cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Compartment Fire Growth Effects on Firefighter Alarm Signal Detection

When firefighters are overcome by the heat or smoke of a fire and become disoriented or trapped in a structure, it is crucial that there is a reliable means to alert other fireground personnel to their need for assistance. Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) devices are designed to signal for aid using audible signal technology. Normal operation is for the PASS devices to activate a 95-decibel multiple-frequency alarm signal if the device is stationary for a specific period of time or is manually activated. However, despite its widespread use throughout the fire service and on-going enhancements in recent years, certain problems still exist with audible PASS technology. Foremost among these problems is that nationally recognized standards currently do not specify a unique PASS alarm signal, and this has resulted in multiple different PASS alarms being used in the field. In this work, we present results that seek to establish a scientific basis for an optimum PASS alarm signal for use throughout the U.S fire service. We present typical sounds recorded from firefighter operations. We discuss how these sounds interfere with typical PASS signals both in compartments with and without fire. Using experimental and computational results for sound propagation within compartments with fire and thermal stratification, we show how acoustic signals are modified and affected in the gas phase by the fire evolution. Additionally, the effects of thermal degradation of typical building materials such as gypsum board is discussed in terms of the impacts on sound propagation.© 2013 ASME
Aesthetics and Nationality Origin——A probe into the nationality origin of Yelang inhabitants at Kele of Hezhang County

The nationality origin of Yelangese is one of the controversial issues without a common view by scholars in the field of the relevant study.Such a study is mostly carried out from the perspectives of history,archeology and ethnology.But it can be carried out from the perspectives of the sense of aesthetics and nationality based on the unearthed cultural relics and literature.The unearthed cultural relics at Kele in Hezhang,the "Yin Dynasty Ruins in Guizhou",are simple but beautiful in shape.The worship of "bamboo" by the Gelao people who have lived in the area generation after generation as peasants,is similar to the nationality of Baiyue and Baipu systems in the category of their "elegancy" of aesthetics but greatly difference from nationality feature of worshiping "fire" and "tigers" by the Yi nationality of the Diqiang system.It can thus be deemed that the nationality origin of the inhabitants at Kele,Hezhang,is the Pu people,ancestors of the Gelaos.They had built up the town of Kele but after the Yi invaded,the Kingdom of Yelang was established at the site of Kele.The Yi becomes the ruling nationality of the kingdom.
Voice disorders in children: structure and evaluation.

The larynx in the child is not simply a "small" adult larynx. It is basically different in shape and extralaryngeal relationships. The neonatal thyroid cartilage is best described as a gradually curving semicircle, the two laminae meeting at an angle of about 130 degrees. The cricoid cartilage is quasi-oval in shape. The cricoid lamina tilts posteriorly, such that the subglottic airway resembles a funnel. Thus, the diameter of the immediately subglottic airway is less than that of the supraglottic in about 92 per cent of the population. Fishman and Parkley recently reported that about 8 per cent of the infant specimens studied were found to have a tracheal diameter less than that of the cricoid. The subglottic tube extends posteriorly and inferiorly in relation to the larynx, as well. The narrow internal cricoid and the direction that it takes are two points that should be remembered in attempting to intubate a neonate. The most significant difference in the neonatal arytenoid cartilage is that it is far less mobile than that of the adult owing to its grossly different shape.
Restoring Latent Visual Working Memory Representations in Human Cortex

Summary Working memory (WM) enables the storage and manipulation of limited amounts of information over short periods. Prominent models posit that increasing the number of remembered items decreases the spiking activity dedicated to each item via mutual inhibition, which irreparably degrades the fidelity of each item's representation. We tested these models by determining if degraded memory representations could be recovered following a post-cue indicating which of several items in spatial WM would be recalled. Using an fMRI-based image reconstruction technique, we identified impaired behavioral performance and degraded mnemonic representations with elevated memory load. However, in several cortical regions, degraded mnemonic representations recovered substantially following a post-cue, and this recovery tracked behavioral performance. These results challenge pure spike-based models of WM and suggest that remembered items are additionally encoded within latent or hidden neural codes that can help reinvigorate active WM representations.
Impact of an In-visit Decision Aid on Patient Knowledge about Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy: A Pilot Study

Studies have reported that breast cancer patients have limited understanding about the oncologic outcomes following contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM). We hypothesized that an in-visit decision aid (DA) would be associated with higher patient knowledge about the anticipated short and long term outcomes of CPM. We piloted a DA which used the SCOPED: (Situation, Choices, Objectives, People, Evaluation and Decision) framework. Knowledge, dichotomized as “low” (≤3 correct) versus “high” (≥4 correct), was assessed immediately after the visit by a 5 item survey. There were 97 DA patients (response rate 62.2 %) and 114 usual care (UC) patients (response rate 71.3 %). Patient demographic factors were similar between the two groups. Twenty-one (21.7 %) patients in the DA group underwent CPM compared with 18 (15.8 %) in the UC group (p = 0.22). Mean and median knowledge levels were significantly higher in the DA group compared with the UC group for patients of all ages, tumor stage, race, family history, anxiety levels, worry about CBC, and surgery type. Eighty-six (78.9 %) of UC versus 35 (37.9 %) DA patients had low knowledge. Of patients who underwent CPM, 15 (83.3 %) in the UC cohort versus 5 (25.0 %) of DA patients had “low” knowledge. Knowledge was higher in the DA group. The UC group had approximately three times the number of patients of the DA group who were at risk for making a poorly informed decision to have CPM. Future studies should assess the impact of increased knowledge on overall CPM rates.
Secure mobile agent in M-Commerce over internet

Mobile agent technology offers a new computing paradigm in which a program, in the form of a software agent, can suspend its execution on a host computer, transfer itself to another agent-enabled host on the network, and resume execution on the new host. Recent mobile agents are able to categorize in a various ways of distributed equipped embedded intelligence agents systems. This information provides an indication of the variety of threats affecting the mobile agent systems. The developers of mobile agent facing security problems based on their applications. In M-Commerce of business information agent system is built based on mobile agent technology. It sends out agents to different hosts in an electronic marketplace. The agents collect and report information such as prices and availabilities about products specified by users. Security is a main issue of mobile agent systems, particularly when soft cash dealings are concerned.
Clarifying Stem-Cell Therapy’s Benefits and Risks

To ensure that the emerging field of stem-cell therapy fulfills its promise to patients, we must first understand its risks and benefits and develop therapeutic approaches based on sound science. That requires a commitment to the principles of evidence generation.
An online primal-dual method for discounted Markov decision processes

We consider the online solution of discounted Markov decision processes (MDP). We focus on the black-box learning model where transition probabilities and state transition cost are unknown. Instead, a simulator is available to generate random state transitions under given actions. We propose a stochastic primal-dual algorithm for solving the linear formulation of the Bellman equation. The algorithm updates the primal and dual iterates by using sample state transitions and sample costs generated by the simulator. We provide a thresholding procedure that recovers the exact optimal policy from the dual iterates with high probability.
Towards cost-effective distributed information fusion with partially active sensors in directed networks

This paper focuses on the study of consensus-based information fusion for a team of sensors, where some of them are active, in directed networks when communication among sensors is directed. In the context of this paper, a sensor is called active if it can obtain information about certain objects while a sensor is called inactive if it cannot obtain information. Moreover, each sensor is able to determine if it is active or inactive. Although inactive sensors do not provide information, they are needed in order to maintain connectivity of the communication graph. Due to the existence of inactive sensors, the existing research on consensus-based information fusion for a team of active sensors cannot be applied. We first provide a mathematical formulation of consensus-based information fusion for both inactive and active sensors. Then we derive sufficient conditions to guarantee that all active and inactive sensors reach consensus on their final state information. In particular, we consider two different cases: (1) the existence of one inactive sensor, and (2) the existence of multiple inactive sensors. For the first case, we also show explicitly the final state information of all active sensors.
Leadership in the European Council: an assessment of Herman Van Rompuy’s presidency

In November 2009, the European Council elected Herman Van Rompuy its first standing President, under the terms of the newly-implemented Lisbon Treaty. Using the analytical framework developed by Ingeborg Tommel to assess the performance of three Commission presidents, this contribution examines Van Rompuy’s leadership in the European Council during two terms in office (2009–2014). First incumbents are generally influential in shaping the positions they occupy. Van Rompuy’s personal qualities helped him meet the demands of an inherently difficult job in an extremely challenging situational context. Yet, institutionally, the presidency of the European Council is a weak office. It brings prominence and close proximity to power, but not the potential of power itself. Nevertheless, Van Rompuy was an effective President because he understood the formal and informal rules of the game, making a modest contribution to leadership in the European Council during a severe financial and political crisis.
Vascular Inflammation Imaging in Psoriasis

Psoriasis is a common, chronic inflammatory skin disease driven by immune dysregulation involving helper T cell 17 pathways. Psoriasis is associated with systemic inflammation, which increases the risk of joint disease (psoriatic arthritis), subclinical cardiovascular disease, and major adverse cardiovascular events, especially in young patients with severe skin disease. Furthermore, vascular inflammation by 18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG PET/CT) provides a valuable tool with utility in predicting future cardiovascular events. As such, psoriasis provides a clinical human model to characterize the vascular disease by non-invasive imaging techniques such as vascular inflammation by FDG PET/CT. FDG PET/CT has garnered considerable interest in multiple completed and ongoing cardiovascular and psoriasis trials. Indeed, recent studies have shown that psoriasis is associated with increased vascular inflammation. Furthermore, a dose-response was demonstrated between severity of skin disease and severity of vascular inflammation in psoriasis. Additionally, observational studies have reported that treatment of psoriasis decreases vascular inflammation with several randomized trials still ongoing. Emerging data from a single report demonstrated that use of FDG PET/MRI may provide soft tissue localization of the FDG tracer in the aorta and the carotids but larger studies are underway. This review outlines the initial use, development, and current utility of FDG PET/CT in psoriasis covering cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that examined the relationship between psoriasis, severity of skin disease, presence of joint disease, treatment of skin disease, and emerging techniques to identify vascular inflammation as a marker of cardiovascular risk in psoriasis.
On the Evolution and Functional Significance of DNA Sequence Organization in Vascular Plants

We have investigated properties of repeated DNA sequences in vascular plants for the purposes of assessing the way in which they may be useful to the organism and for probing the evolution of the nuclear genome. In pursuit of the first goal we have compared DNA sequence organization both in a diverse group of land plants and in a group of species within a single genus. We reasoned that if a particular arrangement of repeated sequences is important in basic metabolic events, such as the regulation of gene expression, then we might find a common pattern among closely related plants and perhaps among distantly related ones as well. Regardless of the role of repeated sequences in the genome, the processes by which the size of the genome has grown during the evolution of vascular plants is of intrinsic interest. Although little experimental evidence is currently available on the mechanisms for genome growth and rearrangement we suppose have occurred, we do have theory from which to work. The proposal that long blocks of tandemly repeating sequences (sometimes recognized as a satellite band in density gradients) could be periodically created and serve as precursor material for families of dispersed repeated sequences was first made by Britten and Kohne in 1968.
Network Synthesis for Database Processing Units

We explore on-chip network topologies for the Q100, an analytic query accelerator for relational databases. In such data-centric accelerators, interconnects play a critical role by moving large volumes of data. In this paper we show that various interconnect topologies can trade a factor of 2.5× in performance for 3.3× area. Moreover, standard topologies (e.g., ring or mesh) are not optimal. Significant prior work on network topology specialization augments generic topologies with additional dedicated links. In this paper, we present a network specialization algorithm that builds a specialized network first then introduces a generic network as a fallback. We find our algorithm produces networks that are 1.24× slower than the highest-performance generic topology considered (a fat tree), and 18% smaller than the least expensive (a double ring). Moreover, our method produces topologies that outperform those produced by others by 1.21× while being 25% smaller.
China's Emerging Food Media: Promoting Culinary Heritage in the Global Age

In light of increasing media attention and commercial interest in documenting Chinese cuisine, this article examines the presentation of food in today9s mainstream Chinese media and the effects of its aesthetics in China and around the globe. Identified herein are the various stages of what I call a mediated discursive transformation of China9s foodscape and culinary heritage in the globalization era, which started with an upsurge of gastronomic writing in China9s print media and is being furthered by a generation of globally conscious Chinese elites. To examine the mediated process of Chinese cuisine under the influence of globalization and, particularly, the impact that the transforming Chinese food media may have on its local and indigenous foodscape, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork on the local, humanistic street food culture of Chongqing and the indigenous, halal cuisines of Lanzhou Muslim, and carried out a content analysis of the new Chinese food documentaries against a background of lively, sometimes heated, and growingly sophisticated arguments of Chinese viewers-turned-bloggers over the aesthetic choices made in these films.
A dual-layer CRFs based joint decoding method for cascaded segmentation and labeling tasks

Many problems in NLP require solving a cascade of subtasks. Traditional pipeline approaches yield to error propagation and prohibit joint training/ decoding between subtasks. Existing solutions to this problem do not guarantee nonviolation of hard-constraints imposed by subtasks and thus give rise to inconsistent results, especially in cases where segmentation task precedes labeling task. We present a method that performs joint decoding of separately trained Conditional Random Field (CRF) models, while guarding against violations of hard-constraints. Evaluated on Chinese word segmentation and part-of-speech (POS) tagging tasks, our proposed method achieved state-of-the-art performance on both the Penn Chinese Treebank and First SIGHAN Bakeoff datasets. On both segmentation and POS tagging tasks, the proposed method consistently improves over baseline methods that do not perform joint decoding.
Service Members Prefer a Psychotherapist Who Is a Veteran

The military is experiencing high rates of mental illness, yet service members and veterans with mental health problems often choose not to seek treatment. Based on clinical-psychology models of client-therapist matching and cultural competency, we hypothesized that willingness to seek treatment among military personnel is higher when the potential psychotherapist is a discharged veteran. Seventy-seven military personnel (73% men, 70% White, Mage=34.2) took part in the study. As hypothesized, the majority of participants indicated that they would prefer to see a psychologist who is a veteran. When responding to vignettes, ratings of the psychotherapist’s ability to understand the client (a soldier post-deployment), of his ability to help such a client, and of whether the client should seek treatment from this psychotherapist were higher when the psychotherapist was a veteran compared to when he had no military experience. There were no between-group differences in age, years of service, deployment history, or attitudes toward psychotherapy in general. Similarly, gender and education level had no effect on the results. These findings imply that having the opportunity to receive treatment by a psychotherapist who is a veteran may remove barriers for treatment and encourage more service members and veterans to seek and obtain the help that they need. This can be done by communicating these findings to the military population and by encouraging therapists who have military experience to make this fact known to their potential clients.
Coolant Recirculation in a Pressurized Water Reactor Core Under Loss-of-Coolant Accident Conditions

A model has been developed to predict the thermal hydraulics in the uncovered part of a pressurized water reactor core. The core is considered to be a heterogeneous porous medium with different per...
Quantification of Methanosaeta Species in Anaerobic Bioreactors Using Genus- and Species-Specific Hybridization Probes

A BSTRACTTo evaluate the role of Methanosaeta spp. in a variety of anaerobic environments, small-subunit rRNA targeted oligonucleotide hybridization probes were developed and experimentally characterized. The probes were designed to be genus specific for Methanosaeta and species specific for Methanosaeta concilii and Methanosaeta thermophila. The temperature of dissociation was determined for each probe. Probe specificities were determined using a diverse collection of Archaea and through an evaluation of probe nesting using samples from a variety of anaerobic bioreactors. Cell fixation and hybridization conditions for fluorescence in situ hybridizations were also evaluated. Although permeability of methanogens was variable, M. concilii cells could be permeabilized using a range of paraformaldehyde and ethanol based fixation conditions. Using the newly designed probes together with previously designed probes for methanogens, it was determined that Methanosaeta spp. were the dominant aceticlastic methanogens in a variety of anaerobic bioreactors when acetate concentrations were low. Their levels were higher in bioreactors with granular sludge than in those with flocculent sludge. In lab-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors, the levels of M. concilii rRNA were as high as 30% of the total rRNA.
Utilizing knowledge-base semantics in graph-based algorithms

Graph-based algorithms convert a knowledge base with a graph structure into one with a tree structure (a join-tree) and then apply tree-inference on the result. Nodes in the join-tree are cliques of variables and tree-inference is exponential in w*, the size of the maximal clique in the join-tree. A central property of join-trees that validates tree-inference is the running-intersection property: the intersection of any two cliques must belong to every clique on the path between them. We present two key results in connection to graph-based algorithms. First, we show that the running-intersection property, although sufficient, is not necessary for validating tree-inference. We present a weaker property for this purpose, called running-interaction, that depends on nonstructural (semantical) properties of a knowledge base. We also present a linear algorithm that may reduce w* of a join-tree, possibly destroying its running-intersection property, while maintaining its running-interaction property and, hence, its validity for tree-inference. Second, we develop a simple algorithm for generating trees satisfying the running-interaction property. The algorithm bypasses triangulation (the standard technique for constructing join-trees) and does not construct a join-tree first. We show that the proposed algorithm may in some cases generate trees that are more efficient than those generated by modifying a join-tree.
Italian Progressive Rock as Indigenous Psychedelia

ABSTRACTProgressive rock was Italy’s manifestation of psychedelic music. The product of a meeting of conservatory-trained musicians and countercultural interests, progressive rock constituted much of the soundtrack to Italy’s own psychedelic renaissance as expressed in rock festivals and youth activism. More grounded in classical and Italian song traditions than in the blues, this music represented Italy’s psychedelicizing its own heritage. It was another mode of psychedelic rock, more cerebral and formal than unbridled and improvisational. Understanding progressive rock as Italy’s psychedelic music acknowledges the existence of different versions of psychedelia around the world and raises the idea of indigenous psychedelias.
Kidneys on Chips: Emerging Technology for Preclinical Drug Development.

Only approximately 12% of drug candidates in clinical trials will reach the market due to unpredicted liabilities in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, efficacy, and toxicity ([1][1]). Novel techniques, including organs-on-chips, are critical to accelerate drug development and better predict drug
The Tariff Act of 1930

The final settlement; commanding position of the Conference Committee. — Higher duties on agricultural commodities, such as sugar, wheat, cotton, 3. — Hides, wool, meat, and dairy products, 7. — Minor agricultural products, 9. — Manufactured articles, cottons, woolens, silks, 13 — The general trend, 16. — The Tariff Commission retained, with no marked changes in its powers, 19.
Challenges Encountered in the Cytologic Diagnosis of Follicular Neoplasm

A 45-year-old male patient presented for evaluation of a right neck mass. He noted a right neck mass 3 months ago, and it has grown in size since that time. He complained of mild compressive symptoms including difficulty swallowing, tightness in the neck, and discomfort and denied symptoms of hyperthyroidism. There was no personal history of radiation exposure or previous parathyroid exploration or thyroid surgery.
Prediction of post-operative delayed hyponatremia after endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery

Abstract Objectives Delayed symptomatic hyponatremia is a known phenomenon occurring > 3 days after transsphenoidal surgery. This is a significant cause of post-operative emergency room visits and re-admissions. We describe and characterize post-operative hyponatremia in patients undergoing endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery, identify predictive factors, and create a clinical tool for predicting high risk patients. Patients & methods We retrospectively reviewed a series of over 300 consecutive patients undergoing endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery and identified patients with delayed hyponatremia as well as patient, tumor, and surgical characteristics. In addition, we recorded inpatient post-operative sodium and specific gravity values as well as treatment upond discharge. Univariate and multivariate analyses were carried out to identify predictors of delayed hyponatremia and stratify patients into risk groups. Results We found that 15% of patients developed delayed hyponatremia and that this occurred most commonly on post-operative day 7. This accounted for more than half of re-admissions after this type of surgery. Female patients and patients needing fluid restriction or fludrocortisone upon discharge were more likely to develop delayed hyponatremia. Patients with post-operative diabetes insipidus were less likely to develop delayed hyponatremia. Using ROC analysis we developed a score which reliably could stratify patients at risk for delayed hyponatremia. Conclusions We confirm the risk of delayed hyponatremia after transphenoidal surgery and identify factors that are revealed before discharge to identify patients at higher risk of delayed hyponatremia. These data may help identify patients who require treatment upon discharge and short interval follow up to avoid significant costs of re-admission.
Dynamic Pricing in an Evolving and Unknown Marketplace

We consider a firm that sells a single type product on multiple local markets over a finite horizon via dynamically adjusted prices. To prevent price discrimination, prices posted on different local markets at the same time are the same. The entire horizon consists of one or multiple change-points. Each local market's demand function linearly evolves over time between any two consecutive change-points. Each change-point is classified as either a zero-order or a first-order change-point in terms of how smooth the demand function changes at this point. At a zero-order change-point, at least one local market's demand function has an abrupt change. At a first-order change-point, all local markets' demand functions continuously evolve over time, but at least one local market's demand evolution speed has an abrupt change. The firm has no information about any parameter that modulates the demand evolution process before the start of the horizon. The firm aims at finding a pricing policy that yields as much revenue as possible. We show that the regret under any pricing policy is lower bounded by CT^{1/2} with C>0, and the lower bound becomes as worse as CT^{2/3} if at least one change-point is a first-order change-point. We propose a Joint Change-Point Detection and Time-adjusted Upper Confidence Bound (CU) algorithm. This algorithm consists of two components: the change-point detection component and the exploration-exploitation component. In the change-point detection component, the firm uniformly samples each price for one time in each batch of the time interval with the same length. She uses sales data collected at the times that she uniformly samples prices to both detect whether a change occurs and judge whether it is a zero-order or a first-order change if it occurs. In the exploration-exploitation component, the firm implements a time-adjusted upper confidence bound (UCB) algorithm between two consecutive detected change-points. Because demand dynamically evolves between two consecutive change-points, we introduce a time factor into the classical UCB algorithm to correct the bias of using historic sales data to estimate demand at present. We theoretically show that our CU algorithm achieves the regret lower bounds (up to logarithmic factors). Our numerical study shows that our policy performs well in a wide range of market environments.
InterACTWEL Science Gateway for Adaptation Planning in Food-Energy-Water Sectors of Local Communities

Since their inception in mid 2000s, adoption of Science Gateways as interfaces and conduits for digital infrastructure needed in science and engineering research and education has significantly increased. This trend has also driven changes in the types of services and resources that are now being expected from the Science Gateways by a growing group of diverse end users. In this poster, we present a novel Science Gateway, InterACTWEL (Interactive Adaptation and Collaboration Tool for managing Water, Energy and Land), which serves as a research cyberinfrastructure as well as an applied decision support system for adaptive natural resources management in interdependent food, energy, and water sectors. End users of this gateway include not only interdisciplinary technical and social science researchers, but also public and private sectoral stakeholders. The gateway is a collaboration between Oregon State University and Science Gateways Research Center, Pervasive Technology Institute at Indiana University, and is addressing challenges and solutions related to computational services, visualization techniques, advanced software applications, collaboration capabilities, cyber security and privacy, and data repositories unique to food-energy-water sectors and their stakeholders.
Government public relations when trouble hits: exploring political dispositions, situational variables, and government–public relationships to predict communicative action of publics

ABSTRACTGovernment agencies may face a crisis due to their inappropriate responses to natural or man-made disasters. However, crisis communication in government public relations has not been extens...
Secrecy, adaptation, and liminality in early-onset bipolar disorder: reflections from a sample of emerging adults

ABSTRACTEarly-onset bipolar disorder (EOBD) diagnoses have increased, yet much remains to be understood about its impact on developmental considerations that influence the course of illness and tre...
Bring School Nursing Out of the Shadows: Advocacy for the Future of Nursing 2030:

School nursing is part of America's hidden healthcare system. Recently, the Institute of Medicine commissioned the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) to review progress on its Future of Nursing 2010 study. Additionally, the AARP and the Future of Nursing Campaign for Action held town halls that focused on school nursing. This article is a summary of the testimony offered to the Future of Nursing and Campaign for Action leaders about the value that school nursing brings to the health of our nation and the recommendations for action.
A Population-Level, Randomized Effectiveness Trial of Recruitment Strategies for Parenting Programs in Elementary Schools

Objective: A population-level, randomized controlled trial was conducted to test the effectiveness of a parent recruitment package for increasing initial engagement into a school-based parenting pr...
A Pilot Study of Chicago Waterways as Reservoirs of Multidrug-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (MDR-Ent) in a High-Risk Region for Community-Acquired MDR-Ent Infection in Children.

Community-acquired multidrug resistant Enterobacteriaceae (MDR-Ent) infections continue to increase in the United States. In prior studies, we identified neighboring regions in Chicago, Illinois, where children have 5 to 6 times greater odds of MDR-Ent infections. To prevent community spread of MDR-Ent, we need to identify the MDR-Ent reservoirs. A pilot study of 4 Chicago waterways for MDR-Ent and associated antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) was conducted. Three waterways (A1 to A3) are labeled safe for "incidental contact recreation" (e.g., kayaking), and A4 is a nonrecreational waterway that carries nondisinfected water. Surface water samples were collected and processed for standard bacterial culture and shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Generally, A3 and A4 (neighboring waterways which are not hydraulically connected) were strikingly similar in bacterial taxa, ARG profiles, and abundances of corresponding clades and genera within the Enterobacteriaceae Additionally, total ARG abundances recovered from the full microbial community were strongly correlated between A3 and A4 (R 2 = 0.97). Escherichia coli numbers (per 100 ml water) were highest in A4 (783 most probable number [MPN]) and A3 (200 MPN) relative to A2 (84 MPN) and A1 (32 MPN). We found concerning ARGs in Enterobacteriaceae such as MCR-1 (colistin), Qnr and OqxA/B (quinolones), CTX-M, OXA and ACT/MIR (beta-lactams), and AAC (aminoglycosides). We found significant correlations in microbial community composition between nearby waterways that are not hydraulically connected, suggesting cross-seeding and the potential for mobility of ARGs. Enterobacteriaceae and ARG profiles support the hypothesized concerns that recreational waterways are a potential source of community-acquired MDR-Ent.
Historical Change in Porter Work on Kilimanjaro

This chapter charts changes in the nature of porter work on Mount Kilimanjaro from the first Europeans to employ porters on their expeditions to Kilimanjaro in the mid-to-late nineteenth century to the more recent changes in regulations of porter working conditions. It separates the changes over time into three main periods: the period of long-distance trade caravans and colonial expeditions; the rise of the climbing and tourism industry on the mountain when local Chagga guides and porters dominated the mountain crews; and, finally, the era of more responsible tourism and porter organizations around the turn of the twenty-first century. Highlighting this history brings into relief the characteristics of porter work on the mountain and the dynamics of the relationships involved. The chapter argues that as porter work shifted from long-distance trade caravans to high-altitude mountain tourism, colonial customs that disadvantaged porters continued. As the support crew, porters were expected to attend to every need of the visiting climbers with little regard for their own conditions. When some of the people driving the industry (foreign climbers) challenged the system, porter organizations were formed which helped advocate for better working conditions, although some challenges in regard to the loads porters carry, their equipment, clothing, food, and health continue.
Bidirectional Modulation of the Voltage-Gated Sodium (Nav1.6) Channel by Rationally Designed Peptidomimetics.

Disruption of protein:protein interactions (PPIs) that regulate the function of voltage-gated Na+ (Nav) channels leads to neural circuitry aberrations that have been implicated in numerous channelopathies. One example of this pathophysiology is mediated by dysfunction of the PPI between Nav1.6 and its regulatory protein fibroblast growth factor 14 (FGF14). Thus, peptides derived from FGF14 might exert modulatory actions on the FGF14:Nav1.6 complex that are functionally relevant. The tetrapeptide Glu-Tyr-Tyr-Val (EYYV) mimics surface residues of FGF14 at the β8–β9 loop, a structural region previously implicated in its binding to Nav1.6. Here, peptidomimetics derived from EYYV (6) were designed, synthesized, and pharmacologically evaluated to develop probes with improved potency. Addition of hydrophobic protective groups to 6 and truncation to a tripeptide (12) produced a potent inhibitor of FGF14:Nav1.6 complex assembly. Conversely, addition of hydrophobic protective groups to 6 followed by addition of an N-terminal benzoyl substituent (19) produced a potentiator of FGF14:Nav1.6 complex assembly. Subsequent functional evaluation using whole-cell patch-clamp electrophysiology confirmed their inverse activities, with 12 and 19 reducing and increasing Nav1.6-mediated transient current densities, respectively. Overall, we have identified a negative and positive allosteric modulator of Nav1.6, both of which could serve as scaffolds for the development of target-selective neurotherapeutics.
Huntingtin-interacting protein family members have a conserved pro-viral function from Caenorhabditis elegans to humans

Huntingtin-interacting protein family members are evolutionarily conserved from yeast to humans, and they are known to be key factors in clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Here we identified the Caenorhabditis elegans protein huntingtin-interacting protein-related 1 (HIPR-1) as a host factor essential for Orsay virus infection of C. elegans Ablation of HIPR-1 resulted in a greater than 10,000-fold reduction in viral RNA, which could be rescued by ectopic expression of HIPR-1. Viral RNA replication from an endogenous transgene replicon system was not affected by lack of HIPR-1, suggesting that HIPR-1 plays a role during an early, prereplication virus life-cycle stage. Ectopic expression of HIPR-1 mutants demonstrated that neither the clathrin light chain-binding domain nor the clathrin heavy chain-binding motif were needed for virus infection, whereas the inositol phospholipid-binding and F-actin-binding domains were essential. In human cell culture, deletion of the human HIP orthologs HIP1 and HIP1R led to decreased infection by Coxsackie B3 virus. Finally, ectopic expression of a chimeric HIPR-1 harboring the human HIP1 ANTH (AP180 N-terminal homology) domain rescued Orsay infection in C. elegans, demonstrating conservation of its function through evolution. Collectively, these findings further our knowledge of cellular factors impacting viral infection in C. elegans and humans.
Voluntary Self-Sustaining Reciprocity

In our model, self-interested agents prefer to buy from local neighbors rather than from cheaper outside vendors even in the absence of memory and coordination mechanisms. All they know is who is a local neighbor. Buyers voluntarily pay rents because they internalize that their neighbors will be wealthier and be more likely to buy from them in the future. The sellers understand that buyers’ preferences give them limited local market power, raise their prices, and earn surplus in equilibrium. Unenforced reciprocity achieves near-first-best outcomes, because it reduces wasteful production or non-production in equilibrium.
A rational model of the Dunning–Kruger effect supports insensitivity to evidence in low performers

Evaluating one's own performance on a task, typically known as 'self-assessment', is perceived as a fundamental skill, but people appear poorly calibrated to their abilities. Studies seem to show poorer calibration for low performers than for high performers, which could indicate worse metacognitive ability among low performers relative to others (the Dunning-Kruger effect). By developing a rational model of self-assessment, we show that such an effect could be produced by two psychological mechanisms, in either isolation or conjunction: influence of prior beliefs about ability or a relation between performance and skill at determining correctness on each problem. To disentangle these explanations, we conducted a large-scale replication of a seminal paper with approximately 4,000 participants in each of two studies. Comparing the predictions of two variants of our rational model provides support for low performers being less able to estimate whether they are correct in the domains of grammar and logical reasoning.
Faculty and Male Student Athletes: Racial Differences in the Environmental Predictors of Academic Achievement

Studies have examined the impact of environmental variables on academic achievement among student athletes in the revenue-generating sports of men’s basketball and football. However, while evidence concerning the positive impact of male student athlete and faculty interaction is virtually unequivocal, we are not certain whether the benefits accruing from particular types of interaction vary across different racial/ethnic groups. This study explores the relationship between male Black and White student athletes and faculty as well as the impact of specific forms of student athlete-faculty interaction on academic achievement. Data are drawn from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s 2000 Freshman Survey and 2004 Follow-Up Survey. The sample includes 1031 White and 739 Black football and basketball players attending predominantly White institutions. Regression results indicate that the impact of the contact or interaction is to some extent contingent upon the specific nature of the interaction for Black and White male student athletes. The findings also suggest that Black and White male student athletes did not benefit equally from their interactions with faculty. Finally, the implications of these findings are discussed among student athletes, faculty and student affairs leaders in order to improve male Black and White student athlete-faculty communication, as well as enrich their overall college experience.
The ICC and Afghanistan – Time to End Impunity?

Following the Taliban’s announcement of their annual spring offensive, violence has ratcheted up across Afghanistan. According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the Afghan conflict resulted in more than 10,000 civilian casualties in 2017 alone. The mounting atrocities in Afghanistan have finally prompted the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider launching a formal investigation. On November 20, 2017, Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, requested judicial authorization to commence a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan since May 1, 2003. The 181-page request was submitted by Bensouda’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) to the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber. In its request, the OTP sought authorization to investigate alleged crimes committed by the Taliban and their affiliates, the Afghan National Security Forces, and the U.S. military and the CIA. This essay surveys the OTP’s charges against these actors and provides preliminary reflections on the task before the Court.
Serum Amyloid A: Characterization of Three cDNAS in One Individual and Complete Structure of their Corresponding Protein Products

Serum amyloid A (SAA) is an acute phase plasma protein. In addition, the 104-amino acid SAA molecule is the precursor to the 76-amino acid amyloid A protein (AA), the chief constituent of reactive amyloid deposits. Heterogeneity with respect to amino acid composition, sequence, and Chromatographie behavior has been reported for SAA and AA. The apparent polymorphic primary structure of SAA has lead to the hypothesis that particular SAA gene structures may be related to the development of amyloidosis. One approach to testing this hypothesis would be to look for SAA sequences common to reactive amyloid patients. Such a study would be facilitated by knowing the total number of genes a human has for SAA.
Making the Internet Easier to Use

Few can deny the value of the Internet, but its rapid growth and chaotic nature make it difficult to find useful resources. Some librarians are making this task easier in a very specific way: by creating World Wide Web (WWW) home pages. This takes a World Wide Web server, but it is easy to do and makes the Internet more navigable. Some smaller schools, like Willamette University, have done a particularly good job at it.
Culture-Embedded Indigenous Healing Practices

This chapter focuses on culture-embedded indigenous healing practices or folk healing practices, which are nonorthodox therapeutic practices based on indigenous cultural traditions and operate outside official health care systems. These practices are often validated by experience, but are not founded on logico-experimental science. They are mostly observed in so-called "primitive" or "preindustrialized" societies, but can also be found in modern or developed societies as well. They are often difficult to transplant to entirely different cultural settings, where they are viewed differently. While indigenous healing practices function in general as healing methods for "problems," they are not usually considered by either the healer or the clients to be the psychological therapy for emotional disorders or psychological problems. Rather, they are recognized as religious ceremonies or healing exercises related to supernatural or natural powers. However, from a mental health point of view, indigenous healing practices often produce psychotherapeutic effects and may be studied as "folk psychotherapy." When a healing practice is closely related to religion, it may be called a "religious healing practice" or a "healing ceremony". When it involves the mediumship of spirit, it may be called "spirit mediumship," or "shamanism." Divination or various kinds of fortune-telling, including astrology or physiognomy, may be used to solve psychological problems or to seek answers for life problems and, therefore, can be viewed as folk counseling practices, as well. The practice of meditation to obtain tranquility and growth of mind and to prevent emotional problems, can also be considered as a folk healing practice if one defines "psychotherapy" very broadly, as not only treating a person's suffering, but also preventing problems and improving the quality of a person's mental life.
Tyrosine-inhibited 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthetase: Properties of the partially purified enzyme from Salmonella typhimurium

Abstract Tyrosine-regulated 3-deoxy- d - arabino -heptulosonate 7-phosphate (DAHP) synthetase has been partially purified from Salmonella typhimurium . Properties of the enzyme and aspects of the reaction mechanism were studied. Lineweaver-Burk plots for saturation by phosphoenolpyruvate and erythrose 4-P yield families of parallel or nearly parallel lines suggesting the possibility of a ping-pong mechanism. A sequential mechanism is, however, not excluded. Stabilization of the enzyme to heat inactivation by phosphoenolpyruvate suggests that erythrose 4-P is not required for binding of phosphoenolpyruvate. The DAHP synthetase reaction was studied in ( 18 O)H 2 O. P i , formed concomitantly with synthesis of DAHP, does not contain 18 O. This requires splitting of the CO bond of phosphoenolpyruvate and indicates direct elimination of phosphate. These results suggest that the enzyme reacts with phosphoenolpyruvate to form an uncharacterized enzyme-substrate intermediate and P i . Reaction of erythrose 4-P with the enzyme-substrate intermediate could yield the product DAHP and enzyme. Feedback inhibition of the enzyme by tyrosine is dependent upon pH. The Hill coefficient, n ′, is 1.4 at both pH 6.0 (85% inhibition by 0.1 m m tyrosine) and at pH 8.0 (25% inhibition by 0.1 m m tyrosine), thus suggesting cooperative interaction of tyrosine sites. Treatment of the enzyme with p -mercuribenzoate causes activation at concentrations lower than 1 μ m and inhibition at higher concentrations but does not affect inhibition by tyrosine. Enzymatic activity is dependent on Co 2+ .