cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Mechano-transduction in endothelial cells

We studied the mechano-sensors in the endothelial cell membrane that can transduce the mechanical stimulus of shear stress into intracellular biochemical signals. Results indicate that Flk-1, a receptor tyrosine kinase, and integrins and the associated focal adhesion kinases can serve as such mechano-sensors in ECs. The coordinated activation of these and other mechano-sensors can trigger the intracellular signaling pathways to culminate in the modulation of gene expression and other cellular responses.
Measurements of the Polarization in Proton-Proton Elastic Scattering from 2.50 to 5.15 GeV c

In an experiment at the Argonne Zero-Gradient Synchrotron we have measured values of the polarization parameter $P(t)$ in the elastic scattering of negative pions, positive pions, positive kaons, and protons on protons at several incident laboratory momenta from 2.50 to 5.15 $\frac{\mathrm{GeV}}{c}$, and for values of the momentum transfer variable $\ensuremath{-}t$ from 0.2 to 2.0 ${(\frac{\mathrm{GeV}}{c})}^{2}$. The final results from $p\ensuremath{-}p$ elastic scattering presented here extend our knowledge of the polarization to much larger values of $\ensuremath{-}t$ than the results of previous measurements. Outstanding features revealed by these polarization data include (1) the development of a dip at about $\ensuremath{-}t=0.7 {(\frac{\mathrm{GeV}}{c})}^{2}$, with (2) a substantial secondary peak at larger values of $\ensuremath{-}t$ and (3) the gradual diminution of the maximum polarization with increasing energy. It is possible to fit the $t$ dependence of the experimental results with a simple model. The energy dependence of the polarized cross sections is also discussed.
Determination of mass transfer coefficients for packing materials used in biofilters and biotrickling filters for air pollution control—2: Development of mass transfer coefficients correlations

Abstract Correlations that allow determination of gas film mass transfer coefficients ( k G a t , k G a w ) and liquid film mass transfer coefficients ( k L a w ) for packing materials used in biofilters and biotrickling filters for air pollution control are presented. Lava rock, polyurethane foam cubes (PUF), Pall rings, porous ceramic beads, porous ceramic Raschig rings, and various compost–woodchips mixtures were used as packing materials. The functionality of gas and liquid velocity on mass transfer coefficients ( k G a t , k G a w , k L a w ) obtained experimentally (see Part 1 of this paper) was correlated using modified Onda-type equations. The correlation equations helped to better understand the sensitivity of gas and liquid velocities on mass transfer, and the effects of packing wetting. Each packing had a different functionality with gas and liquid velocity and different wetting property, hence different correlation equations were needed for the different packing materials. Most of the fitted data fell within ± 20 % of the experimental values.
The Economics of Infection Control

Economics plus epidemiology provide models of infections and associated behavior of private individuals. They show how infections generate problems of dynamic externalities, scope for government to offset externalities, and problems of the second best when government cannot or does not. Features of these models affect conclusions about individual behavior and government policy: the transition states into and out of infection; the nature of matching among susceptibles and infecteds; the opportunities for prevention, including vaccination, and for therapies and their costs; and the targeting of these health interventions at people, depending on health status. There may be multiple endemic optimal steady states.
Conditions for bacille Calmette-Guérin-induced resistance to infection with Schistosoma mansoni in mice.

Intravenous administration of a lyphilized preparation of bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG-Tice) into mice significantly protected these animals from infection with Schistosoma mansoni. The protective effect depended on the dose of BCG and required the administration of at least 2 X 10(7) viable organisms. The route of administration of BCG was also crucial, as only intravenous inoculation produced significant protection. The BCG-induced resistance was found to last for eight weeks. Significant inflammation of the lungs was observed in mice receiving either viable or heat-killed BCG; however, protection followed only the administration of viable bacilli. Expression of BCG-induced protection was dependent on the presence of significant numbers of viable organisms and may have been associated with pulmonary inflammation at the time of passage of the schistosomula through the lungs.
Effect of tissue conductivity errors on the induced current in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) of human brain

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a technique which uses intense pulsed magnetic fields to produce therapeutic effects in the brain involves the application of time-pulsed magnetic fields to cortical tissue. This technique is used today to treat neurological disorders such as depression. It is also used to measure the connection between the primary motor cortex and a muscle, to evaluate damage from spinal cord injuries. Furthermore, these systems are also being investigated for treatment of a broad range of other neurological problems such as stroke, parkinsons disease, and schizophrenia.
Social Goals and Youth Aggression: Meta-Analysis of Prosocial and Antisocial Goals.

To advance research evaluating the relationship between social information processing (Crick & Dodge) and youth aggression, this meta-analytic study examined associations between social goals and aggression in children in 21 separate research reports. Eligible studies provided descriptive or preintervention measurement of children's aggression and social goals, and were reported in English by March 1, 2010. Findings from two random-effects meta-analyses utilizing clustered data analysis techniques (i.e., effect sizes nested within samples) supported an expected (1) negative association between prosocial goals and aggression, and (2) positive association between antisocial goals and aggression. Little heterogeneity in these associations was observed across studies, and no moderating variables were revealed. The findings extend existing meta-analytic research on social information processing and aggression to include social goals as meaningful correlates of youth aggression.
Spatiograms versus histograms for region-based tracking

We introduce the concept of a spatiogram, which is a generalization of a histogram that includes potentially higher order moments. A histogram is a zeroth-order spatiogram, while second-order spatiograms contain spatial means and covariances for each histogram bin. This spatial information still allows quite general transformations, as in a histogram, but captures a richer description of the target to increase robustness in tracking. We show how to use spatiograms in kernel-based trackers, deriving a mean shift procedure in which individual pixels vote not only for the amount of shift but also for its direction. Experiments show improved tracking results compared with histograms, using both mean shift and exhaustive local search.
Abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular risk in pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes

Cardiovascular (CV) disease remains the leading source of premature mortality in western populations. There is an increasing prevalence of obesity, particularly abdominal obesity. Nine states in the USA now report a prevalence of obesity [body mass index (BMI) >30 kg/m 2 ] of 25% or more, and the prevalence of abdominal obesity (waist circumference >102 cm for men and 88 cm for women) has increased by 20% in men and 14% in women in a single decade. The intra-abdominal adiposity associated with abdominal obesity increases cardiometabolic risk directly, via altered secretion of adipokines, and indirectly, via promotion insulin resistance, diabetes and the cluster of cardiometabolic risk factors associated with the metabolic syndrome. Patients with type 2 diabetes, or subjects with pre-diabetic dysglycaemia are at greater risk of CV events, compared with normoglycaemic subjects. A large and growing body of evidence indicates that abdominal obesity is a more powerful predictor of adverse CV outcomes than BMI. Measurement of waist circumference as an index of intra-abdominal adiposity should be included in routine evaluations of overall cardiometabolic risk.
A switch model for improving throughput and power fairness in Bluetooth piconets

In this paper, a model for N mobile nodes that talk to one another simultaneously is considered under the following constraint: No node may transmit and receive at the same time. Furthermore, we focus on a personal area network (PAN) application limiting the network to a single-hop ad-hoc network. The resulting half-duplex wireless network is an interesting special case of the general full-duplex multihop ad-hoc networks. We model the system of the wireless channel and the N nodes as an N /spl times/ N switch. We call a PAN based on this model a switched PAN (S-PAN). The model is motivated by some limitations of the current specification of Bluetooth and by recent amendments of the rules governing the free-license ISM bands by the Federal Communications Commission. A specific Bluetooth-based S-PAN network that requires minimal changes to the current Bluetooth specification is introduced. The Bluetooth-based S-PAN is shown to outperform the current Bluetooth specification in throughput, delay, and energy-fairness to masters. Specifically, the S-PAN piconet is shown to achieve a throughput of up to 5 times (and possibly higher) the throughput of an equivalent Bluetooth piconet.
MANGANESE OXIDE REDUCTION IN LABORATORY MICROCOSMS

Manganese biogeochemistry holds special interest for the characterization of passive treatment systems designed to treat acidic mine waters while meeting enforceable effluent discharge limits set for manganese. In the present study, an initial anoxic enrichment culture was developed for use as an inoculum in experimental systems. Standard anoxic microcosms capable of reducing manganese from Mn4+ to Mn2+ were established from the initial enrichment and altered to study the effects of electron acceptor availability and inhibitors on manganese reduction. Manganese reduction was not significantly inhibited in aerobic and nitrate amended microcosms; however, systems amended with metabolic inhibitors (sodium azide or sodium molybdate) exhibited significant inhibition of manganese reduction relative to standard microcosms. The presence of iron was found to influence the partitioning of reduced manganese with adsorption becoming more important with increasing iron to manganese ratios.
Anticoagulation with Warfarin in Infants and Children

OBJECTIVE:TO provide a comprehensive review of warfarin use in infants and children, including recommendations for appropriate dosage and monitoring parameters.DATA SOURCES:A MEDLINE search (1966-1995) was used to identify pertinent English-language articles in the medical literature. The key search term was warfarin. Additional material was obtained from references cited in articles retrieved through MEDLINE.STUDY SELECTION:All articles involving children younger than 18 years were evaluated. In addition, articles on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in adults, adverse effects, and drug interactions were included.DATA EXTRACTION:Material selected for review included clinical trials, case reports, and surveys of practice.DATA SYNTHESIS:Warfarin has been used as prophylactic therapy in children with prosthetic cardiac valves as well as for prevention of thromboembolic complications associated with autoimmune disorders and protein C or protein S deficiency. Warfarin also has been used to prevent emb...
Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Screening, Diagnosis, and Eligibility for Breast-conserving Surgery: Promises and Pitfalls

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is able to visualize small tumor deposits that previously could only be identified on pathologic examination. MRI is most valuable in areas in which patient management has been problematic, including screening women with known or suspected BRCA 1 and 2 mutations, and identification of the primary tumor site in patients presenting with axillary adenopathy. The role of MRI in the patient with newly diagnosed breast cancer remains controversial. Success rates for patients selected for breast-conserving therapy without MRI are high, and rates of ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence are low. Future efforts to improve the local therapy for breast cancer must acknowledge the heterogeneity of the disease and tailor approaches to the biology of individual subsets. This goal can only be accomplished through a multidisciplinary approach that examines the applications of newer diagnostic modalities such as MRI.
Figuring the Soul

The pieces in this series are chronological, acting as checkpoints for personal change. The first five coordinate with specific Principles of Design and thread through different experiences of the human condition. The sixth piece concludes the series, yet it is separate conceptually. The concept of the final piece strays from looking outward into the world of human souls to looking inward as a self-portrait of unseen emotion. After all, the meaning of one’s human condition originates in the Self.
Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms

The lower urinary tract refers to the urogenital organs anatomically located in the pelvis and perineum that have direct bearing on the content, storage, and flow of urine beyond the ureterovesical junction and from the urinary bladder through the external urethral meatus. These structures include the urinary bladder, bladder neck and internal and external sphincters, and the urethra in both males and females. There are multiple adjacent organs differing in males and females which are significantly important parts of the lower urinary tract both structurally and functionally. Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) can arise from a variety of problems related to the structural or functional anomalies of the lower urinary tract. The Benign prostatic hypertropy (BPH), overactive bladder, prostatic cancer, infections, urethral stricture and cancers involving other organs including bladder, and urethra. This chapter outlines a systematic approach to diagnosing and managing LUTS
Advances of studies on biological control of plant-parasitic nematode by bacteria

Advances of studies on biological control of plant-parasitic nematode by bacteria,about bacteria species,action mechanisms,biological characters and control were reviewed,and its future research was also prospected.
Erythroid colony stimulating and inhibiting cells in peripheral blood of transfused dogs: separation of function by velocity sedimentation

We have previously shown that the addition of normal dog peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) to cultures of allogeneic marrow increases the number of marrow-derived erythroid colonies (EC), but that PBL from transfused dogs usually inhibit EC growth from marrow of the transfusion donor. In this study, the cells in normal dog PBL responsible for stimulating EC growth were shown to sediment in a narrow peak at 4.30 mm/hr. A similar population of stimulating cells exists in transfused dogs and can be separated, on the basis of size, from cells that inhibit EC growth. EC-stimulating cells from transfused dog PBL sediment at 3.3--5.0 mm/hr, while cells responsible for inhibition are larger and sediment more rapidly at 5.4--8.1 mm/hr. These data demonstrate that cells capable of stimulating allogeneic EC are present in transfused dogs, but their stimulating ability is masked by the presence of EC-inhibiting cells. Thus, coculture experiments designed to test lymphocyte/marrow cell interactions may miss significant but opposing effects if unfractionated cells are used.
Defining “Word” in Modern Greek: A response to Philippaki-Warburton & Spyropoulos 1999

The construct word plays a key role in linguistic theorizing. For instance, there are theories of syntax that are entirely word-based, such as “Word Grammar” (Hudson 1984), as well as theories in which the distinction between a word and a non-word has consequences for other aspects of the grammar. Relevant to this latter point, for instance, is Government-Binding theory, where the operation of the rule of Verb Raising moves elements to attach to affixes but not to attach to words, as in the analysis of Rivero 1990 on the structure underlying the generation of Albanian and Greek nonactive voice forms. Moreover, there are principles, such as Lexical Integrity (cf. Bresnan & Mchombo 1995, Harris 2000, Kanerva 1987, among others, for discussion pro and con), which rules out the possibility of a syntactic rule operating into or disrupting a properly constituted word, that are defined in terms of word.
Universal Cosmopolitanism in Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence

Following the attack on the World Trade Center and other events on September 11, 2001, commonly known as 9/11, Salman Rushdie’s writing took a sharp turn to the right, as alarmed and disappointed critics have noticed. Due to a number of non-fiction pieces written for The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, wherein Rushdie expressed unequivocal support of the United States’s war on terror(ism), as well as Rushdie’s acceptance of a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II (2007), critics such as Sabina Sawhney and Simona Sawhney wonder: “Where is the writer of The Satanic Verses?” (433).2 Robert Spencer deals with this issue by insisting that Rushdie’s twenty-first- century non-fiction must now be distinguished from the cosmopolitanism he praises so highly in Rushdie’s previous fiction. (Spencer too extends The Satanic Verses as the exemplary representation of Rushdie’s previously praiseworthy features.) Like Spencer, Pranav Jani resolves to distinguish Rushdie’s (early) fiction from his recent non-fiction: “[W]hatever Rushdie’s current ideas and however problematic his canonization, his novels, especially the early ones, remain crucial contributions” (12).
Achieving Flexibility via Service-Centric Community Source: The Case of Kuali

Service-centric application development has become one of the most important paradigms in software engineering, and collaborative open source development has emerged as a new way for organizations to develop new applications that are either not available or too expensive to acquire. A most recent trend is to combine service centricity with open source development collaborated by multiple organizations to develop scalable and flexible information systems. However, service centricity and open source collaboration involve innovative concepts and practices that are very new to many. As such, there are a lot of confusion among both researchers and practitioners in this area. In this paper, we investigate several important concepts surrounding service-centric open source development via the case of Kuali including service-oriented architecture, workflow technology, and technology flexibility as well as the relationships among those concepts. In particular, we concentrate on understanding the relationships between technology flexibility and emerging technologies. One important contribution of this paper is the introduction of community source as a unique open source concept to the MIS community. Finally, we report several research findings and outline a number of research directions in the related areas.
Topographic variability and the influence of soil erosion on the carbon cycle

Soil erosion, particularly that caused by agriculture, is closely linked to the global carbon (C) cycle. There is a wide range of contrasting global estimates of how erosion alters soil-atmosphere C exchange. This can be partly attributed to limited understanding of how geomorphology, topography, and management practices affect erosion and oxidation of soil organic C (SOC). This work presents a physically based approach that stresses the heterogeneity at fine spatial scales of SOC erosion, SOC burial, and associated soil-atmosphere C fluxes. The Holcombe's Branch watershed, part of the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory in South Carolina, USA, is the case study used. The site has experienced some of the most serious agricultural soil erosion in North America. We use SOC content measurements from contrasting soil profiles and estimates of SOC oxidation rates at multiple soil depths. The methodology was implemented in the tRIBS-ECO (Triangulated Irregular Network-based Real-time Integrated Basin Simulator-Erosion and Carbon Oxidation), a spatially and depth-explicit model of SOC dynamics built within an existing coupled physically based hydro-geomorphic model. According to observations from multiple soil profiles, about 32% of the original SOC content has been eroded in the study area. The results indicate that C erosion and its replacement exhibit significant topographic variation at relatively small scales (tens of meters). The episodic representation of SOC erosion reproduces the history of SOC erosion better than models that use an assumption of constant erosion in space and time. The net atmospheric C exchange at the study site is estimated to range from a maximum source of 14.5 g m−2 yr−1 to a maximum sink of −18.2 g m−2 yr−1. The small-scale complexity of C erosion and burial driven by topography exerts a strong control on the landscape's capacity to serve as a C source or a sink.
Mechanical Ruling of Diffraction Grating: Part I — Aluminum Film Preparation and Characterization

This is Part I of a two part series study on mechanical ruling of diffraction grating. Mechanical ruling is a major method for fabricating diffraction grating. In mechanical ruling, the first step is to prepare the Al film. High quality preparation technique is needed to satisfy the requirements of the thickness and the mechanical properties of the film. The purpose of this paper is to present a complete study on the preparation technique and mechanical properties of the Al film used for mechanical ruling of diffraction grating. XRD and SEM experiments and analysis were conducted to investigate the microstructure of the Al film and the mechanical properties of the Al film were measured using nanoindentation and scratch tests. The Al film exhibits favorable mechanical properties which will the key for the experimental and numerical simulation studies of mechanical ruling of diffraction grating.Copyright © 2016 by ASME
Person-Centered Patient Perspectives

Person-centered care is an approach that places the whole person at the centre of healthcare. The principles of person-centered psychiatry therefore involve a holistic approach which focuses on an individual as a whole person. Person-centered psychiatry considers a person’s beliefs and wishes with regards to their health and their lives as a starting point to goal setting and decision-making about treatment and care. This approach requires respectful and trusting relationships between individuals with mental health conditions and the health and social care team so that they can have a two-way dialogue and participate in shared decision making. The principles of person-centered care are outlined in declarations and definitions developed by health professionals, academics, policy-makers and patients. This chapter will consider person-centered psychiatry from a patient perspective; exploring questions such as: what are the principles put forward for person-centered care? how do these principles align with what patients want? and what are the opportunities for person-centered psychiatry in the future?
Factory as Environment: Industrial Hygiene, Professional Collaboration and the Modern Sciences of Pollution

During her 1916 study of the munitions industry for the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, pioneer industrial disease investigator Alice Hamilton devised a crude but ingenious way of locating out-of-theway plants. She learned that factories producing picric acid or nitrocellulose emptied huge orange and yellow clouds into the sky. Hamilton came to recognize the kind of damage this smoke could have upon the surrounding countryside: how, for example, the landscape surrounding one New Jersey plant "for wide stretches...lay blackened and festering in the sunlight."' Yet for Alice Hamilton, these ominous effects pointed mainly toward the dire events unfolding inside the munitions factories. She followed the colorful but destructive smoke "like the pillar of cloud by day that guided the children of Israel," to track down workers poisoned from contact with nitrous
Management of Preexisting Inflatable Penile Prosthesis During Radical Retropubic Prostatectomy

A potentially difficult technical situation exists when a man with a functioning inflatable penile prosthesis elects radical prostatectomy as treatment for localized prostate cancer. Between February 1988 and June 1991 we encountered 8 men with a preexisting inflatable penile prosthesis who subsequently underwent radical retropubic prostatectomy. In 2 patients the reservoir portion of the prosthesis was in the perivesical space such that radical prostatectomy could be performed without difficulty. However, in 6 patients removal of the reservoir was necessary to complete the prostatectomy. In 3 of these 6 patients the reservoir was replaced at 3 to 6 months after radical prostatectomy and all 3 systems function well. The remaining 3 patients have not yet elected replacement of the reservoir. Only 1 patient had an infection and a complication attributable to the prosthesis. We believe that a preexisting inflatable penile prosthesis should not preclude successful radical retropubic prostatectomy, although temporary removal of the reservoir may be required.
The Devil You Know

This chapter focuses on the intersection of AET tradeoff preferences (i.e., local environmental versus global warming considerations), political orientations, climate change beliefs, and political efficacy. The chapter will begin with a discussion of the role of political orientations in shaping views about climate change and climate change science—in particular, the claims of some that opposition to AET as a replacement for reduced carbon-based fuel use is a political position and not one associated with environmental attitudes themselves. This chapter’s findings suggest that indeed political orientations—more specifically liberal/conservative political ideology--are an important predictor of AET tradeoffs, but fail to erase the impact of the New Ecological Paradigm.
Relationship development in selling: A cognitive analysis

Recent research has suggested that trust and relationship-building contribute to the effectiveness of salespeople. This paper reviews the literature on the cognitive selling paradigm and the influence of knowledge structures on the relationship-building process. Next, two recent studies (Anglin 1990; Szymanski 1987) which investigated knowledge, relationship development, and sales performance are reviewed. The findings from these studies imply that a fundamental difference may exist in the manner in which higher and lower performing salespeople perceive the selling process. Higher performers placed greater emphasis on establishing “trust” and also preferred to find out information about the prospect before reciprocating with information about themselves. Lower performers, on the other hand, preferred to disclose information about themselves before obtaining personal information about the prospect.
Revision Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Outcomes at a Minimum of 5-Year Follow-Up: A Systematic Review

Revision anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction typically has worse outcomes than primary reconstructions. Minimal long-term data exist regarding 5-year results. We chose to perform a systematic review to evaluate midterm (5-year) revision ACL reconstruction outcomes (patient-reported outcomes, reoperation, stability, arthritis) in comparison to primary ACL reconstructions at similar time points. Embase, Cochrane, and PubMed databases were queried, and four studies met the inclusion criteria. Two authors reviewed and performed data extraction. All were level 4 studies. Review of the studies demonstrated that results at 5 years are consistently worse than those noted in primary reconstructions for objective and patient-reported outcomes. Revision ACL reconstruction outcomes remain worse than primary reconstructions at midterm 5-year follow-up. The level of evidence is 4.
Poly[tetraphenylphosphonium copper(I)‐di‐μ2‐dicyanamido]

In the title compound, {l_brace}(C{sub 24}H{sub 20}P)[Cu(C{sub 2}N{sub 3}){sub 2}]{r_brace}{sub n}, the copper(I) dicyanamide anion forms a distorted three-dimensional single diamondoid network. Templating tetraphenylphosphonium cations reside within the cavities of the polymeric anion.
Sorption of Benzene, Dichloromethane, and n-Propyl Acetate by Poly(methyl methacrylate)/ Polystyrene Copolymers at 323.15 K Using a Quartz Crystal Balance

Solvent activity versus solvent weight fraction are reported for benzene, dichloromethane and n-propyl acetate in each of two different poly(methyl methacrylate)–polystyrene copolymers and for dichloromethane and n-propyl acetate in polystyrene homopolymer. Results were obtained at 323.15 K for low solvent weight fractions using a quartz crystal balance. A modified Flory–Huggins equation is used to interpret the data.
Genius Conquers and Despises the Establishment: Newton

No great mathematician is so difficult to study as Newton. For Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, and Huygens, monumental editions have printed, explained, and interconnected every remaining scrap of paper; for the Bernoullis and Leibniz, such editions have begun; for Lagrange, Laplace, and Cauchy, all the published works have been re-issued in collected editions, in which some letters and personal documents are included; and the great Euler edition of seventy-four part-volumes, also limited in the main to republication, is nearing its end; while every French nineteenth-century figure with any kind of a name (except, unfortunately, Navier, Poisson, and St. Venant) has been honored by a collection. The only edition of the works of Newton was printed nearly 200 years ago; not only far from complete, it is not trustworthy in what it does print. There is not even a critical edition of the Principia, let alone a collection of documents and analyses revealing its growth and antecedents. The text of the only easily available English translation is revised without understanding and annotated with puerilities. In such lack of published sources it is no wonder that the histories of mathematics continue to parrot hoary hagiography and Victorian twaddle about the man who is usually made a hero of “the scientific revolution”.
Making the Best Better: 4-H and Rural Anxiety in the Early Twentieth Century

Responding to the problems of the Gilded Age, the early twentieth century was a time of disorder and intense reform. It was during this time that an association known as 4-H made an appearance in American society. Although today 4-H is a large organization with chapters across the nation and beyond, the origin of this club is still a mystery. Even as America’s rural population slowly moved toward urban areas, this club spread rapidly across the South and the Midwest. This thesis will investigate why 4-H was born and how it was able to expand so quickly in Iowa in the years from 1900 to 1920. It will address the general anxiety that grew in rural areas (caused by depopulation) and the steps people took to stop the population shift. The thesis will then discuss the birth of 4-H in Iowa’s schools, the gradual merging of Iowa State’s Extension Service and 4-H school clubs, and final break between Iowa’s educational system and the organization. Finally, the thesis will end with a discussion of 4-H’s World War One years and 4-H adaptation of rural gender norms. Ultimately, this thesis will argue that 4-H was part of the Progressive Movement and that the club became well accepted by the rural community because it filled a need left by the depopulation of the
Index Severity Score and Early Readmission Predicts Increased Mortality in Ulcerative Colitis Patients.

BACKGROUND Readmissions are common after hospitalization related to ulcerative colitis (UC). A risk score to stratify the severity of UC hospitalizations and risk of colectomy has been previously reported. Our aim was to predict hospital-related outcomes after hospitalizations for UC utilizing this severity score. METHODS We utilized the Nationwide Readmissions Database (2010-2014) for hospitalized patients with UC and differentiated patients by index severity (low, intermediate, high). Baseline characteristics, surgical rates, readmissions, mortality, and hospital outcomes were collected. The primary outcomes of interest included readmission and mortality rates. RESULTS There were 133,819 patients admitted with UC with 22,762 (17%) readmitted within 30 days. Those readmitted within 30 days had a 4.5% calendar year mortality rate, compared with 0.45% in those not readmitted within 30 days (P < 0.001). Index surgery rates (19.2% vs 12.3%), length of stay (6.9 vs 5.4 days), and hospital costs ($13,530 vs $10,366; P < 0.001 for all) were higher in those readmitted within 30 days. Patients with high-severity presentations had higher surgical rates (31.6%), higher 30-day and calendar year readmission rates (24.3% and 46.0%, respectively), increased index and calendar year mortality (2.5% and 2.0%, respectively), longer length of stay (15.1 days), and increased costs ($31,136) compared with those with low severity (P < 0.001 for all). Calendar-year survival rates in those with intermediate and high scores were significantly lower than in those with low scores. CONCLUSIONS An index severity score of intermediate or high and early readmissions are predictors of calendar year mortality. Future efforts should emphasize more focused care in high-risk patients, as this may reduce readmissions and improve outcomes.
Differences in Medicare Utilization and Expenditures in the Last Six Months of Life among Patients with and without Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders.

Abstract Background: Previous research has not focused on differences at the end of life among Medicare beneficiaries with, and without, a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (AD...
The economics of geoengineering

Abstract Geoengineering provides an alternative strategy from abatement to counteract or mask impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Geoengineering strategies can be classified as either solar radiation management (SRM) or carbon dioxide removal (CDR). SRM strategies are cheap, quick, but imperfect. CDR strategies are expensive, slow, but perfect and can generate negative net emissions. High abatement costs and shared global benefits have created a free-rider problem, but properties of geoengineering have the potential to disrupt that impasse. Geoengineering can also introduce new problems through additional risks and uncertainties. Even if the use of geoengineering is found to be optimal, strategic decision making may produce suboptimal outcomes. Over the past decade, research has examined if geoengineering is a serious alternative and when the benefits of using it outweigh the costs.
Parent and Child Depression: Moderated Mediation by Gender and Harsh Parenting in Emerging Adults:

Parental depression has been associated with psychological problems in offspring. It was hypothesized that harsh parenting would mediate this relationship and that gender differences would suggest ...
Spark-uDAPL: Cost-Saving Big Data Analytics on Microsoft Azure Cloud with RDMA Networks *

Efficient Big Data analytics on Cloud Computing systems is still full of challenges. One of the biggest hurdles is the unsatisfactory performance offered by underlying virtualized I/O devices such as networks. To address this issue, the modern cloud resource providers (e.g., Microsoft Azure) have deployed high-performance networks, such as Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) capable networks in their clouds. However, in this paper, we find that by far, the RDMA networks on Microsoft Azure cannot support either IPoIB or native standard Verbs-based RDMA protocols. Instead, applications need to use the uDAPL (i.e., user Direct Access Programming Library) interface to enable RDMA communication on Azure Cloud, which makes impossible for modern Big Data stacks to leverage these high-performance networks as none of them can support the uDAPL interface yet. To address this issue, we first design an efficient uDAPL-based communication library with the best combinations of uDAPL communication operations. Then, we adapt the designed uDAPL library into the Hadoop RPC ping-pong message passing engine and the Spark Shuffle engine for bulk data transferring. Through our designs, we can improve the performance of Big Data analytics workloads with Hadoop RPC and Spark on RDMA-enabled Azure VMs by up to 90% and 82%, respectively, and save users’ cloud resource renting cost by 4.24x. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to design a uDAPL-based RDMA communication engine for Big Data analytics stacks (e.g., Spark).
Impact of microbiome manipulation on age-related inflammation and immune system dysfunction

The aging process can be described as a disease characterized by increasing inflammation and declining immune function. Gut microbiota may impact this process, as it is altered with both disease and advanced age. We examined if gut microbiota from young animals could reduce inflammation, cellular senescence, and immune system dysfunction in older animals. To do so, we performed fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) from young (14 weeks) to groups of young, middle-aged (50 weeks), and old (100 weeks) Balb/c mice. Groups (n=5) were pre-treated with ampicillin for 3 weeks followed by oral gavage with freshly homogenized fecal material (FMT groups) or PBS and euthanized 3 weeks later. Fecal samples were collected over time for microbial analyses. Small intestines, cecum, and colons were collected for gross and microscopic analyses. To examine changes to systemic immunity, splenic and whole blood B- and T-cells were stained for surface and intracellular marker expression (i.e. activation levels, senescence) by flow cytometry. Overall, PBS control groups showed classic age-related effects. This included signs of molecular dysfunction in oldest mice with altered levels of the NfkB inhibitor IkBz and increased senescence subsets (P16INK4a+, β-gal+). A single FMT treatment had the most dramatic effects vs. PBS controls in older mice compared to other age groups. While treatment significantly reduced IkBz and microbial-sensing TLR2 expression, FMT did not have visible impact on cellular senescence. These results reinforce a critical role for the microbiome in age-related immune decline and suggest a regimen of FMT from healthy young subjects may be a potential strategy to lower chronic inflammation and improve immune function in the elderly.
Notes on Visit: Working as an Artist in the Independent Study Program∗

Writing on the occasion of the Whitney Independent Study Program's fiftieth anniversary, artist Sharon Hayes interrogates the physical and temporal sites of the ISP as a means of elaborating on the...
Advocacy Planning in the Age of Trump: An Opportunity to Influence National Urban Policy

In the years following World War II, the United States experienced a period of unmatched economic prosperity and political influence, which many scholars refer to as ‘Pax Americana.’ While the majo...
Dislocation Generation by Microparticle Inclusions

Microscopic inclusions are common sources of dislocations in solution-grown crystals, but the correspondence between the size and shape of inclusions and the probability of dislocation generation h...
Reflections: US Coronavirus Crisis Management--Learning from Failure Donald Trump and More, January-April, 2020

This article, drawing from news accounts, examines US coronavirus crisis management from January through April, 2020. Focused on the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, it looks at failings with regard to: 1) early warning signals, 2) pandemic preparation, 3) virus testing, 4) crisis coordination, 5) communication, and 6) systemic challenges. These failings are considered through the lenses of crisis prevention, change management, and high reliability organization. Recommendations are advanced on how to prepare for and respond to future crises and pandemics
Viscoelastic microfluidics: progress and challenges.

The manipulation of cells and particles suspended in viscoelastic fluids in microchannels has drawn increasing attention, in part due to the ability for single-stream three-dimensional focusing in simple channel geometries. Improvement in the understanding of non-Newtonian effects on particle dynamics has led to expanding exploration of focusing and sorting particles and cells using viscoelastic microfluidics. Multiple factors, such as the driving forces arising from fluid elasticity and inertia, the effect of fluid rheology, the physical properties of particles and cells, and channel geometry, actively interact and compete together to govern the intricate migration behavior of particles and cells in microchannels. Here, we review the viscoelastic fluid physics and the hydrodynamic forces in such flows and identify three pairs of competing forces/effects that collectively govern viscoelastic migration. We discuss migration dynamics, focusing positions, numerical simulations, and recent progress in viscoelastic microfluidic applications as well as the remaining challenges. Finally, we hope that an improved understanding of viscoelastic flows in microfluidics can lead to increased sophistication of microfluidic platforms in clinical diagnostics and biomedical research. Insights into the dynamic behavior of biological fluids on the microscale are enabling more efficient analysis of cells, bacteria, and other small biological particles for research and clinical diagnostics. Blood, saliva and other biofluids have viscoelastic properties, which means that they exhibit both viscous and elastic behaviors depending on the forces to which they are subjected. These properties shape the migration behaviors of suspended bioparticles in unique ways. Jian Zhou and Ian Papautsky of the University of Illinois at Chicago have reviewed current progress in understanding the migration behaviors in such fluids within microfluidic devices. The authors discuss design principles that have enabled the development of microfluidic systems capable of separating and purifying cells, bacteria, and small vesicles from highly heterogeneous biological specimens, and highlight future challenges that need to be addressed.
A Close Examination of the Use of Systolic Time Intervals in the Calculation of Impedance Derived Cardiac Autonomic Balance and Regulation

Author(s): Wiley, Cameron Ross | Advisor(s): Thayer, Julian F. | Abstract: Traditionally, impedance derived measures of cardiac autonomic balance (CAB) and regulation (CAR) are calculated using indices of heart rate variability (HRV) that primarily reflect parasympathetic nervous system activity (e.g., high-frequency HRV | HF-HRV or HF) and pre-ejection period (PEP; a systolic time interval and measure of sympathetic activity). However, HF-HRV and PEP are considered measures of chronotropic and inotropic cardiac influence, respectively. Left ventricular ejection time (LVET) is a systolic time interval that reflects sympathetic chronotropic influence, and therefore may be a more appropriate measure for calculating CAB and CAR compared to PEP. Thus, the current study evaluates both PEP and LVET in the calculation of CAB and CAR. Data from 158 healthy participants (mean age = 19.09 years old, SD = 1.84 years) were available for analyses. CAB and CAR values were calculated using both HF-HRV and the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), in addition to both PEP and LVET, in accordance with previously established guidelines. Analyses showed that correlations were significantly weaker between CAB and CAR calculated using LVET for both HF (z = 5.12, p l .001) and RMSSD (z = 5.26, p l .001) than with PEP. These data suggest that LVET, compared to PEP, provides better “autonomic space” as evidenced by a lack of correlation between CAB and CAR computed using LVET. We stress that future research consider calculating CAB and CAR using chronotropic measures for both parasympathetic and sympathetic activity, as doing so may yield more accurate and independent measures of cardiac autonomic activity compared to a mixture of inotropic (i.e., PEP) and chronotropic (i.e., HF-HRV) measures.
Contributions of occupation characteristics and educational attainment to racial/ethnic inequities in COVID-19 mortality

Background: Racial/ethnic inequities in COVID-19 mortality are hypothesized to be driven by education and occupation, but limited empirical evidence has assessed these mechanisms. Objective: To quantify the extent to which educational attainment and occupation explain racial/ethnic inequities in COVID-19 mortality. Design: Observational cohort. Setting: California. Participants: Californians aged 18-65 years. Measurements: We linked all COVID-19-confirmed deaths in California through February 12, 2021 (N=14,783), to population estimates within strata defined by race/ethnicity, sex, age, USA nativity, region of residence, education, and occupation. We characterized occupations using measures related to COVID-19 exposure including essential sector, telework-ability, and wages. Using sex-stratified regressions, we predicted COVID-19 mortality by race/ethnicity if all races/ethnicities had the same education and occupation distribution as White people and if all people held the safest educational/occupational positions. Results: COVID-19 mortality per 100,000 ranged from 15 for White and Asian females to 139 for Latinx males. Accounting for differences in age, nativity, and region, if all races/ethnicities had the education and occupation distribution of Whites, COVID-19 mortality would be reduced for Latinx males (-22%) and females (-23%), and Black males (-1%) and females (-8%), but increased for Asian males (+22%) and females (+23%). Additionally, if all individuals had the COVID-19 mortality associated with the safest educational and occupational position (Bachelor9s degree, non-essential, telework, highest wage quintile), there would have been 57% fewer COVID-19 deaths. Conclusion: Educational and occupational disadvantage are important risk factors for COVID-19 mortality across all racial/ethnic groups, especially Latinx individuals. Eliminating avoidable excess risk associated with low-education, essential, on-site, and low-wage jobs may reduce COVID-19 mortality and inequities, but is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve equity.
2 In Vitro Analysis: 2.1 Isolation and Preparation of Lymphocytes from Infected Animals

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the isolation and preparation of lymphocytes from infected animals. Lymphocytes are the cells that provide specificity to host defense. Identifying the phenotype and antigen specificity of lymphocytes that have been isolated from animals infected with microbial agents is integral to understanding protective immunity. There are various methods of isolating, purifying, and characterizing lymphocytes from the tissues of infected animals. The unperturbed peritoneal cavity contains a mixed population of mononuclear cells. Neutrophils and eosinophils should be present in very low numbers. Mast cells are a minority population, but are conspicuous because of their large basophilic granules. Lymph node cell suspensions contain B and T lymphocytes, as well as macrophages, dendritic cells, and stromal cells. The numbers of lymphocytes recovered from lymph nodes depend on which nodes are collected and whether there has been recent antigen stimulation. Mononuclear phagocytes obtained from different tissue sites are all adherent, but can differ in how strongly they adhere. Cells activated at the sites of inflammation in vivo are more adherent than resident cells.