Fine Structure Discussion of Parity-Nonconserving Neutron Scattering at Epithermal Energies

The large magnitude and the sign correlation effect in the parity non-conserving resonant scattering of epithermal neutrons from $^{232}$Th is discussed in terms of a non-collective $2p-1h$ local doorway model. General conclusions are drawn as to the probability of finding large parity violation effects in other regions of the periodic table.Comment: 6 pages, Tex. CTP# 2296, to appear in Z. Phys.

Displacement of the Scholar? Participatory Action Research under COVID-19

The impact of COVID-19 on conducting research is far-reaching, especially for those scholars working for or alongside communities. As the pandemic continues to create and exacerbate many of the issues that communities at the margins faced pre-pandemic, such as health disparities and access to resources, it also creates particular difficulties in collaborative, co-developed participatory research and scholar-activism. These forms of community engagement require the commitment of researchers to look beyond the purview of the racialized capitalist and neoliberal structures and institutions that tend to limit the scope of our research and engagement. Both the presence of the researcher within the community as well as deep community trust in the researcher is required in order to identify and prioritize local, often counter-hegemonic forms of knowledge production, resources, and support networks. The pandemic and similar conditions of crises has likely limited opportunities for building long-term, productive relationships of mutual trust and reciprocity needed for PAR while communities refocus on meeting basic needs. The pandemic has now not only exacerbated existing disparities and made the need for engaged, critical and co-creative partnerships even greater, it has also abruptly halted opportunities for partnerships to occur, and further constrained funds to support communities partnering with researchers. In this paper we highlight accomplishments and discuss the many challenges that arise as participatory action researchers are displaced from the field and classroom, such as funding obstacles and working remotely. An analysis of experiences of the displacement of the scholar exposes the conflicts of conducting PAR during crises within a state of academic capitalism. These experiences are drawn from our work conducting PAR during COVID-19 around the globe, both in urban and rural settings, and during different stages of engagement. From these findings the case is made for mutual learning from peer-experiences and institutional support for PAR. As future crises are expected, increased digital resources and infrastructure, academic flexibility and greater consideration of PAR, increased funding for PAR, and dedicated institutional support programs for PAR are needed

A Theory of Cheap Control in Embodied Systems

We present a framework for designing cheap control architectures for embodied agents. Our derivation is guided by the classical problem of universal approximation, whereby we explore the possibility of exploiting the agent's embodiment for a new and more efficient universal approximation of behaviors generated by sensorimotor control. This embodied universal approximation is compared with the classical non-embodied universal approximation. To exemplify our approach, we present a detailed quantitative case study for policy models defined in terms of conditional restricted Boltzmann machines. In contrast to non-embodied universal approximation, which requires an exponential number of parameters, in the embodied setting we are able to generate all possible behaviors with a drastically smaller model, thus obtaining cheap universal approximation. We test and corroborate the theory experimentally with a six-legged walking machine. The experiments show that the sufficient controller complexity predicted by our theory is tight, which means that the theory has direct practical implications. Keywords: cheap design, embodiment, sensorimotor loop, universal approximation, conditional restricted Boltzmann machineComment: 27 pages, 10 figure

Code Status Discussions Between Attending Hospitalist Physicians and Medical Patients at Hospital Admission

BackgroundBioethicists and professional associations give specific recommendations for discussing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).ObjectiveTo determine whether attending hospitalist physicians' discussions meet these recommendations.DesignCross-sectional observational study on the medical services at two hospitals within a university system between August 2008 and March 2009.ParticipantsAttending hospitalist physicians and patients who were able to communicate verbally about their medical care.Main measuresWe identified code status discussions in audio-recorded admission encounters via physician survey and review of encounter transcripts. A quantitative content analysis was performed to determine whether discussions included elements recommended by bioethicists and professional associations. Two coders independently coded all discussions; Cohen's kappa was 0.64-1 for all reported elements.Key resultsAudio-recordings of 80 patients' admission encounters with 27 physicians were obtained. Eleven physicians discussed code status in 19 encounters. Discussions were more frequent in seriously ill patients (OR 4, 95% CI 1.2-14.6), yet 66% of seriously ill patients had no discussion. The median length of the code status discussions was 1 min (range 0.2-8.2). Prognosis was discussed with code status in only one of the encounters. Discussions of patients' preferences focused on the use of life-sustaining interventions as opposed to larger life goals. Descriptions of CPR as an intervention used medical jargon, and the indication for CPR was framed in general, as opposed to patient-specific scenarios. No physician quantitatively estimated the outcome of or provided a recommendation about the use of CPR.ConclusionsCode status was not discussed with many seriously ill patients. Discussions were brief, and did not include elements that bioethicists and professional associations recommend to promote patient autonomy. Local and national guidelines, research, and clinical practice changes are needed to clarify and systematize with whom and how CPR is discussed at hospital admission

Complex exon-intron marking by histone modifications is not determined solely by nucleosome distribution

It has recently been shown that nucleosome distribution, histone modifications and RNA polymerase II (Pol II) occupancy show preferential association with exons (“exon-intron marking”), linking chromatin structure and function to co-transcriptional splicing in a variety of eukaryotes. Previous ChIP-sequencing studies suggested that these marking patterns reflect the nucleosomal landscape. By analyzing ChIP-chip datasets across the human genome in three cell types, we have found that this marking system is far more complex than previously observed. We show here that a range of histone modifications and Pol II are preferentially associated with exons. However, there is noticeable cell-type specificity in the degree of exon marking by histone modifications and, surprisingly, this is also reflected in some histone modifications patterns showing biases towards introns. Exon-intron marking is laid down in the absence of transcription on silent genes, with some marking biases changing or becoming reversed for genes expressed at different levels. Furthermore, the relationship of this marking system with splicing is not simple, with only some histone modifications reflecting exon usage/inclusion, while others mirror patterns of exon exclusion. By examining nucleosomal distributions in all three cell types, we demonstrate that these histone modification patterns cannot solely be accounted for by differences in nucleosome levels between exons and introns. In addition, because of inherent differences between ChIP-chip array and ChIP-sequencing approaches, these platforms report different nucleosome distribution patterns across the human genome. Our findings confound existing views and point to active cellular mechanisms which dynamically regulate histone modification levels and account for exon-intron marking. We believe that these histone modification patterns provide links between chromatin accessibility, Pol II movement and co-transcriptional splicing

Evaluating the use of the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Screening Questionnaire (CAIDS-Q) to estimate IQ in children with low intellectual ability

In situations where completing a full intellectual assessment is not possible or desirable the clinician or researcher may require an alternative means of accurately estimating intellectual functioning. There has been limited research in the use of proxy IQ measures in children with an intellectual disability or low IQ. The present study aimed to provide a means of converting total scores from a screening tool (the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Screening Questionnaire: CAIDS-Q) to an estimated IQ. A series of linear regression analyses were conducted on data from 428 children and young people referred to clinical services, where FSIQ was predicted from CAIDS-Q total scores. Analyses were conducted for three age groups between ages 6 and 18 years. The study presents a conversion table for converting CAIDS-Q total scores to estimates of FSIQ, with corresponding 95% prediction intervals to allow the clinician or researcher to estimate FSIQ scores from CAIDS-Q total scores. It is emphasised that, while this conversion may offer a quick means of estimating intellectual functioning in children with a below average IQ, it should be used with caution, especially in children aged between 6 and 8 years old

Fiscal developments and financial stress : a threshold VAR analysis

We use a threshold VAR analysis to study the linkages between changes in the debt ratio, economic activity and financial stress within different financial regimes. We use quarterly data for the US, the UK, Germany and Italy, for the period 1980:4– 2014:1, encompassing macro, fiscal and financial variables, and use nonlinear impulse responses allowing for endogenous regime-switches in response to structural shocks. The results show that output reacts mostly positively to an increase in the debt ratio in both financial stress regimes; however, the differences in estimated multipliers across regimes are relatively small. Furthermore, a financial stress shock has a negative effect on output and worsens the fiscal situation. The large time-variation and the estimated nonlinear impulse responses suggest that the size of the fiscal multipliers was higher than average in the 2008–2009 crisis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Supervising the Supervisors—Procedural Training and Supervision in Internal Medicine Residency

At teaching hospitals, bedside procedures (paracentesis, thoracentesis, lumbar puncture, arthrocentesis and central venous catheter insertion) are performed by junior residents and supervised by senior peers. Residents’ perceptions about supervision or how often peer supervision produces unsafe clinical situations are unknown. To examine the experience and practice patterns of residents performing bedside procedures. Cross-sectional e-mail survey of 653 internal medicine (IM) residents at seven California teaching hospitals. Surveys asked questions in three areas: (1) resident experience performing procedures: numbers of procedures performed and whether they received other (e.g., simulator) training; (2) resident comfort performing and supervising procedures; (3) resident reports of their current level of supervision doing procedures, experience with complications as well as perceptions of factors that may have contributed to complications. Three hundred sixty-seven (56%) of the residents responded. Most PGY1 residents had performed fewer than five of any of the procedures, but most PGY-3 residents had performed at least ten by the end of their training. Resident comfort for each procedure increased with the number of procedures performed (p < 0.001). Although residents reported that peer supervision happened often, they also reported high rates of supervising a procedure before feeling comfortable with proper technique. The majority of residents (64%) reported at least one complication and did not feel supervision would have prevented complications, even though many reported complications represented technique- or preparation-related problems. Residents report low levels of comfort and experience with procedures, and frequently report supervising prior to feeling comfortable. Our findings suggest a need to examine best practices for procedural supervision of trainees

QUERI and implementation research: Emerging from adolescence into adulthood: QUERI Series

The Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) program and implementation research have both come of age in the 10 years since QUERI was established. Looking forward, if QUERI and the field of implementation science are to mature successfully, we will need to address a series of challenges. First, we need to more clearly demonstrate how applying principles of implementation science leads to more effective implementation and communicate those lessons to our partners and funders. Second, we will need to engage in the ongoing debate over methodological standards in quality improvement and implementation research. Third, a program like QUERI needs to become more relevant to the daily decisions of key stakeholders. Fourth, if we hope to sustain interest in implementation science, we will need to demonstrate the business case for more effective implementation. Fifth, we need to think creatively about how to nurture the next generations of implementation researchers and front-line "connectors," who are critical for accelerating implementation. Finally, we need to strengthen the connections between implementation research and the other operational and research activities that influence change in healthcare systems