cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pharmacist–Technician Teamwork in Hypertension Management Services in Community Pharmacies: Effects of Team Composition and Environmental Factors

Expanding patient care in community pharmacy necessitates effective pharmacy team efforts. This paper examines pharmacist-technician teams and examines whether team composition and environmental factors influenced team agreement and communication regarding a novel hypertension management program. Methods: Data were gathered via self-administered survey completed by each member of 12 pharmacist–technician pairs. Analysis used Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). Outcome measures were: 1) team agreement on (a) technician tasks and (b) pharmacist tasks and 2) team communication. Two types of conditions (i.e., potential predictors) were examined: team composition (indicated by pharmacist experience and pharmacist experience relative to technician experience) and environmental factors (indicated by auxiliary support in the pharmacy, pharmacy workload, and economic status of the neighborhood). Outcomes and conditions were constructed in continuous fuzzy sets for analysis. A plausible causal configuration was deemed relevant if at least one case exhibited this particular configuration; a configurationwas considered a sufficient solution for an outcome it met the consistency benchmark (set at 0.9). Results: Team agreement on technician tasks was higher when: (1) a pharmacist was paired with a more senior technician in a pharmacy that had higher auxiliary support and (2) an experienced pharmacist worked in a low-workload pharmacy in a less affluent neighborhood. Agreement on pharmacist tasks was higher when: (1) a pharmacy had a low workload and higher auxiliary support and (2) an inexperienced pharmacist was in a low-workload pharmacy in a more affluent neighborhood. Only one configuration was associated with the two communication variables. The team had more discussion about tasks when the pharmacist was more senior than the technician. Greater communication was reported when the pharmacist was more senior and the pharmacy had greater auxiliary support. Conclusions: Results begin to identify team composition and pharmacy environment factors that promote (or impede) team agreement. They suggest ways to enhance pharmacy team-building.
Strategic modeling of the neonatal nurse practitioner workforce

Abstract Background Neonatal nurse practitioners (NNPs) play a vital role in the medical care of newborns and infants. There is expected to be a shortage of NNPs in the near future. Purpose To assess the present NNP workforce and study the impact of potential policy changes to alleviate forecasted shortages. Methods We modeled the education and workforce system for NNPs. Forecasting models were combined with optimal decision-making to derive best-case scenario admission levels for graduate and undergraduate programs. Discussion Under the best-case scenario for the current system, the shortage of NNPs is expected to last 10 years. We analyzed the impact of improving the certification examination passing rate, increasing the annual growth rate of master's programs, and reducing the workforce annual attrition rate. We found that policy changes may reduce the forecasted shortage to 4 years. Conclusion Present forecasts of demand for NNPs indicate that the existing workforce and education system will be unable to satisfy the growing demand. Policy changes may reduce the expected shortage and potentially improve access to care for newborns and infants.
Pharmacokinetic Drug Interactions with Tobacco, Cannabinoids and Smoking Cessation Products

Tobacco smoke contains a large number of compounds in the form of metals, volatile gases and insoluble particles, as well as nicotine, a highly addictive alkaloid. Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug of abuse in the world, with a significant increase in the USA due to the increasing number of states that allow medical and recreational use. Of the over 70 phytocannabinoids in marijuana, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and cannibinol are the three main constituents. Both marijuana and tobacco smoking induce cytochrome P450 (CYP) 1A2 through activation of the aromatic hydrocarbon receptor, and the induction effect between the two products is additive. Smoking cessation is associated with rapid downregulation of CYP1A enzymes. On the basis of the estimated half-life of CYP1A2, dose reduction of CYP1A drugs may be necessary as early as the first few days after smoking cessation to prevent toxicity, especially for drugs with a narrow therapeutic index. Nicotine is a substrate of CYP2A6, which is induced by oestrogen, resulting in lower concentrations of nicotine in females than in males, especially in females taking oral contraceptives. The significant effects of CYP3A4 inducers and inhibitors on the pharmacokinetics of Δ9THC/CBD oromucosal spray suggest that CYP3A4 is the primary enzyme responsible for the metabolism of Δ9THC and CBD. Limited data also suggest that CBD may significantly inhibit CYP2C19. With the increasing use of marijuana and cannabis products, clinical studies are needed in order to determine the effects of other drugs on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.
Useful radiation effects

Radiation in the form of gamma rays, beta particles, and neutrons is being used in science and industry to achieve desirable changes. Radiation doses control offending organisms including harmful bacteria and cancer cells and sterilize or kill insects. Local energy deposition can also stimulate chemical reactions and modify the structure of plastics and semiconductors. Neutrons are used to investigate basic physical and biological processes. This chapter describes some of the important applications of radiation. The use of radiation for medical therapy has increased greatly in recent years. The radiation comes from teletherapy units in which the source is at some distance from the target, from isotopes in sealed containers implanted in the body, or from ingested solutions of radionuclides. Doses of radiation are found to be effective in the treatment of diseases such as cancer. Treatment of disease by implantation of a radionuclide is called interstitial brachytherapy. Research has shown that gamma radiation processing can serve as an economical, safe, and effective substitute and supplement for existing treatments. The shelf-life of certain foods can be extended from days to weeks, allowing adequate time for transportation and distribution. It has been estimated that 20 to 50 percent of the food supplied to certain countries is wasted by spoilage that could be prevented by radiation treatment.
Linear power amplifier for high frequency ultrasound coded excitation imaging

Commercial function generators and power amplifiers are generally used in high frequency coded excitation imaging systems. In order to minimize size, reduce external noise and deliver transmit energy to transducer efficiently in a system with the coded excitation, digital waveform generator and power amplifier should be placed on a single board. The pulser with capability of doing arbitrary waveform amplification was custom-designed and developed for a high frequency coded excitation imaging system. The matching of input stage was achieved by transmission line transformer (TLT) with ferrite core. Using TLT, matching circuit became simple otherwise it would require matching circuit using lumped components. Transformers were used between stages. The 6dB bandwidth of developed amplifier was from 10MHz to 110MHz. In the pass band, the gain of amplifier fluctuated within 4dB. Wire target measurements and ex-vivo measurements on tissues clearly demonstrated its superior performance.
Quickest detection of nuclear radiation using a sensor network

In the future, the nuclear threat is less likely from a massive nuclear attack, but more likely from crude devices, such as dirty bombs perpetrated by an individual or group of terrorists. Detection and prevention of these nuclear devices are critical to the safety and security of the general population. In general, the research of detecting various radioactive sources using individual sensors has been well established in terms of both detection devices and detection methods, most of which are dedicated to single or co-located sensor systems. Large monitoring systems at choke points (e.g. commercial airports and harbors) can prevent the entry or exit of nuclear sources. However, it cannot protect a perimeter that spans a large area, such as land and sea borders. Furthermore, in many practical scenarios, it is desirable to detect low-level radiation and identify low-level radioactive sources. Recent advances in sensor network technologies have opened up the potential for improved detection, as well as the estimation of source parameters, by utilizing measurements from multiple, geographically dispersed sensors. Different from the existing works on radiation detection using sensor networks, in this paper, we focus on the quickest detection method that would identify nuclear radiation as soon as possible after it occurs, while keep the false alarm rate low. Specifically, we propose that each sensor performs a nonparametric version of the Page's Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) test based on its local measurements, since the occurrence of the nuclear radiation is unpredictable and we assume that we do not have prior knowledge of the adversary (e.g., who carries a dirty bomb). Then the local decisions from multiple sensors are sent to a fusion center for combining and a final decision is made. We present numerical results to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme using the experimental measurements from a COTS detectors in our lab.
Does arsenic require a carcinogenic partner

Publisher Summary Arsenic (As) contamination of drinking water is a worldwide problem. Chronic As exposure is of concern mainly because of its carcinogenic effects. A number of studies have shown synergy between arsenic and other environmental contaminants in the induction of cancers. The increase in cancer risk observed in epidemiological studies is attributed mainly to the presence of inorganic trivalent As. The association between skin cancer and As ingestion in drinking water was seen in studies in Taiwan, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. The development of an animal model for As-related carcinogenesis now makes it possible to study the molecular mechanism of arsenic's carcinogenicity in depth and develop chemopreventive strategies. In vitro studies have led to the hypothesis that arsenite acts as a cocarcinogen by blocking DNA repair and enhancing cell proliferation through unique signaling mechanisms. The blocking of DNA repair may occur via a signaling event that controls DNA repair or may result from the enhanced cell proliferation, thus forcing the cell to replicate damaged DNA.
Abstract P501: Editing of Myosin Phosphatase Gene as a Novel Approach for Vasodilator Sensitization and Lowering of Blood Pressure

Myosin Phosphatase (MP) is the primary effector of vascular smooth muscle (VSM) relaxation and a key end target of signaling pathways that regulate vessel tone. Regulated splicing of alternative Exon24 (E24) of Myosin Phosphatase Regulatory/ Targeting subunit (MYPT1) sets vasodilator sensitivity. Skipping E24 codes for a Mypt1 isoform that contains a C-terminal leucine zipper (LZ) motif required for cGK1α binding and NO/cGMP activation of MP resulting in vasodilation. Inclusion of 31 nt E24 shifts the reading frame coding for a Mypt1 isoform with a distinct C-terminus (LZ-) that is unresponsive to NO/cGMP. We are using two editing approaches to test the function of Mypt1 E24 splice variants in the control of BP in vivo. First, LoxP sites were inserted in introns flanking E24, crossed with smMHCCre ER , and treated with Tamoxifen to achieve smooth muscle-specific cKO of E24 (SMcKO E24), thereby converting Mypt1 to the LZ+ isoform. E24 cKO mice had mean BP that was 15+3 mmHg lower than control (n=3-5; p 50 : 2.1+0.5 nM vs 18.2+5.6 μM; n=5-6, p 10%,>60%) and cross-species conservation. Plasmids were generated by sub-cloning of oligonucleotides into the parent pX601 plasmid for the purpose of co-expression of gRNA and saCas9. These plasmids were transfected into HEK293 cells singly and in combinations and Mypt1 gene editing assayed by PCR, Surveyor nuclease assays and sequencing of genomic DNA. Single gRNAs yielded deletions of 1-3 nt. Combinations yielded deletions of 104-334 nt that removed >80% of E24 with an efficiency of editing that varied from 10% (gRNAs 6+9 and 5+9) to 40% (gRNAs 6+11 and 5+11). We have now generated AAVgE24 and are testing their efficiency of editing of VSM in vivo. These studies support that AAV mediated CRISPR/Cas9 editing of Mypt1 E24 could be a novel strategy for vasodilator sensitization and effective lowering of blood pressure in humans.
The Improvement of Food Quality and Safety of Fish Skin Crackers in Serangan Bali

Indonesia’s government is attempting to improve the leading economic sectors such as the fishing industry, together with its processed products that could strengthen the national economy. Therefore, small industries should be able to improve the quality and security of their products for consumers’ assurance. Fish Skin Cracker is one of the products from domestic industry in Serangan, Bali, which made from Tuna and Shark. Those kinds of crackers are processed by adding spices, in which the spices would be different among processors and result in different quality. This research was aimed to investigate the best-quality fish skin cracker among the processors, based on the microbiological, chemical, and organoleptic analyzes. This research used Descriptive Method. Based on the results of analyzes, it was discovered that the best Tuna Skin Crackers were those from processor number 2 with values of quality analyzes; Moisture Content 6.1%, Ash Content 0.04%, Protein Content 59.33%, Fat Content 25.98%, TVB 14.21mg N %, TMA 7.45mg N%, Micro Analysis 4.9 x 104 Colony/gr, Organoleptic rates: texture 6, taste 7, aroma 6, and color 6. Processor number 2 used garlic, salt, and flavor enhancer as the seasoning. Meanwhile, the best Shark Skin Crackers were those from Processor number 5 with values of quality analyzes; Moisture Content 9.3%, Ash Content 0.04%, Protein Content 86.94%, Fat Content 3.7%, TVB 20.08mg N%, TMA 10.64mg N%, Micro Analysis 2.1 x 104 colony/gr, Organoleptic rates: texture 6, taste 6, smell 6, and color 6. Processor number 5 used garlic, coriander, turmeric, flavor enhancer, and lime juice as the seasoning.
The Priming Effect of Corruption and Bureaucracy Bashing on Citizens’ Perceptions of an Agency’s Performance

Priming theories suggest that negative stories or events can affect how citizens feel about public organizations. However, research concerning the priming impact of both corruption and bureaucracy ...
The Darrieus–Landau instability of premixed flames

The most prominent intrinsic flame instability is the hydrodynamic, or Darrieus–Landau (DL) instability, that results from the gas expansion caused by the heat released during combustion, which induces hydrodynamic disturbances that enhance perturbations of the flame front. The DL instability has many ramifications in premixed combustion; it promotes the creation of corrugated flames with relatively sharp edges pointing towards the burned gas. In this presentation, we first review the developments that led to a better understanding of the roles of viscosity, heat conduction and species diffusion on the flame stability. This includes the work of Markstein that attempted to phenomenologically improve the Darrieus and Landau analyses, and the asymptotic studies that provided an explicit dependence on the physical parameters. We then discuss the nonlinear flame development starting with the weakly-nonlinear analytical studies and proceeding with the more recent fully-nonlinear numerical results. We show that, unlike the implication that may be inferred from the original publications of Darrieus and Landau that premixed flames as a result of the instability will always appear as turbulent flames, the instability leads to the formation of cusp-like conformations with elongated intrusions pointing toward the burned gas region. These structures are stable and, because of their larger surface area, propagate at a speed that is substantially faster than the laminar flame speed. Finally, we show that the DL instability remains relevant in turbulent flames, but their influence appears limited to weak-to-moderate turbulence intensity flows.
White Privilege and Playing It Safe.

In March of 2016 AJOB published an article, “Bioethicists Can and Should Contribute to Addressing Racism.” Authors Danis, Wilson, and White (2016) write, “This commitment [to justice] is manifest i...
Underdocumentation of Obesity by Medical Residents Highlights Challenges to Effective Obesity Care.

Objective The goal of this study was to determine attitudes and practices of physicians in training with respect to the evaluation and treatment of obesity. Methods Resident-generated admission and discharge notes of all 1,765 general medicine hospital admissions during 4 nonconsecutive months were analyzed, and any references to weight, obesity, BMI, adiposity, and body fat were identified. The full general resident cohort was then surveyed for perceptions and behaviors related to obesity. Results Obesity was considered a highly important medical issue by 98.5% of residents; 90% correctly identified a class II obesity Stunkard phenotype, and 80% accurately calculated a BMI given height and weight in metric units. Residents overestimated inpatient obesity prevalence (estimate = 75%; actual = 35%) and the rate of obesity recording in the hospital admission note (estimate = 94%; actual = 49.5%). A BMI or current weight in the admission note or discharge summary was reported in none of the 1,765 patient records, and only 6% of the patients with obesity had obesity noted in either the inpatient admission or discharge assessment or plan. Conclusions Though residents recognize obesity and its clinical implications, it is underreported in the assessment of inpatients. This low level of documenting obesity and its impact on clinical care planning underscores a missed opportunity to establish appropriate referrals and initiate treatment at a clinically opportune time.
Isolation, Synthesis, and Evolutionary Ecology of Piper Amides

The phytochemistry of the genus Piper is rich in terms of numbers of compounds discovered, but given the diversity of this genus and the intraspecific diversity of secondary metabolites in those species that have been examined, Piper chemistry has not been adequately investigated. The natural products chemistry that has been elucidated is well documented and has been the subject of extensive review (Sengupta and Ray 1987, Parmar et al. 1997). Since those reviews were published, 28 new species have been investigated (Benevides et al. 1999, Chen et al. 2002, Ciccio 1997, de Abreu et al. 2002, Dodson et al. 2000, dos Santos et al. 2001, Facundo and Morais 2003, Jacobs et al. 1999, Joshi et al. 2001, Martins et al. 1998, Masuoka et al. 2002, McFerren and Rodriquez 1998, Moreira et al. 1998, Mundina et al. 1998, Srivastava et al. 2000a, Stohr et al. 2001, Terreaux et al. 1998, Torquilho et al. 2000, Vila et al. 2001, 2003, Wu et al. 1997), and 69 compounds new to Piper have been discovered (Adesina et al. 2002, Alecio et al. 1998, Baldoqui et al. 1999, Banerji et al. 1993, 2002b, Boll et al. 1994, Chen et al. 2002, Ciccio 1997, Da Cunha and Chaves 2001, Das and Kashinatham 1998, daSilva et al. 2002, de Araujo-Junior et al. 1997, Dodson et al. 2000, Gupta et al. 1999, Jacobs et al. 1999, Joshi et al. 2001, Martins et al. 1998, Masuoka et al. 2002, Menon et al. 2000, 2002, Moreira et al. 1998, 2000, Mundina et al. 1998, Navickiene et al. 2000, Pande et al. 1997, Parmar et al. 1998, Santos and Chaves 1999a,b, Santos et al. 1998, Seeram et al. 1996, Siddiqui et al. 2002, Srivastava et al. 2000a,b, Stohr et al. 1999, Terreaux et al. 1998, Wu et al. 2002a,b, Zeng et al. 1997).
Role of Agents Other than cAMP in the Regulation of Differentiation of Nerve Cells

While studying the effect of peripheral tissue on the developing nervous system, Bueker1 observed a marked hypertrophy of chick embryonic sensory and sympathetic ganglia after the transplantation of mouse sarcoma tissue. It was later found2 that this hypertrophy was due to the release of a humoral factor by the tumor explants, and this factor was named nerve growth factor (NGF). NGF is essential for the growth, development, and maintenance of embyronic sympathetic ganglia, dorsal root ganglia, and sensory ganglia in vivo and in vitro.3–5 NGF appears to have a rather selective effect on the sympathetic system, although several reports indicate that NGF also stimulates other cell types; however, the magnitude of such effects is minor.6 Therefore, the main physiological effect of NGF may be on the sympathetic nervous system.6 This is supported by the fact that NGF antiserum produces a rapid and complete destruction of all para- and prevertebral ganglia.7.8 The NGF-antiserum-induced morphological changes that eventually lead to cell death are different from those produced by cytotoxic drugs.6 For example, the initial morphological changes seen after treatment with a cytotoxic agent such as 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) are first observed in the cytoplasm. These changes gradually spread to the nucleus and are followed by cell death. On the other hand, the lesion produced by NGF antiserum appears first in the nucleus and then in the cytoplasm. The nuclear damage is evidenced by nucleolar segregation and condensation of the chromatin.
Real-Time Identification of Vortex Shedding in the Wake of a Circular Cylinder

Lagrangian saddles, identified as nonparallel intersections of finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) ridges, have previously been shown to indicate the timing of von Karman vortex shedding in the wa...
Thoughts on Integrating Stability into Risk Based Methods for Naval Ship Design

Design for Safety (DFS), Goal Based Standards (GBS) and Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) are powerful tools which establish a framework for integrating stability into a risk based design process. They provide a foundation for the development of novel designs which can provide insight that is not attainable through any other means. Naval ships are complex systems, sometimes operating in an environment defined by risk acceptance and risk taking beyond those of their commercial counterparts. The hazards seen by a naval ship in its service life may not be foreseen during design. The development of a design for safety process for naval ships should be capable of reflecting the nature of the military mission. Concurrently, there is certain fidelity inherent in the process that should be carefully defined. Three cases to categorize the risk assessment ‘fidelity’ are defined and discussed. These highlight the dangers of overstating and understating risk. Lastly the challenges of defining intact and damage stability risk in light of the sensitivity to the state of knowledge for naval ships are discussed.
Nexus between corporate governance practices and cost of capital in PSX listed firms

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate governance (CG), in terms of its internal significance, and cost of capital (COC), based on a sample of listed firms of Pakist...
Pulmonary Function Testing

Assist in smoking cessation efforts the amount of air exhaled during the first second of a forced exhalation. The FVC measures the total volume of air forcefully exhaled after a maximal inspiration. All measurements are made at ambient pressure saturated with water vapor and at body temperature (37°C) (BTPS).1 Both FVC and FEV1 are reported in liters. A decrease in FVC or FEV1 indicates impairment in ventilatory capacity. Eighty percent of predicted is considered to be the lower limit of normal.
A Metal-Via Resistance Based Physically Unclonable Function with 1.18% Native Instability

A physically unclonable function (PUF) leveraging the parasitic resistance created by the metal-via interconnection as entropy source is proposed in this paper. Metals 2 through 6 of a 65nm process is used to create the necessary parasitic resistance. Instead of using additional stabilization techniques, an incremental analog-to-digital converter is implemented to precisely measure the voltage difference between two branches consisting of the metal-via interconnection based parasitic resistances. The fabricated PUF, without using any post processing algorithm, achieves a native instability of 1.18% with 1000 repeated evaluations. The worst-case instability for voltage and temperature ranging from 0.8V to 1.3V and 0°C to 85°C, respectively is below 2.5%. The distance ratio between intra-die and inter-die Hamming Distance is above 310X.
Applying Behavioral Finance to Investments: The Existence and Importance of 'Investment Tribes'

Investment organizations are complex to understand because decisions are the aggregation of multiple individuals who influence the process. This applies to organizations that apply both quantitative and qualitative investment approaches because the first step in a quantitative approach is still a qualitative statement of the investment hypothesis that is then formalized by the models. Increasingly, finance practice is starting to incorporate behavioral finance insights and recognize that individuals are not “rational utility maximizers”, but rather complex psychological beings that can exhibit non-traditional behaviors. Kahneman-Tversky (KT) introduced this notion of individuals being “humans” and not “econs” but made broad generalizations about behaviorally affected decisions (BADs) and did not provide a methodology to examine individual biases. A technique has been proposed to use KT’s questions to provide individual behavioral diagnostics and previous research demonstrated dramatic differences within and across groups based on age, gender and financial literacy, especially for gambles based on prospective gains and losses. This paper is a case study of a single asset management company that uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative investment techniques, driven by five decision makers with equally weighted votes in the final decision. In addition to demonstrating that each individual in the investment committee is unique and providing individual diagnostics that show that age, gender and education need not lead to a particular behavior, this paper highlights the fact that organizations have “investment tribes”; namely, that there are groups of individuals who appear to exhibit similar risk tendencies for gambles involving gains or losses. These tribes can influence and impact decision-making. Quantifying and making transparent the existence of these tribes could improve decision-making. This case study can be helpful for investment firms allowing them to become aware of potential biases, and also for asset owners that delegate decisions to third parties, as it allows them to understand how the investment firms they delegate to might behave when they experience drawdowns.
Harmonization and Targeted Feature Dropout for Generalized Segmentation: Application to Multi-site Traumatic Brain Injury Images

While learning based methods have brought extremely promising results in medical imaging, a major bottleneck is the lack of generalizability. Medical images are often collected from multiple sites and/or protocols for increasing statistical power, while CNN trained on one site typically cannot be well-transferred to others. Further, expert-defined manual labels for medical images are typically rare, making training a dedicated CNN for each site unpractical, so it is important to make best use of the limited labeled source data. To address this problem, we harmonize the target data using adversarial learning, and propose targeted feature dropout (TFD) to enhance the robustness of the model to variations in target images. Specifically, TFD is guided by attention to stochastically remove some of the most discriminative features. Essentially, this technique combines the benefits of attention mechanism and dropout, while it does not increase parameters and computational costs, making it well-suited for small neuroimaging datasets. We evaluated our method on a challenging Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) dataset collected from 13 sites, using labeled source data of only 14 healthy subjects. Experimental results confirmed the feasibility of using the Cycle-consistent adversarial network for harmonizing multi-site MR images, and demonstrated that TFD further improved the generalization of the vanilla segmentation model on TBI data, reaching comparable accuracy with that of the supervised learning. The code is available at https://github.com/YilinLiu97/Targeted-Feature-Dropout.git.
Decay of Ag 1 0 8 m

The decay of the long-lived isomer (g5 yr) of ${\mathrm{Ag}}^{108}$ has been investigated with scintillation and proportional-counter spectrometers employing coincidence techniques. Conversion-electron measurements with a high-transmission "orange"-type spectrometer and a high-resolution $\ensuremath{\pi}\sqrt{2}$ double-focusing spectrometer together with gamma-gamma angular-correlation measurements served to establish the multipolarities of most of the observed transitions. ${\mathrm{Ag}}^{108m}$ has been found to decay 8.5% of the time via a two-step isomeric cascade consisting of a 30.4-keV $M4$ transition followed by a 79.4-keV $E1$ transition. The remaining 91.5% of the decays proceed by an electron-capture transition to a 1770-keV level in ${\mathrm{Pd}}^{108}$. This level then decays to the ground state of ${\mathrm{Pd}}^{108}$ via a 722.7\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.0 keV, 613.9\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.6 keV, 433.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5 keV triple gamma cascade. Two excited states at 79.4\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5 and 109.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5 keV are established in ${\mathrm{Ag}}^{108}$, with proposed spins and parities of 2- and 6+, respectively. The half-life of the 79-keV level has been shown to be \ensuremath{\le} ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}$ sec. The spins and parities of the 1770- and 1048-keV levels in ${\mathrm{Pd}}^{108}$ are assigned as 6+ (possibly 5+) and 4+, respectively.
Predicting Chikungunya disease personal protective behaviors: Results of a cross-sectional survey of US-Caribbean travelers

Background: Incidents of vector-borne disease have recently tripled in the United States. Chikungunya disease is a particularly common disease in the Caribbean, posing a threat to international tourists. However, the relationship between psychological variables derived from the protection motivation theory (PMT), and adoption of protective behaviors against the disease, is uncertain. This study sought to identify the psychological predictors of travelers’ protective health behaviors, specifically (1) appropriate clothing use, and (2) indoor spatial repellent use. Methods: An online, retrospective survey of U.S. international travelers to Caribbean destinations measured the five constructs of the PMT in the context of Chikungunya disease: Perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, perceived response efficacy, perceived self-efficacy, and knowledge. Hierarchical logistic regression analyzed whether these five theoretical constructs predicted the two protective behaviors in respondents who met study criteria (n = 184). Results: Results suggest that the interaction between chikungunya knowledge and perceived chikungunya severity predicts both appropriate clothing use (odds ratio [OR]: 1.95, CI: 1.18-3.25, P=0.010) and indoor spatial repellent use (OR: 1.55, CI: 1.05-2.29, P=0.029). In the cases of appropriate clothing use, the interaction between perceived chikungunya severity and perceived vulnerability was also a significant predictor (OR: 9.67, CI:1.23-75.80, P=0.031). Additionally, indoor spatial repellent use was also predicted by the interaction of chikungunya knowledge and perceived vulnerability (OR: 1.88, CI:1.18-3.02, P=0.009). Conclusion: Two-pronged educational approaches may be most efficacious in increasing protective health behaviors. Such efforts could reduce incidents of chikungunya disease and other vectorborne diseases in travel destinations featuring high exposure risks.
Origin of Unusual Acidity and Li+ Diffusivity in a Series of Water-in-Salt Electrolytes.

Superconcentrated aqueous electrolytes (“water-in-salt” electrolytes, or WiSEs) enable various aqueous battery chemistries beyond the voltage limits imposed by the Pourbaix diagram of water. However, their detailed structural and transport properties remain unexplored and could be better understood through added studies. Here, we report on our observations of strong acidity (pH 2.4) induced by lithium bis­(trifluoromethane sulfonyl)­imide (LiTFSI) at superconcentration (at 20 mol/kg). Multiple nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and pulsed-field gradient (PFG) diffusion NMR experiments, density functional theory (DFT) calculations, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations reveal that such acidity originates from the formation of nanometric ion-rich structures. The experimental and simulation results indicate the separation of water-rich and ion-rich domains at salt concentrations ≥5 m and the acidity arising therefrom is due to deprotonation of water molecules in the ion-rich domains. As such, the ion-rich domain is composed of hydrophobic −CF3 (of TFSI–) and hydrophilic hydroxyl (OH–) groups. At 20 m concentration, the tortuosity and radius of water diffusion channels are estimated to be ∼10 and ∼1 nm, respectively, which are close to values obtained from hydrated Nafion membranes that also have hydrophobic polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) backbones and hydrophilic channels consisting of SO3– ion cluster networks providing for the transport of ions and water. Thus, we have discovered the structural similarity between WiSE and hydrated Nafion membranes on the nanometer scale.
Antihumanist modernism in biopolitical junkyards of controlled remediation and risk

This essay proposes a new reading of modernism as a mode for separating the signal from the noise in conceptions of the human after humanism. It expands on a theory of second modernism which I have...
The modular degree, congruence primes, and multiplicity one

The modular degree and congruence number are two fundamental invariants of an elliptic curve over the rational field. Frey and Muller have asked whether these invariants coincide. We find that the question has a negative answer, and show that in the counterexamples, multiplicity one (defined below) does not hold. At the same time, we prove a theorem about the relation between the two invariants: the modular degree divides the congruence number, and the ratio is divisible only by primes whose squares divide the conductor of the elliptic curve. We discuss the ratio even in the case where the square of a prime does divide the conductor, and we study analogues of the two invariants for modular abelian varieties of arbitrary dimension.
Validation of biosignatures confirms the informative nature of fossil organic Raman spectra

Abstract Raman spectroscopy has facilitated rapid progress in the understanding of patterns and processes associated with biomolecule fossilization and revealed the preservation of biological and geological signatures in fossil organic matter. Nonetheless six large-scale statistical studies of Raman spectra of carbonaceous fossils, selected from a number of independent assessments producing similar trends, have been disputed. Alleon et al. (21) applied a wavelet transform analysis in an unconventional way to identify frequency components contributing to two baselined spectra selected from these studies and claimed similarities with a downloaded edge filter transmission spectrum. On the basis of indirect comparisons and qualitative observations they argued that all spectral features detected, including significant mineral peaks, can be equated to edge filter ripples and are therefore artefactual. Alleon et al. (21) extrapolated this conclusion to dispute not only the validity of n>200 spectra in the studies in question, but also the utility of Raman spectroscopy, a well established method, for analysing organic materials in general. Here we test the claims by Alleon et al. (21) using direct spectral comparisons and statistical analyses. We present multiple independent lines of evidence that demonstrate the original, biologically and geologically informative nature of the Raman spectra in question. We demonstrate that the methodological approach introduced by Alleon et al. (21) is unsuitable for assessing the quality of spectra and identifying noise within them. Statistical analyses of large Raman spectral data sets provide a powerful tool in the search for compositional patterns in biomaterials and yield invaluable insights into the history of life.
Mobile Environment for Developing User Situation Awareness (MEDUSA): Training for Healthcare Professionals:

This paper describes the development of a mobile phone application (MEDUSA) for training situation awareness. MEDUSA was developed as a cost efficient form of on demand training to supplement other...
The collective challenges of color, COVID-19, and their convergence

There are numerous challenges many of us must confront, including COVID-19 and expansive, global anti-Blackness, that often results in far-reaching consequences for Black individuals worldwide (Ble...
Patient Activation and Glycemic Control Among Filipino Americans

Purpose: Increasing patient activation facilitates self-management of health, improves health outcomes, and lowers health care expenditures. Extant research notes mixed findings in patient activati...
Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Negotiating Political and Cultural Space

Examining the relationship between a strengthened Iraqi state under the Baʿth regime and the Assyrians, a Christian ethno-religious group, Alda Benjamen studies the role of minorities in twentieth-century Iraqi political and cultural history. Relying on extensive research in Iraq, including sources uncovered at the Iraqi National Archives in Baghdad, as well as in libraries and private collections in Erbil, Duhok, and Mosul, in Arabic and modern Aramaic, Benjamen foregrounds the Iraqi periphery as well as the history of bilingualism to challenge the monolingual narrative of the state. By exploring the role of Assyrians in Iraq's leftist and oppositional movements, including gendered representations of women, she demonstrates how, within newly politicized urban spaces, minorities became attracted to intellectual and political movements that allowed them to advance their own concerns while engaging with other Iraqis of their socio-economic background and relying on transnational community networks. Assyrian intellectuals not only negotiated but also resisted government policies through their cultural production, thereby achieving a softening of Baʿthist policies towards the Assyrians that differed markedly from those of later repressive eras.
Effective GPU Sharing Under Compiler Guidance.

Modern computing platforms tend to deploy multiple GPUs (2, 4, or more) on a single node to boost system performance, with each GPU having a large capacity of global memory and streaming multiprocessors (SMs). GPUs are an expensive resource, and boosting utilization of GPUs without causing performance degradation of individual workloads is an important and challenging problem. Although services like MPS support simultaneous execution of multiple co-operative kernels on a single device, they do not solve the above problem for uncooperative kernels, MPS being oblivious to the resource needs of each kernel. We propose a fully automated compiler-assisted scheduling framework. The compiler constructs GPU tasks by identifying kernel launches and their related GPU operations (e.g. memory allocations). For each GPU task, a probe is instrumented in the host-side code right before its launch point. At runtime, the probe conveys the information about the task's resource requirements (e.g. memory and compute cores) to a scheduler, such that the scheduler can place the task on an appropriate device based on the task's resource requirements and devices' load in a memory-safe, resource-aware manner. To demonstrate its advantages, we prototyped a throughput-oriented scheduler based on the framework, and evaluated it with the Rodinia benchmark suite and the Darknet neural network framework on NVIDIA GPUs. The results show that the proposed solution outperforms existing state-of-the-art solutions by leveraging its knowledge about applications' multiple resource requirements, which include memory as well as SMs. It improves throughput by up to 2.5x for Rodinia benchmarks, and up to 2.7x for Darknet neural networks. In addition, it improves job turnaround time by up to 4.9x, and limits individual kernel performance degradation to at most 2.5%.
Characterization of damage evolution and its influence on mechanical properties of concrete under impact loading

Abstract The failure strength of concrete and other brittle or quasi-brittle materials has been widely observed to increase significantly when subjected to high strain-rate deformation. This observed rate dependence is believed to be largely driven by the time dependent nature of the cracking and fragmentation process. However, due to the significant technical challenges in studying this phenomenon, the underlying mechanisms driving this behavior remain mysterious. In this chapter, developments in non-destructive techniques and their application to the study of damage evolution in cementitious materials are discussed. Additionally, various approaches to interpret and extract quantitative information from the data generated by these non-destructive techniques are reviewed. With a particular focus on the study of crack initiation and propagation in concrete under high-strain rate loading conditions, in the search for a quantitative rate-dependent relation between damage evolution and the observed strength increase.
The Role of the Ingroup Moral Foundation on Message Responses: Two Experiments on Race and Nationality

To address the role of the ingroup loyalty moral foundation, this article reports on two experiments. The first experiment manipulated the race of the beneficiary in an organ donation message. The ...
Engineering (future) systems, as if life mattered

Humans interact with engineered systems in environments populated by other humans and autonomous systems of varying complexity. The systems, in turn, are situated in the broader cultural, natural, political, and social environments. Traditional approaches to modeling such systems are no longer adequate, primarily because they have followed a linear trajectory of devising solutions to fairly narrow problems without questioning, or adequately examining, the basic premises. For the methodologies to be relevant and not merely remain as academic exercises, they must incorporate cultural, social, and environmental factors that often manifest themselves in generational time. I have been studying the issues by looking at problems in domains that are central to life, and I offer some insights in this paper.
A new one-cycle controlled FACTS element with the function of STATCOM and active power filter

Active power filters and STATCOMs are indispensable elements in distributed generation (DG) power system. In recent years, research and applications of active power filter (APF) and STATCOM using voltage-source converters have attracted great attention due to the increased energy awareness in the world. Many topologies and control approaches have been reported. Previously proposed control methods realize only one function, either APF or STATCOM, furthermore they require fast and real-time calculation; therefore, a high-speed digital microprocessor and high performance A/D converters are necessary, yielding high complexity, high cost, and low reliability. The theory and experiments reported in [K. Ma Smedley, 1991] have demonstrated that one-cycle control is a unified PWM control method in the power electronics field. Functioning as an analog computer, it can control all basic power converters at low cost, simple circuitry and high reliability. In this paper a new control approach based on one-cycle control is proposed that realizes both APF and STATCOM's functions by controlling a three-phase voltage source converter. As a result, the cost for DC can be greatly reduced. Theory, simulation, and experiment have proved that the new control approach is a high performance and low cost solution for DG applications.
Nuclear Functions Charge Ahead

A new study in this issue of Science on nuclei of the frog Xenopus ([Lund and Dahlberg][1]) shows that, after being transcribed from DNA, transfer RNA molecules must be attached to their amino acid before being exported from the nucleus. This departure from the standard dogma is discussed by Hopper in her Perspective, as is the applicability of this system to other RNAs and other species. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/282/5396/2082
High power, wideband frequency doubler design using AlGaN/GaN HEMTs and filtering

A wideband frequency doubler based on AlGaN/GaN HEMT devices is presented. Rationale for the use of filters to improve the bandwidth performance of a frequency doubler is described. Input and output networks consisting of a harmonic reflector and bandpass filter are designed to provide adequate bandwidth response and high power with small conversion gain. A demonstration circuit achieves 13.2% fractional bandwidth at fo= 3.33 GHz with a maximum output power at 30.2 dBm.
Research Advances in Graphics Recognition: An Update

Localization, recognition, and interpretation of graphical objects such as line art, maps and engineering drawings in document images has been a topic of much research attention in recent years. A comprehensive overview of research problems, solution procedures and typical systems for graphics recognition was published in 1990 [KasRam90] and an update was published in 1994 [AriKas94]. In this paper we provide a further update on the state of research in graphics recognition with a particular emphasis on those systems which have been presented at recent workshops on graphics recognition [KasTom96, TomCha97].
3D shape and motion analysis from image blur and smear: a unified approach

This paper addresses 3D shape recovery and motion estimation using a realistic camera model with an aperture and a shutter. The spatial blur and temporal smear effects induced by the camera's finite aperture and shutter speed are used for inferring both the shape and motion of the imaged objects.
Effects of luteinizing hormone receptor signaling in prostate cancer cells.

BACKGROUND The importance of androgen signaling in prostate cancer (PC) is well described and prostate cancer cells retain the ability to directly synthesize androgens. Luteinizing hormone (LH) can induce expression of steroidogenic enzymes and trigger androgen production, but the regulation of this process is not well-described. Here, we explored the impact of silencing LH receptor (LHR) silencing on androgen synthesis and on several relevant signaling pathways in PC. METHODS LHR mRNA and protein expression was evaluated in LNCaP PC cells treated with LHR-siRNA. MTS assay was used to measure the effect of LHR-siRNA on proliferation in LNCaP and 22RV1 PC cells. Treated LNCaP and LAPC-3 cells were also assayed for differences in androgen synthesis and expression of steroidogenic enzymes, PSA, AR, and critical signaling molecules including PKA, ERK1/2, PI3K, AKT2, and HER2. RESULTS We confirmed that functional LHR is expressed in both androgen-sensitive and castrate-resistant PC specimens. Treatment with LHR-siRNA effectively silenced LHR gene and protein expression and prevented LH-mediated proliferation and androgen synthesis in prostate cancer cells. LHR silencing also downregulated expression of AR, PSA, PKA, ERK1/2, PI3K, AKT2, and HER2. CONCLUSION Collectively, these data demonstrate that silencing LHR expression suppresses androgen synthesis and signaling and the LH-LHR pathway may represent a viable therapeutic strategy in PC. Prostate 75:141–150, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.