cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Empirically derived classes of eating pathology in male and female college students

ABSTRACTBackground: The empirical structure of eating disorder (ED) pathology has often been studied in female, clinical samples, leaving questions about the structure of ED pathology in males and nonclinical samples. Method: A latent class analysis was performed on data combined from two different studies (N = 1,751) using the behavioral items in the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q; binge eating, self-induced vomiting, laxative use, and excessive exercise), with the addition of an item representing restraint. Validation analyses examined weight, shape, and eating concern among the classes. Results: Three similar classes emerged for both the men and women’s models: very low ED behaviors, binge eating, and high ED behaviors. Discussion: These results suggest that binge eating occurs within the context of lower symptom and higher symptom presentations, and that the empirical structure of ED symptoms does not differ in men and women in the nonclinical population. Further research is needed t...
A Measurement Model of Gestures in an Embodied Learning Environment: Accounting for Temporal Dependencies

Interactive learning environments with body-centric technologies lie at the intersection of the design of embodied learning activities and multimodal learning analytics. Sensing technologies can generate large amounts of fine-grained data automatically captured from student movements. Researchers can use these fine-grained data to create a high-resolution picture of the activity that takes place during these student–computer interactions and explore whether the sequence of movements has an effect on learning. We present a use-case modelling of temporal data in an interactive learning environment with hand gestures, and discuss some validity threats if temporal dependencies are not accounted for. In particular, we assess how, if ignored, the temporal dependencies in the measurement of hand gestures might affect the goodness of fit of the statistical model and would affect the measurement of the similarity between elicited and enacted movement. Our findings show that accounting for temporality is crucial for finding a meaningful fit to the data. In using temporal analytics, we are able to create a high-resolution picture of how sensorimotor coordination correlates with learning gains in our learning system.
Prenatal exposure to organophosphates and associations with birthweight and gestational length

Abstract Organophosphate esters (OPEs) are often used as flame retardants and plasticizers. Animal data suggest exposure to OPEs could impact children's growth and development, yet impacts on human birth outcomes are understudied. We evaluate impacts of OPE exposure on the timing of delivery and infant's birthweight in the Pregnancy Infection and Nutrition Study (PIN). North Carolina women enrolled in PIN in early pregnancy and participated in follow-up through delivery. Analyses were limited to mothers recruited from 2002 to 2005, whose children participated in additional follow-up in early childhood ( n = 349). Mothers collected urine samples in which OPE metabolites were assessed and birth outcomes were abstracted from medical records. Bis(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (BDCIPP), diphenyl phosphate (DPHP), isopropyl-phenyl phenyl phosphate (ip-PPP), bis(1-chloro-2-propyl) 1-hydroxy-2-propyl phosphate (BCIPHIPP) were detected in >80% of samples. Average birthweight and gestational age were 3326 g and 39.1 weeks, respectively. As data suggest that the mechanisms of action by which OPEs impact birth outcomes may be fetal sex dependent, we conducted sex-stratified statistical analyses. Women with the highest ip-PPP concentrations delivered girls 1 week earlier than women with lower levels (95% Confidence Interval (CI): −1.85, −0.15). Women with BDCIPP levels above the median had 3.99 (95% CI: 1.08, 14.78) times the odds of delivering their daughters preterm. Similarly, higher ip-PPP levels were associated with lower birthweight, but not after standardizing for gestational age. Among males, maternal ip-PPP was associated with decreased odds of preterm birth (OR = 0.21, 95% CI: 0.06, 0.68). DPHP and BCIPHIPP levels were not associated with outcomes in either sex. Results indicate that prenatal OPE exposure may impact timing of birth, though results are imprecise. Given widespread OPE exposure and the urgent need to identify and mitigate causes of preterm birth, further investigation is warranted.
The Role of Nrf2 in the Response to Normal Tissue Radiation Injury.

The transcription factor Nrf2 is an important modulator of antioxidant and drug metabolism, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, as well as heme and iron metabolism. Regulation of Nrf2 expression occurs transcriptionally and post-transcriptionally. Post-transcriptional regulation entails ubiquitination followed by proteasome-dependent degradation. Additionally, Nrf2-mediated gene expression is subject to negative regulation by ATF3, Bach1 and cMyc. Nrf2-mediated gene expression is an important regulator of a cell's response to radiation. Although a majority of studies have shown that Nrf2 deficient cells are radiosensitized and Nrf2 over expression confers radioresistance, Nrf2's role in mediating the radiation response of crypt cells is controversial. The Nrf2 activator CDDO attenuates radiation-mediated crypt injury, whereas intestinal crypts in Nrf2 null mice are radiation resistant. Further investigation is needed in order to define the relationship between Nrf2 and radiation sensitivity in Lgr5+ and Bm...
New Hexazirconium Clusters Containing Hydrogen Atoms

Reduction of ZrBr4 with HSnBu3 yielded a blue solid. When this blue solid was treated with PMe3, a hexanuelear cluster [Zr6Br14H4( PMe3)4] (2) was isolated. Reaction of the blue solid with [PPh4]Br in CH2Cl2 resulted in the formation of a paramagnetic and unstable cluster anion, [Zr6Br18H5]2− (3′), which disproportionated to form a new cluster anion, [Zr6Br18H5]3− (4′) and some Zr(IV) species. Compounds containing 4′ can also be obtained from reaction of the blue solid with Br− in MeCN. Reduction of ZrCl4 with HsnBu3 gave a red–brown solid, and [Zr6Cl14H4(AsMe3)4] (9) and [Zr5Cl12H4(AsMe3)5](8) were obtained by reaction of the red–brown solid with AsMe3. No cluster compounds containing amine ligands were obtained in the reaction of the red–brown solid with amines; only compounds containing the [Zr6Cl18 H5]3− anion and ammonium cations were isolated. Altogether ten products were characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction and where possible, by 1H NMR studies.
Puerto Rico’s Economic Future

The concentration on the development of productive resources and industries through collective action is a relatively recent phenomenon in Puerto Rico and is a reflection of the growing awareness in the island of the nature of the basic social and economic problems, coupled with the growth of democratic institutions and social and political responsibility.
Stress and Reproduction: Physiologic and Pathophysiologic Interactions between the Stress and Reproductive Axes

Stress is a ubiquitous feature of life. Although its prevalence as a factor in health and disease is difficult to ascertain, it is arguably a significant risk to the well being of the overall population. Stress and the response to stressful events, on the other hand, have played an important part in human survival and evolution. From earliest times, people have dealt with harsh elements and adverse situations requiring both behavioral and physiological responses to protect themselves and their societies.
Development of Evaluations to Assess the Quality of Residency Program Directors

The objective was to develop residency program director specific evaluation tools with face validity for identifying areas of excellence and opportunities for improvement. Investigators conducted standardized interviews with graduate medical education (GME) leadership, department chairs, program directors, and senior residents assessing their perspectives on the desirable qualities of program directors. Responses were categorized by theme to create benchmarked evaluation tools. Residents and faculty emphasized communication, mentorship, and role modeling. Faculty emphasized maintenance of accreditation and resident discipline, while residents emphasized wellness, approachability, and maintenance of the learning environment. The investigators then developed a 10-item assessment for residents and a similar 12-item assessment for department chairs and GME leadership with face validity. Although the responsibilities of residency training directors are numerous and variable by specialty, the investigators were able to develop valid program director evaluation tool templates that can highlight the successes and opportunities for improvement of these academicians.
Customer Lifetime Value: The Significance of Repeat Business

Loyal customers, those customers who return to purchase again and again, are critical to the long-term financial success of the firm. This chapter explores the role of customer loyalty and repeat purchasing on the financial performance of the firm. The chapter develops the concept of lifetime value of a customer as a conceptual framework for linking marketing actions to cash flow and for evaluating the value of individual customers and the return on marketing actions and expenditures designed to create and maintain loyalty among customers.
The Indigeneity Wars: Academic and Public Refusals to Recognize Al-Nakba

In this chapter the author notes the ways that recent events have helped raise consciousness about al-Nakba, the “catastrophe,” that began in 1948 with the ouster of more than 700,000 Arab Palestinians during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. This chapter shows that further debates are needed about al-Nakba politics because for many years few outside of ranks of the “new” Israeli historiographers were willing to contemplate the possibility that some type of ethnic cleansing had taken place during the 1948 expulsions. Using the work of writers such as Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris as touchstones, the author puts on display the varied academic, legal, political, and military reasons why so few want to include the Nakba in the traditional canons of genocidal studies.
Processing Racial Stereotypes in Virtual Reality: An Exploratory Study Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)

This within-subjects exploratory study examined users’ (N = 13) neurological responses to a racially-charged VR experience. The goals of the study are (1) to test a new method of assessing neural activity while users are experiencing VR using non-invasive functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device and VR headset, and (2) to compare activation in areas of the pre-frontal cortex that have been found to be associated with prejudice and stereotyping (specifically the mPFC and lPFC) while participants are exposed to a racially-charged VR experience vs. a non-racially charged VR experience. There were no significant differences in mPFC activity between the two types of VR experiences suggesting no differences in empathy or “humanizing” for the characters. However, in the racially charged experience, significantly greater activation in the right lPFC was found which could indicate negative stereotype activation. In addition, significantly greater activation in the left lPFC occurred in the racially-charged VR experience which could indicate stereotype inhibition or regulation of negative stereotypes.
Understanding women at war: a mixed-methods exploration of leadership in non-state armed groups

Recent efforts aimed at understanding women’s contributions to nonstate armed groups have produced large-scale data sets on female combatants (Wood and Thomas 2017) and more limited data on women’s...
Partnering with robotic technology in electrophysiology: have we arrived at a tipping point?

Purpose of review Bring readers up to date on the rationale for, current state of, and promising innovations in remote and robotic technology in electrophysiology. Recent findings There is a growing peer-reviewed literature regarding existing nontraditional technology for mapping and ablation. There also is accelerated innovation under early evaluation that promises significant impact. Summary The development and adoption of remote technologies in electrophysiology has faced considerable challenges yet holds tremendous promise for our patients. First principles must include benefit for patients in both safety and effectiveness, optimization of the process for providers, and sound economic and clinical justification for integration into healthcare systems. The limitations of traditional methods and tools that dominate current practice are discussed as a rationale for considering remote robotic systems. The growing library of published outcomes as well as the emergence of promising new technology merits fresh consideration.
Malignant Transformation of a PG13 Cell Line Producing an MFG Retroviral Vector Containing Wild-Type Murine Akt.

Abstract Over-expression of the pro-survival Akt gene in rat mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) by retroviral transduction has been shown to improve cardiac repair following MSC transplant into infarcted rat heart (Mangi et al., Nature Medicine, 2003), and may hold great potential for clinical myocardial repair following cardiac damage. In preliminary transplant studies in NOD-SCID mice, we transduced human MSCs with an MFG-based retroviral vector containing genes for wild-type murine Akt and green fluorescent protein (AIG). The PG13-AIG cells used to supply retrovirus were prepared by multiple rounds of transduction of NIH 3T3-derived PG13 retrovirus packaging cells with amphotropic AIG retrovirus produced by transient transfection of the AIG vector plasmid into ϕNX-A producer cells. Primary human MSCs were transduced with PG13-AIG supernatant, were expanded in vitro for 1-3 passages, and surgically implanted after adherence to ceramic cubes into NOD-SCID mice. Three weeks after implantation of 5x106 human MSCs, a tumor mass formed around 1 of 8 ceramic cube implants, characterized histologically as a sarcoma. Retroviral insertion site analysis by linear amplification-mediated (LAM)-PCR revealed multiple insertions present within the tumor DNA. Sequence analysis of several of these vector insertion sites revealed no homology to the human genome. However, two of the insertions gave highly significant sequence homology to mouse chromosomes 15 and 11, inside introns of the mouse Dxd17 putative RNA helicase gene and mouse hypothetical Gm252 gene, respectively. These results indicate that the sarcoma was formed in greater part by Akt-transduced mouse cells rather than by transduced human MSCs. A third insertion site exhibited highly significant sequence homology to the gibbon ape leukemia virus (GALV) envelope gene present within the mouse PG13 producer cells. As GALV-pseudotyped retroviruses produced by PG13 cells do not transduce mouse cells, this argues against the tumor resulting from Akt-transduced NOD-SCID mouse cells due to production of a replication-competent retrovirus by transduced MSCs. PCR analysis detected the presence of the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene (a selectable marker present in PG13 producer cells) in the tumor DNA, which together with the insertion site analysis indicates that the sarcoma was formed at least in part by Akt-transduced PG13 fibroblast cells, which may have been a rare contaminant in the MSC cell implants due to carry-over of producer cells during PG13-Akt viral supernatant transduction of MSCs. No published studies have found a tumorigenic potential for the NIH 3T3-derived PG13 cell line, and transfection of wild-type Akt into NIH 3T3 cells has been shown in several studies to confer little or no transformation or tumor-formation capacity. Regardless of origin, cell transformation by retroviral transduction of wild-type Akt, possibly with insertional mutagenesis, is a potential risk for clinical use of Akt gene transfer for enhanced stem cell survival and repair.
Should Non-ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction be Treated like ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction With Shorter Door-to-Balloon Time?

It is estimated that each year in the United States >780,000 persons will experience an acute coronary syndrome. Approximately 70% of these will have non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Optimal timing of angiography in NSTEMI is a matter of debate. The aim of this retrospective analysis was to evaluate whether and how the timing of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) affects the 1-year rate of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) in patients presenting with NSTEMI. Within our PCI database, we identified 1550 patients who underwent PCI for NSTEMI. We then divided the population into 3 groups based on door-to-balloon time (D2BT) (group 1 = D2BT 90 minutes 24 hours). Primary outcome was MACE, a composite of MI, death and target vessel revascularization (TVR), or TVR at 1 year. Baseline characteristics were heterogeneous among the 3 groups, with patients who underwent angiograms >24 hours from presentation being older with more cardiovascular co-morbidities. Patients with D2BT
A New Zadiprion (Hymenoptera: Diprionidae) from Baja California, Mexico, on Pinus jeffreyi

Zadiprion jeffreyiSmith, n. sp., is described. The species was discovered defoliating Pinus jeffreyi in Baja California, Mexico. It is close to Z. rohweri (Middleton) from southwestern United States and Mexico, which is a pinyon pine feeding species. The description and illustrations show differences between the species and genetic differences are noted.
Third Gender Politics: Hijra Identity Construction in India and Beyond

Indian law has only recently stopped criminalizing what was perceived as deviant homosexual behavior and started extending full citizenship rights to its queer populace. The government’s attempts t...
Strain-Dependent Nanowrinkle Confinement of Block Copolymers.

This paper describes an all-soft, templated assembly of block copolymers (BCPs) with programmable alignment. Using polymeric nanowrinkles as a confining scaffold, poly(styrene)-block-poly(dimethyls...
Health Guardian - A Subsidiary Android Application for Maintaining Sound Health

Mobile phones are a more convenient device for people all over the world for daily activities. Apart from the ease and automation of its use, it also minimizes the overall time needed for a task manually. In contrary, to the scenario, few years back smart mobile phones were affordable and each day a new upgrade in the technology was established each day. With keeping pace with the increasing use of smart phone, we have created an android application naming it, Health Guardian. The ultimate goal of this application is to notify about the calorie level in a food and monitor the amount of calorie burned after performing exercise. The additional benefit that the app will provide is the identification of food calories you consume. The application features a monitoring system to count your daily nutrients and food consumption. The list of registered food items along with their calorie amount and other details are also recorded within the app. The early test of the app found were very helpful, as it will notify the user about the calorie level of the food and what exercise will burn out those calories. The results obtained were very positive and we look forward to increasing the users of this app throughout.
Offloading Media Traffic to Programmable Data Plane Switches.

According to estimations, approximately 80% of Internet traffic represents media traffic. Much of it is generated by end users communicating with each other (e.g., voice, video sessions). A key element that permits the communication of users that may be behind Network Address Translation (NAT) is the relay server. This paper presents a scheme for offloading media traffic from relay servers to programmable switches. The proposed scheme relies on the capability of a P4 switch with a customized parser to de-encapsulate and process packets carrying media traffic. The switch then applies multiple switch actions over the packets. As these actions are simple and collectively emulate a relay server, the scheme is capable of moving relay functionality to the data plane operating at terabits per second. Performance evaluations show that the proposed scheme not only produces optimal results regarding Quality of Service (QoS) parameters (no packet loss, minimum delay, negligible delay variation, high Mean Opinion Score) but also scales much better than current solutions. Evaluations conducted with up to 35Gbps of media traffic or its equivalent of 400,000 simultaneous G.711 media sessions (limited only by the traffic generator rather than by the switch) show an ideal operation of the switch-based solution (using$\sim \text{l}$% of the switching capacity). In contrast, a relay server with a modern CPU model used for evaluations can process up to 900 simultaneous G.711 media sessions per core.
Variable thinning and prescribed fire influence tree mortality and growth during and after a severe drought

Abstract California’s high density, fire-excluded forests experienced an extreme drought accompanied by warmer than normal temperatures from 2012 to 2015, resulting in the deaths of millions of trees. We examined tree mortality and growth of mixed-conifer stands that had been experimentally treated between 2011 and 2013 with two different thinning treatments, one with more structural variability (HighV) and one with less structural variability (LowV), applied alone or in combination with prescribed burning. Tree mortality between 2014 and 2018 varied by species ranging from 42% of white fir (Abies concolor) to 18% of sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), 12% of incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) and 10% of yellow pine (P. ponderosa and P. jeffreyi). Lower overall tree mortality rates at this location relative to drier locations in the southern Sierra Nevada suggested that drought effects may have been ameliorated by lower water deficits due to our site’s more northerly location and deep, productive soils in combination with reductions in tree competition following thinning and burning. Averaged across burn treatments, thinning reduced the overall mortality rate between 2014 and 2018 from 34% to 11%. A total of 23% of the basal area was lost in the unthinned control treatments during this time period, while basal area was unchanged in the thinned treatments, with growth offsetting mortality. There was no significant difference in mortality or basal area change between LowV and HighV, suggesting that leaving trees at variable spacing may not compromise growth or resilience of the stand during a drought. Overall tree mortality was greater in the prescribed burn treatments, most pronounced in the smaller tree size classes, and varied by species, with burning having a significant effect on incense cedar and all pines, but not white fir. Trees with greater competition (Hegyi index) were more likely to die, particularly when also burned. Burning, however, consumed surface fuels and lowered fire hazard. With predictions of warmer droughts and greater weather variability, reducing forest density (basal area) and keeping surface fuel loads low will be important for building greater resilience to future drought stress and wildfire.
Building collapse in cities in Ghana: A case for a historical-institutional grounding for building risks in developing countries

Abstract Building collapse discourse in developing countries has long followed an internal focal approach. The approach frames the menace around problens that are within the countries. Emphasis is often placed on individual factors (such as developers and building practitioners’ negligence) and administrative challenges (relating to the enforcement of building regulations). This study examined how this diagnosis holds up against evidence systematically collected and forensically analyzed on specific country situations. The study assembled detailed empirical data via interviews and focus group discussions from a range of professionals, including building inspectors, planners, architects and researchers in Ghana and draws on data from various secondary sources. The data was, in turn, interpreted within a critical postcolonial institutional framework. The study found that the internal focal approach to building collapse is largely problematic. Not only does it create a false impression that developing countries have a danger-prone construction culture, but also its intent focus on factors internal to the countries overlooks the systemic underdevelopment conditions (i.e. inherited and externally-imposed factors) which interplay with the internal factors actually create, indeed, maintain and worsen building safety problems in those societies. The study findings challenge not just the way building collapses in developing countries are studied, they also raise issues with the repertoire of interventions that are often proposed for addressing such risks in those parts of the world.
Feature-Trajectory for Prosthetic Hands

Speech is one of the most common forms of communication in humans. Speech commands are essential parts of multimodal controlling of prosthetic hands. In the past decades, researchers used automatic speech recognition systems for controlling prosthetic hands by using speech commands. Automatic speech recognition systems learn how to map human speech to text. Then, they used natural language processing or a look-up table to map the estimated text to a trajectory. However, the performance of conventional speech-controlled prosthetic hands is still unsatisfactory. Recent advancements in general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) enable intelligent devices to run deep neural networks in real-time. Thus, architectures of intelligent systems have rapidly transformed from the paradigm of composite subsystems optimization to the paradigm of end-to-end optimization. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end convolutional neural network (CNN) that maps speech 2D features directly to trajectories for prosthetic hands. The proposed convolutional neural network is lightweight, and thus it runs in real-time in an embedded GPGPU. The proposed method can use any type of speech 2D feature that has local correlations in each dimension such as spectrogram, MFCC, or PNCC. We omit the speech to text step in controlling the prosthetic hand in this paper. The network is written in Python with Keras library that has a TensorFlow backend. We optimized the CNN for NVIDIA Jetson TX2 developer kit. Our experiment on this CNN demonstrates a root-mean-square error of 0.119 and 20ms running time to produce trajectory outputs corresponding to the voice input data. To achieve a lower error in real-time, we can optimize a similar CNN for a more powerful embedded GPGPU such as NVIDIA AGX Xavier.
COVID-19 related employment change is associated with increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has had sweeping impacts on income and employment. Previous research has indicated that loss of employment is associated with mental illness and increased alcohol consumption. However, no studies have explored this relationship in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.Objective: The purpose was twofold: (1) Evaluate the association between pandemic-related employment status and alcohol consumption and (2) assess the interacting effect of depression and employment change on alcohol consumption. We hypothesized that (1) employment change would be associated with increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic and (2) the combined effects of depressive symptoms with pandemic-related-employment-change would strengthen the association with alcohol consumption.Methods: A self-report, web-based survey collected information on sociodemographics, COVID-19-related employment impact (e.g., decreased pay, laid off), change in alcohol consumption since the pandemic, reasons for consumption change, and depressive symptoms. Multinomial regression modeling explored the associations between variables.Results: One-third (33%) of participants (n = 2,441; 67% female) reported consuming more alcohol compared to pre-pandemic and 11% reported that COVID-19 had a negative impact on their employment. Participants reported drinking more alcohol due to having more time (28%) or boredom (22%). The adjusted odds of increased alcohol consumption were 47% greater among those who reported negative employment impact compared to those who reported no employment impact (AOR: 1.47, 95% CI: 1.03-2.11); depression did not moderate this relationship.Conclusion: Given the pandemic's far-reaching impact, the potential for alcohol harm is demonstrably great. Mitigating consumption should be considered when addressing loss of employment in this context.
Acute epiglottitis in a COVID-19 positive patient: A case report.

There have been more than 178 million global cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with more than 3.8 million deaths worldwide [1]. COVID-19 can present with a wide variety of symptoms, and one rare manifestation that has been reported in the literature is acute epiglottitis. To date, there have been two reported cases of acute epiglottitis in COVID-19 positive patients [2, 3]. We present a case of a 49-year-old male presenting to a community emergency department with the chief complaint of dysphagia and sore throat, confirmed as acute epiglottitis, in the presence of a positive rapid COVID-19 PCR test.
Enhancing Open-Circuit Voltage and Efficiency of Shallow In x Ga 1-x As Quantum Well GaAs Solar Cells

In this work, we present an extensive study of the varied parameters of In x Ga 1-x As quantum well (QW) GaAs solar cells. First, by optimizing the doping in the GaAs base of the solar cell we were able to demonstrate a device with triple strained coupled In 0.06 Ga 0.94 As/GaAs with open-circuit voltage (V oc ) of 1.052 V and 22.6% AM0 efficiency. We studied the performance of In x Ga 1-x As/GaAs 0.68 P 0.32 strain balanced QW solar cells with x = 6%, 8%, 10%, and 14% and an increased number of superlattice periods. The deterioration of the superlattice interface quality in the strain balanced QW structures was diagnosed with X-ray diffraction. We observed that having strain balancing was beneficial for the 3-layer shallow QW solar cells’ performance, improving the spatial uniformity and maintaining high V oc . It was noted, however, that in the cells with a 12-period In 0.10 Ga 0.90 As/GaAs 0.68 P 0.32 and In 0.14 Ga 0.86 As/GaAs 0.68 P 0.32 superlattices, adding strain balancing had a dramatic impact on their overall performance increasing the dark current by up to 3 orders of magnitude and reducing the V oc by up to 197 mV. Reduction of the V oc in strain-balanced solar cells was correlated with the morphological degradation of the QW structures caused by the excessive step bunching, and implementing 17 nm-thick GaAs 0.90 P 0.10 strain balancing allowed to partially recover the planar QW growth resulting in V oc retention over 1 V in the cells with 12 QWs.
Non-fatal stimulant overdose among homeless and unstably housed women in San Francisco, California.

Abstract Background US rates of overdose deaths involving stimulants (e.g., cocaine or methamphetamine) have increased, but little is known about non-fatal stimulant overdoses, particularly among vulnerable populations. We characterized rates of non-fatal stimulant overdose identified outside of health care settings among women at high risk. Methods Homeless and unstably housed women in San Francisco, California using stimulants were administered questionnaires on drug use and outcomes (stimulant overdose, health care utilization) monthly for six months. Based on pilot interviews, stimulant overdose during follow-up was defined as acute toxicity from stimulant use (“over-amping”) resulting in “feeling sick, really scared, or like one’s life may be in danger”. Poisson regression estimated unadjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) comparing participant characteristics. Results We included 160 women (41% Black, 26% White, 15% Latina, median age 54 years) using crack cocaine (81%), methamphetamine (48%), and powdered cocaine (36%). Participants reported 67 non-fatal stimulant overdoses over 685 person-months of observation, a rate of 117.4 per 100 person-years (95% CI 85.8–160.5). Rates were higher among participants who were Latina vs. White (IRR 4.18 [1.60–10.94]), used methamphetamine (IRR 1.80 [0.96–3.38]), or used any stimulant daily/almost daily (IRR 2.63 [1.41–4.91]). Among women reporting stimulant overdose, 4% received emergency and 3% inpatient care for overdose of any drug. Conclusions Women in this setting, particularly those who used stimulants frequently or used methamphetamine, experienced high non-fatal stimulant overdose and rarely received health care for these events. Efforts should be made to increase awareness and reduce harms of stimulant toxicity in vulnerable populations.
Effect of Inhaled Lavender and Sleep Hygiene on Self-Reported Sleep Issues: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract Objectives: To compare the effectiveness of lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and sleep hygiene versus sleep hygiene alone on sleep quantity and sleep quality and to determine sustained ef...
Managing technology: Innovation: Who's in charge here?

Abstract It is easy to get mired in the demanding routines of the day-to-day obligations of academic library work. Managers need look no further than the daily schedule of their calendar, the inbox on their desk or in their e-mail to find more to do than the day allows. Unfortunately, this is not a time to focus a great deal on the work which maintains the old paradigm, as important as it still is. Leadership will mean pushing the envelope of change and taking risks which help increment progress in both small and large ways. Nancy Allen and Jim Williams have prescribed some good sense principles in their essay for balancing old demands with new. However, the key insight they propose is the strategy of technology partnerships.—C.B.L.
Oxytocic and modulating effects of water-soluble hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone upon in vitro contractions of myometrium.

Abstract The water-soluble corticosteroids, hydrocortisone-21-hemisuccinate sodium and methylprednisolone-21-hemisuccinate sodium, are stimulatory in vitro to pregnant mouse and human uterine strips. Higher concentrations are suppressive. The type of response is related to the day of gestation. Methylprednisolone in vitro modulates the response of the pregnant term mouse uterus to Syntocinon. Addition of KCl 6 mM. per liter in vitro causes a decreased sensitivity to the stimulatory effects of methylprednisolone. Addition of CaCl z , 8.4 mM. per liter in vitro reverses the depressed effect caused by high doses of both the corticosteroids and Syntocinon.
On Causes Hippocrates, Aristotle, Robert Koch, and the Dread Pirate Roberts

But let us inquire what are the causes of these things which happened to them. — Hippocrates 1 The idea of risk factors for vascular disease has evolved from a dichotomous to continuous hazard analysis and from the consideration of a few factors to mechanistic investigation of many interrelated risks. However, confusion still abounds regarding issues of association and causation. Originally, the simple presence of tobacco abuse, hypertension, and/or hypercholesterolemia were tallied, and the cumulative score was predictive of subsequent coronary artery disease.2 Since then, dose responses have been defined for these and other factors and it has been suggested that almost 300 factors place patients at risk; these factors include elevations in plasma homocysteine. Recent studies shed interesting light on the mechanism of this potentially causal relationship, which was first noted in 1969.3 Aside from putative effects on vessel wall dynamics, there is now direct evidence that homocysteine is atherogenic. Twenty-fold increases in plasma homocysteine achieved by dietary manipulation of apoE–/– mice increased aortic root lesion size 2-fold and produced a prolonged chronic inflammatory mural response accompanied by elevations in vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 and tumor necrosis factor-α.4 In long term follow-up, homocysteine levels elevated by dietary supplementation with methionine or homocysteine promoted lesion size and plaque fibrosis in these atherosclerosis-prone mice early in life, but without influencing ultimate plaque burden as the animals aged.5 A number of mechanisms were proposed by which homocysteine achieved this effect, including promotion of inflammation, regulation of lipoprotein metabolism, and modification of critical biochemical pathways and metabolites including nitric oxide (NO).6 See p 2569 In the present issue of Circulation , Stuhlinger et al7 advance these mechanistic insights one critical step further by defining homocystine’s effects at an enzymatic level. The group led by Lentz published …
Realizing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Communities, Courts, and the Academy

Realizing Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: Communities, Courts, and the Academy documents the proceedings of a groundbreaking expert consultation held at Northeastern University School of Law under the auspices of the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy. The report draws on the deliberations of more than 60 leading diplomats, academics, jurists, legal practitioners, and activists from a variety of legal disciplines. Participants discussed the current state of economic, social, and cultural rights and the impact of globalization in small working groups as well as in plenary session. Contributors such as Brook K. Baker, Margaret Burnham, Dan Danielsen, Martha Davis, Rashmi Dyal-Chand, Karl Klare, Hope Lewis, Wendy Parmet, James Rowan, and Margaret Woo analyzed and summarized the discussions. Key themes addressed are the justiciability of socio-economic rights in U.S. and South African courts, public health strategies and the right to health, economic, social, and cultural rights and development, prospects for U.S.-focused international human rights strategies, as well as ways to increase focus on economic, social, and cultural rights in legal education.
Understanding cross-tier delay of multi-tier application using selective invocation context extraction

Performance analysis for a multi-tiered enterprise application is always challenging. Performance problems in one tier may have a "domino effect" on all other tiers, resulting in cross-tier waiting in all other tiers and the whole system under utilized. Traditional technologies that focus solely on internal causes of one tier are not sufficient in this case, while others that require distributed tracing each machine across all tiers are not feasible in many production systems. This poster presents an approach that focuses on the middle tier, typically the application server tier, to identify real bottleneck in a multi-tiered application with the support of a performance tool named SLICE. By selectively tracking method invocations that cross-tier boundaries, and extracting contextual information associated with these invocations, tier bottlenecks can be quickly identified. Experiments on DayTrader, a three-tiered application, have shown that performance bottlenecks caused by client machines or database servers can be quickly identified.
The promoter for the procyclic acidic repetitive protein (PARP) genes of Trypanosoma brucei shares features with RNA polymerase I promoters.

Abstract All eukaryotic protein-coding genes are believed to be transcribed by RNA polymerase (Pol) II. An exception may exist in the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, in which the genes encoding the variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) and procyclic acidic repetitive protein (PARP) are transcribed by an RNA polymerase that is resistant to the Pol II inhibitor alpha-amanitin. The PARP and VSG genes were proposed to be transcribed by Pol I (C. Shea, M. G.-S. Lee, and L. H. T. Van der Ploeg, Cell 50:603-612, 1987; G. Rudenko, M. G.-S. Lee, and L. H. T. Van der Ploeg, Nucleic Acids Res. 20:303-306, 1992), a suggestion that has been substantiated by the finding that trypanosomes can transcribe protein-coding genes by Pol I (G. Rudenko, H.-M. Chung, V. P. Pham, and L. H. T. Van der Ploeg, EMBO J. 10:3387-3397, 1991). We analyzed the sequence elements of the PARP promoter by linker scanning mutagenesis and compared the PARP promoter with Pol I, Pol II, and Pol III promoters. The PARP promoter appeared to be of limited complexity and contained at least two critical regions. The first was located adjacent to the transcription initiation site (nucleotides [nt] -69 to +12) and contained three discrete domains in which linker scanning mutants affected the transcriptional efficiency: at nt -69 to -56, -37 to -11, and -11 to +12. The second region was located between nt -140 and -131, and a third region may be located between nt -228 and -205. The nucleotide sequences of these elements, and their relative positioning with respect to the transcription initiation site did not resemble those of either Pol II or Pol III promoter elements, but rather reflected the organization of Pol I promoters in (i) similarity in the positioning of essential domains in the PARP promoter and Pol I promoter, (ii) strong sequence homology between the PARP core promoter element (nt -37 to -11) and identically positioned nucleotide sequences in the trypanosome rRNA and VSG gene promoters, and (iii) moderate effects on promoter activity of mutations around the transcription initiation site.
A 3V to 6V in, 6A out synchronous buck PWM integrated FET switcher design uses state-of-art power IC technology

A 3V to 6V input, 6A output synchronous buck PWM switcher with integrated FETs; TI code name SWIFT/spl trade/ has been fabricated using a combination of past reported power IC technology. In this IC we extended a production 0.72/spl mu/m technology with enhanced features and then combined mixed circuit design with integrated thin-gate oxide, planar, very-thin-resurf VTR LDMOS FETs. The Power IC uses plated CuNiPd top metal for low resistance busing and bonding over active area and is packaged in a thin line 28 pin TSSOP package having a POWERPAD/spl trade/. The technology combination yields a state-of-art performance power IC. The device is capable of 95% efficiency and is excellent for point-of-load applications such as DSP solutions as well as high density distributed power systems. The key to high efficiency in this product is dual low Ron=30 m/spl Omega/ fets, low gate charge losses, and low reverse recovery losses during power FET switching.
Evolutionary perspectives on amyloid and inflammatory features of Alzheimer disease

Abstract We propose that the amyloid deposits in senile plaques of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) result from ancient mechanisms in wound-healing and inflammatory processes that preceded the evolution of the inducible combinatorial immune responses characteristic of jawed vertebrates. AD plaques are unlike active plaques in MS, because antibodies, T-cells and, B cells are not conspicuous components of senile plaques or other loci of degeneration. However, senile plaques contain amyloids and other inflammatory proteins of ancient origin that appear to be made by local brain cells, including neurons, astrocytes, and microglia. We describe a highly conversed 16-mer found in pentraxins from mammals and from the horseshoe crab. The senile plaque thus provides a novel opportunity to study primitive features of complement-mediated inflammatory responses in the absence of immunoglobulins.
Bone Marrow Lacks a Transplantable Progenitor for Smooth Muscle Type α-Actin–Expressing Cells

While some studies have suggested that hematopoietic stem cells might give rise to other tissue types, others indicate that transdifferentiation would have to be an extremely rare event. We have now exploited smooth muscle type alpha-actin (alphaSMA) promoter-driven green fluorescent protein (GFP) transgenic mice (alphaSMA-GFP mice) for bone marrow transplantation to evaluate their potential to generate donor-type tissues in irradiation chimeras. There was a highly restricted pattern of GFP expression in the transgenic mice, marking bone marrow stromal cells and mesangial cells in the kidney. However, these characteristics were not transferable to wild-type animals given transgenic marrow cells even though hematopoietic cells were largely replaced. Our findings support earlier studies suggesting that the bone marrow microenvironment is difficult to transplant and indicate that hematopoietic stem cells are unlikely to give rise to alphaSMA-expressing progeny.
The effect of metallic coatings and crystallinity on the volume expansion of silicon during electrochemical lithiation/delithiation

Applying surface coatings to alloying anodes for Li-ion batteries can improve rate capability and cycle life, but it is unclear how this second phase affects mechanical deformation during electrochemical reaction. Here, in-situ transmission electron microscopy is employed to investigate the electrochemical lithiation and delithiation of silicon nanowires (NWs) with copper coatings. When copper is coated on only one sidewall, the NW bilayer structure bends during delithiation due to length changes in the silicon. Tensile hoop stress causes conformal copper coatings to fracture during lithiation without undergoing bending deformation. In addition, in-situ and ex-situ observations indicate that a copper coating plays a role in suppressing volume expansion during lithiation. Finally, the deformation characteristics and dimensional changes of amorphous, polycrystalline, and single-crystalline silicon are compared and related to observed electrochemical behavior. This study reveals important aspects of the deformation process of silicon anodes, and the results suggest that metallic coatings can be used to improve rate behavior and to manage or direct volume expansion in optimized silicon anode frameworks.
Stability analysis of elemental explicit-implicit partitions by Fourier methods

Abstract A methodology is presented for analyzing the stability of elemental explicit-implicit partitions of multi-step time integrators. The methodology is applied to develop stability criteria for elemental partitions of the Hilber-Hughes-Taylor α-method. As a special case, a stability analysis of the elemental partitions of the Newmark β-method is also given.
Wavelet Spectral Analysis of the Earth’s Orbital Variations and Paleoclimatic Cycles

The wavelet time-frequency spectral analysis is applied to geological records that are proxies of paleoclimatic variations: d18O in sedimentary cores, atmospheric CO2 concentration, and a loess magnetic susceptibility stratigraphy within the past million years. These spectra are compared with those for the astronomically predicted variations of the earth’s orbital eccentricity, obliquity, precession, and their resultant variations of the incoming insolation. The latter has been known to be unable to explain the characteristics of the observed 100-kyr paleoclimatic cycles. Based on similarities between the wavelet spectra of the orbital variations and paleoclimatic cycles, the authors introduce a signal‐noise resonance theory to understand the dynamics of climate response to the orbital forcing. It is shown that the observed 100-kyr cycles are mainly caused by the period variation in the obliquity, which amplifies the small orbital forcing. But the observed flickers within these cycles are induced by the amplitude variation of obliquity and precession, which are two major components of the Milankovitch insolation deviations.