cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Formulaic Expressions, Chinese Proverbs, and Newspaper Editorials: Exploring Type and Token Interdiscursivity in Japanese Wedding Speeches

This article elucidates the distinction between type and token interdiscursivity (Silverstein 2005) through an analysis of Japanese wedding speeches. Type interdiscursivity is genre defining, involving the use of speech formulae to frame the performance as an instance of the wedding speech genre. By contrast, token interdiscursivity in these speeches involves the artful insertion of quoted texts that are reinterpreted in the wedding speech context. Through a process of citation, quotation, and exegesis, speakers construct the replicated text as authoritative and borrow the authority of prior speakers for their own rhetorical purposes. Both forms of interdiscursivity allow speakers to use existing cultural resources to create new texts that are simultaneously appropriate, authoritative, and creative.
Adolescent γ-hydroxybutyric acid exposure decreases cortical N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor and impairs spatial learning

gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), which belongs to the class of substances referred to as "club drugs", is abused for its euphoric, sedative and anabolic effects. GHB use and abuse is most prevalent among adolescents and young adults. In almost all cases of GHB abuse, subjects report of amnesia. Behavioral effects of GHB in animals, particularly on learning and memory are not known. In this study, effects of GHB exposure on spatial learning and memory in adolescent rats were tested using the Morris water maze (MWM). Adolescent male rats were treated with a single daily injection of one of three doses of GHB for 5 days; control rats received equivalent volumes of saline. GHB-treated rats took longer and swam greater distances to find the hidden platform than control rats. Swim speed in GHB-treated rats was no different from that in vehicle-treated rats. In the probe trial, adolescent rats exposed to GHB spent less time in the target quadrant than control rats. In the visual task, drug-treated rats did not perform any differently than control rats. Brain regions from GHB-exposed and saline-treated rats were examined for N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor changes using [3H]MK-801 binding as a biochemical marker for NMDA channel function. [3H]MK-801 binding in the frontal cortex was significantly reduced compared to saline-treated controls. Together, these data indicate that GHB exposure in adolescent rats negatively impacts spatial learning and this is associated with altered regulation of cortical NMDA receptor.
Interfacial Reactions Between Amorphous W-Si Thin Films And Polycrystalline Overlayers

Interactions between amorphous metal thin films and either a substrate or an overlayer can limit their effectiveness as diffusion barriers. We have found in previous studies that Au and Al polycrystalline thin films in contact with amorphous W-Si lowers the crystallization temperature of the a-(W-Si) by at least 100C. In contrast Cu and Mo have no apparent effect on the stability of the amorphous layer. The mechanisms leading to premature crystallization are not well understood. Amorphous W .72 Si .28 was deposited by D.C. sputtering onto single crystal Si substrates. Overlayers of Al were then evaporated onto the W-Si. Using Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiling coupled with cross-section TEM, we have studied interfacial reactions between the amorphous layer and polycrystalline Al. Auger profiling results show that in the case of Al overlayers, W and Si diffuse out of the a-(W-Si) into the Al where WAl 12 forms. These results can be explained in the context of three binary diffusion couples, W-Si, W-Al, Al-Si, and the individual interactions associated with these couples.
Caries induced cytokine network in the odontoblast layer of human teeth

Immunologic responses of the tooth to caries begin with odontoblasts recognizing carious bacteria. Inflammatory propagation eventually leads to tooth pulp necrosis and danger to health. The present study aims to determine cytokine gene expression profiles generated within human teeth in response to dental caries in vivo and to build a mechanistic model of these responses and the downstream signaling network. We demonstrate profound differential up-regulation of inflammatory genes in the odontoblast layer (ODL) in human teeth with caries in vivo, while the pulp remains largely unchanged. Interleukins, chemokines, and all tested receptors thereof were differentially up-regulated in ODL of carious teeth, well over one hundred-fold for 35 of 84 genes. By interrogating reconstructed protein interaction networks corresponding to the differentially up-regulated genes, we develop the hypothesis that pro-inflammatory cytokines highly expressed in ODL of carious teeth, IL-1β, IL-1α, and TNF-α, carry the converged inflammatory signal. We show that IL1β amplifies antimicrobial peptide production in odontoblasts in vitro 100-fold more than lipopolysaccharide, in a manner matching subsequent in vivo measurements. Our data suggest that ODL amplifies bacterial signals dramatically by self-feedback cytokine-chemokine signal-receptor cycling, and signal convergence through IL1R1 and possibly others, to increase defensive capacity including antimicrobial peptide production to protect the tooth and contain the battle against carious bacteria within the dentin.
A Screening Technique for Photosynthetic Mutants in Unicellular Algæ

IN conjunction with experiments concerned with the genetics of photosynthesis in the sexually reproducing, unicellular, green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardi 1 it became necessary to devise a technique to screen for mutants which were blocked in some phase of their photosynthesis. In the technique to be described here the inability to fix carbon dioxide in the light was taken as a requirement of a non-photosynthetic mutant.
Input impedance of a probe-fed stacked circular microstrip antenna

The input impedance of a microstrip antenna consisting of two circular microstrip disks in a stacked configuration driven by a coaxial probe is investigated. A rigorous analysis is performed using a dyadic Green's function formulation whereby the mixed boundary value problem is reduced to a set of coupled vector integral equations using the vector Hankel transform. Galerkin's method is used in the spectral domain, using two sets of disk current expansions. One set is based on the complete set of orthogonal modes of the magnetic cavity, and the other uses Chebyshev polynomials with the proper edge condition for the disk currents. An additional term is added to the disk current expansion to model the current properly in the vicinity of the probe/disk junction. The input impedance of the antenna, including the probe self-impedance, is calculated as a function of the layered parameters and the ratio of the two disk radii. Disk current distributions and radiation patterns are presented. The calculated results are shown to be in good agreement with experimental data. >
Issues in the diagnosis and management of essential thrombocythemia.

Objective To summarize the current trends in the diagnosis and management of essential thrombocythemia (ET) and to discuss the treatment of young and pregnant patients with ET. Design We review our experiences in the diagnosis and management of ET. Material and Methods A definitive diagnosis of ET at initial examination is seldom possible because of the low incidences of associated clonal cytogenetic abnormalities and palpable splenomegaly. The criteria of the Polycythemia Vera Study Group for the diagnosis of ET are provided, as are the clinical and laboratory features that help to distinguish ET from reactive thrombocytosis. Results Patients with ET have an almost normal life expectancy if thrombohemorrhagic complications are controlled. Although a previous history of thrombosis is an established risk factor for further episodes, the adverse effects of extreme thrombocytosis and age are less well defined. Determining which patients require therapy is controversial. The management of young or pregnant patients necessitates special considerations. Conclusion Until additional data become available, no strong recommendations can be given in support of or against specific therapy for asymptomatic young patients. We favor treatment in asymptomatic patients with cardiovascular risk factors but not in asymptomatic women who are pregnant or are of childbearing age.
Non-standard amino acid incorporation into proteins using Escherichia coli cell-free protein synthesis

Incorporating non-standard amino acids (NSAAs) into proteins enables new chemical properties, new structures, and new functions. In recent years, improvements in cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) systems have opened the way to accurate and efficient incorporation of NSAAs into proteins. The driving force behind this development has been three-fold. First, a technical renaissance has enabled high-yielding (>1 g/L) and long-lasting (>10 h in batch operation) CFPS in systems derived from Escherichia coli. Second, the efficiency of orthogonal translation systems (OTSs) has improved. Third, the open nature of the CFPS platform has brought about an unprecedented level of control and freedom of design. Here, we review recent developments in CFPS platforms designed to precisely incorporate NSAAs. In the coming years, we anticipate that CFPS systems will impact efforts to elucidate structure/function relationships of proteins and to make biomaterials and sequence-defined biopolymers for medical and industrial applications.
Administrative Failure and the International NGO Response to Hurricane Katrina

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent failure of government agencies and public administrators elicited an unprecedented response by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) to a disaster in the United States. This paper focuses on why so many INGOs were compelled to provide humanitarian assistance and relief in the United States for the first time and the administrative barriers they faced while doing so. What does such a response reveal about administrative failures in the wake of Katrina, and what might the implications be for reconceptualizing roles for nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations in disaster relief? The authors answer these questions using data from interviews with INGO representatives, organizational press releases and Web sites, news articles, and official reports and documentation.
Genetic architecture of thermal adaptation in Escherichia coli.

Elucidating the genetic basis of adaptation on a genomewide scale has evaded biologists, but complete genome sequences and DNA high-density array technology make genomewide surveys more tractable. Six lines of Escherichia coli adapted for 2,000 generations to a stressful high temperature of 41.5°C were examined on a genomewide scale for duplication/deletion events by using DNA high-density arrays. A total of five duplication and deletion events were detected. These five events occurred in three of the six lines, whereas the remaining three lines contained no detectable events. Three of the duplications were at 2.85 Mb of the E. coli chromosome, providing evidence for the replicability of the adaptation to high temperature. Four candidate genes previously shown to play roles in stress and starvation survival were identified in the region of common duplication. Expression of the two candidate genes examined is elevated over expression levels in the ancestral lines or the lines without the duplication. In the two cases where the duplication at 2.85 Mb has been further characterized, the timing of the genome reorganization is coincident with significant increases in relative fitness. In both of these cases, the model for the origin of the duplication is a complex recombination event involving insertion sequences and repeat sequences. These results provide additional evidence for the idea that gene duplication plays an integral role in adaptation, specifically as a means for gene amplification.
Speech Perception Benefits From Sound Field FM Amplification

The effects of sound field FM amplification (SFA) on speech perception performance were investigated in this 2-year study. Kindergarten children with normal hearing were randomly assigned to a trea...
An Analysis of the Errors Involved in Component Pick Up and Registration for Automated Printed Circuit Board Assembly

In the high-speed, automated assembly of printed circuit boards, sufficient accuracy of the assembler system is required to enable proper component insertion without jamming. An important intermediate step in the assembly process, particularly with a general-purpose (flexible) assembler, is the registration of a component. The various error sources contributing to component mis-registration are identified and mathematical relationships between them are developed in this study. Using these relationships in a computer program, appropriate sizes and tolerances for the critical system parameters can be determined for successful component registration and assembly.
Trust-based Resource Allocation in Web Services

With the number of e-Business applications dramatically increasing, service level agreement (SLA) will play an important part in Web services. A SLA is a combination of several quality of services (QoS), such as security, performance, and availability, agreed between a customer and a service provider. Most existing research addresses only one QoS metric, and in the case of the response time, the average time to process and complete a job is typically used. In this paper, we study trustworthiness, percentile response time and availability. We consider all these qualities for a trust-based resource allocation problem which typically arises in Web services applications. We formulate the trust-based resource allocation problem as an optimization problem under SLA constraints, and we solve it using an efficient numerical procedure.
Age at disability onset and self-reported health status.

The critical importance of improving the well-being of people with disabilities is highlighted in many national health plans. Self-reported health status is reduced both with age and among people with disabilities. Because both factors are related to health status and the influence of the age at disability onset on health status is unclear, we examined the relationship between disability onset and health status. The U.S. 1998–2000 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance system (BRFSS) provided data on 11,905 adults with disability. Bivariate logistic regression analysis modeled the relationship between age at disability onset (based on self-report of duration of disability) and fair/poor self-perceived health status, adjusting for confounding variables. Key variables included demographics and other measures related to disability and general health status. Disability onset after 21 years of age showed significant association with greater prevalence of fair/poor health compared to early disability onset, even adjusting for current age and other demographic covariates. Compared with younger onset, the adjusted odds ratios (OR) were ages 22–44: OR 1.52, ages 45–64: OR 1.67, and age ≥65: OR 1.53. This cross-sectional study provides population-level, generalizable evidence of increased fair or poor health in people with later onset disability compared to those with disability onset prior to the age of 21 years. This finding suggests that examining the general health of people with and those without disabilities might mask differences associated with onset, potentially relating to differences in experience and self-perception. Future research relating to global health status and disability should consider incorporating age at disability onset. In addition, research should examine possible differences in the relationship between age at onset and self-reported health within specific impairment groups.
Simulation analysis of a dynamic checkpointing strategy for real-time systems

The performance of a fault tolerant real-time system is measured by its ability to meet deadlines in the presence of errors. Checkpointing and rollback recovery is an effective technique to tolerate transient and intermittent faults in real-time systems. Several strategies exist for checkpointing which can be broadly classified as static and dynamic. In static checkpointing, the checkpointing intervals are determined before the program execution and remain fixed until the program terminates. On the other hand, in a dynamic checkpointing strategy, the checkpointing interval is varied dynamically during program execution based on certain criteria. This paper presents a comparative study of the performance of real-time systems adopting various rollback recovery strategies. A new dynamic checkpointing strategy is presented, which integrates the deadline constraints and variable error rate in determining the checkpointing interval. The main idea behind this approach is to dynamically modify the inter-checkpointing interval during the execution of a task such that the online computation associated with checkpointing and recovery is minimized. Simulation study indicates that the proposed technique outperforms the rollback recovery techniques based on equidistant (static) checkpointing. The generic simulation tool developed to compare various rollback recovery strategies is also described. >
Re-evaporation of condensed matter during the formation of the solar system

From the properties of matter the conclusion is derived that the mineral assemblage characteristic of most chondritic meteorites is not at all what is expected to form directly from solar matter. Rather, the major minerals of the ordinary chondrites have chemical compositions indicative of formation from a medium greatly depleted in hydrogen and somewhat deficient in oxygen relative to solar elemental abundance ratios. The re-evaporation of condensed material, after separation from a large fraction of the gaseous components of solar matter, will lead to a medium of the appropriate composition. Such re-evaporation must have occurred at a time prior to the formation of many primitive meteorites.
CIOs: the only competent university administrators

Some interesting differences between the folks who become college and university vice presidents and the CIO equivalents who run IT infrastructures at universities. It is probably worth noting that higher-education institutions, especially public ones, have greatly different goals than private-sector organizations: Simply stated, private companies are in business to make money, and public education institutions are in business to spend it. Clearly, the skill sets required to accomplish these goals are different. Performance-based promotions are more common in industry. In successful companies, middle- and upper-level managers are mostly competent and competitive survivors who have proven themselves through quantifiable successes. This is so unlike higher education, where promotions often take place on the basis of meeting government quotas, being someone's good friend, being collegial, or just applying persistently for administrative positions somewhere, anywhere, until hired. Expecting a professor to become an effective administrator is like expecting an orange to become an apple. Higher education teaches people who become professors to be individual contributors. Graduate work and dissertations are a personal endeavor. Promotion within the ranks results exclusively from individual effort. Even teaching is an individual effort; as long as no student complains, instructors can do whatever they like in the classroom. So what exactly qualifies an ex-professor to take on personnel and budgetary responsibility in large, complex organizations? Unfortunately, the answer is nothing. In our 21st century IT-dependent world, failures in the IT department are highly visible to everyone, with very real consequences to the entire user community. It's no surprise that the only real insight of university administrators has been to hire CIOs who have real-world experience; someone has to.
Safety of a peanut oral immunotherapy protocol in children with peanut allergy.

Background Oral immunotherapy (OIT) offers a promising therapeutic option for peanut allergy. Given that during OIT an allergic patient ingests an allergen that could potentially cause a serious reaction, the safety of OIT is of particular concern. Objective The purpose of this study was to examine safety during the initial escalation day, buildup phase, and home dosing phase in subjects enrolled in a peanut OIT study. Methods Skin, upper respiratory tract, chest, and abdominal symptoms were recorded with initial escalation day and buildup phase dosings. Subjects also maintained daily diaries detailing symptoms after each home dosing. A statistical analysis of these data was performed. Results Twenty of 28 patients completed all phases of the study. During the initial escalation day, upper respiratory tract (79%) and abdominal (68%) symptoms were the most likely symptoms experienced. The risk of mild wheezing during the initial escalation day was 18%. The probability of having any symptoms after a buildup phase dose was 46%, with a risk of 29% for upper respiratory tract symptoms and 24% for skin symptoms. The risk of reaction with any home dose was 3.5%. Upper respiratory tract (1.2%) and skin (1.1%) symptoms were the most likely after home doses. Treatment was given with 0.7% of home doses. Two subjects received epinephrine after 1 home dose each. Conclusions Subjects were more likely to have significant allergic symptoms during the initial escalation day when they were in a closely monitored setting than during other phases of the study. Allergic reactions with home doses were rare.
A model of quick phase generation in the vestibuloocular reflex

The vestibuloocular reflex of the cat was studied during step and sinusoidal head velocity stimuli. A model is presented which simulates the observed slow phase and quick phase behavior. The model is constructed to be compatible with neurophysiological observations of the behavior of neurons in the pons. Emphasis is placed on the amplitude and timing of quick phases which are active orienting movements that drive the eyes into the direction of turning. It is proposed that quick phases, like saccades, are generated by a local feedback loop in the pons which rapidly drives the eyes to a point in the orbit specified by a vestibular signal. It is suggested that two internal signals specify the eye positions at which quick phases start and end. The statistics of the fluctuations of these signals was measured and correlation between them was discovered and incorporated in the model.
Increased microRNA-155 expression in the serum and peripheral monocytes in chronic HCV infection

Background: Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), a single stranded RNA virus, affects millions of people worldwide and leads to chronic infection characterized by chronic inflammation in the liver and in peripheral immune cells. Chronic liver inflammation leads to progressive liver damage. MicroRNAs (miRNA) regulate inflammation (miR-155, -146a and -125b) as well as hepatocyte function (miR-122). Methods: Here we hypothesized that microRNAs are dysregulated in chronic HCV infection. We examined miRNAs in the circulation and in peripheral monocytes of patients with chronic HCV infection to evaluate if specific miRNA expression correlated with HCV infection. Results: We found that monocytes from chronic HCV infected treatment-naive (cHCV) but not treatment responder patients showed increased expression of miR-155, a positive regulator of TNFα, and had increased TNFα production compared to monocytes of normal controls. After LPS stimulation, miR-155 levels were higher in monocytes from cHCV patients compared to controls. MiR-125b, which has negative regulatory effects on inflammation, was decreased in cHCV monocytes compared to controls. Stimulation of normal monocytes with TLR4 and TLR8 ligands or HCV core, NS3 and NS5 recombinant proteins induced a robust increase in both miR-155 expression and TNFα production identifying potential mechanisms for in vivo induction of miR-155. Furthermore, we found increased serum miR-155 levels in HCV patients compared to controls. Serum miR-125b and miR-146a levels were also increased in HCV patients. Serum levels of miR-122 were elevated in cHCV patients and correlated with increased ALT and AST levels and serum miR-155 levels. Conclusion: In conclusion, our novel data demonstrate that miR-155, a positive regulator of inflammation, is upregulated both in monocytes and in the serum of patients with chronic HCV infection. Our study suggests that HCV core, NS3, and NS5 proteins or TLR4 and TLR8 ligands can mediate increased miR-155 and TNFα production in chronic HCV infection. The positive correlation between serum miR-155 and miR-122 increase in cHCV may be an indicator of inflammation-induced hepatocyte damage.
INSULA AND ANTERIOR CINGULATE GABA LEVELS IN POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS USING MAGNETIC RESONANCE SPECTROSCOPY

Background Increased reactivity of the insular cortex and decreased activity of the dorsal anterior cingulate (ACC) are seen in functional imaging studies of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and may partly explain the persistent fear- and anxiety-proneness that characterize the disorder. A possible neurochemical correlate is altered function of the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). We report results from what we believe is the first study applying proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) to measure brain GABA in PTSD.
Yield Optimization of Regulated Metabolic Systems Using Deterministic Branch-and-Reduce Methods

This paper addresses product yield optimization in microorganisms grown in continuous culture. Traditional optimization strategies of random mutagenesis and selection will eventually have limited efficacy, thus requiring more focused strategies. The best candidates for such strategies appear to be mathematical models that capture the essence of metabolic systems and permit optimization with computational methods. In the past, models used for this purpose have been stoichiometric, kinetic in the form of S-systems, or ad hoc. This work presents a deterministic approach based on generalized mass action (GMA) systems. These systems are interesting in that they allow direct merging of stoichiometric and S-system models. Two illustrations are considered. In the first case, the fermentation pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is optimized for ethanol production under steady-state conditions. The model of this pathway is relatively small, with five states and eight rate constants. The second example addresses the maximization of citric acid in the mold Aspergillus niger. For the optimization of this larger pathway system with 30 states and 60 reactions, a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) is proposed. It is shown that efficient MINLP algorithms, based on convexification, branch-and-reduce methods, and binary variable selection, are essential for solving these difficult optimization problems.
A Pilot Study in Marital Group Therapy: Process and Outcome:

A marital group intervention was developed to address communication, conflict, forgiveness, and reconciliation. This article reviews the history of marital group intervention and presents a description of an 8-week marital group intervention. Results indicated improvement in forgiveness skills, anger expression, and marital satisfaction at posttest, and atrophy of most gains at follow-up.
Perturbation analysis and modeling of curved microstrip bends

The curved microstrip bend consisting of a microstrip ring segment between two microstrip lines is analyzed for its transmission properties. The microstrip lines are modeled by equivalent ideal magnetic wall waveguides for which the electromagnetic field solutions are known. The field solutions in the microstrip ring segment are derived by using a perturbation analysis of a modified (magnetic wall) curved waveguide model. Other techniques have been formulated to evaluate the fields inside curved metallic waveguides. These include the use of an equivalent nonuniformly loaded straight waveguide and rectangular and annular model analysis. The perturbation solution for the fields in the equivalent curved waveguide model presented is readily adaptable to the mode-matching procedure, and is used to calculate the properties of the curved microstrip bend discontinuities. The frequency-dependent reflection and transmission coefficients of curved microstrip bends are determined and compared with those of the right-angle and chamfered right-angle microstrip bends. >
Response of Benthic Macroinvertebrates to Carp (Cyprinus carpio) Biomanipulation in Three Tributaries of a Eutrophic, Great Plains Reservoir, USA

The effects of biomanipulation through eradication of benthic omnivorous fish species on benthic macroinvertebrate fauna were investigated in three tributaries of Bowman-Haley Reservoir, North Dakota, USA. Fish were eradicated with rotenone from the lower sections of each tributary. Adult common carp (Cyprinus carpio L) constituted over 95% of the fish killed by weight. Barrier fences were installed to prevent adult fish from repopulating the fish-free stream sections during summer. Benthic macroinvertebrates were monitored from one month before to three months after each rotenone application both upstream and downstream of the fish barriers. Also, in the second year of the study, three 8 m × 8 m fish exclosures were constructed, one near the mouth of each stream. Benthic invertebrate samples were collected inside and outside of exclosures for approximately two months after their installation. After fish eradications in two successive years, chironomid densities increased up to 50-fold in the fish-free ar...
Lymphocytes in Patients with Variable Immunodeficiency and Panhypogammaglobulinemia: EVALUATION OF B AND T CELL SURFACE MARKERS AND A PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION

Peripheral blood lymphocytes from 15 patients with variable immunodeficiency and severe panhypogammaglobulinemia were evaluated for B and T cell surface markers. B cells were enumerated by immunofluorescent detection of both surface immunoglobulin (Ig) and the ability to bind aggregated Ig complexes. T cells were identified by their ability to form nonimmune rosettes with sheep red blood cells. Four distinct patterns were observed which were designated types I-IV. Type I: six patients had normal percentages (8.5-19.0%) of Ig-bearing B lymphocytes. Type II: four patients were observed to have B lymphocytes (4.5-15.0%) which lacked fluorescence-detectable surface Ig. Type III: the peripheral blood of these four patients contained a subpopulation (11.3-20.0%) of lymphocytes which apparently lacked both B and T cell markers ("null" cells). Type IV: one patient's blood was characterized by a subpopulation (18.0-22.0%) of lymphocytes which bore both B and T cell markers. Patients of each type had some clinical features in common. It is concluded that evaluation of lymphocyte surface markers provides a means of separating patients with variable immunodeficiency and panhypogammaglobulinemia into distinct groups which appear to differ in the nature of their fundamental defect.
Anesthesiologist- and System-Related Risk Factors for Risk-Adjusted Pediatric Anesthesia-Related Cardiac Arrest.

BACKGROUND Pediatric anesthesia-related cardiac arrest (ARCA) is an uncommon but potentially preventable adverse event. Infants and children with more severe underlying disease are at highest risk. We aimed to identify system- and anesthesiologist-related risk factors for ARCA. METHODS We analyzed a prospectively collected patient cohort data set of anesthetics administered from 2000 to 2011 to children at a large tertiary pediatric hospital. Pre-procedure systemic disease level was characterized by ASA physical status (ASA-PS). Two reviewers independently reviewed cardiac arrests and categorized their anesthesia relatedness. Factors associated with ARCA in the univariate analyses were identified for reevaluation after adjustment for patient age and ASA-PS. RESULTS Cardiac arrest occurred in 142 of 276,209 anesthetics (incidence 5.1/10,000 anesthetics); 72 (2.6/10,000 anesthetics) were classified as anesthesia-related. In the univariate analyses, risk of ARCA was much higher in cardiac patients and for anesthesiologists with lower annual caseload and/or fewer annual days delivering anesthetics (all P < 0.001). Anesthesiologists with the highest academic rank and years of experience also had higher odds of ARCA (P = 0.02). After risk adjustment for ASA-PS ≥ III and age ≤ 6 months, however, the association with lower annual days delivering anesthetics remained (P = 0.03), but the other factors were no longer significant. CONCLUSIONS Case-mix explained most associations between higher risk of pediatric ARCA and anesthesiologist-related variables at our institution, but the association with fewer annual days delivering anesthetics remained. Our findings highlight the need for rigorous adjustment for patient risk factors in anesthesia patient safety studies.
Facilitators and barriers to implementing electronic referral and/or consultation systems: a qualitative study of 16 health organizations

Access to specialty care remains a challenge for primary care providers and patients. Implementation of electronic referral and/or consultation (eCR) systems provides an opportunity for innovations in the delivery of specialty care. We conducted key informant interviews to identify drivers, facilitators, barriers and evaluation metrics of diverse eCR systems to inform widespread implementation of this model of specialty care delivery. Interviews were conducted with leaders of 16 diverse health care delivery organizations between January 2013 and April 2014. A limited snowball sampling approach was used for recruitment. Content analysis was used to examine key informant interview transcripts. Electronic referral systems, which provide referral management and triage by specialists, were developed to enhance tracking and operational efficiency. Electronic consultation systems, which encourage bi-directional communication between primary care and specialist providers facilitating longitudinal virtual co-management, were developed to improve access to specialty expertise. Integrated eCR systems leverage both functionalities to enhance the delivery of coordinated, specialty care at the population level. Elements of successful eCR system implementation included executive and clinician leadership, established funding models for specialist clinician reimbursement, and a commitment to optimizing clinician workflows. eCR systems have great potential to streamline access to and enhance the coordination of specialty care delivery. While different eCR models help solve different organizational challenges, all require institutional investments for successful implementation, such as funding for program management, leadership and clinician incentives.
“See Something, Say Something” Crowdsourced Enforcement of Spectrum Policies

As sharing agreements are being ratified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for various spectrum bands for commercial broadband use, it also opens up an equally challenging problem of enforcing these policies. The efficacy of an enforcement system greatly depends on the accuracy of evidential information and the speed of adjudication. The inherent unguided and unbounded nature of radio wave propagation allows spectrum infractions to cause widespread damage and makes it hard to locate at the same time. On the other hand, it also lends itself to distributed methods for efficient enforcement of spectrum etiquette. We leverage a crowd of mobile users to implement a paradigm of “eye-witness” for detecting violations of spectrum policies. We design and analyze the crowdsourced enforcement architecture and show three main results: 1) it detects an infraction with a consistent high degree of accuracy ( $ > \!{90}\%$ ); 2) it is able to accurately locate the source of infraction and 3) it lowers the frequency of policy infractions over time.
Preserving Public Confidence in the Courts in an Age of Individual Rights and Public Skepticism

Public confidence in the courts is a matter of perception or appearance that may be present or absent irrespective of whether public confidence is warranted in fact. Court defenders, who are convinced that judges (on the whole) have acted properly and deserve the public's trust, have thus devoted themselves to ensuring that judges appear to act properly too. This chapter explores the century-long campaign to regulate appearances of judicial impropriety and the consequences of that campaign - intended and not - for an impartial judiciary and public confidence in the courts. The author chronicles the emergence and eventual entrenchment of rules regulating the appearance of judicial impropriety. As regulators came to take appearances ever more seriously, they promulgated enforceable rules that prohibited judges from saying things or associating with others in ways that could create appearance problems. Paradoxically, this effort to strengthen rules regulating appearances by making them more enforceable may (to an as yet uncertain extent) have had the opposite effect, rendering them vulnerable to constitutional challenge on first amendment grounds. The net effect has been a detectable shift away from rules prohibiting speech or association that creates appearance problems, toward rules that implicitly authorize the underlying speech or association but require judges who thereby create appearance problems to disqualify themselves from cases in which such problems would call their impartiality into question. This development has potentially profound implications and suggests the possibility of a new paradigm in which judges are welcomed into the marketplace of ideas and encouraged, not just permitted, to say what is on their minds (on the theory that more speech is always better than less), so that litigants can better inform themselves of judicial biases that may warrant disqualification. There are two possible consequences: One is that judges will start to recuse themselves en masse from cases raising issues upon which they have taken public positions. Second, and more likely, judges will reinterpret the disqualification rules to allow judges to hear cases despite appearance problems created by their speech and association, so as to ensure an adequate judicial workforce. In that event, what was once a system of regulation designed to minimize appearance problems will have gradually given way to a system of partial impartiality that cultivates them.
Toastmaster's Inspired Pedagogical Changes: From a Speech Class into a Public Relations Course

ABSTRACTAction research is used to view pedagogical changes, first in a speech class and then in a public relations course over a five-year period. The course instructor gained experience as a member of a Toastmasters International club and used Toastmasters-like activities, to revise content in the courses. Ultimately, students in the public relations course rotated through five different assignments multiple times during a single semester. In end-of-course surveys, students reflected on the success of these activities to use their abilities to write, think critically, speak publicly, work in teams, create their own understanding of the course material, and spend more time on assignments. Student and instructor end-of-course reflections support the viability of the Toastmasters-inspired pedagogy. Student absences also dropped dramatically and grades improved significantly after this approach was implemented.
Linear Attitude Models: A Study of Predictive Ability

Prediction of consumer preference and purchasing behavior has been a topic of deep interest to marketing researchers for many years. Until recently, most of these studies used socioeconomic or personality variables as independent variates in prediction, with results that were less than encouraging [10]. In an attempt to find better predictor variables, researchers have recently turned to productand brand-specific measures, using as an underlying rationale the argument that "brand preference is governed by a consumer's desire for specific attributes and his beliefs about the ability of different brands to deliver these attributes" [3, p. 272]. In these studies, a subject's actual preference ordering for brands is compared with a predicted preference ordering based on his attitudes, where his attitude is considered as some composite of ratings on a number of specified attributes [1, 2, 3, 13]. The studies cited all used the Fishbein model [8, 9], in which attitude is composed of two components, beliefs and values, for the n dimensions on which the beliefs exist. The theory suggests that these components can be aggregated to yield a numerical index of attitude:
Relationship of Hard Water to Health. II. Effect of Hard Water on Growth, Appearance and General Well-Being.

There is a popular idea that hard water has a bad effect on animals in some general indefinite way. It is thought that the coat of horses and cattle is made rougher, and that the animals do not "do as well" if forced continually to drink hard water. This belief is particularly prevalent among poultry raisers. Veterinary literature contains numerous allusions to the deleterious effect of hard water, some of which have been quoted in connection with previous papers on concretions.
Myths and variations in normal pubertal development.

Myths about puberty are common. These misconceptions create needless anxiety, for example, in parents who confuse the isolated development of pubic hair or breasts with true sexual maturation. Even healthcare providers are not immune: some may be unaware of recent data suggesting that in healthy girls puberty may begin earlier than the textbook age of 8 years and others may mistakenly inform parents that only a couple of inches of growth remain for their 10-year-old daughter who has started menstruating. This article discusses common myths that surround the normal variations in pubertal development.
Date of first positive HIV test: reliability of information collected for HIV/AIDS surveillance in the United States.

Objectives.This study examined the reliability of the first positive HIV test date reported in the U.S. HIV/AIDS Reporting System (HARS). This date is essential to determine case counts for resourc...
Public attitude to the penalty for smoking in public areas and influencing factors in Nanjing city

Objective To understand public attitude to the penalty for smoking in public areas and to explore influencing factors of the attitude to penalty for smoking in public areas.Methods The investigation in 372 residents selected from 180 public areas by random sampling in Gulou district of Nanjing was performed by interview with questionnaire to analyze the current smoking rate,awareness on hazards of passive smoking,the Regulations of Public Places Health Management and the attitude to no-smoking ban and penalty for smoking in public areas.Unconditional logistic regression method was used to analyze the influencing factors of attitude to the penalty of smoking in public venues.Results The smoking rate was 30.4%.The proportions of subjects to know the hazards of passive smoking and the Regulations of Public Places Health Management were 40.1% and 30.9%,respectively,79.6%of subjects to support no-smoking in public areas,53.5% and 61.3% of subjects to support the penalty toward the managers of public areas with smoking and the penalty toward smokers in public areas,who were non-smokers,realized completely the hazards of passive smoking and the Regulations of Public Places Health Management and supported the no-smoking in indoor public areas or the penalty.Conclusion More than 50% of subjects support the penalty for smoking in public areas of Nanjing.Influencing factors of attitude to the penalty of smoking in public areas are smoking,awareness of passive smoking hazards and the Regulations of Public Places Health Management,and the attitude to the no-smoking in indoor public areas.
Delay-Limited and Ergodic Capacities of MIMO Channels With Limited Feedback

We consider a fixed data rate slow-fading MIMO channel with a long-term power constraint $P$ at the transmitter. A relevant performance limit is the delay-limited capacity, which is the largest data rate at which the outage probability is zero. It is well known that if both the transmitter and the receiver have full channel state information (CSI) and if either of them has multiple antennas, the delay-limited capacity is non-zero and grows logarithmically with $P$ . Achieving even a positive delay-limited capacity, however, becomes a difficult task when the CSI at the transmitter (CSIT) is imperfect. In this context, the standard partial CSIT model where the transmitter has a fixed finite bit of quantized CSI feedback for each channel state results in zero delay-limited capacity. We show that by using a variable-length feedback scheme that utilizes a different number of feedback bits for different channel states, a non-zero delay-limited capacity can be achieved if the feedback rate is greater than 1 bit per channel state. Moreover, we show that the delay-limited capacity loss due to finite-rate feedback decays at least inverse linearly with respect to the feedback rate. We also discuss the applications to ergodic MIMO channels.
Osteosarcoma of the Mandible Arising in Fibrous Dysplasia-A Case Report

Fibrous dysplasia (FD) is a benign fibro-osseous lesion that typically behaves as a painless, slowly expanding tumor. On rare occasion, FD will undergo malignant transformation. When sarcomatous change occurs, osteosarcoma is the typical variant, followed by chondrosarcoma and fibrosarcoma. The incidence of malignant change varies from 1 to 4% depending on whether the disease is mono-ostotic or polyostotic and syndromic (McCune-Albright or Jaffe-Lichtenstein syndrome). Despite the low incidence of malignant change, the potential lethality of this disease behooves treating surgeons to be keenly aware of the signs and symptoms indicative of malignancy. This report documents a case of spontaneous transformation of FD into osteosarcoma in the setting of longstanding craniomaxillofacial FD in a 39-year-old woman.
Racial disparity in all‐cause mortality among hepatitis C virus‐infected individuals in a general US population, NHANES III

There are few long-term nationally representative studies of all-cause mortality among those infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). When an additional 5 years of data were made publicly available in 2015, the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Linked Mortality File became the longest nationally representative study in the United States. Our objective was to update the estimated HCV-associated all-cause mortality in the general US population and determine any differences by sex, age and race/ethnicity. HCV status was assessed in 9117 nationally representative adults aged 18-59 years from 1988 to 1994, and mortality follow-up of the same individuals was completed through 2011 and made publicly available in 2015. There were 930 deaths over a median follow-up of 19.8 years. After adjusting for all covariate risk factors, chronic HCV had 2.63 times (95% CI: 1.59-4.37; P=.0002) higher all-cause mortality rate ratio (MRR) compared with being HCV negative. All-cause MRR was stratified by sex, age and race/ethnicity. Only race/ethnicity was a significant effect modifier of MRR (P<.0001) as the highest MRR of chronic HCV compared to HCV negative was 7.48 (95% CI: 2.15-26.10, P=.001) among Mexican Americans, 2.67 (95% CI: 2.67-5.56, P=.009) among non-Hispanic Whites and 2.02 (95% CI: 1.20-3.40, P=.007) among non-Hispanic Blacks. Racial disparity was seen in the all-cause mortality as Mexican Americans with chronic HCV had approximately seven times higher mortality rate than HCV-negative individuals. This suggests that these at-risk individuals should be targeted for HCV screening and treatment, given the availability of new highly effective HCV therapies.