cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Multiple myeloma: 2020 update on diagnosis, risk-stratification and management.

Disease overview Multiple myeloma accounts for approximately 10% of hematologic malignancies. Diagnosis The diagnosis requires ≥10% clonal bone marrow plasma cells or a biopsy proven plasmacytoma plus evidence of one or more multiple myeloma defining events (MDE) namely CRAB (hypercalcemia, renal failure, anemia, or lytic bone lesions) features felt related to the plasma cell disorder, bone marrow clonal plasmacytosis ≥60%, serum involved/uninvolved free light chain (FLC) ratio ≥100 (provided involved FLC is ≥100 mg/L), or >1 focal lesion on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Risk stratification The presence of del(17p), t(4;14), t(14;16), t(14;20), gain 1q, or p53 mutation is considered high-risk multiple myeloma. Presence of any two high risk factors is considered double-hit myeloma; three or more high risk factors is triple-hit myeloma. Risk-adapted initial therapy In transplant eligible patients, induction therapy consists of bortezomib, lenalidomide, dexamethasone (VRd) given for approximately 3-4 cycles followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT). In high-risk patients, daratumumab, bortezomib, lenalidomide, dexamethasone (Dara-VRd) is an alternative to VRd. Selected standard risk patients can get additional cycles of induction, and delay transplant until first relapse. Patients not candidates for transplant are typically treated with VRd for approximately 8-12 cycles followed by lenalidomide; alternatively these patients can be treated with daratumumab, lenalidomide, dexamethasone (DRd). Maintenance therapy After ASCT, standard risk patients need lenalidomide maintenance, while bortezomib-based maintenance is needed for patients with high-risk myeloma. Management of refractory disease Most patients require a triplet regimen at relapse, with the choice of regimen varying with each successive relapse.
Subscriber continuity in health insurance plans: factors associated with re-enrollment and coverage changes.

Aims: This study examined the extent to which Marketplace health insurance subscribers re-enroll a second year. Among re-enrollees, we sought to examine movement to more and less generous insurance...
Parent and teacher perceptions of a Brazilian Portuguese two-way immersion program

As the popularity of two-way immersion (TWI) programs increases across the U.S., recent scholarship has drawn attention to inequities in who benefits from these programs and how they are implemente...
Tactile line drawings for improved shape understanding in blind and visually impaired users

Members of the blind and visually impaired community rely heavily on tactile illustrations - raised line graphics on paper that are felt by hand - to understand geometric ideas in school textbooks, depict a story in children's books, or conceptualize exhibits in museums. However, these illustrations often fail to achieve their goals, in large part due to the lack of understanding in how 3D shapes can be represented in 2D projections. This paper describes a new technique to design tactile illustrations considering the needs of blind individuals. Successful illustration design of 3D objects presupposes identification and combination of important information in topology and geometry. We propose a twofold approach to improve shape understanding. First, we introduce a part-based multi-projection rendering strategy to display geometric information of 3D shapes, making use of canonical viewpoints and removing reliance on traditional perspective projections. Second, curvature information is extracted from cross sections and embedded as textures in our illustrations.
Mentorship for Addiction Problems (MAP): A New Behavioral Intervention to Assist in the Treatment of Substance Use Disorders

Objective:Mentorship for Addiction Problems (MAP) is a new behavioral treatment formalizing client-to-client mentorship relationships as an adjunct to standard outpatient substance use disorder tre...
Evidence for top quark production in nucleus-nucleus collisions

Abstract Droplets of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), an exotic state of strongly interacting quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter, are routinely produced in heavy nuclei high-energy collisions. Although the experimental signatures marked a paradigm shift away from expectations of a weakly coupled QGP, a challenge remains as to how the locally deconfined state with a lifetime of a few fm can be resolved. The only colored particle that decays mostly within the QGP is the top quark. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that top quark decay products are identified, irrespective of whether interacting with the medium (bottom quarks) or not (leptonically decaying W bosons). Using 1.7±0.1 nb−1 of lead-lead (A = 208) collision data recorded by the CMS experiment at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV, we report evidence of top quark pair ( t t ¯ ) production. Dilepton final states are selected, and the cross section ( σ t t ¯ ) is measured from a likelihood fit to a multivariate discriminator using lepton kinematic variables. The σ t t ¯ measurement is additionally performed considering the jets originating from the hadronization of bottom quarks, which improve the sensitivity to the t t ¯ signal process. After background subtraction and analysis corrections, the measured σ t t ¯ is 2.56 ± 0.82(tot) and 2.02 ± 0.69(tot)μb in the two cases, respectively, consistent with predictions from perturbative QCD.
Nourishing Justice and the Continuum: Implementing a Blended Model in an Immigration Law Clinic

This Article describes how the new Immigration Law Clinic combines attention to the School's mission of educating students and expanding justice in the community with the broader goal of addressing the continuing educational needs of recent law school graduates. The Clinic not only offers direct legal services to clients but also trains and mentors recently graduated local attorneys, who offer both pro bono client representation as well as student supervision. Through the Clinic, these attorneys are trained in both immigration law and clinical supervision. This dual training has enhanced the Clinic as well as provided the South Coast area of Massachusetts with attorneys trained in the types of legal issues that plague lower-income immigrants. In addition, these attorneys, acting as clinical supervisors, allow the Clinic to admit more students, thereby providing both clinical experience to greater number of students and legal assistance to greater numbers of immigrants.
Public perceptions and disparities in access to telehealth orthopaedic services in the COVID-19 era.

Abstract Background We used online crowdsourcing to explore public perceptions and attitudes towards virtual orthopaedic care, and to identify factors associated with perceived difficulty navigating telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A modified version of the validated Telemedicine Satisfaction and Usefulness Questionnaire was completed by 816 individuals using crowd-sourcing methods. Multivariable logistic regression modelling was used to determine population characteristics associated with perceived difficulty using telehealth technology. Results Most respondents (85%) believed that telehealth visits would be a convenient form of healthcare delivery, and 64% would prefer them over in-person office visits. The majority (92%) agreed that telehealth would save them time, but 81% had concerns regarding the lack of physical contact during a musculoskeletal examination. More respondents would feel comfortable using telehealth for routine follow-up care (81%) compared to initial assessment visits (59%) and first postoperative appointments (60%). Roughly 1 in 15 (7%) expressed difficulty with using telehealth; these respondents were more often unmarried, lower-income, and more medically infirm, and reported greater symptoms of depression. After multivariable adjustment, lower income and poor health were retained as predictors of difficulty with navigating telehealth technology (p = 0.027,p = 0.036, respectively). Conclusion The majority of the public appears receptive to telehealth for orthopaedic care for both new patient visits and follow-up appointments. The finding that people with multiple chronic conditions and psychosocial needs struggle to engage with telehealth suggests that those who arguably stand to benefit the most from continued care are the ones being unintentionally left out of this digitization boom.
Monitoring Policies and Gig Workers’ Job Preferences

Monitoring, a digital surveillance technology that allows employers to track the activities of workers, is ubiquitous in the gig economy where workforce is distributed. However, workers are often reluctant to be monitored due to privacy concerns, resulting in a hidden economic cost for employers as workers tend to demand higher wages for monitored jobs. To help employers make informed decisions about whether to adopt monitoring and what monitoring policy to use, we investigate how three common aspects of monitoring affect workers’ willingness to accept monitored jobs, as well as the underlying mechanisms, through online experiments on two gig economy platforms (Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific). The three aspects of monitoring are intensity (how much information is collected), transparency (whether the monitoring policy is disclosed to workers), and control (whether workers can remove sensitive information). We find that, as the monitoring intensity increases, workers become less likely to accept monitoring due to elevated privacy concerns. Furthermore, we find that being transparent about the monitoring policy increases workers’ willingness to accept monitoring only when the monitoring intensity is low, as transparent disclosure does not reduce privacy concerns over high-intensity monitoring. Interestingly, providing control over high-intensity monitoring does not significantly reduce workers’ privacy concerns either, rendering this well-intentioned policy ineffective. Finally, females are more willing to accept monitored jobs than males as they perceive higher payment protection from monitoring and have lower privacy concerns. On average, we estimate that the compensations required for workers to accept monitoring are $1.8/hr for AMT workers and $1.6/hr for Prolific workers, which translate to roughly 37.3% and 28.5% of their average hourly wages, respectively.
Tsunami preparedness and resilience in the Cascadia Subduction Zone: A multistage model of expected evacuation decisions and mode choice

Abstract Physical scientists have estimated that the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) has as much as a 25% chance to produce a M9.0 earthquake and tsunami in the next 50 years, but few studies have used survey data to assess household risk perceptions, emergency preparedness, and evacuation intentions. To understand these phenomena, this study conducted a mail-based household questionnaire using the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) as a guide to collect 483 responses from two coastal communities in the CSZ: Crescent City, CA and Coos Bay, OR. We applied multistage regression models to assess the effects of critical PADM variables. The results showed that three psychological variables (risk perception, perceived hazard knowledge, and evacuation mode efficacy) were associated with some demographic variables and experience variables. Evacuation intention and evacuation mode choice are associated with those psychological variables but not with demographic variables. Contrary to previous studies, location and experience had no direct impact on evacuation intention or mode choice. We also analyzed expected evacuation mode compliance and the potential of using micro-mobility during tsunami response. This study provides empirical evidence of tsunami preparedness and intentions to support interdisciplinary evacuation modeling, tsunami hazard education, community disaster preparedness, and resilience plans.
MELD-accelerated molecular dynamics help determine amyloid fibril structures.

It is challenging to determine the structures of protein fibrils such as amyloids. In principle, Molecular Dynamics (MD) modeling can aid experiments, but normal MD has been impractical for these large multi-molecules. Here, we show that MELD accelerated MD (MELD x MD) can give amyloid structures from limited data. Five long-chain fibril structures are accurately predicted from NMR and Solid State NMR (SSNMR) data. Ten short-chain fibril structures are accurately predicted from more limited restraints information derived from the knowledge of strand directions. Although the present study only tests against structure predictions – which are the most detailed form of validation currently available – the main promise of this physical approach is ultimately in going beyond structures to also give mechanical properties, conformational ensembles, and relative stabilities. Sharma & Dill apply MELD x MD to provide atomistic computational models of a set of amyloid-forming protein fibrils using limited experimental information. Since MELD x MD yields not just single structure but conformational ensembles, their method can also generate polymorphs with similar backbone conformations but distinct side chain packing.
How Can the [MASK] Know? The Sources and Limitations of Knowledge in BERT

We explore the idea of using the pre-trained BERT as a source of factual knowledge, analyze which components of the model are responsible for its ability to answer questions requiring factual knowledge, and study the transferability of the knowledge to downstream tasks. Our experiments show that the Language Modeling Head is indispensable for predicting facts, implying that transferability of any knowledge captured in the model is limited. While the dominant approach to researching how knowledge is stored in language models focuses on tailoring question formulation to optimize the retrieval quality, we find question patterns easily understood by humans that confuse BERT to the point that the answer does not make sense. The nature of the found patterns implies that the stored knowledge is fragile and based on token co-occurrence in the training set used during pre-training, rather than generalization or inference. Moreover, using a novel, hand-crafted dataset we show that BERT is vulnerable to common misconceptions, which could have fatal effects on downstream applications. Overall, we conclude that BERT offers low and unreliable performance out of the box. Jupyter notebooks with experiments are available on GitHub.11Project URL: https://github.com/tenpercent/knowledge-and-confusion
Connectionism Versus Symbolism in High-Level Cognition

Symbolic processing rests on a computational technology that includes dynamic memory management, virtual pointers to created structured objects, and the use of variables to propagate bindings. Connectionist models have lacked these features, but create distributed representations that are “rich,” i.e., that encode numerous statistically based expectations, acquired from experience. It is argued here that a synthesis of both symbolic and connectionist features will make important contributions to our understanding of high-level cognition. In what follows, a motivation is given for the need of such a synthesis, along with several, novel techniques used in connectionist systems designed to perform high-level, language-related processing tasks.
Tumor Growth Modulation by Sense and Antisense Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Gene Expression: Effects on Angiogenesis, Vascular Permeability, Blood Volume, Blood Flow, Fluorodeoxyglucose Uptake, and Proliferation of Human Melanoma Intracerebral Xenografts

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), also known as vascular permeability factor, has been investigated as a potent mediator of brain tumor angiogenesis and tumor growth. We evaluated the effect of VEGF expression on the pathophysiology of tumor growth in the brain. Human SK-MEL-2 melanoma cells, with minimal VEGF expression, were stably transfected with either sense or antisense mouse VEGF cDNA and used to produce intracerebral xenografts. Vascular permeability, blood volume, blood flow, and tumor fluorodeoxyglucose metabolism were assessed using tissue sampling and quantitative autoradiography. Tumor proliferation was assessed by measuring bromodeoxyuridine labeling indices. Tumor vascular density and morphological status of the blood-brain barrier were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. SK-MEL-2 cells transfected with sense VEGF (V+) expressed large amounts of mouse and human VEGF protein; V+ cells formed well-vascularized, rapidly growing tumors with minimal tumor necrosis. V+ tumors had substantial and significant increases in blood volume, blood flow, vascular permeability, and fluorodeoxyglucose metabolism compared to wild-type and/or V- (antisense VEGF) tumors. VEGF antisense transfected V- expressed no detectable VEGF protein and formed minimally vascularized tumors. V- tumors had a very low initial growth rate with central necrosis; blood volume, blood flow, vascular permeability, and glucose metabolism levels were low compared to wild-type and V+ tumors. A substantial inhibition of intracerebral tumor growth, as well as a decrease in tumor vascularity, blood flow, and vascular permeability may be achieved by down-regulation of endogenous VEGF expression in tumor tissue. VEGF-targeted antiangiogenic gene therapy could be an effective component of a combined strategy to treat VEGF-producing brain tumors.
Survey of performance issues in parallel database systems

Parallel database systems are being used nowadays in a wide variety of systems, right from database applications to decision support systems. These implementations involve database processing and querying over parallel systems. For the parallel databases to be effective and efficient, various optimizing solutions need to be implemented. These solutions deal with various issues associated with such database systems : query optimization, data allocation within the database, etc.This paper will attempt to give the reader an understanding of the various issues involved in optimizing the performance of a parallel database system. The primary areas of focus will be system architecture, query optimization and data reallocation. It will look at related work done by other authors in this field and hopefully provide a thorough understanding of the solutions in this area.
The teacher labour market in the US: challenges and reforms

This article describes the teaching profession and teacher labour market in the US. Over the period since 1966, the profession has become 80% female, highly credentialled, considerably more senior, and increasingly unionized. In contrast, formal working conditions have changed relatively little, although class sizes are now approximately 30% smaller. Real earnings growth in teaching has been flat, although this is not atypical of wage trends across the US labour market. The main distinction between teaching and other professions is the flexibility in setting of pay and conditions. Teachers are paid on a uniform pay schedule, with little variation in terms of performance, and with strong collective bargaining. Reforms to this labour market are direct (liberalization of pay‐setting and improvement in working conditions) and indirect (organizational changes to allow new teachers to enter the profession). The latter appear more promising. Given the seniority of the teaching profession there is likely to be li...
People Power or a One-Shot Deal? A Dynamic Model of Protest

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, a crucial question is whether popular protest is now likely to be a permanent part of Middle Eastern politics or if the protests that have taken place over the past two years are more likely to be a “one-shot deal.” We consider this question from a theoretical perspective, focusing on the relationship between the consequences of protests in one period and the incentives to protest in the future. The model provides numerous predictions for why we might observe a phenomenon that we call the “one-shot deal”: when protest occurs at one time but not in the future despite an intervening period of bad governance. The analysis focuses on the learning process of citizens. We suggest that citizens may not only be discovering the type or quality of their new government—as most previous models of adverse selection assume—but rather citizens may also be learning about the universe of potential governments in their country. In this way, bad performance by one government induces some pessimism about possible replacements. This modeling approach expands the formal literature on adverse selection in elections in two ways: it takes seriously the fact that removing governments can be costly, and it explores the relevance of allowing the citizen/principal to face uncertainty about the underlying distribution from which possible government/agent types are drawn.
El romanticismo social en Dos mujeres de Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda

Conceptualizar es politizar.1 1Cecilia Amoros, La gran diferencia y sus pequenas consecuencias … para las luchas de las mujeres (Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 2005), 25. Tras el exito conseguido con S...
Assessing developmental hazard: the reliability of the A/D ratio.

The quantitative relationship between developmentally toxic exposure levels and adult toxic exposure levels has been used as an index of developmental hazard and has figured prominently in discussions of legal regulation of developmentally toxic agents. Perhaps the most frequently cited index of developmental hazard is the A/D ratio. This index, a ratio of marginally toxic adult and developmental dose levels (e. g., NOAELs or LOAELs), is attractive because it is easily calculated from published toxicity assays and because it has been argued that A/D is relatively constant across species for a given agent. We explored some quantitative aspects of the A/D ratio and of the concept of developmental hazard by simulating 661,500 mammalian developmental toxicity assays on 441 hypothetical compounds. In our simulations, A/D often varied substantially among replicate assays: the median ratio of the upper and lower limits of the distribution of A/D values that include about 95% of the observed A/D values is 16. In addition, A/D did a poor job of predicting the relative developmental and adult responses at dosages lower than those used to calculate the index: among simulated compounds with A/Ds of about 1.0, the developmental response at 1/100th of the NOAEL ranged from about 0.1% to 20,000% of the adult response. Finally, we measured the concordance between pairs of four different indices of developmental hazard, including A/D. Concordance was greatest when the indices were based on the same portion of the dose response, and was much weaker between indices that examined different portions of the dose response. Therefore, it seems likely that no single index can quantify “developmental hazard,” as defined by relative adult and developmental susceptibility, and more effort needs to be expended in refining the concept if it is to be useful for hazard assessment.
Osteogenesis imperfecta and odontogenesis imperfecta: clinical and genetic aspects in eighteen families.

Summary Osteogenesis imperfecta, defective bone development, and dentinogenesis imperfecta, defective tooth development, are familial diseases due to mesenchymal hypoplasia. These mesodermal disturbances appear to be genetically dominant but variable in the degree of expression. Either one or both defects may be present in the same kinship or the same immediate family; or both may occur in any one individual member. It is the general concensus that these two clinical entities are manifestations of the same basic pathologic state. The present report is based on a study of 18 families in which a total of 167 individual members showed one or both defects. With one possible exception, no consanguinity was known in these 18 families.
Site-specific mutations of conserved residues in the phosphate-binding loop of the Arabidopsis UMP/CMP kinase alter ATP and UMP binding.

Abstract All eukaryotic UMP/CMP kinases contain a glycine-rich sequence GGPG(S/A)GK at the N-terminus. This sequence is homologous to the conserved sequence GXXGXGK found in other ATP-binding proteins. To study the role of this conserved sequence in Arabidopsis UMP/CMP kinase, five conserved residues were mutated by site-directed mutagenesis to generate seven mutant enzymes: G21A, G22A, G24A, G26A, K27R, K27M, and K27E. The G21A and G26A mutants were degraded during the purification phase and were thus unable to be purified. Kinetic studies on the other mutants, when compared to studies on the wild-type enzyme, revealed that this sequence is important for ATP binding and enzyme catalysis. All mutants had a decreased k cat / K ATP m value. The G22A and G24A mutants had about half of the k cat value of wildtype and 3.9-fold and 3.3-fold increases in K ATP m values, respectively. The k cat / K ATP m values in the K27M and K27E mutants were changed significantly and decreased by 1000-fold and 2600-fold, respectively. The removal of the terminal positive charge of Lys27 in the K27M and K27E mutants resulted in 20% of the k cat value of wildtype. However, both mutants had a remarkable increase in K ATP m value by 241-fold and 552-fold, respectively. Therefore, the positive charge of Lys27 plays an important role on both ATP binding and enzyme catalysis. Interestingly, the results also showed that the mutations that affected ATP binding also had an effect on UMP binding.
Effect of colchicine and calcitonin on calcemie response to metablic acidosis

To examine the mechanism responsible for enhanced calcium mobilization from bone in metabolic acidosis, we evaluated the effect of colchicine and calcitonin, two blockers of cell-mediated bone resorption, on the calcemic response to acute metabolic acidosis in thyroparathyroidectomized rats. Metabolic acidosis lasting 16 hr and induced by the feeding of NH4Cl led to a significant rise in serum calcium of 1.2 to 1.9 mg/dl. The administration of colchicine or calcitonin led to a decrement in serum calcium of 1.1 +/- 0.2 (P less than 0.01) and 0.7 +/- 0.2 mg/dl (P less than 0.05), respectively. Cyclic AMP levels in calvaria from rats with metabolic acidosis and from control rats were not different. These data suggest that mobilization of calcium from bone which occurs in metabolic acidosis is due, in part, to increased bone resorption, which is mediated by a cAMP-independent mechanism.
Regular aspirin use and esophageal cancer risk.

Given the high mortality rate and the rapidly increasing incidence rate of esophageal carcinoma, chemopreventive agents are highly desirable. Aspirin has been shown to be associated with reduced risk of developing colorectal carcinoma and other cancers. Even though previous studies have shown reduced risk of esophageal cancer associated with aspirin use, results were inconsistent with respect to frequency and duration of use. In this hospital-based case-control study, 163 esophageal cancer cases were compared to 482 age- and sex-matched hospital controls with nonneoplastic conditions. Participants were classified as regular aspirin users if they had taken the drug at least once a week for 6 months. Results suggest that esophageal cancer risk is significantly lower for regular aspirin users compared to nonusers [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.54; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.36–0.86]. Individuals who used an equivalent of at least 1 aspirin a day (≥7 tablets/week) were half as likely to have been diagnosed with esophageal carcinoma (aOR 0.47; 95% CI 0.26–0.85), and a linear trend was noted with increasing frequency of use (ptrend 0.007). Similar protective effects were noted with ≤20 years of use, whereas no risk reduction was noted with >20 years of use. Consistent reduction in risk associated with aspirin use was noted among both the major histological subtypes, but the protective effect appears to be more pronounced in adenocarcinoma compared to squamous cell carcinoma. Overall, results from the current study suggest that regular aspirin use may be associated with reduced risk of esophageal cancer. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
On the numerical integration of elasto-plastic constitutive model structures for nonproportional cyclic loading

Abstract The classical Runge-Kutta method with Gill coefficients, a non-iterative Adams predictorcorrector method, an Euler's method with automatic step-size control, an iterative Adams predictorcorrector method with automatic step-size control and Gear's method are the numerical solution algorithms considered in this study. Their computational accuracy and efficiency are evaluated for two cases of axial-torsional loading with transient, nonproportional, cyclic plasticity. The constitive equations implemented include a modified classical single-surface theory, a two-surface theory and a unified creep-plasticity or state variable theory.
Comparative studies on the fine structure of purple membrane from Halobacterium Cutirubrum and Halobacterium Halobium.

Direct comparison of the absorption and circular dichroic spectra of dark- and light-adapted purple membrane fromHalobacterium cutirubrum andHalobacterium halobium indicated no apparent species differences. In addition, sequential bleaching and regeneration of the purple membrane with concomitant monitoring of the absorption and circular dichroic spectra showed no species differences as well. Furthermore, perturbation of the structure of the purple membrane from either species with a detergent, Triton X-100, yielded similar spectral changes. It was concluded: (i) no apparent differences exist in the molecular organization and protein fine structure of the two purple membranes, (ii) if exciton interaction among the retinal chromophores is a reasonable possibility in the case of the purple membrane fromHalobacterium halobium, it must be similarly so for the membrane fromHalobacterium cutirubrum, (iii) the effects of light adaptation on the membrane structure of both species are essentially the same, and (iv) the underlying molecular mechanisms for the bleaching and regenerative processes must be similar, if not identical, for the purple membranes of the two species.
Beginning teachers : Beliefs and classroom actions

The current national priority for systemic approaches to the reform of science and mathematics education has led to unprecedented interest in research on the efficacy of science and mathematics teacher preparation programs. In response to this priority, a focus on collaborative approaches to educational reform and to research on educational reform resulted in a national collaborative research consortium of insitutions of higher education. The consortium was formed to investigate the following question about secondary science teacher education: What are the perceptions, beliefs, and classroom performances of beginning secondary teachers as related to their philosophies of teaching and their content pedagogical skills? The research design and instrumentation yielded detailed descriptions that elicited knowledge and beliefs held by beginning teachers about science, the nature of teaching and learning, and their philosophy of teaching. An analysis of video portfolios of beginning teachers provided classroom-based evidence of their performance in both subject matter and pedagogical dimensions of teaching. Among the findings from this 3-year exploratory study were that teachers graduated from their teacher preparation programs with a range of knowledge and beliefs about: how teachers should interact with subject content and processes, what teachers should be doing in the classroom, what students should be doing in the classroom, philosophies of teaching, and how they perceived themselves as classroom teachers. Beginning teachers described their practices as very student-centered. Observations of these teaching practices contrasted starkly with teacher beliefs: While teachers professed student-centered beliefs, they behaved in teacher-centered ways. Undertaking intensive, collaborative studies such as the one described in this article, is the beginning of efforts through which the science and mathematics education communities can strive to address the needs of students, teachers, teacher educators, and other stakeholders working to establish a common vision for excellent instruction and systemic, long-lasting reform. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 930–954, 1999
Two new empirically derived reasons to use the assessment of basic learning abilities.

Abstract The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) comprises six levels of hierarchically ordered visual and auditory–visual discriminations. Scores on the ABLA, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Revised were obtained for 30 participants selected using a stratified random sample (i.e., by level of mental retardation) from 499 people served by a state center. Two noteworthy findings were (a) that correlations between the Vineland domains and the ABLA were all significant and ranged between .65 and .73, and (b) no participant performing below ABLA Level 6 was testable on the WAIS-R. Thus, Level 6 can be used as an efficient screen to determine the testability of this population on standardized intelligence tests. Implications for practitioners are discussed.
Preparation of unsubstituted 6-aldehydocelluloses by photolysis of 6-azido-6-deoxycelluloses

Abstract A general method for the selective oxidation of celluloses to unsubstituted 6-aldehydocelluloses ( 4 ) and 6-carboxycelluloses is described. 6-Chloro-6-deoxycelluloses ( 1 ), prepared by treating celluloses with methanesulfonyl chloride in N , N -dimethylformamide, were converted into the corresponding 6-azido-6-deoxy derivatives ( 3 ) which, upon photolysis and mild hydrolysis, yielded 4 . The degree of substitution by aldehyde is determined by the proportion of chlorine introduced in the preparation of 1 . The 6-aldehydocelluloses were characterized by reduction to celluloses ( 6 ), by oxidation to 6-carboxycelluloses ( 7 ), by copper number, and by a deuteration-mass spectrometry method. Viscometry was used to monitor the effect of the chemical transformations upon the degree of polymerization of the cellulose derivatives.
FUNCTIONAL AND HISTOLOGIC EFFECTS OF THERAPEUTIC DOSES OF RADIOACTIVE IODINE ON THE THYROID OF MAN

THE purpose of this paper is to present observations on the effects of radiation in patients who have been treated with radioactive iodine. Attention has been directed toward: 1) the metabolism of the thyroid cells as measured by tracer doses of radioactive iodine before and after radiation therapy; and 2) the histologic features of cellular damage of the thyroid and the regenerative processes that may take place after large doses of radioactive iodine. It has been adequately shown that a large dose of radioactive iodine impairs the functional capacity of the human thyroid (1–22). This principle has been employed in the treatment of some patients with Graves' disease (1–4, 6, 8, 9, 17–19, 21–35), others with functioning carcinomas of the thyroid (29–35) and still others with heart disease accompanied by normal thyroid function (17, 19, 28). Although a large number of patients with thyrotoxicosis have been treated with radioactive iodine, relatively few observations have been published on the nature of the...
Sex-role typing as related to acceptance of self, acceptance of others, and discriminatory attitudes toward women

Abstract This study examines four hypotheses relating sex-role typing to self-acceptance, acceptance of others, and sexist attitudes toward women. University students completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, the Berger Self-Acceptance Scale, and the Macho Scale. Findings showed more self-acceptance than acceptance of others among masculine-typed subjects and more acceptance of others than self-acceptance among feminine-typed subjects. Feminine-typed males and masculine-type females showed least self-acceptance among the six groups, while androgynous subjects showed highest self-acceptance. Masculine-typed males were least accepting of others and scored highest in discriminatory attitudes toward women. Male subjects showed greater variability than did female subjects on all scales, and Bem's measure of sex-role typing proved a more efficient moderator of scores of males than of those of females. Additional personality and behavioral research with sex-role typing variables is proposed.
Diurnal tracking of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions in the Los Angeles basin megacity during spring 2010

Abstract. Attributing observed CO2 variations to human or natural cause is critical to deducing and tracking emissions from observations. We have used in situ CO2, CO, and planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) measurements recorded during the CalNex-LA (CARB et al., 2008) ground campaign of 15 May–15 June 2010, in Pasadena, CA, to deduce the diurnally varying anthropogenic component of observed CO2 in the megacity of Los Angeles (LA). This affordable and simple technique, validated by carbon isotope observations and WRF-STILT (Weather Research and Forecasting model – Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport model) predictions, is shown to robustly attribute observed CO2 variation to anthropogenic or biogenic origin over the entire diurnal cycle. During CalNex-LA, local fossil fuel combustion contributed up to ~50% of the observed CO2 enhancement overnight, and ~100% of the enhancement near midday. This suggests that sufficiently accurate total column CO2 observations recorded near midday, such as those from the GOSAT or OCO-2 satellites, can potentially be used to track anthropogenic emissions from the LA megacity.
Discrimination of outer membrane proteins with improved performance.

Background Outer membrane proteins (OMPs) perform diverse functional roles in Gram-negative bacteria. Identification of outer membrane proteins is an important task.
Crystal structure and conformation of glycyl-glycyl-sarcosine.

Crystals of the tripeptide, glycyl-glycyl-sarcosine (C7H13N3O4) from aqueous methanol are orthorhombic, space group Pbcn with cell parameters at 294 K of a = 8.279(1), b = 9.229(4), c = 24.447(5)A, V = 1868.0 A3, M.W. = 203.2, and Z = 8. The crystal structure was solved and refined using CAD-4 data (1171 reflections greater than or equal to 3 sigma) to a final R-value of 0.053. The first peptide linkage is trans and planar whereas the second peptide link between Gly and sarcosine is cis and appreciably non-planar (w = 7.4 degrees). The peptide backbone has an extended conformation at the N-terminal part but adopts a polyglycine-II type of conformation at the C-terminal part. The backbone torsion angles are: psi 1 = -173.9, w1 = -177.8, (phi 2, psi 2) = (-178.8, -170.8), w2 = 7.4, (phi 3, psi 3) = (-81.6, 165.6 degrees).
Structural reliability assessment capability in NESSUS

The principal capabilities of NESSUS (Numerical Evaluation of Stochastic Structures Under Stress), an advanced computer code developed for probabilistic structural response analysis, are reviewed, and its structural reliability assessed. The code combines flexible structural modeling tools with advanced probabilistic algorithms in order to compute probabilistic structural response and resistance, component reliability and risk, and system reliability and risk. An illustrative numerical example is presented.
Cultural lag, economic scarcity, and the technological quagmire of "Infant Doe".

The University of Kansas The major purpose of this article is to explore the substantial disparity between access to resources provided at birth to a child with spina bifida—a so-called Baby Doe—and later access to resources needed to sustain that child throughout the life course. The author's organizing principle is the allocative paradoxes created by the clash of technology, scarcity, and demography. The study is based on an eight-year inquiry into the way life-saving medical decisions are made about children with spina bifida. This work focuses on the qualitative aspects of that inquiry. There is a societal need to debate health care rationing, to do much more systematic technology assessment, and to develop a much more consistently rational system of health care delivery.
Effect of healing on compliance of porous dacron grafts

The effects of tissue ingrowth on the compliance of porous Dacron grafts were studied in 8 mm external-velour warp-knit Dacron grafts implanted in the canine descending thoracic aorta. The compliance of these grafts was measured before implantation and after implant periods of two weeks and one, two, four, and six months. Compliance, which initially was 0.043 ± 0.008% mm Hg, decreased less than 10% after implantation (no statistical difference at p < 0.05). No anastomotic neointimal hyperplasia was observed. Although the total thickness of the graft wall increased two- to three-fold after implantation, the benign healing process observed in this study had very little influence on graft compliance followed to six months.
Kinetics and mechanism of the oxidation of the glutathione dimer by hypochlorous Acid and catalytic reduction of the chloroamine product by glutathione reductase.

Oxidized glutathione (GSSG) reacts with two molar equivalents of HOCl/OCl- (a neutrophil-derived oxidant and a common biocide) to form the dichloro (bis-N-chloro-γ-l-glutamyl) derivative (NDG). The reaction of less than two molar equivalents of HOCl with GSSG does not yield the unsymmetrical monochloro derivative (NCG) but rather a stoichiometric amount of NDG and GSSG. This result is explained by a faster reaction of the second equivalent of HOCl with NCG than that of the first equivalent of HOCl with GSSG. The rates of reaction of GSSG2-, GSSG3-, and GSSG4- (successive deprotonation of the ammonium groups) have been investigated, and it is clear that GSSG2- is unreactive, whereas GSSG4- is about twice as reactive as GSSG3-. Accordingly, the following mechanism is proposed (constants for 5 °C): H+ + OCl- = HOCl, pK1 = −7.47; GSSG2- = GSSG3- + H+, pK2 = 8.5; GSSG3- = GSSG4- + H+, pK3 = 9.5; GSSG3- + HOCl → NCG3- + H2O, k4 = 2.7(2) × 106 M-1 s-1; GSSG4- + HOCl → NCG4- + H2O, k5 = 3.5(3) × 107 M-1 s-1; NCG...
Fallout in the New York metropolitan area following the chernobyl accident

In the metropolitan New York area, maximum concentrations in air of radioactive aerosol and gaseous debris from the Chernobyl accident of April 1986 were much lower than those measured in Europe. The observed maxima were: for gaseous 131I, 23mBq m−3; for aerosol samples, 20mBq m−3 of 131I and 9·mBq m−3 of 137Cs. The data suggest that little gas-to-particle transformation of iodine occurred during transport of the radioactive cloud from the Ukraine to New York. The ratios of 103Ru and other refractories to 137Cs were low in the first debris sampled, debris which probably was emitted from Chernobyl in late April during the early stages of the accident. In subsequent samples these ratios were higher, presumably because debris from the later, hotter stages of the fire had reached our sampling sites. A significant fraction (25–40%) of the deposition of 131I and 137Cs into our samplers and on grass was by dry deposition. The total deposition of Chernobyl 137Cs in the area was <1% of that already present in the soil from fallout from past nuclear weapon tests. The highest concentration of 131I measured in fresh milk was about 1.5 B1 liter−1, <0.1% of the US action level. The dose to the thyroid of a six-month-old infant who had fresh milk as a sole food source would be about 70 μGy (7 mrad).
Convergence of the Frank-Wolfe method for certain bounded variable traffic assignment problems

Abstract In two recent papers published in Transportation Research , Daganzo presented a modification of the Frank-Wolfe algorithm to solve certain link capacitated traffic assignment problems satisfying certain conditions. In order to show convergence of the modified algorithm, the assumption was made that the integral of the volume delay formula for each link tends to infinity as the link flow approaches the link capacity. In this paper we give a Theorem which establishes convergence of the modified algorithm under much weaker conditions. This result is then used to show convergence if the objective function of the assignment model is sufficiently large (not necessarily infinite) when the link flows are at capacity. Thus the modified method is applicable to a broader class of assignment problems. Two numerical examples illustrate (a) when the method converges and when it does not, and (b) that our Theorem provides a weaker condition for convergence of the method.
Quantification of beryllium in thin films using proton backscattering

Abstract The strong resonance in the 1H-9Be backscattering cross section near 1H laboratory energy 2525 keV has been used to determine 9Be areal densities in thin films with accuracies of about 6%. We report measured cross sections (for a 170.5° laboratory backscattering angle) for 1H on 9Be for 1H energies from 2400 to 2700 keV. The areal densities of the self-supporting Be foils used for the 1H-9Be measurements were determined from 4He-9Be backscattering measurements. We also report measured cross sections for 170.5° backscattering of 4He by 9Be for 4He laboratory energies of 500 to 4200 keV. Results of channeling measurements in epitaxial Be films on crystalline substrates are also discussed.
Epigenetic mechanisms in pubertal brain maturation

Puberty is a critical period of development during which the reemergence of gonadotropin-releasing hormone secretion from the hypothalamus triggers a cascade of hormone-dependent processes. Maturation of specific brain regions including the prefrontal cortex occurs during this window, but the complex mechanisms underlying these dynamic changes are not well understood. Particularly, the potential involvement of epigenetics in this programming has been under-examined. The epigenome is known to guide earlier stages of development, and it is similarly poised to regulate vital pubertal-driven brain maturation. Further, as epigenetic machinery is highly environmentally responsive, its involvement may also lend this period of growth to greater vulnerability to external insults, resulting in reprogramming and increased disease risk. Importantly, neuropsychiatric diseases commonly present in individuals during or immediately following puberty, and environmental perturbations including stress may precipitate disease onset by disrupting the normal trajectory of pubertal brain development via epigenetic mechanisms. In this review, we discuss epigenetic processes involved in pubertal brain maturation, the potential points of derailment, and the importance of future studies for understanding this dynamic developmental window and gaining a better understanding of neuropsychiatric disease risk.
Mercury distribution studies involving complexes of low-molecular weight thiols and methylmercury.

One of the metabolic roles of low molecular weight thiol compounds may be the formation of thiol-methylmercury complexes which can be preferentially translocated across cell membranes. The coadministration of equimolar amounts of the thiol, L-cysteine, with CH/sub 3/Hg increased the short-term accumulation of CH/sub 3/Hg in liver, kidneys and cerebrum, but reduced the level of CH/sub 3/Hg found in plasma. This modification of the distribution pattern of CH/sub 3/Hg by co-administering low molecular weight thiol compounds further suggests that thiol-methylmercury complexes may play a role in the tissue deposition process. In fact, treatment of rats with CH/sub 3/Hg has produced a low molecular weight CH/sub 3/Hg complex in cerebral cytosol. This complex accounted for approximately one-third of the soluble CH/sub 3/Hg and was identified by column chromatography and electrophoresis to be methylmercury-glutathione. The object of this study is to determine if CH/sub 3/Hg and thiol complexes of CH/sub 3/Hg are absorbed and distributed in a manner dependent upon the status of a known ameliorative agent of CH/sub 3/Hg toxicity, selenium.