cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
THE KNEE CENTRE OF ROTATION IS ACTIVITY DEPENDENT IN HEALTHY KNEES

“How does the knee move?” is a question of fundamental importance for treatment of knee injuries and knee replacement design. Unfortunately, we lack unambiguous and comprehensive knee function data sets and/or consensus on how healthy knees move. One can just as easily find reports stating the natural knee has a center of axial rotation in the medial compartment of the knee as in the lateral. This is due to technical and practical issues: It is extremely difficult to accurately measure knee motions during ambulatory activities and, when that can be done, very few studies have examined a range of weightbearing activities in the same study cohort. The purpose of this study is to report knee kinematics in a cohort of healthy older subjects whose motions were examined during four different movements, three of them weightbearing ambulation, using a high-speed stereoradiographic system. Six healthy consenting subjects (age = 61 ± 5 years, body mass = 75 ± 8 kg, BMI = 27 ± 4) were observed using a high-speed stereoradiographic system while completing four tasks. Subjects were instructed to perform an unloaded, seated knee extension from high flexion to full extension; to walk at a self selected pace; to step down from a 7 inch platform; and to walk and perform a 90° direction change (pivoting). Stereoradiographic images (1080 × 1080 pixels) were acquired at 100 images/second using 40cm image intensifiers and pulsed x-ray exposures. The three-dimensional knee kinematics were measured using the XROMM software suite (xromm.org, Brown University). Post-processing of the kinematics was performed in custom Matlab programs, and included fitting spheres to the posterior condylar surfaces of each knee, and then tracking the motions of the sphere centers relative to a fixed tibial reference frame (Figure 1). The motions of these flexion-facet centers, were used to determine an average c enter o f axial r otation (CoR) over each activity as previously reported by Banks and Hodge. Average CoRs for all four activities were in the posterior-medial quadrant of the knee, with the CoR for open-chain knee extension being the most medial and gait the most lateral (Table 1, Figure 2). One-way ANOVA showed average CoRs are different (p « 0.001). There was considerable variation in individual CoRs, for example, with two knees showing lateral CoRs for gait and the remaining knees having medial CoRs. It should not be surprising that natural knee motions vary with dynamic activity, yet knee kinematics often are presented as being one stereotypic, monolithic pattern of motion. Our data show that the same healthy subjects performing different dynamic activities manifest different knee motions, with open-chain knee extension having the most medial CoR and gait the most lateral. This finding is consistent with previous reports comparing stair climbing and gait in knees with various implant designs. Additional experimental data and, ultimately, validated numerical simulations should facilitate an increasingly accurate process for designing improved treatments for diseased and damaged knees.
VALUE-BASED TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION IN ARTHROPLASTY

Significance Increasing health care costs are bankrupting the United States and other industrialized countries. To control and/or reduce costs in health care, hospitals, payers, and patients are turning to evidence-based meta-analyses and health economic analyses to identify medical treatments that provide value (value=outcome/cost). Objective: To determine if clinical outcome (patient reported outcomes) analyses or value/economic analyses are more likely to provide the evidence needed for adoption of new technologies in arthroplasty. Methods A proprietary joint arthroplasty database of patient reported outcomes (PROs) was analyzed to determine the minimum clinically important differences (MCIDs) for PROs used for total knee replacement surgery. The PROs analyzed were: (1) European quality of life (EQ-5D); Oxford Knee Score (OKS); (3) Lower Extremity Activity Scale (LEAS); and (4) Likert Pain Scale (LPS). The MCID was calculated using a distribution method where the MCID equals one half the standard deviation of the score change, MCID = σΔ/2. For clinical meta-analyses, new technologies must demonstrate statistically significant better PROs and the difference must be greater than the MCID. For economic analyses, quality adjusted life years (QALYs) are used. For example, if a total knee replacement (TKR) improved a patient9s health-related quality of life by 10% (0.10) and the assumed implant life is 15 years, the patient received 1.5 QALYs (0.10 × 15 years). If the total cost of care for the knee replacement surgery is $30,000, the cost per QALY is $20,000 ($30,000/1.5 QALYs). Results The MCIDs for EQ-5D, OKS, LEAS, and LPS are 0.086%, 4.6 points, 1.6 points, and 1.3 points, respectively. The mean change (one-year post-operative EQ-5D minus pre-operative EQ-5D) for health-related quality of life is 15% (0.15). The average patient received 2.25 QALYs (0.15 × 15 years) from the surgery. The average cost per QALY is $13,333. However, if a new technology improves the mean health-related quality of life by 1% and the assumed implant life is 15 years, the patient receives 0.15 QALYs of improvement. With an average cost per QALY of $13,333, the new technology will be cost effective if the new technology cost is less than or equal to $2,000 (0.15 × $13,333) per patient. Conclusions Achieving clinical superiority with new arthroplasty technology will be difficult because the minimum clinically important differences that need to be achieved are significant (EQ-5D 8.6%, OKS 4.6 points, LEAS 1.3 points, and LPS 1.3 points). However, small mean improvements in health-related quality of life (1%) can make the new technology cost effective. New technologies for arthroplasty surgery will increasingly need economic analyses to demonstrate cost effectiveness. Orthopaedic surgeons and manufacturers must collaborate to routinely collect health-related quality of life (EQ-5D) patient reported outcomes to provide a pathway for adoption of new innovative arthroplasty technologies.
Modeling Count Data

This entry-level text offers clear and concise guidelines on how to select, construct, interpret, and evaluate count data. Written for researchers with little or no background in advanced statistics, the book presents treatments of all major models using numerous tables, insets, and detailed modeling suggestions. It begins by demonstrating the fundamentals of modeling count data, including a thorough presentation of the Poisson model. It then works up to an analysis of the problem of overdispersion and of the negative binomial model, and finally to the many variations that can be made to the base count models. Examples in Stata, R, and SAS code enable readers to adapt models for their own purposes, making the text an ideal resource for researchers working in health, ecology, econometrics, transportation, and other fields.
Fine needle aspiration of the prostate.

Fine-needle aspiration biopsy of the prostate has been used for over 20 years as the prostate biopsy technique of choice throughout much of Europe. However, this technique has only recently gained acceptance in the United States. There is now an enlarging body of data confirming that fine-needle aspiration can be viewed as a safe, accurate, and reliable means for detection and diagnosis of prostate cancer. This review summarizes the European and United States experience with fine-needle aspiration and supports the utility of this biopsy technique as an important addition to the urologist's diagnostic armamentarium.
Neuroendocrine aspects of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

This article summarizes the existing neuroendocrine literature and reports the growth hormone response to stimulation with L-dopa and clonidine in male children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Because growth hormone secretion is regulated by monoamine neuro transmitters, hyposecretion of growth hormone may reflect generalized changes in the neurochemical substrate of this disorder. With refinement, these neuroendocrine challenge tests may become unique biologic markers in identifying attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents.
Variable selection for additive partial linear quantile regression with missing covariates

Abstract The standard quantile regression model assumes a linear relationship at the quantile of interest and that all variables are observed. These assumptions are relaxed by considering a partial linear model with missing covariates. A weighted objective function using inverse probability weighting is proposed to remove the potential bias caused by missing data. Estimators using parametric and nonparametric estimates of the probability an observation has fully observed covariates are examined. A penalized and weighted objective function using the nonconvex penalties MCP or SCAD is used for variable selection of the linear terms in the presence of missing data. Assuming the missing data problems remains a low dimensional problem the penalized estimator has the oracle property including cases where p ≫ n . Theoretical challenges include handling missing data and partial linear models while working with a nonsmooth loss function and a nonconvex penalty function. The performance of the method is evaluated using Monte Carlo simulations and the methods are applied to model amount of time sober for patients leaving a rehabilitation center.
Online load balancing under graph constraints

In several data center settings, each arriving job may only be served by one of a subset of servers. Such a graph constraint can arise due to several reasons. One is locality of the data needed by a job; for example, in content farms (e.g., in Netflix or YouTube) a video request can only be served by a machine that possesses a copy. Motivated by this, we consider a setting where each job, on arrival, reveals a deadline and a subset of servers that can serve it. The job needs to be immediately allocated to one of these servers, and cannot be moved thereafter. Our objective is to maximize the fraction of jobs that are served before their deadlines. For this online load balancing problem, we prove an upper bound of $1-1/e$ on the competitive ratio of nonpreemptive online algorithms for systems with a large number of servers. We propose an algorithm—INSERT RANKING—which achieves this upper bound. The algorithm makes decisions in a correlated random way and it is inspired by the work of Karp, Vazirani, and Vazirani on online matching for bipartite graphs. We also show that two more natural algorithms, based on independent randomness, are strictly suboptimal, with a competitive ratio of 1/2.
Lattice spanners of low degree

Let δ0(P,k) denote the degree k dilation of a point set P in the domain of plane geometric spanners. If Λ is the infinite square lattice, it is shown that 1 + 2 ≤ δ0(Λ, 3) ≤ (3 + 22)5−1/2 = 2.6065… and δ0(Λ, 4) = 2. If Λ is the infinite hexagonal lattice, it is shown that δ0(Λ, 3) = 1 + 3 and δ0(Λ, 4) = 2. All our constructions are planar lattice tilings constrained to degree 3 or 4.
Microresonator soliton dual-comb spectroscopy

Measurement of optical and vibrational spectra with high resolution provides a way to identify chemical species in cluttered environments and is of general importance in many fields. Dual-comb spectroscopy has emerged as a powerful approach for acquiring nearly instantaneous Raman and optical spectra with unprecedented resolution. Spectra are generated directly in the electrical domain, without the need for bulky mechanical spectrometers. We demonstrate a miniature soliton-based dual-comb system that can potentially transfer the approach to a chip platform. These devices achieve high-coherence pulsed mode locking. They also feature broad, reproducible spectral envelopes, an essential feature for dual-comb spectroscopy. Our work shows the potential for integrated spectroscopy with high signal-to-noise ratios and fast acquisition rates.
The Use of Vignettes in Evaluating Asian Language Questionnaire Items

Vignettes are hypothetical situations that can be used to review questionnaire items with research participants, whereas it would be cost prohibitive to recruit participants that can represent all the situations in the questionnaire. The vignette method has been shown effective in evaluating questionnaires in English and Spanish cognitive interviews, but little research is available on its application to additional languages. This paper attempts to fill in the knowledge gap by examining the use of vignettes to evaluate questionnaire translation in the three most commonly spoken Asian languages in the United States: Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. This study is based on a cognitive testing study undertaken by the U.S. Census Bureau to pretest the translation of a questionnaire form in multiple languages. We found that vignettes are effective in examining comprehension issues related to Asian language translation because it revealed translation and comprehension issues, as well as the sociocultural context that questionnaire designers need to understand in order to design culturally appropriate non-English language questionnaires. We also explore vignette design and future research directions.
Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992: History, Rhetoric, Law

In this book Peritz analyses how free competition has signified both freedom from oppressive government and freedom from private economic power. Peritz shows how these two complex yet distinct and sometimes contradictory images have influenced government policy and continue to inspire public debate over political economy in America.
Enantioselective Total Synthesis of (+)-Psiguadial B

The first enantioselective total synthesis of the cytotoxic natural product (+)-psiguadial B is reported. Key features of the synthesis include (1) the enantioselective preparation of a key cyclobutane intermediate by a tandem Wolff rearrangement/asymmetric ketene addition, (2) a directed C(sp3)–H alkenylation reaction to strategically forge the C1–C2 bond, and (3) a ring-closing metathesis to build the bridging bicyclo[4.3.1]decane terpene framework.
Prehospital intubation for isolated severe blunt traumatic brain injury: worse outcomes and higher mortality

Prehospital endotracheal intubation (ETI) for traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a controversial issue. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of prehospital ETI in patients with TBI. Cohort-matched study using the US National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) 2008–2012. Patients with isolated severe blunt TBI (AIS head ≥3, AIS chest/abdomen <3) and a field GCS ≤8 were extracted from NTDB. A 1:1 matching of patients with and without prehospital ETI was performed. Matching criteria were sex, age, exact field GCS, exact AIS head, field hypotension, field cardiac arrest, and the brain injury type (according PREDOT-code). The matched cohorts were compared with univariable and multivariable regression analysis. A total of 27,714 patients were included. Matching resulted in 8139 cases with and 8139 cases without prehospital ETI. Prehospital ETI was associated with significantly longer scene (median 9 vs. 8 min, p < 0.001) and transport times (median 26 vs. 19 min, p < 0.001), lower Emergency Department (ED) GCS scores (in patients without sedation; mean 3.7 vs. 3.9, p = 0.026), more ventilator days (mean 7.3 vs. 6.9, p = 0.006), longer ICU (median 6.0 vs. 5.0 days, p < 0.001) and total hospital length of stay (median 10.0 vs. 9.0 days, p < 0.001), and higher in-hospital mortality (31.4 vs. 27.5 %, p < 0.001). In regression analysis prehospital ETI was independently associated with lower ED GCS scores (RC −4.213, CI −4.562/−3.864, p < 0.001) and higher in-hospital mortality (OR 1.399, CI 1.205/1.624, p < 0.001). In this large cohort-matched analysis, prehospital ETI in patients with isolated severe blunt TBI was independently associated with lower ED GCS scores and higher mortality.
An investigation of the possibility of detecting gamma‐ray flashes originating from the atmosphere of Venus

The REAM (Runaway Electrons Avalanche Model) Monte Carlo simulation is used to study the propagation of runaway electrons and gamma-ray flashes originating from the atmosphere of Venus, and the possibility of detecting these high-energy gamma rays at low-Venus orbit is also investigated. Relativistic Runaway Electron Avalanche (RREA) lengths and energy spectra at the Venus middle cloud levels have similar values to those of Earth at sea level, with a similar RREA threshold electric field (~286 kV/m). If electrified clouds in Venus make similar numbers of gamma rays as are made by thunderstorms on Earth during Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs), then the calculated gamma-ray fluences at low-Venus orbit (~550 km) have an approximate range of 10-3 photons/cm2 to 4 photons/cm2 for the source altitude between 58 km to 70 km. These gamma-ray fluences are similar to those measured by spacecraft in low-Earth orbit from TGFs. Therefore, if TGF-like events initiate in the middle and upper clouds of Venus, they would be detectable by spacecrafts at low-Venus orbit.
Removing fuel subsidies: How can international organizations support national policy reforms?

This article investigates how international organizations can support fuel subsidy reform. Departing from earlier studies, we focus on the ability of international organizations to assist national governments directly in the enactment and implementation of national reforms. While international organizations lack the capacity to directly enforce policy or force countries to abolish subsidies, they can increase the cost of reform reversal by governments that have a preference for reform but worry about the credibility and durability of their reforms. Moreover, international organizations can support learning from peers. In practice, governments interested in subsidy reform can announce a public commitment and submit progress reports to peer review by other countries under the auspices of an international organization. We characterize the institutional design of international organizations for success, discuss the role of the civil society in the process, and offer short illustrations from recent efforts by international organizations to promote fuel subsidy reform.
Methods to compute salt likelihoods and extract salt boundaries from 3D seismic images

ABSTRACTSalt body interpretation is important for building subsurface models and interpreting seismic horizons and faults that might be truncated by the salt. Salt interpretation often includes two steps: highlighting salt boundaries with a salt attribute image and extracting salt boundaries from the attribute image. Although both steps have been automated to some extent, salt interpretation today typically still requires significant manual effort. From a 3D seismic image, I first efficiently compute a salt likelihood image, in which the ridges of likelihood values indicate locations of salt boundaries. I then extract salt samples on the ridges, and these samples can be directly connected to construct salt boundaries in cases when salt structures are simple and the boundaries are clean. In more complicated cases, these samples may be noisy and incomplete, and some of the samples can be outliers unrelated to salt boundaries. Therefore, I have developed a method to accurately fit noisy salt samples, reasona...
INTRA-OPERATIVE MCL INJURY REQUIRES CONSTRAINED COMPONENTS – OPPOSES

Controversy remains regarding the optimal treatment for iatrogenic injury to the medial collateral ligament (MCL) during primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Some authors have recommended converting to a prosthesis that provides varus/valgus constraint while others have recommended primary repair. In this study we report the results of a 45 patients who sustained intraoperative MCL injuries during primary TKA that were treated with primary repair. Of 3922 consecutive primary TKA there were 48 (1.2%) intraoperative MCL lacerations or avulsions. One patient was lost and one died before 24 months follow up. All but one patient underwent primary repair with placement of components without varus/valgus constraint. This left 45 knees with a mean follow up of 89 months (range, 24–200). The mean HSS knee scores increased from 46.8 to 84.8 points (p Primary repair with 6 weeks of postoperative hinged bracing after iatrogenic injury to the MCL during primary TKA was successful at preventing instability although stiffness was seen in approximately 10% of patients. The increased morbidity associated with implantation of a semiconstrained or constrained implant may be unwarranted in this situation.
Energy Efficiency Optimization of Channel Access Probabilities in IEEE 802.15.6 UWB WBANs

Energy efficiency is essential for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) applications because of the battery-operated nodes. Other requirements such as throughput, delay, quality of service, and security levels also need to be considered in optimizing the network design. In this paper, we study the case in which the nodes access the medium probabilistically and we formulate an energy efficiency optimization problem under the rate and access probability constraints for IEEE 802.15.6 Impulse Radio Ultra- wideband (IR-UWB) WBANs. The proposed algorithm, dubbed Energy Efficiency Optimization of Channel Access Probabilities (EECAP), determines the optimal access probability and payload frame size for each node. The simulation results show that our algorithm rapidly converges to the optimal solution. We also provide detailed insights on the relationship between the optimal access probabilities and other network parameters such as the link distance, the number of nodes, and the minimum rate constraints.
Optimal communication scheduling and remote estimation over an additive noise channel

Abstract This paper considers a sequential sensor scheduling and remote estimation problem with one sensor and one estimator. The sensor makes sequential observations about the state of an underlying memoryless stochastic process, and makes a decision as to whether or not to send this measurement to the estimator. The sensor and the estimator have the common objective of minimizing expected distortion in the estimation of the state of the process, over a finite time horizon. The sensor is either charged a cost for each transmission or constrained on transmission times. As opposed to the prior work where communication between the sensor and the estimator was assumed to be perfect (noiseless), in this work an additive noise channel with fixed power constraint is considered; hence, the sensor has to encode its message before transmission. Under some technical assumptions, we obtain the optimal encoding and estimation policies within the piecewise affine class in conjunction with the optimal transmission schedule. The impact of the presence of a noisy channel is analyzed numerically based on dynamic programming. This analysis yields some rather surprising results such as a phase-transition phenomenon in the number of used transmission opportunities, which was not encountered in the noiseless communication setting.
The Origin of the Journal, the Council, and the Conference of Solid-State Circuits

Discusses the history and creation of the Solid-State Circuits Society's Council, Journal of Solid-State Circuits, and Conference of Solid-State Circuits.
Object recognition with and without objects

While recent deep neural networks have achieved a promising performance on object recognition, they rely implicitly on the visual contents of the whole image. In this paper, we train deep neural networks on the foreground (object) and background (context) regions of images respectively. Considering human recognition in the same situations, networks trained on the pure background without objects achieves highly reasonable recognition performance that beats humans by a large margin if only given context. However, humans still outperform networks with pure object available, which indicates networks and human beings have different mechanisms in understanding an image. Furthermore, we straightforwardly combine multiple trained networks to explore different visual cues learned by different networks. Experiments show that useful visual hints can be explicitly learned separately and then combined to achieve higher performance, which verifies the advantages of the proposed framework.
Data on the identity of non-canonical complexes formed from proteasome subunits in vivo

Abstract The dataset presented here represents analysis supplied by the local proteomics core facility on samples submitted to it in support of the article “Assembly of proteasome subunits into non-canonical complexes in vivo” Hammack and Kusmierczyk (2016) [1] . This article provides the detailed protein contents of gel slices, cut from non-denaturing polyacrylamide gels, containing distinct protein complexes visualized following gel staining. The identification of the protein contents of these complexes was carried out by liquid chromatography tandem mass-spectrometry (LC–MS/MS).
Inferring restaurant styles by mining crowd sourced photos from user-review websites

When looking for a restaurant online, user uploaded photos often give people an immediate and tangible impression about a restaurant. Due to their informativeness, such user contributed photos are leveraged by restaurant review websites to provide their users an intuitive and effective search experience. In this paper, we present a novel approach to inferring restaurant types or styles (ambiance, dish styles, suitability for different occasions) from user uploaded photos on user-review websites. To that end, we first collect a novel restaurant photo dataset associating the user contributed photos with the restaurant styles from TripAdvior. We then propose a deep multi-instance multi-label learning (MIML) framework to deal with the unique problem setting of the restaurant style classification task. We employ a two-step bootstrap strategy to train a multi-label convolutional neural network (CNN). The multi-label CNN is then used to compute the confidence scores of restaurant styles for all the images associated with a restaurant. The computed confidence scores are further used to train a final binary classifier for each restaurant style tag. Upon training, the styles of a restaurant can be profiled by analyzing restaurant photos with the trained multi-label CNN and SVM models. Experimental evaluation has demonstrated that our crowd sourcing-based approach can effectively infer the restaurant style when there are a sufficient number of user uploaded photos for a given restaurant.
From nonlinear to Hamiltonian via feedback

Mechanical control systems are an especially interesting and important class of nonlinear control systems. They possess a rich mathematical structure and yet, physical considerations are extremely important for the solution of a large class of control problems. We broaden the applicability of design methodologies developed for mechanical control systems by rendering nonlinear control systems, mechanical by a proper choice of feedback. In particular, we characterize which control systems can be transformed to Hamiltonian control systems by a feedback transformation.
Entanglement is a costly life-history stage in large whales.

Individuals store energy to balance deficits in natural cycles; however, unnatural events can also lead to unbalanced energy budgets. Entanglement in fishing gear is one example of an unnatural but relatively common circumstance that imposes energetic demands of a similar order of magnitude and duration of life-history events such as migration and pregnancy in large whales. We present two complementary bioenergetic approaches to estimate the energy associated with entanglement in North Atlantic right whales, and compare these estimates to the natural energetic life history of individual whales. Differences in measured blubber thicknesses and estimated blubber volumes between normal and entangled, emaciated whales indicate between 7.4 × 1010 J and 1.2 × 1011 J of energy are consumed during the course to death of a lethal entanglement. Increased thrust power requirements to overcome drag forces suggest that when entangled, whales require 3.95 × 109 to 4.08 × 1010 J more energy to swim. Individuals who died from their entanglements performed significantly more work (energy expenditure × time) than those that survived; entanglement duration is therefore critical in determining whales' survival. Significant sublethal energetic impacts also occur, especially in reproductive females. Drag from fishing gear contributes up to 8% of the 4-year female reproductive energy budget, delaying time of energetic equilibrium (to restore energy lost by a particular entanglement) for reproduction by months to years. In certain populations, chronic entanglement in fishing gear can be viewed as a costly unnatural life-history stage, rather than a rare or short-term incident.
Distributed estimation and learning over heterogeneous networks

We consider several estimation and learning problems that networked agents face when making decisions given their uncertainty about an unknown variable. Our methods are designed to efficiently deal with heterogeneity in both size and quality of the observed data, as well as heterogeneity over time (intermittence). The goal of the studied aggregation schemes is to efficiently combine the observed data that is spread over time and across several network nodes, accounting for all the network heterogeneities. Moreover, we require no form of coordination beyond the local neighborhood of every network agent or sensor node. The three problems that we consider are (i) maximum likelihood estimation of the unknown given initial data sets, (ii) learning the true model parameter from streams of data that the agents receive intermittently over time, and (iii) minimum variance estimation of a complete sufficient statistic from several data points that the networked agents collect over time. In each case, we rely on an aggregation scheme to combine the observations of all agents; moreover, when the agents receive streams of data over time, we modify the update rules to accommodate the most recent observations. In every case, we demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithms by proving convergence to the globally efficient estimators given the observations of all agents. We supplement these results by investigating the rate of convergence and providing finite-time performance guarantees.
Climate Change, Nuclear Power, and Nuclear Proliferation: Magnitude Matters

Integrated energy, environment and economics modeling suggests electrical energy use will increase from 2.4 TWe today to 12 TWe in 2100. It will be challenging to provide 40% of this electrical power from combustion with carbon sequestration, as it will be challenging to provide 30% from renewable energy sources. Thus nuclear power may be needed to provide ~30% by 2100. Calculations of the associated stocks and flows of uranium, plutonium and minor actinides indicate that the proliferation risks at mid-century, using current light-water reactor technology, are daunting. There are institutional arrangements that may be able to provide an acceptable level of risk mitigation, but they will be difficult to implement. If a transition is begun to fast-spectrum reactors at mid-century, without a dramatic change in the proliferation risks of such systems, at the end of the century proliferation risks are much greater, and more resistant to mitigation. The risks of nuclear power should be compared with the risks of the estimated 0.64oC long-term global surface-average temperature rise predicted if nuclear power were replaced with coal-fired power plants without carbon sequestration. Fusion energy, if developed, would provide a source of nuclear power with much lower proliferation risks than fission.
Photospheric Emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts

We review the physics of GRB production by relativistic jets that start highly opaque near the central source and then expand to transparency. We discuss dissipative and radiative processes in the jet and how radiative transfer shapes the observed nonthermal spectrum released at the photosphere. A comparison of recent detailed models with observations gives estimates for important parameters of GRB jets, such as the Lorentz factor and magnetization. We also discuss predictions for GRB polarization and neutrino emission.
Tunable Efficient Unitary Neural Networks (EUNN) and their application to RNNs

Using unitary (instead of general) matrices in artificial neural networks (ANNs) is a promising way to solve the gradient explosion/vanishing problem, as well as to enable ANNs to learn long-term correlations in the data. This approach appears particularly promising for Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs). In this work, we present a new architecture for implementing an Efficient Unitary Neural Network (EUNNs); its main advantages can be summarized as follows. Firstly, the representation capacity of the unitary space in an EUNN is fully tunable, ranging from a subspace of SU(N) to the entire unitary space. Secondly, the computational complexity for training an EUNN is merely O(1) per parameter. Finally, we test the performance of EUNNs on the standard copying task, the pixel-permuted MNIST digit recognition benchmark as well as the Speech Prediction Test (TIMIT). We find that our architecture significantly outperforms both other state-of-the-art unitary RNNs and the LSTM architecture, in terms of the final performance and/or the wall-clock training speed. EUNNs are thus promising alternatives to RNNs and LSTMs for a wide variety of applications.
Glycerol tri-ester derivatives as diluent to improve low temperature properties of vegetable oils

The large-scale production of biodiesel has led to a surplus of glycerol, so the new commercial uses of this co-product are being sought. Twenty-three vegetable oils were screened using glycerol tris(2-ethylhexanoate) [GTEH] as a diluent to improve the low temperature properties. Epoxidized soybean oil (ESBO) and palm oil (PO) have shown maximum improvements in pour points (PPs) upon addition of GTEH as diluent. Maximum improvements in PP of 16 and 9°C were observed in ESBO and PO, with 50 and 25 vol % GTEH, respectively. The five vegetable oils (ESBO, PO, sunflower oil (SFO), mid-oleic SFO, and camelina oil (CO)) with maximum improvement in PP were studied further at lower concentrations of GTEH. The variation in PP response to GTEH is attributed to variations in the fatty acid compositions of the vegetable oils. This study demonstrates the viability of using GTEH as diluents with vegetable oils to improve their low temperature properties.
Cats and Captions vs. Creators and the Clock: Comparing Multimodal Content to Context in Predicting Relative Popularity

The content of today's social media is becoming more and more rich, increasingly mixing text, images, videos, and audio. It is an intriguing research question to model the interplay between these different modes in attracting user attention and engagement. But in order to pursue this study of multimodal content, we must also account for context: timing effects, community preferences, and social factors (e.g., which authors are already popular) also affect the amount of feedback and reaction that social-media posts receive. In this work, we separate out the influence of these non-content factors in several ways. First, we focus on ranking pairs of submissions posted to the same community in quick succession, e.g., within 30 seconds; this framing encourages models to focus on time-agnostic and community-specific content features. Within that setting, we determine the relative performance of author vs. content features. We find that victory usually belongs to "cats and captions," as visual and textual features together tend to outperform identity-based features. Moreover, our experiments show that when considered in isolation, simple unigram text features and deep neural network visual features yield the highest accuracy individually, and that the combination of the two modalities generally leads to the best accuracies overall.
PRE-OPERATIVE DOPPLERS ARE USELESS IN PREVENTION OF DEEP VENOUS THROMBOSIS OR PULMONARY EMBOLISM AFTER TOTAL JOINT REPLACEMENT

Background Post-operative deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and subsequent pulmonary embolism (PE) remain a serious complication after total joint replacement. Although with modern chemical and mechanical prophylaxis and rapid rehabilitation the rate of symptomatic DVT and PE has reduced, isolation of pre-operative DVT, especially in patients with prior history of DVT remains a challenge. The aim of this study was to assess the utility of pre-operative dopplers as a tool to screen and reduce DVT/PE rate in patients undergoing total joint replacement. Methods Between January 2014 and December 2014, 211 elective primary hip and knee arthroplasty were identified from our prospective institutional database as two consecutive cohorts (115 cases had pre-operative dopplers and 96 did not). All cases were performed by two adult reconstruction specialists. All primary total hip arthroplasties (THA) were non-cemented and all primary total knee arthroplasties (TKA) were cemented with similar implant and technique. In the first cohort, all cases underwent routine pre-operative doppler screening and in the control cohort, only patients with prior history of DVT or PE underwent pre-operative dopplers. All patients with clinical symptoms of calf pain underwent post-operative dopplers. Patients were followed for a minimum of 3 month post-operatively. All emergency room (ER) visits for role out DVT were identified. No patient was lost to follow. Results In the cohort with pre-operative dopplers, none of the pre-operative dopplers were positive for DVT, including three patients that had a history of prior DVT. 34 patients in this group (29%) underwent post-operative dopplers, either during the hospital stay or in the ER within 3 month after index surgery. Only one patient (no prior history of DVT) developed symptomatic DVT/PE (0.8%) after total knee arthroplasty. In the control cohort, 3 of which (3%) had symptomatic DVT, one of which had PE (1%) during hospital stay, all after total knee arthroplasty. There was no statistical difference for rate of symptomatic DVT/PE between the two groups (p=0.3). There was no correlation between DVT and age, gender or BMI. Discussion and Conclusions Utilization of routine pre-operative dopplers for all patients did not lower the rate of symptomatic DVT/PE and are not helpful in early detection and prevention in asymptomatic patients prior to routine total joint replacement. Pre-operative dopplers should be used in selected patients with high risk of DVT.
EXPOSURE OPTIONS FOR THE REVISION KNEE: GETTING THERE SAFELY

Following a careful in-depth preoperative plan for revision TKR, the first surgical step is adequate exposure. The following steps should be considered: 1.) Prior incisions: due to the medially based vascular supply to the skin and superficial tissues about the knee, consideration for use of the most LATERAL incision should be made. 2.) Avoid the use of flaps which may compromise the skin and soft tissue. 3.) Exposure options can be broken down into: PROXIMALLY based techniques: medial parapatella arthrotomy, establish medial and lateral gutters, eversion or subluxation of the patella, extension of arthrotomy proximal, if unable to “mobilise” patella, consider inside out lateral release, if still unable to mobilise: QUAD SNIP, in rare instances, connect lateral release with quad snip resulting in a V-Y quadplasty, may now turn down for excellent exposure. DISTALLY based techniques: tibial tubercle osteotomy technique described by Whiteside, roughly 8 cm osteotomy segment with distal bevel, osteotomy must be at least 1.5–2 cm thick: too thin and risk of fracture increases, leave lateral soft tissues intact, greenstick” the lateral cortex with eversion of patella, closure with wires.
Impedance spectra of mixed conductors: a 2D study of ceria

In this paper we develop an analytical framework for the study of electrochemical impedance of mixed ionic and electronic conductors (MIEC). The framework is based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics and it features the coupling of electrochemical reactions, surface transport and bulk transport processes. We utilize this work to analyze two-dimensional systems relevant for fuel cell science via the finite element method (FEM). Alternate current impedance spectroscopy (AC-IS or IS) of a ceria symmetric cell is simulated near equilibrium conditions (zero bias) for a wide array of working conditions including variations of temperature and H2 partial pressure on a two-dimensional doped ceria sample with patterned metal electrodes. The model shows agreement between computed IS curves and the experimental literature where the relative error on the impedance is consistently below 2%. Important two-dimensional effects such as the impact of thickness decrease and the influence of variable electronic and ionic diffusivities on the impedance spectra are also explored.
Trading in the Twenty-First Century: Is There a Role for the World Trade Organization?

As the World Trade Organization (WTO) begins its third decade, its future is uncertain. The initial expectation that the WTO would be the fulcrum for future international trade agreements has not been met. At best, its tenure has had mixed results. This review addresses the political consequences of WTO membership, focusing on the rules and norms of the regime and why they have become less functional over time; looks at the effectiveness of the WTO and the dispute settlement system in encouraging trade and compliance with agreements; and offers some general thoughts on the impact of shifting mass opinion on the virtue of trade agreements and other stumbling blocks the WTO faces.
Particle method modeling of nonlocal multiresolution continua

This work is concerned with the application of two different particle methods, the state-based peridynamics and the reproducing kernel particle method, to model the nonlocal multiresolution continuum. It is shown that both methods lead to the same results in uniform grids, and that they can offer an alternative to the finite element method based multiscale analysis. The equivalence between the two methods is explained in a comparison study, which shows that the state-based peridynamics may have better computational efficiency, but the RKPM synchronized derivative approach may have the possibility of faster convergence.
Financial openness & institutions in developing countries

Abstract The paper examines for foreign portfolio investment recent result that foreign direct investment has positive effect on institutions in developing countries. Promise of firms to improve governance (in order to raise funds from outsiders) is more credible if they cross-list on the U.S. stock exchange. Stringent disclosures required by the U.S. are available to domestic regulators who become under pressure to follow global standards. Using 48 developing countries, I show greater openness of stock and bonds markets leads to better quality relevant institutions. I use both a natural experiment, viz. 2008 financial crisis outflows, and 2SLS/IV estimation to examine the endogeniety issues.
Optimal digital product maintenance with a continuous revenue stream

We use a control framework to analyze the profit maximization problem of digital vendors that capture market share by focusing effort on post-launch product maintenance effort. Effort influences user perception of the product and drives the revenue stream via user adoption. We show necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality, and that perceived quality declines over a products life cycle. This corresponds with Lehmans 7th law of software evolution. Last, we illustrate control paths under possible market conditions, assuming linearized functions.
Insulin regimens and clinical outcomes in a type 1 diabetes cohort: The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study

OBJECTIVE To examine the patterns and associations of insulin regimens and change in regimens with clinical outcomes in a diverse population of children with recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The study sample consisted of youth with type 1 diabetes who completed a baseline SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study visit after being newly diagnosed and at least one follow-up visit. Demographic, diabetes self-management, physical, and laboratory measures were collected at study visits. Insulin regimens and change in regimen compared with the initial visit were categorized as more intensive (MI), no change (NC), or less intensive (LI). We examined relationships between insulin regimens, change in regimen, and outcomes including A1C and fasting C-peptide. RESULTS Of the 1,606 participants with a mean follow-up of 36 months, 51.7% changed to an MI regimen, 44.7% had NC, and 3.6% changed to an LI regimen. Participants who were younger, non-Hispanic white, and from families of higher income and parental education and who had private health insurance were more likely to be in MI or NC groups. Those in MI and NC groups had lower baseline A1C ( P = 0.028) and smaller increase in A1C over time than LI ( P CONCLUSIONS Insulin regimens were intensified over time in over half of participants but varied by sociodemographic domains. As more intensive regimens were associated with better outcomes, early intensification of management may improve outcomes in all children with diabetes. Although intensification of insulin regimen is preferred, choice of insulin regimen must be individualized based on the child and family’s ability to comply with the prescribed plan.
Topological interference management: Linear cooperation is not useful for Wyner's networks

In this work, we study the value of cooperative transmission in wireless networks if no channel state information is available at the transmitters (no CSIT). Our focus is on large locally connected networks, where each transmitter is connected to the receiver that has the same index as well as L succeeding receivers. The cases of L = 1 and L = 2 represent Wyner's asymmetric and symmetric network models, respectively. The considered performance metric is the per user Degrees of Freedom (puDoF) as the number of transmitter-receiver pairs goes to infinity. For the case when L = 1, it was shown in previous work that linear cooperation schemes do not increase the puDoF value, and that the optimal scheme relies on assigning each message to a single transmitter and using orthogonal access (TDMA). Here, we extend this conclusion to the case where L = 2, by proving optimality of TDMA in this case as well. We conclude by discussing whether increasing the value of L can create a value for linear cooperation schemes from a DoF perspective.
Why the Simple View of Reading Is Not Simplistic: Unpacking Component Skills of Reading Using a Direct and Indirect Effect Model of Reading (DIER)

ABSTRACTPathways of relations of language, cognitive, and literacy skills (i.e., working memory, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, inference, comprehension monitoring, word reading, and listening comprehension) to reading comprehension were examined by comparing four variations of direct and indirect effects model of reading. Results from 350 English-speaking second graders revealed that language and cognitive component skills had direct and indirect relations to listening comprehension, explaining 86% of variance. Word reading and listening comprehension completely mediated the relations of language and cognitive component skills to reading comprehension and explained virtually all the variance in reading comprehension. Total effects of component skills varied from small to substantial. The findings support the direct and indirect effects model of reading model and indicate that word reading and listening comprehension are upper-level skills that are built on multiple language and cognitive component sk...