cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The antibiotic pipeline in pediatrics.

Before 1970, very few antibiotics prescribed for children had specific pediatric labeling. Pharmaceutical companies avoided testing these drugs in infants and children because of the stigma associated with the early history of clinical research, liability issues, and difficulty of working with infants and children as research subjects. As a result Dr Harry Shirkey, a pediatrician with a clinical pharmacy background, coined the term ‘orphan drugs’ for those essential drugs, like antibiotics, that were used commonly in pediatrics, but had not been thoroughly evaluated, especially for appropriate dosage and potential toxicity (Shirkey, 1968). It was not until 20 years later that the Food andDrugAdministration (FDA) initiated several labeling efforts to remedy this situation (Roberts et al., 2003).
Trade Policies and U.S. Agriculture

NOW, more than at any other time in this century, U.S. agriculture is dependent upon exports. The value of agricultural exports is approximately a sixth of the value of farm receipts, while the output of one out of every four acres finds its way into export markets. An increase in agricultural exports since 1960 has been a major element in the viability of farm programs of recent years. In the absence of expanded exports it would have been difficult to maintain net farm-operator income, let alone to achieve the increases of one to two billion dollars of the past 2 years, without a very substantial increase in governmental expenditures or politically unpopular increases in consumer prices. As Willard Cochrane [1, pp. 453-457] noted so ably a year ago at these meetings, current agricultural policy is operating within three important restraints-the two already noted plus the unwillingness of farmers to accept strict supply-control measures. In this setting, the expansion of exports has been of great significance to agricultural policy makers and farmers.
Influence of Turf Taxa and Insecticide Type on Survival of Geocoris spp. (Hemiptera: Geocoridae)

Abstract Effects of 7 concentrations of chlorpyrifos (Dursban 50W), halofenozide (Mach 2) and spinosad (Conserve SC) were tested on bigeyed bugs (Geocoris spp.: Heteroptera: Geocoridae) in bioassays with or without turfgrass as a potential moderating influence. Survival of bigeyed bugs was recorded at 1, 3, 7 and 10 d posttreatment. In a bioassay without turfgrass, the lowest chlorpyrifos dose of 62.5 ppm resulted in 100% adult bigeyed bug mortality; however, significantly more fifth-instar nymphs survived than first to fourth instars, whereas none of the adults survived. Spinosad at the recommended rate significantly reduced bigeyed bug density compared with the untreated check. Similarly, halofenozide influenced bigeyed bug survival only at the full-recommended rate in Petri dish assays. Effects of the same 6 concentrations of insecticides described above were studied on geocorids when 3 turfgrass genotypes, ‘Cavalier’ zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica von Steudel and Z. matrella L. Merrill), ‘Sea Isle 1’ se...
Minimally Invasive Valve Surgery and Single Vessel Coronary Artery Bypass via Limited Anterior Right Thoracotomy.

Background: Coronary artery bypass grafting with aortic valve replacement (AVR) or mitral valve replacement (MVR) is traditionally performed via sternotomy. Minimally invasive coronary surgery (MICS) and minimally invasive valve surgery have been successfully performed independently. Patients with critical right coronary artery (RCA) stenosis not amenable to percutaneous intervention are candidates for valve replacement and single vessel coronary artery bypass. We present our series of six patients who underwent a concomitant valve and single vessel intervention via right thoracotomy. Methods: Between January 2011 and June 2013, six patients underwent right thoracotomy with valve replacement and single vessel bypass. Four aortic and two mitral valves were replaced and all received single vessel RCA bypass using reversed saphenous vein graft. Thoracotomy was via right anterior approach for AVR and right lateral for MVR. The patients were assessed postoperatively for overall outcomes. Results: The average age was 74 years (range 69-81); two patients were elective (AVR-1; MVR-1) and four were urgent (AVR-3; MVR-1). For MICS AVR and MICS MVR, the average cardiopulmonary bypass time was 171 ± 30 and 169 ± 7 minutes and the average aortic cross-clamp time was 122 ± 36 and 112 ± 2 minutes, respectively. Three patients were discharged home, one patient to a nursing home, and two to rehab. No patients required conversion to sternotomy; one patient developed atrial fibrillation, and one sepsis. Conclusion: Concomitant valve replacement and single bypass grafting via right anterior mini-thoracotomy is a viable option for select patients, particularly in non-stentable RCA stenosis. In the appropriate patient population, combined coronary artery bypass grafting and valve surgery can be safely performed via right thoracotomy.
Mechanical Property Determination Using Nanoindentation Techniques

Data obtained from indentation testing can provide important information about the near-surface mechanical properties and deformation behavior of solids. Properly executed and interpreted, the technique can provide information regarding hardness, elastic modulus, compressive yield strength (metals), fracture toughness (ceramics) and residual stresses. The apparent simplicity of the test procedure, however, often belies the difficulties of interpreting the data to give quantitative information on properties of interest for a specific application.
Computing linear systems on metric graphs

Abstract The linear system | D | of a divisor D on a metric graph has the structure of a cell complex. We introduce the anchor divisors and anchor cells in it – they serve as the landmarks for us to compute the f-vector of the complex and find all cells in the complex. A linear system can also be identified as a tropical convex hull of rational functions. We compute its extremal generators using the landmarks. We apply these methods to some examples – namely the canonical linear systems of some small trivalent graphs.
Kinetics of Cadium and Copper Hydrolysis

Prior investigators have implicated kinetic limitations as being significant in the regulation of metal removal by precipitation processes. However, there have been no prior direct measurements on rates of such processes with the environmentally more significant metals. This study measured homogeneous complexation rates of cadmium and copper with hydroxide in a complete mix continuous flow reactor, using ion specific electrodes. The cadmium complexation kinetics are consistent with a forward mixed second order process coupled with a reverse first order process, and such model provides agreement with reported equilibrium constants for the formation of CdOH + .
Nonlinear optical histological spectroscopy and imaging of biological tissues

We report on nonlinear optical (NLO) spectroscopy and tomographic imaging using second harmonic generation (SHG) and two-photon excitation of fluorescence (TPF) in highly scattering native animal and human tissues.
Applying Usability Measures to Assess Textbooks

The assessment of usability is a common task for human factors professionals. The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a survey tool that has been supported empirically as a psychometrically robust, val...
Persistence and Distribution of Gardona and Dichlorvos in Grain and Grain Products

Gardona® (2-chloro-1-(2,4,5-trichlorophenyl)vinyl dimethyl phosphate) was persistent on corn and wheat grain held in farm storage for 8 months. Dichlorvos (2, 2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate) was rapidly lost from both grains, but it did exhibit some tendency to persist at trace residue levels. The corn milling products, bran, fine feed, and germ, contained 94% of the total Gardona residue and the only detectable dichlorvos residue. The wheat bran contained 67% of the dichlorvos residue and 90% of the Gardona residue.
Flexible 3D Graphene Transistors with Ionogel Dielectric for Low-Voltage Operation and High Current Carrying Capacity

In this paper, an ionogel-gated flexible 3D graphene transistor made from graphene foam, consisting of a network of few layers graphene, is reported. The presented transistor, fabricated on thin, 28 μm parylene, flexible substrate, demonstrates low-voltage operation (≤2.5 V) and exhibits 4.78 times higher current capacity than previously reported liquid-gated 3D graphene transistor fabricated on glass substrate. This is also 26.72 times higher current capacity (93 mA at 2 V applied VD) than the equivalent long channel (≈600 μm) 2D transistor device. The high current capacity and low operating voltage of this transistor are attributed to higher surface area, 3D structure of the transistor, and the high capacitive coupling between the ionogel gate and graphene. The transistor is thoroughly characterized for I–V characteristics and evaluated for circuit functionality. As a representative example, high current capacity was demonstrated by driving an LED where brightness depends on the current level through them which was tuned using the gate bias of the 3D transistor. The proposed transistor may find application in large-area electronics for interactive displays and for large-area sensors in structural health monitoring.
The Effect of pH on the near UV Circular Dichroic Spectra of Parsley Plastocyanin

Plastocyanin (PC) is a 10.5 kDa copper protein that functions in the photosynthetic electron transport of higher plants and blue-green algae (1). It is located in the grana lumen of the chloroplast (2) where it shuttles electrons between Cytochrome f and Photosystem I. PC experiences a pH change of greater than 3 units between the light and dark states (3). pH has been shown to affect the conformation (1,4), redox potential (5) and reactivity of PC with both its natural and artificial reaction partners (5,6). The pH dependence of these reactions vary significantly with the identity of the redox partner and species of PC (5).
Making Live Theatre with Multiple Robots as Actors: Bringing Robots to Rural Schools to Promote STEAM Education for Underserved Students

We have tried to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education for underserved students using interactive robots. As an advanced attempt to integrate art and design into STEM education (i.e., STEAM), in the present paper we introduce our afterschool program in which elementary students create live theatre using multiple robots as actors. We hope to receive feedback and comments on our afterschool curriculum and case study, and thus, we can run better sessions at schools and make a standardized protocol regarding this robot actors approach.
Role of non-operative management in pediatric appendicitis

Appendectomy is currently considered the standard of care for children with acute appendicitis. Although commonly performed and considered a safe procedure, appendectomy is not without complications. Non-operative management has a role in the treatment of both uncomplicated and complicated appendicitis. In uncomplicated appendicitis, initial non-operative management appears to be safe, with an approximate 1-year success rate of 75%. Compared to surgery, non-operative management is associated with less disability and lower costs, with no increase in the rate of complicated appendicitis. In patients with complicated appendicitis, initial non-operative management with interval appendectomy has been shown to be safe with reported success rates between 66% and 95%. Several studies suggest that initial non-operative management with interval appendectomy may be beneficial in patients with perforated appendicitis with a well-formed abscess or inflammatory mass. Recent data suggest that interval appendectomy may not be necessary after initial non-operative management of complicated appendicitis.
Predicting Treatment Relations with Semantic Patterns over Biomedical Knowledge Graphs

Identifying new potential treatment options say, medications and procedures for known medical conditions that cause human disease burden is a central task of biomedical research. Since all candidate drugs cannot be tested with animal and clinical trials, in vitro approaches are first attempted to identify promising candidates. Even before this step, due to recent advances, in silico or computational approaches are also being employed to identify viable treatment options. Generally, natural language processing NLP and machine learning are used to predict specific relations between any given pair of entities using the distant supervision approach. In this paper, we report preliminary results on predicting treatment relations between biomedical entities purely based on semantic patterns over biomedical knowledge graphs. As such, we refrain from explicitly using NLP, although the knowledge graphs themselves may be built from NLP extractions. Our intuition is fairly straightforward --- entities that participate in a treatment relation may be connected using similar path patterns in biomedical knowledge graphs extracted from scientific literature. Using a dataset of treatment relation instances derived from the well known Unified Medical Language System UMLS, we verify our intuition by employing graph path patterns from a well known knowledge graph as features in machine learned models. We achieve a high recall 92i¾?% but precision, however, decreases from 95i¾?% to an acceptablei¾?71i¾?% as we go from uniform class distribution to a ten fold increase in negative instances. We also demonstrate models trained with patterns of length $$\le 3$$ result in statistically significant gains in F-score over those trained with patterns of length $$\le 2$$. Our results show the potential of exploiting knowledge graphs for relation extraction and we believe this is the first effort to employ graph patterns as features for identifying biomedical relations.
Can the lipid theories of anesthesia account for the cutoff in anesthetic potency in homologous series of alcohols

The general anesthetic potency of several members of the homologous series of saturated and unsaturated aliphatic alcohols (Cn:0 and Cn:1) was determined in tadpoles, using the loss of righting reflex as the criterion of anesthesia. In the Cn:0 series, anesthetic potency increased with chain length and was maximal for dodecanol (ED50 5.4 x 10-6 M). The cutoff in potency was between n = 12 and n = 14 such that n-tridecanol was a partial anesthetic, whereas n-tetradecanol and higher alcohols were totally inactive. However, for the unsaturated alcohols, the anesthetic cutoff point was shifted to a longer chain length, i.e., the Δ9-tetradecenols are full anesthetics whereas the Δ9-hexadecenols are partial anesthetics. In each case the cis- and trans-isomers were equipotent. In the Cn:0 series in egg lecithin (EPC)-cholesterol (2:1) vesicles spin-labeled with 5-doxyl palmitic acid, the increase in membrane disorder at a fixed alcohol to lipid ratio attenuated progressively, being zero at n = 20. This slow decline in disordering ability is not completely consistent with the sharp loss of potency at the cutoff, which is better explained by the limited membrane solubility of the higher alkanols. All of the unsaturated alcohols were more effective disorderers than their saturated analogues when compared at the same membrane concentration. The cis- and trans-isomers disordered EPC-cholesterol (1:1) bilayers approximately equally in accord with their equal anesthetic potencies; however, at low proportions of cholesterol to phospholipid, cis-isomers disordered more than trans-isomers. The alternative lipid model based on the lateral-phase separations in mixed DML-DPL bilayers was not supported by data for the cis- and trans-tetradecenols. Thus, 20 mole per cent in the lipid of the cis-isomer lowered the midpoint temperature of the two-phase region, whereas the trans-isomer raised this temperature.
Treatment of MDR urinary tract infections with oral fosfomycin: a retrospective analysis

Objectives Limited options for treating MDR organisms have led clinicians to turn to older antimicrobial agents that may display activity against such infections. One such agent is fosfomycin, an oral drug with activity against a variety of Gram-positive and -negative bacteria, but only approved for use in the USA for urinary tract infection (UTI) due to Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of fosfomycin treatment of MDR UTI and identify predictors of outcome. Patients and methods A retrospective review was performed of patients treated for MDR UTI at a large quaternary medical centre between 1 January 2010 and 30 September 2014. Sixty patients received 69 courses of fosfomycin in the inpatient or outpatient setting for UTIs due to Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa or VRE. Results In the 58 patients for whom follow-up data were available, the treatment success rate (no persistent or recurrent infection) was 55%. Chronic kidney disease was associated with persistent infection (OR = 3.56, 95% CI = 1.02-12.40, P = 0.04). No other factors, including comorbidities, infecting organism, fosfomycin MIC or number of doses of fosfomycin received, were associated with recurrent infection or treatment failure. Conclusions This study supports the use of fosfomycin as an oral option for treating MDR UTIs. Additional studies are required to assess the optimal dosing and utility of combination therapy to decrease the incidence of treatment failure.
Intracranial mesenchymal chondrosarcoma

A patient with an intracranial mesenchymal chondrosarcoma that simulated an arteriovenous malformation angiographically is described. The tumor was removed radically with a fatal outcome due to progressive, hemorrhagic swelling of the brain. The factors that could have been responsible for this outcome are analyzed. Other reported cases of intracranial mesenchymal chondrosarcomas are summarized and three additional cases from our institution are added. Salient pathological and clinical features of these tumors are discussed.
Col1a1+ perivascular cells in the brain are a source of retinoic acid following stroke.

Background Perivascular stromal cells (PSCs) are a recently identified cell type that comprises a small percentage of the platelet derived growth factor receptor-β+ cells within the CNS perivascular space. PSCs are activated following injury to the brain or spinal cord, expand in number and contribute to fibrotic scar formation within the injury site. Beyond fibrosis, their high density in the lesion core makes them a potential significant source of signals that act on neural cells adjacent to the lesion site.
Joseph J. Schwab: His Work and His Legacy

This chapter highlights the contributions of Joseph J. Schwab to the field of science education through a discussion of some of his most important published work. Schwab began his career on the faculty of the undergraduate college at the University of Chicago in the 1930s at a time when the college was engaged in a radical experiment in general education. Schwab believed that the undergraduate experience should develop an appreciation in students for the modes of thought used in scientific investigation through critical reading of original scientific papers and Socratic discourse with the goal of preparing them for a lifetime of learning and informed decision making. He later brought the lessons learned at Chicago to the 1960s era reform of school science.
Reporter-Expressing, Replicating-Competent Recombinant Arenaviruses

Several arenaviruses cause hemorrhagic fever (HF) disease in humans and pose an important public health problem in their endemic regions. To date, no Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-licensed vaccines are available to combat human arenavirus infections, and current anti-arenaviral drug therapy is limited to an off-label use of ribavirin that is only partially effective. The development of arenavirus reverse genetic approaches has provided investigators with a novel and powerful approach for the study of arenavirus biology including virus-host interactions underlying arenavirus induced disease. The use of cell-based minigenome systems has allowed examining the cis- and trans-acting factors involved in arenavirus replication and transcription, as well as particle assembly and budding. Likewise, it is now feasible to rescue infectious arenaviruses containing predetermined mutations in their genomes to investigate virus-host interactions and mechanisms of pathogenesis. The use of reverse genetics approaches has also allowed the generation of recombinant arenaviruses expressing additional genes of interest. These advances in arenavirus molecular genetics have also facilitated the implementation of novel screens to identify anti-arenaviral drugs, and the development of novel strategies for the generation of arenavirus live-attenuated vaccines. In this review, we will summarize the current knowledge on reporter-expressing, replicating-competent arenaviruses harboring reporter genes in different locations of the viral genome and their use for studying and understanding arenavirus biology and the identification of anti-arenaviral drugs to combat these important human pathogens.
Nutrition Support Protocols: Enhancing Delivery of Enteral Nutrition

In critical care, malnutrition has a significant, negative impact on a patient's ability to respond to medical treatment. Enteral nutrition is known to counteract the metabolic changes associated with critical illness that increase the risk for serious complications and poor clinical outcomes. Inadequate delivery of nutrition support and underfeeding persist in intensive care units despite the availability of guidelines and current research for best practice. Recent studies have shown that nutrition support protocols are effective in promoting nutritional goals in a wide variety of intensive care patients. It is essential to find approaches that enhance early delivery of enteral nutrition that meets requirements and supports improved outcomes. Nurses are in a unique position to take an active role in promoting the best nutritional outcomes for their patients by using and evaluating nutrition support protocols.
Animal Agriculture: Livestock, Poultry, and Fish Aquaculture

Summary Global production of some major animal products (pork and eggs) has increased, respectively, by 60.5 and 87.6% between 1991 and 2013; about twice the rate of human population growth over the same time period (32.8%). Chicken meat production has increased by 157.6%; over fivefold that of the human population. There have been large changes in how agriculture is practiced particularly in Western countries. In the USA, the number of people employed in production agriculture fell from over 40% in 1900 to less than 2% in 2000. Livestock and poultry production rely on the efficiencies of digestion and of muscle synthesis together with the rapid growth and high fecundity. The key factors in the increasing total and the efficiency of animal agriculture are knowledge of scientific principles including genetics, nutrition, and disease control, and their application. In addition, ruminants can utilize feeds, including cellulose and nonprotein nitrogen, that are not digestible by people, and can use rangelands not suitable for raising crops. Globally, the top three species for meat production are the following: (1) pigs, (2) chickens, and (3) cattle. Production of and demand for milk are similarly increasing. Milk is produced predominantly by dairy cows but with water buffalo also being an important producer particularly on the Indian subcontinent. Production systems are becoming increasingly coordinated. There are major increases in the production of organic animal products in Western countries based on their eating qualities (their taste) together with their perceived lower impact on the environment and improved nutritional quality. Aquaculture of finfish and shellfish is growing with a 23.5% increase in marine aquaculture between 2007 and 2012. Also discussed are the differences between intensive and extensive production systems and animal welfare considerations.
Omega-3 Hastens and Omega-6 Delays the Progression of Neuropathology in a Murine Model of Familial ALS

Background Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive disease of motor neurons that has no cure or effective treatment. Any approach that could sustain minor motor function during terminal stages would improve quality of life. Objective We examined the impact of omega-3 (Ω-3) and Ω-6, on motor neuron function in mice expressing mutant human superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD-1), which dominantly confers familial ALS and induces a similar sequence of motor neuron decline and eventual death when expressed in mice. Method Mice received standard diets supplemented with equivalent amounts of Ω-3 and Ω-6 or a 10x increase in Ω-6 with no change in Ω-3 commencing at 4 weeks of age. Motor function and biochemical/histological parameters were assayed by standard methodologies. Results Supplementation with equivalent Ω-3 and Ω-6 hastened motor neuron pathology and death, while 10x Ω-6 with no change in Ω-3 significantly delayed motor neuron pathology, including preservation of minor motor neuron function during the terminal stage. Conclusion In the absence of a cure or treatment, affected individuals may resort to popular nutritional supplements such as Ω-3 as a form of "self-medication". However, our findings and those of other laboratories indicate that such an approach could be harmful. Our findings suggest that a critical balance of Ω-6 and Ω-3 may temporarily preserve motor neuron function during the terminal stages of ALS, which could provide a substantial improvement in quality of life for affected individuals and their caregivers.
Safe economic model predictive control of nonlinear systems

Abstract This work focuses on the design of a new class of economic model predictive control (EMPC) systems for nonlinear systems that address simultaneously the tasks of economic optimality, safety and closed-loop stability. This is accomplished by incorporating in the EMPC an economics-based cost function and Control Lyapunov-Barrier Function (CLBF)-based constraints that ensure that the closed-loop state does not enter unsafe sets and remains within a well-characterized set in the system state-space. The new class of CLBF-EMPC systems is demonstrated using a nonlinear chemical process example.
Multi-scale pedestrian detection using skip pooling and recurrent convolution

Detecting pedestrians of different scales is essential for applications like autonomous driving. Recent research progress showed that combining multiple feature maps and contextual information helps detecting objects of different scales. In this paper, we propose a multi-scale pedestrian detector that combines skip pooling from multi-resolution feature maps and recurrent convolutional layers for extracting contextual information. To fully exploit the unique characteristics of the features at different levels for multi-scale pedestrian detection, the multi-scale features and the context features are fused at the fully connected layer. To gather spatial contextual information, we propose a modified recurrent convolutional layer that produces context feature maps with different resolutions. In addition, we construct a set of scale-dependent classification and bounding box regression subnetworks to further improve the performance of multi-scale pedestrian detection. Experiments on Caltech and KITTI pedestrian detection benchmark datasets show that the proposed method achieves the state-of-the-art performance with faster speed.
Intermittent catheterization in the treatment of acute purulent urethritis: case report.

AbstractAcute purulent urethritis is a complication associated with an indwelling Foley catheter in male patients. A refractory purulent urethral discharge, fever and the sequelae of urethral stricture, periurethral abscess and epididymitis are familiar problems to the urologist. The usual therapy is removal of the catheter, antibiosis and provision for another type of vesical drainage. Our recent successful experience using clean intermittent catheterization to treat an acute urethritis is presented.
Role of oxygen functional groups for improved performance of graphene-silicone composites as a thermal interface material

Abstract We report the findings of our experimental investigation on the performance of reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/silicone composite as a thermal interface material (TIM) influenced by the loading factor, surface functionality, and structural properties of graphene. The experimental data reveals that in addition to the loading factor, the thermal conductance of TIMs is greatly impacted by the density of oxygen-functionality (phenolic group) in rGO, and the morphological and structural properties introduced during the thermal reduction (deoxygenation) of graphene oxide to rGO. In particular, the phenolic groups prominently formed on the basal plane of rGO play a significant role in decreasing the interfacial thermal resistance. The results also show that the larger sp2 graphitic structures and the morphological properties of rGO increase the degree of dispersion in the matrix. A dynamic interplay between these factors determines the final value of the thermal conductance observed for different composites. An optimum combination of these factors led to the maximum thermal conductance (541 W/m2K) for the T-rGO600 (thermally-reduced graphene oxide processed at 600 °C)/silicone composite. The proposed underlying physics backed by the experimental data should be useful in designing high thermal performance TIMs with carbonaceous nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes, graphene nanoplatelets, and carbon blacks acting as additives.
Economic Vulnerability Among US Female Health Care Workers: Potential Impact of a $15-per-Hour Minimum Wage

Objectives. To investigate racial/ethnic and gender inequities in the compensation and benefits of US health care workers and assess the potential impact of a $15-per-hour minimum wage on their eco...
Data-driven Finite-horizon Optimal Control for Linear Time-varying Discrete-time Systems

This paper presents a data-driven method to obtain an approximate solution of the finite-horizon optimal control problem for linear time-varying discrete-time systems. Firstly, a finite-horizon Policy Iteration method for linear time-varying discrete-time systems is proposed. Then, a data-driven off-policy Policy Iteration algorithm is derived to find approximate optimal controllers when the system dynamics is unknown. Under mild conditions, the proposed data-driven off-policy algorithm converges to the optimal solution. Finally, the effectiveness of the derived method is validated by a numerical example.
Physical Activity Patterns and Multimorbidity Burden of Older Adults with Different Levels of Functional Status: NHANES 2003-2006

Abstract Background Physical function and physical activity decrease with age, but differences in physical activity patterns within different physical functioning groups are unknown. Objectives To describe physical activity patterns and multimorbidity burden by physical function group and age. Methods Actigraph accelerometer-derived physical activity patterns were compared by physical function (high functioning, activity limitations, activity of daily living disabled) determined by questionnaire and age among 2174 older adults (mean age = 70.9, sd = 0.2 years) from the cross-sectional 2003–2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Associations between physical function, physical activity, and multimorbidity were examined. Results Reduced physical function and increased age were associated with lower physical activity, increased sedentary time and a compressed activity profile. During the most active hour of the day (11:00 a.m.), the oldest, lowest physical functioning group was 82% less active than the youngest, highest physical functioning group. High functioning had over 30% more total activity counts, over 56% more time in moderate-to-vigorous activity, about 8% less time sedentary and took approximately one more sedentary break/hour than lower physical functioning groups. Gender differences in physical activity variables were prevalent for high functioning, but limited within reduced physical functioning groups. Physical function, age, total activity counts/day, and breaks in sedentary time/day were independently associated with multimorbidity (p Conclusions Reduced physical function and increased age are associated with physical activity levels, and all three are associated with multimorbidity. Understanding physical activity differences by physical function is important for designing interventions for older individuals at increased risk for mobility disability.
Causally Modeling Adaptation to the Environment

Brandon claims that to explain adaptation one must specify fitnesses in each selective environment and specify the distribution of individuals across selective environments. Glymour claims, using an example of the adaptive evolution of costly plasticity in a symmetric environment, that there are some predictive or explanatory tasks for which Brandon’s claim is limited. In this paper, I provide necessary conditions for carrying out Brandon’s task, produce a new version of the argument for his claim, and show that Glymour’s reasons for making his claim are problematic. I provide a few interpretations of Glymour’s argument but ultimately raise worries for what I take to be the key premises.
Evaluating the contribution of cell-type specific alternative splicing to variation in lipid levels

Abstract Background Genome-wide association studies have identified 150+ loci associated with lipid levels. However, the genetic mechanisms underlying most of these loci are not well-understood. Recent work indicates that changes in the abundance of alternatively spliced transcripts contributes to complex trait variation. Consequently, identifying genetic loci that associate with alternative splicing in disease-relevant cell types and determining the degree to which these loci are informative for lipid biology is of broad interest. Methods and Results We analyze gene splicing in 83 sample-matched induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) and hepatocyte-like cell (HLC) lines (n=166), as well as in an independent collection of primary liver tissues (n=96). We observe that transcript splicing is highly cell-type specific, and the genes that are differentially spliced between iPSCs and HLCs are enriched for metabolism pathway annotations. We identify 1,381 HLC splicing quantitative trait loci (sQTLs) and 1,462 iPSC sQTLs and find that sQTLs are often shared across cell types. To evaluate the contribution of sQTLs to variation in lipid levels, we conduct colocalization analysis using lipid genome-wide association data. We identify 19 lipid-associated loci that colocalize either with an HLC expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) or sQTL. Only one locus colocalizes with both an sQTL and eQTL, indicating that sQTLs contribute information about GWAS loci that cannot be obtained by analysis of steady-state gene expression alone. Conclusions These results provide an important foundation for future efforts that use iPSC and iPSC-derived cells to evaluate genetic mechanisms influencing both cardiovascular disease risk and complex traits in general.
A practical look at target detection using MIMO radar

The conditions for orthogonality in Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radar enable a virtual array gain beneficial to beamforming on receive. However, this condition imposes a constraint on transmit beamforming for various reasons. As a result, a performance loss can be expected when compared to a traditional monostatic phased array. With this in mind, we analyze the complex scattering coefficients for a scenario in which MIMO radar beamforming is used to illuminate an arbitrary target obfuscated by different line-of-sight obstructions such as foliage and/or buildings. Using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) modeling, our simulations will grow the understanding of how plausible MIMO radar is for detecting targets in challenging environments.
Exploring students’ descriptions of mutation from a cognitive perspective suggests how to modify instructional approaches

Prior studies have shown that students have difficulty understanding the role of mutation in evolution and genetics. However, little is known about unifying themes underlying students' difficulty with mutation. In this study, we examined students' written explanations about mutation from a cognitive science perspective. According to one cognitive perspective, scientific phenomena can be perceived as entities or processes, and the miscategorization of processes as entities can lead to noncanonical ideas about scientific phenomena that are difficult to change. Students' incorrect categorization of processes as entities is well documented in physics but has not been studied in biology. Unlike other scientific phenomena that have been studied, the word "mutation" refers to both the process causing a change in the DNA and the entity, the altered DNA, making mutation a relevant concept for exploration and extension of this theory. In this study, we show that, even after instruction on mutation, the majority of students provided entity-focused descriptions of mutation in response to a question that prompted for a process-focused description in a lizard or a bacterial population. Students' noncanonical ideas about mutation occurred in both entity- and process-focused descriptions. Implications for conceptual understanding and instruction are discussed.
Polymerase Chain Reaction

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a basic molecular technique used for amplifying target sequences from a DNA template in an exponential manner. This is accomplished by using thermal cycling, a process in which a solution that includes DNA is repeatedly heated and cooled in order to (1) melt the DNA, (2) anneal short DNA fragments called primers (typically artificially designed oligonucleotides) to the complementary DNA target, and (3) enzymatically replicate the primer-bound sequences using temperature-dependent DNA polymerases such as Taq polymerase. PCR has a wide variety of applications and is considered a staple of a geneticist’s toolkit.
Sleep problems worsen health-related quality of life and participation during the first 12 months of stroke rehabilitation.

Objective:Evaluate the impact of self-reported sleep problems on post-stroke recovery.Design:Cross-sectional secondary analysis of longitudinal data from the Locomotor Experience Applied Post-Strok...
Medicare Reimbursement to Physicians Decreased for Common Emergency Medicine Services From 2000 to 2020.

Study objective The change in reimbursement rates for emergency physician services has yet to be quantified. We attempted to fill this knowledge gap by evaluating the monetary trends in Medicare reimbursement rates over the last 20 years for the most common emergency medicine services. Methods We obtained commonly used Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes in emergency medicine from the American College of Emergency Physicians website. We queried the Physician Fee Schedule Look-Up Tool from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for each of the included CPT codes, and we extracted reimbursement data. We adjusted all monetary data for inflation to 2020 US dollars by using changes to the United States consumer price index. Both the average annual and the total percentage change in reimbursement were calculated on the basis of these adjusted trends for all included services. Results Reimbursement by Medicare for the services decreased by an average of 29.13% from 2000 to 2020 after adjusting for inflation. There was a stable decline in adjusted reimbursement rates throughout the study period, with an average decrease of 1.61% each year. The largest decrease was seen for laceration repairs up to 7.5 cm, with reimbursement rates for all 4 relevant CPT codes decreasing by more than 60%. Conclusion When adjusted for inflation, Medicare reimbursement declined by an average of 29% over the last 20 years for the 20 most common emergency medicine services. Knowledge of these trends is essential to address current controversies in emergency medicine billing adequately and advocate for sustainable payment system reform.
Nanoscale imaging of Gilbert damping using signal amplitude mapping

Ferromagnetic resonance force microscopy (FMRFM) is a powerful scanned probe technique that uses sub-micrometer-scale, spatially localized standing spin wave modes (LMs) to perform local ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements. Here, we show the spatially resolved imaging of Gilbert damping in a ferromagnetic material (FM) using FMRFM. Typically damping is measured from the FMR linewidth. We demonstrate an approach to image the spatial variation of Gilbert damping utilizing the LM resonance peak height to measure the LM resonance cone angle. This approach enables determination of damping through field-swept FMRFM at a single excitation frequency. The extreme force sensitivity of ∼2 fN at room temperature can resolve changes of Gilbert damping as small as ∼ 2 × 10 − 4 at 2 GHz, corresponding to ∼0.16 Oe in FMR linewidth resolution. This high sensitivity, high spatial resolution, and single frequency imaging of Gilbert damping creates the opportunity to study spin interactions at the interface between an insulating FM and a small volume of nonmagnetic material such as atomically thin two-dimensional materials.
The Effect of Mexican Workforce Migration on the Mexican Maquiladora Labor Market

A great deal has been written about the effects of foreign migration on the wages of U.S. workers. However, little is known about the effects of Mexican interstate immigration (i.e., internal Mexican migration) and international return migration of labor and foreign capital on wages and employment in the maquiladora industry in Mexico. We examine these issues by first computing cost and demand functions for Mexican skilled and unskilled labor in the Textile maquiladora industry in 20 Mexican states and the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco industry in 10 Mexican states for 1998-2001. In both industries we find that the demand for skilled workers is more elastic than that for unskilled workers and that foreign direct investment is beneficial for skilled workers, increasing their demand and relative wage. Separately, using the 2000 Mexican Census, we estimate the effect of migration on the equilibrium wage and employment of each labor type in the manufacturing industry labor market. We find that interstate immigration and international return migration have a positive effect on wages. A combination of these two models allows calculation of the effects of labor and capital migration on the demand for each factor and changes in factor wage and employment shares. We find that wages and employment in the maquiladora industry have remained relatively constant due to substantial migrant inflows in all but one Mexican state, where substantial reductions in the wage of unskilled labor and the quantity of skilled labor have occurred.
How Colleges Can Meet the Crisis of Increased Enrollment

(1957). How Colleges Can Meet the Crisis of Increased Enrollment. Journal of Health, Physical Education, Recreation: Vol. 28, No. 7, pp. 23-24.
Impact of resolution modeling on detectability: Analysis in terms of noise-equivalent quanta

2119 Objectives To quantitatively compare trade-offs posed by resolution modeling (RM) including analysis of lesion or defect detectability in terms of the modulation transfer function (MTF), noise power spectrum (NPS) and noise equivalent quanta (NEQ). Methods RM methods model resolution-degrading effects within the reconstruction system matrix. Detectability as characterized using inter-class signal-to-noise (SNR; used to estimate area under ROC curve) can be shown to depend on the lesion or defect (O(f) in the Fourier space) and the NEQ spectrum: SNR^2=integ_{f}O(f)NEQ(f)df. Denoting the point response function in the Fourier domain as H(f), i.e. MTF(f)=H(f)/H(0), then NEQ(f)=(H(0)MTF(f))^2/NPS(f) where NPS is Fourier transform of the noise covariance (which we quantify using analytic noise propagation calculations). We characterized the impact of RM on both MTF and NPS, and NEQ and detectability. We simulated Rb-82 myocardial perfusion (with varying transmural defect levels) including effects of positron range, photon noncollinearity, intercrystal penetration & scattering. We performed conventional trade-off analysis (resolution vs. noise as defined spatially (roughness) or across noise realizations (ensemble)), as well as proposed MTF, NPS and NEQ analysis. We also performed numerical channelized Hotelling observer (CHO) studies. Results Accurate RM can enhance MTF values at low-to-mid frequencies (0-0.2 cycles/voxel) by up to 60%. However, RM also increases inter-voxel correlations, leading to increased NPS values at low-to-mid frequencies (0-0.2 cycles/voxel) by up to 100% though reducing NPS values at higher frequencies. The net result is that NEQ can be degraded at low-to-high-frequencies due to RM, explaining limited improvements in detectability, as also verified using our CHO studies. Conclusions RM can be more comprehensively analyzed in terms of MTF, NPS and NEQ, explaining why conventional simplistic trade-off curves do not provide a complete picture of the impact of RM and can in fact overestimate its detectability performance.
The gendered trickle-down effect: How mid-level managers’ satisfaction with senior managers’ supervision affects line employee’s turnover intentions

Purpose – Voluntary employee turnover can be a challenge for all industries but high employee turnover has been a special concern in the hospitality industry, which is the context of this paper. The purpose of this paper is to incorporate a “trickle-down” perspective into the conventional research on turnover intention and satisfaction with supervision. The authors assess whether mid-level managers’ satisfaction with senior managers’ supervision is related positively to line employees’ satisfaction with mid-level managers’ supervision and, in turn, line employees’ turnover intentions. Further, the authors examine whether the strength of this “trickle-down” effect is affected by the middle managers’ gender. Design/methodology/approach – The authors tested our theoretical argument using a sample of 1,527 full-time employees in 267 different departments at 94 hotels in the USA and Canada. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to analyze the data. Findings – The authors found a trickle-down effect of sati...
The Information Content of Put Warrant Issues

We show that put warrant issues can be used to signal a firm's superior prospects to a market that is not aware of them. One benefit of using put warrants to signal, particularly for growth firms, is that a firm receives cash when sending the signal, instead of paying out cash. We establish conditions under which put warrants are issued in a separating equilibrium. We then test our theory using a new data set on put warrant issues. The data support our model: put warrant issuers strongly outperform their peers in the years after the put warrant issues.
Spatial Orientation in Real and Virtual Worlds

Virtual environments promise an almost limitless vista of expansion for human capabilities. They are being touted as the interface of the future and have begun to generate an expectation of a revolution in human-computer interaction greater than any seen to date. Like much hyperbole that cascades around innovative technology, little is based in knowledge while much is based on expectation or sheer speculation. In previous work, we have examined some of the basic human factors questions about usability. Here we specifically examine the ability to reproduce a complex spatial layout of objects having experienced them under a variety of viewing conditions. Subjects learned the spatial layout of nine common objects arranged on a flat plane. Viewing conditions consisted of free binocular virtual, free binocular real, and monocular real. The first two allowed active exploration of the environment while the latter condition allowed only a single viewpoint. The dependent variables were mapping accuracy and triadic...