cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fluorescence Spectroscopic Study for Interaction of Pyrene-Labeled Poly(2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane Sulfonates)s Bearing Octadecyl Group with Nonionic Surfactant Molecules

The interactions of the hydrophobically random-modified and end-capped polyanions with a nonionic surfactant were investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy of the labeled Py in the polyanions. The results revealed that the complex formation between these polyanions and the nonionic surfactant took place with two steps; the first step is the insertion of the surfactant molecules into hydrophobic microdomains formed from the polyanions, and the second step is the disruption of the hydrophobic microdomains due to binding the surfactant molecules to the hydrophobic groups of the polyanions. The position of the hydrophobic groups covalently introduced in the polyanions affects the polyanion-surfactant complex formation.
A Microearthquake Survey of Geothermal Areas in Iceland, 1970

Following the methods of reconnaissance surveys in 1967 and 1968, more than 600 microearthquakes were recorded in Iceland in 1970. Most of these were located at or near geothermal areas. In most regions, only three days of recording at each site yielded a rate that was relatively constant (within a factor of three) over the three summers. The spatial correlation between geothermal areas and microearthquake activity proposed by Ward and Bjornsson (1971), was strengthened by the discovery of microearthquake zones at three geothermal areas previously thought to have insignificant microearthquake activity. Significant seismic activity can be overlooked in reconnaissance monitoring of microearthquakes if determination of magnitudes is neglected. At two of the newly discovered seismic zones in central Iceland, microearthquake activity was much higher in 1970 than in previous years. Magnitudes of these events were comparable to those on the Reykjanes Peninsula. This suggests that tectonism may extend across central beland in connection with a broad band of post-glacial volcanics. Microearthquakes appear to migrate throughout a geothermal area on the Reykjanes Peninsula.
Identification of Environmental Quaternary Ammonium Compounds as Direct Inhibitors of Cholesterol Biosynthesis.

In this study, we aim to identify environmental molecules that can inhibit cholesterol biosynthesis, potentially leading to the same biochemical defects as observed in cholesterol biosynthesis disorders, which are often characterized by congenital malformations and developmental delay. Using the Distributed Structure-Searchable Toxicity (DSSTox) Database Network developed by EPA, we first carried out in silico screening of environmental molecules that display structures similar to AY9944, a known potent inhibitor of 3β-hydroxysterol-Δ(7)-reductase (DHCR7)-the last step of cholesterol biosynthesis. Molecules that display high similarity to AY9944 were subjected to test in mouse and human neuroblastoma cells for their effectiveness in inhibiting cholesterol biosynthesis by analyzing cholesterol and its precursor using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. We found that a common disinfectant mixture, benzalkonium chlorides (BACs), exhibits high potency in inhibiting DHCR7, as suggested by greatly elevated levels of the cholesterol precursor, 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC). Subsequent structure-activity studies suggested that the potency of BACs as Dhcr7 inhibitors decrease with the length of their hydrocarbon chain: C10 > C12 ≫ C14 > C16. Real-time qPCR analysis revealed upregulation of the genes related to cholesterol biosynthesis and downregulation of the genes related to cholesterol efflux, suggesting a feedback response to the inhibition. Furthermore, an oxidative metabolite of 7-DHC that was previously identified as a biomarker in vivo was also found in cells exposed to BACs by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Our findings suggest that certain environmental molecules could potently inhibit cholesterol biosynthesis, which could be a new link between environment and developmental disorders.
Ceramidases in the regulation of ceramide levels and function.

Ceramide (Cer) occupies a central role in sphingolipid metabolism (Hannun and Luberto, 2000; Merrill and Wang, 1992). Ceramide metabolism commences in the de novo pathway with the condensation of serine and palmitoyl CoA, resulting in the formation of 3ketodihydrosphingosine (Merrill and Wang, 1992), which in turn serves as a precursor to dihydrosphingosine (Figure 1). Dihydrosphingosine is then acylated at the 2-amino position to cause the formation of dihydroceramide. It is accepted that the sphingolipid 4-5 double bond is inserted at this point, causing the formation of Cer. In turn, Cer is the precursor of mammalian complex sphingolipids, which are distinguished by substitutions at the 1hydroxyl position of ceramide. For example, sphingomyelin contains a choline phosphate head group, whereas cerebroside contains a glucosyl or galactosyl subunit. Other complex neutral and acidic glycolipids are based on the cerebrosides through sequential additions of glycose units at the 1hydroxyl position (Hannun and Luberto, 2000). Reciprocally, the catabolism of complex sphingolipids proceeds in a stepwise fashion through the action of several hydrolytic enzymes that result in the eventual formation of Cer.
Emotional aspects of infertility

PIP: The psychologic aspects of infertility in men and women are reviewed, neuroendocrinologic factors thought to affect reproduction physiologically are described, and awareness of the stresses that infertility places on a couple's relationship is encouraged. Studies have found infertile women to be more neurotic, dependent, and anxious than fertile women, experiencing conflict over their femininity and fear associated with reproduction. In contrast to these reports, a double blind study could not determine the difference in the psychologic makeup of women who were infertile because of demonstrated somatic causes and those women in whom no somatic cause could be found and who were considered infertile on an emotional etiologic basis. Other studies have similarly come to negative conclusions regarding the relationship between psychologic factors and infertility. The 1st set of studies failed to consider the stress that infertility itself places on the couple. Emotional factors may negatively affect fertility in the male. Up to 10% of infertile males have had improvement in their semen analysis after cessation of all treatment for a prolonged period of time. The concept that emotional stress might lead to oligospermia was further supported in a report describing testicular biopsies obtained from men awaiting sentencing after raping and impregnating women. A more obvious effect of the emotional stress infertility places on the male is the occurrence of impotence. It has been estimated that up to 10% of infertilty may be partially or completely explained on the basis of male sexual dysfunction. The gradual unraveling of the complexities of neuroendocrinology have permitted increased understanding of the role that stress might play in infertility. Catecholamines, prolactin, adrenal steroids, endorphins, and serotonin all affect ovulation and in turn are all affected by stress. Such stress might result from infertility or habitual abortion. Infertility is frequently perceived by the couple as an enormous emotional strain, and counseling may prove helpful as a part of the initial infertility evaluation, an adjunctive measure during treatment, or a final measure to help patients cope with acceptance of their infertility problem. Although statistical evidence is overwhelmingly against the relationship of adoption and subsequent conception, it does appear that a small percentage of patients do achieve pregnancy following adoption. Possibly this can be explained by a reduction in stress, and subsequently, alterations in the neuroendocrinologic characteristics of the infertile couple.
CMOS photonic nanosecond-scale switch fabrics

We review our nanosecond-scale switch technology in IBM's 90nm photonics-enabled CMOS process. We present low-insertion-loss, low-crosstalk, and low-power broadband optical switch fabrics that monolithically integrate the photonics with the CMOS electronics.
Colonic inflammation in a samoan immigrant with gastric lymphoma shown by positron emission tomography.

A 57-year-old Samoan man with large B-cell gastric lymphoma presented with fatigue, anemia, and melena. A positron emission tomography (PET) with 18-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose (FDG) showed no gastric activity but marked hypermetabolic activity in the cecum and ascending colon (Figure 1 ). Corresponding computed tomography (CT) revealed bowel wall thickening, consistent with infectious or inflammatory process. Colonoscopy showed non-specific inflammatory changes. Laboratory work showed leukocytosis (white blood cells = 19.3) and eosinophilia (absolute eosinophil count [AEC] = 9.2). Extensive infectious disease workup was only significant for a positive Strongyloides antibody (3.11; normal < 1.5). He received two doses of ivermectin 2 weeks apart.1 Post-treatment PET/CT showed resolution of FDG uptake and normalization of bowel wall thickness (Figure 2 ). Concurrent laboratory tests confirmed resolution of the infection with negative antibodies (0.35). Figure 1. PET/CT 1-10-2013. Figure 2. PET/CT 4-05-2013. S. sterocoralis nematodes typically inhabit the small bowel; therefore, involvement of the cecum and ascending colon in this patient suggests a hyperinfection syndrome. Diagnosis of Strongyloides may be established by detection of larvae in stool or a biopsy or by serology. PET and CT are not typically used for diagnosis. However, this case shows Strongyloides hyperinfection syndrome by PET as an incidental finding and reinforces the need to maintain a high index of suspicion for this infection in immigrants from endemic regions.
Hoxa-5 in mouse developing lung: cell-specific expression and retinoic acid regulation.

Hoxa-5 is a homeobox gene that is highly expressed in the developing mouse lung. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms controlling expression. We characterized the ontogeny of Hox...
PRADA: Combating voltage noise in the NoC power supply through flow-control and routing algorithms

Network-on-Chip (NoC) has become the de-facto standard for on-chip communication in MPSoCs. The growing NoC power footprint, increase in the transistor current, and high switching speed of the logic devices, exacerbate the peak power supply noise (PSN) in the NoC power delivery network (PDN). Hence, preserving power supply integrity in the NoC PDN is critical. In this work, we propose PRADA (PSN-aware Runtime Adaptation)—a collection of a novel flow-control protocol (PAF) and an adaptive routing algorithm (PAR), to mitigate PSN in NoCs. Our best scheme achieves 14% and 12% improvements in the regional peak PSN and energy efficiency, with an average of 4.6% performance overhead and marginal area and power footprints.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection, Women, and Pregnancy: Ethical Issues

Should women of childbearing age be screened for the presence of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus? If infected, should they be instructed not to become pregnant or not to bear children? Should pregnant women and their offspring be included in research protocols that explore ways to prevent or treat perinatally acquired HIV disease? This article examines ethical controversies related to HIV screening, counseling, and research and suggests that resolutions may come from achieving greater clarity about the ultimate goals of obstetric and gynecologic care.
Incisions, amputations, and skin grafting in the hand.

Summary 1. Incisions in the hand must be planned to provide adequate exposure without the risk that contracture in healing will restrict function. This is less of a problem in the loose dorsal skin than in the relatively fixed palmar tissues. 2. Amputations are treated with consideration of the individual case, generally preserving length and striving for pain-free wound closure, but recognizing that extensive measures to salvage a part of limited potential can seriously jeopardize the function of the whole hand. 3. Skin grafts are usually chosen to replace skin losses in the hand when the recipient bed is suitable and there is not a need for replacement of subcutaneous tissues. Thick skin grafts are more normal and serviceable, but their successful transplantation depends on ideal circumstances. Careful hemostasis and effective immobilization are the most important technical factors in successful skin grafting.
Effects of Instructor Background and Delivery Modality on Students’ Perceptions of a Social Media Lecture

Increasingly, marketing departments are recognizing the importance of teaching students the appropriate skills to adapt to the quickly evolving business environments (Granitz and Koernig 2011; Rinaldo et al. 2013; Tuten and Marks 2012; Wymbs 2011). This is especially relevant in marketing education where organizations expect marketing graduates to be equipped with skills in current information technologies used to manage communication with stakeholders and make complex data-driven marketing decisions (Granitz and Koernig 2011). Recent research indicates that at least some employers are currently dissatisfied with the technology skillsets of marketing graduates (Harrigan and Hulbert 2011; Kaplan et al. 2009). The purpose of this research is to determine whether there are significant differences in student attitudes toward faculty credibility, perceptions of learning, and attitudes toward digital marketing. We explore these questions within an experimental setting that manipulates whether the content of a digital marketing module was created by an industry expert versus academic and whether the delivery modality is face-to-face versus recorded. The results of this study reveal that whether or not an instructor presents themselves as from industry or academia and the modality of lecture delivery are important, though not interactive, factors in determining students’ perceptions toward a social media marketing lecture. Specifically, we find that in-person lecturing positively influences students’ perceptions of the lecturer across likeability, competence, character, and delivery variables. Face-to-face instruction was also positively associated with positive characteristics derived from a specific lecture such as how enjoyable it was and whether it should be taught to future classes.
Iowa Priority's Brown Bag Medication Reviews: A Comparison of Pharmacy Students and Pharmacists

Objective. To determine the percent of drugs that could have been substituted with a generic product or interchanged with a therapeutic equivalent, and compare the types of recommendations (ie, cost saving vs therapeutic) made by pharmacists and pharmacy students. Methods. A retrospective cohort study of the Iowa Priority Brown Bag Medication Reviews was done. A random sample of 100 reviews performed by pharmacists and 50 reviews performed by pharmacy students was drawn from a pool of 2060 reviews. Results. There were no differences among the study groups in terms of demographics, disease variables, or medication use variables. Pharmacy students made significantly more total recommendations as well as more cost saving, generic substitution, alternate brand, and stop prescription medication recommendations than pharmacists. Over 50% of all medications identified in the medication reviews could have been substituted with a generic product or with a therapeutic equivalent. Conclusions. This study showed that...
The Enterprise Resource Planning System as a Strategic Solution

Many large organizations are integrating core business processes throughout the supply chain by implementing enterprise resource planning systems. Although some have encountered difficulties during the rigorous enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation process, most problems seem to result from users trying to map a previously ill-behaved system to work within the structure of the ERP system.
Investment returns of US commercial timberland: insights into index construction methods and results

This study compares different index construction methods of timberland investment returns and evaluates the resulting indices by various asset pricing models. In addition to various NCRIEF indices,...
A universal bound on the ϵ-entropy of bandlimited radiation

We provide a bound on the ϵ-entropy of square-integrable bandlimited waveforms in terms of their energy and of the spatial extension of the domain where they are observed. This result is closely related to the largest amount of information that can be contained in a physical system of a given size, known as the Bekenstein universal entropy bound.
Quantitative Nutritional and In Vivo Metabolic Studies with Water-Soluble, Chemically Defined Diets

Publisher Summary This chapter presents quantitative, nutritional, and in vivo metabolic studies with water-soluble and chemically defined diets. The resolution of racemic compounds, as initially developed by Louis Pasteur, consists of three independent methods: (1) mechanical separation of those crystals capable of showing hemihedrism; (2) employing an optically active acid or base, which can transform the racemate into a diastereomeric mixture wherefrom the more insoluble diastereomeric salt can separate; and (3) utilizing a biological agent that can preferentially metabolize one or the other isomeric form of the racemate. The enzymatic resolution procedures, developed by Jesse Philip Greenstein and his associates, are based primarily upon the L-directed asymmetric hydrolysis, either by hog renal acylase I or carboxypeptidase of a suitable N-acyl-DL-amino acid, or by hog renal amidase of a DL-amino acid amide. Such resolution procedures are employed to obtain the L-and D-antipodes of a large variety of α-amino acids on the large scale and permit the formulation of water-soluble, chemically defined diets composed of crystalline essential and nonessential L-amino acids, the requisite vitamins and salts, glucose, and ethyl linoleate or mazola oil as the essential fatty acid component.
The Use of a Bone Marrow Transplant Program Public Website for Patient Education and Reporting of Outcomes: Increased Use Resulting in Improved Patients’ Trust and Assurance.

Abstract To promote patient education, the Dartmouth Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program created a website focusing on Quality Reports, highlighting outcomes and patient satisfaction data. In an attempt to address areas most important to potential patients, the development of the website involved Transplant physicians and nurses, outside reviewers and recently transplanted patients. Based on these assessments and interviews, the BMT website was designed to provide various outcome data, including disease-specific overall- and disease-free survival, length of stay, and incidence of nausea. The website became public in January 2004. The use of the public website was evaluated 18 months after initiation. There was a 300% increase in external user visits to the Dartmouth BMT Website (comparing 3 month averages). Eighty percent of the information accessed was in the topic of “Safe and Effective Care”, which addresses patient-specific data, including survival statistics, length of stay, or toxicities during the transplant. The remaining 20% of interest was satisfaction measures addressing patients' view of their overall care, opinions addressing nursing care or physician interaction. Of the top ten measures that were evaluated by users, the first 9 were disease-specific survival statistics and the remaining was “Average Length of Hospital Stay”. Individual interviews with patients (n=16) indicate that the information provided on the web site increased the trust of the institution. In addition, patients felt re-assured concerning their selection of our institution. In conclusion, the initiation of the Dartmouth BMT Quality Reports Website ( http://www.dhmc.org/QualityReports ) that focuses on outcome data resulted in a marked increased use of the Dartmouth BMT Website within 18 months. Patients were most interested in disease-specific survival statistics, followed by transplant patients' opinions of their care. Patients report that the “transparency” of outcome results and the patient education provided by the website improve their trust of our BMT program/hospital and foster assurance of our institution's reputation.
Tourism planning and place making: place-making or placemaking?

Tourism destination planning and marketing are fundamentally place making actions intended to shape the image and imageability of a place. Place making is an innate human behavior, ranging from the...
Comparison of Continuous-Wave and Micropulse Modulation in Retinal Laser Therapy

Purpose Recent progress in retinal laser therapy has centered upon using thermal stress below damage threshold or selective destruction of targeted tissue layers as a stimulus for retinal repair. Temporal modulation, including micropulse, is thought to increase the selectivity of laser treatment, but has not been carefully analyzed. We measure and model the tissue response to continuous-wave (CW) and micropulse laser to evaluate the advantages and drawbacks of temporal modulation. Methods Thresholds of ophthalmoscopic visibility, which indicates damage to photoreceptors, and fluorescein angiography (FA), indicating damage to retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), were measured with 577-nm laser in rabbits for duty cycles ranging from 3% to 100% (CW) and pulse envelopes of 20 and 200 ms. Heat shock protein (HSP) expression was measured in rats. Thresholds were compared to a computational model of tissue response based on the Arrhenius integral. Results Damage to photoreceptors was defined by average power, regardless of the duty cycle, as predicted by the model. The average power for FA threshold was lower with 5% duty cycle than with CW laser by 22 ± 15% for 200-ms and 35 ± 21.5% for 20-ms envelopes, demonstrating some heat localization to RPE. The ratio of RPE damage threshold to HSP expression threshold was 1.30 ± 0.15 and 1.39 ± 0.11 for 20 ms at 5% duty cycle and CW, respectively. Conclusions Micropulse modulation with sufficiently short envelope and duty cycle can help reduce the spread of heat from the light-absorbing RPE and choroid. However, this localization does not benefit nondamaging retinal laser therapy, which is intended to avoid any cell death.
Modeling of Radiotherapy Linac Source Terms Using ARCHER Monte Carlo Code: Performance Comparison for GPU and MIC Parallel Computing Devices

Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is well recognized as the most accurate method for radiation dose calculations. For radiotherapy applications, accurate modelling of the source term, i.e. the clinical linear accelerator is critical to the simulation. The purpose of this paper is to perform source modelling and examine the accuracy and performance of the models on Intel Many Integrated Core coprocessors (aka Xeon Phi) and Nvidia GPU using ARCHER and explore the potential optimization methods. Phase Space-based source modelling for has been implemented. Good agreements were found in a tomotherapy prostate patient case and a TrueBeam breast case. From the aspect of performance, the whole simulation for prostate plan and breast plan cost about 173s and 73s with 1% statistical error.
Heterodyne-based hybrid controller for wide dynamic range optoelectronic frequency synthesis

Chip scale optical frequency combs using microresonators can enable a wide variety of applications from metrology to telecommunications. While tremendous progress has been made in miniaturizing the optical components, sources of variability and drift due to ambient conditions often limit their performance. We describe the design and implementation of a mixed-signal controller for optoelectronic frequency synthesis with notable frequency stability by locking it to an RF reference. A C-band tunable laser is phase-locked using commercial off the shelf components and custom board-level designs. Utilizing several laser inputs, our hybrid control loop enables a 50 nm tuning range with less than 10−12 frequency instability for 1 second averaging. A heterodyne receiver overcomes poor SNR of the photonics, and also features a scan-and-lock algorithm to facilitate an extended acquisition range. We report > 500 GHz frequency steps in 4.4 ms. All of the frequency settings and loop stability dynamics are programmable in real-time via a custom Graphical User Interface.
Early onset cigarette smokers exhibit greater P300 reactivity to smoking-related stimuli and report greater craving.

Abstract Adolescence is a period during which a number of critical neuromaturation processes occur and the vulnerability for developing nicotine dependence is extremely high. Thus, early-onset (EO; age
Effects of ground flaxseed in swine diets on pig performance and on physical and sensory characteristics and omega-3 fatty acid content of pork: I. Dietary level of flaxseed.

Forty-eight barrows and gilts were fed diets containing 0 (CO), 5, 10, or 15% ground flaxseed (FS) for the final 25 d before slaughter. Flaxseed treatments did not affect any production or carcass traits (P > .10). No pork processing problems due to lack of firmness were encountered. Amounts (milligrams/gram of tissue) of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA [18:3n-3]) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA [20:5n-3]) increased (P < .01) in both backfat layers and ALA increased (P < .01) in kidney (leaf) fat after FS. Alpha-linolenic acid and EPA increased (P < .001) in the raw belly in response to FS; the effect was maintained throughout processing (P < .01) to microwaved bacon. Alpha-linolenic acid and EPA increased (P < .01, P < .05, respectively) with amount of FS in longissimus thoracis and liver. In the brain, DHA decreased (P < .05) with amount of FS. Trained panelists in triangle tests were able to identify bacon from pigs fed 10 and 15% flaxseed. Panelists could not identify various treatments in the loin tests.
Renal Metabolism in Obstructive Uropathy

Many of our present concepts in obstructive uropathy are based on Hinman’s observations with respect to hydronephrotic atrophy subsequent to complete obstruction of the flow of urine and the existence of a renal counterbalance where an anatomical and functional readjustment between the less injured or uninjured portion and the more injured portion in terms of performance takes place(1). Together with Hepler, he introduced the concept of ischemia as possible cause for a hastening of dilatation and atrophy of the kidney with obstructed urine flow(2).
Glucocerebrosidase: reconstitution of activity from macromolecular components. (Short Communication)

Glucocerebrosidase activity was reconstituted in vitro from a soluble glycoprotein factor (P) and a particle-bound factor (C). The physiological significance of the system is discussed.
Fever in the Hospitalized or Critically Ill Child

New fever in hospitalized patients can often be a challenging diagnostic dilemma given the numerous potential etiologies. Few interventional studies exist to define the optimum evaluation and management of such patients. Furthermore, given the medical complexity and frailty of many critically ill children, a need exists to rapidly identify and address potential infections. In this chapter, a brief overview is provided of common infectious and noninfectious causes of fever in the hospitalized child.
Lysostaphin and BMP-2 co-delivery reduces S. aureus infection and regenerates critical-sized segmental bone defects

Staphylococcus aureus is the most common pathogen associated with bacterial infections in orthopedic procedures. Infections often lead to implant failure and subsequent removal, motivating the development of bifunctional materials that both promote repair and prevent failure due to infection. Lysostaphin is an anti-staphylococcal enzyme resulting in bacterial lysis and biofilm reduction. Lysostaphin use is limited by the lack of effective delivery methods to provide sustained, high doses of enzyme to infection sites. We engineered a BMP-2–loaded lysostaphin-delivering hydrogel that simultaneously prevents S. aureus infection and repairs nonhealing segmental bone defects in the murine radius. Lysostaphin-delivering hydrogels eradicated S. aureus infection and resulted in mechanically competent bone. Cytokine and immune cell profiling demonstrated that lysostaphin-delivering hydrogels restored the local inflammatory environment to that of a sterile injury. These results show that BMP-2–loaded lysostaphin-delivering hydrogel therapy effectively eliminates S. aureus infection while simultaneously regenerating functional bone resulting in defect healing.
BotSifter: An SDN-based Online Bot Detection Framework in Data Centers

Botnets continue to be one of the most severe security threats plaguing the Internet. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of cloud-hosted botnets along with the increasing popularity of cloud platforms, which attracted not only various applications/services, but also botnets. However, even the latest botnet detection mechanisms (e.g., machine learning based) fail to meet the requirement of accurate and expeditious detection in data centers, because they often demand intensive resources to support traffic monitoring and collection, which is hardly practical considering the traffic volume in data centers. Furthermore, they provide little understanding on different phases of the bot activities, which is essential for identifying the malicious intent of bots in their early stages. In this paper, we propose BotSifter, an SDN based scalable, accurate and runtime bot detection framework for data centers. To achieve detection scalability, BotSifter utilizes centralized learning with distributed detection by distributing detection tasks across the network edges in SDN. Furthermore, it employs a variety of novel mechanisms for parallel detection of C&C channels and botnet activities, which greatly enhance the detection robustness. Evaluations demonstrate that BotSifter can achieve highly accurate detection for a large variety of botnet variants with diverse C&C protocols.
Fifty Years of Symmetry Operators

The title of my address, so kindly provided by the leadership of this conference, clearly indicates that I should be principally concerned with the role which the symmetry and invariance principles play in quantum mechanics, with their applications and effectiveness — it was precisely 50 years ago that these were recognized. Nevertheless, I like to say a few words about the role of symmetry principles in prequantum theory because the comparison of this role with the role played by the same principles at present seems to me very interesting.
Genetic Defects in Mitochondrial Dynamics in Caenorhabditis elegans Impact Ultraviolet C Radiation- and 6-hydroxydopamine-Induced Neurodegeneration

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders involving devastating loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Early steps in PD pathogenesis include mitochondrial dysfunction, and mutations in mitochondrial genes have been linked to familial forms of the disease. However, low penetrance of mutations indicates a likely important role for environmental factors in PD risk through gene by environment interactions. Herein, we study how genetic deficiencies in mitochondrial dynamics processes including fission, fusion, and mitophagy interact with environmental exposures to impact neurodegeneration. Methods: We utilized the powerful model organism Caenorhabditis elegans to study ultraviolet C radiation (UVC)- and 6-hydroxydopamine-induced degeneration of fluorescently-tagged dopaminergic neurons in the background of fusion deficiency (MFN1/2 homolog, fzo-1), fission deficiency (DMN1L homolog, drp-1), and mitochondria-specific autophagy (mitophagy) deficiency (PINK1 and PRKN homologs, pink-1 and pdr-1). Results: Overall, we found that deficiency in either mitochondrial fusion or fission sensitizes nematodes to UVC exposure (used to model common environmental pollutants) but protects from 6-hydroxydopamine-induced neurodegeneration. By contrast, mitophagy deficiency makes animals more sensitive to these stressors with an interesting exception—pink-1 deficiency conferred remarkable protection from 6-hydroxydopamine. We found that this protection could not be explained by compensatory antioxidant gene expression in pink-1 mutants or by differences in mitochondrial morphology. Conclusions: Together, our results support a strong role for gene by environment interactions in driving dopaminergic neurodegeneration and suggest that genetic deficiency in mitochondrial processes can have complex effects on neurodegeneration.
Engineering of Dental Titanium Implants and Their Coating Techniques

Coating can improve dental implant success rate in medically compromised patients, as it allows sustained delivery of medicaments and regenerative molecules to the implant site on a biomimetic matrix. There are many dimensions in which this technology can enhance implant treatments, with respect to improved blood clotting and bone formation via amplifying favorable properties—such as wettability, surface roughness, and biomimicry. Understanding the process of osseointegration will drive further research in the subject of bioengineering titanium implants with functionalized coats.
Insect Hybridization and Climate Change

Contemporary global change is altering ecosystems at an unprecedented pace and scale. This critical period is a crisis for biodiversity, but the perturbations caused by global environmental change also offer new opportunities to study the evolution of species boundaries—their persistence, formation, or collapse—over rapid evolutionary timescales. Increasing temperature means and fluctuations have the potential to alter gene flow between species through changes in species distributions, interactions, life history, and temperature-dependent behavior. This is particularly true for insects, whose geographic ranges, behaviors and life history traits are temperature dependent. Here, we review the potential for climate change to influence gene flow and species boundaries between closely related insect species. We focus on studies that have tracked changes in climate and insect distributions and/or have evaluated temperature dependent reproductive barriers between species.
Creating Predictive Weed Emergence Models Using Repeat Photography and Image Analysis

Weed emergence models have the potential to be important tools for automating weed control actions; however, producing the necessary data (e.g., seedling counts) is time consuming and tedious. If similar weed emergence models could be created by deriving emergence data from images rather than physical counts, the amount of generated data could be increased to create more robust models. In this research, repeat RGB images taken throughout the emergence period of Raphanus raphanistrum L. and Senna obtusifolia (L.) Irwin and Barneby underwent pixel-based spectral classification. Relative cumulative pixels generated by the weed of interest over time were used to model emergence patterns. The models that were derived from cumulative pixel data were validated with the relative emergence of true seedling counts. The cumulative pixel model for R. raphanistrum and S. obtusifolia accounted for 92% of the variation in relative emergence of true counts. The results demonstrate that a simple image analysis approach based on time-dependent changes in weed cover can be used to generate weed emergence predictive models equivalent to those produced based on seedling counts. This process will help researchers working on weed emergence models, providing a new low-cost and technologically simple tool for data collection.
Integrating an Urgent Care Clinic Into an Academic Family Medicine Practice.

Background and objectives There has been a growth in the demand for convenient, walk-in access in health care across the United States, resulting in primary care practices seeing a shift in services to urgent care centers (UCCs). In order to incorporate the flexibility of a UCC and improve primary care access and preventive care for our regular patients, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Family Medicine Center (FMC) established a UCC within the practice. This report describes that process and the impact of the new UCC on our academic practice. Methods With the support of the UNC health care system, our primary objectives were to provide enhanced access for patients with acute problems, decrease emergency department (ED) utilization, and increase enrollment of new patients for ongoing primary care. As part of our intervention, we asked providers to respond to a series of questions at the end of each visit. These questions, along with data regarding number of visits and revenue, were tracked longitudinally. Results By the end of our first year, we were treating about 900 patients per month, of which approximately one-third would have otherwise visited the ED. We averaged 115 new patients establishing care per quarter. In addition to the success of this new service line, our primary practice maintained provider continuity and grew at a higher rate than prior to opening the UCC. Conclusions The opening of urgent care at the UNC FMC provided improved access for our patients, increased the number of patients empaneled in our primary care practice, and provided a new revenue stream.
Mg(BH4)2-Based Hybrid Metal–Organic Borohydride System Exhibiting Enhanced Chemical Stability in Melt

The formation of a chemically stable and thermally cyclable Mg(BH4)2 melt is proven to be possible through the utilization of an organic borohydride salt additive. While extensive exploration of ad...
The Impact of Dietary Patterns and Nutrition in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become one of the most common causes of chronic liver disease worldwide. The prevalence of NAFLD has grown proportionally with the rise in obesity, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy dietary patterns, and metabolic syndrome. Currently, in the absence of approved pharmacologic treatment, the keystone of treatment is lifestyle modification focused on achieving a weight loss of 7%-10%, cardiovascular exercise, and improving insulin sensitivity. The primary aim of this review is to outline the effect of different dietetic approaches against NAFLD and highlight the important micronutrient components in the management of NAFLD.
The Veterinary Feed Directive

We will be writing Veterinary Feed Directives (VFDs) and prescriptions in December of 2016 to authorize the use of medically important antibiotics in the feed and water of our client's animals starting on January 1, 2017. The major challenge for our profession is not to master the limited number of labels we will be dealing with, or to master the VFD process; it is that we are now not only responsible forauthorizing the use of almost every antibiotic in food animals, we are also accountable. The decision process for if we should provide a VFD or prescription is centered on applying our professional training and experience to establish a clinical justification for the use. This process centers on these considerations. Do I have a valid VCPR? Is there a reason for this use or is it just habit? Is it legal? Is it effective? Are there any issues with residues or antibiotic resistance to consider? After these considerations, veterinarians are then responsible to lead in antibiotic stewardship. This involves assuring accurate case definitions, searching for antibiotic alternatives, selecting the appropriate antibiotic, monitoring use, and constant re-evaluation of the need for the antibiotic.
Comments on the article "The analgesic effect of joint mobilization and manipulation in tendinopathy: a narrative review".

Dear editor,I read with great interest and would like to congratulate Savva et al. [1] for their interesting narrative review that contributes to the understanding of joint mobilization and manipul...
Glomangiopericytoma Uptake With 99mTc-MIBI, 18F-FDG, and 11C-Choline.

ABSTRACT The author presents 3 incidental cases of glomangiopericytoma exhibiting avidity of 99mTc-MIBI, 18F-FDG, and 11C-choline, respectively, during SPECT/CT evaluation of hyperparathyroidism, and PET/CT monitoring of metastatic melanoma and biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer. All the 3 cases show similar functional and anatomic features of tracer-avid lesion in the right nasal cavity from histologically proven glomangiopericytoma.
Activation of cAMP-dependent phosphorylation pathways is independent of ROS production during mouse sperm capacitation.

Mammalian sperm have to undergo capacitation to fertilize the egg. At the molecular level, capacitation involves cAMP synthesis, protein kinase A activation, and downstream increase in tyrosine phosphorylation. In addition, during capacitation, mammalian sperm actively generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). It has been proposed that ROS modulate phosphorylation pathways; however, the crosstalk between these signaling processes is not well-understood. In the present study, we used loss- and gain-of-function approaches to evaluate the interconnection between ROS and phosphorylation. We showed that BSA and HCO3 - , but not Ca2+ , in the capacitation media are required for ROS production. The synergic effect of these compounds was neither mediated by HCO3 - stimulation of cAMP synthesis nor by BSA-induced cholesterol efflux. The capacitation-induced ROS generation was blocked in the presence of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, and apocynin. However, none of these compounds affected cAMP-dependent or tyrosine phosphorylation. On the other hand, the addition of NADPH to the media induced ROS generation in sperm incubated in the absence of BSA and HCO3 - without upregulating cAMP-dependent or tyrosine phosphorylation signaling. Most interestingly, catalase, but not SOD, blocked in vitro fertilization suggesting a role for H2 O2 in this process.
Device Developments for Optical Information Processing

Publisher Summary This chapter emphasizes those developments in the three classes of devices (light sources, modulators, and detectors) that address the optical processing needs and points out the specific promising directions for development. The performance of light sources, modulators, and detectors drives progress in the utilization of optical techniques in signal processing and computing. Of the three device categories, optical sources are the most developed. Most developments of relevance are pointed toward the improvements in semiconductor laser diodes to achieve better optical beam outputs because the advantages of such lasers in size, weight, and power efficiency are well known. In optical processing applications, it is desired to manipulate the 2-D fields that are spatially as large as possible, that is, the photodetector throughputs must be commensurately large, even if the data array to be detected has been reduced in dimension to 1-D or even a single channel. Optical processing architectures determine the format of the output data array, but the performance of photodetectors determines the efficacy of the alternative candidate architectures.
Latino Food Culture

Reviewed Medium: book Authors: Zilkia Janer Year: 2008 Pages: 200 Publisher: Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN: 978-0-313-34027-7 (hard cover). Prices: $49.95 USD(hard cover).
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

OVERVIEW International criminal law was at the forefront of United States conduct during 2002–2004. The traditional areas of treaty development on extradition and mutual legal assistance continued to feature, although this period saw a greater movement away from bilateral instruments to the development of such treaties on a global or regional level. Moreover, treaty practice in this field saw efforts to address emergent problem-areas, such as cybercrime. Non-treaty instruments were important in some instances, such as the non-binding trade controls on “conflict diamonds” organized through the Kimberley Process. The United States adopted new statutes to reinforce such instruments or to promote general norms of international law, such as through a 2003 criminal statute that protects children from transnational exploitation. At the same time, the United States reacted adversely to some efforts by other states to extend their jurisdiction, such as occurred with respect to Belgium's universal jurisdiction statute, or through the creation of the new International Criminal Court (ICC). While the United States continued to support the ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, it aggressively pursued exemptions for U.S. persons from the ICC through the negotiation of nearly 100 bilateral agreements and through Security Council resolutions designed to shield from the ICC U.S. personnel engaged in UN peacekeeping operations. Perhaps the most publicly debated aspect of U.S. practice in this time period was the treatment under the laws of war of persons detained as a part of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Peak classifier for bar code waveforms

Previous bar code decoding algorithms operated on the binarized output of a hardware digitizer which limited the working range of the algorithm. The authors propose a new and more aggressive bar code decoder that operates on the location of the peaks of the bar code waveform. This algorithm can operate in high convolution distortion environments and is based on statistical pattern recognition techniques. However no training data is required and the misdecode rate is controlled by a single adjustable parameter. >
A Decision-Theoretic Model of the Sampling Behavior of the Human Process Monitor: Experimental Evaluation

Subjective sampling behavior was compared with that of an optimal dynamic decision model for a process monitoring task with and without compensatory actions. The cost structure (ratio of cost of sampling to cost of the process exceeding certain critical threshold limits) and the threshold limit were the two independent variables. The performance of the subjects tended to be suboptimal with significant differences between the subjective and the normative sampling intervals. The extent and direction of these differences depended on the values of the two independent variables. However, for the no-control task, significant correlations existed between the subjective and the normative sampling intervals for all subjects and all experimental conditions, while only three of the eight control cases produced such significant correlations.
Nation-State Routing: Censorship, Wiretapping, and BGP

The treatment of Internet traffic is increasingly affected by national policies that require the ISPs in a country to adopt common protocols or practices. Examples include government enforced censorship, wiretapping, and protocol deployment mandates for IPv6 and DNSSEC. If an entire nation's worth of ISPs apply common policies to Internet traffic, the global implications could be significant. For instance, how many countries rely on China or Great Britain (known traffic censors) to transit their traffic? These kinds of questions are surprisingly difficult to answer, as they require combining information collected at the prefix, Autonomous System, and country level, and grappling with incomplete knowledge about the AS-level topology and routing policies. In this paper we develop the first framework for country-level routing analysis, which allows us to answer questions about the influence of each country on the flow of international traffic. Our results show that some countries known for their national policies, such as Iran and China, have relatively little effect on interdomain routing, while three countries (the United States, Great Britain, and Germany) are central to international reachability, and their policies thus have huge potential impact.