cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Proportional integral control approach for controlling the temperatures of multi-steel cylinders barrel in an injection molding machine

This work presents a three dimensional prototype of the surface model to demonstrate the working of the controller. The three dimensional surface model is a prototype of the Injection Molding Machine (IMM), wherein the temperature of the system needs to be gradually increased to a very high temperature to melt plastics uniformly, despite the non-linear process. This process tends to be non-linear mainly due to thermal loss, heat transfer between the three cylinders and atmospheric disturbances. This paper presents a unique approach for designing a nonlinear surface model-based for controlling the temperature of multi steel cylinders in an injection molding machine. The innovation of this strategy is that the controller structure uses the nonlinear model to update the process variables at every sampling instant while the closed-loop control is executed. In this work, a new optimization routine will be used to minimize the errors between the model and process outputs. This allows the determination of the system’s variables resulting in a new set of the Proportional Integral (PI) controller parameters with every sampling instant. The most important feature of 3-dimensional surface model control strategy is that it uses the process’ variables to construct the surface model which are used in calculation of the control actions. In the meantime, this surface model is constructed offline by conducting several open-loop tests using different input signals and profiles while the measured output of the process is recorded. From these data, the main dynamic parameters of the process (process gain and time constant) are extracted to construct the surface model. Finally, the control law of the PI approach is updated every sampling instant to counteract the nonlinear effects of the system. In order to achieve a good control response for this process, an accurate model has to be developed to design a robust controller that can follow the reference trajectory and track the setpoint changes smoothly. Also, the model has to be of the adaptive form so that the controller has the ability to reject any disturbances or noisy feedback.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
Prior Preconditioning by Ischemia or Sevoflurane Improves Cardiac Work per Oxygen Use in Isolated Guinea Pig Hearts After Global Ischemia

Cardiac ischemic preconditioning is a phenomenon typically described as brief periods of ischemia that renders the myocardium resistant to subsequent longer term ischemia. This is often assessed by observations of reduced infarct size, attenuated mechanical dysfunction, or limited ultrastructural abnormality on reperfusion (1). The degree of mechanical and electrical cardioprotection provided by myocardial preconditioning and the mechanisms that potentially mediate its effects have been the focus of intense investigation. However, in only a few studies have there been attempts to understand how ischemic injury alters myocardial oxidative metabolism after reperfusion (2–5). The effect of preconditioning maneuvers on altering myocardial O2 utilization after ischemia and reperfusion is even less well examined. Myocardial O2 consumption is highly influenced by the contractile state of the myocardium and so it may be lower, as is mechanical function, after reperfusion. It is important to know if the available O2 is better or worse utilized to perform cardiac work after preconditioning, ischemia, and reperfusion.
Casino Loyalty: The Influence of Loyalty Program, Switching Costs, and Trust:

Customer loyalty has become a strategic goal to increase brand value and profitability. This study develops and tests a model of loyalty to understand the relative effects of loyalty program benefits (as positive barriers) and switching costs (as negative barriers) on emotional commitment and loyalty behaviors in the casino context. The findings showed that trust, perceived switching cost, and emotional commitment to the casino are more likely to influence relational or emotional outcomes such as word of mouth and voluntary partnership whereas the loyalty program is more likely to influence transactional outcomes such as repeat visitation and time spent in the casino. The emotional commitment served as a partial mediator in the model. The study has theoretical implications for understanding the loyalty process and practical implications for improving loyalty program effectiveness.
Specific Neutralization of Cotton Rat Strains of Poliomyelitis Virus.

ConclusionBearing in mind the percentage of experimental error, the number of natural deaths that would occur and those that would follow immediately or within 24 hours after injection, etc., one could conclude that specificity had been demonstrated and that this strain of rat virus was truly an acclimated one from Flexner's Philadelphia virus.B. Armstrong's Lansing Strain. All the positive controls (Group E) died; all negative controls (Group A) lived. All animals injected with “early horse serum”and virus (Group B) died. Two (6.6%) of Group C, the “convalescent horse serum”protected and 4 (13.3%) of Group D, given pooled convalescent human serum, died.
Hospitalizations Related To Opioid Abuse/Dependence And Associated Serious Infections Increased Sharply, 2002–12

Serious infection is a recognized complication of intravenous drug abuse and a major cause of morbidity and mortality among intravenous drug users. Trends in rates of serious infection and the associated costs related to opioid abuse/dependence have not been previously investigated in the context of the US opioid use epidemic. Our study, using a nationally representative sample of US inpatient hospitalizations, showed that hospitalizations related to opioid abuse/dependence both with and without associated serious infection significantly increased from 2002 to 2012, respectively, from 301,707 to 520,275 and from 3,421 to 6,535. Additionally, inpatient charges for both types of hospitalizations almost quadrupled over the same time period, reaching almost $15 billion for hospitalizations related to opioid abuse/dependence and more than $700 million for those related to associated infection in 2012. Medicaid was the most common primary payer for both types of hospitalizations. Our results characterize the fi...
Dynamic Feature Induction: The Last Gist to the State-of-the-Art

We introduce a novel technique called dynamic feature induction that keeps inducing high dimensional features automatically until the feature space becomes ‘more’ linearly separable. Dynamic feature induction searches for the feature combinations that give strong clues for distinguishing certain label pairs, and generates joint features from these combinations. These induced features are trained along with the primitive low dimensional features. Our approach was evaluated on two core NLP tasks, part-of-speech tagging and named entity recognition, and showed the state-of-the-art results for both tasks, achieving the accuracy of 97.64 and the F1-score of 91.00 respectively, with about a 25% increase in the feature space.
On the politics of recognition in critical urban scholarship

ABSTRACTIn this response to Ananya Roy’s plenary talk at the Association of American Geographers annual meeting in 2015, “What’s urban about critical urban theory,” I engage the work of Nancy Fraser and feminist epistemologists to argue for the necessity of a robust critical politics of recognition in knowledge projects with emancipatory aims. I question the political utility and empirical accuracy of the increasingly popular assertion that there is no analytical outside to the category “urban,” and argue, like many feminist, post-colonial, and anti-racist scholars before me, that attempts to construct a totalizing political subject have the effect of reproducing cultural misrecognition and are thus incompatible with emancipatory politics.
An Application of Systems Modelling in Steel Production Scheduling

Modern steel production is a complex operation with literally hundreds of separate, though operationally related processes. As a production industry with a high volume, total profits depend heavily on efficient operation on the margin. A key factor in efficient operation is the ability to schedule individual operations toward a common goal of optimal production.
DYNAMIC SONOGRAPHY OF THE EQUINE METACARPO(TARSO)PHALANGEAL DIGITAL FLEXOR TENDON SHEATH

Palmar/plantar annular desmitis is a common disease that may be associated with adhesions and structures affecting the flexor tendons, which requires tenoscopy to diagnose. The purpose of this descriptive study was to develop a dynamic sonographic technique for evaluating the motion of normal equine flexor tendons in relation to the palmar/plantar annular ligament and to compare findings with horses previously diagnosed with palmar/plantar annular desmitis. Ten healthy adult horses were examined prospectively and the images of four horses diagnosed with palmar/plantar annular desmitis were retrospectively evaluated. Dynamic sonography was performed at the level of the metacarpo/metatarsophalangeal joint by maximally extending and flexing the interphalangeal joints. Palmar/plantar annular ligament thickness (mm), size of any gap between the flexor tendons, and subjectively increased angulation of the long linear echoes of the superficial digital flexor tendon were measured. The presence of gliding motion between the palmar/plantar annular ligament and superficial digital flexor tendon was determined by consensus. Twenty-eight healthy control limbs (16 hind/12 fore) and four with palmar/plantar annular desmitis (3 hind/1 fore) were evaluated. Controls had unrestricted gliding motion between the palmar/plantar annular ligament and flexor tendons and zero to 13° of angulation of the long linear echoes. The four affected horses had restricted gliding motion and between 20-35° angulation of the long linear echoes. Dynamic ultrasound is a feasible technique for detecting restricted flexor tendon and palmar/plantar annular ligament gliding motion, as well as subjectively increased angulation of the long linear echoes of the flexor tendon in affected horses compared with controls and warrants further investigation.
Discrete-time indirect adaptive control of a class of single state systems using concurrent learning for parameter adaptation

We have previously showed that it is possible to achieve parameter identification of discrete-time structured uncertainties without requiring persistency of excitation when using Concurrent Learning. Instead, granted a less restrictive condition compared to that of persistency of excitation is verified, exponential convergence of parameter estimates to their true values ensues. The present study applies the previously developed discrete-time Concurrent Learning adaptation law within a control loop for discrete-time adaptive control of a discrete-time single-state plant containing structured uncertainties. Provided that the same condition as for the standalone estimation is met, we can prove exponential convergence of the tracking error and parameter error to zero without necessitating persistency of excitation.
A transfer function based intrusion detection system for SCADA systems

Most SCADA and industrial control systems have a limited and deterministic set of behaviors that results with a relatively small amount of variability during normal system operation. Automatic controller commands, operator commands and sensor measurement data within the system may be modified by an attacker to cause system failures. To detect these intrusions a Transfer Function based Intrusion Detection System (TFIDS) is proposed in this paper. Normal operational behaviors can be modeled and integrated into the TFIDS with alarm filtering and reporting rules. Trust anchors within the system are required to collect some of the signals, ensure the signal integrity when delivered to the TFIDS, and to host the TFIDS if physical attacks are a concern. This paper provides an overview of the TFIDS and simulation results for attacks on a waste water treatment system with and without the TFIDS.
Discovery and Fitness for Use

The purpose of this chapter is to provide readers with a succinct, but varied list of resources for obtaining geographic information (GI) for use, analyses, and geovisualization. We necessarily limit this list to authoritative outlets, such as those from federal, state, and local organizations, as well as private data vendors that are actively engaged in secondary data markets. To facilitate description, data types are subdivided into the 16 National Geospatial Data Asset (NGDA) themes identified by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). Fitness for use, as a concept, is detailed and an example is provided using telecommunications data.
User-centered design of discharge warnings tool for colorectal surgery patients.

Objectives Readmission following colorectal surgery, typically due to surgery-related complications, is common. Patient-centered discharge warnings may guide recognition of early complication signs after colorectal surgery. Materials and methods User-centered design of a discharge warnings tool consisted of iterative health literacy review and a heuristic evaluation with human factors and clinical experts as well as patient end users to establish content validity and usability. Results Literacy evaluation of the prototype suggested >12th-grade reading level. Subsequent revisions reduced reading level to 8th grade or below. Contents were formatted during heuristic evaluation into 3 action-oriented zones (green, yellow, and red) with relevant warning lexicons. Usability testing demonstrated comprehension of this 3-level lexicon and recognition of appropriate patient actions to take for each level. Discussion We developed a discharge warnings tool for colorectal surgery using staged user-centered design. The lexicon of surgical discharge warnings could structure communication among patients, caregivers, and clinicians to improve post-discharge care.
Multi-discipline agile development and reliability and maintainability

In today's competitive market place the need to reduce cost and increase speed in development require exploring a different approach than the traditional waterfall method of hardware development. The Waterfall method consists of a series of stages that are completed sequentially, once a stage has been completed, developers can't go back to the previous stage — not without scratching the project and starting over. In order to remain competitive, companies developing hardware are using Agile methodologies to help keep up with the accelerating rate of change. Scrum is a simple and flexible Agile methodology that provides the ability to respond to changing requirements, increase productivity, and enables rapid and flexible development cycles, with greater collaboration and reduced costs & defects. Integrating a Reliability And Maintainability (RAM) Scrum Team as part of the Agile product development can help deliver reliable and maintainable hardware quicker, and at lower costs providing a competitive advantage. In summary help enable transformational change. Be open to process change and work your RAM agile process model. Don't impose current waterfall processes on Scrum, they will not help. Be supportive and review the team's work products during the Sprint timeline in which they are being developed. Don't expect to see a lot of charts for reviews and table tops and don't direct the team to do additional work or direct how it should be done. Look at the team Scrum boards to understand what is going on and help remove impediments. Staff the team's needs with permanent solutions and take Scrum training to understand, enable and support the changes. Finally don't see failing as bad, especially if we fail early and learn from it.
General feelings of gratitude, gratitude to god, and hemoglobin A1c: Exploring variations by gender*

AbstractResearch indicates that feeling grateful is associated with better physical health. However, most studies rely on self-reports of health. The purpose of this study is to see if feelings of gratitude in general as well as feeling grateful to God specifically are associated with a key biomarker of health – hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). HbA1c is an indicator of blood sugar control. In the process of assessing the relationship between gratitude and HbA1c, an effort is made to see if the relationship between these measures and HbA1c vary by gender. Findings from a recent nationwide survey indicate that women are more likely than men to feel grateful in general and to feel grateful to God. The results further reveal stronger feelings of general gratitude are associated with lower levels of HbA1c. However, this relationship did not differ for men and women. In contrast, feeling grateful to God was associated with lower HbA1c, but this relationship emerged among women only.
REX: Rapid Ensemble Classification System for Landslide Detection Using Social Media

We study the problem of using Social Media to detect natural disasters, of which we are interested in a special kind, namely landslides. Employing information from Social Media presents unique research challenges, as there exists a considerable amount of noise due to multiple meanings of the search keywords, such as "landslide" and "mudslide". To tackle these challenges, we propose REX, a rapid ensemble classification system which can filter out noisy information by implementing two key ideas: (I) a new method for constructing independent classifiers that can be used for rapid ensemble classification of Social Media texts, where each classifier is built using randomized Explicit Semantic Analysis; and (II) a self-correction approach which takes advantage of the observation that the majority label assigned to Social Media texts belonging to a large event is highly accurate. We perform experiments using real data from Twitter over 1.5 years to show that REX classification achieves 0.98 in F-measure, which outperforms the standard Bag-of-Words algorithm by an average of 0.14 and the state-of-the-art Word2Vec algorithm by 0.04. We also release the annotated datasets used in the experiments as a contribution to the research community containing 282k labeled items.
Impact and Perception: Reacting to the Past at Middle Tennessee State University

Like most liberal arts colleges in the country, that at Middle Tennessee State University has experienced a substantial drop in enrollment over the past six years. Declining enrollments, a state mandate to improve retention and persistence, and a national climate that undervalues the liberal arts have created a need to ensure that students recognize the importance and value of their liberal arts experiences. Using a pre-test/post-test survey, we seek to determine student habit and perception changes concerning liberal arts that result from participation in Reacting to the Past (RTTP) experiences. Since RTTP is a cost-effective high-impact practice, it is a viable tool to engage students, allowing them to see firsthand why liberal arts are important for their educational experience.
Does safety information influence consumers’ preferences for controversial food products?

Abstract This paper uses experimental auctions to address two key research questions: are preferences for controversial food products a function of safety information, or personal attitudes and preferences? To what extent are consumers’ preferences for a controversial food product influenced by positive and negative scientific information? Experimental auctions for pasteurized and unpasteurized artisan cheese were conducted on computer tablets with participants at farmers’ markets in Michigan, New York and Vermont using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction mechanism. Along with the auctions, participants blindly evaluated the sensory characteristics of the cheeses and answered demographic questions and Likert scale questions about their attitudes towards food safety. We find that ideology, taste, and principle drive consumers’ preferences for unpasteurized cheese, as opposed to misinformation or ignorance. There is also evidence that artisan cheese consumers exhibit confirmation bias when exposed to information about pasteurization.
Scalable Fabrication Framework of Implantable Ultrathin and Flexible Probes with Biodegradable Sacrificial Layers

For long-term biocompatibility and performance, implanted probes need to further reduce their size and mechanical stiffness to match that of the surrounding cells, which, however, makes accurate and minimally invasive insertion operations difficult due to lack of rigidity and brings additional complications in assembling and surgery. Here, we report a scalable fabrication framework of implantable probes utilizing biodegradable sacrificial layers to address this challenge. Briefly, the integrated biodegradable sacrificial layer can dissolve in physiological fluids shortly after implantation, which allows the in situ formation of functional ultrathin film structures off of the initial small and rigid supporting backbone. We show that the dissolution of this layer does not affect the viability and excitability of neuron cells in vitro. We have demonstrated two types of probes that can be used out of the box, including (1) a compact probe that spontaneously forms three-dimensional bend-up devices only after i...
Contesting market rationality: Discursive struggles over prison privatization:

Market rationality suffuses many areas of modern criminal justice. Prison privatization is one area in which market rationality is particularly salient. This paper presents a case study of how market rationality was deployed in public discourse on prison privatization. It answers four questions: (1) Who shaped public discourse on prison privatization? (2) How frequently were market-rational themes invoked in the public discourse?, (3) Who employed (and who avoided) market-rational themes in the discourse?, and (4) Why did rates of market-rational discourse change over time? To answer these questions, the paper analyzes public discourse in four major American newspapers from 1985 to 2008. It employs a series of descriptive statistics and regression analyses, as well as an underutilized method—formal decomposition analysis. The research contributes to historical knowledge of the development of prison privatization, methodological techniques for analyzing textual data, and theoretical understanding of how pu...
Is Migration a Coherent Field of International Law? The Example of Labor Migration

A critical characteristic of migration is that it involves people in all their complexity, and with all their complex needs. Therefore, migration, perhaps more than any other field of international law, is difficult to separate as a body of law from human rights, trade, taxation, investment, health, security, etc. In this brief essay, I will describe two critical, and distinct, linkages that prevent us from cabining migration as a separate field. Both arise in the area of labor migration. Indeed, it is through linkage with other fields of international law, such as trade and investment, that states could establish international legal commitments to liberalize migration.
Tents, Palaces, and “Imperial Souvenirs”: Mobilizing cultural authority in the French Protectorate of Morocco

A press photograph taken at the 1922 National Colonial Exposition in Marseille captures Hubert Lyautey, resident general of the French Protectorate of Morocco from 1912 to 1925, departing from his ...
Glycoprotein and Protein Markers for Strain Differentiation and Growth Environment or Media Attribution

Recent experience has demonstrated that protein markers can provide potentially vital identifying and bioforensic information. The masses of constitutively expressed proteins and their peptide fragments can be used to identify bacterial isolates. Protein marker mass variation reflects the underlying amino acid sequence variation to provide information complementary to genetic sequence analysis. Protein markers (identified by mass or sequence) that are conserved or variable can be readily detected. Examples of constitutively expressed proteins that have been extensively characterized include the exosporium BclA and BclB proteins and small acid-soluble proteins (SASPs). Finally, gene expression (usually assessed at the mRNA level) can vary in response to different environmental conditions. As a result, the profile of protein markers of the organism also reflects the culture environment. Mass spectrometric tools can be used to access the same information on culture-related protein expression variation. However, unlike genetic methods, with proteomic methodology, there is the potential to differentiate samples prepared in distinct growth environments. This potential could provide additional clues for investigative leads or forensic attribution.
Reduction of weather effects in the calculation of sea-ice concentration with the DMSP SSM/I

A problem in mapping the polar sea-ice covers in both hemispheres has been the sporadic false indication of sea ice over the open ocean and at the ice edge. These spurious sea-ice concentrations result from variations in sea-surface roughening by surface winds, atmospheric water vapor and both precipitating and non-precipitating liquid water. This problem was addressed for sea-ice concentrations derived from the Nimbus-7 scanning multi-channel microwave radiometer (SMMR) data through the development of a weather filter based on spectral information from the 18.0 and 37.0 GHz vertical polarization SMMR channels. Application of a similar filter for use with sea-ice concentration maps derived with the special-sensor microwave imager (SSM/I) sensor is less successful. This results from the position of the 19.35 GHz SSM/I channels, which are closer to the center of the 22.2 GHz atmospheric water-vapor line than are the SMMR 18.0 GHz channels. Thus, the SSM/I 19.35 GHz channels are more sensitive to changes in atmospheric water vapor, which results in greater contamination problems. An additional filter has been developed, based on a combination of the 19.35 and 22.2GHz. SSM/I channels. Examples of the effectiveness of the new filter are presented and limitations are discussed.
Are patients with high-risk polycythemia vera receiving cytoreductive medications? A retrospective analysis of real-world data.

Patients with polycythemia vera (PV) have a higher mortality risk compared with the general population, primarily driven by cardiovascular disease, thrombotic events (TEs), and hematologic transformations. The goal of risk-adapted therapy in PV is prevention of TEs. Current treatment recommendations indicate that high-risk patients (aged ≥ 60 years and/or with history of TEs) should be managed with cytoreductive medications, phlebotomy, and low-dose aspirin. This noninterventional study was conducted to describe real-world cytoreductive medication treatment in adult patients with PV, stratified by risk, in the United States. This retrospective analysis used claims data from the Truven Health MarketScan® database. Inclusion criteria were ≥ 2 nondiagnostic claims for PV ≥ 30 days apart, age ≥ 18 years, continuous enrollment during the preindex period (January 1 to December 31, 2012), and continuous enrollment or death during the postindex period (January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2014). Assessments included patient demographics, clinical characteristics, and treatment with cytoreductive medications. A total of 2856 patients were identified for this analysis, including 1823 with high-risk PV and 1033 with low-risk PV. Mean (SD) age was 62.5 (13.5) years, and 65.9% of patients were male. Preindex comorbid conditions of interest were more common in high-risk than low-risk patients, including hypertension (65.0% vs 43.1%), type 2 diabetes (21.7% vs 10.1%), and congestive heart failure (6.6% vs 0.6%). Among patients who received preindex cytoreductive therapy, the most commonly used medications in high-risk (n = 666) and low-risk (n = 160) patients were hydroxyurea (94.7 and 87.5%, respectively), anagrelide (7.4 and 11.9%), and interferon (1.7 and 4.4%). Among patients who initiated cytoreductive therapy postindex, the most commonly used medications in high-risk (n = 100) and low-risk (n = 35) patients were hydroxyurea (97.0 and 91.4%, respectively), anagrelide (4.0 and 2.9%), and interferon (2.0 and 8.6%). Overall, 42.0% of high-risk and 18.9% of low-risk patients received cytoreductive medication during the preindex or postindex periods. Despite consistent guideline recommendations for cytoreductive therapy in patients with high-risk PV, this analysis revealed that only a minority of these patients received cytoreductive medication. A notable proportion of high-risk patients with PV would likely benefit from a revised treatment plan that aligns with current guidelines.
Transdiagnostic neural correlates of volitional emotion regulation in anxiety and depression.

Background Individuals who suffer from anxiety and/or depression face difficulty in adaptively managing emotional responses, while accumulating evidence suggests impaired emotion regulation is a transdiagnostic feature of psychopathology. Effectual regulation in the context of negative stimuli is characterized by engagement of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) coupled with reduced amygdala reactivity. In anxiety disorders and major depression, PFC underengagement and atypical PFC-amygdala connectivity has been observed, although patient findings based on case-control studies have been mixed with regard to magnitude, locality, and extent of dysfunction. As anxiety disorders and major depression are heterogeneous disorders and frequently comorbid with one another, delineating relationships between reappraise-related substrates and symptoms may advance our understanding of emotion dysregulation in these populations. Methods We examined PFC activation and its functional connectivity (FC) to the amygdala using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a large sample of patients (N = 174) with primary generalized anxiety disorder (n = 47), social anxiety disorder (n = 78), or major depressive disorder (n = 49) during a reappraisal-based emotion regulation task. Comorbidity was permitted and the majority of participants had a concurrent psychiatric illnesses. Results Across participants, whole-brain results showed that (1) greater anxiety and depression symptom severity was related to less engagement of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and (2) less FC between the amygdala and ventrolateral PFC. Results were driven by anxiety, while depression symptoms were not significant. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that individual differences in anxiety and depression may help explain ACC and PFC dysfunction during emotion regulation observed across anxiety and depressive disorders.
Is Organ Retransplantation Among Undocumented Immigrants in the United States Just

Numerous undocumented children in the United States with end-stage renal disease undergo kidney transplantation funded by charitable donation or state-sponsored Medicaid. However, when these funding sources expire by adulthood, most are unable to pay for follow-up appointments and immunosuppressive medications necessary for maintenance of their organ. The organs fail and patients are then left with the options of retransplantation or a lifetime of dialysis. The dilemma of retransplantation introduces many questions regarding justice and fairness. This commentary addresses several ethical concerns about the special case of organ retransplantation for undocumented patients. Clinical guidelines and a clear public policy for best practices are needed to adequately address the challenge of retransplantation and maintenance immunosuppression in this population.
STATISTICAL ESTIMATION OF PRODUCTION AND COSTS FUNCTIONS OF SUMMER TOMATO CROP (CASE STUDY IN THE CENTER OF QUESNA - MONOFIYA GOVERNORATE)

The research aims at estimating production and economic efficiency through statistical estimation for the production and cost functions, and then to derive the economic derivatives of the production and cost functions, so that the researcher will be dealt with the research problem, namely, are the resources used in the production of summer tomatoes used efficiently or not?. The obtained findings of the research from the sample data indicate that the production is at the stage of increaseing the economics of scale. It was found that by increasing the used production inputs in the production by 1% of summer tomato, led to increases the productivity of the feddan by 8.2%, it is meaning that there is possibility to increase that productivity. The optimum size of the production obtained by equalizing the marginal costs against average cost, it was about 17.5 tons per feddan, which is lower than the average productivity in the research sample, which is about 21 tons per feddan. The maximum size of the profit, which was obtained by equalizing the marginal cost of marginal revenue, it was about 13.7 tons per feddan. It is noticed that there were several problems which faced the interviewers of the selected sample, including the lack of information and guidance on the high-yield varieties, the quantity and quality of pesticides used to control pests. The net return per feddan of tomato in the sample of the research was about 23,152 thousand Egyptian pounds and it was found that the revenue of the invested Egyptian pound was about 41 piaster. Research recommended that increasing the role of the agricultural guidance system in the delivery of technical information to guide farmers, especially in the field of rationalization of the use of pesticides and the direction of biological control, in addition to the selection of suitable hybrid seedlings to increase the productivity of the unit area and reduce the cost of production and increase net return. Provide the irrigation water, clearing of canals and sheds and removal of waste. Food production and food security are a matter of national security, Therefore, the question of re-supporting and subside farmers in providing agricultural production needs with high quality, time, price and appropriate place must be reconsidered.
Does balance training improve balance in physically active older adults

Falls among older adults are a growing public health problem. Previous research suggests that the regular practice of physical activity in older adults improves balance and reduces falls. The objective of this study was to determine whether balance-specific training, in addition to regular physical activity, could improve balance in older adults, and whether there would be a dose-response to frequency of balance training. A six-week balance-training program was conducted with 60 older adults (60-87 years) who were already participating in a regular program of physical activity. All participants continued with their regular exercise program while adding balance training in one of three doses: three 20-minute balance-training sessions/week (3-Day); one 20-minute balance-training session/week (1-Day); and no additional balance training (Control). Participants were tested pre-and post-training and a repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant intervention effects of training for 1) single-leg-stance on the left (p=.019) and right (p=.026), 2) limits-of-stability 95% area ellipse (p=.036) and anteroposterior maximum excursion (p=.01), 3) foam eyes closed/foam eyes open mediolateral difference score (p=.008), and 4) a trend toward significance for alternate stepping (p=.053). Both 3-Day and 1-Day groups saw more improvement than controls, with the 3-Day group achieving the greatest improvements overall. The results of this study suggest that physically active older adults who exercise regularly can benefit from the addition of balance training to their current exercise program. Three 20-minute sessions per week led to the greatest improvement; however it appears that even one 20-minute session of balance training per week may lead to improvement of balance.
Metal truss wing spars

The purpose of the study was to develop improvements in the current methods for the calculation of the loads in members of metal truss wing spars which are subjected to combined bending and compression. The theory developed here has two important practical applications. One is the calculation of the effective moment of inertia of a truss spar from the geometry of the spar and the loads to which the spar is to be subjected. The second is the determination of the most economical location of metal for stiffening a truss spar which has too much deflection.
Design of the WHIP-PD study: a phase II, twelve-month, dual-site, randomized controlled trial evaluating the effects of a cognitive-behavioral approach for promoting enhanced walking activity using mobile health technology in people with Parkinson-disease.

Parkinson disease (PD) is a debilitating and chronic neurodegenerative disease resulting in ambulation difficulties. Natural walking activity often declines early in disease progression despite the relative stability of motor impairments. In this study, we propose a paradigm shift with a “connected behavioral approach” that targets real-world walking using cognitive-behavioral training and mobile health (mHealth) technology. The Walking and mHealth to Increase Participation in Parkinson Disease (WHIP-PD) study is a twelve-month, dual site, two-arm, randomized controlled trial recruiting 148 participants with early to mid-stage PD. Participants will be randomly assigned to connected behavioral or active control conditions. Both conditions will include a customized program of goal-oriented walking, walking-enhancing strengthening exercises, and eight in-person visits with a physical therapist. Participants in the connected behavioral condition also will (1) receive cognitive-behavioral training to promote self-efficacy for routine walking behavior and (2) use a mHealth software application to manage their program and communicate remotely with their physical therapist. Active control participants will receive no cognitive-behavioral training and manage their program on paper. Evaluations will occur at baseline, three-, six-, and twelve-months and include walking assessments, self-efficacy questionnaires, and seven days of activity monitoring. Primary outcomes will include the change between baseline and twelve months in overall amount of walking activity (mean number of steps per day) and amount of moderate intensity walking activity (mean number of minutes per day in which > 100 steps were accumulated). Secondary outcomes will include change in walking capacity as measured by the six-minute walk test and ten-meter walk test. We also will examine if self-efficacy mediates change in amount of walking activity and if change in amount of walking activity mediates change in walking capacity. We expect this study to show the connected behavioral approach will be more effective than the active control condition in increasing the amount and intensity of real-world walking activity and improving walking capacity. Determining effective physical activity interventions for persons with PD is important for preserving mobility and essential for maintaining quality of life. Clinical trials registration NCT03517371, May 7, 2018. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03517371. Date of registration: May 7, 2018. Protocol version: Original.
What the Supreme Court Could Have Heard in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC and Aimee Stephens

The Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC and Aimee Stephens, a case poised to answer whether transgender people are protected by sex discrimination laws. At the oral argument, the employee’s advocate framed his transgender woman client as an “insufficiently masculine man” and gratuitously conceded Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 narrowly prohibits discrimination on account of “biological sex.” Historical and doctrinal context and critique show why this was strategically unwise. Counterfactual analysis is employed to reimagine how Harris could have been argued differently by a transgender lawyer.
Arrhythmogenic right-ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy.

Purpose of reviewArrhythmogenic right-ventricular dysplasia is a rare inherited disease characterized by right-ventricular dysfunction and ventricular arrhythmias. The purpose of this article is to review recent developments concerning the diagnosis, genetics, and management of patients with this di
Polyethylene Containing Triblock Copolymers Synthesized by Post-polymerization Functionalization

We report the synthesis of amphiphilic triblock copolymers containing a polyethylene block as the center block. The synthetic methodology consists of performing four consecutive post-polymerization...
Automatic detection of pulmonary nodules on CT images with YOLOv3: development and evaluation using simulated and patient data

Background To develop a high-efficiency pulmonary nodule computer-aided detection (CAD) method for localization and diameter estimation. Methods The developed CAD method centralizes a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm, You Only Look Once (YOLO) v3, as a deep learning approach. This method is featured by two distinct properties: (I) an automatic multi-scale feature extractor for nodule feature screening, and (II) a feature-based bounding box generator for nodule localization and diameter estimation. Two independent studies were performed to train and evaluate this CAD method. One study comprised of a computer simulation that utilized computer-based ground truth. In this study, 300 CT scans were simulated by Cardiac-torso (XCAT) digital phantom. Spherical nodules of various sizes (i.e., 3-10 mm in diameter) were randomly implanted within the lung region of the simulated images-the second study utilized human-based ground truth in patients. The CAD method was developed by CT scans sourced from the LIDC-IDRI database. CT scans with slice thickness above 2.5 mm were excluded, leaving 888 CT images for analysis. A 10-fold cross-validation procedure was implemented in both studies to evaluate network hyper-parameterization and generalization. The overall accuracy of the CAD method was evaluated by the detection sensitivities, in response to average false positives (FPs) per image. In the patient study, the detection accuracy was further compared against 9 recently published CAD studies using free-receiver response operating characteristic (FROC) curve analysis. Localization and diameter estimation accuracies were quantified by the mean and standard error between the predicted value and ground truth. Results The average results among the 10 cross-validation folds in both studies demonstrated the CAD method achieved high detection accuracy. The sensitivity was 99.3% (FPs =1), and improved to 100% (FPs =4) in the simulation study. The corresponding sensitivities were 90.0% and 95.4% in the patient study, displaying superiority over several conventional and CNN-based lung nodule CAD methods in the FROC curve analysis. Nodule localization and diameter estimation errors were less than 1 mm in both studies. The developed CAD method achieved high computational efficiency: it yields nodule-specific quantitative values (i.e., number, existence confidence, central coordinates, and diameter) within 0.1 s for 2D CT slice inputs. Conclusions The reported results suggest that the developed lung pulmonary nodule CAD method possesses high accuracies of nodule localization and diameter estimation. The high computational efficiency enables its potential clinical application in the future.
Barriers and Facilitators to Peer-Supported Implementation of Mental Health Mobile Applications with Veterans in Primary Care

Mental health disorders are highly prevalent among veterans in primary care, yet most of these patients do not receive adequate treatment due to provider time constraints, patient travel costs, and stigma associated with mental health care. Mobile health (mHealth) can overcome these impediments to care access; however, poor patient engagement with mHealth limits its routine implementation. Peer specialists may increase patient engagement with mHealth by offering supportive accountability and support through shared experiences. This study sought to identify barriers and facilitators of peer-supported mHealth implementation with veteran primary care patients. Qualitative interviews, guided by the Consolidated Framework of Implementation Research ([CFIR] Damschroder et al., 2009), were conducted with 28 key informants (17 peer specialists and 11 primary care providers) from 14 sites participating in a Department of Veterans Affairs national evaluation of peers in primary care. Thematic analysis was used to identify CFIR determinants to peer-supported mHealth implementation. CFIR barrier domains included Inner Setting (e.g., lack of implementation infrastructure, limited peer training on mHealth, and ineffective promotion of mHealth) and Characteristics of Individuals (e.g., lack of knowledge of the peer role and limited tech literacy). CFIR facilitator domains comprised Intervention Characteristics (e.g., strong support for peers in this role), Characteristics of Individuals (e.g., role alignment with a holistic care approach), and Outer Setting (e.g., emphasizing app benefits, the importance of app demonstrations, and follow-up encounters). The findings inform the development of a strategy for implementing peer-supported mental health mobile apps with veterans in primary care.
University employees’ perceptions of health during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic

The emergence of the novel coronavirus, or Covid-19, has had a major impact on higher education; however, little attention has been paid to how the virus and lockdown measures instituted to stop it...
Does Telehealth Reduce Rural-Urban Care Access Disparities? Evidence from COVID-19 Telehealth Expansion (preprint)

Using a unique set of hospital claims data, we study the effect of telehealth expansion on the disparities between care access in rural and urban areas during COVID-19. We use urban areas as the control group and compare the number of in-person visits between rural and urban areas before and after the expansion. We find that the telehealth policy expansion indeed reduces urban patients' in-person visits, yet rural patients' in-person visits are not much affected. As a result, the disparity between rural-urban in-person visits increases by 12.5% following the expansion. To understand the underlying mechanisms, we compare rural and urban patients' telehealth visits and the total visits (i.e., the sum of in-person and telehealth visits) before and after the expansion. We find that urban patients substitute in-person visits with telehealth visits. However, rural patients have much lower adoption rates of telehealth services and continued with in-person visits. Finally, we perform visit-level analyses and identify patients' social determinants and physicians' characteristics that might have affected telehealth adoptions. Our findings are important to researchers and providers in understanding the implications of telehealth expansion on rural-urban disparities and the existing barriers when expanding telehealth in rural areas.