cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Entrepreneurial Privatization Strategies: Order of Entry and Local Partner Collaboration as Sources of Competitive Advantage

Firm-level responses to privatization have not been widely studied. Drawing from industrial organization economics, the resource-based view, and interorganizational cooperative strategy, I develop an integrated theory to show how privatization encourages early entry: how delayed market liberalization reinforces first mover benefits; and how firms with specialized resources, an entrepreneurial orientation, and local partner collaborations gain postprivatization competitive advantage. I construct a model and provide case illustrations to support the theoretical development, discuss implications of the research, propose methods to test the model, and make suggestions for future inquiry.
Compiler Managed Dynamic Instruction Placement in a Low-Power Code Cache

Modern embedded microprocessors use low power on-chip memories called scratch-pad memories to store frequently executed instructions and data. Unlike traditional caches, scratch-pad memories lack the complex tag checking and comparison logic, thereby proving to be efficient in area and power. In this work, we focus on exploiting scratch-pad memories for storing hot code segments within an application. Static placement techniques focus on placing the most frequently executed portions of programs into the scratch-pad. However, static schemes are inherently limited by not allowing the contents of the scratch-pad memory to change at run time. In a large fraction of applications, the instruction memory footprints exceed the scratch-pad memory size, thereby limiting the usefulness of the scratch-pad. We propose a compiler managed dynamic placement algorithm, wherein multiple hot code sequences, or traces, are overlapped with each other in the scratch-pad memory at different points in time during execution. Special copy instructions are provided to copy the traces into the scratch-pad memory at run-time. Using a power estimate, the compiler initially selects the most frequent traces in an application for relocation into the scratch-pad memory. Through iterative code motion and redundancy elimination, copy instructions are inserted in infrequently executed regions of the code. For a 64-byte code cache, the compiler managed dynamic placement achieves an average of 64% energy improvement over the static solution in a low-power embedded microcontroller.
A Precision Planetary Range-Tracking Radar

A closed-loop range-locked radar system developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has recently had great success range tracking the planet Venus. It has provided measurements to the planetary mean-tracking point with peak minute-to-minute variations less than 2.25 to 3 Km in range. Over a one-hour tracking period, a mean tracking point can be determined to 0.5 km. A scattering-law calibration of the planet is made each day, measuring the mean-tracking-point-to-planetary-surface distance to within 3 km (nominal). The subearth point-to-radar distance is thus measured to a nominal accuracy of 3.5 km. Tracking behaves as a first-order linear ``range-locked'' loop with ephemeris aid, and is practically calibration free. Data obtained during the 1964 conjunction showed that the ephemeris not only contained a range error, but also a range-rate error of 18 km per day. Deviations from this rate correspond to surface features whose height can be estimated. Such data will be invaluable in determining, to a greater degree of accuracy than ever before attainable, the orbital constants of the earth and Venus.
Gamma globulin and antibody formation in vitro. I. Gamma globulin formation in tissues from immature and normal adult rabbits.

Gamma globulin formation in vitro by various tissues was studied using the incorporation of C14-L-lysine into a protein precipitable by a specific anti rabbit gamma globulin serum prepared in a sheep. It was demonstrated that the rate of gamma globulin formation in similar numbers of spleen cells is much higher if taken from an immunized rabbit at the height of antibody formation than that in normal spleen cells. Besides spleen, other tissues shown to form gamma globulin in normal adult rabbits were: peripheral lymph nodes, bone marrow, lung, mesenteric lymph nodes, appendix, and thymus. In tissues from newborn rabbits gamma globulin formation could not be demonstrated. Rabbits 1 week old already showed a beginning of significant gamma globulin formation in appendix tissue, followed approximately 3 weeks later by gamma globulin synthesis in spleen and thymus. Histological observations on these tissues were described and correlated with findings on gamma globulin formation. In the discussion an attempt has been made to relate these observations on newborn and immature rabbits to those available in the literature on antibody formation in newborn animals.
Prostitutes' Rights in the United States: The Failure of a Movement

The prostitutes' rights campaign emerged in the early 1970s with the formation of COYOTE in San Francisco and affiliated movement organizations. This study examines the movement's major claims and goals, resource problems, and impact on public opinion, legislation, and law enforcement. The failure to attain key movement goals is explained in terms of chronic deficiencies of material and human resources that might compensate for the campaign's lack of moral capital and enhance its prospects for success.
Formative research on smoking cessation program attributes preferred by smokers.

Background.This article reports formative research procedures used to identify smoking cessation program attributes preferred by smokers. A theoretical rationale and a program development framework are presented.Methods.Findings from a series of qualitative and small sample quantitative studies were used to evaluate smoker response to specific program materials, and to identify a comprehensive set of preferred smoking cessation program attributes. These findings guided the development of a telephone survey administered to a random sample of 205 smokers interested in quitting.Results.The 205 smokers completing telephone interviews frequently indicated preferences for program features having little to do with specific cessation methods used. Low demand on time, endorsements by medical authorities, relaxation instructions, weight control techniques, and a substantial research base were often cited as being most preferred. Overall, chisquare analyses provided minimal support for significant relationships betw...
A Situation Theoretic Approach to the Representation of Processes

Typical methods for representing business, engineering, and manufacturing processes represent process information by means of rather restricted, often graphical languages. These languages are often fine as far as they go, but for many purposes—information sharing, in particular—much more precise, detailed representations of enterprise processes are required. In this paper we develop an approach to the rigorous representation of process information based on situation theory. We begin with an informal account of the semantic categories of the approach including situations, infons, types, activities, and processes, as well as the central relations that can hold between them. A framework known as ST that builds upon the Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) is introduced for expressing information in these terms. The use of ST is then illustrated in detail by means of a series of examples.
Hydrogen, Biodiesel and Ethanol for Internal Combustion Engines: A Review Paper

Alternative fuels research has been on going for well over many years at a number of institutions. Driven by oil price and consumption, engine emissions and climate change, along with the lack of sustainable fossil fuels, transportation sector has generated an interest in alternative, renewable sources of fuel for internal combustion engines. The focus has ranged from feed stock optimization to engine-out emissions, performance and durability. Biofuels for transportation sector, including alcohols (ethanol, methanol…etc.), biodiesel, and other liquid and gaseous fuels such as methane and hydrogen, have the potential to displace a considerable amount of petroleum-based fuels around the world. First generation biofuels are produced from sugars, starches, or vegetable oils. On the contrary, the second generation biofuels are produced from cellulosic materials, agricultural wastes, switch grasses and algae rather than sugar and starch. By not using food crops, second generation biofuel production is much more sustainable and has a lower impact on food production. Also known as advanced biofuels, the second-generation biofuels are still in the development stage. Combining higher energy yields, lower requirements for fertilizer and land, and the absence of competition with food, second generation biofuels, when available at prices equivalent to petroleum derived products, offer a truly sustainable alternative for transportation fuels. There are main four issues related to alternative fuels: production, transportation, storage, handling and usage. This paper presents a review of recent literature related to the alternative fuels usage and the impact of these fuels on fuel injection systems, and fuel atomization and sprays for both spark-ignition and compression-ignition engines. Effect of these renewable fuels on both internal flow and external flow characteristics of the fuel injector will be presented.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
Classifying Taxonomic Relations between Pairs of Wikipedia Articles

Natural language generation systems rely on taxonomic thesauri for tasks such as lexical choice and aggregation. WordNet is one such taxonomy, but it is limited in size. Motivated by the needs of a generation system in the scientific literature domain, we present a method for building a taxonomic thesaurus from Wikipedia articles, where each article represents a potential concept in the taxonomy. We propose framing the problem of creating a taxonomy as a classification task of the potential relations between individual Wikipedia article pairs, and show that a supervised algorithm can achieve high precision in this task with very little training data.
Fundamentals of multirate graph signal processing

In this work, the fundamental blocks of multirate signal processing on graphs are analyzed. First the decimator is defined, and expander is solved accordingly. Then, noble identities and lazy filter bank for graph signals are constructed. After decimation, the length of the signal changes and the original adjacency matrix is not applicable. Therefore, such equations on graphs do not exist in general. For noble identities to exist and lazy filter bank to provide perfect reconstruction, the necessary and sufficient conditions on the graph are derived. Some graph examples, on which the conditions are satisfied, are also provided.
Some Statistics from Twenty-Three University and College Gymnasia

(1903). Some Statistics from Twenty-Three University and College Gymnasia. American Physical Education Review: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 92-97.
Are women underrepresented in the American statistics profession

Amanda Golbeck digs into the Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences in search of an answer
The Miller Disk: An Improvement in the Performance of Manual Reticulocyte Counts

As an important clinical laboratory test, the reticulocyte count suffers from an inherent lack of precision. Accordingly, a method that would increase the degree of precision by incorporating a larger sample size while maintaining cost-effectiveness and convenience was desired. A study was performed to compare the Miller disk method, which employs a visual counting aid, with the standard method of counting. Eight hematology technologists were asked to perform both methods of counting on each of 25 slides using a letter code system to prevent bias. It was found that the Miller disk method showed a significantly greater degree of precision than the standard method of counting ( P >.01) because of the increased sample size. The use of the visual counting aid was also found to be more cost-effective in that it decreased technical time incurred, as well as being more convenient.
E-002 Efficacy of the Pipeline Embolization Device in the Treatment of Previously-treated Aneurysms

Introduction The Pipeline Embolization Device (PED, eV3 Neurovascular, Irvine, California) has increased the ability of the neurointerventionalist to treat progressively more difficult cerebrovascular pathology. We sought to determine the efficacy of the PED in the treatment of the most recalcitrant of aneurysms, those aneurysms recurring after previous treatments. Materials and methods We retrospectively queried a prospectively maintained endovascular database for previously treated cerebral aneurysms undergoing intervention with the PED from May 2011 to the present time. Twenty-two patients (4 male, 18 female; age range 30–78 yrs, average 59.3 yrs) were treated for 23 aneurysms (average size 11.9 mm, SD 8.5 mm) requiring 29 PED (average 1.3 PED/pt) during the study period. Fourteen patients were originally treated with neuro-interventional procedures (6 coil Embolization, 7 stent assisted coil Embolization, 1 stent only), whereas, eight patients were originally treated with open surgery (7 clipping, 1 wrapping). Of the eight clip recurrences, two patients had an additional neuro-interventional treatment with subsequent recurrence prior to PED use. Average length of follow-up was 8.5 months. Results The overwhelming majority of all patients in our cohorts had their final angiographic outcomes rated as improved (20 Better, 2 Same, 0 Worse) compared to the pre-procedure state. Furthermore, 11 patients had final Raymond scores of 1 and 11 patients had final Raymond scores of 2. There were no final Raymond 3 angiographic results in the series. Those patients who recurred following initial endovascular treatment had better final Raymond scores when compared to the open surgery cohort (9 of 14 Raymond 1 scores versus 2 of 8 Raymond 1 scores). Conclusions In our single center series, PED use for the treatment of recurrent aneurysms is an effective means of treating this difficult subset of patients. We observed that the vast majority of these patients will go on to have excellent angiographic outcomes following PED placement. Further investigations are needed to better elucidate the role of the PED in this cohort. Disclosures M. Park: None. M. Nanaszko: None. M. Sanborn: None. K. Moon: None. C. McDougall: None. F. Albuquerque: None.
Structural Inhomogeneities and Impurity Incorporation in Growth of High-Quality Ammonothermal GaN Substrates

Ammonothermal Gallium Nitride (GaN) substrates are the most promising substrates for homoepitaxial growth of GaN films having low dislocation density. Growth-induced structural inhomogeneities in these substrates were investigated by high-resolution X-ray topography (HR-XRT) and high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD). A one-to-one correlation of defects was observed in photoluminescence imaging. From the HR-XRD intrinsic rocking curve widths were found to be 16 arcsecs indicating superior crystalline quality. The lattice constants were measured from symmetric and asymmetric reflections to be similar to bulk values indicting low sample strian. The true dislocation density, from the HR-XRT images, was observed to be of the order of 102 cm–2 in the samples, and the radius of curvature was greater than 600 m. Growth striations were observed in the a and m-pane samples and are attributed to inhomogeneity in impurity incorporation during growth. Photoluminescence imaging showed deep level luminescent center...
USE OF IMPELLA CP AS A BRIDGE TO RECOVERY IN TAKOTSUBO CARDIOMYOPATHY

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC) generally has a favorable prognosis but can present with life-threatening conditions including cardiogenic shock. Despite the exponential growth in TC literature, knowledge on management of TC associated cardiogenic shock is limited. A 72 year-old male with
Information Symmetry in U.S. Financial Market Regulation: A Community of Practice

ABSTRACT In the last decade, regulation of the financial markets in the United States has received significant attention. In particular, the formal structures responsible for regulating the financial markets have come under heavy criticism. While we may emphasize the role that formal structures play in controlling behavior, informal structures play an important role too. This study examines an informal structure in financial market regulation. Using social network and interview data, this study defines and investigates the role of a community of practice among leaders involved in regulating the financial markets. The analysis empirically defines the characteristics of this community of practice and reveals that this informal structure serves as an information symmetricizer in this regulatory setting. Implications of information symmetry include both positive and negative consequences.
Incidence of symptom recurrence after hysterectomy for endometriosis.

Objectives To determine the relative risk of symptom recurrence and/or reoperation after hysterectomy with ovarian preservation for the treatment of endometriosis. Design Historical prospective study of patients with endometriosis who underwent hysterectomy with or without ovarian preservation. Patients One hundred thirty-eight women who underwent hysterectomy with the diagnosis of endometriosis. Methods A computer search identified 138 women who underwent hysterectomy with the diagnosis of endometriosis at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1979 to 1991. Follow-up information was obtained from medical records, outpatient charts, and telephone surveys. Results Twenty-nine women had hysterectomy with some ovarian tissue preserved; 109 had all ovarian tissue removed. Of those with ovarian preservation, 18 of 29 (62%) had recurrent pain and 9 of 29 (31%) required reoperation. Of those who had no ovarian preservation, 11 of 109 (10%) had recurrent symptoms and 4 of 109 (3.7%) required reoperation. Ovarian conservation was associated with a relative risk for pain recurrence of 6.1 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.5 to 14.6) compared with patients with oophorectomy in a Cox proportional hazards model. The relative risk for reoperation in patients with ovarian conservation was 8.1 (95% CI 2.1 to 31.3). Conclusion Compared with women who had oophorectomy for endometriosis, patients who underwent hysterectomy with ovarian conservation had 6.1 times greater risk of developing recurrent pain and 8.1 times greater risk of reoperation.
Renal disease in youth with type 2 diabetes: Need for early detection.

©2010 Canadian Paediatric Society. All rights reserved Mary is a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old girl of self-declared First Nations heritage. She was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) at 13 years of age. She was not symptomatic at presentation and was diagnosed by targeted screening because she was recognized to have multiple risk factors, including membership in a high-risk ethnic group, obesity, a strong family history of diabetes and the presence of acanthosis nigricans. Affected family members include her mother, maternal grandmother and a maternal aunt. Her grandmother is currently on renal dialysis. Mary manages her diabetes with intensive lifestyle measures and is maintaining a hemoglobin A1c level within a target range of less than 7.0%. She is seen by the paediatric diabetes team every three months. Annual screening for microvascular complications began at diagnosis. Six months previously, her random albumin to creatinine ratio (ACR) was elevated; thus, her ACR in a first-morning urine sample was measured. This measurement was also elevated at 9.2 mg/mmol (normal ACR being less than 2.8 mg/mmol). A repeat first-morning urine ACR three months later remained elevated at 8.2 mg/mmol. A referral was made to the paediatric nephrology department for further evaluation.
Critique of Controversial and Unproven Procedures for Diagnosis and Therapy of Allergic Disorders

The use of controversial and unproven procedures for diagnosis of allergic disorders are a threat to the well-being of allergic children. Treatment based upon or involving leukocytotoxic testing; autogenous urine injection; or intracutaneous, subcutaneous, or sublingual administration of allergens has not been proved to be of any value despite well-conducted investigations. Use of unproven methods of diagnosis and therapy without reasonable proof of efficacy should be disavowed by all physicians who support a scientific approach to clinical problems.
Development of a Solid-Phase Fluorescence Immunoassay for the Detection of Salmonella in Raw Ground Turkey.

A solid-phase fluorescence sandwich immunoassay was developed to detect Salmonella spp. and tested for sensitivity on pure cultures as well as on spiked and naturally contaminated raw ground turkey. The solid support was a soft-glass capillary tube to which a polyclonal antibody against Salmonella spp. was adsorbed. The adsorbed antibody captured cellular antigens from the sample solution. The same polyclonal antibody was also biotinylated and, in combination with an avidin-Cy5 dye conjugate, served to allow detection of the immunologically captured cells. The minimum detectable number of Salmonella cells spiked into ground turkey was approximately 2.5 CFU/25 g. Fifty-one raw ground turkey samples were tested for the presence of Salmonella spp. using both this immunoassay and a modified Bacteriological Analytical Methods enrichment method. Fluorescence intensity values were normalized as a ratio of the sample fluorescence to the fluorescence of a standard. Fluorescence intensity ratios of 0.50 or greater were scored as Salmonella positive. The solid-phase fluorescence immunoassay yielded 10% false positives and no false negatives when results were compared with those from the modified enrichment method. Isolates recovered from the samples that produced false-positive results were identified as Citrobacter freundii and Enterobacter cloacae , both of which are known to cross-react with the antiserum used.
Science and Law in Conflict

When scientific evidence is centrally needed to assist legal decisions, the Supreme Court, inter alia , aimed at increasing the chances that legal decisions would more closely follow or at least not be at great odds with the relevant science. This is not as easy a task as it might have seemed. For one thing, generic tensions between the law and science hamper easy pursuit of this goal. In addition, given the complexity, subtlety, and near inscrutability of some scientific evidence, judges understandably, but regrettably often struggle with scientific studies and reasoning. These difficulties increase the more complex and subtle the evidence becomes. Moreover, judges may have disagreements with one another about how scientific evidence should be reviewed, given its complexity. Finally, the chances that admissibility decisions will result in mistaken judgments are even greater given some of the pragmatic problems reviewed in the previous chapter. That is, even when judges review quite good evidence, there are numerous opportunities for errors. When there are myriad pragmatic barriers to obtaining good evidence about the toxicity of substances and less than optimal evidence is available, the potential for stresses and strains increases. Failures to attend successfully to these issues pose threats to the legitimacy of the law as an institution. The current chapter focuses on some of these issues; the next chapter suggests a partial corrective to them. This chapter first reviews some tensions between science and the law that can affect how well they can function together.
Visualization and Dynamical Systems

When asked to explain what my mathematics is about, I often answer by showing pictures illustrating the behavior of the dynamical systems I study. Non-mathematicians usually respond with interest, at least polite interest but sometimes much more. They often express amazement that my pictures are in any way related to mathematics. Mathematicians are also often interested, but many (fewer as time goes on) dismiss what I do as some sort of “fad math” devoid of theorems.
Spectral sparsification in spectral clustering

Graph spectral clustering algorithms have been shown to be effective in finding clusters and generally outperform traditional clustering algorithms, such as k-means. However, they have scalibility issues in both memory usage and computational time. To overcome these limitations, the common approaches sparsify the similarity matrix by zeroing out some of its elements. They generally consider local neighborhood relationships between the data instances such as the k-nearest neighbor method. Although, they eventually work with the Laplacian matrix, there is no evidence about preservation of its spectral properties with approximation guarantees. As a result, in this paper, we adopt the idea of spectral sparsification to sparsify the Laplacian matrix. A spectral sparsification algorithm takes a dense graph G with n vertices and m edges (that is usually O(n2)), and returns a new graph H with the same set of vertices and many fewer edges, on the order of O(n log n), that approximately preserves the spectral properties of the input graph. We study the effect of the spectral sparsification method based on sampling by effective resistance on the spectral clustering outputs. Through experiments, we show that the clustering results obtained from sparsified graphs are very similar to the results of the original non-sparsified graphs.
Solithromycin (CEM-101): A New Fluoroketolide Antibiotic and Its Role in the Treatment of Gonorrhea

Solithromycin is a macrolide antibiotic that has undergone review for the treatment of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia. Solithromycin is also being investigated and has shown promise for the treatment of gonorrhea. With increasing antibiotic resistance, the development of novel antibiotics to combat infections is essential. The unique ribosome-binding stability of solithromycin and mild side effect profile make this a promising new antibiotic. This article will provide an overview on the mechanism of action, clinical efficacy, and safety of this drug for the treatment of gonorrhea. Relevant data were identified through a comprehensive literature search using multiple databases using the keywords solithromycin, CEM-101, and gonorrhea.
Perennial Ryegrass Study

The National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) conducts trials throughout the United States on turfgrass adaptation. This trial was established in September 2016 as part of the NTEP program. It contains 114 perennial ryegrass cultivars.
Transforming the commonplace through machine perception: light field synthesis and audio feature extraction in the rover project

Rover is a mechatronic imaging device inserted into quotidian space, transforming the sights and sounds of the everyday through its peculiar modes of machine perception. Using computational light field photography and machine listening, it creates a kind of cinema following the logic of dreams: suspended but mobile, familiar yet infinitely variable in detail. Rover draws on diverse traditions of robotic exploration, landscape and still-life depiction, and audio field recording to create a hybrid form between photography and cinema. This paper describes the mechatronic, machine perception, and audio-visual synthesis techniques developed for the piece.
DIADEGMA INSULARIS (HYMENOPTERA: ICHNEUMONIDAE) PARASITISM OF THE DIAMONDBACK MOTH (LEPIDOPTERA: PLUTELLIDAE) IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA

Parasitization rates of the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), by Diadegma insularis (Meus.) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) were determined in a pesticide-free cab...
Evaluating the heat stress and comfort of firefighter and emergency responder protective clothing

Abstract: In order to include heat stress and comfort as design parameters in the development of advanced protective ensembles for firefighters and emergency responders, it is necessary to be able to measure and evaluate these factors. This chapter will focus on describing the laboratory test methods that are currently available for this purpose, and on identifying research needed to advance the state of these testing technologies and protocols.
Environmental Effects on Growth

This chapter focuses on environmental influences on growth, including factors that are part of the physical environment and anthropogenic factors. In addition to effects of nutrition and socioeconomic factors, the immediate physical environment can affect human physical growth and development. Growth and development are sensitive to a wide variety of features of the environment. Among the most often studied are features of the natural environment such as climate, temperature, and altitude. Anthropogenic features include air pollution, metals, pesticides, and herbicides, and energy. Most anthropogenic factors are recent developments and may pose adaptive challenges that are reflected in patterns of growth. The effect of pollutants can seem small, but the size of the effect depends on the extent of exposure to the pollutant. Thus, cigarette smoking exerts a large or small effect in a population depending on how prevalent smoking is in that population. If the environment is cleaned up, child growth is little affected by air pollution, but if children grow up in an environment with many types of pollution, the effect of all the pollutants together is large. Studies show that in industrialized countries, the poor children have more exposure to pollutants that result in impaired growth. The chapter emphasizes that it is wise to remember that exposure to many of the pollutants that affect growth are mediated by social factors, as is nutritional deprivation. Thus, growth can be considered as a monitor of the general quality of children's environments.
Examination of a surface exposed epitope on the protein IA molecule of Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Proteolytic cleavage of purified PIA of strain 7122 transparent phenotype (0-) (serotype 1, serogroup I) resulted in two, four, and five fragments using (TPCK)-trypsin, alpha-PI A was subsequently cleaved into smaller fragments. Immunoblot experiments using a monoclonal antibody (MoAb) specific for a surface exposed epitope of PI A of strain 7122, as assessed by coagglutination, Western blot, and immunofluorescence assay revealed that all cleavage fragments 2≥ 15K were reactive with the MoAb after incubation with peroxidase conjugated goat anti-mouse IgG, whereas controls using normal mouse serum showed no nonspecific binding. These data indicate that whereas purified protein I is susceptible to proteolytic cleavage, the epitope domain is relatively protease resistant.
Views and Transactional Storage for Large Graphs

A growing number of applications store and analyze graph-structured data. These applications impose challenging infrastructure demands due to a need for scalable, high-throughput, and low-latency graph processing. Existing state-of-the-art storage systems and data processing systems are limited in at least one of these dimensions, and simply layering these technologies is inadequate.
Preparation and characterization of poly (D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) microspheres for controlled release of poly(L-lysine) complexed plasmid DNA.

Purpose. To produce and characterize controlled release formulations of plasmid DNA (pDNA) loaded in poly (D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microspheres both in free form and as a complex with poly (L-lysine).
Octavia E. Butler, After the Chicanx Movement

The following reflections on my recent study of a small portion of the Octavia E. Butler Collection at the Huntington are informed by my first visit to the library and its famous gardens. While in ...
Association of Blood Pressure Classification in Young Adults Using the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Blood Pressure Guideline With Cardiovascular Events Later in Life.

Importance Little is known regarding the association between level of blood pressure (BP) in young adulthood and cardiovascular disease (CVD) events by middle age. Objective To assess whether young adults who developed hypertension, defined by the 2017 American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) BP guideline, before age 40 years have higher risk for CVD events compared with those who maintained normal BP. Design, Setting, and Participants Analyses were conducted in the prospective cohort Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, started in March 1985. CARDIA enrolled 5115 African American and white participants aged 18 to 30 years from 4 US field centers (Birmingham, Alabama; Chicago, Illinois; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Oakland, California). Outcomes were available through August 2015. Exposures Using the highest BP measured from the first examination to the examination closest to, but not after, age 40 years, each participant was categorized as having normal BP (untreated systolic BP [SBP] Main Outcomes and Measures CVD events: fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease (CHD), heart failure, stroke, transient ischemic attack, or intervention for peripheral artery disease (PAD). Results The final cohort included 4851 adults (mean age when follow-up for outcomes began, 35.7 years [SD, 3.6]; 2657 women [55%]; 2441 African American [50%]; 206 taking antihypertensive medication [4%]). Over a median follow-up of 18.8 years, 228 incident CVD events occurred (CHD, 109; stroke, 63; heart failure, 48; PAD, 8). CVD incidence rates for normal BP, elevated BP, stage 1 hypertension, and stage 2 hypertension were 1.37 (95% CI, 1.07-1.75), 2.74 (95% CI, 1.78-4.20), 3.15 (95% CI, 2.47-4.02), and 8.04 (95% CI, 6.45-10.03) per 1000 person-years, respectively. After multivariable adjustment, hazard ratios for CVD events for elevated BP, stage 1 hypertension, and stage 2 hypertension vs normal BP were 1.67 (95% CI, 1.01-2.77), 1.75 (95% CI, 1.22-2.53), and 3.49 (95% CI, 2.42-5.05), respectively. Conclusions and Relevance Among young adults, those with elevated blood pressure, stage 1 hypertension, and stage 2 hypertension before age 40 years, as defined by the blood pressure classification in the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines, had significantly higher risk for subsequent cardiovascular disease events compared with those with normal blood pressure before age 40 years. The ACC/AHA blood pressure classification system may help identify young adults at higher risk for cardiovascular disease events.
Power Conversion and Distribution Equipment Metamodels for Dependable Design of Shipboard Integrated Power and Energy Systems

The U.S. Navy is currently challenged to develop new ship designs under compressed schedules. These ship designs must necessarily incorporate emerging technologies for high power energy conversion in order to enable smaller ship designs with a high degree of electrification and next generation electrified weapons. One way this challenge is being addressed is through development of collaborative concurrent design environment that allows for design space exploration across a wide range of implementation options. The most significant challenge is assurance of a dependable power and energy service via the shipboard Integrated Power and Energy System (IPES). The IPES is largely made up of interconnected power conversion and distribution equipment with allocated functionalities in order to meet demanding Quality of Power, Quality of Service and Survivabilty requirements. Feasible IPES implemenations must fit within the within ship hull constraints and must not violate limitations on ship displacement. This paper applies the theory of dependability to the use of scalable metamodels for power conversion and distribution equipment within a a collaborative concurrent design environment to enable total ship set-based design outcomes that result implementable design specifications for procurement of equipment to be used in the final ship implementation. The Module metamodel is designed to scale according to user defined cost objectives along pareto fronts representing the dimensions, weight, losses, reliability and cost of an corresponding optimal design for discrete points within a constrained design space. These attributes will be selectable according to objectives set at the ship system level. This paper also describes how the total ship design environment can be augmented by time-dependent behaviors to enable the assessment of survivability and, potentially, other attributes of a dependable IPES.
Central nervous system HIV-1 infection.

Abstract Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection of the central nervous system (CNS) begins early in systemic infection and continues throughout its untreated course. Despite a common cerebrospinal fluid inflammatory response, it is usually neurologically asymptomatic for much of this course, but can evolve in some individuals to HIV-associated dementia (HAD), a severe encephalopathy with characteristic cognitive and motor dysfunction. While widespread use of combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) has led to a marked decline in both this CNS infection and its neurologic severe consequence, HAD continues to afflict individuals presenting with advanced systemic infection in the developed world and a larger number in resource-poor settings where ART is more restricted. Additionally, milder CNS injury and dysfunction have broader prevalence, including in those treated with ART. Here we review the history and evolving nomenclature of HAD, its viral pathogenesis, clinical presentation and diagnosis, and treatment.
Does Public Libraries’ Facebook Following Correlate with Library Usage?

AbstractSocial media like Facebook are widely believed to be a useful marketing tool for organizations, likely to include public libraries. However, there has as of yet been little research to exam...
Mathematical method for designing superresolution lenses using superoscillations

We use a new mathematical method to design a superresolution lens using a superoscillation technique based on polynomial roots. We walk through an example of the method using simulations. Our method allows for ease of design by being mathematically and conceptually simpler than other methods.
A Resistência do Objeto: O Grito de Tia Hester

Este texto e a introducao do livro In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (2003), do poeta e filosofo Fred Moten. Partindo da “cena primaria”, tirada da Narrativa da vida de Frederick Douglass (1845), em que, ainda crianca, Douglass testemunha o acoitamento de sua Tia Hester, Moten aborda a possibilidade de resistencia dos objetos, usa Marx para analisar o valor das mercadorias/pessoas escravizadas, e associa os gritos que respondem as chicotadas as potencias disruptivas da performance preta que, como argumenta, ecoam nos gestos contemporâneos de artistas como Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach e James Brown.
The Life Course of a Standard-Bearer: A Nonroyal Elite Burial at the Maya Archaeological Site of El Palmar, Mexico

Inspired by life course and osteobiography approaches, this article explores the life and death of an individual associated with the lakam title (“banner” in Colonial Yukatek Maya; thus, a “standard-bearer”), a nonroyal elite of Late Classic period Maya society (AD 600–850). Although these elites are depicted on polychrome vessels and carved monuments, little is known about their life experiences and mortuary practices. The present analysis centers on an individual found at Structure GZ1, a temple with a hieroglyphic stairway, at the Maya archaeological site of El Palmar, Mexico. Using osteological, archaeological, and epigraphic data as different lines of evidence, we examine the relationship of the individual to his affiliated group. At the time of interment, there were a wide array of social, cultural, and political events both shaping and reshaping the body and identities of the individual during a period of political turbulence.
Concurrent Validity Between Two Sound Sequencing Tasks Used to Identify Childhood Apraxia of Speech in School-Age Children.

Purpose To assess the concurrent validity of two tasks used to inform diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), this study evaluated the agreement between the Syllable Repetition Task (SRT) a...
Maximal power per device area of a ducted turbine

Abstract. The aerodynamic design of a ducted wind turbine for maximum total power coefficient was studied numerically using the axisymmetric Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations and an actuator disc model. The total power coefficient characterizes the rotor power per total device area rather than the rotor area. This is a useful metric to compare the performance of a ducted wind turbine with an open rotor and can be an important design objective in certain applications. The design variables included the duct length, the rotor thrust coefficient, the angle of attack of the duct cross section, the rotor gap, and the axial location of the rotor. The results indicated that there exists an upper limit for the total power coefficient of ducted wind turbines. Using an Eppler E423 airfoil as the duct cross section, an optimal total power coefficient of 0.70 was achieved at a duct length of about 15 % of the rotor diameter. The optimal thrust coefficient was approximately 0.9, independent of the duct length and in agreement with the axial momentum analysis. Similarly independent of duct length, the optimal normal rotor gap was found to be approximately the duct boundary layer thickness at the rotor. The optimal axial position of the rotor was near the rear of the duct but moved upstream with increasing duct length, while the optimal angle of attack of the duct cross section decreased.
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Managing Ischemic Wounds and Current Treatment Options

We discuss management of arterial wounds pertaining to clinical evaluation, noninvasive diagnostic testing, and relevant classification systems of arterial wounds. In addition, we review recent literature regarding treatment modalities of arterial wounds. Treatment of arterial wounds is multifactorial and can include the following: local wound care, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, skin grafting, and biologic and regenerative medicine including gene and cellular therapy. This paper is a discussion of the various treatment options for chronic arterial wounds with a review of recent literature. Chronic wounds result from impaired healing processes secondary to systemic or local factors. In order to properly manage and treat nonhealing wounds of the lower extremities, it is paramount to determine the underlying etiology or mixed etiologies contributing to the disruption of the wound-healing process in order to manage them appropriately.
Role of Academia, Industry, and Research

Academic institutions are juggling between providing quality education, meeting industry demands for new skills, and conducting research work. It is many times a challenging balancing act. The advent of massive open online courses (MOOCs) available at a very affordable cost is making it harder for many institutions to justify their high tuition costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the problem. A new thinking is required, and schools need to revamp themselves. The gap between academia, industry, and research can be bridged by adopting a more holistic and integrated approach leveraging what each has best to provide. Solutions ought to be developed at a more granular level. The notion of one solution that fits all is no more applicable. In the era of big data and artificial intelligence, it is imperative to think beyond the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) oriented programs, and include Art. It is easier to automate formulas and equations, but very difficult to automate the creative and critical thinking.
A Graph-Based Method for Joint Instance Segmentation of Point Clouds and Image Sequences

We address the problem of class agnostic, joint instance segmentation of scene data. While learning-based semantic instance segmentation methods have achieved impressive progress, their use is limited in robotics applications due to reliance on expensive training data annotations and assumptions of single sensor modality or known object classes. We propose a novel graph-based instance segmentation approach that combines information from a 2D image sequence and a 3D point cloud capturing the scene. Our approach propagates information with a general graph representation to produce a segmentation taking into account both geometric and photometric information. This allows us to leverage information from complementary sensor modalities without requiring training data. Our method shows improved object recall and boundary identification over state-of-the-art RGB-D segmentation methods. We demonstrate generality by evaluating on both RGB-D data and a LiDAR+image sensor data.
Deiodinase variation and liothyronine treatment interaction to accelerate ECT response in major depression: Pilot data and implications for thyroid pharmacogenomic testing in mood disorders

Abstract Background Concurrent liothyronine treatment has been shown to accelerate time to response in patients treated for major depression. However, the relationship between genetic variation in deiodinase and T3 treatment response has received little investigation. Methods This is a post-hoc analysis of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of concurrent liothyronine (T3-Cytomel®, n = 23; mean dose 46.3 ± 3.3 mcg) in patients with major depression where a clinical recommendation was made to pursue ECT. The primary outcome measure was time to 50% reduction in depressive symptoms. Multivariable linear models were used to examine effect of T3 and placebo and genetic variants as predictors of change in HAMD24 and number of ECT treatments. Results Survival analysis did not show a significant effect for the T3 + ECT group achieving a faster time to response compared to placebo + ECT (p + ECT). Survival analysis for RUL lead placement alone showed a significant effect for the T3 + ECT group achieving a faster time to response compared to p + ECT (p = 0.01) with significantly fewer ECT treatments (p = 0.03). Carriers of the functional SNP rs11206244 gene DI01-C785T minor allele (TT and CT) vs. non-carriers (CC), showed fewer ECT treatments in the T3 + ECT group, compared to p + ECT (5.3 ± 1.0 vs. 8.3 ± 2.1, p = 0.045). Conclusions These pilot data identify clinically relevant genetic variation in DI01- C785T contributing to an accelerated response time, but not an overall greater symptom reduction. Exogenous T3 supplementation may be therapeutic by attenuating a baseline DI01 relative functional deficit which functionally reduces peripheral conversion of T4 to biologically active T3. Further work is encouraged to assess genetic variation of thyroid deiodinase enzymes in larger samples of depressed patients to better optimize accelerating strategies to ECT and more broadly, thyroid augmentation strategies in major depressive and bipolar disorders.
AN ELECTRON MICROSCOPE STUDY OF DISEASE PROGRESSION IN THE OYSTER, CRASSOSTREA VIRGINICA , INFECTED WITH THE PROTOZOAN PARASITE, HAPLOSPORIDIUM NELSONI (MSX)

ABSTRACT: Contributed herein is an ultrastructural description of Haplosporidium nelsoni (MSX), a highly pathogenic parasite of the American oyster, Crassostrea virginica. In addition, the results of an electron microscope study of host cells, particularly hemocytes, which interact with H. nelsoni , are being reported. A hypothesis is being advanced as to the pathogenicity of the MSX disease once it penetrates the basal lamina and reaches the systemic stage.