cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Multi-Level Active Prediction of Useful Image Annotations for Recognition

We introduce a framework for actively learning visual categories from a mixture of weakly and strongly labeled image examples. We propose to allow the category-learner to strategically choose what annotations it receives—based on both the expected reduction in uncertainty as well as the relative costs of obtaining each annotation. We construct a multiple-instance discriminative classifier based on the initial training data. Then all remaining unlabeled and weakly labeled examples are surveyed to actively determine which annotation ought to be requested next. After each request, the current classifier is incrementally updated. Unlike previous work, our approach accounts for the fact that the optimal use of manual annotation may call for a combination of labels at multiple levels of granularity (e.g., a full segmentation on some images and a present/absent flag on others). As a result, it is possible to learn more accurate category models with a lower total expenditure of manual annotation effort.
Die Reisethrombose: Ein Update

Zusammenfassung: Gesundheitliche Beeintrachtigungen durch mehrstundiges Reisen sind seit langem bekannt. Nicht zuletzt durch mediale Berichterstattungen ist ein reiseassoziiertes Gesundheitsproblem in den letzten Jahren in den Vordergrund getreten, die sogenannte Reisethrombose. Es handelt sich hierbei um die Entstehung von tiefen Beinvenenthrombosen mit der Gefahr lebensgefahrlicher thromboembolischer Komplikationen, v. a. Lungenembolien. Als Ursachen werden diskutiert die venose Stase in den Beinen durch das beengte Sitzen und die Immobilitat, Gerinnungsaktivierung sowie Dehydrierung und Exsikkose mit Zunahme der Blutviskositat bedingt durch die niedrige Luftfeuchtigkeit, die sich alle zu den individuellen Risikofaktoren addieren. Obwohl die Reisethrombose zumeist mit dem Begriff des „Economy Class Syndrome” assoziiert wird, ist noch unklar, ob tatsachlich flugspezifische Faktoren, wie die milde Hypoxie, eine essentielle Rolle spielen. Tatsache ist, das thromboembolische Probleme auch bei mehrstundigen PKW-, Bus- und Bahnfahrten auftreten konnen. Im vorliegenden Ubersichtsartikel werden gemas aktueller Richtlinien und Empfehlungen die einzelnen Risikogruppen fur die Reisethrombose definiert (niedriges, mittleres und hohes Risiko). Zudem werden prophylaktische Masnahmen fur die einzelnen Risikogruppen dargestellt (von Bewegungsubungen, ausreichender Flussigkeitsaufnahme und Anwendung von Kompressionsstrumpfen bis zur Applikation eines niedermolekularen Heparins). Traveller's Thrombosis: An Update Summary: Travel-related disorders are a well known problem. In the last years many cases of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary thromboembolism (VTE) were published after several hours lasting journeys by airplane, but also by car, bus and railway. This condition was termed „travel-thrombosis” or „economy class syndrome” for long haul flights. At present the precise incidence for travel-thrombosis is not known. Accepted contributing factors for the development of travel-thrombosis are sitting in a cramped position for several hours, low humidity due to climatisation with the risk for dehydration and increased blood viscosity, reduced fluid intake as well as travellers related risk factors. Whether the special situation in the cabin of an airplane, e.g. mild hypoxia, is an essential contributing factor for DVT and VTE, is controversially discussed. This review will present very recent guidelines of an expert meeting concerning the risk groups for travel-thrombosis (low, moderate and high risk). In addition recommendations for prophylaxis of travel-thrombosis adapted to the different risk groups (leg exercise, adequate fluid intake, compression stockings, low molecular weight heparins) are given.
Investigation of the influences of atmospheric conditions on the variability of radon and radon progeny in buildings

Abstract Analysis of time-series data sets, collected in vernacular buildings and workplaces linked with radium source bedrock has identified a number of internal and external pressure characteristics linking meteorological parameters with the variability of radon gas and its progeny. The cellars in these buildings are excavated from the bedrock associated with the radium source and have relatively high levels of radon concentration along with largely stable microclimatic conditions, which differ from those of the buildings’ ground and upper levels. In workplace environments cyclical characteristics are apparent, associated with heating and ventilation related to working hours. Comparative radon concentration data, collected within buildings and similarities identified between buildings, suggest the need to distinguish between short and longer-term influences. From a range of comparative data studied, water vapour pressure, a partial pressure of barometric pressure, is indicated as a principal determinant of the short-term variability of radon gas concentrations, with barometric pressure determining the trend or general longer term level, both linked to temperature. Wind speed appears to have the potential for a dual influence on radon variability: directly, through wind pressure differences and indirectly, through changes to the water vapour component.
Transvaginal administration of intraamniotic digoxin prior to dilation and evacuation.

Background: Transabdominal injection of digoxin into the amniotic fluid or fetus to induce fetal demise before dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion has become common practice since the passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2007. Study Design: We performed a prospective study to assess the feasibility of transvaginal administration of intraamniotic digoxin the day before D&E. All women between 18 0/7 and 23 5/7 weeks of gestation seeking termination from December 2009 to May 2011 were approached for study participation. Women who declined participation were asked to identify their primary rationale. For women declining study participation, transection of the umbilical cord during D&E was performed to meet the requirements of the ban. Results: Over 18 months, 134 women met study entry criteria and 108 (81%) declined to participate. Of the 26 women who enrolled, 1.0 mg undiluted digoxin was successfully administered transvaginally in 24 (92%, 95% confidence interval 75%–99%). The most common reasons for declining participation were discomfort with preoperatively inducing fetal demise (37%) and desire to avoid a medically unnecessary medication (36%). Conclusions: Transvaginal administration of digoxin is a feasible alternative to transabdominal administration to induce preoperative fetal demise. The majority of women decline digoxin administration when an alternative is available.
A Practical Approach to the Diagnosis of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease

The diagnosis of acute pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is usually based on clinical criteria and can be challenging for even the most astute clinicians. Although diagnostic accuracy is advocated, antibiotic treatment should be instituted if there is a diagnosis of cervicitis or suspicion of acute PID. Currently, no single test or combination of diagnostic indicators have been found to reliably predict PID, and laparoscopy cannot be recommended as a first line tool for PID diagnosis. For this reason, the clinician is left with maintaining a high index of suspicion for the diagnosis as he/she evaluates the lower genital tract for inflammation and the pelvic organs for tenderness in women with genital tract symptoms and a risk for sexually transmitted infection. This approach should minimize treating women without PID with antibiotics and optimize the diagnosis in a practical and cost-effective way.
Rapid Sequence Homology Assessment by Subsampling the Genome Space Using Difference Sets

Availability of DNA data is growing roughly at the rate specified by Moore's law. In many molecular biology applications this data must be compared with a reference sequence, either to establish similarity of genomes or to identify functionally homologous subsequences. Current approaches based on pair-wise sequence alignments are computationally expensive and often data dependent. To ameliorate this problem, alternative, less complex sequence comparison schemes, designed to capture the essential features of genomes, must be explored. In this work a new sequence comparison approach, based on difference set models, is proposed. These models are conceptually appropriate, as they quantify, in a certain sense, two key genome attributes: sequence complexity and symbol repetition. Moreover, it is shown that difference sets are abundant in bacterial genomes and that they coincide with homologous sequence segments. These findings motivate the construction of compact representations of DNA sequences in the difference set space. An alignment of these representations permits computationally efficient identification of differences between the DNA sequences. To illustrate the efficacy of the difference set approach, characterization of indels in closely related bacillus anthracis strains is performed, resulting in the discovery of two previously unreported collections of polymorphisms. In addition to these results, an open problem of extending the difference set approach to difference set and almost difference set families, for the analysis of more distant DNA sequences, is discussed.
Ultrasound‐based clinical prediction rule model for detecting papillary thyroid cancer in cervical lymph nodes: A pilot study

Purpose To identify sonographic features of cervical lymph nodes (LNs) that are associated with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) and to develop a prediction model for classifying nodes as metastatic or benign. Methods This retrospective study included the records of postthyroidectomy patients with PTC who had undergone cervical ultrasound and LN biopsy. LN location, size, shape, hilum, echopattern, Doppler flow, and microcalcifications were assessed. Model selection was used to identify features associated with malignant LNs and to build a predictive, binary-outcome, generalized linear mixed model. A cross-validated receiver operating characteristic analysis was conducted to assess the accuracy of the model for classifying metastatic nodes. Results We analyzed records from 71 LNs (23 metastatic) in 44 patients (16 with PTC). The predictive model included a nonhomogeneous echopattern (odds ratio [OR], 5.73; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.07–30.74; p = 0.04), microcalcifications (OR, 4.91; 95% CI, 0.91–26.54; p = 0.06), and volume (OR, 2.57; 95% CI, 0.66–9.99; p = 0.16) as predictors. The model had an area under the curve of 0.74 (95% CI, 0.60–0.85), sensitivity of 65% (95% CI, 50% to 78%), and specificity of 85% (95% CI, 73% to 94%) at the Youden optimal cut point of 0.38. Conclusions Nonhomogeneous echopattern, microcalcifications, and node volume were predictive of malignant LNs in patients with PTC. A larger sample is needed to validate this model. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Ultrasound, 2015
Conference report on assessment and evaluation of science, engineering, and mathematics curricula

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology organized a workshop on assessment and evaluation of curriculum reform efforts in science, engineering, and mathematics. The workshop was held on 26-27 March 1993 in Washington DC. Both technical/teaching and assessment/evaluator personnel from several colleges where innovative curriculum initiatives were in progress attended. Assessment/evaluation efforts at represented institutions were in various forms and stages at the time of the workshop. This meeting provided an opportunity for persons to share philosophies, methodologies, rationales, and results of local assessment efforts with colleagues. While the workshop produced no answers, common themes and issues did emerge. >
Tobacco, Colorectal Cancer, and Adenomas: a Review of the Evidence

Although tobacco has been clearly implicated as a cause of a number of cancers, earlier studies had not generally found cigarette smokers to be at higher risk for cancers of the large bowel. Unlike the earlier studies, more recent studies have tended to find cigarette smokers to be at higher risk of colorectal cancer. In addition, cigarette smoking has been consistently associated with a higher risk of colorectal adenomas, precursors of cancers. We hypothesize that smoking is an initiator of colorectal carcinogenesis. The consistent finding of a positive association between smoking and risk of adenomas may reflect the presumably shorter induction period for these lesions. Recent studies indicate that an increased risk for large-bowel cancer emerges only after about four decades after one begins smoking, perhaps accounting for the null studies that were conducted earlier during the smoking epidemic. Most studies had not taken into account an induction period between timing of smoking and risk for cancer. The increasing male-to-female mortality ratio from colorectal cancer over the latter half of this century in the United States may have been a result of tobacco use by men earlier in the century. If the associations observed with colorectal adenomas and cancers in recent studies are causal, approximately 20% of the large-bowel cancers in men would be attributable to smoking. On the basis of the strength of the available evidence, intensified effort to prevent smoking among young people is warranted. [J Natl Cancer Inst 1996;88:1717-30]
Impoverished cue support enhances subsequent retention: Support for the elaborative retrieval explanation of the testing effect

In three experiments, we investigated the role of transfer-appropriate processing and elaborative processing in the testing effect. In Experiment 1, we examined whether the magnitude of the testing effect reflects the match between intervening and final tests by factorially manipulating the type of intervening and final tests. Retention was not enhanced for matching, relative to mismatching, intervening and final tests, contrary to the transfer-appropriate-processing view. In Experiment 2, we examined final retention as a function of the number of cues needed to retrieve items on intervening cued recall tests. In this case, fewer retrieval cues were associated with better memory on the final test. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiment 2 while controlling for individual item difficulty and directly manipulating the number of cues present. These findings suggest that an intervening test may be most beneficial to final retention when it provides more potential for elaborative processing.
The Intercellular Spaces of the Avena Coleoptile

In the transverse sections of fresh Avena coleoptile certain intercellular spaces are transparent, others are dark. The transparent spaces represent the result of water-logging of the originally water-lined air passages. The dark spaces are lined with a plastic lipid-containing membrane which can be impregnated with melted paraffin. In the living tissue this membrane can be cut transversely and the cut sections presumably seal off the gas inside thus causing the dark interfacial refraction. Because of the high permeability of lipids to carbon dioxide and the virtual impermeability to oxygen and nitrogen, there is a reason to believe that the lipid-lined spaces are filled with gas rich in carbon dioxide, and the lipid membrane may function as a regulator of the diffusion pressure of this gas.
Patient compliance with phlebotomy therapy for iron overload associated with hemochromatosis.

Patient compliance with phlebotomy therapy for iron overload associated with hemochromatosis
Mitochondria-Targeted Peptide Accelerates ATP Recovery and Reduces Ischemic Kidney Injury

The burst of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during reperfusion of ischemic tissues can trigger the opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) pore, resulting in mitochondrial depolarization, decreased ATP synthesis, and increased ROS production. Rapid recovery of ATP upon reperfusion is essential for survival of tubular cells, and inhibition of oxidative damage can limit inflammation. SS-31 is a mitochondria-targeted tetrapeptide that can scavenge mitochondrial ROS and inhibit MPT, suggesting that it may protect against ischemic renal injury. Here, in a rat model of ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury, treatment with SS-31 protected mitochondrial structure and respiration during early reperfusion, accelerated recovery of ATP, reduced apoptosis and necrosis of tubular cells, and abrogated tubular dysfunction. In addition, SS-31 reduced medullary vascular congestion, decreased IR-mediated oxidative stress and the inflammatory response, and accelerated the proliferation of surviving tubular cells as early as 1 day after reperfusion. In summary, these results support MPT as an upstream target for pharmacologic intervention in IR injury and support early protection of mitochondrial function as a therapeutic maneuver to prevent tubular apoptosis and necrosis, reduce oxidative stress, and reduce inflammation. SS-31 holds promise for the prevention and treatment of acute kidney injury.
Joint Merge and Its Impact on Merging Speeds in Lane Reduction Areas of Construction Zone

To increase the efficiency and safety of traffic flow in the vicinity of lane reduction transition areas, engineers have begun to use innovative techniques to facilitate traffic flow through these bottleneck areas. One technique, alternating merging, encourages drivers to take turns when merging in freeway lanes and ramps. This paper discusses the development of the joint merge, a new traffic control design that facilitates alternating merge patterns, along with the results of a field experiment to examine its effects on traffic flow. The key feature of the joint merge design is its two-sided taper in which both approach lanes are reduced simultaneously into a single lane, thereby eliminating an assigned lane priority. To evaluate its effect on traffic, a field study was conducted in which a joint merge configuration was erected in a live, work intensity-controlled work zone in Louisiana. Lane-specific volume and vehicle speeds in the joint merge were compared with those observed in a conventional merge d...
Semiparametric estimation of the average causal effect of treatment on an outcome measured after a postrandomization event, with missing outcome data

In the past decade, several principal stratification-based statistical methods have been developed for testing and estimation of a treatment effect on an outcome measured after a postrandomization event. Two examples are the evaluation of the effect of a cancer treatment on quality of life in subjects who remain alive and the evaluation of the effect of an HIV vaccine on viral load in subjects who acquire HIV infection. However, in general the developed methods have not addressed the issue of missing outcome data, and hence their validity relies on a missing completely at random (MCAR) assumption. Because in many applications the MCAR assumption is untenable, while a missing at random (MAR) assumption is defensible, we extend the semiparametric likelihood sensitivity analysis approach of Gilbert and others (2003) and Jemiai and Rotnitzky (2005) to allow the outcome to be MAR. We combine these methods with the robust likelihood-based method of Little and An (2004) for handling MAR data to provide semiparametric estimation of the average causal effect of treatment on the outcome. The new method, which does not require a monotonicity assumption, is evaluated in a simulation study and is applied to data from the first HIV vaccine efficacy trial.
Nanotechnology for breast cancer therapy

Breast cancer is the field of medicine with the greatest presence of nanotechnological therapeutic agents in the clinic. A pegylated form of liposomally encapsulated doxorubicin is routinely used for treatment against metastatic cancer, and albumin nanoparticulate chaperones of paclitaxel were approved for locally recurrent and metastatic disease in 2005. These drugs have yielded substantial clinical benefit, and are steadily gathering greater beneficial impact. Clinical trials currently employing these drugs in combination with chemo and biological therapeutics exceed 150 worldwide. Despite these advancements, breast cancer morbidity and mortality is unacceptably high. Nanotechnology offers potential solutions to the historical challenge that has rendered breast cancer so difficult to contain and eradicate: the extreme biological diversity of the disease presentation in the patient population and in the evolutionary changes of any individual disease, the multiple pathways that drive disease progression, the onset of 'resistance' to established therapeutic cocktails, and the gravity of the side effects to treatment, which result from generally very poor distribution of the injected therapeutic agents in the body. A fundamental requirement for success in the development of new therapeutic strategies is that breast cancer specialists-in the clinic, the pharmaceutical and the basic biological laboratory-and nanotechnologists-engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians-optimize their ability to work in close collaboration. This further requires a mutual openness across cultural and language barriers, academic reward systems, and many other 'environmental' divides. This paper is respectfully submitted to the community to help foster the mutual interactions of the breast cancer world with micro- and nano-technology, and in particular to encourage the latter community to direct ever increasing attention to breast cancer, where an extraordinary beneficial impact may result. The paper initiates with an introductory overview of breast cancer, its current treatment modalities, and the current role of nanotechnology in the clinic. Our perspectives are then presented on what the greatest opportunities for nanotechnology are; this follows from an analysis of the role of biological barriers that adversely determine the biological distribution of intravascularly injected therapeutic agents. Different generations of nanotechnology tools for drug delivery are reviewed, and our current strategy for addressing the sequential bio-barriers is also presented, and is accompanied by an encouragement to the community to develop even more effective ones.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus orbital abscess in a neonate

Summary Orbital complications of sinusitis (OCS) are uncommon in children and are extremely rare in the neonatal period with only one review published in the literature. Reported surgical techniques to manage orbital abscess collection involve either an external ethmoidectomy or transconjunctival approach for decompression and drainage. We report the case of a 13 day-old male who was managed with endoscopic drainage of a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) orbital abscess.
Perceived relational stability in on-again/off-again relationships

This study assessed characteristics associated with on-again/off-again (on–off) partners’ perceived relational stability. We employed a three-category conceptualization of stability in which participants were classified as believing the relationship was relatively stable, permanently dissolved, or continuing to cycle between breakups and renewals. Investment theory was first used to distinguish the three stability groups with satisfaction and alternatives mostly strongly associated with perceived stability. We also assessed specific characteristics salient to on–off relationships. Most were associated with perceived stability, but relational uncertainty, relational stress, positive feelings about the relationship, and number of renewals emerged as the best discriminators. Overall, the cycling group reported moderate levels of most characteristics along with greater uncertainty, suggesting they have a more ambivalent view of their relationship.
Four-quadrant pulse injection and sliding mode observer based sensorless operation of a switched reluctance machine over entire speed range including zero speed

The objective of this paper is to present a sensorless position estimation technique for switched reluctance machines (SRM) operating in constant dynamic mode over a wide speed range including zero speed. The technique combines two different methods to deliver high resolution position information over the wide speed range. At zero and low speeds, a voltage pulse injection method is used to estimate the rotor position in all four quadrants. For higher speeds, a sliding mode observer (SMO) based algorithm is used and combined to work with the low speed algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of this new combined technique that has four-quadrant operation capability.
Redressing the Emperor: An Implementation Framework in Bridging Cross Youth Service Delivery Planning for Children/Youth With Multiple Systems Involvement in a System of Care

This article highlights the history of children/youth “system of care” development to best serve those most vulnerable. Even with the improvements in recent years the data continues to show the need for continued revisions in how children/youth are assessed and access services while becoming involved with such systems as child welfare, juvenile justice, and/or who are living at or below the poverty level. This article highlights cross service planning including: Wraparound, Total Clinical Outcomes Management (TCOM), as well as Multiple Accessing of Pre-Existing Services or MAPS approach. New Jersey’s Children’s System of Care (CSOC) will be examined as a model with regards to service planning and treatment delivery. Over a decade of CSOC data in New Jersey has revealed the need for continued improvements in “bridging the gaps” in cross serving delivery planning for those children/youth with multi-systems involvement.
TLX: An elusive receptor

TLX (tailless receptor) is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily and belongs to a class of nuclear receptors for which no endogenous or synthetic ligands have yet been identified. TLX is a promising therapeutic target in neurological disorders and brain tumors. Thus, regulatory ligands for TLX need to be identified to complete the validation of TLX as a useful target and would serve as chemical probes to pursue the study of this receptor in disease models. It has recently been proved that TLX is druggable. However, to identify potent and specific TLX ligands with desirable biological activity, a deeper understanding of where ligands bind, how they alter TLX conformation and of the mechanism by which TLX mediates the transcription of its target genes is needed. While TLX is in the process of escaping from orphanhood, future ligand design needs to progress in parallel with improved understanding of (i) the binding cavity or surfaces to target with small molecules on the TLX ligand binding domain and (ii) the nature of the TLX coregulators in particular cell and disease contexts. Both of these topics are discussed in this review.
Favorable effects of glycolate conjugation on the biodistribution of humanized antiTac Fab fragment

UNLABELLED One of the major limitations of using intact immunoglobulins for targeting tumors is poor penetration into tissues. Although Fab fragments have been used because of their improved kinetics, they have undesirable high renal accumulation. In this study we tested a new approach to block renal accumulation of Fab. METHODS We conjugated humanized antiTac Fab fragments, which are directed against the interleukin-2 receptor, with glycolate. The biodistribution, pharmacokinetics and catabolism of glycolated Fab (glyco-Fab) were evaluated at two different levels of substitution (heavy and light) compared with nonglycolated Fab in Tac-antigen-positive (ATAC4) and -negative (A431) tumor-bearing nude mice. The mice received coinjections of 125I-labeled glyco-Fab (3 microCi/1 microg) and 131I-labeled nonglycolated Fab (5 microCi/1 microg). In addition, groups of mice receiving these reagents were also coinfused with 50 mg L-lysine. RESULTS Significantly less glyco-Fab than nonglycolated Fab accumulated in the kidney (21 versus 189 %ID/g; P < 0.001). A higher proportion of glyco-Fab was excreted into the urine in its intact form. The glyco-Fab survived longer in circulation than nonglycolated Fab. The peak tumor accumulation of glyco-Fab was 2.3-fold greater than that of nonglycolated Fab. Furthermore, the ATAC4 tumor-to-normal tissue ratio of glyco-Fab was much higher in all organs than that of nonglycolated Fab. The heavily glyco-Fab accumulated less in the kidney than the lightly glyco-Fab. The coinjected lysine reduced the renal accumulation of both nonglycolated Fab and glyco-Fab. CONCLUSION Glyco-Fab is a promising agent because of its lower renal accumulation, higher tumor uptake and higher tumor-to-normal tissue ratio.
Side-Chain Engineering of Isoindigo-Containing Conjugated Polymers Using Polystyrene for High-Performance Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

Developing organic photovoltaic systems that possess high efficiency, high reproducibility, and low cost remains a topic of keen investigation. From a molecular design perspective, developing a “multicomponent” copolymerization synthetic approach could potentially afford macromolecular materials encompassing all of the aforementioned desired parameters. Herein, we describe the synthesis of a series of poly(isoindigo-dithiophene)-based conjugated polymers with varying amounts of low molecular weight polystyrene (PS) side chains (Mn = 1300 g/mol) via random copolymerization. We observed better solubility with polymers containing the PS side chains (when compared to their non-PS-side-chain counterparts), hence leading to better batch-to-batch reproducibility in terms of molecular weights. Furthermore, the PS-side-chain-decorated copolymers also demonstrated better thin film processability, without affecting the electronic and optical properties, when the molar percentage of the PS-containing repeating units ...
Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome: A Clinical Description of 17 Patients with a Newly Recognized Disease

Background In May 1993 an outbreak of severe respiratory illness occurred in the southwestern United States. A previously unknown hantavirus was identified as the cause. In Asia hantaviruses are associated with hemorrhagic fever and renal disease. They have not been known as a cause of human disease in North America. Methods We analyzed clinical, laboratory, and autopsy data on the first 17 persons with confirmed infection from this newly recognized strain of hantavirus. Results The mean age of the patients was 32.2 years (range, 13 to 64); 61 percent were women, 72 percent were Native American, 22 percent white, and 6 percent Hispanic. The most common prodromal symptoms were fever and myalgia (100 percent), cough or dyspnea (76 percent), gastrointestinal symptoms (76 percent), and headache (71 percent). The most common physical findings were tachypnea (100 percent), tachycardia (94 percent), and hypotension (50 percent). The laboratory findings included leukocytosis (median peak cell count, 26,000 per cu...
Disorder and conformational analysis of methyl β-D-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-β-D-xylopyranoside.

Methyl β-d-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-β-d-xylopyran­oside, C12H22O10, (II), crystallizes as colorless needles from water with positional disorder in the xylopyranosyl (Xyl) ring and no water mol­ecules in the unit cell. The inter­nal glycosidic linkage conformation in (II) is characterized by a φ′ torsion angle (C2′Gal—C1′Gal—O1′Gal—C4Xyl) of 156.4 (5)° and a ψ′ torsion angle (C1′Gal—O1′Gal—C4Xyl—C3Xyl) of 94.0 (11)°, where the ring atom numbering conforms to the convention in which C1 denotes the anomeric C atom, and C5 and C6 denote the hy­droxy­methyl (–CH2OH) C atoms in the β-Xyl and β-Gal residues, respectively. By comparison, the inter­nal linkage conformation in the crystal structure of the structurally related disaccharide, methyl β-lactoside [methyl β-d-galactopyrano­syl-(1→4)-β-d-glucopyran­oside], (III) [Stenutz, Shang & Serianni (1999). Acta Cryst. C55, 1719–1721], is characterized by φ′ = 153.8 (2)° and ψ′ = 78.4 (2)°. A comparison of β-(1→4)-linked disaccharides shows considerable variability in both φ′ and ψ′, with the range in the latter (∼38°) greater than that in the former (∼28°). Inter-residue hydrogen bonding is observed between atoms O3Xyl and O5′Gal in the crystal structure of (II), analogous to the inter-residue hydrogen bond detected between atoms O3Glc and O5′Gal in (III). The exocyclic hy­droxy­methyl conformations in the Gal residues of (II) and (III) are identical (gauche–trans conformer).
Influence of miotics, Diamox and vision occluders on light-induced buphthalmos in domestic fowl.

SummaryNeither miotics nor vision occluders corrected the buphthalmos seen in chicks reared under continuous light, but Diamox caused a marked decrease in eye weight, proportional to dosage.
Drug-Coated Balloons for Long Superficial Femoral Artery Disease: Leaving Nothing Behind in the Real-World.

The optimal endovascular strategy for treatment of superficial femoral artery (SFA) atherosclerotic disease is an evolving area of research and clinical practice. Initial randomized trials demonstrated a benefit of nitinol self-expanding stent placement in this region when compared to standalone
Application of artificial neural network in vancomycin individualized administration in children with methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus infections

AIM To establish an artificial neural network( ANN) for predicting vancomycin concen-trations in children with methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus(MRS) infections and optimize the individual use of vancomycin. METHODS Totally 180 cases of steady state plasma concentration data were collected from 100MRS- infected children with intravenous infusion of vancomycin in this study. All the concentrations and data were divided into two groups randomly. In the training group(n = 150), ANN was established after the network parameters were trained by using momentum method combined with genetic algorithm, and multiple linearregression(MLR) model was established. In the testing group(n = 30), the concentrations of the testing group patients were predicted by ANN established, and the mean predicted error( MPE), weighted residuals(WRES), mean absolute prediction error(MAE), mean squared prediction error(MSE), root mean squared prediction error( RMSE) were calculated to assess the ANN model. RESULTS The assessed results of ANN were MPE(0.33 ± 1.86) mg·L-1, WRES(14.83 ± 14.55) %, MAE(1.38 ± 1.26) mg·L-1, MSE(3.45 ±5.32)( mg·L-1)2, RMSE 1.86 mg·L-1, respectively. There were 83% of ANN test data sets whose absolute prediction errors were less than 3.0 mg·L-1, while the percent of MLR model was 53%. The accuracy and precision of ANN were superior to those of MLR with stepwise method. CONCLUSION The established ANN in this study is good enough to predict vancomycin concentration and optimize its individualization of dosage regimen in children with MRS infections.
Evaluation of an indirect method of detecting adverse reactions to anticoagulants

An indirect system of adverse-drug-reaction (ADR) surveillance was evaluated by determining the number of "alerting orders" for suspected ADRs in patients on anticoagulant therapy that were reported by staff pharmacists compared with those detected by an on-floor pharmacist observer. Physicians' orders for patients receiving warfarin or continuous-infusion heparin therapy were monitored during a five-week period to detect "alerting orders" that appeared to indicate the presence of bleeding or excessive hypoprothrombinemia during warfarin therapy or bleeding or thrombocytopenia during continuous-infusion heparin therapy. Alerting orders were classified as antidote, laboratory-test, and dosage-reduction orders, including "hold warfarin" orders; staff pharmacists were taught to detect these orders through inservice-education programs and the use of a training manual. The on-floor observer detected alerting orders through daily monitoring of all study patients' charts and evaluated suspected ADRs using predefined criteria. A total of 1622 physicians' orders were written for 79 patients. Staff pharmacists detected significantly fewer alerting orders than did the on-floor observer (76 versus 273). Also, staff pharmacists reported as alerting orders 21 physicians' orders that did not meet alerting-order criteria. Staff pharmacists reported at least one alerting order for 52 of the 75 patients who had alerting orders identified by the on-floor observer. The use by staff pharmacists of "alerting orders" was not an effective method of detecting anticoagulant-drug adverse reactions when compared with the performance of an on-floor concurrent monitor.
Cannabinoid Receptor Binding to Membrane Homogenates and Cannabinoid-Stimulated [ 35 S]GTP-S Binding to Membrane Homogenates or Intact Cultured Cells

Radioligand-binding assays can be used to obtain information about the binding characteristics of a ligand to its receptor or the general location of binding sites within a tissue or even provide evidence for the existence of a specific receptor. In the case of the cannabinoid receptor system, radioligand binding has been instrumental for each of these applications. While receptor binding can provide the above information, it says little about the efficacy of the ligand interacting with it. Binding assays that assess the effect of an unlabeled receptor ligand on the binding of the radiolabeled guanosine triphosphate (GTP) analog [35S]GTPgammaS provide such information and may be the most sensitive assays available for determining the relative efficacies of ligands that act through G protein-coupled receptors, like the CB1 cannabinoid receptor. Herein are described methods for radioligand binding to both brain membrane homogenates and membrane homogenates of cultured cells, as well as a recently developed protocol for assessing agonist-stimulated [35S]GTPgammaS binding to intact cultured cells.
Using Petri Nets to Test Concurrent Behavior of Web Applications

Web applications are used by companies across the world to deploy their products and services. Because of the technologies used to build web applications, they are by nature concurrent, for example, multiple users can have problems when accessing the same limited resources. The combination of the stateless nature of web applications and concurrent behavior creates unique challenges. Models have traditionally been used to test specific aspects of systems. However, existing web application models do not effectively address the combination of concurrent behavior and stateless protocol. This research project is using a novel Petri net-based model for web applications. This paper defines a novel way to design model-based coverage criteria tests that address concurrent behavior involving HTTP browser-based sessions. A tool that extracts the Petri net model of a web application has been developed and used to study ten web applications totaling 17,535 lines of code. The tool was used to extract the model and generate tests, revealing 36 naturally occurring software faults that had not been found during previous testing.
S2NI: A mobile platform for nutrition monitoring from spoken data

Diet and physical activity are important lifestyle and behavioral factors in self-management and prevention of many chronic diseases. Mobile sensors such as accelerometers have been used in the past to objectively measure physical activity or detect eating time. Diet monitoring, however, still relies on self-recorded data by end users where individuals use mobile devices for recording nutrition intake by either entering text or taking images. Such approaches have shown low adherence in technology adoption and achieve only moderate accuracy. In this paper, we propose development and validation of Speech-to-Nutrient-Information (S2NI), a comprehensive nutrition monitoring system that combines speech processing, natural language processing, and text mining in a unified platform to extract nutrient information such as calorie intake from spoken data. After converting the voice data to text, we identify food name and portion size information within the text. We then develop a tiered matching algorithm to search the food name in our nutrition database and to accurately compute calorie intake. Due to its pervasive nature and ease of use, S2NI enables users to report their diet routine more frequently and at anytime through their smartphone. We evaluate S2NI using real data collected with 10 participants. Our experimental results show that S2NI achieves 80.6% accuracy in computing calorie intake.
Asymptotic solution of neutron transport problems for small mean free paths

A method is presented for solving initial and boundary value problems for the energy dependent and one speed neutron transport equations. It consists in constructing an asymptotic expansion of the neutron density ψ(r, v, τ) with respect to a small parameter e, which is the ratio of a typical mean free path of a neutron to a typical dimension of the domain under consideration. The density ψ is expressed as the sum of an interior part ψi, a boundary layer part ψb, and an initial layer part ψ0. Then ψi is sought as a power series in e, while ψb decays exponentially with distance from a boundary or interface at a rate proportional to e−1. Similarly ψ0 decays at a rate proportional to e−1 with time after the initial time. For a near critical reactor, the leading term in ψi is determined by a diffusion equation. The leading term in ψb is determined by a half‐space problem with a plane boundary. The initial and boundary conditions for the diffusion equation are obtained by requiring ψ0 and ψb to decay away from ...
Optimal v. simple financial policy rules in a production economy with “liability dollarization”

Evaluamos la efectividad de las reglas de politica financiera en una pequena economia abierta con produccion, dolarizacion de pasivos y “choques no convencionales” (cambios en la liquidez global y novedades acerca de los fundamentales futuros). Los bienes finales transables y no transables se producen con insumos transables. La deuda se denomina en unidades de bienes transables, no pudiendo exceder una fraccion del valor de mercado de los ingresos totales. La politica optima tiene un componente macro-prudencial o ex-ante (un impuesto a la deuda aplicado en el periodo t solo cuando la restriccion de credito puede activarse en t+1), y componentes ex-post (impuestos/subsidios a la produccion sectorial usado cuando la restriccion se activa). La politica optima reduce bruscamente la frecuencia y severidad de las crisis financieras, aunque tambien es compleja. Las politicas simples son menos efectivas, y pueden reducir el bienestar.
Artificial intelligence: A social spin on language analysis.

Understanding the prevalence and impact of personal attacks in online discussions is challenging. A method that combines crowdsourcing and machine learning provides a way forward, but caveats must be considered.
Office Systems and Communications

Management of medical organizations is complicated by the multiple demands of medical and business routines. It is unlikely that running a medical practice will become less complex, given the rapid changes underway in both the financing and delivery of health services. The successful implementation of clinical and business functions of the organization will depend on the incorporation of a variety of office systems and communications procedures. Office systems should be designed for patient scheduling, health care records, and practice analysis. These systems should be formalized by written guidelines so that they can be maintained by office personnel and monitored by supervisors and physicians. One of the most important systems needed in a medical practice is automation, and Chapter 8 is devoted solely to the computerization of medical practices. Communication procedures must be developed for the office personnel, patients, and those individuals the practice communicates with outside the office. Telephone systems, office staff meetings, patient satisfaction, and patient education are four important communication areas within the practice. A manual of office procedures is the essential practice communications’ document.
Cross Collateral and Subordination Clauses

Commentary on a recent California appellate decision dealing with the effect of a cross collateralization provision in one mortgage on a subordination provision in another mortgage.
Significant Chondrocyte Viability Is Present in Acetabular Chondral Flaps Associated With Femoroacetabular Impingement

Background:Patients presenting with cam deformity of the femoral head and neck sustain repeated trauma to the articular cartilage of the superior acetabulum, with chondral delamination injuries found during hip arthroscopy. Two previous studies reveal conflicting chondrocyte viability data in these traumatic cartilage injuries. The full-thickness nature of flaps may suggest that chondrocytes residing in the cartilage flap matrix in the joint environment would remain viable despite shear trauma.Hypothesis/Purpose:The purpose of this study is to determine the in vivo tissue viability of acetabular chondral flaps in patients with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) when samples are analyzed immediately after biopsy. We hypothesize that the majority of the tissue in acetabular chondral flaps is viable in the joint microenvironment.Study Design:Descriptive laboratory study.Methods:Partially detached cartilage flaps from 10 patients undergoing arthroscopic hip surgery for FAI were biopsied in a minimally traumat...
The Local Engineer: Normative Holism in Engineering Formation

Engineering leaders have long tended to equate the technical contents of engineering practices with material advancements across the planet for human benefit. I call this normative holism. Taking normative holism for granted grounds images of engineering practice as knowledge in service. It also frees engineers from assigning themselves responsibility for the actual consequences of their work. Drawing on short vignettes from the territories of France, Germany, and Japan during the late nineteenth century, the approach taken here – the ethnography of dominant images – shows normative holism to be a localized phenomenon. While claiming to produce engineers to work for humanity as a whole, for example, through development, the makers of engineers have actually been following localized pathways that respond to distinct dominant images of material progress. Normative holism is a foundational normativity in engineering formation for two reasons. One is that engineering formation emerges whenever countries first form. The other is that engineers’ ready embrace of normative holism makes it a key site for effectively translating critical analysis into critical participation. If students and working engineers can begin to see and analyze dominant normativities as such, might they be more able and willing to explore additional and alternative normativities?
Titanous chloride as a reagent for quantitative organic microanalysis

Micromethods are described for the determination of nitro and nitroso groups by means of titanous chloride with samples of 3 to 9 mg. The apparatus consists of a modified Machlett microburet with a ground glass tip, and a reaction flask which has a ground glass neck and two side arms. Titanous chloride solution is stabilized with amalgamated zinc so that its normality remains practically constant for 3 weeks. Satisfactory results have been obtained for all aromatic nitro and nitroso compounds which were analyzed, and a relative precision of about ±0.3% has been established. Nitroso compounds can be determined in the presence of certain nitro compounds by replacing the buffer with concentrated hydrochloric acid.N-nitroso compounds could not be determined separately in mixtures containing nitro compounds.