cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Deamidation of Polyanion‐stabilized Acidic Fibroblast Growth Factor

The deamidation of polyanion‐stabilized acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF; FGF‐1) can be induced by prolonged storage under accelerated conditions of elevated pH and temperature. A urea–isoelectric focusing (urea‐IEF) method has been developed to monitor aFGF deamidation in the presence of highly negatively charged polyanions which are required to maintain the conformational stability of the protein. The kinetics of aFGF deamidation have been established by a combination of urea‐IEF and an enzymatic ammonia assay. Native, non‐deamidated aFGF (complexed with heparin) has a half‐life of 16 weeks at pH 7, 30 °C, and 4 weeks at pH 8, 40 °C. The mitogenic activity and biophysical properties of deamidated aFGF were compared to the non‐deamidated protein. These initial deamidation events have no significant effect on the protein's overall conformation, thermal stability, interaction with heparin, or bioactivity. At longer times, however, limited aggregation of the protein was observed after prolonged storage under some conditions. N‐terminal protein sequencing of the protein's first 21 amino acid residues have identified one of the deamidation sites in a flexible, peptide‐like region of the protein (Asn8‐Tyr9).
The Python Project: A Unique Model for Extending Research Opportunities to Undergraduate Students

Undergraduate science education curricula are traditionally composed of didactic instruction with a small number of laboratory courses that provide introductory training in research techniques. Research on learning methodologies suggests this model is relatively ineffective, whereas participation in independent research projects promotes enhanced knowledge acquisition and improves retention of students in science. However, availability of faculty mentors and limited departmental budgets prevent the majority of students from participating in research. A need therefore exists for this important component in undergraduate education in both small and large university settings. A course was designed to provide students with the opportunity to engage in a research project in a classroom setting. Importantly, the course collaborates with a sponsor's laboratory, producing a symbiotic relationship between the classroom and the laboratory and an evolving course curriculum. Students conduct a novel gene expression study, with their collective data being relevant to the ongoing research project in the sponsor's lab. The success of this course was assessed based on the quality of the data produced by the students, student perception data, student learning gains, and on whether the course promoted interest in and preparation for careers in science. In this paper, we describe the strategies and outcomes of this course, which represents a model for efficiently providing research opportunities to undergraduates.
On the design of metal-oxide varistors for dynamic insulation of high voltage systems

The author describes the performance of metal-oxide varistors as applied to dynamic insulation of high-voltage power systems. A mathematical model for a dynamic insulator is constructed, which takes into consideration the effects of the surface contamination conditions as well as the arc development and propagation on the flashover behavior of outdoor insulators. The nonlinear I-V characteristics of metal-oxide elements are utilized to both suppress system overvoltages and improve the flashover performance of these insulators. A method for designing the optimum configuration (i.e. the one that corresponds to best transient and flashover performance) of metal-oxide units of given characteristics is developed. Experimental data of zinc-oxide varistors are used to illustrate the design procedure. It is shown that the optimum zinc-oxide configuration depends mainly on the system voltage level, geometry of the insulating surface, and atmospheric contamination level. The new design procedure is used to develop a simple dynamic insulator unit resulting in an improvement of over 14% in the flashover performance under uniform contamination conditions. The concept of manufacturing solid insulator units with built-in dynamic insulation properties is suggested. >
GEOGRAFIA HUMANA E DETERMINAÇÃO

doi: 10.12957/geouerj.2012.4749 RESUMO A nocao de indeterminacao e de geografias possiveis possui uma longa historia na GeografiaHumana. Ela tem sido pensada em termos de um numero de diferentes contrastes tipicos,como os de indeterminacao/determinacao; contingencia/necessidade; agenciamento/estrutura;composicao/contexto. Este artigo prove, primeiro, uma revisao sobre como a questao foienquadrado desde a revolucao quantitativa espacial. Ela procede com os trabalhos iniciais deautores como Hagerstrand e Curry ate chegar a trabalhos mais recentes, como sobre odesenvolvimento encaminhado, ou sobre as justaposicoes de chance de Massey. Ascontinuidades e complementaridades entre estas diferentes abordagens sao focalizadas. Oartigo conclui discutindo como se pode pensar a indeterminancia na geografia humana deforma mais defensiva, e como o materialismo historico geografico permite nos movermospara alem destes binomios. Palavras chave Indeterminancia. Justaposicao por chance. Desenvolvimento dependente deencaminhamento. Geografias historicas. Materialismo historico geografico. ABSTRACT. The notion of indeterminacy and possible geographies has a long history in human geography.It has typically been thought of in terms of a number of different contrasts:indeterminacy/determinacy; contingent/necessary; agency/structure; composition/context. Inthe first place this paper provides a review of how the question has been framed since thespatial-quantitative revolution. This proceeds from the early works of people like Hagerstrandand Curry through the more recent work on path dependent development and Massey’schance juxtapositions. The continuities and complementarities between these differentapproaches are highlighted. The paper concludes with a discussion of how we might moredefensible think about indeterminacy in human geography and how historical geographicalmaterialism allows us to move beyond these binaries Key Words : indeterminacy; chance juxtaposition; path dependent development; geographicalhistories; historical geographical materialism.
Legal Blogging and the Rhetorical Genre of Public Legal Writing

This article brings scholarly attention to the blog posts, tweets, updates and other writing on social media that many lawyers generate and many others would consider generating, if they had the time and skill to do so. In the broadest terms, this genre of writing is “public legal writing”: writing by lawyers not for any specific client but for dissemination to the public or through wide distribution channels, particularly the Internet. Legal blogging is a good entry point into public legal writing because legal blog posts often share some analytical features of longer articles alongside conversational conventions typical of writing on social media. Legal blogging is certainly not new, but this article brings new attention to it. The article begins by reviewing helpful (non-legal) advice from two recent writing guidebooks, Christopher Johnson’s Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little and Roy Peter Clark’s How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times. Primed by the ideas in these books, the article explores the genre of legal blogging through two case studies of legal blog posts in 2014. Finally, the article puts legal blogging into context by addressing its similarities to and differences from traditional legal writing. Legal blogging offers a respite from the formalities of traditional legal writing, but it also brings its own set of expectations and constraints that define the evolving boundaries of this genre.
Isolation of chlamydia trachomatis from sexually abused female adolescents

Cultures for Chlamydia trachomatis were obtained from 127 female adolescents (13-17 years of age) evaluated for reported sexual abuse. The rate of positive cultures for C trachomatis in this population was 14% (18 of 127). Neisseria gonorrhoeae was found in 12% (15 of 127) of these patients. All but two of the culture-positive patients admitted sexual activity before the abuse, and it is likely that most of the infections were acquired during this previous sexual activity. Concomitant infection with N gonorrhoeae was found in seven adolescents positive for C trachomatis. No adolescents in this study exhibited a positive VDRL. Victims of abuse should be tested for both gonococcal and chlamydial infection. These data show that if antibiotic prophylaxis is used for the sexually abused adolescent, it should be directed against both C trachomatis and N gonorrhoeae.
Phylloquinone in plasma from elderly and young adults: factors influencing its concentration

Abstract Fasting plasma phylloquinone concentrations were determined by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography in a population of young (n = 131) and elderly (n = 195) human subjects. The distribution of values was non-Gaussian but was converted to Gaussian form after a logarithmic transformation of the data. The normal range derived from the lognormal distribution was 0.29-2.64 nmol/L (geometric means = 0.87 nmol/L, median = 0.86 nmol/L). Young females had significantly decreased plasma phylloquinone concentrations when compared with the elderly females whereas concentrations in young males were slightly higher than those in elderly males. A regression model was constructed and revealed that plasma phylloquinone concentrations were positively correlated with plasma triglycerides and alpha-tocopherol. Although the elderly subjects (means = 1.05 nmol/L) had higher levels of phylloquinone than the young subjects (0.94 nmol/L), when the concentration of phylloquinone in plasma is expressed as nanomoles phylloquinone per millimole of triglyceride, the elderly subjects (0.62 x 10(-6) showed decreased levels for phylloquinone compared with the young subjects (0.82 x 10(-6) (p less than 0.001).
Alerting effects of caffeine after normal and restricted sleep.

To assess the alerting effects of caffeine after normal and restricted nocturnal sleep, 36 healthy, nonsmoking men, 19 to 35 years old, who reported normal sleep and daytime alertness received 0, 75, or 150 mg caffeine twice daily after 8 and 5 hours in bed the previous night. Sleep restriction reduced average daily sleep latency measured by the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) and slowed auditory vigilance reaction time in the latter half of the 40-minute task. Caffeine (75 and 150 mg) increased average daily sleep latency and improved vigilance reaction time. However, sleep restriction did not alter the alerting effects of caffeine. The data show that, unlike ethanol, basal level of sleepiness/alertness does not interact with the effects of caffeine. Language: en
Geographical Variation in the Nestling Coloration of Parasitic Cowbirds

-Cowbird nestlings show significant geographical variation in rictal flange color. Twenty-four cowbirds from the Southwest, where the race Molothrus ater obscurus breeds, had yellow flanges whereas 73 from the remainder of the United States and Canada, where the races artemisiae and ater breed, had white flanges. There is little or no intralocality variation. Nestling cowbirds with yellow and white flanges apparently are accepted and fed by hosts regardless of the color of the rictal flanges of the host's own young, but I hypothesize that the quality of host care received by a nestling cowbird is influenced by its rictal flange color and that host responses are the selective pressure responsible for the geographical variation. Character displacement in nestling coloration is suggested by the fact that M. a. obscurus is the only race of Molothrus ater that has yellow flanges and it is also the only race that is sympatric with another cowbird, Molothrus aeneus, a species that apparently has white flanges. Character displacement could be caused by competition for host species and is further indicated by other lines of evidence. Received 18 February 1976, accepted 19 February 1977. INTRASPECIFIC variation in egg appearance occurs in many parasitic birds and is most plausibly explained by the selective pressures arising from host responses to parasitic eggs (Payne 1967, Rothstein 1971, Southern 1954). In contrast, the appearance of parasitic nestlings has little known effect on the great majority of hosts (Hamilton and Orians 1965). However, variation in parasitic nestlings could imply that some aspects of the hosts exert a selective pressure on the parasite's nestlings. Indeed, the few known cases of within-taxon variation in parasitic nestlings have been explained in this manner. Lack (1968: 88-89) accounted for intraspecific variation in the juvenal plumage of a parasitic cuckoo by relating each plumage variant to different hosts. Similarly, intrageneric variation in the nestling gape of parasitic finches may represent adaption to different hosts (Payne 1967, 1973: 61). In this paper, I show that nestlings of the parasitic Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) have either yellow or white rictal flanges. I also discuss the possible significance of this variation. The nestling variation is especially notable because it correlates with recognized subspecies of the cowbird and the cowbird does not show as strong variation in its eggs or adults.
Surface-Initiated Polymerization as an Enabling Tool for Multifunctional (Nano-)Engineered Hybrid Materials

Surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) has become an indispensable tool for engineering the structure and properties of polymer/inorganic and polymer/organic interfaces. This article describes the progress and challenges that are associated with the application of SI-ATRP to precisely control the molecular characteristics of polymer chains tethered to nanoparticle surfaces and explores the properties and potential applications of the resulting particle brush materials. Even for the conceptually most “simple” particle brush systems—that is, spherical particles uniformly grafted with amorphous nonpolar polymers—the complex superposition of interactions as well as time- and length-scales related to particle core and tethered chains provides a rich and largely unexplored parameter space for the design of novel functional materials. The application of the particle brush approach to the development of materials for applications ranging from photonic inks and paints to advanced high “k”...
Session 4B — Panel data analytics in semiconductor manufacturing

Modern IC design and manufacturing have progressed in leaps and bounds, resulting in unimaginable integration, and power-performance advancements. This progress has been accompanied by adverse design-layout-process interactions and increased defect sensitivity. Controlling these complex interactions has exacted a steep price in terms of delaying yield ramp, extending silicon validation to characterize and fix marginal effects, and test screening being overwhelmed in time and volume to be able to ensure outgoing customer quality.
Literary and Narrational In/Validities

The allusive methods favoured by the modernist poets — and utilised by Joyce as well — prove upon examination to be unusually diverse, handled quite individually by each practitioner. Yet the basic assumption remains that if the original source can be located, its ‘meaning’ isolated and determined, and its applicability to the new text illustrated, a neatly constructed unit becomes apparent that establishes a specific meaning within the new text, enlarging the operative ‘context’. Characterising Joyce’s allusive method, however, has often eluded the allusionists, although the principle of direct confrontational usage continues to define the methodology. What must we know about Dante Alighieri to be able to appreciate ‘the spiritual-heroic refrigerating apparatus’ that Stephen so caustically credits him with having ‘invented and patented in all countries’ (AP, p. 252)? Will Dante’s heroic effort to sublimate Eros in favour of Agape in his appreciation of pre-nubile Beatrice Portinari suffice to substantiate a similar transition in Stephen’s attitude toward Emma, even if we acknowledge that Stephen’s is rather disingenuous and forced? Direct application would endow Stephen Dedalus with Dante’s perfected spiritualism, but his ironic tone favours an inexact application, no matter how sincere his love for Dante might otherwise appear.
Study design for a randomized controlled trial to increase the relative reinforcing value of vegetable consumption using incentive sensitization among obese and overweight people

In this manuscript, we present the protocol for a study that applies incentive sensitization theory to improve vegetable intake in overweight and obese adults. This 8-week, randomized, controlled, community-based feeding study with an 8-week follow-up seeks to use repeated exposure to amounts of vegetables recommended by federal guidance to increase the primary outcome of the relative reinforcing value of vegetables compared to a snack food. A community-based design is used to give participants autonomy in choosing their method of exposure. Secondary outcomes include: 1) Determine potential moderators of incentive sensitization of vegetables, including genetic polymorphisms associated with food reinforcement and obesity, 6-n-propylthiouracil tasting status, and delay discounting. 2) Determine whether adding vegetables to the diet results in participants substituting low-energy-dense vegetables for energy-dense foods or whether energy-dense food consumption is independent of vegetable consumption. 3) Determine whether reductions in adiposity are associated with substitution of vegetables in the diet. 4) Determine if markers of bone turnover change. 5) Assess changes in self-reported secondary outcomes measured by questionnaire such as self-efficacy to eat vegetables. The results of this study will provide information about the drivers of individual choice to consume recommended amounts of vegetables. The understanding gained will help increase the effectiveness and sustainability of behavior-based interventions focused on improving vegetable intake. This information may also be used to assist in setting dietary guidance targets for the amounts and types of vegetables Americans can, and should, consume.
Family-friendly science.

A little more than a decade ago, as an aspiring scientist working toward my Ph.D., I spent an unfortunate number of hours debating with myself and discussing with my peers whether it was possible to have kids and be a successful scientist. As the media and, often, scientists themselves portrayed it
Computer-assisted quantitation of choroidal neovascularization for clinical trials.

Purpose To develop a computer-assisted method for the quantitation of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) for the support of clinical trials. Methods Fluorescein angiographic images were selected from 5 patients enrolled in a clinical trial for which three follow-up visits were available. Thirty- and 600-second images were digitized at 1000 dots/in and registered (aligned) with polynomial warping algorithms. Custom-developed software allowed for coarse, automated identification of CNV. An easy-to-use graphical user interface facilitated supervision and refinement of the lesion boundaries by a skilled reader based on standard stereoscopic viewing of the fluorescein angiography study. Capabilities for boundary delineation in both early and late phases, and animation to allow for image correlation and evaluation of temporal changes in fluorescence of spatially corresponding pixels, were included. Two metrics for CNV characterization were generated. First, the lesion area based on the lesion boundaries was identified after supervision. Second, an integrated lesion intensity (ILI) reflecting the integrated, normalized lesion hyperfluorescence was calculated. Results Area and ILI measures were calculated for each of 5 patients for three or more visits. Facile supervision based on the stereoscopic angiogram permitted arbitrarily close concordance with CNV identification using standard methods. Changes in area and ILI measurements between visits correlated closely with clinically observed changes in each case. Conclusions Interactive image processing permits efficient, accurate, computer-assisted CNV quantitation that may be useful for the support of clinical trials and preclinical studies.
INTERNAL CONTROLS IN THE TALMUD: THE JERUSALEM TEMPLE

We examine the Hebrew Talmud's account of internal controls in the ancient Jerusalem Temple (c.823 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.) This far-reaching enterprise involved an extensive system of sacrificial offerings, management of three annual pilgrimages, a court system and maintenance of a priestly class. We outline the annual process of collecting half-shekel and other donations, withdrawals from the Temple treasury and the sale of libations. The Talmud describes numerous internal controls: donations were segregated according to their specific purposes and donation chests were shaped with small openings to prevent theft. When making withdrawals from the Temple treasury, the priest-treasurer was required to wear specific clothing to prevent misappropriation of assets. The Treasury chamber itself had seven seals, requiring the presence of seven different individuals, including the king, in order to open it. The process of selling libations and meal offerings required purchasing and then redeeming different tickets, whi...
Introduction to Emotions at Work: The Employment Relationship During an Age of Anxiety

The Great Recession claimed approximately 8.8 million jobs in the U.S., and in the post-Recession aftermath, the American people’s relationship to work has changed in long-ranging ways. Those who lost their jobs had to deal with the financial and psychic consequences, while those who have jobs face uncertainty and anxiety in the workplace. The difficulties associated with job separation and job insecurity are not only economic – they are also emotional, relational, and personal. Given these ongoing and current concerns, on January 5, 2015, the Labor Relations and Employment Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) put on a program at the 2015 AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. entitled “Emotions at Work: The Employment Relationship During an Age of Anxiety.” This session looked at the emotional aspects of the employment relationship during the present post-recession age, and how employment law or workplace policy should address these matters. Are emotions in the workplace openly recognized and managed, and if so, how? What are the challenges for both employers and employees in understanding the relevance of emotions at work, and the opportunities this raises, especially in times of anxiety? During our session, the panelists addressed this topic in each of their presentations, briefly described in this Introduction.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EQUIVALENCE SYSTEMS

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the development of equivalence systems. There are certain intractable physiological limitations upon children's ability to process information, such as apprehension span and intersensory connections. The ability to discover equivalences depends heavily upon both of these constraints. If apprehension span is not exceeded, children discover equivalences easily. If it is exceeded, they can respond by pairing up portions of the equivalence sets, chunk by chunk. The correct equivalence-matching operation can require that the three words—bridge, across, and river—should be matched to three symbols and that these concepts should be held in mind simultaneously long enough to detect the relationships among them. The pairwise printout of an overloaded system can be seen in a pure form by combining digit span and block tapping span testing procedures. Digit-block pairing can be an interhemispheric coordination. Block span functions are damaged by right hemispheric lesions, whereas digit span is damaged by left hemispheric lesions.
Social Anxiety and Peer Relations Among Adolescents: Testing a Psychobiological Model

This study tested hypotheses derived from Trower and Gilbert's (1989) model of social anxiety. Participants were 1,179 students (594 males and 585 females) in grades 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11. Participants completed the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents and a sociometric nomination task. Nominations from the following behavioral descriptors: most cooperative, class leader, fights the most, and easiest to push around, were used to classify students into four peer nomination groups (i.e., cooperative, friendly dominant, hostile dominant, and submissive). Results indicated that students classified as submissive reported greater social anxiety than those classified as cooperative, friendly dominant, and hostile dominant. Implications of these results for further study of the Trower and Gilbert (1989) model of social anxiety are discussed.
A Phenomenology of Embodiment

Introducing Husserl’s phenomenology of the body, the author argues that this approach can negotiate the different—and sometimes conflicting—manners in which we experience sexual embodiment. Following through several levels of embodiment as evident in Husserl’s analyses, the author argues that different aspects of the body’s materiality, sexuality, and sensory and concrete experience are constituted within each level. Thus, although the experiences of each level filter into and influence the others, we can understand our embodiment in very different ways in spite of (and along with) any apparent conflicts. The body is a unified whole of these experiential levels, from fundamental sensory experience through the social and discursive constitutions of sexual embodiment.
Channel de-embedding and measurement system characterization for MIMO at 75 GHz

We explore the development of a sparse set of measurements for array calibration, relying on coherent multi-channel data acquisition of wideband signals at 75 GHz, and the hardware characterization and post-processing necessary to perform channel de-embedding at an elemental level for a 4×1 system. By characterizing the complete RF chain of our array and the differential skew and phase response of our measurement hardware, we identify crucial quantities for measuring closed commercial systems. In the future, combining these responses with precise elemental location information, will enable us to consider means of de-embedding elemental response and coupling effects that may be compared to conventional single-element calibration information and full-pattern array measurements.
Toward a more dependable hybrid analysis of android malware using aspect-oriented programming

Abstract The growing threat to user privacy by Android applications (app) has tremendously increased the need for more reliable and accessible analysis techniques. This paper presents AspectDroid 1 —an offline app-level hybrid analysis system designed to investigate Android applications for possible unwanted activities. It leverages static bytecode instrumentation to weave in analysis routines into an existing application to provide efficient dataflow analysis, detection of resource abuse, and analytics of suspicious behaviors, which are then monitored dynamically at runtime. Unlike operating system or framework dependent approaches, AspectDroid does not require porting from one version of Android to another, nor does it depend on a particular Android runtime, making it a more adaptable and easier to use technique. We evaluate the strength of our dataflow algorithm on 105 apps from the DroidBench corpus, with experimental results demonstrating that AspectDroid can detect tagged data with 94.68% accuracy. Furthermore, we compare and contrast the behavioral patterns in 100 malware samples from the Drebin dataset ( Arp et al., 2014 ) and 100 apps downloaded from Google Play. Our results showed more traces of sensitive data exfiltration, abuse of resources, as well as suspicious use of programming concepts like reflection, native code, and dynamic classes in the malware set than the Google Play apps. In terms of runtime overhead, our experiments indicate AspectDroid can comprehensively log relevant security concerns with an approximate overhead of 1 MB memory and a 5.9% average increase in CPU usage.
Swallowing Changes in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Older adults may evidence changes in swallowing physiology. Our goals were to identify dysphagia risk in community-dwelling older adults with no history of dysphagia, and to compare swallowing physiology and safety between older and younger adults. Thirty-two older adults with no history of dysphagia were prospectively recruited and completed the Dysphagia Handicap Index (DHI), two trials of a 3 oz. swallow screen, and videofluoroscopy (VFSS). Self-ratings of swallowing function were compared to published norms by paired t tests, and multivariate logistic regression models were generated to determine whether these ratings and VFSS analysis of swallowing function were associated with failure of one or both swallow screen trials. Archived VFSS of 33 younger adults were compared to older adults with Wilcoxon rank-sum tests. The DHI scores of older adults were higher than published non-dysphagic adults but lower than dysphagic adults. Older participants with greater Oral Residue scores were more likely to fail both swallow screen trials. Older adults received higher median MBSImP™© scores for select pharyngeal components than younger adults. The two age groups did not differ on Penetration-Aspiration Scale scores, and no aspiration was observed. Measures of swallowing in older individuals may reflect age-related sensory and motor changes in the context of functional swallowing and adequate airway protection.
Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically, Could It Also Succeed Legally?

Nuclear power is a relatively familiar method of generating electricity in the United States, but the process remains controversial because of high-level radioactive waste. Conventional nuclear reactors use uranium fuel to sustain nuclear fission, but eventually such fuel becomes spent and requires storage and disposal because of its dangerous radioactive properties. The United States produces a large amount of nuclear waste every year but has struggled to develop a long-term disposal strategy. America favors land-based disposal methods and is not giving serious consideration to alternative methods, including sub-seabed burial. This Note discusses preliminary research on sub-seabed burial of nuclear waste and examines a sample of domestic and international laws that could apply if the United States were to use the disposal method. This Note concludes that if further research were to show that sub-seabed disposal would work properly, the United States could probably engage in deep burial through drilling without violating the applicable international and domestic laws discussed in this Note.
Assessment in Behavioral Consultation: The Initial Interview.

This paper describes the initial phase of behavioral consultation and presents nine objectives to be accomplished during the initial consultative interview. The purpose of this interview is to defi...
An Expansion of the Probability Mass Function that may be used to Improve Poisson Approximations

Random variables defined on the natural numbers may often be approximated by Poisson variables. Just as normal approximations may be improved by the Edgeworth expansion, Poisson approximations may be substantially improved by a similar expansion. Both of these expansions require one to approximate a generating function. This paper will derive a separate expansion for improving Poisson approximations to tail probabilities by approximating the probability mass function directly. This new expansion is often useful for points in the tails of the distribution. Examples will be presented to illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of this new expansion.
Increased coronary arteriolar contraction to serotonin in juvenile pigs with metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is associated with alterations in coronary vascular smooth muscle and endothelial function. The current study examined the contractile response of the isolated coronary arterioles to serotonin in pigs with and without MetS and investigated the signaling pathways responsible for serotonin-induced vasomotor tone. The MetS pigs (8-weeks old) were fed with a hyper-caloric, fat/cholesterol diet and the control animals (lean) were fed with a regular diet for 12 weeks (n = 6/group). The coronary arterioles (90–180 μm in diameter) were dissected from the harvested pig myocardial tissues and the in vitro coronary arteriolar response to serotonin was measured in the presence of pharmacological inhibitors. The protein expressions of phospholipase A2 (PLA2), TXA2 synthase, and the thromboxane-prostanoid (TP) receptor in the pigs’ left ventricular tissue samples were measured using Western blotting. Serotonin (10−9–10−5 M) induced dose-dependent contractions of coronary-resistant arterioles in both non-MetS control (lean) and MetS pigs. This effect was more pronounced in the MetS vessels compared with those of non-MetS controls (lean, P < 0.05]. Serotonin-induced contraction of the MetS vessels was significantly inhibited in the presence of the selective PLA2 inhibitor quinacrine (10−6 M), the COX inhibitor indomethacin (10−5 M), and the TP receptor antagonist SQ29548 (10−6 M), respectively (P < 0.05). MetS exhibited significant increases in tissue levels of TXA2 synthase and TP receptors (P < 0.05 vs. lean), respectively. MetS is associated with increased contractile response of porcine coronary arterioles to serotonin, which is in part via upregulation/activation of PLA2, COX, and subsequent TXA2, suggesting that alteration of vasomotor function may occur at an early stage of MetS and juvenile obesity.
Climate and ecological disturbance analysis of Engelmann spruce and Douglas fir in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem

Abstract The effects of anthropogenic climate change are apparent in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), USA, with forest die-off, insect outbreaks, and wildfires impacting forest ecosystems. A long-term perspective would enable assessment of the historical range of variability in forest ecosystems and better determination of recent forest dynamics and historical thresholds. The objectives of this study were to (1) develop tree-ring chronologies for Engelmann spruce and Douglas fir growing at the study location, (2) correlate the annual ring widths of each species to monthly climate variables, (3) examine the instrumental climate data for regimes shifts in the mean state of variables, and (4) determine when ecological disturbances occurred through a quantification of growth releases. Finally, we discuss both climate-growth relationships and growth releases in the context of climate regime shifts and known forest disturbances. Engelmann spruce and Douglas fir showed some similar climate responses using moving correlation analysis including negative correlations between ring width and June – August current year temperature and previous growing season temperature. Regime shift analysis indicated significant (p
Association of Medicaid Expansion with Tunneled Dialysis Catheter Use at the Time of First Arteriovenous Access Creation

Abstract Background In the United States, many low-income patients initiating hemodialysis are uninsured before qualifying for Medicare. Inadequate access to predialysis care may delay their arteriovenous (AV) access creation and increase tunneled dialysis catheter (TDC) use. The 2014 Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility for Medicaid among low-income adults, but not every state adopted this measure. We evaluated whether Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased TDC use for hemodialysis initiation. Methods We queried the United States Vascular Quality Initiative state-level database for non-Medicare patients undergoing initial AV access creation from 2011 to 2018. We evaluated associations of receiving initial AV access in states that expanded Medicaid with concurrent TDC use, survival, and insurance coverage. Results Data were available for patients in 31 states: 19 states expanded Medicaid from January 2014 to February 2015. Among 8462 patients in the postexpansion period from March 2015 to December 2018, 58% were in Medicaid expansion states. Patients in Medicaid expansion states less often had concurrent TDCs (40% vs. 48%, P Conclusions Patients in Medicaid expansion states were less likely to have TDCs during initial AV access creation, suggesting earlier predialysis care. Hispanic patients benefited from increased insurance coverage. Expanding insurance options for the underserved may improve quality metrics and cost-savings for hemodialysis patients.
Adaptive Control Improves Sclera Force Safety in Robot-Assisted Eye Surgery: A Clinical Study

The integration of robotics into retinal microsurgery leads to a reduction in surgeon perception of tool-to-tissue interaction forces. This blunting of human tactile sensory input, which is due to the inflexible mass and large inertia of the robotic arm as compared to the milli-Newton scale of the interaction forces and fragile tissues during ophthalmic surgery, identifies a potential iatrogenic risk during robotic eye surgery. In this paper, we aim to evaluate two variants of an adaptive force control scheme implemented on the Steady-Hand Eye Robot (SHER) that are intended to mitigate the risk of unsafe scleral forces. The present study enrolled ten retina fellows and ophthalmology residents into a simulated procedure, which simply asked the trainees to follow retinal vessels in a model retina surgery environment. For this purpose, we have developed a force-sensing (equipped with Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG)) instrument to attach to the robot. A piezo-actuated linear stage for creating random lateral motions to the eyeball phantom has been provided to simulate disturbances during surgery. The SHER and all of its dependencies were set up in an operating room in the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The clinicians conducted robot-assisted experiments with the adaptive controls incorporated as well as freehand manipulations. The results indicate that the Adaptive Norm Control (ANC) method, is able to maintain scleral forces at predetermined safe levels better than even freehand manipulations. Novice clinicians in robot training however, subjectively preferred freehand maneuvers over robotic manipulations. Clinician preferences once highly skilled with the robot is not assessed in this study.
A Generic Two-Vector Model Predictive Control for Hybrid Multilevel Converters

In this article, a generic two-vector model predictive control (TV-MPC) strategy is proposed for the hybrid multilevel converters (HMCs). The proposed method selects two optimal voltage vectors among all the vector candidates using a geometric positioning approach to reduce the computational burden, which is a common issue in the existing MPC methods for HMC. Then duty cycles of the two selected vectors are optimized to minimize the current tracking error, such that the current tracking performance can be enhanced compared with the conventional MPC. In addition, the voltages of the floating dc capacitors can be balanced by evaluating all switching sequences that belong to the optimal voltage vectors with optimal duty cycles. The concept of the proposed TV-MPC is generic and applicable for any HMCs. A typical HMC based on active neutral-point-clamped topology is adopted as a case study in this work. Comprehensive simulation and experimental studies are performed on an all silicon-carbide HMC prototype to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.
Facts Shape Feelings: Information, Emotions, and the Political Consequences of Violence

What makes violence political? Existing research argues that experiencing violence generates anger and grievances, which cause political mobilization, retribution, and spirals of escalating violence. I argue that the effect of violence on the political behavior of survivors is highly variable: situation-specific information shapes how survivors of violence experience anger, and whether they attribute blame to individual perpetrators or form more durable, expansive political grievances toward targets like police or prosecutors. I use qualitative and computational methods to analyze transcripts of original interviews with relatives of Black and Latinx homicide victims in Chicago, IL. Results show substantial diversity in emotional experience and blame attribution. I argue that this diversity is caused by variation in clarity about identity and motive of the perpetrator, and variation in perception of perpetrator responsibility. Having or lacking crucial information determines whether survivors become angry at perpetrators or form broader political grievances after traumatic experiences. Evidence from Chicago challenges the notion that violent trauma and anger have automatic or straightforward consequences for political behavior.
Identification of Putative Gene-Target Modulators of Radiosensitivity in Bladder Cancer Cell Lines (BlaCCL)

Purpose/objective(s) We aimed to computationally derive potential modulators of radiosensitivity in an expanded panel of BlaCCL based upon whole-transcriptomic RNA-seq analysis integrated with functional enrichment and interaction analysis. Materials/methods Twenty established BlaCCL, verified by genomic fingerprinting, were profiled with RNA-seq with raw counts normalized via log (TPM+1). We performed colony forming assays on all cell lines in triplicate with radiosensitivity measured via area-under-the-cell-survival curve (AUC) at varying doses of radiation (0-8 Gy). Gene signatures of radiosensitivity and resistance were generated via unsupervised matrix decomposition of the RNA-seq dataset using statistical software run at k = 13 for 10,000 iterations correlated with AUC via Spearman's rho. Putative modulators of radiosensitivity were identified as hub proteins in protein-protein interaction networks (via String-DB) of the native gene signatures and of derived sets of upstream kinases with hypergeometric P ≤ 0.05. Results RNA-seq analysis identified 18,634 genes for the panel of BlaCCL, of which updated satisfactory colony forming results were obtained for 18 cell lines with AUC (range = 3.40-5.94). Generated signatures of radiosensitivity and radioresistance based on baseline gene expression consisted of 2,192 and 282 unique genes respectively. Our radiosensitivity signature contains 1,543 unique genes compared to previously described signatures of response in patients undergoing definitive chemoradiation, i.e., signatures of T-cell inflamed tumors and interferon-gamma response. Network analyses of the gene signatures reveal hub proteins that connect networks of proteins related to inflammatory response, oxidative stress, DNA-damage repair, cell cycle and others. These include TNF, VNN1, ESR1, H2AC14, RXRG, FPR2, ADCY1, and S1PR4. Kinase enrichment analysis revealed hub proteins previously described in the radiation response including ATM, ATR, CHEK2, AKT1, SRC, JAK2, and ERK-signaling among others. Conclusion Biologically plausible modulators of radiosensitivity and resistance can be derived from transcriptomic data paired with phenotypic data and functional enrichment analysis. Further mechanistic studies are necessary to confirm potential modulators of the radiation response which may eventually lead to novel radiosensitizing drugs to improve response to chemoradiation in bladder cancer patients.
Biomarkers and Biosensors: Detection and Binding to Biosensor Surfaces and Biomarkers Applications

Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Modelling Chapter 3: Detection of Cancer Biomarkers (Part I) Chapter 4: Detection of Cancer Biomarkers (Part II) Chapter 5: Detection of Biomarkers for Myocardial Infarction (MI) Chapter 6: Detection of Biomarkers for Arthritis Chapter 7: Detection of Biomarkers for Cardiovascular Diseases Chapter 8: Detection of Glucose (for Diabetes Mellitus: DM) Part I Chapter 9: Detection of Glucose (for Diabetes Mellitus: DM) part II Chapter 10: Detection of Biomarkers for Systemic Lupus Mellitus Erythematosus (SLE) Chapter 11: Detection of Biomarkers for Nervous System Diseases (Alzheimer, Huntington, Parkinson) Chapter 12: Detection of Biomarkers for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Chapter 13: Detection of Biomarkers for Different Diseases (Stroke marker protein, HIV infection, Hepatitis, Influenza virus, Dengue virus, Human papillomavirus, beta amyloids, Interferon Gamma for example, HIV infection in patients)
Alate immigration disrupts soybean aphid suppression by predators

Natural enemies suppress many aphid populations, and yet, population outbreaks sometimes occur. The reasons predation fails to suppress such outbreaks are not clearly understood. While manipulating predators to examine their role in soybean aphid population growth, a natural immigration of soybean aphids occurred that enabled us to compare the roles immigration and predation played in population growth. Using predator exclusion cages, we found that predation on the top of the plant accounted for 42.3 ± 11.4% (mean ± SE) reduction in aphid population growth rates. When 90–100% of the canopy was exposed, predation failed to reduce aphid population growth because winged immigrants colonized plants, with an observed 6-fold increase in alates compared to plants completely covered or exposing only the top nodes (approximately 10% of the total canopy). We conclude that reproduction by immigrants contributed to population growth rates sufficiently to compensate for predation. These results demonstrate that immigration can counteract high levels of predation and lead to aphid population growth rates that could result in outbreak population densities.
Red Cells Shrink During Sickling

Rapid transformation of discoid hemoglobin SS erythrocytes into grossly distorted sickled forms suggests alteration of surface/volume ratio. We, therefore, examined the effect of deoxygenation on red cell volume. 131 I-labeled albumin was used as a marker of plasma volume in normal (Hb AA), sickle (Hb SS), and sickle-C (Hb SC) blood. Heparinized blood was incubated for 30 min at 37°C in a tonometer under deoxy (90% N 2 , 10% CO 2 ) or oxy (90% O 2 , 10% CO 2 ) atmospheres. Whole blood and plasma concentrations of radioactivity were determined. The hematocrits thus obtained with 131 I-albumin showed that deoxygenation caused: (1) Hb AA cells to swell (mean MCV +4.0 cu µ ± 3.0, p p p
Justice Without Borders: A Reply to Nagel

The philosophy of international law embraces a variety of conceptual and normative tasks. Few of these tasks are as theoretically interesting or as morally important as the analysis and justification of principles of distributive justice extending between nations, either directly or by way of international institutions. This Essay approaches the question of global justice through a discussion of a recent article by Thomas Nagel, who takes the radical position that duties of distributive justice extend only within and not between rich and poor countries, and that shared membership in international institutions does not give rise to any additional obligations to eliminate arbitrary inequalities across borders. Nagel's philosophical argument turns repeatedly on legal concepts - such as responsibility and standing - and legal contexts - such as the creation and replacement of sovereign states - whose philosophical import remains obscured for want of legal analysis. Engagement with Nagel's views provides a window onto a new approach that avoids the excesses of the radical position while acknowledging the concerns that provide its motivation. The new approach fuses elements of liberal egalitarianism and republicanism, responding to conflicting impulses toward equality and partiality and to the relevance of international institutions in mediating duties of global justice.