cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Compact balun filter based on negative and zeroth order resonances using mushroom structures

A compact mushroom balanced-unbalanced (balun) filter which is based on negative and zero-th order resonances is proposed in this paper. The balun filter consists of two pairs of mushroom cells. Differently from the conventional mushroom cells, each pair of the proposed mushroom cells are connected by a coplanar line in the bottom ground. With this coplanar line, not only a filter with balun function is realized but also the corresponding negative and zeroth-resonant frequencies are significantly reduced compared to conventional mushroom cells. This means a large reduction in size for a given resonant frequency. The balun filter is designed, fabricated and measured with a center frequency of 2GHz and fractional bandwidth of 5%. The output amplitude imbalance is less than 0.6dB, and differential phase is between 180° ± 0.7° in the pass band. In addition, the minimum insertion loss of the balun filter in the passband is 0.9dB and with a size smaller than 20mm∗20mm.
Chronic intracarotid cannulation of pigeons for administration of behaviorally active peptides

Chronic intracarotid cannulation of the common carotid artery was performed in the pigeon. The catheter system of polyethylene tubing consisted of an indwelling component and an injection component. The indwelling component was exteriorized at the occiput so the bird could not reach the catheter with its beak. Following surgery, the pigeons were housed individually and received food and water ad libitum and no special care was necessary. The catheter was flushed daily with heparin in 0.9% NaCl solution to maintain patency. 30 pigeons were continuously or intermittently infused with bioactive peptides for up to 60 days after cannulation.
Exploiting Narrow Accelerators with Data-Centric Subgraph Mapping

The demand for high performance has driven acyclic computation accelerators into extensive use in modern embedded and desktop architectures. Accelerators that are ideal from a software perspective, are difficult or impossible to integrate in many modern architectures, though, due to area and timing requirements. This reality is coupled with the observation that many application domains under-utilize accelerator hardware, because of the narrow data they operate on and the nature of their computation. In this work, we take advantage of these facts to design accelerators capable of executing in modern architectures by narrowing datapath width and reducing interconnect. Novel compiler techniques are developed in order to generate high-quality code for the reduced-cost accelerators and prevent performance loss to the extent possible. First, data width profiling is used to statistically determine how wide program data will be at run time. This information is used by the subgraph mapping algorithm to optimally select subgraphs for execution on targeted narrow accelerators. Overall, our data-centric compilation techniques achieve on average 6.5%, and up to 12%, speed up over previous subgraph mapping algorithms for 8-bit accelerators. We also show that, with appropriate compiler support, the increase in the total number of execution cycles in reduced-interconnect accelerators is less than 1% of the fully-connected accelerator
Detecting the Learning Value of Items In a Randomized Problem Set

Researchers that make tutoring systems would like to know which pieces of educational content are most effective at promoting learning among their students. Randomized controlled experiments are often used to determine which content produces more learning in an ITS. While these experiments are powerful they are often very costly to setup and run. The majority of data collected in many ITS systems consist of answers to a finite set of questions of a given skill often presented in a random sequence. We propose a Bayesian method to detect which questions produce the most learning in this random sequence of data. We confine our analysis to random sequences with four questions. A student simulation study was run to investigate the validity of the method and boundaries on what learning probability differences could be reliably detected with various numbers of users. Finally, real tutor data from random sequence problem sets was analyzed. Results of the simulation data analysis showed that the method reported high reliability in its choice of the best learning question in 89 of the 160 simulation experiments with seven experiments where an incorrect conclusion was reported as reliable (p < 0.05). In the analysis of real student data, the method returned statistically reliable choices of best question in three out of seven problem sets.
Do enzymatic analyses of serum triglycerides really need blanking for free glycerol

Distributions of concentrations of free glycerol in clinical plasma obtained for triglyceride assay were compiled to determine the frequency with which increased concentrations of free glycerol posed a potential problem for clinical interpretation of triglyceride results. Clinical histories were studied in patients with increased concentrations of free glycerol to ascertain possible reasons for the increase and to assess the relative clinical importance of glycerol-blank-corrected triglyceride results. Significant increases in free glycerol were very uncommon, usually occurring in patients receiving glycerol-containing hyperalimentation fluids, those receiving heparin (which causes both in vivo and in vitro increases in free glycerol), or those critically ill. Free glycerol was never increased significantly in a large outpatient population. Monitoring lipid metabolism in critically ill patients, or measuring true triglyceride concentrations in patients receiving glycerol-containing fluids, may represent rare exceptions for which glycerol-blank correction is necessary for accurate clinical diagnosis and management. We conclude that there is insufficient justification for the routine expenditure of extra time and reagents to correct most analytical enzymatic triglyceride methods for free glycerol.
A Graduate Student's Guide to Publishing Scholarly Journal Articles

In recent years, arriving on the job market with published work has shifted from a desirable condition to a necessity. Even middling universities can afford to ignore applications from job applicants without peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Thus, it is important for graduate students to focus as early as possible on publishing their work.I wish to thank Brian Brox, Jonathan Hartlyn, and Nancy Maveety for comments on an earlier draft.
Correlates of Adolescent Reports of Sexual Assault: Findings from the National Survey of Adolescents

This study examines how key demographic variables and specific child sexual assault (CSA) incident characteristics were related to whether adolescents reported that they had told anyone about an alleged sexual assault. The study also investigates whether there were differences in the correlates of CSA disclosure as a function of gender and race/ethnicity. A national household probability sample of 4,023 adolescents was interviewed by telephone about childhood experiences, including CSA history. Significant gender and racial/ethnic differences were obtained in rates of CSA disclosure: Sexually abused boys and African American youth were less likely to report telling anyone they had been sexually abused. Separate regression models examining correlates of CSA disclosure yielded differences as a function of gender and race/ethnicity.
Multigrid Convergence for Second Order Elliptic Problems with Smooth Complex Coefficients

The finite element method when applied to a second order partial differential equation in divergence form can generate operators that are neither Hermitian nor definite when the coefficient function is complex valued. For such problems, under a uniqueness assumption, we prove the continuous dependence of the exact solution and its finite element approximations on data provided that the coefficients are smooth and uniformly bounded away from zero. Then we show that a multigrid algorithm converges once the coarse mesh size is smaller than some fixed number, providing an efficient solver for computing discrete approximations. Numerical experiments, while confirming the theory, also reveal pronounced sensitivity of Gauss–Seidel iterations on the ordering of the unknowns for certain problems.
Tensions of identity in a networked era: Young people’s perspectives on the risks and rewards of online self-expression:

This article explores how young people – for whom issues of identity are particularly salient – conceive of the new opportunities for self-expression provided by digital media technologies. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 ‘digital youth,’ ages 15–25, who were highly engaged in at least one form of digital media activity at the time of their interview. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario designed to probe their conceptions of identity, both online and offline. The themes identified in the interviews are organized into a conceptual framework that summarizes the strategies young people use to reconcile the tension between multiplicity and consistency in a networked era. The framework comprises four ‘spheres of obligation’ – to self, interpersonal relationships, online social norms, and broad community-level values – that function as implicit limits on self-multiplicity. Participants varied in the weight they gave to each sphere when deciding how to express themselves in this n...
Parallelizing BLAST and SOM Algorithms with MapReduce-MPI Library

Most bioinformatics algorithms are developed in a serial form due to a fast pace of changes in the subject domain and the fact that many bioinformatics tasks can be parallelized as collections of serial jobs communicating at the file system level (High-Throughput Computing, HTC). Recently, a MapReduce-MPI library was made available by Sandia Lab to ease porting of a large class of serial applications to the High Performance Computing (HPC) architectures dominating large federated resources such as NSF Tera Grid. Using this library, we have created two open-source bioinformatics applications. The first one addresses a problem of adapting existing complex and highly optimized serial bioinformatics algorithm to HPC architecture in a minimally invasive way. We built a parallel BLAST implementation that calls the high-level methods of unmodified NCBI C++ Toolkit. We demonstrated scaling for up to 1000 cores on TACC Ranger cluster when processing the sufficiently large input datasets. Using unmodified NCBI Toolkit ensures that the results are compatible across the multitude of settings in the original serial algorithm, and that future versions of the upstream code can be easily integrated. The second application is a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) machine-learning algorithm, popular in bioinformatics applications such as metagenomic binning. The nature of the SOM requires a global synchronization step with a frequency that necessitates the use of an HPC environment. Our implementation of the "batch SOM" uses a mix of MapReduce-MPI and direct MPI calls and scales to 1000 cores as well. This allows easy processing of datasets with a size that is out of range of the serial SOM implementations. Both implementations are available in the open source at http://andreyto.github.com/mgtaxa/.
An Exploratory Study of the Elements of Successful Service Dog Partnerships in the Workplace

The use of service or assistance dogs has increased over the past three decades but is still considered by many to be an emerging concept for assisting people with disabilities to navigate a number of environments. This is predominately due to the minimal research that has been done on the effect and promising practices. One area, employment, has been completely overlooked in research related to service dogs. This research project undertook an exploratory study to gather data on the elements of service dog partnerships that have been successful in the workplace. A structured methodology using mixed methods was used to gather ideas from a diverse group of stakeholders, people with service dogs, trainers, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and other healthcare professionals, to form a common framework for addressing the issue in future research and development of interventions. The results identified 68 elements that respondents perceived and rated to be important or highly important to the phenomenon. They were categorized into six clusters: (1) dog preparation, (2) monitoring, (3) employee competence, (4) legal knowledge, (5) information and education, and (6) coworker preparation. The discussion identified key points that might support the development of successful employment outcomes for people working with service dogs.
Concurrent learning for convergence in adaptive control without persistency of excitation

We show that for an adaptive controller that uses recorded and instantaneous data concurrently for adaptation, a verifiable condition on linear independence of the recorded data is sufficient to guarantee exponential tracking error and parameter error convergence. This condition is found to be less restrictive and easier to monitor than a condition on persistently exciting exogenous input signal required by traditional adaptive laws that use only instantaneous data for adaptation.
Calcitonin gene-related peptide reverses the hypertension and significantly decreases the fetal mortality in pre-eclampsia rats induced by NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester

We recently established that the chronic inhibition of nitric oxide production with N^'-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) increases blood pressure and fetal mortality in pregnant rats. Using this animal model, we have investigated whether calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) can reverse the pre-eclampsia-like conditions produced by L-NAME. CGRP and L-NAME were chronically infused s.c. into pregnant rats separately or together starting on day 17 of gestation,- a control group was given saline infusions. Systolic blood pressure was measured on gestational days 17, 18, 19 and 22 and post-partum days 1 and 2. The weight and mortality of the pups were recorded immediately after spontaneous delivery. Animals treated with L-NAME exhibited significant elevations of blood pressure on days 18, 19 and 22 of gestation and during post-partum, increased pup mortality (18.4 versus 0.0%) and decreased pup weights (5.14 ± 0.07 versus 6.20 ± 0.06 g). The co-administration of L-NAME and CGRP prevented the gestational (not the post-partum) L-NAME hypertension and decreased pup mortality to 6.4% but did not reverse the decreased fetal weight (531 ± 0.06 g). Our data indicate that CGRP (i) participates in regulation of the vascular adaptations that occur during normal pregnancy, (ii) has beneficial effects on the hypertension and increased mortality of experimental preeclampsia, and (iii) may exert differential effects on the systemic (i.e. maternal) and fetal components of uteroplacental circulation. These findings may have important clinical implications.
A controlled trial to improve delivery of preventive care: physician or patient reminders?

Objective:To improve the delivery of preventive care in a medical clinic, a controlled trial was conducted of two interventions that were expected to influence delivery of preventive services differently, depending on level of initiative required of the physician or patient to complete a service.
Reflective thinking and medical students: some thoughtful distillations regarding John Dewey and Hannah Arendt

Reflective thought (critical thinking) is essential to the medical student who hopes to become an effective physician. John Dewey, one of America's foremost educators in the early twentieth century, revolutionized critical thinking and its role in education. In the mid twentieth century Hannah Arendt provided profound insights into the problem of diminishing human agency and political freedom. Taken together, Dewey's insight regarding reflective thought, and Arendt's view of action, speech, and power in the public realm, provide mentors and teachers of medical students guidance in the training of thought and the need for its effective projection at the patient's bedside and in the community.
Measurements of 1/f frequency noise reduction in semiconductor lasers using optical feedback with dispersive loss

The authors review the theoretical framework for linewidth reduction in semiconductor lasers using optical feedback with dispersive loss. These results are then applied to lasers having both white and 1/f frequency noise. Experimental confirmation of the dependence of frequency noise on feedback parameters is presented using optical feedback from an external cavity containing Cs vapor. It is shown that such feedback reduces the frequency noise spectrum uniformly within its operating bandwidth. It is also shown that where white noise is dominant, the linewidth is reduced by the same factor, 1/Q/sup 2/, as the frequency noise spectrum, but, when 1/f noise dominates, the linewidth is reduced only by 1/Q. >
PyETV: a PyMOL evolutionary trace viewer to analyze functional site predictions in protein complexes

Summary: PyETV is a PyMOL plugin for viewing, analyzing and manipulating predictions of evolutionarily important residues and sites in protein structures and their complexes. It seamlessly captures the output of the Evolutionary Trace server, namely ranked importance of residues, for multiple chains of a complex. It then yields a high resolution graphical interface showing their distribution and clustering throughout a quaternary structure, including at interfaces. Together with other tools in the popular PyMOL viewer, PyETV thus provides a novel tool to integrate evolutionary forces into the design of experiments targeting the most functionally relevant sites of a protein. Availability: The PyETV module is written in Python. Installation instructions and video demonstrations may be found at the URL: http://mammoth.bcm.tmc.edu/traceview/HelpDocs/PyETVHelp/ pyInstructions.html. Contact: lichtarge@bcm.tmc.edu
Determining natural and accessible gestures using uncontrolled manifolds and cybernetics

Recent studies revealed that hand gesture-based interfaces can complement therapies for individuals with upper motor impairments and reduce the need of traditional rehabilitation sessions through hospital visits. Unfortunately, existing gesture-based interfaces have been developed without considering the physical limitations of users with motor impairments. An analytic approach was presented in our previous work to convert existing gesture-based interfaces designed for able-bodied individuals to be usable by individuals with quadriplegia using the Laban Theory of Movement. This paper extends the previous work by including gesture variability analysis (based on Uncontrolled Manifolds theory) and robotic execution. A WAM robotic arm was used to mimic gesture trajectories and a physical metric was empirically obtained to evaluate the physical effort of each gesture. At last, an integration method was presented to determine the accessible gesture set based on both the stability and empirical robot execution. For all the gesture classes, the accessible gestures were found to lie within 31% of the optimality of stability and work, respectively.
Increased alpha 1-adrenergic vascular sensitivity during development of hypertension in conscious dogs

The goal of this study was to determine whether enhanced vascular responsiveness during the development of perinephritic hypertension is selective or nonspecific. The effects of graded infusions of norepinephrine (NE), phenylephrine (PE), angiotensin II (ANG II), and vasopressin (VP) were examined on mean arterial pressure, total peripheral resistance (TPR), and aortic pressure-diameter relationships in conscious dogs. NE increased TPR significantly greater (P < 0.01) in hypertension than normotension, as did PE infusion, whereas ANG II and VP increased TPR similarly before and after hypertension. Analysis of aortic pressure-diameter relationships also demonstrated significant (P < 0.05) shifts in response to NE and PE, but not ANG II and VP, during the development of hypertension. In normotensive dogs, low doses of ANG II infusion also enhanced the vasoconstrictor response not only to NE and PE but also to VP. In contrast to what was observed in hypertension, in the presence of ANG II infusion after ganglionic blockade, enhanced responses to PE and NE were no longer observed. The alpha 1-adrenergic receptor density in membrane preparations from aortic tissue, as determined by [3H]prazosin binding, was higher (P < 0.05) in hypertensive dogs than control dogs. Thus the vascular responsiveness in the aorta and resistance vessels is enhanced to alpha 1-adrenergic stimulation, but not to all vasoconstrictors, during developing perinephritic hypertension. The mechanism appears to involve increased alpha 1-adrenergic receptor density.
Harvesting Waste Heat in Unipolar Ion Conducting Polymers

The Seebeck effect in unipolar ion-conducting, solid-state polymers is characterized. The high Seebeck coefficient and sign in polymer ion conductors is explained via analysis of thermogalvanic multicomponent transport. A solid-state, water-processeable, flexible device based on these materials is demonstrated, showcasing the promise of polymers as thermogalvanic materials. Thermogalvanic materials based on ion-conducting polymer membranes show great promise in the harvesting of waste heat.
Lamenting a Lost Cultural Imaginary: Lahore and Amritsar in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters

By locating its characters within the very specific Hindu Punjabi milieu of Arya Samajist trading families whose identity is defined by the twin Punjabi cities of Amritsar and Lahore, Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters (1999) recreates in rich detail a very particular culture and class while gesturing at the same time to the larger palimpsestic history of Lahore, the erstwhile capital of the Sikh Kingdom under Ranjit Singh, which was annexed by the British in 1849, and then suffered massively during Partition violence. Situated thirty miles apart, the twin cities of Lahore and Amritsar, have fared dramatically different fates since they were traumatically severed apart by the Partition of India in 1947. Long an imperial city, the capital of successive empires from the Ghaznavids, the Mughals, and then the Sikhs, Lahore was refashioned as a modern colonial city by the British and flourished as a “mecca for Punjabis” in a symbiotic relationship with Amritsar in colonial India. While Lahore has continued to flourish as the provincial capital of Punjab in Pakistan, Amritsar has dwindled into a second tier city, its importance overshadowed by the declaration of Chandigarh as capital city of a now much truncated Punjab. The storming of the Golden Temple, the spiritual heart of the city, in operation Bluestar in 1984, marked the nadir of its slow decline. In this context, the striking nostalgia for Lahore in the narrative comes to function as a compensatory mechanism , becoming a lament for a composite Punjabi culture that was ruptured irreparably by Partition. Repeatedly referred to as the “fabled city” in the text, Lahore with its bustling bazaars, many institutions of higher learning, its imposing monuments and architecture, and its famed gardens, is presented as a cosmopolitan literary city, the cultural heart of Punjab, in contrast to Amritsar, cloistered with the weight of custom and tradition. Lahore comes to acquire a metonymic position within the narrative, as much as it is celebrated as a mecca for Punjabis, and its loss lamented, what is also being lamented is the historical accident that ruptured the once thriving province of Punjab. The violence and heartbreak that accompanied the division of a nation is figured not just in the partition of families, and more tellingly, in the fissures within a female subjectivity fractured by the contradictions of gender and modernity, but also the in border city status given to cities that were once the heart of the Indian subcontinent.
Computer-based calculus on campus and at a distance

The computer-based calculus course, Calculus&Mathematica (C&M), which was developed with NSF support, will be demonstrated by University of Illinois faculty and undergraduate students. Particular emphasis will be placed on how this new course is delivered on the Internet for distance learners.
High- and Low-Level Contextual Modeling for the Detection of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to long-term neurological decrements. While moderate and severe TBI are readily discernable from current medical imaging modalities, such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), mild TBI (mTBI) is difficult to diagnose from current routine imaging. At the present time there no routine computational methods for the evaluation of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The development of automated analyses has been hindered by the subtle nature of mTBI abnormalities, which appear as low contrast MR regions. One solution to better identify mTBI injuries from MRI is to use high-level and low-level contextual information. We describe methods and results for using high-level contextual features using a Bayesian network that simulated the evolution of the mTBI injury over time. We also utilized low-level context to obtain more spatial (within the brain) information. The low-level context utilized a classifier to identify temporal information which was then integrated into the subsequent time point being evaluated. We found that both low- and high-level context provided novel information about the mTBI injury. These were in good agreement with manual methods. Future work could combine both low- and high-level context to provide more accurate mTBI segmentation. The results reported herein could ultimately lead to better identification of regions of mTBI injury and thus when treatments become available they can be directed for improved therapy.
Monotonicity Hints

A hint is any piece of side information about the target function to be learned. We consider the monotonicity hint, which states that the function to be learned is monotonic in some or all of the input variables. The application of monotonicity hints is demonstrated on two real-world problems- a credit card application task, and a problem in medical diagnosis. A measure of the monotonicity error of a candidate function is defined and an objective function for the enforcement of monotonicity is derived from Bayesian principles. We report experimental results which show that using monotonicity hints leads to a statistically significant improvement in performance on both problems.
Neural Stem Cell Therapy and Rehabilitation in the Central Nervous System: Emerging Partnerships.

The goal of regenerative medicine is to restore function through therapy at levels such as the gene, cell, tissue, or organ. For many disorders, however, regenerative medicine approaches in isolation may not be optimally effective. Rehabilitation is a promising adjunct therapy given the beneficial impact that physical activity and other training modalities can offer. Accordingly, “regenerative rehabilitation” is an emerging concentration of study, with the specific goal of improving positive functional outcomes by enhancing tissue restoration following injury. This article focuses on one emerging example of regenerative rehabilitation—namely, the integration of clinically based protocols with stem cell technologies following central nervous system injury. For the purposes of this review, the state of stem cell technologies for the central nervous system is summarized, and a rationale for a synergistic benefit of carefully orchestrated rehabilitation protocols in conjunction with cellular therapies is provided. An overview of practical steps to increase the involvement of physical therapy in regenerative rehabilitation research also is provided.
Heat Humidity and Heart Disease

Hot, humid weather burdens the heart. Under conditions of thermal stress, normal persons' cardiac output increases significantly. In sick persons, cardiac output increases less but ventricular pressures are greater. When these patients have cardiovascular disease, a humid and hot environment can precipitate heart failure or myocardial infarction.
Study and Thinking on Laboratory Opening

This paper analyzes some of these problems found in opening laboratory in our universities and other universities. It explores significance of opening laboratory,discusses content and mode of opening laboratory and devices some means for how to manage the labs.
Wet Determination of Zinc in Foods

There are quick,convenient and fitted the batch tests in the actual standard of zinc in foods.A wet determination method of zinc in foods is presented.The result shows that the standard deviation is under 10% and the recoveries are 84.0%～102%.It concludes the method is quick,convenient and fitted the batch tests.
Characterization of Tolerance in Children during Fentanyl Continuous Infusions

Tolerance is a complication of fentanyl continuous infusions (CINs) in critically ill children, but the incidence and time of onset are lacking. The primary objective was to identify the incidence of tolerance. Secondary objectives were to determine the onset time and compare risk factors between children with tolerance versus no tolerance and between children with early ( 3 days from May 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 were included. Tolerance was defined as a doubling of the fentanyl CIN dose. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed. A logistic regression model was used to assess the relationship between the development of tolerance and independent variables. A total of 59 CINs were included. Tolerance occurred in 46 CINs (78%), with median time to tolerance of 26 hours (range: 1–160 hours). Early tolerance was identified in 21 CINs (45.7%). Patients with tolerance had higher peak CIN doses (p
Chronic Disease Management in Refugees

The medical literature regarding refugee populations in developed countries has predominantly focused on infectious communicable diseases and mental health; however, with changing lifestyles in developing countries and the process of acculturation within developed countries, refugees are facing an increased risk of non communicable diseases either by having a pre existing condition or acquiring it once in a developed country. Amongst industrialized countries, the United States accounts for nearly 75% of all permanently settled refugees. Most recently, sixty-five percent of refugees resettling in the USA originate from Iraq, Burma and Bhutan. Of the refugees being tested within the first eight months of arrival, 51.1% had some chronic disease and 18.4% had two or more. Such prevalence rates support the need to address chronic conditions in refugees, but the literature provides little guidance for care of common non-communicable disorders in refugees. The objectives of this chapter are to synthesize the medical literature so as to offer clinicians an evidence-based approach for the care of common non communicable disorders in adult refugees and cite the systems challenges that caregivers face when providing chronic care to refugees.
Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma and Crohn disease

Aims Mesothelial reaction simulating peritoneal diffuse malignant mesothelioma (MM) has been reported in the setting of Crohn ileitis. To our knowledge, peritoneal MM arising in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has not been reported. The purpose of this study is to report the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with peritoneal MM and IBD. Methods A database of approximately 3800 MM was reviewed for cases of MM in patients with IBD. Results Three patients (0.08%) with peritoneal MM and Crohn disease (CD) were identified, including two women and one man ranging in age from 56 to 65 years. All had a long-standing history of diarrhoea and an established diagnosis of CD of 3 years or greater duration. Two had epithelial MM and one had biphasic MM. Only one had documented asbestos exposure. Conclusions Peritoneal MM occurs rarely in patients with IBD, but interestingly, has only been observed in the setting of CD and not in patients with ulcerative colitis. Chronic inflammation has been associated with the development of MM in rare instances and these three cases suggest that CD with transmural inflammation may also be a precursor. The precise role of CD-related transmural inflammation in the carcinogenesis of peritoneal MM remains to be determined.
Introduction: The Consolidation of Russia’s Role in World Affairs

Until its implosion in late 1991, the Soviet Union was one of two global superpowers that had been engaged for most of the prior half century in a competition for power and influence that ultimately engaged virtually all the other states of the world. Initially, the Soviet Union and the United States faced one another across what Winston Churchill termed the ‘iron curtain’ in Central Europe. Soon, however, the realities of the danger of nuclear confrontation in the centre of Europe, as well as the emergence of a host of new political units from the collapse of Western colonial empires in Asia and Africa, led to the expansion of the superpower conflict to the Third World’, where the Soviets and the Americans engaged in what both viewed as a ‘zero sum’ competition for presence and influence. Both sides built up military arsenals that could destroy the entire world multiple times. They established networks of alliances and competed for clients. By the 1970s, the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev foresaw the imminent establishment of a socialist-oriented international system, resulting from the ‘changing international correlation of forces’, that would compete with, and eventually overcome and replace, the capitalist-dominated system headed by the United States.1
Working together: It's not a game and the sum is never zero

Abstract The process of working together is complicated, about which much can and has been written. The association of collaborative work with games may not seem to be obvious, because work is not considered play. The association with game theory as applied to organizations does make sense, however, if we think about the number of people within organizations who constantly "keep score," checking to see who is ahead, who is behind, and who is winning by coming out on top of real or imputed power struggles. Hence the title of this article, which is intended to alert readers to a way of thinking about collegial relationships that can be stronger and more effective than those thought to exist only within the closed box of sum-zero games.
Educational Technology in Vocational Training of Emergency Services

Background: The speed of the technological progress influences the health education, to the extent that the progress of knowledge requires innovative teaching methodologies that. Among the various components of the health system in the world, emergency services were considered as priorities in the qualification process or human resources. Objective: Identify the educational technologies used in the training of professionals who work in emergency services through an integrative review. Method: Through controlled descriptors of Medical Subject Heading: "Medical education", "Training" and "Emergency" in the databases. 2531 have been included articles in which, 21 were included in the final sample and suffered classification of the level of evidence. Results: There was a prevalence studies with a level III (71.4%) and in relation to the technology used, 95.2% of the studies used the simulation classified as soft-hard technology. In articles the subjects who used the technologies were the contents of obstetric emergencies and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Conclusion: International articles relating to vocational training in emergency feature, mostly considerable level of evidence (III). Among the educational technologies, the simulation was the predominant use of methodology for training nursing staff and doctors.
Programmable materials based on periodic cellular solids. Part I: Experiments

Abstract We introduce a new class of programmable materials whose effective mechanical properties can be modified after manufacturing without any additional reprocessing. Programing is achieved by the controlled introduction of a morphological imperfection into the unit cell of a periodic cellular solid which triggers changes in the effective mechanical properties of these materials. Two programmable material systems are studied in this work: a bending dominated honeycomb with a hexagonal unit cell and a stretching dominated honeycomb with a kagome unit cell. A shape memory polymer is used as the base material and the cellular materials are programed using the standard shape fixing process for shape memory polymers. We show that significant changes in the effective mechanical properties can be attained with low values of programed strains. For instance, a programed imperfection corresponding to a global compressive strain of 5% in the bending dominated system leads to a 55% increase in initial in-plane effective elastic Young's modulus, an 81% increase in the propagation stress for in-plane compression and a 30% reduction in the out-of-plane effective flexural modulus. The bending dominated system shows a linear change in effective properties with programing up to 10% global programed strain, whereas the stretching dominated system shows a rapid initial change in effective properties with low values of global programed strain (
Remembrance: Dialogue and Inquiry in the MBSR Classroom

We have a treasure within us. We were born with it. Reclaiming it costs us a lot. Some would say, everything. “Everything” has everything to do with leaving behind much of the small, comfortable self all of us have constructed and that, often enough, now functions as our jailer.
Is religion an evolutionarily evoked disease-avoidance strategy?

Religion is a cross-cultural phenomenon that is deserving of an evolutionary explanation. One of the seemingly universal characteristics of religion is its emphasis on purity-related rituals. These...
Investigation of FPGA-Based Real-Time Adaptive Digital Pulse Shaping for High-Count-Rate Applications

Digital signal processing techniques have been widely used in radiation spectrometry to provide improved stability and performance with compact physical size over the traditional analog signal processing. In this paper, field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based adaptive digital pulse shaping techniques are investigated for real-time signal processing. National Instruments (NI) NI 5761 14-bit, 250-MS/s adaptor module is used for digitizing high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector’s preamplifier pulses. Digital pulse processing algorithms are implemented on the NI PXIe-7975R reconfigurable FPGA (Kintex-7) using the LabVIEW FPGA module. Based on the time separation between successive input pulses, the adaptive shaping algorithm selects the optimum shaping parameters (rise time and flattop time of trapezoid-shaping filter) for each incoming signal. A digital Sallen–Key low-pass filter is implemented to enhance signal-to-noise ratio and reduce baseline drifting in trapezoid shaping. A recursive trapezoid-shaping filter algorithm is employed for pole-zero compensation of exponentially decayed (with two-decay constants) preamplifier pulses of an HPGe detector. It allows extraction of pulse height information at the beginning of each pulse, thereby reducing the pulse pileup and increasing throughput. The algorithms for RC–CR2 timing filter, baseline restoration, pile-up rejection, and pulse height determination are digitally implemented for radiation spectroscopy. Traditionally, at high-count-rate conditions, a shorter shaping time is preferred to achieve high throughput, which deteriorates energy resolution. In this paper, experimental results are presented for varying count-rate and pulse shaping conditions. Using adaptive shaping, increased throughput is accepted while preserving the energy resolution observed using the longer shaping times.
Variations in Influenza and Pneumonia Immunizations for Medicare Beneficiaries Served by Rural Health Clinics

The availability of a rural health clinic (RHC) database over the period of 6 years (2008–2013) offers a unique opportunity to examine the trends and patterns of disparities in immunization for influenza and pneumonia among Medicare beneficiaries in the southeastern states. The purpose of this exploratory study was twofold. First, it examined the rural trends and patterns of immunization rates before (2008–2009) and after (2010–2013) the Affordable Care Act (ACA) enactment by state and year. Second, it investigated how contextual, organizational, and aggregate patient characteristics may influence the variations in immunization for influenza and pneumonia of Medicare beneficiaries served by RHCs. Four data sources from federal agencies were merged to perform a longitudinal analysis of the influences of contextual, organizational, and aggregate patient characteristics on the disparities in immunization rates of rural Medicare beneficiaries for influenza and pneumonia. We included both time-varying and time-constant predictors in a multivariate analysis using Generalized Estimating Equation. This study revealed the increased immunization rates for both influenza and pneumonia over a period of 6 years. The ACA had a positive effect on increased immunization rates for pneumonia, but not for influenza, in rural Medicare beneficiaries in the eight states. The RHCs that served more dually-eligible patients had higher immunization rates. For influenza immunization, provider-based RHCs had a higher rate than the independent RHCs. For pneumonia immunization, no organizational variables were relevant in the explanation of the variability. The results also showed that no single dominant factor influenced health care disparities. This investigation suggested further improvements in preventive care are needed to target poor and isolated rural beneficiaries. Furthermore, the integration of immunization data from multiple sources is critically needed for understanding health disparities.
The external cost of asbestos in the housing market

ABSTRACTThis study uses a Generalized Method of Moments spatial error hedonic model to estimate the potential impact of asbestos on residential property prices. The analysis examines a large sample of 32,403 housing sales occurring between 2008 and 2015 in a fast-growing Coastal Alabama region. Results indicate the presence of asbestos depreciates house values by 13.44%, translating into an external cost of approximately $25,300 per property.
Spatially Continuous Modeling and Control of Swing Dynamics in Electric Power Grids

Abstract We propose a new control approach for swing oscillation suppression in large power grids, based on a spatially continuous representation of the system. Traditional modeling is spatially discrete irrespective of the grid size, perceiving the swing dynamics as frequency and phase oscillations. However, we show that for long chains of generators the overall swing dynamics is essentially governed by propagating electro-mechanical waves, retrieving the oscillations only locally. We therefore model the system by partial differential equations, where we decompose the grid into open and closed ended chains of generators, strings and rings. The key principle of the proposed approach is generation of unidirectional control waves that achieve closed loop matching of measured disturbance waves. While in strings this is naturally implemented by actuation at the boundary, the lack of boundaries in rings poses significant challenges. We solve the problem by introducing a new method for interior generation of near exact uni-directional waves. The method, which we denote by Interior Wave Suppression control, requires a minimal number of concentrated actuation and measurement devices for a given ring.
Too old for leather? Aging out of a 1990s TV reboot

The “strong female protagonist” flourished on 1990s television. Murphy Brown dominated newsrooms on Murphy Brown, Buffy battled the undead on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Agent Scully investigated...
Low Threshold Current 1.3 μm Fabry-Perot III-V Quantum Dot Lasers on (001) Si with Superior Reliability

We report 1.3 μm quantum dot lasers monolithically integrated on Si substrate. A threshold current of 6.2 mA, output power of 185 mW, and excellent device lifetimes of more than a million hours were achieved.
Driving Assessment of Students’ Explanations in Game Dialog Using Computer-Adaptive Testing and Hidden Markov Modeling

How might research on metacognition, conceptual change, and students’ explanations inform the design of dialog systems in digital games to foster science learning and engagement? How might research on computer-adaptive testing (CAT) and hidden Markov modeling support online diagnostic modeling of students’ learning behaviors and understanding? How might a game analyze their problem-solving steps as well as explanation constructs in that dialog? This chapter explores these questions. Our goals involve (1) scaffolding students’ explicit articulation of connections between intuitive understandings and disciplinary concepts in the game environment while (2) providing mechanisms for online tracking of players’ evolving understanding to support adaptive scaffolding and provide formative and summative diagnostic information to teachers and researchers. Essentially, we propose that integrating research on conceptual change, scientific explanations, metacognition, CAT, and hidden Markov modeling in a digital game environment could simultaneously diagnose the formative and summative aspects of students’ understanding, and in this process provide an environment that fosters deep science learning. We first define the challenge of scaffolding deep learning in games at the cognitive level by contrasting constraint-based reasoning and model-based reasoning. We then explore the role of self-explanation in supporting model-based reasoning and dynamic assessment of students’ reasoning. This is followed by an outline of a model for game-based dialog to support explanation generation and analysis. This explanation dialog model leverages CAT techniques and hidden Markov modeling to develop and refine an ongoing analysis of a students’ understanding within the game based on students’ explanations within the dialog and their other actions within the game.
Cyclic Perfect One Factorizations of K2n

Abstract Recently Hartman and Rosa characterized those n for which K 2n admits a cyclic one factorization. We show that K 2n admits a cyclic perfect one factorization if and only if n is prime. We also show that if n is prime there is a one to one, onto correspondence between cyclic perfect one factorizations on K 2n and starter induced perfect one factorizations on K n+1 . Moreover the full symmetry group of the cyclic perfect one factorization is that of the corresponding starter induced perfect one factorization direct sum Z 2