cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Validity of Three-Class Hotelling Trace (3-HT) in Describing Three-Class Task Performance: Comparison of Three-Class Volume Under ROC Surface (VUS) and 3-HT

In order to describe multiclass classification performance, several figures of merit (FOM) have been proposed. Among the earliest and most widely known of these is the three-class Hotelling trace (3-HT). The goal of this paper is to present theoretical and empirical data demonstrating the failure of 3-HT as a measure of three-class task performance. To help do this, we contrast it to a newly proposed three-class FOM, the volume under the three-class receiver operating characteristic (ROC) surface (VUS). The VUS is obtained from a decision theory based three-class ROC analysis method which has been proved to extend the decision theoretic, linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and psychophysical foundations of binary ROC analysis to a three-class paradigm. We demonstrate empirically that the VUS and 3-HT do not have a monotonic relationship in general when describing three-class task performance. Numerical experiments demonstrated that the VUS provided reasonable results, while the 3-HT failed to distinguish between the case where all objects could be perfectly classified from the case where only one pair of the classes could be perfectly classified. We have provided theoretical explanations of this failure of 3-HT. The significance of this work goes beyond merely demonstrating the problems of the 3-HT, it demonstrates that a FOM that is mathematically correct and has a strong theoretical basis can provide results that violate a common sense understanding of three-class task performance. This fact raises the question of ldquohow to evaluate a classification performance evaluation method?rdquo We believe the answer to this question lies in the theoretical foundations of binary ROC analysis. We have thus contrasted the two FOMs in terms of three fundamental theories underlying binary ROC analysis: decision theory, binary linear discriminant analysis, and the equivalence of two psychophysical classification procedures. These theoretical investigations demonstrated the importance of extending and unifying all the fundamental theories of binary classification in the development of a three-class FOM; violating one of these fundamental binary classification theories may, as it did for the L-HT, provide predictions of three-class task performance that do not agree with a common sense understanding of three-class task performance.
Family Dynamics, Supportive Relationships, and Educational Resilience During Adolescence

If problematic relationships with parents are an academic risk factor during adolescence, then nonparental sources of support (e.g., friends, siblings, and teachers) may be arenas of comfort that promote educational resilience in the face of such risk. In a series of structural models using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the authors found that nonparental relationships are more likely to be directly associated with academic behavior than to interact with parent-related risk. Protective interactions occur only among certain subgroups. For example, close relationships with teachers and involvement with friends protect against parent-related academic risk among Asian American adolescents, whereas support from friends operates similarly for younger girls. In other subgroups, parental and nonparental relationships interact but not in a protective way. These patterns demonstrate the complex interplay of developmental ecology and larger social structures during the adolescent stage of life...
Constraints on parallel activation in bilingual spoken language processing: Examining proficiency and lexical status using eye-tracking

During spoken word-recognition, bilinguals have been shown to access their two languages simultaneously. The present study examined effects of language proficiency and lexical status on parallel language activation. Language proficiency was manipulated by testing German-native and English-native bilingual speakers of German and English. Lexical status was manipulated by presenting target words that either overlapped in form across translation equivalents (cognate words) or did not overlap in form across translation equivalents (English-specific words). Participants identified targets (such as hen) from picture-displays that also included similar-sounding German competitor words (such as Hemd, “shirt”). Eye-movements to German competitors were used to index co-activation of German. Results showed that both bilingual groups co-activated German while processing cognate targets; however, only German-native bilinguals co-activated German while processing English-specific targets. These findings indicate that h...
High power, high voltage FETs in linear applications: A user's perspective

The specifications of the current crop of high-power, high-voltage field-effect transistors (FETs) can lure a designer into employing them in high-voltage DC equipment. Devices with extremely low on-resistance and very high power ratings are available from several manufacturers. However, our experience shows that high-voltage, linear operation of these devices at near-continuous duty can present difficult reliability challenges at stress levels well-below their published specifications. This paper chronicles the design evolution of a 600 volt, 8 ampere shunt regulator for use with megawatt-class radio transmitters, and presents a final design that has met its reliability criteria.
Leveraging IPsec for Mandatory Per-Packet Access Control

Mandatory access control (MAC) enforcement is becoming available for commercial environments. For example, Linux 2.6 includes the Linux Security Modules (LSM) framework that enables the enforcement of MAC policies (e.g., Type Enforcement or Multi-Level Security) for individual systems. While this is a start, we envision that MAC enforcement should span multiple machines. The goal is to be able to control interaction between applications on different machines based on MAC policy. In this paper, we describe a recent extension of the LSM framework that enables labeled network communication via IPsec that is now available in mainline Linux as of version 2.6.16. This functionality enables machines to control communication with processes on other machines based on the security label assigned to an IPsec security association. We outline a security architecture based on labeled IPsec to enable distributed MAC authorization. In particular, we examine the construction of a xinetd service that uses labeled IPsec to limit client access on Linux 2.6.16 systems. We also discuss the application of labeled IPsec to distributed storage and virtual machine access control.
Phospholipase A2-mediated inflammation induces regression of malignant gliomas

Abstract An ideal form of cancer therapy is the harnessing of innate immunity to eradicate spontaneously arising clones of malignant cells. To date, attempts to develop effective immunotherapies have met with limited success. Prostaglandins and leukotrienes, collectively known as eicosanoids, are important mediators of immune and inflammatory responses. Harnessing these compounds could be a method to treat cancers. Eicosanoids are formed after cleavage of fatty acids from phospholipids by phospholipase enzymes. We have previously described, characterized and cloned a naturally occurring mammalian activator of phospholipase A2. Injection of a 24 amino acid peptide from this phospholipase A2 activating protein (PLAP), resulted in induction of an acute inflammatory response, and a concomitant regression of gliomas in rats. Administration of 500 μg of this protein resulted in a 50% decrease of the tumor mass within 72 h. Tumor regression coincided with a greater than twentyfold increase in levels of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and leukotriene B4 (LTB4), and a marked infiltration of natural killer (NK) cells. These data suggest that activation of phospholipase A2 and modulation of the eicosanoid biosynthetic pathway may provide a novel therapeutic strategy for the successful treatment of malignant tumors of the nervous system.
The Status of Wound Care Education.

This month’s issue begins with two articles that focus on the current state of wound care education. The old paradigm for wound care training is outdated and does not match the substantial increases in technology and therapeutic options currently, and soon to be, available. The wound care market is estimated to be a 15 billion dollar per year worldwide market, with the United States representing 40% of the total market share. With an increasing number of diabetic patients and aging population and an epidemic of obesity, there will be continuous growth in the number of patients with nonhealing wounds. Wound care clinicians are becoming more involved in acute wounds, inpatient woundcare, patientsafety issues,andassisting with formulary development for hospitals. Although traditionally a nursing field, wound care now includes clinicians from all aspects of the healthcare delivery system. Currently, wound care education is a patchwork of review courses, certification exams, wound societies, and on-the-job training. The following two articles attempt to outline some of the changes in the delivery of wound care education, which may shape the future formation of an actual wound care specialty. The education of wound care physicians is discussed in the first article. 1 The creation of the American College of Wound Healing and Tissue Repair in the United States is one step toward formalizing a physician wound care curriculum. In the second article, Lisa Corbett describes the transition in the nursing community asmore wound nurses go back
Attempts at gauge determination in superconducting transmission lines

The effects of the Coulomb and Lorenz gauges on the field formulation for superconducting transmission lines are examined. While either of the two correctly determines the electromagnetic fields of the structure, it is shown that when certain restrictions, which lead to a more chaste and direct formulation, are placed on the behavior of the magnetic vector potential, a single gauge is preferred, if not indeed forced.
Cut from the Same Cloth: The US Textile and Apparel Industry and Post-Disaster Designs for Haiti.

In the aftermath of the 2010 Haitian earthquake, various neoliberal strategies have been advanced to help in short-term disaster mitigation and reconstruction, as well as more long-term improvements in the country’s overall economic integration and growth. One such strategy has been focused on revitalizing the country’s apparel assembly industries through an aggressive expansion of export processing zones (EPZs). The disaster, it appears, represented an important opportunity to improve economic conditions by reorganizing the country’s role in the global apparel commodity chain. However, this reorganization conflicts with the preferences of US textile and apparel producers who have used trade preference programs to position Haiti as an off-shore apparel assembly hub. An examination of trade policies enacted in response to a series of disasters reveals the continued shift of power from the traditional textiles protectionist bloc to more transnationallyoriented apparel producers. This study traces these conflictual business interests within the context of global supply chains, transnational capitalism, and enduring US national economic interests. Ultimately, the 2010 Haitian earthquake represents a redefinition of the country’s role in the apparel commodity chain; a role within a global network defined by locationally fluid, sweatshop production.
Prospective study of cognitive function (cog fcn) in women with early-stage breast cancer (BC): Relationship between perceived and measurable cognitive deficits.

105 Background: Cognitive complaints are common among patients (pts) receiving adjuvant therapy (Rx) for early stage BC. Longitudinal prospective data is needed to help understand the relationship between measured cog fcn, patient reported cognitive changes, and patient reported depression and fatigue. We conducted a prospective trial to evaluate the effects of chemo- (CTX) and hormone therapy (HRx) on brain and cog fcn in pts with early stage BC using multiple objective and subjective tests as well as MRI/PET imaging. Here we report relationships between objective measures and patient reported outcomes (PRO). Methods: Eligibility included female pts planning to receive adjuvant Rx for ESBC. Pts were enrolled in 3 Rx groups (grps): CTX, CTX and HRx, and HRx, with a 4thno Rx age/education matched control group. All pts underwent a battery of objective and subjective cog tests before start of rx, 1 mo after CTX or 5 mo after start of HRx (FU1), then 9 mo (FU2) and 18 mo (FU3) after CTX. Brain MRI, PET and s...
“I am a cheerleader, but secretly I deal drugs” Authenticity through Concealment and Disclosure

Authenticity requires a balance between being true to others and being true to the self. People keep and disclose secrets in order to maintain authenticity contextually within relationships, as well as across contexts through self-reflexive evaluations. Based upon a content and discourse analysis of 1600 submissions to the PostSecret mail-art project, this study explores how secrets are used to manage disparate social, role, and personal identities to sustain coherent selves in some contexts and incoherent selves in others. Secrets are revealed anonymously through the PostSecret mail-art project, which allows for a cathartic release without disrupting their performances in front of significant others. This project analyzes the attempts made to maintain or achieve authenticity through the dialectical acts of concealment and disclosure.
Recovering Classical Philosophy in the Modern Context: The Work of Francis Slade

AbstractFrancis Slade's spoken words and his writings are concrete and realistic: in their arresting formulations, their close reading and juxtaposition of texts, their use of literature and art, their insights into classical political philosophy, and their understanding of Christian faith. This article illustrates these features by examining three contrasts he develops in his work. First, the distinction between ends and purposes helps recover the classical significance of telos, which was done away with in modernity and has been lost to contemporary thought and culture. Second, Slade contrasts the premodern city, where political life naturally emerges in several kinds of communities in accord with the ends of human nature, with the modern state, which has been constructed by thought from “deracinated individuals” organized into a “depoliticized society” and governed by “decontextualized rule.” Third, Slade shows how Augustine's reevaluation of human experience and Greek thought in the light of Christian...
A Super Stretchable Organic Thin-Film Diodes Network That Can Be Embedded Into Carbon Fiber Composite Materials for Sensor Network Applications

The ability to create a super stretchy sensor network with massive integrated sensors and embed it into carbon fiber composite materials will be very essential to enable self-sensing intelligent engineering materials. However, challenges arise on how to integrate thin-film switching devices into a super stretchy sensor network that could survive in the carbon fiber composite embedding process. In addition, ensuring good insulation between the sensor network and the conductive carbon fiber composite materials is also a challenge. Here, we report techniques to integrate thin-film organic diodes into a super stretchy sensor network through a high-resolution CMOS/MEMS fabrication process. We also demonstrate the functionalities of the network after it is embedded into carbon fiber composite materials. [2015-0323]
Thinking of Drug Safety from Risk Society Theory Perspective

The reasons of drug safety issues were analyzed deeply from perspective of risk society theory,from whichwe should keep correct view of drug safety issues,through strengthening risk education to improve awareness and ability of prevention for the whole society on risk.Elimination of unreasonable risk taking mechanism to avoid embarrassed situation of uncertain subject of responsibility,rational and scientific adjustment of medical industrial structure,improving enterprise's innovation capability and competitiveness,avoiding vicious competition homogenization and drug manufacturing defects which may be induced by this.To establish an open and transparent drug safety information release mechanism,regulate the media to popularize knowledge of drug safety to raise satisfaction about drug safety of public.
Mucous Cytokine Levels in Chronic Rhinosinusitis-Associated Olfactory Loss.

Importance Olfactory loss is a frequent symptom of patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), but our understanding of how inflammatory cytokines affect olfaction is limited. Objectives To examine whether inflammatory cytokines are present in the olfactory cleft and whether they correlate with objective olfaction. Design, Setting, and Participants In this cross-sectional study, patients with CRS underwent quantitative olfactory testing using the Sniffin Sticks test to calculate a composite threshold discrimination identification (TDI) score from October 21, 2013, to November 12, 2015. Nasal mucus was collected using a sponge placed in the olfactory cleft for 5 minutes, and Cytometric Bead Array was used to measure secreted immunomodulatory products. Correlations between TDI score and secreted mediators were then calculated. Data analysis was performed from October 15, 2015, to December 17, 2015. Main Outcomes and Measures Composite TDI scores and mean secreted mediator levels in mucus from the olfactory cleft. Results Thirty-four patients were enrolled (mean [SD] age, 57.3 [15.7] years; female, 21 [61.8%]; white, 26 [76.5]). The TDI scores were lower in patients with CRS with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) than in patients with CRS without nasal polyps (CRSsNP) (difference, 8.7; 95% CI, 2.5-15.0;P = .007). Interleukin (IL) 5 levels were inversely correlated with TDI scores in patients with CRSwNP and those with CRSsNP (mean [SE] β estimate, −46.56 [15.11];P= .005), whereas IL-6, IL-7, and vascular endothelial growth factor A were positively correlated with TDI scores only in the CRSwNP cohort. Subscale olfactory TDI scores followed similar correlations to composite TDI scores. Conclusions and Relevance In this study, inflammatory cytokines were found in mucus collected from the olfactory cleft. Levels of IL-5, in addition to other cytokines, were associated with objective olfactory function. Further inquiry is needed to establish the source of mucous cytokines and establish whether they play a causal role in olfactory loss.
Theoretical models of viscoelasticity of actin solutions and the actin cortex.

The elastic response of plant and animal cells depends on a network of protein filaments that form the cytoskeleton. This is a complex and highly dynamic composite of filamentous proteins, together with a range of accessory proteins for initiating and terminating polymerization, introducing cross-links, and forming lateral arrays or bundles of filaments (Alberts, 1994). A principal component of this is the actin cortex, which is itself an entangled and cross-linked network of F-actin. This cortex appears to be responsible for the mechanical stability and resistance of eukaryotic cells to external stresses. Coordinated assembly and disassembly of this network in response to cellular signals also appears to play a crucial role in cell locomotion (Stossel, 1994). The actin cortex, consisting of entangled or crosslinked actin filaments (F-actin), resembles solutions and gels of common synthetic polymers. However, the actin cortex in vivo--as well as in vitro models of the actin cortex, consisting of solutions of reconstituted F-actinexhibit unique properties that cannot be accounted for by the well-established models of synthetic polymer gels and solutions (DeGennes, 1979; Doi, 1988). For instance, the elastic moduli (specifically, the shear modulus) of actin networks can be several orders of magnitude larger than for comparable synthetic polymer systems (e.g., at the same concentration). This is a key property of actin networks, as many types of cells must withstand shear stresses as large as 1000 Pa, or even more. Furthermore,
Correction: Biomimetic design of protic lipidic ionic liquids with enhanced fluidity

Correction for ‘Biomimetic design of protic lipidic ionic liquids with enhanced fluidity’ by Richard A. O'Brien et al., New J. Chem., 2016, 40, 7795–7803.
Hermeneutics and Ethnography: An Interpretation of Two Texts

The postmodern approach to the writing of ethnographic texts is characterized by authorial self-reflection and a "dialogic" approach to anthropological fieldwork, techniques derived from the philosophical method of hermeneutics. But this method is problematic when confronting issues of political economy in ethnography. This paper presents an analysis of ethnographic works by Jean Comaroff and Michael Taussig, two texts that attempt to incorporate both an interpretive and a world-systems perspective. The paper examines the value of a hermeneutic method for anthropology, suggesting that while self-reflection is useful in cultural analysis, the hermeneutic method cannot be applied wholesale to the practice of anthropology.
Neuromonitoring in Spinal Deformity Surgery: A Multimodality Approach.

Study Design:Literature review.Objective:The aim of this study was to provide an overview of the available intraoperative monitoring techniques and the evidence around their efficacy in vertebral c...
A Method for Evaluating Physical Activity Programs in Schools

Providing opportunities for students to be physically active during the school day leads to increased academic performance, better focus, and fewer behavioral problems. As schools begin to incorporate more physical activity programming into the school day, evaluators need methods to measure how much physical activity students are being offered through this programming. Because classroom-based physical activity is often offered in 3-minute to 5-minute bouts at various times of the day, depending on the teachers' time to incorporate it, it is a challenge to evaluate this activity. This article describes a method to estimate the number of physical activity minutes provided before, during, and after school. The web-based tool can be used to gather data cost-effectively from a large number of schools. Strategies to increase teacher response rates and assess intensity of activity should be explored.
Design strategies for dynamic closed-loop optogenetic neurocontrol in vivo.

Objective. Controlling neural activity enables the possibility of manipulating sensory perception, cognitive processes, and body movement, in addition to providing a powerful framework for functionally disentangling the neural circuits that underlie these complex phenomena. Over the last decade, optogenetic stimulation has become an increasingly important and powerful tool for understanding neural circuit function, owing to the ability to target specific cell types and bidirectionally modulate neural activity. To date, most stimulation has been provided in open-loop or in an on/off closed-loop fashion, where previously-determined stimulation is triggered by an event. Here, we describe and demonstrate a design approach for precise optogenetic control of neuronal firing rate modulation using feedback to guide stimulation continuously. Approach. Using the rodent somatosensory thalamus as an experimental testbed for realizing desired time-varying patterns of firing rate modulation, we utilized a moving average exponential filter to estimate firing rate online from single-unit spiking measured extracellularly. This estimate of instantaneous rate served as feedback for a proportional integral (PI) controller, which was designed during the experiment based on a linear-nonlinear Poisson (LNP) model of the neuronal response to light. Main results. The LNP model fit during the experiment enabled robust closed-loop control, resulting in good tracking of sinusoidal and non-sinusoidal targets, and rejection of unmeasured disturbances. Closed-loop control also enabled manipulation of trial-to-trial variability. Significance. Because neuroscientists are faced with the challenge of dissecting the functions of circuit components, the ability to maintain control of a region of interest in spite of changes in ongoing neural activity will be important for disambiguating function within networks. Closed-loop stimulation strategies are ideal for control that is robust to such changes, and the employment of continuous feedback to adjust stimulation in real-time can improve the quality of data collected using optogenetic manipulation.
Urban Eye Trauma: A One-year Prospective Study

Purpose: The authors conducted a 1-year prospective study investigating the demographics, causation, and treatment of eye trauma in an urban population at one medical center. Methods: All patients sustaining eye injuries who were evaluated by the ophthalmology service over a 1-year interval were included. A formal questionnaire was completed with demographic data and details of the injury being obtained. An ophthalmologic examination was performed on each patient, and examination findings, diagnostic tests obtained, diagnosis, and treatment were recorded and analyzed. Results: This study included 584 eye injuries. Three hundred seventy-one injuries (70%) occurred in males and 159 (30%) in females. The average age was 30.5 years; 110 (21%) patients were pediatric. Sixty-two percent of all patients presented within 24 hours of their injury. Thirty-seven percent of all injuries occurred in the street, 31 at home, and only 13% at the workplace. For those older than 65 years of age, 48% of injuries were the result of a fall. Sixty percent of all eye injuries were caused by blunt trauma. Only 42 (8%) patients wore eye wear at the time of their injury. Diagnoses and management were recorded. Conclusions: The inner city population is more likely to sustain eye trauma as the result of an assault and is less likely to be involved in a work- or sports-related injury. Given poor compliance with outpatient management and follow-up, aggressive primary management may be indicated to optimize visual outcome.
Medically uninsured older Americans

America is becoming a more diverse nation. Older Americans are increasing in number at a rapid rate, and we are living longer. With these changes come an increasing demand for health care services and the increasing costs of care. This chapter identifies the importance of focusing on our uninsured, and often underinsured, older Americans, and the issues surrounding their access to health insurance coverage. Due to the overall small percentage of uninsured older Americans aged 65 years and above, this population is easily ignored. To appreciate the need for a closer examination, this chapter provides an overview of several issues and topics. The chapter begins with an overview of the changing demographics of America’s older adults; identifies the uninsured in this population; provides a review of Medicare Parts A, B, and C; describes the role of Medicare Part D; investigates the issue of health insurance for the group of adults aged 50–64; and concludes with how some states are moving forward in providing expanded health care insurance and access to their uninsured. Older Americans, also referred to here as older adults, are defined in the chapter and in national datasets as persons 65 years and older.
Exercise-Induced Cardioprotection: Overview with an Emphasis on the Role of Antioxidants

A major goal in the treatment of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is developing effective interventions for preserving cardiac function and cardiac tissue viability following a myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (IR) event. Over the last few decades, it has become widely accepted that reactive oxygen species (ROS) play a critical role in mediating cellular damage and dysfunction in CVD. In the search for viable therapies against IR damage due to ROS, exercise has received growing attention. A wealth of recent studies demonstrates that the physiological stimulus of endurance exercise is overwhelmingly cardioprotective. By virtue of its sustainable nature, exercise as an experimental model in the study of cardioprotective mediators may prove to be invaluable in the discovery of translatable interventions against IR injury. Much of this optimism is founded on the fact that the exercised myocardium is better adapted to preserve the redox environment during an ischemic event. In this review we present a summary of the evidence that supports exercise as an effective means of promoting a cardioprotected phenotype. The focus of the discussion will be on the role of endogenous antioxidants in mediating protection and secondarily on the protective mechanisms peripheral to redox control.
Topics for Further Studies

This book has presented a selected number of fundamental topics important for understanding the basic physics of space plasmas. We have come a long way since the early days of plasma physics when we began to quantify the physics. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss several topics that have not been adequately treated in space plasma physics textbooks. These topics include the concepts of collective interactions and synergistic effects responsible for the large-scale coherent structures, an example of instability that occurs within the large magnetospheric structure, heating of collisionless plasmas, and acceleration of electrons to runaway energies.
Keeping pace with the mouse heart

A miniaturized and programmable pacemaker for mice demonstrates the feasibility of long-term cardiac pacing to study cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure.
Cyber Pearl Harbor: Analogy, fear, and the framing of cyber security threats in the United States, 1991-2016

During the two and a half decades leading up to the Russian cyber attacks on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, public policy discourse about cybersecurity typically framed cybersecurity using metaphors and analogies to war and tended to focus on catastrophic doom scenarios involving cyber attacks against critical infrastructure. In this discourse, the so-called “cyber Pearl Harbor” attack was always supposedly just around the corner. Since 2016, however, many have argued that fixation on cyber Pearl Harbor-like scenarios was an inaccurate framing that left the United States looking in the wrong direction when Russia struck. This essay traces the use of the cyber Pearl Harbor analogy and metaphor over the 25-year period preceding the Russian cyber attacks of 2016. It argues that cyber Pearl Harbor has been a consistent feature of U.S. cybersecurity discourse with a largely stable meaning focused on catastrophic physical impacts. Government officials have been primarily responsible for driving these concerns with news media uncritically transmitting their claims. This is despite the fact that such claims were often ambiguous about just who might carry out such an attack and often lacked supporting evidence.
Response times of repeated nonwords in children with residual speech sound disorder

Nonword repetition (NWR) is sensitive to impairments in a range of disorders, including speech sound disorders (Larrivee and Catts, 1999). NWR requires listeners to perceive an auditory stimulus, store the perception in working memory, and repeat the stimulus aloud when prompted. Response time—from stimulus presentation to participant response—can be measured to assess processing speed. Deficits in each of these processes have been linked to speech sound errors in young children (Bird, et al., 1995; Lewis, et al., 2011; Preston, et al., 2015; Rvachew, et al., 2003), but research from older children with residual speech sound disorders (RSSD) is lacking. To evaluate processing speed in children with RSSD, we have adapted a nonsense Syllable Repetition Task (SRT; Shriberg et al., 2009). The SRT consists of multisyllabic nonsense words that use targeted phonemes (/b, d, m, n, ɑ/), to minimize the possibility of articulation difficulties masking the skills intended to be studied—phonological processing. Response times on 2-, 3-, and 4-syllable nonwords will be compared between children with RSSD and children with typically developing speech. Based on preliminary findings, we suspect that response times of children with RSSD are slower than those of children with typical speech. The results will be discussed.
Regulation of polyamine biosynthetic activity by spermidine and spermine analogs--a novel antiproliferative strategy.

Our current rationale for targeting polyamines as a mechanism-based drug discovery initiative is based on several diverse yet interrelated considerations (Table 1) some of which derive from findings to be reviewed here. Of these, the most critical are (a) the strict dependence of proliferating cells on polyamine availability (b) the increased rate of polyamine biosynthesis and transport associated with neoplastic tissues relative to their normal counterparts and (c) the novelty of polyamine biosynthesis and/or function as a departure from more cyto-toxic DNA-directed approaches. While admittedly, an absolute basis for selectivity has not yet been defined, recognition must be given to the fact that no chemotherapeutic strategy described to date is wholly selective for tumor tissue and yet total curability of a number of malignant diseases can be achieved. We believe this justifies the evaluation of new and novel approaches even in the absence of absolute metabolic rationale for selective tumor cell kill. Although still confined to animal model systems, encouraging antitumor data with polyamine analogs lend credence to this belief (Bergeron et al., 1988).
Eltrombopag May Improve Platelet Recovery in the Outpatient Setting after Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant

Introduction Thrombocytopenia after allogeneic stem cell transplant (HCT) is multifactorial in etiology and may require long term transfusion care support. Eltrombopag (TPO) is sometimes used off-label in the post HCT setting to treat poor graft function and thrombocytopenia, however data is limited to small retrospective cases/series. We present our single institution experience. Objective Our objective was to describe the outcomes of pts treated with TPO for post-HCT primary and second failure of platelet recovery (FPR), defined as platelet Methods We retrospectively reviewed charts of HCT patients who received TPO post HCT from 1/1/13 to 10/1/19. We excluded patients who had active, identified relapse at the time of TPO initiation. We examined clinical characteristics and outcomes of those receiving TPO. Results Thirty-four patients received TPO for primary (22) and secondary (12) FPR. 6 had BM grafts, and 15 had alternative donors (mismatch or haplo). Median time to start of TPO was D+79 (range 21-341). Among 16/34 TPO responders, median time to response was 49 days (range 7-166). In responders, GvHD (10), infection (8) and ITP (6) were well represented as potential etiologies. 18 (53%) patients were started on TPO as inpatients with only 4/18 (22%) responses. Outpatient TPO starts had 12/16 (75%) responses. Relapsed disease was eventually diagnosed after TPO in 9/34 (26%) pts at median 44 days (range 11-280), with full donor chimerism in all relapsed pts prior to TPO. Among those with relapse, 3/9 (33%) patients had response to TPO. Conclusion TPO may facilitate platelet recovery, particularly in the outpatient setting. Inpatients had limited benefit from TPO likely due to multiple life threatening infectious and immunologic issues. The frequency of relapses seen after TPO should alert the clinician to assess disease status when considering initiation.
On the ratio of current age to total life for null recurrent renewal processes

Abstract A number of open problems associated with determining the limit distribution of the ratio of current age to total life for a null recurrent renewal process (i.e. where inter-arrival times have infinite mean) are solved. In particular, when the survival function for the inter-arrival times satisfies F ( t ) ∼ t − α L ( t ) as t → ∞ with L slowly varying and 0 ≤ α ≤ 1 , we prove that the limit distribution corresponds to that of U 1 ∕ α , where U is uniformly distributed on ( 0 , 1 ) , with the limit distribution taken to be degenerate at 0 when α = 0 . By using direct methods instead of appealing to strong renewal theorems, we are able to prove this result without regard to whether the inter-arrival time distribution is latticed or not, and without extraneous constraints on the renewal function.
Healthy lifestyle behaviors in sophomore nursing students: A descriptive correlational study

Aim: The purpose of this research was to describe health perceptions, behaviors, and perceived stress of undergraduate nursing students and to determine if supportive incentives improved students’ healthy lifestyle behaviors. Background: Nurses have a primary responsibility in promoting health in the United States. Nursing students will become the future health workforce and must understand the importance of personal health and wellness, even before entering the profession. Methods: This descriptive study used a convenience sample of sophomore nursing students (N = 65) from one state university in the Northeast. Students’ motivators and barriers of a healthy lifestyle, perceived difficulty in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, perceived stress, and personal health rating were measured at the beginning and end of the semester. Results: Small and moderate correlations were noted among several variables. Paired t-tests revealed statistically significant findings for students’ perceived difficulty in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, health barriers, and personal health rating. Open-ended responses identified time and money/cost as the greatest barriers to making healthy lifestyle decisions. Supportive incentives offered throughout the semester did not increase participation in wellness activities. Conclusions: Undergraduate nursing students reported barriers and difficulties in relation to maintaining healthy lifestyle behaviors. Future research should focus on the challenges that college students face and provide interventions to promote health and wellness behaviors. Continued research with nursing students may identify healthy lifestyle challenges that are unique to this group of students.
Factors affecting patient choice for continued observation versus intervention for pelvic organ prolapse

To analyze the reasons for eventual choice of a therapeutic intervention in subjects who initially chose observation for bothersome pelvic organ prolapse (POP) over therapeutic intervention at their first urogynecology clinic visit. This is a retrospective cohort study of women with bothersome POP who initially chose observation over therapeutic intervention at one institution from 2002 to 2015. Subjects were followed over time with sequential pelvic organ prolapse quantification examinations (POP-Q) and assessments of symptoms and bother utilizing non-validated standard questions. Subjects were divided into two groups: (1) those who chose continued observation versus (2) those who chose therapeutic intervention with either pessary or surgery. Demographic information, POP-Q examinations, and POP symptoms and bother were collected. We analyzed which clinical variables influenced patient decision to elect for therapeutic intervention. A total of 111 subjects were enrolled. The distribution of initial POP-Q stage was: stage 2 = 54%; stage 3 = 45%; stage 4 = 1%. Median follow-up was 24 months (range 6 and 110 months). At their last recorded visit, 73 subjects (66%) continued observation and 38 subjects (34%) chose pessary or surgical intervention. We investigated clinical factors for choosing intervention. Increase in POP symptom bother was the only variable that remained significant in determining patient choice of a therapeutic intervention (p < 0.001) after confounding factors were controlled for using multivariate regression analysis. In subjects with bothersome POP who initially choose observation and subsequently elect to pursue a therapeutic intervention, worsening symptom bother is the most important factor.
Meta-analysis of catheter ablation in patients with post-infarct cardiomyopathy undergoing defibrillator implantation.

BACKGROUND Patients with post-infarct cardiomyopathy and ventricular arrhythmias (VT) necessitating implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) are at risk of recurrent shocks with increased morbidity. METHODS A comprehensive search of electronic databases for all randomized clinical trials that evaluated the role of catheter ablation as a preventive strategy at the time of secondary prevention ICD implantation was performed. We calculated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) using random-effects model. RESULTS Four trials were identified with a total of 505 patients (average age 66.4 ± 9.0 years; 87.7% were male). Preventive ablation was associated with a significant reduction in appropriate device therapies (shocks and/or anti-tachycardia therapy) (HR = 0.62; 95% CI = 0.46-0.82; P < .01), sustained VT (HR = 0.74; 95% CI = 0.55-0.99; P = .04) compared to control. There were no differences in inappropriate device shocks (HR = 0.80; 95% CI = 0.38-1.71), all-cause death (HR = 0.93; 95% CI = 0.53-1.64), cardiac death (HR = 0.63; 95% CI = 0.29-1.36), arrhythmic death (HR = 0.26; 95% CI = 0.05-1.31), or cardiac hospitalization (HR = 0.79; 95% CI = 0.57-1.11) between strategies. Preventive ablation was associated with improved SF-36 physical component (mean difference = 2.81; 95% CI-0.53-5.10; P = .02), but not the mental component (mean difference = 1.30; 95% CI = -2.06-4.66). CONCLUSION Among patients with post-infarct cardiomyopathy and VT, preventive catheter ablation at the time of ICD implantation is associated with a significant reduction of appropriate ICD therapy and sustained VT, and improvement in the physical component of quality-of-life, but no reduction in mortality.
What Gets Measured in Reentry Research? A Scoping Review on Community Reentry From Jail and Prison for Persons With Mental Illnesses:

Research on reentry for individuals with mental illnesses leaving jails and prisons lacks outcome specificity and standardization needed to advance knowledge about the efficacy and effectiveness of...
Maximizing Correlation in the Presence of Missing Data

In this paper we address the problem of maximizing the correlation between two vectors of time series data, when one of the vectors has missing data and the timing of the missing data is unknown. The motivation for this work comes from environmental monitoring where because of monitoring malfunction, some data are lost. We study the use of integer programming and a genetic algorithm (GA) for this problem.
Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis overlap caused by enzalutamide in patient with metastatic prostate cancer.

A 66-year-old African American man with metastatic prostate cancer presented to clinic with a pruritic rash in his chest of 1 week duration. He was started on androgen-antagonist therapy with enzalutamide a month ago. Medical history was significant for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,
Parallelizable Methods for Modeling Flow and Transport in Heterogeneous Porous Media

Groundwater contaminant modeling presents several challenges to the mathematician. Among these are the need to compute accurate water velocities and difficulties arising from fine-scale heterogeneities and sharp concentration fronts. This paper presents parallelizable numerical methods that address these challenges.
Representing Women: Sex, Gender, and Legislative Behavior in Arizona and California

Women in public office are often assumed to "make a difference" for women, as women--in other words, to represent their female constituents better than do their male counterparts. But is sex really an accurate predictor of a legislator's political choices and actions? In this book, Beth Reingold compares the representational activities and attitudes of male and female members of the Arizona and California state legislatures to illuminate the broader implications of the election and integration of women into public office. In the process, she challenges many of the assumptions that underlie popular expectations of women and men in politics. Using in-depth interviews, survey responses, and legislative records, Reingold actually uncovers more similarities between female and male politicians than differences. Moreover, the stories she presents strongly suggest that rather than assuming that who our representatives are determines what they will do in office, we must acknowledge the possibility that the influence of gender on legislative behavior can be weakened, distorted, or accentuated by powerful forces within the social and political contexts of elective office. |This comparative study examines the behavior of male and female members of the Arizona and California state legislatures to investigate whether who our representatives are determines what they will do. Beth Reingold challenges many of the assumptions that underlie popular expectations of women and men in politics.
Locational Variations in the Public School Teacher Supply Price

Several stales have incorporated into the education aid formula ad hoc adjustments for differences in the supply prices of education inputs across school districts. Urban school districts often receive additional stale education aid per pupil based on the belief that such districts face relatively higher supply prices for education inputs. This article evaluates the utilization of location as an indicator of district supply price differences by presenting a model to test whether location alone is the appropriate criterion for the adjustment of state aid to reflect such differences. If other district characteristics are more influential in the determination of supply prices, then these might also be included in the state aid adjustment technique. The article compares the distributional consequences of a more comprehensive adjustment procedure which includes district characteristics with the simpler locational weighting procedure.
Rubik: unlocking the power of locality and end-point flexibility in cloud scale load balancing

Cloud scale load balancers, such as Ananta and Duet are critical components of the data center (DC) infrastructure, and are vital to the performance of the hosted online services. In this paper, using traffic traces from a production DC, we show that prior load balancer designs incur substantial overhead in the DC network bandwidth usage, due to the intrinsic nature of traffic redirection. Moreover, in Duet, traffic redirection results in extra bandwidth consumption in the core network and breaks the full-bisection bandwidth guarantees offered by the underlying networks such as Clos and FatTree. We present RUBIK, a load balancer that significantly lowers the DC network bandwidth usage while providing all the performance and availability benefits of Duet. RUBIK achieves its goals by applying two principles in the scale-out load balancer design - exploiting locality and applying end-point flexibility in placing the servers. We show how to jointly exploit these two principles to maximally contain the traffic load balanced to be within individual ToRs while satisfying service-specific failure domain constraints. Our evaluation using a testbed prototype and DC-scale simulation using real traffic traces shows that compared to the prior art Duet, RUBIK can reduce the bandwidth usage by over 3× and the maximum link utilization of the DC network by 4×, while providing all the performance, scalability, and availability benefits.