cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Prevention of BRCA1-mediated mammary tumorigenesis by antiprogesterone.

CS09-03 Mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA1 are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers. Reduced BRCA1 expression due to promoter methylation may contribute to breast cancer progression. BRCA1 has been implicated in DNA damage repair, cell cycle checkpoint control and transcriptional regulation. The specific suppression of breast and ovarian carcinogenesis by the pleiotropic BRCA1 tumor suppressor has been hypothesized to be due to its regulation of estrogen receptor α (ERα) and the progesterone receptors (PRs), which play important roles in breast development. However, how the ER and PRs contribute to BRCA1-mediated carcinogenesis remains unclear. We show that Brca1/p53-defective mammary glands of nulliparous miceaccumulate lateral branches and undergo extensive alveologenesis, a phenotype only seen during pregnancy in normal mice. Progesterone receptors (PRs), but not estrogen receptors are over-expressed in the mammary epithelial cells (MECs) of conditional Brca1/p53,but not p53 knockout mice; therefore, progesterone is a potent mitogen for Brca1/p53-defective MECs specifically. PR is stabilized in Brca1/p53-defective MECs. Treatment with anti-progesterone, mifepristone, prevents tumorigenesis in mice carrying mutated Brca1/p53 alleles, indicating a critical role of PR in Brca1-mediated tumorigenesis. These findings uncover a tissue-specific function of BRCA1 and implicate anti-progesterone in breast cancer prevention, especially in BRCA1 carriers. [A. J. P. and Y. L. contributed equally to this work.]
Explaining gender differences in self-regulated driving: what roles do health limitations and driving alternatives play?

One of the strongest and most consistent predictors of self-regulated driving is gender, with women more likely than men to limit their driving in situations like bad weather or at night. However, studies have focused more on documenting these gender patterns than on explaining the processes underlying them, which may vary in their implications for transportation, health and ageing policy. Our study addresses this issue by examining two potential explanations for women's greater likelihood of self-regulated driving: their greater health limitations and use of driving alternatives. Using a nationally representative sample of older Americans (2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study, N = 4,842), we conducted logistic regressions predicting driving under four limitations: alone, at night, in rain or other bad weather and on highways. Our results provide stronger support for the driving alternatives explanation, especially women's greater reliance on rides from family and friends. Health limitations do contribute to explaining one of the self-regulated driving behaviours – avoiding driving alone. Our findings suggest that willingness to use driving alternatives is part of transitioning from driving. However, the relatively low use of all the alternatives we examined points to the importance of better understanding older adults’ transportation needs and preferences, including their gendered dimensions.
MSIGNET: a Metropolis sampling-based method for global optimal significant network identification

In this paper, we propose a novel approach namely MSIGNET to identify sub-networks with significantly expressed genes by integrating context specific gene expression and protein-protein interaction (PPI) data. Specifically, we integrate differential expression of each gene and mutual information of gene pairs in a Bayesian framework and use Metropolis sampling to identify functional interactions. During the sampling process, a conditional probability is calculated given a randomly selected gene to control the network state transition. Our method provides global statistics of all genes and their interactions, and finally converges to a global optimal sub-network. We apply MSIGNET to simulated data and have demonstrated its superior performance over comparable network identification tools. Using a validated Parkinson data set we show that the network identified using MSIGNET is consistent to previously reported results but provides more biology meaningful interpretation of Parkinson disease. Finally, to study networks related to ovarian cancer recurrence, we investigate two patient data sets. Identified networks from independent data sets show functional consistence. And those common genes and interactions are well supported by current biological knowledge.
Development and Testing of a Simplified Dummy for Frontal Crash

Anthropomorphic testing devices (ATDs) used in vehicle crash testing are the industry standard for occupant safety research, but they are expensive and complex equipment. The purpose of this research was to develop and build a simplified dummy and sled for a low-impact frontal crash. The design of the simplified ATD was inspired by the commercially available crash test dummy ECE-R16 model. The dummy was designed such that it matched weight and center of gravity of an adult passenger. A pendulum was created for imposing an impact force to the sled accommodating the dummy. This simplified ATD was used to measure acceleration based injury criteria. The experimental results were compared with a Finite Element (FE) simulation of the Hybrid III dummy in a 2002 Ford Explorer. The simplified physical experiment results followed a similar trend as the FE Hybrid III simulation results.
Discovery of and Interest in Health Apps Among Those With Mental Health Needs: Survey and Focus Group Study.

Background: A large number of health apps are available directly to consumers through app marketplaces. Little information is known, however, about how consumers search for these apps and which factors influence their uptake, adoption, and long-term use. Objective: The aim of this study was to understand what people look for when they search for health apps and the aspects and features of those apps that consumers find appealing. Methods: Participants were recruited from Northwestern University’s Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies’ research registry of individuals with mental health needs. Most participants (n=811) completed a survey asking about their use and interest in health and mental health apps. Local participants were also invited to participate in focus groups. A total of 7 focus groups were conducted with 30 participants that collected more detailed information about their use and interest in health and mental health apps. Results: Survey participants commonly found health apps through social media (45.1%, 366/811), personal searches (42.7%, 346/811), or word of mouth (36.9%, 299/811), as opposed to professional sources such as medical providers (24.6%, 200/811). From the focus groups, common themes related to uptake and use of health apps included the importance of personal use before adoption, specific features that users found desirable, and trusted sources either developing or promoting the apps. Conclusions: As the number of mental health and health apps continue to increase, it is imperative to better understand the factors that impact people’s adoption and use of such technologies. Our findings indicated that a number of factors—ease of use, aesthetics, and individual experience—drove adoption and use and highlighted areas of focus for app developers and disseminators.
Mathematical Background for Inverse Problems

The inverse problems introduced in the previous chapters involve finding unknown functions (including functions defined on finite sets, that is, vectors or matrices) given other functions which are transformed versions of the desired functions. It is therefore no surprise that an appropriate mathematical framework for the analysis of inverse problems turns out to be the theory of function spaces and the fundamentals of the theory of operators on such spaces. In this chapter we sketch the basics of the theory of linear spaces, particularly Hilbert space, and the corresponding operator theory. Our aim is to introduce terminology, notation and basic concepts. For the most part, proofs are omitted; they can be found in the usual sources. The issues of existence, uniqueness and stability of solutions of linear inverse problems are addressed within the context of ill-posed operator equations and generalized inverses in the third section.
Mitigating the impact of measurement error when using penalized regression to model exposure in two-stage air pollution epidemiology studies

Air pollution epidemiology studies often implement a two-stage approach. Exposure models are built using observed monitoring data to predict exposure at participant locations where the true exposure is unobserved, and the predictions used to estimate the health effect. This induces measurement error which may bias the estimated health effect and affect its standard error. The impact of measurement error depends on assumed data generating mechanisms and the approach used to estimate and predict exposure. A paradigm wherein the exposure surface is fixed and the subject and monitoring locations are random has been previously motivated, but corresponding measurement error methods exist only when modeling exposure with simple, low-rank, unpenalized regression splines. We develop a comprehensive treatment of measurement error when modeling exposure with high-but-fixed-rank penalized regression splines. If sufficiently rich, these models well-approximate full-rank methods such as universal kriging while remaining asymptotically tractable. We describe the implications of penalization for measurement error, motivate choosing the penalty to optimize health effect inference, derive an asymptotic bias correction, and provide a simple non-parametric bootstrap to account for all sources of variability. We find that highly parameterizing the exposure model results in severely biased and inefficient health effect inference if no penalty is used. Choosing the penalty to mitigate measurement error yields much less bias and better efficiency, and can lead to better confidence interval coverage than other common penalty selection methods. Combining the bias correction with the non-parametric bootstrap yields accurate coverage of nominal 95 % confidence intervals.
Quantum Mechanics of Collision Processes

By a collision will be understood the interaction of two or more of the entities with which atomic physics is concerned under such conditions that before and after the collision they are widely separated in space but during the collision they are close together. The entities which may take part in collisions include electrons, protons, photons, atoms and molecules. If photons were to be cnsidered the report would also need to treat of the entire problem of the interaction of radiation and matter. This is too much and so it is arbitrarily excluded. Certain other topics such as the Ramsauer effect, the collisions of two atoms and the polarization of the light emitted by atoms excited by an incident unidirectional electron beam are also left out of consideration. The report is thus intended simply to serve as an introduction to the simpler problems and to the method by which the more complicated problems are attacked.
Dispersive Partial Differential Equations: Wellposedness and Applications

The area of nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations (PDEs) is a fast developing field which has become exceedingly technical in recent years. With this book, the authors provide a self-contained and accessible introduction for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in mathematics, engineering, and the physical sciences. Both classical and modern methods used in the field are described in detail, concentrating on the model cases that simplify the presentation without compromising the deep technical aspects of the theory, thus allowing students to learn the material in a short period of time. This book is appropriate both for self-study by students with a background in analysis, and for teaching a semester-long introductory graduate course in nonlinear dispersive PDEs. Copious exercises are included, and applications of the theory are also presented to connect dispersive PDEs with the more general areas of dynamical systems and mathematical physics.
Uptake of endocrine-disrupting chemicals by quagga mussels (Dreissena bugensis) in an urban-impacted aquatic ecosystem.

Untreated organic contaminants in municipal wastewater, such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), have become a significant issue in aquatic ecosystems, particularly in freshwater bodies that receive wastewater discharge. This has raised concerns about the accumulation of EDCs in aquatic species via continuous exposure. This study evaluated the uptake of EDCs by quagga mussels (Dreissena bugensis), an invasive species in a water supply reservoir. The field sampling results showed that steroid hormones were not detected in the water samples, and only pharmaceuticals and personal care products were present (0.49 to 36 ng/L). Additionally, testosterone was the most abundant steroid in the mussel tissue (6.3 to 20 ng/g dry weight), and other synthetic chemicals (i.e., bisphenol A, triclosan, and salicylic acid) were also detected in the mussel tissue (24 to 47 ng/g dry weight). After being exposed to exogenous EDCs for 7, 21, and 42 days under controlled laboratory conditions, testosterone was not detected in the mussel anymore, but bisphenol A, triclosan, and salicylic acid were found at relatively high levels in the mussel tissue, although the concentrations did not increase over time. Overall, the study demonstrated the uptake of EDCs in quagga mussels, which suggests that this species can be used to reflect water quality deterioration in aquatic ecosystems.
Patient Perspectives on Weight Management for Living Kidney Donation.

Abstract Background Living kidney donors (LKDs) with obesity have increased perioperative risks and risk of end-stage renal disease after donation. Consequently, obesity serves as a barrier to donation, as many transplant centers encourage or require weight loss before donation for obese LKD candidates. Therefore, this study sought to assess patients’ perspectives on weight management strategies before donation among obese LKD candidates. We hypothesized that willingness to participate in a weight loss program may be associated with donor-recipient relationship. Materials and methods Obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) LKD candidates evaluated at a single institution from September 2017 to August 2018 were recruited. A survey was administered to assess LKD candidates’ baseline exercise and dietary habits and their interest in weight management strategies for the purpose of donation approval. Participants were grouped by relationship to the recipient (close relatives: first-degree relatives or spouses [n = 29], compared with all other relationships [n = 21]). Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. Results 50 of 51 obese LKD candidates who were approached completed the survey. 90% of participants expressed willingness to lose weight if necessary to become eligible for donor nephrectomy. Compared with all other LKD candidates, close relatives were more likely to be interested in combined diet and exercise programs at our institution (P = 0.01). Conclusions Among obese LKD candidates, there was an interest in weight loss for the purposes of living kidney donation approval, particularly among close relatives of potential recipients. Future programs designed to promote weight management efforts for obese LKD candidates should be considered.
Improving Power Systems Transient Stability by Coordinated Control of Energy Storage Systems and Synchronous Generators in Presence of Measurement Noise

This paper proposes a decentralized control scheme for coordinating the synchronous generators and energy storage systems (ESSs) in order to improve the transient stability in the power systems. A controller is designed using model predictive control that is able to explicitly consider the system model. The controller utilizes multi-input multi-output (MIMO) model of power plant stations in which the control actions are excitation control, turbine governor of synchronous generators, and output power of ESSs. The proposed controller has a fully decentralized structure and is hosted at power plant stations. Each local controller only uses local models and local measurements to solve the control problem, which is a desirable characteristic for practical implementation of the controller. In order to deal with the measurement noises, a sigmoid-function-based tracking differentiator is employed in the proposed controller structure. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of using ESSs for enhancing power system stability.
Surgery Program Director Turnover Correlates With Residency Graduate Failure on American Board of Surgery Examinations in Civilian Residency Programs.

Purpose The Review Committee for Surgery requires a minimum program director (PD) tenure of 6 years. The impact of PD turnover on the performance of program graduates is unknown. We hypothesize that (1) the majority of PDs step down before 6-year tenure and (2) higher PD turnover is associated with higher failure rate on American Board of Surgery (ABS) examinations. Methods Start and stop dates of all surgery PDs between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2017 were obtained for civilian surgery programs. A Kaplan-Meier curve of PD “survival” was constructed. Programs were divided into High Turnover (HT; ≥4 PD changes, n = 33) and Low Turnover (LT; ≤3 PD changes, n = 191) groups. Five-year (2013-2017) ABS pass rates were also obtained. Pass rates and compliance with current standards were compared between groups. Results Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that 40% of PDs do not comply with ACGME policy and serve Conclusions (1) An estimated 40% of general surgery PDs had tenures of
Reinforcement Learning in Information Cascades Based on Dynamic User Behavior

This paper studies the Influence Maximization problem based on information cascading within a random graph, where the network structure is dynamically changing according to users’ uncertain behaviors. The Discrete Choice Model is used to define the probability distribution of the directed arcs between any two nodes in the random graph. The discrete choice model provides a good description and prediction of user behavior following/unfollowing their neighbor node. To find the maximal influence at the end of the finite time horizon, this paper proposed Multi-Stage Stochastic Programming models, which can help the decision maker to select the optimal seed nodes to broadcast messages efficiently. To approximate the optimal decisions, the paper discuss two approaches, i.e., the Myopic Two-Stage Stochastic Programming at each time period, and Reinforcement Learning for Markov Decision Process. Computational experiments show that the Reinforcement Learning method exhibits better performance than the Myopic method in large-scale networks.
Reprodução de gênero pela cinematografia: caminhos à educação?

The research discusses the historical ideologies transmitted by cinematography, which cause the loss of meaning, insensitivity and intellectual stiffness by the absence of (self) criticism. Thus, this hermeneutic type of study proposes to look at the conceptions of gender and sexuality conveyed by cinema, in an attempt to review their repercussions on the experience of educational thinking. The shared problems need an attentive and critical-reflexive sensitivity to productions, to resist the spread of inequalities, exclusions and prejudices, the only way to generate new understandings through intersubjective processes, breaking with the fads to make this device an aggregating vehicle of experiences. humanizing social practices oriented towards the recognition of differences. Underlying film productions is the dominance of the cultural industry, which in its market logic promotes the repetition of certain discourses until they become passive truths in the face of the world. In this scenario marked by technical reproducibility, we show that there is little resistance from the film industry, which reveals gender and sexuality paradigms, highlighting contemporary issues. We conclude that these technological artifacts in education need to serve as impulses to rethink human action under penalty of the teaching processes reproducing exclusion, prejudice, uniformity and insensitivity to others and the plurality of experiences. It is about correcting the deformations of recognition through re-education that enhances human differences and social recognition.
8 – NONLINEAR EQUATIONS

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the methods and software that help solve the general nonlinear equations problem. The key to putting problems into the form f(x) = 0 or f(x) = 0 is to realize that, if there are conditions to be satisfied and if they can be calculated, then a subprogram can be written whose output is the amounts by which the conditions fail to be satisfied. Most methods for systems of nonlinear equations are extensions of methods for one equation, and so it is important to systematically survey most of the possibilities in the simpler case of one equation. Iterations for nonlinear equations usually converge fast, and the convergence test is only occasionally a troublesome part of the method. Convergence tests appear throughout numerical software. Moreover, there are some special situations that must be handled to obtain a reliable program for solving f(x) = 0. If the function f(x) is a polynomial then this fact can be exploited to improve upon the general methods and to devise special methods. The software for nonlinear equations is divided into five categories: (1) simple implementation of basic algorithms, (2) software for a single nonlinear equation, (3) software for systems of nonlinear equations, (4) polynomial zero finders, and (5) special procedures.
Electronic Theory of the Plane Magnetron

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the method of integration for the solution of a problem where small oscillations of arbitrary frequency are superimposed upon given static conditions. This enables one to compute the characteristic impedance of a plane one-anode magnetron for small oscillations. The case of low frequency shows complete agreement with the results obtained in Section X from the static characteristic. For high frequencies, a general formula is obtained and the conditions leading to negative resistance are discussed. These general formulas have been used for the discussion of several special cases. The chapter also discusses the problems of double stream solutions.
Gigascale integration (GSI) beyond 2001

Opportunities for gigascale integration (GSI) beyond the year 2001 are governed by a hierarchy of limits whose levels are fundamental, material, device, circuit and system. Theoretical limits are elucidated in the power versus delay (Pt/sub d/) plane for switching operations and in the square of the reciprocal length versus delay (L/sup -2/e) plane for transmission operations. The totality of practical limits is captured by three macrovariables; minimum feature size, chip area and number of transistors per minimum feature area. The singular metric which reveals the efficacy of a technology for GSI is the chip performance index (CPI) defined as the number of transistors per chip divided by the power-delay product of the technology. The CPI has increased by about 10/sup 13/ since 1960 and is projected to increase still further by 10/sup 6/ by 2020. >
Differential reactivity of the gravid uterine vasculatures: Effects of norepinephrine☆☆☆

Abstract Norepinephrine dose-conductance-response relationships were determined for the placental and nonplacental vasculatures of ewes between 95 and 130 days of gestation with the use of radioactive-labeled microspheres injected under flow meter guidance. The regression line for the placental circulation differed significantly from that for the nonplacental circulation (P
Genetic and functional analysis of the multiple antibiotic resistance (mar) locus in Escherichia coli.

Abstract A 7.8-kbp fragment of chromosomal DNA from a region controlling multiple antibiotic resistance (Mar) in Escherichia coli has been sequenced. Within the fragment is a potential divergent promoter region including marO, which contains two pairs of direct repeats, suggesting possible operator-regulatory sites. To the left of marO (region I) are one or two transcriptional units with three putative open reading frames (ORFs) encoding 64, 157, and 70 amino acids. To the right (region II) is a transcriptional unit containing three putative ORFs (ORF125/144, ORF129, and ORF72). Of six independent Mar mutants, four had mutations within the ORF encoding the first putative protein (ORF125/144) downstream of marO, including three different single-point mutations and an IS2 insertion. One of the other mutations occurred in marO (20-bp duplication), and the other occurred in a site in marO or ORF144 (a 1-bp change). All six mutations led to increased transcription of the region II transcript. High-copy-number plasmids containing marO and the adjacent ORF125/144 region from a wild-type source but not from a Mar mutant reduced the antibiotic resistance of a Mar mutant to levels comparable to those of wild-type cells. High-copy-number plasmids containing wild-type marO alone caused an increase in resistance to tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and norfloxacin in a wild-type strain. The nature of the Mar mutations and the results of the complementation studies suggest that ORF125/144 encodes a repressor (designated MarR) which acts at marO. The second ORF (ORF129), designated marA, would encode a protein, MarA, whose sequence shows strong similarity to those of a family of positive transcriptional regulators. A Tn5 insertion in marA inactivated the multiresistance phenotype of Mar mutants. The function of ORF72, designated marB, encoding the third putative protein in the operon, and that of other ORFs detected within the 7.8-kb fragment have not yet been determined.
Keeping an Eye on the Neighbors

What determines the size of the home ranges of mammals of different sizes? In his Perspective, Buskirk discusses a recent analysis ( Jetz et al.) that reveals how frequency of interactions with same-species neighbors influences the size of home ranges. It turns out that large mammals have larger than predicted home ranges because they are unable to traverse their home ranges often enough to exclude intrusive neighbors that seek a share of their resources.
All Different Flavors of Synchrotron Single Crystal X-Ray Diffraction Experiments

This lecture reviews the main concepts, applications and capabilities of different non-conventional approaches to single-crystal x-ray diffraction (SXD) experiment utilizing synchrotron radiation for applications in high-pressure research. You will learn how such experiment can be designed and performed to best answer the scientific goals of your study and, at the same time overcome the main technical limitations imposed by the high-pressure device and type of measurement. The emphasis will be placed on experiments that cannot be performed using laboratory instruments, e.g. involving ultrahigh (>50 GPa) pressures, poor quality samples, laser heating in diamond anvil cell (DAC), etc. The main goal of the presentation is to convince you that even if you are not an expert crystallographer, with good understanding of the general basic principles of synchrotron SXD experiments in a DAC you can successfully use these techniques as valuable and easy tools in your own high-pressure research.
Antibacterial activities of oyster (Crassostrea virginica) and mussel (Mytilus edulis and Geukensia demissa) plasma

Anti-Bacillus megateriumactivity was measured in unfractionated plasma withdrawn from three common US East Coast bivalve molluscs: an oyster Crassostrea virginicaand the mussels Geukensia demissaand Mytilus edulis. The activities of the plasma samples from these bivalves were also measured against a C. virginica pathogen Perkinsus marinus. Strong anti-B. megaterium activity was measured in plasma from C. virginica and M. edulis, but was not detected in G. demissa. Bactericidal activity was found in hemocyte extracts from all bivalves in this study, suggesting a cellular origin of cytotoxic humoral factors. Peptides (< 10 kDa) were separated from the plasma samples by ultrafiltration; weak antibacterial peptide activity was quantified in C. virginica peptides, but not in peptides from the mussels. In the case of P. marinus, plasma from M. edulis or G. demissa was strongly cidal as compared to plasma from C. virginica. This difference in activity probably reflects the low pathogenicity of this oyster parasite for the mussel species tested. In summary, the bactericidal activity of plasma proteins from these bivalves showed considerable interspecies variation and did not necessarily correlate directly with antiprotistan activity. When present, antibacterial and antiprotistan activities seemed to be associated with plasma proteins rather than < 10-kDa plasma peptides, with the possible exception of C. virginica anti-B. megateriumactivity and the occasionally expressed anti-P. marinus activity of M. edulis peptides. The precise identity of the plasma protein(s) responsible for the antimicrobial activities measured have yet to be determined, but it is likely that agents other than, or in addition to, lysozyme play significant roles in the process. © 2001 Ifremer/CNRS/INRA/Cemagref/Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS antibacterial factors / antimicrobial factors / antimicrobial peptides / plasma proteins / Crassostrea virginica / Mytilus edulis / Geukensia demissa / Perkinsus marinus / Bacillus megaterium
Preparing FirstEnergy for MISO day-2 markets

Summary form only given. In the process of preparing FirstEnergy to enter into the MISO market, several challenges had to be met to achieve a successful Day 2 implementation. Listed are several of the challenges and opportunities that needed addressed: Evaluation of existing communication hardware to meet regulation. Evaluate interface needs of FirstEnergy software to market software. Submit data and tested for SCUC. Training of dispatch operators to interpret market rules. Developing strategy of must run vs. dispatch of select units. Collect unit cost and scrub data for all generating units for cost based bidding time frame. Review of all tariffs to address concerns/interview of filings. Intensive effort in back office support to accommodate settlements. Efforts to unwind FirstEnergy control area forecast to an individual operating company forecast. Training of plant operations on market dynamics. Attempt to gain understanding of generation in a new market (i.e. fuel planning).
HOT: heuristics for oblique trees

This paper presents a new method (HOT) of generating oblique decision trees. Oblique trees have been shown to be useful tools for classification in some problem domains, producing accurate and intuitive solutions. The method can be incorporated into a variety of existing decision tree tools and the paper illustrates this with two very distinct tree generators. The key idea is a method of learning oblique vectors and using the corresponding families of hyperplanes orthogonal to these vectors to separate regions with distinct dominant classes. Experimental results indicate that the learnt oblique hyperplanes lead to compact and accurate oblique trees. HOT is simple and easy to incorporate into most decision tree packages, yet its results compare well with much more complex schemes for generating oblique trees.
Innate recognition of bacteria by a macrophage cytosolic surveillance pathway.

Host recognition of bacterial pathogens is a critical component of the immune response. Intracellular bacterial pathogens are able to evade the humoral immune system by residing within the host cell. Here we show the existence of an innate host surveillance mechanism in macrophages that specifically distinguishes bacteria in the cytosol from bacteria in the vacuole. Recognition of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial products by this surveillance system results in transcription of the ifnb gene. The activation of cytosol-specific signaling is associated with translocation of NF-κB into the nucleus and phosphorylation of the p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase. Activation of the p38 kinase is required for the induction of gene expression by the cytosolic surveillance pathway. Our studies suggest that infection by intracellular bacterial pathogens results in an immune response distinct from that of infection by extracellular bacterial pathogens.
Overcoming antifungal resistance.

Fungal infections have become one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. Despite increased awareness and improved treatment strategies, the frequent development of resistance to the antifungal drugs used in clinical settings contributes to the increasing toll of mycoses. Although a natural phenomenon, antifungal drug resistance can compromise advances in the development of effective diagnostic techniques and novel antifungals. In this review, we will discuss the advent of cellular-microarrays, microfluidics, genomics, proteomics and other state-of-the art technologies in conquering antifungal drug resistance.
Hypoxic, hypercapnic acidosis decreases tension and increases fatigue in hamster diaphragm muscle in vitro.

Hypoxia and hypercapnic acidosis have been shown to have a negative inotropic effect on diaphragmatic contractility. The effect of combined hypercapnia and hypoxia was studied in vitro using hamster diaphragm strips. A 12% CO2, 21% O2, and 67% N2 gas mixture was used to produce hypoxic, hypercapnic acidosis. Force-frequency curves were generated using twitches and maximal tetanic contractions produced by stimulating with 0.2-ms pulses at 10 to 120 Hz for 300 to 500 ms. Moderate fatigue was then induced by repeated submaximal contractions (25 Hz, 160 ms, at the rate of 1/s for 45 contractions). Muscle strips exposed to hypoxic, hypercapnic acidosis had a decreased force response at all frequencies. The decrease in force was not different from that seen with hypoxia alone but was significantly worse than with hypercapnia alone. In the combined hypercapnic, hypoxia solution, tension produced by stimulating at 25 Hz for 160 ms was decreased to 52 ± 11% of control (p < 0.001). For these submaximal contractions...
Crossflow Vortices of a Jet Injected into a Supersonic Crossflow

Numerous investigations of the fluid mechanics of the transverse jet injected into a supersonic flow (TJISF) flowfield have been motivated by the study of supersonic combustor fuel injection, thrust vector control of rocket nozzles, and jet reaction force prediction. Early studies presented detailed qualitative discussions of the structure of the TJISF flowfield. A few studies have provided either quantitative or semiquantitative measurements of the velocity fields of underexpanded jets injected into a supersonic flow. Despite these investigations, there is a dearth of nonintrusive, quantitative mean velocity and turbulence measurements in the TJISF flowfield. This note uses laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) measurements of the mean velocity fields to study development of the crossflow vortices of a sonic, underexpanded transverse jet injected into a Mach 1.6 crossflow.
A Putatively Functional Polymorphism in the HTR2C Gene is Associated with Depressive Symptoms in White Females Reporting Significant Life Stress

Psychosocial stress is well known to be positively associated with subsequent depressive symptoms. Cortisol response to stress may be one of a number of biological mechanisms that links psychological stress to depressive symptoms, although the precise causal pathway remains unclear. Activity of the x-linked serotonin 5-HTR2C receptor has also been shown to be associated with depression and with clinical response to antidepressant medications. We recently demonstrated that variation in a single nucleotide polymorphism on the HTR2C gene, rs6318 (Ser23Cys), is associated with different cortisol release and short-term changes in affect in response to a series of stress tasks in the laboratory. Based on this observation, we decided to examine whether rs6318 might moderate the association between psychosocial stress and subsequent depressive symptoms. In the present study we use cross-sectional data from a large population-based sample of young adult White men (N = 2,366) and White women (N = 2,712) in the United States to test this moderation hypothesis. Specifically, we hypothesized that the association between self-reported stressful life events and depressive symptoms would be stronger among homozygous Ser23 C females and hemizygous Ser23 C males than among Cys23 G carriers. In separate within-sex analyses a genotype-by-life stress interaction was observed for women (p = .022) but not for men (p = .471). Homozygous Ser23 C women who reported high levels of life stress had depressive symptom scores that were about 0.3 standard deviations higher than female Cys23 G carriers with similarly high stress levels. In contrast, no appreciable difference in depressive symptoms was observed between genotypes at lower levels of stress. Our findings support prior work that suggests a functional SNP on the HTR2C gene may confer an increased risk for depressive symptoms in White women with a history of significant life stress.
Aggregation of Real-Time System Monitoring Data for Analyzing Large-Scale Parallel and Distributed Computing Environments

We present a monitoring system for large-scale parallel and distributed computing environments that allows to trade-off accuracy in a tunable fashion to gain scalability without compromising fidelity. The approach relies on classifying each gathered monitoring metric based on individual needs and on aggregating messages containing classes of individual monitoring metrics using a tree-based overlay network. The MRNet-based prototype is able to significantly reduce the amount of gathered and stored monitoring data, e.g., by a factor of ~56 in comparison to the Ganglia distributed monitoring system. A simple scaling study reveals, however, that further efforts are needed in reducing the amount of data to monitor future-generation extreme-scale systems with up to 1,000,000 nodes. The implemented solution did not had a measurable performance impact as the 32-node test system did not produce enough monitoring data to interfere with running applications.
Source of the Schwarzschild field

An analysis is given of the fundamental question raised by Wheeler as to whether the Schwarzschild field, in the absence of a, finite interior solution, may be regarded as describing an everywhere empty space-time manifold. A model is constructed with a finite source tensor (the « island model »), and it is shown that one obtains a deltafunction point mass source tensor for the Schwarzschild field as a limiting case. It is also shown using Einstein’s pseudotensor that there is a contribution to the total energy of the Schwarzschild field that is not due to gravitational energy. In the course of the analysis, a subtraction formalism for handling gravitational energy divergences in polar co-ordinates is also developed. It is concluded that a source-free interpretation of the Schwarzschild field is not possible. A critique of the point mass is also given, and also an interpretation of the divergences as « gauge-jumps ».
Bias dependence of capacitances in modulation-doped FET's at 4 GHz

Scattering-parameter measurements were made on 1.0- µm gate normally-on and 1.6-µm gate normally-off modulation-doped field-effect transistors (MOD/FET's) as a function of bias at 4 GHz. A maximum oscillation frequency of 38 GHz, which is about 8 GHz larger than that for a comparable GaAs MESFET, due to larger transconductances for the MODFET's, was obtained. The input capacitance was found to vary more than expected with gate bias, while the feedback capacitance was nearly independent of bias in the saturation regime. Output capacitance increases as V gs approached the pinchoff voltage. These results should be of great importance in large-signal modeling of integrated circuits based on modulation-doped FET's.
Human gait recognition by pyramid of HOG feature on silhouette images

As a uncommon biometric modality, human gait recognition has a great advantage of identify people at a distance without high resolution images. It has attracted much attention in recent years, especially in the fields of computer vision and remote sensing. In this paper, we propose a human gait recognition framework that consists of a reliable background subtraction method followed by the pyramid of Histogram of Gradient (pHOG) feature extraction on the silhouette image, and a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based classifier. Through background subtraction, the silhouette of human gait in each frame is extracted and normalized from the raw video sequence. After removing the shadow and noise in each region of interest (ROI), pHOG feature is computed on the silhouettes images. Then the pHOG features of each gait class will be used to train a corresponding HMM. In the test stage, pHOG feature will be extracted from each test sequence and used to calculate the posterior probability toward each trained HMM model. Experimental results on the CASIA Gait Dataset B1 demonstrate that with our proposed method can achieve very competitive recognition rate.
HLA‐D Typing with Lymphoblastoid Cell Lines IV. Allelic Relationships

Responses of approximately 200 persons were measured by mixed leukocyte cultures against 41 lymphoblastoid cell lines which were thought to be homozygous for HLA--D (i.e. LCL-HTCs). These responses were standardized by computer analysis and the resultant Interaction Indices for each LCL-HTC were compared with those of every other LCL-HTC in a correlation matrix of 861 independent analyses. Only those analyses involving LCL-HTCs of defined HLA--D types are reported here. In general, these studies confirmed many allelic relationships of reputedly similar LCL-HTCs; however, several unexpected groups of correlations suggested that groups Dw1 and 3 overlap to form Groups "1a-3," "1b-3" and "true 3." The "1b-3" group also included Dw8. Segregation of the "1b-3" allelic group was also observed in a family study. These preliminary analyses suggest a working model for further investigation of HLA--D allelic relationships (Fig. 3). On the other hand, they may also be interpreted to suggest that "typing" with LCL-HTCs may be controlled by a separate HLA locus which is closely related to, but distinct from, HLA--D.
Validity Assessment of Compliance, Identification, and Internalization as Dimensions of Organizational Commitment

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of an organizational commitment survey developed by O'Reilly and Chatman (1986) who conceptualized organizational commitment in terms of three distinct, measurable dimensions: (a) internalization, (b) identification, and (c) compliance. Data from 100 employees were subjected to two-factor and three-factor oblique solutions. Results of factor analyses and tests of reliabilities did not support O'Reilly and Chatman's three-factor theory of organizational commitment. The two-factor solution yielded a better fit of the data.
Excitatory effects of L-aspartate and L-glutamate on purkinje cells in rat cerebellum

L-aspartate and L-glutamate were microiontophoretically applied onto Purkinje cells and unidentified cerebellar neurons of urethane-anesthetized rats. Both amino acids produced a dose-dependent increase in the spontaneous firing rate of all cells tested. Fifty-three percent (8 of 15 cells) of the dose-response relationships for L-aspartate as compared to those for L-glutamate on Purkinje cells were not parallel, implying different mechanisms of action (suggesting different receptors). On these 8 Purkinje cells, L-glutamate was three times more potent than L-aspartate. Only thirty-three percent of the dose-response relationships (8 of 24 cells) for the two agents on the unidentified cerebellar cells were not parallel. There was no statistical difference in the potency of L-aspartate as compared to L-glutamate on these particular cells. Tests for antagonism on Purkinje cells revealed L-glutamic acid diethyl ester (GDEE) to be a more effective blocker of L-aspartate than of L-glutamate while DL-alpha-aminoadipic acid (DL alpha AA)) was not selective in antagonizing the action of either amino acid. These data are discussed in terms for L-aspartate functioning as a neurotransmitter in the cerebellum of rat and possessing receptor sites distinct from those for L-glutamate.
Alterations in the countercurrent gradient by lesions in the median eminence.

IT is well established that hypertonic urine is produced in. the kidney by means of a countercurrent multiplier system and that the formation of such urine requires a hyper-osmotic medullary interstitium. It is accepted that anti-diuretic hormone regulates the osmolality of the urine so produced by altering the permeability characteristics of" the distal areas of the nephron.
Externally Applied Cyclic Strain Regulates Localization of Focal Contact Components in Cultured Smooth Muscle Cells

Mechanical signals are critical regulators of cellular gene expression, yet little is understood of the mechanism whereby cells sense mechanical forces. In this study we have tested the hypothesis that mechanical strain applied to populations of cells via their adhesion substrate rapidly alters the cellular distribution of focal contact proteins. Focal contact-associated components (vinculin, α-actinin, paxillin) were assayed by immunofluorescence microscopy and quantitative western blotting. Application of a single step increase in strain in multiple experiments caused overall a small change in focal contact-associated vinculin. In contrast, cyclic strain induced a large and very reproducible increase in detergent-insoluble vinculin (52% relative to static) after just 1 min of strain. Insoluble paxillin was transiently enriched with a similar time course, whereas insoluble α-actinin did not change significantly in response to cyclic strain. Rhodamine-labeled chicken vinculin added to permeabilized cells preferentially localized to focal contacts in response to cyclic strain, but not a single step increase in strain. These findings establish that insoluble levels of focal contact components are altered rapidly following application of an appropriate number of mechanical perturbations, and suggest that at least one component of the mechanism does not involve soluble intermediates. © 2002 Biomedical Engineering Society.
The New York-New Jersey Boundary Controversy: John Marshall and the Nullification Crisis

In 1832 a long-standing boundary dispute between New York and New Jersey complicated the work of Chief Justice John Marshall and President Andrew Jackson. Long reviled by southern states' rights advocates, including the president, Marshall in 1832 faced the prospect of having the Court's decisions ignored by the state of Georgia. Federal authority was further challenged in the fall of 1832, when South Carolina nullified the tariff of 1828, thereby provoking a constitutional crisis. On December 10, 1832, to the amazement of many observers, Jackson issued a proclamation rejecting nullification and secession, and threatening military action if South Carolina did not change its course.
(2,6-Dichloro-4-alkoxyphenyl)-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)methylTrichloroacet­imidates: Protection of Alcohols and CarboxylicAcids in Solution or on Polymer Support

(2,6-Dichloro-4-methoxyphenyl)-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)-methyl trichloroacetimidate can be efficiently activated by TMSOTf (10∼100 mol%) to react with alcohols and carboxylic acids. Under these conditions a wide variety of alcohols can be transformed into the corresponding ethers in excellent yields with a slight excess of the trichloroacetimidate. The resulting ethers are not susceptible to typical deprotection conditions for benzyl and 4-methoxybenzyl ether groups, however, they can be conveniently deprotected by treatment with 30∼50% trifluoroacetic acid in dichloromethane. Polymer-bound (2,6-dichloro-4-alkoxyphenyl)-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)methyl trichloroacetimidate is useful for immobilization of alcohols and carboxylic acids.