cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The role of dopamine in the accumbens core in the expression of Pavlovian conditioned responses

The role of dopamine in reward is a topic of debate. For example, some have argued that phasic dopamine signaling provides a prediction-error signal necessary for stimulus–reward learning, whereas others have hypothesized that dopamine is not necessary for learning per se, but for attributing incentive motivational value (‘incentive salience’) to reward cues. These psychological processes are difficult to tease apart, because they tend to change together. To disentangle them we took advantage of natural individual variation in the extent to which reward cues are attributed with incentive salience, and asked whether dopamine (specifically in the core of the nucleus accumbens) is necessary for the expression of two forms of Pavlovian-conditioned approach behavior – one in which the cue acquires powerful motivational properties (sign-tracking) and another closely related one in which it does not (goaltracking). After acquisition of these conditioned responses (CRs), intra-accumbens injection of the dopamine receptor antagonist flupenthixol markedly impaired the expression of a sign-tracking CR, but not a goal-tracking CR. Furthermore, dopamine antagonism did not produce a gradual extinction-like decline in behavior, but maximally impaired expression of a sign-tracking CR on the very first trial, indicating the effect was not due to new learning (i.e. it occurred in the absence of new prediction-error computations). The data support the view that dopamine in the accumbens core is not necessary for learning stimulus–reward associations, but for attributing incentive salience to reward cues, transforming predictive conditional stimuli into incentive stimuli with powerful motivational properties.
FORMATION OF NON-INFECTIOUS INFLUENZA VIRUS IN MOUSE LUNGS: ITS DEPENDENCE UPON EXTENSIVE PULMONARY CONSOLIDATION INITIATED BY THE VIRAL INOCULUM

Formation of non-infectious virus—particles which hemagglutinate red blood cells and react with antibody to fix complement but do not infect the chick embryo or mouse—occurred when large quantities of certain strains of influenza viruses were inoculated intranasally into mice. Dependent upon the agent employed, 106.5 to 108.5 E.I.D. was essential to elicit this phenomenon. To accomplish this unusual multiplication it was essential to use a strain of virus which effected extensive pulmonary consolidation; strains of virus which did not produce marked lung lesions, even when as much as 108.5 E.I.D. was inoculated, did not form non-infectious virus. The development of this viral form was directly dependent upon the extent of cell damage obtained: consolidation of more than 50 per cent of the lung volume was required. The majority of non-infectious particles developed during the initial cycle of viral multiplication, and concurrently with the formation of non-infectious virus there was a corresponding decrease in the number of infectious viral particles. Non-infectious virus could not be propagated on serial passage in mouse lungs: on second lung passage only fully infectious virus was detectable. The formation of the non-infectious viral form was not the result of interference with synthesis of infectious virus by inactivated virus in the inoculum; for inoculation of heated infected allantoic fluid which contained more than 99 per cent of non-infectious virus did not result in the development of new non-infectious virus. Although inoculation of a large quantity of virus resulted in infection which yielded a relatively low titer of infectious and high titer of non-infectious virus, inoculation of a small quantity of the agent resulted in a high yield of infectious virus and no non-infectious that was detectable. In both instances the total quantity of antigenic viral material synthesized in the mouse lungs was the same. These data do not support the hypothesis that the non-infectious virus formed consisted of immature or incomplete viral particles, but suggest instead that non-infectious virus is inactivated virus or some aberrant form of the agent.
Fusion and mining spatial data in cyber-physical space with Dynamic Logic of Phenomena

Modeling of complex phenomena such as the mind presents tremendous computational complexity challenges. The Neural Modeling Fields (NMF) theory and Dynamic Logic of Phenomena (DLP) address these challenges in a non-traditional way. The main idea behind their success is matching the levels of uncertainty of the problem/model and the levels of uncertainty of the evaluation criterion used to identify the model. When a model becomes more certain then the evaluation criterion is also adjusted dynamically to match the adjusted model. This process mimics processes of the mind and natural evolution at the neural level. This paper describes the generalization of DLP for data fusion and mining of heterogeneous spatial objects in cyber-physical space.
An experimental study of collinear and planar arrays

Measurements are described that serve to verify a recently reported new theory of arrays of arbitrarily located parallel elements especially including ones that are collinear and staggered. Since the theory takes full account of the effects of mutual coupling in determining the distributions of current in each element of an array, the experimental studies involved the determination of distributions of current and charge as well as admittances and field patterns. Since the theory should be a good approximation for dipole elements well over a wavelength long, complete measurements are reported for arrays of both half-wave and full-wave elements in collinear and planar arrangements. Experimental and theoretical results are in good agreement.
False alarm suppression in early prediction of cardiac arrhythmia

High false alarm rates in intensive care units (ICUs) cause desensitization among care providers, thus risking patients' lives. Providing early detection of true and false cardiac arrhythmia alarms can alert hospital personnel and avoid alarm fatigue, so that they can act only on true life-threatening alarms, hence improving efficiency in ICUs. However, suppressing false alarms cannot be an excuse to suppress true alarm detection rates. In this study, we investigate a cost-sensitive approach for false alarm suppression while keeping near perfect true alarm detection rates. Our experiments on two life threatening cardiac arrhythmia datasets from Physionet's MIMIC II repository provide evidence that the proposed method is capable of identifying patterns that can distinguish false and true alarms using on average 60% of the available time series' length. Using temporal uncertainty estimates of time series predictions, we were able to estimate the confidence in our early classification predictions, therefore providing a cost-sensitive prediction model for ECG signal classification. The results from the proposed method are interpretable, providing medical personnel a visual verification of the predicted results. In conducted experiments, moderate false alarm suppression rates were achieved (34.29% for Asystole and 20.32% for Ventricular Tachycardia) while keeping near 100% true alarm detection, outperforming the state-of-the-art methods, which compromise true alarm detection rate for higher false alarm suppression rate, on these challenging applications.
Temperature Dependence of the Rate Constant for the HO2 + BrO Reaction

The rate constant for the HO2 + BrO reaction has been measured using the turbulent flow technique with high-pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry for the detection of reactants and products. At room temperature and 100 Torr pressure, the rate constant (and the two standard deviation error limit) was determined to be (1.4 ± 0.3) × 10-11 cm3 molecule-1 s-1. The temperature dependence of the rate constant was investigated between 298 and 210 K, and the data was fit to the following Arrhenius expression: (2.5 ± 0.8) × 10-12 exp[(520 ± 80)/T] cm3 molecule-1 s-1. Although the negative activation energy value agrees well with the current recommendation for stratospheric modeling, our absolute values for the rate constant are about a factor of 2 lower than this same recommendation.
Intrauterine insemination and controlled ovarian hyperstimulation in cycles before GIFT

We have combined intrauterine insemination (IUI) and controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH), for the treatment of infertility due to different aetiologies, prior to performing GIFT. To date, we have treated 186 patients over a total of 489 cycles. The mean age of the patients was 34.1 +/- 4 years and the mean duration of infertility was 4.8 +/- 2.8 years. Follicular development was induced with human menopausal gonatrophin (HMG). Patients were monitored using serum oestradiol determinations and ovarian ultrasound. Two intrauterine inseminations were performed 12 and 36 h after HCG injection. Semen samples were prepared utilizing one of two techniques, swim-up or Percoll gradient. A total of 33 pregnancies have occurred, the gross pregnancy rate being 17.7% per patient and 6.7% per cycle. The cumulative pregnancy rate was 30%. Thirty-one pregnancies (94%) occurred within the first four cycles of treatment. During the same period of time, the pregnancy rate per cycle in patients treated with gamete intra-Fallopian transfer (GIFT) was 32.9%. Our data suggest that IUI combined with COH can result in pregnancy in a significant proportion of patients, but that the efficiency per cycle of the technique is significantly lower than GIFT.
Abstract 106: Chronic Intermittent Hypoxia Induces Neurovascular Dysfunction through Endothelin-1 and Nox2-Derived Radical

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a condition resulting in chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH), is an independent risk factor for ischemic stroke, but the mechanisms of the effect are unknown. We hypothesized that CIH increases stroke risk by altering the regulation of cerebral blood flow (CBF) and increasing the brain’s susceptibility to ischemia. Male C57Bl/6 mice (n=5/group) were subjected to CIH (10% O 2 for 90 sec/room air for 90 sec; during sleep hours) for 14 or 35 days (d). Sham-treated mice received room air according to the same schedule. Somatosensory cortex CBF was assessed by laser-Doppler flowmetry in anesthetized mice equipped with a cranial window. CIH increased mean arterial pressure only at 35d (from 74±2 to 83±3 mmHg (p and by whisker stimulation (sham: 23±1%;CIH: 14±1%;p 0.05), indicating that smooth muscle relaxation was not compromised. The effects of CIH were prevented by neocortical application of the endothelin (ET) type A (ET A ) receptor antagonist BQ123 (1µM;p 0.05). CIH increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) by 2.3±0.5 folds (p
A Quantitative Study Of Hemolytic Serum

the other, touches many problems of practical medicine. Unfortunately, most of the toxic and antitoxic substances with which these investigators are working, are substances not yet isolated in a state of purity, are of unknown composition and probably of great complexity. Hence their study offers many difficulties. It was thought that if a "border line" phenomenon were studied, some problem lying partly in the well-trodden field of inorganic chemistry, where the application of physico-chemical laws cannot be gainsaid, light might be thrown on the more complex phenomena now engaging the attention of these workers. For this reason, and at the suggestion of Dr. Hektoen, the study of the neutralization of a hemolytic serum with certain salt solutions was undertaken.
Computational Recipe for Efficient Description of Large-Scale Conformational Changes in Biomolecular Systems.

Characterizing large-scale structural transitions in biomolecular systems poses major technical challenges to both experimental and computational approaches. On the computational side, efficient sampling of the configuration space along the transition pathway remains the most daunting challenge. Recognizing this issue, we introduce a knowledge-based computational approach toward describing large-scale conformational transitions using (i) nonequilibrium, driven simulations combined with work measurements and (ii) free energy calculations using empirically optimized biasing protocols. The first part is based on designing mechanistically relevant, system-specific reaction coordinates whose usefulness and applicability in inducing the transition of interest are examined using knowledge-based, qualitative assessments along with nonequilirbrium work measurements which provide an empirical framework for optimizing the biasing protocol. The second part employs the optimized biasing protocol resulting from the fir...
Regulation of NOS-NO System by Chinese Medicinal Herbs

Nitric Oxide(NO)is a vital signal messenger intracelluarly and intercellularly and generated by nitric oxide synthase including endothelial nitric oxide synthase(eNOS),inducible nitric oxide synthase(iNOS) and neuropathic nitric oxide synthase(nNOS).In various physiological processes,eNOS and nNOS in the organization continue the low level expression to maintenance normal physiology function.When eNOS activity declines to reduce NO in the pathology situation,Chinese medicinal herbs regulate eNOS activity through protein phosphorylation to restore the NO physiology concentration and improve NO bioavailability through antioxidation effects.In the physiological situation iNOS does not express,iNOS is activated and generate massive NO that damage organization and aggravate inflammation advance under inflammation condition.Chinese herbs down regulate iNOS through nuclear factor-κB and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase to reduce NO and treat inflammation.Many blood-activating and stasis-removing Chinese medicines regulate inducible nitric oxide synthase with antiinflammatory effect,to provide experimental base to treat inflammation.
Distance Based Ranking Models

On examine le modele de type Mallows pour une distance generale et on etudie ensuite les distances pour lesquelles le modele peut etre decompose en facteurs representant des etapes independantes dans le processus de classement
Reuse of Collateral: Rehypothecation and Pyramiding

I study the optimality of the reuse of collateral, a practice which is widespread in the shadow banking system. Rehypothecation is the direct repledging of the collateral received in a debt contract by the lender, while securitisation (pyramiding) is the use of the debt contract itself as collateral. With securitisation, the value of the repledgeable collateral, and hence the amount that can be borrowed, is limited by the face value of the original debt contract. Rehypothecation of the collateral enables borrowing of an amount that is typically greater than the face value of the debt backed by that collateral. The rehypothecating lender effectively borrows from the borrower the excess value of the collateral over the face value of the debt. I show that when the lender’s cash flows are sufficiently pledgeable to the borrower, rehypothecation is a Pareto improvement on securitisation. I also study the effects of the collateral risk and lender’s pledgeability on bilateral repo contracts which are characterised by rehypothecation. I find that an increase in the collateral risk raises haircuts, and a decrease in the lender’s pledgeability raises repo rates, in line with the facts documented by Gorton and Metrick (2013).
Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile. By Jehanne M. Gheith and Katherine R. Jolluck

This is the first volume of oral histories of Gulag survivors to appear in English. Western scholars conducted the interviews during the decade or more following the collapse of the Soviet Union, m...
Information acquisition and sequential belief refinement

Information acquisition and utilization problems (IAUP) form a class of stochastic decision problems in which a decision maker is faced with utilizing a stochastically varying (and uncontrollable) environment. However, the state of the environment, due to the limited nature of the measurements in terms of dimension/cost/accuracy, is only partially known to the decision maker. The decision maker, by carefully controlling the sequence of actions with uncertain outcomes and noisy measurements, dynamically refines the belief about the stochastically varying parameters of interest. A generalization of hidden Markov models and a special case of partially observable Markov models, information acquisition is both an informational problem as well as a control one.
SLAMF6 signaling in murine chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells (TUM2P.1019)

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a circulating B cell tumor that initiates in the bone marrow and blood and spreads to the lymph nodes, liver and spleen. Disease pathogenesis is largely characterized by hyper-activation of B cell receptor (BCR) signaling and subsequent tumor accumulation in the secondary lymphoid organs. Targeting BCR downstream pathways with small inhibitor molecules, e.g. ibrutinib (an irreversible BTK inhibitor), shows great efficacy in the clinic. However, there is still a need for additional therapeutic targets for CLL, as patients eventually relapse. Because the homophilic cell surface receptor Slamf6 is highly expressed on CLL cells and plays a role in T FH - B cell interactions, the effects of anti-Slamf6 on the murine CLL cell line TCL1-192 was assessed. To this end SCID mice that had been transplanted with TCL1-192 received injections of mouse anti-Slamf6 (13G3) monoclonal antibody or isotype control. Injection of anti-Slamf6 significantly reduced tumor burden in the blood and spleen. This response is due to ADCC as well as to Slamf6 signaling as injections of F(ab’) 2 fragments of anti-Slamf6 antibody results in down-regulation of proximal BCR components (pSyk, pBtk). Additionally, anti-Slamf6 resulted in a block in TCL1-192 tumor migration from the peritoneum to the blood and spleen. Overall, this study suggests that Slamf6 could be a potential new target for CLL therapy.
Weight abnormalities among Nigerian women: correlates and programmatic implications

Whereas overweight is on the rise among women in Africa, many African women are still underweight, introducing a dual burden for the countries’ limited resources. Using data from the 2013 DHS, this paper examines this dual problem and its correlates in Nigeria. There is significant co-existence of overweight and underweight within the major socio-demographic groups. Nationally, more than twice as many women of reproductive age are overweight as are underweight (24.6 versus 11.3%). The factors positively associated with the risk of being overweight rather than having a normal weight include being ever-married, southern ethnic descent, higher education, higher wealth quintiles, prevalence of post-primary education in one’s cluster, and urban residence. Programmatic efforts in Nigeria should target underweight and overweight by encouraging people to consume more wholesome meals, providing nutritional assistance for underweight women, addressing factors that favor weight abnormalities in the built environment and engaging communities in changing unhealthy norms related to nutrition.
Food and Energy

There is nothing more critical to human existence than food. While a proper climate and water are arguably as important as food, they are usually present, but food shortages from population expansion, climatic extremes, conflict, and concentration of output in the hands of the powerful are a nearly constant characteristic of one part or another of the world’s human population for as far back as we have records—and probably far before that. For example, huge famines occurred in China in the sixth and twentieth century AD, and many centuries in between, most of Europe in the fifteenth century, Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century, Bosnia, Philippines, and Sudan during this past century and countless other locations all over the world. But we in most of the developed world live today in a situation of incredible food affluence, and famine seems to have left much of the world except for areas of political-military conflict. How has this come to be? The most general answer is the application of fossil fuel technology and its ancillary technologies, most notably the production of nitrogen fertilizer and substitution of mechanical work for human and draft animal labor, to food plant production. This has allowed an enormous expansion of food production and has allowed us to think about food from many other perspectives, including aesthetic, moral and political. We examine human food production over millennia with a particular focus on energy: the quantity and quality of the energy of the food and also of the energy required to produce it.
Development of the WRF-CO2 4D-Var assimilation system v1.0

Abstract. Regional atmospheric CO 2 inversions commonly use Lagrangian particle trajectory model simulations to calculate the required influence function, which quantifies the sensitivity of a receptor to flux sources. In this paper, an adjoint-based four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) assimilation system, WRF-CO2 4D-Var, is developed to provide an alternative approach. This system is developed based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) modeling system, including the system coupled to chemistry (WRF-Chem), with tangent linear and adjoint codes (WRFPLUS), and with data assimilation (WRFDA), all in version 3.6. In WRF-CO2 4D-Var, CO 2 is modeled as a tracer and its feedback to meteorology is ignored. This configuration allows most WRF physical parameterizations to be used in the assimilation system without incurring a large amount of code development. WRF-CO2 4D-Var solves for the optimized CO 2 flux scaling factors in a Bayesian framework. Two variational optimization schemes are implemented for the system: the first uses the limited memory Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS) minimization algorithm (L-BFGS-B) and the second uses the Lanczos conjugate gradient (CG) in an incremental approach. WRFPLUS forward, tangent linear, and adjoint models are modified to include the physical and dynamical processes involved in the atmospheric transport of CO 2 . The system is tested by simulations over a domain covering the continental United States at 48 km × 48 km grid spacing. The accuracy of the tangent linear and adjoint models is assessed by comparing against finite difference sensitivity. The system's effectiveness for CO 2 inverse modeling is tested using pseudo-observation data. The results of the sensitivity and inverse modeling tests demonstrate the potential usefulness of WRF-CO2 4D-Var for regional CO 2 inversions.
Producing Software Using Tools in a Workstation Environment

We discuss how we taught students to build and use translation, interpretive, editing and monitoring tools in an undergraduate software engineering course. Students used the tools on low-cost workstations (Macintoshes) to build large, group projects. The students'' projects used all available features of workstation environments, including graphics, windows, fonts, mice, networks, and sound generators. We found that 1) the use of tools increased student productivity, 2) a shift in a data structure and algorithm topics is needed to cover material relevant for workstation environments, 3) new topics in system design are required for a workstation environment, 4) traditional material can be easily illustrated with a workstation environment and 5) students enjoyed being able to manipulate the advanced features of workstations in their work, which in turn increased their motivation for and concentration on the course material.
Electrical Overstress in Integrated Circuits

Semiconductor devices have a limited ability to sustain electrical overstress (EOS). The device susceptibility to EOS increases as the device is scaled down to submicron feature sizes. At present, EOS is one of the major causes for IC failures [47,24, 69]. Published reports indicate that nearly 40% of the IC failures can be attributed to EOS events. Hence, it is imperative to account for EOS threats early in the design process. EOS embodies a broad category of electrical threats to semiconductor devices due to electromagnetic pulses (EMP), electrostatic discharge (ESD), system transients, and lightning [75]. EOS-related failures in semiconductor devices can be classified according to their primary failure mechanisms into (i) thermally induced failures, (ii) electro- migration, and (iii) electric-field-related failures [70, 75]. In general, thermally induced failures are related to the doping level, junction depth, and device characteristic dimensions whereas electric field induced failures are primarily related to the breakdown of thin oxides in MOS devices.
Examination of extensions to transport theory that includes rough surface scattering

Sea surface forward scattering has important effects on shallow water propagation and reverberation at mid frequencies (i.e., 1–3 kHz) under typical sea surface roughness conditions. Coupled-mode or rough surface PE modeling of these effects require averaging results over many rough surface realizations, increasing the computational effort. An alternative method is based on transport theory, where equations are developed for propagating the moments of the field, avoiding the need for utilizing rough surface realizations. Our transport theory method is based on expanding the field in unperturbed modes, and the equations of motion are for moments of the mode amplitudes. The approach has been based on keeping terms to only first-order in the surface height h(x), making the method linear in surface height. Methods for extending the approach beyond the linear model will be described, both with using realizations with coupled modes and with attempts to extend these approaches to obtain a transport theory. A key part of the approach is the use of the Differential Algebraic Equation (DAE) method in which the range-derivative of the effective boundary condition on the mean plane of the rough surface is used instead of the effective boundary condition itself. [Work supported by ONR Ocean Acoustics.]Sea surface forward scattering has important effects on shallow water propagation and reverberation at mid frequencies (i.e., 1–3 kHz) under typical sea surface roughness conditions. Coupled-mode or rough surface PE modeling of these effects require averaging results over many rough surface realizations, increasing the computational effort. An alternative method is based on transport theory, where equations are developed for propagating the moments of the field, avoiding the need for utilizing rough surface realizations. Our transport theory method is based on expanding the field in unperturbed modes, and the equations of motion are for moments of the mode amplitudes. The approach has been based on keeping terms to only first-order in the surface height h(x), making the method linear in surface height. Methods for extending the approach beyond the linear model will be described, both with using realizations with coupled modes and with attempts to extend these approaches to obtain a transport theory. A key...
Comparison of the Amino Acid Sequences Encoded by the HLA-Bw47 and HLA-B13 Genes

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD) is a disorder of cortisol and aldosterone biosynthesis that is closely linked to the HLA-B locus (1,2). HLA-Bw47, a very rare antigen, is strongly associated with a deletion of 21-OHB gene among patients carrying 21-OHD. This allele frequently occurs on the HLA-A3;Cw6;DR7 haplotype which always includes a null allele at the locus encoding the fourth component of complement C4B. Moreover, the more common allele HLA-B13, which is not associated with the deletion of 21-OHB and C4B genes, shares the same pattern of genetic linkage disequilibrium. In addition, these HLA-B13 and HLA-Bw47 alleles show serological cross reactivity with alloantisera and have identical isoelectric points (3). On the basis of these structural similarities, we have postulated that Bw47 was the product of the B13 gene which became mutated during the genetic deletion of the 21-hydroxylase locus (4).
RELATIONAL EGALITARIANISM AND THE GROUNDS OF ENTITLEMENTS TO HEALTHCARE

In recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that much theorizing about the value of equality, and about justice more generally, has focused unduly on distributive issues and neglected the importance of egalitarian social relationships. As a result, relational egalitarian views, according to which the value of egalitarian social relations provides the grounds of the commitment that we ought to have to equality, have gained prominence as alternatives to more fundamentally distributive accounts of the basis of egalitarianism, and of justice-based entitlements. In this paper, I will suggest that reflecting on the kind of explanation of a certain class of our justice-based entitlements that relational egalitarian considerations can offer raises doubts about the project, endorsed by at least some relational egalitarians, of attempting to ground all entitlements of justice in the value of egalitarian social relationships. I will use the entitlement to healthcare provision as my central example. The central claim that I will defend is that even if relational egalitarian accounts can avoid implausible implications regarding the extension of justice-based entitlements to health care, it is more difficult to see how they can avoid what seem to me to be implausible explanations of why individuals have the justice-based entitlements that they do. To the extent that I am correct that relational egalitarian views are committed to offering implausible explanations of the grounds of justice-based entitlements to healthcare, this seems to me to provide at least some support for a more fundamentally distributive approach to thinking about justice in healthcare provision.
Importance of Basal Metabolic Index in the Diagnosis of Heart Failure With B-Type Natriuretic Peptide.

Background: Increased basal metabolic index (BMI) is associated with decreased levels of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP). This makes the diagnosis of the congestive heart failure challenging in the obese population. We sought to determine the association and strength of the relationship between the two variables. Methods: The association between BMI and BNP was examined in 405 patients utilizing a retrospective chart review in a single center study. Pearson correlation and regression analyses were performed to identify trends. BNP trends were also correlated with age. Results: The mean age of patients was 77 years with 45% men and 55% women. Mean BNP level was 1,158 standard deviation (SD) Â± 1,537. Mean BMI was 33 SD Â± 28. BNP levels were found to be inversely related to increasing BMI (P value < 0.001). Using a cut-off of 3,500 pg/mL, there was a linear negative correlation on the dotted graph. In regression analysis the measure of effect of BMI on BNP levels was -0.90 pg/mL. There was no significant association between age and BNP levels (P = 0.90). Conclusions: Irrespective of age, obese patients have lower BNP levels, complicating the diagnosis of heart failure exacerbation in such patients. Our results suggest that BNP levels in patients with BMI greater than 33 should be adjusted 9 pg/mL per unit increase in BMI. Cardiol Res. 2019;10(4):211-215 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/cr898
Discrete Multiple Testing in Detecting Differential Methylation Using Sequencing Data

DNA methylation, as one of the most important epigenetic mechanisms, is critical for deciding cell fate, and hence tightly relevant to understanding disease processes, such as cancer. We will discuss the multiple testing issue in detecting differential methylation in next generation sequencing studies. The detection requires comparing DNA methylation levels at millions of genomic loci across different genomic samples and can be viewed as a large-scale multiple testing problem. Due to low read counts at individual CpG sites, discreteness in the test statistics is nonignorable and brings up many intriguing statistical issues on proper control of false discovery rates (FDRs). Popular FDR control procedures are often underpowered in methylation sequencing data analysis due to the discreteness. We will discuss FDR control methods that accommodate such discreteness.
Unsettling Entrepreneurship by Teaching Dark Side Theories

Dark side theories enrich entrepreneurship curriculums and textbooks by exposing students to critical perspectives of entrepreneurship research and practice. The emerging research field recognizing...
Kinetics of Secondary Reactions Affecting the Organosolv Lignin Structure

Many valorization approaches for lignin rely on its organic solvent (organosolv) extraction. However, the severity of the extraction conditions required to obtain high lignin extraction generally results in low-quality lignin for downstream processing. To better understand the secondary reaction pathways and kinetics related to molecular alterations that result from organosolv extraction under extreme conditions, extractions were conducted at temperatures of 150, 180, and 210 °C. Lignin was collected at residence times between 0.25 and 18 h and analyzed by NMR techniques to quantify the concentrations of key chemical moieties that appear or disappear upon reactions of lignin molecules during and after their fractionation from biomass. The kinetics of chemical moiety evolution was modeled as processes in-series. In these models, pseudo first-order kinetics were used to describe the change in concentration of chemical moieties on extracted lignin as a function of residence time.
Ovarian cancer patients’ perspectives on facilitators and barriers to accessing financial assistance.

64Background: Our aim was to obtain ovarian cancer patients’ perspective on accessing financial assistance programs. Methods: We recruited ovarian cancer patients receiving systemic therapy who scr...
Trauma-induced regulation of VHP-1 modulates the cellular response to mechanical stress.

Mechanical stimuli initiate adaptive signal transduction pathways, yet exceeding the cellular capacity to withstand physical stress results in death. The molecular mechanisms underlying trauma-induced degeneration remain unclear. In the nematode C. elegans, we have developed a method to study cellular degeneration in response to mechanical stress caused by blunt force trauma. Herein, we report that physical injury activates the c-Jun kinase, KGB-1, which modulates response elements through the AP-1 transcriptional complex. Among these, we have identified a dual-specificity MAPK phosphatase, VHP-1, as a stress-inducible modulator of neurodegeneration. VHP-1 regulates the transcriptional response to mechanical stress and is itself attenuated by KGB-1-mediated inactivation of a deubiquitinase, MATH-33, and proteasomal degradation. Together, we describe an uncharacterized stress response pathway in C. elegans and identify transcriptional and post-translational components comprising a feedback loop on Jun kinase and phosphatase activity. The nervous system utilizes adaptive strategies to mitigate trauma-induced neurodegeneration. Here, the authors report that a MAPK phosphatase VHP-1 is induced by trauma and regulates transcriptional responses to mechanical stress in a C. elegans model.
Social Determinant Trends of COVID-19: An Analysis Using Knowledge Graphs from Published Evidence and Online Trends

This paper presents the results of a new approach to discover related health and social factors during the COVID-19 pandemic. The approach leverages a knowledge graph of related concepts mined from a corpus of published evidence (PubMed) prior to the pandemic. Population trends from online searches were used to identify social determinants of health (SDoH) concepts that trended high at the outset of the pandemic from a list of SDoH topics from the World Health Organization (WHO). The trending concepts were then mapped to the knowledge graph and a subsequent analysis of the derived insights, spanning two years, was conducted. This paper suggests an approach to derive new related health and social factors that may have either played a role in, or been affected by, the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, our results show how, from a list of SDoH topics, Food Security, Unemployment trended the highest at the start of the pandemic. Further work is needed to continue to ascertain the validity of the derived relations in a population health context and to improve mining insights from published evidence.
Chorioamnionitis and neonatal outcomes

Chorioamnionitis or intrauterine inflammation is a frequent cause of preterm birth. Chorioamnionitis can affect almost every organ of the developing fetus. Multiple microbes have been implicated to cause chorioamnionitis, but "sterile" inflammation appears to be more common. Eradication of microorganisms has not been shown to prevent the morbidity and mortality associated with chorioamnionitis as inflammatory mediators account for continued fetal and maternal injury. Mounting evidence now supports the concept that the ensuing neonatal immune dysfunction reflects the effects of inflammation on immune programming during critical developmental windows, leading to chronic inflammatory disorders as well as vulnerability to infection after birth. A better understanding of microbiome alterations and inflammatory dysregulation may help develop better treatment strategies for infants born to mothers with chorioamnionitis.
Claims of reduced odor on tobacco packs in low- and middle-income countries.

Introduction Cigarettes designed to have less smoke smell were developed by the tobacco industry to supposedly reduce negative qualities. Cigarettes with marketing claims communicating these designs have been sold in high-income countries and marketing of "less smoke smell" terms on cigarette packaging can promote cigarette use. It is unclear to what extent they have been marketed in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Methods The Tobacco Pack Surveillance System (TPackSS) systemically collected tobacco packs available in 14 LMICs with high tobacco use between 2013-2017. We coded 4,354 packs for marketing appeals, including claims related to smoke smell. We describe "less smoke smell" and similar claims found on these packs and compare across country and tobacco manufacturers. Results Phrases communicating less smoke smell were present on packs purchased in nine of 14 LMICs, including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, and Vietnam. The most commonly (74.1%) used terminology was "less smoke smell", "LSS" or a combination of the two. Packs from Russia had the most prevalent use (11.8%) of such claims. Companies using these terms across 21 brands included Japan Tobacco International (JTI), British American Tobacco (BAT), Philip Morris International (PMI) and other smaller companies. JTI accounted for 70.9% of packs with such terms. Conclusion Some of the world's largest tobacco companies are communicating less smoke smell on packs in LMICs. Less smoke smell and similar phrases on packaging should be prohibited because they can enhance the appeal of cigarettes. Implications Tobacco companies are using "less smoke smell" and similar phrases on cigarette packs in LMICs. These claims have the potential to increase the appeal of smoking and promote cigarette use. Countries should consider policies to restrict attractive labeling claims, in accordance with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Article 13 guidelines, which recommends restrictions on attractive design elements on tobacco packaging.
Economic burden of comorbidities among COPD Patients hospitalized for acute exacerbations: an analysis of a commercially insured population.

INTRODUCTION This study quantifies costs associated with comorbid conditions among adults diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who experience acute exacerbations (AECOPD) needing inpatient hospitalization. METHODS This retrospective cohort study used 2006-2015 IQVIA PharMetrics® Plus data, a health plan claims database. Patients aged 40-64 years, with AECOPD, defined as an inpatient hospitalization for a COPD-related diagnosis were included. The impact of comorbidities on AECOPD costs (costs of the COPD-related inpatient stay plus healthcare services used 30 days post-discharge) was determined using multivariable regression. The models adjusted for clinical complications, previous utilization, age, sex, region, year, length of hospitalization, and season of admission. RESULTS Among these COPD patients, 89.5% had at least 1 comorbidity. The mean cost for AECOPD was 2015 US $19,687 (SD: 27,035, median: 11,539). Congestive heart failure, lipid disorders, cancer, and presence of any of the 10 most frequent comorbidities were associated with $1,921 (95% confidence interval (CI): 977-2,866), $1,619 (95% CI: 967-2,272), $8,347 (95% CI: 7,236-9,458), and $4,433 (95% CI: 3,598-5,268) higher costs, respectively than corresponding individuals without these comorbid conditions. Patients with depressive disorders were associated with $1,592 (95% CI: 828-2,355) lower costs compared to those without depressive disorders. CONCLUSION COPD comorbidity imposes a significant economic burden on AECOPD.
Response of vegetation and carbon fluxes to brown lemming herbivory in Northern Alaska

Abstract. The Arctic is warming at double the average global rate, affecting the carbon cycle of tundra ecosystems. Most research on carbon fluxes from Arctic tundra ecosystems has focused on abiotic environmental controls (e.g. temperature, rainfall, or radiation). However, Arctic tundra vegetation, and therefore the carbon balance of these ecosystems, can be substantially impacted by herbivory. In this study we tested how vegetation consumption by brown lemmings (Lemmus trimucronatus) can impact carbon exchange of a wet-sedge tundra ecosystem near Utqiaġvik, Alaska during the summer, and the recovery of vegetation during a following summer. We placed brown lemmings in individual enclosure plots and tested the impact of lemmings’ herbivory on carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) immediately after lemming removal and during the following growing season. During the first summer of the experiment, lemmings’ herbivory reduced plant biomass (as shown by the decrease in the NDVI) and decreased CO2 uptake, while not significantly impacting CH4 emissions. Methane emissions were likely not significantly affected due to CH4 being produced deeper in the soil and escaping from the stem bases of the vascular plants. The summer following the lemming treatments, NDVI and CO2 fluxes returned to magnitudes similar to those observed before the start of the experiment, suggesting recovery of the vegetation, and a transitory nature of the impact of lemming herbivory. Overall, lemming herbivory has short-term but substantial effects on carbon sequestration by vegetation and might contribute to the considerable interannual variability in CO2 fluxes from tundra ecosystems.
Epidemiology of multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma, a plasma cell tumor arising in the bone marrow, is a rare cancer with an elusive etiology. In the USA, myeloma is estimated to account for approximately 1.3 % of all diagnosed cancers and 1.9 % of all cancer deaths [1]. According to estimates provided by the American Cancer Society, approximately 11,170 men and 9,010 women were expected to develop multiple myeloma, and 5,760 men and 4,890 women were expected to die from myeloma in the USA during 2010 [1]. The lifetime risk of being diagnosed with myeloma in the USA is 1.09 % for black men, 0.68 % for white men, 1.08 % for black women, and 0.51 % for white women [2].
A maximum-likelihood parametric approach to source localizations

Source localization using passive sensor arrays has been an active research problem for many years. Most near-field source localization algorithms involve two separate estimations, namely, relative time-delay estimations and source location estimation. A one-step maximum-likelihood parametric source localization algorithm is proposed based on the maximum correlation between time shifted sensor data at the true source location. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated and shown to approach the Cramer-Rao bound asymptotically in simulations.
An Initial Survey of Fractional Graph and Table Area in Behavioral Journals

This study examined the fractional graph area (FGA), the proportion of page space used to display statistical graphics, in 11 behavioral journals and places behavior analysis on a continuum with other natural, mathematical, and social science disciplines. The composite FGA of all 11 journals puts behavior analysis within the range of the social sciences, whereas the composite FGA of the most established and preeminent behavioral journals positions behavior analysis within the range of the natural sciences. In addition, fractional table area (FTA), the proportion of page space used to display tables, generally is higher in behavioral journals with lower degrees of FGA, a result that replicates previous research.
New Challenges of Chinese Copyright Law in the Digital Age

The English version of this paper can be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2123611.Under what circumstances should Internet Service Providers (ISPs) be held liable when copyrighted material is made available over the Internet without authorization of rights holders? Is Google’s controversial Library Project to scan millions of books into digital format an ambitious plan for public good or is it just another format of copyright infringement under the digital age? When audience enjoys watching live broadcasts of sports events, who are the rights holders behind the scene, and how do they protect their rights and interests from being infringed? All these questions have become highly important under the digital age, and therefore drawn serious attention from legal scholars and legislators worldwide. For direction, the world looks to influential legal regimes arising from the U.S. copyright law, the EU Directives, along with the jurisprudence and legal theory that attaches to each. But the world also looks to China, where a rapidly evolving legal regime holds its own course. This very useful book compares the legislation and case law of Chinese copyright law with those of the United States and European countries, focusing on three subjects - the liability of Internet Service Providers, the ‘fair use’ versus ‘fair dealing’ copyright doctrine, and the copyrightability of live sports telecasts - all of which are unsettled questions of law under the existing copyright regime.Among the important aspects covered are the following: secondary liability theories worldwide, including contributory liability, vicarious liability, inducement liability and joint liability; legislative and technology responses to online piracy: “graduated response” program and fingerprint filtering technology; pros and cons of the fair-use doctrine v. fair-dealing doctrine; different outcomes of the Google litigation worldwide; copyrightability of sports telecasts; China’s strategy in combating online piracy of live sports telecasts during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.The author draws on numerous case studies from several countries and on the full range of legal theory in the field to explore how these copyright issues are treated differently in each country. In addition, addressing problems and uncertainties under the existing PRC copyright law, she proposes a number of measures to be considered in China’s legislative reform process. Although for this reason the book will be especially valuable to parties concerned with Chinese law, the centrality of the subject and its comparative legal analysis is sure to appeal to interested lawyers, policymakers, and scholars worldwide.