cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The sparing interaction of bone mass determinants: A hypothesis with implications for osteoporosis

Estrogen and calcium are two well described determinants of postmenopausal skeletal mass. In protecting the organism against bone erosion, the two factors interact in a reciprocally sparing fashion. This manifests in the fact, that correction of the deficiency of one of the factors, as in the case of estrogen replacement therapy, prevents further bone loss despite the persistence of unaltered calcium intakes. The obverse is also true. Large dietary calcium intakes lead to calcium balance, despite the unrelieved estrogen deficiency of the menopause. It is hypothesized that physical activity which functions as another bone mass determinant, may also exert a sparing effect, and thus lower the requirements for calcium intake and perhaps bypass the need for estrogen replacement in the menopause. Confirmation of this hypothesis could provide a method for a nonpharmacologic approach to the prevention of osteoporosis and perhaps even an effective therapy for the repletion of bone tissue in the depleted osteoporotic skeleton.
An Anomalous Decrease of the Elastic Moduli at Very Low Temperatures in Some 300 Series Stainless Steels

Many AIS I 300 series steels are used for a variety of applications at cryogenic temperatures. For some applications an accurate knowledge of Young’s modulus and the shear modulus is very useful. For this reason, the elastic moduli of a number of materials were measured isothermally at low temperatures in conjunction with other mechanical property tests. Some of the 300 series stainless steels exhibited a decrease between 76° and 20°K. This anomaly was documented by additional shear modulus measurements of AISI 302, 303, and 310 steels in both the annealed and cold drawn conditions. For these tests, a torsion apparatus was used to measure the shear modulus and a special strain gauge extenso-meter was used to measure the Young’s modulus. The decrease in moduli has been attributed to a paramagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition which occurs in 18Cr-8Ni alloys in the temperature range 37° to 42°K. This paper presents a brief summary of the experimental techniques and the experimental results of the above program.
Alain Badiou and the Sans-Papiers

AbstractThe rising number of non-status migrants is one of the central political issues of our time. This essay argues that if we want to understand the political and philosophical importance of this phenomenon, the contributions of Alain Badiou, his militant group L'Organisation politique (OP), and the struggle of the sans-papiers movement in France are absolutely crucial. This is the case because, I will argue, Badiou, the OP, and the sans-papiers created a new kind of migrant justice struggle in the mid-1990s that in many ways remains at the practical and theoretical roots of much of non-status migrant organizing today. However, this essay also argues that Badiou's theoretical and political work with the sans-papiers also needs to be revised and updated in light of certain developments in more recent migrant justice struggles.
Recognition of Streptococcus pseudoporcinus Colonization in Women as a Consequence of using Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry for Group B Streptococcus Identification

During a 14-month period of using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) for group B streptococcus (GBS) identification, we recovered 32 (1%) Streptococcus pseudoporcinus isolates from 3,276 GBS screening cultures from female genital sources (25 isolates from pregnant women and 7 from nonpregnant women). An additional two S. pseudoporcinus isolates were identified from a urine culture and a posthysterectomy wound culture. These isolates were found to cross-react with three different GBS antigen agglutination kits, PathoDx (Remel) (93%), Prolex (Pro-Lab Diagnostics) (38%), and Streptex (Remel) (53%). New approaches to bacterial identification in routine clinical microbiology laboratories may affect the prevalence of S. pseudoporcinus.
Timing in the NOvA detectors with atomic clock based time transfers between Fermilab, the Soudan mine and the NOvA Far detector

The NOvA experiment uses a GPS based timing system both to internally synchronize the readout of the DAQ components and to establish an absolute wall clock reference which can be used to link the Fermilab accelerator complex with the neutrino flux that crosses the NOvA detectors. We describe the methods that were used during the commissioning of the NOvA DAQ and Timing systems to establish the synchronization between the Fermilab beam and the NOvA far detector. We present how high precision atomic clocks were trained and transported between the MINOS and NOvA detectors during a Northern Minnesota blizzard to validate the absolute time offsets of the experiments and make the first observation of beam neutrinos in the NOvA far detector.
Marijuana and the politics of reality.

It is asserted that the marijuana controversy is primarily a political, rather than a scientific, debate. It is a struggle to establish moral hegemony. Stances toward marijuana use and legalization are largely a manifestation of prior basic underlying ideological commitments. Scientific truth or falsity seem to have little or no impact on the positions taken-although both sides will invoke scientific findings and in fact will actually believe them-and have been preselected to verify a position already taken. Widely used concepts such as "drug abuse" reflect the ideological character of the controversy.
LETHAL EFFECT OF CHLORPROMAZINE ON THE CHICK EMBRYO.

SummaryChlorpromazine, injected into the yolk sac of fertile hens' eggs, is lethal to a high percentage of embryos. At dosage levels of 0.9 and 1.8 mg the compound is destructive if it is administered within the first 48 hours of incubation; it shows little effect at 72 hours, and none at 96 hours.
Behind School Doors: The Impact of Hostile Racial Climates on Urban Teachers of Color:

Despite recruitment efforts, teachers of Color are underrepresented and leaving the teaching force at faster rates than their White counterparts. Using Critical Race Theory to analyze and present r...
Link-Layer Multicast in Large-Scale 802.11n Wireless LANs with Smart Antennas

In wireless local area networks (WLANs), link-layer multicast is a promising technology for many multimedia applications, e.g., video streaming, as multicast frames can reach multiple clients simultaneously. However, the efficiency of multicast in WLANs is usually low since multicast frames are transmitted at a basic data rate to reach clients with poor channel quality. Moreover, the reliability of multicast cannot be guaranteed either, as multicast transmissions are not acknowledged. Some recent works have utilized smart antennas to improve multicast performance. However, most of them require customized hardware and are not designed for the latest IEEE 802.11 standard, 802.11n WLANs. More importantly, these works did not consider the impact of AP association strategies on the performance of link-layer multicast. In this paper, we study the problem of link-layer multicast in large-scale 802.11n WLANs where each AP is equipped with a smart antenna that supports multiple antenna patterns. Based on channel gains of various antenna patterns from different APs, we choose the associated AP for multicast clients, partition associated clients of each AP into multiple groups, select an antenna pattern and data rate for each group of client, and transmit multicast frames to each group once. We first examine the limitation of multicast in 802.11n WLANs and the benefits of smart antennas to multicast via experiments. We then introduce the system model and formulate the problem into an optimization problem, and prove its NP-hardness. The objective is to minimize the time to transmit a multicast frame to all clients while guaranteeing high packet reception ratio (PRR) for each client. For generic WLANs where APs are sparsely deployed, we propose an optimal algorithm under the condition that the PRR of antenna patterns and data rates are known for every client. For generic large-scale WLANs, we further propose an on-line algorithm in which the AP association strategy, the partition of clients, the antenna pattern and data rate of each group are adapted dynamically, based on PRR reports from clients. We have implemented the on-line algorithm on off-the-shelf WLAN products, and conducted extensive experiments and simulations to evaluate the performance. The results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve multicast performance compared to other schemes, and at the same time guarantee high PRR for all clients.
Investigating carbon footprint reduction potential of public transportation in United States: A system dynamics approach

As part of sustainable urban planning, the potential of public transportation modes has been studied to reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption and to increase roadway safety. Increasing public transportation ridership shares compared to drive alone transportation mode would therefore be a giant step toward more environmentally friendly and stress-free cities, and so this study aims to propose possible public transportation policies to be adopted by policy makers or urban planners. Although public transportation is one of the sub-sections of urban planning, it has a wide variety of aspects that affect local societies and the environment, so a system dynamics approach is used to model and simulate the most realistic and practical CO2 mitigation scenarios for U.S. cities by adopting public transportation policies for future years. Based on historical data and applicable model validation processes, the behavior of the U.S. commuters' transportation mode choice and the potential of transit transportation to mitigate CO2 emissions are both forecasted for future years up to 2050 under several possible policy scenarios. The results indicate that, in order to decrease fuel consumption and CO2 emission trends, marginal and ambitious scenarios should be implemented. For instance, increasing public transportation ridership by 9% has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 766,000 tonnes annually in 2050, whereas a 25% increase in ridership could potentially reduce cumulative CO2 emissions by 61.3 million tonnes.
Algae biomass cultivation for advanced biofuel production

This chapter describes the use of algae biomass as a sustainable feedstock for biofuel. The brief historical perspective follows different biofuel options from algae. The start to finish process of liquid biofuel from algae involved is presented: (1) algae strain selection (different algae type), (2) algae cultivation (algae growth systems—photobioreactors, open raceways and fermenters), (3) biomass harvesting, and (4) algae oil extraction (mechanical, chemical—transesterification, enzymatic, supercritical fluid, etc.). The challenges in up scaling of algal biofuel operations from bench to commercial scales are described in the end, followed by the life cycle analysis and economic and environmental effects.
The Split-Brain Paradigm

The split-brain findings and their implications for conscious experience are reviewed. The thesis is presented that the left and right hemispheres of split-brain patients mediate separate spheres of conscious experience. The notion of dual consciousness is then extended to the normal state with corpus callosum intact and the conclusion drawn that individual brains plausibly contain at least two separate streams of conscious experience, one in each hemisphere. In light of the possibility of multiple consciousness per brain, the focus of the next few chapters will be directed specifically to verbally reportable conscious experience (vr-conscious experience), that form of conscious experience mediated uniquely by the left hemisphere, with the proviso that the discussion will be expanded in Chap. 11 to include conscious experiences of all varieties.
Focal Flow: Measuring Distance and Velocity with Defocus and Differential Motion

We present the focal flow sensor. It is an unactuated, monocular camera that simultaneously exploits defocus and differential motion to measure a depth map and a 3D scene velocity field. It does so using an optical-flow-like, per-pixel linear constraint that relates image derivatives to depth and velocity. We derive this constraint, prove its invariance to scene texture, and prove that it is exactly satisfied only when the sensor’s blur kernels are Gaussian. We analyze the inherent sensitivity of the ideal focal flow sensor, and we build and test a prototype. Experiments produce useful depth and velocity information for a broader set of aperture configurations, including a simple lens with a pillbox aperture.
Exploring measurement invariance by gender in the profile of mood states depression subscale among cancer survivors.

The Profile of Mood States-Short Form (POMS-SF) is a well-validated tool commonly used in medical/clinical research. Less attention has been paid to the measurement invariance of the POMS—the degree to which the structure and items behave similarly for different groups (e.g., women and men). This study investigated the measurement invariance of the POMS Depression subscale across gender groups in a sample of cancer survivors. The POMS Depression subscale has 8 items (Unhappy, Sad, Blue, Hopeless, Discouraged, Miserable, Helpless, and Worthless). Invariance was measured using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. This study used data from American Cancer Society Studies of Cancer Survivors-II, a population-based survey of adult cancer survivors (n = 9170). We found factor structures and factor loadings were invariant for gender groups, but moderate differential item functioning (DIF) in the question containing the word blue. With regard to cancer survivors’ gender, we found the Depression subscale of the POMS-SF had configural invariance, and partial metric and scalar invariance. This suggests that results should be interpreted with caution, especially when gender is considered important. More broadly, our finding suggests that questions with the word blue may introduce DIF into other measures of depressive mood. More research is needed to replicate these findings in other samples and with other instruments.
Technical Note: Display window setting: An important factor for detecting subtle but clinically relevant artifacts in daily CT quality control

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the influence of display window setting on technologist performance detecting subtle but clinically relevant artifacts in daily computed tomography (CT) quality control (dQC) images. Methods: Fifty three sets of dQC images were retrospectively selected, including 30 sets without artifacts, and 23 with subtle but clinically relevant artifacts. They were randomized and shown to six CT technologists (two new and four experienced). Each technologist reviewed all images in each of two sessions, one with a display window width (WW) of 100 HU, which is currently recommended by the American College of Radiology, and the other with a narrow WW of 40 HU, both at a window level of 0 HU. For each case, technologists rated the presence of image artifacts based on a five point scale. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the artifact detection performance. Results: At a WW of 100 HU, the AUC (95% confidence interval) was 0.658 (0.576, 0.740), 0.532 (0.429, 0.635), and 0.616 (0.543, 0.619) for the experienced, new, and all technologists, respectively. At a WW of 40 HU, the AUC was 0.768 (0.687, 0.850), 0.546 (0.433, 0.658), and 0.694 (0.619, 0.769), respectively. The performance significantly improved at WW of 40 HU for experienced technologists (p = 0.009) and for all technologists (p = 0.040). Conclusions: Use of a narrow display WW significantly improved technologists’ performance in dQC for detecting subtle but clinically relevant artifacts as compared to that using a 100 HU display WW.
Combating Illegal Excavations in Cahuachi: Ancient Problems and Modern Technologies

Illegal excavations represent one of the main risk factors which affect the archaeological heritage in Peru, in general, and in Nasca region, in particular. Looting in Peru has an ancient “tradition”, starting from the Spanish Conquistadors (and before); but since the 1960s, it has been strongly intensifying to supply the growing national and international markets. After the famous plundering of Sipan, an agreement was reached with the United States in 1997 to restrict the import of Pre-Columbian and ethnographic material from Peru. But, unfortunately, since the signing of the bilateral agreements with the United States, the traffic has shifted and been directed more towards Northern and Central Europe. Steps were taken to prevent illegal excavations through the forced return of looted archaeological objects; but this only partially addressed the problem because, even if the objects have been returned, the archaeological context from which they were stolen cannot be recovered. To stop, or at least limit, the illicit trade, it would be necessary to improve the present national and international laws and make available the resources necessary for their enforcement and for a wider understanding and systematic monitoring of the archaeological areas by using effective techniques of surveillance, including remote sensing. This chapter deals with the results obtained by using an automatic procedure applied to multitemporal satellite images of some areas in the Rio Grande de Nasca Drainage for the detection of looted areas. The rate of success in detecting changes related to the archaeological looting has been successfully tested in significant selected areas using complementary tools such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV ), a Global Positioning System (GPS ), Ground-penetrating radar (GPR ), and field surveys . Satellite technologies can provide reliable information: (i) to quantify the looting phenomenon even if it is on an “industrial scale” over large areas, and (ii) to set up a systematic monitoring tool to trace the illicit trade in antiquities. This study has implications for the protection of archaeological sites, not only in Nasca but also across the world.
High expression of Claudin-2 in esophageal carcinoma and precancerous lesions is significantly associated with the bile salt receptors VDR and TGR5.

Claudins are a family of integral membrane proteins and are components of tight junctions (TJs). Many TJ proteins are known to tighten the cell structure and maintain a barrier. Claudin-2 forms gated paracellular channels and allows sodium ions and other small positively charged ions to cross between adjacent cells. Recently, we found that vitamin D receptor (VDR) enhanced Claudin-2 expression in colon and that bile salt receptors VDR and Takeda G-protein coupled receptor5 (TGR5) were highly expressed in esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and precancerous lesions. Here, we examined the expression of Claudin-2 in EAC and precancerous lesions and its association with VDR and TGR5 expression. Claudin-2 expression was examined by immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays, containing EAC, high grade dysplasia (HGD), low grade dysplasia (LGD), Barrett’s esophagus (BE), columnar cell metaplasia (CM), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and squamous epithelium (SE) cases. Intensity (0 to 3) and percentage were scored for each case. High expression was defined as 2–3 intensity in ≥ 10% of cells. Claudin-2 was highly expressed in 77% EAC (86/111), 38% HGD (5/13), 61% LGD (17/28), 46% BE (18/39), 45% CM (29/65), 88% SCC (23/26), and 14% SE (11/76). It was significantly more highly-expressed in EAC, SCC and glandular lesions than in SE and more in EAC than in BE and CM. A significant association was found between Claudin-2 expression and VDR and TGR5 expression. No significant association was found between expression of Claudin-2 and age, gender, grade, stage, or patients’ survival time in EAC and SCC. We conclude that Claudin-2 expression is significantly associated with bile acid receptors VDR and TGR5 expression. Our studies identify a novel role of a tight junction protein in the development and progression of esophageal mucosal metaplasia, dysplasia and carcinoma.
Access Control Model for AWS Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) has received considerable attention in both industry and academia in recent years. There has been significant research on access control models for IoT in academia, while industrial deployment of several cloud-enabled IoT platforms have already been introduced. However, as yet there is no consensus on a formal access control model for cloud-enabled IoT. Currently, most of the cloud-enabled IoT platforms utilize some customized form of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), but RBAC by itself is insufficient to address the dynamic requirements of IoT. In this paper, we study one of the commercial cloud-IoT platform, AWS IoT, and develop a formal access control model for it, which we call AWS-IoTAC. We do this by extending AWS cloud’s formal access control (AWSAC) model, previously published in the academic literature, to incorporate the IoT specific components. The AWS-IoTAC model is abstracted from AWS IoT documentation and has been formalized based on AWSAC definitions. We show how this model maps to a recently proposed Access Control Oriented (ACO) architecture for cloud-enabled IoT. We demonstrate a smart-home use case in AWS IoT platform, and inspired by this use case, we propose some Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) extensions to the AWS-IoTAC model for enhancing the flexibility of access control in IoT.
KINETICS OF RED BLOOD CELL AGGREGATION: AN EXAMPLE OF GEOMETRIC POLYMERIZATION

The kinetics of the process by which red blood cells aggregate into long cylindrical, and sometimes branched, structures called rouleaux is studied within the framework of both reversible and irreversible addition and condensation polymerization reactions. However, unlike usual polymer kinetics, here we take into account the geometry of the subunits and the geometry of the growing structure. Geometric factors such as the amount of reactive wall area influence the probability of branching and hence the final shape of the aggregate. The inclusion of loop formation reactions is shown to be crucial in obtaining physically realistic equilibrium solutions of the kinetic equations.
Composite Multilayer Shared-Aperture Nanostructures: A Functional Multispectral Control

There is a growing demand in the field of metasurfaces to design and implement functional multispectral devices capable of complex beam conversion and high-capacity optical information processing. Control over the size of the aperture footprint, fabrication complexity, and fundamental cross-talk poses great challenges toward the realization of these multifunctional multispectral optical devices. Here, we demonstrate a systematic design strategy and a full roadmap toward implementation of a novel class of nanoantenna arrays based on the multilayer shared-aperture concept, which can simultaneously multiplex multiwavelengths into a single optical device platform. The idea is supported by engineering two dual-layer metasurface-based designs with the capability of superdistinct operating channels (lying in the thermal infrared and visible spectra) and superclose operating channels (both lying in the visible spectrum) to simultaneously and independently perform anomalous or similar wavefront manipulation at two...
Metabolic responses to temperature in a sedentary reef fish, the bluebanded goby (Lythrypnus dalli, Gilbert)

Abstract As climate continues to change, many marine species will experience both an increase in average temperature and more extreme diel and seasonal fluctuations. Understanding how these variations in ocean temperature affect processes such as metabolism and energy consumption is important for many species, and may be particularly important for sedentary species that cannot make large-scale movements in response to changes in environmental conditions. We examined how metabolic rates and energetic demands responded to temperature in a temperate reef fish, the bluebanded goby ( Lythrypnus dalli ). Using respirometry, we estimated resting oxygen consumption (VO2) for 42 L. dalli individuals of varying sizes and calculated metabolic rates (MR) at three different temperatures (13 °C, 16 °C, and 20 °C). As predicted, VO2 and MR increased significantly with temperature and mass, but the rate of temperature-dependent increase in metabolism indicated a very high degree of thermal sensitivity for L. dalli (Q10 value for VO2 was 5.21 across the range of experimental temperatures). The mass-scaling exponent (b ) was estimated to be 0.95 and aligned closely with other benthic species. Our results suggest that changes in temperature – especially those that occur over weeks and seasons – likely play a significant role in the ecology of these gobies. Long-term increases in seawater temperature will either necessitate an increase in foraging and consumption, or drive costly trade-offs between metabolism and processes such as growth and reproduction.
Is Multi-model Feature Matching Better for Endoscopic Motion Estimation?

Camera motion estimation is a standard yet critical step to endoscopic visualization. It is affected by the variation of locations and correspondences of features detected in 2D images. Feature detectors and descriptors vary, though one of the most widely used remains SIFT. Practitioners usually also adopt its feature matching strategy, which defines inliers as the feature pairs subjecting to a global affine transformation. However, for endoscopic videos, we are curious if it is more suitable to cluster features into multiple groups. We can still enforce the same transformation as in SIFT within each group. Such a multi-model idea has been recently examined in the Multi-Affine work, which outperforms Lowe’s SIFT in terms of re-projection error on minimally invasive endoscopic images with manually labelled ground-truth matches of SIFT features. Since their difference lies in matching, the accuracy gain of estimated motion is attributed to the holistic Multi-Affine feature matching algorithm. But, more concretely, the matching criterion and point searching can be the same as those built in SIFT. We argue that the real variation is only the motion model verification. We either enforce a single global motion model or employ a group of multiple local ones. In this paper, we investigate how sensitive the estimated motion is affected by the number of motion models assumed in feature matching. While the sensitivity can be analytically evaluated, we present an empirical analysis in a leaving-one-out cross validation setting without requiring labels of ground-truth matches. Then, the sensitivity is characterized by the variance of a sequence of motion estimates. We present a series of quantitative comparison such as accuracy and variance between Multi-Affine motion models and the global affine model.
Genetic Regulation and Expression of Elastase in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram-negative organism, is a frequent cause of lung infections in cystic fibrosis (CF) or in debilitated and immunosuppressed individuals. Elastase secreted by P. aeruginosa not only promotes entry of the bacteria through the respiratory tract but also contributes to the pulmonary damage during infection. Chronic Pseudomonas infections are commonly difficult to resolve even with antibiotic therapy. Therefore, the genetic regulation of virulence factors, such as elastase, is of primary concern.
Protecting Freedom of Religion in Prison: The Free Exercise Clause and RLUIPA

Protecting Freedom of Religion in Prison: The Free Exercise Clause and RLUIPA is a sample chapter from Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation: A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press, 2011). The casebook implements the ideas in the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers (2007) and in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007) by integrating doctrine and skills and using multiple methods of instruction. In the casebook, Sarah Ricks, Rutgers School of Law - Camden, focuses on the constitutional and statutory doctrines necessary to litigate 4th, 8th, and 14th Amendment claims. Evelyn Tenenbaum contributed the chapter on 1st Amendment religion claims that arise in prison - which is described below and can be downloaded here - and a chapter on the Eleventh Amendment. The table of contents for the casebook can be downloaded on this site and is included after the chapter. The sample chapter on Protecting Freedom of Religion in Prison begins by giving background information so students can appreciate the difficulties involved in accommodating prisoners’ religious needs and the importance of recognizing prisoners’ religious practices. Next, the chapter shows how the standards for evaluating federal, state, and local prisoners’ First Amendment religious claims have developed over the past fifty years. The chapter ends with a more contextualized discussion of particular free exercise issues and how the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the First Amendment apply to prisoner free exercise claims today. The chapter includes charts and illustrations and contains questions and simulations designed to allow students to assume the roles of legislators, policy-makers for a government agency, fact finders, and litigators.
The Detection of Novel Stimulants in Oral Fluid from Users Reporting Ecstasy, Molly and MDMA Ingestion

"Ecstasy" and "Molly" are common drug slang terms used among club and rave cultures to denote preparations believed to contain 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). However, users of Ecstasy and Molly have increasingly tested positive for novel psychoactive substances (NPS), notably novel stimulants. To evaluate hypothesized non-specific and interchangeable use of the terms Ecstasy, Molly and MDMA, self-reported drug use was compared against toxicological findings in biological specimens. Oral fluid specimens were collected from participants attending large multi-day electronic dance music festivals in Miami, FL; Tampa, FL; and Atlanta, GA. Participants additionally completed a structured survey about recent recreational drug use. Collected specimens were screened for therapeutic drugs, common drugs of abuse and NPS using liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF). Positive screen results were confirmed by validated liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) methods for MDMA, MDA, methylone, dimethylone, ethylone, butylone, dibutylone, eutylone, pentylone, N-ethyl pentylone (ephylone), alpha-PVP and 4-fluoroamphetamine (4-FA). During this 4-year study, 223 participants provided an oral fluid specimen and indicated recent use of Ecstasy, Molly and/or MDMA/MDA. Of these subjects, 203 (91.0%) indicated only one of these drug terms; while 20 (9.0%) participants indicated a combination of multiple terms. Of the 203 participants designating only one drug term, 123 (60.6%) reported Molly use, 55 (27.1%) reported MDMA use and 25 (12.3%) reported Ecstasy use. Seven participants reported the use of MDA, but these responses were paired with MDMA responses due to detection of MDA as a metabolite of MDMA. The results from this study indicate that there are inconsistencies between admission to drug use and toxicological findings in this population. Of the 223 participants who indicated use of Ecstasy, Molly and/or MDMA/MDA, MDMA without a novel stimulant was confirmed in 121 (54.3%) participants, while 66 (29.6%) tested positive for at least one novel stimulant.
Health for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Older Adults

The growing geriatric population includes gender minorities or the LGBTQ adults who present with a rich history of unique experiences that have invariably affected the provision and access to quality health care services. The purpose of this article is to review, understand, and discuss the differences and similarities of health-related geriatric issues within and between them. Based on the existing literature, relevant findings include the identification of multiple marginalized identities within oppressive social systems, negative health outcomes, and the presence of health care disparities as shaped by economic barriers, discriminatory regulatory policies, and stigmatizing practices by society and the government at large. There is therefore a call to action to provide better health care by instituting reforms in policies, cultural competency training, improved data collection of gender identities and sexual orientation in national surveys, better research, and a cultural shift in the way this population is to be universally treated.
Human-guided Trajectory Adaptation for Tool Transfer

We introduce "transfer by correction": a method for transferring a robot's tool-based task models to use unfamiliar tools. By having the robot receive corrections from a human teacher when repeating a known task with a new tool, it can learn the relationship between the two tools, allowing it to transfer additional tasks learned with the original tool to the new tool. The goal is to enable the robot to generalize its task knowledge to accommodate tool replacements and thus be more robust to changes in its environment. We demonstrate how the tool transform models learned from one episode of task corrections can be used to perform that task with >=85% of maximum performance in 83% of tool/task combinations. Furthermore, these transformations generalize to unseen tool/task combinations in 27.8% of our transfer evaluations, and up to 41% of transfer problems when the source and replacement tool share tooltip similarities. Overall, these results indicate that successful task adaptation for a new tool is dependent on the the tool's usage within that task, and that the transform model learned from interactive corrections can be generalized to other tasks providing a similar context for the new tool.
A Simple Saliency Method That Passes the Sanity Checks.

There is great interest in "saliency methods" (also called "attribution methods"), which give "explanations" for a deep net's decision, by assigning a "score" to each feature/pixel in the input. Their design usually involves credit-assignment via the gradient of the output with respect to input. Recently Adebayo et al. [arXiv:1810.03292] questioned the validity of many of these methods since they do not pass simple *sanity checks* which test whether the scores shift/vanish when layers of the trained net are randomized, or when the net is retrained using random labels for inputs. We propose a simple fix to existing saliency methods that helps them pass sanity checks, which we call "competition for pixels". This involves computing saliency maps for all possible labels in the classification task, and using a simple competition among them to identify and remove less relevant pixels from the map. The simplest variant of this is "Competitive Gradient $\odot$ Input (CGI)": it is efficient, requires no additional training, and uses only the input and gradient. Some theoretical justification is provided for it (especially for ReLU networks) and its performance is empirically demonstrated.
Thermo-electro-mechanical phase-field modeling of paraelectric to ferroelectric transitions

Abstract Ferroelectric materials are widely used in engineering and science applications due to their large nonlinear thermo-electro-mechanical coupling. This paper develops and studies a phase-field model to describe paraelectric to ferroelectric phase transitions and the giant electrocaloric effect, a large adiabatic temperature change with the application of an electric field. Spatially inhomogeneous temperature distributions, latent heat due to phase changes, and heat conduction are included in the model. The model is derived from fundamental balances of force, charge, micro-force, and energy. The second law of thermodynamics further constrains the constitutive behaviors derived from a phenomenological free energy function for the material. The finite element method is applied to solve the governing equations for a selected set of boundary value problems. First, the motion of a paraelectric/ferroelectric phase boundary controlled by the application and removal of heat is simulated. Then, a model electrocaloric cooling device based on a multilayer ferroelectric capacitor is simulated through a full thermodynamic refrigeration cycle. The model geometry and boundary conditions are chosen to match realistic device configurations. The device is driven through a cycle with two adiabatic and two constant electric field legs, and compared with the analytically computed ideal bulk electrocaloric cooling cycle. Several inefficiencies arise in the device, including incomplete transformation, entropy loss due to phase boundary motion, and high energy zones with large stresses and closure domains at the electrode tip.
Complications in the interpretation of the charge-asymmetry-dependent π flow for the chiral magnetic wave

The charge asymmetry ($A_{\rm ch}$) dependence of the $\pi^{-}$ and $\pi^{+}$ elliptic flow difference, $\Delta v_{2}(A_{\rm ch})$, has been regarded as a sensitive observable for the possible chiral magnetic wave (CMW) in relativistic heavy ion collisions. In this work, we first demonstrate that, due to non-flow backgrounds, the flow measurements by the Q-cumulant method using all charged particles as reference introduce a trivial linear term to $\Delta v_{2}(A_{\rm ch})$. The trivial slope can be negative in the triangle flow difference $\Delta v_{3}(A_{\rm ch})$ if the non-flow is dominated by back-to-back pairs. After eliminating the trivial term, we find that the non-flow between like-sign pairs gives rise to an additional positive slope to $\Delta v_{2}(A_{\rm ch})$ because of the larger dilution effect to $\pi^{+}$ ($\pi^{-}$) at positive (negative) $A_{\rm ch}$. We further find that the competition between different $\pi$ sources can introduce another non-trivial linear-$A_{\rm ch}$ term due to their different multiplicity fluctuations and anisotropic flows. We then study the effect of neutral cluster (resonance) decays as a mechanism for local charge conservation on the slope parameter of $\Delta v_{2}(A_{\rm ch})$. We find that the slope parameter is sensitive to the kinematics of those neutral clusters. Light resonances give positive slopes while heavy resonances give negative slopes. Local charge conservation from continuum cluster mass distribution can give a positive slope parameter comparable to experimental data. Our studies indicate that many non-CMW physics mechanisms can give rise to a $A_{\rm ch}$-dependent $\Delta v_{2}(A_{\rm ch})$ and the interpretation of $\Delta v_{2}(A_{\rm ch})$ in terms of the CMW is delicate.
Acceptance of Preventive Dental Services for Children at a Retail-Based Clinic: A Pilot Study.

Purpose: Low-income children with high caries risk are disproportionately affected by poor access to dental care. Retail-based clinics (RBCs) can provide accessible ancillary oral health care. The purposes of this study were: (1) to measure caregivers' acceptance rate of an oral health screening, fluoride varnish (FV) application, and caries risk assessment offered to children on a walk-in basis in an RBC; and (2) to categorize the caries risk and demographics among the participants. Methods: Screenings and FV applications were provided to children younger than 18 years at a Walgreens Health Care Clinic in Baltimore, Md., USA, from October 2016 to October 2017. The acceptance rate and caries risk using the American Dental Association caries risk assessment form were documented. Descriptive statistics and Fisher's exact test were used to analyze the data. Results: Eighty-five children and their caretakers were approached and 32 (38 percent) agreed to participate. Most children had high caries risk (84.3 percent) and a dental home (81.2 percent), but only 50 percent reported visiting their dentist in the last year. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate modest acceptance of FV application for children on a convenience basis. This population had predominantly high caries risk, with poor adherence to follow-up with their dental home. Retail-based dental care should not replace the dental home but could support it by increasing access to preventive dental care in children. (J Dent Child 2019;86(1):40-6) Received July 2, 2018; Last Revision August 13, 2018; Accepted August 13, 2018.
Combining DNMT and HDAC6 inhibitors increases anti-tumor immune signaling and decreases tumor burden in ovarian cancer

Novel therapies are urgently needed for ovarian cancer, the deadliest gynecologic malignancy. Ovarian cancer has thus far been refractory to immunotherapies that stimulate the host immune system to recognize and kill cancer cells. This may be because of a suppressive tumor immune microenvironment and lack of recruitment and activation of immune cells that kill cancer cells. Our previous work showed that epigenetic drugs including DNA methyltransferase inhibitors and histone deacetylase 6 inhibitors (DNMTis and HDAC6is) individually increase immune signaling in cancer cells. We find that combining DNMTi and HDAC6i results in an amplified type I interferon response, leading to increased cytokine and chemokine expression and higher expression of the MHC I antigen presentation complex in human and mouse ovarian cancer cell lines. Treating mice bearing ID8 Trp53−/− ovarian cancer with HDAC6i/DNMTi led to an increase in tumor-killing cells such as IFNg+ CD8, NK, and NKT cells and a reversal of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment with a decrease in MDSCs and PD-1hi CD4 T cells, corresponding with an increase in survival. Thus combining the epigenetic modulators DNMTi and HDAC6i increases anti-tumor immune signaling from cancer cells and has beneficial effects on the ovarian tumor immune microenvironment.
Simple methods for estimation of mean residence time and steady-state volume of distribution from continuous-infusion data.

The following equations are derived for amount of drug in the body (xbss), volume of distribution (vss), and mean residence time in the body (tb) at steady state during a continuous constant rate infusion of drug. (formula; see text) where c(t) identical to drug concentration in the systemic circulation at time t following the start of a constant-rate infusion, css identical to steady-state systemic drug concentration, and R identical to infusion rate. The equations are based on the assumption that the rate of drug elimination is proportional to the systemic drug concentration. The equations provide the basis for simple methods that are presented for estimating xbss, vss, and tb directly from experimental data. More general relationships are also derived for cases where the continuous infusion is preceded by other modes of administration, e.g., a bolus loading dose followed by a constant-rate infusion.
Chapter 13 – Friedreich Ataxia

Friedreich ataxia is the most common cause of hereditary ataxia accounting for up to half of all genetic ataxia and 75% of genetic ataxia in those under the age of 25 years. Clinical presentation is often indistinct, with features of many hereditary ataxia conditions overlapping. Evaluation for comorbid features as well as inheritance pattern, age of onset, and imaging findings will help distinguish it from other conditions. Symptoms result from decreased production of frataxin protein secondary to homozygous trinucleotide repeats on the first exon of the FXN(X25) gene. Decreased frataxin production results in dysfunction of the electron transport chain, iron accumulation, and increased oxidative stress. Together, these abnormalities produce a slowly progressive neurodegenerative disorder of the central and peripheral nervous systems along with the skeleton, heart, and endocrine pancreas. Diagnostic considerations, clinical presentation, pathophysiology, and treatment options are discussed.
Reproducing Sports Stars: How Students Become Elite Athletes:

Background/ContextSchool-sponsored sports programs are seen in both the public and policy spheres as meritocratic mobility institutions. In the U.S. context, athletic participation can yield access...
The Magnetic Field Conversion Factor for the Van Veen Loop

The Loop Antenna System (LAS) provides accurate measurements of the magnetic dipole moment of a compact source of magnetic field interference. Using the appropriate conversion factor, the output of LAS can be used to predict the magnetic field at a specified distance and height in a particular environment, e.g. over conducting ground. The conversion factor given in the CISPR 16-1-4 standard allows the LAS to replace conventional 60-cm shielded loop measurements on an open area test site (OATS). Here, a detailed, transparent derivation of the conversion factor is presented with the intent being to facilitate rapid, accurate, analytical computation of numerical values for the conversion factor. It is shown that, despite retardation of the electromagnetic field, a rational function accurately represents the conversion factor for standard test distances and thus the well-known Bode techniques for plotting and interpreting such functions can be applied effectively. Finally, the ability of the loop to respond to sources within the loop preferentially over external plane wave excitation is discussed and this gain in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is derived in terms of the conversion factor.
Buprenorphine for Opioid Use Disorder in the Emergency Department: A Retrospective Chart Review.

Author(s): LeSaint, Kathy T.; Klapthor, Brent; Wang, Ralph C.; Geier, Curtis | Abstract: Introduction: Emergency care providers routinely treat patients with acute presentations and sequelae of opioid use disorder. An emergency physician and pharmacist implemented a protocol using buprenorphine for the treatment of patients with opioid withdrawal at an academic, Level I trauma center. We describe our experience regarding buprenorphine implementation in the emergency department (ED), characteristics of patients who received buprenorphine, and rates of outpatient follow-up.Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of all patients in the ED for whom buprenorphine was administered to treat opioid withdrawal during an 18-month period from January 30, 2017–July 31, 2018. Data extraction of a priori-defined variables was recorded. We used descriptive statistics to characterize the cohort of patients.Results: A total of 77 patients were included for analysis. Thirty-three patients (43%) who received buprenorphine did not present with the chief complaint of opioid withdrawal. Most patients (74%) who received buprenorphine last used heroin, and presented in moderate opioid withdrawal. One case of precipitated withdrawal occurred after buprenorphine administration. Twenty-three (30%) patients received outpatient follow-up.Conclusions: This study underscores the safety of ED-initiated buprenorphine and that buprenorphine administration in the ED is feasible and effective.