cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Neonatal Informatics—Dream of a Paperless NICU: Part One: The Emergence of Neonatal Informatics

Attempts to “computerize neonatal intensive care units (NICUs)” emerged simultaneously with the development of neonatology, beginning in the 1960s. The academic underpinnings to inform prior computerization attempts awaited the birth of the newly emerging fields contained in “health-care informatics.” Decades of attempts to computerize the NICU environment have produced local, partial successes, including successful installation of computerized monitors that report trends, buying or developing systems that produce letters from coded fact sheets, and development of many focused computer utilities to perform care task-related calculations. Enormous political pressures are urging health care to “get computerized.” Most hospitals are in the process of installing (or reinstalling) “hospital information systems (HISs).” Such efforts have exposed significant problems and limitations of current HIS systems for critical care situations. Extending office-designed computer systems safely and effectively into intensive care units and other real-time hospital venues has presented substantial difficulties. In late 2008, most NICUs still integrate multisource clinical data at the bedside by charting each hour with pen in small boxes on folding paper flowsheets, a slow, error-prone, and imprecise method for tracking unstable situations. To improve minute-by-minute management of unstable patients, all intensivists need automatic, real-time integration of machine, laboratory, and bedside observational data, presented in medically comprehensive, user-definable formats. Clinicians need reflex response speed (14 msec) in every clinical computer utility used in their “workflow.” Similar sets of unique human computer/interactions of teams working in safety critical situations such as nuclear power plants, battleships, and airplane cockpits have been studied extensively by scientists known as “human factors engineers.” Human factors situations rarely have been studied in hospitals, and not at all for NICUs. Overall, this neonatal informatics series defines the current state of the “paperless” effort. Part 1 provides a historic and situational overview of current problems in optimizing hospital computer systems for critical clinicians, including communication, NICU computerization history, and an introduction to systems analysis, which is a key exercise for planning future NICU computer systems.
Synchrotron X-Ray Topography for Encapsulation Stress/Strain and Crack Detection in Crystalline Silicon Modules

In this paper, we present the first experiment to prove the capabilities of X-ray topography for the direct imaging and analysis of defects, stress, and strain affecting the cell within the laminated photovoltaic (PV) module. Cracks originating from grain boundaries structures have been detected, developing along the cleavage planes of the crystal. The strain affecting the cell is clearly visualized through the bending of the metallization line images and can be easily mapped. While the recording conditions need to be optimized to maximize image contrast, this experiment demonstrates how synchrotron facilities can enable PV industry and research to characterize full PV modules. Appropriate development of the technique could also lead to future use of laboratory-level X-ray sources.
Early nutrition intervention services for children with special health care needs.

Dietitians must be responsive to the changing needs of their clients and employers, to societal concerns, and to legal mandates. A recently passed amendment (PL 99-457) to the Federal Education for the Handicapped Act gives nutrition professionals the opportunity to have a voice in establishing nutrition policy and standards of care for young handicapped and high-risk children. The new law extends preventive services to children as young as 3 years of age, and Part H of the law provides financial incentives for states to provide services to children with special health care needs from birth to 2 years of age. This article reviews relevant provisions of the new law and describes two projects undertaken by nutritionists from Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. It also summarizes challenges to nutritionists that will result from the law’s implementation. J Am Diet Assoc 89:1636-1639, 1989.
The impact of linkages on industrial location

The objective of this chapter is to analyze the impact of potential agglo- merative economies, which arise from reducing transportation costs through spatial juxtaposition of manufacturing industries, and other factors as identified in Chapter 3, on the geographic locations of firms in selected manufacturing industries, as described in Chapter 4. Results from Chapters 3 and 4 are first summarized, integrated and compared with previous results. Particular attention is paid to the relationship of linkages to geographic associations. Regression analysis for a sample of industries is then used to expand the analysis of the impact of linkages and other factors on geographic associations. In the final section of the chapter the identification of industrial complexes is considered.
Londonderry to the South Pacific

Another nonconformist businessman who entered parliament relatively late in life, William McArthur began much poorer and ended much richer than Samuel Holland. Not a reflective or deep man, he attributed his own success to simple virtues, and inscribed his stationery with the motto Fide et Opera. A Lord Mayor of London and long-time member for the south London constituency of Lambeth, he also made more of his political career than Holland. His bulky form, broad avuncular face, and large voice were familiar to the power-brokers of his day, and he was associated with larger issues than Holland’s mere constituency affairs. A recognised spokesman for Methodist laity and an avid promoter of imperial and missionary causes, he was not simply lobby-fodder. Nevertheless, McArthur remained a confirmed backbencher, alternately useful and embarrassing to the Liberal leadership. He was a fundamentalist with an habitual and awkward religiosity and a faddist with a dozen causes. But he was also a valuable bridge to the City and to Wesleyan respectability, one of the minor pillars of support for Gladstonian Liberalism. McArthur achieved his knighthood, but in the end he fell well short of the kind of influence his wealth might have commanded. He may have seemed a great man to many of his Methodist contemporaries, to the provincial beneficiaries of his philanthropy, and to the self-made generally. But in London, in the larger world, regard for his money was inevitably tempered by condescension.1
Radiative Processes: The Dipole Approximation

Perturbation theory and the dipole approximation are used to derive the electron–photon Hamiltonian, its matrix elements between Bloch states, and the transition rates for electrons absorbing or emitting a photon. The calculation of the absorption spectrum is presented using these results. As an example, we show the energy distribution of carriers generated in GaAs by solar illumination.
A new interpolation method to model thickness, isopachs, extent, and volume of tephra fall deposits

Tephra thickness distribution is the primary piece of information used to reconstruct the histories of past explosive volcanic eruptions. We present a method for modeling tephra thickness with less subjectivity than is the case with hand-drawn isopachs, the current, most frequently used method. The algorithm separates the thickness of a tephra fall deposit into a trend and local variations and models them separately using segmented linear regression and ordinary kriging. The distance to the source vent and downwind distance are used to characterize the trend model. The algorithm is applied to thickness datasets for the Fogo Member A and North Mono Bed 1 tephras. Simulations on subsets of data and cross-validation are implemented to test the effectiveness of the algorithm in the construction of the trend model and the model of local variations. The results indicate that model isopach maps and volume estimations are consistent with previous studies and point to some inconsistencies in hand-drawn maps and their interpretation. The most striking feature noticed in hand-drawn mapping is a lack of adherence to the data in drawing isopachs locally. Since the model assumes a stable wind field, divergences from the predicted decrease in thickness with distance are readily noticed. Hence, wind direction, although weak in the case of Fogo A, was not unidirectional during deposition. A combination of the isopach algorithm with a new, data transformation can be used to estimate the extent of fall deposits. A limitation of the algorithm is that one must estimate “by hand” the wind direction based on the thickness data.
Gender and Entrepreneurship: An Annotated Bibliography

Entrepreneurship, from a gender perspective, is not only an academic topic of growing interest but also a topic of policy importance across many nations. In an effort to describe the scope of scholarly inquiry into this topic, we have constructed an annotated bibliography of 563 scholarly contributions covering the period 1979 to the present. These contributions were selected systematically, and they represent 16 different categories of research.
Twitter Use among Academic Urology Programs

Abstract Introduction Twitter is a popular social media platform that has an important role in the urological community. Benefits include dissemination of knowledge, cross-institutional communication, amplification of conference content and greater engagement of the public, with increased departmental exposure. However, to date the use of Twitter by academic urology programs has yet to be examined. Methods The existence and profile of institutional Twitter accounts of each United States urology residency program was recorded and reassessed in 6 months. Geographic stratification of Twitter presence was evaluated with chi-square analysis. The relationship between Twitter variables and U.S. News and World Report ranking was evaluated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Detailed account data were collected for the top 5 accounts by tweet volume. Conference hashtag activity for the 2013 to 2015 AUA (American Urological Association) annual meetings was compared. Results The total number of residency programs with a Twitter account is 38 (30%). Median number of tweets, followers, following and age of account was 58, 154, 107.5 and 20 months, respectively. Geographic stratification failed to show significant difference (p=0.73). Of the 38 accounts 11 were inactive over 6 months. The 27 active accounts had an average percent increase of 161% in tweets and 148% in followers. Twitter presence showed no difference in U.S. News and World Report ranking (p=0.51). The conference hashtags #AUA13 to #AUA15 increased in activity each year. Conclusions A minority of academic urology programs use Twitter. Account activity grew significantly with time. The role of Twitter is still being defined but is rapidly gaining traction as a new powerful communication tool among urologists and with the public.
Interrupted: The roles of distributed effort and incubation in preventing fixation and generating problem solutions

Fixation on inappropriate concepts is a key barrier to problem solving. Previous research has shown that continuous work is likely to cause repeated retrieval of those concepts, resulting in increased fixation. Accordingly, distributing effort across problems through multiple, brief, and interlaced sessions (distributed effort) should prevent such fixation and in turn enhance problem solving. This study examined whether distributed effort can provide an advantage for problem solving, particularly for problems that can induce fixation (Experiment 1), and whether and how incubation can be combined with distributed effort to further enhance performance (Experiment 2). Remote Associates Test (RAT) problems were used as the problem-solving tasks. Half of them (i.e., misleading RAT) were more likely to mislead individuals to fixate on incorrect associates than the other half. Experiments revealed a superiority of distributed over massed effort on misleading RAT performance and a differing time course of incubation for the massed and distributed groups. We conclude that distributed effort facilitates problem solving, most likely via overcoming fixation. Cognitive mechanisms other than the commonly posited forgetting of inappropriate ideas may occur during incubation to facilitate problem solving. The experiments in this article offer support for the occurrence of spreading activation during incubation.
Pediatric patch testing: A 10-year retrospective study.

Abstract Background Patch testing is the gold standard for diagnosing allergic contact dermatitis in children. Objective To present a 10-year retrospective review of pediatric patch testing at our institution. Methods Data from patients 18 years or younger who presented for patch testing from February 1, 2005, to May 31, 2015, were entered into a database. Patch testing was performed according to North American Contact Dermatitis Group standards. A positive reaction was defined as any allergen for which the patient had a 1+ or greater reaction and provided avoidance information. Results A total of 157 patients with a mean (SD) age of 12.3 (4.1) years were evaluated. The 2 most frequent allergens were nickel and cobalt. Most patients were referred by dermatologists for suspected allergic contact dermatitis (72.3%). Dermatitis was present for more than 2 years in most cases (n = 67 [46.2%]), from 6 months to 2 years (n = 49 [33.8%]), and for less than 6 months (n = 29 [20.0%]). Males were more likely to have a positive reaction to fragrance mix 1 compared with females ( P = .02). No significant association was found between age and allergen sensitivity. Those with a history of atopy were more likely to have a positive reaction to cobalt ( P = .008) and chromium ( P = .03). Sixty patients (38.2%) returned for follow-up, and 37 (60.7%) reported improvement; most (n = 54 [88.5%]) were being treated with topical corticosteroids. Conclusion Our study of pediatric patch testing can provide information regarding common allergens in children, which can enhance patient care. Primary care practitioners may benefit from awareness of patch testing as an alternative to prescribing systemic immunosuppressants.
Osteogenic cell functionality on 3-dimensional nano-scaffolds with varying stiffness

Creating implants that lead to optimal bone remodeling has been a challenge for more than two decades because of a lack of thorough knowledge of cell behavior in three-dimensional (3D) environments Limitations in traditional fabrication techniques and difficulties in characterizing cell-scaffold interactions have limited our understanding of how factors like scaffold pore size and distribution, as well as stiffness affect cell response. To date, cellular activity on 3D substrates with stiffness ranging from a few kPa to hundreds of MPa has been investigated extensively (Cui et al., 2009; Fu et al., 2011; Hulbert et al., 1970; Hollinger et al., 1996; Johnson and Herschler, 2011; Karageorgiou and Kaplan, 2005). Fabrication limitations have restricted scaffolds with strut dimensions on the order of a few microns, a size comparable to the dimensions of osteoblasts, to have compressive moduli ranging from 10 kPa to 200 kPa, which has limited our understanding of how scaffolds stiffness affects mineral deposition. Cell viability and functionality on 3D scaffolds with compressive moduli in the MPa range and with strut dimensions on the order of a few microns have not yet been reported. We employed two-photon lithography to create periodic 3D nano-architectures with ∼99% porosity, ∼2 μm strut diameters, and ∼2–9 MPa structural stiffness to explore the influence of scaffold properties on the viability of osteoblasts in a microenvironment similar to that of natural bone. These nanolattices were made out of a polymeric core coated with different materials and had unit cells with tetrakaidecahedral geometry and a 25 μm pore size. The unit cells were tessellated in space to form a lattice with lateral dimensions of 200×200 μm and a height of 50 μm. Some of the polymer nanolattices were coated with a conformal 120 nm-thick layer of SiO_2, others were coated with 120 nm of Ti. All nanolattices had a ∼20 nm-thick outermost layer of TiO_2. Osteogenic cells were grown on the nanolattices for 28 days and the resulting cell morphology and depositions were characterized via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and Raman spectroscopy. These analyses revealed significant cell attachment and the presence of hydroxyapatite (Ca_(10)(PO_4)_6(OH)_2), tricalcium phosphate (Ca_3(PO_4)_2) and metaphosphates ([Ca_2(P_2O_7)]n), chemical species normally found in natural bone. Such osteogenic functionality suggests that 3-dimensional nano-architected materials can be used as effective scaffolds for cell growth and proliferation, which could eventually lead to the generation of better bone implants.
A game-theoretic analysis of wind power generator bidding strategies in electricity markets

In this paper, we investigate optimal wind power generator (WPG) bidding strategies in electricity markets. Assuming the cost of wind power generation is zero, WPG would maximize its profit by determining the optimal amount of wind power to bid in the day-ahead market (DAM). Significant wind penetration is considered in our problems such that WPG's actions will affect energy prices. In addition, the existence of WPG's optimal bidding strategies in both cooperative games and non-cooperative games is shown. The proposed stochastic optimization models consist of the DA energy market clearing, the real-time (RT) energy market clearing, and WPG's profit maximization. The models also take into account the uncertainty of wind power production. The models have been tested on a system with 10 conventional generators and 2 wind power generators. The effect of wind power forecast errors is also discussed.
Recent advances in diagnostic testing for gastroesophageal reflux disease

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) has a large economic burden with important complications that include esophagitis, Barrett’s esophagus, and adenocarcinoma. Despite endoscopy, validated patient questionnaires, and traditional ambulatory pH monitoring, the diagnosis of GERD continues to be challenging.Areas covered: This review will explore the difficulties in diagnosing GERD with a focus on new developments, ranging from basic fundamental changes (histology and immunohistochemistry) to direct patient care (narrow-band imaging, impedance, and response to anti-reflux surgery). We searched PubMed using the noted keywords. We included data from full-text articles published in English. Further relevant articles were identified from the reference lists of review articles.Expert commentary: Important advances in novel parameters in intraluminal impedance monitoring such as baseline impedance monitoring has created some insight into alternative diagnostic strategies in GERD. Recent adv...
Dual Mechanism of Rag Gene Repression by c-Myb during Pre-B Cell Proliferation

Developing B lymphocytes undergo clonal expansion following successful immunoglobulin heavy chain gene rearrangement. During this proliferative burst, expression of the Rag genes is transiently repressed to prevent the generation of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) breaks in cycling large pre-B cells. The Rag genes are then reexpressed in small, resting pre-B cells for immunoglobulin light chain gene rearrangement. We previously identified c-Myb as a repressor of Rag transcription during clonal expansion using Abelson murine leukemia virus-transformed B cells. Nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms by which c-Myb achieved precise spatiotemporal repression of Rag expression remained obscure. Here, we identify two mechanisms by which c-Myb represses Rag transcription. First, c-Myb negatively regulates the expression of the Rag activator Foxo1, an activity dependent on M303 in c-Myb's transactivation domain, and likely the recruitment of corepressors to the Foxo1 locus by c-Myb. Second, c-Myb represses Rag transcription directly by occupying the Erag enhancer and antagonizing Foxo1 binding to a consensus forkhead site in this cis-regulatory element that we show is crucial for Rag expression in Abelson pre-B cell lines. This work provides important mechanistic insight into how spatiotemporal expression of the Rag genes is tightly controlled during B lymphocyte development to prevent mistimed dsDNA breaks and their deleterious consequences.
Assessing Human Well-Being in the Poyang Lake Region

A regional assessment of well-being is carried out for 298 townships (administrative units below counties and above villages) in the Poyang Lake Region. First, flood hazard zones are mapped, using an innovative approach based on a digital elevation model, GIS data on levee distribution, and historical data on lake levels. Then measures of exposure and sensitivity at the township level are derived, combining land-use data interpreted from remote sensing images and a population distribution map with the flood hazard zones. Socioeconomic variables from the 2000 census are chosen to best represent the three aspects of development: health, literacy, and income. The assessment indicates that development in the PLR overall is highly exposed and sensitive to flooding risk. Sensitivity is closely related to (and perhaps bound by) exposure, with both rising in according with proximity to the lake. The development level, however, is more closely associated with degree of urbanization, and higher development levels are found in townships closer to county capitals. There are significant variations in different aspects of human well-being among the townships. I discuss different sustainable development pathways for several types of townships and implications for government interventions.
Relationship of Hospital Teaching Status with In-Hospital Outcomes for ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction.

Abstract Background Prior analyses have largely shown a survival advantage with admission to a teaching hospital for acute myocardial infarction. However, most prior studies report data on patients hospitalized over a decade ago. It is important to re-examine the association of hospital teaching status with outcomes of acute myocardial infarction in the current era. Methods We queried the 2010 to 2014 National Inpatient Sample databases to identify all patients aged ≥18 years hospitalized with the principal diagnosis of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to compare rates of reperfusion and in-hospital outcomes between patients admitted to teaching vs nonteaching hospitals. Results Of 546,252 patients with STEMI, 273,990 (50.1%) were admitted to teaching hospitals. Compared with patients admitted to nonteaching hospitals, those at teaching hospitals were more likely to receive reperfusion therapy during the hospitalization (86.7% vs 81.5%; adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.39-1.44; P P P = .02). Conclusions Patients admitted to teaching hospitals are more likely to receive reperfusion and have lower risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality after STEMI compared with those admitted to nonteaching hospitals. Our results suggest that hospital performance for STEMI continues to be better at teaching hospitals in the contemporary era.
Preventing underage drinking: A roll of the dice

Abstract This study examines the efficacy of a video entitled “Underage Drinking: A Roll of the Dice,” and accompanying discussion guide. The video illustrates the civil and criminal consequences of underage drinking. The video and discussion aimed to: (1) increase awareness about the problem of underage drinking; (2) increase viewers' and participants' knowledge and perceptions of the risks and responsibilities and reduce the perceived acceptability of underage drinking; and (3) encourage discussion between youths and adults about underage drinking. The “Roll of the Dice” was evaluated in 19 school and community groups in Hawaii. Groups were randomly assigned to receive follow-up materials or no follow-up materials. Evaluation involved three surveys: pretest, posttest, and follow-up. Three hundred youths and adults responded to the first two surveys, and 220 people completed a third survey. Youths and adults showed increases in short-term knowledge, perceived risk, and perceived responsibility, and a decrease in perceived acceptability of underage drinking after viewing the video. Significant improvement between the pretest and follow-up was observed, although the changes were not entirely maintained at the time of the posttest. The results showed that legal consequences of underage drinking are not common knowledge, and that a well-designed one-time program can make a difference. This video and discussion session provide an inexpensive way to raise adults' and youths' awareness of the laws and penalties, resulting in effects maintained for at least a month after the program. Additional follow-up materials did not enhance retention of changes in knowledge and attitudes.
Gene therapy for type I diabetes mellitus

Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) or type I diabetes mellitus, is the outcome of a progressive and selective immune-mediated destruction of the insulin-producing β cells of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. While evidence of a T lymphocyte involvement in the immunopathogenesis of the disease is demonstrated by histologic analysis of the pancreata from children at the onset of the disease and confirmed in animal models like the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse or the Bio-Breeding (BB) rat, the mechanisms which trigger the immunologic invasion of the islets still eludes our complete understanding. IDDM is one of the multifactorial-type diseases with a strong genetic component predisposing certain individuals. The genetic susceptibility has been very well documented with the highest risk conferred upon individuals carrying particular alleles at different HLA class II loci [1–4]. Other loci have subsequently been identified using whole genome scanning approaches in affected sib-pair linkage analyses; however, the association of many of these loci to IDDM has recently been questioned [5–8]. It must be borne in mind that the genetic transmission of susceptibility alleles at loci linked to and/or associated with IDDM need not result in disease, although the risk of developing IDDM is increased compared to individuals not carrying such alleles. The involvement of a non-genetic environmental component in disease onset, was inferred from earlier genetic analyses where the susceptibility attributable to genetics was found to be less than 50% [3].
Neoadjuvant and Adjuvant Therapy

Recent years have seen advances in the management of esophageal cancer, which have led to clinically meaningful improvements in outcome. While surgical resection is the mainstay of treatment for locally advanced esophageal cancer, the addition of chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy are also recognized to be key components of the treatment paradigm. Definitive chemoradiation is standard-of-care for patients with unresectable esophageal cancer, and it is an option for patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), with surgery reserved for patients with persistent/recurrent disease. This chapter focuses on established neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy in the treatment of localized esophageal cancer. Evolving approaches and areas of clinical equipoise are also discussed.
Quantum 3: Learning QCD through Intuitive Play

There is a nationwide drive to get more girls into physics and coding, and some educators believe gaming could be a way to get girls interested in coding and STEM topics. This project, sponsored by NSF, is to create a QCD game that will raise public interest in QCD, especially among K-12 girls, and increase interest in coding among girls. Through the immersive framework of interactive gameplay, this QCD phone game will allow the public to peek into the QCD research world. The game design will fall into the "Match 3" genre, which typically attracts a higher ratio of female players. The game will be implemented initially as a phone app, and the gameplay would require learning simple QCD rules to progress. By leveraging the willingness of players to engage with the rules of an entertaining game, they are able to easily learn a few principles of physics. The game is now available to download from the Google Play store (this https URL) and the Apple Appstore (this https URL We formed a development team of MSU undergraduate students to make the game and provided them with a QCD curriculum. The game will be tested at MSU outreach activities, as well as among local K-12 girls through school activities, and feedback will be used to improve the design. The final game can be easily distributed through various app stores and impact will be measured through a follow-up survey. If such a new direction works to attract more girls to coding and physics, one should develop more games to engage more girls in STEM.
Analysis of Cascaded Signal Processing Operations Using Entropy Rate Power

In many signal processing and machine learning applications, the pre-processing and post-processing steps are a cascade of different signal processing operations such as filtering, decimation, upsampling, averaging, and various mappings. While the goal of this series of operations is a combined effect, it would be useful for analysis purposes in applications such as compression, machine learning, and speech/image/video recognition to be able to characterize the effect of each operation in the cascade connection. We introduce a new quantity, the log of the ratio of entropy powers, and show that it equals the change in differential entropy and twice the change in mutual information between two signal processing stages. To avoid the calculation of the differential entropy to obtain the entropy power, we provide results for i.i. d. Gaussian and Laplacian processes and autoregressive processes that allow us to replace the entropy power with the readily available mean squared error in many instances. Examples from speech and image processing are provided to illustrate the utility of the new expressions.
Melanin and Curls: Evaluation of Black Women Candidates

Research on candidate evaluation has delved into questions of how voters evaluate women candidates, Black male candidates, as well as how candidates’ appearances may condition electoral opportunities. Combined, this scholarship has tended to focus on how race, gender, and skin tone privilege or undermine evaluations of Black male or White women candidates. We intervene to study Black women candidates and draw on research on colorism and Black women's hairstyles and ask: How does variation in skin tone and hairstyle affect Black voter evaluations of Black women candidates? We develop and test two hypotheses: the empowerment hypothesis and the internal discrimination hypothesis. We mostly find support for the latter. Importantly, we find that the interaction of dark skin and non-straight hair has mostly negative effects on Black men and women's trait evaluations, but a positive effect on Black women's willingness to vote for the candidate. Furthermore, this research shows that hair texture is an important aspect of responses to Black women candidates—hair is not just hair for Black women candidates. This research shows that understanding the effects of candidate appearance on voter behavior necessitates considering the intersection of racial and gender phenotypes.
Molecular medicine: Defence against oxidative damage

Macular degeneration is a leading cause of blindness in the elderly in the developed world. Hope for prevention and treatment comes from the discovery of a protective mechanism against oxidative damage to the eye. See Letter p.76 Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in older people. A polymorphism in complement factor H (CFH) has been strongly associated with the disease, but the mechanism of the association has been unclear. Here it is shown that CFH binds specifically to the lipid peroxidation product, malondialdehyde, which builds up in AMD as a result of oxidative stress. Malondialdehyde and malondialdehyde-modified proteins induce inflammatory responses; CFH neutralizes this inflammatory potential both in vitro and in the mouse retina. A common CFH polymorphism associated with AMD leads to impaired binding to malondialdehyde, potentially explaining why homozygous individuals with this polymorphism have a 6–7-fold increased risk of developing the condition.
Vacuum Belt Dehydration of Chopped Beetroot (Beta vulgaris) and Optimization of Powder Production Based on Physical and Chemical Properties

Beets contain the red and yellow pigments known as betalains, as well as nitrates and other phytochemicals that may affect human health, and have been studied for possible effects on lowering blood pressure and enhancing athletic performance. Betalains are heat-labile, so developing relatively low-temperature drying methods is one way to turn the perishable root vegetable into a value-added ingredient. The objective of this study was to determine if continuous vacuum belt drying (VBD) could be used to produce powdered ingredients with good color, physical properties, and retention of betalains. Drying studies showed that drying rate could be increased somewhat by increasing temperatures from 75 to 95 °C, with drying times ranging from 160 to 115 min. Drying times were substantially shorter than for powders produced by freeze drying (FD) (26 h) or hot air drying (HAD) (~ 6 h). Properties such as flowability or color did not depend on drying temperature. VBD beet powders had a red-purplish color that was slightly darker (L* = 25.74) than for freeze-dried powders (L* = 38.92). In contrast, HAD samples were much darker than VBD or FD powders, and showed signs of browning. Flowability was improved by the addition of maltodextrins, but at the expense of some increase in drying time. VBD powders were less hygroscopic than FD powders, but reached the same final moisture content. HAD powders were less hygroscopic. VBD samples had slightly lower betalain levels (261–273 mg betanin/g dry beet) than FD powders (291.2 mg betanin/g dry beet). Both had much greater levels than HAD powders (127.8 mg betanin/g dry beet). Powder dried at 95 °C without maltodextrin was optimal as it dried most quickly and had minimal betalain loss.
Tunneling electroresistance effects in epitaxial complex oxides on silicon

Complex oxide-based ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs) show excellent nonvolatile memory characteristics promising for emerging technology. However, integration of these epitaxially grown FTJs electrically with a silicon substrate remains challenging due to their incompatible lattice structures and poor electronic interfaces resulting from the direct synthesis techniques. Here, we present an epitaxial SrRuO3/PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3/SrRuO3 FTJ integrated electrically with a doped silicon substrate after a layer transfer process. The tunnel currents of the FTJ on silicon show a large tunneling electroresistance (∼1 × 105%) effect, which is explained by a numerical FTJ model incorporating pinned dipoles at the interfaces. This proof of concept of the integration of functional oxide heterostructures with silicon opens a pathway to beyond-CMOS computing devices using unconventional materials.
Toward Better Evolutionary Program Repair: An Integrated Approach

Bug repair is a major component of software maintenance, which requires a huge amount of manpower. Evolutionary computation, particularly genetic programming (GP), is a class of promising techniques for automating this time-consuming and expensive process. Although recent research in evolutionary program repair has made significant progress, major challenges still remain. In this article, we propose ARJA-e, a new evolutionary repair system for Java code that aims to address challenges for the search space, search algorithm, and patch overfitting. To determine a search space that is more likely to contain correct patches, ARJA-e combines two sources of fix ingredients (i.e., the statement-level redundancy assumption and repair templates) with contextual analysis-based search space reduction, thereby leveraging their complementary strengths. To encode patches in GP more properly, ARJA-e unifies the edits at different granularities into statement-level edits and then uses a lower-granularity patch representation that is characterized by the decoupling of statements for replacement and statements for insertion. ARJA-e also uses a finer-grained fitness function that can make full use of semantic information contained in the test suite, which is expected to better guide the search of GP. To alleviate patch overfitting, ARJA-e further includes a postprocessing tool that can serve the purposes of overfit detection and patch ranking. We evaluate ARJA-e on 224 real Java bugs from Defects4J and compare it with the state-of-the-art repair techniques. The evaluation results show that ARJA-e can correctly fix 39 bugs in terms of the patches ranked first, achieving substantial performance improvements over the state of the art. In addition, we analyze the effect of the components of ARJA-e qualitatively and quantitatively to demonstrate their effectiveness and advantages.
Revealing new therapeutic opportunities through drug target prediction: a class imbalance-tolerant machine learning approach.

Motivation In silico drug target prediction provides valuable information for drug repurposing, understanding of side effects as well as expansion of the druggable genome. In particular, discovery of actionable drug targets is critical to developing targeted therapies for diseases. Results Here, we develop a robust method for drug target prediction by leveraging a class imbalance-tolerant machine learning framework with a novel training scheme. We incorporate novel features, including drug-gene phenotype similarity and gene expression profile similarity, that capture information orthogonal to other features. We show that our classifier achieves robust performance and is able to predict gene targets for new drugs as well as drugs that potentially target unexplored genes. By providing newly predicted drug-target associations, we uncover novel opportunities of drug repurposing that may benefit cancer treatment through action on either known drug targets or currently undrugged genes. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
End-to-end Full Projector Compensation.

Full projector compensation aims to modify a projector input image to compensate for both geometric and photometric disturbance of the projection surface. Traditional methods usually solve the two parts separately and may suffer from suboptimal solutions. In this paper, we propose the first end-to-end differentiable solution, named CompenNeSt++, to solve the two problems jointly. First, we propose a novel geometric correction subnet, named WarpingNet, which is designed with a cascaded coarse-to-fine structure to learn the sampling grid directly from sampling images. Second, we propose a novel photometric compensation subnet, named CompenNeSt, which is designed with a siamese architecture to capture the photometric interactions between the projection surface and the projected images, and to use such information to compensate the geometrically corrected images. By concatenating WarpingNet with CompenNeSt, CompenNeSt++ accomplishes full projector compensation and is end-to-end trainable. Third, to improve practicability, we propose a novel synthetic data-based pre-training strategy to significantly reduce the number of training images and training time. Moreover, we construct the first setup-independent full compensation benchmark to facilitate future studies. In thorough experiments, our method shows clear advantages over prior art with promising compensation quality and meanwhile being practically convenient.
Women's knowledge of their state's abortion regulations. A national survey.

Abstract Objectives States vary significantly in their regulation of abortion. Misinformation about abortion is pervasive and propagated by state-mandated scripts that contain abortion myths. We sought to investigate women’s knowledge of abortion laws in their state. Our secondary objective was to describe women’s ability to discern myths about abortion from facts about abortion. Study design This was a cross-sectional study of English- and Spanish-speaking women aged 18–49 in the United States. We enrolled members of the GfK KnowledgePanel, a probability-based, nationally-representative online sample. Our primary outcome was the proportion of correct answers to 12 questions about laws regulating abortion in a respondent’s state. We asked five questions about common abortion myths. We used descriptive statistics to characterize performance on these measures and bivariate and multivariate modeling to identify risk factors for poor knowledge of state abortion laws. Results Of 2223 women contacted, 1057 (48%) completed the survey. The mean proportion of correct answers to 12 law questions was 18% (95% CI 17–20%). For three of five assessed myths, women endorsed myths about abortion over facts. Those who believe abortion should be illegal (aOR 2.18, CI 1.40–3.37), and those living in states with neutral or hostile state policies toward abortion (neutral aOR 1.99, CI 1.34–2.97; hostile aOR 1.6, CI 1.07–2.36) were at increased odds of poor law knowledge. Conclusions Women had low levels of knowledge about state abortion laws and commonly endorse abortion myths. Women’s knowledge of their state’s abortion laws was associated with personal views about abortion and their state policy environment. Implications Supporters of reproductive rights can use these results to show policy makers that their constituents are unlikely to know about laws being passed that may profoundly affect them. These findings underscore the potential benefit in correcting widely-held, medically-inaccurate beliefs about abortion so opinions about laws can be based on fact.
Themes and tones of cannabis news reports and legalization outcomes

This project analyzed print news articles on cannabis legalization that were published in 2015 (N = 295) from newspapers across the United States. The following year, 2016, saw more states legalize...
De persona de campo a escritor: Pierre Michon y Luis Landero

En una conferencia de Luis Landero tres personas se dirigen a el para decirle que por el modo de escribir notan que es un escritor de pueblo. Este comentario constituye el punto de partida del articulo. Me detengo en Pierre Michon, en Luis Landero y en dos de sus libros, Vidas minusculas y El balcon en invierno, para averiguar las caracteristicas que identifican al escritor que ha nacido en una familia de labradores. Los dos autores, tan distintos en estilo y en contenidos, presentan importantes semejanzas. Nacieron en un pueblo, son personas de campo, y se preguntan como un nino de campo se ha convertido en escritor. Ademas, los autores presentan sus textos como ficcion, pero tienen un importante elemento autobiografico. Recurren a la memoria para explicarse a si mismos y comunicar a los demas como se han convertido en los escritores que son.
Dynamic Input Demand Functions and Resource Adjustment for U.S. Agriculture: State Evidence

The paper presents an econometric model of dynamic agricultural input demand functions that includes research based technical change and autoregressive disturbances and fits the model to data for a set of state aggregates pooled over 1950-82. The methodological approach is one of developing a theoretical foundation for a dynamic input demand system and accepting state aggregate behavior as approximated by nonlinear adjustment costs and long-term profit maximization. Although other studies have largely ignored autocorrelation in dynamic input demand systems, the results show shorter adjustment lags with autocorrelation than without autocorrelation. Dynamic input demand own-price elasticities for six input groups are inelastic, and the demand functions poses significant cross-price and research stock effects.
Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders: Prognosis, Assessment, and Treatment of Youth “Grown-Up”

Disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders (DICCDs) are a diverse set of conditions, which primarily begin in childhood or adolescence, involving difficulty regulating one’s actions and emotions. Behaviors often include breaking rules, disobeying authority figures, and losing one’s temper. This chapter focuses on oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder (CD), and intermittent explosive disorder (IED) as they evolve in transitional age youth (TAY). This chapter first addresses the epidemiology of DICCD, followed by a case example of a child with impulse-control issues and disruptive behavior. The importance of childhood and adolescent history in a TAY evaluation is discussed followed by a review of the literature on prospective studies of DICCD. Through a case example of a TAY with DICCD symptoms, principles on how to best assess and treat TAY are addressed to inform clinicians in thoughtful and effective clinical care.
Empirical study on car-following characteristics of commercial automated vehicles with different headway settings

Abstract A recent study ( Li, 2020 ) analytically predicted tradeoffs between automated vehicle (AV) following characteristics on safety, mobility, and stability using a parsimonious linear car-following model. This work aimed to verify the key theoretical findings in the above study with empirical experiments using commercial AVs, e.g., vehicles with adaptive cruise control (ACC) functions. We collect high-resolution trajectory data of multiple commercial AVs following one another in a platoon with different headway settings. Parsimonious linear AV-following models that capture the first-order parameters on safety, mobility, and stability aspects are estimated with the data. The estimation results of the key parameters validate several theoretical predictions predicted by Li (2020) . Specifically, it was found that as the time lag setting increases, the corresponding safety buffer decreases, indicating that AV safety could be improved with less pursuit of AV mobility or, conversely, AV mobility improvement may come at a cost of more stringent safety requirements. Also, as the time lag setting increases, AV string stability increases, indicating that stop-and-go traffic potentially could be dampened by compromising AV mobility. With this, one possible explanation to the observed string instability of commercial AV following control (i.e., ACC function) is that automakers may prefer to ensure a relatively short headway (and thus better user experience on vehicle mobility) at a cost of compromising string stability. It was also found that as the time lag increases, the cycle period of traffic oscillations gets longer, and the oscillation amplification gets smaller, which supports the tradeoff between mobility and stability. On the other hand, field experiments revealed issues beyond the predictivity of a simple linear model. That is, vehicle control sensitivity factors vary across different speed and headway settings, and the model estimation results for key parameters are not consistent over different speed ranges. This opens future research needs for investigating nonlinearity and stochasticity in the AV following modeling.
Does variability across three universities in the implementation of a college course on human flourishing affect student outcomes

This study explores whether variability in the implementation of an undergraduate course on human flourishing is differentially associated with student outcomes.101 students in the “Art and Science...