cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Expression of Myopodin Induces Suppression of Tumor Growth and Metastasis

Myopodin was previously reported as a gene that was frequently deleted in prostate cancer. This gene shares significant homology with a cell shape-regulating gene, synaptopodin. Myopodin was shown to bind actin and to induce actin bundling when cells were stimulated. To clarify the functional role of myopodin in prostate cancer, several assays were performed to evaluate the tumor suppression activity of myopodin. Our results indicate that myopodin inhibits tumor growth and invasion both in vitro and in vivo. The activity of tumor suppression of myopodin is located at the C-terminus region. To further evaluate the role of myopodin in suppressing the invasiveness of prostate cancer, an expression analysis of myopodin protein was performed in prostate tissues. The results indicate that down-regulation of myopodin expression occurs mostly in invasive stages of prostate cancer, implying a potential invasion suppression role for myopodin in prostate cancer. In addition, hemizygous deletion and down-regulation of myopodin expression occur in three aggressive prostate cancer cell lines. All these results support the hypothesis that myopodin functions as a tumor suppressor gene to limit the growth and to inhibit the metastasis of cancer cells.
The small family in China

Il y a une speculation que la politique d’un enfant a la Chine change les experances des parents urbains. Cette etude est conduite a trouver des avis de la generation premiere que elever un seul enfant au sujet de ce role non-traditionel. Un exemple des 150 meres et peres d’un enfant de 6 a 13 ans ont fini leQuestionnaire de Parent Forces et Besoins qui decrit six aspects d’etre parent: la satisfaction, le succes, l’enseignement, la difficulte, la frustration, et le besoin des informations. On a examine les propres impressions par rapport au sexe des parents et des enfants. Les resultats comprennent: 1. La plupart des parents sentenaient qu’ils ont fait un bon travaille pour elever leur seul enfant. 2. Chaque sous-groupe parental a identifie l’enseignement comme leur force et le manque des informations concernant l’experience a grandir de leur enfant comme leur limitation principale. 3. Les meres croyaient qu’elles avaient plus de succes; et les peres, par contraste, pensaient qu’ils avaient moins de succes. 4. Les peres d’aujourd’hui sont plus engages dans le soin des enfants et dans l’instruction aux enfants que les peres d’autrefois. 5. Les parents des fils connaissaient plus des difficultes et deceptions que les parents des filles, et 6. Une cross-sexe relation a influence quelques aspects pour elever les enfants, particulierement, l’enseignement. Existe un gran interes en determinar como la legislacion que, en China, limita a los matrimonios a tener un solo hijo, esta cambiando las expectativas de los padres que habitan centros urbanos. Este estudio fue conducido para determina como la primera generacion que cria un solo nino, percibe esa funcion no tradicional. Un grupo de 150 madres y padres de hijos unicos, entre las edades de 6 a 13 anos, completaron el “Inventario de Idoneidad y Necesidades Paternas”, que describe seis aspectos inherentes a los padres: satisficcion, suceso, ensenanza, dificultad, frustracion y necesidad de informacion. Las impresiones personales fueron evaluadas teniendo en cuenta el sexo de cada padre y cada nino. Las conclusiones arribadas indicaron que: 1. La mayoria de los padres consideran que estan haciendo un buen trabajo on criar un solo nino; 2. Cada subgrupo de padres, considera que ensenar es su area de mayor conocimiento, y la falta de experiencia acerea del crecimiento de los ninos, su mayor limitacion; 3. Las madres, en general, se consideran mas exitosas en su cometido que lo que se consideran los padres; 4. Los hombres se envuelven en la instruccion y cuidado del nino, mucho mas que los padres del pasado; 5. Los padres criando varones experimentaron dificultades y fructraciones mas grandes que aquellos criando ninas; y 6. La relacion de padres a hijos de sexo opuesto, influencia ciertos aspectos de la crianza, particularmente, el de la ensenanza.
Preparation of 125I-labeled secretin of high specific radioactivity

A simple and rapid method of preparing 125I-labeled secretin of high specific radioactivity has been developed. Synthetic porcine secretin was iodinated with Na[125I] by a modification of the chloramine T method. Purification and separation of labeled from unlabeled secretin was achieved by chromatography on SP-Sephadex C-25 column. The labeled secretin possessed specific radioactivity as high as 500–550 μCi/μg.
Investigating motivations and expectations of asking a question in social Q&A

Social Q&A (SQA) has rapidly grown in popularity, impacting people’s information seeking behaviors. Although previous research has examined how people seek and share information within SQA, fundamental questions of user motivations and expectations for information seeking remain. This paper applies the theoretical framework of uses and gratification theory to investigate the motivations for SQA use, and adapts relevance criteria from library and information science (LIS) literature to investigate expectations with regard to evaluation of content within SQA site Yahoo! Answers. A total of 75 Yahoo! Answers users participated in a survey that asked them about reasons, methods, and expectations relating to asking questions within the SQA site. Findings indicate the importance of motivations and expectations in fulfilling both cognitive and socio–affective needs based upon the type of task performed. These findings provide encouraging evidence that understanding the interrelationship between the motivations behind and expectations of asking a question can inform a more holistic framework to assess information.
Effect of surface conduction on charge relaxation in partially filled vessels

Abstract The decay of electrostatic charge within a conducting vessel partially filled with charged liquid is slowed by the temporary accumulation of a portion of the initial charge at the free surface of the liquid. This effect will prolong the period of exposure to vapor ignition hazards due to electrostatic discharge, especially when the fill level approaches 100%. However, if surface conduction is taken into account, surface charge accumulation tends to be offset by opposite sign charge flowing in from the conducting side walls. In this paper, the existing model for charge relaxation in partially filled conducting cylindrical vessels is modified to account for surface conduction. The principal result is that the extrinsic relaxation time constants associated with the modal solution are reduced. A dimensionless modulus is identified that compares the surface and volume conduction mechanisms and indicates that the effect of surface conduction is inversely proportional to the absolute vessel diameter. When the vessel diameter is small or when the surface conductivity is sufficiently high, the relaxation time for the electric field in the vapor space is reduced below the intrinsic charge relaxation time of the liquid. The practical implication of these results is that surface conduction can easily dominate in establishing the rate of decay of the electric field in the vapor space.
Charge-balancing current integrator with large dynamic range

Abstract A simple circuit based on the popular 3140 amplifier has a sensitivity of 10 pC/count and a useful input current range from 1 pA to 10 μA. Apart from an input leakage current of the order of 0.1 pA, the circuit is linear and stable to approximately 0.1%. During overload, pulses are issued at a maximum rate and for sufficiently brief overloads the error in integrated current remains small. The circuit is easily converted from one input polarity to the other.
Profile of the sensitive period for monocular deprivation in kittens.

Thirteen kittens were subjected to 10–12 days of unilateral eye closure at ages spaced regularly through the first 4 months after birth. At the end of each kitten's period of monocular vision, the degree of functional disconnection between the deprived eye and neurons in striate cortex was assessed by means of single-unit recording. When the proportion of cortical cells giving no response to stimulation through the deprived eye was analyzed as a function of the kitten's age at the onset of eye closure, it was found that the effectiveness of monocular deprivation rose prior to postnatal day 28, remained high through day 48 and then subsided gradually, probably persisting at least through the end of the fourth postnatal month. The degree of functional modifiability persisting in the visual cortex of older kittens may be related to the initial ocular dominance of each neuron. Cells responsive exclusively to the deprived eye prior to deprivation probably do not acquire functional input from the nondeprived eye in kittens older than 48 days, for a normal proportion of such cells is encountered after the period of eye closure. Conversely, cells dominated by the nondeprived eye probably are most likely to lose their input from the deprived eye, as indicated by the columnar organization of cells not responsive to the deprived eye.
Oral and intravenous trichloroethylene pharmacokinetics in the rat

The pharmacokinetics of trichloroethylene (TCE) was studied in wale Sprague‐Dawley rats (300–350 g). TCE was administered intravenously and orally at doses of 5, 10, and 25 mg/kg to nonfasted rats and orally at 10 mg/kg to rats fasted for 8–10 h. The disappearance of TCE from the blood of intravenously dosed animals was best described by a two‐compartment open pharmacokinetic model. The volume of the central compartment (VC) approximated the rats’ blood volume (50–70 ml/kg). The volume distribution (Vβ) and total body clearance (CLT) decreased with increase in dose. The terminal half‐life (t½>) was about 120 min and was not affected by increases in dose. TCE was rapidly absorbed after oral dosing, with blood concentrations peaking between 6 and 10 min. The oral to intravenous bioavailability of TCE was 60–80% in nonfasted animals. The terminal t½> in fasted, orally dosed rats was identical to that when fasted rats were given the same dose intravenously. In fasted rats, bioavailability of an oral dose was ...
Behavioral consequences of chelator administration in acute cadmium toxicity.

The conditioned flavor-aversion paradigm was used to assess the toxicity of acutely administered cadmium and the interaction of cadmium with the heavy-metal chelating agents dimercaprol (BAL) and dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA). Shortly after consuming saccharin, rats received ip administration of cadmium either alone or in combination with sc administration of BAL or DMSA. Three days later they were given the choice between consuming saccharin or water, and saccharin preferences were recorded. When compared to rats receiving either nothing or the vehicle, rats receiving cadmium displayed significant reductions in saccharin preference (i.e., conditioned flavor aversions). BAL and DMSA were also capable of producing conditioned flavor aversions when given alone. Rats receiving cadmium in combination with either BAL or DMSA displayed significant, but not complete attenuations of conditioned flavor aversions when compared to the flavor aversions of rats receiving cadmium alone. Chelator-induced blockade of cadmium-induced flavor-aversion conditioning was not obtained when BAL or DMSA administration was delayed by 4 hr. Attenuation of cadmium-induced aversions by BAL and DMSA extends earlier findings of an attenuation of lead-induced flavor-aversion conditioning by these complexing agents, and thus demonstrates further the utility of the flavor-aversion conditioning paradigm in characterizing metal-chelator interactions.
Insulin Regulates TRB3 and Other Stress-Responsive Gene Expression through Induction of C/EBPβ

Pseudokinase TRB3 is an inducible gene whose expression is regulated by stress response and insulin and associated with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. In this report, we have investigated the mechanism under which insulin regulates TRB3 gene expression and demonstrated that insulin induces TRB3 expression via C/EBPbeta. We found that in Fao hepatoma and 3T3-L1 adipocytes, C/EBPbeta expression induced by insulin preceded that of TRB3 and that mutation of the C/EBPbeta binding site in TRB3 promoter abolished the responsiveness of the TRB3 gene to insulin. We further showed that ectopic expression of C/EBPbeta augmented, whereas knockdown of C/EBPbeta reduced, TRB3 expression induced by insulin. In addition, we presented data to show that insulin, through a similar mechanism under which insulin induces TRB3 expression, promotes the expression of genes such as ANAS, ATF3, BIP, and CHOP, which are typical stress-responsive genes. We also examined the impact of C/EBPbeta expression on Akt activation and found that inaction of C/EBPbeta not only augmented Akt activation but also obliterated the suppression of Akt activation due to prolonged insulin stimulation. We suggest, through induction of C/EBPbeta in hepatic cells and adipocytes, that insulin induces the expression of stress-responsive genes, which may represent a novel insulin action.
An Early Intervention Program for Adolescent Mothers: A Nursing Demonstration Project

Objective To improve health outcomes in a vulnerable population of adolescent mothers and their infants. Design Effects of an intensive early intervention program (EIP) are compared with those of traditional public health nursing (TPHN) care. Setting A large California county with urban and rural communities, an ethnically diverse population, and a high teen birth rate. Participants One hundred twenty-one young mothers and their children from impoverished and predominantly minority backgrounds. Interventions During pregnancy and through 1 year postpartum, participants (n = 63) in the EIP were provided with 4 prenatal classes and approximately 17 home visits by specially trained public health nurses. Interventions addressed health issues, sexuality and family planning, life skills, the maternal role, and social support systems. Participants in TPHN (n = 58) received three home visits (for intake, prenatal care, and postpartum/well-baby care information). Main Outcome Measures Antepartum, intrapartum, and newborn medical records; maternal responses to written questionnaires; and nurse interviews. Results Early program outcomes indicate reduced premature birth rates for both groups compared with national data on adolescent mothers, and fewer days of infant hospitalization during the first 6 weeks postpartum for the EIP participants. Conclusion Public health nurse care (both traditional and intensive) significantly improved perinatal outcomes; the intensive intervention significantly reduced the number of infant hospitalization days.
Nature of the Medical Encounter

The medical interview has become an increasingly important diagnostic and therapeutic tool in the era of managed care. This article reviews the current literature on the relationship between specific interviewing skills and outcomes of care. In the context of three clinical vignettes, these results are discussed in relationship to interviewing geriatric patients.
Contagious equine metritis

Contagious equine metritis (CEM) is a highly contagious venereal infection of equids caused by Taylorella equigenitalis, a bacterium with fastidious growth requirements. A disease of major international concern, CEM can be the cause of short-term infertility and, very rarely, abortion in mares. Unlike the mare, stallions exposed to T. equigenitalis do not develop clinical signs of disease. CEM is transmitted by direct or indirect venereal contact. The carrier state occurs in the mare and the stallion and carrier animals are frequently the source of infection for new outbreaks of the disease. There are streptomycin-sensitive and -resistant biotypes of T. equigenitalis, and diagnosis is based primarily on culture of the bacterium from its predilection sites in the reproductive tract of the mare and the stallion. Treatment modalities are available for elimination of the carrier state. Prevention and control of CEM is achievable through a comprehensive programme of breeding farm management that includes early detection and treatment of carrier mares and stallions.
Mapping Deception: The Politics of Mapping Miskito and Garifuna Space in Honduras

In Latin America, indigenous and Afro-descendant land movements find traction in participatory mapping projects. The success of these projects is measured in a variety of ways: from the abatement o...
A possible role of habituation in the sexual behaviour of male mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis Baird & Girard)

L'habituation serait un mecanisme qui empeche les mâles de G.a. de passer trop de temps avec une seule femelle, leur permettant ainsi de feconder un plus grand nombre de femelles
Multilayer anode with orthogonal serpentine delay lines for high-spatial-resolution readout of microchannel plate detectors

We have designed, built, and tested the first successful imaging microchannel-plate (MCP) detector that uses two orthogonal, printed circuit, serpentine delay lines in a three-dimensional architecture. Laser-ablation machining is used to cut slots that allow delay lines in two layers parallel to the MCP to sample and read out x and y image positions. Previous anodes that use delay-line timing to read out both dimensions of an image employ a wire-would anode. The goal of this readout is to provide as many picture elements (pixels) as possible in two dimensions, with high temporal resolution, high throughput, high dynamic range, and good spatial linearity. This detector achieves this goal with off-the-shelf electronics and is robust for space flight. The full width half maximum spatial resolution is 32 micrometers at the center of the detector and is typically < 35 micrometers throughout the detector. The rms linearity is 40 micrometers in each readout dimension, after applying only radial corrections for fringe field effects near the perimeter, and < 20 micrometers after applying additional simple (1- dimensional) corrections. We discuss fabrication techniques.
Rent extraction with a type-by-type scheme: An instrument to incorporate sustainable development into the CDM

Although the CDM is supposed to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable development, sustainable development is not incorporated into the market aspect of the CDM. By participating in the CDM, developing countries may end up losing all cheap emissions reduction possibilities, while obtaining little sustainability benefits. This paper proposes rent extraction with a type-by-type scheme as an instrument to incorporate sustainable development into the CDM. The rent extraction with a type-by-type scheme makes it possible for the CDM host country government to discourage the low-cost projects that have little sustainability benefits, and to extract more rent from the projects that are developed. The main challenge of implementing this instrument is the uncertainty of the opportunity cost, but the host country government can adjust the scheme for the uncertainty to achieve its goal. Therefore, the type-by-type scheme will better assist the host country in achieving sustainable development than a single-rate scheme.
Update in Hospital Medicine

This Update summarizes important papers from 2004 for physicians with active inpatient practices. It covers hospitalist comanagement, atrial fibrillation, chronic heart failure, pulmonary embolism,...
Effects of Zeeman degeneracy on the steady-state properties of an atom interacting with a near-resonant laser field: Resonance flourescence

Effects of the atomic Zeeman degeneracy on the resonance fluorescence spectrum of a closed two-level atom with arbitrary ground-state angular momentum ${\mathit{J}}_{\mathit{g}}$ and excited-state, angular momentum ${\mathit{J}}_{\mathit{e}}$ are studied in detail. Especially interesting are the narrow structures due to the spontaneous Raman scattering and the incoherent Rayleigh scattering. Results for the cycling transition of a Cs atom are presented as part of the examples.
Mohs fixed-tissue excision of dentoalveolar bone in canines: A histologic evaluation

Mohs surgery is a well-established surgical technique that involves conservative, microscopically guided excision of malignant lesions, thereby sparing the maximum amount of normal surrounding tissue. Current surgical therapy for oral cancer frequently involves resection with wide margins, resulting in significant cosmetic and functional deficits. This pilot study used the Mohs technique for in situ fixation and excision of maxillary and mandibular bone in mongrel dogs. Histologic examination of the excisional sites was carried out at 8 weeks to examine changes in the surrounding bone, periodontal ligament, and dental pulp of adjacent teeth. The findings suggest that zinc chloride fixative paste does not result in destruction of the dental pulp or surrounding dentoalveolar bone of teeth in the vicinity of a fixed-tissue excision. The Mohs fixed-tissue technique may allow preservation of oral structures that would otherwise be sacrificed in the presence of bony tumor involvement.
Lung disease in the very immature neonate: radiographic and microscopic correlation.

Radiographic-pathologic correlation of pulmonary patterns has not been performed in very small preterm infants below 28 weeks of gestation. The radiologic findings of linear intersititial densities or generalized airspace opacity coincided with histologic changes of edema and hemorrhage and indicate that this is the most frequent abnormality producing radiographic pulmonary opacification in infants of 23–27 weeks gestation. On occasion, parenchymal immaturity alone results in lung opacification, reflecting the established interpretation of diffuse atelecatasis as the histologic-radiographic finding in respiratory distress syndrome.
X-linked hereditary hemihypotrophy hemiparesis hemiathetosis†

Hereditary hemihypotrophy hemiparesis hemiathetosis syndrome (HHHH; OMIM 306960) was first reported in a family with congenital left hemiplegia in two males and moderately affected females. We describe a family with three males demonstrating congenital right hemiplegia with porencephalic lesions of the left internal capsule and putamen, or the periventricular white matter just above the internal capsule. Clinical findings within each family are limited to the same side, though sidedness differed between families. Both pedigrees were most consistent with X-linked inheritance. Genome-wide linkage analysis in our family further supports a locus for HHHH on chromosome X.
Disrobing judges with veiled truths: An early Ismā‘īlī Torah interpretation (ta'wīl) in service of the Fātimid mission

Abstract It has long been known that in the tenth century, missionaries for a Shi‘ite Islamic sect known as the Ismā‘ilis interpreted stories from the Torah and Gospels. The prevailing theory holds that the Ismā‘ilis composed extra-Qur’ānic ta'wil (allegorical interpretation) to proselytise Jews and Christians. A close analysis of a ta'wil of the biblical story of Judah and Tamar by the missionary Ja‘far ibn Man s ūr al-Yaman (d. ca. 960) suggests, however, that when early Ismā‘ili authors interpreted Torah, they did so for a Muslim audience within an Islamic polemical milieu.
Most-to-least prompting and social rewards can facilitate responding to joint attention in sessions very similar to the training context in children with autism1

Does prompting and social reinforcement increase responding to and initiating bids of ‘joint attention’ in children with autism? 1 Abstracted from: Taylor, B. A., & Hoch, H. (2008). Teaching childr...
Cardiac dysfunction in the euglycemic diabetic-prone BB Wor rat

The purpose of this study was to examine cardiac function in the diabetic-prone BB Wor rat. The study involved 2 groups: diabetic resistant control littermates of BB rats and diabetic-prone BB rats that had yet to demonstrate overt signs of diabetes. Hearts from these animals were isolated and cardiac function examined in response to incremental increases in left atrial filling pressure. Hearts were also perfused at an increased aortic afterload resistance with buffer consisting of glucose alone or glucose in the presence of palmitate. Hearts from diabetic-prone rats exhibited depressed contractility and ventricular relaxation at high filling pressures. Ventricular function, expressed as cardiac output, was also depressed in diabetic-prone rats perfused at increased afterload resistance, but only in the presence of palmitate. Our results indicate that hearts from diabetic-prone BB Wor rats demonstrate abnormalities in contractile performance and thus may be a useful model for the study of cardiac function in the prediabetic state.
The Effect of Charge-Charge Interactions on the Kinetics of α-Helix Formation

The formation of the monomeric α-helix represents one of the simplest scenarios in protein folding; however, our current understanding of the folding dynamics of the α-helix motif is mainly based on studies of alanine-rich model peptides. To examine the effect of peptide sequence on the folding kinetics of α-helices, we studied the relaxation kinetics of a 21-residue helical peptide, Conantokin-T (Con-T), using time-resolved infrared spectroscopy in conjunction with a laser-induced temperature jump technique. Con-T is a neuroactive peptide containing a large number of charged residues that is found in the venom of the piscivorous cone snail Conus tulipa. The temperature-jump relaxation kinetics of Con-T is distinctly slower than that of previously studied alanine-based peptides, suggesting that the folding time of α-helices is sequence-dependent. Furthermore, it appears that the slower folding of Con-T can be attributed to the fact that its helical conformation is stabilized by charge-charge interactions or salt bridges. Although this finding contradicts an earlier molecular dynamics simulation, it also has implications for existing models of protein folding.
Laser-excited raman spectroscopy of biomolecules. III. Native bovine serum albumin and β-lactoglobulin

Abstract Raman spectra of aqueous bovine serum albumin (20 mg/ml, pH 7) and β-lactoglobulin (48 mg/ml, pH 5.8) have been obtained with 4880 A radiation of an argonion laser. Some thiry Raman lines were observed for each protein in the range 500–1600 cm −1 , about half of which are assigned to functional groups of the constituent amino acids. From the intensities and positions of the amide III lines near 1250 cm −1 , it appears that β-lactoglobulin is predominantly in a random-coil form under the conditions of observation. The amide III lines of bovine serum albumin are less clearcut, but are consistent with a higher proportion of ordered structure than is found in β-lactoglobulin.
In vivo incorporation of labeled amino acids during early stages of collagen biosynthesis.

Abstract The biosynthesis of collagen has been extensively studied in many tissues by following the rate of uptake of labeled amino acids. These studies have been reviewed recently ( Jackson and Bentley, 1960 ). The various fractions reported by different workers all appear to arise by dispersion of tissue collagen aggregates into the constituent tropocollagen molecules, having specific physico-chemical properties ( Gross, Highberger and Schmitt, 1954 ). The fraction extracted with O. 14M NaCl, however, appears to contain the most recently synthesized collagen ( Jackson and Bentley, 1960 ) and hence is the most important fraction to study in the early stages of collagen biosynthesis. In most studies involving the uptake of isotopically labeled amino acids into collagen a regular pattern was observed showing a rise to a peak of activity followed by a fall to a minimum level. The time of peak activity and the rates of rise and fall depended on the type of extraction procedure and the tissue used, but in general only one peak of radioactivity has been observed. In carrying out experiments in which much earlier, and more frequent time points were studied than had been previously reported, we have noted an unexpected variation in the pattern of amino acid incorporation, both in skin and in open wound granulation tissue. It is the purpose of this report to describe and offer a possible explanation for the double peak uptake curve observed.
Distinguishing signs of opioid overdose and indication for naloxone: an evaluation of six overdose training and naloxone distribution programs in the United States

Aims This study assessed overdose and naloxone administration knowledge among current or former opioid abusers trained and untrained in overdose–response in the United States. Design and participants Ten individuals, divided equally between those trained or not trained in overdose recognition and response, were recruited from each of six sites (n = 62). Setting US-based overdose training and naloxone distribution programs in Baltimore, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and New Mexico. Measurements Participants completed a brief questionnaire on overdose knowledge that included the task of rating 16 putative overdose scenarios for: (i) whether an overdose was occurring and (ii) if naloxone was indicated. Bivariate and multivariable analyses compared results for those trained to untrained. Responses were also compared to those of 11 medical experts using weighted and unweighted kappa statistics. Findings Respondents were primarily male (72.6%); 45.8% had experienced an overdose and 72% had ever witnessed an overdose. Trained participants recognized more opioid overdose scenarios accurately (t60 = 3.76, P < 0.001) and instances where naloxone was indicated (t59 = 2.2, P < 0.05) than did untrained participants. Receipt of training and higher perceived competency in recognizing signs of an opioid overdose were associated independently with higher overdose recognition scores. Trained respondents were as skilled as medical experts in recognizing opioid overdose situations (weighted kappa = 0.85) and when naloxone was indicated (kappa = 1.0). Conclusions Results suggest that naloxone training programs in the United States improve participants' ability to recognize and respond to opioid overdoses in the community. Drug users with overdose training and confidence in their abilities to respond may effectively prevent overdose mortality.
Intrauterine Immunoglobulin in the Prevention of Neonatal Hemochromatosis

Neonatal hemochromatosis (NH), although rare, is the most common cause of liver failure in the neonate. This disorder is associated with extrahepatic siderosis and has been called neonatal iron storage disease. The pathogene sis was a mystery until 2004, when Peter Whitington hypothesized that NH may be an immune-mediated disorder. Clinical and laboratory findings demonstrate liver failure but usually are nonspecific. Evidence of extrahepatic siderosis by magnetic resonance imaging with decreased intensity of T2-weighted sequences of specific organs confirms the diagnosis. Treatment of NH is challenging, and survival rates are dismal despite medical agents (ie, iron chelators and antioxidants) or liver transplantation. Recently, NH has been prevented in subsequent pregnancies by administering intrauterine immunoglobulin to pregnant women, changing NH from a lethal to a nonlethal disease.
Perception of partly occluded objects in infancy

Abstract Four-month-old infants sometimes can perceive the unity of a partly hidden object. In each of a series of experiments, infants were habituated to one object whose top and bottom were visible but whose center was occluded by a nearer object. They were then tested with a fully visible continuous object and with two fully visible object pieces with a gap where the occluder had been. Patterns of dishabituation suggested that infants perceive the boundaries of a partly hidden object by analyzing the movements of its surfaces: infants perceived a connected object when its ends moved in a common translation behind the occluder. Infants do not appear to perceive a connected object by analyzing the colors and forms of surfaces: they did not perceive a connected object when its visible parts were stationary, its color was homogeneous, its edges were aligned, and its shape was simple and regular. These findings do not support the thesis, from gestalt psychology, that object perception first arises as a consequence of a tendency to perceive the simplest, most regular configuration, or the Piagetian thesis that object perception depends on the prior coordination of action. Perception of objects may depend on an inherent conception of what an object is.
Sensitivity of Microsegregation Predictions to the Description of Phase Equilibria

A numerical model has been developed to predict the element distribution and some microstructural features in dendritically solidified binary and ternary alloys. Phase diagrams calculated on the basis of thermodynamic functions are taken into account. Thus, a minimum of assumptions is needed to describe the equilibrium at the solid/liquid interface, the partition coefficient of an alloying element is allowed to change as a function of temperature and concentration of other alloying elements. The description of the equilibrium at the interface appears to be highly significant. Assuming a constant partition coefficient may be justified for some binary alloys, but the assumption has to be verified for each system. Small additions, like dopants or impurities, influence the position of equilibria in phase diagrams, thus requiring the treatment of basically binary alloys as multicomponent systems. In ternary or higher order alloys the assumption of constant partition coefficients leads to erroneous results. For microsegregation predictions in technical alloys realistic phase diagrams have to be taken into account.
Short-lived and Long-lived Bone Marrow Plasma Cells Are Derived from a Novel Precursor Population

The contribution that long-lived bone marrow (BM) plasma cells (PCs) provide to enduring humoral immunity has been underscored by a number of recent studies. However, little is known about the immediate precursors that give rise to long-lived PCs in the BM of immune individuals. We have identified subsets of antigen-experienced B cells within the immune BM that are precursors to PCs. These PC precursors arise in the BM 14 days after immunization and persist for greater than 9 months. Phenotypically distinct subsets of PC precursors give rise to short-lived or long-lived PCs. The differentiation of PC precursors to PCs occurs in the absence of antigen and requires cell division. The functional significance of these newly identified PC precursors in the persistence and quality of the humoral immune response is discussed.
Importance Sampling in the Heath-Jarrow-Morton Framework

As the only practical way to deal with most path-dependent instruments, Monte Carlo estimation is now one of the workhorses of modern derivatives valuation. It has the advantage of being relatively easy to implement in its basic form, and, given enough computer resources, it will converge asymptotically to the correct answer. Yet, once these general principles are acknowledged, one faces the fact that many problems have such high dimension that the basic Monte Carlo technique can require an enormous number of simulations before convergence to a reasonably accurate answer is achieved. Some variance reduction techniques, like the use of antithetic variables, are helpful and easy to apply, but limited in effectiveness. Others, like non-random sample selection through use of stratified sampling or importance sampling, may depart from the basic, fully random Monte Carlo technique but can produce enormous improvement in performance in some cases. This article presents a remarkably effective simulation technique for high-dimensional problems that combines stratification with importance sampling, so that the simulation sample closely matches the desired probability distribution and resolution is maximized in the regions that are most important for the value of the derivative instrument.
Do natural container habitats impede invader dominance? Predator-mediated coexistence of invasive and native container-dwelling mosquitoes

Predator-mediated coexistence of competitors occurs when a species that is superior in competition is also more vulnerable to a shared predator compared to a poorer competitor. The invasive mosquito Aedes albopictus is usually competitively superior to Ochlerotatus triseriatus. Among second instar larvae, A. albopictus show a lesser degree of behavioral modification in response to water-borne cues from predation by the larval midge Corethrella appendiculata than do O. triseriatus, rendering A. albopictus more vulnerable to predation by C. appendiculata than O. triseriatus. The hypothesis that C. appendiculata predation favors coexistence of these competitors predicts that C. appendiculata abundances will be negatively and positively correlated with A. albopictus and O. triseriatus abundances, respectively, and that coexistence will occur where C. appendiculata are common. Actual abundances of O. triseriatus, A. albopictus, and C. appendiculata in three habitats fit this prediction. In natural container habitats like tree holes, C. appendiculata were abundant and competitors co-existed at similar densities. In cemeteries and tires, which occur primarily in non-forested, human-dominated habitats, A. albopictus dominated, with abundances twice those found in tree holes, but C. appendiculata and O. triseriatus were rare or absent. We also tested for whether antipredatory behavioral responses of A. albopictus differed among habitats or populations, or were correlated with local C. appendiculata abundances. We could detect no differences in A. albopictus antipredatory behavioral responses to water-borne cues from predation. Tree hole habitats appear to promote co-existence of O. triseriatus and A. albopictus through interactions with predatory C. appendiculata, and this predator effect appears to limit invasion success of A. albopictus in tree holes. There are many studies on predator-mediated coexistence in natural habitats but to our knowledge this is the first study to suggest differential predator-mediated coexistence between natural and man-made habitats.
Feasibility of tera-bps smart pixel arrays using monolithic emitter-based optoelectronic VLSI circuits

Epitaxy-on-electronics (EoE) optoelectronic integration technology is an economical GaAs VLSI process and monolithically integrates heterostructure devices such as emitters, detectors, or modulators to produce complex and manufacturable optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs). We explores EoE's short-term potential to produce 1 tera-bit/s/cm/sup 2/ smart pixel arrays. The issues of pixel density, processing complexity, electronic and optoelectronic bandwidth, and thermal management will be addressed in detail, along with the technical and economic advantages of using GaAs VLSI electronics rather than CMOS.
Analyzing the impact of on-chip network traffic on program phases for CMPs

It is known that the execution of programs exhibits repetitive phases; in other words, the execution of programs can be partitioned into segments of execution, during which the application exhibits unique architectural properties. This property has been used for various optimization goals. In addition, phase information is utilized to reduce the run time of the architectural simulation. Conventionally, an application is examined in an architecture-independent manner (such as the number of times a basic block is executed) to extract information about the phases and then only the representative execution intervals are executed to analyze architectural choices. We claim that such approaches are becoming inadequate in the many-core era as application execution is not dominated by the instructions only, but instead the communication structure of the application is becoming as important as the instruction behavior. Hence, we propose to utilize communication behavior to determine the phases of an application. Our results reveal that the inclusion of the communication information can increase the accuracy of the phase detection significantly. Specifically, for SPLASH2 and MineBench applications, the average (geometric mean) CPI error rate with the instruction-based phase detection is 11.01%, while our phase detection scheme has an average error rate of 3.41% when compared to the simulations that run the applications to completion.
Modeling of the steady-state disturbance term in isometric force using components of the power spectrum

The analysis of isometric force may provide early detection of certain types of neuropathology such as Parkinson's disease. Our long term goal is to determine if there are detectable differences between model parameters of healthy and unhealthy individuals. The participants in this study were twenty four healthy adults ages 18 through 24, both male and female. The experiments involved the participants exerting isometric force over a range from 5% to 65% of maximal voluntary contraction. The analysis involved the steady-state portion of the recorded time series. Five components of the power spectral density were extracted and used as features to classify the participants into two categories: (1) high strength; (2) low strength based upon the values of the five extracted spectral components. Even though the participants were all healthy and young the features exhibited enough differences to successfully classify 80% of the subjects into the proper category. This finding suggests that the 5-component model should be capable of discriminating between healthy individuals and those who are in an early stage of neurodegenerative disease.
Performance analysis of multirobot Cooperative localization

This paper studies the accuracy of position estimation for groups of mobile robots performing cooperative localization. We consider the case of teams comprised of possibly heterogeneous robots and provide analytical expressions for the upper bound on their expected positioning uncertainty. This bound is determined as a function of the sensors' noise covariance and the eigenvalues of the relative position measurement graph (RPMG), i.e., the weighted directed graph which represents the network of robot-to-robot exteroceptive measurements. The RPMG is employed as a key element in this analysis, and its properties are related to the localization performance of the team. It is shown that, for a robot group of a certain size, the maximum expected rate of uncertainty increase is independent of the accuracy and number of relative position measurements and depends only on the accuracy of the proprioceptive and orientation sensors on the robots. Additionally, the effects of changes in the topology of the RPMG are studied, and it is shown that, at steady-state, these reconfigurations do not inflict any loss in localization precision. Experimental data, as well as simulation results that validate the theoretical analysis, are presented
On the accuracy of decentralized virtual coordinate systems in adversarial networks

Virtual coordinate systems provide an accurate and efficient service that allows hosts on the Internet to determine the latency to arbitrary hosts without actively monitoring all nodes in the network. Many of the proposed virtual coordinate systems were designed with the assumption that all of the nodes in the system are altruistic. However, this assumption may be violated by compromised nodes acting maliciously to degrade the accuracy of the coordinate system. As numerous peer-to-peer applications rely on virtual coordinate systems to achieve good performance, it is critical to address the security of such systems.In this work, we demonstrate the vulnerability of decentralized virtual coordinate systems to insider (or Byzantine) attacks. We propose techniques to make the coordinate assignment robust to malicious attackers without increasing the communication cost. We demonstrate the attacks and mitigation techniques in the context of a well-known distributed virtual coordinate system using simulations based on three representative, real-life Internet topologies of hosts and corresponding round trip times (RTT).
Penetration of Ambient Fine Particles into the Indoor Environment

Several recent studies have indicated significant health risks associated with exposure to fine particles as measured outdoors. However, much of the exposure is believed to have occurred indoors. Consequently, there is considerable interest in the relationship between indoor and outdoor fine particles. This paper describes some results from a study in which the processes of particle removal from infiltrating air by building envelopes are simulated in a chamber. The chamber consists of two compartments, each having a volume of 19 m3. Particles with aerodynamic diameters in the range of 0.05 to 5
Countermeasures against Government-Scale Monetary Forgery

Physical cash is vulnerable to rising threats, such as large-scale, government-mandated forgeries, that digital cash may protect against more effectively. We study mechanisms to combine physical cash with digital cash to remove their respective shortcomings and obtain their combined advantages. We discuss initial mechanisms and examine their cost and benefit trade-offs.
Hazard rates for progression after radical prostatectomy for clinically localized prostate cancer

Abstract Objectives We calculated the annual hazard rate (HR) for prostate cancer recurrence after radical prostatectomy (RP) to elucidate the pattern of treatment failure over time and to assess the efficacy of definitive therapy. Methods We calculated the progression-free probabilities (PFP) and HRs after RP for a cohort of 611 consecutive men with clinically localized (cT1–2, NX, MO) prostate cancer and no other treatment before documented progression. Results PFP for the entire study population was 78% at 5 and 76% at 10 years. The highest HR (0.09) was observed in the year immediately after surgery and dropped to 0 by year 7 (no patient recurred after year 6). Average annual HRs calculated for 3-year intervals resulted in steadily declining HRs over time for the entire study population and for all subsets, except those with a cancer pathologically confined to the prostate. Overall, the more ominous the prognostic factor, the higher the initial HR. For poorly differentiated cancers (biopsy Gleason sum 8 to 10), the HR was high in years 1 and 2 and dropped rapidly to 0 thereafter. Conclusions Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) progression after RP usually occurred early (77% within the first 2 years) and was largely due to understaging. Late recurrences were rare in patients who were regularly evaluated with PSA. However, because the confidence intervals in our study were broad, larger patient populations with longer follow-up are needed for a definitive establishment of the time, course, and pattern of recurrence after surgery. UROLOGY 50, 93-99, 1997.
Semiparametric Principal Component Analysis

We propose two new principal component analysis methods in this paper utilizing a semiparametric model. The according methods are named Copula Component Analysis (COCA) and Copula PCA. The semiparametric model assumes that, after unspecified marginally monotone transformations, the distributions are multivariate Gaussian. The COCA and Copula PCA accordingly estimate the leading eigenvectors of the correlation and covariance matrices of the latent Gaussian distribution. The robust nonparametric rank-based correlation coefficient estimator, Spearman's rho, is exploited in estimation. We prove that, under suitable conditions, although the marginal distributions can be arbitrarily continuous, the COCA and Copula PCA estimators obtain fast estimation rates and are feature selection consistent in the setting where the dimension is nearly exponentially large relative to the sample size. Careful numerical experiments on the synthetic and real data are conducted to back up the theoretical results. We also discuss the relationship with the transelliptical component analysis proposed by Han and Liu (2012).