cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Estimating treatment effects in studies of perinatal transmission of HIV

SUMMARY Fetal loss often precludes the ascertainment of infection status in studies of perinatal transmission of HIV. The standard analysis based on liveborn babies can result in biased estimation and invalid inference in the presence of fetal death. This paper focuses on the problem of estimating treatment effects for mother-to-child transmission when infection status is unknown for some babies. Minimal data structures for identifiability of parameters are given. Methods using full likelihood and the inverse probability of selection-weighted estimators are suggested. Simulation studies are used to show that these estimators perform well in finite samples. Methods are applied to the data from a clinical trial in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. To validly estimate the treatment effect using likelihood methods, investigators should make sure that the design includes a mini-study among uninfected mothers and that efforts are made to ascertain the infection status of as many babies lost as possible. The inverse probability weighting methods need precise estimation of the probability of observing infection status. We can further apply our methodology to the study of other vertically transmissible infections which are potentially fatal pre- and perinatally.
An Economic Comparison of Pesticide Applications for Processing and Table Tomatoes: A Case Study for Turkey

In many circumstances, pesticides are the only effective means of controlling disease organisms, weeds, or insect pests. Yet, pesticides are toxic and potentially hazardous to humans, other animals and organisms, and the environment. Therefore, people who use pesticides or regularly come in contact with them must understand the relative toxicity, potential health effects, and preventative measures to reduce the exposure to the products they use. Today, farm-level costs include the costs of the pesticides, and their ap- plication. This study was conducted to analyse the farm-level economics of pesticide use on the processing and table tomato growing in selected regions of Turkey. Data was collected from 59 processing tomato farmers and 30 table tomato farmers. These farmers were willing to have their data recorded. According to the results of the study, the average usage concerning the active ingredient of pesti- cides for the processing and table tomatoes were 4,825.02 and 5,273.86 g/ha. Average pesticide and pesticide application costs of the processing and table tomatoes were determined to be $445/ha and $502/ha, respectively. The breakeven yields for the processing and table tomatoes were calculated to be 3,708 and 3,138 kg/ha, repectively.
Uncorrected and Albumin-Corrected Calcium, Phosphorus, and Mortality in Patients Undergoing Maintenance Dialysis

Uncorrected serum calcium concentration is the first mineral metabolism metric planned for use as a quality measure in the United States ESRD population. Few studies in patients undergoing either peritoneal dialysis (PD) or hemodialysis (HD) have assessed the association of uncorrected serum calcium concentration with clinical outcomes. We obtained data from 129,076 patients on dialysis (PD, 10,066; HD, 119,010) treated in DaVita, Inc. facilities between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2006. After adjustment for potential confounders, uncorrected serum calcium <8.5 and ≥10.2 mg/dl were associated with excess mortality in patients on PD or HD (comparison group uncorrected calcium 9.0 to <9.5 mg/dl). Additional adjustment for serum albumin concentration substantially attenuated the all-cause mortality hazard ratios (HRs) associated with uncorrected calcium <8.5 mg/dl (HR, 1.29; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.16 to 1.44 for PD; HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.13 to 1.20 for HD) and amplified the HRs associated with calcium ≥10.2 mg/dl (HR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.42 to 1.91 for PD; HR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.53 to 1.65 for HD). Albumin-corrected calcium ≥10.2 mg/dl and serum phosphorus ≥6.4 mg/dl were also associated with increased risk for death, irrespective of dialysis modality. In summary, in a large nationally representative cohort of patients on dialysis, abnormalities in markers of mineral metabolism, particularly high concentrations of serum calcium and phosphorus, were associated with increased mortality risk. Additional studies are needed to investigate whether control of hypercalcemia and hyperphosphatemia in patients undergoing dialysis results in improved clinical outcomes.
Food and the city: urban agriculture and the new food revolution

In Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution, author Jennifer Cockrall-King, a renowned food journalist, explores urban farming conducted amid different customs. This book sp...
Party Switching in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 1996–2001

Almost one-fourth of the members of the lower house in Italy, the Chamber of Deputies, switched parties at least once between 1996 and 2001. Why would a legislator abandon one party and enter another during a legislative term? Starting from the basic assumption that politicians are ambitious, we examine electoral and partisan motivations for members of parliament (MPs) who switch parties. We conclude that party switching most likely is motivated by party labels that provide little information about policy goals and that pit copartisans against each other in the effort to serve constituent needs. Switching is especially frequent when ambitious politicians operate under heightened uncertainty.
The impact of increasing dose on overall survival in prostate cancer

To assess the impact of increasing dose on overall survival (OS) for prostate cancer patients. Treatment data were obtained on more than 20,000 patients in the National Oncology Data Alliance®, a proprietary database of merged tumor registries, who were treated for prostate cancer with definitive radiotherapy between 1995 and 2006. Eligible patients had complete data on total dose, T stage, use and timing of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), and treatment start date (n = 20,028). Patients with prior malignancies were excluded. On multivariate analysis, dose, T stage, grade, marital status, age, and neoadjuvant ADT were significant predictors of OS. Hazard ratios for OS declined monotonically with increasing dose, reaching 0.63 (95 % Confidence Interval 0.53–0.76) at ≥80 Gy. On subset analysis, neoadjuvant ADT significantly improved OS in high risk patients but was not significant in lower risk patients. The dose response was maintained across all risk groups. Medical comorbidities were balanced across all dose strata and sensitivity analysis demonstrated that other prognostic factors were unlikely to explain the observed dose response. This study suggests that increasing dose significantly improves OS in prostate cancer patients treated with radiotherapy.
Thymidine kinase: diagnostic and prognostic potential

Thymidine kinase is a cell cycle-dependent marker that can be detected in the serum of patients diagnosed with many different types of cancer. Serum levels of thymidine kinase have also been shown to reflect the progression of cancer as well as an indication of the efficacy of chemotherapeutic intervention. A new monoclonal antibody assay for thymidine kinase has been developed, which is capable of detecting thymidine kinase in both serum and tumor tissue. Thymidine kinase assay kits should be available at low cost and could serve as an effective low cost test for the detection and progression of many types of human cancer.
Pseudo affine Wigner distributions

We define a new set of tools for time-varying spectral analysis: the pseudo affine Wigner distributions. Based on the affine Wigner distributions of J. and P. Bertrand (1992), these new time-frequency distributions support efficient online operation at the same computational cost as the continuous wavelet transform. Moreover, they take advantage of the proportional bandwidth smoothing inherent in the sliding structure of their implementation to suppress cumbersome interference components. To formalize their place within the echelon of the affine class of time-frequency distributions, we extend the definition of this class and introduce other natural generators.
Another Variant of Natural Deduction

Since 1934 various different techniques for natural deduction have been developed by Gentzen, Jaskowski, Rosser, Quine, and others (see [1], pp. 147-167; [2], especially footnotes 1, 3, and 4; and [3], pp. 75-83, 96-107, and 289-294). It has been pointed out to me by Professor Donald Kalish of U.C.L.A. that the restrictions placed upon Universal Generalization (UG) and Existential Instantiation (El) in [3] force one to construct a less natural proof than seems desirable for such arguments as
A hybrid genetic algorithm for the maximum satisfiability problem

The satisfiability problem is the first problem proved to be NP-complete and has been one of the core NP-complete problems since then. It has many applications in many fields such as artificial intelligence, circuit design and VLSI testing. The maximum satisfiability problem is an optimization version of the satisfiablity problem, which is a decision problem. In this study, a hybrid genetic algorithm is proposed for the maximum satisfiability problem. The proposed algorithm has three characteristics: 1. A new fitness function is designed to guide the search more effectively; 2. A local search scheme is designed, in which a restart mechanism is devised to help the local search scheme escape from the solutions near an already searched local optimum; 3. The local search scheme is hybridized with a two-layered genetic algorithm. We compared the proposed algorithm with other algorithms published in the literature, on the benchmarks offered by Gotllieb, Marchion and Rossi [12] and Hao, Lardeux and Saubion[18].
Educational Strategies for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is the second leading type of cancer death in women in the world (Parkin et al., 1999). In the United States, and other developed countries, invasive cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates have decreased by 75% since 1950. The success in nearly eliminating this cancer in these countries is attributed mainly to the introduction and adoption of Pap smear screening programs, which occurred in the 1950s in the United States (Ries et al., 2000). Still, in 2002, 13,000 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer and 4,100 women will die from this cancer — all preventable.
The Qur'an : a biography

"Meditative and unique, a lovely read for any spiritual person, Muslim or not."--Publisher's Weekly Few books in history have been as poorly understood as the Qur'an. Sent down in a series of revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an is the unmediated word of Allah, a ritual, political, and legal authority, an ethical and spiritual guide, and a literary masterpiece. In this book, one of the launch titles in Atlantic Monthly Press' "Books That Changed the World" series, the distinguished historian of religion Bruce Lawrence shows precisely how the Qur'an is Islam. He describes the origins of the faith and assesses its tremendous influence on today's societies and politics. Above all, Lawrence emphasizes that the Qur'an is a sacred book of signs that has no single message. It is a book that demands interpretation and one that can be properly understood only through its history. Bruce Lawrence's work is a beautifully written and, in these increasingly troubled times, invaluable introduction to and exploration of the core sacred text of Islam.
Robust scenario-based value-at-risk optimization

This paper develops and tests a heuristic algorithm for scenario-based value-at-risk (VaR) optimization. Due to the high computational complexity of VaR optimization, conditional value-at-risk-based proxies are utilized for VaR objectives. It is shown that our heuristic algorithm obtains robust results with low computational complexity.
Signal Transduction and Myofibrillogenesis in Isolated Neonatal Heart Myocytes In Vitro

A precise sequence of morphological events is associated with the process of myofibrillogenesis in vitro in neonatal cardiac myocytes (Hilenski et al 1991; Sharp et al 1993; Sanger et al 1984). A similar set of sequences probably occurs in vivo; however, the rate of formation is more gradual, thus making investigation of precise events more difficult. In vitro analyses of morphological and biochemical events associated with myofibrillogenesis can provide an understanding of these processes in normal heart development, response to stimulation, and cardiac hypertrophy.
Temperature Controlled Dispersion of Poly(N-Isopropyl Acrylamide) Treated Silica Clusters

Abstract The dispersion of particle agglomerates is affected by the presence of any chemical additives incorporated within the agglomerate structure. Traditional additives change the particle-particle and particle-matrix interactions to a degree that depends primarily on the chemical nature of the additive and its concentration within the agglomerate. A new generation of additives, based on polymeric systems that respond to external stimuli, allows the adjustment of interparticle interactions by manipulating the variable to which the additive is responsive. In this study, dispersion tests in simple shear flow are used to examine the effect of a thermally responsive additive, poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAM), on the dispersion behavior of silica agglomerates. The temperature sensitivity of the dispersion mechanisms and kinetics for silica clusters treated with either linear or crosslinked PNIPAM has been examined.
Ancient boreal forests under the environmental instability of the glacial to postglacial transition in the Great Lakes region (14 000 – 11 000 years BP)

Retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet 20 000 years ago tremendously altered environmental conditions and opened territory to the boreal spruce forest expansion. However, the details of forest colonization during the rapid climate warming and the adaptation of the newly developed stands to short cooling episodes during the warming and degradation of the ice sheet are not known. Preservation of wood from the glacial to postglacial transition offers the opportunity for examination of high- frequency growth variability in response to hemispheric and local forcings on temperature and hydrology. Here we consider growth of spruce at three sites from the interior of Northern America developed at ca. 13 700, 12 100, and 11 300 calibrated years before present (cal years BP), with well-replicated tree-ring chronologies spanning from 116 to 310 years. The data show at least two generations of trees established at each of the sites promoted by short, warm intervals. The tree mortality was variously affected by both cold conditions and the influence of rising water table and sediment burial. The history of these stands indicates breaks in forest colonization following a century (or two) of successful migrations. Interestingly, the thinning of the spruce forest did not seem to open pioneering opportunities for other tree species at those times.
Presentation of the 2011 Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America to Juhn G. Liou

In the fall of 1965, a new graduate student from National Taiwan University arrived at University of California Los Angeles. Assigned to me as his initial academic advisor, I was favorably impressed by Mr. Liou’s eagerness, industry, and scholarly abilities. He chose me to supervise his dissertation study, and first impressions were amply reinforced by his enrollment in the UCLA Chemistry Department’s physical chemistry and thermodynamics courses, as well as in the Geology Department’s six-week summer field mapping class in the poison-oak-infested California Coast Ranges. He received top grades in these subjects, as well as in my own phase equilibrium class. So, just imagine my surprise when, after enthusiastic, insistent suggestions regarding the opportunity to study sterling minerals such as the calcic or sodic amphiboles, he instead decided to investigate experimental low-temperature stability …
Identifying heat-related deaths by using medical examiner and vital statistics data: Surveillance analysis and descriptive epidemiology - Oklahoma, 1990-2011.

Abstract Objectives Approximately 660 deaths occur annually in the United States associated with excess natural heat. A record heat wave in Oklahoma during 2011 generated increased interest concerning heat-related mortality among public health preparedness partners. We aimed to improve surveillance for heat-related mortality and better characterize heat-related deaths in Oklahoma during 1990–2011, and to enhance public health messaging during future heat emergencies. Methods Heat-related deaths were identified by querying vital statistics (VS) and medical examiner (ME) data during 1990–2011. Case inclusion criteria were developed by using heat-related International Classification of Diseases codes, cause-of-death nomenclature, and ME investigation narrative. We calculated sensitivity and predictive value positive (PVP) for heat-related mortality surveillance by using VS and ME data and performed a descriptive analysis. Results During the study period, 364 confirmed and probable heat-related deaths were identified when utilizing both data sets. ME reports had 87% sensitivity and 74% PVP; VS reports had 80% sensitivity and 52% PVP. Compared to Oklahoma's general population, decedents were disproportionately male (67% vs. 49%), aged ≥65 years (46% vs. 14%), and unmarried (78% vs. 47%). Higher rates of heat-related mortality were observed among Blacks. Of 95 decedents with available information, 91 (96%) did not use air conditioning. Conclusions Linking ME and VS data sources together and using narrative description for case classification allows for improved case ascertainment and surveillance data quality. Males, Blacks, persons aged ≥65 years, unmarried persons, and those without air conditioning carry a disproportionate burden of the heat-related deaths in Oklahoma.
Twice-A-Day Fractionation Preoperative Radiotherapy in Patients with Carcinoma of the Bladder: Preliminary Report

AbstractThere were 13 patients with carcinoma of the bladder who received preoperative radiotherapy by a modified regimen before cystectomy. Doses of 135 rad were delivered twice daily for 10 days (2,700 rad) to a 15 times 15cm. portal and followed by immediate cystectomy. Patient tolerance has been excellent, morbidity has been minimal and no increase in operative time, blood loss or major intraoperative or postoperative complications has ensued.The theoretical and practical advantages of this regimen may outweigh either the standard regimen of 4,500 rad with a 4-week hiatus before operation or the high dose, short course regimen of 2,000 rad in 5 days and immediate cystectomy.
LOBSTAHS: An Adduct-Based Lipidomics Strategy for Discovery and Identification of Oxidative Stress Biomarkers

Discovery and identification of molecular biomarkers in large LC/MS data sets requires significant automation without loss of accuracy in the compound screening and annotation process. Here, we describe a lipidomics workflow and open-source software package for high-throughput annotation and putative identification of lipid, oxidized lipid, and oxylipin biomarkers in high-mass-accuracy HPLC-MS data. Lipid and oxylipin biomarker screening through adduct hierarchy sequences, or LOBSTAHS, uses orthogonal screening criteria based on adduct ion formation patterns and other properties to identify thousands of compounds while providing the user with a confidence score for each assignment. Assignments are made from one of two customizable databases; the default databases contain 14 068 unique entries. To demonstrate the software’s functionality, we screened more than 340 000 mass spectral features from an experiment in which hydrogen peroxide was used to induce oxidative stress in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum ...
Earthquake Disaster Resilience: A Framework for Sustainable Gardening in Haiti’s Vulnerable Population

ABSTRACTFood shortages following earthquake disasters lead to chronic food insecurity, malnutrition, illness, and an escalation in deaths. For Haiti, an island nation with limited resources, including food, resilience is more difficult without a framework to guide recovery. A model that proposes the use of partnership development and gardening interventions to achieve sustainable food relief is described. The approach involves assessment of needs, nutrition education and training, community and home gardens, partnerships, entrepreneurship, policy development, marketing, and the involvement of stakeholders in local and international communities. Application of the model may greatly enhance sustainable food supply for the most vulnerable populations in Haiti.
Brains!: A Neuroscience Comic Book for Kids

When I was growing up, comic books served as a medium for me to let my imagination grow, explore new worlds, and have fun while reading. The goal of Brains!: A Neuroscience Comic Book for Kids is to provide that same experience for elementary school students while teaching them a little bit about neurobiology along the way. I worked with Professor Michael Dailey, Professor Renita Schmidt, and Professor Kevin Ripka at the University of Iowa to create a short comic book that was accurate, accessible to elementary school students, and fun to read. I then did a reading with the Strong Girls Read Strong Books book club, and distributed the book online. In the future, I hope to use the feedback I received on the first comic book to create a new comic book and continue spreading fun, informative, and understandable science literature.
Delinquent account forms: working with clients who are reticent to pay for treatment

As resources within governmental funding bodies have diminished, the collection of client fees has taken on increased importance for most community mental health centers. The Lake County Health Department, Mental Health Division, has responded to this need by standardizing the fee setting and collection process. For example, clients must provide income verification prior to receiving a sliding-scale fee. Further adjustments in fees must be presented in writing to an administrator. The current study looks at the efficacy of using a delinquent account monitoring system to target persons who fall behind in payments. Clinical staff members are asked in this process to develop a plan with their clients to reduce the balance owed for counseling and to present this plan to their supervisors. The study found that this method was successful in increasing collections both during and after the intervention for mental health clients. Substance abuse clients, however, increased payments only when confronted but returned to former habits in the ensuing months. The standardization of the fee setting and collection process has also led to an overall improvement in fee collection.
Radiographic-deformation and textural heterogeneity (r-DepTH): An integrated descriptor for brain tumor prognosis

Most aggressive tumors are systemic, implying that their impact is not localized to the tumor itself but extends well beyond the visible tumor borders. Solid tumors (e.g. Glioblastoma) typically exert pressure on the surrounding normal parenchyma due to active proliferation, impacting neighboring structures and worsening survival. Existing approaches have focused on capturing tumor heterogeneity via shape, intensity, and texture radiomic statistics within the visible surgical margins on pre-treatment scans, with the clinical purpose of improving treatment management. However, a poorly understood aspect of heterogeneity is the impact of active proliferation and tumor burden, leading to subtle deformations in the surrounding normal parenchyma distal to the tumor. We introduce radiographic-Deformation and Textural Heterogeneity (r-DepTH), a new descriptor that attempts to capture both intra-, as well as extra-tumoral heterogeneity. r-DepTH combines radiomic measurements of (a) subtle tissue deformation measures throughout the extraneous surrounding normal parenchyma, and (b) the gradient-based textural patterns in tumor and adjacent peri-tumoral regions. We demonstrate that r-DepTH enables improved prediction of disease outcome compared to descriptors extracted from within the visible tumor alone. The efficacy of r-DepTH is demonstrated in the context of distinguishing long-term (LTS) versus short-term (STS) survivors of Glioblastoma, a highly malignant brain tumor. Using a training set (N = 68) of treatment-naive Gadolinium T1w MRI scans, r-DepTH achieved an AUC of 0.83 in distinguishing STS versus LTS. Kaplan Meier survival analysis on an independent cohort (N = 11) using the r-DepTH descriptor resulted in p = 0.038 (log-rank test), a significant improvement over employing deformation descriptors from normal parenchyma (p = 0.17), or textural descriptors from visible tumor (p = 0.81) alone.
Nicotine as a discriminative stimulus for ethanol use

Abstract Abused drugs reinforce behavior; i.e., they increase the probability of the behavior preceding their administration. Abused drugs can also act as discriminative stimuli; i.e., they can set the occasion for responding reinforced by another event. Thus, one abused drug could come to set the occasion for the use of another and this functional relationship may play a role in polysubstance abuse, where common patterns of use could result in this relationship. Here we establish nicotine (0.4 mg/kg, ip 5-min pre-session) as a discriminative stimulus for behavior reinforced by ethanol (0.1 ml 8% w/v po, versus food) and determine the ability of nicotine (0.02-0.4 mg/kg), varenicline (0.1-3.0 mg/kg), and ethanol (250 and 500 mg/kg) to control responding for ethanol. We compare these results to those from rats where nicotine signaled food was available (and ethanol was not). Nicotine came to function as a discriminative stimulus. Nicotine and varenicline produced dose-dependent increases in responding on the nicotine-appropriate lever while ethanol produced responding on the vehicle-appropriate lever. Whether this responding occurred on the lever that produced ethanol or food access depended on the training condition. These results demonstrate that a drug can come to set the occasion for use of another and suggest that this behavioral mechanism could play an important role in the maintenance of and recovery from polysubstance abuse, depending on the pattern of use.
Is a cross-β-sheet structure of low molecular weight peptides necessary for the formation of fibrils and peptide hydrogels?

Short peptides have emerged as versatile building blocks for supramolecular structures and hydrogels. In particular, the presence of aromatic amino acid residues and/or aromatic end groups is generally considered to be a prerequisite for initiating aggregation of short peptides into nanotubes or cross β-sheet type fibrils. However, the cationic GAG tripeptide surprisingly violates these rules. Specifically, in water/ethanol mixtures, GAG peptides aggregate into very long crystalline fibrils at temperatures below 35 °C where they eventually form a spanning network structure and, thus, a hydrogel. Two gel phases are formed in this network, and they differ substantially in chirality and thickness of the underlying fibrils, their rheological parameters, and the kinetics of oligomerization, fibrilization, and gel formation. The spectroscopic data strongly suggests that the observed fibrils do not exhibit canonical cross β-sheet structures and are indicative of a yet unknown secondary conformation. To complement our unusual experimental observations in this perspective article, we performed large-scale DFT calculations to probe the geometry and spectroscopic properties of these GAG oligomers. Most importantly, our experimental and computational results yield rather unconventional structures that are not reminiscent of classical cross-β-sheet structures, and we give two extremely likely candidates for oligomer structures that are consistent with experimental amide I′ profiles in IR and vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) spectra of the two gel phases.
LEADS Case Study: Partnering to Offer a Diabetes Management e-Learning Module to Nursing and Allied Health Staff

Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) has the highest prevalence of diabetes in Canada. In 2011, Eastern Health (EH) selected diabetes as its chronic disease management focus in response to national statistics on the disease. In 2012, EH partnered with Saint Elizabeth (SE) to offer a free e-learning module on diabetes management to its healthcare providers. In this paper, the Engage Others domain of the LEADS in a Caring Environment Framework is used to describe the EH-SE partnership for this e-learning including strategies used to engage nursing and allied health staff.
Fungal infections of the external genitalia.

SUMMARY In the era of the debilitated or immunocompromised patient, fungal infections may become more prevalent. Unusual lesions of the external genitalia may be a manifestation of systemic infection. The urologist should be aware of this possibility when confronted with an unusual ulcer, inflammation, induration, or “abscess” of the external genitalia.
Area and time dependence of the breakdown of water under long term stress

If high dielectric constant fluids like water could be made to support electric stress for times approaching a millisecond, it should be possible to charge megajoule pulsed power systems directly from rapidly discharging mechanical devices. The limit on allowable stress times comes from the relatively low resistivity of high dielectric constant fluids. Resistivity may be increased by improving the purity of the fluid and by cooling it. This paper reports on the breakdown strength of water purified to its intrinsic resistivity level, then chilled nearly to freezing. Pulses of several hundred microseconds duration were applied to electrode areas of 80/ 400, 2000/ and 10/000 cm2. Small samples showed a “hysteresis” effect where the strength of the sample depended strongly on previous pulses. A typical lowering of the dielectric strength with increased area (area effect) was also observed. These data are used to demonstrate the applicability of the statistical model of area effects.
Plasma effects on lasing of a uniform ultralight axion condensate

Lasing of an ultralight axion condensate into photons can be sensitive to the presence of a background plasma owing to its coupling to electromagnetism. Such a scenario is particularly relevant for a superradiant axion condensate around stellar mass black holes since the axion mass can be within a few orders of magnitude of the plasma frequency of the surrounding medium. In this paper, I discuss the properties of the plasma around a black hole and analyze its effects on the lasing of a uniform axion condensate of mass of the order of the plasma frequency.
Constitutive phenolic biomarkers identify naïve Quercus agrifolia resistant to Phytophthora ramorum, the causal agent of sudden oak death.

Sudden oak death, caused by the invasive pathogen Phytophthora ramorum Werres, de Cock & Man in't Veld, can be deadly for Quercus agrifolia Nee (coast live oak, CLO). However, resistant trees have been observed in natural populations. The objective of this study was to examine if pre-attack (constitutive) levels of phenolic compounds can be used as biomarkers to identify trees likely to be resistant. Naive trees were selected from a natural population and phloem was sampled for analysis of constitutive phenolics. Following P. ramorum inoculation, trees were phenotyped to determine disease susceptibility and constitutive phenolic biomarkers of resistance were identified. Seasonal variation in phloem phenolics was also assessed in a subset of non-inoculated trees. Four biomarkers, including myricitrin and three incompletely characterized flavonoids, together correctly classified 80% of trees. Biomarker levels were then used to predict survival of inoculated CLO and the proportion of resistant trees within a subset of non-inoculated trees from the same population. Levels of five phenolics were significantly affected by season, but with no pronounced variation in average levels among seasons. These results suggest that pre-infection levels of specific phenolic compounds (i.e., biomarkers) can identify trees naturally resistant to this invasive forest pathogen. Knowledge of resistant trees within natural populations may be useful for conserving and breeding resistant trees and for disease management.
Educating the Empire: American Teachers and Contested Colonization in the Philippines

This book examines how education contributed to the creation of US empire in the Philippines by focusing on American teachers and the Filipinos with whom they lived and worked. While education was located at the heart of the imperial project, used to justify empire, the implementation of schooling in the islands deviated from the expectations of the colonial state. American teachers at times upheld, adapted, circumvented, or entirely disregarded colonial policy. Despite the language of white masculinity that imbued imperial discourse, the appointment of white women and black men as teachers allowed them to claim roles and identities that transformed understandings of gender and race. Filipinos also used the American educational system to articulate their own understandings of empire. In this context, schools were a microcosm for the colonial state, with contestations over education often standing in for the colonial relationship itself.
Different irradiances of UV and PAR in the same ratios alter the flavonoid profiles of Arabidopsis thaliana wild types and UV-signalling pathway mutants.

The UVR8 photoreceptor in Arabidopsis thaliana is specific for ultraviolet-B (UV-B; 280–315 nm) radiation and its activation leads to a number of UV-B acclimation responses, including the accumulation of flavonoids. UVR8 participates in a signaling cascade involving COP1 and HY5 so that the absence of any of these components results in a reduction in the ability of a plant to accumulate flavonoids in response to UV; Cop1 mutants show high dropouts and hy5-ks50 hyh double mutants show very low levels of flavonoids. The predominant phenolics in Arabidopsis thaliana are sinapic acid derivatives as well as non-aclyated quercetin and kaempferol di- and triglycosides containing glucose and rhamnose as glycosylated sugar moieties. How this flavonoid profile in Arabidopsis thaliana is affected by UV radiation, how rapidly these changes occur in changing UV conditions, and which components of the UV-B signalling pathway are involved in rapid UV acclimatization reactions is poorly understood. In the present study, we examined these questions by characterizing the flavonoid profiles of Arabidopsis thaliana signalling mutants and wild types grown under different UV levels of constant UV-B+PAR ratios and then transferring a subset of plants to alternate UV conditions. Results indicate that flavonoid accumulation in Arabidopsis thaliana is triggered by UV and this response is amplified by higher levels of UV but not by all compounds to the same extent. The catechol structure in quercetin seems to be less important than the glycosylation pattern, e.g. having 2 rhamnose moieties in determining responsivity. At low UV+PAR intensities the introduction of UV leads to an initial tendency of increase of flavonoids in the wild types that was detected after 3 days. It took 7 days for these changes to be detected in plants grown under high UV+PAR intensities suggesting a priming of PAR. Thus, the flavonoid profile in Arabidopsis thaliana is altered over time following exposure to UV and PAR, but the functional significance of these changes is currently unclear.
Nation-Building and the Role of Identity in Civil Wars

What is the relationship between politically relevant identities and violent dynamics within civil wars? Civil war scholars over the last decade have studied intra-war dynamics, such as the prolife...
Renewable generation investment with differentiated downstream competition

With the cost of renewable electricity generation like solar and wind decreasing, the share of total generation provided by such sources is growing. This leads to questions of how utilities should deal with integrating renewables into the grid. An interesting and not commonly studied case of this is when firms consume significant amounts of electricity in order to serve their customers (e.g., electric vehicle charging stations) and can get it either from the grid or through renewable generation they install themselves. Furthermore, if they have more renewable generation than needed to serve their customers they can sell it back to the grid. Therefore, the cost of electricity and value of excess generation affects firm’s interest in renewable generation, and has impacts on both the grid (by affecting how much renewable generation firms will provide) as well as the downstream market (by affecting the cost structure at both firms and how they compete).We study this though a two stage oligopolistic model. In the first stage, two differentiated firms choose a level of investment in renewable generation. In the second stage, they compete over prices to serve customers. We show equilibria always exist, and the difference between price of electricity and the feed-in tariff has potentially large implications for the number and type of equilibria as well as aggregate outcomes.
A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Skin Type and Gender on Non-contact Photoplethysmography Measurements.

It is well established that many datasets used for computer vision tasks are not representative and may be biased. The result of this is that evaluation metrics may not reflect real-world performance and might expose some groups (often minorities) to greater risks than others. Imaging photoplethysmography is a set of techniques that enables noncontact measurement of vital signs using imaging devices. While these methods hold great promise for low-cost and scalable physiological monitoring, it is important that performance is characterized accurately over diverse populations. We perform a meta-analysis across three datasets, including 73 people and over 400 videos featuring a broad range of skin types to study how skin types and gender affect the measurements. While heart rate measurement can be performed on all skin types under certain conditions, we find that average performance drops significantly for the darkest skin type. We also observe a slight drop in the performance for females. We compare supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms and find that skin type does not impact all methods equally. The imaging photoplethysmography community should devote greater efforts to addressing these disparities and collecting representative datasets.
Adjuvant systemic therapy for small bowel gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST): Is there a survival benefit after R0 resection?

Abstract Background The utility of adjuvant systemic therapy in small bowel gastrointestinal stromal tumor remains unclear. Methods We queried the National Cancer Data Base for individuals having enterectomy to negative margins for small bowel gastrointestinal stromal tumor between 2010 and 2015. Subjects were categorized by tumor size (2.1–5 cm, 5.1–10 cm, >10 cm) and histologic grade (≤5 mitoses/50 high-power field and >5 mitoses/50 high-power field). Cox proportional hazard analysis was performed to evaluate the association between adjuvant therapy and overall survival. Results One thousand five hundred fifty-nine patients met the inclusion criteria. On univariate comparison to resection alone, adjuvant therapy was associated with improved overall survival for individuals with high-grade tumors of intermediate and large size (85% vs 48%, P = .010; 75% vs 47%, P = .003) but not for those with high-grade tumors of small size or low-grade tumors of any size. On multivariable analysis adjusted for age, comorbid disease state, and tumor size, adjuvant therapy was independently associated with reduced risk of mortality for high-grade (hazard ratio 0.37, 95% confidence interval: 0.21–0.64) but not low-grade tumors. Conclusion Adjuvant therapy after R0 resection for small bowel gastrointestinal stromal tumor should be administered after careful consideration of the size and grade of a patient’s tumor.
The Relationship between Perceptions of Instructional Practices and Student Self-Efficacy In Guided-Inquiry Laboratory Courses.

Variation in individual student perceptions of instructional practices within a course were significantly related to differences in student self-efficacy at the end of the semester. Self-efficacy w...
Antimicrobials for protective clothing

Abstract Textile materials are prone to microbial infections during production, storage and use. Microbes deteriorate the overall quality of textiles and create unnecessary problems. Recent technological advances allow the textile industry to produce multifunctional fabrics. An antimicrobial finish provides protection against problematic microbes, prevents loss of fabric properties, reduces odour and even avoids the transfer and spread of pathogenic microbes. However, the antimicrobial finish itself interferes with the textile quality and wearer comfort. Since textiles intensively interact with the skin, antimicrobial finishes may exert health risks and interfere with nonspecific defence mechanisms of the skin and nonpathogenic microflora. Therefore a balance has to be found between the antimicrobial efficacy, the textile quality and the potential risks. This chapter reports on existing antimicrobial agents for protective clothing, antimicrobial finishing techniques, evaluation of effectiveness and safety of antimicrobial finishing, problems associated with antimicrobial treatments, and regulations related to the chemical antimicrobial finishing.
Developing Human Trust in Automated Systems: The Central Role of Personal Control

In this article, we build from previous research on the antecedents of trust in human and non-human relationships to identify and classify four primary components of autonomous system trustworthine...
A longitudinal study of third-year medical students' communication competence, communication anxiety, and attitudes toward patient-centered care.

Abstract Objective We investigated changes in medical students’ communication competence and communication anxiety during their third year of training when they are immersed in formative clinical experiences that shape their patient-centered care and communication skills. Methods We invited 282 students to complete a longitudinal, four-phase online survey during their third-year. Our response rate was 62.8% at Phase I (n = 177), 34.0% at Phase II (n = 96), 37.9% at Phase III (n = 107), and 48.9% at Phase IV (n = 138). Measures included communication competence, communication anxiety, and patient-centered attitudes and orientation. We employed hierarchical linear modeling to analyze the data. Results Students’ communication competence and anxiety improved over time. Female students reported greater communication anxiety and less competence related to information giving. At each phase, patient-centered attitudes significantly predicted communication competence and communication anxiety. Conclusion Students’ competence and anxiety regarding communication during medical encounters improve during their third year and are significantly influenced by their attitudes and orientation towards patient-centered care and communication. Practice implications Schools should integrate curriculum that fosters positive attitudes toward patient-centered communication and provides opportunities to practice complex communication skills, which may increase competence and recognition that patient-centered communication is an important clinical skill.
A Right to Privacy for Modern Discovery

Recently, the Supreme Court found that a person has a Fourth Amendment right to privacy in historical cell phone records because of the comprehensive nature of the compilation they provide. As with detailed, encyclopedic GPS information, the nature of these chronicles of their users’ lives implicates privacy despite the traditional notion that a person lacks a privacy interest in his or her location or movements. The comprehensive nature of that location information also led to the Court’s rejection that the information lost its private nature because it was in the hands of a third party. The view that individual pieces of information which would not implicate privacy transform into a “mosaic” when compiled into a broad picture of an individual’s life over a span of time, was first expressed by the Supreme Court in 1989 in the context of a FOIA exemption. The Court found that, despite the fact that individual items of a person’s “rap sheet” are publicly available, their combined power when gathered together into a single, comprehensive dossier deserves privacy protection. These decisions have direct relevance to privacy in another realm that is being tested by changes in technology: civil discovery. Here too the nature of discovery itself is very different from a pre-digital set of communications or files in the hands of a litigant. Discovery now includes information prepared automatically by a device that the litigant wears or carries. It includes records of all manner of interactions with websites and applications, and implicates health, finances, sexuality, and other aspects of a litigant’s life. In addition, there is clear precedent for protecting civil discovery when requests implicate federal statutory protections like FOIA’s exemptions. This article analyzes caselaw reaching back to the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to find a strong precedent for protection of privacy in discovery based on Supreme Court doctrine and public policy represented in federal and state statutes. The article traces this history to current subjects of e-discovery – cell phone data, social media content, wearable devices and so on – whose scope and subject matter implicate broad privacy concerns. Recent Supreme Court doctrine adopting the mosaic theory of privacy has direct application to discovery requests for modern digital chronicles of a person’s life.
A Comparative Study of SiC JFET Super-Cascode Topologies

In spite of several advantages of SiC JFETs over enhancement mode SiC MOSFETs, the intrinsic normally-ON characteristic of the JFETs can be undesirable for many industrial power conversion applications due to the negative turn-OFF voltage requirement. This prevents normally-ON JFETs from being widely accepted in industry. However, a cascode configuration, which uses a low voltage (LV) Si MOSFET can be used to enable a normally-OFF behavior, making this approach an attractive solution to utilize the benefits of SiC JFETs. For medium-, and high-voltage applications that require larger blocking voltage than the rating of each JFET, additional devices can be connected in series to increase the overall blocking voltage capability, creating a super-cascode configuration. This paper provides a review of several super-cascode topology variations and presents a comprehensive comparative study, evaluating similarities and differences in operating principles, equivalent circuits, and design considerations and limitations.
THE WALL EFFECT FOR UNSTEADY, CHOKED SUPERCAVITATING FLOW

A linear theory for the two-dimensional supercavitating flow past a flat hydrofoil heaving and pitching with small amplitudes in a choked tunnel is developed using the acceleration potential. It is supposed that the streamlines of the cavity always spring from the leading and trailing edges of the hydrofoil and that the hydrofoil is inclined at a small angle to the oncoming flow. Also the pressure in the cavity is assumed to be constant. Force and moment coefficients are calculated as functions of reduced frequency and the ratio of tunnel height to chord length. The pressure disturbances caused by the unsteady motion in a tunnel do not die out far upstream; these also depend on the chord-tunnel height ratio and reduced frequency.