cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Hookah Tobacco Smoking During the Transition to College: Prevalence of Other Substance Use and Predictors of Initiation.

Introduction The prevalence of hookah tobacco smoking is increasing, and the transition to college is a vulnerable time for initiation. Hookah use is associated with other forms of substance use, but most research has been cross-sectional, thus limiting our understanding of temporal patterns of use. The goals of this longitudinal study were to assess the prevalence of hookah use and initiation, as well as other forms of substance use among hookah users, and identify which forms of substance use predicted hookah initiation during the first 30 days of college. Methods Incoming students (N = 936, 50% female) reported on past 30-day substance use prior to the start of the Fall 2011 semester and again 30 days later (n = 817). Substances included hookah, cigarettes, other forms of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and other illegal drugs. Results Current prevalence of hookah use increased from 9.0% before college to 13.1% during the first month of college. At baseline and follow-up, current hookah users were more likely than nonusers to report current use of cigarettes, cigars/little cigars/clove cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, marijuana, and alcohol. Among pre-college hookah never users, 13.8% initiated hookah use in the first month of college. Alcohol (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.11, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05, 1.17) and marijuana (AOR 1.30, 95% CI 1.03, 1.65) were the only substances predictive of hookah initiation. Conclusions Findings indicate that hookah prevention and intervention is needed during the transition to college, and interventions may need to address comorbid alcohol, marijuana, and hookah use. Implications To our knowledge this is the first longitudinal study examining predictors of hookah initiation among male and female incoming first-year college students. While hookah users were more likely than nonusers to use all other substances before and during the first month of college, pre-college marijuana and alcohol use were the only two predictors of hookah initiation during the first 30 days of college. Collectively, these findings provide additional support for the need for efficacious hookah prevention and intervention programs. The transition to college appears to be an ideal time to deliver prevention programs given the increased prevalence of hookah use during the first 30 days of college. In addition to prevention, former users may benefit from targeted relapse prevention as one-fifth of former hookah smokers resumed use during the first 30 days of college.
Metabolic Erosion Primarily Through Mutation Accumulation, and Not Tradeoffs, Drives Limited Evolution of Substrate Specificity in Escherichia coli

Evolutionary adaptation to a constant environment is often accompanied by specialization and a reduction of fitness in other environments. We assayed the ability of the Lenski Escherichia coli populations to grow on a range of carbon sources after 50,000 generations of adaptation on glucose. Using direct measurements of growth rates, we demonstrated that declines in performance were much less widespread than suggested by previous results from Biolog assays of cellular respiration. Surprisingly, there were many performance increases on a variety of substrates. In addition to the now famous example of citrate, we observed several other novel gains of function for organic acids that the ancestral strain only marginally utilized. Quantitative growth data also showed that strains with a higher mutation rate exhibited significantly more declines, suggesting that most metabolic erosion was driven by mutation accumulation and not by physiological tradeoffs. These reductions in growth by mutator strains were ameliorated by growth at lower temperature, consistent with the hypothesis that this metabolic erosion is largely caused by destabilizing mutations to the associated enzymes. We further hypothesized that reductions in growth rate would be greatest for substrates used most differently from glucose, and we used flux balance analysis to formulate this question quantitatively. To our surprise, we found no significant relationship between decreases in growth and dissimilarity to glucose metabolism. Taken as a whole, these data suggest that in a single resource environment, specialization does not mainly result as an inevitable consequence of adaptive tradeoffs, but rather due to the gradual accumulation of disabling mutations in unused portions of the genome.
Molecular crystal global phase diagrams

Global phase diagrams are proposed as a tool for reverse engineering of molecular crystal structures. Reverse engineering is the delineation of the family of intermolecular potentials consistent with an observed crystal structure. The method is illustrated using a two-dimensional slice through the global phase diagram summarizing the crystalline phase behavior of tetrahedral molecules. The diagram is used to discuss the phase behavior of heavy methane. We envision using these diagrams as tools for data mining from crystallographic databases, for feedback in crystal design, and for predicting possible polymorphs.
Oscillation linewidth and brownian noise in a radiation-pressure-driven opto-mechanical oscillator

For the first time we have studied the linewidth of mechanical oscillations in a radiation-pressure-driven microtoroid opto-mechanical oscillator and we demonstrate that Brownian noise is the dominant noise mechanism in this oscillator.
Precision of a photogrammetric method to perform 3D wound measurements compared to standard 2D photographic techniques in the horse.

Summary Reasons for performing study: Methods of 3D wound imaging in man play an important role in monitoring of healing and determination of the prognosis. Standard photographic assessments in equine wound management consist of 2D analyses, which provide little quantitative information on the wound bed. Hypotheses: 3D imaging of equine wounds is feasible using principles of stereophotogrammetry. 3D measurements differ significantly and are more precise than results with standard 2D assessments. Methods: Repeated specialised photographic imaging of 4 clinical wounds left to heal by second intention was performed. The intraoperator variability in measurements due to imaging and 3D processing was compared to that of a standard 2D technique using descriptive statistics and multivariate repeated measures ANOVA. Results: Using a custom made imaging system, 3D analyses were successfully performed. Area and circumference measurements were significantly different between imaging modalities. The intraoperator variability of 3D measurements was up to 2.8 times less than that of 2D results. On average, the maximum discrepancy between repeated measurements was 5.8% of the mean for 3D and 17.3% of the mean for 2D assessments. Conclusions: The intraoperator repeatability of 3D wound measurements based on principles of stereophotogrammetry is significantly increased compared to that of a standard 2D photographic technique indicating it may be a useful diagnostic and monitoring tool. Potential relevance: The equine granulation bed plays an important role in equine wound healing. When compared to 2D analyses 3D monitoring of the equine wound bed allows superior quantitative characterisation, contributing to clinical and experimental investigations by offering potential new parameters.
Detecting Selective Dropping Attacks in BGP

Previous studies have shown that current inter-domain routing protocol, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), is vulnerable to various attacks. Initially, the major concern about BGP security is that malicious BGP routers can arbitrarily falsify BGP routing messages and spread incorrect routing information. Recently, some authors have pointed out the impact of a type of attack, namely selective dropping attack, that has not studied before. The authors have shown that such an attack can result in data traffic being blackholed or trapped in a loop. However, the authors did not elaborate on how one can detect selective dropping attacks. In this paper, we present a scheme we designed to detect selective dropping attacks in BGP. We conducted extensive experiments in DETER to evaluate the effectiveness of our scheme using three 30-node AS topologies generated from Brite. Our study shows that our scheme is quite promising.
Adolescent Varicocelectomy—Is the Potential for Catch-Up Growth Related to Age and/or Tanner Stage?

Purpose: Adolescent varicocelectomy is associated with a 70% incidence of postoperative catch-up growth in boys with ipsilateral testicular hypotrophy. We determined whether preoperative patient age and Tanner stage were related to subsequent catch-up growth. In other words if patients are followed with a period of observation, will a window of opportunity be lost for achieving catch-up growth?Materials and Methods: We studied a total of 163 boys (mean age 15.1 years, range 10 to 24) with left or bilateral varicoceles who demonstrated 10% asymmetry or greater preoperatively, and had preoperative and postoperative testicular volume measurements available (using either ring orchidometer or ultrasound). Of these patients 59 also had preoperative Tanner stage recorded.Results: Of the patients with preoperative left hypotrophy 69% had achieved catch-up growth at last followup (mean followup 28 months). When treated as a continuous variable, or when divided into general prepubertal vs postpubertal groupings, ag...
Rolls: modifying a standard system installer to support user-customizable cluster frontend appliances

The Rocks toolkit uses a graph-based framework to describe the configuration of all node types (termed appliances) that make up a complete cluster. With hundreds of deployed clusters, our turnkey systems approach has shown to be quite easily adapted to different hardware and logical node configurations. However, the Rocks architecture and implementation contains a significant asymmetry: the graph definition of all appliance types except the initial frontend can be modified and extended by the end-user before installation. However, frontends can be modified only afterward by hands-on system administration. To address this administrative discontinuity between nodes and frontends, we describe the design and implementation of Rolls. First and foremost, Rolls provide both the architecture and mechanisms that enable the end-user to incrementally and programmatically modify the graph description for all appliance types. New functionality can be added and any Rocks-supplied software component can be overwritten or removed simply by inserting the desired Roll CD(s) at installation time. This symmetric approach to cluster construction has allowed us to shrink the core of the Rocks implementation while increasing flexibility for the end-user. Rolls are optional, automatically configured, cluster-aware software systems. Current add-ons include: scheduling systems (SGE, PBS), grid support (based on NSF Middleware Initiative), database support (DB2), Condor, integrity checking (Tripwire) and the Intel compiler. Community-specific Rolls can be and are developed by groups outside of the Rocks core development group.
The impact of residual angulation on patient reported functional outcome scores after non-operative treatment for humeral shaft fractures.

Abstract Purpose To determine if residual angular deformity following non-operative treatment of humeral diaphyseal fractures correlates with patient reported outcomes. Methods Skeletally mature patients treated by one of three orthopaedic trauma surgeons at a level 1 trauma centre with humeral shaft fractures treated without surgery were retrospectively identified over a 7 year period. After inclusion and exclusion criteria, 42 patients were eligible for the study. Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand (DASH); Simple Shoulder Test (SST); General health questionnaire SF-12 physical component summary (SF-12 PCS) and mental component summary (SF-12 MCS) were obtained from study participants. Healed angular deformity was obtained from patient charts. Results Thirty two subjects were successfully recruited (32/42 or 76%). Average age was 45 ± 22 with average study follow up being 47 ± 29 months. Average outcome scores were DASH 12 ± 16, SST 10 ± 2.7, SF-12 PCS 50 ± 7.9, and SF-12 MCS 54 ± 8.8. Healed sagittal plane deformity averaged 8 ± 5.7° [range 0−18], and 15 ± 7.9° [range 2−27] in the coronal plane. There was no correlation between residual sagittal or coronal plane deformity and outcome scores (DASH and SST for both p > 0.05). Patients with at least 20° ( n = 7; 22%) of healed coronal deformity had similar outcomes to those with p = 0.83]; [SST (10.3 ± 2 vs 10.0 ± 2.9; p = 0.81]). Higher SF-12 PCS and MCS scores correlated with better DASH and SST scores ( p Conclusion Residual angular deformity ranging from 0 to 18° in the sagittal plane and from 2 to 27° in the coronal plane after non-operative treatment for humeral shaft fractures had no correlation with patient reported DASH scores, SST scores, or patient satisfaction. Instead, overall physical and mental health status as measured by the SF-12 significantly correlated with patient reported outcomes.
Nesting Behavior of Ochrotomys nuttalli under Experimental Conditions

Nesting behavior of the golden mouse, Ochrotomys nuttalli , was examined in experimental enclosures. Observed grouping patterns for both kin and random groups differed significantly from expected with nesting groups consisting of three or more individuals causing this difference. No significant differences were found between kin- and random-group frequencies, or between kin and random females, in groups of three or larger. Kin males, however, nested in groups of three or larger significantly more than random males. Females appeared to prefer a large social group, whereas males (especially nonrelated males) exhibited a more solitary behavior.
A Technique for Measuring Absolute Toe Pressures: Evaluation of Pressure-Sensitive Film Techniques:

Although a number of pathologies of the forefoot in ballet dancers on pointe have been described, pressures and deforming forces have not been adequately measured. To evaluate the possible use of pressure-sensitive film (PSF) in measuring the pressures on the external soft tissues in such a confined space as the dancer's toe shoe, it was tested and calibrated with 20 cadaver toes. Each cadaver toe was internally stabilized and loaded longitudinally against PSF on a flat surface. The resultant films were analyzed with a video imaging system and the pressures and total forces were determined. Results showed that the linearity of the PSF to pressure had a regression value of 0.98. By using two sensitivity ranges of films, the total force measured by the PSF was found to be within 10% of the known applied force on each toe. The PSF, therefore, may very well be a useful and accurate method of measuring external soft tissue pressures on the forefoot.
Elevated chylomicron index in multiple sclerosis and its response to digestive enzyme therapy.

SummaryThe chylomicron index is above normal in multiple sclerosis. The oral use of a preparation of pepsin, pancreatin, and bile salts lowers the chylomicron index to normal. Pancreatin alone appears to have a similar effect although, as judged by the standard deviations, less regular than the pepsin, pancreatin and bile salts combination. No response was shown by the group which received placebo.
Between the School and the Academy: The Struggle to Promote Teacher Research at Columbia University's Lincoln School, 1917–1935

This essay examines the development of a research faculty and culture at the Lincoln School, a laboratory school founded in 1917 by the Rockefeller General Education Board (GEB) at Teachers College, Columbia University. The school was dedicated to the production of education research by practicing teachers. The essay focuses in particular on the role played by the two men first charged by the GEB to organize and administrate the school, Abraham Flexner and Otis Caldwell, and some of the school's teachers. Flexner and Caldwell promoted a working environment marked by experimentation, academic freedom, and faculty collaboration. This leadership model created tensions between Flexner and Caldwell and some Teachers College faculty over the use of Lincoln School classrooms as a resource for education research. Over the twenty-four years of the school's existence, Lincoln School teachers published hundreds of studies and textbooks focusing on curriculum development, child development, teaching techniques, and democratic school administration. In a profession where members are expected to be consumers rather than creators of knowledge, and practitioners rather than “experts,” the teachers and administrators of the Lincoln School defied many of the most foundational premises that have guided schools and the production of education research alike.
Three-Dimensional Display Technologies for Anatomical Education: A Literature Review

Anatomy is a foundational component of biological sciences and medical education and is important for a variety of clinical tasks. To augment current curriculum and improve students’ spatial knowledge of anatomy, many educators, anatomists, and researchers use three-dimensional (3D) visualization technologies. This article reviews 3D display technologies and their associated assessments for anatomical education. In the first segment, the review covers the general function of displays employing 3D techniques. The second segment of the review highlights the use and assessment of 3D technology in anatomical education, focusing on factors such as knowledge gains, student perceptions, and cognitive load. The review found 32 articles on the use of 3D displays in anatomical education and another 38 articles on the assessment of 3D displays. The review shows that the majority (74 %) of studies indicate that the use of 3D is beneficial for many tasks in anatomical education, and that student perceptions are positive toward the technology.
Placental mechanisms and developmental origins of health and disease

Introduction The placenta plays a unique role in supporting the fetal allograft throughout gestation, protecting against immune rejection whilst also serving to supply oxygen and nutrients to, and remove carbon dioxide and waste products from, the fetus. As the nutrient interface between mother and fetus, the placenta may passively or actively transfer nutrients to the fetus or metabolise them en route. In addition the placenta produces a variety of peptide and steroid hormones that affect placental, maternal and fetal metabolism and development. The developmental origins of health and adult disease hypothesis proposes that alterations in fetal development, or adaptations of the fetus to alterations in the normal amount or pattern of substrate supply across the placenta, lead somehow to cardiovascular and metabolic disease in adult life. There is now abundant evidence both from human epidemiological studies and from animal studies that maternal nutrition may ‘programme’ the offspring for adult disease. This effect may be direct but it is more likely to be mediated in some manner by placental structure and/or function regulating the amount or composition of nutrients transferred. Does the placenta therefore play an active or a passive role in programming? Reduced fetal and placental weights are both associated with fetal programming. However, it is argued that, rather than reduced placental weight (and function) being linked to reduced fetal weight in a cause-and-effect relationship, reduced weight(s) might be a surrogate marker for an adverse intrauterine experience.
Mixed lubrication of soft contacts: An engineering look

Mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication of materials with low elastic modulus (soft materials) is investigated. Expressions for prediction of film thickness and the asperity load ratio in soft line-contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication are presented. The traction behavior of soft contact in mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication regime is also studied in terms of the Stribeck curves.
Medical therapies to extend survival in hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a serious malignancy with 21,000 new cases estimated for 2008. Several common diseases are associated with an increased risk of the development of HCC, including viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, and other chronic liver diseases. Most patients present with advanced disease, and therefore have only limited therapeutic options. However, advancements in screening and surveillance have allowed more patients to be identified and diagnosed with earlier-stage disease, increasing their therapeutic options. Several treatment modalities exist for early- and intermediate-stage disease, including ablative techniques and embolization methods. Additionally, advances in targeted therapy have resulted in the approval of the oral multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor sorafenib, resulting in improved length of survival. In this roundtable discussion, the current epidemic of HCC is addressed, including factors contributing to an increased rate of occurrence. Additionally, the optimal screening and diagnosis of HCC patients is discussed, and the appropriate treatment modalities for each stage of HCC are presented.
Unequal and Unfair: Free Riding in One-Shot Interactions

iv Introduction 1 Literature Review 2 Conceptualization and Operationalization 6 Methodology 6 Primary Results 9 Additional Results 12 Discussion 15 Conclusion 17 References 18 Appendix A 21 Appendix B 23 Appendix C 25 Vita 30
Transient Solid Dynamics Simulations on the Sandia/Intel Teraflop Computer

We describe our parallelization of PRONTO, Sandia's transient solid dynamics code, via a novel algorithmic approach that utilizes multiple decompositions for different key segments of the computations, including the material contact calculation. This latter calculation is notoriously difficult to perform well in parallel, because it involves dynamically changing geometry, global searches for elements in contact, and unstructured communications among the compute nodes. Our approach scales to at least 3600 compute nodes on problems involving millions of finite elements. We can simulate models using more than ten million elements in a few tenths of a second per timestep.
In Reply: Neurosurgical Education in a Changing Healthcare and Regulatory Environment: A Consensus Statement From 6 Programs.

The purpose of neurosurgical education is to teach the clinical knowledge and surgical skills necessary to become a neurosurgeon. Another goal is to inculcate the principles of the scientific method. However, increasing expectations about attending involvement during surgery, duty hour requirements, and new curricular mandates have put programs under stress to ensure adequate training, in less time, in an environment of limited resident independence. More recently, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has developed a new tracking process based on "milestones" or defined educational outcomes. At the same time, our healthcare system is undergoing a rapid socioeconomic transition in organization and payment models, which traditionally has not been a focus of formal teaching. A 2008 survey conducted by the Council of State Neurosurgical Societies found that graduating residents felt inadequately prepared in areas like contract negotiation, practice evaluation, and management.
Regulation of the Gs Protein in the Heart

The role of GTP-binding proteins (G proteins) as transducers of information across the plasma membrane is now well-established. A wide variety of hormones and neurotransmitters that regulate the heart and vascular system have been shown to produce their effects by the activation of such proteins (1). Acetylcholine released by post¬ganglionic parasympathetic (vagal) neurons and norepinephrine released at postganglionic sympathetic neurons are the most physiologically important of these agonists. Norepinephrine and epinephrine, a circulating hormone principally derived from the adrenal medulla, activate cardiac β1and β2-adrenergic receptors to produce chrono¬tropic, dromotropic, lusitropic and inotropic actions, β-adrenergic receptors exert these actions via their ability to activate the stimulatory GTP binding protein, Gs. Gs, in turn, promotes the physiological responses via the regulation of effector molecules. In this article, we will address 4 questions regarding cardiac Gs: 1) What are the effector molecules regulated by Gs? 2) How much Gs is present in cardiac membrane preparations? 3) Is Gs exclusively localized to the cardiac sarcolemma? 4) Is Gs altered physiologically or during cardiac disease?
Using entropy balancing to strengthen an observational cohort study design: lessons learned from an evaluation of a complex multi-state federal demonstration

We conducted an evaluation of a patient-centered medical home demonstration sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We implemented a quasi-experimental pre-post with a comparison group design. Traditional propensity score weighting failed to achieve balance (exchangeability) between the two groups on several critical characteristics. In response, we incorporated a relatively new alternative known as entropy balancing. Our objective is to share lessons learned from using entropy balancing in a quasi-experimental study design. We document the advantages and challenges with using entropy balancing. We also describe a set of best practices, and we present a series of illustrative analyses that empirically demonstrate the performance of entropy balancing relative to traditional propensity score weighting. We compare alternative approaches based on: (i) covariate balance (e.g., standardized differences); (ii) overlap in conditional treatment probabilities; and (iii) the distribution of weights. Our comparison of overlap is based on a novel approach we developed that uses entropy balancing weights to calculate a pseudo-propensity score. In many situations, entropy balancing provides remarkably superior covariate balance compared to traditional propensity score weighting methods. Entropy balancing is also preferred because it does not require extensive iterative manual searching for an optimal propensity score specification. However, we demonstrate that there are some situations where entropy balancing “fails”. Specifically, there are instances where entropy balancing achieves adequate covariate balance only by using a distribution of weights that dramatically up-weights a small set of observations, giving them a disproportionately large and undesirable influence.
Mucins, Mucus, and Goblet Cells

The respiratory epithelium is lined by mucus, a gel consisting of water, ions, proteins, and macromolecules. The major macromolecular components of mucus are the mucin glycoproteins, which are critical for local defense of the airway. There are three classes of mucins in the airways: those that are secreted but do not polymerize (MUC7), those that are secreted and polymerize to form gels (MUC5AC, MUC5B), and those that have transmembrane domains and are cell surface associated (MUC1, MUC4, MUC16, MUC20). The mucins are regulated at the transcriptional, posttranscriptional, and epigenetic levels, and posttranslational modifications play an important role in mucin binding and clearance of microbes and pollutants. The development of mice deficient in specific mucins, and the cystic fibrosis pig, has greatly advanced our understanding of the role of mucins as innate immune mediators and how mucins and mucus contribute to lung disease. These observations suggest new strategies to ameliorate mucus obstruction by targeting mucociliary clearance and mucin hyperconcentration. Furthermore, a polymorphism in the promoter of MUC5B is strongly associated with risk of developing pulmonary fibrosis, supporting a novel function for MUC5B to influence interstitial lung disease. Exciting new data support the concept not only that mucins and mucus are important for lung homeostasis and protection from environmental threats but also that goblet cells play an important role as regulators of innate immune function. These insights into the innate immune properties of mucins and goblet cells support a shift from the current paradigm of repressing increased mucin expression to targeting regulation of specific mucins and the abnormal airway milieu.
Using Bulgarian Mini-Lessons in an SLA Course to Improve the KAL of American ESL Teachers

This research was inspired by some of the challenges I faced as an instructor of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) courses in an MA TESOL program with mostly nontraditional student population. When I started teaching four years ago I had just finished my Ph.D. in Foreign and Second Language Education. I remember how thrilled I was at the idea of designing my own syllabus and teaching my first SLA course. I vividly remember my first class and the question I asked my students after introducing myself: "I assume you are students in the TESOL program who are preparing to become ESL teachers", I said. The answer came back like a blow: "No", they said, "We already teach ESL students". I tried to conceal my surprise and started handing out the syllabus that described the goals and assignments for the course. Students had to read numerous articles on SLA and do a presentation on a topic of their own choice. When I finished, they asked for more information because they were not familiar with some of the topics that they were supposed to select for their presentations. It was only then that I realized that even though my students were teachers, they had no background knowledge in either Linguistics or Second Language Acquisition. Needless to say I had a very difficult first semester. Since that time I have completely changed my way of teaching this class. I have learned through both my experience and my reading of the research (van Lier, 1996; Bartels, 2002; Lo, 2001) that students need more than lectures on the theories of SLA in order to be able to understand these theories and apply them in their future teaching. Teacher knowledge has three major dimensions: subject matter content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge (Shulman, 1986). All three dimensions are important in making decisions in actual practice. However, most of these decisions are also based on beliefs and assumptions, which seem to be an inextricable part of teacher knowledge (Woods, 1996). Courses of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in language teacher education programs seem to emphasize only one aspect of
Inflammatory Renin-Angiotensin System Disruption Attenuates Sensory Hyperinnervation and Mechanical Hypersensitivity in a Rat Model of Provoked Vestibulodynia

Abstract Vestibulodynia is characterized by perivaginal mechanical hypersensitivity, hyperinnervation, and abundant inflammatory cells expressing renin-angiotensin system proteins. We developed a tractable rat model of vestibulodynia to further assess the contributions of the renin-angiotensin system. Complete Freund's adjuvant injected into the posterior vestibule induced marked vestibular hypersensitivity throughout a 7-day test period. Numbers of axons immunoreactive for PGP9.5, calcitonin gene-related peptide, and GFRα2 were increased. Numbers of macrophages and T cells were also increased whereas B cells were not. Renin-angiotensin-associated proteins were abundant, with T cells as well as macrophages contributing to increased renin and angiotensinogen. Media conditioned with inflamed vestibular tissue promoted neurite sprouting by rat dorsal root ganglion neurons in vitro, and this was blocked by the angiotensin II receptor type 2 receptor antagonist PD123319 or by an angiotensin II function blocking antibody. Sensory axon sprouting induced by inflamed tissue was dependent on activity of angiotensin-converting enzyme or chymase, but not cathepsin G. Thus, vestibular Complete Freund's adjuvant injection substantially recapitulates changes seen in patients with provoked vestibulodynia, and shows that manipulation of the local inflammatory renin-angiotensin system may be a useful therapeutic strategy. Perspective This study provides evidence that inflammation of the rat vestibule induces a phenotype recapitulating behavioral and cytological features of human vestibulodynia. The model confirms a crucial role of the local inflammatory renin-angiotensin system in hypersensitivity and hyperinnervation. Targeting this system holds promise for developing new nonopioid analgesic treatment strategies.
Generating Cellular Puzzles with Logic Programs.

We show how to characterize puzzles by logic programs and how to use those characterizations to build puzzles automatically. We can control the difficulty level of the puzzles by choosing how and when to invoke the logic program.
Operational definition refinement: a discovery process

Operational definitions link scientific attributes to experimental situations, prescribing for the experimenter the actions and measurements needed to measure or control attribute values. While very important in real science, operational procedures have been neglected in machine discovery. We argue that in the preparatory stage of the empirical discovery process each operational definition must be adjusted to the experimental task at hand. This is done in the interest of error reduction and repeatability of measurements. Both small error and high repeatability are instrumental in theory formation. We demonstrate that operational procedure refinement is a discovery process that resembles the discovery of scientific laws. We demonstrate how the discovery task can be reduced to an application of the FAHRENHEIT discovery system. A new type of independent variables, the experiment refinement variables, have been introduced to make the application of FAHRENHEIT theoretically valid. This new extension to FAHRENHEIT uses simple operational procedures, as well as the system's experimentation and theory formation capabilities to collect real data in a science laboratory and to build theories of error and repeatability that are used to refine the operational procedures. We present the application of FAHRENHEIT in the context of dispensing liquids in a chemistry laboratory.
Impact of an entrustable professional activities-based assessment system

Background: Beginning in 2014, all Accreditation Counsel of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited residency programs were required to move to a Milestones-based system for biannual resident assessment. The resident assessment system for the Virginia Tech-Carilion Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/GYN) residency program was re-designed to meet this requirement in July, 2014. The ACGME Milestones based assessment tool was identified on multiple faculty surveys as an area for improvement. To address this issue, an entrustable professional activities (EPA) based assessment system was designed and implemented for assessment of all OB/GYN rotations. Objective: To evaluate the impact of an EPA based resident assessment system on faculty member’s evaluation of resident assessment tools. Methods: In this prospective quality improvement study, a survey was sent to all faculty members prior to the implementation of the EPA-based assessment system. The same survey was performed three months after the implementation of the new system. To facilitate analysis, each level of agreement was assigned a numerical value (1-5). The results were aggregated, and were analyzed using t-tests, assuming unequal variances. Results: Sixty-eight percent of the faculty responded to the first survey, and 67% responded to the follow up survey. Statistically significant (p<.05) improvements were noted in most measures of the EPA based assessment tool including “ease of use” (2.2 vs 4.4, p< 0.001) and “accurate representation of resident performance” (2.5 vs 3.9, p <0.001). Conclusion: An EPA based resident evaluation system significantly improved teaching faculty’s impression of most domains of our OB/GYN resident assessment tools.
A Blockchain-based Platform for Exchange of Solar Energy: Laboratory-scale Implementation

Over the last decade, the increasing uptake of rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV) at the grid edge transforms residential houses into complex energy "prosumers". A house with rooftop solar PV can both consume and export electricity. Hence, it can participate in a "Transactive Energy" network involving peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange of excess electricity. The challenge is to keep track of these transactions and compensate buyers and sellers accordingly. Recently, blockchain has emerged as a distributed ledger technology which allows exchanges among participants without the need for a central market entity. There are several blockchain pilots in the energy sector, which focus on the business, legal and financial aspects, but without much details about how to implement a blockchain-based P2P trading platform. This paper addresses this issue by presenting laboratory-scale implementation of a blockchain network for exchange of solar electricity among participants using Hyperledger – an open-source collaborative effort. Participants, assets and transactions necessary to establish the blockchain-based network for keeping track of solar PV output exchanges are described, together with the smart contract, use cases and their implementation.
The association between patient engagement HIT functionalities and quality of care: Does more mean better?

Abstract Objective To explore the relationship between the number (breadth) of patient engagement functionalities offered through health information technology (HIT) by hospitals and the hospitals’ quality of care. Methods Data on hospital adoption of patient engagement functionalities were combined with quality data obtained from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare. Fixed effects regression models were used to analyze a panel data consisting 1,463 hospitals from 2012 to 2014. Results This study revealed a significant positive relationship between the breadth of patient engagement functionalities and patient satisfaction (β = 0.126, p Discussion The breadth of functionalities offered by hospitals to engage patients was a significant factor in decreasing hospital 30-day readmission rates for pneumonia, acute myocardial infarction, and heart failure, and also influenced patients’ perception of the hospital. Conclusions: The findings suggest that hospitals with more patient engagement HIT functionalities are likely to have higher patient satisfaction and lower readmission rates for infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. This study will potentially assist hospital administrators to justify their strategic deployment of HIT resources to improve both perceived and actual care quality.
Abstract 3521: Critical Assessment of CNV Calling Using Next Generation Sequencing

Tumor-derived Copy Number Variations (CNVs) are among the most important genomic aberrations in cancers. Since a CNV amplification is often associated with oncogene activation, and a CNV deletion is frequently attributed to the gene inactivation, an accurate detection of CNVs plays a crucial role in cancer diagnosis and treatment. In this study, using the next generation sequencing, we systematically interrogated somatic CNVs in paired tumor-normal cell lines to identify factors affecting detection reproducibility and accuracy. Whole-genome and whole-exome sequencing were carried out at six sequencing centers followed by processing with six CNV callers to evaluate their reproducibility. Different types of samples with varying input amount and tumor purity were processed using multiple library construction protocols and read depths. We compared the consistency of reference replicates, the effect of experimental, technical, and biological confounding factors, and benchmarked our callers using cytogenetic array. Our evaluation was based on two approaches; bin-based and gene-based approach. The bin-based comparison used a sliding window of 10 Kb, while gene-based comparison used segments at the gene level. Our evaluations indicate variations among CNV calls are mainly driven by callers and less by the sequencing centers. In addition to caller effect, PCA analyses also show site-specific effect, largely pairwise distances on the PC plot for pairs between different centers than for those within the same centers. Among confounding factors, namely FFPE, library concentration, and tumor purity with several sequencing depths, we report that tumor purity has a dominant and major effect in caller’s performance. PCA analysis shows low tumor purity ( Citation Format: Yun-Ching Chen, Fayaz Seifuddin, Cu Nguyen, Chunhua Yan, Qingrong Chen, Wenming Xiao, Mehdi Pirooznia, Daoud Meerzaman. Critical Assessment of CNV Calling Using Next Generation Sequencing [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3521.
Save the foreskin: Outcomes of preputioplasty in the treatment of childhood phimosis.

Abstract Background Symptomatic phimosis is a common childhood urology complaint. Circumcision was traditionally the treatment of choice, but its popularity in cases of non-scarred phimosis has been superseded by more conservative methods like preputioplasty. We sought to examine outcomes of preputioplasty for the treatment of non-scarred pathological phimosis in two UK paediatric surgery tertiary centres. Methods Retrospective case series selecting cases performed in both departments over a 4 year period (January 2012–December 2015). Inclusion criteria: non-scarred pathological phimosis treated with preputioplasty. Exclusion criteria: diffuse scarring of foreskin or presence of balanitis xerotica obliterans (BXO), preputioplasty performed as part of hypospadias repair. Outcome measure was treatment success as evidenced by fully retractile prepuce at follow up. Follow up occurred between 3 and 24 months. Results We identified 126 patients, 6 were excluded due to the above criteria. Median age was 13.4 years (range 10 months–18 years). Median follow up was 13 months (range 3–24 months). 115 patients (96%) had successful treatment as evidenced by satisfactory post-operative cosmesis and complete resolution of phimosis at follow up. Recurrence of phimosis occurred in 5 patients (4%). Mean time of recurrence was 6 months, with a median age of recurrence of 15.3 years (range 10.7–16.7 years). All patients with recurrence were successfully treated with circumcision. Conclusion Foreskin conserving methods like preputioplasty are a valid option in the treatment of non-scarred pathological phimosis.
Neurobiology of Cochlear Hair Cells

ABSTRACT Transduction processes in mammalian inner and outer hair cells are examined, along with the influence of the basolateral cell membrane upon the receptor potentials. The characteristics of the receptor potentials, as revealed by in vivo recordings are considered. Finally, outer hair cell motility is discussed.
A Lost World: Evgeniy Voyskunskiy’s Maiden Dreams, the Karabakh Crisis, and the End of Old Baku

This article examines the first novel about the Karabakh crisis and ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population in the city of Baku. Maiden Dreams (Devich’i Sny), published in 1995, was written by Evgeniy Voyskunskiy, an author born in Baku and generally known for science fiction novels. The novel explores the tragic fate of the city, and it includes stories of persecution and pogroms against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan in the late 1980s and early 1990s in light of the Karabakh conflict. Maiden Dreams is the story of Baku from the beginning of the 20th century to the turbulent period late in the century when violence and ethnic cleansing had transformed the cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic capital into a homogeneous city with no space for “others.” This article examines the novel from both literary and historical perspectives.
Effects of Chemical Feedbacks on Decadal Methane Emissions Estimates

Author(s): Nguyen, NH; Turner, AJ; Yin, Y; Prather, MJ; Frankenberg, C | Abstract: The coupled chemistry of methane, carbon monoxide (CO), and hydroxyl radical (OH) can modulate methane's 9-year lifetime. This is often ignored in methane flux inversions, and the impacts of neglecting interactive chemistry have not been quantified. Using a coupled-chemistry box model, we show that neglecting the effect of methane source perturbation on [OH] can lead to a 25% bias in estimating abrupt changes in methane sources after only 10nyears. Further, large CO emissions, such as from biomass burning, can increase methane concentrations by extending the methane lifetime through impacts on [OH]. Finally, we quantify the biases of including (or excluding) coupled chemistry in the context of recent methane and CO trends. Decreasing CO concentrations, beginning in the 2000's, have notable impacts on methane flux inversions. Given these nonnegligible errors, decadal methane emissions inversions should incorporate chemical feedbacks for more robust methane trend analyses and source attributions.
Proteogenomic single cell analysis of skeletal muscle myocytes

Abstract Skeletal muscle myocytes have evolved into slow and fast-twitch types. These types are functionally distinct as a result of differential gene and protein expression. However, an understanding of the complexity of gene and protein variation between myofibers is unknown. We performed deep, whole cell, single cell RNA-seq on intact and fragments of skeletal myocytes from the mouse flexor digitorum brevis muscle. We compared the genomic expression data of 171 of these cells with two human proteomic datasets. The first was a spatial proteomics survey of mosaic patterns of protein expression utilizing the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) and the HPASubC tool. The second was a mass-spectrometry (MS) derived proteomic dataset of single human muscle fibers. Immunohistochemistry and RNA-ISH were used to understand variable expression. scRNA-seq identified three distinct clusters of myocytes (a slow/fast 2A cluster and two fast 2X clusters). Utilizing 1,605 mosaic patterned proteins from visual proteomics, and 596 differentially expressed proteins by MS methods, we explore this fast 2X division. Only 36 genes/proteins had variable expression across all three studies, of which nine are newly described as variable between fast/slow twitch myofibers. An additional 414 genes/proteins were identified as variable by two methods. Immunohistochemistry and RNA-ISH generally validated variable expression across methods presumably due to species-related differences. In this first integrated proteogenomic analysis of mature skeletal muscle myocytes we confirm the main fiber types and greatly expand the known repertoire of twitch-type specific genes/proteins. We also demonstrate the importance of integrating genomic and proteomic datasets.