cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Breast reconstruction after mastectomy at a comprehensive cancer center

Breast reconstruction after mastectomy is an integral part of breast cancer treatment that positively impacts quality of life in breast cancer survivors. Although breast reconstruction rates have increased over time, African American women remain less likely to receive breast reconstruction compared to Caucasian women. National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, specialized institutions with more standardized models of cancer treatment, report higher breast reconstruction rates than primary healthcare facilities. Whether breast reconstruction disparities are reduced for women treated at comprehensive cancer centers is unclear. The purpose of this study was to further investigate breast reconstruction rates and determinants at a comprehensive cancer center in St. Louis, Missouri. Sociodemographic and clinical data were obtained for women who received mastectomy for definitive surgical treatment for breast cancer between 2000 and 2012. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the receipt of breast reconstruction. We found a breast reconstruction rate of 54 % for the study sample. Women who were aged 55 and older, had public insurance, received unilateral mastectomy, and received adjuvant radiation therapy were significantly less likely to receive breast reconstruction. African American women were 30 % less likely to receive breast reconstruction than Caucasian women. These findings suggest that racial disparities in breast reconstruction persist in comprehensive cancer centers. Future research should further delineate the determinants of breast reconstruction disparities across various types of healthcare institutions. Only then can we develop interventions to ensure all eligible women have access to breast reconstruction and the improved quality of life it affords breast cancer survivors.
Long-Term Oncologic Outcomes of Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy

Robot-assisted radical prostatectomy is a new innovation. As a result, the long-term outcomes of this surgical approach are limited. Robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) has become the dominant form of surgical treatment of prostate cancer in the United States. Since its introduction in early 2000s, mid- and long-term investigations are now fruition. The available literature demonstrates similar oncologic outcomes for RARP and its laparoscopic and open radical prostatectomy counterparts.
The Dynamics of Collaboration and Hierarchy: Developing, Assessing, and Revising a First-Year Composition/Writing Center Partnership

Collaboration represents one of the catchphrases of composition studies. Compositionists promote collaboration among their students, and they expect it among their faculty and program administrators. But collaboration inevitably involves risk and the very real possibility of failure. In this chapter, the authors interrogate best practices of collaboration to help readers better develop, assess, and sustain their own successful partnerships. Synthesizing the elements and processes of successful collaborations from existing writing program administration scholarship, the authors present two administrative models that account for shifting circumstances and fluctuating power dynamics related to post-secondary writing programs. These models offer readers workable frameworks to view the dynamic relationships between elements and processes of collaboration and within collaborative hierarchies and to nurture the sustainability of their partnerships.
Regulating financial crises in the USA, the dialectic and beyond part A

Regulation against the next final crises is a tragic tale of regulatory missteps. Regulators are cowered by congressmen who are in the pockets of lobbies and vested interests. The Volker Rule that attempts to separate the high risk investments by the large banks from their commercial banking (the latter is FDIC insured) and the banks have lobbed to have their high risk investments protected by the FDIC funds. The Volker Rule simply attempted to prevent the banks high risk investments from enjoying a back stop using the public funded FDIC. Without Volker, the banks would engage in what is termed a 'morale hazard'. Volker's original simple one-page solution has been batter-down by congressional lobbies into a 100 pages plus list of 'exceptions' (read loop-holes).
Value Frameworks for the Patient-Provider Interaction: A Comparison of the ASCO Value Framework Versus NCCN Evidence Blocks in Determining Value in Oncology.

BACKGROUND: To address the rising concern about oncology drug costs, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recently developed unique tools to help providers and patients make informed decisions about the value of an anticancer regimen. The ASCO Value Framework (AVF) allows users to generate a net health benefit (NHB) score along with drug acquisition costs for oncology regimens that have been compared in a prospective randomized clinical trial. In contrast, the NCCN Evidence Blocks (NEB) derives ratings from an expert panel assessment in the categories of efficacy, safety, quality and consistency of evidence, and affordability. OBJECTIVE: To compare the results of the AVF and NEB by applying each tool to the same clinical scenarios. METHODS: We evaluated 2 regimens using the AVF and NEB scores: (1) enzalutamide for treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and (2) nivolumab versus docetaxel in treatment of advanced squamous...
Mismatch repair (MMR) detection in urothelial carcinoma (UC) and correlation with immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) response.

4511Background: High mutation burden correlates with response to ICB in UC. Loss of function alterations or epigenetic silencing of MMR genes results in MMR deficient (MMR-D) UC, leading to a microsatellite instability (MSI) mutation signature. We used a CLIA-certified pipeline (MSISensor) to interrogate Next Generation sequencing (NGS) data from UC tumors to identify MMR-D patients (pts). We correlated MMR-D with mutation load and response to ICB. Methods: 447 tumors from 424 UC pts underwent prospective NGS using the MSK-IMPACT exon capture assay and genomic interrogation of microsatellite (MS) sites using MSIsensor, which assesses the number/length of MS within the targeted regions of tumor-normal sample pairs. Loci are considered unstable (somatic) if k-mer distributions are significantly different between tumor and matched normal using a standard multiple testing correction of χ2 p-values. The fraction of unstable sites is reported as an MSIsensor score. MSI high tumors have scores >10 while <3 are d...
School Perceptions of Children Raised by Grandparents.

Increasing numbers of children raised by grandparents are students in schools. Their substitute family structure and precursors to the emergence of this family structure have implications for the c...
TRUNK LEAN DURING A SINGLE-LEG SQUAT IS ASSOCIATED WITH TRUNK LEAN DURING PITCHING.

Background Impaired trunk motion during pitching may be a risk factor for upper extremity injuries. Specifically, increased forces about the shoulder and elbow have been observed in pitchers with excessive contralateral trunk lean during pitching. Because of the difficulty in identifying abnormal trunk motions during a high-speed task such as pitching, a clinical screening test is needed to identify pitchers who have impaired trunk motion during pitching. Hypothesis/Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the degree of lateral trunk lean during the single-leg squat and amount of trunk lean during pitching and if trunk lean during pitching can be predicted from lean during the single-leg squat. Study Design Controlled Laboratory Study; Cross-sectional. Methods Seventy-three young baseball pitchers (11.4 ± 1.7 years; 156.3 ± 11.9 cm; 50.5 ± 8.8 kg) participated. An electromagnetic tracking system was used to obtain trunk kinematic data during a single-leg squat task (lead leg) and at maximum shoulder external rotation of a fastball pitch. Pearson correlation coefficients for trunk lean during the single-leg squat and pitching were calculated. A linear regression analysis was performed to determine if trunk lean during pitching can be predicted from lean during the single-leg squat. Results There was a positive correlation between trunk lean during the single-leg squat and trunk lean during pitching (r = 0.53; p<0.001). Lateral trunk lean during the single-leg squat predicted the amount of lateral trunk lean during pitching (R2 = 0.28; p < 0.001). Conclusions A moderate positive correlation was observed between trunk lean during an SLS and pitching. Trunk lean during the single-leg squat explained 28% of the variance in trunk lean during pitching. Level of Evidence Diagnosis, level 3.
Dependency-based Textual Entailment.

This paper studies the role of dependency information for the task of textual entailment. Both the Text and Hypothesis of an entailment pair are mapped into sets of dependencies and a score is computed that measures the similarity of the two sets. Based on the score an entailment decision is made. Two experiments are conducted to measure the impact of dependencies on the entailment task. In one experiment we compare the dependency-based approach with a baseline approach on a standard data set. In a second experiment, we measure the performance on a subset of the standard data set. The subset is so selected to minimize the effect of other factors, such as word-level information, in the performance measurement process. A brief discussion compares the dependency-based approach to other, similar approaches.
On asymptotic tests in three-factor factorial designs with no replications

We revisit the problems of testing three-factor classification models with a single observation per cell. A common approach in analyzing such nonreplicated data is to omit the highest order interaction and regard it as error. This paper discusses the use of a multiplicative model (See and Smith, 1996 and 1998) which is applied on residuals in order to separate the variability due to three-factor interaction from what is counted as random error. In particular, to test the significance of the interaction term, we derived an approximated distribution of the likelihood ratio test statistic based on the quadrilinear model known as Tucker’s three-mode principal component model. The derivation utilizes the distribution of the eigenvalues of the Wishart matrix.
Vibrational Optical Activity in Chiral Analysis

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses vibrational optical activity (VOA) in chiral analysis. VOA spectra are rich in structural and stereo-specific information, coming from vibrational chromophores and extending over the entire molecular frame. The theory of vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) and raman circular dichroism (ROA) has advanced sufficiently in recent years to enable the accurate “ab initio” calculation of observed spectra for small- to medium-sized molecules. This opens the way for the use of VOA to solve the stereochemical problems involving absolute configuration and solution conformation in a direct way without the need to modify the molecule, to calculate excited electronic state properties or to crystallize the sample. The development of flow-cell techniques makes the monitoring of the reaction kinetics of chiral molecules in solution possible. As both FT-VCD and charged coupled devices-ROA(CCD-ROA) are multiplex techniques, it is possible to follow the evolution of the mole fraction and enantiomeric excess (EE) of multiple species as the reaction proceeds. No other form of optical activity currently possesses this capability. Extension of VCD into the near-infrared (IR) region further enhances the potential for VCD to be used routinely to monitor processes involving the synthesis, manufacture, and processing of pharmaceutical products containing chiral active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The commercialization of hardware and software for the measurement and calculation of VCD and ROA opens the way for these two forms of VOA to be broadly available for all those interested in solving problems involving molecular chirality and chiral analysis.
Families and Inheritance Decisions: Examining Non-Titled Property Transfers

This study examines the transfer of personal possessions, which is a dimension of inheritance decision making from which few families are exempt but which largely has been ignored by researchers and educators. The qualitative analysis of a purposeful sample of individual family members who had experienced a transfer of non-titled personal possessions suggested the influence of six key themes. These included: (a) a sensitivity of the issue, (b) lack of goal discussion, (c) different perceptions of “fairness,” (d) different meanings of objects, (e) lack of awareness of distribution options and consequences, and (f) potential for conflict. The themes identified reinforced that inheritance is not simply an economic or legal issue but one with complex emotional and family relationship dimensions. The findings provide the foundation for further research agendas and for developing educational resources to help family members communicate about and make more informed decisions regarding the transfer of non-titled property.
Effects of Fly Ash on Liquefaction Characteristics of Ottawa Sand

This paper presents the results of effects of non-plastic fines (Class F fly ash) on liquefaction behavior of Ottawa sand. Stress-controlled cyclic triaxial tests were performed on clean Ottawa sand, fly ash, and sand–fly ash mixtures containing 10, 20, 25, 30, 50, and 70% of fly ash. For the evaluation of the effects of confining pressure on liquefaction resistance, three series of tests were conducted at 34.48, 68.96, and 103.42 kPa initial effective confining pressures, except for pure fly ash. In the case of pure fly ash, tests were conducted only at an effective confining pressure of 34.48 kPa. The reversible shear stress was applied systematically by varying Cyclic Stress Ratio from 0.1 to 0.5. Addition of fly ash to sand resulted in decrease in liquefaction resistance initially and then increase in liquefaction resistance for fly ash contents up to about 20–25%. Increase in fly ash content beyond 25% was seen to decrease the liquefaction resistance.
Enormous haemangioma of the liver

Haemangiomas are the most common benign tumours of the liver. Their origin lies in the proliferation of the vascular endothelium. Their growth mechanism is by dilation. They are considered giant when they exceed 5 cm at their greatest diameter. Very uncommon presentations surpass 15 cm; these are known as enormous haemangiomas. We present a case of a 54-year-old woman with an enormous haemangioma of 30 cm in diameter. A mass was present in her right upper quadrant along with dull abdominal pain for several years. It is unknown for how long the tumour had been developing. She underwent surgical management due to evident mass effect. Clinicians should be aware of the importance of early diagnosis in these types of tumours. Its erratic growth pattern, mass effect-related complications and the capacity of producing haematological abnormalities makes it an entity to be considered.
Time in quantum cosmology

A cosmological model with two global internal times shows that time reparametrization invariance, and therefore covariance, is not guaranteed by deparametrization. In particular, it is impossible to derive unambiguous proper-time effective equations from a single deparametrized model if quantum corrections from fluctuations and higher moments are included. The framework of effective constraints shows how different choices of internal time can be compared, and it suggests a new definition of coordinate time in quantum cosmology which is amenable to a notion of time reparametrization invariance. In addition to corrections from moments such as quantum fluctuations, factor ordering corrections may appear also. The latter generically lead to inequivalent internal-time formulations owing to quantization ambiguities.
Data sharing practices in randomized trials of addiction interventions.

Abstract Introduction Transparent, open scientific research practices aim to improve the validity and reproducibility of research findings. A key component of open science is the public sharing of data and metadata that constitute the basis for research findings. Methods We conducted a 6 year cross-sectional investigation of the rates and methods of data sharing in 15 high-impact addiction journals that publish clinical trials. We extracted trial characteristics and whether the trial data were shared publicly in any form. We conducted a sensitivity analysis of only trials with public funding sources. Results In the included journals, zero (0/394, 0.0%) RCTs shared their data publicly. The large majority (315/394, 79.9%) of included trials received funding from public sources. Eight journals had data sharing policies and published 299 of the included trials (75.9%). Conclusion Our finding has significant implications for the addiction research community. These implications are broad, ranging from possibly slowed scientific advancement to noncompliance with obligations to the public whose tax dollars funded a large majority of the included RCTs. To improve the rates of data sharing, we recommend studying incentive systems, while simultaneously working to cultivate a data sharing system that emphasizes scientific, rather than author, accuracy.
Recursive Formula for Labeled Graph Enumeration.

This manuscript presents a general recursive formula to estimate the size of fibers associated with algebraic maps from graphs to summary statistics of importance for social network analysis, such as number of edges (graph density), degree sequence, degree distribution, mixing by nodal covariates, and degree mixing. That is, the formula estimates the number of labeled graphs that have given values for network properties. The proposed approach can be extended to additional network properties (e.g., clustering) as well as properties of bipartite networks. For special settings in which alternative formulas exist, simulation studies demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach. We illustrate the approach for estimating the size of fibers associated with the Barabasi--Albert model for the properties of degree distribution and degree mixing. In addition, we demonstrate how the approach can be used to assess the diversity of graphs within a fiber.
Real-World Effectiveness of Mepolizumab in Patients with Severe Asthma: An Examination of Exacerbations and Costs.

Rationale Results from clinical trials in patients with severe eosinophilic asthma have demonstrated that mepolizumab is well tolerated and is associated with improved asthma control as evidenced by reductions in both exacerbations and maintenance oral corticosteroid use, and improvements in lung function, asthma control, and quality of life. However, real-world data are lacking on the impact of mepolizumab treatment. Objective To assess the effect of mepolizumab treatment on the rate of asthma exacerbations and asthma exacerbation-related costs in a real-world setting. Methods This retrospective cohort study (GSK ID: 209017; HO-18-19168) analyzed data from patients with severe asthma ≥12 years of age at mepolizumab treatment initiation (index date) with ≥12 months pre- (baseline) and post-index (follow-up) data from a commercial claims database (patients were identified from November 1, 2015 to March 31, 2017). Asthma exacerbations (primary objective) and asthma exacerbation-related costs (secondary objective) in the baseline and follow-up periods were compared. Other analyses included the number of mepolizumab administrations and the use of concomitant asthma medications. Results Data were analyzed from 346 patients. Mepolizumab significantly reduced the proportion of patients with any exacerbation and exacerbations requiring hospitalization, compared with baseline. Significant reductions in the rate of all exacerbations of 38.4% (from 2.68 to 1.65 events/patient/year; P<0.001) and of exacerbations requiring hospitalization of 72.7% (from 0.11 to 0.03 events/patient/year; P=0.004) were observed, compared with baseline. Mean total asthma exacerbation-related costs (excluding mepolizumab acquisition and administrative costs) per person were significantly lower during follow-up compared with baseline (P<0.05) and the use of asthma medications, including oral and inhaled corticosteroids, was also lower. Conclusion This study confirms the clinical benefit observed in previous mepolizumab clinical trials and demonstrates that mepolizumab is effective in a real-world setting.
What is the hold up?-Mixed-methods analysis of postoperative radiotherapy delay in head and neck cancer.

Background Delays in postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) for head and neck cancer (HNC) increase the risk for recurrence and mortality. The multifactorial nature of delays calls for an in-depth understanding of potential contributors from the patient's and provider's perspectives. We sought to identify causes of delays in adjuvant radiotherapy initiation for HNC. Methods We performed a mixed-methods study including patients with HNC care team members. Forty in-depth interviews were performed (26 patients; 14 care team members). Timing and demographic data were collected from medical records. Results Median time from surgery to radiotherapy initiation was 45 days; 15 participants began after 42 days. Process delays and failure to communicate the urgency and significance of PORT initiation contributes to delays. Patients with a strong social support system experience less delays. Conclusions Achieving reductions in PORT initiation requires efficient care coordination, improved communication between interdisciplinary teams, and strengthening social support systems for patients with HNC.
Noise-robust recognition of objects by humans and deep neural networks

Abstract Deep neural networks (DNNs) for object classification have been argued to provide the most promising model of the visual system, accompanied by claims that they have attained or even surpassed human-level performance. Here, we evaluated whether DNNs provide a viable model of human vision when tested with challenging noisy images of objects, sometimes presented at the very limits of visibility. We show that popular state-of-the-art DNNs perform in a qualitatively different manner than humans – they are unusually susceptible to spatially uncorrelated white noise and less impaired by spatially correlated noise. We developed a noise-training procedure to determine whether noise-trained DNNs exhibit more robust responses that better match human behavioral and neural performance. We found that noise-trained DNNs provide a better qualitative match to human performance; moreover, they reliably predict human recognition thresholds on an image-by-image basis. Functional neuroimaging revealed that noise-trained DNNs provide a better correspondence to the pattern-specific neural representations found in both early visual areas and high-level object areas. A layer-specific analysis of the DNNs indicated that noise training led to broad-ranging modifications throughout the network, with greater benefits of noise robustness accruing in progressively higher layers. Our findings demonstrate that noise-trained DNNs provide a viable model to account for human behavioral and neural responses to objects in challenging noisy viewing conditions. Further, they suggest that robustness to noise may be acquired through a process of visual learning.
Staging Concordance and Guideline-Concordant Treatment for Esophageal Adenocarcinoma.

Background Treatment selection for patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma is predicated on clinical staging information, which is inaccurate in 20% to 30% of cases and could impact the delivery of guideline-concordant treatment. We aimed to evaluate the association between staging concordance at the patient and hospital levels with the delivery of guideline-concordant treatment among esophageal adenocarcinoma patients. Methods This was a national cohort study of resected esophageal adenocarcinoma patients in the National Cancer Data Base (2006 to 2015) treated either with upfront resection or neoadjuvant therapy followed by surgery. Patient- and hospital-level clinical and pathologic staging concordance and deviations from treatment guidelines were ascertained. For neoadjuvant therapy patients, staging concordance was predicted through Bayesian analysis. Reliability adjustment was used when evaluating hospital-level concordance. Results Among 9393 esophageal adenocarcinoma patients treated at 927 hospitals, 41% had upfront surgery. Among upfront surgery patients, staging concordance was 85.1% for T1N0 and 86.9% for T3-T4N+ disease, but less than 50% for all others. Among patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy, treatment downstaging was observed in 33.9%. Deviations from treatment guidelines were identified in 38.5% of upfront surgery patients and 3.3% of neoadjuvant therapy patients. The proportion of concordantly staged patients ranged from 60.1% to 87.9%, and deviations from treatment guidelines were observed among 14.9% to 22.7% of the patients. Patient staging concordance increased, and deviations from guidelines decreased, as hospital-level concordance increased (trend test, P values less than .001 for all). Conclusions Deviations from treatment guidelines in esophageal adenocarcinoma patients appear to be a function of inaccurate clinical staging information, which should be a new focus for quality improvement efforts.
Epidemiology and Outcomes of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus Infections in the U.S. Military Health System.

INTRODUCTION Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are classified by the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention as a serious antibiotic resistance threat. Our study aims to characterize the epidemiology, associated conditions, and outcomes of VRE infections among hospitalized patients in the U.S. military health system (MHS). MATERIALS AND METHODS We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients with VRE infection using the MHS database. Cases included all patients admitted to a military treatment facility for ≥2 days from October 2008 to September 2015 with a clinical culture growing Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, or Enterococcus species (unspecified), reported as resistant to vancomycin. Co-morbid conditions and procedures associated with VRE infection were identified by multivariable conditional logistic regression. Patient case-mix adjusted outcomes including in-hospital mortality, length of stay, and hospitalization cost were evaluated by high-dimensional propensity score adjustment. RESULTS During the seven-year study period and among 1,161,335 hospitalized patients within the MHS, we identified 577 (0.05%) patients with VRE infection. A majority of VRE infections were urinary tract infections (57.7%), followed by bloodstream (24.7%), other site/device-related (12.9%), respiratory (2.9%), and wound infections (1.8%). Risk factors for VRE infection included invasive gastrointestinal, pulmonary, and urologic procedures, indwelling devices, and exposure to 4th generation cephalosporins, but not to glycopeptides. Patients hospitalized with VRE infection had significantly higher hospitalization costs (attributable difference [AD] $135,534, P<0.001), prolonged hospital stays (AD 20.44 days, P<0.001, and higher in-hospital mortality (case-mix adjusted odds ratio 5.77; 95% confidence interval 4.59-7.25). CONCLUSIONS VRE infections carry a considerable burden for hospitalized patients given their impact on length of stay, hospitalization costs, and in-hospital mortality. Active surveillance and infection control efforts should target those identified as high-risk for VRE infection. Antimicrobial stewardship programs should focus on limiting exposure to 4th generation cephalosporins.
Outcomes After Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy in Hyperkinetic Biliary Dyskinesia.

BackgroundBiliary dyskinesia (BD) is a poorly understood functional gallbladder disorder. Diagnosis is made with abdominal pain and an intact gallbladder without signs of anatomical obstruction on ...
Atmospheric flux measurements

Abstract Atmospheric fluxes can be measured with a variety of techniques depending on the species of the interest, desired measurement scale, amount of previously available data, and measurement goals. Despite long and successful history, development of the newer and better methods remains an active area of modern-day atmospheric research. This chapter will briefly review the few key approaches to atmospheric flux measurements, and then focus on the main contemporary technique for direct flux measurements at ecosystem scale, the eddy covariance method, and on the few key specifics of the interactions between such measurements and the latest developments in the modern spectroscopy.
Normal ranges of Troponin T and NTproBNP levels in premature infants within first 5 days of life

Background: Echocardiography is used for the diagnosis and management of hemodynamically significant patent ductus arteriosus (hsPDA) and pulmonary hypertension (PH) in preterm infants (PI). Heart muscle cells release biomarkers such as highly sensitive Troponin T (hsTnT) and NT-proBNP in response to pressure and volume loading. However, little is known about the baseline levels of these biomarkers in PI. Objective: To determine the normal range of …
Unplanned reoperations after microsurgical breast reconstruction: Findings from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program

BACKGROUND While microsurgical breast reconstruction may require multiple planned operations, unplanned reoperations has not been studied. We sought to investigate unplanned reoperations after microsurgical breast reconstruction. METHODS We queried the American College of Surgeons' National Surgical Quality Improvement Program between 2005 and 2018. Current Procedural Terminology code 19364 was used to identify all patients with microsurgical breast reconstruction. Patient demographics, medical comorbidities, preoperative laboratory results, and operative data were analyzed. The primary outcome measure was 30-day unplanned reoperation. RESULTS Of 8449 patients meeting inclusion criteria, 1021 required an unplanned reoperation (12.1%). These patients were more likely to be obese, smokers, hypertensive, on steroids preoperatively, needing concomitant mastectomy, and with prolonged operating room time >9 h (p 9 h (OR = 1.37, CI 1.16-1.62, p < .01) as independent risk factors. Mastectomy was found to be an independent risk factor for early reoperation, that is, ≤2 days (OR = 1.44, CI 1.14-1.82, p < .01), whereas obesity was an independent risk factor for three reoperations (OR = 3.92, CI 1.14-13.46, p = .03). CONCLUSION Unplanned reoperations within 30-days after microsurgical breast reconstruction are a significant problem. Mastectomy is an independent risk factor for early reoperation whereas obesity is an independent risk factor for multiple reoperations. Identification of such patients preoperatively may help microsurgeons improve patient safety and quality of care.
Crime prediction using Twitter sentiment and weather

Social networking services have the hidden potential to reveal valuable insights when statistical analysis is applied to their unstructured data. As shown by previous research, GPS-tagged Twitter data enables the prediction of future crimes in a major city, Chicago, Illinois, of the United States. However, existing crime prediction models that incorporate data from Twitter have limitations in describing criminal incidents due to the absence of sentiment polarity and weather factors. The addition of sentiment analysis and weather predictors to such models would deliver significant insight about how crime. Our aim is to predict the time and location in which a specific type of crime will occur. Our approach is based on sentiment analysis by applying lexicon-based methods and understanding of categorized weather data, combined with kernel density estimation based on historical crime incidents and prediction via linear modeling. By testing our model’s ability to predict future crime on each area of the city, we observed that the model surpassed the benchmark model, which predicts crime incidents using kernel density estimation.
Genetic diversity analysis and conservation implications for the Iberian threatened populations of the irano-turanian relict Krascheninnikovia ceratoides (Chenopodiaceae)

Krascheninnikovia ceratoides (L.) Gueldenst. (Chenopodiaceae) is an irano-turanian steppe plant with a striking geographical vicariance between the western Mediterranean and the central Asian regions. Its westernmost populations are located in the north-east part of the Iberian Peninsula, in the narrow middle Ebro and Alfambra valleys, where they are threatened and have been catalogued as ‘vulnerable’. Genetic diversity and structure was studied in 150 individuals from five populations of these two valleys using inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR). A total of 121 informative bands allowed the identification of 150 genotypes. Nei's genetic diversity found in all natural populations (h = 0.448) was higher than that of other geographical restricted species. Analysis of molecular variance and spatial correlations analyses showed a strong genetic differentiation among populations (35.88%) and among valleys (22.33%). The unweighted pair-group method of arithmetical averages and Neighbour-joining clusterings further demonstrated a substructure of two population cores within the Ebro valley. Our genetic data suggest that the high levels of genetic diversity and the strong genetic structure found among the northern Iberian populations and ranges of K. ceratoides might result from the summed effects of its tetraploidy, its outbreeding nature, and its success in colonizing newly altered areas. However, the ISSR data might also reflect the existence of an ancient wider distribution range of the plant in the Iberian Peninsula coupled with a more recent history of habitat fragmentation. Different management conservation guidelines are recommended for this plant after our genetic analysis: a microreserve of approximately 2 km2 is proposed for the highly threatened population of Osera (Ebro valley), whereas seed collection strategies and occasional population reinforcements are suggested for the remaining populations. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 92, 419–429.
Light and Electron Microscopic Examinations of Methane-Producing Biofilms from Anaerobic Fixed-Bed Reactors

Ultrastructural examinations were performed on biofilms from eight anaerobic fixed-bed reactors filled with various packing materials and operated on fresh swine waste. By using light, UV, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy, the distribution of a diverse microbial population composed of bacteria and a few yeasts was determined. This is the first time that the ultrastructure of in situ anaerobic digestor biofilms has been reported. A large number of methanogenic bacteria were identified by their fluorescence under 420 nm of radiation. Of these, two morphologically distinct types were most prevalent in the films. Methanothrix spp. was present in high numbers at the film surface, whereas Methanosarcina spp. were commonly embedded in the lower regions of the film. Inhabitants of the film were surrounded by an exopolysaccharide matrix that was very dense toward the base. An extensive network of channels was observed throughout the matrix that may facilitate gas and nutrient exchange to the lower regions of the film.
Silicon-on-insulator substrates: status and prognosis

The task in SOI substrate material is now to establish that high performance and reliability can be obtained routinely and consistently, in spite of the fact that SOI wafers are still made in a small batch processes. Circuits of interest must be obtained with high yield using SOI wafers which are acceptably low in cost and available in sufficient quantity on a timely basis, just as bulk Si wafers became identical and reliable enough that only spot check characterization needed to be done, SOI wafers have to strive for the same routineness to be of greatest interest to semiconductor manufacturers. While much progress in this direction has been made, much is still left to do. One of the difficulties facing semiconductor manufacturers is the wide variety of choices in available SOI material at a time when the goal is to narrow down the choices to an optimum one or two. Mainstream CMOS efforts have focused on two major options-SIMOX and BSOI, but even within these options there are potential variables.
Inference of Solar Magnetic Field Parameters from Data with Limited Wavelength Sampling

We investigate the diagnostic potential of polarimetric measurements with filtergraph instruments. Numerical simulations are used to explore the possibility of inferring the magnetic field vector, its filling factor, and the thermodynamics of model atmospheres when only a few wavelength measurements are available. These simulations assume the magnetic Sun to be represented by Milne–Eddington atmospheres. The results indicate that two wavelength measurements are insufficient to reliably determine the magnetic parameters, regardless of whether magnetograph techniques or least-squares fitting inversions are used. However, as few as four measurements analyzed with the inversion technique provide enough information to retrieve the intrinsic magnetic field with an accuracy better than 10% in most cases.
Two-gluon mechanism in photon-nucleon collisions. Production of quarkoniums, glueballs and Higgs scalars and the possibility of testing the non-abelian nature of QCD

We present a study of the role of the two-gluon processes in γN collisions. The gluon distribution in the photon is extracted by using vector meson dominance and the point-like coupling of the photon to the quarks prescribed by QCD. Cross sections for C-even bound states (e.g., ηc, η′c, ηb etc.) of quark and antiquark, for bound states (glueballs) of gluons and for Higgs scalars are calculated. Decay modes useful for their searches are discussed. The importance of the quarkoniums and the glueballs thus produced as a clean source of two-gluon jets is stressed. The possibility of detection of these states through missing-mass techniques, in addition to their detection via exclusive decay modes, is underscored. Besides the discrete states we also discuss the feasibility of testing QCD, especially its non-abelian character, via an experimental study of the hadronic continuum formed by the interaction of the two gluons. We show that the dominant contribution to the gluon-gluon cross section originates from the self-couplings amongst the octet of gauge fields which lead to the reaction g + g → g + g and not from the (conventional) flavor reaction g + g → f + f. The signal for the sample of events contributing to the gluon-gluon continuum cross section has a topology of four jets: in the c.m. frame of the beam and target two of the jets lie along the collision axis with one moving to the left, the other to the right and the remaining two are at a high transverse momentum with respect to that axis.
International Intellectual Property Dispute Resolution

“In a micro‐electronic patent or a computer software copyright dispute, litigation or arbitration can take longer than the life‐cycle of the product concerned; a preliminary injunction can kill an entire product line, and a damage award will invariably come too late, at a time when the victim may have already been ruined.”Christian Burhring‐Uhle1
Problems in life cycle support cost estimation

Although industry is expected to design hardware to fit into a general support system and to be capable of arguing life-cycle system costs, adequate information has not been available on the support system in terms of policies and operating decision rules. Policies and operating decisions by users dominate engineering design decisions in determining life-cycle support costs. The relative effect of each of these decision areas on support costs has yet to be resolved empirically. Without an understanding of the sensitivity of support costs to alternative designs, capability is limited in design improvement and support of end items. Life-cycle costing of analysis under cost-effectiveness and the maintainability of integrated logistics support is open to question.
Promising avenues of therapeutics for bipolar illness.

Basic scientific advances in understanding the neuropsychobioloqy of bipolar disorder have given us a multitude of opportunities to explore and exploit new avenues of therapeutics. Pharmacotherapeutic approaches include: neuropeptides (agonists such as thyrotropin-releasing hormone and antagonists such as corticotropin-releasing hormone), neurotrophic factors (especially brain-derived neurotrophic factor), and glutamatergic mechanisms (such as riluzole, ketamine, and antagonists of the NR-2B subunit of the glutamate receptor). Physiological interventions that would offer alternatives to electroconvulsive therapy include: repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation, especially at more intense stimulation parameters; magnetic stimulation therapy (seizures induced more focally by magnetic rather than electrical stimulation with resulting reduced meaning loss); vagal nerve stimulation, and deep brain stimulation. However, these, as well as the panoply of existing treatments, require further intensive investigation to place each of them in the proper therapeutic seguence and combination for the individual patient, based on development of better clinical and biological predictors of response. Large clinical trial networks and development of systematic research in clinical practice settings, such as that featured by the National Cancer institute for cancer chemotherapy, would greatly accelerate the progress in incorporating new, as well as existing, agents into the best treatment strategies. The bipolar disorders, which are increasingly recognized as complex, highly comorbid conditions with a high morbidity and mortality, of which the majority start in childhood and adolescence, are not likely to respond completely to any single new treatment agent, and new public health initiatives and research strategies are needed as much as any new single treatment advance.
Hummingbird tongues are elastic micropumps

Pumping is a vital natural process, imitated by humans for thousands of years. We demonstrate that a hitherto undocumented mechanism of fluid transport pumps nectar onto the hummingbird tongue. Using high-speed cameras, we filmed the tongue–fluid interaction in 18 hummingbird species, from seven of the nine main hummingbird clades. During the offloading of the nectar inside the bill, hummingbirds compress their tongues upon extrusion; the compressed tongue remains flattened until it contacts the nectar. After contact with the nectar surface, the tongue reshapes filling entirely with nectar; we did not observe the formation of menisci required for the operation of capillarity during this process. We show that the tongue works as an elastic micropump; fluid at the tip is driven into the tongue's grooves by forces resulting from re-expansion of a collapsed section. This work falsifies the long-standing idea that capillarity is an important force filling hummingbird tongue grooves during nectar feeding. The expansive filling mechanism we report in this paper recruits elastic recovery properties of the groove walls to load nectar into the tongue an order of magnitude faster than capillarity could. Such fast filling allows hummingbirds to extract nectar at higher rates than predicted by capillarity-based foraging models, in agreement with their fast licking rates.
Global Transcriptome Analysis Reveals That Poly(ADP-Ribose) Polymerase 1 Regulates Gene Expression through EZH2

Posttranslational modifications, such as poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation (PARylation), regulate chromatin-modifying enzymes, ultimately affecting gene expression. This study explores the role of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) on global gene expression in a lymphoblastoid B cell line. We found that inhibition of PARP catalytic activity with olaparib resulted in global gene deregulation, affecting approximately 11% of the genes expressed. Gene ontology analysis revealed that PARP could exert these effects through transcription factors and chromatin-remodeling enzymes, including the polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) member EZH2. EZH2 mediates the trimethylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3), a modification associated with chromatin compaction and gene silencing. Both pharmacological inhibition of PARP and knockdown of PARP1 induced the expression of EZH2, which resulted in increased global H3K27me3. Chromatin immunoprecipitation confirmed that PARP1 inhibition led to H3K27me3 deposition at EZH2 target genes, which resulted in gene silencing. Moreover, increased EZH2 expression is attributed to the loss of the occupancy of the transcription repressor E2F4 at the EZH2 promoter following PARP inhibition. Together, these data show that PARP plays an important role in global gene regulation and identifies for the first time a direct role of PARP1 in regulating the expression and function of EZH2.
Graphs with Forbidden Subgraphs

Abstract Many graphs which are encountered in the study of graph theory are characterized by a type of configuration or subgraph they possess. However, there are occasions when such graphs are more easily defined or described by the kind of subgraphs they are not permitted to contain. For example, a tree can be defined as a connected graph which contains no cycles, and Kuratowski [22] characterized planar graphs as those graphs which fail to contain subgraphs homeomorphic from the complete graph K 5 or the complete bipartite graph K 3,3 . The purpose of this article is to study, in a unified manner, several classes of graphs, which can be defined in terms of the kinds of subgraphs they do not contain, and to investigate related concepts. In the process of doing this, we show that many “apparently unrelated” results in the literature of graph theory are closely related. Several unsolved problems and conjectures are also presented.
Synthesis, characterization and the thermal isomerization mechanism of a series of trans-tetracarbonyl-bis(phosphinite)molybdenum(0) complexes and an evaluation of their potential to form heterobimetallic compounds

Abstract The reactions of coordinated phosphorus-donor ligands have previously been used to prepare bimetallic trans-[cis-Mo(CO)4(PPh2NHCH2CH2NCH(o-C6H4)O)2]M (M = Ni(II), Cu(II)) complexes. Similar bimetallic complexes containing trans-tetracarbonyl-bis(phosphinite)molybdenum(0) centers could be even more interesting because they could serve as molecular gyroscopes. In an attempt to prepare such complexes, the three intermediate compounds trans-Mo(CO)4(PPh2Cl)2 (1), trans-Mo(CO)4(PPh2NHCH2CH2NH2)2 (2), and trans-Mo(CO)4(PPh2NHCH2CH2NCH(o-C6H4)OH)2 (3) were successfully synthesized and fully characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis and X-ray crystallography. However, the reaction of 3 with Ni(OAc)2(H2O)4 yielded a mixture of crude products with the previously reported trans-[cis-Mo(CO)4(PPh2NHCH2CH2NCH(o-C6H4)O)2]Ni being the only product successfully isolated. The cis product was formed due to facile trans–cis isomerization during the coordination of the Ni(II) to 3. To gain more insight into such isomerizations, the trans–cis isomerizations of 2 and 3 have been followed by 31P{1H} NMR spectroscopy. The reactions follow reversible first order kinetics and appear to display intramolecular mechanisms due to the lack of carbonyl substitutions of the phosphinamidite ligands when the isomerizations are performed under CO atmospheres. Eyring analyses performed on the two complexes show that they have nearly identical activation energies (2: ΔH = 10 ± 2 kJ mol−1, ΔS = 39 ± 5 J mol−1 K−1; 3: ΔH = 11 ± 2 kJ mol−1, ΔS = 41 ± 7 J mol−1 K−1).