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Objectives: The objectives of this paper is to conduct a bibliometric analysis to examine the research status and development trend of anterior cruciate ligament injury and reconstruction in children and adolescents over the past 20 years. Design: Descriptive Research. Methods: This study obtained information regarding studies on Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction in Children and Adolescents from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Visual and bibliometric analysis were conducted using VOSviewer, Origin 2022, Pajek64 5.18and Excel 2019. These analytic tools facilitated the analysis of various aspects, including countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals and keywords related to the research. Results: From 2003 to 2023, a total of 1328 articles were retrieved in WOS, and 637 articles were selected by two authors. The most productive institutions are Childrens Hosp Philadelphia, Kocher, ms. Their articles have the highest number of publications and citations. The American journal of sports medicine is the most frequently cited journal for articles on anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in children and adolescents. The most common keywords used in these articles were "anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction", "injury, children, adolescent", and "skeletally immature patients". Conclusions: This study provides valuable insights into the research focus of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in children and adolescents. In recent years, there has been significant attention paid to areas of "the return to sport, re-repture rate and functional recovery after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction" in this specific population. These aspects have emerged as key directions for future research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer after non-melanoma skin cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in US men. Its incidence and mortality rates vary substantially across geographical regions and over time, with large disparities by race, geographic regions (i.e., Appalachia), among others. The widely used Cox proportional hazards model is usually not applicable in such scenarios owing to the violation of the proportional hazards assumption. In this paper, we fit Bayesian accelerated failure time models for the analysis of prostate cancer survival and take dependent spatial structures and temporal information into account by incorporating random effects with multivariate conditional autoregressive priors. In particular, we relax the proportional hazards assumption, consider flexible frailty structures in space and time, and also explore strategies for handling the temporal variable. The parameter estimation and inference are based on a Monte Carlo Markov chain technique under a Bayesian framework. The deviance information criterion is used to check goodness of fit and to select the best candidate model. Extensive simulations are performed to examine and compare the performances of models in different contexts. Finally, we illustrate our approach by using the 2004-2014 Pennsylvania Prostate Cancer Registry data to explore spatial-temporal heterogeneity in overall survival and identify significant risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recruiting large cohorts efficiently can speed the translation of findings into care across a range of scientific disciplines and medical specialties. Recruitment can be hampered by factors such as financial barriers, logistical concerns, and lack of resources for patients and clinicians. These and other challenges can lead to underrepresentation in groups such as rural residents and racial and ethnic minorities. Here we discuss the implementation of various recruitment strategies for enrolling participants into a large, prospective cohort study, assessing the need for adaptations and making them in real-time, while maintaining high adherence to the protocol and high participant satisfaction. Methods: While conducting a large, prospective trial of a multi-cancer early detection blood test at Geisinger, an integrated health system in central Pennsylvania, we monitored recruitment progress, adherence to the protocol, and participants' satisfaction. Tracking mechanisms such as paper records, electronic health records, research databases, dashboards, and electronic files were utilized to measure each outcome. We then reviewed study procedures and timelines to list the implementation strategies that were used to address barriers to recruitment, protocol adherence and participant satisfaction. Results: Adaptations to methods that contributed to achieving the enrollment goal included offering multiple recruitment options, adopting group consenting, improving visit convenience, increasing the use of electronic capture and the tracking of data and source documents, staffing optimization via leveraging resources external to the study team when appropriate, and integrating the disclosure of study results into routine clinical care without adding unfunded work for clinicians. We maintained high protocol adherence and positive participant experience as exhibited by a very low rate of protocol deviations and participant complaints. Conclusion: Recruiting rapidly for large studies – and thereby facilitating clinical translation – requires a nimble, creative approach that marshals available resources and changes course according to data. Planning a rigorous assessment of a study's implementation outcomes prior to study recruitment can further ground study adaptations and facilitate translation into practice. This can be accomplished by proactively and continuously assessing and revising implementation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, much attention has been focused on the nationwide teacher shortage. As teachers begin to retire in record numbers, and the number of students entering teacher education majors continues to decline, concern around the teacher shortage heightens (US Dept. of Ed., 2016). The numbers are even more dire when looking at Teachers of Color entering the profession (US Dept. of Ed., 2016). To address this TOC shortage, Pennsylvania’s Department of Education called for Institutions of Higher Education to create programs aimed at attracting and retaining students of color in their teacher education programs. The Aspiring to Educate (A2E) program was Pennsylvania’s intentional attempt to diversify the teacher workforce. This paper describes the work of three Black educators, as they examine their positionality and work independently and collectively to answer PA’s call to action through the implementation of start-up Grow Your Own programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the American response to the COVID-19 pandemic was characterized by a divergence between general public opinion and public health policy. With little attention paid to individuals incarcerated during this time, there is limited direct evidence regarding how incarcerated people perceived efforts to mediate the harms of COVID-19. Prisons operate as a microcosm of society in many ways but they also face unique public health challenges. This study examines vaccine hesitancy—and acceptance—among a sample of individuals incarcerated within adult prisons in Pennsylvania. Using administrative records as well as rich attitudinal data from a survey of the incarcerated population, this study identifies a variety of social and historical factors that are—and are not—associated with an incarcerated person's willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Our findings highlight vaccination challenges unique to the carceral context and offer policy recommendations to improve trust in credible health messengers and health service provision for this often overlooked but vulnerable population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to escalating energy demands and global warming concerns, the Passive House Standard has emerged as a solution in residential construction, aiming to drastically reduce energy consumption and operational costs primarily through high-performance building envelopes. While a considerable volume of the literature has focused on the Passivhaus Institute (PHI) standards, predominantly in European contexts, there is a gap in research on the Passive House Institute US (Phius) standards, particularly in North American climates. This study conducts a quantitative comparative analysis of two adjacent multifamily residential buildings in Central Pennsylvania, Climate Zone 5A—one built using conventional construction methods and the other following Passive House (PHIUS+ 2015) certification standards—to validate the energy efficiency improvements attributed to Passive House designs. A comparative analysis of the whole building energy use over two years reveals that the Passive House building consumes approximately 50% less energy than its conventional counterpart in terms of whole building energy use and the national median recommended benchmark metric defined by the Energy Star Portfolio Manager. These findings emphasize the potential for significant energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions in residential buildings, highlighting the necessity for policymakers and governments to incentivize the adoption of Passive House standards to achieve environmental sustainability and reduce energy costs for society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When analyzing spatially referenced event data, the criteria for declaring rates as "reliable" is still a matter of dispute. What these varying criteria have in common, however, is that they are rarely satisfied for crude estimates in small area analysis settings, prompting the use of spatial models to improve reliability. While reasonable, recent work has quantified the extent to which popular models from the spatial statistics literature can overwhelm the information contained in the data, leading to oversmoothing. Here, we begin by providing a definition for a "reliable" estimate for event rates that can be used for crude and model-based estimates and allows for discrete and continuous statements of reliability. We then construct a spatial Bayesian framework that allows users to infuse prior information into their models to improve reliability while also guarding against oversmoothing. We apply our approach to county-level birth data from Pennsylvania, highlighting the effect of oversmoothing in spatial models and how our approach can allow users to better focus their attention to areas where sufficient data exists to drive inferential decisions. We then conclude with a brief discussion of how this definition of reliability can be used in the design of small area studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stormwater green infrastructure (GI) has been applied as a method to address urban flooding for over forty years. However, GI has not yet been widely utilized across the US. Prior studies identified some challenges with technical, engineering, and socioeconomic aspects of GI, but detailed examination of non-scientific papers to identify and analyze real-world barriers that may hinder the implementation of GI has not yet been done. To achieve this goal, we conducted a meta-analysis of 351 public documents from federal, state, and 62 municipalities in Eastern Pennsylvania to systematically review the support of different levels of government for implementing GI. We summarized barriers in three categories: 1) governance and policy: failure to integrate GI into existing stormwater management policies due to unclearly defined responsibility and infrequent policy updates, 2) stormwater fees and credits: inequity in stormwater fee structures and debate of stormwater credits connected to GI, and 3) public education and outreach: most municipal governments provide little or no stormwater and GI-related information to their residents, but some municipalities with higher population density have tried to offer more. These barriers will restrain the original intention and vision of GI implementation and cause difficulties in effectively conveying GI's information from the federal and state levels to municipalities and residents. Our discussion highlights these difficulties of GI implementation at all governmental levels and shed light on potential solutions to address these barriers. • Barriers to Green Infrastructure (GI) adoption in the US context are identified. • Qualitative and quantitative methods are conducted to identify GI barriers. • Three categories of GI barriers are summarized at different levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main challenge in addressing constrained multi-objective optimization problems (CMOPs) lies in achieving a balance among convergence, diversity, and feasibility. To address this issue, this paper proposes a constrained multi-objective evolutionary algorithm with Pareto estimation via neural network named CMOEA-PeNN. In order to exploit and explore the decision space, the proposed algorithm employs a dual-population mechanism, which is trained with a self-organizing map (SOM). Firstly, the population distribution structure in decision space is mapped to objective space while preserving neighborhood information, and then the neuron weight is utilized to estimate the Pareto front (PF). Secondly, a novel approach is devised to preserve the feasibility of the population and enhance the estimation of the Pareto front by SOM. The achievement scalarizing function (ASF) is employed to choose promising solutions. This strategy could guide the population toward the optimal solution while exploring the small feasible regions. Finally, the performance of CMOEA-PeNN is compared with five state-of-the-art constrained multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (CMOEAs) on three widely used benchmark problems and a real-world problem. The experimental results show that CMOEA-PeNN could archive competitive performance in solving CMOPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chesapeake Bay watershed is representative of governance challenges relating to agricultural nonpoint source pollution and, more generally, of sustainable resources governance in complex multi-actor settings. We assess information flows around Best Management Practices (BMPs) undertaken by dairy farmers in central Pennsylvania, a subregion of the watershed. We apply a mixed-method approach, combining Social Network Analysis, the analysis of BMP-messaging (i.e. information source, flow, and their influences), and qualitative content analysis of stakeholders' interviews. Key strategic actors were identified through network centrality measures such as degree of node, betweenness centrality, and clustering coefficient. The perceived influence/credibility (by farmers) of BMP-messages and their source, allowed for the identification of strategic entry points for BMP-messages diffusion. Finally, the inductive coding process of stakeholders' interviews revealed major hindrances and opportunities for BMPs adoption. We demonstrate how improved targeting of policy interventions for BMPs uptake may be achieved, by better distributing entry-points across stakeholders. Our results reveal governance gaps and opportunities, on which we draw to provide insights for better tailored policy interventions. We propose strategies to optimize the coverage of policy mixes and the dissemination of BMP-messages by building on network diversity and actors' complementarities, and by targeting intervention towards specific BMPs and actors. We suggest that (i) conservation incentives could target supply chain actors as conservation intermediaries; (ii) compliance-control of manure management planning could be conducted by accredited private certifiers; (iii) policy should focus on incentivizing inter-farmers interaction (e.g. farmers' mobility, training, knowledge-exchange, and engagement in multi-stakeholders collaboration) via financial or non-pecuniary compensation; (iv) collective incentives could help better coordinate conservation efforts at the landscape or (sub-)watershed scale; (v) all relevant stakeholders (including farmers) should be concerted and included in the discussion, proposition, co-design and decision process of policy, in order to take their respective interests and responsibilities into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a compact core model for double-gate (DGFET) and surrounding-gate (SGFET) MOSFETs designed for circuit simulations. Despite its high precision, the model is crafted to retain the same analytic formulation of the industry standard Pennsylvania State and Philips (PSP). Instead of linearizing the drain current as in the PSP model, we employ a quadratic symmetric polynomial interpolation of the charge in the channel. This eliminates the need for cumbersome derivatives, simplifications, and intricate coding when integrating into a circuit simulator, thereby preventing singularities during numerical iterations. Moreover, thanks to its mathematical formulation equivalent to PSP, this model simplifies the coding of terminal charges, capacitances, potentials, and electric fields in the channel within circuit simulators. We validate the accuracy of the model through comparisons with numerical solutions and experiments from the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustained recruitment and retention of students in STEM majors is a national concern. Although the rate of attrition in these majors is comparable to other majors, the demand for trained scientists to enter the workforce with a baccalaureate degree is high. To enhance retention and support of STEM students from their first year until graduation, we established a Residential Learning Community (RLC) for STEM majors at York College of Pennsylvania. Although similar learning communities already existed, this was the first of its kind at this institution. The primary components included living on campus with a roommate also in the program, taking courses like general chemistry and First-Year Seminar as a designated cohort, and receiving increased faculty mentoring through advising. The RLC, named STEM Scholars, was developed with significant institutional buy-in and interdisciplinary faculty support but without financial backing. Several key takeaways are reported in this article, notably the need for funding to support a STEM cohort program. The effectiveness of the program and its components continues to be assessed; results of the assessment will be shared in the future. Successful components of STEM Scholars can be incorporated at other institutions to enhance STEM education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Police violence is increasingly recognized as an urgent public health problem. Basic questions about police violence, however, remain unanswered, including which types of law enforcement agency are responsible for fatal police violence deaths. Methods: We estimated the proportion of police violence deaths in the U.S. (2013–2022) that were attributable to local, county, state, federal, or tribal police agencies, using mapping police violence data. We examined proportions overall, by decedent race/ethnicity, and by state. Results: Nationally, 60% of decedents were killed by municipal, 29% by county, 8% by state, and 3% by federal, police, with < 1% killed by tribal or other officers. These proportions varied by race/ethnicity, with 56% of Native American decedents killed by municipal police compared to 70–75% among other racially minoritized people. While municipal police were responsible for most deaths in most states, in the Southeast, county police predominated. In some Northeastern states (and Alaska), state police were responsible for > 40% of deaths. Conclusions: We identify wide geographic & racial/ethnic variation in the agencies responsible for fatal police violence. Findings suggest that the budgetary and infrastructural shifts required to prevent fatal police violence need to occur at multiple levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Fire Ecology is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background. Culturally relevant exercises may help improve health and address disparities faced by older immigrants due to language and cultural barriers. Few studies have focused on such exercise interventions among older Chinese immigrants at US daycare centers. Methods. We conducted a 10-week nonrandomized controlled trial in older Chinese immigrants in Philadelphia, US. The intervention group practiced Chinese Qigong (Baduanjin) 5 days a week guided by trained research assistants and video instructions. The control group maintained their usual daily activities. We collected self-report assessments on overall health, sleep, and fatigue and implemented two computerized cognitive tests measuring psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) and memory twice, preintervention and postintervention. Repeated measures general linear model (GLM) and paired samples t-tests were used for data analyses. Results. Eighty-eight older adults (Qigong, n = 53; control, n = 35) with an average age of 78.13 (SD = 5.05) were included. Groups showed no significant differences at baseline evaluation. After the 10-week exercise, the intervention group showed significant improvements in overall health (p = 0.032), fatigue (p < 0.001), and cognitive functions including memory (p = 0.01), response speed (p = 0.002), and response time (p = 0.012) on the PVT, as well as marginally significant benefits in sleep (p = 0.058). Between-group comparisons identified significant group-by-time interactions in health (p = 0.024), sleep (p = 0.004), fatigue (p = 0.004), and memory (p = 0.004). Conclusion. We revealed significant positive effects of Qigong in older Chinese immigrants across multiple health domains. Findings highlight the potential of a culturally relevant exercise in addressing health disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, much attention has been focused on the nationwide teacher shortage. As teachers begin to retire in record numbers, and the number of students entering teacher education majors continues to decline, concern around the teacher shortage heightens (US Dept. of Ed., 2016). The numbers are even more dire when looking at Teachers of Color entering the profession (US Dept. of Ed., 2016). To address this TOC shortage, Pennsylvania's Department of Education called for Institutions of Higher Education to create programs aimed at attracting and retaining students of color in their teacher education programs. The Aspiring to Educate (A2E) program was Pennsylvania's intentional attempt to diversify the teacher workforce. This paper describes the work of three Black educators, as they examine their positionality and work independently and collectively to answer PA's call to action through the implementation of start-up Grow Your Own programs.

The article discusses a study that assessed the extent of soil contamination from submarine and aerial lead sheathed communications cables (LSCC) as well as potential risks to children's health. The researchers measured the amount of soil lead levels at submarine sites in Louisiana and aerial sites in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania using a Niton XL3t X-ray Fluorescence Analyzer. The results indicate that LSCC can be transported from the cables and contaminate surrounding soil and dust.

Background:  The early identification of outbreaks of both known and novel influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) is an important public health problem., Objective:  This study aimed to describe the design and testing of a tool that detects and tracks outbreaks of both known and novel ILIs, such as the SARS-CoV-2 worldwide pandemic, accurately and early., Methods:  This paper describes the ILI Tracker algorithm that first models the daily occurrence of a set of known ILIs in hospital emergency departments in a monitored region using findings extracted from patient care reports using natural language processing. We then show how the algorithm can be extended to detect and track the presence of an unmodeled disease that may represent a novel disease outbreak., Results:  We include results based on modeling diseases like influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, human metapneumovirus, and parainfluenza for 5 emergency departments in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, from June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2015. We also include the results of detecting the outbreak of an unmodeled disease, which in retrospect was very likely an outbreak of the enterovirus D68 (EV-D68)., Conclusions:  The results reported in this paper provide support that ILI Tracker was able to track well the incidence of 4 modeled influenza-like diseases over a 1-year period, relative to laboratory-confirmed cases, and it was computationally efficient in doing so. The system was also able to detect a likely novel outbreak of EV-D68 early in an outbreak that occurred in Allegheny County in 2014 as well as clinically characterize that outbreak disease accurately., (©John M Aronis, Ye Ye, Jessi Espino, Harry Hochheiser, Marian G Michaels, Gregory F Cooper. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 13.08.2024.)

Human impacts on ecological communities are pervasive and species must either move or adapt to changing environmental conditions. For environments polluted by contaminants, researchers have found hundreds of target pest species evolving increased tolerance, but we have substantially fewer cases of evolved tolerance in non-target species. When species do evolve increased tolerance, inducible tolerance can provide immediate protection and favor the evolution of increased tolerance over generations via genetic assimilation. Using a model larval amphibian (wood frogs, Rana sylvatica), we examined the tolerance of 15 populations from western Pennsylvania and eastern New York (USA), when first exposed to no pesticide or sublethal concentrations and subsequently exposed to lethal concentrations of three common insecticides (carbaryl, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon). We found high variation in naïve tolerance among the populations for all three insecticides. We also discovered that nearly half of the populations exhibited inducible tolerance, though the degree of inducible tolerance (magnitude of tolerance plasticity; MoTP) varied. We observed a cross-tolerance pattern of the populations between chlorpyrifos and diazinon, but no pattern of similar MoTP among the pesticides. With populations combined from two regions, increased tolerance was not associated with proximity to agricultural fields, but there were correlations between proximity to agriculture and MoTP. Collectively, these results suggests that amphibian populations possess a wide range of naïve tolerance to common pesticides, with many also being able to rapidly induce increased tolerance. Future research should examine inducible tolerance in a wide variety of other taxa and contaminants to determine the ubiquity of these responses to anthropogenic factors., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

PER: and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been measured in aqueous components within landfills. To date, the majority of these studies have been conducted in Florida. This current study aimed to evaluate PFAS concentrations in aqueous components (leachate, gas condensate, stormwater, and groundwater) from four landfills located outside of Florida, in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Wisconsin (2 landfills). The Pennsylvania landfill also provided the opportunity to assess a leachate treatment system. Sample analyses were consistent across studies including the measurements of 26 PFAS and physical-chemical parameters. For the four target landfills, average PFAS concentrations were 6,900, 22,000, 280, and 260 ng L -1 in the leachate, gas condensate, stormwater, and groundwater, respectively. These results were not significantly different than those observed for landfills in Florida except for the significantly higher PFAS concentrations in gas condensate compared to leachate. For on-site treatment at the Pennsylvania landfill, results suggest that the membrane biological bioreactor (MBBR) system performed similarly as aeration-based leachate treatment systems at Florida landfills resulting in no significant decreases in ∑ 26 PFAS. Overall, results suggest a general consistency across US regions in PFAS concentrations within different landfill liquid types, with the few differences observed likely influenced by landfill design and local climate. Results confirm that leachate exposed to open air (e.g., in trenches or in treatment systems) have lower proportions of perfluoroalkyl acid precursors relative to leachate collected in enclosed pipe systems. Results also confirm that landfills without bottom liner systems may have relatively higher PFAS levels in adjacent groundwater and that landfills in wetter climates tend to have higher PFAS concentrations in leachate., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)