cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Clinical Observation on Needling Jiexi(ST41) Combined with Bobath Therapy for 60 Cases of Spastic Cerebral Palsy

Objective To observe the therapeutic effect of needling Jiexi(ST41) combined with Bobath therapy for spastic cerebral palsy(SCP).Methods Totally 106 SCP children were randomized into treatment group of 60 cases and control group of 46 cases.Both groups were given Bobath therapy.Needling Jiexi(ST41) was combined in the treatment group.The passive dorsiflexion angles of bilateral ankles were measured with joint angle measurement instrument before and after 3 months of treatment.Results After the treatment,the passive dorsiflexion angles of bilateral ankles decreased significantly in both groups(P0.01),especially in the treatment group(P0.01).Conclusion The combination of needling Jiexi(ST41) and Bobath therapy could significantly relieve the passive dorsiflexion of bilateral ankles in SCP children.
Effects of Liver Transplantation on Lipids and Cardiovascular Disease in Children With Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia

Homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH) is a rare, inherited, life-threatening, metabolic disorder of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor function characterized by elevated serum LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) and rapidly progressive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ACVD). Since LDL receptors are predominantly found on hepatocytes, orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) has emerged as a viable intervention for HoFH because LDL receptor activity is restored. This study assessed the effects of OLT on ACVD and ACVD risk factors in pediatric patients with HoFH. We analyzed lipids, lipoproteins, body mass index, glucose, blood pressure, and cardiovascular imaging in 8 pediatric patients who underwent OLT for HoFH. Total serum cholesterol, LDL-C, lipoprotein (a), and apolipoprotein B/apolipoprotein A1 ratio decreased to normal values in all subjects (p values 50% stenosis. However, aortic valve stenosis progressed in 2 of 4 subjects. In conclusion, OLT is an effective therapeutic option for patients with HoFH with coronary artery disease and persistently elevated serum LDL-C despite maximum medical therapy. Aortic valvular disease may progress. Long-term data are needed to evaluate the true risk-benefit ratio of this surgical approach.
WE‐A‐BRC‐03: Lessons Learned: IROC Audits

Quality and safety in healthcare are inextricably linked. There are compelling data that link poor quality radiation therapy to inferior patient survival. Radiation Oncology clinical trial protocol deviations often involve incorrect target volume delineation or dosing, akin to radiotherapy incidents which also often involve partial geometric miss or improper radiation dosing. When patients with radiation protocol variations are compared to those without significant protocol variations, clinical outcome is negatively impacted. Traditionally, quality assurance in radiation oncology has been driven largely by new technological advances, and safety improvement has been driven by reactive responses to past system failures and prescriptive mandates recommended by professional organizations and promulgated by regulators. Prescriptive approaches to quality and safety alone often do not address the huge variety of process and technique used in radiation oncology. Risk-based assessments of radiotherapy processes provide a mechanism to enhance quality and safety, both for new and for established techniques. It is imperative that we explore such a paradigm shift at this time, when expectations from patients as well as providers are rising while available resources are falling. There is much we can learn from our past experiences to be applied towards the new risk-based assessments. Learning Objectives: 1.Understand the impact of clinical and technical quality on outcomes 2.Understand the importance of quality care in radiation oncology 3.Learn to assess the impact of quality on clinical outcomes D. Followill, NIH Grant CA180803
Optical and electrical properties of AlN/AlGa(In)N short period superlattices grown by molecular beam epitaxy

A short period superlattices (SPSLs) consisting of 3-6 monolayer (ML) thick barriers of AlN and 2-3 ML thick wells of AlxGa1-x(In)N have unique optical and electrical properties. The effective energy gap between 4.5 eV (276 nm) and 5.3 eV (234 nm) of these SPSLs depends on the well/barrier thickness ratio, the well composition, and the SPSL period. For example, by varying the AlN barrier thickness while maintaining constant Al0.08Ga0.92N well thickness (2 or 3 MLs), a shift 100 ± 20 meV/ML can be obtained. Increasing the well thickness by one ML and leaving the barrier thickness constant result in a bandgap change of 270 ± 20 meV. Changing the well thickness with fixed SPSL period provides the coarse bandgap change of 400 ± 30 meV. The SPSLs containing over 300 well-barrier pairs with excellent structural properties can be reproducibly grown on sapphire and silicon substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). We compare the results obtained using ammonia and plasma assisted MBE. Room temperature hole concentration of 1 x 1018 cm-3 was obtained in p-type Mg doped SPSLs with an average AlN content up to 70%. In Si doped SPSLs, electron concentration of 3 x 1019 cm-3 and room temperature mobility of 10-20 cm2/ Vs were reached. Electrical contacts formed to the wide bandgap pand ntype SPSLs are found to have low specific contact resistance and to show weak temperature dependence. The SPSLs based LEDs and photodetectors operating in the range of 240 to 290 nm will be discussed. Sergey Nikishin, J Phys Chem Biophys 2013, 3:5 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2161-0398.S1.002
Trends in Nonlipid Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factor Management in the Women's Interagency HIV Study and Association with Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy.

Abstract Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is increasingly common among women with HIV, but literature on nonlipid CVD risk factor management is lacking. We examined semiannual trends from 2006 to 2014 in hypertension treatment and control (blood pressure <140/90 mmHg), diabetes treatment and control (fasting glucose <130 mg/dL), and smoking quit rates in the Women's Interagency HIV Study. Unadjusted and adjusted Poisson regression models tested time trends and differences between HIV+ and HIV− women. Among antiretroviral therapy (ART) users, we examined the association of ART adherence and virologic suppression with each outcome. We evaluated 1636 HIV+ and 683 HIV− women, with a hypertension prevalence of 40% and 38%, respectively; diabetes prevalence of 21% and 22%; and smoking prevalence of 37% and 48%. Hypertension treatment was higher among HIV+ than HIV− women (77% vs. 67%, p < 0.001) and increased over time with no difference in trend by HIV status. Hypertension control was greater among HIV+ women (56%...
US Farm Programs and the Impacts on National and International Soil Security

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers numerous programs that contribute toward global soil security, many of which are under the umbrella of the Farm Service Agency (FSA). This chapter explores those programs and ways in which they contribute toward National and International Soil Security. The two primary roles where FSA programs contribute are establishing minimum working land conservation requirements related to program support and conserving environmentally sensitive land. Most farms and ranches in the United States receive payments through at least one of the disaster assistance, safety net, and/or conservation programs administered through FSA, and all farms that participate in FSA farm programs and farm loan programs as well as other conservation and crop insurance programs administered by USDA are subject to conservation compliance provisions. Conservation compliance is focused on both preventing the loss of wetlands and ensuring that soil erosion is minimized through following site-specific conservation plans. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is by far FSA’s flagship program related to soil conservation with about 24 million acres nationwide. In general, in exchange for a yearly rental payment, farmers voluntarily agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that improve environmental health and quality for the life of their 10–15-year contract. By targeting fragile cropland and placing these lands into protective conservation covers, CRP conserves wildlife habitat, improves water quality, and has reduced soil erosion by more than 8 billion tons and enhanced soil productivity significantly since 1986. CRP also sequesters more carbon on private lands than any other federally administered program and reduces greenhouse gases equivalent to removing 8.7 million cars from the road annually.
Husserl’s Thoughts on the Foundation of Logic

It has been one of the strange and unexamined features of contemporary philosophy that philosophical as well as technical concern with the formal sciences — formal logic and mathematics, formal syntax and semantics — has been taken to be an ally of a positivistic, formalistic and (narrowly) analytic philosophical perspective. I believe that upon further questioning, this alleged alliance breaks down, and the prima facie neutrality of the conecrn with formalism leaves room for a great diversity of philosophical standpoints — from a Platonic to a Kantian, to name two familiar contrasting positions. It is also a philosophically unexamined point of view, which requires that an understanding of the nature of the formal sciences must itself be formalistic, that you truely understand the nature of a formal discipline when you embed it in a meta-discipline of the same nature. There is certainly a sense of “understanding” in which this is the case. But there is a sense of “understanding,” a sense that is of central importance to philosophy, in which one can ask questions about the formal sciences which do not permit any nontrivially formalised answer. The purpose of the present essay is not merely to bring to the forefront the relevance of the phenomenological perspective for philosophy of the formal sciences, but to open the doors for questioning that taken-for-granted alliance and for the possibility of radically other approaches. Let us only remember that Frege was a sort of Platonist-cum-neo-Kantian (despite the efforts of the believers in that alliance to show that he was a hidden nominalist), David Hilbert a Kantian, Hermann Weyl a sort of Husserlian. Where to place Godel and Hao Wang? Panini and Chomsky? Or, let us think of our friends Jaakko Hintikka and Carlos Rota.
Emerging flood model validation frameworks for street-level inundation modeling with StormSense

Technological progress in flood monitoring and the proliferation of cost-efficient IoT-enabled water level sensors are enabling new streams of information for today's smart cities. StormSense is an inundation forecasting research initiative and an active participant in the GCTC seeking to enhance flood preparedness in the Hampton Roads region for flooding resulting from storm surge, rain, and tides and demonstrating replicability of the solution. Herein, we present street-level hydrodynamic modeling results at 5m resolution with conventional flood validation sources alongside new emergent techniques for validating model predictions during three prominent recent flooding events in Hampton Roads during Fall 2016: Hurricane Hermine, Tropical Storm Julia, and Hurricane Matthew. Emerging validation techniques include: (1) IoT-water level sensors, (2) crowd-sourced GPS maximum flood extent measurements, and (3) geospatial flooded area comparisons with drone-surveyed flood extents via ESRI's Drone2Map. Model uncertainty was validated against 5 newly-established tide gauges within the domain for an aggregate vertical root mean squared error of ±8.19 cm between the sensor observations and model predictions. Also, geospatial uncertainty was assessed using mean horizontal distance difference as ±4.97 m via 206 crowd-sourced GPS flood extents from the Sea Level Rise App.
Using multiple power spectrum measurements to sense signals with partial spectral overlap

In this work, we study the wideband sensing problem of detecting intermittently transmitting signals that may have partial spectral overlap. We aim to estimate the frequency bands occupied by transmitters using standards with overlapping frequency bands, such as IEEE 802.11, and those without guard bands, such as LTE-Advanced. Multiple power spectrum measurements are used to distinguish the distinct bands. An extreme ray based non-negative matrix factorization algorithm is proposed to identify measurements where a single transmitter is active. Distinct bands are identified in the presence of frequency-selective fading by using a combinatorial search. In addition, we propose a novel algorithm to automatically estimate the noise power spectrum by identifying measurements that do not have significant signal energy. Its ability to learn colored noise and LO leakage in the signal is demonstrated through USRP measurements. The dependence of the proposed algorithm's performance on the medium access control protocol used by the primary users is discussed. MATLAB simulations are used to verify that the proposed algorithm detects the occupied bands more accurately than existing methods. Over the air USRP measurements in the 2.4 GHz ISM band are used to detect the occupied WiFi channels in a university environment.
Rapid Identification of Critical Structural Components to Inspect or Monitor After an Extreme Event

Nondestructive evaluation techniques can be used for condition ­assessment of structures after an extreme event such as earthquake or blast in order to obtain information about the overall integrity of the structure. The aim of this study is to present an approach for rapid identification of the critical components to inspect or monitor after an extreme event. The methodology is based on reliability importance of components within a system. The importance ranking of components is different under various loading conditions. The methodology is illustrated by using a truss bridge under blast. The critical components for ­condition assessment are identified.
Selection in Coevolutionary Algorithms and the Inverse Problem

The inverse problem in the collective intelligence framework concerns how the private utility functions of agents can be engineered so that their selfish behaviors collectively give rise to a desired world state. In this chapter we examine several selection and fitnesssharing methods used in coevolution and consider their operation with respect to the inverse problem. The methods we test are truncation and linear-rank selection and competitive and similarity-based fitness sharing. Using evolutionary game theory to establish the desired world state, our analyses show that variable-sum games with polymorphic Nash are problematic for these methods. Rather than converge to polymorphic Nash, the methods we test produce cyclic behavior, chaos, or attractors that lack game-theoretic justification and therefore fail to solve the inverse problem. The private utilities of the evolving agents may thus be viewed as poorly factored—improved private utility does not correspond to improved world utility.
Dislocation loop formation in model FeCrAl alloys after neutron irradiation below 1 dpa

Abstract FeCrAl alloys with varying compositions and microstructures are under consideration for accident-tolerant fuel cladding, but limited details exist on dislocation loop formation and growth for this class of alloys under neutron irradiation. Four model FeCrAl alloys with chromium contents ranging from 10.01 to 17.51 wt % and aluminum contents of 4.78 to 2.93 wt % were neutron irradiated to doses of 0.3–0.8 displacements per atom (dpa) at temperatures of 335–355 °C. On-zone STEM imaging revealed a mixed population of black dots and larger dislocation loops with either a / 2 〈 111 〉 or a 〈 100 〉 Burgers vectors. Weak composition dependencies were observed and varied depending on whether the defect size, number density, or ratio of defect types was of interest. Results were found to mirror those of previous studies on FeCrAl and FeCr alloys irradiated under similar conditions, although distinct differences exist.
Cardiovascular disease risk and androgen deprivation therapy in patients with localised prostate cancer: a prospective cohort study.

Cardiovascular disease risk and androgen deprivation therapy in patients with localised prostate cancer: a prospective cohort study
Objectively Measured Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Genetic Predisposition to Obesity in U.S. Hispanics/Latinos: Results From the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL)

Studies using self-reported data suggest a gene-physical activity interaction on obesity, yet the influence of sedentary behavior, distinct from a lack of physical activity, on genetic associations with obesity remains unclear. We analyzed interactions of accelerometer-measured moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and time spent sedentary with genetic variants on obesity among 9,645 U.S. Hispanics/Latinos. An overall genetic risk score (GRS), a central nervous system (CNS)-related GRS, and a non-CNS-related GRS were calculated based on 97 BMI-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Genetic association with BMI was stronger in individuals with lower MVPA (first tertile) versus higher MVPA (third tertile) (β = 0.78 kg/m2 [SE, 0.10 kg/m2] vs. 0.39 kg/m2 [0.09 kg/m2] per SD increment of GRS; Pinteraction = 0.005), and in those with more time spent sedentary (third tertile) versus less time spent sedentary (first tertile) (β = 0.73 kg/m2 [SE, 0.10 kg/m2] vs. 0.44 kg/m2 [0.09 kg/m2]; Pinteraction = 0.006). Similar significant interaction patterns were observed for obesity risk, body fat mass, fat percentage, fat mass index, and waist circumference, but not for fat-free mass. The CNS-related GRS, but not the non-CNS-related GRS, showed significant interactions with MVPA and sedentary behavior, with effects on BMI and other adiposity traits. Our data suggest that both increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary behavior may attenuate genetic associations with obesity, although the independence of these interaction effects needs to be investigated further.
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: Making Bad News Bivalent

ABSTRACTResearch on news deliveries has focused on monovalently good or bad news and their associated interactional trajectories. We examine American English video recordings of geneticists delivering genetic test results to families with children who have disabilities. We find that speakers offering bright sides against a backdrop of bad news work to achieve bivalent equilibrium—a state where speakers can reach agreement that the news is appropriately understood as a mix of bad with good elements. We propose that bivalent equilibrium facilitates affiliation through a two-step process that is distinct from affiliation to a monovalently positive or negative evaluative stance. Data are in American English.
Original Research: Confronting the Culture of Medicine: Gay Men's Experiences with Primary Care Physicians

Objective: To explore gay men's perspectives on primary health care. Design: Employing grounded theory methodology, structured interviews with 11 self-identified gay men from upper New York State were coded via the constant comparative approach. Measurement: Participants were asked open-ended questions about their past health care experiences, perceptions of the field of medicine, and thoughts regarding their relationships with their primary care providers. Results: Analysis suggested that gay men experience the field of medicine at two levels. At the macrolevel, medicine was thought to be homophobic and heterosexist, creating an unwelcoming environment for gay men. Participants believed that medicine was functioning in a state of ignorance because sexuality issues were not a priority in the training or practice of physicians. At the microlevel, gay men sought to build mutually comfortable physician–patient relationships based on open and honest communication. Participants differed in their beliefs of how the relevance of their gay identity related to health care needs. Disclosure of gay identity was not always seen as necessary for care, but being open in this regard was preferred. Conclusions: Gay men must navigate the medical field's cultural barriers to develop meaningful and stable relationships with their providers in order to receive appropriate care.
Historia urbana y urbanización en la España moderna

This article takes as a starting point the arguments presented by Pablo Sanchez Leon in his contribution to this issue of Hispania in order to reflect on the relationships between market forces and institutional factors in shaping the patterns of urbanization of Spain between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Professor Ringrose distinguishes different regions inside Spain with varying dynamics and characteristic urbanization patterns, revises current interpretations on the effects of the crisis of the seventeeth century and extends to the end of the Old Regime the main trends in urbanization specific to this area of southern europe.
The Spell of Kuhn on Psychology

In their meta-scientific studies of psychology, psychologists often use what they take to be the views of the historian of science, Thomas Kuhn. Although a critical examination of psychology or aspects of psychology is laudatory, psychologists also need to accurately understand and to assume a critical stance toward the meta-scientific views that they employ. In this chapter, the views of the historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, are described and examined. The following major questions are addressed: What were Kuhn’s investigative methods? What are his views of science? What exactly do Kuhn’s conclusions about science mean? How does Kuhn rely on psychology? and, What does Kuhn have to say about psychology.
Damage diagnosis in intelligent tires using time-domain and frequency-domain analysis

Tire durability plays an important role in road transportation safety and is taken very seriously by all tire manufacturers. Defects in tires can cause vehicle instability and create catastrophic a...
Hippocampal Place Fields Maintain a Coherent and Flexible Map across Long Timescales

Summary To provide a substrate for remembering where in space events have occurred, place cells must reliably encode the same positions across long timescales. However, in many cases, place cells exhibit instability by randomly reorganizing their place fields between experiences, challenging this premise. Recent evidence suggests that, in some cases, instability could also arise from coherent rotations of place fields, as well as from random reorganization. To investigate this possibility, we performed in vivo calcium imaging in dorsal hippocampal region CA1 of freely moving mice while they explored two arenas with different geometry and visual cues across 8 days. The two arenas were rotated randomly between sessions and then connected, allowing us to probe how cue rotations, the integration of new information about the environment, and the passage of time concurrently influenced the spatial coherence of place fields. We found that spatially coherent rotations of place-field maps in the same arena predominated, persisting up to 6 days later, and that they frequently rotated in a manner that did not match that of the arena rotation. Furthermore, place-field maps were flexible, as mice frequently employed a similar, coherent configuration of place fields to represent each arena despite their differing geometry and eventual connection. These results highlight the ability of the hippocampus to retain consistent relationships between cells across long timescales and suggest that, in many cases, apparent instability might result from a coherent rotation of place fields.
Wrinkling on Covalently Anchored Hydrogels

Covalently anchored hydrogels show spontaneous formation of surface instabilities. Although surface instabilities on polymeric and elastomeric films have been extensively studied, fewer studies focused on the formation of instability patterns in hydrogels. The current and prospective applications have led to a surge in the interest in the study of surface instabilities in hydrogels. These applications include cell culture models, adhesives and optical devices, and stimuli-responsive soft actuators. This chapter gives a detailed review on the recent progress in the formation of surface instabilities in confined hydrogels. A fundamental understanding of surface instabilities in different constructions of hydrogel films is provided. The fabrication approaches to create wrinkles on hydrogel surfaces are classified based on the types of stimuli and the hydrogel systems. Finally, several examples in which surface instabilities in hydrogels have been employed are presented.
Effects of Sequential Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 Vaccination on Antibody Waning.

BACKGROUND Antibody waning following influenza vaccination has been repeatedly evaluated, but waning has rarely been studied in the context of longitudinal vaccination history. METHODS We developed a Bayesian hierarchical model to assess the effects of sequential influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccination on hemagglutination inhibition antibody boosting and waning in a longitudinal cohort of older children and adults from 2011 to 2016, a period during which the A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccine strain did not change. RESULTS Antibody measurements from 2057 serum specimens longitudinally collected from 388 individuals were included. Average postvaccination antibody titers were similar across successive vaccinations, but the rate of antibody waning increased with each vaccination. The antibody half-life was estimated to decrease from 32 months (95% credible interval [CrI], 22-61 months) following first vaccination to 9 months (95% CrI, 7-15 months) following a seventh vaccination. CONCLUSIONS Although the rate of antibody waning increased with successive vaccination, the estimated antibody half-life was longer than a typical influenza season even among the most highly vaccinated. This supports current recommendations for vaccination at the earliest opportunity. Patterns of boosting and waning might be different with the influenza A(H3N2) subtype, which evolves more rapidly and has been most associated with reduced effectiveness following repeat vaccination.
Anionic guest-dependent slow magnetic relaxation in Co(II) tripodal iminopyridine complexes

We report the syntheses and magnetic property characterizations of four mononuclear cobalt(II) complex salts featuring a tripodal iminopyridine ligand with external anion receptor groups, [CoL5-ONHtBu]X2 (X = Cl (1), Br (2), I (3) and ClO4 (4)). While all four salts exhibit anion binding through pendant amide moieties, only in the case of 1 is field-induced slow relaxation of magnetisation observed, whereas in the other salts this phenomenon is absent at the limits of our instrumentation. The effect of chloride inducing a seventh Co–N interaction and concomitant structural distortion is hypothesized as the origin of the observed dynamic magnetic properties observed in 1. Ab initio computational studies carried out on a 7-coordinate Co(II) model species survey the complex interplay of coordination number and trigonal twisting on the sign and magnitude of the axial anisotropy parameter (D), and identify structural features whose distortions can trigger large switches in the sign and magnitude of magnetic anisotropy.
A narrative review of red blood cell distribution width as a marker for pulmonary embolism

Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is a marker of variability in red blood cell size, and is routinely reported as part of a patient's complete blood count. RDW has been shown to be associated with the prediction, severity and prognosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) in recent studies. The underlying biomolecular mechanism of the relationship of RDW to PE is largely unknown, but is thought to be due to the relationship of RDW with acute inflammatory markers and variations in blood viscosity. This review substantiates that a high RDW level, defined using either an arbitrary number or according to receiver operator curve statistics, is associated with a higher risk of acute PE, increased severity (massive vs. submassive) of PE and increased mortality in patients with PE. Nevertheless, the comparison of current studies is limited due to the definition of high RDW (each study uses a different RDW cutoff level), the broad range of exclusion criteria and the inclusion of differing modalities used to diagnose a PE (computed tomography angiogram, ventilation-perfusion study, or clinical diagnosis). Despite the above limitations, these studies provide a promising future clinical use for RDW as a marker of PE.
Continuous Glucose Monitor with Siri Integration Improves Glycemic Control in Legally Blind Patients with Diabetes

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is safe and effective in improving glycemic control in insulin-treated patients with diabetes. However, the safety of CGM use in legally blind patients with diab...
Viruses Masquerading as Antibodies in Biosensors: The Development of the Virus BioResistor

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognized in vitro evolution, including the development by George Smith and Gregory Winter of phage display, a technology for engineering the functional capabilities of antibodies into viruses. Such bacteriophages solve inherent problems with antibodies, including their high cost, thermal lability, and propensity to aggregate. While phage display accelerated the discovery of peptide and protein motifs for recognition and binding to proteins in a variety of applications, the development of biosensors using intact phage particles was largely unexplored in the early 2000s. Virus particles, 16.5 MDa in size and assembled from thousands of proteins, could not simply be substituted for antibodies in any existing biosensor architectures.Incorporating viruses into biosensors required us to answer several questions: What process will allow the incorporation of viruses into a functional bioaffinity layer? How can the binding of a protein disease marker to a virus particle be electrically transduced to produce a signal? Will the variable salt concentration of a bodily fluid interfere with electrical transduction? A completely new biosensor architecture and a new scheme for electrical transduction of the binding of molecules to viruses were required.This Account describes the highlights of a research program launched in 2006 that answered these questions. These efforts culminated in 2018 in the invention of a biosensor specifically designed to interface with virus particles: the Virus BioResistor (VBR). The VBR is a resistor consisting of a conductive polymer matrix in which M13 virus particles are entrained. The electrical impedance of this resistor, measured across 4 orders of magnitude in frequency, simultaneously measures the concentration of a target protein and the ionic conductivity of the medium in which the resistor is immersed. Large signal amplitudes coupled with the inherent simplicity of the VBR sensor design result in high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N > 100) and excellent sensor-to-sensor reproducibility. Using this new device, we have measured the urinary bladder cancer biomarker nucleic acid deglycase (DJ-1) in urine samples. This optimized VBR is characterized by extremely low sensor-to-sensor coefficients of variation in the range of 3-7% across the DJ-1 binding curve down to a limit of quantitation of 30 pM, encompassing 4 orders of magnitude in concentration.
Blood as a potential vehicle for the cytomegaloviruses

This study analyzed transfused blood as a potential vehicle for infectious cytomegalovirus (CMV) particles. A total of 207 patients who received a total number of 897 units of blood were monitored. A complement-fixing antibody titer of 1:8, as determined by micro-titer technique, was observed in 14.8 per cent of the blood units. A total of 140 individuals in this study were serosusceptible. Eighty-six serosusceptible individuals did not receive blood containing complement-fixing CMV antibodies. In this patient population three instances of seroconversion were identified. Among the 54 serosusceptible individuals who received at least one unit of blood whose complement-fixing titer to the AD-169 strain of CMV was 1:8 or greater, 13 seroconversions were observed.
Convex Bodies of Constant Width

A spherical ball obviously has the property that it can be arbitrarily rotated between two fixed parallel planes without losing contact with either plane. It has been known for a long time, certainly since the time of Euler, that there are other convex bodies with the same property. Such bodies are called convex bodies of constant width. Other names that have also been used are ‘convex bodies of constant breadth’, ‘equiwide convex bodies’, ‘orbiforms’ and ‘spheroforms’ (in the two and three-dimensional case, respectively) and several more; the occasionally used German ‘Gleichdick’ being one of the most charming.
Variable Reasoning and Analysis about Uncertainty with Fuzzy Petri Nets

Ordinary Petri nets often do not have sufficient power to represent and handle approximate and uncertain information. Fuzzy Petri nets are defined in this paper using three types of fuzzy variables: local fuzzy variables, fuzzy marking variables, and global fuzzy variables. These three types of variables are used to model uncertainty based on different aspects of fuzzy information. Several basic types of fuzzy Petri nets are analyzed, and the necessary and/or sufficient conditions of boundedness, liveness, and reversibility are given. An example of modeling sensory transitions in a robotic system is discussed to illustrate reasoning about input local fuzzy variables to obtain mutually exclusive tokens in the output places.
A New Combination Treatment for Premature Ejaculation: A Sex Therapist's Perspective

This article describes the diagnosis and treatment of premature ejaculation (PE) from a sex therapist's perspective and proposes that combination therapy integrating sex therapy and sexual pharmaceuticals is frequently the best treatment approach. Failure to appreciate the multimodal etiology and pathophysiology of PE makes the condition more difficult to diagnose and treat. Many physicians have tried pharmacologic approaches, but are limited to providing topical anesthetics or suggesting off-label uses of antidepressant and erectile dysfunction medications, because no medication is currently indicated specifically for PE. Furthermore, patients frequently relapse after discontinuation of the pharmaceutical. Sex therapists appreciate the multidimensional nature of PE for the patient and partner, but few patients seek out this approach, which is labor-intensive and often lacking long-term follow-up success. Most men with PE are not receiving treatment, secondary to their embarrassment about discussing their condition and a lack of clinician inquiry about sexual dysfunction. Even for those who do engage in discussion, diagnoses may be inconsistent, because a universally accepted definition of the condition and diagnostic criteria are nonexistent. Men with PE experience anxiety and lack sexual self-confidence; subsequently, their sexual and overall relationship frequently suffer. Because PE involves psychosocial and physiologic factors, treatment that addresses both should yield the best balance of function. There is interest in new agents designed specifically for PE to provide an improved pharmacotherapeutic opportunity. Yet, a combination treatment integrating pharmaceuticals and sex therapy would provide an optimized approach. Besides increasing coital latency directly, sexual pharmaceuticals could be used to provide greater opportunity for men to recognize their premonitory sensations to ejaculation more readily, facilitating a "choice point", which is key to facilitating behavioral change and learning. Such a combination approach would result in prolonged ejaculatory latency, improved treatment satisfaction, and superior long-term outcome.
Personal knowledge graph population from user utterances in conversational understanding

Knowledge graphs provide a powerful representation of entities and the relationships between them, but automatically constructing such graphs from spoken language utterances presents the novelty and numerous challenges. In this paper, we introduce a statistical language understanding approach to automatically construct personal (user-centric) knowledge graphs in conversational dialogs. Such information has the potential to better understand the users' requests, fulfilling them, and enabling other technologies such as developing better inferences or proactive interactions. Knowledge encoded in semantic graphs such as Freebase has been shown to benefit semantic parsing and interpretation of natural language utterances. Hence, as a first step, we exploit the personal factual relation triples from Freebase to mine natural language snippets with a search engine, and the resulting snippets containing pairs of related entities to create the training data. This data is then used to build three key language understanding components: (1) Personal Assertion Classification identifies the user utterances that are relevant with personal facts, e.g., “my mother's name is Rosa”; (2) Relation Detection classifies the personal assertion utterance into one of the predefined relation classes, e.g., “parents”; and (3) Slot Filling labels the attributes or arguments of relations, e.g., “name(parents): Rosa”. Our experiments using the Microsoft conversational understanding system demonstrate the performance of this proposed approach on the population of personal knowledge graphs.
Crystalline Ni3S2 specifically enhances the formation of oxidants in the nuclei of CHO cells as detected by dichlorofluorescein

Dichlorofluorescein (DCF) was used as a fluorescent probe to detect oxidants formed in cultured CHO cells during nickel treatment. Crystalline Ni3S2 specifically enhanced the formation of oxidants in the nuclei of these living cells, but Ni3S2 particles did not enhance DCF fluorescence as much when added in vitro to isolated nuclei. Our results add to the emerging concept that oxidants mediated by nickel compounds may play an important role in nickel-induced genotoxicity.
The relation of serum T4 and TSH with the urinary iodine excretion.

The urinary iodine excretion, expressed as the iodine/creatinine (l/Cr) ratio, was correlated with the serum T4 and TSH levels in persons with a relatively constant iodine intake for at least 6 months. It was found that the group with an I/Cr ratio of 151–200 µg/g had on average the lowest serum TSH and the highest serum T4 level. The differences in serum TSH from the other groups were statistically significant, whereas the differences in serum T4 were not. It is concluded that an l/Cr ratio of 151–200, corresponding to an iodine intake of about 200 µg/day, is associated with the lowest TSH stimulation of the thyroid gland in man and probably represents the optimal conditions for its function.
An apparatus for the detection and counting of mouse squeals

An instrument, designed to detect and count mouse squeals and to reject other sounds which might confound the data, is described. A parts list is furnished.
ALLHAT, or the Soft Science of the Secondary End Point

Dr. Messerli (1) made several thoughtful points inhis article on the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment toPrevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT). For example, even though adrug’s effect on the risk for diabetes would not be expected to trans-late into short-term measurable cardiovascular events, the long-termconsequences are a concern. However, taken as a whole, Messerli’sessay seems to reﬂect his conﬂict-of-interest statement, in which helisted 21 companies. These companies do not make money pushingdiuretics. Doctors will continue to maintain that their inﬂuence can-not be bought and that it is impolite to suggest otherwise. However,scientiﬁc evidence (2) demonstrates how subliminally fundamentalto human relationships is the urge to reciprocate once a gift orkindness is extended.
Potential virulence determinants in terminal regions of variola smallpox virus genome.

SMALLPOX eradication culminated the most successful antimicrobial campaign in medical history1. To characterize further the linear double-stranded DNA genome of the aetiological agent of smallpox, we have determined the entire nucleotide sequence of the highly virulent variola major virus, strain Bangladesh-1975 (VAR-BSH; 186,102 base pairs, 33.7% G + C; Genbank accession number, L22579). Here we highlight features of the molecule and focus on a few of the 187 putative proteins that probably contribute to pathogenicity and virus host-range properties. One hundred and fifty proteins were markedly similar to those of vaccinia virus (smallpox vaccine), for which a complete sequence has been reported2,3 for strain Copenhagen (VAC-CPN; 191,636 base pairs, 33.3% G + C). The remaining 37 proteins reflected variola-specific sequences or open reading frame divergences for variant proteins, which are often truncated or elongated compared with their vaccinia counterparts.
Model-Based Design of Embedded Systems

Model-based design is presented as consisting of four elements: (i) executable specification, (ii) design with simulation, (iii) implementation through code generation, and (iv) continuous test and verification. This presentation concentrates on the combined design and implementation as model elaboration. It is shown how the design of an edge detection filter can be systematically brought to an implementation by comparing a reference algorithm to an increasingly detailed representation of the implementation. Automatic program synthesis allows the generation of C code or a representation in a hardware description language (HDL). The HDL emulation can then be co-simulated in the system context to study behavior of an implementation at a cycle accurate level. This reduces expensive hardware iteration, facilitates analysis of system characteristics with detailed component implementation models, and mitigates the need for extensive test bench design.
A Comparison of Two Different Strategies for Undergraduate Research Within the Framework of a Rotor Dynamics Laboratory

Introductory graduate level courses and upper division technical electives often present a student with his or her first research project. Time limitations of a course require a balance between open ended discovery, development of specialized technical knowledge, and teaching the mechanics of research methodology. The case study presented in this paper is an outline of two different strategies to introduce research to undergraduate students within the framework of a rotor dynamics laboratory. The laboratory had historically been designed to demonstrate machinery malfunctions in a series of short exercises. The laboratory was changed to have several introductory labs designed to prepare students for an extended self-directed research project that included literature searches, paper reviews, design of experiments, and presentation of research findings to the class. In one strategy the students were expected to practice discovery primarily through experimentation with specific, restricted goals. In the other strategy the students were given more flexibility defining the research question and in establishing priorities. Both projects had students design an experiment whose results were compared to mathematical simulations and each led to research that was presented at a conference. Although both were considered successful in terms of student learning and research outcomes, a balance biased toward experimentation and restricted student options for discovery actually led to broader research findings and more in-depth student research but with less student appreciation for and practice with the necessary preliminary stages of conducting research. The student learning experiences and methodologies for each scenario are presented and compared in this paper.Copyright © 2007 by ASME
Activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-gamma by 15S-hydroxyeicosatrienoic acid parallels growth suppression of androgen-dependent prostatic adenocarcinoma cells

Abstract Although dietary gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) and its 15-lipoxygenase metabolite, 15S-hydroxyeicosatrienoic acid (15S-HETrE), have been reported to exert antiproliferative activities in other systems, their role in prostatic carcinogenesis is unknown. To evolve a possible mechanism for the suppressive effect on growth of prostatic cells, we incubated GLA and 15S-HETrE with androgen-dependent prostatic adenocarcinoma cells. 15S-HETrE but not GLA markedly inhibited [3H]thymidine uptake in parallel with the upregulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma expression (a growth modulating nuclear receptor). The data, taken together, suggest that dietary GLA via its in vivo metabolite 15S-HETrE could serve as an endogenous adjunct to attenuate prostatic tumorigenesis.
Comparison of cardiac output measurement by continuous thermodilution with electromagnetometry in adult cardiac surgical patients

A pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) capable of continuous cardiac output (CCO) determination by thermodilution has recently been introduced. The purpose of this study was to compare CCO with two other methods of cardiac output (Ot) determination: electromagnetometry (EM) and standard bolus thermodilution cardiac output (BCO). Following median sternotomy and pericardiotomy, an EM ring probe was placed around the ascending aorta in 25 adult cardiac surgical patients and connected to an EM flowmeter interfaced with a calibrated strip recorder. Measurements were obtained over a 15- to 20-minute interval during a period of stable EM-determined Ot prior to initiation of cardiopulmonary bypass and in the absence of surgical stimulation. The CCO system averages Ot over a 3-minute interval, updating the measurement every 30 seconds. Cardiac output determined by the CCO system was compared with EM Ot averaged from the prior 3-minute period and with BCO obtained immediately after changing the Ot monitor from the continuous to bolus mode. Compared with EM, the bias for CCO was -0.48 L/min, precision 0.56 L/min, and the limits of agreement 1.12 L/min. Bias, precision, and limits of agreement of CCO compared with BCO were 0.41, 0.82, 1.64 L/min, respectively. Correlation between EM and CCO was r = 0.80 and between CCO and BCO r = 0.64. Cardiac output determined by CCO was within 10% of the EM determination for 37 measurements, between 10% and 20% for 17, and greater than 20% for 7 measurements.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
On the quadratic AWGN CEO problem and non-gaussian sources

In the CEO problem, introduced by Berger et al, IEEE Trans. Info. Theory, 1996, a CEO is interested in a source that cannot be observed directly. M agents observe independently noisy versions of the source and, without collaborating, must encode these across noiseless rate-constrained channels to the CEO. The quadratic AWGN CEO problem refers to the class of CEO problems for which the agents view the source through additive white Gaussian noise, and the distortion is squared error. This paper discusses two upper bounds to the CEO sum-rate distortion function for this class of problems. The first follows from elementary arguments. It permits two conclusions. First, the worst case is when the underlying source is Gaussian (for fixed variance). Second, there are source distributions that lead to a significantly better behavior. The second upper bound follows from a new bound on the rate loss between the CEO and the remote rate-distortion function. For certain source distributions and certain ranges of distortion, this bound is better than the first