cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Breast augmentation for transfeminine patients: methods, complications, and outcomes

Gender-affirming procedures are critical steps in helping transgender patients reach identity actualization and maximal quality of life. Although there are many techniques for gender-affirming care, surgical breast augmentation, or "top surgery," is often cited as the most important-and sometimes only-procedure sought by transfeminine patients. Unfortunately, years of individual and systemic prejudice placed barriers between transgender patients and the healthcare providers needed to affirm gender identity. Policy has recently begun to change as research proving the safety, need, and outcomes of breast augmentation in transfeminine patients dismantles long-established systemic inequalities. With this change, more patients are seeking knowledgeable and respectful providers who can address their unique gender-affirming needs. Overall, breast augmentation in transfeminine patients is technically similar to procedures performed in cisgender peers, but with significant considerations. The most common method of augmentation relies on breast implants, since removable prostheses, exogenous hormones, and fat grafting alone often produce unsatisfactory results. Special attention needs to be directed towards anatomic differences in transgender versus cisgender patients in order to achieve optimal size and position of the breast and nipple-areolar complex. Complications for transfeminine patients undergoing breast augmentation are rare, and complication rates are equivalent with cisgender peers who pursue similar procedures. Short- and long-term benefits to quality of life have been well-documented. The aim of this review is to give providers the technical knowledge concerning breast augmentation options, pre-surgical evaluation, post-surgical care, and special considerations in transfeminine patients so that provider and patient can have a successful, respectful partnership in reaching gender-affirming goals.
Fatal Transdermal Fentanyl Patch Overdose in a Child

A previously healthy, 3-year-old girl was brought into the emergency department by ambulance after being found unresponsive with a family member’s fentanyl patch found adherent to the child’s lower back. A head computed …
Aprocitentan (a Dual Endothelin-Receptor Antagonist) for Treatment-Resistant Hypertension.

ABSTRACT Treatment-resistant hypertension (TRH) is associated with increased cardiovascular risks and progression of chronic kidney disease. The pathophysiology of TRH is multifactorial, including overactivity of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and sympathetic nervous system, endothelial dysfunction, and volume overload. Endothelin-1 is a vasoconstrictive peptide that causes neurohormonal and sympathetic activation, increased aldosterone synthesis and secretion, endothelial dysfunction, vascular hypertrophy and remodeling, and fibrosis. Endothelin-1 acts through 2 receptors, ETA and ETB. Activation of ETA receptors in vascular smooth muscle cells results in vasoconstriction, whereas ETB receptor activation results in vasoconstriction in the vascular smooth muscle cells and vasodilation through nitric oxide release in endothelial cells. Aprocitentan is novel, oral, dual endothelin-receptor antagonist that has demonstrated a more favorable tolerability and safety profile in early clinical trials compared with other endothelin-receptor antagonists studied. Phase 2 trial data support a significant reduction in blood pressure compared to placebo and similar blood pressure reduction compared to a moderately dosed angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor in patients with essential hypertension. An ongoing phase 3 randomized clinical trial is evaluating aprocitentan's efficacy and safety in patients with TRH receiving multiple antihypertensives. Additional research is needed to determine aprocitentan's role in therapy, but this agent may be a suitable treatment option for TRH.
Trumpocalypse and the Historical Limits of Higher Education Policy: Making the Case for Study/Struggle:

This essay highlights the limits of liberal reform policies designed to increase access to higher education for minoritized and marginalized groups. First, we discuss Trump’s higher education agend...
Clinical outcomes of patients with multiple sclerosis treated with ocrelizumab in a US community MS center: an observational study.

Background To monitor long-term outcomes of ocrelizumab treatment. Objective To evaluate safety and treatment outcomes of ocrelizumab in a community-based multiple sclerosis (MS) population. Methods Adult patients with MS prescribed ocrelizumab were eligible. Chart reviews were conducted at the start of ocrelizumab treatment and every 6 months thereafter. Results Of the 355 patients enrolled, 71.9% were female; mean (SD) age was 51.8 (12.5) years; 78.3% had relapsing MS (RMS). Median baseline Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) (IQR) was 3.0 (2.0–4.0) for RMS, 6.5 (6.0–7.5) for secondary progressive MS, and 6.5 (6.0–7.0) for primary progressive MS. Respiratory infections occurred in 40.1% and urinary tract infections in 33.1% of patients. There was no difference in the percentage of infections among patients Conclusion Ocrelizumab effectively controlled relapse risk and disability worsening. Although only 12.1% of patients have discontinued ocrelizumab, infections resulting in hospitalisation are a concern, especially in older and disabled patients.
The Digitization of NDT Radiographs Using a Laser Scanner for Improved Productivity

To properly begin a discussion on the improvement of productivity using radiographs, we must define three terms. First, an NDT radiography is defined as the image of an object on an NDT x-ray film. Second, productivity is defined as the output of the system measured as a percent of effort or what comes out of a system as compared to what was put in. Third, a bottleneck or the limiting factor to productivity, is a facility, function or workstation where jobs arrive faster than they leave. Having defined these terms, we know that eliminating bottlenecks in the radiographic process should increase output and improve productivity. The bottlenecks that occur using radiographs are shown in Table 1.
Chapter 25 – Agriculturalism

Farming began in several regions of the globe at approximately the same time, suggesting an environmental rather than a sociocultural cause. The spread of agriculture was an exercise in niche construction, essentially transferring (modified) whole ecosystems from the source regions elsewhere. Crop domestication entailed significant morphological, but relatively little genetic, change, while humans took over the competitive, protective, and dispersal functions that wild plants must handle themselves. Dietary changes due to agriculture presumably have been great, and these changes produced an evolutionary mismatch, to which we have responded genetically, microbially, and/or culturally.
Assessing high-resolution analysis of surface heat fluxes in the Gulf Stream region

[1] A satellite-based global analysis of high-resolution (0.25°) ocean surface turbulent latent and sensible heat fluxes was developed by the objectively analyzed air-sea fluxes (OAFlux) project. Resolving air-sea flux down to the order to 0.25° is critical for the description of the air-sea interaction on mesoscale scales. In this study, we evaluate the high-resolution product in depicting air-sea exchange in the eddy-rich Gulf Stream region. Two approaches were used for evaluation, one is point-to-point validation based on six moored buoys in the region, and another is basin-scale analysis in terms of wave number spectra and probability density functions. An intercomparison is also carried out between OAFlux-0.25°, OAFlux-1°, and four atmospheric reanalyses. Results indicate that OAFlux-0.25° is able to depict sharp oceanic fronts and has the best performance among the six participating products in comparison with buoy measurements. The mean OAFlux-0.25° differences in latent and sensible heat flux with respect to the buoy are 7.6 Wm−2 (7.7%) with root-mean-square (RMS) difference of 44.9 Wm−2, and 0.0 Wm−2 with RMS difference of 19.4 Wm−2, respectively. Large differences are primarily due to mismatch in SST between gridded data and point measurements when strong spatial gradients are presented. The wave number spectra and decorrelation length scale analysis indicate OAFlux-0.25° depicts eddy variability much better than OAFlux-1° and the four reanalyses; however, its capability in detecting eddies with smaller scale still needs to be improved. Among the four reanalyses, CFSR stands out as the best in comparison with OAFlux-0.25°.
The Physics of Metallic Superlattices: An Experimental Point of View

Metallic multilayers offer an ideal test ground for many physical phenomena occurring at different length scales.1–2 For the purpose of these lectures it is convenient to categorize the physical phenomena under study as short (below ~ 50 A) and long (above ~ 50 A) length scales.3
Power-check: an energy-efficient checkpointing framework for HPC clusters

Checkpoint-restart is a predominantly used reactive fault-tolerance mechanism for applications running on HPC systems. While there are innumerable studies in literature that have analyzed, and optimized for, the performance and scalability of a variety of check pointing protocols, not much research has been done from an energy or power perspective. The limited number of studies conducted along this line have primarily analyzed and modeled power and energy usage during check pointing phases. Applications running on future exascale machines will be constrained by a power envelope, and it is not only important to understand the behavior of check pointing systems under such an envelope but to also adopt techniques that can leverage power capping capabilities exposed by the OS to achieve energy savings without forsaking performance. In this paper, we address the problem of marginal energy benefits with significant performance degradation due to naive application of power capping around check pointing phases by proposing a novel power-aware check pointing framework -- Power-Check. By use of data funnelling mechanisms and selective core power-capping, Power-Check makes efficient use of the I/O and CPU subsystem. Evaluations with application kernels show that Power-Check can yield as much as 48% reduction in the amount of energy consumed during a checkpoint, while improving the check pointing performance by 14%.
Chronic intestinal pseudoobstruction

Intestinal pseudoobstruction is a term that is used for a syndrome in which there are symptoms and signs of intestinal obstruction without concrete evidence for an actual lesion obstructing the intestinal lumen.’ The term is often modified to describe special cases, as in acute or transient intestinal pseudoobstruction and chronic or recurrent intestinal pseudoobstruction. This review will be limited mostly to the latter syndrome, chronic or recurrent intestinal pseudoobstruction. The acute syndrome seems to have been described mainly in the old and chronically i11,2-” in contrast to the chronic syndrome. In many cases, of course, the chronic or recurrent syndrome is also associated with other more familiar disease entities, and so the chronic syndrome may be considered to be a manifestation of some more generalized process. In other cases, though, the chronic syndrome occurs without such associations. Thus, the syndrome of chronic or recurrent intestinal pseudoobstruction may be thought of as primary or secondary. Because so little is known of the pathogenesis of the syndrome, it is, in either case, properly called idiopathic.
Lymphocyte reactivity contributes to protection conferred by specific antibody passively transferred to herpes simplex virus-infected mice.

Abstract Passively acquired immunity to herpes simplex virus (HSV) was studied in antithymocyte serum (ATS)-treated mice and athymic nude mice to determine whether immunocompetent lymphocytes contribute to the protection observed after transfer of HSV-specific antibody to infected animals. Mice were given three intraperitoneal injections of 0.1 ml of ATS at 24-h intervals. This treatment reduced concanavalin A and lipopolysaccharide stimulation of lymphocytes harvested from these animals by 90% when compared with the stimulation of lymphocytes harvested from untreated animals. It was found that intraperitoneal injection of 0.5 ml of specific antibody 8 h after corneal HSV type 1 infection or subcutaneous HSV type 2 infection did not protect ATS-treated animals from virus infection. Specific antibody passively transferred to ATS-treated animals 8 and 120 h postinfection also failed to protect lymphocyte-depleted animals from HSV. However, ATS-treated animals were protected from HSV infection by passively acquired antibody when lymphocytes harvested from these animals regained 80% of their ability to be stimulated with concanavalin A and lipopolysaccharide. It was also found that specific antibody conferred protection to nude mice infected with HSV only if they were first reconstituted with syngeneic thymus cells 48 h before infection. The results suggest that both antiviral antibody and thymus-derived lymphocytes contribute to the recovery of HSV-infected hosts after passive immunization.
Uptake of ( 3 H-methyl)choline by microsomal, synaptosomal, mitochondrial and synaptic vesicle fractions of rat brain. The effects of hemicholinium.

— Microsomal, mitochondrial, synaptosomal and synaptic vesicle fractions of rat brain took up [3H-methyl]choline by a similar carrier-mediated transport system. The apparent Km for the uptake of [3H-methyl]choline in these subcellular fractions was about 5 × 10−5 M. Choline uptake was also observed in microsomal fractions prepared from liver and skeletal muscle. Virtually identical kinetic properties for [3H-methyl]choline transport were found in the synaptosomal fractions prepared from the whole brain, cerebellum or basal ganglia. Countertransport of [3H-methyl]choline from the synaptosomal fraction was demonstrated against a concentration gradient. HC-3 was a competitive inhibitor of the uptake of [3H-methyl]choline in brain microsomal, synaptosomal and mitochondria] fractions with respective values for Ki of 4.0, 2.1 and 2.3 × 10−5 M. HC-15 was a competitive inhibitor of the transport of [3H-methyl]choline in the synaptosomal fraction, with a Ki of 1.7 × 10−4 M. Upon entry into the microsomal fraction, 74 per cent of the radioactivity could be recovered as unaltered choline, 10 per cent as phosphorylcholine, 1.5 per cent as acetylcholine and 2.5 per cent as phospholipid. Choline acetyltransferase (EC 2.3.1.6) was assayed with [14C]acetylCoA in synaptosomal fractions prepared from basal ganglia and cerebellum, and in the 31,000 g supernatant fraction of a rat brain homogenate. Enzyme activity was 11-fold greater in the synaptosomal fraction from the basal ganglia than in that from the cerebellum. HC-3 did not inhibit choline acetyltransferase and there was no evidence for acetylation of HC-3. Our findings suggest that choline uptake is a ubiquitous property of membranes in the CNS and cannot serve to distinguish cholinergic nerve endings and their synaptic vesicles.
Exact calculations of Tc from Eliashberg equation for simultaneous action of different channels of pairing

Abstract The critical temperature of superconductors is calculated for an arbitrary number of independent electron-electron interaction channels. Each channel is described by an appropriate dimensionless coupling constant, λ i , and a cutoff frequency, Ω i . The calculation is done using the Eliashberg equation in the weak limit (i.e. when the normalization constant Z ω ⋍1). Using the symmetry of the determinant, the exact value of its lowest eigenvalue, i.e. critical temperature, is found in the form of a continuous fraction. This result is in agreement with the well-known case for two channels. Its application to high- T c superconductors is discussed.
Tetrahedral Co-ordination of Nickel(II)

IN a recent communication1, Katzin has interpreted the appearance of blue colour in paramagnetic nickel(II) compounds as indicative of tetrahedral co-ordination. We have recently completed the determination of the crystal structure of Ni(en)2.(NCS)2 (Brown, B. W., and Lingafelter, E. C., unpublished work). This compound is blue and paramagnetic, but the co-ordination of the nickel ion is transoctahedral, with Ni—N distances of 2.10 A. to the ethylenediamine and 2.15 A. to the isothiocyanate. We are also investigating the crystal structure of Ni(en)(H2O)4(NO3)2, another blue paramagnetic compound. Although the study is still in the early stages and all atoms have not been located, the presence of a co-ordination octahedron about the nickel atom is already clear.
Perfect aggregation for a class of general reliability models with Bayesian updating

Abstract Aggregation is an important tool for handling complex problems, because it can reduce a large number of parameters in the original problem to a smaller number of aggregate parameters. Unfortunately, most aggregated problems yield results different from those of the original problems, a fact that is not widely recognized; in other words, perfect aggregation is usually not achieved. In this paper, we develop necessary and sufficient conditions for perfect aggregation in Bayesian estimation (i.e., consistency of Bayesian analyses performed at the system and component levels) for a class of frequently used reliability models. The conditions for perfect aggregation are shown to be extremely stringent. Also, some implications of these results are discussed. In particular, because perfect aggregation is very unlikely, analyzing data at the system level when component- or subsystem-level data are available can be misleading.
Tools for quality control of fingerprint databases

Integrity of fingerprint data is essential to biometric and forensic applications. Accordingly, the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division has sponsored development of software tools to facilitate quality control functions relative to maintaining its fingerprint data assets inherent to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and Next Generation Identification (NGI). This paper provides an introduction of two such tools. The first FBI-sponsored tool was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and examines and detects the spectral signature of the ridge-flow structure characteristic of friction ridge skin. The Spectral Image Validation/Verification (SIVV) utility differentiates fingerprints from non-fingerprints, including blank frames or segmentation failures erroneously included in data; provides a "first look" at image quality; and can identify anomalies in sample rates of scanned images. The SIVV utility might detect errors in individual 10-print fingerprints inaccurately segmented from the flat, multi-finger image acquired by one of the automated collection systems increasing in availability and usage. In such cases, the lost fingerprint can be recovered by re-segmentation from the now compressed multi-finger image record. The second FBI-sponsored tool, CropCoeff was developed by MITRE and thoroughly tested via NIST. CropCoeff enables cropping of the replacement single print directly from the compressed data file, thus avoiding decompression and recompression of images that might degrade fingerprint features necessary for matching.
Feed Intake and Performance in Calves Fed ad Libitum and Four Times Daily

Abstract Colostrum and milk replacer consumption was studied in Holstein and Hereford neonate calves. Average daily colostrum consumption during their first three days of life ranged from 9.0 to 21.7% of birth weight for the Holsteins and 4.9 to 16.4% for the Herefords. Average daily body weight gains ranged from 1.8 to 5.0% of birth weight for the Holsteins and 1.7 to 3.6% for the Herefords. An average of one kilogram of gain was produced from 4.56kg of colostrum for the Holsteins and 7.16kg for the Herefords. From three to 41 days of age, Holstein and Hereford calves were fed ad libitum on milk replacer rations containing 6.5 or 19.5% total solids using automatic calf feeders. Two additional groups of Holstein calves were fed either the 6.5 or 19.5% total solids ration to appetite at sis-hour intervals. Milk replacer consumption, body weight gain, consumption as percent body weight, and gain as percent of body weight were significantly different (P 0.05) in digestive tract weight measurements.
Disruption of Phosphatidylcholine Monolayers and Bilayers by Perfluorobutane Sulfonate

Perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) are persistent environmental contaminants resistant to biological and chemical degradation due to the presence of carbon–fluorine bonds. These compounds exhibit developmental toxicity in vitro and in vivo. The mechanisms of toxicity may involve partitioning into lipid bilayers. We investigated the interaction between perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS), an emerging PFAA, and model phosphatidylcholine (PC) lipid assemblies (i.e., dimyristoyl-, dipalmitoyl- and distearoylphosphatidylcholine) using fluorescence anisotropy and Langmuir monolayer techniques. PFBS decreased the transition temperature and transition width of PC bilayers. The apparent membrane partition coefficients ranged from 4.9 × 102 to 8.2 × 102. The effects on each PC were comparable. The limiting molecular area of PC monolayers increased, and the surface pressure at collapse decreased in a concentration-dependent manner. The compressibility of all three PCs was decreased by PFBS. In summary, PFBS disrupted differe...
Food insecurity is an ongoing national concern

Food insecurity is a leading public health challenge in the United States today. This is primarily due to the magnitude of the problem, ∼50 million persons are food insecure (i.e., they were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food because they had insufficient money or other resources), and the serious negative health and other outcomes associated with being food insecure. This paper defines the measure used to delineate whether a household is food insecure. The measure, the Core Food Security Module, is based on 18 questions about a household’s food situation. From the responses, a household is defined as food secure, low food secure, or very low food secure, with the latter 2 categories defined as “food insecure.” I next discuss the extent of food insecurity in the US across various dimensions and the key determinants of food insecurity. The key policy tool used to address food insecurity is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly known as the Food Stamp Program). During the current economic downturn, >40 million persons are enrolled in SNAP, with total benefits of >$70 billion. This makes it the largest food assistance program and the largest near-cash assistance program in the US. After defining the eligibility criteria, I review the literature, which has demonstrated the effectiveness of SNAP in addressing its key goal, namely the alleviation of food insecurity in the US. I conclude with 4 suggestions for how SNAP can maintain and even improve its effectiveness in alleviating food insecurity.
Necessary and sufficient condition for robust stability of linear distributed feedback systems

Considering linear time-invariant distributed feedback systems, a necessary and sufficient condition for robust stability is derived with respect to plant perturbations belonging to a specified ball. The conclusion is shown to exhibit design limitations imposed by plant uncertainties.
Patterns of change in religious service attendance across the life course: Evidence from a 34-year longitudinal study

Abstract Although a number of studies have uncovered evidence of age differences in religious involvement across the life course, there has been a lack of long-term longitudinal data to test the extent to which these differences are due to changes within individuals over time. This study tracks trajectories of change in religious service attendance using data collected longitudinally over the course of up to 34 years, between 1971 and 2005, and in ages ranging from 15 to 102. Piecewise growth curve modeling was used to examine changes in the patterns of age-related change in three distinct developmental periods: the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, middle adulthood, and older adulthood. Attendance showed an average pattern of quadratic decline in adolescence, stability in middle adulthood, and a quadratic pattern of more rapid increase followed by decrease over the course of older adulthood. These results suggest that developmental factors play a role in changing patterns of religious participation across the adult life course, and may account for some of the apparent differences between age groups.
Co-bedding versus single-bedding premature multiple-gestation infants in incubators.

Objective To compare the physiological stability and behavioral effects of co‐bedding with those of single‐bedding premature multiple‐gestation infants in incubators as well as the psychological effects on their parents. Design Prospective, randomized, repeated measure. Participants Convenience sample of 16 infants and 8 parents in the co‐bedded group, and 21 infants and 11 parents in the control group. Interventions Infants in the study group were co‐bedded in incubators. Main Outcome Measures Baseline and posttesting for parental state anxiety, maternal attachment, and parental satisfaction measures; infant sleep‐wake synchronicity; physiological measures; and stress cue measures during baseline and activity. Main Results Repeated measures 5 (time) × 2 (group) analysis of variance found significant differences in infant daily weight, feeding amount, and high‐activity heart rate. There was no difference in parental state anxiety, maternal attachment, and parental satisfaction scores by group, except for higher baseline parental satisfaction scores in the co‐bedded group. Conclusions This research demonstrated the safety of co‐bedding multiple‐gestation infants in incubators but did not find any significant clinical improvement in infant or parental outcomes with co‐bedding. Neonatal intensive‐care unit providers should educate staff and parents about the potential benefits of co‐bedding and consider developing policies and procedures for co‐bedding in both incubators and cribs. Co‐bedding of multiple‐gestation infants may be provided as an adjunctive developmental care strategy if parents desire this intervention.
Task performance and attributional communication as determinants of interpersonal attraction

Using attribution theory and interpersonal attraction literature as a framework, two hypotheses were examined in the present study. The first hypothesis predicted that persons who succeed at a task would tend to perceive their success as internally caused, while failure at a task would tend to be seen as externally caused. Hypothesis two predicted that persons receiving information consistent with their attributional tendency would be more attracted to the information source than would persons receiving attributional information inconsistent with their own attributional tendency. The attribution and attraction data obtained in the experiment supported the two hypotheses.
Critical Issues Underlying Research and Intervention with Families of Young Handicapped Children

Although family involvement is a fundamental premise of early intervention, effective implementation has been hampered by a number of critical needs: (1) the need for a defensible rationale for family involvement, consistent with both research and practice, (2) the need for caution in defining desired family outcomes, (3) the need to view families from a developmental perspective, (4) the need to view families within ecological contexts, (5) the need to account for variability in family composition or structure, and (6) the need for an adequate system for assessing family needs. In this article each need is elucidated, research pertinent to each is reviewed, and the implications of each for researchers and practitioners are discussed.
Constitutive heterochromatin patterns of G-group chromosomes in Down's syndrome.

2 male patients with G-trisomic Down's syndrome, were studied for constitutive heterochromatin pattern by the technique of Arrighi and Hsu (1971). 2 G-chromosomes were found to have heterochromatin distributed around the centromeric areas and the remaining 3 were free of such localized heterochromatin blocks; the extra G-chromosome belonging to the non-localized heterochromatin members.
Identification and Possible Localization of cGMP-Dependent Protein Kinase in Bovine Aortic Endothelial Cells

Endothelial-derived nitric oxide (NO) is an important intercellular messenger. Although endothelial cells contain both nitric oxide synthase and soluble guanylate cyclase, the nature of receptor proteins for cGMP is uncertain. Based on previous work in vascular smooth muscle cells which indicates that the cGMP-dependent protein kinase (cGK) is partially associated with the cytoskeleton, we determined that cGK was present in non-cytosolic fractions of endothelial cells. The data reveal that cGK is found only in Triton-soluble extracts of particulate fractions from bovine aortic endothelial cells and provide the first evidence for the existence of cGK in this cell type based on immunoreactivity, immunofluorescence microscopy and phosphotransferase activity. The limited distribution of endothelial cell cGK may explain why this kinase has not been heretofore identified in endothelial cells.
Approximate Spectral Factorizations in Distributed Model Matching

An algorithm for performing spectral factorizations encountered in distributed model matching is presented. The convergence of the algorithm to the minimal achievable model matching error is established.
Effects of ionophores A23187 and X537A on brain calcium, catecholamines and excitability.

Abstract The ionophores A23187 and X537A inhibit 45 Ca uptake by rabbit brain mitochondria and synaptosomes and also stimulate the release of accumulated 45 Ca from these preparations, but have no effect on 45 Ca binding by synaptic membranes or on total brain Ca in mice. Both agents inhibit uptake and stimulate release of 3 H-norepinephrine by rabbit P 2 synaptosomal preparations, while the NE and serotonin levels of mouse brain are depressed by X537A. The changes in Ca activities may be related both to the elevated thresholds for cortical after-discharge produced in cats by these ionophores, and to the ionophore induced reduction of pentylenetetrazol seizures in mice.
The Academic Bookshelf

Taking Our Own Advice: Team Teaching Teaching Alone, Teaching Together: Transforming the Structure of Teams for Teaching by James L. Bess and Associates Jossey-Bass
PEEC based parasitic modeling for power analysis on custom rotary rings

Resonant rotary clocking is a low power-high speed clock distribution technology for the modern VLSI circuits. Alternative topological implementations of rotary clocking with non-regular custom rings have been proposed in literature. In this paper, the impact of parasitics of the non-regular topo-logical geometries on the rotary operating characteristics is presented. In particular, partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) analysis is used to show that the corner geometry in a custom ring increases the mutual inductance approximately by 80%. Also, SPICE simulations are performed where the parasitics due to the topological factors are incorporated for an 8% increased accuracy in simulation. Further, the power dissipation on the rotary ring is analyzed with varying number of corners. When tested with the IBM R1-R5 benchmark circuits, the total power dissipated on a custom ring (corners between 4 and 12) is within ±5% of the total power dissipated on a regular ring(4 corners).
Adenosine regulates bone metabolism via A1, A2A, and A2B receptors in bone marrow cells from normal humans and patients with multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma (MM) is characterized by osteolytic bone lesions with uncoupled bone remodeling. In this study, we examined the effects of adenosine and its receptors (A1R, A2AR, A2BR, and A3R) on osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation of cells derived from patients with MM and healthy control subjects. Mesenchymal stem cells and bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells were isolated from bone marrow and differentiated into osteoblasts and osteoclasts, respectively. A1R antagonist rolofylline and A2BR agonist BAY60-6583 inhibit osteoclast differentiation of cells from patients with MM in a dose-dependent manner, as shown by TRAP staining (IC50: 10 and ∼10 nM, respectively). BAY60-6583 and dipyridamole, a nucleoside transport inhibitor, stimulate osteoblast differentiation of cells from patients with MM, as measured by ALP activity at d 14 and Alizarin Red staining at d 21 (by 1.57±0.03- and 1.71±0.45-fold, respectively), which can be blocked by A2BR antagonist MRS1754. Consistently, real-time PCR showed a significant increase of mRNA of osteocalcin and osterix at d 14. The effect of adenosine and its receptors is consistent in patients with MM and healthy subjects, suggesting an intrinsic mechanism that is important in both MM bone metabolism and normal physiology. Furthermore, the effect of dipyridamole on osteoblast differentiation is diminished in both A2BR- and CD39-knockout mice. These results indicate that adenosine receptors may be useful targets for the treatment of MM-induced bone disease.
A Diagnostic Study of the Vorticity Balance at 200 mb in the Tropics During the Northern Summer.

Abstract The linearized vorticity equation is used to diagnose the seasonal mean vorticity field at 200 mb in the tropics from Krishnamurti's observed mean horizontal divergence and mean zonal wind fields for June–August 1967. The generation of vorticity by the seasonal mean divergence cannot be balanced by vorticity advection. It is found, rather, that very rapid damping of the vorticity must be specified to obtain agreement with the observed vorticity field. It is conjectured that vertical transport of vorticity by cumulus convection is the mechanism responsible for the short decay time for the 200-mb vorticity field.
A Broadened Horizon: The Value of International Social Work Internships

Globalization demands that social work educators initiate educational programs that promote understanding of global problems and country‐specific interventions to address transnational problems. Moreover, the global movement of peoples means that social workers must be increasingly adept at working with different cultural groups. This paper outlines an international social work internship jointly sponsored by San Diego State University and Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. The internship program sought to expose students to social work and social welfare practices different than those in the United States and to the impact of problems such as AIDS and child abuse in a different culture. Moreover, the internship program focused on cultural learning and promoted the development of ethnorelativism, a perspective that incorporates another culture's world view. The paper outlines the creation of the internships, student activities and learning, and skills gained.
Parents as moderators of psychological and physiological correlates of inner-city children's exposure to violence

This paper discusses the psychological and physiological correlates of inner-city violence on children, and the potential mediating and moderating roles of parents. Data are based on interviews regarding exposure to community violence (ECV), parenting practices, child distress, posttraumatic symptomology, and competence. Cardiovascular activation was also measured. Community violence exposure related to distress, posttraumatic symptomology, and incompetence. Harsh parenting related to aggression, distress, incompetence, and higher heart rates. Parenting moderated but did not mediate the effects of violence on measures of competence. High violence plus harsh parenting predicted lower levels of systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Results are discussed within an ecological framework of parent-child relations and as they relate to the conclusion that children undergoing dual levels of stress may experience a dissociative response.
Epidemiology and global impact of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Summary Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a preventable and treatable disease that causes a large health and economic burden both in the US and around the world. Most of the risk factors for COPD are well known. These include smoking, occupational exposures to toxins and irritants, ambient air pollution, airway hyper-responsiveness, asthma, and genetic factors. Major medical organizations have agreed on a common definition of COPD, although newer measures, such as functional status or exercise capability, have emerged as important in determining the prognosis of COPD patients. In most of the world, COPD prevalence and mortality continue to increase.
Innovative Computational Methods for Transcriptomic Data Analysis: A Case Study in the Use of FPT for Practical Algorithm Design and Implementation

Tools of molecular biology and the evolving tools of genomics can now be exploited to study the genetic regulatory mechanisms that control cellular responses to a wide variety of stimuli. These responses are highly complex, and involve many genes and gene products. The main objectives of this paper are to describe a novel research program centered on understanding these responses by i.developing powerful graph algorithms that exploit the innovative principles of fixed parameter tractability in order to generate distilled gene sets; ii.producing scalable, high performance parallel and distributed implementations of these algorithms utilizing cutting-edge computing platforms and auxiliary resources; iii.employing these implementations to identify gene sets suggestive of co-regulation; and iv.performing sequence analysis and genomic data mining to examine, winnow and highlight the most promising gene sets for more detailed investigation. As a case study, we describe our work aimed at elucidating genetic regulatory mechanisms that control cellular responses to low-dose ionizing radiation (IR). A low-dose exposure, as defined here, is an exposure of at most 10 cGy (rads). While the consequences of high doses of radiation are well known, the net outcome of low-dose exposures continues to be debated, with support in the literature for both detrimental and beneficialmore » effects. We use genome-scale gene expression data collected in response to low-dose IR exposure in vivo to identify the pathways that are activated or repressed as a tissue responds to the radiation insult. The driving motivation is that knowledge of these pathways will help clarify and interpret physiological responses to IR, which will advance our understanding of the health consequences of low-dose radiation exposures.« less
Sex identification assay useful in great apes is not diagnostic in a range of other primate species

The ability to identify the sex of individuals from noninvasive samples can be a powerful tool for field studies. Amelogenin, a nuclear gene proximate to the pseudoautosomal region of mammalian sex chromosomes, has a 6 base-pair (bp) size difference between human X and Y chromosomes that can be PCR-amplified and sized to distinguish male from female DNA. We examined whether this test can be used to identify sex from different DNA sources across a number of nonhuman primate taxa. Using human amelogenin primers, we were able to amplify diagnostic products from the four great ape species tested, but products from five other primate species were not sexually dimorphic.
Long-term prognosis of patients with psychogenic movement disorders.

Abstract Psychogenic movement disorders (PMD) are hyper- or hypokinetic movement disorders associated with underlying psychological or psychiatric disorders. Structured telephone interview was administered to 228 patients with PMD seen in our clinic between 1990 and 2003. The mean age of the subjects was 42.3±14.3 years (range 14–70 years), mean duration of symptoms was 4.7±8.1 years (range 2–14 years), and mean duration of follow-up was 3.4±2.8 years (6 months–12 years). Improvement of symptoms was noted in 56.6% patients; while 22.1% were worse, and 21.3% remained the same at the time of follow-up. In this longitudinal study of patients with PMD we found that indices of strong physical health, positive social life perceptions, patient's perception of effective treatment by the physician, elimination of stressors, and treatment with a specific medication contributed to a favorable outcome.
Selectivity of polyamine involvement in hormone action on normal and neoplastic target tissues of the rat.

The present experiments were designed to evaluate the polyamine involvement in hormonal actions on proliferation and receptor content of neoplastic tissue (hormone-responsive breast cancer) as well as on growth of normal endocrine target tissue (uterus) in the same animals. Administration of estradiol and perphenazine (to stimulate endogenous prolactin release) stimulated N-nitrosomethyl-urea (NMU)-induced rat mammary tumor growth following ovariectomy-induced tumor regression. Such hormonal activation of breast cancer growth was completely abolished by treatment with α-difluoromethyl-ornithine (DFMO), a specific irreversible inhibitor of ornithine decarboxylase, which lowered tumor content of polyamines. The growth inhibitory effect of DFMO was partially reversible by exogenous putrescine administration. In contrast, the rise in cytosolic content of progesterone receptors induced by hormonal treatment was not affected by suppression of tumor polyamine levels by DFMO. Similarly, DFMO administration failed to influence the hormone-induced increase in uterine weight in the same animals. Thus, our data suggest selectivity of polyamine involvement in hormone actions, which, in our experimental system, seems to be restricted to the endocrine control of neoplastic cell proliferation.
Density gradients and the expansion–shrinkage transition during sintering

Abstract Links between density gradients, internal microstructure and in situ sintering shrinkage in compacts formed from spray-dried alumina powder are established using a laser dilatometer and X-ray computed tomography (CT). All samples initially have the same overall density but different internal structures. An expansion–shrinkage transition occurs between 1000 and 1100 °C. Forming conditions appear to play a role: the samples compacted at 25% RH (Relative Humidity) shrank more rapidly than those compacted at 98% RH below 1300 °C; above 1300 °C, however, the specimen formed at 98% RH shrank more rapidly. CT examination following sintering showed both preservation and exaggeration of the original density gradients. Microstructural connectivity apparently contributes to both the observed macroscopic expansion and the onset of shrinkage. Discrete element modeling clearly suggests that the effective `transmission' of particle-level behavior to the macroscopic level is controlled both by internal agglomerate density and initial agglomerate bonding.
Errata: Complete fuzzy topological hyperfields and fuzzy multiplication in the fuzzy real lines

Abstract We construct a fuzzy multiplication for the case L a chain in the L-fuzzy real line R (L) which is jointly fuzzy continuous and which is the unique, piecewise consistent extension of ordinary multiplication to R (L) distributing over the fuzzy addition constructed by the author in [47]; we also specify the fuzzy integers and give an extensive analysis of fuzzy contractions and expansions. These results, the constructions of this paper, and the results of [47] are used to prove R (L) and the stratified R c(L) are nontopologically isomorphic complete fuzzy topological hyperfields if L is a chain with |L|⩾3. We can now completely answer for L a chain the following question of [27] in the affirmative: can a set of fuzzy numbers, its fuzzy topology, and its fuzzy addition and multiplication be defined such that these operations are jointly fuzzy continuous extensions of the usual addition and multiplication of R and can we specify the fuzzy integers? These results, in combination with recent papers of several authors, would seem to answer in the affirmative the following philosophical question (cf. [34]): does fuzzy topology have deep, specific, canonical examples?
Noninformative priors for inferences in exponential regression models

SUMMARY In the exponential regression model, inference concerning the regression parameter is notoriously difficult, even when using the Bayesian noninformative prior approach. The reference prior approach (Bernardo, 1979; Berger & Bernardo, 1989) is considered, and argued to yield very satisfactory inferences. Estimation and credible sets are considered in a specific example.
Gromov–Witten invariants of $\mathbb{P}^2$-stacks

The Gromov–Witten theory of Deligne–Mumford stacks is a recent development, and hardly any computations have been done beyond three-point genus 0 invariants. This paper provides explicit recursions which, together with some invariants computed by hand, determine all genus 0 invariants of the stack $\mathbb{P}^2_{D,2}$ . Here $D$ is a smooth plane curve and $\mathbb{P}^2_{D,2}$ is locally isomorphic to the stack quotient $[U/(\mathbb{Z}/(2))]$ , where $U\to V\subseteq \mathbb{P}^2$ is a double cover branched along $D\cap V$ . The introduction discusses an enumerative application of these invariants.
NEON ground validation capabilities for airborne and space-based imagers

Airborne remote sensing measurements provide the capability to quantitatively measure biochemical and biophysical properties of vegetation at regional scales, therefore complementing surface and satellite measurements. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will build three airborne systems to allow for routine coverage of NEON sites (60 sites nationally) and the capacity to respond to investigator requests for specific projects. Each airborne system will consist of an imaging spectrometer, waveform lidar and high-resolution digital camera. Remote sensing data gathered with this instrumentation needs to be quantitative and accurate in order to derive meaningful information about ecosystem properties and processes. Also, comprehensive and long-term ecological studies require these data to be comparable over time, between coexisting sensors and between generations of follow-on sensors. NEON's calibration plan for the airborne instrument suite relies on intensive laboratory, on-board, ground-based characterization as well as inter-sensor comparisons. As part of these efforts, NEON organized a pathfinder mission in September 2010 to test prototype techniques and procedures for field sampling and sensor validation. Imaging spectroscopy data from AVIRIS and waveform lidar data were acquired in addition to ecological field sampling at the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station near Gainesville, Florida. This paper presents NEON's capabilities for validation of at-sensor radiance of airborne and space-based sensors and shows results from the September 2010 pathfinder mission.