cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Vibration Analysis of Suspension Cable with Attached Masses by Non-linear Spline Function Method

The nonlinear strain and stress expressions of suspension cable are established from the basic condition of suspension structure on the Lagrange coordinates and the equilibrium equation of the suspension structure is obtained. The dynamics equations of motion of the suspended cable with attached masses are proposed according to the virtual work principle. Using the spline function as interpolation functions of displacement and spatial position, the spline function method of dynamics equation of suspension cable is formed in which the stiffness matrix is expressed by spline function, and the solution method of stiffness matrix, matrix assembly method based on spline integral, is put forwards which can save cost time efficiency. The vibration frequency of the suspension cable is calculated with different attached masses, which provides theoretical basis for valuing of safety coefficient of the bearing cable of the cableway.
Energy exchange in coupled interactions between a shock wave and metallic plates

Abstract An experimental investigation was carried out to consider the partitioning of energy deposited by a planar shock impinging on thin metallic plates mounted at the end wall of a large scale shock tube. A split-view time-dependent digital image correlation technique was employed to capture the three-dimensional motion of the external surface of the specimens. Steel plate and aluminum plates were tested in the present work. The experimental results were analyzed by using the control volume approach with moving boundaries and the presence of discontinuities. The energy depositions by the flow on the specimens were examined and discussed in two different frames of reference to demonstrate that energy is not Galilean invariant. It was found that most of the deposited energy is spent on plastic deformation of the plates followed by the kinetic energy, which reached significant values only in the initial stages of the shock-material interaction.
Accountability pressure: Regression discontinuity estimates of how No Child Left Behind influenced student behavior

In this paper we examine how failing to make adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and the accountability pressure that ensues, affects various non-achievement student behaviors. Using administrative data from North Carolina and leveraging a discontinuity in the determination of school failure, we examine the causal impact of this form of accountability pressure both on student behaviors that are incentivized by NCLB and on those that are not. We find evidence that, as NCLB intends, pressure encourages students to show up at school and to do so on time. Accountability pressure also appears to have the unintended effect, however, of increasing the number of student misbehaviors. Further, we find some evidence that this negative response is most pronounced among minorities and low performing students: those who are the most likely to be left behind.
Cardiotoxic effects of anthracycline-based therapy: what is the evidence and what are the potential harms?

Summary Despite the known cardiotoxic effects of doxorubicin and other anthracyclines, no evidence-based guidelines exist for the surveillance and prevention of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity in adult survivors of breast cancer who have had limited previous doses of anthracyclines (ie, total cumulative dose 240 mg/m 2 ), or limited-dose anthracyclines followed by trastuzumab-based regimens. Nonetheless, some national and international cardio-oncology and cardiac-imaging organisations recommend increased cardiac surveillance during or after treatment, measurement of cardiac biomarkers and other surrogate endpoints, and in some cases initiation of cardioprotective drug therapy in asymptomatic women. However, two unintended potential harms of such approaches are medicalisation (definition and treatment of subclinical heart problems without high-level evidence for a consequent reduction in the incidence of subsequent heart failure or cardiac deaths) and increased health-care costs when the value of providing that care is unknown. Whether existing cardio-oncology or imaging guideline recommendations will provide increased value or cause increased distress and lower health-related quality of life is unknown. Further research is needed to assess the long-term benefits, harms, and value of expanded cardiac surveillance, use of surrogate cardiac biomarkers, and prophylactic cardioprotective therapy in asymptomatic women with limited exposure to anthracyclines.
Recommendations for Simulating Microparticle Deposition at Conditions Similar to the Upper Airways with Two-Equation Turbulence Models

The development of a CFD model, from initial geometry to experimentally validated result with engineering insight, can be a time-consuming process that often requires several iterations of meshing and solver set-up. Applying a set of guidelines in the early stages can help to streamline the process and improve consistency between different models. The objective of this study was to determine both mesh and CFD solution parameters that enable the accurate simulation of microparticle deposition under flow conditions consistent with the upper respiratory airways including turbulent flow. A 90° bend geometry was used as a characteristic model that occurs throughout the airways and for which high-quality experimental aerosol deposition data is available in the transitional and turbulent flow regimes. Four meshes with varying degrees of near-wall resolution were compared, and key solver settings were applied to determine the parameters that minimize sensitivity to the near-wall (NW) mesh. The Low Reynolds number (LRN) k-ω model was used to resolve the turbulence field, which is a numerically efficient two-equation turbulence model, but has recently been considered overly simplistic. Some recent studies have used more complex turbulence models, such as Large Eddy Simulation (LES), to overcome the perceived weaknesses of two-equation models. Therefore, the secondary objective was to determine whether the more computationally efficient LRN k-ω model was capable of providing deposition results that were comparable to LES. Results show how NW mesh sensitivity is reduced through application of the Green-Gauss Node-based gradient discretization scheme and physically realistic near-wall corrections. Using the newly recommended meshing parameters and solution guidelines gives an excellent match to experimental data. Furthermore, deposition data from the LRN k-ω model compares favorably with LES results for the same characteristic geometry. In summary, this study provides a set of meshing and solution guidelines for simulating aerosol deposition in transitional and turbulent flows found in the upper respiratory airways using the numerically efficient LRN k-ω approach.
The Perfect ECMO Candidate

One quiet Saturday morning, as I sat down in front of the computer and began to review my patient charts, an uncomfortably familiar alarm sounded overhead:“Attention please. Cardiothoracic surgery STAT to the medical intensive care unit.” This announcement is used at my hospital, invariably
Effect of magnetic field strength on plastic scintillation detector response

Abstract Purpose To characterize the response of plastic scintillation detectors (PSDs) to high-energy photon radiation as a function of magnetic field strength. Materials and methods PSDs were placed inside a plastic phantom held at the center point between 2 magnets and irradiated using a 6-MV photon beam from a linear accelerator. The magnetic field was varied from 0 T to 1.5 T by 0.3-T increments. The light emission and stem-effect-corrected response as a function of magnetic field strength were obtained for both a commercial PSD (Exradin W1, Standard Imaging) and an in-house hyperspectral PSD. Spectral signatures were obtained for the in-house PSD, and light emission from a bare fiber was also measured. Results Light emission increased as magnetic field strength increased for all detectors tested. The tested PSDs exhibited an increase in light intensity of 10%–20%, mostly owing to the increase in Cerenkov light produced within and transmitted along the optical fiber. When corrected for stem effects, the increase in PSD response went down to 2.4% for both detectors. This most likely represents the change in the inherent dose deposition within the phantom. Conclusion PSDs with a suitable stem-effect removal approach were less dependent on magnetic field strength and had better water equivalence than did ion chambers tested in previous studies. PSDs therefore show great promise for use in both quality assurance and in-vivo dosimetry applications in a magnetic field environment.
Antilock Braking Systems

Extremum seeking control is used in the Antilock Braking Systems (ABS) problem. First, a single wheel model is presented, and then different designs of extremum seeking control are compared. These include perturbation based (PESC), sliding mode based (SMESC) and numerical optimization based (NOESC) approaches.
Radical hysterectomy or radiotherapy for stage I cervical cancer. A prospective comparison with 5 and 10 years follow-up.

Abstract A prospective study of the treatment of 119 patients with Stage I carcinoma of the cervix by radical hysterectomy alone (58 patients) or radiotherapy alone (61 patients) was undertaken between Jan. 1, 1956, and May 31, 1966. Eighty-one per cent of the patients treated by radical hysterectomy survived 5 years as compared with 74 per cent of those treated by radiotherapy. The 10 year survival rates were 75 and 65 per cent, respectively. These differences were not statistically significant. Complications of treatment were relatively few except for a greater incidence of urinary tract problems after surgical treatment; most of these were resolved with restoration of normal function. When recurrence occurred in the surgical series further treatment by radiotherapy offered a reasonable prospect of survival. Failure of radiotherapy left relatively little ooportunity for later treatment by operation.
Effects of ionophores on cow herd production: a review

Feeding ionophores to beef cows or replacement heifers fed harvested forages increases weight gain and improves feed efficiency. These responses are influenced by diet quality and body condition of the animal. These compounds may reduce postpartum interval to estrus, but this effect appears to be diminished if nutritional status is poor. Although ionophores do not alter fertility, they decrease age at puberty in the female. These changes in reproductive performance appear to be related to a hormonal response to an increased propionate:acetate ratio in the rumen characteristic of ionophore feeding. Responses to ionophores in milk yield and weight gain improvements in calves of ionophore-fed cows are variable. Length of gestation, incidence of dystocia, calf birth weights and percent calf crop are not altered by ionophore feeding. The potential to improve cow herd production through the use of ionophores depends primarily on forage quality and availability.
Participatory governance in the context of local health councils: interviews with six local health council presidents in Northeastern Brazil

Abstract The aim of this study was to describe the challenges and opportunities faced by local health council presidents in their practice of participatory governance. In-depth interviews were conducted with six presidents at health posts at six neighborhoods located in a single region in a peripheral neighborhood in Fortaleza. The interviews were complemented by participant observation of local health council meetings conducted over a three-year period (2015-2017), and interviews with presidents of the municipal, regional and state health councils, as well as with more than twenty actors from government agencies and local associations. The data were analyzed with the help of Atlas.ti, and resulted in the identification of four core topics: the weakness of community representation, the generation of new health initiatives, the concern with the physical and material infrastructure of the councils, and the linkages between council Presidents and the historical network of community-based organizations (Associacoes Voluntarias) in the region in which the health posts were situated. The local health councils included in this study faced similar challenges to those documented by prior scholars, but also demonstrated the potential to cultivate local ideas for new health initiatives.
Zusammenfassung der theoretischen Konzeption und Forschungsfragen

In diesem Kapitel werden die bislang vornehmlich getrennt voneinander behandelten theoretischen Ausfuhrungen kurz zusammengefasst und aufeinander bezogen, bevor auf dieser Basis einzelne Forschungsfragen als Konkretisierung der leitenden Fragestellung abgeleitet werden. Die leitende Fragestellung der Arbeit wurde bereits formuliert und lautet.
Homeschooling and Authenticity.

In this article, I address the relation between children’s authentic identity development and homeschooling. I show the limitations of claims that homeschooling protects children’s authenticity. I ...
Datacenter congestion control: identifying what is essential and making it practical

Recent years have seen a slew of papers on datacenter congestion control mechanisms. In this editorial, we ask whether the bulk of this research is needed for the common case where congestion control involves hosts responding to simple congestion signals from the network and the performance goal is reducing some average measure of flow completion time. We raise this question because we find that, out of all the possible variations one could make in congestion control algorithms, the most essential feature is the switch scheduling algorithm. More specifically, we find that congestion control mechanisms that use Shortest-Remaining-Processing-Time (SRPT) achieve superior performance as long as the rate-setting algorithm at the host is reasonable. We further find that while SRPT's performance is quite robust to host behaviors, the performance of schemes that use scheduling algorithms like FIFO or Fair Queuing depend far more crucially on the rate-setting algorithm, and their performance is typically worse than what can be achieved with SRPT. Given these findings, we then ask whether it is practical to realize SRPT in switches without requiring custom hardware. We observe that approximate and deployable SRPT (ADS) designs exist, which leverage the small number of priority queues supported in almost all commodity switches, and require only software changes in the host and the switches. Our evaluations with one very simple ADS design shows that it can achieve performance close to true SRPT and is significantly better than FIFO. Thus, the answer to our basic question - whether the bulk of recent research on datacenter congestion control algorithms is needed for the common case - is no.
Adverse cardiac effects of cancer therapies: cardiotoxicity and arrhythmia

Remarkable progress has been made in the development of new therapies for cancer, dramatically changing the landscape of treatment approaches for several malignancies and continuing to increase patient survival. Accordingly, adverse effects of cancer therapies that interfere with the continuation of best-possible care, induce life-threatening risks or lead to long-term morbidity are gaining increasing importance. Cardiovascular toxic effects of cancer therapeutics and radiation therapy are the epitome of such concerns, and proper knowledge, interpretation and management are needed and have to be placed within the context of the overall care of individual patients with cancer. Furthermore, the cardiotoxicity spectrum has broadened to include myocarditis with immune checkpoint inhibitors and cardiac dysfunction in the setting of cytokine release syndrome with chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy. An increase in the incidence of arrhythmias related to inflammation such as atrial fibrillation can also be expected, in addition to the broadening set of cancer therapeutics that can induce prolongation of the corrected QT interval. Therefore, cardiologists of today have to be familiar not only with the cardiotoxicity associated with traditional cancer therapies, such as anthracycline, trastuzumab or radiation therapy, but even more so with an ever-increasing repertoire of therapeutics. This Review provides this information, summarizing the latest developments at the juncture of cardiology, oncology and haematology.
Detrimental effects of tax havens and the case of the Dutch tax system

Nowadays, multinationals have become so strong that they can easily compete with states. Consequently, they have the opportunity to develop several tax minimalization strategies such as transfer pricing, inversion, hybrid entities etc. All these have a negative impact on the world economy and state budgets. Despite detrimental effects, certain countries try to cooperate with multinationals by transforming themselves into tax havens. In this framework, they provide multinationals with various kinds of tax advantages such as deductions, low tax rates and preferential tax rulings (“sweetheart deals”). Although, the general attitude towards tax avoidance in the European Union is negative, particular member states’ tax systems display several characteristics of tax havens. In this regard, it should be noted that multinationals regularly use the loopholes and other advantages of the Dutch tax system to minimise their tax liability. The following study – after a brief view to the characteristics of tax havens– will illustrate these options by highlighting the fact that the country – despite the denial of the respective governments – still displays several characteristics of - tax havens.
Is There a Gender Gap in Outcomes After Hip Arthroscopy for Femoroacetabular Impingement? Assessment of Clinically Meaningful Improvements in a Prospective Cohort.

Background:Although patients have experienced significant improvements after hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), prior studies suggest that women have worse outcomes than men. T...
Fissure caries inhibition with a CO2 9.3-μm short-pulsed laser—a randomized, single-blind, split-mouth controlled, 1-year clinical trial

The objective of this randomized, single-blind, split-mouth controlled, clinical trial was to evaluate whether the use of a short-pulsed 9.3-μm CO2 laser increases the caries resistance of occlusal pit and fissures in addition to fluoride therapy over 12 months. A total of 60 participants, average age 13.1 years, were enrolled. At baseline, second molars were randomized into test and control, and assessed by ICDAS, SOPROLIFE, and DIAGNOdent. An independent investigator irradiated test molars with a CO2 laser (wavelength 9.3 μm, pulse duration 4 μs, pulse repetition rate 43 Hz, beam diameter 250 μm, average fluence 3.9 J/cm2, 20 laser pulses per spot). Test molars received laser and fluoride treatment, control teeth fluoride alone. Fluoride varnish was applied at baseline and at 6 months. After 6 and 12 months, teeth were again assessed. A total of 57 participants completed the 6-month and 51 the 12-month recall. Laser-treated surfaces showed very slight ICDAS improvements over time with ICDAS change − 1 in 11% and 8%, no changes (ICDAS change 0) in 68% and 67%, and slightly worsened (ICDAS change 1) in 19% and 24% at 6- and 12-month recalls, respectively, and worsened by two scores in 2% at both recall time points. Control teeth showed significantly higher ICDAS increases, with 47% and 25% showing ICDAS change 0, ICDAS change 1 in 49% and 55%, and ICDAS change 2 in 4% and 20% at 6- and 12-month recalls, respectively. Differences in ICDAS changes between the groups were statistically significant (P = 0.0002 and P < 0.0001; Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test, exact). A total of 22% of the participants developed ICDAS 3 scores on the control teeth. Microsecond short-pulsed 9.3-μm CO2 laser irradiation markedly inhibits caries progression in pits and fissures in comparison with fluoride varnish alone. The 9.3-μm CO2 laser irradiation of pits and fissures enhances caries resistance. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02357979
Environmental stability impacts the differential sensitivity of marine microbiomes to increases in temperature and acidity.

Ambient conditions shape microbiome responses to both short- and long-duration environment changes through processes including physiological acclimation, compositional shifts, and evolution. Thus, we predict that microbial communities inhabiting locations with larger diel, episodic, and annual variability in temperature and pH should be less sensitive to shifts in these climate-change factors. To test this hypothesis, we compared responses of surface ocean microbes from more variable (nearshore) and more constant (offshore) sites to short-term factorial warming (+3 °C) and/or acidification (pH −0.3). In all cases, warming alone significantly altered microbial community composition, while acidification had a minor influence. Compared with nearshore microbes, warmed offshore microbiomes exhibited larger changes in community composition, phylotype abundances, respiration rates, and metatranscriptomes, suggesting increased sensitivity of microbes from the less-variable environment. Moreover, while warming increased respiration rates, offshore metatranscriptomes yielded evidence of thermal stress responses in protein synthesis, heat shock proteins, and regulation. Future oceans with warmer waters may enhance overall metabolic and biogeochemical rates, but they will host altered microbial communities, especially in relatively thermally stable regions of the oceans.
Hydrodynamic habitat thresholds for mangrove vegetation on the shorelines of a microtidal estuarine lagoon

Abstract Although understanding the requisite hydrodynamic habitat for mangrove vegetation is vital for successful restoration efforts, few studies have quantitatively assessed the in-situ tolerance of mangroves to relevant physical forcing mechanisms. In this work, hydrodynamic thresholds for the persistence of mangrove vegetation (Rhizophora mangle, Avicennia germinans, and Laguncularia racemosa) are assessed using a hindcast wind-wave model coupled with a high-resolution shoreline survey, with analysis including 383 km of shoreline located in a microtidal estuary along the Atlantic coast of Florida (north Indian River Lagoon, USA). Observed mangrove distribution patterns were most strongly correlated with the modelled wave climate (p
Physical Fingerprinting of Ultrasonic Sensors and Applications to Sensor Security

As the market for autonomous vehicles advances, a need for robust safety protocols also increases. Autonomous vehicles rely on sensors to understand their operating environment. Active sensors such as camera, LiDAR, ultrasonic, and radar are vulnerable to physical channel attacks. One way to counter these attacks is to pattern match the sensor data with its own unique physical distortions, commonly referred to as a fingerprint. This fingerprint exists because of how the sensor was manufactured, and it can be used to determine the transmitting sensor from the received waveform. In this paper, using an ultrasonic sensor, we establish that there exists a specific distortion profile in the transmitted waveform called physical fingerprint that can be attributed to their intrinsic characteristics. We propose a joint time-frequency analysis-based framework for ultrasonic sensor fingerprint extraction and use it as a feature to train a Naive Bayes classifier. The trained model is used for transmitter identification from the received physical waveform.
Perceptual Properties Based Signal Subspace Microphone Array Speech Enhancement Algorithm

To aim at the drawbacks of the conventional subspace microphone array speech enhancement method,some improvements are proposed by using masking properties of human ears.Confidence function is used to determine the noise subspace dimension.In noise subspace,the noise power spectrum is estimated by the conditional likelihood.Then,the masking properties are incorporated into the subspace method to estimate the linear filter.Experiments show that compared with conventional algorithms,the proposed approach suppresses noise more effectively and obtains a significant improvement on objective speech quality measures.
Analysis of the Explosively Driven Expanding Ring Tension Test

The expanding ring tension test has been available in some form for decades, but it remains little utilized compared with shock-induced spallation or the tension Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar test. The explosively driven ring tension test was introduced first, followed by an electromagnetically driven version. The electromagnetically driven ring tension test appears to have overshadowed the explosively driven version; however, the explosively driven expanding ring tension test remains useful in cases where the joule heating of the sample material is undesirable or the use of high voltage power supplies is not practical.
Molecular diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2: Assessing and interpreting nucleic acid and antigen tests

In this review, we summarize the current status of nucleic acid and antigen testing required for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease. Nucleic acid amplification (NAAT) and antigen-detection (Ag) tests occupy a critically important frontline of defense against SARS-CoV-2 in clinical and public health settings. In early stages of this outbreak, we observed that identifying the causative agent of a new illness of unknown origin was greatly accelerated by characterizing the nucleic acid signature of the novel coronavirus. Results from nucleic acid sequencing led to the development of highly sensitive RT-PCR testing for use in clinical settings and to informing best practices for patient care, and in public health settings to the development of strategies for protecting populations. As the current COVID-19 pandemic has evolved, we have seen how NAAT performance has been used to guide and optimize specimen collection, inform patient triage decisions, reveal unexpected clinical symptoms, clarify risks of transmission within patient care facilities, and guide appropriate treatment strategies. For public health settings during the earliest stages of the pandemic, NAATs served as the only tool available for studying the epidemiology of this new disease by identifying infected individuals, studying transmission patterns, modeling population impacts, and enabling disease control organizations and governments to make challenging disease mitigation recommendations to protect the expanding breadth of populations at risk. With time, the nucleic acid signature has provided the information necessary to understand SARS-CoV-2 protein expression for further development of antigen-based point-of-care (POC) diagnostic tests. The advent of massive parallel sequencing (ie, next generation sequencing) has afforded the characterization of this novel pathogen, informed the sequences best adapted for RT-PCR assays, guided vaccine production, and is currently used for tracking and monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Reversible Gating Architecture for Rare Failure Detection of Analog and Mixed-Signal Circuits

Due to the growing complexity and numerous manufacturing variation in safety-critical analog and mixed-signal (AMS) circuit design, rare failure detection in the high-dimensional variational space is one of the major challenges in AMS verification. Efficient AMS failure detection is very demanding with limited samples on account of high simulation and manufacturing cost. In this work, we combine a reversible network and a gating architecture to identify essential features from datasets and reduce feature dimension for fast failure detection. While reversible residual networks (RevNets) have been actively studied for its restoration ability from output to input without the loss of information, the gating network facilitates the RevNet to aim at effective dimension reduction. We incorporate the proposed reversible gating architecture into Bayesian optimization (BO) framework to reduce the dimensionality of BO embedding important features clarified by gating fusion weights so that the failure points can be efficiently located. Furthermore, we propose a conditional density estimation of important and non-important features to extract high-dimensional original input features from the low-dimension important features, improving the efficiency of the proposed methods. The improvements of our proposed approach on rare failure detection is demonstrated in AMS data under the high-dimensional process variations.
Dual expandable interbody cage utilization for enhanced stability in vertebral column reconstruction following thoracolumbar corpectomy: A report of two cases

Abstract Background Thoracolumbar corpectomies require adequate anterior column spinal reconstruction, often achieved through a single static or expandable cage. Patients with larger vertebrae, or those who require a larger footprint of reconstruction placed via a posterior approach are technically challenging. The aim of this report was to describe a novel approach for reconstruction using two smaller expandable cages following corpectomy, in the setting of tumor and trauma. Methods These technical reports illustrate a novel intraoperative technique with reconstruction via dual expandable cages implanted posteriorly from a bilateral costotransversectomy and transpedicular approaches. Due to the smaller size of each cage, implantation in the vertebral column was achieved with minimal retraction of the spinal cord. Results Two patients underwent urgent corpectomy in the thoracolumbar spine using this technique. Clinical improvement was evident post-surgery and adequate spine stabilization was confirmed radiographically without cage migration or subsidence, at up to one year of clinical follow up. No iatrogenic neurological deficits were reported in each case as well. Conclusion To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of a corpectomy where this surgical technique was implemented in the thoracolumbar spine. This technique created a large footprint of reconstruction with less retraction on the spinal cord during surgery, reducing the potential for neurological complications. An alternative strategy is to place a larger footprint reconstruction through an anterior or lateral approach; however, these techniques also have potential morbidity which require consideration.
The Urinary Microbiome of Older Adults Residing in a Nursing Home Varies with Duration of Residence and Shows Increases in Potential Pathogens.

The community of bacteria that colonize the urinary tract, the urinary microbiome, is hypothesized to influence a wide variety of urinary tract conditions. Older adults that reside in nursing homes are frequently diagnosed and treated for urinary tract conditions such as urinary tract infection (UTI). We investigated the urinary microbiome of older adults residing in a nursing home to determine if there are features of the urinary microbiome that are associated specific conditions and exposure in this population. We were also interested in the stability of urinary microbiome over time and in similarities between the urinary and gastrointestinal microbiome. Urine samples were prospectively collected over a period of 10 months from a cohort of 26 older adults (age > 65 years) residing in single nursing home located in Central Massachusetts. Serial samples were obtained from 6 individuals over 10 months and 5 participants were concurrently enrolled in a study of the gastrointestinal microbiome. Information collected on participants included demographics, medical history, duration of residence in the nursing home, frailty, dementia symptoms, urinary symptoms, antibiotic treatment, urinary catherization, and hospitalizations over a 10-month period. Clean catch mid-stream urine samples were collected and stored at -80C. DNA was extracted and 16S rRNA gene sequencing performed. The length of stay in the nursing facility and the Clinical Frailty Scale correlated with significant changes in microbiome composition. An increase in the relative abundance of a putative urinary pathogen, Aerococcus urinae, was the largest factor influencing change that occurred over duration of residence.
Does Executive Compensation Affect Investment

Investment decisions require trading off current expenditures against future revenues. If revenues extend far enough into the future, the executives responsible for designing long-run investment policy may no longer be in office by the time all the revenues are realized. We present evidence that: (1) on average, executives are close to leaving office (relative to the payout period of many investments); (2) bonuses based on accounting earnings constitute an important part of compensation for the typical executive; and (3) executives respond in predictable ways to compensation plans based on accounting measures of earnings. Based on these facts, we hypothesize that existing compensation policy induces executives to reduce investments during their last years in office. In our empirical work, however, we find that investment expenditures on research and development and on advertising tend to be largest in the final years of a CEO's time in office. We offer several possible explanations for this surprising finding
Helpful or harmful? Prospective association between weight misperception and weight gain among overweight and obese adolescents and young adults.

Helpful or harmful? Prospective association between weight misperception and weight gain among overweight and obese adolescents and young adults
Andreev reflection at the quark-gluon-plasma-color-flavor-locking interface

In this letter we address the question of the phenomena of Andreev reflection between the cold quark-gluon plasma phase and CFL color superconductor. We show that there are two different types of reflections connected to the structure of the CFL phase. We also calculate the probability current at the interface and we show that it vanishes for energy of scattering quarks below the superconducting gap.
Clinical Application of Procedural Platelet Monitoring during Percutaneous Coronary Intervention among Patients at Increased Bleeding Risk

The goal of platelet function testing in the catheterization laboratory is to provide information about the platelet contributions to the risk of thrombotic or hemorrhagic events and optimization of anti-platelet therapy for percutaneous interventions. We present several illustrative cases in which platelet monitoring with the Rapid Platelet Function Assay (RPFATM, Accumetrics) was used to guide dosing of a glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa inhibitor for coronary and peripheral intervention among patients at increased bleeding risk.
Disease expression of RP1 mutations causing autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa.

Purpose To determine the disease expression in heterozygotes for mutations in the RP1 gene, a newly identified cause of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP). Methods Screening strategies were used to detect disease-causing mutations in the RP1 gene, and detailed studies of phenotype were performed in a subset of the detected RP1 heterozygotes using electroretinography (ERG), psychophysics, and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Results Seventeen adRP families had heterozygous RP1 changes. Thirteen families had the Arg677ter mutation, whereas four others had one of the following: Pro658 (1-bp del), Ser747 (1-bp del), Leu762-763 (5-bp del), and Tyr1053 (1-bp del). In Arg677ter RP1 heterozygotes, there was regional retinal variation in disease, with the far peripheral inferonasal retina being most vulnerable; central and superior temporal retinal regions were better preserved. The earliest manifestation of disease was rod dysfunction, detectable as reduced rod ERG photoresponse maximum amplitude, even in heterozygotes with otherwise normal clinical, functional, and OCT cross-sectional retinal imaging results. At disease stages when cone abnormalities were present, there was greater rod than cone dysfunction. Patients with the RP1 frameshift mutations showed similarities in phenotype to those with the Arg677ter mutation. Conclusions Earliest disease expression of RP1 gene mutations causing adRP involves primarily rod photoreceptors, and there is a gradient of vulnerability of retinopathy with more pronounced effects in the inferonasal peripheral retina. At other disease stages, cone function is also affected, and severe retina-wide degeneration can occur. The nonpenetrance or minimal disease expression in some Arg677ter mutation-positive heterozygotes suggests important roles for modifier genes or environmental factors in RP1-related disease.
Acoustic Sources or Receiver Arrays

This article discusses the directional response characteristics (i.e., the beam patterns or directivity patterns) of arrays of time harmonic acoustic sources. A wonderful consequence of the acoustic reciprocity theorem, however, is that the directional response pattern of a transducer used as a source is the same as its directional response pattern used as a receiver. The arrays in question begin with the simplest, two identical point sources, and build up to line arrays that contain many point sources, continuous two dimensional arrays of sources, and discrete arrays of finite sized sources. Topics such as beam width of the main lobe, amplitudes of the side lobes, amplitude weighting to reduce the side lobes, and beam tilting and its consequences are discussed. Again, although the emphasis will be on the response of arrays of sources, the result (the directivity pattern) is the same for the same array used as a receiver. Harmonic time dependence of the form exp(jωt) at circular frequency ω is assumed and suppressed throughout most of the following discussion. Keywords: two-in-phase point; out-of phase sources; four-in-phase point; collinear sources; in-phase sources; odd array; amplitude weighting; nonsymmetrical amplitudes; tilting; steering; amplitude beam tilting; u-space; grating lobes; continuous line source; continuous planar source
Coupling with packaging explains apparent nonreciprocality of Chi-stimulated recombination of bacteriophage lambda by RecA and RecBC functions.

Chi (χ, 5'-GCTGGTGG) is a recombinator in RecA- and RecBC-mediated recombination in Escherichia coli. In vegetative recombination between two bacteriophage lambda strains, one with and the other without Chi (a+χ+b- x a-χob+), the χ-containing recombinant (a-χ+b -) is less abundant than the non-χ-containing recombinant (a+χob+). Previously this was taken was evidence for nonreciprocality of χ-stimulated exchange. This inequality, however, is now seen to result from an event at cos (λ's packaging origin) that both activates Chi and initiates DNA packaging. An event at rightward cos leads to activation of leftward χ on the same chromosome for an exchange to its left. From the resulting circulating dimer (—cos-a+-χo-b +-cos-a --χ+-b-—), the cos that activated χ is more likely to be used for rightward packaging initiation than is the cos from the other parent. Consistent with this coupling model is "biased packaging" in λ carrying two cos sites per monomer genome. When their maturation is dependent on dimerization by χ-stimulated exchange, the phage particles result more often from packaging from the cos that activates χ than from packaging from the other cos. Since Chi activation and packaging can be uncoupled, we infer that some early and reversible step in packaging activates χ. A strong candidate for this step is a double-strand break at cos that provides an oriented entry site for a recombinase.
Tyrosine kinase inhibition produces specific alterations in axon guidance in the grasshopper embryo

Tyrosine kinase signaling pathways are essential for process outgrowth and guidance during nervous system development. We have examined the roles of tyrosine kinase activity in programming growth cone guidance decisions in an intact nervous system in which neurons can be individually identified. We applied the tyrosine kinase inhibitors herbimycin A and genistein to whole 40% grasshopper embryos placed in medium, or injected the inhibitors into intact grasshopper eggs. Both inhibitors caused interneuronal axons that normally would grow along the longitudinal connectives to instead leave the central nervous system (CNS) within the segmental nerve root and grow out toward the body wall muscles. In addition, herbimycin A produced pathfinding errors in which many longitudinal axons crossed the CNS midline. To study how this drug affected guidance decisions made by individual growth cones, we dye-filled the pCC interneuron, which normally extends an axon anteriorly along the ipsilateral longitudinal connective. In the presence of herbimycin A, the pCC growth cone was redirected across the anterior commissure. These phenotypes suggest that tyrosine kinase inhibition blocks a signaling mechanism that repels the growth cones of longitudinal connective neurons and prevents them from crossing the midline.
Affine geometry designs, polarities, and Hamada's conjecture

In a recent paper, two of the authors used polarities in PG(2d-1,p) (p>=2 prime, d>=2) to construct non-geometric designs having the same parameters and the same p-rank as the geometric design PG"d(2d,p) having as blocks the d-subspaces in the projective space PG(2d,p), hence providing the first known infinite family of examples where projective geometry designs are not characterized by their p-rank, as it is the case in all known proven cases of Hamada's conjecture. In this paper, the construction based on polarities is extended to produce designs having the same parameters, intersection numbers, and 2-rank as the geometric design AG"d"+"1(2d+1,2) of the (d+1)-subspaces in the binary affine geometry AG(2d+1,2). These designs generalize one of the four non-geometric self-orthogonal 3-(32,8,7) designs of 2-rank 16 (V.D. Tonchev, 1986 [12]), and provide the only known infinite family of examples where affine geometry designs are not characterized by their rank.
Assembly and Function of a Cytosolic Form of NADH-specific Isocitrate Dehydrogenase in Yeast

Mitochondrial NAD-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase catalyzes a rate-limiting step in the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Yeast isocitrate dehydrogenase is an octomer composed of two subunits (IDH1 and IDH2) encoded by different genes and possessing independent mitochondrial targeting presequences. Oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis was used to remove the presequences from each gene and from both genes carried on centromere-based expression plasmids. Effects on cellular localization were examined in a yeast strain containing chromosomal disruptions of IDH1 and IDH2 loci. Each subunit was found to be dependent upon its presequence for mitochondrial localization, and the subunits are independently imported into mitochondria under most growth conditions. Furthermore, an active holoenzyme can be assembled in the cytosol and this ''cytosolic'' form of isocitrate dehydrogenase can reverse the acetate- growth phenotype characteristic of the DeltaIDH1/ DeltaIDH2 disruption strain, indicating functional replacement of the mitochondrial enzyme. However, transformants containing plasmids lacking either the IDH1 or IDH2 presequence coding regions were unexpectedly found to be capable of growth on acetate medium. Further investigation demonstrated that cellular localization of the IDH1 subunit can be biased by this stringent growth pressure.
An efficient design for verifying disease outcome status in large cohorts with rare exposures and low disease rates.

Cohort studies require the use of large samples when the risk of the event is very low. Databases that are large and population-based, such as Medicaid files, are frequently used for cohort studies, since they provide access to the large samples required for adequate statistical power at a relatively affordable cost. Epidemiologic studies using these databases typically require verification of reported diagnoses, however, because of the potential for errors in disease reporting. When exposure prevalence is also low, as in many pharmacoepidemiologic investigations of drug toxicity, there are few exposed cases compared to the number of unexposed cases. Verification of all unexposed presumptive cases through medical records is costly. We investigate the statistical efficiency of a design in which all exposed cases but only a subsample of the unexposed cases are verified. We show that good efficiency can usually be achieved with a small subsample of unexposed cases. Published in 1999 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This is a US Government work and is in the public domain in the United States.
Field Testing of a Soil Corer Air Permeameter (SCAP) in Desert Soils

Measurements of air permeability are useful both directly, to assess gas phase movement through soils, and indirectly as a proxy for soil hydraulic conductivity. Several designs have been presented for field-based air permeameters; however, none are suitable for use in gravelly desert soils. We designed an air permeameter compatible with a standard soil corer to facilitate insertion into desert soils. The soil corer air permeameter (SCAP) uses digital components to measure flow rates under low-pressure gradients to improve accuracy, ease of use, and portability. The SCAP allows the extraction of undisturbed soil samples for laboratory analysis, providing direct comparisons of air permeability ( k a) with other soil physical and hydraulic properties. The soil sample can be extracted before measuring k a, thus removing the need for a shape factor to account for divergent flow. In an analysis of the SCAP's performance, field testing showed that digital components operate well under field conditions; however, spanner wrench insertion holes must be sealed to provide correct k a measurements. The Jalbert and Dane shape factor for in situ k a is applicable for tilled, unstructured soils. However, significant soil-specific variability exists in the shape factor, so we recommend measuring ex situ k a in the field, where possible. Ex situ field k a and laboratory hydraulic conductivity ( K sat) measurements were compared and air to water permeability ratios were calculated to determine structural changes due to water saturation. For soils that could be extracted with minimal structural change, we found good correlation between k a and K sat and reasonable agreement with previously published results.
Cutaneous metastasis of micropapillary urothelial carcinoma

A 59-year-old man presented with persistent skin rash found to be cutaneous metastasis from micropapillary urothelial carcinoma status post right radical nephroureterectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy. The skin metastasis appeared 2 months after postchemotherapy imaging demonstrated complete radiographic response. Cutaneous metastases from primary genitourinary malignancies are very rare clinical entities associated with poor prognosis. Cutaneous metastases do not have distinctive gross appearance and are often misdiagnosed as common dermatologic disorders. It is imperative that urologists have high index of suspicion for metastasis in patients with persistent skin rash in the setting of advanced genitourinary malignancies.