cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fluid-Release Mechanisms in Compacting Marine Mudrocks and Their Importance in Oil Exploration

The application of current knowledge of clay colloid chemistry and mineralogy to the question of how water escapes from muddy sediments suggests two conclusions. (1) The alteration of montmorillonite to illite takes place after deep burial and involves the transfer of large amounts of bound water from montmorillonite surfaces to interparticle areas where it is normal water. This water transfer has an important bearing on the porosity, permeability, abnormal fluid pressure, and initial release of hydrocarbons from mudrocks. (2) In deposits of primary illite, water is compacted out of clay soon after burial, before the formation of hydrocarbons comparable with those found in reservoirs. These points are important in petroleum exploration in new areas because it appears that the development of a shale source rock requires the initial deposition of a montmorillonitic organic mud, and its subsequent alteration to illite after deep burial. Abnormally high fluid pressures may easily be caused by a volume increase associated with the desorption of the last few monomolecular layers of water from montmorillonite during its diagenesis to illite. This understanding of mineralogical characteristics makes it possible to make meaningful interpretations of data on the bulk properties of compacting mudrocks.
Detecting clinically meaningful biomarkers with repeated measurements: An illustration with electronic health records

Data sources with repeated measurements are an appealing resource to understand the relationship between changes in biological markers and risk of a clinical event. While longitudinal data present opportunities to observe changing risk over time, these analyses can be complicated if the measurement of clinical metrics is sparse and/or irregular, making typical statistical methods unsuitable. In this article, we use electronic health record (EHR) data as an example to present an analytic procedure to both create an analytic sample and analyze the data to detect clinically meaningful markers of acute myocardial infarction (MI). Using an EHR from a large national dialysis organization we abstracted the records of 64,318 individuals and identified 4769 people that had an MI during the study period. We describe a nested case-control design to sample appropriate controls and an analytic approach using regression splines. Fitting a mixed-model with truncated power splines we perform a series of goodness-of-fit tests to determine whether any of 11 regularly collected laboratory markers are useful clinical predictors. We test the clinical utility of each marker using an independent test set. The results suggest that EHR data can be easily used to detect markers of clinically acute events. Special software or analytic tools are not needed, even with irregular EHR data.
Multisensing emissive pyrimidine.

Fluorescent nucleoside analogs, commonly used to explore nucleic acid dynamics, recognition and damage, frequently respond to a single environmental parameter. Herein we address the development of chromophores that can simultaneously probe more than one environmental factor while having each associated with a unique spectroscopic signature. We demonstrate that an isomorphic emissive pyridine-modified 2-deoxy-uridine 1, containing multiple sensory elements, responds to changes in acidity, viscosity, and polarity. Protonation of the pyridine moiety (pKa 4.4) leads to enhanced emission (λem=388 nm) and red-shifted absorption spectra (λabs=319 nm), suggesting the formation of an intramolecular hydrogen bond with the neighboring pyrimidine carbonyl. This “locked” conformation can also be mimicked by increasing solvent viscosity, resulting in a stark enhancement of emission quantum yield. Finally, increasing solvent polarity substantially impacts the chromophore’s Stokes shift [from 5.8×103 cm−1 at ET(30)=36.4 kcal mol−1 to 9.3 ×103 cm−1 at ET(30)=63.1 kcal mol−1]. The opposite effect is seen for the impact of solvent polarity of the protonated form. The characteristic photophysical signature induced by each parameter facilitates the exploration of these environmental factors both individually and simultaneously.
G-CSF Receptor Positive Neuroblastoma Subpopulations Are Enriched in Chemotherapy-Resistant or Relapsed Tumors and Are Highly Tumorigenic

Neuroblastoma is a neural crest derived embryonal malignancy which accounts for 13% of all pediatric cancer mortality, primarily due to tumor recurrence. Therapy-resistant cancer stem cells are implicated in tumor relapse, but definitive phenotypic evidence of the existence of these cells has been lacking. In this study, we define a highly tumorigenic subpopulation in neuroblastoma with stem cell characteristics, based on the expression of CD114, which encodes the receptor for granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). CD114+ cells isolated from a primary tumor and the NGP cell line by flow cytometry were highly tumorigenic and capable of both self-renewal and differentiation to progeny cells. CD114+ cells closely resembled embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells with respect to their profiles of cell cycle, microRNA and gene expression. In addition, they reflect a primitive undifferentiated neuroectodermal/neural crest phenotype revealing a developmental hierarchy within neuroblastoma tumors. We detected this de-differentiated neural crest subpopulation in all established neuroblastoma cell lines, xenograft tumors, and primary tumor specimens analyzed. Ligand activation of CD114 by the addition of exogenous G-CSF to CD114+ cells confirmed intact STAT3 upregulation, characteristic of G-CSF receptor signaling. Together our data describe a novel distinct subpopulation within neuroblastoma with enhanced tumorigenicity and a stem-cell like phenotype, further elucidating the complex heterogeneity of solid tumors such as neuroblastoma. We propose this subpopulation may represent an additional target for novel therapeutic approaches to this aggressive pediatric malignancy.
Engagement in Environmental Behaviors Among Supply Chain Management Employees: An Organizational Support Theoretical Perspective

While environmental management is an important topic in supply chain management, there is little theoretical understanding of how firm practices (supervisory support, rewards, and training) relate to employee engagement in environmental behaviors. Drawing upon behavioral research literature, the purpose of our article is to use organizational support theory to develop a model of how employee perceptions of management practices influence employee engagement in environmental behaviors such as participating in environmental management activities, promoting environmental initiatives, and proposing innovative environmental practices. The theoretical model was evaluated using a sample of supply chain management employees employed by a major retailer and support was found for all of the hypothesized relationships except those entailing rewards. Study findings demonstrate the importance of employee perceptions in advancing employee-level involvement in environmental behaviors and how organizations can modify their internal infrastructures to champion environmental behaviors through their effects on employee perceptions of support for the environment and commitment to the environment. Additionally, the research illustrates how an extant behavioral theory, organizational support theory, can profitably be modified and adopted to explain behavior in the field of supply chain management.
There's No Place like Home? The Contributions of Work and Nonwork Creativity Support to Employees' Creative Performance

We examined relations between creative performance and the extent to which employees received support for creativity from both work (supervisors/coworkers) and non-work (family/friends) sources. We also examined whether (1) employees' mood states mediated the support-creativity relations and (2) creative personality characteristics moderated these relations. Results demonstrated that work and nonwork support made significant, independent contributions to creative performance. Positive mood mediated these relations, and employees with less creative personalities responded most positively to nonwork support.
Presence of key findings in the medical record prior to a documented high-risk diagnosis.

Background Failure or delay in diagnosis is a common preventable source of error. The authors sought to determine the frequency with which high-information clinical findings (HIFs) suggestive of a high-risk diagnosis (HRD) appear in the medical record before HRD documentation. Methods A knowledge base from a diagnostic decision support system was used to identify HIFs for selected HRDs: lumbar disc disease, myocardial infarction, appendicitis, and colon, breast, lung, ovarian and bladder carcinomas. Two physicians reviewed at least 20 patient records retrieved from a research patient data registry for each of these eight HRDs and for age- and gender-compatible controls. Records were searched for HIFs in visit notes that were created before the HRD was established in the electronic record and in general medical visit notes for controls. Results 25% of records reviewed (61/243) contained HIFs in notes before the HRD was established. The mean duration between HIFs first occurring in the record and time of diagnosis ranged from 19 days for breast cancer to 2 years for bladder cancer. In three of the eight HRDs, HIFs were much less likely in control patients without the HRD. Conclusions In many records of patients with an HRD, HIFs were present before the HRD was established. Reasons for delay include non-compliance with recommended follow-up, unusual presentation of a disease, and system errors (eg, lack of laboratory follow-up). The presence of HIFs in clinical records suggests a potential role for the integration of diagnostic decision support into the clinical workflow to provide reminder alerts to improve the diagnostic focus.
Benchmarking multilevel secure database systems using the MITRE benchmark

Multilevel secure (MLS) DBMSs are subject to a number of security-related architectural and functional factors that affect performance. These factors include, among others, the distribution of data among security levels, the session levels at which queries are run, and how the database is physically partitioned into files. In this paper, we present a benchmark methodology, a test database design, and a query suite designed to quantify this impact upon query processing. We introduce three metrics (uniformity, scale-up and speed-up) that characterize DBMS performance with varying data distributions. Finally, we provide comparisons and analysis of the results of a number of actual benchmarking experiments using DBMSs representative of the two major MLS DBMS architectures (trusted-subject and TCB-subset). >
Using health outcomes data to compare plans, networks and providers

Purpose. To analyze the challenge of using health outcomes data to compare plans, networks and providers. Analysis. Different questions require different designs for collecting and interpreting health outcomes data. When evaluating effectiveness of treatments, tests or other technologies, the question is what processes improve health outcomes? For this purpose, the strongest evidence comes from a double-blind randomized controlled trial. In program evaluations, the question 'what is the impact of this policy and related programs on health outcomes?' For this purpose, we may be able to randomize subjects, but are more likely to have a quasi-experimental or an epidemiological design. When we compare plans, networks and providers for quality improvement purposes the question is 'do these specific plans perform differently from one another?', or, 'are these specific plans improving their performance over time?' We want to isolate for study the effects attributable to specific plans. Designs that yield strong evidence cannot be applied because we lack experimental control. Conclusions. When we already have strong evidence linking specific processes of care with specific outcomes, comparing process data may reveal more about performance of plans, networks and providers than comparing outcomes data. Comparisons of process data are easier to interpret and more sensitive to small differences than comparisons of outcomes data. Outcomes data are most useful for tracking care given by high volume providers over long periods of time, targeting areas for quality improvement and for detecting problems in implementation of processes of care. Keywords: quality comparisons, quality improvement, study design
Evaluation and Implementation of Urban Drainage Projects

Urban drainage and flood control must compete for funding from the limited public purse. Other types of evaluation problems are: (1) The determination of the merit of individual projects; (2) the ranking of competing UDFC projects to determine priorities; (3) the determination of optimal investment timing; and (4) the determination of the incidence of costs and benefits on different population sectors so that project costs can be equitably apportioned. The UDFC systems may be distinguished into minor or major systems, both for implementation purposes and for evaluation studies and public benefits differ considerably between the two types of systems. In the case of the major flood control project, attention has been focused on the potential reduction in flood damages associated with such projects. All public programs, e.g., public safety, water supply library services, urban drainage and flood control, and others should be subjected to the type of analysis presented to identify precisely the benefits from expenditures of public funds and the recipients of the benefits.
Calpain-induced downregulation of activated protein kinase C-alpha affects lung epithelial cell morphology

A few minutes after mouse lung epithelial cell lines were treated with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA), the cells rounded up and pulled away from their neighbors. Several hours later, the cells flattened out to resume their original morphology. To begin to characterize the enzymology underlying these changes, the subcellular distribution and intracellular content of the TPA receptor, protein kinase C (PKC), and its putative endogenous regulator, the Ca(2+)-dependent protease, calpain, were investigated. Of eight PKC isozymes examined in several tumorigenic and nontumorigenic cell lines, all cells contained PKC-alpha, PKC-delta, and PKC-zeta. TPA rapidly (5 min) translocated PKC-alpha from the cytosol to the particulate fraction; PKC-alpha concentrations then decreased with continued TPA exposure. PKC-zeta levels and intracellular location were not affected. An inhibitor of PKC activity, GF 109203X, prevented the initial morphological change. The calpain II isozyme was also found in all cell lines, and its cellular content increased as a result of TPA treatment. Calpain inhibitor I did not affect the initial shape change but prevented subsequent flattening of the cells. We therefore conclude that PKC activation is required for the TPA-induced alterations in lung cell morphology and that calpain mediates the return to a flattened epithelial appearance.
Association between lung cancer survival and pessimistic explanatory style

6518 Background: Several studies have demonstrated the importance of pessimism in cardiovascular disease. However, this construct has not been well explored in oncology. Methods: This study examine...
Recently discovered baryon states

1. Bareyre et al. (1964) have pointed out that there is a “shoulder” in the I = 1/2 pion-nucleon total cross section at an energy below the N(1510). If a Breit-Wigner resonance peak for the N(1510) is subtracted from the cross section, a peak appears at a mass of about 1400 MeV. Other experiments have also given evidence for a peak at about this mass, and phase shift analyses have indicated that the peak may be a πN resonance with J P = 1/2+. Dalitz and Moorhouse (1965) have shown that although the existing data are consistent with the assumption of such a resonance, they do not require it. Strong absorption occurs in this state, and this absorption can account for the peak. References to the experiments and analyses can be found in the paper of Dalitz and Moorhouse.
Three-dimensional manometry of the upper esophageal sphincter in swallowing and nonswallowing tasks

Objectives/Hypothesis High-resolution manometry (HRM) is useful in identifying disordered swallowing patterns and quantifying pharyngeal and upper esophageal sphincter (UES) physiology. HRM is limited by unidirectional sensors and circumferential averaging of pressures, resulting in an imperfect understanding of pressure from asymmetrical pharyngeal anatomy. This study aims to evaluate UES pressures simultaneously from different axial directions. Study Design Case series. Methods Three-dimensional HRM was performed on eight healthy subjects to evaluate circumferential UES pressure patterns at rest, during the Valsalva maneuver, and during water swallowing. Results Multivariate analysis of the variance revealed a significant main effect of circumferential direction on pressure while at rest (P < .001); pressure was greater in the anterior and posterior portions of the UES versus lateral portions. A significant main effect of direction on pressure was not found during the Valsalva maneuver. During swallowing of a 5-mL water bolus, circumferential direction had a significant main effect on pressure immediately before UES pressure dropped (P = .001), while the UES was open (P = .01) and at UES closure (P < .001). There was also a significant main effect of sensor level along the vertical axis on pressure immediately before UES pressure dropped (P = .032) and at UES closure (P < .001). Anterior and posterior pressures were again greater than lateral pressures at all swallowing events. Conclusions These results confirm that UES pressures vary significantly based on their circumferential origin, with the majority of the total pressure generated in anterior and posterior regions. Improved understanding of UES pressure in a three-dimensional space can lead to more sophisticated treatments for pharyngeal and UES dysfunction. Level of Evidence 4. Laryngoscope, 2016
The Good, Bad, and the Ugly of the Divide Between Engineering and Engineering Technology

Engineering technology programs in U.S colleges and universities were established by the 1970s. Their separate existence from engineering has resulted in mixed outcomes—some good, some bad, and some outright ugly. By ugly we mean the confusions generated by the divide between engineering and engineering technology. In this paper, critical analysis of the good, the bad, and the ugly is presented. It begins with a brief history of engineering technology as a discipline, discusses the current situation, points out the fact that few advanced countries practice such a divide, and offers some suggestions for improvement.Copyright © 2002 by ASME
Synergistic Formation and Stabilization of Oil-in-Water Emulsions by a Weakly Interacting Mixture of Zwitterionic Surfactant and Silica Nanoparticles

Oil-in-water emulsions were formed and stabilized at low amphiphile concentrations by combining hydrophilic nanoparticles (NPs) (i.e., bare colloidal silica) with a weakly interacting zwitterionic surfactant, caprylamidopropyl betaine, to generate a high hydrophilic–lipophilic balance. The weak interaction of the NPs with surfactant was quantified with contact angle measurements. Emulsions were characterized by static light scattering to determine the droplet size distributions, optical photography to quantify phase separation due to creaming, and both optical and electron microscopy to determine emulsion microstructure. The NPs and surfactant acted synergistically to produce finer emulsions with a greater stability to coalescence relative to the behavior with either NPs or surfactant alone. As a consequence of the weak adsorption of the highly hydrophilic surfactant on the anionic NPs along with the high critical micelle concentration, an unusually large surfactant concentration was available to adsorb a...
“We didn’t call it dating”: The disrupted landscape of relationship advice for evangelical Protestant youth

Studies of religious meaning-making, especially on young adults, tend to prioritize the views of religious elites and orthodox doctrines. By focusing on the everyday activity of romantic relationships, a topic that has no orthodox position, this article analyzes both how religious elites construct discursive fields of meaning and how laity negotiate this field. Drawing on a study of popular Christian relationship advice books and interviews with young evangelicals, I describe a disrupted landscape produced by evangelical cultural elite discourses that becomes an important context for how young adults imagine and pursue relationships. Yet these efforts, for both evangelical elites and young adults, operate within a broader cultural context of secular “hooking up” practices which serves to create some cohesion among the two groups while also challenging the relevance of the evangelical cultural elite discourses, requiring young adults to engage in their own process of religious meaning-making.
Reactions of the Alfalfa Seed Chalcid, Bruchophagus roddi, to Light (Hymenoptera: Eurytomidae)

Alfalfa seed chalcids, Bruchophagus roddi Gussakovskii, were tested for reaction to light wavelength and intensity. The chalcids showed greatest response at wavelengths of 310, 355, 408 and 555 mμ. The reaction to ultraviolet was significantly greater than to the longer wavelengths of light. Reaction to green did not differ from the reaction to blue and the reaction to blue did not differ from the reaction to yellow. Orange attracted significantly fewer chalcids than the shorter wavelengths of light. The insects did not react to red. The order of attractiveness of the various colors depended on the intensity with which it was presented to the chalcids.
Holding it together: rapid evolution and positive selection in the synaptonemal complex of Drosophila

The synaptonemal complex (SC) is a highly conserved meiotic structure that functions to pair homologs and facilitate meiotic recombination in most eukaryotes. Five Drosophila SC proteins have been identified and localized within the complex: C(3)G, C(2)M, CONA, ORD, and the newly identified Corolla. The SC is required for meiotic recombination in Drosophila and absence of these proteins leads to reduced crossing over and chromosomal nondisjunction. Despite the conserved nature of the SC and the key role that these five proteins have in meiosis in D. melanogaster, they display little apparent sequence conservation outside the genus. To identify factors that explain this lack of apparent conservation, we performed a molecular evolutionary analysis of these genes across the Drosophila genus. For the five SC components, gene sequence similarity declines rapidly with increasing phylogenetic distance and only ORD and C(2)M are identifiable outside of the Drosophila genus. SC gene sequences have a higher dN/dS (ω) rate ratio than the genome wide average and this can in part be explained by the action of positive selection in almost every SC component. Across the genus, there is significant variation in ω for each protein. It further appears that ω estimates for the five SC components are in accordance with their physical position within the SC. Components interacting with chromatin evolve slowest and components comprising the central elements evolve the most rapidly. Finally, using population genetic approaches, we demonstrate that positive selection on SC components is ongoing. SC components within Drosophila show little apparent sequence homology to those identified in other model organisms due to their rapid evolution. We propose that the Drosophila SC is evolving rapidly due to two combined effects. First, we propose that a high rate of evolution can be partly explained by low purifying selection on protein components whose function is to simply hold chromosomes together. We also propose that positive selection in the SC is driven by its sex-specificity combined with its role in facilitating both recombination and centromere clustering in the face of recurrent bouts of drive in female meiosis.
Problems of Junior Retail Pharmacy in Adverse Drug Reevaluation Monitoring

Junior retail pharmacy as one of the main reporting subjects of adverse drug reaction(ADR),plays an important role in ADR monitoring and reporting work that there are also some problems in china.This paper describes some problems of junior drug retail enterprises in the work of ADR,analyzes and explores its causes,and proposes appropriate countermeasures and suggestions to continuously improve the junior drug retail enterprise's ADR work.
Of Internationalization of Chinese Companies

Many Chinese companies have proceeded with internationalization. However, whether they will succeed or not is determined by their concepts, namely, concept of self-knowledge, concept of making decisions according to the environment, concept of long-term interest, concept of integreting with global " operation, concept of learning from global counterparts, concept of global competition-cooperation and concept of social marketing, etc.
Rosamond Lehmann’s Social and Historical Landscapes

In the fiction considered thus far, much of the social representation has been referential, a texture for experience drawn from the author’s version of the external world. Although individual voices and perspectives shape the worlds communicated, as they do in all fiction, the sense of social history recalled exists outside the fiction, which functions as commentary. The chapters that follow focus on fiction the genesis of which seems more literary and interior. This fiction is more dependent on metaphor that combines or does not distinguish between private and public experience. Often, individual and sexual experience is intrinsically related to the social and historical, the language of each realm becoming a way of understanding the other. This method, often encouraged by the techniques, the confidence in an individual shaping consciousness, and the attempt to articulate interior experience directly in fiction which we sometimes too loosely associate with the modernism of a generation earlier than the thirties, is responsible for some of the decade’s best fiction, its most cogent and involving metaphors that combine individual and historical experience, as seen in novels like those of Rosamond Lehmann, Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green and, retrospectively, L. P. Hartley.
The Toastboard: Ubiquitous Instrumentation and Automated Checking of Breadboarded Circuits

The recent proliferation of easy to use electronic components and toolkits has introduced a large number of novices to designing and building electronic projects. Nevertheless, debugging circuits remains a difficult and time-consuming task. This paper presents a novel debugging tool for electronic design projects, the Toastboard, that aims to reduce debugging time by improving upon the standard paradigm of point-wise circuit measurements. Ubiquitous instrumentation allows for immediate visualization of an entire breadboard's state, meaning users can diagnose problems based on a wealth of data instead of having to form a single hypothesis and plan before taking a measurement. Basic connectivity information is displayed visually on the circuit itself and quantitative data is displayed on the accompanying web interface. Software-based testing functions further lower the expertise threshold for efficient debugging by diagnosing classes of circuit errors automatically. In an informal study, participants found the detailed, pervasive, and context-rich data from our tool helpful and potentially time-saving.
A Pilot Randomized Trial of a Video Patient Decision Aid to Facilitate Early Intervention Referrals From Primary Care

Many young children identified with developmental concerns in pediatric settings do not receive early intervention (EI). We assessed the impact of a video decision aid and text message reminder on knowledge and attitudes regarding developmental delay and EI as well as referral completion. We conducted a pilot randomized controlled trial in an urban setting and enrolled 64 parent-child dyads referred to EI. Compared with controls, participants who received the intervention demonstrated increased knowledge regarding developmental delay and EI as well as more favorable attitudes in certain topics. Although we did not find a significant difference between arms in EI intake and evaluation, we found a pattern suggestive of increased intake and evaluation among participants with low health literacy in the intervention arm. Additional study is needed to identify strategies that improve the EI referral process for families and to understand the potential targeted role for decision aids and text messages.
Sensing the motion of bellows through changes in mutual inductance

Bellows-like actuators are popular in soft robotic systems. Sensing the movement of these actuators with traditional sensors is challenging. This work proposes and tests a sensing system based on the changing mutual inductance of wire coils on bellows. A method for modeling the changes in mutual inductance between coils of tightly-packed wires is introduced. Changes in mutual inductance are measured through the self-inductance of a circuit made up of the coils in series. The self-inductance of the circuit measures the bellows bend-angle. The experiments show an approximately quadratic relationship between the bend angle and the measured inductance. From a bend angle of 121 ° to −67 ° the inductance of the circuit increases by 19 %. The bias-inducing effects of shear strain, torsional strain, non-uniform bending, and nearby metal are also explored.
A Single European Rail Market

This article outlines the history and future of EU railway integration. Europe is constructing a single integrated market for passenger and rail services, by splitting rail services (engines and wagons) from support (tracks and traction power) and by integrating market incentives to reward efficiency and replace politicized state subsidization with market economics. Challenges facing the EU Rail market are signalling systems for high speed transit trains, differential voltages, and even different track widths (gauges). Opportunities include intermodal rail, high speed transit trains, and maglev. Basic principles of competition law (antitrust) will increasingly find application in EU rail law due to the directives. This article describes the various current railway directives using the spate of recent cases to bring out the relevant legal and technical details.
Accounting for behavioral responses to environmental cues in complex systems

Understanding individual decision making is critical to solving complex systems challenges. Although some may argue that the nuances at an individual level become less important as the system becomes more complex (i.e., individual differences are outweighed by social or political factors), there is also evidence that biases and challenges in decision making at the individual level may stymy well-intended environmental policies. Brunswik's Theory of Probabilistic Functionalism is one such lens that lends insight into the patterns of decision making at an individual level that may slow down the process of sustainable transitions at a societal level. Specifically, that choices are a function of environmental cues that only represent reality in a probabilistic sense (i.e., the cues are not deterministic). Improving the way in which individuals and groups process the variety of informational cues received in a complex systems contexts will be critical to achieving sustainability in the future. The uncertainty inherent in complex systems contexts makes individual decision making all the more challenging and potentially biased in terms of cue selection and information processing.
Inference of Security-Sensitive Entities in Libraries

Programming languages such as Java and C# execute code with different levels of trust in the same process, and rely on an access control model with fine-grained permissions to protect program code. Permissions are checked programmatically, and rely on programmer discipline. This can lead to subtle errors. To enable automatic security analysis about unauthorised access or information flow, it is necessary to reason about security-sensitive entities in libraries that must be protected by appropriate sanitisation/declassification via permission checks. Unfortunately, security-sensitive entities are not clearly identified. In this paper, we investigate security-sensitive entities used in Java-like languages, and develop a static program analysis technique to identify them in large codebases by analysing the patterns of permission checks. Although the technique is generic, our focus is on Java where checkPermission calls are used to guard potential security-sensitive entities. Our inference analysis uses two parameters called proximity and coverage to reduce false-positive and false-negative reports. The usefulness of the analysis is illustrated by the results obtained while checking the OpenJDK7-b147 for conformance to Java Secure Coding Guidelines that relate to the confidentiality and integrity requirements.
Sociodemographics and access to organic and local food: A case study of New Orleans, Louisiana

This study examined the association between physical accessibility to organic and local food, and sociodemographic factors in New Orleans, Louisiana. Spatial regression models were used to investigate how sociodemographic variables such as income, race/ethnicity, education, and age correlate with driving, bicycling, and walking distances to stores that sell organic or local food. The distances were calculated from GIS and real-time speed information from Google Maps. The results indicated that physical access to such stores is positively associated with population density, median housing value, education, non-Hispanic Blacks, and Hispanics, and is negatively associated with median housing age. We found no disparities in access to organic and local food on the basis of income and race.
Prostatic carcinoma: incidence and location of unsuspected lymphatic metastases.

AbstractProspective pathologic staging by pelvic lymphadenectomy in 60 patients with clinically localized carcinoma of the prostate disclosed a high incidence (35 per cent) of clinically silent and unsuspected lymph node metastases. When present, metastatic disease was frequently bilateral (57 per cent) and most commonly involved the obturator-hypogastric lymph nodes (87 per cent). Micrometastases alone were found in 5 patients and the potential significance of this finding on survival is discussed. Although the presence or absence of metastases could not be accurately predicted by histologic analysis of biopsy or prostatectomy specimens, the finding of undifferentiated tumor, marked anaplasia and penetration through the capsule correlated positively with nodal metastases. Pelvic lymphadenectomy is a safe and important diagnostic tool in the accurate staging of these patients. Its widespread use is advocated in patients with clinical stage Bx, B2 and C tumors prior to definitive therapy. Based on the pros...
JSimPlus: a tool for teaching simulation techniques

A plethora of simulation tools exists today covering most simulation needs of both academia and industry. Despite this rich collection, it can be hard to get hold of a simulation tool to teach not only modeling and analysis of certain applications, but also to teach how such a tool is designed, developed, constructed, and improved. JSimPlus is the result of striving after such need. It has evolved and been re-engineered in over several years by adding simple features to a simple tool, Simlib, to create a fully pledged instrument capable of teaching students the nuts and bolts of simulation kernel.Simlib, a simple simulation library provided in the A. Law textbook, has good ability to demonstrate how a simple engine is constructed, upon which complex models could be built. Clearly this tool has number of limitations. With some efforts it is possible to significantly improve this software towards a much practical and professional one.This paper describes the efforts of several groups of students who in a series of steps evolved the software from simple to a very advanced instrument, and changed its programming language from C to C++, Java, and a Web-Based Simulation platform with several repositories, graphical interfaces, and displays. JSimPlus has a discrete event simulation engine and supports applications using the queuing networks simulation models.
Postamputation Phantoms: A Review

Definitions are provided for terms related to the pain of amputation. The anatomy, physiology, and mechanisms of postamputation pain are explored, with emphasis on the differentiation of stump pain from phantom-limb phenomena of all types and degrees. Medical, physical, electrical stimulation, neurosurgical, psychologic, and anesthetic approaches to the treatment of phantom pain are detailed. A new theoretical approach to phantom pain is presented, along with preliminary results of a prophylactic approach to phantom pain.
Speciation Post Synthesis: 1960-2000.

Speciation—the origin of new species—has been one of the most active areas of research in evolutionary biology, both during, and since the Modern Synthesis. While the Modern Synthesis certainly shaped research on speciation in significant ways, providing a core framework, and set of categories and methods to work with, the history of work on speciation since the mid-twentieth century is a history of divergence and diversification. This piece traces this divergence, through both theoretical advances, and empirical insights into how different lineages, with different genetics and ecological conditions, are shaped by very different modes of diversification.
OS Independent and Hardware-Assisted Insider Threat Detection and Prevention Framework

Governmental and military institutions harbor critical infrastructure and highly confidential information. Although institutions are investing a lot for protecting their data and assets from possible outsider attacks, insiders are still a distrustful source for information leakage. As malicious software injection is one among many attacks, turning innocent employees into malicious attackers through social attacks is the most impactful one. Malicious insiders or uneducated employees are dangerous for organizations that they are already behind the perimeter protections that guard the digital assets; actually, they are trojans on their own. For an insider, the easiest possible way for creating a hole in security is using the popular and ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices due to its versatile and easy to use plug-and-play nature. USB type storage devices are the biggest threats for contaminating mission critical infrastructure with viruses, malware, and trojans. USB human interface devices are also dangerous as they may connect to a host with destructive hidden functionalities. In this paper, we propose a novel hardware-assisted insider threat detection and prevention framework for the USB case. Our novel framework is also OS independent. We implemented a proof-of-concept design on an FPGA board which is widely used in military settings supporting critical missions, and demonstrated the results considering different experiments. Based on the results of these experiments, we show that our framework can identify rapid-keyboard key-stroke attacks and can easily detect the functionality of the USB device plugged in. We present the resource consumption of our framework on the FPGA for its utilization on a host controller device. We show that the our hard-to-tamper framework introduces no overhead in USB communication in terms of user experience.
Developing a Rubric for Supervision of Students Counseling LGBTQ Clients

More than 100 pieces of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) legislation are active in 2018. In this current political climate of “conscience clause” legislation, counselor educators and...
Multi-Class Management With Sub-Class Service for Autonomous Electric Mobility On-Demand Systems

This paper aims to resolve a clear and unrealistic limitation found in recent works that have proposed solutions to the massive demand for the autonomous electric mobility-on-demand (AEMoD) services. Namely, this paper will focus on the matched charge-to-trip only service by enabling sub-class service; i.e., allowing vehicles to serve customer classes with trips needing less charge. The paper proposes a multi-class management system with a new queuing model for one city zone, and then derives the stability conditions of the system. Proportions of vehicles from each class that will immediately serve customers with sub-class service or full/partial charge are modeled, and the maximum expected response time of the system is then minimized by optimizing these vehicle service decisions. The advantages of the new model are then compared with previously proposed schemes and non-optimized models through simulations.
The Power of Three: A Latent Class Analysis of the Three Parent–Child Relationships in Stepfamilies and Their Influence on Emerging Adult Outcomes

The purpose of this study was to identify patterns of parent–child relationships in stepfamilies and explore their impact on emerging adult (EA) outcomes. Six classes of parent–child relationships ...
Foreign investor reactions to risk and uncertainty in antitrust: U.S. merger policy investigations and the deterrence of foreign acquirer presence

Motivated by the potential for antitrust and competition policies to be protectionist in effect, we formulate the theoretical prior that merger policy deters foreign acquirer participation in local M&A markets. The policy risk and policy uncertainty characteristic of merger review may negatively affect foreign acquirers more so than domestic acquirers, thereby disadvantaging foreign acquisitions of local firms and deterring future cross-border investment activities. We test this prior by employing sector-level data on U.S. merger policy investigations and foreign acquirer presence in U.S. M&A markets over the 2002–2017 period. Our panel-data methodological approach indicates that the risk and uncertainty characteristic of U.S. merger policy disproportionately deters the acquisition activities of foreign investors. The empirical results also suggest that the application of competition and merger policies in other national jurisdictions – where there is less of a strong commitment to antitrust principles – might also be effectively protectionist.
Endocrine Emergencies in the ICU

Endocrine emergencies constitute a small percentage of the total patient population seen in the emergency department. Most endocrinopathies present a unique challenge to the emergency physician with subtle and nonspecific presentations that often mimic other commonly seen disorders or may present simultaneously with other clinical metabolic derangements.
Elastic Switch Programming with P4All

The P4 language enables a range of new network applications. However, it is still far from easy to implement and optimize P4 programs for PISA hardware. Programmers must engage in a tedious "trial and error" process wherein they write their program (guessing it will fit within the hardware) and then check by compiling it. If it fails, they repeat the process. In this paper, we argue that programmers should define elastic data structures that stretch automatically to make use of available switch resources. We present P4All, an extension of P4 that supports elastic switch programming. Elastic data structures also make P4All modules reusable across different applications and hardware targets, where resource needs and constraints may vary.Our design is oriented around use of symbolic primitives (integers that may take on a range of possible values at compile time), arrays, and loops. We show how to use these primitive mechanisms to build a range of reusable libraries such as hash tables, Bloom filters, sketches, and key-value stores. We also explain the important role that elasticity plays in modular programming, and we allow programmers to declare utility functions that control the relative share of data-plane resources apportioned to each module.
Land-use regulation and the spatial mismatch between housing and employment opportunities

Spatial mismatches between housing and employment contribute to higher commute burdens and limited access to high-opportunity employment areas, particularly for racial or ethnic minorities and low-...
On The Impact of Cultural reference in BBC`s Business Articles

Business texts are included within the informative texts which are the texts whose primary goal is to provide information. They usually include explanations, descriptions, analysis and expository details and examples. The research focuses on the business reports provided by the BBC. The business service in the BBC provides a complete coverage of the market data, economy, companies, technology of business and the entrepreneurship. In this research business reports have been chosen to examine the employment of cultural concepts and the impact a definite culture may have within the frame of highly informative texts; i.e. the business texts. This research is concerned with (business journalism) which covers news and features articles about people, places, and issues related to business. Business journalists may also cover processes, trends, consequences, and important people. The use of cultural concepts in business reports is not one of the main features of the language of business, but it is much related to the traits of journalism with its main goal of capturing the reader`s attention. what the research seeks is the impact of such use of cultural concepts on the understanding of business information.
Tocilizumab is associated with increased risk of fungal infections among critically ill patients with COVID-19

IntroductionDozens of medications have been re-evaluated as possible treatments for coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Tocilizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody directed against the interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor that has been proposed as a therapy for patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. It is possible that the immunomodulatory effects of tocilizumab may also have the unintended consequence of predisposing to secondary infections. We sought to assess the risk of invasive fungal disease and therapeutic impact of tocilizumab on hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) outcomes in critically ill patients with severe COVID-19. MethodsRecords of critically-ill patients with COVID-19 over a 6 month period at our institution were reviewed, and medical histories, treatments, and clinical outcomes were extracted. The incidence of fungal infections in those that received tocilizumab in addition to standard COVID-19 treatments was assessed. ICU length of stay (LOS), duration of mechanical ventilation, and hospital LOS were compared between treatment groups. ResultsOne-hundred and thirty patients were identified, of which 56 met inclusion criteria. 16 patients received tocilizumab, and 40 did not. Invasive fungal infections occurred in 10.7% of all patients. Infection rates were significantly higher in the tocilizumab group than in the control group (31.2% v 2.5%, RR 12.5, p<0.01). There was a strong dose-response relation for tocilizumab, with 2.5% of events occurring with 0 doses, 20% with a single dose, and 50% with 2 doses (M-H OR 39, p<0.01). There were also statistically significant increased ICU LOS (3.73 v 1.91, p <0.01), duration of mechanical ventilation (3.58 v. 1.95, p<0.01), and hospital LOS (3.83 v. 2.58, p <0.01) in those that received tocilizumab and developed a fungal infection (Figure 1). ConclusionsRepurposed therapies like tocilizumab may have a potential role in the treatment of severe COVID-19, but these data suggest there is a significant risk of developing secondary fungal infection and highlight the impact this can have on important ICU outcomes. (Table Presented).