cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Decreased quadriceps activation measured hours prior to a noncontact anterior cruciate ligament tear.

Study Design Case report. Background Decreased quadriceps activation has been shown to be present following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, but its presence prior to ACL injury is unknown. The purpose of this case report was to describe the level of quadriceps activation measured hours before a noncontact ACL injury in an individual who previously demonstrated known biomechanical risk factors for ACL injury. Case Description A 23-year-old female (height, 176.9 cm; mass, 72.4 kg), sustained a left noncontact ACL injury while landing from a jump stop during a recreational basketball game. This case was unique because data regarding landing biomechanics and quadriceps force and activation were gathered in 2 separate, unrelated studies prior to injury. Outcomes Peak external knee abduction moment (−65.3 Nm) during a drop jump landing 8 months prior to injury indicated elevated risk for ACL injury. Involved quadriceps central activation ratios (CAR) were obtained 1 week (CAR, 0.81) and 4 hours (CAR, 0...
Phase response profile of hamster adrenal organ cultures treated with acth and exogenous steroid

Abstract 1. 1. 14 C-acetate uptake, incorporation into steroid, and 14 C-steroid secretion into culture medium follows a daily cycle. 2. 2. ACTH treatment increases acetate uptake and increases steroidogenesis and secretion during the low point of the circadian cycle but depresses steroid secretion during the peak of adrenal circadian activity. 3. 3. Exogenous progesterone mimics the phase-response characteristics of ACTH; progesterone inhibition of peak secretory activity by adrenal cultures displays competitive inhibition kinetics.
Isozymes of diapause and non-diapause pink bollworm larvae, Pectinophora gossypiella

Abstract Diapausing and non-diapausing pink bollworm larvae were assayed by starch gel electrophoresis for 15 enzymes, including 9 glucose-metabolizing enzymes. Mobility differences between individuals were shown for 5 enzymes. Leucine aminopeptidase and alkaline phosphatase decreased in activity by mid through late diapause, reflecting a decrease in anabolic processes during diapause. Lactate dehydrogenase and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, 2 enzymes of glycolysis, show changes in mobility between diapause and non-diapause larvae. By late diapause there was a complete loss of activity for both enzymes. Differences in mobility and loss of activity of G-3-PDH may result from a lack of either available phosphorus or NAD, or both. Our data indicate that all of the G-3-PDH is in the acyl-enzyme form in diapause, suggesting that the glycolytic pathway is blocked at glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate.
Obama Reiterates Strong Support for Science at Two Recent Appearances

President Barack Obama expressed his continued strong support for science and technology in remarks at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on 29 April. His call for continued funding, for scientific integrity, and for an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) followed remarks he made a week earlier at the White House Science Fair.
Evidence of seasonal variation in bioluminescence of Amphipholis squamata (Ophiuroidea, Echinodermata): Effects of environmental factors

The bioluminescence of Amphipholis squamata was assessed from freshly collected individuals for 16 successive months, and from individuals maintained in the laboratory under various experimental conditions of salinity, temperature and photoperiodic regime. Field investigations showed that bioluminescence intensity and kinetics varied seasonally, with the light produced being brighter and faster in winter and summer. The seasonal variation was not correlated with changes of ambient salinity. However, it was correlated with changes in temperature, the luminescence being brighter and faster in coldest and warmest seasons, and with the changes of photoperiod, the luminescence being brighter and faster in seasons with shortest and longest day length. Laboratory investigations also demonstrated that luminescence was not affected by salinity conditions. Conversely, luminescence was affected by temperature, the light production being brighter and faster in warmer conditions (in agreement with field observations) and dimmer and slower in colder conditions (in disagreement with field observations). Light production was also affected by photoperiod since experimental changes of natural light:dark regime caused the bioluminescence to decrease. Considering that photoperiod guides the biology of A. squamata and that reproduction takes place during coldest months in the species, an endogenous factor of neurophysiological nature linked to the ophiuroid reproductive cycle is proposed to induce the luminescence to peak in winter. This was confirmed by the fact that seasonal variation of luminescence was different between adult and juveniles, the latter showing no winter peak of luminescence. It is suggested that the luminescence normally associated with defense could also be part of an intraspecific visual signal related to individuals aggregating for reproduction during winter.
Stable single-crystalline body centered cubic Fe nanoparticles.

We report a facile synthesis of body centered cubic (bcc) Fe nanoparticles (NPs) via the thermal decomposition of iron pentacarbonyl, Fe(CO)5, in the presence of hexadecylammonium chloride. These bcc-Fe NPs exhibit a drastically increased stability and magnetic moment (Ms = 164 A·m2·kg−1Fe) even in physiological solutions, and have much enhanced magnetic imaging contrast (r2 = 220 s−1·mM−1) and heating (SAR = 140 W·g−1Fe) effects. They may serve as robust probes for imaging and therapeutic applications.
Stretchable electrochemical impedance sensors for intravascular detection of lipid-rich lesions in New Zealand White rabbits

Flexible electronics have enabled catheter-based intravascular sensing. However, real-time interrogation of unstable plaque remains an unmet clinical challenge. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of stretchable electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) sensors for endoluminal investigations in New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits on diet-induced hyperlipidemia. A parylene C (PAC)-based EIS sensor mounted on the surface of an inflatable silicone balloon affixed to the tip of an interrogating catheter was deployed (1) on the explants of NZW rabbit aorta for detection of lipid-rich atherosclerotic lesions, and (2) on live animals for demonstration of balloon inflation and EIS measurements. An input peak-to-peak AC voltage of 10 mV and sweeping-frequency from 300 kHz to 100 Hz were delivered to the endoluminal sites. Balloon inflation allowed EIS sensors to be in contact with endoluminal surface. In the oxidized low-density-lipoprotein (oxLDL)-rich lesions from explants of fat-fed rabbits, impedance magnitude increased significantly by 1.5-fold across the entire frequency band, and phase shifted ~5° at frequencies below 10 kHz. In the lesion-free sites of the normal diet-fed rabbits, impedance magnitude increased by 1.2-fold and phase shifted ~5° at frequencies above 30 kHz. Thus, we demonstrate the feasibility of stretchable intravascular EIS sensors for identification of lipid rich lesions, with a translational implication for detecting unstable lesions.
Hsp70 expression and function during embryogenesis

This review focuses on the expression and function of 70-kDa heat shock proteins (Hsp70s) during mammalian embryogenesis, though many features of embryogenesis and the developmental expression of Hsp70s are conserved between mammals and other vertebrates. A variety of Hsp70s are expressed from the point of zygotic gene activation in cleavage-stage embryos, through blastulation, implantation, gastrulation, neurulation, organogenesis, and on throughout fetal maturation. The regulation and patterns of hsp70 gene expression and the known and putative Hsp70 protein functions vary from constitutive and metabolic housekeeping to stress-inducible and embryo-protective roles. Understanding the genetic regulation and molecular function of Hsp70s has been pursued by developmental biologists interested in the control of gene expression in early embryos as well as reproductive toxicologists and teratologists interested in how Hsp70s protect embryos from the adverse effects of environmental exposures. These efforts have also been joined by those interested in the chaperone functions of Hsp70s, and this confluence of effort has yielded many advances in our understanding of Hsp70s during critical phases of embryonic development and cellular differentiation.
Copper coatings for minimization of retention and permeation of implanted tritium in aluminum alloy 6061

Copper coatings deposited on Al-6061 substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering, to prevent the retention and permeation of energetically implanted tritium in Al-6061, were evaluated by a variety of characterization techniques. The coatings, weighing in the 0.03 to 0.088 kg/m2 range, were smooth and had a fine grain structure. They contained the intermetallic phases Cu9Al4 and CuAl2 as well as copper. The fractions of Al and Cu in any coating increased and decreased, respectively, with increasing depth below the surface. Furthermore, the fractions of Al and Cu on the coating surface decreased and increased, respectively, with increasing coating weight. There was no texture or preferred orientation in the Cu phase of the coatings. A significant amount of oxygen was also detected at the original substrate surface. Residual stress measurements revealed that, in both Cu and CuAl2, the stresses in the coating plane were compressive, while the stress normal to the coating plane was zero in Cu but tensile in CuAl2. The shear-stress components were, however, negligible in both the Cu and CuAl2 phases. In the coating plane, the residual stress in Cu was always much smaller than that in the CuAl2 phase. Bond-strength measurements using tensile-pull testing provided a lower limit of the bond strength of about 2 MPa.
Structural, mechanistic and coordination chemistry of relevance to the biosynthesis of iron–sulfur and related iron cofactors ☆

Abstract Iron–sulfur clusters are an important class of protein-bound prosthetic center that find wide utility in nature. Roles include electron transfer, enzyme catalysis, protein structure stabilization, and regulation of gene expression as transcriptional and translational sensors. In eukaryotes their biosynthesis requires a complex molecular machinery that is located within the mitochondrion, while bacteria exhibit up to three independent cluster assembly pathways. All of these paths share common themes. This review summarizes some key structural and functional properties of three central proteins dedicated to the Fe–S cluster assembly process: namely, the sulfide donor (cysteine desulfurase); iron donor (frataxin), and the iron–sulfur cluster scaffold protein (IscU/ISU).
Sympathectomy-induced immune changes are not abrogated by the glucocorticoid receptor blocker RU-486.

Abstract Removal of sympathetic noradrenergic input to the immune system by injection of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) triggers increases in antigen-specificin vitrosplenocyte proliferation and cytokine production in BALB/cJ and C57B1/6J mice. This examines the possible role of glucocorticoids in these previously reported changes. In both strains, chemical sympathectomy triggers an elevation of glucocorticoid levels immediately following injection of 6-OHDA, returning to normal within one to two days. In the BALB/cJ strain, glucocorticoid elevation is seen only after the initial 6-OHDA injection; levels in chronically denervated animals are not different from controls. In the C57B1/6J strain, the increase is seen even with chronically denervated animals. Prior implantation of mice with pellets containing the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist RU-486 does not abrogate denervation-induced increases in cytokine production or proliferation in either strain. In addition to the previously reported increased interleukin (IL)-2 and IL-4 production, there is an increase in IFN-γ production in the C57B1/6J strain following either acute or chronic denervation. The persistence of denervation-induced changes even when the effect of corticosterone is blocked with RU-486 or diminished with chronic denervation indicates that the changes are driven mainly by a glucocorticoid-independent mechanism.
Improving the Accuracy and Efficiency of Identity by Descent Detection in Population Data

Segments of indentity-by-descent (IBD) detected from high-density genetic data are useful for many applications, including long-range phase determination, phasing family data, imputation, IBD mapping, and heritability analysis in founder populations. We present Refined IBD, a new method for IBD segment detection. Refined IBD achieves both computational efficiency and highly accurate IBD segment reporting by searching for IBD in two steps. The first step (identification) uses the GERMLINE algorithm to find shared haplotypes exceeding a length threshold. The second step (refinement) evaluates candidate segments with a probabilistic approach to assess the evidence for IBD. Like GERMLINE, Refined IBD allows for IBD reporting on a haplotype level, which facilitates determination of multi-individual IBD and allows for haplotype-based downstream analyses. To investigate the properties of Refined IBD, we simulate SNP data from a model with recent superexponential population growth that is designed to match United Kingdom data. The simulation results show that Refined IBD achieves a better power/accuracy profile than fastIBD or GERMLINE. We find that a single run of Refined IBD achieves greater power than 10 runs of fastIBD. We also apply Refined IBD to SNP data for samples from the United Kingdom and from Northern Finland and describe the IBD sharing in these data sets. Refined IBD is powerful, highly accurate, and easy to use and is implemented in Beagle version 4.
Transcriptional effects of gene dose reduction

Large-scale gene dose reductions usually lead to abnormal phenotypes or death. However, male mammals, Drosophila, and Caenorhabditis elegans have only one X chromosome and thus can be considered as monosomic for a major chromosome. Despite the deleterious effects brought about by such gene dose reduction in the case of an autosome, X chromosome monosomy in males is natural and innocuous. This is because of the nearly full transcriptional compensation for X chromosome genes in males, as opposed to no or partial transcriptional compensation for autosomal one-dose genes arising due to deletions. Buffering, the passive absorption of disturbance due to enzyme kinetics, and feedback responses triggered by expression change contribute to partial compensation. Feed-forward mechanisms, which are active responses to genes being located on the X, rather than actual gene dose are important contributors to full X chromosome compensation. In the last decade, high-throughput techniques have provided us with the tools to effectively and quantitatively measure the small-fold transcriptional effects of dose reduction. This is leading to a better understanding of compensatory mechanisms.
Altering the sex determination pathway in Drosophila fat body modifies sex-specific stress responses

The stress response in Drosophila melanogaster reveals sex differences in behavior, similar to what has been observed in mammals. However, unlike mammals, the sex determination pathway in Drosophila is well established, making this an ideal system to identify factors involved in the modulation of sex-specific responses to stress. In this study, we show that the Drosophila fat body, which has been shown to be important for energy homeostasis and sex determination, is a dynamic tissue that is altered in response to stress in a sex and time-dependent manner. We manipulated the sex determination pathway in the fat body via targeted expression of transformer and transformer-2 and analyzed these animals for changes in their response to stress. In the majority of cases, manipulation of transformer or transformer-2 was able to change the physiological output in response to starvation and oxidative stress to that of the opposite sex. Our data also uncover the possibility of additional downstream targets for transformer and transformer-2 that are separate from the sex determination pathway and can influence behavioral and physiological responses.
Mid-pregnancy serum homocysteine and B-vitamin concentrations and fetal growth

Abstract To examine the association between serum total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations and fetal growth, we evaluated the relationships among tHcy, folate, vitamin B-12 and vitamin B-6 (pyridoxal-5′-phosphate, PLP) concentrations at 18 and 30 weeks' gestation and their association to fetal growth in 285 indigent women. Among the three vitamins, only serum folate concentrations showed the strongest inverse relationship with tHcy concentrations at both time points ( P P
An X-Band Superharmonic Injection-Coupled Quadrature VCO (IC-QVCO) with a Tunable Tail Filter for I/Q Phase Calibration

A superharmonic injection-coupled quadrature oscillator topology (IC-QVCO) for low power low phase noise quadrature signal synthesis is introduced. A tunable tail filter (TTF) reduces the oscillator phase noise and calibrates the residual quadrature error in the presence of a 3-sigma variation in the device parameters. As a proof of concept, a 9 GHz prototype is implemented in a 0.18 mum RF CMOS process, and achieves a measured phase noise figure of merit (FoM) ranging from 177.3 to 182.6 dBc/Hz along the 9.0 to 9.6 GHz frequency tuning range while draining only 5 mA from a 1.8 V power supply. Phase error tuning up to plusmn11deg is demonstrated using time domain measurements. In comparison, an identical IC-QVCO without the TTF was measured to have 1-4 dB worse phase noise performance across the tuning bandwidth.
Dicumarol Therapy Some Effects on Platelets and Their Relationship to Clotting Tests

One of the problems of Dicumarol administration has been determination of the adequacy of therapy. A fundamental stage in thrombus formation in the circulation is platelet clumping. Since platelets are involved in both hemostasis and thrombosis, a study of changes in platelet function may prove useful. The effects of Dicumarol on platelet clumping and adhesiveness have, therefore, been studied and related to changes in other clotting mechanisms. Comparison of platelet function in control periods and during Dicumarol administration shows that this drug lowers the adhesive index and prolongs the platelet clumping time to a highly significant degree. The accuracy of estimates of these 2 platelet functions given by 3 other tests, prothrombin time, whole blood clotting time and plasma activity in the thromboplastin generation tests have been compared. By any criterion, degree of correlation, consistency of regression slopes, intercepts or scatter about regression lines, clotting time was the most efficient of the 3 tests for evaluting platelet function. The prothrombin time was the least efficient. Furthermore, hemorrhage from excessive dosage was closely related to the platelet clumping time and clotting time. It should be pointed out, however, that in about one-third of the patients the prothrombin time was as good an index of platelet clumping time as clotting time. While prothrombin times done with 2 different sources of thromboplastin may give congruous results in untreated patients, considerable discrepancies may appear during Dicumarol therapy. If prothrombin time is to be used as a guide to Dicumarol therapy, it is important to establish in each patient separately its reliability as a measure of the behavior of the clotting mechanism as a whole. For those in whom it seems reliable, an individual "therapeutic range" should be determined. For other cases, some other suitable test should be employed. It is emphasized that regulation of Dicumarol dosage is an individual problem and that only those tests shown to be reliable indices of safe effective modifications of clotting mechanism in the individual patient should be used.
Nucleoprotein complexes released from lymphoma nuclei that contain the abl oncogene and RNA and DNA polymerase and RNA primase activities

We report on the discovery and isolation of DNA- and RNA-containing macromolecular nuclear complexes whose purified major DNA possessed electrophoretic mobilities of approximately 90 and approximately 25 kbp. The deoxyribonucleoprotein-ribonucleoprotein complexes contain RNA and DNA polymerase and primase activities and were isolated from nuclei of murine RAW117 large-cell lymphoma cells by restriction digestion with Msp-I, gentle extraction with solutions containing MgCl2, but without chelating agents, and low ionic strength gel electrophoresis. Two-dimensional (isoelectric focusing/M(r)) gel electrophoresis and silver staining of the proteins of the complexes after treatment with DNase I indicated the presence of approximately 30 protein components. In vitro DNA and RNA polymerase/primase assays showed that the DNP/RNP complexes had very high enzyme specific activities. Using the DNP/RNP complexes a discrete DNA polymerase alpha product of approximately 85 kbp was synthesized that was not synthesized in the presence of the DNA polymerase alpha inhibitor aphidicolin. RNA polymerase assays in the presence of excess alpha-amanitin indicated that the complexes possessed significant RNA polymerase I activity. Preparing the complexes at various times after the release of cells from a double thymidine block showed the complexes as well as the complex-associated enzyme activities to be cell-cycle dependent. The DNA and RNA polymerase-related activities were highest in late S phase, 7 and 9 h, respectively, after release from the double thymidine block. The complexes synthesized a specific in vitro DNA polymerase product using endogenous substrate and nucleotide precursors.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Learning from those we serve.

Listening is the precursor to learning. As we listen, we learn about the perceptions held by women and their family members. As we listen to women and their families, we learn not only of their perceptions as they relate to the health care products they received, but also about the health care services provided.
The armadillo: a model for the neuropathy of leprosy and potentially other neurodegenerative diseases

Leprosy (also known as Hansen’s disease) is an infectious peripheral neurological disorder caused by Mycobacterium leprae that even today leaves millions of individuals worldwide with life-long disabilities. The specific mechanisms by which this bacterium induces nerve injury remain largely unknown, mainly owing to ethical and practical limitations in obtaining affected human nerve samples. In addition to humans, nine-banded armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) are the only other natural host of M. leprae, and they develop a systemically disseminated disease with extensive neurological involvement. M. leprae is an obligate intracellular parasite that cannot be cultivated in vitro. Because of the heavy burdens of bacilli they harbor, nine-banded armadillos have become the organism of choice for propagating large quantities of M. leprae, and they are now advancing as models of leprosy pathogenesis and nerve damage. Although armadillos are exotic laboratory animals, the recently completed whole genome sequence for this animal is enabling researchers to undertake more sophisticated molecular studies and to develop armadillo-specific reagents. These advances will facilitate the use of armadillos in piloting new therapies and diagnostic regimens, and will provide new insights into the oldest known infectious neurodegenerative disorder.
Blind source separation with low frequency compensation for convolutive mixtures

This paper addresses the blind source separation of convolutive and temporally correlated voice mixtures. We combine natural gradient algorithm and temporal complexity algorithm to preserve the temporal and frequency structures of the original signals. Due to the underlying scaling constraint of natural gradient algorithm, the low frequency components of the original sources are suppressed in the output signals. To compensate for low frequency loss, we use a measure of temporal complexity to recover the low frequency components of the source signals. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can well preserve the structure of the original signals both in time and frequency domains.
The power of P2P beyond file sharing

Summary form only given. Peer-to-peer (P2P) model has been actively and widely used for file sharing in Internet. While many research efforts have been made to improve its performance, some organizations have expressed their serious concerns to P2P applications in Internet, such as copyright violations, information leaking, and inefficient usage of Internet resources. Instead of presenting the subjective views to these problems, the author addresses the power of P2P beyond file sharing: its effectiveness to balance the supply and demand of network bandwidths and storage access latencies in Internet and distributed systems. The author present several system designs and implementations guided by P2P principle, including network RAM, cooperative caching in network file systems, multi-level buffer caching, and streaming proxy caching. These cases show that P2P has quietly, inevitably, and effectively used in the design and deployment in inherent and distributed systems.
Virtual 3D planning and guidance of mandibular distraction osteogenesis

Abstract We describe an interactive, computer-assisted surgical visualization and simulation tool for distraction osteogenesis for craniofacial surgery. The system enables a surgeon to plan distraction osteogenesis from a CT scan and suggests, based on the designated final position of distracted bone, appropriate distraction hardware, placement of that hardware, and a plan for the distraction.
Estimating group size from human speech: Three's a conversation, but four's a crowd.

Much previous research has examined various aspects of auditory processing, including the localization of sounds, and the influence of lexical and indexical information on language processing. In t...
Heartache of fc receptors.

Idiopathic dilated cardiomypathy (DCM) is characterized by the progressive depression of cardiac function and left ventricular dilation in the absence of coronary artery disease. There is evidence to suggest that humoral immunity plays an important role in the pathogenesis of DCM. In particular, the
A geomorphic approach for examining the role of periphyton in large watersheds

Geomorphic analysis of watersheds, when combined with biotic studies of specific ecosystem components, place these components in a proper ecosystem perspective. In undisturbed boreal forests of Quebec, Canada, annual periphyton production can be reliably predicted from stream order and extrapolated to the watershed level when combined with some simple geomorphic analyses. At the watershed scale periphyton contribute only 11 to 27% to total ecosystem metabolism, depending on the size of the watershed. The most metabolically active components are fine particulate organic matter (0.5 μm-1 mm) and mosses.
Preschool Teachers’ Professional Background, Process Quality, and Job Attitudes: A Person-Centered Approach

Research Findings: This exploratory study identified preschool teacher quality profiles in early childhood education settings using 9 indicators across teachers’ professional background, observed process quality, and job attitudes toward teaching (e.g., job-related stress, satisfaction, and intention to leave the job). The sample consisted of 96 teachers from 48 child care programs in a midwestern U.S. state. A latent profile analysis revealed 3 profiles: (a) less experienced, lower quality, and more positive attitudes; (b) less experienced, average quality, and less positive attitudes; and (c) more experienced, better quality, and mixed attitudes. Multiple program- and teacher-level covariates were incorporated into the latent profile model to examine the associations between program and teacher characteristics and profile membership. Practice or Policy: Results of this study provide important information for use in early child care interventions and suggest a new approach toward more integrated professi...
Ecotoxicological Effect Indices: A Rapidly Evolving System

Ecotoxicology has evolved from a modest number of single species, acute toxicity tests to an integrated system of hazard evaluation for predicting adverse effects of chemicals and complex mixtures on environmental health. The process of screening and regulating chemicals and industrial discharges has improved water quality but has generally not been validated in receiving ecosystems. This deficiency results from the regulation of individual chemicals that rarely occur alone in the environment and from the size of the problem. Many receiving ecosystems have literally hundreds of discharges of complex effluents. Typical single species laboratory tests fail to account for the complexity of ecosystems and the strong interactions that may occur among the component species. Evidence is accumulating that complex test systems such as microcosms and mesocosms can fill this void. Microcosms and mesocosms can be constructed and experiments conducted in a cost-effective manner, and several end points can be measured in complex systems using the standard dose-response paradigm. For example, the current regulation of chlorine discharges is based on three chronic exposures to chlorinated sewage effluent. In a microcosm test, we determined adverse biological effects at nearly an order of magnitude less chlorine (1 μg/1) for the loss of microbial species. To be effective hazard evaluation tools, microcosms and mesocosms must include ecologically meaningful processes and must be useful in making decisions regarding environmental safety and harm. This can only be done with adequate statistical design and intensive sampling. Nevertheless, laboratory ecosystems can be useful in making direct measurements of effects on a large number of interacting species and can be tied to a site-specific problem in a particular ecosystem or can be standardized by using regional type ecosystems as references. By using complex natural communities, the ability to validate test system predictions increases since the test system complexity mimics that found in the real world. Despite hopes that a few sensitive species might be used to make decisions quickly on environmental effects, ecological health will only be maintained when scientists and regulators come to grips with the problem of protecting ecologically important processes as well as sensitive species. This will mean developing tests with increasing environmental realism in which environmentally realistic concentrations of chemicals can be tested without resorting to the use of safety factors or extrapolation from limited data bases. Developing such tests does not mean skyrocketing costs for screening chemicals and effluents, but suggests that regulators and toxicologists will need to deal with new information and learn new skills rather than relying on historically pleasing but ecologically deficient testing programs.
Smoking and the risk of incident hypertension in middle-aged and older men.

Background Cigarette smoking is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), but its relationship to the development of hypertension is unclear. Previous epidemiological studies have shown inconsistent results, having demonstrated inverse and positive associations between cigarette smoking and the development of hypertension. Methods We analyzed 13,529 male participants from the Physicians' Health Study free of baseline hypertension and CVD who provided information about smoking status. Smoking status was categorized as never, past, or current or =20 cigarettes/day. Incident hypertension was defined as either the initiation of antihypertensive treatment, self-reported systolic blood pressure (BP) > or =140 mm Hg, or diastolic BP > or =90 mm Hg. Results Over a median follow-up of 14.5 years, 4,904 men developed hypertension. We modeled the risk of developing hypertension by baseline smoking status adjusting for known risk factors for hypertension or CVD. In a fully adjusted Cox proportional hazards model, we found that compared with never smokers, past smokers and current smokers had corresponding relative risks (RRs) of 1.08 and 1.15 of developing hypertension. The risk for smokers did not appear to differ based on number of cigarettes smoked daily. Further, the RR of hypertension was higher for men with normal vs. prehypertensive levels of systolic (SBP) or diastolic BP (DBP). Conclusions This prospective cohort data suggests that cigarette smoking may be a modest but important risk factor for the development of hypertension.
The Researcher's Dilemma:

How does the marketing researcher resolve his dual orientation as a professional and as a businessman? This is the dilemma which the author poses.The ethical problems which confront marketing resea...
The Expression of microRNA-1,-133,-206 in the Muscle of Adult Mouse

MicroRNAs(miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs emerging as important post-transcriptional gene regulators.miR-1,miR-133,miR-206 are the miRNAs specifically expressed in skeletal muscle tissue,they all belong to miR-1 family,but divide into miR-1/miR-206 and miR-133a/b.The expression and the roles of them in embryogenesis have been expounded by many literatures,but few article refers to the expression of them in adult.In this study,examined the expression of miR-1,miR-133 and miR-206,the miRNAs specifically expressed in skeletal muscle tissue,on the biceps flexor cruris of BALB/c mouse by Real-time PCR,and miR-181a is as the control.The expression of miR-133 is much more than that of the miR-1 and miR-206;the expression of miR-1 is a little more than miR-206's when the miR-181a is little expression.To find the reason of this phenomenon,the map of the relation between the microRNA and the growing of muscle was protract by literature and network forecast.This result provides the evidence and the direction for the following research of microRNA and target gene in adult.
Radio Frequency Identification Tags, Memory Spots, and the Processing of Personally Identifiable Information, and Sensitive Data: When There Is No Balance Between Right and Wrong

Novel medical applications and devices will shortly play a critical role in the diagnosis and storage of medical information in vivo on the patient’s body. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, and memory spots are probably going to be massively deployed on humans not just as a means to locate, and identify a subject but also to have access to sensitive information as medical records, genetic features, and pathological data. The role played by the advancement of technology in this sector is undoubtedly beneficial on the one hand because it solves many problems and deficiencies of the current situation, but on the other hand the collection of extremely sensitive data, like the genetic and pathological ones, must be treated with extreme caution, but probably even the most advanced safety features will not be sufficient to protect individuals from the illegal retrieval and processing of personally identifiable information and sensitive data. There will be a day in which striking a balance between what is useful, and what is too private to be known and disclosed will be extremely hard to accomplish for our decision-makers.
Treatment of trapeziometacarpal arthritis with silastic and metallic implant arthroplasty.

Implant arthroplasty was once viewed as a feasible and effective trapezio-metacarpal joint disease. Silastic implants are now used rarely because of concerns of implant failure and particulate synovitis. Metallic implants, including total joint prostheses and those utilizing a spacer concept, have been used with some success. Indications, technical consideration, and potential complications of these implants are discussed.
Submegahertz spectral resolution in a free-running infrared free-electron laser oscillator

The Mark III FEL is a continuously tunable IR laser operating between 1.9 and 9.5 µm.1 The laser is harmonically mode locked by picosecond electron pulses from a 2.857 GHz pulsed rf linac and contains 39 circulating optical micropulses within the 2.05 m resonator. These micropulses have durations of several picoseconds and energies of several microjoules, and typically yield an output pulse train (or mecropulse) exhibiting a transform-limited optical spectrum and axial modes separated by the 73 MHz round trip frequency (since the 39 independent optical micropulses build up from noise with random phases). In spite of the intrinsically high axial mode resolution, this broad spectral width and narrow line spacing can pose a significant limitation for high resolution spectroscopy. However, by interferometrically coupling the adjacent optical pulses in the resonator, the axial mode spacing can be increased up to the rf frequency of the linac,2,3 and the modes can then be easily filtered in the laboratory. Typical values of the cavity Q or the duration of the macropulse yield an intrinsic axial mode linewidth of several hundred kilohertz.
The Terra Firma

‘Learning teacheth more in one yeare’, writes Roger Ascham back from nine days in Venice, ‘than experience in twentie: And learning teacheth safelie when experience maketh mo miserable than wise. He hazardeth sore, that waxeth wise by experience.’1 Here is the impassioned cry of the Protestant moralist warning of the dangers of travel to the new Italy, a land fallen from its former glory: ‘Italie now, is not that Italie, that it was wont to be: … Vertue once made that contrie Mistres over all the worlde. Vice now maketh that contrie slave to them, that before, were glad to serve it.’2 Ascham cautions his countrymen about the dangers.
Probing the Influence of Dielectric Environment on Excitons in Monolayer WSe2: Insight from High Magnetic Fields.

Excitons in atomically thin semiconductors necessarily lie close to a surface, and therefore their properties are expected to be strongly influenced by the surrounding dielectric environment. However, systematic studies exploring this role are challenging, in part because the most readily accessible exciton parameter—the exciton’s optical transition energy—is largely unaffected by the surrounding medium. Here we show that the role of the dielectric environment is revealed through its systematic influence on the size of the exciton, which can be directly measured via the diamagnetic shift of the exciton transition in high magnetic fields. Using exfoliated WSe2 monolayers affixed to single-mode optical fibers, we tune the surrounding dielectric environment by encapsulating the flakes with different materials and perform polarized low-temperature magneto-absorption studies to 65 T. The systematic increase of the exciton’s size with dielectric screening, and concurrent reduction in binding energy (also inferr...
Inaugural address of the President-elect

![Figure][1] If just one person can make a difference, think what we can accomplish together. Good morning! So here we are in San Francisco, a city that is known as a place where East meets West—a place where people come together from many cultures and where diversity in all forms is
Overlay of Late-Life Depression and Cognitive Impairment

This article appraises several facets of the linkage between depression and cognitive impairment, including dementia, mild cognitive impairment, and vascular dementia. Potential mechanisms for this association are examined. This review was crafted to be extensive but not exhaustive. The authors searched PubMed, using the terms depression, late-life depression, cognitive impairment, and dementia. Articles included are seminal articles from the field as well as representative, heuristic studies. A link between depression and cognitive impairment was found. Depression likely serves as both a risk factor and a prodromal symptom of dementia. Mechanisms whereby depression could induce cognitive impairment include hippocampal atrophy, alterations in glucocorticoid secretion, cerebrovascular compromise, deposition of β-amyloid plaques, chronic inflammation, apolipoprotein E status, and deficits of nerve growth factors. This article will benefit the practicing clinician by increasing awareness of the links between...
Cohesion-driven Online Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning for mHealth Intervention

In the wake of the vast population of smart device users worldwide, mobile health (mHealth) technologies are hopeful to generate positive and wide influence on people's health. They are able to provide flexible, affordable and portable health guides to devise users. Current online decision-making methods for mHealth assume that the users are completely heterogeneous. They share no information among users and learn a separate policy for each user. However, data for each user is very limited in size to support the separate online learning, leading to unstable policies that contain lots of variances. Besides, we find the truth that a user may be similar with some, but not all, users, and connected users tend to have similar behaviors. In this paper, we propose a network cohesion constrained (actor-critic) Reinforcement Learning (RL) method for mHealth. The goal is to explore how to share information among similar users to better convert the limited user information into sharper learned policies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first online actor-critic RL for mHealth and first network cohesion constrained (actor-critic) RL method in all applications. The network cohesion is important to derive effective policies. We come up with a novel method to learn the network by using the warm start trajectory, which directly reflects the users' property. The optimization of our model is difficult and very different from the general supervised learning due to the indirect observation of values. As a contribution, we propose two algorithms for the proposed online RLs. Apart from mHealth, the proposed methods can be easily applied or adapted to other health-related tasks. Extensive experiment results on the HeartSteps dataset demonstrates that in a variety of parameter settings, the proposed two methods obtain obvious improvements over the state-of-the-art methods.
A Brief Overview of Electrodynamic Tethers

Tethers in space can be used for a wide variety of applications such as power generation, propulsion, remote atmospheric sensing, momentum transfer for orbital maneuvers, micro-gravity experimentation, and artificial gravity generation. These are only a few of the host of uses that have been envisioned and proposed for many years. In general, a tether is a long cable (even up to 100 km or more) that connects two or more spacecraft or scientific packages. Electrodynamic tethers are conducting wires that can be either insulated (in part or in whole) or bare, and that make use of an ambient magnetic field to induce a voltage drop across their length. The induced voltage is given by |vxB•L|, where v is the relative velocity to the ambient plasma (the orbital velocity less the earth’s rotational speed), B is the geomagnetic field strength (2−6×10-5T), and L is the length of the tether. For a 20 km tether in low earth orbit (LEO), this voltage would generally fluctuate between 1500 to 5300 volts open circuit, depending on the orbital inclination. If a current is allowed to circulate through the tether and a load, substantial power on the order of 15-30 kW can be generated. However, this power is generated at the cost of orbital energy. Hence an electrodynamic force |ILxB|, on the order of a few newtons, is exerted on the tether, lowering the orbit. On the other hand, with a sufficiently large power supply onboard the spacecraft, the direction of the current can be reversed and the tether becomes a thruster, raising its orbital height. Thus a spacecraft can use an electrodynamic tether system as a pure power generator (with a small rocket to periodically make-up for the drag), as a pure thruster, or in a combination of both roles.
Opto-Dielectrometric Sensor for Measuring Total Incombustible Content in Underground Coal Mines

Coal dust produced during underground coal-mining, i.e., float dust, which deposits throughout the coal mine, can be feedstock for coal dust explosions. To prevent these explosions, inert rock dust (limestone dust) is applied to roof, floor, and rib areas of a coal mine. The ratio of incombustible mass (rock dust + incombustible content of coal dust) divided by total mass of the deposited dust is defined as the total incombustible content (TIC) of the deposited dust within the mine. Regulations require that a minimum TIC ratio (80%) to be maintained for safe working conditions inside the mine. This paper presents design, fabrication, and experimental results for a real-time sensing module, which uses continuous optical and dielectrometry methods to measure the TIC of the deposited float dust/rock dust. The optical sensor determines the TIC of the deposited dust based on optical reflection, which is described by modified Beer Law. We present an extension of the Bouguer-Beer–Lambert Law to find the relation between the reflectivity of a layer of known thickness (obtained by interdigital dielectrometry sensor) of a dust mixture to the ratio of each constituent. We also present the experimental results from testing the sensor prototypes in a realistic laboratory test bed that is subjected to the deposition of the coal dust/rock dust mixture. The sensor performance and stability at different humidity levels is evaluated and the accuracy of the results is compared with the currently established best practices for measuring TIC in underground coal mines.
Charged particle reflection by a planar artificially structured boundary with electrostatic plugging

A classical trajectory Monte Carlo simulation is used to investigate an artificially structured boundary for confinement and control of charged particles. The artificially structured boundary considered here incorporates a planar sequence of conducting wires, where adjacent wires carry current in opposite directions. Such a configuration creates a sequence of magnetic cusps and was studied previously [C. A. Ordonez, J. Appl. Phys. 106, 024905 (2009)]. The effect of introducing a sequence of electrodes for electrostatic plugging of the cusps is investigated. The results of the simulations are used to identify regions of parameter space in which particle losses through the cusps may be negligible in the single particle limit. A trap based on a cylindrical generalization of the artificially structured boundary presented here may lead to a method for confining non-neutral and partially neutralized plasmas along the edge, such that the bulk of a confined plasma is effectively free of externally applied electro...