cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Slanted-Wall Beam Propagation

We present a new algorithm for wide-angle propagation through a general class of optical-waveguide structures defined by dielectric interfaces that may be slanted with respect to the direction of propagation. No regularity of the structure shapes is assumed, no coordinate transformations are employed, and the movement of each grid point between propagation steps is arbitrary within modest angular limitations. When used with an appropriate grid-generation algorithm, this method allows the modeling of an extremely wide variety of high-index-contrast waveguide structures, including meanders and tapers, with good phase accuracy and energy conservation.
An improved genetic algorithm for a type of nonlinear programming problems

Based on the study on how to apply penalty strategy for solving a type of nonlinear programming problems by genetic algorithm, such conclusion can be drawn that only applying penalty strategy is inadequate to deal with nonlinear programming problems well. It is important to lead infeasible individuals into the feasible set during the evolution process. Penalty and repair strategy are associated to improve the performance of the algorithm. Based on such thought that the constraint which has the highest degree of violation can be satisfied first by enlarging the penalty on the individuals and repair, repair operator is proposed to perform repair operation of infeasible individuals. At the same time, based on optimization design theory, a method has been proposed to establish initial population by using uniform design. Thus, repair genetic algorithm (RGA) is proposed.
Milk Thistle Nomenclature: Why It Matters in Cancer Research and Pharmacokinetic Studies

Extracts of milk thistle have been recognized for centuries as "liver tonics" and are well-known to prevent or reverse hepatotoxicity of reactive drug metabolites or naturally occurring toxins. Milk thistle extracts are now under intense study in the experimental therapeutics of cancer for chemoprevention, treatment, and amelioration of chemotherapy side effects. Precision in nomenclature, however, has lagged behind this progress. The crude commercial product of milk thistle is termed silymarin, a complex of at least 7 flavonolignans and 1 flavonoid that comprises 65% to 80% of milk thistle extract. From silymarin is derived silibinin, a semipurified fraction once thought to be a single compound but now recognized as a 1:1 mixture of 2 diastereoisomers, silybin A and silybin B. The distinction between silymarin and silibinin is not only important to understanding the historical literature, but thorough characterization and use of chemically defined mixtures in preclinical and clinical studies are essential to the progress of these botanical compounds as human therapeutics. As a result, we urge clinicians and preclinical investigators alike to exercise rigor in nomenclature and use pure compounds or precisely defined chemical mixtures in subsequent studies. Herein, we provide a guide to the proper nomenclature and composition of milk thistle extracts and discuss the known pharmacokinetic studies of these botanical medicines. The drug-interaction potential of these extracts appears to be quite low, and in fact, silibinin appears to synergize with the antitumor effects of some commonly used chemotherapeutics. However, some precautions are advised as high-dose, phase II studies are conducted.
On Grandmother Neurons and Grandfather Clocks.

What does contemporary neuroscience offer educational practice? The promise seems immense, as we come to understand better how the brain learns. However, critics caution that only a few concrete implications for practice have emerged, nowhere near a rewrite of the craft of teaching and learning. How then can we understand better the relationship between neuroscience and educational practice? It is argued here that to speak to the classroom neuroscience has to shout across two gaps. The first and most familiar are different levels of explanation. The second concerns the epistemological contrast between explanation theories and action theories, roughly the contrast between basic science on the one hand and engineering science and craft on the other. Just as we do not expect Newton's laws in their fundamental generality to deliver specific designs for pocket watches and grandfather clocks, neither should we expect fundamental neuroscience to radically redesign particular practices of teaching and learning grounded in educational research and experience.
Allocation of Windfall Income: A Case Study of a Retroactive Pay Increase to University Employees

Household allocation of windfall income has been a controversial topic since Friedman proposed the permanent income hypothesis. Release of retroactive pay checks to a group of university employees provided the opportunity for further investigation of this issue. Responses to a mail survey of these employees suggested that funds were evenly distributed among current expenses, outstanding debts, financial investments, and new expenditures. Reclassification of allocations as either consumption or savings indicated that somewhat over one-third of allocations were to consumption and slightly less than two-thirds were to savings. Discriminant analyses demonstrated that size of windfall was the most important discriminator with respect to type of allocation. The data have implications for policy regarding notification concerning a windfall distribution. It appears that quality of decision making may be improved by insuring that recipients are provided with some advance notice of an impending windfall.
Reevaluating Fluoroquinolone Breakpoints for Salmonella enterica Serotype Typhi and for Non-Typhi Salmonellae

Salmonella enterica infections cause considerable morbidity and mortality worldwide. Antimicrobial therapy may be life-saving for patients with extraintestinal infections with S. enterica serotype Typhi or non-Typhi salmonellae. Because antimicrobial resistance to several classes of traditional first-line drugs has emerged in the past several decades, the quinolone antimicrobial agents, particularly the fluoroquinolones, have become the drugs of choice. Recently, resistance to nalidixic acid has emerged among both Typhi and non-Typhi Salmonella serotypes. Such Salmonella isolates typically also have decreased susceptibility to fluoroquinolones, although minimum inhibitory concentrations of the fluoroquinolones usually are within the susceptible range of the interpretive criteria of the NCCLS. A growing body of clinical and microbiological evidence indicates that such nalidixic acid-resistant S. enterica infections also exhibit a decreased clinical response to fluoroquinolones. In this article, we recommend that laboratories test extraintestinal Salmonella isolates for nalidixic acid resistance, we recommend that short-course fluoroquinolone therapy be avoided for infection with nalidixic acid-resistant extraintestinal salmonellae, and we summarize existing data and data needs that would contribute to reevaluation of the current NCCLS fluoroquinolone breakpoints for salmonellae.
Drug-induced prolongation of the QT interval.

The single most common cause of the withdrawal or restriction of the use of marketed drugs has been QT-interval prolongation associated with polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, or torsade de pointes, a condition that can be fatal. This review summarizes the current knowledge about molecular and clinical predictors of drug-induced QT-interval prolongation and torsade de pointes and discusses how new molecular predictors of drug action might be incorporated into drug-development programs and clinical practice. A general approach to drugs suspected of causing this problem is presented.
Spatial Collocation and venture capital in the US biotechnology industry

Biotechnology firms operate in a high-risk and high-reward environment and are in a constant race to secure venture capital (VC) funds. Previous contributions to the literature show that the VC firms tend to invest locally in order to monitor their investments and to provide operating assistance to their target firms. Further, biotechnology is a knowledge-based industry that tends to exhibit spatial clusters, and the firms in such industries may collocate to benefit from gaining access to local markets for specialized inputs (e.g., skilled researchers) and from local knowledge spillovers and network externalities. If such gains exist, we expect that the collocated firms should exhibit positively correlated performance, including in their ability to attract venture capital funds. The purpose of this paper is to empirically measure the strength and spatial extent of the relationships among the amount of funds raised by proximate biotechnology firms. We model these relationships with a spatial autoregression (SAR) model, and we control for characteristics of the biotechnology firms and the VC firms that provide their funds as well as site-specific factors. Based on our fitted SAR model, we find that the amount of venture capital raised by a particular biotechnology firm is significantly influenced by the number of VC firms and the VC funding levels raised by biotechnology firms located within a 10-mile radius, but these relationships are not statistically significant beyond this range.
Some Themes and Common Tools

This school concerns topics of classic difficulty: viscous fingering and dendritic growth, membranes and microemulsions, convection and turbulence, fracture and dielectric breakdown. In this opening talk, I wish to argue that we can approach these subjects of classic experimental and theoretical difficulty with the same spirit that has been used in recent years to approach problems associated with phase transitions and critical phenomena. This approach is to carefully choose a microscopic model system that captures the essential physics underlying the phenomena at hand, and then study this model until we understand ‘how the model works.’ Then we reconsider the phenomena at hand, to see if an understanding of the model leads to an understanding of the phenomena. Sometimes the original model is not enough, and a variant is needed. Fortunately the same underlying physics is often found to be common to both the model and its variants.
High Power Diode-Pumped Er: ZBLAN Double-clad Fiber Lasers and Amplifiers

5 W Er: ZBLAN double-clad fiber lasers and amplifiers were demonstrated, respectively. Er/Pr co-doped ZBLAN fiber amplifier was found to have broader gain bandwidth than singly Er-doped.
Technology options for linear colliders

A worldwide consensus has developed in the international high-energy physics community that an electron-positron linear collider, with an initial center-of-mass energy of around 500 GeV, should be the next energy frontier accelerator. This paper will review the technical highlights of options for the machine's realization, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.
The interaction of software prefetching with ILP processors in shared-memory systems

Current microprocessors aggressively exploit instruction-level parallelism (ILP) through techniques such as multiple issue, dynamic scheduling, and non-blocking reads. Recent work has shown that memory latency remains a significant performance bottleneck for shared-memory multiprocessor systems built of such processors.This paper provides the first study of the effectiveness of software-controlled non-binding prefetching in shared memory multiprocessors built of state-of-the-art ILP-based processors. We find that software prefetching results in significant reductions in execution time (12% to 31%) for three out of five applications on an ILP system. However, compared to previous-generation system, software prefetching is significantly less effective in reducing the memory stall component of execution time on an ILP system. Consequently, even after adding software prefetching, memory stall time accounts for over 30% of the total execution time in four out of five applications on our ILP system.This paper also investigates the interaction of software prefetching with memory consistency models on ILP-based multiprocessors. In particular, we seek to determine whether software prefetching can equalize the performance of sequential consistency (SC) and release consistency (RC). We find that even with software prefetching, for three out of five applications, RC provides a significant reduction in execution time (15% to 40%) compared to SC.
Evolutionary Genetics: Big Effect of a Small RNA

Summary A new study demonstrates that tissue-specific changes in the expression of a microRNA contribute to morphological variation in nature. This and other examples suggest that the evolution of microRNA-regulated gene networks may follow the same general principles as the more familiar regulatory networks controlled by transcription factors.
CloudTSS: A TagSNP Selection Approach on Cloud Computing

SNPs are fundamental roles for various applications including medical diagnostic, phylogenies and drug design. They provide the highest-resolution genetic fingerprint for identifying disease associations and human features. Genetic variants that are near each other tend to be inherited together; these regions of linked variants are known as haplotypes. Recently, genetics researches revealed that SNPs within certain haplotype blocks induce only a few distinct common haplotypes in the majority of the population. The existence of haplotype block structure has serious implications for association-based methods for the mapping of disease genes. This paper proposes a parallel haplotype block partition and SNPs selection method under a diversity function by using the Hadoop MapReduce framework. The experiment shows that the proposed MapReduce-paralleled combinatorial algorithm performs well on the real-world data obtained in from the HapMap data set; the computation efficiency can be significantly improved proportional to the number of processors being used.
Dense Event Ordering with a Multi-Pass Architecture

The past 10 years of event ordering research has focused on learning partial orderings over document events and time expressions. The most popular corpus, the TimeBank, contains a small subset of the possible ordering graph. Many evaluations follow suit by only testing certain pairs of events (e.g., only main verbs of neighboring sentences). This has led most research to focus on specific learners for partial labelings. This paper attempts to nudge the discussion from identifying some relations to all relations. We present new experiments on strongly connected event graphs that contain ~ 10 times more relations per document than the TimeBank. We also describe a shift away from the single learner to a sieve-based architecture that naturally blends multiple learners into a precision-ranked cascade of sieves. Each sieve adds labels to the event graph one at a time, and earlier sieves inform later ones through transitive closure. This paper thus describes innovations in both approach and task. We experiment on the densest event graphs to date and show a 14% gain over state-of-the-art.
The Effects of Yoga versus Exercise on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in Older Adults

The present study investigates the effect of chair Yoga versus walking and chair aerobics on psychological health in older adult men and women. Participants (M age = 83; N = 42) were randomly assigned to one of four activity groups: chair Yoga, chair aerobics, walking, and social games (non-activity control group). Classes met for 30 minutes, 3 days per week, for 6 weeks. ANCOVAs revealed significant time by group interaction for stress frequency; the Yoga group showed the most stress reduction over time. Time by group interactions for the other variables (stress severity, depression, and anxiety) were nonsignificant, although Yoga participants experienced the most benefits over the course of the intervention. Replication with a larger sample size is warranted in order to better understand the impact of Yoga on psychological health in older adults.
Assessing Variability and Implementation Fidelity of Suicide Prevention Safety Planning in a Regional VA Healthcare System.

Abstract. Background: In 2008, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) implemented the use of safety planning for suicide prevention. A safety plan is a list of strategies, developed collaboratively with a provider, for a patient to use when suicide risk is elevated. Despite the use of safety plans in VHA, little is known about implementation fidelity, the extent to which safety plans are delivered as intended, or patient-level outcomes of safety planning. Aims: This study aimed to explore the implementation fidelity of safety planning in a regional VHA hospital and examine the associations between safety plan quality and completeness with patient outcomes. Method: A comprehensive chart review was conducted for patients who were flagged as high risk for suicide (N = 200). Completeness and quality were coded, as well as information about patient and provider interactions regarding safety plan use. Results: Safety plans were mostly complete and of moderate quality, although variability existed, particularl...
Resistance to Insect Penetration of Food Pouches Made of Untreated Polyester or Permethrin-treated Polypropylene Film

Untreated polyester or permethrin-treated polypropylene food pouches were exposed to large populations of Tribolium castaneum (Herbst), Rhyzopertha dominica (F.), Lasioderma serricorne (F.), and Cadra cautella (Walker). Also included were control pouches made of untreated polypropylene film, and standard pouches made of polyethylene film 254 μm thick. The pouches contained a variety of foods sealed in polyester film laminates. T. castaneum failed to penetrate the polyester and permethrin-treated film during 24 months of storage. C. cautella did not penetrate polyester film; penetration of permethrin-treated film by C. cautella was found only at 24 months. L. serricorne did not penetrate polyester film and penetrated permethrin-treated film and polyethylene at similar low rates. R. dominica penetrated almost all polyethylene pouches, all untreated polypropylene pouches, about half the polyester pouches, and ca. 19% of the permethrin-treated pouches. In general, the order of descending resistance to penetration by the four species was permethrin-treated film, polyester film, polyethylene film, and polypropylene film.
Benefits From Pre-Migration Spectral Shaping Inversion - Comparison Between Models And Real Data

Pre-migration Spectral Shaping (EMPreSS) inversion has been extensively used across the different segments of exploration, development and production within ExxonMobil. The process generates data sets with broader bandwidth, and this has helped interpreters get a better understanding of reservoir properties. This paper explains the benefits and results from the application of this technology for different reservoir geometries.
Permanently Desiring the Temporary? Snapchat, Social Media, and the Shifting Motivations of Sports Fans:

The social media application Snapchat has ascended rapidly, quickly becoming the third most utilized platform of millennials with a valuation as high as US$19 billion. A national survey of 125 respondents revealed that people using Snapchat to follow sports devote roughly the same amount of time to the platform as Facebook and more time than Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. Despite finding other platforms better for sport information seeking, relaxation, and interaction, respondents still reported using Snapchat as a main platform for facilitating sport fandom. Both sport fandom and identification bolstered likelihood of using Snapchat for sport-related interactions. Implications for communication and sport scholars and industry professionals are offered.
Pre-Assembly of Near-Infrared Fluorescent Multivalent Molecular Probes for Biological Imaging.

A programmable pre-assembly method is described and shown to produce near-infrared fluorescent molecular probes with tunable multivalent binding properties. The modular assembly process threads one or two copies of a tetralactam macrocycle onto a fluorescent PEGylated squaraine scaffold containing a complementary number of docking stations. Appended to the macrocycle periphery are multiple copies of a ligand that is known to target a biomarker. The structure and high purity of each threaded complex was determined by independent spectrometric methods and also by gel electrophoresis. Especially helpful were diagnostic red-shift and energy transfer features in the absorption and fluorescence spectra. The threaded complexes were found to be effective multivalent molecular probes for fluorescence microscopy and in vivo fluorescence imaging of living subjects. Two multivalent probes were prepared and tested for targeting of bone in mice. A pre-assembled probe with 12 bone-targeting iminodiacetate ligands produc...
Input frequency and the acquisition of syllable structure in Polish

ABSTRACTThis article examines phonological development and its relationship to input statistics. Using novel data from a longitudinal corpus of spontaneous child speech in Polish, we evaluate and compare the predictions of a variety of input-based phonotactic models for syllable structure acquisition. We find that many commonly examined input statistics can make dramatically different predictions, as do different assumptions about the representational units over which statistics are calculated. We find that development is sensitive to multiple abstract units of phonological representation, supporting a crucial role for feature-based generalization. We also identify departures between the predictions of the best phonotactic models and children’s production patterns that indicate that input sensitivity alone cannot fully explain the developmental patterns. We discuss the role of universal markedness and phonetic difficulty and argue that a full explanation requires reference to these biases.
The burn unit.

For children and adolescents, being burned, hospitalized, and treated over weeks to months is a traumatic and painful experience. Because of immaturity and dependency, and the arduous treatment and rehabilitation process, the stress on parents and staff is profound. Consultation work with burned patients, family, and staff is most effective when the psychiatrist is an integral part of the Burn Team using modern principles and techniques of consultation-liaison psychiatry. This article discusses the liaison approaches to burns including the methods and hazards of entry onto a burn unit, the general milieu approaches to bum management, the neuropsychiatric and medication aspects of or- ganicity and pain control, and the approach to expectable crises at various stages of bum hospitalization and immediate aftercare.
Experimental determination of the $$\hat n$$ -texture of superfluid 3 He-B in a cylinder

The $$\hat n$$ texture formed in a 2mm diameter cylinder of superfluid3He-B has been studied by continuous wave NMR near Tc. The experiments were performed at low pressures (0.82 and 2.89 bar) and using an axial magnetic field of 286 G to preserve the cylindrical symmetry of the texture. A method of deconvolution of the NMR lineshapes is presented along with the texture map obtained from the data. The texture resembled the calculated flare-out texture although differing in details including the existence of an azimuthal component to $$\hat n$$ (r). By comparison to the Ginzburg-Landau expressions expected to hold near TC, the magnetic bending length of RCHB=37(1−T/Tc)1/2 cm G was found, verifying the Ginzburg-Landau prediction.
From Embryos to Adults: A DOHaD Perspective on In Vitro Fertilization and Other Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Human in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a treatment for infertility is regarded as one of the most outstanding accomplishments of the 20th century, and its use has grown dramatically since the late 1970s. Although IVF is considered safe and the majority of children appear healthy, reproductive technologies have been viewed with some skepticism since the in vitro environment deviates substantially from that in vivo. This is increasingly significant because the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis has illuminated the sensitivity of an organism to its environment at critical stages during development, including how suboptimal exposures restricted specifically to gamete maturation or the preimplantation period can affect postnatal growth, glucose metabolism, fat deposition, and vascular function. Today, some of the physiological metabolic phenotypes present in animal models of IVF have begun to emerge in human IVF children, but it remains unclear whether or not in vitro embryo manipulation will have lasting health consequences in the offspring. Our expanding knowledge of the DOHaD field is fueling a paradigm shift in how disease susceptibility is viewed across the life course, with particular emphasis on the importance of collecting detailed exposure information, identifying biomarkers of health, and performing longitudinal studies for any medical treatment occurring during a developmentally vulnerable period. As IVF use continues to rise, it will be highly valuable to incorporate DOHaD concepts into the clinical arena and future approaches to public health policy.
Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian method investigation on fuel tank strap simulation under proving ground condition

The arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) is a hybrid finite element formulation, which is developed through combining modern algorithms for Lagrangian hydrodynamics, meshing technology and remap methods developed for high-resolution Eulerian methods. In automotive, simulation of dynamic stress and fatigue life of fuel tank straps is a complex problem. Typically, a fuel tank is held with fuel tank straps. Being a complex problem with overall movement lying in the domain of nonlinear large rotation dynamics, the involved fuel sloshing behaviour causes more intrication. The objective is initiated to investigate the advantage of ALE method in simulating fuel sloshing through fuel tank and fuel tank strap movement under proving ground conditions, using the nonlinear large rotation dynamic method in RADIOSS. Afterward, the fatigue life of fuel tank straps is predicted through nCode DesignLife, resulting in good correlation with test by accurate prediction of the crack initiation locations and sequence in the fuel tank straps.
A co-created journey: Designing a college-wide graduate certificate program in social justice education:

A strengths assessment of the College of Education at Kansas State University in the United States showed that a majority of faculty had strong interests in social justice issues in education. The ...
ORAL VERSUS TRANSDERMAL ESTROGEN IN TURNER SYNDROME: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS.

Objective: To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing transdermal estrogens (TDEs) versus oral estrogens (OEs) in Turner syndrome (TS). Methods: Randomized trials and observational comparative studies with a minimal follow-up of 6 months for skeletal and metabolic outcomes and serum hormone changes were included. Outcomes were pooled with a random effects model and are reported as mean differences between OE and TDE groups and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: Of 845 candidate references, 4 studies were included. Both OEs and TDEs were associated with an increase in whole-body bone mineral density (BMD) z-score, with TDE therapy displaying a greater increase. OEs were associated with higher fasting glucose and total cholesterol. Both OEs and TDEs reduced low-density lipo-protein cholesterol (LDL-C) and increased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), with OEs providing a more favorable effect. The use of 17-β estradiol was associated with a higher total cholesterol and lower ...
Detecting display energy hotspots in Android apps

Summary The energy consumption of mobile apps has become an important consideration for developers as the underlying mobile devices are constrained by battery capacity. Display represents a significant portion of an app's energy consumption—up to 60% of an app's total energy consumption. However, developers lack techniques to identify the user interfaces in their apps for which energy needs to be improved. This paper presents a technique for detecting display energy hotspots—user interfaces of a mobile app whose energy consumption is greater than optimal. The technique leverages display power modeling and automated display transformation techniques to detect these hotspots and prioritize them for developers. The evaluation of the technique shows that it can predict display energy consumption to within 14% of the ground truth and accurately rank display energy hotspots. Furthermore, the approach found 398 display energy hotspots in a set of 962 popular Android apps, showing the pervasiveness of this problem. For these detected hotspots, the average power savings that could be realized through better user interface design was 30%. Taken together, these results indicate that the approach represents a potentially impactful technique for helping developers to detect energy related problems and reduce the energy consumption of their mobile apps.
Rural versus urban perspectives on behavioral health issues and priorities

Local incidence of behavioral health issues such as substance abuse or poor mental health are a topic of increasing concern, but the specific needs, issues, and priorities of cities can differ from...
Fuzzy logic control implementation of ultra sparse matrix converter for renewable energy applications

The Closed loop implementation of the Ultra-Sparse Matrix Converter System along with a six-switch inverter for the generation of AC Output presented in the paper. The hardware implementation of the proposed matrix converter system developed for the verification of the Proposed Configuration. The improvements of the proposed converter system include the better shoot-through capability using the z-source inverter used in the AC-DC-AC converter configuration.
“A Woman Whom Men Could More Than Love”: Transfiguring the Unlovely in George Eliot (1819–1880)

Recent biographies contextualize George Eliot among men, submerging her intellectual sovereignty to emphasize the scandals attached to her extramarital union with George Henry Lewes and her later, equally controversial marriage to the much younger John Cross. Historically, biographers have grappled unsuccessfully with the troubling question of Eliot’s creative autonomy, instead highlighting her emotional dependency and serial sexual affairs. Eliot’s intellectual and sexual identities remain entangled, a problem further complicated by her lack of conventional female beauty. Representing the scandalous aspects of Eliot’s sexuality and circumscribing her genius by asserting her emotional dependence, recent biographies of George Eliot diminish her artistic accomplishments as a novelist gifted with intellectual force and the strength to act on her own convictions.
Acute Heart Failure in Observation Unit Treatment Protocols

Management of heart failure patients who present with signs and symptoms of acute decompensation remains challenging. Because of limited data from randomized controlled trials, evidence-based guidelines for the management of these patients in the emergency department and observation unit are just now emerging. Although treatment protocols and management algorithms appear vital to the successful treatment of these patients, they are based largely on anecdotal experience or at best, data from small trials. Cornerstones of these algorithms are appropriate patient risk stratification and recognition of those primarily with pulmonary congestion versus those with cardiogenic shock. Further delineation based upon (1) severity of volume overload, (2) associated renal insufficiency, and (3) relationship to presenting blood pressure appears to aid with management decisions. This chapter will focus on therapeutic management, with respect to general supportive measures, pharmacologic therapy, and, most importantly, specific treatment protocols or algorithms that can be implemented in your institution.
Gelatin Nano-coating for Inhibiting Surface Crystallization of Amorphous Drugs

Inhibit the fast surface crystallization of amorphous drugs with gelatin nano-coatings. The free surface of amorphous films of indomethacin or nifedipine was coated by a gelatin solution (type A or B) and dried. The coating’s effect on surface crystallization was evaluated. Coating thickness was estimated from mass change after coating. For indomethacin (weak acid, pKa = 4.5), a gelatin coating of either type deposited at pH 5 and 10 inhibited its fast surface crystal growth. The coating thickness was 20 ± 10 nm. A gelatin coating deposited at pH 3, however, provided no protective effect. These results suggest that an effective gelatin coating does not require that the drug and the polymer have opposite charges. The ineffective pH 3 coating might reflect the poor wetting of indomethacin’s neutral, hydrophobic surface by the coating solution. For nifedipine (weak base, pKa = 2.6), a gelatin coating of either type deposited at pH 5 inhibited its fast surface crystal growth. Gelatin nano-coatings can be conveniently applied to amorphous drugs from solution to inhibit fast surface crystallization. Unlike strong polyelectrolyte coatings, a protective gelatin coating does not require strict pairing of opposite charges. This could make gelatin coating a versatile, pharmaceutically acceptable coating for stabilizing amorphous drugs.
An Examination of Functional Behavior Assessment in Public School Settings: Collaborative Teams, Experts, and Methodology:

Recent literature regarding functional behavior assessment (FBA) in general education environments has been critical of the paucity of research in such settings, given the complex and often time-co...
Data access skipping for recursive partitioning methods

Abstract The memory performance of data mining applications became crucial due to increasing dataset sizes and multi-level cache hierarchies. Recursive partitioning methods such as decision tree and random forest learning are some of the most important algorithms in this field, and numerous researchers worked on improving the accuracy of model trees as well as enhancing the overall performance of the learning process. Most modern applications that employ decision tree learning favor creating multiple models for higher accuracy by sacrificing performance. In this work, we exploit the flexibility inherent in recursive partitioning based applications regarding performance and accuracy tradeoffs, and propose a framework to improve performance with negligible accuracy losses. This framework employs a data access skipping module (DASM) using which costly cache accesses are skipped according to the aggressiveness of the strategy specified by the user and a heuristic to predict skipped data accesses to keep accuracy losses at minimum. Our experimental evaluation shows that the proposed framework offers significant performance improvements (up to 25%) with relatively much smaller losses in accuracy (up to 8%) over the original case. We demonstrate that our framework is scalable under various accuracy requirements via exploring accuracy changes over time and replacement policies. In addition, we explore NoC/SNUCA systems for similar opportunities of memory performance improvement.
The antecedents and consequences of positive organizational behavior: The role of psychological capital for promoting employee well-being in sport organizations

Abstract A positive approach to addressing mental health issues in workplaces advocates the examination of an untapped resource—psychological capital—as a potential positive construct in contemporary organizational behavior. The authors tested various antecedents and outcomes of psychological capital, and examined the role of this construct in psychological well-being and job satisfaction among sport employees. To test 11 hypotheses, the researchers recruited 708 employees from the athletic departments of Division I institutions. Results indicate that the meaningful work of employees and a supportive organizational climate positively influenced psychological capital, thereby leading to high levels of job satisfaction and psychological well-being. Psychological capital also functioned either as a partial mediator or as a full mediator. In this study, the authors offer a new perspective on sport employees’ mental health outcomes, with particular emphasis on positive organizational behavior in sport settings.
Three-dimensional object visualization and detection in low light illumination using integral imaging: an overview

We overview a recently published work that utilizes three-dimensional (3D) integral imaging (InIm) to capture 3D information of a scene in low illumination conditions using passive imaging sensors. An object behind occlusion is imaged using 3D InIm. A computational 3D reconstructed image is generated from the captured scene information at a particular depth plane, which showed the object without occlusion. Moreover, 3D InIm substantially increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the 3D reconstructed scene compared with a single two-dimensional (2D) image as readout noise is minimized. This occurs due to the 3D InIm reconstruction algorithm being naturally optimum in the maximumlikelihood sense in the presence of additive Gaussian noise. After 3D InIm reconstruction, facial detection using the Viola-Jones object detection framework is successful whereas it fails using a single two-dimensional (2D) elemental image.
Malignant Urachal Lesions

Urachal cancers are uncommon malignancies with a location that often permits considerable local extension before they are discovered. The most common histological type is adenocarcinoma, which may produce mucus that is a valuable aid in diagnosis. The presence of stippled calcification in a midline abdominal wall mass is almost pathognomonic for urachal carcinoma. More commonly, however, the symptoms are less specific, such as hematuria and an abdominal mass. Many lesions are visible endoscopically and, thus, the diagnosis can be made preoperatively from a biopsy. Most treatment failures occur because the tumor is not controlled locally by the initial operation and, therefore, we recommend en bloc cystectomy with umbilectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy unless the tumor is known to be a sarcoma or early stage (I) carcinoma. If these patients are undertreated and there is a local recurrence then the patient usually is not salvageable. Because of the difficulty in identifying the origin of a bladder adenocarcinoma, any tumor on the dome or anterior wall should be approached initially as if it were a urachal tumor.
Thermometric and Surfactant Selective Potentiometric Titration Studies of Surfactant Binding to Phospholipid Vesicles

The interactions between sodium dodecyl sulphate and dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide with Asolectin (phospholipid extract from soybeans) vesicles has been studied using titration calorimetry, potentiometry using surfactant selective electrodes,and gel filtration chromatography. Exothermic heat changes were observed on mixing which depend on the concentration of Asolectin. The emf data were also observed to be related to the concentration of phospholipid. At low ratios of surfactant to Asolectin, the data were consistent with a mechanism in which there is a steady amount of surfactant bound to the vesicles until the apparent critical micelle concentration is reached. The free surfactant at that concentration, or the true critical micelle concentration, is always less than the critical micelle formation without Asolectin. All of the evidence points to the formation of mixed surfactant-phospholipid micelles when the apparent critical micelle concentration is reached.
Tuition Tax Credits and Winn: A Constitutional Blueprint for School Choice

The Supreme Court recently paved the way for a new avenue of school choice, refusing to strike down an Arizona tax-credit program that allows Arizonans to direct a portion of their state income tax payments to organizations that support private schools, including religiously affiliated schools. In Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, a sharply divided Court held that the respondents, Arizona taxpayers, did not have legal standing to challenge the program’s constitutionality under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Although Winn was decided on standing grounds, its consequential holding established a constitutional blueprint for state school choice programs. This article will attempt to gauge the impact of the Court’s decision. First, this Article will detail the Arizona tax-credit program, procedural history leading to the Court’s decision in Winn, and the applicable Supreme Court legal standing and Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Next, this article will discuss the Court’s majority and dissenting opinions, while briefly acknowledging the concurring opinion. This Article will then argue that tax-credit programs do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Next, this article will analyze the impact of the Court’s decision on education reform. Finally, this article will conclude that Winn is a step forward for school reform.
Thermal-Inertial Localization for Autonomous Navigation of Aerial Robots through Obscurants

In this paper the problem of autonomous navigation of aerial robots through obscurants is considered. As visible spectrum cameras and most LiDAR technologies provide degraded data in such conditions, the problem of localization is approached through the fusion of thermal camera data with inertial sensor cues. In particular, a long-wave infrared camera is employed and combined with an inertial measurement unit. The sensor intrinsic and extrinsic parameters are appropriately calibrated, and an Extended Kalman Filter framework that uses direct photometric feedback is employed in order to achieve robust odometry estimation. This framework is capable of accomplishing real-time localization while navigating though obscurants in GPS-denied conditions. Subsequently, an experimental study of autonomous aerial robotic navigation within a smoke-filled machine-shop environment was conducted. The presented results demonstrate the ability of the proposed solution to ensure reliable navigation in such extreme visually- degraded conditions.
An Optimizing Power System Dispatch with An Extra EV Load Using PLEXOS Appoach

The vehicles powered by electricity are quickly developed to meet the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Although electrical vehicle (EV) dose produce less carbon emissions and the less fossil fuel are consumed compared with traditional vehicles, the electricity should be supplied to EV battery charging where excess emissions would be produced from power generation. In this work, we try to optimize the power dispatch for the extra electronic vehicle loading exemplified by the Ireland's electricity market in 2020 with a commercial PLEXOS software. We have investigated the effects of the EV load on the SEM (Single Electricity Market) with the four different scenarios including peak, off-peak, stochastic, and EPRI, respectively. The simulative model was used to optimize the dispatch of a generation and supply energy for a specified demand load. It was confirmed the EV charging at the peak time presented the highest increasing in the systematic marginal price, generation costs and total C02 emissions. The off-peak charging is more beneficial than other charging modes that would contribute 1.54% renewable energy penetration and supply to the 200% emissions reduction target. The present work may provide a new idea and technological approach for the sectional dispatch of the power grid and optimizing EV load in the future.
Storm Event Nitrogen Dynamics in Waterfowl Impoundments

Waterfowl impoundments are hydrologically managed to provide food and habitat for migratory birds and have the potential to export nitrogen during drawdown. The goal of this study was to describe how nitrate, ammonium, and dissolved organic nitrogen dynamics varied under two different management schemes during storm events. This was made possible through monitoring the three forms of nitrogen at a high frequency (30 min) in a moist-soil managed (MSM) impoundment and seasonally flooded agricultural impoundment (Ag) for 17 months. Substantial differences in nitrogen dynamics between sites were observed when the sites were not flooded, while similar dynamics were observed during the winter flooding period. When the Ag site was drained, storm events mobilized nitrate (average 0.3 mg L−1; increase 0.8 mg L−1) and ammonium (average 0.4 mg L−1; increase 0.2 mg L−1). Under drained conditions in the MSM impoundment, rainfall reduced ammonium (average 0.5 mg L−1; decrease 0.1 mg L−1). Storms stimulated what appeared to be coupled nitrification-denitrification in both impoundments when flooded and ammonium concentrations were elevated. A surprising result of this work was observed at the Ag site, where elevated nitrate (0.5 mg L−1) was measured during high water levels when anoxic conditions were expected to support denitrification. Although water management schemes were found to be important for controlling nitrogen dynamics, other factors, such as carbon quality, require further research. This study demonstrates a high variability between storm events and the large influence of hydrologic management schemes on nitrogen dynamics during storm events.
Comparison of Nitro-Aromatic Content and Direct-Acting Mutagenicity of Passenger Car Engine Emissions

Particulate emissions from internal combustion engines are a very complex mixture of carbonaceous matter containing absorbed and/or condensed organic components from the combustion of fuel and lubricants. The organic solvent extractable fraction of these particulates is extremely complex and has been reported to contain hundreds of individual compounds. A number of studies have reported that these solvent extracts are mutagenic as determined by the Ames Salmonella microbial assay. The greatest activity which has been found in certain compound class fractions within these extracts does not require metabolic activation and is called direct mutagenic activity. Chemical characterization studies have been used in an attempt to identify the compound classes or specific compounds present in these fractions. Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), particularly pyrene, have been reported to readily react with nitrogen oxides to form nitrated derivatives which are powerful direct-acting mutagens. Both the PAHs and nitrogen oxides are present in engine emissions and thus the formation of nitroaromatics may indeed be possible. These results have prompted increased attention to the characterization of particulate extracts to identify the compounds or compound classes which are responsible for the direct acting biological activity. Identification of specific mutagens or classes of mutagens is important to determine whether these components are present in the effluent which is emitted to the atmosphere or are formed as a result of the particulate collection and analysis procedures. This information must be established before potential effects of these compounds on the environment can be addressed.
Detecting associations between dietary supplement intake and sentiments within mental disorder tweets.

Many patients with mental disorders take dietary supplement, but their use patterns remain unclear. In this study, we developed a method to detect signals of associations between dietary supplement...
Toward a Theory of Race, Change, and Antiracist Education:

This article is an effort to build on academic theories of race and antiracist education. Using a Gramscian theoretical framework that emphasizes perspectives from organic intellectuals, this artic...