cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The effect of health care provider consultation on acute coronary syndrome care-seeking delay.

Problem The time required for health care provider (HCP) consultation during acute coronary syndrome (ACS) has not been systematically studied. This study seeks to understand who calls an HCP and the duration of HCP evaluation during ACS. Methods Interviews were conducted with 1102 hospitalized patients with ACS in Columbus, Ohio. At discharge, diagnoses were acute myocardial infarction (560), unstable angina (214), cardiac disease (122), and noncardiac emergencies (206). Results Among the 1102 patients studied, 40.9% (451) contacted an HCP. Situational factors were more important than demographic factors in accounting for medical evaluation phase incidence and duration. Advice from HCPs to call the emergency medical services or travel to the emergency department reduced medical evaluation phase duration. The median total time duration was 6 hours for HCP consulters and 1 hour 30 minutes for nonconsulters ( P P Conclusions Consulting an HCP during ACS extended total time duration from symptom onset to emergency department arrival. In general, patients calling an HCP experienced a less severe ACS event than patients not contacting an HCP. There is a need for an epidemiologic study of calls to HCPs to develop a protocol for ACS call management.
Caring for Dying Children and Their Families: MFTs Working at the Gates of the Elysian Fields

The constant comparison method was used to analyze seven in-depth interviews with Marriage and Family Therapists and some of their colleagues working with dying children and their families. The findings of the study revealed that working in these settings can encourage shifts in priorities, relationships, and beliefs about life and death, and can elicit professional growth. Also, it can carry with it significant costs such as emotional exhaustion, and hypervigilance about death. Implications for practice and training are discussed.
Nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques to detect contained subsurface hazardous waste

Abstract A systematic and comprehensive study was conducted to detect buried containers with nondestructive testing (NDT) remote-sensing techniques. Seventeen techniques were considered but only four were ultimately selected. Those four were electromagnetic induction (EMI), metal detection (MD), magnetometer (MAG), and ground penetrating radar (GPR). The containers — both steel and plastic — varying in size from 5 gal to 55 gal were buried in known distributions in a wide variety of soils; also, some were submerged in water. Five diverse field sites were used. As a result of the work at the five field sites, a relatively complete picture has emerged concerning the strengths and weaknesses of the four NDT subsurface container location techniques. GPR is the only reliable method to detect plastic containers, but it has limitations. GPR, EMI, and MD all suffer severe loss of detection ability when the background electrical conductivity exceeds 40 millimhos/meter. In dry sandy soil EMI, GPR, and MAG are all capable of picking up a single 55-gal steel drum to a depth of at least 10 feet. The MAG method works well for steel under all subsurface conditions, and GPR can usually pickup the side walls of the excavations where waste in dumped. Application of signal enhancement techniques (background suppression) can be expected to enhance NDT utility.
Movable micromachined silicon plates with integrated position sensing

Abstract A process for fabricating large silicon plates of varying thicknesses suspended by thin, flexible polyimide beams has been developed.The plates have been integrated with an on-chip ring oscillator which provides a read-out of the plate position. The silicon plates can be moved electrostatically and the position of the plate determined by the frequency shift of the ring oscillator. Initial testing of the device yields a full-scale frequency modulation of approximately 2%, corresponding to a full-scale frequency shift of 13 kHz from a zero-deflection frequency of 680 kHz.
Wear mechanism of plasma-sprayed alumina coating in sliding contacts with harder asperities

The wear mechanism of plasma-sprayed alumina was studied by scratching a model alumina coating using a diamond indenter. Single scratching on polished virgin surface, repeated scratching over the same track and parallel interacting scratching were investigated. The predominant mechanism of material removal was found to be microfracture within the quasi-plastic zone, which takes place preferentially at splat boundaries and pre-existing cracks and is driven by inelastic strain. When scratching was made on a virgin surface the wear rate was relatively low, but when parallel scratches interacted, subsequent scratching was made on already heavily strained material, thus, the wear rate was much higher. The wear debris produced during single and parallel interacting scratching was in the form of small angular particles whose dimensions were related to the splat structure and pre-existing cracks. In repeated scratching over the same track, surface material experienced repeated inelastic deformation and, thus, crack development at the splat boundaries, and this resulted in the production of thin platelet wear debris.
A four-sublattice model for solid3He

Nuclear magnetic resonance measurements on the antiferromagnetic ordered phase of solid3He have indicated that the magnetic structure consists of ferromagnetically ordered parallel planes of atoms. The magnetization vectors lie in the planes and are aligned in a sequence with two or more in a row pointing in the same direction followed by the same number pointing in the opposite direction. In the simplest case, with only two in a row pointing in the same direction, the system can be described in terms of sublattices if four are used. In this work the appropriate four-sublattice model is solved for the uniform free normal modes and for the excitation of the modes by density oscillations.
Bullying and its consequences: In search of solutions—Part II

In the previous volume we presented a series of contributions by a number of leading scholars that meant to provide a foundation regarding the current research on bullying and a brief discussion of...
Effect of microscopic deformation mechanisms on the dynamic response of soft cellular materials

Abstract Cellular materials show progressive or uniform collapse during impact loading depending on their microstructural and material properties. It is generally agreed that a complex interplay among microinertia, microbuckling and microbending of the cell walls of these materials plays an important role in determining their macroscopic stress–strain response. However, an evaluation of the dependency of the overall deformation behavior on these parameters requires sophisticated modeling approach due to extremely fast and complex wave propagation events occurring during dynamic deformation. We have developed a transient finite element based computational framework that can examine the contribution of each of these effects on the deformation history of this class of materials. An in-depth parametric study for different loading, microstuctural and material parameters has been undertaken in this study. Our significant finding is that at high strain rate, shorter pulse rise times lead to higher microinertial stress enhancement due to an increase in apparent microbuckling strength. A variation of cell size shows insignificant effect of microinertia and microbuckling at initial stage but localization can be found at later stage of deformation due to increasing microbuckling and microbending activities. Deformation localization occurs in lower Young’s modulus specimens due to lower buckling and bending strength of the cell walls. A significant inertial stress enhancement can be noticed in the specimens with higher bulk density of the constituent material leading to increased microbuckling activities resulting in localized collapse at the impact end.
Climatic variability and plant food distribution in Pleistocene Europe: Implications for Neanderthal diet and subsistence

Abstract Contrary to their cold-adapted image, Neanderthals inhabited Pleistocene Europe during a time of great climatic fluctuation with temperatures ranging from as warm as present-day during the last interglacial to as cold as those of the last glacial maximum. Cold-adapted Neanderthals are similarly most often associated with the exploitation of large mammals who are themselves cold-adapted (mammoth, bison, reindeer, etc.). Cold, high-latitude environments are typically seen as lacking in plants generally and in plant foods in particular. Plant foods are therefore usually ignored and Neanderthals are increasingly being viewed as top carnivores who derived the vast majority of their diet from meat. Support for this hypothesis comes largely from stable isotope analysis which tracks only the protein portion of the diet. Diets high in lean meat largely fulfill micronutrient needs but can pose a problem at the macronutrient level. Lean meat can compose no more than 35% of dietary energy before a protein ceiling is reached. Exceeding the protein ceiling can have detrimental physiological effects on the individual. Neanderthals would have needed energy from alternative sources, particularly when animals are fat-depleted and lean meat intake is high. Underground storage organs (USOs) of plants offer one such source, concentrating carbohydrates and energy. USOs could also provide an important seasonal energy source since they are at their maximum energy storage in late fall/winter. Although Paleolithic sites are increasingly yielding plant remains, their presence is rare and they are often given only passing mention in Neanderthal dietary reconstructions. The complexity and number of potential wild plant foods, however, defies easy discussion. Native European wild edible plants with starchy USOs would have been potentially available throughout the Neanderthal range, even during the coldest periods of the Late Pleistocene.
Anisotropic Heat Conduction in Cubic Crystals in the Boundary Scattering Regime

The thermal conductivities of single crystals of silicon and of calcium fluoride have been measured in the temperature range 3-40 \ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K and 2.5-30 \ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K, respectively. For samples in the form of square cross-section rods, the conductivity in the boundary scattering regime was found to depend on the orientation of the rod axis, the variation being as much as 50% for silicon. This anisotropy is accounted for in terms of phonon focusing due to the fact that in elastically anisotropic crystals the phonon phase and group velocities are, in general, not collinear. Casimir's theory of the thermal conduction in the boundary scattering regime has been generalized to include the effects of focusing; the predictions of this generalized theory are in quantitative agreement with the experimental results. It is predicted that anisotropic thermal conductivity in the boundary scattering regime is a general property of elastically anisotropic cubic crystals.
Strand: fast sequence comparison using mapreduce and locality sensitive hashing

The Super Threaded Reference-Free Alignment-Free N-sequence Decoder (Strand) is a highly parallel technique for the learning and classification of gene sequence data into any number of associated categories or gene sequence taxonomies. Current methods, including the state-of-the-art sequence classification method RDP, balance performance by using a shorter word length. Strand in contrast uses a much longer word length, and does so efficiently by implementing a Divide and Conquer algorithm leveraging MapReduce style processing and locality sensitive hashing. Strand is able to learn gene sequence taxonomies and classify new sequences approximately 20 times faster than the RDP classifier while still achieving comparable accuracy results. This paper compares the accuracy and performance characteristics of Strand against RDP using 16S rRNA sequence data from the RDP training dataset and the Greengenes sequence repository.
Portable blood glucose meters as a means of monitoring blood glucose concentrations in dogs and cats with diabetes mellitus

The use of portable blood glucose meters (PBGM) has become common in veterinary medicine as a rapid means of monitoring animals' blood glucose in a variety of medical conditions. These hand-held monitors allow for diagnostic and therapeutic decisions to be made quickly and relatively inexpensively using only a small amount of blood. Both in conditions resulting in hyperglycemia, such as diabetes mellitus, and in those resulting in hypoglycemia, such as sepsis or the presence of an insulinoma, veterinarians have come to rely on PBGM to provide critical information on the status of their animal patients. In particular, PBGM are frequently used to measure individual blood glucose values in an animal over a period to create a blood glucose curve when evaluating the effectiveness of insulin therapy in diabetic dogs and cats.
Option Generation and Decision Making in Critical-Care Nursing

The recognition-primed decision (RPD) model and Take the First (TTF) heuristic assert that successful and experienced decision makers typically generate relatively few options, and generate a satisficing, or the best, option first. Moreover, the TTF heuristic suggests that as more options are generated the likelihood that the best option will be selected is reduced. An alternative proposal suggests that the ability to anticipate the outcome of a situation is actually positively related to the number of options generated. To test these opposing claims we compared high and low performing critical-care nurses on three simulated critical care scenarios and measured their option generation behaviors and the courses of action pursued. Consistent with RPD and TTF, the data suggest that high performers generate fewer options than low performers during situational assessment. However, counter to RPD and TTF, the current data suggest that the selection of options generated later in the process may actually facilita...
Lipid Composition of Normal and Pale, Soft, Exudative Porcine Muscle

SUMMARY— Studies were conducted on the lipid composition of 10 normal and 10 pale, soft exudative (PSE) longissimus dorsi muscles of porcine animals. No significant differences, between normal and PSE muscles, were noted in total lipid or fatty acid composition. Likewise, neither lipid content or composition appeared to be related to the post-mortem extract-ability of myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic proteins.
Antidepressant-like effects of curcumin in WKY rat model of depression is associated with an increase in hippocampal BDNF

Curcumin is the principal active ingredient found in turmeric (Curcuma longa), a plant used in traditional Asian diets and herbal medicines. It is known to have a wide range of biological actions including antidepressant-like effects which have been observed in stress-induced depression models. This study was designed to investigate the antidepressant potential of curcumin in a non-induced model of depression. Moreover, since brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been implicated in antidepressant effects of many drugs, we also evaluated the effects of curcumin on BDNF in the hippocampus. Adult male Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats, a putative model of depression, were injected acutely or chronically (10d) with 50, 100, and 200mg/kg curcumin. Open field locomotor activity (OFLA) and forced swim test (FST), a measure of helplessness, were measured 1h after acute and 18-20h after last chronic injection. Results showed a dose-dependent reduction of immobility in the FST by curcumin in both acute and chronic studies, without any significant effect on OFLA. The effect of higher chronic curcumin dose in FST was still evident a week later. Chronic curcumin also resulted in a dose-dependent increase in hippocampal BDNF. This data provides evidence for an antidepressant-like effect of curcumin, possibly through increased neurotrophic activity, in the WKY model of depression, and support the notion that curcumin may prove an effective and lasting natural antidepressant.
Evaluation of ECMWF cloud type simulations at the ARM Southern Great Plains site using a new cloud type climatology

[1] A new method to derive a cloud type climatology is applied to cloud observations over the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site and to ECMWF model forecasts, in order to compare model and radar derived cloud type statistics and identify the major deficiencies in model cloud vertical distribution. The results indicate that cirrus and to a lesser extent middle level clouds are the major cloud types missing in the model simulations and that they are missing mostly as parts of multi-type rather than single-type structures. Boundary layer clouds are simulated at approximately the right amounts in the annual mean statistics, but this result comes from the model simulating too little boundary layer cloud in the winter and too much in the summer. Overall, the model forecasts miss about 11% of the total cloud amount, and most of the missing cloud occurs at time periods when multiple cloud types are present in the observations.
An Experimental Study of the Flow Emerging from Porous Walls

The fluid mechanics of air flow exiting from porous materials is investigated. Porous walls with filter ratings differing by about three orders of magnitude are studied. The flow behavior is investigated for its spatial and temporal stability. The measurements show that coalescence effects cause jet development which gives rise to a stable, spatial velocity nonuniformity termed pseudo-turbulence. Beyond a critical mean velocity, the pseudo-turbulence shows a leveling trend and the flow exhibits jets whose dimensions are independent of wall porosity and provide a unique length scale for this type of flow field (≈1 mm). A correlation is developed to predict the onset of fully developed jets. The impact of using porous wall materials in cold flow solid rocket motor testing is addressed.
Pathology of vascular lesions affecting the spine and spinal cord

Abstract Spinal vascular malformations show close histopathologic similarity to their intracranial counterparts with the classification of both partially depending on the presence and character of the intervening neural parenchyma. A fundamental distinction is made between racemose lesions (in which the abnormal vessels are clustered together with intervening parenchyma) and cavernous angiomas (in which there is little or no intervening parenchyma). This article discusses the histopathology of vascular lesions affecting the spine and spinal cord.
Behavioral scientists and law enforcement personnel: Working together on the problem of terrorism

Behavioral scientists work with law enforcement personnel on the problem of terrorism in three general contexts: clinical help for victims, training and consultation for hostage negotiation, and profiling and institutional consultation. In a study of 115 senior police officers working in the area of terrorism, subjects valued psychological counseling for crime victims within a broad framework of financial and criminal justice services. When describing a past personal victim experience, they valued direct physical action in their own coping, but expressions of sympathy and reassurance when provided by others. Problems encountered by behavioral scientists working in this area have usually involved difficulties in maintaining an effective consultant role, over-identification with the law enforcement identity, or inappropriate media statements. Language: en
The vertical distribution of zooplankton in the eastern Gulf of Mexico

Abstract The zooplankton community in the eastern Gulf of Mexico was investigated to determine the quantity and taxonomic composition of forage available to higher trophic levels and to provide a data base for future trophodynamic modelling. Standing stock (1.2 g m −2 , dw) in the upper 1000 m is in the range for oligotrophic low-latitude boundary currents but is greater than in central gyre areas. Abundance decreases exponentially with depth, over half the biomass occuring in the upper 200 m. Diel variations are apparent, the greatest differences in biomass occuring in the upper 50 m and at 300 to 350 m. Copepods were dominant, contributing over 80% of the number and half the net-caught biomass. The zooplankton community is diverse, 21 genera individually exceeding 1% of the biomass in the 0 to 100-m layer. Grazers (herbivores, detritivores, omnivores) were 66% of the 0 to 1000-m standing stock and carnivores 34%, their biomass in the epipelagic zone above the base of the thermocline (150 m) at night increasing 46 and 57%, respectively. Zooplankton biomass available as forage for higher trophic levels is most concentrated in the upper 50 m, whereas, paradoxically, the zooplanktivorous micronekton, the myctophid fishes in particular, are centered deeper, primarily between 50 and 150 m.
Stress Analysis of the Polyethylene Component in Total Ankle Arthroplasty: Effect of Thickness

A three-dimensional finite element model was constructed of the distal tibia and fibula and a semi-constrained ankle prosthesis (Agility™ system). Contact elements were used at the interface between the talar component and the polyethylene liner and the proximal tibia and fibular were loaded in the in vertical direction. The minimal thickness of the polyethylene liner was varied from 3 mm to 8 mm in 1 mm increments. The results showed that the liner contact pressure in the sagittal plane mid-line decreased from 20 MPa to 14 MPa with increasing thickness while the medial edge contact pressure increased from 26 MPa to 30 MPa.Copyright © 2003 by ASME
Chronic pain: The psychiatrist's role

Abstract The psychiatrist's task when treating chronic pain patients is to aid in diagnosing the primary source of pain; secure an understanding of what the pain means to the patient; recommend a pain management program to the referring physician; implement techniques for reducing the contribution made by psychologic factors to pain perception; and undertake psychotherapy to improve the patient's ability to handle personal problems and interpersonal relationships. Our experience has shown that any attempt to cure pain through psychotherapy alone will be unsuccessful. The goal must be rehabilitation, not cure.
Allurin, a 21 kD sperm chemoattractant, is rapidly released from the outermost jelly layer of the Xenopus egg by diffusion and medium convection.

Allurin, a 21 kD protein from Xenopus laevis egg jelly, has been demonstrated to attract sperm by video microscopy and by quantitative chemotaxis chamber assays. Here, we use immunocytochemistry to demonstrate that this sperm chemoattractant is located in the outermost layer of egg jelly (J3) and is rapidly released into the surrounding medium. SDS–PAGE analysis and Western blotting confirm the appearance of allurin in the medium within 1.5 min and separation of proteins in the medium by anion exchange FPLC, shows that nearly half of the allurin released over a 12-hr period is discharged in the first 5 min. The kinetics of allurin release from J3 and its appearance in the medium were quantitatively accounted for, by computer simulation of mathematical diffusion and convection models. Comparison of simulation data to quantitative measurements of allurin appearance in the medium suggests that allurin, although larger than most chemoattractants, is effectively dispersed by a combination of diffusion and medium mixing at the jelly surface during spawning. Our model further predicts that the innermost jelly layer, J1, is less permeable to allurin than the other layers, allowing it to act as a “reflector” to speed up allurin discharge. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 70: 344–360, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Gap Junction Regulation by Calmodulin

Intracellular Ca(2+) activated calmodulin (CaM) inhibits gap junction channels in the low nanomolar to high micromolar range of [Ca(2+)]i. This regulation plays an essential role in numerous cellular processes that include hearing, lens transparency, and synchronized contractions of the heart. Previous studies have indicated that gap junction mediated cell-to-cell communication was inhibited by CaM antagonists. More recent evidence indicates a direct role of CaM in regulating several members of the connexin family. Since the intracellular loop and carboxyl termini of connexins are largely "invisible" in electron microscopy and X-ray crystallographic structures due to disorder in these domains, peptide models encompassing the putative CaM binding sites of several intracellular domains of connexins have been used to identify the Ca(2+)-dependent CaM binding sites of these proteins. This approach has been used to determine the CaM binding affinities of peptides derived from a number of different connexin-subfamilies.
What regulates mitochondrial DNA copy number in animal cells

The study of the control of mitochondrial DNA copy number spans several decades and has identified many factors involved in the replication of the mitochondrial genome. However, the mechanisms involved in the regulation of this process are still obscure, particularly in animal cells. During the past decade, however, the identification of human diseases associated with drastically reduced levels of mtDNA caused renewed interest in this topic. Here, I will discuss recent work that sheds some light on how animal cells might maintain and control mtDNA levels.
The carotid artery--a test site for small vessel prosthetics.

Abstract A method is described for the rapid testing of small vessel prosthetics. The vessel used is the dog's carotid artery, which measures 3 to 4mm. internal diameter. Advantages of this method are discussed after analysis of over 400 grafting procedures. Several materials have proven to be quite successful with this technique and are currently under further investigation. A detailed description of the technique is included so that other investigators may adapt it to their particular need.
Average Regression Surface for Dependent Data

We study the estimation of the additive components in additive regression models, based on the weighted sample average of regression surface, for stationary ?-mixing processes. Explicit expression of this method makes possible a fast computation and allows an asymptotic analysis. The estimation procedure is especially useful for additive modeling. In this paper, it is shown that the average surface estimator shares the same optimality as the ideal estimator and has the same ability to estimate the additive component as the ideal case where other components are known. Formulas for the asymptotic bias and normality of the estimator are established. A small simulation study is carried out to illustrate the performance of the estimation and a real example is also used to demonstrate our methodology.
Additional Uses for the Analysis of Means and Extended Tables of Critical Values

The analysis of means (ANOM) is a technique for comparing a group of treatment means to see if any of them are significantly different from the overall mean. As such, it can be thought of as an alternative to the analysis of variance for analyzing fixed main effects in a designed experiment. The ANOM has the advantages that it identifies any treatments that are different and provides a graphical display that aids in assessing practical significance. When the exact critical values are used, no price is paid for these advantages in terms of decreased power. The first purpose of this article is to show that these exact critical values are appropriate not only for balanced complete designs, but also for Latin squares, Graeco-Latin squares, balanced incomplete block (BIB) designs, Youden squares, and axial mixture designs. Exact critical values for the ANOM in the equal-sample-size case when the degrees of freedom for error are at least as large as the number of treatments being compared have been previously p...
Total synthesis of a B-ring “homoalkaloid”. 4,5,6,7,7a,8-Hexahydro-7-methylphenanthro[10,1-bc]azepine

The synthesis of a novel benzazepine, 4,5,6,7,7a,8-hexahydro-7-methylphenanthro[10,1-bc]-azepine, is described. Two pathways leading from 1,2,4,5-tetrahydro-1-(o-nitrophenyl)-3H-2-benzazepin-3-one were investigated. The most successful route, utilizing a Pschorr cyclization followed by diborane reduction and Eschweiler-Clarke methylation, led to an excellent yield of the title compound.
Effect of photodynamic therapy on RIF‐1 tumor metabolism and blood flow examined by 31P and 2H NMR spectroscopy

Photodynamic therapy utilizes the tumor localizing drug dihematoporphyrin ether and red laser light to produce both direct tumor cell destruction via damage to mitochondrial membranes, and also indirect cell kill via destruction of the tumor vasculature. As a first step towards examining the mechanistic relationship between metabolic and vascular effects of photodynamic therapy, murine RIF-1 tumors were treated with a subcurative treatment (500J/cm2). Tumor metabolic status was monitored using in vivo31P NMR before, during and after the treatment. The tumor blood flow immediately before and after treatment was measured by direct intratumor injection of D2O saline and observation of the tracer signal clearance from the tumor via 2H NMR. During the photodynamic therapy treatment, significant decreases were observed for the nucleoside triphosphate concentrations, tumor pH and tumor blood flow, while inorganic phosphate concentrations increased. Animals treated with laser light alone and those not given any treatment, demonstrated no significant changes in tumor metabolic status, tumor pH or tumor blood flow. Further studies are required to determine whether tumor blood flow or metabolic status is affected first.
Lexical and phonotactic effects on the perception of rate induced resyllabification

Stetson (1951) noted that, when repeated, singleton coda consonants (VC) appear to modulate into onset consonants (CV) as the rate of repetition increases. de Jong et al. (2001) found that naEe listeners robustly perceive such resyllabifications with labial consonants, and in a later study, that such perceptions broadly corresponded to changes in glottal timing. In the current study, stimuli included labial, coronal, and velar stops, creating mixtures of real words (such as ‘‘eat’’), and nonwords (such as ‘‘ead’’). A comparison of the perception of real and nonreal words reveals no robust effect of lexical status. In addition, vowels in the corpus were either tense or lax, so that the CV combination is phonotactically illegal in half of the corpus. The perception of resyllabification also does occur with these lax vowels, though only for voiced coronal and labial stops. Other stops did not exhibit resyllabification. Analyses of glottal and acoustic recordings are currently underway. [Work supported by NIDCD and NSF.]
Triplet Exciton Phosphorescence in Crystalline Anthracene

Long-lived triplet excitons in anthracene crystals were detected by simultaneous observation of both their weak red phosphorescence and the delayed blue fluorescence which results from exciton-exciton interaction. Absorption and emission spectra at room temperature show that the interacting excitons are free, i.e., they correspond to the electronic excitation levels of the pure crystal. Decay curves obey the anticipated bimolecular-interaction kinetic equations. The triplet radiative lifetime is about 60 sec. In contrast to the results at room temperature, the low-temperature behavior is dominated by exciton-tapping effects. The interaction between free and shallowly trapped excitons is much more efficient in yielding delayed blue fluorescence than is the free-free interaction which is dominant at room temperature.
Age and long-term protective immunity in dogs and cats.

Summary Vaccination can provide an immune response that is similar in duration to that following a natural infection. In general, adaptive immunity to viruses develops earliest and is highly effective. Such anti-viral immune responses often result in the development of sterile immunity and the duration of immunity (DOI) is often lifelong. In contrast, adaptive immunity to bacteria, fungi or parasites develops more slowly and the DOI is generally short compared with most systemic viral infections. Sterile immunity to these infectious agents is less commonly engendered. Old dogs and cats rarely die from vaccine-preventable infectious disease, especially when they have been vaccinated and immunized as young adults (i.e. between 16 weeks and 1 year of age). However, young animals do die, often because vaccines were either not given or not given at an appropriate age (e.g. too early in life in the presence of maternally derived antibody [MDA]). More animals need to be vaccinated to increase herd (population) immunity. The present study examines the DOI for core viral vaccines in dogs that had not been revaccinated for as long as 9 years. These animals had serum antibody to canine distemper virus (CDV), canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV-2) and canine adenovirus type-1 (CAV-1) at levels considered protective and when challenged with these viruses, the dogs resisted infection and/or disease. Thus, even a single dose of modified live virus (MLV) canine core vaccines (against CDV, cav-2 and cpv-2) or MLV feline core vaccines (against feline parvovirus [FPV], feline calicivirus [FCV] and feline herpesvirus [FHV]), when administered at 16 weeks or older, could provide long-term immunity in a very high percentage of animals, while also increasing herd immunity. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Constraints on light quark masses from the heavy meson spectrum.

We use the observed SU(3) breaking in the mass spectrum of mesons containing a single heavy quark to place restrictions on the light quark current masses. A crucial ingredient in this analysis is our recent first-principles calculation of the electromagnetic contribution to the isospin-violating mass splittings. We also pay special attention to the role of higher-order corrections in chiral perturbation theory. We find that large corrections are necessary for the heavy meson data to be consistent with {ital m}{sub {ital u}}=0.
MARIANE: MApReduce Implementation Adapted for HPC Environments

MapReduce is increasingly becoming a popular framework, and a potent programming model. The most popular open source implementation of MapReduce, Hadoop, is based on the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). However, as HDFS is not POSIX compliant, it cannot be fully leveraged by applications running on a majority of existing HPC environments such as Teragrid and NERSC. These HPC environments typically support globally shared file systems such as NFS and GPFS. On such resourceful HPC infrastructures, the use of Hadoop not only creates compatibility issues, but also affects overall performance due to the added overhead of the HDFS. This paper not only presents a MapReduce implementation directly suitable for HPC environments, but also exposes the design choices for better performance gains in those settings. By leveraging inherent distributed file systems' functions, and abstracting them away from its MapReduce framework, MARIANE (MApReduce Implementation Adapted for HPC Environments) not only allows for the use of the model in an expanding number of HPC environments, but also allows for better performance in such settings. This paper shows the applicability and high performance of the MapReduce paradigm through MARIANE, an implementation designed for clustered and shared-disk file systems and as such not dedicated to a specific MapReduce solution. The paper identifies the components and trade-offs necessary for this model, and quantifies the performance gains exhibited by our approach in distributed environments over Apache Hadoop in a data intensive setting, on the Magellan test bed at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC).
Single-centered hydrogen-bonded enhanced acidity (SHEA) acids: a new class of Brønsted acids.

Hydrogen bonds are the dominant motif for organizing the three-dimensional structures of biomolecules such as carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and proteins, and serve as templates for proton transfer reactions. Computations, gas-phase acidity measurements, and pKa determinations in dimethyl sulfoxide on a series of polyols indicate that multiple hydrogen bonds to a single charged center lead to greatly enhanced acidities. A new class of Bronsted acids, consequently, is proposed.
Process Integration and Electrical Properties of Bilayer Metal Gate/High-k MOSFETs

In this paper, we demonstrate one possible integration scheme to achieve dual work function metal gates on high-k dielectrics by utilizing bilayer metal electrodes and a selective metal wet etch process. We achieve a ~0.85 eV difference in effective gate work functions and well-behaved transistor characteristics by using Al/W and Pt/W bilayer metal gates on Hf02 dielectrics.
Ovarian dynamics in relation to host quality in the Walnut-infesting Fly, Rhagoletis juglandis

Summary 1. Reproductive behaviour is routinely studied with a view towards characterizing how an animal responds to variation in resource abundance and quality. This characterization is less commonly made with respect to reproductive physiology. 2. In the Walnut-infesting Fly, Rhagoletis juglandis , ovarian development is cued by the presence of the host fruit resource. In this study, I examined how ovarian development was affected by two host characteristics that relate to competition in the juvenile stages: fruit size and presence of conspecific larvae. 3. Large fruit promoted egg maturation more than small fruit, and uninfested fruit promoted maturation more than larval-infested fruit. Both effects were reproduced with artificial models of fruit. 4. The functional significance of these effects and ramifications for individual-level dynamics in oviposition behaviour are discussed.
Skip Context Tree Switching

Context Tree Weighting is a powerful probabilistic sequence prediction technique that efficiently performs Bayesian model averaging over the class of all prediction suffix trees of bounded depth. In this paper we show how to generalize this technique to the class of K-skip prediction suffix trees. Contrary to regular prediction suffix trees, K-skip prediction suffix trees are permitted to ignore up to K contiguous portions of the context. This allows for significant improvements in predictive accuracy when irrelevant variables are present, a case which often occurs within record-aligned data and images. We provide a regret-based analysis of our approach, and empirically evaluate it on the Calgary corpus and a set of Atari 2600 screen prediction tasks.
Application of the Radon transform for fish monitoring in the fishery farm's pen

A theoretical investigation of the possibility of the ocean acoustic tomography (OAT) application for the estimate of the amount of fish in the fishery pen is provided. A comprehensive set of mathematical algorithms exists, which cover all aspects of the problem-sound propagation, signal processing and reconstruction of the media. Application of this results in small scale tomography will produce reliable tool for fast and unexpensive estimation of fish amount in a pen of a fish farm.
Classified zerotree wavelet image coding and adaptive packetization for low-bit-rate transport

A novel robust image coding and adaptive packetization algorithm suitable for very low-bit-rate transport is suggested. This algorithm can be applied to any zerotree-based encoder, such as the embedded zerotree wavelet coder of Shapiro (1993) and set partitioning in hierarchical trees by Said and Pearlman (1996). A very explicit segmentation and packetization method of an image bitstream, where the lowest frequency subband is separately encoded from the higher frequency subbands for unequal protection over a noisy channel, is proposed. The trees in the higher frequency subbands are split, classified, and assembled for efficient image coding and packetization according to their initial threshold and subband. The use of these classified trees enables one to make robust packets, while giving priority to some packets. In practice, each packet has a different initial threshold and can be decoded independently. In spite of additional overhead bits required for packetization, the algorithm reported is comparable to the original zerotree-based image coders at low bit rates. Additionally, simulation results show that the new method is resilient under severe packet losses.
Ab Initio Linear Scaling Response Theory: Electric Polarizability by Perturbed Projection

A linear scaling method for calculation of the static ab initio response within self-consistent field theory is developed and applied to the calculation of the static electric polarizability. The method is based on the density matrix perturbation theory [Niklasson and Challacombe, preceding Letter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 193001 (2004)], obtaining response functions directly via a perturbative approach to spectral projection. The accuracy and efficiency of the linear scaling method is demonstrated for a series of three-dimensional water clusters at the $\mathrm{RHF}/6\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}31{\mathrm{G}}^{**}$ level of theory. The locality of the response under a global electric field perturbation is numerically demonstrated by the approximate exponential decay of derivative density matrix elements.
Additional rituximab-CHOP (R-CHOP) versus involved-field radiotherapy after a brief course of R-CHOP in limited, non-bulky diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: a retrospective analysis.

BACKGROUND Standard treatment for stage I or non-bulky stage II diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) has been either a brief course of chemotherapy plus involved-field radiotherapy (IFRT) or prolonged cycles of chemotherapy. The introduction of rituximab has necessitated re-evaluation of the treatment for limited disease (LD) DLBCL. METHODS Thirty-nine LD DLBCL patients (median age, 52 years; range, 24-85) treated with rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone (R-CHOP) were retrospectively analyzed. Treatment outcomes were evaluated, and toxicity, event-free survival (EFS), and overall survival (OS) were compared according to the treatment and risk factors. RESULTS The median follow-up duration was 34.6 months (range, 9.1-65.4). The 3-year EFS and OS were 76.0% and 86.0%, respectively. Among the 36 patients who underwent either 3-4 cycles of R-CHOP followed by IFRT (N=22) or 6-8 cycles of R-CHOP (N=14), there was no difference in the 3-year EFS (79.4% vs. 71.6%, P=0.638) and 3-year OS (85.7% vs. 92.9%, P=0.732). Severe neutropenia and neutropenic fever were more frequent in patients treated with R-CHOP alone, with 1 treatment-related mortality. Among the IFRT patients, 1 required hospital admission for IFRT-related complications. No events or deaths were reported among patients without adverse risk factors. CONCLUSION The difference in outcomes between the 2 treatment options was not significant. Analysis of treatment outcomes suggested that baseline characteristics and expected toxicities should be considered in LD DLBCL treatment. Further studies are needed to define the optimal treatment in the rituximab era.
Comment on: “Tumor Aggressiveness and Patient Outcome in Cancer of the Pancreas Assessed by Dynamic 18F-FDG PET/CT”

TO THE EDITOR: We read with great interest the article by Ron Epelbaum et al. ([1][1]) on the use of dynamic 18F-FDG PET/CT to assess tumor aggressiveness and overall outcome in patients with pancreatic cancer. The authors have successfully shown how quantitative parameters of tracer kinetics can
Precordial T-wave Polarity Changes in Acute Inferior Infarction: A Poor Indicator of Associated Disease of the Left Anterior Descending Coronary Artery

T-wave polarity in V1 to V3 was examined in 70 patients with acute inferior wall myocardial infarctions (IWMI) as an indicator of significant disease in the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD). Fifty-three percent (37/70) had precordial T-wave inversions, and of these 38 percent (14/37) had angiographically significant LAD disease. Conversely, 47 percent (33/70) had upright T waves in V1 to V3, and of these, 52 percent (17/33) had significant LAD disease. Likewise, 41 percent of the patients with ST segment depression in V1 to V3 had significant LAD disease, while 50 percent of those with isoelectric ST segments were similarly affected. Finally, only 39 percent of those patients with both precordial ST segment depression and T-wave inversion had significant LAD disease. We conclude that neither anterior ST depression, T-wave inversion, nor a combination of both is a sensitive or specific indicator of LAD disease in patients with acute IWMI.
A Review of: Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse, by David Timmerman and Edward Schiappa

David Timmerman and Edward Schiappa's Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse sustains the substantive claim that ancient authors codified rhetoric in conceptual terms i...
Gait Pathomechanics in Hip Disease

The main goal of this chapter is to impress upon the reader the importance of understanding gait pathomechanics as an essential part of providing good patient care and provide a basic foundation on normal and pathological gait mechanics as pertaining to hip disease. The overall framework for the discussion is that gait pathomechanics can be understood in two ways: first, as a disruption of the normal relationship between structure and function in the hip joint due to disease, and second, as a behavioral response to the disease process (i.e., pain and activity limitations). The chapter includes an overview of gait analysis terminology and methodology and outlines normal hip gait mechanics. A discussion of the structure–function disruption framework follows with clinical examples taken from femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), hip dysplasia, hip osteoarthritis (OA), and total hip arthroplasty (THA). Next, the concept of gait pathomechanics as behavioral response is discussed as the relationships between pain, function, and gait are explored in hip OA and THA. Finally, examples and recommendations for clinical use of gait analysis both in and out of formal laboratory settings are presented.
STAT1 Activation Is Enhanced by Cisplatin and Variably Affected by EGFR Inhibition in HNSCC Cells.

Cisplatin is a cytotoxic chemotherapeutic drug frequently used to treat many solid tumors, including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). EGFR inhibitors have also shown efficacy as alternatives to cisplatin in some situations. However, large clinical trials have shown no added survival benefit from the use of these two drugs in combination. Possible explanations for this include overlapping downstream signaling cascades. Using in vitro studies, we tested the hypothesis that cisplatin and EGFR inhibitors rely on the activation of the tumor suppressor STAT1, characterized by its phosphorylation at serine (S727) or tyrosine (Y701) residues. Cisplatin consistently increased the levels of p-S727-STAT1, and STAT1 siRNA knockdown attenuated cisplatin-induced cell death. EGFR stimulation also activated p-S727-STAT1 and p-Y701-STAT1 in a subset of cell lines, whereas EGFR inhibitors alone decreased levels of p-S727-STAT1 and p-Y701-STAT1 in these cells. Contrary to our hypothesis, EGFR inhibitors added to cisplatin treatment caused variable effects among cell lines, with attenuation of p-S727-STAT1 and enhancement of cisplatin-induced cell death in some cells and minimal effect in other cells. Using HNSCC tumor specimens from a clinical trial of adjuvant cisplatin plus the anti-EGFR antibody panitumumab, higher intratumoral p-S727-STAT1 appeared to correlate with worse survival. Together, these results suggest that cisplatin-induced cell death is associated with STAT1 phosphorylation, and the addition of anti-EGFR therapy to cisplatin has variable effects on STAT1 and cell death in HNSCC.