cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Airborne Isocyanate Exposures in the Collision Repair Industry and a Comparison to Occupational Exposure Limits

Isocyanate exposure was evaluated in 33 spray painters from 25 Washington State autobody shops. Personal breathing zone samples (n = 228) were analyzed for isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) monomer, 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) monomer, IPDI polyisocyanate, and three polyisocyanate forms of HDI. The objective was to describe exposures to isocyanates while spray painting, compare them with short-term exposure limits (STELs), and describe the isocyanate composition in the samples. The composition of polyisocyanates (IPDI and HDI) in the samples varied greatly, with maximum amounts ranging from up to 58% for HDI biuret to 96% for HDI isocyanurate. There was a significant inverse relationship between the percentage composition of HDI isocyanurate to IPDI and to HDI uretdione. Two 15-min STELs were compared: (1) Oregon's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OR-OSHA) STEL of 1000 μg/m3 for HDI polyisocyanate, and (2) the United Kingdom's Health and Safety Executive (UK-HSE) STEL of 70 μg NCO/m3 f...
Survival and prognostic factors in resected N2 non-small cell lung cancer: A study of 140 cases

Background. The selection of stage IIIA N2 non-small cell lung cancer patients for primary surgical treatment remains controversial. Methods. One hundred forty patients with resected non-small cell lung cancer who eventually proved to have pathologic N2 disease were studied with a univariate and multivariate analysis of prognostic factors. Results. Nineteen patients had a positive mediastinoscopy; the others had a preoperative N0 or N1 stage. Complete resection rate was 80.7%. Five-year survival was 20.8% (95% confidence interval, 17.2% to 24.4%), 32.2% in mediastinoscopy-negative patients. In the univariate analysis, clinical N stage at mediastinoscopy, complete resection, performance status, T stage, number of metastatic levels in adenocarcinoma, and nodal capsule rupture were important factors. In a multivariate model, survival was worse in case of higher T stage (relative risk=1.43), lower performance status (relative risk=1.37), involvement of more than one node level (relative risk=1.68), nonsquamous histology (relative risk=1.29) and clinical N2 stage (relative risk=1.43). Long-term survival was unlikely when lactic dehydrogenase or carcinoembryonic antigen levels were elevated. Conclusions. In clinical NO or N1 cancer, complete resection resulted in reasonable survival prospects. In patients with N2 disease discovered at mediastinoscopy, surgical treatment was only worthwhile in case of minimal N2. Several unfavorable prognostic factors could be identified in the univariate analysis and confirmed in a multivariate Cox model.
Use of Flow Cytometric CD34 Analysis to Quantify Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells

This review summarizes our experiments on flow cytometric analysis of CD34 positive mononuclear cells (MNC) and on colony formation of myeloid hematopoietic progenitor cells in the clonogenic assay. We examined MNC isolated by density centrifugation of bone marrow, cord blood and peripheral blood. The latter samples originated either from patients recovering from myelosuppressive treatment who received no growth factors or from patients treated with G-CSF or GM-CSF. We attempted to correlate the results obtained by CD34 analysis with the cloning efficiency determined after a 14 day culture period in the methylcellulose-based clonogenic assay. The highest cloning efficacy (60%-100%) was observed in cord blood, however, a good correlation was found in both untreated and GM-CSF treated peripheral blood samples in which a mean of 50% and 20% of the number of CD34 positive MNC gave rise to myeloid colonies. In bone marrow, the cloning efficacy was generally lower and ranged between 5% and 15%. The lowest values were observed in G-CSF treated peripheral blood in which colonies were grown from only 1%-9% of the CD34+ MNC. Due to the variable numbers of CD34+ lymphoid and/or more committed myeloid precursors which form either no colonies or only clusters, there was a greater variation and a lower cloning efficiency in the latter two cell sources. In conclusion, one colour CD34 analysis of cord blood MNC and untreated or GM-CSF treated peripheral blood MNC provides reliable results with respect to the content of myeloid progenitors. Analysis of bone marrow MNC and G-CSF treated peripheral blood MNC requires two colour staining using CD34 and CD45RA.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A HEURISTIC ALGORITHM FOR THE FLOWSHOP PROBLEM WITH A COMMON JOB SEQUENCE ON ALL MACHINES

This paper presents a scheduling algorithm to solve flowshop problems with a common job sequence on all machines. This algorithm uses makespan as its criterion. Initially, it chooses a preferred sequence by scanning the processing times matrix and making a few calculations. The makespan time of the preferred job-sequence is further reduced by using an improvement routine that allows interchanges between adjacent jobs. Solutions of 1200 problems are compared with the best solutions previously reported for corresponding size problems in the Campbell-Dudek-Smith (C-D-S) paper [1]. This algorithm offers up to 1% average improvement in reducing the makespan of nearly 50% of the problem sets over the results of the existing algorithms, and its computational time requirements are about one-fifth of that of the C-D-S algorithm.
A synopsis of the American Academy of Pediatrics' practice parameters on the evaluation and treatment of children with febrile seizures.

1. Patricia K. Duffner, MD* 2. Robert J. Baumann† 1. 2. *Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics, Division of Child Neurology, Childrens’ Hospital of Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY. 3. 4. †Professor of Neurology, Department of Neurology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. This article provides a summary of the practice parameters on febrile seizures. The reader is urged to read the original parameters and technical reports in their entirety for a more complete understanding of the conceptual basis for the recommendations .1,2(1)(2) Febrile seizures are the most common convulsive event in childhood, occurring in 2% to 5% of children younger than 5 years of age. Despite their frequency, there have been longstanding differences among pediatricians, family practitioners, child neurologists, and emergency physicians regarding both the neurodiagnostic evaluation of the child who has a simple febrile seizure and the appropriate approach to long-term therapy. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and its Provisional Committee on Quality Improvement, in collaboration with experts from the Section of Neurology, general pediatricians, pediatric epileptologists, and epidemiologists, developed two practice parameters for children who have febrile seizures. The first was published in 1996,1(1) and the second was published in 1999.2(2) The parameters were restricted to children who were neurologically normal between the ages of 6 months and 5 years and who experienced simple febrile seizures. A simple febrile seizure was defined as a brief (<15 min) generalized seizure that occurred only once in a 24-hour period in a febrile child who did not have an intracranial infection. Recommendations regarding children who had complex febrile seizures were deferred. The Committee that wrote the first parameter, “The Neurodiagnostic Evaluation of the Child With a First Simple Febrile Seizure”, consisted of a practicing pediatrician, three child neurologists (one of whom is a neuroepidemiologist), and the chair, who is a pediatric cardiologist (see Appendix). The second parameter,“ The Long-Term Treatment of the Child With Simple Febrile Seizures”, was developed by the same group, with the following changes: one child neurologist was added, and the chair from …
Optimizing testosterone production by purified adult rat Leydig cells in vitro.

We sought to establish conditions that increased the duration of testosterone production by fully differentiated adult rat Leydig cells in primary culture. A freshly isolated suspension of highly purified adult rat Leydig cells produced 83 ng testosterone/10(6) Leydig cells.h-1 when incubated in Medium 199 in a 1.5 ml microfuge tube with shaking for 3 h with a maximally stimulating concentration of ovine luteinizing hormone (LH). Unfortunately, adult rat Leydig cells that were allowed to attach only to a plastic culture dish flattened out, and testosterone production diminished rapidly. Leydig cells in Dulbecco's modified Eagles' medium-Ham's F12 (1:1; vol/vol) containing Cytodex 3 beads pre-equilibrated in culture medium containing fetal bovine serum attached to the beads and remained viable, but produced only 30 ng testosterone/10(6) Leydig cells.h-1 when incubated for 24 h with similar stimulation. Leydig cells similarly cultured and maximally stimulated with LH, responded to bovine lipoproteins (less than 1.222 g/ml) producing 105 ng of testosterone/10(6) Leydig cells.h-1 when incubated with 1 mg/ml bovine lipoprotein. Therefore, lipoproteins maintain the steroidogenic capacity of purified adult rat Leydig cells in primary culture for 24 h.
Lack of topography in the ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus.

In contrast to the ease of finding tonotopicity in other nuclei, both anatomical and electrophysiological methods have failed to demonstrate a clear and simple tonotopic map within the ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (VLL). The present study was undertaken in cat with the hope that methods not used previously in studies of VLL might succeed in demonstrating an orderliness in its exiting fibers (i.e., efferents) or its incoming fibers (i.e., afferents). Since the same organization of ascending frequencies present in the cochlea is maintained in these fibers as well as in all main auditory nuclei, demonstration of a similar organization of frequencies in VLL would be evidence of the cochleo- or tono-topicity of this nucleus. Using triple injection of 3 different fluorescent dyes in inferior colliculus to study efferents, orderly and tonotopic cell-labeling is found in each of the brainstem auditory nuclei, with the notable exception of VLL. Instead, labeling of cell clusters, each cluster containing a small number of cells, is found randomly distributed throughout VLL in all 3 of its spatial dimensions. Using the 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) method, during stimulation at 6 different frequencies, afferent orderliness, indeed, tonotopicity is found in all major brainstem auditory nuclei, again with the notable exception of VLL. Rather, each frequency evokes 2-DG label throughout VLL. In agreement with the results based on electrophysiological methods, therefore, the anatomical methods used here also yield no evidence of tonotopicity in VLL. Thus, if there is orderliness in VLL's efferents or afferents, it is based on an auditory dimension incommensurate with frequency.
Pharmacogenomics and serotonergic agents: research observations and potential clinical practice implications

Pharmacogenomics of serotonin are potentially relevant in research and clinical practice. There are few proven examples of the importance of pharmacogenetics of serotonin-modifying agents used in functional gastrointestinal or motility disorders. Drug metabolism is dependent on function of the cytochrome P450 enzymes, such as 2D6 and 3A4. Genetic variations in transporters and translation mechanisms have been associated with responses to treatment in irritable bowel syndrome and in obesity. Research on the impact of polymorphisms of key proteins on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs that alter serotonin-mediated signalling will assist in explaining diverse responses to those drugs and ultimately improve clinical practice, individualizing medicine.
Metabolism of 14C-codeine in cell cultures of Papaver somniferum

Abstract Callus of Papaver somniferum was induced from seedling hypocotyls on Murashige and Skoog's agar medium. Cell cultures were initiated by transferring the callus to Gamborg's B5 medium containing 2,4-D. Somatic embryogenesis was induced by transferring the suspended cultured cells to 2,4-D free Gamborg's B5 medium. TLC and HPLC indicated that the extracts from the cultured cells contained thebaine as the major morphinan alkaloid and small amounts of codeine, while morphine was not detected. Addition of 14 C-codeine to the cultured cells demonstrated that 14 C-codeine was predominantly converted into N -oxide products along with the formation of minor amounts of morphine, indicating that induced poppy cell cultures could synthesize morphine with low efficiency.
Can static foot posture measurements predict regional plantar surface area

Abstract Background The intent of this study was to determine if the use of a single or combination of static foot posture measurements can be used to predict rearfoot, midfoot, and forefoot plantar surface area in individuals with pronated or normal foot types. Methods Twelve foot measurements were collected on 52 individuals (mean age 25.8 years) with the change in midfoot width used to place subjects in a pronated or normal foot mobility group. Dynamic plantar contact area was collected during walking with a pressure sensor platform. The 12 measures were entered into a stepwise regression analysis to determine the optimal set of measures associated with regional plantar surface area. Results A two variable model was found to describe the relationship between the foot measurements and forefoot plantar contact area ( r 2 =0.79, p r 2 =0.85, p Conclusions The results indicate that clinicians can use a combination of simple, reliable and time efficient foot measures to explain 79% and 85% of the plantar surface area in the forefoot and midfoot, respectively.
Adaptive control variates for American option pricing

Recently, Kim and Henderson (2004) have proposed a scheme for variance reduction in Monte Carlo simulations that uses stochastic optimization to compute an effective control variate. We apply this technique to the problem of American option pricing. While our work is similar in spirit to work by Bolia and Juneja (2005), the nonlinear procedure allows us to consider a more flexible class of approximating functions for our control variate; in particular, we are freed from having to make a particular choice of basis function parameterization up front.
Effects of amiodarone on serum lipoprotein levels.

Abstract Amiodarone is an antiarrhythmic agent approved for the treatment of recalcitrant ventricular arrhythmias. It is an amphiphilic-iodinated organic compound with a prolonged elimination rate, and has been associated with a high incidence of thyroid dysfunction. 1 In a previous evaluation of the effects of amiodarone, serum cholesterol was monitored as a systemic marker for thyroid dysfunction. 2 Unexpectedly, there were uniform increases in serum cholesterol independent of thyroid hormone status. Controversy exists as to whether there are changes in serum cholesterol levels in patients receiving amiodarone, 2–6 and it is important to define the action of this drug on high-risk patients who already have heart disease.
Stenting in acute stroke: point.

The introduction of permanent and then temporary stenting over the past decade has advanced our ability to revascularize occluded intracranial vessels efficiently in the setting of acute ischemic stroke. The existing data indicate that this stent-based approach to cerebral revascularization is superior to predicate devices. The implantation of stents for the revascularization of large vessel occlusions in the setting of acute ischemic stroke was first described and advocated by Hopkins and Levy at the State University of New York at Buffalo.1–3 Their initial case reports and case series described the immediate and reliable revascularization of otherwise refractory intracranial occlusions with balloon-expandable coronary stents. This approach represented the beginning of a paradigm shift in the intra-arterial treatment of acute ischemic stroke. As self-expanding intracranial aneurysm stents (Neuroform, Stryker Neurovascular, Kalamazoo, MI, USA; Enterprise, Codman & Shurtleff, Raynham, MA, USA) and the Wingspan stent (Stryker Neurovascular) became available in the USA in the early 2000s, the Buffalo group as well as Nelson and colleagues at NYU began to report individual cases of the application of these devices for the revascularization of refractory intracranial occlusions on an emergency basis.4–6 The more flexible and low profile self-expanding intracranial microstents provided a technically easier and less traumatic approach to stent revascularization and, for the most part, these devices supplanted the more rigid balloon-mounted stents for this purpose. Ultimately, larger case series were reported documenting the feasibility of this approach as well as relatively impressive outcomes despite its application as a bailout procedure employed as a last resort.6–8 While these microstents provided an efficient means of emergency revascularization, the approach also presented some significant practical and theoretical drawbacks: 1. Requirement for immediate peri-procedural as well as post-procedural antithrombotic medications. Approaches to stent-supported revascularization typically required intra-procedural IIb/IIIa inhibitors followed by post-procedural oral dual antiplatelet …
Racism and power: Arizona politicians' use of the discourse of anti-americanism against mexican american studies

The article discusses a legislation that would effectively terminate Mexican American Studies programs in k-12 was passed in Arizona in 2010. In this article, the author traces how this legislation drew from discourses of anti-Americanism and wickedness initiated by the state’s superintendent of public instruction against Mexican American Studies and from larger social antagonistic language regarding Mexican ethnics. The author uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) and van Dijk’s notion of the discourse-power circle, in particular, to demonstrate how the superintendent along with the author of the legislation, were successful in controlling the voting actions of enough legislators to pass the bill.
Identifying the Success Factors of Web-Based Marketing Strategy: An Investigation of Convention and Visitors Bureaus in the United States

American convention and visitors bureaus are trying to adjust their marketing strategy to incorporate the Internet but have achieved mixed results. This study examines the factors affecting the success of Web-based marketing strategies by American convention and visitors bureaus. The results of this study indicate that successful Web marketing strategies require the integration and coordination of three complementary aspects of the Internet marketing efforts as well as favorable organization and technology environment and innovative approaches. Discussion and implications are provided based on the results of the study.
Enrichment of prostate cancer cells from blood cells with a hybrid dielectrophoresis and immunocapture microfluidic system

The isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from cancer patient blood is a technical challenge that is often addressed by microfluidic approaches. Two of the most prominent techniques for rare cancer cell separation, immunocapture and dielectrophoresis (DEP), are currently limited by a performance tradeoff between high efficiency and high purity. The development of a platform capable of these two performance criteria can potentially be facilitated by incorporating both DEP and immunocapture. We present a hybrid DEP-immunocapture system to characterize how DEP controls the shear-dependent capture of a prostate cancer cell line, LNCaP, and the nonspecific adhesion of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Characterization of cell adhesion with and without DEP effects was performed in a Hele-Shaw flow cell that was functionalized with the prostate-specific monoclonal antibody, J591. In this model system designed to make nonspecific PBMC adhesion readily apparent, we demonstrate LNCaP enrichment from PBMCs by precisely tuning the applied AC electric field frequency to enhance immunocapture of LNCaPs and reduce nonspecific adhesion of PBMCs with positive and negative DEP, respectively. Our work shows that DEP and immunocapture techniques can work synergistically to improve cancer cell capture performance, and it informs the design of future hybrid DEP-immunocapture systems with improved CTC capture performance to facilitate research on cancer metastasis and drug therapies.
COMPARISON OF SEMI‐MARKOV AND MARKOV MODELS IN A PERSONNEL FORECASTING APPLICATION

This paper reports an exploratory study of the development, application, and evaluation of a semi-Markov model which forecasts personnel mobility rates within a major employer. The accuracy of the model is investigated by comparing the results generated by it to the results from a simple Markov model and to the observed behavior within the organization.
The Challenge of Conducting Qualitative Family Research in International Settings.

The challenge of interviewing families in a different cultural setting is complicated. The researcher not only needs to be aware of but must plan for these particular challenges to approach a successful study. Being aware of the obstacles that might be associated with an international study can serve to prepare the researcher in advance, thus alleviating some unnecessary delay in the field. This examination focuses on the issues that surround gaining familiarity with the sociocultural context, gaining access to the desired subjects, establishing collaborative relationships with local scholars, and securing appropriate translators who not only interpret words but might also serve to convey meanings.
Protein Electric Field Effects on the CO Stretch Frequency of Carbonmonoxycytochromes c as a Function of Carbonyl Tilting and Bending Investigated with a Continuum Electrostatic Approach

The effect of the orientation of CO bound to the heme of two c-type cytochromes on the CO-stretch frequency νCO has been investigated using molecular mechanics and finite difference Poisson−Boltzmann calculations. Our approach treats the charge distribution of the protein as an external electric field capable of inducing Stark frequency shifts. Results show that modifying the Fe−C−O bending angle (β) does not change the CO stretch frequency within a range of 100−175°, equivalent to a bending motion away from the propionic acid chains. The calculated Stark shifts range from 5.4 to 8.6 cm-1 and are in good agreement with the experimentally observed shift (6 cm-1). However, motion of the CO toward the propionics exerts significant influence on the calculated shifts (−4.5 to −1.8 cm-1), which are then in total disagreement with experiment, not only in magnitude but also in predicting the wrong direction for the shift. The Stark shifts calculated for the tilt angle (τ) show that it has no significant effect on...
Differential EMD Tracking

Illumination changes cause object appearance to change drastically and many existing tracking algorithms lack the capability to handle this problem. The Earth mover's distance (EMD) is a similarity measure that is more robust against illumination changes. However, EMD is computationally expensive and we therefore propose the differential EMD (DEMD) algorithm which computes the derivative of the EMD with respect to the object location so that the EMD does not need to be computed for every location in the tracking window. The fast differential formula is derived based on the sensitivity analysis of the simplex method as applied to the EMD formula. To further reduce the computation, signatures, i.e., variable-size descriptions of distributions, are employed as an object representation. The new algorithm models local background scenes as well as foreground objects to handle scale changes in a principled way. Extensive quantitative evaluation of the proposed algorithm has been carried out using benchmark sequences and the improvement over the standard mean shift tracker is demonstrated.
Robust system design with uncertain information

New opportunities and challenges in system design are direct consequences of the progress in semiconductor technologies, and are due to the extremely small nature of electronic devices, the extremely large complexity of systems, and the new, unchartered territory set by novel technologies. Reliable on-chip communication will require viewing routing wires as information channels, and systems as micro-networks of components. Signal transmission will face an increasingly more noisy environment, where noise abstracts undesirable effects such as timing variations, cross-talk and interference. Techniques borrowed from networking will be applicable at the chip level, to provide reliable communication over unreliable physical channels. Information encoding, packetization and routing will provide us with a new facet of design, to support reliable data transfer in a noisy environment.
Anti-jamming coding techniques with application to cognitive radio

In this paper, we consider the design of efficient anti-jamming coding techniques for recovering lost packets transmitted through parallel channels. We present two coding schemes with small overhead and low complexity, namely, rateless coding and piecewise coding. For piecewise coding, we propose the optimal as well as several suboptimal design methods to build short block codes with small number of parity checks. One application of the anti-jamming coding techniques is in a cognitive radio system to protect the secondary users from the interference by the primary users. For such application, we consider two types of subchannel selections, i.e., the single uniform and general non-uniform subchannel selections. Throughput and the goodput performance of the secondary users employing either anti-jamming coding technique is analyzed under both subchannel selection strategies. The results show that both coding techniques provide reliable transmissions with high throughput and small redundancy. The piecewise coding using the designed short codes provides better performance with smaller overhead under low to medium jamming rate. For non-uniform subchannel selection, the designed short code improves the throughput and goodput performance of secondary transmission with antijamming piecewise coding while the rateless coding provides similar or worse performance than that in the uniform case.
On Pyroxene Molecules in the CIPW Norm

Contending that Barth9s 1931 article on "Proposed change in calculation of norms of rocks" is no more than a change in the manner of stating the norm, Chayes presents (and suggests that Barth has implied) two alternative methods of calculating wo, en, fs, fo, and fa that differ from the CIPW rules in that CaO, MgO, and FeO are not allocated to di, hy, and ol before allocation of SiO 2 . It is concluded that the CIPW method gives results closer in agreement to the mode. Barth points out, in reply, that his paper implied no changes in the principles of the CIPW rules of calculation, that the changes suggested for the presentation of the norm were accepted by H. S. Washington, who founded it, and gives excerpts from his paper in substantiation.
Charm Search in p-N Collisions

Three experiments searching for charmed particles will be discussed. All three have been carried out with the double arm spectrometer of the MIT-BNL group [1] at BNL with an incident proton beam of 28.5 GeV.
Elected Versus Appointed School District Officials: Is There a Difference in Student Outcomes?

This article explores the differences in student performance outcomes when school officials are either elected or appointed to their posts. If appointed officials are insulated by at least one leve...
Findings on the portable chest radiograph correlate with fluid balance in critically ill patients.

Study objectives Fluid balance concerns occur daily in critically ill patients, complicated by difficulties assessing intravascular volume. Chest radiographs (CXRs) quantify pulmonary edema in acute lung injury (ALI) and total blood volume in normal subjects. We hypothesized that CXRs would reflect temporal changes in fluid balance in critically ill patients. Design Standardized scoring of 133 supine, portable, anteroposterior CXRs. Outcomes included subjective and objective measures of intravascular volume and pulmonary edema. Setting Academic university medical center and affiliated Veterans Affairs hospital. Patients Thirty-seven patients with ALI receiving mechanical ventilation blindly randomized to treatment with diuretics and colloids or dual placebo for 5 days. Measurements and results Treated patients experienced a 3.3-L diuresis and 10-kg weight loss during the 5-day period. A significant correlation was observed in all patients between changes in vascular pedicle width (VPW) and net intake/output ( r = 0.50, p = 0.01) or weight ( r = 0.51, p = 0.01). The correlation between VPW and fluid balance was greatest for weight changes in the treatment group alone ( r = 0.71, p = 0.005). Pulmonary artery occlusion pressure correlated highly with changes in VPW ( r = 0.70, p Conclusions We conclude that temporal fluid balance changes are reflected on commonly utilized portable CXRs. Objective radiographic measures of intravascular volume may be more appropriate indicators of fluid balance than subjective measures, with VPW appearing most sensitive. If systematically quantitated, serial CXRs provide a substantial supplement to other clinically available data for the purpose of fluid management in critically ill patients.
Bacterial diversity and changes towards spoilage micro flora of iced Alaska pink salmon

Fresh, iced Alaska pink salmon were stored upto 20 days with samples of skin, gills and belly cavity analyzed for bacterial flora developments. Bacterial colonies isolated from plates used to estimate aerobic bacterial populations were identified using rapid cellular fatty acid analysis. Acidovorax spp. and Brevundimonas spp. were identified as part of the fresh fish microflora. The group consisting of Psychrobacter, Moraxella and Acinetobacter were present throughout salmon storage but were found only associated with fish skin and gills. Pseudomonas fluorescens and P. putida formed a major percentage of the spoilage flora and Shewanella putrefaciens comprised the minor portion in sampled tissues. The replacement of using the Sherlock Microbial Identification System for classical taxonomic tests resulted in time, material and labor savings. Also, the database provided a deeper view of the bacterial diversity and changes in bacterial flora that occurred during iced salmon storage.
Error Estimates for an Ocean General Circulation Model from Altimeter and Acoustic Tomography Data

Abstract An offline approach is proposed for the estimation of model and data error covariance matrices whereby covariance matrices of model data residuals are “matched” to their theoretical expectations using familiar least-squares methods. This covariance matching approach is both a powerful diagnostic tool for addressing theoretical questions and an efficient estimator for real data assimilation studies. Provided that model and data errors are independent, that error propagation is approximately linear, and that an observability condition is met, it is in theory possible to fully resolve covariance matrices for both model and data errors. In practice, however, due to large uncertainties in sample estimates of covariance matrices, the number of statistically significant parameters that can be estimated is two to three orders of magnitude smaller than the total number of independent observations. The covariance matching approach is applied in the North Pacific (5°–60°N, 132°–252°E) to TOPEX/Poseidon sea ...
Identifying students’ perceptions of community within and need for an online veterinary pharmacotherapy course

Abstract Objective Veterinary pharmacy is an emerging industry, yet its place within pharmacy curricula is limited. This article describes a newly formed online veterinary pharmacotherapy course, and reports on student perceptions of classroom community and perceived need for this course. Design Veterinary pharmacotherapy was a two-credit elective offered to third and fourth year pharmacy students, delivered solely online through a Learning Management System. Evaluation of the course was completed through an optional standard course evaluation at the end of the semester, with added questions regarding key components integrated to foster community within the course. Results Out of 34 students, 14 completed the course evaluation. All students reported they would recommend this course to a classmate. The online nature of the course was viewed favorably with most students indicating it was the reason they were able to take this course. Two main reasons students reported enrolling in the course were a strong interest in animals and a belief that pharmacists should be educated on this important patient population. Weekly topic discussions and e-mails were viewed to have contributed to the sense of community within the course. Conclusion Veterinary pharmacotherapy course was well received by pharmacy students with weekly e-mails and topic discussions identified as contributing to community within the course. Additionally, students felt that animals were an important patient population for pharmacists to learn about. This particular feedback could be a catalyst for colleges and schools of pharmacy to offer more opportunities for students to learn about this patient population.
Photoperioclic Control in the Initiation of Diapause by Chaoborus americanus (Diptera: Culicidae)

Final (fourth) larval instars of Chaoborus americanus Johannsen overwinter beneath the ice of Nearctic ponds. These larvae are developmentally dormant but otherwise active; the maintenance and termination of diapause is known to be mediated by photoperiod and the availability of food (Bradshaw 1969). The control of the initiation of diapause has now been examined. It became possible to carry out this study when samples from George Pond on the University of Michigan's E. S. George Reserve yielded numerous early instars of C. americanus on May 1, 1970.
Health and humanitarian information on the web: select sites, free for all

This article identifies and details a number of selected Web sites that provide free information in the areas of health and humanitarian aid. A brief analysis of content and a guide to navigation accompanies each.
The Gender Divide: The Impact of Surgeon Gender on Surgical Practice Patterns in Urology

Purpose: There is a perception in urology that female urologists encounter gender based role assignments and are often pigeonholed into caring for more female patients and female specific urological issues than their male colleagues. We assessed the influence of surgeon gender on patient gender demographics by exploring the surgical case logs of American urologists.Materials and Methods: Six-month case logs of certifying urologists from 2003 to 2012 were obtained from the ABU (American Board of Urology). We reviewed case logs based on CPT codes of common urological procedures, focusing on 6 index gender neutral and gender specific procedure groups, including treatment of nephrolithiasis, nephrectomy, resection of bladder tumors, treatment of stress urinary incontinence, elective sterilization and treatment of prostate cancer.Results: Among a cohort of 6,166 urologists 1,011,800 cases were logged. Female surgeons operated on a significantly higher percent of female patients than their male peers (54.4% vs ...
Vasospastic disorders: etiology, recognition, and treatment

This article discusses a group of disorders commonly unappreciated by physicians. The distinction between Raynaud's disease and Raynaud's phenomenon is reviewed. The classification, pathophysiology, and recognition of the vasospastic diseases is reviewed to lay the foundation for understanding the treatment modalities presented.
Service-learning for students of Spanish: Promoting civic engagement and social justice through an exchange tutoring service

Service-learning courses are designed to promote civic engagement and social justice, and to connect the classroom with the community in an environment of cooperation and mutual interest. In this article, a service-learning course of Spanish at the university level is supported as a reciprocal language exchange between the campus and the community. According to this course proposal, students attend a Latino community site once a week, where their members are tutored in English and American culture, while students are tutored in Spanish and Spanish-speaking culture. This way, service-learning is connected to the Spanish classroom through “Reflection” sessions led by mentors visiting the class periodically. This course was designed so that students would be able to improve their conversation skills in this exchange tutoring service while they are involved with the community by seeing their members as equal peers.
The Expansion of the Opium Industry in Burma, and the Beginning of the Age of International Conferences, 1895–1914

The outcome of the Royal Commission on Opium was a setback for the London-based anti-opium movement, but it did not end the campaign against opium in the British Empire. The nineteenth century anti-opium movement survived into the twentieth century, but it underwent a change in identity. In the nineteenth century, colonial officials making opium policy decisions in Burma were aware of scrutiny from, and were susceptible to campaigning from the London-based anti-opium lobby, as well as the demands and pressures of the local population. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, this scrutiny took on an increasingly transnational dimension. The series of international conferences held to discuss the drug trade that began with the Shanghai conference in 1909 indicated that the government of India and by extension the government of Britain were accountable beyond the confines of Burma, India, or the British Empire for opium policy decisions.
Improving the prediction of ranking data

By using the same number of alternatives for every respondent, all ranking elicitation methods in the literature including full, partial, and best–worst rankings assume respondents know and are able to rank the same number of alternatives. A simple survey elicitation mechanism allowing for individual heterogeneity in the number of rankings for ranked-ordered data is proposed. Using the proposed ranking mechanism as a data augmentation tool yields higher prediction of ranking choices compared to conventional rankings and best–worst methods. The results provide robust evidence of differences in error variance scale and the structure of the underlying utility preferences across ranking stages, including best–worst rankings. The highest predictive power was achieved with the proposed ranking method using only the best ranked alternative. Including any additional rankings other than the best alternative reduces predictive power. Nevertheless, if more than one ranking is used to model preferences, then better predictions are achieved by using the top two best ranked alternatives as supposed to the exploded best–worst rankings. The results stand as a warning about equating ranking choices to true underlying utility preferences across different ranking elicitation stages or mechanisms without properly testing for symmetry and stability of preferences.
The Relevance of Four Types of Knowledge for Leader Preparation in Radically Different Settings: Reflections on Data from a Case Study in Qatar and Teaching at a United States Military Academy

Based on our experiences at a military service academy and the study of leadership informing administrators in overseas branch campuses, we propose a link between conceptual leadership development in these learning environments and the relevance of the four types of knowledge - declarative, procedural, contextual, and somatic for educational administrators and leadership educators. Demonstrating an appropriate and experiential frame of reference through application of the knowledge types can help inform students and educational leaders about contextual applications of leadership and affect leadership development in diverse educational settings. Our paper also discusses application challenges and impact on future learning environments. Through examination of the chosen environments we maintain that effective leader development requires a balance between institution-centered experiential exercises and learner-centered pedagogy based on the contextual learning environments explored.
Latinos, Labor Markets, and the Economic Recovery in Nevada

During the past six years, Nevada’s economy has recovered. Nevertheless, there has been little research examining how different groups of workers fared during the recovery period. This study fills this gap by analyzing labor-market conditions for Latinos throughout the state’s economic recovery.
Cognitive burden of anticholinergic medications in psychotic disorders

Abstract Background Patients with psychotic disorders are often treated with numerous medications, many of which have anticholinergic activity. We assessed cognition in relation to the cumulative anticholinergic burden of multiple drugs included in treatment regimens of participants from the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) study. Method Clinically stable participants with schizophrenia (n = 206), schizoaffective disorder (n = 131), and psychotic bipolar disorder (n = 146) were examined. Anticholinergic properties of all scheduled drugs were quantified using the Anticholinergic Drug Scale (ADS). ADS scores were summed across individual drugs to create a total ADS burden score for each participant and examined in relation to the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS). Results Anticholinergic burden aggregated across all medications was inversely related to cognitive performance starting at ADS scores of 4 in participants with schizophrenia. Those with ADS scores ≥ 4 had lower composite BACS scores compared to those with ADS Conclusion We identified an adverse effect threshold of anticholinergic burden on cognition in clinically stable participants with schizophrenia. This relationship was not identified in affective psychoses. Examination of other medications, doses, and clinical measures did not account for these findings. Patients with schizophrenia may have increased cognitive susceptibility to anticholinergic medications and the aggregate effects of one's medication regimen may be important to consider in clinical practice.
Quantitative assessment of the impact of partially protective anti-schistosomiasis vaccines.

Background Mass drug administration (MDA) of praziquantel has been the intervention of choice against schistosomiasis but with limited success in interrupting the transmission. The development of anti-Schistosoma vaccines is underway. Our objective is to quantify the population-level impact of anti-Schistosoma vaccines when administered alone and in combination with mass drug administration (MDA) and determine factors in vaccine design and public health implementation that optimize vaccination role in schistosomiasis control and elimination. Methods and findings We developed a deterministic compartmental model simulation of schistosomiasis transmission in a high-risk Kenyan community, including stratification by age, parasite burden, and vaccination status. The modeled schistosomiasis vaccines differed in terms of vaccine duration of protection (durability) and three biological efficacies. These are vaccine susceptibility effect (SE) of reducing person’s susceptibility to Schistosoma acquisition, vaccine mortality effect (ME) of reducing established worm burden and vaccine fecundity effect (FE) of reducing egg release by mature worms. We quantified the population-level impact of vaccination over two decades under diverse vaccination schemes (childhood vs. mass campaigns), with different age-targeting scenarios, different risk settings, and with combined intervention with MDA. We also assessed the sensitivity of our predictions to uncertainties in model parameters. Over two decades, our base case vaccine with 80% SE, FE, and ME efficacies, 10 years’ durability, provided by mass vaccination every 10 years, reduced host prevalence, mean intensity, incidence, and patent snail prevalence to 31%, 20 eggs/10-ml sample/person, 0.87 worm/person-year, and 0.74%, from endemic-state values of 71%, 152, 3.3, and 0.98%, respectively. Lower impact was found when coverage did not encompass all potential contaminators, and childhood-only vaccination schemes showed delayed and lower impact. In lower prevalence settings, the base case vaccine generated a proportionately smaller impact. A substantially larger vaccine program effect was generated when MDA + mass vaccination was provided every 5 years, which could be achieved by an MDA-only program only if drug was offered annually. Vaccine impact on schistosomiasis transmission was sensitive to a number of parameters including vaccine efficacies, human contact rates with water, human density, patent snails’ rate of patency and lifespan, and force of infection to snails. Conclusions To be successful a vaccine-based control strategy will need a moderately to highly effective formulation combined with early vaccination of potential contaminators and aggressive coverage in repeated rounds of mass vaccination. Compared to MDA-only program, vaccination combined with MDA accelerates and prolongs the impact by reducing the acquisition of new worms and reducing egg release from residual worms.
Harnessing the Potential of the Tea Tree Genome

Tea is arguably the most popular non-alcoholic beverage in the world. The primary source of tea is the boiled leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis. Agronomic production of tea leaves currently depends heavily on a relatively small number of vegetatively propagated clonal varieties of C. sinensis. However, there is an urgent need for new cultivars, but conventional approaches to breeding can take 22–25 years to produce a new desirable C. sinensis accession (as reviewed by Chen et al., 2007). In this issue, Xia et al.
Defending Empire at the United Nations: The Politics of International Colonial Oversight in the Era of Decolonisation

This article argues that, although anti-colonial delegations to the 1945 San Francisco Conference did not succeed in bringing all colonial territories under the umbrella of international trusteeshi...
Mood Disorders: An Introduction

By all objective accounts he was indeed a prominent lawyer. The policeman, who had found him sitting at 4 A.M. in an empty public square chewing aspirin tablets, said he was, and his wife, when called, confirmed it. And yet he described himself as a “shell of a person” fit only to be prosecuted for moral decay. A loud voice—“heh”—was ridiculing him. He was not a man. Had he not neglected his wife, both emotionally and sexually? Was he not cursed and ignored by God as a failure? All his benevolent acts were a cover for self-aggrandizement. He was the model for the wretched lawyer whom Camus had protrayed in his novel The Fall. He had indulged himself in a life of pseudoservice. He should never have entered the legal profession. Rather, he should have been a janitor. In fact, he wondered at times whether he was a lawyer. Perhaps he had been once, but now he was clearly an imposter, an empty, useless wretch who could no longer concentrate or make the simplest decisions, who paced his office late into the night, afraid to go home and face another restless, sleepless night. He felt caught in something repetitious and uncontrollable, beset by sinful thoughts that threatened to destroy him. He was “wiped out,” “fallen apart,” so alienated from his creator and his family that he wondered whether he even existed. Who were the authorities to deprive him of his final, perhaps only, courageous act?