cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Chlamydia trachomatis infection in African American women who exclusively have sex with women

Little is known about whether Chlamydia trachomatis can be sexually transmitted between women or how often it occurs in women who have sex with women (WSW). We investigated Chlamydia trachomatis prevalence and serum Chlamydia trachomatis-specific antibody responses among African American WSW who reported a lifetime history of sex only with women (exclusive WSW) (n = 21) vs. an age-matched group of women reporting sex with women and men (WSWM) (n = 42). Participants completed a survey, underwent a pelvic examination in which a cervical swab was collected for Chlamydia trachomatis nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT), and had serum tested for anti-Chlamydia trachomatis IgG1 and IgG3 antibodies using a Chlamydia trachomatis elementary body-based ELISA. No exclusive WSW had a positive Chlamydia trachomatis NAAT vs. 5 (11.9%) WSWM having a positive Chlamydia trachomatis NAAT (p = 0.16). Compared with WSWM, WSW were significantly less likely to be Chlamydia trachomatis seropositive (7 [33.3%] vs. 29 [69%], p = 0.007). Among Chlamydia trachomatis seropositive women, all were seropositive by IgG1, and the magnitude of Chlamydia trachomatis-specific IgG1 responses did not differ in Chlamydia trachomatis-seropositive WSW vs. WSWM. In conclusion, Chlamydia trachomatis seropositivity was relatively common in exclusive African American WSW, though significantly less common than in African American WSWM.
Computer Programs for Processing Radioassay Data from Raw Input To Output

Current techniques used to handle data generated in the radioassay laboratory are discussed. More specific details regarding a medium-sized configuration used in our laboratory are presented and an example of an approach to selecting the best method for determining the model of a standard curve is illustrated. On implementing our automated data system, we found that: (A) automated processing frees laboratory personnel from the tedious tasks of hand calculations and reporting; (B) large quantities of data may be entered into an automatic system and handled accurately; and (C) new tests may be added easily with a generalized radioassay program.
Should prolonged grief be reclassified as a mental disorder in DSM-5?: reconsidering the empirical and conceptual arguments for complicated grief disorder.

AbstractThe proposed changes to DSM-5 will create new categories of mental disorder (referred to here generically as Prolonged Grief Disorder’’ [PGD]) to diagnose individuals experiencing prolonged intense grief reactions to the loss of a loved one. Individuals could be diagnosed even if they have n
Validation of Scanning and Complacency Models for Robotic Arm Control

We develop an automation complacency model of the human operator/supervisor of a robotic arm designed for space missions. Manual performance and two degrees of automation are modeled for arm trajectory control in a 3-segment scenario: a visual guidance support to manual control, and a full automatic control. The automation functions perfectly for several trials but then unexpectedly fails, in the same manner for both conditions. We model complacency-based visual scanning, and how that scanning will predict differences between conditions in the noticing of automation failures. Both scanning across the workspace and failure detection are validated with human-in-the-loop simulation data.
Dominant-negative mutants of the SH2/SH3 adapters Nck and Grb2 inhibit MAP kinase activation and mesoderm-specific gene induction by eFGF in Xenopus

The SH2/SH3 adapters Nck, Grb2 and Crk promote the assembly of signaling complexes by binding to tyrosine phosphorylated proteins using their SH2 domains and to proline-rich sequences on effector molecules using their SH3 domains. FGF, which activates a receptor tyrosine kinase, induces mesoderm formation in Xenopus embryos through activation of the Ras/Raf/MAPK signaling pathway. We present evidence that dominant-negative mutants of Nck and Grb2, but not Crk1, can inhibit mesoderm-specific gene induction by eFGF in Xenopus animal cap explants. We also show that dominant-negative mutants of Grb2 and Nck can inhibit eFGF-induced Erk1 activation in Xenopus animal caps, and that targeting the first two SH3 domains of Nck to the membrane can activate Erk1 in the absence of eFGF. Furthermore, combinations of the dominant-negative Grb2 mutants with the inhibitory Nck mutant synergistically inhibited Erk1 activation by eFGF in Xenopus animal caps, suggesting that the dominant-negative Nck and Grb2 mutants inhibit Erk1 activation by binding to different proteins. By contrast only Grb2 mutants could inhibit eFGF-induced Erk1 activation in human 293 cells, demonstrating diversity in the specific mechanisms of signaling from FGF to MAP kinases in different cells.
Utilization of parenterally administered casein digest for synthesis of proteins.

ConclusionRegeneration of plasma proteins was found to occur in dogs with depleted proteins stores and lowered plasma proteins on a nitrogen-free diet receiving intravenously an enzymatic hydrolysate of casein as the sole source of nitrogen. Parenterally administered casein digest constitutes an effective method of parenteral nutrition.
The role of Aldosterone in the production of Tumor Necrosis Factor-α in cultured cardiac myocytes of neonatal rat

Objective:To observe the production of Tumor Necrosis Factor-α(TNF-α) in cardiac myocytes stimulated with aldosterone.Method:To examine the contribution of aldosterone to TNF-α production,primary cultured rat myocytes was incubated in 10~(-6) M aldosterone,10~(-5) M aldosterone and 10~(-5) M aldosterone with 10~(5) M spironolactone(an antagonist of aldosterone) for 48 hours.Then TNF-α protein and mRNA was detected by immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR respectively.Electrophoretic motif shift assay(EMSA)was performed to detect wheather there is NF-κB translocation to the nuclear and to screen for the probable promoter of TNF-α.Result:(TNF-α) immunohistochemistry staining was negative in control myocytes,but it was positive in myocytes treated with aldosterone for 48 hours and was abolished by spironolactone.TNF-α mRNA level was detected by RT-PCR in control cardiomyocytes,the optical dense ratio of TNF-α PCR product was obviously increased in myocytes treated with aldosterone for 24 hours.EMSA results showed that the binding between nuclear extract of myocytes treated with aldosterone and the potential NF-κB binding sites in the upstream oligonucleotides of TNFα(-619——591 and(-508)——481) was increased.Spironolactone could abolish the adverse effect of aldosterone.The translocation of NF-κB to the nuclear was elevated in myocytes treated with aldosterone.Conclusion:The TNF-α protein level was negative in control cardiomyocytes,and the mRNA level was very low,but it was obviously increased in cardiomyocytes treated with aldosterone,with NF-κB activation and translocation to the nuclear,which may be a pathway leading to the expression of TNF-α.
Epidemiological Analysis on Varicella in Pinggu District of Beijing City in 2007

[Objective]To understand the epidemic status of varicella in Pinggu District of Beijing City,and provide scientific evidence for developing control measures.[Methods]Epidemiological analysis was performed on epidemic data of varicella in Pinggu District.[Results]A total of 6 cases of outbreak occurred in Pinggu District in 2007,most in school;401 cases of patients were reported,the average attack rate was 10.3/ 100 000;most varicella patients were children of 4-15 years old,the ratio of male to female was 1.66:1;sporadic cases were conducted emergency vaccination of varicella,totally 52 times and 2994 people received vaccination in school and nurseries.[Conclusion]Isolation and publicity of students with varicella are important control measures for prevalence and spread of varicella in school.
Attitudes and Barriers Encountered in Training Family Medicine Residents in Nursing Home Care: A National Survey of Program Directors: A CERA Study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study is to evaluate program director perceptions of influences on resident decisions to practice long-term care (LTC) medicine. Family physicians are well suited to provide nursing home care, but limited available data suggests a decline in the number of family physicians who do so. Family medicine residencies need to address the need for long-term care providers. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study is to evaluate program director perceptions of influences on resident decisions to practice long-term care (LTC) medicine. Family physicians are well suited to provide nursing home care, but limited available data suggests a decline in the number of family physicians who do so. Family medicine residencies need to address the need for long-term care providers. RESULTS We found that support and perceived preparedness for residency graduates practicing in nursing homes was high. We found that barriers to training were few, with resident interest being the largest barrier. Census region and community size correlated significantly to program directors' estimates of the percentage of residents to be practicing in nursing homes after graduation. CONCLUSIONS Family medicine residency directors acknowledge the need for family medicine residents to be trained in nursing home care. Further research and policy development are needed to support family physicians in playing key roles in providing care to patients in American nursing homes.
First Metatarsophalangeal Joint Arthroscopy for Osteochondral Lesions

Small-joint arthroscopy has supplanted open procedures because it offers the potential for improvement in joint visualization, reduced scarring, and accelerated recovery. Despite these advantages, arthroscopy of the first metatarsophalangeal joint is not commonly performed and reports of its use are lacking. The reason for this is not clear but may be because of perceived technical complexity and poorly defined indications. In our experience, however, arthroscopy of the first metatarsophalangeal joint is a versatile procedure that facilitates treatment of many different pathologic processes through a minimally invasive approach with few complications. We present our technique for arthroscopic management of osteochondral lesions of the hallux.
Collaboration at Arm's Length: Navigating Agency Engagement in Landscape Scale Ecological Restoration Collaboratives

In 2010, the USDA Forest Service created the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) to fund implementation of landscape-scale ecological restoration strategies. The program requires landscape projects to engage in collaboration throughout implementation over a 10-year period. A central tension in the program is the extent to which the Forest Service can engage in the collaborative process while retaining authority for management decisions on Forest Service lands and adhering to statutory guidance on collaboration. Drawing on comparative research of the first 10 projects enrolled in the CFLRP, this paper describes how Forest Service personnel navigated this tension and played roles in each collaborative categorized as leadership, membership, involvement, and intermittence. It concludes by suggesting that agency staff engage in collaborative dialogue on substantive issues while operating from an “arm’s length” posture procedurally. This approach can minimize time and energy spent dealing with procedural concerns while allowing agency employees and collaborators to share knowledge, information, ideas, and perspectives to make better-informed decisions as they undertake landscape-scale ecological restoration work.
The Subnational Response: Local Intervention in Immigration Policy and Enforcement

This chapter examines the history of promise and ultimately failure by the U.S. federal, state, and local governments to develop and implement compassionate immigration policies within their boundaries and the new opportunities for localized compassion presented by the current humanitarian crisis of transmigrant women and unaccompanied youth. The federal government’s inaction has, in part, led to an increase in xenophobic sentiments which caused the proliferation of varied state and local legislation targeting Latina/o immigrants. This chapter ultimately addresses how we can learn from the proliferation of state and local immigration laws to move toward developing compassionate migration policies that acknowledge the complex realities of migration while developing a form of cooperative federalism.
Doing Too Much

It is common to find moral fault for doing less than one should, but not for doing more. A detailed investigation of some examples of “doing too much” reveals an important sphere of wrong-doing related to abuses of authority and discretion.
Parametrization and identification of energy flows in the ship propulsion complex

In the paper, using the predictive estimation method, based of the given initial and boundary conditions of the differential equations for the flows of propellers, an identification of energy flow markers characterizing the certain operating mode was made. The method of parameterization of the distribution of axial and tangential forces on the propeller flow lines of the ship power plants of the combined propulsion complex is determined. The corresponding characteristic markers depending on the intensity of degradation effects are given.
Studying Drinking Problems Rather than Alcoholism

This chapter focuses primarily on the implications of quantitative, nonclinical studies of drinking practices and problems in planning primary prevention programs. The discussion utilizes the findings of the national probability surveys, directed by the author and his colleagues over the last 20 years, to illustrate how vastly different the survey findings are from studies of clinical alcoholics in terms of prevalence among various age and subcultural groups, and how longitudinal studies have cast question on much of the predictive utility of the disease concept of alcoholism. In closing, the chapter draws attention to the importance of cross-cultural surveys, conducted at intervals, in achieving greater success in primary prevention of severe physical and social problems associated with overconsumption of alcohol.
Current Stanford clinical trials for Hodgkin's disease.

Prospective randomized clinical trials for Hodgkin’s disease were initiated at Stanford University by Dr. Henry S. Kaplan and Dr. Saul A. Rosenberg in 1962. In the subsequent 25 years, nearly 1000 patients have been accrued to four generations of clinical trials. In addition, during the same period, a similar number of patients were treated with programs identical to those used on the clinical trials, but were not assigned by randomization (Table 1). Each generation of clinical trials has built strongly upon the experience obtained in the preceding trials and has also incorporated new concepts in Hodgkin’s disease management developed by other investigators. The use of standardized treatment programs among the nonrandomized patients and the careful follow-up of all patients permit evaluation of the entire cohort of nearly 2000 patients for identification of prognostic factors, longterm complications of therapy, etc.
The Hopelessness Theory of Suicidality

We have reviewed promising evidence for the hopelessness theory of suicidality. Moreover, we have begun to explore the developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability to suicidality. Many important theoretical issues remain to be addressed such as further examination of the vulnerability-stress component of the theory. Moreover, prospective studies with young children are needed to more definitively explore the developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability to suicidality. A particularly intriguing question is how “plastic” is cognitive vulnerability to suicidality? How may this vulnerability change over the lifetime? Finally, the logic of the hopelessness theory suggests that some individuals may become so profoundly hopeless that they cannot muster the effort to kill themselves even though they desperately want to die. Will future research identify individuals who are too hopeless to commit suicide? If their hopelessness does not remit, what happens to such individuals?
Reconciliation in Times of Impunity: Challenges for Social Justice

In human history there is no lack of malice, revenge, or savagery. The twentieth century has seen 33 million military deaths. Victimization deaths are estimated at six times that number, at 205 million people. The past decade has seen people enslaved, tortured, raped, and persecuted as members of political, racial, ethnic, or religious groups in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Yet we have not seen meaningful prosecution of crimes that have occurred on a massive scale. Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Ayala Lasso has stated that “a person stands a better chance of being tried and judged for killing one human being than for killing 100,000.” This paper examines reconciliation in the aftermath of protracted, deadly, wide scale conflict characterized by impunity when crimes against individuals, groups, and humanity go unpunished. It describes the relevance of moral exclusion theory to conflicts in which dehumanization and violence are normalized, and it argues that impunity is an urgent matter for psychology and social justice research.
Detecting and Treating Deviance

Social control agencies can only be effective to the extent that they gain access to cases and apply sanctions and rewards. This chapter considers the factors that shape how successfully social control systems can detect and treat deviants.
Efficient Ground Completion: An O(n log n) Algorithm for Generating Reduced Sets of Ground Rewrite Rules Equivalent to a Set of Ground Equations E

We give a fast method for generating reduced sets of rewrite rules equivalent to a given set of ground equations. Since, as we show, reduced ground rewrite systems are in fact canonical, this is essentially an efficient Knuth-Bendix procedure for the ground case. The method runs in O(n log n), where n is the number of occurrences of symbols in E. We also show how our method provides a precise characterization of the (finite) collection of all reduced sets of rewrite rules equivalent to a given ground set of equations E, and prove that our algorithm is complete in that it can enumerate every member of this collection. Finally, we show how to modify the method so that it takes as input E and a total precedence ordering on the symbols in E, and returns a reduced rewrite system contained in the lexicographic path ordering generated by the precedence.
Advanced Quality Training in Radiology: Inaugural Report of a 2-Year Program.

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the outcomes of a 2-year advanced quality training program for radiology residents. MATERIALS AND METHODS. In 2016, the radiology qua...
Axitinib plus pembrolizumab in patients with advanced sarcomas including alveolar soft-part sarcoma: a single-centre, single-arm, phase 2 trial.

Summary Background VEGF promotes an immunosuppressive microenvironment and contributes to immune checkpoint inhibitor resistance in cancer. We aimed to assess the activity of the VEGF receptor tyrosine-kinase inhibitor axitinib plus the anti-PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab in patients with sarcoma. Methods This single-centre, single-arm, phase 2 trial was undertaken at a tertiary care academic medical centre in Miami, FL, USA, and participants were recruited from all over the USA and internationally. Patients were eligible if they were aged 16 years or older, and had histologically confirmed advanced or metastatic sarcomas, including alveolar soft-part sarcoma (ASPS); measurable disease with one site amenable to repeated biopsies; an ECOG performance status of 0–1; and progressive disease after previous treatment with at least one line of systemic therapy (unless no standard treatment existed or the patient declined therapy). The first five patients were enrolled in a lead-in cohort and were given axitinib 5 mg orally twice daily and pembrolizumab 200 mg intravenously for 30 min on day 8 and every 3 weeks for cycles of 6 weeks for up to 2 years. Thereafter, patients received escalating doses of axitinib (2–10 mg) plus flat dose pembrolizumab according to the schedule above. The primary endpoint was 3-month progression-free survival. All patients were evaluable for survival and safety analyses. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02636725, and is closed to accrual. Findings Between April 19, 2016, and Feb 7, 2018, of 36 patients assessed for eligibility, 33 (92%) were enrolled and given study treatment (intention-to-treat population and safety population), 12 (36%) of whom had ASPS. With a median follow-up of 14·7 months (IQR 10·1–19·1), 3-month progression-free survival for all evaluable patients was 65·6% (95% CI 46·6–79·3). For patients with ASPS, 3-month progression-free survival was 72·7% (95% CI 37·1–90·3). The most common grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse events included hypertension (five [15%] of 33 patients), autoimmune toxicities (five [15%]), nausea or vomiting (two [6%]), and seizures (two [6%]). Serious treatment-related adverse events occurred in seven (21%) patients, including autoimmune colitis, transaminitis, pneumothorax, haemoptysis, seizures, and hypertriglyceridemia. There were no treatment-related deaths. Interpretation Axitinib plus pembrolizumab has manageable toxicity and preliminary activity in patients with advanced sarcomas, particularly patients with ASPS, warranting further investigation in randomised controlled trials. Funding Merck, Pfizer, American Cancer Society, and Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
A New Pathway Emerges to Interpret Lung Cancer Genomic Alterations.

The clinical utility of performing tumor genetic testing to assess for alterations beyond the known targetable oncogenes in lung adenocarcinoma is unclear. Analyzing cancer pathway alterations beyond single oncogenic driver mutations in addition to markers of tumor mutation burden and genomic instability may provide additional predictive and prognostic information. See related article by Zhou et al., p. 7475
The terrestrial radiation environment and EVA's: Prediction requirements, model improvements, and warning systems

The total medical-biological impact of the Earth's space radiation environment on humans is a function of combined EVA and non-EVA exposure. In either case, the correct assessment of the eventual health risk to crew members is crucial to the success and viability of a project or mission. Aside from the medical-biological aspect itself, the validity of any assessment depends entirely on the existence of good and reliable models providing the high quality data that is needed for such evaluations, which should contain time histories of storm and substorm events, their intensities, their frequency of occurence, and their duration. Prediction requirements, advantageous and desirable model developments and improvements, and systems that need to be designed and tested, which would alert space crews and maintenance personnel about impending radiation danger are outlined.
Characterizing On-Chip Traffic Patterns in General-Purpose GPUs: A Deep Learning Approach

Architectural optimizations in general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) often exploit workload characteristics to reduce power and latency while improving performance. This paper finds, however, that prevailing assumptions about GPGPU traffic pattern characterization are inaccurate. These assumptions must therefore be re-evaluated, and more appropriate new patterns must be identified. This paper proposes a methodology to classify GPGPU traffic patterns, combining a convolutional neural network (CNN) for feature extraction and a t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) algorithm to determine traffic pattern clusters. A traffic pattern dataset is generated from common GPGPU benchmarks, transformed using heat mapping, and iteratively refined to ensure appropriate and highly accurate labels. The proposed classification model achieves 98.8% validation accuracy and 94.24% test accuracy. Furthermore, traffic in 96.6% of examined kernels can be classified into the eight identified traffic pattern categories.
Pattern Risk of the Securitized Biopharmaceutical Mega-Fund

Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical companies are constantly challenged to raise sufficient capital to advance the development of the drug projects in their pipelines. The risk of capital becoming too costly or unavailable when it is needed can constrain the development and commercialization of important medical advances. Securitization has been discussed as a way to increase the flow of capital to clinical-stage biopharmaceutical companies. For securitization to draw more capital into funding biopharmaceutical development, a technique for allocating the current and future cash flows associated with specific biopharmaceutical products must be developed. Fernandez et al. (2012), Fagnan et al. (2013), and Fagnan et al. (2014) have proposed a “mega-fund” scheme as the foundation for a clinical stage biopharmaceutical securitization structure. The securities issued to finance the “mega-fund” are called “Research Backed Obligations.” In this article, the authors modify their label by calling the securities structured biopharmaceutical-backed bonds (SBBBs). This model of the flows of cash through the SBBBs illustrates that it is not only the final number of projects that succeed that drives the value of the fund; also important are the timing of failure, the probability of failing in each phase of development, and the magnitude of success in each phase. TOPICS:Legal and regulatory issues for structured finance, MBS and residential mortgage loans Key Findings • The pattern of drug development failure across the three phases of FDA clinical trials drives the portfolio value of the Biopharmaceutical Mega Fund. • Incorporating licensing/royalty agreements between clinical stage biopharmaceutical companies that are developing the drugs that compose the biopharmaceutical mega-fund and commercial stage biopharmaceutical companies into the securitization program will alleviate adverse selection issues that could depress the value of the securities issued by the mega-fund. • Pattern risk is the uncertain path of progress through the clinical stages of testing that the assets in the biopharmaceutical mega-fund follow. This risk can be managed by engineering the structured biopharmaceutical-backed bonds to account for variations in the patterns of clinical failure.
The Time Has Come for More Restrictions on Military Transfers of Equipment to Civilian Police

The presence of military equipment and military munitions in the hands of civilian law enforcement can cause an escalation of violence and reinforcing mistrust between the people and the police. There are enough concerns about the transfer of military equipment to civilian law enforcement that the current federal transfer program should be temporarily halted. Such a hiatus would enable lawmakers to ensure that future transfers, should they resume, are fully consistent with the police reform measures outlined by the president in Executive Order 13929.
Use of teriparatide prior to lumbar fusion surgery lowers two-year complications for patients with poor bone health.

Abstract Introduction Poor bone health can create challenges in management which are amplified for patients undergoing spinal fusion. Although previously shown to improve outcomes postoperatively, the impact of preoperative teriparatide use on long-term complications remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the complication rates within two years of surgery for osteoporotic and osteopenic patients using teriparatide prior to lumbar fusion procedures. Methods Patients with poor bone health undergoing any lumbar fusion surgery at a single institution between 2008 and 2018 were identified and subsequently divided into two groups as teriparatide and non-teriparatide group. Baseline demographics, patient and surgery related factors, and two-year complications were collected through a retrospective chart review. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to evaluate the association between teriparatide usage and development of any related postoperative complication. Results A total of 42 and 114 patients were identified for the teriparatide and non-teriparatide groups, respectively. The median age (IQR) for the teriparatide group was 62 years (55.8−68.8), while the non-teriparatide group had a median (IQR) age of 70 years (64−75.8). Overall, there were no statistically significant differences in terms of individual complications between the groups. However, on adjusted regression analysis, teriparatide use was associated with significantly lower odds of related complications for lumbar fusion patients (p = 0.049). Conclusion Teriparatide use prior to lumbar fusion procedures resulted in reduced rate of osteoporosis-related complications within two years postoperatively. Results suggest improved outcomes might be seen in patients with osteopenia and osteoporosis when pre-treating with teriparatide.
Saffire: Context-sensitive Function Specialization against Code Reuse Attacks

The sophistication and complexity of recent exploitation techniques, which rely on memory disclosure and whole-function reuse to bypass address space layout randomization and control flow integrity, is indicative of the effect that the combination of exploit mitigations has in challenging the construction of reliable exploits. In addition to software diversification and control flow enforcement, recent efforts have focused on the complementary approach of code and API specialization to restrict further the critical operations that an attacker can perform as part of a code reuse exploit. In this paper we propose Saffire , a compiler-level defense against code reuse attacks. For each calling context of a critical function, Saffire creates a specialized and hardened replica of the function with a restricted interface that can accommodate only that particular invocation. This is achieved by applying static argument binding , to eliminate arguments with static values and concretize them within the function body, and dynamic argument binding , which applies a narrow-scope form of data flow integrity to restrict the acceptable values of arguments that cannot be statically derived. We have implemented Saffire on top of LLVM, and applied it to a set of 11 applications, including Nginx, Firefox, and Chrome. The results of our experimental evaluation with a set of 17 real-world ROP exploits and three whole-function reuse exploits demonstrate the effectiveness of Saffire in preventing these attacks while incurring a negligible runtime overhead.
Complex interactions between temperature, sexual signals and mate choice in a desert-dwelling jumping spider

Environmental context is a crucial factor that influences sexual communication systems. Particularly in ectotherms, which cannot metabolically regulate their body temperature, temperature has an outsized effect on these intraspecific interactions. Using the desert-dwelling jumping spider Habronattus clypeatus, we assessed how temperature impacts various parts of the male signal and female mate choice for the signal. These spiders have multimodal, temporally structured courtship displays that begin with visual-only ‘sidling’ displays and proceed to multimodal visual and vibratory displays. To examine temperature effects, we performed sequential choice mating experiments (N = 45 trials) at two temperature treatments: hot (∼50 °C) and room temperature (∼25 °C). We found first that variation in the different stages of courtship segregated onto different principal components. The only aspect of male courtship that females expressed preference for was sidling courtship, but only at the higher temperature. Females also preferred to mate with heavier males at all temperatures. Specifically, females preferred to mate with males that performed shorter sidling displays. This is reflected by shorter copulation times in the warm treatment as well. We also found that temperature impacted only vibratory courtship and not sidling courtship. Our results highlight the importance of understanding environmental context in studies of animal communication. We also stress how a holistic, rather than reductive, approach to complex communication systems is vital in order to understand how selection acts upon them.
Single-layer graphene as a highly selective barrier for vanadium crossover with high proton selectivity

Abstract We report near-zero crossover for vanadium cross-permeation through single-layer graphene immobilized at the interface of two Nafion® polymer electrolyte membranes. Vanadium ion diffusion and migration, including proton mobility through membrane composites, were studied with and without graphene under diffusion and migration conditions. Single-layer graphene was found to effectively inhibit vanadium ion diffusion and migration under specific conditions. The single-layer graphene composites also enabled remarkable ion transmission selectivity improvements over pure Nafion® membranes, with proton transport being four orders of magnitude faster than vanadium ion transport. Resistivity values of 0.02 ± 0.005 Ω cm2 for proton and 223 ± 4 Ω cm2 for vanadium ion through single atomic layer graphene are reported. This high selectivity may have significant impact on flow battery applications or for other electrochemical devices where proton conductivity is required, and transport of other species is detrimental. Our results emphasize that crossover may be essentially completely eliminated in some cases, enabling for greatly improved operational viability.
The Agency Costs of Overvalued Equity and the Current State of Corporate Finance

1. The current malaise in corporate finance My intention today is to provide a way to understand some of what’s currently happening in the world of finance and corporate governance at this time (June 2002). Few if any of us have discussed with our students the consequences of a company’s stock price becoming overvalued. Indeed I know of nowhere in the finance literature where the problems associated with overvaluation are discussed. We talked for a long time in the 1980s about the effects of under-valuation, and I will have a little to say about that below. But as things have progressed over the last half-dozen years overvaluation has come increasingly to occupy my thoughts. Indeed, understanding the incentive and organisational effects of stock overvaluation will help us understand much about the current malaise in corporate finance and corporate governance that surrounds the events at Enron, WorldCom, Xerox, and many other companies. I will review this situation briefly, and then move on to consider the agency costs of undervalued and overvalued equity. For the most part I’m going to concentrate on the latter, and examine the necessity for managers to manage stock prices down in situations where they become substantially overvalued, and the requirement for us to have new language to enable managers and boards to deal with these issues. I will conclude by considering how we solve this, where we go from here, and what’s likely to happen? In most crises like the current one what we usually get from governmental reaction is bad regulation and bad laws. However, in preparing this address I found myself fairly optimistic that things are more likely to move in the right direction. Yet, there is a danger that with the frenzy that is going on now as the result of WorldCom’s announcement earlier this week of its $3.8 billion accounting blunder, Enron’s cooking the books and today’s announcement by Xerox of its $3 billion ‘accounting error’, we may be off and running again to generate damaging regulatory actions. We are all aware of the trillions of dollars of losses that have occurred in the technology, telecom, and dot.com boom and busts, not to mention many bankruptcies,
Searching the PDF Haystack: Automated Knowledge Discovery in Scanned EHR Documents.

Background Clinicians express concern that they may be unaware of important information contained in voluminous scanned and other outside documents contained in electronic health records (EHRs). An example is “unrecognized EHR risk factor information,” defined as risk factors for heritable cancer that exist within a patient's EHR but are not known by current treating providers. In a related study using manual EHR chart review, we found that half of the women whose EHR contained risk factor information meet criteria for further genetic risk evaluation for heritable forms of breast and ovarian cancer. They were not referred for genetic counseling. Objectives The purpose of this study was to compare the use of automated methods (optical character recognition with natural language processing) versus human review in their ability to identify risk factors for heritable breast and ovarian cancer within EHR scanned documents. Methods We evaluated the accuracy of the chart review by comparing our criterion standard (physician chart review) versus an automated method involving Amazon's Textract service (Amazon.com, Seattle, Washington, United States), a clinical language annotation modeling and processing toolkit (CLAMP) (Center for Computational Biomedicine at The University of Texas Health Science, Houston, Texas, United States), and a custom-written Java application. Results We found that automated methods identified most cancer risk factor information that would otherwise require clinician manual review and therefore is at risk of being missed. Conclusion The use of automated methods for identification of heritable risk factors within EHRs may provide an accurate yet rapid review of patients' past medical histories. These methods could be further strengthened via improved analysis of handwritten notes, tables, and colloquial phrases.
The Trouble with Targeting Tax Shelters

Abusive tax shelters—complex transactions that produce tax benefits that Congress never intended, but that may resemble legitimate business deals—frequently escape IRS detection. For the past 20 years, the federal government has attempted to bolster the IRS’s ability to detect these transactions by requiring taxpayers and their advisors to disclose “reportable transactions” to the IRS Office of Tax Shelter Analysis. While mandatory disclosure rules can serve valuable tax enforcement functions, including deterrence of abusive tax planning, they are also subject to significant limitations, especially when applied against high-income and wealthy taxpayers who have access to sophisticated legal counsel. In July 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court introduced an additional potential obstacle as a result of its decision in CIC Services, LLC v. Internal Revenue Service—the reportable transaction rules may now be subject to preemptive administrative law challenges without being barred by the Anti-Injunction Act. This Article argues that in the wake of CIC Services, policymakers should look beyond simply reforming the IRS’s process of issuing tax shelter notices to avoid potential administrative law challenges. Instead, they should reconsider more generally the government’s primary reliance on “activity-based rules” to combat abusive tax planning. This Article brings new perspective to the challenges of targeting tax shelters and explains how they result from the government’s activity-based approach. In contrast to this activity-based approach, the Article describes how the government should also incorporate an “actor-based” approach to combatting abusive tax planning, which would adjust the tax compliance rules based on the economic circumstances of the taxpayers, rather than solely as a result of their activities. High-income and wealthy taxpayers could be subject to adjusted tax compliance rules, such as higher tax penalties, longer statutes of limitation, narrower penalty defenses, or additional information reporting obligations. This actor-based approach offers specific advantages following the decision in CIC Services, and can be coordinated with the current reportable transaction rules to provide a more robust and comprehensive approach to combatting abusive tax planning.
Psychophysiological Effects of Paced and Self-Paced Work in Relation to Motivational, External and Internal Attentional Requirements of a Task

This paper presents a design by which psychophysiological and behavioral responses in laboratory-controlled paced/self-paced work are evaluated by manipulating both the attentional environment so that the task is either predominantly perceptual in nature (external attention) or, alternatively, characterized primarily by mental operations (internal attention) as well as the level of attention through the use of incentives in an attempt to identify and rationalize possible differences in paced/self-paced work. It is argued that when basic methodological issues intrinsic to psychophysiological and paced/self-paced studies in general are considered, along with an analysis in terms of both short-(trial-by-trial as well as trial components) term and long-term (entire task) psychophysiological and behavioral responses, the task of locating and evaluating stress within the paced/self-paced work environment becomes less elusive. (b) Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Language: en
Physics of organic electronic devices

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the basic device physics that governs the operation of organic electronic devices. Organic electronic devices are a new class of solid state electrical devices that have been the subject of intense research in the last decade. The two most widely studied devices are light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and field-effect transistors (FETs). These organic devices are attracting considerable interest because they have processing and performance advantages for low-cost and/or large-area applications. An organic light-emitting diode consists of a thin-film of a luminescent organic material contacted by metal electrodes on the top and bottom of the film. One electrode serves as an electron injecting contact and the other as a hole injecting contact. Organic electronic devices use undoped, insulating organic materials as the light-emitting and charge-transporting layers. The charge carriers in the devices are injected from the contacts. Electronic devices based on doped organic materials have not been developed in a manner analogous to doped inorganic semiconductor devices.
Action Pattern and Specificity of an Exo-β-(1 → 3)-d-glucanase from Basidiomycetes Species QM 806

Abstract The action pattern and specificity of a highly purified exo-β-(1 → 3)-d-glucanase from Basidiomycetes species QM 806 have been investigated. The glucanase removes single glucose residues from a β-(1 → 3)-linked glucan chain commencing at the nonreducing terminal. It can bypass β-(1 → 6) linkages, yielding gentiobiose quantitatively from this structural feature, and it can cleave β-(1 → 3) linkages adjacent to other types of linkage in the main chain. The enzyme, although typically exo in its mode of attack, can initiate an endo cleavage in that it attacks endo-β-(1 → 3) bonds adjacent to β-(1 → 6) linkages. The enzyme does not catalyze transglycosylation reactions. The action pattern of the enzyme is the same on all structures attacked, regardless of their molecular size, but the rate at which these are attacked varies widely. Although the enzyme shows the greatest preference for substrates containing consecutive β-(1 → 3)-linked glucopyranosyl residues, it will degrade a variety of substrate analogues. It was found that the specificity of the enzyme extends over a number of residues of the substrate and is not directed toward any one particular residue or linkage. To explain these results, it is suggested that the glucanase has a substrate binding site composed of a consecutive series of individual glucosyl residue binding sites or subsites which are so arranged as to correspond spatially with a sequence of β-(1 → 3)-linked glucopyranosyl residues. Substrates were found to be hydrolyzed at a rate proportional to the degree to which their structures correspond to such a sequence of subsites on the enzyme. A similar relationship was found with the ability of these structures to act as inhibitors of the hydrolysis of laminarin, further indicating that the enzyme binds a number of consecutive glucosyl residues on the active site.
Effects of the solar wind on magnetospheric dynamics: Energetic electrons at the synchronous orbit

Data on energetic electron fluxes at the synchronous orbit, covering the 1967-1978 time interval, obtained by experiments flown on the ATS-1, ATS-5 and ATS-6 spacecraft, have been analyzed. Long term (year) and short term (days) electron flux averages are found to correlate positively with corresponding averages of the solar wind velocity.
Atopy as a risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: epidemiological evidence.

Susceptibility to cigarette smoke is not universal. Only 10– 15% of smokers go on to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The reasons for this are likely complex and relate primarily to three factors: genetic susceptibility, dose and timing of exposure, and interactions between smoking and other environmental factors of interest in causing the disease. The goal of this article is to consider the epidemiologic data that atopy defined as immediate type II hypersensitivity, and not as clinical asthma, is a risk factor for the development of chronic obstructive lung disease.
Problems in the management of illegitimate pregnancy.

Abstract The social and obstetrical case histories of 1,797 girls illegitimately pregnant have been reviewed and the results presented. These patients were confined in a maternity hospital uniquely dedicated to the total care of the unwed mother and her baby. Approximately 75 per cent of the babies born in this hospital are relinquished to licensed adoption agencies for placement. In this series 2 per cent of our patients were experiencing a repeat illegitimate pregnancy. Here the need for further rehabilitation of these patients is all too evident. The majority of the girls illegitimately pregnant are normal, both physically and psychologically. The stability of the home and family life is a most important factor in the prevention of illegitimate pregnancy.
Chemical Vapor Deposition of Aluminum Oxide Thin Films

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a process routinely used to produce thin films of materials via decomposition of volatile precursor molecules. Unfortunately, the equipment required for a conventional CVD experiment is not practical or affordable for many undergraduate chemistry laboratories, especially at smaller institutions. In an effort to expose undergraduate chemistry students to this valuable materials science technique, a convenient, inexpensive apparatus was constructed to deposit thin films of aluminum oxide on a silicon wafer substrate. The system features the controlled hydrolysis of the water-sensitive precursor liquid, dimethylaluminumisopropoxide, at 200 °C. The experiment described herein is customizable depending on the resources available and lends itself to an inquiry-based format. A discussion of overall student sentiment and pedagogical outcomes from this module is also included.