cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Enzyme-assisted extraction for the HPLC determination of ochratoxin A in pork and dry-cured ham.

The extraction of ochratoxin A from meat products is generally carried out using chlorinated organic solvents, such as chloroform or methyl chloride, acidified with hydrochloric or o-phosphoric acid. In this study, an innovative method was developed to extract ochratoxin A from pork and dry-cured ham samples. The method was based on an enzyme-assisted extraction with pancreatin in phosphate buffer pH 7.5. Pancreatin hydrolyses the proteins, so that ochratoxin A, kept in the ionised form, is easily extracted by the aqueous solution. After purification through an immunoaffinity column, ochratoxin A is determined by HPLC with fluorescence detection. The average recovery values were higher than 90.0% and the relative standard deviations were below 5.5%. The limits of detection and of quantification were 0.06 and 0.12 µg kg−1, respectively. A comparison between the new enzyme-assisted extraction and an established chloroform method was carried out on six naturally contaminated samples of pork and on 40 samples...
Stereotactic radiosurgery: the preferred management for patients with nonvestibular schwannomas?

Abstract Purpose: To review patient outcomes after radiosurgery of nonvestibular schwannomas. Methods and Materials: From April 1992 to February 2000, 23 patients had radiosurgery at our center for nonvestibular schwannomas. Affected cranial nerves included the trochlear ( n = 1), trigeminal ( n = 10), jugular foramen region ( n = 10), and hypoglossal ( n = 2). Nine patients had undergone one or more prior tumor resections. One patient had a malignant schwannoma; 2 patients had neurofibromatosis. The median prescription isodose volume was 8.9 cc (range, 0.2 to 17.6 cc). The median tumor margin dose was 18 Gy (range, 12 to 20 Gy); the median maximum dose was 36 Gy (range, 24 to 40 Gy). The median follow-up after radiosurgery was 43 months (range, 12 to 111 months). Results: Twenty-two of 23 tumors (96%) were either smaller ( n = 12) or unchanged in size ( n = 10) after radiosurgery. One patient with a malignant schwannoma had tumor progression outside the irradiated volume despite having both radiosurgery and fractionated radiation therapy (50.4 Gy); he died 4 years later. Morbidity related to radiosurgery occurred in 4 patients (17%). Three of 10 patients with trigeminal schwannomas suffered new or worsened trigeminal dysfunction after radiosurgery. One patient with a hypoglossal schwannoma had eustachian tube dysfunction after radiosurgery. No patient with a lower cranial nerve schwannoma developed any hearing loss, facial weakness, or swallowing difficulty after radiosurgery. Conclusions: Although the reported number of patients having radiosurgery for nonvestibular schwannomas is limited, the high tumor control rates demonstrated after vestibular schwannoma radiosurgery should apply to these rare tumors. Compared to historical controls treated with surgical resection, radiosurgery appears to have less treatment-associated morbidity for nonvestibular schwannomas, especially for schwannomas involving the lower cranial nerves.
Renal infarction complicating fibromuscular dysplasia

Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is a nonatherosclerotic, noninflammatory vascular disease that most commonly affects the renal and extracranial carotid arteries. We present 3 cases of renal infarction complicating renal artery FMD in 42-, 43-, and 46-year-old females and provide a comprehensive review of the literature on this topic. In our patients, oral anticoagulation therapy was used to treat all cases of infarction, and percutaneous angioplasty was used nonemergently in one case to treat refractory hypertension. All patients remained stable at 1-year follow-up. This is consistent with outcomes in previously published reports where conservative medical management was comparable to surgical and interventional therapies. Demographic differences may also exist in patients with renal infarction and FMD. A higher prevalence of males and a younger age at presentation have been found in these patients when compared to the general population with FMD.
People's instinctive travels and the paths to science

To be the recipient of the E. E. Just Award for 2014 is one of my greatest honors, as this is a truly rarefied group. In this essay, I try to trace my path to becoming a scientist to illustrate that multiple paths can lead to science. I also highlight that I did not build my career alone. Rather, I had help from many and have tried to pay it forward. Finally, as the country marches toward a minority majority, I echo the comments of previous E. E. Just Award recipients on the state of underrepresented minorities in science.
Mechanical advantage of the canine diaphragm

The mechanical advantage (μ) of a respiratory muscle is defined as the respiratory pressure generated per unit muscle mass and per unit active stress. The value of μ can be obtained by measuring th...
Uncovering The Myth Surrounding Cash Hoarding And Corporate Capital Expenditures Since 2008

If reports in the popular press are to be believed, even though the great recession of 2008 ended in 2009, U.S. corporate capital expenditures did not rebound. Lack of capital investment due to widespread cash hoarding is cited as a reason for the slow economic recovery. This study does not find evidence that S&P 500 firms have slowed their rate of capital expenditures. On the contrary, capital intensive industries, such as materials, energy, and industrials show significant growth in capital expenditures in 2010 and 2011.
The Interpretation of Dyspnea in the Patient with Asthma

Physicians have noted dyspnea in severely ill asthmatic patients to be associated with fright or panic; in more stable patients dyspnea may reflect characteristics including lung function, personality and behavioral traits. This study evaluates the symptom of dyspnea in 32 asthmatic patients twice: first when acutely ill and again after an initial response to therapy. Spirometry was performed, dyspnea quantified (Borg scale), and panic assessed with a specialized measure of acute panic (the acute panic inventory (API)) in the 32 patients before and again after treatment. After treatment, questionnaires to evaluate somatization and panic disorder were also administered. When acutely ill, both the API and all spirometric measures (PEFR; FEV1; IC) correlated with dyspnea. Multiple linear regression showed that measures of the API, the peak expiratory flow rate, and female sex taken together accounted for 41% of dyspnea in acute asthma. After treatment, the API again predicted dyspnea while spirometric data did not. Those subjects who described themselves as having chronic panic disorder reported high grades of dyspnea after treatment also. We conclude that interpretations of the self-report of asthma differ between acutely ill and stable asthmatic patients.
Assessing the impact of real-time communication services on the space network ground segment

Communication networks to support space missions were originally architected around non-real time data services. In fact, missions have always required real-time services (e.g. telemetry and command), but the bulk of scientific data being returned to Earth has typically been highly delay tolerant. Nevertheless, future robotic and human exploration activities are rapidly pushing towards low latency, high data rate services. Examples can be found both in the near Earth domain (e.g. near real-imagery through NASAs LANCE program) and the deep space domain (e.g. HD video from Mars). Therefore, the goal of this paper is to quantify the effect of new real-time high data rate communication requirements on the ground segment of current communication networks. To that end, we start by analyzing operational schedules for NASAs Space Network (SN) in order to characterize the utilization of the overall network in terms of total data volume and contact time, as well as identify current mission drivers. These results are compared against proposed network requirements for future robotic and human near Earth exploration activities in order to quantitatively assess gaps in the SN capabilities. Using these results, we implement a rule-based expert system that translates SN-specific operational contacts into high-level data requirements for the ground segment of the network. We then exercise the expert system in order to derive the requirements that future exploration activities will impose on the SN. Finally quantify the impact of real-time data delivery services across NASAs ground segment by computing the wide-area network cost for different levels of data timeliness.
Ligand-enhanced reduction of perchlorate in water with heterogeneous Re-Pd/C catalysts.

New bimetallic heterogeneous catalysts for the reduction of perchlorate in water with dihydrogen have been prepared in two ways: (1) by impregnating 5 wt % Pd on activated carbon powder with one of the complexes trans-[ReO2(py-X)4]+ (py-X = 4-substituted pyridine; X = H, Me, OMe, NMe2) or (2) by adsorbing perrhenate onto the Pd/C powder in the presence of the pyridine ligand under a hydrogen atmosphere. Both sets of catalysts are highly active at pH 2.7−3.0 (HCl), with observed rates increasing with varying X in the order H < Me < OMe < NMe2, which supports a rate-determining oxygen atom transfer reaction involving the Re(V) centers. However, the materials prepared by method (1) show evidence of facile formation of perrhenate from handling under ambient conditions. A system prepared by method (2) with 2 equiv of dimethylaminopyridine per Re is especially active and stable up to pH 4.5.
Specific anti-EL4-lymphoma immunity in mice cured 2 years earlier with doxorubicin and interleukin-2

This laboratory has reported the conditions for an effective, non-toxic, chemoimmunotherapy utilizing doxorubicin in combination with prolonged administration of interleukin-2 and the identification of the critical role of activated CD8+ T cells in the therapeutic effect. Mice (C57BL/6) cured in those studies have been followed for the remainder of their life spans. These mice, approximately 2 months of age when initially inoculated with syngeneic EL4 lymphoma, survived for more than 2 years, the normal life span of C57BL/6 mice. Mice 4 months old reinoculated with the EL4 cells all survived. At about 1 year of age mice were sacrificed and the ability of their thymocytes and splenocytes to develop specific CD8+ anti-EL4 activity was as high as it had been at the time of tumor rejection. At about 2 years of age EL4 was reimplanted into mice; all of them survived. These surviving mice, at 2 years 2 months of age, as well as a group of 2-year-old mice not rechallenged, were killed and functional antitumor activity and phenotype characteristics of various lymphocyte populations were determined in comparison to those of young and age-matched control mice. The phenotyping of the lymphocytes from the cured mice indicated very notable differences in subset distribution and increased CD44 expression. Functionally they developed high levels of anti-EL4 activity, which was ablated by combined treatment with monoclonal antibodies against CD8 and CD44, indicating the role of memory cells. Consistent with cells from aged mice, these same cell populations had a very reduced allogeneic responsiveness. It appears that cured mice have developed an immune memory specific for EL4.
Multi-Objective Design Optimization of a Shape Memory Alloy Actuated Robotic Catheter

In this paper, we present a method for optimizing the design of a shape memory alloy (SMA) actuated robotic catheter. The robotic catheter is designed for use in endocardial ablation procedures, where “trackability” (bending flexibility) and “pushability” are desirable but conflicting catheter traits, leading to a multi-objective optimization problem. The catheter uses SMA tendons for internal actuation, which create a bending moment about a central structure. The design of SMA actuators is often non-intuitive and complicated due to the material’s hysteretic dependence on stress and temperature. The modeling and design difficulties increase when considering antagonistic SMA actuation, which is the case for the robotic catheter. The catheter is optimized using a genetic algorithm coupled with COMSOL Multiphysics Modeling and Simulation software. The objective functions are formulated in order to improve bending flexibility and pushability. Bending flexibility is quantified by radius of curvature. Pushability is a more subjective characteristic that depends on axial stiffness and friction, but for optimization purposes, it is quantified using axial stiffness and the surface area of the catheter. Several design variables that affect the catheter behavior are considered; these include the SMA tendon diameter and its pre-strain, the offset of the SMA tendon from the neutral axis of the central structure, and the central structure’s diameter and elastic modulus.© 2011 ASME
Urban crisis: The genealogy of a concept

The term ‘urban crisis’ emerged in the USA in the 1950s. Ever since the term came into popular use, it has been mobilised to advance a range of political and economic interests. Utilising a genealogical approach, this article traces the evolution, uses and abuses of the concept. It suggests that the various meanings attached to the term are rooted in two overarching frameworks. While one finds the origins of urban crisis in structural, primarily material, forces, the other sees the crisis as grounded in culture and immorality. The article argues that the concept was deployed in the 1950s and 1960s to justify government intervention of various sorts to stimulate economic growth. However, it finds the fiscal crises of the 1970s gave rise to a dominant understanding of urban crisis that promoted the spread of urban neoliberalism.
329 EFFECTS OF A 12-WEEK RISK FACTOR REDUCTION PROGRAM IN OVERWEIGHT CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH METABOLIC SYNDROME.

Background Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a recognized risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular disease in adults and occurs in up to 29% of US obese children and adolescents. Although the long-term consequences of the MS in childhood are unknown, early intervention to promote healthy changes in lifestyle may have a beneficial effect in the factors used a diagnostic criteria of MS. Objectives To assess the effect of a 12-week medically supervised program of nutritional counseling and exercise on each diagnostic criterion of MS in a group of overweight children with this diagnosis. Methods This study included 31 children and adolescents, with body mass index (BMI) ≥ 95th percentile, who met the diagnostic criteria for MS as defined by NANHES III. The difference in the mean value of each diagnostic criterion was analyzed using paired t -test. Results There were 12 females and 19 males with a mean age of 11.4 years (range: 8-15 years), and a mean BMI Z-score of 2.33 ± 0.33. The ethnic composition was Hispanic: 74%, Caucasian: 16% and other races: 10%. Comparison of mean values is shown in the table below. Conclusion A 12-week intervention program to encourage healthy nutritional and exercise patterns in this group of overweight children and adolescents with MS was associated with significant improvement in the mean values of triglycerides and HDL cholesterol levels.
Investigation on pregnant women infected with HIV/AIDS in some regions of Xinjiang and analysis of influencing factors

Objective To investigate HIV/AIDS infection status and high risk behavior of pregnant women in some regions of Xinjiang.Methods The pregnant women,who went to medical institutions for prenatal examination from June 1 to July 31,2010,were selected to carry out questionnaire survey and laboratory test.Results There were 4 235 eligible women in the study.4 187(98.9%) valid questionnaires were retrieved.Among them 11 womenm(0.26%) was HIV positive.4 041 women(96.5%) got the syphilis RPR test,10(0.24%) of them were positive.4 041(96.51%) got HCV ELISA test,with 12(0.30%) person of the positive.The awareness rate of HIV/AIDS related knowledge of the pregnant women was only 40.27%(1 686/4 187).Conclusions The infection rate of HIV of minority pregnant women is higher than that of Han pregnant women.The women with spouse of drug users and HIV infection have higher infection rate of HIV.Those pregnant women with syphilis and HCV can easily infect with HIV.The awareness rate of HIV/AIDS knowledge of pregnant women is low.
TU‐H‐BRC‐08: Use and Validation of Flexible 3D Printed Tissue Compensators for Post‐Mastectomy Radiation Therapy

Purpose: Patient-specific tissue equivalent compensators can be used for post-mastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT) to achieve homogenous dose distributions with single-field treatments. However, current fabrication methods are time consuming and expensive. 3D-printing technology could overcome these limitations. The purposes of this study were to [1] evaluate materials for 3D-printed compensators [2] design and print a compensator to achieve a uniform thickness to a clinical target volume (CTV), and [3] demonstrate that a single-field electron compensator plan is a clinically feasible treatment option for PMRT. Methods: Blocks were printed with three materials; print accuracy, density, Hounsfield units (HU), and percent depth doses (PDD) were evaluated. For a CT scan of an anthropomorphic phantom, we used a ray-tracing method to design a compensator that achieved uniform thickness from compensator surface to CTV. The compensator was printed with flexible tissue equivalent material whose physical and radiological properties were most similar to soft tissue. A single-field electron compensator plan was designed and compared with two standard-of-care techniques. The compensator plan was validated with thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) measurements. Results: We identified an appropriate material for 3D-printed compensators that had high print accuracy (99.6%) and was similar to soft tissue; density was 1.04, HU was - 45 ± 43, and PDD curves agreed with clinical curves within 3 mm. We designed and printed a compensator that conformed well to the phantom surface and created a uniform thickness to the CTV. In-house fabrication was simple and inexpensive (<$75). Compared with the two standard plans, the compensator plan resulted in overall more homogeneous dose distributions and performed similarly in terms of lung/heart doses and 90% isodose coverage of the CTV. TLD measurements agreed well with planned doses (within 5 %). Conclusions: We have demonstrated that 3D-printed compensators make single-field electron therapy a clinically feasible treatment option for PMRT.
Computational Aeroacoustics: Advanced Numerical Boundary Treatments

High-quality boundary conditions are an essential part of computational aeroacoustics (CAA). Because a computational domain is necessarily finite in size, numerical boundary conditions play several diverse roles in numerical simulation. First and foremost, they must assist any outgoing disturbances to leave the computational domain with little or no reflection. The alternative is to use a perfectly absorbing layer as a numerical boundary treatment. Such a layer absorbs all outgoing disturbances without reflection as in the case of an anechoic chamber. In addition, if the problem to be simulated involves incoming disturbances, then these disturbances must be generated by the boundary conditions prescribed at the outer boundary of the computational domain. Furthermore, if there are flows that are originated from outside the computational domain, they must be reproduced by the boundary treatment as well. In this chapter, methods to construct numerical boundary conditions that perform these various functions are discussed. Boundaries with Incoming Disturbances In many aeroacoustics problems, there are disturbances that enter the computational domain through the outer boundary. For example, in computing the scattering characteristics of an object, acoustic waves must be allowed to pass through the boundary of a computational domain in a specified direction and intensity. The scattering phenomenon produces scattered waves. These waves are radiated in all directions. They propagate to the far field as outgoing waves through the boundary of the computational domain. In this case, the boundary condition of the computational domain must take on the responsibility of generating the incoming sound and, at the same time, they also serve as radiation boundary conditions for the scattered waves. To handle the dual role, a split-variable method has been developed. The essence of this method is discussed below.
The teaching of pragmatics by native and nonnative language teachers: What they know and what they report doing

The paper focuses on how nonnative teachers of a target language (NNTs) deal with pragmatics in their classes. It starts with a discussion of what pragmatics entails. Next, issues relating to the teaching of pragmatics are identified, such as the language background of the teacher, comparisons between second- (L2) and foreign-language (FL) instruction, and the potential role of digital media and other means in providing models for pragmatic behavior. Then, an international survey is presented which probed into the experiences of NNTs of various languages while teaching the pragmatics of their language of instruction. A total of 113 teachers were asked to indicate what they taught with regard to pragmatics, 30 native-language teachers (NTs) and 83 NNTs. They were also asked to report on their experience as teachers of L2 and FL pragmatics (e.g., if they encountered classroom moments when they did not feel like an authority on some aspect of pragmatics, what they did about it). Since pragmatics is a meeting of language and culture, the teacher respondents were asked to assess their knowledge regarding pragmalinguistics (i.e., the language forms) and sociopragmatics (sociocultural knowledge). In addition, they were asked to give their opinion regarding similarities and differences between the teaching of FL as opposed to L2 pragmatics, as this traditional dichotomy gives way to a more hybrid reality in an increasingly globalized world. Similarly, they were asked about their methods for teaching pragmatics (e.g., their use of digital media and their handling of dialect differences). Finally, they were asked to suggest areas in which they would like to see research conducted that would inform the teaching of pragmatics. The paper reports the findings from the study, including statistical differences in reported teaching of criticism, sarcasm, and cursing, as well as in the use of digital media and in having students gather data on pragmatics.
Randomized Work Stealing for Large Scale Soft Real-Time Systems

Recent years have witnessed the convergence of two important trends in real-time systems: growing computational demand of applications and the adoption of processors with more cores. As real-time applications now need to exploit parallelism to meet their real-time requirements, they face a new challenge of scaling up computations on a large number of cores. Randomized work stealing has been adopted as a highly scalable scheduling approach for general-purpose computing. In work stealing, each core steals work from a randomly chosen core in a decentralized manner. Compared to centralized greedy schedulers, work stealing may seem unsuitable for real-time computing due to the non-predictable nature of random stealing. Surprisingly, our experiments with benchmark programs found that random work stealing (in Cilk Plus) delivers tighter distributions in task execution times than a centralized greedy scheduler (in GNU OpenMP).To support scalable soft real-time computing, we develop Real-Time Work-Stealing platform (RTWS), a real-time extension to the widely used Cilk Plus concurrency platform. RTWS employs federated scheduling to allocate cores to multiple parallel real-time tasks offline, while leveraging the work stealing scheduler to schedule each task on its dedicated cores online. RTWS supports parallel programs written in Cilk Plus and requires only task parameters that can be readily measured using existing Cilk Plus tools. Experimental results show that RTWS outperforms Real-Time OpenMP in term of deadline miss ratio, relative response time and resource efficiency on a 32-core system.
Wearing an Inflatable Vest Alters Muscle Activation and Trunk Angle While Paddling a Surfboard

Low back pain is a commonly reported problem among recreational surfers. Some individuals report that wearing a vest with an inflatable bladder that alters trunk angle may help to alleviate pain. The purpose of this study was to determine whether such a vest has an effect on muscle activation and extension of the lower back. Twelve recreational surfers completed 12 paddling trials at 1.1 m/s in a swim flume on both a shortboard and a longboard on two separate days. Three conditions of no vest, vest uninflated, and vest inflated were presented to participants in random order. Surface EMG and trunk angle were acquired via wireless sensors placed over the right erector spinae, mid-trapezius, upper trapezius, and latissimus dorsi. Wearing the inflated vest affected muscle activation: erector spinae and mid-trapezius demonstrated a significant decrease in activation relative to wearing no vest (12 and 18% respectively, p<0.05). Trunk extension was also significantly reduced when the vest was inflated (18% redu...
Exosomes and Homeostatic Synaptic Plasticity Are Linked to Each other and to Huntington's, Parkinson's, and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases by Database-Enabled Analyses of Comprehensively Curated Datasets

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a progressive and autosomal dominant neurodegeneration caused by CAG expansion in the huntingtin gene (HTT), but the pathophysiological mechanism of mutant HTT (mHTT) remains unclear. To study HD using systems biological methodologies on all published data, we undertook the first comprehensive curation of two key PubMed HD datasets: perturbation genes that impact mHTT-driven endpoints and therefore are putatively linked causally to pathogenic mechanisms, and the protein interactome of HTT that reflects its biology. We perused PubMed articles containing co-citation of gene IDs and MeSH terms of interest to generate mechanistic gene sets for iterative enrichment analyses and rank ordering. The HD Perturbation database of 1,218 genes highly overlaps the HTT Interactome of 1,619 genes, suggesting links between normal HTT biology and mHTT pathology. These two HD datasets are enriched for protein networks of key genes underlying two mechanisms not previously implicated in HD nor in each other: exosome synaptic functions and homeostatic synaptic plasticity. Moreover, proteins, possibly including HTT, and miRNA detected in exosomes from a wide variety of sources also highly overlap the HD datasets, suggesting both mechanistic and biomarker links. Finally, the HTT Interactome highly intersects protein networks of pathogenic genes underlying Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and eight non-HD polyglutamine diseases, ALS and spinal muscular atrophy. These protein networks in turn highly overlap the exosome and homeostatic synaptic plasticity gene sets. Thus, we hypothesize that HTT and other neurodegeneration pathogenic genes form a large interlocking protein network involved in exosome and homeostatic synaptic functions, particularly where the two mechanisms intersect. Mutant pathogenic proteins cause dysfunctions at distinct points in this network, each altering the two mechanisms in specific fashion that contributes to distinct disease pathologies, depending on the gene mutation and the cellular and biological context. This protein network is rich with drug targets, and exosomes may provide disease biomarkers, thus enabling drug discovery. All the curated datasets are made available for other investigators. Elucidating the roles of pathogenic neurodegeneration genes in exosome and homeostatic synaptic functions may provide a unifying framework for the age-dependent, progressive and tissue selective nature of multiple neurodegenerative diseases.
Prediction of Multiple Aspects of the Community College Experience

Intellective and nonintellective predictors and criteria, including the new CEEB Comparative Guidance and Placement (CGP) battery, were studied among 687 community college students. While college g...
Informative path planning under temporal logic constraints with performance guarantees

In this work we consider an agent trying to maximize a submodular reward function while moving in a graph environment. Such reward functions can be used to capture a variety of crucial sensing objectives in robotics including, but not limited to, mutual information and entropy. Furthermore, the agent must satisfy a mission specified by temporal logic constraints, which can encode many rich and complex missions such as “visit regions A or B, then visit C, infinitely often. Never visit D before visiting C.” We present an algorithm to maximize a submodular reward function under these constraints and provide an approximation for the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results are validated via simulation.
Subarray hybrid precoding for massive MIMO capacity maximization

An effective solution for reducing complexity and power consumption of massive MIMO systems is hybrid beam-forming (HB) using analog precoding at RF and digital precoding at the baseband. Researchers have studied HB, assuming optimal antenna implementation, ideal environment, and full rank effective channel. However, the rank of the effective channel matrix could be deficient due to implementation limitations and other factors, which would degrade the performance of the system. The objective of this study is to maintain a high rank effective channel with independent beams sending data streams to the receiver. When the weights of the RF beamformer are properly selected, the structure of the multipath propagation channel will be exploited by the transmitted beams, which maximize the system capacity. This paper presents a new set of solutions for HB that performs nearly as a fully digital beamformer in terms of MIMO multiplexing gains.
Mixed integer linear programming formulation for chance constrained mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints

This paper gives a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation for a bi-level mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) considering chance constraints. The particular MPEC problem relates to a power producer's bidding strategy: maximize its total benefit through determining bidding price and bidding power output while considering an electricity pool's operation and guessing the rival producer's bidding price. The entire decision-making process can be described by a bi-level optimization problem. The contribution of our paper is the MILP formulation of this problem. First, the lower-level pool operation problem is replaced by Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) optimality condition, which is further converted to an MILP formulation except a bilinear item in the objective function. Secondly, duality theory is implemented to replace the bilinear item by linear items. Finally, two types of chance constraints are examined and modeled in MILP formulation. With the MILP formulation, the entire MPEC problem considering randomness in price guessing can be solved using off-shelf MIP solvers, e.g., Gurobi. An example is given to illustrate the formulation and show the case study results.
The association of comorbid depression with mortality and amputation in veterans with peripheral artery disease.

Abstract Objective Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is an increasing health concern with rising incidence globally. Previous studies have shown an association between PAD incidence and depression. The objective of the study was to determine the association of comorbid depression with PAD outcomes (amputation and all-cause mortality rates) in veterans. Methods An observational retrospective cohort of 155,647 patients with incident PAD (2003-2014) from nationwide U.S. Veterans Health Administration hospitals was conducted using the national Veterans Affairs Corporate Data Warehouse. Depression was measured using concurrent International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision diagnosis codes 6 months before or after PAD diagnosis. The main outcomes were incident major amputation and all-cause mortality. Crude associations were assessed with Kaplan-Meier plots. The effects of depression adjusted for covariates were analyzed using Cox proportional hazards models. Results Depression was present in 16% of the cohort, with the occurrence of 9517 amputations and 63,287 deaths (median follow-up, 5.9 years). Unadjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of comorbid depression for amputations and all-cause mortality were 1.32 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.25-1.39) and 1.02 (95% CI, 0.99-1.04), respectively. After adjustment for covariates in Cox regression models, a diagnosis of comorbid depression at the time of PAD diagnosis was associated with a 13% higher amputation (HR, 1.13; 95% CI, 1.07-1.19) and 17% higher mortality (HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.14-1.20) risk compared with patients with no depression. On stratification by use of antidepressants, depressed patients not taking antidepressants had a 42% higher risk of amputation (HR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.27-1.58) compared with those without depression. Patients taking antidepressants for depression still had increased risk of amputation but only 10% higher compared with those without depression (HR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.03-1.17). Interestingly, patients taking antidepressants for other indications also had a higher risk of amputation compared with those not having depression or not taking antidepressants (HR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.03-1.14). Having any diagnosis of depression or the need for antidepressants increased the mortality risk by 18% to 25% in the PAD cohort compared with those without depression and not taking antidepressants for any other indication. Conclusions PAD patients with comorbid depression have a significantly higher risk of amputation and mortality than PAD patients without depression. Furthermore, untreated depression was associated with an increased amputation risk in the PAD population, more so than depression or other mental illness being treated by antidepressants. The underlying mechanisms for causality, if any, remain to be determined. The association of antidepressant treatment use with amputation risk should prompt further investigations into possible mechanistic links between untreated depression and vascular dysfunction.
Triple Tobacco Screen: Opportunity to Help Families Become Smokefree

Background American Academy of Pediatrics policy recommends that pediatricians document environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure of a child at every visit. The extent to which pediatricians adhere to this policy, however, is unknown. Purpose The goal of the study was to examine the extent to which pediatricians screen parents for tobacco use and home- and car-related smoking rules. Further, the potential association between factors associated with pediatrician inquiry into parental tobacco use and rules is examined. Methods Post-visit exit interviews were conducted in ten pediatric practices between June 2009 and March 2011 with parents whose children had been seen by a healthcare provider. Parents were considered to have been given the “triple tobacco screen” if they reported being asked by a pediatric healthcare provider about their smoking behavior, smokefree home rules, and smokefree car rules. Bivariate analysis and multivariable logistic regression was done to explore factors associated with parents being given any component of the triple tobacco screening. Data were analyzed between March 2012 and February 2013. Results Of 9145 parents interviewed, 20% of the parents reported being asked at least one question from the triple tobacco screen, and only 9% reported being asked all three questions. Overall, 17% of parents reported being asked about their smoking status, 16% about smokefree home rules, and 11% about smokefree car rules. Few smoking parents (23%) and fewer nonsmoking parents (19%) were screened about their tobacco use and behavior. Conclusions Pediatricians infrequently addressed ETS exposure of children among parents who do and do not smoke. Substantial missed opportunities may exist to counsel smokers and reduce ETS exposure of children in the most common exposure locations—the home and car.
PANEL DISCUSSION OF INVITED PAPERS ON TEACHING SERVICE COURSES AND SHORT COURSES IN STATISTICS

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the views of L. H. Koopmans, Watts, and Folks regarding teaching service courses. Koopmans' and Watts' views are based on their instructional strategies and statistical merits separately in that order. Folks' paper does not lend itself to such a dichotomy and, thus, presents his view on the advantages, disadvantages, and appraisals of service courses. While Koopmans has worked out the subject matter of his introductory statistics course with great care, he has paid little attention to the process of instruction—the modes and strategies of teaching. Watts, in his approach, has failed to mention the constraints that will affect the final instructional design and the resources available to teach the tasks. Folks, in his view, has focused on impressions and opinions rather than clients' needs and rationale for his layout of the service courses.
Postsocialism and the Afterlives of Revolution: Impossible Spaces of Dissent

McElroy and Atanasoski address postsocialism as an emerging theoretical concept that allows for a novel perspective on the contestations of liberalism and fascism. Focusing on the politics of protest and public space in Romania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, they assess how and why the Cold War is being newly interpellated in the contemporary moment. Romania’s “Light Revolution” and Macedonia’s “Colorful Revolution” protests provide apt case studies for how postsocialist liberalism takes shape against the backdrop of Cold War 2.0, in which socialism and fascism are conflated as illiberal aberrations to be overcome. Rather than fall into stereotypical invocations of Eastern Europe as a space from which to theorize totalitarianism, Atanasoski and McElroy ask what Eastern European postsocialist politics can teach us about the perils of liberalism. They conclude that the reorganization of public space undergirds the conditions of forgetting that enable postsocialist disaster capitalism to flourish, which, as they contend, speaks not just about Eastern European specificity, but more broadly about the contradictions of Euro-American liberalism made apparent in its recent crises (from Brexit to the election of Donald Trump).
Fault-tolerance, fast and slow: exploiting failure asynchrony in distributed systems

We introduce situation-aware updates and crash recovery (SAUCR), a new approach to performing replicated data updates in a distributed system. SAUCR adapts the update protocol to the current situation: with many nodes up, SAUCR buffers updates in memory; when failures arise, SAUCR flushes updates to disk. This situation-awareness enables SAUCR to achieve high performance while offering strong durability and availability guarantees. We implement a prototype of SAUCR in ZooKeeper. Through rigorous crash testing, we demonstrate that SAUCR significantly improves durability and availability compared to systems that always write only to memory. We also show that SAUCR's reliability improvements come at little or no cost: SAUCR's overheads are within 0%-9% of a purely memory-based system.
Detection and Prevalence of Babesia spp. in American Black Bears (Ursus americanus) from Eastern and Western North Carolina, USA

Blood samples collected from American black bears (Ursus americanus) in eastern and western North Carolina, US, were analyzed for piroplasms. Piroplasmids were detected in 17% (23/132) of the animals surveyed. We detected a Babesia spp. previously identified in North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) and a maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus); prevalence was 22% (14/64) and 13% (9/68) in the mountain and coastal black bear populations, respectively. The presence of the same Babesia species in black bears, raccoons, and a maned wolf suggests piroplasms may not be host specific.
Every Marathon Starts with the First Mile: Early Successes in Broadening Participation in K-12 CS

Broadening participation in K-12 CS education at a statewide level is a challenge that requires substantial structural changes that need to be addressed across the K-12 system. At the same time, it is vital to find early successes in order to build both political and financial support for broadening participation in computing (BPC) efforts. Leadership teams from Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance states are responding to these two apparently conflicting drivers as they develop goals and metrics that measure outcomes that are both realistic in the short term and that will lead to long-term success. This lightening talk will discuss a framework for goal development used by Texas that addresses four interdependent components of the K-12 CS education system: capacity, access, participation, and equity. Focusing on measurable outcomes for each of these components can both lead to early "wins" that are meaningful and easily communicated to stakeholders and that lay the foundation for substantive changes in CS engagement and success for students from traditionally underrepresented groups including women, students of color, and students of low socio-economic status.
Cell biology of antigen processing and presentation to major histocompatibility complex class I molecule-restricted T lymphocytes.

Publisher Summary This chapter presents an overview of T cell recognition and function. Complex organisms coevolved with a wide variety of microorganisms—viruses, bacteria, and simple eukaryotes—that reside within the cells or extracellular fluids of the host. In some cases, hosts and parasites mutually benefit from the relationship. In other cases, parasites are purely destructive. With few exceptions, T cells expressing CD4 recognize antigens in conjunction with class II molecules encoded by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), whereas those expressing CD8 recognize antigen in conjunction with MHC class I molecules. This targeting is achieved by the direct interaction of CD4 and CD8 molecules with class II and I MHC molecules, respectively, bearing the antigenic determinants recognized by the T cell antigen receptor. The chapter outlines the history of the discovery of MHC restriction. The discovery of the MHC class I-restricted nature of TCD8+ recognition of virus-infected cells caused great excitement because it represented the first function to be ascribed to MHC class I gene products since transplantation rejection. Of the many clever models proposed to account for the phenomenon of MHC restriction, most proposed that the viral antigens recognized by TCD8+ were membrane glycoproteins. All of the viruses used in the initial studies were membrane viruses that expressed such proteins as part of their infectious cycles.
M. K. Gandhi, N. K. Bose, and Bengali Village Society:

AbstractN. K. Bose, a close disciple of Gandhi, was the author’s Indian mentor in anthropology and with respect to Gandhi’s social thought as well. Gandhi visualised a village society integrated by...
The Absence of Universally-Conserved Protein-coding Genes

Public access to thousands of completely sequenced and annotated genomes provides a great opportunity to address the relationships of different organisms, at the molecular level and on a genome-wide scale. Via comparing the phylogenetic profiles of all protein-coding genes in 317 model species described in the OrthoInspector3.0 database, we found that approximately 29.8% of the total protein-coding genes were orphan genes (genes unique to a specific species) while
Cutaneous lewisite exposure causes acute lung injury

Lewisite is a strong vesicating and chemical warfare agent. Because of the rapid transdermal absorption, cutaneous exposure to lewisite can also elicit severe systemic injury. Lewisite (2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 mg/kg) was applied to the skin of Ptch1+/- /SKH-1 mice and acute lung injury (ALI) was assessed after 24 hours. Arterial blood gas measurements showed hypercapnia and hypoxemia in the lewisite-exposed group. Histological evaluation of lung tissue revealed increased levels of proinflammatory neutrophils and a dose-dependent increase in structural changes indicative of injury. Increased inflammation was also confirmed by altered expression of cytokines, including increased IL-33, and a dose-dependent elevation of CXCL1, CXCL5, and GCSF was observed in the lung tissue. In the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of lewisite-exposed animals, there was a significant increase in HMGB1, a damage-associated molecular pattern molecule, as well as elevated CXCL1 and CXCL5, which coincided with an influx of neutrophils to the lungs. Complete blood cell analysis revealed eosinophilia and altered neutrophil-lymphocyte ratios as a consequence of lewisite exposure. Mean platelet volume and RBC distribution width, which are predictors of lung injury, were also increased in the lewisite group. These data demonstrate that cutaneous lewisite exposure causes ALI and may contribute to mortality in exposed populations.
Implementing Teledermatology for Rural Veterans: An Evaluation Using the RE-AIM Framework.

Introduction: Few systematic evaluations of implementing teledermatology programs in large health care systems exist. We conducted a longitudinal evaluation of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) initiative to expand asynchronous consultative teledermatology services for rural veterans. Methods: The reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance framework guided the evaluation, which included analysis of quantitative VA administrative data as well as an online survey completed by participating facilities. The first 2 years of the program were compared with the year before the start of funding. Results: Sixteen hub facilities expanded teledermatology's reach over the 2-year period, increasing the number of referral spoke sites, unique patients served, and teledermatology encounters. Effectiveness was reflected as teledermatology constituted an increasing fraction of dermatology activity and served more remotely located patients. Adoption through defined stages of implementation progressed as facilities engaged in a variety of strategies to enhance teledermatology implementation, and facilitators and barriers were identified. Program maintenance was assessed by Program Sustainability Index scores, which reflected the importance of executive support, and ongoing concerns about staffing and longitudinal funding. Discussion: Enabling hubs to create solutions that best fit their needs and culture likely increased reach and effectiveness. Important facilitators included organizational leadership and encouraging communication between stakeholders before and during the intervention. Conclusions: A systematic analysis of teledermatology implementation to serve rural sites in VA documented a high degree of implementation and sustainability as well as areas for improvement.