cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Monomorphic post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder of the tongue: case report and review of literature.

Background Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) is a spectrum of hematological diseases arising in context of immunosuppression after organ transplantation. PTLD can involve any organ; however, it is extremely rare in oral cavity.
Cure of Cushing's Disease by Transsphenoidal Removal of a Microadenoma from a Pituitary Gland Despite a Radiographically Normal Sella Turcica

A 37-year-old woman had symptoms ot Cushing's disease for two years. Galactorrhea was present. The diagnosis was confirmed by finding intermittently elevated urinary 17-hydroxysteroids, absent circadian rhythm, and elevated plasma ACTH. Plasma prolactin was slightly elevated. Films of the sella turcica were normal. A 9 mm basophilic microadenoma was removed by the transsphenoidal approach. Immunocytochemical and electron-microscopic studies showed that the tumor was composed exclusively of ACTH-secreting cells. Endocrine reevaluation one year later revealed normal adrenal function. Serum prolactin had returned to normal. This case provides further evidence that Cushing's disease can be caused by a pituitary mieroadenoma insufficient in size to deform the sella.
Bcl2 induces DNA replication stress by inhibiting ribonucleotide reductase.

DNA replication stress is an inefficient DNA synthesis process that leads replication forks to progress slowly or stall. Two main factors that cause replication stress are alterations in pools of deoxyribonucleotide (dNTP) precursors required for DNA synthesis and changes in the activity of proteins required for synthesis of dNTPs. Ribonucleotide reductase (RNR), containing regulatory hRRM1 and catalytic hRRM2 subunits, is the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of ribonucleoside diphosphates (NDPs) to deoxyribonucleoside diphosphates (dNDPs) and thereby provides dNTP precursors needed for the synthesis of DNA. Here, we demonstrate that either endogenous or exogenous expression of Bcl2 results in decreases in RNR activity and intracellular dNTP, retardation of DNA replication fork progression and increased rate of fork asymmetry leading to DNA replication stress. Bcl2 co-localizes with hRRM1 and hRRM2 in the cytoplasm and directly interacts via its BH4 domain with hRRM2 but not hRRM1. Removal of the BH4 domain of Bcl2 abrogates its inhibitory effects on RNR activity, dNTP pool level and DNA replication. Intriguingly, Bcl2 directly inhibits RNR activity by disrupting the functional hRRM1/hRRM2 complex via its BH4 domain. Our findings argue that Bcl2 reduces intracellular dNTPs by inhibiting ribonucleotide reductase activity, thereby providing insight into how Bcl2 triggers DNA replication stress.
The Effect of Improper Priors on Gibbs Sampling in Hierarchical Linear Mixed Models

Abstract Often, either from a lack of prior information or simply for convenience, variance components are modeled with improper priors in hierarchical linear mixed models. Although the posterior distributions for these models are rarely available in closed form, the usual conjugate structure of the prior specification allows for painless calculation of the Gibbs conditionals. Thus the Gibbs sampler may be used to explore the posterior distribution without ever having established propriety of the posterior. An example is given showing that the output from a Gibbs chain corresponding to an improper posterior may appear perfectly reasonable. Thus one cannot expect the Gibbs output to provide a “red flag,” informing the user that the posterior is improper. The user must demonstrate propriety before a Markov chain Monte Carlo technique is used. A theorem is given that classifies improper priors according to the propriety of the resulting posteriors. Applications concerning Bayesian analysis of animal breeding...
An Efficient Accessibility Model: Applications for Airline Network Analysis

This article describes an efficient, systematic procedure for ranking the accessibility and centrality of stations, using graph theoretic methods to identify pivotal and marginal points. Alitalia Airlines' Far East route structure and South African Airlines' domestic network are used to illustrate the model and its implications on the strategic location of headquarters, technical support services, conference sites and tourist attractions. The impact on aircraft deployment is also examined. The article addresses the logistical implications of the addition or deletion of new sectors or stations by way of sensitivity analysis and anticipates the growth of hub and spoke airline networks to increase total network connectivity and accessibility.
Laboratory experiments and models of diffusive emplacement of ground ice on Mars

Experiments demonstrate for the first time the deposition of subsurface ice directly from atmospheric water vapor under Mars surface conditions. Deposition occurs at pressures below the triple point of water and therefore in the absence of a bulk liquid phase. Significant quantities of ice are observed to deposit in porous medium interstices; the maximum filling fraction observed in our experiments is ~90%, but the evidence is consistent with ice density in pore spaces asymptotically approaching 100% filling. The micromorphology of the deposited ice reveals several noteworthy characteristics including preferential early deposition at grain contact points, complete pore filling between some grains, and captured atmospheric gas bubbles. The boundary between ice-bearing and ice-free soil, the “ice table,” is a sharp interface, consistent with theoretical investigations of subsurface ice dynamics. Changes of surface radiative properties are shown to affect ice table morphology through their modulation of the local temperature profile. Accumulation of ice is shown to reduce the diffusive flux and thus reduce the rate of further ice deposition. Numerical models of the experiments based on diffusion physics are able to reproduce experimental ice contents if the parameterization of growth rate reduction has expected contributions in addition to reduced porosity. Several phenomena related to the evolution of subsurface ice are discussed in light of these results, and interpretations are given for a range of potential observations being made by the Phoenix Scout Lander.
Hippocampus and Pavlovian fear conditioning in rats: muscimol infusions into the ventral, but not dorsal, hippocampus impair the acquisition of conditional freezing to an auditory conditional stimulus.

The authors compared the effects of pharmacological inactivation of the dorsal hippocampus (DH) or ventral hippocampus (VH) on Pavlovian fear conditioning in rats. Freezing behavior served as the measure of fear. Pretraining infusions of muscimol, a GABAA receptor agonist, into the VH disrupted auditory, but not contextual, fear conditioning; DH infusions did not affect fear conditioning. Pretesting inactivation of the VH or DH did not affect the expression of conditional freezing. Pretraining electrolytic lesions of the VH reproduced the effects of muscimol infusions, whereas posttraining VH lesions disrupted both auditory and contextual freezing. Hence, neurons in the VH are importantly involved in the acquisition of auditory fear conditioning and the expression of auditory and contextual fear under some conditions. An abundance of evidence indicates that the hippocampus is importantly involved in associative learning and memory (Anagnostaras, Gale, & Fanselow, 2001; Douglas, 1967; Eichenbaum,
Sensors using AlGaN/GaN based high electron mobility transistor for environmental and bio-applications

AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) based sensors have been developed to analyze a wide variety of gases and biological agents for bio medical applications. The conducting 2DEG channel of GaN/AlGaN HEMTs is very close to the surface and extremely sensitive to adsorption of analytes. Examples of detecting breath cancer marker, carbon monoxide carbon dioxide, kidney injury molecule, and botulinum toxin are discussed in this paper.
Tissue Doppler Imaging Consistently Detects Myocardial Contraction and Relaxation Abnormalities, Irrespective of Cardiac Hypertrophy, in a Transgenic Rabbit Model of Human Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Background—Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is diagnosed clinically by the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). However, LVH is absent in a significant number of genotype-positive patients. Because myocyte dysfunction and disarray are the primary abnormalities in HCM, we reasoned that tissue Doppler imaging could identify contraction and relaxation abnormalities, irrespective of hypertrophy, in a transgenic rabbit model of human HCM. Methods and Results—M-mode, 2D, Doppler echocardiography and tissue Doppler imaging were performed in nontransgenic (n=24), wild-type β-myosin heavy chain-arginine403 (n=14), and mutant β-myosin heavy chain-glutamic acid403 (n=24) transgenic rabbits. Mean septal thicknesses were 2.0±0.3, 2.0±0.25, and 2.75±0.3 mm in the 3 groups, respectively (P=0.001). LVH was absent in 9 of the 24 mutant rabbits. Left ventricular dimensions, systolic function, heart rate, mitral inflow velocities, and time intervals were similar in the groups. However, the difference between atr...
Cell quality of salvaged blood after total knee arthroplasty : drain blood compared to venous blood in 32 patients

We used the ConstaVac drainage retransfusion system in 32 patients operated on with cemented tricompartmental knee arthroplasty. The mean total postoperative bleeding was 1.1 L of which 0.7 L was retransfused within 8 hours postoperatively. Samples were taken from the venous blood and drain blood at 2 hours and 6-8 hours postoperatively. The drain blood had low counts for leukocytes and thrombocytes as compared to venous blood, and fibrinogen was almost absent. Incubation at room temperature slightly lowered glucose and pH which made the erythrocytes swell. There was a slight hemolysis in the drain blood at 2 hours. At 6-8 hours the shed blood was closer to normal, especially with regard to hemolysis, but there was a further decrease in glucose. Within this time, there was no change in acidity and no further swelling of the erythrocytes. No clinical adverse reactions were observed and we consider the observed cellular and chemical changes to be of little importance. The quality of filtered drain blood within the analyzed time limit is considered acceptable for clinical use.
Adaptive Radar Detection in Doubly Nonstationary Autoregressive Doppler Spread Clutter

The problem of adaptive radar detection in clutter which is nonstationary both in slow and fast time is addressed. Nonstationarity within a coherent processing interval (CPI) often precludes target detection because of the masking induced by Doppler spreading of the clutter. Across range bins (i.e., fast time), nonstationarity severely limits the amount of training data available to estimate the noise covariance matrix required for adaptive detection. Such difficult clutter conditions are not uncommon in complex multipath propagation conditions where path lengths can change abruptly in dynamic scenarios. To mitigate nonstationary Doppler spread clutter, an approximation to the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) detector is presented wherein the CPI from the hypothesized target range is used for both clutter estimation and target detection. To overcome the lack of training data, a modified time-varying autoregressive (TVAR) model is assumed for the clutter return. In particular, maximum likelihood (ML) estimates of the TVAR parameters, computed from a single snapshot of data, are used in a GLRT for detecting stationary targets in possibly abruptly nonstationary clutter. The GLRT is compared with three alternative methods including a conceptually simpler ad hoc approach based on extrapolation of quasi-stationary data segments. Detection performance is assessed using simulated targets in both synthetically-generated and real radar clutter. Results suggest the proposed GLRT with TVAR clutter modeling can provide between 5-8 dB improvement in signal-to-clutter plus noise ratio (SCNR) when compared with the conventional methods.
Core-Shell Structured Nanowire Spin Valves

Nanowire based magnetic spin valves utilizing a core-shell device architecture about free-standing Ni nanowires have been fabricated and characterized. Devices containing sequential shell layers of CoO(10 nm)-Co(5 nm)-Cu(5 nm)-Co(5 nm) deposited through sputter deposition around the chemical-vapor-deposited Ni core nanowires exhibit a giant magnetoresistance effect of ~9%, which matches that of the corresponding planar thin film multilayer. The Ni nanowires which serve as the device platforms are obtained in diameters ranging from 100 nm through 300 nm and typical heights of 20 micrometers or greater. Since the nanowires are oriented vertically upon Si/SiO2 growth substrates they allow the creation of core-shell spin valve devices with an orientation, aspect ratio, and distribution difficult to achieve with conventional thin film methodologies. The demonstrated, fully-functional, nanowire-based spin valve establishes the viability of magnetic multi-layer device structures in the core-shell implementation. Devices of this nature have potential in various applications including high-acuity magnetic field sensing.
Nearly Half Of All Medicare Hospice Enrollees Received Care From Agencies Owned By Regional Or National Chains

Analyses of ownership in the US hospice sector have focused on the growth of for-profit hospice care and on aggregate differences in patient populations and service use patterns between for-profit and not-for-profit agencies. Such comparisons, although useful, do not offer insights about the types of organizations within the hospice sector, including the emergence of multiagency chains. Using Medicare cost report data for the period 2000–11, we tracked the evolution of the US hospice industry. We not only describe the market’s composition by profit status but also provide new information about the roles of regional and national chains. Almost half of all Medicare hospice enrollees in 2011 received hospice services from a multiagency chain. A handful of companies play a prominent role, although the presence of smaller for-profit and not-for-profit hospice chains also has grown in recent years. By focusing on the role of the diverse organizations that provide hospice care, our analyses can help inform effor...
Intrarenal and subcellular localization of rat CLC5

Dent’s disease, an inherited disorder characterized by hypercalciuria, nephrolithiasis, nephrocalcinosis, rickets, low-molecular-weight proteinuria, Fanconi’s syndrome, and renal failure, is caused...
Cell wall studies of Histoplasma capsulatum.

Purified cell walls, prepared from the filamentous and parasitic phases of Histoplasma capsulatum, were analyzed chemically. Analysis of alkali extractable and alkali resistant materials revealed only quantitative differences in polysaccharide content. Glucose was the only neutral hexose associated with these fractions. Hydrolysis of the alkali resistant cell wall material and subsequent amino acid determinations revealed quantitative and qualitative differences. The alkali resistant material of the filamentous phase contains more amino acid material than the yeast phase. The purified cell walls were immunogenic in rabbits.
Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans Mediate Interleukin-7– Dependent B Lymphopoiesis

Heparin/heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) have the potential to bind and directly regulate the bioactivity of hematopoietic growth factors including interleukin-7 (IL-7), a cytokine critical for murine B-cell development. We examined the consequence of manipulating soluble heparin and cell-surface heparan sulfate to IL-7-dependent responses of B-cell precursors. Soluble heparin was found to inhibit production of lymphoid, but not myeloid, cells in long-term bone marrow cultures. Analysis of pro-B cells lacking plasma membrane HS suggests that this glycosaminoglycan is required for efficient binding and responsiveness to IL-7. By contrast, responses of hematopoietic cells to other cytokines were not influenced by heparin addition or HS removal. Therefore, HSPGs on B-lineage precursors may function as IL-7 receptor components similar to HSPGs known to be important for the bFGF receptor. Other experiments suggest that HSPGs on the surface of stromal cells provide a weakly associating docking site for IL-7, possibly controlling availability of this cytokine to B-cell precursors. Together these data demonstrate a direct role for heparinlike molecules in regulating the IL-7-dependent stages of murine B lymphopoiesis.
What Happens when Queens' Stings are Clipped?

(1960). What Happens when Queens' Stings are Clipped? Bee World: Vol. 41, No. 11-12, pp. 288-290.
Desert, Deontology, and Vengeance

In a series of recent writings, Paul Robinson has defended “empirical desert” as the way of deriving distributive principles for determining who should be punished and by how much. Desert is, of course, an idea with a long history, and its precise role in criminal law has been much debated. In addressing various criticisms of desert in criminal law, Robinson distinguishes empirical desert from what he calls “deontological desert” and “vengeful desert.” Robinson’s strategy, which I call “divide and deflect,” fights off various objections traditionally leveled against the use of desert in criminal law by arguing that most of those objections may be valid for “deontological” and “vengeful” desert but are not applicable to “empirical desert.” So, for instance, “vengeful desert” can be too harsh, may be based on anger and hatred, and give only vague guidance, and “deontological desert” judgments may be too contested to be useful for policy makers, but, Robinson claims, empirical desert suffers from no such defects. Robinson’s core claims – about the need to tie desert assessments close to ordinary intuitions and the substantial crime control benefits to be derived when the state can successfully command respect as a moral authority – are valid. However, Robinson’s “empirical desert” needs what he calls “vengeful desert” and “deontological desert” to succeed, and his attempts to make his proposal resistant to the usual anti-retributivist objections by jettisoning the latter two may in the end hurt his project more than help.
New synthetic approaches to self-assembled chromophoric multilayers as second-order nonlinear optical materials

This contribution describes the synthesis and properties of NLO-active self-assembled chromophoric multilayers. The stilbazolium self-assembled multilayers were prepared by new topotactic approaches based on siloxane self-assembly technology. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), advancing aqueous contact angle (θa) measurements, transmission optical spectroscopy, polarized second harmonic generation (SHG), and specular X-ray rellectivity (XRR) show that the resulting self-assembled chromophoric superlattices have very high structural regularity and very large second-order nonlinear optical susceptibility.
Reactive Magnetron Sputtering of Silicon in AR + CH4: Identity and Energy of the Slc Growth Species

Double-modulation mass spectrometry is used to analyze the identity and energy distribution of the particle flux during low-temperature growth of Si1-xCx by reactive magnetron sputtering of a silicon target in 3 mTorr argon and 0 - 0.35 mTorr methane. The ion fluxes, methane consumption, film deposition rate, and film composition are determined as a function of the methane partial pressure at fixed target current. Argon, silicon, carbon and hydrocarbon ions are detected at the substrate position. The argon and hydrocarbon ions have a narrow energy distribution consistent with the plasma potential. The silicon and carbon ions have a broad energy spread, consistent with that of sputtered neutrals which are post-ionized by the plasma. The film composition (C/Si) varies in the same manner as the arrival ratio of (C+/Si+) ions, but does not correlate well with the arrival ratio of (SCHX+/Si+) ions or the methane consumption rate. We conclude that the main source of carbon in Si1-xCx films is the sputtering of C atoms from the Si target surface.
Effect of Water Content on Clay Pore Size using an Atomic Force Microscope

Clays and its composites have been widely used in the past as a secondary containment wall for underground storage tanks and landfills. The underground storage tanks are used commonly to store gasoline and other organic chemicals, both in the industry and the commercial market. Recent studies have shown that these secondary containment walls are failing. Gasoline and many other organic contaminants pass through clay liners without much effort. This study attempts to evaluate the changes occurring in the interactions between water molecules and clay particles at a microscopic level, using an atomic force microscope, for varying levels of water content. The pore size changes occurring in the clay particle lattice have a profound effect on the permeability of clay. The results show that the clay pore diameters reduce exponentially as the water content increases. This change of pore size can be attributed to the reduction in the size of the diffuse double layer and more extensive hydrogen bonds between clay particles and bipolar water molecules. Due to sample preparation difficulties, however, the pore diameters were obtained when the clay was dry, while interest for underground storage tank containment layer is for wet conditions.
Outcome of early hepatic portoenterostomy for biliary atresia.

Background The outcome of the hepatic portoenterostomy (Kasai) procedure for biliary atresia is improved when it is performed before 90 days of age. However, it is not known whether intervention before 30 days is better than intervention between 30 and 90 days. Methods The authors reviewed the records of all patients seen by the Pediatric Gastroenterology Service at St. Louis Children's Hospital from 1984-1999 to ascertain the outcome of patients who underwent Kasai procedure before or after 30 days of age. Results Of 92 patients with biliary atresia treated at St. Louis Children's Hospital over 15 years, 9 underwent the Kasai procedure before 30 days of age. Liver transplantation was necessary in 77.8% of these patients at a mean age of 11.0 +/- 4.26 months, as compared with 53.4% at 32.14 +/- 7.14 months for the remainder of the patients who underwent the procedure after 30 days of age. Conclusions Although these data suggest that outcomes are worse for patients who undergo the procedure before 30 days of age, they may reflect a difference in the pathogenesis of biliary atresia that brings it to clinical attention earlier and may provide further evidence that biliary atresia is a phenotype for a number of distinct underlying disease processes.
Microstructure and Internal Friction of Low Density TiB_2/Al Based Composites

In order to obtain Al based composites with favorable microstructure and high internal friction,the TiB2/Al based composite was fabricated with an exothermic reaction process via K2TiF6 and KBF4 salts(LSM).The prepared composite was characterized by scanning electronic microscope,optical microscope and X-ray diffraction.And the internal friction capacity was also investigated.The results indicate that the density of TiB2/Al composite prepared by LSM was lower than 3.5 g·cm-3,the in-situ TiB2 phase was fine and well-distributed,and the composites performed well in internal friction(the internal friction value was about 6.65×10-3).So the TiB2/Al based composites was a kind of material with low density and high internal friction.
A Case of a Peripancreatic Paraganglioma: A Diagnostic Challenge on Fine Needle Aspiration

Paragangliomas are rare tumors affecting 1 to 2/100,000 adults per year. Extra-adrenal paragangliomas presenting as pancreatic/peripancreatic masses are even rarer and pose a diagnostic challenge on fine needle aspiration (FNA), with a high rate of diagnostic error (50% in case reports). Due to nonspecific clinical and radiographic findings often mimicking more common pancreatic neoplasms, the diagnosis …
Morphine binding to human plasma proteins

The interaction of (N-methyl-14C) morphine with purified human albumin and gamma globulin and with human plasma was studied by equilibrium dialysis. Morphine binds to albumin and, to a lesser extent, to gamma globulin, but probably does not bind to plasma lipoproteins. The per cent of drug bound to protein was dependent on protein concentration but independent of drug concentration in the therapeutic range of plasma morphine concentration. In this range, 34.0% to 37.5% of the drug is bound to human plasma, largely to the albumin fraction. This study is compared to an earlier one on the interaction of methadone with plasma proteins. It is likely that the lower lipid solubility of morphine compared to methadone is related to its decreased affinity for plasma proteins.
Structural asperity focusing locking and earthquake slip along the Nicoya megathrust, Costa Rica

On 5 September 2012, a moment magnitude 7.6 earthquake occurred along the locked megathrust interface directly beneath the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. The event was anticipated given the history of frequent large earthquakes and recent GPS results. Strain accumulation observed before and coseismic slip observed during the earthquake create a novel and important data set, offering a unique look at the strain and locking behavior around a large megathrust environment. Given this geodetic data, and a newly developed regional 3-D subduction interface, we develop a regionally appropriate finite element model to evaluate the role of interface topography in generating interseismic locking and ultimately coseismic slip following the 2012 earthquake. We find that the interface is most strongly coupled in a patch immediately beneath the central portion of Nicoya in an area where a topographic high in the downgoing Cocos Plate is resisting further subduction. This zone is the dominant slip environment in the 2012 earthquake. Reevaluation of the interseismic locking over 62 years before the most recent event finds that the total accumulated moment potential (M0 = 3.48 × 1020 N m) well matches the total moment release in the 2012 rupture found here (M0 = 3.73 × 1020 N m, Mw 7.68), with rupture extending to the SE outside of the strongly locked region, possibly as early afterslip. In contrast to a prior study, little locking is required immediately offshore Nicoya—a conclusion important for understanding the rupture area of the 2012 event, regional tsunami potential, and relation with regionally observed shallow slow-slip events.
Design of optical data vortex cluster network for large data center network

This paper proposes a cluster of Data Vortex optical networks for interconnections among servers within a large Data Center Network. The localized traffic pattern is better matched with a cluster of subnetworks design. The proposed scheme promotes more effective and flexible arrangement of network resources, and such a cluster network is adaptable to different sizes and traffic conditions. The variations in its design and the performance comparison to that of a single network are discussed in details. The case studies demonstrate the main benefits in reduced latency for localized traffic. The overall network and data throughput is also improved.
Endoscopy in Crohn’s disease of the pouch

Restorative proctocolectomy with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis is the standard surgical treatment modality for ulcerative colitis patients who require colectomy. While the surgical procedure improves health-related quality of life in patients with refractory colitis, it is associated with an array of mechanical, inflammatory, and functional disorders of the pouch. Crohn’s disease of the pouch is one of the most serious inflammatory complications. The majority of those patients develop the disease after surgery (de novo Crohn’s disease). Crohn’s disease of the pouch can be classified into inflammatory, stricturing, and fistulizing phenotypes. Pouchoscopy plays a key role in the diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and therapy for Crohn’s disease of the pouch.
Gigahertz All-Optical Modulation Using Reconfigurable Nanophotonic Metamolecules.

We report the design of reconfigurable metamolecules consisting a large array of nanowire featuring U-shaped cross section. These nanoscale metamolecules support colocalized electromagnetic resonance at optical frequencies and mechanical resonance at GHz frequencies with a deep-subdiffraction-limit spatial confinement (∼λ2/100). The coherent coupling of those two distinct resonances manifests a strong optical force, which is fundamentally different from the commonly studied forms of radiation forces, gradient forces, or photothermal induced deformation. The strong optical force acting upon the built-in compliance further sets the stage for allowing the metamolecules to dynamically change their optical properties upon the incident light. The all-optical modulation at the frequency at 1.8 GHz has thus been demonstrated experimentally using a monolayer of metamolecules. The metamolecules were conveniently fabricated using complementary metal-oxide–semiconductor-compatible metal deposition and nanoimprinting ...
Guided bone regeneration using an absorbable membrane combined with a one-stage implant into a recent extraction site: a case report

Guided bone regeneration using an absorbable membrane combined with one-stage implants was used to treat a 45-year-old woman. Two months following tooth extraction, two implants were placed--one in the extraction site and one in a healed site. An absorbable membrane was applied to cover the bony defect in this recent extraction site. After a 24-month follow-up, probing depths were normal, increased radiopacity was seen in the extraction site, and the implant was still clinically stable.
Convergence of spoken and written language processing in the superior temporal sulcus

Spoken and written language processing streams converge in the superior temporal sulcus (STS), but the functional and anatomical nature of this convergence is not clear. We used functional MRI to quantify neural responses to spoken and written language, along with unintelligible stimuli in each modality, and employed several strategies to segregate activations on the dorsal and ventral banks of the STS. We found that intelligible and unintelligible inputs in both modalities activated the dorsal bank of the STS. The posterior dorsal bank was able to discriminate between modalities based on distributed patterns of activity, pointing to a role in encoding of phonological and orthographic word forms. The anterior dorsal bank was agnostic to input modality, suggesting that this region represents abstract lexical nodes. In the ventral bank of the STS, responses to unintelligible inputs in both modalities were attenuated, while intelligible inputs continued to drive activation, indicative of higher level semantic and syntactic processing. Our results suggest that the processing of spoken and written language converges on the posterior dorsal bank of the STS, which is the first of a heterogeneous set of language regions within the STS, with distinct functions spanning a broad range of linguistic processes.
Taking an In-depth Look at Political Parties on Facebook: What they are Saying, How they are Saying it, and How Party Members Respond

This study identifies the various communication tools and content styles political parties use to reach their Facebook constituency, examines the degree to which they are used, and evaluates the effectiveness of their engagement. Three means of analysis are used: number and frequency of posts by the party, types of posts being made, and responses to the posts by the public. This work thus provides a baseline for discussion on the question of how political parties can and have capitalized on online social media networks in order to effect political engagement, participation, and mobilization.
The World Bank and Slum Upgrading

This chapter aims to provide a critical overview of the World Bank’s loaning policies. Such a broad perspective would help better understand the conditions under which the Bank operates and the ways in which the borrowing countries could possibly benefit more from such loans. To even get a better sense, a preliminary distinction is made between the two key supranational banking agencies, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since both of these agencies have actively funded projects in many developing countries, drawing from their distinct borrowing and lending practices will be helpful in thinking critically about their outcomes. While acknowledging the World Bank’s track record in providing physical upgrading loans to assisting the low-income people, concepts including empowerment, enabling, and capacity building are also examined as considering physical upgrading as a panacea for these settlements would be naive indeed. The chapter concludes that bridging the top-down physical upgrading approach and the bottom-up participatory component as the complementary attributes of any enabling effort.
Afro-Cultural Mulatto Communication Theory

The impact of Western educational system, structure, content and style has immensely affected Black people ontologically and, to a painful extent, their epistemological world view. As a result, Africa has continuously been under-classed by the Western forces of darkness. Almost everything about the continent is categorized and schooled in the minds of both Africans and non-Africans as sub-standard and consequently, is in urgent need of help, repair and intervention from the West! This deliberate brainwashing and blatant distortion of a people’s history with arrogant impunity has rendered most Africans and Blacks today to become cultural mulattos because they are not only bombarded by shimmering Western materialism but buffeted from right to left by the West. Western forces on the continent are there in order to underrate and, in some cases, disregard our languages and culture because Africa, as they claim had no history (Curtin, General History of Africa I: Methodology and African Prehistory, 1, 54–71, 1981; Mazrui, The Africans: A Triple Heritage. Washington, DC: Little Brown & Company, 1986; Fuglestad, History in Africa, 19, 309–326, 1992; Charbonneau, Modern & Contemporary France, 16, 279–295, 2008; Nengwekhulu, Journal of Public Administration, 44, 341–363, 2009). To them, the only history Africa had was the history of colonization. This complete insult on a people’s origins has emasculated Africans of their dignity, and humanity, thereby de-Africanizing them of their culture and communication. They have become socio-cultural and communicative mulattoes on the continent and abroad. Right now, the refrain is “us” working with “them” to please them in order to survive. This should not be conflated with us vs them kind of tug of war battle to see the winner in the battle field rather it is the “usness” and “themness” (Langmia and Mpande, Social Media: Pedagogy and Practice. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield, 2013) mentality ingrained in the minds of Africans that has made them become blind imitators of the West since they must crave to belong in order to be recognized. This imitation is what constitutes superficialities and artificialities in communication with one another using the colonizer’s language. But since nature and nurture are by themselves genetically ingrained in humans, Africans tend to still use their local languages in given settings for a desired effect, but increasingly, the volcanic neocolonial forces on the continent have created a situation of melange or hybridity that could compound meaning exchange in the very communicative process. It is this process that I term the Afro-Cultural Mulatto Theory of Communication henceforth abbreviated as AMTC.
Web-based application for sentiment analysis of live tweets

Sentiment analysis has gained a lot of importance and popularity during past few years. As an increasing number of people use social media to express their opinions, the ability to perform sentiment analysis in-order to predict opinions and attitudes has also increased. In this paper, we present our web-based application, that allows for visualization of current sentiments associated with a keyword (hashtag, phrase or word) of Twitter messages by plotting them on a map. This allows users to not only measure the sentiment but also map it's intensity in terms of geography. The primary motivation behind building this application is to provide a single automated platform, which serves as a complete end-to-end system for sentiment analysis of Twitter messages along with their visualization.
Physical activity patterns among Latinos in the United States: putting the pieces together.

INTRODUCTION: Estimates of participation in physical activity among Latinos are inconsistent across studies. To obtain better estimates and examine possible reasons for inconsistencies, we assessed 1) patterns of participation in various categories of physical activity among Latino adults, 2) changes in their activity patterns with acculturation, and 3) variations in their activity patterns by region of origin. METHODS: Using data from four national surveillance systems (the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2002; the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2003; the National Household Travel Survey, 2001; and the National Health Interview Survey Cancer Supplement, 2000), we estimated the percentage of Latinos who participated at least once per week in leisure-time, household, occupational, or transportation-related physical activity, as well as in an active pattern of usual daily activity. We reported prevalences by acculturation measures and region of origin. RESULTS: The percentage of Latinos who participated in the various types of physical activity ranged from 28.7% for having an active level of usual daily activity (usually walking most of the day and usually carrying or lifting objects) to 42.8% for participating in leisure-time physical activity at least once per week. The percentage who participated in leisure-time and household activities increased with acculturation, whereas the percentage who participated in occupational and transportation-related activities decreased with acculturation. Participation in an active level of usual daily activity did not change significantly. The prevalence of participation in transportation-related physical activity and of an active level of usual daily activity among Latino immigrants varied by region of origin. CONCLUSION: Physical activity patterns among Latinos vary with acculturation and region of origin. To assess physical activity levels in Latino communities, researchers should measure all types of physical activity and the effects of acculturation on each type of activity. Language: en
Beyond Supergravity in AdS-CFT: An Application to Jet Quenching

These notes are dedicated to the study of jet quenching in the strongly coupled limit using gauge/string duality. We are interested in corrections to the infinite coupling λ = ∞ result for the jet stopping, in powers of λ −1∕2. To estimate these corrections we need to go beyond supergravity in AdS-CFT, and include all higher-derivative corrections to the supergravity action which arise from the string α′ expansion. For the particular type of “jets” that we study, the expansion in λ −1∕2 is well behaved for jets whose stopping distance l stop is in the range \(\lambda ^{-1/6}\ell_{\mathrm{max}} \ll \ell_{\mathrm{stop}} \lesssim \ell_{\mathrm{max}}\), but the expansion breaks down for jets created in such a way that \(\ell_{\mathrm{stop}} \ll \lambda ^{-1/6}\ell_{\mathrm{max}}\). The reason for the breakdown of the λ −1∕2 expansion is caused by the excitation of massive string states. In particular, consider “jets” which are dual to high-momentum gravitons. In the black brane background the gravitons, which are closed string states, get stretched into relatively large classical strings by tidal forces. These stringy excitations of the graviton are not contained in the supergravity approximation, but the jet stopping problem can nonetheless still be solved by drawing on various string-theory methods (the eikonal approximation, the Penrose limit, string quantization in pp-wave backgrounds) to obtain a probability distribution for the late-time classical string loops.
Understanding Progressive Dementia: Making a Case for the Case History

Some very relevant information about Alzheimer’s disease and other progressive dementias has surfaced through the endeavors of health care professionals who painstakenly compiled case histories and noted observations over time of patients who presented with cognitive disorders. For example, during the first decade of this century, Alois Alzheimer, a neuropathologist, used a case study approach with historical dimensions to describe behavioral and mental changes in a patient with a progressive and irreversible form of dementia (Wolstenholme & O’Conner, 1970). Today, this condition is referred to as Alzheimer’s disease (AD or senile dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (SDAT). The information obtained by using the case history approach and clinical observations served as the impetus for Dr. Alzheimer’s post-mortem exploration of brain cells to identify changes associated with the dementia (Reisberg, 1981). This report is divided into two sections, the first section focuses upon the use of case histories to describe the onset and progression of AD, and the second portion describes a program of research which has developed a health history profile to discriminate between AD and other disorders.
Molecular physiology of ion channels that control cardiac repolarization

The mammalian heart operates as an electromechanical pump, the proper functioning of which depends critically on the sequential activation of cells throughout the myocardium and the coordinated activation of the ventricles (Fig. 1). Electrical signaling in the heart is mediated through regenerative action potentials that reflect the synchronized activity of multiple ion channels that open, close, and inactivate in response to changes in membrane potential (Fig. 1). The rapid upstroke of the action potential (phase 0) in ventricular and atrial cells, for example, is attributed to inward currents through voltage-gated Na+ (Nav) channels. Phase 0 is followed by a rapid phase of repolarization (phase 2), reflecting Nav channel inactivation and the activation of voltage-gated outward K+ (Kv) currents (Fig. 1). In ventricular cells, this transient repolarization or notch influences the height and duration of the action potential plateau (phase 2), which depends on the balance of inward (Ca2+ and Na+) currents and outward (K+) currents. The main contributor of inward current during the plateau phase is Ca2+ influx through high threshold, L-type voltage-gated Ca2+ (Cav) channels. The (L-type Ca2+) channels undergo Ca2+ and voltage-dependent inactivation and, as these channels inactivate, the outward K+ currents predominate resulting in a second, rapid phase (phase 3) of repolarization back to the resting potential (Fig. 1). The height and duration of the plateau, as well as the time-and voltage-dependent properties of the underlying Na+, Ca2+, and K+ channels determine action potential durations in individual cardiac cells. Changes in the properties or the densities of any of these channels, owing to underlying cardiac disease or as a result of the actions of cardiac and noncardiac drugs, therefore, is expected to have dramatic effects on action potential waveforms, refractory periods, and cardiac rhythms.
A with-carry Walsh transform

We introduce an arithmetic Walsh transform. It is a with-carry analog, based on modular arithmetic, of the usual Walsh transform of Boolean functions. This is part of our continuing effort to define and investigate with-carry analogs of discrete algebraic structures used in various aspects of communications. We develop tools for analyzing arithmetic Walsh transforms. We prove that the mapping from a Boolean function to its arithmetic Walsh transform is injective. We compute the average arithmetic Walsh transforms and the arithmetic Walsh transforms of affine functions.
Minimally invasive management of the entire treatment sequence in patients with stage IV colorectal cancer: a propensity-score weighting analysis.

Abstract Background In patients with stage IV colorectal cancer (CRC), minimally invasive surgery (MIS) may offer optimal oncologic outcome with low morbidity. However, the relative benefit of MIS compared to open surgery in patients requiring multistage resections has not been evaluated. Methods Patients who underwent totally minimally invasive (TMI) or totally open (TO) resections of CRC primary and liver metastases (CLM) in 2009–2016 were analyzed. Inverse probability of weighted adjustment by propensity score was performed before analyzing risk factors for complications and survival. Results The study included 43 TMI and 121 TO patients. Before and after adjustment, TMI patients had significantly less cumulated postoperative complications (41% vs. 59%, p = 0.001), blood loss (median 100 vs. 200 ml, p = 0.001) and shorter length of hospital stay (median 4.5 vs. 6.0 days, p Conclusion In patients with CRC undergoing multistage surgical treatment, MIS resection contributes to optimal perioperative outcomes without compromise in oncologic outcomes.
An Object Oriented Extensible Architecture for Multi-Level Systems Analysis

This paper discusses the salient features of the NPSS Architecture including its interface layer, object layer, implementation for accessing legacy codes, numerical zooming infrastructure and its computing layer. The computing layer focuses on the use and deployment of propulsion simulations on parallel and distributed computing platforms. Features of the NPSS architecture include support for Multi-Disciplinary (MD) Coupling, Computer Aided Design (CAD) access and MD coupling objects.
What to Do if You, a Family Member, or Friend Is Diagnosed with Schizophrenia or Suffers with Psychotic Symptoms

If you or a signifi cant other believe you might suffer from a psychotic mental illness or already have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, work with a trusted family member, friend, or caretaker to get the most effective treatment possible.
Factors Affecting the Functional Characteristics of Unmelted and Melted Mozzarella Cheese

Mozzarella is one of several pasta filata or stretched curd cheeses that originated in Italy. In the United States, Mozzarella cheese is classified by standards of identity into four categories based on moisture content and fat on a dry basis (FDB). The four categories are divided into two high moisture types and two low moisture types. The low moisture types, which are used predominantly in food service and processing as ingredients for pizza products, account for a large majority of the Mozzarella produced in the U.S. (Kindstedt, 1993b). This review will focus on low-moisture (LM) Mozzarella.