cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Thrombomodulin Induces a Quiescent Phenotype and Inhibits Migration in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells In Vitro

Background Loss of critical endothelial cell function and subsequent vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) migration is central to the pathology of injury-induced neointimal hyperplasia and recurrent stenosis. Thrombomodulin (TM), well known for its function as an endothelial surface anticoagulant, may have an unknown direct effect on VSMC physiology that would be lost after injury. Here, we examined a novel effect of TM on VSMC by testing the hypothesis that direct application of TM induces favorable changes to the morphology of VSMC and inhibits their migration. Methods Primary human VSMC were harvested using the explant technique and used in early passage (1–4) for all experiments. Laser-scanning confocal fluorescent imaging was performed to assess the effect of soluble TM on VSMC morphology. In vitro, migration of VSMC was measured using: (1) a 4-hr modified Boyden chemotaxis assay and (2) a 24-hr electric cell-substrate impedance sensing injury migration assay. Migration experiments were conducted with VSMC exposed to increasing doses of soluble recombinant TM. Recombinant thrombin served as a positive control and serum-free media as a negative control for all experimentation. Data were analyzed using a Student's t -test or repeated measures analysis of variance where appropriate (α Results VSMC exposed to TM clearly demonstrated a quiescent morphology with organized stress fibers consistent with a quiescent, differentiated, contractile phenotype; whereas, thrombin stimulation led to an activated, dedifferentiated, synthetic phenotype. VSMC demonstrated a low, baseline level of migration in unstimulated serum-free conditions. Thrombin significantly stimulated VSMC migration as expected. TM, independent of thrombin, significantly inhibited baseline VSMC migration in a dose-response fashion. The maximal inhibition was observed at (5 μg/mL) with 70% reduction (56 ± 1.7 vs. 18 ± 3.5 cells/5 high-power fields, P = 0.0005). Conclusions TM has a direct effect on VSMC resulting in a quiescent, differentiated and contractile phenotype, and inhibition of migration. This effect is independent of the presence of thrombin. These findings provide new knowledge in understanding the pathophysiology of vascular injury and support a strategy focused on restoring key endothelial function to prevent intimal hyperplasia.
Heterogeneity in Adolescent Depressive Symptom Trajectories: Implications for Young Adults' Risky Lifestyle

OBJECTIVES: The first objective of this study was to empirically identify adolescent depressive symptoms trajectory among classes. The second objective was to investigate the implications of adolescent depressive symptom trajectories for their lifestyle factors in young adulthood. METHODS: Data came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Addhealth). The analysis included the identification of depressive symptom trajectory groups using Latent Class Analyses. The identified trajectory groups were then compared with regard to risky lifestyle factors in young adulthood. RESULTS: Youth in the chronically high, increasing, and decreasing depressive symptoms groups showed significantly higher prevalence rates in most risky lifestyle factors compared with the consistently low trajectory group, after controlling for lagged measures, adolescent delinquency, family characteristics, and race/ethnicity. The risky lifestyle factors included: having multiple sex partners, having been arrested/committed crime, being an excessive drinker, being a smoker, and being unmarried. CONCLUSIONS: The associations of adolescent depressive symptom trajectory groups with young adult risky lifestyle factors provide evidence for the psychosocial processes through which experiences with depressive symptoms influence young adult lifestyle. Language: en
Handling of irregularities in human centered systems: a unified framework for data and processes

Practical process-support and workflow systems should be built to describe the simple, normal flow of events and then deal easily with irregularities, including tolerating deviations. Similarly, these systems should describe the normal format and constraints concerning the large amounts of data that are usually stored, but then deal with abnormalities and possibly accommodate exceptional values. We offer a framework for treating both kinds of irregularities uniformly by using the notion of exception handling (with human agents as potential online exception handlers) and applying it to processes that have been reified as objects in classes with steps as attributes. As a result, only a small number of new constructs, which can be applied orthogonally, need to be introduced. Special runtime checks are used to deal with the consequences of permitting deviations from the norm to persist as violations of constraints. A logical semantics of process coordination and deviations is presented as a specification for implementations.
An overview of specific language disabilities

Specific language disability is one of many terms, varying in specificity from strephosymbolia to learning disorder, used to refer to those children, or some of them, who manifest an educationally significant discrepancy between their apparent capacity for language behavior and their actual levels of language function. Perhaps some of the semantic confusion regarding the name for this type of child (e.g., interjacent, dyslexic, educationally retarded, perceptually handicapped, neurologically involved, wordbIind, hyperkinetic, learning disability, etc.) could be minimized if we recognize a broad description such as suggested above and then delineate at least three major sub-categories. 1. DYSLEXIA, or reading disability, is perhaps the most frequent of all types of learning disabilities or language disorders. Estimates of the incidence of dyslexia vary greatly, primarily as a function of the definition used, and those who distinguish "primary" dyslexia as a specific, congenital syndrome find fewer cases than do those whose definition is based on a simple discrepancy between apparent capacity for reading and actual level of reading, regardless of etiological or correlated factors. A conservative estimate is that perhaps 2 - 7 % of the school population has severe enough reading problems to require special educational concern and provisions. Disabilities in other academic subject areas such as arithmetic do occur, but much less frequently. 2. VERBAL COMMUNICATION DISORDERS, or difficulties with the comprehension or expression of spoken language, have been labeled aphasic disorders in the past. But the term aphasia is now felt by many to be inappropriate. The term "verbal communication disorders" is used here to designate those children whose comprehension or expressive language problems involve the spoken word. * Based on lecture, "Reading Disability--an Overview", delivered at The Often Society, Inc., Fi]teenth Annual Meeting, New York Academy o] Sciences, October 30, 1964. Research Assistant Pro]essor, Institute ]or Research on 2~xceptionat Children, University el Illinois, Urbana, Illinois.
FlexPen® and KwikPen™ Prefilled Insulin Devices: A Laboratory Evaluation of Ergonomic and Injection Force Characteristics

Background Advances in insulin pen technology continue to improve the usability of these devices for patients with diabetes. In this study, ergonomic features and injection force, as measured by glide force (GF) and glide force variability (GFV), were evaluated for the new Humalog® Mix75/25 KwikPen™ (KwikPen) and compared with the NovoLog® Mix 70/30 FlexPen® (FlexPen).
Under construction: Undergraduates' perceptions of their music teacher role-identities

The purpose of this research was to explore how participants perceived themselves as preservice music teachers. Bouij’s (1998) salient role-identities in music education served as an a priori theor...
Stabilization methods for quantum mechanical resonance states of four-body systems

We describe the methods used in a computer code for quantum mechanical calculations of bound and resonance states of four-body systems. Three stabilization techniques for identifying the resonances and estimating resonance widths are discussed: calculation of coordinate-space moments, application of an imaginary optical potential, and analytic continuation of a real discrete spectrum using rational polynomial interpolation. Computational implementation of these methods, recent improvements to the computer code, and parallelization strategies are described in detail.
Discussion of the Evans Paper

While the political discussion in the United States has suddenly focused on the so-called “Supply-side effects,” this is not a new discovery in the literature of economics. I don’t believe any one has denied the theoretical possibility that labor supply may depend on the real wage rate, and that personal savings may depend on the real after-tax rate of interest. The question has always been about the empirical order of magnitudes of these responses. In the case of savings, there are two further questions: whether or not an increase in savings will necessarily lead to correspondingly larger investment in capital goods, and how much the additional investment will contribute to potential and actual output.
Active Living by Design: the value of evaluation.

s l f p k c n c h In late 2001, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) created Active Living by Design (ALbD) and itsNational ProgramOffice (NPO), headquartered at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global PublicHealth inChapelHill, NorthCarolina. This initiative aimed to promote routine physical activity by funding multidisciplinary partnerships in 25 diverse communities across the nation. Starting in 2003, each partnership received up to $40,000 per year for 5 years. To address the social and ecologic factors that affect activity, the partnerships implemented the 5PCommunityAction Model, encompassing strategies for preparation, promotions, programs, policy influences, and physical projects. The NPO gave technical assistance to the partnerships, which developed and implemented 5-yearworkplans and created a robust learning network among local partners and leaders. At the end of the grant period, nearly all of the partnerships received relatively modest 12to 18-month transition grants to support dissemination and sustainability efforts related to key elements of their work. This introduction addresses RWJF’s aspirations for evaluation, the need to adjust those aspirations, and an overview of the articles in this supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Initially, we planned an evaluation of behavior change outcomes. Evenwith the best intentions, the plan became unworkable for several reasons. First, RWJF wanted a proof of concept and therefore structured the ALbD funding competition so that the very best proposals would be selected.However, this arrangement eliminated the possibility of identifying an appropriate control group from the pool of applicants for a comparative evaluation design. Second, many of the winning proposals took advantage of policy and infrastructure opportunities that emerged during the funding period yet strayed from the grantees’ original workplans. These savvy political and business decisions did not allow for random assign-
EARLY FORMATIVE ANTHROPOMORPHIC FIGURINES FROM LA JOYA, SOUTHERN VERACRUZ, MEXICO

This paper describes Early Formative (3250–2700 b.p., uncalibrated) anthropomorphic figurines from the site of La Joya, located in the Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz, Mexico. Although recovered within the region traditionally identified as the “Olmec Heartland,” the La Joya figurine collection diverges in some fundamental ways from other published Early Formative Gulf Olmec collections. While the torsos from La Joya generally reflect the poses, postures, and costumes noted at contemporaneous sites, the La Joya figurine heads display characteristics that rarely conform to the traditional “San Lorenzo” stylistic canons. Rather, the overwhelming majority of figurine heads are similar to the Trapiche figurines from north-central Veracruz. These differences suggest that myriad intra- and interregional connections characterized Early Formative occupation along the southern Gulf lowlands. This variation also raises concerns regarding the suitability of the San Lorenzo material as necessarily “representative” of Early Formative Gulf Olmec lifeways.
Recent Changes to Reference Services in Academic Libraries and Their Relationship to Perceived Quality: Results of a National Survey

A national survey of academic librarians was conducted to examine relationships among reference service staffing changes, reference service innovations, adoption of reference technology, library type and size, and service quality. Analysis of the 606 response sets reveals trends toward reduced use of librarians and increased use of student staff at in-person service points, widespread increases in appointment-based and self-service reference, intensive efforts to reduce demand for reference by improving library instruction, and general improvements in reference service quality. Factors strongly associated with decreases or increases in quality are discussed in detail and implications for reference managers are provided.
A Generalization of Eisenstein's Criterion

(1974). A Generalization of Eisenstein's Criterion. Mathematics Magazine: Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 158-159.
Air Classification in High Solid Concentration (I)

As the sharpness of air classification generally decreases with the increase of the solid concentration, or mixing ratio namely, the ratio of solid feed rate to air flow rate, the mixing ratio has been limited to not higher than 0.3 in real industrial operations. Accordingly, besides improving the sharpness, the classification with much higher concentration flow has been required for increasing the throughput of classifiers.In this report, the fractional recovery curve was investigated by using a vertical type and two kinds of zig-zag type classifiers in fairly wide range of mixing ratio from 0.06 to 10. The cut size of classification was 270μ.The results obtained were as follows:(1) When the mixing ratio is less than 0.1, there is no difference of classification between the vertical type and the zig-zag type, but when the ratio is more than 0.1, the classification with latter type is more sharper than that of the former one.(2) Comparing the zig-zag types having the inclination of 30 degrees and that of 45 degrees, the former shows the sharper classification than the latter in the case of mixing ratio less than 1.0. However, this trend reverses at the ratio more than 1.0.
Development of new dosage form of OTC drugs affecting digestive system for improving autotherapy

China has entered an ageing society as far as population is concerned.With the increasing of health conscious,more and more people begin to recognize the importance of autotherapy,which promotes the rapid development of OTC market.OTC drugs affecting digestive system,which are mostly tablets and capsules,usually cant ’cure disease radically because of the defects of traditional preparations,such as low dissolution rate,short stagnation in stomach and failure of minimal bactericidal concentration.This paper mainly introduce the research and development of new dosage form of OTC drugs affecting digestive system.
Investigation on Legionella Contamination in Cooling Water of Central Air Conditioning in Public Places of Suzhou City

[Objective]To investigate the legionella contamination and its major serotype in cooling water of the air conditioning system of large-scale public places in Suzhou.[Methods] Totally 50 samples of cooling water from some shopping centers,hotels,supermarkets.Isolation,culture,biochemical identification and serotyping were performed by GVPC,BCYE,BCY medium.[Results]The detection rate was 76%(38/50)in the cooling water,and the main serotype was LP1(31/38).[Conclusion]The legionella detection rate is relatively high in large-scale public places of Suzhou,which poses a threat to public health.It is necessary to strengthen monitoring and management for air conditioning system.
Regulations, Standards, Guidelines, and Benchmarks: A Need for Evidence-Based Management.

> “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” > > —William Bruce Cameron In the United States, the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine is one of the most heavily regulated parts of health care. American hospital laboratories must be accredited to meet the regulatory requirements of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, usually through the laboratory accreditation programs of the College of American Pathologists and Joint Commission. In addition, because the Joint Commission accredits almost all American hospitals, even in hospitals where laboratory accreditation is through another source many Joint Commission standards extend to laboratory operations (particularly preanalytic components of laboratory testing and transfusion practices). Within clinical laboratories, blood banks/transfusion services fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration, both for transfusion practices as well as oversight of tissue used in transplantation. Clinical laboratories in most states fall under state regulations regarding reporting of communicable diseases, death certification, and newborn screening. Most states also have specific requirements regarding disposal of hazardous wastes generated within clinical laboratories. Almost all clinical laboratories fall under the jurisdiction of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for employee safety. And all laboratories, with a few exceptions, must address myriad requirements and regulations regarding billing and reimbursement … Corresponding author: Michael Wilson, MD, Denver Health Medical Center, 777 Bannock St, Denver, CO 80204. michael.wilson{at}dhha.org
An error probability analysis of jamming against wireless networks

In this paper, we analyze jamming against wireless networks from an error probability perspective. Specifically, we investigate the impact of a fixed number of jammers against a network of base stations (BS) or access points (AP). We first derive analytical expressions for the error probability of a victim receiver in the downlink of this wireless network and later study whether or not some recent results related to jamming in the point-to-point link scenario can be extended to the case of jamming against wireless networks.
Overcoming Singularity and Degeneracy in Neighboring Extremal Solutions of Discrete-Time Optimal Control Problem with Mixed Input-State Constraints

Abstract Neighboring Extremal Optimal approach is effective in solving optimal control problems through approximation. Under certain conditions, a matrix involved in the calculation of optimal control approximation can become singular, leading to a technical difficulty in the application of the approach. These situations may include the cases when a constraint depends only on the states but not the inputs, or the cases when the inequality constraints outnumber the inputs. In this paper, we propose a solution that can circumvent this technical difficulty. First, by back-propagating the state constraints, we show that input-independent constraints can be recast as the state-input constraints to avoid the matrix singularity. The back-propagation, however, might lead to another problem of “degeneracy,” where a back-propagated constraint is imposed on the initial state, so that no feasible neighboring extremal solution exists for the problem. In the latter case, a linear programming approach is proposed to deal with this degeneracy. A ship maneuvering control problem is used in the paper to illustrate the singularity and degeneracy issues, and to elucidate the mechanics of the proposed scheme.
Complications and Long-Term Outcomes of Free Fibula Reconstruction following Resection of a Malignant Tumor in the Extremities.

Background To achieve limb salvage and provide the patient with a functional extremity, vascularized free fibula transfer has become the workhorse for segmental bony reconstruction. Because of various host factors, there has been a high complication rate following oncologic reconstruction. The authors reviewed the experience of their institution with the use of free fibula reconstruction following an oncologic resection in the extremities. Methods The authors reviewed 56 cases of free fibula transfer performed for limb salvage following oncologic resection from 1994 through 2013. The cohort consisted of 30 male patients and 26 female patients; with a mean age of 19 years and a mean follow-up of 7 years. Sixty-three percent of the tumors were located in the lower extremity. Results The overall 2-, 5-, 10-, and 15-year survival rates were 98, 86, 73, and 73 percent, respectively. With regard to disease-specific survival, the overall 2-, 5-, 10, and 15-year survival rates were 82, 75, 67, and 50 percent, respectively. Seventy-five percent of cases healed primarily, with a mean time to union of 10 months. The overall union rate was 98 percent following supplemental bone grafting. Chemotherapy following the free fibula graft increased the risk (hazard ratio, 2.10; p = 0.03) of a delayed union. The overall rate of limb salvage was 93 percent, with four patients requiring an amputation. Conclusions The free fibula is considered the workhorse vascularized bone graft for extremity reconstruction in limb salvage surgery. In the oncologic setting, a repeated bone grafting procedure was common, and should be expected in patients undergoing chemotherapy. Limb salvage rates are high with this technique. Clinical question/level of evidence Therapeutic, IV.
Being Human: How Anthropomorphic Presentations Can Enhance Advertising Effectiveness

ABSTRACTAnthropomorphism appeals or ads containing a product portrayed as humanlike are commonplace, yet rarely investigated. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of anthropomorphism appeals and the moderating influence of loneliness and product knowledge. Experimental results demonstrate that anthropomorphism appeals enhance attitude toward the brand and attitude toward the advertisement, ultimately increasing purchase intentions. In addition, loneliness and product knowledge moderate the effects of anthropomorphism on attitude toward the advertisement. Hence, our findings suggest anthropomorphism appeals are potentially effective promotional tools for influencing consumer attitudes and intentions, particularly when managed through individual difference factors. Implications for advertisers are provided.
Query-Efficient Imitation Learning for End-to-End Simulated Driving

One way to approach end-to-end autonomous driving is to learn a policy that maps from a sensory input, such as an image frame from a front-facing camera, to a driving action, by imitating an expert driver, or a reference policy. This can be done by supervised learning, where a policy is tuned to minimize the difference between the predicted and ground-truth actions. A policy trained in this way however is known to suffer from unexpected behaviours due to the mismatch between the states reachable by the reference policy and trained policy. More advanced algorithms for imitation learning, such as DAgger, addresses this issue by iteratively collecting training examples from both reference and trained policies. These algorithms often require a large number of queries to a reference policy, which is undesirable as the reference policy is often expensive. In this paper, we propose an extension of the DAgger, called SafeDAgger, that is query-efficient and more suitable for end-to-end autonomous driving. We evaluate the proposed SafeDAgger in a car racing simulator and show that it indeed requires less queries to a reference policy. We observe a significant speed up in convergence, which we conjecture to be due to the effect of automated curriculum learning.
Physical Drivers of the Circulation and Thermal Regime Impacting Seasonal Hypoxia in Green Bay, Lake Michigan

The physical processes that drive the circulation and the thermal regime in the bay largely control the duration and persistence of hypoxic conditions in Green Bay. A review of previous studies, existing field data, our own measurements, hydrodynamic modeling, and spectral analyses were used to investigate the effects on the circulation and the thermal regime of the bay by the momentum flux generated by wind, the heat flux across the water surface, the Earth’s rotation, thermal stratification and the topography of the basin. Stratification and circulation are intimately coupled during the summer. Field data show that continuous stratification developed at regions deeper than 15–20 m between late June and September and that surface heat flux is the main driver of stratification. Summertime conditions are initiated by a transition in the dominant wind field shifting from the NE to the SW in late June and remain in a relatively stable state until bay vertical mixing in early September. It is during this stable period that conditions conducive to hypoxia are present. Wind parallel to the axis of the bay induces greater water exchange than wind blowing across the bay. During the stratified season flows in the bottom layers bring cold water from Lake Michigan to Green Bay and surface flows carry warmer water from the bay to Lake Michigan. Knowledge of the general patterns of the circulation and the thermal structure and their variability will be essential in producing longer term projections of future water quality in response to system scale changes.
Influence of parasites on host populations

In the previous Chapter, an effort was made to assess the nature of those factors, both biotic and abiotic, that are known to affect the biology of parasite populations. The purpose of this Chapter is to reverse that thrust and to determine if, and under what circumstances, parasites can affect host population dynamics.
Runup of granular landslide-generated tsunamis on planar coasts and conical islands

Large-scale physical model experiments of tsunamis generated by granular landslides and volcanic flank collapses are conducted to study the wave runup on both the hill slope laterally adjacent to the landslide and an opposing hill slope. A pneumatic landslide tsunami generator was deployed on planar and convex conical hill slopes to simulate deformable landslides with various geometries and kinematics. On the landslide hill slope, maximum runup and rundown were observed in the landslide impact region followed by adjacent second maxima after the lateral waves were fully formed. The runup and rundown decayed asymptotically from the second maxima. In the conical island scenario, a localized runup amplification was measured on the lee side of the island. Outside the landslide impact region, the effects of the landslide granulometry on the lateral wave runup are minimal. The lateral wave runup on the planar hill slope was generally larger than on the convex conical hill slope outside the landslide impact region. The convex conical hill slope traps less lateral wave energy. The zeroth mode of the edge wave dispersion relation matched the first and second lateral waves on the planar hill slope and the first wave on the convex conical hill slope. Predictive equations for the laterally propagating wave characteristics are derived and a method to predict the runup on an opposing hill slope is presented. The predictive wave and runup equations are benchmarked against the 2007 landslide-generated tsunami in Chehalis Lake, British Columbia, Canada.
Improving the Crossing-SIBTEST Statistic for Detecting Non-uniform DIF.

This paper demonstrates that, after applying a simple modification to Li and Stout’s (Psychometrika 61(4):647–677, 1996) CSIBTEST statistic, an improved variant of the statistic could be realized. It is shown that this modified version of CSIBTEST has a more direct association with the SIBTEST statistic presented by Shealy and Stout (Psychometrika 58(2):159–194, 1993). In particular, the asymptotic sampling distributions and general interpretation of the effect size estimates are the same for SIBTEST and the new CSIBTEST. Given the more natural connection to SIBTEST, it is shown that Li and Stout’s hypothesis testing approach is insufficient for CSIBTEST; thus, an improved hypothesis testing procedure is required. Based on the presented arguments, a new chi-squared-based hypothesis testing approach is proposed for the modified CSIBTEST statistic. Positive results from a modest Monte Carlo simulation study strongly suggest the original CSIBTEST procedure and randomization hypothesis testing approach should be replaced by the modified statistic and hypothesis testing method.
Electron: Towards Efficient Resource Management on Heterogeneous Clusters with Apache Mesos

As data centers continue to grow in scale, the resource management software needs to work closely with the hardware infrastructure to provide high utilization, performance, fault tolerance, and high availability. Apache Mesos has emerged as a leader in this space, providing an abstraction over the entire cluster, data center, or cloud to present a uniform view of all the resources. In addition, frameworks built on Mesos such as Apache Aurora, developed within Twitter and later contributed to the Apache Software Foundation, allow massive job submissions with heterogeneous resource requirements. The availability of such tools in the Open Source space, with proven record of large scale production use, make them suitable for research on how they can be adapted for use in campus-clusters and emerging cloud infrastructures for different workloads in both academia and industry. As data centers run these workloads and strive to maintain high utilization of their components, they suffer a significant cost in terms of energy and power consumption. To address this cost we have developed our own framework, Electron, for use with Mesos. Electron is designed to be configurable with heuristic-driven power capping policies along with different scheduling policies such as Bin Packing and First Fit. We characterize the performance of Electron, in comparison with the widely used Aurora framework. On average, our experiments show that Electron can reduce the 95th percentile of CPU and DRAM power usage by 27.89%, total energy consumption by 19.15%, average power consumption by 27.90%, and max peak power usage by 16.91%, while maintaining a similar makespan when compared to Aurora using the proper combination of power capping and scheduling policies.
Industry Involvement in Curriculum Development: A Case Study in Nepal.

Tourism and hospitality management education is relatively new in Nepal, with only four major public universities offering a bachelor’s degree programme. The curriculum is generally focused on mana...
Health-related quality of life in peripheral neuropathy.

The purpose of this article is to show the value of assessing the health-related quality of life for individuals with peripheral neuropathies. The authors will briefly describe methods used to assess the quality of life and examine the results from studies that have been used to evaluate the health-related issues for those individuals with peripheral neuropathies.
Labile self-esteem, life stress, and depressive symptoms : Prospective data testing a model of vulnerability

Recent theory and research suggests that labile self-esteem (SE) is an important dimension of vulnerability to depression (Butler, Hokanson, & Flynn, 1994; Roberts & Monroe, 1992, 1994, in press). In the present study, participants completed seven daily ratings of SE from which we derived a measure of lability. The interaction between labile SE and life stress predicted increases in depressive symptoms across a two-month prospective interval, particularly in participants who were initially low in depression and who had more severe worst lifetime episodes of depressive symptomatology. Interactions between life stress and labile SE were stronger for life stress measures that were based on the subjective appraisal of stress than for those that were based on raw life event counts. In contrast to predictions, depletions in self-esteem failed to mediate the synergistic effects of labile SE and life stress.
An Electrorheological Fluid Actuator for Rehabilitation Robotics

Transitioning rehabilitation robots from the clinic environment to the home could significantly increase the intensity and accessibility of therapy to stroke survivors. Home-based rehabilitation robots must become smaller and cheaper. In this paper, we consider a novel proof-of-concept actuator for human–machine interaction. The actuator incorporates a prototype electrorheological fluid developed to address issues previously reported in the literature. Two electrorheological fluid clutches are antagonistically arranged in a differential mechanism. The fluid clutches uncouple the output from the intrinsically high impedance of a geared dc motor. Mathematical modeling of predicted torque was compared with torque measurements. The clutches can transfer approximately 1.1 N·m at an electric field strength of 3 kV/mm. A testbed was also developed to study variable impedance control with the device where motion feedback was used to modulate the output impedance. An empirically derived model was used to program voltages/torques in response to perturbations in position. A benefit of the proposed design is the ability to statically coactivate both clutches to increase output impedance, which could potentially have benefits for training. We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of electrorheological fluid actuators for human rehabilitation robotics.
Patient perspectives on benefits and risks of implantable interfaces for upper limb prostheses: a national survey.

Objective: Patient perspectives on benefits and risks of implantable interfaces for prostheses are needed. Methods: A telephone survey was administered to 808 Veterans. Multivariate logistic regression identified factors associated with willingness to consider surgery to restore touch and better movement control. Risk and benefit ratings were compared. Results: 41.8% of unilateral and 40.6% of bilateral amputees were willing to consider surgery for touch; 49.0% were willing to consider surgery for control. Persons 65-75 years and >75 were 0.42 (p= 0.0009) and 0.19 (p 75 were 0.28 and 0.12 as likely as those 18-45 to consider surgery for control (p's<0.0001). Myoelectric users were 2.16 (p= 0.006) as likely as body-powered users and persons with better MH were 0.61 (p= 0.03) as likely as those with worse to consider surgery for control. Long-term risks were most unacceptable. Durability, comfort, and improved functional abilities were most important. Conclusions: There is substantial interest in prosthetic interfaces to gain a sense of touch and greater movement control.
East Asia in Action| Contesting Big Brother: Joshua Wong, Protests, and the Student Network of Resistance in Thailand

While authoritarian regimes continue to depend on hierarchical order and suppression, today’s protesters enact resistance in nonhierarchical patterns. With networked communication, decentered individuals stage their acts of resistance to galvanize allies to support their causes. Through a triangulated textual analysis of social media posts, news coverage, and personal interviews, this research examines today’s student activists, equipped with technology to mobilize global attention—the currency in the age of distraction. It particularly examines the changing modes of political engagement of student activism, shifting from mass rallies to a series of fragmented events. Thai student activists forged the network of resistance, connecting with nodes with allies in the case of Thai student Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, who invited Hong Kong student Joshua Wong to inspire young minds. On arriving at the Thai airport, Wong was detained. However, the force of amplified acts of defiance pressed for Wong’s release and destabilized truth production, monopolized by the junta. This article has implications for the study of student activism and the changing modes of engagement in politics and students’ practice of citizenship.
Association of epigenetic clock with consensus molecular subtypes and overall survival of colorectal cancer

Background: Epigenetic clock, or DNA methylation age, has been shown to highly correlate with chronologic age. Epigenetic age acceleration, the difference between DNA methylation age and individual9s chronologic age, was observed in colorectal cancer. However, the association of epigenetic age acceleration with colorectal cancer tumor molecular characteristics, clinical characteristics, and patient outcomes has not been systematically investigated. Methods: DNA methylation ages of 345 patients with colorectal cancer from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were computed using the Horvath age prediction model. Multivariate linear regression was used to assess the association of epigenetic age acceleration with molecular and clinical features of colorectal cancer, including consensus molecular subtypes (CMS1–CMS4) and tumor stage Cox proportional hazards regression was used to assess the association of epigenetic age acceleration with survival. Results: Epigenetic age acceleration is significantly associated with CMS. Compared with CMS2, epigenetic age acceleration for CMS1, CMS3, and CMS4 was 23.90 years [P = 5.55E-11; 95% confidence interval (CI): 17.10–30.69], 9.16 years (P = 5.84E-03; 95% CI: 2.68–15.65), and 6.05 years (P = 2.69E-02; 95% CI: 0.70–11.41), respectively. Furthermore, epigenetic age acceleration is statistically significantly and positively associated with total mortality (HR = 1.97; 95% CI: 1.14–3.39; P = 0.014). Conclusions: Epigenetic age acceleration is associated with colorectal cancer tumor molecular characteristics, and a significant predictor of overall survival of colorectal cancer, along with age and tumor stage. Impact: Combining information of colonic tissue epigenetic age acceleration and tumor molecular characteristics may improve prognosis prediction in colorectal cancer.
The effect of oil supply shocks on US economic activity: What have we learned?

Estimated responses of real oil prices and US gross domestic product (GDP) to oil supply disruptions vary widely. We show that most variation is attributable to differences in identification assumptions and in the model specification. Models that allow for a large short‐run price elasticity of oil supply imply a larger response of oil prices and a larger, longer lived contraction in US real GDP. We find that, if we condition on a range of supply elasticity values supported by microeconomic estimates, the differences in the oil price responses diminishes. We also examine the role of lag length, of using pre‐1973 data, alternative measures of real economic activity and using the median response function instead of the modal structural model.
Synovial Tissue: Cellular and Molecular Phenotyping

This review provides a summary of recent molecular findings that have refined our understanding of the cell types that constitute human synovial tissue, particularly in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Recent advances in high-dimensional and single-cell assays have elucidated upwards of 20 cell subsets in the RA synovium. This includes novel fibroblast populations and lymphocyte phenotypes, which in many cases exhibit features that have not been found in other tissues thus far. Molecular profiling studies over the past several years have rapidly generated a comprehensive and detailed outline of the cellular phenotypes in synovial tissue affected by RA. Molecular features of these newly identified cell subsets immediately represent reasonable therapeutic targets and provide the opportunity to design the most clinically relevant mechanistic experiments. Broadly speaking, the ~ 20 cell types thus far identified in RA synovium seem to be fairly well conserved across patients, despite extensive heterogeneity in patient clinical features, stage of disease, and treatment responses. Thus, a next phase in molecular profiling may benefit from quantifying patient samples in terms of the ratios of cell types, with the rationale that certain cellular interactions will predominate in an individual and medications targeting these interactions may be more efficacious for that individual. Such cellular profiling in tissues combined with studies examining how the compendium of these cells interact in their three-dimensional tissue ultrastructures will be important in understanding how collectively these cells drive the disease process and ultimately how best to treat patients.
A Study of Partially-Shaded PV Modules with Overlapping Diodes

A Configuration of bypass diodes affects the performance of photovoltaic (PV) system when it is exposed to partial shading. The power-voltage (P-V) curve of shaded string has multiple power peaks (MPPs) one of them is a global maximum power (GMPP) due to the exploitation of bypass diodes. There are two configurations of bypass diodes: non-overlapped and overlapped. Almost all PV studies are based on the non-overlapped bypass diodes, the effects of the diodes are well understood. On the other hand, a complete analysis for the effects of the overlapped bypass diodes on the performance of the PV module has not been yet systematically disclosed. In this paper, mathematical equations describe the dynamic performance of the PV module with overlapping diodes under partial shading conditions are developed. The electrical characteristics of the PV module with different bypass diodes configurations are comprehensively studied under different partial shading conditions by using MATLAB Simulink.
Graduate School: Hopkins

Wolfgang Kohler thought that I had devoted more of my time as an undergraduate student to social sciences and humanities than I should have, and encouraged me to become more conversant with experimental psychology and the natural sciences. While I had been duly indoctrinated into Gestalt theory at Swarthmore (and during my childhood at home), he arranged for me to begin graduate work in experimental psychology at The Johns Hopkins University, where the ghost of the founder of behaviorism, John B. Watson, was still haunting the theoretical orientation of the psychology department.
Singlet oxygenation of triquinacene, barrelene, and homobarrelene.

Abstract The singlet oxygenation of three polycyclic hydrocarbons, triquinacene, barrelene and homobarrelene was studied. Triquinacene reacted by way of a perepoxide intermediate, transferring an oxygen atom to another triquinacene molecule to give exclusively the mono epoxide. Barrelene, on the other hand, underwent a rare homo-Diels-Alder reaction with 1O2 to give the decomposition product from the initial tetracyclic 1,2-dioxolane leading to benzofuran. The latter reacted with 1O2 in a [2 + 2] cycloaddition to give an unstable 1,2-dioxetane which collapsed to 2-formylphenyl formate. The latter was independently synthesized via singlet oxygenation of authentic benzofuran. Homobarrelene reacted in a similar fashion to give a homo-Diels product, decomposition of which led to a keto aldehyde which was characterized spectroscopically. Computational work confirms the barrelene and homobarrelene reactions with 1O2 as concerted [π2s+ π 2s+ π 2s] cycloadditions.
MRI evaluation of articular cartilage in patients with juvenile osteochondritis dissecans (JOCD) using T2∗ mapping at 3T.

Summary Objective Evaluate articular cartilage by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T2∗ mapping within the distal femur and proximal tibia in adolescents with juvenile osteochondritis dissecans (JOCD). Design JOCD imaging studies acquired between August 2011 and February 2019 with clinical and T2∗ mapping MRI knee images were retrospectively collected and analyzed for 31 participants (9F/22M, 15.0 ± 3.8 years old) with JOCD lesions in the medial femoral condyle (MFC). In total, N = 32 knees with JOCD lesions and N = 14 control knees were assessed. Mean T2∗ values in four articular cartilage regions-of-interest (MFC, lateral femoral condyle (LFC), medial tibia (MT), and lateral tibia (LT)) and lesion volume were measured and analyzed using Wilcoxon-rank-sum tests and Spearman correlation coefficients (R). Results Mean ± standard error T2∗ differences observed between the lesion-sided MFC and the LFC in JOCD-affected knees (28.5 ± 0.9 95% confidence interval [26.8, 30.3] vs 26.3 ± 0.7 [24.8, 27.7] ms, P = 0.088) and between the affected- and control-knee MFC (28.5 ± 0.9 [26.8, 30.3] vs 28.5 ± 0.6 [27.1, 29.9] ms, P = 0.719) were nonsignificant. T2∗ was significantly increased in the lesion-sided MT vs the LT for the JOCD-affected knees (21.5 ± 0.7 [20.1, 22.9] vs 18.0 ± 0.7 [16.5, 19.5] ms, P = 0.002), but this same difference was also observed between the MT and LT in control knees (21.0 ± 0.6 [19.7, 22.3] vs 18.1 ± 1.1 [15.8, 20.4] ms, P = 0.037). There was no significant T2∗ difference between the affected- and control-knee MT (21.5 ± 0.7 [20.1, 22.9] vs 21.0 ± 0.6 [19.7, 22.3] ms, P = 0.905). T2∗ within the lesion-sided MFC was not correlated with patient age (R = 0.20, P = 0.28) or lesion volume (R = 0.06, P = 0.75). T2∗ values were slightly increased near lesions in later-stage JOCD subjects but without statistical significance. Conclusions T2∗ relaxations times were not significantly different from control sites in the articular cartilage overlying JOCD lesions in the MFC or adjacent MT cartilage in early-stage JOCD.
A Longitudinal Epigenetic Aging and Leukocyte Analysis of Simulated Space Travel: The Mars-500 Mission

Astronauts undertaking long-duration space missions may be vulnerable to unique stressors that can impact human aging. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the relationship of mission duration with DNA-methylation-based biomarkers of aging in astronauts. Using data from the six participants of the Mars-500 mission, a high-fidelity 520-day ground simulation experiment, we tested relationships of mission duration with five longitudinally measured blood DNA-methylation-based metrics: DNAmGrimAge, DNAmPhenoAge, DNA-methylation-based estimator of telomere length (DNAmTL), mitotic divisions (epigenetic mitotic clock [epiTOC2]), and pace of aging (PoA). We provide evidence that, relative to baseline, mission duration was associated with significant decreases in epigenetic aging. However, only decreases in DNAmPhenoAge remained significant 7 days post-mission. We also observed significant changes in estimated proportions of plasmablasts, CD4T, CD8 naive, and natural killer (NK) cells. Only decreases in NK cells remained significant post-mission. If confirmed more broadly, these findings contribute insights to improve the understanding of the biological aging implications for individuals experiencing long-duration space travel.
Effects of acute aerobic and resistance exercise on episodic memory function.

Accumulating research provides suggestive evidence that acute aerobic exercise may, potentially, enhance episodic memory function post-exercise. Limited research has evaluated whether acute resista...