arria~10 DSP Block architecture. Our application example will use log(x), one of the most commonly required functions for emerging datacenter and computing FPGA targets. We will explain why the combination of new FPGA technology, and at the same time, a massive increase in computing performance requirement, fuels the need for this work. We show a comprehensive error analysis, both for the overall function, and each subsection of the architecture, demonstrating that the hard FP (HFP) Blocks, in conjunction with the traditional flexibility and connectivity of the FPGA, can provide a robust and high performance solution. These methods create a highly accurate single precision IEEE754 function, which is OpenCL conformant. Our methods map directly to almost exclusively embedded structures, and therefore result in significant reduction in logic resources and routing stress compared to current methods, and demonstrate that newly introduced FPGA routing architectures can be leveraged to use almost no soft resources. We also show that the latency of the log(x) function can be changed independently of the architecture and function, allowing the performance of the function to be adjusted directly to the system clock rate.
Dual energy window scatter corrections for positron emission tomography

A simulation of PET (positron emission tomography) was used to investigate dual energy window scatter correction for PET devices. Two types of off-peak energy windows were examined. Method one only accepts coincidences where the detected energies of both photons are in the off-peak energy window; method two accepts coincidences where the detected energy of one photon is in the off-peak window and the detected energy of the other photon is in either the off-peak or on-peak window. Profiles of the coincidence accepted by these methods were compared to profiles of the scatter coincidences detected in the on-peak window. Neither method produces a good approximation to the shape of the scatter coincidence profile. Method one has little to recommend it over a constant background subtraction. Method two yields profiles that looked even less useful, dipping down where the scatter coincidence profile rises. >
Hydrodynamic simulations of a nanoscale RingFET

Scaling down the width of conventional planar FETs can create significant leakage currents as a result of trapped positive charges in the side interfaces (Figure 1) causing weak inversion in the channel. Trap induced leakage currents have been previously addressed with FinFET[1], body-accumulated[2], and gate wrap-around[3] designs. In this study, we propose a compact, cylindrical FET design, the RingFET, which effectively eliminates any side interface regions. The RingFET is composed of concentric regions which form the source, drain, poly-silicon gate, channel, and aluminum metal contacts. Figure 2(a) shows a top view cross section of the implanted regions in the body of the n-channel RingFET where the red rings are n-type (Arsenic doped) and the blue ring is p-type (Boron doped). Hydrodynamic simulations using Synposys Sentaurus TCAD[4] software are preformed to analyze the performance of nanoscale RingFETs. The RingFET's cylindrical geometry allows for 2D rotationally symmetric simulations which significantly decrease computational time as compared to 3D simulations. Figure 2(b) shows the simulated radial cross section where an effective width of the device is defined as the average radius of the channel, W EFF = 2π·R W .
EVALUATION OF THE RESAZURIN REDUCTION ONE-HOUR TEST FOR GRADING MILK INTENDED FOR MANUFACTURING PURPOSES1,2

Randomly selected dairy farms in three widely separated geographical locations, producing milk intended for manufacturing purposes, were sampled once each season of the year. Samples were analyzed by Standard Plate Count (SPC-32 C.), resazurin reduction test (RRT-5 P 7/4) and resazurin reduction 1 hr test (RRT-1 hr). Correlation between SPC and RRT-1 hr was 0.742 and between SPC and RRT-5 P 7/4, −0.777. Application of ADMI/EMA standards or calculated RRT-1 hr standards resulted in a quality distribution that differed from the distribution given by SPC or RRT. With the proposed RRT-1 hr test, a combination of the ADMI/EMA and the calculated standard levels, evaluation of the quality of can and of farm bulk tank supplies in various geographical locations was similar to the evaluation given by either SPC or RRT. The RRT-1 hr test was judged to be as useful as RRT-5 P 7/4, DMCC, SPC, or MBRT in assessing the bacteriological quality of various types of milk supplies, and has the advantage of being faster. For ...
Probing conformational dynamics of an enzymatic active site by an in situ single fluorogenic probe under piconewton force manipulation.

Unraveling the conformational details of an enzyme during the essential steps of a catalytic reaction (i.e., enzyme–substrate interaction, enzyme–substrate active complex formation, nascent product formation, and product release) is challenging due to the transient nature of intermediate conformational states, conformational fluctuations, and the associated complex dynamics. Here we report our study on the conformational dynamics of horseradish peroxidase using single-molecule multiparameter photon time-stamping spectroscopy with mechanical force manipulation, a newly developed single-molecule fluorescence imaging magnetic tweezers nanoscopic approach. A nascent-formed fluorogenic product molecule serves as a probe, perfectly fitting in the enzymatic reaction active site for probing the enzymatic conformational dynamics. Interestingly, the product releasing dynamics shows the complex conformational behavior with multiple product releasing pathways. However, under magnetic force manipulation, the complex nature of the multiple product releasing pathways disappears and more simplistic conformations of the active site are populated.
An efficient distributed speech processing in noisy mobile communications

Mobile communications are greatly influenced by environmental noise that may cause a significant deterioration in automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems performance. In this paper, we present a new framework integrating a noise-robust front-end in distributed speech recognition (DSR) systems. Using the Aurora-2 speech database, the authors evaluate the development of an additional feature set for Mel-frequency-based European Telecommunications Standards Institute advanced front-end (ETSI-AFE) which we refer to as power-normalized cepstral coefficients (PNCCs). The experimental results show that, the proposed approach achieves a significant improvement in word recognition accuracy compared to the current ETSI-AFE deployed by the DSR technology on today's mobile phones.
Classroom quality and children’s academic skills in child care centers: Understanding the role of teacher qualifications

Abstract This study examines the associations of teachers’ levels of education and professional training with observed classroom quality and children’s school readiness in community-based child care centers. Prior research provides mixed evidence about whether teachers’ education predicts early childhood education (ECE) classroom quality and children’s outcomes. Data are drawn from a Midwestern study of community child care centers (typically private pay non-profit or for-profit child care centers that are not directly funded by government programs) and the children ages 3–5 in their care (N = 189 centers and 661 children). This study takes advantage of a very detailed set of teacher training measures that includes information on education degrees, ECE credit-based training, and placement on the state’s 17-level professional career ladder (the Registry). Using these measures, the current study is able to examine whether variations in degrees and ECE credit-based training for teachers predict observed classroom quality and children’s school readiness skills. Analyses control for a rich set of variables, including children’s demographic information and fall assessment scores, teachers’ work-related characteristics (e.g., motivation for ECE work), and classrooms and programs’ features. Results from regression models suggest few associations between teachers’ education level, ECE credits, or level on the professional career ladder and observed classroom quality. The key exception is that teachers who do not have any postsecondary education and training in ECE are in classrooms of significantly lower quality compared with teachers who have a college degree. Results from hierarchical linear models indicate that teachers’ education does not predict children’s early academic skills.
Effects of Engineered Wettability on the Efficiency of Dew Collection

Surface wettability plays an important role in dew collection. Nucleation is faster on hydrophilic surfaces, while droplets slide more readily on hydrophobic surfaces. Plants and animals in coastal desert environments appear to overcome this trade-off through biphilic surfaces with patterned wettability. In this study, we investigate the effects of millimeter-scale wettability patterns, mimicking those of the Stenocara beetle, on the rate of water collection from humid air. The rate of water collection per unit area is measured as a function of subcooling (ΔT = 1, 7, and 27 °C) and angle of inclination (from 10° to 90°). It is then compared for superbiphilic, hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and surperhydrophobic surfaces. For large subcooling, neither wettability nor tilt angle has a significant effect because the rate of condensation is so great. For 1 °C subcooling and large angles, hydrophilic surfaces perform best because condensation is the rate-limiting step. For low angles of inclination, superhydrophobi...
Taxing & Zapping Marijuana: Blockchain Compliance in the Trump Administration

This is the third of a five-part series dealing with the rescission by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions of the Obama-era policy that discouraged federal prosecutors from bringing charges in all but the most serious marijuana cases. This article focuses on cyber-attacks on the main commercial chain, and the use of a private blockchain using HyperLedger Fabric as a platform. This fraud is a direct, criminal attack; an attack designed to destroy/corrupt records of marijuana inventory and plant tags throughout the supply chain. The attack allows legalized marijuana to escape the system and be sold on the black market. A large-scale cyber-attack impacts every commercial enterprise, transporter, and testing laboratory. Control collapses. Hacking a major track and trace system is not merely a theoretical possibility. It happened to the largest (and oldest) system. Hackers took down MJ Freeway’s Leaf Data System nationwide. The seriousness of this hack was all too apparent to the government of Nevada which notified MJ Freeway on September 12, 2017 that, because of vulnerabilities in its system, the State was terminating its five-year contract (after less than two-years) effective November 1, 2017. Cyber-attacks aimed at destroying reliable data in a commercial chain have a lot in common with VAT frauds that rely on obscuring transaction data behind rows of false “buffer” entities. Both are defeated by systems that lay bare and preserve highly trustworthy, real-time data about the intra-entity transactions within the commercial chain. AI has become very good at risk-analyzing these data flows, and blockchain has become very good at preserving the data flows for AI analysis. It is axiomatic that wherever distributive ledgers are adopted, they will replace centralized ledgers. The MJ Freeway system is precisely this kind of multiple-redundant centralized ledger system that will be/should be disrupted (replaced) by a blockchain. A private, rather than a public blockchain is proposed to store the data that is transferred in the commercial production of legalized marijuana.
Infections and outbreaks of nontuberculous mycobacteria in hospital settings.

Nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infections in the hospital setting are a complex and often challenging entity. The goal of this review is to discuss diagnostic and treatment strategies for established as well as emerging nosocomial NTM infections. NTM outbreaks have been documented in a variety of hospital settings. Contamination of medical devices or aqueous solutions is often implicated in the spread of infection. More recently, the slow grower M. chimaera has been reported in the setting of contaminated heater-cooler devices used for cardiopulmonary bypass and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. In addition, increases in medical tourism for cosmetic surgery have led to outbreaks of rapidly growing mycobacteria. Diagnosis and treatment of nosocomial NTM pose many challenges for the clinician. Surgical resection or debridement as well as combination antimycobacterial therapy is a mainstay in therapeutic management. Strict infection control and prevention practices are critical to the identification and cessation of outbreaks.
PD-L1 binds with B7-1 only in cis on the same cell surface

Programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1)-mediated immune suppression is a major regulator of peripheral tolerance and is often co-opted by tumors to evade immune attack. PD-L1 binds to PD-1 but in addition binds to B7-1 (CD80) to regulate T cell function. The binding interactions of the PD-L1-B7-1 pathway and its functional role need further investigation in order to understand differences between PD-1 and PD-L1 mediated tumor immunotherapy. We examined the molecular orientation for PD-L1 binding to B7-1 using cell to cell binding assays, ELISA, and flow cytometry. Surprisingly, we found that PD-L1 transfected cells did not bind to B7-1 transfected cells, whereas PD-L1 transfected cells bound to PD-1 transfected cells. As expected, B7-1 transfected cells bound to CD28 or cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) transfected cells. By ELISA and flow cytometry with purified proteins, we found that PD-L1 and B7-1 had a strong binding interaction only when the PD-L1 molecule was accessible and flexible. On decreasing its accessibility, the binding was greatly reduced. We observed the PD-L1-B7-1 interaction competed for the binding of PD-L1 to PD-1. Further, we co-transfected PD-L1 and B7-1 on the same cell surface and confirmed the cis binding using a Nanobit Assay system. These results indicate that the PD-L1-B7-1 interaction can occur in cis when the molecules are on the same cell but not in trans when the molecules are on different cells. This binding orientation emphasizes the functional importance of co-expression of B7-1 and PD-L1 on the same cell. Interaction in cis competes for binding to other receptors and modulates their function. Our findings help in further understanding PD-L1 mediated immune suppression.
Universal features of the Abelian Polyakov loop in 1 + 1 dimensions

We show that the Polyakov loop of the two-dimensional lattice Abelian Higgs model can be calculated using the tensor renormalization group approach. We check the accuracy of the results using standard Monte Carlo simulations and find good agreement. We show that the energy gap produced by the insertion of the Polyakov loop obeys universal finite-size scaling which persists in the continuous-time limit. We briefly discuss the relevance of these results for quantum simulations.
Impact of intercostal nerve blocks using liposomal versus standard bupivacaine on length of stay in minimally invasive thoracic surgery patients.

Background: Postsurgical pain control can have a significant impact on patient outcomes and hospital-associated costs. We sought to evaluate the effect of intercostal nerve blocks using liposomal bupivacaine on length of stay (LOS) in patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). Methods: We retrospectively reviewed outcomes in 80 patients undergoing VATS wedge resection, VATS lobectomy, or minimally-invasive esophagectomy (MIE). Patients received either liposomal bupivacaine (n=40) or standard-release bupivacaine with epinephrine (n=40) via intercostal nerve block. The LOS, 24-hour postoperative pain scores, overall opioid usage, and patient ambulation rates at 24 hours were compared for the two groups. Results: The median LOS was significantly shorter in patients receiving liposomal bupivacaine, at 1.35 days (IQR, 1.28 to 1.53 days) compared to 2.45 days (IQR, 2.08 to 3.51 days) in patients receiving standard-release bupivacaine (P vs . 31.9±20.9 mg, respectively, P=0.664). Interestingly, however, 93% (37/40) of patients receiving liposomal bupivacaine were able to ambulate within 24-hours after surgery, compared to 65% (26/40) of patients in the control group (P=0.003). Conclusions: The use of liposomal bupivacaine is associated with decreased LOS in postoperative thoracic surgery patients and earlier return to ambulation. It does not, however, decrease 24-hour postoperative pain scores or opioid usage.
Are Landowners, Managers, and Range Management Academics on the Same Page About Conservation?

On the Ground • Conservation of California rangelands hinges on partnerships among ranchers, agency and nongovernmental organization managers, and academics. • A “sustainable use” perspective on conservation was predominate among ranchers, whereas a more preservation-oriented perspective was common among managers; the perspective of academics was in between the two. • Conservation priorities among ranchers and managers largely overlapped, except that ranchers prioritized livestock production and ranch succession, and managers prioritized habitat protection. • Land use change was a shared concern among the three groups. • Opportunities for rangeland conservation included improving communication among diverse stakeholders and applying recent scientific developments to on-the-ground range management.
Understanding the Intensity and Variety of Networking Behaviors and Innovation Support Climate

This empirical study evaluated the relationships among the intensity and variety of managerial employees’ networking behaviors for knowledge sharing, the level and strength of innovation support cl...
Psychoendocrinology of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

Abstract The syndromes of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, particularly their classical variants, present diverse medical and psychosocial challenges to the affected individual that may affect all stages of life from the prenatal phase through old age. This chapter reviews the psychological outcomes in terms of gender, general cognitive development, psychopathology, sexuality, and quality of life, the factors that contribute to these outcomes, including neuroanatomy and brain function, and the implications for the clinician and the organization of health services.
Dynamics of Pivoting Electrical Waves in a Cardiac Tissue Model

Through a detailed mathematical analysis we seek to advance our understanding of how cardiac tissue conductances govern pivoting (spiral, scroll, rotor, functional reentry) wave dynamics. This is an important problem in cardiology since pivoting waves likely underlie most reentrant tachycardias. The problem is complex, and to advance our methods of analysis we introduce two new tools: a ray tracing method and a moving-interface model. When used in combination with an ionic model, they permit us to elucidate the role played by tissue conductances on pivoting wave dynamics. Specifically we simulate traveling electrical waves with an ionic model that can reproduce the characteristics of plane and pivoting waves in small patches of cardiac tissue. Then ray tracing is applied to the simulated pivoting waves in a manner to expose their real displacement. In this exercise we find loci with special characteristics, as well as zones where a part of a pivoting wave quickly transitions from a regenerative to a non-regenerative propagation mode. The loci themselves and the monitoring of the ionic model state variables in this zone permit to elucidate several aspects of pivoting wave dynamics. We then formulate the moving-interface model based on the information gathered with the above-mentioned analysis. Equipped with a velocity profile v(s), s: distance along of the pivoting wave contour and the steady- state action potential duration (APD) of a plane wave during entrainment, APDss(T), at period T, this simple model can predict: shape, orbit of revolution, rotation period, whether a pivoting wave will break up or not, and whether the tissue will admit pivoting waves or not. Because v(s) and APDss(T) are linked to the ionic model, dynamical analysis with the moving-interface model conveys information on the role played by tissue conductances on pivoting wave dynamics. The analysis conducted here enables us to better understand previous results on the termination of pivoting waves. We surmise the method put forth here could become a means to discover how to alter tissue conductances in a manner to terminate pivoting waves at the origin of reentrant tachycardias.
Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World

Societies around the world have experienced a flood of information from diverse channels originating beyond local communities and even national borders, transmitted through the rapid expansion of cosmopolitan communications. For more than half a century, conventional interpretations, Norris and Inglehart argue, have commonly exaggerated the potential threats arising from this process. A series of firewalls protect national cultures. This book develops a new theoretical framework for understanding cosmopolitan communications and uses it to identify the conditions under which global communications are most likely to endanger cultural diversity. The authors analyze empirical evidence from both the societal level and the individual level, examining the outlook and beliefs of people in a wide range of societies. The study draws on evidence from the World Values Survey, covering 90 societies in all major regions worldwide from 1981 to 2007. The conclusion considers the implications of their findings for cultural policies.
Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities

Segregation by Design draws on more than 100 years of quantitative and qualitative data from thousands of American cities to explore how local governments generate race and class segregation. Starting in the early twentieth century, cities have used their power of land use control to determine the location and availability of housing, amenities (such as parks), and negative land uses (such as garbage dumps). The result has been segregation - first within cities and more recently between them. Documenting changing patterns of segregation and their political mechanisms, Trounstine argues that city governments have pursued these policies to enhance the wealth and resources of white property owners at the expense of people of color and the poor. Contrary to leading theories of urban politics, local democracy has not functioned to represent all residents. The result is unequal access to fundamental local services - from schools, to safe neighborhoods, to clean water.
Contemporary Pharmacotherapeutics and the Management of Aggressive Behavior in an Adolescent Animal Model of Maladaptive Aggression.

Objective Antipsychotic and anticonvulsant medications are increasingly being used as pharmacotherapeutic treatments for maladaptive aggression in youth, yet no information is available regarding whether these drugs exhibit aggression- specific suppression in preclinical studies employing adolescent animal models of maladaptive aggression. This study examined whether the commonly used antipsychotics medications haloperidol and risperidone and the anticonvulsant medication valproate exert selective aggression-suppressing effects using a validated adolescent animal model of maladaptive aggression. Methods Twenty-seven-day old Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) were administered testosterone for 30 consecutive days during the first 4 weeks of adolescent development. The following day (during late adolescence), experimental animals received a single dose of haloperidol (0.00, 0.025, 0.50, 1.0 mg/kg), risperidone (0.00, 0.01, 0.03, 1.0 mg/kg), or valproate (0.00, 1.0, 5.0, 10.0 mg/kg) and tested for offensive aggression using the Resident/Intruder Paradigm. As a baseline, non-aggressive behavioral control, a separate set of pubertal hamsters was treated with sesame oil vehicle during the first 4 weeks of adolescence and then tested for aggression during late adolescence in parallel with the haloperidol, risperidone or valproate-treated experimental animals. Results Risperidone and valproate selectively reduced the highly impulsive and intense maladaptive aggressive phenotype in a dose-dependent fashion. While haloperidol marginally reduced aggressive responding, its effects were non-specific as the decrease in aggression was concurrent with reductions in a several ancillary (non-aggressive) behaviors. Conclusion These studies provide pre-clinical evidence that the contemporary pharmacotherapeutics risperidone and valproate exert specific aggression-suppressing effects in an adolescent animal model of maladaptive aggression.
Cross-Sectional Association of Lifetime Electronic Cigarette Use with Wheezing and Related Respiratory Symptoms in U.S. Adults.

Introduction Electronic cigarette use (vaping) has been found to be associated with respiratory symptoms like wheezing or whistling in the chest. Whether or not lifetime vaping occurrences are associated with wheezing has not yet been investigated. Methods Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study Wave 4 data with 22,233 adults collected from December 2016 to January 2018 were used. The cross-sectional association of lifetime vaping occurrences with wheezing and related respiratory symptoms was examined using multivariable weighted logistic regression models considering the complex sampling design. Results According to the weighted PATH Wave 4 data, about 89.9% adults never vaped, 3.2% adults vaped one time, 3.2% vaped 2-10 times, 1.3% vaped 11-20 times, 1.1% vaped 21-50 times, 0.4% vaped 51-99 times, and 0.9% vaped 100 or more times in their entire life. Compared to adults who never vaped, adults who vaped 2-10 times had a significantly higher association with ever wheezing (aOR = 1.4, 95% CI: 1.1 to 1.6), past 12-month wheezing (aOR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.2 to 1.9) and the number of wheezing attacks in the past 12 months (aOR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.2 to 1.8). Adults who vaped 11-20 times and 100 or more times had similar associations with wheezing as that for adults who vaped 2-10 times. Controlling other tobacco use attenuated the associations. Conclusions Lifetime vaping occurrences were found to be associated with some definitions of self-reported wheezing in cross-sectional analyses adjusted for other tobacco use. Implications Using the cross-sectional PATH Wave 4 data with 22,233 adults, we found significant associations between lifetime vaping occurrences and ever wheezing or whistling in the chest, past 12 months wheezing or whistling in the chest, as well as the number of wheezing attacks in the past 12 months. The study results suggest that larger studies with more precise time frames and measures are needed to further understand possible connections between vaping experimentation and wheezing symptoms that could inform our understanding of the health effects of electronic cigarettes and resultant policy decisions.
A Family of Unification-Oblivious Program Transformations and Their Applications

We describe a family of program transformations that compile a Horn Clause program into equivalent programs of a simpler and more regular structure.
Believing in the American Dream Sustains Negative Attitudes toward Those in Poverty

A critical lever in the fight against poverty is to improve attitudes toward those living in poverty. Attempting to understand the factors that impact these attitudes, we ask: Does believing that m...
Book review: Kurzweil's argument for the success of AI

“Positive feedback” is one of those phrases that sounds like it ought to mean something good, when it actually means something that is almost always bad: a runaway process whose output forces its inputs further in the direction they are already headed. A chain reaction in an atomic bomb is a classic example, where the production of neutrons is proportional to the number of atoms split, which is in turn proportional to the number of neutrons. Of course, a bomb is one of the few cases where the goal is to produce a runaway process. Even in this case, positive feedback has the property that it quickly destroys the conditions that made the positive feedback possible. This is a hallmark of the breed. Take any other example, such as the multiplication of rabbits, whose output—rabbits—is proportional to the number of rabbits. This simple model assumes that food is abundant; the exponentially increasing rabbit population soon violates that assumption. In Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is Near, it is argued that the evolution of humanity and technology is driven by a positive feedback, and that the resulting destruction of many of the truths we hold dear will result in a post-human world of wonders. It’s hard to argue with the claim that a positive feedback is going on, especially after Kurzweil has pounded the point home with graph after graph; and so it is hard to disagree that this feedback will destroy the conditions that make the feedback possible (see above). Such arguments have driven pessimists from Malthus to Gore to conclude that humanity is in for some stormy weather. Kurzweil, however, believes that evolution has always managed to avoid the consequences of its manias by leapfrogging from one medium to another. Genetic evolution produced cultural evolution and now cultural evolution will produce a new phase in which people gradually replace themselves with bio-mechanical hybrids, where the seams between the carbon-based and siliconbased parts will be blurred by the nanobots crawling through them. At this point our new incarnations will begin to guide their own evolution, presumably toward ever more complex technological embodiments. Our future selves will be superintelligent, able to merge with others in ways that will cause our current conceptions of individuality to break down. Because all our assumptions about what happens past that point break down, he calls it the Singularity. It’s hard not to picture the Borg from Star Trek when thinking about Kurzweil’s vision of post-human beings swimming through silicon. It was generally assumed in Star Trek that assimilation into the Borg was to be avoided, although none of the assimilated ever complained. Kurzweil can hardly wait. He is even watching his health to make sure he survives to the year 2045, which is roughly when the Singularity will be consummated. He acknowledges that there are perils in the technologies he visualizes, including especially AI, but he is confident humanity can conquer them.
National Down Syndrome Patient Database: Insights From the Development of a Multi-Center Registry Study

The Down Syndrome Study Group (DSSG) was founded in 2012 as a voluntary, collaborative effort with the goal of supporting evidenced-based health care guidelines for individuals with Down syndrome (DS). Since then, 5 DS specialty clinics have collected prospective, longitudinal data on medical conditions that co-occur with DS. Data were entered by clinical staff or trained designees into the National Down Syndrome Patient Database, which we created using REDCap software. In our pilot year, we enrolled 663 participants across the U.S., ages 36 days to 70 years, from multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds. Here we report: (i) the demographic distribution of participants enrolled, (ii) a detailed account of our database infrastructure, and (iii) lessons learned during our pilot year to assist future researchers with similar goals for other patient populations.
Jack of all trades masters novel host plants: positive genetic correlations in specialist and generalist insect herbivores expanding their diets to novel hosts

One explanation for the widespread host specialization of insect herbivores is the ‘Jack of all trades-master of none’ principle, which states that genotypes with high performance on one host will perform poorly on other hosts. This principle predicts that cross-host correlation in performance of genotypes will be negative. In this study, we experimentally explored cross-host correlations and performance among families in four species (two generalist and two specialist) of leaf beetles (Cephaloleia spp.) that are currently expanding their diets from native to exotic plants. All four species displayed similar responses in body size, developmental rates and mortality rates to experimentally controlled diets. When raised on novel hosts, body size of larvae, pupae and adults were reduced. Development times were longer, and larval mortality was higher on novel hosts. Genotype × host–plant interactions were not detected for most traits. All significant cross-host correlations were positive. These results indicate very different ecological and evolutionary dynamics than those predicted by the ‘Jack of all trades-master of none’ principle.
A taxonomy of rational attacks

For peer-to-peer services to be effective, participating nodes must cooperate, but in most scenarios a node represents a self-interested party and cooperation can neither be expected nor enforced. A reasonable assumption is that a large fraction of p2p nodes are rational and will attempt to maximize their consumption of system resources while minimizing the use of their own. If such behavior violates system policy then it constitutes an attack. In this paper we identify and create a taxonomy for rational attacks and then identify corresponding solutions if they exist. The most effective solutions directly incentivize cooperative behavior, but when this is not feasible the common alternative is to incentivize evidence of cooperation instead.
A Beginning Theory of Action for Community Analysts based on Group Observation, Theories of the Unconscious, and Evolutionary Psychology

Psychodynamic theories that directly inform the work of community psychoanalysts are identified and discussed in this paper. Psychoanalysis in the community is distinguished from psychoanalysis of the community, and what is truly analytic about each type of applied work is described in detail. The paper additionally attempts to expand the theoretical knowledge of community analysts in order to add to their technical repertoire. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
From In Vivo Ultrasound and MRI Imaging to Therapy: Contrast Agents Based on Target-Specific Nanoparticles

Molecular imaging utilizes a novel toolset to enable and expand the role of noninvasive diagnostic imaging from the realm of gross anatomical description to the identification of specific tissue epitopes and observation of biological processes at the cellular level. Until recently, this approach was confined to the field of nuclear imaging; however, advances in nanotechnology have extended this research to include imaging modalities such as ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. The application of nanotechnology to magnetic resonance and ultrasound molecular imaging has generated several candidate contrast agents. One multimodality platform – targeted perfluorocarbon nanoparticles – is useful for noninvasive detection with all three imaging modalities, and may additionally be used for local drug delivery. Keywords: molecular imaging; nanoparticle; perfluorocarbon; ultrasound; MRI
OC14.06: The role of antral follicle counts (AFC) via TVUSG in determining fertility preservation outcomes in cancer patients undergoing ovarian stimulation

Objectives: Chemotherapy damages ovarian reserve and induces premature ovarian failure. It has been shown that menstrual status, and cycle day 2 (CD2) FSH and estradiol (E2) levels are not reliable for the assessment of chemotherapy effects on fertility. The purpose of this study was to determine whether antral follicle count (AFC) is predictive for ovarian stimulation outcomes in pre(COH) and postchemotherapy (PCCOH) patients undergoing fertility preservation with oocyte or embryo freezing. Methods: This was a prospective study of 69 COH and 16 PCCOH women who underwent controlled ovarian hyperstimulation while AFC, anti-mullerian hormone (AMH), FSH and E2 were obtained on CD2. The predominant diagnosis was breast cancer (n = 74, 62 COH vs. 12 PCCOH). PCCOH patients received a variety of alkylating agents. Results: Total (14.4 ± 1.3 vs. 8.0 ± 1.1) and mature (9.7 ± 0.8 vs. 5.9 ± 0.9) oocytes retrieved and two pronuclear (2PN) embryos generated (7.7 ± 0.7 vs. 5.1 ± 0.8) were significantly higher for COH vs. PCCOH patients (P < 0.05). The mean age at time of stimulation, CD2-FSH, and E2 were not significantly different. AFC (13.1 ± 1.3 vs. 8.7 ± 1.2) and AMH (2.6 ± 0.4 vs. 1.1 ± 0.5) were significantly higher in the COH group (P < 0.05). Linear regression analysis for COH but not PCCOH patients demonstrated a significant positive correlation for AFC and AMH in predicting the number of total oocytes, mature oocytes and 2PN embryos (P < 0.05). Multivariate regression analysis using AFC and AMH improved prediction of these patient outcomes (R2 = 0.53). Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated that after chemotherapy, CD2-FSH and E2 were unaltered but AMH, AFC and stimulation outcomes were significantly lower. The combined use of AFC and AMH showed a strong correlation for predicting stimulation outcomes in COH patients but further investigation is needed for PCCOH patients. Fertility preservation consultation, as well as AFC and AMH, for patients prior to chemotherapy may improve prediction of patient outcome.