cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Chiropractic and self-care for back-related leg pain: design of a randomized clinical trial

Background Back-related leg pain (BRLP) is a common variation of low back pain (LBP), with lifetime prevalence estimates as high as 40%. Often disabling, BRLP accounts for greater work loss, recurrences, and higher costs than uncomplicated LBP and more often leads to surgery with a lifetime incidence of 10% for those with severe BRLP, compared to 1-2% for those with LBP. In the US, half of those with back-related conditions seek CAM treatments, the most common of which is chiropractic care. While there is preliminary evidence suggesting chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy is beneficial for patients with BRLP, there is insufficient evidence currently available to assess the effectiveness of this care.
Pre-transplant immunological profile and risk factor analysis of post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease development: the results of a nested matched case-control study. The University of Pittsburgh PTLD Study Group.

Development of post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD) is a major complication of organ transplantation.While immune mechanisms seem to play a major role in the development of PTLD, how the immune system contributes to the process of PTLD development or its regression remains unknown. Between 1990–1994, 303 organ transplant recipients were enrolled into a prospective study designed to analyze risk factors for PTLD. Using a nested case-control design, 9 PTLD and 18 control patients were matched for age, EBV serological status at the time of transplantation, and, in most cases, for the type of transplanted organ. The immunologic profiles of both groups were compared prior to and following transplantation. Immune measures included absolute numbers of lymphocytes and of subsets of T. B and natural-killer (NK) cells as well as spontaneous NK-cell and in virro generated LAK-cell activities. A consistent trend for higher levels at baseline as well as following transplantation for almost all immune par...
DSP Restoration Techniques for Audio

The CD revolution of 1984 unleashed a massive campaign of rerelease of vintage analog recordings. To their collective horror, record labels found that many of the original master recordings had deteriorated. Often the only existing copy of a recording was a vinyl pressing. This rush to release beloved music in the new digital form spawned intense interest in digital methods of restoring these old recordings. A number of DSP techniques have been developed to give new life to these recordings. This paper is a survey of some of those methods.
Emergency Contraception, Myths and Facts

Emergency contraception has the potential to reduce the United States unintended pregnancy rate by half. This article discusses the evidence on the safety and efficacy of emergency contraception, its side effects, as well as its mechanisms of action. Emergency contraception availability presents many opportunities for enhanced contraceptive care, beyond the obvious lapse in condom use, and evidence is lacking for contraindications to this expanded role. This article concludes that clinicians caring for women of reproductive age should recognize the importance of ready access to this medication to help prevent unintended pregnancies.
Multi-agent coordination using dynamic behavior-based subsumption

Team coordination of non-player characters can create a deeper sense of immersion in real-time games by allowing characters to work together to produce better tactics and strategy. Achieving multi-agent coordination can be a difficult problem, and can incur substantial computational costs. Our goal with this work is to produce a reactive method for coordinating game characters that will allow computationally inexpensive team coordination. Reactive teaming creates teams of agents through the use of simple constant-time agent interactions without increasing the difficulty of authoring game characters.
Implications of Rahner's Anthropology for Fundamental Moral Theology

Karl Rahner's primary contribution to moral theology lies in his development of an anthropology able to serve as a foundation for a rehabilitated concept of natural law. Human persons in Rahner's theology are characterized by certain existentials with logical consequences for ethics. From human transcendence and freedom follows the concept of a fundamental option for or against God. From human materiality, historicity, guilt, and individuality follow the methodological necessity of distinguishing between principles and prescriptions and the unavoidable need to take risks. In contrast to unchanging metaphysical human nature, the historicity of concrete human nature and therefore of natural law requires that all material norms be recognized as conditioned by history and culture and hence limited, not universal or absolute.
¡Medicina Sí Muerte No!: Race, Public Health, and the “Long War on Poverty” in Mathis, Texas, 1948–1971

This essay examines the evolution and politics of the Chicano movement in South Texas. Framed around the mysterious death of Dr. Fred E. Logan Jr., the author argues that concerns around public health were at the heart of a long struggle to end poverty and overturn years of Anglo political rule in the small town of Mathis.
Acoustic shaping in microgravity - Higher order surface shapes

Further results from microgravity flight experiments on acoustic shaping are discussed. In previous experiments, the authors showed that straight and curved walls could be formed using styrofoam and cereal pellets of arbitrary shape seeded in a sound field in a resonant chamber. The wall shapes corresponded to constant-pressure-amplitude contours of the sound field; however, the walls have multiple stable locations near the nodal planes. Low acoustic energy input found to be sufficient in microgravity. Here the observations are related to predictions of particle and flowfield behavior. For the low-order modes used here, acoustic streaming is an important factor in transporting particles through the chamber. Simulations using multiple harmonics indicates possibilities for constructing and transporting shapes inside the container. Flow visualization supports the streaming predictions. The streaming velocity corresponds to the predicted values for the measured standing wave pressure amplitude. Visualizations of nodal planes show the formation of shapes of specified curvature. G-jitter is of the order of 0.03g, comparable to the peak accelerations due to acoustic radiation force, limits wall formation and control time during each parabola. Complex shapes can be formed with a variety of materials in microgravity. Tailoring the sound field to specific shapes and materials appears to be within reach.
Microfluidic production of spherical and nonspherical fat particles by thermal quenching of crystallizable oils.

We report the microfluidic production of spherical and nonspherical fat particles from crystallizable oils. The method is based on microfluidic generation of oil droplets at a cross-junction followed by thermal solidification downstream in a microcapillary. We vary the drop production conditions and the device temperature and demonstrate that the size, shape, and crystallinity can be controlled. By measuring thermal gradients in the microcapillary, we show that crystalline fat particles are best produced when the device temperature is below the onset temperature of bulk fat crystallization. To produce monodisperse nonspherical fat particles, we find that the carrier fluid flow rate needs to be sufficiently high to provide strong hydrodynamic forces to transport the confined rod-like particles. We identify the scaling relationship between geometric confinement and particle elasticity necessary to maintain the nonspherical shape. Thus, our study provides guidelines for the production of spherical and nonsph...
A Reappraisal of the γ-Glutamylcysteine Synthetase Activity in Haemolysates from Normal Erythrocytes by Two Different Methods

gamma-Glutamylcysteine synthetase catalyses the combination of L-glutamate and L-cysteine to form gamma-glutamylcysteine with a stoichiometric conversion of ATP to ADP and inorganic phosphate (Pi). During the estimation of this enzyme in haemolysates from normal erythrocytes it was found that the Pi released was more than the amount of gamma-glutamylcysteine synthesised. Furthermore, the activity estimated by analysing either product was higher than the corresponding values reported in the literature. An investigation into these discrepancies resulted in improvements of the assay methods which produced two substantially different normal ranges for the gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase activity in haemolysates: one derived from the Pi released and the other from the gamma-glutamylcysteine synthesised during the enzymatic reaction.
Mapping and ablation procedures for the treatment of ventricular tachycardia.

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Ventricular tachycardia (VT) may occur in the presence or absence of structural heart disease. Given that the management of VT hinges on the presence of symptoms and risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD), the main treatment goals are elimination of symptoms (including frequent implantable cardioverter defibrillator [ICD] therapies) and prevention of SCD. Unfortunately, medical management is suboptimal in a significant proportion of patients. As such, ablative therapy plays a prominent role in the treatment of ventricular tachycardia.Areas covered: In this review, we will discuss various VT disorders that are encountered in patients with and without structural heart disease. Further, we will highlight salient features regarding mapping and ablation of the various VT syndromes. Finally, we will discuss what lies on the horizon for VT ablation.Expert commentary: Meticulous mapping should aim to find the region that is most likely to be successful and least likely to result in a complicatio...
Digestion, feed intake, and live weight gain by cattle consuming bermudagrass hay supplemented with whey.

Three experiments were conducted with cattle consuming bermudagrass hay to determine whether low-level supplements of whey alone, corn alone, or whey plus corn affect feed intake, digestion, and(or) BW gain. Six ruminally and duodenally cannulated beef cows (574 kg), used in a Latin-square trial (Exp. 1), were fed bermudagrass hay without supplementation (control) or with 2.8% whey (low whey, LW), 5.6% whey (high whey, HW), 17.4% ground corn (C), 2.8% whey plus 14.9% corn (C-LW), or 5.6% whey plus 12.4% corn (C-HW). Supplementing with whey and(or) corn increased ruminal butyrate (8.8, 9.4, 10.0, 9.6, 10.5, and 11.0 mol/100 mol of total VFA for control, LW, HW, C, C-LW, and C-HW, respectively; SE = .20). Supplements did not affect microbial N flow at the duodenum. Six Holstein steer calves (158 kg) in a Latin square (Exp. 2) consumed bermudagrass hay ad libitum alone (control) or with .075 or .15% BW whey (LW and HW, respectively), .5% BW ground corn (C), or corn-whey mixes made by substituting whey for corn (C-LW and C-HW). Substituting .15% BW of whey for corn increased (P less than .05) total OM intake slightly (3.99, 3.84, 3.75, 4.11, 4.28, and 4.47 kg for control, LW, HW, C, C-LW, and C-HW, respectively; SE = .10). In an 84-d randomized block experiment (Exp. 3), 96 beef calves (194 kg) consumed (ad libitum) low-quality bermudagrass hay alone or with C, LW, HW, C-LW, or C-HW supplements.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Laboratory diagnosis of genetic disorders.

Four types of laboratory techniques may yield evidence of a genetic abnormality, thus permitting identification of the patient with and the family at risk for particular disorders: direct examination of chromosomes for detection of gross numerical or structural abnormalities; direct measurement of specific enzyme activities under genetic control; measurement of biochemical compounds whose concentrations are affected by inherited defects of metabolism; measurement of biochemical changes at a cellular level which may reflect abnormal genetic processes.
SU-G-JeP4-02: An Investigation of Respiratory Surrogate Motion Data Requirements for Multiple-Step Ahead Prediction

Purpose: Respiratory-gated radiotherapy and dynamic tracking employ real-time imaging and surrogate motion-monitoring methods with tumor motion prediction in advance of real-time. This study investigated respiratory motion data length on prediction accuracy of tumor motion. Methods: Predictions generated from the algorithm are validated against a one-dimensional surrogate signal of amplitude versus time. Prediction consists of three major components: extracting top-ranked subcomponents from training data matching the last respiratory cycle; calculating weighting factors from best-matched subcomponents; fusing data proceeding best-matched subcomponents with respective weighting factors to form predictions. Predictions for one respiratory cycle (∼3-6seconds) were assessed using 351 patient data from the respiratory management device. Performance was evaluated for correlation coefficient and root mean square error (RMSE) between prediction and final respiratory cycle. Results: Respiratory prediction results fell into two classes, where best predictions for 70 cycles or less performed using relative prediction and greater than 70 cycles are predicted similarly using relative and derivative relative. For 70 respiratory cycles or less, the average correlation between prediction and final respiratory cycle was 0.9999±0.0001, 0.9999±0.0001, 0.9988±0.0003, 0.9985±0.0023, and 0.9981±0.0023 with RMSE values of 0.0091±0.0030, 0.0091±0.0030, 0.0305±0.0051, 0.0299±0.0259, and 0.0299±0.0259 for equal, relative, pattern, derivative equal and derivative relative weighting methods, respectively. Respectively, the total best prediction for each method was 37, 65, 20, 22, and 22. For data with greater than 70 cycles average correlation was 0.9999±0.0001, 0.9999±0.0001, 0.9988±0.0004, 0.9988±0.0020, and 0.9988±0.0020 with RMSE values of 0.0081±0.0031, 0.0082±0.0033, 0.0306±0.0056, 0.0218±0.0222, and 0.0218±0.0222 for equal, relative, pattern, derivative equal and derivative relative weighting methods, respectively. Respectively, the total best prediction for each method was 24, 44, 42, 30, and 45. Conclusion: The prediction algorithms are effective in estimating surrogate motion in advance. These results indicate an advantage in using relative prediction for shorter data and either relative or derivative relative prediction for longer data.
Antithrombotic Selection in ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction: a Year in Review

In ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), interventional cardiologists must move quickly to safely re-establish blood flow while choosing an antithrombotic to preclude wire thrombosis, aid in the restoration of flow, minimize thrombus propagation, and reduce the risk of stent thrombosis. Currently, operators have a choice between heparin and bivalirudin with the possible addition of glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors (GPIs). Prior studies have shown that bivalirudin use lowers rates of bleeding, but with a clear risk of acute stent thrombosis. Recent studies have examined this question in the modern era of radial access and newer antiplatelet agents. Despite these studies, there remains a question regarding which antithrombotic agent is to be selected in STEMI.
Meningomyelocele and Epilepsy

The prevalence of seizures and epilepsy and the occurrence of other brain malformations or structural abnormalities were examined in 81 children with meningomyelocele followed at the multidisciplinary Children’s Clinics for Rehabilitative Services, University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, Tucson, AZ.
Migraine Diagnoses and Symptom Patterns

The diagnostic rates based on various criteria and symptom complexes of children and adolescents with chronic headache were evaluated in 88 consecutive patients who attended the Pediatric Headache Clinic at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, 1989-1991.
P101 Fibrosis as a Disease of Aging and Mitochondrial Dysfunction

Despite the fact that Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is a fatal and progressive lung disease of unknown etiology whose prevalence dramatically increases with age, few new pathobiologic models have emerged. Repetitive injury of mitochondrial-enriched type II alveolar epithelial cells (AECII) appears to be a key …
Goeckerman Therapy for the Treatment of Severe Generalized Psoriasis

The Goeckerman regimen is a unique combination therapy of UVB light and application of crude coal tar for the treatment of psoriasis, eczema, prurigo nodularis, and chronic pruritus. Coal tar is speculated to be an anti-inflammatory and a photosensitizer that can increase the effectiveness of phototherapy. In the Goeckerman regimen, patients first undergo UVB phototherapy per protocol. Then their body is covered in crude coal tar under plastic occlusion for 4–5 h. This is repeated daily, 5 days per week, for approximately 6 weeks. The efficacy of Goeckerman is superior to most other available therapies. For example, 100% of patients with severe psoriasis achieve 75% improvement or better from baseline by 12 weeks. Side effects include those of phototherapy (erythema, burning, and tanning), as well as irritation and folliculitis from tar products.
Digital coherent communication and advanced coding technologies for ultra-long-haul optical transmissions

Digital coherent communication technologies have shown superior performance in supporting high-bit-rate optical communications, including very high fiber chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD) tolerance, and high spectral efficiency. In this paper, we will review the typical system design and the operation principles of dual-polarization digital coherent optical communications, and further investigate the transmission of 100Gb/s optical signals over transoceanic distances. We introduce LDPC based advanced coding schemes to support digital coherent communication systems for extra system margin from the FEC coding perspective.
Fractal Model for Wettability of Rough Surfaces.

This paper presents a fractal model to describe wettability on multiscale randomly rough surfaces. Hydrophobic or superhydrophobic surfaces, produced by processes such as electrodeposition and etching, lead to the creation of random roughness at multiple length scales on the surface. This paper considers the description of such surfaces with a fractal asperity model based on the Weierstrass–Mandelbrot (W-M) function, where the fractal parameters are uniquely determined from a power spectrum of the surface. By use of this description, a model is presented to evaluate the apparent contact angle in the different wetting regimes. The model is predictive in that it does not use any empirical or correlatory fitting of parameters to experimental data. Experimental validation of the model predictions is presented on various hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces generated on several materials under different processing conditions. The contact angle is found be strongly dependent on the range of asperity length...
Psychosocial Profiles of Youth Who Acquire a Natural Mentor during a School Year.

Youth who form bonds with supportive, nonparent adults within their existing social networks (i.e., natural mentors) experience a range of positive outcomes, but a relatively minimal amount is know...
The Tangible Desktop: A Multimodal Approach to Nonvisual Computing

Audio-only interfaces, facilitated through text-to-speech screen reading software, have been the primary mode of computer interaction for blind and low-vision computer users for more than four decades. During this time, the advances that have made visual interfaces faster and easier to use, from direct manipulation to skeuomorphic design, have not been paralleled in nonvisual computing environments. The screen reader–dependent community is left with no alternatives to engage with our rapidly advancing technological infrastructure. In this article, we describe our efforts to understand the problems that exist with audio-only interfaces. Based on observing screen reader use for 4 months at a computer training school for blind and low-vision adults, we identify three problem areas within audio-only interfaces: ephemerality, linear interaction, and unidirectional communication. We then evaluated a multimodal approach to computer interaction called the Tangible Desktop that addresses these problems by moving semantic information from the auditory to the tactile channel. Our evaluation demonstrated that among novice screen reader users, Tangible Desktop improved task completion times by an average of 6 minutes when compared to traditional audio-only computer systems.
Addicted to Hate: Identity Residual among Former White Supremacists:

The process of leaving deeply meaningful and embodied identities can be experienced as a struggle against addiction, with continuing cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses that are involuntary, unwanted, and triggered by environmental factors. Using data derived from a unique set of in-depth life history interviews with 89 former U.S. white supremacists, as well as theories derived from recent advances in cognitive sociology, we examine how a rejected identity can persist despite a desire to change. Disengagement from white supremacy is characterized by substantial lingering effects that subjects describe as addiction. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of identity residual for understanding how people leave and for theories of the self.
Improving Latent User Models in Online Social Media.

Modern social platforms are characterized by the presence of rich user-behavior data associated with the publication, sharing and consumption of textual content. Users interact with content and with each other in a complex and dynamic social environment while simultaneously evolving over time. In order to effectively characterize users and predict their future behavior in such a setting, it is necessary to overcome several challenges. Content heterogeneity and temporal inconsistency of behavior data result in severe sparsity at the user level. In this paper, we propose a novel mutual-enhancement framework to simultaneously partition and learn latent activity profiles of users. We propose a flexible user partitioning approach to effectively discover rare behaviors and tackle user-level sparsity. We extensively evaluate the proposed framework on massive datasets from real-world platforms including Q&A networks and interactive online courses (MOOCs). Our results indicate significant gains over state-of-the-art behavior models ( 15% avg ) in a varied range of tasks and our gains are further magnified for users with limited interaction data. The proposed algorithms are amenable to parallelization, scale linearly in the size of datasets, and provide flexibility to model diverse facets of user behavior.
Resting-state network connectivity and metastability predict clinical symptoms in schizophrenia.

Abstract Background The functional architecture of resting-state networks (RSNs) is defined by their connectivity and metastability. Disrupted RSN connectivity has been amply demonstrated in schizophrenia while the role of metastability remains poorly defined. Here, we undertake a comprehensive characterisation of RSN organization in schizophrenia and test its contribution to the clinical profile of this disorder. Methods We extracted RSNs representing the default mode (DMN), central executive (CEN), salience (SAL), language (LAN), sensorimotor (SMN), auditory (AN) and visual (VN) networks from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data obtained from patients with schizophrenia (n = 85) and healthy individuals (n = 48). For each network, we computed its functional cohesiveness and integration and used the Kuramoto order parameter to compute metastability. We used stepwise multiple regression analyses to test these RSN features as predictors of symptom severity in patients. Results RSN features respectively explained 14%, 17%, 12% and 5% of the variance in positive, negative, anxious/depressive and agitation/disorganization symptoms. Lower functional integration between the DMN, CEN and SMN primarily contributed to positive symptoms. The functional properties of the SAL network were key predictors of all other symptom dimensions; specifically, lower cohesiveness of the SAL, lower integration of this network with the LAN and higher integration with the CEN respectively contributed to negative, anxious/depressive and disorganization symptoms. Increased SAL metastability was associated with negative symptoms. Conclusions These results confirm the primacy of the SAL network for schizophrenia and demonstrate that abnormalities in RSN connectivity and metastability are significant predictors of schizophrenia-related psychopathology.
The Potency of the State: Logics of Informality and Subalternity

This article serves as an epilogue to the special issue curated by Claire Benit-Gbaffou and Sarah Charlton with a focus on state power and the concept of informality. In my reflection, I examine th...
Mucosal Impedance: a New Approach to Diagnosing Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease and Eosinophilic Esophagitis

In this review, we discuss current diagnostic testing modalities for both gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) and then introduce mucosal impedance (MI), a novel technology that measures epithelial integrity in real time during endoscopy. We describe the advantages and disadvantages of MI as compared with traditional diagnostic testing. We review studies that demonstrate that GERD and EoE have distinct MI patterns, and that physicians can accurately diagnose and distinguish the two during endoscopy with minimal time added to the procedure. We also review studies showing that MI has the capability to assess treatment response in both GERD and EoE and that it can be used to diagnose GERD in patients with extraesophageal reflux symptoms. Mucosal impedance testing is a major advancement in the diagnosis of GERD and EoE. Future studies are planned to assess whether MI can be used as a treatment endpoint in EoE and whether it can be used to predict response to anti-reflux surgery.
The Structural Enzymology of Iterative Aromatic Polyketide Synthases: A Critical Comparison with Fatty Acid Synthases

Polyketides are a large family of structurally complex natural products including compounds with important bioactivities. Polyketides are biosynthesized by polyketide synthases (PKSs), multienzyme complexes derived evolutionarily from fatty acid synthases (FASs). The focus of this review is to critically compare the properties of FASs with iterative aromatic PKSs, including type II PKSs and fungal type I nonreducing PKSs whose chemical logic is distinct from that of modular PKSs. This review focuses on structural and enzymological studies that reveal both similarities and striking differences between FASs and aromatic PKSs. The potential application of FAS and aromatic PKS structures for bioengineering future drugs and biofuels is highlighted.
Some masses for population I and II Cepheids

The masses of Cepheids can be obtained in several ways. If a Cepheid luminosity is known from membership in a galactic cluster, the mass-luminosity relation obtained from stellar evolution theory gives its mass. This evolution mass depends slightly on the composition, that is, the mass fraction of helium, Y, and on the mass fraction of all the heavier elements, Z, but the composition dependence is small.
Carbon Dioxide Exchange of Young Tobacco Leaves in Light and Darkness

Differences between the CO2 exchange patterns of young and old tobacco leaves can be explained by differences in stomatal resistances. No evidence was obtained that any fundamental changes occur in the activities of the photosynthetic and respiratory systems during the maturation of young tobacco leaves.
Limits on the Social Welfare of Maximal-In-Range Auction Mechanisms.

Many commonly-used auction mechanisms are “maximal-in-range”. We show that any maximalin-range mechanism for n bidders and m items cannot both approximate the social welfare with a ratio better than min(n,m) for any constant η < 1/2 and run in polynomial time, unless NP ⊆ P/poly. This significantly improves upon a previous bound on the achievable social welfare of polynomial time maximal-in-range mechanisms of 2n/(n + 1) for constant n. Our bound is tight, as a min(n, 2m) approximation of the social welfare is achievable.
Effects of Desmopressin on Normal Donors in Plasma Exchange Donations

The use of desmopressin (DDAVP) to stimulate increased factor VIII in plasmapheresis donors was an evolutionary step in our efforts to use cryoprecipitate produced by repetitive large volume (2-3 L) plasma exchange of dedicated donors for treatment of hemophilia A.1, 2,3 The donation procedure evolved from our experience in the treatment of cryoglobulinemia by plasmapheresis.4 To reduce replacement fluid cost and minimize the risk of disease transmission for patients undergoing repeated plasmapheresis we had explored the feasibility of using the cryoglobulin-depleted plasma from a previous donation as the replacement fluid in a therapeutic plasma exchange. Being persuaded of the efficacy and safety of the procedure, we were led to consider an analogous procedure, performed on dedicated blood donors, as a source of large quantities of cryoprecipitate. The principle advantage perceived for such a program was a reduction in the risk of disease transmission by minimizing the number of donors to which a hemophilic patient is exposed. Awareness that desmopressin should raise donor factor VIII to levels 3 to 4 times baseline suggested that it might enhance the performance of the donation, resulting in higher yields and lower per-unit cost.
Computability and Enumerability

This paper contains a brief summary of the two parts of a lecture given at the international Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science in Florence, August, 1995. More detailed versions will appear in [80] and [30], respectively.
An asymptotic approach to the mathematical modeling of Ohno continuous casting of cored rods

A model is presented to simulate Ohno Continuous Casting (OCC) of cored rods. Equations describing the axisymmetric transport of heat in the mold and cored rod are discussed. Heat transfer between the system and the surrounding environment is assumed to take place via convection. If the velocity of casting, the external temperature profile, the mold temperature, and the mold-cooler distance are given, asymptotic solutions for the temperature profile in the rod are found and expressions for the solidifying interfacial shapes are developed in the limit of a small melt slenderness ratio (mold radius/mold length). The effect of process parameters on the shape of the cored rod system is investigated.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in breast milk of obese vs normal women: Infant exposure and risk assessment.

Abstract Biomonitoring of human breast milk is one of the best ways to identify body burdens of contaminants and associated risk estimation. The objectives of the current study were to evaluate milk concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mainly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), associated exposure estimation, and the role of body mass index (BMI) in their bioaccumulation. A total of 45 breast milk samples were collected from 24 women with BMI > 30 (obese) and 21 women with BMI 30 group was 224.8 ng/g milk fat, which was approximately 4 times the mean concentration of total PAHs in the BMI 18.5–24.9 group (57.9 ng/g milk fat). None of the samples from the BMI 18.5–24.9 group contained higher molecular weight (5–6 rings) PAHs, while in the BMI >30 group, a total of 11 PAHs including listed EPA priority pollutants were observed. In this study, benzo(b)fluoranthene was found to contribute the highest percentage of carcinogenic PAHs (32.08%), yet it was not detected in any samples from the BMI 18.5–24.9 group. The estimated total PAHs intakes by infants via obese and normal mothers' milk were 1.26 and 0.32 (μg/kg/day), which are 0.049 and 0.003 (μg/kg/day) B[a]P equivalent, respectively. These findings suggest that breastfed babies from obese mothers are potentially at higher risk of exposure to carcinogenic PAHs.
Indentation Induced Through Thickness Film Fracture on Engineering Alloys

In thin film systems, failure often occurs via fracture mechanisms, with either through thickness cracking or interfacial delamination leading to failure of the device or layer. In spite of this common failure mechanism, many of the testing methods for analyzing fracture in thin film systems are focused on the applied problems of thin film adhesion measurements. While this is an important goal in many industries, particularly in the microelectronics community, for engineering applications there many situations where film fracture thorugh the thickness of the film, and not film adhesion, is the controlling factor in the life of a component. Measuring the stress at which fracture occurs in these thin film systems requires testing methods amicable to both the small scale of the films as well as the complex relationship between the mechanical properties of the film and the substrate.
Statistical physics: Swirled by light.

A micrometre-sized particle immersed in a liquid can be trapped by light. An experiment shows that the trapping can be accompanied by a whirling whose direction can be reversed by changing the light intensity.
Abstract 1082: Arid1a deletion results in enhanced osteosarcomagenesis and altered chromosome structure

Osteosarcoma (OS) is a primary malignant bone tumor mainly affecting children and young adults. Early metastasis, chemoresistance and stagnation in the treatment options for the last 4 decades result in a less than 20% chance of long-term survival in metastatic OS. Investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying a more aggressive phenotype in osteosarcoma will certainly help develop novel treatment alternatives. Through a transposon-mediated forward genetic screen, we were able to increase osteosarcomagenesis by random mutagenesis. Among the possible candidate genes on our list, we discovered a loss-of-function mutation in ARID1A. ARID1A is a member of the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling protein complex and has been implicated as a tumor suppressor in other cancers. We hypothesized that loss of ARID1A in osteosarcoma would increase the rate of tumor progression and metastasis by impacting the epigenetic configuration of the chromatin. In-vitro (CRISPR/Cas9) deletion in human OS cell lines and cell behavioral studies validated that ARID1A loss contributes to faster tumorigenesis. To understand its effect in-vivo, we have developed mice cohorts with or without ARID1A with a Cre-mediated, Osteoblast specific (Osx) conditional knockout system. We observed that Arid1a-mutant mice develop tumors and die on an average 13 weeks earlier than that of the wildtype cohort. By 3D micro CT scanning, we further confirmed a relatively higher number of primary and metastatic tumors in the Arid1a mutant mice, albeit the histology and morphology of the tumors did not change. The analysis of genome-wide chromatin accessibility by ATAC-seq confirmed an open chromatin organization in Arid1a mutant mouse samples. We conclude that, acting as an epigenetic regulator, ARID1A plays a significant role in osteosarcoma progression and metastasis. Further investigation to strengthen this link would present the opportunity for alternatively targeting genetically unstable cancers with epigenetic drugs. Citation Format: Kaniz Fatema, Shawn Plyler, Adriene Pavek, Chris Nartker, Yanliang Wang, Kevin Jones, Jared Barrott. Arid1a deletion results in enhanced osteosarcomagenesis and altered chromosome structure [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 1082.
Comparison of Local, Regional, and Scaling Models for Rainfall Intensity–Duration–Frequency Analysis

Intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) analyses of rainfall extremes provide critical information to mitigate, manage, and adapt to urban flooding. The accuracy and uncertainty of IDF analyses depend on the availability of historical rainfall records, which are more accessible at daily resolution and, quite often, are very sparse in developing countries. In this work, we quantify performances of different IDF models as a function of the number of available high-resolution (Nτ ) and daily (N24h) rain gauges. For this aim, we apply a cross-validation framework that is based on Monte Carlo bootstrapping experiments on records of 223 high-resolution gauges in central Arizona. We test five IDF models based on (two) local, (one) regional, and (two) scaling frequency analyses of annual rainfall maxima from 30-min to 24-h durations with the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution. All models exhibit similar performances in simulating observed quantiles associated with return periods up to 30 years. When Nτ >10, local and regional models have the best accuracy; bias correcting the GEV shape parameter for record length is recommended to estimate quantiles for large return periods. The uncertainty of all models, evaluated via Monte Carlo experiments, is very large when Nτ ≤ 5; however, if N24h ≥ 10 additional daily gauges are available, the uncertainty is greatly reduced and accuracy is increased by applying simple scaling models, which infer estimates on subdaily rainfall statistics from information at daily scale. For all models, performances depend on the ability to capture the elevation control on their parameters. Although our work is site specific, its results provide insights to conduct future IDF analyses, especially in regions with sparse data.
Healthcare-seeking behaviours in college students and young adults: a review:

Background/aimsTo review the literature on college students’ healthcare-seeking behaviours to uncover the current evidence and promote better healthcare-seeking behaviours and essentially better he...
"GOOD SOCIAL MEDIA?": UNDERREPRESENTED YOUTH PERSPECTIVES ON THEETHICAL AND EQUITABLE DESIGN OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

This study investigates underrepresented youths’ perspectives on social media design and how these may inform the development of more ethical and equitable social media apps. In contrast to the tradition of universal design in the field of human-computer interaction, this research centers difference to investigate how users’ perspectives and expectations, shaped by their identities, help determine the affordances of social media and their ethical implications. Twenty-five in-depth interviews and youth-guided “think aloud” social media tours were carried out with a diverse range of young people from underrepresented groups. Findings illustrate how young people perceive and experience empowering and disempowering aspects of social media design. Interviewees expressed a palpable sense of underrepresentation in the digital technology design sector and noted several ways in which design elements of social media can exacerbate a sense of inadequacy. The negative implications of user profile design and popularity rating systems that encourage conformity were found to be of particular concern for low-income youth, youth of color, and other underrepresented groups. However, our findings also illuminate youth perceptions on how social media can sometimes serve as a tool to counter negative stereotypes and build social capital. The analysis includes concrete suggestions from underrepresented youth for more ethical and equitable social media design.
Persist Level Parallelism: Streamlining Integrity Tree Updates for Secure Persistent Memory

Emerging non-volatile main memory (NVMM) is rapidly being integrated into computer systems. However, NVMM is vulnerable to potential data remanence and replay attacks. Memory encryption and integrity verification have been introduced to protect against such data integrity attacks. However, they are not compatible with a growing use of NVMM for providing crash recoverable persistent memory. Recent works on secure NVMM pointed out the need for data and its metadata, including the counter, the message authentication code (MAC), and the Bonsai Merkle Tree (BMT) to be persisted atomically. However, memory persistency models have been overlooked for secure NVMM, which is essential for crash recoverability.In this work, we analyze the invariants that need to be ensured in order to support crash recovery for secure NVMM. We highlight that by not adhering to these invariants, prior research has substantially under-estimated the cost of BMT persistence. We propose several optimization techniques to reduce the overhead of atomically persisting updates to BMTs. The optimizations proposed explore the use of pipelining, out-of-order updates, and update coalescing while conforming to strict or epoch persistency models, respectively. We evaluate our work and show that our proposed optimizations significantly reduce the performance overhead of secure crash-recoverable NVMM from 720% to just 20%.
Neither amyloid depositions nor hepatic steatosis are associated with marginal islet mass early after autotransplantation.

In 2008 Westermark et al. postulated that amyloid depositions found in allotransplanted islets derived from either islet overstimulation due to insulin production (as in type 2 diabetes), toxicity of immunosuppression, or perhaps both.1 Amyloid depositions may promote a gradual decline in islet mass, progressive dysfunction, and ultimate failure. 2,3 Herein, for the first time, we report the histopathological examination of an entire liver following autologous islet transplantation which sheds new light on the etiology of amyloid deposition in islet allografts.
Predictive utility of tuberculosis symptom screening for children and adolescents living with HIV in six high HIV/TB burden countries in eastern and southern Africa.

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates tuberculosis (TB) accounted for 40,000 deaths in children living with HIV in 2017. Early detection and treatment of TB reduces mortality in children and adolescents living with HIV (CALHIV). Despite limited evidence, the WHO recommends that CALHIV are actively screened for TB symptoms at every clinical encounter in order to improve TB case detection. As more CALHIV access care and …
Treatment Delivery Validation

This chapter will discuss the application of machine learning techniques for quality assurance and validation of the radiotherapy delivery process. We will discuss issues related to quality assurance and quality control at both the machine-level and the patient-specific measurements. In this chapter, we will demonstrate how machine learning tools can be effectively used for automated treatment verification (both geometrically and dosimetrically) in the context of image-guided and intensity-modulated radiotherapy.
Geostatistical space/time estimation of water quality along the Raritan River Basin in New Jersey

The assessment of the river water quality across space and time is a considerable public health concern and it is an important issue for the efficient management of our natural water resources. The state of New Jersey is mandated by the federal Clean Water Act to assess water quality along all streams and rivers in the state, which is critical to designate use attainment and to direct total maximum daily load (TMDL) development. However due to budget and scientific limitations less than 30% of the state's non-tidal stream miles have been assessed. Therefore there is a need to develop a method that can use the partial monitoring information available to estimate water quality along the unmonitored network of streams and rivers. However the high natural variability of water quality over space and time, the limited number of water samples, and the varying levels of measurement errors between samples introduce major sources of uncertainty in the estimation of water quality along rivers and over time. In this work we present the Bayesian Maximum Entropy (BME) framework to rigorously process information about the space/time variability of water quality in its aquatic environment, the uncertainty and scarcity of the monitoring data, and the relevant flow and transport governing laws, in order to obtain statistical estimate of water quality at unmonitored reaches. We implement the BME method for a case study involving the estimation of phosphate along the Raritan river basin from 1990 to 2002, and we find through cross validation that the BME space/time analysis is a substantial improvement over a purely spatial analysis.
Subrecursive Programming Systems: Complexity & Succinctness

What this book is about - subrecursive programming systems, relative succinctness trade-offs, the toolkit outline of Part I - a subrecursion programming systems toolkit outline of Part II - program succinctness brief history of prior results how to use this book acknowledgments. Part 1 A subrecursion programming systems toolkit: basic notation and definitions - equation numbering, general notation and conventions, the standard pairing function, representing numbers, of lengths and logarithms, classes of sets and functions, programming systems and numberings, complexity measures, the arithmetic hierarchy, formal systems deterministic multi-tape turing machines - details of the model - TM conventions, coding TMs, the standard acceptable programming system and complexity measures, the complexity of basic functions and operations, standard complexity classes efficient universal simulation, costs of combining turing machines and efficiency of the combinations, TM normalisation clocked TMs, combining TMs slowed simulations programming systems - closure properties and control structures, formalising the notion of a control structure, building control structures, clocked programming systems, formalizations, constructing clocked systems, inherited properties of clock systems, clocked systems for collections of sets, provably bounded programming systems, provably explicitly bounded systems, provably implicitly bounded systems, reducibility induced programming systems, induced systems and their properties, the generality of induced systems the LOOP hierarchy the poly-degree hierarchy delayed enumeration and limiting recursion - uniform enumerations, limiting recursion, uniform limits inseparability notions - productiveness and related notions, an-inseparability, en-inseparability toolkit demonstrations: uniform density, a generalisation of uniform density, upper bounds on upward chains, minimal pairs, sufficient conditions for effective E2-inseparability. Part 2 Program succinctness: notions of succinctness - program size, relative succinctness - definitions, invariances and limitations, invariance with respect to program size measures, limits on succinctness, invariance under choice of programming systems, programming systems that represent classes of sets limiting-recursive succinctness progressions - a technical prelude, the key theorem, a cornucopia of corollaries, a tight incompleteness theorem about complexity bounds, characterisations of limiting-recursive succinctness succinctness for finite and infinite variant - the =m case, considerations for the =* and =x cases, the =* case, the =x case succinctness for singleton sets - progressions for clocked systems, succinctness for programs with provable complexity further problems. Appendices: exercises solutions for selected exercises. Subject Index.