cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Integration and study of hardware in the loop diesel generator with a hybrid energy storage module for naval applications

The US Navy is presently developing a number of new advanced electrical loads for deployment upon future vessels. Many of these loads will require high power supplied in a transient manner for successful operation. The transient nature brings about unique challenges to the shipboard power system that have not been previously faced. Traditional power generation sources alone, such as diesel and gas powered engine/generators, will likely not be sufficient to meet these demands and still maintain the power quality requirements required for deployment. To overcome these challenges, distributed generation sources, such as electrochemical energy storage systems for example, may be required to augment the traditional generation. Active control and monitoring will be critical in maximizing the power and energy capabilities of each distributed source. An energy storage system that utilizes multiple storage technologies is typically referred to as a Hybrid Energy Storage Module (HESM). It has been previously shown that both active and passive HESM topologies, utilizing power dense ultra-capacitors and energy dense lithium-ion batteries, can be very beneficial in meeting the power and energy requirements of transiently operated loads. It has also been shown that integration of a HESM with a gasoline generator can improve the generator's power quality, keeping it within the bounds of MIL-STD-1399B when high power transient loads are sourced. In order to evaluate the integration of a HESM with a more representative Navy power source, hardware in the loop (HIL) modeling is being integrated with an existing HESM to replace the gasoline generator with a diesel engine — generator. This paper will discuss the HESM constructed, the HIL engine — generator model, and the results obtained when the two are integrated to source high power transient loads.
Quando a cor é um problema: reação ao pigmento vermelho de tatuagem. Um relato de caso

The body art, including the tattoo, is a rising popular practice in the contemporary world. Though the growing interest in this practice, one should be aware of this technique’s risks. This article reports a case of a 35 year old man, with no relevant prior diseases, who schedules an appointment with an exuberant pruritic inflammatory reaction in the anterior forearm of the left upper limb, 48h after tattooing the same area. At physical examination, there was a wide exudative erythematous surface restricted to the red pigment area of the tattoo and skin integrity on other colors areas. A scheme of antibiotic therapy and wound care was instituted, with infection resolution but with lichenified texture restricted to the red pigment color area. An oral and topical corticosteroid regimen was performed with improvement of the condition. Comment: there are various complications described in response to tattoos. The pigment reaction is one of the many. The evolution of the skin’s reaction to the tattoo’s ink can be variable and it can manifest in days, weeks or years. The red paint compounds are the most implicated in these kind of reactions. This case emphasizes the importance of general population/health professionals knowledge of the potential complications of this practice as well as the kind and origin of the ink pigments used to make it.
A missing chain? On the sociolinguistics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

A missing chain? On the sociolinguistics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania The article critically assesses the theory of communicative networks and its applicability in the study of multilingualism as found in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). The author analyzes foundations for postulating the existence of a speech community in the GDL and adduces counterarguments against viewing this community as a linguistic alliance of the Balkan type. The article offers new sociolinguistic and areal-typological methods of the study of language contacts. The author substantiates a systematic approach toward the problem of the ethnic attribution of Ruthenian. Based on the literary, linguistic, and cultural parameters, the author offers to drop the term ‘Old (Middle) Belarusian’ or ‘Old (Middle) Ukrainian’ in reference to this language. Brakujące ogniwo? Wielkie Ksiestwo Litewskie w świetle socjolingwistyki W artykule poddano krytycznej analizie teorie sieci komunikacyjnych i jej zastosowanie w badaniach nad wielojezycznością na terenie Wielkiego Ksiestwa Litewskiego (dalej WKL). Autor rozpatruje podstawy zarowno postulowania istnienia wspolnoty jezykowej w WKL, jak i kontrargumenty przemawiające przeciwko postrzeganiu tej wspolnoty jako sojuszu jezykowego na wzor balkanski. Artykul podaje nowe metody socjolingwistyczne i przestrzenno-typologiczne w badaniach kontaktu jezykow. Autor uzasadnia systemiczne podejście do zagadnienia etnicznej atrybucji jezyka rusinskiego. Na podstawie wskazan literaturoznawczych, jezykoznawczych i kulturowych postuluje zaniechanie poslugiwania sie w odniesieniu do tego jezyka terminami ‘staro-(średnio-) bialoruski’ lub ‘staro-(średnio-)ukrainski’.
Residential Mobility Across Early Childhood and Children’s Kindergarten Readiness

Understanding residential mobility in early childhood is important for contextualizing family, school, and neighborhood influences on child well-being. We examined the consequences of residential mobility for socioemotional and cognitive kindergarten readiness using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, a nationally representative longitudinal survey that followed U.S. children born in 2001 from infancy to kindergarten. We described individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics associated with residential mobility for children aged 0–5. Our residential mobility indicators examined frequency of moves, nonlinearities in move frequency, quality of moves, comparisons between moving houses and moving neighborhoods, and heterogeneity in the consequences of residential mobility. Nearly three-quarters of children moved by kindergarten start. Mobility did not predict cognitive scores. More moves, particularly at relatively high frequencies, predicted lower kindergarten behavior scores. Moves from socioeconomically advantaged to disadvantaged neighborhoods were especially problematic, whereas moves within a ZIP code were not. The implications of moves were similar across socioeconomic status. The behavior findings largely support an instability perspective that highlights potential disruptions from frequent or problematic moves. Our study contributes to literature emphasizing the importance of contextualizing residential mobility. The high prevalence and distinct implications of early childhood moves support the need for further research.
Publication outlets for healthcare financial research: A study of journal quality perceptions

Publications in high quality journals often serve to indicate research productivity. However, many top‐rated journals infrequently publish cross‐disciplinary topics such as healthcare financial management (HFM). So, academic administrators and HFM researchers find it challenging to evaluate the quality of the work. Journals open to publishing HFM articles are distributed across multiple disciplines. Each field has its own journal rankings typically focused on their primary subject area. Starting with prior literature, we form a cross‐disciplinary journal list and solicit preliminary input from editors, associated editors, reviewers, and authors. We then solicit confirmatory ranking input from independent researchers in a holdout sample.
Some Methods for Dynamic Analysis of Constrained Mechanical Systems: A Survey

Three algorithms are presented for dynamic analysis of constrained mechanical systems. The first algorithm integrates the differential equations of motion without any consideration for constraint violation. The other two algorithms consider the violation of the kinematic constraints and correct the violation in two different ways. A brief comparison between these algorithms is also provided.
Carcinogenic Potencies and Establishment of a Threshold of Regulation for Food Contact Substances

This chapter presents a compilation of data on carcinogenic potencies in the form of a probability distribution and describes how, in this form, the data could be used as a scientific foundation for making regulatory judgments about the potential risk from substances that migrate to food from packaging and other materials that come into contact with food. The idea of establishing a threshold of regulation based on the concept of a de minimis level of migration of potentially carcinogenic substances into food is discussed as a possible regulatory approach that could use the type of data presented. The discussion does not represent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy, however, and it does not address the possible use by FDA of a de minimis risk approach to determining the status of certain color additives currently being evaluated by the agency.
Scintigraphy of Adrenal Disorders

Since the introduction of radioactive 131I and the success achieved in imaging of the thyroid there has been great interest in the development of agents for localization of other endocrine glands. The scintigraphic imaging of the adrenal glands spans an almost 4 decade interval during which high resolution computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and sensitive hormone analyses have been developed and are now often taken for granted in our modern, medical imaging environment. Despite their advancing age and relative lack of high spatial resolution, even the oldest adrenal scintigraphic techniques continue to provide clinically useful information that is often complimentary, unique and not duplicated by other more contemporary, high resolution, imaging techniques.
Spindle and histiocytoid (epithelioid) hemangioendothelioma. Primary in lymph node.

A 52-year-old woman presented with a solid spindle cell primary tumor of the lymph node. On light microscopic examination, mitoses and cellular atypia were absent. Electron-microscopic studies showed endothelial cell differentiation. Intracytoplasmic localization of Factor VIII–related antigen was demonstrated by the immunoperoxidase method, which confirmed the endothelial origin of the tumor. Seven-and-a-half years after the resection of this tumor, the patient is alive with no evidence of disease.
Electrophysiologic and Clinical Aspects of Glucocorticoids on Certain Neural Systems

This review considers the premise that certain neural effects of exogenously administered glucocorticoids arise from direct, non-receptor-mediated actions. It is emphasized that these effects are not regarded as alternatives to the well-documented actions mediated via cytoplasmic receptors and nuclear actions (see chapters by McEwen and Bohus); rather, these effects are considered in addition to classic mechanism. In a concluding section, data are presented to support the concept that these glucocorticoid effects result from a direct action on susceptible membranes. The evidence discussed suggests that particular actions of exogenously administrated glucocorticoids, especially with repeated high dosage, cause changes in the electrical excitability of certain susceptible neuronal structures and systems. These actions undoubtedly occur pari passu with the well-known cytoplasmic and nuclear events of these steroid hormones.
Locating Atrial Fibrillation Rotor and Focal Sources Using Iterative Navigation of Multipole Diagnostic Catheters.

Purpose Multi-polar diagnostic catheters are used to construct the 3D electro-anatomic mapping of the atrium during atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation procedures; however, it remains unclear how to use the electrograms recorded by these catheters to locate AF-driving sites known as focal and rotor source types. The purpose of this study is to present the first algorithm to iteratively navigate a circular multi-polar catheter to locate AF focal and rotor sources without the need to map the entire atria.
Enhancing pain assessment in pediatric sickle cell disease by applying quality improvement science

Objective Standardized pain assessment and interventions are recommended for youth hospitalized for pain. This quality improvement (QI) project integrated into a pediatric psychology service aimed to increase the standardized assessment of pain-related functional ability for youth with sickle cell disease (SCD) hospitalized for pain. Methods Children and adolescents (n=102) with SCD referred for psychology consultation for poor coping in response to pain during hospitalization completed a validated self-report of functional ability in addition to pain intensity during inpatient psychology visits. At the time of the quality initiative, routine and standardized assessment of pain-related functional ability was not integrated into standard clinical care. Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles determined the feasibility and addressed common barriers of routine assessment and documentation of pain-related functional ability among youth with SCD during inpatient psychology visits with the primary goal to increase assessment of functional ability to at least 85% among patients with SCD referred for pediatric psychology consultation to address pain management within 1 year. Results Through iterative PDSA cycles, routine assessment of pain-related functional ability during psychology visits increased to an average of 93% over the course of 12 months. Routine, standardized assessment of functional ability was considered feasible within a pediatric psychology service. Conclusions/Lessons Learned This project supported the feasibility of integrating standardized assessment of functional ability to enhance pain assessment for youth hospitalized for SCD pain as part of routine clinical care in a multidisciplinary setting regardless of psychology referral.
Synthesis of 2′,3′-dideoxy-3′-methylene pyrimine nucleosides as potential anti-aids agents

Abstract Efficient synthesis of 2′,3′-dideoxy-3′-methylene nucleoside analogs starting from 2′-deoxy-3′-keto-nucleosides is described.
Plasma Mitochondrial DNA Levels Are Associated With ARDS in Trauma and Sepsis Patients

Background Critically ill patients who develop ARDS have substantial associated morbidity and mortality. Circulating mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) released during critical illness causes endothelial dysfunction and lung injury in experimental models. This study hypothesized that elevated plasma mtDNA is associated with ARDS in critically ill patients with trauma and sepsis. Methods Plasma mtDNA concentrations were measured at ED presentation and approximately 48 h later in separate prospective cohorts of critically ill patients with trauma and sepsis. ARDS was classified according to the Berlin definition. The association of mtDNA with ARDS was tested by using multivariable logistic regression, adjusted for covariates previously shown to contribute to ARDS risk in each population. Results ARDS developed in 41 of 224 (18%) trauma patients and in 45 of 120 (38%) patients with sepsis. Forty-eight-hour mtDNA levels were significantly associated with ARDS (trauma: OR, 1.58/log copies/μL; 95% CI, 1.14-2.19 [P = .006]; sepsis: OR, 1.52/log copies/μL; 95% CI, 1.12-2.06 [P = .007]). Plasma mtDNA on presentation was not significantly associated with ARDS in either cohort. In patients with sepsis, 48-h mtDNA was more strongly associated with ARDS among those with a nonpulmonary infectious source (OR, 2.20/log copies/μL; 95% CI, 1.36-3.55 [P = .001], n = 69) than those with a pulmonary source (OR, 1.04/log copies/μL; 95% CI, 0.68-1.59 [P = .84], n = 51; P = .014 for interaction). Conclusions Plasma mtDNA levels were associated with incident ARDS in two critical illness populations. Given supportive preclinical data, our findings suggest a potential link between circulating mtDNA and lung injury and merit further investigation as a potentially targetable mediator of ARDS.
The Clinician Affective Reactivity Index: Validity and Reliability of a Clinician-Rated Assessment of Irritability.

Abstract Irritability is impairing in youth and is the core feature of disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD). Currently, there are no established clinician-rated instruments to assess irritability in pediatric research and clinical settings. Clinician-rated measures ensure consistency of assessment across patients and are important specifically for treatment research. Here, we present data on the psychometric properties of the Clinician Affective Reactivity Index (CL-ARI), the first semistructured interview focused on pediatric irritability. The CL-ARI was administered to a transdiagnostic sample of 98 youth (M age = 12.66, SD = 2.47; 41% female). With respect to convergent validity, CL-ARI scores were (a) significantly higher for youth with DMDD than for any other diagnostic group, and (b) showed uniquely strong associations with other clinician-, parent-, and youth-report measures of irritability compared to measures of related constructs, such as anxiety. The three subscales of the CL-ARI (temper outbursts, irritable mood, impairment) showed excellent internal consistency. Test-retest reliability of the CL-ARI was adequate. These data support that irritability can be feasibly, validly, and reliably assessed by clinicians using the CL-ARI. A validated, gold-standard assessment of pediatric irritability is critical in advancing research and treatment efforts.
A Computerized Study of Golgi-Impregnated Axons in Rat Visual Cortex

In this chapter, we report preliminary results of a study on the structure of axons from pyramidal cells in the visual cortex (area 17) of albino rats. Measurements were taken with the video digitizer described in Chapter 3 of this volume. This instrument can be used to record spatial information on neuronal structure from a variety of tissue preparations displayed under a light microscope, but is most suited to the measurement of fiber trees as they appear in rapid Golgi or Golgi-Cox preparations.
Experimental validation and refinement of mixture optimization for a mixed gas Joule-Thomson cycle

An initial prototype of a mixed gas Joule-Thomson (JT) cryocooler was constructed and installed in a test facility to experimentally validate and refine a computational tool developed to optimize the gas mixture composition for a Joule-Thomson cycle with specific operating parameters. The mixture optimization model determines an optimal three-component mixture based on the analysis of the maximum value of the minimum isothermal enthalpy change, ΔhT , that occurs over the operating temperature range coupled with an evaluation of the percent of the heat exchanger that exists in a two-phase state within that range. The heat exchanger performance model has been refined and expanded to determine both the steady-state and transient operation of the system. The initial prototype of the JT cryocooler was installed in a test facility capable of providing and measuring a range of gas composition, molar flow rates, and pressures. The JT cryocooler has been operated while charged with several gas mixtures over a range of operating pressures. The pressure drop and temperature at the outlet of the JT valve were compared to the expected values based on the mixture optimization model. Results were used to refine the model, particularly the heat exchanger performance model, and gain confidence in its ability to steer future experimental iterations. A second prototype of decreased size with increased heat exchanger conductance, minimized parasitic heat loss and improved instrumentation is being developed to further investigate optimal mixture selection, particularly in the 120-150K cold head temperature range.
Pilot Observational Study to Detect Diurnal Variation and Misalignment in Heart Rate Among Critically Ill Patients

Circadian disruption is common in critically ill patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Understanding and treating circadian disruption in critical illness has significant potential to improve critical illness outcomes through improved cognitive, immune, cardiovascular, and metabolic function. Measurement of circadian alignment (i.e., circadian phase) can be resource-intensive as it requires frequent blood or urine sampling over 24 or more hours. Less cumbersome methods of assessing circadian alignment would advance investigations in this field. Thus, the objective of this study is to examine the feasibility of using continuous telemetry to assess diurnal variation in heart rate (HR) among medical ICU patients as a proxy for circadian alignment. In exploratory analyses, we tested for associations between misalignment of diurnal variation in HR and death during hospital admission. This was a prospective observational cohort study embedded within a prospective medical ICU biorepository. HR data were continuously collected (every 5 s) via telemetry systems for the duration of the medical ICU admission; the first 24 h of this data was analyzed. Patients were extensively characterized via medical record chart abstraction and patient interviews. Of the 56 patients with complete HR data, 48 (86%) had a detectable diurnal variation. Of these patients with diurnal variation, 39 (81%) were characterized as having the nadir of their HR outside of the normal range of 02:00-06:00 ("misalignment"). Interestingly, no deaths occurred in the patients with normally aligned diurnal variation; in contrast, there were seven deaths (out of 39 patients) in patients who had misaligned diurnal variation in HR. In an exploratory analysis, we found that the odds ratio of death for misaligned vs. aligned patients was increased at 4.38; however, this difference was not statistically significant (95% confidence interval 0.20-97.63). We conclude that diurnal variation in HR can be detected via continuous telemetric monitoring of critically ill patients. A majority of these patients with diurnal variation exhibited misalignment in their first 24 h of medical ICU admission. Exploratory analyses suggest possible associations between misalignment and death.
Learning to Plan During the Clinical Experience: How Visions of Teaching Influence Novices’ Opportunities to Practice:

In this study, we document pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) opportunities to learn about planning for equitable and ambitious instruction during clinical placements. We also test whether these opportun...
Planning in the 20th century and beyond: India’s Planning Commission and the NITI Aayog: edited by Santosh Mehrotra and Sylvie Guichard, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020, xix+333 pp., ISBN 978-1-108-49462-5

This edited volume by Santosh Mehrotra and Sylvie Guichard presents a timely study of the Planning Commission and the NITI Aayog, as the latter completes five years, and India completes three decad...
From friend to foe: Pro-apoptotic action of nuclear ARC in diabetes.

Summary Apoptosis repressor with caspase recruitment domain (ARC) is an established cytoplasmic anti-apoptotic factor relevant for cancer and metabolic disease. In this issue of Developmental Cell, McKimpson et al. show that ARC can assume potent pro-apoptotic effects in β cells of the endocrine pancreas via translocation to the nucleus.
Overcoming an "irreversible" threshold: A 15-year fire experiment.

Abstract A key pursuit in contemporary ecology is to differentiate regime shifts that are truly irreversible from those that are hysteretic. Many ecological regime shifts have been labeled as irreversible without exploring the full range of variability in stabilizing feedbacks that have the potential to drive an ecological regime shift back towards a desirable ecological regime. Removing fire from grasslands can drive a regime shift to juniper woodlands that cannot be reversed using typical fire frequency and intensity thresholds, and has thus been considered irreversible. This study uses a unique, long-term experimental fire landscape co-dominated by grassland and closed-canopy juniper woodland to determine whether extreme fire can shift a juniper woodland regime back to grassland dominance using aboveground herbaceous biomass as an indicator of regime identity. We use a space-for-time substitute to quantify herbaceous biomass following extreme fire in juniper woodland up to 15 years post-fire and compare these with (i) 15 years of adjacent grassland recovery post-fire, (ii) unburned closed-canopy juniper woodland reference sites and (iii) unburned grassland reference sites. Our results show grassland dominance rapidly emerges following fires that operate above typical fire intensity thresholds, indicating that grassland-juniper woodlands regimes are hysteretic rather than irreversible. One year following fire, total herbaceous biomass in burned juniper stands was comparable to grasslands sites, having increased from 5 ± 3 g m−2 to 142 ± 42 g m−2 (+2785 ± 812 percent). Herbaceous dominance in juniper stands continued to persist 15-years after initial treatment, reaching a maximum of 337 ± 42 g m−2 eight years post-fire. In juniper encroached grasslands, fires that operate above typical fire intensity thresholds can provide an effective method to reverse juniper woodland regime shifts. This has major implications for regions where juniper encroachment threatens rancher-based economies and grassland biodiversity and provides an example of how to operationalize resilience theory to disentangle irreversible thresholds from hysteretic system behavior.
Nanotherapeutics for cardiovascular disease

Nanotherapies are emerging rapidly as options to treat cardiovascular disease. However, insufficient and heterogeneous delivery remain critical issues. Novel strategies to boost targeted delivery of systemically administered nanoparticles by optimizing the particle physical properties or using immune cells as carriers promise to increase nanotherapeutic effectiveness in cardiovascular and other inflammatory diseases.
Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived platelets loaded with lapatinib effectively target HER2+ breast cancer metastasis to the brain.

Prognosis of patients with HER2+ breast-to-brain-metastasis (BBM) is dismal even after current standard-of-care treatments, including surgical resection, whole-brain radiation, and systemic chemotherapy. Radiation and systemic chemotherapies can also induce cytotoxicity, leading to significant side effects. Studies indicate that donor-derived platelets can serve as immune-compatible drug carriers that interact with and deliver drugs to cancer cells with fewer side effects, making them a promising therapeutic option with enhanced antitumor activity. Moreover, human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) provide a potentially renewable source of clinical-grade transfusable platelets that can be drug-loaded to complement the supply of donor-derived platelets. Here, we describe methods for ex vivo generation of megakaryocytes (MKs) and functional platelets from hiPSCs (hiPSC-platelets) in a scalable fashion. We then loaded hiPSC-platelets with lapatinib and infused them into BBM tumor-bearing NOD/SCID mouse models. Such treatment significantly increased intracellular lapatinib accumulation in BBMs in vivo, potentially via tumor cell-induced activation/aggregation. Lapatinib-loaded hiPSC-platelets exhibited normal morphology and function and released lapatinib pH-dependently. Importantly, lapatinib delivery to BBM cells via hiPSC-platelets inhibited tumor growth and prolonged survival of tumor-bearing mice. Overall, use of lapatinib-loaded hiPSC-platelets effectively reduced adverse effects of free lapatinib and enhanced its therapeutic efficacy, suggesting that they represent a novel means to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs as treatment for BBM.
Risks with Multiple Pay Factor Acceptance Plans

It is rare that a state highway agency (SHA) uses only a single quality characteristic to determine the pay factor for a lot. This paper deals with two specific types of risk associated with the use of multiple quality characteristics: remove and replace provisions and the effect on pay factor determination if the quality characteristics are correlated. First, computer simulation studies showed that typical acceptance plan provisions that call for lot removal and replacement at a given quality level, such as a percentage of material within specification limits of 60 or 50, can place much greater risk on the contractor when they apply to multiple characteristics. An approach to correct this problem was developed. Next, a total of 1,742 sets of asphalt content (AC), air voids (AV), and voids in the mineral aggregates (VMA) test results were analyzed for correlations. VMA values were positively correlated with both AV and AC values. Additional simulation studies showed that while this correlation does not affect the long-term average pay factor for a lot, it increases the variability in the individual lot composite pay factors. The positive correlation also increases the weighting of AV and AC in a composite pay equation. The use of multiple quality characteristics for determining the pay factor for a lot introduces sources of risk that are not present when only one characteristic is used. Any SHA that uses multiple pay factors should consider performing the types of remove and replace and correlation analyses presented in this paper.
Growth in the Use of the Between-Session Homework Assignments

The field of mental health technology is full of advertising from major publishing houses about handouts, sourcebooks, reproducible instructions, and materials that can be used by partcipants. These advertisements attest to the tremendous growth of between-session homework assignments in psychotherapy (Kazantzis, Deane, Ronan, & L’Abate, 2005; Kazantzis & L’Abate, 2007). The rationale for the use of these approaches is relatively simple. We need to make sure that whatever is learned in the professional’s office transfers outside that setting into the home, school, or work. This process has been called “generalization.” Consequently, any mental health intervention must fulfill two requirements: (1) generalization to the home/school/work settings, and (2) duration of positive changes above and beyond the immediacy of the help proffered.
Service-oriented architectures and software product lines: enhancing variation

The Service-Oriented Architectures and Software Product Lines (SOAPL) 2009 Workshop is the third workshop to examine the connection between service-oriented architecture and software product line approaches. While the first two workshops examined the connection between the approaches and the experience of integrating them, this workshop will examine how the two techniques benefit each other.
Alterations in pentobarbital pharmacokinetics in response to parenteral and enteral alimentation in the rat

Recent in vitro observations suggest that the intestine, in addition to the liver, may be an important organ of first-pass drug metabolism. While a variety of changes in intestinal morphology and function in response to continuous parenteral and enteral nutrition have been documented, the effect of different routes of alimentation on intestinal drug metabolism has not been previously investigated. Objectives of this study were to assess the contribution of intestinal pentobarbital metabolism to overall in vivo pentobarbital pharmacokinetics in the rat and to determine if differences in pentobarbital pharmacokinetics were seen between parenterally and enterally nourished animals. After 7 days of continuous infusion of amino acid-glucose mixture via a gastric or jugular vein catheter, pharmacokinetic parameters were determined after 40 mg/kg of pentobarbital was given orally or into the portal or femoral vein. Reduced systemic availability of pentobarbital after oral administration as compared to portal vein injection was seen in both alimentation groups indicating that significant intestinal metabolism of pentobarbital occurred in vivo. Total area under the pentobarbital plasma concentration-time curve was significantly greater in parenterally nourished animals as compared with enterally alimented animals after oral, portal vein and systemic vein drug administration. Differences in pentobarbital, pharmacokinetics between the two alimentation groups appeared to be primarly due to effects on hepatic pentobarbital metabolism. While the mechanism producing these changes has not been defined, differences in gut hormones release and/or pancreatic secretion in response to the two routes of alimentation may be contributory. The widespread use of enteral and parenteral alimentation in clinical medicine suggests that studies to determine if nutrition route of administration similarly influences drug metabolism in humans may be indicated.
Regional Myocardial Perfusion After Experimental Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Background and Purpose—The pathophysiology of cardiac injury after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) remains controversial. Data from animal models suggest that catecholamine-mediated injury is the most likely cause of cardiac injury after SAH. However, researchers also have proposed myocardial ischemia to be the underlying cause, as a result of coronary artery disease, coronary artery spasm, or hypertension and tachycardia. To test the hypothesis that SAH-induced cardiac injury occurs in the absence of myocardial hypoperfusion, we developed an experimental canine model that reproduces the clinical and pathological cardiac lesions of SAH and defines the epicardial and microvascular coronary circulation. Methods—Serial ECG, hemodynamic measurements, coronary angiography, regional myocardial blood flow measurements by radiolabeled microspheres, 2D echocardiography, and myocardial contrast echocardiography were performed in 9 dogs with experimental SAH and 5 controls. Results—Regional wall motion abnormalities w...
Constructing Sympathy's Forge: Empiricism, Ethics, and Environmental Education in the Thought of Liberty Hyde Bailey and John Dewey

Why and/or how has this situation come about? There may be several reasons. We might begin by looking back to the formative years of today’s environmental philosophy, the 1960s. One characteristic of that era was a renewed and greatly heightened sense that empirical science itself was to blame for our environmental woes. Rachel Carson’s expose of the dangers of chemical pesticides was seminal in fostering this awareness. Science, with a capital “S,” was identified with the Establishment (with a capital “E”), thus to be anti-Establishment required to a large degree that one be anti-science.
Deep Earth Structure: Seismic Scattering in the Deep Earth

Recent observations suggest that seismic scattering occurs in the lower mantle and inner core, in addition to the long-established strong scattering in the lithosphere. A number of different scattering theories for random media containing small-scale heterogeneities have been developed to model coda and other scattered arrivals in short-period seismic waves, including both single (Born) and multiple-scattering approaches. Computer advances now permit detailed finite-difference modeling as well as Monte Carlo simulations based on radiative transfer theory. Scattering observations from a variety of body-wave phases, including S, P, P diff , and PKiKP coda and PKP, PKKP, and P′P′ precursors, constrain deep-Earth scattering and suggest significant small-scale compositional heterogeneity throughout the mantle and within at least the uppermost inner core. The increased availability of large global seismic data sets will enable more detailed future studies and better separation between intrinsic and scattering attenuation mechanisms.
Premutation alleles and fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome.

rural, suburban, and urban areas that have varying access to physicians and hospitals. For example, Losina et al found that policies restricting total hip replacements to highvolume centers would differentially affect poor, lesseducated, and rural patients. Stratifying the analysis by population density, socioeconomic indicators, types of insurance carriers, and health care professional and facility density may be very valuable. The authors concede that there are limitations in using straight-line travel distances instead of travel time, but cite the 0.987 correlation found by Grumbach et al between travel distance and travel time in New York state. However, this correlative study excluded New York City and Long Island, which represent more than 8 million people, and may not be applicable to all of New York, New Jersey, and Florida. Technologies such as MapQuest can estimate travel time when origin and destination addresses are known. These travel times reflect the actual routes used, traffic flow patterns, and geography. Additionally, measuring the effects of excluding PO boxes and older patients who may reside in nursing homes rather than their listed home addresses may provide further insight.
Blind men and an elephant coalescing open-source, academic, and industrial perspectives on BigData

This tutorial is organized in two parts. In the first half, we will present an overview of applications and services in the BigData ecosystem. We will use known distributed database and systems literature as landmarks to orient the attendees in this fast-evolving space. Throughout, we will contrast models of resource management, performance, and the constraints that shape the architectures of prominent systems. We will also discuss the role of academia and industry in the development of open-source infrastructure, with an emphasis on open problems and strategies for collaboration. We assume only basic familiarity with distributed systems. In the second half, we will delve into Apache Hadoop YARN. YARN (Yet Another Resource Negotiator) transformed Hadoop from a MapReduce engine to a general-purpose cluster scheduler. Since its introduction, it has been deployed in production and extended to support use cases beyond large-scale batch processing. The tutorial will present the active research and development supporting such heterogeneous workloads, with particular attention to multi-tenant scheduling. Topics include security, resource isolation, protocols, and preemption. This portion will be detailed, but accessible to anyone with a background in distributed systems and all attendees of the first half of the tutorial.
Comment on Silber et al.: Aggressive treatment styles and surgical outcomes.

The passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 has created a real opportunity to advance delivery and payment system reform in the United States. The need for reform is widely recognized, not only because of the now well-established consensus that uneven quality and poorly coordinated care are endemic (IOM 2001) but also because of the growing concern that continued health care spending growth will exacerbate the federal deficit, potentially reducing U.S. Treasuries to junk bond status. The article by Jeffrey Silber et al. (2010) in this issue of Health Services Research can contribute to a better understanding of how to improve quality and reduce costs in U.S. health care. They use data on Medicare beneficiaries undergoing major vascular, orthopedic, and general surgical procedures at U.S. acute care hospitals. Their primary results are that when a Dartmouth measure of end-of-life hospital resource use—or as they call it, “aggressiveness”—is higher, 30-day surgical mortality rates and the relative risk of failure to rescue (having a complication and dying) were lower. In other words, hospitals spending more on their chronically ill patients near death also experienced better outcomes among surgical patients. There is much to admire in the study. The quality of the statistical analysis is very high and they do a commendable job of risk adjustment at the individual level. The failure-to-rescue quality measure is clinically meaningful and well validated. And we certainly approve of their using the Dartmouth end-of-life hospital measures. Our major concern is that the study's results will be interpreted incorrectly. For example, their finding of a modest positive correlation between end-of-life health care intensity and surgical outcomes could be viewed—wrongly—as meaning that any cuts in health care costs must inevitably lead to worse outcomes, or that these results are somehow inconsistent with those found in earlier Dartmouth research. Instead, the conclusions we draw from this and other studies is (a) it is not how much you spend that is important, but how you spend it; (b) overall spending alone explains remarkably little in health outcomes, implying that most hospitals can cut costs without any loss in quality of care; and (c) there is a tremendous degree of inefficiency, in terms of lost lives and wasted dollars, in the U.S. health care system. We believe that these three messages in turn hold important lessons for designing and implementing real health care reform in the United States.
Acidophilic nuclear inclusions are specific for florid ductal hyperplasia among proliferative breast lesions

Abstract Context.—Recently we have observed distinctive acidophilic intranuclear inclusions in cases of usual intraductal hyperplasia of the breast. Similar inclusions were described almost 20 years ago in cases of mammary hyperplasia. These correlated ultrastructurally with so-called helioid inclusions. However, there since has been little discussion of these inclusions in the literature. Objective.—To examine the incidence and specificity of these inclusions in proliferative lesions of the breast. Design.—Forty cases of usual intraductal hyperplasia, 15 cases of atypical ductal hyperplasia, and 34 cases of low-grade ductal carcinoma in situ were examined for the presence of acidophilic intranuclear inclusions. Results.—Acidophilic intranuclear inclusions were present in 50% of cases of usual intraductal hyperplasia (20 of 40) but were not identified in any cases of atypical ductal hyperplasia (0 of 15) or low-grade ductal carcinoma in situ (0 of 34). Conclusions.—Acidophilic intranuclear inclusions appe...
Dissimilative Iron Reduction by the Marine Eubacterium Alteromonas putrefaciens Strain 200

The ability of microorganisms to mediate the transformation of iron coupled with the participation of iron as a reactive redox species in natural waters and sediments has prompted recent speculation that such bacteria play an important role in such activities as global iron cycling, biologically induced mineral formation, and localized competition for available organic substrates. Microaerophilic soil bacteria dominate the list of microorganisms capable of iron reduction. However, screening experiments have shown that the marine eubacterium Alteromonas putrefaciens strain 200 is one of the most efficient iron reducers yet isolated. Respiratory inhibitor studies have suggested that a branched respiratory chain and two ferri-reductases (one constitutive and one induced by growth under microaerophilic conditions (2 µM O2)) are involved in iron reduction. Further complementary biochemical and genetic studies have concentrated on characterizing the components of the induced iron reduction system. Ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) has been used to develop mutagenesis procedures for A. putrefaciens 200; under optimal conditions, the frequency of total auxotrophy for EMS-treated cultures is approximately 0.4%. Tests for specific auxotrophic requirements have indicated the presence of a complex distribution of loci required for biosynthetic pathways. Mutants in both high-rate and low-rate ferri-reductase activity have been identified via a newly developed technique for screening EMS-treated A. putrefaciens 200 cultures. Ferri-reductase-deficient mutants generated by these techniques have been shown to contain reduced cytochrome content. Preliminary results indicate that the broad host range cloning vector pVK100 (Inc P) is mobilizable into A. putrefaciens 200. Current work is aimed at construction of an A. putrefaciens 200 clone bank, and complementation of the ferri-reductase mutants.
Bureau of Reclamation Procedures for Conducting Uniaxial Jacking Tests

The Bureau of Reclamation's present method of conducting uniaxial jacking tests incorporates the desirable features and techniques developed over many years of testing. Successful tests yielding usable data are attributedto thorough pre-test geologic exploration; careful site preparation; special drilling and explosive excavation techniques; and well-planned procedures for installation and removal of specialized equipment. Non-engineering factors, such as good contractor-test team relationship, also play a critical role in a successful test program. The process where hydraulic flatjacks are used to apply desired loads to prepared rock surfaces within a tunnel is described. Instrumentation to measure resulting displacement is referenced within the rock mass and is independent of the loading system. Details of all phases of conducting the tests are presented. In addition, a discussion is given of some of the problems, solutions, and philosophies that evolved while tests were being planned or conducted. This discussion is of value to those conducting in situ jacking tests or those preparing standards for the tests.
Baseline and post-deprivation recovery sleep in SCN-lesioned rats

In humans, advancing age alters sleep patterns, reducing high voltage NREM sleep, sleep bout length, and delta power during NREM sleep. Although the mechanism by which these alterations occur is unknown, age-related changes in normal circadian processes may play a role. Increased age produces histological and functional changes in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), and alters the amplitude and phase of circadian rhythms. To examine the relationship between SCN function and age-related changes in sleep, we produced radiofrequency (RF) lesions of the SCN in rats of different ages and examined sleep behavior before and after sleep deprivation. Three-, 12- and 18-month-old rats received RF or sham lesions of the SCN. After verifying loss of circadian rhythm, 24-h EEG/EMG/temperature recordings were made in dim light before and after 24 h of sleep deprivation using the disk-over-water method. Age-related changes in NREM sleep, sleep bout length, and delta EEG power persisted despite SCN lesions. SCN lesions in all age groups increased baseline NREM sleep by 4% and NREM delta power by 15%, and decreased REM sleep by 10%. Although SCN lesions initially produced more REM and NREM sleep during recovery, 24-h values did not differ. Deteriorating SCN function is unlikely to cause the characteristic changes in sleep that occur with age. Our data also imply that an intact SCN slightly inhibits NREM sleep in the rat. Changes in NREM sleep and delta EEG power during recovery in lesioned rats suggest that the SCN may influence homeostatic regulation.
Water adsorption on an iron oxide surface

Abstract Our ASED molecular orbital study using cluster models of stoichiometric wustite (FeO) shows water will dissociatively chemisorb, covering the surface with OH. We find evidence for surface reconstruction so that all OH species sit on top of the surface. Hydrogenation of adsorbed oxygen atoms by water is even more facile. The barriers to the reverse reactions for these processes are small, suggesting the water will reform and desorb at elevated temperatures. We see evidence based on orbital energy level bonding shifts for a decrease in the workfunction when water is adsorbed on wustite. Our results offer, in these regards, an interpretative model for the experimental results of Kurtz and Henrich who have studied water adsorption to α -hematite surfaces.