cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Predicting individual performance in student project teams

Due to the critical role of communication in project teams, capturing and analyzing developer design notes and conversations for use as performance predictors is becoming increasing important as software development processes become more asynchronous. Current prediction methods require human Subject Matter Experts (SME) to laboriously examine and rank user content along various categories such as participation and the information they express. SEREBRO is an integrated courseware tool that captures social and development artifacts automatically and provides real time rewards, in the form of badges and titles, indicating a user's progress towards predefined goals using a variety of automated assessment measures. The tool allows for instructor visualization, involvement, and feedback in the ongoing projects and provides avenues for the instructor to adapt or adjust project scope or individual role assignments based on past or current individual performance levels. This paper evaluates and compares the use of two automated SEREBRO measures with SME content-based analysis and work product grades as predictors of individual performance. Data is collected from undergraduate software engineering teams using SEREBRO, whose automated measures of content and contribution perform as well as SME ratings and grades to suggest individual performance can be predicted in real-time.
Numerical modeling of glass flow and spin-on planarization

A model for the flow of phosphosilicate glass (PSG) and borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG) has been developed and integrated into the SAMPLE process simulation program. The physical basis of the model is the deformation of the glass in such a way as to decrease the surface free energy; the kinetics of the deformation are assumed to be controlled by a surface diffusion process. The model is applicable to 2-D and quasi-3-D (cylindrically symmetric) structures. In addition, a related model has been developed for spin-on glass, polyimide, and photoresist. The theory of these models is discussed, and examples of simulations using these models are presented. >
Mechanical Properties of α-Helices Estimated Using Molecular Dynamics and Finite Element Simulations

Mechanical properties of biomolecules and their response to mechanical forces may be studied using Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. However, high computational cost is a primary drawback of MD simulations. This paper presents a computational framework based on the integration of the Finite Element Method (FEM) with MD simulations to calculate the mechanical properties of polyalanine α-helix proteins. In this method, proteins are treated as continuum elastic solids with molecular volume defined exclusively by their atomic surface. Therefore, all solid mechanics theories would be applicable for the presumed elastic media. All-atom normal mode analysis is used to calculate protein’s elastic stiffness as input to the FEM. In addition, constant force molecular dynamics (CFMD) simulations can be used to predict other effective mechanical properties, such as the Poisson’s Ratio. Force versus strain data help elucidate the mechanical behavior of α-helices upon application of constant load. The proposed method may be useful in identifying the mechanical properties of any protein or protein assembly with known atomic structure.Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Robotic Rehabilitation Therapy

The demand for rehabilitation services is growing apace with the graying of the population, with the number of senior citizens 65 years of age and older projected to increase by 88% in the coming years. With this increase in the number of senior citizens comes increased incidence of age-related pathologies including cerebral vascular accident (stroke). This situation creates both a need and an opportunity to deploy technologies such as robotics to assist recovery. In this chapter, the authors focus on the use of robotics to aid recovery after stroke, but the knowledge and know-how may apply similarly to other diseases and afflictions. The authors focus solely on robots that support and enhance the productivity of clinicians in their efforts to facilitate a disabled individual's recovery. An overview of existing rehabilitation robots for the upper and lower extremity, of technology limitations, of design choices, and of clinical results is presented. The focus of the remainder of the chapter is on clinical results and on the biology of neuro-recovery. This new class of interactive robotic devices, together with the understanding of its potentials and limitations, are poised to strongly influence how rehabilitation medicine will be practiced in the twenty-first century. Keywords: therapeutic robotics; robot assisted therapy; neuro-rehabilitation; movement training; stroke
Simultaneous Catabolism of Plant-Derived Aromatic Compounds Results in Enhanced Growth for Members of the Roseobacter Lineage

Plant-derived aromatic compounds are important components of the dissolved organic carbon pool in coastal salt marshes, and their mineralization by resident bacteria contributes to carbon cycling in these systems. Members of the roseobacter lineage of marine bacteria are abundant in coastal salt marshes, and several characterized strains, including Sagittula stellata E-37, utilize aromatic compounds as primary growth substrates. The genome sequence of S. stellata contains multiple, potentially competing, aerobic ring-cleaving pathways. Preferential hierarchies in substrate utilization and complex transcriptional regulation have been demonstrated to be the norm in many soil bacteria that also contain multiple ring-cleaving pathways. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether substrate preference exists in S. stellata when the organism is provided a mixture of aromatic compounds that proceed through different ring-cleaving pathways. We focused on the protocatechuate (pca) and the aerobic benzoyl coenzyme A (box) pathways and the substrates known to proceed through them, p-hydroxybenzoate (POB) and benzoate, respectively. When these two substrates were provided at nonlimiting carbon concentrations, temporal patterns of cell density, gene transcript abundance, enzyme activity, and substrate concentrations indicated that S. stellata simultaneously catabolized both substrates. Furthermore, enhanced growth rates were observed when S. stellata was provided both compounds simultaneously compared to the rates of cells grown singly with an equimolar concentration of either substrate alone. This simultaneous-catabolism phenotype was also demonstrated in another lineage member, Ruegeria pomeroyi DSS-3. These findings challenge the paradigm of sequential aromatic catabolism reported for soil bacteria and contribute to the growing body of physiological evidence demonstrating the metabolic versatility of roseobacters.
Motor Skill Acquisition

INTRODUCTION ......... .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ... . . . . .... 2 1 3 A GENERAL LAW O F MOTOR LEARNING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 5 Motor Learning a s a Power Law..... .... ... . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . ....... 2 1 6 The Power Law-A Special Case of Motor Learning? ...... . . .. .. 217 WHAT IS LEARNED WITH PRACTICE . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 9 One-To-One Recall-Recognition Processes ... 2 1 9 Schema Representation o f Action 221 Problems with Prescriptive Accounts of Motor Learning .. . . . 223 Motor Skill Acquisition as a Search Strategy 224 INFORMATION AND MOTOR SKILL ACQUISITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Information as a Prescription 226 Information as Feedback.. .. .. . ...... . .. . ....... . . ... . . .... .. . . . .... ....... 227 Information to Channel the Search ... ... 231 CONCLUDING REMARKS .. . .. .. ...... 233
Low oxygen tension and autologous plasma enhance T-cell proliferation and CD49d expression density in serum-free media.

Background As cellular immunotherapy with ex vivo expanded cells becomes more widely used to treat a variety of illnesses, optimization of culture parameters, to maximize cell production and function, is essential for continued success. The effects of reduced oxygen tension and autologous plasma on T-cell expansion, receptor expression, apoptosis, and cytolytic activity in serum-free media were investigated. Methods PBMCs derived from whole blood samples were activated with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 MAb in serum-free (AIM V) medium containing IL-2, and maintained at 5% and 20% oxygen tension. In some cases cultures were supplemented with 2% autologous plasma. Results Low oxygen enhanced T-cell expansion 13- and 4.8-fold in serum-free and plasma-supplemented media, respectively. Autologous plasma also had a beneficial effect on T-cell cultures. Plasma-supplemented cultures expanded 74-fold more than serum-free cultures at low oxygen tension, and 43-fold more at high oxygen tension. Several samples expanded very poorly under serum-free conditions, and reasonable cell numbers were obtained only from plasma-supplemented cultures. CD49d expression density increased 3-fold to 4-fold in cultures supplemented with plasma. In contrast to our previous findings in serum-containing media, IL-2 receptor expression kinetics were unaffected by oxygen tension. No effects caused by oxygen tension or autologous plasma on expression of other surface antigens (CD4, CD8, CD44, CD95) were observed.
Testing synaptic plasticity in dynamic mate choice decisions: N-methyl d-aspartate receptor blockade disrupts female preference

Social behaviours such as mate choice require context-specific responses, often with evolutionary consequences. Increasing evidence indicates that the behavioural plasticity associated with mate choice involves learning. For example, poeciliids show age-dependent changes in female preference functions and express synaptic-plasticity-associated molecular markers during mate choice. Here, we test whether social cognition is necessary for female preference behaviour by blocking the central player in synaptic plasticity, NMDAR (N-methyl d-aspartate receptor), in a poeciliid fish, Xiphophorus nigrensis. After subchronic exposure to NMDAR antagonist MK-801, female preference behaviours towards males were dramatically reduced. Overall activity levels were unaffected, but there was a directional shift from ‘social’ behaviours towards neutral activity. Multivariate gene expression patterns significantly discriminated between females with normal versus disrupted plasticity processes and correlated with preference behaviours—not general activity. Furthermore, molecular patterns support a distinction between ‘preference’ (e.g. neuroserpin, neuroligin-3, NMDAR) and ‘sociality’ (isotocin and vasotocin) gene clusters, highlighting a possible conservation between NMDAR disruption and nonapeptides in modulating behaviour. Our results suggest that mate preference may involve greater social memory processing than overall sociality, and that poeciliid preference functions integrate synaptic-plasticity-oriented ‘preference’ pathways with overall sociality to invoke dynamic, context-specific responses towards favoured males and away from unfavoured males.
Infectivity and reconstitution of TMV RNA modified with N-acetoxy-2-acetylaminofluorene or benzo[a] pyrene 7,8-dihydrodiol 9,10 oxide

TMV RNA was modified by two bulky carcinogens, N-acetoxy-2-acetylamino-fluorene (AAAF) and (+/-)-7beta, 8alpha- dihydroxy-9alpha, 10alpha-epoxy-7,8,9,10-tetrahydrobenzo[alpha]pyrene (BPDE), and the effects of such substituents on biological and physical properties was studied. For both types of modification, the loss of infectivity was directly proportional to the number of chemical modifications indicating that all modifications are lethal. Neither AAAF nor BPDE produced measurable mutations. Reconstitution of modified RNA with TMV protein was partially inhibited, but such inhibition occurred to similar extents with either carcinogen and a varying levels of modification. The data suggest that both types of substitution of TMV RNA generally permit the TMV coat protein to aggregate normally around the RNA, but that AAAF and BPDE may induce some conformational change in the initiation region that inhibits the initiation step.
Addition of Dimethyl Sulfoxide to Chick Rations

Abstract Interest in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)2 as a chemotherapeutic agent has been noted by Jacob et al. (1964). Possible medical uses cited for DMSO were: penetrant carrier, local analgesic agent, anti-inflammatory adjunct, bacteriostatic agent, diuretic, tranquilizer and potentiator of other compounds. Narula (1964) has observed increased body weights when DMSO was added to the water of rats fed diets high in carbohydrates and fat but no stimulatory effect from DMSO was observed on a standard stock diet and, in fact, with a high protein diet decreased body weights were obtained. As a result, a number of experiments have been conducted in this laboratory using DMSO as a dietary supplement to ascertain if growth stimulatory properties are evident for chicks. One of these experiments is reported here. Duplicate lots of 12 Vantress × Cobb White Rock chicks equalized for sex were fed the levels of DMSO shown in Table 1. The chicks…
Fine-Scale Intertidal Distribution and Recruitment Patterns of the Gumboot Chiton Cryptochiton stelleri (Polyplacophora: Mopaliidae)

ABSTRACT The gumboot chiton Cryptochiton stelleri Middendorff, 1847, is the largest intertidal invertebrate herbivore in the northeast Pacific, but little is known about the fine-scale distribution of this species within its range. In this study, extensive intertidal surveys were used to determine the distribution of C. stelleri within six rocky intertidal sites on the southern coast of Oregon, USA, and found that gumboot chitons show a patchy and clumped distribution. At all six sites, individuals were found at highest densities within small coves, and small specimens (< 15 cm long) were found almost exclusively in sea urchin pits. Age-frequency histograms were created for populations of C. stelleri at all six sites and showed sporadic cohort success, likely as a result of sporadic recruitment. Successful cohorts were indicated by peaks in the age-frequency histograms and were compared between sites in order to determine whether or not successful cohorts occurred at the same time at all sites. There was ...
Maximum resiliency as a determinant of food web behavior

Ecologists have hypothesized for many years that the evolution of biological systems is driven by fundamental principles or forces. Lotka [1], for example, argued, “The first effect of natural selection thus operating upon competing species will be to give relative preponderence … to those most efficient in guiding available energy … The result … is not a mere diversion of the energy flux through the system of organic nature along a new path, but an increase of the total flux through that system … This may be expressed by saying that natural selection tends to make the energy flux through the system a maximum, so far as compatible with the constraints to which the system is subject.”
Differences in parental perceptions of the socio-emotional development of underweight, overweight, and typically weighted children in a low-income sample.

Overweight during early childhood has become a major concern in the US, especially as there has been an increase across races, socioeconomic class, and ages. Negative effects on children’s mental, ...
Prime-boost vaccination with heterologous live vectors encoding SIV gag and multimeric HIV-1 gp160 protein: efficacy against repeated mucosal R5 clade C SHIV challenges.

a b s t r a c t We sought to induce primate immunodeficiency virus-specific cellular and neutralizing antibody (nAb) responses in rhesus macaques (RM) through a bimodal vaccine approach. RM were immunized intra- gastrically (i.g.) with the live-attenuated Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) vector Lmdd-BdopSIVgag encoding SIVmac239 gag. SIV Gag-specific cellular responses were boosted by intranasal and intratracheal adminis- tration of replication-competent adenovirus (Ad5hr-SIVgag) encoding the same gag. To broaden antiviral immunity, the RM were immunized with multimeric HIV clade C (HIV-C) gp160 and HIV Tat. SIV Gag- specific cellular immune responses and HIV-1 nAb developed in some RM. The animals were challenged intrarectally with five low doses of R5 SHIV-1157ipEL-p, encoding a heterologous HIV-C Env (22.1% diver- gent to the Env immunogen). All five controls became viremic. One out of ten vaccinees was completely protected and another had low peak viremia. Sera from the completely and partially protected RM neu- tralized the challenge virus >90%; these RM also had strong SIV Gag-specific proliferation of CD8 + T cells. Peak and area under the curve of plasma viremia (during acute phase) among vaccinees was lower than for controls, but did not attain significance. The completely protected RM showed persistently low num- bers of the !4"7-expressing CD4 + T cells; the latter have been implicated as preferential virus targets in vivo. Thus, vaccine-induced immune responses and relatively lower numbers of potential target cells were associated with protection.
The Economic Costs of the Uninsured

This article highlights the May 3, 2000, policy forum on "The Economic Costs of the Uninsured," sponsored by Employee Benefit Research Institute Education and Research Fund (EBRI-ERF). Attended by about a hundred invited experts, the policy forum examined the research that has been done connecting health insurance status to the performance of the economy, and the implications for consumers, business, and government. Most Americans have health insurance protection, but for more than a decade the proportion of nonelderly Americans without health insurance has been steadily creeping up. Today, some 44 million people in the United States - 18.4 percent of those under 65 - do not have insurance coverage to pay for their health care. But it is widely recognized that people without health insurance still receive health care. The uninsured are not staying out of the health care system; rather, they are receiving higher-cost medical care (through emergency room visits), and they are forcing others to pay for their health care. Economists say these costs are picked up in various ways: by businesses and their employees, in the form of higher premiums for their insurance; by workers, in the form of taxes; and by all Americans, in the form of an opportunity cost in lost value to the U.S. economy. Employers in both the private and public sectors are the dominant source of health insurance for nonelderly individuals in the United States, providing coverage for nearly two-thirds of this under age 65 population in 1998. But increasingly, the uninsured are being viewed as a challenge to and criticism of the employment-based health care system in this country - not just because the ranks of the uninsured are growing, but also because roughly 85 percent of the 44 million uninsured Americans are in a family with a working adult. As a result, many critics see the employment-based health insurance system as a failure, and are calling for it to be replaced with an individual-based system. However, even an individual-based system would not change the reality that health insurance in the United States is voluntary. Employers are not legally required to provide coverage to their workers, and individuals are not legally required to maintain coverage. In this kind of system, some segments of the working population will have coverage, while others will not. In addition, it is often overlooked that there are effectively two employment-based health insurance systems - one for small employers (where coverage rates are low) and one for large employers (where coverage rates are high). Mandated solutions are not as simple as they might seem, as indicated by experience in the states concerning noncompliance with income tax, driver's license registration, or automobile insurance. The PDF for the above title, published in the August 2000 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another August 2000 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: "Recent Evidence on Pension Coverage and Sponsorship, by Employer Size and Industry."
Lindfors, Bernth Early African Entertainments Abroad: From the Hottentot Venus to Africa's First Olympians Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 248 pp., $29.95 ISBN 978-029930164 Publication Date: November 2014

On May 26, 1853, Charles Dickens went to see what would become one of the most popular shows that summer in London: an exhibition of thirteen Zulus at St. George's Gallery at Hyde Park Corner. The ...
Implicit learning and implicit treatment outcomes in individuals with aphasia

ABSTRACTBackground: Implicit learning is a process of learning that occurs outside of conscious awareness and may be involved in implicit, exposure-based language training. However, research shows that implicit learning abilities are variable among individuals with aphasia, and it remains unknown whether individuals who show basic implicit learning abilities also benefit from implicit language training.Aims: The aims of this series of experiments were to test implicit learning in individuals with agrammatic aphasia, examine the effects of a novel implicit language treatment, and investigate whether individuals with aphasia who show implicit learning ability also benefit from implicit treatment focused on passive sentence comprehension.Methods & Procedures: Nine participants with chronic agrammatic aphasia and 21 neurologically intact participants completed a visuomotor serial reaction time test of implicit learning (Experiment 1). The participants with aphasia also completed a short-term novel implicit se...
Longitudinal displacement in viscoelastic arteries: a novel fluid-structure interaction computational model, and experimental validation.

Recent in vivo studies, utilizing ultrasound contour and speckle tracking methods, have identified significant longitudinal displacements of the intima-media complex, and viscoelastic arterial wall properties over a cardiac cycle. Existing computational models that use thin structure approximations of arterial walls have so far been limited to models that capture only radial wall displacements. The purpose of this work is to present a simple fluid-struture interaction (FSI) model and a stable, partitioned numerical scheme, which capture both longitudinal and radial displacements, as well as viscoelastic arterial wall properties. To test the computational model, longitudinal displacement of the common carotid artery and of the stenosed coronary arteries were compared with experimental data found in literature, showing excellent agreement. We found that, unlike radial displacement, longitudinal displacement in stenotic lesions is highly dependent on the stenotic geometry. We also showed that longitudinal displacement in atherosclerotic arteries is smaller than in healthy arteries, which is in line with the recent in vivo measurements that associate plaque burden with reduced total longitudinal wall displacement. &nbsp This work presents a first step in understanding the role of longitudinal displacement in physiology and pathophysiology of arterial wall mechanics using computer simulations.
Ultrasonography in the emergency department

Point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) is a useful imaging technique for the emergency medicine (EM) physician. Because of its growing use in EM, this article will summarize the historical development, the scope of practice, and some evidence supporting the current applications of POCUS in the adult emergency department. Bedside ultrasonography in the emergency department shares clinical applications with critical care ultrasonography, including goal-directed echocardiography, echocardiography during cardiac arrest, thoracic ultrasonography, evaluation for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, screening abdominal ultrasonography, ultrasonography in trauma, and guidance of procedures with ultrasonography. Some applications of POCUS unique to the emergency department include abdominal ultrasonography of the right upper quadrant and appendix, obstetric, testicular, soft tissue/musculoskeletal, and ocular ultrasonography. Ultrasonography has become an integral part of EM over the past two decades, and it is an important skill which positively influences patient outcomes.
Chronic low-dose glutamate is toxic to retinal ganglion cells. Toxicity blocked by memantine.

PURPOSE It is well known that acute exposure to high concentrations of glutamate is toxic to central mammalian neurons. However, the effect of a chronic, minor elevation over endogenous glutamate levels has not been explored. The authors have suggested that such chronic exposure may play a role in glaucomatous neuronal loss. In the current study, they sought to explore whether a chronic, low-dose elevation in vitreal glutamate was toxic to retinal ganglion cells and whether this toxicity could be prevented with memantine, a glutamate antagonist. METHODS Rats were injected serially and intravitreally with glutamate to induce chronic elevations in glutamate concentration. A second group of rats was treated with intraperitoneal memantine and glutamate. Control groups received vehicle injection with or without concurrent memantine therapy. After 3 months, the animals were killed, and ganglion cell survival was evaluated. RESULTS Intravitreal injections raised the intravitreal glutamate levels from an endogenous range of 5 to 12 microM glutamate to 26 to 34 microM. This chronic glutamate elevation killed 42% of the retinal ganglion cells after 3 months. Memantine treatment alone had no effect on ganglion cell survival. However, when memantine was given concurrently with low-dose glutamate, memantine was partially protective against glutamate toxicity. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that minor elevations in glutamate concentration can be toxic to ganglion cells if this elevation is maintained for 3 months. Furthermore, memantine is efficacious at protecting ganglion cells from chronic low-dose glutamate toxicity.
Management of Mechanical Ventilation in Decompensated Heart Failure

Mechanical ventilation (MV) is a life-saving intervention for respiratory failure, including decompensated congestive heart failure. MV can reduce ventricular preload and afterload, decrease extra-vascular lung water, and decrease the work of breathing in heart failure. The advantages of positive pressure ventilation must be balanced with potential harm from MV: volutrauma, hyperoxia-induced injury, and difficulty assessing readiness for liberation. In this review, we will focus on cardiac, pulmonary, and broader effects of MV on patients with decompensated HF, focusing on practical considerations for management and supporting evidence.
Identifying Hospital Antimicrobial Resistance Targets via Robust Ranking.

ABSTRACTWe develop a robust ranking procedure to uncover trends in variation in antibiotic resistance (AR) rates across hospitals for some antibiotic-bacterium pairs over several years. We illustrate how the method can be used to detect potentially dangerous trends and to direct attention to hospitals’ management practices. A robust method is indicated because some unusual reported resistance rates may be due to measurement protocol differences and not any real difference in AR rates. Our proposed method is less sensitive to outlier observations than other robust methods. The application on real AR data shows how a dangerous trend in a particular AR rate would be detected. Our results indicate the potential benefits of systematic AR rate collection and AR reporting systems across hospitals.
Zwischen Zentralisierung und bürokratischem Widerstand. Lokale Behörden in den Migrationsregimen Belgiens und der Bundesrepublik seit 1945

Der Beitrag analysiert die haufig unterschatzte Rolle lokaler Behorden in den westeuropaischen Migrationsregimen am Beispiel Belgiens und der Bundesrepublik seit dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Im stark zentralisierten belgischen System durften die Lokalverwaltungen weder Entscheidungen uber die Einreise von Migranten noch uber privilegierte Aufenthaltstitel oder Ausweisungen selbststandig treffen, sondern mussten sich an die Fremdenpolizei in Brussel wenden. Im Laufe der 1960er Jahre erhielten die Kommunen mehr Kompetenzen fur den ohnehin privilegierten Aufenthalt von EG-Burgern, wahrend sich die Fremdenpolizei zunehmend auf Ausweisungen spezialisierte. Demgegenuber entschieden die westdeutschen Kommunen eigenstandig uber den Aufenthalt von Migranten. Zogerliche Zentralisierungstendenzen kamen in der Bundesrepublik erst wahrend der 1970er Jahre vor, als Sicherheitsbedenken gegen auslandische Terroristen einen groseren Raum einzunehmen begannen. Es dauerte jedoch noch bis zum Auslandergesetz von 1990 bis der Bund den Auslanderbehorden, die weiterhin zustandig blieben, detaillierte Vorschriften uber den Aufenthaltsstatus von Migranten machte.
The sonic color line: race & the cultural politics of listening

What does a runaway slave sound like? In the Sonic Color Line, Jennifer Lynn Stoever contends that such imagined sound became associated with blackness in the ears of white listeners in the mid-nin...
Academic-Community Partnership Educating Children About Weather-Related Disaster Preparedness:

Children are a population that has an increased risk of harm during any disaster events. This risk can be decreased by educating children in disaster preparedness skills. This article outlines a basic modifiable curriculum for teaching weather-related disaster preparedness to children ages 10-13, and shares how this was accomplished at an elementary school in North Alabama through a collaboration between the school and a local college of nursing.
Nei risvolti dei paesaggi sonori fra accessi e inclusività

Oltre ad essere un possibile oggetto di studio e di contemplazione dell’interesse del quale ognuno potra giudicare secondo personali parametri, il paesaggio sonoro e anche e forse in primo luogo un bell’esempio di ambiente favorevole alla valorizzazione di esperienze inclusive di persone con prospettive e chiavi di esplorazione individuale, strumenti di percezione e di appropriazione, diversi fra loro ; un ambiente potenzialmente propizio a forme di dialogo che solo l’accessibilita dei luoghi e la disponibilita ad accogliere altre dominanze percettive, come quelle piu comuni a persone con disabilita particolari, consente di condividere l’immersione in paesaggi ed esperienze reciprocamente inclusive e la nascita di nuove comunita di studio e di nuove gerarchie di abilita.
CD8 Follicular T Cells Promote B Cell Antibody Class Switch in Autoimmune Disease.

CD8 T cells can play both a protective and pathogenic role in inflammation and autoimmune development. Recent studies have highlighted the ability of CD8 T cells to function as T follicular helper (Tfh) cells in the germinal center in the context of infection. However, whether this phenomenon occurs in autoimmunity and contributes to autoimmune pathogenesis is largely unexplored. In this study, we show that CD8 T cells acquire a CD4 Tfh profile in the absence of functional regulatory T cells in both the IL-2–deficient and scurfy mouse models. Depletion of CD8 T cells mitigates autoimmune pathogenesis in IL-2–deficient mice. CD8 T cells express the B cell follicle–localizing chemokine receptor CXCR5, a principal Tfh transcription factor Bcl6, and the Tfh effector cytokine IL-21. CD8 T cells localize to the B cell follicle, express B cell costimulatory proteins, and promote B cell differentiation and Ab isotype class switching. These data reveal a novel contribution of autoreactive CD8 T cells to autoimmune disease, in part, through CD4 follicular-like differentiation and functionality.
A comparative study of microstructure and high-temperature mechanical properties of 15-5 PH stainless steel processed via additive manufacturing and traditional manufacturing

In the present study, 15-5 PH Stainless Steel (SS) was produced via an additive manufacturing (AM) technique known as Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS). The microstructure and mechanical properties of the AM alloy were compared with those of a traditionally manufactured (TM) or wrought 15-5 PH SS. Microstructural examination of both materials is performed by optical microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and electron backscatter diffraction in a scanning electron microscope. A distinct difference was observed between the martensitic structure of the AM and TM alloys with the AM material with smaller grain sizes and round-shaped particles. The Vickers microhardness of the AM material was found to be greater than that of the TM material. Tensile testing at 593 °C exhibited a greater strength for the AM material compared to the TM material. Furthermore, the creep rupture life of the AM material was found to be greater compared to the TM material when tested at a temperature 593 °C and applied stress of 211 MPa. Fractographic examination of the crept and tensile specimens was conducted via scanning electron microscopy.
Computational comparison of two solution procedures for allocation/processing networks

Computational results are presented comparing the FORTRAN implementation of a primal partitioning algorithm for processing networks with MINOS. A new class of test problems called allocation/processing network problems is introduced.
Somebody Will Pay: Presented as the Melinda A. Pouncey Memorial Lectureship, "Ethical Issues in Neonatal Intensive Care," at Ochsner Clinic and Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, November 8, 2000. It is based on the first chapter of the author's forthcoming book, A Tiny Baby in a Court of Law.

A baby who should have died did not die. Somebody was to blame. Clearly, somebody would have to take responsibility. Certain parties would pay and pay a lot to find out why the baby survived. They would figure out who was answerable. The culprit would roast. This being America, somebody also wanted to prove that nobody was to blame. No, they would argue, this terrible tragedy was not a tragedy; this apparent negligence was nothing like negligence. Instead, they would try to convince a judge and jury that such suffering was allocated randomly and chaotically, perhaps even unfairly. Bad things happen to good people all the time for no reason at all, your honor. There isn't a damn thing we can do about it. These people had hired me to help them. The deposition was to take place in the ornate offices of an obviously successful downtown law firm. I don't particularly like lawyers, but I love their offices. Their offices always have the feel of wealth. The upholstery is always lush, the numbered lithographs on the wall that the decorator picked out at ArtExpo are sort of modern and a cut above the framed prints that are usually on the walls of doctors' offices. The big law firms are always in tall buildings and on high floors, as if to suggest that elevation somehow correlates with moral stature or at least litigious zeal. There seems to be a lot of money in guilt and blame and accountability and punishment. Somebody would pay.
Binge Drinking, Alcohol Prices, and Alcohol Taxes: A Systematic Review of Results for Youth, Young Adults, and Adults from Economic Studies, Natural Experiments, and Field Studies

Background: Heavy episodic (“binge”) drinking of alcohol has serious public health implications, especially for youth and young adults. However, previous reviews have failed to address in a comprehensive manner the effects of alcohol prices and taxes on binge drinking by gender and age group. Methods: A systematic review is performed for possible effects of alcohol prices and taxes on binge drinking for three age groups. Outcomes examined include binge participation, intensity and frequency. Fifty-six relevant economic studies were recovered, with results distributed equally among three age groups. Also recovered were five natural experiments for tax reductions and six field studies, which increased the country coverage. Criteria for inclusion/exclusion and potential sources of bias are discussed, including adequacy of price and tax data. Price-binge relationships are judged using a 95% confidence interval (p ≤ 0.05) for statistical significance. Results: More than half of economic studies report insignificant results for prices or taxes (30 null of 56 studies), with mixed results in 13 studies and significant results in only 13 studies. Null results are equally distributed across age groups, but some mixed results reflect different outcomes by gender. Prices or taxes are insignificant for 11 of 16 samples for men and 7 of 14 samples for women. Four of five natural experiments report null results for country-level tax cuts. Six field studies examine a variety of pricing methods and drink specials, but results are mixed. Conclusions: A large body of evidence now indicates that binge drinkers are not highly-responsive to increased prices or taxes, and may not respond at all. Non-responsiveness holds generally for younger and older drinkers and for male and female binge drinkers alike. Increased alcohol prices or taxes are unlikely to be effective as a means to reduce binge drinking, regardless of gender or age group.
Pleural Effusion and Pneumothorax

The pleural space is bounded by two membranes: the visceral pleura covering the lung and the parietal pleura covering the chest wall, mediastinum and the diaphragm. Protein-containing fluid, derives from the systemic circulation, resides in the pleural space and is continuously absorbed by the lymphatics of the parietal pleura. Sub-atmospheric pressure in the pleural space aids in mechanical coupling of lung inflation throughout the respiratory cycle. Development of the pleura is notable by the third week of gestation along with the pericardial and peritoneal spaces. By 9 weeks of gestation, the pleural space becomes separated.
Collision-Induced Dissociation of Vanadium−Carbon Cluster Cations

Collision-induced dissociation (CID) studies of vanadium−carbon clusters were made employing a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer system coupled with a laser vaporization source. The results reveal that the primary dissociation channel is loss of a metal atom for all but V8C14+, which loses C3, and V9C14+, which loses both V and VC2. These findings are in general agreement with earlier ones reported for the titanium system, except that under single-collision conditions V8C14+ loses a C3 unit to become V8C11+, while Ti8C14+ loses Ti. Importantly, we show that both the met-car V8C12+ and V8C13+ are significantly more resistant to dissociation than the neighboring V8C11+ cluster species. In addition to reporting the primary fragmentation products of several VxCy+ clusters, we also present the results of studies of the multiple-collision dissociation patterns of both V8C12+ and V8C13+, which are observed to undergo C2 and C3 loss after some metal loss has occurred. These findings are consistent with the buil...
Circular dichroism of pituitary hormones.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the use of circular dichorism (CD) in evaluating the characteristic properties of pituitary hormones. Circular dichroism is one of several specialized types of spectrophotometry. CD measures the amounts of circular polarized light absorbed by a test substance. In ordinary spectrophotometry, all absorbing chromophores produce absorption bands with characteristic wavelength maxima and molar extinction coefficients. However, because of the polarized nature of the light used in CD measurements, only those chromophores that are optically active produce CD bands. These bands also occur at characteristic wavelengths and with characteristic intensities that are formally analogous to extinction coefficients. It has been found that the α-helix could be readily recognized and quantitatively estimated in polypeptides and proteins by this method. Eventually, it has been recognized that certain aspects of the tertiary structures of proteins could also be investigated through the CD measurements of the much weaker side-chain transitions appearing in the near-UV region.
The Trump Administration versus the Administrative State

The current administration has created an crisis for democratic governance. Scholarly analysis seems stuck on analyzing the technocratic challenges to Trumpian rule rather than confronting the underlying, unspoken problem of a president who does not believe in the rule of law. The crisis we face is not new — it is a new iteration on an ongoing struggle within our form of government. By drawing analogies to other past crises involving the scope of Presidential power, we can more easily ‘see’ the Trump administration’s existential threat to the administrative state — a necessary first step for confronting its administrative excesses. Reflecting this reality, analogies between the Trump administration and the Nixon administration’s Watergate crisis are legion. Without in any way suggesting that those analogies are inappropriate, this paper instead direct attentions to two other administrations that also surfaced gaping holes in the existing edifice of administrative law: the Andrew Jackson Administration and the Franklin Roosevelt Administration. The message that emerges from this examination is that devising a law-based solution to plug the gaping hole that has been revealed (or created) in our legal edifice will take time, maybe a long time, and there will be many related crises along the way. You may have heard that history does not repeat but it rhymes. Today we are all poets. We just don’t know it.
Seiba: An FPGA Overlay-Based Approach to Rapid Application Development

Although high-level synthesis (HLS) improves designer productivity through abstraction, FPGA high-level synthesis stills suffers from lengthy compilation that limits the number of design iterations a developer can achieve per day. One method of minimizing these compile times is compiling designs with innate programmability, aka FPGA overlays, and using their runtime configuration to implement functional changes, as opposed to recompiling the design. In this paper, we introduce Seiba, an application development approach that integrates HLS circuits with FPGA overlays to create reconfigurable platforms that are rapidly configured to reduce development time. As a dual-layer compilation approach, Seiba enables users to choose an appropriate tradeoff between productivity and overhead by implementing incremental changes quickly through overlay configuration or efficiently through FPGA recompilation. To handle this integration, our approach uses a novel overlay architecture that offers flexible overlay configuration which can “patch” and redirect execution from an application circuit to runtime configurable overlay functional units. Our results show that by leveraging the overlay's runtime configurability, our development flow can significantly reduce the number of FPGA compilations in a development cycle.
Ambulatory digital phenotyping of blunted affect and alogia using objective facial and vocal analysis: Proof of concept.

Abstract Negative symptoms reflect one of the most debilitating aspects of one of the most debilitating diseases known to humankind. As yet, our treatments for negative symptoms are palliative at best and our understanding of their causes is relatively superficial. To address this, we are developing objective ambulatory tools for digitally phenotyping their severity which can be used outside the confines of the traditional clinical and research settings. The present study evaluated the feasibility, reliability and validity of ambulatory vocal acoustic and facial emotion expression analysis. Videos were provided by 25 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 27 nonpsychiatric controls using inexpensive, non-invasive ambulatory recording methods. Controls provided 411 video recordings, and patients provided 377 video recordings; an average of 15.22 and 14.50 per participant per group respectively. The vast majority (over 80%) of these videos were usable for analysis. An empirically-supported, limited-feature vocal (7 features) and facial (3 features) set was examined. Within participants, these features varied considerably over time, but showed moderate to good test-retest reliability in many cases once contextual factors (e.g., activity involved in at the time of testing) were accounted for. Vocal and facial features showed statistically significant convergence with a “gold standard” negative symptom measure. Ambulatory vocal/facial features were more strongly associated with engagement in social or work activities in patients than negative symptom ratings. These data support the use of ambulatory vocal/facial analytic technologies for digital phenotyping of these negative symptoms.
The diagnostic and prognostic utility of the dual-task tandem gait test for pediatric concussion

Abstract Background The tandem gait test has gained interest recently for assessment of concussion recovery. The purpose of our study was to determine the prognostic and diagnostic use of the single- and dual-task tandem gait test, alongside other clinical measures, within 10 days of pediatric concussion. Methods We assessed 126 patients post-concussion (6.3 ± 2.3 days post-injury, mean ± SD) at a pediatric sports medicine clinic and compared them to 58 healthy controls (age: 15.6 ± 1.3 years; 43% female). We also compared the 31 patients with concussion who developed persistent post-concussion symptoms (PPCS) (age = 14.9 ± 2.0 years; 48% female) to the 81 patients with concussion who did not develop PPCS following the initial assessment (age: 14.1 ± 3.0 years; 41% female). All subjects completed a test battery, and concussion patients were monitored until they experienced concussion-symptom resolution. The test battery included tandem gait (single-task, dual-task (performing tandem gait while concurrently completing a cognitive test) conditions), modified Balance Error Scoring System (mBESS), and concussion symptom assessment (Health and Behavior Inventory). We defined PPCS as symptom resolution time > 28 days post-concussion for the concussion group. Measurement outcomes included tandem gait time (single- and dual-task), dual-task cognitive accuracy, mBESS errors (single/double/tandem stances), and symptom severity. Results The concussion group completed the single-task (mean difference = 9.1 s, 95% confidential interval (95%CI): 6.1–12.1) and dual-task (mean difference = 12.7 s, 95%CI: 8.7–16.8) tandem gait test more slowly than the control group. Compared to those who recovered within 28 days of concussion, the PPCS group had slower dual-task tandem gait test times (mean difference = 7.9 s, 95%CI: 2.0–13.9), made more tandem-stance mBESS errors (mean difference = 1.3 errors, 95%CI: 0.2–2.3), and reported more severe symptoms (mean difference = 26.6 Health and Behavior Inventory rating, 95%CI: 21.1–32.6). Conclusion Worse dual-task tandem gait test time and mBESS tandem stance performance predicted PPCS in pediatric patients evaluated within 10 days of concussion. Tandem gait assessments may provide valuable information augmenting common clinical practices for concussion management.
Coping with Chevron: Justice Gorsuch's Majority and Justice Breyer's Dissent in SAS Institute

Neither Justice Breyer nor Justice Gorsuch are fond of the "mandatory," two-step approach to Chevron. Both justices have besmirched Chevron as an affront to judicial independence—an impermissible delegation of interpretive authority to executive agencies. This Post examines the two justices' differing approaches to Chevron in SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu.