cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Endothelin-1 produces pulmonary vasodilation in the intact newborn lamb

The vascular endothelium mediates, in part, pulmonary vascular tone. Because endothelin-1 (ET-1), a paracrine hormone produced by vascular endothelial cells, has vasoactive properties, we investigated the hemodynamic effects of intrapulmonary injections of ET-1 in eight intact newborn lambs at rest and during pulmonary hypertension. At rest, ET-1 (50-1,000 ng/kg) did not change pulmonary arterial pressure. During pulmonary hypertension induced by the infusion of U46619 (a thromboxane A2 mimic), ET-1 (50-1,000 ng/kg) produced a selective dose-dependent decrease in pulmonary arterial pressure (5.8 +/- 3.9 to 32.9 +/- 6.9%; P < 0.05). Similarly, during pulmonary hypertension induced by alveolar hypoxia, ET-1 (50-500 ng/kg) produced a selective dose-dependent decrease in pulmonary arterial pressure (7.2 +/- 3.6 to 26.1 +/- 3.3%; P < 0.05). The decrease in pulmonary arterial pressure produced by ET-1 (250 ng/kg) was attenuated by N omega-nitro-L-arginine (an inhibitor of endothelium-derived nitric oxide synthesis, 23.7 +/- 3.4 vs. 12.5 +/- 4.7%; P < 0.05) and by glibenclamide (an ATP-gated potassium-channel blocker, 25.2 +/- 5.0 vs. 9.6 +/- 5.3%; P < 0.05) but not by meclofenamic acid (an inhibitor of prostaglandin synthesis). ET-1 is a pulmonary vasodilator during pulmonary hypertension in the intact newborn lamb. The vasodilating properties are mediated, in part, by release of endothelium-derived nitric oxide, and by activation of ATP-gated potassium channels.
Taxation and the Control of Fertility

The simplest and most effective approach to curtailing fertility in the United States may be the use of financial incentives imposed by means of congressional powers of taxation. The economic cost of children is one of the most important determinants — if not the most important — of family size, and its impact is substantial.1 The vast majority of American families are in income brackets in which taxation can have an important influence on the cost of children; in 1978, for instance, three out of four families with zero, one, or two children at home had incomes of at least $10,000.2 Since the federal government has developed a relatively efficient and effective tax collection system, with whose procedures the public is well acquainted, manipulation of tax levels to curtail childbearing is likely to be highly effective.
Fluorescence Lifetime Tomography using Frequency-domain Data

We present here fluorescence lifetime image reconstructions for heterogeneous lifetimes in a phantom study for two cases: lifetime varied with two different dyes and varied with two different oxygen concentrations with the same dye.
James and the Justification Norm of Belief and Action

Our focus in this chapter is on defending a justification norm for practical reasoning (treat p as a reason for action only if you are justified that p) against the William James–inspired claim that there are widespread circumstances in which it is proper for a subject s to believe and act as if God exists even though s lacks sufficient (i.e. knowledge-level) evidence that God exists. However, my end is not to undermine religious commitment. Rather, it is to reveal why acting on one’s mere hope that God exists is an epistemically, morally, and prudentially superior path for a mature and reflective person with strong religious inclinations whose evidence renders the probability of God’s existence either counterbalanced or inscrutable.
Cost-effectiveness of Bariatric Surgery in Adolescents With Obesity

Importance Severe obesity affects 4% to 6% of US youth and is increasing in prevalence. Bariatric surgery for the treatment of adolescents with severe obesity is becoming more common, but data on cost-effectiveness are limited. Objective To assess the cost-effectiveness of bariatric surgery for adolescents with obesity using recently published results from the Teen-Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery study. Design, Setting, and Patients A state-transition model was constructed to compare 2 strategies: no surgery and bariatric surgery. In the no surgery strategy, patients remained at their initial body mass index (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) over time. In the bariatric surgery strategy, patients were subjected to risks of perioperative mortality and complications as well as initial morbidity but also experienced longer-term quality-of-life improvements associated with weight loss. Cohort demographic information—of the 228 patients included, the mean (SD) age was 17 (1.6) years, the mean (range) body mass index was 53 (34-88), and 171 (75.0%) were female—surgery-related outcomes, and base case time horizon (3 years) were based on data from the Teen-Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery study. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed. Main Outcomes and Measures Quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), total costs (in US dollars adjusted to 2015-year values using the Consumer Price Index), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). A willingness-to-pay threshold of $100 000 per QALY was used to assess cost-effectiveness. Results After 3 years, surgery led to a gain of 0.199 QALYs compared with no surgery at an incremental cost of $30 747, yielding an unfavorable ICER of $154 684 per QALY. When the clinical study results were extrapolated to 4 years, the ICER decreased to $114 078 per QALY and became cost-effective by 5 years with an ICER of $91 032 per QALY. Outcomes were robust in most 1-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. Conclusions and Relevance Bariatric surgery incurs substantial initial cost and morbidity. We found that surgery could be a cost-effective treatment for adolescents with severe obesity if assessed over a time horizon of 5 years. Our study underscores the need for long-term clinical trials in adolescents with at least 5 years of follow-up data that capture financial and quality-of-life end points.
Tumor-Secreted Factors That Induce Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Chemotaxis

The tumor microenvironment is a dynamic cellular milieu interacting with cancer cells, thus promoting tumor growth, proliferation, angiogenesis, invasiveness, and metastasis. Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) represent an important cellular player in the tumor microenvironment where they influence important aspects of tumor biology and have the capacity to differentiate into carcinoma-associated fibroblasts and pericytes. Tumor-secreted chemotactic factors implicated in MSC recruitment include peptide signaling molecules, such as interleukin (IL)-6, stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF-1), IL-1β, transforming growth factor β (TGF β), monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), IL-8, chemokine (C–C motif) ligand (CCL) 5 also called RANTES, and Leucine, leucine-37 (LL-37), additional signaling molecules such as nitric oxide (NO), and exosomes. A more complete understanding of the recruitment of MSCs and their role in the tumor microenvironment may uncover novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of solid tumors.
A Multi-Institutional Study of Struvite Stones: Patterns of Infection and Colonization.

Abstract Objective: To examine urine and stone bacteriology of struvite stone formers in a large cohort of patients undergoing percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL). Materials and Methods: A total of 1191 patients, with stone and urine cultures, treated with PCNL for renal calculi were included in the study. Statistical differences were assessed using Mann–Whitney U and T-tests. Results: Stone cultures were positive in 72% of patients with struvite stones. Urea-splitting organisms accounted for only half of the positive stone cultures. Enterococcus (9/50, 18%), Proteus (9/50, 18%), and Escherichia coli (6/50, 12%) were the most commonly identified organisms. Notably, two-thirds of struvite formers with negative stone culture had at least one positive culture for a urea-splitting organism on urine culture going back 1 year from the time of surgery. A majority (67%) of struvite stone cultures were found to be resistant to first- and second-generation cephalosporins. Conclusions: The bacteriology of struvite s...
Fidelity to our Imperfect Constitution: a Response to Five Views

In my recent book, Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution, I put forward a sustained critique of originalism in all its forms and defend what Ronald Dworkin called a “moral reading” of the U. S. Constitution and what Sotirios A. Barber and I have called a “philosophic approach” to constitutional interpretation. In this essay for the UNAM symposium on the book, I reply to five thoughtful commentaries. First, as against Barber’s commentary, I justify responding to the “persistent resurgence of originalism” and attempting to “save the new originalists from themselves” by showing the extent to which many of them acknowledge the need to make moral judgments in constitutional interpretation. Second, in appreciation of Imer Flores’s commentary, I draw a distinction between being a systematic moral reader and acknowledging the need to make normative judgments in constitutional interpretation. Third, I resist Ken Kersch’s interpretation and criticism of my project as “calling the fight” for “aspirationalism” over “historicism”—I mean instead to argue for the superiority of moral readings (which combine what he calls “aspirationalism” or justification and “historicism” or fit) over originalisms. Fourth, I embrace Linda McClain’s careful analysis of originalisms versus moral readings in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), protecting the fundamental right to marry for same-sex couples, as confirming my argument that “inclusive originalism” includes practically everything that a moral reader would be likely to argue for. Finally, in response to Lawrence Sager, I bring out the affinities between his well-known “justice-seeking” constitutional theory and my own moral reading, and I argue that both theories reflect conceptions of fidelity as honoring our aspirational principles, not simply following our historical practices in the manner of conventional originalisms.
Temporal dynamics of mobile blocking in millimeter wave based wearable networks

Wireless channels in millimeter wave based wearable networks are particularly susceptible to environmental blockages and dynamics when there are humans/objects in motion. Such dynamics imply, not only physical layer overheads to discover and track viable transmission paths, but also MAC overheads to keep track of neighboring interferers, perform clustering and enable proper scheduling of transmissions. We shall focus on overheads at timescale associated with the latter. This paper introduces a stochastic geometric model to study the impact of mobility on overheads in such networks. We provide a complete characterization of the temporal dynamics of strong interference channels resulting from blocking in networks comprising both fixed and mobile nodes. We show the state of a channel, Line-of-Sight(LOS)/Non-LOS(NLOS), follows an on/off renewal process and derive the associated distributions. Our model further enables us to evaluate how the overall rate of change for the set of strong LOS interferers seen by a fixed user scales with user density and proportion of mobile users. The overhead to track the interference environment may in fact be limited with user density but increases with proportion of mobile users. In a highly mobile environment, the changes in channels are frequent and the overheads for coordination become high, with distant and/or mobile users requiring more overheads. Based on our results, we suggest fixed users may coordinate with close by neighbors while mobile users are better off resorting to simpler ad hoc MACs.
Lattice-size Dependence and Dynamics of Surface Mean Slope in a Thin Film Deposition Process

Abstract This work focuses on the study of the dynamic behavior and lattice size dependence of the surface root-mean-square slope in a porous thin film deposition process taking place on a triangular lattice. The simulation results indicate that the expected mean slope square reaches quickly a steady-state value and exhibits a very weak dependence with respect to lattice size variation. The simulation findings are corroborated by an analysis of appropriate finite-difference discretizations of surface height profiles computed by an Edwards-Wilkinson-type partial differential equation that can be used to describe the dynamics of surface height profile in the thin film deposition process under consideration.
Splenic Rupture in Children With Portal Hypertension.

Introduction Massive splenomegaly from portal hypertension (PHTN) in children raises the specter of splenic rupture; however, the incidence, etiology, and risk of rupture have not been studied, nor have existing practices to reduce risk. We therefore performed an international survey to describe the splenic rupture cases in PHTN and to describe the existing empirical practice among hepatologists. Methods A questionnaire was constructed to elicit cases of splenic rupture and collect hepatologists' common practices for prevention of splenic rupture. Pediatric hepatologists working in selected tertiary academic centers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom were contacted. Results Hepatologists from 30 of 35 centers who met the inclusion criteria replied to the survey. Thirteen cases of splenic rupture were described of which 11 resulted from trauma. In the opinion of the practitioners, high-risk activities were football, hockey, and wrestling. Sixty-one percent recommended total restriction from high-risk activities. Seventy-four percent stated that platelet count had no effect on this decision and 61% advised a spleen guard for certain activities. Conclusions Splenic rupture in patients with PHTN and splenomegaly seems to be rare. The reported splenic rupture cases were mostly related to falling (and not to participation in sports). There was general agreement among hepatologists about restricting high impact sports. There was variation in recommendations regarding the use of a spleen guard. The authors recommend use of spleen guards in children with splenomegaly from PHTN for physical activities with risk of fall or blunt abdominal trauma.
Dynamic fracture toughness of Homalite-100: Dynamic fracture toughness of Homalite-100 determined by T. Kobayashi and Dally, as well as those of Araldite B by Kalthoff, Beinert and Winkler, are compared with those of the authors' previous results. Errors generated through the use of static near-field crack-tip stresses for evaluating dynamic stress-intensity factor are also discussed

Dynamic fracture toughness of Homalite-100 determined by T. Kobayashi and Dally are compared with those previously obtained by the authors where similarities in the two results for single-edged-notch specimens of various configurations are noted. Dynamic fracture toughness of Araldite B obtained by Kalthoff, Beinert and Winkler and those of Homalite-100 obtained by the authors are then compared and, again, similarities in the two results and, in particular, the scatters in experimental data for wedge-loaded DCB specimens of different sizes are found. All three teams of investigators used static near-field solution to compute the dynamic stress-intensity factors from recored dynamic isochromatics or dynamic caustics. Errors generated through this use of static near-field solutions, as well as through the use of larger isochromatic lobes, are thus discussed.
Miss Piggy on the catwalk again.

In this issue of Blood , by generating a novel dual oxidase 2 ( DUOX2 ) mutation responsible for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) in pigs, Zhang et al identify Kruppel-like factor 9 (KLF9) as the mediator for the regulation exerted by the thyroid gland on hematopoiesis. 1
Rule creation and rule learning through environmental exploration

The task of learning from environment is specified. It requires the learner to infer the laws of the environment in terms of its percepts and actions, and use the laws to solve problems. Based on research on problem space creation and discrimination learning, this paper reports an approach in which exploration, rule creation and rule learning are coordinated in a single framework. With this approach, the system LIVE creates STRIPS-Iike rules by noticing the changes in the environment when actions are taken, and later refines the rules by explaining the failures of their predictions. Unlike many other learning systems, since LIVE treats learning and problem solving as interleaved activities, no training instance nor any concept hierarchy is necessary to start learning. Furthermore, the approach is capable of discovering hidden features from the environment when normal discrimination process fails to make any progress.
Process control for microreactors

Field-programmable analog arrays coupled with microreactor technology promise to change the way plants are built, as well as the methods by which their processes are designed and controlled.
The Conversion of Ethylene to Coke on Supported Platinum Catalysts Investigated by 13C Nmr

Summary The conversion of ethylene to coke-precursors and coke on Pt/SiO 2 catalysts was studied using high-resolution solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of carbon-13. The NMR techniques included cross-polarization with magic angle spinning (CP/MAS), CP/MAS with dipolar dephasing, and direct excitation of carbon-13 nuclei. A number of mobile and strongly adsorbed species were identified on Pt/SiO 2 samples dosed with labelled ethylene and heated progressively at various temperatures. Highly mobile species observed at various stages of sample treatment include ethylene, ethane, both cis- and trans-but-2-ene, and finally methane. Coke-precursors in the form of strongly adsorbed C n H m fragments and finally coke on the catalyst surface have been observed after treatment at high temperatures. The coke present after treatment at 673 K has been characterized as consisting of aromatic rings with an overall stoichiometry of C 2 H.
Quality Assessment of Modeling and Simulation of Network-Centric Military Systems

Modeling and simulation (M&S) of network-centric military systems poses significant technical challenges. A network-centric military system (also known as network-centric operations, network-centric warfare or FORCEnet) is a system of systems aligning and integrating other systems such as battlefields, computers, databases, mobile devices, people (users), processes, satellites, sensors, warriors, shooters, and weapons into a globally networked distributed complex system. Characteristics of a network-centric military system are described using a layered architecture. Challenges for M&S of network-centric military systems are presented. The paper focuses on the quality assessment challenge and advocates the use of a quality model with four perspectives: product, process, project, and people. A hierarchy of quality indicators is presented for network-centric military system M&S. An approach is described for conducting collaborative assessment of M&S quality using the quality indicators.
Distortion and Deformation, Measures of Distortion

In ordinary English the terms distortion and deformation are roughly synonymous. Both refer to a change in shape or configuration of a body. Thus we can speak of distortion or deformation of the fossil in Figure 14.1. We know there has been a change in configuration of this shell because the hinge line and the median line are no longer perpendicular to each other. We shall see below how quantities called strains are used to describe distortion numerically.
Shiraz: Exploiting System Reliability and Application Resilience Characteristics to Improve Large Scale System Throughput

Large-scale applications rely on resilience mechanisms such as checkpoint-restart to make forward progress in the presence of failures. Unfortunately, this incurs huge I/O overhead and impedes productivity. To mitigate this challenge, this paper introduces a new technique, Shiraz, which demonstrates how to exploit differences in the checkpointing overhead among applications and knowledge of temporal characteristics of failures to improve both the overall system throughput and performance of individual applications.
Boosting Local Field Enhancement by Synergistic Nanoantenna−Microcavity Coupling

We theoretically and experimentally study integration of the dielectric photonic crystal slab (as a photonic microcavity) and gold nanorod (as a plasmonic nanoantenna) as an exemplary photonic-plasmonic hybrid system for highly cooperative near-field enhancement.
Non-stationarity and ARIMA(p,d,q) Processes

Up until now we have been looking at time series whose means did not exhibit long-run growth. It is time to drop this assumption. After all, many economic and financial time series do not have a constant mean. Examples include: the US GDP per capita, the US CPI, the Dow-Jones Industrial Index, and the share price of Google.
A cascading auction protocol as a framework for integrating process planning and heterarchical shop floor control

A new contract net-style auction protocol is proposed as a framework for integrating process planning and shop floor control in heterarchical manufacturing systems. Process planning is partitioned into on-line and off-line activities; off-line process planning decisions are represented in a graph format and used as input for on-line process planning activities performed by machine controllers. Triggered by the opening round of an auction, the final on-line stages of process planning are dovetailed with the resource allocation process in the shop floor control system. The auction process allows final process planning decisions to be based on timely information, relying on the distribution of static process planning information rather than the distribution of a model of dynamic shop floor status and allowing a controller to identify all the primary and secondary resources and operations that must be provided for the incremental processing of a part.
Evaluating the Role of Adjuvant Radiotherapy in the Management of Sacral and Vertebral Chordoma: Results from a National Database.

Background Chordomas are slow-growing but locally invasive tumors. The standard of care consists of surgical resection and radiotherapy (RT) when complete resection is not possible. The reported data has reached equivocal results regarding the effect of adding RT to increase patient survival. We investigated the effect of adjuvant RT on patient survival. Methods The National Cancer Database was queried for patients with a diagnosis of sacral and vertebral column chordoma from 2004 to 2010. The primary outcome was overall survival, which was assessed using Kaplan-Meier plots. Cox proportional hazards were performed to evaluate the effect of each treatment modality on survival after adjusting for an array of patient demographics, facility type, and tumor characteristics. Results The data from 282 patients with chordoma were analyzed; 209 patients (74.1%) had undergone gross total resection (GTR) alone. The median follow-up period for the GTR alone and GTR plus RT groups was 63.4 and 67.6 months, respectively. The mean survival was comparable between patients receiving GTR alone and those receiving adjuvant RT, for both sacral (7.7 and 6.9 years, respectively; P = 0.56) and vertebral chordoma (8.8 and 6.2 years, respectively; P = 0.59). Using Cox proportional hazards, we found that compared with GTR alone, GTR plus adjuvant RT did not add any significant survival benefit, for patients with either sacral chordoma (hazard ratio, 0.55; P = 0.43) or vertebral chordoma (hazard ratio, 7.29; P = 0.23). Conclusion Using data from a large national cancer registry, we found that the available evidence is not enough to suggest that the addition of RT offers a survival benefit for patients with sacral and spinal chordoma after GTR. Given the non-negligible complications associated with RT, the balance of benefits and risks must be considered during preoperative tailoring of the treatment decisions.
ByzGame, a Visualized and Understandable BFT Consensus

Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) is the only generic technique that tolerates arbitrary failures in distributed systems, and can be used as a core primitive in building consensus in blockchains. Numerous BFT protocols have been proposed to improve scalability and throughput, but some have been found to have correctness issues resulting from system design and implementation. One of the major challenges is understand-ability of both the theory and implementation. Specifically, BFT consensus should be made understandable so that it is easy to reason about the correctness theoretically and also easy to understand the correctness of the implementation. To address the challenge, in August 2018 we began development of a web application called ByzGame. ByzGame is designed for visualizing BFT protocols, connecting the visualization with the backend BFT implementation, and making both BFT consensus theory and implementation more understandable.
A case of SBBYSS syndrome caused by KAT6B gene variant

Objective To analyze the clinical and molecular genetics features of a family affected with Say-Barber-Biesecker-Young-Simpson syndrome (SBBYSS). Methods High-throughput sequencing was used to detect copy number variations (CNVs) and pathogenic variant within the whole exome of the affected child. Results No pathogenic CNV was found in the child, while exome sequencing identified a heterozygous c. 3367_c.3370delAGAA (p.Arg1123Argfs*6) frameshifting variant in the exon 16 of the KAT6B gene. The same variant was not found in either parent. Conclusion The c. 3367_c.3370delAGAA (p.R1123Rfs*6) probably underlies the disease in the affected child. Above finding has facilitated genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis for the family. Key words: Say-Barber-Biesecker-Young-Simpson syndrome; Developmental delay; KAT6B gene; Genetic variant
Applying tree analysis to assess combinations of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management actions in Management Strategy Evaluation

Abstract There is growing need to evaluate the performance of possible Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) procedures to develop feasible operational alternatives to single species management. We used Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) to examine consequences of implementing combinations of three EBFM actions and used tree analysis to assess drivers of management performance. We used a multi-species production model, characteristic of the commercial finfish fishery on Georges Bank, USA, and included observation error when assessing stock and ecosystem status. Combinations of catch ceilings that limited total system removals, indicator-based harvest control rules that adjusted fishing at the aggregate or ecosystem level, and precautionary single-species fishing mortality rates were implemented in tandem over a thirty-year projection period. Statistical tree analysis identified EBFM procedures capable of meeting combinations of catch, biomass, biodiversity, and economic goals, but we found catch ceilings tended to mask the impact of other EBFM actions. It was necessary to implement two or more EBFM actions combining broad-scale limitations on removals with management actions targeting vulnerable ecosystem components to address trade-offs between potentially conflicting management objectives.
Steroid Hormone Entry into the Brain Requires a Membrane Transporter in Drosophila.

Summary Steroid hormones control various aspects of brain development and behavior in metazoans, but how they enter the central nervous system (CNS) through the blood-brain barrier (BBB) remains poorly understood. It is generally believed that steroid hormones freely diffuse through the plasma membrane of the BBB cells to reach the brain [ 1 ], because of the predominant “simple diffusion” model of steroid hormone transport across cell membranes. Recently, however, we challenged the simple diffusion model by showing that a Drosophila organic anion-transporting polypeptide (OATP), which we named Ecdysone Importer (EcI), is required for cellular uptake of the primary insect steroid hormone ecdysone [ 2 ]. As ecdysone is first secreted into the hemolymph before reaching the CNS [ 3 ], our finding raised the question of how ecdysone enters the CNS through the BBB to exert its diverse role in Drosophila brain development. Here, we demonstrate in the Drosophila BBB that EcI is indispensable for ecdysone entry into the CNS to facilitate brain development. EcI is highly expressed in surface glial cells that form the BBB, and EcI knockdown in the BBB suppresses ecdysone signaling within the CNS and blocks ecdysone-mediated neuronal events during development. In an ex vivo culture system, the CNS requires EcI in the BBB to incorporate ecdysone from the culture medium. Our results suggest a transporter-mediated mechanism of steroid hormone entry into the CNS, which may provide important implications in controlling brain development and behavior by regulating steroid hormone permeability across the BBB.
The Gorki Theater’s Exil Ensemble as State-Sponsored Repudiation of Citizenship

In 2016, one year after record-breaking numbers of refugees arrived in Germany, Berlin’s state-sponsored Gorki Theater founded an acting troupe, called the Exil Ensemble, comprising professional actors forced to flee their homes in Afghanistan, Palestine, and Syria. In 2017, the group premiered a play titled Winterreise—a reference to Franz Schubert’s 1827 song cycle of the same name—that documents a bus tour the ensemble took through Germany in 2016. By highlighting non-citizens’ stories about Germany, the piece, and the theater, lay bare a tension between the precarious situation of non-citizens in the country, and the German state’s historical commitment to promoting theater as a significant space for shaping model citizens through training in a national canon and public engagement with social issues. This paper argues that the Gorki’s efforts to foreground exile voices within the context of national culture and state cultural programs presents a noteworthy rebuke to a state system working to keep refugee bodies out of its territories and beyond its sphere of protection.
Deposition-based patterning by area-selective deposition: Dielectric-on-dielectric and metal-on-metal using integrated Atomic Layer Deposition and thermally-driven Atomic Layer Etching (Conference Presentation)

Deposition-based patterning is becoming an important need in advanced manufacturing. Several new approaches are emerging where chemical etching is being coupled with atomic layer deposition to achieve area-selective deposition of dielectrics and metals. During ALD, selectivity is generally lost when undesired nuclei form on the targeted non-growth surface. These undesired nuclei can sometimes be removed by periodic etching, improving the overall selectivity. However, it is not known to what extent these coupled deposition/etching sequences can proceed while maintaining good selectivity. As desirable deposition and etching reactions proceed, other changes in the process can occur to enhance unwanted nucleation and/or impede desired etching, thereby limiting the net selectivity. Recent experiments in our lab have used in-situ probes to explore coupled thermal ALD and ALE super-cycles, performed sequentially under isothermal conditions in a single reaction chamber, to achieve area selective deposition of TiO2 on SiO2 with hydrogen-terminated silicon (100) as the desired non-growth surface. We find that as ALD/ALE super-cycles proceed, small changes occur in the ALD and ALE reactions, particularly during the transition from ALD to ALE, or from ALE to ALD. Likewise, a new thermally-driven ALE process for tungsten has been applied in ALD/ALE super-cycles to improve W ASD. In this case, the ALE process alters the ALD surface leading to significant changes in the ALD. Modeling studies allow us to quantitatively analyze the ASD results and compare our findings to other known approaches. These insights will be helpful to understand opportunities and challenges in advanced deposition-based patterning.
Absorption-based polarization gratings

We demonstrate an absorption-based polarization grating made of dichroic dye-doped polymerizable liquid crystal. These gratings manifest a polarization-sensitive diffraction efficiency over the absorption band of the employed dye material, based on our theoretical analysis and experimental evidence. The spectral range can be easily tailored by varying the dye material. Since these gratings generate first-order diffracted beams with orthogonal circular polarizations, they can be utilized as key components in polarimetry systems. Meanwhile, due to their absorptive nature, these polarization gratings can function as LED-compatible polarization masks for photopatterning while fabricating various liquid crystal devices.
Emerging routes to the generation of functional β-cells for diabetes mellitus cell therapy

Diabetes mellitus, which affects more than 463 million people globally, is caused by the autoimmune ablation or functional loss of insulin-producing β-cells, and prevalence is projected to continue rising over the next decades. Generating β-cells to mitigate the aberrant glucose homeostasis manifested in the disease has remained elusive. Substantial advances have been made in producing mature β-cells from human pluripotent stem cells that respond appropriately to dynamic changes in glucose concentrations in vitro and rapidly function in vivo following transplantation in mice. Other potential avenues to produce functional β-cells include: transdifferentiation of closely related cell types (for example, other pancreatic islet cells such as α-cells, or other cells derived from endoderm); the engineering of non-β-cells that are capable of modulating blood sugar; and the construction of synthetic 'cells' or particles mimicking functional aspects of β-cells. This Review focuses on the current status of generating β-cells via these diverse routes, highlighting the unique advantages and challenges of each approach. Given the remarkable progress in this field, scalable bioengineering processes are also discussed for the realization of the therapeutic potential of derived β-cells.
Prediction of ICD Codes with Clinical BERT Embeddings and Text Augmentation with Label Balancing using MIMIC-III.

This paper achieves state of the art results for the ICD code prediction task using the MIMIC-III dataset. This was achieved through the use of Clinical BERT (Alsentzer et al., 2019). embeddings and text augmentation and label balancing to improve F1 scores for both ICD Chapter as well as ICD disease codes. We attribute the improved performance mainly to the use of novel text augmentation to shuffle the order of sentences during training. In comparison to the Top-32 ICD code prediction (Keyang Xu, et. al.) with an F1 score of 0.76, we achieve a final F1 score of 0.75 but on a total of the top 50 ICD codes.
Abstract 13206: Blood Pressure Apps: Do They Educate the Lay Public About Risk Factors?

Introduction: Hypertension affects 108 million Americans. To help track and manage hypertension, there are many free and popular mobile health apps that track BP. Hypothesis: BP tracking mobile hea...
A Stylized Model of the Oil Squeeze

The paper proposes a practical alternative to a traditional theory of storage, which is difficult to apply to oil markets due to structural differences, such as low-price elasticities of demand and supply, and the dominant role of oil as an investment asset. We model futures time spreads as a derivative of the observable state variable, oil inventories. Inventories, normalized by the storage capacity, are assumed to follow a mean-reverting stochastic process. The boundary condition at the futures expiry is specified by a pair of Dirac delta functions which correspond to the events of default by the futures trader when either oil inventory or the storage capacity are no longer available. The model is calibrated to data for Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery location for WTI futures, and is used to analyze the market dynamics that led to negative oil prices. We argue that while the limitation of storage capacity was the initial catalyst leading to the event, the actual episode of negative prices was the result of the financial squeeze in the futures market.
Using Reproductive Health as a Strategy to Engage Youth in Preventive Care.

Abstract Purpose This research examined differences in receipt of recommended preventive services by contraceptive use in adolescent and young adult (AYA) women. Methods Data are from a retrospective chart review of 408 AYA women who received sexual health risk reduction counseling in an urban academic AYA clinic. Descriptive, bivariate, and logistic regression analyses were used to examine relationships between contraception use and receipt of care. Results AYA women aged 12–24 years using hormonal contraception were more likely to receive recommended preventive care, including an annual preventive visit and sexually transmitted infection screening, compared with those using condoms or no contraception. Women using medium-acting reversible contraception were more likely to have an annual visit compared with those not using hormonal contraception. Conclusions AYA women using contraception are more likely to receive recommended preventive health services, suggesting reproductive health visits may be used to promote engagement around preventive care.
Adapting Student Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparison of Perspectives and Experiences

Elementary student teachers in both a yearlong and one-semester student teaching design were impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This phenomenon forced the closure of placement schools and their...
Hate Crime in the News: The Media’s Role in Agenda Setting

Examining the extant literature on hate crimes shows that there has been an evolutionary process of Hate Crime legislation (HC). Similar to other social movements such as civil rights, the hate crime movement also had various waves which eventually lead to the passage of legislation. By and large, however, HC research has focused on victims and offenders of hate crimes as well as motivations of bias. Moreover, less research has been done on the media’s portrayal and coverage of HC. Since the media is a noted influencer in social issues (Culotta, 2002; Quisenberry, 2001), we sought to answer how the news media are reporting incidences of hate crimes – particularly LGBTQ+- and compare them with official crime statistics reported by law enforcement agencies. In order to answer these questions, our research utilized a qualitative content analysis using QSR NVivo 12.0 to identify potential themes and trends which may be overlooked in simple quantitative methods. Our dataset comes from the Hate Crime Index ("ProPublica," 2018), for the month of June 2018. Official FBI data is also utilized for comparison, spanning from 2012 to 2016. Our results suggest that the media reports HC within an overall internal Agenda Setting Orientation. During analysis, two main themes were identified that show the (i) media report both the failures and challenges of law enforcement in dealing with HC issue and, (ii) that media highlights various best practices some agencies engage in. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.
Examining and evaluating university Clery Act programs: Sexual assault on university campuses

The #metoo movement has drawn attention to the significant issue of sexual assault. The concern has been so considerable that the US Department of Education (DoE) mandated adherence to various crim...
Taguard: Exposing the Location of Active Eavesdropper in Passive RFID System

This paper exploits the possibility of exposing the location of active eavesdropper in commodity passive RFID system. Such active eavesdropper can activate the commodity passive RFID tags to achieve data eavesdropping and jamming. In this paper, we show that these active eavesdroppers can be significantly detrimental to the commodity passive RFID system on RFID data security and system feasibility. We believe that the best way to defeat the active eavesdropper in the commodity passive RFID system is to expose the location of the active eavesdropper and kick it out. To do so, we need to localize the active eavesdropper. However, we cannot extract the channel from the active eavesdropper, since we do not know what the active eavesdropper's transmission and the interference from the tag's backscattered signals. So, we propose an approach to mitigate the tag's interference and cancel out the active eavesdropper's transmission to obtain the subtraction-and-division features, which will be used as the input of the machine learning model to predict the location of active eavesdropper. Our preliminary results show the average accuracy of 96% for predicting the active eavesdropper's position in four grids of the surveillance plane.
Walking Balance Assessment with Eye-tracking and Spatial Data Visualization

Virtual Reality (VR) based assessment systems can simulate diverse real-life scenarios and help clinicians assess participants’ performance under controlled functional contexts. Our previous work demonstrated an assessment paradigm to provide multi-sensory stimuli and cognitive load, and quantify walking balance with obstacle negotiation by motion capture and pressure sensing. However, we need to fill two gaps to make it more clinically relevant: 1. it required offline complex data processing with external statistical analysis software; 2. it utilized motion tracking but overlooked eye movement. Therefore, we present a novel walking balance assessment system with eye tracking to investigate the role of eye movement in walking balance and spatial data visualization to better interpret and understand the experimental data. The spatial visualization includes instantaneous in-situ VR replay for the gaze, head, and feet; and data plots for the outcome measures. The system fills a need to provide eye tracking and intuitive feedback in VR to experimenters, clinicians, and participants in real-time.
Arbitrary Death: An Empirical Study of Mitigation

The Supreme Court has long viewed mitigation evidence as key to saving the death penalty from constitutional challenge. Mitigation evidence about a capital defendant’s life history, combined with other procedural protections, is thought to alleviate arbitrariness in juries’ decisions of whether a defendant deserves to die. This Article presents original empirical research studying that hypothesis. Interviews with thirty mitigation specialists who have represented over 700 capital clients in twenty-five death penalty states reveal that despite the Supreme Court’s hope, mitigation evidence has not alleviated arbitrariness in death penalty decisions. Instead, new arbitrariness enters the system through the process of gathering mitigation evidence and presenting it to juries. This Article therefore concludes that mitigation must be reformed if it is to succeed in eliminating arbitrariness in capital punishment decisions. Without such reform, the death penalty will remain unconstitutionally arbitrary despite mitigation.
An Introduction to Complex Manifolds

We will try to give here an introduction to the theory of complex manifolds. This introduction though brief, with most proofs omitted, will hopefully contain many of the essential ideas that would be useful to physicists exploring this beautiful branch of mathematics. In the first lecture we will confine ourselves to a study of linear vector spaces—in particular to the introduction of what are called a “complex structure” and a “hermitian structure” on a real linear vector space. In the second lecture, we introduce the basic idea of a complex manifold and use the results of the first lecture to study the tangent space of a complex manifold.
Cytologic malignancy versus benignancy: how useful are the "newer" markers in body fluid cytology?

Abstract Context.—Differentiating reactive effusion, malignant mesothelioma, and metastatic adenocarcinoma in body cavity fluids can be challenging. Interpreting immunohistochemical markers in cell block preparations can be difficult because of nonspecific staining, focal staining, or poor staining quality. We selected a panel of conventional and newer markers to assess their utility in evaluating effusions. Objective.—To evaluate the efficacy of 5 immunohistochemical markers in the differential diagnosis of reactive mesothelial proliferation, malignant mesothelioma, and metastatic adenocarcinoma in body cavity fluids. Design.—A total of 72 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded cell block specimens from pleural and peritoneal effusions, including 5 mesotheliomas, 48 adenocarcinomas, and 19 benign effusions were stained with antibodies against calretinin, D2-40, XIAP, MOC-31, and WT1. Results.—All benign effusions and mesotheliomas demonstrated diffuse membranous staining with D2-40. All mesotheliomas displaye...
Chapter 5 Echinoid larval ecology

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the diversity of larval stages and the patterns of development in echinoids and reviews the ecological challenges that echinoplutei face along with the physiological, morphological, developmental, and behavioral solutions utilized to respond to those problems. Most echinoids are free spawners that produce vast numbers of small, yolk-poor eggs that develop into feeding planktonic larvae known as “echinoplutei.” Echinoids have simple life cycles, and reproduction is confined to the adult stages. The developmental patterns in echinoderms are described using three characters: (1) mode of nutrition (planktotrophic or lecithotrophic), (2) habitat (pelagic or benthic), and (3) type of morphogenesis. Echinoids have provided important insights into the evolutionary ecology of reproductive strategies and the developmental patterns of larvae. Because early echinoid embryos are highly regulative, blastomere isolation experiments can be used to test hypotheses about the consequences of different egg sizes on larval function and performance. Reductions in egg size result in smaller early-stage larvae and slower development through the early larval stages; however, the reductions do not affect the size or development rate of later larvae or the size of the post-metamorphic juveniles. The chapter also discusses the processes that affect planktonic larvae and influence the abundance of adult echinoids.
An Empirical Analysis of R&D Competition in the Chemicals Industry.

This paper evaluates the equilibrium effects of the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit on the Chemicals Industry, taking into consideration firm interactions. The tax credit was put into place to counteract the underinvestment in private R&D caused by firms not internalizing the benefits of technological spillovers from their research. However, this rationale ignored the impact of product market competition. I propose and estimate a structural dynamic oligopoly model of competition in intellectual assets to capture the impact of interactions between firms in the industry. I estimate the dynamic parameters of the model using methods from Bajari, Benkard, and Levin (2007). I build upon previous estimators by incorporating unobserved firm-level heterogeneity using techniques from Arcidiacono and Miller (2008). I use publicly available panel data on firms' R&D expenditures and their patenting activities to measure innovations. In the data, I observe firms that persistently invest more in research and generate more innovations than other firms that are observationally similar. I model this heterogeneity as an unobserved state that raises a firm's research productivity. In my analysis, I find that increased investment in R&D by more advanced firms due to the subsidy, was largely offset by decreases by smaller firms because of the substitutability of knowledge in product market. This greatly reduced the effectiveness of the policy to spur innovation and limited its impact on social welfare.