cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Particle physics models for the 17 MeV anomaly in beryllium nuclear decays

The $6.8\ensuremath{\sigma}$ anomaly in excited $^{8}\mathrm{Be}$ nuclear decays via internal pair creation is fit well by a new particle interpretation. In a previous analysis, we showed that a 17 MeV protophobic gauge boson provides a particle physics explanation of the anomaly consistent with all existing constraints. Here we begin with a review of the physics of internal pair creation in $^{8}\mathrm{Be}$ decays and the characteristics of the observed anomaly. To develop its particle interpretation, we provide an effective operator analysis for excited $^{8}\mathrm{Be}$ decays to particles with a variety of spins and parities and show that these considerations exclude simple models with scalar particles. We discuss the required couplings for a gauge boson to give the observed signal, highlighting the significant dependence on the precise mass of the boson and isospin mixing and breaking effects. We present anomaly-free extensions of the Standard Model that contain protophobic gauge bosons with the desired couplings to explain the $^{8}\mathrm{Be}$ anomaly. In the first model, the new force carrier is a ${\mathrm{U}(1)}_{B}$ gauge boson that kinetically mixes with the photon; in the second model, it is a $\mathrm{U}(1{)}_{B\ensuremath{-}L}$ gauge boson with a similar kinetic mixing. In both cases, the models predict relatively large charged lepton couplings $\ensuremath{\sim}0.001$ that can resolve the discrepancy in the muon anomalous magnetic moment and are amenable to many experimental probes. The models also contain vectorlike leptons at the weak scale that may be accessible to near future LHC searches.
Observation of surface plasmon waves generated by nanogrooves through spectral interference

We present a simple far-field experiment to validate the theoretically predicted functional dependence of the SPP coupling efficiency on groove width, in good agreement with the SPP picture proposed by Lalanne et al..
Development, Validation and Application of a New Fornix Template for Studies of Aging and Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease

We developed a merged younger-older adult template of the fornix and demonstrated its utility for studies of aging and preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD). In Experiment 1, probabilistic tractography was used to reconstruct the fornix in younger and older adults and successful streamlines were then averaged to create a merged template in standard space. The new template includes the majority of the fornix from the hippocampal formation to the subcallosal region and the thalamus/hypothalamus. In Experiment 2, the merged template was validated as an appropriate measure for studies of aging, with comparisons against manual tracing measures indicating identical spatial coverage in younger and older adult groups. In Experiment 3, the merged template was found to outperform age-specific templates in measures of sensitivity and specificity computed on diffusion tensor imaging data of an independent participant cohort. In Experiment 4, relevance to preclinical AD was demonstrated via associations between fractional anisotropy within the new fornix template and cerebrospinal fluid markers of AD pathology (Aβ42 and the t-tau/Aβ42 ratio) in a third independent cohort of cognitively normal older adults. Our new template provides an appropriate measure for use in future studies seeking to characterize microstructural alterations in the fornix associated with aging and preclinical AD.
Uses of information and communication technologies in HIV self-management

This study reviewed six studies focusing on HIV Self-Management programs utilizing Information Communication Technologies.The most commonly used ICT platforms were websites and mobile phone applications.The program effects were assessed in three domains: physical health status, psychosocial outcomes, and health knowledge and behaviors.Recognized add-on benefits of ICT platforms to the Self-Management programs.The absence of information behavior theories and models is reflected in all six studies. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been applied increasingly in supporting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention and treatment. The technological advances have extended to the field of HIV self-management. The objectives of this paper are to examine the design and use of ICTs in HIV self-management programs, to identify the knowledge gaps in existing practice, and to provide recommendations for future research and program development. A systematic review was conducted to search all English literature published prior to August 2016 in six electronic databases. The inclusion criteria also included either quantitative or qualitative assessments of HIV self-management programs that utilized at least one ICT platform in the program protocol. The search identified six studies conducted in Australia and the United States. The studies were diverse in sample size and enrollment criteria of study population. The major functionalities of ICT platforms (mobile phones and websites) included delivering information modules, sending medication reminders, supporting self-monitoring for medical adherence and risk behavior reduction, enhancing communication among participants, and providing easy access to HIV self-management information. The major challenges faced by self-management programs utilizing ICTs were lack of interaction and concern of privacy. The HIV self-management programs that employed ICT platforms were limited in number and geographic coverage. Most of the programs were also tested at an initial stage with small size samples and minimum technical innovation. The lack of explicit guiding theories and models on information behavior or technology use was observed in all studies. Use of ICTs in HIV self-management interventions is an emerging field. Future research would benefit from paying more attention to technical innovation and interactive features in applying ICT platform in self-management programs. The ICTs platforms, with increasing innovation in connecting people and places, can serve as a powerful tool to reduce the disparities in health care and health promotion. Future research is also needed to explore the feasibility of applying ICT platforms in self-management programs that serving populations from diverse socioeconomic background and in resource-poor settings.
Academic Performance, Effects of Socio-Economic Status on

The purpose of this article is to review the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement. The complexity of this relationship will be examined by discussing factors such as socioeconomic segregation, school funding, teacher expectations, and academic climate. The effect that socioeconomic status can have on academic achievement is of global importance to educators, researchers, and policymakers, as they continue to address disparities in academic achievement and educational attainment. Efforts to ensure that all students receive an equitable educational experience are also discussed, with particular emphasis placed on the importance of effective schools.
Design of pilot studies to inform the construction of composite outcome measures.

Abstract Introduction Composite scales have recently been proposed as outcome measures for clinical trials. For example, the Preclinical Alzheimer's Cognitive Composite (PACC) is the sum of z -score normed component measures assessing episodic memory, timed executive function, and global cognition. Alternative methods of calculating composite total scores using the weighted sum of the component measures that maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the resulting composite score have been proposed. Optimal weights can be estimated from pilot data, but it is an open question how large a pilot trial is required to calculate reliably optimal weights. Methods We describe the calculation of optimal weights and use large-scale computer simulations to investigate the question as how large a pilot study sample is required to inform the calculation of optimal weights. The simulations are informed by the pattern of decline observed in cognitively normal subjects enrolled in the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study Prevention Instrument cohort study, restricting to n = 75 subjects aged 75 years and older with an APOE e4 risk allele and therefore likely to have an underlying Alzheimer's disease neurodegenerative process. Results In the context of secondary prevention trials in Alzheimer's disease and using the components of the PACC, we found that pilot studies as small as 100 are sufficient to meaningfully inform weighting parameters. Regardless of the pilot study sample size used to inform weights, the optimally weighted PACC consistently outperformed the standard PACC in terms of statistical power to detect treatment effects in a clinical trial. Pilot studies of size 300 produced weights that achieved near-optimal statistical power and reduced required sample size relative to the standard PACC by more than half. Discussion These simulations suggest that modestly sized pilot studies, comparable to that of a phase 2 clinical trial, are sufficient to inform the construction of composite outcome measures. Although these findings apply only to the PACC in the context of prodromal Alzheimer's disease, the observation that weights only have to approximate the optimal weights to achieve near-optimal performance should generalize. Performing a pilot study or phase 2 trial to inform the weighting of proposed composite outcome measures is highly cost-effective. The net effect of more efficient outcome measures is that smaller trials will be required to test novel treatments. Alternatively, second generation trials can use prior clinical trial data to inform weighting, so that greater efficiency can be achieved as we move forward.
Initial SAM calibration gas experiments on Mars: Quadrupole mass spectrometer results and implications

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover is equipped to analyze both martian atmospheric gases and volatiles released by pyrolysis of solid surface materials, with target measurements including chemical and isotopic composition (Mahaffy et al., 2012). To facilitate assessment of instrument performance and validation of results obtained on Mars, SAM houses a calibration cell containing CO2, Ar, N2, Xe, and several fluorinated hydrocarbon compounds (Franz et al., 2014; Mahaffy et al., 2012). This report describes the first two experiments utilizing this calibration cell on Mars and gives results from analysis of data acquired with the SAM Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (QMS). These data support the accuracy of isotope ratios obtained with the QMS (Conrad et al., 2016; Mahaffy et al., 2013) and provide ground-truth for reassessment of analytical constants required for atmospheric measurements, which were reported in previous contributions (Franz et al., 2015, 2014). The most significant implication of the QMS data involves reinterpretation of pre-launch contamination previously believed to affect only CO abundance measurements (Franz et al., 2015) to affect N2 abundances, as well. The corresponding adjustment to the N2 calibration constant presented here brings the atmospheric volume mixing ratios for Ar and N2 retrieved by SAM into closer agreement with those reported by the Viking mission (Owen et al., 1977; Oyama and Berdahl, 1977).
Adversarial Network Forensics in Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking (SDN), and its popular implementation OpenFlow, represent the foundation for the design and implementation of modern networks. The essential part of an SDN-based network are flow rules that enable network elements to steer and control the traffic and deploy policy enforcement points with a fine granularity at any entry-point in a network. Such applications, implemented with the usage of OpenFlow rules, are already integral components of widely used SDN controllers such as Floodlight or OpenDayLight. The implementation details of network policies are reflected in the composition of flow rules and leakage of such information provides adversaries with a significant attack advantage such as bypassing Access Control Lists (ACL), reconstructing the resource distribution of Load Balancers or revealing of Moving Target Defense techniques.In this paper we introduce a new attack vector on SDN by showing how the detailed composition of flow rules can be reconstructed by network users without any prior knowledge of the SDN controller or its architecture. To our best knowledge, in SDN, such reconnaissance techniques have not been considered so far. We introduce SDNMap, an open-source scanner that is able to accurately reconstruct the detailed composition of flow rules by performing active probing and listening to the network traffic. We demonstrate in a number of real-world SDN applications that this ability provides adversaries with a significant attack advantage and discuss ways to prevent the introduced reconnaissance techniques. Our SDNMap scanner is able to reconstruct flow rules between network endpoints with an accuracy of over 96%.
Hemagglutinin Glycan Clock Guides Human Influenza A Virus Evolution

Glycosylation of the influenza A virus hemagglutinin (HA) globular domain greatly influences viral antigenicity, receptor binding, and innate immunity. Gel electrophoresis and bioinformatics analysis reveals that circulating human H1 and H3 HA glycans largely evolve in a clock-like progression according to three simple rules. This glycan clock predicted the 2015-2016 selective sweep of pH1N1 by strains with an added glycan at residue 179. A limit on glycan shielding of the HA head dictates the ultimate fate of circulating strains, enabling our prediction that circulating H3 HA strains will either undergo a glycan readjustment after 9 years, or be supplanted by a novel pandemic virus.
Genetically Engineered Mouse Models of Neurodegenerative Disorders

Considerable advances have been made in the past years in developing novel experimental models of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), Fronto-Temporal Dementias (FTD), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and trinucleotide repeat disorders (TNRDs). The main postulate of several of the genetically modified murine models of neurodegenerative disorders is that a single molecular alteration might trigger a cascade of events that eventually will result in the full spectrum of the clinicopathological alterations observed in human disease. Therefore, overexpression of mutant proteins in transgenic (tg) mice might mimic some aspects associated with the gain of a toxic function, while targeted deletion of selected genes might mimic aspects associated with loss of a trophic or protective function. To date, several genes have been identified to be associated with familial forms of AD, PD, FTD, ALS, and TNRDs. Single or combined tg and knockout models targeting most of these genes have been developed that recapitulate one or several aspects of each disorder. In these models, abnormal accumulation and misfolding (toxic conversion) of endogenous proteins is being extensively explored as a key pathogenic event leading to neurodegeneration. Thus, the main focus of this chapter is to provide a perspective as to the efforts in developing genetically engineered models of the most common neurodegenerative disorders. Further development and investigation of animal models of these diseases holds the promise of better understanding their pathogenesis and discovering and testing new treatments.
Communitas: belonging and the order of being

ABSTRACTHuman existence is intrinsically community-oriented. Persons find themselves as responsible in community. This is a classical and Christian insight that is supported by significant contemporary philosophers such as Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas. This article makes the claim that to thrive as a person is to belong; indeed, that it is the experience of belonging that satisfies the human need for meaning, value, and purpose. The article proceeds by considering the term ‘community.’ In itself, ‘community’ is a common sense term. However, it is also a symbol with dimensions of meaning beyond common sense implicit within it. For the sake of a richer understanding of belonging, this article proposes to discuss some of those dimensions under three headings: Dynamism; Communion; and Consummation. ‘Dynamism’ relates to the members of a community whose mutual participation constitutes the characteristics of that community. ‘Communion’ considers the emergence of genuine community, as opposed to general ...
Deep Synthesis of Realistic Medical Images: A Novel Tool in Clinical Research and Training

Decision-making based on medical images is fundamentally a statistical decision-making exercise, in which the decision-maker must distinguish between image features that are clinically diagnostic from non-diagnostic variations (i.e., distinguishing signal from noise). To perform this task, the decision-maker must have learned the underlying distributions, i.e., identifying signal from noise. The same is true for machine learning algorithms that perform a given diagnostic task. In order to train and test human experts, or expert machine systems, in any diagnostic or analytical task, it is advisable to use large image sets, so as to capture the underlying statistical distributions adequately. Large numbers of images are also useful in clinical and scientific research in regards to the underlying diagnostic process, which remain poorly understood. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to obtain medical images of given specific descriptions in sufficiently large numbers. This represents a significant barrier to progress in the arenas of clinical care, education, and research. Here we describe a novel methodology that helps overcome this barrier. This method leverages the burgeoning technologies of deep learning (DL) and deep synthesis (DS) to synthesize images de novo. We provide a proof-of-principle of this approach using mammograms as an illustrative case. During the initial, prerequisite DL phase of the study, we trained a publicly available deep learning neural network (DNN), using open-sourced, radiologically vetted mammograms as labeled examples. During the subsequent DS phase of the study, the fully trained DNN was made to synthesize, de novo, images that capture the image statistics of a given input image. The resulting images indicated that our DNN was able to faithfully capture the image statistics of visually diverse sets of mammograms. We also briefly outline rigorous psychophysical testing methods to measure the extent to which synthesized images were sufficiently alike their original counterparts. We also present some results that are meant to illustrate the underlying testing and analytical methodologies, and are not meant to establish any empirical results per se. Altogether, this methodological approach has the potential to be impactful in all fields in which medical images play a key role, most notably in radiology and pathology.
Evaluation of Apparatus Used to Test Liquid through Protective Materials: Comparison of a Modified Dot-Blot Apparatus to the ASTM Penetration Cell

Personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gowns used in the latest Ebola outbreak in Western Africa, are critical in preventing the spread of deadly diseases. Appropriate test systems and test soils are needed to adequately evaluate PPE. ASTM F903, Standard Test Method for Resistance of Materials Used in Protective Clothing to Penetration by Liquid, has been used for decades to test fabrics’ resistance to liquid penetration. However, this test apparatus requires at least 60 mL of test solutions, is labor intensive, and has problems with leakage around the gaskets. We compared the F903 test apparatus to a modified dot-blot apparatus to evaluate the visual penetration of a blood test soil. A series of commercially available gowns and drapes were tested in each apparatus. Using blood test soil at 2 psi, there was no statistically significant difference between the two methods except for in one gown. By comparing this gown in the ASTM test apparatus with and without a screen, the particular screen selected did not account for the difference between the dot-blot and F903 apparatuses; however, it is conceivable that a particular screen/fabric combination could account for this difference. The modified dot-blot apparatus was evaluated using three different test solutions: blood, vomit, and a labeled protein (goat anti-rabbit immunoglobulin G–horseradish peroxidase [GaR IgG-HRP]) in a blood test soil solution. This testing revealed significant difference in penetration for some of the PPE garments. The modified dot-blot had several large advantages over the ASTM apparatus—over six times less specimen volume and no edge or gasket leakage. In addition, nitrocellulose can be easily incorporated into the modified dot-blot apparatus, enabling the trapping of viruses and proteins that penetrate PPE—thus permitting the use of antibodies to quickly and sensitively detect penetration.
Synthesizing Efficient Hardware from High-Level Functional Hardware Description Languages

Functional hardware description languages (FHDL) provide powerful tools for building new abstractions that enable sophisticated hardware system to be constructed by composing small reusable parts. Raising the level of abstractions in hardware designs means the programmer can focus on high-level circuit structure rather than mundane low-level details. The language features that facilitate this include high-order functions, rich static type system with type inference, and parametric polymorphism. We use hand-written structural and behavioral VHDL, Simulink, and the Kansas Lava FHDL to re-implement several components taken from a Simulink model of an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) physical layer (PHY). Our development demonstrates that an FHDL can require fewer lines of code than traditional design languages without sacrificing performance.
Captive Dwarf and Mouse Lemurs Have Variable Fur Growth

Researchers typically assume constant fur and hair growth for primates, but the few studies that have investigated growth explicitly suggest this may not be the case. Instead, growth may vary considerably among individuals and across seasons. One might expect this variability to be most pronounced for species that have seasonally variable activity patterns (e.g., Madagascar's Cheiorogaleidae). In particular, dwarf lemurs (Cheirogaleus spp.) undergo considerable changes in their daily activity levels (torpor) in the austral fall, when nights get shorter. I monitored regrowth of shaved fur patches for eight adult captive fat-tailed dwarf lemurs (Cheirogaleus medius) and gray mouse lemurs (Microcebusmurinus) on a bi-weekly basis for 21 months in total. Regrowth varied considerably both within and among individuals. Overall, fur regrew in spurts and was faster for mouse lemurs (0-14 to 215-229 days) than dwarf lemurs (27-40 to 313-327 days). There were significant differences between species and an obvious influence of season for dwarf lemurs, but no clear influence of shave location, age, or sex. Similar trends have been previously reported for captive lemurids, suggesting that seasonal fur growth may be widespread across Lemuroidea. Researchers are cautioned against using primate fur or hair to investigate variables confounded by seasonality (such as diet and body condition) until patterns of growth are better understood.
Comparing stigmatizing attitudes toward anorexia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder, and subthreshold eating behaviors in college students.

Abstract Objective The relative stigmatization of various eating disorders (ED) remains understudied, and there is no research examining stigma toward avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) or adult picky eating. The present study examined the relative stigmatization of various EDs and the subthreshold eating behaviors that are risk factors for their development, and the relation of gender differences to stigma. Method A sample of 1147 college students was recruited and completed the study online. Participants were randomized and presented with a vignette representing a clinical ED [anorexia nervosa (AN), binge-eating disorder (BED), ARFID] or a subthreshold eating presentation (restrained eating, emotional eating, picky eating). Participants completed measures of stigma and perceived psychopathology. A 6 (target eating behavior) × 2 (target gender) × 2 (participant gender) MANOVA and subsequent ANOVAs were employed. Results Measures of stigma revealed significant main effects for eating presentation and participant gender. There were also significant interactions between eating presentation and participant gender. Men reported more stigmatizing views toward BED and AN compared to women. Overall, restraint was stigmatized less than the other targets, and AN received the greatest amount of stigma. Participants rated BED and AN as more pathological than all other targets, emotional eating and ARFID as more pathological than picky eating and restrained eating, and restrained eating as less pathological than all other targets. Conclusions Future research should explore how the severity of eating behavior influences perceptions and at what level behaviors such as restriction are recognized as disordered.
Supply Chain Disruptions: Evidence from the Bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping

Problem: How do supply chain disruptions in the form of unanticipated inventory delays affect firms' inventory holdings? Methodology: I exploit the bankruptcy announcement of Hanjin Shipping in 2016 as an exogenous shock to the global flow of inventory. This announcement stranded \$14 billion of cargo in transit as ports refused to unload Hanjin vessels. As a result, cargo on Hanjin vessels were rendered inaccessible out in the open sea for an unknown length of time. I use a novel dataset featuring tens of millions of sea-based imports from U.S. Customs to identify the: (1) identity of impacted firms, (2) magnitude of experienced cargo delays, and (3) monetary value of delayed cargo. Using a matched difference-in-differences approach, I estimate the impact of this supply chain disruption on firms' inventory holdings. Results: Impacted firms exhibit persistent increases to their inventory holdings, despite having similar pre-disruption inventory levels with their matched counterparts. Specifically, impacted firms increase inventory holdings by 4.6 percentage points on average, and the effect size increases monotonically with the realized length of delay, cargo value, and liquidity. Relevance: I provide causal estimates from a single supply chain disruption, which may help practitioners and academics better understand and manage supply chain risk. Managerial Implications: Supply chain disruptions can delay, degrade, and even destroy inventory. In addition, they can also inflict uncertainty to the flow of inventory, which can cause costly increases to firms' inventory holdings.
The clinical efficacy and safety of single-agent pembrolizumab in patients with recurrent granulosa cell tumors of the ovary: a case series from a phase II basket trial

Background Treatment of recurrent, unresectable granulosa cell tumor (GCT) of the ovary can be challenging. Given the rarity of the tumor, alternative therapies have been difficult to evaluate in large prospective clinical trials. Currently, to our knowledge, there are no reports of the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors in GCT patients. Here, we present a case series of GCT patients treated with pembrolizumab who were enrolled in a phase II basket trial in advanced, rare solid tumors (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02721732). Cases We identified 5 patients with recurrent GCT (4 adult and 1 juvenile type); they had an extensive history of systemic therapy at study enrollment (range, 3–10), with most regimens resulting in less than 12 months of disease control. Pembrolizumab was administered in these patients, as per trial protocol. Although there were no objective responses according to the irRECIST guidelines, 2 patients with adult-type GCT experienced disease control for ≥ 12 months (565 and 453 days). In one, pembrolizumab represented the longest duration of disease control compared to prior lines of systemic therapy (565 days vs. 13 months). In the other, pembrolizumab was the second longest systemic therapy associated with disease control (453 days vs. 22 months) compared to prior lines of therapy. In this patient, pembrolizumab was discontinued following withdrawal of consent. PD-L1 expression was not observed in any baseline tumor samples. Pembrolizumab was well tolerated, with no grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse events. Conclusions Although our results do not support the routine use of pembrolizumab monotherapy in unselected GCT patients, some patients with adult-type GCT may derive a clinical benefit, with a low risk of toxicity. Future studies should investigate the role of immunotherapy and predictors of clinical benefit in this patient population.
Subprime Loan Default Resolutions: Do They Vary Across Mortgage Products and Borrower Demographic Groups?

This paper examines default outcomes for subprime first lien loans during the recent subprime mortgage boom. It conducts this investigation in two phases. The paper first examines factors associated with pre-foreclosure outcomes for subprime mortgages in default. It then examines factors associated with different outcomes for loans that enter foreclosure. These factors include less understood elements such as mortgage product features and borrower demographics. The analysis is based on detailed loan-level data and employs multinomial logit models in a hazard framework.Results show that default resolutions vary with product features and borrower demographics. Adjustable rate and interest-only mortgages, and loans with low or no documentation are more likely to enter foreclosure proceedings, and, once in foreclosure, are more likely to become REO. The existence of junior liens increases the probability of the loan remaining in default. Owner-occupancy is associated with lower likelihood of foreclosure initiation and REO, and greater likelihood of curing default. Additionally, default outcomes are impacted by local legal, economic and housing market conditions, and the equity in the home.
Association Between Unmet Essential Social Needs and Influenza Vaccination in US Adults

Although social factors influence uptake of preventive services, the association between social needs and influenza vaccination has not been comprehensively evaluated for adults seeking primary care in the USA. To determine the association between unmet social needs and influenza vaccination. Retrospective, cross-sectional, multivariable logistic regression. Persons completing ambulatory visits in a primary care department at a midwestern, urban, multispecialty, academic medical center between July 2017 and July 2019 (N = 7955 individuals included). Completion of influenza vaccination in the 2018–2019 influenza season (primary outcome) or any year (secondary outcome) against 11 essential social needs (childcare, companionship, food security, health literacy, home safety, neighborhood safety, housing, health care provider costs, prescription costs, transportation, and utilities). Demographics, diabetic status, COPD, smoking status, office visit frequency, and hierarchical condition category risk scores were included as covariates. Individuals with transportation vulnerability were less likely to be vaccinated against influenza (current-year aOR 0.65, 95% CI: 0.53–0.78, p < 0.001; any-year aOR 0.58, 95% CI: 0.47–0.71, p < 0.001). Poor health literacy promoted any-year, but not current-year, influenza vaccination (any-year aOR 1.30, 95% CI: 1.01–1.69, p = 0.043). Older age, female sex, diabetes, more comorbidities, and more frequent primary care visits were associated with greater influenza vaccination. Persons with Black or other/multiple race and current smokers were less frequently vaccinated. Transportation vulnerability, health literacy, smoking, age, sex, race, comorbidity, and office visit frequency are associated with influenza vaccination. Primary care–led interventions should consider these factors when designing outreach interventions. Not applicable
The Evolvability of Evolutionary Theories: A Reply to Denis Noble

In this commentary on Denis Noble’s “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis,” I discuss three illusions he argues exist within the Modern Synthesis. These illusions have the common theme of attempting to identify the correct way of understanding and describing biological systems. I agree with much of Noble’s claims, but offer the language of developmental systems theory as a friendly tool for moving the project forward.
Patterns and Trends in Georgia Spending

During the past half century, a relatively small number of state agencies, five or six out a total of nearly 40, have accounted for between 75 and 85% of the state’s spending. For the most part, they have been the same agencies, the Department of Education which establishes state-wide education standards and provides state funding to local school systems, the University System of Georgia Board of Regents which governs the state’s network of 26 higher education institutions, the Department of Transportation which built and maintains the state’s highway and bridge system, the Department of Corrections which operates the state’s prison and offender rehabilitation system, and the Department of Human Resources which during most of this period functioned as an umbrella agency for the state’s several health and welfare functions. Beginning in the 1980s, the General Obligation Debt Sinking Fund was added to the budget as a line-item and by the 2000s it had become one of the major items of state spending.
Analysis of Induced Institutional Innovation Alternatives For Provision of Local Government Services

An induced innovations framework was used to develop and test a model of factors affecting county government's decisions to adopt alternative service delivery methods. Size measures of population and tax base, fiscal measures of tax revenues, the share of tax base in agriculture and access to human capital were significantly related to county use of innovations.
Verification challenges of workload optimized hardware systems

Over the last couple of years it became more and more obvious that improvements in chip technology get smaller and smaller with each generation. Processor frequency is stagnating for some time now and single thread performance of general purpose processor cores is only increasing very slowly from generation to generation despite the fact that designers have more and more transistors they can utilize. However, to stay competitive in the Compute Server business it is necessary to follow Moore's law and provide significant performance improvements to the customer every year. This begs the question how this can be achieved when traditional ways like cycle time improvements and the usage of more transistors are not yielding the desired results. The answer has to be a combination of logic, system and software design. This talk will first describe why continuing with "business as usual" will fail going forward. It will then discuss a number of scenarios for workload optimized systems to overcome these hurdles before the focus will shift to the question: What challenges will that present to the area of hardware verification? Speaker Bio Klaus-Dieter Schubert received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering in 1990 from Stuttgart University (Germany). Subsequently, he joined IBM in Boeblingen and has been responsible for hardware verification of various IBM mainframe systems and its components. He was the technical lead for the hardware verification of the z900 2064 system before he moved to the field of hardware and software co-verification where he established the concept of virtual power-on (VPO) for zSeries and pSeries systems. From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Schubert was on a work assignment in Austin, Texas, where he has led the verification team for the POWER7 microprocessor. Today he is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the technical leader for the hardware verification of future POWER processors. He has received two IBM Outstanding Achievement Awards for his contributions in the field of hardware verification.
Knowledge Based Intelligent Tutoring System

Declarative programming languages are more difficult to learn especially after being first exposed to procedural languages. The tutoring system was developed to help in learning of how to write Prolog programs, majority of which are recursive. The system requires initial definition of basic concepts about the problem to be solved in a form of facts and then form examples, supplied by a student, generates Prolog program. The method used for learning from examples is an incremental, inductive learning algorithm based on an zero-one integer programming model.
Granulocyte-Monocyte Colony-forming Capacity of Human Marrow: A Clinical Study

A modification of the in vitro culture of marrow cells in soft agar to form granulocyte-monocyte colonies has been applied to human marrow using a constant stimulus of colony-stimulating factor (CSF) in the form of pooled serum from endotoxin-treated C57BL mice (EMS). With this system reproducible increments in colony formation were observed between two concentrations of EMS. The results indicate that the incremental response to two doses of CSF (CSF response ratio) combined with an observation of the number of colonies formed provide a more reliable measurement of colony-forming cells (CFC) than colony counts at a single dose level of CSF. The CSF response ratio in 43 marrow cultures from 34 patients with no obvious disturbance in granulopoiesis was found to be 1.65 (± 0.17 SD). Hodgkin’s disease with normal marrow showed a mean CSF response ratio of 2.04. Two subjects recovering from drug-induced agranulocytosis showed increased CSF response at a time when the blood was still neutropenic and the marrow showed hyperplasia and immaturity of the granulocytic tissue. In contrast, patients with sustained neutropenia and impaired marrow granulopoiesis showed CSF response ratios of less than 1.65. CSF response ratios in chronic myelogenous leukemia averaged 1.72, often with extremely high numbers of colonies per plate. Patients with untreated acute leukemia and marrows replaced by blasts did not form colonies. However, with partial leukemic marrow replacement, lymphoblastic leukemia marrow formed more colonies than did that of myeloblastic leukemia.
Why the monkey?: Use of nonhuman primates in urologic research

Abstract The phylogenetic, physiologic, and pathologic similarities of man and monkey are described. Present use of primates and the relationships of primate centers to the research is reviewed. Studies of ureteral physiology and urinary tract infection would best be done in the monkey.
Abstract T P277: “The July Effect” in Ischemic Stroke Patients Receiving tPA

Objective: Each July thousands begin residencies and acquire increased responsibility for patient care. There is disagreement in the medical literature about whether a so-called July Effect, actually exists. There is paucity of data specifically looking at ischemic stroke patients receiving tPA. Approximately 1.9 million neurons die each minute from the onset of ischemia so we tried to evaluate if there is improvement in door to needle times for tPA administration from July to June. Methods: A Retrospective Review of patients admitted with symptoms of stroke to the Neurology department at our hospital from July 2013 to June 2014. Inclusion Criteria were all patients who met the criteria and received IV tPA. Results: During the study period, 60 patients met the criteria. The average tPA door to needle time in the month of July 2013 was 74.5 minutes and it increased to 93.5 minutes in the month of August 2013. The average door to needle time in the month of June 2014 was 45 minutes. There was significant decrease in the door to needle times form the month of July 2013 to June 2014 (p= 0.015). Please see figure 1 below for the average door to needle time over the year starting from July 2013 to June 2014. Discussion: The average door to need time is significantly lower in June 2014 when compared to July 2013 (P=0.015). It could be due to multiple factors including the new residents in the Emergency Department(ED) and Neurology residents taking call, as door to needle time includes the time when stroke alert was called after patient arrives in the ED, time taken by the neurology resident to examine the patient, time taken for the imaging, time taken for the decision to be made to give tPA, time taken by the pharmacy to get tPA ready and time to start tPA. Close supervision of the new residents with senior housestaff and adequate training including mock stroke activations may be helpful in overcoming this variation. ![][1] [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif
Role of Ly-6 in lymphocyte activation. I. Characterization of a monoclonal antibody to a nonpolymorphic Ly-6 specificity

In studies with alloantisera and monoclonal antibodies (mAb) a number of antigenic determinants have been defined that are the products of the Ly-6 locus on murine chromosome 2 and that are expressed primarily on B and T lymphoid cells. It remains controversial whether these antigenic determinants are encoded by a single gene or a multigene complex. We have characterized a new rat mAb, D7, which recognizes a cell surface antigen whose expression on nonactivated peripheral lymphocytes varies from strain to strain. The phenotype of the staining profile, i.e., high or low percentage of D7-positive cells, mapped to the Ly-6 locus as assayed by strain distribution studies, RI lines, and Ly-6 congenic strains. The binding of D7 to Ly-6.1-positive strains could be inhibited by mAb directed to the Ly-6E.1 specificity, whereas D7 could inhibit the binding of mAb specific for Ly-6A.2 to cells from Ly-6.2-positive strains. Coprecipitation studies followed by Western blot analysis confirmed that D7 reacts with both Ly-6E.1- and Ly-6A.2-bearing molecules. The most likely explanation for these findings is that Ly-6A.2 and Ly-6E.1 represent allelic specificities. Further dissection of the complexity of the Ly-6 antigen system and determination of its possible functional importance in lymphocyte activation should be greatly facilitated by the availability of xenogeneic mAb that recognize framework determinants on multiple Ly-6 products.
An Infinite Family of Graphs with the Same Ihara Zeta Function

In 2009, Cooper presented an infinite family of pairs of graphs which were conjectured to have the same Ihara zeta function. We give a proof of this result by using generating functions to establish a one-to-one correspondence between cycles of the same length without backtracking or tails in the graphs Cooper proposed. Our method is flexible enough that we are able to generalize Cooper's graphs, and we demonstrate additional families of pairs of graphs which share the same zeta function.
Evolution of Metabolism

This chapter is devoted to the discussion of the evolution of metabolism, with a particular focus towards redox metabolism and the utilization of redox energy by life. It deals with various aspects of metabolism that involve direct interaction with, and the extraction of energy from, the environment (catabolic metabolism) and will talk briefly of the reactions that affect mineral formation and dissolution. Any discussion of metabolic evolution must occur in concert with a consideration of the Earth — the understanding of the forces that drove the co-evolution of life and Earth can be achieved only by considering them together. This theme will pervade this chapter, and any real understanding of the evolution of metabolism must be inexorably coupled to, and consistent with, the geological record of the Earth.
Esoteric and Exoteric Images of Islam

Akbar S. Ahmed. Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988. + 251 pp. £25.00 (cloth).
Consciousness and Moral Responsibility, by Levy, Neil

Reading Consciousness and Moral Responsibility is a rare pleasure, even if you are one of the people against whom Neil Levy argues. It is very clearly written and made me wish it was not as short a...
Singlet stabilization of oxazole- and isoxazolenitrene-n-oxides by radical delocalization

Abstract Spin-flip coupled-cluster methods have been used to calculate the structures and energies of singlet and triplet electronic states of all the geometrical isomers of isoxazolyl- and oxazolylnitrene-n-oxides. At the CCSD(T)/cc-pVTZ level of theory, 2-oxazolylnitrene-n-oxide and 5-isoxazolylnitrene-n-oxide are calculated to have the smallest singlet–triplet energy splittings, at 4.7 and 6.3 kcal/mol, respectively. The results for all isomers indicate that the singlet states are most effectively stabilized by having the nitrene nitrogen adjacent to the oxygen in the ring, and being able to delocalize π-spin density onto the nitroxyl oxygen. Empirical analysis of the spin dependent stabilization finds that the extent to which singlet states are stabilized is approximately twice that found for triplet states, suggesting that radical stabilizing ability can also be applied to singlet–triplet splitting.
Sensitive detection of morbillivirus cell-free transcription in a direct RNase protection assay.

Cell-free measurement of viral transcription is necessary to determine if alterations of in situ levels of viral mRNA represent altered mRNA production or stability. Conditions for cell-free genomic transcription have been developed for the morbilliviruses canine distemper virus (CDV) and measles virus (MV), although the means for detecting nascent transcripts in these assays are insensitive in some cell systems. This work describes a technique in which CDV cell-free transcription reactions are modified so that non-radiolabeled transcripts are produced, precluding the need for limiting nucleotide concentrations in the reaction mixtures and allowing nucleotide concentrations which support optimal polymerase activities. Cell-free transcripts are then detected using anti-sense gene-specific riboprobes in an RNase protection assay (RPA). This approach is more sensitive than conventional slot blot analyses in detecting radiolabeled nascent transcripts and is efficacious in cell systems supporting inherently low levels of virus gene expression. Preformed viral RNA is distinguished from RNA synthesized during the course of the cell-free reactions by using a direct RPA (i.e., hybridization of target RNA prior to phenol/chloroform extraction). The use of this approach will expand the range of virus-host systems in which determinants of morbillivirus transcription can be characterized.
Model-based image reconstruction by means of a constrained least-squares solution

The problem of the optimal use of object model information in image reconstruction is addressed. A closed-form solution for the estimated object spectrum is derived with the Lagrange multiplier technique, which assumes a measured image, knowledge of the optical transfer function, statistical information about the measurement noise, and a model of the object. This reconstruction algorithm is iterative in nature because the optimal Lagrange multiplier is not generally known at the start of the problem. We derive the estimator, describe one technique for determining the optimal Lagrange multiplier, demonstrate a stopping criterion based on the mean-square error between a noise-free image and the photon-limited version of the image, and show representative results for both filled- and sparse-aperture imaging applications.