cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Warm Hearts and Sharp Tongues: Life in 555 Proverbs from the Zagros Mountains of Iran

The book under review is a good example of how to present a collection of proverbs. Here the proverbs and their explanations are grouped under 13 topical headings, such as one on local ethnic ident...
Demo Abstract: Motion-Triggered Surveillance Camera Using MF-IoT

IoT network requires global reachability, mobility support, richer communication patterns and resource efficiency. To address these needs, MF-IoT has been proposed as an extension of MobilityFirst which allows applications even in the low-end IoT devices to use the aforementioned network capabilities. This demo uses surveillance camera as an example to show the feasibility and efficiency of MF-IoT design. It also demonstrates the flexibility of using service-oriented GUIDs that are supported in MF-IoT.
Dynamics modeling and robotic-assist, leader-follower control of tractor convoys

Abstract This paper proposes a generalized dynamics model and a leader-follower control architecture for skid-steered tracked vehicles towing polar sleds. The model couples existing formulations in the literature for the powertrain components with the vehicle-terrain interaction to capture the salient features of terrain trafficability and predict the vehicles response. This coupling is essential for making realistic predictions of the vehicles traversing capabilities due to the power-load relationship at the engine output. The objective of the model is to capture adequate fidelity of the powertrain and off-road vehicle dynamics while minimizing the computational cost for model based design of leader-follower control algorithms. The leader-follower control architecture presented proposes maintaining a flexible formation by using a look-ahead technique along with a way point following strategy. Results simulate one leader-follower tractor pair where the leader is forced to take an abrupt turn and experiences large oscillations of its drawbar arm indicating potential payload instability. However, the follower tractor maintains the flexible formation but keeps its payload stable. This highlights the robustness of the proposed approach where the follower vehicle can reject errors in human leader driving.
Temporal information partitioning: Characterizing synergy, uniqueness, and redundancy in interacting environmental variables

Information theoretic measures can be used to identify non-linear interactions between source and target variables through reductions in uncertainty. In information partitioning, multivariate mutual information is decomposed into synergistic, unique, and redundant components. Synergy is information shared only when sources influence a target together, uniqueness is information only provided by one source, and redundancy is overlapping shared information from multiple sources. While this partitioning has been applied to provide insights into complex dependencies, several proposed partitioning methods overestimate redundant information and omit a component of unique information because they do not account for source dependencies. Additionally, information partitioning has only been applied to time-series data in a limited context, using basic pdf estimation techniques or a Gaussian assumption. We develop a Rescaled Redundancy measure (Rs) to solve the source dependency issue, and present Gaussian, autoregressive, and chaotic test cases to demonstrate its advantages over existing techniques in the presence of noise, various source correlations, and different types of interactions. This study constitutes the first rigorous application of information partitioning to environmental time-series data, and addresses how noise, pdf estimation technique, or source dependencies can influence detected measures. We illustrate how our techniques can unravel the complex nature of forcing and feedback within an ecohydrologic system with an application to 1-minute environmental signals of air temperature, relative humidity, and windspeed. The methods presented here are applicable to the study of a broad range of complex systems composed of interacting variables.
Cerebral microcirculatory alterations and the no-reflow phenomenon in vivo after experimental pediatric cardiac arrest:

Decreased cerebral blood flow (CBF) after cardiac arrest (CA) contributes to secondary ischemic injury in infants and children. We previously reported cortical hypoperfusion with tissue hypoxia ear...
Stable Signal Peptides and the Response to Secretion Stress in Staphylococcus aureus.

Protein secretion is essential, but how it is managed is poorly understood. In bacteria, most secreted proteins require release from the outer surface of the cytoplasmic membrane by type I signal peptidase (SPase), which cleaves the mature protein from its membrane-bound N-terminal signal peptide. As the first step that occurs outside the protected cytoplasmic environment and because insufficient activity can rapidly result in the toxic accumulation of preproteins, the activity of SPase is expected to be closely monitored and perhaps supplemented when insufficient. Indeed, we previously demonstrated that inhibition of SPase in Staphylococcus aureus results in derepression of the ayrRABC operon, which encodes an alternate mechanism to release proteins. However, in this case, the proteins are released with partially intact signal peptides, with the exception of IsaA, which is released with a virtually intact signal peptide. Here we show that mutation of AyrA [ayrA(R233K)] results in constitutive derepression of ayrRABC and that mutation of IsaA's signal peptide [isaA(K2Q)] results in hyperderepression upon SPase inhibition, which also requires AyrA. Further studies demonstrate that the inducing signal for ayrRABC derepression is accumulation of a subset of preproteins with signal peptides that are stable toward further processing and that the signal is critically amplified by the K2Q mutation and relayed to AyrR by AyrA. These results elucidate the mechanism by which S. aureus monitors and responds to secretion stress. The presence of ayrRA in other bacteria suggests that it may represent a general strategy linking membrane stress to appropriate transcriptional responses.IMPORTANCE Bacteria interact with their environment by secreting proteins that perform a myriad of functions, and the final step is the release of the mature protein from the cell surface via the activity of type I signal peptidase (SPase). While the bacterial response to many stresses is understood in some detail, almost nothing is known about how cells respond to secretion stress, such as insufficient SPase activity, which would eventually result in cell death. We previously demonstrated that the inhibition of SPase in Staphylococcus aureus results in the derepression of the ayrRABC operon, which can functionally replace SPase, but which is normally repressed by AyrR. We now demonstrate that the inducing signal for derepression is accumulation of a subset of preproteins with signal peptides that are stable to further processing and that the signal is relayed to AyrR via AyrA.
Utilizing the positive impacts of software piracy in monopoly industries

Succeeding under rampant software piracy is a critical task for software publishers today. Instead of treating software piracy as a destructive force, a few scholars have realized the positive influence of software piracy, that is, it may accelerate the diffusion of innovations. Furthermore, fewer scholars have tried to develop strategies to control and manipulate software piracy to utilize its positive influence. In this paper, a model is introduced that simulates a computer software market as a complex adaptive system. The model develops dynamic and self-learning marketing strategies that help software publishers utilize software piracy to speed up a new product diffusion process, maximize profits, and minimize costs in a monopoly marketing environment. Also, the model demonstrates that the profits and the diffusion speed are also influenced by the topologies of social networks and the locations of pirates.
In Vivo Evaluation of Ambivalent Active-Site-Directed Inactivators of Liver Alcohol Dehydrogenase

In order to decrease the rate of ethanol metabolism for the treatment of acute and chronic alcoholism it would be useful to inhibit liver alcohol dehydrogenase in vivo. Based on a knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of the horse enzyme, we designed activesite-directed inactivators [p-(XCH2CONH)C6H4(CH2)3CONH2I which bind to the enzyme-NAD or enzyme-NADH complex and alkylate methionine residue 306. In vitro, these reagents inactivated mouse, rat, horse and human liver alcohol dehydrogenases faster in the presence than in the absence of NAD or NADH, but with slightly different specificity. Mice and rats pretreated with the reagents eliminated ethanol in blood more slowly than those not treated, and the specific activity of alcohol dehydrogenase in liver homogenates of treated animals was decreased. It appears that the design of active-site-directed reagents is feasible, but these reagents must be improved so that they are more efficacious in vivo.
Autostereoscopic, Partial Pixel, Spatially Multiplexed, and other 3D Display Technologies

The technologies and advances in the field of three-dimensional (3D) displays within the past two decades are reviewed. Specifically, the developments in diffractive, refractive, reflective and occlusive 3D display strategies are discussed, highlighting the advantages and limitations of the associated systems. The partial pixel and the partial object pixel architectures associated with autostereoscopic displays are discussed in some detail, while other techniques are briefly introduced. It is shown that major breakthroughs occurred with the development of computer-generated holography (CGH), liquid crystal arrays (LCA) and other spatial light modulators (SLM), and also the discrete fabrication of diffractive and holographic optical elements (DOE and HOE), micromirror arrays, and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). These techniques and components have enabled the implementation of spatially and angularly multiplexed 3D images and scenes with potentially dynamic (time-varying) features.
Introduction to the special issue on perfect balance and the discrete Fourier transform

The five articles featured in this special issue rapidly bring the reader from the fundamentals to the forefront of knowledge concerning the discrete Fourier transform and perfect balance, and thei...
Who can we save after an intraprocedural catastrophe during TAVR

Intraprocedural catastrophes during transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) are associated with a high mortality. Even "operable patients" can suddenly be deemed inoperable during an intraprocedural TAVR complication. The low incidence of a major complication prevents "crowd learning"; consequently, a high-volume TAVR center will have the greatest capability for a robust salvage response.
Regolith-derived ferrosilicon as a potential feedstock material for wire-based additive manufacturing

Abstract Ferrosilicon is a primary metallic alloy produced during the reduction of metal oxides contained in lunar and Martian regolith by a variety of techniques. This study examines the usefulness of ferrosilicon as a candidate feedstock material for wire-based 3D printers designed for in-space manufacturing. Alloys of composition ranging from pure iron to 12 wt% Si were synthesized and their electrical and mechanical properties characterized. The melts were cast into rods for mechanical testing to determine ultimate strength and ductility. It was determined that the samples above 3 wt% Si were too brittle to be pulled into wire and ruptured at low strain values. The 3 wt% Si sample and iron had comparable mechanical properties relative to samples of higher silicon content but with differences in ductility and ultimate strength. Microstructure and compositional studies revealed the differences between the ductile and brittle samples as being the complete ferrite phase presence on the iron and low-Si content samples. This study establishes an upper limit on the Si content at 3 wt% in ferrosilicon materials to be used in wire feedstock in additive manufacturing for in-space applications.
Epidemiologic and survival trends in adult primary bone tumors of the spine.

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND CONTEXT Malignant primary spinal tumors are rare making it difficult to perform large studies comparing epidemiologic, survival, and treatment trends. We investigated the largest registry of primary bone tumors, the national cancer database (NCDB), to compare epidemiologic and survival trends among these tumors. OBJECTIVE To utilize the NCDB to describe current epidemiologic trends, treatment modalities, and overall survival rates in patients with chordomas, osteosarcomas, chondrosarcomas, and Ewing's sarcomas of the mobile spine. The secondary objective was to determine prognostic factors that impact overall survival rates. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective study PATIENT SAMPLE A total of 1,011 patients with primary bone tumors of the spine (377 chordomas, 223 chondrosarcomas, 278 Ewing's sarcomas, 133 osteosarcomas) OUTCOME MEASURES Five-year survival METHODS We reviewed the records of 1,011 patients in the NCDB from 2004 through 2015 with histologically confirmed primary osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma, or chordoma of the spine. Demographic, clinical, and outcomes data were compiled and compared using Chi-squared tests and ANOVA. Long term survival was compared using the Kaplan-Meier (KM) method with statistical comparisons based on the log-rank test. Multivariate analysis was performed to determine survival determinants. RESULTS Surgical resection was the primary mode of treatment for chondrosarcoma (90%), chordoma (84%), and osteosarcoma (80%). The treatment for Ewing's sarcoma was multimodal involving chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgical resection. Five-year survival rates varied significantly with chordomas and chondrosarcomas having the greatest survival (70% and 69%), osteosarcomas having the worse survival (38%), and Ewing's having intermediate 5-year survival at 62% (overall log-rank p DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This study provides the most comprehensive description of the epidemiologic, treatment, and survival trends of primary bone tumors of the mobile spine. Secondly, patient and tumor characteristics associated with improved 5-year survival were identified utilizing a multivariate model.
Epidemiologic Characteristics and Postoperative Complications following Augmentation Mammaplasty: Comparison of Transgender and Cisgender Females.

Background Breast augmentation in transgender women can be an important first step in addressing gender incongruence and improving psychosocial functioning. The aim of this study was to compare postoperative outcomes of augmentation mammoplasty in transgender and cisgender females. Methods We queried the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database from 2006 to 2017 to establish 2 cohorts: (1) transgender females undergoing gender-affirming breast augmentation ("top surgery") and (2) cisgender females seeking cosmetic breast augmentation (CBA). Demographic characteristics and postoperative outcomes were compared between the 2 cohorts. Multivariable regression analysis was used to control for confounders. Results A total of 1,360 cases were identified, of which 280 (21%) were feminizing top surgeries and 1,080 (79%) were CBA cases. The transfeminine cohort was significantly older, had a higher average body mass index, and was more racially diverse than the CBA cohort. Transfeminine patients also had higher rates of smoking, diabetes, and hypertension. The rates of all-cause complications were low in both cohorts, and differences were not significant (1.6% transfeminine versus 1.8% CBA, P = 0.890) for the first 30-days after operation. After controlling for confounding variables, transfeminine patients had postoperative complication profiles similar to their cisgender counterparts. Multivariable regression analysis revealed no statistically significant predictors for all-cause complications. Conclusions Transfeminine breast augmentation is a safe procedure that has a similar 30-day complication profile to its cisgender counterpart. The results of this study should reassure and encourage surgeons who are considering performing this procedure.
Tobacco-free grounds implementation in California residential substance use disorder (SUD) treatment programs

Smoke-free laws and policies have contributed significantly to the decline in smoking in the U.S, but are not often applied in high-prevalence smoking populations where they are most needed. Smoking among clients in publicly funded substance use disorder (SUD) treatment is 3-4 times higher than the general population, and little is known about tobacco policies programs have adopted. To identify the prevalence of tobacco-free grounds and other smoking policies in California's publicly funded, adult, residential SUD programs. Using a California DHCS contact list of 1,921 publicly funded, non-medical, SUD programs, 362 were eligible to participate in a brief semi-structured phone survey concerning indoor and outdoor smoking for staff and clients and other tobacco policies. Of 259 programs that completed the survey, 28 (10.8%) reported tobacco-free grounds. 91 (35.1%) expressed interest in implementing tobacco-free policies and 23 have plans to do so. Nearly all programs (n = 253, 97.7%) had some policy restricting e-cigarette use, and 110 (43.5%) of these reported a complete ban on e-cigarette use. 124 (47.9%) had policies prohibiting staff and clients smoking together. Most California residential SUD programs allow outdoor smoking for staff and clients and few have adopted tobacco-free grounds policies. Given the reported interest in adopting tobacco-free policies, the high density of smokers in the SUD population, and the association of tobacco-free policies with lower client and staff smoking rates, state licensing and regulatory agencies, as well as county health departments, should work with SUD programs to adopt tobacco-free policies.
Scalable and elastic transactional data stores for cloud computing platforms

Cloud computing has emerged as a multi-billion dollar industry and as a successful paradigm for web application deployment. Economies-of-scale, elasticity, and pay-per-use pricing are the biggest promises of cloud. Database management systems (DBMSs) serving these web applications form a critical component of the cloud software stack. In order to serve thousands of applications and their huge amounts of data, these DBMSs must scale-out to clusters of commodity servers. Moreover, to minimize their operating costs, such DBMSs must also be elastic, i.e., possess the ability to increase and decrease the cluster size in a live system. This is in addition to serving a variety of applications (i.e., supporting multitenancy) while being self-managing, fault-tolerant, and highly available. The overarching goal of this dissertation is to propose abstractions, protocols, and paradigms to architect efficient, scalable, and practical DBMSs that address the unique set of challenges posed by cloud platforms. This dissertation shows that with careful choice of design and features, it is possible to architect scalable DBMSs that efficiently support transactional semantics to ease application design and elastically adapt to fluctuating operational demands to optimize the operating cost. This dissertation advances the state-of-the-art by improving two critical facets of transaction processing systems. First, we propose architectures and abstractions to support efficient and scalable transaction processing in DBMSs scaling-out using clusters of commodity servers. The key insight is to co-locate data items frequently accessed together within a database partition and limit transactions to access only a single partition. We propose systems where the partitions—the granules for efficient transactional access—can be statically defined based on the applications’ access patterns or dynamically specified on-demand by the application. Second, we propose techniques to migrate database partitions in a live system to allow lightweight elastic load balancing, enable dynamic resource orchestration, and improve the overall resource utilization. The key insight is to leverage the semantics of the DBMS internals to migrate a partition with minimal disruption and performance overhead while ensuring the transactional guarantees and correctness even in the presence of failures. We propose two different techniques to migrate partitions in decoupled storage and shared nothing DBMS architectures.
Do All Good Actors Look The Same? Exploring News Veracity Detection Across The U.S. and The U.K.

A major concern with text-based news veracity detection methods is that they may not generalize across countries and cultures. In this short paper, we explicitly test news veracity models across news data from the United States and the United Kingdom, demonstrating there is reason for concern of generalizabilty. Through a series of testing scenarios, we show that text-based classifiers perform poorly when trained on one country's news data and tested on another. Furthermore, these same models have trouble classifying unseen, unreliable news sources. In conclusion, we discuss implications of these results and avenues for future work.
Thermal Analysis of Insulation Design for a Thermal Energy Storage Silo Containment for Long-Duration Electricity Storage

Greater renewable energy penetration requires increasing energy storage capacity. Long-duration energy storage (LDES) will be required to balance intermittent renewable energy supply with daily, weekly, and even seasonal supply changes. At these timescales, traditional electrochemical batteries become uneconomical. Solid-particle thermal energy storage (TES) is a viable solution to this issue. Solid particles can achieve higher temperatures (>1100°C) than the molten salt used in traditional concentrated solar power (CSP) TES systems. Higher temperatures yield higher power cycle thermal-electrical conversion efficiencies. However, at these higher temperatures, greater heat loss and insulation material cost could negate the efficiency benefits. In this work, the insulation design of a full-size 3D containment silo capable of storing 5.51 GWht for the purpose of LDES for grid electricity was thermally analyzed. Proposed operating conditions were simulated using transient FEA methods. After five days (120 hours) of storage, less than 3% thermal energy loss was achieved at a design storage temperature of 1200°C. Material thermal limits were considered and met. Sensitivity of the storage system’s performance to operational, climate, and temporal changes were also studied. These changes had minimal impacts on the thermal efficiency of the system but did have meaningful implications for other aspects of the insulation design.
The catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitor tolcapone modulates alcohol consumption and impulsive choice in alcohol use disorder.

Individuals suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD) demonstrate difficulty with decision-making and impulsivity that may be associated with impaired frontal cortical function. Therapeutics that enhance frontal dopamine tone could decrease impulsivity and in turn reduce alcohol consumption in individuals with AUD. To determine if the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitor tolcapone can attenuate alcohol consumption in individuals with AUD and whether this attenuation correlates with tolcapone-induced changes in laboratory-based decision-making tasks. We used daily self-report and a novel group laboratory bar task to assess the effects of randomized double-blind crossover administration of tolcapone (100 mg TID for 5 days) on alcohol consumption and laboratory tasks assessing impulsivity in 55 non-treatment-seeking subjects with AUD. Tolcapone significantly reduced self-reported alcohol consumption (t (54) = 2.05, p = 0.045). The effects of tolcapone on drinking significantly correlated with changes in impulsive decision-making, such that subjects with the greatest decrease in impulsive choice on tolcapone also reported the greatest decrease in alcohol consumption (r (45) = 0.40, p = 0.0053). We did not see effects of tolcapone on laboratory bar consumption. Adverse event (AE) reporting was low, with no significant difference in frequency or severity of AEs on tolcapone versus placebo. These data demonstrate that COMT inhibitors such as tolcapone may be useful therapeutics for AUD. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT 02740582
Multi-scale modeling of macrophage - T cell interactions within the tumor microenvironment and impacts of macrophage-based immunotherapies

Abstract Within the tumor microenvironment, macrophages exist in an immunosuppressive state, preventing T cells from eliminating the tumor. Due to this, research is focusing on immunotherapies that specifically target macrophages in order to reduce their immunosuppressive capabilities and promote T cell function. In this study, we develop an agent-based model consisting of the interactions between macrophages, T cells, and tumor cells to determine how the immune response changes due to three macrophage-based immunotherapeutic strategies: macrophage depletion, recruitment inhibition, and macrophage reeducation. We find that reeducation, which converts the macrophages into an immune promoting phenotype, is the most effective strategy and that the macrophage recruitment rate and tumor proliferation rate (tumor-specific properties) have large impacts on therapy efficacy. We also employ a novel method of using a neural network to reduce the computational complexity of an intracellular signaling mechanistic model.
Performing Early Christian Literature: Audience Experience and Interpretation of the Gospels

Scholars of early Christian literature acknowledge that oral traditions lie behind the New Testament gospels. While the concept of orality is widely accepted, it has not resulted in a corresponding effort to understand the reception of the gospels within their oral milieu. In this book, Kelly Iverson reconsiders the experiential context in which early Christian literature was received and interpreted. He argues that reading and performance are distinguishable media events, and, significantly, that they produce distinctive interpretive experiences for readers and audiences alike. Iverson marshals an array of methodological perspectives demonstrating how performance generates a unique experiential context that shapes and informs the interpretive process. Iverson's study explores the dynamic oral environment in which ancient audiences experienced the gospel stories. He shows why an understanding of oral performance has important implications for the study of the NT, as well as for several issues that are largely unquestioned by biblical scholars.
Specialist confirmed allergic reactions to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines at a mass vaccination site.

Healthcare providers can play a key role in reaching the target for vaccine uptake through educating the public on the risk may be of severe allergic reactions to COVID-19 vaccines. Thus, it is important to resolve reports in the literature which present conflicting data on vaccine safety. We performed a prospective study of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccinations administered at the Albany Community Vaccination Center. All potential vaccinees to the site were screened for allergic history prior to triage by a board-certified allergist. In the first 14 days of operation, our site vaccinated 14,655 individuals, 3.9% of which had a personal history of anaphylaxis. While some vaccine recipients had non-allergic complications, none of the visitors suffered any objective, immediate allergic symptoms. Our findings indicate that specialist-confirmed rates of immediate allergic reaction to mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccination are far lower than self-reported rates defined by subjective, unconfirmed symptoms.
Modeling and simulation of cell nuclear architecture reorganization process

Abstract We develop a special phase field/diffusive interface method to model the nuclear architecture reorganization process. In particular, we use a Lagrange multiplier approach in the phase field model to preserve the specific physical and geometrical constraints for the biological events. We develop several efficient and robust linear and weakly nonlinear schemes for this new model. To validate the model and numerical methods, we present ample numerical simulations which in particular reproduce several processes of nuclear architecture reorganization from the experiment literature.
Do World Shocks Drive Domestic Business Cycles? Some Evidence from Structural Estimation

Existing results on the contribution of terms of trade and world interest rate shocks to output fluctuations in small open economies range from less than 10% to almost 90%. We argue that an identification problems lies at the heart of these vastly di¤erent results. In this paper, we overcome this by estimating a DSGE model using a structural Bayesian estimation approach. We apply our methodology to five developed and developing economies.. Our approach allows us to e?ciently exploit cross-equation restrictions implied by the structural model. We find that world interest rate shocks are the main driving forces of business cycles in small open economies while terms of trade shocks are not.
“Global” Productivity Trends, Consumption Expenditures and US Macroeconomic Conditions: A Verification of the “Contagion” Phenomenon

Panel discussions on global economic performance and the role of economic shocks, often creates the notion that adverse macroeconomic conditions prevailing in dominant economies such as the U.S, tend to have automatic impact on domestic conditions of other economies around the world. This study examined this perceived automatic contagion phenomenon by verifying how key modeled adverse macroeconomic conditions characterizing the U.S economy influence two macroeconomic indicators within selected advanced economies. Empirical estimation via SUR estimation technique verified this contagion phenomenon to some degree; test results suggests adverse macroeconomic conditions such as economic policy uncertainty, inflation expectations etc. can influence core economic indicators within some economies around the world. This study however, also found that not all cross-border interactions exhibits features of the contagion phenomenon, because some economies examined seem to be relatively insulated from modeled cross-border macroeconomic conditions.
Criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of naturalistic inquiries

This is the ninth ERIC/ECTJ Annual Review Paper, preparation of which was supported by the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Clearinghouse on Information Resources, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. The material in this article was prepared pursuant to a contract with the National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Education. Contractors undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their judgment in professional and technical matters. Points of view or opinions do not necessarily represent the official view or opinion of NIE. The author is grateful to David Clark, Larry Havlicek, Robert Heinich, John McLaughlin, Cecil Miskel, and Robert Wolf for their careful critique of an earlier version of 1his paper, and to his wife, Yvonna Lincoln, from whose joint work with the author in other contexts many of the ideas expressed in this paper emanated.
Public finance in autocratic process: An empirical note

One of the ironies of modern public choice theory is that it has had comparatively little to say about the particular form of government which has exhibited the highest rate of growth since World War II and today controls most of the world's population, dictatorship (a term referring to non-democratic governments in general). The analysis of democracy is of course important and interesting in its own right, but obviously, models of political behavior which assume democratic decision-making structures are largely irrelevant in a context where the government rules by decree and maintains itself in power by military force. While Tullock (1986) has recently argued that various problems such as majority cycling phenomena should be applicable to conditions of autocracy (in particular, in relation to the coup d'etat as an 'election' faced by dictators), the overwhelming bulk of the literature has been rather narrowly applied to the context of actual voting in democracies. This emphasis on the analysis of democratic process is understandable given that most public choice theorists are citizens of democracies. It is also the case that most Western developed countries are democratic in their political organization, and collectively generate higher economic output than nondemocracies. Nevertheless, dictatorship (a term for all non-democratic forms of government) remains something of a modern growth industry and represents a phenomena in need of explanation. Past research has largely failed to provide a convincing explanation of variations across nations in terms of the democracy non-democracy dichotomy. There is general agreement that the presence of democracy is highly correlated with the level of per capita income, but the direction of causality is unclear; many writers (e.g., Hayek, 1960) argue that economic growth is a function of economic freedom, and the latter requires stable and free (democratic) government. On the other hand, Auster and Silver (1979) have suggested that
Creating a Context for Chemistry

Until relatively recently, the teaching of chemistry at the college and university level in the United States has been quite traditional and oriented primarily toward the preparation of chemists. Students not concentrating in the sciences have often been poorly served by existing courses. Chemistry in Context: Applying Chemistry to Society, a textbook for nonscience majors developed under the sponsorship of the American Chemical Society, is an effort to address the needs and interests of this audience. The book introduces the phenomena and principles of chemistry within the context of socially significant issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, alternate energy sources, nutrition, and genetic engineering. The chemistry is presented as needed to inform an understanding of the central topics, and the text features student-centered activities designed to promote critical thinking and risk-benefit analysis as well as an understanding of chemical principles. This paper summarizes the origin, development, content, pedagogy, evaluation, and influence of Chemistry in Context and considers its potential implications for other disciplines and the instruction of science majors.
Use of Truquant BR radioimmunoassay for early detection of breast cancer recurrence in patients with stage II and stage III disease.

PURPOSEThe Truquant BR radioimmunoassay (RIA) (Biomira Diagnostics Inc, Rexdale, Canada) uses the monoclonal antibody B27.29 to quantitate the MUC-1 gene product (CA 27.29 antigen) in serum. We evaluated CA 27.29 antigen in a controlled, prospective clinical trial for its ability to predict relapse in stage II and stage III breast cancer patients.PATIENTS AND METHODSOver a 2-year period, 166 patients who had completed therapy for stage II (80.1%) or III (19.9%) breast cancer and were clinically free of disease were serially tested for CA 27.29 antigen levels. The study was double-masked and cancer recurrence was documented based on clinical findings. Patients with two consecutive CA 27.29 antigen test results above the upper limit of normal were considered positive.RESULTSThe Truquant BR RIA had a sensitivity of 57.7%, specificity of 97.9%, positive predictive value of 83.3%, and negative predictive value of 92.6%. The recurrence rate was 15.7%. A Cox regression analysis showed that the only variable to c...
Cutting Edge: Expression of IL-1 Receptor-Associated Kinase-4 (IRAK-4) Proteins with Mutations Identified in a Patient with Recurrent Bacterial Infections Alters Normal IRAK-4 Interaction with Components of the IL-1 Receptor Complex

In a patient with recurrent bacterial infections and profound hyporesponsiveness to LPS and IL-1, we previously identified two mutations in IL-1R-associated kinase-4 (IRAK-4) that encoded proteins with truncated kinase domains. Overexpression of either of these mutant IRAK-4 variants in HEK293 cells failed to activate endogenous IRAK-1 and suppressed IL-1-induced IRAK-1 kinase activity, in contrast to wild-type (WT) IRAK-4. In this study, interactions of WT and mutant IRAK-4 species with IL-1R, IRAK-1, and MyD88 in HEK293 transfectants were compared. IL-1 induced a strong interaction among the IL-1R, activated IRAK-1, MyD88, and WT, but not mutant, IRAK-4. Truncated IRAK-4 proteins constitutively interacted more strongly with MyD88 and blunted IL-1-induced recruitment of IRAK-1 and MyD88 to the IL-1R. Thus, decreased IL-1-induced association of IRAK-1 and MyD88 with the IL-1RI may result from sequestration of cytoplasmic MyD88 by IRAK-4 mutant proteins. Therefore, mimetics of these truncated IRAK-4 proteins may represent a novel approach to mitigating hyperinflammatory states.
Event-based cooperative localization using implicit and explicit measurements

This paper describes a novel cooperative localization algorithm for a team of robotic agents to estimate the state of the network via local communications. Exploiting an event-based paradigm, agents only send measurements to their neighbors when the expected benefit to employ this information is high. Because agents know the event-triggering condition for measurements to be sent, the lack of a measurement is also informative and fused into state estimates. For the case where agents do not receive direct measurements of all others and keep a local-covariance error metric bounded, the agents employ a Covariance Intersection fusion rule. In communication networks with large diameters, it may not be the case that triggering fusion updates when the error metric passes a threshold results into a posterior metric satisfying the desired bound. Thus, we define balancing dynamics on the robots' triggering thresholds that result into more central agents updating more often to aid the less connected ones. Simulations illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.
Analysis of micronucleated cells by flow cytometry. 2. Evaluating the accuracy of high-speed scoring.

Abstract Micronucleated blood cells — whether generated spontaneously or by clastogen treatment — are present in the blood and bone marrow as rare events. Historically they have been scored manually by microscopic inspection which is labor-intensive and tedious. It has been recognized by investigators that a need exists for an automated method which can accurately, objectively and quantitatively score rare micronucleated cells. In order to improve assay statistics more cells must be processed, making high-speed scoring an important objective of any automated procedure. Flow cytometry can provide the means to quantitatively analyze micronucleated cells at high speeds and with great accuracy once the chemical, biological and instrumentation conditions are optimized. Recent literature suggests that noise and fidelity of the data, as well as the sensitivity of present flow cytometers, are major obstacles that still must be overcome. Experiments are described herein which demonstrate that flow cytometry is able to score micronucleated cells under conditions where noise levels are low, and the fidelity and accuracy are high. In addition, the accuracy of scoring rare events is maintained at high speeds (e.g. 1 000 000 cells/min). A major emphasis of this manuscript is to demonstrate the means for evaluating the accuracy and sensitivity of the flow cytometer in scoring rare events. Both computer simulation and reconstruction experiments were used to gauge scoring accuracy and guided optimization experiments. These experiments demonstrate that when optimum conditions are used in conjunction with a suitable flow cytometer, it is possible to score micronucleated cells at high speeds with great precision.
Cholesterol lowering: perspectives on the 4S and West of Scotland studies.

Recent studies have resolved lingering doubts about cholesterol-lowering therapy, but questions on lipid management remain.
Diazepam during prior ethanol withdrawals does not alter seizure susceptibility during a subsequent withdrawal.

Abstract The number of cycles of alcohol detoxification is suggested to be an important variable in the predisposition to severe withdrawal seizures in alcohol-dependent individuals. Several clinical studies have suggested that exposure to repeated alcohol withdrawals may lead to increased severity of subsequent withdrawal episodes. Consistent with these observations, exposure to multiple cycles of ethanol withdrawal in our previous study significantly increased sensitivity to the convulsive effects of the GABA A receptor inverse agonist, Ro15-4513, in comparison to continuous ethanol exposure with no intermittent withdrawals. There was also a selective increase in the occurrence of spontaneous spike and sharp wave (SSW) activity in the EEG recorded from hippocampal area CA 3 in proportion to the number of withdrawal episodes experienced. It is hypothesized that during such repeated episodes of ethanol intoxication and withdrawal, changes in neuronal excitation during prior withdrawals could serve as initially subconvulsive kindling stimuli that might eventually result in the increased severity of the withdrawal syndrome. There is some evidence of the successful suppression of such neuronal excitation during acute ethanol withdrawal by positive modulators of the GABA A receptor. In the present study, the benzodiazepine agonist, diazepam, at a dose (4.0 mg/kg) that suppresses acute withdrawal symptoms, when administered during intermittent withdrawals, did not alter seizure sensitivity during a subsequent nonmedicated withdrawal. Diazepam treatment during prior withdrawals also did not have any effect on the multiple withdrawal-associated increase in SSW activity in hippocampal area CA 3 during an untreated withdrawal. This finding suggests that suppression of acute withdrawal symptoms by diazepam does not prevent long-lasting changes in CNS function resulting from repeated exposures to ethanol withdrawal.
DO SURVEYS OVERSTATE PUBLIC CONCERNS

A la question « De quelle maniere etes-vous interesse par ... », les personnes pensent devoir etre interessees. Utiliser une « question filtre » pour determiner dans un premier temps si la personne est vraiment interessee avant de demander son degre d'interet permettrait de resoudre ce probleme. Une enquete par telephone sur des questions alimentaires montre que le groupe qui avait des « questions filtres » presentait un pourcentage de personnes non interessees double par rapport au groupe ayant des questions standard et le meme groupe donnait moins de reponses
The role of α‐adrenoceptor blockade in the antihypertensive effects of fenoldopam in humans

Fenoldopam, a dopamine-1 receptor agonist, has been reported to exhibit α-adrenoceptor—blocking actions in intact and isolated animal preparations. To determine whether α-adrenoceptor blockade contributes to its antihypertensive properties in humans, the effects of fenoldopam on the pressor responses to norepinephrine and angiotensin II were compared in eight normal volunteers. Fenoldopam (0.5 μg/kg/min) shifted the dose-response curves for both agonists to the right (p < 0.05). Dose ratios for an increase in mean blood pressure of 10 mm Hg were 3.3 ± 0.9 for norepinephrine and 3.2 ± 0.6 for angiotensin II (p not significant). Consequently, fenoldopam is not a selective a-adrenoceptor antagonist at therapeutic concentrations in humans. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (1988) 44, 49–54; doi:10.1038/clpt.1988.111
Needed: Reincarnation of National Defense Education Act of 1958

This paper reviews the historical and current response of the United States to threats to its world leadership in scientific endeavors, with particular attention to the National Defense Education Act of 1958. The current status of the United States in mathematics, science, and engineering education is reviewed with respect to K-12 student achievement, K-12 teacher quality, numbers of degrees granted, and other indicators of international competitiveness. Concluding that we are a nation in peril, recommendations are made to enhance the likelihood that the United States will retain its preeminent position in science and technology and, therefore, provide for the national defense and economic wellbeing of citizens in an information age and global economy.
Quantitative measure of genetic differences in susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss in two strains of mice

Abstract The CBA/CaJ (CB) and C57BL/6J (B6) inbred strains of mice were exposed for 1 h to noise intensities between 98 and 119 dB SPL. Previous studies indicated that the B6 mice exhibited permanent threshold shifts (PTS) after 1 h exposure to 110 dB, whereas the CB mice did not exhibit any PTS. These differences in susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) appear to be due to a gene for age-related hearing loss (AHL). The current study was designed to determine dose-response curves for NIHL over the ranges of intensities of noise that would characterize the B6 and CB inbred strains of mice. Because of the considerable differences in sensitivity to NIHL, the noise exposures for the two strains overlapped only at 110 and 113 dB. Nevertheless, the two strains exhibited two different dose-response curves, offset and with different slopes. We postulate that the B6 strain of mice exhibits a more linear increase for PTS from 98–113 dB, consistent with incremental effects on some metabolic physiological mechanism(s); the abrupt transition in NIHL between 113 and 116 dB for the CB mice is consistent with an ototraumatic structural injury.
Immunosuppression impact on long-term cardiovascular complications after liver transplantation

Background: With current early transplant patient and allograft survivals nearly optimized, long-term medical complications have become a significant focus for potential improvement in patient outcomes. Cardiovascular disease and associated risk factors have been shown in renal transplant patients to be related to the pharmacologic immunosuppression employed. Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate at 3 years postliver transplant (OLTx) the incidence of hypertension (HTN), hyperlipidemia (HLIP), diabetes mellitus (DM), nephrotoxicity (NTX), and cardiovascular disease (MI, angioplasty, CHF, CVA, and seborth) as well as rejection in two cohorts of liver transplant recipients who received either tacrolimus (FK-506) or cyclosporine (CSA) and to analyze the consequences of these complications on mortality following transplantation. Methods: Eighty-seven sequential patients (CSA: n = 50, mean age 48 years, M/F 32/18; and FK-506: n = 37, mean age 45 years, M/F 22/15) who underwent OLTx between 1994 and 1998, were ≥18 years, and had a minimum of 3 years of complete follow-up were included in the analysis. All OLTx candidates over age 50, who had a history of alcoholic cirrhosis, or had a history of cardiac conditions/events underwent complete cardiac consultation including an echocardiogram with additional cardiac investigation as indicated prior to OLTx. Results: At 3 years following OLTx, the incidence of acute rejection (40% versus 19%, P < 0.05), HTN (62% versus 38%, P < 0.05), HLIP (14% versus 5%, P = 0.08), and cardiovascular disease (18% versus 0%, P < 0.001), were significantly greater for the CSA patients compared with the FK-506 patients. Eight (20%) of the CSA patients who died before 3 years had their death attributed to cardiovascular events versus none in the FK-506 group. Conclusion: Compared with CSA, FK-506 was associated with significantly less rejection and a reduced incidence of HTN and cardiovascular disease.