cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Celiac Disease: A Progress Report

Celiac disease (CD) has a wide range of clinical presentations and is being diagnosed with increasing frequency in patients in the 4th and 5th decades of life. The diagnosis of CD is confirmed by a combination of clinical, serological, and morphological findings associated with a response to a gluten-free diet. In small-bowel mucosal biopsy specimens, abnormalities range from minimal (increased villous intraepithelial lymphocytes only) to severe (complete villous blunting with crypt hyperplasia). Recognition of CD is important because appropriate therapy of this condition will obviate the risk of its severe complications.
Emergency Physician–Verified Out-of-hospital Intubation: Miss Rates by Paramedics

Objectives: To prospectively quantify the number of unrecognized missed out-of-hospital intubations by ground paramedics using emergency physician verification as the criterion standard for verification of endotracheal tube placement. Methods:The authors performed an observational, prospective study of consecutive intubated patients arriving by ground emergency medical services to two urban teaching hospitals. Endotracheal tube placement was verified by emergency physicians and evaluated by using a combination of direct visualization, esophageal detector device (EDD), colorimetric end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCO2), and physical examination. Results: During the six-month study period, 208 out-of-hospital intubations by ground paramedics were enrolled, which included 160 (76.9%) medical patients and 48 (23.1%) trauma patients. A total of 12 (5.8%) endotracheal tubes were incorrectly placed outside the trachea. This comprised ten (6.3%) medical patients and two (4.2%) trauma patients. Of the 12 misplaced endotracheal tubes, a verification device (ETCO2 or EDD) was used in three cases (25%) and not used in nine cases (75%). Conclusions: The rate of unrecognized, misplaced out-of-hospital intubations in this urban, midwestern setting was 5.8%. This is more consistent with results of prior out-of-hospital studies that used field verification and is discordant with the only other study to exclusively use emergency physician verification performed on arrival to the emergency department.
The waiting room

The Waiting Room is a multiple award nominated (and Golden Gate Award winning) day-in-the-life 2012 film about an emergency room. In specific, it is about Oakland, California’s Highland Hospital, w...
Overview of the 1997 Southern California Ozone Study (SCOS97-NARSTO)

Abstract During the summer of 1997, the Southern California Ozone Study-NARSTO 1 (SCOS97-NARSTO) was conducted in order to update and improve the existing emission, meteorological, and air quality databases and model applications for representing urban-scale ozone episodes in Southern California, and to quantify the contributions of ozone generated from emissions in Southern California air basins to US and California ambient ozone standard exceedances in neighboring air basins. The SCOS97-NARSTO also examined the generation and evolution of typical late-summer and early fall aerosols in the Los Angeles area. This paper describes the study area and design of the field campaign, summarizes the field measurements, and reviews data analysis and modeling efforts.
Involvement of an acrosin-like enzyme in the acrosome reaction of sea urchin sperm

Abstract Extracts of the jelly coat of eggs of several marine invertebrates are known to induce in homologous sperm morphological changes known as the acrosome reaction. When sperm of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus are treated with low concentrations (0.2 μg fucose/ml) of egg jelly coat or 30 m M CaCl 2 in artificial seawater the acrosome reaction does not occur. However, either of these treatments causes the exposure of an acrosin-like enzyme to exogenous substrate and inhibitors. Subsequent addition of jelly coat to 3.7 μg fucose/ml to sperm in this “initial stage” induces the acrosome reaction (as judged by the appearance of an acrosomal filament). This concentration is also effective for untreated sperm. If inhibitors of the enzyme (diisopropylphosphofluoridate or phenylmethanesulfonyl fluoride) are added to sperm in the initial stage, no acrosomal filaments are observed when the high concentration of jelly coat is added. Whether other morphological changes occur in these sperm has not been examined. If phenylmethanesulfonyl fluoride is added 4 sec after the jelly coat, the acrosomal filaments are observed, but the sperm still fail to fertilize eggs. These results suggest a dual role for the acrosin-like enzyme(s), first in the mechanism of the acrosomal filament formation and then in a subsequent event in the fertilization process.
Fair access rate (FAR) provisioning in multi-hop multi-channel wireless mesh networks

In multi-hop wireless mesh networks, the end-to-end throughput decays exponentially with the increase in hop counts. This is mainly due to the increase in successive spatial contentions. As a result, flows with longer hops suffer from bandwidth starvation and fair link access disparities along the path towards the gateway. In this paper, we first develop a theoretical reference model that can be used to measure throughput disparities among contending flows. Second, we introduce a fair access rate (FAR) algorithm, based on the end-to-end blocking probabilities of contending flows, that will offset throughput disparities. Finally, we simulate FAR over a set of 802.11s-based network topologies with different aggregate blocking probabilities. The performance of FAR, in terms of its throughput and fairness index, has been evaluated and compared with the performance of the default algorithm used in 802.11s.
Progress toward an ultimate proof of the prion hypothesis

Early indications that the infectious agent responsible for scrapie did not contain nucleic acid (1) led to several insightful hypotheses to explain this conundrum (2). Eventually considerable data came to support one of these ideas, dubbed the prion hypothesis, also shown to be applicable to related fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies including Creutzfeldt–Jakob and mad cow disease (3). According to the prion hypothesis, the prion protein (PrP) can exist in the normal cellular form (PrPC), or in an “infectious” prion form (PrPSc) that causes disease by converting the cellular form into the prion form. Whereas PrPC is soluble and easily digested by protease K, PrPSc is rich in β-sheets, aggregates into fibrils, and has a protease K-resistant core that forms amyloid. The prion hypothesis has now been extended to explain phenomena involving other proteins (4). Using genetic criteria, Wickner (4) identified the non-Mendelian yeast elements [URE3] (5) and [PSI+] (6), as prions of the Ure2 and Sup35 proteins, respectively. A great deal of additional genetic and biochemical evidence now supports this hypothesis (reviewed in refs. 7 and 8). Evidence for other yeast prions (9–11), as well as for [Het-s] of Podospora anserina (12–16), is now emerging. Although the evidence for the prion hypothesis is compelling, a direct demonstration that infectious activity is caused by pure protein when in the prion form has been lacking. Using the [Het-s] prion, Maddelein et al. (17) in a recent issue of PNAS have now come tantalizingly close to achieving that aim.
Developing Practice Protocols for Advanced Practice Nursing

In most States, the role of an advanced practice nurse is dependent on practice protocols that provide art organized method for analyzing and managing a disease or major symptom. They are also used tn control the process of medical care and to specify steps in the delivery of that care. Creating app
PM and light extinction model performance metrics, goals, and criteria for three-dimensional air quality models

Abstract In order to use an air quality modeling system with confidence, model performance must be evaluated against observations. While ozone modeling and evaluation is fairly developed, particulate matter (PM) modeling is still an evolving science. EPA has issued minimal guidance on PM and visibility model performance evaluation metrics, goals, and criteria. This paper addresses these issues by examining various bias and error metrics and proposes PM model performance goals (the level of accuracy that is considered to be close to the best a model can be expected to achieve) and criteria (the level of accuracy that is considered to be acceptable for modeling applications) that vary as a function of concentration and extinction. In this paper, it has been proposed that a model performance goal has been met when both the mean fractional error (MFE) and the mean fractional bias (MFB) are less than or equal to +50% and ±30%, respectively. Additionally, the model performance criteria has been met when both the MFE⩽+75% and MFB⩽±60%. Less abundant species would have less stringent performance goals and criteria. These recommendations are based upon an analysis of numerous PM and visibility modeling studies performed throughout the country.
Oxygen isotopes in separated components of CI and CM meteorites

Oxygen isotopic compositions have been determined for whole-rock and separated components from the CI chondrites Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil, and from the atypical CM chondrites Bells and Essebi. The composition of CI matrix is in agreement with previous measurements and is systematically different from that of CM matrix, probably due to warmer and wetter conditions of aqueous alteration for CI matrix. Although Bells matrix is like that of other CM chondrites, the matrix of Essebi falls in the CI field. Essebi also contains abundant magnetite, like CIs and unlike other CMs. The isotopic compositions of magnetite in Alais, Ivuna, Orgueil and Essebi define a trend with Δ17O of +1.3 to +1.8, distinctly out of isotopic equilibrium with the phyllosilicates in each meteorite. The magnetite serves as an isotopic tracer for the fluid which brought about aqueous alteration and oxidation, and thus provides additional evidence for a gaseous reservoir in the solar nebula which was more 16O-depleted than the earth.
Multiply Resonant Coherent Multidimensional Spectroscopy: Implications for Materials Science

Coherent multidimensional spectroscopy (CMDS) has greatly expanded the capabilities of molecular spectroscopy, and it promises to be equally important for materials chemistry. CMDS includes both time domain and multiply resonant frequency domain approaches. Although time domain CMDS has dominated applications, new work shows that multiply resonant CMDS has attractive features for fully coherent spectroscopy of the quantum states that are important for materials spectroscopy. Rather than resolving the temporal oscillations of each coherence, multiply resonant CMDS is an older method that measures the resonance enhancements for different excitation frequencies. It does not require the long-term phase coherence that restricts the coherent pathways and quantum states accessible by time domain methods. This Perspective reviews the multiply resonant CMDS vibrational methods and shows how they can be adapted to the diverse electronic and vibrational states of materials chemistry.
Linear, collisionless, bi-Maxwellian neutral-sheet tearing instability.

The problem of linear bi-Maxwellian neutral-sheet tearing instability has been solved, using neither an approximation of the orbits nor the constant-psi approximation. The present method has a larger range of validity than the best previous approximation, the three-region approximation. It is found that as the temperature anisotropy is increased, the growth rate increases and the wavelength associated with the peak growth decreases. It is suggested that if small-island formation is experimentally observed, then temperature anisotropy may be present.
The crystal structure of Neisseria gonorrhoeae PriB reveals mechanistic differences among bacterial DNA replication restart pathways

Reactivation of repaired DNA replication forks is essential for complete duplication of bacterial genomes. However, not all bacteria encode homologs of the well-studied Escherichia coli DNA replication restart primosome proteins, suggesting that there might be distinct mechanistic differences among DNA replication restart pathways in diverse bacteria. Since reactivation of repaired DNA replication forks requires coordinated DNA and protein binding by DNA replication restart primosome proteins, we determined the crystal structure of Neisseria gonorrhoeae PriB at 2.7 A resolution and investigated its ability to physically interact with DNA and PriA helicase. Comparison of the crystal structures of PriB from N. gonorrhoeae and E. coli reveals a well-conserved homodimeric structure consisting of two oligosaccharide/oligonucleotide-binding (OB) folds. In spite of their overall structural similarity, there is significant species variation in the type and distribution of surface amino acid residues. This correlates with striking differences in the affinity with which each PriB homolog binds single-stranded DNA and PriA helicase. These results provide evidence that mechanisms of DNA replication restart are not identical across diverse species and that these pathways have likely become specialized to meet the needs of individual organisms.
Thalamic interneurons and relay cells use complementary synaptic mechanisms for visual processing

This study finds that thalamic interneurons and downstream projecting relay cells have opposite response properties. Computational modeling suggests that such complementary mechanisms may help preserve more spike-timing information. Synapses made by local interneurons dominate the thalamic circuits that process signals traveling from the eye downstream. The anatomical and physiological differences between interneurons and the (relay) cells that project to cortex are vast. To explore how these differences might influence visual processing, we made intracellular recordings from both classes of cells in vivo in cats. Macroscopically, all receptive fields were similar, consisting of two concentrically arranged subregions in which dark and bright stimuli elicited responses of the reverse sign. Microscopically, however, the responses of the two types of cells had opposite profiles. Excitatory stimuli drove trains of single excitatory postsynaptic potentials in relay cells, but graded depolarizations in interneurons. Conversely, suppressive stimuli evoked smooth hyperpolarizations in relay cells and unitary inhibitory postsynaptic potentials in interneurons. Computational analyses suggested that these complementary patterns of response help to preserve information encoded in the fine timing of retinal spikes and to increase the amount of information transmitted to cortex.
Effects of freezing on tissue factor activity in a thromboelastography assay

Background Human recombinant tissue factor (TF) can be used to activate viscoelastic coagulation assays. Although the package insert indicates that TF should not be frozen, published scientific data are not available. Ability to store frozen aliquots of TF would increase laboratory efficiency and decrease costs associated with performing TF-activated assays. Objective The objectives of this study were to determine the effects of freezing and storage time on TF's ability to activate commercially available quality control material in thromboelastography (TEG). Methods TF was diluted and frozen at −20°C and −70°C for 72 hours, one week, 2 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months, and used for TEG after thawing. TF activation of control material was also assessed after TF storage at room temperature for 0, 24, and 48 hours. Time to fibrin formation (R), rate of clot formation (K and angle α), and clot strength (MA) were measured, and ANOVA used to identify differences. Results There were no significant differences in mean α and MA regardless of storage time or temperature. Means for R were not significantly increased at any time point after storage at room temperature or −70°C, but significant increases in mean R were observed after storage at −20°C starting after one week and continuing up to 6 months. Conclusion TF can be stored at room temperature for at least 48 hours, stored at −20°C for 72 hours, and stored at −70°C for up to 6 months without significant loss of activity for TEG.
A multimodal temporal panorama approach for moving vehicle detection, reconstruction, and classification

Moving vehicle detection and classification using multimodal data is a challenging task in data collection, audio-visual alignment, data labeling and feature selection under uncontrolled environments with occlusions, motion blurs, varying image resolutions and perspective distortions. In this work, we propose an effective multimodal temporal panorama approach for the task using a novel long-range audio-visual sensing system. A new audio-visual vehicle (AVV) dataset for moving vehicle detection and classification is created, which features automatic vehicle detection and audio-visual alignment, accurate vehicle extraction and reconstruction, and efficient data labeling. In particular, vehicles' visual images are reconstructed once detected in order to remove most of the occlusions, motion blurs, and variations of perspective views. Multimodal audio-visual features are extracted, including global geometric features (aspect ratios, profiles), local structure features (HOGs), as well various audio features (MFCCs, etc). Using radial-based SVMs, the effectiveness of the integration of these multimodal features is thoroughly and systemically studied. The concept of MTP may not be only limited to visual, motion and audio modalities; it could also be applicable to other sensing modalities that can obtain data in the temporal domain.
Robust Mediation Analysis Based on Median Regression

Mediation analysis has many applications in psychology and the social sciences. The most prevalent methods typically assume that the error distribution is normal and homoscedastic. However, this assumption may rarely be met in practice, which can affect the validity of the mediation analysis. To address this problem, we propose robust mediation analysis based on median regression. Our approach is robust to various departures from the assumption of homoscedasticity and normality, including heavy-tailed, skewed, contaminated, and heteroscedastic distributions. Simulation studies show that under these circumstances, the proposed method is more efficient and powerful than standard mediation analysis. We further extend the proposed robust method to multilevel mediation analysis, and demonstrate through simulation studies that the new approach outperforms the standard multilevel mediation analysis. We illustrate the proposed method using data from a program designed to increase reemployment and enhance mental health of job seekers.
The Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Efficiency and Its Relation to Effectiveness

The heat exchanger efficiency is defined as the ratio of the actual heat transfer in a heat exchanger to the optimum heat transfer rate. The optimum heat transfer rate, qopt , is given by the product of UA and the Arithmetic Mean Temperature Difference, which is the difference between the average temperatures of hot and cold fluids. The actual rate of heat transfer in a heat exchanger is always less than this optimum value, which takes place in a balanced counter flow heat exchanger. It is shown that for parallel flow, counter flow, and shell and tube heat exchanger the efficiency is only a function of a single nondimensional parameter called Fin Analogy Number. Remarkably, the functional dependence of the efficiency of these heat exchangers on this parameter is identical to that of a constant area fin with an insulated tip. Also a general algebraic expression as well as a generalized chart is presented for the determination of the efficiency of shell and tube heat exchangers with any number of shells and even number of tube passes per shell, when the Number of Transfer Units (NTU) and the capacity ratio are known. Although this general expression is a function of the number of shells and another nondimensional group, it turns out to be almost independent of the number of shells over a wide range of practical interest. The same general expression is also applicable to parallel and counter flow heat exchangers.Copyright © 2003 by ASME
Model for episodic flow of high-pressure water in fault zones before earthquakes

In this model for the evolution of large crustal faults, water that originally came from the country rock saturates the initially highly porous and permeable fault zone. During shearing, the fault zone compacts and water flows back into the country rock, but the flow is arrested by silicate deposition that forms very low permeability seals between the fault zone and the country rock. Because of variations in temperature and mineralogical composition and the complex structure of the fault zone, a three-dimensional network of seals is formed in the fault zone itself; thus, the high-pressure fluid is not evenly distributed. As in deep oil reservoirs, the fluid will be confined to seal-bounded fluid compartments of various sizes and porosity that are not hydraulically connected with each other or with the hydrostatic regime in the country rock. When the seal between two of these compartments is ruptured, an electrical streaming potential will be generated by the sudden movement of fluid from the high-pressure compartment to the low-pressure compartment. When the pore pressure in the two compartments reaches its final equilibrium state, the average effective normal stress across them may be lower than it was initially, and, if the two compartments are large enough, this condition may trigger an earthquake. During an earthquake, many of the remaining seals will be ruptured, and the width of the fault zone will increase by failure of the geometric irregularities on the fault. This newly created, highly porous and permeable, but now wider fault zone will fill with water, and the process described above will be repeated. Thus, the process is an episodic one, with the water moving in and out of the fault zone, and each large earthquake should be preceded by an electrical and/or magnetic signal.
Construction of BAC libraries from two apomictic grasses to study the microcolinearity of their apospory-specific genomic regions.

We have constructed bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) libraries from two grass species that reproduce by apospory, a form of gametophytic apomixis. The library of an apomictic polyhaploid genotype (line MS228-20, with a 2C genome size of approximately 4,500 Mbp) derived from a cross between the obligate apomict, Pennisetum squamulatum, and pearl millet (P. glaucum) comprises 118,272 clones with an average insert size of 82 kb. The library of buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris, apomictic line B-12-9, with a 2C genome size of approximately 3,000 Mbp) contains 68,736 clones with an average insert size of 109 kb. Based on the genome sizes of these two lines and correcting for the number for false-positive and organellar clones, library coverages were found to be 3.7 and 4.8 haploid genome equivalents for MS 228-20 and B12-9, respectively. Both libraries were screened by hybridization with six SCARs (sequence-characterized amplified regions), whose tight linkage in a single apospory-specific genomic region had been previously demonstrated in both species. Analysis of these BAC clones indicated that some of the SCAR markers are actually amplifying duplicated regions linked in coupling in both genomes and that restriction enzyme mapping will be necessary to sort out the duplications.
Neutron Absorption and Scattering by Hafnium

Thermal activation, thermal absorption, resonance scattering, resonance transmission, and multiplicity of capture $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ rays have been measured for the stable isotopes of hafnium. Isotopic assignments of the various resonance levels are presented which are consistent with all the data observed. Where possible, the level spacing is estimated.
Hydroelectric dams in Brazilian Amazonia: response to Rosa, Schaeffer & dos Santos

In a critique of my paper on ‘greenhouse’ gas (GHG) emissions from Amazonian reservoirs (Fearnside 1995), Rosa et al. (1996) suggest that I have reached overly pessimistic conclusions because the reservoirs on which my calculations are based are unrepresentative and because methods based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) global warming potentials (GWPs) are unfair for comparing hydroelectric and fossil fuel options. I rush to defend my analysis.
Adolescents' Perceptions of Rights as Reflected in Their Views of Citizenship

The UN Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC), ratified by the majority of the countries of the world, is an international document that recognizes children and adolescents as worthy of citizenship and human rights. The CRC also attempts to provide a balance between children's nurturance (care and protection) and self-determination (participation) rights. Although there has been social cognitive research on children's understanding of rights, there has been little research examining adolescents' views of the specific rights they would expect to receive through citizenship. In addition, few studies have examined young people's views of the responsibilities inherent in citizenship. This article investigates adolescents' views of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Three hundred four adolescents, aged 13–18 years, were asked to rate the importance of various rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Findings indicated that adolescents' responses regarding rights reduced to two components, one related to entitlements (nurturance component of the CRC) and the other freedoms (self-determination/participation component of the CRC). Responsibilities consist of civic-oriented ones and polity-oriented responsibilities. Both components of rights (entitlements and freedoms) correlated significantly with civic-oriented forms of responsibilities; neither form of rights related to polity-oriented responsibilities. The two components of rights also related to the individual variables of age, parental education, ethnicity, and aspects of political self-concept. These results demonstrate the importance of research on the development of citizenship and also have implications for implementation of the CRC.
Evaluations of effective thermal conductivity of support structures in selective laser melting

Abstract Simulations capable of predicting the complex thermal behavior which occurs in a selective laser melting (SLM) process would help design and manufacturing engineers build more optimum designs in a reliable manner. A multiscale feed forward adaptive refinement and de-refinement (FFD-AMRD) finite element framework has been developed in response to this need. Support structures fabricated during SLM to overcome residual stress induced part distortion are a key part of the process, and a representation of these support structures in a finite element framework must be considered. If support structures could be designed with minimal material usage while still maintaining an ability to withstand the residual stresses generated during the part fabrication, this would significantly impact industrial use of SLM. In this work, the effective thermal properties of support structures are represented using thermal homogenization. The effective thermal properties of the support structures have been found to be a function of their geometry, anisotropy and constituent independent thermal properties. The results from this study have been compared against standard models and a good match has been found. The objective of this work is to derive effective thermal property functions which could be directly incorporated in the FFD-AMRD framework mentioned above to enhance computational speed.
Migration and Accumulation of Silicone in the Liver of Women with Silicone Gel-Filled Breast Implants

1H NMR localized spectroscopy (STEAM), combined with echocardiography (ECG), respiratory gating, and water and fat suppression, was used to quantify silicone concentrations in the liver of women with silicone gel-filled breast implants. Localized spectroscopy was performed on 15 patients with silicone gel-filled breast prostheses and on eight volunteers with no implants. The 1H spectra in the liver of patients showed silicone resonances from 0.3 to -0.8 ppm, attributable to protons in the methyl groups of silicone. The presence of silicone in the liver could first be detected 3-4 years after breast prostheses implantation. No correlation between silicone concentrations and implantation times was observed. However, our results indicated that silicone concentrations may reflect implant integrity: detectable silicone concentrations in the liver appeared to be higher when the implants were ruptured than when the implants appeared intact. Moreover, new resonances in the range of -2.6 to -4 ppm were observed in most patients after long-term implantation. As these species increase with implantation time, the new resonances may reflect chemically changed silicone (paramagnetically shifted silicon complexes bound to iron) accumulated over time. The sensitivity of 1H NMR localized spectroscopy is sufficient to detect silicon concentrations as low as 0.20 mM. Results from one patient whose implants had been removed 14 months prior to the NMR examination showed no detectable silicone in the liver, indicating that it may have been excreted via bile or degraded to silica and high coordinated silicon complexes. Quantitative 1H localized spectroscopy of the liver in women with silicone gel-filled breast implants may provide valuable information concerning silicone accumulation and degradation in vivo, as well as about the kinetics of its elimination from the body after implant removal.
Towards a Framework for Privacy-Aware Mobile Crowdsourcing

The practice of employing "the crowd" to help solve an organization's problems first became popular in the business sector, and has since spread to public and not-for-profit organizations. Input from the crowd can be solicited using different mechanisms involving various types of web-based applications, or the more recent trend of employing mobile phones with sensing capabilities. However, these crowd sourcing systems may lead to various privacy and security risks which can then hinder the adoption of these services. How to identify and address these potential risks in such systems has both research and practical value. This paper presents two aspects of our work in this emerging space. First, we describe a survey of potential privacy and security risks in mobile crowd sourcing systems (MCSS). Second, we describe our PEALS framework to support privacy-aware mobile crowd sourcing.
Professionally Responsible Malpractice Reform

Medical malpractice reform is both necessary and desirable, yet certain types of reform are clearly preferable to others. We argue that “traditional” tort reform remedies such as stringent damage caps not only fail to address the root causes of negligence and the adverse effects that fear of suit can have on physicians, but also fail to address the needs of patients. Physicians ought to view themselves as professionals who are dedicated to putting patients’ interests ahead of their own. Professionally responsible malpractice reform should therefore be at least as patient-centered as it is physician-centered. Examples of more professionally responsible malpractice reform exist where institutions take a pro-active approach to identification, investigation, and remediation of possible malpractice. Such programs should be implemented more generally, and state laws enacted to facilitate them.
Exploiting MapReduce and data compression for data-intensive applications

HPC platform shows good success for predominantly compute-intensive jobs, however, data intensive jobs still struggle on HPC platform as large amounts of concurrent data movement from I/O nodes to compute nodes can easily saturate the network links. MapReduce, the "moving computation to data" paradigm for many pleasingly parallel applications, assumes that data are resident on local disks and computation is scheduled where the data are located. However, on an HPC machine data must be staged from a broader file system (such as Luster), to HDFS where it can be accessed; this staging can represent a substantial delay in processing. In this paper we look at data compression's effect on reducing bandwidth needs of getting data to the application, as well as its impact on the overall performance of data-intensive applications. Our study examines two types of applications, a 3D-time series caries lesion assessment focusing on large scale medical image dataset, and a HTRC word counting task concerning large scale text analysis running on XSEDE resources. Our extensive experimental results demonstrate significant performance improvement in terms of storage space, data stage-in time, and job execution time.
Effect of the DEF motif on phosphorylation of peptide substrates by ERK

MAP kinase ERK maintains specificity by binding to docking sites such as the DEF domain or D domain. It was previously shown that appending peptides derived from D domains to a substrate peptide increased apparent efficiency of peptide phosphorylation while preserving its apparent specificity for ERK. Here we determine the effect of the DEF motif on efficiency and specificity of peptide phosphorylation by ERK. The DEF motif modulated the apparent affinity of the peptide for ERK while the substrate motif dominated the apparent catalytic rate. Attachment of the DEF sequence improved apparent phosphorylation efficiency by 60-fold. Addition of peptides possessing both the DEF and D motif to a substrate sequence did not yield additive effects on the KM of the substrate for ERK. Further, the DEF motif diminished the apparent specificity for ERK and increased the apparent efficiencies of phosphorylation of the substrate peptide by p38α kinase and JNK1.
Is Pension Reform Conducive to Higher Saving

Declining fertility, mortality, and productivity rates in developed countries and the popularity of the social security privatization in Chile as a pathway to financial development have sparked a global interest in social security reform. This paper analyzes the effect of social security on saving using a panel of countries over 25 years. Variation in the characteristics of social security systems is used to determine whether less reliance on a pay-as-you-go, unfunded system is associated with higher national saving. There is little evidence that countries that implement defined-contribution reforms have higher trends in saving rates after the reform. Cross-sectionally, countries with pay-as-you-go systems tend to have lower saving rates, and this effect increases with the coverage rate on the system.
ACIDITY AND ALKALINITY PRODUCED BY CHANGES IN THE NITROGEN, SULPHUR, AND CARBON CYCLES.

Culture media, whether they be soils, nutrient solutions for higher plants, or bacteriological cultures, are subject to fluctuations, often of considerable magnitude, in their H-ion concentrations. Plant and animal fluids and contents of living cells also fluctuate in reaction. One phase of the problem upon which the writer is working involves changes in the reaction of soils, apparently due in part to the changes in the nitrogen cycle. It seemed desirable to investigate in a theoretical way the principal changes that could arise from these and other transformations. The results secured as well as the methods used offer the possibility of wider application than to this specific problem, being perhaps most applicable to the fields of plant physiology, soil chemistry, and bacteriological chemistry. For that reason, they have been prepared for publication. Certain changes in the nitrogen cycle produce acidity, other changes produce alkalinity, and still other changes in the nitrogen cycle have little or no effect on the pH of the medium. Many of these changes have been worked out quantitatively, others only qualitatively.2 Confusion exists in some plant and soil literature bearing on these changes. This paper is an attempt to develop by theoretical reasoning, from the fields of inorganic and biological chemistry, a quantitative expression of the acidity and alkalinity produced by changes in the nitrogen cycle, culminating in a chart which shows these relations graphically. Some attention will be given also to production of acidity and alkalinity resulting from transformations within the carbon and sulphur cycles. A subsequent paper will give experimental data bearing on a part of this cycle. It will be convenient in the following development to speak of the production of one equivalent of "acidity" as meaning also the disappearance of one equivalent of alkalinity, or a fraction of each, such that the sum of the fractional equivalents of acid produced and alkalinity disappearing will equal one; and conversely, with the production of one equivalent of alkalinity. 1 Contribution from the Division of Agronomy, University of California, Davis,, California.
Finite element analysis of a femur to deconstruct the paradox of bone curvature

Most long limb bones in terrestrial mammals exhibit a longitudinal curvature and have been found to be loaded in bending. Bone curvature poses a paradox in terms of the mechanical function of limb bones, for many believe the curvature in these bones increases bending stress, potentially reducing the bone's load carrying capacity (i.e., its mechanical strength). The aim of this study is to investigate the role of longitudinal bone curvature in the design of limb bones. In particular, it has been hypothesized that bone curvature results in a trade-off between the bone's mechanical strength and its bending predictability. We employed finite element analysis (FEA) of abstract and realistic human femora to address this issue. Geometrically simplified human femur models with different curvatures were developed and analyzed with a commercial FEA tool to examine how curvature affects the bone's bending predictability and load carrying capacity. Results were post-processed to yield probability density functions (PDFs) describing the circumferential location of maximum equivalent stress for various curvatures in order to assess bending predictability. To validate our findings, a finite element model was built from a CT scan of a real human femur and compared to the simplified femur model. We found general agreement in trends but some quantitative differences most likely due to the geometric differences between the digitally reconstructed and the simplified finite element models. As hypothesized by others, our results support the hypothesis that bone curvature can increase bending predictability, but at the expense of bone strength.
Theoretical study of linear Cn (n=6−10) and HCnH (n=2−10) molecules

The geometric and electronic structures and the total and binding (chemisorption) energies of linear Cn (n=6−10) and HCnH (n=2−10) molecules have been predicted via RHF ab initio calculations. For Cn clusters the bonding structures are predicted to be cumulene type, with n-even clusters having triplet ground states and n-odd species having singlet ground states. For HCnH molecules, the n-even species are predicted to have singlet ground states with polyyne-type bonding while the n-odd molecules are predicted to have triplet ground states with intermediate cumulene—polyyne-type bonding.
Wrestling With Online Learning Technologies: Blind Students' Struggle to Achieve Academic Success

This study examines the usability challenges and emotional reactions of blind college students in their attempts to access online educational materials and to communicate with colleagues through online technologies. A case study approach was adopted. Five students were interviewed regarding their online learning experiences using Blackboard, a popular Course Management System. Analysis of the interviews revealed that Blackboard was poorly accessible to the blind students, which affected achieving their academic goals. The study also showed that the blind students were motivated and optimistic of their successes despite their frustrations and feelings of marginalization. The study suggests that academic administrators and database designers work jointly with adaptive software developers in developing enhanced user interfaces to ensure universal access and usability of online technologies and to reduce educational inequities and frustrations encountered by blind students.
Targeting myeloid cells using nanoparticles to improve cancer immunotherapy

While nanoparticles have traditionally been used to deliver cytotoxic drugs directly to tumors to induce cancer cell death, emerging data suggest that nanoparticles are likely to generate a larger impact on oncology through the delivery of agents that can stimulate antitumor immunity. Tumor-targeted nanocarriers have generally been used to localize chemotherapeutics to tumors and thus decrease off-target toxicity while enhancing efficacy. Challengingly, tumor heterogeneity and evolution render tumor-intrinsic approaches likely to succumb to relapse. The immune system offers exquisite specificity, cytocidal potency, and long-term activity that leverage an adaptive memory response. For this reason, the ability to manipulate immune cell specificity and function would be desirable, and nanoparticles represent an exciting means by which to perform such manipulation. Dendritic cells and tumor-associated macrophages are cells of the myeloid lineage that function as natural phagocytes, so they naturally take up nanoparticles. Dendritic cells direct the specificity and potency of cellular immune responses that can be targeted for cancer vaccines. Herein, we discuss the specific criteria needed for efficient vaccine design, including but not limited to the route of administration, size, morphology, surface charge, targeting ligands, and nanoparticle composition. In contrast, tumor-associated macrophages are critical mediators of immunosuppression whose trans-migratory abilities can be exploited to localize therapeutics to the tumor core and which can be directly targeted for elimination or for repolarization to a tumor suppressive phenotype. It is likely that a combination of targeting dendritic cells to stimulate antitumor immunity and tumor-associated macrophages to reduce immune suppression will impart significant benefits and result in durable antitumor responses.
A unified switching theory with applications to VLSI design

Classical switching theory is shown to have deficiencies when applied to the analysis and design of MOS VLSI circuits. A new logic design methodology called CSA theory is described here which overcomes many of these deficiencies. It is based on three primitive component types: connectors that perform wired-logic operations, switches representing controlled connectors, and attenuators representing resistive load devices. Four basic types of logic values are recognized: Boolean 0 and 1 values, unknown or indeterminate U values, and the high-impedance state Z. The number of logic values can be increased systematically to improve modeling accuracy using a concept of logical strength, which corresponds to current drive capability in analog circuits. It is shown that both the behavior and layout of most types of MOS logic circuits, including contact, gate, and nonclassical mixed circuits, can be treated in a uniform and rigorous manner using CSA network models with either four or seven logic values. The use of a digital charge-storage element called a well to represent sequential behavior is examined. CSA theory is applied to two VLSI design issues, inverter synthesis and fault simulation.
The decline of immunological resistance of aging mice to Trypanosoma musculi

Aged mice of several strains studied developed much more severe infections of Trypanosoma musculi (mouse-specific parasite) than did young adults. Reduced resistance of the aged mice, assessed from the resistance conferred on irradiated recipients by transfer of normal and infected donor spleen cells, resulted from a much slower development of immunity to the parasite, reflecting depleted immune competence, and from the expression in aged mice of an altered internal milieu unfavorable for normal function of lymphoid cells. An analysis of antibody-dependent cytotoxic reactions against T. musculi revealed no differences; therefore, intrinsic changes in antibody-dependent cytotoxic effector cells are not responsible for the decline in resistance to trypanosomes. The possibility that quantitative or qualitative changes in humoral antibody production might account for defective resistance of aged mice was minimized by demonstrating that antibodies play a minor role in the recovery from infection with T. musculi. Evidence of a significant role (possibly indirect) of macrophages in resistance to T. musculi was obtained. Altogether, our data raise the possibility that the decline in natural killer activity that is susceptible to amplification by macrophage-derived interferon may account for the defective resistance of aged mice to trypanosomes.
Infected atrial myxoma presenting with septic shock.

A 36-year-old man presented to the hospital’s emergency room (ER) omplaining of worsening dyspnea on minimal exertion accompanied y fever, fatigue, malaise, nausea, and abdominal pain. He also reorted an episode of hemoptysis of a small amount of blood 1 week efore admission. The patient denied having chest pain, weight loss, ight sweats, syncope, or any focal neurologic symptoms. He had a nown history of hepatitis C associated with intravenous heroin abuse. amily and social history were noncontributory. There were no known rug allergies, and he denied taking any medications. The patient ppeared ill, jaundiced, cachectic, and tachypneic with a respiratory ate of 22 breaths/min. His blood pressure on presentation was 95/55 mHg, heart rate was 117 beats/min, and tympanic temperature was 8.5°C. Relevant findings on physical examination included jugular enous distention (8 cm) with positive hepatojugular reflux. Examinaion of the lungs revealed coarse bilateral breath sounds with inspiraory basal crackles. His heart rhythm was regular. There was III/VI ystolic murmur heard loudest at the lower right sternal border with a iastolic rumble heard loudest at the left lower sternal border, and a ight ventricular heave could be felt. Abdominal examination revealed soft and distended abdomen with no organomegaly. Extremities had ild bilateral pitting edema, and a neurologic examination was negaive. Electrocardiogram showed sinus tachycardia with an RSR= pattern in 1 and QRS duration of 100 ms suggestive of an incomplete right undle-branch block. A radiograph of the chest obtained in the supine osition showed bilateral atelectasis and pleural effusions. Hematoogic laboratory values revealed anemia (hemoglobin, 9 g/dL), leukoytosis (white blood cell count, 22,000/mm3), and a platelet count of 5,000/mm3. The prothrombin level was prolonged (18 seconds) with n international normalized ratio of 1.7, and the partial thromboplastin evel was also increased (36 seconds). Other laboratory workup was ignificant for elevated total bilirubin (5.4 mg/dL), low serum albumin 2g/dL), and elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase level (1,556 U/L). ltrasound examination of the abdomen revealed mild ascites with no rganomegaly. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed in the ER to rule out he presence of infective endocarditis. It revealed an enlarged right trium occupied by a large, mobile mass, which appeared to be attached o the interatrial septum. The mass measured about 7.5 cm in length.