bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
QUASIMOLECULAR POTENTIAL WITH MODIFICATION
Authors: KHAN SOHAIL. A. , MAT JAFRI M. Z. , LOW K. L.
Published: January 2011

Quasimolecular optical potentials used for identical nuclei have been modified for application to different interacting nuclei. This has been applied to the28Si –16O system and compared with those results using the Woods–Saxon potential that had been found to reproduce the experimental results. The result indicates that the modification is useful and provides information on nuclear properties and explains the origin of imaginary potential. It has the applicability to a wide range of nuclei.
ANALYSIS BEYOND INTERMITTENCY IN MULTIPARTICLE PRODUCTION IN RELATIVISTIC NUCLEAR COLLISIONS
Authors: KHAN M. MOHSIN , AHMAD SHAKEEL , AHMAD N. , ZAFAR M. , IRFAN M.
Published: January 2011

Possibility of occurrence of chaotic behavior in multiparticle production in relativistic nuclear collisions is examined. Erraticity spectrum and entropy index are determined and compared with those of FRITIOF-generated events. The results obtained in the present study reveal existence of erraticity in multiparticle production in relativistic nuclear collisions.
PiPA
Authors: Zhao Qin , Cutcutache Ioana , Wong Weng-Fai
Published: January 2011

Profiling and online analysis are important tasks in program understanding and feedback-directed optimization. However, fine-grained profiling and online analysis tend to seriously slow down the application. To cope with the slowdown, one may have to terminate the process early or resort to sampling. The former tends to distort the result because of warm-up effects. The latter runs the risk of missing important effects because sampling was turned off during the time that these effects appeared. A promising approach is to make use of the parallel processing capabilities of the now ubiquitous multicore processors to speed up the profiling and analysis process. In this article, we present
Pipelined Profiling and Analysis
(PiPA), which is a novel technique for parallelizing dynamic program profiling and analysis by taking advantage of multicore systems. In essence, the application under examination is profiled using a dynamic instrumentation tool. Optimized instrumentation code outputs the profile information in a succinct format, that we call the REP format, to buffers. This lightweight trace compression minimizes the processing overhead impinged on the application whenever a buffer is full. Another thread recovers the required information from the REP buffer. The recovered full profile is then divided up and passed to multiple threads for further analysis. To achieve the best performance, the entire system has to be well-balanced. We have implemented prototypes of PiPA using two dynamic instrumentation systems, namely DynamoRIO and Pin, thereby demonstrating its portability. Our experiments show that PiPA is able to speed up the overall profiling and analysis tasks significantly. Compared to the more than 100× slowdown of Cachegrind and the 32× slowdown of Pin dcache, we achieved a mere 10.2× slowdown on an 8-core system. In this paper, we will also describe the insights we gained in obtaining the balance needed for PiPA to perform optimally.
Quality of service shared cache management in chip multiprocessor architecture
Authors: Guo Fei , Solihin Yan , Zhao Li , Iyer Ravishankar
Published: January 2011

The trends in enterprise IT toward service-oriented computing, server consolidation, and virtual computing point to a future in which workloads are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of performance, reliability, and availability requirements. It can be expected that more and more applications with diverse requirements will run on a Chip Multi-Processor (CMP) and share platform resources such as the lowest level cache and off-chip bandwidth. In this environment, it is desirable to have microarchitecture and software support that can provide a guarantee of a certain level of performance, which we refer to as
performance Quality of Service
.

In this article, we investigated a framework would be needed to manage the shared cache resource for fully providing QoS in a CMP. We found in order to fully provide QoS, we need to specify an appropriate QoS target for each job and apply an admission control policy to accept jobs only when their QoS targets can be satisfied. We also found that providing strict QoS often leads to a significant reduction in throughput due to resource fragmentation. We proposed throughput optimization techniques that include: (1) exploiting various QoS execution modes, and (2) a microarchitecture technique, which we refer to as resource stealing, that detects and reallocates excess cache capacity from a job while preserving its QoS target. We designed and evaluated three algorithms for performing resource stealing, which differ in how aggressive they are in stealing excess cache capacity, and in the degree of confidence in meeting QoS targets. In addition, we proposed a mechanism to dynamically enable or disable resource stealing depending on whether other jobs can benefit from additional cache capacity. We evaluated our QoS framework with a full system simulation of a 4-core CMP and a recent version of the Linux Operating System. We found that compared to an unoptimized scheme, the throughput can be improved by up to 47%, making the throughput significantly closer to a non-QoS CMP.
Design exploration of hybrid caches with disparate memory technologies
Authors: Wu Xiaoxia , Li Jian , Zhang Lixin , Speight Evan , Rajamony Ram , Xie Yuan
Published: January 2011

Traditional multilevel SRAM-based cache hierarchies, especially in the context of chip multiprocessors (CMPs), present many challenges in area requirements, core--to--cache balance, power consumption, and design complexity. New advancements in technology enable caches to be built from other technologies, such as Embedded DRAM (EDRAM), Magnetic RAM (MRAM), and Phase-change RAM (PRAM), in both 2D chips or 3D stacked chips. Caches fabricated in these technologies offer dramatically different power-performance characteristics when compared with SRAM-based caches, particularly in the areas of access latency, cell density, and overall power consumption. In this article, we propose to take advantage of the best characteristics that each technology has to offer through the use of Hybrid Cache Architecture (HCA) designs.

We discuss and evaluate two types of hybrid cache architectures: intercache-Level HCA (LHCA), in which the levels in a cache hierarchy can be made of disparate memory technologies; and intracache-level or cache-Region-based HCA (RHCA), where a single level of cache can be partitioned into multiple regions, each of a different memory technology. We have studied a number of different HCA architectures and explored the potential of hardware support for intracache data movement and power consumption management within HCA caches. Utilizing a full-system simulator that has been validated against real hardware, we demonstrate that an LHCA design can provide a geometric mean 6% IPC improvement over a baseline 3-level SRAM cache design under the same area constraint across a collection of 30 workloads. A more aggressive RHCA-based design provides 10% IPC improvement over the baseline. A 2-layer 3D cache stack (3DHCA) of high density memory technology within the same chip footprint gives 16% IPC improvement over the baseline. We also achieve up to a 72% reduction in power consumption over a baseline SRAM-only design. Energy-delay and thermal evaluation for 3DHCA are also presented. In addition to the fast-slow region based RHCA, we further evaluate read-write region based RHCA designs.
Exploiting compression opportunities to improve SpMxV performance on shared memory systems
Authors: Kourtis Kornilios , Goumas Georgios , Koziris Nectarios
Published: January 2011

The Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication (SpMxV) kernel exhibits poor scaling on shared memory systems, due to the streaming nature of its data access pattern. To decrease memory contention and improve kernel performance we propose two compression schemes: CSR-DU, that targets the reduction of the matrix structural data by applying coarse-grained delta-encoding, and CSR-VI, that targets the reduction of the values using indirect indexing, applicable to matrices with a small number of unique values. Thorough experimental evaluation of the proposed methods and their combination, on two modern shared memory systems, demonstrated that they can significantly improve multithreaded SpMxV performance upon standard and state-of-the-art approaches.
DisIRer
Authors: Hwang Yuan-Shin , Lin Tzong-Yen , Chang Rong-Guey
Published: January 2011

This article proposes an alternative yet effective way of constructing a multiplatform binary translator, by converting a retargetable compiler into a binary translator. The rationale is that a retargetable compiler usually parses source programs into an Intermediate Representation (IR), and then translates IR into object code of different targets after performing analysis and optimizations. Specifically, the mechanism of code generation for multiple platforms from IR is already in place, and the missing link of building a multiplatform binary translator is a tool to transform binary programs back into IR. In order to fill in this missing link, this article presents a tool, called thedisIRer. Just as a translator from machine language to assembly language is called a disassembler, a tool that translates executable binary programs to IR is called here a disIRer. The unique feature of this approach is that the retargetability of the binary translator is inherited directly from the retargetable compiler. A prototype multiplatform binary translator has been implemented upon GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection). DisIRer first converts binary programs back into GCC IR (Intermediate Representation), and afterward the GCC backend translates the IR to target binary programs of specified platforms. Experimental results show that x86 binary programs can be translated by this technique into ARM and Alpha binaries with reasonable code density and quality.
Collective optimization
Authors: Fursin Grigori , Temam Olivier
Published: January 2011

Iterative optimization is a popular and efficient research approach to optimize programs using feedback-directed compilation. However, one of the key limitations that prevented widespread use in production compilers and day-to-day practice is the necessity to perform a large number of program runs with the same dataset and environment (architecture, OS, compiler) to test many different combinations of optimizations. In this article, we propose to overcome such a practical obstacle using
collective optimization
, where the task of optimizing a program or tuning default compiler optimization heuristic leverages the experience of many other users continuously, rather than being performed in isolation, and often redundantly, by each user. During this unobtrusive approach, performance information is sent to a central database after each run and statistically combined with the data from all users to suggest most profitable optimizations for a given program and an architecture, or to gradually improve default optimization level of a compiler for a given architecture.

In this article, we address two key challenges of collective optimization. We show that it is possible to simultaneously learn and improve performance while avoiding long training phases. We also demonstrate how to use our approach with static compilers to learn optimizations across multiple datasets and architectures without even a reference run normally needed to compute speedups over the baseline optimization by using static function cloning and dynamic adaptation. We present a novel probabilistic approach based on
competition
among pairs of optimizations
(program reaction to optimizations)
to enable optimization knowledge reuse and achieve nearly the best possible iterative optimization performance. We implemented our technique in GCC (widespread production open-source compiler that supports multiple architectures) and connected it to a public collective optimization database at cTuning.org to gather profile and optimization data continuously and transparently in realistic environments ranging from desktop PCs and mobile systems to supercomputers and data centers.
Understanding the behavior and implications of context switch misses
Authors: Liu Fang , Solihin Yan
Published: January 2011

One of the essential features in modern computer systems is context switching, which allows multiple threads of execution to time-share a limited number of processors. While very useful, context switching can introduce high performance overheads, with one of the primary reasons being the cache perturbation effect. Between the time a thread is switched out and when it resumes execution, parts of its working set in the cache may be perturbed by other interfering threads, leading to (context switch) cache misses to recover from the perturbation.

The goal of this article is to understand how cache parameters and application behavior influence the number of context switch misses the application suffers from. We characterize a previously unreported type of context switch misses that occur as the artifact of the interaction of cache replacement policy and an application's temporal reuse behavior. We characterize the behavior of these “reordered misses” for various applications, cache sizes, and various amount of cache perturbation. As a second contribution, we develop an analytical model that reveals the mathematical relationship between cache design parameters, an application's temporal reuse pattern, and the number of context switch misses the application suffers from. We validate the model against simulation studies and find that it is sufficiently accurate in predicting the trends of context switch misses with regard to various cache perturbation amount.

The mathematical relationship provided by the model allows us to derive insights into precisely why some applications are more vulnerable to context switch misses than others. Through a case study on prefetching, we find that prefetching tends to aggravate the number of context switch misses and a less aggresive prefetching technique can reduce the number of context switch misses the application suffers from. We also investigate how cache sizes affect context switch misses. Our study shows that under relatively heavy workloads in the system, the worst-case number of context switch misses an application suffers from tends to increase proportionally with cache sizes, to the extent that may completely negate the reduction in other types of cache misses.
Photocatalysed (Meth)acrylate Polymerization by (Antimony-Doped) Tin Oxide Nanoparticles and Photoconduction of Their Crosslinked Polymer Nanoparticle Composites
Authors: Brokken-Zijp J. C. M. , van Asselen O. L. J. , Kleinjan W. E. , van de Belt R. , de With G.
Published: January 2011

In the absence of another (photo)radical initiator Sb:SnO2nanoparticles (0≤Sb≤13at %) photocatalyze during irradiation with UV light the radical polymerization of (meth)acrylate monomers. When cured hard and transparent (>98%) films with a low haze (<1%) are required, when these particles are grafted in advance with 3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (MPS) and doped with Sb. Public knowledge about the photocatalytic properties of Sb:SnO2nanoparticles is hardly available. Therefore, the influence of particle concentration, surface groups, and Sb doping on the rate of C=C (meth)acrylate bond polymerization was determined with aid of real-time FT-IR spectroscopy. By using a wavelength of irradiation with a narrow bandgab (315±5 nm) the influence of these factors on the quantum yield (Φ) and on polymer and particle network structure formation was determined. It is shown that Sb doping and MPS grafting of the particles lowers Φ. MPS grafting of the particles also influences the structure of the polymer network formed. Without Sb doping of these particles unwanted, photocatalytic side reactions occur. It is also shown that cured MPS-Sb:SnO2/(meth)acrylate nanocomposites have photoconduction properties even when the particle concentration is as low as 1 vol.%. The results suggest that the Sb:SnO2(Sb>0at %) nanoparticles can be attractive fillers for other photocatalytic applications photorefractive materials, optoelectronic devices and sensors.
A Cross-Layer Location-Based Approach for Mobile-Controlled Connectivity
Authors: Inzerilli T. , Vegni Anna Maria , Neri A. , Cusani R.
Published: January 2011

We investigate into the potentiality of an enhanced Power and Location-based Vertical Handover (PLB-VHO) approach, based on a combination of physical parameters (i.e., location and power attenuation information), for mobile-controlled connectivity across UMTS and WLAN networks. We show that the location information in a multiparameter vertical handover can significantly enhance communication performance. In the presented approach a power attenuation map for the visited area is built and kept updated by exploiting the information sharing of power measurements with other cooperating mobile devices inside the visited networks. Such information is then used for connectivity switching in handover decisions. The analytical model for the proposed technique is first presented and then compared with a traditional Power-Based approach and a simplified Location-Based technique. Simulation results show the effectiveness of PLB-VHO approach, in terms of (i) network performance optimization and (ii) limitation of unnecessary handovers (i.e., mitigation ofping-pong effect).
Role of Bone Marrow-Derived Monocytes/Macrophages in the Repair of Mucosal Damage Caused by Irradiation and/or Anticancer Drugs in Colitis Model
Authors: Takaba Junji , Mishima Yuji , Hatake Kiyohiko , Kasahara Tadashi
Published: January 2011

Mucosal damage is a common side effect of many cancer treatments, especially radiotherapy and intensive chemotherapy, which often induce bone marrow (BM) suppression. We observed that acetic acid- (AA-) induced mucosal damage in the colon of mice was worsened by simultaneous treatment with irradiation or 5-FU. However, irradiation 14 days prior to the AA treatment augmented the recovery from mucosal damage, suggesting that the recovery from BM suppression had an advantageous effect on the mucosal repair. In addition, BM transplantation also augmented the recovery from AA-induced mucosal damage. We further confirmed that transplanted BM-derived cells, particularly F4/80+Gr1+“inflammatory” monocytes (Subset 1), accumulated in the damaged mucosal area in the early healing phase, and both of Subset 1 and F4/80+Gr1-“resident” monocytes (Subset 2) accumulated in this area in later phases. Our results suggest that monocytes/macrophages contribute to the mucosal recovery and regeneration following mucosal damage by anticancer drug therapy.
PtdIns 3-Kinase Orchestrates Autophagosome Formation in Yeast
Authors: Obara Keisuke , Ohsumi Yoshinori
Published: January 2011

Eukaryotic cells can massively transport their own cytoplasmic contents into a lytic compartment, the vacuole/lysosome, for recycling through a conserved system called autophagy. The key process in autophagy is the sequestration of cytoplasmic contents within a double-membrane structure, the autophagosome. Autophagosome formation requires the elaborate cooperation of Atg (autophagy-related) proteins and lipid molecules. Phosphorylation of phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) by a PtdIns 3-kinase, Vps34, is a key step in coordinating Atg proteins and lipid molecules. Vps34 forms two distinct protein complexes, only one of which is involved in generating autophagic membranes. Upon induction of autophagy, PtdIns(3)P, the enzymatic product of PtdIns 3-kinase, is massively transported into the lumen of the vacuoleviaautophagy. PtdIns(3)Pis enriched on the inner membrane of the autophagosome. PtdIns(3)Precruits the Atg18−Atg2 complex and presumably other Atg proteins to autophagic membranes, thereby coordinating lipid molecules and Atg proteins.
In Vitro Antimicrobial Susceptibility ofMycobacterium massilienseRecovered from Wound Samples of Patients Submitted to Arthroscopic and Laparoscopic Surgeries
Authors: Cardoso Alessandra Marques , Junqueira-Kipnis Ana Paula , Kipnis André
Published: January 2011

Testing of rapidly growing species of mycobacteria (RGM) against antibacterial agents has been shown to have some clinical utility. This work establishes the MICs of seven antimicrobial agents following the guidelines set forth by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) against eighteen isolates ofMycobacterium massilienserecovered from wound samples of patients submitted to minimally invasive surgery such as arthroscopy and laparoscopy. The isolates showed susceptibility to amikacin (MIC90=4 μg/mL) and clarithromycin (MIC90<1 μg/mL) but resistance to ciprofloxacin (MIC90>16 μg/mL), doxycycline (MIC90>32 μg/mL), sulfamethoxazole (MIC90>128 μg/mL), and tobramycin (MIC90=32 μg/mL), and intermediate profile to cefoxitin (MIC90=64 μg/mL). Therefore, we suggest that the antimicrobial susceptibilities of any clinically significant RGM isolate should be performed.
Experimental Progress towards Probing the Ground State of an Electron-Hole Bilayer by Low-Temperature Transport
Authors: Das Gupta K. , Croxall A. F. , Waldie J. , Nicoll C. A. , Beere H. E. , Farrer I. , Ritchie D. A. , Pepper M.
Published: January 2011

Recently, it has been possible to design independently contacted electron-hole bilayers (EHBLs) with carrier densities  cm2in each layer and a separation of 10–20 nm in a GaAs/AlGaAs system. In these EHBLs, the interlayer interaction can be stronger than the intralayer interactions. Theoretical works have indicated the possibility of a very rich phase diagram in EHBLs consisting of excitonic superfluid phases, charge density waves, and Wigner crystals. Experiments have revealed that the Coulomb drag on the hole layer shows strong nonmonotonic deviations from a behaviour expected for Fermi-liquids at low temperatures. Simultaneously, an unexpected insulating behaviour in the single-layer resistances (at a highly “metallic” regime with ) also appears in both layers despite electron mobilities of above and hole mobilities over . Experimental data also indicates that the point of equal densities () is not special.
Ibuprofen Inhibits Activation of Nuclear β-Catenin in Human Colon Adenomas and Induces the Phosphorylation of GSK-3β
Authors: Greenspan Emily J. , Madigan James P. , Boardman Lisa A. , Rosenberg Daniel W.
Published: January 2011

Nonselective cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitors target many of the same cancer-associated molecular pathways as COX-2–specific inhibitors. Although these nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are often associated with gastrointestinal toxicity, there is renewed interest in their use as colorectal cancer (CRC) chemopreventive agents due to the adverse side effects associated with long-term use of selective COX-2 inhibitors. In this study, we investigated the effects of long-term use (up to 25 years) of NSAIDs (ibuprofen or aspirin) on adenoma pathology and β-catenin–mediated signaling in sporadic human colon adenomas. Although NSAID use did not impact overall adenoma size or degree of dysplasia, it did cause a significant inhibition of nuclear β-catenin localization, which correlated with suppression of cyclin D1 expression. To further elucidate the effect of these agents in regulating β-catenin, we treated SW480 colon cancer cells with a panel of NSAIDs and determined their effects on β-catenin levels and cellular localization. In agreement with our in vivo results, both S-ibuprofen and aspirin were found to decrease total levels of β-catenin while increasing its phosphorylation. In addition, S-ibuprofen induced both degradation of IκBα and nuclear localization of NF-κB. Despite its nuclear localization, however, the activation of the NF-κB target genes, Bcl-2, survivin, and cyclin D1, was suppressed. This reduction in NF-κB transcriptional activity may be due to increased phosphorylation of GSK-3β following S-ibuprofen treatment. These data suggest that ibuprofen can effectively target both the Wnt/β-catenin and NF-κB pathways, and potentially uncovers a novel mechanism through which NSAIDS may exert their chemopreventive efficacy. Cancer Prev Res; 4(1); 161–71. ©2011 AACR.
Mcs5c: A Mammary Carcinoma Susceptibility Locus Located in a Gene Desert that Associates withTenascin CExpression
Authors: Veillet Adeline L. , Haag Jill D. , Remfert Jane L. , Meilahn Amanda L. , Samuelson David J. , Gould Michael N.
Published: January 2011

Genetic factors have been estimated to account for at least 30% of a woman's risk to develop breast cancer. We have developed a rat model using Wistar Furth (WF) and Wistar Kyoto (WKy) strains to genetically identify mammary cancer susceptibility loci. The WKy allele of the mammary carcinogenesis susceptibility locus Mcs5c, was previously shown to reduce carcinoma multiplicity after 7,12-dimethylbenz-[a]anthracene (DMBA) exposure. In this study, Mcs5c was fine-mapped using WF.WKy congenic lines. Mcs5c was located to a region of approximately 176 kb on rat chromosome 5. One of the Mcs5c congenic lines containing a narrow Mcs5c WKy interval displayed a 40% decrease in average carcinoma number compared with WF-homozygous congenic controls after mammary carcinogenesis induction using two different models. As genetically mapped, the Mcs5c locus is located in a gene desert and thus is devoid of genes and annotated RNAs; thus, a genetic element in Mcs5c was hypothesized to regulate the expression of genes outside the locus. Tenascin c (Tnc) was identified as a candidate gene due to its reduced expression in thymus and ovarian tissues of Mcs5c WKy-homozygous congenic females compared with WF-homozygous congenic controls. This allele-specific differential expression is environmentally controlled. Cancer Prev Res; 4(1); 97–106. ©2011 AACR.
Resveratrol-Induced Apoptosis Is Mediated by Early Growth Response-1, Krüppel-Like Factor 4, and Activating Transcription Factor 3
Authors: Whitlock Nichelle C. , Bahn Jae Hoon , Lee Seong-Ho , Eling Thomas E. , Baek Seung Joon
Published: January 2011

Resveratrol, a dietary phytoalexin readily available in the diet, is reported to possess antitumorigenic properties in several cancers, including colorectal. However, the underlying mechanism(s) involved is not completely understood. In the present study, we investigated the effect of resveratrol treatment on gene modulation in human colorectal cancer cells and identified activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3) as the most highly induced gene after treatment. We confirmed that resveratrol upregulates ATF3 expression, both at the mRNA and protein level, and showed resveratrol involvement in ATF3 transcriptional regulation. Analysis of the ATF3 promoter revealed the importance of early growth response-1 (Egr-1; located at −245 to −236) and Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4; located at −178 to −174) putative binding sites in resveratrol-mediated ATF3 transactivation. Specificity of these sites to the Egr-1 and KLF4 protein was confirmed by electrophoretic mobility shift and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays. Resveratrol increased Egr-1 and KLF4 expression, which preceded ATF3 expression, and further suggests Egr-1 and KLF4 involvement in resveratrol-mediated activity. We provide evidence for Egr-1 and KLF4 interaction in the presence of resveratrol, which may facilitate ATF3 transcriptional regulation by this compound. Furthermore, we demonstrate that induction of apoptosis by resveratrol is mediated, in part, by increased ATF3 expression. Taken together, these results provide a novel mechanism by which resveratrol induces ATF3 expression and represent an additional explanation of how resveratrol exerts its antitumorigenic effects in human colorectal cancer cells. Cancer Prev Res; 4(1); 116–27. ©2011 AACR.
Time to Think Outside the (Genetic) Box
Authors: Issa Jean-Pierre J. , Garber Judy E.
Published: January 2011

Many patients develop cancers that have clinical features of inherited syndromes (e.g., young age of onset and unique pathology) but lack mutations in the genes characteristic of the disease. In this issue of the journal, Wong et al. report that somatic epigenetic inactivation could explain some such cases in the setting of BRCA1-associated breast cancer. Here, we discuss the implications of this work in terms of the etiology, risk, and potential prevention of cancer. Cancer Prev Res; 4(1); 6–8. ©2011 AACR.
Glucose-Insulin-Potassium Reduces the Incidence of Low Cardiac Output Episodes After Aortic Valve Replacement for Aortic Stenosis in Patients With Left Ventricular Hypertrophy
Authors: Howell Neil J. , Ashrafian Houman , Drury Nigel E. , Ranasinghe Aaron M. , Contractor Hussain , Isackson Henrik , Calvert Melanie , Williams Lynne K. , Freemantle Nick , Quinn David W. , Green David , Frenneaux Michael , Bonser Robert S. , Mascaro Jorge G. , Graham Timothy R. , Rooney Stephen J. , Wilson Ian C. , Pagano Domenico
Published: January 2011

Background—

Patients undergoing aortic valve replacement for critical aortic stenosis often have significant left ventricular hypertrophy. Left ventricular hypertrophy has been identified as an independent predictor of poor outcome after aortic valve replacement as a result of a combination of maladaptive myocardial changes and inadequate myocardial protection at the time of surgery. Glucose-insulin-potassium (GIK) is a potentially useful adjunct to myocardial protection. This study was designed to evaluate the effects of GIK infusion in patients undergoing aortic valve replacement surgery.

Methods and Results—

Patients undergoing aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis with evidence of left ventricular hypertrophy were randomly assigned to GIK or placebo. The trial was double-blind and conducted at a single center. The primary outcome was the incidence of low cardiac output syndrome. Left ventricular biopsies were analyzed to assess changes in 5′ adenosine monophosphate–activated protein kinase (AMPK), Akt phosphorylation, and protein O-linked β-
N
-acetylglucosamination (O-GlcNAcylation). Over a 4-year period, 217 patients were randomized (107 control, 110 GIK). GIK treatment was associated with a significant reduction in the incidence of low cardiac output state (odds ratio, 0.22; 95% confidence interval, 0.10 to 0.47;
P
=0.0001) and a significant reduction in inotrope use 6 to 12 hours postoperatively (odds ratio, 0.30; 95% confidence interval, 0.15 to 0.60;
P
=0.0007). These changes were associated with a substantial increase in AMPK and Akt phosphorylation and a significant increase in the O-GlcNAcylation of selected protein bands.

Conclusions—

Perioperative treatment with GIK was associated with a significant reduction in the incidence of low cardiac output state and the need for inotropic support. This benefit was associated with increased signaling protein phosphorylation and O-GlcNAcylation. Multicenter studies and late follow-up will determine whether routine use of GIK improves patient prognosis.

Clinical Trial Registration—

URL:
http://www.controlled-trials.com
. Reference number: ISRCTN 05758301.
Long-Term Outcomes of Endoscopic Vein Harvesting After Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting
Authors: Dacey Lawrence J. , Braxton John H. , Kramer Robert S. , Schmoker Joseph D. , Charlesworth David C. , Helm Robert E. , Frumiento Carmine , Sardella Gerald L. , Clough Robert A. , Jones Stephan R. , Malenka David J. , Olmstead Elaine M. , Ross Cathy S. , O'Connor Gerald T. , Likosky Donald S.
Published: January 2011

Background—

Use of endoscopic saphenous vein harvesting has developed into a routine surgical approach at many cardiothoracic surgical centers. The association between this technique and long-term morbidity and mortality has recently been called into question. The present report describes the use of open versus endoscopic vein harvesting and risk of mortality and repeat revascularization in northern New England during a time period (2001 to 2004) in which both techniques were being performed.

Methods and Results—

From 2001 to 2004, 8542 patients underwent isolated coronary artery bypass grafting procedures, 52.5% with endoscopic vein harvesting. Surgical discretion dictated the vein harvest approach. The main outcomes were death and repeat revascularization (percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary artery bypass grafting) within 4 years of the index admission. The use of endoscopic vein harvesting increased from 34% in 2001 to 75% in 2004. In general, patients undergoing endoscopic vein harvesting had greater disease burden. Endoscopic vein harvesting was associated with an increased adjusted risk of bleeding requiring a return to the operating room (2.4 versus 1.7;
P
=0.03) but a decreased risk of leg wound infections (0.2 versus 1.1;
P
<0.001). Use of endoscopic vein harvesting was associated with a significant reduction in long-term mortality (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.74; 95% confidence interval, 0.60 to 0.92) but a nonsignificant increased risk of repeat revascularization (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.29; 95% confidence interval, 0.96 to 1.74). Similar results were obtained in propensity-stratified analysis.

Conclusions—

During 2001 to 2004 in northern New England, the use of endoscopic vein harvesting was not associated with harm. There was a nonsignificant increase in repeat revascularization, and survival was not decreased.
Depot-Specific Differences and Insufficient Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue Angiogenesis in Human Obesity
Authors: Gealekman Olga , Guseva Nina , Hartigan Celia , Apotheker Sarah , Gorgoglione Matthew , Gurav Kunal , Tran Khanh-Van , Straubhaar Juerg , Nicoloro Sarah , Czech Michael P. , Thompson Michael , Perugini Richard A. , Corvera Silvia
Published: January 2011

Background—

Adipose tissue expands in response to excess caloric intake, but individuals prone to deposit visceral instead of subcutaneous adipose tissue have higher risk of metabolic disease. The role of angiogenesis in the expandability of human adipose tissue depots is unknown. The objective of this study was to measure angiogenesis in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue and to establish whether there is a relationship between obesity, metabolic status, and the angiogenic properties of these depots.

Methods and Results—

Angiogenic capacity was determined by quantifying capillary branch formation from human adipose tissue explants embedded in Matrigel, and capillary density was assessed by immunohistochemistry. Subcutaneous adipose tissue had a greater angiogenic capacity than visceral tissue, even after normalization to its higher initial capillary density. Gene array analyses revealed significant differences in expression of angiogenic genes between depots, including an increased subcutaneous expression of angiopoietin-like protein 4, which is proangiogenic in an adipose tissue context. Subcutaneous capillary density and angiogenic capacity decreased with morbid obesity, and subcutaneous, but not visceral, adipose tissue angiogenic capacity correlated negatively with insulin sensitivity.

Conclusions—

These data imply that subcutaneous adipose tissue has a higher capacity to expand its capillary network than visceral tissue, but this capacity decreases with morbid obesity. The decrease correlates with insulin resistance, suggesting that impairment of subcutaneous adipose tissue angiogenesis may contribute to metabolic disease pathogenesis.
The Relationship Between Visit-to-Visit Variability in Systolic Blood Pressure and All-Cause Mortality in the General Population
Authors: Muntner Paul , Shimbo Daichi , Tonelli Marcello , Reynolds Kristi , Arnett Donna K. , Oparil Suzanne
Published: January 2011

Recent data suggest that visit-to-visit variability of blood pressure is associated with stroke incidence. Correlates of increased visit-to-visit variability in blood pressure and the relationship between variability and all-cause mortality were examined using data on US adults ≥20 years of age from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n=956). Three consecutive blood pressure readings were taken during 3 separate study visits from 1988 to 1994. Based on the mean of the second and third measurements from each visit, visit-to-visit blood pressure variability for each participant was defined using the standard deviation and coefficient of variation across visits. Mortality was assessed through December 31, 2006 (median follow-up=14 years; n=240 deaths). The mean of the standard deviation for systolic blood pressure across visits was 7.7 mm Hg. After multivariable adjustment, older age, female gender, history of myocardial infarction, higher mean systolic blood pressure and pulse pressure, and use of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors were associated with higher standard deviation in systolic blood pressure. The multivariable adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality associated with a standard deviation of systolic blood pressure of 4.80 to 8.34 mm Hg and ≥8.35 mm Hg, versus <4.80 mm Hg, were 1.57 (95% CI, 1.07 to 2.18) and 1.50 (95% CI, 1.03 to 2.18), respectively. Results were similar when coefficient of variation for systolic blood pressure was evaluated. Visit-to-visit variability for diastolic blood pressure was not associated with mortality. In this population-based study of US adults, higher levels of short-term visit-to-visit variability in systolic blood pressure were associated with increased all-cause mortality.
Who Lost Vietnam? Soldiers, Civilians, and U.S. Military Strategy
Authors: McAllister James
Published: January 2011

Scholars have long argued about why the United States pursued a conventional military strategy during the Vietnam War rather than one based on counterinsurgency principles. A recent article in this journal by Jonathan Caverley presents a bold challenge to the historiography of the Vietnam War. Rejecting the standard historical focus on the organizational culture and strategic perspective of Gen. William Westmoreland and the U.S. Army, Caverley argues that the roots of the United States' strategy in Vietnam can be traced to the direct influence of civilian leaders and the strong constraint of public opinion. Caverley's main arguments are a welcome challenge to the established wisdom, but they are not supported by the historical evidence. Civilian officials in Lyndon Johnson's administration did not instruct the military on how to fight the ground war within the borders of South Vietnam. Westmoreland did not want to change U.S. military strategy to focus on pacification at the expense of search and destroy tactics and the main force war. Both U.S. civilian and military officials were convinced that counterinsurgency was a South Vietnamese responsibility that U.S. ground forces should not assume. Public opinion was a weak, rather than a strong, constraint on the specific decisions of the Johnson administration during the pivotal years of the Vietnam War. Democracies may not be able to win certain counterinsurgency conflicts, but the primary source of this failure is not a civilian aversion to casualties.
Explaining U.S. Military Strategy in Vietnam: Thinking Clearly about Causation
Authors: Caverley Jonathan D.
Published: January 2011

Cost distribution theory suggests that the costs to the median voter in a democracy of fighting an insurgency with firepower are relatively low compared to a more labor-intensive approach. Therefore, this voter will favor a capitalintensive counterinsurgency campaign despite the resulting diminished prospects of victory. Primary and secondary sources show that President Lyndon Johnson and his civilian aides were very much aware that, although they considered a main force—focused and firepower-intensive strategy to be largely ineffective against the insurgency in South Vietnam, it was politically more popular in the United States. Importantly, civil-military agreement on warfighting strategy does not undermine this explanation, which assumes that civilian leaders, and ultimately the public, play an essential role in that strategy's determination. Appointing and supporting Gen. William Westmoreland was just one means by which the Johnson administration ensured that the U.S. military emphasized the fight against conventional enemy units and relied on the use of firepower for the fight against Vietcong insurgents. Civil-military disagreements over strategy, however rare, therefore provide the essential test of cost distribution theory's explanatory power. When officials suggested that the U.S. military adopt more labor-intensive pacification approaches to fight the insurgency, the Johnson administration rejected them.
Strange Bedfellows: U.S Bargaining Behavior with Allies of Convenience
Authors: Resnick Evan N.
Published: January 2011

Despite the ubiquity of the term “alliance of convenience,” the dynamics of these especially tenuous alliances have not been systematically explored by scholars or policymakers. An alliance of convenience is the initiation of security cooperation between ideological and geopolitical adversaries in response to an overarching third-party threat; they are conceptually different from other types of alliances. Neorealist, two-level games, and neoclassical realist theories all seek to explain the outcome of intra-alliance bargaining between the United States and allies of convenience since 1945. Neorealism and two-level games theories broadly predict successful U.S. bargaining because of the United States' favorable position in the international system and the relatively tight constraints on executive power in the United States, respectively. By contrast, neoclassical realism predicts that tight constraints on executive power in the United States should have led the foreign policy executive to bargain unsuccessfully with allies of convenience. In the case of the U.S. alliance of convenience with Iraq during the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War, neoclassical realism best explains the outcome of U.S. bargaining with Iraq. This case has implications for other U.S. bargaining efforts.
Two Cheers for Bargaining Theory: Assessing Rationalist Explanations of the Iraq War
Authors: Lake David A.
Published: January 2011

The Iraq War has received little sustained analysis from scholars of international relations. I assess the rationalist approach to war—or, simply, bargaining theory—as one possible explanation of the conflict. Bargaining theory correctly directs attention to the inherently strategic nature of all wars. It also highlights problems of credible commitment and asymmetric information that lead conflicts of interest, ubiquitous in international relations, to turn violent. These strategic interactions were central to the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003. Nonetheless, bargaining theory is inadequate as an explanation of the Iraq War. Although the problem of credible commitment was real, it could not be solved because of the prior beliefs of the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein was uniquely evil and because of Saddam's inability to signal accurately to multiple audiences, both factors now outside bargaining theory. Nor was the problem of private information an important impediment to bargaining; rather, the information failures observed in both Washington and Baghdad were of their own making as each formed self-deluding beliefs and expectations. Bargaining theory also ignores postwar governance costs and domestic interest groups, both of which contributed to the war. All of these problems require either considerable amendments to the theory or the revision of core assumptions. Drawing on this critique, the final sections draw out the analytic and policy lessons of the Iraq War and suggest, most importantly, the need for a new behavioral theory of war.
Suspect Mental Disorder and Police Use of Force
Authors: Johnson Richard R.
Published: January 2011

It has been suggested that the police tend to respond to the unusual behaviors of mentally disordered individuals with coercive tactics that should be reserved for criminal offenders, such as arrest. Although recent research tested, and rejected, this perspective regarding arrest decisions, the present study investigated the most coercive form of police authority, the use of force. Using officer self-report data from two municipal law enforcement agencies, the present study investigated whether mentally disordered suspects were more likely than nondisordered suspects to receive physical force from the police. The findings revealed that mentally disordered suspects were significantly more likely to act violently, resist the police, and possess a weapon. After these characteristics were controlled, mentally disordered suspects were not more likely than nondisordered suspects to receive physical force.
Measuring Treatment Change in Sex Offenders
Authors: Nunes Kevin L. , Babchishin Kelly M. , Cortoni Franca
Published: January 2011

The main purpose of this study was to assess treatment change at both the group level and the individual level with a sample of 313 adult male sex offenders. Generally, the results from the group-level analyses were more positive than those from the individual-level analyses. The group-level analyses revealed significant change of medium magnitude on most of the measures, whereas the individual-level analyses indicated more modest gains, with approximately one third of participants showing reliable change and reaching functional levels posttreatment. When representative norms are available, clinical significance provides a clear and established method not only for assessing the effectiveness of sex offender treatment programs but also for evaluating the progress of individual clients.
‘I Am My Own Foundation’
Authors: Macey David
Published: January 2011

It has become almost conventional to describe the early work of Frantz Fanon as an expression of individual political revolt, and his later work as testimony to his commitment to a collective (national) revolution. This article contends that the early work (and especially Peau noire, masques blancs), while individualistic, is a continued source of political embarrassment in that it is unclassifiable and raises difficult issues about the construction of race and racism, as well as challenging conventional views of Fanon as ‘revolutionary’ psychiatrist. Fanon’s representation of his native Martinique, which he effectively disowned, is negative, but proves to be of surprising contemporary relevance, while his analysis of the mechanisms of racism is still pertinent: the situation in which racist stereotypes are invoked may have changed, but the stereotypical structures they employ remain remarkably constant, as do their profoundly dehumanizing effects. Fanon raises embarrassing questions for a French Republic that claims to be universal, demonstrating that its universal values are undermined by those it claims as its subjects.
‘Bang-Bang Has Been Good to Us’
Authors: Law-Viljoen Bronwyn
Published: January 2011

This article considers the changing perceptions, expressions and representations of violence in South Africa post-1994, with particular reference to photography. Following the evolution of the documentary tradition in its relationship to the political history of South Africa, I will suggest that since the release of Nelson Mandela and the first democratic elections in South Africa, photography has taken a new turn, particularly with regard to its representation of violence, which had been its primary iconography up to that watershed moment. I will follow three arguments (from Sartre, Benjamin and Mbembe) in my explication of the ways in which violence has both altered South African society and assumed a different place in the collective mind of South Africans living in a country that is politically free but grappling with an ever-rising wave of violent crime.
Mad for Foucault
Authors: Huffer Lynne , Wilson Elizabeth
Published: January 2011

This two-part article summarizes the major arguments of Lynne Huffer’s 2010 book, Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory. The second part of the piece is a dialogue between Huffer and feminist theorist Elizabeth Wilson about the implications of the book’s arguments about rethinking queer theory, interiority, psychic life, lived experience and received understandings of Michel Foucault’s work.