cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Rheological Behavior of Injection‐Moldable Silicon Powder–Silicon Carbide Whisker Formulations

The rheological behavior of injection-moldable formulations for reaction-bonded Si3N4 toughened with silicon carbide whiskers was studied using capillary rheometry. The effects on rheology of the following parameters were examined: solids loading, powder/whisker volume ratio, particle size and type, and binder composition. Two important aspects of the flow behavior were delineated. First, corrections for end effects and slippage along the wall were made in order to interpret the experimental data properly. At high shearing rates (i.e., 103 s−1) slip may account for more than 50% of the total flow. Such slippage promotes flow into the smallest channels or corners of the mold and may appreciably facilitate molding. Consequently the careful study of slippage is an inherent requirement of the rheological characterization of these concentrated suspensions. Second, the suspension viscosities were delineated. An empirical equation for predicting relative viscosity was developed for formulations containing up to ∼30 vol% of silicon carbide whiskers (with more than 50 vol% total solids). Suspension viscosities generally increased with decreasing particle size and increasing whisker contents. Particle surface roughness appears to affect the shearing behavior. Binders of low molecular weight resulted in higher relative viscosities than higher molecular weight binders, indicating possibly better dispersion of solids when more viscous binders are employed.
Diffusion Is No Illusion: Neighbor Emulation in the Third Wave of Democracy

This article develops and tests a specific model of the role of diffusion as a determinant of the magnitude and direction of regime change, using a database covering the world from 1972 to 1996. The authors find that countries tend to change their regimes to match the average degree of democracy or nondemocracy found among their contiguous neighbors and that countries in the U.S. sphere of influence tended to become more democratic in the period examined. They also confirm that countries tend to follow the direction in which the majority of other countries in the world are moving. Their model builds on several findings in the diffusion literature but adds methodological improvements and includes more extensive controls for other variables that have been found to affect regime change—including levels of development, presidentialism, and regional differences—offering further support for some and challenging other findings of the regime change literature.
Benthic foraminiferal shell weight: Deglacial species-specific responses from the Santa Barbara Basin

Abstract Here we present a record of size-normalized shell weight for four species of benthic foraminifera through a period of rapid environmental change during the most recent deglaciation (Santa Barbara Basin, CA). A strong Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ), the product of high surface productivity and poor ventilation, characterizes the eastern Pacific; this subsurface zone is mechanistically coupled with high concentrations of dissolved inorganic carbon. The OMZ migrated vertically during warming of the last deglaciation, leading to rapid shifts in the oxygenation and inorganic carbon system of the benthos. The size-normalized weight (SNW) of benthic foraminifers Uvigerina peregrina , Bolivina interjuncta , and Bolivina tumida reflects only the broad trends of the vertical migration of the OMZ, and inorganic carbon system, overshadowed by clear species-specific trends. The relative importance of OMZ migrations versus other environmental variables and optimal growth conditions differs across species of benthic foraminifera. In U. peregrina , SNW primarily peaks with foraminiferal density and increased abundance of that species, while B. interjuncta and B. tumida increase in SNW with a shrinking of the OMZ (and carbon maximum) in the late Holocene. Bolivina argentea shows no long-term trends in SNW potentially due to its ability to migrate through the sediment. Our results suggest that, while inorganic carbon and dissolved oxygen may play a role in determining shell weight across species of benthic foraminifera, neither parameter alone is responsible for changes in benthic foraminiferal shell weight in the fossil record.
The Wolf War: Delisting Wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains

This paper will analyze the recent litigation in Defenders of Wildlife v. Secretary of Interior. This is the third case regarding the reintroduction and delisting of wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains pursuant to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This case, which has occurred during the Bush and Obama administrations, involves issues of statutory interpretation, judicial review of administrative decision making,federalism, and public policy. The paper argues that the Secretary of Interior has the legal authority to remove the ESA protection from this distinct population segment of gray wolves. The current delisting proposal, however, violates the ESA because it treats the Wyoming wolf population different from the Idaho and Montana wolf populations.
Triomics Analysis of Imatinib-Treated Myeloma Cells Connects Kinase Inhibition to RNA Processing and Decreased Lipid Biosynthesis

The combination of metabolomics, lipidomics, and phosphoproteomics that incorporates triple stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) protein labeling, as well as 13C in vivo metabolite labeling, was demonstrated on BCR–ABL-positive H929 multiple myeloma cells. From 11 880 phosphorylation sites, we confirm that H929 cells are primarily signaling through the BCR–ABL–ERK pathway, and we show that imatinib treatment not only downregulates phosphosites in this pathway but also upregulates phosphosites on proteins involved in RNA expression. Metabolomics analyses reveal that BCR–ABL–ERK signaling in H929 cells drives the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) and RNA biosynthesis, where pathway inhibition via imatinib results in marked PPP impairment and an accumulation of RNA nucleotides and negative regulation of mRNA. Lipidomics data also show an overall reduction in lipid biosynthesis and fatty acid incorporation with a significant decrease in lysophospholipids. RNA immunoprecipitation studie...
Application of the Step Potential for Equilibria and Dynamics (SPEAD) Method to Bioderived Esters and Acetals

The Step Potential for Equilibria and Dynamics (SPEAD) model, which is a combination of discontinuous molecular dynamics simulation and thermodynamic perturbation theory, has been used to study the thermodynamic equilibrium properties of potential biofuel blending compounds. Step potentials and site sizes for predicting vapor pressures and liquid densities of secondary alcohols, esters, and cyclic ethers have been optimized. Fifty two (52) compounds were simulated for either parametrization or bench-marking. Twelve (12) new groups are parametrized in this work, which are present in secondary alcohols, esters, cyclic C5 compounds, and cyclic ethers. Errors in predicted vapor pressures are generally in the range of 10%, except in the case of multifunctional cyclic compounds, where errors of 30%–70% were found. Also, bubble points are measured for a mixture of 4-hydroxymethyl-1,3-dioxolane and 5-hydroxy-1,3-dioxane, which are superimposed on the literature data and do not suggest a significant difference in ...
A Brief Nosological History of PTSD

A Brief Nosological History of PTSD The modern conceptualization of what we now call posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) originated with the European neurologists Jean-Martin Charcot and Hermann Oppenheim, who treated victims of railroad and industrial accident in the late nineteenth century. Both Charcot and Oppenheim regarded the disorder as stemming from an acute fright or emotional shock. Charcot used the term “traumatic hysteria” to describe a condition of the mind that occurred in mentally defective individuals and stemmed not from the physical effects of the traumatic accident but rather from the idea his patients had formed of it. Oppenheim rejected the hysterical nature of the condition but rather considered that the acute emotional shock induced by the traumatic event injured the nervous system. Both DSM-I and DSM-II failed to recognize these earlier insights, and they did not dignify the condition with a diagnosis.
Waging peace: transformations of the warrior myth by US military veterans

ABSTRACTThe mythic authority of the warrior, ancient and contemporary, is examined as a rhetorical formation of US war culture subject to transformation in the discourse of military veterans advocating for peace. The incongruity of veteran soldiers opposed to militarism is a point of cultural tension that reveals a resource for altering the language of war from within. The dissenting voices of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War articulate a composite theme further developed by veteran Paul Chappell into a guiding image of waging peace. Located in its larger mythic context, the prophetic voice of the dissenting veteran redirects attention to the evil of war (its essence of destruction and death), distorted images of so-called enemies (recognizing innocent victims of warfare), a history of militarism, racism, and structural injustice (looking inward instead of projecting outward), and nonviolent advocacy, democratic decision-making, and diplomacy (reconciling rather than suppressing differ...
Tumors of the alimentary tract.

Electron microscopy may be very helpful in establishing the diagnosis of alimentary tract neoplasms, especially with tumors that are poorly differentiated. Tonofilaments and keratin in squamous carcinomas, microvilli and intracytoplasmic acini in adenocarcinomas, and neurosecretory granules in carcinoid tumors are distinctive ultrastructural features of the three tumors that occur most frequently. Other, less commonly occurring tumors may also retain features at the ultrastructural level that are specific for the cell of origin and thus helpful in establishing the diagnosis.
Quantitative assessment and characterization of glenoid bone loss in a spectrum of patients with glenohumeral osteoarthritis

Eccentric posterior bone loss and associated glenoid retroversion represent challenges to glenoid placement during total shoulder arthroplasty. This bone loss can lead to poor stability and perforation of the glenoid during arthroplasty. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the morphology of glenoid bone loss for a spectrum of osteoarthritis patients using 3D computed tomography imaging and simulation software. This study included 29 patients with glenohumeral osteoarthritis treated with shoulder arthroplasty. Three-dimensional reconstruction of preoperative CT images was performed. Glenoid bone loss was measured at ten, vertically equidistant axial planes along the glenoid surface at four distinct anterior-posterior points on each plane. The images were fitted with modeled pegged glenoid implants to predict glenoid perforation. The 3D maps demonstrated greatest average bone loss posteriorly in the AP plane at the central axis of the glenoid in the SI plane. The average amount of bone loss was 3.85 mm. Walch A2 and B1 shoulders showed more central bone loss, while Walch B2 shoulders displayed more posterior and inferior bone loss. Patients with predicted peg perforation displayed significantly greater bone loss than those without predicted peg perforation (p = 0.037). Peg perforation was most common in Walch B2 shoulders occurring in the posterior direction involving the central and posterior-inferior peg. These data demonstrate an anatomic pattern of glenoid bone loss for different classes of glenohumeral arthritis. These findings can be used to develop various models of glenoid bone loss to guide surgeons, predict failures, and develop better glenoid implants. This study has been approved by the Cleveland Clinic IRB: Number 6235.
An interview with Don Hedeker

Don Hedeker was born in the late 1950s in Chicago, Illinois. He attended public schools in Chicago and did his undergraduate work at the University of Chicago, earning a degree in Economics in 1980. In 1981, he began graduate work in the Department of Behavioral Sciences, Committee on Research Methodology and Quantitative Psychology at the University of Chicago. He completed his dissertation in 1989 under the direction of Darrell Bock. In 1993, Don accepted a faculty position at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where he was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 1996 and to Full Professor in 2001. He spent 20 years on the faculty at UIC, leaving in 2014 in order to return to the University of Chicago as a Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Public Health Sciences. Don’s main expertise is in the development and dissemination of advanced statistical methods for clustered and longitudinal data. In addition to many methodological papers in these areas, Don has developed several freeware computer programs for statistical analysis of such data. To date, he has published over 180 papers and 1 book. Don is also an accomplished musician, and has played in bands since high school. This interview was conducted in honor of Don being awarded the 2015 Long-term Excellence Award from the Health Policy Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association. The interview took place in Don’s office at the University of Chicago on December 23, 2015.
Front-X phased array weather radar test bed

This paper describes the Front-X, a dual-polarized X-band Phased Array Weather Radar system currently being developed at Colorado State University. The architecture of this mobile radar is presented, with a description of the antenna array, waveform synthesis and digital receiver/pulse compressor modules. Initial observations made with the phased array weather radar are also shown.
Co-Epression of Two Transgenes in Lentiviral Vector Using Independent Transcriptional Units.

There are several gene therapy approaches, which require transfer and co-expression of two transgenes within one target cell. To this end, we have created and tested two-gene expression HIV-1 based vectors, which encode enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and P144K mutant of canine O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase (MGMT) transgenes under either the phosphoglycerate kinase gene promoter (PGKp), or the elongation factor 1 alpha promoter (EF1a_p). Eight different configurations of the two transgene expression cassettes were created and tested within the same lentiviral backbone (see Figure). Individual VSV-G pseudotyped vectors stocks were produced and used for infection of canine thyroid adenocarcinoma (CTAC) cells at low multiplicity of infection (MOI = 0.1) to ensure 1 copy of proviral vector per transduced cell. The cells were harvested one week later and an aliquot was assayed for EGFP expression by flow cytometry. Another portion was subjected to selection with O6-benzylguanine (BG, 40 m M for 18 hrs) and 1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea (BCNU, 100 m M for 2 hrs) and kept in culture for additional two weeks to eliminate cells expressing insufficient MGMT. The percentage of GFP positive cells, prior to selection with BG and BCNU, ranged between 0.1 % to 6.6% for the dual-transgene expression cassette encoding HIV-1 vectors. Following selection with BG and BCNU, the percentage of GFP positive cells increased for all vectors with the exception of vector #2 PGEM. Two of the vectors (#1 PMEG and #8 EGMP) demonstrated over 80% GFP positivity after selection. The results of flow cytometry after selection were corroborated by fluorescence microscopy of individual BCNU-resistant colonies. GFP expression was readily detected in drug-resistant colonies transduced with vectors #1 PMEG or #8 EGMP. Weaker GFP expression was detected in drug resistant cells transduced with vectors #3 PMGE, #5 EMPG or #6 EGPM. No significant GFP expression was observed in drug-resistant colonies transduced with vectors #2 PGEM, #4 PGME or #7 EMGP. Drug resistance to BCNU (IC50 values) provided by each of the vectors, was also determined. The data showed that the IC50 values for #1 PMEG and #8 EGMP vectors were 2.4-fold and 4.4-fold, respectively, higher than for mock transduced control cells. The above results indicate that coordinated co-expression of two transgenes using independent expression cassettes is promoter, position and orientation dependent. The data also indicate that two potentially useful vectors (#1 PMEG and #8 EGMP) have been identified for evaluation, ex vivo and in vivo, in the canine model for co-expression of two transgenes. View this table:
Complete p53 multi-exon sequencing by gene chip complements use of p53 immunohistochemistry for prediction of clinical outcome in invasive bladder cancer

1791 Semaphorin 3B (SEMA3B) is a secreted member of the semaphorin family that is characterized by the presence of a highly conserved semaphorin domain. These proteins have been implicated in axon guidance by sending repulsive cues to growing axons in species from flies to vertebrate. Recently, ourselves and others have described tumor suppressor activity of SEMA3B in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and ovarian cancer cells (Tomizawa et al, PNAS 98: 13954, 2001; Tse et al, Cancer Res. 62: 542, 2002). We have also shown the antagonistic relationship between VEGF165 and SEMA3B, which coincided with other semaphorin family members. We now investigate the signaling pathway(s) used by SEMA3B to inhibit cell growth or induce apoptosis in lung and breast cancer cells. Protein kinase B (PKB)/AKT promotes cell survival signals through the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway, leading to inactivation of a series of pro-apoptotic proteins. We found that transfection of various lung cancer cell lines with the plasmid encoding SEMA3B severely restricts proliferation and clonogenic potential of these cells. The conditioned medium derived from COS7 cells transiently expressing SEMA3B (exogenous SEMA3B) also inhibited lung cancer growth in vitro. Furthermore, we observed that exogenous treatment with SEMA3B inhibited or decreased AKT phosphorylation in serine 473 leading to decreased AKT activity. We also observed SEMA3B induced changes in phosphorylation of other proteins important in apoptotic pathways including BAD, GSK-3beta, FKHR, and PTEN. These results lead to the hypothesis that apoptotic effects of SEMA3B on tumor cells might be mediated in part via blockade of the AKT pathway.
Impact of Accreditation on Quality in Echocardiograms: A Quantitative Approach

Background Accreditation through the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) is believed but not proven to increase quality in imaging. The goal of this study was to use quality metrics to evaluate the impact of accreditation on quality in pediatric echocardiography. Methods This is a retrospective study comparing quality metrics in 236 pediatric transthoracic echocardiograms in patients with congenital heart disease from (1) California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), a community hospital, before and after IAC accreditation, and (2) the IAC-accredited Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH), an academic children's referral center, during equivalent eras. Consecutive patients who required cardiac intervention were matched between sites based on age, complexity, and time period. Two raters independently evaluated echocardiograms for image quality and study comprehensiveness. A third rater reviewed echocardiogram reports and medical charts for report completeness and diagnostic accuracy. Diagnostic error characterization was performed by consensus among the three raters. Report completeness was an IAC tool approved for maintenance of certification. The remaining quality metrics were developed by the American College of Cardiology Adult Congenital Pediatric Cardiology Quality Metrics Working Group initiative. Results At each site, 74 echocardiograms in the era before CPMC accreditation and 44 echocardiograms in the era after CPMC accreditation were included. There was no significant difference in image quality and diagnostic accuracy at CPMC before and after accreditation. Study comprehensiveness and report completeness improved at CPMC after accreditation ( P Conclusions Accreditation through the IAC leads to increased study comprehensiveness and report completeness. Image quality and diagnostic accuracy did not differ significantly before and after IAC accreditation. We recommend further studies to assess the effects of accreditation on quality in echocardiography and patient outcomes.
Entanglement Entropy with a Time-dependent Hamiltonian

The time evolution of entanglement tracks how information propagates in interacting quantum systems. We study entanglement entropy in ${\mathrm{CFT}}_{2}$ with a time-dependent Hamiltonian. We perturb by operators with time-dependent source functions and use the replica trick to calculate higher-order corrections to entanglement entropy. At first order, we compute the correction due to a metric perturbation in ${\mathrm{AdS}}_{3}/{\mathrm{CFT}}_{2}$ and find agreement on both sides of the duality. Past first order, we find evidence of a universal structure of entanglement propagation to all orders. The central feature is that interactions entangle unentangled excitations. Entanglement propagates according to ``entanglement diagrams,'' proposed structures that are motivated by accessory spacetime diagrams for real-time perturbation theory. To illustrate the mechanisms involved, we compute higher-order corrections to free fermion entanglement entropy. We identify an unentangled operator, one which does not change the entanglement entropy to any order. Then, we introduce an interaction and find it changes entanglement entropy by entangling the unentangled excitations. The entanglement propagates in line with our conjecture. We compute several entanglement diagrams. We provide tools to simplify the computation of loop entanglement diagrams, which probe UV effects in entanglement propagation in CFT and holography.
Live Imaging Reveals that the First Division of Differentiating Human Embryonic Stem Cells Often Yields Asymmetric Fates

How do stem cells respond to signals to initiate differentiation? Here, we show that, despite uniform exposure to differentiation-inducing extracellular signals, individual human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) respond heterogeneously. To track how hESCs incipiently exit pluripotency, we established a system to differentiate hESCs as single cells and conducted live imaging to track their very first cell division. We followed the fate of their earliest daughters as they remained undifferentiated or differentiated toward the primitive streak (the earliest descendants of pluripotent cells). About 30%-50% of the time, hESCs divided to yield one primitive streak and one undifferentiated daughter. The undifferentiated daughter cell was innately resistant to WNT signaling and could not respond to this primitive-streak-specifying differentiation signal. Hence, the first division of differentiating hESCs sometimes yields daughters with diverging fates, with implications for the efficiency of directed differentiation protocols and the underlying rules of lineage commitment.
Neyman-Pearson Codebook Design for Beam Alignment in Millimeter-Wave Networks

Millimeter wave systems require narrow beam communication to achieve high throughput. To this end, beam alignment is achieved via a proper beam sensing protocol, which specifies how to allocate amplitude and phase at each antenna array element (a codeword) to sense the mobile user's position, through appropriate beam pointing. However, beam imperfections -- such as the presence of side-lobes -- and noise may cause errors in the detection process. Thus, correct alignment between transmitter and receiver may not be achieved. Therefore, it is of great importance to design the sensing codebook to attain optimal detection performance. In this paper, a Neyman-Pearson codebook design is proposed. The sensing codeword is optimized so as to minimize the mis-detection probability, under false-alarm, power and hybrid beamforming constraints. Due to the intractability of the problem, a worst-case relaxation is carried out. It is shown that the dual problem can be recast as a semidefinite program, and the optimal codebook is the principle eigenvector of a weighted array response matrix. It is shown numerically that the proposed design outperforms a state-of-the art algorithm, with improvement of up to 33% in detection performance.
Association of Lonafarnib Treatment vs No Treatment With Mortality Rate in Patients With Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome

Importance Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is an extremely rare fatal premature aging disease. There is no approved treatment. Objective To evaluate the association of monotherapy using the protein farnesyltransferase inhibitor lonafarnib with mortality rate in children with HGPS. Design, Setting, and Participants Cohort study comparing contemporaneous (birth date ≥1991) untreated patients with HGPS matched with treated patients by age, sex, and continent of residency using conditional Cox proportional hazards regression. Treatment cohorts included patients from 2 single-group, single-site clinical trials (ProLon1 [n = 27; completed] and ProLon2 [n = 36; ongoing]). Untreated patients originated from a separate natural history study (n = 103). The cutoff date for patient follow-up was January 1, 2018. Exposure Treated patients received oral lonafarnib (150 mg/m 2 ) twice daily. Untreated patients received no clinical trial medications. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was mortality. The primary analysis compared treated patients from the first lonafarnib trial with matched untreated patients. A secondary analysis compared the combined cohorts from both lonafarnib trials with matched untreated patients. Results Among untreated and treated patients (n = 258) from 6 continents, 123 (47.7%) were female; 141 (54.7%) had a known genotype, of which 125 (88.7%) were classic (c.1824C>T in LMNA ). When identified (n = 73), the primary cause of death was heart failure (79.4%). The median treatment duration was 2.2 years. Median age at start of follow-up was 8.4 (interquartile range [IQR], 4.8-9.5) years in the first trial cohort and 6.5 (IQR, 3.7-9.0) years in the combined cohort. There was 1 death (3.7%) among 27 patients in the first trial group and there were 9 deaths (33.3%) among 27 patients in the matched untreated group. Treatment was associated with a lower mortality rate (hazard ratio, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.01-0.93; P = .04). In the combined cohort, there were 4 deaths (6.3%) among 63 patients in the treated group and 17 deaths (27.0%) among 63 patients in the matched untreated group (hazard ratio, 0.23; 95% CI, 0.06-0.90; P = .04). Conclusions and Relevance Among patients with HGPS, lonafarnib monotherapy, compared with no treatment, was associated with a lower mortality rate after 2.2 years of follow-up. Study interpretation is limited by its observational design.
The Congressional Competition for Control of Delegated Power

In this Article, we challenge the "monolithic view" of Congressional control over delegated power, which assumes that oversight committees will enforce the wishes of an enacting majority. In contrast with this prevailing view we argue that Congress consists of rivals who compete for control over power delegated to agencies. Individual committee members with access to oversight tools vie for control over agencies, both with each other and with past enacting majorities, to further their own interests. We argue, contrary to the conventional understanding, that committee members sometimes defy majority preferences rather than reinforce them. We claim that Congress creates an internal accountability problem when it delegates oversight power to its committees, just as it creates a problem of control when it delegates administrative power to agencies. Indeed, one delegation might exacerbate the other. And together, this "double delegation" creates a significant risk that agency decision making will be driven by the interests of small sub-majorities of Congress, and that this influence will subvert statutory commands. Playing off Bickel's famous characterization of the judiciary, we call this problem the "sub-majoritarian difficulty." Sub-majoritarianism may be so severe as to re-introduce parochialism into the implementation of federal statutes meant to impose national solutions - a phenomenon we call "backdoor federalism." We support our theoretical argument with an empirical test of decision making by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In the literature on delegated power, our argument shifts the question from how best to make administrative agencies accountable to Congress, to who ought to be the principal, given the viability of multiple legislative principals. We speculate about how political scientists and legal scholars, respectively, might react to this competition among principals, and we explore measures that might minimize the adverse effects of sub-majoritarianism.
Editorial Judgment in Scientific Periodicals

The kinds of Judgments that editors of scientific journals exercise are outlined and discussed. The most Important judgment is made on every paper submitted for editorial scrutiny: to publish or not to publish It. The principal focus of judgment on reports of observations made in experiments or field work concerns the criteria of science: the quality of design, methodology, execution and analysis, and the propriety of inferences and conclusions. Here strictness is appropriate. In heuristic essays the editorial focus is on relevance and rationality, and judgment should be liberal. Since editors are not omniscient and frequently rely on the judgment of referees, the choice of reviewers for each article is a further critical area of judgment by the editor. Finally, the role of the editor as ultimate arbiter requires him to be sensitive to bias, to arbitrate between disagreeing reviewers, and to judge when to overrule even unanimous referee opinion. The several kinds and areas of judgment are illustrated with case histories.
That’s what I like: The use of circumscribed interests within interventions for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. A systematic review

Abstract Background Circumscribed interests (CI) are a subcategory of restricted and repetitive behaviors that occur commonly in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). CI are characterized by an intense and focused interest in a narrow range of subjects. The purpose of this systematic review is to determine how interests are incorporated within interventions for individuals with ASD across the lifespan; what symptoms, domains and outcomes these interventions target; and the effectiveness of such interventions. Method The methods used within this review were consistent with those recommended by the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations. Inclusion criteria were based on three predetermined categories: (1) Study Population; (2) Intervention Design; and (3) Outcome Variables. Data were extracted and coded based on these three predetermined categories. Results 246 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility, of which 31 studies were eligible for data extraction. The majority of studies were single subject designs (k = 28) and focused on toddlers/preschool (k = 13) or school-aged children (k = 17). Common interests utilized were TV shows or movies (N = 21), popular characters (N = 18), computers/video games (N = 12) and transportation (N = 11). Conclusions Results suggest that the inclusion of CI within interventions can lead to positive effects across a number of domains. More research is required to examine the effects of individualized interests within group design studies. Methods for this review were registered with PROSPERO (42016036981).
Space Syntax and Walkability Analysis in Support of Urban Design Decisions

ABSTRACT: This research presents an application of the space syntax method to examine physical behavior in three urban neighborhoods – a compact downtown and two variations of sprawl development – in order to explore the link between environmental factors and physical activity. The environmental factors analyzed here include improved street connectivity, density, and mixed-use development. As a novel addition, this work also considered access to open spaces, parks, and trailheads, aspects unique to the study area. The first part of this research examined how compact urban areas, as compared to urban sprawl, influenced healthy behavior. The space syntax method was applied to explicate the morphological logic of the urban grid and quantify the built environment in relation to physical activity, including the street network characteristics of connectivity, integration, and depth. Second, this study addressed the comparative health and socio-cultural benefits of urban forms through measures of neighborhood completeness. This quantitative methodology was used to measure the level of density and amount of mixed-use in terms of walkability. As space syntax argues that more integrated streets are more likely to attract movement and visitors, the third part of this work evaluated the roles of various open spaces, parks, and trailheads within the mixed-use, dense development of a downtown, and how their respective locations might promote healthy behavior. Finally, this research concludes that increased residential density and retention of public open spaces of an existing single-use commercial downtown core, as well as easy access to parks and trailheads, could complement a walkable community design and suggest a healthy urban form. This work is relevant to existing urban neighborhoods and small urban communities looking to identify new development paradigms with regards to improved walkability and health promotive urban form. KEYWORDS: Community Health, Connectivity, Mixed-use Development, Urban Density, Urban Form
Serpentine: A Self-Powered Reversibly Deformable Cord Sensor for Human Input

We introduce Serpentine, a self-powered sensor that is a reversibly deformable cord capable of sensing a variety of human input. The material properties and structural design of Serpentine allow it to be flexible, twistable, stretchable and squeezable, enabling a broad variety of expressive input modalities. The sensor operates using the principle of Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENG), which allows it to sense mechanical deformation without an external power source. The affordances of the cord include six interactions---Pluck, Twirl, Stretch, Pinch, Wiggle and Twist. Serpentine demonstrates the ability to simultaneously recognize these inputs through a single physical interface. A 12-participant user study illustrates 95.7% accuracy for a user-dependent recognition model using a realtime system and 92.17% for user-independent offline detection. We conclude by demonstrating how Serpentine can be employed in everyday ubiquitous computing applications.
Making the Mix Work: Coalition C2 Interoperability during Recent Operations

Abstract : This paper analyzes multinational command and control (C2) arrangements since the Second World War with an eye to understanding how such arrangements have been successful. In particular, it considers the development of command relations from developments in the European Theater during the Second World War to modern day crises. Operations DESERT SHIELD/STORM were clearly a watershed. Since 1990 operations in Somalia, and Haiti, and subsequent operations in Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe have taught us much about multinational C2. In some ways were have now rediscovered the tools that worked so well in 1944 and learned to apply them to a wider range of operations and participating nations.
Acupuncture for Analgesia During Transurethral Resection of Bladder Tumor

Abstract Background: Acupuncture has been widely studied, and theories regarding its analgesic mechanism of action have been proposed. It has been used for procedural analgesia; however, no reports...
Gender Differences in Early Mortality after LVAD: An IMACS Analysis

Purpose Prior studies have observed higher mortality in women after LVAD; however a paucity of data exists on mediators of observed disparities. We used the International Registry for Mechanically Assisted Circulatory Support (IMACS) database to examine what clinical factors might mediate observed gender differences in mortality after LVAD. Methods We analyzed 15,498 adults ( > 18 years) who received a CF LVAD from Jan 2013 - Sep 2017 (age: 56.0 ± 13.2 yrs, 20.8% female, 35.9% centrifugal pumps, median follow-up:13.4 [IQR 5.6, 25.9] months). Inverse probability weighted Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the association of female gender with all-cause mortality. Covariates included age, BSA, pump type, sodium, BUN, bilirubin, INR, hemoglobin, eGFR, MELD score, modified HeartMate II Risk Score (without center volume), INTERMACS profile, PADP and CI. Restricted cubic spline regression analysis was used to examine hazard ratio (HR) variation with time. Causal mediation analysis was performed to test plausible pre-implant mediators that were significantly different between genders (p Results Women were younger, less likely to have ischemic HF, and more likely to have a centrifugal pump (all p Conclusion Women have higher post-LVAD mortality during the first 3 months after implant, that is partly mediated by increased TR and smaller LVEDD at baseline. Further studies are needed to explore additional underlying mechanisms.
Obtaining a Balanced Area Sample for the Bureau of Land Management Rangeland Survey

In agricultural and environmental surveys, obtaining spatially balanced area samples that are also representative probability samples in the presence of auxiliary variables is a challenge, especially when the study regions have fragmentary boundaries and possess holes of various shapes. This paper describes a sampling procedure that achieves this goal and is implemented in the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Rangeland Survey, a longitudinal environmental survey. This survey aims to assess status and trends of rangeland conditions on BLM-managed lands. In the sampling procedure, we first generate a 10-year master sample using Thiessen polygons and then draw annual samples through rejective sampling techniques using elevation as the auxiliary variable. The resulting annual samples as well as any consecutive multi-year combined samples are spatially well-dispersed and representative probability samples. Details about the sampling design, weighting procedure and replicate variance estimation are provided. Issues related to boundary error, ineligibility and nonresponse are also discussed. Some of the empirical results from the BLM Rangeland Survey are presented. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online.
Satellite Component Selection with Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming

Spacecraft conceptual design tends to be a laborious and manual procedure where engineers iterate on evaluating performance while having a consistent design, i.e., satisfying budgets at the system level: mass, power, link budget, etc. One interesting part of the problem is that although one could start from scratch to custom design all parts of the spacecraft, development efforts can be saved by picking existing components that satisfy the needed functionality. Building a spacecraft almost exclusively out of catalog components - available commercially off-the-shelf - is especially attractive within the paradigm of CubeSats. Restricting the design to components, however, poses its own set of challenges: iterating through combinations of components that satisfy all budgets can be time consuming as one component might balance the mass budget while unbalancing the power budget. Additionally, as component catalogs keep growing, it becomes impossible to enumerate and consider all combinations, and there is a good chance to miss designs that could come at a lower cost, or a higher performance. Here a novel approach is presented applying mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), a generalized formulation for component selection. The research applies transformations methods of the nonlinear equations commonly encountered in spacecraft design, in combination with state of the art solvers that can use these transformations to very efficiently solve the problem. The optimization is very fast: less than a minute for the case studied, and the catalog can be expanded without an exponential growth in the solver run time. This in turn makes it very cheap to change the assumptions behind the mission and quickly enumerate optimal designs for different mission constraints. The paper presents a simple model for an Earth Observation satellite, with early conceptual design models for the communications and power system, orbital dynamics, momentum management and satellite lifetime. It then presents the general MINLP component selection formulation and transformations that were applied to the nonlinear models for each different discipline. A small catalog of real and imagined hardware options is presented for four components needed: observation payload, battery, solar cell and antenna. Four different missions are evaluated and compared where the resolution is changed from low to mid to high, and the lifetime of the satellite is changed between 3 and 15 years, showcasing the versatility of this novel method.
Brexit or Euro for the UK? Evidence from Panel Data

An alternative course to Brexit for the UK is evaluated. The purpose of the study is to determine whether the UK would have been better off had, instead of Brexit, remained in the EU and joined the Eurozone. The model specification is based on the neoclassical theory of growth extended to include human capital accumulation. Counterfactual analysis in terms of the difference-in-differences methodology is applied to evaluate the effect in UK’s per capita income if the UK had joined the Eurozone when the Eurozone was formed. The dataset is a balanced panel of annual observations for fifteen countries and covers the period from 1980 to 2017. The analysis reveals that had the UK joined the Eurozone, UK’s per capita income would have been 15.48% higher on the average for the period after the formation of the Eurozone. This effect increases to 24.98% if Eurozone’s less performing economies of the southern periphery are excluded from the analysis. The study shows that Brexit is a move toward the wrong direction. The UK should have sought further integration with the EU in terms of presence in the Eurozone than pursue Brexit and leave the EU.
In Situ Generation of Catalytically Relevant Nanoparticles from a Molecular Pincer Iridium Precatalyst during Polyol Deoxygenation

Pincer complexes such as (RPOCOP)Ir-based species (RPOCOP = κ3-C6H3-1,3-[OP(R)2]2) are widely used as precatalysts for organic transformations with many mechanistic studies of these transformations...
Molecular Carbonyl Insertion as the Homogeneous Catalysis Mechanism for Transesterification of Dimethyl Terephthalate with Ethylene Glycol

Carbonyl insertion is identified and computationally quantified as a mechanism for homogeneous organotin catalysis of transesterification. Organotin species are widely used catalysts for reactions ...
Anti-microbial mechanism of ZnO nanoparticles in the presence of cationic surfactant against pathogenic bacteria for pharmaceutical applications

Metal oxide nanoparticles with quite prodigious enactment in the field of research. ZnO is considered to be an exact candidate for an antimicrobial agent. ZnO in the form of fine nanoparticles possess enhanced antibacterial action than when it is in the bulk form. It is obvious that ZnO, which have the average crystallite size in the range between 15nm to 20nm exhibits enhanced antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacterias, so the present investigation is carried out to explains the role of cationic surfactant in the antimicrobial execution of ZnO nanoparticles enzymatic about precipitation method annealed at the temperature of 600oC. The outcomes are cogitated by XRD spectra, SEM, and Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectra. The crucial antimicrobic activity of the complex ZnO NP's antagonistic pathogenic bacterias were studied quantity-wise. ZnO nanoparticles have the capability to interfere with NorA protein, which is developed for conferring resistance in bacteria and has pumping activity that mediates the effluxing bacterias from a cell. Thus, antimicrobial effect Zinc oxide is widely used in nursing a variety of skin conditions, including dermatitis, itching due to eczema, diaper rash and acne.
Mitigation of seasonal temperature change-induced problems with integral bridge abutments using EPS foam and geogrid

Abstract Expansion of bridge girders in summer moves integral bridge abutments toward backfill, causing high lateral earth pressures behind the abutment. Some backfill material slumps downward and toward the abutment when the abutment moves away from the backfill due to bridge girder contraction in winter. Placement of geogrids within the backfill can increase stability of the backfill while placement of compressible inclusions (e.g., Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam) can reduce lateral earth pressures behind the abutment caused by bridge girder expansion. In this study, six physical model tests were conducted with 30 abutment top movement cycles due to simulated seasonal temperature changes to study the performance of integral bridge abutments with different mitigation measures. The test results showed that geogrid reinforcements caused higher maximum lateral earth pressures at the same abutment movement, but geogrids with wrap-around facing significantly reduced the backfill surface settlements. The combination of the EPS foam and geogrids could minimize lateral earth pressure increase and backfill settlement. The EPS foam reduced the abutment toe outward movement when the abutment top was pushed against the backfill; however, the mitigation effects by the EPS foam was limited due to its small thickness and relatively high elastic modulus in this study.
Bhutanese or Nepali? The Politics of Ethnonym Ambiguity

For the group of Nepali-speaking refugees who fled Bhutan in the early 1990s, there exists no consensus ethnonym, but rather multiple terms—‘Nepali’, ‘Bhutanese’ and ‘Lhotshampa’. Based on a mixed ...
Serum IL-6 and MCP-1 concentrations in dogs with lymphoma before and after doxorubicin treatment as a potential marker of cellular senescence.

BACKGROUND Chemotherapy can induce cellular senescence and a secretory phenotype characterized by an increased expression of inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6 and MCP-1. Increased IL-6 and MCP-1 serum concentrations have been documented in dogs with lymphoma, but no studies have evaluated the effects of chemotherapy on cytokine concentrations. OBJECTIVES To measure IL-6 and MCP-1 in 16 client-owned dogs with lymphoma, at baseline and before and after doxorubicin, as a potential marker for senescence and correlate cytokine concentrations with treatment response and toxicities. METHODS Serum IL-6 and MCP-1 concentrations at baseline, 0-h, 3-h, 6-h, 24-h and 1 week post doxorubicin were measured using a canine ELISA. We hypothesized that IL-6 and MCP-1 concentrations would increase following doxorubicin as a result of induction of cellular senescence. RESULTS IL-6 concentrations were unchanged from baseline to 0-h but significantly decreased 1 week post doxorubicin (p = 0.001) compared to 0-6 h (p = 0.045) and 24-h (p = 0.001) time points. MCP-1 concentrations significantly decreased from baseline to 0-h (p = 0.003). Compared to 0-6 h, MCP-1 concentrations transiently increased at 24-h (p = 0.001) and decreased at 1 week (p = 0.014) post doxorubicin. Changes in IL-6 and MCP-1 concentrations did not correlate with leukocyte count, response to treatment or chemotherapy toxicities. CONCLUSIONS Changes in IL-6 and MCP-1 concentrations did not support doxorubicin-induced cellular senescence or correlate with leukocyte count, response to treatment or chemotherapy toxicity. However, our results suggest that remission status and doxorubicin treatment may influence cytokine concentrations and future studies are warranted to investigate the role of these cytokines as biomarkers.