cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Geometry of Computational Singular Perturbations

Abstract The previously developed Computational Singular Perturbation (CSP) method is presented from a geometric perspective. Connections are made with previous work on the geometric theory of singular perturbations and decoupling transformations for linear time-varying systems. The CSP method facilitates the numerical solution of multiple time-scale initial-value problems for stiff finite-dimensional nonlinear systems. Its advantage over implicit integration methods is that in addition to producing the solution, it produces information useful in developing reduced-order models. Its advantage over the analytical singular perturbation method is that there is no a priori requirement for the system to be given in standard form.
Motion Planning for Curvature-Constrained Mobile Robots with Applications to Needle Steering

Advances in medical imaging modalities such as MRI, ultrasound, and x-ray fluoroscopy are now providing physicians with real-time, patient-specific information as they perform medical procedures such as extracting tissue samples for biopsies, injecting drugs for anesthesia, or implanting radioactive seeds for brachytherapy cancer treatment. These diagnostic and therapeutic medical procedures require insertion of a needle to a specific location in soft tissue. We are developing motion planning algorithms for medical needle insertion procedures that can utilize the information obtained by real-time imaging to accurately reach desired locations.
Seismic Behavior of Liquid Filled Shells

The elastic behavior of vertical-axis cylindrical liquid storage tanks subject to horizontal seismically induced motions of the base is considered. Tanks without as well as with a dome are examined. The effect of initial geometric imperfections is studied, as is the influence of circumferential reinforcing rings on dynamic behavior of the shell-liquid system.
Is It Time to Switch from Bond Funds to Individual Bond Buying

This article revisits Dubil’s previous study of corporate bond bargains with new data and a new methodology. Since 2008, the corporate bond market has become more volatile. Dealers hold less inventory, while issues are concentrated in buy-and-hold portfolios of large asset managers. This has caused wild price swings, yet the bid–ask spreads have not increased. Bonds of identical issuers with identical credit ratings trade at different prices, offering individual investors opportunities to shop for bargains. Yields to maturity and prices between the best and the worst offers vary up to 1% and 10%, respectively. The author follows bonds of the same issuer over time throughout 2016–2017. He finds that prices on nearly identical bonds move in opposite directions or move by vastly different amounts. These movements are large (up to 10%) and not proportional to the modified duration. Some yields follow Treasuries, some yields do not. Thus, yields are subject to random variation unrelated to credit spread. Different issues at different times become expensive or trade at bargain prices. The author suggests that investors’ fixed-income allocations may be cost- and duration-optimized through buying individual bonds rather than through investing in active bond funds or index ETFs.
Hypotony Maculopathy: A Silent Mimicker of Common Macular Diseases With Nonspecific Optical Coherence Tomography Findings:

Purpose:To highlight the diagnostic challenge of eyes with hypotony maculopathy with concurrent macular diseases and to present optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging findings in hypotony macul...
dCat: dynamic cache management for efficient, performance-sensitive infrastructure-as-a-service

In the modern multi-tenant cloud, resource sharing increases utilization but causes performance interference between tenants. More generally, performance isolation is also relevant in any multi-workload scenario involving shared resources. Last level cache (LLC) on processors is shared by all CPU cores in x86, thus the cloud tenants inevitably suffer from the cache flush by their noisy neighbors running on the same socket. Intel Cache Allocation Technology (CAT) provides a mechanism to assign cache ways to cores to enable cache isolation, but its static configuration can result in underutilized cache when a workload cannot benefit from its allocated cache capacity, and/or lead to sub-optimal performance for workloads that do not have enough assigned capacity to fit their working set. In this work, we propose a new dynamic cache management technology (dCat) to provide strong cache isolation with better performance. For each workload, we target a consistent, minimum performance bound irrespective of others on the socket and dependent only on its rightful share of the LLC capacity. In addition, when there is spare capacity on the socket, or when some workloads are not obtaining beneficial performance from their cache allocation, dCat dynamically reallocates cache space to cache-intensive workloads. We have implemented dCat in Linux on top of CAT to dynamically adjust cache mappings. dCat requires no modifications to applications so that it can be applied to all cloud workloads. Based on our evaluation, we see an average of 25% improvement over shared cache and 15.7% over static CAT for selected, memory intensive, SPEC CPU2006 workloads. For typical cloud workloads, with Redis we see 57.6% improvement (over shared LLC) and 26.6% improvement (over static partition) and with ElasticSearch we see 11.9% improvement over both.
J. McIntyre Machinery, Goodyear, and the Incoherence of the Minimum Contacts Test

On June 27, 2011, when J. McIntyre Machinery Ltd. v. Nicastro and Goodyear Dunlop Tire Operations, S.A. v. Brown were handed down, it marked the first time in almost a quarter century that the United States Supreme Court engaged in an extended discussion of the minimum contacts test. That test has for nearly seven decades set the basic parameters of measuring the constitutionality of exercises of state-court personal jurisdiction. The cases were generally assumed to have been accepted for review by the Supreme Court to clarify two areas in which the constitutional boundaries of state-court jurisdiction were unclear. The first stemmed from the Supreme Court's 1987 decision in Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court, which produced no majority opinion and thus left unclear whether the forum state sale of an allegedly dangerous product that caused injury to the plaintiff there sufficed to establish jurisdiction. The second was the quantum of unrelated business contacts in the forum state necessary to create jurisdiction. Unfortunately, as to the first issue, the Supreme Court again produced no majority opinion, and left the subject even more muddled than before. The plurality opinion written by Justice Kennedy attempted to re-ground state-court jurisdiction in a dubious sovereignty theory that the Supreme Court had rejected several times before. As to the second issue, the Court held that unrelated sales in the forum were not enough to establish jurisdiction. The Supreme Court appeared to announce a new test that required the defendant's contacts with the forum state be enough so that the defendant is "essentially at home" in the forum, but provided little elaboration as to what is meant by that phrase. This article argues that the two new cases represent a continuation of the Supreme Court's vacillating and unclear jurisprudence in this area, and that the fundamental difficulty is that the Court lacks any clear constitutional rationale for limiting exercises of assertions of state-court jurisdiction.
The Microbiome and Men's Health.

Research on the characterization and measurement of the human microbiome in health and disease is exploding. The field is fast moving with evolving methods of measurement of microbial composition, diversity, and abundance, and with the development of strategies to modulate the human microbiome to improve health. A previous Q&A in Clinical Chemistry focused on diagnostic and monitoring applications and methods. In this Q&A, a panel of 4 experts in microbiology, microbial ecology, and epidemiology provide ( a ) their perspectives on research questions and key findings about the role of the microbiome in men's health, and ( b ) their expectations for the near-term and future translation of technologies to measure and modulate the microbiome for clinical and population application to enhance men's health and well-being. The target audience for this Q&A comprises scientists who do not study the microbiome, those who study the microbiome but not in the context of men's health, and young investigators who would like to study the microbiome especially with the goal of improving men's health and well-being. What is the state of the science in “measuring” the microbiome with validity and precision in men? Jacques Ravel: Sex as a biological factor is now being considered in research studies, mostly because of a push from the NIH, but remains understudied. Men's health, in general, has not been addressed from a microbiome perspective. Although the gut microbiome has been extensively studied, studies of other body sites and organs, including those relevant to men, are lagging. Jacques Ravel One of the major challenges for the microbiome field, irrespective of whether focused on men, stems from the fact that studies examining an extensive range of diseases have established only associations between microbiota composition and structure, and disease states; they have not established cause and effect. Many studies are cross-sectional, which means that they cannot …
Checking in on Lenalidomide in Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma

Lenalidomide has modest single-agent activity comparable with other newer drugs in recurrent diffuse large B cell lymphoma with response rates between 19% and 28%. Retrospective series and 1 prospective study suggest that clinically significant responses were predominantly limited to patients with activated B cell (ABC) lymphoma, a finding in agreement with lenalidomide's potent inhibition of nuclear factor κB, the key driver of ABC lymphomas. Recently completed trials will determine whether the additional use of lenalidomide with R/CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) enhances survival compared with R/CHOP alone and whether this activity is limited to ABC lymphomas. Lenalidomide also appears to have activity in the maintenance setting regardless of cell of origin and might play an important role in patients with recurrent disease who are not transplantation candidates. Similarly, because of the ability of lenalidomide to cross the blood-brain barrier, it needs to be further explored in patients with high risk for central nervous system spread. The results of lenalidomide combination studies with chemotherapy and with checkpoint inhibitors are eagerly awaited.
A New Perspective on Breast Cancer Diagnostic Guidelines to Reduce Overdiagnosis

Overdiagnosis of breast cancer, defined as diagnosing a cancer that would otherwise not cause symptoms or death in a patient’s lifetime, costs US health care system over $1.2 billion annually. Overdiagnosis rates, estimated to be around 10% − 40%, may be reduced if indolent breast cancer subtypes can be identified and followed with noninvasive imaging rather than biopsy. However, there are no validated guidelines for radiologists to decide when to choose imaging options recognizing cancer subtypes. The aim of this study is to optimize breast cancer diagnostic decisions based on cancer subtypes using a large-scale finite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) model with 4.6 million states to help reduce overdiagnosis. We develop and prove the optimality of a divide-and-conquer algorithm that relies on tight upper bounds on the optimal decision thresholds to find an exact optimal solution. We project the high-dimensional MDP onto two lower-dimensional MDPs and obtain feasible upper bounds on the optimal decision thresholds. We use real data from two private mammography databases and demonstrate our model performance through a previously validated simulation model that has been used by the policy makers to set the national screening guidelines in the US. We find that a decision-analytical framework optimizing diagnostic decisions while accounting for breast cancer subtypes has a strong potential to improve the quality of life and alleviate the immense costs of overdiagnosis. Our model leads to a 20% reduction in overdiagnosis on the screening population, which translates into an annual savings of approximately $300 million for the US health care system.
Space–time transmit nulling for RF spectrum interoperability

This chapter begins with a formulation of the RUWO algorithm in Section 18.2 and its application to producing spatial, frequency, and space-frequency transmit nulls for radio frequency interference avoidance, followed by a description of the Naval Research Laboratory's Space Time Adaptive Nulling (STAN) radar test bed, an eight-channel X-band coherent MIMO radar test bed used to experimentally verify the performance of the RUWO algorithm in Section 18.3. Section 18.4 then provides a description of narrowband loop-back and open-air experimental applications of RUWO that were originally presented in [14,15], respectively. Following the narrowband results is an explanation in Section 18.5 of how the RUWO algorithm is incorporated into a method for producing wideband FM waveforms with large space-frequency nulls as discussed in [11]. The chapter concludes with a summary of presented work and a discussion of future work and open problems on the topic of space-time transmit nulling with the goal of RF spectrum interoperability.
Evaluating the Impact of the Indian Supreme Court Judgment on Sex-Selective Abortion

Lawyers bring public interest litigation cases (“PIL”) to the Indian Supreme Court seeking many different types of remedies, including to prevent the construction of power plants that may damage the environment or to prevent violations of rights of a group of people. The Indian Supreme Court (the “Supreme Court” or “Court”) sometimes responds by creating guidelines like what the executive branch might do. But in many PIL cases, litigants are not asking for the creating of new rules, but instead they are simply asking the Supreme Court to encourage the government to amend, implement, and enforce laws that already exist.
Contributions of Women to Multimodal Transportation Systems

Multimodal transportation systems are critical infrastructure components that are essential to promoting and preserving economic health and general societal welfare. These assets facilitate efficient movement of people, goods, and services, and their operations are highly interconnected with numerous other infrastructure systems including communications, emergency response, energy, water supply, agricultural production, and manufacturing. Having 17 years of experience working within the multimodal transportation community, I am continually impressed with the female academics and practitioners who are working to improve our multimodal transportation system. This chapter will focus on major contributions I and other women have made in multimodal transportation research and the impacts these women have had on my career.
SIVSHM: Secure Inter-VM Shared Memory.

With wide spread acceptance of virtualization, virtual machines (VMs) find their presence in various applications such as Network Address Translation (NAT) servers, firewall servers and MapReduce applications. Typically, in these applications a data manager collects data from the external world and distributes it to multiple workers for further processing. Currently, data managers distribute data with workers either using inter-VM shared memory (IVSHMEM) or network communication. IVSHMEM provides better data distribution throughput sacrificing security as all untrusted workers have full access to the shared memory region and network communication provides better security at the cost of throughput. Secondly, IVSHMEM uses a central distributor to exchange eventfd - a file descriptor to an event queue of length one, which is used for inter-VM signaling. This central distributor becomes a bottleneck and increases boot time of VMs. Secure Inter-VM Shared Memory (SIVSHM) provided both security and better throughout by segmenting inter-VM shared memory, so that each worker has access to segment that belong only to it, thereby enabling security without sacrificing throughput. SIVSHM boots VMs in 30% less time compared to IVSHMEM by eliminating central distributor from its architecture and enabling direct exchange of eventfds amongst VMs.
IRS Criminal Investigation: Measuring the Marginal Monetary Effect of Criminal Investigation Convictions

The purpose of this Chapter is to estimate the marginal effect of criminal investigations (CI) conducted by the IRS. Specifically, I answer these questions:
Gold Nanoshell-Linear Tetrapyrrole Conjugates for Near Infrared-Activated Dual Photodynamic and Photothermal Therapies

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a treatment in which photoactive compounds delivered to cancerous tissues are excited with light and then transfer the absorbed energy to adjacent tissue oxygen molecules to generate toxic singlet oxygen (1O2). As 1O2 is produced only where light and photosensitizers (PSs) are combined, PDT holds promise as a minimally invasive, highly selective treatment for certain cancers. The practical application of PDT requires easily synthesized, water-soluble PSs that have low dark toxicities, high 1O2 quantum yields, and efficient absorption of 650-850 nm near-infrared (NIR) light, which deeply penetrates tissue. We recently developed a linear tetrapyrrole metal complex, Pd[DMBil1]-PEG750, that meets most of these criteria. This complex is remarkably effective as a PS for PDT against triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells but, critically, it does not absorb NIR light, which is necessary to treat deeper tumors. To enable NIR activation, we synthesized a new derivative, Pd[DMBil1]-PEG5000-SH, which bears a thiol functionality that facilitates conjugation to NIR-absorbing gold nanoshells (NSs). Upon excitation with pulsed 800 nm light, NSs emit two-photon-induced photoluminescence spanning 500-700 nm, which can sensitize the attached PSs to initiate PDT. Additionally, NSs produce heat upon 800 nm irradiation, endowing the NS-PS conjugates with an auxiliary photothermal therapeutic (PTT) capability. Here, we demonstrate that NS-PS conjugates are potent mediators of NIR-activated tandem PDT/PTT against TNBC cells in vitro. We show that Pd[DMBil1]-PEG5000-SH retains the photophysical properties of the parent Pd[DMBil1] complex, and that NS-PS generate 1O2 under pulsed 800 nm irradiation, confirming activation of the PSs by photoluminescence emitted from NSs. TNBC cells readily internalize NS PS conjugates, which generate reactive oxygen species in the cells upon pulsed NIR irradiation to damage DNA and induce apoptosis. Together, these findings demonstrate that exploiting photoluminescent NSs as carriers of efficient Pd[DMBil1] PSs is an effective strategy to enable NIR light-activated tandem PDT/PTT.
Learning Compressible 360 $^{\circ }$ ∘ Video Isomers

Standard video encoders developed for conventional narrow field-of-view video are widely applied to $360^{\circ }$ 360 ∘ video as well, with reasonable results. However, while this approach commits arbitrarily to a projection of the spherical frames, we observe that some orientations of a $360^{\circ }$ 360 ∘ video, once projected, are more compressible than others. We introduce an approach to predict the sphere rotation that will yield the maximal compression rate. Given video clips in their original encoding, a convolutional neural network learns the association between a clip’s visual content and its compressibility at different rotations of a cubemap projection. Given a novel video, our learning-based approach efficiently infers the most compressible direction in one shot, without repeated rendering and compression of the source video. We validate our idea on thousands of video clips and multiple popular video codecs. The results show that this untapped dimension of $360^{\circ }$ 360 ∘ compression has substantial potential—“good” rotations are typically $8{-}18$ 8 - 18 percent more compressible than bad ones, and our learning approach can predict them reliably 78 percent of the time.
Enhancing Motivation through Work Meaningfulness

Proper human resources management can strengthen an organization through strategic talent recruitment and adequate benfits, but employee motivation is also needed to limit absenteeism and ensure an organization is reaching its fullest potential. Research shows various methods that an organizational leader can take to motivate employees by connecting them closer to the meaning of their work. Using a case from former president John F. Kennedy and his relationship to NASA, this article illustrates one way work meaningfulness can be adapted to improve employee motivation for Extension agents.
Macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia in transplantation: Increasingly typical?

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of the most common bacterial causes of pneumonia. Macrolide-resistant M pneumoniae (MRMP) was documented in 7.5% of isolates in the United States. Resistance portends poor outcomes to macrolide therapy, yet patients respond well to fluoroquinolones or tetracyclines such as minocycline. However, MRMP may be under-appreciated because M pneumoniae generally causes relatively mild infections in non-immunosuppressed adults that may resolve without effective therapy and because microbiological confirmation and susceptibility are not routinely performed. We report two cases of pneumonia due to MRMP in kidney transplant recipients. Both patients required hospital admission, worsened on macrolide therapy, and rapidly defervesced on doxycycline or levofloxacin. In one case, M pneumoniae was only identified by multiplex respiratory pathogen panel analysis of BAL fluid. Macrolide resistance was confirmed in both cases by real-time PCR and point mutations associated with macrolide resistance were identified. M pneumoniae was isolated from both cases, and molecular genotyping revealed the same genotype. In conclusion, clinicians should be aware of the potential for macrolide resistance in M pneumoniae, and may consider non-macrolide-based therapy for confirmed or non-responding infections in patients who are immunocompromised or hospitalized.
Chapter 6 – Conclusions/Suggestions

To address the challenge put forward in this book you must name someone to be your data Chief – most are calling it a Chief Data Officer (CDO). To be successful in data and thus have data’s organizational advantage, you must provide them with the necessary success pillars. There are three: Sole dedication to data. De-linking data asset evolution from business information system development. The CDO must report up to the executive leadership. ‘Working’ from this perspective for at least a year, the CDO will understand your organizational data challenge – a prerequisite to data-knowledgeable decision.
Manipulated Agents : Précis

This precis kicks off an invited symposium on Alfred R. Mele (Manipulated Agents: a Window to Moral Responsibility, Oxford University Press, 2019).
The Limit of Detection Matters: The Case for Benchmarking Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Testing.

Background Resolving the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic requires diagnostic testing to determine which individuals are infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The current gold standard is to perform reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on nasopharyngeal samples. Best-in-class assays demonstrate a limit of detection (LoD) of approximately 100 copies of viral RNA per milliliter of transport media. However, LoDs of currently approved assays vary over 10,000-fold. Assays with higher LoDs will miss infected patients. However, the relative clinical sensitivity of these assays remains unknown. Methods Here we model the clinical sensitivities of assays based on their LoD. Cycle threshold (Ct) values were obtained from 4700 first-time positive patients using the Abbott RealTime SARS-CoV-2 Emergency Use Authorization test. We derived viral loads from Ct based on PCR principles and empiric analysis. A sliding scale relationship for predicting clinical sensitivity was developed from analysis of viral load distribution relative to assay LoD. Results Ct values were reliably repeatable over short time testing windows, providing support for use as a tool to estimate viral load. Viral load was found to be relatively evenly distributed across log10 bins of incremental viral load. Based on these data, each 10-fold increase in LoD is expected to lower assay sensitivity by approximately 13%. Conclusions The assay LoD meaningfully impacts clinical performance of SARS-CoV-2 tests. The highest LoDs on the market will miss a majority of infected patients. Assays should therefore be benchmarked against a universal standard to allow cross-comparison of SARS-CoV-2 detection methods.
Applications of the Finite Element Method to the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations

A Galerkin/least-squares finite element method is applied to the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. The turbulence model utilizes an eddy viscosity calculated from a velocity scale and a length scale. The velocity scale, q, is evolved via an additional transport equation which is appended to the RANS equations and solved together as a complete system. The length scale, l, is given by algebraic relations involving flow quantities and distance to the wall. The model is shown to give good results on a variety of problems over a broad range of resolution.
Lists, Optional Elements, and Placeholders

Lists and optional elements are such an important aspect of editor specifications that they deserve to be discussed in more detail. Although iterated elements (lists) and optional elements are concepts that are commonly found in many extended BNF notations, the form that they take in the Synthesizer Specification Language is different from the familiar notions. The chief motivation for SSL’s notation for lists and optional elements is to provide a uniform notation for specifying the attribution of terms and their unparsing. The attribute equations and, with one small exception, the unparsing declarations that one writes for list phyla and optional phyla are no different in form from those that are used for ordinary phyla. For example, because all lists are terminated by an instance of the list phylum’s nullary operator, there is no need for special-case rules covering the cases of an empty list, a singleton list, and a list of length two or more, as would otherwise have been necessary.
Neonatal Alcohol Exposure Induces Long-Lasting Impairment of Visual Cortical Plasticity in Ferrets

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a major cause of learning and sensory deficits. These disabilities may result from disruption of neocortex development and plasticity. Alcohol exposure during the third trimester equivalent of human gestation may have especially severe and long-lasting consequences on learning and sensory processing, because this is when the functional properties and connectivity of neocortical neurons start to develop. To address this issue, we used the monocular deprivation model of neural plasticity, which shares many common mechanisms with learning. Ferrets were exposed to ethanol (3.5 mg/kg, i.p.) on alternate days for 3 weeks starting on postnatal day (P) 10. Animals were then monocularly deprived at the peak of ocular dominance plasticity after a prolonged alcohol-free period (15-20 d). Quantitative single-unit electrophysiology revealed that alcohol exposure disrupted ocular dominance plasticity while preserving robust visual responses. Moreover, optical imaging of intrinsic signals revealed that the reduction in visual cortex area driven by the deprived eye was much less pronounced in ethanol-treated than in control animals. Alcohol exposure starting at a later age (P20) did not disrupt ocular dominance plasticity, indicating that timing of exposure is crucial for the effects on visual plasticity. In conclusion, alcohol exposure during a brief period of development impairs ocular dominance plasticity at a later age. This model provides a novel approach to investigate the consequences of fetal alcohol exposure and should contribute to elucidate how alcohol disrupts neural plasticity.
Serological Reactions Associated with the Clumping Factor of Staphylococcus aureus

Rotter, Joan (University of Oklahoma Medical Center, Oklahoma City), and Florene C. Kelly. Serological reactions associated with the clumping factor of Staphylococcus aureus. J. Bacteriol. 91:588–594. 1966.—Evidence that the substance which causes staphylococci to clump in the presence of fibrinogen (clumping factor) is antigenically similar in strains which are serologically diverse according to agglutination reactions has been obtained from fibrinogen-cell clumping inhibition tests. Antisera for clumping factor (CF)-positive strains inhibited the clumping reaction of all strains tested. After adsorption with homologous cells or with cells of other CF-positive strains, the antisera no longer inhibited clumping. When antisera were adsorbed with trypsin-treated, CF-positive cells, or with cells of CF-negative mutants, the ability to inhibit the clumping reaction persisted. Antibody to CF activity was not associated with coagulase. Latex coated with extracts derived from the cells of five CF-positive and six CF-negative strains was, in each instance, agglutinated by sera from rabbits immunized with CF-positive cells. After adsorption with trypsinized, CF-positive cells, antisera still agglutinated latex which had been treated with the CF-positive extracts, but not with the CF-negative extracts. Similar results were obtained after antisera were adsorbed with the cells of CF-negative mutants. Cell agglutination titers of sera from rabbits immunized with CF-negative staphylococci were significantly lower than those produced in response to CF-positive cells, regardless of their coagulase activity. If the CF-inhibiting antibody also functions as an agglutinin, it apparently is not solely responsible for this difference.
Managing job stress

Starts from the premisses that stress at work is a significant and costly problem, and that the challenge for companies is to manage work stress in order to reduce health‐care costs and improve productivity. Suggests that this challenge can be met by greater collaboration among company departments, bringing expertise from different areas to bear on the problem. Describes the conceptual basis for such collaboration and presents a case study of an ongoing partnership between an employee assistance programme and a human resource management group.
Assembly of cholera toxin B subunit full-length rotavirus NSP4 fusion protein oligomers in transgenic potato

A CTB-NSP4175 fusion gene encoding the entire 175-aa murine rotavirus NSP4 enterotoxin protein was transferred into Solanum tuberosum cells by Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation. The CTB-NSP4175 enterotoxin fusion gene was detected in the genomic DNA of transformed leaves by PCR DNA amplification. Synthesis and assembly of the full-length CTB-NSP4175 fusion protein into oligomeric structures of pentamer size was detected in transformed tuber extracts by immunoblot analysis. The binding of CTB-NSP4175 fusion protein pentamers to intestinal epithelial cell membrane receptors was quantified by GM1-ganglioside enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (GM1-ELISA). The ELISA results showed that CTB-NSP4175 fusion protein was 0.006–0.026% of the total soluble tuber protein. The synthesis of CTB-NSP4175 monomers and their assembly into biologically active oligomers in transformed potato tubers demonstrates the feasibility of using edible plants for the synthesis of enterocyte-targeted full-length rotavirus enterotoxin antigens that retain all of their pathogenic epitopes for initiation of a maximum mucosal immune response.
Facial Affect and Verbal Context in Conversation: Facial Expression as Interjection.

This study examines affective facial expression in conversation. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the accuracy of affect-identification for conversational facial expressions generally is no better than chance. The explanation explored by Experiment 2 is that many conversational facial expressions operate as nonverbal interjections. Thus, much like verbal interjections (“gosh,”“really,”“oh please,”“jeez,” etc.), the attribution of affect for certain conversational facial expressions should depend on their verbal context. Experiment 2 supports the notion of facial expression as interjection by demonstrating that most any conversational facial expression, regardless of Us true source emotion or of the affect it signals in isolation, tends to be interpreted according to the affect associated with the verbal context in which it occurs. In addition to the identification of context-dependent interjection as yet another function of facial expression, the study suggests a pressing need for further investigation of nonverbal behavior in natural-conversation settings.
Size-fractionated nitrogen uptake measurements in the equatorial Pacific and confirmation of the low Si–high-nitrate low-chlorophyll condition

[1] The equatorial Pacific Ocean is the largest natural source of CO2 to the atmosphere, and it significantly impacts the global carbon cycle. Much of the large flux of upwelled CO2 to the atmosphere is due to incomplete use of the available nitrate (NO3) and low net productivity. This high-nutrient low-chlorophyll (HNLC) condition of the equatorial upwelling zone (EUZ) has been interpreted from modeling efforts to be due to low levels of silicate (Si(OH)4) that limit the new production of diatoms. These ideas were incorporated into an ecosystem model, CoSINE. This model predicted production by the larger phytoplankton and the picoplankton and effects on air-sea CO2 fluxes in the Pacific Ocean. However, there were no size-fractionated rates available for verification. Here we report the first size-fractionated new and regenerated production rates (obtained with 15N−NO3 and 15N−NH4 incubations) for the EUZ with the objective of validating the conceptual basis and functioning of the CoSINE model. Specifically, the larger phytoplankton (with cell diameters > 5 μm) had greater rates of new production and higher f-ratios (i.e., the proportion of NO3 to the sum of NO3 and NH4 uptake) than the picoplankton that had high rates of NH4 uptake and low f-ratios. The way that the larger primary producers are regulated in the EUZ is discussed using a continuous chemostat approach. This combines control of Si(OH)4 production by supply rate (bottom-up) and control of growth rate (or dilution) by grazing (top-down control).
Substrate stiffness regulates primary hepatocyte functions

Liver fibrosis occurs as a consequence of chronic injuries from viral infections, metabolic disorders, and alcohol abuse. Fibrotic liver microenvironment (LME) is characterized by excessive deposition and aberrant turnover of extracellular matrix proteins, which leads to increased tissue stiffness. Liver stiffness acts as a vital cue in the regulation of hepatic responses in both healthy and diseased states; however, the effect of varying stiffness on liver cells is not well understood. There is a critical need to engineer in vitro models that mimic the liver stiffness corresponding to various stages of disease progression in order to elucidate the role of individual cellular responses. Here we employed polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS) based substrates with tunable mechanical properties to investigate the effect of substrate stiffness on the behavior of primary rat hepatocytes. To recreate physiologically relevant stiffness, we designed soft substrates (2 kPa) to represent the healthy liver and stiff substrates (55 kPa) to represent the diseased liver. Tissue culture plate surface (TCPS) served as the control substrate. We observed that hepatocytes cultured on soft substrates displayed a more differentiated and functional phenotype for a longer duration as compared to stiff substrates and TCPS. We demonstrated that hepatocytes on soft substrates exhibited higher urea and albumin synthesis. Cytochrome P450 (CYP) activity, another critical marker of hepatocytes, displayed a strong dependence on substrate stiffness, wherein hepatocytes on soft substrates retained 2.7 fold higher CYP activity on day 7 in culture, as compared to TCPS. We further observed that an increase in stiffness induced downregulation of key drug transporter genes (NTCP, UGT1A1, and GSTM-2). In addition, we observed that the epithelial cell phenotype was better maintained on soft substrates as indicated by higher expression of hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α, cytokeratin 18, and connexin 32. These results indicate that the substrate stiffness plays a significant role in modulating hepatocyte behavior. Our PDMS based liver model can be utilized to investigate the signaling pathways mediating the hepatocyte-LME communication to understand the progression of liver diseases.
Impact of vancomycin faecal concentrations on clinical and microbiological outcomes in Clostridium difficile infection

Abstract To assess the impact of faecal vancomycin concentrations on clinical and microbiological outcomes in patients with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and whether these concentrations vary with stool consistency and frequency, faecal concentrations of vancomycin were measured in stools collected at various times from patients initiated on 125 mg every 6 h (q6h) for 10 days. Stool consistency and frequency were determined over the course of therapy. Clinical and microbiological outcomes were assessed during therapy, at the end of therapy (EOT) and during a 19–38-day follow-up visit. Faecal vancomycin concentrations in 55 stool samples from 15 patients ranged from 175–6299 μg/g at Days 3–5 of therapy (midpoint), 17–5277 μg/g at EOT and 0–70 μg/g at follow-up. Clinical cure or failure at EOT and at follow-up was not dependent on vancomycin concentrations measured at the midpoint (P = 0.72) or at EOT (P = 0.76). Likewise, concentrations at EOT and at follow-up did not predict colonisation at follow-up (P = 0.85 and 0.71, respectively). Faecal vancomycin concentrations during the course of therapy (Days 3–5) did not differ with either stool consistency or frequency (P = 0.94 and 0.16, respectively). However, after completion of therapy, patients with more frequent stools showed higher concentrations than patients with less frequent stools (P = 0.04). Oral vancomycin 125 mg q6h led to faecal concentrations that did not predict clinical outcomes of CDI in terms of cure or gut colonisation and did not vary with stool consistency and frequency.
Effects of dietary calcium, phosphorus, calcium: phosphorus ratio and vitamin K on performance, bone strength and blood clotting status of pigs.

Three factorial experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of various Ca:P ratios (1:1, 2:1 and 3:1) in diets having deficient (.3%), adequate (.6%) and excess (.9%) levels of dietary P on rate and efficiency of gain and bone strength of 192 pigs from 18 to 40 kg BW. A corn-soybean meal diet fortified with minerals and vitamins (but not vitamin K) was fed. Levels of Ca and P were achieved by adjusting the amounts of dicalcium phosphate and ground limestone in the diet. The corn was free of detectable mycotoxins. A hemorrhagic condition occurred in Exp. 1 in pigs fed the higher dietary Ca levels; all eight of the pigs fed 2.7% dietary Ca died of internal hemorrhage within the initial 28 d of the experiment. Vitamin K (5 mg menadione [as menadione dimethylpyrimidinole bisulfite]/kg) was added to half of the diets of the remaining animals and the experiment was continued for an additional 14 d. Prothrombin and whole blood clotting times were increased (P less than .01) in pigs fed high Ca without vitamin K but were normal in pigs fed high Ca with added vitamin K. Similar trends in clotting times occurred in a second experiment. A third experiment was conducted to determine whether the addition of vitamin K could reverse the hemorrhagic condition induced by feeding high dietary Ca for 28 d. As in the other two experiments, clotting times were increased (P less than .01) in pigs fed high Ca and no vitamin K. Addition of vitamin K after 28 d resulted in a return to basal prothrombin values by d 50. In regard to the original objectives, increasing the Ca:P ratio from 1:1 to 2:1 or 3:1 tended to reduce rate and efficiency of gain at all levels of P. Increasing the Ca:P ratio to 2:1 resulted in increased bone strength only when P was at or above the dietary requirement.
CULTIVATION IN VITRO OF THE THYROID GLAND

The thyroid gland of mammals can be cultivated outside the body. The proliferated elements consist of connective tissue and epithelial cells, the former predominating. The cells survive in cultures for two weeks or longer, which period can be increased by secondary and sometimes by tertiary cultivations. It is to be noted that the method of growing in vitro organs such as the thyroid gland may come to be used with advantage in the study of the substances concerned with the internal secretion of certain glands.
A 63 mA 112/94 dB DR IF Bandpass $\Delta\Sigma$ Modulator With Direct Feed-Forward Compensation and Double Sampling

We developed a 10.7 MHz intermediate frequency bandpass discrete-time 4th-order 4-bit DeltaSigma modulator for AM/FM car radio tuners. Using direct feed-forward compensation and double sampling, we have achieved a dynamic range (DR) of 112 dB in the 3 kHz AM bandwidth (BW) and a DR of 94 dB in the 200 kHz FM BW. The modulator occupies 3 mm2 , in 0.15 mum CMOS technology, and draws 63 mA of current.
The accuracy of memory for pain

Although the clinical treatment of chronic pain syndromes requires systematic assessment of pain (based to some extent on patients' self-reports), it has become common to question the accuracy of autobiographical and retrospective accounts of pain severity. The authors' work suggests that self-reports of pain are generally accurate. In a research program sponsored by the National Center for Health Statistics, the authors found that the only influence on the accuracy of pain reports that could be documented empirically was pain at the time of recall on remembered pain episodes. With this exception, unreliability in pain self-reports may not be as attributable to the limitations of human memory and biases of self-report as generally assumed.
Neuropsychological and Behavioral Effects of Antiepilepsy Drugs

Antiepilepsy drugs work by decreasing neuronal irritability, which may also result in the non-desired side effect of decreased neuropsychological function. In addition to cognitive side effects, antiepilepsy drugs (AEDs) may be associated with behavioral effects which may range from irritability and hyperactivity to positive psychotropic effects on mood. There have been many new medications released since the 1990s, and although they tend to have more favorable side effect profiles compared to their older counterparts, there continues to be a risk of decreased cognitive function with the majority of these agents. The effects of in utero antiepilepsy drug exposure are increasingly being investigated, and differential drug risk is beginning to be described for both anatomic and cognitive outcomes. Patients with epilepsy undergoing neuropsychological evaluations are commonly on AEDs, and it is important for the clinician to recognize the potential contribution of AED therapy to neuropsychological profiles. The present article serves to provide an overview of our current understanding regarding the risks of antiepilepsy drug use for both cognitive and behavioral side effects.
Does Teaming Obscure Low Performance? Exploring the Temporal Effects of Team Performance Diversity

Organizations are increasingly using team-based projects to achieve goals. As such, it is important to understand how team members (e.g., their differences) influence team outcomes such as effectiveness. In the present study, we examine performance diversity, differences in members’ past performance, as an antecedent to team effectiveness. In addition, we assessed the length of time the group performed together as a moderator and social loafing among members as a mediator of the performance diversity—team effectiveness relationship. Using multisource data for 673 individuals in 139 project teams, we found that performance diversity had an increasingly negative effect for groups that were together longer. Specifically, greater diversity resulted in more social loafing, thereby diminishing team satisfaction and supervisor-rated team performance.
Effect of moisture and temperature on the fracture morphology of dacite

Abstract A direct relation was found between point-load tensile strength and percentage of void fracture in a series of dacite discs. The dacite of this study is a glassy rock with about 25 per cent voids. The discs were loaded to failure at 15 kg/sec in dry and water-saturated environments at 20° and 100°. Dried discs yielded higher tensile strengths and a greater proportion of void fracturing than did saturated discs. Moisture and temperature interacted to reduce the strength of saturated discs. Fracture morphology was studied in thin sections of the discs under a microscope, in order to compute a void intercept per cent, V, for estimating fracture tendency to cut voids, partitions or partition micropores. The results were systematically analyzed by means of a linear model, in which the variables moisture, temperature and V were statistically isolated and compared with tensile strength. Then a regression line was fitted to the data to obtain a prediction equation relating percentage void fracture and tensile strength. In addition to voids, myriads of micropores and crack-like micropores were found in void partitions with the light optical and scanning electron microscopes. The lower tensile strength of the saturated discs probably results from moisture-weakened micropores, because these discs exhibited a greater proportion of fractures traversing partitions than did the dried discs. The micropores not only acted as stress risers during unconfined loading, but also served as avenues for moisture penetration and their tips as loci for moisture attack. The behavior of porous, glassy ceramic materials is compared with that of dacite to show similarities and to form a basis for understanding its behavior.
Direct visualization of intracranial aneurysms by computed tomography.

Abstract Twenty seven aneurysms in 25 patients were directly visualized by CT. Thin-walled non-thrombosed aneurysms showed homogeneous sharply-marginated intraluminal enhancement. Partially thromhosed aneurysms had a thickened high-density peripheral rim which was sometimes calcified and enhanced; the intraluminal portion also enhanced but the thrombosed region was isodense and non-enhancing. Completely thrombosed aneurysms showed dense calcification in the peripheral wall with sometimes peripheral but no intraluminal enhancement.
Immunologic variability in a healthy population.

Abstract Immune evaluation performed in 61 healthy individuals over a 14-month period, revealed that for most parameters investigated the coefficient of variation was >30%. The dispersion was partly due to presence in the population of individuals that consistently exhibited higher or lower levels than the population's mean. For two assays studied, i.e., percentage T cells and polymorphonuclear leukocytes dispersion was less pronounced (