cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Differential distribution of ERα and ERβ mRNA in intrauterine tissues of the pregnant rhesus monkey

Two estrogen receptor (ER) isoforms, ERalpha and ERbeta, have been described. However, no information is available in any species regarding the comparison of ERalpha and ERbeta levels in pregnant intrauterine tissues. We investigated 1) distribution of ERalpha and ERbeta mRNA in myometrium, amnion, choriodecidua, and placenta; 2) their abundance in intrauterine tissues at term not in labor (NIL) and in spontaneous term labor (STL); and 3) immunolocalization of ERalpha and ERbeta in pregnant rhesus monkey myometrium. Myometrium, amnion, choriodecidua, and placenta were obtained at cesarean section from monkeys in STL at 156-166 days gestational age (GA) (n = 4) and from control monkeys NIL at 140-152 days GA (n = 4). RT-PCR was conducted to determine ERalpha and ERbeta and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase mRNA abundance in four intrauterine tissues of the pregnant rhesus monkey. The cloned ERbeta PCR fragment was subjected to sequence analysis. ERalpha and ERbeta were localized in the myometrium by immunohistochemistry. We demonstrated that 1) rhesus monkey ERbeta shares >97% identity with human ERbeta in the region sequenced; 2) both ERs were expressed in myometrium, amnion, and choriodecidua but not in placenta in the current study; 3) ERalpha and ERbeta were differentially distributed in myometrium and amnion; 4) ERalpha and ERbeta were immunolocalized in myometrial smooth cells and smooth muscle and endothelial cells of the myometrial blood vessels. The biological significance of these quantitative differences in ER subtypes merits further study.
Growth-factor reduced Matrigel source influences stem cell derived brain microvascular endothelial cell barrier properties

Patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are an innovative source as an in vitro model for neurological diseases. Recent studies have demonstrated the differentiation of brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) from various stem cell sources, including iPSC lines. However, the impact of the culturing conditions used to maintain such stem cell pluripotency on their ability to differentiate into BMECs remains undocumented. In this study, we investigated the effect of different sources of Matrigel and stem cell maintenance medium on BMEC differentiation efficiency. The IMR90-c4 iPSC line was maintained on mTeSR1 or in essential-8 (E-8) medium on growth factor-reduced (GFR) Matrigel from three different manufacturers. Cells were differentiated into BMECs following published protocols. The phenotype of BMEC monolayers was assessed by immunocytochemistry. Barrier function was assessed by transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) and permeability to sodium fluorescein, whereas the presence of drug efflux pumps was assessed by uptake assay using fluorescent substrates. Stem cell maintenance medium had little effect on the yield and barrier phenotype of IMR90-derived BMECs. The source of GFR-Matrigel used for the differentiation process significantly impacted the ability of IMR90-derived BMECs to form tight monolayers, as measured by TEER and fluorescein permeability. However, the Matrigel source had minimal effect on BMEC phenotype and drug efflux pump activity. This study supports the ability to differentiate BMECs from iPSCs grown in mTeSR1 or E-8 medium and also suggests that the origin of GFR-Matrigel has a marked inpact on BMEC barrier properties.
Power grid risk assessment system considering characteristics of transmission line failure

The random and fuzzy transmission line failure impacts severely on the operational safety of power grid,for which,a comprehensive risk assessment system with the consideration of its characteristics is proposed. A transmission line failure probability prediction model is built based on the cloud model,which generates the normally distributed clouds according to the data of transmission line state assessment to predict its failure probability. Based on utility theory,a comprehensive risk assessment index system is built for power grid,which includes the general load loss,potential cascading failure,voltage limit violation and system stability,which is used to scan the operational weakness of power grid. With a real power grid as a study case,the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed assessment system are verified.
Psychological Status of the Relatives of Schizophrenic Patients and Nursing Intervention

Objective:To investigate the psychological state of the relatives of schizophrenic hospitalized patients,using appropriate nursing intervention to improve the relative level of psychological stress.Methods:Use of mental health self-assessment scale(SCL-90),self-rating anxiety scale(SAS),self-rating depression scale(SDS) and self-made questionnaire,evaluated 98 relatives of patients with schizophrenia when the patient admission and discharge.Results: A majority of the relatives had obvious anxiety and depression during the patients were hospitalized,after intervention their scores of SAS and SDS reduced.There were significant differences in the factor scores of the SCL-90 in the relatives before and after psychological nursing intervention.Conclusions: Patients admitted to hospital their relatives have significant psychological impact,the psychological problems of their relatives were targeted interventions can improve the ability of the relatives psychological stress,and promote early recovery of the patients.
Application of Redundancy Technology to Hydropower Station Computer Monitoring System

Application of redundancy technology to configuration mode and reliability design in the hydropower station computer monitoring system is analyzed in this paper.Structure redundancy of the single star,double star-shaped,double-loop network and functional redundancy such as: power,storage,and signal are described.In addition,the similarities and differences between redundancy mode and standby mode,as well as its specific implementation are introduced.
Rhabdomyosarcoma of the head and neck.

The experience of the Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study in the treatment of this relatively common pediatric malignancy is described, and the group's standardized staging system is outlined.
MAGDALENE VON DEWALL (1927–2014): A PORTRAIT

Magdalene von Dewall was the only anthropologically oriented specialist in East and Southeast Asian archaeology in Germany in her generation. Her scholarly work on chariots, Dian bronzes, funerary archaeology, and other topics, was often far ahead of its time when published, and it remains worth reading. This article attempts to recount Magdalene von Dewall's biography and intellectual lineage and to characterize her scholarly contributions. It also describes how, largely thanks to Magdalene von Dewall's assiduous efforts, her field of study has gradually gained a certain measure of academic recognition in Germany during recent years.
The Transatlantic Invention of “English” Literary Heritage

One of this book’s themes is the establishment of “literature” as Britain’s key heritage concept—a process abetted by the growth of literary tourism. In previous chapters, I have focused mainly on homegrown British tourists, but now I turn to other travelers drawn to Britain’s literary shrines. Few scholars have considered the role foreign visitors, especially Americans, played in constructing Britain as the home of great dead poets.1 Yet surveying the nineteenth century’s travel literature, one finds the most ardent necromanticism in books on Britain by tourists from the United States; further, one discovers, increasingly as the century goes on, managers of British attractions going out of their way to court American customers, Americans outnumbering other visitors to literary shrines, and even British guidebooks quoting American writers. Accordingly, in tracing the invention of literary, tourist Britain, it is crucial to speak not only of the Englishman’s England (to borrow Ian Ousby’s book title), but also of the American’s. Americans helped to solidify Britain’s literary itinerary, confirming to Britons the heritage that mattered most.
The Stability of Tidal Equilibrium for Hierarchical Star-Planet-Moon Systems

Motivated by the current search for exomoons, this paper considers the stability of tidal equilibrium for hierarchical three-body systems containing a star, a planet, and a moon. In this treatment, the energy and angular momentum budgets include contributions from the planetary orbit, lunar orbit, stellar spin, planetary spin, and lunar spin. The goal is to determine the optimized energy state of the system subject to the constraint of constant angular momentum. Due to the lack of a closed form solution for the full three-body problem, however, we must use use an approximate description of the orbits. We first consider the Keplerian limit and find that the critical energy states are saddle points, rather than minima, so that these hierarchical systems have no stable tidal equilibrium states. We then generalize the calculation so that the lunar orbit is described by a time-averaged version of the circular restricted three-body problem. In this latter case, the critical energy state is a shallow minimum, so that a tidal equilibrium state exists. In both cases, however, the lunar orbit for the critical point lies outside the boundary (roughly half the Hill radius) where (previous) numerical simulations indicate dynamical instability. These results suggest that star-planet-moon systems have no viable long-term stable states analogous to those found for two-body systems.
Special Education Teachers’ Perceptions of Preparedness to Teach Students With Severe Disabilities:

In the current study, special education teachers’ perceptions of preparedness to implement recommended practices for students with severe disabilities were examined. A vignette-style survey was sent to special education teachers assigned to teach students with severe disabilities. Overall, respondents reported higher perceptions of preparedness to manage educational programs than to provide direct services to students with severe disabilities. Teachers with a generalist (i.e., cross-categorical) licensure were significantly less prepared to meet intensive medical, communication, and instructional needs of students with severe disabilities. Teachers with master’s degrees felt more prepared to work with students with severe disabilities in several key areas, although they felt less prepared to address long-term curriculum development. Perceptions of preparedness to teach students with severe disabilities varied among teachers with different types of teaching licenses, different levels of education, and diff...
Network Neutrality and Provider Investment Incentives

This paper develops and analyzes a game theoretic model to study how the network regime (neutral or non-neutral) affects provider investment incentives, network quality and user prices. We formulate the conditions under which a non-neutral network is more favorable for providers and users. Our results indicate that the non-neutral regime is more favorable when the advertising rate is either low or high. When the advertising rate is high relative to the end-users' sensitivity to price, it is beneficial that the transit provider be able to charge the content providers who are not attached directly to them. This has the affect of passing some of the advertising revenue to the transit providers which in turn incentivizes them to invest. Conversely when the advertising rate is low, it is beneficial for all parties for transit providers to pay the content providers, which has the affect of sharing end-user revenue with the content providers in order to incentivize their investment. When the advertising rate is in the intermediate range, the neutral regime can be preferable (in terms of social welfare) because it prevents the multiple-indemnization that occurs in the non-neutral regime because transport providers tend to over-charge. In that latter case, the degree by which the neutral regime is preferable increases with the number of transit providers.
The Limits of Educational Pluralism and How to Address Them

Berner argues that educational pluralism is necessary but insufficient, for at least two reasons. First, the most consistent advantages that private and charter schools have over traditional public schools—challenging academic content and strong school culture—are not guaranteed within a plural structure. Second, despite its many advantages, educational pluralism can work against equity, as Arizona’s first tax credit program and Chile’s initial voucher program seem to have done. Berner describes conflicts that illustrate longstanding tensions, such as the “Curriculum Wars” of the 1990s and recent debates over the Common Core State Standards. She suggests a policy framework that could advance equity and begin to resolve contentious issues, such as creationism versus evolution, schools’ responses to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) lifestyles, or establishing a common curriculum.
Protracted Thrusting Followed by Late Rapid Cooling of the Greater Himalayan Sequence, Annapurna Himalaya, Central Nepal: Insights from Titanite Petrochronology

The Greater Himalayan Sequence (GHS) has commonly been treated as a large coherently deforming high-grade tectonic package, exhumed primarily by simultaneous thrust- and normal-sense shearing on its bounding structures and erosion along its frontal exposure. A new paradigm, developed over the past decade, suggests that the GHS is not a single high-grade lithotectonic unit, but consists of in-sequence thrust sheets. In this study, we examine this concept in central Nepal by integrating temperature-time (T-t) paths, based on coupled Zr-in-titanite thermometry and U-Pb geochronology for upper GHS calcsilicates, with traditional thermobarometry, textural relationships, and field mapping. Peak Zr-in-titanite temperatures are 760-850 °C at 10-14 kbar and U-Pb ages of titanite range from c. 30 to c. 15 Ma. Sector zoning of Zr and distribution of U-Pb ages within titanite suggest that diffusion rates of Zr and Pb are slower than experimentally-determined rates, and these systems remain unaffected into the lower granulite facies. Two types of T-t paths occur across the Chame Shear Zone (CSZ). Between c. 25 and 17-16 Ma, hanging wall rocks cool at rates of 1-10 °C/Ma while foot wall rocks heat at rates of 1-10 °C/Ma. Over the same interval, temperatures increase structurally upwards through the hanging wall, but by 16-17 Ma temperatures converge. In contrast, temperatures decrease upwards in foot wall rocks at all times. While the foot wall is interpreted as an intact, structurally-upright, section, the thermometric inversion within the hanging wall suggests thrusting of hotter rocks over colder from c. 25 to c. 17-16 Ma. Retrograde hydration that is restricted to the hanging wall, and a lithological repetition of orthogneiss are consistent with thrust sense shear on the CSZ. The CSZ is structurally higher than previously-identified intra-GHS thrusts in central Nepal, and thrusting duration was 3-6 Ma longer than proposed for other intra-GHS thrusts in this region. Cooling rates for both the hanging wall and foot wall of the CSZ are comparable to or faster than rates for other intra-GHS thrust sheets in Nepal. The overlap in high temperature titanite U-Pb ages and previously published muscovite 40Ar/39Ar cooling ages imply cooling rates for the hanging wall of ≥ 200 °C/Ma after thrusting. Causes of rapid cooling include passive exhumation driven by a combination of duplexing in the Lesser Himalayan Sequence, and juxtaposition of cooler rocks on top of the GHS by the STDS. Normal-sense displacement does not appear to affect T-t paths for rocks immediately below the STDS prior to 17-16 Ma. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Considerations for the design of a hands-on wireless communications graduate course based on software-defined radio

Essentially, a software-defined radio (SDR) receiver can be described as a radio divided into two different parts. One, the analog front-end, down-converts and samples an RF wireless signal. The other, a back-end implemented in software or digital hardware, processes the samples and recovers the transmitted information, whether it is audio, video, instrumentation data, or whatever else. An SDR transmitter performs the opposite operations. Software-defined radio has opened up tremendous education opportunities. Probably the most intriguing one is to give students the ability to experiment with actual physical signals and systems. Another benefit is that the analog front-end is flexible enough to cover a very large frequency range, allowing students to use the same device to transmit and receive a very large variety of signals. Finally, all this can be achieved without students having to design RF electronic circuits, a subject that deserves its own dedicated course. However, actually realizing the potential educational benefits promised by SDR is far from trivial. In particular, this subject has not been deeply explored in the specific context of a telecommunications engineering technology curriculum. In this paper, we offer some reflections about the experience of designing a graduate elective course on wireless communications based on SDR. We cover aspects such as prerequisites, choice of platform, and selecting appropriate educational objectives and cognitive progression. Since the digital back-end performs many functions necessary for retrieving the information from the received signal (such as carrier acquisition, symbol and frame synchronization, filtering, decimation, de-interleaving, and error control), it becomes crucial to decide how students should tackle these problems, and in which order. We also present concrete examples of student assignments that use an SDR.
All-cause versus complication-specific readmission following total knee arthroplasty

BACKGROUND Unplanned readmissions have become an important quality indicator, particularly for reimbursement; thus, accurate assessment of readmission frequency and risk factors for readmission is critical. The purpose of this study was to determine (1) the frequency of and (2) risk factors for readmissions for all causes or procedure-specific complications within 30 days after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) as well as (3) the association between hospital volume and readmission rate. METHODS The Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) database from the New York State Department of Health was used to identify 377,705 patients who had undergone primary TKA in the period from 1997 to 2014. Preoperative diagnoses, comorbidities, and postoperative complications were determined using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes. Readmission was defined as all-cause, due to complications considered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to be TKA-specific, or due to an expanded list of TKA-specific complications based on expert opinion. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was utilized to determine the independent predictors of readmission within 30 days after surgery. RESULTS There were 22,076 all-cause readmissions-a rate of 5.8%, with a median rate of 3.9% (interquartile range [Q1, Q3] = 1.1%, 7.2%]) among the hospitals-within 30 days after discharge. Of these, only 11% (0.7% of all TKAs) were due to complications considered to be TKA-related by the CMS whereas 31% (1.8% of all TKAs) were due to TKA-specific complications on the expanded list based on expert opinion. Risk factors for TKA-specific readmissions based on the expanded list of criteria included an age of >85 years (odds ratio [OR] = 1.32, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.15 to 1.52), male sex (OR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.34 to 1.49), black race (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.14 to 1.34), Medicaid coverage (OR = 1.40, 95% CI = 1.26 to 1.57), and comorbidities. Several comorbid conditions contributed to the all-cause but not the TKA-specific readmission risk. Very low hospital volume (<90 cases per year) was associated with a higher readmission risk. CONCLUSIONS The frequency of readmissions for TKA-specific complications was low relative to the frequency of all-cause readmissions. Reasons for hospital readmission are multifactorial and may not be amenable to simple interventions. Health-care-quality measurement of readmission rates should be calculated and risk-adjusted on the basis of procedure-specific criteria. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Animal-human relationships in child protective services: getting a baseline.

Inclusion of certain aspects of animal-human relationships (AHR), such as animal abuse and animal-assisted interventions, can enhance child welfare practice and there are resources available to promote such inclusion. However, there is little knowledge of whether this is being accomplished. This study sought to fill this gap by conducting a national survey of state public child welfare agencies to examine AHR in child protective services practice, their assessment tools, and cross-reporting policies. Language: en
The Garden Spot: Year Two

The owner and manager of a small garden shop needs to prepare the financial statements for the shop's second year of operation. These financial statements will assess the financial performance of her company during the year, as well as take stock of its financial position at the end of the year and will be important to loan officers at her bank where the company had obtained two loans, and to an equity investor in the company. Students will prepare journal entries, post this information to T-accounts, record the necessary adjusting entries and post to T-accounts, and prepare an income statement that summarizes results of operations for the year. Excerpt UVA-C-2379 Jul. 5, 2016 The Garden Spot: Year Two Mary Jo Barnes found it hard to believe that she had wrapped up her second year as owner and manager of The Garden Spot, a small garden shop she had opened on January 1 of the prior year in Charlottesville, Virginia. She thought things had been going well at The Garden Spot and was excited about what the future might hold. Before retiring for the evening, Barnes needed to prepare the financial statements for her second year of operation. A lot had happened during the year, and she wanted to make sure she captured it all accurately in preparing those financial statements. After all, she would use those financial statements to assess the financial performance of her company during the year, as well as to take stock of its financial position at the end of the year. She knew that those financial statements would be important to loan officers at National Bank, where the company had obtained two loans, and to Jake Lawrence, who had made an equity investment in the company early during its second year in operation. Barnes began to go through her notes, receipts, and other documents, and compiled the following list of events that had occurred during the year: . . .
Hierarchy machine set-up for multi-pass lot scheduling at semiconductor assembly and test facilities

In this paper, we examine the set-up problem at semiconductor assembly and test facilities in a multi-machine, multi-tooling environment. Our primary objectives are to minimise the number of shortages of key devices and to maximise weighted throughput over a 2–5-day planning horizon. When a machine set-up is called for three components must be taken into account: tooling, package size and flow. Each in turn imposes increasing set-up times, ranging from a few minutes to half a day. To balance system efficiency with meeting customer demand, a hierarchical approach is taken. Priority is first given to set-ups that can process (hot) lots that reduce demand shortages. Next, changeover time is factored into the decision. Here, priority is given to the component that takes the least amount of time. Our model determines machine set-ups, lot assignments and lot sequences using a greedy randomised adaptive search procedure. The results indicate that reducing set-up times can reduce hot-lot shortages by up to 6.6% o...
Depression as a moderator of STAIR Narrative Therapy for women with post-traumatic stress disorder related to childhood abuse

Background: Depression among those who have experienced childhood abuse is associated with earlier onset, more persistent and severe symptoms, more frequent relapse, and poorer treatment outcomes a...
Effects of previous grazing nutrition and management on feedlot performance of cattle

Management strategies designed to improve grazing animal performance can influence feedlot performance and carcass traits both positively and negatively. In spite of the economic relevance of potential interactions between grazing and finishing performance, controlled experiments evaluating integrated production systems are limited in number. Effects of grazing treatments can result from, or be overshadowed by, changes in gut fill, thus making it difficult to assign precise costs to different phases of production. Published reports have considered the effects of stocking rate, duration of grazing, forage characteristics, supplementation, and growth-promoting implants on subsequent finishing performance. Improvements in cattle performance attributed to changes in stocking rate generally have been neutral to positive with respect to effects on finishing performance. Comparisons among forages have led to the suggestion that forage species may contribute to differences in gastrointestinal fill of grazing cattle, thereby influencing gain and efficiency during the subsequent finishing phase. Creep-feeding suckling calves generally has increased preweaning performance but has had relatively little influence on performance during the subsequent finishing phase. Grain supplementation of stocker cattle during the grazing period has improved grazing performance, but effects on subsequent feedlot performance have been inconsistent. Potential carryover effects from protein and mineral supplementation also have been inconclusive. Lack of congruence among studies is puzzling but may be the consequence of highly varied production systems, differences in experimental procedures, and changes in gut fill or mass of internal organs. Based on the studies reviewed, the expression or absence of compensatory growth during the finishing phase appears to be related to the nutritional quality of forages utilized in the grazing period, with higher quality forages tending to yield greater compensatory effects. The bulk of evidence with suckling cattle and stocker implants suggests that effects on subsequent finishing performance are minimal. Attention is drawn to the noticeable lack of research pertaining to integrated production systems. A more thorough understanding of the interactions among grazing nutrition and management, finishing performance, and carcass traits is needed to facilitate greater economic exploitation of these relationships.
Dimension-based attention in the recognition of facial identity and facial expression

Although the human visual system is constantly flooded with sensory information, the brain is remarkable in inferring structures from the massive inputs and selectively attending to behaviorally relevant information. However, how the two processes interact remains largely unknown. Can top-down attention efficiently select the task-relevant dimension (e.g. gender) during face recognition to override interference in the task-irrelevant dimension (e.g. expression)? To address this issue, participants were asked to classify real face images according to gender or expression, which were preceded by other faces (masked priming task) or words (face-word Stroop task). Results show that face classification was 1) affected by the task-relevant but not the task-irrelevant dimension of the preceding faces, and 2) modulated by words depicting the task-relevant but not the task-irrelevant dimension of the face. These results suggest that high level dimensions such as facial expression and facial identity can serve as units of attentional selection, possibly due to the late binding of the two dimensions.
Effect of rock anisotropy on wellbore stresses and hydraulic fracture propagation

Abstract Using a newly developed 2D numerical model based on the displacement discontinuity method (DDM) and the fictitious stress method (FSM), hydraulic fracture propagation near and away from a horizontal wellbore in anisotropic mudstones is studied. In addition to elastic anisotropy, the effect of fracture toughness anisotropy on hydraulic fracture propagation is included and fluid flow in fractures is fully coupled with rock deformation. Simulations show wellbore failure pressure, fracture trajectory, and near wellbore fracture apertures are significantly affected by elastic and fracture toughness anisotropy. A simple plane strain analytical solution might indicate that near wellbore fracture opening is enhanced in vertically transversely isotropic (VTI) rock. However, near wellbore fracture turning in a rock with high fracture toughness anisotropy results in severe constriction of fracture apertures. This effect becomes more severe with increase in fracture toughness anisotropy and perforation misalignment angle. Simulations of multiple hydraulic fractures from horizontal wellbores suggest that fracture lengths and apertures are affected by their orientation with respect to the directions of elastic symmetry. The spatial extent of the induced normal stresses perpendicular to the fracture surface increases when the fracture is aligned with the direction of least Young's modulus. The larger spatial extent of induced stresses in anisotropic rock leads to early termination of the fractures emanating from the inner perforation clusters, resulting in fracture networks with dominant outer fractures. In the presence of fracture toughness anisotropy, the fractures deviate towards the plane of least fracture toughness under low differential stress conditions.
Sustainability and resilience: A review of definitions, relationships, and their integration into a combined building assessment framework

Abstract Every year, the United States is faced with billions of dollars in damages and large numbers of deaths due to natural hazards. Resilience to these hazards has become a growing theme in sustainable design and the current global discourse on climate change adaptation. Coping with the challenges of earth's ever-shifting climate contextualizes the importance of resilience in sustainable development. To achieve greater resilience at a minimum environmental cost, the literature suggests developing a coherent sustainability and resilience framework. This review discusses the definition of sustainability and resilience and the relationship between the two concepts in order to examine the possibility of establishing such a combined framework. Studying the relationship between the sustainability and resilience points to some similarities between the two paradigms but also highlights key differences that may impede their integration. Most existing studies advocate the incorporation of resilience indicators into sustainability metrics and believe it to be technically possible. The major finding of this review is that the integration process requires developing a new combined assessment tool or a thorough refinement of current sustainability frameworks to include resilience indicators that were not initially included. For such a unified framework to be established successfully, the active involvement of different stakeholders in all stages is necessary.
Associations among hearing loss, hospitalization, readmission and mortality in older adults: A systematic review

Abstract Objective Older adults with hearing loss face many challenges impacting health outcomes. The objective of this review was to evaluate current evidence for associations among hearing loss, hospitalizations, readmissions and mortality in older adults living with hearing loss. Methods A systematic search, of PubMed, CINAHL and Embase was performed in October 2018. Studies that were included consisted of populations aged 50 and older, publications after 2004, clearly defined hearing loss measurements, and non-aggregated, appropriate outcome variables. We excluded deafness, specified hearing losses, and cochlear implant users. Results Fifteen mortality studies, four hospitalization studies, and one readmission study were identified. After adjustments, three mortality, three hospitalization, and the one readmission study found significant associations. Discussion Hearing loss was associated with an increased risk of hospitalizations, readmission and mortality. However, there is insufficient evidence to support that hearing loss is independently associated to increased risk of these outcomes.
Dynamic Placement Algorithm for Multiple Classes of Mobile Base Stations in Public Safety Networks

As new mobile base stations (mBSs) have been constantly developed with various capacities, mobile coverage, and mobility models, the level of heterogeneity in public safety networks (PSNs) has been increasing. Since disasters and emergencies require the ad hoc PSN deployments, dynamic mBS placement and movement algorithm is one of the most important decisions to provide the critical communication channels for first responders (FRs). In this paper, we propose a heterogeneous mBS placement algorithm in an ad hoc public safety network. We define different classes of mobile base stations that have varying performance characteristics and consider three different FRs mobility models. Our proposed algorithm applies the modern clustering technique to deal with the characteristics of different kinds of mBSs.
Technical Aspects of Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Lymphocele Excision with Intraperitonealization

Abstract Introduction: Roughly 70% of prostatectomies were accompanied by pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) in 2010–2011.1 PLND can provide staging information that may help further determine ext...
Sugammadex: Applications in Pediatric Critical Care

Sugammadex is a novel pharmacologic agent, which reverses neuromuscular blockade with a mechanism that differs from acetylcholinesterase inhibitors such as neostigmine. There is a growing body of literature demonstrating its efficacy in pediatric patients of all ages. Prospective trials have demonstrated a more rapid and more complete reversal of rocuronium-induced neuromuscular blockade than the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, neostigmine. Unlike the acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, sugammadex effectively reverses intense or complete neuromuscular blockade. It may also be effective in situations where reversal of neuromuscular blockade is problematic including patients with neuromyopathic conditions or when acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are contraindicated. This article reviews the physiology of neuromuscular transmission as well as the published literature, regarding the use of sugammadex in pediatric population including the pediatric intensive care unit population. Clinical applications are reviewed, adverse effects are discussed, and dosing algorithms are presented.
Chemicals: dusts and fibers

Abstract This updated chapter provides a reference for toxicologists interested in dusts and fibers. While most particle-related disease research has historically focused on silica, asbestos, and coal dust, there has been heightened interest on the toxicological effects of other particles, including nanoparticles and nanofibers. This chapter has been updated accordingly.
Are CIN3 risk or CIN3+ risk measures reliable surrogates for invasive cervical cancer risk?

• Discuss ASCCP guideline. • CIN3 reliable surrogates for cervical cancer? • The Pittsburgh Cervical Cancer Screening Model.
Fee Speech: Signaling, Risk-Sharing, and the Impact of Fee Structure on Investor Welfare

The fee structure used to compensate investment advisers is central to the study of fund design, and affects investor welfare in at least three ways: (i) by influencing the portfolio-selection incentives of the adviser, (ii) by affecting risk-sharing between adviser and investor, and (iii) through its use as a signal of quality by superior investment advisers. In this paper, we describe a model in which all of these features are present, and use it to compare two popular and contrasting forms of fee contracts, the "fulcrum" and the "incentive" types, from the standpoint of investor welfare. While the former has some undeniably attractive features (that have, in particular, been used by regulators to justify its mandatory use in a mutual fund context), we find surprisingly that it is the latter that is often more attractive from the standpoint of investor welfare. Our model is a flexible one; our conclusions are shown to be robust to many extensions of interest. The results are also extended to consider unrestricted fee structures and competitive markets for fund managers.
Model Discrimination of Switched Nonlinear Systems With Temporal Logic-Constrained Switching

This letter considers the model discrimination problem for switched nonlinear systems, where the switching sequence is constrained by metric/signal temporal logic specifications. Specifically, we propose an optimization-based algorithm for analyzing the detectability of the models from noisy, finite data as well as a model discrimination algorithm for nonlinear parameter-varying systems to rule out models that are inconsistent with observations at run time, by checking the feasibility of corresponding mixed-integer linear programs. Moreover, we apply the algorithms to nonlinear systems subject to ( $m$ , $k$ )-firm data losses and explicitly provide the integer constraints corresponding to the ( $m$ , $k$ )-firm constraints for lossy/missing data. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our approaches using several illustrative examples on fault detection, swarm consensus and intent identification problems.
Parenting Surviving Children After the Death of a Child from Cancer: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

The death of a child is a tragic, devastating event with enormous emotional and relational impact on the family unit. Parental changes are significant, encompassing the psychological, physical, spiritual, and interpersonal realms. Little bereavement research has focused on the crucial familial role of parenting or the relationship between bereaved parents and their surviving children after another child’s death. A noteworthy gap likewise exists in current literature regarding the experience of parenting within families who suffered the death of a child due to an extended, life-limiting illness such as cancer. This interpretative phenomenological analysis addresses the gap by exploring the lived experience of those who parent surviving children after their child’s cancer death. Seven mothers and four fathers (n = 11) across the United States participated in video or face-to-face semi-structured individual interviews. Parents had a range of 1–2 surviving children whose ages spanned 23 months-18 years (M = 8.27; SD = 5.07) at the time of their sibling’s death (M = 5.43 years earlier; SD = 3.17). Data analysis revealed two primary themes. “A New Mind” denotes bereaved parents’ new, contrasting mindsets regarding self-view, daily motivators, perceived locus of control, perspective, boundaries for children, direction of focus, and outside relationships. “Be Beside Me” highlights parents’ deep desire that others come alongside them by validating their emotions and experience and providing opportunities for family renewal. Clinicians working with bereaved families should have awareness of and consider parents’ changed perspectives, challenges, and supportive needs in order to deliver family-centered care and enrich existing services and support programs.
Thermophysical Properties of Mixtures of Thorium and Uranium Nitride

The miscibility, lattice parameter, and thermophysical properties of (Th0.2U0.8)N and (Th0.5U0.5)N have been investigated. It is shown that additions of thorium nitride (ThN) to uranium nitride (UN) increases the thermophysical performance of the mixed nitride fuel form in comparison to reference UN. In the more dilute limit, additions of ThN serve as a burnable neutronic poison and reduces the change in keff over the lifecycle of the fuel. At higher concentrations, additions of ThN serve as a significant fertile source of 233U. Where appropriate, comparisons to previous work on UN + PuN mixtures are made, as this is a comparable fuel form for potential fast reactor concepts, and a suitable point of contrast in the possible design space afforded by mixed (ThxU1 − x)N fuel forms. The data from this work are the input parameters for finite element modeling of the temperature distribution in a compact reactor. The results of modeling and simulation of this core design are shown for the case of steady-state operation and during double, adjacent heat pipe failure.
AT1 Receptors and Angiotensin Actions in the Brain and Neuronal Cultures of Normotensive and Hypertensive Rats

It is now widely accepted that a functional renin-angiotensin system is intrinsic to the brain and is of great physiological and pathophysiological importance. Over the past twenty-five years evidence has been mounting that demonstrates the profound effects of angiotensin II (AII) on fluid balance and cardiovascular regulation. Activation by AII of specific neuronal receptors localized on the cardioregulatory-relevant areas of the brain, is the key step in a cascade of cellular events that ultimately lead to the increase in blood pressure (BP) and modulation of baroreceptor function. With this review we will discuss: 1) the physiological evidence supporting the role of brain AII in BP control; 2) localization of AII receptor subtypes in the brain; 3) evidence demonstrating the usefulness of an in vitro neuronal cell culture system to study the cellular, molecular and genetic basis of the brain AII dependent-hypertensive state; and 4) our current understandings of the cellular mechanism of AII actions in the brain with the use of this in vitro neuronal culture system.
Linearized Theory of a Partially Cavitating Plano-Convex Hydrofoil Including the Effects of Camber and Thickness

The linearized treatment of the flow over a partially cavitating single hydrofoil having a flat pressure surface and a circular-arc suction side is presented. The flow is treated as a two-dimensional, steady, inviscid flow. Further assumptions made are those of incompressibility and irrotationality. The results obtained are compared with experiment and generally good correlation is found for the ranges of validity of the linearization.
Defining the Translocation Pathway of the Legionella pneumophila Type IV Secretion System

The ability of Legionella pneumophila to cause disease is primarily due to its ability to survive inside alveolar macrophages, immune cells capable of destroying most bacteria. The Dot/Icm proteins make up a type IVB secretion system that is required for delivery of multiple protein substrates into the host cell cytoplasm, where they are believed to alter the endocytic pathway and allow the bacterial phagosome to avoid fusion with lysosomal markers. Type IV secretion systems (T4SSs) are used by many pathogens to deliver substrates to host cells, including Helicobacter pylori, Bordetella pertussis, and Brucella abortus. The secretion systems used by these pathogens are ancestrally related to plasmid transfer systems and are thus referred to as adapted conjugation systems. Our goal is to characterize the molecular details of how the Dot/Icm secretion complex assembles and functions to export substrates. The approaches to understanding these processes are based on techniques that have proven successful in characterizing the canonical T4SS, the VirB/D4 system from the plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens. To identify functional subcomplexes of the Dot/Icm T4SS, researchers are currently examining protein interactions between Dot/Icm components. One approach researchers are taking to accomplish this is to determine effects on protein stability caused by deletions of other dot/icm genes. This approach is based on the fact that proteins that interact in a complex often require their interaction partners for stability.
SU-E-I-88: The Effect of System Dead Time On Real-Time Plastic and GOS Based Fiber-Optic Dosimetry Systems

Purpose: A methodology is presented to correct for measurement inaccuracies at high detector count rates using a plastic and GOS scintillation fibers coupled to a photomultiplier tube with digital readout. This system allows temporal acquisition and manipulation of measured data. Methods: The detection system used was a plastic scintillator and a separate gadolinium scintillator, both (0.5 diameter) coupled to an optical fiber with a Hamamatsu photon counter with a built-in microcontroller and digital interface. Count rate performance of the system was evaluated using the nonparalzable detector model. Detector response was investigated across multiple radiation sources including: orthovoltage x-ray system, colbat-60 gamma rays, proton therapy beam, and a diagnostic radiography x-ray tube. The dead time parameter was calculated by measuring the count rate of the system at different exposure rates using a reference detector. Results: The system dead time was evaluated for the following sources of radiation used clinically: diagnostic energy x-rays, cobalt-60 gamma rays, orthovoltage xrays, particle proton accelerator, and megavoltage x-rays. It was found that dead time increased significantly when exposing the detector to sources capable of generating Cerenkov radiation, all of the sources sans the diagnostic x-rays, with increasing prominence at higher photon energies. Percent depth dose curvesmore » generated by a dedicated ionization chamber and compared to the detection system demonstrated that correcting for dead time improves accuracy. On most sources, nonparalzable model fit provided an improved system response. Conclusion: Overall, the system dead time was variable across the investigated radiation particles and energies. It was demonstrated that the system response accuracy was greatly improved by correcting for dead time effects. Cerenkov radiation plays a significant role in the increase in the system dead time through transient absorption effects attributed to electron hole-pair creations within the optical waveguide.« less
4 Cross-language facilitation, repetition blindness, and the relation between language and memory: Replications of Altarriba and Soltano (1996) and support for a new theory

Abstract Using improved materials, procedures, analyses, and experimental design, the present study replicated and extended several interesting effects reported in Altarriba and Soltano (1996) . In two experiments, 48 highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals read and immediately recalled rapidly presented (RSVP) sentences and three-word lists resembling those of Altarriba and Soltano: each stimulus contained a target and pretarget word that were related in three ways: complete identity (e.g. ants-ants ), semantic identity across languages (i.e., cross-language translation equivalents such as hormigas-ants ), and unrelated within or across languages (e.g., tie-ants ). Results indicated that with complete identity, repetition blindness occurred in both lists and sentences (i.e., participants always recalled targets better when unrepeated than when repeated within the same language). In contrast, with semantic identity across languages, repeated concepts were recalled better than unrepeated concepts in lists, but this cross-language facilitation effect only occurred for ambiguous words with many translation equivalents: Neither RB nor facilitation occurred for unambiguous words with a single translation equivalent. These results support a new theory of repetition blindness and carry implications for theories of the relation between language and memory for lists versus sentences.