cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Infant formula analysis

Abstract: An essential facet of the production of infant formula is the strict and reliable control and analysis of each stage throughout the production process. This chapter details how infant formula is produced and how it must be sampled in order to give satisfactory results, gives an overview of legislation regarding the production of infant formula, and details how analysis of each of the major nutrients may be carried out. As AOAC standards are the norm, these are the ones most commonly referenced. Where no standard is available, or an ingredient is new, the industry standard is described.
Morel-Lavallée Lesions

The Morel-Lavallee (ML) lesion is a traumatic, closed soft tissue degloving injury. They have an inconsistent presentation, and diagnosis is often delayed. This review describes the pathophysiology of this injury, emphasizes the clinical and radiographic presentation, and highlights current management strategies. Early studies reported ML lesions occur solely over the greater trochanter, and while this remains the most common site, ML lesions can occur throughout the body. Early operative debridement should be performed, as aspiration or observation has an unacceptably high failure rate. Sclerodesis is an option in chronic ML lesions. ML wounds can be closed unless active infection is present. ML lesions are more frequently being recognized incidentally on imaging but are still under-diagnosed in trauma patients. The delay in diagnosis and unfamiliarity with treatment options can lead to poor outcomes and unnecessary complications.
New Structural Biology Facilities at NSLS-II

The National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at Brookhaven National Laboratory, offers an advanced suite of beamlines ded...
Bedside Ultrasound Versus Chest Radiography for Detection of Pulmonary Edema: A Prospective Cohort Study

OBJECTIVES Chest radiography has been the preferred imaging study to assess pulmonary congestion. However, chest radiography interpretation is influenced by the level of expertise and high interobserver variability. Lung ultrasound (US) may produce more objective findings through evaluation of vertical comet tail artifacts known as B-lines, which are created by a decrease in the ratio of alveolar air to fluid pulmonary content. Few studies have directly compared chest radiography to bedside US against a reference standard for the diagnosis of pulmonary edema. This study compared the sensitivity and specificity of bedside US and chest radiography in diagnosing pulmonary edema. METHODS This prospective observational cohort study involved adult patients presenting to the emergency department of an urban tertiary hospital with dyspnea. The primary outcome was the presence or absence of pulmonary edema, as indicated by B-lines on a bedside lung US examination or radiologist-interpreted chest radiography. Patients underwent a US examination within about 1 hour of chest radiography. The final diagnosis from the discharge summary served as the reference standard. RESULTS Ninety-nine patients were enrolled; 32.3% had congestive heart failure, and 40.4% had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Bedside US showed significantly higher sensitivity (96%) compared to chest radiography (65%; P < .001). Of 18 patients with negative radiographic findings and a discharge diagnosis of pulmonary edema, 16 (89%) had positive US findings (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS Bedside US has the potential to identify pulmonary edema more accurately than chest radiography. As current practice within the United States uses chest radiography, reflecting American College of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association guidelines for management of heart failure, the results of this study warrant further evaluation.
How low can you go? Estimating impacts of reduced pesticide use

Recent research has suggested that a high proportion of farms can dramatically reduce pesticide applications without reducing crop yields or farm profits. Yet this research has made estimation choices that may systematically bias downwards estimates of the productivity and profitability of pesticides. Fifty years of agricultural economics research provides lessons about how to avoid pitfalls in estimating pesticide productivity. Carefully executed econometric studies have found evidence of overuse, underuse, and near-optimal use of pesticides in different cropping systems. There are now standard methods to test and correct for sources of biases (either upward or downward) in estimates of pesticide productivity. Ignoring these lessons and methods can seriously bias estimates of the potential for reducing pesticide use at little or no economic cost. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.
Quantile Regressions Applied to Pressurized Water Reactor CHF Correlation Safety Criteria

AbstractAll licensable critical heat flux (CHF) correlations/regressions models must determine and demonstrate a “design limit” that bounds the CHF correlation predicted/measured residuals via a 95/95 tolerance limit. This is a quick and straightforward calculation when the residuals are well behaved, exhibiting no trends and no heteroscedasticity. However, as models become increasingly complex and as required parameter ranges become more extended, the likelihood of nonconservative subregions increases. A suggested solution from the open literature is the overly conservative approach of basing the design limit on the subregion with the largest variance. This approach unavoidably overly constrains the overall regression model and often is too conservative for subregions due to a loss in degrees of freedom. Quantile regressions alleviate these issues by smoothly varying the design limit based on covariates and adapting to each subregion. Thus, a quantile regression achieves the objective of appropriately bo...
Resurrection of the Physics Alliance at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Twenty years back, our institution hosted a Physics Alliance, an affiliation of university and high school teachers that promoted enhanced instruction in high school introductory physics. Recently our physics department decided to bring back the Alliance. We had incentives for attendance, which included an equipment giveaway, a “make and take” credit toward continuing certification, and free lunch. So far, our attempts have been successful.Twenty years back, our institution hosted a Physics Alliance, an affiliation of university and high school teachers that promoted enhanced instruction in high school introductory physics. Recently our physics department decided to bring back the Alliance. We had incentives for attendance, which included an equipment giveaway, a “make and take” credit toward continuing certification, and free lunch. So far, our attempts have been successful.
Improving damping property of carbon-fiber reinforced epoxy composite through novel hybrid epoxy-polyurea interfacial reaction

Abstract A Carbon-fiber reinforced Hybrid- Matrix Composite (CHMC) was designed to improve the material damping property in conventional carbon-fiber reinforced epoxy (CF/E) through the interfacial reaction of two reactive polymeric compounds: still-curing epoxy-based phase I with a highly crosslinked morphology and lightly crosslinked still-curing polyurea elastomeric phase II. Chemical reactions of the hybridized interfacial matrix are discussed relative to phase reactions and tunable material damping in accordance with the migration of epoxy phase I species. Microstructures and micromechanical properties of CHMC are characterized using scanning electron microscopy and nanoindentation. Dynamic properties of CHMC are investigated via free vibration and forced vibration tests, and the results are compared to CF/E test results. Dynamic mechanical analysis reveals a cogent link between damping property (of the epoxy-polyurea interface) and lower tc ≈ 0, where proper design of the epoxy-polyurea interface can greatly improve material damping by using smaller epoxy curing times (tc, hours) just before topically applying reactive polyurea. As a result, loss modulus of the interface is seven to ten times larger for tc = 0 compared to polyurea-coated fully-cured epoxy. For tc > 3.5, the role of polyurea thickness hp on energy dissipation expectedly increases.
Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Refactoring Tools

This volume contains the proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Refactoring Tools (WRT 2011), held in conjunction with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2011). This workshop is a continuation of a series of previous workshops (ECOOP 2007, OOPSLA 2008 and 2009, http://refactoring.info/WRT) where researchers and developers of refactoring tools can meet and discuss recent ideas and work, and view tool demonstrations. Refactoring is the process of applying behavior-preserving transformations to a program with the objective of improving the program's design. A specific refactoring is identified by a name (e.g., Extract Method), a set of preconditions, and a set of transformations that need to be performed. Tool support for refactoring is essential because checking the preconditions of refactoring often requires nontrivial program analysis, and applying transformations may affect many locations throughout a program. In recent years, the emergence of lightweight programming methodologies such as Extreme Programming has generated a great amount of interest in refactoring, and refactoring support has become a required feature in today's IDEs. While there is a great deal of interest in developing tool support for refactoring, researchers and tool vendors rarely work together. This forum fosters the transfer of ideas and expertise both ways: researchers can show the state-of-the-art analyses they are using in developing tool support for refactoring, tool vendors can offer valuable insights onthe challenges of scaling such analyses to realistic applications. By bringing together researchers and tool vendors, we can shorten the time to transfer ideas into production systems. In addition, by making researchers aware of what others are working on, the potential for reinventing the wheel is reduced and the potential for creative collaboration is enhanced. This year, we received 15 submissions of which 8 were accepted. We would like to thank the authors for submitting their work. We are extremely grateful to the Program Committee members who did an outstanding job at reviewing the submissions and providing constructive feedback on how the authors can further improve their work. We feel that the quality of the reviews rivals that of the larger conferences. We thank Bill Griswold, Sebastian Elbaum, and Kathryn Stolee for their keynotes. Also, we thank the ICSE workshop chairs, Matthew Dwyer and Wolgang Emmerich, for their dedication to a great workshop experience at ICSE.
Impact of a Simulation on Educator Support of LGBTQ Youth.

LGBTQ youth frequently experience bullying and harassment in the school setting. Teachers are in an ideal position to prevent student harassment, yet most don’t have adequate training. This study e...
Formation of Austenite in Additively Manufactured and Post-Processed Duplex Stainless Steel Alloys

The additive manufacturing of duplex stainless steels has been limited by the inability to maintain a balanced ferrite/austenite microstructure. In order to investigate the impact of the complex thermal histories inherent to the additive manufacturing process on austenite fractions and morphology, a laser-based directed energy deposition process was used to fabricate lean (UNS S32101), standard (UNS S32205), and super (UNS S32507) duplex structures. In these structures, the austenite phase fractions ranged from 16.1 ± 1.1 pct in the lean, to 38.5 ± 1.6 pct in the standard, and 58.3 ± 0.1 pct in the super duplex stainless steel grades. While the overall austenite levels were comparable to those found in wrought alloys, the austenite fractions increased with build height as preheating from previously deposited material promoted the ferrite to austenite transformation. Of the austenite morphologies observed in each of the duplex stainless steel grades, intragranular austenite was dominant, comprising between 55 and 76 pct of the austenite present within each build. The intragranular austenite formed during reheating and its formation was enhanced by the presence of submicron inclusions which originated from the powder feedstock and served as heterogenous nucleation sites. After post-process hot isostatic pressing heat treatment, the austenite morphology became more similar in appearance to that observed in the wrought condition. The overall austenite fractions in the post-processed lean (28.2 ± 0.7 pct), standard (57.6 ± 0.2 pct), and super (66.5 ± 0.3 pct) duplex grades increased over their respective as-deposited conditions and became more uniform with changes in build height.
Technical Note: Validation of TG 233 phantom methodology to characterize noise and dose in patient CT data

Purpose Phantoms are useful tools in diagnostic CT, but practical limitations reduce phantoms to being only a limited patient surrogate. Furthermore, a phantom with a single cross sectional area cannot be used to evaluate scanner performance in modern CT scanners that use dose reduction techniques such as automated tube current modulation (ATCM) and iterative reconstruction (IR) algorithms to adapt x-ray flux to patient size, reduce radiation dose, and achieve uniform image noise. A new multisized phantom (Mercury Phantom, MP) has been introduced, representing multiple diameters. This work aimed to ascertain if measurements from MP can predict radiation dose and image noise in clinical CT images to prospectively inform protocol design. Methods The adult MP design included four different physical diameters (18.5, 23.0, 30.0, and 37.0 cm) representing a range of patient sizes. The study included 1457 examinations performed on two scanner models from two vendors, and two clinical protocols (abdominopelvic with and chest without contrast). Attenuating diameter, radiation dose, and noise magnitude (average pixel standard deviation in uniform image) was automatically estimated in patients and in the MP using a previously validated algorithm. An exponential fit of CTDIvol and noise as a function of size was applied to patients and MP data. Lastly, the fit equations from the phantom data were used to fit the patient data. In each patient distribution fit, the normalized root mean square error (nRMSE) values were calculated in the residuals' plots as a metric to indicate how well the phantom data can predict dose and noise in clinical operations as a function of size. Results For dose across patient size distributions, the difference between nRMSE from patient fit and MP model data prediction ranged between 0.6% and 2.0% (mean 1.2%). For noise across patient size distributions, the nRMSE difference ranged between 0.1% and 4.7% (mean 1.4%). Conclusions The Mercury Phantom provided a close prediction of radiation dose and image noise in clinical patient images. By assessing dose and image quality in a phantom with multiple sizes, protocol parameters can be designed and optimized per patient size in a highly constrained setup to predict clinical scanner and ATCM system performance.
An atomistic simulation study investigating the effect of varying network structure and polarity in a moisture contaminated epoxy network

Abstract Absorbed moisture is a frequent contributor to performance loss in polymer-based composite structures operating in nearly all environments. However, the fundamental mechanisms that govern water-polymer interaction remain poorly understood. In this molecular dynamics study, the polarity and internal structure of an epoxy-based composite matrix was varied through manipulation of crosslink density. A commonly used epoxy-hardener combination (DGEBA- DETA) was chosen and four different models were created with crosslinking density of 20%, 51%, 65% and 81% respectively. The results indicate that the increase in crosslinking leads to a greater availability of polar sites with a concomitant rise in available free volume. The rise in network polarity aids the hydrogen bonding interactions between the absorbed water and the composite matrix, but the greater availability of free volume also allows water molecules to cluster together through mutual hydrogen bonding activity. This results in a subsequent decrease in moisture interaction with polar sites at very high crosslink densities. It was also found that the diffusivity and average dipole moment of the absorbed moisture are correlated with the state of water molecules and that a greater percentage of network-bonded molecules tends to lower both of these quantities. These results are consistent with previously published experimental results which have contemplated the dual nature of water molecules in an epoxy network. The results also highlight the potential of leveraging this phenomenon for non-destructive inspection of the physical and chemical state of a polymer network.
The Double Burden of Malnutrition: A Systematic Review of Operational Definitions.

Background Despite increasing research on the double burden of malnutrition (DBM; i.e., coexisting over- and undernutrition), there is no global consensus on DBM definitions. Objectives To identify published operational DBM definitions, measure their frequency of use, and discuss implications for future assessment. Methods Following a structured search of peer-reviewed articles with terms describing "overnutrition" [e.g., overweight/obesity (OW/OB)] and "undernutrition" (e.g., stunting, micronutrient deficiency), we screened 1920 abstracts, reviewed 500 full texts, and extracted 623 operational definitions from 239 eligible articles. Results We organized three identified DBM dimensions (level of assessment, target population, and forms of malnutrition) into a framework for building operational DBM definitions. Frequently occurring definitions included coexisting: 1) OW/OB and thinness, wasting, or underweight (n = 289 occurrences); 2) OW/OB and stunting (n = 161); 3) OW/OB and anemia (n = 74); and 4) OW/OB and micronutrient deficiency (n = 73). Conclusions Existing DBM definitions vary widely. Putting structure to possible definitions may facilitate selection of fit-for-purpose indicators to meet public health priorities.
Convex Polytope Trees.

A decision tree is commonly restricted to use a single hyperplane to split the covariate space at each of its internal nodes. It often requires a large number of nodes to achieve high accuracy, hurting its interpretability. In this paper, we propose convex polytope trees (CPT) to expand the family of decision trees by an interpretable generalization of their decision boundary. The splitting function at each node of CPT is based on the logical disjunction of a community of differently weighted probabilistic linear decision-makers, which also geometrically corresponds to a convex polytope in the covariate space. We use a nonparametric Bayesian prior at each node to infer the community's size, encouraging simpler decision boundaries by shrinking the number of polytope facets. We develop a greedy method to efficiently construct CPT and scalable end-to-end training algorithms for the tree parameters when the tree structure is given. We empirically demonstrate the efficiency of CPT over existing state-of-the-art decision trees in several real-world classification and regression tasks from diverse domains.
‘What on earth was he—man or animal?’: Posthuman Permeability in H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau

This article proposes that H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau is a significant posthumanist novel that has been overlooked by scholars in both disability studies and animal studies. Although some attention has been paid to how disability and animality function within the text, the existing scholarship remains fixed on the problematic disability-as-animality metaphor, thus refusing to engage with the more subtle nuances of the work. Consequently, this article moves beyond the surface to instead read the permeability of boundaries – among species and spaces – in Wells’s novel as a positive and imperative call for inclusivity.
High-quality First-person Rendering Mixed Reality Gaming System for In Home Setting

With the advent of low-cost RGB-D cameras, mixed reality serious games using ‘live’ 3D human avatars have become popular. Here, RGB-D cameras are used for capturing and transferring user’ motion and texture onto the 3D human avatar in virtual environments. A system with a single camera is more suitable for such mixed reality games deployed in homes, considering the ease of setting up the system. In these mixed reality games, users can have either a third-person perspective or a first-person perspective of the virtual environments used in the games. Since first-person perspective provides a better Sense of Embodiment (SoE), in this paper, we explore the problem of providing a first-person perspective for mixed reality serious games played in homes. We propose a real time textured humanoid-avatar framework to provide a first-person perspective and address the challenges involved in setting up such a gaming system in homes. Our approach comprises: (a) SMPL humanoid model optimization for capturing user’ movements continuously; (b) a real-time texture transferring and merging OpenGL pipeline to build a global texture atlas across multiple video frames. We target the proposed approach towards a serious game for amputees, called Mr.MAPP (Mixed Reality-based framework for Managing Phantom Pain), where amputee’ intact limb is mirrored in real-time in the virtual environment. For this purpose, our framework also introduces a mirroring method to generate a textured phantom limb in the virtual environment. We carried out a series of visual and metrics-based studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches for skeletal pose fitting and texture transfer to SMPL humanoid models, as well as the mirroring and texturing missing limb (for future amputee based studies).
Review of developments in whole-building statistical energy consumption models for commercial buildings

Abstract A significant portion of energy consumption occurs in buildings today. Accurate and easy-to-implement methods are needed to calculate building energy consumption for a wide range of applications. These areas have attracted research interest as early as the 1980's. Among a number of approaches for building energy analysis, the statistical methods have remained popular because they are simple to use and able to provide accurate prediction of building energy consumption. As the availability and quality of building energy data continue to improve, the methodologies behind building energy calculation also evolved over time. Although relevant areas such as calibrated simulation and machine learning methods have had numerous recent literature reviews, the statistical methods have not been reviewed in depth. This work aims to fill this knowledge gap for whole-building energy consumption modelling. This work will discuss how the methodology developed through time and summarise the applications of this approach in various areas of building energy analysis. This work has identified that the statistical methods have rarely been applied to model the electric demand, power factor, or domestic water use. The use of an occupancy variable and novel model forms are also areas with limited literature.
What Does a “Thank you” Cost? Informal Exchange and the Case of “Brift” in Contemporary Russia

The following article addresses the complex nature of informal exchange in contemporary Russia. I borrow the term “brift” from Abel Polese in order to analyze a hybrid nature of informal transactions that have a ternary nature embodying bribery, gift-giving, and a mechanism of building social capital. While there exists a wealth of studies on informal exchange in Post-Soviet states and modern Russia, the question of how participants of the exchange make sense of the transactions and conditions of the exchange, how they morally and mentally estimate the value and price of the favors, and how they choose appropriate items for reciprocating for the favors still remains understudied. The study addresses this theoretical dilemma and provides a detailed investigation of the meaning-making process intrinsic to this type of informal transactions. The article provides analysis of the in-depth interviews with citizens of St. Petersburg and demonstrates the complexity of the cognitive work of calculating the right price and estimating the proper value and fitness of the items to be used in the brift transactions. This research generally points to the need for a greater sensitivity to intricacies of meaning, practice, and cognitive work that saturate informal exchange, and further calls for a wider acceptance of the concept of brift.
AVB-500, a selective inhibitor of GAS6-AXL, in combination with paclitaxel alters uterine serous cancer cell metabolism

Objectives: Even in the presence of oxygen, cancer cells preferentially metabolize glucose to ATP by the less efficient glycolysis pathway over oxidative phosphorylation. This concept, known as the Warburg effect, has been implicated in the rapid proliferation of cancer cells, tumor progression, and resistance to chemotherapy. The receptor tyrosine kinase AXL is highly expressed in uterine serous cancer (USC) and promotes chemo-resistance and metastasis. Our lab has shown that treatment with novel GAS6-AXL inhibitor, AVB-500, in combination with paclitaxel (P) has improved therapeutic efficacy compared to P alone. The role of AXL in cancer cell metabolism has not been elucidated. Our objective was to evaluate if AVB-500+P decreases tumor cell ability to generate energy via glycolysis, thereby providing a mechanism by which this treatment decreases tumor burden in a USC mouse model. Methods: In vivo studies were performed using NOD-SCID mice injected intraperitoneal (IP) with 1 x 107 ARK1 uterine serous cells. Treatment groups included vehicle, AVB-500, P, and AVB-500+P. [U-13C] glucose tracer was injected IP one hour before sacrifice. Tumor was collected, snap frozen in liquid nitrogen, and prepared for liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS). Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography was performed with an Agilent 6530 QTOF. Metabolites were identified by in-house database with retention time and fragment data. To determine the relative metabolite abundance across samples, the area of the extracted ion current peak for the metabolite of interest was normalized for protein content. Results: Treatment with AVB-500+P was found to decrease multiple glycolytic metabolites: glucose-6-phosphate by 2.66 fold (p=0.031), fructose-1,6-bisphosphate by 4.20 fold (p=0.002), 3-phosphoglyceric acid by 7.76 fold (p=0.014), phosphoenolpyruvate by 8.85 fold (p=0.013), lactate by 2.78 fold (p=0.024) compared to P alone. Additionally, TCA cycle intermediates including fumarate and malate were decreased by 1.94 fold (p=0.036) and 2.03 fold (p=0.031) respectively in AVB-500+P treated tumor compared to P alone. Notably, glucose abundance was not significantly different between P and AVB-500+P treated tumor (p=0.440) suggesting that AVB-500 is acting downstream of glucose uptake which correlates with the decrease in the metabolites listed above. Conclusions: Innovative [U-13C] glucose tracing in vivo has revealed metabolic changes in tumor cells after treatment. We observed that the novel GAS6-AXL inhibitor AVB-500+P prevents tumors cells from generating adequate energy (ATP) through the preferred glycolysis pathway. These results indicate that GAS6-AXL signaling may play a role in metabolic reprogramming in USC tumors, suggesting a mechanism for the observed decreased tumor burden in AVB-500+P treated mice. Additional studies are ongoing to better define this relationship.
Internato de medicina geral e familiar em época pandémica: o que (com)promete?

O plano de formacao em medicina geral e familiar corresponde a um processo bem definido de formacao medica continua que, a partir de marco de 2020, se viu balancado na sua estrutura, em detrimento da mobilizacao dos medicos internos para areas de atuacao nao planeadas, mas de extrema importância no combate a pandemia por COVID-19. Neste contexto houve um desvio do percurso formativo que, embora sentido de forma desigual pelos diferentes anos do internato medico, se revelou transversal, existindo uma potencial quebra do fio condutor da aprendizagem da medicina geral e familiar. Nao obstante, a pandemia veio constituir uma forca motriz para o medico interno desenvolver novas competencias e em areas ate entao por explorar, das quais se destacam a aquisicao de nocoes de trabalho em equipa e competencias comunicacionais, bem como o aperfeicoamento das tecnicas de consulta telefonica. Tambem o binomio interno-orientador se tornou mais coeso, pela aprendizagem conjunta em tempo real, e registou-se um enfoque da atividade clinica em detrimento das tarefas curriculares. Sugerem-se estudos que se continuem a debrucar sobre o grau de motivacao dos medicos internos de medicina geral e familiar e sobre a forma como as suas novas competencias poderao constituir elementos de valorizacao individual.
A Double-Layered Hybrid Approach for Network Intrusion Detection System Using Combined Naive Bayes and SVM

A pattern matching method (signature-based) is widely used in basic network intrusion detection systems (IDS). A more robust method is to use a machine learning classifier to detect anomalies and unseen attacks. However, a single machine learning classifier is unlikely to be able to accurately detect all types of attacks, especially uncommon attacks e.g., Remote2Local (R2L) and User2Root (U2R) due to a large difference in the patterns of attacks. Thus, a hybrid approach offers more promising performance. In this paper, we proposed a Double-Layered Hybrid Approach (DLHA) designed specifically to address the aforementioned problem. We studied common characteristics of different attack categories by creating Principal Component Analysis (PCA) variables that maximize variance from each attack type, and found that R2L and U2R attacks have similar behaviour to normal users. DLHA deploys Naive Bayes classifier as Layer 1 to detect DoS and Probe, and adopts SVM as Layer 2 to distinguish R2L and U2R from normal instances. We compared our work with other published research articles using the NSL-KDD data set. The experimental results suggest that DLHA outperforms several existing state-of-the-art IDS techniques, and is significantly better than any single machine learning classifier by large margins. DLHA also displays an outstanding performance in detecting rare attacks by obtaining a detection rate of 96.67% and 100% from R2L and U2R respectively.
Feasibility and acceptability of testing a menstrual-cycle timed smoking cessation intervention for women of reproductive age (Project Phase): Results of a pilot randomized control trial.

Introduction Menstrual phase influences cigarette smoking-related outcomes. Telephone-based cessation programs (e.g., quitlines) may incorporate the role of the menstrual cycle in an effort to tailor interventions for women. Purpose The goal of this preliminary randomized clinical trial was to examine the feasibility and acceptability of timing quit date to menstrual phase in women in a quitline setting. Methods We recruited treatment-seeking women with regular menstrual cycles between the ages of 18-40 years. Participants were randomized to the follicular phase (FP; quit date set 6-8 days post onset of menses) or standard of care (SC; no menstrual timing of quit date). All participants received four weeks of nicotine replacement therapy transdermal patch concurrent with six weeks of telephone-based counseling. We explored self-reported and biochemically-verified seven-day point prevalence abstinence at end-of-treatment and three-month follow-up. Results Participants (n = 119; FP: n = 58, SC: n = 61) were, on average, 33.4 years old and smoked 13.6 cigarettes/day. The median number of counseling sessions completed was 6 out of 6 available, and 66% of participants completed the intervention. Over 90% of participants reported they would recommend this study to friends/family. Cessation rates did not significantly vary by randomization. Conclusions Results of this preliminary trial indicate that timing quit date to FP is an acceptable and feasible approach to address smoking cessation in women of reproductive age. While we observed similar smoking cessation rates between groups, this preliminary study was not fully powered to determine efficacy. Therefore, the feasibility and acceptability results indicate that a fully-powered efficacy trial is warranted.
A novel method to identify cell-type specific regulatory variants and their role in cancer risk

Background: Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) have been crucial in providing an understanding of how genetic variants influence gene expression. However, eQTLs are known to exert cell type specific effects, and existing methods to identify cell type specific QTLs in bulk data require large sample sizes. Results: Here, we propose DeCAF (DEconvoluted cell type Allele specific Function), a new method to identify cell-fraction (cf) QTLs in tumors by leveraging both allelic and total expression information. Applying DeCAF to RNA-seq data from TCGA, we identified 3,664 genes with cfQTLs (at 10% FDR) in 14 cell types, a 5.63x increase in discovery over conventional interaction-eQTL mapping. cfQTLs replicated in external cell type specific eQTL data and were more enriched for cancer risk than conventional eQTLs. The intersection of tumor-specific QTL effects (tsQTLs) with GWAS loci identified rs4765621 and SCARB1, which has been previously linked to renal cell carcinoma (RCC) progression and experimentally validated in tumors. Conclusions: Our new method, DeCAF, empowers the discovery of biologically meaningful cfQTLs from bulk RNA-seq data in moderately sized studies. Our study contributes to a better understanding of germline mechanisms underlying the anticancer immune response as well as cfQTLs contributing to cancer risk.
P-030: Bone marrow findings of Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease: a histopathologic analysis and systematic literature review

Introduciton Idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD) is a polyclonal lymphoproliferative disorder characterized by constitutional symptoms, generalized lymphadenopathy, cytopenias, and multi-organ dysfunction due to excessive cytokines, notably interleukin 6. iMCD is often sub-classified into iMCD-TAFRO, which is associated with thrombocytopenia (T), anasarca (A), fever/elevated C-reactive protein (F), renal dysfunction (R), and organomegaly (O), and iMCD-NOS, which is typically associated with thrombocytosis and hypergammaglobulinemia. The diagnosis of iMCD is challenging as consensus clinico-pathological diagnostic criteria were only recently established and include several nonspecific lymph node histopathological features. Identification of further clinico-pathological features commonly found in iMCD could contribute to more accurate and timely diagnoses. Methods We set out to characterize bone marrow (BM) histopathological features in iMCD, assess differences between iMCD-TAFRO and iMCD-NOS, and determine if these findings are specific to iMCD. Results Examination of BM specimens from 24 iMCD patients revealed high proportions of hypercellularity, megakaryocytic atypia, reticulin fibrosis, and plasmacytosis across patients with significantly more megakaryocytic hyperplasia (p=0.001) in the iMCD-TAFRO cases. Conclusion These findings were also consistent with bone marrow findings from 185 published cases of iMCD-NOS and iMCD-TAFRO. However, these findings are relatively nonspecific as they can be seen in various other infectious, malignant, and autoimmune diseases.
Serotonin 5-HT2C Receptors in the Ventral Subiculum Regulate Hippocampal-Mediated Behaviors in Rats

Subregions of the ventral hippocampus (VH) CA1/subiculum (SUB) project to the prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens (NAc), and amygdala and these limbic-corticostriatal circuits regulate a number of...
Accountability and America's Secret Foreign Policy: Keeping a Legislative Eye on the Central Intelligence Agency

Intelligence accountability (“oversight”) encompasses the supervision of a vast range of secret activities and 15 major agencies. Oversight since 1975 has been robust compared to earlier years; yet it continues to fall short of goals espoused by the Church Committee that year, as well as by subsequent panels advocating intelligence reform. Lawmakers have responded responsibly to intelligence surprises (“fire alarms”), carrying out probes into domestic spying, assassination plots, and other questionable covert actions, counterintelligence vulnerabilities, and major intelligence failures. They have paid less attention, though, to the day-to-day “police-patrolling” that might uncover weaknesses and eliminate the need for emergency firefighting. Individual members in both branches of Congress have displayed a significant commitment to oversight activities, and now and then the full oversight committees have worked energetically as a unit. Mostly, however, intelligence accountability since 1975 has been a story of discontinuous motivation, ad hoc responses to scandals, and reliance on the initiative of just a few members of Congress—mainly the occasional dedicated committee chair—to carry the burden. Despite the recommendations of several scholarly studies and government reports, absent still is a comprehensive approach to intelligence review that mobilizes most, if not all, of the members of the House and Senate standing committees on intelligence toward a systematic plan of police-patrolling, without waiting for fire alarms.
Quasar outflows and AGN feedback in the extreme UV: HST/COS observations of HE 0238−1904

Spectroscopic observations of quasar outflows at rest-frame 500-1000 Angstrom have immense diagnostic power. We present analyses of such data, where absorption troughs from three important ions are measured: first, O IV and O IV* that allow us to obtain the distance of high ionization outflows from the AGN; second, Ne VIII and Mg X that are sensitive to the very high ionization phase of the outflow. Their inferred column densities, combined with those of troughs from O VI, N IV, and H I, yield two important results: 1) The outflow shows two ionization phases, where the high ionization phase carries the bulk of the material. This is similar to the situation seen in x-ray warm absorber studies. Furthermore, the low ionization phase is inferred to have a volume filling factor of 10^(-5)-10^(-6). 2) From the O IV to O IV* column density ratio, and the knowledge of the ionization parameter, we determine a distance of 3000 pc. from the outflow to the central source. Since this is a typical high ionization outflow, we can determine robust values for the mass flux and kinetic luminosity of the outflow: 40 solar masses per year and 10^45 ergs/s, respectively, where the latter is roughly equal to 1% of the bolometric luminosity. Such a large kinetic luminosity and mass flow rate measured in a typical high ionization wind suggests that quasar outflows are a major contributor to AGN feedback mechanisms.
Intrusion detection based on behavior mining and machine learning techniques

This paper describes results concerning the classification capability of unsupervised and supervised machine learning techniques in detecting intrusions using network audit trails. In this paper we investigate well known machine learning techniques: Frequent Pattern Tree mining (FP-tree), classification and regression tress (CART), multivariate regression splines (MARS) and TreeNet. The best model is chosen based on the classification accuracy (ROC curve analysis). The results show that high classification accuracies can be achieved in a fraction of the time required by well known support vector machines and artificial neural networks. TreeNet performs the best for normal, probe and denial of service attacks (DoS). CART performs the best for user to super user (U2su) and remote to local (R2L).
Numerical experiments on boundary-layer receptivity

The incompressible laminar flow over an infinitely thin flat plate is obtained using a Navier-Stokes code in vorticity-velocity variables. The flow at and near the leading edge of the plate is an integral part of the solution algorithm which requires no special treatment; thus allowing for the flow field in this region to be studied in detail. An incident plane sound wave is imposed in the free-stream flow and the receptivity of the boundary layer is studied with particular emphasis to the flow near and at the leading edge.
A Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger experiment for mixed states

This paper shows how the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger experiment, which demonstrates the nonlocal nature of quantum mechanics, can be performed using nuclear magnetic resonance on spins in molecules at finite temperature. The use of nuclear magnetic resonance techniques allows the experiment to uncover the nonlocality not just of special GHZ states, but of arbitrary three particle states.
Suppressor analysis of mutations in the loop 2-3 motif of lactose permease: evidence that glycine-64 is an important residue for conformational changes.

A superfamily of transport proteins, which includes the lactose permease of Escherichia coli, contains a highly conserved motif, G-X-X-X-D/E-R/K-X-G-R/K-R/K, in the loops that connect transmembrane segments 2 and 3 and transmembrane segments 8 and 9. Previous analysis of this motif in the lactose permease (A. E. Jessen-Marshall, N. J. Paul, and R. J. Brooker, J. Biol. Chem. 270:16251-16257, 1995) has shown that the conserved glycine residue found at the first position in the motif (i.e., Gly-64) is important for transport function. Every substitution at this site, with the exception of alanine, greatly diminished lactose transport activity. In this study, three mutants in which glycine-64 was changed to cysteine, serine, and valine were used as parental strains to isolate 64 independent suppressor mutations that restored transport function. Of these 64 isolates, 39 were first-site revertants to glycine or alanine, while 25 were second-site mutations that restored transport activity yet retained a cysteine, serine, or valine at position 64. The second-site mutations were found to be located at several sites within the lactose permease (Pro-28 --> Ser, Leu, or Thr; Phe-29 --> Ser; Ala-50 --> Thr, Cys-154 --> Gly; Cys-234 --> Phe; Gln-241 --> Leu; Phe-261 --> Val; Thr-266 --> Iso; Val-367 --> Glu; and Ala-369 --> Pro). A kinetic analysis was conducted which compared lactose uptake in the three parental strains and several suppressor strains. The apparent Km values of the Cys-64, Ser-64, and Val-64 parental strains were 0.8 mM, 0.7 mM, and 4.6 mM, respectively, which was similar to the apparent Km of the wild-type permease (1.4 mM). In contrast, the Vmax values of the Cys-64, Ser-64, and Val-64 strains were sharply reduced (3.9, 10.1, and 13.2 nmol of lactose/min x mg of protein, respectively) compared with the wild-type strain (676 nmol of lactose/min x mg of protein). The primary effect of the second-site suppressor mutations was to restore the maximal rate of lactose transport to levels that were similar to the wild-type strains. Taken together, these results support the notion that Gly-64 in the wild-type permease is at a site in the protein which is important in facilitating conformational changes that are necessary for lactose translocation across the membrane. According to our tertiary model, this site is at an interface between the two halves of the protein.
LACK OF DEGENERATION OF LOCI ON THE NEO-Y CHROMOSOME OF DROSOPHILA AMERICANA AMERICANA

The extent of genetic degeneration of the neo-Y chromosome of Drosophila americana americana has been investigated. Three loci, coding for the enzymes enolase, phosphoglycerate kinase and alcohol dehydrogenase, have been localized to chromosome 4 of D. a. americana, which forms the neo-Y and neo-X chromosomes. Crosses between D. a. americana and D. virilis or D. montana showed that the loci coding for these enzymes carry active alleles on the neo-Y chromosome in all wild-derived strains of americana that were tested. Intercrosses between a genetically marked stock of virilis and strains of americana were carried out, creating F(3) males that were homozygous for sections of the neo-Y chromosome. The sex ratios in the F(3) generation of the intercrosses showed that no lethal alleles have accumulated on any of the neo-Y chromosomes tested. There was evidence for more minor reductions in fitness, but this seems to be mainly caused by deleterious alleles that are specific to each strain. A similar picture was provided by examination of the segregation ratios of two marker genes among the F(3) progeny. Overall, the data suggest that the neo-Y chromosome has undergone very little degeneration, certainly not to the extent of having lost the functions of vital genes. This is consistent with the recent origin of the neo-Y and neo-X chromosomes, and the slow rates at which the forces that cause Y chromosome degeneration are likely to work.
Cytokinetics of the Krebs 2 carcinoma. I. Its effect on the cell population kinetics of duodenal crypt proliferation.

The effect of the Krebs 2 transplantable solid carcinoma upon the cell cycle of the duodenal cryptal progenitor population has been determined by thymidine-3H uptake and radioautography. A single pulse label of tritiated thymidine was injected into each of 183 CF1 mice with a 4-day-old solid tumor. The animals were then serially killed from 15 min to 24 hr later. Data were collected from a curve describing the rate of appearance and disappearance of labelled mitoses in the tumor and duodenum. An estimate of the time intervals of G1, S, M and G2 was calculated by two different methods and compared. The turnover rate of the cryptal progenitor population from the tumor-bearing animals was found to be essentially similar to that of the control cryptal population of the non-tumor-bearing mice. The cytokinetics of the cell cycle of the Krebs 2 carcinoma is also reported. The methods described for collecting data on the turnover rate of tissues of both tumor-bearing and non-tumor-bearing animals can be utilized to determine what effect growth-promoting and growth-inhibiting agents may have on the proliferation of normal progenitor compartments while at the same time measuring the effect of such drugs on the cytokinetics of an experimental tumor.
Some design properties of a rejective sampling procedure

Occasionally, a selected probability sample may appear undesirable with respect to the available auxiliary information. In such a situation, the practitioner might consider rejecting the sample and selecting a new set of sample elements. We consider a procedure in which the probability sample is rejected unless the sample mean of an auxiliary vector is within a specified distance of the population mean. It is proven that the large sample mean and variance of the regression estimator for the rejective sample are the same as those of the regression estimator for the original selection procedure. Likewise, the usual estimator of variance for the regression estimator is appropriate for the rejective sample. In a Monte Carlo experiment, the large sample properties hold for relatively small samples and the Monte Carlo results are in agreement with the theoretical orders of approximation. The efficiency effect of the described rejective sampling is o(n ―1 N ), where n N is the expected sample size, but the effect can be important for particular samples. For example, rejective sampling can be used to eliminate those samples that give negative weights for the regression estimator.