cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fast pathway-His bundle connections in the rabbit heart.

Objectives: The incidence and the physiologic roles for direct fast pathway-His bundle connections were examined in 102 rabbit hearts. Methods: Extracellular bipolar and intracellular microelectrode recordings were made from the superfused rabbit AV junction. Results: In 13 of 27 preparations demonstrating anterior extensions of the fast pathway, the retrograde HA ERP and 2:1 block cycle length were shortened (128 ± 12 and 145 ± 5 msec, respectively) versus the remaining 89 preparations (178 ± 15 and 185 ± 10 msec, respectively, p < 0.01). The former values were similar to the ERP and 2:1 block cycle length of fast pathway transitional cells (128 ± 23 and 141 ± 4 msec, respectively), suggestive of a direct fast pathway-His bundle connection. A deflection recorded between the A and H potentials of the His bundle electrogram could be dissociated from both atrial and His bundle activation. Intracellular microelectrode recordings and light microscopy confirmed the deflection to be an accessory pathway consisting of an anterior extension of fast pathway transitional cells connecting the atrium and His bundle. Transection along the AV groove anterior to the compact AV node (N = 5) increased the retrograde ERP and Wenckebach block cycle length by severing the AH connection, or transection of the penetrating bundle (N = 4) produced antegrade AH block without altering rapid retrograde conduction. Conclusions: Fast pathway-His bundle connections were present in 13 of 102 rabbit hearts, providing an anatomic and physiologic basis for rapid retrograde VA conduction and a possible retrograde pathway for sustained AV nodal reentrant tachycardia.
A functional SNP in the MDM2 promoter, pigmentary phenotypes, and risk of skin cancer

The MDM2 oncoprotein is a key negative regulator of the tumor suppressor p53. A functional MDM2 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP309) in the promoter region increases the affinity of transcription activator Sp1 for the MDM2 gene promoter, resulting in higher expression of MDM2 and thus inhibition of p53 transcriptional activity. UV-induced p53 activation promotes cutaneous transient pigmentation, and the common p53 Arg72Pro polymorphism alters the protein’s transcriptional activity. We evaluated the effect of MDM2 SNP309 and its interaction with the p53 Arg72Pro polymorphism on pigmentary phenotypes and skin cancer risk in a nested case–control study within the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) among 219 melanoma cases, 286 squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cases, 300 basal cell carcinoma (BCC) cases, and 873 controls, and among controls from other studies. We found that the G allele of the MDM2 SNP309 was inversely associated with the presence/absence of moles on the arm among 3,207 women pooled from controls of three nested case–control studies within the NHS. Compared with the MDM2 SNP309 T/T genotype, adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of having moles on the arms for T/G and G/G genotypes were 0.92 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.78–1.08) and 0.68 (95% CI, 0.53–0.87), respectively (p, trend, 0.005). We observed suggestive evidence of the association between the carriage of the MDM2 SNP309 G allele and childhood tanning tendency (adjusted OR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.01–1.68). No significant associations were found between the MDM2 SNP309 and any of the three types of skin cancer. For SCC, the trend of increased risk across the three genotypes of MDM2 was stronger among p53 Pro carriers (p, trend, 0.05) than p53 Arg/Arg wild-type group (p, trend, 0.99; p, interaction, 0.07). These results provide evidence for the potential involvement of MDM2 SNP309 in pigmentary traits.
Outcomes of Infants Undergoing Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Pyeloplasty Compared to Open Repair

Purpose: Robotic surgery has evolved from simple extirpative surgery to complex reconstructions even in infants. Data are lacking comparing surgical and direct costs to open approaches. We describe the feasibility, salient tips and outcomes of robot-assisted laparoscopic pyeloplasty compared to an open approach.Materials and Methods: We evaluated patients undergoing open pyeloplasty or robot-assisted laparoscopic pyeloplasty. Ten patients in each group met inclusion criteria.Results: Mean patient age was 3.31 months in the open group and 7.3 months in the robotic group (p = 0.02). Postoperative outcomes including length of stay (2.2 vs 2.1 days), estimated blood loss (6.5 vs 7.6 ml), days to regular diet (1 vs 1.1) and days to Foley catheter removal (1.3 vs 1.3) were similar between the open and robotic groups. Total operating time (199 vs 242 minutes) was significantly longer in the robotic group. Postoperative improvement in hydronephrosis was identical in both groups. Direct costs, excluding amortizati...
Juvenile Justice and Due Process Rights of Children in India and the United States

This article offers a cross-cultural comparison of current and past juvenile court systems in India and the United States. Issues such as juvenile court development, differences and similarities in juvenile court philosophies, and the impact of legislative reforms are explored within political, social, and legal contexts. Specifically, the juvenile justice system in India is examined and analyzed within the context of how changes in philosophy and terminology have affected juvenile court practices and procedures. Our conclusion is that in both countries the juvenile justice system often fails to achieve the rehabilitative agendas set forth by their legislative and child welfare bodies.
Heart Partners: A Strategy for Promoting Effective Diffusion of School Health Promotion Programs

Heart Partners uses a straightforward, interpersonal approach to increase acceptance and use of innovations in school health promotion. In accord with the linkage model of innovation diffusion, developers of a new program or technology (i.e., resource system) simply designate and train selected members to be recruiters and allies of individual advocates at the campus-level (i.e., user system). Linkage is supported by supplying advocates and allies with guidelines and materials that encourage ongoing, interactive, interpersonal partnerships to promote effective implementation of the new technology at the school. Empirical assessment of this simple strategy implemented by the Texas Affiliate of the American Heart Association showed a twofold to fourfold increase in actual use and reach of school health promotion packages, with an average reported volunteer time of less than three hours per month.
The Role of Atomic Displacements in Ion-Induced Dielectric Breakdown

Irradiation of electronic devices with heavy ions causes a range of device degradation and failure modes, many of which are characterized and/or triggered by enhanced leakage current through dielectric layers. These damage modes include single-event dielectric rupture (SEDR), long-term reliability degradation (LTRD), and radiation-induced soft breakdown (RISB), and they play a major role in limiting device lifetime and reliability in space applications. The LET-induced transient carrier plasma that is generated along the incident ion path has traditionally been understood as the physical effect ultimately leading to damage in dielectric layers. However, in a recent study we showed that nontrivial densities of atomic displacements are directly generated by incident heavy ions. Here, we report multiscale calculations of the effects of ion-induced atomic displacements on the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of SiO2 layers. We use both parameter-free quantum mechanical calculations and 3D percolation theory calculations based on Mott defect-to-defect tunneling. We show that ion-induced atomic displacements produce both transient and static low-resistivity paths through SiO2 layers. The calculated I-V characteristics of damaged SiO2 layers agree quantitatively with experimental data and are shown to depend on both the spatial distribution of displacement-induced defects and the distribution of defect energy levels in the SiO2 energy gap.
Two-dimensional analysis of a merged BiPMOS device

The BiPMOS device associated with n-well BiCMOS technologies consumes a substantial area for isolation. A merged BiPMOS device structure is introduced to reduce the device size for BiCMOS VLSI. The performance of the merged BiPMOS device has been analyzed using PISCES-2B, a program for solving Poisson and continuity equations. Comparisons between the merged BiPMOS device and a conventional one show that the merged BiPMOS device, which occupies a much smaller area, has a comparable performance. >
68040 integer module

The central CPU for the 68040 processor is the integer unit (IU). The IU contains multiple 32-bit data and address paths with heavily pipelined instruction execution control for improved performance. Frequently used instructions and addressing modes have been optimized for single cycle execution. Additionally, independent control for each pipe state yields increased throughput. Implementation of control structures for increased performance is presented, with emphasis on design trade-offs for automated logic synthesis versus full custom, hand crafted circuits. The impact of the integration of test logic on behavioral descriptions and control logic testing strategy are discussed. >
The expanding role of rituximab and radioimmunotherapy in the treatment of B-cell lymphomas

The role of rituximab in the treatment of B-cell lymphomas has rapidly emerged from the relapsed setting to first-line combination regimens across the broad range of histologic subtypes. The role of maintenance rituximab in indolent lymphomas after first-line therapy needs to be defined along with the integration of radioimmunotherapy into the first-line therapeutic regimens. As mechanisms of action/resistance to monoclonal antibody therapy are better understood, approaches to predicting response and optimizing combination therapy to overcoming primary and acquired resistance may be developed.
Enabling Autonomic Meta-Scheduling in Grid Environments

Grid computing supports workload execution on computing resources that are shared across a set of collaborative organizations. At the core of workload management for grid computing is a software component, called meta-scheduler or grid resource broker, that provides a virtual layer on top of heterogeneous grid middleware, schedulers, and resources. Meta-schedulers typically enable end-users and applications to compete over distributed shared resources through the use of one or more instances of the same meta-scheduler, in a centralized or distributed manner, respectively. We propose an approach to enabling autonomic meta-scheduling through the use of a new communication protocol that -if adopted by different meta-schedulers or by the applications using them- can improve the workload execution while avoiding potential chaos, which can be resulted from blind competition over resources. This can be made possible by allowing the meta- schedulers and/or their applications to engage in a process to negotiate their roles (e.g., consumer, provider, or both), scheduling policies, service-level agreement, etc. To show the feasibility of our approach, we developed a prototype that enables some preliminary autonomic management among three different meta-schedulers, namely, GridWay, eNANOS, andTDWB.
Fall prevention and bathroom safety in the epilepsy monitoring unit

Falls are one of the most common adverse events occurring in the epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) and can result in significant injury. Protocols and procedures to reduce falls vary significantly between institutions as it is not yet known what interventions are effective in the EMU setting. This study retrospectively examined the frequency of falls and the impact of serial changes in fall prevention strategies utilized in the EMU between 2001 and 2014 at a single institution. Overall fall rate was 2.81 per 1000 patient days and varied annually from 0 to 9.02 per 1000 patient days. Both seizures and psychogenic nonepileptic events occurring in the bathroom were more likely to result in falls compared with events occurring elsewhere in the room. With initiation of increased patient education, hourly nurse rounding, nocturnal bed alarms, having two persons assisting for high fall risk patients when out of bed, and immediate postfall team review between 2001 and 2013, there was a trend of decreasing fall frequency; however, no specific intervention could be identified as having a particular high impact. In late 2013, a ceiling lift system extending into the bathroom was put in place for use in all EMU patients when out of bed. In the subsequent 15 months, there have been zero falls. The results reinforce both the need for diligent safety standards to prevent falls in the EMU as well as the challenges in identifying the most effective practices to achieve this goal.
Part I: Spinal-cord neoplasms—intradural neoplasms

Summary Intradural spinal-cord tumours are an uncommon but important consideration in the differential diagnosis of patients with back pain, radicular pain, sensorimotor deficits, or sphincter dysfunction. Intradural spinal tumours can be divided into intramedullary and extramedullary spinal-cord tumours on the basis of their anatomical relation to the spinal parenchyma. The heterogeneous cell composition of the intradural compartment allows the formation of neoplasms, arising from glial cells, neurons, and cells of spinal vasculature. Additionally, developmental tumours, metastases, and intradural extension of extradural tumours are represented. In this Review, we discuss the published work on intradural spinal-cord tumours in terms of epidemiological, radiographic, and histological characteristics. Surgical and adjuvant treatment strategies are also reviewed.
Tropical forest carbon assessment: integrating satellite and airborne mapping approaches.

Large-scale carbon mapping is needed to support the UNFCCC program to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Managers of forested land can potentially increase their carbon credits via detailed monitoring of forest cover, loss and gain (hectares), and periodic estimates of changes in forest carbon density (tons ha −1 ). Satellites provide an opportunity to monitor changes in forest carbon caused by deforestation and degradation, but only after initial carbon densities have been assessed. New airborne approaches, especially light detection and ranging (LiDAR), provide a means to estimate forest carbon density over large areas, which greatly assists in the development of practical baselines. Here I present an integrated satellite–airborne mapping approach that supports high-resolution carbon stock assessment and monitoring in tropical forest regions. The approach yields a spatially resolved, regional state-of-the-forest carbon baseline, followed by high-resolution monitoring of forest cover and disturbance to estimate carbon emissions. Rapid advances and decreasing costs in the satellite and airborne mapping sectors are already making high-resolution carbon stock and emissions assessments viable anywhere in the world.
Transesophageal echocardiography for congenital heart disease.

Surface echocardiographic imaging of small children is routinely successful in defining anatomical details and Doppler flow patterns with even the most complex congenital cardiac malformations. However, in larger children or adults, imaging is frequently limited. A recent expansion of the role of echocardiography is intraoperative epicardial imaging. Epicardial and postoperative imaging, however, have significant limitations. To avoid some of these limitations, transesophageal echocardiography has increasingly been used in the arena of congenital heart disease. The more recent development of small sized gastroscopic probes has allowed transesophageal echocardiographic assessment of congenital heart disease in children down to newborn size. As detailed studies of individual lesions are reported, it has become clear that the mere presence of a congenital heart defect is not an indication for transesophageal echocardiography in most children if imaging can be accomplished by surface examination. However, transesophageal echocardiography may be indicated for the intraoperative or postoperative assessment of that defect, particularly when repair has been difficult or is known to be associated with significant residual abnormalities. Cardiac structures encountered with horizontal and vertical imaging plane transducers have been described and should be completely familiar to the examining echocardiographer. (ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY, Volume 8, September 1991)
Calcineurin Inactivation Leads to Decreased Responsiveness to LPS in Macrophages and Dendritic Cells and Protects Against LPS-Induced Toxicity In Vivo

Microbial components such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) bind to Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and activate innate and inflammatory responses. Responses to LPS and other microbial components are limited by the activation of negative feedback mechanisms that reduce responsiveness to subsequent LPS exposure, often termed LPS tolerance. Our laboratory has previously shown that calcineurin, a phosphatase known for its activation of T cells via NFAT, negatively regulates the TLR pathway in macrophages; consequently, calcineurin inhibitors (FK506 and cyclosporin A) mimic TLR ligands in activating the TLR pathway, NF-KB, and associated innate and inflammatory responses. This study investigated the physiological consequences of calcineurin inactivation for LPS-induced inflammatory responses in vitro and in vivo using two models: calcineurin inhibition by FK506 (tacrolimus) and myeloid cell-specific calcineurin deletion. Activation of dendritic cells and macrophages with FK506 in vitro was shown to induce a state of red...
Differential effects of blueberry proanthocyanidins on androgen sensitive and insensitive human prostate cancer cell lines

Blueberries are rich in health-promoting polyphenolic compounds including proanthocyanidins. The purpose of this study was to determine if proanthocyanidin-rich fractions from both wild and cultivated blueberry fruit have the same inhibitory effects on the proliferation of LNCaP, an androgen-sensitive prostate cancer cell line, and DU145, a more aggressive androgen insensitive prostate cancer cell line. When 20 mg/ml of a wild blueberry proanthocyanidin fraction (fraction 5) was added to LNCaP media, growth was inhibited to 11% of control with an IC50 of 13.3 mg/ml. Two similar proanthocyanidin-rich fractions from cultivated blueberries (fractions 4 and 5) at the same concentration inhibited LNCaP growth to 57 and 26% of control with an IC50 of 22.7 and 5.8 mg/ml, respectively. In DU145 cells, the only fraction that significantly reduced growth compared to control was fraction 4 from cultivated blueberries with an IC50 value of 74.4 mg/ml, indicating only minor inhibitory activity. Differences in cell growth inhibition of LNCaP and DU145 cell lines by blueberry fractions rich in proanthocyanidins indicate that blueberry proanthocyanidins have an effect primarily on androgen-dependant growth of prostate cancer cells. Possible molecular mechanisms for growth inhibition are reviewed. q 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
SQUAMOUS EPITHELIAL LESION OF THE MANDIBLES AND MAXILLAE OF WILD MINK (MUSTELA VISON ) NATURALLY EXPOSED TO POLYCHLORINATED BIPHENYLS

Approximately 125 km of the Kalamazoo River, located in southwestern Michigan (USA), are designated as a Superfund site, with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as the contaminant of concern. Mink (Mustela vison) are a naturally occurring predator in this area and also a species of concern because of their known sensitivity to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo- p-dioxin (TCDD) and structurally similar compounds, such as PCBs. Four of nine mink trapped from the Kalamazoo River area of concern (KRAOC) exhibited histological evidence of a jaw lesion previously identified in ranch mink. The jaw lesion, hyperplasia of squamous epithelium in the mandible and maxilla, is known to be caused by 3,39,4,49,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 126) and TCDD. Mink trapped from an upstream reference area (Fort Custer Recreation Area (FCRA)) did not exhibit the lesion. Mean concentrations of total PCBs were 2.8 and 2.3 mg/kg wet weight in the livers of mink from the KRAOC and FCRA, respectively, and TCDD toxic equivalent (TEQ) concentrations were 0.30 and 0.11 mg/kg wet weight, respectively. Significant correlations were found between the severity of the lesion and the hepatic concentrations of total PCBs and TEQs. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of the lesion occurring in wild mink.
Prevalence of Thyroid Cancer in Familial Adenomatous Polyposis Syndrome and the Role of Screening Ultrasound Examinations

Background & Aims: Thyroid carcinoma is an extraintestinal manifestation of familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) syndrome, but the precise risk is unknown. The optimal approach for thyroid cancer screening has not been established. We sought to define the prevalence of thyroid cancer and the role of screening ultrasound in FAP patients. Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review of 51 patients with a proven diagnosis of FAP at a single tertiary institution. Clinical records, genetic test results, ultrasound examinations, and histopathology were reviewed. Results: Papillary thyroid cancer was diagnosed in 6 female patients (12%). The mean age of thyroid cancer diagnosis was 33 years, and mean tumor size was 12 mm. However, all patients had additional malignant foci that were small (1–9 mm), and none had suspicious features of malignancy on ultrasound. Of 28 patients who had at least one screening ultrasound, 22 (79%) had thyroid nodules, and 2 (7%) had papillary thyroid carcinoma. Of those with nodules, 68% had multinodular disease. A follow-up ultrasound in 12 patients after a mean of 15 months revealed no changes in either the number or size of nodules. Conclusions: The 12% prevalence of thyroid cancer in this series of FAP patients is significantly higher than in previous reports. Among patients undergoing screening ultrasound, 7% had thyroid cancer. Nodular thyroid disease is very common in FAP. Because small nodules (
High performance distributed objects using distributed shared memory and remote method invocation

There are two emerging trends in distributed computing: the evolution of client/server architectures into multi-tiered systems and advances in distributed shared memory (DSM). The convergence of these two trends yields a new structure we call virtual distributed objects (VDOs). The first trend is evolving because of the difficulties involved in programming high-performance client/server applications. Client/server architectures must be designed from the ground-up for good performance. Increasingly, we are seeing new client/server topologies that improve server performance. The second converging trend associated with the transition from client/server to peer-to-peer distributed objects is the rapid advances in techniques for DSM. In the past, DSM has been used primarily for support of scientific applications. While DSM was once envisioned as a means to support an entire paged virtual address space, systems like Mirage and Mirage+ began support for sharing smaller entities called segments that, combined with RPCs (remote procedure calls) and RMIs (remote method invocations), can support VDOs. VDOs allow systems designers to improve system performance by making use of idle machines rather than requiring expensive upgrades to a server or extremely expensive upgrades to all client machines. We describe why high-performance VDOs will become the predominant paradigm for distributed computing in the next decade. We describe why VDOs, supported with DSM and other technologies, could potentially supplant strict client/server structures whose scalability and extensibility are inherently limited.
New self-assembly strategies for next generation lithography

Future demands of the semiconductor industry call for robust patterning strategies for critical dimensions below twenty nanometers. The self assembly of block copolymers stands out as a promising, potentially lower cost alternative to other technologies such as e-beam or nanoimprint lithography. One approach is to use block copolymers that can be lithographically patterned by incorporating a negative-tone photoresist as the majority (matrix) phase of the block copolymer, paired with photoacid generator and a crosslinker moiety. In this system, poly(α-methylstyrene-block-hydroxystyrene)(PαMS-b-PHOST), the block copolymer is spin-coated as a thin film, processed to a desired microdomain orientation with long-range order, and then photopatterned. Therefore, selfassembly of the block copolymer only occurs in select areas due to the crosslinking of the matrix phase, and the minority phase polymer can be removed to produce a nanoporous template. Using bulk TEM analysis, we demonstrate how the critical dimension of this block copolymer is shown to scale with polymer molecular weight using a simple power law relation. Enthalpic interactions such as hydrogen bonding are used to blend inorganic additives in order to enhance the etch resistance of the PHOST block. We demonstrate how lithographically patternable block copolymers might fit in to future processing strategies to produce etch-resistant self-assembled features at length scales impossible with conventional lithography.
Double Digest RADseq: An Inexpensive Method for De Novo SNP Discovery and Genotyping in Model and Non-Model Species

The ability to efficiently and accurately determine genotypes is a keystone technology in modern genetics, crucial to studies ranging from clinical diagnostics, to genotype-phenotype association, to reconstruction of ancestry and the detection of selection. To date, high capacity, low cost genotyping has been largely achieved via ‘‘SNP chip’’ microarray-based platforms which require substantial prior knowledge of both genome sequence and variability, and once designed are suitable only for those targeted variable nucleotide sites. This method introduces substantial ascertainment bias and inherently precludes detection of rare or population-specific variants, a major source of information for both population history and genotypephenotype association. Recent developments in reduced-representation genome sequencing experiments on massively parallel sequencers (commonly referred to as RAD-tag or RADseq) have brought direct sequencing to the problem of population genotyping, but increased cost and procedural and analytical complexity have limited their widespread adoption. Here, we describe a complete laboratory protocol, including a custom combinatorial indexing method, and accompanying software tools to facilitate genotyping across large numbers (hundreds or more) of individuals for a range of markers (hundreds to hundreds of thousands). Our method requires no prior genomic knowledge and achieves per-site and per-individual costs below that of current SNP chip technology, while requiring similar hands-on time investment, comparable amounts of input DNA, and downstream analysis times on the order of hours. Finally, we provide empirical results from the application of this method to both genotyping in a laboratory cross and in wild populations. Because of its flexibility, this modified RADseq approach promises to be applicable to a diversity of biological questions in a wide range of organisms.
A fuzzy multiple reference model adaptive control scheme for flexible link robotic manipulator

In this paper a novel fuzzy logic based multiple reference model adaptive controller approach for the position control of a single link robotic manipulator is presented. The proposed fuzzy logic scheme is used for generating multiple reference models, within the model reference adaptive control (MRAC) framework, in response to changes in modes of operation or modal swings due to manipulator tip load variation. Thus the scheme is utilized to generate dynamic reference model and the overall structure is coined as fuzzy multiple reference model adaptive controller (FMRMAC). Following a rule base the fuzzy switching scheme effectively monitors changes in operating conditions due to tip load variation. A fuzzy inference engine then fires appropriate rules, which gives a fuzzified output value. Further defuzzification is performed to switch the reference model in a predefined domain. The main contribution of the paper is that the proposed approach can be performed online and is very well suitable for plants showing sudden 'jump' in operating conditions. Unlike, static multiple model algorithms for switching (noninteracting individual model-based filters) or switching dynamic algorithms (susceptible to numerical overflow), this scheme provides an interactive multiple model environment with soft switching. This approach is found to be every effective and fault tolerant.
Content based multicast (CBM) in ad hoc networks

This paper presents a radically new multicast model for ad hoc wireless networks. In this model, the content of the multicast data determines the receiver set for the data and the receiver set changes dynamically as the content of the multicast changes. Delivering the multicast to intended receivers while minimizing the message overhead and reducing battery consumption is a challenge made harder because of node mobility. In this paper we develop a novel multicast model that distributes this form of threat information in a message efficient manner. We present results from detailed simulations that demonstrate the efficiency of our protocol and discus the scalability of this model to larger networks.
Out-of-plane Stokes imaging polarimeter for early skin cancer diagnosis

Optimal treatment of skin cancer before it metastasizes critically depends on early diagnosis and treatment. Imaging spectroscopy and polarized remittance have been utilized in the past for diagnostic purposes, but valuable information can be also obtained from the analysis of skin roughness. For this purpose, we have developed an out-of-plane hemispherical Stokes imaging polarimeter designed to monitor potential skin neoplasia based on a roughness assessment of the epidermis. The system was utilized to study the rough surface scattering for wax samples and human skin. The scattering by rough skin-simulating phantoms showed behavior that is reasonably described by a facet scattering model. Clinical tests were conducted on patients grouped as follows: benign nevi, melanocytic nevus, melanoma, and normal skin. Images were captured and analyzed, and polarization properties are presented in terms of the principal angle of the polarization ellipse and the degree of polarization. In the former case, there is separation between different groups of patients for some incidence azimuth angles. In the latter, separation between different skin samples for various incidence azimuth angles is observed.
Hydrogen Peroxide Complex of Zinc.

Metal(H2O2) complexes have been implicated in kinetic and computational studies but have never been observed. Accordingly, H2O2 has been described as a very weak ligand. We report the first metal(H2O2) adduct, which is made possible by incorporating intramolecular hydrogen-bonding interactions with bound H2O2. This ZnII(H2O2) complex decays in solution by a second-order process that is slow enough to enable characterization of this species by X-ray crystallography. This report speaks to the intermediacy of metal(H2O2) adducts in chemistry and biology and opens the door to exploration of these species in oxidation catalysis.
Predicting Long-Term Food Demand, Cropland Use, and Prices

This review seeks to survey, understand, and reconcile the widely divergent estimates of long-run global crop output, land use, and price projections in the current literature. We review the history of such projections and the different models and assumptions used in these exercises. We then introduce an analytical partial equilibrium model of the global crops sector, which provides a lens through which we can evaluate this previous work. The resulting decomposition of model responses into demand, extensive supply, and intensive supply elasticities offers important insights into the diversity of model parameterizations being employed by the existing models. Along with the methodology for implementing productivity growth, this helps explain some of the divergences in results. We employ a numerical version of the analytical model, which serves as an emulator of this entire class of models, to explore how uncertainties in the common underlying drivers and economic responses contribute to uncertain projection...
Comparative studies of image reconstructions in SPECT and diffraction tomography

Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and ultrasonic diffraction tomography (UDT) are tomographic imaging modalities that are based upon entirely different physical processes. In SPECT, from the measured intensity of the electromagnetic wave (i.e., the gamma-ray), one seeks to determine the distribution of the gamma-ray emitter within an object. In UDT, from the measured scattered fields (i.e., the scattered ultrasonic wave), one determines the refractive index distribution. However, in this work, the authors demonstrate that the mathematics describing image reconstruction and the statistical analysis of image-noise properties are virtually identical for SPECT and UDT. They also conducted computer-simulation studies, which quantitatively corroborated their theoretical analysis.
Biologic Prosthetics: What Are They and How Do They Interact with the Body?

Biologic mesh was developed to address the shortcomings of permanent synthetic mesh, such as chronic inflammation and foreign body reaction, stiffness, and mesh infection. Since the introduction of biologic prosthetics, the market has been rife with new biologic materials attached to largely unsupported claims of superiority and safety. Although the status of literature on biologic mesh is improving, the current data are comprised mainly from animal studies and level III evidence. Over the last decade, surgeons have utilized biologic mesh in a variety of cases including primary and recurrent hernia repair, hernia prophylaxis, and the most widely used application, hernia repair in the contaminated field. The following chapter will review the origin, structure, and mechanics of biologic mesh and conclude with the current indications and shortcomings of biologic prosthetics.
Sensing Means and Sensor Shells

Given a sensing task, in general there are a variety of methods that can be used to accomplish it. These methods may incorporate charge sensing, current/voltage dc/ac measurements, magnetization, or optical measurements to achieve the desired sensing task. In addition to these schemes or sensing means, one should also decide on the structure of the sensor. The structure of the sensor, will clearly depend on the identity of the parameter that one wishes to sense (this is usually called measurand) and also, it will depend on the sensing mean. Thus, we separate the sensing shell, which is the structure of the sensor, from the sensing mean which is the physical scheme that is used to read the sensor shell. Clearly, sensor shell and sensing means are interdependent. Using this division of sensors to different parts, we are able to compare merits of different sensing means and sensor shells to each other.
North by northwest: infrastructure agnostic and datastore agnostic live migration of private cloud platforms

Cloud technology is evolving at a rapid pace with innovation occurring throughout the software stack. While updates to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products require a simple push of code to the production servers or platform, updates to the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) layers require more intricate procedures to prevent disruption to services at higher abstraction layers. In this work we address the need for rolling upgrades to PaaS systems. We do so with the App-Scale PaaS, which is amulti-application, multi-language, multi-infrastructure, and multi-datastore platform. Our design and implementation allows for applications and tenants to be migrated live from one cloud deployment to another with guaranteed transaction semantics and minimal performance degradation. In this paper we motivate the need for PaaS migration support and empirically evaluate migrations between two AppScale deployments using highly scalable datastores.
Effects of exercise training on urinary tract function after spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes dramatic changes in the quality of life, including coping with bladder dysfunction which requires repeated daily and nightly catheterizations. Our laboratory has recently demonstrated in a rat SCI model that repetitive sensory information generated through task-specific stepping and/or loading can improve nonlocomotor functions, including bladder function (Ward PJ, Herrity AN, Smith RR, Willhite A, Harrison BJ, Petruska JC, Harkema SJ, Hubscher CH. J Neurotrauma 31: 819-833, 2014). To target potential underlying mechanisms, the current study included a forelimb-only exercise group to ascertain whether improvements may be attributed to general activity effects that impact target organ-neural interactions or to plasticity of the lumbosacral circuitry that receives convergent somatovisceral inputs. Male Wistar rats received a T9 contusion injury and were randomly assigned to three groups 2 wk postinjury: quadrupedal locomotion, forelimb exercise, or a nontrained group. Throughout the study (including preinjury), all animals were placed in metabolic cages once a week for 24 h to monitor water intake and urine output. Following the 10-wk period of daily 1-h treadmill training, awake cystometry data were collected and bladder and kidney tissue harvested for analysis. Metabolic cage frequency-volume measurements of voiding and cystometry reveal an impact of exercise training on multiple SCI-induced impairments related to various aspects of urinary tract function. Improvements in both the quadrupedal and forelimb-trained groups implicate underlying mechanisms beyond repetitive sensory information from the hindlimbs driving spinal network excitability of the lumbosacral urogenital neural circuitry. Furthermore, the impact of exercise training on the upper urinary tract (kidney) underscores the health benefit of activity-based training on the entire urinary system within the SCI population.
Ion Transport through Ultrathin Electrolyte under Applied Voltages.

The influence of the Coulomb transport (CT) effect on ion transport in electrolytes is evaluated through two prototypical systems: the [IrCl6]2–/3– redox couple in aqueous solution and Mg2+ (with TFSI– counterions) in acetonitrile solution. In the first system, transport of the [IrCl6]2–/3– anions is inhibited, and ions are trapped near the positive electrode due to the unscreened electric field. With larger applied voltage, the inhibition is stronger. This effect can be weakened, however, by adding supporting charges, which screen the electric field of the electrodes. In the second system, the unscreened electric field provides a means of separating [Mgx(TFSI)y](2x−y)+ clusters in the electrolyte. This effect enhances charge transport by providing a larger number of faster-moving (smaller) ions. Considered together, these systems provide examples of how the CT effect may increase or decrease charge transport and how one might attempt to modulate this effect in order to enhance electrochemical cell conduc...
A preliminary study on weed-suppressing rice breeding.

A set of new breeding materials derived from PI312777 were established by using PI312777 rice accessions as weed-suppressing parents,and a rice breeding nursery was founded.Weed-suppressing rice plants were selected by evaluating their weed-suppressing effects and focusing on their agronomic characters in the field,and new varieties (or lines) of weed-suppressing rice were developed by evaluating the allelopathic potential of rice plants with applying specific secondary metabolite markers at late generations (after F4).A rice breeding method for weed-suppressing in South China,in which,main evaluation in the field and assistant evaluation by applying secondary metabolite markers,was mentioned.
After a photograph, before photography (takes command)

The best part of a century separates photography's public unveiling in 1839 and its predominance in architectural representation in the first decades of the 1900s. In the intervening decades, as photography laboured to find its place within architecture's representational economy, photographs frequently made their way into print as engravings. Often bearing the caption ‘after a photograph’, such remediated images challenged the ontological distinction between drawings and photographs. Whilst photographs were understood—at least to a certain extent—to be unmediated objects, they required multiple remediations not only to become reproducible in print but also in order to live up to their promise. Engravings from photographs transmitted photography’s supposed guarantee of facticity whilst correcting its perceived flaws; in so doing, they contributed to the discursive construction of photographic objectivity—in another medium.Drawing on a wide range of examples from British and French publications, including ...
GRIN lens design through the use of surrogate models based on Zernike aberrations

In this paper, we present a computational method for rapidly designing GRadient-INdex (GRIN) lenses by employing a surrogate model that relates input lens parameters to output Zernike aberrations. This approach also provides a path forward for the designer to identify which lens parameters have the largest impact on specific aberrations. Through the use of orthogonal Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) and multivariate polynomial regressions, a surrogate model is trained to approximate the ray trace evaluations. Finally, a plano-convex GRIN lens based on Silicon-Germanium mixing is optimized using both full ray trace and surrogate model evaluations. A ∼40× speed improvement is realized with the surrogate-assisted optimization while achieving similar optical performance.
Analyzing the Adoption and Cascading Process of OSN-Based Gifting Applications: An Empirical Study

To achieve growth in the user base of online social networks--(OSN) based applications, word-of-mouth diffusion mechanisms, such as user-to-user invitations, are widely used. This article characterizes the adoption and cascading process of OSN-based applications that grow via user invitations. We analyze a detailed large-scale dataset of a popular Facebook gifting application, iHeart, that contains more than 2 billion entries of user activities generated by 190 million users during a span of 64 weeks. We investigate (1) how users invite their friends to an OSN-based application, (2) how application adoption of an individual user can be predicted, (3) what factors drive the cascading process of application adoptions, and (4) what are the good predictors of the ultimate cascade sizes. We find that sending or receiving a large number of invitations does not necessarily help to recruit new users to iHeart. We also find that the average success ratio of inviters is the most important feature in predicting an adoption of an individual user, which indicates that the effectiveness of inviters has strong predictive power with respect to application adoption. Based on the lessons learned from our analyses, we build and evaluate learning-based models to predict whether a user will adopt iHeart. Our proposed model that utilizes additional activity information of individual users from other similar types of gifting applications can achieve high precision (83%) in predicting adoptions in the target application (i.e., iHeart). We next identify a set of distinctive features that are good predictors of the growth of the application adoptions in terms of final population size. We finally propose a prediction model to infer whether a cascade of application adoption will continue to grow in the future based on observing the initial adoption process. Results show that our proposed model can achieve high precision (over 80%) in predicting large cascades of application adoptions. We believe our work can give an important implication in resource allocation of OSN-based product stakeholders, for example, via targeted marketing.
Exceeding conversion efficiency of 26% by heterojunction interdigitated back contact solar cell with thin film Si technology

Abstract We have developed heterojunction interdigitated back contact solar cell with conversion efficiency of 26.6% (designated area: 180 cm2) independently confirmed by Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energysystem Callab. Compared to our previous record efficiency (26.3%), the 0.3% absolute improvement can be regarded as ~10% reduction of remaining losses to the theoretical limit (~ 29%). We discuss the analyzed cell properties together with our recent progress to predict how far we can go in reducing the remaining losses in silicon photovoltaic.
Laennecia araneosa (Compositae: Astereae), a new combination for the West Indies

The new combination Laennecia araneosa (Compositae: Astereae) is validated, and this species is placed in section Laennecia. Laennecia is newly documented in the West Indies.
Conscious sedation versus rapid sequence intubation for the reduction of native traumatic hip dislocation

Abstract Background Traumatic hip dislocations (THD) are a medical emergency. There is debate whether the painful reduction of a dislocated hip should be first attempted using primary conscious sedation (PCS) or primary general anesthesia (PGA) Methods All cases of native THD from 2006 to 2015 in the trauma registry of a level 1 trauma center were reviewed. The primary outcome was successful reduction of the THD. Results 67 patients had a native, meaning not a hip prosthesis, THD. 34 (50.7%) patients had successful PCS, 12 (17.9%) failed PCS and underwent reduction following PGA. 21 (31.3%) underwent PGA. Patients in the PGA group were more severely injured. Time to reduction greater than 6 h was associated with PCS failure (Odds ratio (95% confidence interval) 19.75 (2.06,189.10) p = 0.01). Conclusion Clinicians treating patients with a THD can utilize either PCS or PGA with many patients safely reduced under PCS. However, patients whose hip have been dislocated for more than 6 h are at risk for failure with PCS, and are good candidates for PGA.
Seismic models for near-surface explosion yield estimation in alluvium and sedimentary rock

Author(s): Templeton, DC; Rodgers, AJ; Ford, SR; Harben, PE; Ramirez, AL; Foxall, W; Reinke, RE | Abstract: Seismic ground-motion data provide valuable constraints on explosion characteristics, such as yield and height-of-burst/depth-of-burial (HOB/DOB). This study investigated a range of seismic amplitude features and their efficacy in minimizing errors associated with yield estimation. Using a set of explosion recordings from experiments conducted in alluvium and sedimentary rock geologies, we investigated the effectiveness of three different seismic feature types over a range of different frequencies. Using both velocity and displacement data, we investigated the zero-to-peak (ZTP) amplitude of the first arriving P wave, the peak-to-peak (PTP) amplitude of the first arriving P wave, and the Prms amplitude over various time windows starting with the P wave. These three basic features were measured on both vertical component only data and the vertical–radial vector sum. In total, there were 56 different combinations investigated. Our seismic models combine the effects of scaled range and scaled HOB/DOB on the observed seismic features. The results show that the vertical–radial vector sum of the ZTP amplitudes measured on displacement seismograms most consistently produce models with the smallest difference between predicted amplitude values and observed amplitude values when accounting for both alluvium and sedimentary rock lithology. The improvement in fit to the data when incorporating the difference in source lithology is significant. If an alluvium lithology is assumed for a sedimentary rock lithology, the difference in yield could be up to ∼3.0 times the appropriate yield in the far field.