cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Primary care providers' beliefs about teen and parent barriers to depression care.

Adolescent depression is an under-recognized public health problem in the United States with serious consequences.1, 2 While almost 12% of all adolescents are diagnosed with major depression or dysthymia,3 only one-third of depressed adolescents receive mental health care.4 Although screening in primary care settings provides one route to identify and offer treatment for adolescents with depression,2, 5 other barriers may intervene to prevent successful treatment initiation, sufficient treatment engagement, and improved outcomes.6, 7 For primary care providers (PCPs) to effectively address adolescent depression and increase the likelihood for treatment initiation and engagement, strategies to better identify and address barriers to care are needed. Teens and parents in primary care settings identify a wide range of both external (e.g. transportation or access) and internal barriers (e.g. negative beliefs and attitudes) to depression care.8, 9 Depressed teens endorse internal barriers including fear of being identified as abnormal or a belief that they do not have a problem.8, 10 Parents may also face internal barriers such as not acknowledging that depression is a problem for the teen7, 9 or feeling guilty that the diagnosis is a result of poor parenting. Barriers most salient for parents differ from barriers identified by teens.9 A study on barriers to depression care among adolescents in primary care found that the top three barriers for parents of depressed teens were trouble making an appointment, high costs, and not wanting care.9 The top three barriers for depressed teens were personal responsibilities at school, home, or work, worry about family’s perceptions, and trouble making an appointment. Both parent and teen barriers predict poor uptake of depression care.7, 9 This study concluded that for PCPs to increase treatment uptake, they should identify and address teen and parent barriers to care. While several studies have investigated barriers to depression care for teens and parents,9–11 we are unaware of studies examining PCPs’ perceptions of these teen and parent barriers. Better understanding PCPs’ perceptions will assist in designing primary care interventions directed toward assisting PCPs in considering teen and parent needs, values, and preferences, thereby increasing initiation of and engagement with mental health care for adolescent depression. This exploratory study examined how PCPs perceive adolescents’ and parents’ beliefs about barriers to care, which may be important to improving the quality of shared decision-making in adolescent depression treatment decisions.
Evolving Structural Diversity and Metallicity in Compressed Lithium Azide

In pursuit of new stable nitrogen-rich phases and of a possible insulator–metal transition, the ground-state electronic structure of lithium azide, LiN3, is investigated from 1 atm to 300 GPa (∼2-fold compression) using evolutionary crystal structure exploration methods coupled with density functional theoretical calculations. Two new LiN3 phases, containing slightly reduced and well-separated N2 units, are found to be enthalpically competitive with the known lithium azide crystal structure at 1 atm. At pressures above 36 GPa nitrogen-rich assemblies begin to evolve. These incorporate NN bond formation beyond that in N2 or N3–. N6 rings and infinite one-dimensional linear nitrogen chains (structural analogues to polyacetylene) appear. Above 200 GPa quasi-one- and two-dimensional extended puckered hexagonal and decagonal nitrogen layers emerge. The high-pressure phase featuring linear chains may be quenchable to P = 1 atm. With increasing pressure the progression in electrical conductivity is from insulato...
Inguinal Node Metastasis of Low-Grade Endometrial Endometrioid Adenocarcinoma in a Morbidly Obese Patient.

Background The accurate preoperative evaluation of endometrial cancer is needed to inform disease staging, but the evaluation may be more prone to error if the physical signs of advanced stage disease are difficult to appreciate in morbidly obese patients. Case A morbidly obese (BMI = 56.9 kg/m2) 67-year-old woman with postmenopausal uterine bleeding was diagnosed with low-grade stage IB endometrial endometrioid adenocarcinoma after surgical staging. She received adjuvant vaginal brachytherapy. Fourteen months after surgery she presented with an ulcerating left inguinal mass. Fine-needle biopsy demonstrated adenocarcinoma consistent with her primary endometrioid adenocarcinoma. At the time of initial diagnosis, a preoperative physical examination was negative for inguinal lymphadenopathy and a computed tomography(CT) demonstrated inguinal lymphadenopathy that was not appreciated. Conclusion In morbidly obese patients, the sensitivity of a physical examination is limited by body habitus. Obese patients with limited physical examinations may benefit from imaging studies to aid early diagnosis of extraperitoneal disease.
Reed-Sternberg cells in Hodgkin's cell lines HDLM, L-428, and KM-H2 are not actively replicating: lack of bromodeoxyuridine uptake by multinuclear cells in culture

We compared the proliferation of mononuclear and multinuclear cells in four Hodgkin9s cell lines, HDLM-1, HDLM-1d, L-428, and KM-H2, by examining their capacity to incorporate bromodeoxyuridine (BrdUrd) into nuclei. Approximately 5% of all cells in HDLM-1 cultures had two or more nuclei, a characteristic of Reed-Sternberg (RS) cells. Unlike mononuclear Hodgkin9s (H) cells, these RS cells exhibited no uptake, or only minimal uptake of BrdUrd, suggesting that they did not replicate actively. Cytogenetic study showed that 25% of the HDLM-1 cells contained a tetraploid (4X) set of chromosomes with a characteristic two-peak distribution. Following treatment of HDLM-1 cells with phorbol ester, the percentages of 4X cells and RS cells increased to 50% and 12%, respectively. This increase in RS cells was not likely to be due to cell fusion as shown by the absence of hybridization of BrdUrd- positive and -negative nuclei. Phorbol ester has a short-term effect of blocking the exit of cells from G1 into S phase, but no effect on the transition from S phase to G2/M phase. The block is more prominent in 2X cells than in 4X cells, which may explain the increase in percentage of 4X cells in phorbol ester-treated cultures. In addition, phorbol ester induced the differentiation of H-RS cells, which was accompanied by loss of the marker HeFi-1 from the cell surface. Approximately one third of the RS cells did not express HeFi-1, or expressed only minimal amounts. The findings led us to the following conclusions: (1) The 4X cells probably are formed from 2X H cells as a result of disturbed cytokinesis, but not a cell fusion. (2) A considerable number of 4X cells were H cells, because the number of 4X cells consistently exceeded that of RS cells. (3) Since mitotic figures are extremely rare in RS cells and these cells did not show active BrdUrd uptake, the increased number of RS cells must also be a consequence of disturbed cytokinesis of H cells or a result of nuclear transformation (twisting, convolution, or separation of the nucleus) in H cells. (4) Most RS cells lose their proliferating capacity and some RS cells may undergo further differentiation. Uptake of BrdUrd and phorbol ester induction were also studied on the other three H-RS cell lines, HDLM-1d, L-428, and KM-H2, with results similar to those for HDLM-1.
Highly personalized detection of minimal Ewing sarcoma disease burden from plasma tumor DNA.

Background Even though virtually all patients with Ewing sarcoma achieve a radiographic complete response, up to 30% of patients who present with localized disease and up to 90% of those who present with metastases experience a metastatic disease recurrence, highlighting the inability to identify patients with residual disease at the end of therapy. Up to 95% of Ewing sarcomas carry a driving EWS-ETS translocation that has an intronic breakpoint that is specific to each tumor, and the authors developed a system to quantitatively detect the specific breakpoint DNA fragment in patient plasma. Methods The authors used a long-range multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique to identify tumor-specific EWS-ETS breakpoints in Ewing sarcoma cell lines, patient-derived xenografts, and patient tumors, and this sequence was used to design tumor-specific primer sets to detect plasma tumor DNA (ptDNA) by droplet digital PCR in xenograft-bearing mice and patients. Results Tumor-specific breakpoint DNA fragments were detected in the plasma of xenograft-bearing mice, and the signal correlated with tumor burden during primary tumor growth, after surgical resection, and at the time of metastatic disease recurrence. Furthermore, the authors were able to detect the specific breakpoint in plasma DNA obtained from 3 patients with Ewing sarcoma and in 2 patients the authors were able to detect ptDNA when there was radiographically undetectable disease present. Conclusions The use of droplet digital PCR to detect tumor-specific EWS-ETS fusion gene breakpoint ptDNA fragments can be developed into a highly personalized biomarker of disease recurrence that can be optimized in animal studies for ultimate use in patients. Cancer 2016;122:3015-3023. © 2016 American Cancer Society.
Natural Deduction and Ordinary Language Discourse Structure

‘Natural deduction’ is natural in virtue of the way that it allows formal proofs to closely mirror the structure of familiar ordinary language arguments.1 For example, the sentences of the ordinary language argument (1) correspond one-to-one with the lines of the proof (2): (1) Whoever committed the murder left by the window. Anyone who left by the window would have had mud on his shoes. Suppose that the butler committed the murder. Then he left by the window. In that case, he has mud on his shoes. So if the butler committed the murder, he has mud on his shoes.
Argument as a Natural Category: The Routine Grounds for Arguing in Conversation.

A theoretical analysis of the natural category “argument”; can be built inductively from examination of discursive objects recognizable as members of the category. The natural category of argument appears to be defined functionally by its disagreement‐relevance and structurally by its expansion of basic sequences of speech acts. Expansion of speech act sequences into prototypical arguments—those in which reasons are exchanged—is governed by felicity conditions associated with the particular speech acts involved, so that making an argument is always done with reference to socially shared structures amounting to the proof requirements of individual speech acts.
Real-World Evidence — What Is It and What Can It Tell Us?

The FDA is developing guidance on the use of “real-world evidence” — health care information from atypical sources, including electronic health records, billing databases, and product and disease registries — to assess the safety and effectiveness of drugs and devices.
Selenium Speciation in the Fountain Creek Watershed (Colorado, USA) Correlates with Water Hardness, Ca and Mg Levels.

The environmental levels of selenium (Se) are regulated and strictly enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because of the toxicity that Se can exert at high levels. However, speciation plays an important role in the overall toxicity of Se, and only when speciation analysis has been conducted will a detailed understanding of the system be possible. In the following, we carried out the speciation analysis of the creek waters in three of the main tributaries—Upper Fountain Creek, Monument Creek and Lower Fountain Creek—located in the Fountain Creek Watershed (Colorado, USA). There are statistically significant differences between the Se, Ca and Mg, levels in each of the tributaries and seasonal swings in Se, Ca and Mg levels have been observed. There are also statistically significant differences between the Se levels when grouped by Pierre Shale type. These factors are considered when determining the forms of Se present and analyzing their chemistry using the reported thermodynamic relationships considering Ca2+, Mg2+, SeO42−, SeO32− and carbonates. This analysis demonstrated that the correlation between Se and water hardness can be explained in terms of formation of soluble CaSeO4. The speciation analysis demonstrated that for the Fountain Creek waters, the Ca2+ ion may be mainly responsible for the observed correlation with the Se level. Considering that the Mg2+ level is also correlating linearly with the Se levels it is important to recognize that without Mg2+ the Ca2+ would be significantly reduced. The major role of Mg2+ is thus to raise the Ca2+ levels despite the equilibria with carbonate and other anions that would otherwise decrease Ca2+ levels.
The rise of ‘Gangnam style’: Manufacturing the urban middle class in Seoul, 1976–1996:

Focusing on the case of urban development in Gangnam, this article explores how middle-class identity based on residence in apartment complexes was created in South Korea beginning in the late 1970...
The Abandonment of Benevolent Neutrality

The Bonar Law government’s contention that it understood the Ruhr situation was accompanied by a refusal to take any responsibility for the French policy. Critics attacked this attitude of the government and insisted that the attempt to remain neutral would bring terrible consequences. J. S. Strachey, editor of the Spectator, thought that a policy of inaction would only mislead France into thinking that Britain would continue to acquiesce in the French campaign whatever its consequences.1
"This Is How It Starts": Women Maquila Workers in Mexico

Excerpt] In the United States, where news about Mexico is sporadic at best and usually rife with stereotypes, Mexican workers are largely invisible, portrayed mainly as competitors for U.S. jobs — whether as undocumented immigrants or as laborers in international runaway shops. Women workers are doubly invisible, discounted as a marginal element of the paid workforce. Yet it is women who are taking the most initiative to break through the barriers of silence and invisibility, seeking friends and allies on the other side of the border and drawing support from church, community, labor and women's groups in the United States. Such efforts, while still in their infancy, could play a major role in strengthening the hand of the labor movement against transnational corporations and in building coalitions among these groups.
Batch scheduled admission control for computer and network systems

An increasing number of business transactions, mission-critical operations and many other activities rely on the services of computer and network systems, and the dependability of those services. However, many computer and network systems do not currently provide adequate service dependability. Such systems place no admission control on service requests jobs, leading to variability and thus unpredictability in job waiting times which have a negative impact on service dependability. This paper presents a Batch Scheduled Admission Control BSAC method to help provide predictability in job waiting time for high priority jobs. With this method, we change the dynamic job arriving problem into a static problem which allows the introduction of job scheduling techniques that require a static set of jobs to operate on for stabilizing their waiting time. We illustrate how our method can be employed through examples and experiments that compare the performance of our method with that of no admission control. The results under our test cases show that our method improves the variance of job waiting times, and in some cases with little sacrifice to the mean of job waiting times.
Palliative radiotherapy education in hospice and palliative medicine fellowship: A national needs assessment.

87Background: Educational deficiencies among hospice and palliative medicine (HPM) physicians are thought to contribute to sub-optimal utilization of palliative radiotherapy (PRT) for patients with...
The intersection of language ideologies and language awareness among in-service teachers of emergent bilinguals

Important components of the teacher knowledge base are how aware a teacher is of language (including how it is acquired and best taught), as well as their language ideologies. Because a combination of ideologies and awareness may guide many pedagogical decisions, this mixed-methods sequential explanatory study explored prevalent language ideological orientations of educators in a dual language immersion (DLI) context, their degrees of Teacher Language Awareness (TLA), and the relationship between the two. Findings revealed that participants with high degrees of TLA oriented significantly more positively towards additive language ideologies, while educators with low degrees of TLA were significantly more likely to orient toward deficit ideologies. Data from cases representing high and low degrees of TLA provide an in-depth view of the relationship between teachers’ TLA and ideologies in practice. This study extends an understanding of how language awareness and ideologies interact, along with implications for pre- and in-service teacher professional development.
Glucopyranosyl lipid adjuvant enhances immune response to Ebola virus-like particle vaccine in mice

The identification of adjuvants that promote lasting antigen-specific immunity and augment vaccine efficacy are integral to the development of new protein-based vaccines. The Ebola virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine expressing Ebola virus glycoprotein (GP) and matrix protein (VP40) was used in this study to evaluate the ability of TLR4 agonist glucopyranosyl lipid adjuvant (GLA) formulated in a stable emulsion (SE) to enhance immunogenicity and promote durable protection against mouse-adapted Ebola virus (ma-EBOV). Antibody responses and Ebola-specific T cell responses were evaluated post vaccination. Survival analysis after lethal ma-EBOV challenge was performed 4 weeks and 22 weeks following final vaccination. GLA-SE enhanced EBOV-specific immunity and resulted in long-term protection against challenge with ma-EBOV infection in a mouse model. Specifically, GLA-SE elicited Th1-skewed antibodies and promoted the generation of EBOV GP-specific polyfunctional T cells. These results provide further support for the utility of TLR4 activating GLA-SE-adjuvanted vaccines.
Targeting a highly repeated germline DNA sequence for improved real-time PCR-based detection of Ascaris infection in human stool.

BACKGROUND With the expansion of soil transmitted helminth (STH) intervention efforts and the corresponding decline in infection prevalence, there is an increased need for sensitive and specific STH diagnostic assays. Previously, through next generation sequencing (NGS)-based identification and targeting of non-coding, high copy-number repetitive DNA sequences, we described the development of a panel of improved quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR)-based assays for the detection of Necator americanus, Ancylostoma duodenale, Ancylostoma ceylanicum, Trichuris trichiura, and Strongyloides stercoralis. However, due to the phenomenon of chromosome diminution, a similar assay based on high copy-number repetitive DNA was not developed for the detection of Ascaris lumbricoides. Recently, the publication of a reference-level germline genome sequence for A. lumbricoides has facilitated our development of an improved assay for this human pathogen of vast global importance. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Repurposing raw DNA sequence reads from a previously published Illumina-generated, NGS-based A. lumbricoides germline genome sequencing project, we performed a cluster-based repeat analysis utilizing RepeatExplorer2 software. This analysis identified the most prevalent repetitive DNA element of the A. lumbricoides germline genome (AGR, Ascaris germline repeat), which was then used to develop an improved qPCR assay. During experimental validation, this assay demonstrated a fold increase in sensitivity of ~3,100, as determined by relative Cq values, when compared with an assay utilizing a previously published, frequently employed, ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) DNA target. A comparative analysis of 2,784 field-collected samples was then performed, successfully verifying this improved sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Through analysis of the germline genome sequence of A. lumbricoides, a vastly improved qPCR assay has been developed. This assay, utilizing a high copy-number repeat target found in eggs and embryos (the AGR repeat), will improve prevalence estimates that are fundamental to the programmatic decision-making process, while simultaneously strengthening mathematical models used to examine STH infection rates. Furthermore, through the identification of an optimal target for PCR, future assay development efforts will also benefit, as the identity of the optimized repeat DNA target is likely to remain unchanged despite continued improvement in PCR-based diagnostic technologies.
Who am I as it Relates to LD

The poem, Who am I as it relates to LD?, is the fourth of five Learning Disability poems about my Learning Disability shame at my intersections of power and identity in educational contexts as critical autoethnographic texts. Who am I as it Relates to LD? by David Isaac Hernandez-Saca is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at https://rdsjournal.org. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://www.rds.hawaii.edu/.
Enhancing departmental engagement: Using a LibGuide to promote an invited speaker seminar series

The departmental seminar has long held a prominent place in the culture of academic science. In chemistry, one of the most tradition-bound STEM disciplines, faculty of all ranks go on the road with prepared talks about their latest research, visiting host departments to share and network. While this mode of communication is time-intensive and not inexpensive, it offers many benefits to all concerned.
An investigation of self-efficacy crossover between mentors and protégés within mentoring dyads.

Our current research investigated how mentors enhance protege self-efficacy. Drawing from social comparison theory, we propose that the shared experience between mentors and proteges facilitates the ability of proteges to adopt the perspective of their mentors. Additionally, the perspective-taking that a protege engages in enables them to ascribe positive aspects of their mentor (i.e., efficacious beliefs) to themselves. Study 1 (N = 205 adults) and study 2 (N = 204 adults) adopted an experimental design (i.e., vignette study) and study 3 (N = 148 undergraduate management students) adopted a survey design with proteges in an e-mentoring program. Results from all three studies provided evidence for the transfer of efficacy beliefs from the mentor to the protege. The findings supported the postulation that shared experience between the protege and mentor facilitates perspective-taking on behalf of the protege. Although the findings of the experimental studies showed that a protege's perspective-taking moderated the positive transfer of efficacy beliefs from the mentor to the protege, the field study failed to replicate this particular finding. Our current research findings have implications for training and developing employees.
The Presence of Multiple Polyadenylation Sites in the Gene for the β and γ Chains of Human Fibrinogen

Abstract cDNAs and genomic DNA coding for the β and γ chains of human fibrinogen have been isolated and characterized by sequence analysis. These studies show that the mRNA for the β chain is polyadenylated at three discrete sites. These three sites are located in the 3′ noncoding region of the mRNA and do not result in a change in the amino acid sequence. The mRNA for the γ chain is polyadenylated at two discrete sites. This leads to the formation of a γ chain and a γ′ chain. The less prevalently used polyadenylation site is located within the last (ninth) intron. Polyadenylation at this site removed the 3′ end of the splice junction in the ninth intron, enabling the immediate 5′ end of the ninth intron to serve as an extension of the ninth exon. Translation of this message led to the replacement of the last 4 amino acids of the γ chain by a peptide of 20 amino acids.
Investigation and distribution of higher fluorides water in different ecotypic areas in Gansu Province from 2006 to 2008

Objective To master the status of the distribution of high-fluorine water and ecological districts endemic areas of fluorosis in Gansu Province so as to provide a scientific basis for control strategy. Methods The information on ecology and drinking water sources was surveyed in rural residential areas of the project counties (district). Five samples of source water were collected from five azimuths of east, west, north, south and center in every endemic village to detect fluoride content and calculate the mean. Water fluoride content was detected by means of fluorides ion selective electrode. Results In 41 counties of the total 45 counties, fluoride contents in 7174 water samples were screened out to be more than 1.0 mg/L and accounted for 29.84%(7174/24 041), which were distributed in 1524 villages, accounting for 31.64% (1524/4819) in water samples. It was found that fluoride contents in water samples in 28 counties were more than 2.0 mg/L and in 30 villages of 9 counties were more than 4.0 mg/L, which were distributed in the hills and valleys of Loess Plateau or the Loess Plateau-gully region. The results showed that the fluoride levels of different areas presented such a sequence as(from low to high): the grassland meadow area of Gannan plateau < the desert region < the gobi region of Hexi Corridor < the hills and valleys region of Loess Plateau < the Loess Plateau-gully region. Conclusions Residents in different ecotypic areas of Gansu Province face different drinking water problems, and reasonable planning and guidance should be adopted to prevent and control the endemic fluorosis. Key words: Drinking; Flouride poisoning; Endemic diseases; Data collection
Integrated Microscopy of Extracellular Adhesives of the Marine Biofouling Alga Achnanthes Longipes (Bacillariophyceae)

An integrated approach including TEM, SEM and LM was utilized to investigate adhesives produced by the marine fouling diatom Achnanthes longipes. Extracellular adhesive secretion during sequential attachment in living diatom cells was examined using video microscopy. A suite of cryotechniques including high pressure freezing (HPF), freeze-substitution (FS) and high resolution cryo-field-emission SEM (cryo-FESEM) were required for preservation and structural investigation of the hydrophilic polymers synthesized by A. longipes that promote attachment to ship hulls, oil rigs and other submerged structures.Living cells and associated extracellular biocomposites were rapidly cryo-immoblized and observed using a Hitachi S-900 FESEM equipped with a cryo-stage. This technique allowed resolution of details of polymer organization within the pad, shaft and collar portions of the major adhesive structure termed a stalk (Fig. 1,2). This stalk has been demonstrated to consist mainly of polysaccharide cross-linked by O-linked polypeptides. In addition to permanently adhering the diatom to the substratum, the stalk elevates A. longipes, possibly enhancing the ability to successfully compete with other biofilm dwellers.
Exploration of membrane-based dehumidification system to improve the energy efficiency of kiln drying processes: Part 1 – Factors that affect moisture removal efficiency

Green wood drying through a steam kiln-drying technology is an energy-demanding process. This process consumes a large amount of energy to evaporate water from wood and discharge it to the atmosphere through venting. The thermal energy loss from the venting of dry kilns takes up to 20% of total energy consumed by the whole wood-drying operation because a considerably large amount of thermal energy is stored in the exhaust air. Harvesting and reusing such waster thermal energy wood improve the energy efficiency of kiln-drying process. Advanced moisture-selective membranes have been used to dehydrate humid air or gas steam because of the advantages of low energy requirements, simplicity of operation, and high specificity. However, the application of the membrane in wood-drying processes has not been addressed. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the feasibility of using a moisture-selective membrane system to dehydrate the warm moist exhaust air to achieve an energy-saving purpose. The membrane material was polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with high water vapor permeability. A small membrane-based dehumidification system was constructed to evaluate the effects of four factors (temperature, airflow rate, initial RH, and vacuum pressure) on the efficiency of moisture vapor removal. Statistical analysis in terms of response surface methodology was carried out. The major findings include 1) an increase in the temperature and vacuum pressure caused a significant increase in the efficiency of moisture vapor removal, 2) the initial RH had little influence on the efficiency of moisture vapor removal, 3) increasing the airflow rate had a negative impact on the efficiency of moisture vapor removal, and 4) the regression model can be used to predict the efficiency of moisture vapor removal. This PDMS membrane would be a possible solution for a pre-drying process at relatively low operation temperatures (<45oC), that is dehumidification process.
Determination of 27 metals in HISS-1, MESS-4 and PACS-3 marine sediment certified reference materials by the BCR sequential extraction

Abstract The BCR sequential extraction procedure developed by the European Community Bureau of Reference was applied to the three marine sediment certified reference materials (CRMs). These CRMs are designated as HISS-1, MESS-4, and PACS-3 and comprise respectively pristine, moderately-contaminated, and highly-contaminated sediments, respectively. The study aimed to provide values of extractable elements in reference materials of varied geological origin to support method development and quality control efforts. Concentrations of 27 elements extracted in the three sequential extraction steps and in the residue were determined. The extraction steps consisted of: Step 1 – acetic acid extraction (targeting the exchangeable, water- and acid-soluble fraction); Step 2 – hydroxylammonium chloride extraction (targeting the reducible fraction); and Step 3 – hydrogen peroxide extraction (targeting the oxidizable fraction). The results from two independent laboratories using the sequential extraction procedure for the 27 elements were combined using the DerSimonian-Laird method of analysis implemented in the NIST Consensus Builder software. The percent recovery (sum steps vs total metal content) of 27 elements ranged from 68% to 125% in HISS-1, 76%–119% in MESS-4, and 70%–125% in PACS-3, based on the certified values. The combined uncertainty (k = 2) was from 1% to 39% for HISS-1, 3%–45% for MESS-4, and 3%–21% for PACS-3. Comparing the three extraction steps, the uncertainty of Step 3 was the highest for all the three CRMs. The agglomerate sediments in MESS-4 resulted in high uncertainty when compared to HISS-1 and PACS-3. The method validation showed the BCR sequential extraction procedure can apply to other elements including As, Co, Li, Mn, and V.
Uterine dehiscence in pregnant with previous caesarean delivery.

The main risk factor for uterine scar dehiscence is a previous caesarean section. Better characterisation of the ultrasonographic features of uterine scar dehiscence may improve preoperative diagno...
Branching Dueling Q-Network-Based Online Scheduling of a Microgrid With Distributed Energy Storage Systems

This letter investigates a Branching Dueling Q-Network (BDQ) based online operation strategy for a microgrid with distributed battery energy storage systems (BESSs) operating under uncertainties. The developed deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based microgrid online optimization strategy can achieve a linear increase in the number of neural network outputs with the number of distributed BESSs, which overcomes the curse of dimensionality caused by the charge and discharge decisions of multiple BESSs. Numerical simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A youth empowerment intervention to prevent childhood obesity: design and methods for a cluster randomized trial of the H2GO! program.

Background Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is a promising dietary target for childhood obesity prevention. This paper describes the design and methods of a cluster randomized trial of H2GO!, a youth empowerment intervention to prevent childhood obesity through reducing SSB consumption among a low-income, ethnically diverse sample of youth. Methods This cluster randomized controlled trial is an academic-community partnership with the Massachusetts Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs (BGC). Ten BGC sites will be randomly assigned to the H2GO! intervention or a wait-list, usual care control. Eligible study participants will be N = 450 parent-child pairs (youth ages 9-12 years and their parents/caregivers) recruited from participating BGCs. The 6-week in-person H2GO! intervention consists of 12 group-based sessions delivered by BGC staff and youth-led activities. An innovative feature of the intervention is the development of youth-produced narratives as a strategy to facilitate youth empowerment and parental engagement. Child outcomes include measured body mass index z scores (zBMI), beverage intake, and youth empowerment. Parent outcomes include beverage intake and availability of SSBs at home. Outcomes will be measured at baseline and at 2, 6, and 12 months. With a 75% retention rate, the study is powered to detect a minimum group difference of 0.1 zBMI units over 12 months. Discussion Empowering youth may be a promising intervention approach to prevent childhood obesity through reducing SSB consumption. This intervention was designed to be delivered through BGCs and is hypothesized to be efficacious, relevant, and acceptable for the target population of low-income and ethnically diverse youth. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04265794 . Registered 11 February 2020.
TOWARD A GLOBAL MODEL OF VENTURE CAPITAL

While the U.S. still accounts for about two-thirds of the world's total private equity fund-raising and investment, other countries have been adopting American practices and are experiencing significant growth in their private equity markets. In fact, a case can be made that a global market for venture capital and private equity is emerging, at least in Western Europe and North America, where venture markets are seeing significant convergence in funding levels, investment patterns, and realized returns. To date, however, the European Union has had little success in establishing community-wide commercial laws, taxation regimes, or corporate governance policies, so each country's private equity funds are organized in segmented national markets, and investment also tends to be largely localized. The Asian markets are even more fragmented: venture capital shows no sign of taking root in Japan, and China lacks the basic legal infrastructure needed to support a vibrant venture capital market. Venture capitalists create value through their role as active investors, and government and business leaders around the world have come to realize that venture capital and private equity investing can be a significant force in promoting economic development and technological progress. In general, countries with English common law codes offer greater protection to inves-tors; the ratio of venture capital spending to GDP for common law countries is nearly double that in civil law countries. Government efforts to promote venture capital would probably be better focused on eliminating regulatory road-blocks, lowering taxes, and provid-ing a favorable investor climate. In the meantime, it appears that pri-vate equity fund-raising and invest-ment have hit their cyclical lows and are poised to surpass $250 billion globally within three or four years and to reach one-half trillion dollars by the end of the decade. The author also predicts that India, whose history as a former British colony has given it a common law framework as well as system of elite universities and technical institutes known for the quality of its gradu-ates, should become one of the five leading venture capital markets by the end of this decade.
Markov Parallel Tracking and Mapping for Probabilistic SLAM

Parallel tracking and mapping (PTAM) as a time-efficient framework for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) has been becoming popular in recent years. However, in this paper, we vigilantly point out that the favorite parallel-pipeline design realized by recent proposed SLAM algorithms may lead to inaccurate state estimates which, as a consequence, cannot always guarantee the performance of the estimators in real application. This is mainly due to the imperfect design for processing loop-closure measurements which accidentally violates the Markov assumption for probabilistic SLAM problem. To address this issue, a novel estimator design is proposed that holds the advantage of parallel processing, while striving to be consistent with the Markov property of the batch probabilistic SLAM estimator, therefore, termed Markov parallel tracking and mapping (MPTAM). Especially, the experiments on challenging visual-inertial datasets are employed to further demonstrate the improvements of proposed estimator in terms of accuracy and efficiency, as compared with the state-of-the-art SLAM system.
Basics of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.

OVERVIEW The use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is becoming commonplace worldwide in ICUs for the care of patients with respiratory and/or cardiac failure. Understanding the use of ECMO and the management of these complex patients will be vital to current and future clinicians as ECMO use continues to grow.
On self-triggered control for linear systems: Guarantees and complexity

Typical digital implementations of feedback controllers periodically measure the state, compute the control law, and update the actuators. Although periodicity simplifies the analysis and implementation, it results in a conservative usage of resources. In this paper we drop the periodicity assumption in favor of self-trigger strategies that decide when to measure the state, execute the controller, and update the actuators according to the current state of the system. In particular, we develop a general procedure leading to self-triggered implementations of feedback controllers, that highly reduces the number of controller executions while guaranteeing a desired level of performance. We also analyze the inherent trade-off between the computational resources required for the self-triggered implementation and the resulting performance. The theoretical results are applied to a physical example to show the benefits of the approach.
PCR and Its Variations

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an in vitro technique used to replicate, or amplify, a specific region of DNA billions-fold in a few hours or less [1–3]. The amplification is primer directed; oligonucleotide primers anneal to and flank the DNA region to be amplified. PCR is utilized in diagnostic and research laboratories to generate sufficient quantities of DNA to be adequately tested, analyzed, or manipulated. Because of the exquisite sensitivity it offers, PCR has rapidly become a standard method in diagnostic microbiology. More recently, reagent kits and various instrument platforms have added speed, flexibility, and simplicity [4–10]. How significant is the contribution of PCR to the field of biomedicine? A PubMed search in 2005 for the first edition of this book using the key word “PCR” produced 214,352 hits [11]. A search conducted in June 2011 using the same key word produced 259,042 hits.
On the Resource Efficiency of Explicit Congestion Notification

Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) for IP networks has received considerable attention in recent years, and has been shown to improve TCP goodput. Previous studies have centered on scenarios in which TCP with ECN (TCP/ECN) traffic competes with ECN-unaware traffic. This paper presents case studies in which moderately short flows are all ECN-capable, and compare them with the corresponding cases where the flows are ECN-unaware, running over drop tail and Random Early Detection routers. Using transmission overhead metrics, we show that TCP/ECN uses network resources more efficiently. We also consider the case of battery-operated devices and show that TCP/ECN is more power conserving than standard TCP. An unexpected outcome of our experiments is that goodput does not improve in an all-TCP/ECN environment.
Analysis of the lookup table size for square-rooting

Convergence methods are widely used for division, reciprocation, and square-rooting. With such methods, it is common to use an initial table lookup step for obtaining an approximate result that leads to faster convergence. In the case of division and reciprocation, the required table size has been extensively analyzed and closed form formulas are available for the table length and width, given a desired maximum error. We offer similar analyses for square-rooting, deriving necessary and sufficient conditions on the length and width of a lookup table that yields a result with a maximum error of r/sup -h/, where r is the radix, or that provides the first h digits of the square root correctly.
ADRENAL GLAND STRUCTURE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYALINE MEMBRANE DISEASE

Adrenal cortical function may influence the development of hyaline membrane disease. Corticosteroid administration to animal fetuses reportedly accelerates some parameters of lung maturation. Analysis of 387 consecutive autopsies on human neonates demonstrated that adrenal glands were 19% lighter in infants with hyaline membrane disease than in those without the disorder owing to a greater number of adrenal cortical cells in the latter infants. A positive correlation was found between the presence of infection arising before birth and the absence of hyaline membrane disease, the infected infants having larger adrenal glands. It was found that anencephalic neonates who had little or no adrenal fetal cortical zone and half sized adult zones had 45% the mass of osmiophilic granules in pulmonary type II alveolar cells as did nonanencephalic control infants. The osmiophilic granules are reportedly the anatomic representation of surfactant.
Cosmological Constraints on Witten’s Hierarchy Mechanism

In Witten’s hierarchical supersymmetric model the SU(5) symmetry stays unbroken until the temperature becomes of order of the fundamental scale, M, of the model. This together with other phenomenological constraints suggests that M must satisfy the Weinberg bound M ≳ 1011 GeV. Baryon number generation and primordial monopole density pose difficulties for the model.
Democratizing the Nonprofit Sector

IN 1913—just prior to World War I—the United States Congress established a national income tax. There was a concern, however, that the income tax would lead individuals to reduce their charitable contributions. Accordingly, Congress rendered donations to groups ‘organized and operated for charitable, scientific, and educational purposes’ exempt from taxable income. This included an enormous variety of groups: social service agencies, community health clinics, cultural groups, and educational organizations. In the years that followed a variety of more specific groups were included such that non-profit organizations now qualify for tax-exempt donations if their purpose includes assisting the poor, protecting the environment, advancing art, science, education, religion, or culture and, more generally, pursuing purposes beneficial to the community. Although the favorable treatment of such organizations is myriad, this article focuses on the tax-deductible status of donations to such groups in the US. The decision to exempt donations to nonprofits from taxation is an important one for the political community. Total private giving in the US amounted to $295 billion in 2006. Estimates suggest that charitable deductions cost the Federal Government approximately $50 billion annually in foregone revenue. To put this in perspective, in 2007, $57.5 billion was allocated at the federal level for education and $7.7 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency. Moreover, ‘nonprofits account for 5 percent of GDP, over 8 percent of the economy’s wages, and about 10 percent of employment. Nonprofit wages and employment have both been growing as a share of the total economy, with nonprofit employment growing three times
Quantitation of ventricular hypertrophy and hemodynamic load with vectrocardiogram.

Abstract Studies in 540 children with congenital heart disease have shown correlations between the orthogonal electrocardiogram and the hemodynamic load placed on the right and left ventricles. Using the Frank lead system, the maximum spatial voltage directed to the left has been shown to reflect the degree of pressure or volume overload of the left ventricle in patients with aortic stenosis and septal defects and even in the cyanotic lesions tetralogy of Fallot and complete transposition of the great arteries. The maximum spatial voltage directed to the right has been found to correlate well with pressure overload of the right ventricle in patients with pulmonic stenosis and septal defects. The direction of rotation of the vectorcardiographic loop in the horizontal plane has been shown to reflect well the relative hemodynamic loads on the two ventricles, and thus presumably the relative degrees of left and right ventricular hypertrophy present. In certain lesions, the electrocardiographic-hemodynamic correlations are close enough to allow the Frank electrocardiogram to be of significant help in the clinical management of children with congenital heart disease.
Generation of mean flows by thermal convection

Abstract Various mechanisms of the generation of mean flows by fluctuating convection motions in fluid layers are reviewed. Reynolds stresses causing mean flows are either an intrinsic nonlinear property of convection, or they are produced when a secondary bifurcation to a more complex form of convection occurs, or they enter in the form of an instability, such that the sign of the mean flow depends on initial conditions. The basic mechanisms are elucidated by simple analytical models. Geophysical and astrophysical applications which have motivated most of the research on the topic of this review are mentioned only in passing. Finally the problem of mean flow generation owing to a temperature dependent viscosity is considered and the analogy to the Reynolds stress mechanism is pointed out.