cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Forging Paths between the Academic Realm and Public Marketplace

I have been an active ASM member since I started grad school about a decade ago, and I continue to appreciate the enriching experiences that membership brings. I am writing to address the future role of ASM in blazing the path from innovative academic lab discoveries to commercial applications of these findings. As federal research support and academic jobs dwindle, while technology and data multiply exponentially, the entrepreneurial among us will be vital in keeping the life science industry strong. Looking ahead to the 2016 ASM Microbe meeting in Boston, I see several workshops and sessions on careers in industry and startup culture, and I would love to see more opportunities for strategic partnerships through ASM. In my home state of Connecticut, many universities are holding “startup weekend” competitions, and international contests such as iGEM and Biomimicry design challenge are paving the way as well. I would love to see more initiatives from our vibrant society, from training programs and institutes, startup contests or seed grants, partnerships with business/legal/marketing coaches, and other initiatives to help small teams develop a discovery or idea into a commercial product or service. I hope that ASM can be a leader in forging paths between the academic realm and public marketplace, as our collection of expertise converges perfectly with the cultural rise of the microbiome, genomics, synthetic biology, and environmental sustainability. The time is ripe for a microbial resurgence in the private sector. I invite ASM members with more experience in business and applied microbiology to weigh in, and I encourage students, postdocs, faculty, and other researchers to look closely and hard at your findings to distill the ones that might be the most useful and marketable. Let's keep this culture alive!
Effects of Cysteine Proteinase Inhibitors scN and E-64 on Southern Corn Rootworm1 Larval Development

Abstract. The southern corn rootworm, Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi Barber, can be a serious pest of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) pods. A laboratory bioassay was developed to test feeding cysteine proteinase inhibitors soyacystatin N (scN) and E-64 against southern corn rootworm reared on artificial diet to determine the effects on larval development and mortality. Soyacystatin N increased mortality of larvae and decreased larval development as measured by live weights at 4 and 7 d. Seven d weight gain for larvae in the control increased by 66%, while the 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg/ml doses decreased by 50, 42, and 79%, respectively. The proteinase inhibitor proved to be a good candidate as a means of host-plant resistance for reducing larval development and increasing the chance to interrupt metabolism and increased mortality. E-64 also demonstrated significant larval mortality and decreased weight gain when fed through artificial diet. At 7 d, after feeding on the 0.50, 1.0, and 2.0 mg/ml doses, larval we...
Formulation of Problems of Micropolar Elasticity

In this chapter first we collect all basic equations for the nonlinear theory, Art. 4.2, and those for the linear theory, (Art. 4.3), of micropolar thermoelasticity. The jump conditions, initial conditions and the pertinent kinematical formulae are listed. The field equations for the displacement, microrotation and temperature fields are obtained in Art. 4.4. In Art. 4.5 we present the proof of the uniqueness theorem for the linear case under rather a general set of boundary and initial conditions.
Carotid Revascularization in Asymptomatic Patients after Renal Transplantation

Background In multiple studies, chronic renal insufficiency has been associated with increased risk of periprocedural stroke, cardiac complications, and death following carotid revascularization. Renal transplantation has been shown to reduce cardiovascular risk and improve survival; outcomes after carotid revascularization in renal transplant patients however are unknown. In this study, we evaluate periprocedural and long-term risks after carotid endarterectomy (CEA) and carotid artery stenting (CAS) in a cohort of renal transplant patients. Methods We studied all renal transplant patients in the United States Renal Data System who underwent CEA or CAS between January 2006 and December 2011. Patient outcomes were determined by linking with the Medicare database. Propensity score matched logistic and cox regression analyses were employed to evaluate perioperative stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), and death and long-term stroke and death. Results Of the 462 revascularizations for asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis between 2006 and 2011, 387 (84%) were CEA and 75 (16%) were CAS. The 2 groups did not differ in age, gender, sex, race, or baseline medical characteristics. There was no significant difference in perioperative stroke, MI, or death rates in the CEA cohort (4.7%, 4.4%, and 1.3%, respectively) compared with the CAS cohort (5.3%, 2.7%, and 4.0%, respectively). Stroke-free survival for CEA versus CAS was 93% vs. 92% at 1 year, 90% vs. 87% at 2 years, 88% vs. 87% at 3 years, and 84% vs. 82% at 4 years (P = 0.81). Overall patient survival for CEA versus CAS was 89% vs. 88% at 1 year, 77% vs. 75% at 2 years, 66% for both at 3 years, and 53% vs. 48% at 4 years (P = 0.68). In propensity score matched Cox regression analysis, there was no difference in risk of perioperative stroke or MI or in long-term stroke or death for CAS compared with CEA. Conclusions This is the first study to evaluate outcomes following CEA and CAS in renal transplant patients. The incidence of perioperative complications in this group is higher than the maximum recommended by the Society of Vascular Surgery, and the benefits of revascularization may be outweighed by the excess periprocedural morbidity and reduced life expectancy of these patients.
Abstract # 1724 Depression and inflammation are independent predictors of fatigue in breast cancer survivors

The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of fatigue in breast cancer survivors one-year post-radiotherapy. This cross-sectional, observational study enrolled 111 patients treated with breast conserving surgery followed by whole breast radiotherapy. Half of the patients received chemotherapy. The primary outcome variable was fatigue, measured by the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20. Predictors included inflammation, age, race, marital status, smoking history, menopause status, endocrine treatment, cancer stage, depression (Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology–Self Reported), sleep problems (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), and perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale). Inflammation was assessed by plasma cytokines and/or their receptors using Multiplex ELISA and acute phase proteins (CRP) using a standard turbidimetric assay. Linear regression was employed to examine predictors of fatigue, and a mediation model using PROCESS SPSS was conducted to examine the association between depression, sleep problems, stress, inflammation and fatigue. At one-year post-radiotherapy, depression ( B = 0.65, p B = 0.73, P B = 0.71, p B = 6.95, P = 0.015; IL1ra: B = 6.43, p = 0.014; sTNFR2: B = 17.39, p = 0.009) were independent predictors of fatigue. Mediation analysis showed that depression was the mediator for the association between sleep/stress and fatigue, while inflammation was not. Our findings suggest that depression and inflammation are independent predictors of fatigue at one-year post-radiotherapy and represent two independent treatment targets.
6 – TWO-PHASE FLOW

This chapter discusses about the concept of two-phase flow in random porous media. The problem of multiphase flow in porous media is of great importance for a number of applications, such as oil/gas recovery from hydrocarbon reservoirs, subsurface remediation of organic contaminants, and carbon-dioxide sequestration in geological formations. Some commonly encountered cases of two-phase flows are oil–water and gas–oil systems. Depending on applications, two-phase flow is divided into two categories—capillarity-dominated flow and advection-dominated flow. The chapter describes the development of a Lagrangian stochastic model of immiscible nonlinear two-phase displacement in heterogeneous porous media—in the absence of capillary pressure and gravity effects. Lagrangian approach is suitable for advection-dominated two-phase flow, which decomposes the problem of nonlinear displacement in random media into two subproblems—nonlinear displacement in homogeneous media and linear advection in random media. Eulerian perturbative approach is used to derive moment equations for steady-state two-phase flow. Several examples for both the Eulerian and Lagrangian approaches are illustrated in the chapter.
Evaluating loans using variable benchmark data envelopment analysis

Loan officers use many business intelligence methods to screen consumer loan applications besides intuitive judgement and experience. They also use mathematical techniques such as credit-scoring models, traditional statistical models, and artificial intelligence methods such as expert systems, artificial neural systems, and fuzzy logic. This study illustrates the development of a decision support system using variable benchmark data envelopment analysis model to predicting bad loans. Further, the study also compares the performance of the DEA model with linear discriminant analysis model. The study illustrates the viability of the variable benchmark DEA model that outperforms the linear discriminant analysis model.
Office activity classification using first-reflection ultrasonic echolocation

Excessive sedentary time poses considerable health risks for individuals predominately engaged in desk-bound work. To empower interventions aimed at addressing this problem, reliable technologies for continuous activity monitoring within an office environment are required. As an alternative to existing solutions, we propose the Echolocation-based Activity Detector, a contactless sensor array of four first-reflection ultrasonic distance sensors. The research described herein demonstrates the capacity of the sensor to distinguish between common activities performed at a workstation within an office environment, including sedentary sitting, typing, writing, and standing. Cubic support vector machine classifiers are developed using dispersion-related features computed from the time-series array outputs. Average classification accuracy for sedentary activities exceeds 85%, while classification accuracy for the entire activity set exceeds 80% for a controlled experiment conducted with six participants.
The Role of Expressive Versus Instrumental Preferences in U.S. Attitudes Toward Taxation and Redistribution

Polling data suggest that Americans are concerned about rising economic inequality, yet the same polls reveal popular opposition to redistributive tax policies that would help mitigate inequality. Numerous commentators have drawn attention to this paradox, attempting to explain why voters would support policies contrary to their pecuniary interests. This chapter connects the debate over U.S. tax attitudes with research on the role of expressive preferences in electoral choice. An expressive account of political behaviour emphasizes the low likelihood that any one voter’s views will influence policy outcomes and thus locates her cost-benefit calculus in the expression itself rather than its effect on policy outcomes. Expressive considerations include the reputational consequences of taking sides in popular debates, especially as those consequences bear on the voter’s effort to portray herself to the people that matter in her life—her family, friends, co-workers, and most of all, herself. The author explains how an expressive account resolves the supposed “paradox” of popular opposition to redistributive tax policies and discusses the implications of this view for U.S. tax politics.
Discrimination in Information Sharing: A Field Experiment

In a large national field experiment we document racial discrimination in information sharing. Email inquiries from one of twelve fictitious information- seekers were sent to 6,000 hotels across over 2,500 cities. Names of information- seekers signaled race (black, white, Asian), gender (male, female), and class (graduate degree, no graduate degree). The inquiry was simple, we asked for restaurant recommendations. Hotel representatives’ email responses revealed consistent evidence of discrimination based on three dimensions of quality: responsiveness, helpfulness, and rapport. First, nonwhite (i.e., black and Asian) information-seekers received fewer email responses than white information- seekers. Second, nonwhites received less helpful information than whites. Third, nonwhites received fewer attempts to build rapport than whites. Notably, nonwhites were recommended 20 percent fewer restaurants and were significantly less likely to receive personalized information than whites. We also examined moderating...
Treatment plan quality and delivery accuracy assessments on 3 IMRT delivery methods of stereotactic body radiotherapy for spine tumors.

Abstract Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for spine tumors has demonstrated clinical effectiveness. The treatment planning and delivery techniques have evolved from dynamic conformal arc therapy, to fixed gantry angle intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), and most recently to volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT). A hybrid-arc (HARC) planning and delivery method combining dynamic conformal arc therapy delivery with a number of equally spaced IMRT beams is proposed. In this study we investigated plan quality, delivery accuracy, and efficiency of 3 delivery techniques: IMRT, HARC, and VMAT. Patients who underwent spine SBRT treatments were randomly selected from an Institutional Review Board-approved registry. For each patient, the prescription dose was 14 to 16 Gy in a single fraction to cover >90% of the tumor (without planning margin) while constraining V10Gy ≤ 10% of the spinal cord and the maximum point dose (MPD) of the spinal cord ≤ 14 Gy. All cases were clinically treated with fixed gantry step-shoot IMRT plans and then re-planned with VMAT using Pinnacle 9.0 and with HARC using Brainlab iPlan 4.5. Student t-test was used to compare the dosimetric end points, including V16Gy to the planning target volume, homogeneity index, MPDPTV, the conformity index, V10Gy of the spinal cord, and MPDcord. To compare the accuracy of delivery, we delivered all plans on a phantom and conducted gamma index (GI) comparisons with 3 mm/3% and 2 mm/2% criteria. All plans met our clinical requirements. Among 3 techniques, there were no differences on dose coverage to the tumor volume, maximum dose to the spinal cord, and plan homogeneity index (p > 0.05). The average V10Gy of the spinal cord was 6.66 ± 0.03%, 5.49 ± 0.03%, and 4.76 ± 0.02% for IMRT, HARC, and VMAT plans, respectively. Accordingly, the conformity indices were 1.30 ± 0.11 and 1.29 ± 0.20, 1.53 ± 0.29, respectively. VMAT plans were significantly (p
Capacitor-less RRAM-based stochastic neuron for event-based unsupervised learning

Stochastic neuron is the key for event-based probabilistic neural networks. Here, for the first time, we propose a stochastic neuron based on Metal-Oxide Resistive Random-Access Memory (RRAM). The RRAM's conducting filament with built-in stochasticity is used to mimic the neuron's membrane capacitor that temporally integrates input spikes. A fully asynchronous and capacitor-less neuron circuit is designed, laid out, and simulated. The output spike train of the neuron is shown to obey the Poisson distribution. Using the 65nm CMOS technology node, the area of the neuron is 14 × 5 μm2, which is one ninth size of an 1pF capacitor. The average power consumption of the neuron is 1.289 μW. Finally, an event-based spiking deep belief network (DBN) is evaluated using our neuron design. The DBN is trained using MNIST database. Simulation results show that the DBN is able to recognize the handwritten digits with 90% accuracy.
Schools as Community Institutions

Schools are ubiquitous in American society. Among their central functions is relating to and building the sense of community. Experiences in schools tend to have an intimate connection to people’s identities and to social networks that persist throughout their lifetimes. School relationships shape community relationships. This chapter explores schools as a dimension of community life. The focus is different from what we usually see where schools and communities are interrelated by social scientists since the concern here is not with what makes schools and schooling more effective. Rather, the discussion talks about how schools relate to what community is and how schools help to build or undermine a sense of community. While the focus is not on how communities make schools more effective, much of the literature on community explores how schools are embedded in communities and how qualities of community relate to schooling. One of the most important themes involves the concept of social capital, which at the beginning was developed as a way to account for differences in school success. That literature also shows us things about how schools and other community institutions interrelate, thereby telling us how communities are structured. The chapter explores the concept of “settings”, how this relates to building a “sense of community” and how this, in turn, relates to the welfare of children. Children tend to be tied to and dependent on the community as a place, and as such their prosperity is related to the kinds of activities that are available in that place, the values and goal orientations that are developed in the setting, and the way schools are integrated with the setting. Finally, the chapter explores ways schools self-consciously build and are dependent upon local residents identifying with the local community. School sports have a strong role in the development of community identity. But the chapter discusses how schools as organizations depend on the local sense of community and actions schools take to encourage residents to feel that they are part of a community.
The Role of Characterization Techniques in the Thin Film Analysis

This chapter contributes a lot of informations of characterization techniques, which are highly helpful to assess the quality of the device layers such as absorbers, windows, or other layers. The techniques, which are employed for characterization of the samples, are EDS, XRF, SIMS, ICP, XPS, XRD, Raman, etc. In particular, the EDS, SIMS, and ICP techniques provide how to characterize the samples in detail. The SEM and AFM scan the surface of the samples to determine roughness, grain sizes, etc. that are detailed. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) characterizes different kind of samples such as CZTS, CZTSe, and CZTSSe but fails to determine structure of whether kesterite or stannite of them but Raman spectra distinguishes the structures. The defect levels determined by photoluminescence analysis are explicitly illustrated. Based on these characterization results, the CZTS, CZTSe, and CZTSSe samples are analyzed, which determine the quality of the samples that fit well to the solar cells. The characterization results by different techniques provide compositional, chemical states of compounds, structural, optical properties of the samples. The electrical properties of CZTS, CZTSe, and CZTSSe compounds are also given in this chapter.
Epidemiology and Environmental Risk Factors

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune connective tissue disease characterized by excessive collagen deposition in the skin and internal organs with associated vasculopathy and autoantibody production (Bolster MB, Silver RS. Clinical features of systemic sclerosis. In: Hochberg MC, Silman AJ, Smolen JS, Weinblatt ME, Weisman MH, editors. Rheumatology. 5th ed. Philadelphia: Mosby: Elsevier; 2011. p. 1373–86). Classification of SSc is divided into two main groups: limited and diffuse cutaneous disease (LeRoy EC, Black C, Fleischmajer R, Jablonska S, Krieg T, Medsger Jr TA, et al. Scleroderma (systemic sclerosis): classification, subsets and pathogenesis. J Rheumatol. 1988;15(2):202–5). The limited form is characterized by skin thickening that is confined to areas distal to the elbows and knees and generally is associated with less severe internal organ involvement. The diffuse form involves skin thickening proximal to the elbows and the knees as well as distal areas and is associated with more severe organ damage. This chapter will focus on the epidemiology of systemic sclerosis including both limited and diffuse cutaneous forms.
Good work in psychology

HEN a scholarly disciplineinvolves human beings – asresearchers or subjects, asclinicians or patients – ethical issues arecertain to loom large. On the researchdimension, famous social psychologicalstudies by Stanley Milgram on obedienceto authority and Philip Zimbardo on abuseof authority sparked widespread debateabout the proper treatment of participants.Claims in
A Process for Teaching Research Methods in a Virtual Environment

Translating and integrating scholarship into practice is a difficult concept for students to embrace through a passive education model. Therefore, innovative teaching strategies were integrated into a translational science course for online graduate nursing students. The purpose of this project was to increase understanding of the research process and stimulate interest in translating nursing evidence into practice. The result was an effective educational strategy for teaching and learning about the research process in a virtual environment.
Asymmetric cell division-dominant neutral drift model for normal intestinal stem cell homeostasis

The prevailing mathematical model suggests that intestinal stem cells (ISCs) divide symmetrically. The present study provides evidence that asymmetric cell division is the major contributor to ISC ...
MRI-based attenuation correction for brain PET/MRI based on anatomic signature and machine learning

Deriving accurate attenuation maps for PET/MRI remains a challenging problem because MRI voxel intensities are not related to properties of photon attenuation and bone/air interfaces have similarly low signal. This work presents a learning-based method to derive patient-specific computed tomography (CT) maps from routine T1-weighted MRI in their native space for attenuation correction of brain PET. We developed a machine-learning-based method using a sequence of alternating random forests under the framework of an iterative refinement model. Anatomical feature selection is included in both training and predication stages to achieve optimal performance. To evaluate its accuracy, we retrospectively investigated 17 patients, each of which has been scanned by PET/CT and MR for brain. The PET images were corrected for attenuation on CT images as ground truth, as well as on pseudo CT (PCT) images generated from MR images. The PCT images showed mean average error of 66.1 ± 8.5 HU, average correlation coefficient of 0.974 ± 0.018 and average Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) larger than 0.85 for air, bone and soft tissue. The side-by-side image comparisons and joint histograms demonstrated very good agreement of PET images after correction by PCT and CT. The mean differences of voxel values in selected VOIs were less than 4%, the mean absolute difference of all active area is around 2.5%, and the mean linear correlation coefficient is 0.989 ± 0.017 between PET images corrected by CT and PCT. This work demonstrates a novel learning-based approach to automatically generate CT images from routine T1-weighted MR images based on a random forest regression with patch-based anatomical signatures to effectively capture the relationship between the CT and MR images. Reconstructed PET images using the PCT exhibit errors well below accepted test/retest reliability of PET/CT indicating high quantitative equivalence.
High-Dimensional Global Optimization Method for High-Frequency Electronic Design

Efficient global optimization of microwave systems is a very challenging task that emerges in importance for rapid design closure and discovery of novel structures. As the operating frequency increases, additional difficulties in design optimization occur due to increased nonlinearity, creating a high-dimensional nonconvex response surface. Bayesian optimization (BO) is a promising solution to solve such problems. However, BO-based methods suffer from the curse of dimensionality, where the number of simulations required for convergence increases exponentially with the number of parameters. In this paper, we address this problem and propose a new BO-based high-dimensional global optimization method titled, Bayesian Optimization with Deep Partioning Tree (DPT-BO). DPT-BO leverages a novel DPT that allows for rapid coverage of high-dimensional sample spaces and utilizes an additive Gaussian process (ADD-GP) with a fully additive decomposition, making it more suitable for high-frequency design optimization. We apply DPT-BO to different optimization test functions along with three high-frequency design applications, namely, maximizing signal integrity in high-speed channels, minimizing losses of substrate integrated waveguides with air cavity, and maximizing efficiency of wireless power transfer systems. The results show that DPT-BO finds control parameters that provide better performance in less CPU time compared to other techniques.
Use of Biologic Drugs Following an Initial Diagnosis of Malignancy

As the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patient population ages, there will be an increased incidence of cancer. Clinical trials with biologic agents excluded patients with a recent diagnosis of cancer, so we rely on real-world cohorts to evaluate outcomes. Observational studies suggest that anti-TNF therapy in IBD patients with a history of cancer does not increase the risk of new or recurrent cancer. There has not been any data published on anti-IL12/23 and anti-integrin agents in this patient population. In practice, the decision to use biologic therapy in a patient with a history of cancer is made on a case-by-case basis.
What’s in a Coefficient? The “Not so Simple” Interpretation of R2, for Relatively Small Sample Sizes

There are several misconceptions when interpreting the values of the coefficient of determination, R 2 , in simple linear regression. R 2 is heavily dependent on sample size n and the type of data being analyzed but becomes insignificant when working with very large sample sizes. In this paper, we comment on these observations and develop a relationship between R 2 , n , and the level of significance α , for relatively small sample sizes. In addition, this paper provides a simplified version of the relationship between R 2 and n , by comparing the standard deviation of the dependent variable, S y , to the standard error of the estimate, S e . This relationship will serve as a safe lower bound to the values of R 2 . Computational experiments are performed to confirm the results from both models. Even though the focus of the paper is on simple linear regression, we present the groundwork for expanding our two models to the multiple regression case.
Home for Life Design (HFLD) Home Assessment Psychometric Study: Inter-Rater Reliability of a Home-Safety Assessment Tool

Date Presented 04/06/19 The focus of the Home for Life Design (HFLD) app-based home assessment is to determine a person’s ability to safely complete an occupation in context, and if and how the environment limits safety. An inter-rater reliability study with OT students (n=32) used online training v.5; ICC between individual raters and the author was high (.92; 95% CI). These findings contribute to the evidence that the HFLD home assessment is a reliable tool for OTs making home-safety recommendations. Primary Author and Speaker: Debra Lindstrom Additional Authors and Speakers: Carolyn Sithong, Katherine Sullivan
Measuring the effect of the timing of first birth on wages

I study the effect of first-birth timing on women’s wages, defining timing in terms of labor force entry, rather than age. Considering the mechanisms by which timing may affect wages, each is a function of experience rather than age. This transformation also highlights the distinction between a first birth after labor market entry versus before. I show that estimates based on age understate the return to delay for women who remain childless at labor market entry and have obscured the negative return to delay—to a first birth after labor market entry rather than before—for all but college graduates. My results suggest, however, that these returns to first-birth timing may hold only for non-Hispanic white women.
Lipase Elevation in Patients With COVID-19.

INTRODUCTION: Liver complications associated with the novel corona virus, COVID-19 (SARSCoV- 2) are well-described phenomena occurring in approximately 60% of infected patients The degree and extent in the level of transaminitis is not yet well defined In the evaluation of transaminitis in pregnant patients, consideration of the differential diagnoses is important in order to provide appropriate timely treatment and management Determining the exact etiology for transaminitis in the pregnant patient with COVID-19 is particularly challenging given other competing diagnosis in this patient population We present a case of a pregnant woman with acute liver enzyme elevation in the setting of COVID-19 infection CASE DESCRIPTION/METHODS: A 34 year old female with COVID-19 presented at 33 weeks twin gestation with right upper quadrant pain, vomiting for 2 days and acute respiratory distress which improved with supplemental oxygen Initial labs showed elevated inflammatory markers, mildly elevated liver enzymes (AST 102, ALT 53 IU/L), low platelets (139 K/uL), lactate dehydrogenase was 375 IU/L, and INR was 1 0 Total bilirubin was normal An abdominal ultrasound demonstrated cholelithiasis without evidence of cholecystitis, patent portal and hepatic veins, and no biliary ductal dilation The next day, her liver enzymes increased (ALT;119 IU/L and AST;228 IU/L), and LDH rose to 750 IU/L while vital signs were unchanged She was treated with N-acetyl-cysteine (non-acetaminophen-induced liver failure protocol) without improvement The next day her liver enzymes peaked (ALT;307 IU/L and AST;641 IU/L) Due to rising liver enzymes, increased abdominal pain she underwent an emergency c-section to minimize maternal and fetal risk Postoperatively, her ALT and AST down trended On post-op day 4, aminotransferases markedly improved (AST of 20 IU/L, ALT of 49 IU/L), patients symptoms improved and patient was discharged home DISCUSSION: Clinical presentation and associated liver complications of COVID-19 infection are not well described Due to the rapid global spread of COVID-19, prompt identification of associated liver test abnormalities from other causes especially in pregnant patients is vital It is also important to consider that COVID-19 may cause severe acute viral hepatitis rather than a mild elevation in liver enzymes in pregnant patients, possibly exacerbating underlying conditions such as pre-eclampsia or HELLP syndrome
On the Examination of Longitudinal Trends Between Teacher–Student Relationship Quality and Social Skills During Elementary School

Research suggests that the quality of interactions and relationships teachers share with students and students’ social skills are interrelated, but it is less clear if this relationship is bidirect...
The US eldercare workforce is falling further behind

There is a major and rapidly growing deficiency in the US eldercare workforce at all levels, especially among physicians. Efforts to increase recruitment and retention into geriatrics have failed, especially among critically important educators and researchers. Possible strategies to assure adequate care for older persons are discussed.
Linguocultural cognition manifested in spoken narratives in L2 English by native Chinese and Korean speakers

To understand constructs underpinning L2 production, this study investigated how native speakers (mean age = 26.61) of Chinese (n = 29), Korean (n = 23), and English (n = 28) formulated spoken narratives in English and how functional factors were related to the linguistic richness of narratives under the framework of thinking for speaking. To identify operating mechanisms behind the manifestation of conceptualization and verbal output, analyzed were 80 spoken narratives elicited using a picture book, Frog, where are you? Results showed that the two nonnative groups’ attentional foci were similar to that of the native group. The modes of mental analyses showed a partial difference between Chinese and Korean speakers. The nonnative groups showed the different usage of syntactic elements than English speakers. This study suggested that L1 was a foundational schema for thinking for speaking, as indicated by the trans-linguistic transfer of syntactic features. It also suggested that cultural/attentional foci and assertiveness in narration could be restructured as a result of learning the linguistic and sociopragmatic properties of L2 English. The richness of L2 narratives with respect to lexical diversity, clausal variety, and sentential expressions unevenly varied according to L2 proficiency for both Chinese and Korean speakers. When English proficiency was taken into consideration, the mental analysis, syntactic features, and rhetorical devices were significant predictors of the richness of lexical, clausal, and sentential formulation. Further research should continue under the framework of thinking for speaking in both L1 and L2 with various language groups and different L2 proficiency levels.
Eco-efficiency and Eco-productivity assessments of the states in the United States: A two-stage Non-parametric analysis

Abstract This study implements radial and non-radial Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models to assess eco-efficiency and eco-productivity of the 50 states in the United States in 2018. The models are based on three inputs (capital stock, employment, and energy consumption), a single desirable output (real gross domestic product) and a single undesirable output variable (CO2 emissions). The radial DEA models reveal that at least 32 states are operated efficiently. Five states perform at the most optimal scale size, whereas 17 states have considerable potential to boost their productive efficiencies by enlarging available resources, and 28 states are overinvested in their input variables given their current output levels. The non-radial DEA models show that, overall, the states’ capital efficiency is very high, whereas energy and emission efficiencies are very low. The states’ eco-productivity is relatively higher than the eco-efficiency levels. In the second stage of the analysis, non-parametric statistical tests and Tobit regressions are conducted for further investigation. According to the non-parametric statistical test, high capital stock, labor force, and energy usage do not affect the states’ productive efficiency. However, states with low carbon dioxide emissions have significantly higher eco-efficiency and eco-productivity levels. The Tobit regression results illustrate that nuclear power and renewable energy consumption significantly affect the states’ relative efficiencies.
Home Sweet Home: Financial Development and Homeownership

Do improvements in credit markets restrict or broaden economic disparities? Deregulation of intrastate branching, an exogenous shock to U.S. mortgage markets, led to an increase in the overall stock and flow of mortgages. This increase was disproportionately higher for marginal borrowers such as lower income, younger and black households. Technology adoption by banks and lower downpayments explain some of this higher homeownership. Only commercial banks, the specific financial institutions affected by the policy, drive these findings. There was no increase in delinquencies, suggesting that it was not simply heightened competition encouraging banks to expand lending to riskier borrowers.
Cryptography, trusted third parties and escrow

The promise of tomorrow‘s electronic business environment will not be fully realised unless government, business and consumers have a high level of confidence in the security of that environment. The use of cryptography can provide this confidence and facilitate the establishment of a global electronic market-place. Cryptographic techniques offer a range of services including confidentiality, authenticity, integrity and anonymity. We examine some of these techniques and explain why a trusted third party infrastructure is seen as a crucial component in the successful introduction of an electronic business arena. The widespread use of cryptography, however, also presents possible new opportunities for criminal activity. To mitigate against this many governments have proposed the provision of escrowed cryptographic services — we review a particular scheme favoured by the UK government.
Residential care/assisted living staff may detect undiagnosed dementia using the minimum data set cognition scale.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the sensitivity, specificity, and reliability of the Minimum Data Set Cognition Scale (MDS-COGS) in screening for undetected dementia when completed by direct care staff in residential care/assisted living (RC/AL) facilities and secondarily to determine the prevalence of dementia in the sample. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study in which staff were trained to complete the MDS-COGS. Research interviewers and a neuropsychologist obtained information on each participant. Two neurologists reviewed the data and examined the participant, rendering a probable diagnosis of dementia/non-dementia diagnosis. MDS-COGS results were compared with the neurologists' determination. SETTING: Fourteen RC/AL facilities in North Carolina. PARTICIPANTS: Data were collected from 50 staff on 166 residents without a diagnosis of dementia. MEASUREMENTS: In addition to the MDS-COGS, measures included a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Depression and other neuropsychiatric symptoms were also assessed. RESULTS: Neurologists determined that 38% of participants had probable dementia. An MDS-COGS cutpoint of 2 was highly specific (0.97) but not very sensitive (0.49) for dementia. Test–retest and interrater agreement for a negative screen were high (88% and 93%, respectively). CONCLUSION: The MDS-COGS is a simple, brief screen that RC/AL staff can complete. It will identify with high specificity a subset of residents with undetected dementia, allowing rapid identification of those likely to need dementia care. Caution needs to be exercised in light of its low sensitivity, because some with milder dementia will not be detected. Further work is needed to determine whether staff can and will use the MDS-COGS as a trigger for more-thorough assessment and to guide care and improve outcomes.
The Role of Trust in International Law

This paper discusses: (1) how attitudes of trust and distrust affect nations' efforts to reach international agreement or other forms of international cooperation; (2) the factors that influence such attitudes of trust and distrust and how such attitudes can be changed; and (3) where distrust obstructs the reaching of international agreement, how such obstacles can be overcome. The paper suggests that trust is a psychological device through which people, including diplomats and government officials, seek to manage the risks inherent in their cooperative and other interactions, including their international dealings. More specifically, the paper discusses the problem of risk in interpersonal and international relations, the concept of interpersonal and intergroup trust, the relevance of trust to the reaching of cooperation, an extensive survey of the factors which may affect trust or distrust, the interrelation of international law and trust, and hypotheses concerning the broader role of trust in international law and relations. For the subsequent development of certain ideas in this paper, which is to be revised and updated, see RICHARD B. BILDER, MANAGING THE RISKS OF INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981) and Richard B. Bilder, "Beyond Compliance: Helping Nations Cooperate" in D. SHELTON (ed). COMMITMENT AND COMPLIANCE: THE ROLE OF NONBINDING NORMS IN THE LEGAL SYSTEM (Oxford University Press, 2000), at p. 65.
Characterization of dimorphism in Cladosporium werneckii.

Yeast forms of the dimorphic fungus Cladosporium werneckii grow by polar budding and yield a homogeneous yeast phase when cultured at 21 C in an agitated sucrose-salts medium (Czapek-Dox broth). Yeast extract enrichment of such a yeast phase consisting of 104 yeasts per ml induces a quantitative conversion of the yeasts to true hyphae. This conversion is not mediated by a transition cell and is often attended by capsule formation. When 105 or 106 yeasts per ml receive enrichment, a nonquantitative conversion to moniliform hyphae is effected and no capsule formation is observed. Rapid agitation compared to slow agitation or stationary incubation of the nutritionally mediated conversion cultures greatly accelerates the production of lateral hyphal buds or their yeast progenies. These cells appear incapable of undergoing nutritional conversion to hyphae, but instead must grow for several generations in the unenriched sucrose-salts medium to restore conversion competence. Temperature shifts affect directly the morphology and morphogenesis of the yeast in unenriched medium; at 17 C yeasts are smaller and more ovoid than at 21 C, and at 30 C marked conversion of yeasts to moniliform hyphae occurs. A methodology employing the Coulter counter and Coulter channelizer provides evidence that direct correlations do not always exist between the optimum conditions for the growth of C. werneckii and the optimum conditions for its yeast-to-mold conversion.
Short-Term Contracts, Long-Term Actions, and Information System Design

We examine how “long-term actions” (current period actions that bear fruit in the future) can be motivated when short-term contracts are employed, and derive implications for the design of performance measurement systems. In our two-period model with unknown agent type and moral hazard, the principal chooses between a fine and a coarse performance measurement system. These two systems differ in the information they convey about the agent's unknown type and therefore lead to different retention/firing policies. The principal's retention policy in turn influences the agent's incentives to undertake long-term actions, especially if the agent has advance information about what the performance is likely to be; an employee expecting to get fired is less likely to take actions that will bear fruit only after his departure from the firm. We show that the principal may prefer a coarser performance measurement system because it can substitute for her ability to commit to retention decisions. We also show that the f...
State and Local Regulation of Particular Types of Affordable Housing

This chapter is part of "The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development", a practical guidebook covering most important areas of law that apply to affordable housing development. This chapter analyzes a wide variety of state and local regulation affecting the development of several types of affordable housing which are neither traditional single family nor multi-family. Specifically, the chapter discusses statutes, ordinances, regulations and leading case law concerning the siting of manufactured housing (Section II), farmworker housing (Section III), accessory or secondary units (Section IV), single room occupancy hotels (SROs) (Section V), condominium conversion regulation (Section VI), and emergency shelters and transitional housing, including domestic violence shelters (Section VII).
Citreoviridin Levels in Eupenicillium ochrosalmoneum-Infested Maize Kernels at Harvest

Citreoviridin contents were measured in eight bulk samples of maize kernels collected from eight fields immediately following harvest in southern Georgia. Citreoviridin contamination in six of the bulk samples ranged from 19 to 2,790 micrograms/kg. In hand-picked samples the toxin was concentrated in a few kernels (pick-outs), the contents of which were stained a bright lemon yellow (range, 53,800 to 759,900 micrograms/kg). The citreoviridin-producing fungus Eupenicillium ochrosalmoneum Scott & Stolk was isolated from each of these pick-out kernels. Citreoviridin was not detected in bulk samples from two of the fields. Aflatoxins were also present in all of the bulk samples (total aflatoxin B1 and B2; range, 7 to 360 micrograms/kg), including those not containing citreoviridin. In Biotron-grown maize ears that were inoculated with E. ochrosalmoneum through a wound made with a toothpick, citreoviridin was concentrated primarily in the wounded and fungus-rotted kernels (range, 142,000 to 2,780,000 micrograms/kg). Samples of uninjured kernels immediately adjacent to the wounded kernel (first circle) had less than 4,000 micrograms of citreoviridin per kg, while the mean concentration of toxin in kernel samples representing the next row removed (second circle) and all remaining kernels from the ear was less than 45 micrograms/kg. Animal toxicosis has not been linked to citreoviridin-contaminated maize.
The Impact of Budget Stabilization Funds on State General Obligation Bond Ratings

This study examines the impact of budget stabilization funds (BSFs) on state general obligation (GO) bond credit ratings. While a number of past empirical papers have examined the effect of various fiscal institutions on state GO bond ratings; to date, BSFs have been largely ignored in the literature. Model estimates show that neither the choice to have a statutory BSF versus a constitutional BSF or the size of a BSF has any apparent impact on credit ratings. However, weak deposit rules are associated with lower credit ratings while weak withdrawal rules are associated with higher credit ratings.
Modeling the response to changes in tropospheric methane concentration: Application to the Permian‐Triassic boundary

[1] We discuss model experiments valid for the Permian-Triassic boundary in which we explore the impact of changes in tropospheric methane concentration. For scenarios relevant to methane clathrate release, we consider surface methane concentration with values up to 5000 times its preindustrial concentration. We employ a comprehensive three-dimensional tropospheric-stratospheric model with chemistry that allows for the feedbacks between chemistry and climate. We show that stratospheric ozone starts collapsing for methane surface concentrations on the order of 1000 times their preindustrial concentration. At 5000 times, more than half of the total ozone column has disappeared. As a result a large rise (up to a factor of 7) in surface UV-B radiation is found. Other chemical consequences include a rise in CO and ozone surface concentrations; although becoming very large (up to 17 ppmv for CO), neither seems to reach lethal values according to present-day life forms. Finally, we show that tropospheric OH does not collapse for any of the scenarios; a corollary of this is a finite methane lifetime (45 years at the most). As a result, if methane were to increase significantly enough over a short period, the associated UV-B increase and/or deterioration of surface conditions could provide an explanation for the landmass extinction at the Permian-Triassic boundary.