cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Improving the sensitivity of online controlled experiments by utilizing pre-experiment data

Online controlled experiments are at the heart of making data-driven decisions at a diverse set of companies, including Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Zynga. Small differences in key metrics, on the order of fractions of a percent, may have very significant business implications. At Bing it is not uncommon to see experiments that impact annual revenue by millions of dollars, even tens of millions of dollars, either positively or negatively. With thousands of experiments being run annually, improving the sensitivity of experiments allows for more precise assessment of value, or equivalently running the experiments on smaller populations (supporting more experiments) or for shorter durations (improving the feedback cycle and agility). We propose an approach (CUPED) that utilizes data from the pre-experiment period to reduce metric variability and hence achieve better sensitivity. This technique is applicable to a wide variety of key business metrics, and it is practical and easy to implement. The results on Bing's experimentation system are very successful: we can reduce variance by about 50%, effectively achieving the same statistical power with only half of the users, or half the duration.
The bipolar plate of AISI 1045 steel with chromized coatings prepared by low-temperature pack cementation for proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Abstract The low-temperature pack chromization, a reforming pack cementation process, is employed to modify AISI 1045 steel for the application of bipolar plates in PEMFC. The process is conducted to yield a coating, containing major Cr-carbides and minor Cr-nitrides, on the substrate in view of enhancing the steel's corrosion resistance and lowering interfacial contact resistance between the bipolar plate and gas diffusion layer. Electrical discharge machining and rolling approach are used as the pretreatment to produce an activated surface on the steel before pack chromization process to reduce operating temperatures and increase deposition rates. The rolled-chromized steel shows the lowest corrosion current density, 3 × 10 −8 A cm −2 , and the smallest interfacial contact resistance, 5.9 mΩ cm 2 , at 140 N cm −2 among all tested steels. This study clearly states the performance of 1045 carbon steel modified by activated and low-temperature pack chromization processes, which possess the potential to be bipolar plates in the application of PEMFC.
Automated detection of cine-SPAMM magnetic resonance tags at sub-pixel resolutions

Quantitative analysis of cardiac motion using tagged magnetic resonance (MR) images has ultimately been limited by the spatial resolutions of the tagging techniques. A new image processing technique that automatically identifies MR tags to subpixel accuracy in tagged cine-SPAMM magnetic resonance images is presented. The automated subpixel tag detection technique allows regional cardiac wall motion to be noninvasively evaluated in an accurate, fast, and reproducible manner. Simulation results suggest that tag detection accuracy of one-half to one-quarter of a pixel may be possible in typical clinical images. >
Finite precision effects on dynamic behavior in a pulse-coded winner-take-all mechanism

The dynamic behavior of a unique pulse-coded winner-take-all (PWTA) mechanism is described. Parameters which affect PWTA mechanism dynamics are discussed. It is shown that three distinct kinds of behavior can be observed in the vicinity of winning unit boundaries. The first occurs in the infinite precision case where boundaries exhibit ideal behavior. With finite parameter precision, either hysteresis or multiple unit response can be observed over transition regions in the vicinity of ideal boundaries. The interconnect properties of this network make it an attractive candidate for IC implementation. >
The Image of Fathers in Popular Adolescent Fiction

With the number of single parent homes on the increase, many children must derive their ideas of roles and responsibilities of fathers from secondary sources, especially books. The picture of fathers that emerges from popular adolescent novels is a disturbing one, with father being commonly portrayed as ineffectual, uncaring, or absent. Significant examples from currently popular books are discussed.
Disease Modifying Agents for Huntington’s Disease

Huntington’s disease is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder characterised by abnormalities of motor function, cognition and behaviour. The striatum is particularly vulnerable to the disease process with selective loss of medium-sized spiny projection neurons and relative sparing of interneurons.
Service availability: a new approach to characterize IP backbone topologies

Traditional SLAs, defined by average delay or packet loss, often camouflage the instantaneous performance perceived by end-users. We define a set of metrics for service availability to quantify the performance of IP backbone networks and capture the impact of routing dynamics on packet forwarding. Given a network topology and its link weights, we propose a novel technique to compute the associated service availability by taking into account transient routing dynamics and operational conditions, such as BGP table size and traffic distributions. Even though there are numerous models for characterizing topologies, none of them provide insights on the expected performance perceived by end customers. Our simulations show that the amount of service disruption experienced by similar networks (i.e., with similar intrinsic properties such as average out-degree or network diameter) could be significantly different, making it imperative to use new metrics for characterizing networks. In the second part of the paper, we derive goodness factors based on service availability viewed from three perspectives: ingress node (from one node to many destinations), link (traffic traversing a link), and network-wide (across all source-destination pairs). We show how goodness factors can be used in various applications and describe our numerical results.
Obsidian Hydration Dating - Field, Laboratory, and Modeling Results

Hydration rind thicknesses found on obsidian artifacts provide one means of estimating the age of an archaeological site. The model used in the method usually assumes a diffusion-controlled reaction of the glass with water. However, results using this model are not always in agreement with other dating methods. Observations of secondary mineral formation on glasses in contact with water vapor suggests that other rate-controlling mechanisms may be operative. In this paper, we apply the glass dissolution code GLASSOL, coupled with the geochemical code PHREEQE to model the reaction of Glass Mountain obsidian in water. The results show the importance of accounting for the effects of solution chemistry on the time-dependence of the hydration reaction.
Hemoglobin function: effects of salts and glutathione.

. These studies were undertaken to explore the observation of Valtis and Kennedy that the right-shifted O2curve produced by treating stored bank blood with sodium chloride would persist after its administration, and to restudy the effects of glutathione (GSH) on the oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve, originally studied by Horejsi and Komarkova. The Valtis-Kennedy salt effect was reversed by washing the salt-treated red cells with physiological saline. No change in the oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve was apparent as the result of glutathione treatment when the red cells in solution had been corrected to a pH of 7.4.
PROGRAM EVALUATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL

What is the role of program evaluation research in making and implementing social policy and how do program evaluators view the social programs they evaluate? This article discusses the findings of two closely related studies that examine these questions from the perspective of organization theory. These studies found that program evaluations rely on methods of research that do not correspond to the extent of uncertainty in social programs over goals and causal knowledge, and that most evaluations define organizational effectiveness solely in terms of goal achievement. In addition, of the various groups with a stake in the evaluation process, only federal and top program administrators influenced the implementation and interpretation of the studies. These findings, when taken together, suggest that program evaluation research acts more to augment administrative control than to increase our understanding of the effects of social policy.
The GUSTO trial and the open artery theory

The GUSTO trials have provided continuing insight into the complexities of a simple fundamental relationship: early and sustained coronary perfusion in patients with acute myocardial infarction leads to lower mortality and morbidity. To a large extent, the GUSTO trials have attempted to develop approaches to therapy that will ensure the highest early rate of reperfusion with the least risk. A table provides a summary of the completed trials and those that are planned in attempts to provide further knowledge in the continuing quest to improve the plight of patients with acute myocardial infarction.
Olivine dissolution by acidic fluids in Argyre Planitia, Mars: Evidence for a widespread process?

Compositional and morphological analyses of basin rim units in Argyre Planitia are con- sistent with local olivine-rich materials that become relatively olivine-poor in the process of being transformed from rocky materials to fi particulate regolith. Where high-thermal- inertia rocky surfaces are observed, the composition is more mafi c than the surrounding fi nes. This relationship between rocks and soils appears to be common on Mars as a similar pattern is observed in other locations, such as Gusev Crater, Isidis Planitia, and Nili Fossae. Despite the lack of local detectable alteration products, these trends may be an indication that most Martian dark regions are not similar in composition to the primary igneous composition from which they are derived. The Martian crust may be signifi cantly more mafi c, and alteration of these surfaces may be more pervasive than has been inferred from the bulk surface mineral- ogy derived from orbital observations.
VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS AND NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME: A DYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE ∗

Although numerous theories suggest that voluntary organizations contribute to lower crime rates in neighborhoods, the evidence for this proposition is weak. Consequently, we propose a dynamic perspective for understanding the relationship between voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime that involves longitudinal analyses and the measurement of the age of organizations. By using longitudinal data on a sample of census blocks (N = 87,641) located across 10 cities, we test the relationship between age-graded measures of different types of voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime rates. We use fixed-effects negative binomial regression models that focus on change within neighborhoods of the relationship between voluntary organizations and neighborhood crime. Our results show that although each type of voluntary organization is found to exhibit crime-reducing behavior in neighborhoods, we find that many of them are consistent with what we refer to as the “delayed impact scenario”—there is a pronounced delay between the placement of a voluntary organization and a neighborhood subsequently experiencing a reduction in crime. With protective effects of organizations typically not demonstrated until several years after being in the neighborhood, these patterns suggest a need for long-term investment strategies when examining organizations. Criminological theory and communities and crime research often suggest that voluntary organizations may provide important crime-control benefits to neighborhoods (Peterson, Krivo, and Harris, 2000; Sampson and Groves, 1989; Slocum et al., 2013; Triplett, Gainey, and Sun, 2003). Community voluntary organizations broadly refer to nonprofit organizations that provide services, activities, or events to the neighborhood. Voluntary organizations can contribute to neighborhood control through the provision of needed services or by creating favorable environments that facilitate the sharing of common values and goals among local residents. Thus, voluntary organizations are posited to
Toward a Technology of Foolishness: Alternative Logics Embodied in Entrepreneurial Action

Several years ago Professor March pointed out that rational choice involves two guesses, a guess about uncertain future consequences and a guess about uncertain future preferences, and called for the development of a technology of foolishness to complement the technologies of intelligence that have been developed to improve the first guess. In this essay we use empirical data from two separate studies of entrepreneurial expertise, one involving the creation of new ventures (Sarasvathy, 1998) and the other the birth of a new industry (Dew, 2003) to identify three logics that constitute working elements of a technology of foolishness: (1) the logic of identity, as opposed to the logic of preferences; (2) the logic of action, as opposed to the logic of belief; and, (3) the logic of commitment, as opposed to the logic of transaction.
An interventional study to provide telephone follow-up support to open-heart surgery patients during recovery.

Abstract Introduction Over 500,000 open-heart (OH) surgery procedures are performed annually to treat cardiovascular and valvular heart disease. Despite the frequency of the procedure, patients face psychosocial and physical challenges that continue long after discharge. The research question for this study was: How does a telephone supportive intervention change anxiety, depression, expectations, and physical health status (PHS) in OH surgery patients? Methods A quasi-experimental, repeated measures design was used. The study included a supportive telephone intervention during recovery, and measured anxiety, depression, expectations, and physical health status (PHS) preoperatively (T1) and postoperatively, three days after discharge (T2), and at 4weeks (T3) and 3months (T4) after surgery. Participants ( N =28) were randomly assigned to the control ( n =13) or experimental group ( n =15). Results Mean scores for anxiety and depression were in the normal range across all data collection times. Scores for anxiety ( p =.03) and PHS ( p =.00) were statistically significant when examining how the scores changed over the four time periods. Main effect for group and interaction effects were not significant for any of the variables. Conclusions Limitations of this pilot study suggest the need to recruit a larger, heterogeneous sample from multiple sites. Future research including patients with a known history of anxiety and depression and developing a more evidence-based practice intervention are options to consider.
Breaking body hair boundaries: Classroom exercises for challenging social constructions of the body and sexuality

Courses in women’s studies and gender studies within US contexts have long prioritized content that critically examines the social construction of bodies and sexualities, consciousness-raising abou...
CBIO-48DECODING THE CELLULAR HETEROGENEITY OF MALIGNANT GLIOMA

Glioma is the most common malignancy of the central nervous system with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) being the most frequent and deadliest. Despite significant advances, GBM is associated with a 5 year progression free survival of 3-4%, a statistic relatively unchanged for the past six decades. One characteristic of GBM as well as hindrance in the development of effective treatment is their cellular heterogeneity. Primarily constituted by malignant astro-glial cells, evidence supports the notion that GBM are compartmentalized into different subpopulations with different tumorigenic properties, which contribute to different aspect of disease pathogenesis. In an effort to identify and elucidate the contributions of novel subpopulations to this malignancy, we have combined multiple, novel mouse models for GBM with flow cytometry and FACS to identify, isolate, and directly characterize these subpopulations. In an effort to consistently and reproducibly generate GBM in a high throughput, in vivo, and non-immunocompromised manner, we have developed a tractable model that combine in utero electroporation (IUE) with the piggyBac transposase genetic system which is capable of generating histologically verified GBM in less than 3 weeks. Utilizing this approach, we have identified 5 novel candidate subpopulations, which demonstrate functional differences towards tumor pathogenesis. In addition, we have developed a second model which combines IUE with the CRISPR genome editing system and have found that the same subpopulations are present in this model. Finally, analysis of primary human samples suggests that these subpopulations are present in the human disease. Together, this multi-modal approach demonstrates the presence of novel, functionally defined subpopulations, whose presence is conserved across models and species.
Molecular mechanisms linking geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase to cell survival and proliferation

Geranylgeranyl diphosphate is a 20-carbon isoprenoid phospholipid whose lipid moiety can be post-translationally incorporated into proteins to promote membrane association. The process of geranylgeranylation has been implicated in anti-proliferative effects of clinical agents that inhibit enzymes of the mevalonate pathway (i.e. statins and nitrogenous bisphosphonates) as well as experimental agents that deplete geranylgeranyl diphosphate. Inhibitors of geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase are an attractive way to block geranylgeranylation because they possess a calcium-chelating substructure to allow localization to bone and take advantage of a unique position of the enzyme within the biosynthetic pathway. Here, we describe recent advances in geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase expression and inhibitor development with a particular focus on the molecular mechanisms that link geranylgeranyl diphosphate to cell proliferation via geranylgeranylated small GTPases.
Effect of forced flow oscillations on churn and annular flow in a long vertical tube

Abstract An experimental study has been carried out to investigate the effects of periodic forced flow oscillations on gas-liquid two-phase flows using a 42 m long, 0.05 m ID vertical pipe system. From the knowledge of the authors, there is no experimental work available in the literature on the forced flow oscillations for churn flow regime. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to experimentally characterize churn and annular flows in a long vertical tube. The time variation of liquid holdup, pressure drop and pressure gradient were analyzed under two superficial liquid velocities (0.017 and 0.3 m/s), and superficial gas velocities oscillations ranging from 4 m/s to 21 m/s. The impact of flow oscillations in two-phase flow regime transitions is also investigated. The observations of flow regimes under oscillatory conditions showed significant differences compared to the ones expected in steady-state flow under the same conditions. Under oscillatory conditions, the local liquid holdup and the amplitude of its waves decreased with the distance from the inlet. For the experimental runs with oscillatory gas flow and low superficial liquid velocities (U ls = 0.017 m/s), the liquid holdup at the bottom of the tube decreased while the gas flow rate was lowered, whereas in steady-state conditions the liquid holdup should increase while reducing superficial gas velocities. This process is described in this study by the formation of large waves in the bottom of the pipe as a consequence of the flow oscillations.
Antimicrobial-bonded graft patency in the setting of a polymicrobial infection in swine (Sus scrofa)

Abstract Background Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and Dacron are commonly used as arterial conduits in vascular trauma or infection when vein interposition graft may not be available. This study used a previously validated large animal model of polymicrobial infection to assess the patency and infectious resistance of a novel, antibiotic-impregnated graft material compared with PTFE and Dacron. Methods Forty-eight animals were placed into five groups for a 21-day survival period. A 6-mm PTFE, Dacron, or antimicrobial-bonded graft was used to replace the iliac artery and then inoculated with 1 × 10 7 colonies/mL of genetically labeled Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus . Native vessels with and without contamination served as control groups. The primary end points were graft patency (determined by duplex ultrasound and necropsy) and graft infection (culture with molecular analysis). Secondary end points included physiologic measurements, blood cultures, laboratory data, and histopathology. Results At 21 days, 50% of PTFE, 62.5% of Dacron, and 100% of the antimicrobial-bonded grafts remained patent ( P = .04). PTFE and Dacron had an equivalent number of overall infections, 87.5% and 75%, respectively ( P = 1.0). There was no significant difference of infectious organisms between standard materials. The infection rate of the antimicrobial-bonded graft (25%) was significantly less than that of both PTFE and Dacron ( P P. aeruginosa . Clinical data did not vary significantly between groups. There were no mortalities in the protocol secondary to graft blowout or sepsis. Conclusions The antimicrobial-bonded graft material outperformed standard PTFE and Dacron in the setting of polymicrobial infection with regard to graft patency and infection. The novel prosthetic material appears to be resistant to infection with S. aureus and to limit the growth of P. aeruginosa . Additional studies are recommended to explore the role of this antibiotic-bonded graft for use in the setting of vascular infection or trauma.
Charge Transfer Dissociation (CTD) Mass Spectrometry of Peptide Cations: Study of Charge State Effects and Side-Chain Losses

1+, 2+, and 3+ precursors of substance P and bradykinin were subjected to helium cation irradiation in a 3D ion trap mass spectrometer. Charge exchange with the helium cations produces a variety of fragment ions, the number and type of which are dependent on the charge state of the precursor ions. For 1+ peptide precursors, fragmentation is generally restricted to C−CO backbone bonds (a and x ions), whereas for 2+ and 3+ peptide precursors, all three backbone bonds (C−CO, C−N, and N−Cα) are cleaved. The type of backbone bond cleavage is indicative of possible dissociation channels involved in CTD process, including high-energy, kinetic-based, and ETD-like pathways. In addition to backbone cleavages, amino acid side-chain cleavages are observed in CTD, which are consistent with other high-energy and radical-mediated techniques. The unique dissociation pattern and supplementary information available from side-chain cleavages make CTD a potentially useful activation method for the structural study of gas-phase biomolecules.
Cannabis potentially reduces recurrent episodes of hereditary angioedema

Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is a rare disease affecting an estimated 1 in 50,000 individuals in the United States.The clinical presentation involves recurrent episodes of angioedema, without urticaria or pruritus, in mucosal tissues of various organ systems. We present a case of HAE type II with concomitant use of cannabis that possibly decreased the frequency of his episodes of angioedema. Recent studies indicate that cannabis has an important role in regulating innate immunity and inflammatory responses through the inhibition of pro-inflammatory cytokines and upregulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines. These effects might reduce episodes of angioedema, but more research is needed.
Sparsity regularized Principal Component Pursuit

We study the problem of low-rank and sparse decomposition from possibly noisy observations. We propose a novel objective function with nuclear norm on the low-rank term and l 0 -‘norm’ on the sparse term, as well as l 1 -norm on the additive noise term. When there is no dense inlier noise, the proposed method shares the same theoretical guarantee as the Principal Component Pursuit (PCP), i.e., it can recover the low-rank component and sparse component exactly with high probability. Simulations in the noisy case demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods. Results on a surveillance video application further verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
RNA Interference Screening Reveals Host CaMK4 as a Regulator of Cryptococcal Uptake and Pathogenesis

ABSTRACT Cryptococcus neoformans, the causative agent of cryptococcosis, is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that kills over 200,000 individuals annually. This yeast may grow freely in body fluids, but it also flourishes within host cells. Despite extensive research on cryptococcal pathogenesis, host genes involved in the initial engulfment of fungi and subsequent stages of infection are woefully understudied. To address this issue, we combined short interfering RNA silencing and a high-throughput imaging assay to identify host regulators that specifically influence cryptococcal uptake. Of 868 phosphatase and kinase genes assayed, we discovered 79 whose silencing significantly affected cryptococcal engulfment. For 25 of these, the effects were fungus specific, as opposed to general alterations in phagocytosis. Four members of this group significantly and specifically altered cryptococcal uptake; one of them encoded CaMK4, a calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase. Pharmacological inhibition of CaMK4 recapitulated the observed defects in phagocytosis. Furthermore, mice deficient in CaMK4 showed increased survival compared to wild-type mice upon infection with C. neoformans. This increase in survival correlated with decreased expression of pattern recognition receptors on host phagocytes known to recognize C. neoformans. Altogether, we have identified a kinase that is involved in C. neoformans internalization by host cells and in host resistance to this deadly infection.
Isolation by crystallization of the MoFe protein of Azotobacter nitrogenase

Abstract Homogeneous MoFe protein of A. vinelandii nitrogenase was isolated in high yields as white needle-like crystals by decreasing the ionic strength of a solution rich in the MoFe protein and free of the Fe protein of nitrogenase. Molecular weight of the di-molybdo crystallized protein is 270,000–300,000; approximate ratios of Mo:Fe:CySH:labile S are 1:20:20:15. The crystallized protein in combination with the Fe protein was essential for nitrogenase reactions including reduction of N2, C2H2, CN−, acrylonitrile and azide, and ATP-dependent H2 evolution; specific activity was 1488 nmoles H2 evolved/minute/mg MoFe protein.
Hand Function in Common Hand Problems

This chapter was designed to identify the commonly encountered nontraumatic hand problems that patients are likely to present to a practitioner. Often the presentation includes both pain and dysfunction.
The Molecular Basis of Neurotransmission: Structure and Function of the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor

Acetylcholine was identified as the first neurotransmitter as a result of elegant experiments by Otto Loewi in 1921 who demonstrated that the vagus nerve liberates a substance that has an inhibitory effect on the rate of the heartbeat of an isolated frog heart. Loewi showed that this “vagus substance” could be transferred from the fluid filling the heart onto another heart and there reproduce the same inhibitory effect. He coined the term “humoral transmission” to describe this activity (Loewi, 1921). Subsequent experiments identified the “vagus substance” as acetylcholine. It became clear that acetylcholine, in addition to its influence on the heart, exerted a variety of pharmacologically distinct effects, which were classified by Sir Henry Dale (1934) as “muscarinic” and “nicotinic” actions, because some were mimicked best by muscarine and others by nicotine. Acetylcholine receptors with muscarinic ligand-binding properties are characterized by prolonged responses of slow onset which are mediated through nucleotide cyclases (for short reviews see Sokolovsky and Bartfai, 1981; Hartzell, 1982), whereas acetylcholine receptors with nicotinic-binding properties are characterized by rapid responses in which ligand binding regulates the opening and closing of a cation-specific channel through a conformational alteration in the molecule. Acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junctions of striated muscle and at the synapses of fish electric organs (which are phylogenetically related to muscle tissue) are the best-studied nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and the subjects of this review.
CYCLIC FATIGUE-CRACK PROPAGATION IN CERAMICS AND CERAMIC COMPOSITES

Cyclic fatigue-crack propagation behavior is studied in transformation-toughened Mg-PSZ monolithic ceramics (fracture toughnesses Kc between 2.9 and 16 MPa√m) and a SiC-whisker reinforced alumina composite (Kc ˜ 4.5 MPa√m). Stress/life (S/N) data in Mg-PSZ, derived from unnotched cantilever-bend specimens, show markedly lower lives under tension-compression compared to tension-tension loading; similar to metals, “fatigue limits” approach 50% of the tensile strength of the material. Crack-growth results, based on studies on “long” (>3 mm) cracks in compact-tension specimens, show fatigue-crack growth rates in both systems to be markedly power-law dependent on the stress-intensity range, ΔK, with a threshold stress-intensity range, ΔKTH, of the order of <50% of Kc. Conversely, for “small” (<250 μm) surface cracks, fatigue-crack growth is seen to occur at ΔK levels some 2 to 3 times smaller than the long-crack threshold, ΔKTH. Possible mechanisms of ceramic fatigue and the implications for safety-critical design criteria are discussed.
Muscle health and performance in monozygotic twins with 30 years of discordant exercise habits.

Physical health and function depend upon both genetic inheritance and environmental factors (e.g., exercise training). To enhance the understanding of heritability/adaptability, we explored the skeletal muscle health and physiological performance of monozygotic (MZ) twins with > 30 years of chronic endurance training vs. no specific/consistent exercise. One pair of male MZ twins (age = 52 years; Trained Twin, TT; Untrained Twin, UT) underwent analyses of: (1) anthropometric characteristics and blood profiles, (2) markers of cardiovascular and pulmonary health, and (3) skeletal muscle size, strength, and power and molecular markers of muscle health. This case study represents the most comprehensive physiological comparison of MZ twins with this length and magnitude of differing exercise history. TT exhibited: (1) lower body mass, body fat%, resting heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, and plasma glucose, (2) greater relative cycling power, anaerobic endurance, and aerobic capacity (VO2max), but lower muscle size/strength and poorer muscle quality, (3) more MHC I (slow-twitch) and fewer MHC IIa (fast-twitch) fibers, (4) greater AMPK protein expression, and (5) greater PAX7, IGF1Ec, IGF1Ea, and FN14 mRNA expression than UT. Several measured differences are the largest reported between MZ twins (TT expressed 55% more MHC I fibers, 12.4 ml/kg/min greater VO2max, and 8.6% lower body fat% vs. UT). These data collectively (a) support utilizing chronic endurance training to improve body composition and cardiovascular health and (b) suggest the cardiovascular and skeletal muscle systems exhibit greater plasticity than previously thought, further highlighting the importance of studying MZ twins with large (long-term) differences in exposomes.
Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner student preceptorship: Perspectives on the clinical training

As today’s health-service delivery continues to evolve and transform, keeping pace with the training needs of professionals entrusted to deliver quality, competent care is itself an evolutionary and multifaceted academic undertaking. In the United States, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs) have been evidenced as formative, effective, and necessary contributors to quality, cost- effective patient, family, and community-based mental health care across the lifespan. The education and certification processes for PMHNPs involve a comprehensive and rigorous combination of theoretical course-work and clinical practicum guided by the concepts and principles of the preceptorship model. The purpose of this paper is to use the available literature to discuss and gain insights into some clinical and educational perspectives influencing PMHNP students’ practice preparations within the context of the preceptorship-paradigmatic relationship. Along with adding to the literature, this paper could have important implications from the standpoint of the PMHNP student-faculty-preceptor model.
Development of Processes to Ensure Timely Administration of Tocilizumab in the Setting of Cytokine Release Syndrome after Administration of Tisagenlecleucel or Axicabtagene Ciloleucel

Introduction With the commercial approval of tisagenlecleucel and axicabtagene ciloleucel, tocilizumab was concurrently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the management of cytokine release syndrome (CRS).1,2 Per the FDA Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) requirements, the pharmacy must stock a minimum of two doses of tocilizumab for each patient, available for administration within two hours.1,2 The complex logistics of the immediate administration of this product in a large academic medical center required coordination of a multidisciplinary team. Objectives/Methods Our multidisciplinary team participated in weekly meetings to develop standard policies and treatment algorithms to treat the acute toxicities seen with tisagenlecleucel and axicabtagene ciloleucel. We also created an annual pharmacy competency outside of the REMS requirements for all inpatient pharmacy staff to ensure awareness and emphasize the need for prompt administration of tocilizumab. Our IT team worked to develop electronic solutions including a PRN entry of tocilizumab that would be released concurrently with the cell infusion order and would be readily available on the patient's medication administration record (MAR) for immediate dispensing. As CRS can occur following the initial admission, we created a “prepare and give now” entry for tocilizumab within our toxicity treatment order set in preparation of potential future admissions. The entry includes help text with the dosing information and is capped at 800 mg. For all scenarios in which tocilizumab administration is necessary, the attending on service is required to call the inpatient pharmacy directly to provide the verbal order to dispense a dose. This safety step ensures that the attending on service is knowledgeable of the patient's symptoms and agrees with use. Results/Conclusion Of the patients that we have treated to date, our median number of tocilizumab doses is 1 dose (range 0-4). Our median time from dispense to administration is 53.5 minutes (range 23-85 minutes) [Table 1]. This demonstrates that our education efforts and available resources have resulted in our ability to properly manage CRS and to dispense and administer tocilizumab well under the 2-hour time frame dictated by the REMs requirements.
Porous borders: multiracial migrations and the law in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands

With this book Julian Lim brings an insightful, thoughtful, and fresh perspective to an utterly timely topic. Historians of immigration in the United States have, by and large, performed a conventi...
Total Hip Arthroplasty Technique: Mako

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) remains one of the most predictable interventions in the treatment of end-stage arthritis as measured by pain relief and improvement in function. The long-term outcomes of THA can be influenced by many factors including implant position. Suboptimal implant position has been associated with instability as well as accelerated bearing wear. Unfortunately, many manual aligning tools have not predictably improved alignment. Alternative strategies to improve implant alignment have evolved to include navigation as well as robotics. The initial experience was with active robotic systems with highly accurate and reproducible results. The past decade has seen the emergence of haptically guided systems that allow the surgeon to retain some control of component insertion. This chapter will describe the current state of haptics in total hip replacement including the results of initial validation and the clinical outcomes.
A dual-mode deep transfer learning (D2TL) system for breast cancer detection using contrast enhanced digital mammograms

Full-field digital mammography (FFDM) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are gold-standard techniques for breast cancer detection. The newly contrast-enhanced digital mammography (CEDM) integrate...
Berberine Induces Apoptosis In Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Cells by Demethylation of RASSF1A and Self-Ubiquitination of MDM2.

Abstract 3627 Berberine, an isoquinoline alkaloid derived from a plant used in Chinese herbal medicine, is reported to exhibit anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects on human cancer; however, its mechanism of action is not clearly defined. Herein, we demonstrate that berberine induces apoptosis in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells by demethylation of the tumor suppressor RASSF1A, which results in self-ubiquitination and degradation of the oncoprotein MDM2. In contrast to the conventional chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin, which directly induced p53 activation and a subsequent upregulation of MDM2, berberine strongly induced persistent downregulation of MDM2 followed by a steady-state activation of p53, which resulted in apoptosis of ALL cells tested, even if they were doxorubicin-resistant. Our investigation discovered that berberine but not doxorubicin can induce demethylation of RASSF1A in RASSF1A-methylated ALL. The result of RASSF1A demethylation was the increased expression of the tumor suppressor, which disrupted the MDM2-DAXX-HAUSP complex, thereby promoting MDM2 self-ubiquitination and subsequent MDM2 degradation. Consistent with this finding, the most potent apoptosis was induced by berberine in wild-type p53 ALL cells with both RASSF1A methylation and MDM2 overexpression, while no pro-apoptotic effect was detected in berberine-treated RASSF1A normal ALL cells that had no or low level of MDM2 expression. Given that ALL cells with RASSF1A methylation and MDM2 overexpression are commonly chemotherapy-resistant our finding that these cells can be potently killed by berberine through effective induction of RASSF1A and inhibition of MDM2 suggests that this naturally-derived agent may have a highly useful role in the treatment of patients with refractory ALL. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Multiple identity tracking strategies vary by age: An ERP study.

Top-down modulation underlies our ability to focus attention on task-relevant stimuli and ignore irrelevant distractions. Although age-related differences in neural correlates of top-down modulation have been investigated in multiple studies using variety of tasks (Gazzaley et al., 2005; Stormer et al., 2013), the effect of age on top-down modulation in a multiple identity tracking (MIT) task is still unknown. Thus, we investigated age-related differences in the MIT task by employing event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants tracked ten uniquely colored disks, two of which were randomly designated as targets at the beginning of each trial; the targets moved among four stationary distractors (serving as ERP baseline) and four moving distractors. Each type of stimulus was probed during the trial to capture differential patterns of brain activation. Tracking performance was similar across age groups. ERP data showed that younger adults performed the MIT task by enhancing the unique identities associated with targets relative to distractors through feature-based tracking. Older adults showed a pattern of distractor suppression engaging both location- and feature-based tracking strategies. Thus, our findings suggest that compared to younger adults, older adults engage greater levels of neural activity to achieve the same level of performance. These findings are discussed in light of theories of cognitive aging.
Shedding light on maternal education and child health in developing countries

Abstract This paper investigates the intergenerational effects of maternal education on child health in 68 developing countries across five continents over nearly three decades. Exploiting the between-sisters variation in the educational attainment of the mothers, we find that mother’s education is positively associated with child health measured by the three most commonly used indices, namely height-for-age, weight-for-height, and weight-for-age. Our mechanism analyses further show that these favorable effects could be, at least in part, attributed to fertility behavior, assortative matching, health care utilization, access to information, health knowledge, and labor market outcome. Given the long-lasting impacts of early-life health over the life cycle, our findings underline the importance of maternal education in improving economic and social conditions in developing countries.
Visual Coverage Path Planning for Urban Environments

View planning for visual coverage is a fundamental robotics problem. Coverage for small objects (e.g. for inspection) or small scale indoor scenes have been studied extensively. However, view planning to cover a large scale urban environment remains challenging. Algorithms that can scale up to the size of such environments while providing performance guarantees are missing. In this letter, we model urban environments as a set of surfaces with $k$ distinct surface normals whose viewing cones must be visited by a robot. We model the resulting coverage problem as a novel variant of Traveling Salesman Problem with Neighborhoods (TSPN). The neighborhoods are defined as cones, which constrain the path coverage quality. We present a polynomial time algorithm which admits an approximation factor of $O(\frac{k}{\tan (\alpha)}\max {[L_B,W_B,H_B]})$ , where $\alpha$ is the maximum viewing angle, and $L_B,H_B,W_B$ are respectively the length, width, and height of a minimum enclosing box of a city scene $B$ . In addition to the analytical upper bounds, we show in simulations that our method outperforms three baseline methods in both trajectory length and run-time. We also demonstrate our method and evaluate the coverage quality of a city containing more than 70 buildings in a photo-realistic rendering software.
Teaching Algebraic Model Construction: A Tutoring System, Lessons Learned and an Evaluation

An algebraic model uses a set of algebra equations to precisely describe a situation. Constructing such models is a fundamental skill required by US standards for both math and science. It is usually taught with algebra word problems. However, many students still lack the skill, even after taking several algebra courses in high school and college. We are developing a short, intensive course in algebraic model construction. The course combines human teaching with a tutoring system. This paper describes the lessons learned during the iterative development process. Starting from an existing theory of model construction, we gradually acquired a completely different view of the skills required as we modified the tutoring system and the instruction. We close by describing encouraging results from a quasi-experimental study.
A Contemporary Approach for Visualizing Temporal and Spatial Urban Freight Movement by Leveraging Mobility Portal Data

Analyzing and visualizing traffic data in order to better understand congestion trends, safety concerns, goods movement and capacity needs is a pressing need. Broadly speaking, there is a large amount of traffic data available today, including volume, lane occupancy, speed, and travel time, which can be used to manage transportation networks, provide traveler information and produce performance measures. This broadly disseminated data almost always treats all vehicles alike, without discriminating between trucks and passenger cars. Since trucks are critical and growing components of freeway traffic, monitoring and tracking their dynamics can reveal the impacts of freight movement on current freeway operations and over time will uncover trends useful for future planning and management. This study takes advantage of a unique data stream available for the freeway network of Portland, Oregon, USA. In addition to providing continuous vehicle count, speed and lane occupancies at 20-second intervals at more than 500 stations (1,300 individual detectors), the Portland system reports volume bins at 4 length-based classifications. ( 60 ft). Given that most vehicle classification studies are done over very short time intervals at an extremely limited number of locations, this nonstop data stream enables unprecedented insight into where and when trucks are traveling on Portland’s freeways and a wealth of opportunities for performance measurement and diagnosis of their impacts. The objective of this paper is to exploit this new data stream and explore new visualization techniques that depict truck volume, truck percentage and volume-weighted average vehicle speeds along Portland’s Interstate 5 corridor, an important north-south freight route between the Canada and Mexico borders. Results confirm the merit in analyzing and tracking truck volumes, proportions, and other dynamics for traffic management, information and modeling. The results of this study and the techniques employed here can be used to better understand and visualize freight movement dynamics on a continuous basis.
Efficient PM2.5 forecasting using geographical correlation based on integrated deep learning algorithms

This paper proposes a deep learning model that integrates a convolutional neural network and a gated recurrent unit with groups of neighboring stations to accurately predict PM2.5 concentrations at 25 stations in Seoul, South Korea. The deep learning model uses observations obtained from one Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) station, 25 National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) stations, and 28 automatic weather stations (AWSs) throughout Seoul. To train the deep learning model, we use all available meteorological and air quality data observed between 2015 and 2017. With the trained model, we predict PM2.5 concentrations at all 25 NIER stations in Seoul for 2018. This study also proposes a geographical polygon group model that determines the optimal number of neighboring NIER stations required to increase the accuracy of PM2.5 concentration predictions at the target station. Comparing the model measures for each of the 25 monitoring sites in 2018, we find that the geographical polygon group model achieves an index of agreement of 0.82–0.89 and a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.70–0.83. Compared to the method using only meteorological and air quality data from one target station (average IOA = 0.77) to predict PM2.5 concentrations at the 25 stations in Seoul, the proposed method using geographical correlation-based neighboring NIER stations as polygonal groups (average IOA = 0.85) improves the PM2.5 prediction accuracy by an average of about 10%. This approach, based on deep learning, can be updated to predict air pollution or air quality indices up to several days in advance.