cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Endoscopy and Endourology Coding Update for 2003

HIS IS THE FIRST of a three-part series and discussion of proper and accurate coding for endoscopic and endourologic procedures that are often performed by urologists throughout the United States. This first segment discusses the coding for common ureteroscopic procedures; it will be followed in future issues by discussions of percutaneous operations and, finally, laparoscopic procedures. The modern-day urologist must provide the highest quality of care, and for this, the practitioner has been well prepared by the excellent training programs in which young urologists are trained. However, two problems exist. First, to be paid for their services, urologists must convey this clinical information to an insurance carrier by appropriate coding, for which they have had little or no training. Second, most urologists do not know for what they are entitled to be paid, and, not knowing this, they cannot bill appropriately or correctly. It is hoped that these discussions will enable urologists to perceive and learn for what they are entitled to be paid.
Entry of exendin-4 into brain is rapid but may be limited at high doses

OBJECTIVE: Peripherally administered exendin-4 is in clinical trials for the treatment of diabetes mellitus and obesity. Since its effects on food intake are mediated centrally, we determined the degree and type of its blood-to-brain penetration of the mouse blood–brain barrier (BBB). MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: High-performance liquid chromatography showed that exendin-4 was stable in blood, with most of the injected peptide reaching the brain intact. Capillary depletion studies with washout showed that the injected exendin-4 reached brain parenchyma rather than being trapped in the endothelial cells composing the BBB. Multiple-time regression analysis showed that exendin-4 crossed the BBB directly at a fast rate. The rapid brain entry of exendin-4, helped by its high lipophilicity as demonstrated by the octanol/buffer partition coefficient, was not dependent upon circumventricular organs and was not affected by food deprivation for 24 h. The simultaneous i.v. injection of high doses of unlabeled exendin-4 resulted in self-inhibition (saturation) that only became statistically significant (P<0.05) when the results of four experiments were combined; this suggests a possible limit to the amount of peripherally administered exendin-4 that can reach the brain after injection of high doses. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that exendin-4 is well conformed for exerting central effects involved in the control of obesity.
Mesopontine neurons in schizophrenia

Abstract Findings reported here show that there is a significant increase in the number of neurons in the pedunculopontine nucleus in most schizophrenic patients compared to age-matched controls. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate diaphorase histochemistry was used to label putative cholinergic neurons in the pedunculopontine nucleus and laterodorsal tegmental nucleus, while noradrenergic locus coeruleus neurons were labeled immunocytochemically using an antibody to tryosine hydroxylase. Cell counts of these neuronal groups were carried out using a Biographics image analysis system. We found significantly increased cell numbers in the pedunculopontine nucleus of schizophrenic patients compared to controls. The number of laterodorsal tegmental nucleus neurons was increased but this was not statistically significant. However, the total cell counts for pedunculopontine and laterodorsal tegmental nuclei were significantly higher in schizophrenic subjects. The number of locus coeruleus noradrenergic neurons was similar in both groups. These results implicate the brainstem reticular formation as a pathophysiological site in at least some patients with schizophrenia. In addition, these findings suggest a developmental etiology for the disease and account for some, but not all, of the symptoms of schizophrenia, including sensory gating abnormalities, sleep-wake disturbances and, perhaps, hallucinations. Overdriving of thalamic and substantia nigra function by cholinergic afferents from the midbrain may account for some of the symptoms seen in schizophrenia. These findings suggest that, at least in some schizophrenic patients, there is an increased number of neurons in the cholinergic arm of the reticular activating system. This may explain some of the symptoms of schizophrenia and points to a prenatal disturbance as one of the possible causes of the disease.
Effect of route of administration on the toxicity and teratogenicity of EDTA in the rat

Abstract The toxic and teratogenic effects of EDTA were studied in the rat following administration of the compound in the diet (EDTA/do), by gastric intubation (EDTA/po), or subcutaneously (EDTA/sc). EDTA was administered on Days 7 through 14 of gestation at the following dosages: EDTA/do, 3% in the diet (954 mg/kg/day); EDTA/po, 625 mg/kg twice daily (1250 mg/kg/day) or 750 mg/kg twice daily (1500 mg/kg/day); EDTA/sc, 375 mg/kg. Appropriate controls were run for each route of exposure. EDTA/do resulted in no maternal deaths but did produce severe maternal toxicity and malformations in 71% of the offspring. EDTA/po was much more toxic to the dams (87.5% maternal death at 750 mg/kg twice daily, and 36% at 625 mg/kg twice daily) but produced fewer malformed young (20.5% at 625 mg/kg twice daily) than did the slightly lower dose of EDTA administered in the diet. EDTA/sc was lethal to 24% of the dams at a much lower dose than that given by either oral route but did not produce a significant number of malformations in the offspring. Possible factors involved in these differences in toxicity and teratogenicity are absorption into the circulation, interaction with essential metals, and the stress associated with administration of the compound.
Effects of vital dyes on early development of the amphibian embryo.

Summary1. Eggs of Rana pipiens were exposed to solutions of the vital dyes Xile Blue Sulfate, Neutral Red and Bismark Brown under different conditions. Concentrations less than the following allowed normal development of eggs and embryos: Nile Blue Sulfate 1 :750,000; Seutral Red 1 :250,-000; Bismark Brown 1:100,000.2. Developmental abnormalities appeared with use of stronger concentrations than listed above.3. Early cleavage was unaffected by otherwise toxic concentrations even to 1:10,000. Gastrulation proved to be the critical point in development when toxic effects of the dyes began to produce abnormalities.4. Short exposure to toxic concentrations, even during unaffected cleavage, resulted in abnormalities appearing at subsequent stages of development.5. Developmental stages 9 and 10 were more susceptible to toxic effects than were stages 2, 6, 11, 12, 14 using Nile Blue Sulfate of 1:100,000 and 1:150,000 concentrations.6. The pH of the medium mas shown to influfnce the toxicity effects.7. When Nile ...
Relativistic particle systems with confining interactions

Abstract A restricted case of a relativistic Hamiltonian particle dynamics is discussed here, the restriction referring to conditions on the interaction. This case permits center-of-momentum variables as well as individual particle variables. The latter satisfy a covariant canonical algebra. It also permits observable world lines and a CM position which is the energy average of the particle positions. The Todorov-Komar formulation emerges as a special case when a suitable gauge is used.
Foreign Language Pedagogical Knowledge: Toward a Developmental Theory of Beginning Teacher Practices

This longitudinal study focuses on how pedagogical content knowledge is initially represented and changes during the beginning teaching experiences of 9 teachers of French, German, and Spanish. The data consist of reflective journal entries, classroom observations, and focus group interviews collected during the first 2 years of foreign language (FL) teaching at the high school level. Techniques of grounded theory analysis were used to develop a theoretical framework comprehensive to the data. Four core categories—prior knowledge that frames instructional decisions, attitudes toward teacher control in the classroom, instructional goals for daily lessons, and considerations for responding to student affect—were identified to explain overarching change in foreign language pedagogical content knowledge. The results support the proposition that approaches to instruction, such as communicative language teaching, and their related theoretical underpinnings in language learning, develop as pedagogical content knowledge through a process of teaching, conflict, reflection, and resolution specific to the in-service classroom context. Similar to research findings in other subject disciplines, the instructional practices of beginning FL teachers may initially be considered traditional, outdated, or even antithetical to their preservice preparation as control over students and the instructional content serve as a proxy for perceptions of successful teaching. Professional development of beginning teachers must support the ongoing transformation of pedagogical content knowledge in order to ensure that these early characteristics do not become lasting traits in long-term teaching careers.
Critical issues in achieving ductile behaviour of welded moment connections

Abstract A comprehensive research program on large-size, welded moment connections conducted after the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California has identified three critical issues that could significantly affect the strength and ductility of the connections. They are: fracture toughness of weld metal, geometry and size of weld access hole, and control of panel zone deformation. Experimental and analytical studies on each of the issues have been performed at the Center for Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems at Lehigh University. This paper presents brief descriptions of the studies, key results obtained and recommendations made to insure ductile performance of the connections.
Early Reading Intervention for English Language Learners At-Risk for Learning Disabilities: Student and Teacher Outcomes in an Urban School:

Student and teacher outcomes following the first year of implementation of an early reading intervention project designed to improve literacy outcomes in one urban school are described. The intervention was delivered through ongoing supplemental reading instruction for English language learners (ELLs) at-risk of reading failure. Students at-risk for reading-related learning disabilities were identified using the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), a performance-based reading assessment. Students at-risk and students with learning disabilities (LD) received supplemental small-group reading instruction provided by the classroom teacher and support personnel implementing an inclusive special education program. Results indicated positive growth for ELLs, with a disproportionately large percentage of students falling into the risk range. At-risk and LD students showed steady improvement, supporting the coupling of an inclusive special education program with reading intervention in the p...
Use of Barley in High-Efficiency Broiler Rations 6. Influence of Small Amounts of Corn on Improvement of Barley

Abstract ROSE and Arscott (1962) reported that when corn constituted one-half of the ground grain in a barley-type ration, results were comparable to those obtained from supplementing a barley ration with an amylolytic enzyme. This paper reports experiments wherein the level of corn used has been further reduced. The effect of autoclaving on this reduced amount of corn was also studied. PROCEDURE In experiments 1 and 2, duplicate lots of 26 day-old White Vantress × Nichols 108 broiler chicks, equalized for sex, were reared to eight weeks of age on floor pens, in a force-draft ventilated building, under infra-red heat lamps and with 24-hour lights. For the accumulated droppings data cited in experiments 1 and 2, as well as the results for experiment 3, duplicate lots of 12 day-old broilers equalized for sex were raised to four weeks of age in electrically heated batteries under 24-hour lights. Care and management of…
Dispensing with the continuum

Abstract We present a constructive system of nonstandard analysis, called elementary recursive nonstandard analysis (ERNA), as a viable foundation for the mathematics that is used in the empirical sciences; the viability is demonstrated by showing that a version of the standard existence theorem for first-order ordinary differential equations is provable in ERNA. We demonstrate the constructive character of ERNA by showing that it has a finitary consistency proof. Through the consistency proof one can make the observation that ERNA has models in which every element is a (possibly nonstandard) rational number; hence proper- ties special to the continuum are not used in ERNA. Also, we will show how the consistency proof leads to the construction of finite models in the standard rationals. Then we give an isomorphism theorem stating that the interpretation of any finite set of ERNA-terms can be mapped, isomorphically, onto a finite set of standard rationals. Additionally, we discuss to what extent such isomorphisms are constructive and how the isomorphism theorem lends further support to the thesis that the continuum is dispensable in the mathematics that is used in the empirical sciences.
Effective Population Size during Grass Germplasm Seed Regeneration.

Effective population size (N(e)) is the key parameter for predicting genetic drift associated with germplasm regeneration. A major factor reducing N(e) below the census population size (N(c)) is variation in seed production among plants in a given population. The objectives of this study were to estimate N(e)/N(c) associated with variation in seed production in three model wind pollinated, perennial grass species [Lolium perenne L., Festuca pratensis Huds., and Pseudoroegneria spicata (Pursh) A. Love] and to recommend cost effective sampling methodology to maximize N(e)/N(c) during seed regeneration. Three accessions of each species were grown at two field locations and variation in seed number among plants and mean seed production per plant used to estimate N(e)/N(c). Mean seeds per whole plant, standard deviations, and N(e)/N(c) differed among species, and accessions within species (P < 0.05). For whole plant samples, average N(e)/N(c) for each species differed with values of 0.42, 0.51, and 0.63 for L. perenne, F. pratensis, and P. spicata, respectively. However, average N(e)/N(c) based on two inflorescences per plant was 0.69, 0.88, and 0.86 for L. perenne, F. pratensis, and P. spicata, respectively, which was higher than that of whole plant samples. This higher N(e)/N(c) resulted from the elimination of the variation in inflorescence number per plant, a major source of variation in seed number among plants. The results showed the high potential for genetic drift in small regeneration populations. Increased plant populations and harvesting a constant number of inflorescences per plant are recommended as cost-effective methods to minimize genetic drift during regeneration of outcrossing grass germplasm.
Polymer ring resonator made by two-photon polymerization and vertically coupled to a side-polished optical fiber

We have developed a novel approach for fabricating and testing optical ring resonators. Using a side-polished optical fiber and fabricating a ring waveguide directly over its core, an efficient and passive signal filter in the 1.55 um telecommunication band is created. A standard single mode optical fiber is permanently secured in an arcing groove in quartz and is side polished proximally to its core. The ring resonator is fabricated using two-photon initiated free-radical polymerization of tri-functional acrylate on low-index quartz substrate with a 100 femtosecond pulsed Ti/sapphire laser. The quartz substrate is inverted and vacuum mounted to an X-Y-Z stage so that the polymer ring waveguide can be positioned directly above the core of the fiber forming a vertically coupled ring resonator. Our technique allows infinite variation of the width, height, diameter and location (therefore the coupling strength between the fiber and the ring) of the ring resonator waveguide. This approach enables resonators to be fabricated, tested and subsequently removed multiple times on the same side-polished fiber, refining both the ring resonator geometry and materials. Because it is a fiber-based device, it possesses negligibly low optical insertion loss and can be used for fixed and tunable wavelength filters, intensity modulators, and fiber-optic sensors. Both theoretical analysis and experimental data will be presented.
The significance of and a differential diagnostic test of precordial murmurs in children

Summary The value of the subcutaneous injection of epinephrine 1:1,000 as a means of accentuating and differentiating the so-called functional cardiac murmur from the organic is discussed; a five-year clinical follow-up in a group of 32 children previously receiving this test being the basis. A new group of 37 children were given a similar test, using amyl nitrite in 12 for comparative effects. The epinephrine test is found most useful for intensifying the murmurs of the early cases of probable valvular heart disease and also in accentuating the murmurs of the definite organic valvular lesions. The similar use of amyl nitrite as recommended by others is found entirely wanting. Due to the fact that the authors find so large a percentage of children considered as having a functional heart condition, within a period of five years presenting the clinical signs of a recognizable organic cardiac lesion, they strongly urge the physician to be cognizant of the threatening importance of the cardiac murmur, even without the expected concomitant signs and symptoms of organic valvular heart disease.
PAX3/7–FOXO1 fusion status in older rhabdomyosarcoma patient population by fluorescent in situ hybridization

Purpose In pediatric alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, the PAX3–FOXO1 and PAX7–FOXO1 gene fusions are prognostic indicators, while little is known concerning this disease in older patients. To determine whether PAX3/7–FOXO1 fusion gene status correlates with outcome in adolescent, young adult, and adult rhabdomyosarcoma patients, the histological, immunohistochemical, and clinical characteristics of 105 patients followed at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center from 1957 to 2001 were evaluated.
Industrial fermentations with (unstable) recombinant cultures

Recombinant DNA technology is yielding organisms with virtually a complete range of genetic stability, i.e. from organisms that appear to be entirely stable over the course of many fermentations to those that are so unstable that their half-life as novel species may be appreciably less than a conventional fermentation time. As such, a novel time-dependent mixed culture community is created, containing at a minimum the original recombinant microbe and a second strain, which may be denoted as a revertant in some partial or full sense. These two strains will differ in one or more important characteristics such as (desired) product formation rates, substrate utilization abilities, morphology, biomass growth rates and oxygen demand. In this paper, I consider batch and continuous cultivation, and I use some plausible biological rate forms to explore implications in fermentor behaviour and product formation occasioned by the existence of this particular form of `mixed culture'.
Inhibition of the pro-survival factor MADD (MAP Kinase Activating Death Domain) in human colorectal cancer

Introduction Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality. Up to 50% of CRC patients will develop metastatic disease. For these patients, there is a need for new therapeutic strategies. TNF-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) has been shown to induce apoptosis in select cancer cells. However, many colon cancers are resistant to TRAIL. The pro-survival factor, MADD (a splice variant of IG20) inhibits TRAIL-induced apoptosis and may be expressed in human colon cancer. Methods Utilizing HeLa cells as positive controls and the three colorectal cancer cell lines HT-29, COLO205 and SW620, we analyzed cells for expression of IG20 by RT-PCR. A lentiviral construct was created to deliver shRNA to colorectal cancer cell lines and knock down expression of IG20. Results High expression of IG20 was identified in control HeLa cells and the three human colorectal cancer cell lines. Expression was consistently reduced by >50% after 96 hours of transduction in all cell lines tested. There was no effect on IG20 expression in non-transduced cells, or cells transduced with a non-IG20 targeted shRNA. Conclusions IG20 is highly expressed in human CRC and its expression can be inhibited using a lentiviral vector. This experimental model may be utilized to confer TRAIL susceptibility to apoptotic-resistant colon cancer cell lines.
Specific immunoregulation of the induction and effector stages of relapsing EAE via neuroantigen-specific tolerance induction.

The effects of neuroantigen-specific tolerance on the induction and effector stages of relapsing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (R-EAE) were examined. The incidence of clinical and histologic signs of active MSCH-induced R-EAE, and accompanying neuroantigen-specific DTH responses, were dramatically reduced in SJL/J mice tolerized via the i.v. injection of syngeneic splenocytes coupled with MSCH, PLP, or encephalitogenic PLP peptides 7-14 days before priming. MBP-specific tolerance was not effective in preventing active R-EAE. In contrast to MSCH-induced active R-EAE, treatment of recipient mice with splenocytes coupled with MBP and the encephalitogenic MBP 84-104 peptide, but not with PLP, suppressed of clinical signs of adoptive R-EAE mediated by MBP-specific effector T cells in a dose-dependent manner. Neuroantigen-coupled splenocytes were also efficient in treating established disease as tolerization of SJL/J mice after the first incidence of clinical disease significantly reduced the incidence and severity of subsequent paralytic relapses. Antigen-specific tolerance thus provides a powerful approach for the prevention and/or treatment of autoimmune disease.
Multiple comparisons distortions of parameter estimates.

SUMMARY In experiments involving many variables, investigators typically use multiple comparisons procedures to determine differences that are unlikely to be the result of chance. However, investigators rarely consider how the magnitude of the greatest observed effect sizes may have been subject to bias resulting from multiple testing. These questions of bias become important to the extent investigators focus on the magnitude of the observed effects. As an example, such bias can lead to problems in attempting to validate results, if a biased effect size is used to power a follow-up study. An associated important consequence is that confidence intervals constructed using standard distributions may be badly biased. A bootstrap approach is used to estimate and adjust for the bias in the effect sizes of those variables showing strongest differences. This bias is not always present; some principles showing what factors may lead to greater bias are given and a proof of the convergence of the bootstrap distribution is provided.
Relationship of brain and skull in pre- and postoperative sagittal synostosis.

Models of vertebrate skull evolution stress the coordinated developmental relationship between the skull and the brain that it houses. This study investigates the relationship between altered skull morphology and brain morphology in premature fusion of the cranial sagittal suture (isolated sagittal synostosis; ISS), a condition associated with dysmorphology of both neurocranium and brain. Although the skull displays a more normal shape following reconstructive cranial vault surgery, effects of this surgery on the brain have not been investigated. Landmark coordinate data were collected from three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging reconstructions of the brain in a sample of ISS patients and an age-matched unaffected cohort. These data were analysed using Euclidean distance matrix analysis (EDMA). Results show that the brain in ISS is dysmorphic preoperatively, displaying a posteriorly directed neural expansion that does not ‘worsen’ with growth. Postoperatively, the brain in ISS displays a more globular shape overall as compared with the preoperative morphology, but differs from normal in its subcortical morphology. These results show that the ISS brain is altered following neurocranial surgery, but does not more closely approximate that of unaffected individuals. This suggests that although the brain is affected by manipulation of the skull, it retains a growth pattern that is, at least in part, independent of the skull.
Effect of Hydrogen-Water Atmospheres on Corrosion and Flexural Strength of Sintered α-Silicon Carbide

Sintered α-SiC was exposed for 10 h to H2 containing various partial pressures of H2O (PH2O from 5×10−6 to 2×10−2 atm; 1 atm≅105 Pa) at 1300° and 1400°C. Weight loss, surface morphology, and room-temperature flexural strength were strongly dependent on PH2O. The strength of the SiC was not significantly affected by exposure to dry H2 at a PH2O of 5×10−6 atm; and following exposure at PH2O >5×10−3 atm, the strength was even higher than that of the as-received material. The increase in strength is thought to be the result of crack blunting associated with SiO2 formation at crack tips. However, after exposure in an intermediate range of water vapor pressures (1×10−5<PH2O <1×10−3 atm), significant decreases in strength were observed. At a PH2O of about 1×10−4 atm, the flexural strength decreased approximately 30% and 50% after exposure at 1300° and 1400°C, respectively. The decrease in strength is attributed to surface defects caused by corrosion in the form of grain-boundary attack and the formation of pits. The rates of weight loss and microstructural changes on the exposed surfaces correlated well with the observed strength changes.
Lipid abnormalities in foreign-born and US-born patients in a medical group.

Background With an increasing foreign-born population in the United States, cardiovascular risk reduction through effective lipid treatment strategy is precluded by limited lipid profile information. Objective This study compares the patterns of lipid abnormalities of foreign-born and US-born patients treated by a single medical group. Methods We conducted a medical record review of 53,361 US-born and 6430 foreign-born patients in 2010. Results Compared with US-born, a higher proportion of foreign-born patients are younger than 40 years (26% vs 14%), receive Medicaid (24% vs 8%), and are less likely to be obese (26% vs 43%). More foreign-born patients have diabetes (25% vs 22%), are poor (4.7% vs 3.6%), and not on lipid-lowering drugs (63% vs 56%). Place of birth is not associated with total cholesterol levels. Adjusted for social and demographic characteristics, however, foreign-born are more likely than US-born to have elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (adjusted difference, 2.1; 95% CI, 0.6–3.7), depressed high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (adjusted difference, 6.1; 95% CI, 4.4–7.8), and elevated triglycerides (adjusted difference, 2.4; 95% CI, 0.8–4.1). Foreign-born patients, on lipid-lowering medications, are more likely to still have elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (adjusted difference, 3.5; 95% CI, 1.4–5.6). Conclusion Despite having a similar distribution of total cholesterol as their US-born counterparts, the other lipid fractions among foreign-born patients are more likely to be pathologic. Therefore, dyslipidemia screening tests need to include the lipid subfractions. The higher prevalence of dyslipidemias, both among foreign-born patients with and without lipid-lowering medications, challenges medical groups to intensify effective lipid treatment strategies.
Progress on canalization

In the 19th century, when evolutionary biologists focused on whole organisms, development played a central role in evolutionary theory. For much of the 20th century, genetic models and explanations replaced development at the center of evolutionary thought. Connections to development resurfaced at mid-century (1, 2) and accelerated after 1975, fueled by influential books (3–5) and by a resurgence of interest in the role of phenotypes in evolution and in the tension between recent selection and historical constraint in the design of organisms. By the turn of the new millennium, development had again become a major evolutionary theme in two quite different but interestingly connected ways. Under the label of Evo–Devo, the tools of molecular genetics are used to explore deeply conserved developmental mechanisms that are active early in development and thought to shape the regulatory systems responsible for the conservation of basic body plans (6). Under the label of the Genotype–Phenotype Map, a variety of theoretical and experimental programs explore the mechanisms and processes that shape the expression of genetic variation in phenotypes in nonlinear ways (7). Is there a natural bridge between these two research fields? Do the deeply conserved developmental systems that produce adult morphology also influence the expression of genetic variation in the traits they shape? Such a connection would point to part of one of evolution's long-sought Rosetta Stones: the mechanisms connecting macro- to microevolution. Building on work by A. Wagner (8), Siegal and Bergman (9) provide one of the first demonstrations of the plausibility of such a connection for a major component of the genotype–phenotype map: canalization. Canalization, now a classic idea, was suggested independently by Waddington (1) and Schmalhausen (2). Schmalhausen argued that canalization resulted from stabilizing selection shaping developmental mechanisms to buffer the expression of traits, holding them near their optimal …
Effective Load Balancing in P2P Systems

In DHT based P2P systems, various issues such as peer heterogeneity, network topology, and diverse file popularity, may affect the DHT system efficiency. In this paper, we propose an effective load balancing algorithm for DHT-Based P2P systems. Our main contributions are: (1) we propose an fully distributed mechanism to maintain the history of file access information. This information is used to predict the future file access frequencies and support the load distribution and redistribution operations; (2) we design a novel load balancing algorithm, which takes the file access history and peer heterogeneity properties into account to determine the load distribution. Our algorithm can generate the best load distribution decision when a new peer comes, it can also be able to dynamically perform the load redistribution during system running time if overloaded peers appeared. In our algorithm, no virtual servers are used, thus we have less processing overhead on the expensive routing metadata maintenance; (3) finally, we design a topologically-aware data replication mechanism, the topological information of the peers are used for file replication decisions. A file is replicated only on a peer close to the group of peers which have high access frequencies.
Alcohol-related cues potentiate alcohol impairment of behavioral control in drinkers

The acute impairing effects of alcohol on inhibitory control are well-established, and these disinhibiting effects are thought to play a role in its abuse potential. Alcohol impairment of inhibitory control is typically assessed in the context of arbitrary cues, yet drinking environments are comprised of an array of alcohol-related cues that are thought to influence drinking behavior. Recent evidence suggests that alcohol-related stimuli reduce behavioral control in sober drinkers, suggesting that alcohol impairment of inhibitory control might be potentiated in the context of alcohol cues. The current study tested this hypothesis by examining performance on the attentional-bias behavioral activation (ABBA) task that measures the degree to which alcohol-related stimuli can reduce inhibition of inappropriate responses in a between-subjects design. Social drinkers (N 40) performed the task in a sober condition, and then again following placebo (0.0 g/kg) and a moderate dose of alcohol (0.65 g/kg) in counterbalanced order. Inhibitory failures were greater following alcohol images compared to neutral images in sober drinkers, replicating previous findings with the ABBA task. Moreover, alcohol-related cues exacerbated alcohol impairment of inhibitory control as evidenced by more pronounced alcohol-induced disinhibition following alcohol cues compared to neutral cues. Finally, regression analyses showed that greater alcohol-induced disinhibition following alcohol cues predicted greater self-reported alcohol consumption. These findings have important implications regarding factors contributing to binge or “loss of control” drinking. That is, the additive effect of disrupted control mechanisms via both alcohol cues and the pharmacological effects of the drug could compromise an individual’s control over ongoing alcohol consumption.
Adults with autism spectrum disorders exhibit decreased sensitivity to reward parameters when making effort-based decisions

Background Efficient effort expenditure to obtain rewards is critical for optimal goal-directed behavior and learning. Clinical observation suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may show dysregulated reward-based effort expenditure, but no behavioral study to date has assessed effort-based decision-making in ASD.
The U.S. Financial Crisis: A Summary of Causes & Consequences

The near-collapse of the financial system in the United States was the most substantial economic crisis in the U.S. since the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s. Since the crisis began in late-2007, more than 6 million Americans have lost their jobs, large and important financial institutions have failed, and trillions of dollars in savings and retirement accounts have been lost. It is generally accepted that problems in the United States housing market are at the root of the current United States and global financial crisis. However, even in mid-2009, twelve months after the financial crisis fully erupted in the United States, it is still too early to determine all of the precise causes and consequences of the crisis. Many different entities share the responsibility for creating or enabling the crisis: mortgage lenders, borrowers, regulators, investors, rating agencies, and probably many others. At its broadest level, this crisis was caused by a failure of governance: of political governance by regulators and legislators, of corporate governance by firms and executives, and of personal governance by individuals. Just as it is too early to determine all of the precise causes of the U.S. and global financial crisis, it is too early to determine the best way to address the crisis. The U.S. government has implemented a plethora of facilities to try to fix the problems – from increased liquidity to mortgage modification programs. Financial institutions have also changed their ways: many are working hard to reduce their exposure to risky assets and extreme amounts of leverage. It seems apparent now that the U.S. will get through this crisis and the U.S. financial system will emerge in reasonably good shape. Whether or not this will be due to all of the efforts of the U.S. government is unclear. It is likely that much of what the government did was essential to saving the system during the peak of the crisis during September and October of 2008. It is also likely that legislators will react to this crisis by instituting legislation that will be misguided and unnecessary. It is important to thoroughly study the causes and consequences of the U.S. financial crisis and its implications for financial markets around the globe in order to better understand how the entities responsible for governing economies and firms might work to prevent a similar crisis from occurring in the future. This chapter attempts to do just that.
Heightened Attentional Capture by Threat in Veterans With PTSD

Although an attentional bias for threat-relevant cues has been theorized in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to date empirical demonstration of this phenomenon has been at best inconsistent. Furthermore, the nature of this bias in PTSD has not been clearly delineated. In the present study, veterans with PTSD (n 20), trauma-exposed veterans without PTSD (n 16), and healthy nonveteran controls (n 22) completed an emotional attentional blink task that measures the extent to which emotional stimuli capture and hold attention. Participants searched for a target embedded within a series of rapidly presented images. Critically, a combat-related, disgust, positive, or neutral distracter image appeared 200 ms, 400 ms, 600 ms, or 800 ms before the target. Impaired target detection was observed among veterans with PTSD relative to both veterans without PTSD and healthy nonveteran controls after only combat-related threat distracters when presented 200 ms, 400 ms, or 600 ms before the target, indicating increased attentional capture by cues of war and difficulty disengaging from such cues for an extended period. Veterans without PTSD and healthy nonveteran controls did not significantly differ from each other in target detection accuracy after combat-related threat distracters. These data support the presence of an attentional bias toward combat related stimuli in PTSD that should be a focus of treatment efforts.
Discrete-Time Adaptive Dynamic Programming using Wavelet Basis Function Neural Networks

Dynamic programming for discrete time systems is difficult due to the "curse of dimensionality": one has to find a series of control actions that must be taken in sequence, hoping that this sequence will lead to the optimal performance cost, but the total cost of those actions will be unknown until the end of that sequence. In this paper, we present our work on adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) for nonlinear discrete time system using neural networks. The neural network we adopted here is the wavelet basis function (WBF) neural network. We will exam the performance of an ADP algorithm using WBF neural networks. The comparison shows that when WBF neural networks are employed, the ADP algorithm gives faster training speed than when RBF neural networks are employed
THORNDIKE'S LEGACY: LEARNING, SELECTION, AND THE LAW OF EFFECT

This introduction to a symposium on the centennial of Edward L. Thorndike's 1898 monograph on animal intelligence briefly considers the origins of his law of effect and the influence of Darwin's selectionism. It also provides the background for an unfinished book review by William W. Cumming of a biography of Thorndike. The review places in historical context Thorndike's position both on psychology as a science of behavior and on the vocabulary of that science.
Multistream Recognition of Speech: Dealing With Unknown Unknowns

The paper discusses an approach for dealing with unexpected acoustic elements in speech. The approach is motivated by observations of human performance on such problems, which indicate the existence of multiple parallel processing streams in the human speech processing cognitive system, combined with the human ability to know when the correct information is being received. Some earlier relevant engineering approaches in multistream automatic recognition of speech (ASR) that aimed at processing of noisy speech and at dealing with unexpected out-of-vocabulary words are reviewed. The paper also reviews some currently active research in multistream ASR, focusing mainly on feedback-based techniques involving fusion of information between individual processing streams. The difference between the system behavior on its training data and during its operation is proposed as a substitute for the human ability of “knowing when knowing.” Most recent results indicate 9% relative improvement in error rates in phoneme recognition of high signal-to-noise ratio speech and as high as 30% relative improvements in moderate noise.
A Composite Perspective of the Extratropical Flow Response to Recurving Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclones

AbstractThis study investigates the composite extratropical flow response to recurving western North Pacific tropical cyclones (WNP TCs), and the dependence of this response on the strength of the TC–extratropical flow interaction as defined by the negative potential vorticity advection (PV) by the irrotational wind associated with the TC. The 2.5° NCEP–NCAR reanalysis is used to construct composite analyses of all 1979–2009 recurving WNP TCs and of subsets that undergo strong and weak TC–extratropical flow interactions.Findings indicate that recurving WNP TCs are associated with the amplification of a preexisting Rossby wave train (RWT) that disperses downstream and modifies the large-scale flow pattern over North America. This RWT affects approximately 240° of longitude and persists for approximately 10 days. Recurving TCs associated with strong TC–extratropical flow interactions are associated with a stronger extratropical flow response than those associated with weak TC–extratropical flow interactions...
Community, Diversity, and Civic Education: Toward a Liberal PoliticalScience of Group Life

Although liberals too often forget it, the health of the liberal publicorder depends on our ability to constitute not only political institutions and limits on power, but appropriate patterns of social lifeand citizen character. Liberal character traits and political virtuesdo not, after all, come about “naturally” or by the deliverance of an “invisible hand.” Even Adam Smith did not think that, as we will see below. Harry Eckstein gets closer to themark by suggesting that “stable governments…are the productof 'accidental' (extremely improbable) conjunctions of conditions which do sometimes, but rarely, occur in actual societies.”
Bistatic WITTEX: an innovative constellation of radar altimeter satellites

Describes a bistatic extension to the original WITTEX approach to oceanographic radar altimetry from space. An error analysis of the bistatic link shows that the system timing and height measurement strategy can be designed to retain accuracy comparable to that of nadir-sensing instruments. In a WITTEX constellation, two or more radar altimeter satellites are inserted from one launch vehicle into the same orbit plane. Earth rotation separates their respective surface tracks by distances that are proportional to the along-orbit spacing between the satellites. Monostatic altimeters on n spacecraft together with bistatic altimetric links between adjacent spacecraft generate (2n-1) surface tracks of accurate height data in a bistatic WITTEX constellation.
Optimal filtering of periodic pulse-modulated time series

The present study concerns the optimal filtering of a class of input time series in which the amplitude is modulated by uniformly-pulsed periodic functions. A uniform sampling of the output at a period equal to the pulsing period displays the property of time invariance. The consequent usage of bilateral Fourier-Laplace transformations and the separability of terms implicit in the time-invariant nature of the processing effectively inverts the Wiener-Hopf equation and solves the problem. The weighting function is shown to be the sum of the Wiener-Zadeh-Ragazzini solution for the unmodulated case and set of appropriately-weighted delta-function-derivative terms occurring at each end point of the pulsing intervals.
A neural network trained to select aircraft maneuvers during air combat: a comparison of network and rule based performance

Research to develop a neural network model that selects aircraft maneuvers in the domain of air-combat maneuvering is described. A methodology for converting rule-based systems into a neural network was established. A comparison between the neural network and a rule-based expert system was undertaken. Differences between the architectures were explored, and hypotheses as to causes of differential performance were made. Both models were compared with expert fighter pilots on a transfer task. The neural network agreed with maneuver selections made by expert fighter pilots 2.5 times more often than the rule-based system. These findings were explained in terms of the ability of neural nets to generalize maneuver selections to novel airspace conditions. Implications of these results were also discussed
VEGF induces sensory and motor peripheral plasticity, alters bladder function, and promotes visceral sensitivity.

This work tests the hypothesis that bladder instillation with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) modulates sensory and motor nerve plasticity, and, consequently, bladder function and visceral sensitivity. In addition to C57BL/6J, ChAT-cre mice were used for visualization of bladder cholinergic nerves. The direct effect of VEGF on the density of sensory nerves expressing the transient receptor potential vanilloid subfamily 1 (TRPV1) and cholinergic nerves (ChAT) was studied one week after one or two intravesical instillations of the growth factor. To study the effects of VEGF on bladder function, mice were intravesically instilled with VEGF and urodynamic evaluation was assessed. VEGF-induced alteration in bladder dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons was performed on retrogradly labeled urinary bladder afferents by patch-clamp recording of voltage gated Na+ currents. Determination of VEGF-induced changes in sensitivity to abdominal mechanostimulation was performed by application of von Frey filaments. In addition to an overwhelming increase in TRPV1 immunoreactivity, VEGF instillation resulted in an increase in ChAT-directed expression of a fluorescent protein in several layers of the urinary bladder. Intravesical VEGF caused a profound change in the function of the urinary bladder: acute VEGF (1 week post VEGF treatment) reduced micturition pressure and longer treatment (2 weeks post-VEGF instillation) caused a substantial reduction in inter-micturition interval. In addition, intravesical VEGF resulted in an up-regulation of voltage gated Na+ channels (VGSC) in bladder DRG neurons and enhanced abdominal sensitivity to mechanical stimulation. For the first time, evidence is presented indicating that VEGF instillation into the mouse bladder promotes a significant increase in peripheral nerve density together with alterations in bladder function and visceral sensitivity. The VEGF pathway is being proposed as a key modulator of neural plasticity in the pelvis and enhanced VEGF content may be associated with visceral hyperalgesia, abdominal discomfort, and/or pelvic pain.
10 Chlamydomonas acidophila from the berkeley pit lake – a strain adapted to an extreme environment

This research was directed to gather a better understanding about the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas acidophila, one of the 6 algal species found in the Berkeley Pit Lake. Berkeley Pit Lake is a flodded, abandoned pit mine with a pH of 2.7 and high metal concentrations. It has been found that the effective concentrations of metals that limit the growth of C. acidophila by 50% were 9.024 mg/L for Cu2+ and 75.4 mg/L for Zn 2+. We have been able to grow C. acidophila from Berkeley Pit samples at high densities in medium containing 15.36 mg/L Cu2+ and 83.65 mg/L Zn2+. Moreover, this species is able to grow in nutrified Berkeley Pit water, which contains approximately 110 mg/L Cu2+ and 323 mg/L of Zn2+. The hypothesis is that the species found in Berkeley Pit Lake represents a genetic strain adapted to high metal concentrations environments. A comparison between the American Type Culture Collection strain of C. acidophila and the strain collected from Berkeley Pit was made. Growth rate of the two strains in Bold Basil Medium, Modified Acid Medium and Berkeley Pit nutrified water were calculated and compared. Moreover, preliminary investigations of the genome of C.acidophila from the Berkeley Pit Lake were initiated.