cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Interannual to decadal changes in extreme fire weather event frequencies across the southwestern United States

Low-frequency changes (decades to years) in precipitation related to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) are known to influence wildfire variability across the southwest United States. Little work has been done to identify whether daily fire weather variability, also important to wildfire activity, is influenced by these same climatic phenomena. This study identifies the synoptic climatological conditions associated with extreme fire weather events in the Southwest and constructs an extreme fire weather frequency data set for the period of 1958–2003 using a logistic regression technique. Interannual changes in extreme fire weather day frequencies are not linearly correlated with either ENSO or PDO, but do show significant deviations from expected values when grouped by PDO phase (positive or negative) and further subgrouped by ENSO state (La Nina, El Nino or neutral). A higher number of extreme fire weather days occur during the negative phase of the PDO, especially when accompanied by a La Nina event. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society
Excited-state quenching by proton-coupled electron transfer

The emitting metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) excited state of [Ru(bpy)2(bpz)]2+ (bpy is 2,2‘-bipyridine; bpz is 2,2‘-bipyrazine) is reductively quenched by hydroquinone (H2Q) by proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), most likely by concerted electron−proton transfer (EPT). The identity of the transient products ([Ru(bpy)2(bpzH•)]2+ and HQ•) and the kinetics of their formation and disappearance have been established by steady-state emission and time-resolved emission, absorption, and EPR measurements. The protonated, reduced complex [Ru(bpy)2(bpzH•)]2+ functions as a H-atom reductant toward quinone or benzaldehyde with potential implications for net photochemistry and energy conversion.
Influence of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid on the growth and stored polyglucan content of three species of heterotrophic algae

Abstract The effect of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) on the cell number, rresh weight, dry weight, and stored starch content of three species of heterotrophic algae was examined in vitro. Species of Polytoma, Polytomella, and Prototheca were exposed to 2,4-D concentrations ranging from 10−7 to 2 × 10−3 M contained in a sodium acetate-yeast-peptone liquid medium. With increasing concentrations of 2,4-D, a significant decrease in the cell number, fresh weight, dry weight, and starch content was observed in growing cultures of Polytoma and Polytomella. Polytoma was more sensitive to the presence of the herbicide in the growth medium than was Polytomella. Prototheca was observed to be the least sensitive to 2,4-D as there was no noticeable change in the cell number, fresh and dry weights, and stored polyglucan content in cultures of this particular heterotroph.
High-Dose Tamoxifen in Treatment of Brain Tumors: Interaction with Antiepileptic Drugs

Summary: The incidence of seizures related to primary brain tumors is 20–80%. High-dose tamoxifen was recently reported as a novel treatment for patients with malignant gliomas who have failed standard therapies. Tamoxifen inhibits protein kinase C (PKC) in vitro and thus may regulate glioma cell growth by modulating intracellular signal transduction. We report a patient with a recurrent supratentorial pilocytic astrocytoma who had an untoward interaction between high-dose tamoxifen therapy and phenytoin (PHT), drugs that share a common enzyme for metabolism, therefore emphasizing the need to monitor concomitant antiepileptic drug (AED) levels when high-dose tamoxifen therapy is instituted.
Assessing the potential for leaf-off LiDAR data to model canopy closure in temperate deciduous forests

Abstract Estimates of canopy closure have many important uses in forest management and ecological research. Field measurements, however, are typically not practical to acquire over expansive areas or for large numbers of locations. This problem has been addressed, in recent years, through the use of airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology which has proven effective in modeling canopy closure remotely. The techniques developed to use LiDAR for this purpose have been designed and evaluated for datasets acquired during leaf-on conditions. However, a large number of LiDAR datasets are acquired during leaf-off conditions since their primary purpose is to generate bare-earth Digital Elevation Models. In this paper, we develop and evaluate techniques for leveraging small-footprint leaf-off LiDAR data to model leaf-on canopy closure in temperate deciduous forests. We evaluate three techniques for modeling canopy closure: (1) the canopy-to-total-return-ratio ( CTRR ), (2) the canopy-to-total-pixel-ratio ( CTPR ), and (3) the hemispherical-viewshed (HV) . The first technique has been used widely, in various forms, and has been shown to be effective with leaf-on LiDAR datasets. The CTRR technique that we tested uses the first-return LiDAR data only. The latter two techniques are new contributions that we develop and present in this paper. These techniques use Canopy Height Models (CHM) to detect significant gaps in the forest canopy which are of primary importance in estimating closure. The techniques we tested each showed good promise for predicting canopy closure using leaf-off LiDAR data with the CTPR and HV models having particularly high correlations with closure estimates from hemispherical photographs. The CTRR model had performance on par with results from previous studies that used leaf-on LiDAR, although, with leaf-off data the model tended to be negatively biased with respect to species having simple and compound leaf types and positively biased for coniferous species. The CTPR and HV models also showed some slight negative biases for compound-leaf species. The biases for the CTPR and HV models were mitigated when the CHM data were smoothed to fill in small gaps. The CHM-based models were robust to changes in the CHM model resolution which suggests that these methods may be applicable to a variety of small-footprint LiDAR datasets. In this research, the new CTPR and HV methods showed a strong ability to predict canopy closure using leaf-off data, however, future work will be needed to test the applicability of the models to variations in LiDAR datasets, forest types, and topography.
On the roles of urocanic acid in photoimmunosuppression: attempted photorepair of urocanic acid-DNA cyclobutane adducts with DNA photolyase

It has been reported that UV-induced immunosuppression can be reversed by photoreactivation or exposure to T4 endonuclease V, two treatments that can repair cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers. These observations, together with the known role of urocanic acid (UA) in UV-induced immune suppression, prompted us to study the ability of DNA photolyase to repair UA-DNA cyclobutane photoadducts in single-stranded calf thymus DNA. We did not detect any release of UA, with a sensitivity implying that photolyase is at least 2900 times less active toward UA-DNA adducts than toward cis-syn thymine-thymine dimers. This indicates that any reversal of photoimmunosuppression by photoreactivation cannot significantly involve cleavage of UA-DNA cyclobutane adducts.
A CMOS inverse Chebyshev channel selection filter for extravehicular activity (EVA) radio receivers

This paper presents an inverse Chebyshev filter for channel selection in the baseband section of an extravehicular activity (EVA) fully integrated radio receiver. The filter is synthesized from a 4th order doubly-terminated LC ladder prototype using a leapfrog structure in order to minimize the use of active components. The cutoff frequency of the filter is digitally controlled for different channel bandwidths through a binary weighted capacitor bank that allows tuning from 1.1 MHz to 2.28 MHz. The derivation of the filter specifications from the system level parameters of the EVA radio receiver is presented. Also, the impact of the channel selection filter in the overall receiver performance is discussed. The circuit is implemented using the IBM 0.18 μm standard process and post-layout simulations show a pass-band gain of -0.07 dB, an IIP3 of 38 dBm, adjacent channel rejection better than 50 dB and a noise figure of 30.2 dB. The filter operates from a 1.8 V power supply consuming 4.03 mA.
Driving Beyond Stopping Distance Constraints

This paper discusses swerving as an alternative for stopping as a primary obstacle avoidance maneuver. By swerving instead of stopping, we show it is possible to achieve significantly higher-speeds given the same sensor capability. We have demonstrated navigation at speeds which rely on the principles described in this paper.
Glutathione conjugation of trichloroethylene in human liver and kidney: kinetics and individual variation.

Isolated human hepatocytes exhibited time-, trichloroethylene (Tri) concentration-, and cell concentration-dependent formation ofS-(1,2-dichlorovinyl)glutathione (DCVG) in incubations in sealed flasks with 25 to 10,000 ppm Tri in the headspace, corresponding to 0.011 to 4.4 mM in hepatocytes. Maximal formation of DCVG (22.5 ± 8.3 nmol/120 min per 106 cells) occurred with 500 ppm Tri. Time-, protein concentration-, and both Tri and GSH concentration-dependent formation of DCVG were observed in liver and kidney subcellular fractions. Two kinetically distinct systems were observed in both cytosol and microsomes from pooled liver samples, whereas only one system was observed in subcellular fractions from pooled kidney samples. Liver cytosol exhibited apparentKm values (μM Tri) of 333 and 22.7 andVmax values (nmol DCVG formed/min per mg protein) of 8.77 and 4.27; liver microsomes exhibited apparentKm values of 250 and 29.4 andVmax values of 3.10 and 1.42; kidney cytosol and microsomes exhibited apparent Km values of 26.3 and 167, respectively, and Vmaxvalues of 0.81 and 6.29, respectively. DCVG formation in samples of liver cytosol and microsomes from 20 individual donors exhibited a 6.5-fold variation in microsomes but only a 2.4-fold variation in cytosol. In coincubations of pooled liver cytosol and microsomes, addition of an NADPH-regenerating system produced marked inhibition of DCVG formation, but addition of GSH had no effect on cytochrome P-450-catalyzed formation of chloral hydrate. These results indicate that both human kidney and liver have significant capacity to catalyze DCVG formation, indicating that the initial step of the GSH-dependent pathway is not limiting in the formation of nephrotoxic and nephrocarcinogenic metabolites.
Tale of Two Talents: How Two Early Childhood Teacher Educators Use Peer-Reflection to Examine Their Practices

How do college professors prepare for class? Teachers often approach the lesson planning process differently. Some, though quite different in their methods, come out with remarkably similar results. Two highly effective teachers engaged each other in peer-reflection as they explored their own methods of lesson preparation. As they conferred with one another, they recognized similarities and examined their differences. They tell their story here, describing how they grew through sharing tales, comparing their talents, and contrasting their ideas about lesson planning. Their similarities on seven attributes of lesson preparation were strong; however, on seven facets they differed. The degree of that contrast is of great interest here.
PIN: An Associated Protein Inhibitor of Neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase

The neurotransmitter functions of nitric oxide are dependent on dynamic regulation of its biosynthetic enzyme, neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS). By means of a yeast two-hybrid screen, a 10-kilodalton protein was identified that physically interacts with and inhibits the activity of nNOS. This inhibitor, designated PIN, appears to be one of the most conserved proteins in nature, showing 92 percent amino acid identity with the nematode and rat homologs. Binding of PIN destabilizes the nNOS dimer, a conformation necessary for activity. These results suggest that PIN may regulate numerous biological processes through its effects on nitric oxide synthase activity.
Positive emotion, negative emotion, and emotion control in the externalizing problems of school-aged children.

The present study examined the role of emotion and emotion control in children's externalizing problems. Third- to sixth-grade children were administered a self-report measure of positive emotion, negative emotion, and emotion control. Peer- and teacher-reported adjustment problems were assessed. Structural equations modeling revealed that negative emotion, especially anger, was important in externalizing problems. Less positive emotion was associated with more external- izing problems. However, when negative emotion was examined in a more differ- entiated manner (anger, sadness and fear), the effect of positive emotion was diminished. Anger consistently emerged as a significant predictor of behavior problems. No interaction between either positive emotion and emotion control or negative emotion and emotion control was significant. Results showed main effects of each emotion component, with small interaction effects. Methodological and conceptual implications of the findings from the present study are discussed.
Using ontology databases for scalable query answering, inconsistency detection, and data integration

An ontology database is a basic relational database management system that models an ontology plus its instances. To reason over the transitive closure of instances in the subsumption hierarchy, for example, an ontology database can either unfold views at query time or propagate assertions using triggers at load time. In this paper, we use existing benchmarks to evaluate our method--using triggers--and we demonstrate that by forward computing inferences, we not only improve query time, but the improvement appears to cost only more space (not time). However, we go on to show that the true penalties were simply opaque to the benchmark, i.e., the benchmark inadequately captures load-time costs. We have applied our methods to two case studies in biomedicine, using ontologies and data from genetics and neuroscience to illustrate two important applications: first, ontology databases answer ontology-based queries effectively; second, using triggers, ontology databases detect instance-based inconsistencies--something not possible using views. Finally, we demonstrate how to extend our methods to perform data integration across multiple, distributed ontology databases.
Automatically computing functional instantiations

Among the standard books distributed with ACL2 is the consider-hint book in the hints subdirectory, which implements a heuristic for computing functional instantiations. The implementation of the hint involves four basic algorithms: a second-order pattern matching algorithm that can compute instantiations for constrained and defined functions that call constrained functions, a process for generating variants of a term obtained by applying equations, a process for extending second-order matching through definitions so that when instantiating defined functions the algorithm can pick up appropriate bindings for the constrained functions inside the definitions, and an algorithm for sorting among likely functional substitutions. The second-order matching algorithm is an incomplete and slightly extended implementation of the Huet-Lang algorithm. We describe the four basic algorithms involved in guessing functional instantiations. We briefly suggest further work required to make the utility robust and suggest a new feature that could be added to ACL2 if this utility were sufficiently robust. We hope that some enterprising user or student will take up these challenges.
Pulse Dipolar ESR of Doubly Labeled Mini TAR DNA and Its Annealing to Mini TAR RNA

Pulse dipolar electron-spin resonance in the form of double electron electron resonance was applied to strategically placed, site-specifically attached pairs of nitroxide spin labels to monitor changes in the mini TAR DNA stem-loop structure brought on by the HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein NCp7. The biophysical structural evidence was at Angstrom-level resolution under solution conditions not amenable to crystallography or NMR. In the absence of complementary TAR RNA, double labels located in both the upper and the lower stem of mini TAR DNA showed in the presence of NCp7 a broadened distance distribution between the points of attachment, and there was evidence for several conformers. Next, when equimolar amounts of mini TAR DNA and complementary mini TAR RNA were present, NCp7 enhanced the annealing of their stem-loop structures to form duplex DNA-RNA. When duplex TAR DNA-TAR RNA formed, double labels initially located 27.5 A apart at the 3′- and 5′-termini of the 27-base mini TAR DNA relocated to opposite ends of a 27 bp RNA-DNA duplex with 76.5 A between labels, a distance which was consistent with the distance between the two labels in a thermally annealed 27-bp TAR DNA-TAR RNA duplex. Different sets of double labels initially located 26–27 A apart in the mini TAR DNA upper stem, appropriately altered their interlabel distance to ∼35 A when a 27 bp TAR DNA-TAR RNA duplex formed, where the formation was caused either through NCp7-induced annealing or by thermal annealing. In summary, clear structural evidence was obtained for the fraying and destabilization brought on by NCp7 in its biochemical function as an annealing agent and for the detailed structural change from stem-loop to duplex RNA-DNA when complementary RNA was present.
New method for the quantum ground states in one dimension

A simple, general and practically exact method is developed to calculate the ground states of 1D macroscopic quantum systems with translational symmetry. Applied to the Hubbard model, a modest calculation reproduces the Bethe Ansatz results.
Lattice Energy Functions for Prediction of Structural Properties of Alloy Phases

Lattice energy functions have been used to predict various properties. The energies and volumes of formation of alloy phases, as well as the relative stabilities of competing phases are provided by a model based on Mie type interatomic potentials. The elastic constants of alloy phases are treated using a model sensitive to the quadrupole distortion of a repulsion spheroid. The properties of defects are treated using a model based on both a volume dependent contribution and an interatomic potential contribution to the lattice energy. Good predictability is obtained for all three types of lattice energy functions in their respective applications.
Study of wave propagation in nanowires with surface effects by using a high-order continuum theory

A high-order continuum model is developed to study wave propagation in nanowires. By using the model, heterogeneous nanostructure effects can be captured especially for high wave frequency cases. Surface stress effects are also included by using the incremental deformation approach. The governing equations of motion in the nanowire are derived including both the strain-independent and strain-dependent surface stresses. For simplicity and clarity, specific attention will be paid to the effects of strain-independent surface stress in this study. The accuracy of the proposed model is validated by comparing dispersion curves of longitudinal wave propagation from the current model with those from the exact solution. By conducting a reduced formulation, the results predicted by the current model will be compared with those based on existed high-order models to show capability of the current model. Numerical simulations are then conducted to study both longitudinal and flexural wave propagation in nanowires. The surface stress effects upon both longitudinal and flexural wave propagation in nanowires are demonstrated, from which the size dependent wave information in nanowires can be observed. Some new physical wave phenomena related to the surface stress effects are discussed.
Markov modeling of minimally invasive surgery based on tool/tissue interaction and force/torque signatures for evaluating surgical skills

The best method of training for laparoscopic surgical skills is controversial. Some advocate observation in the operating room, while others promote animal and simulated models or a combination of surgery-related tasks. A crucial process in surgical education is to evaluate the level of surgical skills. For laparoscopic surgery, skill evaluation is traditionally performed subjectively by experts grading a video of a procedure performed by a student. By its nature, this process uses fuzzy criteria. The objective of the current study was to develop and assess a skill scale using Markov models (MMs). Ten surgeons [five novice surgeons (NS); five expert surgeons (ES)] performed a cholecystectomy and Nissen fundoplication in a porcine model. An instrumented laparoscopic grasper equipped with a three-axis force/torque (F/T) sensor was used to measure the forces/torques at the hand/tool interface synchronized with a video of the tool operative maneuvers. A synthesis of frame-by-frame video analysis and a vector quantization algorithm, allowed to define F/T signatures associated with 14 different types of tool/tissue interactions. The magnitude of F/T applied by NS and ES were significantly different (p<0.05) and varied based on the task being performed. High F/T magnitudes were applied by NS compared with ES while performing tissue manipulation and vice versa in tasks involved tissue dissection. From each step of the surgical procedures, two MMs were developed representing the performance of three surgeons out of the five in the ES and NS groups. The data obtained by the remaining two surgeons in each group were used for evaluating the performance scale. The final result was a surgical performance index which represented a ratio of statistical similarity between the examined surgeon's MM and the MM of NS and ES. The difference between the performance index value, for a surgeon under study, and the NS/ES boundary, indicated the level of expertise in the surgeon's own group. Preliminary data suggest that a performance index based on MM and F/T signatures provides an objective means of distinguishing NS from ES. In addition, this methodology can be further applied to evaluate haptic virtual reality surgical simulators for improving realism in surgical education.
Measuring Water-Extractable Phosphorus in Manures to Predict Phosphorus Concentrations in Runoff

Water-extractable phosphorus (WEP) in manures can influence the risk of phosphorus (P) losses in runoff when manures are land applied. We evaluated several manure handling and extraction variables to develop an extraction procedure for WEP that will minimize pre-analysis manure-sample-handling effects on WEP measurements. We also related manure WEP determinations to runoff dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) concentrations found in previously conducted field simulated rainfall experiments using the same manures to evaluate WEP as a predictor of P runoff losses. Dairy and poultry manure WEP concentrations increased with manure-to-water extraction ratio and shaking time. Relative to fresh manures, drying and grinding dairy manures before analysis usually decreased WEP concentrations, while WEP in poultry manures was often increased. Pre-analysis handling effects on WEP were minimized at the 1:1000 extraction ratio with a 1-h shaking time. Relationships between manure WEP and runoff DRP concentrations were s...
Brainless behavior: A myxomycete chooses a balanced diet

It is puzzling that primitive organisms that lack any kind of nervous system show sophisticated behaviors that we assume require a nervous system with some sort of centralized brain or ganglion. Many examples noted in the past belie this assumption and show that organisms without nerves have remarkable behaviors. Perhaps the pioneer in revealing such behaviors was H. S. Jennings (1), who showed many years ago that protozoa such as Paramecium could orient to various environmental cues and even have a primitive kind of learning and memory. This ability has been very much on my mind in my studies on the multicellular migrating cell masses in Dictyostelium, a cellular slime mold. These slugs are a bag of many thousands, or millions, of unicellular amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath. They move in one direction with a front and hind end, and they are oriented by light, by temperature gradients, and by gas (oxygen and ammonia) gradients, which guide them to form fruiting bodies in an optimal spot for the dispersal of their spores.
Prediction of flashover voltage of non-ceramic insulators under contaminated conditions

This paper describes the development of a theoretical model to predict flashover voltage of nonceramic insulators. The model is based on reignition and arc constants that have been derived from electric field simulations and experimental data of flashover voltage and surface resistance measurements. New and field-aged silicone rubber and ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber samples were evaluated. A good correlation of the calculations from the model with experimental data has been demonstrated
Falsely Increased hCG in Patients with High Leukocyte Counts

To the Editor: Falsely increased plasma troponin (Tn) I and T results have been reported for several Tn methods, including the Beckman Coulter UniCel DxI AccuTnI assay (Beckman Coulter, Chaska, MN) (1–3). We and others have also observed falsely increased human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) using the Beckman Coulter Access Total βhCG on the UniCel DxI (1). These false increases were identified by the finding of substantially lower results following high-speed recentrifugation and reanalysis, suggesting a particulate interference. However, the sources of these false increases were not previously determined. In reviewing clinical data for patients from whom plasma samples were found to generate falsely high hCG results on the UniCel DxI in our laboratories, we found these patients had high blood leukocyte counts. Based on this finding, we investigated the interference of leukocytes in the Beckman Coulter Access Total βhCG assay. This study was approved by the Emory Institutional Review Board. First, we measured hCG in leftover plasma samples from patients with known high blood leukocyte content of >25 × 103/μL. The thirteen randomly selected samples (10 male, 3 female) were inverted several times in the original lithium heparin plasma separator tubes (PSTs) (Becton Dickinson) to disturb any particulates settled during storage (up to 24 h refrigerated) and then measured …
Word parsing by late-learning French–English bilinguals

Previous research conducted with early learning French–English bilinguals suggests that, at the individual word level, the development of segmentation is best characterized in terms of a parameter-setting theory of language acquisition in which French segmentation is marked relative to English segmentation. The present study, which is conducted with late learning French–English bilinguals, finds evidence for parameter setting but with a directionality of markedness opposite that found by others. Support in favor of these findings is discussed.
Effect of TSH on iodine metabolism and intermediary metabolism in tissue from patients with Graves' disease.

ABSTRACT The present studies examined in vitro the TSH responsiveness of thyroid tissue from 17 patients with treated Graves' disease and 1 untreated patient. Basal adenylate cyclase, cyclic AMP concentrations, l-14C-glucose oxidation and 32P incorporation was similar in normal thyroid and tissue from patients with Graves' disease. TSH increased adenylate cyclase activity and 32P incorporation into phospholipids to the same extent in both types of thyroid tissue. In contrast, stimulation of glucose oxidation and cyclic AMP concentrations was significantly less in thyroid from patients with Graves' disease. Basal incorporation of 131I into monoiodotryosine and diiodotyrosin was diminished in thyroid slices from patients with Graves' disease but the percent increase was significantly greater than in normal thyroid tissue. This might reflect the reduced base line values in Graves' disease, since the absolute increments in iodoamino acid synthesis induced by TSH were as great in Graves' disease as in normal t...
Identification of alcoholics in the workplace.

Workplace programs make the supervisor responsible for identifying alcoholics through their job performance. However, research indicates that those so identified are a small proportion of the alcoholic employed population and tend to be in the later stages of the disease. This is due in part to the relatively small number of alcoholics who demonstrate performance deterioration in the early stages. In addition, only a few members of the drinking population are responsible for the costs to the organization resulting from poor job performance. The identification rate differs for alcoholics depending on their sex and level in the organization and the supervisory style of their managers. Hiding symptoms and cover-up for others adds to the proportion remaining unidentified.
Effectiveness of Remote Patient Monitoring After Discharge of Hospitalized Patients With Heart Failure: The Better Effectiveness After Transition–Heart Failure (BEAT-HF) Randomized Clinical Trial

Importance It remains unclear whether telemonitoring approaches provide benefits for patients with heart failure (HF) after hospitalization. Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of a care transition intervention using remote patient monitoring in reducing 180-day all-cause readmissions among a broad population of older adults hospitalized with HF. Design, Setting, and Participants We randomized 1437 patients hospitalized for HF between October 12, 2011, and September 30, 2013, to the intervention arm (715 patients) or to the usual care arm (722 patients) of the Better Effectiveness After Transition–Heart Failure (BEAT-HF) study and observed them for 180 days. The dates of our study analysis were March 30, 2014, to October 1, 2015. The setting was 6 academic medical centers in California. Participants were hospitalized individuals 50 years or older who received active treatment for decompensated HF. Interventions The intervention combined health coaching telephone calls and telemonitoring. Telemonitoring used electronic equipment that collected daily information about blood pressure, heart rate, symptoms, and weight. Centralized registered nurses conducted telemonitoring reviews, protocolized actions, and telephone calls. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was readmission for any cause within 180 days after discharge. Secondary outcomes were all-cause readmission within 30 days, all-cause mortality at 30 and 180 days, and quality of life at 30 and 180 days. Results Among 1437 participants, the median age was 73 years. Overall, 46.2% (664 of 1437) were female, and 22.0% (316 of 1437) were African American. The intervention and usual care groups did not differ significantly in readmissions for any cause 180 days after discharge, which occurred in 50.8% (363 of 715) and 49.2% (355 of 722) of patients, respectively (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.88-1.20; P = .74). In secondary analyses, there were no significant differences in 30-day readmission or 180-day mortality, but there was a significant difference in 180-day quality of life between the intervention and usual care groups. No adverse events were reported. Conclusions and Relevance Among patients hospitalized for HF, combined health coaching telephone calls and telemonitoring did not reduce 180-day readmissions. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier:NCT01360203
Energy sorghum pyrolysis using a pressurized batch reactor

This paper tries to assess process yields by performing conventional pyrolysis at an elevated pressure of energy sorghum using a high-pressure batch reactor and evaluates the corresponding product characteristics, respectively. Pyrolysis was performed at 6.9 bar (100 psi) at different temperatures from 400 to 600 °C with heating rates of 4 °C/min. The changes in temperature did not affect the product distribution but significantly affected product characteristics. The H/C molar ratio of bio-oil is at 1.51 while the O/C molar ratio was six times lower than the O/C molar ratio of the sorghum biomass (0.11 vs. 0.67). About 50 % of the bio-oil is composed of aliphatic hydrocarbons (i.e., alkanes and alkenes) and aromatic compounds (i.e., phenolic and benzene derivatives). The carbon distribution lies between C8 and C44 while the distribution of straight chain alkanes exhibited a maximum in the range of C8 to C21, which is found to be in the range of gasoline and diesel fuels. The product bio-char from sorghum biomass is a carbon-rich material with C concentrations of 49 to 52 %wt and was classified under the low- to medium-volatile bituminous coal group according to ASTM standard D388. Lastly, the produced non-condensable gas consisted mainly of CH4 and CO2 with small amounts of CO, H2, and C2H6.
Measuring Nitrous Oxide Mass Transfer into Non-Aqueous CO2BOL CO2 Capture Solvents

This paper investigates CO2 absorption behavior in CO2BOL solvents by decoupling the physical and chemical effects using N2O as a nonreactive mimic. Absorption measurements were performed using a wetted-wall contactor. Testing was performed using a “first generation” CO2-binding organic liquid (CO2BOL), composed of an independent base and alcohol. Measurements were made with N2O at a lean (0.06 mol CO2/mol BOL) and rich (0.26 mol CO2/mol BOL) loading, each at three temperatures (35, 45, and 55 °C). Liquid-film mass transfer coefficients (kg′) were calculated by subtracting the gas film resistance-determined from a correlation from literature–from the overall mass transfer measurement. The resulting kg′ values for N2O in CO2BOLs were found to be higher than that of 5 M aqueous MEA under comparable conditions, which is supported by published measurements of Henry’s coefficients for N2O in various solvents. These results suggest that the physical solubility contribution for CO2 absorption in CO2BOLs is great...
Crowdsourcing Annotations for Websites' Privacy Policies: Can It Really Work?

Website privacy policies are often long and difficult to understand. While research shows that Internet users care about their privacy, they do not have time to understand the policies of every website they visit, and most users hardly ever read privacy policies. Several recent efforts aim to crowdsource the interpretation of privacy policies and use the resulting annotations to build more effective user interfaces that provide users with salient policy summaries. However, very little attention has been devoted to studying the accuracy and scalability of crowdsourced privacy policy annotations, the types of questions crowdworkers can effectively answer, and the ways in which their productivity can be enhanced. Prior research indicates that most Internet users often have great difficulty understanding privacy policies, suggesting limits to the effectiveness of crowdsourcing approaches. In this paper, we assess the viability of crowdsourcing privacy policy annotations. Our results suggest that, if carefully deployed, crowdsourcing can indeed result in the generation of non-trivial annotations and can also help identify elements of ambiguity in policies. We further introduce and evaluate a method to improve the annotation process by predicting and highlighting paragraphs relevant to specific data practices.
Printable Solar Cells from Advanced Solution-Processible Materials

Summary Considering the terawatt global demand for energy, studies on renewable energy resources are regarded as one of the most important issues. Among the available renewable energy resources, solar energy is a strong candidate because of its abundance and clean nature. Traditional solar cells are typically not cost effective for large-scale implementation given the high processing costs. Solution-processible solar cells have been of great interest among researchers over the past few decades in an effort to lower the costs of solar technologies because they are more affordable than conventional solar technologies. In this review, we provide an overview of the major solution-processible thin-film solar cell technologies by focusing on three representative fields: polymeric organic, inorganic chalcogenide, and organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells. This review describes the historical development, material properties, device structures, and highest performance of each technology under a single-junction configuration. In addition, the challenges of each technology and the future outlook are briefly discussed.
Operating Room Traffic as a Modifiable Risk Factor for Surgical Site Infection.

Abstract Background: Surgical site infections (SSI) contribute to surgical patients' morbidity and costs. Operating room traffic may be a modifiable risk factor for SSI. We investigated the impact of additional operating room personnel on the risk of superficial SSI (sSSI). Patients and Methods: In this matched case-control study, cases included patients in whom sSSI developed in clean surgical incisions after elective, daytime operations. Control subjects were matched by age, gender, and procedure. Operating room personnel were classified as (1) surgical scrubbed, (2) surgical non-scrubbed, or (3) anesthesia. We used conditional logistic regression to test the extent to which additional personnel overall and from each work group were associated with infection. Results: In total, 474 patients and 803 control subjects were identified. Each additional person among total personnel and personnel from each work group was significantly associated with greater odds of infection (all personnel, odds ratio [OR] = ...
Chip editor: leveraging circuit edit for logic obfuscation and trusted fabrication

The globalization of the semiconductor foundry business poses grave risks in terms of intellectual property (IP) protection, especially for critical applications. Over the past few years, several techniques have been proposed that allow manufacturing of ICs at untrusted foundries by obfuscating and/or locking, albeit at high design overhead, low security guarantees and high cost. In this paper, for the first time, we utilize well-known, low-cost circuit edit techniques, which enable a designer to modify a circuit post-fabrication on a chip-by-chip basis. In the proposed design flow, obfuscated ICs are fabricated and tested at untrusted foundries, and post-fabrication focused ion beam (FIB) circuit edit techniques are utilized to revert the circuit back to its intended functionality at a trusted design house. In order to obfuscate the structural logic of the design, several possible gate-level techniques such as wire swapping and gate insertion are proposed. At the same time, the tradeoffs between layout-level modifications to aid circuit edit and the strength of obfuscation provided by the proposed approach are also assessed. Gate-level simulation results show that the chip-editor flow provides a strong level of design obfuscation and makes it infeasible for the untrusted foundry to retrieve the original design from the obfuscated layout it receives and the resultant netlist it can extract.
Enhanced Dissipation of Selected Herbicides in a Simulated Organic Matrix Biobed: A System to Control On-Farm Point-Source Pollution

Most farms have a centralized location to fill spray tanks with pesticides and to flush and clean application equipment. These sites, depending on the frequency of use, could be significant sources of surface and groundwater contamination. One approach to minimize this contamination is to install a treatment system, such as a biobed. This study sought to construct a biobed and test the effects of different biomix materials in enhancing the dissipation of herbicides widely used in crop production. The four types of biomix evaluated had mixing ratios by volume of (1) 12.5% straw:62.5% soil:25% peat, (2) 25% straw:50% soil:25% peat, (3) 12.5% straw:62.5% soil:25% compost, and (4) 25% straw:50% soil:25% compost. The dissipation rates of acetochlor, atrazine, pendimethalin, and trifluralin at different incubation times over 90 d were evaluated. The dissipation of atrazine and pendimethalin in the biomixes were faster than in soil. The half-lives for atrazine were 27.8 d in soil and 14.3 to 20.2 d in the biomixes and those of pendimethalin were 25.5 d in soil and 11.9 to 14.8 d in the biomixes. The dissipation rates and half-lives of acetochlor were similar to those in soil; the trifluralin dissipation rates were slower in the biomixes. The phenol oxidase activity was higher in the peat biomixes than in those containing compost. The results showed that biobed materials, especially those with peat, are effective in degrading selected herbicides.
Evaluation of mixture-fraction-based turbulent-reaction-rate model assumptions for high-pressure reactive flows

Several assumptions of atmospheric-pressure (atmospheric-p) single-phase turbulent reaction rate models are examined for high-p reactive flows having turbulent characteristics. The study uses a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) database described elsewhere (Bellan, 2017). This database was obtained with a model combining multi-species mixing under high-p conditions, a real-gas equation of state (EOS) and a single-step chemical reaction. The database, created in the configuration of a temporal mixing layer, probes the effect of the initial Reynolds number, Re_0, of the initial pressure, p_0, and of the initial composition of the two mixing-layer streams. The reaction is initiated in a turbulent flow and in each simulation the computations are pursued past a time when a maximum average-volumetric p is attained, ^(t*)pp. The examination of the vorticity and enstrophy equations at a time before reaction initiation and also at ^(t*)pp highlights the pivotal role of the high density-gradient magnitude regions (Bellan, 2017) in producing turbulence and the crucial role at ^(t*)pp of the baroclinic effect representing the misalignments of gradients of thermodynamic variables. Compared to the classical mixture fraction equation, the results show that the mixture fraction obeys an equation in which there is an additional diffusion term having a larger r.m.s. magnitude than that of the mixture-fraction typical diffusion term. An assessment of the Conditional Source-term Estimation (CSE) model assumptions found that, using an accurate mixture fraction probability density function (PDF), one can obtain a very good representation of the turbulent reaction rate in the most intense reaction regions, however the quality of the predictions of CSE deteriorated significantly when a common model for the PDF, the β-PDF, was used despite the β-PDF being constructed with the accurate moments extracted from the DNS. In the regions of minimal reaction, the CSE model using the exact PDF extracted from the DNS does not provide an accurate representation of the turbulent reaction rate, a fact which is attributed to the combined effect of lack of correlation between fluctuations of the reaction rate and of the mixture fraction, and to the strong correlation of the thermodynamic variables through the real-gas EOS in regions of colder and denser fluid.
Criminalization of Child Abuse and Violence against Children in South Asia: Law and Legal Advances in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

This chapter is an overview of the law and legal developments related to the criminalization of child abuse and violence against children in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Some of these laws include India’s Prevention of Children from Sexual Offenses Act of 2012 and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2014; Pakistan’s Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Bill of 2013 and the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill of 2014 (both bills were not passed by the Senate); and Bangladesh’s Prevention of Oppression Against Women and Children Act of 2000 (amended in 2003), the Acid Control Act of 2002, the Domestic Violence (Protection and Prevention) Act of 2010, and the Children Act of 2013. The study finds that among the three countries of South Asia, considerable advancements in the criminalization of child abuse and violence against children have been made in India and Bangladesh. As of 2016, Pakistan has not passed any national legislation criminalizing child sexual abuse and violence against children. These countries, however, have a long way to go to meet their commitments to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for ending child abuse and violence against children from all settings and sectors of life. In all these three countries of South Asia, corporal punishment is still legal in homes and families and this legality is defined by the old India Penal Code of 1860 and sanctified by the ideas of children as “properties” ingrained in local creeds, customs, and cultures.
Fabrication d’équipements lourds : Le Creusot en pleine évolution

En avril 2016, dans le cadre d’un audit qualite sur son site du Creusot, AREVA NP met en evidence des pratiques inacceptables dans la gestion des dossiers de fabrication. Un an plus tard, les equipes d’AREVA NP ont engage l’identification et le traitement des anomalies des dossiers des fabrications passees du Creusot et mis en place le plan d’amelioration du site. Objectif : conforter la confiance de ses parties prenantes et positionner Creusot forge parmi les references mondiales de la forge nucleaire en matiere de qualite et de performance.
Old and Novel Tools for the Calculus of the Hazard Rate

The major subjects covered in this chapter revolve around the following topics: – Deductive reasoning needs a precise description of the intended objects of study and we begin with discussing the physical models of systems. – The concept of entropy is very prolific in science [1] and this chapter will put forward the Boltzmann-like entropy as an innovative mathematical tool to calculate the systems’ hazard rate. We recall that Shannon’s entropy is used in a broad variety of research areas but here we shall introduce a new form of entropy that has nothing to do with the concepts of information and noise.
Eight New Developments, Uses, and Clarifications of the Conflict Tactics Scales:

This article provides information on eight new or previously unpublished aspects of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS), including new subscales and scoring methods, short forms, and new or little us...
Pilot screening study of targeted genetic polymorphisms for association with seasonal influenza hospital admission

Host response to influenza is highly variable, suggesting a potential role of host genetic variation. To investigate the host genetics of severe influenza in a targeted fashion, 32 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within viral immune response genes were evaluated for association with seasonal influenza hospitalization in an adult study population with European ancestry. SNP allele and genotype frequencies were compared between hospitalized influenza patients (cases) and population controls in a case-control study that included a discovery group (26 cases and 993 controls) and two independent, validation groups (1 with 84 cases and 4076 controls; the other with 128 cases and 9187 controls). Cases and controls had similar allele frequencies for variant rs12252 in interferon-inducible transmembrane protein 3 (IFITM3) (P > 0.05), and the study did not replicate the previously reported association of rs12252 with hospitalized influenza. In the discovery group, the preliminary finding of an association with a nonsense polymorphism (rs8072510) within the schlafen family member 13 (SFLN13) gene (P = 0.0099) was not confirmed in either validation group. Neither rs12252 nor rs8072510 showed an association according to the presence of clinical risk factors for influenza complications (P > 0.05), suggesting that these factors did not modify associations between the SNPs and hospitalized influenza. No other SNPs showed a statistically significant association with hospitalized influenza. Further research is needed to identify genetic factors involved in host response to seasonal influenza infection and to assess whether rs12252, a low-frequency variant in Europeans, contributes to influenza severity in populations with European ancestry.