cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Nonpharmacological Interventions for Preschool ADHD: State of the Evidence and Implications for Practice

What exactly is the psychologist to do to increase the probability that intervention can alter the multiple impairments and often poor long-term outcomes associated with preschool-onset attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Intervening to support a preschool child with ADHD is complex given the child’s developmental stage and the need to coordinate services across multiple people and settings. Identifying what interventions have been empirically evaluated and the extent to which these interventions affect ADHD-related behaviors and impairments is a critical first-step to providing quality care for these children. Recent guidelines set forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics (2011, ADHD: Clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of attention/deficit-hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 128, 1007–1022. doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2654) recommend that medication only be used when behavioral interventions are not available or when significant room for improvement exists following effective implementation of behavioral interventions. As such, we review herein nonpharmacological interventions for preschool ADHD, identifying approaches in the published literature focused on training parents, teachers, and children, as well as dietary restrictions, nutritional supplements, and acupuncture interventions. This review suggests that behaviorally based approaches focused on parent and teacher training are the most well-studied and effective interventions. Child-training approaches, dietary interventions, nutritional supplements, and acupuncture require substantially more evaluation before clinical implications can be fully appreciated. We conclude by discussing key principles gleaned from this literature for psychological practice for the treatment of preschool children with ADHD.
Current Status and Future Development of L1VPN

The rapid development of intelligent optical networks along with Automatically Switched Optical Networks/Generalized Multi-protocol Label Switching (ASON/GMPLS) has brought abundant new value-added services in current networks, including the newly-developed Layer 1 Virtual Private Network (L1VPN) services. L1VPN has many application situations, particularly 4 as defined in ITU-T's standards, i.e., multi-service backbone network, carrier's carrier, resource trade in Lay 1, and multi-Service Providers (SP) L1VPN. The L1VPN service model mainly deals with the configuration and management of L1VPN services. IETF has defined two types of models: one is based on the management plane and the other is based on the control plane. The successful implementation of L1VPN results from the reasons that it brings users with new value-added services and bears distinct advantages in security, effectiveness, flexibility and management, thus leading to a win-win play for operators and users.
Electrical stimulation applied to bone and nerve injuries in the upper extremity.

SUMMARY In conclusion, electrical stimulation of bone has advanced from the laboratory to clinical reality. Despite the lack of good double-blind clinical studies, it is impossible to ignore the excellent results reported from numerous multicenter trials. Doubts and controversies will and should continue. Electrical stimulation has a definite place in the treatment of scaphoid nonunion as well as other failures of osteogenic biology in the upper extremity. The future may realize the enormous potential of electrical stimulation in areas of nerve repair, wound healings, or osteoporosis. The hand surgeon may soon be operating in the age of biophysics where he or she can charge by the kilowatt hour. Yet one should not become a mere technician, but understand the basic science of what one is doing and, above all, maintain a balanced and critical approach.
Do depressive symptoms explain associations between binge eating symptoms and later psychosocial adjustment in young adulthood

Prospective associations between binge eating symptoms (i.e., objective overeating [OOE] and loss of control [LOC] eating) and psychosocial functioning during emerging adulthood were examined using data from the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We examined associations between OOE and LOC eating and psychosocial functioning variables with and without adjusting for concurrent depressive symptoms. Analyses revealed that OOE at Wave 3 (ages 18-28) was associated with depressive symptoms, social isolation, weight perception, and perceived attractiveness seven years later at Wave 4 (ages 25-35) and LOC eating at Wave 3 was associated with later depressive symptoms, suicidal thoughts, weight perception, social isolation, number of close friends, and sleep difficulty. Analyses adjusted for depressive symptoms at Wave 3 revealed that OOE at Wave 3 was associated with social isolation and perceived attractiveness at Wave 4 and LOC eating at Wave 3 was associated with later depressive symptoms, isolation, number of close friends, and sleep difficulty. Results show that binge eating symptoms are prospectively associated with psychosocial impairment during emerging adulthood even after controlling for depressive symptoms. Rather than simply screening for depressive symptoms, results highlight the utility of screening for binge eating symptoms as these symptoms are independently associated with psychosocial impairment in emerging adults.
Academic Service Learning and Cultural Competence in Teacher Education

The researchers used culturally-appropriate techniques to interview and survey community members about the services provided by the local community center in order to determine the type of services that families needed to help their children succeed in school and how pre-service teachers in early childhood education could support the delivery of those services. The results revealed that families wanted information on how to become more engaged in school-based activities. Pre-service teachers can support families by gathering information for parents about school events and assisting the community center staff in removing barriers that prevent parents from attending school activities.
Enhancing Delirium Case Definitions in Electronic Health Records Using Clinical Free Text.

Background Delirium is an acute confusional state, associated with morbidity and mortality in diverse medically ill populations. Delirium is preventable and treatable when diagnosed but the diagnosis is often missed. This important and difficult diagnosis is an attractive candidate for computer-aided decision support if it can be reliably identified at scale. Objective Here, using an electronic health record–based case definition of delirium, we characterize incidence of this highly morbid condition in 2 large academic medical centers. Methods Using the electronic health record of 2 large New England academic medical centers, we calculated and compared the rate of the diagnosis of delirium using a range of administrative and discharge summary text-based case definitions over an 8-year period. Results Depending on case definitions, the overall delirium rate ranged from 2.0–5.4% of 809,512 admissions identified. The identified rate of delirium increased between 2005 and 2013, such that by the final year of the study, one of the two sites reported delirium in 7.0% of cases. The concordance between case definitions was low; only half of the cases identified by text analysis were captured by administrative data. Conclusion Delirium may be better captured by composite outcomes, including both administrative claims data and elements drawn from unstructured data sources. That the rate of delirium observed in this study is far lower than the current literature estimates suggests that further work on case definitions, identification, and documented diagnosis is required.
Statistical analysis of the effect of ground plane serrations on thin planar RFID antennas

Thin form factor and placement-insensitivity are essential qualities of planar RFID antennas. Placement insensitivity can be achieved by introducing a conducting back plane. As the antennas become thinner, most of the energy is stored in the form of parallel plate modes resulting in the reduction of the bandwidth. Edge treatment in the form of serrations can be used to improve the bandwidth of such antennas. Researchers have investigated the use of serrations in resonant length antennas for bandwidth improvement. However, the behavior of serrations in non-resonant length antennas has not been studied in detail. This paper examines the changes in characteristic modes of non-resonant length antenna due to the change in the dimensions of serrations and proximity to the back plane. Statistical analysis is performed to ascertain the effect of antenna thickness, serration depth and serration width on the characteristic modes of the antenna.
Optimal random access for wireless networks in the presence of fading

This paper considers distributed algorithms to optimize random access multihop wireless networks in the presence of fading. Since the associated optimization problem is neither convex nor amenable to distributed implementation, a problem approximation is introduced. This approximation is still not convex but it has zero duality gap and can be solved and decomposed into local subproblems in the dual domain. The solution method is through a stochastic subgradient descent algorithm that operates without knowledge of the fading's probability distribution and leads to an architecture composed of layers and layer interfaces. With limited amount of message passing among terminals and small computational cost, the proposed algorithm converges almost surely in an ergodic sense. Numerical results on a randomly generated network corroborate theoretical results. 1
Abstract 2800: Dietary black raspberries (BRBs) inhibit tumor progression in PTEN-deficient mouse model of prostate cancer

Black raspberries (BRBs) a natural food demonstrated to have anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities,have been shown to inhibit oral, esophageal, mammary gland and colon cancers in rodents. Several human trials have been completed to date to assess the efficacy of BRB formulations for cancer prevention. However, the chemopreventive potential of BRBs against prostate cancer, the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of death among men in the United States, is yet to be reported. Among the murine models, PTEN-mutant mice develop tumors in situ that faithfully mimic the intratumor heterogeneity observed during the progression of human prostate cancer. Therefore, we utilized this clinically relevant PTEN-mutant mouse model to evaluate the chemopreventive potential of BRBs against prostate cancer. Genotyped 5-week-old male PTEN-mutant mice, randomly assigned to control and treatment groups (n = 12 mice/group), were fed AIN-93G diet (control) or AIN-93G diet supplemented with BRBs (5 or 10%) for 23 weeks. Age-matched non-transgenic mice (wild-type) served as experimental controls (n = 6). Animal weight and food consumption were measured during the treatment period, and the mice were euthanized at 28 weeks of age. Prostate tissues were harvested, weighed and fixed in 10% formalin for histopathological analysis. Histological, cell proliferation (Ki-67 staining) and apoptosis (TUNEL) analyses were performed to determine the chemopreventive potential of BRBs. PTEN-mutant mice fed control or BRB (5 or 10%) diets had steady body weight gain, 16 to 18 g during the 23-week treatment. BRB diets were well tolerated as none of the animals fed BRBs exhibited any observable toxicity. PTEN-mutant mice (control) had increased prostate weight (ave. = 248 mg) relative to wild-type mouse prostate (ave. = 90 mg), and 5 and 10% BRB diets significantly (p Citation Format: Narayanan K. Narayanan, Gary D. Stoner, Daniel S. Peiffer, Karen Galdanes, Eric Larios, Alu Mark, Lisa Maziniski, Luis Chiriboga, Maarten C. Bosland. Dietary black raspberries (BRBs) inhibit tumor progression in PTEN-deficient mouse model of prostate cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 2800. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-2800
The Obalon swallowable intragastric balloon in pediatric and adolescent morbid obesity.

Background and study aims Incidence of morbid obesity has grown dramatically in the last half century and this phenomenon affects with particular severity the pediatric population. Dietary restrictions and careful programs to improve lifestyle are often ineffective to manage this particular group of patients, due to poor compliance typical of the adolescence. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a new intragastric balloon for treatment of morbidly obese children. Patients and methods A new swallowable intragastric balloon (Obalon) has been used for the first time in 17 obese children in order to assess its safety and effectiveness in terms of reduction in excess weight. In 9 of 17 children a second balloon was placed 30 to 40 days after the first insertion. All devices were endoscopically removed after a mean time of 18 weeks. Results In the group of 16 patients who completed the study (1 patient still under treatment) mean weight decreased from 95.8 ± 18.4 Kg to 83.6 ± 27.1 (P < 0.05). Mean body mass index (BMI) decreased from 35.27± 5.89 (range 30.4 – 48) to 32.25 ± 7.1 (range 23.5 – 45.7) (P > 0.05); mean excess weight, calculated according to Cole’s curves for pediatric populations, decreased from 36.2 ± 15.9 to 29.4 ± 18.3 Kg (P = 0.14), with an %EWL of 20.1 ± 9.8 (range 2.3 – 35.1). Waist circumference decreased from 109 ± 12.3 cm to 99 ± 10.5 cm (P Conclusions Obalon can be administered easily without complications, inducing an appreciable weight loss with a statistically significant reduction in BMI and an improvement in associated comorbidities.
A Randomized Trial of Yoga for Children Hospitalized With Sickle Cell Vaso-Occlusive Crisis.

Abstract Context Sickle cell disease (SCD) vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) remains an important cause of acute pain in pediatrics and the most common SCD complication. Pain management recommendations in SCD include nonpharmacological interventions. Yoga is one nonpharmacological intervention that has been shown to reduce pain in some populations; however, evidence is lacking in children with VOC. Objectives The primary objective of this study was to compare the effect of yoga vs. an attention control on pain in children with VOC. The secondary objectives were to compare the effect of yoga vs. an attention control on anxiety, lengths of stay, and opioid use in this population. Methods Patients were eligible if they had a diagnosis of SCD, were 5–21 years old, were hospitalized for uncomplicated VOC, and had an admission pain score of ≥7. Subjects were stratified based on disease severity and randomized to the yoga or control group. Results Eighty-three percent of patients approached (N = 73) enrolled on study. There were no significant differences in baseline clinical or demographic factors between groups. Compared with the control group, children randomized to yoga had a significantly greater reduction in mean pain score after one yoga session (−0.6 ± 0.96 vs. 0.0 ± 1.37; P = 0.029). There were no significant differences in anxiety, lengths of stay, or opioid use between the two groups. Conclusion This study provides evidence that yoga is an acceptable, feasible, and helpful intervention for hospitalized children with VOC. Future research should further examine yoga for children with SCD pain in the inpatient and outpatient settings.
Higher Restraint: National Security Reporting in an Age of Information Anarchy (and President Trump)

Since September 11, 2001, reporting on the power to kill, imprison, detain, to keep out, and to allow in, to keep secret, and to reveal, has come to the forefront of the public’s attention in high supply, and its revelations have been in high demand. But the environment that it operates is brittle. Since last November’s election national security journalists have found themselves locked in a frenetic and arms race with President Donald Trump. The core battleground is the credibility and legitimacy of both of their respective democratic institutions. The reporters’ primary weapons have been the rapid publication and rebroadcasting of sensational, often classified, and occasionally unverified information. Trump, the initiator of the clash, uses shock and awe, couched in the language of culture wars. Easily, with pleasure, he vitiates elite norms, and amplifies his violations with an information warfare machine that lives and feeds in the Internet’s virtual foxholes. I contend that many influential journalists working for traditional competitive news outlets perceive Trump as an existential threat to democracy and freedom that must be contained and counterbalanced rather than as a (mere) power to hold to account; this, combined with an information ecosystem that is easily gamed by outsiders (and even foreign governments), and a industry-wide perception that the public no longer trusts the news, accounts for a change in journalistic decision rules with significant ramifications for the profession and for the public’s understanding of national security.
Focused Ion Beam Applications in the SEM Laboratory

The use of focused ion beams (FIB) in the field of electron microscopy for the preparation of site specific samples and for imaging has become very common. Site specific sample preparation of cross-section samples is probably the most common use of the focused ion beam tools, although there are uses for imaging with secondary electrons produced by the ion beam. These tools are generally referred to as FIB tools, but this name covers a large range of actual tools. There are single beam FIB tools which consist of the FIB column on a chamber and also the FIB/SEM platforms that include both a FIB column for sample preparation and an SEM column for observing the sample during preparation and for analyzing the sample post-preparation using all of the imaging modalities and analytical tools available on a standard SEM column. A vast majority of the FIB tools presently in use are equipped with liquid metal ion sources (LMIS) and the most common ion species used is Ga. Recent developments have produced plasma sources for high current ion beams. The gas field ion source (GFIS) is discussed in module 31 on helium ion microscopy in this book.
Occlusion of the basilar artery in tuberculous meningitis

A 25 year old man being treated for miliary tuberculosis, tuberculous, meningitis, and spinal epidural infection became severely obtunded. Carotid arteriograms showed dilatation of the lateral ventricles and focal narrowings in the supraclinoid portions of both internal carotid arteries and in the proximal portion of the right middle cerebral artery. Vertebral arteriograms showed focal occlusion of the basilar artery. The patient improved after a shunt procedure. Stenotic lesions of the basilar artery are seen infrequently in gross pathological specimens from patients with tuberculous meningitis and have not previously been recognized at angiography.
The mechanism of regulation of smooth muscle myosin by phosphorylation.

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the mechanism of regulation of smooth muscle myosin by phosphorylation. The contraction of smooth muscle and all other types of muscle is brought about by the cyclic interaction of myosin with actin. These two proteins also exist in virtually all eukaryotic cells and are thought to be responsible for a wide variety of motile functions such as ameboid motion, organelle translocation, endocytosis, phagocytosis, cytokinesis, and capping. The purified myosin exhibits several properties in vitro that are predicted by its in vivo characteristics. It can self-associate at physiological ionic strength through its rod portion to form filaments very similar to those seen inside the muscle. There are several models that can be proposed for regulation of smooth muscle myosin by phosphorylation. One of these is that phosphorylation directly affects the rate of ATP hydrolysis. The rate of these steps can be measured by monitoring the tryptophan fluorescence of myosin. It has been shown that there is an increase in the intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence of some myosins, including turkey gizzard smooth muscle myosin, that accompanies the hydrolysis step.
Prevention of Insect Outbreaks

In the professional disciplines of forestry, agriculture, and medicine, the practice of prevention involves the manipulation of environmental conditions so that they become unfavorable for the reproduction and survival of pest organisms. In this way pest populations are kept at low densities and outbreaks are avoided. For example, medical practitioners may prescribe a change of diet or life-style designed to reduce stress and thereby improve the resistance of their patients to disease-causing microorganisms. What they are doing, in fact, is making the environment unfavorable for the microorganism by ‘‘tuning up” the patient’s defense systems. Similarly, the forester may prescribe fertilization or thinnings to reduce the stress on forest stands and so improve their defenses against insect attack. Because preventive treatments rely on an understanding of the relationships between the pest organism and its environment, prevention is really the practice of applied ecology.
Modification of Silver/Silicon Interfaces During MeV-Ion Bombardment: The Role of an Interfacial Oxide Layer

We have studied the production of disordered Si at Ag/Si interfaces during 5.9 MeV 9Be ion irradiation. The technique of transmission ion channeling was used, which is sensitive to less than one monolayer of nonregistered Si. MeV-ion irradiation of many thin film/substrate interfaces is known to significantly improve the adhesion of the film to the substrate. If atomic mixing or formation of new bonds is responsible for improved adhesion, then disordered Si should be produced. The results indicate that the ion bombardment produces recoiling Ag atoms that cause damage in the Si substrate. An interfacial oxide layer can act as a barrier to the recoil damage. For a sample with no Ag layer and a native oxide on Si, nonregistered Si was produced by electronic excitation during ion bombardment.
Introduction: Ethics and anticipatory governance of nano-neurotechnological convergence

The brain is the center of what makes us human. Art, culture, science, democracy, religion, technology – products of human thought and ideas, products of the unique capabilities of the human brain. Yet, for all but the last few decades, the human brain has been essentially a mystery, a biological organ whose functioning we could at best guess at from observations of human behavior and mental pathologies but about which we knew exceedingly little. All of that has changed, however. The rise of neuroscience as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry, deep investments during the 1990s – the Decade of the Brain – in new technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, and long persistence on the part of pioneering scientists have given us a wealth of new insights into the behavior and function of the human central nervous system.
A Diagnostics Tool for Risk-based Dynamic Security Assessment of Renewable Generation

Dynamic security assessment has been a challenging problem in power systems research with the increased penetration of renewable generation across the electricity grid. Risk-based methods for dynamic security assessment has been proposed to incorporate the uncertainty in the electricity grid. Risk-based methods require extensive time-domain simulations and generate large data sets containing both risk assessment and time domain simulation results. An architecture for a comprehensive user interactive contingency ranking and diagnostics tool for risk-based security assessment is proposed in this paper. This methodology provides a fast and robust approach for analyzing large time domain simulation and risk assessment results. The effectiveness of the tool has been illustrated for two different test systems.
Training Preparatory Mathematics Students to Be High Ability Self-Regulators: Comparative and Case-Study Analyses of Impact on Learning Behavior and Achievement.

ABSTRACTThe ability to self-regulate learning (SRL) is a skill theorized to transfer across learning environments. Students with this ability can consider a learning task, identify a goal, develop ...
Multiple Access Visible Light Communication using a Single Photo-Receptor

The directionality of optical signals provides an opportunity for efficient space reuse of optical links in visible light communication (VLC). Space reuse in VLC can enable multiple access communication from multiple light emitting transmitters. However, traditional VLC system design using photo-receptors requires at least one receiving photodetector element for each light emitter, thus constraining VLC to always require a light emitter-to-light receiving element pair. In this paper, we propose, design and evaluate a novel architecture for VLC that can enable multiple-access reception using a photoreceptor receiver that uses only a single photodiode. The novel design includes a liquid-crystal-display (LCD) based shutter system that can be automated to control and enable selective reception of light beams from multiple transmitters. We evaluate the feasibility of multiple access on a single photodiode from two light emitting diode (LED) transmitters and the performance of the communication link using bit-error-rate (BER) and packet-error-rate (PER) metrics. Our experiment and trace based evaluation reveals the feasibility of multiple LED reception on a single photodiode and estimated throughput of the order of Mbps.
Biosimilars: The Process & Quality System Approach to Clinical Applications

Biosimilar medicines are highly similar to FDA approved reference biologics. The sponsor’s intended use claim plays an important role in the use of biosimilar medicines in specialty therapy categories such as immunology, endocrinology, oncology. The new biosimilar products approved by the FDA, play a pivotal role in the clinical treatments of patients suffering from life-threatening diseases such as cardiac myopathies, carcinoma, sarcoma, lymphoma. The US biosimilar approval process requires a thorough characterization of the new biosimilars with a clinically meaningful outcome. Sponsors of new biosimilars follow the appropriate ICH guidelines in regard to clinical PK/PD, safety and efficacy studies. The FDA guidances for extrapolation and interchangeability state that data derived from clinical studies should be adequate to demonstrate purity, potency, safety and the intended clinical use of the new biosimilar in comparison to previously approved licensed biologics. This article emphasizes the FDA’s quality system approach to the design of studies for clinical applications for designated specialty therapy categories.
Patents for self‐replicating technologies: Game theoretic analysis of genetically modified seed

This paper examines the implications of patents for farmers? decisions to use genetically modified (GM) seed versus traditional non-GM seed. We consider a game theoretic approach employing the replicator equation to assess the conditions for farmers? adoption decisions. The results show that farmers may choose GM seeds even when this decision leads to lower profits than using traditional seeds. This result emerges because of the self-replicating characteristic of the technology of seeds and their dispersion via acts of nature and/or intentional infringement. This result is robust across our baseline model and extended model that includes the option for farmers to intentionally infringe upon the GM seed technology. This result is also robust with respect to a wide range of initial conditions and parameter values representing economic conditions including the dispersal of the GM technology, monitoring effort, payoff of GM seed relative to traditional seed, cost of patent infringement, cost of contamination, and added cost of legally using GM seed.
Meeting the mark by 2020: country progress toward FP2020 and UNAIDS HIV targets.

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 90-90-901 targets aim to ensure that 90% of people are tested for HIV, and that 90% of those testing positive for HIV receive antiretroviral therapy (ART) and achieve viral suppression by 2020. Those targets are being raised to 95-95-95 by 2030.1 Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) aims to reduce unwanted fertility by providing contraception to 120 million additional women by 2020, significantly increasing modern contraceptive prevalence rates (mCPRs).2 These global goals are grounded in a similar concept: through increased service uptake, significant gains can be made in sexual (HIV) and reproductive health (unwanted fertility). Integrating HIV and family planning (FP) services has broad support from international stakeholders3 4 to reduce unmet need for contraception, unintended pregnancy, and as a cost-effective HIV prevention strategy.5 Results from the Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes (ECHO) Trial, a randomised trial measuring HIV risk among African women seeking contraceptive options, found a high level of HIV incidence in this well-counselled study population of women desiring pregnancy prevention, further emphasising the need for service integration.6 Despite both UNAIDS and FP2020 goals focusing on sexual behaviour outcomes, there has been a curious lack of attention to synergy in the processes employed to reach these goals. Arriving at 2020, identifying success stories and critical gaps for country-level progress towards the …
Elastography mapped by untangling compressional and shear deformation

Abstract As an emerging imaging modality, elastography is to map the stiffness-related distribution of biological tissues. Currently, elastography of shear modulus distribution dominantly prevails with external shear-wave excitations, even though the internal deformation may not be in the pure-shear mode. We present a new elastography method by untangling the complex wave-induced strain field into the one due to pure compressional or shear disturbance. The proposed untangling method is realized in the fact that the volumetric strain is caused by compressional waves. By transforming both the volumetric strain tensor and the general tangled strain tensor to the shear wave direction, the transient vibration velocity and strain generated by compression wave can be separated from their initial coupled fields and used to reconstruct elastography.
Why individual‐level interventions are not enough: Systems‐level determinants of oral anticancer medication adherence

Nonadherence to oral anticancer medications (OAMs) in the United States is as low as 33% for some cancers. The reasons for nonadherence to these lifesaving medications are multifactorial, yet the majority of studies focus on patient-level factors influencing uptake and adherence. Individually based interventions to increase patient adherence have not been effective, and this warrants attention to factors at the payor, pharmaceutical, and clinical systems levels. Based on the authors' research and clinical experiences, this commentary brings fresh attention to the long-standing issue of OAM nonadherence, a growing quality-of-care issue, from a systems perspective. In this commentary, the key driving factors in pharmaceutical and payor systems (state and federal laws, payor/insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies), clinical systems (hospitals and providers), and patient contexts that have trickle-down effects on patient adherence to OAMs are outlined. In the end, the authors' recommendations include examining the influence of laws governing OAM drug pricing, OAM supply, and provider reimbursement; reducing the need for prior authorization of long-approved OAMs; identifying cost-effective ways for providers to monitor nonadherence; examining issues of provider bias in OAM prescriptions; and further elucidating in which contexts patients are likely to be able to adhere. These recommendations offer a starting point for an examination of the chain of systems influencing patient adherence and may help to finally resolve persistently high levels of OAM nonadherence.
Magical Realism, Afrofuturism, and (Afro)Surrealism: The Entanglement of Categories in African Fiction

Moudileno offers an updated reassessment of the relevance of magical realism for African fiction, both as a source of inspiration and as a profitable category on global literary markets in the twenty-first century. Using as a case study a Congolese text (Sony Labou Tansi’s Life and a Half) deemed to have radically transformed Francophone letters in the late seventies, the chapter reviews aesthetic commonalities between representations of the postcolony and the modalities of magical realism, while also interrogating the limits of its systematic application to modern African literature. Finally, the chapter considers the potential applicability of the term for contemporary fiction as well as its continued theoretical currency, in light of new engaging categories that have emerged in recent decades, most notably Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism.
Herbicide treatment of Western honey mesquite

On the Ground • Once mesquite encroachment is initiated it is difficult to reverse and continually degrades grasslands, hindering grass production that benefits both livestock and wildlife. • We evaluated the effectiveness of Sendero herbicide in the treatment of western honey mesquite. • We compared two treatment types (Sendero and Sendero plus Remedy Ultra) and two application methods (individual plant treatment and aerial broadcast). • Percent cover of grasses and some forbs increased throughout our study sites post treatment. • All treatment types were successful at decreasing the percent canopy cover of western honey mesquite, and we found no difference between treatment types.
Qute: Query by Text Search for Time Series Data

Query-based similarity search is a useful exploratory tool that has been used in many areas such as music, economics, and biology to find common patterns and behaviors. Existing query-based search systems allow users to search large time series collections, but these systems are not very robust and they often fail to find similar patterns. In this work, we present Qute (Query by Text) a natural language search framework for finding similar patterns in time series. We show that Qute is expressive while having very small space and time overhead. Qute is a text-based search which leverages information retrieval features such as relevance feedback. Furthermore, Qute subsumes motif and discord/anomaly discovery. We demonstrate the utility of Qute with case studies on both animal behavior and human behavior data.
Higgs and superparticle mass predictions from the landscape

Predictions for the scale of SUSY breaking from the string landscape go back at least a decade to the work of Denef and Douglas on the statistics of flux vacua. The assumption that an assortment of SUSY breaking F and D terms are present in the hidden sector, and their values are uniformly distributed in the landscape of D = 4, N = 1 effective supergravity models, leads to the expectation that the landscape pulls towards large values of soft terms favored by a power law behavior P(msoft) ∼ m soft . On the other hand, similar to Weinberg’s prediction of the cosmological constant, one can assume an anthropic selection of weak scales not too far from the measured value characterized by mW,Z,h ∼ 100 GeV. Working within a fertile patch of gravity-mediated low energy effective theories where the superpotential μ term is ≪ m3/2, as occurs in models such as radiative breaking of Peccei-Quinn symmetry, this biases statistical distributions on the landscape by a cutoff on the parameter ΔEW, which measures fine-tuning in the mZ-μ mass relation. The combined effect of statistical and anthropic pulls turns out to favor low energy phenomenology that is more or less agnostic to UV physics. While a uniform selection n = 0 of soft terms produces too low a value for mh, taking n = 1 and 2 produce most probabilistically mh ∼ 125 GeV for negative trilinear terms. For n ≥ 1, there is a pull towards split generations with $$ {m}_{\tilde{q},\tilde{\ell}}\left(1,2\right)\sim 10-30 $$ TeV whilst $$ {m}_{{\tilde{t}}_1}\sim 1-2\ \mathrm{T}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V} $$ . The most probable gluino mass comes in at ∼ 3 − 4 TeV — apparently beyond the reach of HL-LHC (although the required quasi-degenerate higgsinos should still be within reach). We comment on consequences for SUSY collider and dark matter searches.
Dual-Loop Frequency Synchronization and Load Regulation using a Discrete Time Model for a 7-Level Switched Capacitor WPT Rectifier

In wireless power transfer (WPT) applications, the multi-level switched capacitor topology achieves significant advantages in terms of efficiency, system loading, THD, and output regulation. The topology requires dual-loop control in order to harness these benefits. First, a small signal discrete time model for the 7-level rectifier WPT system is developed. Then, a control loop is designed that enables the rectifier to regulate DC load voltage by varying its modulation scheme. Next, the WPT carrier frequency is sensed and a phase-locked loop is used in combination with the small signal power stage model to design a closed-loop controller that synchronizes frequency and regulates control phase through adjustments of the switching period. Finally, cross-coupling interactions between the two control loops are modeled, and stable dual-loop operation is shown.
Typification in and contributions to a revision of Psammisia (Ericaceae: Vaccinieae)

Since the last complete revision of Psammisia (Ericaceae: Vaccinieae) in 1932 many new species, synonyms, and local treatments have been published and genetic information is slowly becoming available. This paper is based on field and herbarium observations made over a period of nearly 50 years and helps to clarify questions of typification and species relationships towards an updated revision. Emphasis is herein given to species occurring in Peru and Bolivia for which a key to the species occurring in that region is made available for the first time. Notes on the poorly understood yet historically important collections of Ruiz & Pavon, Humboldt & Bonpland, Mathews, the Schomburgk brothers, and Linden, Funck, & Schlim are provided as they refer to South American Ericaceae. Neotypes for Thibaudia formosa and Thibaudia nutans are also included.
Charting the path forward for the International Journal of Advertising

The International Journal of Advertising (IJA) is now entering its 40th year of publication. As such, it is timely to reflect on the journal’s history and what path it should take going forward. I ...
Genome-Wide Analyses for Lifespan and Healthspan in D. Melanogaster Reveal Decima as a Regulator of Insulin-Like Peptide Production

Dietary restriction (DR) extends lifespan and delays age-related diseases across species. An underlying assumption in the aging field is that DR extends both lifespan and healthspan through similar mechanisms, but this has not been rigorously tested in different genetic backgrounds. Furthermore, nutrient response genes responsible for lifespan or healthspan extension remain underexplored in natural populations. To address this, we measured nutrient-dependent changes in lifespan and age-related climbing ability, a measure of healthspan, in the DGRP strains. DR generally extended lifespan and delayed decline in climbing ability, but there was a lack of correlation between these traits across individual strains. We then identified and validated decima as a lifespan determinant and Daedalus for climbing. We found that decima regulates insulin-like peptide transcription in the GABA receptor neurons through sNPF signaling. Modulating these genes produced independent effects on lifespan and climbing, which suggests that these age-related traits are regulated through distinct mechanisms.
Genetic and Epigenetic Contributions to Child Heath Outcomes in the STRONG Kids 2 Cohort Study

Objectives Childhood obesity is becoming a significant health concern in the United States, and the prevalence of excess weight increases continuously throughout the growing years. It has been proposed that genetic variation partly contributes to the susceptibility of obesity and its development during the early onset. Thus, this study focuses on the determination of the genome-wide signatures (GWAS) and epigenomic signatures (EWAS) of divergent weight for length z scores (WFLZ) in the first year of life. In addition, it attempts to relate the molecular findings to body composition, BMI, adipose tissue deposition, in the first 5 years of life. Our objective is to generate novel preliminary data on the contributions to child health outcomes. Our approach involves integrating genetic and epigenetic variations with factors such as diet and growth.
Import Relief, Unfair Trade Practices and the Generalized System of Preferences

The economic principles of international trade preach the advantages of the interrelationship and non-restriction of the movement of goods and services. This philosophy may be theoretically sound, but the process itself can be fairly disruptive for a manufacturer in any country faced with the prospect of going out of business because a manufacturer in some other country has developed a more competitive product which will displace the U.S. manufacturer completely in the domestic market. Thus, the attempt to balance these competing interests or at least to permit adjustment by the domestic industry on a temporary basis is the motivation behind the import relief law.
Organ Localization Using Joint AP/LAT View Landmark Consensus Detection and Hierarchical Active Appearance Models

Parsing 2D radiographs into anatomical regions is a challenging task with many applications. In the clinic, scans routinely include anterior-posterior (AP) and lateral (LAT) view radiographs. Since these orthogonal views provide complementary anatomic information, an integrated analysis can afford the greatest localization accuracy. To solve this integration we propose automatic landmark candidate detection, pruned by a learned geometric consensus detector model and refined by fitting a hierarchical active appearance organ model (H-AAM). Our main contribution is twofold. First, we propose a probabilistic joint consensus detection model which learns how landmarks in either or both views predict landmark locations in a given view. Second, we refine landmarks by fitting a joint H-AAM that learns how landmark arrangement and image appearance can help predict across views. This increases accuracy and robustness to anatomic variation. All steps require just seconds to compute and compared to processing the scouts separately, joint processing reduces mean landmark distance error from 27.3 mm to 15.7 mm in LAT view and from 12.7 mm to 11.2 mm in the AP view. The errors are comparable to human expert inter-observer variability and suitable for clinical applications such as personalized scan planning for dose reduction. We assess our method using a database of scout CT scans from 93 subjects with widely varying pathology.
On Wave Dark Matter, Shells in Elliptical Galaxies, and the Axioms of General Relativity

This paper is a sequel to the author's paper entitled "On Dark Matter, Spiral Galaxies, and the Axioms of General Relativity" [arXiv:1004.4016] which explored a geometrically natural axiomatic definition for dark matter modeled by a scalar field satisfying the Einstein-Klein-Gordon wave equations which, after much calculation, was shown to be consistent with the observed spiral and barred spiral patterns in disk galaxies. We give an update on where things stand on this "wave dark matter" model of dark matter (aka scalar field dark matter and boson stars), an interesting alternative to the WIMP model of dark matter, and discuss how it has the potential to help explain the long-observed interleaved shell patterns, also known as ripples, in the images of elliptical galaxies.
Portable intrusion-resilient database management server

An intrusion-resilient database management system is the one that is capable of restoring its consistency after being compromised by a malicious attack or human error. More specifically, an intrusion-resilient mechanism helps to quickly repair a database by nullifying the damage caused by malicious or erroneous transactions, while preserving the effects of unaffected legitimate transactions that take place between intrusions/errors and their detection. The goal of this project is to develop a portable implementation framework that can augment a commercial database management system with intrusion resilience without requiring any modifications to its internals. The intrusion resilience mechanism described in this paper significantly improves the availability of modern DBMSs by facilitating and sometimes even automating the post-intrusion damage repair process. In addition, it can be embodied in a reusable implementation framework, whose portability is demonstrated by its successful application to three different DBMSs, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Sybase. Performance measurements on the fully operational prototypes under the TPC-C benchmark show that the run-time overhead of the intrusion-resilience mechanism is between 6% and 13%.
The Science of Gravitational Waves with Space Observatories

After decades of effort, direct detection of gravitational waves from astrophysical sources is on the horizon. Aside from teaching us about gravity itself, gravitational waves hold immense promise as a tool for general astrophysics. In this talk I will provide an overview of the science enabled by a space-based gravitational wave observatory sensitive in the milli-Hertz frequency band including the nature and evolution of massive black holes and their host galaxies, the demographics of stellar remnant compact objects in the Milky Way, and the behavior of gravity in the strong-field regime. I will also summarize the current status of efforts in the US and Europe to implement a space-based gravitational wave observatory.
Detection of Breast Cancer: Dynamic Infrared Imaging

Publisher Summary The dynamic infrared imaging (DIRI) technique has been employed for the detection of breast cancer efficiently. Quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIP) constructed as a focal plane array were developed as part of the Star Wars initiative and are now available for biomedical research. Detectors available for this purpose contain a GaAs QWIP, are configured as a 256 × 256 scanned focal plane array, and allow for rapid imaging. This new generation of infrared sensor has improved thermal and spatial resolution and can image dynamically. High sensitivity and frame rate allow dynamic interrogation of biological systems. Breast cancer detection by infrared could be described using two simple models that include primitive tumor vasculature or tumor-generated nitric oxide (NO). In the first model, angiogenesis leads to the formation of new vessels associated with malignancy that lack smooth muscle fibers rendering them unreceptive to control by vasoconstrictors. As a result of these primitive vessels, greater blood flow and larger modulations such as cardiogenic are in evidence. An alternative model is based on the finding that tumors of the breast are greatly influenced by steroid hormones such as progesterone activates inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS). Patients with iNOS positive breast carcinomas have a significantly worse overall survival rate versus those with negative stains. The increased perfusion results, as NO is a vasodilator. While this signal may be associated with the tumor itself, it will also be associated with any tissue into which NO has diffused. This mechanism also predicts larger infrared flux modulations from the cardiac cycle (cardiogenic DIRI signal).