4,329 research outputs found
Bridging The Divide: How Business Ownership Can Help Close the Racial Wealth Gap
Our nation faces significant challenges addressing the growing racial wealth gap. This white paper, written by Joyce Klein, Director of FIELD at the Aspen Institute, outlines the role that business ownership can and does play in building wealth for people of color.Latinos and African Americans holder relatively low levels of business assets, contributing to their lower levels of wealth overall. Yet there are trends in the right direction: rates of business creation among these entrepreneurs are increasing, and now exceed those of whites. Particularly among African Americans, higher levels of college attainment combined with expanded contracting opportunities are enabling movement into more lucrative markets and sectors.While there are positive signs, low levels of personal wealth and challenges in accessing business credit continue to be primary factors limiting the growth of firms owned by Latinos and African Americans. Relatively high and growing levels of student debt further complicate the financial challenges faced by entrepreneurs of color. Lower levels of education among Latinos constrain their ability to move into higher-growth, higher-revenue sectors, and also affect the skills they bring to businesses they create.The white paper outlines short- and long-term recommendations to address the racial wealth gap through business ownership strategies. In the short-term, continuing and expanding efforts to increase access to capital, skills, networks, and markets will be needed to realize the promise that business ownership holds for addressing the racial wealth gap. In the long-term, universal policies to narrow the racial wealth gap -- such as those aimed at raising the quality of education, building savings, and increasing financial inclusion -- will be critical
Forging Ahead: Early Lessons
Outlines outcomes and lessons of the Scale Academy for Microenterprise Development's operational grants, training, and technical support for microenterprise organizations. Examines grantees' progress in and strategies for expanding services sustainably
Multimodal Machine Learning-based Knee Osteoarthritis Progression Prediction from Plain Radiographs and Clinical Data
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common musculoskeletal disease without a
cure, and current treatment options are limited to symptomatic relief.
Prediction of OA progression is a very challenging and timely issue, and it
could, if resolved, accelerate the disease modifying drug development and
ultimately help to prevent millions of total joint replacement surgeries
performed annually. Here, we present a multi-modal machine learning-based OA
progression prediction model that utilizes raw radiographic data, clinical
examination results and previous medical history of the patient. We validated
this approach on an independent test set of 3,918 knee images from 2,129
subjects. Our method yielded area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.79 (0.78-0.81)
and Average Precision (AP) of 0.68 (0.66-0.70). In contrast, a reference
approach, based on logistic regression, yielded AUC of 0.75 (0.74-0.77) and AP
of 0.62 (0.60-0.64). The proposed method could significantly improve the
subject selection process for OA drug-development trials and help the
development of personalized therapeutic plans
Statistics of nested spiral self-avoiding loops: exact results on the square and triangular lattices
The statistics of nested spiral self-avoiding loops, which is closely related
to the partition of integers into decreasing parts, is studied on the square
and triangular lattices.Comment: Old paper, for archiving. 7 pages, 2 figures, epsf, IOP macr
Sustained Use of the Impella 50 Heart Pump Enables Bridge to Clinical Decisions in 34 Patients
We studied whether sustained hemodynamic support (\u3e7 d) with the Impella 5.0 heart pump can be used as a bridge to clinical decisions in patients who present with cardiogenic shock, and whether such support can improve their outcomes. We retrospectively reviewed cases of patients who had Impella 5.0 support at our hospital from August 2017 through May 2019. Thirty-four patients (23 with cardiogenic shock and 11 with severely decompensated heart failure) underwent sustained support for a mean duration of 11.7 ± 9.3 days (range, â€48 d). Of 29 patients (85.3%) who survived to next therapy, 15 were weaned from the Impella, 8 underwent durable left ventricular assist device placement, 4 were escalated to venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support, and 2 underwent heart transplantation. The 30-day survival rate was 76.5% (26 of 34 patients). Only 2 patients had a major adverse event: one each had an ischemic stroke and flail mitral leaflet. None of the devices malfunctioned. Sustained hemodynamic support with the Impella 5.0 not only improved outcomes in patients who presented with cardiogenic shock, but also provided time for multidisciplinary evaluation of potential cardiac recovery, or the need for durable left ventricular assist device implantation or heart transplantation. Our study shows the value of using the Impella 5.0 as a bridge to clinical decisions
G(2) quivers
We present, in explicit matrix representation and a modernity befitting the community, the classification of the finite discrete subgroups of G2 and compute the McKay quivers arising therefrom. Of physical interest are the classes of Script N = 1 gauge theories descending from M-theory and of mathematical interest are possible steps toward a systematic study of crepant resolutions to smooth G2 manifolds as well as generalised McKay Correspondences. This writing is a companion monograph to hep-th/9811183 and hep-th/9905212, wherein the analogues for Calabi-Yau three- and four-folds were considered
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Climate Information for Improved Planning and Management of Mega Cities (Needs Perspective)
The majority of the population of the planet (6.6 billion) now live in urban areas, which have distinct impacts upon climate at scales from the local to the global. This urban effect is due to the physical form of the city (its three-dimensional geometry and material composition) and its functions (the day-to-day activity patterns that generate emissions of waste heat and materials into the overlying air). While a substantial body of knowledge on the science of urban climates has been developed over the past fifty years, there is little evidence that this knowledge is incorporated into urban planning and design practice. This paper focuses on this gap by examining the nature of urban climate expertise and the needs of those that make decisions about urban areas. In conclusion it makes recommendations to maintain and enhance urban observations and data; to improve understanding of local, regional and global climate linkages; to develop tools for practical planning; and to disseminate urban climate knowledge and its relevance to urban planning to both practicing meteorologists and urban decision makers
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Solar Energetic Particles Produced by a Slow Coronal Mass Ejection at âŒ0.25 au
We present an analysis of Parker Solar Probe (PSP) ISâIS observations of ~30â300 keV nâ»Âč ions on 2018 November 11 when PSP was about 0.25 au from the Sun. Five hours before the onset of a solar energetic particle (SEP) event, a coronal mass ejection (CME) was observed by STEREO-A/COR2, which crossed PSP about a day later. No shock was observed locally at PSP, but the CME may have driven a weak shock earlier. The SEP event was dispersive, with higher energy ions arriving before the lower energy ones. Timing suggests the particles originated at the CME when it was at ~7.4R_â. SEP intensities increased gradually from their onset over a few hours, reaching a peak, and then decreased gradually before the CME arrived at PSP. The event was weak, having a very soft energy spectrum (â4 to â5 spectral index). The earliest arriving particles were anisotropic, moving outward from the Sun, but later, the distribution was observed to be more isotropic. We present numerical solutions of the Parker transport equation for the transport of 30â300 keV nâ»Âč ions assuming a source comoving with the CME. Our model agrees well with the observations. The SEP event is consistent with ion acceleration at a weak shock driven briefly by the CME close to the Sun, which later dissipated before arriving at PSP, followed by the transport of ions in the interplanetary magnetic field
Progressive Supranuclear palsy (PSP) disease progression, management, and healthcare resource utilization: a retrospective observational study in the US and Canada
Background Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a rare neurodegenerative brain disease with rapid progression and currently limited treatment options. A comprehensive understanding of disease progression, management, and healthcare resource utilization is limited, and further research is challenging due to the small population of patients. To address these challenges in conducting PSP research, individuals with PSP were recruited using a multichannel approach tailored specifically to the PSP community. We performed a retrospective observational study using data abstracted from participant medical records collected from multiple patient care centers.Results Seventy-two individuals with PSP were eligible for inclusion. On average, 144 medical documents per participant were collected from an average of 2.9 healthcare centers per participant, with a mean study period of 7.9âyears. Among participants with a date of symptom onset documented in the medical records, the median time for the onset of the first fall was 2.0âyears (IQR 3.2) before diagnosis, the median onset of unsteady gait or gait impairment was 1.2âyears (IQR 1.8) before diagnosis, and the median onset of mobility problems was 0.8âyears (IQR 1.8) before diagnosis. The most widely utilized healthcare resources, with at least 85% of participants using each of these resources at some point during the disease course, were medications (100%), imaging (99%), assistive devices (90%), supportive care (86%), and surgeries and procedures (85%). Conclusions This retrospective study adds to the current understanding of PSP symptoms, comorbidities, and healthcare resource utilization (HRU) across the disease journey. By involving individuals with PSP and their caregivers or legally authorized representatives in the research process, this study was unique in its approach to participant recruitment and enabled individuals to participate in research without the need for travel. We collected medical documents from multiple healthcare centers, allowing for broad data collection covering the entire disease journey. This approach to the collection of real-world data may be used to generate valuable insights into many aspects of disease progression and management in PSP and many other rare diseases
Molecular Determinants of the Intrinsic Efficacy of the Antipsychotic Aripiprazole
Partial agonists of the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) have been developed to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia without causing the side effects elicited by antagonists. The receptor-ligand interactions that determine the intrinsic efficacy of such drugs, however, are poorly understood. Aripiprazole has an extended structure comprising a phenylpiperazine primary pharmacophore and a 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolin-2-one secondary pharmacophore. We combined site-directed mutagenesis, analytical pharmacology, ligand fragments and molecular dynamics simulations to identify the D2R-aripiprazole interactions that contribute to affinity and efficacy. We reveal that an interaction between the secondary pharmacophore of aripiprazole and a secondary binding pocket defined by residues at the extracellular portions of transmembrane segments 1, 2 and 7 determine the intrinsic efficacy of aripiprazole. Our findings reveal a hitherto unappreciated mechanism through which to fine-tune the intrinsic efficacy of D2R agonists
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