cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Spatial Analysis of Urban Vegetation Scale and Abundance

The urban environment is strongly influenced by the physical properties of the urban mosaic across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. The presence or absence of spatial scaling behavior in these physical properties has implications for the parameterization of physical process models that incorporate land surface mass and energy fluxes. The performance of these models is dependent on the accuracy and resolution of the land surface inputs that drive them. The spatial scaling behavior of land surface properties at fine (1–10 m) scales determines the aggregate properties at moderate ( 100 m) scales. Multiscale land surface properties like patch size and density could potentially be mapped at meter scales using the current generation of high resolution sensors. The results could then be used to scale up moderate resolution land cover maps to regional scales. In spite of its importance to physical and ecological processes, relatively little quantitative analysis has been done on the spatial scaling properties of urban land cover.
Tracking Color Change in Individual Green Crabs, Carcinus maenas (L.)

Abstract Carcinus maenas (Green Crab) exhibits a color range from green through yellow and orange to red. The change from green to red is hypothesized to signal a change in resource allocation from growth to reproduction. In order to understand color change in individuals, C. maenas were held in captivity or tagged and recaptured in summer 2007 and 2008. Over the course of the study, crabs fell into 4 categories: those which were green and did not change color, those which were red and did not change color, those which became redder, and those which molted, changing from red to green. Crabs did not change from red to green unless they had molted. Our data show that some individual crabs turn progressively redder when they have not molted, and turn green again after molting.
Just War Claims: Historical Theory, Abu Ghraib, and Transgressive Rhetoric

When the September 11 terrorists were not prosecuted as international criminals but, instead, as enemies in a “war against terrorism” in a context pervaded by the rhetoric of just war and moral claims, an inevitable trajectory was drawn from September 11 to the Yemeni missile strike, the 2003 Iraqi invasion, and Abu Ghraib. This chapter argues that historical just war theory has two frameworks – one moral and theological, attached to Augustine, Aquinas, and the Thomists; and the other, characterized by Alberico Gentili’s legalistic and expedient humanism. Contemporary analysts conflated these two frameworks, allowing the moral force of one to be imputed to the acts of the other, while Gentili’s precedent for contemporary events went largely unrecognized. Prevalent discussions of just war buttressed the Bush administration’s heightened discourse of “securitization” and exceptional moral claims, resulting in a climate conducive to supporting not only the Iraqi invasion (jus ad bellum), but also systematic incursions against all political, legal, moral, and even plainly human, limits on war conduct (jus in bello), as exemplified by the Yemeni missile strike, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and Abu Ghraib prison. Driven by outmoded ideas of the “clash of civilizations” and American “exceptionalism,” the Bush administration’s rhetoric of good and evil erased the human identity of “unlawful combatants” and then applied that erasure to Iraq and Abu Ghraib, turning them into grey zones of authority, where limits on war conduct were further transgressed through rhetorical acts – CPA orders, memos, unofficial complicities, and silence. Future policy decisions regarding terrorism should avoid coupling the rhetoric of morality with political security issues. Since today’s military actions share many of the functions and objectives of domestic policing, clearer guidelines are needed to regulate status and conduct in zones of mixed authority.
A phase I study of triapine in combination with doxorubicin in refractory tumors

13168 Background: Triapine (T) is a novel ribonucleotide reductase inhibitor, affecting the M2 subunit. It has in vitro and in vivo antitumor activity. Hematologic toxicity was dose limiting in sin...
Prehospital Fluid Administration in Trauma

Emergency Medicine has become an accepted specialty in the medical community, and with the recognition has come the responsibility for those of us who teach and practice it to study our clinical practices. We must be satisfied that our clinical judgments are well- founded, not only in emergency departments, but also in our special role as providers of prehospital medical care. With the advent of trauma centers and Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) training, the pivotal issues of the prehospital care of the trauma victim, and the timeliness of transporting these patients to appropriate receiving hospitals have resulted in a pair of recurring criticisms in the medical literature.
Studies of the Ductility of Steel Structures

Part of the energy of an ultimate loading or of a severe earthquake shock is usually absorbed by the inelastic deformation of the structural frame. In order to assess the inelastic deformability of a steel frame and its ability to absorb energy, it is necessary to know the load-deformation behavior of its various components. The inelastic load-deformation response of beams, beam-columns, and beam-and-column subassemblages that are subjected to static unidirectional loading is examined. The relevent response criterion for a member is the end moment-end rotation relationship. It is shown, both from experimental and theoretical considerations, that the inelastic load-deformation behavior of many steel frames and frame components can be predicted and that, therefore, the energy absorption capacity of these frames can be assessed. Thus, the basis exists for a rational statical analysis and guidelines are provided for future dynamic studies.
Betweenness Centrality Approaches for Image Retrieval

To quantify social tags' relatedness in an image collection, we examine the betweenness centrality measure. We depict the image collection as a multi-graph representation, where nodes are the social tags and edges bind an image's social tags. We present our weighted betweenness centrality algorithm and compare it to the unweighted version on sparse and dense graphs. The MIRFLICKR and ImageCLEF benchmark image collections are used in our experimental evaluation. We notice an 11% increase in the computation runtime with weighted edges in determining shortest paths within our image collections. We discuss the intended impact of our approach in conjunction with a node importance evaluation, via the k-path centrality algorithm, for determining situation-aware path planning applications.
POPULATION BIOLOGY OF CHAMAELIRIUM LUTEUM, A DIOECIOUS LILY. II. MECHANISMS GOVERNING SEX RATIOS

The evolution of sex ratios has long been a focus of scientific interest (Darwin, 1871; Fisher, 1930). Many theoretical studies have shown that a one to one primary (zygotic) sex ratio is to be expected in most cases (Fisher, 1930; Shaw and Mohler, 1953; Bodmer and Edwards, 1960; Kolman, 1960; Leigh, 1970; Charnov, 1975; Eshel, 1975). This expectation is based on the fact that in a dioecious sexually reproducing population, each offspring produced will contain equal gene complements from male and female parents. If there is an excess of one sex in the population, the fitness of individuals of the opposite sex will increase, and mutations resulting in an increase in numbers of that opposite sex will be favored by selection. By this mechanism, primary sex ratios are expected to be kept in an evolutionary balance near one to one. However, observations of secondary (adult) sex ratios in many animal and plant species show an excess of one sex or the other (Davey and Gibson, 1917; Correns, 1928; Godley, 1964, 1976; Hamilton, 1967; Harris, 1968; Zarzycki and Rychlewski, 1972; Lloyd, 1973; Richards, 1975; Barlow and Wiens, 1976; Melampy and Howe, 1977; Opler and Bawa, 1978; Werren and Charnov, 1978). Skewed secondary sex ratios could be the result of genetic mechanisms which bring about unequal numbers of male and female progeny (i.e., skewed primary sex ratios); or, alternatively, they could be the result of post-zygotic life history differences between males and females. The dioecious perennial forest floor herb Chamaelirium luteum (L.) Gray (Liliaceae) has been studied extensively with respect to spatial distributions of males and females (Meagher, 1980) and life history differences between the sexes (Meagher and Antonovics, in press). Plants of this species are constant over time with respect to sex expression; there have been no sex changes observed over the seven years of this study (Meagher, 1980). A particularly striking feature of this species, noted in these earlier studies and in Radford et al. (1968), is that sex ratios in natural populations always show a strong excess of males. However, such observations on the sex ratio are limited in that often only a fraction of the plants present will be in flower in a particular year, so that the sex ratio estimate could be strongly influenced by differences between the sexes in flowering schedules (e.g., Vernet, 197 1). In a perennial species such as C. luteum, the sex ratio may be regarded at three levels: 1) the seedling (primary) sex ratio, 2) the adult (secondary) sex ratio, and 3) the sex ratio among plants in flower in any given year (flowering sex ratio). The study presented here was undertaken to answer the following questions. Do the seedling, flowering or adult sex ratios of C. luteum show a bias towards males or females? How are these different sex ratio estimates interrelated? Finally, what influence do various factors, such as genetic mechanisms or ecological and life history differences between the sexes, have on adult sex ratios?
Post-MI cardiac remodeling: new perspectives.

The challenge of the 1990s for cardiologists is to change the quality of a patient’s MI to preserve myocardial structure.
Stolon Planting Rate Effects on Tifton 85 Bermudagrass Establishment

Cultivar Tifton 85 bermudagrass ( Cynodon spp.) is often propagated using stolons, but the planting rate required for success ful establishment varies under different soil conditions and on-farm irrigation management. In the sandy soils of the U.S. Gulf Coast, desiccation of planting material can occur rapidly even under irrigated conditions due to variable on-farm irrigation management, and few studies have evaluated stolon planting rate effects under these conditions. The objective was to assess the effect of stolon planting densities on establishment of Tifton 85. Treatments in this 2-yr field study were five planting rates including 1120, 1570, 2020, 2470, and 2920 kg ha –1 arranged in four replicates of a randomized complete block design. Increasing planting rates increased bermudagrass frequency, ground cover, and dry matter harvested and decreased weed cover. All treatments had >80% bermudagrass frequency of occurrence and ground cover 3 mo after planting in 2011, but the three greatest planting rates achieved 80% frequency at 40 days after planting (DAP) compared with 68 DAP for the other treatments. In 2012, no treatment reached 80% frequency or ground cover until 118 DAP. The lowest stolon-planting rate had 38% weed cover in April the year following planting compared with <15% for the three greatest planting rates. Independent of the year, the three highest rates presented greater cumulative herbage harvested than the lowest densities. These data suggest that planting rates of 2000 kg ha –1 or greater will likely be required to achieve rapid and successful Tifton 85 establishment in sandy soil environments.
Investigating the epigenetic chromatin-related factors associated with estrogen receptor negative (basal-like) tumor progression; a predominate breast cancer type in women of African descent

B107 In order to investigate the molecular causes underlying these breast cancer disparities between African American women and European American women we have conducted studies to elucidate biological differences in tumors which may influence clinical outcomes between these ethnic populations. The disparities that exist in breast cancer mortality rates between ethnic groups have traditionally been attributed to socioeconomic inequities which reflect access to health care. Recent studies however suggest that the disparities are not only due to factors of health care treatment, but potential differences in the biology of the tumors among different ethnic groups. These differences implicate probable genetic and/or epigenetic factors at work. African and African-American women have been shown to be more likely to present with breast cancer at relatively younger ages, and their specific tumor types are more likely to be triple negative (Estrogen Receptor, Her2/Neu, Progesterone Receptor) extremely aggressive and more difficult detect early or even treat successfully with current methods. We used computational data mining to establish a list of epigenetic factors which show distinct expression patterns in ER negative breast cancer samples. Then have conducted Tissue Microarray (TMA) immunohistical staining of a chromatin factor that may have interesting implications in the progression of aggressive breast cancer. We have discovered a correlation of increasing protein levels of this factor with increasing grade of tumor types and decreasing survival rates. A subsequent search of functionally relevant polymorphisms within the enhancer region of the chromatin factor gene revealed a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) which varies significantly in frequency between African and European populations. This SNP creates a novel binding site for transcription factors that have been shown to be upregulated specifically in ER negative breast cancer types relative to ER positive breast cancer. These findings suggest that altered regulation of the chromatin factor occurs more commonly within populations enriched for this enhancer region SNP and this may create a context for a more aggressive cancer. We are currently genotyping this and other SNPs in our breast cancer cases and controls to provide further support for the correlation of this chromatin factor with aggressiveness in ER negative tumors. Ultimately, the findings from this study will lay the groundwork for building a larger research project to better detect epigenetic factors that influence unique breast cancer types in specific populations from common ancestral descent. Additionally, these findings will also provide better insight into the molecular epigenetic pathways that are affected during the progression of cancer in general in all populations, thereby providing new research tools to created tailored cancer treatment options.
Future Plans on Lepton Physics with the Energy Doubler at Fermilab

We define lepton physics as being experiments using neutrino, muon, and electron beams. Furthermore, at the present time, we expect that the major use of the Fermilab electron beam will be to serve as a source of tagged photons. By reduction, the neutrino and muon beams will be the beams used for lepton physics in the foreseeable future. Neutrino physics will continue the investigation of charged and neutral current physics to Tevatron energies. Muon physics will concentrate on electromagnetic interactions and may be useful for experiments that investigate parity violating effects due to interference between electromagnetic interactions and weak neutral current amplitudes. The practical beam energies are expected to reach 750 to 800 GeV. We discuss the plans for the experimental areas and then comment on the physics that is accessible with these facilities.
Acidification of lysosomes and endosomes.

In eukaryotic cells the interior space of endosomes, lysosomes, and a variety of other intracellular organelles is maintained at a pH considerably more acidic than either cytosolic pH or extracellular pH. This acidic vesicle interior can be demonstrated by staining of living cells with pH-sensitive dyes such as the fluorescent tertiary amine acridine orange, which is protonated and trapped in low pH compartments. Cells such as hepatocytes that are endocytically active exhibit literally hundreds of fluorescent acid vesicles (Lake et al., 1987). Concomitant exposure of cells to agents that eliminate pH gradients, such as proton ionophores, or high concentrations of other tertiary amines abolishes this fluorescence, confirming the acid nature of these intracellular compartments and illustrating that vesicle acidification is the product of the active transport of protons rather than simply a Donnan-type equilibrium. Considerable experimental work over the past 15 years has elucidated the mechanisms for acidification of intracellular organelles, including lysosomes and endosomes, and current investigative efforts are focused at understanding regulation of the acidification mechanism.
Photoperiodic responses of phenologically aberrant populations of pierid butterflies (Lepidoptera)

Two local pierid populations in western North America showing regionally aberrant phenologies were investigated in the laboratory. Neither a partially bivoltine Pieris napi from the Sierra Nevada foothills in El Dorado County, California (surrounded by univoltine populations), nor a vernal - univoltine P. occidentalis from a foothill outlier of the Colorado Front Range (below bivoltine populations) showed unusual responses to controlled developmental regimes in the laboratory. Their unusual phenologies are hypothesized to be the product of microclimate. Failure to undergo genetic adaptation to unusual microclimates is discussed with particular reference to the presence or absence of gene flow from nearby normal populations.
6.05 – Plankton Consumer Groups: Copepods

The article examines the trophic relationships of mesozooplankton in coastal and estuarine systems. The first half of the article focuses on zooplankton feeding, including diet, nutrition, and feeding on toxic algae. The influence of diet on growth, reproduction, and secondary production is also covered. The second half of the article examines mesozooplankton as prey items for fish, gelatinous zooplankton, and other invertebrates. Finally, future directions of mesozooplankton research in neritic systems are presented.
Foreign direct investment, bad governance and forest resources degradation: evidence in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines foreign direct investment’s (FDI) effects on forest area change conditional on governance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This research is motivated by an apparent lack of attention on the unrestrained extraction of non-renewable natural resources in developing countries by multinational corporations in the empirical literature of pollution haven hypothesis. Using a panel data set of 38 SSA countries, over the period 1996–2011, this study reveals that FDI has a negative and significant net effect on forest area. The magnitude of this effect depends on the level of governance in these countries, despite the positive impact of governance indicators on forest preservation. This means that multinational corporations activities are associated with a lost of forest cover due to the low level of governance in SSA. Moreover, among the selected governance indicators, the findings suggest that in a regime where the rule of law and corruption control are not enforced, FDI leads to more forest degradation. More precisely, a marginal increase in the FDI stock (resp. flow) conditional on the average levels of rule of law and corruption control lead to a reduction of 6.63% (resp. 9.77%) and 5.74% (resp. 8.86%) respectively of forest cover per capita.
Early Future Technology: Using Artificial Intelligence to Manage Design-Driven Intellectual Property

This paper addresses an area of the management of innovation characterized by the problem that the time from conception of an idea to its realization as innovation is often unpredictable. We address the question of what to do with intellectual property that is ahead of its time. How can a company make the best use of ideas that may take years to reach economic feasibility? We speculate on a comprehensive solution. In this paper we take two very limited steps toward solving the problem: (1) we provide an onstensive definition, and (2) we offer a speculative description of a solution. We refer to our examples as "early future tech". We provide three case-study ideas that fall into this category: (1) context-aware user interfaces, (2) topic bridging in automated conversation and (3) recommendations based on flexible user profiles. We survey existing techniques for revisiting such ideas and discuss their benefits and limitations. The paper concludes by describing a signpost-based method that the authors speculate will enable automated trend-listeners to alert the asset owner that the intellectual property meets a relevance threshold of business value. This proposed method could effectively reduce the costs of managing the pipeline of early future technology.
Potentially curable gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC) patients treated without surgery.

120Background: Surgery is the best option to cure localized GAC. When surgery is not possible due to comorbidities or patient refusal, definitive chemoradiation is an option. We report on one of th...
Trust management for SOA based social WoT system

In recent past, the Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized the world. Web of Things (WoT) is a paradigm which comes under the umbrella of IoT. This paradigm is the result of communication solutions through web technologies resultantly ensuring interoperability among heterogeneous things. Such connectivity of things has many advantages, however, the quality of services provided by these things needs to be reputed and trustworthy. In this paper, a trust evaluation method using a genetic algorithm for a SOA-based Social WoT system has been proposed. The trustworthiness of each service is calculated by considering indirect and direct trust. Direct trust is based on the experience of service consumer whereas indirect trust considers the opinions of friends and community of the service seeker. By considering direct and indirect trust, the system minimizes the biasedness. The information related to trustworthiness is distributed hence ensuring that it can be accessed and used by any node. By effectively managing both types of trust through the proposed system, service seekers can select trustworthy and reputed service.
Nonlinear vibration of transversely-loaded spinning membranes

The paper studies the transverse nonlinear vibration of an isotropic and homogeneous annular membrane spinning at constant angular velocity, under the action of a uniform transverse load. The equilibrium configuration of the membrane, clamped along the inner edge and free along the outer edge, and the natural frequencies of vibration of the membrane are calculated. A Galerkin procedure is used to determine a reduced order model describing the weakly nonlinear vibration of the membrane, and it is shown that near-resonance vibration can be modeled as a single degree of freedom Helmholtz-Duffing oscillator. A detailed study at vibration frequencies close to the fundamental, axisymmetric vibration mode shows a transition from softening to hardening behavior, and jump phenomena or hysteretic behavior depending on the angular velocity, the transverse load, the amplitude of dynamic excitation and the damping ratio. The results are in agreement with dynamic implicit finite element simulations in Abaqus/Standard and direct experimental measurements.
Effects of formal strategic planning on financial performance in small firms: a meta-analysis

Researchers have been examining the effects of formal strategic planning on small firm financial performance for more than twenty years. Reviewers of prior studies have drawn differing conclusions ...
Serious games may improve physician heuristics in trauma triage.

Trauma triage depends on fallible human judgment. We created two “serious” video game training interventions to improve that judgment. The interventions’ central theoretical construct was the representativeness heuristic, which, in trauma triage, would mean judging the severity of an injury by how well it captures (or “represents”) the key features of archetypes of cases requiring transfer to a trauma center. Drawing on clinical experience, medical records, and an expert panel, we identified features characteristic of representative and nonrepresentative cases. The two interventions instantiated both kinds of cases. One was an adventure game, seeking narrative engagement; the second was a puzzle-based game, emphasizing analogical reasoning. Both incorporated feedback on diagnostic errors, explaining their sources and consequences. In a four-arm study, they were compared with an intervention using traditional text-based continuing medical education materials (active control) and a no-intervention (passive control) condition. A sample of 320 physicians working at nontrauma centers in the United States was recruited and randomized to a study arm. The primary outcome was performance on a validated virtual simulation, measured as the proportion of undertriaged patients, defined as ones who had severe injuries (according to American College of Surgeons guidelines) but were not transferred. Compared with the control group, physicians exposed to either game undertriaged fewer such patients [difference = −18%, 95% CI: −30 to −6%, P = 0.002 (adventure game); −17%, 95% CI: −28 to −6%, P = 0.003 (puzzle game)]; those exposed to the text-based education undertriaged similar proportions (difference = +8%, 95% CI: −3 to +19%, P = 0.15).
Conclusion, Implications, Related Paradigms, and Future Research

This chapter discusses key implications of the study—namely, the planning, urban design, policy, political, educational, and research implications of design review. Using relevant literature, this final chapter examines the impact of design review on, and its inter-relationships with, contemporary urbanisms or urban paradigms, conventional planning goals, and education and pedagogy in planning and urban design, and provides the lessons learned from this study and directions for future research.
Longitudinal effects of Nucleos(t)ide analogue therapy in chronic hepatitis B patients and the utility of non-invasive fibrosis markers during treatment: A single-center experience for up to 17 years

Abstract Background Fibrosis regression has been associated with nucleoside analogue (NA) treatment in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. Although non-invasive fibrosis markers have been evaluated in CHB, their utility for monitoring on-treatment histologic regression has not been evaluated. Aims To characterize improvements in disease severity and the utility of non-invasive biomarkers in CHB NA treated patients. Methods Histology, labs, AST-to-platelet ratio index, and Fibrosis-4 (Fib-4) from treatment-naive CHB patients were evaluated at baseline and longitudinally. Relative change from baseline to various time points during treatment were evaluated. Correlative analysis of APRI and Fib-4 with histology was performed longitudinally. Results 80 CHB patients (84% male, median age 45 (IQR 32, 54)) with histology up to 17 years (median 6(IQR 3.9, 8.0)) years were studied. Median baseline Ishak fibrosis was 3 (IQR 2, 4), histologic activity index (HAI) inflammation was 9 (IQR 7, 11), and AUROC of fibrosis markers for detecting cirrhosis (Ishak ≥ 5) was >0.64. HAI improved at a rate of 54% during year 1 and 37% in year 2, both greater than in the remaining follow-up periods. Within the first year, fibrosis improved by 35%, greater than all other time periods. Non-invasive biomarkers began to correlate with histology beyond 4 years (APRI: 4–6 years: r = 0.33, p = 0.03; ≥6 years: r = 0.41, p = 0.009; Fib-4: ≥6 years: r = 0.35, p = 0.03). Conclusion Early dynamic changes in histology occur in CHB patients on NA followed by linear improvements. Non-invasive fibrosis biomarkers do not capture these dynamic changes and may demonstrate clinical utility beyond 4 years of treatment.
Synthesis of carbon nanohoops containing thermally stable cis azobenzene

Abstract Cycloparaphenylenes (CPPs) have been praised for their size-tunable HOMO/LUMO gap and associated electronic and optical properties, and have generated significant interest for small-molecule electronics. Another fascinating but less-explored prospect for CPPs involves exploiting their hollow geometry. With a rigid pore of tunable size and high electron density arising from the inward facing π-orbitals, CPPs are ideal for electron-poor guests. [10]CPP in particular has shown very high binding affinity for fullerene C60. The ability to reverse this encapsulation by external stimuli is an important next step. Herein we report the design and synthesis of two CPPs containing thermally stable cis azobenzene moieties in the conjugated framework, their behavior upon irradiation, and computational results evaluating their potential as photoswitchable fullerene hosts.
Sternoclavicular joint arthropathy mimicking radiculopathy in a patient with concurrent C4-5 disc herniation

Abstract Background Patients with sternoclavicular joint arthropathy, which can result from septic arthritis, often present with localized sternoclavicular pain as well as shoulder pain. Such pain may be similar to the presenting symptoms of cervical intervertebral disc herniation. Clinical presentation A 47-year-old female presented with 1 month of significant pain in the neck as well as right anterior chest and deltoid. The patient was found to have reduced strength in the right deltoid muscle on physical examination. MRI revealed a C4-C5 herniated nucleus pulposus. The patient underwent successful C4-C5 anterior cervical discectomy, but subsequently developed painful swelling in the region of the right sternoclavicular joint with limited motor strength in the right shoulder and arm. A needle biopsy of the mass yielded negative results, but her erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) numbers did respond to antibiotics, consistent with infection of the sternoclavicular joint. A follow-up CT scan (6.5 months postoperatively) revealed apparent resolution right sternoclavicular joint arthropathy, thought the patient continued to experience pain. 15 months postoperatively, the patient was prescribed methotrexate due to persistent pain and mild weakness arising from a possible rheumatologic inflammation. 19 months postoperatively, the patient had full strength of the right shoulder and arm and visible decrease in swelling at the sternoclavicular joint. More than three years postoperatively, the patient was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which was appropriately treated. At follow-up four years postoperatively, the patient had an MRI showing new C6-C7 herniated nucleus pulposus, but no longer had any right shoulder or chest pain or associated weakness. Conclusion This case demonstrates that sternoclavicular joint arthropathy results in symptoms that can mimic the presenting symptoms of shoulder or cervical spine pathology, such as shoulder and neck pain, necessitating careful diagnosis and management.
Modulation of Angiogenic Processes by the Human Gammaherpesviruses, Epstein-Barr Virus and Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus.

Angiogenesis is the biological process by which new blood vessels are formed from pre-existing vessels. It is considered one of the classic hallmarks of cancer, as pathological angiogenesis provides oxygen and essential nutrients to growing tumors. Two of the seven known human oncoviruses, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), belong to the Gammaherpesvirinae subfamily. Both viruses are associated with several malignancies including lymphomas, nasopharyngeal carcinomas, and Kaposi’s sarcoma. The viral genomes code for a plethora of viral factors, including proteins and non-coding RNAs, some of which have been shown to deregulate angiogenic pathways and promote tumor growth. In this review, we discuss the ability of both viruses to modulate the pro-angiogenic process.
WHIM Syndrome: from Pathogenesis Towards Personalized Medicine and Cure

WHIM syndrome is a rare combined primary immunodeficiency disease named by acronym for the diagnostic tetrad of warts, hypogammaglobulinemia, infections, and myelokathexis. Myelokathexis is a unique form of non-cyclic severe congenital neutropenia caused by accumulation of mature and degenerating neutrophils in the bone marrow; monocytopenia and lymphopenia, especially B lymphopenia, also commonly occur. WHIM syndrome is usually caused by autosomal dominant mutations in the G protein-coupled chemokine receptor CXCR4 that impair desensitization, resulting in enhanced and prolonged G protein- and β-arrestin-dependent responses. Accordingly, CXCR4 antagonists have shown promise as mechanism-based treatments in phase 1 clinical trials. This review is based on analysis of all 105 published cases of WHIM syndrome and covers current concepts, recent advances, unresolved enigmas and controversies, and promising future research directions.
Prioritizing the Audience’s View of Automation in Journalism

This commentary for the special issue on the automation of journalism highlights the progress made in this area of study before advocating for researchers to pay greater attention to the audience a...
Barriers to breast cancer risk screening

1505 Background: The U. S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that physicians assess and discuss breast cancer risk with their female patients. With this recommendation comes the need to develop strategies for providing breast cancer risk-screening and a need to identify potential barriers to the successful implementation of a risk-screening strategy. Methods: A personalized breast cancer risk profile was offered to all women presenting for a screening mammogram at a community hospital. The profile included a Gail model estimate and analysis of family cancer history to detect hereditary breast cancer syndromes utilizing a pedigree assessment tool developed by the authors. Women with 5 year Gail estimates ≥ 1.66%, lifetime Gail estimate ≥ 15% or increased score with the pedigree assessment tool were considered at increased breast cancer risk. Women in the increased risk cohort received written notification of their risk status and were advised to undergo formal risk assessment either through a ...
Game of Thrones or Game of Class Struggle? Revisiting the Demise of Feudalism and the Dobb-Sweezy Debate Note: Game of Thrones Is a Registered Trademark of Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO).

In 1947, the Marxist economist Maurice Dobb published a book that attempted to outline and explain how the feudalistic economic system of medieval times gave way to capitalism. Dobb’s Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1947) started a debate among economists and historians over the following decades that has continued until this day. One of his most prominent and earliest critics was Paul M. Sweezy who, although he commended Dobb on raising the question of why feudalism gave way to capitalism, disagreed with Dobb’s conclusions on why the transition from feudalism to capitalism occurred. In general, Dobb thought that feudalism went into decline and was replaced by capitalism because of endogenous causes rooted in the class struggles between serfs and noblemen. Sweezy and others, on the other hand, thought that the factors which led to the decline of feudalism and rise of capitalism were exogenous, and these factors included the development and growth of international trade, production for markets and money, the growth and importance of cities, and the need for European monarchies to finance their wars and overseas empires. Other economists and historians, both mainstream and Marxian, also joined the debate, and a long list of articles and books have been generated on the “transition debate” since the late 1940s. In doing research for this paper, no statistical work on the Dobb-Sweezy debate and its competing hypotheses was found, and so this paper attempts to do some empirical testing of these hypotheses using data from England from the middle ages up to the late nineteenth century. The findings of this note are informative in trying to better understand the transition and provide some food for thought on how capitalism may change in the future.
Assessing Cortex Ratios: An Example from the Beaucoup Site (24PH188/189) in the Northwestern Plains

Lithic analysts have long used cortical coverage as a variable for assessing reduction intensity; however, differing interpretative frameworks can yield inconsistent conclusions. Dibble et al.'s ([...
Aggregate Stare Decisis

The fate of stare decisis hangs in the wind. Different factions of the Supreme Court are now engaged in open debate—echoing decades of scholarship—about the doctrine’s role in our constitutional system. Broadly speaking, two camps have emerged. The first embraces the orthodox view that stare decisis should reflect “neutral principles” that run orthogonal to a case’s merits; otherwise, it will be incapable of keeping the law stable over time. The second argues that insulating stare decisis from the underlying merits has always been a conceptual mistake. Instead, the doctrine should focus more explicitly on the merits—by diagnosing the magnitude of past error, and allowing “egregiously wrong” decisions to be dismantled without constraint. This article develops a compromise approach: an “aggregate voting rule,” requiring the combined vote across both courts—the one that crafted the holding at t1 and the one scrutinizing it at t2—to total a majority. In other words, the durability of past decisions should depend on the amount of support they were originally able to command. This would capture the main appeal of reform position—the idea that stare decisis should not preclude the correction of significant missteps—but also retain the core of stability that defines the orthodox view. Under the latter, the ideal of respect for precedent drives the doctrine’s content. Under an aggregate voting rule, the same ideal would express itself, instead, in the doctrine’s mechanical structure—freeing judges to focus on the merits, without abandoning the (non-merits) values that have long animated stare decisis. This would facilitate the airing out of disagreement and the forward motion of law, while also encouraging judges to locate avenues of doctrinal compromise.
Gravimetric Measurement of the Molecular Area of Some Adsorbed Gases

A modified Gravimat, which is a sorption apparatus that includes the Gast microbalance, has been used to measure sorption isotherms of nitrogen, krypton, methane, propane, and 2,2-dimethylpropane on glass, gold, aluminum, and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Cross-sectional areas of the adsorbates derived from the Isotherms on the basis of the BET theory are compared for the different adsorbents.
Reservoir population dynamics and pathogen epidemiology drive pathogen genetic diversity, spillover, and emergence

Abstract When several factors align, pathogens that normally infect wildlife can spill over into the human population. If pathogen transmission within the human population is self-sustaining, or rapidly evolves to be self sustaining, novel human pathogens can emerge. Although many factors influence the likelihood of spillover and emergence, the rate of contact between humans and wildlife is critical. Thus, for those pathogens inhabiting wildlife reservoirs with pronounced seasonal fluctuations in population density, it is broadly recognized that spillover risk also varies with season. What remains unknown, however, is the extent to which seasonal fluctuations in reservoir populations influence the evolutionary dynamics of pathogens in ways that affect the likelihood of emergence. Here, we use mathematical models and stochastic simulations to show that seasonal fluctuations in reservoir population densities lead to seasonal increases in genetic variation within pathogen populations and thus influence the waiting time for mutations capable of sustained human-to-human transmission. These seasonal increases in genetic variation also lead to elevated risk of emergence at predictable times of year.
Quantitative Nanoinfrared Spectroscopy of Anisotropic van der Waals Materials.

Anisotropic dielectric tensors of uniaxial van der Waals (vdW) materials are difficult to investigate at infrared frequencies. The small dimensions of high-quality exfoliated crystals prevent the u...
Cleavage of ethers and demethylation of lignin in acidic concentrated lithium bromide (ACLB) solution

The methoxyl group is the most abundant functional group of lignin and affects the properties, reactivity, and application of lignin. Efficient demethylation is always of interest in the area of lignin chemistry and application. This study demonstrated a new method for cleaving ether compounds and demethylating lignin in acidic concentrated lithium bromide (ACLB) solution under mild conditions. It was found that the ACLB system could universally cleave ether compounds except for diaryl ethers. The study on lignin model compounds (creosol, syringol, and 1,2,3-trimethoxybenzene) verified that ACLB could demethylate them to corresponding phenols. Four real lignin samples produced from various sources by different methods were also efficiently demethylated by 69–82% in ACLB. The lignin demethylation resulted in more phenolic hydroxyl groups, which benefits some downstream applications of lignin. This study also provided new insights into the cleavage of the ether bonds in lignin. In addition to the methyl–aryl ether bond, ACLB could cleave other ether bonds of lignin in β-O-4, β-5, and β-β structures except for the 4-O-5 bond in the diphenyl structure. The ether bonds were cleaved via the SN2 substitution except for the β-O-4 bond, which was primarily cleaved via the benzyl cation and enol ether intermediates, leading to Hibbert's ketones. Some of the β-O-4 structures were transformed into benzodioxane (BD) structures, which were stable in the ACLB system.
Period-color and amplitude-color relations in classical Cepheid variables

In this paper we analyze the behavior of Galactic, LMC and SMC Cepheids in terms of period-color (PC) and amplitude-color (AC) diagrams at the phases of maximum, mean and minimum light. We find very different behavior between Galactic and Magellanic Cloud Cepheids. Motivated by the recent report of a break in LMC PC relations at 10 days (Tammann et al. 2002), we use the F-statistical test to examine the PC relations at mean light in these three galaxies. The results of the F-test support the existence of the a break in the LMC PC(mean) relation, but not in the Galactic or SMC PC(mean) relations. Furthermore, the LMC Cepheids also show a break at minimum light, which is not seen in the Galactic and SMC Cepheids. We further discuss the effect on the period-luminosity relations in the LMC due to the break in the PC(mean) relation.
How does Covid-19 affect urban slums? Evidence from settlement leaders in India

Slum settlements have received significant attention for their vulnerabilities to the spread of Covid-19. To mitigate risks of transmission, and alleviate economic distress associated with containment measures, public health experts and international agencies are calling for community-driven solutions that harness local participation. In slum settlements, such approaches will encounter the informal slum leaders present across cities of the Global South. How are slum leaders positioned to address the health and livelihood threats of the pandemic within their neighborhoods? What problem-solving activities, if any, have they performed for residents during the pandemic? What factors shape success in those efforts? To answer these questions, we conducted a phone survey of 321 slum leaders across 79 slum settlements in two north Indian cities. The survey was conducted in April and May 2020, at the height of India's stringent national lockdown in response to the virus. Our survey reveals striking continuities with pre-pandemic politics. First, slum leaders persist in their problem-solving roles, even as they shift their efforts towards requesting urgently needed government relief (particularly food rations). Second, slum leaders vary in their reported ability to gather information about relief schemes, make claims, and command government responsiveness. The factors that inform the effectiveness of slum leaders during 'normal times', notably their education and degree of embeddedness in party networks, continue to do so during the lockdown. Slum leader reliance on partisan networks raises concerns regarding the inclusiveness of their efforts. Finally, slums are not uniformly challenged in maintaining social distancing. Pre-pandemic disparities in infrastructural development fragment the degree to which residents must depart from social distancing guidelines to secure essential services.
Do Reelection Incentives Improve Policy Implementation? Accountability versus Political Targeting

Do Reelection Incentives Improve Policy Implementation? Accountability versus Political Targeting
Free Tissue Transfer for Patients with Chronic Lower Extremity Wounds

Chronic lower extremity wounds are defined as wounds that fail to heal within 3 months of defect onset. Free tissue transfer offers an opportunity for limb salvage and length preservation. Preoperative optimization includes a medical and nutritional consult, complete work-up by vascular surgery, and an analysis of bony stability and gait biomechanics by podiatric surgery. In the authors' practice, the thigh has proved the workhorse donor site and offers fasciocutaneous and muscle-based flaps depending on defect characteristics. Postoperative care requires early monitoring for flap compromise and continued long-term follow-up for wound recurrence.