cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Rituximab Administration within 6 Months of Allogeneic SCT Carries Risk of Prolonged and Life Threatening Cytopenias.

Abstract 793 The use of the monoclonal anti-CD20 antibody Rituximab to treat chronic graft-versus-host disease (c-GVHD) occurring after stem cell transplantation (SCT) is generally effective and well tolerated. However this agent can cause neutropenia. Here we describe cytopenias following Rituximab treatment in patients developing c-GVHD after allogeneic SCT. Between 2006-2009, 50 patients received a myeloablative matched-sibling T-cell depleted or selectively-depleted SCT for a variety of hematological malignancies, mainly AML, ALL, CML, and MDS. Median age was 43 years (range, 13 – 68), and median CD34+ cell dose was 6.1 × 10 6 /kg (range, 3.1-10.1). Thirty-one patients developed acute GvHD; 13 grade 1, 16 grade 2, and 1 patients with grade 3. Twenty-seven patients had chronic GvHD (17 limited, 10 extensive). Nineteen patients were treated with Rituxmab; 15 within 180 days, and 4 between 1- 7 years following SCT. Patients receiving Rituximab one year after SCT experienced only moderate neutropenia 3-5 months after treatment lasting 10-20 days while maintaining ANC > 1.0× 10 9 /L. In contrast, neutropenia occurring within 4 weeks of treatment occurred in all 15 patients given Rituximab within the first 180 days after SCT. Twelve of these patients developed severe neutropenia (ANC Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
PLASMA CERAMIDE CONCENTRATIONS PREDICT RISK OF CARDIOVASCULAR EVENTS

Background: Ceramides are lipids that accumulate in tissues during hyperlipidemia and inflammation. Plasma concentrations of ceramides predict cardiovascular death in patients with CAD. Risk conferred is independent of age, sex, hypertension, smoking, LDL-C and HDL-C. Our objective was to validate
Surgical Management of Pancreatic Cysts: A Shifting Paradigm Toward Selective Resection

Due to the widespread use of high-quality cross-sectional imaging, pancreatic cystic neoplasms are being diagnosed with increasing frequency. Clinicians are therefore asked to counsel a growing number of patients with pancreatic cysts diagnosed incidentally at an early, asymptomatic stage. Over the last two decades, accumulating knowledge on the biologic behavior of these neoplasms along with improved diagnostics through imaging and endoscopic cyst fluid analysis have allowed for a selective therapeutic approach toward these neoplasms. On one end of the management spectrum, observation is recommended for typically benign lesions (serous cystadenoma), and on the other end, upfront resection is recommended for likely malignant lesions (main duct IPMN, mucinous cystadenoma, solid pseudopapillary tumor, and cystic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors). In between, management of premalignant lesions (branch duct IPMN) is dictated by the presence of high-risk features. In general, resection should be considered whenever the risk of malignancy is higher than the risk of the operation. This review aims to describe the evolution and current status of evidence guiding the selection of patients with pancreatic cystic neoplasms for surgical resection, along with a specific discussion on the type of resection required and expected outcomes.
Insights Gained by EPR Spectroscopy into the Composition and Function of the Mitochondrial Respiratory Chain

Ever since Keilin’s fundamental discovery—or rediscovery—in the 1930s of the cytochromes (Keilin, 1966), which have been and still are considered by many to be the mainstays of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, optical spectroscopy has played a paramount role in this field of research. The past two or three decades have witnessed the introduction into biochemistry of additional and different forms of spectroscopy, using frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum considerably higher or lower than traditional spectrophotometry, which of course often required radically different technologies. In its impact on our knowledge of what has been called the respiratory chain, one form of spectroscopy stands unequaled, viz. electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. This might have been expected, for EPR spectroscopy is the spectroscopic technique to directly look at unpaired electrons in organic molecules—e.g., cofactors such as flavin or ubiquinone (UQ)—and transition metal ions, which are electron carriers in oxidative enzymes. Fortunately, other virtues of the technique have joined this most important quality to make EPR spectroscopy the thus far most successful tool in advancing our knowledge far beyond the status as essentially set by Keilin’s pioneering work and by logical extensions thereof in the 1940s and 1950s. The virtues are as follows. (1) The sensitivity of EPR spectroscopy, when carried out at low temperatures, is sufficient to let us clearly recognize even in whole tissues practically all the electron carriers that have been identified by EPR in more concentrated, purified fractions. (2) While the sensitivity of EPR spectroscopy, in most instances, lies one or two orders of magnitude below that of spectrophotometry, its power of discrimination is far superior, particularly because effects of the intensity of the impinging radiation (saturation), observation temperature, and coupling of the observed paramagnet to other magnetic species can be exploited.
Rdrobust: Software for regression-discontinuity designs

We describe a major upgrade to the Stata (and R) rdrobust package, which provides a wide array of estimation, inference, and falsification methods for the analysis and interpretation of regression-...
Aggression, Psychopathology, and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration: Does Gender Matter?

The majority of intimate partner violence (IPV) research explores partner violence without considering the influence of contextual and psychosocial factors, such as trait aggression, psychopatholog...
Childcare Instability and Maternal Depressive Symptoms: Exploring New Avenues for Supporting Maternal Mental Health.

Abstract Objective We investigated links between childcare experiences—specifically, care instability and mothers' perceptions of care access—and maternal depressive symptoms in an effort to illuminate policy-amenable mechanisms through which childcare experiences can support maternal mental health. Methods Data were taken from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort. We used regression models with lagged dependent variables to estimate associations between aspects of childcare instability and perceptions of care availability and maternal depressive symptoms. We did so on the full sample and then on subgroups of mothers for whom childcare instability may be especially distressing: mothers who are low income, working, single, or non-native speakers of English. Results Childcare instability—length in months in the longest arrangement and number of arrangements—was not associated with maternal depressive symptoms. However, mothers’ perceptions of having good choices for care were associated with a reduced likelihood of clinical depressive symptoms, even after controlling for prior depressive symptoms and concurrent parenting stress; this latter association was observed both in the full sample (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.77; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.63–0.96) and among subgroups of employed mothers (AOR = 0.71; CI = 0.57–0.87) and single mothers (AOR = 0.72; CI = 0.52–0.99). Conclusions Although dimensions of care instability did not associate with maternal depressive symptoms, mothers’ perceptions of available care options did. If replicated, findings would highlight a previously unconsidered avenue—increasing care accessibility and awareness of available options—for promoting maternal mental health in a population likely to experience depression but unlikely to be treated.
Neutron Spectrometry for Identification of filler material in UXO - Final Report

Unexploded ordnance (UXO)-contaminated sites often include ordnance filled with inert substances that were used in dummy rounds. During UXO surveys, it is difficult to determine whether ordnance is filled with explosives or inert material (e.g., concrete, plaster-of-paris, wax, etc.) or is empty. Without verification of the filler material, handling procedures often necessitate that the object be blown in place, which has potential impacts to the environment, personnel, communities and survey costs. The Department of Defense (DoD) needs a reliable, timely, non-intrusive and cost-effective way to identify filler material before a removal action. A new technology that serves this purpose would minimize environmental impacts, personnel safety risks and removal costs; and, thus, would be especially beneficial to remediation activities.
Exploring Iron-Plus-Hydroperoxide-Based “Oxygen Activation” Systems. Or: It’s Hard to Keep a Good Radical Down!

The selective oxygenation of alkanes at ambient temperatures is scientifically exciting and the challenge has attracted numerous chemists. The goal is to mimic the chemical behavior of monooxygenases such as the cytochrome P450’s and the methane monooxygenases. These enzymes can “insert” an oxygen atom into an unactivated carbon-hydrogen bond. Dioxygen provides the inserted oxygen atom in vivo and a sacrificial reductant is used to convert the other oxygen atom to water.
Nonuniqueness of Sixpartite Points

AbstractIt is known that the area of any bounded, convex plane figure can be divided into equal sixths by three concurrent lines, and it is not hard to see that the same is true for perimeters. Cal...
A Smart Wearable Gadget for Noninvasive Detection and Notification of Diaper Moister

Wearing a wet diaper for a long time can be uncomfortable and cause health issues such as diaper rash. The best way to avoid diaper rash is to change the diaper often and as soon as possible after the baby urinates or passes stool. Daycare caregivers or parents sometimes forget or do not have time to manually check the diaper condition of the babies throughout the day. In this age of smart devices, many people are busy with their cell phones or tablets for social networking, texting, gaming, music etc. In this project, a novel wearable gadget is developed which sends an automatic notification to caregivers smart devices whenever the baby urinates. The proposed wearable detects urination event noninvasively by sensing the temperature rise on the outer surface of the diaper. The gadget is a small size, low power, low cost and reusable electronic device that is attached externally to the outer surface of the diaper using hook-and-Ioop fasteners. The gadget can be used with any disposable diaper, thus no change in the diaper production process or price increase is required. The smartphone app logs the urination events and creates databases and reports. This record can facilitate treating disease such as dehydration, where accurate previous records of urination are required. A prototype of the hardware gadget and a smartphone app is developed and tested.
Feasibility of Image Fusion for Concurrent MRI Evaluation of Vessel Lumen and Vascular Calcifications in Peripheral Arterial Disease

OBJECTIVE. With MR angiography of peripheral arterial disease, calcifications are unapparent, so a separate calcification-sensitive pulse sequence (proton density–weighted in-phase 3D stack-of-star...
Production Application Performance Data Streaming for System Monitoring

In this article, we present an approach to streaming collection of application performance data. Practical application performance tuning and troubleshooting in production high-performance computing (HPC) environments requires an understanding of how applications interact with the platform, including (but not limited to) parallel programming libraries such as Message Passing Interface (MPI). Several profiling and tracing tools exist that collect heavy runtime data traces either in memory (released only at application exit) or on a file system (imposing an I/O load that may interfere with the performance being measured). Although these approaches are beneficial in development stages and post-run analysis, a systemwide and low-overhead method is required to monitor deployed applications continuously. This method must be able to collect information at both the application and system levels to yield a complete performance picture.In our approach, an application profiler collects application event counters. A sampler uses an efficient inter-process communication method to periodically extract the application counters and stream them into an infrastructure for performance data collection. We implement a tool-set based on our approach and integrate it with the Lightweight Distributed Metric Service (LDMS) system, a monitoring system used on large-scale computational platforms. LDMS provides the infrastructure to create and gather streams of performance data in a low overhead manner. We demonstrate our approach using applications implemented with MPI, as it is one of the most common standards for the development of large-scale scientific applications.We utilize our tool-set to study the impact of our approach on an open source HPC application, Nalu. Our tool-set enables us to efficiently identify patterns in the behavior of the application without source-level knowledge. We leverage LDMS to collect system-level performance data and explore the correlation between the system and application events. Also, we demonstrate how our tool-set can help detect anomalies with a low latency. We run tests on two different architectures: a system enabled with Intel Xeon Phi and another system equipped with Intel Xeon processor. Our overhead study shows our method imposes at most 0.5% CPU usage overhead on the application in realistic deployment scenarios.
Changing to Basal-Bolus Insulin Therapy for the Inpatient Management of Hyperglycemia—A Natural Experiment

Objective: Most acute-care hospitals have transitioned from sliding-scale to basal-bolus insulin therapy to manage hyperglycemia during hospitalization, but there is limited scientific evidence demonstrating better short-term clinical outcomes using the latter approach. The present study sought to determine if using basal-bolus insulin therapy favorably affects these outcomes in noncritical care settings and, if so, whether the magnitude of benefit differs in patients with known versus newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. Methods: This natural experiment compared outcomes in 10,120 non-critically ill adults with type 2 diabetes admitted to an academic teaching hospital before and after hospital-wide implementation of a basal-bolus insulin therapy protocol. A group of 30,271 inpatients without diabetes (type 1 or 2) served as controls. Binomial models were used to compare percentages of patients with type 2 diabetes who were transferred to intensive care, experienced complications, or died in the hospital before and after implementation of the protocol, controlling for changes in the control group. The analysis also evaluated before-after changes in length of stay and glucometric indicators. Results: Implementation of basal-bolus therapy did not reduce intensive care use (the primary outcome), complications, mortality, or median length of stay, except in patients with newly diagnosed diabetes (n = 234), who experienced a statistically significant decline in the incidence of complications (P 300 mg/dL (P<.01). Conclusion: Despite achieving significant reductions in both hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia, use of basal-bolus insulin therapy to manage hyperglycemia in non-critically ill hospitalized patients did not improve short-term clinical outcomes, except in the small minority of patients with newly diagnosed diabetes. The optimal management of hyperglycemia for improving these outcomes has yet to be determined. Abbreviation: ICD-9 = International Classification of Diseases-Ninth Revision.
Log-gases on quadratic lattices via discrete loop equations and q-boxed plane partitions

Abstract We study a general class of log-gas ensembles on (shifted) quadratic lattices. We prove that the corresponding empirical measures satisfy a law of large numbers and that their global fluctuations are Gaussian with a universal covariance. We apply our general results to analyze the asymptotic behavior of a q-boxed plane partition model introduced by Borodin, Gorin and Rains. In particular, we show that the global fluctuations of the height function on a fixed slice are described by a one-dimensional section of a pullback of the two-dimensional Gaussian free field. Our approach is based on a q-analogue of the Schwinger–Dyson (or loop) equations, which originate in the work of Nekrasov and his collaborators, and extends the methods developed by Borodin, Gorin and Guionnet to quadratic lattices.
Small-Scale Procedure for Acid-Catalyzed Ketal Formation.

A modified procedure for dehydrative ketal protections is disclosed, which serves as an alternative to the classic Dean–Stark protocol. Studies show that this new procedure can outperform the Dean–Stark apparatus on small scales and thus serves as a complementary approach to effect dehydrative ketalizations. A detailed procedure for this apparatus is presented.
GSK-3 modulates SHH-driven proliferation in postnatal cerebellar neurogenesis and medulloblastoma

ABSTRACT Cerebellar development requires regulated proliferation of cerebellar granule neuron progenitors (CGNPs). Inadequate CGNP proliferation causes cerebellar hypoplasia whereas excessive CGNP proliferation can cause medulloblastoma, the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor. Although sonic hedgehog (SHH) signaling is known to activate CGNP proliferation, the mechanisms downregulating proliferation are less defined. We investigated CGNP regulation by GSK-3, which downregulates proliferation in the forebrain, gut and breast by suppressing mitogenic WNT signaling in mouse. In striking contrast to these systems, we found that co-deleting Gsk3a and Gsk3b blocked CGNP proliferation, causing severe cerebellar hypoplasia. The GSK-3 inhibitor CHIR-98014 similarly downregulated SHH-driven proliferation. Transcriptomic analysis showed activated WNT signaling and upregulated Cdkn1a in Gsk3a/b-deleted CGNPs. Ctnnb co-deletion increased CGNP proliferation and rescued cerebellar hypoproliferation in Gsk3a/b mutants, demonstrating physiological control of CGNPs by GSK-3, mediated through WNT. SHH-driven medulloblastomas similarly required GSK-3, as co-deleting Gsk3a/b blocked tumor growth in medulloblastoma-prone SmoM2 mice. These data show that a GSK-3/WNT axis modulates the developmental proliferation of CGNPs and the pathological growth of SHH-driven medulloblastoma. The requirement for GSK-3 in SHH-driven proliferation suggests that GSK-3 may be targeted for SHH-driven medulloblastoma therapy.
Secure Design and Development Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (SD2-C2M2): Next-Generation Cyber Resilience by Design

The Secure Design and Development Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (SD2-C2M2) provides a browser-based tool that allows hardware and software developers to assess the maturity level of their design and development processes, allows management to determine desired maturity levels in seven domains, and allows developers to monitor process maturity improvements against management goals. The tool can be used by commercial developers as well as internal development organizations. This paper provides an overview of the tool and domains and presents a hypothetical case study of the tool to reduce software buffer overflow attack vulnerabilities by improving the software development process.
Gendered Governmentalities and Neoliberal Logics: Latina, Immigrant Women in Healthcare and Social Services:

This ethnographic research with Latina, immigrant mothers and health care and social service workers in Williamsburg, Virginia analyzes the production of insecurities in immigrant women’s lives, as...
Birds keep their balance underfoot

![Graphic][1] Every day is a balancing act for two-legged, land-dwelling animals traversing tree roots, rocks or any other obstacles they may encounter. The balance system of one nimble two-legged animal, the guinea fowl, is remarkably robust, allowing them to remain stable even when
The Humanistic Revolution in Psychology: Its Inaugural Vision:

This article presents a textual analysis of the inaugural issue of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. The analysis culminated in the creation of a composite narrative that expresses the characte...
Energy Balance and Time Dependence of a Magnetotail Electron Diffusion Region

We examine the July 11th, 2017 electron diffusion region (EDR) observed by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission using Poynting's theorem. The terms in Poynting's theorem are determined using...
Antegrade Superficial Femoral Artery Access for Lower Extremity Arterial Disease Is Safe and Effective in the Outpatient Setting.

Background Antegrade superficial femoral artery (SFA) access for peripheral artery disease reduces the time, radiation, and contrast required with contralateral common femoral access (CFA). Yet, this technique remains underutilized in the treatment of SFA, popliteal and tibial disease, and there remains limited data on the safety and effectiveness of antegrade SFA access in the outpatient setting. Methods A retrospective review of lower extremity peripheral arterial interventions in our office-based endovascular suite was conducted from 2013 to 2018. Interventions necessitating CFA access such as iliac, common femoral, or deep femoral artery revascularization were excluded (n = 206). In addition, interventions potentially requiring large sheaths not amenable to SFA access (e.g., popliteal aneurysm) were excluded. Relevant demographic and treatment variables including postoperative complications were abstracted. Results We identified 718 patients, who underwent revascularization of the SFA, popliteal and tibial arteries. Antegrade SFA access was chosen in 448 patients (62.4%) with the remaining 270 patients having retrograde CFA access. Antegrade SFA access was achieved primarily with a 4-French sheath, while a majority of retrograde CFA interventions utilized a 6-French sheath for access (87.7% vs 69.5%, P Conclusions Percutaneous antegrade SFA access can be performed safely in the outpatient setting and remains an effective alternative to retrograde CFA access with significantly less utilization of fluoroscopy and contrast.
Language, Nation, Race : Linguistic Reform in Meiji Japan (1868–1912)

Language, Nation, Race explores the various language reforms at the onset of Japanese modernity, a time when a “national language” (kokugo) was produced to standardize Japanese. Faced with the threat of Western colonialism, Meiji intellectuals proposed various reforms to standardize the Japanese language in order to quickly educate the illiterate masses. This book liberates these language reforms from the predetermined category of the “nation,” for such a notion had yet to exist as a clear telos to which the reforms aspired. Atsuko Ueda draws on, while critically intervening in, the vast scholarship of language reform that engaged with numerous works of postcolonial and cultural studies. She examines the first two decades of the Meiji period, with specific focus on the issue of race, contending that no analysis of imperialism or nationalism is possible without it. “Language, Nation, Race is an exceptional book. It not only provides a cogent interpretation of Meiji-era linguistic and literary reform movements but also productively challenges the current scholarly consensus regarding the meaning of these movements. Atsuko Ueda makes an entirely original and convincing argument about the relevance of ‘whiteness’ to the understanding of linguistic, aesthetic, and cultural values within these movements.”—JAMES REICHERT, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University “A remarkable accomplishment, bound to have a lasting impact in the field of Japan studies and beyond. Ueda’s compelling reading of Meiji period literary and linguistic debates opens new avenues for a philosophical questioning of phoneticism and its significance to the formation of the geopolitical categories of ‘West’ and ‘non- West.’”—PEDRO ERBER, author of Breaching the Frame: The Rise of Contemporary Art in Brazil and Japan ATSUKO UEDA is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at Princeton University. She is author of Concealment of Politics, Politics of Concealment: The Production of “Literature” in Meiji Japan and coeditor of The Politics and Literature Debate in Postwar Japanese Criticism, 1945–1952.
Leveraging Allele-Specific Expression for Therapeutic Response Gene Discovery in Glioblastoma.

Glioblastoma is the most prevalent primary malignant brain tumor in adults and is characterized by poor prognosis and universal tumor recurrence. Effective glioblastoma treatments are lacking, in part due to somatic mutations and epigenetic reprogramming that alter gene expression and confer drug resistance. Here, we interrogated allele-specific expression (ASE) in 43 patient-derived glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) to identify recurrently dysregulated genes in glioblastoma. We identified 118 genes with recurrent ASE preferentially found in GSCs compared to normal tissues. These genes were enriched for apoptotic regulators, including Schlafen Family Member 11 (SLFN11). Loss of SLFN11 gene expression was associated with aberrant promoter methylation and conferred resistance to chemotherapy and poly ADP ribose polymerase inhibition. Conversely, low SLFN11 expression rendered GSCs susceptible to the oncolytic flavivirus Zika, which suggests a potential alternative treatment strategy for chemotherapy resistant GBMs.
Investigating overhunting of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the late Holocene Middle Tennessee River Valley

Resource depression – a decline in encounter rates with prey due to the actions of a predator – has been documented for numerous species in North America. Yet it is not fully understood whether whi...
The effect of household appliances on female labor force participation: Evidence from microdata ☆

Abstract We estimate the effect of household appliance ownership on the labor force participation rate of married women using micro-level data from the 1960 and 1970 U.S. Censuses. In order to identify the causal effect of home appliance ownership on married women's labor force participation rates, our empirical strategy exploits both time-series and cross-sectional variation in these two variables. To control for endogeneity, we instrument a married woman's ownership of an appliance by the average ownership rate for that appliance among single women living in the same U.S. state. Single women's labor force participation rates did not increase between 1960 and 1970. We find evidence in support of the hypothesis that the diffusion of household appliances contributed to the increase in married women's labor force participation rates during the 1960's.
Cross-Jurisdictional Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments: A Tribal Court Perspective

This article examines the problems encountered when tribal court decisions are presented to state and federal courts for recognition and enforcement. The history of tribal courts is discussed, along with a state-by-state examination of laws pertaining to foreign judgments. The article concludes, based on empirical data from tribal judges, that there recognition and enforcement problems continue despite federal legislation in this area of law.
Addressing Emerging Information Security Personnel Needs. A Look at Competitions in Academia: Do Cyber Defense Competitions Work?

REQUIRED) This paper is part of a proposed study that looks at the emerging information security personnel needs of organizations. We are attempting to explore the correlation between components of a regional cyber defense competition and an organization’s needs in terms of employing adequately trained information security personnel. We look to identify some unique characteristics of a regional academic cyber defense competition via the critical success factors method.
Transseptal left atrial puncture; new technique for the measurement of left atrial pressure in man.

Abstract A new method for the measurement of left atrial pressure in man is described. In 13 patients the interatrial septum was punctured by means of a flexible needle passed through a cardiac catheter which had been introduced from the saphenous vein and positioned with its tip against the fossa ovalis. No complications were observed after the procedures. The advantages of the technique and its present and projected usefulness are discussed.
Phonocardiographic differentiation of the murmur of mitral insufficiency from some commonly heard adventitious sounds in childhood.

Phonocardiographic tracings were recorded in children with known insufficiency of the mitral valve, children with a variety of systolic murmurs without blowing quality and children with no audible cardiac murmurs. The murmurs of valvular insufficiency produced tracings with a completely patternless and disorganized wave form. The other nonblowing murmurs all yielded tracings of uniform sine-wave character, regardless of their acoustic quality. Of these, the majority were "twanging-string" murmurs, the loudest of these with a distinct buzzing quality; the others were "snorting," "scraping" or "grating" in quality. Clinical observations indicated that these nonblowing murmurs were not indicative of cardiac disease. The murmurs of mitral insufficiency were significantly longer than the nonpathologic murmurs, but the latter showed, on the average, fully as great amplitude on the tracings. Physical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Identification of Nonlinear Input/Output Models Using Non-Gaussian Input Sequences

The results presented here extend our earlier results for the identification of second-order Volterra models from non-Gaussian white noise [1]. Here, we replaced the white noise input sequence with an elliptically distributed sequence having arbitrary correlation structure and constant kurtosis k. These processes generalize stationary Gaussian processes and exhibit many of the characteristics of Gaussian stochastic processes, but they can exhibit arbitrary positive kurtosis values. The results we obtained here were similar in chracter to those obtained in the white noise case. In particular, the input autocorrelation matrix defines a transformation of variables that maps the identification problem into a form similar to that obtained for white input sequences, as seen in equation (29) ? as in [1], the diagonal and off-diagonal terms of the transformed matrix A are computed differently in a way that depends on the kurtosis. Future efforts will be aimed at developing "practical, plant-friendly" input sequences for second-order Volterra and other nonlinear process models. The results presented here represent a second step in that direction ad provide us with a mathematically tractable example in which we can explicitly control both the correlation structure and the non-Gaussian nature of the input sequence. The insights gained from this problem have suggested some new avenues of exploration, which will be described in later publications.
Insight into thyrotropin receptor cleavage by engineering the single polypeptide chain luteinizing hormone receptor into a cleaving, two subunit receptor.

To gain insight into the thyrotropin hormone (TSH) receptor (TSHR) cleavage, we sought to convert the noncleaving luteinizing hormone (LH) receptor (LHR) into a cleaved, two-subunit molecule. For this purpose, we generated a series of LHR mutants and chimeric LH-TSH receptors. Cleavage of mature, ligand binding receptors on the cell surface was determined by covalent 125I-labeled hCG crosslinking to intact, stably transfected mammalian cells. We first targeted a cluster of three N-linked glycans in the LHR (N295, N303, N317) in a region corresponding to the primary TSHR cleavage site, which has only one N-linked glycan. Elimination by mutagenesis of the most strategic N-linked glycan (LHR-N317Q) generated only a trace amount of LHR cleavage. Removal of the other N-linked glycans had no additive effect. A much greater degree of cleavage (≈ 50%) was evident in a chimeric LH-TSHR in which the juxtamembrane segment of the LHR (domain E; amino acids 317–367) was replaced with the corresponding domain of the TSHR (residues 363–418). Similarly cleaving LHR were created using a much smaller component within this region, namely LHR-NET317–319 replaced with TSHR-GQE367–369, or by substitution of the same three amino-acid residues with AAA (LHR-NET317–319AAA). In summary, our data alter current concepts regarding TSHR cleavage by suggesting limited (not absent) amino-acid specificity in a region important for TSHR cleavage (GQE367–369). The data also support the concept of a separate and distinct downstream cleavage site 2 in the TSHR.
Sequences of Harmonic Functions

We have already found need of the fact that certain infinite series of harmonic functions converge to limiting functions which are harmonic. We are now in a position to study questions of this sort more system- atically. Among the most useful is the following theorem due to HAR- NACK
Differentiation of 3T3-L1 fibroblasts to adipocytes. Loss of stimulation of uridine and 2-deoxy-D-glucose transport by PGF2 alpha in the course of differentiation of the 3T3-L1 cell line.

Insulin and prostaglandin F2 (PGF2α) stimulate undine and 2-deoxy-d-glucose transport by 3T3-L1 and 3T3-C2 cells. Maximal stimulation of both transport systems is achieved with 1.5 μM PGF2α. Maximal stimulation of uridine transport is achieved with 34 nM (200 ng/ml) insulin. The basal (control) level of uridine uptake is lower in 3T3-L1 than in 3T3-C2 cells, while the basal level of 2-deoxy-d-glucose uptake is slightly higher in 3T3-L1 cells. The stimulatory effect of PGF2α on both transport systems is abolished in the course of differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells to adipocytes. Removal of the inducers of differentiation (insulin plus indomethacin) from the medium of differentiated cells does not restore responsiveness of either transport system to PGF2α. In contrast the stimulatory effect of insulin on either transport system is not abolished during differentiation. Treatment of the non-differentiating 3T3-C2 cell line with inducers of differentiation reduces the basal level of 2-deoxy-d-glucose transport by 70% and only slightly decreases the basal level of uridine transport without affecting the stimulatory effect of PGF2α on either transport system.
INFLUENCE OF CURRENT ON STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF WAVES

The influence of wave-current interactions on various wave statistics is examined analytically. The statistics considered are those of peak magnitude, numbers of zero crossings and maxima, velocities of zeros, specular points, and points of inflexion of sea surface. The sea surface is considered both as a function of space and time. The random wave field is assumed to be unidirectional, zero mean, Gaussian, stationary and homogeneous, and in deep water. The current is considered to be steady in time, nonuniform in space, uniformly distributed in depth, and in or opposite to the direction of the waves. Numerical results are obtained and presented graphically. Results indicate that the interactions phenomena have a relatively mild influence on the maxima of sea surface but the rate of zero crossings and maxima of sea surface, treated as function of space, and the velocity of zeros, specular points, and points of inflexion, are affected by the presence of current to an appreciable extent and can be utilized effectively for current measurements by remote sensing devices.
Intracellular calcium dynamics in cortical microglia responding to focal laser injury in the PC::G5-tdT reporter mouse

Microglia, the resident immune cells of the brain parenchyma, are highly responsive to tissue injury. Following cell damage, microglial processes redirect their motility from randomly scouting the extracellular space to specifically reaching toward the compromised tissue. While the cell morphology aspects of this defense mechanism have been characterized, the intracellular events underlying these responses remain largely unknown. Specifically, the role of intracellular Ca2+ dynamics has not been systematically investigated in acutely activated microglia due to technical difficulty. Here we used live two-photon imaging of the mouse cortex ubiquitously expressing the genetically encoded Ca2+ indicator GCaMP5G and fluorescent marker tdTomato in central nervous system microglia. We found that spontaneous Ca2+ transients in microglial somas and processes were generally low (only 4% of all microglia showing transients within 20 min), but baseline activity increased about 8-fold when the animals were treated with LPS 12 h before imaging. When challenged with focal laser injury, an additional surge in Ca2+ activity was observed in the somas and protruding processes. Notably, coherent and simultaneous Ca2+ rises in multiple microglial cells were occasionally detected in LPS-treated animals. We show that Ca2+ transients were predominantly mediated via purinergic receptors. This work demonstrates the usefulness of genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators for investigation of microglial physiology.
Stress intensity factors in bonded half planes containing inclined cracks and subjected to antiplane shear loading

The antiplane shear problem for two bonded dissimilar half planes containing a semi-infinite crack or two arbitrarily located collinear cracks is considered. For the semi-infinite crack the problem is solved for a concentrated wedge load and the stress intensity factor and the angular distribution of stresses are calculated. For finite cracks the problem is reduced to a pair of integral equations. Numerical results are obtained for cracks fully imbedded in a homogeneous medium, one crack tip touching the interface, and a crack crossing the interface for various crack angles.
An Innovative Approach to Integrating Dance into Physical Education

Dance could be an essential component of the educational program that contributes to learning the psychomotor, cognitive and affective skills related to any physical activity. This article describes how dance could be integrated as a part of the physical education curriculum.
Adaptive jitter control for UPnP M-search

Selected service-discovery systems allow clients to issue multicast queries to locate network devices and services. Qualifying devices and services respond directly to clients; thus in large network, potential exists for responses to implode on a client, overrunning available resources. To limit implosion, one service-discovery system, UPnP, permits clients to include a jitter bound in multicast (M-search) queries. Qualifying devices use the jitter bound to randomize timing of their responses. Initially, clients lack sufficient knowledge to select an appropriate jitter bound, which varies with network size. In this paper, we characterize the performance of UPnP M-search for various combinations of jitter bound and network size. In addition, we evaluate the performance and costs of four algorithms that might be used for adaptive jitter control. Finally, we suggest an alternative to M-search for large networks.
High resolution high power mid-IR generation by second-order Stokes shift in hydrogen

We describe the construction of a new type of continuously tunable high power laser source for the mid-IR. The source has many highly desirable characteristics, it is high power, high energy, near-diffraction limited, very high resolution, has very high photon conversion efficiency and is broadly tunable. The approach we have taken to realize such a source is by high-order Stokes shifting in hydrogen of a pulsed single frequency tunable optical parametric oscillator (OPO) that is amplified by a Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier. There are several advantages to this approach. First, high power high quality radiation in the visible and near lR can easily be obtained from reliable solid-state lasers. Second, Stokes shifting uses hydrogen gas which can easily be replenished if necessary. It avoids the use of expensive IR nonlinear optical crystals such as the calcopyrites which are quite easily damaged, And third, by using soft focusing into a multiple-pass cell, the mid-IR output preserves the wavelength resolution and the spatial quality of the near-IR input. >
Attribute space visualization of demographic change

This paper introduces an approach for closer integration of self-organizing maps into the visualization of spatio-temporal phenomena in GIS. It is proposed to provide a more explicit representation of changes occurring inside socio-economic units by representing their attribute space trajectories as line features traversing a two-dimensional display space. A self-organizing map consisting of several thousand neurons is first used to create a high-resolution representation of attribute space in two dimensions. Then, multi-year observations are mapped onto the neural network and linked to form trajectories. This method is implemented for a data set containing 254 counties and 34 demographic variables. Various visual results are presented and discussed in the paper, from the visualizations of individual component planes to the mapping of voting behavior onto temporal trajectories.
Adulterants in heroin/cocaine: Implications concerning heroin-associated nephropathy

Heroin-associated nephropathy (HAN) is a complication of the intravenous use of heroin or cocaine. It has been postulated that one of the substances used to adulterate these drugs may be responsible for the renal injury. We examined data provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) concerning the laboratory analysis of 12 366 samples of heroin/cocaine. These street-grade drugs were analyzed for the presence of various adulterants or secondary substances. Eleven adulterants were identified with a frequency of occurrence that exceeded 5%. Quinine, mannitol, lactose and procaine were the non-narcotic compounds most commonly found. Other substances found included caffeine, inositol, lidocaine, starches, methapyrilene, sucrose, acetylprocaine and dextrose. No specific substance including heroin or cocaine has yet been definitely implicated as causative of HAN. These data suggest that further animal research is needed to determine the effects of repeated intravenous injections of each of these commonly found substances on the kidney.
Pharmacologically induced myocardial ischemia: A comparison of dobutamine and dipyridamole

The purpose of our study was to compare the ability of dobutamine and dipyridamole infusion to induce myocardial ischemia. In a population of 16 anesthetized open-chest swine, a coronary artery stenosis sufficient to abolish the hyperemic response to a 15-second total occlusion was created. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and dP/dt were recorded. Myocardial segment shortening was determined by sonomicrometry in all animals. In a subset of seven animals regional myocardial blood flow was measured by injection of radiolabeled microspheres. Dipyridamole was infused according to a high-dose protocol. After a washout period and reestablishment of a baseline state, dobutamine was infused incrementally. There was no significant difference between the baseline states. Dipyridamole did not affect heart rate but did significantly decrease blood pressure and rate-pressure product. Myocardial segment shortening decreased in the ischemic zone by 0.07±0.08 ( p =0.004). Dobutamine infusion significantly increased heart rate, blood pressure, and rate-pressure product. Myocardial segment shortening in the ischemic zone decreased by 0.17±0.09 ( p
Results Of A Six-State Pilot Study To Collect Exposure, Technique And Processing Data In Chest Radiography

The routine measurement of exposures for a reference dimension patient in diagnostic radiology is regarded as an important part of an effective quality assurance program. The most frequent radiologic examination conducted in the United States is chest radiography. If manual techniques are used to conduct the exam, the procedure for measuring exposure to the reference patient is straight-forward. However, if automatic exposure controlled (AEC) techniques are used, a patient-equivalent chest phantom must be employed to reproducibly attenuate the x-ray beam. This is of particular importance if exposures are to be compared among AEC systems with different entrance x-ray spectra. Exposure monitoring is just part of the quality assurance story. Radiographic techniques, filtration, scatter reduction, film/screen use, and film processing performance (among other factors) must also be assessed, in order to effectively evaluate and modify these exposures so that they provide appropriate image quality. The first four factors are relatively easy to determine through measurement or documentation. Poor processor performance, potentially a major cause of abnormally high patient exposure, is more difficult to assess. We have designed, constructed and tested a Lucite/aluminum patient-equivalent attenuation chest phantom (LucAl) to use in the estimation of standard posteroanterior (22-23 cm) patient exposures for both manual and AEC chest systems. A sensitometric procedure that can be used to assess relative processor performance has also been developed. This paper describes these two procedures and their use in a six-State pilot study to monitor and evaluate exposure, technique and processor data in chest radiography. Results from approximately 200 chest systems will be summarized.
Rational use of antihypertensive medications in children

Hypertension has traditionally been regarded as an uncommon diagnosis in childhood and adolescence; however, there is compelling evidence to suggest that its prevalence is on the rise, particularly in those with obesity. As a result, pediatricians increasingly are asked to evaluate and manage patients with elevated blood pressure. An increased emphasis on conducting drug trials in children over the last 15 years has yielded important advances with respect to evidence-based data regarding the efficacy and safety of antihypertensive medications in children and adolescents. Unfortunately, data to definitively guide selection of initial agents is lacking. This article will present guidelines for the appropriate use of antihypertensive medications in the pediatric population, including the rational approach to selecting an appropriate medication with respect to pathophysiology, putative benefit, and likelihood for side effects.
Segmental dynamics of polymers during capillary flow into nanopores

Ordered arrays of parallel cylindrical nanopores were employed as measurement platforms in the field of nanofluidics, in particular, to investigate – by means of broadband dielectric spectroscopy – the dynamic glass transition of polymers during capillary flow in 2D geometrical nanoconfinement. The results are compared to the glassy dynamics of the polymers in the bulk.
Computed tomography of uterine sarcomas

Uterine sarcomas are rare tumors, comprising only 2% of uterine malignancies. Abdominal and pelvic computed tomography (CT) of 14 patients with pathologically proven uterine sarcomas were reviewed. The average age of patients in our series was 64 years. The primary tumor measured between 4 and 30 cm. CT characteristics of uterine sarcomas included a low density mass within the uterine cavity in 12 of 14 cases. In two cases the mass was nearly isodense with uterus. Tumor necrosis was present in eight cases. Two patients presented with sarcomatosis, two demonstrated nodal spread, and one had liver metastases. Hydronephrosis was seen in three cases.