A study in intermarriage (What marriage between a Jew and a Roman Catholic means to the parties immediately concerned, their respective families, their respective religious affiliations, and to the community wherein they reside.)

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1933. PLEASE NOTE: Pagination errors: pages 57, and 6

Evidences of a changing secondary education for a changing economic order.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

A Study of the Feasibility of a Transfer of Development Rights Program in Lewiston, Maine

This project was conducted in collaboration with David Hedinger in Lewiston’s City Planning Office in order to assess the feasibility of a Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Program in Lewiston. The overall aim of this project was to apply scholarly literature, findings from case studies, and input from experienced professionals to determine what successful TDR programs look like, the factors they possess, and the conditions present. The primary problem that TDR programs seek to address is urban sprawl, or the slow spread of development outside of the urban centers into the rural fringes. Urban sprawl has two chief components: 1) it leads to the loss of valuable environmental assets, open space, and potential agricultural land to development; and 2) it pulls money and investment outside of urban centers and leaves them economically depressed and sometimes even blighted (Bruegmann 2005, 160). In terms of Lewiston, while on a smaller scale than many other cities across the country, the problems of urban sprawl are still being felt. A TDR program, which allows a landowner to voluntarily relinquish their right to develop on their rural land and sell that right to a developer looking to increase density in the urban or suburban growth zones, has been a proven to be a reasonable and cost effective way to mitigate the problems of sprawl. A successful TDR program, however, requires certain conditions and factors to be present. Many TDR programs across the country and even in Maine have failed because they were either improperly designed or under-stimulated by market conditions. The leading cause of failure in a TDR program is a lack of demand for high density development (Pruetz & Standridge 2009, 80). Without this necessary demand there is no driving force that will spur a TDR program into motion. Additionally, we found that the most effective TDR programs at preserving land are those administered at the county, regional, or state level (King County 2014; Montgomery County 2008; Pinelands 2009). Our primary findings show that there are many factors that lead to successful TDR programs. And while Lewiston may possess the physical makeup of a successful TDR program: designated urban growth zones and large tracts of rural and agricultural land, it still lacks many factors that may be difficult to stimulate in the short term. We conclude with these remarks and offer a few alternatives to traditional TDR programs that could also be used to preserve land and promote smart growth

Phase shifts of synchronized oscillators and the systolic/diastolic blood pressure relation

We study the phase-synchronization properties of systolic and diastolic arterial pressure in healthy subjects. We find that delays in the oscillatory components of the time series depend on the frequency bands that are considered, in particular we find a change of sign in the phase shift going from the Very Low Frequency band to the High Frequency band. This behavior should reflect a collective behavior of a system of nonlinear interacting elementary oscillators. We prove that some models describing such systems, e.g. the Winfree and the Kuramoto models offer a clue to this phenomenon. For these theoretical models there is a linear relationship between phase shifts and the difference of natural frequencies of oscillators and a change of sign in the phase shift naturally emerges.Comment: 8 figures, 9 page

Pediatric Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation: Results of Initial 100 Consecutive Cases Including Congenital Heart Anomalies

Radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) has recently become a management option for pediatric tachycardia. We reviewed the records of a total of 100 patients (aged 10 months to 19 yr) who had undergone RFCA, from March 2000 to June 2004. Types of arrhythmia (age, acute success rate) were as follows: atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (AVRT, 9.0±3.7 yr, 66/67), atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT, 13±2.5 yr, 16/16), ectopic atrial tachycardia (6.4±3.3 yr, 5/5), junctional ectopic tachycardia (10 month, 1/1), ventricular tachycardia (12±4.9 yr, 6/6), postsurgical intraatrial reentrant tachycardia (15.6±4.1 yr, 2/3), twin node tachycardia (4 yr, 0/1), and His bundle ablation (9 yr, 1/1). The age of AVNRT was older than that of AVRT (p=0.002). Associated cardiac disease was detected in 17 patients, including 6 univentricular patients, and 3 Ebstein's anomaly patients. RFCA for multiple accessory pathways required longer fluoroscopic times than did the single accessory pathway (53.9±4.8 vs. 36.2±24.1 min; p=0.03), and was associated with a higher recurrence rate (3/9 vs. 3/53; p=0.03). Regardless of the presence or absence of cardiac diseases, the overall acute success rate was 97% without major complications, the recurrence rate was 8.2%, and the final success rate was 97%. This experience confirmed the efficacy and safety of RFCA in the management of tachycardia in children

Publishing Wikipedia usage data with strong privacy guarantees

For almost 20 years, the Wikimedia Foundation has been publishing statistics about how many people visited each Wikipedia page on each day. This data helps Wikipedia editors determine where to focus their efforts to improve the online encyclopedia, and enables academic research. In June 2023, the Wikimedia Foundation, helped by Tumult Labs, addressed a long-standing request from Wikipedia editors and academic researchers: it started publishing these statistics with finer granularity, including the country of origin in the daily counts of page views. This new data publication uses differential privacy to provide robust guarantees to people browsing or editing Wikipedia. This paper describes this data publication: its goals, the process followed from its inception to its deployment, the algorithms used to produce the data, and the outcomes of the data release.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy (TPDP) 202

Preventing arrhythmic death in patients with tetralogy of Fallot JACC review topic of the week

Patients with tetralogy of Fallot are at risk for ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. These abnormalities are associated with pulmonary regurgitation, right ventricular enlargement, and a substrate of discrete, slowly-conducting isthmuses. Although these arrhythmic events are rare, their prediction is challenging. This review will address contemporary risk assessment and prevention strategies. Numerous variables have been proposed to predict who would benefit from an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator. Current risk stratification models combine independently associated factors into risk scores. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, QRS fragmentation assessment, and electrophysiology testing in selected patients may refine some of these models. Interaction between right and left ventricular function is emerging as a critical factor in our understanding of disease progression and risk assessment. Multicenter studies evaluating risk factors and risk mitigating strategies such as pulmonary valve replacement, ablative strategies, and use of implantable cardiac-defibrillators are needed moving forward. (c) 2021 by the American College of Cardiology Foundation.Cardiolog

Hospital Costs Related to Early Extubation after Infant Cardiac Surgery

Background The Pediatric Heart Network Collaborative Learning Study (PHN CLS) increased early extubation rates after infant Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) and coarctation (CoA) repair across participating sites by implementing a clinical practice guideline (CPG). The impact of the CPG on hospital costs has not been studied. Methods PHN CLS clinical data were linked to cost data from Children’s Hospital Association by matching on indirect identifiers. Hospital costs were evaluated across active and control sites in the pre- and post-CPG periods using generalized linear mixed effects models. A difference-in-difference approach was used to assess whether changes in cost observed in active sites were beyond secular trends in control sites. Results Data were successfully linked on 410/428 (96%) of eligible patients from 4 active and 4 control sites. Mean adjusted cost/case for TOF repair was significantly reduced in the post-CPG period at active sites ($42,833 vs.$56,304, p<0.01) and unchanged at control sites ($47,007 vs.$46,476, p=0.91), with an overall cost reduction of 27% in active vs. control sites (p=0.03). Specific categories of cost reduced in the TOF cohort included clinical (-66%, p<0.01), pharmacy (-46%, p=0.04), lab (-44%, p<0.01), and imaging (-32%, p<0.01). There was no change in costs for CoA repair at active or control sites. Conclusions The early extubation CPG was associated with a reduction in hospital costs for infants undergoing repair of TOF, but not CoA repair. This CPG represents an opportunity to both optimize clinical outcome and reduce costs for certain infant cardiac surgeries