cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Cultural Evolution of Beneficent Norms

Sociobiologists claim that genes which code for altruistic acts toward close genetic kin can overcome selection pressures favoring self-interested behaviors. This article argues that similar processes may operate in the cultural sphere. Specifically, rules that mandate beneficent acts toward people uith a higher than average probability of carrying the same rule may proliferate without sanctions, even when those acts are costly to the actor. One class of rules directs beneficent behavior toward close cultural relatives, including cultural ancestors, descendants, siblings, and cousins. Another class directs beneficent behavior toward those who exhibit particular cultural markers. For several reasons, such rules may lead to larger sets of mutual altruists than those produced by genetic
Osteosarcoma of the lumbosacral spine invading the central venous pathways, right-sided cardiac chambers, and pulmonary artery

We report an unusual case of lumbosacral osteogenic sarcoma with cauda equina syndrome and invasion into the central venous and cardiac system. A 41-year-old Hispanic man presented to the emergency department complaining of severe low back pain, cauda equina syndrome, bilateral lower extremity edema, and an extra heart sound on physical examination. CT of the lumbosacral spine done in the emergency department demonstrated a sclerotic lesion in the sacrum with cortical destruction, extension into the spinal canal and a bulky soft tissue mass containing calcifications. Supplemental MRI demonstrated marrow replacement of L4, L5, and the sacrum, soft tissue extension of the tumor, and invasion iliac veins extending into the IVC; however, the full extent of the intravascular tumor was not seen on this examination. Surgical laminectomy and biopsy of the spinal tumor provided the diagnosis of osteogenic sarcoma. A transthoracic echocardiogram was performed while the patient was recovering due to nonsustained ventricular tachycardia, which showed an echogenic mass within the right atrium and ventricle. CT pulmonary angiogram confirmed the echocardiogram showing a tumor extending through the pulmonary valve into the main pulmonary artery. The patient underwent en bloc resection of the tumor from the venous and cardiac systems. Histologic examination of the tumor confirmed osteogenic sarcoma. While vertebral osteogenic sarcoma is uncommon, invasion of the spinal canal is common in these tumors. However, tumor extending into the central venous and cardiac system is rare. The previously reported cases of central venous and cardiac involvement have been related to distant metastases or primary cardiac osteosarcomas. There is only one other reported case of direct extension into the venous system by an iliac bone osteosarcoma in an adolescent; however, the tumor did not extend into the pulmonary circulation.
Molecular characterization of 18p deletions: evidence for a breakpoint cluster.

Purpose: To determine the size and parental origin of the deletion in individuals with 18p syndrome. Methods: Molecular and fluorescence in situ hybridization analyses of the pericentromeric region of chromosome 18 were performed on genomic DNA and chromosomes from study participants. Results: The majority of the breakpoints were located between markers D18S852 on 18p and D18S1149 on 18q, a distance of approximately 4 Mb. The parental origin of these deletions appears to be equally distributed, half maternally derived and half paternally derived. Conclusion: The distributions of both the size and parental origin of the 18p deletions support the presence of a breakpoint cluster in the 18p syndrome. Genet Med 2002:4(1):15–19.
Faster antenna noise temperature calculations using a novel approximation technique

In order to properly tradeoff the various antenna and feed configurations for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) optical design it is necessary to evaluate the gain and noise temperature of each configuration over a wide range of frequencies. German Cortes [1] describes the standard technique for computing antenna noise temperature. However, since the total antenna pattern needs to be calculated over the entire 4 pi steradians at a fine enough resolution to accurately include the main beam, the computer time required is enormous. Even at modest frequencies and reflector sizes (~5 to 10 GHz for a 12 meter main reflector) the technique can take days on a single node of a supercomputer. Utilizing the standard technique to compute the noise temperature for all the cases required to properly characterize the SKA design is clearly not feasible. At least a 100 to 1000 speedup in the computation time is required. This paper describes an approximation technique that can accomplish this improvement with extremely small errors in noise temperature calculation of a few tenths of Kelvin.
Mamu-B*08-Positive Macaques Control Simian Immunodeficiency Virus Replication

Certain major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I alleles are associated with the control of human immunodeficiency virus and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) replication. We have designed sequence-specific primers for detection of the rhesus macaque MHC class I allele Mamu-B*08 by PCR and screened a cohort of SIV-infected macaques for this allele. Analysis of 196 SIVmac239-infected Indian rhesus macaques revealed that Mamu-B*08 was significantly overrepresented in elite controllers; 38% of elite controllers were Mamu-B*08 positive compared to 3% of progressors (P 0.00001). Mamu-B*08 was also associated with a 7.34-fold decrease in chronic phase viremia (P 0.002). Mamu-B*08-positive macaques may, therefore, provide a good model to understand the correlates of MHC class I allele-associated immune protection and viral containment in human elite controllers.
Accuracy of Self-Reported Periodontal Disease in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study

Background: This study examines the accuracy of self-reported periodontal disease in a cohort of older females.Methods: The study comprised 972 postmenopausal females aged 53 to 83 years who completed baseline (1997 to 2001) and follow-up (2002 to 2006) whole-mouth oral examinations. Examinations included: 1) probing depth, 2) clinical attachment level, and 3) oral radiographs for alveolar crestal height in a study ancillary to the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study (WHI-OS) conducted in Buffalo, New York, called the OsteoPerio study. Participants also self-reported any history of diagnosis of periodontal/gum disease on a WHI-OS study-wide questionnaire administered during the time interval between the two OsteoPerio examinations.Results: Participants reporting diagnosis of periodontal/gum disease on the WHI-OS questionnaire (n = 259; 26.6%) had worse oral hygiene habits, periodontal disease risk factors, and clinical periodontal measures compared with those not reporting periodontal/gum diseas...
Protein-bound iodine in thé blood of dairy cattle fed a trace-mineralized salt.

Summary Protein-bound iodine (PBI) was determined on the blood plasma of cows, heifers, and calves fed 1% trace-mineralied salt in the concentrate mixtures. The iodine in the salt was in the form of cuprous iodide and 3,5-diiodosalicylic acid. The PBI of milking cows averaged 15.62 γ per 100ml. at 30 days postpartum, 13.34 at 150 days, and 10.93 at 270 days. The PBI averaged 24.13 γ per 100ml. for Holsteins, 19.89 for Brown Swiss, 15.81 for Jerseys, and 15.16 for Guernseys. The range of PBI values for all milking cows was 4.69 to 44.28 γ per 100ml. Highly significant differences in PBI levels of milking cows were found in respect to stage of lactation, breed, and season of year. The PBI was higher in spring and summer, declining to a low in January. Correlation coefficients between PBI and 4% FCM produced were positive for all breeds and significantly so in most of the comparisons. However, the significance of the correlations is questionable, because of the possible masking by the trace-mineralized salt. The PBI levels of calves and heifers varied widely, ranging from 2.02 to 46.67 γ per 100ml. of plasma. With calves and heifers the differences were significant for breed, highly significant for seasons, and nonsignificant for age. In general, the plasma PBI levels decreased with age. No significance relationship was found between PBI and growth as measured by increase in height at withers. The feeding of the trace-mineralized salt containing cuprous iodide and 3,5-diiodosalicylic acid apparently caused the high values found.
Developing Students' Technical Knowledge and Professional Skills: A Sequence of Short Cases in Intermediate Financial Accounting

Below is a series of three cases that require you to research, analyze, and write about emerging financial accounting issues or extensions of existing technical pronouncements. Specifically, the cases focus on accounts receivable valuation, environmental liabilities reporting, and the accounting for purchased in‐process research and development. Throughout the three‐case sequence, the complexity of the technical accounting issues and the research, analytical, and written communication requirements are gradually increased in order to facilitate the development of your technical knowledge and professional skills.
A general co-expression network-based approach to gene expression analysis: comparison and applications

Co-expression network-based approaches have become popular in analyzing microarray data, such as for detecting functional gene modules. However, co-expression networks are often constructed by ad hoc methods, and network-based analyses have not been shown to outperform the conventional cluster analyses, partially due to the lack of an unbiased evaluation metric. Here, we develop a general co-expression network-based approach for analyzing both genes and samples in microarray data. Our approach consists of a simple but robust rank-based network construction method, a parameter-free module discovery algorithm and a novel reference network-based metric for module evaluation. We report some interesting topological properties of rank-based co-expression networks that are very different from that of value-based networks in the literature. Using a large set of synthetic and real microarray data, we demonstrate the superior performance of our approach over several popular existing algorithms. Applications of our approach to yeast, Arabidopsis and human cancer microarray data reveal many interesting modules, including a fatal subtype of lymphoma and a gene module regulating yeast telomere integrity, which were missed by the existing methods. We demonstrated that our novel approach is very effective in discovering the modular structures in microarray data, both for genes and for samples. As the method is essentially parameter-free, it may be applied to large data sets where the number of clusters is difficult to estimate. The method is also very general and can be applied to other types of data. A MATLAB implementation of our algorithm can be downloaded from http://cs.utsa.edu/~jruan/Software.html .
Charles Skinner Hallpike and the beginnings of neurotology

Article abstract Although the symptom of vertigo had been well-recognized for several thousand years, it was not until the pioneering work of Prosper Meniere in the mid-19th century that it was appreciated that vertigo could originate from damage to the inner ear. Before that time, patients with vertigo (regardless of the cause) were said to have “cerebral congestion,” a condition resulting from excessive blood filling the brain. Bloodletting and leeches to relieve the congestion were the treatment of choice. The discovery of endolymphatic hydrops in temporal bone specimens from patients with Meniere’s disease by Hallpike and Cairns in 1938 marked the beginning of modern neurotology. For the first time, vertigo was correlated with specific pathophysiology. Propelled by his temporal bone work, Charles Hallpike received an appointment at the National Hospital at Queen Square, where he developed an internationally renowned neurotology clinic. His bithermal caloric test and positional tests are still routinely used in evaluation of the vertiginous patient.
The product of the Drosophila segment polarity gene armadillo is part of a multi-protein complex resembling the vertebrate adherens junction

Sequence similarity between the Drosophila segment polarity protein Armadillo and the vertebrate adherens junction protein beta-catenin raised the possibility that adherens junctions function in transduction of intercellular signals like that mediated by Wingless/Wnt-1. To substantiate the sequence similarity, properties of Armadillo were evaluated for consistency with a junctional role. Armadillo is part of a membrane-associated complex. This complex includes Armadillo, a glycoprotein similar in size to vertebrate cadherins, and the Drosophila homolog of alpha-catenin. Armadillo co-localizes with junctions that resemble vertebrate adherens junctions in morphology and position. These results suggest that Drosophila and vertebrate adherens junctions are structurally similar, validating use of Armadillo and its associated proteins as a model for vertebrate adherens junctions.
UW-FLASHR: achieving high channel utilization in a time-based acoustic mac protocol

Time-based medium access control (MAC) has potential advantages over FDMA and CDMA approaches in terms of hardware simplicity, energy efficiency, and delay. Unfortunately, the channel utilization of existing TDMA and CSMA acoustic MAC protocols is generally low due to the long propagation delays of acoustic signals. In this work, we argue that several ideas taken from RF protocols, including exclusive channel access, are either unnecessary in acoustic networks or must be redefined. We present and evaluate UW-FLASHR, a time-based MAC protocol which does not require centralized control, tight clock synchronization, or accurate propagation delay estimation. We demonstrate that UW-FLASHR can achieve significantly higher channel utilization than the maximum utilization possible with existing time-based exclusive access MAC protocols, particularly when the ratio of propagation delay to transmission delay is high or data payloads are small.
Homeostasis of the epidermal barrier layer: A theory of how occlusion reduces hypertrophic scarring

The mechanism of hypertrophic scar reduction using silicone gel sheeting remains elusive. We hypothesize that the decrease in scar formation is due to occlusion and homeostasis of the barrier layer. Using an established model of hypertrophic scarring, rabbits were divided into four groups and scars were tape-stripped or occluded with Kelocote, Cavilon, or Indermil, with each rabbit serving as its own internal control. All wounds were harvested on day 28 and examined histologically to measure the scar elevation index (SEI), epithelial thickness, and cellularity. Immunohistochemistry fluorescence was used to quantify inflammation in the dermis. Transepidermal water loss (TEWL) was measured for each occlusive agent and tape stripping. Ultrastructural analysis was performed by electron microscopy. Kelocote, Cavilon, and Indermil all significantly decreased SEI when compared with controls. Each of the occlusive treatments was shown to decrease TEWL while tape stripping increased TEWL. Tape stripping significantly increased the SEI, epithelial thickness, and cellularity. Immunostaining for macrophages showed increased density of inflammatory cells in the tape-stripped scars. Under electron microscopy, the tape-stripped wounds displayed extensive inflammation and keratinocyte damage. Both unwounded skin and occlusion-treated scars did not display these characteristics. In conclusion, hypertrophic scarring was reduced regardless of occlusive method used. Furthermore, repeated disruption of the permeability barrier by tape stripping led to an increase in scarring. Ultrastructural analysis suggests that occluded wounds may be in an advanced state of wound repair. Occlusion may mediate its effects through establishing homeostasis of the epidermal barrier layer.
When the Wait Isnt So Bad: The Interacting Effects of Website Delay, Familiarity, and Breadth

Although its popularity is widespread, the Web is well known for one particular drawback: its frequent delay when moving from one page to another. This experimental study examined whether delay and two other website design variables (site breadth and content familiarity) have interaction effects on user performance, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. The three experimental factors (delay, familiarity, and breadth) collectively impact the cognitive costs and penalties that users incur when making choices in their search for target information. An experiment was conducted with 160 undergraduate business majors in a completely counterbalanced, fully factorial design that exposed them to two websites and asked them to browse the sites for nine pieces of information. Results showed that all three factors have strong direct impacts on performance and user attitudes, in turn affecting behavioral intentions to return to the site, as might be expected. A significant three-way interaction was found between all three factors indicating that these factors not only individually impact a users experiences with a website, but also act in combination to either increase or decrease the costs a user incurs. Two separate analyses support an assertion that attitudes mediate the relationship of the three factors on behavioral intentions. The implications of these results for both researchers and practitioners are discussed. Additional research is needed to discover other factors that mitigate or accentuate the effects of delay, other effects of delay, and under what amounts of delay these effects occur.
VII. Vibrational Averaging of X‐Ray Scattering Intensities

The adiabatic potential for vibrational wavefunctions is given in a Preface. The vibrational average of ℐXRel(K;Q) is studied by taking a canonical-ensemble average of the states of motion for the nuclei. A simple example for an oriented diatomic molecule (one vibration) is used to illustrate the sin θ/Λ dependence of ℐBragg and ℐTDS. The averaged X-ray intensity, ℐav, is then fully developed (as done by Born) within the harmonic-oscillator and rigid-pseudoatom approximations for molecules and a crystal lattice. It is shown that generalized X-ray scattering factors, characteristic of static charge properties, cannot in general be extracted from FOBSBragg. With the rigid-pseudoatom model, relationships betweeen the dynamical matrix and electric-field gradients and charge densities are given. In this way self-consistency between Born's scattering matrix and pseudoatoms can be imposed on charge-density models.
Alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy: a systematic review of published studies.

Objective: Alcohol septal ablation (ASA) for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) has emerged as a lesser invasive alternative to surgical myectomy over the past decade. The purpose of this study is to analyze all the published literature on outcomes and complications after ASA. Methods: MEDLINE and PubMed were searched for all available published literature on ASA (June 1996–June 2005) using the terms hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM), alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, alcohol septal ablation for HOCM, alcohol septal ablation (ASA), transcoronary alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (TASH), transcoronary alcohol septal ablation for HOCM, nonsurgical septal reduction therapy (NSRT), and percutaneous transcoronary septal myocardial ablation (PTSMA). Results: A total of 42 published studies (2,959 patients) were analyzed. Mean age was 53.5 (35.4–72) years with a mean male to female ratio of 1.17. Mean follow-up was 12.7 ± 0.3 months (1.5–43.2). Absolute ethanol (3 mL) was injected in 1.2 septal perforator arteries. On average, serum CK peaked at 964 units. At 12 months, there was a sustained decrease in resting and provoked LVOT gradient (65.3–15.8 and 125.4–31.5 mmHg, respectively) accompanied by reduction in basal septal diameter (20.9–13.9 mm), improvement in NYHA Class (2.9–1.2), and increase in exercise capacity (325.3–437.5 seconds). Early mortality (within 30 days) was 1.5% (0.0–5.0%) and late mortality (beyond 30 days) was 0.5% (0.0–9.3%). Other complications include ventricular fibrillation (2.2%), LAD dissection (1.8%), complete heart block requiring permanent pacemaker (10.5%), and pericardial effusion (0.6%). A repeat ASA was performed on 6.6% of patients and 1.9% of patients underwent surgical myomectomy with resolution of symptoms. Conclusions: Literature to date suggests that ASA results in acute and intermediate-term favorable clinical and echocardiographic outcomes. A randomized controlled trial is needed to compare ASA and myomectomy in order to determine which technique provides maximal benefit.
Political Liberalism, Deliberative Democracy, and the Public Sphere

Theorists of democracy emphasize the importance of a public sphere, distinct from the apparatus of the state, where citizens can freely associate, deliberate, and engage in collective will formation. Discourse ethicists and deliberative democrats locate the public sphere within civil society and the manifold associations that comprise it. For Seyla Benhabib, the public sphere is constituted by the anonymous “public conversation” of civil society. By contrast, John Rawls has a much more limited conception of the public sphere. For Rawls, public reason, which establishes norms for democratic discourse, applies to a limited domain. I defend Rawls's view against the charge that it depends upon an untenable distinction between the public and nonpublic spheres. I argue that Rawls's more limited “liberal” conception better guarantees the heterogeneity of associational life in civil society. I then argue that Rawls violates his own principles by partially collapsing the public-nonpublic distinction with potentially illiberal consequences.
Landscape Structure and Spread of the Exotic Shrub Lonicera maackii (Amur honeysuckle) in Southwestern Ohio Forests

Abstract The Asian shrub Lonicera maackii (Rupr.) Herder has been widely used as an ornamental in the eastern United States. First planted in Oxford, Ohio, around 1960, it has since spread into forest patches in the surrounding agricultural landscape. Despite its abundance, and its bird-dispersed fruits, the spread of Lonicera maackii has been unequal in different directions, with local distribution limits much farther N than W of Oxford. Our objective was to determine whether the distribution limits of L. maackii in these two directions were correlated with differences in landscape structure: percentage of forest land and degree of forest connectivity. Aerial surveys were used to determine the current distribution of L. maackii in forest patches in a belt transecting N and W from Oxford. The N transect, which had more extensive spread of L. maackii, had greater forest cover and connectivity. In both transects, L. maackii reached its distribution limit when forest cover dropped to <5% and forest connectiv...
Fluid bed film coating of fine ibuprofen particles

Abstract Fine pharmaceutical powders pose significant challenge in fluid bed (FB) film coating due to their high cohesion. Ibuprofen powders, considered as model Geldart group C powders with Sauter mean diameters of 41 μm (coarse) and 22 μm (micronized), could not be fluidized due to severe agglomeration, solid-bridging, and poor flowability. Dry coating, applied as a pre-processing method that coats nano-silica on the surface of ibuprofen, enabled sufficiently improved flow, hence fluidization via reduced cohesion. Resulting coarse and micronized ibuprofen powders were successfully polymer film coated in a top spray fluidized bed. As a major novelty, apart from pre-processing through 20 nm silica surface coating that enabled fluidization, agglomeration during FB processing was minimized by introducing 180 nm colloidal silica particles that were pH stabilized in polymer spraying suspension using NaOH. In contrast, lack of or poorly stabilized colloidal particles led to significant agglomeration. Spray rate and fluidization velocity were both investigated to understand their effect on agglomeration of the coarse ibuprofen powders. Increased spray rate led to increased agglomeration due to the overly wet conditions, while increased fluidization velocities unexpectedly led to increased agglomeration resulting from electrostatic charging. To simplify the experimental design, a simple scaling relationship was introduced to estimate the coating conditions for the micronized ibuprofen powders based on the processing conditions of the coarse ibuprofen powders. This relationship, based on the minimum fluidization velocity, led to comparable agglomeration levels for powders with Sauter mean diameters of 21 and 42 μm. To the author's knowledge these are the first successful results where micronized pharmaceutical powders were polymer coated in a traditional top spray fluidized bed.
Reputation markets

A reputation system should incentivize users to obtain and reveal estimates of content quality. It should also aggregate these estimates to establish content reputation in a way that counters strategic manipulation. Mechanisms have been proposed in recent literature that offer financial incentives to induce these desirable outcomes. In this paper, to systematically study what we believe to be fundamental characteristics of these mechanisms, we view them as information markets designed to assess content quality, and refer to them as reputation markets. Specifically, we develop a rational expectations equilibrium model to study how incentives created by reputation markets should influence community behavior and the accuracy of assessments. Our analysis suggests that reputation markets offer a number of desirable features:- As the quality of information improves or the cost of information acquisition decreases, reputation assessments become increasingly robust to manipulation.- If users can pay to acquire information, errors in reputation assessments do not depend on uncertainty in the manipulator's intent.- Reputation distortion incurs cost to the manipulator, resulting in cash transfers to other users.- Pseudonyms do not help a manipulator distort reputations.
Augmented upper body contribution to oxygen uptake during upper body exercise with concurrent leg functional electrical stimulation in persons with spinal cord injury

The purpose of this pilot study was to compare the contribution of upper body musculature to VO2 with and without concurrent leg FES (LFES). Eight subjects with spinal cord injury, lesion levels range C6–T12, performed upper body exercise (UBE) during no LFES (NOS), LFES at 40 mA (LOS), and 80 mA (HIS), at rest, 60% and 80% of VO2peak. Resting VO2 values were obtained during NOS, LOS and HIS conditions and were then subtracted from their respective whole body VO2 values to give an estimate of upper body VO2. Small and non significant increases were found in the HIS vs NOS condition at 60% VO2peak. Larger differences of 7.8% were found in the HIS vs NOS condition at 80% VO2peak (11.35±3.8 ml kg−1 min−1 to 12.24±4.0 ml kg−1 min−1), although this too was not significant, perhaps due to the small number of subjects in this study and the consequently low statistical power to detect a significant difference. We discuss the implications for these preliminary results in the context of the existing literature on this topic.
Stories of the South: Race and the Reconstruction of Southern Identity, 1865–1915

K. Stephen Prince has written one of the best cultural histories of the imagined South. Resisting the temptation to merely catalogue cultural artifacts, Prince focuses on understanding the North's ...
Nuestra América: Latino History as United States History

As historians, many of us have had the experience of encountering a memoir, diary, or letter in which the individuals mentioned are far more intriguing than the author of the document. The chatty reminiscences of Senora Dona Jesus Moreno de Soza serve as a case in point. Born in California in 1855, she came of age, married, and cared for her family near Tucson, Arizona. When she was eighty-four, she recounted the following incident that had occurred at a local park some fifty years earlier:
Wide QRS-T Angle on the 12-Lead ECG as a Predictor of Sudden Death Beyond the LV Ejection Fraction

QRST-angle and Sudden Cardiac DeathIntroduction Improvements in risk stratification for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) will require discovery of markers that extend beyond the LV ejection fraction (LVEF). The frontal QRS-T angle has been shown to predict risk of SCA but the value of this marker independent of the LVEF has not been investigated. Methods and Results Cases of adult SCA with an archived electrocardiogram (12-lead ECG) available before the event, with a computable frontal QRS-T angle, were identified from the Oregon Sudden Unexpected Death Study (Oregon SUDS) ongoing in the Portland, Oregon metro area. A total of 666 SCA cases (mean age 67.2 years; 95% CI, 52.3–82.1 years; 68.6% males) were compared to 863 controls (mean age 66.6 years, 55.2–78.0 years; 68.1% males; 75.0% had CAD) from the same geographical region. The mean frontal QRS-T angle was wider in cases (74o; 95% CI, 17o–131o) compared to controls (51o; 95% CI, 5o–97o; P< 0.0001). A frontal QRS-T angle of more than 90o remained associated with increased risk of SCD after adjusting for age, gender, heart rate, prolonged intraventricular conduction, electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy (ECG LVH), baseline comorbidities, and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (OR 2.2; 95% CI, 1.60–3.09; P< 0.0001). Conclusion A wide QRS-T angle greater than 90o is associated with an increased risk of SCA independent of the left ventricular ejection fraction.
Kinetic and Mechanistic Examination of Acid–Base Bifunctional Aminosilica Catalysts in Aldol and Nitroaldol Condensations

The kinetic and mechanistic understanding of cooperatively catalyzed aldol and nitroaldol condensations is probed using a series of mesoporous silicas functionalized with aminosilanes to provide bifunctional acid–base character. Mechanistically, a Hammett analysis is performed to determine the effects of electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups of para-substituted benzaldehyde derivatives on the catalytic activity of each condensation reaction. This information is also used to discuss the validity of previously proposed catalytic mechanisms and to propose a revised mechanism with plausible reaction intermediates. For both reactions, electron-withdrawing groups increase the observed rates of reaction, though resonance effects play an important, yet subtle, role in the nitroaldol condensation, in which a p-methoxy electron-donating group is also able to stabilize the proposed carbocation intermediate. Additionally, activation energies and pre-exponential factors are calculated via the Arrhenius ana...
Neonatal Lupus Erythematosus:Analysis of 5 Cases

To explore the diagnosis and treatment of patients with neonatal lupus erythematosus. Methods The clinical and experimental findings in the five cases of NLE were analysis and the related literatures were reviewed. Results All patients had lesions resembling subacute cutaneous lupus erythematosus on the face and/or in the trunk, and extremities. ANA and anti Ro/SSA IgG and/or anti La/SSB IgG antibodies were found in the sera of the five infants and their mothers. Electrocardiogram revealed no congenital heart block. The rash faded several weeks with no particularly treatment. Conclusion The diagnosis of the five cases of NLE can be confirmed by clinical and experimental features and no particularly treatment were needed in general.
Comparison of six methods of preparing piggyback doses of cephalothin sodium

Labor, equipment, and materials costs for six methods of reconstituting cephalothin sodium piggyback doses (System 1--Pharm-Aid Fluid Dispensing System + manufacturer's bottle; System 2--transfer unit + manufacturer's bottle; System 3--pressure infuser + manufacturer's bottle; System 4--gravity flow + manufacturer's bottle; System 5--transfer needle + partial-fill bottle; and System 6--Pharm-Aide Fluid Dispensing System + partial-fill bottle) were compared. Individual 2-g doses of cephalothin were prepared in batches of 20 doses by a technician. Times for assembling equipment and supplies, reconstituting and transferring the antibiotic, and fitting the container with protective caps were measured five times for each system. Mean total personnel time was lowest for System 2 and highest for System 5. Pull-tab caps (Burron) were fitted more quickly than were caps with the peel-around design (Cutter). System 3 had the lowest material cost followed in order by Systems 4, 1, 2, 5 and 6. Labor costs did not influence the rank order established by material costs. Systems 3 and 4 were preferred because they required the least manipulation and were lowest in total expense.
Measuring Receptor-Mediated Cell Adhesion Under Flow

Leukocytes must bind to vascular endothelium under conditions of flow to perform their appropriate physiological functions, which require trafficking into and out of the tissue space surrounding blood vessels. Trafficking into tissues is required of neutrophils during the acute inflammatory response, and during trafficking of lymphocytes into lymphoid tissue. Egress from blood lumen to tissue involves a series of adhesion-dependent steps, each of which involve different leukocyte adhesion receptors and counterreceptors on the endothelium. Transient adhesion, or rolling, of leukocytes over endothelial cells is a prerequisite to firm attachment and transendothelial migration (1,2).
The Elusive Cure: Public and Private Health Insurance After 1945

The United States emerged from World War II with a growing economy, a strengthened state, and a mobilized national community. It emerged, too, as the undisputed economic and military leader of the Western world. Many on the left believed America's new global responsibilities would unify Americans in support of expanded government programs, much as the Great Depression had before. The war itself led to the passage of government health programs for military personnel and their dependents, and preinduction physicals revealed that a large proportion of young men were not fit for service, raising new concerns about the nation's health. Perhaps most important, public support for national health insurance rose during the war, with the share of Americans expressing support for a health program similar to Social Security reaching 85 percent in 1943. Yet hopes for national health insurance went unfulfilled, both immediately after the war and in the decades that followed. World War II did not lead to a major new program of government insurance or provision as it did in Britain, nor was it followed by the subnational policy experiments of the sort that bubbled back up into Canadian federal policy. Like Civil War pensions and War Risk Insurance, the special programs extended to soldiers and their families proved to be fleeting experiments or remained the guardians of veterans alone. A quixotic postwar crusade by President Truman to enact national health insurance ended with the repudiation first of his goal and then of his party's presidential candidate.
Twitter, Texting, and Street Demonstrations: Assessing Social Media's Political Relevance for Citizen Empowerment

What is the political relevance of social media? I argue that social media's most important role is to enhance the mobilizational capacity of citizens in non-democracies. Mobilization provides a key means for citizens to exert power over institutionally non-responsive governments, but it also entails overcoming unusually high barriers to collective action. Social media crucially change the political environment of non-democracies by lowering these barriers, creating greater capacity for mobilization and leading to a greater incidence of protest in non-democracies with social media. Because social media simply blunt the effect of barriers erected against anti-state participation in non-democracies, however, these media do not substantially change the political environment faced by mobilizers in democracies. The differential effects of social media on political mobilization across regime types are examined in Africa over two decades. This paper presents cross-national evidence of social media's political relevance through its link to demonstrations and protests. The results highlight the adverse political environments faced by mobilizers in non-democracies, and predict an increasing but ambiguously positive role for social media to shape non-democratic politics.
SINR analysis of multi-waveform STAP

A multi-waveform version of space-time adaptive processing denoted as MuW-STAP (or simply μ-STAP) was recently developed that incorporates the training data generated by secondary waveform/filter pairs into the estimation of the sample covariance matrix. This additional training data was found to improve robustness to heterogeneous clutter. Here SINR analysis is used to evaluate the μ-STAP approach under various clutter conditions and with multiple additional sets of training data obtained through the use of multiple different pulse compression filters applied to the same received data.
ISOLATED TRICUSPID VALVE SURGERY: REPAIR VERSUS REPLACEMENT

Background: Isolated tricuspid valve (TV) surgery is rarely performed, however recognition of the adverse effects of untreated TV regurgitation have created growing interest in invasive therapies. There is limited data comparing outcomes for TV repair versus replacement. We sought to compare
Cannabis Use and Cannabis Use Disorders Among Youth in the United States, 2002-2014.

OBJECTIVE To examine trends in past-year cannabis use (CU) and cannabis use disorders (CUD) among youth in the United States, when related changes began, and factors associated with these changes. METHODS This study used data from 288,300 persons aged 12-17 years who participated in the 2002-2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Descriptive analyses and bivariable and multivariable logistic regressions were applied (using the year 2002 as the reference group for most analyses). RESULTS The prevalence of past-year CU among youth decreased from 15.8% in 2002 to 13.1% in 2014 (this downward trend occurred during 2002-2007 only [β = -0.0540, P < .0001]). Among youth cannabis users, the prevalence of past-year CUD decreased from 27.0% in 2002 to 20.4% in 2014, with a downward trend starting in 2011 (β = -0.0970, P = .0001). During 2002-2014, the prevalence of past-year tobacco use and alcohol use decreased and prevalences of past-year CU increased among tobacco users and among alcohol users. Our multivariable results suggest that declines in past-year tobacco use (but not alcohol use) among youth were associated with declines in past-year CU during 2010-2014. Past-year CU and CUD were higher among racial/ethnic minorities (except for non-Hispanic Asians and Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders for CU) than non-Hispanic whites and were similar between male and female youth during 2002-2014. CONCLUSIONS In the United States, compared to 2002, even after adjusting for covariates, CU decreased among youth during 2005-2014, and CUD declined among youth cannabis users during 2013-2014. Associations between declines in tobacco use and decreased CU suggest the importance of tobacco use control and prevention among youth.
Arrested for a Belch in Gym Class: A.M. v. Holmes, Excessive Force on Schoolchildren, and Qualified Immunity

This Article explores the evolving area of qualified immunity. Specifically, it explores the grant of qualified immunity in cases involving excessive force claims for unlawful warrantless arrests on schoolchildren. There has been an increase in warrantless arrests of children at schools over the past decade and many of these arrests are for nonviolent offenses. This Article analyzes a remedy to deter arresting children in schools: that is, to bring forth a civil rights action against the arresting officer. Moreover, the article takes a look into the case of A.M. v. Holmes, where a thirteen-year old child was arrested for belching in class. This Article determines that warrantlessly arresting schoolchildren for minor offenses should be a constitutional violation that overcomes the qualified immunity defense, thus allowing the child to bring a civil rights action against the arresting officer. This Article suggests a refined three-factor inquiry to determine whether there was “clearly established law,” which would allow a child to bring forth a claim for a warrantless arrest under a theory of excessive force that overcomes the qualified immunity defense.
Judicial Recusal: Cognitive Biases and Racial Stereotyping

For generations, there had been strenuous resistance to the notion that judges are purely rational beings in their legal decision-making. In 1921, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo — who at the time was a judge on the New York Court of Appeals — agreed. Then, in 1930, legal realist Jerome Frank speculated that judicial decisions could reflect such mundane influences as what the judge ate for breakfast. A decade later, when Frank sat on the federal bench, he continued with this line of reasoning. Contemporary judges and legal scholars have underscored the same sentiment. In recent decades, social scientists have demonstrated that people’s cognitive resources are limited. Accordingly, people often use mental shortcuts — heuristics — to solve complex problems. While useful for approximating solutions to problems that would otherwise prove too difficult if tackled directly, these shortcuts sometimes result in erroneous cognitive biases. Research suggests that these errors may influence judicial decision-making. For example, these types of shortcuts may lead to racial stereotypes such as associating race and crime. In turn, such automatic associations may lead to sentencing disparities. In this Article I explore implicit, subconscious race bias in judicial decision-making and its implications for judicial recusal. In Part I, I describe an unmistakable instance of racial stereotyping and prejudice demonstrated by a federal judge, in order to exemplify that judges harbor such attitudes. In Part II, I explore examples of white judges being racially biased against black litigants and what this may mean for judicial recusal. In Parts III and IV, I explore the extent to which black judges can be racially biased against white and black litigants, respectively. Overall, I contend that in light of the complex nature of subconscious race bias, different recusal standards should be used for black and white judges depending upon other contextual considerations.
Economy of scale: third partner strengthens a keystone ant-plant mutualism.

While foundation species can stabilize ecosystems at landscape scales, their ability to persist is often underlain by keystone interactions occurring at smaller scales. Acacia drepanolobium is a foundation tree, comprising >95% of woody cover in East African black-cotton savanna ecosystems. Its dominance is underlain by a keystone mutualistic interaction with several symbiotic ant species in which it provides housing (swollen thorns) and carbohydrate-rich nectar from extra-floral nectaries (EFN). In return, it gains protection from catastrophic damage from mega-herbivores. Crematogaster mimosae is the ecologically dominant symbiotic ant in this system, also providing the highest protection services. In addition to tending EFN, C. mimosae tend scale insects for carbohydrate-rich honeydew. We investigated the role of scale insects in this specialized ant-plant interaction. Specifically, does this putatively redundant third partner strengthen the ant-plant mutualism by making the ant a better protector of the tree? Or does it weaken the mutualism by being costly to the tree while providing no additional benefit to the ant-plant mutualism? We coupled observational surveys with two scale-manipulation experiments and found evidence that this third partner strengthens the ant-plant mutualism. Trees with scale insects experimentally removed experienced a 2.5X increase in elephant damage compared to trees with scale insects present over 10 months. Reduced protection was driven by scale removal causing a decrease in ant colony size and per capita baseline activity and defensive behavior. We also found that ants increased scale-tending and the density of scale insects on trees when EFN were experimentally reduced. Thus, in this system, scale insects and EFN are likely complementary, rather than redundant, resources with scale insects benefitting ants when EFN production is low (such as during annual dry periods in this semi-arid ecosystem). This study reveals that a third-partner strengthens an ant-plant mutualism that serves to stabilize a whole ecosystem.
Circuit Vulnerabilities to Hardware Trojans at the Register-Transfer Level

Realized by modifying design implementation, hardware Trojans can interfere with any step of the design process. A hardware Trojan may undermine a system’s confidentiality by leaking secret information or can abrogate system availability by performing a malfunction. Soft third-party intellectual properties (IPs) are extensively used in high-level implementation, and they are highly vulnerable to hardware Trojan insertion. Therefore, there is a need for systematic approaches to assess vulnerabilities of a circuit to hardware Trojan insertion and to identify potential hardware Trojan locations at the register-transfer level.
Confidence Limits for Monte Carlo Calculations

(1965). Confidence Limits for Monte Carlo Calculations. Nuclear Science and Engineering: Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 384-385.
CHEMICALLY INDUCED GENE EXPRESSION: THE ROLE OF HISTONE HYPER-ACETYLATION IN TRANSFORMATION BY SV40 MINICHROMATIN

Publisher Summary This chapter analyzes the chemically induced gene expression and the role of histone hyper-acetylation in transformation by SV40 minichromatin. An in vivo-like, chemical acetylating procedure is developed utilizing acetyl adenylate, that mimics enzymatic acetylation of histones; that is, there is an increase in DNAse I digestion and no increase in micrococcal nuclease digestion of the chemically acetylated chromatin. This procedure has been utilized to acetylate SV40 minichromatin in vitro, to study the effect of acetylated vs. nonacetylated minichromatin in cellular transformation. All transformation studies were carried out with cultured Balb/3T3 cells. SV40 minichromatin was reconstituted from SV40 form I DNA and calf thymus histone octamer. Cellular uptake of acetylated and nonacetylated minichromatin was accomplished at high Ca++ concentration. Cells were subcultured 24 hours after infection with acetylated or nonacetylated minichromatin. After 5–6 days transformed cell foci appeared only in the cultures infected with acetylated minichromatin. The acetylated minichromatin infected cells exhibited positive T-antigen specific fluorescence, while nonacetylated minichromatin treated cells and normal cells showed no specific fluorescence.