cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Tradeoff between robustness and elaboration in carotenoid networks produces cycles of avian color diversification

Resolution of the link between micro- and macroevolution calls for comparing both processes on the same deterministic landscape, such as genomic, metabolic or fitness networks. We apply this perspective to the evolution of carotenoid pigmentation that produces spectacular diversity in avian colors and show that basic structural properties of the underlying carotenoid metabolic network are reflected in global patterns of elaboration and diversification in color displays. Birds color themselves by consuming and metabolizing several dietary carotenoids from the environment. Such fundamental dependency on the most upstream external compounds should intrinsically constrain sustained evolutionary elongation of multi-step metabolic pathways needed for color elaboration unless the metabolic network gains robustness – the ability to synthesize the same carotenoid from an additional dietary starting point. We found that gains and losses of metabolic robustness were associated with evolutionary cycles of elaboration and stasis in expressed carotenoids in birds. Lack of metabolic robustness constrained lineage’s metabolic explorations to the immediate biochemical vicinity of their ecologically distinct dietary carotenoids, whereas gains of robustness repeatedly resulted in sustained elongation of metabolic pathways on evolutionary time scales and corresponding color elaboration. The structural link between length and robustness in metabolic pathways may explain periodic convergence of phylogenetically distant and ecologically distinct species in expressed carotenoid pigmentation; account for stasis in carotenoid colors in some ecological lineages; and show how the connectivity of the underlying metabolic network provides a mechanistic link between microevolutionary elaboration and macroevolutionary diversification. This article was reviewed by Junhyong Kim, Eugene Koonin, and Fyodor Kondrashov. For complete reports, see the Reviewers’ reports section.
Electromyogenic Artifacts and Electroencephalographic Inferences Revisited.

Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in using oscillatory brain electrical activity to understand the neural bases of cognition and emotion. Electrical signals originating from pericranial muscles represent a profound threat to the validity of such research. Recently, McMenamin et al (2010) examined whether independent component analysis (ICA) provides a sensitive and specific means of correcting electromyogenic (EMG) artifacts. This report sparked the accompanying commentary (Olbrich, Jodicke, Sander, Himmerich & Hegerl, in press), and here we revisit the question of how EMG can alter inferences drawn from the EEG and what can be done to minimize its pernicious effects. Accordingly, we briefly summarize salient features of the EMG problem and review recent research investigating the utility of ICA for correcting EMG and other artifacts. We then directly address the key concerns articulated by Olbrich and provide a critique of their efforts at validating ICA. We conclude by identifying key areas for future methodological work and offer some practical recommendations for intelligently addressing EMG artifact.
DC Ionization Conductivity of Amorphous Semiconductors for Radiation Detection Applications

DC ionization conductivity measurements were used to characterize the electrical response of amorphous semiconductors to ionizing radiation. Two different glass systems were examined: a chalcopyrite glass ( CdGexAs2; for x = 0.45-1.0) with a tetrahedrally coordinated structure and a chalcogenide glass ( As40Se(60-x)Tex; where x = 0-12 ), with a layered or three dimensionally networked structure, depending on Te content. Changes in DC ionization current were measured as a function of the type of radiation (alpha or gamma ), dose rate, applied field, specimen thickness and temperature. The greatest DC ionization response was measured with CdGe0.85As2 at -40degC from an alpha source (which is the first reported result for radiation response from an amorphous chalcopyrite semiconductor). Avalanche gain was observed in As40Se60 with exposure to alpha radiation at fields ges 7times103 V/cm. These results demonstrate the potential of these materials for radiation detection applications.
Spontaneous Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) Breathing in the Management of Acute Pulmonary Edema in Infants

This paper reports two cases of acute pulmonary edema successfully treated, when medical management failed, with continuous positive airway pres sure (CPAP) and spontaneous breathing. The clinical, laboratory, and radio logical findings indicate that this technic offers an alternative to mechanical ventilation when respiratory failure complicates pulmonary edema in infants.
Modeling and simulation: a Department of Defense critical technology

The US Department of Defense has identified twenty technologies critical to ensuring the long-term qualitative superiority of United States weapons systems. Simulation and modeling technology, one of these twenty, was categorized as one which offered the most immediate advances in weapon systems capabilities. A linkage is drawn between twelve major long-term goals reflecting needed military capability and the twenty critical technologies. The author discusses the simulation and modeling technology and his view of how US Air Force needs affect this technology. >
E PLURIBUS UNUM: A Study in Multi-Character Solo Performance in the Documentary Drama

The United States of America has adopted as its official motto, “ e pluribus unum ,” a Latin concept translating to “from many, one.” This refers to the multitude of cultures and immigrants that come together in our country. Two American documentary theatre pieces of the recent past have embraced this concept of “ e pluribus unum ” by giving us a documentary solo performance in which the sole performer takes on dozens of personalities in a single show, with the lines between characters blurred and fluid. In a documentary drama, the level of difficulty for the performer is raised. Most, if not all, of the characters in these documentary theatre pieces are real people, some of whom are still living. Portraying not just one real person but a whole cast of them presents challenges, especially to a performer who has had limited contact with the subjects being portrayed. How can one portray twenty-plus personalities in a manner that is simultaneously convincing, accurate, and theatrical? In Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights Brooklyn and Other Identities , Anna Deavere Smith has shown us how, as has Jefferson Mays in Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife , albeit in very different way.
Vitamin D Deficiency Is Associated With Low Mood and Worse Cognitive Performance in Older Adults

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is common in older adults and has been implicated in psychiatric and neurologic disorders. This study examined the relationship among vitamin D status, cognitive performance, mood, and physical performance in older adults. Methods: A cross-sectional group of 80 participants, 40 with mild Alzheimer disease (AD) and 40 nondemented persons, were selected from a longitudinal study of memory and aging. Cognitive function was assessed using the Short Blessed Test (SBT), Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR; a higher Sum of Boxes score indicates greater dementia severity), and a factor score from a neuropsychometric battery; mood was assessed using clinician’s diagnosis and the depression symptoms inventory. The Physical Performance Test (PPT) was used to measure functional status. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels were measured for all participants. Results: The mean vitamin D level in the total sample was 18.58 ng/mL (standard deviation: 7.59); 58% of the participants had abnormally low vitamin D levels defined as less than 20 ng/mL. After adjusting for age, race, gender, and season of vitamin D determination, vitamin D deficiency was associated with presence of an active mood disorder (odds ratio: 11.69, 95% confidence interval: 2.04–66.86; Wald 2 7.66, df2, p0.022). Using the same covariates in a linear regression model, vitamin D deficiency was associated with worse performance on the SBT (F5.22, df[2, 77], p 0.044) and higher CDR Sum of Box scores (F3.20, df[2, 77], p0.047) in the vitamin D-deficient group. There was no difference in performance on the MMSE, PPT, or factor scores between the vitamin D groups. Conclusions: In a cross-section of older adults, vitamin D deficiency was associated with low mood and with impairment on two of four measures of cognitive performance. (Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 2006; 14:1032–1040)
Neuroprotective effects of 2,4-dimethoxybenzylidene anabaseine (DMXB) and tetrahydroaminoacridine (THA) in neocortices of nucleus basalis lesioned rats.

The nicotinic α7 agonist dimethoxybenzilidene anabaseine (DMXB) and cholinesterase inhibitor tetrahydroaminoacridine (THA) were investigated in a trans-synaptic model for neocortical atrophy and degeneration following nucleus basalis lesions. Bilateral lesions reduced parietal neuronal density in layers II–V 8 months later. DMXB administered i.p. daily to rats for 3 months attenuated this loss in layers II–V at a 1 mg/kg i.p. dose. A lower, 0.2 mg/kg i.p. dose, was neuroprotective in layer IV only. THA (1 mg/kg i.p.) also protected against neocortical Nissl-staining deficits.
Magneto-plasma surface waves in solids

The effect of a d.c. magnetic field on the dispersion relation of surface plasmons in a metal is studied. Numerical results, including the effects of retardation, are presented for both the Faraday and the Azbel-Kaner geometries.
Intraoperative brain cancer detection with Raman spectroscopy in humans

The early cancer detection provides us an opportunity to select proper treatment and follow up survival. Molecular events occurring in tumors frequently constitute early events of carcinogenesis and can be detected much before clinical cancer diagnosis. On several occasions, few invasive cells remain after brain surgery in patients with brain cancer and there is a need for such tools which can detect these invasive cells. Jermyn et al. (1) have developed a hand held contact Raman Spectroscopy probe technique which can differentiate normal and invasive cancer cells in the brain. The commentary is very timely and once this technique is widely applied, a number of patients can survive free of brain cancer. What strikes the most about this technology is its high sensitivity (93%) and specificity (91%). The specificity and sensitivity of the sample labels provided by the surgeons after visual inspection was 73% and 86%, respectively. Surgeons were not given any information about the acquired Raman spectra during the resection procedure. Similarly pathologists were not informed about the spectra history when they did histopathological exams. To avoid any ambient light sources, the background reference measurement was subtracted from the respective spectrum and then normalized. During in vivo imaging although neuronavigation technologies were used but they were used for qualitative purposes only. Thus, the discrepancies associated with neuronavigation system were minimized. Overall, the research design was very appropriate to evaluate the potential of Raman spectroscopy to distinguish brain cancer from normal brain in grade 2 to 4 gliomas.
Biofilm formation by Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato

Bacterial biofilms are microbial communities held together by an extracellular polymeric substance matrix predominantly composed of polysaccharides, proteins and nucleic acids. We had previously shown that Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, the causative organism of Lyme disease in the United States is capable of forming biofilms in vitro. Here, we investigated biofilm formation by B. afzelii and B. garinii, which cause Lyme disease in Europe. Using various histochemistry and microscopy techniques, we show that B. afzelii and B. garinii form biofilms, which resemble biofilms formed by B. burgdorferi sensu stricto. High-resolution atomic force microscopy revealed similarities in the ultrastructural organization of the biofilms form by three Borrelia species. Histochemical experiments revealed a heterogeneous organization of exopolysaccharides among the three Borrelia species. These results suggest that biofilm formation might be a common trait of Borrelia genera physiology.
Norms Amidst Chaos: Chivalry and Rational Choice in Combat

The central question posed in this paper is: Why do instances of "fair play" exist within war? These may be consciously articulated and embodied in treaties by sovereign states or can arise spontaneously in the midst of battle. The history of warfare contains numerous examples of cooperative behavior between combatants which can be characterized as chivalrous. These actions appear inefficient in that they appear contrary to the goal of destroying or subduing the adversary. Such examples of inefficient chivalry have been rationalized by both participants and historians as random aberrations from efficient behavior caused by either cultural affinity between opposing sides or simply by the stress of combat. This paper argues, on the contrary, that examples of chivalry are not random but can result from rational action within the context of an imperfect and changing information set. Casting the problem as a multi-period game produces testable predictions to determine if chivalry exists independently of rational choice.
Stigma of taking psychiatric medications among psychiatric outpatient veterans.

Objective Service members and veterans underutilize mental health services due to stigma. The study investigated stigma of taking psychiatric medications, and its relationship to internalized stigma of mental illness, gender, age, service era, duration of taking medications, and their perceived helpfulness. Method Of the 200 veterans completing an anonymous questionnaire in an outpatient mental health waiting room, data are presented on the 159 who reported taking psychiatric medications. Results Medication stigma was related to internalized stigma and was common: over one half reported feeling uncomfortable disclosing or feeling judged, and about one fifth reported feeling embarrassed. Medication stigma was not related to gender, duration, or helpfulness. Younger age was associated with feeling judged, and more recent service era was associated with shame. Conclusions and implications for practice Medication stigma among veterans is common and warrants further study. Discomfort disclosing and feeling judged might be particularly worthy targets of discussion in shared decisions about medication.
Amplifying the Sensitivity of Zinc(II) Responsive MRI Contrast Agents by Altering Water Exchange Rates

Given the known water exchange rate limitations of a previously reported Zn(II)-sensitive MRI contrast agent, GdDOTA-diBPEN, new structural targets were rationally designed to increase the rate of water exchange to improve MRI detection sensitivity. These new sensors exhibit fine-tuned water exchange properties and, depending on the individual structure, demonstrate significantly improved longitudinal relaxivities (r1). Two sensors in particular demonstrate optimized parameters and, therefore, show exceptionally high longitudinal relaxivities of about 50 mM–1 s–1 upon binding to Zn(II) and human serum albumin (HSA). This value demonstrates a 3-fold increase in r1 compared to that displayed by the original sensor, GdDOTA-diBPEN. In addition, this study provides important insights into the interplay between structural modifications, water exchange rate, and kinetic stability properties of the sensors. The new high relaxivity agents were used to successfully image Zn(II) release from the mouse pancreas in vi...
Correlative analysis of three ear leaves of parents self-line and hybriels of black glutinous corn

The inferior leaf of hybrid and self line is the longest,the high to low sequence is inferior leaf,spike leaf,superior leaf.The big to low sequence of leaf wide is superior leaf,spike leaf,inferior leaf.The leaf area of three ear leaves have no significant difference,they have the same inportant effects.In the heredity of leaf area,male self line is more important than female self line,and it has significantly positine corelation between leaf area and single plant yield of hybrids.
Design and Realization of Database Middleware in Automatic Hydrological Systems

To improve the efficiency of data access in hydrological systems,a cross-platform database middleware system is designed and realized which hides the process of database access for automatic hydrological applications.The architecture of the middleware is discussed.Some details about critical technologies are offered,including database connection pool,multithreading,ODBC/UNIX ODBC,storages order change.An example of application of the middleware to the Three Gorges reservoir dispatching automation system is also provided.
A New Practitioner's Perspective on Combining Interprofessional and Cultural Competence Instruction in Pharmacy School Curriculum.

To the Editor: In the June 2015 issue of AJPE, Okoro and colleagues published an insightful and thorough study regarding the current state of cultural competence instruction in pharmacy school curricula.1 The article concisely demonstrated areas of strength and weakness in teaching pharmacy students how to become culturally competent health care providers. I would like to add to the conversation by providing a way to incorporate interprofessional instruction with cultural competence. Cultural competence is the ability of health care providers to “provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs, and behaviors…to meet patients’ social, cultural, and linguistic needs.”2 Two of the barriers to culturally competent care, which Okoro and colleagues allude to, are lack of diversity in health care’s workforce and poor communication between providers and patients of different backgrounds.1,2 The first is a more long-term obstacle, but I believe much can be done in the short-term. As a recent pharmacy school graduate, I—like many of the students who completed the surveys for Okoro’s study—feel that much of my cultural competency training came from outside the curriculum. It came from service-learning, volunteering in the community, and through the IPSF (International Pharmaceutical Students Federation) Student Exchange Program. Okoro and colleagues addressed how cultural competence instruction can be made a seamless part of pharmacy school curriculum, attainable for all students, not just for those from other cultures or with a vested interest in expanding their cultural horizons. One potential solution and area for further research is partnerships between pharmacy schools and local health sciences schools, such as medicine, nursing, physical therapy, or occupational therapy. Multiple authors have published about cultural competence education already embedded into medical school curriculum.3,4 Rutledge and colleagues described how nurse practitioners attained cultural competence.5 In all of these scenarios, direct patient interaction was the most beneficial learning tool for students. Perhaps it is feasible to combine students from various professional programs into one learning activity, use standardized patients, and integrate health care providers before they graduate from their respective schools. This demands further research. The concept of combining interprofessional and culturally competency instruction, perhaps by using standardized patients, could touch upon several Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) requirements: cultural sensitivity (Standard 3.5) and interprofessional education (Standard 11, 24.3, and 25.6).6 This could be an opportunity to not only enhance cultural competent instruction for future pharmacists but also bridge the gaps among health science students who will all be expected to provide interprofessional and culturally competent care after graduating.
Surgical Reconstruction of Occluded Extracranial Vertebral Arteries

Three patients with proximal vertebral artery occlusive disease were treated by extracranial surgical reconstruction. Two patients (Cases 1 and 2) had symptoms of vertebrobasilar insufficiency and one (Case 3) had severe headache. Angiography demonstrated bilateral vertebral stenosis in Case 1, right stenosis and left occlusion in Case 2, and right hypoplasia and left stenosis in Case 3. In Case 2, the left vertebral artery was occluded at its origin and was reconstituted via the thyreocervical trunk at the C3 level. Right carotid angiography during left carotid artery compression failed to demonstrate blood flow through the left carotid artery in Cases 1 and 3. The posterior communicating arteries were hypoplastic or absent bilaterally and right vertebral angiography did not demonstrate blood flow in the left vertebral artery in Case 3. Three types of surgical procedures were undertaken: left proximal vertebral artery to common carotid artery end-to-side anastomosis in Case 1; left external carotid artery to midcervical vertebral artery end-to-side anastomosis in Case 2; and transposition of the left vertebral artery to the distal subclavian artery with end-to-side anastomosis in Case 3. The authors successfully performed surgical reconstruction of the proximal vertebral artery by means of internal carotid artery shunting in Case 1 and external shunting between the carotid and vertebral arteries in Case 3, to avoid the danger of carotid and vertebral artery cross-clamping during the anastomoses.
Two-loop β function for a G 1 ×G 2 gauge theory

The result is given for the two-loop $\ensuremath{\beta}$ function for a gauge group ${G}_{1}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{G}_{2}$ including arbitrary representations of fermions and scalars. The extension to supersymmetric models is also given.
Synthetic Behaviorism: Remarks on Function and Structure

Catania has proposed a new form of behaviorism which he calls“synthetic behaviorism.” This form of behaviorism emphasizes a synthesis (rather than a divergence) between the language and practice of be-haviorists and cognitivists in contemporary psychology. A distinctive feature of synthetic behaviorism is that it claims to be the solution of the long-standing debate concerning functional and structural problems in the practice of behaviorists and cognitivists (including those interested in psycholinguistics). This paper argues that synthetic behaviorism cannot resolve such a debate unless it demonstrates that the concepts of function and structure are not multidisciplinary concepts in the language of behaviorists and cognitivists. This paper shows that the fact that such concepts are employed in behavioral and cognitive research does not mean that behaviorists share the“function” and“structure” of cognitivists, and vice versa. This point is also illustrated with the usage of such concepts in the fields of astronomy, biology, genetics, physics, symbolic logic, and geography.
Improving the Quality and Value of Cancer Care: A Work in Progress—The 2016 Joseph V. Simone Award and Lecture

It is a rare opportunity to give a lecture named after a living personwithwhomyou are professionally acquainted and have worked on multiple occasions. Thus, to be named the recipient of the first Joseph V. Simone Award and Lecture is a special honor, because I have admired the contributions of Dr Simone over many years and have been the beneficiary of his good counsel on multiple occasions. Joe Simone is a pioneering advocate for the importance of delivering evidence-based, quality cancer care, along with metrics to evaluate its implementation. Throughout his distinguished career as a pediatric oncologist, cancer center director, and leader in the development of oncology care guidelines and quality improvement strategies, Dr Simone has been a shining light for members of the oncology community who are focused on ensuring the delivery of high-value quality care to patients with cancer. I will make reference to his many contributions as I describe the content of my award lecture presentation.
Analytical Modeling and TCAD Simulation of a Quanta Image Sensor Jot Device With a JFET Source-Follower for Deep Sub-Electron Read Noise

A novel quanta image sensor (QIS) jot device with a CMOS compatible junction-field effect transistor (JFET) source follower (SF) is introduced. The device is proposed to further reduce the read noise of QIS jots and ultimately realize a read noise of 0.15e-r.m.s. for accurate photoelectron counting. We take advantage of the small gate capacitance in a p-channel JFET SF to reduce the total capacitance of the floating diffusion, which yields a greatly improved conversion gain of 1.38 mV/e- in TCAD simulation compared to MOSFET SF with the same pitch size. Lower 1/ ${f}$ noise is also anticipated yielding a low input-referred read noise. The device is designed in a 45 nm CMOS image sensor process. The fundamental working principles of this device are discussed, and important functionalities are analyzed with simulation and theory.
Cause and context: place-based approaches to investigate how environments affect mental health

Our surroundings affect our mood, our recovery from stress, our behavior, and, ultimately, our mental health. Understanding how our surroundings influence mental health is central to creating healthy cities. However, the traditional observational methods now dominant in the psychiatric epidemiology literature are not sufficient to advance such an understanding. In this essay we consider potential alternative strategies, such as randomizing people to places, randomizing places to change, or harnessing natural experiments that mimic randomized experiments. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these methodological approaches with respect to (1) defining the most relevant scale and characteristics of context, (2) disentangling the effects of context from the effects of individuals’ preferences and prior health, and (3) generalizing causal effects beyond the study setting. Promising alternative strategies include creating many small-scale randomized place-based trials, using the deployment of place-based changes over time as natural experiments, and using fluctuations in the changes in our surroundings in combination with emerging data collection technologies to better understand how surroundings influence mood, behavior, and mental health. Improving existing research strategies will require interdisciplinary partnerships between those specialized in mental health, those advancing new methods for place effects on health, and those who seek to optimize the design of local environments.
Load Balancing in the Lp Norm

In the load balancing problem, there is a set of servers, and jobs arrive sequentially. Each job can be run on some subset of the servers, and must be assigned to one of them in an online fashion. Tradi- tionally, the assignment of jobs to servers is measured by the L, norm; in other words, an assignment of jobs to servers is quantified by the maximum load as- signed to any server. In this measure the performance of the greedy load balancing algorithm may be a loga- rithmic factor higher than the ofline optimal (3). In many applications, the L, norm is not a suitable way to measure how well the jobs are balanced. If each job sees a delay that is proportional to the number of jobs on its server, then the average delay among all jobs is proportional to the sum of the squares of the numbers of jobs assigned to the servers. Minimizing the average delay is equivalent to minimizing the Eu- clidean (or Lz) norm. For any fixed p, 1 < p < M, we show that the greedy algorithm performs within a con- stant factor of the ofline optimal with respect to the L, norm. The constant grows linearly with p, which is best possible, but does not depend on the number of servers and jobs.
Attitudes toward Potential Participant Registries

Difficult participant recruitment is a consistent barrier to successful medical research. Potential participant registries represent an increasingly common intervention to overcome this barrier. A variety of models for registries exist, but few data are available to instruct their design and implementation. To provide such data, we surveyed 110 cognitively normal research participants enrolled in a longitudinal study of aging and dementia. Seventy-four (67%) individuals participated in the study. Most (78%, CI: 0.67, 0.87) participants were likely to enroll in a registry. Willingness to participate was reduced for registries that required enrollment through the Internet using a password (26%, CI: 0.16, 0.36) or through email (38%, CI: 0.27, 0.49). Respondents acknowledged their expectations that researchers share information about their health and risk for disease and their concerns that their data could be shared with for-profit companies. We found no difference in respondent preferences for registries that shared contact information with researchers, compared to honest broker models that take extra precautions to protect registrant confidentiality (28% versus 30%; p = 0.46). Compared to those preferring a shared information model, respondents who preferred the honest broker model or who lacked model preference voiced increased concerns about sharing registrant data, especially with for-profit organizations. These results suggest that the design of potential participant registries may impact the population enrolled, and hence the population that will eventually be enrolled in clinical studies. Investigators operating registries may need to offer particular assurances about data security to maximize registry enrollment but also must carefully manage participant expectations.
Evaluation of no-clean flux residues remaining after secondary process operations

In an ideal world, manufacturing devices would work all of the time, however, every company receives customer returns for a variety of reasons. If these returned parts contributed to a fail, most companies will perform failure analysis (FA) on the returned parts to determine the root cause of the failure. Failure can occur for a multitude of reasons, for example: wear out, fatigue, design issues, manufacturing flaw or defect. This information is then used to improve the overall quality of the product and prevent reoccurrence. If no defect is found, it is possible that in fact the product has no defect. On the other hand, the defect could be elusive and the FA techniques insufficient to detect said deficiency. No-clean flux residues can cause intermittent or elusive, hard to find defects. In an attempt to understand the effects of no-clean flux residues from the secondary soldering and cleaning processes, a matrix of varying process and cleaning operation was investigated. Of special interest, traveling flux residues and entrapped residues were examined, as well as localized and batch cleaning processes. Various techniques were employed to test the remaining residues in order to assess their propensity to cause a latent failure. These techniques include Surface Insulation Resistance1 (SIR) testing at 400C/90% RH, 5 VDC bias along with C32 testing and Ion Exchange Chromatography (IC). These techniques facilitate the assessment of the capillary effect the tight spacing these component structures have when flux residues are present. It is expected that dendritic shorting and measurable current leakage will occur, indicating a failing SIR test. However, since the residue resides under the discrete components, there will be no visual evidence of dendritic growth or metal migration.
Mycotic Cerebral Aneurysms

Abstract Mycotic intracranial aneurysms are rare neurosurgical sequelae of embolic intravascular infections or a direct spread from adjacent infections. Given the high morbidity associated with this disease process, prompt diagnosis and appropriate management are essential. This chapter reviews the existing literature to discuss presentation, diagnosis, and treatment strategies to optimize outcomes in patients with mycotic aneurysms.
TRYPTOPHAN-INDUCED PULMONARY EDEMA AND EMPHYSEMA IN RUMINANTS

I. ABSTRACT Intraruminal doses of tryptophan cause acute pulmonary edema and emphysema in cattle (ABPE), and the time course, clinical signs and pulmonary lesions are similar to those observed in naturally occurring ABPE which develops after an abrupt change in pasture conditions. Tryptophan is converted to indoleacetic acid by ruminal microorganisms and indoleacetic acid is decarboxylated to 3-methylindole (3MI) by a recently identified Lactobacillus organism. Three-methyl indole is the ruminal fermentation product of tryptophan which causes the characteristic pulmonary lesions in cattle. Metabolism of 3MI rapidly clears the blood and results in the urinary excretion of 10 metabolites, primarily oxindole derivatives. The formation of metabolites may be related to pulmonary toxicity of 3MI. It appears that high intake of lush, green forage could provide adequate amounts of tryptophan to cause ABPE under field conditions. Ruminal fermentation conditions can effect the conversion of tryptophan to 3MI and may influence the incidence and severity of ABPE. Antibiotics and inhibitors decrease the formation of 3MI from tryptophan and prevent the onset of experimentally-induced ABPE. Ruminal fluid and plasma of cows given access to lush, green pasture contain 3MI. The results support the hypothesis that 3MI, formed from tryptophan in the rumen, is associated with the development of ABPE.
Long-term follow-up of endoscopic treatment for bleeding gastric and duodenal ulcers

Objective : To examine the long-term consequences of endoscopic therapy for bleeding peptic ulcers. Methods : Eighty-seven consecutive patients who underwent endoscopic treatment for bleeding gastric ulcer (GU) and/or duodenal ulcer (DU) over a 42-month period were identified. Long-term follow-up was available for 76 (mean, 495 days ; SEM, 45 days). Therapy consisted of epinephrine injection, heater probe use, or both. Recurrent hemorrhage only at the primary treatment site was considered. Results : The sites of hemorrhage were GU (40 patients), DU (34 patients), and both (2 patients). Emergent surgery was required in two GU patients for whom endoscopic treatment was ineffective. Recurrent hemorrhage ultimately occurred in 33% of patients-40% of GU and 25% of DU patients. Surgical therapy was eventually required in 26% of patients after endoscopic hemostasis and was more frequent in patients with recurrent hemorrhage from DU than GU (78% vs 56%). For those patients who re-bled within 8 days of the index endoscopy, 82% required surgery, compared with 33% of patients who re-bled more than 8 days after the index endoscopy (p = 0.03). Conclusions : The rate of recurrent hemorrhage after endoscopic hemostasis for bleeding GU and DU was 33% in our long-term follow-up. After endoscopic hemostasis, surgery was eventually required in 24% of all patients and in 64% of patients who had recurrent hemorrhage. Patients who had recurrent hemorrhage more than 1 wk after initial endoscopic hemostasis were effectively treated by repeated endoscopic therapy and were significantly less likely to require surgery than patients who re-bled within 1 wk.
Adult psychosocial outcome in early-treated phenylketonuria

Concerns about the psychosocial risk of adults with early-treated phenylketonuria (ETPKU) are predicated on four sources of scientific data: (1) consistent documentation of increased behavioural risk in children with ETPKU; (2) recent evidence of neurocognitive impairment in adults with ETPKU; (3) reports of neuroimaging abnormalities in adults with ETPKU; and (4) preliminary evidence of increased rates of psychiatric disturbance in this population. We studied the psychosocial adjustment of 25 patients, aged 18 years and older, with ETPKU. On most psychosocial outcome measures, patients were indistinguishable from 15 sibling controls. However, on a self-report inventory of psychiatric symptoms, 20% of the patients demonstrated significant morbidity. Psychosocial outcome of these patients was unrelated to concurrent or historical biological dietary disease factors, unlike neurocognitive outcome. A strong relationship was demonstrated, however, between neurocognitive measures and psychosocial morbidity. These findings indicate that a significant minority of patients with ETPKU develop psychosocial difficulties with multiple clinical elevations on a psychiatric inventory. However, most adults with ETPKU cope with the challenges of young adulthood with the same degree of success as their unaffected siblings. Neuropsychological surveillance during childhood and adolescence is important in identifying patients at risk for both neurocognitive and psychosocial morbidity.
Recent advancements in the numerical simulation of surface irradiance for solar energy applications

This paper briefly reviews the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's recent efforts to develop all-sky solar irradiance models for solar energy applications. The Fast All-sky Radiation Model for Solar applications (FARMS) uses the simulation of clear-sky transmittance and reflectance and a parameterization of cloud transmittance and reflectance to rapidly compute broadband irradiances on horizontal surfaces. The accuracy of FARMS is comparable to that of two-stream approximation, but it is approximately 1,000 times faster. A FARMS for Narrowband Irradiance over Tilted surfaces (FARMS-NIT) has been developed to compute spectral irradiances on photovoltaic (PV) panels in 2,002 wavelength bands. FARMS-NIT has been extended to bifacial PV panels by accounting for solar radiation reaching the backside of a PV panel.
Black Race Is Associated with a Lower Risk of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia.

Objective To use a large current prospective cohort of infants Study design The Prematurity and Respiratory Outcome Program (PROP) enrolled 835 infants born in 2011-2013 at Results Of 707 black or white infants with available BPD outcomes, BPD was lower in black infants (38% vs 45%), even though they were of significantly lower GA. At every GA, BPD was more common in white infants. The aOR for BPD was 0.60 (95% CI, 0.42-0.85; P = .004) for black infants compared with white infants after adjusting for GA. Despite the lower rate of BPD, black infants had a higher rate of first-year post-prematurity respiratory disease (black, 79%; white, 63%). Conclusions In this large cohort of recently born preterm infants at
Organic thin-film microstructure characterization

Abstract One of the most beneficial aspects of organic materials is their ability to fabricate devices from solutions at moderate temperatures. Not only does this enable high-speed coating of large device substrates, it also minimizes the energetic and equipment costs of fabricating devices. However, this fabrication also limits control of the crystallization process. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in organic photovoltaics (OPVs), which require an intimately mixed bulk heterojunction (BHJ) blend of two or more organic materials, which is commonly accomplished by casting from a blend solution. The missing link between processing conditions and device performance lies in the microstructure. This chapter discusses traditional and emerging techniques for characterizing the microstructure of organic thin films at multiple length scales. First, it introduces the microstructural properties of organic films that are important for determining organic photovoltaic device (PVD) performance. The organization of the chapter is in three sections, based on the aspect to be measured: first, domain sizes in blend films; second, domain composition; and finally, the intermolecular packing or crystal structure within a domain. Each measurement technique is briefly introduced, and its strengths and limitations are analyzed. The final section of the chapter summarizes the techniques and discusses how they may be used to develop design rules for maximizing efficiency in devices.
373) Muscarinic M4 Positive Allosteric Modulators are Antinociceptive in Mouse Inflammatory Pain Models

The chronic pain and opioid epidemics have created an urgent need for effective, non-opioid analgesics. There is considerable evidence that the cholinergic system could be a promising target for novel drugs. Cholinesterase inhibitors and nonspecific muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR) agonists are clearly antinociceptive in humans and animal models, but adverse parasympathetic side effects limit clinical utility. The mAChR family includes five subtypes (M1-M5) with different physiologic roles. Prior studies indicate that the M2 and M4 subtypes mediate analgesia, while the M2 and M3 subtypes mediate most deleterious side effects. Therefore, an M4-selective compound might provide analgesia without prohibitive side effects. An M4 PAM, VU0467154, significantly reduced nocifensive behavior in both phases of the formalin assay in mice. However, dose-dependent motor impairment was evident in the open field and rotarod assays. A peripherally-restricted derivative of VU0467154 reduced nocifensive behavior in the second phase of the formalin assay by approximately 50% but did not cause motor impairment. These data suggest that both peripheral and central M4 mAChRs are potential targets for novel analgesics. Further studies are needed to determine the anatomic location and downstream effectors of M4 receptors involved in pain modulation. This project was supported by a grant from Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (to KNG)
The Crimean War’s Long Shadow: Urban Biography and the Reconstruction of Sevastopol after World War II

The Crimean War brought destruction to Russia’s Black Sea peninsula but, like Napoleon’s invasion fifty years earlier, the war also became a central event in Russia’s national history. In his The Origins of the Crimean War (1994), David Goldfrank introduced readers to the complex diplomatic wrangling that led to the Crimean War. This article seeks to explain how and why the Crimean War (or “first great defense”) rivals only World War II (the “second great defense”) in Sevastopol’s urban biography. Because of the work of writers, filmmakers, sculptors, and architects – who during and after World War II began to link the first great defense with the second and used images similar to Leo Tolstoy’s a century earlier – Sevastopol retains its close connection to its pre-Revolutionary military history. Even in the Soviet period, Sevastopol’s urban biography relied less on the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War than it did on the Crimean War because of the narrative reframing during the 1940s.
Efficient enzyme coupling algorithms identify functional pathways in genome-scale metabolic models

Abstract Flux coupling identifies sets of reactions whose fluxes are “coupled" or correlated in genome-scale models. By identified sets of coupled reactions, modelers can 1.) reduce the dimensionality of genome-scale models, 2.) identify reactions that must be modulated together during metabolic engineering, and 3.) identify sets of important enzymes using high-throughput data. We present three computational tools to improve the efficiency, applicability, and biological interpretability of flux coupling analysis. The first algorithm (cachedFCF) uses information from intermediate solutions to decrease the runtime of standard flux coupling methods by 10-100 fold. Importantly, cachedFCF makes no assumptions regarding the structure of the underlying model, allowing efficient flux coupling analysis of models with non-convex constraints. We next developed a mathematical framework (FALCON) that incorporates enzyme activity as continuous variables in genome-scale models. Using data from gene expression and fitness assays, we verified that enzyme sets calculated directly from FALCON models are more functionally coherent than sets of enzymes collected from coupled reaction sets. Finally, we present a method (delete-and-couple) for expanding enzyme sets to allow redundancies and branches in the associated metabolic pathways. The expanded enzyme sets align with known biological pathways and retain functional coherence. The expanded enzyme sets allow pathway-level analyses of genome-scale metabolic models. Together, our algorithms extend flux coupling techniques to enzymatic networks and models with transcriptional regulation and other non-convex constraints. By expanding the efficiency and flexibility of flux coupling, we believe this popular technique will find new applications in metabolic engineering, microbial pathogenesis, and other fields that leverage network modeling.
Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry Compared to Computed Tomography for Visceral Adiposity Assessment Among Gastrointestinal and Pancreatic Cancer Survivors

Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) for visceral adipose tissue (VAT) assessment is used as an alternative to computed tomography (CT) for research purposes in apparently healthy and clinical populations. It is unknown whether DXA is comparable to CT among cancer survivors, especially in cases where VAT assessment may be affected by treatment history and side effects and become more challenging to assess, such as a history of surgical gastrointestinal resection and/or ascites. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of agreement between DXA and CT when assessing VAT area and volume among cancer survivors. One hundred Gastrointestinal and pancreatic cancer survivors underwent abdominal and pelvis CT and whole-body DXA within 48 hours. Bland-Altman analysis revealed that in women and men, DXA VAT-area estimates were larger and smaller, respectively, and was consistently smaller in estimates for VAT-volume. Correlations from linear regression analysis revealed statistically significant positive correlations between measurement methods. Overall, while DXA VAT estimates are highly correlated with CT VAT estimates, DXA estimates show substantial bias which indicates the two methods are not interchangeable in this population. Further research is warranted with a larger, more homogeneous sample to develop better estimates of the bias.
Automated glycemic control with the bionic pancreas in cystic fibrosis-related diabetes: A pilot study.

Abstract Cystic fibrosis-related diabetes (CFRD) is the most common extrapulmonary manifestation of cystic fibrosis. The current standard of care for CFRD involves treatment with insulin, typically via multiple daily injections. We conducted a small pilot study comparing usual care with automated glycemic control using the bihormonal (insulin and glucagon) and insulin-only configurations of the bionic pancreas. Both configurations of the bionic pancreas achieved good glycemic control, with mean glucose levels
Onset of seasonal metabolic depression in the Antarctic midge Belgica antarctica appears to be independent of environmental cues

Seasonal progression is tracked in most animals by changes in daylength, thus allowing reliable synchrony with abundant food and favourable developmental conditions. In polar regions, daylength varies extensively, fluctuating at the highest latitudes from persistent light to persistent dark. The Antarctic midge Belgica antarctica has a narrow seasonal window in which to feed and develop, and previous work shows that this insect, despite having the elements of a circadian clock, remains continuously active when temperatures are permissive. The present study aims to clarify seasonal tracking in B. antarctica during the austral summer by monitoring oxygen consumption rates in a field population and in experimental groups exposed to shortened daylength, dehydration and chilling. Remarkably, during March, coordinated decreases in oxygen consumption are observed, ranging from 18% to 42%, in all treatment groups, indicating an anticipatory response to seasonal change regardless of the environmental cues. These results suggest that B. antarctica relies on an intrinsic mechanism to program metabolic depression at the onset of the long austral winter.