cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Assessment of Differential Item Functioning in Comput Adaptive Tests

Differential item functioning (DIF) refers to a difference in item performance between equally proficient members of two demographic groups. From an item response theory (IRT) perspective, DIF can be defined as a difference between groups in item response functions. The classic example of a DIF item is a mathematics question that contains sports jargon that is more likely to be understood by men than by women. An item of this kind would be expected to manifest DIF against women: They are less likely to give a correct response than men with equivalent math ability. In reality, the causes of DIF are often far more obscure. The recent book by Camilli and Shepard (1994) and the volume edited by Holland and Wainer (1993) provide an excellent background in the history, theory, and practice of DIF analysis. There are several reasons that DIF detection may be more important for computerized adaptive tests (CATs) than it is for nonadaptive tests. Because fewer items are administered in a CAT, each item response plays a more important role in the examinees’ test scores than it would in a nonadaptive testing format. Any flaw in an item, therefore, may be more consequential. Also, an item flaw can have major repercussions in a CAT because the sequence of items administered to the examinees depends in part on their responses to the flawed item. Finally, administration of a test by computer creates several potential sources of DIF which are not present in conventional tests, such as differential computer familiarity, facility, and anxiety, and differential preferences for computerized administration. Legg and Buhr (1992) and Schaeffer, Reese, Steffen, McKinley, and Mills (1993) both reported ethnic and gender group differences in some of these attributes. Powers and O’Neill (1993) reviewed the literature on this topic.
Adaptive and self-help skills

Independence is a major concern for children with ASD, particularly with the large percentage who also have intellectual disability. This chapter will cover common adaptive and self-help problems those children evince, procedures used to train these skills and potential future research needs.
Foot measures in patients with pes cavus with and without charcot-marie-tooth disease: A pilot study.

Introduction Pes cavus often signals the presence of Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) in adult patients, although its prevalence in the general population makes it a finding of unclear significance. Methods We undertook a pilot double cohort study to investigate the feasibility of comparing preselected bedside and radiographic foot measures in pes cavus patients with and without CMT. Results A total of 16 CMT and 11 non-CMT patients were recruited. Although no findings consistently met statistical significance, recruitment was highly limiting. Conclusions Formalized foot measurement comparisons of CMT and non-CMT pes cavus are feasible. Larger studies will be necessary to determine if there are differences in foot structure based on the presence of a hereditary neuropathy. Muscle Nerve 59:122-125, 2019.
Designing Efficient Shared Address Space Reduction Collectives for Multi-/Many-cores

State-of-the-art designs for the hierarchical reduction collective operation in MPI that work on the concept of distributed address spaces incur the cost of intermediate copies inside the MPI library to stage the data between processes. Such additional copies can severely affect the performance especially on emerging many-core architectures like Intel Xeon/Xeon Phi and OpenPOWER. In this paper, we take up this challenge and study the trade-offs involved in designing high-performance and scalable, "shared address space"-based communication primitives on top of XPMEM using basic point-to-point primitives in MPI. We then redesign the reduction collective operations using the knowledge gained from the initial studies. Our proposed designs at the collective level enable a process to offload communication and computation operations to intra-node peers without the need for additional intermediate copies resulting in a truly "zero-copy" design for MPI_Reduce and MPI_Allreduce. We further develop a theoretical model to analytically study the impact such designs can have on the performance of collective communication primitives. We evaluate the proposed designs with microbenchmarks, HPC, and Deep Learning applications on three different multi-/many-core architectures (Broadwell, Knights Landing, and OpenPOWER). The proposed designs show up to 3x improvement in latency of Reduce and Allreduce benchmarks, up to 37% improvement in the runtime of MiniAMR, and up to 19% reduction in the training time of AlexNet deep neural network compared to existing state-of-the-art MPI libraries. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research work that studies the impact of XPMEM based shared address space designs on the performance of collective operations in a distributed memory programming model like MPI at scale.
Modification of a pyridine-alkoxide ligand during the synthesis of coordination compounds

Abstract A pyridine-alkoxide ligand (pyalk = 2-(2-pyridinyl)-2-propanolate) promotes high oxidation states, water-oxidation catalysis and is resistant to oxidation under catalytic conditions. However, several minor byproducts of pyalk are formed during syntheses of Ir(III) and (IV) complexes. We have now characterized three of these, which, although only formed as minor products, have given unexpected results. Under the reaction conditions studied, we find that pyalkH can undergo various modifications: conversion to the N -oxide, degradation of the geminal methyl groups to give picolinate, oxidation of the arene ring CH group adjacent to nitrogen, and coupling to give a dimeric pincer ligand. One of these products has a Ir 2 (µ-O)(µ-OOCH) core that provides a plausible structural analogue for our elusive 'blue solution' oxidation catalyst, formed from our Cp∗Ir(pyalk)Cl precursor under oxidative conditions. In another case, a mononuclear Ir(III) product contains a novel NCCN pincer having a metal-bound aliphatic alkene as the central unit. Alkene complexes of Ir(III) are rare but here the binding is constrained by the pincer.
Exclusive breast feeding and dehydration fever in newborns during the first days of life

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of dehydration fever in infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) from the well newborn nursery with fever in the first days of life.Study ...
Effects of Cyclanilide and Benzyladenine Tank Mixes on Shoot Production and Growth of Three Woody Landscape Species during Production

Abstract A study was conducted to determine if there were synergistic effects from applying two plant growth regulators (PGRs), cyclanilide (CYC) and benzyladenine (BA), with cytokinin properties on Rhaphiolepis sp. (L.) Lindl. ‘Conor’ and ‘Snow White’ (Indian hawthorn), Rhododendron L. ‘North Lake Beauty’ (azalea), and Ilex crenata Thunb. ‘Sky Pencil’ (Japanese holly) during nursery production. Foliar applications of 100 or 200 ppm CYC promoted new shoot development in all species, whereas 2500 ppm BA either had no effect or suppressed shoot development, except in one of two experiments when shoot development was promoted in holly. With no species was there a synergistic effect on shoot development from combining the two PGRs, even when both PGRs individually promoted new shoot development in holly. Indian hawthorn and holly developed transient symptoms of toxicity in response to CYC, BA, and CYC + BA combinations that had dissipated by the end of the growing season and had no lasting effects on plant qu...
RANDOM ENSEMBLE OF LOCALLY OPTIMUM DETECTORS FOR DETECTION OF ADVERSARIAL EXAMPLES

Deep neural networks achieve state-of-the-art performance for several image classification problems but have been shown to be easily fooled by adversarial perturbations which slightly modify a legitimate image in a specific direction and are visually indistinguishable from the original. This presents a security risk for applications such as autonomous systems. We tackle the problem of detecting such "forgeries" using a locally optimal detector which is well suited to detecting weak signal perturbations. We present a procedure for learning the forgery detector from a training set, using Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) for modeling image patches. A random ensemble of patches is used for detection of the forgery. The reliability of our forgery detector is assessed for several image classification tasks.
The Effects of Situational Context on Information Valuation

A commonality between simple, everyday tasks and complex, military operations is that they both are dependent on decision-making. In this era of big data, successful decision-making is reliant on the effective contextual exploitation of information. Understanding information and its value within context is a complicated task. For this research context is defined as the macro environment surrounding a decision space. With that understanding, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in collaboration with Towson University is investigating how humans perceive and judge information value within varying context. This paper highlights the experimental design and presents the early findings of an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) experiment where a human population judged the effects of varying information sources on three different online purchase contexts. Preliminary results indicate that information and situational context play a significant role in discerning information value.
Ion channel engineering for modulation and de novo generation of electrical excitability

Ion channels play essential roles in regulating electrical properties of excitable tissues. By leveraging various ion channel gating mechanisms, scientists have developed a versatile set of genetically encoded tools to modulate intrinsic tissue excitability under different experimental settings. In this article, we will review how ion channels activated by voltage, light, small chemicals, stretch, and temperature have been customized to enable control of tissue excitability both in vitro and in vivo. Advantages and limitations of each of these ion channel-engineering platforms will be discussed and notable applications will be highlighted. Furthermore, we will describe recent progress on de novo generation of excitable tissues via expression of appropriate sets of engineered voltage-gated ion channels and discuss potential therapeutic implications.
Evaluation of an online learning academy of peer specialists.

OBJECTIVE This report describes the instructional design and development process, learner feedback, and factors associated with course completion in the Academy of Peer Services (APS), an online educational platform for partial fulfillment of peer specialist state certification. METHOD From January 2014 to August 2017, 4,064 individuals in the APS completed online courses and provided demographic information and course evaluation feedback. This report analyzed the relationship between demographic data (work role, experience with online training, level of education) and posttest performance. Course evaluation data on quality, perceived difficulty, and learner satisfaction were also analyzed. RESULTS Overall, participants passed posttests 70.6% of the time. The effect size of work role was very small, η2 = .006. Level of education attainment was associated with differences on posttest scores, F(5, 3903) = 20.22, p < 001, but the effect size was, again, very modest, η2 = .025. Previous experience with online learning slightly influenced posttest scores, F(2, 4053) = 3.95, p < .02, η2 = .002. The great majority of students (88.2%) agreed or strongly agreed that the content was relevant to their everyday work. Similarly, 89% agreed or strongly agreed that the content contained practical tools, which they intend to use in their work. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE The feedback collected from more than 4000 learners suggests that the application of instructional design principles and techniques succeeded in translating the practical knowledge of peer-provided services to an easily accessible web-based platform for persons of varying education and life experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Electrokinetic instability in microchannel viscoelastic fluid flows with conductivity gradients

Electrokinetic instability (EKI) is a flow instability that occurs in electric field-mediated microfluidic applications. It can be harnessed to enhance sample mixing or particle trapping but has to be avoided in particle separation. Current studies on EKI have been focused primarily on the flow of Newtonian fluids. However, many of the chemical and biological solutions exhibit non-Newtonian characteristics. This work presents the first experimental study of the EKI in viscoelastic fluid flows with conductivity gradients through a T-shaped microchannel. We find that the addition of polyethylene oxide (PEO) polymer into Newtonian buffer solutions alters the threshold electric field for the onset of EKI. Moreover, the speed and temporal frequency of the instability waves are significantly different from those in the pure buffer solutions. We develop a three-dimensional preliminary numerical model in COMSOL, which considers the increased viscosity and conductivity as well as the suppressed electroosmotic flow of the buffer-based PEO solutions. The numerically predicted threshold electric field and wave parameters compare favorably with the experimental data except at the highest PEO concentration. We attribute this deviation to the neglect of fluid elasticity effect in the current model that increases with the PEO concentration.
Evaluation of the Preliminary Validity of Misuse of Prescription Pain Medication Items from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)®.

Objective The National Institutes of Health's Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)® includes an item bank for measuring misuse of prescription pain medication (PROMIS-Rx Misuse). The bank was developed and its validity evaluated in samples of community-dwelling adults and patients in addiction treatment programs. The goal of the current study was to investigate the validity of the item bank among patients with mixed-etiology chronic pain conditions. Method A consecutive sample of 288 patients who presented for initial medical evaluations at a tertiary pain clinic completed questionnaires using the open-source Collaborative Health Outcomes Information Registry. Participants were predominantly middle-aged (M [SD] = 51.6 [15.5] years), female (62.2%), and white/non-Hispanic (51.7%). Validity was evaluated by estimating the association between PROMIS-Rx Misuse scores and scores on other measures and testing the ability of scores to distinguish among risk factor subgroups expected to have different levels of prescription pain medicine misuse (known groups analyses). Results Overall, score associations with other measures were as expected and scores effectively distinguished among patients with and without relevant risk factors. Conclusion The study results supported the preliminary validity of PROMIS-Rx Misuse item bank scores for the assessment of prescription opioid misuse in patients visiting an outpatient pain clinic.
Live Electrically with Reddy Kilowatt, Your Electrical Servant

As a stylized lighting bolt created by Ashton Collins in 1926 to promote electricity, Reddy Kilowatt became a ubiquitous symbol in American popular culture, embodying reliability and speed and offering the promise of ‘Better Living Through Electricity’, while encouraging consumers to use new electrical appliances. This paper explores the ways in which Reddy Kilowatt exemplified the prolific fluidity with which sponsored animation moved intermedially between print, radio, comic book, film and television cartoons and commercials as well as into different sites of exhibition, from theatres to shop windows and trade fairs. It also considers the ways in which Kilowatt, as an anthropomorphized avatar of labour and modernity, was a form of expanded animation transforming the workplace into animated extensions of the Kilowatt story.
DECREASE IN HEMOGLOBIN AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH ACUTE KIDNEY INJURY AFTER PERCUTANEOUS CORONARY INTERVENTION

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and is associated with an increased risk of mortality during and after hospitalization. A drop in periprocedural hemoglobin level of more than 3 units (g/dl) is
Algorithms for Generating All Static Spherically Symmetric (An)isotropic Fluid Solutions of Einstein's Equations

We study static spherically symmetric anisotropic fluid solutions of the Einstein equations in curvature coordinates to find algorithms that generate all solutions of the system and sub-algorithms that generate all solutions that are regular at the center. For this, we study all possible combinations of input functions from the set of four functions that characterize the anisotropic system and revisit the conditions for central regularity of fluid spheres (isotropic and anisotropic) to see how different sets of initial conditions serve as equivalent sets for regularity. We provide the first regularity analysis of the solutions generated by the well-known algorithm that uses the potential function and anisotropy. This includes the algorithm for the isotropic system as a special case. We show that the one-parameter family of solutions produced by either algorithm are regular at the center for the usual initial conditions for the input functions; these conditions by themselves are inadequate for geometric regularity, but the Einstein equations fill the gap. By reformulating the anisotropic algorithm in terms of the potential function and tangential pressure, all regular anisotropic solutions can further be obtained in a 1-1 fashion with the input. This allows us to interpret the parameter in the existing algorithms for the isotropic and anisotropic systems as the central density. For three other choices of input function pairs (any two of the three functions: the potential function, density, and radial pressure), a remarkably straightforward algorithm follows. The equivalency of the three pairs in this algorithm arises precisely because of the same algebraic relation between these three functions that made the different equivalent sets of regularity conditions possible. This makes this algorithm very streamlined for generating regular anisotropic solutions.
Effects of Light Intensity, Spectral Composition, and Paclobutrazol on the Morphology, Physiology, and Growth of Petunia, Geranium, Pansy, and Dianthus Ornamental Transplants

Under light-limiting conditions, many ornamental greenhouse-grown plants show undesired morphological characteristics, such as plant elongation (hypocotyl and epicotyl length) and low dry mass, which reduce plant quality. Research has shown that use of plant growth regulators (PGRs) and changes in both light intensity and spectral composition can reduce these undesired characteristics. However, little is known about the role of the combined effects of supplemental lighting and PGRs on the production of ornamental seedlings. The objective of this study was to characterize the combined and independent effects of light intensity, spectral composition, and PGR applications on the greenhouse production of ornamental transplants. Petunia (Petunia × hybrida), geranium (Pelargonium × hortorum), pansy (Viola × wittrockiana) and dianthus (Dianthus chinensis) were grown for 32–42 days under three supplemental light (SL) treatments: 1) high-pressure sodium (HPS), 2) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with a 6 blue (B):5 green (G):89 red (R) (percent photon flux ratio), and 3) LEDs with 19B:81R (100 μmol m−2 s−1, 18 h photoperiod for all treatments). A control (No SL) was also included. In addition, a portion of plants were also sprayed with the paclobutrazol PGR (PBZ and No PBZ). The synergistic effects of the combination of PBZ and supplemental lighting resulted in the most compact plants, caused by a reduction in plant height by PBZ and an increase in dry mass by SL. However, PBZ reduced shoot dry mass of most plant species and light combinations. Plant compactness was greater under the 6B:5G:89R LED composition for petunia and when combined with PBZ for geranium than for plants under HPS lighting. Root dry mass of petunia, geranium, and pansy plants increased in response to SL compared with no SL by 2.4–5.7-fold. Results from the two LED spectra were unexpected; plants under 6B:5G:89R were more compact (petunia, geranium), had higher anthocyanin concentrations (petunia), were shorter (petunia, pansy, dianthus) and had less leaf area (petunia, pansy, dianthus) than plants in the SL treatment with a higher B and lower G PF (19B:81R). Supplemental lighting and PBZ can be used in conjunction or independently to improve plant morphology. The increased light from SL provided the most benefits by improving dry mass, compactness, and leaf number for most plant species. However, when PBZ was used in combination with SL, plant compactness increased for some species. The spectral composition of SL had an impact on plant growth and morphology, warranting additional research on plant responses to small changes in the spectral composition of SL.
Getting Down to the Bare Bones: Does laminoplasty or laminectomy With Fusion Provide Better Outcomes for Patients With Multilevel Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy?

Objective Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is a degenerative disorder leading to progressive decline in spinal cord function. Cervical laminoplasty (CLP) and cervical laminectomy with fusion (CLF) are standard treatments for multilevel CSM. However, it is still unclear whether one procedure over the other provides better outcomes. Here, we performed a comprehensive review of published articles that compare the clinical outcomes and costs between CLP and CLF for CSM. Methods A literature search was performed using PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases. Strict exclusion criteria were applied, and included articles were then assessed for publication year, study design, and significant differences in outcome variables. Results From 519 studies identified with search terms, 38 studies were included for the qualitative analysis. Statistically significant differences in the clinical outcomes and costs were found in 18 studies. Eleven studies were prospective or retrospective, and 8 studies were meta-analyses. For the outcome variables of interest, results were reported by classifying into prospective studies, retrospective studies, and meta-analyses. Conclusion CLP and CLF are 2 of the most commonly performed surgical procedures for the treatment of CSM. Although CLP and CLF each provide satisfactory clinical outcomes for patients with CMS, CLP may result in better cervical range of motion and less cost, length of stay, operation time, blood loss, paraspinal muscular atrophy, and rate of nerve palsies as compared to CLF. The major limitation of CLP versus CLF comparison studies includes the heterogeneity in techniques and preoperative criteria. Thus, further validation and investigations in larger cohorts will be required.
Aeroelastic Models Design/Experiment and Correlation with New Theory

Several examples of experimental model designs, wind tunnel tests and correlation with new theory are presented in this chapter. The goal is not only to evaluate a new theory, new computational method or new aeroelastic phonomenon, but also to provide new insights into nonlinear aeroelastic phenomena, flutter, limit cycle oscillation (LCO), gust response and energy harvesting from a large flapping flag response. The experiments are conducted in a standard low speed wind tunnel. Similar experiments in a high speed wind tunnel would be very valuable.
Generation of a focused nonlinear difference frequency using high-amplitude time reversal focusing of airborne ultrasound

Time reversal (TR) focusing of high-amplitude airborne ultrasound can be used to create a difference frequency. Methods are employed to increase the amplitude of the focus. These methods include creating a miniature reverberation chamber, using multiple sources, and using the clipping processing method. The use of a beam blocker to make the sources more omnidirectional is also examined, and it is found that for most source/microphone orientations, the use of a beam blocker increases the amplitude of the focus. A high-amplitude focus of 134 dB peak re 20 μPa sound pressure level with a center frequency of about 38 kHz is generated using eight sources. Then, using four sources centered at 36.1 kHz and another four sources centered a 39.6 kHz, nonlinear difference frequency content centered at 3.5kHz is observed in the focus signal. The difference frequency amplitude grows quadratically with increasing primary frequency amplitude. When using beam blockers, the difference frequency content propagates away from the focal location with higher amplitude than when beam blockers are not used. This is likely due to the differences in the directionality of the converging waves during TR focusing.
Aperiodic grating structure for TE11 to TM11 mode conversion

Design issues related to implementation of the scattering optimization method for aperiodic gratings are discussed. Critical design parameters are highlighted and it is shown how their selection affects the final grating structure. The aperiodic grating design technique is then implemented to develop a grating for TE11 to TE11 mode conversion in a circular waveguide at 20 GHz. The length of the grating is 19cm and it has a conversion efficiency of 98.34%.
Intracellular polysaccharide storage by organisms in dental plaques. Its relation to dental caries and microbial ecology of the oral cavity.

Abstract A large proportion of the microbiota of dental plaques has been observed to produce polysaccharides of the glycogen-amylopectin type from glucose. Streptococci, diphtheroids and fusobacteria are among the organisms responsible. The polysaccharide appears to be intracellular and is formed in vivo. Pure cultures of streptococci have been shown to metabolize stored polysaccharide with the formation of lactic acid. Plaque from patients defined as caries-active was shown to contain a higher proportion of strongly iodophilic micro-organisms than that from caries-inactive individuals. The possible relationship of polysaccharide storage to dental caries and the microbial ecology of the oral cavity is discussed.
Abstract 1708: Heparanase regulates response to chemotherapy in myeloma

Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA Following therapy, essentially all multiple myeloma patients relapse due to a population of chemoresistant cells leading to eventual patient death. Our lab has identified heparanase, an endoglycosidase, as a master regulator of aggressive myeloma disease. In the present study that was designed to probe the role of heparanase in chemoresistance, we made the striking finding that heparanase promotes survival of tumor cells post-therapy. Using an array of cellular viability assays, we tested for differences in viability and apoptosis between myeloma cells engineered to express high levels of heparanase (HPSE-high) and cells expressing low levels of heparanase (HPSE-low) following their exposure to frontline anti-myeloma drugs (bortezomib, carfilzomib). Results revealed a much smaller apoptotic fraction and higher cell viability following treatment of the HPSE-high cells compared to HPSE-low cells. In addition to promoting tumor survival, we also discovered that myeloma cell expression and secretion of heparanase is dramatically enhanced in response to chemotherapy. Using small molecule inhibitors, we were able to pinpoint that activation of nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) was driving the heparanase expression upon chemotherapy. The secreted heparanase generated by chemotherapy was readily taken up by tumor cells growing in culture, consistent with previous studies demonstrating that heparanase is taken up by myeloma tumor cells and that this activates aggressive tumor behavior. Extending our findings to the clinic revealed that in tumor cells from seven out of nine myeloma patients examined, there was a dramatic increase in heparanase gene expression following chemotherapy. Together, these results demonstrate a pivotal role for heparanase in regulating myeloma response to therapy and indicate that the use of heparanase inhibitors may inhibit or delay relapse in myeloma. Citation Format: Vishnu Prakash C. Ramani, Fenghuang Zhan, Guido Tricot, Ralph D. Sanderson. Heparanase regulates response to chemotherapy in myeloma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 1708. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-1708
Remote sensing of groundwater storage changes in Illinois using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

Regional groundwater storage changes in Illinois are estimated from monthly GRACE total water storage change (TWSC) data and in situ measurements of soil moisture for the period 2002–2005. Groundwater storage change estimates are compared to those derived from the soil moisture and available well level data. The seasonal pattern and amplitude of GRACE-estimated groundwater storage changes track those of the in situ measurements reasonably well, although substantial differences exist in month-to-month variations. The seasonal cycle of GRACE TWSC agrees well with observations (correlation coefficient = 0.83), while the seasonal cycle of GRACE-based estimates of groundwater storage changes beneath 2 m depth agrees with observations with a correlation coefficient of 0.63. We conclude that the GRACE-based method of estimating monthly to seasonal groundwater storage changes performs reasonably well at the 200,000 km2 scale of Illinois
Beyond Blame—Mens Rea and Regulatory Crime

In the first part of this Article, the Author briefly outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the common law approach to mens rea, with its blame focus, and the Supreme Court's early efforts to develop a different approach in interpreting regulatory criminal statutes. The Author begins the second part of this Article with Lambert v. California, in which the Court staked out the constitutional limits for the employment of strict liability in public welfare or regulatory crimes, and, first employed notice-based mens rea. This part goes on to examine the ensuing cases in which the Court, at least implicitly, fleshes out the notice analysis that should guide the courts in deciding whether Congress intended strict liability or some level of mens rea in enacting regulatory criminal statutes. The Author concludes with Liparota v. United States, the case in which the Court departed from the emerging construct, which had distinguished blame-based and notice-based mens rea. This part then charts the doctrinal confusion that has resulted from this conflation of blame and notice in the Court's mens rea analysis, confusion that is apparent not only in its own cases but also those of the circuit courts as they confront this "vexatious problem."
Production of Heterologous Antibodies Specific for Murine B-Cell Leukemia (BCL1) Immunoglobulin by Immunization with Synthetic Peptides Homologous to Heavy Chain Hypervariable Regions

Three peptides homologous to each heavy chain hypervariable region expressed by murine B-cell leukemia, BCL1, were synthesized in vitro by solid phase peptide synthesis. All three synthetic peptides elicited responses in rabbits which were immunized with synthetic peptide or synthetic peptide conjugated to the carrier keyhole limpet hemocyanin. Six individual rabbits were immunized, five of which responded by producing antisera which react specifically in radioimmunoassay with the synthetic peptide used as immunogen. One antiserum has specificity for the peptide homologous to the first hypervariable region, three antisera have specificity for the peptide homologous to the second hypervariable region, and one has specificity for the peptide homologous to the third hypervariable region. The five antisera with high titers of antibody recognizing synthetic peptide also specifically recognize native immunoglobulin M secreted by BCL1 tumor cells as demonstrated by immunoprecipitation followed by sodium dodecyl sulfate: polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and autoradiography. These five antisera do not show reactivity with immunoglobulin secreted by spleen cells from normal BALB/cAn mice or by B-cells from unrelated tumors and cell lines. However, as determined by absorption experiments, the majority of antibodies in each antiserum are directed against the respective synthetic peptide, and only a small portion are reactive with native immunoglobulin M. Nonetheless, these results indicate use of synthetic peptides as a potential alternative source of immunogen for production of antitumor antibody.
Postmortem cesarean section: review of the literature and case reports.

Abstract Postmortem cesarean section is a procedure shrouded in mystique and antiquity, overshadowed by fear, religion, and law. The opportunity to perform this rare operation occurs in the lifetime of but a few physicians. Successful outcome is an even greater obstetric rarity. In this report, we will review the history, the literature, and the medicolegal aspects of postmortem cesarean section and add 4 new successful cases to the less than 150 cases with infant survival reported in the current world literature.
Abstract P049: Race/Ethnic Differences in Patterns of Antihypertensive Medication Uptake and Clinical Outcomes among Hospitalized Diabetic Patients with Hypertension

Background: Hypertension increases the risk of complications in patients with diabetes. Race/ethnic differences in the uptake of antihypertensive medications may contribute to disparities in clinical outcomes, but this has not been formally evaluated. We aimed to assess patterns of antihypertensive medication prescription by race/ethnic group and the association with clinical outcomes among hospitalized diabetic patients with hypertension. Methods: This was a 1 year prospective study of individuals with existing diabetes and hypertension (N=1126, 42% black/Hispanic [minority]; 39% female) that participated in an NHLBI clinical outcomes study of patients admitted to a cardiovascular service. Baseline clinical/medication data and outcomes (rehospitalization/death) were documented by electronic medical record, National Death Index, and standardized mail survey. Logistic regression was used to evaluate associations between race/ethnicity, antihypertensive prescription, and outcomes adjusted for demographics/comorbidities. Results: Overall utilization of antihypertensive medication prior to admission did not differ between minority (92%) vs. white/other (93%) patients; minorities were more likely to report taking calcium channel blockers (OR=1.40;95%CI=1.08-1.81) and less likely to use beta blockers (OR=0.65;95%CI=0.50-0.84) vs. whites/others. Race/ethnic differences in prescription type did not persist at discharge after adjustment for demographics/comorbidities (96% prescribed any antihypertensive medication: 62% ACE inhibitor/ARB, 81% beta blocker, 29% calcium channel blocker, 48% diuretic). A total of 676 (60%) of participants were rehospitalized/dead at 1 year; predictors of rehospitalization/death included minority race/ethnicity, lack of health insurance, renal failure/dialysis, peripheral vascular disease, and heart failure (p Conclusion: In this study of hospitalized diabetic patients with hypertension, antihypertensive prescription at discharge did not vary by race/ethnicity; beta blocker prescription at discharge was associated with lower odds of rehospitalization/death at 1 year. Higher odds of rehospitalization/death among minorities was not explained by measured covariates including type of antihypertension medication.
The mechanism of uptake of biodegradable microparticles in Caco-2 cells is size dependent.

Purpose. To study the uptake of biodegradable microparticles in Caco-2 cells. Methods. Biodegradable microparticles of polylactic polyglycolic acid co-polymer (PLGA 50:50) of mean diameters 0.1 μm, 1 μm, and 10 μm containing bovine serum albumin as a model protein and 6-coumarin as a fluorescent marker were formulated by a multiple emulsion technique. The Caco-2 cell monolayers were incubated with each diameter microparticles (100 μg/ml) for two hours. The microparticle uptake in Caco-2 cells was studied by confocal microscopy and also by quantitating the 6-coumarin content of the microparticles taken up by the cells. The effects of microparticle concentration, and incubation time and temperature on microparticle cell uptake were also studied. Results. The study demonstrated that the Caco-2 cell microparticle uptake significantly depends upon the microparticle diameter. The 0.1 μm diameter microparticles had 2.5 fold greater uptake on the weight basis than the 1 μm and 6 fold greater than the 10 μm diameter microparticles. Similarly in terms of number the uptake of 0.1 μm diameter microparticles was 2.7 × 103 fold greater than the 1 μm and 6.7 × 106 greater than the 10 μm diameter microparticles. The efficiency of uptake of 0.1 μm diameter microparticles at 100 μg/ml concentration was 41% compared to 15% and 6% for the 1 μm and the 10 μm diameter microparticles, respectively. The Caco-2 cell microparticle (0.1 μm) uptake increased with concentration in the range of 100 μg/ml to 500 μg/ml which then reached a plateau at higher concentration. The uptake of microparticles increased with incubation time, reaching a steady state at two hours. The uptake was greater at an incubation temperature of 37°C compared to at 4°C. Conclusions. The Caco-2 cell microparticle uptake was microparticle diameter, concentration, and incubation time and temperature dependent. The small diameter microparticles (0.1 μm) had significantly greater uptake compared to larger diameter microparticles. The results thus suggest that the mechanism of uptake of microparticles in Caco-2 cell is particle diameter dependent. Caco-2 cells are used as an in vitro model for gastrointestinal uptake, and therefore the results obtained in these studies could be of significant importance in optimizing the microparticle-based oral drug delivery systems.
Men's meat intake and treatment outcomes among couples undergoing assisted reproduction.

Objective To study the relationship between men's meat intake and clinical outcomes in couples undergoing infertility treatment with the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART). Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Fertility center. Patient(s) A total of 141 men whose female partners underwent 246 ART cycles from 2007 to 2014. Intervention(s) None. Total and specific types of meat intake were estimated from dietary questionnaires. Main Outcome Measure(s) Fertilization, implantation, clinical pregnancy, and live-birth rates per initiated cycle. Mixed-effects models account for multiple IVF cycles per woman. Result(s) There was a positive association between poultry intake and fertilization rate, with a 13% higher fertilization rate among men in the highest quartile of poultry intake compared with those in the lowest quartile (78% vs. 65%). Processed meat intake was inversely related to fertilization rate in conventional IVF cycles but not in IVF cycles using intracytoplasmic sperm injection. The adjusted fertilization rates for men in increasing quartiles of processed meat intake were 82%, 67%, 70%, and 54% in conventional IVF cycles. Men's total meat intake, including intake of specific types of meat, was not associated with implantation, clinical pregnancy, or live-birth rates. Conclusion(s) Poultry intake was positively associated with fertilization rates, whereas processed meat intake was negatively associated with fertilization rates among couples undergoing conventional IVF. This, however, did not translate into associations with clinical pregnancy or live-birth rates.
Managing Hospital Bed Capacity Through Partitioning Care into Focused Wings

We consider the partitioning of care types into wings from the perspective of a hospital administrator, who wishes to optimize the use of a fixed number of beds that provide services for heterogeneous care types. Patients of each care type request admission to the hospital stochastically, and if admitted, require a stochastic length-of-stay and provide the hospital some utility. If a bed is not immediately available, patients wait a random amount of time for admission, which may take place in a physical queue (as in an emergency room) or in a virtual queue (as in scheduled procedures). If their wait becomes excessive, they abandon the queue to seek care elsewhere. The hospital administrator decides on the number of wings to form, the number of beds to allocate to each wing, and the set of care types to assign to each wing in order to maximize the total utility to the hospital. The administrator faces an inherent trade-off between forming large wings to pool demand and bed capacity, and forming specialized wings to focus on narrow ranges of care types. Specialized wings not only provide advantages from focused care, but also allow the protection of beds for high utility care types. We provide an optimization model for the wing formation decision and address the advantages of focus endogenously in our model. Using data from a large urban teaching hospital in the United States along with a national database, we report on a number of managerial insights. In particular, as the overall demand increases across all care types, wings are formed to reserve more beds for higher utility care types, which leads to higher overall hospital utility but also some disparity across care types, as hospital access increases for some care types and decreases for others. Furthermore, as more wings are formed, overall bed occupancy in the hospital decreases. However, if sufficient focus is attained, shorter lengths-of-stay associated with focused care may increase overall patient throughput. We also observe that when patients are willing to wait longer for admission, the hospital tends to form more wings. This implies that hospitals that garner longer waits can form more specialized wings, and thereby benefit from focused care, whereas hospitals that cannot will tend to form fewer, if any, wings, choosing to pool demand and bed capacity.
Pure strategy Nash equilibria and the probabilistic prospects of Stackelberg players

We consider the set of all mxn bimatrix games with ordinal payoffs. We show that on the subset E of such games possessing at least one pure strategy Nash equilibrium, both players prefer the role of leader to that of follower in the corresponding Stackelberg games. This preference is in the sense of first-degree stochastic dominance by leader payoffs of follower payoffs. It follows easily that on the complement of E, the follower's role is preferred in the same sense. Thus we see a tendency for leadership preference to obtain in the presence of multiple pure strategy Nash equilibria in the underlying game.
Internal consistency of DSM-III diagnoses using the symptom scales of the Child Assessment Schedule.

Internal consistency of the major diagnostic categories for children was assessed, using the symptom scale scores of the Child Assessment Schedule. Alpha coefficients were calculated for three samples: 116 nonpsychotic psychiatrically disturbed children, 63 children with cystic fibrosis, and 177 children from a community based sample. For the psychiatric sample, a high level of internal consistency was demonstrated for all the symptom scales (i.e., attention deficit, conduct, anxiety, and depression). For the nonpsychiatric samples, the attention deficit and depression scales were reliable, with lower levels of endorsement and more variability observed for the other scales. These results are supportive of the clustering of diagnostic criteria present in DSM-III.
Technical Note-A Multiserver Queue with No Passing

This note deals with a queuing situation where customers must leave the system in the same order in which they arrive, owing to a physical constraint that prohibits passing. Poisson input and basically exponential service times are assumed, and the mean waiting time in the steady state is derived.
Modification of Type A behavior through aerobic exercise

This psychophysiological evaluation of an aerobic exercise program examined specifically whether aerobic training modified Pattern A for those individuals at behavioral risk for developing coronary heart disease, i.e., young Type A individuals. At pretest and posttest of this secondary prevention study, Type A and Type B subjects were assessed in three conditions: aerobic exercise program, nonaerobic activity (Aikido, a martial art) control, and notreatment control. After 10 weeks, Type A but not Type B subjects exhibited lower Pattern A behavior in the aerobic program than in control conditions. Average workout pulse rates and differentially reliable increases in aerobic capacity indicated that aerobic training was indeed aerobic, whereas aikido activity was not. Even though selected nonaerobic factors, such as locus of control and group participation, did not mediate the Pattern A decrease for Type A's when comparing aikido and aerobic conditions, changes in aerobic capacity may have been the mediator. Generalizability of the results and implications for theoretical development and clinical intervention are discussed.
How map features cue associated verbal content

Undergraduates learned a complex map, heard a related text passage, and received either the original map or a picture of its boundary as a retrieval cue for the text on both an immediate and a 2-week-delayed test. Features on the map were either modified by visually keyed adjectives or not modified. Recall of text events was higher for the map, for the modified features, and on the immediate test. Analysis of feature-event conditional probabilities indicated that a combination of feature icons and verbal modifiers provided the greatest recall of both modified and nonmodified events.
Flow properties of liquid calcium alginate polymer injected through medical microcatheters for endovascular embolization

The flow properties of liquid calcium alginate injections were investigated for application in endovascular embolization. Alginate shear properties were assessed with a rheometer and a controlled injection system. The experimental results were used to model the flow properties and predict alginate's flow characteristics within various medical microcatheter delivery systems. The results suggest that alginates undergo shear-thinning effects with increasing shear. A flow comparison of 2.0 wt % alginate and a Newtonian fluid (82 cP) injected from the same microcatheter had similar flow rates at low injection pressure (100 kPa). However, at high injection pressure (2100 kPa), the alginate was injectable at a flow rate 100% higher than was the Newtonian fluid. Further analysis of injections through microcatheters resulted in a flow model for predicting viscosity changes, flow rates, and injection pressures of liquid alginate at medium-to-high shear rates. The predicted injection pressures and flow rates had an average variance of less than 15% from that of the experimental flow data. This study indicates that calcium alginate has the requisite flow properties for successful delivery to vascular lesions via endovascular injection. Possible uses of alginates include treating arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), aneurysms, blood flow to tumors, and vascular hemorrhages.