cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
First report of Meloidogyne partityla on pecan in Florida

Pecan (Carya illinoensis (Wagenh.) K. Koch) is an important tree in the southern United States for commercial nut production and residential use. Meloidogyne partityla (pecan root-knot nematode) is only known to parasitize trees in the Juglandaceae including pecan, walnut, and hickory. In the United States, it has been reported on pecan in Texas, New Mexico, and Georgia and internationally in South Africa. Portions of a large pecan nursery in Madison County, Florida were infested with an unknown species of root-knot nematode. The pecan trees at this nursery are grafted onto rootstock and grown in the field until the trees are large enough to sell as bare-root transplant stock in several states including and adjoining Florida. Trees infected by the root-knot nematodes were stunted, had extensive galling and rotting of the root system, and pulled from the ground relatively easily compared with noninfected trees. Attempts to rear these nematodes on tomato in the greenhouse were unsuccessful. Young egg-laying...
A retroposon in the 5' flank of a Trypanosoma brucei VSG gene lacks insertional terminal repeats

A retroposon-like repeated sequence, ingi, occurs in high copy number in the genome of Trypanosoma brucei brucei. An ingi is present in the 5' flank of the 5C gene, an intrachromosomal IsTat 1.5 variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) gene family member. The 5' end of the ingi is located 22 bp upstream of the putative VSG start codon and the ingi open reading frame is in the opposite orientation to that of the VSG gene. The termini of the ingi are not flanked by a short repeat sequence and there are no sequences upstream of the ingi insertion which are homologous to the 5' flanking sequence of other 5 VSG gene family members. Thus, it appears that recombination and/or gene conversion between two ingi sequences may have eliminated the original 5C gene flanking sequence. Similar events may also have occurred with all but one previously reported ingi.
The ascent of the cash flow statement

Abstract The objective of this paper is to show that the Financial Accounting Standards Board successfully responded to the earnings/cash flow debate and the limitations of the Statement of Changes in Financial Position by adopting Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 95.
Chemical Applications of the Mössbauer Effect in Ruthenium Compounds

The great utility of the Mossbauer effect in the solution of chemical problems, especially those involving iron and tin compounds, lends impetus to the exploration of its usefulness in other chemical systems. The Mossbauer effect for the 90-keV transition of 99Ru, first reported by Kistner [9], appears to be a unique chemical probe. The experimental difficulties are much greater than those encountered in iron and tin work since the source and absorber must be cooled to liquid helium temperatures and very large absorber thicknesses must be used. However, the results reported here and those reported by Mossbauer and co-workers [12], indicate that the isomer shift and the quadrupole splitting in ruthenium compounds can be related to the structure and bonding in the molecules. A correlation between the isomer shift and the oxidation state of the ruthenium (or the number of 4d electrons) can be made and compared with similar results for iron compounds. Also, the isomer shifts can be correlated with the total charge density at the ruthenium nucleus as calculated by restricted Hartree-Fock wave functions of the s-electron density at the nucleus for specific oxidation states. The large variety of known ruthenium compounds in several different oxidation states makes this system ideal for the systematic evaluation of Mossbauer parameters in chemical terms.
Firm and environmental influences on the mode and sequence of foreign research and development activities

This paper develops an explanation for the mode and sequence of entry that firms select for their international research and development activities. The hypotheses are based on the internalization and evolutionary theory perspectives. I first hypothesize that there is a sequence to the mode of foreign research and development activities initiated. I then discuss two firm capabilities and alternatives which might cause firms to omit parts of the sequence. The context of the study is the foreign research and development activities of incumbents and recent entrants to the Japanese pharmaceutical industry. The results indicate intriguing differences between the motivations of established firms and new entrants in establishing foreign research and development activities. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Infrared Metrics for Fixation-Free Liver Tumor Detection

Infrared (IR) spectroscopic imaging of human liver tissue slices has been used to identify and characterize liver tumors. Liver tissue, containing a liver metastasis of breast origin (mucinous carcinoma), was surgically removed from a consenting patient and frozen without formalin fixation or dehydration procedures, so that lipids and water remained in the tissues. A set of IR metrics (ratios of various IR peaks) was determined for tumors in fixation-free liver tissues. K-means cluster analysis was used to tell tumor from nontumor. In this case, there was a large reduction in lipid content upon going from nontumor to tumor tissue, and a well-resolved IR spectrum of nontumor liver lipid was obtained and analyzed. These IR metrics may someday guide work on IR spectroscopic diagnostics on patients in the operating room. This work also suggests utility for these methods beyond the identification of liver tumors, perhaps in the study of liver lipids.
Taxane anticancer agents: a patent perspective

Introduction:Paclitaxel and docetaxel were two epoch-making anticancer drugs and have been successfully used in chemotherapy for a variety of cancer types. In the year 2010, a new taxane, cabazitaxel, was approved by FDA for use in combination with prednisone for the treatment of metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer. Albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab™-paclitaxel; abraxane) nanodroplet formulation was another notable invention (FDA approval 2005 for refractory, metastatic, or relapsed breast cancer). Abraxane in combination with gemcitabine for the treatment of pancreatic cancer was approved by FDA in 2013. Accordingly, there have been a huge number of patent applications dealing with taxane anticancer agents in the last 5 years. Thus, it is a good time to review the progress in this area and find the next wave for new developments.Area covered: This review covers the patent literature from the year 2010 to early 2015 on various aspects of taxane-based chemotherapies and drug developments.Expert opini...
Arthur Golding’s Metamorphoses: A Protreptic Endeavor for a Reformation Readership

Golding’s translation of the first complete version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1567) influenced authors (including Shakespeare), teachers, and, undoubtedly, most literate Elizabethans. It proved to be a popular text, but that popularity was mostly a Reformation-era phenomenon, and after 1612 the text was not reprinted until the twentieth century. Modern scholars have debated numerous issues: the nature and merits of Golding’s translation, with many judging it to be an odd transposition of the original; its engagement with the religious and political polemics of the day; and the degree to which the translation might or might not follow the moralizing approaches of previous allegorical traditions. This essay demonstrates the didactic, protreptic nature of the text and examines how Golding—a devout Calvinist—employed numerous literary devices to illustrate the frightful consequences that result from ungodly human desires and behaviors. He reinvented the text by creating an intertwined relationship between text and paratext to form the foundation of his protreptic method. With his translation Golding sought to highlight the growth of sinful behavior and to persuade readers toward his particular religious, political, and cultural concerns with contemporary English society. As the Elizabethan world died, so did the interest in Golding’s Metamorphoses; it no longer spoke to people in a significant way.
The Ninth Circuit Says Aloha to Boulware - Again

In United States v. Boulware, the Ninth Circuit addressed the return of capital defense in a corporate diversion prosecution. The court held that the question of intent cannot be part of the determination whether a payment is a return of capital. However, the court left open the questions of whether a criminal defendant should be required to make any proffer to negate an element of an offense and, if so, what sort of proffer would be required. This article discusses the fundamental questions raised by this decision in tax and other white collar criminal prosecutions.
Housing Wealth, Credit Availability, and College Enrollment

Household wealth and liquidity are key factors in individuals' college enrollment choices. Therefore we investigate the impact of housing wealth, credit availability and financial distress on college enrollment decisions. We find that housing wealth is negatively related to enrollment in public schools and positively related to enrollment in private schools. Thus, this evidence suggests that students choose to substitute away from private schools towards public institutions as housing wealth declines. This is in line with the fact that the cost of attendance is, on average, much lower for public schools than private schools.
Targeted delivery of solutes and oxygen in the renal medulla: role of microvessel architecture.

Renal medullary function is characterized by corticopapillary concentration gradients of various molecules. One example is the generally decreasing axial gradient in oxygen tension (Po2). Another e...
Interrogating conserved elements of diseases using Boolean combinations of orthologous phenotypes

Conserved genetic programs often predate the homologous structures and phenotypes to which they give rise; eyes, for example, have evolved several dozen times, but their development seems to involve a common set of conserved genes. Recently, the concept of orthologous phenotypes (or phenologs) offered a quantitative way to describe this property. Phenologs are phenotypes or diseases from separate species who share an unexpectedly large set of their associated gene orthologs. It has been shown that the phenotype pairs which make up a phenolog are mutually predictive in terms of the genes involved. Recently, we demonstrated the ranking of gene–phenotype association predictions using multiple phenologs from an array of species. In this work, we demonstrate a computational method which provides a more targeted view of the conserved pathways which give rise to diseases. Our approach involves the generation of synthetic pseudo-phenotypes made up of Boolean combinations (union, intersection, and difference) of the gene sets for phenotypes from our database. We search for diseases that overlap significantly with these Boolean phenotypes, and find a number of highly predictive combinations. While set unions produce less specific predictions (as expected), intersection and difference-based combinations appear to offer insights into extremely specific aspects of target diseases. For example, breast cancer is predicted by zebrafish methylmercury response minus metal ion response, with predictions MT-COI, JUN, SOD2, GADD45B, and BAX all involved in the pro-apoptotic response to reactive oxygen species, thought to be a key player in cancer. We also demonstrate predictions from Arabidopsis Boolean phenotypes for increased brown adipose tissue in mouse (salt stress response's intersection with sucrose stimulus response); and for human myopathy (red light response minus water deprivation response). We demonstrate the ranking of predictions for human holoprosencephaly from the set intersections between each pair of a variety of closely-related zebrafish phenotypes. Our results suggest that Boolean phenolog combinations may provide a more informed insight into the conserved pathways underlying diseases than either regular phenologs or the naive Bayes approach.
Directions of the relationship between substance use and depressive symptoms from adolescence to young adulthood

Abstract Purpose Both substance use and depression are common in adolescence and often comorbid. Past research has produced conflicting results on whether there is a temporal relationship and if so, in which direction it operates and how it may vary by sex. The purpose of this paper is to explore the longitudinal, potentially bidirectional, relationships between high-frequency substance use and depressive symptoms from adolescence into young adulthood for males and females. Methods Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health we investigated longitudinal associations between high frequency substance use (alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana) and depressive symptoms. The linear mixed effects models were stratified by sex and used a lagged measure of the dependent variable to test temporal relationships. A random intercept was used for respondent ID. Results Increases in depressive symptoms were significantly associated with a later increase of about a half day in marijuana use frequency for males and nearly a two day increase in smoking frequency for females. Conversely, increases in smoking frequency were significantly associated with approximately a 0.6-point increase for females and 0.4-point increase for males in depressive symptoms at a later wave. Conclusions Results indicate a bidirectional relationship between smoking and depressive symptoms for females. For males, there was evidence supporting self-medication with marijuana and for smoking being associated with later increases in depressive symptoms. Results inform how substance use and depression screening, prevention and treatment efforts should be paired and targeted for males and females.
Use of Shadowing-Based Learning in an Allied Health Microbiology Course.

Active learning occurs in an environment where students can create their own mental constructs from the course material rather than just passively listening to lectures (5). Shadowing, the practice whereby students follow professionals in their work activities, is quite commonplace and often a requirement for students to enter health professions schools. While there have been studies done and comments made on the impact of shadowing in medical education (1–4, 6), these studies did not address the use of shadowing as an active-learning exercise in undergraduate life science courses. In many nursing and dental hygiene programs, students take microbiology prior to entering the clinical portion of the curriculum. Therefore, these students are not usually exposed to clinical experiences while taking the course itself. Shadowing may be a way for students to apply lessons learned in microbiology directly to the clinical setting. This paper describes an ongoing shadowing exercise in an undergraduate microbiology course primarily for students interested in nursing, pharmacy, and allied health professions. Although its goal is to help students connect abstract microbiological ideas to concrete practices in health care and public health, the shadowing exercise could be adapted to other life sciences.
Application of Powdered Resin Precoated Filter in Direct Air-Cooling Unit

The condensate quality of the direct air-cooling unit, the application of the resin powder precoated filter, and analyses of the advantages and disadvantages of the filter were introduced and then put forward some suggestions.
6,12-Bis[(tri-cyclo-hexyl-sil-yl)ethyn-yl]indeno-[1,2-b]fluorene.

The title compound, C60H76Si2, a formally anti-aromatic system containing 20-π electrons, contains a rare p-xylylene motif. This is displayed by the alternating short and long bonds. The outer rings possess nearly homogenous bond lengths. In the crystal, the molecules forms layers perpendicular to the c axis and within these layers there are two one-dimensional stacks with one stack that has a sp2 carbon contact of 3.283 (6) A, less than the sum of the van der Waals radii. The center of the mol­ecule sits on an inversion center.
The Clinical Significance of Antinuclear Antibodies

A number of different types of antinuclear antibodies have been characterized, and their clinical significance is beginning to become clear. The anti-DNA type correlates closely with renal injury and severity of clinical disease in systemic lupus erythematosus. Antiribonucleoprotein appears to be related to mixed connective tissue disease.
Large Cigars: Smoking Topography and Toxicant Exposure.

Background Cigar smoking in the United States continues despite decreases in cigarette smoking and increased tobacco control efforts. We compared large cigar and cigarette smoking for use patterns, smoking topography, and toxicant exposure. Methods Dual users (n = 17, 94% men, 77% African American) smoked ad libitum either their usual cigarette brand or a study large cigar (Phillies Blunt) in two laboratory sessions. Plasma nicotine and exhaled carbon monoxide were collected before and after smoking. Smoking topography measures of puff volume, puff duration, puff velocity, and interpuff interval were also collected. Results Both cigarettes and large cigars significantly increased plasma nicotine and carbon monoxide and significantly decreased the urge to smoke. Cigarettes delivered more nicotine per gram of tobacco smoked and per 1000 mL of puff volume. Number of puffs, time to smoke, puff volume, and puff velocity were significantly larger and interpuff interval was significantly shorter in large cigar smoking. The temporal pattern of puffing more intensely at the beginning of smoking was similar for both large cigars and cigarettes. Conclusions People who regularly use both large cigars and cigarettes adapt their smoking pattern such that they are exposed to similar levels of nicotine from each product. The immediate increase in plasma nicotine and carbon monoxide suggest significant inhalation of large cigar smoke. These data call to question the assumption that cigar smoking is less toxic than cigarette smoking. By smoking large cigars, dual users expose themselves to toxic components that have been linked with the addiction risk, morbidity, and mortality of cigarette smoking. Implications This study found that dual users of large cigars and cigarettes inhale significant quantities of carbon monoxide, nicotine, and presumably other components of mainstream smoke. Large cigar smoke exposure may lead to or sustain nicotine addiction as wells as subject large cigar consumers to similar risks associated with cigarette smoking such as lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Distribution and Drivers of a Widespread, Invasive Wetland Grass, Phragmites australis, in Wetlands of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA

The introduced grass Phragmites australis (hereafter Phragmites) is one of the most widespread invasive plants in North American wetlands. Phragmites has been extensively studied in some regions of North America, such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes. However, little research has evaluated the extent of Phragmites invasion in the Intermountain West and the environmental drivers that have promoted its spread, particularly in the critically important Great Salt Lake (GSL) wetlands. Here we use high-resolution multispectral imagery to map the current distribution of Phragmites around GSL. We then identify factors associated with Phragmites presence in GSL using a species distribution model using the Random Forest algorithm. We contrast these findings with what is known about Phragmites invasion in other regions. We estimate that Phragmites occupies over 93 km2 around GSL. Phragmites was more likely to be found in wetland areas close to point sources of pollution, at lower elevations with prolonged inundation, and with moderate salinities. Results from our study will assist wetlands managers in prioritizing areas for Phragmites monitoring and control by identifying likely areas of prime Phragmites habitat.
EXPERIMENTAL PRODUCTION OF AFLATOXIN IN CITRUS JUICE AND PEEL1

Grapefruit juice and grapefruit peel each supported growth of and aflatoxin formation by Aspergillus parasiticus and Aspergillus flavus. Grapefruit peel was a better substrate than grapefruit juice for toxin production; amounts of aflatoxin B1 and G1 were 5–10 times higher in the peel when the same mold strain grew at 28 C in both substrates for up to 62 days. In juice, amounts of aflatoxins B1 and G1 produced by A. flavus markedly decreased after 18 days and then became stabilized, whereas amounts of aflatoxin G1 formed by A. parasiticus increased to 34 days then declined and stabilized. When the molds grew on grapefruit peel, amounts of aflatoxins B1 and G1 produced increased for 38 days (A. flavus) and 26 days (A. flavus and A. parasiticus), and then declined and became stabilized. Amounts of aflatoxin B1 (A. parasiticus) increased rapidly early during incubation and then remained relatively constant through an extended holding time. Concentrations of aflatoxins B2 and G2 formed by both molds in each s...
Predicting Bond Dissociation Energies of Transition-Metal Compounds by Multiconfiguration Pair-Density Functional Theory and Second-Order Perturbation Theory Based on Correlated Participating Orbitals and Separated Pairs

We study the performance of multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT) and multireference perturbation theory for the computation of the bond dissociation energies in 12 transition-metal-containing diatomic molecules and three small transition-metal-containing polyatomic molecules and in two transition-metal dimers. The first step is a multiconfiguration self-consistent-field calculation, for which two choices must be made: (i) the active space and (ii) its partition into subspaces, if the generalized active space formulation is used. In the present work, the active space is chosen systematically by using three correlated-participating-orbitals (CPO) schemes, and the partition is chosen by using the separated-pair (SP) approximation. Our calculations show that MC-PDFT generally has similar accuracy to CASPT2, and the active-space dependence of MC-PDFT is not very great for transition-metal–ligand bond dissociation energies. We also find that the SP approximation works very well, and in pa...
An Architecture for Human-computer Knowledge Processing System

Abstract The human-computer knowledge processing system is suitable for applications to complex, high performance problems in rapidly changed situation. It includes human decisionmaking, rule based inference and operations research calculations. Some considerations of its design from the humanmachine system engineering point of view are introduced. The key point of them are emphasized on the intelligence synergism which can not be replaced by any intelligent machine up to date. The knowledge processing used in human-computer system is implemented by the cooperation of human and computer. The knowledge model and structure of knowledge engineering which can be available for reference to the establishment of intelligent software are given. The software structure suitable for intelligence synergism and the combination of mathematical programming calculation and rule based inference is presented in the last part of this article. An example illustrates the effectiveness of the above mentioned approaches.
Use of Simulators for Side-Channel Analysis

Side-channel attacks are among the most powerful and cost-effective attacks on cryptographic systems. Simulators that are developed for side-channel analysis are very useful for preliminary analysis of new schemes, in depth analysis of existing schemes as well as for analysis of products on early stages of development. The contribution of this paper is three-fold. We present a first survey of existing simulators that were build for side-channel analysis. We present a new open-source simulator SAVRASCA that can generate simulated power traces based on compiled binary files for many popular AVR microcontrollers. We show how to use our simulator on the example of DPA Contest 4 and we find a new vulnerability that allows an attacker to mount a differential power analysis (or even simple electro-magnetic analysis) attack on the scheme. Our simulator can be used during development of new products in order to test their resistance against side-channel analysis. We also focus the attention of readers on questions of why and how simulators are useful in this domain and try to highlight main issues related to simulators that were developed by the community.
Complications of Sphincter of Oddi Manometry and Their Prevention

The main complication of sphincter of Oddi manometry is pancreatitis. Reports have noted a pancreatitis rate after sphincter of Oddi manometry even higher than that for diagnostic or therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. If measures are not taken to prevent pancreatitis, this complication seriously limits the clinical use of sphincter of Oddi manometry. Safety measures reviewed in this article should greatly improve the margin of safety for sphincter of Oddi manometry.
Clinical bioethics and core competencies of attributes, attitudes, and behaviors: Foundations in philosophy and literature

Summary Philosophy clearly underwrites so much of contemporary bioethics. For example, the work of John Rawls and Norman Daniels provides a foundation for conversations about justice and health care; Alan Wertheimer's conceptual analyses of coercion and exploitation are invaluable to reproductive ethics; much of research ethics relies upon the tenets of utilitarian moral theory, and the ideas of its critics; and thinking surrounding moral reasoning in bioethics draws upon philosophical work on moral particularism, virtue theory and generalist moral thought. The work of Susan Sherwin and Margaret Little has provided a foundation for feminist work in bioethics. There is an area of current bioethical discussion, though, that does not draw upon existing work in philosophy, where it could benefit from doing so. Currently, there is great interest in questions surrounding both the core competencies for healthcare ethics consultants and the appropriate training for future healthcare ethics consultants. The core competencies are currently broken down into three categories: (1) competencies of skill, (2) competencies of knowledge and (3) competencies relating to attributes, attitudes and behaviors (such as forthrightness, humility and the possession of leadership skills). My paper explores the relation between the third category of competencies and the appropriate training for healthcare ethics consultants. While training as it applies to the first two categories of competencies has been addressed, training as it applies to the third category is somewhat curiously undertreated. There may be some reason for this; for example, in contrast to certain types of knowledge, factual knowledge, attributes, attitudes and behaviors might be very challenging to teach. At any rate, I argue that a foundation on which we can rely for help with this issue – this issue of how future healthcare ethics consultants should be trained when it comes to attributes, attitudes, and behaviors – can be found in philosophical discussion about the relation between philosophy and literature. Specifically, I make use of discussion on the question of the extent to which the study of fine literature belongs within moral philosophy. This work illustrates two useful sets of points: that fine literature demands of its reader a certain moral attention (which bears a connection to the attributes and attitudes identified as core competencies for the healthcare ethics consultant) and that literature cultivates that attention as it demands it. This work provides a foundation from which we can address our question regarding the training of future HCECs and it does so in a variety of ways. For one, such work emphasizes the importance of certain attitudes and attributes to reading the moral world and builds upon them by introducing the notion of moral attention. Further, it provides groundwork for the suggestion that the reading of fine literature can inculcate certain habits of mind that I urge are important (though under-recognized) for work in clinical ethics.
Subitizing: What Is It? Why Teach It?.

Three pictures hang in front of a six month-old child. The first shows two dots, the others show one dot and three dots. The infant hears three drumbeats. Her eyes move to the picture with three dots. Young children spontaneously use the ability to recognize and discriminate small numbers of objects (Klein and Starkey 1988). But some elementary school children cannot immediately name the number of pips showing on the dice. What is this ability? When and how does it develop? Is it a special way of counting? Should we teach it?
Phase transitions of ordered ice in graphene nanocapillaries and carbon nanotubes

New phase diagrams for water confined in graphene nanocapillaries and single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are proposed, identifying ice structures, their melting points and revealing the presence of a solid-liquid critical point. For quasi-2D water in nanocapillaries, we show through molecular-dynamics simulations that AA stacking in multilayer quasi-2D ice arises from interlayer hydrogen-bonding and is stable up to three layers, thereby explaining recent experimental observations. Detailed structural and energetic analyses show that quasi-2D water can freeze discontinuously through a first-order phase transition or continuously with a critical point. The first-order transition line extends to a continuous transition line, defined by a sharp transition in diffusivity between solid-like and liquid-like regimes. For quasi-1D water, confined in CNTs, we observe the existence of a similar critical point at intermediate densities. In addition, an end point is identified on the continuous-transition line, above which the solid and liquid phases deform continuously. The solid-liquid phase transition temperatures in CNTs are shown to be substantially higher than 273 K, confirming recent Raman spectroscopy measurements. We observe ultrafast proton and hydroxyl transport in quasi-1D and -2D ice at 300 K, exceeding those of bulk water up to a factor of five, thereby providing possible applications to fuel-cells and electrolyzers.
Technology and Cross-Cultural Perception

Although there is a spectrum of human-technology relations amenable to phenomenological analysis, there is a particular set of such relations that are of interest to a phenomenological hermeneutic. This is the set which I shall examine on this occasion with particular reference to cross-cultural examples.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things...” -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Consider some arbitrarily selected achievements which have collectively had a seminal impact on both biology and chemistry: (1) Protection and Activation of Amino Acids and Peptides The invention of the carbobenzoxy protecting group in 1932 made possible the practical synthesis of chiral peptides (1932). As is well-known, this urethane N-protecting group allows activation of amino acids without racemization. In addition, this group can readily be removed, making it ideal for stepwise peptide synthesis. The carbobenzoxy group surely represented one of the most important accomplishments in peptide synthesis of the first half of the century. Its counterpart, activation of the C-terminal carboxyl, was accomplished early on (1902) via the azide process. Azides are less stable than one might wish, a concern primarily when peptide fragments couple only slowly. The survival of this procedure for nearly a century is due in part to improvements introduced over the years. Its primary strength lies in the fact that it permits the activation and coupling of peptide fragments with minimal racemization. In the intervening years, diverse new activation procedures involving primarily anhydrides, active esters, carbodiimides and combinations of these methods, have found favor. The introduction of novel useful protecting groups, permitting an ever increasing degree of selectivity continues to this day. Still, one can only marvel at the fact that the carbobenzoxy protecting group in combination with the azide coupling procedure made chiral peptide synthesis a reality nearly 70 years ago, the former permitting stepwise chain elongation, the latter fragment condensation. (2) Early Biologically Important Peptides (a) The isolation, characterization and synthesis of the peptide hormones oxytocin and vasopressin in 1953 and of ACTH in 1956 put peptides firmly on the map in physiology and medicine. One must admire the ingenuity and creativity of our forefathers. Consider that automated amino acid analysis was reported only in 1958, and that the Edman degradation was not employed in the structure determination of oxytocin and vasopressin, two nonapeptides with a cystine containing
Role of the chemokine fractalkine (CX3CL1) and its receptor CX3CR1 in skeletal metastasis from prostate cancer

2407 Approximately 90% of patients with advanced prostate cancer develop skeletal metastasis. Despite many efforts, the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating the location of migrating cancer cells to secondary organs are still poorly defined. It is likely that, in addition to vascular patterns, unique characteristics of the endothelial cells lining the capillary beds of the colonized tissues play a role in cancer organ-tropism. In addition - similarly to hematopoietic stem cells - cancer cells may migrate from the luminal side of the endothelial cells into the surrounding tissue in response to chemotactic molecules released by bone marrow stromal cells. We have previously shown that: 1) prostate cancer cells express CX3CR1 in vitro and this receptor mediates their adhesion - under dynamic flow conditions - to bone marrow endothelial cells, which constitutively express the chemokine fractalkine/CX3CL1 on their surface; 2) human osteoblasts also express fractalkine and release it in a soluble form, which attracts prostate cancer cells in vitro. In the present study we show that epithelial cells in frozen sections of human prostate glands - either normal or affected by adenocarcinoma - stain positive for CX3CR1. This ex vivo evidence further support our previous in vitro observations and indicates that the expression of CX3CR1 by prostate epithelial cells does not require the necessary intervention of a positive selective pressure for its exclusive expression in the malignant phenotype. This is in contrast to what reported by others for CXCR4, the receptor for the chemokine SDF-1 (CXCL12), both also implicated in prostate bone secondary tumors. We also found that, in addition to osteoblasts, human bone mesenchymal and stromal cells express membrane-bound fractalkine and release its soluble, chemoattractant form. Consistently, high levels of soluble fractalkine were detected by ELISA in human bone marrow aspirates from normal donors. Further experiments were conducted to investigate the modulation of fractalkine cleavage and release in bone cells, with a particular focus on the role played by androgens in this process. Finally, silencing of CX3CR1, achieved using shRNA, was used to further define the role of this chemokine receptor in the adhesion of prostate cancer cells to bone marrow endothelial cells as well as their migration towards media conditioned by different types of bone cells. The long term goal of this study is to ascertain whether the chemokine fractalkine and its specific receptor CX3CR1 can be considered molecular targets for therapeutic strategies aiming to prevent or significantly impair the colonization of the skeleton in patients with prostate adenocarcinoma
Exploring the impact of shopper ethnicity through the path-to-purchase framework

Abstract Ethnic cultural affiliation, well established in consumer literature as influential in decision making, is much less studied in shopper literature. This research examines key path-to-purchase framework (PtPF) elements; motivation, role, and subjective norms, and their impact among three major U.S. ethnic affiliations (African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic). Study one explores two PtPF phases, perceptual mapping and solution targeting, while a second study examines moderation through importance perception and social shopping situation. The study demonstrates significant differences in relationship between the populations. Those differences are also shown to be subject to significant variation under the influence of the moderating conditions.
BaaS - Bioinformatics as a Service

Genomics and related technologies, collectively known as Omics, have transformed life sciences research. These technologies produce mountain of data that needs to be managed and analysed. Rapid developments in the Next Generation Sequencing technologies have helped genomics become mainstream, but the compute support systems, meant to enable genomics, have lagged behind. As genomics is making inroads into personalised health care and clinical settings, it is paramount that a robust compute infrastructure be designed to meet the growing needs of the field. Infrastructure design to deal with omics datasets is an active area of research and a critical one, for omics to be adopted in industrial healthcare and clinical settings. In this paper, we propose a blueprint for an as-a service compute infrastructure for fast and scalable processing of omics datasets. We explain our approach with help of a well-known bioinformatics workflow and a compute environment that can be tailored to achieve portability, reproducibility and scalability using modern High Performance Computing systems.
Major Dietary Interventions for the Management of Liver Disease

Abstract The liver is a major organ of the body with multiple functions such as regulation, metabolism, synthesis, and storage. Hepatic injury, however, causes irreversible impairment of liver function and changes in its architecture and blood supply. The major causes of hepatic injury and chronic liver diseases are nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcoholic liver disease (ALD), chronic hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus infections, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Liver diseases have thus become a global health burden, and the spectrum of disease of both ALD and NAFLD includes steatosis, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis, cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease. There are no approved pharmacological treatments for NAFLD worldwide, the use of various dietary interventions, however, has the potential to mitigate the risks of both NAFLD- and NASH-related complications. Such dietary interventions include, but not limited to, the Mediterranean diet; Japanese traditional diet; probiotics; vitamins C, D, and E; quercetin; epigallocatechin-3-gallate; and resveratrol.
Pre-pregnancy kidney function and subsequent adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Abstract Background Renal insufficiency is associated with pregnancy complications including fetal growth restriction, preterm birth (PTB), and pre-eclampsia. Objective To determine the effect of preconception kidney function within the normal range on pregnancy outcome. Method 1043 (50% black, 50% white) women who participated in the CARDIA study who had kidney function and biochemical analyses measured before at least one pregnancy delivered during the 20 years post-baseline period were included in analysis. Kidney function estimated as glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) via modified CKD-EPI equations, serum creatinine, and urinary albumin/creatinine ratio were evaluated as predictors of infant birthweight, gestational age, birthweight-for-gestational-age, and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy via self-report, using multiple regression with adjustment for confounders (age, race, smoking, BMI, center, parity, systolic blood pressure at baseline). Serum uric acid was also examined at both baseline and year 10. Results Unadjusted pre-pregnancy eGFR (baseline) was associated with lower average birthweight-for-gestational-age, but this disappeared after adjustment for confounders. A decline in GFR from baseline to year 10 was associated with lower birthweight (adjusted estimate −195 g, p = 0.03 overall), especially among whites. After adjustment for confounders, no association was found with gestational age or hypertensive disorders. Conclusions No strong evidence for an association between preconception kidney function in the normal range and birthweight or gestational age was found. Possible racial differences in these relationships warrant further examination.
Bayesian Estimation of Earth’s Undiscovered Mineralogical Diversity Using Noninformative Priors

Recently, statistical distributions have been explored to provide estimates of the mineralogical diversity of Earth, and Earth-like planets. In this paper, a Bayesian approach is introduced to estimate Earth’s undiscovered mineralogical diversity. Samples are generated from a posterior distribution of the model parameters using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations such that estimates and inference are directly obtained. It was previously shown that the mineral species frequency distribution conforms to a generalized inverse Gauss–Poisson (GIGP) large number of rare events model. Even though the model fit was good, the population size estimate obtained by using this model was found to be unreasonably low by mineralogists. In this paper, several zero-truncated, mixed Poisson distributions are fitted and compared, where the Poisson-lognormal distribution is found to provide the best fit. Subsequently, the population size estimates obtained by Bayesian methods are compared to the empirical Bayes estimates. Species accumulation curves are constructed and employed to estimate the population size as a function of sampling size. Finally, the relative abundances, and hence the occurrence probabilities of species in a random sample, are calculated numerically for all mineral species in Earth’s crust using the Poisson-lognormal distribution. These calculations are connected and compared to the calculations obtained in a previous paper using the GIGP model for which mineralogical criteria of an Earth-like planet were given.
A Study of Erosion by High-Pressure Cavitating and Noncavitating Waterjets

A study was made of erosion by high-pressure noncavitating and cavitating waterjets issuing from five different arrangements of nozzles, consisting of (A) jet in air, (B) submerged jet, (C) jet surrounded by another of lower velocity, (D) jet from long nozzles, and (E) jet from a nozzle containing a cylindrical body insert. The purpose was to evaluate the two methods of erosion for jet cutting applications. Simple visual examination of the craters on specimens of copper showed distinct type (size, shape, depth, etc.) of erosion. However, microscopic examination did not reveal clearly any characteristics peculiar to cavitating or noncavitating jets. Quantitative experimental results were obtained by measuring the mass loss of lead specimens as a function of time of exposure for the conditions where either the nozzle pressure or the standoff distance was held constant. By comparing the different arrangements on the basis of material loss, it is concluded that Arrangement B performed best for all periods of exposure and standoff distances followed by Arrangement C for short periods of exposure, smaller standoff distance, and for certain flow conditions.
A phase I study of the safety and pharmacodynamic effects of everolimus in combination with lenalidomide in patients with advanced solid malignancies.

2576 Background: Everolimus (E), an mTOR inhibitor, and Lenalidomide (L) are both potent anti cancer agents with immunomodulatory effects. Preclinical evidence of enhanced cytotoxicity of the combi...
Energy Gradient-Based Graphs for Planning Within-Hand Caging Manipulation

In this work, we present a within-hand manipulation approach that leverages a simple energy model based on caging grasps made by underactuated hands. Instead of explicitly modeling the contacts and dynamics in manipulation, we can calculate a map to describe the energy states of different hand-object configurations under an actuation input. Since the system intrinsically steers towards low energy states, the object’s movement is uniquely described by the gradient of the energy map if the corresponding actuation is applied. Such maps are pre-calculated for a range of actuation inputs to represent the system’s energy profile. We discretize the workspace into a grid and construct an energy gradient-based graph by locally exploring the gradients of the stored energy profile. Given a goal configuration of a simple cylindrical object, a sequence of actuation inputs can be calculated to manipulate it towards the goal by exploiting the connectivity in the graph. The proposed approach is experimentally implemented on a Yale T42 hand. Our evaluation results show that parts of the graph are well connected, explaining our ability to successfully plan and execute trajectories within the gripper’s workspace.
Pediatric osteoarticular infection: trend in surgically treated patients and association of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus with requirement of secondary procedures.

Acute pediatric osteoarticular infection demonstrates variability in both presentation and response to treatment. Many respond to antibiotics ± single operation, while some require multiple surgeries. Currently, it is difficult to predict who may require additional procedures. Infections due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have been associated with more complications. The purpose of this study is to determine MRSA trends and degree of association with the occurrence of multiple procedures. We performed a retrospective analysis of surgically treated pediatric (1 month-18 years) patients for acute osteomyelitis and septic arthritis at a tertiary children's hospital from 2003-2017. The cohort was divided into single-procedure and multiple-procedure groups. A total of 753 patients were studied with a mean age of 7.05 years (2.4 months-17.9 years). We identified 645/753 (85.6%) patients who were treated with a single-procedure and 108/753 (14.4%) patients who required multiple- procedures. The lower extremity (hip, knee, tibia, and femur) was most commonly involved. The epidemiologic trend runs almost parallel between two groups with a peak in 2009. The odds ratio for multiple-procedures was 2.0 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.2-3.1; P = 0.002] with dual infection (osteomyelitis + septic arthritis), 2.6 (95% CI, 1.6-4.4; P = 0.001) with high-risk conditions and 4.6 (95% CI, 3.0-7.1; P < 0.001) if MRSA was present. MRSA significantly predicts the requirement of additional operative procedures for the treatment of osteoarticular infections in children. Besides clinical deterioration and other markers, the presence of MRSA can be a considerable indicator for a planned secondary-procedure. Level III retrospective cohort study.
Optimized Environmental Stress Screening of U.S. Army Electronic Hardware

Systems analysis techniques employed by the U.S. Army provide engineering guidelines to optimized Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) considering inhouse manufacturing and field costs. Optimized ESS offers an improved quality product with significant cost savings. This article covers the systems analysis techniques and the results achieved. The development of a computer program to enable engineers (menu-driven user-friendly) to review and input inplant variables, plant capacity, test effectiveness, test integration yields, and field failure costs has enabled quality engineers to recommend optimized ESS screens. The results of these studies have identified the potential of $1.1 billion in life-cycle costs savings.