cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Tissue Engineering Craniofacial Bone Products

Abstract Over the last two decades, a large amount of research effort was focused on developing tissue engineering (TE) approaches for bone regeneration in clinical situations where conventional treatments fail. Significant progress was made in the understanding of bone biology, in particular regarding the roles of various types of stem cells in enhancing bone regeneration. New biomaterials and technologies were developed that allow stimulation of native bone repair, as well as preparation of viable TE bone substitutes ex-vivo. In the current chapter, we discuss the key components and strategies used to prepare viable TE bone substitutes for clinical use. We present the properties and the effects of transplanted TE bone substitutes on bone healing in preclinical models, and current clinical reports of TE bone products used for the treatment of patients in case reports and clinical studies. Finally, we discuss the challenges that need to be addressed to allow TE bone products reach routine clinical applications.
The theory of planned behavior and policing: how attitudes about behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control affect the discretionary enforcement decisions of police officers

This research used qualitative methods to investigate police officer decision-making processes within the context of the theory of planned behavior from the discipline of psychology. Interviews wit...
Branch and Bound Based Load Balancing for Parallel Applications

Many parallel applications are highly dynamic in nature. In some, computation and communication patterns change gradually during the run; in others those characteristics change abruptly. Such dynamic applications require an adaptive load balancing strategy. We are exploring an adaptive approach based on multi-partition object-based decomposition, supported by object migration. For many applications, relatively infrequent load balancing is needed. In these cases it becomes economical to spend considerable computation time toward arriving at a nearly optimal mapping of objects to processors. We present an optimal-seeking branch and bound based strategy that finds nearly optimal solutions to such load balancing problems quickly, and can continuously improve such solutions as time permits.
G0/G1 Switch Gene 2 (G0S2) Is a Positive Regulator of Quiescence in Hematopoietic Stem Cells and Naïve T Cells.

Abstract Abstract 2538 Poster Board II-515 The G0/G1 switch gene 2 (G0S2) was identified in blood mononuclear cells activated with mitogens. G0S2 is a small basic protein located in ER/Golgi in mouse fibroblast. Even though G0S2 is upregulated in inflammatory processes (i.e. rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, endometriosis) and by all-trans-retinoic acid treatment in acute promyelocytic leukemia cells, its role in the proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) and T lymphocytes is largely unknown. Similarly to HSC, a delicate balance between quiescence and homeostatic proliferation maintains the T cell pool over time. An emerging paradigm suggests that cellular quiescence is an actively regulated state. G0S2 expression in bone marrow (BM) cells is downregulated following cytoablation, suggesting a role in the maintenance of stem cell quiescence. Gain-of function experiments, using retroviral gene transfer and BM transplantation, showed that G0S2 increased number of Lin- Sca-1+ c-kit+ cells in BM by inhibiting their proliferation at steady state. In addition, ectopic G0s2 expression inhibits homeostatic expansion of CD11b+ Gr-1+ and CD3+ cells. Competitive BM transplantation showed that cells overexpressing G0S2 are outcompeted by wild type BM cells due to lower proliferative potential, based on in vivo BrdU incorporation experiments. Inhibition of T cell proliferation by ectopic G0S2 expansion is consistent with suppression of G0S2 transcription in naive CD8+ T cells upon T-cell receptor activation via MAPK and calcium-calmodulin pathways, suggesting that G0S2 also maintains quiescence of naive T cells. G0S2 expression is silenced in myeloid and lymphoid leukemic cell lines by gene methylation, supporting a leukemogenic role. Collectively, our study uncovered an important role of G0S2 in normal and malignant proliferation of HSC and T cells. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Immune responses of cattle and mice to the G glycoprotein of vesicular stomatitis virus.

A subunit vaccine for vesicular stomatitis was developed from a purified vesicular stomatitis virus preparation by selectively removing the immunogenic G glycoprotein of the virus with the dialyzable, nonionic detergent, β-D-octylglucoside. Cattle immunized intramuscularly with a single dose of 112 µg of G glycoprotein preparation in complete Freund’s adjuvant did not develop vesicular disease following challenge by intralingual inoculation of 400 times the infectious dose of the virus. Similarly, mice vaccinated subcutaneously with a single dose of 10 µg of G glycoprotein preparation, with or without complete Freund’s adjuvant, were protected from lethal encephalitis caused by vesicular stomatitis virus. A subunit vaccine for vesicular stomatitis of cattle, horses, and swine avoids the hazards associated with attenuated and inactivated vaccines, such as vaccine breaks, reversion to virulence, or introduction of virus into potential wild reservoirs or arthropod hosts. Further, it is possible to distinguish serologically animals vaccinated with the subunit preparation from those that have had the clinical disease or that have been vaccinated with whole virus. This is an essential consideration both for epidemiological studies and for disease control or establishment of quarantine programs.
A new Caenorhabditis elegans model of human huntingtin 513 aggregation and toxicity in body wall muscles

Expanded polyglutamine repeats in different proteins are the known determinants of at least nine progressive neurodegenerative disorders whose symptoms include cognitive and motor impairment that worsen as patients age. One such disorder is Huntington’s Disease (HD) that is caused by a polyglutamine expansion in the human huntingtin protein (htt). The polyglutamine expansion destabilizes htt leading to protein misfolding, which in turn triggers neurodegeneration and the disruption of energy metabolism in muscle cells. However, the molecular mechanisms that underlie htt proteotoxicity have been somewhat elusive, and the muscle phenotypes have not been well studied. To generate tools to elucidate the basis for muscle dysfunction, we engineered Caenorhabditis elegans to express a disease-associated 513 amino acid fragment of human htt in body wall muscle cells. We show that this htt fragment aggregates in C. elegans in a polyglutamine length-dependent manner and is toxic. Toxicity manifests as motor impairment and a shortened lifespan. Compared to previous models, the data suggest that the protein context in which a polyglutamine tract is embedded alters aggregation propensity and toxicity, likely by affecting interactions with the muscle cell environment.
Why Today’s Marketers Are Getting It Wrong

There is no denying that the media landscape has changed, and that marketers must adapt to be successful in the future. Younger consumers (particularly Millennials) have become the center of attention for marketers. The consumer behaviors and the way this group uses media have led to drastic changes in the ways companies and organizations attempt to communicate with them. The result has been a “throwing out of the old, and replace with the new” mentality where traditional methods are no longer considered effective or even relevant. This discussion will explain why this new strategizing may be going in the wrong direction, starting with who is being targeted, the methods used to reach them, and the measurement of the results of these efforts
Brand Name Preemption: The New Frontier in Pharmaceutical Product Liability Litigation

Over the past half-decade, the Supreme Court has issued a succession of opinions that have preempted all product liability claims made against the manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals. While plaintiffs have attempted to evade these rulings through innovative legal theories, to date, they have been largely unsuccessful. As a result, lawsuits against brand name manufacturers have increased dramatically. Despite these developments, the implementation of clear preemption principles with regards to brand name products has lagged. While the Supreme Court has, on one occasion, attempted to clarify brand name preemption, the guidance was vague, cryptic and has led to a hodgepodge of conflicting judicial decisions. This confusion has led legal experts, academics and practitioners to call upon the Court to revisit the field of brand name preemption. This Article is an attempt to assemble, centralize and clarify the most misunderstood areas of brand name preemption. It is also an attempt to forecast the future of some of the most uncertain areas underlying the field. It is cautioned that this Article does not attempt to offer a solution to the growing judicial inconsistencies concerning brand name preemption. Nor should this Article be read to endorse either side of the preemption debate. Rather, it is the hope of the author that the Article generate greater interest in the field of pharmaceutical product liability litigation and stimulate a deeper discussion into its ultimate fate. At the very least, the investigation conducted herein should function as a useful starting point for the academic, judge or practitioner who has found themselves in the marsh that is brand name preemption.
The Role of Saposins in Auditory and Vestibular Systems

AbstractProsaposin, and its cleaved byproducts saposin A-D, are crucial proteins necessary for glycoshpingolipid degradation and metabolism. Mutations in these proteins can lead to devastating lysosomal storage diseases, including Gaucher’s disease, symptoms of which often include hearing loss. Until recently, little was known about the role that prosaposin and saposins A-D played in auditory and vestibular system function. Early studies in knockout mouse models showed prosaposin to be important for normal cochlear innervation and maintenance of normal hearing (Akil et al., 2006). Severe vestibular dysfunction paired with inclusion body accumulation in the vestibular end-organs of prosaposin KO mice suggests its role in the maintenance of normal hearing and the maturation of normal vestibular system function (Akil et al., 2012). To determine if these phenotypes were attributable to the loss of prosaposin as a whole or one of its constituent proteins, saposin A-D, KO mice of individual saposins were subsequently studied. Given the nature of the hearing loss, as well as efferent and afferent neuronal sprouting in the prosaposin KO mouse, it was hypothesized that saposin C, a protein known for its neurotigenic properties, was responsible for these changes. However, a null-mutant mouse lacking both saposin C and D showed no effect on hearing (Lustig et al., 2015). In contrast, a loss of functional saposin B led to a progressive sulfatide accumulation in satellite cells around cochlear spiral ganglion (SG) neurons resulting in satellite cell degeneration, SG degeneration, and ultimately, loss of hearing (Akil et al., 2015). While saposin B KO mice did not show any vestibular dysfunction phenotype, vestibular evoked potentials demonstrated profound vestibular dysfunction likely attributable to the large-scale neuronal degeneration (Akil et al., 2015). Furthermore, the data suggests that saposin B appears to have a much greater role in auditory neuronal maintenance and balance than saposin C and/or D.
Conjuring difference, concealing inequality: a brief tour of Racecraft

The “social construction of race” is an oft-invoked academic truism. As a heuristic, the constructivist principle is at times assumed rather than demonstrated, exclaimed rather than put to work in the difficult task of showing how, by whom, under what conditions, and to what ends symbolic categories are made real in the lives of individuals and in the workings of institutions alike. The expression, nevertheless, offers a potent challenge to a visual economy that purports everyone “has” a race that can be read off of or in to the body. With their new book, Karen Fields and Barbara Fields (hereafter FF) take the reader back to first principles, revealing the many ways racial vision and division haunt social life in the United States. They insist that scholars, and survey researchers in particular, relinquish the idea of “race relations” that can be discerned by studying individuals’ attitudes about others. The question of how others are continuously made and re-made via custom, law, and scholarly suppositions is the focus of Racecraft. In this way, the text contributes to a vigorous re-evaluation of the role of sociology in inadvertently deepening static conceptions of groupness through our foundational concepts and methods. “Racecraft,” the authors argue, is first and foremost an ongoing set of social practices that continuously misconstrue racism for race. The former is a function of power and inequality whereas the latter is purportedly grounded in biology and culture. By focusing on the inherent qualities of groups, whether residing in genes or values, the analyst loses sight of the larger context in which those differences are conjured in the first place. Conjured, because in the same way that witches need not exist for people to feel the effects of witchcraft, so too with race—genetic differences between racial groups need not actually exist for such claims to exercise political and social effects. Racecraft is the process by which scholarship and public discourse focuses on genes, IQ, or criminal propensity as explanations for patterns of hypertension, high school Theor Soc (2014) 43:683–688 DOI 10.1007/s11186-014-9238-z
Shared Channel Ordered Transmissions for Energy-Efficient Distributed Signal Detection

An existing approach to energy-efficient signal detection in sensor networks is to order the sensor transmissions such that highly informative sensors enjoy higher priority for transmission. Then, when sufficient evidence is collected at the fusion center (FC) for decision making, the transmissions are stopped. This scheme incurs the same error probability as the optimum unconstrained energy approach, but with fewer sensor transmissions leading to significant energy savings. However, it is assumed that each sensor uses an orthogonal channel to transmit to the FC. In this paper, the ordering approach is revisited by considering the shared medium between sensors and the FC. After the $N$ sensors make observations they wish to transmit to the FC, time is divided into frames and within each frame, sensors with similar likelihood ratios contend for transmission. The contention for transmission is resolved using Slotted ALOHA. Under certain conditions, this new scheme requires less than half the sensors on an average to transmit, with no loss in error probability for the mean-shift binary hypothesis testing problem.
Drug-Associated Infective Endocarditis Trends: What's All the Buzz About?

Schranz and colleagues studied the epidemiology of infective endocarditis (IE) in North Carolina between 2007 and 2017 and found a remarkable increase in drug use–associated IE. The editorialist di...
Sporadic Hemangioblastoma of the Cavernous Sinus and Meckel's Cave.

Objectives To describe an extremely rare case of sporadic hemangioblastoma (HB) within the cavernous sinus and Meckel's cave with extension to the cerebellopontine angle (CPA) cistern. Methods A 73-year-old male presented with hearing loss, unilateral ptosis, and facial numbness. Results The imaging showed a complex cystic-solid mass centered at the left cavernous sinus and Meckel's cave with extension to the CPA cistern. Patient underwent retrosigmoid craniectomy for partial resection of the CPA angle component of the mass. Surgical pathology confirmed the diagnosis of HB and patient was scheduled for subsequent radiotherapy of the residual mass. Conclusions We present an exceptional case of supratentorial HB without associated von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) disease, which was predominantly located in the cavernous sinus and Meckel's cave and led to multiple cranial nerve symptoms. We describe imaging characteristics and radiologic–pathologic correlation of this atypically located HB, which can be difficult to consider in the differential diagnosis presurgically.
Abstract WP2: Tissue Based Selection for Large Vessel Occlusion Thrombectomy Leads to Similar Functional Outcomes in Conventional (0-6 Hours) and Extended (>6 Hours) Window

Background: Recent trials have shown benefit of thrombectomy in carefully selected patients in the extended (>6 hours) window. However, it is not clear if the outcomes differ from those undergoing ...
Assessing optimism and pessimism about genomic medicine: Development of a genomic orientation scale

Efforts to characterize stakeholder attitudes about the implementation of genomic medicine would benefit from a validated instrument for measuring public views of the potential benefits and harms of genomic technologies, which would facilitate comparison across populations and clinical settings. We sought to develop a scale to evaluate attitudes about the future of genomic medicine. We developed a 21-item scale that examined the likelihood of various outcomes of genomic medicine. The scale was administered to participants in a genomic sequencing study. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted and bivariate correlations were calculated. The genomic orientation (GO) scale was completed by 2895 participants. A two-factor structure was identified, corresponding to an optimism subscale (16 items, α = 0.89) and a pessimism subscale (5 items, α = 0.63). Genomic optimism was positively associated with a perceived value of genetic test results, higher health literacy, and decreased decisional conflict about participation in a genomic research study. Genomic pessimism was associated with concerns about genetic testing, lower health literacy, and increased decisional conflict about the decision to participate in the study. The GO scale is a promising tool for measuring both positive and negative views regarding the future of genomic medicine and deserves further validation.
Recent Advances in Relativistic MDOs

The relativistic magnetron is the most compact and efficient high-power microwave (HPM) source. It has been researched since Bekefi's pioneering work in 1975 at MIT. The performance of the relativistic magnetron did not dramatically improve until the $\pmb{2000}\mathbf{s}$ when new cathode concepts were introduced independently by researchers at the University of Michigan and at the University of New Mexico. These advances demonstrably decreased the time for onset of oscillations and increased the efficiency. All of these earlier works involved relativistic magnetrons with radial extraction. Researchers at the University of New Mexico then revisited the magnetron with diffraction output and most recently have shown in particle-in-cell simulations that its efficiency can exceed 90% when powered by a virtual cathode and leakage current is suppressed using a magnetic mirror. This paper summarizes our most recent advances.
Ovarian Cancer Targeted Theranostics

Ovarian cancer is a leading cause of death from gynecological malignancies. Although the prognosis is quite favorable if detected at an early stage, the vast majority of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage, when 5-year survival rates are only 30-40%. Most recurrent ovarian tumors are resistant to traditional therapies underscoring the need for new therapeutic options. Theranostic agents, that combine diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities, are being explored to better detect, diagnose and treat ovarian cancer. To minimize morbidity, improve survival rates, and eventually cure patients, new strategies are needed for early detection and for delivering specifically anticancer therapies to tumor sites. In this review we will discuss various molecular imaging modalities and targets that can be used for imaging, therapeutic and theranostic agent development for improved diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer.
Pathogens which threaten food security: Puccinia striiformis , the wheat stripe rust pathogen

Stripe rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis, is an important disease of wheat worldwide. The disease is old, but often appears as a re-emerging problem and also expands to new areas. Large-scale stripe rust epidemics occur when new races overcoming specific resistance genes develop in the pathogen population and/or when extreme disease-favourable weather conditions occur. Research progress has been made in the understanding of the biology, genomics, and evolution of the pathogen; host-pathogen interaction; and epidemiology and management of the disease. Despite its importance, the complete life cycle of this important pathogen was not known until very recently. The pathogen is now known to have a heteroecious macrocyclic lifecycle, but whether sexual reproduction on alternate hosts plays an important role in generating diverse races and increasing epidemics on crops is largely unknown. The pathogen has a large number of host species in the grass family, but the role of grass hosts in crop epidemics is not clear in many regions of the world. The disease can be controlled by growing resistant cultivars, appropriate use of fungicide, and suitable cultural practices. However, greater effort are needed to develop more cultivars with durable, high level resistance, develop accurate forecast models, and monitor the disease and pathogen virulence for more effective, profitable, and sustainable control of stripe rust.
Selective sensing of THC and related metabolites in biofluids by host:guest arrays

A water-soluble host molecule can bind tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) and its metabolites in aqueous solution. By pairing this recognition event in a sensing array with fluorescent reporters and varying external mediators, pattern recognition-based detection is possible, which allows selective discrimination of the THC metabolites. The selective sensing can be performed in aqueous solution with micromolar sensitivity, as well as in biofluids such as urine and saliva. Metabolites as similar as Δ8- and Δ9-THC, differing only in the position of a double bond, can be distinguished.
Multi-task Deep Reinforcement Learning for Cognitive Spectrum-agile Communications

This paper introduces a cognitive engine design to achieve spectrum-agile communications over a heterogeneous wideband spectrum. The proposed cognitive approach has the ability to learn and avoid interference signals and other harmful signals. The targeted spectrum in this work is much wider than the ones proposed in the literature, most likely covering several hundreds of MHz. The proposed approach is based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL), more specifically on a double deep Q-network (DDQN) made of a convolutional neural network (CNN). The wideband spectrum is divided into a number of sub-bands and each sub-band consists of a number of channels. The problem is modeled as a multi-task DRL, where each sub-band represents a single task. Transfer learning is used between tasks to speed up the learning process. It is shown, through simulations, that the proposed technique can efficiently learn an effective strategy to avoid harmful signals in a noncontiguous wideband spectrum. Furthermore, it outperforms other DRL-based approaches in the literature while operating in a much wider spectrum and maintaining low computational complexity.
Fractures in the prodromal period of Parkinson disease

Objective To examine the association between fractures and Parkinson disease (PD) during the 5-year prodromal phase as compared to controls. Methods We performed a population-based case–control study of Medicare beneficiaries in the United States from 2004 to 2009. We identified 89,632 incident PD cases and 117,760 comparable controls 66–90 years of age in 2009. PD case status was the outcome, and noncranial fracture the independent variable. We used logistic regression models to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for association between fracture and PD in yearly time intervals prior to PD diagnosis/control reference date, after adjusting for covariates. Results There were 39,606 total fractures (25.4% cases, 14.3% controls) over the 5 years prior to the PD diagnosis/control reference date. PD was positively associated with fractures even after adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, Charlson comorbidity index, alcohol use, tobacco use, and osteoporosis. The association between PD and fracture was evident at yearly time windows prior to PD diagnosis/control reference date. The association between PD and each type of fracture strengthened as the PD diagnosis/control reference date approached (all time interaction p values ≤0.02). Among beneficiaries with a mechanism of injury, the majority were attributed to falls (74.6% cases, 72.8% controls). Conclusion Fractures occur more commonly during the prodromal period of PD compared to controls, especially as diagnosis date approached, suggesting that patients with PD may experience unrecognized motor and nonmotor symptoms.
Accelerating Lattice Based Proxy Re-encryption Schemes on GPUs

Proxy Re-Encryption (PRE) is an indispensable tool in many public-key cryptographic schemes that enables users to delegate decryption rights to other users via a proxy. In this work, we present a high performance implementation of PRE schemes on NVIDIA GPUs. We target two lattice based PRE schemes, BV-PRE and Ring-GSW PRE defined over polynomial rings. We design a parallel Number Theoretic Transform (NTT) procedure capable of working on arbitrary precision moduli (in CRT form) and demonstrate several low level and GPU optimizations techniques to accelerate the PRE schemes.
Civility and its discontents: Subway Etiquette, Civic Values, and Political Subjectivity in Global Taiwan

The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) System is instrumental to both the reconstruction of a collective identity and the development of a renewed political subjectivity, with which the Taiwanese esta...
Combined Crash Frequency–Crash Severity Evaluation of Geometric Design Decisions: Entrance–Exit Ramp Spacing and Auxiliary Lane Presence

This paper quantified the effects of freeway ramp spacing and auxiliary lane presence on crash frequency and crash severity. Crash frequencies were predicted with a safety performance function, and crash severities were estimated with what was termed a “severity distribution function.” The paper then demonstrated how to combine quantitative knowledge related to the effects of ramp spacing and auxiliary lane presence on both crash frequency and severity into a framework for assessing the overall crash cost for different ramp configurations. Geometric features, traffic characteristics, and crash data were collected for 404 freeway segments in California and Washington State. Negative binomial regression models and multinomial logit regression models were used to estimate the effects of ramp spacing and auxiliary lane presence on expected crash frequencies and crash severities, respectively. Results showed that expected multiple-vehicle crash frequency increased as ramp spacing decreased. Meanwhile, there wa...
Auditor Probability Judgments: Discounting Unspecified Possibilities

Tversky and Koehler's support theory attempts to explain why probability judgments are affected by the manner in which formally similar events are described. Support theory suggests that as the explicitness of a description increases, an event will be judged to be more likely. In the present experiment, experienced decision-makers from large, international accounting firms were given case-specific information about an audit client and asked to provide a series of judgments regarding the perceived likelihood of events. Unpacking a hypothesis into four formally equivalent hypotheses more than doubled its perceived likelihood. These results are largely consistent with support theory, extending its generalizability to applied contexts involving business professionals. Further, the paper finds that task-specific factors, a previously untested area, can also affect support theory interpretations.
Large Oligonucleotides Isolated from Yeast Tyrosine Transfer Ribonucleic Acid after Partial Digestion with Ribonuclease T1

Abstract The isolation and analysis of large oligonucleotides produced by partial digestion of yeast tyrosine transfer ribonucleic acid with ribonuclease T1 are described. The analyses provided sufficient information to complete the nucleotide sequence of yeast tyrosine transfer RNA.
The Energy Environment of Plants

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the energy environment of plants. Energy can be transferred through conduction and convection. The driving force in the transfer of energy, by conduction is a temperature gradient in the transmitting medium, with the flow always directed from regions of higher to lower temperature. In convection, the molecules of the transmitting medium do not retain their original positions. Convection is the transfer of heat due to a mass movement of the medium. The absorptivity of an organism couples it to the radiation environment: the sun, atmosphere, ground, and surrounding vegetation or structures. Its convection coefficient couples it to the temperature of the air. Various physical characteristics affect the convection coefficient and others influence the exchange of energy through the change of phase processes in the hydrologic cycle. Solar radiation, a component of the energy environment, affects plant productivity directly, by its intensity, and indirectly, through the effect it has on leaf temperature. Thus, the final dependence of productivity upon the energy environment is a correlated response to the effects of the intensity of insolation and the temperature of the plant— that is, the temperature of the plant, in turn, being brought about, by a response to all forms of radiant energy and the several heat transfer processes.
Infectious Burden and Risk of Stroke

Atherosclerosis and prothrombotic vascular states are complex pathologies of the tightly coupled immune and cardiovascular systems that, when dysregulated, synergistically act to elevate risk of acute cerebral ischemic events. Infectious exposures are atypical cardiovascular risk factors requiring methodological and paradigmatic departures from traditional risk factor investigation approaches. Several parameters of pathogen activity have been mechanistically mapped to immune and vascular processes that induce and aggravate atherosclerosis and can upregulate physiological states that are directly linked to triggering ischemic events. Elevated specific antibody titers in serum samples have been exploited to create objective measures of historical exposures to pathogens. This chapter reviews the following domains supporting Infectious Burden (IB) [or synonymously pathogen burden (PB)] and its association with stroke risk: (1) vascular, immune, and infectious dynamic frameworks for research; (2) hypothesized pathogen mechanisms influencing stroke risk, and important individual characteristics that may biologically interact with infection; (3) molecular exposure measurement tools and single pathogen association with stroke; (4) statistical measurement approaches to IB and selected evidence that evaluates IB associates with stroke; and (5) the current state in public health and clinical intervention strategies.
THEORIES OF γ‐RAY BURSTSfn1

Theoretical models of cosmic gamma bursts fall into four categories: extra galactic models, flares, accretion onto collapsed stars, and exotic mechanisms. Factors such as source properties, source dimensions, and radiation mechanisms are considered, in discussing these models. 36 references. (BJG)
HRG4 (UNC119) mutation found in cone-rod dystrophy causes retinal degeneration in a transgenic model.

PURPOSE. To investigate the function and pathogenicity of HRG4, a photoreceptor synaptic protein homologous to the Caenorhabditis elegans neuroprotein UNC119. METHODS. HRG4 was screened for mutations in patients with various retinopathies, and a transgenic mouse model was constructed and analyzed based on a mutation found. RESULTS. A heterozygous premature termination cotton mutation was found in a 57-year-old woman with late-onset cone-rod dystrophy. In some transgenic mice carrying the identical mutation, age-dependent fundus lesions developed accompanied by electroretinographic changes consistent with defects in photoreceptor synaptic transmission (depressed b-wave, normal c-wave), and retinal degeneration occurred with marked synaptic and possible transsynaptic degeneration. CONCLUSIONS. HRG4, the only synaptic protein known to be highly enriched in photoreceptor ribbon synapses, is now shown to be pathogenic when mutated.
Dyslipidemia in patients with angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease--an opportunity for improvement.

Background: There are few data about lipid profiles in unselected patients with angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease (CAD). Hypothesis: The study was undertaken to investigate the demographics, clinical characteristics, angiographic findings, and baseline lipid status of 1,000 consecutive unselected patients with angiographically confirmed CAD. Methods: Between April 2001 and July 2002, we obtained informed consent and prospectively collected clinical characteristics, fasting lipid profiles, and angiographic results from 1,000 sequential patients with CAD confirmed by angiography. Results: In these patients with confirmed CAD, 78% had history of hyperlipidemia. Although 62% were receiving lip-id-lowering therapy, only 46% had a low-density lipoprotein target of < 100 mg/dl, and only 20% had achieved all four National Cholesterol Education Program-recommended lip-id targets. Conclusions: Better strategies to ensure optimal lipid levels are required. One such method using computerized workflow is being evaluated in this population.
Tailoring the Endovascular Management of Transplant Renal Artery Stenosis

In this study we analyze the different types of endovascular interventions (EVIs) in de novo transplant renal artery stenosis (TRAS) and its anatomical subtypes to examine any variation in recovery of allograft function, blood pressure control, EVI patency and allograft survival with respect to EVI type (DES: drug-eluting stent, BMS: bare-metal stent, PTA: percutaneous transluminal angioplasty). Forty-five patients underwent a total of 50 primary EVIs (DES: 18, BMS: 26, PTA: 6). Patients were stratified according to medical co-morbidities, graft characteristics, biopsy results, clinical presentation and TRAS anatomic subtypes (anastomotic: 26, postanastomotic: 17, bend-kink: 2). There was significant improvement in allograft function and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) control across all interventions (pre-EVI-creatinine [CR]: 2.8 ± 1.4, post-EVI-Cr: 2.1 ± 0.7, p < 0.001; pre-EVI-MAP: 117 ± 16, post-EVI-MAP: 112 ± 17, p = 0.03) with no significant difference among EVI types. There was no significant difference in allograft survival with respect to EVI type. Patency was significantly higher in EVIs performed with DES and BMS compared to PTA (p = 0.001). In the postanastomotic TRAS subtype, patency rates were significantly higher in DES compared to BMS (p = 0.012) in vessels of comparable reference diameter (≤5 mm).
Crony Capitalism: Rent Seeking, Institutions and Ideology

Summary This paper elaborates the notion of “crony capitalism” and advances an innovative approach to the analysis of the phenomenon in case, seen as a type of rent-seeking society. The argument leads to a pioneering attempt to elaborate an original theory of crony capitalism as a sui generis system and with that end in view it combines three complementary perspectives: microeconomics (dealing with the basic economics of rent-seeking), institutional or structural (dealing with the specific structures and configurations of institutions, policies and processes via which rent seeking gets materialized), and ideological (dealing with the ideas, rhetoric, beliefs, doctrines and other forms of legitimization and justification of the specific policies and institutions). The paper identifies significant functional differences between crony capitalism in high-income and developing countries and advances a novel interpretation of the special nature of crony capitalism by focusing on the distinctive features of its ideological component.
Fire severity shapes plant colonization effects on bacterial community structure, microbial biomass, and soil enzyme activity in secondary succession of a burned forest

Abstract The increasing frequency and severity of wildfires has led to growing attention to the effects of fire disturbance on soil microbial communities and biogeochemical cycling. While many studies have examined fire impacts on plant communities, and a growing body of research is detailing the effects of fire on soil microbial communities, little attention has been paid to the interaction between plant recolonization and shifts in soil properties and microbial community structure and function. In this study, we examined the effect of a common post-fire colonizer plant species, Corydalis aurea, on soil chemistry, microbial biomass, soil enzyme activity and bacterial community structure one year after a major forest wildfire in Colorado, USA, in severely burned and lightly burned soils. Consistent with past research, we find significant differences in soil edaphic and biotic properties between severe and light burn soils. Further, our work suggests an important interaction between fire severity and plant effects by demonstrating that the recolonization of soils by C. aurea plants only has a significant effect on soil bacterial communities and biogeochemistry in severely burned soils, resulting in increases in percent nitrogen, extractable organic carbon, microbial biomass, β-glucosidase enzyme activity and shifts in bacterial community diversity. This work propounds the important role of plant colonization in succession by demonstrating a clear connection between plant colonization and bacterial community structure as well as the cycling of carbon in a post-fire landscape. This study conveys how the strength of plant–microbe interactions in secondary succession may shift based on an abiotic context, where plant effects are accentuated in harsher abiotic conditions of severe burn soils, with implications for bacterial community structure and enzyme activity.
Purification and Properties of the Cathepsin D Type Proteinase from Beef and Rabbit Lung and Its Identification in Macrophages

The acid-acting proteinase, cathepsin D (EC 3.4.4.23), was purified from extracts of homogenized rabbit lung and beef lung by autolysis at acid pH, acetone and ammonium sulfate fractionation, column chromatography, and isoelectric focusing. Four isoenzymes were obtained from each source. With acid hemoglobin as the substrate, the proteinase from rabbit lung had a pH optimum of 3.0 and that from beef lung had a pH optimum of 3.6. Their activity was not affected by thiol reagents or by Fe(2+), Mn(2+), or Mg(2+). One isoenzyme from rabbit lung was used to immunize a goat, and one from beef lung was used to immunize a rabbit. In immunoelectrophoresis, each resulting antiserum formed a single precipitin line with its homologous enzyme. They cross-reacted with the other three isoenzymes from the same species, but not with any isoenzyme from the other species. At high concentrations, each antiserum completely inhibited the proteolytic activity of its homologous enzyme. The antiserum against rabbit lung cathepsin D also inhibited the proteolytic activity of rabbit peritoneal and pulmonary macrophages. In limited quantities, this antiserum has now been made commercially available and is being used with labeled antibody techniques to identify under a microscope the presence of cathepsin D in macrophages and to study its role in the pathogenesis of tuberculosis.
Abstract A01: KRAS molecular profiling in non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Recent studies suggest that patients with KRAS-mutant NSCLC fail to benefit from standard systemic therapies and do not respond to EGFR inhibitors. Therefore, there is a clear need for therapies specifically developed for these patients. Molecular profiling has the potential to identify potential targets that might provide a better treatment and novel targeted therapy for KRAS-mutated NSCLC. In this study, we purified RNA from archived tumor and normal lung tissue obtained from 20 patients with wild type (wt) and 17 patients with mutant (mt) KRAS tumors undergoing resection for stage I and stage II NSCLC, and assessed by reverse transcriptase-real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) the expression of four genes involved in DNA synthesis and repair including thymidylate synthase (TS), BRCA1, ECCR1 and RAP80, and the proto-oncogene SRC. Our results show that in mt KRAS tumors, the levels of expression of ERCC1, TS and SRC were significantly increased in comparison to paired-normal lung tissue (p ≤ 0.04). Expression of BRCA1 and RAP80 were similar in both mt KRAS tumors and paired-normal tissue. Furthermore, the expression of BRCA1, TS and SRC were significantly increased in wt KRAS tumors relative to their expression in normal lung (p ≤ 0.044). Expression of ERCC1 and RAP80 was similar in wt KRAS tumors and paired normal tissue. Interestingly, SRC expression in mt KRAS tumors was decreased in comparison to wt KRAS tumors. Our results suggest that greater ERCC1 expression in mt KRAS tumors might increase platinum resistance in this group of patients, whereas the greater expression of BRCA1 in wt KRAS tumors might be suggestive for the sensitivity to taxanes. Our data also suggests that the combination of a SRC inhibitor with a TS inhibitor such as pemetrexed might improve the outcome of patients with wt KRAS tumors. In conclusion, these results suggest that the most effective treatment strategy for KRAS-mutant NSCLC is combined targeting of oncogenic KRAS in addition to other therapeutic agents specific to the molecular profile of the tumor. Citation Format: Nagla Abdel Karim, Sandra Starnes, John Morris, Peter Pathrose, Ashley Perry, Hassana Fathallah. KRAS molecular profiling in non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer; 2014 Jan 6-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2014;20(2Suppl):Abstract nr A01.
Experimental evaluation and statistical characterization of the strength and strain energy density distribution of Kevlar KM2 yarns: exploring length-scale and weaving effects

This article experimentally investigates the tensile strength distributions of 600 den Kevlar KM2 yarns under quasi-static tensile loading. The strength distributions were best characterized using the 3-parameter Weibull and generalized Gamma distributions. In order to assess the effects of weaving on the strength distributions, Kevlar yarns were tested from a spool and then compared to yarns extracted from greige and scoured Kevlar fabrics. The weaving process and treatments caused various levels of strength degradation which shifted the strength distributions toward lower strengths. The warp yarns were degraded to a greater extent than the fill yarns. The scouring process induced further strength degradations in the woven fabric. Length-scale effects were studied by using gage lengths varying between 25.4 and 381.0 mm. The strength distributions were observed to shift toward lower strengths with increasing gage lengths. A new distribution function based on a modification to the 3-parameter Weibull distr...
Spectral and Luminosity Classification of Symbiotic Star Cool Components with Near-Infrared Photometry

We have used the absolutely calibrated Wing eight-color near-infrared photometric system to quantitatively derive spectral types and luminosity classes for the cool components of 12 symbiotic stars. We examine the advantages and limitations of the system as applied to symbiotic systems. We find that three systems, CI Cyg, T CrB, and S149, have CN strengths corresponding to luminosity class II. For several systems there is a correlation between photometric phase and measured spectral type.
Degree of residual stenosis in the culprit coronary artery after thrombolytic administration (Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction [TIMI] Trials)

This study was undertaken to characterize residual stenosis after thrombolytic administration and to evaluate clinical and angiographic features and early outcomes of patients with mild residual obstruction after thrombolytic administration. Patients who underwent angiography at 90 minutes after thrombolytic administration in the Thrombolysis In Myocardial Infarction 4, 10A, 10B, and 14 trials were divided into 3 groups according to the degree of residual stenosis measured by quantitative coronary angiography: patients with a patent culprit artery with or =50%, and patients with occluded arteries. Only 8.9% of the patients (188 of 2,119) had an infarct-related artery luminal diameter stenosis of or =50% stenosis, patients with mild residual obstruction were younger (56.8 vs 58.6 years; p = 0.03), had fewer prior myocardial infarctions (6.9% vs 13.3%; p = 0.01), fewer eccentric (19.8% vs 42.1%; p <0.0001), ulcerated (7.5% vs 13.2%; p = 0.03), and collateralized (6.6% vs 13.2%, p = 0.01) lesions, but a greater thrombus burden (29.7% vs 18.3%, p = 0.0002). Among patients with patent arteries, a residual stenosis of <50% was associated with a significantly lower composite of in-hospital death, myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure (2.8% vs 7.1%, p = 0.03). Thus, a minority of patients have a mild residual obstruction at 90 minutes after thrombolytic administration. These patients have less complex lesions with greater thrombus burdens and better clinical outcomes.
Design of a Motor-Driven Mechanism to Conduct Experiments to Determine the Passive Joint Properties of the Human Index Finger

Our long term goal is to develop a new generation of robotic-prosthetic hands that will incorporate key anatomical features of the human hand, especially, the passive dynamics defined by the joint stifftness and damping properties. This paper presents a design of a mechanism that can measure the passive moment of the human hand joint. We designed a motor-driven system, integrating a noninvasive and infrared motion capture system, that can control and record the angle, angular velocity and passive forces of the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint in the index finger. A total of 19 subjects participated in the experiments. We conducted two experiments to estimate the total passive moments of the MCP joint from the human subjects. The results showed that the novel design of the mechanism collected the precise passive moments and kinematic data, thus allowing us to develop a comprehensive understanding of the passive properties of the human hand joints. Copyright © 2011 by ASME