cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Performance of FDG-PET/CT (PET/CT) and contrast enhanced MRI (ceMRI) in the evaluation of hepatic metastasis of gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies

1822 Objectives Exact knowledge of the presence and regional distribution of hepatic metastases is essential for better patient management and surgical decisions. Our objective was to evaluate the performance of PET/CT and ceMRI in the detection of hepatic metastasis of GI malignancies. Methods PET/CT and ceMR data were reviewed in 29 pts (median age 60 yrs) (14 colorectal, 8 pancreatic and 6 cholangiocarcinoma) either at staging or restaging. PET/CT was performed within 6 wks of ceMRI. A positive PET is defined as focal increased uptake that exceeds the background liver uptake. Histopathology (n=4) and 12 month follow-up (n=25) were used as gold standard for a lesion-based analyses. Results PET/CT and ceMRI together showed 39 hepatic lesions. There were 12 equivocal results, 2 on PET/CT and 10 on ceMRI (0.2-1.5 cm). Equivocal findings were evaluated in 3 ways, considering them either as positive or negative and with exclusion from data. These results are displayed in Table. A more specific interpretation of equivocal lesions was achieved by considering them as negative on both tests but with a significant decrease in sensitivity of ceMRI. Conclusions In the detection of hepatic metastasis of GI cancers, ceMRI is more sensitive than PET/CT with no significant difference in specificity. PET/CT may complement ceMRI, particularly, in the evaluation of equivocal lesions to improve the specificity. Our results appear supportive of future PET/MRI applications in GI malignancies, however, further validation of these findings are warranted in a larger population
Contracts: You Never Give Me Your Money, All I Get Is Your Funny Paper

Lawyers love the music industry. If you put the words “musicians” and “sue” into a Google search you get over three million hits. Though not a direct measure of legal problems that arise in the music industry, it does provide some indication of the extent to which the music industry is riddled with lawsuits that are invariably about the contracts that are signed in the industry. One party sues the other for failure to fulfill the terms of the contract. Record companies sue artists, artists sue record companies and publishing companies, and band members sue each other [32].
Photon Bunching and Multi-photon Interference between Independent Parametric Down-Conversion Processes

In this paper, we discuss photon bunching effect in parametric down-conversion and its connection to the visibilities of a number of multi-photon interference experiments between independent parametric down-conversion processes. We find that mode matching, especially temporal mode matching, plays an equally important role for photon bunching effect and for two-photon interference between two independent emissions in parametric down-conversion. We extend the discusstion further to a four-photon interference effect.
Teaching Public Administration in a Post-Literate Society.

As we move farther into a condition of “post literacy” in our society (a condition where reading and writing have been displaced by television and video as the primary sources of mass entertainment and communication), the problem of students entering universities and even graduate programs with substandard communication skills is becoming more pronounced. In addressing the problem, despite frequent references to the “art and science of public administration,” there seems to be far too little emphasis on communication skills. Most public administration schools concentrate on the behavioral and management sciences—while largely ignoring the equally important communication techniques upon which our students' competence and effectiveness will be assessed in their careers. We aid and abet the problem by failing to recognize those skills, or lack of them, in our program guidelines. The National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration calls for specialized areas of study—management, program analysis, and policy analysis—that seem to assume a firm grounding in communication skills; but that assumption is so often incorrect. The science of public administration can only take us as far as systematizing our search for information. Effective evaluation and interpretation of that information rests in the ability to use it persuasively. It is the normative evaluation of information, mostly absent from scientific inquiry, that is so important to effective public administration. And the normative interpretation of policy conclusions is largely contingent on persuasive ability, alacrity in the use of the art, not the science, of public administration.
Approximate Dynamic Programming for Selective Maintenance in Series–Parallel Systems

The problem of allocating limited resources to maintain components of a multicomponent system, known as selective maintenance, is naturally formulated as a high-dimensional Markov decision process (MDP). Unfortunately, these problems are difficult to solve exactly for realistically sized systems. With this motivation, we contribute an approximate dynamic programming (ADP) algorithm for solving the selective maintenance problem for a series–parallel system with binary-state components. To the best of our knowledge, this paper describes the first application of ADP to maintain multicomponent systems. Our ADP is compared, using a numerical example from the literature, against exact solutions to the corresponding MDP. We then summarize the results of a more comprehensive set of experiments that demonstrate the ADP's favorable performance on larger instances in comparison to both the exact (but computationally intensive) MDP approach and the heuristic (but computationally faster) one-step-lookahead approach. Finally, we demonstrate that the ADP is capable of solving an extension of the basic selective maintenance problem in which maintenance resources are permitted to be shared across stages.
Examining patterns of text reuse in digitized text collections

Repeating text presents challenges to access, retrieval, and mining of large-scale digital libraries. We discuss the various forms of duplicate works in scanned text collections and show the patterns of how those variations manifest within the structure of a book. Understanding these structural similarities is an important step to aligning and controlling variant and duplicate works in digital libraries.
A Different approach to socio-economic statistics compared to the classical statistics approach

Measurements in biology belong to biometrics and to biostatistics. The readers of this journal may not be aware, however, that the original and legitimate use of “statistics” only applied to the economic and social sciences. It was used to report in an official publication the noteworthy events and remarkable features of the public administration of the state, as state-istics. It also may come as a surprise to discover that those early “statistical yearbooks” had no tabulations and hardly contained any numbers. The invitation to contribute some thoughts on statistics to the International Journal of Biometrics and Biostatistics came as a complete surprise as I am neither a biologist nor a biometrician. It may be justified though, as I was occasionally the statistical consultant working with medical researchers and psychologists, during my half century of teaching statistics in business schools and departments of economics.
The Benefits to Inquiry Argument

In this chapter I develop and defend an important argument in the epistemology of disagreement literature, initially gestured at by Catherine Z. Elgin (2010). This argument advances the idea that there are possible future epistemic benefits to be gained if an agent continues to develop and defend her beliefs in the face of peer disagreement, particularly within research contexts. These potential epistemic benefits justify a researcher remaining steadfast in the face of peer disagreement. After outlining the broad contours of the argument, I explore some empirical evidence in support of Elgin’s claim. For instance, I examine an economic model developed by Scott Page which demonstrates that in certain scenarios, peer disagreement tends to enhance epistemic practices such as problem solving and prediction making. I also outline some ideas found in psychology regarding bias and motivated reasoning which also lend empirical support to Elgin. I believe that this is one of the most promising arguments for non-conciliationism, albeit a limited version of it since it only applies in research context and as such it will be my focus for the rest of this book.
Sexual- and Gender-Minority Families: A 2010 to 2020 Decade in Review.

Objective To review research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) families-including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, and intersex (LGBTQAI+) families- from 2010-2020. Background Research on the SGM population has increased and diversified in the past decade. Results This paper reviews three subareas that make up the majority of research on SGM families today: (1) SGM family of origin relationships, (2) SGM intimate relationships, and (3) SGM-parent families. This review also highlights three main gaps in the existing literature: (1) a focus on same-sex and gay and lesbian families (and to a lesser extent bisexual and transgender families) and a lack of attention to the families of single SGM people as well as intersex, asexual, queer, polyamorous, and other SGM families; (2) an emphasis on white, socioeconomically advantaged SGM people and a failure to account for the significant racial-ethnic and socioeconomic diversity in the SGM population; and (3) a lack of integration of SGM experiences across the life course, from childhood to old age. Conclusion The next decade should aim to examine the full range of SGM family ties, include more vigorous examinations of race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and develop more robust accounts of family across the life course with novel theory and data sources across the methodological spectrum.
Damage Accumulation in a Novel High-Throughput Technique to Characterize High Cycle Fatigue

A multiple-insert carrier plate assembly has been developed to increase the throughput of vibration-based fatigue testing. Typically, in vibration-based fatigue testing, a cantilevered rectangular plate is excited in a high-frequency resonant mode until failure. In this manner, an S-N curve for bending fatigue can be constructed. The concept behind vibration-based fatigue testing has been improved by employing a U-shaped carrier plate and fastening multiple smaller specimens into the channel of the carrier plate, such that fatigue tests can be conducted in tandem. However, because of the presence of a variable stress field over the surface of the assembly, the strain in the specimens is unequal. To account for this unequal strain distribution, a framework is provided for estimating how damage accumulates within each specimen. Using this framework, the efficiency gained by adopting a multi-insert approach is evaluated. By optimizing the strategy with which specimens are replaced as they fail, a throughput 5.49 times greater than sequential testing is shown to be feasible.
Discretization and Convergence of the EIT Optimal Control Problem in 2D and 3D Domains

We consider Inverse Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) problem on recovering electrical conductivity and potential in the body based on the measurement of the boundary voltages on the $m$ electrodes for a given electrode current. The variational formulation is pursued in the optimal control framework, where electrical conductivity and boundary voltages are control parameters, and the cost functional is the norm declinations of the boundary electrode current from the given current pattern and boundary electrode voltages from the measurements. EIT optimal control problem is fully discretized using the method of finite differences. New Sobolev-Hilbert space is introduced, and the convergence of the sequence of finite-dimensional optimal control problems to EIT coefficient optimal control problem is proved both with respect to functional and control in 2- and 3-dimensional domains.
Characterization of a Novel Barbituric Acid and Two Thiobarbituric Acid Compounds for Lung Cancer Treatment.

Background/aim Previously, we reported the identification of a cytotoxic chemotype compound CC-I (1a), a derivative of thiobarbituric acid. We also reported the anticancer activity of a series of novel thio- and seleno-barbituric acid analogs. Materials and methods We herein evaluated the effect of 1a and its modified compounds on in vitro and in vivo lung cancer models. Results The compounds 1b and 2a showed more potent cytotoxicity than 1a to lung cancer cells. Moreover, 1b did not have any cytotoxicity on normal cells, such as fibroblasts. In the human lung cancer A549 mouse tumor xenograft model, 1b and 2a showed more pronounced antitumor effects than 1a In the A549 lung cancer cells, 1a induced cell death mainly via JNK and p38 MAPK activation. However, compound 1b and 2a induced lung cancer cell death mostly through JNK activation. Conclusion The results suggest that 1b and 2a can be useful therapeutic agents for lung cancer.
Non-vascularised Fibular Autograft for Reconstruction of Paediatric Bone Defects: An Analysis of 10 Cases.

Abstract Aim and objective Fibular autograft is a known technique for the reconstruction of traumatic and non-traumatic bone defects in both adult and paediatric populations. We aim to describe our outcomes using various stabilisation methods for non-vascularised fibular autograft to reconstruct both benign and malignant tumours in a paediatric population in a National Paediatric Centre over the past 14 years. Materials and methods This was a retrospective review of 10 paediatric cases with non-traumatic primary bone defects in a National Paediatric Centre. Criteria for inclusion were all non-traumatic primary bone defects requiring reconstruction with a non-vascularised fibular autograft in the diaphyseal or metaphyseal regions of the bone. The primary outcome measures were union and time to union (weeks). Time to union was illustrated using Kaplan–Meier curves. Secondary outcome measures included postoperative fracture, infection (deep and superficial), time to full weight-bearing and all-cause revision surgery. Results The mean length of follow-up was 63 months for the entire cohort (9–168, SD = 48.6). There was no loss to follow-up. Six lesions were located in the tibia, two in the femur and the remaining two were located in the ulna and third metacarpal. Union was ultimately achieved in 8 of the 10 patients using this donor autograft. The mean time to union was 28 weeks (10–99, SD = 29.8). There were four complications of autograft fracture. The mean time to fracture was 17 weeks (9–32, SD = 10.71). In all four of these cases, the patient achieved union at final follow-up. There were two superficial and two deep infections recorded. Three resolved with the use of antimicrobial therapy and one deep infection ultimately required insertion of an intercalary prosthesis to treat the infected non-union of the fibular graft site. Conclusion The use of non-vascularised fibular autograft for the reconstruction of tumours is an effective surgical technique in a paediatric cohort. We report the largest known series of malignant paediatric tumours treated with this technique to date. Clinical significance Non-vascularised fibular autograft is successful in the reconstruction of large bone defects secondary to malignant paediatric bone tumours. How to cite this article Sheridan GA, Cassidy JT, Donnelly A, et al. Non-vascularised Fibular Autograft for Reconstruction of Paediatric Bone Defects: An Analysis of 10 Cases. Strategies Trauma Limb Reconstr 2020;15(2):84–90.
Physics-Based Attack Detection for Traction Motor Drives in Electric Vehicles Using Random Forest

With the fast development of electric vehicles and vehicle onboard communication networks, modern electric vehicles suffer from potential threats from cyber networks. In order to secure vehicle safety and reliability, advanced attack detection techniques are in urgent need. In this paper, we propose a physics-based attack detection method using a random forest classifier. The key idea is to extract system features from the trustworthy and easy-to-get electric machine phase current signals, and use a random forest classifier to search a secure boundary to distinguish whether or not the powertrain system is under malicious cyber-attacks. The proposed method is tested and validated by simulation data generated from MATLAB Simulink. The results prove the feasibility of using electric machine phase current signals to represent multiple powertrain system features and accurately detect malicious attacks based on these extracted features.
The Impact of Beliefs on Effort in Telecommuting Teams

The use of telecommuting policies remains controversial for many employers because of the perceived opportunity for shirking outside of the traditional workplace; a problem that is potentially exacerbated if employees work in teams. Using a controlled experiment, where individuals work in teams with varying numbers of telecommuters, we test how telecommuting affects the effort choice of workers. We find that differences in productivity within the team do not result from shirking by telecommuters; rather, changes in effort result from an individual's belief about the productivity of their teammates. In line with stereotypes, a high proportion of both telecommuting and non-telecommuting participants believed their telecommuting partners were less productive. Consequently, lower expectations of partner productivity resulted in lower effort when individuals were partnered with telecommuters. Our results suggest that managers should actively engage in disseminating productivity information to their telecommuting team in order to avoid negative effects on productivity.
Polymer Modification of VA–AA-Based Copolymer Emulsions

Even in neutralized form, VA–AA-copolymers and their emulsions in water can undergo various modification reactions, either catalyzed by acids or bases. These modification reactions have been carried out either to probe the reaction mechanism, to generate a desired product, and/or as a condition for an application that could use the VA–AA-based emulsion copolymers.
Chapter 2 Female labor supply: A survey

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a survey on female labor supply. The chapter surveys theoretical and empirical work on the labor supply of women, with special reference to women in Western economies, primarily the United States, in modern times. The behavior of female labor supply has important implications for many other phenomena, including marriage, fertility, divorce, the distribution of family earnings and male-female wage differentials. The labor supply of women is also of interest, because of the technical questions it poses. For example, because many women do not work, corner solutions are at least potentially a very important issue in both the theoretical and empirical analysis of female labor supply, even though in other contexts (for example, studies of consumer demand) corner solutions are often ignored. The chapter presents some “stylized facts” about female labor supply, and then discusses a number of theoretical models of special interest for understanding female labor supply. After considering empirical studies of the labor supply of women, the chapter concludes with some suggestions for future research. The chapter discusses major trends and cyclical patterns in time-series data, and then examines cross-sectional phenomena.
Romanticism and the transatlantic imagination: Blanco White, Keats, and the Liberal Dilemma

Este ensayo se centra en el papel de la America espanola en el desarrollo de la literatura britanica durante el periodo romantico, especialmente en relacion con la participacion de la literatura en las controversias politicas que rodean el desarrollo desigual, tanto Gran Bretana como un imperio mundial y de un Estado liberal moderno. Mediante la vinculacion de las historias y los escritos de estas dos zonas geograficas, en particular en los anos entre la revuelta de 1780 del Peru y de los movimientos de independencia hispanoamericanas (1817-1822), este proyecto trata de descubrir los cruces complejos, pero ignorados en gran medida politicas y literarias triangulando entre Gran Bretana, Espana y America Latina durante el siglo XIX. De este modo, se reconstruye el contexto politico transatlantico e intelectual de figuraciones literarias de la America espanola con el fin de examinar las dimensiones historicas que permitieron a los escritores britanicos Jose Maria Blanco White y John Keats a imaginar tanto America Latina como un horizonte importante del deseo colonial y un objeto de las fantasias liberales de la independencia y la liberacion.
Abstract 12449: Exercise Has a Disproportionate Role in the Pathogenesis of Non-Desmosomal Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia/Cardiomyopathy

Background: Exercise is associated with age-related penetrance and arrhythmic risk in carriers of arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C)-associated desmosomal mutations; however its role in the pathogenesis of nondesmosomal ARVD/C is uncertain. Methods: Eighty-two patients with ARVD/C (39 desmosomal mutation carriers, all index cases) were interviewed about regular physical activity from age 10. Intensity (MET-Hrs/year) and exercise duration prior to clinical presentation were compared between patients with desmosomal and nondesmosomal ARVD/C. Association of exercise history with age at clinical presentation, family history, right ventricular structural dysfunction, and arrhythmic course was assessed. Results: Nondesmosomal patients were more likely to be endurance athletes (100% vs. 69% desmosomal, p Conclusion: Exercise has a differential impact on development of ARVD/C among nondesmosomal patients who require higher exercise intensity for developing the disease compared to desmosomal patients. As exercise appears to negatively modify cardiac structure and promote arrhythmias in nondesmosomal ARVD/C patients, exercise restriction is warranted.
Power-Aware Wireless Microsensor Networks

Distributed networks of thousands of collaborating microsensors promise a maintenance-free, fault-tolerant platform for gathering rich, multi-dimensional observations of the environment. As a microsensor node must operate for years on a tiny battery, careful and innovativetechniques are necessary to eliminate energy inefficiencies overlooked in the past. For instance, properties of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) hardware, such as leakage and the start-up time of radio electronics, must be considered for their impact on system energy, especially during long idle periods. Nodes must gracefully scale energy consumption in response to ever-varying performance demands. All levels of the communication hierarchy, from the link layer to media access to routing protocols, must be tuned for the hardware and application. Careful attention to the details of energy consumption at every point in the design process will be the key enabler for dense, robust microsensor networks that deliver maximal system lifetime in the most challenging and operationally diverse environments.
When Is a "Minor" Also an "Adult"?: An Adolescent's Liberty Interest in Accessing Contraceptives from Public School Distribution Programs

This article analyzes the clash between a minor's liberty interest in obtaining contraceptives from a public school, parents' right to raise their children as they see fit and retain the ability to approve their children's participation in these types of programs, and the state's compelling interest in combating today's high rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs. The article argues that in this area of sexual health, the rights of minors must outweigh the rights of their parents. Additionally, the article states that courts should affirmatively declare that a minor's fundamental right to make decisions about his or her own sexual health is a fundamental right that, once a school decides to promulgate a condom distribution program, must be viewed under the lens of strict scrutiny. The article concludes that under this framework, a parental consent or opt-out provision fails strict scrutiny review, because the rights of minors are elevated in this context and because the state has a compelling interest to promote safer sex for minors who choose to engage in sexual activity.
Multiple Sites for Coupling of Glucose Transport to the Respiratory Chain of Membrane Vesicles from Azotobacter vinelandii

Abstract Glucose transport by membrane vesicles isolated from Azotobacter vinelandii is coupled primarily to malate oxidation via a flavin-linked l-malate dehydrogenase. The addition of flavin adenine dinucleotide is required for malate-dependent glucose transport but is not obligatory for malate oxidation. Both NADH and NADPH are oxidized by the vesicles at rates nearly identical with that of malate yet are only 17% as effective in support of the rate of glucose uptake. Succinate and d-lactate are oxidized at 55 and 20% of the malate rate, respectively. Succinate oxidation does not stimulate glucose transport while d-lactate is 18% as effective as l-malate. However, difference spectra reveal that each of these electron donors is able to reduce almost quantitatively all of the cytochrome components of the membrane preparations. These findings indicate that malate dehydrogenase is coupled to glucose transport at a low potential site which is proximal to ubiquinone. Ascorbate-reduced tetramethylphenylenediamine is oxidized more rapidly by the vesicles than malate and is about as effective as malate in support of the glucose transport rate. This artificial reductant is oxidized via a branch of the respiratory system containing cytochrome c that is blocked by 2 µm cynaide but not by 2-heptyl-4-hydroxyquinoline-N-oxide. Glucose transport that is dependent on this artificial system is inhibited in a similar fashion. However, malate-dependent transport is blocked by the quinoline compound but not by 2 µm cyanide. This reveals a second site of higher potential in the respiratory chain that is linked to glucose transport.
Robust self-calibration from single image using RANSAC

In this paper, a novel approach for the self-calibration of single image is proposed. Unlike most existing methods, we can obtain the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters based on the information of restricted image points from single image. First, we show how the vanishing point, vanishing line and foot-to-head plane homology can be used to obtain the calibration parameters and then we show our approach how to efficiently adopt RANSAC to estimate them. In addition, noise reduction is proposed to handle the measurement uncertainties of input points. Results in synthetic and real scenes are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.
A Proteomic Comparison of Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded Pancreatic Tissue from Autoimmune Pancreatitis, Chronic Pancreatitis, and Pancreatic Cancer

Content Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue is a standard for specimen preservation, and as such FFPE tissue banks are an untapped resource of histologically-characterized specimens for retrospective biomarker investigation for pancreatic disease. Objectives We use liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to compare FFPE specimens from three different diseases of the exocrine pancreas. Design We investigated the proteomic profile of FFPE pancreatic tissue from 9 archived specimens that were histologically classified as: autoimmune pancreatitis (n=3), chronic pancreatitis (n=3), and pancreatic cancer (n=3), using LC-MS/MS. Setting This is a proteomic analysis experiment of FFPE pancreatic tissue in an academic center. Patients FFPE tissue specimens were provided by Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (Boston, MA, USA). Interventions FFPE tissue specimens were collected via routine surgical resection procedures. Main outcome measures We compared proteins identified from chronic pancreatitis, autoimmune pancreatitis, and pancreatic cancer FFPE pancreatic tissue. Results We identified 386 non-redundant proteins from 9 specimens. Following our filtering criteria, 73, 29, and 53 proteins were identified exclusively in autoimmune pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis, and pancreatic cancer specimens, respectively. Conclusions We report that differentially-expressed proteins can be identified among FFPE tissues specimens originating from individuals with different histological diagnoses. These proteins merit further confirmation with a greater number of specimens and orthogonal validation, such as immunohistochemistry. The mass spectrometry-based methodology used herein has the potential to enhance diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target discovery, further advancing pancreatic research. Image: Distribution of proteins among the AIP, CP, and PC cohorts.
Analysis of radiation dose to pediatric patients during computed tomography examinations.

Background Computed tomography (CT) utilization has increased rapidly over the past 15 years. CT is the most common source for radiation exposure. Objectives The objective was to measure the effective dose of radiation delivered during routine head and abdominal CT examinations at a children's hospital. Methods This was a retrospective study of emergency department (ED) patients < 20 years of age who underwent head or abdominal CT scans in 2012 at a single children's hospital. The authors abstracted the dose-length product from the CT scanners and calculated the effective radiation dose delivered. Patient demographics were abstracted from the medical record. The relationship between effective dose and age, patient weight, and reason for examination were evaluated. Results A total of 478 subjects were included: 255 underwent head CT, and 223 underwent abdominal CT. The median age was 8.1 years (interquartile range = 2.71 to 14.40 years) and 56.9% were male. The median effective dose for head CT was 2.68 mSv (95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.54 to 2.84 mSv) and decreased as age increased. For abdominal CT, the median effective dose was 5.06 mSv (95% CI = 4.58 to 6.03 mSv) and increased as age increased (3.67 to 11.12 mSv, p < 0.001). For abdominal CT, 8% of 5- to 10-year-olds, 28% of those 10 to 15 years, and 60% of patients over age 15 years received effective doses over 10 mSv. Conclusions The amount of radiation delivered to pediatric patients during routine CT examinations of the head and abdomen was low. Regardless, a large proportion of older patients were exposed to elevated effective doses of radiation during abdominal CT.
Detection of BRAF V600 mutations in metastatic melanoma: comparison of the Cobas 4800 and Sanger sequencing assays.

Detection of the BRAF V600E mutation is required for use of the BRAF inhibitor, vemurafenib, in patients with metastatic melanoma. Although the Roche Cobas 4800 BRAF V600 Mutation Test is approved, it detects primarily the single-nucleotide V600E mutation and could miss other potentially relevant V600 mutations. To assess the detection rate of the cobas assay for V600 mutations in clinical specimens, we compared the results of this assay with Sanger sequencing in 295 melanoma FFPE samples. Twenty samples were excluded because of invalid results on the cobas (n = 3), sequencing (n = 15), or both (n = 2). V600 mutations were detected by the cobas test in 96 (34.9%) of 275 samples and by Sanger sequencing in 118 (42.9%) of 275 samples. Thus, relative to Sanger sequencing, the cobas test exhibited 80.5% sensitivity (95% CI, 72.4% to 86.6%) and 99.4% specificity (95% CI, 96.5% to 99.9%). Of 23 samples with positive sequencing results but negative cobas results, 21 harbored dinucleotide mutations (V600E in 6, V600K in 10, and V600R in 5); the other two involved single-nucleotide mutations (V600E and V600G). These findings indicate that the cobas assay may miss many V600 mutations in clinical specimens. In our study, the addition of Sanger sequencing for samples with negative cobas results increased the detection rate to 42.9%. This approach could help maximize the number of patients who benefit from BRAF inhibitor treatment.
The effect of prenatal cocaine exposure on umbilical cord length in fetal rats

Umbilical cord length has been considered a reliable indicator of fetal movement. In this study, the effect of prenatal cocaine exposure on umbilical cord length was examined in rats. Pregnant rats were intubated with either 0 or 60 mg/kg cocaine hydrochloride daily from gestation day (GD) 14-21. Fetuses were removed via Caesarean section on GD 21 and umbilical cord length, placental weight and fetal body weight were measured. Fetuses exposed to cocaine in utero had significantly shorter umbilical cords than intubated controls, although there were no differences in placental or fetal body weights. These data suggest that prenatal cocaine exposure suppresses fetal movement, which could contribute to some of the long-term effects observed in cocaine-exposed offspring.
Electrophoretically separated bone cell types from the foetal rat calvarium: a histochemical and biochemical study.

Isolated cells obtained from foetal rat bone (calvarium) by collagenase digestion can be separated into three subpopulations on the basis of surface charge by free flow electrophoresis. These subpopulations have been tentatively identified by numerical, biochemical and functional criteria and are believed to be composed of: (1) bone resorbing cell types, designated Peak I cells; (2) fibroblasts and loose connective tissue cells, designated Peak II cells; and (3) a mixture of osteoblasts and osteoprogenitor cell types, designated Peak III cells. the anatomical position of these subpopulations in the whole calvarium was determined by comparing the results of histochemical and morphological experiments with the results of biochemical experiments. It was found that Peak I cells are located predominantly on the ventral (endocranial) surface, Peak II cells in the connective tissue periosteal membranes and Peak III cells on the dorsal (ectocranial) surface and in the suture line areas. The response of these cell types to parathyroid hormone and calcitonin with regard to cAMP production and45Ca release from devitalized bone is examined and indicates that cells from Peak I and Peak III both respond to parathyroid hormone but only the cells from Peak I respond to calcitonin.
Expression of CYP2L1 in the yeast Pichia pastoris, and determination of catalytic activity with progesterone and testosterone

Abstract Cytochrome P450 (P450) enzymes are widely distributed throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. In previous work, two forms of P450 partially purified from spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, hepatopancreas microsomes were shown to metabolize several substrates, including testosterone and progesterone at the 16α, 6β and 21 positions f James (1990) Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 282, 8–17]. We have recently cloned and sequenced a major form of P450, CYP2L1, from hepatopancreas cDNA [James et al. (1996) Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 329, 31–38]. CYP2L1 is one of at least four P450s detected in a cDNA library constructed from spiny lobster hepatopancreas. The spiny lobster CYP2L1 cDNA was introduced into the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris and the crustacean CYP2L1 was expressed in microsomes of the methanol-induced yeast. On the basis of immunoblot analysis and ability to catalyse the 16α-hydroxylation of testosterone and progesterone, the catalytically active, heterologously expressed spiny lobster CYP2L1 appears to be very similar to the major spiny lobster hepatopancreas P450 previously purified in this laboratory. This is the first report of heterologous expression of a crustacean P450.
Electron microscopic study of the ethidium bromide-DNA complex.

Abstract The ethidium bromide-DNA complex has been studied by electron microscopy. In agreement with the fact that the dye intercalates between nucleotide pairs, the DNA molecule increases in length. At saturation, the length increment is approximately 27%.
A Prototypical Gateway to the World Wide Web: Making Sense of Pain Relief

The World Wide Web site entitled Making Sense of Pain Relief is described. This site, intended for consumers, was created by the American Chronic Pain Association, American Pain Foundation and National Pain Foundation. Other websites directly linked to this site are listed.
Evidence for alterations in luteinizing hormone secreted in rhesus monkeys with normal and inadequate luteal phases using radioreceptor and radioimmunoassay.

A radioreceptor assay (RRA) using porcine granulose cells and [125I]hCG was developed and validated for the measurement of LH or CG. The RRA was used in conjunction with a heterologous RIA employing antiserum against ovine LH and [125I]ovine LH (RIA) to measure serum LH in the rhesus monkey throughout the menstrual cycle. Discrepancies were found in the measurement of serum LH using RRA and RIA. Measurements of serum LH using RIA were consistently higher than the measurements of serum LH using RRA in serum from adult intact female and male monkeys and hypophysectomized, ovariectomized, and pregnant monkeys. The highest ratio of RIA to RRA values (I:R ratio) for serum LH was observed in serum obtained under conditions of elevated LH secretion, such as at midcycle and after ovariectomy. Monkeys with inadequate luteal phases had lower LH levels using RIA and RRA than did normal monkeys. The I:R ratio for LH levels on each day of the menstrual cycle in monkeys having inadequate luteal phase progesterone level...
Using the Web as an Implicit Training Set: Application to Structural Ambiguity Resolution

Recent work has shown that very large corpora can act as training data for NLP algorithms even without explicit labels. In this paper we show how the use of surface features and paraphrases in queries against search engines can be used to infer labels for structural ambiguity resolution tasks. Using unsupervised algorithms, we achieve 84% precision on PP-attachment and 80% on noun compound coordination.
A polynomial approximation for integral transport calculations

Abstract The integral transport equation is first formulated for a Wigner-Seitz reactor lattice cell with either reflected or isotropic return boundary conditions. The equation is then reduced to a form suitable for numerical computation by dividing the cell into a number of concentric volume increments and approximating the scalar flux within each of these by a three point interpolation polynomial. The procedure thus relaxes the flat flux assumption made for each volume increment in using conventional collision probability methods. One group disadvantage factors are calculated for a slab and a cylindrical lattice using both the collision probability and the polynomial approximation methods. The polynomial approximation technique results in a substantial reduction in the computing time necessary to obtain the disavantage factors to within a given accuracy.
BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES OF C1 INHIBITOR

Broadly speaking, C1 inhibitor plays important roles in the regulation of vascular permeability and in the suppression of inflammation. Vascular permeability control is exerted largely through inhibition of two of the proteases involved in the generation of bradykinin, factor XIIa and plasma kallikrein (the plasma kallikrein-kinin system). Anti-inflammatory functions, however, are exerted via several activities including inhibition of complement system proteases (C1r, C1s, MASP2) and the plasma kallikrein-kinin system proteases, in addition to interactions with a number of different proteins, cells and infectious agents. These more recently described, as yet incompletely characterized, activities serve several potential functions, including concentration of C1 inhibitor at sites of inflammation, inhibition of alternative complement pathway activation, inhibition of the biologic activities of gram negative endotoxin, enhancement of bacterial phagocytosis and killing, and suppression of the influx of leukocytes into a site of inflammation. C1 inhibitor has been shown to be therapeutically useful in a variety of animal models of inflammatory diseases, including gram negative bacterial sepsis and endotoxin shock, suppression of hyperacute transplant rejection, and treatment of a variety of ischemia-reperfusion injuries (heart, intestine, skeletal muscle, liver, brain). In humans, early data appear particularly promising in myocardial reperfusion injury. The mechanism (or mechanisms) of the effect of C1 inhibitor in these conditions is (are) not completely clear, but involve inhibition of complement and contact system activation, in addition to variable contributions from other C1 inhibitor activities that do not involve protease inhibition.
Increased Intercellular Communication in Activated Cardiac Fibroblasts

Rationale: A critical event in the development of cardiac fibrosis is the transformation of fibroblasts into myofibroblasts; however the electrophysiological consequences of this phenotypic switch remain largely unknown. Hypothesis: Fibroblast activation results in a distinct electrophysiological phenotype that makes the heart more susceptible to arrhythmias. Methods: Ventricular fibroblasts were isolated from the ventricles of normal (Fb) and infarcted (MI-Fb) adult rat hearts. Fb and MI-Fb were plated onto myocyte monolayers at densities of 200, 400 and 600 cells/mm2. Cultures were optically mapped with a voltage sensitive dye and conduction velocity (CV) and action potential duration (APD70) were obtained. Functional intercellular communication, Cx43 expression levels and distribution were determined. Results: At 200 cells/mm2, MI-Fb significantly increased (22.0±0.6cm/s) CV compared to homocellular myocyte cultures (Myo; 17.8±0.4cm/s). Fb (145.0±3.9ms) and MI-Fb (131.1±3.7ms) significantly reduced APD70 compared to Myo (158.6±2.5ms), and APD70 was significantly shorter with MI-Fb compared to Fb. At higher fibroblast densities CVs were slower compared to Myo (Fb: 13.8±0.4 and 11.4±0.3cm/s; MI-Fb: 10.6±0.3 and 9.5±0.3cm/s, at 400 and 600 cells/mm2, respectively). Fb and MI-Fb CVs were significantly different at all plating densities. At higher densities APD70 was significantly longer for Fb compared to Myo (171.0±2.1 and 165.7±1.8ms at 400 and 600 cells/mm2, respectively). MI-Fb values were significantly longer at 400 cells/mm2 (175.8±2.7ms). Cx43 staining was present in contact areas between myocytes and fibroblasts from both sources. Immunoblotting showed a significant increase of Cx43 levels in MI-Fb compared to Fb. Intercellular coupling evaluated with gap-FRAP was significantly increased between myocytes and MI-Fb compared to Fb. Conclusions: These data demonstrate fibroblast activation results in important electrophysiological changes that could contribute to the greater incidence of arrhythmias observed in fibrotic hearts. These observations highlight the fibroblast activation process as a potentially new therapeutic target for arrhythmia prevention.
Levels of meaning and children: An exploratory study of picture books' illustrations

This study applied Erwin Panofsky's concept of levels of meaning of works of art and Corinne Jorgensen's framework of image attributes to an exploration of the distinct levels of meaning perceived by children in illustrations of picture books. Observations, interviews, and surveys were used for data collection and content analysis and case study for data analysis. Thirty-one three- to five-year old children recruited from preschool, pubic library, and home school settings participated. Findings showed that children relied on their previous experience and familiarity with the literary source to achieve levels of meaning. The concept of levels of meaning could provide a better understanding of representing meaning for children and children's interpretation of meaning of visual information.
Extending the ATMS

Abstract The basic assumption-based truth maintenance (ATMS) architecture provides a foundation for implementing various kinds of default reasoning. This paper shows how the basic ATMS is extended to handle defaults and disjunctions of assumptions. These extensions are used to encode disjunctions of nodes, nonmonotonic justifications, normal defaults, nonnormal defaults, and arbitrary propositional formulas.
In situ visualization and characterization of aerosol droplets in an inductively coupled plasma.

Laser-scattering techniques are utilized for the first time to visualize the aerosol droplets in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) torch from the nebulizer tip to the site of analytical measurements. The resulting images provide key information about the spatial distribution of the aerosol introduced by direct injection and conventional sample introduction devices: (1) a direct injection high-efficiency nebulizer (DIHEN); (2) a large-bore DIHEN; and (3) a MicroFlow PFA nebulizer with a PFA Scott-type spray chamber. Moreover, particle image velocimetry is used to study the in situ behavior of the aerosol before interaction with the plasma, while the individual surviving droplets are explored by particle tracking velocimetry. Directly introduced aerosols are highly scattered across the plasma torch as a result of their radial motion, indicating less than optimum sample consumption efficiency for the current direct injection devices. Further, the velocity distribution of the surviving droplets demonstrate...
Differential ability of Tribbles family members to promote degradation of C/EBPα and induce acute myelogenous leukemia

Trib1, Trib2, and Trib3 are mammalian homologs of Tribbles, an evolutionarily conserved Drosophila protein family that mediates protein degradation. Tribbles proteins function as adapters to recruit E3 ubiquitin ligases and enhance ubiquitylation of the target protein to promote its degradation. Increased Trib1 and Trib2 mRNA expression occurs in human myeloid leukemia and induces acute myeloid leukemia in mice, whereas Trib3 has not been associated with leukemia. Given the high degree of structural conservation among Tribbles family members, we directly compared the 3 mammalian Tribbles in hematopoietic cells by reconstituting mice with hematopoietic stem cells retrovirally expressing these proteins. All mice receiving Trib1 or Trib2 transduced hematopoietic stem cells developed acute myeloid leukemia, whereas Trib3 mice did not. Our previous data indicated that Trib2-mediated degradation of the transcription factor, CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein-alpha (C/EBPα), is important for leukemogenesis. Similar to Trib2, Trib1 induced C/EBPα degradation and inhibited its function. In contrast, Trib3 failed to inactivate or promote efficient degradation of C/EBPα. These data reveal that the 3 Tribbles homologs differ in their ability to promote degradation of C/EBPα, which account for their differential ability to induce leukemia.
Antigenic relationships between Paracoccidioides loboi and other pathogenic fungi determined by immunofluorescence.

The fluorescent antibody technique was used to study antigenic relationships betweenParacoccidioides loboi and other pathogenic fungi. The findings suggest thatP. loboi is more closely related antigenically to certainP. brasiliensis strains than to others and that it has antigens in common with the yeast form ofHistoplasma capsulatum, H. duboisii, Blastomyces dermatitidis, Candida albicans and also the mycelial form ofCoccidioides immitis. Serum globulins from 3 cases of keloidal blastomycosis were labelled with fluorescein isothiocyanate. These conjugates showed slight or no reactivity withP. loboi, the yeast forms ofP. brasiliensis, H. capsulatum, H. duboisii andB. dermatitidis, However, they stained brightlyC. albicans, serotypes A and B, the tissue form ofC. immitis and the yeast form ofSporotrichum schenckii. Adsorption of these reagents withC. albicans eliminated all staining except that forS. schenckii. These patients had no history of clinical sporotrichosis.