cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Kissimmee River Restoration Project and Evaluation Program, Florida, U.S.A.

Over the past decade, restoration of the Kissimmee River in central Florida has received considerable attention from local, state, national, and international media. In terms of areal extent, project cost, and ecological evaluation it is one of the largest and most comprehensive river restoration projects in the world. The goal of reestablishing ecological integrity involves restoring the physical attributes and the hydrologic processes that were lost after channelization of the river in the 1960s. The project is expected to restore over 80 km2 of floodplain wetlands and reestablish over 70 km of river channel. Restoration construction began in 1999; to date, three construction phases have been completed, with the final phase of construction slated for completion in 2019. Restoration evaluation is widely viewed as a critical component of any restoration project. Equally important is the dissemination of information gained from restoration evaluation programs. This introductory article presents a brief overview of project history and outlines the approach and logic of the Kissimmee River Restoration Evaluation Program. The following papers present the results of ecological studies conducted before and after completion of the first phase of restoration construction. This first phase reestablished flow through 23 km of reconnected river channels and seasonally inundated a large portion (approximately 2,900 ha) of the floodplain within the Phase I project area. Although these studies present interim responses prior to full hydrologic restoration, results suggest that the ecosystem is responding largely as predicted by performance measures developed prior to restoration construction.
Fast contact determination in dynamic environments

We present an efficient contact determination algorithm for objects undergoing rigid motion. The environment consists of polytopes and models described by algebraic sets. We extend an expected constant time collision detection algorithm between convex polytopes to concave polytopes and curved models. The algorithm makes use of hierarchical representations for concave polytopes and local, global methods for solving polynomial equations to determine possible contact points. We also propose techniques to reduce O(n/sup 2/) pairwise intersection tests for a large environment of n objects. These algorithms work well in practice and give real time performance for most environments. >
Patterns of Alienation in Inner City Ghettos

Although high rates of alienation are known to exist in inner city ghettos, it is not known whether that alienation is directed toward society as a whole or if individuals make distinctions between different sectors of the social system. Relationships between the levels of alienation directed toward four aspects of society are analyzed to determine if they are the result of a single underlying response to society or if they are the product of separate orientations. The findings show that individuals in low-income areas develop a generalized response to the bureaucratic aspects of urban society. They do not view society in terms of its component subsystems but instead treat each sector as a part of the whole. However, the orientation of a person to his neighborhood is independent of his orientation toward other aspects of society.
Depiction, Perception, and Imagination: Responses to Richard Wollheim

Richard Wollheim holds, famously, that pictorial representation is to be understood in terms of a visual experience of a special kind, which he calls seeing-in, an experience that suitable spectators enjoy when they look at pictures. On viewing a picture of a fire engine, one sees a fire engine in the marks on the surface of the picture. I have argued that pictures are essentially props in visual games of make-believe of a certain kind, and that the crucial perceptual experience -which I am happy to call seeing-in-is an imaginative as well as a perceptual one. The viewer imagines seeing a fire engine as she looks at a picture of one, imagining her actual visual experience to be of a fire engine. Wollheim and I have carried on an intermittent dialogue in the course of developing and explaining our respective theories of depiction, commenting on one another's views and on the relations between them. I continue the dialogue in this essay, concentrating now on Wollheim's On Pictorial Representation, the most recent statement and defense of his theory, as well as his Painting as an Art.
The Power of Nice: Active Listening, Procedural and Interpersonal Fairness Perceptions and Prosocial and Antisocial Negotation Behaviors

I invoke active listening and draw on models of procedural and interpersonal fairness perceptions, perceived organizational support, and organizational prosocial behaviors to articulate and test a model of negotiator willingness to engage in exploitative and prosocial negotiation behaviors. Specifically, active listening is predicted to affect the other party’s procedural and interpersonal fairness perceptions. These fairness perceptions are expected to be interpreted as signaling the extent to which the other party cares about one’s own well-being. Perceptions of the other party’s concern for one’s own well-being are predicted to be reciprocated as positive or negative concern for the other party. Finally, one’s own concern for the other party leads to exploitative and prosocial behaviors. All hypotheses except for the proposed link between procedural fairness perceptions and perceived other party support were supported.
High‐Sensitivity Troponin Assays: Evidence, Indications, and Reasonable Use

With advances in technology, a new era in troponin assays is approaching. Previous-generation troponin assays have been used as diagnostic and prognostic markers in acute coronary syndrome patients and for risk stratification to guide triage decisions and aid in treatment selection.[1][1]–[2][2]
Uncoupling AMPK from autophagy: a foe that hinders the beneficial effects of metformin treatment on metabolic syndrome-associated atherosclerosis? Focus on “Glucose and palmitate uncouple AMPK from autophagy in human aortic endothelial cells”

metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions including insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and central obesity, and it results in an increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. These conditions are rising year to year and are a leading
Factors Influencing Reproductive Success Of Ferruginous Hawks in the Uintah Basin, Utah

Abstract We examined factors that potentially influenced reproductive success in Ferruginous Hawks (Buteo regalis) in the Uintah Basin, Utah, and determined whether oil and gas well development was one of those factors. For three breeding seasons (2002–2004), we measured the number of nestlings, fledglings, and dispersed young that were produced by pairs of Ferruginous Hawks nesting within 2365 km2 managed by the Bureau of Land Management. We hypothesized that reproductive success would be influenced by nesting substrate, abundance of prey, distance to the closest occupied raptor nest, and distance to the closest active well. Although the Uintah Basin experienced a drought during our entire study, reproductive success was within the range of estimates reported in other studies in the Intermountain West. Each nesting pair produced an average of 1.9 nestlings, 1.3 fledglings, and 0.9 dispersed young. During our study, 17 nestlings and 14 fledglings died; 55% were due to avian predators, 16% to mammalian pre...
Lectures on Mixing and Dynamical Systems

The subject of fluid mixing is, from the technological perspective, an old one. It is encountered almost daily when we pour milk into coffee or try to achieve a particular paint color. The yearly output of industrial products for which fluid mixing is a part of the production process is measured in billions of dollars. If two fluids are in contact, mixing can proceed purely by molecular diffusion, but it is most commonly achieved by a combination of stretching of fluid interfaces by the macroscopic velocity field and molecular diffusion. Within the subject of fluid mechanics this process has been studied for 100 years, beginning with a paper of Osborne Reynolds. A lot of work has been devoted to non-diffusive mixing in the applied dynamical systems community in the past 20 years, after a seminal paper by (1984), where he coined the term “chaotic advection” to mean efficient non-di usive mixing in flows with simple time-dependence. Since the 1990’s the field of chaotic advection has gained increased attention from (at least) three directions: 1) Scientific investigation of fluid processes at microscale, usually producing flows with simple time-dependence, accompanying the fast technological advances in miniaturization and applications to biology and medicine, 2) Recognition that mixing by large coherent structures can be described using the chaotic advection theory and 3) Increased interest in active control of fluid processes, including control of mixing.
Cytochemical localization of an adenosine triphosphate dephosphorylating enzyme in the granules of human eosinophils.

The granules of the eosinophilic myeloid cells of normal human bone marrow exerted a pronounced activity to dephosphorylate adenosine triphosphate. This behavior was not shown by the granules of other myeloid cells.
Nanotechnology in agriculture: Next steps for understanding engineered nanoparticle exposure and risk

Abstract The potential uses and benefits of nanotechnology in agriculture are significant, including producing greater quantities of food with lower cost, energy, and waste. However, many questions regarding the risk of these approaches in food production remain unanswered. A robust literature assessing the toxicity of engineered nanomaterials to terrestrial\agricultural plant species has begun to develop. However, much of this literature has focused on short term, high dose exposure scenarios often conducted in model media. Although important to determining inherent nanomaterial hazard, these studies are inadequate for assessing the actual risk posed to agricultural systems, including for sensitive receptors such as humans. Although the existing literature is somewhat contradictory, it is notable that the overall findings seem to suggest low to moderate toxicity to terrestrial plant species. However, what is now needed is a systems-level approach investigating more subtle yet potentially more significant impacts of nanomaterial exposure in agricultural systems, including the use of a range of more sensitive endpoints that can mechanistically characterize toxicity. This article will identify these and other key knowledge gaps and also highlight critical next steps for understanding the balance between nanotechnology applications and implications in agriculture and food production.
Protein-Ligand Interactions through the Computational Microscope: Allostery in a Canonical Signaling Domain

Protein-ligand interactions play a central role in many biological functions. These interactions modulate the dynamic conformational ensemble of a protein. By integrating long-timescale all-atom molecular dynamics simulations with Markov state models we have elucidate the conformational ensembles of PKA's cyclic-nucleotide binding domain A for the cAMP-free (apo) and cAMP-bound states. These models provide significant insight into the mechanisms of allostery in the cyclic-nucleotide binding domain. We show that the system exhibits a shallow free energy landscape that links functional states through multiple transition pathways, supporting conformational selection as the general mechanism of allostery in this canonical signaling domain. The models also illuminate the dynamic nature of protein-ligand interactions, show the transient nature of many of the key interactions between the cAMP and the cyclic-nucleotide binding domain.
The Price of Liquor is Too Damn High: Alcohol Taxation and Market Structure

We study the relative benefits of taxation versus market structure regulations for distilled spirits. One popular regulation, called post and hold, helps wholesalers set collusive prices as the competitive equilibrium of a single period game. Assembling new datasets of wholesale and retail prices, and sales, we show PH leads to average wholesale markups of 30-40%, with higher markups on expensive products. Taxes distort relative prices less than PH. We show Connecticut could increase tax revenue by 350% and improve consumer welfare while holding alcohol consumption fixed. However, we also show our counterfactual policy may be slightly regressive compared to PH.
Fimbricyclops Jimhensoni, New Genus, New Species (Copepoda: Cyclopoida: Cyclopidae), From Bromeliads in Puerto Rico

ABSTRACT Cyclopoid copepods belonging to a new genus and species, Fimbricyclops jimhensoni, were collected from bromeliads in Puerto Rico. The genus is distinguished from other members of the family Cyclopidae, subfamily Cyclopinae, by the combined characters of the antennule of the female having 11 articles, the antenna lacking an exopodite seta, the mandible with the palp represented only by 1 seta, the maxilliped having 4 articles and a reduced number of setae on articles 1, 2, and 4, the biarticulate rami of legs 1-4, the leg 5 with the proximal article fused to the somite and the distal article broader than long, and the peculiar somitic ornament consisting of rows of spines on the lateral surfaces of the posterior prosomites and the posterior hyaline membranes of the anterior 2 (in the female) and 3 (in the male) urosomites modified as a spinous fringe. Leg 6 of the male bears 3 plumed appendages of which the medialmost is spiniform and most thickly set with stiff spinules.
A simplified method for the cytologic study of body fluids.

The conventional methods of concentrating the cells in body fluids, by centrifugation or Millipore filtration, often damage the cells and render their morphologic appraisal very difficult. The sedimentation method described in this report allows the cells to settle gently on the slide, preserves their histologic details, and yields most satisfactory results in the cytologic examinations of cerebrospinal, peritoneal, and pleural fluids, urine, and synovial fluid. The method is simple and the equipment can be easily improvised.
The Past and Future Role of the Second Amendment and Gun Control in Fights Over Confirmation of Supreme Court Nominees

America’s elected representatives do many things well, but making firearms policies and assessing Supreme Court nominees are two with which they have struggled. Gun control is one of the most volatile public policy issues. Many contend that a heavy price is paid every day because of inadequate controls on firearms. Others believe that legal restrictions on guns are counterproductive and that the freedom to have guns is in peril. This gun control versus gun rights debate has become deeply enmeshed in the political culture wars.Similarly, few have good things to say about how the U.S. Senate reviews nominations of Supreme Court justices. Hypocrisy abounds as senators decry tactics and arguments used against a nominee they favor, but turn around and employ the same methods when they oppose a nominee. Meanwhile, nominees decline to answer questions that would reveal their views about any controversial issue.This Article looks at the intersection of these two much-maligned areas of law, politics, and policy. It reviews the role that gun issues have played in the Senate’s consideration of Supreme Court nominations, particularly the three most recent nominees (Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan) and it aims to provoke thinking about these issues in future confirmations. The confirmation process is far from perfect, but the dialogue between nominees and senators can promote more precise and reasoned consideration of important issues. A reasonable and thoughtful airing of differing views about guns at Supreme Court confirmation hearings will not eliminate the bitterness and stubbornness of the debate over guns in America, but it is a small step in the right direction.
Extraction and spatial analysis of impervious surfaces in the Bohai Bay region based on OLI imagery

The magnitude,location,geometry and spatial pattern of the impervious surface area(ISA)and the ratio of perviousness-imperviousness significantly affect regional eco-environment changes. In 2013,the success of Landsat 8 satellite contributed to the Landsat satellite missions and provided a new data source for land eco-environmental system studies. The OLI and TM imagery were selected as data sources in this paper. The end-member model samples included vegetation,soil,high albedo surface and low albedo surface were selected by the Minimum Noise Fraction Transform(MNF)method. The classification was made by the Support Vector Machine(SVM)method with end-member model samples. In terms of the results of previous studies,an aggregation of high albedo surface and low albedo surface was regarded as the impervious surface area after excluding water and shadows using water indices. The results show that extraction results for the impervious surface area based on OLI imagery is better than for TM imagery;the kappa coefficient of the impervious surface area extraction result based on OLI is 0.90;with the radiance resolution of OLI is 16 bit and the band ranges are narrowed,the color abundance of OLI imagery is improved compared with TM imagery. The area percentage of the impervious surface area in the Bohai Bay region is up to 16.74% totally in 2013;it is about 1 794.30km2 in the region of 0~10km and the reclamation area away from the coastline. Compared with impervious surface area extraction based on TM imagery,the impervious surface area extraction based on OLI imagery is concentrated on the center metropolises and harbor zones,such as Tianjin Harbor district and Huanghua Harbor district,and distributes as a reunite state in the Bohai Bay region.
A knowledge-level analysis of several design tools

Abstract Design has been extensively studied by artificial intelligence researchers for many years. These studies have resulted in a large number of design tools that perform interesting tasks. Understanding the capabilities of these tools is, however, very difficult, which seriously impedes progress in the field. In this paper, we suggest that a knowledge-level analysis of design tools will allow us to more fully understand different tools, and to constructively compare them. The initial analysis of five tools is presented.
Ultrafast imaging of light scattering dynamics using second-generation compressed ultrafast photography

We present single-shot real-time video recording of light scattering dynamics by second-generation compressed ultrafast photography (G2-CUP). Using G2-CUP at 100 billion frames per second, in a single camera exposure, we experimentally captured the evolution of the light intensity distribution in an engineered thin scattering plate assembly. G2-CUP, which implements a new reconstruction paradigm and a more efficient hardware design than its predecessors, markedly improves the reconstructed image quality. The ultrafast imaging reveals the instantaneous light scattering pattern as a photonic Mach cone. We envision that our technology will find a diverse range of applications in biomedical imaging, materials science, and physics.
Reexamining the Impact of Information Technology Investments on Productivity Using Regression Tree- and MARS-Based Analyses

Several studies have investigated the impact of investments in IT on productivity. In this chapter, we revisit this issue and reexamine the impact of investments in IT on hospital productivity using two data mining techniques, which allowed us to explore interactions between the input variables as well as conditional impacts. The results of our study indicated that the relationship between IT investment and productivity is very complex. We found that the impact of IT investment is not uniform and the rate of IT impact varies contingent on the amounts invested in the IT Stock, Non-IT Labor, Non-IT Capital, and possibly time.
Safety Assessment of Food and Feed from GM Crops in Europe: Evaluating EFSA's Alternative Framework for the Rat 90-day Feeding Study.

Regulatory-compliant rodent subchronic feeding studies are compulsory regardless of a hypothesis to test, according to recent EU legislation for the safety assessment of whole food/feed produced from genetically modified (GM) crops containing a single genetic transformation event (European Union Commission Implementing Regulation No. 503/2013). The Implementing Regulation refers to guidelines set forth by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for the design, conduct, and analysis of rodent subchronic feeding studies. The set of EFSA recommendations was rigorously applied to a 90-day feeding study in Sprague–Dawley rats. After study completion, the appropriateness and applicability of these recommendations were assessed using a battery of statistical analysis approaches including both retrospective and prospective statistical power analyses as well as variance–covariance decomposition. In the interest of animal welfare considerations, alternative experimental designs were investigated and evaluated in ...
Sling Procedures for the Treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence: Comparison of National Practice Patterns between Urologists and Gynecologists

Purpose: Sling procedures, which have become the dominant method of surgical management of stress urinary incontinence, are frequently performed by urologists and gynecologists. Few studies investigating trends in surgical management have focused on differences in provision of care between the specialties. In this study we compared national practice patterns of sling procedures by provider type.Materials and Methods: We analyzed the 2006 to 2013 ACS (American College of Surgeons) NSQIP (National Surgical Quality Improvement Program) database. CPT-4 codes were used to identify patients who underwent sling procedures and any concomitant pelvic floor procedures. Patient and operative characteristics were compared between urologists and gynecologists using bivariate and multivariate analysis.Results: Our analytical cohort included 22,192 sling procedures, of which 5,718 (25.8%) and 16,474 (74.2%) were performed by urologists and gynecologists, respectively. Urologists performed a greater percent of autologous...
Trogocytosis and endocytosis of HLA-G from extravillous trophoblasts by decidual NK cells and its functional consequence (MUC2P.922)

The interaction of non-cytotoxic decidual NK cells (dNK) and extravillous trophoblasts (EVT) at the fetal-maternal interface has been studied. Confocal microscopy revealed that many dNK can interact with a single large EVT, leading to the formation of synapses. Filamentous projections from EVT enriched in HLA-G were shown to contact dNK and may represent the initial stage of synapse formation. A small fraction of dNK as isolated (~3%) contain surface HLA-G. However, HLA-G negative dNK had internalized HLA-G. Activation of dNK by culture in IL-15 resulted in disappearance of the internalized HLA-G in parallel with restoration of cytotoxicity. Surface HLA-G could be reacquired by incubation with EVT. However, under the conditions of the current experiments, re-acquisition of surface HLA-G by IL-15 activated dNK did not suppress their cytotoxicity. These data indicate a cycle in which HLA-G is acquired from EVT, endocytosed, degraded and, finally, reacquired from EVT. The HLA-G cycle is related to the loss and reacquisition of dNK cytotoxicity. The fetal-maternal interface offers an opportunity to study how evolution has met the challenge of generating a localized and specific tolerized immune compartment that does not reject an allogeneic fetus while maintaining the ability to respond to infections at this site.
Comprehensive Approaches to Treatment

The chapter summary in the previous chapter provides a fairly pessimistic picture of our success in treating children and adolescents with conduct disorders. Until recently, this was the state of our knowledge. There were several “promising” treatments that had some degree of effectiveness but no single-treatment approach had proven to have a dramatic influence on most children or adolescents with conduct disorders (Kazdin, 1995). By evaluating these approaches to treatment within the context of our understanding of the nature and causes of conduct disorders, the reason for the limited effectiveness of these treatments may be apparent. Each approach was designed to alter a process believed to be crucial in causing the development of conduct disorders. However, each approach focused on a single process, such as poor parental socialization practices or deficits in social cognition or poor inhibitory control of behavior. This strategy ignores the fact that conduct disorders are multidetermined, with multiple interacting causal factors underlying the development of the behavioral disturbance. Furthermore, subgroups of children with conduct disorders may have different combinations of causal factors involved in the development of the disorder. Therefore, it is not surprising that interventions that focused on single causal processes and that attempted to treat all children and adolescents with conduct disorders in the same manner have proven to be inadequate.
Adaptive energy selective active contour with shape priors for nuclear segmentation and gleason grading of prostate cancer

Shape based active contours have emerged as a natural solution to overlap resolution. However, most of these shape-based methods are computationally expensive. There are instances in an image where no overlapping objects are present and applying these schemes results in significant computational overhead without any accompanying, additional benefit. In this paper we present a novel adaptive active contour scheme (AdACM) that combines boundary and region based energy terms with a shape prior in a multi level set formulation. To reduce the computational overhead, the shape prior term in the variational formulation is only invoked for those instances in the image where overlaps between objects are identified; these overlaps being identified via a contour concavity detection scheme. By not having to invoke all 3 terms (shape, boundary, region) for segmenting every object in the scene, the computational expense of the integrated active contour model is dramatically reduced, a particularly relevant consideration when multiple objects have to be segmented on very large histopathological images. The AdACM was employed for the task of segmenting nuclei on 80 prostate cancer tissue microarray images. Morphological features extracted from these segmentations were found to able to discriminate different Gleason grade patterns with a classification accuracy of 84% via a Support Vector Machine classifier. On average the AdACM model provided 100% savings in computational times compared to a non-optimized hybrid AC model involving a shape prior.
Integrating In Vitro Methods for Propagating and Preserving Endangered Plants

In vitro methods provide a variety of tools to supplement traditional methods for collecting, propagating and preserving endangered plant species (Henshaw and Blakesley, 1996; Pence, 1999; Sugii and Lamoureux, 2004). These methods are in use by researchers in several programs around the world, including at the Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, where they are used to address reproductive challenges in a variety of United States endangered species. In vitro methods also provide a supplemental approach for addressing Target 8 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (Wyse Jackson, 2004), when traditional methods of ex situ conservation are not adequate.
Immunogenicity of Synthetic Peptides Corresponding to Various Epitopes of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Envelope Protein

The envelope gene of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) encodes a 160 kd precursor protein which during virus maturation is cleaved into 120 kd and 41 kd proteins, respectively 1,2. The outer (gp120) and the transmembrane (gp41) proteins are non-covalently associated and are involved in virus infectivity 3-6. The gp120 has been suggested to bear the CD4 binding site mediating the attachment of the virus to the CD4 antigen 4,7. Recently, using deletion mutants8 and monoclonal antibodies9 the CD4 binding site was mapped within the amino acid sequence 420–437 of the gp120 protein. The comparison of sequences among the fusogenic sites of various viruses with the sequence of HIV predicted that the sequence 526-535 of the amino terminal part of gp41 to be the fusogenic site of HIV-I10. Beside these sites playing an important role in infectivity, the gp160 protein bears B cell epitopes inducing neutralizing antibodies and T cell epitopes recognized by T helper and cytotoxic T cells (data reviewed in 11). To date, the best characterized neutralizing epitope is the so called principle neutralizing determinant or PND which maps within the cysteine loop of the gp120 protein 12,13. It has been suggested that the hexapeptide, GPGRAF, which is conserved in the majority of known HIV-1 isolates is responsible for the induction of broadly neutralizing antibodies14. Recently, it was shown that the peptide corresponding to amino acid residues 254–274 of gp120 represents an immunodominant epitope capable of inducing antibodies in HIV-1 infected patients15. Also the C-terminal peptide 504–518 of gp120 reacted with sera of HIV-infected patients16. In the present work, we present data on the immunogenicity of 4 peptides corresponding to various epitopes of the gp160 protein in various animal species.
Breast parenchymal pattern (BPP) analysis: comparison of digital mammograms and breast tomosynthesis

We conducted a preliminary study to compare computerized measures of breast parenchymal pattern (BPP) on full field digital mammogram (FFDM) and digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT). A set of 123 subjects who had corresponding clinical FFDM of the same breast was collected from our DBT database. In a retroareolar region on the CC view, texture measures including run-length statistics (RLS), region-size statistics (RSS), and power spectrum were extracted from both modalities. Correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the similarities of the individual BPP measures between FFDM and DBT. It was found that the Pearson's correlation coefficients for the individual BPP measures between the matched pairs of FFDM and DBT ranged from 0.02 to 0.61. Our results indicated that the BPP measures were different between FFDM and DBT in this limited data set.
SATELLITES AND SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING | Surface Wind and Stress

The basics of scatterometry and air–sea turbulence transfer are discussed to bring out the capabilities of space sensors in measuring ocean surface stress and wind vectors. The scientific significance of wind and stress are described. Past knowledge of stress characteristics was based on those of wind, because of the lack of stress measurements. Using the unique measurement of stress by the scatterometer, the differences between stress and wind over oceanfronts and in hurricanes are revealed. Wind speed retrieval from measurements of radar altimeter, microwave radiometer, and synthetic aperture radar is summarized. Potential improvements in measuring wind and stress are suggested.
Association between renal mass biopsy and upstaging to perinephric fat involvement in a contemporary cohort of patients with clinical T1a renal cell carcinoma.

Abstract Background Although tumor tract seeding from renal mass biopsy (RMB) is exceedingly rare, the possibility of tumor capsule violation from RMB leading to perinephric fat invasion has not been quantified. We evaluated the association between RMB and perinephric fat invasion in patients with clinical T1a renal cell carcinoma who underwent partial or radical nephrectomy. Materials and Methods We reviewed the National Cancer Database from 2010–2013 and identified patients who underwent surgery for clinical T1a tumors. Patients were classified as upstaged only if final pathology demonstrated perinephric invasion only (pT3a). Mixed-effect logistic regression analysis was performed on inverse probability weighted matched groups to identify predictors of perinephric fat invasion. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to evaluate overall survival (OS). Results A total of 24,548 patients met our inclusion criteria. Pathologic upstaging to pT3a perinephric fat involvement occurred in 1.2% of patients. This rate of upstaging was 1.1% in the no biopsy group compared with 2.1% in patients who underwent RMB (P Conclusion RMB was associated with increased rate of upstaging to pT3a perinephric fat involvement in clinical T1a RCC. This effect is small with unclear clinical significance. This is perhaps balanced by the importance of the information acquired from biopsies. Future studies are needed to elucidate clinical significance of this finding.
Severe Sepsis-Associated Morbidity and Mortality among Critically Ill Children with Cancer.

Severe sepsis (SS) in pediatric oncology patients is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. We investigated the incidence of and risk factors for morbidity and mortality among children diagnosed with cancer from 2008 to 2012, and admitted with SS during the 3 years following cancer diagnosis. A total of 1,002 children with cancer were included, 8% of whom required pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admission with SS. Death and/or multiple organ dysfunction syndrome occurred in 34 out of 99 PICU encounters (34%). Lactate level and history of stem-cell transplantation were significantly associated with the development of death and/or organ dysfunction (p
Panera Bread Company (Spanish)

This is a Spanish translation of the September 3, 2009 version of UVA-F-1575. As 2007 drew to a close, Panera Bread Company faced a new challenge. To date, it had relied on retained earnings and minor equity infusions to finance operations. But a decline in margins would limit future financing from internally generated funds. Complicating matters was the fact that its stock price was at historic lows and management was contemplating a large equity repurchase. This case can be used to discuss multiperiod financial forecasts and the relative desirability of various financing sources. A teaching note and instructor and student spreadsheet are available. Excerpt UVA-F-1827 Rev. 3 de set. de 2009 PANERA BREAD COMPANY A medida que se acercaba el final del ano 2007, Panera Bread Company se enfrentaba a un nuevo desafio. Hasta hacia poco, los grandes margenes obtenidos le permitieron a Panera financiar su rapido crecimiento principalmente a traves de utilidades no distribuidas y pequenas inyecciones de capital propio como resultado de programas de compensacion. La compania no utilizo financiamiento permanente mediante deuda y, de hecho, habia dejado vencer una linea de credito por USD 10 millones. Pero ahora Panera se encontraba frente a una caida de los margenes que le limitaria su capacidad de sustentarse con fondos internos. La compania se dio cuenta de que efectivamente necesitaria capital de los mercados externos, tanto en el corto como en el largo plazo, ya que se esperaba que el crecimiento continuara y estaban considerando una recompra de acciones por USD 75 millones. Historia y modelo de negocio Panera Bread Company tuvo sus comienzos con otra panificadora exitosa, Au Bon Pain Co., la cual fue fundada en 1981. El exito de Au Bon Pain en la decada de 1980 dio lugar a la compra en 1993 de Saint Louis Bread Company, una pequena panaderia-cafe ubicada en St. Louis, Missouri. Hacia finales de 1999, el concepto de la panificadora Saint Louis Bread Company se expandia bajo el nombre Panera Bread, Au Bon Pain habia vendido todas sus unidades excepto Panera Bread, y el mismo Au Bon Pain habia adoptado el nombre Panera. . . .
Inventory Policies and Information Sharing: An Efficient Frontier Approach

We consider a two-tier inventory management system with one retailer and one supplier. The retailer serves a demand driven by a stationary moving average process (of possibly in nite order) and places periodic inventory replenishment orders to the supplier. In this setting, we study the interplay between information sharing and order smoothing under the assumption that rms' inventory cost parameters (e.g., per unit holding and backordering costs) are functions of two forms of supply chain variability: (i) on-hand inventory variability and (ii) replenishment order variability. We show that there is a natural tension between these two sources of variability and characterize a \Pareto frontier" between them by identifying optimal inventory replenishment strategies that trade-o one type of variability for the other in a cost efficient way. For the case in which the retailer is able to share her complete demand history, we provide a full characterization of the efficient frontier, as well as of an optimal replenishment policy. On the other hand, when the retailer is not able (or willing) to share any demand information we provide a partial characterization of an optimal solution and show that information sharing does not always add value.We also show that the question of identifying conditions under which information sharing does o er value reduces to a delicate analysis of the invertibility (in a time series sense) of a specific stationary process.
The Discovery of the Iron-Regulatory Hormone Hepcidin.

Featured Article: Park CH, Valore EV, Waring AJ, Ganz T. Hepcidin, a urinary antimicrobial peptide synthesized in the liver. J Biol Chem 2001;276:7806–10.2 Louis Pasteur's adage “Chance favors only the prepared mind” is a romantic oversimplification of the relationship of chance to scientific discovery. Fortunately, we may get more than one chance, and aided by interactions within our scientific communities, our minds can prepare to contribute to a new finding. So it was with the serendipitous discovery of the iron-regulatory hormone hepcidin. As a postdoctoral fellow, I studied the role of endogenous peptide antibiotics in the antimicrobial activity of phagocytes. My colleagues and I discovered and characterized a family of antimicrobial peptides of phagocytes, defensins, which eventually included defensins secreted from epithelial surfaces. In the 1990s, defensins of the human urogenital tract became the focus of my research. The predominant forms were N-terminally cleaved variants of human-β-defensin-1 (HBD-1), detected in Western blots using our laboratory-developed antibody (1). Erika Valore, a staff researcher in my laboratory, noticed that a peptide not recognized by the anti-HBD-1 antibody repeatedly appeared among the HBD-1 variants. At …
Weak Instruments in Instrumental Variables Regression: Theory and Practice

When instruments are weakly correlated with endogenous regressors, conventional methods for instrumental variables (IV) estimation and inference become unreliable. A large literature in econometric...
Prescription Selection and Dosing

Rational drug prescribing in older adults requires a deep knowledge about the perils of polypharmacy and an understanding of how pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic changes that occur with aging can affect drug dosing. A Hierarchy of Medication Evaluation (HME) can provide prescribers with distinct steps with questions to consider, to aid in selecting and prescribing appropriate medications for patients. These steps include assessing a patient’s renal and hepatic function as well as determining what patients are not candidates for the medication. Ultimately, prescribers must consider how and if the evidence can be applied to their individual patient.
Nontargeted Tandem Mass Spectrometry Analysis Reveals Diversity and Variability in Aerosol Functional Groups across Multiple Sites, Seasons, and Times of Day

Organic aerosol (OA) is a complex mixture of compounds with diverse elemental and structural features, and its composition affects its health and environmental impacts. A detailed speciation of the...
Chapter IIIB – Special Diuretics

Publisher Summary The kidney increases plasma osmolality by excreting urine that is dilute with respect to the plasma (increased free water excretion), and reduces plasma osmolality by excreting urine that is concentrated with respect to the plasma (increased free water reabsorption). Unlike standard diuretics, the agents described in this chapter do not block specific transporter proteins, but tend to alter the physiological control processes that govern salt and water excretion in normal animal. The increased specificity of the action of these agents may make them useful in certain defined circumstances, but in general these agents act as weaker diuretics and are not in large-scale clinical use. Each of these agents acts on distinct portions of the nephron. The nephron dilutes the urine by reabsorbing solute (predominantly sodium chloride) without water primarily in the thick ascending limb (TAL). In the absence of antidiuretic hormone (ADH), this dilute urine is mostly excreted. The reabsorption of solute in the absence of water in the thick ascending limb, coupled with the action of the countercurrent arrangement of the vasculature and tubules in the medulla, leads to the development of an interstitial osmolality that is markedly hypertonic with respect to the plasma. ADH stimulates insertion of water channels into the apical membranes of the collecting duct permitting reabsorption of water from the lumen into the hypertonic interstitium and excretion of concentrated urine. In some species, ADH also promotes the development of a hypertonicinterstitium by stimulating thick ascending limb salt reabsorption.
Chapter 4 – Fluorescence Technique

This chapter examines the use of the fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy in the study of biological systems. The fluorescence technique is attractive since it offers less tedious preparation, high detection sensitivity, and the ability to give spectrotemporal as well as spectrospatial imaging of cells, which allows real-time monitoring of reactive species production in live cells. Detection techniques using fluorescent probes are employed through the aid of optical microscopes, spectrofluorimetric microplate readers, flow cytometric systems allowing high-throughput studies, and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis providing a more specific detection. The chapter discusses the chemistry of RS detection using fluorescence techniques and the methods employed by RS probes to assess overall cellular redox states through direct detection of reactive species generation as well as biomarkers of oxidative state are described. The chapter describes the classification of fluorescent RS probes by specificity, including by global redox state or total ROS detection and by selective detection, and also details the cell/tissue type or biological system for which each type of probe is most appropriate. The chapter details the specific uses of each type of probe, the advantages and limitations of each type of probe, and the factors that must be considered, such as the type of instrumentation, the type of expected radicals, and possible interferences.
A Rare Cause of Acute Pancreatitis in a Transgender Female

Acute pancreatitis is defined as an acute inflammation of the pancreas and is most commonly caused by gallstones and alcohol followed by elevated triglycerides and medications. Estrogen as a cause of secondary hypertriglyceridemic pancreatitis is a rare but known phenomenon in females on hormonal therapy; however, it is not well described in the transgender female population. In this article, we present a case of a 31-year-old transgender female who developed acute, severe pancreatitis after a few months of using estrogen as transition therapy. To our knowledge, this is the third case report of a transgender female presenting with acute pancreatitis secondary to estrogen. Long-term supraphysiologic doses of sex hormones are required to maintain secondary sex characteristics placing this population at a higher risk of developing acute pancreatitis. Further research is needed to determine risk and screening methods to prevent this side effect.
Evaluation of TCP over IPv4 and IPv6 for the ESP8266 in Normal Operation and Under a DoS Attack

Since the Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining acceptance worldwide, manufacturers have proposed cheap modules and development boards for its implementation. Even if those devices have been in the markets for some years, just a few studies assess their network performance. In this work, we selected the ESP8266, a well-known IoT module, and evaluated its TCP performance in normal operation, and when facing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. The performance evaluation was done for both IPv4 and IPv6 using two different platforms for development.
Health Status and Health Care Utilization of US Adults Under Probation: 2015-2018

Objectives. To compare the health and health care utilization of persons on and not on probation nationally.Methods. Using the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, a population-based sample of U...
Novel functions of cytoplasmic aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases shaping the hallmarks of cancer

With the intense protein synthesis demands of cancer, the classical enzymatic role of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) is required to sustain tumor growth. However, many if not all aaRSs also possess regulatory functions outside of the domain of catalytic tRNA aminoacylation, which can further contribute to or even antagonize cancers in non-translational ways. These regulatory functions of aaRS are likely to be manipulated in cancer to ensure uncontrolled growth and survival. This review will largely focus on the unique capacities of individual and sometimes collaborating synthetases to influence the hallmarks of cancer, which represent the principles and characteristics of tumorigenesis. An interesting feature of cytoplasmic aaRSs in higher eukaryotes is the formation of a large multi-synthetase complex (MSC) with nine aaRSs held together by three non-enzymatic scaffolding proteins (AIMPs). The MSC-associated aaRSs, when released from the complex in response to certain stimulations, often participate in pathways that promote tumorigenesis. In contrast, the freestanding aaRSs are associated with activities in both directions-some promoting while others inhibiting cancer. The AIMPs have emerged as potent tumor suppressors through their own distinct mechanisms. We propose that the tumor-suppressive roles of AIMPs may also be a consequence of keeping the cancer-promoting aaRSs within the MSC. The rich connections between cancer and the synthetases have inspired the development of innovative cancer treatments that target or take advantage of these novel functions of aaRSs.
Journalists as Witnesses to Executions: Processing the Viewing Room: by Kenna R. Griffin (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2020), 86 pp

In this slim volume Kenna Griffin makes an important contribution by examining a topic that has been the focus of little, if any, previous scholarly attention. Journalists as Witnesses to Execution...