cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Response to pembrolizumab in patients with mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) colorectal cancer (CRC).

3558Background: Anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) antibodies have been shown to be effective in the treatment of dMMR CRC. We describe an updated analysis from a cohort of 19 patients (pts) with dMMR ...
Towards training an agent in augmented reality world with reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning (RL) helps an agent to learn an optimal path within a specific environment while maximizing its performance. Reinforcement learning (RL) plays a crucial role on training an agent to accomplish a specific job in an environment. To train an agent an optimal policy, the robot must go through intensive training which is not cost-effective in the real-world. A cost-effective solution is required for training an agent by using a virtual environment so that the agent learns an optimal policy, which can be used in virtual as well as real environment for reaching the goal state. In this paper, a new method is purposed to train a physical robot to evade mix of physical and virtual obstacles to reach a desired goal state using optimal policy obtained by training the robot in an augmented reality (AR) world with one of the active reinforcement learning (RL) techniques, known as Q-learning.
Landscape features determining the occurrence of Rhagoletis mendax (Diptera: Tephritidae) flies in blueberries

Abstract Non-crop areas surrounding farms can support pest populations if they provide overwintering habitats or alternative hosts for them to feed and/or mate. Here we tested the hypothesis that a native North American pest of highbush blueberry, the blueberry maggot fly (Rhagoletis mendax Curran) is more abundant near forest habitats. For this, we monitored R. mendax adult occurrence using a trapping network across multiple farms and years (2009–2012) in New Jersey (USA), and then performed geospatial analysis on these data to determine whether traps in blueberry fields near forest habitats experience higher R. mendax adult captures than others. In addition, we conducted mark-release-recapture studies to determine the distance R. mendax flies can move into blueberry fields. Our results reveal that proximity to forest habitats positively affects R. mendax adult occurrence on traps. However, the type of forest was critical such that presence of flies on traps declined with increasing distance from upland forest while distance from wetland forest had no effect. We also showed that R. mendax flies can disperse up to 76 m into a blueberry field from adjacent wooded habitat within 48 h. In sum, our study identified landscape features important for R. mendax occurrence in blueberry fields, which can improve sampling methods and the development of precision-based pest management programs. Based on our findings, monitoring efforts and insecticide applications for R. mendax should be targeted mainly to fields close to upland forest and directed to the field borders within distances of less than 80 m from field edges.
The Observed Longitudinal Relationship between Future Orientation and Substance Use Among a Cohort of Youth with Serious Criminal Offenses.

Background: Future orientation (FO), an essential construct in youth development, encompassing goals, expectations for life, and ability to plan for the future. This study uses a multidimensional m...
STUDIES IN EXPERIMENTAL EXTRACORPOREAL THROMBOSIS : V. INFLUENCE OF CERTAIN CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES ON EXTRACORPOREAL THROMBOSIS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE EFFICACY OF A COMBINATION OF HEPARIN AND MAGNESIUM SULFATE.

1. Distilled water dialyzes through the collodion tube and causes hemolysis. Clotting of the hemolyzed blood in the collodion tube occurs later. 2. Bile salts accelerate the appearance and development of white thrombi in the heparinized animal. The masses of white thrombi are very loose, soft, fragile and easily broken into clumps of platelets. They are poor in fibrin or the fibrin is abnormal, since they have less retractility than those obtained from the use of physiologic sodium chloride solution or calcium chloride or serum. Despite the increase in number and size of white thrombi, normal clotting does not occur. 3. When the collodion tube is surrounded by 1 or 2 per cent d-glucose solution, tiny and numerous white thrombi appear as radiating figures. The masses of white thrombi are rather loose and fragile. The clotting time of the heparinized blood does not appear to be shortened. 4. When a 1 to 2 per cent solution of calcium chloride is used as the dialyzing fluid outside the collodion tube, or when it is injected into the circulation, the formation of white thrombi is accelerated. They grow very rapidly. In spite of the action of heparin, the white thrombi formed are not so fragile as when bile salts are placed outside of the collodion tube. Fibrin seems to form easily. Obstruction of venous cannula takes place speedily and if the clots in the cannula are not removed, the white thrombi in the collodion tube remain small and become red by sedimentation of red cells. 5. Intravenous use of 10 per cent solution of magnesium sulfate without heparin retards the coagulation of circulating blood and permits the blood to flow through the extracorporeal loop from three to four times as long as normal. The formation of white thrombi, as well as red, is retarded. Magnesium sulfate (1 per cent) in physiologic sodium chloride solution placed outside the collodion tube markedly retards the formation of white and red thrombi in the heparinized animal. Magnesium sulfate (10 per cent), 50 mg. for each kilo of body weight each hour, administered intravascularly in the heparinized animal definitely prevents the first stages of thrombosis, and consequently prevents clotting. 6. It is possible by the combined use of adequate amounts of magnesium sulfate and of heparin intravenously to prevent all stages of thrombus formation for from 1 to 3 hours.
The Future of Footwear Design & Lasts: Do We Now Really Need Them?

The term last comes from the Old English, “laest,” which means barefoot. The last is an important tool used in the footwear making process. It defines the 3D footwear shape, influencing fit, feel, and comfort. It helps stabilize components during the assembly process. Despite the importance of well-fitting footwear, more than 43 million Americans experience foot pain due to poorly fitting shoes. So, if the footwear last is an important tool for making shoes, and it is a depiction of the barefoot, then something is not adding-up. Is there an opportunity to revolutionize a process that was created 1000’s of years ago? This position paper will review last creation, methods of make, and insights from industry experts, to suggest criteria for the development of a new athletic footwear making process.
The relationship of hemoglobin synthesis to erythroid colony and burst formation.

We have demonstrated that the cyclohexanone method for the extraction of hematin can be used to measure hemoglobin synthesis induced by erythropoietin (epo) in mouse bone marrow cells cultured in medium containing methyl cellulose. The time course of hemoglobin synthesis by mouse marrow cells showed two effects due to epo: an increase in hemoglobin synthesis at day 2, which corresponded to the formation of small erythroid colonies resulting from the CFU-E (colony-forming unit, erythroid), and a very large increase in hemoglobin synthesis, which was maximal at days 7–8 and corresponded to the formation of large erythroid colonies (bursts) resulting from the BFU-E (burst-forming unit, erythroid). The epo dose-response curves for CFU-E colony counts and day-2 hemoglobin synthesis were similar, and the cell-number- response curves for these two paramaters were parallel. The epo dose- response curve for BFU-E colony counts reached a plateau at an epo concentration between 3 and 5 units/ml, whereas the dose-response curve for 6–8-day hemoglobin synthesis did not reach a plateau even at an epo dose of 10 units/ml.
A New Print Economy

As companies were created to sell pet food and toys online via the Internet, along with many other companies that offered new services such as online bartering of goods, money (in the form of venture capital and initial public offerings), particularly in the United States equity market, flowed into these businesses. The media (newspaper, magazines, and television) began touting a new economy that did not rely on “bricks and mortar” to operate but relied on business to customer (B2C) or business to business (B2B) relationships. Some of these new businesses prospered, some very successfully, such as online booksellers. Others flourished until capital, supplied by venture capitalists and the equity markets, dried up, and many of these B2C and B2B companies found they could no longer support the cash flow required to fund their business models. Simply put, they spent more money than they made and, given how they made money, it was unlikely this scenario would change.
Development of a Worldwide Currency: Is it Feasible?

Transactions are the key to success in any economy. Whether it is buying or selling, transactions have been occurring since the beginning of human existence and an entity needs to transact in order to thrive. What once was a localized event between two individuals has now grown to include many parties across a global environment. This global evolution however does not come without its complications. Multiple monetary systems exist between nations that make transacting difficult. There have; however, been recent developments in unifying countries under one currency as seen in the European Union with the Euro. In order to better understand the future of international business it is necessary to explore the origins of transactions, the development of money and monetary exchange, the problems with multiple currencies, and developments of unified currencies. By examining these issues the question of global currency feasibility can be answered.
Torts in Three Dimensions: Lessons from Birth

This article moves beyond the sterile debate about whether torts is really concerned with promoting efficiency or corrective justice, and instead establishes a wholly new, three-dimensional paradigm. It explains how the growth of industrialization during the nineteenth century exposed as chaotic the individuation of cases under the original law of trespass. Capitalism required instead a more rational legal structure so as to enable entrepreneurs to gauge their own potential exposure to liability for the injuries that their activities caused. Perhaps counter-intuitively, the article also shows how the new law of torts to which capitalism thus gave birth actually expanded the range of liability to which businesses could be exposed. So we have an apparent paradox: the law of torts which had been created by capitalism seems to have worked against the interests of capital.This paradox may be resolved, however, once we appreciate that the law is not composed only of a certain substantive doctrinal content, but also of a particular form or structure. The problem with the currently dominant theories of torts is that they address the former to the almost total exclusion of the latter. A three-dimensional account – which considers both content and form over a given time – enables us to see that the development of capitalism brought forth tort law’s specific form, which is actually so pervasive as to be found not just in the United States but also in other common law – and even most civil law – jurisdictions. On the other hand, the content of the law – which is, by contrast, different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction – is fashioned through the volatile interaction of a multiplicity of forces, including public morality, religion, politics, and everyday social practices. Yet, as the analysis of this period makes clear, the form of law circumscribes the possible substantive content of tort law doctrine, so that the expansion of liability for industrial accidents as capitalism took hold was always confined within limits that the new economic system could tolerate. The new taxonomy of torts set out by Holmes in 1870 was underpinned by an understanding that entrepreneurship requires that the law set out a number of a priori, systemic rules so that individuals can calculate for themselves the benefits and risks inherent in any given activity. In particular, no business can meaningfully assess ex ante its exposure to potential liability if the law does not provide a rule to determine who, among its potential victims, could seek redress. That task was performed within the law of contracts by the doctrine of privity. It was vital that the new law of non-intentional torts developed an analogous doctrine. So the doctrine of duty of care came to the fore. Contrary to the views of the Chicago School, this article concludes by demonstrating that it is not the doctrine of breach that provides the fulcrum of the relationship between tort law and the economy, but the doctrine of duty.
Circuit-Based Models of Biomolecular System Dynamics

Methods from the field of electrical engineering have been used for the modeling and analysis of biological systems. In this work we exploit parallels between electrical and biological circuits for simulation of biomolecular processes and systems. We review the development of BioXyce, an electrical circuit-based systems biology simulation platform, and demonstrate its use in simulating intracellular biochemical pathways. We present simulation results for metabolic pathways and eukaryotic signal transduction pathways important in host immune response.
Remote Ischemic Conditioning as a Form of Hormesis

Abstract Brief episodes of ischemia in one vascular bed can protect a remote organ from a more prolonged episode of ischemia. This concept is referred to as remote ischemic conditioning. Remote ischemic preconditioning was first described in an experimental model of acute myocardial infarction in which brief coronary artery occlusions in the circumflex bed reduced the size of a myocardial infarction induced by a subsequent, more prolonged coronary artery occlusion in the left anterior descending coronary bed. Subsequent studies showed that brief episodes of limb ischemia prior to a coronary artery occlusion could reduce myocardial infarct size. Several clinical trials have now shown that brief inflations of a blood pressure cuff over the brachial artery could improve myocardial salvage and/or reduce myocardial infarct size. Some studies have now shown that remote conditioning improves long-term outcomes in patients with myocardial infarctions. Remote ischemic conditioning has not been consistently beneficial in other clinical settings, such as cardiac surgery; however, these patients are already subject to cardioprotection including use of hypothermia, cardioplegic agents, and certain anesthetic agents that may be cardioprotective. The mechanism for remote ischemic conditioning is still being investigated but may involve a humoral substance released into the venous effluent of the preconditioned organ or may involve neural reflexes.
Thirty-Day Unplanned Reintubation Following Pleurodesis: A Retrospective National Registry Analysis.

Objective To examine risk factors associated with 30-day unplanned reintubation after pleurodesis. Design A retrospective cohort study using the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program surgical outcomes registry. Setting United States hospitals participating in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. Participants The study comprised 2,358 patients who underwent video-assisted thorascopic surgery for pleurodesis from 2007 to 2016. Interventions None. Measurements and Main Results The final sample included 2,358 cases, of which 93 (3.9%) required 30-day unplanned reintubation. Cases with 30-day unplanned reintubation, compared to those without, had higher unadjusted rates of American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status (ASA PS) score ≥4 (54.8% v 27.2%), preoperative dyspnea (71% v 57%), congestive heart failure (14% v 5.4%), functional dependence (28% v 10.3%), and diabetes mellitus (29% v 17.8%) (all p Conclusion Given the dearth of population-based studies addressing risk factors of reintubation after pleurodesis, this study suggests further review of preoperative optimization, which is required to improve patient outcomes and safety.
From the associate editor-in-chief February 2019

On the cover of this issue, you should see a photograph of La Vela ("the sail"). One could imagine this structure to be an innovative ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radar. However, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, it is just part of an incomplete, moldering sports complex outside of Rome, Italy called the Citta dello Sport (City of Sport). Recently used as a film set [1], the complex was created for the 2009 World Swimming Championships, but was never completed due to cost overruns [2]. Sadly, the complex was not designed to be the world's first dual swim stadium/UHF radar. The complex plays a role as one of the sites considered in the first article in this issue, which addresses the radar cross section (RCS) calibration of a commercial X-band radar.
A failure to maintain regulated exposure: Developing an understanding of the predictors and recidivistic effects of experiencing program interruptions

At the forefront of current correctional scholarship is the reestablishment of the rehabilitative ideal and the ways in which correctional departments can influence recidivism. Of importance is the...
PWE-069 Management of pancreatic fluid collections by LAMS: large series from a tertiary referral HPB centre

Background Endoscopic transmural drainage is increasingly accepted as the first-line treatment for patients with symptomatic pancreatic fluid collections (PFC). International data has shown that in comparison to double pigtail stents Lumen Apposing Metal Stents (LAMS) are associated with higher rates of clinical success (especially in cysts with necrosis), shorter procedure times and potentially fewer adverse events. To date there has been limited data from the UK on the utility of these stents. Methods Between January 2016 - December 2018 all patients who required endoscopic drainage of a pancreatic fluid collection via EUS-guided LAMS (Hot AXIOS™ system, Boston Scientific) were included. Treatment success, length of hospital stay, adverse events, reinterventions and length of follow-up were recorded in each case. Results During the 3 year study period, 84 EUS-guided LAMS were placed on 80 patients. Median age was 52 years (Range 7–79 years). 52% (44/84) were female. Necrotic material was present in 44% (37/84) and significant portal hypertension visible on EUS in 8% (7/84). In four patients a 8 mm stent was placed, 10 mm stents were placed in thirty-five patients, a 15 mm stent in twenty-five patients and a 20 mm stent in eleven patients (in nine patients the stent size was unknown). Adverse events occurred in 11% (9/84) of cases (6 cases of failed stent deployment, 2 buried stents and one recurrent pancreatic fluid collection following stent removal) Conclusion Use of LAMSs in the management of pancreatic fluid collections was safe and effective and associated with low rates of cyst recurrence.
Intraductal sebaceous papilloma of a meibomian gland: a new entity possibly associated with the MSH6 subtype of the Muir-Torre syndrome

Abstract Over several months, a painless, multinodular, non-erythematous swelling of the deep tissues of his left upper eyelid developed in a 63-year-old man. An excisional biopsy with histopathologic evaluation disclosed a unique sebaceous papilloma within a cyst lined by non-keratinizing squamous epithelium that focally displayed a variably thick, superficial, eosinophilic cuticular layer. Immunohistochemical staining demonstrated that the tumor and its epithelial cystic lining had a profile consistent with Meibomian gland duct epithelium. Adipophilin highlighted cytoplasmic vacuolar lipid positivity. The encapsulation of the lesion, absence of nuclear atypia, and Ki-67 nuclear positivity restricted to the basilar cells established its intrinsically benign nature. The patient's clinical history was remarkable for pulmonary and colonic carcinomas resected, respectively, 20 years and 8 years earlier. DNA mismatch repair protein expression studies disclosed loss of nuclear immunostaining of MSH6 protein, pointing to the possibility of an underlying rare MSH6 variant of the Muir-Torre syndrome, not yet described in the ophthalmic literature. p16 nuclear positivity was also found in the tumor cells, indicating the possible role of high-risk human papillomavirus as an additional factor in the genesis of the tumor. Genetic evaluation of normal and tumoral tissues in future similar cases will detect if there is an underlying germline mutation versus a somatic mutation limited to the tumor. This will be required to fully establish a predictable linkage with this new subtype of the Muir-Torre syndrome.
An Examination of International Environmental Racism Through the Lens of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes

Increasing accusations of environmental racism in the domestic context have led to allegations of environmental racism in the global context by activists, academics, and leaders of developing nations. Claims of international environmental racism arise when a government or corporation pursues policies that disparately impact minorities.1 Conscious intent to continue racial subordination is not necessary:2 "any action that has negative predictable consequences for racial minorities can be an act of environmental racism_ It is only important that the practice in question perpetuates the dominance of one race over another."3
Question Type Classification Methods Comparison.

The paper presents a comparative study of state-of-the-art approaches for question classification task: Logistic Regression, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory Network (LSTM) and Quasi-Recurrent Neural Networks (QRNN). All models use pre-trained GLoVe word embeddings and trained on human-labeled data. The best accuracy is achieved using CNN model with five convolutional layers and various kernel sizes stacked in parallel, followed by one fully connected layer. The model reached 90.7% accuracy on TREC 10 test set. All the model architectures in this paper were developed from scratch on PyTorch, in few cases based on reliable open-source implementation.
Sadness, but not all negative emotions, heightens addictive substance use

Do negative feelings in general trigger addictive behavior, or do specific emotions play a stronger role? Testing these alternative accounts of emotion and decision making, we drew on the Appraisal Tendency Framework to predict that sadness, specifically, rather than negative mood, generally, would 1) increase craving, impatience, and actual addictive substance use and 2) do so through mechanisms selectively heightened by sadness. Using a nationally representative, longitudinal survey, study 1 (n = 10,685) revealed that sadness, but not other negative emotions (i.e., fear, anger, shame), reliably predicted current smoking as well as relapsing 20 years later. Study 2 (n = 425) used an experimental design, and found further support for emotion specificity: Sadness, but not disgust, increased self-reported craving relative to a neutral state. Studies 3 and 4 (n = 918) introduced choice behavior as outcome variables, revealing that sadness causally increased impatience for cigarette puffs. Moreover, study 4 revealed that the effect of sadness on impatience was more fully explained by concomitant appraisals of self-focus, which are specific to sadness, than by concomitant appraisals of negative valence, which are general to all negative emotions. Importantly, study 4 also examined the topography of actual smoking behavior, finding that experimentally induced sadness (as compared to neutral emotion) causally increased the volume and duration of cigarette puffs inhaled. Together, the present studies provide support for a more nuanced model regarding the effects of emotion on tobacco use, in particular, as well as on addictive behavior, in general.
Evaluation and verification of a simplified lead equivalency measurement method.

Purpose This technical note presents an inexpensive tool and method for determining lead equivalency using digital radiography x-ray equipment. Methods A test tool was developed using commercially available lead tape (3M™ Lead Foil Tape 421). The test tool consisted of nine varying lead thick squares arranged in a larger square (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and 1.0 mm). It was imaged on a DR plate with a digital portable x-ray unit across a range of energies (60-120 kVp) and two beam filtrations. Lead equivalency was determined by using the linear relationship between dose to the detector and pixel values in the raw images. The lead equivalency of the tape was validated using known lead thicknesses (physically measured with caliper). Additional lead equivalency measurements were made for protective eyewear, a thyroid shield, and a lead apron. Results The test tool and method measured the two known lead thicknesses to be -9.7% to 7.1% different from the actual values across the range of energies under normal x-ray beam conditions and under a 1-mm copper filtered x-ray beam. The additional lead equivalency measurements of radiation protection apparel across energies ranged from -6% to 20% for both beam conditions when compared with the values provided by the manufacturer. Conclusion This work validates the test tool and methodology as an inexpensive alternative to checking the lead equivalency of radiation protection apparel in a clinical setting. The methodology is equipment independent with a few prerequisites.
Is it time to call for improvement in surgical techniques for minimally invasive radical hysterectomy

Cervical cancer is the most common pelvic cancer in women worldwide with an annual incidence of 569,847 and 311,365 deaths expected in 2018.1 In the United States, about 13,000 women are diagnosed each year with cervical cancer. Radical hysterectomy (RH) and chemoradiation therapy are both treatment options for women with early-stage cervical cancer. Retrospective studies suggest that RH is as effective as radiation therapy (RT). The only randomized clinical trial comparing these two modalities for women with stage Ib-IIa cervical cancer showed equivalent 5-y overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS).2 RH as primary treatment is preferred over RT in women who desire the preservation of ovarian function and is associated with fewer long-term sexual dysfunction.3,–5 In the recent noninferiority study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Pedro Ramirez et al., 631 women with stage IA1 (with lymphovascular invasion), IA2, and IB1 cervical cancer were randomized to undergo RH by minimally invasive surgery (MIS) (319 patients) or exploratory laparotomy (RAH) (312 patients) approach; in the MIS group, 84.4% underwent laparoscopic and 15.6% robotic-assisted laparoscopic RH. The RAH group had a slightly more than 10% advantage in 4.5-y DFS over MIS RH (96.5% vs 80.0%). Similarly, a 5% OS advantage at 3 y (99% vs 93.8%) was observed in the RAH group. After the first report of laparoscopic radical hysterectomy with pelvic and paraaortic lymphadenectomy by Nezhat et al. multiple studies have shown that both approaches resulted in equivalent DFS and OS, which is contrary to the results recently reported by Ramirez et al.6,7 Additionally, MIS was associated with benefits such as shorter length of stay, less blood loss, and fewer short- and long-term risks.8,–13 Further evaluation of these surgical approaches was reported in seven retrospective studies (Table 1). Table 1. Disease-free Survival Following MIS vs RAH
Prevention of Cutibacterium acnes infection in arthroscopic shoulder surgery: a systematic review

Background Cutibacterium acnes is a gram-positive anaerobe that can lead to postoperative shoulder infections. The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of C acnes infections following shoulder arthroscopy and evaluate the efficacy of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis in the prevention of these infections. Methods A systematic review was performed by searching PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Embase to identify studies that evaluated the prevalence and clinical indications of C acnes infections after various arthroscopic shoulder surgical procedures. Patients were assessed based on positive culture rates, the contraction of infection, and antibiotic regimens used to prevent infection. Results A total of 9 studies (1 level I, 5 level II, 1 level III, and 2 level IV) met the inclusion criteria, including a total of 3758 patients with a mean age of 59.9 years (range, 17-87 years) at the time of surgery. The mean follow-up time was 1.6 months (range, 1.0-12.0 months). Overall, 37.3% of patients (173 of 464) had positive C acnes skin and/or joint culture results, and in 0.22% of patients (8 of 3586), a C acnes infection was diagnosed postoperatively. The application of a topical benzoyl peroxide antibiotic in the days leading up to surgery significantly reduced the positive culture rate from 41.6% to 9.6% (P Conclusions C acnes infections occur at a very low rate (0.22%) following shoulder arthroscopy. The application of a topical benzoyl peroxide antibiotic in the days leading up to surgery in combination with preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis significantly reduces the prevalence of C acnes in shoulder arthroscopy patients.
A 1.5GS/s 8b Pipelined-SAR ADC with Output Level Shifting Settling Technique in 14nm CMOS

A single channel 1.5GS/s 8-bit pipelined-SAR ADC utilizes a novel output level shifting (OLS) settling technique to reduce the power and enable low-voltage operation of the dynamic residue amplifier. The ADC consists of a 4-bit first stage and a 5-bit second stage, with 1-bit redundancy to relax the offset, gain, and settling requirements of the first stage. Employing the OLS technique allows for an inter-stage gain of ~4 from the dynamic residue amplifier with a settling time that is only 28% of a conventional CML amplifier. The ADC's conversion speed is further improved with the use of parallel comparators in the two asynchronous stages. Fabricated in a 14nm FinFET technology, the ADC occupies 0.0013mm2 core area and operates with a 0.8V supply. 6.6-bit ENOB is achieved at Nyquist while consuming 2.4mW, resulting in an FOM of 16.7fJ/conv.-step.
Pneumococcal Meningitis Complicated by Subarachnoid Hemorrhage and Tonsillar Herniation.

Bacterial meningitis is a fatal infectious disease with an annual incidence of four to six cases per 100,000 adults. The most common pathogens associated with this condition are Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitides, and Hemophilus influenzae. Mortality rates range between 10 and 40% despite the availability of highly effective antibiotic therapy, and severe neurological damage affects 30-52% of survivors. The causes of death in patients with pneumococcal meningitis are multifactorial and involve both neurological complications such as cerebral edema, hydrocephalus, infarction, and septic sinus or venous thrombosis and systemic complications such as septic shock, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and acute respiratory distress syndrome. We present an unfortunate case of a 42-year-old woman with asplenia and sickle cell disease, admitted for pneumococcal meningitis, who developed diffuse cerebral edema leading to tonsillar herniation and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) with a fatal outcome. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only case ever reported of meningitis complicated by both SAH and brain herniation.
Rural breast cancer survivors are able to maintain diet quality improvements during a weight loss maintenance intervention.

Obesity and poor diet quality (DQ) are associated with increased risk of morbidity/mortality among breast cancer survivors. This study explored DQ changes during a weight loss maintenance intervention in a cohort of rural female breast cancer survivors (n = 131) who lost ≥ 5% body weight in a weight loss intervention. Previous analyses demonstrated significant DQ improvements during weight loss. DQ was calculated using the alternate Healthy Eating Index (aHEI)-2010. Differences in scores across time for the cohort and between those that maintained weight loss within 5% (low regainers) and those that regained > 5% (high regainers) were analyzed by linear mixed models. Significant improvements in aHEI total score were observed from baseline (M = 52.3 ± 11) to 6 months (M = 60.7 ± 8; p < 0.001); these improvements were sustained from 6 to 18 months (M = 58.4 ± 11; p = 0.16). Total aHEI-2010 score at 18 months was higher in low regainers, compared with high regainers (60.7 vs. 56.0, p = 0.03), with healthier component scores for red meat (p = 0.01) and fruit (p = 0.04), and a trend for a healthier score for sugar-sweetened beverages (p = 0.08). Overall DQ improvements made during a weight loss intervention for rural breast cancer survivors were sustained during a weight loss maintenance intervention; this intervention was effective in helping low regainers maintain healthier scores in fruit, red meat, and sugar-sweetened beverage components. Maintaining higher DQ may help breast cancer survivors maintain weight loss, thereby reducing risk of breast cancer recurrence and premature death from comorbidities.
Prometheus 2.0

This chapter concludes the case for the energy orthodoxy by turning back to a parable. The myth of Prometheus is the ultimate energy story: the hubris of stealing fire from the gods. The original tale, however, is in need of an update, because it retains the worldview and morality of ‘virtues’ or the old energy paradigm about limits and the proper reach of humanity. “Prometheus 2.0” is a modern story about an evolving and accelerating intelligence that allows for unlimited problem-solving and, thus, the unlimited control of fate.
Controversial information spreads faster and further than non-controversial information in Reddit

Online users discuss and converse about all sorts of topics on social networks. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit are among many other networks where users can have this freedom of information sharing. The abundance of information shared over these networks makes them an attractive area for investigating all aspects of human behavior on information dissemination. Among the many interesting behaviors, controversiality within social cascades is of high interest to us. It is known that controversiality is bound to happen within online discussions. The online social network platform Reddit has the feature to tag comments as controversial if the users have mixed opinions about that comment. The difference between this study and previous attempts at understanding controversiality on social networks is that we do not investigate topics that are known to be controversial. On the contrary, we examine typical cascades with comments that the readers deemed to be controversial concerning the matter discussed. This work asks whether controversially initiated information cascades have distinctive characteristics than those not controversial in Reddit. We used data collected from Reddit consisting of around 17 million posts and their corresponding comments related to cybersecurity issues to answer these emerging questions. From the comparative analyses conducted, controversial content travels faster and further from its origin. Understanding this phenomenon would shed light on how users or organization might use it to their help in controlling and spreading a specific beneficiary message.
New Governor, New Evaluations of the Direction Michigan Is Headed among Local Leaders

This report presents the opinions of Michigan’s local government leaders regarding the direction in which the state is headed, as well as their evalua-tions of the job performance of Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Legislature. These findings are based on statewide surveys of local government leaders in the Spring 2019 wave and tracking comparisons to previous spring waves of the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS).
Excess body weight association with various cancer: A United States population-based study 2021.

e18558Background: Excess body weight (EW) is a rising healthcare issue affecting over two-thirds of the United States (US) population, and it is a risk factor for various cancer. Methods: We used E...
The Erosion of Individual Autonomy in Medical Decisionmaking: Of the FDA and IRBs

WHY HEALTH LAW? In this Essay, I shall examine the institutional pressures on individual autonomy that have been created by two major forces in modern medicine: the Food and Drug Administration, which operates at the federal level, and the many Institutional Review Boards that operate in universities to regulate biomedical research. As a prelude, however, the creation of the Linda and Timothy O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law offers a suitable occasion to reflect on the status of health law, both national and global, as an intellectual discipline. In some sense, that large question looks otiose given the paramount importance of health issues everywhere in the world. There is widespread agreement that the health of any individual is crucial to his or her ability to lead a good life: health matters as much, if not more, than wealth, as the recent happiness studies tend to suggest. Those measures that advance the health of individuals are therefore to be welcomed, while those that
Cascade Global Symmetry and Quark Mass Hierarchy

Cascade global symmetry and multi-vacuum expectation values are combined to produce an {\bf initial} texture of the quark mass matrices. Required corrections to the initial texture zeros ({\bf ITZ)} are all at the order of $10^{-3}m_t$ or less. The possibility of {\bf radiative corrections} as the source of the complete mass matrices is briefly discussed.
Tremor detection using motion filtering and SVM

The hand tremor is one of the most common motion disorders caused by various neurological diseases. Currently diagnostic procedures for tremor evaluation are subjective, and there are no examinations available that can accurately indicate whether tremors are present in a patient's daily life. Early detection of tremor is extremely important for the cure of the disease that causes the tremor. Thus, in this study we aim to develop a computational method based on machine learning that can automatically detect hand tremors from a video of a patient when the patient is doing his/her daily activities. The main challenge in tremor detection is that motion is very subtle, and the signature of the motion can vary from patient to patient. We first generate a training data set consisting of 173 simulated tremor/non-tremor video files. They contain very subtle and less discriminative motions. The main contributions of our study are the personalized skin detection, motion filtering and feature extraction pipeline. We evaluated our method through leave-one-out cross validation (LOOCV) testing and showed that in preliminary tests our method achieved 95.4% recognition accuracy.1
Reichenbach’s Metaphysical Picture

I would like to begin by saying a word about Reichenbach’s impact on my own philosophical formation. As an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, I studied philosophy of science mainly with C. West Churchman, who taught a version of pragmatism informed by a substantial knowledge of and interest in the logic of statistical testing, and with Sidney Morgenbesser, who was himself still a graduate student, and logic and American philosophy with Morton White. My orientation on graduation was positivistic (although my knowledge of positivism came mainly from A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic). I did a year of graduate work at Harvard in 1948–49 (studying mainly mathematics and mathematical logic), where I came under the influence of Quine’s views on ontology and his scepticism concerning the analytic/synthetic distinction. At that point, I was in a mood that is well known to philosophy teachers today: it seemed to me that the great problems of philosophy had turned out to be pseudoproblems, and it was not clear to me that the technical problems that remained to be cleared up possessed anything like the intrinsic interest of the problems in pure logic and mathematics that also interested me. It was a serious question in my mind at that point whether I should really go on in philosophy or shift to mathematics.
Production of organometallic polymers by the interfacial technique. XVII. Synthesis and spectral study of germanium polyesters

Polyesters of the form below are prepared by the interfacial method. Infrared frequency band assignments are given. Durch Grenzflachenpolykondensation wurden Polyester der folgenden Struktur hergestellt. Eine Zuordnung der IR-Banden dieser Substanzen wird gegeben.
Intelligence and Achievement: A Behavioral Genetic Perspective

Understanding the etiology and relationship between standardized intelligence and academic achievement tests is essential, given their ever-increasing role in American education. Behavioral genetic studies have examined the genetic and environmental etiology of intelligence, academic achievement, and their relationship. Results suggest that genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental influences have an impact on intelligence and academic achievement. Behavioral genetic studies also suggest that the importance of genes may vary as a function of age. Other studies suggest that genes drive the correlation and that the nonshared environment drives the discrepancy between measures of intelligence and achievement. Implications for the identification of intellectually and academically relevant environmental influences are discussed.
A New Normal: Young Men of Color, Trauma, and Engagement in Learning

This chapter will center on the continuing impact of systemic and persistent educational trauma experienced by Black and Latino males and how trauma affects their current learning. The young men's counterstories from a phenomenological study and documentary are included.
The Assessment of Executive Functioning Using the Delis-Kaplan Executive Functions System (D-KEFS)

The Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) is the first nationally standardized set of tests to evaluate higher-cognitive functions (executive functions) in both children and adults (ages 8–89 years). Published in 2001, the D-KEFS includes nine stand-alone tests that measure a wide array of verbal and nonverbal executive functions.
Differentiation of tobacco mosaic virus strains by differences in pH of maximum optical density.

Abstract Oster's turbidimetric technique for determining the pH of maximum aggregation of viruses was used in an attempt to differentiate four wild and nine mutant strains of tobacco mosaic virus. This involved the addition of dilute HCl to salt-free solutions of viruses until the maximum turbidity, as measured by a colorimeter, was reached. The pH values for the 13 strains used in the tests were within 1 pH unit range; those for Type and nine of its mutants were within a 0.22 pH unit range. Results were reproducible within 0.06 pH unit in tests of the same virus sample, at several concentrations, and for different preparations of the same strain. A mixture of viruses behaved like a single strain, giving the same type of turbidity curve with just as sharp a break; however, the pH of maximum turbidity of the mixture was just halfway between those for the separate strains. Thus, such a test does not distinguish a single strain from a mixture. Comparison of differences among strains in rates of movement in Turkish tobacco showed that the pH of maximum turbidity probably is not related to the time required for the virus to move from the inoculated mid-leaf to the top of the plant.
Calculating a hospital's IT Energy Efficiency and determining cost effective ways for improvement

The environmental impact of the healthcare sector has become an important factor globally and is continuing to draw the attention of regulators. The energy use of the healthcare sector (whose largest sub-segment is ‘hospitals’) has been growing due to many factors. These factors include the rapid growth and adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in healthcare. The new IT technologies and applications used in healthcare include ‘cloud computing’, ‘mMedicine’, i.e. ‘mobility in Health’, eHealth, and tele(health) care for ‘remote delivery of healthcare services’. In general, the healthcare industry needs to reap the benefits of emerging technologies such as mobile computing and cloud computing, along with the use of Health Information Technology (HIT) to help solve the ever growing operating cost problems. One challenge facing the healthcare sector is how best to calculate the energy efficiency of this very complex sector. The work done over the past few years to analyze and create very energy efficient data centers presents an excellent opportunity for cost effective green IT at hospitals.
Exact procedures for the analysis of multidimensional contingency tables

The log-linear model for contingency tables expresses the logarithm of a cell frequency as an additive function of main effects, interactions, etc., in a way formally identical with an analysis of variance model. Exact statistical tests are developed to test hypotheses that specific effects or sets of effects are zero, yielding procedures for exploring relationships among qualitative variables which are suitable for small samples. The tests are analogous to Fisher's exact test for a 2 × 2 contingency table. Given a hypothesis, the exact probability of the obtained table is determined, conditional on fixed marginals or other functions of the cell frequencies. The sum of the probabilities of the obtained table and of all less probable ones is the exact probability to be considered in testing the null hypothesis. Procedures for obtaining exact probabilities are explained in detail, with examples given.
Quantitative criteria for improving performance of buccal DNA for high-throughput genetic analysis

DNA from buccal brush samples is being used for high-throughput analyses in a variety of applications, but the impact of sample type on genotyping success and downstream statistical analysis remains unclear. The objective of the current study was to determine laboratory predictors of genotyping failure among buccal DNA samples, and to evaluate the successfully genotyped results with respect to analytic quality control metrics. Sample and genotyping characteristics were compared between buccal and blood samples collected in the population-based Genetic and Environmental Risk Factors for Hemorrhagic Stroke (GERFHS) study ( https://gerfhs.phs.wfubmc.edu/public/index.cfm ). Seven-hundred eight (708) buccal and 142 blood DNA samples were analyzed for laboratory-based and analysis metrics. Overall genotyping failure rates were not statistically different between buccal (11.3%) and blood (7.0%, p = 0.18) samples; however, both the Contrast Quality Control (cQC) rate and the dynamic model (DM) call rates were lower among buccal DNA samples (p < 0.0001). The ratio of double-stranded to total DNA (ds/total ratio) in the buccal samples was the only laboratory characteristic predicting sample success (p < 0.0001). A threshold of at least 34% ds/total DNA provided specificity of 98.7% with a 90.5% negative predictive value for eliminating probable failures. After genotyping, median sample call rates (99.1% vs. 99.4%, p < 0.0001) and heterozygosity rates (25.6% vs. 25.7%, p = 0.006) were lower for buccal versus blood DNA samples, respectively, but absolute differences were small. Minor allele frequency differences from HapMap were smaller for buccal than blood samples, and both sample types demonstrated tight genotyping clusters, even for rare alleles. We identified a buccal sample characteristic, a ratio of ds/total DNA <34%, which distinguished buccal DNA samples likely to fail high-throughput genotyping. Applying this threshold, the quality of final genotyping resulting from buccal samples is somewhat lower, but compares favorably to blood. Caution is warranted if cases and controls have different sample types, but buccal samples provide comparable results to blood samples in large-scale genotyping analyses.