cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Significance of Newer Generation Anti Epileptic Drug Levels during Pregnancy: An Observational Study (P01.043)

OBJECTIVE: Significance of fluctuating levels of newer antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) during pregnancy is poorly understood. We propose that clinical circumstances should guide dose titrations for newer AEDs, not medication levels. BACKGROUND: Pregnancy causes pharmacokinetic changes in AEDs. This results in increased seizures during pregnancy in one third of patients, while 65% have no change or decreased seizure frequency. Newer AEDs with lower protein binding properties still have level changes during pregnancy. DESIGN/METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of 37 women (age 30 years± 6 years) with epilepsy (23 partial and 14 generalized) during the course of their pregnancies. Their AED levels, dose changes and seizures were monitored. Relevance of frequent monitoring of levetiracetam and zonisamide levels was also assessed. RESULTS: We observed 39 successful pregnancies and 2 miscarriages. Pre- pregnancy, patients were taking levetiracetam(19%), lamotrigine(16%), topiramate(13.5%), zonisamide(13.5%), oxcarbazepine(13.5%), phenytoin(11%), carbamazepine(8%) and the remainder(8%) were on valproic acid, ethosuximide, or felbamate (4 on multiple AEDs). 27 pregnancies with prior monotherapy continued the same medication. 5 patients had their AEDs changed, while 2 patients had additional medication added. Fifteen patients had breakthrough seizures during pregnancy. Among all patients, 42 dose adjustments were noted. Half of these were due to seizures, the remainder for declining AED levels. Dose titration for levetiracetam(n=3) during pregnancy was secondary to seizures that occurred despite therapeutic drug levels. Declining drug levels led to dose titration for zonisamide(n=3) even in absence of seizures. Four of the seven patients, who had lamotrigine dose titration during pregnancy, had seizures associated with decline in medication levels. CONCLUSIONS: During pregnancy, medications were adjusted for sub-therapeutic levels or breakthrough seizures. Low lamotrigine levels correlated with increased seizure incidence. Our study shows dose titration based on serum levels of zonisamide or levetiracetam do not correlate with changes in seizures frequency. Disclosure: Dr. Putta has nothing to disclose. Dr. Shah has nothing to disclose. Dr. Arumaithurai has nothing to disclose. Dr. Drake has nothing to disclose. Dr. Labiner has received research grants from, is a consultant for, or is on the speakers bureau of the following companies: Cyberonics, Eisai, GlaxoSmithKline, UCB Pharm. Dr. Labiner has received research grants from Eisai, UCB Pharm, Sunovian.
Is there really racism in nursing

Nurses have long been aware of the array of cultural differences within society and how those differences impact health care delivery. One of the corporate buzz-words of the decade is diversity. Does nursing with all of its experience in managing various ethnic variances truly embrace this concept as a professional value? Or does the sociological trend of white female domination of the profession lend a hand to racism? Could there really be racism in nursing? Racism in nursing is examined from a historical, professional, and personal perspective to analyze the relevance of this timely issue to educators within the profession.
Extravasation of Brownian Spheroidal Nanoparticles through Vascular Pores

Abstract In modern cancer treatment, there is significant interest in studying the use of drug molecules either directly injected into the bloodstream or delivered by nanoparticle (NP) carriers of various shapes and sizes. During treatment, these carriers may extravasate through pores in the tumor vasculature that form during angiogenesis. We provide an analytical, computational, and experimental examination of the extravasation of point particles (e.g., drug molecules) and finite-sized spheroidal particles. We study the advection-diffusion process in a model microvasculature, consisting of a shear flow over and a pressure-driven suction flow into a circular pore in a flat surface. For point particles, we provide an analytical formula S ( κ , P , Q ) ≈ ( 1 / κ + π / ( 4 ( 1 + 0.3959 P 1 / 2 ) 2 / 3 ) ) − 1 + 2 P Q for the dimensionless Sherwood number S , i.e., the extravasation rate, in terms of the pore entry resistance (Damkohler number κ ), the shear rate (Peclet number P ), and the suction flow rate (suction strength Q ). Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations verify this result, and our simulations are then extended to include finite-sized NPs, in which no analytical solutions are available. BD simulations indicate that particles of different geometries have drastically different extravasation rates in different flow conditions. In general, extreme aspect ratio particles provide a greater flux through the pore because of favorable alignment with streamlines entering the pore and less hindered interaction with the pore. We validate the BD simulations by measuring the in vitro transport of both bacteriophage MS2 (a spherical NP) and free dye (a model drug molecule) across a porous membrane. Despite their vastly different sizes, BD predicts S = 8.53 E − 4 and S = 27.6 E − 4 , and our experiments agree favorably, with S e x p = 10.6 E − 4 ± 1.75 E − 4 and S e x p = 16.3 E − 4 ± 3.09 E − 4 , for MS2 and free dye, respectively, thus demonstrating the practical utility of our simulation framework.
Lysosome Positioning Influences mTORC2 and AKT Signaling

Summary Growth factor signaling is initiated at the plasma membrane and propagated through the cytoplasm for eventual relay to intracellular organelles such as lysosomes. The serine/threonine kinase mTOR participates in growth factor signaling as a component of two multi-subunit complexes, mTORC1 and mTORC2. mTORC1 associates with lysosomes, and its activity depends on the positioning of lysosomes within the cytoplasm, although there is no consensus regarding the exact effect of perinuclear versus peripheral distribution. mTORC2 and its substrate kinase AKT have a widespread distribution, but they are thought to act mainly at the plasma membrane. Using cell lines with knockout of components of the lysosome-positioning machinery, we show that perinuclear clustering of lysosomes delays reactivation of not only mTORC1, but also mTORC2 and AKT upon serum replenishment. These experiments demonstrate the existence of pools of mTORC2 and AKT that are sensitive to lysosome positioning.
Introduction to the Special Topic Forum: Critical Discourse: Envisioning the Place and Future of Diversity and Inclusion in Organizations:

Management research has illustrated the critical importance of diversity and inclusion for organizational effectiveness. Although progress is evident towards building diverse and inclusive workplac...
Children as community planners: embodied activities, visual-spatial thinking, and a re-imagined community

This qualitative research endeavor explored the role of embodiment as a pathway to visual-spatial thinking. The researchers relied on an interdisciplinary approach using geography and theater roote...
Aortic Root Dilation and Testosterone Use: Are They Associated?

Abstract Aortic root dilation and thoracic aortic aneurysms are relatively rare in young and healthy patient populations. However, a number of observed incidental cases regarding young males and testosterone use raises suspicion of a potential risk factor for aortic root dilation. The authors’ patient, a healthy 40-year-old man with a significant history of testosterone use who developed a massively dilated aortic root, is sufficiently alarming to report. Notwithstanding anecdotal cases, there exists a well-known association between elite strength athletes and aortic root dilation. Nevertheless, very little clinical research exists on the relationship between testosterone use and aortic root dilation and/or thoracic aortic aneurysms. Furthermore, a small number of animal studies showed a relationship between testosterone and vascular dilation, particularly the aorta. Although testosterone may play a role in the development of aortic pathologies, further research is necessary to clarify the possible relationship if cases such as these are to be prevented.
Abstract 466: Epigenetic drug profiling in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma

Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) is a highly aggressive and universally fatal form of childhood brain cancer. As prognosis has improved little over the last 40 years, exploring alternate drug therapies remains paramount. Roughly 80% of DIPG patients harbor mutations that result in the substitution of a lysine for a methionine at position 27 of histone variants 3.1 and 3.3 (H3.1K27M and H3.3K27M). This hallmark mutation causes global epigenetic changes in DIPG patients by dysregulating methylation and acetylation of histones, thus making the epigenome a potential therapeutic target. We explored vulnerabilities in 10 DIPG models (8 of which were H3.3K27M and 2 of which were H3.1K27M) to HDAC inhibitors (TSA and Panobinostat) and an LSD1 inhibitor (SP2577) both alone and in combination using drug dose response assays. As expected, Panobinostat showed high potency in each DIPG cell line, with 7 of the 9 lines having IC50 values less than 10 nM. In contrast, all 10 lines had no response to SP2577 apart from cytotoxic reactions in higher concentration ranges. SP2577 will thus be interesting to test in combination with Panobinostat with the intention of increasing its sensitivity. We also evaluated the efficacy of epigenetic drugs when used in combination with drugs targeting transcriptional pathways including TGN1076, a novel reversible CDK7 inhibitor. We found that TGN1076 shows marginal synergy with TSA, an HDAC inhibitor, and good synergy with JQ1, a BET inhibitor in the cell line DIPG6. Though equilibrating the epigenome remains a necessary objective in DIPG research, elucidating the mechanisms underlying extreme epigenetic shifts could provide important insight into disease pathogenesis. For this reason, we also focused on the histone methyltransferase protein PRC2 which is commonly implicated in epigenetic dysregulation in DIPG. Because the catalytic subunit of PRC2, EZH1/2, is allosterically regulated by another subunit, EED, in a “write and read mechanism,” we are testing the efficacy of the drug EED226 which binds to EED and modulates the function of PRC2. Analyzing the effects of this drug alone and in combination will provide a novel approach to managing PRC2 dysregulation and will potentially reveal future therapeutic strategies. Through screening novel drugs and testing their efficacies in combination with drugs that are commercially available, we intend to provide future therapeutic options for DIPG patients. Citation Format: Hannah Tolson. Epigenetic drug profiling in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 466.
Politics and the Academic Social Scientist; The Record of Talcott Parsons

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons’ major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more “relevant” teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression.
So Many Phish, So Little Time: Exploring Email Task Factors and Phishing Susceptibility.

ObjectiveThe present studies examine how task factors (e.g., email load, phishing prevalence) influence email performance.BackgroundPhishing emails are a paramount cybersecurity threat for the mode...
Influence of the Color, Shape, and Size of the Clay Model on Arthropod Interactions in Turfgrass

Many predatory arthropods occur naturally in turfgrass, and they provide adequate control of lepidopteran pests, such as fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (JE Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), and black cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Recording predation is challenging under field conditions because predators rarely leave any evidence. Clay models were successfully employed for studying predation, and this technique is underutilized in turfgrass. Little is known about whether the characteristics of clay models, such as color, shape, and size, influence arthropod interactions in turfgrass. To improve the utility of clay models in turfgrass, the influence of the color, shape, and size of clay models on arthropod interactions was studied by exposing clay models during daytime and nighttime in a turfgrass field. The results showed that arthropods interacted with clay models, and various types of impressions were recorded, including paired marks, scratches, cuts, and pricks. Although the color of the clay model had no significant effects on arthropod interactions during the night, significantly greater numbers of impressions were noticed on the blue and green models than on the yellow models during the daytime. The caterpillar-shaped models captured significantly greater densities of impressions than the beetle-shaped models. Additionally, the number of impressions significantly increased with an increase in the size of the model regardless of shape.
Beyond the Numbers: What We Know — and Should Know — About American Pro Bono

The provision of pro bono services by private lawyers has become a crucial source of legal assistance to poor clients within the U.S. civil justice system. As other features of the system — particularly federally sponsored legal services — have been in decline over the past quarter century, powerful actors in the profession have mobilized to increase pro bono activity. Within large law firms, there is evidence that this project has been a success, at least measured by the significant increase in the aggregate and per-attorney average pro bono hours provided by the large firm sector in the decade prior to the recession.As a result of a new wave of empirical research, scholars and policy makers now know a great deal about how these vast numbers of pro bono hours are produced. But we know much less about how good they are and what good they do. As civil legal aid and public interest law undergo profound changes, including an increasing role for private sector delivery, we need to know whether growing reliance on private lawyer charity is sensible policy. Much of the extant research, both scholarly and field based, focuses on the amount of pro bono that lawyers generate. Yet, despite over a decade of study, we have little information to answer the question of whether pro bono is an effective or efficient way to provide legal aid or access to justice — however that may be defined.This paper seeks to deepen our understanding of both the content and the impact of pro bono. It is aligned with what we identify as a “New Measurement” movement within field — one that seeks to evaluate the quality, cost, and social impact of civil legal services, as well as the quantity. This paper advances the New Measurement agenda by canvassing both what we know and, more importantly, what we need to know about pro bono service delivery. Our review of the literature points toward broad categories of unanswered questions. Specifically, existing research reveals much about various inputs to the pro bono system (e.g., policies and programs to spur pro bono service) and the resultant quantitative outputs such as hours and participation rates, but little about much else, including quality, distribution across cases and causes, impact on lawyers’ ethics, and impact on social causes. The paper identifies what we see as crucial research needs that result as much from gaps in the questions the field has so far chosen to explore as from limitations of available data. It then outlines a path forward to a research agenda that produces information necessary for effective pro bono policy making that moves us beyond the numbers.
THE ETHICS OF IMPOSSIBLE AND POSSIBLE CHANGES TO HUMAN NATURE

Some commentators speak freely about genetics being poised to change human nature. Contrary to such rhetoric, Norman Daniels believes no such thing is plausible since 'nature' describes characteristic traits of human beings as a whole. Genetic interventions that do their work one individual at a time are unlikely to change the traits of human beings as a class. Even so, one can speculate about ways in which human beings as a whole could be genetically altered, and there is nothing about that venture that could not be deliberated in the way other high-impact questions can be evaluated. There might well come a time when it would be defensible to use genetics to change human beings as a class, in order to protect people in the face of changed environmental circumstances or to enhance existing capacities. Moreover, if one understands human nature not in an empirically descriptive way but in a metaphysical way having implications about human behavior, it can make sense to talk about de-naturing individuals through genetic changes. Even under a metaphysical conception of human nature, however, one can still imagine that people in the future might want to alter their traits in pursuit of another normative idea of a good and valuable life, and genetic modifications might function as a pathway to that change.
Kolmogorov Complexity, Complexity Cores, and the Distribution of Hardness

Problems that are complete for exponential space are provably intractable and known to be exceedingly complex in several technical respects. However, every problem decidable in exponential space is efficiently reducible to every complete problem, so each complete problem must have a highly organized structure. The authors have recently exploited this fact to prove that complete problems are, in two respects, unusually simple for problems in expontential space. Specifically, every complete problem must have ususually small complexity cores and unusually low space-bounded Kolmogorov complexity. It follows that the complete problems form a negligibly small subclass of the problems decidable in exponential space. This paper explains the main ideas of this work.
Growth and maintenance of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans cells

A rapid and sensitive spectrophotometric procedure was developed for monitoring the growth of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans in liquid culture. Values determined for the optical densities at 500 nm of washed T. ferrooxidans cell suspensions were directly proportional to both total cell number and total cell protein concentration and provided an accurate measurement of culture growth rate. The utility of this procedure was demonstrated by conducting physiological studies on the influence of CO(2) and FeSO(4) availability on the growth of T. ferrooxidans. In addition, we describe a procedure for the long-term maintenance of cells T. ferrooxidans that ensures culture purity and genetic stability.
Hadamard Products and Tilings

Shapiro gave a combinatorial proof of a bilinear generating function for Chebyshev polynomials equivalent to the formula
Long‐term variations in solar wind velocity and radiation belt electrons

[1] In this paper we analyze the relationship between yearly variations in MeV radiation belt electron fluxes and solar wind velocity (Vsw). We find that the long-term trends have properties that are important for physical understanding of solar wind-magnetosphere coupling processes and, potentially, for improvements of short-term space weather forecasts. A statistical analysis of solar wind velocity shows that years with high average solar wind velocity are not high simply due to a larger number of days with high Vsw. Rather the entire distribution (median and percentiles) shifts along with the mean Vsw. Similar behavior is seen in the MeV geosynchronous electron fluxes. By subtracting out a 365 day running average baseline, we show that the distribution of log fluxes around the mean is remarkably stable from year to year within a solar cycle and from one solar cycle to another. In contrast, the long-term trends in the baseline show significant changes from year to year and from one solar cycle to another suggesting that solar wind coupling to radiation belt fluxes is not constant but varies over long, as well as short, time scales. In some epicycles, the mean flux is strongly dependent on Vsw while in others the dependence is weak. Similarly, a given average Vsw may produce high average fluxes in one epicycle and low average fluxes in another. Future study of these epicycles and the relative variations within them may improve both physical understanding of solar wind-magnetosphere coupling and space weather forecasting.
The Unspoken Possibility of Language: Poetic Silence in Mallarmé and Rilke

Recent and competing definitions of “modernity” all point to a fundamental characteristic which has been explored and theorized time and again but deserves still more intellectual attention: the ambivalence towards language unparalleled by anything written before the nineteenth century. On the one hand, “modernity” has placed great faith in the power of the word; however, this faith has been overwhelmed with enough suspicion to undermine any potential linguistic stability. In its most extreme manifestation, this results in a phenomenon of linguistic anxiety, even paranoia, which threatens the semantic possibilities of poetics. The resulting threat of silence – whether thematic, syntactical, metaphoric, or literal – is ubiquitous in modern poetry. As Eliot writes, “words, after speech, reach into silence.” An analysis of the general phenomenon of poetic silence and of two modern responses to it – those of Mallarme and Rilke – yield significant insights both into the idea of the “modern” as well as into the essence and inner machinations of modern poetry.
Regulation of G protein-coupled receptor export trafficking

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute a superfamily of cell-surface receptors which share a common topology of seven transmembrane domains and modulate a variety of cell functions through coupling to heterotrimeric G proteins by responding to a vast array of stimuli. The magnitude of cellular response elicited by a given signal is dictated by the level of GPCR expression at the plasma membrane, which is the balance of elaborately regulated endocytic and exocytic trafficking. This review will cover recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanism underlying anterograde transport of the newly synthesized GPCRs from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) through the Golgi to the plasma membrane. We will focus on recently identified motifs involved in GPCR exit from the ER and the Golgi, GPCR folding in the ER and the rescue of misfolded receptors from within, GPCR-interacting proteins that modulate receptor cell-surface targeting, pathways that mediate GPCR traffic, and the functional role of export in controlling GPCR signaling.
Differential effect of BMP4 on NIH/3T3 and C2C12 cells: implications for endochondral bone formation.

After intramuscular implantation, BMP4-expressing NIH/3T3 fibroblasts and BMP4-expressing C2C12 myoblasts can promote ectopic cartilage and bone formation. Fibroblasts tend to undergo chondro- genesis, whereas myoblasts primarily undergo osteogenesis. These results suggest that endochondral bone formation may involve different cell types, a finding that could have major implications for the tissue engi- neering of bone and cartilage. Introduction: The delivery of BMP4 through cell-based gene therapy can trigger ectopic endochondral bone formation in skeletal muscle. We hypothesized that, when stimulated with or transduced to express BMP4, different types of cells residing within skeletal muscle might participate in different stages of endochondral bone formation. Materials and Methods: We compared the responses of a fibroblast cell line (NIH/3T3), a myoblast cell line (C2C12), primary fibroblasts, and primary myoblasts to BMP4 stimulation in vitro. We then transduced the four cell populations to express BMP4 and compared their ability to promote ectopic endochondral bone formation in skeletal muscle. Results: Under the influence of BMP4 in vitro and in vivo, NIH/3T3 cells differentiated toward both chon- drogenic and osteogenic lineages, whereas most C2C12 cells underwent primarily osteogenic differentiation. NIH/3T3 cells genetically modified to express BMP4 induced delayed but more robust cartilage formation than did genetically modified C2C12 cells, which promoted rapid ossification. These differences in terms of the timing and amount of cartilage and bone formation persisted even after we introduced a retrovirus encoding dominant negative Runx2 (DNRunx2) into the C2C12 cells, which interferes with the function of Runx2. Superior osteogenic potential was also displayed by the primary myoblasts in vitro and in vivo compared with the primary fibroblasts. The different proliferation abilities and differentiation potentials exhibited by these cells when influenced by BMP4 may at least partially explain the differing roles that BMP4-expressing myogenic cells and BMP4-expressing fibroblastic cells play in endochondral bone formation. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the process of endochondral bone formation in skeletal muscle after delivery of BMP4 involves different cell types, including fibroblastic cells, which are more involved in the chondrogenic phases, and myoblastic cells, which are primarily involved in osteogenesis. These findings could have important implications for the development of tissue engineering applications focused on bone and cartilage repair. J Bone Miner Res 2005;20:1611-1623. Published online on May 23, 2005; doi: 10.1359/JBMR.050513
Any Good News in Soft News? The Impact of Soft News Preference on Political Knowledge

Several scholars, most notably Matt Baum, have recently argued that soft news formats contribute to democratic discourse, because they attract viewers who would otherwise not be exposed to news at all. I extend Baum's approach in two ways. First, Baum's theory postulates that people's appreciation of entertainment is one of the factors determining news exposure and, by extension, attention to politics, but he does not analyze the underlying utility calculation directly. I create a measure of entertainment preference and examine its impact on people's preferred news formats. Second, while Baum's analysis is restricted to attention paid to politics, I assess the effect of soft news preference on political knowledge. If soft news leads people to pay more attention to the "entertaining" aspect of politics, but does not actually produce any learning effects, the suggested positive consequences of soft news would have to be qualified. The main data source for this article is a survey of 2,358 randomly selected ...
The Effect of Cosmetic Vehicles on the Penetration of N-Nitrosodiethanolamine Through Excised Human Skin

Cosmetic products are frequently applied to the skin by a large number of people, but some contain compounds that are potentially toxic, if absorption through the skin is sufficient. The percutaneous absorption of N -nitrosodiethanolamine (NDELA), an impurity in many cosmetic products, has been evaluated in diffusion cells using excised human skin. The nitrosamine was applied to the skin in vehicles with different solubility properties. The permeability constants for water (5.5 × 10 −6 cm hr −1 ) and propylene glycol (3.2 × 10 −6 cm hr −1 ) were small and similar. In isopropyl myristate, the permeability constant increased approximately 250-fold to 1.1 × 10 −3 cm hr −1 . The NDELA membrane:vehicle partition coefficients were determined using trypsin-treated stratum corneum as the membrane. These coefficients were 1.8 and 1.0, respectively, for water and propylene glycol and 230 for isopropyl myristate. The permeability of NDELA through skin is apparently increased greatly when applied from sufficiently lipoidal formulations; this is primarily due to the favorable partition coefficients for NDELA from such formulations. The amount of NDELA penetrating the skin from 3 types of cosmetic products was calculated based on their different conditions of use. Products applied over large areas of the body that remain on the skin for long periods of time (i.e., sun tanning lotion) will result in the greatest absorption of NDELA if all other factors are equal.
Shade-Matching Abilities of Dental Laboratory Technicians Using a Commercial Light Source

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate dental laboratory technicians' abilities to match shades using a light-corrective device under conventional laboratory conditions. The variables measured were years experience, gender, and light source. Materials and Methods: A 14-item shade-matching quiz (SMQ) was field-tested and deemed adequate. Information included age, gender, number of years experience, and Ishihara's Colour-Blindness Assessment. Forty-two dental technicians from five northeast Ohio laboratories were invited to participate. The SMQ was administered twice: under the lighting conditions in the individual laboratories (SMQ-Lab) and with a light-corrective source (SMQ-LC). For each item, the technicians were to select the matching Vita shade tab from five preselected shade tabs. SMQ scores equaled the number of correct matches. Statistical analysis included calculation of means, standard deviations, correlation coefficients, and independent and paired t-tests. Significance was set at p≤ 0.05. Results: Twenty male and 20 female technicians participated. None were color-deficient. The SMQ scores were significantly higher with the light-corrective device than under laboratory lighting: 12.0 ± 1.9 and 10.0 ± 2.0, respectively (p < 0.001). There were no significant correlations between years experience and SMQ scores, nor were there differences between scores by gender. In general, the Vita C shades were least likely to be matched. Conclusions: Within the limitations of this study, dental technicians' shade-matching abilities were better with a light-corrective device than under the conventional laboratory lighting conditions. Gender and experience were not factors in matching shades. The Vita C shades were least likely to be matched.
Vibrational spectroscopy of nitroaromatic self-assembled monolayers under extreme conditions

Abstract Vibrational spectra up to 8 GPa and 600 °C were obtained for self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on noble metal surfaces of the energetic material simulant 4-nitrobenzenethiol (NBT). The high-pressure measurements used a surface-enhanced Raman sensor. The high-temperature measurements used femtosecond laser flash-heating and nonlinear coherent vibrational spectroscopy. The SAM nitro stretching transition ν NO 2 s is insensitive to flash-heating where there is no time for chemical reactivity or thermal expansion. A large pressure broadening in ν NO 2 s of the SAM but not in solid NBT was associated with surface adlayer rearrangement. The implications for time-resolved measurements of shock-compressed energetic materials are discussed.
Third-order nonlinear optics of some azulenic donor-acceptor compounds

We studied the third-order nonlinear optical properties of five azulenic donor-acceptor compounds. The compounds were studied in solution in Tetrahydrofuran using backward degenerate four-wave mixing and Z-scan with 30 picosecond pulses at 532 manometer wavelength. Extrapolated values for the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility ((chi) (3)) of the solute molecules were obtained from concentration dependent measurements. The compounds possess large values of (chi) (3) in the range 3 X 10-10 esu to 3 X 10-8 esu. The two orders of magnitude change in the magnitude of the susceptibility that we observe for this series of donor-acceptor azulenic compounds makes them interesting candidates for the study of structure property relationships in nonlinear optical chromophores. The compounds also exhibit large solvatochromism and may also prove to be useful in second-order nonlinear optical applications.© (1998) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Endoscopic Sedation: Legislative Update and Implications for Reimbursement

Endoscopic sedation has traditionally been considered to be an element of the endoscopic examination. Endoscopists, together with endoscopy nurses, administered benzodiazepines and opioids with acceptable safety and efficiency. Today, sedation practices for endoscopy have become more diversified due to the entry of anesthesia specialists into the endoscopy unit, gastroenterologist-directed propofol administration, and prolonged diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that require deeper sedation. The economic implications of these changes in sedation are examined in this article.
FtsZ, a tubulin homologue in prokaryote cell division

Sequence alignments convincingly demonstrate that FtsZ is a prokaryotic homologue of eukaryotic tubulins. FtsZ appears to be universal in eubacteria and archaebacteria and has also been identified in chloroplasts. Like tubulin, it appears to have a cytoskeletal role as both proteins assemble into two types of characteristic polymers in vitro — protofilament sheets and mini-rings. Recent advances in immunofluorescence and the use of green fluorescent protein have provided clear images of FtsZ localized in a ring at the septation site in bacteria, and new insights into assembly of this Z-ring.
Butorphanol: A kappa agonist revisited

Abstract Most opioids were developed in the search for drugs that were selective analgesics, antidiarrheals or cough suppressants that lacked the reinforcing, physical dependence and respiratory depressant capacities of morphine-like drugs. Pharmacologic assessment of these drugs in addict volunteers led to the idea of multiple receptors (mu and kappa) to explain the differing profiles of agonist effects. One result was the development and therapeutic introduction in 1978 of a parenteral preparation of the kappa agonist butorphanol as an opioid analgesic of low abuse potential. In 1992, the introduction of a transnasalppreparation of butor phanol into the USA led to an increased therapeutic use of butorphanol. This increased use led us to review the current pharmacologic and epidemiologic evidence on the abuse potential of a prototype for kappa agonists. Our aim was to reevaluate the idea that the public health and social problems that accompany the therapeutic use of morphine like drugs would not accompany the therapeutic use of kappa agonists such as butorphanol.
Use of flow-normalization to evaluate nutrient concentration and flux changes in Lake Champlain tributaries, 1990–2009

Abstract The U.S. Geological Survey evaluated 20 years of total phosphorus (P) and total nitrogen (N) concentration data for 18 Lake Champlain tributaries using a new statistical method based on weighted regressions to estimate daily concentration and flux histories based on discharge, season, and trend as explanatory variables. The use of all the streamflow discharge values for a given date in the record, in a process called “flow-normalization”, removed the year-to-year variation due to streamflow and generated a smooth time series from which trends were calculated. This approach to data analysis can be of great value to evaluations of the success of restoration efforts because it filters out the large random fluctuations in the flux that are due to the temporal variability in streamflow. Results for the full 20 years of record showed a mixture of upward and downward trends for concentrations and yields of P and N. When the record was broken into two 10-year periods, for many tributaries, the more recent period showed a reversal in N from upward to downward trends and a similar reversal or reduction in magnitude of upward trends for P. Some measures of P and N concentrations and yields appear to be related to intensity of agricultural activities, point-source loads of P, or population density. Total flow-normalized P flux aggregated from the monitored tributaries showed a decrease of 30 metric tons per year from 1991 to 2009, which is about 15% of the targeted reduction established by the operational management plan for the Lake Champlain Basin.
Identification of Opioid Ligands Possessing Mixed μ Agonist/δ Antagonist Activity among Pyridomorphinans Derived from Naloxone, Oxymorphone, and Hydropmorphone

A series of pyridomorphinans derived from naloxone, oxymorphone, and hydromorphone (7a-k) were synthesized and evaluated for binding affinity at the opioid delta, micro, and kappa receptors in brain membranes using radioligand binding assays and for functional activity in vitro using [(35)S]GTP-gamma-S binding assays in brain tissues and bioassays using guinea pig ileum (GPI) and mouse vas deferens (MVD) smooth muscle preparations. The pyridine ring unsubstituted pyridomorphinans possessing the oxymorphone and hydromorphone framework displayed nearly equal binding affinity at the micro and delta receptors. Their affinities at the kappa site were nearly 10-fold less than their binding affinities at the micro and delta sites. Introduction of aryl substituents at the 5'-position on the pyridine ring improved the binding affinity at the delta site while decreasing the binding affinity at the micro site. Nearly all of the ligands possessing an N-methyl group at the17-position with or without a hydroxyl group at the 14-position of the morphinan moiety displayed agonist activity at the micro receptor with varying potencies and efficacies. In the [(35)S]GTP-gamma-S binding assays, most of these pyridomorphinans were devoid of any significant agonist activity at the delta and kappa receptors but displayed moderate to potent antagonist activity at the delta receptors. In antinociceptive evaluations using the warm-water tail-withdrawal assay in mice, the pyridomorphinans produced analgesic effects with varying potencies and efficacies when administered by the intracerebroventricular route. Among the ligands studied, the hydromorphone-derived 4-chlorophenylpyridomorphinan 7h was identified as a ligand possessing a promising profile of mixed micro agonist/delta antagonist activity in vitro and in vivo. In a repeated administration paradigm in which the standard micro agonist morphine produces significant tolerance, repeated administration of the micro agonist/delta antagonist ligand 7h produced no tolerance. These results indicate that appropriate molecular manipulations of the morphinan templates could provide ligands with mixed micro agonist/delta antagonist profiles and such ligands may have the potential of emerging as novel analgesic drugs devoid of tolerance, dependence, and related side effects.
Forum Theatre and Parables: A Qualitative Field Experiment in a Seventh-Day Adventist Academy

In this article, the author describes a qualitative field study designed to test the effectiveness of Forum Theatre (FT) as a cross-disciplinary approach to Biblical parabolic literature analysis for students enrolled in a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Academy. The author provides a brief overview of the theoretical framework of the study, the study design, and data analysis, then discusses the study's findings and the study's implications for SDA education and Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), the dramatic system to which FT belongs. In this study, drama, literature, and theology interacted to provide students with an integrated learning experience.
Relevance of experimental models for investigation of genotoxicity induced by antiretroviral therapy during human pregnancy

The current incidence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1)/AIDS affects around 7000 pregnant women in the United States. When given during pregnancy, the nucleoside analog 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine (AZT) significantly reduces maternal-fetal transmission. It has been previously shown that AZT is incorporated into DNA, where it causes mutations in the HPRT and TK genes. It also changes cell cycle gene expression, and induces S-phase arrest, micronuclei, chromosomal aberrations, sister chromatid exchanges, telomeric attrition, and other genotoxic effects in cultured cells. A predicted consequence of these events is genomic instability that together, with clastogenicity may contribute to the carcinogenic potency of AZT. Various aspects of genotoxicity are explored in this contribution seeking to understand the multiple effects of this antiretroviral agent in animal models and humans. This mini-review describes some of the experimental models used to elucidate the genotoxicity induced by antiretroviral therapy during human pregnancy. The use of diverse methods to detect biomarkers of exposure, such as an AZT-specific radioimmunoassay, micronuclei bearing intact chromosomes, and telomeric DNA attrition highlight the role of in vitro models to elucidate exposure and risk. The relevance of the in vitro models is followed by the introduction of the role of the nucleoside analogs in transplacental carcinogenesis along with the description of a transplacental perfusion model and a transplacental carcinogenesis rodent model. In a more direct clinical application the use of AZT-DNA incorporation as a biomarker of exposure, in experiments conducted in vivo in Erythrocebus patas monkeys and in humans, addresses the possibility of elucidation of potential cancer risk in those infants exposed in utero. Two relevant aspects of this contribution are the potential application of some of the models described in this mini-review, as diagnostic tools in antiretroviral-exposed populations, and the use of these models to understand the nature of the genotoxicities and minimize the undesirable side effects of the antiretroviral therapy.
The memristor in reconfigurable radio frequency devices

The recently discovered ability to manufacture the fourth basic electrical component, the memristor, has resulted in a great interest in applications for the device. Although most interest is geared towards digital systems applications and computer memory, the device also possesses interesting analog abilities. The characteristics of the memristor will be exploited here for the design of radio frequency devices. A specialized FDTD simulation tool is developed that implements a finite difference memristor model. The FDTD code is employed to analyze and design a memristor-based reconfigurable absorber.
Population-Based Outcome of Stage IA-IIA Resected Gastric Adenocarcinoma: Who Should Get Adjuvant Treatment?

Background The benefit of adjuvant treatment in gastric adenocarcinoma was demonstrated by randomized, controlled trials of patients with locally advanced tumors. Thus, its role for stage IIB-IIIC disease is widely accepted. We aimed to identify patients with stage IA-IIA gastric adenocarcinoma who have a poor prognosis and thus may benefit from adjuvant treatment.
Influence of Tannin on Phaseolus vulgaris Protein Digestibility and Quality

The influence of tannin on protein digestibility and quality of black beans was evaluated using an enzyme-Tetrahymena thermophila bioassay. In vitro digestibility and t-PER (Tetrahymena-based PER) were inversely related to tannin content. Bioavailability, expressed by Tetrahymena growth, of black bean globulin G1 in the presence of black bean condensed tannins correlated well (r=0.95) with the in vitro digestibility of the protein. Black bean condensed tannins complexed readily with black bean globulin G1 to form insoluble precipitates from pH 2.0 to pH 8.0. Bean tannin-G1 precipitates, at tannin-to G1 ratios of 0.55 or greater, were resistant to pepsin digestion at pH 2.0. Digestion of bean tannin-G1 precipitates was 69–74% at pH 8.0, using a multienzyme system of trypsin, chymotrypsin and peptidase.
Joint localization and fingerprinting of sound sources for auditory scene analysis

In the field of scene understanding, researchers have mainly focused on using video/images to extract different elements in a scene. The computational as well as monetary cost associated with such implementations is high. This paper proposes a low-cost system which uses sound-based techniques in order to jointly perform localization as well as fingerprinting of the sound sources. A network of embedded nodes is used to sense the sound inputs. Phase-based sound localization and Support-Vector Machine classification are used to locate and classify elements of the scene, respectively. The fusion of all this data presents a complete “picture” of the scene. The proposed concepts are applied to a vehicular-traffic case study. Experiments show that the system has a fingerprinting accuracy of up to 97.5%, localization error less than 4 degrees and scene prediction accuracy of 100%.
Advanced Computational Modeling of Multiphase Boiling Flow and Heat Transfer

Numerical simulation of boiling flow and heat transfer presents a number of unique challenges in both theoretical modeling and developing robust numerical methodology. The major difficulty arises due to the heat transfer and phase changes between heated walls and fluid (liquid and vapor). Furthermore, modeling of the liquid-vapor interfacial transfers of momentum, heat and mass proves to be equally challenging. The multiphase boiling modeling approach described in this paper has been found to be capable of addressing these issues and is therefore suitable for inclusion in an advanced general purpose CFD solver. In the present approach, boiling flows are modeled within the framework of the Eulerian multifluid model. The governing equations solved are phase continuity, momentum and energy equations. Turbulence effects can be accounted for using mixture, dispersed or per-phase multiphase turbulence models. Wall boiling phenomena are modeled using the baseline mechanistic RPI model for nucleate boiling, and its extensions to non-equilibrium boiling and critical heat flux regime. A range of sub-models are considered to account for the interfacial momentum, mass and heat transfer, and flow regime transitions. An advanced numerical scheme has been developed for solving the model equations which can handle the heat partition between heated walls and fluid, provide for wall and interfacial mass transfer source terms in phase volume fraction equations, and address the coupling between the phase change rates and the pressure correction equation. The wall boiling models and numerical algorithm have been implemented in an advanced, general-purpose CFD code, FLUENT. Validations have been carried out for a range of 2D and 3D boiling flows, including pressurized water through a vertical pipe with heated walls, R-113 liquid in a vertical annulus with internal heated walls, a 3D BRW core channel geometry with vertical heated rods, and water in a vertical circular pipe under critical heat flux and post dry-out conditions. The results demonstrate that the wall boiling models are able to correctly predict the wall temperature and vapor volume fraction distribution. The predictions in all the cases are in reasonable good agreement with available experiments. Tests also indicate that the present implementation is fast and robust, as compared to previous approaches. All the cases are able to be simulated with the use of the FLUENT steady-state multiphase solver with reasonable numbers of iterations.Copyright © 2010 by ASME