cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Land surface influences on the West African summer monsoon: Implications for synoptic disturbances

The study examines regional atmospheric model (RM) simulations of the mean June–September (JJAS) climate and the implications of the mean state for the model representation of African wave disturbances (AWD). Two simulations are made with a version of the RM that computes soil moisture with multivariate functions that statistically relate it to rainfall, surface temperature, albedo, vegetation and terrain slope. These simulations differ according to the assignment of ground temperatures (Tg). While the control experiment is based on the fully interactive computation of soil moisture, the second experiment tests the response to fixed Tg whose seasonal means are more realistic than in the control within a swath along the Gulf of Guinea coast. A third simulation is made with the RM coupled to a sophisticated land surface process model (RM2). Results show a rather acute sensitivity of the mean circulation to land surface processes. The more realistic meridional temperature gradient created by fixing Tg in turn increased the vertical wind shear over West Africa and eliminated unrealistic westerly circulation at 700 mb. AWD composites were transformed from intense closed cyclonic circulations with copious rainfall to more realistic open waves that organized more moderate precipitation maxima. Lower vorticity variances in the specified change experiment imply that the open waves were characterized by more moderate vorticity extremes. Corresponding spectral amplitudes for 3–6 day periodicities of the 700 mb meridional wind were 40–80% of control values within the swath of maximum AWD activity. From among the three simulations, RM2 achieved seasonal mean precipitation, temperature, energy flux and circulation distributions that, despite some unrealistic features, were closest to observational evidence. RM2 AWD were much less intense and favored slightly longer periods. Results demonstrate that discrepancies in modeled ground temperatures caused by underestimating the cloudiness that intercepts short wave solar flux along a narrow swath of the West African coast have far-reaching consequences for the simulation of both the mean summer climate and individual synoptic disturbances. The study implies that this cooling along the Gulf of Guinea coast prevents AWD from developing into more intense storms with heavier precipitation.
Micropuncture Study of Inulin Absorption in the Rat Kidney

By means of a microinjection technique, inulin-carboxyl-C 14 or inulin-methoxy-H 3 was injected into single proximal tubules of the rat at various urine flow rates. Urine collected separately from the two kidneys showed negligible amounts of inulin activity on the noninjected side, thus demonstrating directly that there is no significant reabsorption of inulin by the renal tubular epithelium under these conditions.
Red spruce and loblolly pine nutritional responses to acidic precipitation and ozone

Abstract A multidisciplinary research program called Response of Plants to Interacting Stresses (ROPIS) was initiated by the Electric Power Research Institute in 1986 to develop a general mechanistic theory of plant response to interacting air pollutants and other stresses. As part of the program, the individual and combined impacts of acidic precipitation and elevated O3 on nutritional responses of red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) were evaluated. Red spruce saplings were exposed to charcoal filtered, non-filtered, 1·5 times ambient or twice ambient levels of O3 in combination with rain pH treatments of 3·1, 4·1, or 5·1 for 4 years. Similarly, loblolly pine seedlings were exposed to subambient, ambient or twice ambient O3 levels in combination with acidic precipitation treatments of pH 3·8 or 5·2 for 3 years. Cation leaching was accelerated in the pH 3·1 rain treatment in the red spruce study, driven by atmospheric inputs of H+ and SO42−. Subsequent decreases in soil pH, exchangeable pools of Ca2+ and Mg2+, and increases in exchangeable Al3+ in the organic horizon were observed. Calcium and Mg2+ fluxes in throughfall of red spruce were also enhanced at pH 3·1, and foliar concentrations of Mg2+ were reduced. In contrast, soil pH and nutrient concentrations as well as foliar leaching in the loblolly pine study were not significantly affected by either the pH 3·8 or 5·2 rain treatments. Ozone exposure had no effect on throughfall or soil solution ionic flux for either species. Results indicate that ambient rainfall acidities are not likely to affect the nutritional status of loblolly pine. High elevation red spruce forests, however, could be impacted by acidic deposition via enhanced soil acidification, leading to Al3+ mobilization and reduced availability of important base cations as well as increased foliar leaching.
Efficiency of energy conversion by piezoelectrics

The efficiency of energy conversion by piezoelectric devices depends upon the quality factor Q and electromechanical coupling coefficient k2. In this study the efficiency Q and k2 are measured for a piezoelectric cantilever, a piezoelectric stack, and a micromachined piezoelectric membrane. The experimental values are compared to a model which predicts efficiency at resonance in terms of k2 and Q. Results of the experiment and model are within 2% of each other.
Using the Internet for Gerontology Education: Assessing and Improving Wikipedia

Older adults, students, professionals, and the general public increasingly turn to the Internet and to Wikipedia for information. Wikipedia, the world's sixth most used website, is by far the most widely used open-source information site. Among its nearly four million English-language encyclopedia articles, how thorough is coverage of key gerontology topics? Focusing on 315 important terms found across four leading gerontology sources, almost 3 out of 10 terms had no Wikipedia article at all, including some surprising omissions. And another 3 out of 10 terms had articles that treated the topic without any specific mention of aging. Only about 4 out of 10 terms had articles with content focusing on aging; however, using various measures, the articles that were relevant rated comparatively high overall. This popular encyclopedia is a work in progress and was found to have considerable room for improvement in its coverage of gerontology. Interested parties can upgrade its content by working as individuals, a...
Fuzzy Approach to the Mechanics of Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials

Fiber-reinforced composite materials have been used very widely and have emerged as a major class of structural materials in recent years. They are either used or being considered for use as substitutes for metals in many weight-critical components in aerospace and other industries. In most practical applications, the material parameters vary considerably and are subject to uncertainties, mainly due to the uncontrollable aspects associated with the manufacturing process. The probabilistic methods cannot be applied easily because the exact probability distributions of the uncertain parameters are not known. Also, in some situations, the parameters of a composite material are known only in linguistic form. Hence, fuzzy concepts are introduced to model the uncertainties encountered in composite materials, which may be described in uncertain terms or in imprecise/linguistic form as fuzzy parameters. When the basic fuzzy arithmetic computations, such as fuzzy addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and fuzzy square root and fuzzy trigonometry computations are used, different composite material mechanics expressions are explored, and the fuzzy analysis of fiber-reinforced composite material mechanics is presented. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the feasibility and applicability of the approach. Other types of uncertainties, such as interval and probabilistic parameters, can also be accommodated with the approach.
Social networks, stress and child abuse

The study investigated the relationship between situational stress, strength of informal social networks and maternal child abuse. Structured interviews were conducted with 41 abusive mothers and 59 non-abusing mothers using an author-developed instrument to measure social network strength and situational stress. Abusing mothers, on the average, reported significantly weaker, less supportive informal social networks than the non-abusing mothers. Both the neighbor-friend networks and the kinship networks of the non-abusing mothers were found to be stronger than those of the abusing mothers. The data also supported the positive association of situational stress with child abuse. Both situational stress and strength of social network proved to be significant predictors of abuse. The findings supported the hypothesized mediating effect of strong social networks upon the relationship between situational stress and child abuse. Mothers living in highly stressful life situations who reported strong social networks were less likely to be abusers than mothers living in high stress situations who reported weak social networks. The mediating functions of social networks are proposed, and the implications of the findings for interventions with high risk parents to prevent child abuse are discussed.
Hybrid Control and Transport Using Bacteria-Driven Microbiorobots

We are examining techniques for manipulation of microfabricated elements using arrays of bacteria as microactuators. Flagellated Serratia marcescens bacteria are attached to microstructures using a blotting technique that creates a bacterial monolayer carpet. These bacterial carpets naturally self-coordinate to propel the microstructures. We refer to these constructs as microbiorobots (MBR). Generally, the motion pattern of the MBRs is largely rotational in nature, and the center of mass deviates no more than several hundred microns from its original position. However, the angular velocity and orientation of the MBRs may be controlled using ultraviolet light stimulus, and the translational position may be adjusted using electrokinetic stimulus. Here, we demonstrate precision positional adjustment of a microbiorobotic transporter that is used to engage and transport cube-shaped particles 10 μm on each side.
Generation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes against modified self in the absence of antigen by interleukin 2-containing preparations

Abstract Spleen cells obtained from normal mice were cultured with interleukin 2 (IL2); no antigen was added. After 4–5 days, these cultures contained effector cells which lysed autologous spleen target cells that were modified with 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid or fluorescein isothiocyanate. No killing was seen on unmodified spleen target cells. These effector cells were Thy 1+, Lyt 1−, 2+ and were derived from Thy 1+ precursor cells. IL2 preparations induced the generation of such cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) in a dose-dependent manner. IL2-induced CTL were shown to be different from the natural killer (NK) cells augmented by IL2 by virtue of their time of appearance in culture, by cold-target competition, and by different cell-surface markers. These results demonstrate that the IL2 signal may be sufficient for the induction of the differentiation of CTL precursors in the absence of an antigenic signal.
Designing and mining multi-terabyte astronomy archives: the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The next-generation astronomy digital archives will cover most of the sky at fine resolution in many wavelengths, from X-rays, through ultraviolet, optical, and infrared. The archives will be stored at diverse geographical locations. One of the first of these projects, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is creating a 5-wavelength catalog over 10,000 square degrees of the sky (see http://www.sdss.org/). The 200 million objects in the multi-terabyte database will have mostly numerical attributes in a 100+ dimensional space. Points in this space have highly correlated distributions.The archive will enable astronomers to explore the data interactively. Data access will be aided by multidimensional spatial and attribute indices. The data will be partitioned in many ways. Small tag objects consisting of the most popular attributes will accelerate frequent searches. Splitting the data among multiple servers will allow parallel, scalable I/O and parallel data analysis. Hashing techniques will allow efficient clustering, and pair-wise comparison algorithms that should parallelize nicely. Randomly sampled subsets will allow de-bugging otherwise large queries at the desktop. Central servers will operate a data pump to support sweep searches touching most of the data. The anticipated queries will require special operators related to angular distances and complex similarity tests of object properties, like shapes, colors, velocity vectors, or temporal behaviors. These issues pose interesting data management challenges.
One step closer to personalized genomic medicine

This editorial refers to ‘Cardiovascular manifestations in men and women carrying a FBN1 mutation’, by D. Detaint et al. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehq258 We are rapidly entering an era of personalized genomic medicine. The complete sequencing of the human genome was first announced >9 years ago, and soon afterwards the annotated human genome sequence was available online.1 Today, DNA analysis that was once considered onerous has become routine. Although not perfect, ‘next-generation’ techniques for rapid and low-cost sequencing have been applied to whole human genome determination. The use of massively parallel, high-throughput sequencing to analyse the human genome was first published in 2008 with a reduction in cost estimated from US$100 million to ∼US$1 million2. Soon afterwards, two additional whole human genome sequences were reported, with estimated costs reduced even further.3,4 Investigators recently reported whole human genome analysis by another next-generation technique, Sequencing by Oligonucleotide Ligation and Detection (SOLiD) to determine the cause of recessive Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease.5 The estimated cost for this herculean task was <US$50 000, more than the cost of focused analysis of the known genes in which mutations can cause Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, but the emerging feasibility of this approach is remarkable. As the cost of large-scale genetic testing declines, it will inevitably be used more widely. Despite profound success in the ability to perform next-generation DNA testing, its application to clinical medicine has been somewhat slower. Today, if a patient showed up in a physician's office with the full sequence of his or her ∼3 billion DNA nucleotide base pairs, its application to medical evaluation and treatment would be nearly impossible. The critical link between genetic analysis and clinical practice will come … *Corresponding author. Tel: +1 410 614 3085, Fax: +1 410 614 0384, Email: djudge{at}jhmi.edu
Primary prevention of lead poisoning in children: a cross-sectional study to evaluate state specific lead-based paint risk reduction laws in preventing lead poisoning in children

Background: Children younger than 72 months are most at risk of environmental exposure to lead from ingestion through normal mouthing behavior. Young children are more vulnerable to lead poisoning than adults because lead is absorbed more readily in a child’s gastrointestinal tract. Our focus in this study was to determine the extent to which state mandated lead laws have helped decrease the number of new cases of elevated blood-lead levels (EBLL) in homes where an index case had been identified. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to compare 682 residential addresses, identified between 2000 and 2009, in two states with and one state without laws to prevent childhood lead poisoning among children younger than 72 months, to determine whether the laws were effective in preventing subsequent cases of lead poisoning detected in residential addresses after the identification of an index case. In this study, childhood lead poisoning was defined as the blood lead level (BLL) that would have triggered an environmental investigation in the residence. The two states with lead laws, Massachusetts (MA) and Ohio (OH), had trigger levels of ≥25 μg/dL and ≥15 μg/dL respectively. In Mississippi (MS), the state without legislation, the trigger level was ≥15 μg/dL. Results: The two states with lead laws, MA and OH, were 79% less likely than the one without legislation, MS, to have residential addresses with subsequent lead poisoning cases among children younger than 72 months, adjusted OR = 0.21, 95% CI (0.08-0.54). Conclusions: For the three states studied, the evidence suggests that lead laws such as those studied herein effectively reduced primary exposure to lead among young children living in residential addresses that may have had lead contaminants.
IC failure analysis: the importance of test and diagnostics

Continuous improvements in yield, reliability, time to market, and customer satisfaction all benefit from quick corrective action through root-cause failure analysis. The author reviews software- and hardware-based diagnostic methods for fault localization, the first and most critical step in this process.
The Effect of Metabolic State on Incorporation of [14C]Pantothenate into CoA in Rat Liver and Heart

The effect of metabolic or hormonal status on CoA biosynthesis was studied by comparing the rates of incorporation of [14C]-panthothenate into CoA in fasted and glucose-fed rats. Rat hearts and livers were freeze-clamped 1.5 hours after intravenous injection of [14C] pantothenate. CoA, pantothenate, and other pathway intermediates were separated by chromatography of tissue extracts on DEAE cellulose paper. Compared to the fasted rats, rats forced-fed glucose 0.5 hours before pantothenate injection 69% lower incorporation of radioactivity into CoA in liver, a 69% lower specific radioactivity of liver CoA, a 63% lower specific radioactivity of liver mitochondrial CoA, and a 44% lower incorporation of radioactivity in CoA in heart. The accumulation of labeled pathway intermediates was negligible. The cysteine content of liver was equal for the two conditions. There was no difference in level of unacylated CoASH for fasted and glucose-fed rats, suggesting that hormonal effects on degree of CoA acylation are not involved in this regulator mechanism. The specific radioactivities and concentrations of pantothenate in heart or liver were also nearly equal for the two conditions, so the regulatory mechanism does not involve hormonal effects on pantothenate uptake into tissues. Thus, the effect of glucose-feeding (and related changes of metabolite and insulin-glucagon levels) on the incorporation o[14C] pantothenate into CoA is exerted at a locus on the biosynthetic and/or degradative pathway between pantothenate and CoA.
Borel Injections and Isomorphisms

Although the continuous image of a Borel set need not be Borel, we have the following basic fact.
Sub-mitogenic phorbol myristate acetate co-stimulation rescues the PHA-induced activation of both naïve and memory T cells cultured in the rotating-wall vessel bioreactor.

T lymphocytes are unresponsive to T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation during culture in spaceflight or ground-based microgravity analogs such as the rotating-wall vessel (RWV) bioreactor. The TCR-induced activation of a subset of T cells can be rescued in the RWV by co-stimulation with sub-mitogenic doses of phorbol ester (PMA). We report that PMA co-stimulation of primary human T cells cultured in the RWV rescues the phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-induced activation of the CD8+ and CD4+ T cell subsets as well as naive and memory CD4+ T cells. Importantly, T cells activated in the RWV by PHA + PMA contained these subsets in proportions strikingly similar to control cultures activated with PHA alone. The data indicate that rescuing T cell activation with PMA co-stimulation does not significantly perturb the heterogeneity of the responding cells, and represent an important proof of principle for the design of immune-boosting agents for use in spaceflight.
Fine-grained parallel traversals of irregular data structures

Fine-grain data parallelism is increasingly common in mainstream processors in the form of long vectors and on-chip GPUs. This paper develops compiler and runtime support to exploit such data parallelism for non-numeric, non-graphic, irregular parallel tasks that perform simple computations while traversing many independent, irregular data structures, like trees and graphs. We vectorize the traversal of trees and graphs by treating a set of irregular data structures as a parallel control-flow graph and compiling the traversal into a domain-specific bytecodes. We produce a SIMD interpreter for these bytecodes, so each lane of a SIMD unit traverses one irregular data structure. Despite the overhead of interpretation, we demonstrate significant increases in single-core performance over optimized baselines.
Goal Disruption Theory, Military Personnel, and the Creation of Merged Profiles A Mixed Methods Investigation

The present study provides an example of the integrated data analysis technique of creating and interpreting merged profiles. By using this approach to merging data sources, we gained unique insight into goal disruption theory (GDT). Qualitative data suggest that military personnel harbor a wide range of desired end-states. Quantitative data support a component of GDT, suggesting that participants who have a strong need for desired end-state displayed greater purposive harm endurance. Interpretation of merged profiles revealed caveats to this relationship, in particular that not all end-states are equally motivating. Results illustrate the benefits of the integrated data analysis technique of creating and interpreting merged profiles. Utilization of the merged profiles illuminated relationships that would not have been exposed otherwise.
Heat transfer and fluid flow during keyhole mode laser welding of tantalum, Ti–6Al–4V, 304L stainless steel and vanadium

Because of the complexity of several simultaneous physical processes, most heat transfer models of keyhole mode laser welding require some simplifications to make the calculations tractable. The simplifications often limit the applicability of each model to the specific materials systems for which the model is developed. In this work, a rigorous, yet computationally efficient, keyhole model is developed and tested on tantalum, Ti–6Al–4V, 304L stainless steel and vanadium. Unlike previous models, this one combines an existing model to calculate keyhole shape and size with numerical fluid flow and heat transfer calculations in the weld pool. The calculations of the keyhole profile involved a point-by-point heat balance at the keyhole walls considering multiple reflections of the laser beam in the vapour cavity. The equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy are then solved in three dimensions assuming that the temperatures at the keyhole wall reach the boiling point of the different metals or alloys. A turbulence model based on Prandtl's mixing length hypothesis was used to estimate the effective viscosity and thermal conductivity in the liquid region. The calculated weld cross-sections agreed well with the experimental results for each metal and alloy system examined here. In each case, the weld pool geometry was affected by the thermal diffusivity, absorption coefficient, and the melting and boiling points, among the various physical properties of the alloy. The model was also used to better understand solidification phenomena and calculate the solidification parameters at the trailing edge of the weld pool. These calculations indicate that the solidification structure became less dendritic and coarser with decreasing weld velocities over the range of speeds investigated in this study. Overall, the keyhole weld model provides satisfactory simulations of the weld geometries and solidification sub-structures for diverse engineering metals and alloys.
Involving Communities in Community Assessment

Focus groups provide an effective means of incorporating the perspectives of "hidden" populations in assessments of community health needs and assets. A series of focus groups was conducted with specifically targeted segments of a community to develop a comprehensive picture of community health. The authors describe the focus group process, major findings, and the use of focus group results in a highly multicultural community. Despite differences in age, length of residence, and ethnicity, the focus groups were remarkably similar in the issues raised. The majority of participants viewed the multicultural nature of the community as an asset but voiced some of the difficulties of living in a multiethnic and multilanguage environment. Similar areas of concern in the community arose from all of the focus groups, including housing and other environmental issues and problems of access to health care. Focus group findings have been used to initiate activity addressing identified community problems. Focus group participation had the added benefit of increasing community members' participation in other community endeavors.
Management of acute hand injuries

A systematic evaluation of the hand, looking for functional or structural damage to each of its six tissue components, is the first step in managing the acute hand problem. We review the diagnostic and therapeutic decisions that are necessary to start treatment, and especially to avoid the pitfalls and oversights that may lead to complications and continuing disability.
A Comparison of Motor Unit Behaviour in Young and Aged Subjects

We evaluated motor unit behaviour in young and aged subjects during ramped tension development and release to 10% maximum voluntary contraction requiring 10 seconds to complete. Six young and six elderly adults performed isometric abductor digiti minimi muscle contractions while motor units were recorded with implanted fine wire electrodes. Computer interactive programs yielded interspike interval (ISI) data for 16 units from the young and for 15 units from the aged subjects. Mean ISIs for young were 88.4 ms for shortening and 96.5 ms for lengthening contractions. Units from the aged had ISIs of 110.5 ms and 117.1 ms for shortening and lengthening contractions. Some evidence for between-group differences in firing pattern during ascending and descending ramps was also found.
Relative Potency and Selectivity of Calcium Antagonists Used in the Treatment of Migraine

SYNOPSIS Calcium channel antagonists selectively block intracerebral vasoconstriction and appear clinically effective in the treatment of migraine. The in vitromethod described in the present report measured both the absolute and relative potencies of a group of calcium blockers. The dihydropyridine drugs, nimodipine and nifedipine, were both the most potent and selective of the calcium antagonists studied. Cinnarizine and flunarizine were essentially equipotent in both basliar and femoral arteries while the traditional therapeutic agents, cyproheptadine and amitriptyline, were 10-fold more potent in femoral than basilar artery. This rapid in vitromethod may provide pharmacologic information which can be used as a guide in the selection of calcium channel antagonists for future clinical trials.
Regulation of hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA reductase in rat leukocytes

Methods were developed for the assay of hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA reductase (NADPH) activity in microsomes from rat leukocytes. The activity in freshly isolated leukocytes is low compared to rat liver but can be assayed reliably. The patterns of response of leukocyte reductase in the assay to variation in substrate concentration, protein concentration, and time mimic those of rat liver reductase. Reductase activity in leukocyte microsomes, as in liver microsomes, is depressed by dietary cholesterol and by fasting and is elevated by dietary cholestyramine. Unlike liver reductase, leukocyte reductase activity does not exhibit a detectable diurnal rhythm. We conclude that the assay of reductase in freshly isolated leukocytes holds promise as a technique for detecting the effects of various factors on cholesterol synthesis in vivo.
Modulation of myosin phosphatase targeting subunit and protein phosphatase 1 in the heart

Myosin light chain 2 (LC2) phosphorylation is of both physiological and pathological importance to myocardial function. The phosphatase that directly dephosphorylates LC2 is a type 1 protein phosph...
Infant baboons infected with respiratory syncytial virus develop clinical and pathological changes that parallel those of human infants

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection of the lower respiratory tract is the leading cause of respiratory failure among infants in the United States of America and annually results in >300,000...
The Discreet Charm of the Diplomatic Archive

This article offers a series of personal reflections on the value of diplomatic sources for researching several types of history, and urges early modernists to consider the many uses to which such documentation can be put. It evaluates the richness of interactions between diplomatic history on the one hand, and social and cultural history on the other, and examines the significant contributions the ‘new diplomatic history’ has made in challenging conventional periodizations, expanding the reach of diplomatic history outside its usual Western home, and fruitfully complicating the idea of what diplomacy is and who is affected by it. A range of specific examples drawn from work in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German and other European archives illustrates the many scholarly advantages diplomatic sources present. The article considers in depth the types of documents available, the ways to access them, and the tools necessary for exploiting them. It explores how scholar can—and should—use diplomatic sources to write several different kinds of histories, including histories of economic life, social relationships, cultural practices, and medicine, to list just a few.
Rapid Reversal of Pulmonary Hypertension in Failing Mustard Physiology After Continuous Flow Systemic Ventricular Assist Device

Background: Systemic right ventricular failure is a well-known sequela in the decades following atrial switch for D-transposition of the great arteries. As patients who underwent these procedures are now entering adulthood, the disease burden can only be expected to grow. Cardiac transplantation is a well-accepted therapy for systemic RV failure, but secondary pulmonary hypertension may often be prohibitive. We present a case of severe systemic RV failure and pulmonary hypertension, with subsequent complete normalization of pulmonary pressures following ventricular assist device implantation. Case Presentation: Our patient is a 34 year old male with D-TGA who underwent Mustard operation at 14 months of age. Surveillance monitoring showed stable pulmonary pressures (Table 1), but slowly decreasing RVEF and increasing RVEDV. In late June 2014, the patient presented in acute heart failure. Catheterization on July 3, 2014 (Table 1), revealed significantly increased PA pressure and PVR (O9 Woods units), as well as decreased CI, confirming cardiogenic shock. Due to the patient’s inotrope dependence, and prohibitive elevation in PVR, he underwent implantation of a HeartWare HVAD for systemic RV support. He tolerated the procedure very well. VAD flows were titrated with TEE monitoring. His post-operative course was complicated by hemothorax in his left pleural space requiring evacuation on POD# 13. He was successfully discharged on POD# 22. He has not had any unplanned hospital readmissions and is now able to walk more than one mile daily without symptoms. Repeat catheterization in November 2014 showed complete normalization of his pulmonary pressure, PVR, and CI (Table 1). He continues to do well and is now undergoing evaluation for cardiac transplantation. Discussion: There are few case reports that describe VAD implantation for RV failure in a patient with prior history of atrial switch. To our knowledge, this is the first report of complete normalization of pulmonary hemodynamics following VAD implantation into a systemic RV in less than 4 months. Ventricular assist devices may be a safe and viable option to bridge patients with systemic RV failure and secondary pulmonary hypertension to cardiac transplantation. Additionally, VADs may serve this group of patients who are not immediately able to be transplanted due to donor supply shortage or hemodynamic instability. In the future, this can possibly be expanded to failing systemic right ventricles in patient with other types of complex congenital heart disease.
Geographic Distribution of Trachymyrmex jamaicensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Trachymyrmex jamaicensis (Andre) (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) is a rarely encountered fungus-growing ant known only from the West Indies and South Florida. I compiled and mapped >100 site records for T. jamaicensis, documenting the earliest known records for 15 geographic areas (coun tries, U.S. states, and major West Indian islands). Populations of T. jamaicensis have an essentially continuous range from the island of St. Vincent in the south (13.1°N) to Florida and the Bahamas in the north (up to 27.0°N). Almost all records from Florida come from the Florida Keys, south of 25.5°N; there are only 2 records of T. jamaicensis from mainland Florida. Based on the scarcity of records of T. jamaicensis in Florida, the Florida Committee on Rare Endangered Plants and Animals (FCREPA) officially designated T. jamaicensis as rare species.
Persistence of seropositivity among persons vaccinated for hepatitis A during infancy by maternal antibody status: 15-year follow-up.

The effect of passively transferred maternal antibody to hepatitis A virus (anti-HAV) on the duration of seropositivity after hepatitis A vaccination during infancy and early childhood is unclear. We obtained levels of anti-HAV at intervals through age 15-16 years among three groups of Alaskan Native children who initiated a two-dose inactivated hepatitis A vaccination series at ages 6 months (group 1), 12 months (group 2), and 15 months (group 3), each group randomized according to maternal anti-HAV status. Seropositivity (anti-HAV ≥20 mIU/mL) 30 years after the second vaccine dose among the three groups was predicted using a random effects model. One hundred eighty-three children participated in the study; follow-up did not differ significantly by vaccine group or maternal anti-HAV status. Although the frequency of seropositivity among all participants through age 10 years was high (100% among groups 2 and 3 and >90% among group 1), there was a decrease thereafter through age 15-16 years among group 1 children, who initiated vaccination at age 6 months (50%-75%), and among maternal anti-HAV-positive children in groups 2 and 3 (67%-87%), who initiated vaccination at ages 12 months and 15 months, respectively. Nonetheless, the model indicated that anti-HAV seropositivity should persist for ≥30 years after vaccination in 64% of all participants; among those seropositive at age 15-16 years, 84% were predicted to remain so for ≥30 years. Conclusion: Most children vaccinated during early childhood available for sampling maintained seropositivity through age 15-16 years; however, seropositivity was less frequent among those starting vaccination at age 6 months and among maternal antibody-positive participants who started vaccination at age 12 months or 15 months; overall, our findings support current vaccine recommendations and continued follow-up of this cohort. (Hepatology 2016;63:703–711)
Acute Myelogenous Leukemia with Cuplike Nuclei

Patient: 75-year-old white man. Chief Compliant: Shortness of breath, coughing. After several weeks with an unrelenting infection and cough, he was referred to the emergency department by his primary care physician. History of Present Illness: None reported. Medical History: Osteoarthritis. Family History: Noncontributory. Physical Examination: Positive for shortness of breath, dyspnea on exertion, chest pain, generalized weakness, and malaise, with no other significant findings. Principle Laboratory Findings: Table 1. Additional Diagnostic Testing: Flow cytometry and cytogenetic testing (tachycardia revealed via electrocardiogram [ECG]; chest X-ray with left pleural effusion; upper right lobe and right middle lobe pulmonary emboli revealed via computed tomography [CT] angiogram of chest). 1. What are the clinically significant laboratory findings for our patient? 2. What do the patient’s peripheral blood smear and bone-marrow differential reveal? 3. What is the differential diagnosis? 4. What do the flow cytometry results reveal? 5. What other laboratory tests are useful in making a definitive diagnosis? 6. What is the patient’s definitive diagnosis, and what is the relationship between cuplike nuclei and FLT3 and NPM1 mutations? 1. Table 1 demonstrates the patient’s principal laboratory findings. The most clinically significant findings are the critical laboratory values, including critically high white blood cell (WBC) count, critically low platelet count, 94% blasts in the peripheral blood smear, and critically elevated troponin I level. Leukocytosis and thrombocytopenia accompanied by a finding of 20% or greater blasts is indicative of acute leukemia, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) classification.1 Elevated troponin I and creatine kinase–myocardial band (CK-MB) levels indicate cardiac muscle damage. The portable chest x-ray and computed tomography (CT) angiogram results showed right upper lobe and right middle lobe pulmonary …
A categorical recall strategy does not explain animacy effects in episodic memory.

Animate stimuli are better remembered than matched inanimate stimuli in free recall. Three experiments tested the hypothesis that animacy advantages are due to a more efficient use of a categorical...
Authoritarian parenting and youth depression: Results from a national study

Depression is a prevalent illness affecting youth across the nation. The study purpose was to examine depression and authoritarian parenting among youth from 12 to 17 years of age. A secondary data...
Conceptual Analysis of Electron Transpiration Cooling for the Leading Edges of Hypersonic Vehicles

Recent progress is presented in an ongoing effort to perform a conceptual analysis of possible electron transpiration cooling using thermo-electric materials at the leading edges of hypersonic vehicles. The implementation of a new boundary condition in the CFD code LeMANS to model the thermionic emission of electrons from the leading edges of hypersonic vehicles is described. A parametric study is performed to understand the effects of the material work function, the freestream velocity, and the leading edge geometry on this cooling effect. The numerical results reveal that lower material work functions, higher freestream velocities, and smaller leading edges can increase the cooling effect due to larger emission current densities. The numerical results also show that the electric field produced by the electron emission may not have a significant effect on the predicted properties. Future work recommendations are provided that may improve the physical accuracy of the modeling capabilities used in this study.
Separation and Quantitation of Insulins and Related Substances in Bulk Insulin Crystals and in Injectables by Reversed-Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography and the Effect of Temperature on the Separation

The Food and Drug Administration performs potency assays of insulin products as part of the insulin certification program required by the Code of Federal Regulations. The official method specified in the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) is a bioassay measuring the depression of blood sugar concentrations in rabbits treated with the insulin under test and the official standard. The insulin products resulting from today's technology include highly purified isolates from bovine or porcine pancreas and insulin that is identical in structure to human insulin. A study of the effects of temperature on the separation of the components in insulin injectables led to the development of a reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method that uses a sulfate buffer/acetonitrile mobile phase at 40 degrees C for the separation and quantitation of bovine, porcine, and human insulins and related substances. This HPLC method reduces analysis time to 1/60 of that required for the bioassay and yields more information about purity than the percent nitrogen determination that is one of the USP official procedures. The results of HPLC analyses were compared with those for the bioassay by means of a potency/area conversion factor computed on a species by species basis. Results for the bioassays and the HPLC determinations for 40 lots of bulk crystalline insulin were compared in this study; in general, the HPLC estimates fell within the 95% confidence interval for combined independent bioassays.
Speak, Act, Remember The Language-Production Basis of Serial Order and Maintenance in Verbal Memory

The fields of language production and verbal memory have relatively little contact. I argue that utterance planning for language production has substantial memory maintenance demands and that utterance planning provides the maintenance and ordering processes for short-term verbal memory tasks. There has already been some movement toward this view. I discuss benefits to pursuing these links more fully.
Microscopy image analysis algorithms for biological microstructure characterization

Researchers in the medical domain employ microscopy-based image analysis as a tool to make objective, large-scale and verifiable quantitative measurements. The synergistic combination of knowledge on disease pathology with morphological context provided by image analysis leads to a quicker process of discovery. Advancements in medical imaging technologies in combination with the discovery of specific cellular markers have generated datasets that capture very detailed spatial and temporal features. Hence, the onus is on computer science researchers to develop algorithms to process biological imagery and extract relevant information efficiently. Algorithms need to be cognizant of the natural pattern and arrangement unique to biological organization. In this context, this dissertation proposes algorithms for biological microstructure characterization, namely, cell/tissue segmentation and 3D reconstructions of cellular structures. At a microscopic resolution, biological structures are composed of cells, red blood corpuscles (RBCs), cytoplasm and other microstructural components. These components are re-arranged in a salient tissue to form unique distributions. Microstructure characterization involves the discovery of feature spaces that estimate and spatially delineate component distributions, wherein the tissue layers naturally appear as salient clusters. The clusters are then be suitably classified to provide tissue region segmentations. However, a comprehensive characterization still requires cellular-level descriptions of the microenvironment in 3D. Early efforts in 3D reconstruction of microscopic biological structures have been impeded by the lack of a rigorous cellular segmentation approach. The primary difficulty in this task is that most of nuclei cluster in regions and seemingly overlap. An automated cell segmentation algorithm is presented that incorporates shape models, geodesic image metrics and image tessellations based on gradient cues in splitting overlapping nuclei. The results of the cellular segmentation step are used in conjunction with a cell shape model to interpolate the 3D cellular locations and shapes onto adjacent slices thereby reconstructing cellular structures. In this dissertation, data from optical modalities including light, confocal and phase-contrast microscopy are employed to test individual algorithms. Validated results from phenotyping and drug-discovery applications are used to demonstrate the robust performance of these methods.
An evidence-based approach to surgical teaching in ophthalmology

An apprenticeship model has traditionally been used in procedural and surgical teaching. As the pressures of work hours and patient outcome monitoring increase, surgical teachers need a more flexible plan for teaching procedural skills. We attempt to delineate a program of preprocedural, intraprocedural, and postprocedural teaching that can be used in the field of ophthalmology to maximize a resident's skill acquisition in a constructive learning environment. We review the literature on surgical teaching from within ophthalmology as well as other surgical fields and combine this with teaching experience in an ophthalmic surgical training program to produce a collection of procedural teaching guidelines. These guidelines are structured to serve in both individual teaching settings and in curriculum design.
Influence of Age and Needle Gauge on Bone Marrow Biopsy Specimen Adequacy.

Introduction. The quality and length of bone marrow biopsy core specimens should facilitate accurate diagnositic interpretation of marrow histopathology. A 11G specimen of length 1.6 cm or greater is considered adequate for pathologic evaluation by some authors. The length of specimens recovered with 11G needles appears to depend on needle design. We explored the possibility that the adequacy of bone marrow biopsy specimens may be influenced by patient age and the gauge of biopsy needles. Methods. 88 bone marrow core specimens were recovered from 72 patients using 11G SNARECOIL bone marrow biopsy needles. The mean age of these patients was 61.4 and the m/f ratio was 45/27. The clinical diagnoses were isolated anemia, cytopenias, leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and other in 18.0%, 33.3%, 13.8%, 13.8%, 5.5% and 15.2% of the patients, respectively. 10 patients underwent multiple procedures (2–6) for evaluation of treatment efficacy. 106 patients underwent 127 bone marrow biopsy procedures using 8G SNARECOIL needles. The m/f ratio was 56/50 and the mean age of the patients was 63.1years. The clinical diagnoses were isolated anemia, cytopenia, leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma or other in 22.2%, 19.6%, 14.9%, 21.2%, 12.5% and 9.4% patients respectively. 13 patients underwent multiple procedures (range 2–4) for evaluation of response to treatment. Results. Although the mean length of the 11G and 8G specimens were statistically significantly the same (mean±SEM, 1.97±0.07 cm vs. 1.99±0.05 cm, respectively, p = 0.8), the distribution of specimen lengths was asymmetric or skewed for the 11G specimens (skewness(skw) =0.52) and nearly normal for the 8G specimens (skw =0.04). The deviation from a normal distribution suggested additional variable(s) might be effecting specimen length. The possible influence of age on specimen length relative to needle gauge was considered. The mean age of the patients biopsied with 11G needles was 61.4. The m/f ratios of the patients ≤64 and ≥65 were statistically the same (27/12 vs. 18/15, respectively, p = 0.2). The mean age of the patients biopsied with 8G needles was 63.1. The m/f ratios of the patients ≤64 and ≥65 were statistically the same (30/26 vs. 26/23, respectively, p =0.5). 11 G specimens from younger patients, ≤64, were more frequently adequate (1.6 cm or greater) (39/53 = 73.5%) than specimens from older patients ≥ 65 (18/35 = 51.4%), p = 0.03. Conversely adequate 8G specimens were recovered as frequently in older patients ≥65 years (40/55 = 72.7%) as they were in younger patients ≤64 years, (59/72 = 81.9%) p = 0.21. Moreover, in older patients, adequate biopsy specimens were recovered more frequently by 8G needles then by 11G needles (40/55=72.7% vs. 18/35 = 51.4%, respectively, p = 0.04). Conclusions. 1. Age influences the rate of recovery of adequate bone marrow core biopsy specimens. 2. 8G needles recover adequate specimens more frequently than 11G needles in older patients.