cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Updates of reactive oxygen species in melanoma etiology and progression

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play crucial roles in all aspects of melanoma development, however, the source of ROS is not well defined. In this review we summarize recent advancement in this rapidly developing field. The cellular ROS pool in melanocytes can be derived from mitochondria, melanosomes, NADPH oxidase (NOX) family enzymes, and uncoupling of nitric oxide synthase (NOS). Current evidence suggests that Nox1, Nox4 and Nox5 are expressed in melanocytic lineage. While there is no difference in Nox1 expression levels in primary and metastatic melanoma tissues, Nox4 expression is significantly higher in a subset of metastatic melanoma tumors as compared to the primary tumors; suggesting distinct and specific signals and effects for NOX family enzymes in melanoma. Targeting these NOX enzymes using specific NOX inhibitors may be effective for a subset of certain tumors. ROS also play important roles in BRAF inhibitor induced drug resistance; hence identification and blockade of the source of this ROS may be an effective way to enhance efficacy and overcome resistance. Furthermore, ROS from different sources may interact with each other and interact with reactive nitrogen species (RNS) and drive the melanomagenesis process at all stages of disease. Further understanding ROS and RNS in melanoma etiology and progression is necessary for developing new prevention and therapeutic approaches.
Effects of Different Types of Dietary Lipids on Growth and Fatty Acid Composition of Largemouth Bass

Abstract The effects of feeding diets supplemented with oils of varying sources and fatty acid compositions on growth, survival, and biochemical composition of juvenile largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides were evaluated under controlled conditions in aquaria for 12 weeks. Feed-trained juvenile largemouth bass (15.7 ± 0.6 g) were stocked into eighteen 114-L glass aquaria at 25 fish/tank and were fed one of five experimental diets (3 replicate aquaria/diet). All diets were formulated to be approximately isocaloric (4,200 kcal gross energy per kilogram) and isonitrogenous (40% crude protein), containing protein primarily from solvent-extracted fish meal and soybean meal. Each diet was supplemented with 5% oil (by weight) using lipids from various sources and with different fatty acid compositions. These included fish oil, corn oil, sunflower oil (high oleic), linseed oil, and a fungal oil (high arachidonic acid). Fish were fed twice daily to apparent satiation. At the end of the study period, there were no...
Researching a Womanist Pedagogy to Heal

As one of three African-American professors at our seminary, I take great joy in designing courses with the agenda and needs of our African-American students in mind. Approximately six years ago, i...
Computer Aided Modeling and Dynamic Analysis of A New Surgical Instrument

One major difference among surgical instruments is the level of bodily disruption and tissue trauma that surgical devices might cause the patients. This newly designed and developed surgical instrument aims at minimally invasive therapy procedure, more reliable and durable function, less operational force, and reduced manufacturing cost. The computer aided modeling and simulation have been applied to help this new instrument design and analysis. This improved new surgical instrument is designed to use in general surgery to prevent patient's vessels and tissues from being damaging due to reliable motion control of surgical clips with no unexpected clip drop. It can also be applied to surgical education purpose to educate medical students for their future surgical careers. The prototype testing indicated that the handle operational force to close surgical clips is lower than current surgical clip instruments, product manufacturing is cost-effective due to less dimensional tolerance control of this new instrument design, more reliable instrument function, and good mechanical advantage.
Spontaneous and induced interferon production by peripheral blood leucocytes from control population and patients with herpes genitalis

The spontaneous and PHA induced levels of interferon were measured in peripheral blood leucocyte cultures of twenty-eight individuals diagnosed as positive for herpes genitalis, and in a group of control subjects. As reported by Cunningham and Merigan [1983] for herpes labialis, leucocytes from individuals with herpes genitalis produced low levels of interferon spontaneously; however, similar results were found for individuals within the control population. No statistically significant difference could be found for PHA induced interferon levels, antigen induced interferon levels, or helper/suppressor cell ratios between the herpes genitalis population and control population. Our results indicate that interferon does not play a major role in the latency or recurrence of herpes genitalis.
Discovering Multimodal Behavior in Ms. Pac-Man Through Evolution of Modular Neural Networks

Ms. Pac-Man is a challenging video game in which multiple modes of behavior are required: Ms. Pac-Man must escape ghosts when they are threats and catch them when they are edible, in addition to eating all pills in each level. Past approaches to learning behavior in Ms. Pac-Man have treated the game as a single task to be learned using monolithic policy representations. In contrast, this paper uses a framework called Modular Multiobjective NEAT (MM-NEAT) to evolve modular neural networks. Each module defines a separate behavior. The modules are used at different times according to a policy that can be human-designed (i.e., multitask) or discovered automatically by evolution. The appropriate number of modules can be fixed or discovered using a genetic operator called module mutation. Several versions of module mutation are evaluated in this paper. Both fixed modular networks and Module Mutation networks outperform monolithic networks and multitask networks. Interestingly, the best networks dedicate modules to critical behaviors (such as escaping when surrounded after luring ghosts near a power pill) that do not follow the customary division of the game into chasing edible and escaping threat ghosts. The results demonstrate that MM-NEAT can discover interesting and effective behavior for agents in challenging games.
Identification of two collagen domains within the bullous pemphigoid autoantigen, BP180.

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune disease characterized by subepidermal vesicles and the presence of autoantibodies directed against the epidermal basement membrane zone. Previous studies have identified two protein components of the hemidesmosome, BP180 and BP230, as the primary antigenic targets of BP autoantibodies. We have recently reported the isolation of a 1.0-kb BP180 cDNA. Sequence analysis presented in this report reveals that this partial BP180 cDNA encodes two protein domains which have primary structures that are characteristic of the triple helical domains of collagens, i.e., glycine appears at every third position and over one-third of the remaining residues are proline. The two collagen domains have lengths of 242 and 30 amino acids and are separated by a noncollagen stretch of 12 amino acids. Collagenase digestion of the BP180 cDNA-encoded fusion protein generated a peptide fragment with a size that was consistent with the predicted locations of the collagenase digestion sites. A possible physiological function for the collagen domains of the BP180 hemidesmosomal protein may be to form stable interactions with constituents of the extracellular matrix of the cutaneous basement membrane zone. Such interactions may provide the molecular framework for the adhesion between the basal keratinocyte and the basal lamina.
Efficient scheduling of transmissions in optical broadcast networks

All-optical networks (AONs) with a broadcast-star based physical topology offer the possibility of transmission scheduling to resolve channel and receiver conflicts. This paper considers the problem of scheduling packet transmissions in a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical network with tunable transmitters and fixed-tuned receivers. The scheduling problem is complicated by tuning latency, a limited number of channels, and arbitrary traffic demands. We first analyze scheduling all-to-all packet transmissions and obtain a new lower bound for the schedule length. The lower bound is achieved by an algorithm proposed by Pieris and Sasaki (1994). We then extend the analysis to the case of arbitrary traffic demands and obtain lower bounds for the schedule length. Two constructions for scheduling algorithms are provided through list scheduling and multigraphs. The upper bounds so obtained not only provide performance guarantees with arbitrary demands, but also nearly meet the lower bound in simulations.
Whom are we informing? issues and recommendations for MIS research from an informing sciences perspective 1

This paper provides an introspective assessment of the current state of management information systems as a research discipline using the "lens" of the informing sciences. Based on this assessment, we observe that the degree to which MIS research is informing its key external clients-practitioners, students, and researchers in other disciplines- has declined over the years. This problem is particularly acute with respect to informing practitioners. Unfortunately, practitioner support may be critical in making up for lost resources caused by declining student enrollments. Despite this dire prognostication, we believe that it is possible to reverse this trend. Drawing upon cognitive science and diffusion of innovations research, we analyze the source of the problem and then present five recommendations aimed at leading MIS journals, scholars, and professional societies for improving the ability of MIS research to engage and inform its external clients.
Growth response of velvetleaf to three postemergence herbicides

Abstract Knowledge of how reduction in the rate of herbicide application or rotation of their mode of action influences weed growth will provide insight into how successful these practices will be in an integrated weed management program. Field experiments were conducted in 1996 and 1997 to quantify velvetleaf growth response to three postemergence herbicides, each with a different mode of action. A monoculture of velvetleaf was treated with halosulfuron, dicamba, and flumiclorac at 0, 0.10, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.0 × the labeled rate for weed control in corn. Percent plant mortality increased with rate of application; the greatest mortality occurred in flumiclorac treatments in 1996 and in halosulfuron and flumiclorac treatments in 1997. Growth rate temporarily decreased as application rate increased. Maximum height decreased as rate of application increased, with the dicamba treatment resulting in the greatest (27%) reduction. Early-season leaf area index decreased with increasing rate of application, ...
Determination of transconductance-to-drain-current dependent flicker noise parameters

Previous studies have shown that the transconductance-to-drain-current ratio (gm/ID) based technique is useful for noise analysis and optimization of analog CMOS circuits. In this paper, we examine flicker noise closely and show that even though its slope (A) does not depend gm/ID parameters of a transistor, knowledge of gm/ID parameters is required in order to determine its slope accurately. We take a look at several scenarios that arise in practice, and generate a simple rule of thumb that simplifies the process of de-embedding the slope of flicker noise. Finally, we apply the results in the analysis of a micropower operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) and show that excellent agreement between simulation and analysis is achieved.
Enumeration, Occurrence, and Significance of Injured Indicator Bacteria in Drinking Water

Indicator bacteria of sanitary significance in drinking water are considered allochthonous since they are usually transient and not long-term occupants of that kind of ecosystem. This concept accurately describes the status of most indicator bacteria including coliforms, as well as the enteropathogenic bacteria in aquatic systems, since they reproduce within the guts of animals and are not well adapted to the chemical and physical conditions in water. As a result, it is not surprising that these bacteria can become physiologically damaged with aquatic exposure.
On Bivariate Vertex Splines

A vertex spline is one whose support contains exactly one interior vertex. Existence, construction, and approximation properties of bivariate vertex splines on triangulated regions are studied. Applications to interpolation and quasi-interpolation for unidiagonal triangulations are also discussed.
Bilateral Extraocular Muscle Metastases From a Gastrointestinal Carcinoid Tumor

A man in his early 70s presented with a 3-month history of decreased vision, pain, redness, and proptosis of the left eye. His medical history was significant for metastatic gastrointestinal carcinoid following small-bowel resection and chemotherapy. His visual acuity was 20/20 OD and hand motions OS with a relative afferent pupillary defect on the left. Extraocular motility was severely limited in both eyes. Orbital magnetic resonance imaging findings are displayed in the Figure. Bilateral orbital decompression was performed with biopsy of the left inferior rectus muscle, which revealed metastatic neuroendocrine carcinoma. Immunohistochemical stains, including cytokeratin AE1/AE3, chromogranin, and synaptophysin, confirmed the diagnosis. Orbital radiation was performed with rapid improvement in his proptosis. Despite this, the vision remained poor and the patient died of widespread metastatic disease. Orbital metastasis from carcinoid tumors is rare and typically occurs as a solitary lesion. Few reports exist of bilateral orbital metastases involving all the extraocular muscles.1
Bis(pyridyl)siloxane Oligomeric Ligands for Palladium(II) Acetate: Synthesis and Binding Properties

The complexation of a series of new bis(meta-pyridyl)methylsiloxane ligands with palladium(II) acetate in dilute toluene-d8 solution was studied by 1H NMR at 233−363 K, measuring the binding affinity and ring−chain distribution as a function of ligand structure, temperature, and concentration. Significant differences in the ring distribution and Pd binding affinity were observed as a function of siloxane chain length, with hexa- and heptasiloxane spacers binding Pd most effectively. The 1H NMR resonance of the singlet ortho aromatic proton was shifted unusually far downfield for the bidentate complex; the effect was strongest for the shortest chains and disappeared for chains with 10 or more siloxane units. Fitting the experimental data to a modified Jacobson−Stockmayer model demonstrated that the bidentate bis(pyridyl)siloxane complexes function as chelates in the concentration range 1−10 mM. Variable-temperature studies showed that all of the observed cyclic coordination oligomers are strainless. Theref...
Extended Veletsos-Younan Model for Geofoam Compressible Inclusions behind Rigid, Non-Yielding Earth-Retaining Structures

Geofoam is a type of cellular geosynthetic that can be used to reduce lateral earth pressures acting on rigid earth-retaining structures (RERSs) under a variety of soil and load conditions. One of the geosynthetically-functional ways in which geofoams do this is as a compressible inclusion to allow shear-strength mobilization of retained soil through controlled yielding which involves the wellknown soil mechanics mechanism of arching. This paper describes how a mathematical model developed by Veletsos and Younan for a seismic-load application not involving geofoam was modified and extended to create a novel solution involving the use of geofoam as a compressible inclusion. An illustration of how this Extended Veletsos-Younan model can be applied in practice is also included using a case-history and full-scale, 1-g physical tests.
Transmissible Lysis of a Thermophilic Organism

The list of bacteria which have been found to be susceptible to the lytic principle, or bacteriophage of d'Herelle, has been an ever lengthening one as additional species have been subjected to the test. In most of the work thus far the organisms employed have been the better known pathogenic or saprophytic types which develop best at about 37 C. or in a few cases at lower temperatures. It seemed of interest, therefore, to determine whether the same phenomenon would be evident in the group of thermophilic organisms which are capable of growth at high temperatures. In the present investigation a thermophilic bacillus was employed. It was found to be susceptible to the d'Herelle phenomenon, not only at 37 C., but at temperatures considerably above this point. A preliminary communication1 of this has appeared and additional data will be presented here. The culture selected for investigation was one of a stock collection of thermophiles maintained in this laboratory. It was isolated originally from milk." No attempt has been made to completely describe or name the organism and it has been carried in stock under the designation T60. It is a gram-positive spore-forming rod. The size of the rods varies somewhat with the type of medium and with the age of the culture. In stains made from 24-hour agar slants one sees rather slender rods of medium length, about 3.0 to 5.0 microns long. In very young cultures the cells are somewhat larger than this. In some instances the rods occur singly while in others they are attached end-to-end to form chains. This characteristic seemed to be associated with the type of growth in nutrient broth and with the type of colony, and will be discussed later under the section on dissociation.
Evolution of a Plasmid Mediating Resistance to Multiple Antimicrobial Agents During a Prolonged Epidemic of Nosocomial Infections

At the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, resistance to gentamicin was encountered with increasing frequency among several species of gram-negative bacilli between 1973 and 1977. Representative strains were screened for plasmid DNA content using agarose gel electrophoresis. In strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Serrati marcescens isolated early in the outbreak, gentamicin resistance was mediated by a common 9.8-megadalton nonconjugative plasmid. Either an 80- or a 100-megadalton transferable plasmid coexisted with the nonconjugative plasmid in the isolates of Serratia. Transposition between the 100- and 9.8-megadalton plasmids in this species resulted in the formation of a 105-megadalton conjugative plasmid that mediated gentamicin resistance; this was observed in strains of Serratia and Klebsiella isolated in 1976-1977. Thus, during this five-year investigation separate outbreaks of nosocomial infections that were caused by different bacterial species were shown to be related by the presence of plasmids that contained a common transposable DNA sequence.
Hygrothermal Effect of Composite Beams Subjected to Moving Loads

The dynamic response of simply supported glass/epoxy composite beams subjected to moving loads in a hygrothermal environment is carried out using the general purpose finite element program ANSYS. The moving load model and the hygrothermal incorporation are validated separately by reproducing results available in the literature. The hygrothermal effect is introduced by using empirical relations for degrading the material stiffness properties of the matrix. The corresponding ply properties are calculated using the rule of mixtures. A parametric study is conducted by varying the fiber volume fraction and the fiber orientation of the angle plies in the laminate. The results indicate that the dynamic magnification factors generally increase due to hygrothermal effects but all the laminates considered do not behave in a similar manner. Thus it is possible to minimize the environmental effect by judiciously selecting the laminate configuration.
Study on the Relationship between Pathological Score and Clinical Parameters in Children with Primary Glomerular Disease

Objective: To study the relationship between pathological score and clinical parameters in children with primary glomerular disease (PGD). Methods: Ninety-one patients with PGD were enrolled in this study. The pathological lesion in kidney was evaluated by semiquantitative scores basing on the uniform renal pathological scoring guide. The clinical parameters such as age of onset, duration,24-hour urinary protein (urine total protein, UTP), serum albumin (Alb), serum cholesterol (Cho), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine (Scr) were collected. The relationship of pathological score and clinical parameters was analyzed. Results: There were significant differences in lesion scores in duration, UTP, Alb, Cho,BUN and Scr among the mild, moderate and severe glomerular lesion groups, tubulointerstitial lesion group and general lesion group of the kidney. Conclusion: Proteinuria, hypoalbuminemia, hyperlipemia the level of BUN and Scr may be the clinical indexes for evaluating the degree of pathological lesion in kidney.
Proteus mirabilis and Urinary Tract Infections

Proteus mirabilis is a Gram-negative bacterium and is well known for its ability to robustly swarm across surfaces in a striking bulls'-eye pattern. Clinically, this organism is most frequently a pathogen of the urinary tract, particularly in patients undergoing long-term catheterization. This review covers P. mirabilis with a focus on urinary tract infections (UTI), including disease models, vaccine development efforts, and clinical perspectives. Flagella-mediated motility, both swimming and swarming, is a central facet of this organism. The regulation of this complex process and its contribution to virulence is discussed, along with the type VI-secretion system-dependent intra-strain competition, which occurs during swarming. P. mirabilis uses a diverse set of virulence factors to access and colonize the host urinary tract, including urease and stone formation, fimbriae and other adhesins, iron and zinc acquisition, proteases and toxins, biofilm formation, and regulation of pathogenesis. While significant advances in this field have been made, challenges remain to combatting complicated UTI and deciphering P. mirabilis pathogenesis.
HIV-1 regulatory protein tat induces RNA binding proteins in central nervous system cells that associate with the viral trans-acting-response regulatory motif.

Objectives To investigate some of the cellular consequences of HIV-1 Tat expression in human astrocytic cells. This study is based on evidence that cellular factors play a critical role in facilitating transcriptional activation by Tat through its interaction with the trans-acting-response (TAR) RNA element and upstream HIV-1 long terminal repeat (LTR) promoter binding site. STUDY DESIGN-METHODS: Using the previously established astrocytic cell line of human origin stably transfected with Tat cDNA, we analyzed the formation of a nucleoprotein complex consisting of three cellular proteins associated with TAR RNA using ultraviolet (UV) crosslinking and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) pull-down assays. Results UV crosslinking experiments reveal that the molecular masses of the proteins range from 50 to 62 kd. Transient transfection studies demonstrate that the presence of these proteins correlates with the ability of Tat to transactivate the HIV-1 LTR in the absence of the trinucleotide bulge, a region within TAR that has been shown to be important for Tat-TAR interaction. A combination of GST pull-down assays and RNA binding studies demonstrates that the 50-kd protein interacts with both Tat and TAR and is likely to be NF-kappa B p50. Conclusions Taken together, these data suggest that in the absence of a functional Tat binding site such as TAR (which tethers the viral protein to the RNA), cellular protein NF-kappa B p50 may be able to bring Tat into the RNA binding complex Tat has been shown to activate expression of a variety of cellular genes that may not contain a binding site for Tat but do contain binding sites for NF-kappa B family members. The results presented in this study may be relevant for Tat-mediated transactivation of cellular as well as viral genes, both of which might contribute to the central nervous system damage associated with HIV-1 infection.
WE-DE-BRC-05: Risk-Based QA/QM Programs

This SAMs Therapy Educational Course will introduce participants to the tools recommended by TG 100 for use in the development of a risk-based Quality Management Program. The Course will start with an Overview of the background and rationale behind the TG 100 initiative, from which its charge was developed. After setting the scene, four 15 minute presentations will introduce the principal components of the soon to be published Report of TG 100. These are Process Mapping, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis and the development of a QA/QM risk-based Program. There will be time for two short exercises based on Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and a Discussion before the SAMs questions which will conclude the session. Learning Objectives: 1.To appreciate the underlying philosophy of the TG 100 initiative. 2.To gain a brief overview of the principal risk-based tools recommended by TG 100. 3.In an informal workshop format, to explore, at an introductory level, the use of risk analysis as proposed by TG 100 as a prelude to the development of a Quality Management Program.
Faculty Perceptions of Student Evaluations

This study focuses on faculty perceptions of student evaluations. Findings indicate that a large percent of faculty feel that student evaluations serve a useful purpose but there is disagreement as to the main purpose of student evaluations. Faculty members do not feel students are capable of judging a teacher’s performance nor that student evaluations are a valid means of measurement. Respondents also felt that variables over which they had little or no control affected student evaluations of a faculty member; namely, grade in the course, faculty member’s personality, course level, class size, degree of rigor required, and elective versus required course.
TeamSTEPPS for health care risk managers: Improving teamwork and communication

Background Ineffective communication among the health care team is a leading cause of errors in the patient care setting. Studies assessing training related to communication and teamwork in the clinical team are prevalent, however, teamwork training at the administrative level is lacking. This includes individuals in leadership positions such as health care risk managers. Purpose The purpose was to determine the impact of an educational intervention on the knowledge and attitudes related to communication and teamwork in the health care risk management population. Methods The educational intervention was an adaptation of a national teamwork training program and incorporated didactic content as well as video vignettes and small group activities. Measurement of knowledge and attitudes were used to determine the impact of the education program. Knowledge and attitudes were assessed pre- and postcourse. Results Findings indicate that teamwork education tailored to the needs of the specific audience resulted in knowledge gained and improved attitudes toward the components of teamwork. The attitudes that most significantly improved were related to team structure and situation monitoring. There was no improvement in participants’ attitudes toward leadership, mutual support, and communication. Conclusion Team training has been shown to improve safety culture, patient satisfaction, and clinical outcomes. Including risk managers in training on teamwork, communication, and collaboration can serve to foster a common language among clinicians and management. In addition, a measurement related to implementation in the health care setting may yield insight into the impact of training. Qualitative measurement may allow the researcher to delve deeper into how these health care facilities are using team training interventions.
Money and Political Campaigns: The 1996 Debacle

The year 1996 saw the U.S. public exposed to the most expensive political campaign in our history. Four billion dollars were spent on all the campaigns (national, state, and local). This high cost and the questionable ways in which the money was sometimes raised and spent, as the post-election analyses and investigations reveal, suggest a major crisis in party and candidate finance practices. How irregular, how illegal, and how scandalous the 1996 campaign finance operations were has yet to be finally determined. But we are clearly in the throes of a controversy over what happened, why and how it happened, and how the system should again be reformed. As one scholar put it, “1996 saw the final collapse of campaign finance regulation … and, as if on schedule, another scandal began to unfold, causing another embarrassed president to call for yet another round of reform.”1 The former president of Common Cause confirmed this assessment, calling the 1996 campaign “the dirtiest ever” and saying that “campaign finance laws have been replaced by the law of the jungle.”2 Corporations contributed millions directly to parties and candidates in 1996, although we thought they were forbidden by law to do so. The AFL-CIO spent millions on the campaigns from the union treasury, although we thought they were forbidden by law to do so. The presidential candidates, Clinton and Dole, were each given $61.8 million in public funds under the law, but spent more than double that amount despite the understanding they would keep within these funding limits. Foreign contributors gave millions to both parties, a practice prohibited by law. The “soft money” spent in presidential elections alone (funds raised outside the federal limits) was over $100 million.3 In 1997 the new Task Force on Campaign Finance Reform, including nine scholars expert on the question and chaired by Herbert Alexander, issued a report making many recommendations for change. They said we are now “experiencing a much more dynamic diffuse funding system” in which new political actors “spend money in campaigns that candidates neither raise nor control.” These “new realities,” they say, raise serious questions about accountability, competitiveness, sources of funds, and enforcement.4 These and other excesses document “the new reality in the world of campaign finance” that emerged in 1996.
Trends in Longevity and Prospects for the Future

Publisher Summary The modern rise in life expectancy is one of humanity's crowning achievements. Evidence of the transformation toward a more stable and predictable pattern of mortality at middle and older ages can be observed in the vital records of those nations that have kept reliable vital statistics dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Aging, disease, and death are most appropriately thought of as inadvertent or accidental byproducts of fixed genetic programs that operate deterministically, with clock-like precision, in other regions of the lifespan. This view of aging has important implications. Aging and age-related diseases are a byproduct of predictable changes in the internal (intrinsic) workings of the body. There is compelling evidence emerging to suggest that behavioral, environmental, and medical conditions for some subgroups of the population will lead them to higher levels of life expectancy than currently anticipated. The future of human longevity has always been a topic of great interest to scientists and the lay population, and now public policymakers recognize the importance of efforts to gain some understanding of the future. The current medical model of attacking diseases independently of each other will eventually yield diminishing returns in terms of health and quality of life, and that a new model of health promotion for this century should include an accelerated research effort to slow aging.
Thickness dependence of spin Hall angle of Au grown on Y 3 F e 5 O 12 epitaxial films

We measure the spin Hall angle in Au layers of 5--100 nm thicknesses by spin pumping from ${\mathrm{Y}}_{3}\mathrm{F}{\mathrm{e}}_{5}{\mathrm{O}}_{12}$ epitaxial films grown by ultrahigh vacuum, off-axis sputtering. We observe a striking increase in the spin Hall angle for Au layers thinner than the measured spin diffusion length of 12.6 nm. In particular, the 5 nm Au layer shows a large spin Hall angle of 0.087, compared to those of 0.016 and 0.017 for the 50 and 100 nm Au layers, respectively, suggesting that the top surface plays a dominant role in spin Hall physics when the spin current is able to reach it. Other spin pumping related parameters, including Gilbert damping enhancement, interfacial spin mixing conductance, and spin current are also determined for Au layers of various thicknesses. Given the pervasive role of ultrathin films in electrical and spin transport applications, this result emphasizes the importance of considering the impact of the top surface and reveals the possibility of tuning critical spin parameters by film thickness.
Image description through fusion based recurrent multi-modal learning

Current research in computer vision and machine learning has demonstrated some great abilities at detecting and recognizing objects in natural images. The promising results in these areas have inspired research towards solving more complex multi-modal learning problems in the image/video domains such as automatic annotation, segmentation, labelling, and generic understanding. Although solutions have been provided for one or more of these problems, their approaches have been application specific. This paper introduces an end-to-end trainable Fusion-based Recurrent Multi-Modal (FRMM) model to address multi-modal applications. FRMM allows each input modality to be independent in terms of architecture, parameters and length of input sequences. FRMM image description models seamlessly blend convolutional neural network feature descriptors with sequential language data in a recurrent framework. For training and testing we used the Flickr30K and MSCOCO datasets, demonstrating state-of-the-art description results.
Pattern Changes in Electrodeposit of CuSO4

We have done experiments on the formation of patterns in electrodeposits of CuSO4.1,2 At low voltage, DLA-like fractal patterns are obtained. At relatively high voltage, there is a sudden change of pattern for the constant potential in a single run of the experiment (Fig. 1). Our results differs from those obtained by the Ann Arbor group.3
Mental Accounting, Emotional Hierarchies, and Behavioral Heuristics

If there is one fixed star in the firmament of economic science, it is the principle that sunk costs are just that, sunk.1 Vorbei ist vorbei; reden wir nicht mehr davon. 2 Or in the words of plain English taught to generations of American college students: “One of the most important lessons of economics is that you should look at the marginal costs and marginal benefits of decisions and ignore past or sunk costs.”3
Security investment games of interdependent organizations

In various computer security settings, such as when customers use the same passwords at several independent Web sites, security decisions made by one organization may have significant impact on the security of another. We develop a model for security decision-making in inter-dependent organizations described by a linear influence network. In this model, a matrix represents how one organization's investments are augmented by some linear function of its neighbors investments. Each element of the matrix, representing the strength of influence of one organization on another, can be positive or negative and need not be symmetric with respect to two organizations. A simple matrix condition implies the existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibria, which can be reached by a natural iterative algorithm. We demonstrate that there are ways of improving the matrix such that two organizations decrease their investments while all others maintain the same level of investment. We apply this framework to the setting of Web site security with shared passwords.
Y-Chromosome Genetic Diversity and Income Inequality

This paper empirically investigates the effect of genetic diversity on income inequality in a large cross-section of countries. Previous studies demonstrated that ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization have significant impact on economic performance measures, but the effect will become weaker or disappear once we control for income per capita or latitude as a measure of geographic variation. Other than that, linguistic, ethnic and religious classifications to some extent suffer from the problem of endogeneity and, at best, they capture part of visible diversity. To address these problems, I construct a cross-country genetic fractionalization measure based on the notion of paternal Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. The resulting genetic diversity measure, which is rooted in long-term history, is less subject to the problem of endogenenity. In addition, the distances among different populations are accounted for in such fractionalization index. Finally, the empirical results show that a higher level of genetic fractionalization is associated with a higher level of income inequality. Also, this paper discusses the main mechanisms through which the genetic fractionalization measure can affect income inequality by presenting empirical evidence. It is presented that the genetic diversity measure is successful in explaining interpersonal trust as an index for individual cooperation and also tax compliance rates, public good output and even the democracy index as measures for social cooperation.
A Multidimensional View of Charge Transfer Excitons at Organic Donor–Acceptor Interfaces

How tightly bound charge transfer (CT) excitons dissociate at organic donor-acceptor interfaces has been a long-standing question in the organic photovoltaics community. Recently, it has been proposed that exciton delocalization reduces the exciton binding energy and promotes exciton dissociation. In order to understand this mechanism, it is critical to resolve the evolution of the exciton's binding energy and coherent size with femtosecond time resolution. However, because the coherent size is just a few nanometers, it presents a major experimental challenge to capture the CT process simultaneously in the energy, spatial, and temporal domains. In this work, the challenge is overcome by using time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The spatial size and electronic energy of a manifold of CT states are resolved at the zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc)-fullerene (C60) donor-acceptor interface. It is found that CT at the interface first populates delocalized CT excitons with a coherent size of 4 nm. Then, this delocalized CT exciton relaxes in energy to produce CT states with delocalization sizes in the range of 1-3 nm. While the CT process from ZnPc to C60 occurs in about 150 fs after photoexcitation, the localization and energy relaxation occur in 2 ps. The multidimensional view on how CT excitons evolve in time, space, and energy provides key information to understand the exciton dissociation mechanism and to design nanostructures for effective charge separation.
Endoscopic Perforation and Complications of BCG Therapy

Minimally invasive and organ-sparing treatments for benign and malignant conditions have improved therapeutic outcomes and quality of life, but unique adverse events are associated with these interventions. The endoscopic treatment of bladder cancer may cause morbidity as a result of disease progression, intraoperative complications, and side effects of therapy. Acute bleeding and ureteral obstruction owing to tumor progression or therapy are reviewed elsewhere in this book (Chapters 13 and 18). Bladder perforation during transurethral resection can lead to tumor dissemination, abdominal distension, and permanent bladder fibrosis. During percutaneous upper urinary tract surgery, injury to the colon, duodenum, lung and great vessels can lead to life-threatening infection, pulmonary compromise, and exsanguination. Systemic infection with bacillus calmette geurin (BCG) during the course of immunotherapy for bladder or upper tract urotehlial cancer, although rare, may lead to fatal sepsis if not promptly recognized and aggressively treated.
Mining for Social Media: Usage Patterns of Small Businesses

Background: Information can now be rapidly exchanged due to social media. Due to its openness, Twitter has generated massive amounts of data. In this paper, we apply data mining and analytics to extract the usage patterns of social media by small businesses. Objectives: The aim of this paper is to describe with an example how data mining can be applied to social media. This paper further examines the impact of social media on small businesses. The Twitter posts related to small businesses are analyzed in detail. Methods/Approach: The patterns of social media usage by small businesses are observed using IBM Watson Analytics. In this paper, we particularly analyze tweets on Twitter for the hashtag #smallbusiness. Results: It is found that the number of females posting topics related to small business on Twitter is greater than the number of males. It is also found that the number of negative posts in Twitter is relatively low. Conclusions: Small firms are beginning to understand the importance of social media to realize their business goals. For future research, further analysis can be performed on the date and time the tweets were posted. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Culpability and Irresponsibility

I defend the principle that a person is blameworthy (or culpable) for her action only if that action was morally wrong. But what should we say about an agent who does the right thing based on bad motives? I present three types of cases that have these features. In each, I argue, the agent is not culpable for her action; however, she violates the norm of moral responsibility, and thus acts in a morally irresponsible way. This analysis, I show, has several virtues. It also has important theoretical ramifications: it allows for a more nuanced approach to moral luck and paves the way for an unexplored line of defense in favor of a particular norm of moral responsibility.
Nested extremum seeking control for wind farm power optimization

Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) of an array of wind turbines have been carried out to design and evaluate a model-free approach, extremum-seeking control (ESC), for power maximization. This paper shows how to coordinate the action of the extremum seeking controllers (at each turbine) by nesting the objective functions used for optimization so that the power of the overall array is maximized. The paper illustrates how to select the frequencies of the dither signals (used by the ESCs) to reduce the sensitivity to turbulent wind fluctuations in the estimation of the gradients used for real-time power maximization. The results are compared with the results from a baseline configuration where each turbine is set to operate at its individual optimum tip speed ratio; i.e., at the nominal design condition. The comparison shows that a properly designed nested ESC can yield nontrivial improvements in power production relative to the baseline.
Classification and Epidemiology of the Antiphospholipid Syndrome

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the classification and prevalence of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) in the general population. The classification criteria for the APS were revised at the international consensus meeting at Sapparo, Japan. The new criteria include two clinical outcomes, which include thrombosis either arterial, venous, or vasculopathic; and pregnancy morbidity, either recurrent early (< 10 week) losses, one or more late fetal losses, or preterm birth due to severe placental insufficiency or pre-eclampsia. The anticardiolipin (aCL) appears to be more common in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) than in the lupus anticoagulant (LA). In African-Americans, IgA was the most common isotype. Other aPL are also common in SLE, including anti-β2-glycoprotein-I, anti-prothrombin, and anti-phosphatidylserine. In SLE, the LA has a greater association with thrombosis than does aCL. This has been confirmed in meta-analyses not only in SLE, but also in the primary form of APS. Traditional cardiovascular risk factors, including homocysteine, were identified as predictors of coronary artery disease (CAD) and the LA was also a strong risk factor in these univariate analyses. The strongest association of aPL with pregnancy morbidity is with late fetal loss. The prevalence of aPL in women with recurrent fetal loss (less than10 weeks gestation) is highly variable.
Examen epistémico de la socio-economía como disciplina intersectada

El articulo plantea algunos elementos que sugieren concebir a la socio-economia como una inter-disciplina. Para esto, se aborda el problema epistemico de la socio-economia desde dos puntos de vista: analitico (internalista) e historico (externalista). Desde el primero, se afirma que la socio-economia podria definirse como un campo epistemico intersectado, y argumenta las ventajas de ese enfoque respecto del modo multidisciplinario y transdisciplinario. Desde el segundo, se discuten los factores historicos para la emergencia de la socio-economia. Analiticamente, se postula que el enfoque intersectado de la socio-economia permite superar la ineptitud epistemica de cada disciplina por separado, mientras que historicamente aclara las pretensiones imperialistas de la sociologia y de la economia, sugiriendo que se debe a una incomprension del rol disciplinar de la ciencia politica en el analisis social.
Small Cell Lung Cancer

This chapter will discuss the workup, staging, and management of small cell lung cancer, with an emphasis on radiation therapy treatments and published data.