cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Effects of speech style, room acoustics, and vocal fatigue on vocal effort

Vocal effort is a physiological measure that accounts for changes in voice production as vocal loading increases. It has been quantified in terms of sound pressure level (SPL). This study investigates how vocal effort is affected by speaking style, room acoustics, and short-term vocal fatigue. Twenty subjects were recorded while reading a text at normal and loud volumes in anechoic, semi-reverberant, and reverberant rooms in the presence of classroom babble noise. The acoustics in each environment were modified by creating a strong first reflection in the talker position. After each task, the subjects answered questions addressing their perception of the vocal effort, comfort, control, and clarity of their own voice. Variation in SPL for each subject was measured per task. It was found that SPL and self-reported effort increased in the loud style and decreased when the reflective panels were present and when reverberation time increased. Self-reported comfort and control decreased in the loud style, while self-reported clarity increased when panels were present. The lowest magnitude of vocal fatigue was experienced in the semi-reverberant room. The results indicate that early reflections may be used to reduce vocal effort without modifying reverberation time.
Gel permeation chromatography as a multifunctional processor for nanocrystal purification and on-column ligand exchange chemistry

This article illustrates the use of gel permeation chromatography (GPC, organic-phase size exclusion chromatography) to separate nanocrystals from weakly-bound small molecules, including solvent, on the basis of size. A variety of colloidal inorganic nanocrystals of different size, shape, composition, and surface termination are shown to yield purified samples with greatly reduced impurity concentrations. Additionally, the method is shown to be useful in achieving a change of solvent without requiring precipitation of the nanocrystals. By taking advantage of the different rates at which small molecules and nanoparticles travel through the column, we show that it is furthermore possible to use the GPC column as a multi-functional flow reactor that can accomplish in sequence the steps of initial purification, ligand exchange with controlled reactant concentration and interaction time, and subsequent cleanup without requiring a change of phase. This example of process intensification via GPC is shown to yield nearly complete displacement of the initial surface ligand population upon reaction with small molecule and macromolecular reactants to form ligand-exchanged nanocrystal products.
Identity, Family, and Faith: U.S. Third Culture Kids Transition to College

Recent trends in globalization have increased the number of U.S. children and adolescents being raised outside the United States. Using the framework of adults in transition, the authors sought to understand the structure of Third Culture Kids’ (TCKs), specifically Missionary Kids’, transition to college. Findings indicate that participants must negotiate new social and academic cultures while managing a sense of loss of cultural identity. Family and faith assisted students in developing personal coping skills and social support.
Integrating Cyber-D&D into Adversary Modeling for Active Cyber Defense

This chapter outlines a concept for integrating cyber denial and deception (cyber-D&D) tools, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTTPs) into an adversary modeling system to support active cyber defenses (ACD) for critical enterprise networks. We describe a vision for cyber-D&D and outline a general concept of operation for the use of D&D TTTPs in ACD. We define the key elements necessary for integrating cyber-D&D into an adversary modeling system. One such recently developed system, the Adversarial Tactics, Techniques and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK™) Adversary Model is being enhanced by adding cyber-D&D TTTPs that defenders might use to detect and mitigate attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). We describe general D&D types and tactics, and relate these to a relatively new concept, the cyber-deception chain. We describe how defenders might build and tailor a cyber-deception chain to mitigate an attacker’s actions within the cyber attack lifecycle. While we stress that this chapter describes a concept and not an operational system, we are currently engineering components of this concept for ACD and enabling defenders to apply such a system.
Informing Stem Cell-Based Tendon Tissue Engineering Approaches with Embryonic Tendon Development.

Adult tendons fail to regenerate normal tissue after injury, and instead form dysfunctional scar tissue with abnormal mechanical properties. Surgical repair with grafts is the current standard to treat injuries, but faces significant limitations including pain and high rates of re-injury. To address this, we aim to regenerate new, normal tendons to replace dysfunctional tendons. A common approach to tendon tissue engineering is to design scaffolds and bioreactors based on adult tendon properties that can direct adult stem cell tenogenesis. Despite significant progress, advances have been limited due, in part, to a need for markers and potent induction cues. Our goal is to develop novel tendon tissue engineering approaches informed by embryonic tendon development. We are characterizing structure–property relationships of embryonic tendon to identify design parameters for three-dimensional scaffolds and bioreactor mechanical loading systems to direct adult stem cell tenogenesis. We will review studies in which we quantified changes in the mechanical and biochemical properties of tendon during embryonic development and elucidated specific mechanisms of functional property elaboration. We then examined the effects of these mechanical and biochemical factors on embryonic tendon cell behavior. Using custom-designed bioreactors, we also examined the effects of dynamic mechanical loading and growth factor treatment on embryonic tendon cells. Our findings have established cues to induce tenogenesis as well as metrics to evaluate differentiation. We finish by discussing how we have evaluated the tenogenic differentiation potential of adult stem cells by comparing their responses to that of embryonic tendon cells in these culture systems.
International Comparisons of the Youth Self-Report Dysregulation Profile: Latent Class Analyses in 34 Societies

Objective We used latent class analysis (LCA) to examine the prevalence and characteristics of the Dysregulation Profile (DP) based on data from the Youth Self-Report (YSR). The DP comprises elevated scores on the Anxious/Depressed, Attention Problems, and Aggressive Behavior syndromes and thus reflects significant problems in self-regulation of affect, attention, and behavior. Method We examined YSR data for 38,070 adolescents (48.1% male) in 34 societies. Participants ranged in age from 11 to 16 years. Researchers in 31 societies used translations of the YSR (not in Jamaica, Australia, or the United States). Results The various statistical indices for good LCA model fit (entropy, bootstrapped parametric likelihood ratio test, adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion, and probability of correct assignment) were not always consistent but generally supported a DP class in every society. However, prevalence of the DP ranged from 1% to 26% and the T score syndrome profile for the DP class in many societies featured elevations on all scales. In every society, the DP class had significantly higher scores than the pooled non-DP classes on all 3 DP syndromes, with large d values. Conclusion Because model fit, the number of classes, and the prevalence of the DP class varied across societies, and because the DP "3-peak" profile was relatively uncommon, results for the DP based on adolescents' ratings in 34 societies must be considered as mixed.
Internal fabrics of the Idaho batholith, USA

The Idaho batholith of the North American Cordillera is a large and long-lived silicic intrusive center. We studied fabrics at the regional scale within the different intrusive suites of the Idaho batholith, using microstructural characterization, anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility measurements, and shape preferred orientation analyses. Each studied outcrop was collocated with existing U-Pb zircon geochronology and ongoing (U-Th)/He zircon thermochronology results. Three new 40 Ar/ 39 Ar biotite ages, collocated with the existing U-Pb zircon ages, constrain the cooling rates within the batholith. The presence of dominantly magmatic microstructures allows us to interpret the results relative to the U-Pb zircon ages and observe spatial and temporal patterns of fabric development. The early (pre–80 Ma) intrusive suites exhibit solid-state microstructures that show a consistent orientation only in the western part of the batholith. Fabrics in the 83–67 Ma Atlanta peraluminous suite are weak and inconsistent in orientation, despite emplacement during regional contraction. We hypothesize that the lack of consistently oriented fabrics in the Atlanta lobe results from either: (1) topographic effects that caused local extensional/neutral strain environments in the upper parts of a crustal plateau; or (2) emplacement in thin, horizontal magmatic sheets. In contrast, fabrics within the 66–53 Ma Bitterroot peraluminous suite are well developed and consistently oriented (NW-striking; NE-dipping), recording localized contraction during magmatism.
Iterative Nonproteinogenic Residue Incorporation Yields α/β-Peptides with a Helix-Loop-Helix Tertiary Structure and High Affinity for VEGF.

Inhibition of specific protein-protein interactions is attractive for a range of therapeutic applications, but the large and irregularly shaped contact surfaces involved in many such interactions make it challenging to design synthetic antagonists. Here, we describe the development of backbone-modified peptides containing both α- and β-amino acid residues ("α/β-peptides") that target the receptor-binding surface of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Our approach is based on the Z-domain, which adopts a three-helix bundle tertiary structure. We show how a two-helix "mini-Z-domain" can be modified to contain β and other non-proteinogenic residues while retaining the target-binding epitope using iterative non-natural residue incorporation. The resulting α/β-peptides are less susceptible to proteolysis than is their parent α-peptide, and some of these α/β-peptides match the full-length Z-domain in terms of affinity for receptor-recognition surfaces on the VEGF homodimer.
Geography of the Middle East

Geography as a discipline allows several interpretations of area materials. The following outline does not claim to be exhaustive, but I feel that it does cover the major approaches to teaching a course entitled: The Geography of the Middle East. This syllabus incorporates materials suggested in other teachers’ course outlines in addition to my own, but the final interpretation — with its strengths and weaknesses — is my responsibility.
Plasmon-Coupled Resonance Energy Transfer

In this study, we overview resonance energy transfer between molecules in the presence of plasmonic structures and derive an explicit Forster-type expression for the rate of plasmon-coupled resonance energy transfer (PC-RET). The proposed theory is general for energy transfer in the presence of materials with any space-dependent, frequency-dependent, or complex dielectric functions. Furthermore, the theory allows us to develop the concept of a generalized spectral overlap (GSO) J (the integral of the molecular absorption coefficient, normalized emission spectrum, and the plasmon coupling factor) for understanding the wavelength dependence of PC-RET and to estimate the rate of PC-RET WET. Indeed, WET = (8.785 × 10–25 mol) ϕDτD–1J, where ϕD is donor fluorescence quantum yield and τD is the emission lifetime. Simulations of the GSO for PC-RET show that the most important spectral region for PC-RET is not necessarily near the maximum overlap of donor emission and acceptor absorption. Instead a significant p...
Age Differences in the Active Avoidance Learning of Preweanling Rats

Rats of ages 10 and 13 days were trained on avoidance tasks of varying complexity. Complexity was defined in terms of number of task requirements. One task, multidirectional avoidance, required the rat to learn only the criterion response; while the other task, unidirectional avoidance, required the animal to learn the location of the goal in addition to the criterion response. Rats of both ages performed equally well on the less complex task but the 13-day-olds were superior to the 10-day-olds on the more complex task.
Thermal Rectification of Integrated Microheaters for Microring Resonators in Silicon Photonics Platform

Heating elements are used to tune the optical properties of silicon photonic devices, to stabilize operating temperatures, and to compensate for fabrication variations. In this paper, we characterize the transient thermal response and develop models for silicon photonic devices equipped with such heating mechanisms. To demonstrate the usefulness and practicality of the proposed models, we investigate pulse width modulation (PWM) drive scheme for microheaters and experimentally demonstrate its use in stabilizing microring resonators by digital driving signals (two-level voltage). Requirements on the drive frequency and duty cycle of the PWM signal to minimize optical power penalties owing to the undesired thermal ripples are discussed based on the accurately modeled thermal frequency response of the heater-ring system. It is shown that smaller duty cycles require higher drive frequencies and the maximum optical ripple for a microring resonator occurs at 65% duty cycle.
Diagnosis of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy by stereotactic brain biopsy utilizing immunohistochemistry and the polymerase chain reaction

This report describes the diagnosis of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) in nine patients using cytopathologic and histopathologic examination of computed tomographically guided stereotactic brain biopsies in combination with immunostaining for SV-40-related antigen and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the JC virus. In four patients the diagnosis of PML was based on the microscopic appearance of the biopsies and immunostaining for SV-40-related antigen. In one of these patients the diagnosis was also supported by PCR for the JC virus. In two patients whose biopsies were only suggestive of PML, a definitive diagnosis was possible utilizing immunohistochemistry and PCR. In another case the histopathologic features were atypical of PML, and the diagnosis was established with immunostaining and PCR. The diagnosis of PML was established by PCR alone in two patients whose biopsies showed only suggestive or nonspecific findings. We conclude that the accuracy of stereotactic biopsy in the diagnosis of PML is enhanced by using a combination of light microscopy, immunohistochemistry and PCR.
Differentiating solid, non-macroscopic fat containing, enhancing renal masses using fast Fourier transform analysis of multiphase CT

Objective:To test the feasibility of two-dimensional fast Fourier transforms (FFT)-based imaging metrics in differentiating solid, non-macroscopic fat containing, enhancing renal masses using contr...
Models of hypophosphatemia and phosphate depletion.

One objective of scientific investigation in medicine is to elucidate the specific cause and mechanisms of tissue injury or dysfunction in a specific disease state. Since most of us attending this meeting are concerned with human disease and physiology, and since animals often respond differently to disease-producing factors than man, it follows that human subjects or their materials should be utilized for scientific investigation whenever possible. When this is not possible the investigator must resort to either experimental animals, their components or in vitro simulators in hope of providing an inferential solution to the human problem. Of equal importance, in the search for appropriate models of human disease, zealous efforts should be made to select an animal that responds to interventions or injurious agents in a manner similar to that of man.
Phylogenetic implications of chloroplast DNA variation in the Berberidaceae

In spite of extensive studies using chromosome number, floral anatomy, pollen morphology, and serology, substantial disagreement still remains in the systematics of the Berberidaceae. We employed two different molecular systematic approaches, gene sequencing and restriction site analysis, to test competing hypotheses about intergeneric relationships in the family. Both rbcL gene sequence and restriction site data are congruent in recognizing four major chromosomal groups (x = 10, 8, 7, and 6). Fragmentation of the Berberidaceae into smaller families, especially separation of Nandina as a distinct family was not supported. The large woody genera, Berberis and Mahonia, are related to the monotypic herbaceous genus, Ranzania. Bongardia is nested within the x = 6 clade, and has a remote relationship to the Leontice group with which the genus has been placed for long time in most previous classifications. Although there are some major incongruences, our molecular systematic studies support the morphological classification proposed by Loconte & Estes (1989).
Functional properties of cement-matrix composites

The functional properties of cement-matrix composites are reviewed. The functions include strain sensing, damage sensing, temperature sensing, thermal control, vibration reduction and radio wave reflection. The functions are rendered by the use of admixtures, such as short carbon fibers, short steel fibers and silica fume.
Variation in manifestation of E. coli H7 antigen.

Typical serologic schemes for identification of E. coli 0157:H7 are based on confirmation of both gene products. The present preliminary study was designed to compare genomic evidence of the H7 gene with serologic results. Published sequence in the variable central region of the flagellar antigen (Schoenhals and Whitfield, 1993) was used to develop a PCR test for the H7 gene. Amplicons of 220 and 345 bp were generated by our primer set; these occurred either individually or in combination. Presence of H7 confirmed in this manner was in general concordance with serologic findings, although exceptions occurred. Hybridization of labeled 345 bp amplicon to Southern blots of E. coli Barn H1 digests revealed a single band in isolates determined as H7 by PCR.
The thought experiment approach to qualitative physics

This paper discusses the application of the thought experiment methodology to qualitative reasoning. Problem solving using this technique involves simplification of the original problem, solution of the simplified problem, and generalization of the results obtained. Our emphasis in this work is to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in addressing complexity and grain size issues that affect qualitative simulation. The thought experiment methodology is presented formally, the implementation of a problem solver called TEPS is briefly discussed, and the methodology is compared with related techniques such as approximation, aggregation, and exaggeration.
Patient preferences for method of cesarean skin closure: secondary outcomes from a randomized trial.

Objective: To assess patient preference for sutures or staples for cesarean wound closure.Methods: This is a planned secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial of 746 women in which suture...
Two-way coupled Cloud-In-Cell modeling of non-isothermal particle-laden flows: A Subgrid Particle-Averaged Reynolds Stress-Equivalent (SPARSE) formulation

Abstract A two-way coupled Cloud-In-Cell (CIC) formulation for particle-laden flows is presented that accounts for cloud size and subgrid-scale stresses using averaging techniques, and for cloud deformation using methods from continuum mechanics. It traces a physical cloud of particles as a point and distributes its influence on the carrier flow via a multivariate Gaussian distribution function. The method extends the one-way coupled SPARSE (Subgrid Particle-Averaged Reynolds Stress-Equivalent) method in Davis et al. (2017) [20] to account for two-way coupling between the fluid and dispersed phases and the effect of subcloud thermal stresses resulting from fluctuations in the velocity and temperature of the physical particles amalgamated in each macro-particle. Two-dimensional benchmark simulations of a Mach 3.5 normal shock impinging on an initially stationary particle cloud show that the two-way coupled SPARSE model predicts the average cloud position and spread more accurately than a two-way coupled, first-order CIC approach, illustrating the importance of accounting for higher-order moments and cloud deformation. Through an appropriate initial division of the particle cloud into subclouds, SPARSE's predictions of the time-averaged horizontal and vertical cloud spread match those of a reference Particle-Source-In-Cell (PSIC) approach to within less than 4% and 1%, respectively, using up to two orders of magnitude fewer computational particles. This makes SPARSE a suitable tool for enabling accurate process-scale simulations of particle-laden flows that are not feasible with current PSIC or CIC methods.
Identification and Correction of Restrictive Strabismus After Pterygium Excision Surgery.

Purpose To report the characteristics of patients with restrictive diplopia following pterygium excision and a successful treatment approach for the strabismus. Design Retrospective interventional case series. Methods This study was set in a single academic institution and included 15 patients with restrictive diplopia after pterygium excision. Patients with any other reason for strabismus were excluded. Patients were evaluated for deficits with special attention to diplopic measures. The intervention was a combined procedure by a strabismologist and oculoplastic surgeon to correct the diplopia. The primary outcome measurements were subjective and objective improvement of diplopia. Results Fifteen patients (mean age = 49 years) who developed diplopia after pterygium excision were included. Mean time to diplopia was 6 months. All patients had limited abduction in the previously operated eye causing esotropia in the abductive field (mean deviation = 18 prism diopters). After intervention, all patients were no longer diplopic in primary gaze. In the abductive field, 11 (73%) patients had residual small angle esotropia (mean = 7 prism diopters) in ipsilateral extreme end-gaze only. Only 2 patients required additional surgical intervention for scar tissue removal. No patients underwent medial rectus recession. Conclusions Restrictive diplopia is a potential complication after pterygium excision, particularly for patients with a history of recurrent pterygia requiring multiple excisions and previous amniotic membrane graft placement with fibrin glue. However, diplopia after pterygium excision in primary position is surgically correctable with scar tissue removal and ocular surface reconstruction, without needing medial rectus recession. Given the high volume of pterygium excision, awareness of postoperative restrictive strabismus and the potential for correction is critical.
Folk spirituality, ghosts, and tsunami death-mitigation in Iwate, Japan: a local take on the legends of tōno - story 99

Anthropological studies of tsunami-related folk spirituality are rare. Yet historically, ghosts have often helped residents in Iwate, Japan to mitigate some unimaginable human losses resulting from...
The Link Between Speech Production and Speech Perception

The invariance governing the distribution of word frequencies in samples of spoken discourse is utilized to measure the number of words in a speaker’s vocabulary, defined as all words with non-zero probabilities of occurrence. The calculated number of words with non-zero probabilities is found to increase systematically with sample size, showing that most words are totally unavailable during the production of discourse. This finding suggests that the permanent vocabulary is stored in a protected mode, making it totally unavailable for use. In discourse, the cognition the speaker wishes to express releases temporarily a small subset of related words from protected storage, and the word actually spoken is selected from this semantic field. When applied to speech perception, this model suggests a new interpretation of experiments on the facilitation of word perception by context or familiarity and of some recent studies on the perception of speech sounds.
Mitigating thermal effects in the mirrors and cavities of high-power laser systems (Conference Presentation)

The components used with high power lasers are frequently exposed to high thermal loads, which can cause a variety of detrimental effects including thermal deformation, which can lead to aberrations, and contamination-induced heating, which can lead to catastrophic component failure. In this presentation, we discuss several topics in thermal design for high power laser components. The first involves dirt or contamination. When a dirty optic is hit with high power laser light, the contamination absorbs the light very efficiently, sending the surface temperature to thousands of degrees. In order to prevent the surface from creating large numbers of free carriers due to the extreme temperature, the materials near the surface must have a very large bandgap. Indeed, we have shown that different materials can display more than an order of magnitude different CW (continuous wave) laser damage thresholds. Contamination-resistant optics must be designed solely of high bandgap materials. A second topic involves thermal mismatch in optical coatings. Thermal expansion mismatch between layers in a coating or between the coating and its substrate can deform an optical component, but such deformation can be eliminated at the coating design stage by optimizing the mechanical parameters of the coating in tandem with the optical properties. To first order, this is a matter of incorporating layer thickness, elastic modulus, thermal expansion, and intrinsic stress levels into a mechanical multilayer model that ensures flatness across a wide range of temperatures. Additional topics build on the first two. It has been found that there can be a significant reduction in film stress as the density of a thin film is reduced, and there seems to be a threshold for sharp transitions at a certain density level. These characteristics can be used to build low-stress contamination-resistant high reflectivity coatings from a single material with a high bandgap, such as SiO2. Finally, since optical elements are so sensitive to thermal deformation via changes in optical path length (shape change and refractive index), cavities formed by such elements can be used a probe of temperature variation or indeed other processes that change local refractive index, such as turbulence.
From Waste-Heat Recovery to Refrigeration: Compositional Tuning of Magnetocaloric Mn1+xSb

Magnetic refrigeration, as well as waste-heat recovery, can be accomplished through the magnetocaloric effect, where temperature changes the magnetic state of a material or vice versa. Promising ma...
Identification of Factors Affecting Predation Risk for Juvenile Turtles Using 3D Printed Models

Although it is widely accepted that juvenile turtles experience high levels of predation, such events are rarely observed, providing limited evidence regarding predator identities and how juvenile habitat selection and availability of sensory cues to predators affects predation risk. We placed three-dimensional printed models resembling juvenile box turtles (Terrapene carolina) across habitats commonly utilized by the species at three sites within their geographical range and monitored models with motion-triggered cameras. To explore how the presence or absence of visual and olfactory cues affected predator interactions with models, we employed a factorial design where models were either exposed or concealed and either did or did not have juvenile box turtle scent applied on them. Predators interacted with 18% of models during field trials. Nearly all interactions were by mesopredators (57%) and rodents (37%). Mesopredators were more likely to attack models than rodents; most (76%) attacks occurred by raccoons (Procyon lotor). Interactions by mesopredators were more likely to occur in wetlands than edges, and greater in edges than grasslands. Mesopredators were less likely to interact with models as surrounding vegetation height increased. Rodents were more likely to interact with models that were closer to woody structure and interacted with exposed models more than concealed ones, but model exposure had no effect on interactions by mesopredators. Scent treatment appeared to have no influence on interactions by either predator group. Our results suggest raccoons can pose high predation risk for juvenile turtles (although rodents could also be important predators) and habitat features at multiple spatial scales affect predator-specific predation risk. Factors affecting predation risk for juveniles are important to consider in management actions such as habitat alteration, translocation, or predator control.
Reaping More Than What They Sow: A Critical Race Perspective on Environmental Microaggressions Toward Latinx Farmworkers:

There are 3+ million farmworkers in the 132.8-billion-dollar U.S. agricultural industry, most of whom are Latinx. Latinx farmworkers possess at least two marginalized identities, class and ethnicit...
High-fidelity flame-front wrinkling measurements derived from fractal analysis of turbulent premixed flames with large Reynolds numbers

Abstract This work assesses the level of wrinkling that premixed flames exhibit when subjected to turbulence levels in excess of ten times that of previous experimental studies of this nature. This assessment was facilitated by performing fractal analysis of isocontours extracted from simultaneously acquired planar Rayleigh scattering (PRS) and planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) images of OH. Images were collected from 21 separate flames with turbulent Karlovitz (KaT,P) and Reynolds numbers (ReT,0) as large as 210 and 99,000, respectively. Values of the inner-cutoff scale (ei) and fractal dimension (FD) were extracted from two separate isocontours associated with each imaging technique. Results indicate that values of ei normalized by the laminar flame thickness (δL,P) follow the scaling: e i / δ L , P ∼ K a T , P − 0.22 , which holds for results from prior studies but deviates from those derived from theoretical principles. Cases with main-flame equivalence ratios (ϕm) substantially less than that of their pilot flame (ϕp) did not follow the aforementioned scaling; however, adjusting δL,P and SL values such that they corresponded to the average of ϕm and ϕp was observed to reconcile this discrepancy. Yet, cases with ϕm ∼ ϕp did not deviate much from the scaling above. The influence of isocontour choice and targeted scalar on values of ei and FD was assessed and found to be much more significant for the former than the latter. Additionally, ei and FD exhibit a modest increase with axial distance from the flame base, corroborating prior results.
The Empty Boat: Meteorango Kid and Brazilian Cinema Marginal

This article considers Andre Luiz Oliveira’s Meteorango Kid – O heroi intergalatico (1969), an important yet often overlooked contribution to Brazilian Cinema Marginal of late 1960s and early 1970s...
Performance of a Severity Score on Admission Chest Radiography in Predicting Clinical Outcomes in Hospitalized Patients With Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).

BACKGROUND. Chest radiographs (CXRs) are typically obtained early in patients admitted with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and may help guide prognosis and initial management decisions. OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of an admission CXR severity scoring system in predicting hospital outcomes in patients admitted with COVID-19. METHODS. This retrospective study included 240 patients (142 men, 98 women; median age, 65 [range, 50-80] years) admitted to the hospital from March 16 to April 13, 2020, with COVID-19 confirmed by real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction who underwent chest radiography within 24 hours of admission. Three attending chest radiologists and three radiology residents independently scored patients' admission CXRs using a 0- to 24-point composite scale (sum of scores that range from 0 to 3 for extent and severity of disease in upper and lower zones of left and right lungs). Interrater reliability of the score was assessed using the Kendall W coefficient. The mean score was obtained from the six readers' scores for further analyses. Demographic variables, clinical characteristics, and admission laboratory values were collected from electronic medical records. ROC analysis was performed to assess the association between CXR severity and mortality. Additional univariable and multivariable logistic regression models incorporating patient characteristics and laboratory values were tested for associations between CXR severity and clinical outcomes. RESULTS. Interrater reliability of CXR scores ranged from 0.687 to 0.737 for attending radiologists, from 0.653 to 0.762 for residents, and from 0.575 to 0.666 for all readers. A composite CXR score of 10 or higher on admission achieved 53.0% (35/66) sensitivity and 75.3% (131/174) specificity for predicting hospital mortality. Hospital mortality occurred in 44.9% (35/78) of patients with a high-risk admission CXR score (≥ 10) versus 19.1% (31/162) of patients with a low-risk CXR score ( .05). CONCLUSION. For patients admitted with COVID-19, an admission CXR severity score may help predict hospital mortality, intubation, and CRRT. CLINICAL IMPACT. CXR may assist risk assessment and clinical decision-making early in the course of COVID-19.
Assessing the Impact of Wildfires on the Use of Black Carbon as an Indicator of Traffic Exposures in Environmental Epidemiology Studies.

Epidemiological studies frequently use black carbon (BC) as a proxy for traffic-related air pollution (TRAP). However, wildfire smoke (WFS) represents an important source of BC not often considered when using BC as a proxy for TRAP. Here, we examined the potential for WFS to bias TRAP exposure assessments based on BC measurements. Weekly integrated BC samples were collected across the Denver, CO region from May to November 2018. We collected 609 filters during our sampling campaigns, 35% of which were WFS-impacted. For each filter we calculated an average BC concentration. We assessed three GIS-based indicators of TRAP for each sampling location: annual average daily traffic within a 300 m buffer, the minimum distance to a highway, and the sum of the lengths of roadways within 300 m. Median BC concentrations were 9% higher for WFS-impacted filters (median = 1.14 μg/m3, IQR = 0.23 μg/m3) than nonimpacted filters (median = 1.04 μg/m3, IQR = 0.48 μg/m3). During WFS events, BC concentrations were elevated and expected spatial gradients in BC were reduced. We conducted a simulation study to estimate TRAP exposure misclassification as the result of regional WFS. Our results suggest that linear health effect estimates were biased away from the null when WFS was present. Thus, exposure assessments relying on BC as a proxy for TRAP may be biased by wildfire events. Alternative metrics that account for the influence of "brown" carbon associated with biomass burning may better isolate the effects of traffic emissions from those of other black carbon sources.
Large Canal of Nuck Hernia: The Female Equivalent of the Inguinoscrotal Hernia.

Our patient was a 78-year-old woman with a large indirect inguinal hernia who underwent Lichtenstein repair. Literature review of the pathophysiology of indirect hernias revealed important discussi...
Development of a Mobile App to Support Self-management of Anxiety and Depression in African American Women: Usability Study

Background: Anxiety and depressive disorders are the most common mental health conditions among African American women. Despite the need for mental health care, African American women significantly underuse mental health services. Previous mobile health studies revealed significant improvements in anxiety or depressive symptoms after intervention. The use of mobile apps offers the potential to eliminate or mitigate barriers for African American women who are seeking access to mental health services and resources. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the usability of the prototype of an app that is designed for supporting the self-management of anxiety and depression in African American women. Methods: Individual usability testing sessions were conducted with 15 participants in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Cognitive walkthrough and think-aloud protocols were used to evaluate the user interface. Eye-tracking glasses were used to record participants’ visual focus and gaze path as they performed the tasks. The Questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction was administered after each session to assess the participants’ acceptance of the app. Results: Participants rated the usability of the prototype positively and provided recommendations for improvement. The average of the mean scores for usability assessments (ie, overall reactions to the software, screen, terminology and app information, learning, and app capabilities) ranged from 7.2 to 8.8 on a scale of 0-9 (low to high rating) for user tasks. Most participants were able to complete each task with limited or no assistance. Design recommendations included improving the user interface by adding graphics and color, adding a tutorial for first-time users, curating a list of Black women therapists within the app, adding details about tracking anxiety and depression in the checkup graphs, informing users that they can use the talk-to-text feature for journal entries to reduce burden, relabeling the mental health information icon, monitoring for crisis support, and improving clickthrough sequencing. Conclusions: This study provides a better understanding of user experience with an app tailored to support the management of anxiety and depression for African American women, which is an underserved group. As African American women have high rates of smartphone ownership, there is a great opportunity to use mobile technology to provide access to needed mental health services and resources. Future work will include incorporating feedback from usability testing and focus group sessions to refine and develop the app further. The updated app will undergo iterative usability testing before launching the pilot study to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the prototype. Trial Registration:
Design and Optimization of a Low-Torque-Ripple High-Torque-Density Vernier Machine Using Ferrite Magnets for Low-Speed Direct-Drive Applications

In recent years, Vernier permanent magnet machines (VPMs) have gained much interest in academia. However, due to the large leakage flux, the power factor of Vernier machines is too low to be applied in real industry. In this paper, a novel split-tooth, concentrated-winding Vernier machine using ferrite magnets is proposed for high-torque, low-speed direct drive applications in home appliance industry. It uses consequent-pole magnets in the rotor, as well as additional assistant magnets in the stator teeth, in order to reduce the leakage flux and boost the torque density. A systematic way of reducing the torque ripple from 40% to 4% is proposed by carefully choosing the right combination of stator/rotor pole pair numbers. A comprehensive design optimization is conducted to achieve the optimal performance. The magnets in the stator are shaped on both corners to reduce the saturation level. The key findings during the optimization are described in detail. Finally the total number of turns per phase is carefully reduced to meet the torque, saturation, power factor and space requirements. The test results of a prototyped machine show that the proposed design can achieve 34% more torque and 20% less loss with a reasonable power factor of 0.63, compared with an optimized PM synchronous machine under the same volume. It is found that the significant torque boost is attributed to the multiple working harmonics of the air gap flux density.
The Geography of Words: Vocabulary and Meaning in the World's Languages

Languages around the world organise their lexicons, or vocabularies, in a myriad of different ways. This book is a celebration of global linguistic diversity, bringing together fascinating cases from a wide range of languages to explore how and why this lexical variation occurs. Each of the thirty-six short chapters shows how different culturally-specific words, relating to a range of phenomena such as kinship, colour, space, time, objects, smells, and animals, vary across languages and geographical locations. It also explains the mechanisms of development in vocabularies, showing why this variation occurs, and how languages and cultures interact, to deepen the reader's understanding of one of the most important aspects of linguistics. Assuming little to no prior knowledge of linguistics, and introducing concepts in an accessible way, this book is an entertaining, informative read for anyone who wants to learn more about the incredible variation and diversity of the human lexicon.
Elastic job scheduling with unknown utility functions

Abstract We consider a bipartite network consisting of job schedulers and parallel servers. Jobs arrive at the schedulers following stochastic processes with unknown arrival rates, and get routed to the servers, which execute the jobs with unknown service rates. The jobs are elastic, as their “size”, i.e., the amount of service needed for their completion, is determined by the schedulers. After a job finishes execution, some utility is obtained where the utility value depends on the job’s size through some underlying concave utility function. We consider the setting where the utility functions are unknown apriori, while a noisy observation of the utility value of each job is obtained upon its completion. Our goal is to design a policy that makes job-size and routing decisions to maximize the total utility obtained by the end of the time horizon T . We measure the performance of a policy by regret, i.e., the gap between the expected utility obtained under the policy and that under the optimal policy. We first establish an upper bound on the regret of a generic policy, that consists of the cumulative difference in utility between the job-size decisions of the policy and the solution to a static optimization problem, and the total backlog of unfinished jobs at the end of the time horizon. We then propose a policy that simultaneously controls the cumulative utility difference and backlog of unfinished jobs, and achieves an order optimal regret of O ( T ) . Our policy solves the elastic job scheduling problem by extending the Stochastic Convex Bandit Algorithm to handle unknown and stochastic constraints, and making routing decisions based on the Join-the-Shortest-Queue rule. It also presents a principled approach to extending algorithms for zeroth-order convex optimization to the settings with unknown and stochastic constraints.
Machine learning to predict individual patient-reported outcomes at 2-year follow-up for women undergoing cancer-related mastectomy and breast reconstruction (INSPiRED-001).

Background Women undergoing cancer-related mastectomy and reconstruction are facing multiple treatment choices where post-surgical satisfaction with breasts is a key outcome. We developed and validated machine learning algorithms to predict patient-reported satisfaction with breasts at 2-year follow-up to better inform the decision-making process for women with breast cancer. Methods We trained, tested, and validated three machine learning algorithms (logistic regression (LR) with elastic net penalty, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) tree, and neural network) to predict clinically important differences in satisfaction with breasts at 2-year follow-up using the validated BREAST-Q. We used data from 1553 women undergoing cancer-related mastectomy and reconstruction who were followed-up for two years at eleven study sites in North America from 2011 to 2016. 10-fold cross-validation was used to train and test the algorithms on data from 10 of the 11 sites which were further validated using the additional site's data. Area-under-the-receiver-operating-characteristics-curve (AUC) was the primary outcome measure. Results Of 1553 women, 702 (45.2%) experienced an improved satisfaction with breasts and 422 (27.2%) a decreased satisfaction. In the validation set (n = 221), the algorithms showed equally high performance to predict improved or decreased satisfaction with breasts (all P > 0.05): For improved satisfaction AUCs were 0.86-0.87 and for decreased satisfaction AUCs were 0.84-0.85. Conclusion Long-term, individual patient-reported outcomes for women undergoing mastectomy and breast reconstruction can be accurately predicted using machine learning algorithms. Our algorithms may be used to better inform clinical treatment decisions for these patients by providing accurate estimates of expected quality of life.
Community dioxin disaster—Seveso Italy, 1976

Abstract The explosion at a chemical plant outside the town of Seveso, Italy, in 1976 exposed thousands of people to substantial amounts of an airborne toxic dioxin chemical, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorobenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). The effects on humans of TCDD in such concentrations were little known at the time. The subsequent adverse health effects on the populace were not apparent immediately but slowly became evident over a period lasting months and then years. Victims experienced subtle neurologic, immune, hepatic, and endocrine toxicity, as well as skin lesions known as chloracne. Increased rates of breast, lung, lymphatic, and hematologic cancers were detected in victims of the dioxin exposure decades after the incident.
Efficient use of ultrasound in cataract surgery.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Modern phacoemulsification machines apply ultrasound through a variety of settings and parameters to remove a cataract. Using these new technologies efficiently is critical for both reducing surgical times and improving postoperative outcomes. The present article reviews recent findings in phacodynamics to explore the optimum use of ultrasound in cataract surgery. RECENT FINDINGS In studies seeking to determine the optimum parameters in both fluidics and power, increased power and aspiration does not necessarily equate to more efficiency. New developments, such as torsional ultrasound, micropulse, and burst mode have shown increased efficiency in randomized control trials and in-vitro compared with conventional ultrasound. Regarding vacuums, the venturi pump has demonstrated greater efficiency compared with the peristaltic pump. We also explore other parameters, such as chamber pressure and tip selection. Meta-analyses on femtosecond-laser assisted cataract surgery (FLACS) have shown similar long-term visual outcomes compared to conventional cataract surgery. SUMMARY Though conventional cataract surgery remains highly effective, surgeons have increasing options for customizing their ultrasound settings and phacoemulsification techniques.