cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Kidney Transplant Morbidity Index (KTMI): a simple prognostic tool to help determine outcome risk in kidney transplant candidates.

Background—The Kidney Transplant Morbidity Index (KTMI) is a novel prognostic morbidity index to help determine the impact that pretransplant comorbid conditions have on transplant outcome.Objective—To use national data to validate the KTMI.Design—Retrospective analysis of the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network/United Network for Organ Sharing database.Setting and Participants—The study sample consisted of 100 261 adult patients who received a kidney transplant between 2000 and 2008.Main Outcome Measure—Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to demonstrate 3-year graft and patient survival for each KTMI score. Cox proportional hazards regression models were created to determine hazards for 3-year graft failure and patient mortality for each KTMI score.Results—A sequential decrease in graft survival (0 = 91.2%, 1 = 88.2%, 2 = 85.4%, 3 = 81.7%, 4 = 77.8%, 5 = 74.0%, 6 = 69.8%, and ≥7 = 68.7) and patient survival (0 = 98.2%, 1 = 96.6%, 2 = 93.7%, 3 = 89.7%, 4 = 84.8%, 5 = 80.8%, 6 = 76.0%, and ≥7 = 74....
Mirtazapine, and mirtazapine-like compounds as possible pharmacotherapy for substance abuse disorders: Evidence from the bench and the bedside

Understanding substance use disorders (SUDs) and the problems associated with abstinence has grown in recent years. Nonetheless, highly efficacious treatment targeting relapse prevention has remained elusive, and there remains no FDA-approved pharmacotherapy for psychostimulant dependence. Preclinical and clinical investigations assessing the utility of classical antidepressants, which block monoamine reuptake, show mixed and often contradictory results. Mirtazapine (Remeron®) is a unique FDA-approved antidepressant, with negligible affinity for reuptake proteins, indirectly augments monoamine transmission presumably through antagonist activity at multiple receptors including the norepinephrine (NE)α2, and serotonin (5-HT)2A/C receptors. Historically, mirtazapine was also considered to be a 5-HT2C antagonist, but recent evidence indicates that mirtazapine is an inverse agonist at this receptor subtype. Suggesting a promising role for mixed-action serotonergic drugs for addiction pharmacotherapy, mirtazapine attenuates psychostimulant-induced behaviors in several rodent models of substance abuse, and antagonizes methamphetamine-induced biochemical and electrophysiological alterations in rats. Preclinical findings are confirmed through published case studies documenting successful outcomes with mirtazapine therapy across a number of SUDs. To date, a large scale clinical trial assessing the utility of mirtazapine in substance abuse pharmacotherapy has yet to be conducted. However, as reviewed here, accumulating preclinical and clinical evidence argues that mirtazapine, or compounds that emulate aspects of its pharmacological profile, may prove useful in helping treat addictions.
Algebraic Optimization for Processing Graph Pattern Queries in the Cloud

MapReduce platforms such as Hadoop are now the de facto standard for large-scale data processing, but they have significant limitations for join-intensive workloads typical in Semantic Web processing. This article overviews an algebraic optimization approach based on a Nested TripleGroup Data Model and Algebra (NTGA) that minimizes overall processing costs by reducing the number of MapReduce cycles. It also presents an approach for integrating NTGA-based processing of graph pattern queries into Apache Pig and compares it to execution plans using relational-style algebra operators.
Text messages: privacy in employee communications in the USA

US federal case law utilising statutory and constitutional provisions, has started to define what privacy expectations employees may have in their electronic communications in such mediums as e-mail and text messages. The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution provides some protection to public employee's privacy interests, while the Stored Communication Act of 1986 limits the ability of an electronic communications service to divulge contents of text messages without the consent of the recipient or addressee. These protections provide only minor restrictions on the ability of an employer to ascertain the contents of an employee's text message.
Computerized image analysis: texture-field orientation method for pectoral muscle identification on MLO-view mammograms.

Purpose: To develop a new texture-field orientation (TFO) method that combines a priori knowledge, local and global information for the automated identification of pectoral muscle on mammograms. Methods: The authors designed a gradient-based directional kernel (GDK) filter to enhance the linear texture structures, and a gradient-based texture analysis to extract a texture orientation image that represented the dominant texture orientation at each pixel. The texture orientation image was enhanced by a second GDK filter for ridge point extraction. The extracted ridge points were validated and the ridges that were less likely to lie on the pectoral boundary were removed automatically. A shortest-path finding method was used to generate a probability image that represented the likelihood that each remaining ridge point lay on the true pectoral boundary. Finally, the pectoral boundary was tracked by searching for the ridge points with the highest probability lying on the pectoral boundary. A data set of 130 MLO-view digitized film mammograms (DFMs) from 65 patients was used to train the TFO algorithm. An independent data set of 637 MLO-view DFMs from 562 patients was used to evaluate its performance. Another independent data set of 92 MLO-view full field digital mammograms (FFDMs) from 92 patients was used to assess the adaptability of the TFO algorithm to FFDMs. The pectoral boundary detection accuracy of the TFO method was quantified by comparison with an experienced radiologist’s manually drawn pectoral boundary using three performance metrics: The percent overlap area (POA), the Hausdorff distance (Hdist), and the average distance (AvgDist). Results: The mean and standard deviation of POA, Hdist, and AvgDist were 95.0±3.6%, 3.45±2.16 mm, and 1.12±0.82 mm, respectively. For the POA measure, 91.5%, 97.3%, and 98.9% of the computer detected pectoral muscles had POA larger than 90%, 85%, and 80%, respectively. For the distance measures, 85.4% and 98.0% of the computer detected pectoral boundaries had Hdist within 5 and 10 mm, respectively, and 99.4% of computer detected pectoral muscle boundaries had AvgDist within 5 mm from the radiologist’s manually drawn boundaries. Conclusions: The pectoral muscle on DFMs can be detected accurately by the automated TFO method. The preliminary study of applying the same pectoral muscle identification algorithm to FFDMs without retraining demonstrates that the TFO method is reasonably robust against the differences in the image properties between the digitized and digital mammograms.
A Review of Recent FDA Drug Safety Communications for Pediatric Psychotropics

To alert professionals and consumers about safety risks associated with approved drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) periodically issues Drug Safety Communications, or DSCs (previously known as advisories, warnings, and health care professional letters). This review consolidates balanced information from 22 DSCs issued over the last 15 years by the FDA for drugs with pediatric indications (for any disorder) that are used to treat pediatric emotional and behavioral disorders (ADHD drugs, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and antiepileptics/anticonvulsants). A single-source document of pediatric DSCs for these drugs was needed because none existed previously; finding DSC information on the FDA website can be challenging; and other information sources (e.g., manufacturer or advocacy websites, blogs, other media reports) may lack the objectivity or accuracy that the FDA is charged to maintain. This consolidation is intended to enable better informed risk-benefit analysis around treatment selection and drug safety monitoring. For the 22 DSCs, we summarize the safety concerns, the populations affected, and when available from the FDA, the incidence of the adverse events, precursors, and factors that may increase or mitigate the risk of these very serious (e.g., sudden death, life-threatening rash, liver failure), but typically low incidence (<1 %) adverse events (cardiometabolic complications with atypical antipsychotics and suicidality with antidepressants are more common). This review does not address the far more common, but usually less serious, side effects that also accompany these drugs. Implications of this review for research and practice are discussed.
HAMR Areal Density Demonstration of 1+ Tbpsi on Spinstand

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is being developed as the next-generation magnetic recording technology. Critical aspects of this technology, such as plasmonic near-field transducer (NFT) and high anisotropy granular FePt media, have been demonstrated and reported. However, progress with areal density was limited until recently. In this paper, we report a basic technology demonstration (BTD) of HAMR, at 1.007 Tbpsi with a linear density of 1975 kBPI and track density of 510 kTPI, resulting from advances in magnetic recording heads with NFT and FePtX media. This demonstration not only shows significant areal density improvement over previously reported HAMR demos, more significantly, it shows HAMR recording at a much higher linear density compared to previous reports. It is an important milestone for the development of such a new technology. Many challenges still remain to bring this technology to market, such as system reliability and further advancement of areal density.
Stein estimation for non-normal spherically symmetric location families in three dimensions

Abstract We consider estimation of a location vector in the presence of known or unknown scale parameter in three dimensions. The technique of proof is Stein's integration by parts and it is used to cover several cases (e.g., non-unimodal distributions) for which previous results were known only in the cases of four and higher dimensions. Additionally, we give a necessary and sufficient condition on the shrinkage constant for improvement on the usual estimator for the spherical uniform distribution.
Synthesis of the alkenyl-substituted tetracyclic core of the bisabosquals

Abstract HCl-catalyzed deprotection and cyclization of benzylic alcohol 15 cleanly provided tricycle 16 by a cis-selective intramolecular Diels–Alder reaction. Acetylation of the phenol, bis epoxidation, and base-catalyzed hydrolysis and cyclization afforded tetracycle 19 with the bisabosqual skeleton, but the opposite stereochemistry at the tertiary alcohol stereocenter. Selective dehydration of the tertiary alcohol to form the exocyclic alkene, ozonolysis, reductive deoxygenation of the side chain epoxide, and addition of MeMgBr to the ketone from the less hindered face gave tertiary alcohol 24 with the tetracyclic core of bisabosqual A (1).
Eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of a clover plate

We report a numerical study of the flexural modes of a plate using semi-classical analysis developed in the context of quantum systems. We first introduce the Clover billiard as a paradigm for a system inside which rays exhibit stable and chaotic trajectories. The resulting phase space explored by the ray trajectories is illustrated using the Poincare surface of section, and shows that it has both integrable and chaotic regions. Examples of the stable and the unstable periodic orbits in the geometry are presented. We numerically solve the biharmonic equation for the flexural vibrations of the Clover shaped plate with clamped boundary conditions. The first few hundred eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions are obtained using a boundary elements method. The Fourier transform of the eigenvalues show strong peaks which correspond to ray periodic orbits. However, the peaks corresponding to the shortest stable periodic orbits are not stronger than the peaks associated with unstable periodic orbits. We also perform statistics on the obtained eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions. The eigenvalue spacing distribution P(s) shows a strong peak and therefore deviates from both the Poisson and the Wigner distribution of random matrix theory at small spacings because of the C4v symmetry of the Clover geometry. The density distribution of the eigenfunctions is observed to agree with the Porter-Thomas distribution of random matrix theory.
Enhanced neural net learning algorithms for classification problems

This paper considers the application of a " global" optimization scheme to the training of multilayer perceptions for signal classifications. This study is motivated by the fact that the error surface of a multilayer perceptron is a highly nonlinear function of the parameters. Therefore the backpropagation which is a gradient descent algorithm converges to locally minimum structures. As an example we consider a signal classification problem where the optimum classifier has been shown to have an exponential complexity and the optimum decision boundary to be nonlinear and nonconvex. In this example when standard backpropagation is used to train the weights of a multi-layer perception the network is shown to classify with a " linear" decision boundary which corresponds locally to a minima of the neural network configurations. In this paper we propose to enhance the learning process of the network by considering an optimization scheme referred to as simulated annealing. This optimization scheme has been proven to be effective in finding global minima in many applications. We derive an iterative training algorithm based on this " global" optimization technique using the backpropagation as the " local" optimizer. We will verify the effectiveness of the learning algorithm via an empirical analysis of two signal classification problems. 1 PRELIMINARIES Artificial Neural Networks are highly interconnected networks of relatively simple processing units (commonly referred to as nodes e. g. perceptrons) which operate in parallel.
Treatment of Wilson's disease with zinc: XIV studies of the effect of zinc on lymphocyte function

Although administration of zinc to human subjects has been reported to interfere with lymphocyte function, this single report has never been confirmed or refuted. We have developed zinc as a lifelong therapy for patients with Wilson's disease. Interference with lymphocyte function occurring as a side effect of zinc therapy could produce serious problems in our patients. We evaluated lymphocyte mitogenic response and natural killer cell activity in patients with Wilson's disease treated for 5 years or longer with zinc, in comparison with normal controls, and found no differences. In a second study, we evaluated these same parameters in patients with Wilson's disease before and after 1 year of zinc therapy, and again found no significant differences. We have seen no indications of immune suppression or increased susceptibility to infections in our patients, who have now been treated with zinc for up to 15 years. We conclude that any side effects from compromised lymphocyte function caused by administration of zinc are not of concern to patients with Wilson's disease.
Plant virus-induced cell wall overgrowth and associated membrane elaboration

Pronounced formation of paramural bodies and subsequent abnormal cell wall protrusions were induced in bean leaves in early stages of infection by bean pod mottle virus. The paramural bodies were contiguous with protruded areas of cell walls and appeared to have arisen from elaborated plasmalemma. Elements of endoplasmic reticulum were closely associated with areas of discontinuous plasmalemma bordering the paramural bodies. Wall protrusions and associated structures disappeared at later stages of infection. The possible function and fate of these structures are discussed.
Pilot-scale demonstration of surfactant-enhanced PCE solubilization at the Bachman Road site. 2. System operation and evaluation.

A pilot-scale demonstration of surfactant-enhanced aquifer remediation (SEAR) was conducted during the summer of 2000 at the Bachman Road site in Oscoda, MI. Part two of this two-part paper describes results from partitioning and nonpartitioning tracer tests, SEAR operations, and post-treatment monitoring. For this field test, 68 400 L of an aqueous solution of 6% (wt) Tween 80 were injected to recover tetrachloroethene-nonaqueous phase liquid (PCE-DNAPL) from a shallow, unconfined aquifer. Results of a nonreactive tracer test, conducted prior to introducing the surfactant solution, demonstrate target zone sweep and hydraulic control, confirming design-phase model predictions. Partitioning tracer test results suggest PCE-DNAPL saturations of up to 0.74% within the pilot-scale treatment zone, consistent with soil core data collected during site characterization. Analyses of effluent samples taken from the extraction well during SEAR operations indicate that a total of 19 L of PCE and 95% of the injected su...
Heterosexuals Do It with Feeling: Heterocentrism in Heterosexual College Students' Perceptions of Female Bisexuality and Heterosexuality

How people define sexual orientation may have important implications for understanding hostility toward sexual outgroups. This study used an ethnocentrism framework to predict how college students would define ‘heterosexuality’ and ‘bisexuality’ and under what conditions they would apply these labels to a woman. One hundred and eighty-nine heterosexual participants (125 female, 64 male) were asked to define either ‘heterosexuality’ or ‘bisexuality.’ As predicted, affective feelings and physical behaviors defined ‘heterosexuality’ whereas ‘bisexuality’ was defined solely by physical behavior. Participants also read a list of behaviors or emotions a woman had performed with or felt toward either a same-sex or cross-sex individual and indicated whether each of the items would indicate that the woman was bisexual or heterosexual, respectively. The authors confirmed that it took more extreme sexual behavior to label a woman ‘bisexual’ than it did to label her ‘heterosexual.’
Fuzzy dynamical system approach to the observer design of uncertain systems

AbstractA fuzzy dynamical system approach is applied to the observer design of uncertain systems. In the fuzzy dynamical system, the uncertainty lies within a fuzzy set. The desirable system performance is twofold: one deterministic and one fuzzy. While the deterministic performance ensures the bottom line, the fuzzy performance enhances the cost consideration. Based on the output, an observer is proposed in order to estimate the state. The observer design is deterministic and is not IF-THEN rules-based. To improve the performance, a constrained optimization problem associated with the design is formulated. The problem can be solved analytically and its solution exists and is unique. The closed forms of the solution and the resulting minimum cost are presented.
Interactions of conjugated linoleic acid and lipoic acid on insulin action in the obese Zucker rat.

The fatty acid conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and the antioxidant R-(+)-α-lipoic acid (R-ALA) individually enhance glucose tolerance and insulin action on skeletal muscle glucose transport in the insulin-resistant obese Zucker rat. To date, no study has assessed the potential interactions between these 2 interventions in treating insulin resistance. The present study was designed to determine whether chronic treatment with CLA and R-ALA in combination would enhance skeletal muscle glucose transport to a greater extent than either intervention individually. CLA, R-ALA, or a combination treatment of R-ALA and CLA were administered to female obese Zucker rats for 20 days at low or high doses. Whereas low-dose R-ALA (10 mg/kg body weight) alone did not alter muscle glucose transport, low-dose CLA (0.3 g/kg) induced a significant increase (38%, P < .05) in insulin-mediated glucose transport in epitrochlearis, but not in soleus. Low-dose combination therapy brought about the greatest enhancement of insulin-mediated glucose transport in epitrochlearis (77%) and soleus (54%), with the latter effect being associated with a 50% reduction in protein carbonyls (an index of tissue oxidative stress) and a 33% diminution in muscle triglycerides. High-dose treatments with CLA (1.5 g/kg), R-ALA (50 mg/kg), and the combination of CLA and R-ALA elicited increases in insulin-mediated glucose transport in epitrochlearis (57%, 58%, and 77%) and soleus (32%, 35%, and 54%). However, whereas the individual high-dose treatments with CLA and R-ALA reduced protein carbonyls (63% and 49%) and triglycerides (29% and 28%) in soleus, no further reductions were observed with the high-dose combination treatment groups. These findings support a significant interaction between low doses of CLA and R-ALA for enhancement of insulin action on skeletal muscle glucose transport, possibly via reductions in muscle oxidative stress and in lipid storage.
An Adaptive Rescheduling Strategy for Grid Workflow Applications

Scheduling is the key to the performance of grid workflow applications. Various strategies are proposed, including static scheduling strategies which map jobs to resources before execution time, or dynamic alternatives which schedule individual job only when it is ready to execute. While sizable work supports the claim that the static scheduling performs better for workflow applications than the dynamic one, it is questioned how a static schedule works effectively in a grid environment which changes constantly. This paper proposes a novel adaptive rescheduling concept, which allows the workflow planner works collaboratively with the run time executor and reschedule in a proactive way had the grid environment changes significantly. An HEFT-based adaptive rescheduling algorithm is presented, evaluated and compared with traditional static and dynamic strategies respectively. The experiment results show that the proposed strategy not only outperforms the dynamic one but also improves over the traditional static one. Furthermore we observed that it performs more efficiently with data intensive application of higher degree of parallelism.
On the Economics of Subprime Lending

US mortgage markets have evolved radically in recent years. An important part of the change has been the rise of the “subprime” market, characterized by loans with high default rates, dominance by specialized subprime lenders rather than full-service lenders, and little coverage by the secondary mortgage market. In this paper, we examine these and other “stylized facts” with standard tools used by financial economists to describe market structure in other contexts. We use three models to examine market structure: an option-based approach to mortgage pricing in which we argue that subprime options are different from prime options, causing different contracts and prices; and two models based on asymmetric information–one with asymmetry between borrowers and lenders, and one with the asymmetry between lenders and the secondary market. In both of the asymmetric-information models, investors set up incentives for borrowers or loan sellers to reveal information, primarily through costs of rejection.
A novel method for mining highly imbalanced high-throughput screening data in PubChem

Motivation: The comprehensive information of small molecules and their biological activities in PubChem brings great opportunities for academic researchers. However, mining high-throughput screening (HTS) assay data remains a great challenge given the very large data volume and the highly imbalanced nature with only small number of active compounds compared to inactive compounds. Therefore, there is currently a need for better strategies to work with HTS assay data. Moreover, as luciferase-based HTS technology is frequently exploited in the assays deposited in PubChem, constructing a computational model to distinguish and filter out potential interference compounds for these assays is another motivation. Results: We used the granular support vector machines (SVMs) repetitive under sampling method (GSVM-RU) to construct an SVM from luciferase inhibition bioassay data that the imbalance ratio of active/inactive is high (1/377). The best model recognized the active and inactive compounds at the accuracies of 86.60% and 88.89 with a total accuracy of 87.74%, by cross-validation test and blind test. These results demonstrate the robustness of the model in handling the intrinsic imbalance problem in HTS data and it can be used as a virtual screening tool to identify potential interference compounds in luciferase-based HTS experiments. Additionally, this method has also proved computationally efficient by greatly reducing the computational cost and can be easily adopted in the analysis of HTS data for other biological systems. Availability: Data are publicly available in PubChem with AIDs of 773, 1006 and 1379. Contact:ywang@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; bryant@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Conceptualization of Learning by Doing: A Note on Paul David's “Learning by Doing and … the Ante-Bellum United States Cotton Textile Industry”

The application of the notion of learning by doing to account for the measured input efficiency growth of an aggregation of production units admittedly creates worrisome ambiguities about exactly what was being “learned,” how, and by whom. (David, p. 562)
Predicting and mitigating weed invasions to restore natural post-fire succession in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA.

Six large wildfires have burned in Mesa Verde National Park during the last 15 years, and extensive portions of burns were invaded by non-native plant species. The most threatening weed species include Carduus nutans, Cirsium arvense, and Bromus tectorum, and if untreated, they persist at least 13 years. We investigated patterns of weed distribution to identify plant communities most vulnerable to post-fire weed invasion and created a spatially explicit model to predict the most vulnerable sites. At the scale of the entire park, mature pinon–juniper woodlands growing on two soil series were most vulnerable to post-fire weed invasion; mountain shrublands were the least vulnerable. At a finer scale, greater richness of native species was correlated with greater numbers of non-native species, indicating that habitats with high native biodiversity are at the greatest risk of weed invasion. In unburned areas, weed density increased with greater soil nitrogen and phosphorus, and lower salinity. In burned areas weed density correlated with soil nitrogen status and textural class. We also evaluated the effectiveness of a variety of weed mitigation methods; aerial seeding of targeted high-risk areas with native grasses was the most effective treatment tested. We recommend a conservative mitigation plan using natives grass seed on only the most invasible sites.
Mother-child reminiscing and autobiographical memory specificity among preschool-age children.

Overgeneral memory (OGM) refers to difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories. The tendency to be overgeneral in autobiographical memory recall is more commonly observed among individuals with emotional disorders compared with those without. Despite significant advances in theory and identification of mechanisms that underlie the etiology of OGM, there has been little integration between normative research on the development of autobiographical memory and research on OGM. Informed by a developmental psychopathology perspective and drawing on normative developmental research on the social construction of autobiographical memory, the current investigation examined whether the elaborative quantity and elaborative quality of maternal reminiscing are predictive of preschool-age children’s autobiographical memory specificity. Additionally, this investigation tested whether children’s positive self-representations may explain these hypothesized associations. Participants consisted of 95 mother–child dyads. Children’s ages ranged between 3.5 and 6 years, and the sample was predominantly low income and of minority race/ethnicity. Dyads participated in a joint reminiscing task about 4 past events, and children participated in assessments of autobiographical memory specificity and self-representations. Results indicated that the elaborative quality, defined by maternal-sensitive guidance and emotional narrative coherence, but not the elaborative quantity, of maternal reminiscing style was significantly associated with children’s autobiographical memory specificity. Additionally, there was support for an indirect pathway between maternal reminiscing quality and child memory specificity through children’s positive self-representations. Directions for future research are discussed, and potential clinical implications are addressed.
Effects of Low Concentrations of Arsenic on the Innate Immune System of the Zebrafish (Danio Rerio)

Arsenic has been associated with a multitude of human health problems; however, its impact on host resistance to infection has not been extensively researched. In vertebrates, the innate immune response is vital for potentiating the adaptive immune response. Therefore, dampening of the innate immune response results in an immunocompromised host. In this present study, effects of low concentrations of arsenic on zebrafish resistance to infection are evaluated. Exposure to 2 and 10 ppb arsenic, both considered safe levels in drinking water, resulted in a greater than 50-fold increase in viral load and at least a 17-fold increase in bacterial load in embryos. To determine the cause of this amplified pathogen load, important components of the innate immune system were analyzed. Presence of arsenic dampened the overall innate immune health of the fish as evidenced by reductions in respiratory burst activity. Viral infection, after arsenic exposure, showed decreases of up to 13- and 1.5-fold changes in interferon and Mx mRNA expression, respectively. Bacterial infection, post arsenic exposure, demonstrated at least 2.5- and 4-fold declines in interleukin-1beta and tumor necrosis factor-alpha mRNA levels, respectively. Maximum expression of these essential cytokines was also delayed upon arsenic exposure. Our data indicate that arsenic exposure, at concentrations deemed safe in drinking water, suppresses the overall innate immune function in zebrafish and present the zebrafish as a unique model for studying immunotoxicity of environmental toxicants. To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the effects of such low levels of arsenic on host resistance to infection.
A novel LED driver with adaptive drive voltage

This paper presents an LED driver circuit consisting of a voltage pre-regulator and multiple linear current regulators with an adaptively-controlled supply voltage. The proposed driver circuit powers all LEDs in a string with a constant current and provides consistent illumination and optimal operating efficiency at low cost. The performance of the proposed driver was verified experimentally.
Patterns of treatment services and costs for young offenders with mental disorders.

PROBLEM: This study describes mental health treatment service delivery patterns and costs for youth in a juvenile justice system. METHODS: A secondary data analysis on a random sample of juvenile offenders (N = 312) was completed. Service patterns and costs were described. Selected variables were examined for their ability to predict who received treatment. FINDINGS: Only 23% of youth diagnosed with a mental disorder received any treatment. Older youth and African American youth received fewer services, and race was the only significant predictor for receiving treatment (p = .001). CONCLUSIONS: Mental health treatment services were scarce, and the data reflects a race bias in the provision of services. Although the law protects the right to treatment for these individuals, provision of services remains a challenge.
Regulation of glucose transport in skeletal muscle.

The entry of glucose into muscle cells is achieved primarily via a carrier-mediated system consisting of protein transport molecules. GLUT-1 transporter isoform is normally found in the sarcolemmal (SL) membrane and is thought to be involved in glucose transport under basal conditions. With insulin stimulation, glucose transport is accelerated by translocating GLUT-4 transporters from an intracellular pool out to the T-tubule and SL membranes. Activation of transporters to increase the turnover number may also be involved, but the evidence is far from conclusive. When insulin binds to its receptor, it autophosphorylates tyrosine and serine residues on the beta-subunit of the receptor. The tyrosine residues are thought to activate tyrosine kinases, which in turn phosphorylate/activate as yet unknown second messengers. Insulin receptor antibodies, however, have been reported to increase glucose transport without increasing kinase activity. Insulin resistance in skeletal muscle is a major characteristic of o...
Divergence estimation of continuous distributions based on data-dependent partitions

We present a universal estimator of the divergence D(P/spl par/Q) for two arbitrary continuous distributions P and Q satisfying certain regularity conditions. This algorithm, which observes independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) samples from both P and Q, is based on the estimation of the Radon-Nikodym derivative dP/dQ via a data-dependent partition of the observation space. Strong convergence of this estimator is proved with an empirically equivalent segmentation of the space. This basic estimator is further improved by adaptive partitioning schemes and by bias correction. The application of the algorithms to data with memory is also investigated. In the simulations, we compare our estimators with the direct plug-in estimator and estimators based on other partitioning approaches. Experimental results show that our methods achieve the best convergence performance in most of the tested cases.
Syndepositional diagenesis of modern platform carbonates: Evidence from isotopic and minor element data

Physical, elemental, and stable isotopic evidence documents significant syndepositional diagenesis off biogenic carbonate in modern sediment pore water. Halimeda (aragonite) and Neogoniolithon (high-Mg calcite) fragments from sediment cores and experimental substrates were compared with fresh samples to determine the magnitude of minor element (Sr, Mg), and stable isotopic (C and O) compositional shifts. Although no significant shift in bulk sediment mineralogy is apparent, experimental substrates and natural biogenic grains exhibit significant diagenetic changes. These changes include dissolution textures, net loss of mass, changes in minor element composition, and progressive evolution toward carbon and oxygen isotopic equilibrium with p ore water. Our results demonstrate that carbonate sediment can undergo rapid syndepositional dissolution and reprecipitation. Pore waters likely are buffered chemically and isotopically by most abundant carbonate grain types. In turn, compositions of less abundant carbonate grains may shift toward equilibrium with respect to pore water. Therefore, many components of shelf limestone have compositions controlled by chemically evolved pore waters rather than by seawater from which the biotic carbonate originally precipitated.
Detection of sub-clinical CWD infection in conventional test-negative deer long after oral exposure to urine and feces from CWD+ deer.

Background Chronic wasting disease (CWD) of cervids is a prion disease distinguished by high levels of transmissibility, wherein bodily fluids and excretions are thought to play an important role. Using cervid bioassay and established CWD detection methods, we have previously identified infectious prions in saliva and blood but not urine or feces of CWD+ donors. More recently, we identified very low concentrations of CWD prions in urine of deer by cervid PrP transgenic (Tg[CerPrP]) mouse bioassay and serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA). This finding led us to examine further our initial cervid bioassay experiments using sPMCA.
One Hundred Years of Psychology and Religion: Issues and Trends in a Century Long Quest. Edited by Peter H. M. P. Roelofsma, Jozef M. T. Corveleyn, and Joke W. van Saane. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2003. 189 pp., $33.60 paper

This fine book is a collection of papers given at a conference held in 2003 at the Free University of Amsterdam in celebration of the centenary of William James's classic work The Varieties of Reli...
What Determines Student Evaluation Scores? A Random Effects Analysis of Undergraduate Economics Classes

Student evaluation scores are a standard component of the way colleges and universities assess the quality of an instructor’s teaching for purposes of promotion and tenure, as well as merit raise allocations. This paper applies a feasible generalized least squares model to a panel of data from undergraduate economics classes. We find that instructors can ‘‘buy’’ better evaluation scores by inflating students’ grade expectations. Class size and instructor experience are important determinants of evaluation scores in principles classes, but not in upper-level courses. Male instructors get better scores than females, and younger instructors are more popular than older ones. Certain other factors are also important determinants of evaluation scores. Our results suggest that an adjustment to the usual departmental rankings may be useful. Eastern Economic Journal (2009) 35, 37–51. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eej.9050042
Surgical Treatment of Facial Paralysis

The management of facial paralysis is one of the most complex areas of reconstructive surgery. Given the wide variety of functional and cosmetic deficits in the facial paralysis patient, the reconstructive surgeon requires a thorough understanding of the surgical techniques available to treat this condition. This review article will focus on surgical management of facial paralysis and the treatment options available for acute facial paralysis ( 2 yr). For acute facial paralysis, the main surgical therapies are facial nerve decompression and facial nerve repair. For facial paralysis of intermediate duration, nerve transfer procedures are appropriate. For chronic facial paralysis, treatment typically requires regional or free muscle transfer. Static techniques of facial reanimation can be used for acute, intermediate, or chronic facial paralysis as these techniques are often important adjuncts to the overall management strategy.
A straw model simulating nanoindentation

In this work, we introduce a new model, based on straws, to simulate nanoindentation in a close-packed atomic plane as an alternative to the Bragg–Nye bubble raft model. Upon indentation, our results match quantitatively and/or qualitatively the Bragg–Nye and the atomistic computer simulation models. The straw model also explains the apparent physical cause for the formation of slip-steps or pile-ups at the free surface of the indented material. Finally the model can simulate plane-stress or plane-strain conditions.
Epigenetic Reprogramming in Lung Carcinomas

Lung carcinomas have been the leading causes of cancer-associated death in both sexes worldwide. Epidemiological studies demonstrated that cigarette smoking and other environmental factors such as radon or asbestos can also contribute to lung cancer development. Environmental chemicals can promote cancer formation by causing lesions in genomic DNA and/or by inducing various alterations in the epigenomes of cells lining the airways. Epithelial cells whose epigenome has significantly become altered or damaged can become transformed (i.e., reprogrammed) and start to exhibit malignant properties. With the advent of the postgenomic era and its advanced methodological arsenal, genome-wide analysis tools have become available that have contributed to the identification of the involved epigenetic factors and map disease-associated epigenome profile changes. These studies proved that DNA methylation, posttranslational modification of histones, and noncoding RNAs are also involved in lung cancer development. Coordinated epigenetic and genetic studies can provide new insights into the etiology of lung carcinomas, and perhaps extend the currently used diagnostic and therapeutic arsenal for cancer patients.
Faculty--agents of change.

In medical schools and residencies, the faculty in all settings and through all facets of the curriculum influence learners’ skills, attitudes, and behaviors. Mentorship and role modeling are powerful forces in shaping a professional. To positively affect the number of students seeking to enter the generalist specialties, the faculty community will need reevaluation, expansion, and professional development. This paper discusses some of the hurdles for institutional leaders and offers pragmatic suggestions for beginning the process of retooling the faculty. A matrix is presented to describe the multifaceted faculty required for educating the generalist.
Coping with the metabolic stress of leaving home

Detachment from extracellular matrix causes metabolic defects that transformed cells must overcome in order to survive and proliferate outside of their normal niche. A recent report from Jiang et al. published in Nature describes how cancer cells grown in suspension utilize reductive carboxylation of glutamine to transfer reducing power from the cytosol to mitochondria to detoxify reactive oxygen species and promote anchorage-independent growth and survival.
Amino acid transport by juxtamedullary nephrons: distal reabsorption and recycling.

Amino acid transport by juxtamedullary (JM) nephrons and its relationship to transport by superficial cortical (SC) nephrons and to function of vasa recta and collecting ducts were examined in vivo...
Immunological tolerance. A clinical perspective

Human alloantibodies to factor VIII occur in 15-50% of patients with severe hemophilia A. The development of these inhibitory alloantibodies prevents treatment with replacement factor Vllland places the patient at higher risk for complications from bleeding. Immune tolerance to factor VIII can be achieved in patients with inhibitors through the regular administration of factor VIII. The mechanism by which immune tolerance is achieved is unclear but the regular administration of factor VIII is believed to interrupt the normal immune mechanisms, perhaps by altering antigen presentation and inducing T or B cell anergy. The development of immune tolerance in hemophilia can be seen as a potential model for the development of methods for inducing tolerance to other alloimmune and autoimmune disorders.
Overview of Islamic Finance

The Sharī‘a (Islamic Law) has formal rules about risk. In Arabic, ‘ gharar ’ is the loosely equivalent term to the English concepts of ‘risk’ or ‘uncertainty.’ It is sometimes said that gharar is prohibited. That is an overstatement, insofar as risk and its transfer by mutual consent are at the heart of any financial transaction. However, it is accurate to say the Sharī‘a contains important precepts about risk taking and risk shifting.
Stability of Dispersions and Interactions in Nanostructured Fluids

Stability in solution is a critical fundamental property of nanoparticles (NPs). Understanding NP stability enables their manipulation and processing for a wide variety of applications that exploit the unique material properties of NPs. Here, we invoke descriptions of colloidal stability from DLVO theory and the use of polymeric stabilizers and discuss its extension to NP stability and aggregation. Applications of NP aggregation will be discussed.
Competitive Interfacial Effects of Surfactant Chemicals on Clathrate Hydrate Particle Cohesion

In oilfield production conditions, many chemicals are present in the form of natural surfactants that occur in the oil phase as well as additives that are injected to control the properties of the liquid phases. These additives may include low-dosage hydrate inhibitors, such as kinetic hydrate inhibitors or anti-agglomerants, corrosion or scale inhibitors, dispersants, emulsifiers, etc. To achieve slurry flow in subsea oil flowlines, the agglomeration of hydrate particles must be minimized so that small, dispersed hydrate particles are transportable rather than forming larger aggregates that may plug the flowline. While many compounds that are present in flowlines are known to affect the cohesion force between hydrate particles, each chemical is often studied separately, where no other additives are present. This study focuses on classifying the possible interactions of different classes of chemicals from the cohesion force between hydrate particles. A micromechanical force apparatus was used to measure t...
Clinical Application of Picodroplet Digital PCR Technology for Rapid Detection of EGFR T790M in Next-Generation Sequencing Libraries and DNA from Limited Tumor Samples

Although next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a robust technology for comprehensive assessment of EGFR-mutant lung adenocarcinomas with acquired resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors, it may not provide sufficiently rapid and sensitive detection of the EGFR T790M mutation, the most clinically relevant resistance biomarker. Here, we describe a digital PCR (dPCR) assay for rapid T790M detection on aliquots of NGS libraries prepared for comprehensive profiling, fully maximizing broad genomic analysis on limited samples. Tumor DNAs from patients with EGFR-mutant lung adenocarcinomas and acquired resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors were prepared for Memorial Sloan-Kettering-Integrated Mutation Profiling of Actionable Cancer Targets sequencing, a hybrid capture-based assay interrogating 410 cancer-related genes. Precapture library aliquots were used for rapid EGFR T790M testing by dPCR, and results were compared with NGS and locked nucleic acid-PCR Sanger sequencing (reference high sensitivity method). Seventy resistance samples showed 99% concordance with the reference high sensitivity method in accuracy studies. Input as low as 2.5 ng provided a sensitivity of 1% and improved further with increasing DNA input. dPCR on libraries required less DNA and showed better performance than direct genomic DNA. dPCR on NGS libraries is a robust and rapid approach to EGFR T790M testing, allowing most economical utilization of limited material for comprehensive assessment. The same assay can also be performed directly on any limited DNA source and cell-free DNA.
Phylogenetic Analysis of Aquaspirillum Magnetotacticum Using PCR-Amplified 16S Ribosomal RNA-Specific DNA

The 16S rRNA encoding gene of the magnetogenic bacterium Aquaspirillum magnetotacticum strain MS1 was amplified by the polymerase chain reaction, cloned and sequenced. The amplified DNA sequence was generated with two eubacterial consensus oligodeoxynucleotide primers defining the majority of the 16S rRNA gene. Sequence analysis of the amplified, cloned DNA indicated that A. magnetotacticum MS1 belongs in the alpha purple eubacterial phylogenetic group. Nucleotide sequence obtained from reverse transcription of 16S rRNA from A. magnetotacticum MS1 was consistent with that of the cloned, amplified DNA confirming that the latter originated from strain MS1. Ribosomal RNA sequence analysis can be expected to define the phylogenetic relatedness among magnetogens.