cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Observation of a discrete time crystal

Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a fundamental concept in many areas of physics, including cosmology, particle physics and condensed matter. An example is the breaking of spatial translational symmetry, which underlies the formation of crystals and the phase transition from liquid to solid. Using the analogy of crystals in space, the breaking of translational symmetry in time and the emergence of a 'time crystal' was recently proposed, but was later shown to be forbidden in thermal equilibrium. However, non-equilibrium Floquet systems, which are subject to a periodic drive, can exhibit persistent time correlations at an emergent subharmonic frequency. This new phase of matter has been dubbed a 'discrete time crystal'. Here we present the experimental observation of a discrete time crystal, in an interacting spin chain of trapped atomic ions. We apply a periodic Hamiltonian to the system under many-body localization conditions, and observe a subharmonic temporal response that is robust to external perturbations. The observation of such a time crystal opens the door to the study of systems with long-range spatio-temporal correlations and novel phases of matter that emerge under intrinsically non-equilibrium conditions.
Addiction and Stress in Adolescents

Publisher Summary Adolescence is a period characterized by significant developmental changes spanning multiple domains of functioning: biological, cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial. In addition to stress inherently associated with adolescent development, external stressors (for example, family conflicts, health problems, financial stress) also contribute to the stress load during these years. This chapter summarizes the unique biological, cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial developmental transitions occurring throughout these years. It then discusses assessment and evaluation of prevalent stressors during this developmental period and the interplay of stress and alcohol and drug use behaviors of youth. Adolescent-specific stressors, gender considerations, and consequences of life stress for substance involvement and later development are presented. It highlights empirical findings that clarify the bidirectional relations of stress and the initiation, progression, and escalation of substance use in youth. Risk and protective factors, moderating influences, and cumulative developmental consequences are considered in this chapter.
Moving in a crowd: safe and efficient navigation among heterogeneous agents

Multi-agent navigation methods typically assume that all agents use the same underlying framework to navigate to their goal while avoiding colliding with each other. However, such assumption does not hold when agents do not know how other agents will move. We address this issue by proposing a Bayesian inference approach where an agent estimates the navigation model and goal of each neighbor, and uses this to compute a plan that minimizes collisions while driving it to its goal. Simulation experiments performed in many scenarios demonstrate that an agent using our approach computes safer and more time-efficient paths as compared to those generated without our inference approach and a state-of-the-art local navigation framework.
G-CSF and GM-CSF Have Opposite Effects on the Growth and Survival of Cells Containing Abnormal RUNX1.

Abstract Primary leukemia cells can respond very differently to cytokines such as G-CSF and GM-CSF, demonstrating marked increases in colony-forming ability to one but not the other (Park et al, Blood 1989; 74: 56–65). To examine if such differences might correlate with underlying molecular abnormalities, we examined the growth and survival response of hematopoietic cells containing abnormal RUNX1 variants (a frequent occurrence in leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome) to treatment with G-CSF and GM-CSF. In the RUNX1-ETO containing cell-line Kasumi-1, GM-CSF decreased colony forming ability whereas G-CSF preserved or increased it. The 32Dcl3 murine myelomonocytic cell-line terminally differentiates in response to G-CSF or mGM-CSF. We transduced 32Dcl3 with RUNX1-ETO or Empty Vector: G-CSF promoted the growth and survival of 32D RUNX1-ETO but caused 32D Empty Vector to terminally differentiate and die. In contrast, 32D RUNX1-ETO cultured in mGM-CSF demonstrated accelerated terminal differentiation and death compared to 32D Empty Vector. Many of the RUNX1 variants seen in leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, including RUNX1-ETO, lack the RUNX1 C-terminal transcription regulating domain (TRD). In human CD34+ hematopoietic cells transduced with RUNX1 with TRD deleted (CD34 RUNX1noTRD), colony forming ability was retained even after >40 days of culture in IMDM 10% FBS, SCF 10ng/ml, IL-3 30ng/ml, G-CSF 100ng/ml (CD34 Empty Vector lost colony forming ability after 14 days). However, culture in media supplemented with 100ng/ml GM-CSF instead of G-CSF significantly impaired colony forming ability of CD34 RUNX1noTRD compared to CD34 Empty Vector. In conclusion, RUNX1 variants seen in acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome promote growth and survival in G-CSF but accelerate differentiation and death in response to GM-CSF. The molecular basis for this effect appears to relate to the presence or absence of the RUNX1 C-terminal transcription regulating domain. These findings may have clinical relevance.
Alzheimer's Disease: Biomarkers in the Genome, Blood, and Cerebrospinal Fluid.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, resulting in behavioral changes. It is estimated that nearly 36 million are affected globally with numbers reaching 115 million by 2050. AD can only be definitively diagnosed at autopsy since its manifestations of senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) throughout the brain cannot yet be fully captured with current imaging technologies. Current AD therapeutics have also been suboptimal. Besides identifying markers that distinguish AD from controls, there has been a recent drive to identify better biomarkers that can predict the rates of cognitive decline and neocortical amyloid burden in those who exhibit preclinical, prodromal or clinical AD. This review covers biomarkers of three main types: genes, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) derived, and blood derived biomarkers. Looking ahead, cutting-edge OMICs technologies, including proteomics and metabolomics, ought to be fully tapped in order to mine even better biomarkers for AD that are more predictive.
Case Study of a Hybrid Optoelectronic Limiting Receiver

The systematic design analysis of a hybrid optoelectronic limiting receiver is presented. The limiting receiver was designed in the IBM 130-nm CMOS process and side-by-side wire bonded to a commercial high-speed InGaAs/InP PIN photodiode. The CMOS die and the optical die were chip-on-board (COB) mounted on the Printed Circuit Board. Partition between small signal in the linear region and large-signal in the limiting region is emphasized. The signal edges can get sharpened in the limiting region although the front-end circuit is bandwidth-limited. When tested with a PRBS-31 pattern, the prototype achieved a bit-error rate of $10^{-12}$ at the sensitivity level of −3.2-dBm Mach-Zehnder Modulator optical modulation amplitude at 4 Gb/s. Conclusions derived from this paper can provide insights to guide other optical limiting receiver design and testing at higher speeds.
Broadband policy: Beyond privatization, competition and independent regulation

During the last 25 years, telecommunication has moved away from government-owned or regulated monopolies toward privatization with competition and oversight by independent regulatory agencies – PCR policies. We present data indicating that PCR has had little impact on the Internet during the last ten years in developed or developing nations, and discuss the reasons for this. We then describe several ways government can go beyond PCR, while balancing needs for next generation technology, decentralized infrastructure ownership, and immediate economic stimulus. We conclude that there is a need for alternatives to the expedient action of subsidizing the current Internet service providers with their demonstrated anti-competitive bent. The decisions we make today will shape telecommunication infrastructure and the industry for decades.
Linking Theory to Practice

In order to relate the theory and the real world organizational data, we conduct two detailed case studies. Though we only present two organizational cases in an attempt to show how this computational framework can help, the merit of the computational framework should not be limited to addressing only this type of problems. One case is the Vincennes incident (U.S. Congress, 1988; Rochlin, 1991), the other one is the Hinsdale incident (Pauchant et al., 1990). We choose these two cases because for them we have very rich data on the factors that we am interested in, and because they have been analyzed from an organizational perspective by other people. Further, they are both cases involving radar detection and so closely match the theoretical task in the book. From the detailed analysis of those two cases, we will be able to look deep into the real world organizations and see how these organizations actually made decisions under stress. This will enable us to test how well such decision making performance can be predicted by the computational framework, given these specific conditions.
Contemporary Philosophy and the Problem of Truth

An outside observer looking at the contemporary scene in philosophy may very well be excused if his or her first impression is of people talking past each other. Philosophers belonging to the different analytic traditions are easily perceived of as wasting their ingenuity and stringency on small technical problems which have no larger human significance while hermeneutical and deconstructivist thinkers are often thought of as trafficking in vague generalities expressed in a pompous jargon whose purpose is to obscure ideas rather than to clarify them. Or else it might seem that we are witnessing an “end of philosophy” which in practice seems to mean a deterioration of philosophy into clever dialogue for clever dialogue’s sake.
A model for Kolbe electrolysis in a parallel plate reactor

A parallel-plate reactor model is developed for the Kolbe electrolysis of acetate to ethane and carbon dioxide with hydrogen evolution as the counterelectrode reaction. The parallel-plate reactor is considered to consist of three zones: a turbulent bulk region in which streamwise convection is the dominant mass-transport mechanism (plug-flow model) and a thin diffusion layer at each electrode where diffusion and migration mass transport are dominant (Nernst diffusion-layer model). The acetic acid solution is supported with sodium hydroxide, and the reactor is under steady cell-potential control. Gaseous products are tracked by a hypothetical gas layer which increases in thickness in the streamwise direction. The gas phase is assumed to be an ideal, three-component mixture of hydrogen, carbon dioxide and ethane; the liquid phase consists of acetate, proton, acetic acid, and sodium and hydroxyl ions. The model predicts streamwise profiles of concentration, current density, gas-void fraction, and gas and liquid velocities in addition to reactant conversion, and cell-polarization characteristics. The average current density exhibits a maximum at a base-to-acid ratio of 0.96 due to the weak-acid/strong-base chemistry and a broad maximum at an interelectrode spacing of 0.37 cm resulting from minimized ohmic losses.
Neutron Induced Charged Particle Reactions on 23Na

High resolution measurements of neutron induced charged particle reactions on 23Na have been performed. A NaI(T1) detector served as both target and detector, with pulse shape discrimination being applied for the separation of protons and alpha-particles from each other and from events involving gamma-ray detection. The neutron energy was measured by time-of-flight, using an 80 m flight path at the Los Alamos National Laboratory WNR facility.
How Did the Statewide Assessment and Accountibility Policies of the 1990s Affect Instructional Quality in Elementary Schools

How Did the Statewide Assessment and Accountability Policies of the 1990s Affect Instructional Quality in Elementary Schools? Meredith Phillips Jennifer Flashman CCPR-017-07 March 2007 California Center for Population Research On-Line Working Paper Series
Tribal Enslavement of Women: Women’s Bodies as a Battleground

The terrorist battle is not about territory; it is about culture and who controls culture. The threat felt by al-Qaeda, ISIL, the Taliban, and even Saudi Arabia from the West and Western influence is centrally about protecting the superior status of men and their control of women. Humans’ strongest behavioral genetic build is to protect the family as it is structured in that society. Family is more fundamental than territory, and for men their ability to “protect” their women and children, and their “way of life” is intimately linked and even hard-wired to honor. Just as White men have reacted in the West to their sense of threat of their loss of status and power, tenfold has been the reaction of men in the Middle East, parts of Africa and Asia to the threat of what they see as a complete reversal of what they perceive as right, holy, and their duty to protect and preserve, and in fact control. Terrorism is a global battle for “way of life.”
Business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and brand attitudes: An exploratory study

Abstract It is important to understand the relative importance of business ethics and social responsibility in determining brand attitudes. However, there has been a failure in prior research to differentiate between attitudes toward business ethics and CSR. This research reviews customer-brand research related to business ethics and social responsibility and conducts a study to evaluate customer attitudes. Four scenarios offer variations in company behaviors related to positive and negative conduct of customer social responsibility and business ethics. Study findings from a panel of 351 respondents provide new insights related to a customer's expectations and perceptions of company CSR and business ethics behavior. We conclude that although CSR attitudes remain important, customers value business ethics as a critical behavior in their perceptions of brand attitudes.
Population Genomics of Domestication and Breed Development in Canines in the Context of Cognitive, Social, Behavioral, and Disease Traits

Dogs are unique because they are known to be the first species domesticated by humans, have the greatest morphological variation among terrestrial mammals, and exhibit unique bonds with humans. Yet, until very recently, the history of domestication and the associated consequences of this artificial selection have been a matter of speculation. Domesticated dogs are the ideal organism to study population genomics of domestication and the impact artificial selection has had on cognitive, social, behavioral, and disease traits. Because dogs have been associated with humans for tens of thousands of years, they are uniquely suited to investigate the genetic basis of selection for dietary adaptation during the agricultural revolution. Through a variety of large-scale genomics approaches, the history and consequences of dog domestication are no longer a matter of speculation. This chapter delves into the ancient origins of human-canine interactions and follows the domestication of wolves into dogs with a particular focus on (a) the selection of phenotypes underlying the strong bond between humans and their companion dogs, (b) the morphological variation underlying dog breeds, and (c) the genetic basis of canine diseases. The historical picture that is beginning to emerge provides a genomics framework for understanding why and how the dog became “our best friend.”
What Do We Know About Algorithmic Tacit Collusion

The past few years have seen many legal scholars and antitrust agencies expressing interest in and concerns with algorithmic collusion. In this paper, I survey and draw lessons from the literature on Artificial Intelligence and on the economics of algorithmic tacit collusion. I show that a good understanding of this literature is a crucial first step to better understand the antitrust risks of algorithmic pricing and devise antitrust policies to combat such risks.
Exploratory Strategic Roadmapping Framework for Big Data Privacy Issues

The applications of Big Data continue to expand, due to the many possibilities and unprecedented insights it offers to people, organizations, and communities. However, Big Data poses serious challenges as well, including challenges to the privacy and security of individuals and their data. This paper considers how to best address one concern related to Big Data: the social problems that the pervasiveness of data collection, analysis, and storage create with regard to individuals' ability to control their own data. The paper uses Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Technology Roadmapping analysis methods to assess the social problems, technologies, resources, and industries that are most relevant to data privacy, and what should be done to address it. The findings indicated that the healthcare industry is one of the most important industries to consider concerning data privacy because of the nature of the data generated through medical processes and technologies. Furthermore, it was found that enforcement mechanisms, specifically in the form of federal enforcement agencies, are the most effective approach to ensure compliance by actors. It was also realized that there are extenuating political circumstances and increased costs that make the implementation of those policies challenging in the United States.
Ethnomathematics: A Multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas. By Marcia Ascher

(1993). Ethnomathematics: A Multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas. By Marcia Ascher. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 100, No. 3, pp. 304-308.
Assessing the Viability of Blockchain to Impact the Antiquities Trade

Blockchain, the technology underpinning Bitcoin and other digital currencies, offers promise to shift the gathering and sharing of information in profound ways. It could help form a new kind of financial system that limits current inefficiencies, or even radically change how parties enter into contract, or monitor supply chains. The technology’s distributed ledger allows users in a network to monitor and access peer-to-peer digital transactions in real time. This digital ledger allows users to maintain this information securely by encrypting and allowing access only to those who have permission, given by cryptographic keys. For the art market, blockchain offers a tantalizing possibility: a verifiable provenance research platform that would eliminate or minimize the problems with title history, authenticity, and looting, which have long-plagued the art and antiquities market. This essay examines whether blockchain might offer a chance for the antiquities market to remedy its persistent problems. The antiquities market has been beleaguered by the sale of forgeries, allowed stolen material to find a market, been hampered by market inefficiencies, and even been a haven for looted archaeological material. Distributed ledgers and blockchain could alleviate or eliminate these problems, but only if the market and those who shape it want to utilize them. No technology, no matter how ingenious or elegant, can end problems caused by the unprincipled actors in the antiquities trade. Such change has to come about with a culture shift and continued pressure by regulators and cultural heritage advocates.
A Neuromorphic Sparse Coding Defense to Adversarial Images

Adversarial images are a class of images that have been slightly altered by very specific noise to change the way a deep learning neural network classifies the image. In many cases, this particular noise is imperceptible to the human vision system and thus presents a vulnerability of significant concern to the machine learning and artificial intelligence community. Research towards mitigating this type of attack has taken many forms, one of which is to filter or post process the image before classifying the image with a deep neural network. Techniques such as smoothing, filtering, and compression have been used with varying levels of success. In our work, we explored the use of a neuromorphic software and hardware approach as a protection against adversarial image attack. The algorithm governing our neuromorphic approach is based upon sparse coding. Our sparse coding approach is solved using a dynamic system of equations that models biological low level vision. Our quantitative and qualitative results show that a sparse coding reconstruction is remarkably invariant to changes in sparsity and reconstruction error with respect to classification accuracy. Furthermore, our approach is able to maintain low reconstruction errors without sacrificing classification performance.
Combining error statistics with failure prediction in memory page offlining

Memory errors constitute a large fraction of total hardware failures on modern systems, negatively impacting their reliability, availability, and serviceability. Error correcting codes have been developed to detect and correct the errors. Error-prevention mechanisms such as soft page offlining has been implemented in modern operating systems. Common offlining policies are based on error rate statistics in a certain past period. However, future error occurrences depend on both the wear level of the faulty memory cells and the implicit runtime context which may not be reflected in the statistics in the period. This paper proposes a new offlining policy which combines error statistics with failure prediction of the memory cells in a page. Using a failure prediction component, the new approach is more effective in mining the combined effect of both the hardware wear level and the runtime context. Scoring with both the error statistics and the prediction confidence, the new policy is more comprehensive in offlining error-prone pages to avoid more errors. Empirical evaluation demonstrates that the new policy outperforms the baseline policies based on historical error statistics.
Investigation of Zr, Gd/Zr, and Pr/Zr – doped ceria for the redox splitting of water

Abstract There is a renewed interest in CeO2 for use in solar-driven, two-step thermochemical cycles for water splitting. However, despite fast reduction/oxidation kinetics and high thermal stability of ceria, the cycle capacity of CeO2 is low due to thermodynamic limitations. In an effort to increase cycle capacity and reduce thermal reduction temperature, we have studied binary zirconium-substituted ceria (ZrxCe1-xO2, x = 0.1, 0.15, 0.25) and ternary praseodymium/gadolinium-doped Zr-ceria (M0.1Zr0.25Ce0.65O2, M = Pr, Gd). We evaluate the oxygen cycle capacity and water splitting performance of crystallographically and morphologically stable powders that are thermally reduced by laser irradiation in a stagnation flow reactor. The addition of zirconium dopant into the ceria lattice improves O2 cycle capacity and H2 production by approximately 30% and 11%, respectively. This improvement is independent of the Zr dopant level, up to 25%, suggesting that above 10% Zr dopant level, Zr might be displaced during the high temperature annealing process. The addition of Pr and Gd to the binary Zr-ceria mixed oxide, on the other hand, is detrimental to H2 production. A kinetic analysis is performed using a model-based analytical approach to account for effects of mixing and dispersion, and to identify the rate controlling mechanism of the water splitting process. We find that the water splitting reaction at 1000 °C and with 30 vol% H2O, for all doped ceria samples, is surface limited and best described by a deceleratory power law model (F-model), similar to undoped CeO2. Additionally, we used density functional theory (DFT) calculations to examine the role of Zr, Pr, and Gd. We find that the addition of Pr and Gd induce non-redox active sites and, therefore, are detrimental to H2 production, in agreement with experimental work. The calculated surface H2 formation step was found to be rate limiting, having activation barriers greater than bulk O diffusion, for all materials. This agrees with and further explains experimental findings.
Bilingualism and Code-Blending Among Deaf ASL-English Bilinguals

The audiologically deaf members of the American Deaf community display bilingual competence in American Sign Language (ASL) and English, although their language acquisition trajectories often involve delayed exposure to one or both languages. There is a great deal of variation in terms of production among these signers, ranging arguably from ASL-typical to productions that seem to display English influence. The latter have been treated as mixed productions, coined ‘Contact Signing’ by Lucas and Valli (Language contact in the American deaf community. Brill, San Diego, 1992), and could be representative of a type of codeswitching similar to what spoken language bilinguals produce, in which the grammars of both languages dually constrain utterances. These productions have also been referred to as ‘code-blending’ in bilingual sign language-spoken language contexts (e.g. Baker and Van den Bogaerde, in Sign Bilingualism: Language development, interaction, and maintenance in sign language contact situations. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2008), in which bilingual signers produce structures that show properties of their two grammars in parallel, or they could be more like a mixed language, in which a third grammar, distinct from both ASL and English, constrains these productions. First, we argue, based on the analysis of our corpus of naturalistic and elicited signed data collected in an all-deaf sociolinguistic environment, that there is evidence for both code-switching and code-blending, by which signers access two distinct grammars in parallel, given that English versus ASL-based language properties are partially separated into two clusters, showing corresponding correlations, in the production data from the participants in our study. Second, we argue that there are multiple possible scenarios in which signers who engage in code-switching or code-blending can make use of knowledge of more than one grammar, on a continuum of possible grammars between ASL and English.
Data for: Critical Comparison of R-X…Y and R-H…Y Directionality in Halogen and Hydrogen Bonds using Modern Computational Chemistry Methods

Abstract Symmetry adapted perturbation theory anlysis and intermolecular overlap volume calculations are used to investigate the origins of halogen- and hydrogen bond directionality. The central finding is that exchange-repulsion is primarily responsible for destabilizing both types of interaction as the R-x⋯Y (x = H, Cl, Br) angle deviates from linearity. The particular shape of the electron density envelope on the halogen/hydrogen bond donor plays a large role in dictating the degree to which a complex is destabilized upon R-x⋯Y rotation, with halogen bonds exhibiting a roughly linear destabilization and hydrogen bonds exhibiting destabilization that is approximately quadratic.
DRUG-COATED BALLOONS IN THE TREATMENT OF DE-NOVO CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE: A NETWORK META-ANALYSIS OF ALL RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS

Drug coated balloons (DCB) are an established therapy for the treatment of in-stent restenosis. However, their efficacy and safety in de-novo CAD compared with bare metal (BMS) and drug eluting stents (DES) remains unclear. We performed a meta-analysis of RCTs that evaluated the role of DCB in de-
Rationale for IL-15 superagonists in cancer immunotherapy.

Interleukin (IL)-15 (IL-15) is a promising cytokine for the treatment of hematological and solid malignancies. It is a member of the common receptor gamma chain (γc) family, which also includes IL-...
Multifunctional composites for elastic and electromagnetic wave propagation.

Composites are ideally suited to achieve desirable multifunctional effective properties since the best properties of different materials can be judiciously combined with designed microstructures. Here, we establish cross-property relations for two-phase composite media that link effective elastic and electromagnetic wave characteristics to one another, including the respective effective wave speeds and attenuation coefficients, which facilitate multifunctional material design. This is achieved by deriving accurate formulas for the effective electromagnetic and elastodynamic properties that depend on the wavelengths of the incident waves and the microstructure via the spectral density. Our formulas enable us to explore the wave characteristics of a broad class of disordered microstructures because they apply, unlike conventional formulas, to a wide range of incident wavelengths (i.e., well beyond the long-wavelength regime). This capability enables us to study the dynamic properties of exotic disordered “hyperuniform” composites that can have advantages over crystalline ones, such as nearly optimal, direction-independent properties and robustness against defects. We specifically show that disordered “stealthy” hyperuniform microstructures exhibit novel wave characteristics (e.g., low-pass filters that transmit waves “isotropically” up to a finite wavenumber). Our cross-property relations for the effective wave characteristics can be applied to design multifunctional composites via inverse techniques. Design examples include structural components that require high stiffness and electromagnetic absorption; heat sinks for central processing units and sound-absorbing housings for motors that have to efficiently emit thermal radiation and suppress mechanical vibrations; and nondestructive evaluation of the elastic moduli of materials from the effective dielectric response.
Chapter 28 – Hepatic Tumors

Publisher Summary The incidence of hepatoblastoma has increased over the last 25 years and that increase may be associated with increased survival of very-low-birth-weight infants, who are at increased risk for development of hepatoblastoma. This chapter lists the demographic features of hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatoblastoma occurs primarily in young children, with 80% of the cases reported before 3 years of age. Primary hepatic neoplasms are rare and account for only 1–2% of all childhood cancers. Hepatoblastoma accounts for approximately two-thirds of liver tumors. Hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) constitute the two most common malignancies that arise de novo in the liver. This chapter also lists the most prevalent malignant and benign liver tumors in children. The etiology of hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma is unknown. Certain disorders increase the risk of liver cancer. On the other hand the geographic variation is thought to reflect the etiologic role of environmental conditions. Hepatic tumors are divided into two major histologic types: hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. The most common symptom of primary liver malignancies is an upper abdominal mass or generalized abdominal enlargement. This chapter outlines the clinical features of the various pathologic types of hepatic tumors and shows the frequency of signs and symptoms at diagnosis in children with hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. The clinical manifestations are similar in both.
Fabrication of a Low Cost Flexible Micro-Device for Measuring Fiber Thermal Conductivity

Introduced is a low cost "cantilever" like device that is capable of generating heat and simultaneously measuring temperature. The device is fabricated on flexible polyimide substrate using a photolithography process to form thin gold heater patterns. Heat generation is concentrated at the tip of the cantilever using Joule heating from a direct current. The heater functions as an RTD capable of accurate temperature measurements. The device is used to measure the thermal conductivity of small, high aspect ratio structures such as fibers by measuring the thermal resistance using a parallel resistance model. Using a thin platinum wire as a reference material, accurate values for thermal conductivity are obtained.
Predictors of Staphylococcus Aureus Nasal Colonization in Joint Arthroplasty Patients.

Early identification and treatment of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) nasal colonization can reduce the risk of prosthetic joint infection. The purpose of this study was to evaluate patient-specific predictors for S. aureus nasal colonization in total joint arthroplasty patients to aid in preoperative screening protocols. A total of 2,147 arthroplasty patients who were preoperatively screened for S. aureus nasal colonization were retrospectively reviewed. Factors analyzed consisted of procedure type, primary diagnosis, gender, ethnicity, body mass index, the presence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obstructive sleep apnea, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, use of immunosuppression medication, smoking history, and chronic kidney disease. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed with significance p 35 (p = 0.002, OR 1.57, CI 1.19–2.1). Variables were found to be protective against MSSA colonization including female gender (p = 0.012, OR 0.76, CI 0.61–0.94), age 60 to 69 (p = 0.025, OR 0.75, CI 0.58–0.96), and age 70 to 79 (p = 0.002, OR 0.63, CI 0.47–0.84). Age, Hispanic ethnicity, gender, revision THA, use of immunosuppression medication, and elevated BMI were independent risk factors for S. aureus nasal colonization.
Another Look at Devaluation and the Trade Balance in China

This paper estimates the effect of Chinese Yuan devaluation on the trade balance of China. For that a regression equation is developed in which domestic income, foreign income, domestic money supply, foreign money supply and real effective exchange rate are used as explanatory variable with trade balance as the dependent variable. In order to test the J-curve phenomenon the lagged values of exchange rata are also included. Quarterly time series data from 1999 to 2016 are used. Before estimating the model the time series properties of the data are diagnosed and an error correction model is developed and estimated. The estimated results show that the contemporaneous effect of devaluation is positive, but the total effect is insignificant. A J-curve pattern of adjustment of the trade balance is also detected.
Elizabeth Hamilton on Sympathy and the Selfish Principle

In A Series of Popular Essays (1813), Scottish philosopher Elizabeth Hamilton (1758–1816) identifies two ‘principles’ in the human mind: sympathy and the selfish principle. While sharing Adam Smith...
Alternative energy: state of the art and implications on power electronics

Growth in alterative energy generation technologies and markets will have a major impact on development of power electronics in the future. The paper discusses some of these implications, and outlines the technological and performance challenges for power electronic systems in alternative energy applications.
Thomistic Natural Law as Darwinian Natural Right: A Reply to Critics

I have argued for Darwinian natural right, which is a Darwinian understanding of evolved human nature that provides a modern scientific confirmation of Thomistic natural law. For Aquinas, the good is the desirable, and the order of the natural law corresponds to the order of the natural desires. Darwinian science shows how these natural desires can be understood as expressions of a human nature shaped by human evolutionary history. Critics of this argument have offered six major objections. In this paper, I reply to these objections. In all of this, I aim to show how by rooting natural law in a scientific conception of human nature, and by avoiding the contradictions that arise from Aquinas's occasional efforts to elevate revelation over reason, Darwinian natural right is the natural fulfillment of Thomistic natural law.
Channel equalization using partial likelihood estimation and recurrent canonical piecewise linear network

A recurrent canonical piecewise linear (RCPL) network is proposed based on the canonical piecewise linear (CPL) structure and is applied to channel equalization. RCPL network provides savings in computation and implementation and has a distinct dynamic behavior completely different than that of finite duration feedforward structure. The simulations of multilevel signal equalization demonstrate the superior performance of RCPL equalizer when compared to the multilayer perceptron equalizer. For the RCPL network, it is easy to incorporate the a-priori information into the network structure. A novel blind algorithm is presented by combining partial likelihood estimation and RCPL structure for the binary communications channel. The simulation results show that RCPL blind equalizer outperforms the CMA equalizer by orders of magnitude for blind equalization of nonlinear communication channels.
Buds Bloom in a Second Spring Storying the Male Voices Project

This essay chronicles a tale of personal and academic transformation triggered by the rich mentoring spirit of Bud Goodall. Bud encouraged me discover how a research project on male executives and work-life balance was intricately intertwined with my familial and personal experiences. The essay describes a “Second Spring”—a period of reawakening after the full cycle of ethnographic seasons in which researchers identify blind spots in their scholarship and ways of being. In this Second Spring, I find myself transforming my commitments to gender equity from a place of evidence collection and self-righteous upset to a place of dialogic conversation and choice.
Brownfield Redevelopment in the European Union

Brownfields not only occur in the United States, but in every industrialized country and region. The European Union is currently confronting the challenge of regulating these sites. This Article offers a comparative survey of different legal approaches within both the European Union and the United States toward dealing with brownfields. As a case study, it outlines important developments in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is clear that more and more Member States are searching for different measures to deal with soil remediation in general, and brownfields in particular. However, the shortage of knowledge and information regarding brownfield development creates myraid difficulties with the startup and realization of potential brownfield projects. Additionally, and with regard to funding schemes, no consideration is made of the sustainability of the methods used to redevelop these sites.
Architecture of the Multi-Modal Organizational Research and Production Heterogeneous Network (MORPHnet)

Argonne National Laboratory, with facilities in the states of Illinois and Idaho, is owned by the United States government, and operated by The University of Chicago under the provisions of a contract with the Department of Energy.
A Behavioral Approach to Analyzing Corporate Failures

Recent corporate failures indicate that existing laws fail to give boards of directors adequate incentives to acknowledge that some financially troubled firms simply cannot be salvaged. Relying primarily on insights from law and behavioral science literature, this Article notes that directors have a natural tendency to underestimate risks and overestimate their ability to save an insolvent or near insolvent firm. This Article urges the imposition of a duty to file a timely bankruptcy petition because such a duty will encourage directors to consider the interests of all the firms' constituents, including workers, creditors, and the local community, when making decisions for a financially troubled firm. This Article argues that directors of insolvent firms that fail to protect firms by placing them under the protection of federal bankruptcy laws should be sanctioned in the firm's subsequent bankruptcy.
Privacy Preserving Data Analysis in Mental Health Research

The digitalization of mental health records and psychotherapy notes has made individual mental health data more readily accessible to a wide range of users including patients, psychiatrists, researchers, statisticians, and data scientists. However, increased accessibility of highly sensitive mental records threatens the privacy and confidentiality of psychiatric patients. The objective of this study is to examine privacy concerns in mental health research and develop a privacy preserving data analysis approach to address these concerns. In this paper, we demonstrate the key inadequacies of the existing privacy protection approaches applicable to use of mental health records and psychotherapy notes in records based research. We then develop a privacy-preserving data analysis approach that enables researchers to protect the privacy of people with mental illness once granted access to mental health records. Furthermore, we choose a demonstration project to show the use of the proposed approach. This paper concludes by suggesting practical implications for mental health researchers and future research in the field of privacy-preserving data analytics.
Adenovirus DNA Replication: Protein Priming, Jumping Back and the Role of the DNA Binding Protein DBP

The adenovirus (Ad) genome is a linear double-stranded (ds) molecule containing about 36 kilobase pairs. At each end of the genome an approximately 100 base pair (bp) inverted terminal repeat (ITR) is found, the exact length depending on the serotype. To the 5’-end of each ITR, a 55-kDa terminal protein (TP) is covalently coupled. The Ad DNA replication system was one of the first replication systems that could be reconstituted in vitro (Challberg and Kelly 1979). The system requires three virally encoded proteins: precursor TP (pTP), DNA polymerase (Pol) and the DNA binding protein (DBP). In addition, three stimulating human cellular proteins have been identified. These are the transcription factors NFI (Nagata et al. 1982) and Oct-1 (Pruijn et al. 1986) and the type I topoisomerase NFII (Nagata et al. 1983). Ad DNA replication uses a protein primer for replication initiation. The transition from initiation to elongation is marked by a jumping back mechanism (King and van der Vliet 1994), followed by elongation. In order to elongate DBP is required. In this review we discuss the roles of DBP during initiation and elongation and we relate biochemical data on the jumping back mechanism used by Ad Pol to the recently solved crystal structure of a Pol α-like replication complex (Franklin et al. 2001). We comment on the conditions and possible functions of jumping back and propose a model to describe the jumping back mechanism.
The Ethnography of the Senses

Paul Stoller. The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989. xv. 182 pp. Paul Stoller. Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay of Niger. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989. xxii. 244 pp.
SCIENCE, ART, AND AESTHETICS: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO ABSTRACT REASONING

Scientists and artists share methodologies that are common to both practices. From a behavioral perspective, both scientists and artists utilize observation, contemplation, reflection, and serious play to interpret abstract environmental signals. Abstractions are interpreted through an aesthetic, an algorithm for problem solving, which is the basis for scientific and artistic modeling. Models vary in their presentation, comprising works of art, formulas, theories, or diagrams but all of them have one thing in common: they communicate abstract ideas. In an interdisciplinary approach to teaching undergraduate science, students mimic the behaviors of scientists and artists to engage in complex biological problems. As students observe, contemplate, reflect, and play they visualize and make sense of abstractions that represent cellular, molecular, and evolutionary biology. By reflecting on their own practice of model-building, students achieve an enhanced understanding of their personal aesthetic, the tool they use for problem solving, which is key to abstract reasoning and critical thinking.
Single donor-derived strongyloidiasis in three solid organ transplant recipients: case series and review of the literature

Donor-derived Strongyloides stercoralis infections in transplant recipients are a rare but recognized complication. In this case series, we report donor-derived allograft transmission of Strongyloides in three solid organ transplant recipients. Following detection of infection in heart and kidney-pancreas recipients at two different transplant centers, a third recipient from the same donor was identified and diagnosed. S. stercoralis larvae were detected in duodenal aspirates, bronchial washings, cerebrospinal fluid, urine and stool specimens. Treatment with ivermectin and albendazole was successful in two of the three patients identified. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was contacted and performed an epidemiologic investigation. Donor serology was strongly positive for S. stercoralis antibodies on retrospective testing while all pretransplant recipient serum was negative. There should be a high index of suspicion for parasitic infection in transplant recipients and donors from endemic regions of the world. This case series underscores the need for expanded transplant screening protocols for Strongyloides. Positive serologic or stool tests should prompt early treatment or prophylaxis in donors and recipients as well as timely notification of organ procurement organizations and transplant centers.
Changes in left ventricular longitudinal strain with anthracycline chemotherapy in adolescents precede subsequent decreased left ventricular ejection fraction

Background Pediatric cancer survivors who have been exposed to anthracycline (ANT) chemotherapy are an ever increasing population at risk for premature cardiac disease. Studies have shown that ANT is associated with impaired left ventricular (LV) myocardial deformation, but this has not been shown to be associated with traditional echocardiographic measures of LV systolic dysfunction. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that changes in LV longitudinal peak systolic strain (LPSS) would correlate with parameters of LV systolic dysfunction. Methods This study included 19 prospectively enrolled pediatric patients receiving ANT (mean dose, 296 ± 103 mg/m 2 ) and 19 controls matched for age, gender, and body surface area. For ANT patients, echocardiography was performed at baseline, mid, and final treatment points (0, 4, and 8 months). Standard echocardiographic parameters and two-dimensional speckle tracking–derived longitudinal strain parameters were obtained and compared with baseline measurements in controls. Associations between changes in LV global LPSS and standard echocardiographic indices were explored. Results Within the ANT group, the change in LV global LPSS showed a significant decrease compared with baseline at 4 months (8.7 ± 0.2%, P = .033) and 8 months (9.2 ± 0.3%, P = .015), while the percentage change in ejection fraction (EF) showed a statistically significant decrease at 8 months (4.3 ± 0.1%, P = .044). LV global LPSS was decreased in the ANT group compared with controls at 4 months (18.1 ± 2.5% vs 20.5 ± 1.5%, P = .011) and 8 months (18.1 ± 2.8%, P = .032). Segmental changes in mid and apical LV LPSS average were significantly correlated with change in EF (mid: r = −0.49, β = −0.645, P = 0.039; apical: r = −0.48, β = −0.4126, P = .046). Conclusions In adolescents who receive ANT therapy, changes in two-dimensional LV global LPSS precede decreases in EF, and segmental changes in mid and apical LV LPSS suggest an increased likelihood that depressed LV EF will be observed later in follow-up. Two-dimensional speckle tracking–derived LV LPSS is potentially useful in the serial clinical monitoring of ANT cardiotoxicity.