cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Magnesium suppression of early afterdepolarizations and ventricular tachyarrhythmias induced by cesium in dogs.

The mechanism by which magnesium therapy suppresses some ventricular tachyarrhythmias characterized by a prolonged QT interval (e.g., torsades de pointes) is unknown. Since early afterdepolarizations have been proposed as a cause of the long QT syndrome and the related ventricular tachyarrhythmias, we hypothesized that magnesium therapy would suppress both the early afterdepolarizations and the ventricular arrhythmias. The present study was performed to test that hypothesis. Using monophasic action potentials (MAP) recorded with a contact electrode from the right ventricular endocardium to demonstrate early afterdepolarizations, cesium chloride (168 mg/kg iv) was administered before, during, and 1 to 2 hr after discontinuation of a magnesium infusion (1 to 2 mg/kg/min for 20 to 30 min). Before magnesium infusion, cesium induced early afterdepolarizations that were 49.7 +/- 1.6% (mean +/- SE) of the amplitude of the corresponding monophasic action potential. The amplitude of the early afterdepolarization decreased to 31.2 +/- 3.8% of the MAP amplitude during magnesium infusion (p less than .003) and increased to 48.0 +/- 4.0% 1 to 2 hr after termination of the magnesium infusion (p less than .003). Cesium induced sustained monomorphic ventricular tachycardia, torsades de pointes, or ventricular fibrillation in 12 of 13 dogs before magnesium infusion, and in eight of 11 dogs 1 to 2 hr after stopping infusion, but in only three of 13 dogs during magnesium infusion. Cesium prolonged the corrected QT interval from 338 +/- 16 msec (control) to 387 +/- 14 msec before (p less than .003), 356 +/- 12 msec during (p less than .003), and 406 +/- 16 msec after stopping the magnesium infusion (p less than .003).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Molecular electrostatic potentials: A new approach to the study of the metabolic and carcinogenic activities of hydrocarbons

Summary The electrostatic potentials of a group of aromatic hydrocarbons have been determined and have revealed that each molecule possesses several regions of negative potential, which would attract an approaching electrophile. These regions include all those portions of the molecules at which major amounts of metabolic products are found. While the K-regions of the hydrocarbons studied are invariably quite negative, the magnitudes of their potentials do not correlate with the molecules' carcinogenic potencies. The presence of other strong negative regions in addition to the K-region, especially in the more active molecules, suggests that some of these others may participate in the carcinogenic process. Of particular interest is the possibility that the significant negative potentials that have been found to be associated with many CH3 and CH2 groups may play such a role. Perhaps two or more negative regions are involved in hydrocarbon carcinogenesis.
Sputum analysis and culture

Sputum analysis and culture is the most common method of specific diagnosis of lower respiratory tract infections. Culture of a properly screened, expectorated sputum sample will identify the pathogen in most cases of bacterial pneumonia. Expectorated sputa, as well as those obtained by aspiration from the upper airway, are subject to oropharyngeal bacterial contamination. Other techniques, such as transtracheal aspiration, are more "sterile," but have a much higher incidence of morbidity. Microscopic screening of expectorated or aspirated sputum samples will reduce the number and increase the diagnostic accuracy of cultures, resulting in considerable cost savings. Mucopurulent material is selected by gross inspection, and microscopic examination of a wet mount and Gram stain yields information about cell type and predominant organism. More important, however, the presence of fewer than 25 squamous epithelial cells per low-power field indicates that true lower respiratory tract secretions have been collected. Culture results must be correlated carefully with semiquantitative grading, initial microscopic screening, clinical presentation, and response to initial therapy. When properly performed and interpreted, sputum analysis and culture are valuable tools in the diagnosis and treatment of lower respiratory tract infection.
SU-E-T-218: The IHE-RO Helper Tool: Demonstrating the Connectivity Issues Solved by IHE-RO.

Purpose: To develop a Web‐based application (IHE‐RO Helper) to allow comprehensive review of the interconnectivity and interoperability of various radiotherapy devices established through testing sanctioned by the Integrating Healthcare Enterprise‐Radiation Oncology (IHE‐RO).Material and Methods: IHE‐RO is an initiative sponsored by ASTRO to improve the way computer based systems in radiationoncology share information using well‐defined data exchange standards (DICOM / HL7). At the IHE‐RO Connectathon events over the last 4 years, 11 vendors with 14 different products have successfully tested and identified solutions to connectivity problems in treatment planning, simulation and delivery. Because the test results are highly technical, the interconnectivity issues amongst the RT devices may get overlooked by the end users. The IHE‐RO helper tool is designed to operate in simple clinical terms with queries and presentations organized based on treatment techniques and clinical features that are familiar to the practitioners. For example, if you are planning to purchase a treatment planning system capable of generating plans (e.g. Stereotactic treatments) and are concerned whether the TPS can successfully transfer such data to your treatment management system (TMS) and subsequently to your treatment delivery system (TDS), the IHE‐RO Helper can identify the connectivity requirements and list vendors that have successfully passed an IHE‐RO Connectathon and validated their solution to the specific requirements. Results: The IHE‐RO helper tool provides a graphical and textual user interface to effectively demonstrate the solved interconnectivity problems between TPS, TMS and TDS. A report is also provided that explains the interconnectivity problems and its solutions. Conclusions: The IHE‐RO helper is an effective tool to clearly identify vendor products that are IHE‐RO compliant, thereby encourages vendor participation in testing and validation. Such a tool will be invaluable in procurement of new equipment to ensure a priori interoperability with anticipated RT devices deployed in the clinic. This research and development project is supported by the Bankhead‐Coley Cancer Research Program grant # RC1‐09BW‐09‐26833
SMiTe: Precise QoS Prediction on Real-System SMT Processors to Improve Utilization in Warehouse Scale Computers

One of the key challenges for improving efficiency in warehouse scale computers (WSCs) is to improve server utilization while guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS) of latency-sensitive applications. To this end, prior work has proposed techniques to precisely predict performance and QoS interference to identify 'safe' application co-locations. However, such techniques are only applicable to resources shared across cores. Achieving such precise interference prediction on real-system simultaneous multithreading (SMT) architectures has been a significantly challenging open problem due to the complexity introduced by sharing resources within a core. In this paper, we demonstrate through a real-system investigation that the fundamental difference between resource sharing behaviors on CMP and SMT architectures calls for a redesign of the way we model interference. For SMT servers, the interference on different shared resources, including private caches, memory ports, as well as integer and floating-point functional units, do not correlate with each other. This insight suggests the necessity of decoupling interference into multiple resource sharing dimensions. In this work, we propose SMiTe, a methodology that enables precise performance prediction for SMT co-location on real-system commodity processors. With a set of Rulers, which are carefully designed software stressors that apply pressure to a multidimensional space of shared resources, we quantify application sensitivity and contentiousness in a decoupled manner. We then establish a regression model to combine the sensitivity and contentiousness in different dimensions to predict performance interference. Using this methodology, we are able to precisely predict the performance interference in SMT co-location with an average error of 2.80% on SPEC CPU2006 and 1.79% on Cloud Suite. Our evaluation shows that SMiTe allows us to improve the utilization of WSCs by up to 42.57% while enforcing an application's QoS requirements.
HIV/HCV co-infection: pathogenesis, clinical complications, treatment, and new therapeutic technologies

World-wide, hepatitis C virus (HCV) accounts for approximately 130 million chronic infections, with an overall 3% prevalence. Four to 5 million persons are co-infected with HIV. It is well established that HIV has a negative impact on the natural history of HCV, including a higher rate of viral persistence, increased viral load, and more rapid progression to fibrosis, end-stage liver disease, and death. Whether HCV has a negative impact on HIV disease progression continues to be debated. However, following the introduction of effective combination antiretroviral therapy, the survival of coinfected individuals has significantly improved and HCV-associated diseases have emerged as the most important co-morbidities. In this review, we summarize the newest studies regarding the pathogenesis of HIV/HCV coinfection, including effects of coinfection on HIV disease progression, HCV-associated liver disease, the immune system, kidney and cardiovascular disease, and neurologic status; and effectiveness of current anti-HIV and HCV therapies and proposed new treatment strategies.
Self as the Target and the Perceiver: A Componential Approach to Self-Enhancement

In this paper, we review the recent literature on the debate over the value of self-enhancement. Past studies fall into two distinct sets, each in the context of a different research tradition. The componential approach to self-enhancement integrates these two divergent perspectives and takes seriously the interplay of self-perception and interpersonal perception. Instead of global indices, the componential approach identifies specific components of person perception. By partitioning the components in self-perception, the componential approach allows for better understanding of the dynamic interactive effects of self-enhancement bias and other components in self-perception on adjustment. We conclude the paper by discussing the emerging attempts to advance a componential approach to examine self-perception in terms of components and outcomes.
Tonic reticular activating system: relationship to aversive brain stimulation effects.

Abstract Acute and chronic experiments were performed on albino rats using high-frequency electrical brain stimulation of the dorsal mesencephalon. It was found that: (i) Certain areas of rat mesencephalon generate intense, tonic electrocorticogram activation as well as tonic depression of photic, cortical evoked potential amplitudes. (ii) Often this tonic activation appears suddenly; that is, there is a threshold for activation. (iii) Invariably, if such a threshold is seen, the rat manifests the first escape response coincident with onset of activation. (iv) In some rats no threshold is seen; duration of electrocorticogram activation is monotonic with current intensity. But at some point of moderate intensity (
Pulse propagation in random media

Extensive literature is available for wave propagation and scattering in random media and rough surfaces. However, much less work on pulse propagation and scattering in random media has been reported. In this paper, we discuss some of the recent developments in pulse propagation in turbulence, discrete scatterers, and rough surfaces.© (1991) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
ENZYMATIC REGULATION OF TREHALOSE AND GLYCOGEN SYNTHESIS IN THE FAT BODY OF AN INSECT.

INSECTS can maintain their blood trehalose at levels which are characteristic of the species and stage of development1. In the silkworm, Bombyx mori, the blood trehalose-level returns rapidly to normal after being experimentally altered2. In saturniid silkmoth pupae, superficial injury is followed by accelerated carbohydrate turnover and net conversion of glycogen to trehalose, which afterwards returns to its normal level3. We have now discovered characteristics of the enzymes of trehalose and glycogen synthesis in silkmoths which may help to explain these regulatory phenomena.
Plasma protein binding of furosemide in kidney transplant patients

The present investigation was undertaken in order to determine the in vivo plasma protein binding of furosemide in kidney transplant patients and its possible consequence on furosemide effect. Using an equilibrium dialysis technique, serial plasma samples of furosemide taken after intravenous administration were dialyzed against an equal volume of isotonic Krebs Ringer bicarbonate buffer (pH7.4). Dialysis was performed at 37°C for 5 hr, and furosemide concentrations (total as well as free) were analyzed by HPLC using fluorescence detection. It was observed that kidney transplant patients on concomitant sulfisoxazole treatment (KT+) had a significantly greater value for percent free of furosemide as compared to transplant patients not on sulfisoxazole (KT-) (4.4±0.8 for KT+ vs. 1.7±0.3% for KT-;p<0.01) as well as to healthy volunteers (4.4±0.8 for KT+ vs. 1.2±0.2% for controls;p<0.01). In addition, kidney transplant patients not on concomitant sulfisoxazole treatment had a significantly higher value for percent free of furosemide with respect to healthy volunteers (p<0.05). Nonlinear plasma protein binding was also observed for one patient, who had values for percent free of furosemide ranging from 1.3 to 12.9%. However, no significant correlation was found between the fraction of the dose excreted unchanged in the urine and percent free of furosemide.
Artificial feeding and the right to die. The legal issues.

(1988). Artificial feeding and the right to die: The legal issues. Journal of Legal Medicine: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 349-375.
How does the macula protect itself from oxidative stress

Oxidative stress has been hypothesized to contribute to the development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in the United States. At present, there is no treatment for early disease. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play a physiological role in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a key cell type in this disease, but with excessive ROS, oxidative damage or excessive innate immune system activation can result. The RPE has developed a robust antioxidant system driven by the transcription factor Nrf2. Impaired Nrf2 signaling can lead to oxidative damage or activate the innate immune response, both of which can lead to RPE apoptosis, a defining change in AMD. Several mouse models simulating environmental stressors or targeting specific antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase or Nrf2, have simulated some of the features of AMD. While ROS are short-lived, oxidatively damaged molecules termed oxidation specific epitopes (OSEs), can be long-lived and a source of chronic stress that activates the innate immune system through pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). The macula accumulates a number of OSEs including carboxyethylpyrrole, malondialdehyde, 4-hydroxynonenal, and advanced glycation endproducts, as well as their respective neutralizing PRRs. Excessive accumulation of OSEs results in pathologic immune activation. For example, mice immunized with the carboxyethylpyrrole develop cardinal features of AMD. Regulating ROS in the RPE by modulating antioxidant systems or neutralizing OSEs through an appropriate innate immune response are potential modalities to treat or prevent early AMD.
Use of erythropoietin-stimulating agents in breast cancer patients: a risk review.

Purpose. The treatment of cancer-induced anemia with erythropoietin-stimulating agents (ESAs) is reviewed. Summary. Before the introduction of ESAs, the only treatment option for cancer-related anemia was red blood cell (RBC) transfusion. The use of ESAs in multiple disease states has been well established and is now considered first-line treatment for many forms of anemia. Chang et al. evaluated the effect of epoetin alfa (40,000 units administered subcutaneously every week) and standard-of-care therapy on quality of life (QOL), transfusion requirements, and hemoglobin levels in 354 patients with breast cancer who had a baseline hemoglobin concentration of <15 g/dL. The authors concluded that early initiation of treatment with epoetin alfa in patients with breast cancer is effective in maintaining hemoglobin levels, reducing transfusions, and improving QOL. Leyland-Jones et al. conducted a study evaluating the effects of early intervention with epoetin alfa (40,000 units administered subcutaneously every week) on survival and QOL of mainly nonanemic patients with metastatic breast cancer. In contrast to Chang et al., this study was discontinued because of lower overall survival rates within the epoetin alfa group. In 2008, the Food and Drug Administration issued a black-box warning for both epoetin alfa and darbepoetin alfa. The warning acknowledges that ESAs have shortened overall survival and time to disease progression in patients with advanced breast cancer who are given these agents to achieve a target hemoglobin concentration of ≥12 g/dL. Conclusion. When used in patients with cancer-induced anemia, ESAs should only be given at the lowest dose possible to prevent RBC transfusions. During treatment, hemoglobin levels should be monitored closely and ESA doses need to be adjusted accordingly.
Slug contributes to cancer progression by direct regulation of ERα signaling pathway

Hormone therapy targeting estrogen receptor α (ERα) is the most effective treatment for breast cancer. However, this treatment eventually fails as the tumor develops resistance. Although reduced expression of ER-α is a known contributing factor to endocrine resistance, the mechanism of ER-α downregulation in endocrine resistance is still not fully understood. The present study shows that Slug has an inverse relationship with ERα in breast and prostate cancer patient samples. Also the inhibition of Slug blocks mammary stem cell activity in primary mammary epithelial cells. We hypothesize that Slug may be a key transcription factor in the regulation of ERα expression. To understand the Slug-ERα signaling pathway, we employed resistant cell line MCF-TAMR (ERα relatively negative) derived from its parental MCF-7 (ERα positive) cell line and assessed changes in cell phenotype, activity and response to therapy. Conversely, we performed knockdown of Slug in the high-Slug expressing cell line MDA-MB-231 and assessed reversal of the mesenchymal phenotype. Microarray analysis showed that Slug is overexpressed in high grade breast and prostate cancer tissues. Additionally, Slug overexpression leads to drug resistance. Furthermore, we demonstrated that Slug binds directly to ERα promoter E-boxes and represses ERα expression. This resulted in decrease in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in cancer cells. These findings demonstrate that Slug, by regulation of ERα expression, contributes to tumor progression and could serve as an important target for cancer therapy.
Fat seals forage most efficiently

![Figure][1] Northern elephant seals are truly impressive divers. During months-long migrations, they spend most of their time underwater, diving hundreds of meters down into the sea. What's even more impressive is that these animals are breath-hold divers. This means that they must empty
Commentary on an article by Christopher J. Lenarz, MD, et Al.: "Timing of wound closure in open fractures based on cultures obtained after debridement".

Since the time of Hippocrates, the goal of management of an open fracture has been to limit infection. Infection dramatically increases the risk of amputation, and thus this has been an appropriate focus. The role of cultures obtained during initial and subsequent wound debridement procedures has long been studied in the orthopaedic community. This Level-IV study endeavors to evaluate the role of serial cultures following wound debridement in improving the long-term outcomes for open fractures. As is …
Real-time Detection of Earthquake Swarms at Redoubt Volcano, 2009

Alarm systems can play a critical role in alerting scientists to anomalous seismicity such as earthquake swarms and volcanic tremor that often precedes or coincides with explosive volcanic eruptions or dome failures. By reducing the need for visual data monitoring, a reliable alarm system can also be a cost effective way to monitor seismicity and minimize fatigue of volcano observatory staff during a prolonged period of volcanic unrest. Recognizing this we designed and implemented a real-time earthquake swarm alarm system capable of identifying the start of, escalations during, and end of a swarm. This system was used to monitor seismicity throughout the 2009 eruption of Redoubt volcano. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) seismically monitors 31 volcanoes in the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands. Twice-daily checks of web-based digital helicorder plots, spectrograms and reduced displacement plots (Benoit et al. 1998) are designed to catch the onset of volcanic unrest. Even such a strict regimen has weaknesses. Pavlof volcano erupted on 16 September 1996, surprising scientists. Seismologists reprocessed seismic data and found several hours of precursory tremor on 11 September that had been masked by storm noise (McNutt 2002). Pavlof erupted again on 14 August 2007, with little precursory seismicity (Waythomas et al. 2008). On 12 July 2008, Okmok volcano erupted with less than five hours of precursory seismicity sending ash to 50,000 feet (Larsen et al. 2009). A short-lived swarm was the sole seismic precursor. There was no precursory tremor. Although such a rapid onset is uncommon, it highlights the need for alarm systems that can alert scientists to volcanic tremor and earthquake swarms. Despite this, little has been published about volcanoseismic alarm systems. The most familiar is probably the Real-time Seismic Amplitude Measurement (RSAM) alarm system. Although this is part of the popular RSAM system (Murray and Endo 1992), the …
A systematic method for integrating product attributes within molecular synthesis

The complete and efficient solution to the enumeration of candidate compounds and mixtures that meet specified consumer attributes is often a difficult mathematical programming problem. Most approaches to this problem involve the solution of a mixed integer non-linear program (MINLP) which may achieve only local optima solutions. In this paper a proof-of-concept study is presented to show that empirical models can be used in a reverse problem formulation to ensure a complete set of candidate compounds and mixtures are found subject to the predictive power of the model. The method utilizes a transformation of consumer attributes to properties described by the group contribution method and solves the reverse problem formulation using the property clustering technique. A case study in refrigerant design is used to highlight the method.
Pharmacological activity and membrane interactions of antiarrhythmics: 4D-QSAR/QSPR analysis.

Purpose. This study was done to explore the relationships of both macroscopic and molecular level physicochemical properties to in-vivo antiarrhythmic activity and interactions with phospholipid membranes for a set of cationic-amphiphilic analogs.
The conditional distribution of the longest run in a sample from a multiletter alphabet

Let be an ordered sequence of length of the members of a fixed set consisting of ni letters of type i,i ‐ 1,…,k. The main result in this paper is a recursion based algorithm to compute the distribution function and/or p-values for the (conditional) distribution function of the longest run of any type in under the null hypothesis of random ordering in when nl,…, nk are known. We demonstrate the utility of our algorithm using recur-sion and exact arithmetic in the software system Mathematica (Mathernatica is a registered trademark of Wolfram Research Incorporated).
Uredo vetus sp. nov., the first record of a rust on Selaginella, and the use of the name Uredo

The anamorph Uredo vetus is described as the first rust found on Selaginella sp., which repre- sents the most primitive vascular plant host group for Uredinales. The genus name Uredo is used strictly as an anamorphic morphological genus without regard to whether it functions as an "aecium" or a "uredin-
Extending Virtual Organizations in the Public Sector: Lessons from CSCW, STS, and Organization Science

This paper explores current research around IT-related organizational change in the public sector, and in particular the emergence of "virtual organizations" (VOs) in government. We argue that despite their centrality to broader digital government visions, the tensions and challenges attending VO development remain a theoretical and empirical weak point in digital government scholarship to date. This paper draws on findings from the fields of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Science and Technology Studies (STS), and Organization Science to illuminate three central problems confronting the growth of public sector VOs: problems of distance, alignment, and resistance. Theoretically and empirically informed approaches to these problems promise to improve both understanding and practice of IT-related organizational change in government.
Learning context for collective activity recognition

In this paper we present a framework for the recognition of collective human activities. A collective activity is defined or reinforced by the existence of coherent behavior of individuals in time and space. We call such coherent behavior ‘Crowd Context’. Examples of collective activities are “queuing in a line” or “talking”. Following [7], we propose to recognize collective activities using the crowd context and introduce a new scheme for learning it automatically. Our scheme is constructed upon a Random Forest structure which randomly samples variable volume spatio-temporal regions to pick the most discriminating attributes for classification. Unlike previous approaches, our algorithm automatically finds the optimal configuration of spatio-temporal bins, over which to sample the evidence, by randomization. This enables a methodology for modeling crowd context. We employ a 3D Markov Random Field to regularize the classification and localize collective activities in the scene. We demonstrate the flexibility and scalability of the proposed framework in a number of experiments and show that our method outperforms state-of-the art action classification techniques [7, 19].
Computational study of Gleevec and G6G reveals molecular determinants of kinase inhibitor selectivity.

Gleevec is a potent inhibitor of Abl tyrosine kinase but not of the highly homologous c-Src kinase. Because the ligand binds to an inactive form of the protein in which an Asp-Phe-Gly structural motif along the activation loop adopts a so-called DFG-out conformation, it was suggested that binding specificity was controlled by a “conformational selection” mechanism. In this context, the binding affinity displayed by the kinase inhibitor G6G poses an intriguing challenge. Although it possesses a chemical core very similar to that of Gleevec, G6G is a potent inhibitor of both Abl and c-Src kinases. Both inhibitors bind to the DFG-out conformation of the kinases, which seems to be in contradiction with the conformational selection mechanism. To address this issue and display the hidden thermodynamic contributions affecting the binding selectivity, molecular dynamics free energy simulations with explicit solvent molecules were carried out. Relative to Gleevec, G6G forms highly favorable van der Waals dispersiv...
From D’Avaux to Dévot: Politics and Religion in the Thirty Years War

This article attempts to reformulate the classic question of whether the Thirty Years War was political or religious by examining the career of the Count d’Avaux, one of Cardinal Richelieu’s principal agents in Germany and, in the time of Mazarin, one of France’s plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Westphalia. All three men made a distinction between a political and religious war, but where they differed, and where D’Avaux was closer to Richelieu than to Mazarin, was in the relative weight each gave to considerations of legality, necessity, and conscience.
Experimental fabrication of one-dimensional GaAs laser arrays

Arrays of GaAs injection lasers have been fabricated for use in an experimental EuO film memory system. Planar-type array structures are formed by diffusing zinc through parallel slots in a diffusion mask on a GaAs wafer. Details of fabrication are given and some initial test results on operating characteristics and life performance are reported.
SEC guidance on broker‐dealer expense‐sharing arrangements

In the Spring 2003 issue of this Journal, I addressed the regulatory uncertainty surrounding the treatment of broker‐dealers’ expense‐sharing arrangements. As pointed out in that article, in 2002 the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD) conducted a comprehensive “sweep” examination of member‐firms’ financial reporting procedures, with special attention to the treatment of expenses and liabilities. The results of the sweep confirmed that many broker‐dealers, particularly small firms, relied on parents and affiliates to pay for part or all of their expenses. The results of this regulatory audit raised the NASD’s concern that many broker‐dealers failed to adhere to the financial responsibility rules under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). In large part, this was due to an inherent conflict between the general accounting standards governing the recording of expenses and liabilities and the requirements imposed on broker‐dealers to accrue and book expenses and liabilities under the Exchange Act’s financial reporting rules. Following the sweep, the NASD wrote to certain member firms that did not appear to be following the financial responsibility rules. These letters asked the firms to explain their failure to report expenses that were paid, or subject to payment by, affiliated parties and to justify their procedures on expense and liability reporting. Some broker‐dealers responded that it was not possible to coordinate the accounting of expense‐sharing arrangements with the reporting requirements set forth under the Exchange Act’s rules.
A remark on Nehari's problem

An example of a strickly contractive Hankel matrix Γ is given such that the central contractive extensionf c of Γ satisfies ∦f c ∦∞=1. This way we answer a problem raised by Ciprian Foias.
The RCC1 Protein Interacts with Ran, RanBP1, hsc70, and a 340-kDa Protein in Xenopus Extracts

RCC1 is an abundant, highly conserved, chromatin-associated protein whose function is necessary for the preservation of a properly ordered cell cycle. RCC1 is also necessary for numerous nuclear processes, including nuclear transport and RNA metabolism; and it functions enzymatically as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for a small, ras-related GTPase called Ran. Studies in several organisms suggest that RCC1 may be part of a large complex containing multiple proteins. There is also evidence that RCC1 associates with chromatin through other proteins and that the binding of the complex to chromatin varies within the cell cycle. In order to characterize this putative complex, we have identified a number of other proteins as candidate components of the complex by their association with a GST-RCC1 fusion protein. Three of these proteins have previously been identified (Ran, RanBP1, and hsc70). The fourth protein is novel and has a molecular mass of 340 kDa. In this report, we discuss a preliminary characterization of the interactions between these proteins.
A fluid damping distortion in FIV scale modeling

Abstract The prediction of flow-induced vibrations (FIV) of structural components often must rely upon scale model test results, because direct forced response predictions are beyond the state-of-the-art. Since viscosity effects often are distorted in reduced scale model tests, the identification of fluid forces which are Reynolds number dependent is essential to the acquisition of meaningful test results. Toward this end, the fluid damping forces exerted on a vibrating tube by a surrounding narrow, fluid filled, finite length annular region are shown to be relatively larger in the model than in the prototype. A theory is proposed for estimating the magnitude of this unconservative distortion in model testing.
Acid rain effects on aluminum mobilization clarified by inclusion of strong organic acids.

Assessments of acidic deposition effects on aquatic ecosystems have often been hindered by complications from naturally occurring organic acidity. Measurements of pH and ANCG, the most commonly used indicators of chemical effects, can be substantially influenced by the presence of organic acids. Relationships between pH and inorganic Al, which is toxic to many forms of aquatic biota, are also altered by organic acids. However, when inorganic Al concentrations are plotted against ANC (the sum of Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, and K+, minus SO42-, NO3-, and Cl-), a distinct threshold for Al mobilization becomes apparent. If the concentration of strong organic anions is included as a negative component of ANC, the threshold occurs at an ANC value of approximately zero, the value expected from theoretical charge balance constraints. This adjusted ANC is termed the base-cation surplus. The threshold relationship between the base-cation surplus and Al was shown with data from approximately 200 streams in the Adirondack regio...
The Relationship between Physical Activity Variety and Objectively Measured Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity Levels in Weight Loss Maintainers and Normal-Weight Individuals

Given the importance of physical activity (PA) for weight control, identifying strategies to achieve higher PA levels is imperative. We hypothesized that performing a greater variety of self-reported moderate-to-vigorous activities (MVPAs) would relate to higher objectively measured MVPA minutes in two groups who were successfully maintaining their body weight: weight loss maintainers (WLM/n = 226) and normal-weight individuals (NW/n = 169). The Paffenbarger Questionnaire and RT3 accelerometer were used to determine variety/number of different MVPAs performed and MVPA minutes, respectively. The variety/number of different activities performed by WLM and NW was similar (1.8 ± 1.2 versus 1.7 ± 1.2, P = 0.52). Regression analyses showed that greater variety (P < 0.01) and WLM status (P < 0.05) were each positively related to greater MVPA minutes/day and meeting the ≥250 MVPA minutes/week guideline for long-term weight maintenance. The association between greater variety and higher MVPA was similar in NW and WLM. Future studies should test whether variety can facilitate engagement in higher MVPA levels for more effective weight control.
Dynamic Relationship of Cycle Length to Reentrant Circuit Geometry and to the Slow Conduction Zone During Ventricular Tachycardia

Background —Knowledge of cycle-to-cycle changes in isthmus geometry is of potential importance for radiofrequency catheter ablation to stop reentrant ventricular tachycardia. It was hypothesized that isthmus geometry often undergoes continuous evolution throughout reentry and that cycle-length variability measurements could be used to segment reentry into distinct phases and to predict changes in isthmus geometry. Methods and Results —A canine infarct model of reentrant ventricular tachycardia in the epicardial border zone with a figure 8 pattern of conduction was used for analysis (25 monomorphic reentry episodes, 20 experiments). Tachycardias were segmented, on the basis of cycle-length variations, into 2 to 3 distinct phases corresponding to onset, maintenance, and spontaneous termination, when it occurred (6/25 episodes). Trends of linear cycle-length change occurred throughout the maintenance phase in all tachycardias. For each trend, quantitative geometric parameters of the isthmus were measured, and the following linear relationships were established. During a trend, the slow conduction zone activation interval and tachycardia cycle length increased, while isthmus length decreased. When isthmus length decreased, isthmus width decreased at its narrowed portion. Larger decreases in isthmus length corresponded to higher rates of linear cycle-length prolongation. Also, greater cycle-length variability tended to prolong tachycardia. Conclusions —Cycle-length alterations occur throughout reentry in this canine model and are predictive of isthmus geometry changes. Because similar reentry dynamics, which affect catheter ablation efficacy, have been observed clinically, estimation of changes in geometry during electrophysiological study may help target ablation sites.
Dental students' experiences with and attitudes toward people with mental retardation

ABSTRACT Background People with mental retardation have limited access to oral health care. Dental school administrators reported minimal training in U.S. dental schools for these patients. As a result, students and practitioners may not be prepared to provide needed services. Methods The authors surveyed 295 third- and fourth-year students at five dental schools about their didactic and clinical preparation for, attitudes toward and comfort levels with treating people with mental retardation, as well as whether their experiences affect their willingness to treat people with mental retardation. The authors analyzed data using previously developed statistical software. Results A little more than 68 percent of respondents reported receiving five hours or less of instruction devoted to how to care for people with mental retardation, and 50.8 percent reported having no clinical training in this area. Nearly 60 percent reported that they had little to no confidence in providing care, while 74.6 percent reported they had little to no preparation in providing care. Students who had experience working with people with mental retardation attributed greater capabilities to such people than did students who had no such experience. Conclusions Many U.S. dental students are prepared inadequately to provide services for people with mental retardation. Spending time with these patients provides a more positive understanding of the capabilities of these people. Practice Implications Increasing numbers of people with mental retardation no longer live in institutions, and they are dependent on dentists in private practice for care. Increased dental school training and continuing education programs are needed to meet this need.
The Agrofuels Project at Large

This essay addresses the contradictory consequences of expanding agrofuels production on crop land (inflating food prices) and forestland (increasing carbon emissions). Whereas the energy crisis has strong roots in industrial agriculture’s fossil-fuel dependence, responses to the energy crisis follow a typical capital accumulation script — that is, attempting to overcome barriers to profitability by extending the realm of value creation, even as this intensifies capitalism’s contradictions. The ‘agrofuels project’ is central to this attempt to maintain profit, and to legitimize the state/capital nexus. The rush to agrofuels, under the guise of policies geared to alternative energy and reducing carbon emissions, opens up new profit frontiers for agribusiness, energy and biotechnology corporations.
On the complexity of VLSI implementations and graph representations of Boolean functions with application to integer multiplication

Lower-bound results on Boolean-function complexity under two different models are discussed. The first is an abstraction of tradeoffs between chip area and speed in very-large-scale-integrated (VLSI) circuits. The second is the ordered binary decision diagram (OBDD) representation used as a data structure for symbolically representing and manipulating Boolean functions. The lower bounds demonstrate the fundamental limitations of VLSI as an implementation medium, and that of the OBDD as a data structure. It is shown that the same technique used to prove that any VLSI implementation of a single output Boolean function has area-time complexity AT/sup 2/= Omega (n/sup 2/) also proves that any OBDD representation of the function has Omega (c/sup n/) vertices for some c>1 but that the converse is not true. An integer multiplier for word size n with outputs numbered 0 (least significant) through 2n-1 (most significant) is described. For the Boolean function representing either output i-1 or output 2n-i-1, where 1 >
Toward P2P-Based Multimedia Sharing in User Generated Contents

Online forums have long since been the most popular platform for people to communicate and share ideas. Nowadays, with the boom of multimedia sharing, users tend to share more and more with their online peers within online communities such as forums. The server-client model of forums has been used since its creation in the mid-1990s. However, this model has begun to fall short in meeting the increasing need of bandwidth and storage resources as an increasing number of people share more and more multimedia content. In this work, we first investigate the unique properties of forums based on the data collected from the Disney discussion boards. According to these properties, we design a scheme to support P2P-based multimedia sharing in forums called Multimedia Board (MBoard). Extensive trace-driven simulation results utilizing real trace data show that MBoard can significantly reduce the load on the server while maintaining a high quality of service for the users.
Digital Adaptive Control of Robotic Manipulators with Flexible Joints

A discrete-time adaptive controller is introduced for robotic manipulators with flexible joints. Simulation results are given for a one-link example and a two-link example.
All Bariatric Surgeries Are Not Created Equal: Insights from Mechanistic Comparisons

Despite considerable scientific progress on the biological systems that regulate energy balance, we have made precious little headway in providing new treatments to curb the obesity epidemic. Diet and exercise are the most popular treatment options for obesity, but rarely are they sufficient to produce long-term weight loss. Bariatric surgery, on the other hand, results in dramatic, sustained weight loss and for this reason has gained increasing popularity as a treatment modality for obesity. At least some surgical approaches also reduce obesity-related comorbidities including type 2 diabetes and hyperlipidemia. This success puts a premium on understanding how these surgeries exert their effects. This review focuses on the growing human and animal model literature addressing the underlying mechanisms. We compare three common procedures: Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (RYGB), vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG), and adjustable gastric banding (AGB). Although many would group together VSG and AGB as restrictive procedures of the stomach, VSG is more like RYGB than AGB in its effects on a host of endpoints including intake, food choice, glucose regulation, lipids and gut hormone secretion. Our strong belief is that to advance our understanding of these procedures, it is necessary to group bariatric procedures not on the basis of surgical similarity but rather on how they affect key physiological variables. This will allow for greater mechanistic insight into how bariatric surgery works, making it possible to help patients better choose the best possible procedure and to develop new therapeutic strategies that can help a larger portion of the obese population.
Performance Management and Welfare Reform: The Three-Contingency Model of Performance Management Applied to Welfare Reform

The three-contingency model of performance management suggests contingencies that could provide an effective basis for welfare reform. This model also suggests an analysis of the performance management contingencies of traditional efforts at welfare reform; and, in turn, that analysis suggests such traditional reform will not effectively increase functional behavior such as job finding nor decrease dysfunctional behavior such as drug abuse. This article is inspired by Nevin’ s (1998) analysis of welfare reform.
Use of MatML with software applications for e-learning

This pilot project investigates facilitating the development of the semantic Web for e-learning through a practical example, using materials property data markup language (MatML) to provide materials property data to a Web-based application program. Property data for 100 materials is marked up with MatML and used as an input format for an application program. Students use the program to generate graphs showing selected properties for different materials. Selected graphs are submitted to the materials digital library (MatDL) so that successive classes may be informed by earlier work to encourage new discoveries.
Mental Maturity and Workplace Motivation for Hospitality and Tourism Practitioners

Mental Maturity and Workplace Motivation for Hospitality and Tourism Practitioners The article presents the findings of an empirical study that identified motivational priorities among a sample of respondents over a five year period of time. The hypothesis was based on breakthrough neuroscience research in the area of brain development from the time-span in which the articles were originally published. Additional classical theories in the areas of emotional labor, needs-based motivation, humanism and transpersonal psychology are discussed. The study provided evidence to support a developmental model of work life development. The author concludes with suggestions for practicing tourism managers based on the findings of the study.
A practical communication cost formula for users of message passing systems

When working on parallel programming problems it is important to have a good model of the computation and communication costs. We present a case for a model of communication based on our experiments with C-Linda. In this model the overhead (latency) of a communication plays a central role. We present some experimental results of running a simple C-Linda program on several workstations connected by Ethernet and FDDI communications networks. We provide a formula for predicting C-Linda performance given performance measures for the workstation and for the network. We show that this formula performs well in predicting the results of our experiments. We then discuss a model of message passing communication based on this formula, and some of its implications. Additionally we briefly discuss some work that we are doing that uses this model. >
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing: current applications

Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is under-utilized in assessing patients with prominent complaints of dyspnea or exercise limitation and should be one of the early tests used to assess exercise intolerance. The standard 12-lead ECG treadmill stress test focuses on coronary artery disease and is inadequate to assess the various subsystems (i.e., heart, lung, pulmonary vascular, peripheral vascular, muscle and psychological motivation) that can contribute individually, or more commonly in an interrelated fashion, to cause exercise limitation. The additional gas exchange information from CPET is very helpful in the identification of a more precise diagnosis, assessment of the severity of the impairment, determination of response to treatment and prediction of mortality. This special report will highlight some of the recent important applications of CPET to clinical medicine with specific references to heart failure, preoperative risk assessment, and regenerative and rehabilitative medicine, and the evidence that currently exists in the medical literature to support routine CPET use. It will also detail the recent evidence regarding the association of VO 2 max and survival in health and disease.