cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions: Analysis and Valuation

This chapter addresses common motives for international mergers and acquisitions, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of international market entry strategies. The motives for international corporate expansion include a desire to accelerate growth, achieve geographic diversification, consolidate industries, and exploit natural resources and lower labor costs available elsewhere. Other motives include applying a firm's brand name or intellectual property in new markets, minimizing tax liabilities, following customers into foreign markets, as well as avoiding such entry barriers as tariffs and import barriers. Alternative strategies for entering foreign markets include exporting, licensing, alliances or joint ventures, solo ventures or greenfield operations, and mergers and acquisitions. The focus in this chapter is on M&A as a market entry or expansion mode because cross-border M&As comprise on average one-fourth of all global transactions and more than one-half of direct foreign investment annually. This chapter also addresses the challenges of M&A deal structures, financing, valuation, and execution in both developed and emerging countries. The chapter also summarizes empirical studies investigating the actual benefits to both target and acquiring company shareholders of international diversification.
Anti-NMDAR encephalitis in a patient with Crohn disease receiving adalimumab.

Anti–tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) therapies have been a significant advance in the treatment of autoimmune and rheumatologic diseases. Early preclinical and clinical studies of anti–TNF-α therapies emphasized infection and malignancy as serious adverse events associated with these agents.1 However, subsequent clinical experience has increasingly recognized a rare and seemingly paradoxical risk of autoimmunity with agents targeting the TNF-α pathway, most notably psoriatic eruptions,2 but also autoimmune processes associated with autoantibody production, including systemic vasculitis and lupus erythematosus.3,4 The development of neurologic diseases in association with anti–TNF-α therapy has been documented in case series and small prospective studies,5 with the most commonly reported associations being demyelinating diseases of the CNS and peripheral nervous systems. Here, we report a patient who developed anti–NMDA receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis while being treated with adalimumab for Crohn disease.
Essay #3: On Epistemic Preferability

“On Epistemic Preferability” is a critical response to Duane L. Cady’s charge that R. M. Chisholm’s system of epistemic appraisal is fatally flawed. Cady’s claim was that Chisholm’s system it vitiated by an ambiguity of his primitive epistemic relation in such a way as to make his system appear foundationless. Cady claims that this ambiguity centers upon the two epistemic commandments “avoid error” and “get the truth”. This essay rebuts Cady’s critique by showing that Chisholm’s system is not ambiguous between those two commandments. I argue that the most distinctive feature of Chisholm’s logic of epistemic appraisal is that it is a Pyrrhonistic system. As such the system takes an unequivocal stand in favor of the commandment “avoid error”, and gives it priority over the commandment “get the truth”. This essay argues that Cady has failed to appreciate the important distinction between (1) Chisholm’s axiomatic system of the logic of epistemic appraisal, and (2) the accompanying “theory of evidence” in terms of which such a system receives its application. The crucial aspect of Chisholm’s system which makes it Pyrrhonistic is that fact that it defines the appraisal ought to be withheld, which is understood to hold when a proposition and its negation are counterbalanced. It is noted that Chisholm’s system contains no corresponding appraisal to the effect that any proposition ought to be accepted. The essay concluded by rejecting and rebutting Cady’s claim that Chisholm’s system is either “foundationless” or a “futile systematization”.
The effect of movement-focused and breath-focused yoga practice on stress parameters and sustained attention: A randomized controlled pilot study.

Abstract Yoga-based practices (YBP) typically involve a combination of movement sequences, conscious regulation of the breath, and techniques to engage attention. However, little is known about whether effects of YBP result from the synergistic combination of these components, or whether a subset may yield similar effects. In this study we compared the effect of a movement-focused practice and a breath-focused practice on stress parameters (perceived stress and salivary cortisol) and sustained attention (response inhibition) in yoga naive university students. While participants of both programs showed a reduction in perceived stress and salivary cortisol, only the breath-focused group showed improvements in sustained attention. In addition, improvement in sustained attention was correlated with reduction in perceived stress but not with reduction in salivary cortisol. We discuss these findings in the context of a theoretical framework outlining bottom-up neurophysiological and top-down neurocognitive mechanisms hypothesized to be engaged by YBP.
Genome wide association study in 3,173 outbred rats identifies multiple loci for body weight, adiposity, and fasting glucose

Objective: Obesity is influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Despite success of human genome wide association studies (GWAS), the specific genes that confer obesity remain largely unknown. The objective of this study was to use outbred rats to identify genetic loci underlying obesity and related morphometric and metabolic traits. Methods: We measured obesity-relevant traits including body weight, body length, body mass index, fasting glucose, and retroperitoneal, epididymal, and parametrial fat pad weight in 3,173 male and female adult N/NIH heterogeneous stock (HS) rats across three institutions, providing data for the largest rat GWAS to date. Genetic loci were identified using a linear mixed model that accounted for the complex family relationships of the HS and covariate to account for differences among the three phenotyping centers. Results: We identified 32 independent loci, several of which contained only a single gene (e.g. Epha5, Nrg1 and Klhl14) or obvious candidate genes (Adcy3, Prlhr). There were strong phenotypic and genetic correlations among obesity-related traits, and extensive pleiotropy at individual loci. Conclusions: These studies demonstrate utility of HS rats for investigating the genetics of obesity related traits across institutions and identify several candidate genes for future functional testing.
Comparison of unit cell coupling for grating-gate and high electron mobility transistor array THz resonant absorbers

We report experimental studies on the excitation of synchronized plasmon resonances in AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) arrays. In contrast to the commonly employed grating-gate configurations, the analyzed structure contains periodically patterned ohmic contacts to the two-dimensional electron gas, which are laid-out parallel to the gate fingers. In this structure, the terahertz to plasmon coupling mechanism is fundamentally different from that in grating-gate configurations. Whereas the grating-gate configuration constitutes a coupled resonant system in which the resonance frequency depends on the grating periodicity, when periodical ohmic contacts are incorporated, the system behaves as a synchronized resonant system in which each unit cell is effectively independent. As a result, in a HEMT-array, the resonance is no longer set by the periodicity but rather by the gate and the ungated region length. Experimental results of fabricated samples compare well with numerical simulations and theoretical expectations. Our work demonstrates that the proposed approach allows: (i) more efficient excitation of high order plasmon modes and (ii) superior overall terahertz to plasmon coupling, even in configurations having less number of devices per unit area. From this perspective, our results reveal a simple way to enhance the terahertz to plasmon coupling and thus improve the performance of electron plasma wave-based devices; this effect can be exploited, for example, to improve the response of HEMT-based terahertz detectors.
Impacts of Grating Frequency on Super Resolution via Structured Illumination Microscopy

Besides the well-established limit of about 2 times beyond the diffraction limit, the super resolution imaging using structured illumination microscopy method also depends critically on the grating frequency used for the structured illumination patterns. The exact nature of this dependence was not well-understood. We systemically investigated the impacts of the grating frequency using numerical simulations and quantified the non-uniform spatial frequency responses of SIM and its impact on the SIM. We found that image targets with lower spatial frequencies below the diffraction limit can become unresolved depending on the relationship of the grating frequency used and the diffraction limit of the system. In addition, while the highest resolution enhancement achievable by increasing the grating frequency is about three times of the diffraction limits, using higher grating frequency would in fact deteriorate the resolution enhancement rapidly and eventually make the image resolution worse than the diffraction limit.
Less Than Ideal.

Background and Purpose- The American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 (LS7) defines ideal cardiovascular health by 7 metrics: not smoking, regular physical activity, normal body mass index, blood pressure, plasma glucose, and total cholesterol levels, and a healthy diet. We assessed prevalence and predictors of ideal LS7 among US stroke survivors. Methods- Among 67 514 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2014, 1597 adults (≥18 years) had self-reported history of stroke. LS7 metrics were categorized as poor, intermediate, and ideal; ideal LS7 scores were calculated (1 point for each ideal metric met). Trends in poor, intermediate, and ideal cardiovascular health were assessed. Odds of low (0-1) versus high (≥4) ideal LS7 scores were assessed according to sex, race, poverty income ratio, and education level, before and after adjusting for covariates. Results- Only 1 participant met all ideal LS7 metrics. The proportion with low LS7 score increased from 17.9% in 1988 to 1994 to 35.4% in 2011 to 2014 ( P<0.001). Over that time frame, prevalence of poor blood pressure (≥140/90 mm Hg) and poor cholesterol (≥240 mg/dL) decreased (45.2%-26.5% and 37.2%-10.3%), whereas prevalence of poor body mass index (≥30 kg/m2), poor diet (healthy eating index score <50), and poor physical activity (0 minutes moderate/vigorous activity per week) increased (26.9%-39.0%; 14.2%-50.6%; 44.6%-70.9%; all P<0.05). After adjustment, black race (odds ratio, 2.29; 95% CI, 1.17-4.48), poverty income ratio ≤200% (odds ratio, 2.20, 95% CI, 1.11-4.36), and ≤12th grade education (odds ratio, 4.50; 95% CI, 2.27-8.92) were associated with low ideal LS7 scores. Conclusions- Over the past 3 decades, blood pressure and cholesterol control among stroke survivors improved, but rates of obesity, poor diet, and physical inactivity increased. Stroke survivors who are black, poor, or less educated are less likely to have ideal cardiovascular health.
Identification of mNeonGreen as a pH-Dependent, Turn-On Fluorescent Protein Sensor for Chloride

Chloride-sensitive fluorescent proteins generated from laboratory evolution have a characteristic tyrosine residue that interacts with a chloride ion and π-stacks with the chromophore. However, the engineered yellow-green fluorescent protein mNeonGreen lacks this interaction but still binds chloride, as seen in a recently reported crystal structure. Based on its unique coordination sphere, we were curious if chloride could influence the optical properties of mNeonGreen. Here, we present the structure-guided identification and spectroscopic characterization of mNeonGreen as a turn-on fluorescent protein sensor for chloride. Our results show that chloride binding lowers the chromophore pKa and shifts the equilibrium away from the weakly fluorescent phenol form to the highly fluorescent phenolate form, resulting in a pH-dependent, turn-on fluorescence response. Moreover, through mutagenesis, we link this sensing mechanism to a non-coordinating residue in the chloride binding pocket. This discovery sets the stage to further engineer mNeonGreen as a new fluorescent protein-based tool for imaging cellular chloride.
Identifying sufficient deception in military logistics

Abstract In the context of modern warfare, military forces are faced with challenges that threaten their power projection operations. Adversarial strategies could hinder the actions of the forces within operational areas by inferring and anticipating a military’s potential mission objectives including military logistics and transportation activities. Thus, this research investigates the potential ways of incorporating two military deception strategies into the military logistics decision making process: (i) falsifying signifies including empty convoys on routes on which commodities are being hauled, and (ii) hiding refers to concealing routes in the logistics network. Assuming that the adversaries can monitor the shipments in the transportation network, we develop a two-stage integer linear programming model that quantifies the sufficient amounts of each deception needed to deceive the adversaries. In addition, the mathematical model accurately captures several other military logistics challenges, such as satisfying the demands for military commodities at destinations subject to limited capacities at supply points, deciding the best route option, and respecting the time limit constraint. However, the two-stage model is non-convex and therefore, reformulation and linearization steps are applied to convert it to a convex single-stage model. Due to the computational complexity in solving the single-stage model for realistic-size instances, two greedy heuristics are developed that can efficiently solve those instances. Moreover, the computational experiments reveal that the greedy heuristics obtain near optimal solutions when compared to the solutions of the smaller instances solved to optimality via a commercial solver.
Understanding and clinical relevance of chronic rhinosinusitis endotypes.

Background Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is the downstream manifestation of heterogeneous pathophysiologic mechanisms leading to chronic sinonasal inflammation. Traditional grouping of patients by symptoms or clinical findings/phenotypes is being replaced by classification of CRS patients based on the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms: endotypes. Objective of review To provide an up-to-date review on the current knowledge of CRS endotypes with a focus on how the pathophysiologic mechanisms defined by each endotype may be targeted therapeutically. Special emphasis is placed on the clinical relevance of the material and how it may inform the current practice of otolaryngologists. Type of review A systematic review of contemporary literature review focusing on the latest studies examining the role of endotypes in the management and treatment of CRS. Search strategy A MEDLINE and PubMed Central search were undertaken to perform this review using the keywords "Endotype" and "Sinusitis." Evaluation method Articles containing the keywords, as well as the references of those articles, were then examined for relevance. Results The endotypes for CRS are often defined based on the balance of T-helper cell patterns of inflammation and can be grouped into Th2 and non-Th2 inflammation. These groups have shown a variable response to medical and surgical therapy, demonstrating that existing mainstream treatments can be tailored to patients with specific endotypes. The inflammatory mediators of Th2 inflammation, IL-4, IL-5 and IL-13 as well as IgE, are targeted by available biologic drugs that can be used for treatment of refractory disease. Conclusions Increased understanding of CRS endotypes has led to the identification of biomarkers that define these endotypes and act as targets for potential therapeutics. Increasing knowledge about characteristics associated with these endotypes and their responses to treatments, including both established mainstream CRS treatments and novel biologic medications, has allowed incorporation of CRS endotypes into the current clinical decision-making. Treatment of CRS patients based on consideration of their endotypes is therefore not only presently possible but may improve clinical outcomes of those patients as well.
Male Spouses of Women Physicians: Communication, Compromise, and Carving Out Time

As the numbers of female physicians continue to grow, fewer medical marriages are comprised of the traditional dyad of male physician and stay-at-home wife. The "two-career family" is an increasingly frequent state for both male and female physicians' families, and dual-doctor marriages are on the rise. This qualitative study explored the contemporary medical marriage from the perspective of male spouses of female physicians. In 2010, we conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with nine spouses of internal medicine resident and faculty physicians. Interviewers queried work-home balance, career choices, and support networks. We used an interpretive, inductive, iterative approach to thematically analyze interview transcripts and develop broad, consensus-derived themes. A conceptual framework based on three major themes emerged: "A time for us? Really?", "Supporting and protecting her, sometimes at my expense,'" and "Hers is a career, mine is a job." This framework described the inflexibility of physicians' time and its impact on spousal time, career development, and choices. Having a set time for synchronizing schedules, frequent verbal support, and shared decision-making were seen as important by the husbands of female, full-time physicians. This exploratory study examined the contemporary medical marriage from the male spouse's perspective and highlights specific strategies for success.
Cyber Influence of Human Behavior: Personal and National Security, Privacy, and Fraud Awareness to Prevent Harm

The Internet and connected technology platforms have enabled an increase of cyber influence activity. These actions target a range of personal to national level security and privacy attributes related to cybercrime, behavior, and identities. These emerging threats call for new indicators for improved awareness, decisions, and action. This research proposes a cyber-physical-human spectrum of identification with a prototyped classification method. Classifier goals are to aid in awareness of activity and potential harmful intent such as detection of identity feature acquisition, fraudulent identities and entities, and targeting or influential behavior. Emerging malicious influence actors prey on human social demographic groups and trends using the Internet infrastructure with social network platform access to large target populations as their attack surface. The methodology discusses how this problem could benefit from a combined human-technical approach to understand indicators of influencing human perception that persuade someone perform a desired action. This method is designed to aid in rapid influence awareness and introduce a counter-influence concept. A prototyped experiment trial demonstrates how awareness may be beneficial to balancing national security with personal privacy.
Association of Patient-Related Factors With Adult Cochlear Implant Speech Recognition Outcomes: A Meta-analysis

Importance Multiple studies have evaluated associations between post–cochlear implant (CI) speech recognition outcomes and patient-related factors. Current literature often appears equivocal or contradictory, so little is known about the factors that contribute to successful speech recognition outcomes with CIs. Objective To use a meta-analysis to pool data from the extant literature and provide an objective summary of existing evidence on associations of patient-related factors and CI speech recognition outcomes. Data Sources A literature search was performed using PubMed, Scopus, and CINAHL databases in January 2019 using the following search terms:cochlear implantorcochlear implantsorcochlear implantationandspeech recognitionorword recognitionorsentence recognition. Studies of postlingually deafened adult CI recipients that reported word or sentence recognition scores were included. Study Selection Inclusion criteria were postlingual adult CI recipients 18 years or older with word or sentence recognition scores at minimum 6-month postimplantation. Studies that included patients undergoing revision or reimplantation surgery were excluded. Data Extraction and Synthesis Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systemic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, 1809 unique articles underwent review by abstract, and 121 articles underwent full-text review, resulting in 13 articles of 1095 patients for a meta-analysis of correlations. Random-effects model was used when the heterogeneity test yielded a lowPvalue (P Main Outcomes and Measures The planned primary outcome was the pooled correlation values between postimplant speech recognition scores and patient-related factors. Results Of the 1095 patients included from the 13 studies, the mean age at implantation ranged from 51.2 to 63.7 years and the mean duration of hearing loss ranged from 9.5 to 31.8 years; for the 825 patients for whom sex was reported, 421 (51.0%) were women. A weak negative correlation was observed between age at implantation and postimplant sentence recognition in quiet (r = −0.31 [95% CI, −0.41 to −0.20]). Other correlations between patient-related factors and postimplant word or sentence recognition were statistically significant, but all correlations were absent to negligible (r = 0.02-0.27). Conclusions and Relevance Given that most associations were weak, negligible, or absent, patient-related factors often thought to affect CI speech recognition ability offer limited assistance in clinical decision-making in cochlear implantation. Additional research is needed to identify patient-related and other factors that predict CI outcomes, including speech recognition and other important variables related to success with CIs.
Critical temperature and failure mechanism of SiC Schottky rectifiers in Unclamped Inductive Switching (UIS)

We report measurements of specific avalanche energies as function of time in avalanche, perform thermal analysis and verify the results by temperature-dependent UIS tests. We demonstrate that linear thermal analysis is inaccurate in application to UIS in SiC due to much higher critical temperatures in SiC as compared to silicon. An activation-type dependence with an apparent energy of 1.3 eV is established between time in avalanche and critical failure temperature. The failure mechanism for UIS is shown to be unrelated to electronic instability.
Concurrent Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis and Autoimmune Hepatitis: A Case and Review of the Literature

Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) are two independently rare disease processes that can have similar presentations. We present a unique, complex case that required a multidisciplinary approach to ultimately diagnose and treat the patient. A 20-year-old male with no significant history presented with worsening jaundice, diffuse, pruritic rash, and abdominal pain over one month. On admission, the patient's labs showed significantly elevated liver function tests (LFTs), eosinophilia, and anemia. The exam was notable for diffuse lymphadenopathy (LAD), hepatosplenomegaly, and a diffuse, non-blanching, morbilliform rash. Interdisciplinary workup was notable for positive anti-smooth muscle antibody (ASMA) and anti-neutrophilic antibody (ANA). A liver biopsy showed severe inflammation with interface activity, consistent with AIH. A lymph node (LN) biopsy showed findings consistent with LCH, including histiocyte clusters. He was started on high-dose steroids with LAD/LFT improvement; yet, his course was complicated by a gastrointestinal (GI) bleed requiring a hemicolectomy. The patient was transferred to a larger referral center where he continued to improve with steroids and was ultimately discharged. This case was notable for an LN biopsy showing histiocyte clusters with reniform nuclei, nuclear grooves, and eosinophils with immunohistochemical stains positive for S-100, CD1a, fascin, langerin, CD45, and CD68, consistent with LCH. The resected colon showed atypical histiocyte proliferation positive for fascin, CD4, and CD68. Other findings, including elevated LFTs, ASMA, and a liver biopsy showing inflammation with interface activity, eosinophils, plasma cells, and characteristic fibrosis, supported a diagnosis of AIH. In either case, steroids were indicated.
Enhancement of select cognitive domains with rosiglitazone implicates dorsal hippocampus circuitry sensitive to PPARγ agonism in an Alzheimer's mouse model.

Introduction Several clinical studies have tested the efficacy of insulin-sensitizing drugs for cognitive enhancement in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, as type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a well-recognized risk factor for AD. Pilot studies assessing FDA-approved diabetes drugs in subjects with early-stage disease have found cognitive benefit in subjects comorbid for insulin resistance. In AD mouse models with concomitant insulin resistance, we have shown that 4 weeks of RSG can reverse peripheral and central insulin resistance concomitant with rescue of hippocampus-dependent fear learning and memory and hippocampal circuitry deficits in 9-month-old (9MO) Tg2576 mice with no effect in wild-type (WT) mice. Bioinformatics analysis of genomic and proteomic data reveals an intimate link between PPARγ and MAPK/ERK signaling in the hippocampus. We then demonstrated a direct interaction between PPARγ and phospho-ERK in vitro and in vivo during memory consolidation. The translational value of this discovery is evidenced by the positive correlational relationship between human AD postmortem brain levels of pERK-PPARγ nuclear complexes with cognitive reserve. Methods We tested whether insulin sensitizer therapy could rescue spatial navigation, context discrimination, and object recognition learning and memory in aged wild-type and Tg2576 mice in addition to hippocampus-dependent contextual fear learning and memory, as we have previously reported. Results We found that rosiglitazone treatment improved cognitive domains that predominantly rely upon the dorsal hippocampus rather than those that additionally engage the ventral hippocampus. Conclusion These results suggest that insulin sensitizer therapy with rosiglitazone improved age- and AD-related learning and memory deficits in circuit selective ways.
Handicapping Financial Reform

Last decade’s financial crisis sparked a flurry of new banking and finance regulation, highlighted by the Dodd–Frank Act and changes to housing finance. There is a growing realization among policy experts that that regulation has largely flopped, doing little to improve the financial system’s security, but hurting the viability of small banks and increasing the ranks of unbanked people. President Trump and new Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell can lead the reform of this regulation if they choose to do so. This article outlines some tenets of good reform.
Impact of COVID-19 on Cleft Surgical Care

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has greatly impacted pediatric healthcare facilities throughout the United States due to widespread case rescheduling and the implementation of suppl...
Novel Application of 210Po-210Pb Disequilibria to Date Snow, Melt Pond, Ice Core, and Ice-Rafted Sediments in the Arctic Ocean

We collected surface ocean water, snow, grab ice, ice core, melt pond and ice-rafted sediment (IRS) from 5 ice stations during the Western Arctic US GEOTRACES cruise (USGCG Healy; Aug. 10 – Oct. 7, 2015) and analyzed for 210Po (T1/2=138.4 d) and 210Pb (T1/2=22.3 y) in dissolved and particulate phases (snow, grab ice, ice core, surface seawater) to investigate the 210Po:210Pb disequilibria in these matrices. Thirteen aerosol samples, using a large-volume aerosol sampler (PM10), from Dutch Harbor, AK to North Pole, were also collected and analyzed for 210Po/210Pb to quantify the atmospheric depositional input to the snow and surface waters. Falling snowfall is tagged with 210Po/210Pb ratio (AR) similar to that in the air column from the cloud condensation height to air-sea interface. From the measured AR in aerosol and snow, modeling the sources of 210Po and 210Pb input to the melt pond, and measured disequilibrium in ice core and ice-rafted sediment, we show 210Po/210Pb AR is a novel chronometer to date snow, ice core, melt pond, and IRS. The calculated mean ages of aerosol, snow, melt pond and IRS are 12±7 (n=13), 13±11 (n=6), 60±14 (n=4) and 87±23 (n=6) days, respectively. The average IRS age corresponds to an average drift velocity of sediment-laden ice of 0.18±0.06 (n=6) m s-1. We report highly elevated levels of 210Po and 210Pb in snow and melt pond compared to those in Arctic surface seawater and enrichment of 210Po compared to 210Pb onto particles extracted from snow, ice and melt ponds. The observed disequilibrium between 210Po and 210Pb in ice could serve as a quantitative tool in delineating multiple-year ice from seasonal ice as well as a metric in quantifying the speed of ice/snow melting and delay in autumn freeze.
Prospective Prediction of Lapses in Opioid Use Disorder: Protocol for a Personal Sensing Study.

BACKGROUND Successful long-term recovery from Opioid Use Disorder requires continuous lapse risk monitoring and appropriately using and adapting recovery-supportive behaviors as lapse risk changes. Available treatments often fail to support long-term recovery by failing to account for the dynamic nature of long-term recovery. OBJECTIVE This protocol paper describes research that aims to develop a highly contextualized lapse risk prediction model that forecasts the ongoing probability of lapse. METHODS Participants will be 480 American adults in their first year of recovery from Opioid Use Disorder. Participants will report lapses and provide data relevant to lapse risk for a year with a digital therapeutic smartphone app, through both self-report and passive personal sensing methods (e.g., cellular communications, geolocation). The lapse risk prediction model will be developed using contemporary rigorous machine learning methods that optimize prediction in new data. RESULTS Full enrollment began in September 2021. CONCLUSIONS The model this project will develop could support long-term recovery from Opioid Use Disorder, for example, by enabling just-in-time interventions within digital therapeutics. CLINICALTRIAL
Testing for genetic mutation of seasonal influenza virus

Influenza virus strains undergo genetic mutations every year and these changes in genetic makeup pose difficulties for effective vaccine selection. To better understand the problem it is important ...
Team-Based Learning: Strategies And Lessons Learned

Location: JC Room D Team-based learning in undergraduate education has become the norm in many disciplines. With the growth of team-based capstone projects, the introduction of the Mason Impact initiative, and the need to produce career-ready graduates, courses that feature a strong team-based component will likely become more common. Accordingly, the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) has identified teamwork as one of the essential outcomes of a college education. Professors often build team-based learning activities into their courses with the hope that students already know how to "play well with others." However, the reality is that many student groups do not know how (or are unable) to communicate effectively and function as a team. Ineffective teamwork leads to poor academic work products, uneven learning, and frustration for everyone involved. The theme of the 2019 Innovations in Teaching and Learning Conference is "Educating the whole student." This panel on fostering teamwork fits nicely with this theme as a holistic approach is essential if professors want to promote collaboration and better equip individual students with skills they need to be successful in a team environment. In this panel discussion, participants in the 2018-2019 Stearns Center sponsored Team-based Learning Faculty Learning Community will share insights, tips, and tricks gleaned from their review of best practices from the literature, their own classroom experiences, and from other institutions. Simply dividing students into groups to accomplish their work does little to ensure that students will be interdependent and work together to accomplish common goals. While professors cannot ensure that students have the emotional intelligence and communication skills to work successfully on a team, they can incorporate structures into their course and assignments that promote a culture of team cohesion, accountability, and most importantly, collaborative learning. Panelists will highlight the important role of professors in facilitating teamwork by providing guidance on how to: Develop more effective team assignments Organize teams Prevent common problems Evaluate team assignments and collaborative learning Assess individual learning in a team-based environment Panelists will outline how professors can promote collaborative learning from the very beginning of the course (structuring the team assignment and orienting students to expectations), during the middle stages of team development (using activities to foster cohesion and creating a space for open communication and feedback), and the very end (bringing closure to the team and evaluating both team product and process). The panelâs discussion will be structured around these stages (beginning, middle, end), and each panelist will share specific strategies they have used at a particular stage. Examples of the specific strategies to be shared include models for organizing teams, activities to promote cohesion, ways to help teams with problem-solving, and use of the AACU VALUE rubric to assess teamwork.
The Influence Of Technology-Rich Early Childhood Field Experiences On Preservice Teachers

despite a comprehensive body of research on field experiences in teacher education, participation in technology-rich early field experiences in early childhood environments is one particular area of inquiry lacking substantive current research. therefore, this study was conducted to better understand how preservice teachers’ perceptions of global concepts related to teaching, learning, and technology were influenced by participation in a technology-focused early field experience within the authentic context of an early childhood laboratory preschool. to guide our study, we examined qualitative data collected from preservice teachers who were enrolled in an educational technology course while simultaneously participating in a technology-rich early childhood-focused early field experience. Findings indicated that preservice teachers’ perceptions of pedagogy and technology are influenced by the early childhood-focused early field experience. Positive impacts included confirming existing beliefs about teaching and learning, introducing new ideas about classroom practices, and inspiring valuable awareness of innovative uses of technology in early childhood education settings.
“Speaking More than Words”: Classifying Men with Social Anxiety Disorder via Vocal Acoustic Analyses of Diagnostic Interviews

The relationship between vocal pitch and social anxiety has been examined with encouraging results across a growing number of studies, highlighting increased fundamental frequency (F0) as a potential disorder-specific physiological marker of social anxiety. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between mean F0 emitted during diagnostic interviews and social anxiety disorder (SAD) symptoms. Patients who qualified for a diagnosis of SAD (n = 26) and a subsample of demographically-matched healthy controls (HCs; n = 12) were administered clinical diagnostic interviews. We examined mean F0 emitted during select segments of the diagnostic interviews utilizing specialized vocal analysis equipment. Men (but not women) who qualified for a diagnosis of SAD emitted greater overall mean F0 in comparison to HCs throughout the course of the diagnostic interviews, and mean F0 emitted during the introductory segment of the diagnostic interviews was positively related to SAD symptoms for men (but not women). Furthermore, a previously-established threshold of mean F0 which demonstrated excellent differentiation between men with SAD and controls was successfully replicated in the present design, with regard to F0 emitted during the introductory segment of the interviews. These results provide strong additional support for increased F0 as a physiological indicator and behavioral marker of SAD in samples of men. Implications for the assessment and treatment of SAD are discussed.
Body Topography in the Second Somatic Sensory Area

The second somatic sensory area (S II) was originally described on the basis of evoked potential mapping studies (1, 64, 65). This type of physiological study and the more detailed microelectrode mapping studies that followed have provided important data concerning the functional organization of this region of the cerebral cortex. Unfortunately these physiological data have not been correlated with connectional or cytoarchitectonic data. The need for such correlative information is suggested by studies such as that of Carreras and Anderson (7), whose division of the anterior ectosylvian gyrus in the cat into functional areas on the basis of the vascular pattern of the cortex is still widely quoted.
Neuropeptide Y in the cerebral cortex and the caudate-putamen nuclei: ultrastructural basis for interactions with GABAergic and non-GABAergic neurons

In the cerebral cortex and caudate-putamen (CP) nuclei, neuropeptide Y (NPY) immunoreactivity is detectable within 1–2% of all neurons. The NPY-immunoreactive neurons are interneuronal and are believed to be mostly GABAergic in the cerebral cortex but not in the CP nuclei. Thus NPY and GABA may play different roles in the circuitry within these 2 regions. We tested this possibility by comparing the ultrastructure of NPY-containing neurons between (1) cortex (somatosensory and anterior cingulate areas) versus dorsolateral CP; and (2) GABAergic versus non- GABAergic NPY neurons within each area. Single coronal sections through the rat forebrain were dually labeled for GABA and NPY by combining immunoautoradiography with the immunoperoxidase method. NPY-containing neurons with or without GABA occurred throughout the rostrocaudal portions of CP and all laminae of somatosensory and anterior cingulate cortex. Comparisons between the areas confirmed that somata and terminals dually labeled for GABA and NPY were more prevalent in the cortex. NPY terminals lacking detectable GABA immunoreactivity also were found within the cortex, thus suggesting additional heterogeneity in cortical NPY innervation. The ultrastructural features of NPY perikarya in both regions were morphologically similar regardless of whether the cells also contained GABA. Most synaptic inputs to NPY neurons occurred at distal dendrites. In comparison to neighboring neurons, synaptic inputs to proximal dendrites and somata of NPY neurons of cortex and CP were rare, suggesting that fewer and weaker inputs may modulate the excitability of NPY-containing neurons. In both regions, nearly all NPY- and NPY-GABA-labeled terminals formed symmetric junctions suggestive of inhibitory action. The majority of these junctions were with dendrites containing neither NPY nor GABA. NPY terminals formed few contacts on proximal dendrites and somata of GABAergic neurons (8% of 179 contacts in cortex; 12% of 73 contacts in CP) which, unlike most singly-labeled GABAergic neurons, were sparsely innervated. Thus, NPY may play a more prominent role in modulation of certain GABAergic neurons than would be predicted by the observed frequency of NPY-to-GABA contacts in the two regions. One notable regional difference was the greater prevalence in cortex of axoaxonic associations between NPY-immunoreactive terminals and other terminals, some of which also contained NPY. These nonsynaptic associations may be involved in the modulation of (1) the release of NPY by another transmitter or (2) NPY's modulation of release of other transmitters in cortex.
Baseline requirements for government and military encryption algorithms

(U) Foreign government and military organizations are developing formal evaluation criteria for their communications security (COMSEC) procurements. Although many countries have unique requirements, most have a common set of criteria. Due to the value of the information being secured, these criteria are much more comprehensive, rigorous and stringent than the commercial equivalent. It is useful to examine these criteria and use them to construct a threat model and baseline requirements for COMSEC products in military and government applications. This threat model allows customer COMSEC requirements to be more thoroughly understood by equipment providers. The baseline requirements will also provide a set of metrics for evaluating the quality of a COMSEC solution. This paper presents an introduction to threat model assessment. Several example models are provided. A definition and detailed discussion of a government/military COMSEC threat model is also presented Finally, the model is used to derive baseline requirements that can be used to design or evaluate a COMSEC solution intended for military and government applications.
Oestrogen-mediated protection of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in the absence of Foxp3+ regulatory T cells implicates compensatory pathways including regulatory B cells.

Summary Oestrogen (17β-oestradiol, E2) is a highly effective treatment for experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) that may potentiate Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells, which in turn limit the expansion of encephalitogenic T-cell specificities. To determine if Treg cells constitute the major non-redundant protective pathway for E2, we evaluated E2 protection of EAE after targeted deletion of Foxp3 expression in Foxp3-DTR mice. Unexpectedly, E2-treated Foxp3-deficient mice were completely protected against clinical and histological myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)-35-55 peptide-induced EAE before succumbing to diphtheria toxin-induced mortality. This finding indicated the presence of alternative E2-dependent EAE-protective pathways that could compensate for the lack of Treg cells. Further investigation revealed that E2 treatment inhibited proliferation and expression of CCL2 and CXCL2, but enhanced secretion of interleukin-10 (IL-10) and IL-13 by MOG-35-55-specific spleen cells. These changes occurred concomitantly with increased expression of several chemokines and receptors, including CXCL13 and CXCR5, and the negative co-activation molecules, PD-L1 and B7.2, by B cells and dendritic cells. Furthermore, E2 treatment resulted in higher percentages of spleen and lymph node T cells expressing IL-17, interferon-γ and tumour necrosis factor-α, but with lower expression of CCR6, suggesting sequestration of MOG-35-55 peptide-specific T cells in peripheral immune organs. Taken together, these data suggest that E2-induced mechanisms that provide protection against EAE in the absence of Foxp3+ Treg cells include induction of regulatory B cells and peripheral sequestration of encephalitogenic T cells.
Separating vectors for operators

It is an open problem whether every one-dimensional extension of a triangular operator admits a separating vector. We prove that the answer is positive for many triangular Hilbert space operators, and in particular, for strictly triangular operators. This is revealing, because two-dimensional extensions of such operators can fail to have separating vectors.
Nanofibrillated Cellulose and Copper Nanoparticles Embedded in Polyvinyl Alcohol Films for Antimicrobial Applications

Our long-term goal is to develop a hybrid cellulose-copper nanoparticle material as a functional nanofiller to be incorporated in thermoplastic resins for efficiently improving their antimicrobial properties. In this study, copper nanoparticles were first synthesized through chemical reduction of cupric ions on TEMPO nanofibrillated cellulose (TNFC) template using borohydride as a copper reducing agent. The resulting hybrid material was embedded into a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix using a solvent casting method. The morphology of TNFC-copper nanoparticles was analyzed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM); spherical copper nanoparticles with average size of 9.2 ± 2.0 nm were determined. Thermogravimetric analysis and antimicrobial performance of the films were evaluated. Slight variations in thermal properties between the nanocomposite films and PVA resin were observed. Antimicrobial analysis demonstrated that one-week exposure of nonpathogenic Escherichia coli DH5α to the nanocomposite films results in up to 5-log microbial reduction.
Limiting Nutrients During Mating as a Means of Increasing Recombinant Recovery in Crosses of Nocardia erythropolis

Abstract Minimal medium supplemented with sub-optimal levels of parental auxotrophic requirements increases recombinant recovery from matings of Nocardia erythropolis more than 500-fold when compared with nutrient agar matings.
Altered Responses to Agonists after Chronic In Vivo Atropine Administration in Rat Parotid Acini

Salivary gland hypofunction, resulting from a variety of perturbations including prescribed medications, is associated with adverse effects on the health of the oral cavity. In the present study, we investigated the in vivo effects of chronic administration of atropine, a muscarinic antagonist, on the acute response of rat parotid acini to alpha-adrenergic and muscarinic stimulation. The regulation of intracellular pH (pHi) and cytosolic free Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) were monitored using dual wavelength microfluorometry of the ion-sensitive fluorescent dyes, BCECF and fura-2, respectively. Chronic atropine treatment (40 mg/kg/d for 4 weeks) significantly increased the magnitude of the initial ( 2 min). The generation of inositol trisphosphates and inositol tetrakisphosphates after 30 s of muscarinic stimulation was not significantly altered. The resting Cl- content as well as the stimulated Cl- loss, were reduced in parotid acini after chronic atropine administration. In addition, the muscarinic- and alpha-adrenergic-induced intracellular acidification was blunted, suggesting that reduced HCO3- efflux occurs in acini isolated from atropine-treated animals. Our results indicate (1) that chronic atropine treatment does not inhibit the receptor-coupled generation of inositol phosphates or the resulting rise in [Ca2+]i and (2) chronic treatment may prevent the production of saliva either by reducing the driving force for anion-dependent fluid secretion or by preventing the activation of the anion efflux pathway.
Minimal surfaces based on the catenoid

DAVID HOFFMAN is Professor of Mathematics and Co-Director of the Geometry, Analysis, Numerics and Graphics Center (GANG) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics at Stanford, after receiving undergraduate degrees at the University of Rochester (in history and mathematics). He has pursued research and/or teaching at the Universities of Durham and Warwick (UK), Michigan and Stanford, as well as IMPA (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and the University of Paris VII. He is the 1990 recipient of the MAA Chauvenet Prize.