cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Review of assisted reproduction techniques, laws, and regulations in Muslim countries

Fourteen Muslim countries were explored for available national laws, regulations, and guidelines concerning assisted reproduction techniques (ART). These documents were studied with total consideration of the ethical and religious principles followed by Islamic religion. This study found different types of legal documents issued by legislatives authorities, ethical committees, or professional bodies. Documents reviewed are directly related to assisted reproduction techniques medical use, access, or research in the field of ART. Most of the studied documents showed various degrees of deficiencies concerning legal or ethical protections and considerations. Certain documents that were examined need to be updated or amended in order to follow the continuous medical progress. The research also showed certain difficulty of legislating in countries characterized by multiculturalism and different ethical and religious traits and beliefs. Recently, Muslim legislators have made many efforts. However, the spread of legal documents among the Muslim countries is partial in volume and nature. The comparison of the content with international documents shows us that most of assisted reproductions legal documents in use in the studied countries demonstrate numerous deficiencies in term of structure, nature, and the coverage of controversial subjects.
Benzothiadiazole Conditions the Bean Proteome for Immunity to Bean Rust.

The common bean rust fungus reduces harvests of the dry, edible common bean. Natural resistance genes in the plant can provide protection until a fungal strain that breaks resistance emerges. In th...
Assessment of CS Students' Ethical Reasoning Skills

The national push for CS departments to teach students to think about ethical implications of their work raises critical questions about how we approach this pedagogically. In contrast to the typical assessments of CS ethical thinking, which have focused on a student's ability to operate successfully within one kind of normative paradigm, our research group advocates for teaching ethics as an ongoing practice that incorporates multiple normative frameworks and an emphasis on the descriptive element of ethical reflection. In this special session, we will discuss the differences between normative and descriptive ethics, practice describing ethical dilemmas, and work together on developing assessment capabilities for descriptive ethical thinking for CS.
Interleukin-3 signals through multiple isoforms of Stat5.

Abstract The interleukin (IL)-3 family of cytokines mediates its numerous effects on myeloid growth and maturation by binding a family of related receptors. It has been shown recently that IL-3 induces the activation of two distinct cytoplasmic signal transducing factors (STFs) that are likely to mediate the induction of immediate early genes. In immature myeloid cells, IL-3 activates STF-IL-3a, which comprises two tyrosine-phosphorylated DNA binding proteins of 77 and 80 kDa. In mature myeloid cells, IL-3 and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor activate STF-IL-3b, which consists of a 94 and 96 kDa tyrosine-phosphorylated DNA binding protein. Peptide sequence data obtained from the purified 77 and 80 kDa proteins (p77 and p80) indicate that they are closely related but are encoded by distinct genes. Both peptide and nucleotide sequence data demonstrate that these two proteins are the murine homologs of ovine mammary gland factor (MGF)/Stat5. The peptide data also indicate that p77 and p80 are phosphorylated on tyrosine 699, a position analogous to the tyrosine that is phosphorylated in Stat1 and Stat2 in response to interferon. Additionally, antiserum raised against bacterially expressed p77/p80 recognizes the 94 and 96 kDa protein components of STF-IL-3b, suggesting that these may be additional isoforms of Stat5. These studies indicate that the IL-3 family of ligands is able to activate multiple isoforms of the signal transducing protein Stat5.
Electrodeposition and Mechanical Stability at Lithium-Solid Electrolyte Interface during Plating in Solid-State Batteries

Summary Interfacial deposition stability between lithium metal and a solid electrolyte (SE) is important in preventing interfacial contact loss, mechanical fracture, and dendrite growth in Li-metal solid-state batteries (SSBs). In this work, we investigate the deposition and mechanical stability at the Li-metal/SE interface and its consequences (such as SE fracture and contact loss). A wide range of contributing factors are investigated, such as charge and mass transfer kinetics, plasticity of Li-metal and fracture of the SE, and the applied stack pressure. We quantify the effect of the ionic conductivity of the SE, the exchange current density of the interfacial charge-transfer reaction, and SE surface roughness on the Li deposition stability at the Li-metal/SE interface. We also propose a “mechanical stability window” for the applied stack pressure that can prevent both contact loss and SE fracture, which can be extended to other metal-electrode (e.g., sodium) SSB systems.
Reconsidering Dexamethasone for Antiemesis when Combining Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy

Whether the immune suppressive action of glucocorticoid steroids, such as dexamethasone, might reduce the benefits of cancer immunotherapy has long been a concern. Observations that established tumor regressions in response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) often persist, despite the use of steroids to mitigate ICI-related autoimmune breakthrough, are not sufficiently reassuring, because these observations do not address the potential blunting of immune priming at the initiation of ICI therapy. With increasing indications for ICI in combination with chemotherapy, this issue merits reconsideration. Professional society guidance advises that dexamethasone should be used as first-line prophylaxis for nausea and vomiting in patients receiving ICI and highly emetogenic chemotherapy combination regimens. Here, we review the availability of data on this subject and propose an alternative approach focused on the adoption of steroid minimization or sparing for prophylaxis of nausea until the underlying immune biology is better understood.
Comparison of Small Intestinal Submucosal Graft and Autologous Tissue in Prevention of CSF leak after Posterior Fossa Craniotomy.

Objective To compare the use of porcine small intestinal submucosal grafts (SISG) and standard autologous material (fascia) in prevention of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak and pseudomeningocele formation after translabyrinthine resection. Setting Set at the tertiary skull base center. Methods This is a retrospective chart review. After Institutional Review Board approval, we performed a retrospective cohort study evaluating CSF leak in patients who underwent resection of lateral skull base defects with multilayered reconstruction using either fascia autograft or porcine SISGs. Demographics were summarized with descriptive statistics. Logistic regression was used to compare autograft and xenograft cohorts in terms of CSF complications. Results Seventy-seven patients underwent lateral skull base resection, followed by reconstruction of the posterior cranial fossa. Of these patients, 21 (27.3%) underwent multilayer repair using SISG xenograft. There were no significant differences in leak-associated complications between autograft and xenograft cohorts. Ventriculoperitoneal shunt was necessary in one (1.8%) autograft and one (4.8) xenograft cases (p = 0.49). Operative repair to revise surgical defect was necessary in three (5.4%) autograft cases and none in xenograft cases. Conclusion The use of SISG as a component of complex skull base reconstruction after translabyrinthine tumor resection may help reduce CSF leak rates and need for further intervention.
Engaging the line: how the Great War shaped the Canada-US border, (Canadian war museum: studies in Canadian military history): by Brandon Dimmel, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 2016, ix + 229 pp., (paperback), ISBN 978-0-7748-3275-5

This is an interesting little book – coming in at 161 pages of text – that proves the seemingly obvious point that local conditions and local history profoundly affect the way people living in bord...
An alternative UPF1 isoform drives conditional remodeling of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay

Abstract The nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway monitors translation termination to degrade transcripts with premature stop codons and regulate thousands of human genes. Here we show that an alternative mammalian-specific isoform of the core NMD factor UPF1, termed UPF1LL, enables condition-dependent remodeling of NMD specificity. Previous studies indicate that the extension of a conserved regulatory loop in the UPF1LL helicase core confers a decreased propensity to dissociate from RNA upon ATP hydrolysis relative to the major UPF1 isoform, designated UPF1 SL. Using biochemical and transcriptome-wide approaches, we find that UPF1LL overcomes the protective RNA binding proteins PTBP1 and hnRNP L to preferentially bind and down-regulate long 3’UTRs normally shielded from NMD. Unexpectedly, UPF1LL supports induction of NMD on new populations of substrate mRNAs in response to activation of the integrated stress response and impaired translation efficiency. Thus, while canonical NMD is abolished by moderate translational repression, UPF1LL activity is enhanced, providing a mechanism to rapidly rewire NMD specificity in response to cellular stress.
Factors predicting futility of liver transplant in elderly recipients: A single-center experience

Factors predicting futility of liver transplant in elderly recipients: A single-center experience
Growth factor-regulated proteases and extracellular matrix remodeling during mammalian development.

Although specific details may vary from system to system, some general concepts have emerged from studies of the regulation of ECM components, proteases, and protease inhibitors by growth factors. Growth factors may be divided into those that enhance matrix synthesis and inhibit matrix degradation and those that stimulate protease production and result in a general degradation of ECM. These relationships are illustrated in Fig. 3. In general, growth factors such as EGF, PDGF, bFGF, and IL-1 induce genes for ECM-degrading proteinases and their activators (e.g., metalloproteinases and PAs). This concerted release of proteases results in the degradation of the many components of basement membranes or ECM. Other growth factors (e.g., the TGF-beta family) stimulate the synthesis of ECM structural proteins (e.g., collagens and fibronectin), elevate levels of inhibitors of proteases (e.g., TIMP and PAI-1), and repress expression of the matrix-degrading metalloproteinases and PA. The overall result is systems in which such a relationship seems very likely. Direct evidence should become available within the next few years now that the technology exists to correlate spatial and temporal expression of growth factors with expression of ECM-associated proteases and inhibitors and to misregulate this expression in specific ways, for example, in transgenic mice. Future studies involving the use of model systems in which complex tissue interactions and organogenesis can be followed in culture should also provide the opportunity to examine cause-and-effect relationships between growth factors and ECM-modulating proteins.
Pidgin and Creole Languages

The study of creoles and pidgins has been marked by controversy about how they emerged, whether they can be identified by their structural features, and how they stand genetically in relation to their lexifiers. There have also been disagreements about what contact-induced varieties count as creoles, whether expanded pidgins should be lumped together with them, otherwise what distinguishes both kinds of vernaculars from each other, and how other contact-induced language varieties can be distinguished from all the above. Another important question is what they contribute to the understanding of language from the phylogenetic, typological, and sociolinguistic perspectives.
Learning Methods in Multilingual Speech Recognition

One key issue in developing learning methods for multilingual acoustic modeling in large vocabulary automatic speech recognition (ASR) applications is to maximize the benefit of boosting the acoustic training data from multiple source languages while minimizing the negative effects of data impurity arising from language “mismatch”. In this paper, we introduce two learning methods, semiautomatic unit selection and global phonetic decision tree, to address this issue via effective utilization of acoustic data from multiple languages. The semi-automatic unit selection is aimed to combine the merits of both data-driven and knowledgedriven approaches to identifying the basic units in multilingual acoustic modeling. The global decision-tree method allows clustering of cross-center phones and cross-center states in the HMMs, offering the potential to discover a better sharing structure beneath the mixed acoustic dynamics and context mismatch caused by the use of multiple languages’ acoustic data. Our preliminary experiment results show that both of these learning methods improve the performance of multilingual speech recognition.
Real and complex earthquakes

We consider (real) earthquakes and, by their extensions, complex earthquakes of the hyperbolic plane H 2 . We show that an earthquake restricted to the boundary S 1 of H 2 is a quasisymmetric map if and only if its earthquake measure is bounded. Multiplying an earthquake measure by a positive parameter we obtain an earthquake path. Consequently, an earthquake path with a bounded measure is a path in the universal Teichmiiller space. We extend the real parameter for a bounded earthquake into the complex parameter with small imaginary part. Such obtained complex earthquake (or bending) is holomorphic in the parameter. Moreover, the restrictions to S 1 of a bending with complex parameter of small imaginary part is a holomorphic motion of S 1 in the complex plane. In particular, a real earthquake path with bounded earthquake measure is analytic in its parameter.
Msx1 deficient mice exhibit cleft palate and abnormalities of craniofacial and tooth development

The Msx1 homeobox gene is expressed at diverse sites of epithelial-mesenchymal interaction during vertebrate embryogenesis, and has been implicated in signalling processes between tissue layers. To determine the phenotypic consequences of its deficiency, we prepared mice lacking Msx1 function. All Msx1- homozygotes manifest a cleft secondary palate, a deficiency of alveolar mandible and maxilla and a failure of tooth development. These mice also exhibit abnormalities of the nasal, frontal and parietal bones, and of the malleus in the middle ear. Msx1 thus has a critical role in mediating epithelial-mesenchymal interactions during craniofacial bone and tooth development. The Msx1-/Msx1- phenotype is similar to human cleft palate, and provides a genetic model for cleft palate and oligodontia in which the defective gene is known.
Mimicking dynamic in vivo environments with stimuli-responsive materials for cell culture.

Traditional synthetic substrates and matrices for cell culture have proven to be of only limited utility in efforts to understand and control cell behavior, in large part because they fail to capture the multifarious biochemical, mechanical, geometric and dynamic characteristics of in vivo environments. However, recent advances in materials chemistry and engineering have begun to provide researchers with a toolbox to mimic the complex characteristics of natural extracellular matrices (ECMs), providing new pathways to explore cell–matrix interactions and direct cell fate under physiologically realistic conditions. In this review, we describe recent developments in stimuli-responsive materials as dynamic substrates and matrices for cell culture, and highlight their use in furthering our understanding of how cells respond to temporal variations in their environment.
Small-molecule HIV-1 integrase inhibitors: the 2001-2002 update.

Integration of viral DNA into host cell chromosomal DNA to form a provirus is an essential step in the viral life cycle. This process is mediated by integrase (IN), a 32 KDa viral enzyme. The unique properties of IN makes it an ideal target for drug design. First, there arc no cellular homologues to IN and the reactions catalyzed by IN are unique. Second, IN is absolutely required for viral replication and mutations in a number of key residues dramatically block viral replication. Third, IN has been validated as a legitimate target and the results from S-1360 (1) the only available IN inhibitor under clinical trials suggest synergistic effect with reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease (PR) inhibitors. During the past 10 years a plethora of inhibitors have been identified and some were shown to be selective against IN and block viral replication. The two most predominant classes of inhibitors have been the catechol containing hydroxylated aromatics and more recently the diketoacid containing aromatics. Herein, we review all small molecule compounds reported to inhibit recombinant HIV-1 IN with IC 50 values < 20 μM during the past two years. It is important to bear in mind that the true mechanism of action and antiviral activities of many of the compounds are currently not established. However, based on the growing body of literature certain classes of compounds can be easily excluded as bona fide IN inhibitors.
Temporal and radial variation of the solar wind temperature-speed relationship

[1] The solar wind temperature (T) and speed (V) are generally well correlated at ∼1 AU, except in Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections where this correlation breaks down. We perform a comprehensive analysis of both the temporal and radial variation in the temperature-speed (T-V) relationship of the non-transient wind, and our analysis provides insight into both the causes of the T-V relationship and the sources of the temperature variability. Often at 1 AU the speed-temperature relationship is well represented by a single linear fit over a speed range spanning both the slow and fast wind. However, at times the fast wind from coronal holes can have a different T-V relationship than the slow wind. A good example of this was in 2003 when there was a very large and long-lived outward magnetic polarity coronal hole at low latitudes that emitted wind with speeds as fast as a polar coronal hole. The long-lived nature of the hole made it possible to clearly distinguish that some holes can have a different T-V relationship. In an earlier ACE study, we found that both the compressions and rarefactions T-V curves are linear, but the compression curve is shifted to higher temperatures. By separating compressions and rarefactions prior to determining the radial profiles of the solar wind parameters, the importance of dynamic interactions on the radial evolution of the solar wind parameters is revealed. Although the T-V relationship at 1 AU is often well described by a single linear curve, we find that the T-V relationship continually evolves with distance. Beyond ∼2.5 AU the differences between the compressions and rarefactions are quite significant and affect the shape of the overall T-V distribution to the point that a simple linear fit no longer describes the distribution well. Since additional heating of the ambient solar wind outside of interaction regions can be associated with Alfvenic fluctuations and the turbulent energy cascade, we also estimate the heating rate radial profile from the solar wind speed and temperature measurements.
The economics of the OECD: A comment

The question that the authors of this paper have tried to answer is both interesting and important. Analyzing past and present policies of member countries, forecasting future developments and giving advice on policies, serving as a kind of secretariat to the group of ten countries and engineering joint resolutions on international policy matters, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development has undoubtedly played a role in forming economic policy-making in the developed world. Those who feel that the only true progress in economic policy during the post-war period has been due to the increasing availability of primary and aggregated data would tend to emphasize that side of the activities of the OECD. It is a difficult task, however, to infer the basic thinking, the paradigms of an international organization, from its current publications. This is what the authors attempt to do. Not only may publications have been formulated as compromises between opinions of member countries or between conflicting views within the organization itself, it must also be recalled that such publications more often than not have to be relatively non-technical and, hence, cannot operate on a high level of rigor. The authors have, in addition to publications for which the organization is directly responsible, had access to widely circulated, unpublished material and monographs by consultants in which compromise and simplicity have not blurred the picture; but such sources may not express the views of the organization or may apply theories and techniques that its mandarins do not favor. Or consultants’ monographs may coincide with the views of the mandarins to such an extent that it becomes impossible to trace any changes in views of the organization after the appearance of a monograph. Consultants may be selected so as to support the views of the organization vis-a-vis member countries. Be that as it may, any attempt to distill the OECD paradigm from its publications should acknowledge the fact that considerable progress has been made in academic theorizing monetarist as well as Keynesian about economic policy matters during the twenty-odd years the organization has been active in its present style. It is not only the OECD that has adjusted to a changing environment, and its views at any time should in all fairness be evaluated against the background of what was then considered advanced academic thinking. Moreover, a “revealed paradigm” will disclose only what the organization,
Political Parties and Constitutional Government: Remaking American Democracy

The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of political parties, yet parties began to form shortly after its ratification. Today, American democracy would not work without them. In Political Parties and Constitutional Government, Sidney Milkis explores the uneasy relationship between the Constitution and the party system to advance a novel argument: political parties arose as part of a deliberate program of constitutional reform. Forged on the anvil of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, parties initially formed as decentralized political associations that engaged the attention of ordinary citizens and held presidents accountable to local constituencies. But as the power of the presidency and the federal government grew, parties shifted their attention from building political support in the states and localities to vying for control over national administration and, in the process, lost their vital connection to the electorate. In the past thirty years, partisan disputes have more often than not involved confrontations between the president and Congress that have undermined the public's respect for American political institutions. With the decline of localized parties, Milkis concludes, there has arisen an administrative politics of rights and entitlements that belittles the efforts of Democrats and Republicans alike to define a collective purpose. Ending with a discussion of possible methods of revitalization and reform, this timely book does much to explain the reasons behind Americans' disenchantment with parties and the party system.
Perception of spectrally and temporally complex sounds by the goldfish (Carassius auratus)

Abstract Behavioral studies on complex sound perception in goldfish were carried out in order to help determine what, if any, differences exist between the sense of hearing of fishes and other vertebrates. A stimulus generalization paradigm was used with classical conditioning in three experiments to determine: (1) the perceptual relations between a pure tone and harmonic complexes having a fundamental frequency equal to that of the tone; (2) the combined effects on perception of pulse repetition rate and spectral envelope; and (3) whether goldfish can be shown to identify a complex source when presented simultaneously with another complex source. Experiment 1 showed that the perceptions of tones and harmonic complexes differ profoundly even for the cases in which they have common periodicities and frequency components. Experiment 2 demonstrated that pulse repetition rate and spectral location simultaneously control behavior, and that repetition rate exerts behavioral control independent of spectral location. Experiment 3 indicates that goldfish did not ‘hear out’ or analyze a complex target source within a mixture of complex sources. In general, goldfish appear to be aware of multiple acoustic dimensions of complex sounds, suggesting both pitch-like and timbre-like perceptual dimensions. These results do not permit a qualitative distinction between the sense of hearing of goldfish and that of other vertebrates.
Balancing Source Terms and Flux Gradients in High-Resolution Godunov Methods

Conservation laws with source terms often have steady states in which the flux gradients are nonzero but exactly balanced by source terms. Many numerical methods (e.g., fractional step methods) have difficulty preserving such steady states and cannot accurately calculate small perturbations of such states. Here a variant of the wave-propagation algorithm is developed which addresses this problem by introducing a Riemann problem in the center of each grid cell whose flux difference exactly cancels the source term. This leads to modified Riemann problems at the cell edges in which the jump now corresponds to perturbations from the steady state. Computing waves and limiters based on the solution to these Riemann problems gives high-resolution results. The 1D and 2D shallow water equations for flow over arbitrary bottom topography are used as an example, though the ideas apply to many other systems. The method is easily implemented in the software packageclawpack.
BASIC FAMILY THERAPY SKILLS, I: CONCEPTUALIZATION AND INITIAL FINDINGS

This is the first report on a program of research designed to identify the most important characteristics of the beginning marriage and family therapist. The paper first surveys the literature in family therapy, social work, and psychology and finds that, although these factors are discussed for beginning psychotherapists, no set of skills are derived empirically. This study recruited all available members of the American Family Therapy Association (AFTA) and Approved Supervisors of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) who were experienced educators and trainers of family therapists. After nominating the most important generic-type characteristics for beginning family therapists, the participants rated the items, yielding a list of not only the most important skills, but also personal traits of beginners based on mean scores of the ratings. The final section of the paper discusses the implications of these findings and notes the current and future activities of the research program.
Expertise with New/Multi/Modal/Visual/Digital/Media Technologies Desired: Tracing Composition's Evolving Relationship with Technology through the MLA JIL

Abstract This article reports on the results of a detailed examination of the past two decades of MLA Job Information List advertisements to identify the changing ways in which members of the field of rhetoric and composition have talked about the kinds of texts, technologies, and composing practices they are looking for in the teaching and research of new hires. This study catalogued the ways in which seventeen technology-related keywords have been used in MLA job advertisements over the past two decades. It discusses how trends can be understood through the lens of significant developments in the field of computers and writing suggests future trajectories. Finally, it argues that by taking ownership over the way we name and define the new composing practices and technologies we have come to value, we will be better positioned to guide the development of our students and articulate the importance of our work in a way that ensures its continuation.
Uncertainty quantification of CO2 saturation estimated from electrical resistance tomography data at the Cranfield site

a b s t r a c t A parametric bootstrap approach is presented for uncertainty quantification (UQ) of CO2 saturation derived from electrical resistance tomography (ERT) data collected at the Cranfield, Mississippi (USA) carbon sequestration site. There are many sources of uncertainty in ERT-derived CO2 saturation, but we focus on how the ERT observation errors propagate to the estimated CO2 saturation in a nonlinear inversion process. Our UQ approach consists of three steps. We first estimated the observational errors from a large number of reciprocal ERT measurements. The second step was to invert the pre-injection baseline data and the resulting resistivity tomograph was used as the prior information for nonlinear inversion of time-lapse data. We assigned a 3% random noise to the baseline model. Finally, we used a parametric bootstrap method to obtain bootstrap CO2 saturation samples by deterministically solving a nonlinear inverse problem many times with resampled data and resampled baseline models. Then the mean and standard deviation of CO2 saturation were calculated from the bootstrap samples. We found that the maximum standard deviation of CO2 saturation was around 6% with a corresponding maximum saturation of 30% for a data set collected 100 days after injection began. There was no apparent spatial correlation between the mean and standard deviation of CO2 saturation but the standard deviation values increased with time as the saturation increased. The uncertainty in CO2 saturation also depends on the ERT reciprocal error threshold used to identify and remove noisy data and inversion constraints such as temporal roughness. Five hundred realizations requiring 3.5 h on a single 12-core node were needed for the nonlinear Monte Carlo inversion to arrive at stationary variances while the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) stochastic inverse approach may expend days for a global search. This indicates that UQ of 2D or 3D ERT inverse problems can be performed on a laptop or desktop PC. The parametric bootstrap method provides a promising alternative to the MCMC approach for fast uncertainty quantification of the underlying geophysical inverse problems. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Algebraic properties of knowledge representation systems

New concepts of knowledge representation systems, like object and attribute factors, connectedness relations, and seven kinds of homomorphisms of knowledge representation systems are introduced. Some properties of these homomorphisms, related to factors and connectedness, are shown. The theory presented here may be used to aggregate sets of objects, attributes, and descriptors of the original system in order to produce a simpler system, which preserves the description function of the original system. In some applications, the new system is sufficient representation of the original one.
Alemtuzumab for the prevention and treatment of graft-versus-host disease.

Alemtuzumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody against the CD52 antigen, which is expressed on the surface of various hematopoietic cells such as B and T lymphocytes, and has been widely used for preventing acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT). Administration of 100 mg alemtuzumab before transplantation has resulted in a low incidence of acute GVHD in HLA-matched and mismatched transplantation from either related or unrelated donors. However, because alemtuzumab could remain in the blood at the lympholytic level 1–2 months after transplantation, immune reconstitution was substantially delayed, leading to a high incidence of viral infection and relapse. A dose reduction of alemtuzumab was attempted in a reduced-intensity conditioning setting to facilitate immune reconstitution, and this resulted in earlier immune reconstitution, but the clinical benefits were unclear. The dose of alemtuzumab and the timing of its administration should be optimized to maximize the benefit of acute GVHD suppression and minimize the risk of infection and relapse. Another strategy to facilitate immune reconstitution and augment anti-tumor effects is donor cell infusion of T and NK cells. Although there is accumulating evidence regarding the use of alemtuzumab for acute GVHD prevention, information on the salvage treatment for steroid-refractory acute and chronic GVHD is still limited.
Saccadic performance in questionnaire-identified schizotypes over time.

In the present study, 121 young adults (mean age=19 years), hypothesized to be at varying levels of risk for psychosis on the basis of their psychometric profiles, were administered saccadic (antisaccade and refixation) tasks at two separate assessments. At Time 1, individuals posited to be at heightened risk for the later development of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (i.e., those individuals with elevated Social Anhedonia Scale [SAS] scores) produced significantly more antisaccade task errors than the controls. Despite apparent improvement in antisaccade task performance from initial testing to the followup (mean test–retest interval=59 months) across all groups, the Social Anhedonia (SocAnh) group continued to produce significantly more errors than the control group. The antisaccade task performance of the control group showed good temporal stability (Pearson’s r=0.70, ICC=0.52), and the SocAnh group’s performance showed excellent temporal stability (Pearson’s r=0.85, ICC=0.83). The results of this investigation are twofold: First, antisaccade task performance is temporally stable, even in psychometrically identified schizotypes over long test–retest intervals; and secondly, Social Anhedonia Scale scores as well as Time 1 antisaccade task accuracy accounted for much of the variability in Time 2 antisaccade task performance. These findings add to the growing body of literature suggesting that antisaccade task deficits may serve as an endophenotypic marker of a schizophrenia diathesis. D 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Discontinuous Galerkin boundary element methods for complex electromagnetic applications

This work investigates the use of discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for the integral equation based solution of the time-harmonic Maxwell equations. It allows the solution of the combined field integral equation using discontinuous Galerkin boundary element spaces. Namely, square-integrable, L2, vector function spaces will be employed for both trial and testing functions. Therefore, it supports various types and shapes of elements, non-conformal discretizations and non-uniform orders of approximation. Initial work has been done to examine the possibility of developing a discontinuous Galerkin boundary element method for solving the electromagnetic wave scattering problem from non-penetrable objects. It is based on the interior penalty formulation and a novel derivation of the weak formulation is introduced. This research will further investigate the IEDG method for penetrable composite objects composed of piecewise homogeneous materials. Two further topics to be discussed in this work are: (i) the application of domain decomposition methods as effective preconditioners for the solution of IEDG matrix equations, and (ii) the uniqueness, stability and quasi-optimal convergence of the discrete solutions. The merits of proposed method are justified through challenge real-world applications including an electromagnetic wave scattering from an electrically large multi-scale aircraft, and a high-definition composite unmanned aerial vehicle.
Developments in Seismic Monitoring for Risk Reduction

This paper presents recent state‐of‐the‐art developments to obtain displacements and drift ratios for seismic monitoring and damage assessment of buildings. In most cases, decisions on safety of buildings following seismic events are based on visual inspections of the structures. Real‐time instrumental measurements using GPS or double integration of accelerations, however, offer a viable alternative. Relevant parameters, such as the type of connections and structural characteristics (including storey geometry), can be estimated to compute drifts corresponding to several pre‐selected threshold stages of damage. Drift ratios determined from real‐time monitoring can then be compared to these thresholds in order to estimate damage conditions drift ratios. This approach is demonstrated in three steel frame buildings in San Francisco, California. Recently recorded data of strong shaking from these buildings indicate that the monitoring system can be a useful tool in rapid assessment of buildings and other struc...
Roll waves in falling films: an approximate treatment of the velocity field

Abstract Wavy flows, an important aspect of falling film absorption in refrigeration systems, are difficult to describe analytically because of their transitional regime. Within the wavy-laminar flow regime, high-frequency capillary waves are known to exist below a Reynolds (Re) number of 200. Above the critical Re, inertial waves driven by gravity, known as roll waves, can exist. These low-frequency waves, observed in an experimental absorber, were identified via image-processing studies of the falling film. A frequency analysis (fast Fourier transformation — FFT) of the film thickness trace in time yielded a wave frequency corresponding to roll waves at the given Re. A hydrodynamic description of this flow regime was then obtained from the literature. The flow equations provided by this model were solved for various wave parameters at different Reynolds numbers. The results from the solution were then extended using Fourier series expansions and continuity at each point to yield the complete periodic velocity field.
Adaptive monetary policy and rational expectations

Models of money and growth under the assumption of rational expectations were initiated by Brock [4, 51 and Sargent and Wallace [9]. In such a context, Fisher Black [2] proposed that adaptive monetary rules, where the rate of growth of the money supply is tied to the level of inflation of the previous period, can generate dynamic price paths that are convergent for any initial level of money balances.’ This implies that the rational expectation path of prices may not be unique. Black also claimed that no matter what the parameters of the money demand function are, the prices are convergent for any adaptive monetary policy as described above. This contradicts the results of Sargent and Wallace [9] who show that a necessary condition for the convergence of prices is that the money supply grows slower than a certain rate which depends on the parameters of the money demand function. We will first show the mathematical error of Black’s analysis and give the correct condition for convergence in terms of the inflation elasticities of the demand for money function and the adaptive money supply policy. Then we will show that non-convergent, structurally robust and bounded price paths are always possible if any minute amount of non-linearity is allowed into the model. These price paths which remain bounded are also rational expectations paths since they would satisfy the
Surface Protein IsdC and Sortase B Are Required for Heme-Iron Scavenging of Bacillus anthracis

Bacillus anthracis, the spore-forming agent of anthrax, requires iron for growth and is capable of scavenging heme-iron during infection. We show here that the B. anthracis iron-regulated surface determinants (isd) locus encompasses isdC, specifying a heme-iron binding surface protein. Anchoring of IsdC to the cell wall envelopes of vegetative bacilli requires srtB, which encodes sortase B. Purified sortase B cleaves IsdC between the threonine and the glycine of its NPKTG motif sorting signal. B. anthracis variants lacking either isdC or srtB display defects in heme-iron scavenging, suggesting that IsdC binding to heme-iron in the cell wall envelope contributes to bacterial uptake of heme.
Analysis of microscopic infrared spectra of individual dried and live human cells

The ability of infrared (IR) spectroscopy to distinguish and map cancerous and non-cancerous tissue has opened the question of the origin of spectral differences between normal and cancerous cells. In this contribution, we report IR spectral maps of individual dried cancer cells, some of them in the process of cell division (mitosis), IR spectra of cells suspended in growth medium, and preliminary results of a statistical analysis of thousands of individual dried cancer cells.
Experience with the P.A.S.-PORT Venous Access Device in Patients with Gynecologic Malignancies

Experience with the P.A.S.-PORT, a peripherally implanted central venous access device, is evaluated in a retrospective review of 154 patients from July 1991 to June 1994. Blood could not be aspirated from six patients. Complications included temporary minor thrombophlebitis in seven patients (4.5%), symptomatic axillary or subclavian vein thrombosis in five patients (3.2%), clotted port in two patients (1.2%), port pocket cellulitis in two patients (1.2%), and fungal sepsis in two patients (1.2%). In six patients (3.8%) the P.A.S.-PORT had to be removed because of complications. The P.A.S.-PORT facilitated delivery of chemotherapy, parenteral nutrition, blood products, antibiotics, hydration, and blood sampling. It was demonstrated that the P.A.S.-PORT may be inserted and used with a low incidence of complications in gynecologic cancer patients.
Experience with three different third-generation cardioverter-defibrillators in patients with coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathy

Abstract Clinical investigations are being performed in multiprogrammable devices whose therapeutic options include antitachycardia pacing, cardioversion, defibrillation and bradycardia pacing. Three different third-generation devices were implanted in 46 research patients at 1 clinical center to document their safety and efficacy for the treatment of malignant ventricular arrhythmias. Additionally, the purpose of the study was to determine if antitachycardia pacing is a desirable and frequently used feature of tiered devices. The Medtronic PCD was implanted in 15 patients (12 men, mean age 60 ± 13 years, mean ejection fraction 40 ± 15%), the Ventritex Cadence in 21 patients (17 men, mean age 65 ± 10 years, mean ejection fraction 38 ± 12%), and the CPI VENTAK PRx in 10 patients (8 men, mean age 63 ± 14 years, mean ejection fraction 31 ± 8%). All patients presented with cardiac arrest or ventricular tachycardia. During follow-up of 10 ± 6 months (range 1 to 19), 70% of the 20 patients with antrtachycardia pacing activated used the feature for spontaneous ventricular tachycardia. The antrtachycardia pacing parameters were reprogrammed 20 times in 15 patients. Two thousand six hundred thirty-eight of 2,675 (98%) antrtachycardia pacing attempts successfully terminated spontaneous tachyarrhythmias. Low-energy cardioversion or defibrillation terminated tachyarrhythmias in patients where pacing was unsuccessful. One hundred forty-eight episodes of tachycardia were successfully treated directly by shocks in 16 of 46 patients (35%). There were no deaths due to device failure. This initial single-center clinical experience suggests that the PCD, Cadence and VENTAK PRx are all safe and effective tiered therapy devices for the treatment of malignant ventricular arrhythmias. Antrtachycardia pacing successfully terminated most episodes of ventricular tachycardia; in patients with this feature activated, it was used frequently but required reprogramming to achieve high levels of success.
General Formulation of the Nyquist Criterion

The Nyquist diagram technique is examined under very general assumptions; in particular, the linear subsystem is represented by a convolution operator, thus, the case of any linear time-invariant distributed circuit is included. It is shown that if there are no encirclements of the critical point, then the impulse response of the closed-loop system is bounded and absolutely integrable on [0, \infty) ; it also tends to zero as t \rightarrow \infty . For any initial state, the zero-input response of the closed-loop system is also bounded and goes to zero. If, on the other hand, there are one or more encirclements of the critical point, then the closed-loop impulse response tends asymptotically to a growing exponential.
Contextualizing Bias Crimes: A Social and Theoretical Perspective

Most states have adopted bias crime statutes that enhance the penalties of convicted persons whose wrongdoing was motivated by prejudice against a group with salient characteristics.! Nevertheless, some writers and legislators continue to dispute the legitimacy of those laws. Proponents have expanded their advocacy to the national arena, arguing that currently available criminal civil rights laws are insufficient.2 On August 4, 1999, Frederick M. Lawrence testified before the House of Representative's Committee on the judiciary in favor of enacting a proposed federal bias crime statute (Lawrence
Domino logic synthesis using complex static gates

We address the synthesis of the most general form of a domino gate (dynamic-static domino), which consists of the pairing of a dynamic gate with any inverting static gate. All previous work focused on the synthesis of the most basic domino gate (standard domino), where the inverting static gate is an inverter. We developed a methodology and tools for synthesizing random logic blocks using both dynamic and complex inverting static gates in an alternating fashion. Dynamic-static (DS) domino can be used to reduce both gate levels and clock loading compared to standard domino. Comparisons between DS domino, standard domino, and static CMOS logic families are provided for six MCNC combinational logic benchmark circuits. Spice simulations show DS domino to have an average speed improvement of 53% over static CMOS and an average speed improvement of 17% over standard domino. DS domino also reduced clock loading by an average of 48% over standard domino. The paper introduces DS domino and presents a methodology for synthesizing random logic circuits using DS domino and other monotonic logic families such as Zipper CMOS.
57-Year-Old Man With Fever, Rash, Chronic Watery Diarrhea, Cough, and Sweats

57-year-old previously healthy man from Minnesota presented for evaluation of chronic intermittent diarrhea, cough, and sweats of 6 months’ duration. The symptoms started while he was in Fiji (to which he travels to annually) with an urticarial, nontender, nonvesicular rash sparing mucosal surfaces that resolved after 2 days. One week after the rash resolved, he experienced intermittent productive cough, dyspnea, malaise, and diarrhea. Chest radiography in Fiji revealed a left pulmonary infiltrate. He received antibiotics without improvement. He also continued to have watery, nonbloody diarrhea, about 10 bowel movements per day. Because of his illness, he returned to the United States. His condition transiently improved for about 10 days after his return, but the symptoms, including cough, fever, chills, and diarrhea, recurred. He therefore presented to our clinic for further evaluation.