cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Automated Posttonsillectomy Bleed Capture With Self-report

Importance Tonsillectomy is one of the most common procedures performed by otolaryngologists and is associated with postoperative bleeding. Bleed rates are usually monitored by self-report. Objective To evaluate whether using automated capture and reporting of pediatric posttonsillectomy bleeding is feasible and accurate compared with traditional self-reporting by the surgical team. Design, Setting, and Participants An automated complication-reporting algorithm was designed to query the local health information exchange and then tested against self-reported tonsillectomy complication data collected from January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2015, at a tertiary pediatric hospital. The algorithm identified patients undergoing tonsillectomy and searched their postoperative encounters for a hand-selected set of diagnosis codes from the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision and free-text words to identify complication events. Five months of the 2014-2015 data set were used to help design the algorithm. Data from the remaining 19 months were compared with self-reported complications. Main Outcomes and Measures Automated system findings compared with self-reported bleeding events. Results During the 19-month period, 1017 tonsillectomies were performed. We compared the algorithm’s effectiveness in finding tonsillectomy and adenotonsillectomy procedures for the evaluated surgeons with the hand-reviewed master tonsillectomy list. The algorithm reported 51 false-positive (5.01% missed) and 74 false-negative (7.28% misidentified) procedures. The algorithm agreed with self-report for 986 tonsillectomies and disagreed on 31 cases (3.05%) (κ = 0.69; 95% CI, 0.66-0.73). The algorithm was found to be sensitive to correctly identifying 60.53% (95% CI, 48.63%-71.34%) of tonsillectomies as having bleeding complications, with a specificity of 98.30% (95% CI, 97.19%-98.99%). Conclusions and Relevance Capture of posttonsillectomy bleeding is possible through an automatic search of the medical record, although the algorithm will require continued refinement. Leveraging health information exchange data increases the possibilities of capturing complications at hospitals outside the local health system. Use of these algorithms will allow repeatable automated feedback to be provided to surgeons on a cyclical basis.
Bootstrapping 3D Fermions with Global Symmetries

We study the conformal bootstrap for 4-point functions of fermions 〈ψ_iψ_jψ_kψ_l〉 in parity-preserving 3d CFTs, where ψ_i transforms as a vector under an O(N ) global symmetry. We compute bounds on scaling dimensions and central charges, finding features in our bounds that appear to coincide with the O(N ) symmetric Gross-Neveu-Yukawa fixed points. Our computations are in perfect agreement with the 1/N expansion at large N and allow us to make nontrivial predictions at small N . For values of N for which the Gross-Neveu-Yukawa universality classes are relevant to condensed-matter systems, we compare our results to previous analytic and numerical results.
To Profit or Not to Profit? The Role of Greed Perceptions in Consumer Support for Social Ventures

An increasing number of social ventures are for-profit companies (i.e., for-profit social ventures) that seek to advance a social cause while making a profit. In a series of seven studies, this research investigates consumer support for organizations as a function of their social mission and profit orientation. The impact of profit orientation on consumer support depends on the prominence of the organization’s social mission. For organizations with a prominent social mission, profits are interpreted as a signal of greed; absent a prominent social mission, a for-profit orientation can instead imply greater competence. As a result, consumer support of for-profit social ventures suffers in comparison to both nonprofits and traditional for-profits—a downside to the organizational benefits of for-profit social ventures identified in prior research. In addition, this research investigates organizational factors—including excessive organizational spending, profit perceptions, and operational efficiency cues—that alter greed perceptions and consequently support for for-profit social ventures. Together, this research sheds light on consumer reaction to organizations that support social causes, with implications for the social venture marketplace, including the nonprofit versus for-profit quandary faced by social entrepreneurs.
Gender Differences in the Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program

Abstract This paper studies the life-cycle impacts of a widely emulated high-quality, intensive early childhood program with long-term follow up. The program starts early in life (at 8 weeks of age) and is evaluated by an RCT. There are multiple treatment effects which we summarize through interpretable aggregates. Girls have a greater number of statistically significant treatment effects than boys and effect sizes for them are generally bigger. The source of this difference is worse home environments for girls with greater scope for improvement by the program. Fathers of sons support their families more than fathers of daughters.
Smoothing Method for Approximate Extensive-Form Perfect Equilibrium

Nash equilibrium is a popular solution concept for solving imperfect-information games in practice. However, it has a major drawback: it does not preclude suboptimal play in branches of the game tree that are not reached in equilibrium. Equilibrium refinements can mend this issue, but have experienced little practical adoption. This is largely due to a lack of scalable algorithms. Sparse iterative methods, in particular first-order methods, are known to be among the most effective algorithms for computing Nash equilibria in large-scale two-player zero-sum extensive-form games. In this paper, we provide, to our knowledge, the first extension of these methods to equilibrium refinements. We develop a smoothing approach for behavioral perturbations of the convex polytope that encompasses the strategy spaces of players in an extensive-form game. This enables one to compute an approximate variant of extensive-form perfect equilibria. Experiments show that our smoothing approach leads to solutions with dramatically stronger strategies at information sets that are reached with low probability in approximate Nash equilibria, while retaining the overall convergence rate associated with fast algorithms for Nash equilibrium. This has benefits both in approximate equilibrium finding (such approximation is necessary in practice in large games) where some probabilities are low while possibly heading toward zero in the limit, and exact equilibrium computation where the low probabilities are actually zero.
Familial association of abstinent remission from alcohol use disorder in first-degree relatives of alcohol-dependent treatment-seeking probands.

Background and Aims Studies that have included family history of alcohol use disorder (AUD) as a predictor of remission from AUD have yielded few significant results. The goals of this study were to estimate the association of persistent AUD, non-abstinent remission and abstinent remission (“AUD/remission status”) in a proband with AUD/remission status in a relative and to test whether this association differed in related and unrelated proband-relative pairs. Design High-risk family study of alcohol dependence. Probands were recruited from treatment settings and relatives were invited to participate. Baseline assessments occurred between 1991-1998 with follow-up between 1996-2005. Half of probands were matched with a biological 1st-degree relative with lifetime AUD (related group) and half of probands were paired with an unrelated individual with lifetime AUD (unrelated group). Setting Brooklyn, New York; Indianapolis, Indiana; Iowa City, Iowa; San Diego, California; Farmington, Connecticut; and St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Participants 606 probands (25.7% female, mean age 37.7) with baseline and follow-up data and 606 of their 1st degree relatives who had lifetime AUDs (45.8% female, mean age 36.2). Measurements Persistent AUD, non-abstinent remission, and abstinent remission were based on self-report interview data on most recent AUD symptoms and alcohol consumption. Dependent variable was relatives’ AUD/remission status. Independent variable was probands’ AUD/remission status. Findings 34.6% of probands and 20.6% of relatives were abstinent and 11.1% of probands and 22.8% of relatives were in non-abstinent remission. AUD/remission status was significantly correlated in related (r = .23, p = .0037) but not in unrelated pairs. A significant interaction of probands’ abstinent remission with a variable representing related (versus unrelated, p = .003) pairs suggested a familial association for abstinent remission. In related pairs, individuals with an abstinent proband were more likely to be abstinent themselves than were individuals whose proband had persistent AUD (relative risk ratio = 3.27, 95% CI = 1.56-6.85, p = .002); this association was not significant in unrelated pairs. Conclusions The likelihood of abstinent remission among people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) appears to be more than 3 times greater for individuals who are related to an abstinent proband versus those related to a proband with persistent AUD.
Higher Critical Points in an Elliptic Free Boundary Problem

We study higher critical points of the variational functional associated with a free boundary problem related to plasma confinement. Existence and regularity of minimizers in elliptic free boundary problems have already been studied extensively. But because the functionals are not smooth, standard variational methods cannot be used directly to prove the existence of higher critical points. Here we find a nontrivial critical point of mountain pass type and prove many of the same estimates known for minimizers, including Lipschitz continuity and nondegeneracy. We then show that the free boundary is smooth in dimension 2 and prove partial regularity in higher dimensions.
Fundamental Neural Structures, Operations, and Asymptotic Performance Criteria in Decentralized Binary Hypothesis Testing

Abstract In this paper, fundamental neural network structures in decentralized hypothesis testing are considered. For binary hypothesis testing, the basic neural operations are established, and the Neyman-Pearson criterion is utilized due to information theoretic arguments. Then, two fundamental neural structures are considered, and analyzed and compared in terms of asymptotic performance measures. In particular, the Asymptotic Relative Efficiency performance measure is used to establish performance characteristics and tradeoffs in the two structures, for both parametrically and nonparametrically defined hypotheses. In the latter case, robust neural network structures are considered, and their superiority to parametric network structures is argued.
DEVELOPMENT OF DISTRIBUTED CONTROL SYSTEMS

Abstract The development of Distributed Control Systems requires management teams integrated by Marketing, Design and Development Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering Departments. These teams plan, organize, and control company resources to provide users with cost-effective systems, more reliable and useful than centralized integrated configuration. Marketing Engineers are responsible for product management, which includes product planning, functional specifications, cost monitoring, evaluation of sales forecasts, and product support. Subjects to be resolved include product warranties, spare parts, service and maintenance, training of vendor and user personnel, marketing plans, and project management of systems sold. Design and Development Engineers are responsible for applying proven technology and investigating new technology trends. Engineering designs the product to marketing specifications maintaining a degree of autonomy in matters concerning system architecture, data base structure, communication protocol, software development, components selection, logic design, and testing of engineering prototypes. Manufacturing responsibility includes production planning, inventory control, machine shop loading, product quality, testing, and directing material purchasing. Because Distributed Control Systems are intended to be manufactured, installed, and serviced worldwide, the product development strategies become even more complex. The objective of this paper is to provide the reader with an overall understanding of the considerations that must be taken into account in the development of a Distributed Control System.
Disopyramide-Induced Urinary Retention: Report of Nine Cases and Review of the Literature

• Urinary retention is sometimes reported as an adverse reaction during disopyramide phosphate therapy. We report one case of acute renal failure and eight cases of urinary retention. Previous reports of this adverse reaction are summarized. The cause of disopyramide-induced urinary retention is unknown. It is possible that disopyramide or a metabolite via their anticholinergic properties plays some role in the manifestation of urinary tract symptomatology. Treatment of this adverse reaction includes lowering the dose, discontinuing the drug, or possibly using a cholinergic drug to compete with the anticholinergic effects of the disopyramide. ( Arch Intern Med 1983;143:1683-1686)
Smart User Authentication through Actuation of Daily Activities Leveraging WiFi-enabled IoT

User authentication is a critical process in both corporate and home environments due to the ever-growing security and privacy concerns. With the advancement of smart cities and home environments, the concept of user authentication is evolved with a broader implication by not only preventing unauthorized users from accessing confidential information but also providing the opportunities for customized services corresponding to a specific user. Traditional approaches of user authentication either require specialized device installation or inconvenient wearable sensor attachment. This paper supports the extended concept of user authentication with a device-free approach by leveraging the prevalent WiFi signals made available by IoT devices, such as smart refrigerator, smart TV and thermostat, etc. The proposed system utilizes the WiFi signals to capture unique human physiological and behavioral characteristics inherited from their daily activities, including both walking and stationary ones. Particularly, we extract representative features from channel state information (CSI) measurements of WiFi signals, and develop a deep learning based user authentication scheme to accurately identify each individual user. Extensive experiments in two typical indoor environments, a university office and an apartment, are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed authentication system. In particular, our system can achieve over 94% and 91% authentication accuracy with 11 subjects through walking and stationary activities, respectively.
Enhancing Accessibility for Students With Decoding Difficulties on Large-Scale Reading Assessments.

This study reports findings from studies examining potential read-aloud accommodations on standardized reading comprehension assessments for students with decoding difficulties. Three types of acco...
Intraocular Pressure and Big Bubble Diameter in Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty: An Ex-Vivo Microscope-Integrated OCT with Heads-Up-Display Study

PURPOSE To investigate the relationship between intraocular pressure (IOP) and big bubble (BB) formation in a model of deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK). DESIGN Ex-vivo. METHODS Corneoscleral buttons from human donors were loaded onto an artificial anterior chamber connected to a column of balanced salt solution. A surgeon-in-training learned to perform DALK via the BB technique using swept-source microscope-integrated optical coherence tomography (SS-MIOCT) with heads-up display (HUD). DALK procedures were performed at 6 different IOPs (5, 10, 15, 20, 30, or 40 mm Hg; n = 6 per group) in a randomized fashion, with the surgeon-in-training masked to the pressure and guided by SS-MIOCT with HUD. For a subset of corneas within each pressure group, DALK was performed on matching donor tissue at a control IOP. BB diameter was recorded, and a diameter exceeding the trephine diameter was considered optimal. RESULTS Wilcoxon rank sum test showed a difference in BB diameter among the different pressure groups (mean ± SD of 7.75 ± 1.60, 8.33 ± 1.99, 10.9 ± 0.92, 9.08 ± 1.07, 6.67 ± 3.33, and 3.42 ± 3.77 mm in the 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 mm Hg groups, respectively; P = 0.0014). Per Tukey test, this difference was attributable to comparisons between the 40 mm Hg group and the 5, 10, 15, or 20 mm Hg groups (P = 0.04, 0.02, 0.0001, 0.004, respectively). CONCLUSIONS In this ex-vivo model of DALK, the BB technique guided by SS-MIOCT with HUD yielded bubbles of optimal diameters only at physiologic pressures (10‒20 mm Hg). Extremely high IOP (40 mm Hg) resulted in BBs of significantly smaller diameter than BBs obtained at physiologic and low (5 mm Hg) IOPs.
Effects of liver abscess severity and quality grade on meat tenderness and sensory attributes in commercially finished beef cattle fed without tylosin phosphate

Strip loin steaks (n = 119) were used to evaluate the association between liver abscess severity and USDA quality grade and meat tenderness and sensory attributes of steaks from finished feedlot cattle. Steaks were used in a 3 × 2 factorial treatment structure using a completely randomized design and were collected at a commercial abattoir located in northwest Texas. All cattle were sourced from a single feedlot and fed a common diet that did not include tylosin phosphate. Treatments were USDA quality grades of Select (SEL) and Low Choice (LC) and liver abscess scores of normal (NORM; healthy liver, no abscesses), mild (M; 1 abscess less than 2 cm in diameter to 4 abscesses less than 4 cm in diameter), and severe (SV; 1 abscess greater than 4 cm in diameter or greater than 4 small abscesses). All steak samples were collected on the same day, approximately 36-h post-mortem and were cut from the left side of the carcass at the 13th rib by a trained abattoir employee. Steaks were vacuum-packaged, and aged at 3 ± 1°C for 14-d post-mortem. Warner-Bratzler Shear Force (WBSF) and Slice Shear Force (SSF) analyses were conducted and cook-loss percentage was measured. A trained sensory panel analyzed samples for juiciness, tenderness, and flavor attributes. There were no differences among liver abscess scores for WBSF or SSF (P > 0.52). Warner-Bratzler Shear Force was lower for LC-SV than SEL-SV (P = 0.04). Sensory attributes of initial and sustained juiciness, and overall tenderness were all greater for LC than for SEL steaks (P 0.70); however, there was an interaction between quality grade and liver score for myofibillar tenderness (P = 0.03). Within LC steaks, liver abscess score had no effect on myofibrillar tenderness (P > 0.05), however, in SEL steaks, M steaks were more tender than SV steaks (P < 0.03). These results indicate that within quality grades, meat tenderness or sensory attributes were not influenced by liver abscess score but that mild liver abscesses may affect the myofibrillar tenderness of SEL steaks.
Nonlinear softening of unconsolidated granular earth materials

Unconsolidated granular earth materials exhibit softening behavior due to external perturbations such as seismic waves; namely, the wave speed and elastic modulus decrease upon increasing the strain amplitude above dynamics strains of about 10−6 under near-surface conditions. In this letter, we describe a theoretical model for such behavior. The model is based on the idea that shear transformation zones (STZs) – clusters of grains that are loose and susceptible to contact changes, particle displacement, and rearrangement – are responsible for plastic deformation and softening of the material. We apply the theory to experiments on simulated fault gouge composed of glass beads, and demonstrate that the theory predicts nonlinear resonance shifts, reduction of the P-wave modulus, and attenuation, in agreement with experiments. The theory thus offers insights on the nature of nonlinear elastic properties of a granular medium, and potentially into phenomena such as triggering on earthquake faults.
Detection of atrial fibrillation using an earlobe photoplethysmographic sensor.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia in the world, associated with increased risk of thromboembolic events and an increased mortality rate. In addition, a significant portion of AF patients are asymptomatic. Current AF diagnostic methods, often including a body surface electrocardiogram or implantable loop recorder, are both expensive and invasive and offer limited access within the general community. Objective: We tested the feasibility of the detection of AF using a photoplethysmographic signal acquired from an inexpensive, non-invasive earlobe photoplethysmographic sensor. This technology can be implemented into wearable devices and would enable continuous cardiac monitoring capabilities, greatly improving the rate of asymptomatic AF detection. Approach: We conducted a clinical study of patients going through electrical cardioversion for AF treatment. Photoplethysmographic recordings were taken from these AF patients before and after their cardioversion procedure, along with recordings from a healthy control group. Using these recordings, cardiac beats were identified and the inter-systolic interval was calculated. The inter-systolic interval was used to calculate four parameters to quantify the heart rate variability indicative of AF. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to calculate discriminant thresholds between the AF and non-AF cohorts. Main results: The parameter with the greatest discriminant capability resulted in a sensitivity and specificity of 90.9%. These results are comparable to expensive ECG-based and invasive implantable loop recorder AF detection methods. Significance: These results demonstrate that using a non-invasive earlobe photoplethysmographic signal is a viable and inexpensive alternative to ECG-based AF detection methods, and an alternative that could be invaluable in detecting subclinical AF.
A bit far ? geography, international economic agreements, and foreign direct investment : evidence from emerging markets

How do international economic agreements influence the investment patterns of firms from emerging economies? This paper studies the ways in which bilateral investment treaties and preferential trade agreements interact with geographic and cultural distance to influence firms' investment patterns. How does geographic and cultural proximity affect the impact of international economic agreements on foreign direct investment flows? This question is answered using data from an original survey of 700 firms from four emerging (or newly-emerged) economies: Brazil, India, the Republic of Korea, and South Africa. The findings suggest that bilateral investment treaties and preferential trade agreements increase the likelihood of foreign direct investment. Yet, the effects of these agreements on foreign direct investment depend on the distance between the origin and potential destination countries. Moreover, trade and investment agreements appear to interact differently with distance. By providing guarantees to investors and signaling credible commitment from host governments, bilateral investment treaties mitigate the higher uncertainty and transaction costs associated with investing in faraway, unfamiliar markets. By contrast, the investment attraction effectiveness of preferential trade agreements fades with distance.
Filling gaps in bacterial amino acid biosynthesis pathways with high-throughput genetics

For many bacteria with sequenced genomes, we do not understand how they synthesize some amino acids. This makes it challenging to reconstruct their metabolism, and has led to speculation that bacteria might be cross-feeding amino acids. We studied heterotrophic bacteria from 10 different genera that grow without added amino acids even though an automated tool predicts that the bacteria have gaps in their amino acid synthesis pathways. Across these bacteria, there were 11 gaps in their amino acid biosynthesis pathways that we could not fill using current knowledge. Using genome-wide mutant fitness data, we identified novel enzymes that fill 9 of the 11 gaps and hence explain the biosynthesis of methionine, threonine, serine, or histidine by bacteria from six genera. We also found that the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris synthesizes homocysteine (which is a precursor to methionine) by using DUF39, NIL/ferredoxin, and COG2122 proteins, and that homoserine is not an intermediate in this pathway. Our results suggest that most free-living bacteria can likely make all 20 amino acids and illustrate how high-throughput genetics can uncover previously-unknown amino acid biosynthesis genes.
Your Money or Your Patient's Life? Ransomware and Electronic Health Records

Ransomware is a malicious software (malware) that denies users access to their data unless they pay a ransom. This commentary describes the threat to electronic health records and preventive measur...
Mistaken about mistakes

Theoretical work in behavioral economics aims to modify assumptions of standard neoclassical models of individual decision-making to better comport with observed behavior. The alternative assumptions fall into at least two categories: non-standard preferences and psychological mistakes. Applications of behavioral economics models in law, however, tend to assume that deviations from standard neoclassical models are meant to build in psychological mistakes that produce regrettable choices. Often follow-on policy prescriptions suggest interventions that either help individuals choose correctly or go further to substitute the “correct” choices for those that mistake-prone individuals might choose in error. Such policy prescriptions are ill suited in cases where the applied behavioral economics model assumes non-standard preferences as opposed to psychological mistakes. This essay provides examples of models in each category and examples of mistaken applications of models that assume non-standard preferences rather than psychological mistakes. It also suggests ways to avoid errors when applying behavioral economics theories in law.
Seasonally fluctuating selection can maintain polymorphism at many loci via segregation lift.

Most natural populations are affected by seasonal changes in temperature, rainfall, or resource availability. Seasonally fluctuating selection could potentially make a large contribution to maintaining genetic polymorphism in populations. However, previous theory suggests that the conditions for multilocus polymorphism are restrictive. Here, we explore a more general class of models with multilocus seasonally fluctuating selection in diploids. In these models, the multilocus genotype is mapped to fitness in two steps. The first mapping is additive across loci and accounts for the relative contributions of heterozygous and homozygous loci—that is, dominance. The second step uses a nonlinear fitness function to account for the strength of selection and epistasis. Using mathematical analysis and individual-based simulations, we show that stable polymorphism at many loci is possible if currently favored alleles are sufficiently dominant. This general mechanism, which we call “segregation lift,” requires seasonal changes in dominance, a phenomenon that may arise naturally in situations with antagonistic pleiotropy and seasonal changes in the relative importance of traits for fitness. Segregation lift works best under diminishing-returns epistasis, is not affected by problems of genetic load, and is robust to differences in parameters across loci and seasons. Under segregation lift, loci can exhibit conspicuous seasonal allele-frequency fluctuations, but often fluctuations may be small and hard to detect. An important direction for future work is to formally test for segregation lift in empirical data and to quantify its contribution to maintaining genetic variation in natural populations.
Coordination technology for active support networks: context, needfinding, and design

Coordination is a key problem for addressing goal–action gaps in many human endeavors. We define interpersonal coordination as a type of communicative action characterized by low interpersonal belief and goal conflict. Such situations are particularly well described as having collectively “intelligent”, “common good” solutions, viz., ones that almost everyone would agree constitute social improvements. Coordination is useful across the spectrum of interpersonal communication—from isolated individuals to organizational teams. Much attention has been paid to coordination in teams and organizations. In this paper we focus on the looser interpersonal structures we call active support networks (ASNs), and on technology that meets their needs. We describe two needfinding investigations focused on social support, which examined (a) four application areas for improving coordination in ASNs: (1) academic coaching, (2) vocational training, (3) early learning intervention, and (4) volunteer coordination; and (b) existing technology relevant to ASNs. We find a thus-far unmet need for personal task management software that allows smooth integration with an individual’s active support network. Based on identified needs, we then describe an open architecture for coordination that has been developed into working software. The design includes a set of capabilities we call “social prompting”, as well as templates for accomplishing multi-task goals, and an engine that controls coordination in the network. The resulting tool is currently available and in continuing development. We explain its use in ASNs with an example. Follow-up studies are underway in which the technology is being applied in existing support networks.
Fiscal solvency and price level determination in a monetary union

Abstract This paper applies the fiscal theory of price level determination to the case of a monetary union. A fiscal perspective suggests, first, that the focus of past studies on seigniorage, per se, may be misplaced. Second, a rise in the level of debt by one member government can raise the common price level throughout the union, suggesting a role for fiscal rules. Third, conditions are discussed under which fiscal solvency is not necessary for each member government in a monetary union.
Direct adaptive control of robotic systems

This paper presents a new approach to adaptive motion control of an important class of robotic systems. The control schemes developed using this approach are very simple and computationally efficient since they do not require knowledge of either the mathematical model or the parameter values of the robotic system dynamics. It is shown that the control strategies are globally stable in the presence of bounded disturbances, and that the size of the tracking errors can be made arbitrarily small. The proposed controllers are very general and are implementable with a wide variety of robotic systems, including both open- and closed-kinematic-chain manipulators. Computer simulation results are given for a seven degree-of-freedom (DOF) Robotics Research Corporation Model K-1607 arm. These results demonstrate that accurate and robust trajectory tracking can be achieved by using the proposed schemes.
A General Mechanism for Drug Promiscuity: Studies with Amiodarone and Other Antiarrhythmics

Amiodarone is a widely prescribed antiarrhythmic drug used to treat the most prevalent type of arrhythmia - atrial fibrillation (AF). At therapeutic concentrations, amiodarone alters the function of many diverse membrane proteins, which results in complex therapeutic and toxicity profiles. Other antiarrhythmics, such as dronedarone, similarly alter the function of multiple membrane proteins, suggesting that a polypharmacological mechanism may be beneficial for treating AF, but how do these antiarrhythmics regulate diverse membrane proteins at similar concentrations? One possible mechanism is that these molecules regulate membrane protein function by altering the common environment provided by the host lipid bilayer. We took advantage of the gramicidin channels’ sensitivity to changes in bilayer properties to determine whether commonly used antiarrhythmics - amiodarone, dronedarone, propranolol and pindolol, whose pharmacological modes of action range from multi-target to specific - perturb lipid bilayer properties at therapeutic concentrations. Using an ensemble fluorescence assay, we found that amiodarone and dronedarone are potent bilayer modifiers at therapeutic concentrations; propranolol alters bilayer properties only at supratherapeutic concentration, and pindolol has little effect. Using single-channel electrophysiology, we found that amiodarone and dronedarone, but not propranolol or pindolol, increase bilayer elasticity - and that antiarrhythmics change the physical properties of bilayers formed from plasma membrane-like lipid mixtures. The overlap between therapeutic and bilayer-altering concentrations underscores the need to explore bilayer role in therapeutic and toxic effects of antiarrhythmics and other drugs with multi-target effects. The role of polypharmacy in shaping the therapeutic and toxic effects of drugs and the mechanisms involved remain obscure. Direct interactions at similar concentrations imply that functionally and structurally different targets bind a given drug with similar affinity. Our results suggest an alternative, general mechanism for polypharmacy without invoking structural constraints needed for direct drug-protein interactions.
Unsteady Fluid-Structure-Jet Interactions of Agile High-Speed Vehicles

This paper considers the nonlinear and unsteady loads environment of an agile high-speed vehicle with reaction control jets and structural degrees of freedom to account for the flexibility of the s...
Time-based strategies - theory and practice

Abstract As firms compete in a global environment, the need for integrating functions in organizations is being felt more than ever. Firms are realizing that to sustain long-term competitive advantages, business strategies have to be linked to functional strategies. ‘Time’ provides this missing link. Recent research supports the use of time-based competition strategy in defining corporate objectives, outlining strategic programmes and measuring productivity and performance in ‘time’ units rather than money. A time-based model of strategies is described. Time is used in conjuction with other strategies to offer a strategic mix which best suits various market segments of a company's product portfolio. In this way, companies may create a prolonged record of success and be highly focused to market needs.
Factors associated with wasting among children under five years old in South Asia: Implications for action

South Asia continues to carry the greatest share and number of wasted children worldwide. Understanding the determinants of wasting is important as policymakers renew efforts to tackle this persistent public health and development problem. Using data from national surveys in Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan, this analysis explores factors associated with wasting among children aged 0 to 59 months (n = 252,797). We conducted multivariate mixed logistic regression and backwards stepwise methods to identify parsimonious models for each country separately (all p values <0.05). Younger children (0 to 5 months), and those whose mothers had a low body mass index (<18.5 kg/m2) had greater odds of being wasted in all countries. Later birth order, being male, maternal illiteracy, short maternal stature, lack of improved water source, and household poverty were also associated with wasting in various countries, but not systematically in all. Seasonality was also not consistently associated with wasting in the final models. These findings suggest that pre-conception (adolescence), pregnancy and early postpartum, represent windows of opportunity for tackling child wasting, not only stunting. Our analysis suggests that the underlying determinants of wasting and stunting in South Asia are similar, but not universal across geographies. Cost-effective interventions to prevent both stunting and wasting, and to treat severe wasting, need to be scaled up urgently. Separating these two manifestations of child undernutrition in conceptual and programmatic terms may unnecessarily impair progress to reach the Sustainable Development Goals targets aimed at addressing both child stunting and wasting.
Electrostatic control of calcineurin's intrinsically-disordered regulatory domain binding to calmodulin.

Abstract Calcineurin (CaN) is a serine/threonine phosphatase that regulates a variety of physiological and pathophysiological processes in mammalian tissue. The calcineurin (CaN) regulatory domain (RD) is responsible for regulating the enzyme's phosphatase activity, and is believed to be highly-disordered when inhibiting CaN, but undergoes a disorder-to-order transition upon diffusion-limited binding with the regulatory protein calmodulin (CaM). The prevalence of polar and charged amino acids in the regulatory domain (RD) suggests electrostatic interactions are involved in mediating calmodulin (CaM) binding, yet the lack of atomistic-resolution data for the bound complex has stymied efforts to probe how the RD sequence controls its conformational ensemble and long-range attractions contribute to target protein binding. In the present study, we investigated via computational modeling the extent to which electrostatics and structural disorder facilitate CaM/CaN association kinetics. Specifically, we examined several RD constructs that contain the CaM binding region (CAMBR) to characterize the roles of electrostatics versus conformational diversity in controlling diffusion-limited association rates, via microsecond-scale molecular dynamics (MD) and Brownian dynamic (BD) simulations. Our results indicate that the RD amino acid composition and sequence length influence both the dynamic availability of conformations amenable to CaM binding, as well as long-range electrostatic interactions to steer association. These findings provide intriguing insight into the interplay between conformational diversity and electrostatically-driven protein-protein association involving CaN, which are likely to extend to wide-ranging diffusion-limited processes regulated by intrinsically-disordered proteins.
Opportunities and Challenges for Single-Unit Recordings from Enteric Neurons in Awake Animals

Advanced electrode designs have made single-unit neural recordings commonplace in modern neuroscience research. However, single-unit resolution remains out of reach for the intrinsic neurons of the gastrointestinal system. Single-unit recordings of the enteric (gut) nervous system have been conducted in anesthetized animal models and excised tissue, but there is a large physiological gap between awake and anesthetized animals, particularly for the enteric nervous system. Here, we describe the opportunity for advancing enteric neuroscience offered by single-unit recording capabilities in awake animals. We highlight the primary challenges to microelectrodes in the gastrointestinal system including structural, physiological, and signal quality challenges, and we provide design criteria recommendations for enteric microelectrodes.
Quantitative trait loci identification for brain endophenotypes via new additive model with random networks.

Motivation The identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) is critical to the study of causal relationships between genetic variations and disease abnormalities. We focus on identifying the QTLs associated to the brain endophenotypes in imaging genomics study for Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Existing research works mainly depict the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the brain endophenotypes via the linear methods, which may introduce high bias due to the simplicity of the models. Since the influence of QTLs on brain endophenotypes is quite complex, it is desired to design the appropriate non-linear models to investigate the associations of genotypes and endophenotypes. Results In this paper, we propose a new additive model to learn the non-linear associations between SNPs and brain endophenotypes in Alzheimer's disease. Our model can be flexibly employed to explain the non-linear influence of QTLs, thus is more adaptive for the complex distribution of the high-throughput biological data. Meanwhile, as an important computational learning theory contribution, we provide the generalization error analysis for the proposed approach. Unlike most previous theoretical analysis under independent and identically distributed samples assumption, our error bound is based on m-dependent observations, which is more appropriate for the high-throughput and noisy biological data. Experiments on the data from Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort demonstrate the promising performance of our approach for identifying biological meaningful SNPs. Availability and implementation An executable is available at https://github.com/littleq1991/additive_FNNRW.
Accounting Standards and Earnings Quality: Evidence from Registered ADRs

This paper examines the changes in earnings quality of registered American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) as a result of switching accounting standards. We aim to shed light on the potential impact of ...
Efficient Augmentation via Data Subsampling.

Data augmentation is commonly used to encode invariances in learning methods. However, this process is often performed in an inefficient manner, as artificial examples are created by applying a number of transformations to all points in the training set. The resulting explosion of the dataset size can be an issue in terms of storage and training costs, as well as in selecting and tuning the optimal set of transformations to apply. In this work, we demonstrate that it is possible to significantly reduce the number of data points included in data augmentation while realizing the same accuracy and invariance benefits of augmenting the entire dataset. We propose a novel set of subsampling policies, based on model influence and loss, that can achieve a 90% reduction in augmentation set size while maintaining the accuracy gains of standard data augmentation.
Watermarking PRFs Under Standard Assumptions: Public Marking and Security with Extraction Queries

A software watermarking scheme can embed some information called a mark into a program while preserving its functionality. No adversary can remove the mark without damaging the functionality of the program. Cohen et al. (STOC ’16) gave the first positive results for watermarking, showing how to watermark certain pseudorandom function (PRF) families using indistinguishability obfuscation (iO). Their scheme has a secret marking procedure to embed marks in programs and a public extraction procedure to extract the marks from programs; security holds even against an attacker that has access to a marking oracle. Kim and Wu (CRYPTO ’17) later constructed a PRF watermarking scheme under only the LWE assumption. In their scheme, both the marking and extraction procedures are secret, but security only holds against an attacker with access to a marking oracle but not an extraction oracle. In fact, it is possible to completely break the security of the latter scheme using extraction queries, which is a significant limitation in any foreseeable application.
Optimal Local Thresholds for Distributed Detection in Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks

We consider a wireless sensor network, consisting of Κ heterogeneous sensors and a fusion center (FC), that is tasked with solving a binary distributed detection problem. Each sensor is capable of harvesting and storing energy for communication with the FC. For energy efficiency, a sensor transmits only if the sensor test statistic exceeds a local threshold θ k , its channel gain exceeds a minimum threshold, and its battery state can afford the transmission. Our proposed transmission model at each sensor is motivated by the channel inversion power control strategy in the wireless communication community. Considering a constraint on the average energy of transmit symbols, we study the optimal θ k 's that optimize two detection performance metrics: (i) the detection probability P D at the FC, assuming that the FC utilizes the optimal fusion rule based on Neyman-Pearson optimality criterion, and (ii) Kullback-Leibler distance (KL) between the two distributions of the received signals at the FC conditioned by each hypothesis. Our numerical results indicate that θ k 's obtained from maximizing the KL distance are near-optimal. Finding these thresholds is computationally efficient, as it requires only Κ one-dimensional searches, as opposed to a K-dimensional search required to find the thresholds that maximize P D .
From Hospital to Home to Participation: A Position Paper on Transition Planning Poststroke

Based on a review of the evidence, members of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine Stroke Group's Movement Interventions Task Force offer these 5 recommendations to help improve transitions of care for patients and their caregivers: (1) improving communication processes; (2) using transition specialists; (3) implementing a patient-centered discharge checklist; (4) using standardized outcome measures; and (5) establishing partnerships with community wellness programs. Because of changes in health care policy, there are incentives to improve transitions during stroke rehabilitation. Although transition management programs often include multidisciplinary teams, medication management, caregiver education, and follow-up care management, there is a lack of a comprehensive and standardized approach to implement transition management protocols during poststroke rehabilitation. This article uses the Transitions of Care (TOC) model to conceptualize how to facilitate a comprehensive patient-centered hand off at discharge to maximize patient functioning and health. Specifically, this article reviews current guidelines and provides an evidence summary of several commonly cited approaches (Early Supported Discharge, planned predischarge home visits, discharge checklists) to manage TOC, followed by a description of documented barriers to effective transitions. Patient-centered and standardized transition management may improve community integration, activities of daily living performance, and quality of life for stroke survivors while also decreasing hospital readmission rates during the transition from hospital to home to community.