cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
RELATIONSHIP OF INTERNET OR SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE AND PATIENT REFERRAL PATTERNS IN ORTHOPAEDIC SURGERY

Summary Statement The purpose is to evaluate the effects of internet usage on new patient referral patterns to identify optimal patient recruitment and communication. Overall, social networking and internet may be an effective way for surgeons to recruit a wider patient population. Introduction Prior studies in other medical specialties have shown that social networking and internet usage has become an increasingly important means of patient communication and referral. However, this information is lacking in the orthopaedics literature. In this study, we evaluate the means by which new patients arrive at orthopaedic clinics in a major academic center. The purpose is to evaluate the effects of internet or social media usage on new patient referral patterns to identify avenues to optimise patient recruitment and communication. Patients and Methods New patients were recruited in a major academic orthopaedic clinic to complete a 15-item questionnaire with demographic information, social media use/networking and referral method. Data was collected for all orthopaedic sub-specialties and analyzed accordingly. Statistical analysis was performed. Results Of the 752 responses, there were 66% female and 34% male responses. Responses were obtained from hand (142), sports medicine (303), foot and ankle (129), joints/tumor (95) and trauma (83) services. Overall, 51% report using social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Of the patients that report not using social network sites, 92% are over the age of 40. Joints/tumor patients most commonly had seen another orthopaedic surgeon prior to their visit (59%) and had prior surgery (42%). Most patients traveled under 60 miles and were referred by their primary care physicians. Between 18–26% of all patients used a physician review website before consultation. The majority of the patients prefer communicating with their physician via the phone(68%) compared to email(32%). Independent associations found that sports medicine patients tend to be higher social networking users (35.9%) relative to other services (9.8–17.9%) and was statistically higher when compared to the joints/tumor service (P Discussion and Conclusion Orthopaedic patients who use social media are more likely to be younger, research their condition prior to their appointment and undergo an average day9s travel (120–180 miles) to see a physician. Up to 26% of all patients have seen or used a physician review site prior to their visit. Despite the increased social media usage, most orthopaedic patients still prefer telephone communication with their physicians. Overall, social networking and internet may be an effective way for surgeons to recruit a wider patient population. In an increasingly competitive market, surgeons with younger patient populations (Sports Medicine) will need to utilise social networking and the internet to capture new patient referrals.
Emerging trends in Uninterrupted Power Supplies: Patents view

This paper represents overview of backup power supplies, by considering power quality concerns, types of power supplies available and the limitations. Specifically this paper presents the details of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system and its types and focuses on detailed patent landscape analysis, which provides patent filing trend, technology spread and geographical patent distribution. Finally the paper concludes with brief thoughts on UPS emerging trends and the factors that are driving this industry.
Investigation of Key Factors Influencing the Response of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines to Three-Phase Symmetrical Short-Circuit Faults

This paper investigates the three-phase symmetrical short-circuit (SSC) characteristics of a permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM). Closed-form solutions are derived to predict both the steady-state and transient response of a PMSM to three-phase SSC faults. The developed expressions account for the impact of prefault operating conditions and include provisions for incorporating magnetic saturation effects. The influences of machine parameters and prefault operating conditions are studied to identify the key factors that have a major influence on the steady-state and peak transient values of the fault currents. It is shown that higher machine characteristic current values, reduced stator resistance, higher q -axis prefault current, and higher magnetic saturation all increase the peak transient value of the demagnetizing d -axis current. Time-stepped finite element (FE) simulation is performed to investigate the rotor demagnetization characteristics of PMSMs under SSC fault conditions. Both two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) FE simulations are used to build confidence in the fault current predictions of the developed analytical model, accompanied by experimental verification.
Reset-free guided policy search: Efficient deep reinforcement learning with stochastic initial states

Autonomous learning of robotic skills can allow general-purpose robots to learn wide behavioral repertoires without extensive manual engineering. However, robotic skill learning must typically make trade-offs to enable practical real-world learning, such as requiring manually designed policy or value function representations, initialization from human demonstrations, instrumentation of the training environment, or extremely long training times. We propose a new reinforcement learning algorithm that can train general-purpose neural network policies with minimal human engineering, while still allowing for fast, efficient learning in stochastic environments. We build on the guided policy search (GPS) algorithm, which transforms the reinforcement learning problem into supervised learning from a computational teacher (without human demonstrations). In contrast to prior GPS methods, which require a consistent set of initial states to which the system must be reset after each episode, our approach can handle random initial states, allowing it to be used even when deterministic resets are impossible. We compare our method to existing policy search algorithms in simulation, showing that it can train high-dimensional neural network policies with the same sample efficiency as prior GPS methods, and can learn policies directly from image pixels. We also present real-world robot results that show that our method can learn manipulation policies with visual features and random initial states.
Deep Retraction Pockets, Endometriosis, and Quality of Life

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine if deep retraction pockets (DRPs) in the posterior cul-de-sac and uterosacral ligaments could be a manifestation of endometriosis and if excision of these pockets improves pain symptoms and quality of life. Study design: Prospective cohort study Canadian Task Force Classification, II-3. Materials and methods: Preoperative data, operative data, and follow-up data were collected prospectively at the Center for Endometriosis at Saint Louis University, a referral center for the surgical management of endometriosis. Results: The 107 consecutive patients who presented with preoperative deep dyspareunia were included in the study, and the median postoperative follow-up was 13 months. Endometriosis was confirmed histologically in any location excised in 88/107 (82.2%) of the women, and 31 DRPs were excised from 25 women with DRPs in the posterior cul-de-sac or uterosacral ligaments, of which 15/31 (48.4%) had endometriosis. Of the 10 DRPs without visible surface lesions, 3 (30.0%) had endometriosis on histology. Pain symptoms and quality of life significantly improved after excision surgery, whether or not DRPs were present. Women who had endometriosis in their DRP also had significant improvement in deep dyspareunia and chronic pelvic pain and quality of life. Results did not differ when patients who took postoperative hormonal suppression were removed from the analyses. Conclusion: Patients had significantly improved pain symptoms and quality of life after excision surgery, whether or not DRPs were present. This study demonstrated that a DRP may be a manifestation of endometriosis (even with a clear surface of the pocket), so that DRPs should be excised to achieve optimal excision of endometriosis.
On Fair Attribution of Costs Under Peak-Based Pricing to Cloud Tenants

The costs incurred by cloud providers towards operating their data centers are often determined in large part by their peak demands. The pricing schemes currently used by cloud providers to recoup these costs from their tenants, however, do not distinguish tenants based on their contributions to the cloud’s overall peak demand. Using the concrete example of peak-based pricing as employed by many electric utility companies, we show that this “gap” may lead to unfair attribution of costs to the tenants. Simple enhancements of existing cloud pricing (e.g., analogous to the coincident peak pricing (CPP) used by some electric utilities) do not adequately address these shortcomings and suffer from short-term unfairness and undesirable oscillatory price-vs.-demand relationships offered to tenants. To overcome these shortcomings, we define an alternative pricing scheme to more fairly distribute a cloud’s costs among its tenants. We demonstrate the efficacy of our scheme under price-sensitive tenant demand response using a combination of (i) extensive empirical evaluation with recent workloads from commercial data centers operated by IBM and (ii) analytical [modeling] through non-cooperative game theory for a special case of tenant demand model.
Alternate product adjacencies in digital topology

We study properties of Cartesian products of digital images, using a variety of adjacencies that have appeared in the literature.
Indications for Direct Laryngoscopic Examination of Vocal Cord Function Prior to Anterior Cervical Surgery

Recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy (RLNP) is among the most common complications in both thyroid surgeries and anterior approaches to the cervical spine, having both a diverse etiology and presentation. Most bilateral paresis, with subsequent devastating impact on patients, are due to failure to recognize unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis and, although rare, are entirely preventable with appropriate history and screening. Recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy has been shown to present asymptomatically in as high as 32% of cases, which yields limitations on exclusively screening with physical examination. Based on the available literature, diagnosis of unilateral RLNP is the critical factor in preventing the occurrence of bilateral RLNP as the surgeon may elect to operate on the injured side to prevent bilateral paresis. Analysis of incidence rates shows postoperative development of unilateral RLNP is 13.1 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.1-28.1) and 13.90 (95% CI: 6.6-29.3) times more likely in anterior spine and thyroid surgery, respectively, in comparison with intubation. Currently, there is no consensus on when to order a preoperative laryngoscopic examination prior to anterior cervical spine surgery. The importance of patient history should be emphasized, as it is the basis for indications of preoperative laryngoscopy. Efforts to minimize postoperative complications must be made, especially when considering the rising rate of cervical fusion. This study presents a systematic review of the literature defining key causes of RLNP, with a probability-based protocol to indicate direct laryngoscopy prior to anterior cervical surgery as a screening tool in the prevention of bilateral RLNP.
Rethinking surgical technique and priorities for pediatric tonsillectomy

The past 100years have witnessed dramatic shifts in the concept of ideal surgical goals and operative technique in tonsil surgery. Surgeons are reviving a technique of intracapsular tonsillectomy with increasing precision thanks to modern technology. With intracapsular tonsillectomy, pediatric patients recover faster, use less pain medication, and have a lower risk of dehydration and hemorrhage. Various considerations will dictate the adoption of this technology in the coming years. This current review explores concepts and controversies surrounding tonsillectomy with a focus on quality improvement.
Fundamental Efficiency Limits for Small Metallic Antennas

Both the radiation efficiency and bandwidth of electrically small antennas are dramatically reduced as the size decreases. Fundamental limitations on the bandwidth of small antennas have been thoroughly treated in the past. However, upper bounds on radiation efficiency have not been established even though it is also of significant importance. Here, radiation from a thin metallic shell is rigorously analyzed to establish fundamental limits on the radiation efficiency of resonant, electrically small antennas in terms of the size and the metal conductivity. Metallic losses are systematically introduced into the circuit model proposed by Chu, and several resonant antennas with maximum radiation efficiencies are analyzed. Resonant electric and magnetic dipole antennas both have maximum radiation efficiencies near 100% until the size is reduced below a critical value, at which point the efficiency scales as electrical size to the fourth power $( ( \mathrm {ka} )^{4} )$ . It is also shown that a helix antenna that resonantly couples the TM10 mode to the TE10 mode has a maximum radiation efficiency, and is about twice that of a resonant dipole or loop antenna. The closed form expressions reported here provide valuable insight into the design of small antennas with optimal efficiencies.
On American VIX options under the generalized 3/2 and 1/2 models

In this paper, we extend the 3/2 model for VIX studied by Goard and Mazur and introduce the generalized 3/2 and 1/2 classes of volatility processes. Under these models, we study the pricing of European and American VIX options, and for the latter, we obtain an early exercise premium representation using a free-boundary approach and local time-space calculus. The optimal exercise boundary for the volatility is obtained as the unique solution to an integral equation of Volterra type. We also consider a model mixing these two classes and formulate the corresponding optimal stopping problem in terms of the observed factor process. The price of an American VIX call is then represented by an early exercise premium formula. We show the existence of a pair of optimal exercise boundaries for the factor process and characterize them as the unique solution to a system of integral equations.
USE OF CONSTRAINED SOCKETS IN REVISION THA: MORE PROBLEMS THAN THEY SOLVE – AFFIRMS

Instability after total hip arthroplasty is the primary cause for revision surgery and is a frequent complication following revision surgery for any reason (Bozic et al, JBJS 2009). Surgical management of the unstable hip has not been uniformly successful with the best results occurring in those hips in which an identifiable cause of instability can be determined (Daly & Morrey, JBJS 1992). It was these sobering findings that led to the development of and increased use of constrained acetabular components. While the results of revision surgery for instability using constrained components have been encouraging (Shapiro, Padgett, Sculco J Arthroplasty 2003) with a re-dislocation rate of less than 3%, reoperation for other reasons have noted to increase with time. The commonly used tripolar configuration has been susceptible to bearing damage at both the inner and outer bearing surface by the nature of the constrained mechanism (Shah, Padgett, Wright, J Arthroplasty 2009). In addition, we have noted instances of fixation failure directly related to the constrained acetabular device either from loss of implant fixation to the pelvis with or without cement (Yun, Padgett, Dorr, J Arthroplasty 2005). The observation of these failure modes ranging from either fixation failures to overt biomaterial failure have led us to be extremely cautious in the “routine” use of constrained liners in revision THR. Stratification of the recurrent dislocator has been nicely described by Wera et al (J Arthroplasty, 2012). The etiology of dislocation includes: acetabular malposition, femoral malposition, abductor deficiency, impingement, late bearing wear and unknown causes. Implant instability due to malposition, impingement, and poly wear should be revised as appropriate to correct the underlying problem in addition to the use of either larger diameter heads. The emerging use of dual mobility articulations remains to be determined. However, the indiscriminate use of constrained liners should be avoided as the risk of problems outweighs their benefits.
Clustering articles based on semantic similarity

Document clustering is generally the first step for topic identification. Since many clustering methods operate on the similarities between documents, it is important to build representations of these documents which keep their semantics as much as possible and are also suitable for efficient similarity calculation. As we describe in Koopman et al. (Proceedings of ISSI 2015 Istanbul: 15th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, 29 June to 3 July, 2015. Bogazici University Printhouse. http://www.issi2015.org/files/downloads/all-papers/1042.pdf, 2015), the metadata of articles in the Astro dataset contribute to a semantic matrix, which uses a vector space to capture the semantics of entities derived from these articles and consequently supports the contextual exploration of these entities in LittleAriadne. However, this semantic matrix does not allow to calculate similarities between articles directly. In this paper, we will describe in detail how we build a semantic representation for an article from the entities that are associated with it. Base on such semantic representations of articles, we apply two standard clustering methods, K-Means and the Louvain community detection algorithm, which leads to our two clustering solutions labelled as OCLC-31 (standing for K-Means) and OCLC-Louvain (standing for Louvain). In this paper, we will give the implementation details and a basic comparison with other clustering solutions that are reported in this special issue.
More constructions for Boolean algebras

We construct Boolean algebras with prescribed behaviour concerning depth for the free product of two Boolean algebras over a third, in ZFC using pcf; assuming squares we get results on ultraproducts. We also deal with the family of cardinalities and topological density of homomorphic images of Boolean algebras (you can translate it to topology - on the cardinalities of closed subspaces); and lastly we deal with inequalities between cardinal invariants, mainly \(\).
Paradox of plenty : a social history of eating in modern America

A sweeping social history of food and eating in America, exploring the economic, political, and cultural factors that have shaped the American diet from 1930 to the present. This book is intended for those interested in US food habits and diets during the 20th century, American history, American social life and customs.
INPATIENT DISLOCATION AFTER PRIMARY TOTAL HIP ARTHROPLASTY

Background Inpatient dislocation after total hip arthroplasty (THA) is considered a non-reimbursable “never event” by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. There is extensive evidence that technical procedural factors affect dislocation risk, but less is known about the influence of non-technical factors. We evaluated inpatient dislocation trends following elective primary THA, and identified patient and hospital characteristics associated with the occurrence of dislocation. Methods We used discharge records from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (2002–2011). Temporal trends were assessed and multivariable logistic regression modeling was used to identify factors associated with dislocation. Results The in-hospital dislocation rate increased from 0.025% in 2002 to 0.15% in 2011, despite a downward trend in length of stay ( P <0.001). Patient characteristics associated with the occurrence of dislocation were black or Hispanic race/ethnicity, lower household income, and Medicaid insurance. Comorbidities associated with dislocation included hemiparesis/hemiplegia, drug use disorder, chronic renal failure, psychosis, and obesity. Dislocations were less likely to occur at teaching hospitals and in the South. Conclusion The in-hospital dislocation rate following elective primary THA is increasing, in spite of shorter stays and surgical advances over time. Given the sociodemographic disparities in dislocation risk documented herein, interventions to address social determinants of health might do as much or more to reduce the occurrence of dislocation than technical improvements.
Three-dimensional Free-Lagrange hydrodynamics

Abstract This paper presents a description of a three-dimensional Free-Lagrange code. The Free-Lagrange Method (FLM) is characterized by a global connectivity matrix that describes the “nearest” neighbor connections between the Lagrangian mass points. The nearest neighbor connectivity is dynamic with respect to time, so it must be constructed at time equal 0.0 and maintained thereafter. The code described in this paper explicitly integrates the 3-D fluid equations in time and space. Spatial derivatives are derived from area and volume weighted averages of quantities over the set of “nearest” neighbors for each point. The global connectivity matrix is maintained (and constructed) with a Voronoi mesh construction algorithm, where each pair of nearest neighbors are separated by a perpendicular bisecting plane. The spatial integration algorithm uses the Voronoi polyhedron as the integration control volume, but as discussed the median polyhedron will be used as the integration control volume in the future.
Pre-hospital midazolam for benzodiazepine-treated seizures before and after the Rapid Anticonvulsant Medication Prior to Arrival Trial: A national observational cohort study.

Background Implementation of evidence-based treatment for pre-hospital status epilepticus can improve outcomes. We hypothesized that publication of a pivotal pre-hospital clinical trial (RAMPART), demonstrating superiority of intramuscular midazolam over intravenous lorazepam, altered the national utilization rates of midazolam for pre-hospital benzodiazepine-treated seizures, while upholding its safety and efficacy outside the trial setting. Methods and findings This is a retrospective, observational cohort study of pre-hospital patient encounters throughout the United States in the National Emergency Medicine Services Information System database, from January 2010 through December 2014. We compared the rates and odds of midazolam use as first-line treatment among all adult and pediatric benzodiazepine-treated seizures before and after RAMPART publication (February 2012). Secondary analyses were conducted for rates of airway interventions and rescue therapy, as proxies for safety and efficacy of seizure termination. 156,539 benzodiazepine-treated seizures were identified. Midazolam use increased from 26.1% in January 2010 to 61.7% in December 2014 (difference +35.6%, 95% CI, 32.7%-38.4%). The annual rate of midazolam adoption increased significantly from 5.9% per year to 8.9% per year after the publication of RAMPART (difference +3.0% per year; 95%CI, 1.6%-4.5% per year; adjusted OR 1.24; 95%CI, 1.17-1.32). Overall frequency of rescue therapy and airway interventions changed little after the publication of RAMPART. Conclusions These data are consistent with effective, ongoing, but incomplete clinical translation of the RAMPART results. The effects of the trial, however, cannot be isolated. The study was limited by broad inclusion of all benzodiazepine-treated seizures as well as a lack of information on route of drug of administration. The safety and effectiveness of midazolam for benzodiazepine-treated seizures in prehospital clinical practice appear consistent with trial data, which should encourage continuing increases in utilization.
Identifying useful statistical indicators of proximity to instability in stochastic power systems

Prior research has shown that autocorrelation and variance in voltage measurements tend to increase as power systems approach instability. This paper seeks to identify the conditions under which these statistical indicators provide reliable early warning of instability in power systems. First, the paper derives and validates a semi analytical method for quickly calculating the expected variance and autocorrelation of all voltages and currents in an arbitrary power system model. Building on this approach, the paper describes the conditions under which filtering can be used to detect these signs in the presence of measurement noise. Finally, several experiments show which types of measurements are good indicators of proximity to instability for particular types of state changes. For example, increased variance in voltages can reliably indicate both proximity to a bifurcation and the location of increased stress. On the other hand, growth of autocorrelation in certain line currents is related less to a specific location of stress but, rather, is a reliable indicator of stress occurring somewhere in the system; in particular, it would be a clear indicator of approaching instability when many nodes in an area are under stress.
Constructing strategies in the indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma game

Abstract We propose a new approach for running lab experiments on indefinitely repeated games with high continuation probability. This approach has two main advantages. First, it allows us to run multiple long repeated games per session. Second, it allows us to incorporate the strategy method with minimal restrictions on the set of pure strategies that can be implemented. This gives us insight into what happens in long repeated games and into the types of strategies that subjects construct. We report results obtained from the indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma with a continuation probability of δ = . 95 . We find that during such long repeated prisoner’s dilemma games, cooperation drops from the first period of a supergame to the last period of a supergame. When analyzing strategies, we find that subjects rely on strategies similar to those found in the literature on shorter repeated games—specifically Tit-For-Tat, Grim Trigger, and Always Defect. However, we also identify features of strategies that depend on more than just the previous period that are responsible for the drop in cooperation within supergames, but that may be overlooked when using the common strategy frequency estimation approach.
Outward Influence and Cascade Size Estimation in Billion-scale Networks

Estimating cascade size and nodes' influence is a fundamental task in social, technological, and biological networks. Yet this task is extremely challenging due to the sheer size and the structural heterogeneity of networks. We investigate a new influence measure, termed outward influence (OI), defined as the (expected) number of nodes that a subset of nodes S will activate, excluding the nodes in S. Thus, OI equals, the de facto standard measure, influence spread of S minus |S|. OI is not only more informative for nodes with small influence, but also, critical in designing new effective sampling and statistical estimation methods. Based on OI, we propose SIEA/SOIEA, novel methods to estimate influence spread/outward influence at scale and with rigorous theoretical guarantees. The proposed methods are built on two novel components 1) IICP an important sampling method for outward influence; and 2) RSA, a robust mean estimation method that minimize the number of samples through analyzing variance and range of random variables. Compared to the state-of-the art for influence estimation, SIEA is Ω(log4 n) times faster in theory and up to several orders of magnitude faster in practice. For the first time, influence of nodes in the networks of billions of edges can be estimated with high accuracy within a few minutes. Our comprehensive experiments on real-world networks also give evidence against the popular practice of using a fixed number, e.g. 10K or 20K, of samples to compute the ``ground truth'' for influence spread.
Receipt-freeness and coercion resistance in remote E-voting systems

Remote electronic voting (E-voting) is a more convenient and efficient methodology when compared with traditional voting systems. It allows voters to vote for candidates remotely, however, remote E-voting systems have not yet been widely deployed in practical elections due to several potential security issues, such as vote-privacy, robustness and verifiability. Attackers' targets can be either voting machines or voters. In this paper, we mainly focus on three important security properties related to voters: receipt-freeness, vote-selling resistance, and voter-coercion resistance. In such scenarios, voters are willing or forced to cooperate with attackers. We provide a survey of existing remote E-voting systems, to see whether or not they are able to satisfy these three properties to avoid corresponding attacks. Furthermore, we identify and summarise what mechanisms they use in order to satisfy these three security properties.
Designing pairwise interactions that stabilize open crystals: Truncated square and truncated hexagonal lattices

Using a recently introduced formulation of the ground-state inverse design problem for a targeted lattice [W. Pineros et al., J. Chem. Phys. 144, 084502 (2016)], we discover purely repulsive and isotropic pair interactions that stabilize low-density truncated square and truncated hexagonal crystals, as well as promote their assembly in Monte Carlo simulations upon isochoric cooling from a high-temperature fluid phase. The results illustrate that the primary challenge to stabilizing very open two-dimensional lattices is to design interactions that can favor the target structure over competing stripe microphases.
The anatomy of a wrinkle ridge revealed in the wall of Melas Chasma, Mars

Wrinkle ridges are among the most common tectonic structures on the terrestrial planets, and provide important records of the history of planetary strain and geodynamics. The observed broad arches and superposed narrow wrinkles are thought to be the surface manifestation of blind thrust faults, which terminate in near-surface volcanic sequences and cause folding and layer-parallel shear. However, the subsurface tectonic architecture associated with the ridges remains a matter of debate. Here we present direct observations of a wrinkle ridge thrust fault where it has been exposed by erosion in the southern wall of Melas Chasma on Mars. The thrust fault has been made resistant to erosion, likely due to volcanic intrusion, such that later erosional widening of the trough exposed the fault plane as a 70 km-long ridge extending into the chasma. A plane fit to this ridge crest reveals a thrust fault with a dip of 13° (+8°, -7°) between 1 and 3.5 km depth below the plateau surface, with no evidence for listric character in this depth range. This dip is significantly lower than the commonly assumed value of 30°, which, if representative of other wrinkle ridges, indicates that global contraction on Mars may have been previously underestimated.
Surface roughness of Saturn’s rings and ring particles inferred from thermal phase curves

Abstract We analyze thermal phase curves of all the main rings of Saturn (the A, B, C rings, and the Cassini division) measured by both the far-IR and mid-IR detectors of the Cassini Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS). All the rings show temperature increases toward zero phase angle, known as an opposition effect or thermal beaming. For the C ring and Cassini division, which have low optical depths, intra-particle shadowing is considered the dominant mechanism causing the effect. On the other hand, the phase curves of the optically thick B and A rings steepen significantly with decreasing absolute solar elevation angle from 21° to 14°, suggesting inter-particle shadowing plays an important role in these rings. We employ an analytic roughness model to estimate the degrees of surface roughness of the rings or ring particles. For optically thin rings, an isolated particle covered by spherical segment craters is employed while for the thick rings we approximate a packed particle layer as a slab covered by craters. The particles in the thin rings are found to have generally rough surfaces, except in the middle C ring. Across the C ring, the optical depth correlates with the degree of surface roughness. This may indicate that surface roughness comes mainly from particle clumping, while individual particles have rather smooth surfaces. For the optically thick rings, the surface roughness of the particle layer is found to be moderate. The modeled phase curves of optically thick rings are shallow if the phase angle change is primarily due to change of observer azimuthal angle. On the other hand, the phase curves are steep if the phase angle change is due to change of observer elevation angle, as inter-particle shadows become visible at higher observer elevation. In addition, the area of shadowed facets increases with decreasing solar elevation angle. These combined effects explain the large seasonal change of the phase curve steepness observed for the thick rings. The degrees of surface roughness inferred from the thermal phase curves are generally less than those from the phase curves in visible light. This is probably explained by different roughness scales seen in thermal and visible light or by dilution of thermal phase curve steepnesses due to particle motion.
The Singularity of Social Entrepreneurship: Untangling its Uniqueness and Market Function:

Social entrepreneurship is an activity that is receiving intense scrutiny from scholars, practitioners and policymakers. However, research is only beginning to explore the unique function social en...
Nuclear structure studies of medium-mass nuclei using large Ge arrays

Abstract The advent of large Ge arrays and their ancillary detectors has greatly advanced spectroscopic studies of the medium-mass nuclei. These nuclei undergo rapid shape changes as a function of spin, excitation energy and particle number and, thus, provide a unique laboratory to test and refine a variety of theoretical models. Following a brief review of the physics motivation, some of the highlights of the experimental results obtained with the help of these powerful detector systems will be discussed. Among results presented here are the newly-discovered island of superdeformation in the A∼80 mass region, and the high-spin band structures in the N ∼ Z nuclei. These band structures may be understood in the framework of the conventional cranking models, without the introduction of additional T=0 neutron-proton pairing correlations.
Are We Suffering from an Undiagnosed Health Right

“[T]he assumption that rights are in this sense natural is simply one assumption to be made and examined for its power to unite and explain our political convictions, one basic programmatic decisio...
Modeling Persistent Trends in Distributions

AbstractWe present a nonparametric framework to model a short sequence of probability distributions that vary both due to underlying effects of sequential progression and confounding noise. To distinguish between these two types of variation and estimate the sequential-progression effects, our approach leverages an assumption that these effects follow a persistent trend. This work is motivated by the recent rise of single-cell RNA-sequencing experiments over a brief time course, which aim to identify genes relevant to the progression of a particular biological process across diverse cell populations. While classical statistical tools focus on scalar-response regression or order-agnostic differences between distributions, it is desirable in this setting to consider both the full distributions as well as the structure imposed by their ordering. We introduce a new regression model for ordinal covariates where responses are univariate distributions and the underlying relationship reflects consistent changes i...
A novel network allocation scheme in wireless mobile networks

A novel network allocation scheme of wireless mobile communications networks is investigated in this paper. We study the handoff rates of calls from one cell to another and obtain the blocking probabilities for new calls and handoff calls. Actual call connection time (ACCT) of a call is investigated, which is the total time a mobile user engaged in communications over a wireless network during a call connection and can be used to design appropriate charging schemes. Our numerical results show that how these measures depend on the new call arrival rate with specific reserved channels for handoff calls in each cell. These results are expected to be useful for the cost analysis for updating location and paging in wireless mobile network.
High-Resolution Sonography of Scrotal Contents in Asymptomatic Subjects

Forty male volunteers with no known intrascrotal pathology by history and physical examination were scanned with a 10-MHz dedicated superficial-parts scanner. Sonographic features of intrascrotal anatomy were reviewed. The testes appeared homogeneous in texture and occasionally contained cysts (8%). The echogenic head of the epididymis, although variable in size and shape, was consistently imaged. Epididymal cystic structures (29%) and calcifications (3%) were occasionally seen. The amount of peritesticular fluid, presence of variococeles , and range of scrotal skin thickness were also noted. An understanding of intrascrotal anatomy in asymptomatic subjects can provide a baseline for the evaluation of the symptomatic scrotum.
SPIRE: Scalable and Unified Platform for Real World IoT Services with Feature Interaction.

The real world services (RWSs) which affect the real world through the deployed actuators are essential in the IoT environment. These services have possibility to occur a conflict with other services, i.e., feature interaction (FI), because they have to share the same actual device and/or same field. Smart Shadow System (S3) had been proposed to provide RWSs and dynamic detection of FIs by introducing the distributed agents of real world elements. However, the S3 model lacks the scalability required to handle a lot of RWSs to satisfy the various needs in the real world. Moreover, the responsibility of each agent, the roles of stakeholders and the relationships between RWS and FI are ambiguous. Therefore, a scalable platform for intelligent and reciprocal environment (SPIRE) framework, which clarifies the roles and responsibilities of each agent and divides part of agents in the parent-child structure, is proposed in this paper. The experimental system was developed with the actual RWSs in a smart house. The preliminary experimental results show that the proposed framework is feasible and the load for RWS could be suppressed within the responsible agent that is inadequate to achieve the scalability.
A Microagglutination Test for Human Brucella Canis Antibodies

A microagglutination test for the detection of Brucella canis antibodies in humans is described. The use of safranin-dyed B. canis organisms as antigen gave easily interpretable settling patterns and reproducible endpoints. The finding of 18 of 1,147 sera with titers ≥ 1:160 resulted in a presumed false-positive rate of 1.6%. Repeat testing of these positive sera in diluent to which 0.6 M NaCI had been added showed a decrease in titer to ≤1:40 in eight. Conversely, the increased salt concentration permitted detection of blocking antibodies in two sera which were originally thought to be negative. The test provided serologic evidence for B. canis infection in four patients with otherwise undiagnosed febrile illness. The disease is underdiagnosed due to general lack of serologic testing facilities and misconceptions concerning its prevalence
Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome in a Pregnant Patient With a Pheochromocytoma

Five weeks after developing spells of shortness of breath, headache, weakness and abdominal pain, a 29-year-old woman, who was in the 36th week of her third pregnancy developed adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Although the ARDS resolved after a cesarean section, her infant died at birth. Her "spells" continued until a left pheochromocytoma was diagnosed and resected 2 years later. If there are no other known inciting causes of ARDS in a pregnant patient, a pheochromocytoma should be ruled out with appropriate catecholamine determinations.
The Technique of Major Amputations for Malignant Tumors

Major amputations for malignant tumors have declined in incidence due to limb salvage procedures using combinations of modalities. For extensive malignant growths, amputations are still necessary and life-saving operations. Familiarity with the anatomy and technique involved is important. In the following, technical details related to these operations and their variants are provided.
Prune Belly Syndrome and Retroperitoneal Germ Cell Tumor

The prune belly syndrome is a congenital set of anomalies that includes cryptorchidism. Despite the known risk of testicular tumors in cryptorchid testes, what may be the first case of a germ cell tumor complicating the prune belly syndrome is described herein.
The Milk-Alkali Syndrome: Current Concepts

Abstract The milk-alkali syndrome was first identified in 1923, and continues to occur in patients ingesting large amounts of calcium and absorbable alkali, particularly as calcium carbonate. Hyper...
Perioperative Management of Patient With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

There have been many changes in the prevention and therapy of postoperative pulmonary complications in the patient with COPD. Attention to patient analgesia and maintaining lung volumes are the keys to prevention. Recent advances in the therapy of bronchospasm are decreasing side effects and increasing success.
Endogenous search, price dispersion, and welfare

Abstract This paper studies the welfare cost of inflation in a frictional monetary economy with endogenous consumer search. Equilibrium entails price dispersion, where sellers compete for buyers by posting prices. We identify three channels through which inflation affects welfare. The real balance channel is the source of welfare loss. Its interaction with the price posting channel generates a welfare cost larger than Lucas (2000) . The search channel reduces the welfare cost by more than one half through general equilibrium effect. The aggregate effect of these three channels on welfare is non-monotonic. Additionally, the welfare cost of inflation fluctuations is negligible.
T2SOLV: an enhanced package of solvers for the TOUGH2 family of reservoir simulation codes

T2SOLV is an enhanced package of matrix solvers for the TOUGH2 family of codes. T2SOLV includes all the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) solvers used in T2CG1, the current solver package, as well as LUBAND, a new direct solver and DLUSTB, a PCG solver based which implements the BiCGSTAB(m) method. LUBAND, the new direct solver, is faster, more reliable and capable of solving problems orders of magnitude larger than the MA28 routine which it replaces. A significant capability of T2VOC is two types of matrix preprocessing, which make possible the solution of a class of challenging numerical problems (previously tractable only with direct solvers) using the PCG routines. For regular grids, the size of problems tractable with direct solvers is doubled by implementing a D4 alternative diagonal gridblock ordering option.
Comprehensive Developmental Education Reform in Florida: A Policy Implementation Typology

This study identified the policy perspectives of “street-level bureaucrats” in higher education (in this case, community college personnel) and linked them to a typology of 4 policy implementation ...
Stabilization and Performance Preservation of DC–DC Cascaded Systems by Diminishing Output Impedance Magnitude

DC–DC cascaded systems are vulnerable to instability and dynamic performance deterioration. These problems arise due to the nonideality in the source converter output impedance and to the negative input impedance of the load converter. Any overlap in magnitude between these two impedances will destabilize the voltage at the dc bus. Thus, we introduce a method to diminish the magnitude of source-converter output impedance such that the source converter will act as an ideal voltage source. As a consequence, the dynamic performance of the source and load converters will be intact, leading to ensuring the bus voltage stability. In addition, the controller is independent of the number of converters that form the load subsystem. To validate the proposed method, an experimental cascaded system was analyzed, simulated, and experimentally tested. Collectively, all of the outcomes proved the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Anti-diabetic drug binding site in a mammalian KATP channel revealed by Cryo-EM.

Sulfonylureas are anti-diabetic medications that act by inhibiting pancreatic KATP channels composed of SUR1 and Kir6.2. The mechanism by which these drugs interact with and inhibit the channel has been extensively investigated, yet it remains unclear where the drug binding pocket resides. Here, we present a cryo-EM structure of a hamster SUR1/rat Kir6.2 channel bound to a high-affinity sulfonylurea drug glibenclamide and ATP at 3.63 A resolution, which reveals unprecedented details of the ATP and glibenclamide binding sites. Importantly, the structure shows for the first time that glibenclamide is lodged in the transmembrane bundle of the SUR1-ABC core connected to the first nucleotide binding domain near the inner leaflet of the lipid bilayer. Mutation of residues predicted to interact with glibenclamide in our model led to reduced sensitivity to glibenclamide. Our structure provides novel mechanistic insights of how sulfonylureas and ATP interact with the KATP channel complex to inhibit channel activity.
Range-Dependent Seismo-Acoustic Propagation in the Marginal Ice Zone

Single-scattering operators are used to extend the seismo-acoustic parabolic equation to problems involving transitions between areas with and without ice cover, which are common in the marginal ice zone. Gradual transitions are handled with single-scattering operators for sloping fluid–solid interfaces. Sudden transitions, which may occur when the ice fractures and drifts, are handled with a single-scattering operator that conserves normal displacement and tangential stress across the vertical interfaces between the range-independent regions that are used to approximate a range-dependent environment. The approach is tested by making comparisons with a finite-element model for problems involving range-dependent features in the ice cover and in a sediment that supports shear waves.