cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Head and neck reconstructive surgery: what the radiologist needs to know

Head and neck reconstructive surgery after cancer ablative surgery is now commonly performed with closure of the surgical defects by microvascular free tissue transfer. The most common flaps used for reconstruction are the radial forearm flap, the anterolateral thigh flap and fibula flap. Radiographic appearance of these flaps depends on the individual components of the flap, and may consist of skin, fat, muscle and/or bone. There are various adverse outcomes in these patients, the most significant being tumour recurrence that typically occurs at the flap margins. Other flap complications include flap necrosis from vascular thrombosis or infection. The goal of this article is to enhance radiologists’ familiarity with different methods of flap reconstruction, flap margins and vascular anastomoses that will lead to a better appreciation of expected postoperative radiographic appearance. • Flaps are the most common reconstructive techniques used in neck cancer surgery. • Imaging appearance of flaps depends on their components and time since surgery. • Most tumour recurrence after reconstruction occurs at the margins of the flap.
Elevation of interleukin-6 in response to a chronic inflammatory stimulus in mice: inhibition by indomethacin.

Intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of a mineral oil such as pristane induces a chronic inflammatory response in mice. This is characterized by a large influx of macrophages and other inflammatory cells into the peritoneal cavity for months after injection of the oil. By using the B9 cell bioassay, it was found that injection of pristane caused a marked and prolonged elevation of interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels in the peritoneal cavities of the mice. IL-6 was undetectable (less than 15 U/mL) in the peritoneal fluids of unprimed mice and during the first week after injecting pristane. From 4 to 20 weeks, the concentration of IL-6 increased to an apparent plateau with concentrations ranging from 200 to 2,000 U/mL. Increasing the dose of pristane did not substantially increase the peritoneal levels of IL-6 established at 20 weeks after pristane treatment. At later times (by day 250), the level decreased to 263 +/- 217 U/mL. However, mice that developed plasma cell tumors around day 300 showed high levels of IL-6 in the ascites fluid (650 to 2,400 U/mL). Serum levels of IL-6 were also elevated in pristane-primed mice but were substantially lower than those found in the peritoneal cavity. Chronic administration of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin decreased the levels of IL-6 by 75% to 80%. Experiments performed in vitro showed that pristane-elicited macrophages secreted low levels of IL-6 constitutively and high levels of IL-6 in the presence of lipopolysaccharide. Both IL-6 and prostaglandin E2 production were inhibited by addition of indomethacin to macrophage cultures in vitro. Treatment of mice with pristane may provide a model system for studying the inflammatory pathways that control IL-6 levels in vivo. The relevance of these results to elucidation of the role of IL-6 in plasma cell tumorigenesis is discussed.
Lipid compositions modulate fluidity and stability of bilayers: characterization by surface pressure and sum frequency generation spectroscopy.

Cell membranes are crucial to many biological processes. Because of their complexity, however, lipid bilayers are often used as model systems. Lipid structures influence the physical properties of bilayers, but their interplay, especially in multiple-component lipid bilayers, has not been fully explored. Here, we used the Langmuir–Blodgett method to make mono- and bilayers of 1,2-dihexadecanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-(1′-rac-glycerol) (DPPG), 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-(1′-rac-glycerol) (POPG), and 1-hexadecanoyl-2-(9Z-octadecenoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phospho-l-serine (POPS) as well as their 1:1 binary mixtures. We studied the fluidity, stability, and rigidity of these structures using sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy combined with analyses of surface pressure–area isotherms, compression modulus, and stability. Our results show that single-component bilayers, both saturated and unsaturated, may not be ideal membrane mimics because of their low fluidity and/or stability. However, the bina...
High accuracy gene signature for chemosensitivity prediction in breast cancer

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is usually offered to breast cancer patients to shrink the tumor and any involved lymph nodes. Pathologic complete response is a way of measuring response to this treatment, which is normally defined as the absence of residual invasive disease in the breast and in the axillary lymph nodes at the completion of the treatment. Clinically patients who achieve pCR tend to have a very good prognosis. As a standard treatment for breast cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy offers several benefits to patients. But not all patients benefit equally from this treatment. Therefore it is of great value to investigate what molecular information obtained from a patient’s tumor could be used to determine if the patient would benefit from a particular chemotherapy. In practice the estrogen receptor status could be used to guide the decisions on hormonal therapy. Further, the gene expression data that reflect subtle differences in tumors could be utilized to build a predictor of response to cancer drugs. In this study we sought to use gene expression data to predict who might achieve pCR to sequential anthracycline paclitaxel preoperative chemotherapy. Our aim was to uncover one gene signature for developing predictors of pCR to neoadjuvant chemotherapy that have a much higher accuracy than DLDA-30, so it might have the potential for clinical applications. With the ability to account for multiple gene interactions, the multivariable techniques, such as genetic algorithm and SLR, have demonstrated their utility in identifying robust gene signatures of clinical relevance.
Forward Flight Effect on Small Scale Supersonic Jet Acoustics

This paper presents the design and validation of a free-jet open-loop wind-tunnel in the anechoic facility of the Pennsylvania State University. The primary purpose of the upgraded facility is to provide acoustic and flow measurements of the effects of forward flight on the properties of high-speed jets representative of military aircraft engine exhausts. The wind-tunnel is capable of speeds up to 58 m/s, corresponding to a forward-flight simulated Mach number of 0.17. An overview of the methodology behind the simulation of forward flight with an open-jet is presented. Assessment is performed of the flow properties of the open-jet via pitot and hot-wire measurements. Acoustic measurements are conducted to ensure that the noise levels are below the noise floor of the acquisition system. The resulting effect of the forward-flight flow on the acoustic and physical properties of high-speed jets is then compared with data obtained from other laboratories to obtain a full validation of the overall facility.
Learning How to Speak Like a “Native” Speech and Culture in an Online Communication Training Program

This article examines the oral communication training that took place in Eloqi, a virtual language-learning community. Eloqi (a pseudonym) was a for-profit start-up that built and operated a proprietary Web-based, voice-enabled platform connecting English-language learners in China with trainers in the United States. While it existed, Eloqi’s unique platform was used to deliver short, one-on-one lessons designed to improve students’ oral English communication skills. Using the ethnography of communication and speech codes theory, a theoretical–methodological approach, the author presents an analysis of the speech code, or code of communicative conduct, employed at Eloqi. This code of English logic, which Eloqi’s community members associated with native English speech, comprised six locally defined rules for oral English speech; namely, speech had to be organized, succinct, spontaneously composed rather than rehearsed, original and honest, proactively improved, and positive. This article discusses the sign...
Control Effect Evaluation of Occupational Hazards in a Large Scale Integrated Circuit Project

[Objective]To evaluate the control effect of occupational hazards in a large scale integrated circuit project.[Methods]The combination methods of occupational health field investigation,detection of occupational hazard factors in workplaces,classification of working condition and occupational physical examination were applied.[Results]The location,overall layout,facility layout,occupational protecting facilitates,individual protective articles,occupational health management and health auxiliary facilities of the large scale integrated circuit project were in accordance with the requirements of Code of Occupational Disease Prevention of PRC.The concentrations of various toxicants in the production process of this project reached the national health standard,but noise exceeded hygienic standards at difference degrees,illumination and microclimate in some workplaces did not accord with related national standards.[Conclusion]The compositive evaluation and analysis showed that measures of occupational hazards control in this large scale integrated circuit project are feasible and effective,but noise reduction measures should be further perfected,illumination and microclimate in some workplaces should be improved,too.
Superficial polymer modification of nanocopper particles

When nanocopper particles are applied,the problem of their accumulation must be solved.Therefore,to improve the dispersibility of nanocopper particles,the microcapsule technique,which is one of the most effective methods,is adopted to fabricate the polyurea-formaldehyde nanocopper microcapsules with core-shell structure.The fabricated samples were characterized by infrared spectrum,x-ray diffraction and SEM,and the dispersibility of the samples in various solvents was studied.The experimental results show that urea-formaldehyde resin is the external wall of microcapsules,the nanocopper particles are the internal materials of microcapsules,and the average size of the nanocopper microcapsules is about 500 nm.The dispersibility of the microcapsules in water is better than in any other solvents.In various solvents,the dispersibility of the nanocopper microcapsules is better than that of unmodified copper.If ultrasonic wave is applied,the nanocopper microcapsules can better disperse in polar solvents.
Office-Based Ultrasound-Guided FNA with Molecular Testing for Thyroid Nodules

ObjectiveUltrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy is the primary method of evaluating thyroid nodules. Up to one-third of FNA results are reported to be of “indeterminate” cytology, wh...
Gender and beliefs about language

In Chapters 2 and 3, I laid the theoretical foundation for discussing transcultural language practices. In this chapter, I use this foundation to discuss the beliefs the Runa Takiks held about their language practices. I compare the beliefs of the male participants in the Pacific Northwest with those of their wives and mothers back in Ecuador. In my discussion of these beliefs, I discover strong feelings of closeness and affection for Quichua among all participants, as well as the belief that the language is an essential component of indigenous identity.
Implementation of a 3D halo neutral model in the TRANSP code and application to projected NSTX-U plasmas

A 3D halo neutral code developed at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and implemented for analysis using the TRANSP code is applied to projected National Spherical Torus eXperiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U plasmas). The legacy TRANSP code did not handle halo neutrals properly since they were distributed over the plasma volume rather than remaining in the vicinity of the neutral beam footprint as is actually the case. The 3D halo neutral code uses a 'beam-in-a-box' model that encompasses both injected beam neutrals and resulting halo neutrals. Upon deposition by charge exchange, a subset of the full, one-half and one-third beam energy components produce first generation halo neutrals that are tracked through successive generations until an ionization event occurs or the descendant halos exit the box. The 3D halo neutral model and neutral particle analyzer (NPA) simulator in the TRANSP code have been benchmarked with the Fast-Ion D-Alpha simulation (FIDAsim) code, which provides Monte Carlo simulations of beam neutral injection, attenuation, halo generation, halo spatial diffusion, and photoemission processes. When using the same atomic physics database, TRANSP and FIDAsim simulations achieve excellent agreement on the spatial profile and magnitude of beam and halo neutral densities and the NPA energy spectrum. The simulations show that the halo neutral density can be comparable to the beam neutral density. These halo neutrals can double the NPA flux, but they have minor effects on the NPA energy spectrum shape. The TRANSP and FIDAsim simulations also suggest that the magnitudes of beam and halo neutral densities are relatively sensitive to the choice of the atomic physics databases.
Bovine natural killer cells are present in Escherichia coli infected mammary gland tissue and show antimicrobial activity in vitro.

Natural killer (NK) cells are early responders in bacterial infections but their role in bovine mastitis has not been characterized. For the first time, we show the presence of NK cells (NKp46+/CD3−) in bovine mammary gland tissue after an intramammary challenge with Escherichia (E.) coli. A small number of NK cells was detected in milk from quarters before and during an E. coli challenge. In vitro cultures of primary bovine mammary gland epithelial cells stimulated with UV irradiated E. coli induced significant migration of peripheral blood NK cells (pbNK) within 2 h. Furthermore, pbNK cells significantly reduced counts of live E. coli in vitro within 2 h of culture. The results show that bovine NK cells have the capacity to migrate to the site of infection and produce antibacterial mediators. These findings introduce NK cells as a leukocyte population in the mammary gland with potential functions in the innate immune response in bovine mastitis.
Ramón “Chunky” Sánchez—¡PRESENTE!

On November 5, 2016, hundreds of people convened at the historical landmark of Chicano Park in Barrio Logan, San Diego, to celebrate the life of one of the community’s most revered elders, Ramon “Chunky” Moroyoqui Sanchez. Nuestro querido maestro fallecio el dia 28 de octubre de 2016 . Sanchez, endearingly known as Chunky, was synonymous with Barrio Logan, Chicano Park, Chicano/a music, and San Diego in general. In this city, an auditorium is named in his honor. His image is incorporated in murals. The Chicano comedy troupe Culture Clash developed a vignette about Chunky, and upon his passing the San Diego Chargers’ website featured him in a blog post that included a photo of him with players and cheerleaders. Chunky was also well known beyond the Imperial Valley. The music of Los Alacranes Mojados (the group he started with his brother, Ricardo Sanchez) continues to be embraced in Mexicano/a and Chicano/a communities throughout California and the Southwest. The news of Sanchez’s passing reverberated throughout California like the violent ripples of a pond into which a boulder has been dropped. Ese vato will be missed.
From Winning an Election to Political Engagement

The outcome of any election leads naturally to winners and losers. We explore the effect of winning (or losing) an election on future political participation. We compare the behavior of counties supporting winning gubernatorial candidates to counties supporting losing gubernatorial candidates for close gubernatorial elections from 1990 to today, using a regression discontinuity design. Winning counties experience (i) an increase in voters' participation compared to losing counties, but (ii) no significant change in the composition of votes, suggesting that (i) extends to voters of all persuasions. The effect is (iii) decreasing with the level of support to the winning party and (iv) is muted in more polarized environments, i.e., post 2000.
Creating Crowdsourced Research Talks at Scale

There has been a marked shift towards learning and consuming information through video. Most academic research, however, is still distributed only in text form, as researchers often have limited time, resources, and incentives to create video versions of their work. To address this gap, we propose, deploy, and evaluate a scalable, end-to-end system for crowdsourcing the creation of short, 5-minute research videos based on academic papers. Doing so requires solving complex coordination and collaborative video production problems. To assist coordination, we designed a structured workflow that enables efficient delegation of tasks, while also motivating the crowd through a collaborative learning environment. To facilitate video production, we developed an online tool with which groups can make micro-audio recordings that are automatically stitched together to create a complete talk. We tested this approach with a group of volunteers recruited from 52 countries through an open call. This distributed crowd produced over 100 video talks in 12 languages based on papers from top-tier computer science conferences. The produced talks consistently received high ratings from a diverse group of non-experts and experts, including the authors of the original papers. These results indicate that our crowdsourcing approach is a promising method for producing high-quality research talks at scale, increasing the distribution and accessibility of scientific knowledge.
Normal Values and Growth-Related Changes of Left Ventricular Volumes, Stress, and Strain in Healthy Children Measured by 3-Dimensional Echocardiography.

Normal pediatric values of three-dimensional (3D) left ventricular (LV) volumes and strain are not well established; moreover, no reports exist of the stress-strain relation and the heart rate-corrected velocity of circumferential fiber shortening (VCFc) based upon 3D imaging in children. Three-dimensional LV datasets were obtained in pediatric patients (≤18 years of age) with structurally normal hearts. Ventricular volumes and strain components (longitudinal, GLS; circumferential, GCS; and 3D strain, 3DS) were analyzed using a commercial 3D speckle-tracking analysis package. LV mid-wall global average end-systolic fiber stress was calculated from 3D LV volumes. A total of 238 patients were included in the analysis with a median age of 13.1 years (range 0.4 to 17.9 years). Regression equations were derived for 3D volume parameters, permitting body surface area-based Z score calculation. Overall, 3DS values were more negative than GLS and GCS (mean ± SD = −33.8 ± 2.8; −27.8 ± 2.9; and −21.7 ± 3.1, respectively); only GLS varied significantly with age (r = 0.22; p
Visualizing Academic Advising in a Learning Styles Context: A Pyramid Approach

AbstractAlthough educators are recognizing that academic advising is a crucial component in promoting students' academic success and personal development, the relationship between individuals' learning styles and advising has not been explored. Nevertheless, a) attention to learning style produces measurable improvement in learning and satisfaction; b) advising sessions are learning opportunities; c) although learning styles are fairly evenly distributed among college students, traditional advising methods accentuate the feeling and thinking styles; d) Leisure Science students favor the doing and visual learning styles over both the feeling and thinking styles; and e) students consistently have expressed general dissatisfaction with the advising process. To accommodate visually inclined students - especially in the absence of doing oriented methods - advisors can supplement traditional verbal exchanges and published text-based course descriptions with visually oriented materials. Results of a prior implem...
A variational approach to edge detection

The problem of detecting intensity changes in images is canonical in vision. Edge detection operators are typically designed to optimally estimate first or second derivative over some (usually small) support. Other criteria such as output signal to noise ratio or bandwidth have also been argued for. This paper describes an attempt to formulate a set of edge detection criteria that capture as directly as possible the desirable properties of the detector. Variational techniques are used to find a solution over the space of all possible functions. The first criterion is that the detector have low probability of error i.e. failing to mark edges or falsely marking non-edges. The second is that the marked points should be as close as possible to the centre of the true edge. The third criterion is that there should be low probability of more than one response to a single edge. The third criterion is claimed to be new, and it became necessary when an operator designed using the first two criteria was found to have excessive multiple responses. The edge model that will be considered here is a one-dimensional step edge in white Gaussian noise although the same technique has been applied to an extended impulse or ridge profile. The result is a one dimensional operator that approximates the first derivative of a Gaussian. Its extension to two dimensions is also discussed.
CPAP Treatment in Children

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a relatively common disorder, occurring in 1–4% of otherwise healthy children, with a higher prevalence in children with underlying medical conditions such as obesity or genetic syndromes. The standard treatment for childhood OSAS is adenotonsillectomy. However, further treatment is required in many children, particularly children with comorbid medical conditions. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is the usual treatment for those children who do not respond to adenotonsillectomy or the few children who are not candidates for surgery. It is less than 30 years since CPAP was first used for the treatment of OSAS in adults, and only recently has it been used systematically in children. CPAP treatment can effectively treat OSAS in children, improving both nocturnal and daytime symptoms. However, poor adherence is a limiting factor. The process of CPAP initiation, habituation, and maintenance in children involves multidisciplinary teamwork. Because of the relatively short time period since the introduction of CPAP in children, and the relative small number of children who have received CPAP treatment until recently, much research in the area is required.
Emotion, Thought, and Gender

Publisher Summary Many theories of thought and its development are based on a polarity of modes of functioning. One mode is associated with rational thought, conscious decision-making, and the ability to think in terms of decontextualized principles. The other mode is more inherently tied to holistic and contextualized principles, and often links thinking to the emotions and to basic organismic schemata through the use of metaphor, image, and other figurative symbols, and through narrative and psychological rather than scientific constructions of reality. This chapter discusses the linkage to two modes of thinking from the perspective of gender. One particularly important dimension of the differentiation of modes of thought is that it is based upon an elaborate imagery and narrative structure of gendered personifications. Thus, the rational mode is often associated with the masculine, the emotive with the feminine. This pervasive imagery has influenced the ability of men and women to emotionally integrate into their self a sense of self as thinker and effective agent in the world, as opposed to a sense of self as passive recipient of other's agency. Thus, the area of thought and gender becomes a particularly rich domain within which to discuss the linkages of more rational and conscious and more emotive and intuitive forms of knowing.
Parallelizable Bayesian optimization for analog and mixed-signal rare failure detection with high coverage

Due to inherent complex behaviors and stringent requirements in analog and mixed-signal (AMS) systems, verification becomes a key bottleneck in the product development cycle. For the first time, we present a Bayesian optimization (BO) based approach to the challenging problem of verifying AMS circuits with stringent low failure requirements. At the heart of the proposed BO process is a delicate balancing between two competing needs: exploitation of the current statistical model for quick identification of highly-likely failures and exploration of undiscovered design space so as to detect hard-to-find failures within a large parametric space. To do so, we simultaneously leverage multiple optimized acquisition functions to explore varying degrees of balancing between exploitation and exploration. This makes it possible to not only detect rare failures which other techniques fail to identify, but also do so with significantly improved efficiency. We further build in a mechanism into the BO process to enable detection of multiple failure regions, hence providing a higher degree of coverage. Moreover, the proposed approach is readily parallelizable, further speeding up failure detection, particularly for large circuits for which acquisition of simulation/measurement data is very time-consuming. Our experimental study demonstrates that the proposed approach is very effective in finding very rare failures and multiple failure regions which existing statistical sampling techniques and other BO techniques can miss, thereby providing a more robust and cost-effective methodology for rare failure detection.
Grit: A predictor of medical student performance

Background: Several predictors of medical school performance have been identified, yet more research is needed to select applicants who will perform well. Grit is a personality trait that is described as persevering through difficult tasks. Although it is hypothesized that this type of trait would be high in a medical student population, this has not been studied. The purpose of this study was to examine grit among medical students and to explore whether grit-predicted performance in medical school. Methods: There were 131 graduating medical students who completed a questionnaire in May 2014 on grit as well as demographic questions and involvement in other activities in medical school. Data on test scores, years in medical school, and class ranking were obtained from the medical school. Results: The average grit score among 130 medical students was high (mean = 4.01, standard deviation = 0.42). Those who completed the program in 4 years had higher grit scores than those who completed in 5 years (P = 0.01). Grit was related to medical school performance including clinical knowledge scores (P = 0.02). There was also a difference between the highest and lowest class rank (P = 0.03). Discussion: Medical students have high levels of trait-like perseverance and it appears that those with higher levels of grit are more likely to perform better in medical school.
Political science research in the Middle East and North Africa: methodological and ethical challenges

Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa is an important first cut at what will hopefully become a larger body of literature on the systematic collection of political science ...
High-Resolution Nanoparticle Sizing with Maximum A Posteriori Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis

The rapid and efficient characterization of polydisperse nanoparticle dispersions remains a challenge within nanotechnology and biopharmaceuticals. Current methods for particle sizing, such as dynamic light scattering, analytical ultracentrifugation, and field-flow fractionation, can suffer from a combination of statistical biases, difficult sample preparation, insufficient sampling, and ill-posed data analysis. As an alternative, we introduce a Bayesian method that we call maximum a posteriori nanoparticle tracking analysis (MApNTA) for estimating the size distributions of nanoparticle samples from high-throughput single-particle tracking experiments. We derive unbiased statistical models for two observable quantities in a typical nanoparticle trajectory—the mean square displacement and the trajectory length—as a function of the particle size and calculate size distributions using maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation with cross validation to mildly regularize solutions. We show that this approach infers...
Myocardial Involvement in Patients With Histologically Diagnosed Cardiac Sarcoidosis: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Gross Pathological Images From Autopsy or Cardiac Transplantation Cases

Background In patients with suspected cardiac sarcoidosis, late gadolinium enhancement on cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging and/or 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake on positron emission tomography are often used to reach a clinical diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis. On the basis of data from the imaging literature of clinical cardiac sarcoidosis, no specific features of myocardial involvement are regarded as pathognomonic for cardiac sarcoidosis. Thus, a diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis is challenging to make. There has been no systematic analysis of histologically diagnosed cardiac sarcoidosis for patterns of myocardial involvement. We hypothesized that certain patterns of myocardial involvement are more frequent in histologically diagnosed cardiac sarcoidosis. Methods and Results We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of gross pathological images from the published literature of patients with histologically diagnosed cardiac sarcoidosis who underwent autopsy or cardiac transplantation. Thirty-three eligible articles provided images of 49 unique hearts. Analysis of these hearts revealed certain features of myocardial involvement in >90% of cases: left ventricular (LV) subepicardial, LV multifocal, septal, and right ventricular free wall involvement. In contrast, other patterns were seen in 0% to 6% of cases: absence of gross LV myocardial involvement, isolated LV midmyocardial involvement, isolated LV subendocardial involvement, isolated LV transmural involvement, absence of septal involvement, or isolated involvement of only one LV level. Conclusions In this systematic review and meta-analysis of histologically diagnosed cardiac sarcoidosis, we identified certain features of myocardial involvement that occurred frequently and others that occurred rarely or never. These patterns could aid the interpretation of cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography imaging and improve the diagnosis and the prognostication of patients with suspected cardiac sarcoidosis.
Development of a novel ablation hood to prevent systemic embolization of microbubbles and particulate emboli

Atrial fibrillation ablation results in microbubbles and particulate emboli formation. We aimed to develop and test the early feasibility of a novel ablation hood to contain microbubbles and particulate emboli with the ultimate goal of preventing systemic embolization. In seven canines, we developed, iterated, and tested a novel retractable hood that can cover the catheter-tissue ablation site. The number and volume (nL) of microbubbles formed during ablation with and without the hood was measured using an extracorporeal circulation loop. Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test was used to compare the number of bubbles detected with and without the hood. The hood reduced systemic embolization of microbubbles in 21/28 (75%) of ablations. Both atrial and ventricular ablations showed a statistically significant reduction in bubble number (476 ± 811 without hood vs 173 ± 226 with hood, p = 0.02; 2669 ± 1623 without hood vs 1417 ± 970 with hood, p = 0.04, respectively) and bubble volume (3.3 ± 7.6 nL without hood vs 0.2 ± 0.56 nL with hood, p = 0.006; 6.1 ± 5.2 nL without hood vs 1.9 ± 1.4 nL with hood, p = 0.05, respectively). Use of a novel hood to cover the ablation catheter at the site of catheter-tissue contact has the potential to provide a means to reduce systematic embolization of microbubbles. Further work is required to examine particulate emboli, but these data show the early feasibility of this design concept.
Effects of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Obesity on Morphine Pharmacokinetics in Children.

BACKGROUND Obesity increases susceptibility to chronic pain, increases metabolism, and is associated with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), all which can complicate perioperative pain management of patients. In addition, obesity and OSAS can cause elevation of the adipose-derived hormone leptin, which increases metabolism. We hypothesized that obesity along with sleep apnea and leptin independently enhance morphine pharmacokinetics. METHODS Children 5-12 years of age who were presenting for surgery were administered a morphine dose of 0.05 mg/kg. Blood was collected at baseline and at subsequent preset times for pharmacokinetic analysis of morphine and its metabolites. Three groups were studied: a nonobese group with severe OSAS, an obese group with severe OSAS, and a control group. RESULTS Thirty-four patients consisting of controls (n = 16), nonobese/OSAS (n = 8), and obese/OSAS (n = 10) underwent analysis. The obese/OSAS group had a higher dose-adjusted mean maximum morphine concentration (CMAX) over 540 minutes compared to the controls (P < .001) and those with only OSAS (P = .014). The obese/OSAS group also had lower volume of distribution (Vd) when compared to OSAS-only patients (P = .007). In addition, those in the obese/OSAS group had a higher morphine 3-glucuronide (M3G) maximum concentration (P = .012) and a higher ratio of M3G to morphine than did the control group (P = .011). Time to maximum morphine 6-glucuronide (M6G) concentration was significantly lower in both nonobese/OSAS and obese/OSAS groups than in the control group (P < .005). C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin (IL)-10, and leptin were all higher in the obese/OSAS group than in controls (P = .004, 0.026, and <0.001, respectively), and compared to OSAS-only patients, CRP (P = .013) and leptin (P = .002) levels were higher in the obese/OSAS group. CONCLUSIONS The combination of obesity and OSAS was associated with an increase in morphine metabolism compared with that in normal-weight controls. Our previous study in mice demonstrated that obesity from leptin deficiency decreased morphine metabolism, but that metabolism normalized after leptin replacement. Leptin may be a cause of the increased morphine metabolism observed in obese patients.
Anderson and Krathwohl's Two-Dimensional Taxonomy Applied to Supporting and Predicting Learning During Search

There is a growing body of research in the Search as Learning community that recognizes the need for users to learn during search, but modern search systems have yet to adapt to support this need. Our research proposes three research goals toward addressing the support of user learning during search. Research goal 1 (RG1) introduces a more precise and reliable metric of assessing user learning. Anderson & Krathwohl's 2-dimensional taxonomy is used as a framework to develop learning objectives and assessment questions to measure user learning during search. Additionally, Anderson & Krathwohl's taxonomy is used as a coding scheme to outline the pathways users traverse along the way to a particular learning objective. Research goal 2 (RG2) investigates the prediction of learning objectives using behavioral measures. Finally, research goal 3 (RG3) proposes a search system that presents information relevant to the user based on their current learning sub-goal and scaffolds information based on the pathways they are likely to traverse given a particular learning objective.
Aluminum Antimonide (AISb)

Publisher Summary This chapter analyzes the optical properties of aluminum antimonide (AlSb). The refractive index, n, and the extinction coefficient, k, of AlSb have been measured for a limited number of samples. The two main reasons for this are that large high-quality single crystals are difficult to grow and the surface of AlSb reacts rapidly with the atmosphere to produce a relatively thick contaminated layer. One method for measuring the optical properties of semiconductors—especially for the ultraviolet (UV) and visible regions—is spectroscopic ellipsometry. However, contamination-free surfaces are needed for precise ellipsometric measurements. The chapter reviews the measurements of the dependence of energy-gap absorptance of AlSb at room temperature for hydrostatic pressures from atmospheric up to the phase change at about 8 GPa; the reflectance of room-temperature AlSb between 16 m and 40 m, which includes the infrared lattice reflectance band; and the fundamental reflection band of six III–V compound semiconductors at liquid helium-temperature.
Oligo(l-glutamic acids) in Calcium Phosphate Precipitation: Mechanism of Delayed Phase Transformation.

Proteins and their mimics that contain negatively charged sequences are important in natural and biomimetic mineralization. The mechanism by which these sequences affect calcium phosphate mineraliz...
Coulomb excitation of states in 232Th

Abstract Twenty-five states in 232 Th have been observed with 18 MeV 4 He ions on a thick target. Eleven 2 + states between 774 and 1554 keV and three 3 − states are populated by direct E2 and E3, respectively. The remaining states are either weakly excited by multiple Coulomb excitation and/or populated by the decay of the directly excited states. Spin assignments are based on γ-ray angular distributions. Reduced transition probabilities have been deduced from the γ-ray yields. The B (E2) values for excitation of the 2 + states range from 0.024 to 3.5 W.u. (222 W.u. for the first 2 + state). For the 3 − states, the B (E3,0 → 3 − ) values are 1.7, 11, and 24 W.u. A possible two-phonon state at 1554 keV, which is nearly harmonic, decays to four members of the one-phonon states, to the ground-state band, and to the K = 0 − octupole band. The B (E2) value for excitation of this state is 0.66 ± 0.05 W.u. and the B (E1) values for decay of this state are (2 and 6)×10 −4 W.u. The B (E2) values between two- and one-phonon vibrational states range between 16 and 53 W.u. which are an order of magnitude larger than the B (E2) values between the one- and zero-phonon states. This disagrees with our present understanding of collectivity in nuclei if this 2 + state is considered to be a collective two-phonon excitation. The 2 + states at 1477 and 1387 keV, which are also nearly harmonic, are possible candidates with two-phonon structure. The agreement between the experimental results and the microscopic calculations by Neergard and Vogel of the B (E3,0 → 3) for the 3 − members of the one-phonon octupole quadruplet is satisfactory when the Coriolis coupling between the states with K and K ± 1 is included. The B (E1) branching ratios for transitions from the 3 − and 1 − states to the ground-state band have large deviations from the Alaga-rule predictions. These deviations can be understood by the strong Coriolis coupling between the states of the octupole quadruplet in deformed nuclei.
Trusted Electronic Systems with Untrusted COTS

The challenges of custom integrated circuits (IC) design have made it prevalent to integrate commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components (micro-controllers, FPGAs, etc.) in today’s designs. While this approach eases the design challenges and improves productivity, it also gives rise to diverse security concerns. One such concern is the possibility of malicious hardware modifications, also called hardware Trojan attacks, by untrusted parties involved in the manufacturing or distribution of COTS devices. While Hardware Trojan detection is an active research topic in the field of microelectronics security, most methods assume the availability of a golden design/chip, which is impractical in the case of a COTS device. In this paper, we discuss challenges with detecting Trojan in COTS components, and introduce a Trojan detection method that applies unsupervised learning. We utilize side-channel power signatures to cluster and isolate chips with Trojans. The proposed method is suitable for trust verification of COTS components by an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) before system integration. In our method, the design house creates a set of security validation test vectors available to the tester (e.g., OEM). The OEM can also generate the test vectors using the block-level diagrams provided by the design house. Power signatures are generated for all the chips under test using these test vectors. We use the generated power signatures to apply feature extraction followed by clustering to group the chips into bins. Through this process, we divide the chips into distinct bins and distinguish the Trojan-inserted chips from the Trojan-free ones. The bin with golden chips can be identified by extensive testing and reverse engineering of one chip sampled from each bin. We utilize two clustering techniques K-Means, and Expectation-Maximization (EM) to perform a comparative analysis. Additionally, we perform extensive experiments to assert our method’s effectiveness and obtain over 98% accuracy on the clustering of FPGA chips with both combinational and sequential Trojans.
x + y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender

I taught for 25 years at Wheelock College, whose mission was “To improve the lives of children and families.” We had a vibrant math program, with a community of instructors passionate about working...
Implementation of an Extraction-Free COVID Real-Time PCR Workflow in a Pediatric Hospital Setting.

Background This study outlines the development, implementation, and impact of a laboratory-developed, extraction-free real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay as the primary diagnostic test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in a pediatric hospital. Methods Clinical specimens from both upper and lower respiratory tract sources were validated, including nasopharyngeal aspirates, nasopharyngeal swabs, anterior nares swabs and tracheal aspirates (n = 333 clinical samples). Testing volumes and laboratory turnaround times were then compared before and after implementation to investigate effects of the workflow changes. Results Compared to magnetic-bead extraction platforms, extraction-free RT-PCR demonstrated ≥ 95% positive percent agreement and ≥ 97% negative percent agreement across all tested sources. Implementation of this workflow reduced laboratory turnaround time from an average of 8.8 (+/- 5.5) hours to 3.6 (+/- 1.3) hours despite increasing testing volumes (from 1515 to 4884 tests per week over the reported period of testing). Conclusions The extraction-free workflow reduced extraction reagent cost for SARS-CoV-2 testing by 97%, shortened sample handling time, and significantly alleviated supply chain scarcities due to the elimination of specialized extraction reagents for routine testing. Overall, this assay is a viable option for laboratories to increase efficiency and navigate reagent shortages for SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing.
Trends in Textbook Outcomes over Time: Are Optimal Outcomes Following Complex Gastrointestinal Surgery for Cancer Increasing?

The use of composite measures like “textbook outcome” (TO) may provide a more accurate measure of surgical quality. We sought to determine if TO has improved over time and to characterize the association of achieving a TO with trends in survival among patients undergoing complex gastrointestinal surgery for cancer. Medicare beneficiaries who underwent pancreas, liver, or colon resection for a cancer diagnosis between 2004 and 2016 were identified using the SEER-Medicare database. Rates of TO (no complication, extended length of stay, 90-day readmission, or 90-day mortality) were assessed over time. Among 94,329 patients, 6765 (7.2%), 1985 (2.1%), and 85,579 (90.7%) patients underwent resection for primary pancreatic, hepatic, or colon cancer, respectively. In total, 53,464 (56.7%) patients achieved a TO; achievement of TO varied by procedure (pancreatectomy: 48.1% vs. hepatectomy: 55.2% vs. colectomy: 57.4%, p < 0.001). The proportion of patients achieving a textbook outcome increased over time for all patients (2004–2007, 53.3% vs. 2008–2011, 56.5% vs. 2012–2016, 60.1%) (5-year increase: OR 1.16 95%CI 1.13–1.18) (p < 0.001). Survival at 1-year following pancreatic, liver, or colon resection for cancer had improved over time among both patients who did and did not achieve a postoperative TO. TO was independently associated with a marked reduction in hazard of death (HR 0.44, 95%CI 0.43–0.45). The association of TO and survival was consistent among patients stratified by procedure. Less than two-thirds of patients undergoing complex gastrointestinal surgery for a malignant indication achieved a TO. The likelihood of achieving a TO increased over time and was associated with improved survival.
The structure-function relationships of maize starch synthase

We have shown that lysine-193 of the conserved K-T-G-G motif, functionally different from its counterpart in E.coli glycogen synthase, is involved in catalysis rather than ADP-glucose binding of maize (Zea mays L.) starch synthase Ha (Gao et al., 2001). To further study involvement of lysine residue(s) in catalysis and ADP-glucose binding of maize SSHa, three conserved lysine residues—lysine-465, lysine-469, and lysine-497—were subjected to site-directed mutagenesis. Kinetic characterization showed that mutations at lysine-497 dramatically increased the Km for ADP-glucose, and moreover K497Q, K497N and K497E increased the Km for ADP-glucose more than did mutation K497H. This result strongly suggests that lysine-497 is mainly involved in substrate ADP-glucose binding, with the positive charge on the side chain at position 497 being important to ADP-glucose binding. Replacement of glutamine or glutamic acid in lysine-465 and lysine-469 resulted in complete loss of activity, whereas the conservative replacement K465R and K469R decreased activity but had no influence on ADP-glucose binding. A simulated threedimensional protein structure model has been proposed and discussed for the possible mechanism of maize SSHa substrate ADP-glucose binding and catalysis.
CHAPTER 22 – Photonics

This chapter discusses photonics and the various conversions of photon. A photon is the single unit of energy of electromagnetic waves such as light, and similarly phonon is the smallest unit of sound energy. Phonon, electron, and photon can each behave both like wave and particle. The science of photonics studies the generation, emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing of light. The use of photonics in photocopiers and laser printers are also briefly described in the chapter. The experiments that the chapter discusses are photons to electrons and back again, electrons to photons and back again, and photon-to-photon conversions. The principal of the dry photocopier is also illustrated in the chapter.
In vitro imaging of kidney stones using ultra-short echo-time magnetic resonance

With the development of ultra-short echo-time (UTE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences, adequate imaging of kidney stones becomes possible. In this work, we compare UTE MRI to dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) for imaging 114 kidney stones, representing different stone types and sizes in phantom experiments using different surrounding materials and scan setups. We further investigate the capability of imaging different stone types inside pig kidneys using the abdomen/pelvis body surface coil, which is one step closer to in vivo MR imaging of kidney stones. The results show that MRI has the potential for imaging stones of different types and sizes. If successful for in-vivo imaging, the developed technique could be a valuable alternative to gold standard CT for imaging patients who may be more vulnerable to radiation exposure.