cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Youth exposure to violence in the community: Towards a theoretical framework for explaining risk and protective factors

Abstract Exposure to community violence (ETV-C) negatively impacts youth development and is associated with many negative outcomes. Although attention has been paid to examining risk and protective factors that promote or reduce ETV-C, many of the studies in this growing body of literature do not place predictive models within a theoretical framework. In this review, we argue that the routine activity theory and lifestyles perspectives (RAT/LS) within an ecological framework is a useful strategy for examining how a series of behaviors and choices enacted by youth in their everyday lives affects their ETV-C. By focusing on the role of target suitability and capable guardianship within the neighborhood, family, peers, and individual levels of the mesosystem, we suggest scholars can examine the relative salience of these various components to determine whether they serve to increase youth's ETV-C or buffer against such experiences. We propose that the RAT/LS perspectives can not only be placed in an ecological framework, but it also provides effective tenets with which to explore ETV-C.
Remix as 'Fair Use': Grateful Dead Posters' Re-Publication Held to Be a Transformative, Fair Use

On May 9, 2006, in Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the lower court, finding the use of several Grateful Dead Poster images appearing in a band biography was a "fair use" under section 107 of the US copyright statute. In the case, the publisher Dorling Kindersley used without permission seven images of Grateful Dead concert posters or tickets in the book Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (2003). Prior to the book's publication, the publisher had unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate permissions with the copyright holder, Bill Graham Archives. Due to what the publisher perceived as an unreasonable licensing fee, permission agreements were never reached. Nonetheless, the publisher used the seven images in the book, incorporating them into remixed compositions, consisting of collages mixed with graphic art and textual explanations and commentary. After the book's publication, Bill Graham Archives brought suit for copyright infringement, and requested an injunction blocking further publication. After conducting a careful four factor fair use analysis, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's determination in favor of fair use. While some of the pro-fair use discussions within the opinion should likely be approached with caution, the opinion does hold some useful material for educators and writing teachers. Certain guidelines might be extracted from the opinion for use by students creating new media compositions (as well as alphabetic ones), and for teachers in their pedagogies.
Prescribing a Home Phototherapy Booth

Phototherapy in a hospital or office setting can be inconvenient and unfeasible for some patients. A patient is a candidate for home phototherapy if he/she has had a successful trial of outpatient phototherapy, is compliant and reliable, and has had proper education for use of a phototherapy unit. Home phototherapy should be conducted with close monitoring and follow up with the dermatologist. Today, various types of phototherapy units are available from numerous suppliers, and for the physician, an increasing number of resources are now available to increase knowledge and ease of prescribing home phototherapy units.
Circuit theory to estimate natal dispersal routes and functional landscape connectivity for an endangered small mammal

Natal dispersal links population dynamics to landscape connectivity. Understanding how organisms perceive barriers to movement, or landscape resistance, during natal dispersal is important to conserve and manage populations threatened by fragmentation and habitat loss. We aimed to (1) model probability of landscape use by an endangered small mammal (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis) in the Pinaleno Mountains, Arizona, USA as a function of forest structure at the population and intra-population level, (2) identify potential natal dispersal pathways between natal and settlement locations based on landscape resistance scenarios, and (3) assess which resistance surface best represented observed exploration, dispersal, and settlement. We modeled probability of habitat use via used and available animal locations. We developed three landscape resistance scenarios to represent individual differences in perceived resistance. We used circuit theory to identify potential long-distance dispersal pathways and to assess which resistance scenario best represented observed forest use and settlement. Top probability of forest use models included physical landscape features, forest structure, and burn severity. Composite connectivity models, created from multiple resistance scenarios, identified areas that may promote long distance dispersal movements. Connectivity models developed from only natal focal nodes allowed for assessment of resistance scenarios; a non-linear, negative-exponential relationship between probability of use and resistance best represented observed exploration and settlement. Circuit theory is a useful tool to identify potential small mammal movement pathways when high temporal resolution movement data are limited, and for assessing how well resistance scenarios represent observed settlement patterns.
The deterrence of collusion by a structural remedy

Abstract As a penalty for illegal collusion, this paper shows that a structural remedy makes collusion unprofitable when collusion is most stable, and that it can be a greater deterrent than fines or damages.
HPCMP CREATE-GV: Supporting Ground Vehicle Acquisition

The development of high-fidelity, physics-based software for analyzing ground vehicle concept designs and the mobility performance of wheeled and tracked ground vehicles is increasing important. The CREATE-GV toolset’s three modules are integrated to provide a complete performance evaluation of vehicle concept designs.
The Effects of Color and Position of Add-to-Cart Button on Click Intention: An Abstract

Understanding the factors that influence consumer’s online shopping experience is an imperative but challenging task for both e-retailers and marketing scholars. Website design is one of the critical factors relevant to online conversions. Although website design may vary across different retailers, add-to-cart button, which enables consumers to select items for eventual purchase, is a common feature that shared by all websites. In this research, we are interested in exploring how add-to-cart button may influence consumer’s online shopping experience. We focus on two important properties of the button: color and position. Specifically, we will examine two major colors used by e-retailers on add-to-cart button—red and yellow and two positions of the button— right and left side of the website. We investigate the interactive effect of color and position of add-to-cart button on consumer’s button-click intention and purchase decision.
Persian Language, Literature and Culture : New Leaves, Fresh Looks

Introduction Kamran Talattof: "Leading Literary: On Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak's Scholarship and Service and about This Collection" Part 1: Poetry and Poetics: 1. Franklin Lewis: "Soltan Valad and the Poetical Order: Framing the Ethos and Praxis of Poetry in the Mevlevi Tradition after Rumi" 2. Marta Simidchieva: "Three Songs for Iran: Gender and Social Commitment in the Poetry of Parvin, Forugh, and Simin" 3. Sahar Allamezade: "Killed by Love: 'Eshqi Revised An Iranian Poet's Quest for Modernization" 4. Peyman Vahabzadeh: " Rebellious Action and "Guerrilla Poetry": Dialectics of Art and Life in 1970s Iran" Part 2: Fiction and Prose: 5. Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami: "Explaining Tragedy: The Voice of Ironic Nondiscursivity in Bahram Sadeqi and Mohammad Asef Soltanzadeh" 6. Razi Ahmad: "A Postcolonial Reading of Simin Daneshvar's Novels: The Spiritual and the Material Domains in Savushun, Jazira-ye Sargardani, and Sarban Sargardan" 7. Fatemeh Shams: "Literature, Art, and Ideology under the Islamic Republic: An Extended History of the Center for Islamic Art and Thoughts" Part 3: Language, Culture, and the Problematics of Translation 8. Ehsan Yarshater: "Ventures and Adventures of the Persian Language" 9. Kamran Talattof: "Social Causes and Cultural Consequences of Replacing Persian with Farsi: What's in a name?" 10. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi: "Ahmad Kasravi's Critiques of Europism and Orientalism" 11. Arang Keshavarzian: "Mutual Comprehension and Hybrid Identities in the Bazaar: Reflections on Interviews and Interlocutors in Tehran" 12. Liora Hendelman-Baavur: "The Odyssey of Jalal Al-e Ahmad's Gharbzadegi-Five Decades After" 13. Shadi Mazhari: "Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and the Overarching Problematic of Totalitarianism and Democracy in Postrevolutionary Iran" 14. Sima Daad: "Accented Texts: The Case of Chahar Maqale and Mohammad Qazvini" 15. Abbas Jamshidi "Lizard as Arab Food: Representation of Arabs and the Shahnameh Scholarship" 16. Firouzeh Dianat, "Iranian Female Authors and "the Anxiety of Authorship" 17. Samad Alavi: "Living in Lyric: The Task of Translating a Modernist Ghazal" 18. Jake Benson, "Satisfying an Appetite for Books: Innovation, Production, and Modernization in Later Islamic Bookbinding"
Abstract 2354: Low-Voltage Multiple Pulse Termination of Ventricular Tachycardia in 4-day Infarct Canine Hearts

Introduction: ICD therapy is the most reliable treatment of ventricular arrhythmias in high-risk post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients. However, high-voltage shocks may induce local injury current and contribute to the progression of heart failure. Previously, we achieved a significant reduction in the cardioversion threshold (CVT) by applying five monophasic (MP) shocks within one ventricular tachycardia (VT) cycle length (CL) via maintaining depolarization of a small excitable gap instead of exciting a large area by a high-voltage shock in a rabbit model of chronic infarct. In this study, we aimed to extend these findings to a more clinically relevant canine model of healing infarct and to optimize the number of the multiple pulses. Methods: The left anterior descending artery of mongrel dogs (n=6) was occluded for two hours via a left lateral thoracotomy and then blood flow was re-established. One dog died of congestive heart failure after reperfusion. Four days later, a medial sternotomy was performed and cardiopulmonary bypass was maintained. Loading (2 mg/kg) and maintenance (0.05 mg/kg/min) infusions of Flecainide were used to induce sustained VTs. Epicardial multielectrode mapping was performed. Through a right ventricle (RV) ICD lead, 3 to 8 MP shocks and 10 MP shocks were applied within one and two VT CLs, respectively. Antitachycardia pacing (ATP: 8 pulses, CL=70–95% of VT CL) was applied from a RV endocardial electrode. Results: We were unable to induce sustained VT in two dogs. In the remaining three dogs, monomorphic figure-of-eight reentry pinned to the epicardial border zone was the main mechanism of VT. There was only one predominant ECG morphology with CL of 167±15.0 ms for each heart. Multiple pulses reduced CVT by 93% that of a single shock, which was 0.43±0.13 vs. 6.1±1.0 J, respectively (p Conclusions: Our results suggest that a 14-fold reduction in energy can be achieved by the multiple pulse therapy compared to the conventional high-energy defibrillation. And for stable reentry VT, multiple shocks are much more efficient than ATP in destabilizing the reentrant circuit.
Miliary Tuberculosis Presenting With Meningitis in a Patient Treated With Mycophenolate for Lupus Nephritis: Challenges in Diagnosis and Review of the Literature.

Tuberculosis is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide according to the World Health Organization. Central nervous system involvement is usually the least common presentation of tuberculosis o...
Modified Steiner Method for the Demonstration of Spirochetes in Tissue

The substitution of lead nitrate for uranium nitrate as used in the Steiner silver impregnation method for demonstrating spirochetes in tissue sections is described. The use of lead nitrate provides a chemical substitute free of any potential radiation hazard without loss of staining specificity, The use of lead nitrate in place of uranium nitrate in the Dieterle method for staining Legionnaires’ disease organisms is proposed.
Runs of homozygosity have utility in mammalian conservation and evolutionary studies

Runs of homozygosity (ROHs) arise due the transmission from parents to offspring of segments that are either identical by decent (IBD) or identical by state (IBS). The former is due to consanguineous matings whereas the latter is due to demographic processes. ROHs reduce individual nucleotide diversity (θ) as a function of homozygosity, and thus ROH distributions and θ are expected to vary among species because inbreeding levels, recombination rates, and demographic histories vary widely. To help interpret genetic diversity within and among species, we utilized genome sequence data from 78 mammalian species to compare θ and ROH burden (i.e., number and length of ROHs in the genome) among groups of mammals to assess genomic signatures of inbreeding. We compared θ and ROHs: (i) among threatened and non-threatened mammals to determine the significance of contemporary conservation status; (ii) among carnivorous and non-carnivorous mammals to determine the relevance of trophic effects; (iii) relative to body size because mutation rates generally vary with body mass; and (iv) across mammals from different latitudes to test for gradients in genomic diversity (e.g., due to effects of historic climatic regimes). Our results illustrate the considerable variance in genomic diversity across mammals, and that trophic level, body mass, and latitude have significant effects on θ and ROH burden. However, conservation status was not a reliable indicator of genomic diversity. We argue that genetic or genomic diversity should be an explicit component of conservation status, as such diversity is critical to the long-term sustainability of populations, and anticipate that ROHs will become more commonly used to estimate inbreeding in wild animals.
Lung cancers with mutations in EGFR exon 18: Molecular characterization and clinical outcomes in response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

9029Background: Little data is available to guide clinical management of individuals with less common oncogenic drivers such as exon 18 mutations (ex18m) in EGFR. To better understand the impact of...
Assessment of Trauma Symptoms in Toddlers and Preschoolers Living in Poverty

A first-line screening instrument, the Preschool Inventory of Trauma Symptoms (PITS), was developed to assess trauma symptoms with a diverse sample of 150 toddlers and preschoolers (M = 2.49 years; SD = 1.12). Items reflected the current trauma literature, assessment measures, and diagnostic criteria for very young children. A principal component analysis produced a 34-item, four-factor model: Arousal and Hyper-Reactivity, Fearful Attachment, Intrusion and Re-Experiencing, and Avoidance and Negative Cognition and Mood. One validity scale, Response Style, was also developed. All scales significantly correlated (r = .45 to .81; p < .01) with preestablished trauma measures and demonstrated adequate internal consistency (α = .68 - .87). A receiver operating characteristics curve analysis identified a cut-score with good discrimination ability (.88), sensitivity (.81), and specificity (.81). In a preliminary pilot study, PITS also was found to be sensitive to trauma symptom change following participation in an evidence-based trauma informed treatment program. A copy of the PITS is included in the Appendix for free use by qualified professionals.
Thermal conductance across β-Ga2O3-diamond van der Waals heterogeneous interfaces

Because of its ultra-wide bandgap, high breakdown electric field, and large-area affordable substrates grown from the melt, β-Ga2O3 has attracted great attention recently for potential applications of power electronics. However, its thermal conductivity is significantly lower than those of other wide bandgap semiconductors, such as AlN, SiC, GaN, and diamond. To ensure reliable operation with minimal self-heating at high power, proper thermal management is even more essential for Ga2O3 devices. Similar to the past approaches aiming to alleviate self-heating in GaN high electron mobility transistors, a possible solution has been to integrate thin Ga2O3 membranes with diamond to fabricate Ga2O3-on-diamond lateral metal-semiconductor field-effect transistor or metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor devices by taking advantage of the ultra-high thermal conductivity of diamond. Even though the thermal boundary conductance (TBC) between wide bandgap semiconductor devices and a diamond substrate is of primary importance for heat dissipation in these devices, fundamental understanding of the Ga2O3-diamond thermal interface is still missing. In this work, we study the thermal transport across the interfaces of Ga2O3 exfoliated onto a single crystal diamond. The van der Waals bonded Ga2O3-diamond TBC is measured to be 17 −1.7/+2.0 MW/m2 K, which is comparable to the TBC of several physical-vapor-deposited metals on diamond. A Landauer approach is used to help understand phonon transport across a perfect Ga2O3-diamond interface, which in turn sheds light on the possible TBC one could achieve with an optimized interface. A reduced thermal conductivity of the Ga2O3 nano-membrane is also observed due to additional phonon-membrane boundary scattering. The impact of the Ga2O3–substrate TBC and substrate thermal conductivity on the thermal performance of a power device is modeled and discussed. Without loss of generality, this study is not only important for Ga2O3 power electronics applications which would not be realistic without a thermal management solution but also for the fundamental thermal science of heat transport across van der Waals bonded interfaces.
Role of Cholesterol on Binding of Amyloid Fibrils to Lipid Bilayers.

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to provide insights into the molecular mechanisms accounting for binding of amyloid fibrils to lipid bilayers and to study the effect of cholesterol in this ...
Pharmacogenomics in Perioperative Care

Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genetic differences between individuals affect pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. These differences are apparent to clinicians when taking into account the wide range of responses to medications given in clinical practice. The implementation of preoperative pharmacogenomics will allow us to better care for our patients by delivering personalized, safer medicine. This chapter describes the current state of pharmacogenomics as it relates to perioperative care and how clinicians can use these tools to improve patient outcomes.
Exploratory descriptive analysis of opioid prescribing prevalence of nurse practitioners and the specialties associated with the top prescribers.

Background Opioid prescription drug abuse is increasingly becoming a concern beyond the United States. Little is known regarding nurse practitioners' opioid prescribing patterns or settings. Aim To examine nurse practitioners' opioid prescription patterns. Methods We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional descriptive study of the 2016 Medicare Part D Prescriber Public Use File and analysed the association between the number of nurse practitioners and the number of opioid prescriptions. We conducted Web searches on the top 1% of prescribers to obtain the specialty areas in which nurse practitioners worked. Results There was no significant correlation between the prevalence of nurse practitioners and the opioid prescription rates among the states in the United States. Most nurse practitioners do not prescribe opioids. Opioid prescription is highly concentrated among nurse practitioners, as 1% of nurse practitioners account for one third of opioids prescribed by nurse practitioners. Most of the top 1% opioid prescribers practice in specialty care with board-certified pain medicine physicians. Conclusions The prevalence of nurse practitioners is not likely a significant contributing factor to the opioid epidemic. Rather than increased scrutiny of opioid prescribing, a better approach to curb the opioid crisis might be to facilitate collaboration among physicians, nurse practitioners and patients.
Chapter 7 – Additional Problems

Publisher Summary This chapter presents certain problems, and provides the solutions to the same. It explains that some of the mechanisms are mixed—there might be a pericyclic reaction followed by a hydrolysis in either acid or base. If a reaction appears to be pericyclic, it is determined whether the reaction is symmetry-allowed or symmetry-forbidden under the reaction conditions. If it is symmetry-forbidden, a nonconcerted reaction pathway through radical or charged intermediates would be the most likely mechanism.
CLIO: enabling automatic compilation of deep learning pipelines across IoT and cloud

Recent years have seen dramatic advances in low-power neural accelerators that aim to bring deep learning analytics to IoT devices; simultaneously, there have been considerable advances in the design of low-power radios to enable efficient compute offload from IoT devices to the cloud. Neither is a panacea --- deep learning models are often too large for low-power accelerators and bandwidth needs are often too high for low-power radios. While there has been considerable work on deep learning for smartphone-class devices, these methods do not work well for small battery-powered IoT devices that are considerably more resource-constrained. In this paper, we bridge this gap by designing a continuously tunable method for leveraging both local and remote resources to optimize performance of a deep learning model. Clio presents a novel approach to split machine learning models between an IoT device and cloud in a progressive manner that adapts to wireless dynamics. We show that this method can be combined with model compression and adaptive model partitioning to create an integrated system for IoT-cloud partitioning. We implement Clio on the GAP8 low-power neural accelerator, provide an exhaustive characterization of the operating regimes where each method performs best and show that Clio can enable graceful performance degradation as resources diminish.
Homodimerization and Heterodimerization Requirements of Acinetobacter baumannii SOS Response Coregulators UmuDAb and DdrR revealed by Two-Hybrid Analyses

The multidrug-resistant pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii displays unusual control of its SOS mutagenesis genes, as it does not encode a LexA repressor, but instead employs the UmuDAb repressor and ...
Impact of County Health Rankings on Nationwide Liver Transplant Outcomes.

BACKGROUND There is limited information concerning whether social determinants of health affect postliver transplant (LT) outcomes. This study aims to understand to what extent the health of LT recipients' counties of residence influence long-term LT outcomes. METHODS We used the United Network for Organ Sharing data to identify adult LT recipients transplanted between January 2010 and June 2018. Patient-level data were matched to county-level County Health Ranking (CHR) data using transplant recipient zip code, and nationwide CHRs were created. Mixed-effects Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine associations between CHRs and graft and patient survival post-LT. RESULTS Health outcomes rank was significantly associated with posttransplant graft and patient survival, with worst tertile counties showing a 13% increased hazard of both graft failure and patient mortality compared to the best tertile counties. CONCLUSIONS Although county health is associated with LT outcomes, it also appears that LT recipient selection is effective at mitigating major disparities based on county of residence and helps yield equitable outcomes in this respect.
Are Fiscal Rules an Effective Restraint on Government Debt

This policy brief will assess the underlying problems with the United States’ budgetary process and the issues that arise as a result of the country’s current fiscal trajectory. We explore the role that spending rules play in restraining the growth of government spending wherever they are implemented. Through reviewing the existing literature on fiscal rules, we attempt to determine which aspects of effective fiscal rules are most successful in curtailing government largesse. Finally, we highlight four international examples of countries where the implementation of fiscal rules has been associated with a declining debt-to-GDP ratio and broadly sustainable patterns of government spending.
Disparities in Hemoglobin A1c Testing During the Transition to Adulthood and Association With Diabetes Outcomes in Youth-Onset Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes: The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study.

OBJECTIVE To identify correlates of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) testing frequency and associations with HbA1c levels and microvascular complications in youth-onset diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study collected data from individuals diagnosed with diabetes before age 20 at 8 years (n = 1,885 type 1, n = 230 type 2) and 13 years (n = 649 type 1, n = 84 type 2) diabetes duration. We identified correlates of reporting ≥3 HbA1c tests/year using logistic regression. We examined associations of HbA1c testing with HbA1c levels and microvascular complications (retinopathy, neuropathy, or nephropathy) using sequentially adjusted linear and logistic regression. RESULTS For type 1 diabetes, odds of reporting ≥3 HbA1c tests/year at 8 and 13 years diabetes duration decreased with older age at diagnosis (odds ratio [OR] 0.91 [95% CI 0.88–0.95]), longer duration of diabetes (OR 0.90 [0.82–0.99]), not having a personal doctor (OR 0.44 [0.30–0.65]), and lapses in health insurance (OR 0.51 [0.27–0.96]). HbA1c testing ≥3 times/year over time was associated with lower HbA1c levels (OR −0.36% [−0.65 to −0.06]) and lower odds of microvascular complications (OR 0.64 [0.43–0.97]) at 13 years’ duration, but associations were attenuated after adjustment for HbA1c testing correlates (OR −0.17 [−0.46 to 0.13] and 0.70 [0.46–1.07], respectively). For type 2 diabetes, not seeing an endocrinologist decreased the odds of reporting ≥3 HbA1c tests/year over time (OR 0.19 [0.06–0.63]), but HbA1c testing frequency was not associated with HbA1c levels or microvascular complications. CONCLUSIONS We observed disparities in HbA1c testing frequency predominately by health care–related factors, which were associated with diabetes outcomes in type 1 diabetes.
DILSA+: Predicting Urban Dispersal Events through Deep Survival Analysis with Enhanced Urban Features

Urban dispersal events occur when an unexpectedly large number of people leave an area in a relatively short period of time. It is beneficial for the city authorities, such as law enforcement and c...
Diabetic risk prognosis with tree ensembles integrating feature attribution methods

Tree ensemble machine learning models offer particular promise for medical applications because of their ability to handle both continuous and categorical data, their faculty for modeling nonlinear relationships, and ease with which hyperparameters can be adapted to improve performance. Modern methods include Random Forests, XGBoost and LightGBM, which are robust across many areas of diagnosis, prognosis, and medical treatments. Yet a critical limiting factor of ensembles is that they are difficult to interpret due to their complex inner workings. In medicine the ability to explain and interpret a model can be vital for clinical acceptance and trust. Diabetes and cardiovascular disease are two of the main causes of death in the United States. Identifying and predicting these diseases in patients is the first step towards stopping their progression. Utilizing the NHANES diabetes mortality data set, it is shown that the Random Forests ensemble with optimized hyperparameters yields a strong prognosis model. Importantly, conjoining Random Forests with SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) yields reliable interpretability of the contributions and interactions among the features. SHAP results are compared to the recently proposed Agnostic Permutation algorithm.
Discovering tumor-reactive T-cell receptors through single-cell sequencing of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes

We evaluated the utility of single-cell sequencing of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) for tumor-reactive T-cell receptor (TCR) discovery. Using the MC38 cell line as our tumor model in mice, we show that expression of exogenous TCRs via mRNA electroporation in human T cells provides an easy and quick path to validating tumor-specific candidate TCRs. We detail the identification and validation of four novel MC38-reactive mouse TCRs with varying levels of reactivity to the target cells. Validating our process, one of the MC38 TCRs is specific against a previously reported neoantigen (ASMTNMELM in the Adpgk gene). Consideration of these methodologies may aid in the development of rapid TCR-based therapies for the treatment of cancer and human disease. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=197 SRC="FIGDIR/small/470597v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (31K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@14a254forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@d76738org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1b9cb83org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@e00864_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG
Treatment of bacterial skin infections in ED observation units: factors influencing prescribing practice

Abstract Objective The Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) publishes evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of skin and soft tissue infections. How closely physicians follow these guidelines is unknown, particularly in the emergency department observation unit (EDOU) where increasing numbers of patients are treatment for these infections. Our objectives were to describe (1) the antibiotic treatment patterns EDOU patients, (2) physicians' adherence to the IDSA guidelines, and (3) factors that influence physician's prescribing practices. Methods This prospective cohort enrolled adult patients discharged from an EDOU at an academic medical center after treatment for a skin or soft tissue infection. Information was collected from chart review and patient interview pertaining to the patient's sociodemographic characteristics, presenting illness, and antibiotic treatment regimens. Treatment regimens were compared with national guidelines. Results The study included 193 patients of which only 43% were treated according to IDSA guidelines, 42% were overtreated, and 15% were undertreated. Women were more likely to be undertreated (relative risk, 1.58; 95% confidence interval, 1.21-2.06), whereas patients 50 years and older were at risk for overtreatment (relative risk, 1.44; 95% confidence interval, 1.03-2.02). Women also received shorter courses of antibiotic therapy with an average of 9.6 days of treatment compared with 10.6 days for men. Conclusions Physician antibiotic prescribing practices demonstrated poor adherence to IDSA guidelines and were influenced by the patient's age and sex. Standardized antibiotic protocols for treatment of skin and soft tissue infections to IDSA guidelines in the EDOU would minimize physician bias.
Occurrence of Parasitoid Wasps, Baeus sp. and Gelis sp., in the Egg Sacs of the Wolf Spiders Pardosa moesta and Pardosa sternalis (Araneae, Lycosidae) in Southeastern Idaho

Egg sacs of the wolf spiders Pardosa moesta and Pardosa sternalis were sampled for two years during June to September in southeastern Idaho. Parasitoid wasps, Baeus sp. (Sceleonidae) and Gelis sp. (Ichneumonidae), were observed in the egg sacs of both Pardosa species. Of 322 egg sacs examined, 14.6% were parasitized. Parasitism of egg sacs occurred throughout most of the Pardosa egg sac-carrying season.
A Positive-Real Design for Robotic Manipulators

In this paper, we show that feedback-linearization in conjunction with the passivity property of rigid robots can guarantee the robustness of the closed-loop robotic system despite large uncertainties in the inertia matrix. The approach may be extended to the case of uncertain velocity-dependent terms under additional assumptions.
The interface crack under combined loading - An eigenvalue problem for the gap

To avoid the difficulty of overlapping material near the crack tips, the tips of the crack are assumed to be closed (the Comninou model). The exact series solution to the problem of the interface crack under combined loading is complicated, and it is difficult to take advantage of the smallness of the left contact zone to obtain simple asymptotic approximations to the quantities of physical interest. Here, the gap is shown to satisfy an eigenvalue problem. The method of matched inner and outer expansions is used to obtain a simple uniform approximation to this quantity. Similar results are obtained for the tangential shift, which satisfies the same differential equation as the gap. The tractions at the interface also satisfy a second order differential equation and simple uniform approximations are obtained for these quantities.
Microquantitation of neurotransmitters in specific areas of the central nervous system.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses examples regarding specific localization, interaction, and response to some physiological manipulations of brain serotonin and catecholamines. Catecholamines have long been implicated in the central regulation of the stress reaction and in some forms of hypertension. The specific localization of catecholamines in selected brain stem areas that formed a part of recognized circuits for the central cardiovascular control, prompted to study the changes in steady state level of catecholamines in those areas after acute immobilization stress and in spontaneous hypertensive (SH) rats. as the reason that catecholamine metabolism, and changes in the peripheral sympathetic system also occur in hypertension, it is tempting to speculate that central catecholaminergic areas could control the catecholamine metabolism in the periphery, or that central catecholamines are able to respond to corresponding changes in peripheral amines. Serotonin is also concentrated in those brain areas, and this amine has been implicated in the central control of hypertension as well as in the central regulation of the stress reaction.
Integrated literature review on effects of exposure to violence upon adolescents

Violence has reached epidemic proportions in the Unites States. The past decade has seen professionals in public health, law enforcement, social sciences, and health care commit more attention to this area. Research and anecdotal articles read by the researcher indicated adolescents exposed to chronic community violence may experience a myriad of problems including; academic failure, the tendency to engage in violent behavior, depression, and a nihilistic, fatalistic orientation to the future, which often leads to increased risk-taking behaviors. The purpose of this integrative literature review is to discover what is known about exposure to violence among adolescents. While the review did find various negative effects of being exposed to violence, a cross-sectional design was often used, with self-reported data. Instruments with established validity and reliability were used to gather the data were often appropriate to the population. Aspects of the methodologies used by the researchers should be replicated in order to add to the knowledge of this topic. Language: en
Geometric aspects of Sturm-Liouville problems II. Space of boundary conditions for left-definiteness

For a given regular Sturm-Liouville equation with an indefinite weight function, we explicitly describe the space of left-definite selfadjoint boundary conditions. The description only uses one value of a fundamental solution of the matrix form of the equation. As a consequence we show that this space has the shape of a solid consisting of two cones sharing a common base.
Effects of Long Term Antibiotic Therapy on Human Oral and Fecal Viromes

Viruses are integral members of the human microbiome. Many of the viruses comprising the human virome have been identified as bacteriophage, and little is known about how they respond to perturbations within the human ecosystem. The intimate association of phage with their cellular hosts suggests their communities may change in response to shifts in bacterial community membership. Alterations to human bacterial biota can result in human disease including a reduction in the host's resilience to pathogens. Here we report the ecology of oral and fecal viral communities and their responses to long-term antibiotic therapy in a cohort of human subjects. We found significant differences between the viral communities of each body site with a more heterogeneous fecal virus community compared with viruses in saliva. We measured the relative diversity of viruses, and found that the oral viromes were significantly more diverse than fecal viromes. There were characteristic changes in the membership of oral and fecal bacterial communities in response to antibiotics, but changes in fecal viral communities were less distinguishing. In the oral cavity, an abundance of papillomaviruses found in subjects on antibiotics suggests an association between antibiotics and papillomavirus production. Despite the abundance of papillomaviruses identified, in neither the oral nor the fecal viromes did antibiotic therapy have any significant impact upon overall viral diversity. There was, however, an apparent expansion of the reservoir of genes putatively involved in resistance to numerous classes of antibiotics in fecal viromes that was not paralleled in oral viromes. The emergence of antibiotic resistance in fecal viromes in response to long-term antibiotic therapy in humans suggests that viruses play an important role in the resilience of human microbial communities to antibiotic disturbances.
Estimating asymptotic standard errors and inconsistencies of impact multipliers in nonlinear econometric models

Abstract This paper presents and discusses an analytic simulation procedure which can be used to estimate the asymptotic standard errors of impact multipliers in a structural, nonlinear econometric model. A stochastic simulation approach is used to obtain an approximate estimate of the inconsistencies of multipliers when computed from simulated results. A numerical example for the nonlinear Klein-Goldberger model is provided.
Medical Segmentation Using Sobolev Optical Flow

In computer aided detection (CAD) of the pulmonary nodules, automated analysis of nodules within the complex background of anatomic structures is extremely challenging for clinicians. The identification of the lung structures is the initial stage in CAD for improving the detection sensitivity. This paper presents a novel automated lung segmentation method for nodule detection from CT images, using the information provided about motion of the tissue within the lung and pulmonary boundaries. A deformable image registration technique, optical flow, is used to detect the structures in magnitude to difference between two adjacent slices from a CT scan. Recent research has shown that L2 -type inner product introduces a pathological Riemannian metric on the space of smooth curves. Consequently, we refine our optical flow constraint in Sobolev metrics, which induce favorable regularity properties in gradient flows. Tests with real medical images demonstrate the method and its implementation.
Boone — A new variety of potato resistant to late blight and adapted to western north carolina

Boone (U.S.D.A. B 880-4) is a late-maturing, high-yielding variety. The tubers are medium oblong, very smooth and shallow-eyed. They do not sprout in storage until late in the spring. Boone is highly resistant to, if not immune from, the common race of the late blight fungus.
Peripheral arterial disease and disability from NHANES 2001-2004 data

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) can lead to long-term disability, but diagnosis frequently occurs late in the process. The purpose was to study the relationship between severity of PAD and disability (health-related quality of life), using a national sample (NHANES 2001-2004). A cross-sectional design examined 4559 adults age 40 and over. An ankle-brachial index (ABI) measured PAD severity and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Health-Related Quality of Life 4-question set measured physical, mental and activity disability. Sociodemographic level, chronic disease diagnosis, biological risk factors, pain, mobility and activity alterations in response to PAD were explored. Moderately-severe (ABI less than 0.7), mild (ABI 0.7 – 0.9) and no disease (0.91 – 1.5) showed that differences in pain, activity, mobility and risk factors become apparent when PAD is considered asymptomatic. Logistic regression showed physical disability was 1.7 times (95% CI 1.3, 2.2) more likely with mild PAD than with no disease. Education, poverty income ratio and hypertension were confounding factors. Mobility difficulty and calf pain with walking were mediators between PAD and physical disability. Age, ability to do vigorous activity, total cholesterol and obesity were effect moderators. Mobility, vigorous activity and calf pain made the most difference in the relationship between PAD and physical disability.
Clinical and Genetic Features in Two Families With MELAS and the T3271C Mutation in Mitochondrial DNA

The majority of patients with MELAS (mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and strokelike episodes) have the A3243G point mutation. The much rarer T3271C mutation has been reported predominantly in Japanese subjects. Our objective was to better define the clinical phenotype and mutation load in patients with MELAS and the T3271C mutation in mitochondrial DNA. We present clinical and molecular genetic data in two pedigrees with the T3271C mutation. The age at onset was 8 years in one proband and 14 years in the other. Both patients had migrainelike headache, seizures, and strokelike episodes. Mutation loads were quantified in multiple tissues from the patients and from family members by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. The symptoms in both probands were typical of MELAS, and, contrary to previous reports, onset was early. Hearing loss was less common than in typical MELAS, and ragged red fibers were absent. The proportion of mutant genomes was consistently and markedly greater in DNA from urinary sediment than from blood. In the mother of one proband, mutant genomes were detected only in DNA from hair follicles and cheek mucosa The phenotype of patients with the T3271C mutation might not be as distinct as that of the A3243G mutation, as previously described. Our data also suggest that urine is a better source of DNA than blood for diagnosis and that multiple tissues should be studied in maternal relatives, especially when the mutation cannot be detected in blood.
‘Climate First’? The Ethical and Political Implications of Pronuclear Policy in Addressing Climate Change

In the wake of the April 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, British climate activist George Monbiot had a change of heart: ‘As a result of the disaster at Fukush...
Chemical Structure Investigation of Maoming Oil Shale Kerogen by Supercritical Gas Extraction

Abstract A yield of toluene-soluble bitumen as high as 80 percent of the organic matter, has been obtained for a Chinese oil shale at Maoming, Guangdong Province, by means of supercritical gaseous toluene extraction. The structure of bitumen was investigated by a variety of analytical methods, such as solvent and chromatographic fractionation, ultimate analyses, molecular weight determination, infrared spectroscopy, electron spin resonance, and gas liquid chromatography. In the light of analytical results, it is revealed that mild thermal depolymerization takes place during extraction, and the oil shale kerogen has the character of a multipolymer. The average unit weight of the “building block” of the kerogen was estimated to be 4,500 with the formula C302H440O23N6S2. The fractions of aromatic, naphthenic, and paraffinic carbon of the kerogen were assessed as 0.30, 0.21, and 0.49, respectively. A sketch of kerogen carbon skeleton was also discussed.
The hysterical facade.

Psychiatric nosology has characteristically been vague, imprecise, impressionistic and arbitrary. 1'2 Recently, however, there has been a revitalized interest in developing stricter diagnostic criteria and legitimizing diagnostic categories by specific inclusion criteria, family history studies and outcome studies. 3 This paper, discussing one of the least sharply defined, yet most commonly used diagnostic entities--the hysterical personality--focuses on what has been called the sick (oral, primitive, hysteroid, infantile) hysteric. Although many patients in this group may indeed be sick and do manifest prominent hysterical mechanisms, their sickness lies in something other than hysteria. The hysterical mechanisms often serve to mask and distort morebasic underlying pathology, subsequently leading to misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment. We will discuss three of the diagnostic groups often misdiagnosed as (sick) hysteric because of the facade of hysterical mechanisms or features: borderline personalities, Briquet's syndrome, and hysteroid dysphoria (depression). Proper diagnosis in these instances offers significant prognostic and treatment implication.
Daylight Savings Time Changes and Construction Accidents

Recent research has shown that the frequency of traffic accidents is influenced by changes in clocks from standard time to daylight savings time. A study was conducted to determine if a similar phenomenon existed with the occurrence of injuries in the construction industry. Data relating to injury claims of construction workers in the state of Washington for 1900–1996 were analyzed to determine if stress due to the change in time from standard to daylight savings in the spring and from daylight savings to standard time in the fall, respectively, resulted in an increase and decrease in construction accidents. For spring and fall, with respect to injury frequency, the injury frequency for the Monday following the change of time was compared with that of the Monday before the change, and the Monday 1 week later. No statistical differences were found to exist. In addition, injury statistics for the week before the change were compared with the week following the change. Again, no statistical differences between the two were found to exist.
Analytical and numerical approaches to coexistence of strains in a two-strain SIS model with diffusion.

This article introduces a two-strain spatially explicit SIS epidemic model with space-dependent transmission parameters. We define reproduction numbers of the two strains, and show that the disease-free equilibrium will be globally stable if both reproduction numbers are below one. We also introduce the invasion numbers of the two strains which determine the ability of each strain to invade the single-strain equilibrium of the other strain. The main question that we address is whether the presence of spatial structure would allow the two strains to coexist, as the corresponding spatially homogeneous model leads to competitive exclusion. We show analytically that if both invasion numbers are larger than one, then there is a coexistence equilibrium. We devise a finite element numerical method to numerically confirm the stability of the coexistence equilibrium and investigate various competition scenarios between the strains. Finally, we show that the numerical scheme preserves the positive cone and converge...