cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Bronchoscopic Utilization of the Nd:YAG Laser for Obstructing Lesions of the Trachea and Bronchi

The combination of recent technological developments in earlier detection of lung cancer, together with the simultaneous introduction of new palliative therapeutic tools, including the Nd:YAG laser, offers new hope in the treatment of lung carcinomas. Endobronchial usage of the Nd:YAG laser has provided a new technique to treat otherwise untreatable, obstructive malignant tumors, as well as the means to avoid the need for more extensive surgical procedures for benign lesions. It is important to quantify and translate this information to advanced science for optimal development and use.
Spontaneous vasomotion in pressurized cerebral arteries from genetically hypertensive rats.

Resistance-sized branches of posterior cerebral arteries from Wistar-Kyoto (WKY), spontaneously hypertensive (SHR), spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone (SHRSP), and antihypertensive-treated SHR...
Enabling factor analysis on thousand-subject neuroimaging datasets

The scale of functional magnetic resonance image data is rapidly increasing as large multi-subject datasets are becoming widely available and high-resolution scanners are adopted. The inherent low-dimensionality of the information in this data has led neuroscientists to consider factor analysis methods to extract and analyze the underlying brain activity. In this work, we consider two recent multi-subject factor analysis methods: the Shared Response Model and the Hierarchical Topographic Factor Analysis. We perform analytical, algorithmic, and code optimization to enable multi-node parallel implementations to scale. Single-node improvements result in 99χ and 2062x speedups on the two methods, and enables the processing of larger datasets. Our distributed implementations show strong scaling of 3.3x and 5.5χ respectively with 20 nodes on real datasets. We demonstrate weak scaling on a synthetic dataset with 1024 subjects, equivalent in size to the biggest fMRI dataset collected until now, on up to 1024 nodes and 32,768 cores.
DNA Methylation of the hTERT Gene in Breast Cancer Revisited: Diagnostic and Clinical Implications.

Background: It is documented that in tumor cell lines, the hTERT gene exhibits prominent methylation at a CpG island rich region about -600 bp upstream of the transcription start site, but mixed or allelically absent around ±150 bp region. Given the potential clinical implications of the findings in breast cancer diagnostics, we set out to investigate if such findings are reproducible on primary surgically resected invasive breast carcinomas. Methods: The cohort consisted of 50 cases of freshly sampled and formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) invasive breast cancers and normal tissue. A modified quasi-quantitative methylation specific polymerase chain reaction was used to determine methylation status in cancer relative to normal tissue at the 2 CpG island-rich regions. Results: A global hypermethylation is evident at the –600 bp region in both fresh and parallel FFPE breast cancers as compared to normal tissue. In contrast, most of the tumor and normal tissue remains unmethylated around the ±150 bp region. Conclusions: Our results support further development of hTERT hypermethylation in the –600 bp region as a biomarker for breast cancer diagnostics. The unmethylated status of ±150 bp region in normal breast tissue does not support the suggestion that unmethylation is required for hTERT gene expression. * Abbreviations : ADH : atypical ductal hyperplasia DCIS : ductal carcinoma in situ FFPE : formalin-fixed paraffin embedded MS-PCR : methylation specific polymerase chain reaction PCR : polymerase chain reaction UDH : usual ductal hyperplasia
A Strategy for Helicobacter Immunohistochemistry Utilization in Pediatric Practice: Insights From Morphologic and Cost-Benefit Analyses.

Objectives: Recent studies in adults have examined the utility of immunohistochemistry (IHC) in detecting Helicobacter in gastric biopsy specimens and reached differing conclusions. Dedicated cost-benefit analysis of Helicobacter IHC in pediatric gastric biopsy specimens has not been performed. Methods: From 1,955 pediatric gastric biopsies in a 1-year period, we identified 63 Helicobacter -positive and 120 Helicobacter -negative biopsy specimens. All cases were scored according to the Updated Sydney System for the severity of inflammation. Results: We observed that pediatric Helicobacter infection was significantly associated with germinal center formation, active inflammation, oxyntic mucosa with moderate to severe chronic inflammation, and antral mucosa with any chronic inflammation, exclusive of mild and superficial chronic inflammation. At least one associated pattern was seen in each Helicobacter -positive biopsy specimen. In comparison with adults, pediatric Helicobacter -positive biopsy specimens are more likely to lack acute inflammation and more likely to show moderate to marked chronic inflammation. Conclusions: We recommend performing Helicobacter IHC on pediatric gastric biopsy specimens with any of the above inflammatory patterns. This approach can sensitively identify pediatric patients with Helicobacter gastritis, limit IHC staining to approximately 30% of all gastric biopsy specimens, and reduce costs by up to $55,306.90 per 1,000 biopsy specimens.
Reflections on Lattimer: A Complex and Significant Event

Although the Lattimer Massacre is reasonably well known, it is still important to put it in context. Once that's done, we'll realize it is not as well known as it ought to be. As with so many notorious events, the occurrences surrounding the Massacre are stark nineteen dead and perhaps fifty wounded in a crowd of several hundred immigrant mineworkers marching peaceably on a public road. Indeed, the Mas sacre of Friday, September 10, 1897 is so horrific that people are likely to learn of it first because of its shock value and only then turn to the context. This differs fundamentally from the way we commonly approach historical events: by examining particular national, regional industrial, or social contexts, and, in the process, finding events that exemplify the specific context that captures our interest. The temptation is to place the Lattimer Massacre in the most signif icant context possible: the unionization of the anthracite coal region which resulted from the industry-wide strikes of 1900 and 1902. This context gives the satisfaction that the victims' martyrdom was not in vain. At the very least, viewing the Massacre as one step in a progressive march of events to that significant achievement makes makes it easier to understand.
Ocrelizumab: a B-cell depleting therapy for multiple sclerosis.

ABSTRACTIntroduction. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common neurological disease responsible for early disability in the young working population. In the last two decades, based on retrospective/prospective data, the use of disease-modifying therapies has been shown to slow the rate of disability progression and prolonged the time to conversion into secondary-progressive MS (SPMS). However, despite the availability of several approved therapies, disability progression cannot be halted significantly in all MS patients.Areas covered: This article reviews the immunopathology of the B-cells, and their role in pathogenesis of MS and their attractiveness as a potential therapeutic target in MS. The review focuses on the recently published ocrelizumab phase III trials in terms of its efficacy, safety, and tolerability as well as its future considerations.Expert opinion: B lymphocyte cell depletion therapy offers a compelling and promising new option for MS patients. Nonetheless, there is a need for heighten...
‘The Extremely Difficult Realization That Something Other Than Oneself Is Real’: Iris Murdoch on Love and Moral Agency

Abstract: In the last few years, there has been a revival of interest in the philosophy of Iris Murdoch. Despite this revival, however, certain aspects of Murdoch's views remain poorly understood, including her account of a concept that she famously described as ‘central’ to moral philosophy—i.e., love. In this paper, I argue that the concept of love is essential to any adequate understanding of Murdoch's work but that recent attempts by Kieran Setiya and David Velleman to assimilate Murdoch's account of love to neo-Aristotelian or neo-Kantian theories of moral agency are misconceived. We will not understand what Murdoch is trying to do unless we understand her position as a radical alternative to such theories. Here, I present a reading of Murdoch's account of love as a form of Platonic eros directed toward two objects: the Good and the particular individual. It is in navigating the tension between these two objects that we find ourselves facing what Murdoch famously described as ‘the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real’. When properly understood, Murdoch's account of love opens up conceptual space for an alternative approach to some of the central questions in contemporary moral theory.
Binaural pitch fusion: Pitch averaging and dominance in hearing-impaired listeners with broad fusion

Both bimodal cochlear implant and bilateral hearing aid users can exhibit broad binaural pitch fusion, the fusion of dichotically presented tones over a broad range of pitch differences between ears [Reiss, Ito, Eggleston, and Wozny. (2014). J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol. 15(2), 235-248; Reiss, Eggleston, Walker, and Oh. (2016). J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol. 17(4), 341-356; Reiss, Shayman, Walker, Bennett, Fowler, Hartling, Glickman, Lasarev, and Oh. (2017). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 143(3), 1909-1920]. Further, the fused binaural pitch is often a weighted average of the different pitches perceived in the two ears. The current study was designed to systematically measure these pitch averaging phenomena in bilateral hearing aid users with broad fusion. The fused binaural pitch of the reference-pair tone combination was initially measured by pitch-matching to monaural comparison tones presented to the pair tone ear. The averaged results for all subjects showed two distinct trends: (1) The fused binaural pitch was dominated by the lower-pitch component when the pair tone was either 0.14 octaves below or 0.78 octaves above the reference tone; (2) pitch averaging occurred when the pair tone was between the two boundaries above, with the most equal weighting at 0.38 octaves above the reference tone. Findings from two subjects suggest that randomization or alternation of the comparison ear can eliminate this asymmetry in the pitch averaging range. Overall, these pitch averaging phenomena suggest that spectral distortions and thus binaural interference may arise during binaural stimulation in hearing-impaired listeners with broad fusion.
Statistical Platform for Individualized Behavioral Analyses Using Biophysical Micro-Movement Spikes

Wearable biosensors, such as those embedded in smart phones, can provide data to assess neuro-motor control in mobile settings, at homes, schools, workplaces and clinics. However, because most machine learning algorithms currently used to analyze such data require several steps that depend on human heuristics, the analyses become computationally expensive and rather subjective. Further, there is no standardized scale or set of tasks amenable to take advantage of such technology in ways that permit broad dissemination and reproducibility of results. Indeed, there is a critical need for fully objective automated analytical methods that easily handle the deluge of data these sensors output, while providing standardized scales amenable to apply across large sections of the population, to help promote personalized-mobile medicine. Here we use an open-access data set from Kaggle.com to illustrate the use of a new statistical platform and standardized data types applied to smart phone accelerometer and gyroscope data from 30 participants, performing six different activities. We report full distinction without confusion of the activities from the Kaggle set using a single parameter (linear acceleration or angular speed). We further extend the use of our platform to characterize data from commercially available smart shoes, using gait patterns within a set of experiments that probe nervous systems functioning and levels of motor control.
More Integrals (That’s About The Size Of It)

We’re not done yet with the technique of the previous sections. Remember: A definite integral measures the area beneath a curve.
Decentralized Algorithms for SHM over Wireless and Distributed Smart Sensor Networks

Effective structural health monitoring (SHM) of civil structures typically requires information derived from many spatially distributed locations throughout large infrastructure assets. Consolidating this information in a centralized location can often be difficult and costly. Collocation of sensing and computational abilities in a smart wireless sensor unit (WSU) can help to address this challenge. Embedded data processing at the sensor level can help to reduce communication burdens within sensor networks. Furthermore, embedded data processing is inherently automated, eliminating repositories of unprocessed and unused conditional data. However, to understand the global condition of a structure and to leverage spatial information, some data consolidation is necessary. This chapter will present some of the challenges inherent in decentralized data processing for SHM of seismically excited civil structures and will discuss some of the approaches that are available to leverage distributed computing in order to overcome these challenges.
Some Comments on Method and Interpretation

The range of topics addressed by these papers is so enjoyably diverse that it is difficult to connect the common themes of the cover title. This is hardly surprising since that title offers a broad mandate, broadened further (and rightly) by the inclusion of papers on topics which are, in conventional terms, historic as well as those which are prehistoric. There is little that is explicitly demographic (and who shall blame the authors for skirting that morass?), and production is addressed by Wells, so I shall focus primarily upon “complex social organization,” in particular in its relations to production and exchange.
Interest Pixel Mining

Visual media data such as an image is the raw data representation for many important applications, such as image retrieval (Mikolajczyk & Schmid 2001), video classification (Lin & Hauptmann, 2002), facial expression recognition (Wang & Ahuja 2003), face recognition (Zhao, Chellappa, Phillips & Rosenfeld 2003), etc. Reducing the dimensionality of raw visual media data is highly desirable since high dimensionality may severely degrade the effectiveness and the efficiency of retrieval algorithms. To obtain low-dimensional representation of visual media data, we can start by selecting good low-level features, such as colors, textures, and interest pixels (Swain & Ballard 1991; Gevers & Smeulders 1998; Schmid, Mohr & Bauckhage 2000). Pixels of an image may hold different interest strengths according to a specific filtering or convolution technique. The pixels of high interest strengths are expected to be more repeatable and stable than the pixels of low interest strengths across various imaging conditions, such as rotations, lighting conditions, and scaling. Interest pixel mining aims to detect a set of pixels that have the best repeatability across imaging conditions. (An algorithm for interest pixel mining is called a detector.) Interest pixel mining can be formulated into two steps: i) interest strength assignment via a specific filtering technique; and ii) candidate selection. The second step, candidate selection, plays an important role in preventing the output of interest pixels from being jammed in a small number of image regions in order to achieve best repeatability. Based on interest pixels, various image representations can be derived. A straightforward scheme is to represent an image as a collection of local appearances—the intensities of neighboring pixels—of interest pixels (Schmid & Mohr 1997). By ignoring the spatial relationship of interest pixels, this “unstructured” representation requires no image alignment, i.e., free from establishing pixel-to-pixel correspondence among imaging objects by image transformations such as rotation, translation, and scaling. Furthermore, the unstructured representation is very robust with respect to outlier regions in a retrieval application. However, the retrieval cost under unstructured representation is extremely expensive. In the context of face recognition, feature distribution is introduced to capture both global and local information of faces (Li, Ye & Kambhamettu 2006A). A limitation of feature distribution is the assumption of image alignment. A promising trend on interest pixel based representation is to build graph or tree representation for each image and measure the similarity of two images by the edit distance of their graphs or trees (Zhang & Shasha 1989). But as we will see in the later section, this trend is strongly supported by a recently proposed interest pixel mining method (Li, Ye & Kambhamettu 2008).
Aerodynamics and Aeroacoustic Sources of a Coaxial Rotor

Vehicles with coaxial, contra-rotating rotor systems (CACR) are being considered for a range of applications. Design parameters are identified that effect the fundamental aerodynamics and fluid dynamic features of a CACR in hover, vertical, and edgewise flight. Understanding the fluid dynamic features is a precursor to studying the aeroacoustics of a coaxial rotor. Rotor performance was computed initially using Navier-Stokes solver with prescribed blade section aerodynamic properties, the results validated against generic experimental test cases. Using a A 2D potential flow code and 2D OVERFLOW compressible-flow Navier-Stokes solver, the fluid dynamics of blade interactions was simplified and broken into a 2D blade crossing problem, with crossing locations and velocity fields from the rotor results to understand circulation, thickness, compressibility, shed vorticity, downwash, and viscosity effects. A calculation tool has been developed to identify time and location of blade overlap and BVI time location for CACR. Specific aerodynamic phenomena that occur for each noise source relevant to CACR are presented, along with computational tools to predict these occurrences.
Calcium management challenges in a macrosomic child with subcutaneous fat necrosis

We present a case that illustrates the fluctuations in calcium levels to be expected while managing an infant with maternal gestational diabetes mellitus who also develops subcutaneous fat necrosis (SCFN). There is initial hypocalcaemia due to functional hypoparathyroidism, requiring judicious calcium replacement. But with increased extrarenal production of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D due to granulomatous inflammation of subcutaneous adipose tissue, hypercalcaemia ensues. With a self-limiting course, SCFN of the newborn has an excellent prognosis and resolves spontaneously. However, aberrations in serum calcium levels can manifest in life-threatening complications and must hence be closely monitored.
Experiences of Instructors in Online Learning Environments: Regulating Our Emotions to Enhance Instruction

Like students, instructors often feel anxious and isolated teaching in an online environment. Our concerns include workload, quality of instruction, technology skills, and accessibility. This interactive session will share the results of a focus group study involving six university faculty members with varied experiences teaching in on-line learning environments (synchronous and asynchronous). The overarching themes from the preliminary analysis include faculty emotions of feeling (a) restricted, (b) stressed, (c) devalued, (d) validated, (e) intrigued and liberated. Specific examples representative of these themes will be shared. We will also emphasize the practical management strategies which participants reportedly used to regulate emotions and enhance online instruction. A consensus among all participants was that continuous dialogue in a community of practice about strategies to enhance on-line learning environments is needed. This session will act as a forum for extending this dialogue.
Counting the Pinocchios: The effect of summary fact-checking data on perceived accuracy and favorability of politicians:

Can the media effectively hold politicians accountable for making false claims? Journalistic fact-checking assesses the accuracy of individual public statements by public officials, but less is kno...
Team Management of Velopharyngeal Inadequacy: Practical Suggestions for Speech-Language Pathologists and Surgeons

Purpose This article aims to provide a set of guiding principles for interdisciplinary team care of velopharyngeal inadequacy (VPI) for speech, regardless of the etiology. Method A working group of...
Black Crimefighters: Portraits in Blue

Chapter 4's focus is on African American crimefighters from Sidney Poitier’s iconic Mr. Tibbs in The Heat of the Night to the hip hop stars of the “hood” films of the 1990s such as New Jack City, along with Denzel Washington’s more than dozen crimefighter roles. Given Hollywood’s history of black representations dominated by criminality—a prime target the white rogue exists to police—it remains difficult for a black crimefighter to replicate the archetype’s performance of nation. Also explored are the mega-hit cop films by Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills Cop and its sequels, although the comic premise undermines any serious challenge to the white crimefighter’s dominion. Other films include Gang in Blue, The Glass Shield, Deep Cover, and several films featuring Wesley Snipes.
Experiential Learning using QlikView Business Intelligence Software

This paper reports on the use of QlikView business intelligence software for use in a Business Intelligence (BI) course within an undergraduate information systems program. The course provides students with concepts related to data warehousing, data mining, visualizations, and software tools to provide business intelligence solutions for decision making. The goal of the course is to balance both the technical and business skills students require when using business intelligence systems. Specific use of the software QlikView is outlined through an experiential project whereby students obtain, model, analyze, and interpret publicly accessible airline data. QlikView is a leading business intelligence software package that allows users to import data from a variety of sources to create visualization-based dashboards for reporting and analysis. The use of QlikView in this course addresses common challenges with using commercially available software in the classroom.
Differential Effects of Nitrogen Substitution in 5- and 6-Membered Aromatic Motifs

The replacement of carbon with nitrogen can affect the aromaticity of organic rings. Nucleus-independent chemical shift (NICS) calculations at the center of the aromatic π-systems reveal that incorporating nitrogen into 5-membered heteroaromatic dienes has only a small influence on aromaticity. In contrast, each nitrogen incorporated into benzene results in a sequential and substantial loss of aromaticity. The contrasting effects of nitrogen substitution in 5-membered dienes and benzene are reflected in their Diels-Alder reactivities as dienes. 1,2-Diazine experiences a 1011 -fold increase in reactivity upon nitrogen substitution at the 4- and 5-positions, whereas a 5-membered heteroaromatic diene, furan, experiences a comparatively incidental 102 -fold increase in reactivity upon nitrogen substitution at the 3- and 4-positions.
Distributed robust operational optimization of networked microgrids embedded interconnected energy hubs

Abstract An interconnected energy hubs (EHs) framework aims to enhance the efficiency of the multicarrier energy system through realizing optimal coordination among existing players. In this paper, EH concept is studied in networked microgrids (MGs) structure to exploit the potential capabilities of microgrids in satisfying various types of energy demands. In the proposed model, MGs and distribution network are independent entities which have their local scheduling problem. To coordinate the operation of entities, a distributed algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is exploited to resolve the conflict of exchanged power between multi-MGs and distribution network. Considering the uncertainties, a distributed robust model is employed to precisely analyze the performance of multi-carrier energy networked MGs in different robustness levels. The efficiency of the ADMM model on integrated energy systems is tested on a networked MGs. The achieved results can ensure the light computational burden and convergence of proposed distributed algorithm. The proposed EH optimization problem is solved via Gurobi optimizer packages. According to the results, the ADMM converges to the final solution after 5 iterations, and with increasing the robustness level, the operation costs of EHs increases. The obtained results by Gurobi is more optimal than heuristic algorithms.
Role of Steric Repulsions in the Electron Transfer Between Ferrous and Ferric Ions in Water

Using the RWK2 potential to model water-water interactions between two hexahydrated complexes at transition state geometries for the ferrous-ferric reaction, we evaluate the electron transfer rate as a function of separation and angular orientations. Using fixed water geometries and the matrix elements of Newton, the electron transfer occurs primarily around 5.4 A (iron-iron distance). At such distances solvent dynamics are expected to have a minimal influence.
P187 Anal cancer and precursor lesions in HIV-infected persons: a clinical cohort study

Background Infection with high-risk human papillomavirus increases the risk of developing anal cancer (AC). AC is rare in general populations (incidence rate: 1.8 cases per 100,000 each year). However, recent studies have seen an increased number of AC among people living with HIV-1 infection (PLWH). We aimed to investigate AC regarding its incidence rate and sociodemographic characteristics in a HIV clinical cohort in the southeastern United States. Methods Electronic health records between 2006 and early 2018 from an academic HIV Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham were reviewed retrospectively. The HIV clinic treats more than 30% of total PLWH in Alabama. Patients with at least two clinical visits and aged 18 and above at HIV diagnoses were included. Age at AC diagnosis, self-reported race and sexual orientation were tested in univariate analyses. All significant variables were fitted in a multivariable logistic model adjusting for nadir CD4 counts and highest viral load (VL) prior to AC diagnoses or last clinical visits for non-AC subjects. Results Among 4,484 PLWH (1632 whites, 2676 blacks, 176 other races; 1031 women, 3429 men, 24 transgenders) over a total follow-up of 22188 years, there were 43 ACs (all men, 24 whites, and 18 blacks).The median age at AC diagnoses was 52; 36 were men who have sex with men (MSM) and 7 were heterosexual men (P Conclusion AC incidence among HIV-infected men was 148.4 times higher with earlier onset than general populations. However, public awareness of AC screening, specifically among the targeted population is lacking. This study can be valuable for the development of related screening programs and clinical practice guidelines for PLWH in the region. Disclosure No significant relationships.
Usury Enforcement as an Alternative to Capital Taxation in Pre-Modern States

All governments have an obligation to protect their territory and the wealth within that territory from external predation. In fact, since war has historically resulted in the plunder and destruction of wealth, it seems straightforward to suggest that the cost of providing adequate defense of one's territory is a function of the accumulated wealth within the territory. Suppose that all wealth in society is capital. The accumulation of capital conveys a private benefit to its owner, but imposes an external cost on society. As with any externality, the optimal tax policy would be to tax capital. The revenue from capital taxation could then be used to finance defense. Such a taxation scheme, however, requires the state to have an appropriate level of bureaucratic capacity. During the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, this sort of state infrastructure did not exist. Yet the rulers of those states faced the same constraint. In this paper, I argue that the enforcement of usury laws during this period imperfectly replicate the outcome of the optimal capital tax. Lending at interest was prohibited. However, rulers often allowed certain groups to lend in society in exchange for a license fee. This granted monopoly status to lenders. At the same time, rulers imposed binding price ceilings on interest rates. The combination of these three characteristics of enforcement replicate the long-run restriction on capital accumulation of the optimal capital tax whereas the licensing fees allowed the governments to collect as much as half of the revenue that the optimal capital tax would generate. Given that some defense costs were paid in kind, this sort of policy is capable of replicating the optimal capital tax. I support this claim with historical examples of ``lombard'' and Jewish lending in pre-modern England, Italy, and France.
Real-Time, in-Situ Monitoring of Gamma Radiation Effects in Packaged Silicon Photonic Chips

We measured in-situ gamma radiation effect and post-radiation relaxation behavior on packaged SiC integrated photonic devices. A method to deconvolve the radiation responses from constituent materials was also proposed and validated.
Nicotine Synergizes with High-Fat Diet to Induce an Anti-Inflammatory Microenvironment to Promote Breast Tumor Growth

Breast cancer results from a complex interplay of genetics and environment that alters immune and inflammatory systems to promote tumorigenesis. Obesity and cigarette smoking are well-known risk factors associated breast cancer development. Nicotine known to decrease inflammatory signals also modulates immune responses that favor breast cancer development. However, the mechanisms by which nicotine and obesity contribute to breast cancer remain poorly understood. In this study, we examined potential mechanisms by which nicotine (NIC) and high-fat diet (HFD) promote growth of HCC70 and HCC1806 xenografts from African American (AA) triple negative (TN) breast cancer cells. Immunodeficient mice fed on HFD and treated with NIC generated larger HCC70 and HCC1806 tumors when compared to NIC or HFD alone. Increased xenograft growth in the presence of NIC and HFD was accompanied by higher levels of tissue-resident macrophage markers and anti-inflammatory cytokines including IL4, IL13, and IL10. We further validated the involvement of these players by in vitro and ex vivo experiments. We found a proinflammatory milieu with increased expression of IL6 and IL12 in xenografts with HFD. In addition, nicotine or nicotine plus HFD increased a subset of mammary cancer stem cells (MCSCs) and key adipose browning markers CD137 and TMEM26. Interestingly, there was upregulation of stress-induced pp38 MAPK and pERK1/2 in xenografts exposed to HFD alone or nicotine plus HFD. Scratch-wound assay showed marked reduction in proliferation/migration of nicotine and palmitate-treated breast cancer cells with mecamylamine (MEC), a nicotine acetylcholine receptor (nAchR) antagonist. Furthermore, xenograft development in immune-deficient mice, fed HFD plus nicotine, was reduced upon cotreatment with MEC and SB 203580, a pp38MAPK inhibitor. Our study demonstrates the presence of nicotine and HFD in facilitating an anti-inflammatory tumor microenvironment that influences breast tumor growth. This study also shows potential efficacy of combination therapy in obese breast cancer patients who smoke.
A Quantitative Evaluation of COVID-19 Epidemiological Models

Quantifying how accurate epidemiological models of COVID-19 forecast the number of future cases and deaths can help frame how to incorporate mathematical models to inform public health decisions. Here we analyze and score the predictive ability of publicly available COVID-19 epidemiological models on the COVID-19 Forecast Hub. Our score uses the posted forecast cumulative distributions to compute the log-likelihood for held-out COVID-19 positive cases and deaths. Scores are updated continuously as new data become available, and model performance is tracked over time. We use model scores to construct ensemble models based on past performance. Our publicly available quantitative framework may aid in improving modeling frameworks, and assist policy makers in selecting modeling paradigms to balance the delicate trade-offs between the economy and public health.
The Role of Theory of Mind and Wishful Thinking in Children's Moralizing Concepts of the Abrahamic God.

Adults conceptualize God as particularly knowledgeable – more knowledgeable than humans – about moral transgressions. We investigated how younger (4- to 5-year-old) and older (6- to 7-year-old) chi...
Chapter 13 On the microeconomic theory of investment under uncertainty

Publisher Summary This chapter describes investment theory as the study of the individual behavior of households and economic organizations in the allocation of their resources to the available investment opportunities. For the purposes of investment theory, economic organizations are characterized as being members of one of two groups: business firms that hold as assets the physical means of production for the economy and finance their production decisions by issuing financial claims or securities and financial intermediaries that hold financial claims as assets and finance these assets by issuing securities. Individuals or households are assumed to invest primarily in securities and, therefore, invest only indirectly in physical assets. The markets in which these securities are traded are called the capital markets. The natural starting point for the development of investment theory is to derive the investment behavior of individuals. It is traditional in economic theory to take the existence of households and their tastes as exogenous to the theory. However, this tradition does not extend to economic organizations and institutions. They are regarded as existing primarily because of the functions they serve instead of functioning primarily because they exist.
How SARS-CoV-2 Transformed the Clinical Laboratory: Challenges and Lessons Learned.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made a devastating impact on global health and continues to challenge healthcare infrastructure and delivery. The clinical laboratories were no exception as they are responsible for diagnostic testing that dictates many clinical, infection control and public health decisions. Information technology and laboratory management tools are critical assets for maintaining and adapting operations in response to crises and when utilized effectively, promote the integration between the clinical laboratory specialties (e.g., chemistry, hematology, microbiology, and molecular pathology). During the COVID-19 pandemic, our systems and processes were strained due to high testing volumes, demand for rapid turnaround times, supply chain constraints, and constantly evolving testing algorithms and result interpretations as our knowledge of the virus and of diagnostics increased over time. In this report, we describe those challenges and subsequent adaptations made by each clinical laboratory section. We hope these details help provide potential solutions and approaches for other hospitals facing COVID-19 surges or other future pandemics.
Cold War Journalists as the Enemy

The act of reporting from the other side of the Iron Curtain came across as a provocation during the Cold War. This was in large part due to the differing conceptualizations of journalism on either side. It was also due to the perception of journalists as political actors representing “enemy” systems and ideologies. This chapter highlights particular circumstances and events that reflect some of the tensions inherent in such a conceptualization of the Cold War role of journalists and journalism. Consideration of individual journalists and their work includes questions about movement into and around a territory, journalists’ interactions with officials and average citizens and their ability to record their observations by various means and modalities.
Susceptibility of Testacella haliotidea (Testacellidae: Mollusca) to a U.S. strain of Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita (Rhabditidae: Nematoda)

The nematode Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita is lethal to a wide range of pest gastropod species. In Europe, it is available as a biocontrol agent (Nemaslug®), but its complete host range is yet to b...
Design of a 1500V Si IGBT/SiC MOSFET Hybrid Switch-Based Three-Level Active NPC Inverter

The hybrid switch (HyS) consisting of high current-rated silicon (Si) IGBT and low current-rated silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET has been proposed for superior performance on the device loss, the overload capability, and the device cost. A three-phase Si/SiC HyS-based three-level active neutral point clamped (3L-ANPC) topology and its modulation scheme are proposed in this paper to achieve a higher inverter efficiency and higher power density. This paper presents the design of a 40 kWSi/SiC HyS-based 3L-ANPC inverter with 1500 V dc voltage, which includes the semiconductor device selection, Si/SiC HyS die-size optimization algorithm, and the inverter design. A 40 kW prototype is designed, implemented, and tested in the laboratory. The experimental results demonstrate that the prototype achieved a 36. 2W/in3 power density and 98.9% peak efficiency. The proposed Si/SiC HyS-based 3L-ANPC inverter introduces SiC benefits to high power inverter applications at a lower cost than an all-SiC solution while achieving high efficiency and high power density performance.
UPTAKE OF I-131-LABELED TRIIODOTHYRONINE IN THE PINEAL BODY AS COMPARED WITH THE CEREBRAL GREY AND OTHER TISSUES OF THE RAT.

This chapter examines the pineal organ as a secretory organ. The manner in which the pineal organ concentrates 131 I-triiodothyronine ([ 131 I]-T 3 ) after intravenous injection of the labeled hormone is more comparable to that demonstrated by endocrine parenchymous glands than it is to muscle, nervous, or connective tissue. In the study described in the chapter, the uptake of [ 131 I]-T 3 in the pineal of the normal male rat was compared with that observed in the hypo- and hyper-thyroid states, as well as in diestrous and estrous females. The uptake was also compared with that of normal male cerebral grey, adenohypophysis, neurohypophysis, and adrenal and muscular tissue. It was observed that although the pineal is a derivative of the central nervous system (CNS), it accumulates and degrades labeled triiodothyronine more like an active, possibly endocrine tissue than a component of the nervous system. The pineal is believed to lack a blood-brain barrier that could account for these higher than CNS concentrations of [ 131 I]-T 3 and amino acids. However, the observed accumulation so far exceeds those of other tissues lacking such barriers. Despite the evidence that the pineal uptake of [ 131 I]-T 3 may be related more to its intrinsic metabolic activity than to the presence or absence of a barrier, it would be premature to claim that these data in any way substantiate an endocrine function for the pineal.
Modifying training algorithms for improved fault tolerance

This paper presents three approaches to improve fault tolerance of neural networks. In two approaches, the traditional backpropagation training algorithm is itself modified so that the trained net works have improved fault tolerance; we achieve better results than others who had also explored this possibility. Our first method is to coerce weights to have low magnitudes, during the training process, since fault tolerance is degraded by the use of high magnitude weights; at the same time, additional hidden nodes are added dynamically to the network to ensure that desired performance can be reached. Our second method is to add artificial faults to various components (nodes and links) of a network during training. This leads to the development of networks that perform well even when faults occur in the network. The third method repeatedly eliminates nodes of least sensitivity, then "splits" the most sensitive nodes and retrains the system. This generally results in the best performance, although it requires a small amount of additional retraining after a network is built. Experimental results have shown that these methods can obtain better robustness than backpropagation training,and compare favorably with other approaches. >
Spatial differences in poverty : the case of Peru

Using Peru as a case study, the implications of spatial differences in living costs for measures of poverty are examined. To obtain location specific poverty lines that reflect comparable levels of consumer expenditure, regional consumer price indices are required. Ideally such indices should permit the comparison of regional differences in the cost of achieving a certain level of utility. The application of consumer indices to poverty problems requires a definition of poverty levels. In constructing the absolute poverty expenditure levels for the different parts of Peru, the food element is based on the cost of a basket consumed by people at the twentieth percentile in the income distribution in the Rural Sierra. This annual cost of 2,650 soles per capita provides a lower bound on food costs. Such a definition leads to the calculation of poverty indices. The derivation of poverty indices requires the comparison of poverty expenditure levels with the actual distribution of expenditure. The findings of the study suggest that it is important to construct and use spatial price indices in the measurement of poverty. The approach can be applied to other developing countries by constructing regional nonfood price indices from information on nonfood expenditures. 20 references.
Remedies and Rituals: Folk Medicine in Norway and the New Land

Reviewed Medium: book Authors: Kathleen Stokker Year: 2007 Pages: 260 Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press ISBN: 978-0873515764 (hard cover).
Design of a robot leg with elastic energy storage, comparison to biology, and preliminary experimental results

This paper presents a novel robot leg design. The leg is powered by a DC motor which drives elastic tendons to turn a foot. The tendons store elastic energy just as in nature. Preliminary experimental results show the leg has a well-defined resonance which can be exploited to produce hopping. We also offer a comparison of our leg with the cat hindlimb. Eventually, the leg will be part of a quadrupedal robot.
Characteristics of iron dextran utilization in man.

The major portion of iron dextran iron becomes available to the erythroid marrow only after uptake and release of ionic iron by the reticuloendothelial system. With large intravenous infusions, (1000-2000 mg.), the rate of removal of the iron dextran complex from plasma is enough to supply the marrow with more than 200 mg. of iron/day. However, in the present studies the observed rate of iron delivery to the erythroid marrow was far below this level. Although iron supply immediately after infusion was sufficient to permit marrow production to rise to 4-6 times normal, this was maintained for less than two weeks. With time, reticuloendothelial iron dextran stores became less available, the serum iron level fell and marrow production was restricted to levels below twice normal. In fact, large infusion doses and prolonged storage may have made a portion of the iron dextran stores completely unavailable. Thus, an iron deficient type of erythropoiesis appeared in some patients while iron dextran stores were still readily visible on examination of marrow stroma.
Association Rules... and What's Next? Towards Second Generation Data Mining Systems

In the process of rule generation from databases, the volume of generated rules often greatly exceeds the size of the underlying database. Typically only a small fraction of that large volume of rules is of any interest to the user. We believe that the main challenge facing database mining is what to do with the rules after having generated them. Rule post-processing involves selecting rules which are relevant or interesting, building applications which use the rules and finally, combining rules together to form a larger and more meaningful statements. In this paper we propose an application programming interface which enables faster development of applications which rely on rules. We also provide a rule query language which allows both selective rule generation as well as retrieval of selected categories of rules from the pre-generated rule collections.
Computational Amide I 2D IR Spectroscopy as a Probe of Protein Structure and Dynamics

Two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy of amide I vibrations is increasingly being used to study the structure and dynamics of proteins and peptides. Amide I, a primarily carbonyl stretching vibration of the protein backbone, provides information on secondary structures as a result of vibrational couplings and on hydrogen-bonding contacts when isotope labeling is used to isolate specific sites. In parallel with experiments, computational models of amide I spectra that use atomistic structures from molecular dynamics simulations have evolved to calculate experimental spectra. Mixed quantum-classical models use spectroscopic maps to translate the structural information into a quantum-mechanical Hamiltonian for the spectroscopically observed vibrations. This allows one to model the spectroscopy of large proteins, disordered states, and protein conformational dynamics. With improvements in amide I models, quantitative modeling of time-dependent structural ensembles and of direct feedback between experiments and simulations is possible. We review the advances in developing these models, their theoretical basis, and current and future applications.
Cystic fibrosis, the CFTR, and rectifying Cl- channels.

The human genetic disease cystic fibrosis is caused by a single defective gene on chromosome 7 that codes for a 1480 amino acid protein called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). The defect causes a profound reduction of C1- permeability in several tissues, which in turn impairs salt absorption and fluid secretion. A 25–80 pS, rectifying Cl-channel has been targeted as the exclusive or primary channel affected in CF. However, we have found no evidence for signifi cant activation or spontaneous activity of this channel in cell-attached patches of normal lymphoblasts or dog tracheal cells. However, in dog tracheal cells, we find lower conductance, linear C1- channels that are spontaneously active in unstimulated cells and may show increased activity in stimulated cells. Attempts to correlate the expression of mRNA for the CFTR protein in various types of cells with the presence of the rectifying C1- channel show a lack of correlation: i.e., depolarization-activated rectifying C1- channels have been found in excised, inside-out patches from all cell types that we have examined to date, but the CFTR mRNA has so far only been detected in a subset of epithelial cells.
Now what should we do with them?: artists¿ books in the curriculum

Teaching has become a central part of the job of nearly every academic librarian. Nowhere is this more true than in liberal arts colleges and other institutions where undergraduates are the primary focus. Whether or not librarians are able to offer courses for credit, we do a great deal of instruction at the reference desk, in group instruction sessions, and in one‐on‐one appointments. Although much of this teaching focuses on using online resources, a substantial portion is aimed at making sure that students understand that not everything is available on the Internet, nor will it ever be. We teach students . . .