cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Size-dependent avoidance of a strong magnetic anomaly in Caribbean spiny lobsters

On a global scale, the geomagnetic field varies predictably across the Earth's surface, providing animals that migrate long distances with a reliable source of directional and positional information that can be used to guide their movements. In some locations, however, magnetic minerals in the Earth's crust generate an additional field that enhances or diminishes the overall field, resulting in unusually steep gradients of field intensity within a limited area. How animals respond to such magnetic anomalies is unclear. The Caribbean spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, is a benthic marine invertebrate that possesses a magnetic sense and is likely to encounter magnetic anomalies during migratory movements and homing. As a first step toward investigating whether such anomalies affect the behavior of lobsters, a two-choice preference experiment was conducted in which lobsters were allowed to select one of two artificial dens, one beneath a neodymium magnet and the other beneath a non-magnetic weight of similar size and mass (control). Significantly more lobsters selected the control den, demonstrating avoidance of the magnetic anomaly. In addition, lobster size was found to be a significant predictor of den choice: lobsters that selected the anomaly den were significantly smaller as a group than those that chose the control den. Taken together, these findings provide additional evidence for magnetoreception in spiny lobsters, raise the possibility of an ontogenetic shift in how lobsters respond to magnetic fields, and suggest that magnetic anomalies might influence lobster movement in the natural environment.
The Problem of Experimentation

Nowhere are the deficiencies of contemporary philosophy of science as evident as in its treatment of experimentation, which is viewed as an automatic, unambiguous process. Sections 15–18 of Heidegger’s Being and Time provide some important tools for handling this issue, but are inadequate because they erroneously regard scientific entities as appearing in experimentation as thematized, present-at-hand objects. The possibility of a non-Galilean science is raised, however, by viewing experimentation as a kind of performance.
Parylene-N Precursor Chemistry

The starting material for the deposition of parylene film is a dimer in the form of a white powder. This dimer can be purchased through a number of companies in the US and abroad, including Para Tech Coating, Inc. (visit http://www.parylene.com) and Speedline Technologies (visit http://www.scscookson.com). The dimer for parylene-N, which is also called di-para-xylylene and [2,2]paracyclophane was first reported by Brown as a product of xylene pyrolysis and later was synthesized with high yield by Cram [77]. According to Beach et al., there are two common routes to the synthesis of the dimer, di-para-xylyene; the direct pyrolysis of p-xylene and the 1,6 Hoffman elimination of amine from a quaternary ammonium hydroxide [1]. Beach et al. also state that purification of the dimer is often accomplished by recrystallization from the solvent xylene.
Gender Differences in the Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Antidepressants

The paucity of research on gender-specific differences related to antidepressants is a significant public health deficiency and represents an understudied and necessary research area. The current data suggest that the pharmacokinetics of antidepressant drugs can be substantially different between men and women as a result of differences in both the metabolizing enzymes and the expression of P-glycoprotein MDR1. The data suggest that different pharmacodynamic responses are observed between premenopausal women and men. Women are more likely to respond better to an MAOI antidepressant compared to men. In addition, men respond better to TCAs than women in this age group, but differences diminish after menopause. Given the evidence of distinct gender-specific differences, it is critical that these differences be addressed more widely in research evaluating the administration of antidepressants in women.
Gaining Insight into the Factors that Influence the Variabilty of Breathing

Remarkably little is known about the mechanisms that regulate the pattern of breathing, and most research on the control of breathing has been confined to measuring mean responses of the respiratory controller to physiological perturbations. We analyzed variability of breathing in healthy subjects under different conditions by partitioning variational activity in a random and a non-random (correlated and oscillatory) fraction. For volume components, hyperoxic hypercapnia decreased the relative contribution of random variability and increased the non-random behavior; it also increased the number of consecutive breath lags displaying significant autocorrelation coefficients (“short-term memory”). The increases in correlated behavior and “short-term memory” during hyperoxic hypercapnia may have been the consequence of carbon dioxide-mediated increases in afterdischarge of the respiratory controller. Elastic loading increased the random fraction of variational activity in inspiratory time whereas it decreased the random variability of tidal volume. As a means of minimizing dyspnea when compensating for an inspiratory load, the advantage of prolonging inspiratory time as opposed to increasing the magnitude of inspiratory muscle effort may explain the opposing changes in the random fractions of tidal volume and inspiratory time. A resistive load of 3 cm H20/L/sec decreased the random variability of breath components, whereas a load of 6 cm H20/L/sec increased random variability compared to both rest and the smaller load. The proximity of the smaller resistive load to the perception threshold can explain this apparent paradox. In conclusion, we have shown that hyperoxic hypercapnia, elastic loading, and resistive loading cause specific and unique changes in different fractions of variational activity; the insight gained from analysis of respiratory variability advances our understanding of the control of breathing.
Miniaturized High-Performance Filters for 5G Small-Cell Applications

This paper demonstrates the first panel-based ultra-miniaturized filters with footprint smaller than half of the free-space wavelength at the operating frequencies of 28 and 39 GHz bands for 5G and mm-wave small-cell applications. The thin-film filters can be utilized either as ultra-thin integrated passive devices (IPDs) or embedded into the module substrates. Two filter types: lowpass and bandpass, with three topologies in total, are modeled, designed and fabricated on precision thin-film build-up layers on glass and traditional laminate cores. The modeling, design and optimization phase included the considerations of fabrication tolerances and testability of the filters. Glass is an ideal core material for mm-wave 5G modules and IPDs since it combines the benefits of ceramics for high frequency electrical performance, laminates for large panel processing and low cost, silicon-like dimensional stability and precision patterning, which is essential for mm-wave circuits. Unlike printing used in ceramics, or subtractive etching used in multilayer organics (MLO), this research utilizes semi-additive patterning (SAP) process to form high precision, multilayer redistribution layers (RDL) to design ultra-compact filter topologies with low insertion loss and improved stopband rejection, due to the close-to-ideal translation of lumped-to-distributed components. The simulated results of bandwidth, in-band insertion loss and out-of-band rejection of filters show excellent correlation with the measured results.
Creative arcs in improvised human-computer embodied performances

This paper proposes a novel framework for real-time decisionmaking in open-ended improvised human-computer performances and a work in progress system for studying it within the Props game domain. The proposed work uses creative arcs (i.e. continuous trajectories through a dimensional space consisting of novelty, surprise and value) as a way to guide the exploration of generated candidate actions for the improvising agent to perform. This paper also describes the proposed agent's relationship to curious agents and several considerations for computationally evaluating creativity in this domain. It details the interactive installation housing the system and the architecture design (completed and planned) before concluding with a discussion of future work.
Clinical utility of reflex testing using focused next-generation sequencing for management of patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma.

Aims The growing number of genomically targeted therapies has made genomic testing an important part of the care for patients with non-small cell lung cancer. However, limited tissue availability, cost and long turnaround times can create barriers to efficient genomic testing and subsequent treatment. Effective approaches to reduce these barriers are needed. Methods 302 advanced lung adenocarcinomas from consecutive patients seen at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UHCMC) were tested inhouse using a hybrid DNA/RNA next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel. Sample testing was reflexed from pathology for all stage III or IV tumours. Genomic alterations were tiered according to their clinical relevance and reported with guideline-recommended therapies. Clinical implications of genomic testing results were assessed by manual chart review. Results With a sample cohort consisting of 64% biopsies, 16% excisions/resections and 20% fine needle aspirations, the assay was reliable with a 95% success rate. The average turnaround time from receipt of unstained formalin-fixed paraffin embedded slides to reporting was 4.8±2.1 days, half of the recommended 10 days and similar to single-gene testing. Alterations with Food and Drug Administration-approved or the National Cancer Center Network guideline-recommended targeted therapies were found in 18% of cases. Within this group, 60% of patients went on genomically driven therapies. Conclusions We found our reflexed inhouse NGS assay to be reliable, cost-effective and efficient. Incorporation of reflex testing with our NGS assay led to an expansion of successful genomic profiling for all guideline-recommended alterations, and by including an expanded number of alterations within our panel we obtained clinically useful information outside the guidelines without changing cost or efficiency. This approach has enabled UHCMC clinicians to efficiently initiate genomically driven therapies for patients with lung adenocarcinoma.
Unlocking Performance-Programmability by Penetrating the Intel FPGA OpenCL Toolflow

Improved support for OpenCL has been an important step towards the mainstream adoption of FPGAs as compute resources. Current research has shown, however, that programmability derived from use of OpenCL typically comes at a significant expense of performance, with the latter falling below that of hand-coded HDL, GPU, and even CPU designs. This can primarily be attributed to 1) constrained deployment opportunities, 2) high testing time-frames, and 3) limitations of the Board Support Package (BSP). We address these challenges by penetrating the toolflow and utilizing OpenCL-generated HDL (OpenCL-HDL), which is created as an initial step during the full compilation. OpenCL-HDL can be used as an intermediate stage in the design process to get better resource/latency estimates and perform RTL simulations. It can also be carved out and used as a building block for an existing HDL system. In this work, we present the process of generating, isolating, and re-interfacing OpenCL-HDL. We first propose a kernel template which reliably exploits parallelism opportunities and ensures all compute pipelines are implemented as a single HDL module. We then outline the process of identifying this module from the thousands of lines of compiler generated code. Finally, we categorize the different types of interfaces and present methods for connecting/bypassing them in order to support integration into an existing HDL shell. We evaluate our approach using a number of benchmarks from the Rodinia suite and Molecular Dynamics simulations. Our OpenCL-HDL implementations of all benchmarks show an average of 37x, 4.8x, and 3.5x speedup over existing FPGA/OpenCL, GPU, and FPGA/Verilog designs, respectively. We demonstrate that OpenCL-HDL is able to deliver hand-coded HDL-like performance with significantly less development effort and with competitive resource overhead.
Predicting Youth Improvement in Community-Based Residential Settings with Practices Derived from the Evidence-Base

The current investigation conducted descriptive analyses on key variables in community-based residential (CBR) settings and investigated the extent to which disruptive youth between the ages of 13 and 17 years improved based on therapists’ reported alignment with using practices derived from the evidence-base (PDEBs). Results from both the descriptive analyses and multilevel modeling suggested that therapists are using practices that both do and do not align with the evidence-base for disruptive youth. In addition, both PDEBs and practices with minimal evidence-support predicted or marginally predicted final average progress rating for these youth. Findings are discussed as they relate to the importance of continued exploration of treatment outcomes for CBR youth.
Complex Natural Product Heparin: Biosynthesis, Biology, and Application via Synthetic Heparins

Heparin is a natural product consisting of a mixture of structurally complex polysaccharides that is isolated from porcine intestine, bovine lung, and bovine intestine. Rich in negative charges, heparin interacts with proteins, affecting numerous biological processes. It is biosynthesized by a group of specialized enzymes, including glycosyl transferases, carbohydrate-epimerase, and sulfotransferases. As a medicinally important natural product, heparin is a widely used anticoagulant drug during surgical procedures and as prophylaxis agent for patients with high risk of deep vein thrombosis. The structural heterogeneity in heparin complicates processes for the quality control and regulatory efforts to ensure the purity and safety of heparin drug. A chemoenzymatic approach has been developed to prepare synthetic heparin, mimicking the biosynthesis of heparin in vivo. The synthetic heparin can be synthesized in a highly purified form under regulated manufacture facility, eliminating the concerns associated with the animal-sourced heparin. In addition, synthetic heparin displays superior pharmacological effects to animal-sourced heparin, suitable for patients with special needs. This chapter summarizes the current understandings of the biology and biosynthesis of heparin as well as efforts toward the development of synthetic heparin.
The Case for Retiring the Tuberculin Skin Test

* Abbreviations: BCG — : Bacillus Calmette-Guerin CDC — : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention IGRA — : interferon γ release assay LTBI — : latent tuberculosis infection TST — : tuberculin skin test The Mantoux tuberculin test (TST) is likely the oldest widely used test in contemporary diagnostics. In the past, when its obvious weaknesses were considered, it always “received a pass” because of the lack of an alternative test. However, with the advent and improvement of interferon γ release assays (IGRAs), we feel it is past time to reconsider the widespread use of TSTs. An adolescent with inflammatory bowel disease refractory to steroids was tested for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). The TST result was read as positive by a nurse and negative by a physician who had never seen a positive TST result. The patient was not treated for LTBI, received infliximab, and 2 months later developed cavitary pulmonary tuberculosis. Contact tracing identified 2 relatives and several classmates with LTBI and a younger sibling with intrathoracic tuberculosis. How can we do better? IGRAs, or blood tests for the diagnosis of tuberculosis infection in place of TSTs, have been licensed in the United States since 2001. IGRAs are now recommended for use for children as young as 2 years of age1 and are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for adults in all situations in which a TST has … Address correspondence to Andrea T. Cruz, MD, MPH, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, 6621 Fannin St, Suite A2210, Houston, TX 77030. E-mail: acruz{at}bcm.edu
The Role of Psychology in Addressing Worldwide Challenges of Poverty and Gender Inequality

Abstract. The United Nations has identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed to improve the health and well-being of the world’s most vulnerable populations. The authors illustrate ...
La publicación de La Florida del Inca. Garcilaso en sus muchos nombres

This article explores the treatment the Inca gives to the many names of his relatives, protectors and potential patrons in four paratexts to La Florida: Relacion de la descendencia..., his hitherto unknown Epitome del descubrimiento..., the dedicacy to the duke of Braganca and chapter II.vi, containing the conquistadors presentation. From this perspective we can identify the count of Feria as the main relative whose refusal to help Garcilaso partly determined his name change; the Relacion and the Epitome are seen as having a unity of purpose. The publication of two of the Inca’s works in Lisbon responds to very specific political interests of the house of Braganca: glorifying the role of Portuguese conquistadors in Florida as a way to showcase the importance of Portugal in the Hispanic Monarchy.
Tactile Sensing and Terrain-Based Gait Control for Small Legged Robots

For small legged robots, ground contact interactions significantly affect the dynamics and locomotion performance. In this article, we designed thin, robust capacitive tactile sensors and applied them to the feet of a small hexapod with C-shaped rotating legs. The sensors measure contact forces as the robot traverses different types of terrain including hard surfaces with high or low friction, sand, and grass. Different gaits perform best on different types of terrain. Useful measured parameters include the magnitude and timing of the peak normal forces, in combination with the leg rotational velocity. The measured parameters were used in a support vector machine classifier to identify terrain types with 82.5% accuracy. Based on gait performance studies, we implemented a terrain-based gait control using real-time terrain classifications. A surface transitioning test shows 17.1% increase in body speed and 13.2% improvement in efficiency as the robot adjusts its gait.
Enhanced Approach for Classification of Ulcerative Colitis Severity in Colonoscopy Videos Using CNN

Ulcerative Colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation, ulcers and bleeding of the colon affecting more than 500,000 people in the United States. To achieve the therapeutic objectives for UC, which are to first induce and then maintain disease remission, physicians need to evaluate the severity of UC. However, objective assessment of US is difficult because of the non-uniform nature of symptoms and large variations in disease presentation. To address this, in our previous work, we developed two different approaches in which one uses the image textures, and the other uses CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) to measure and objectively classify the severity of UC as seen on optical colonoscopy video frames. However, we found that the image texture based approach could not handle large numbers of variations in patterns, and the CNN based approach could not achieve very high accuracy. In this paper, we improve our CNN based approach in two ways to provide better accuracy for UC severity classification. We add more thorough and essential preprocessing, subdivide each class of UC severity and generate more classes for the classification to accommodate large variations in patterns. The experimental results show that the proposed preprocessing and generation of more classes can improve the overall accuracy of automated classification of the severity of UC.
An up-to-date evaluation of lorcaserin hydrochloride for the treatment of obesity

Introduction: Obesity is a chronic disease caused by dysfunctional neurohormonal systems that result in excess weight, adiposopathy, and increased risk for many comorbidities including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. Lorcaserin is a serotonergic agonist specific to the 5HT2C receptor that is FDA-approved for the long-term management of obesity in adults with BMI>30 kg/m2 or BMI>27 kg/m2 and at least one weight-related comorbidity.Areas covered: The authors review the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetic properties of lorcaserin alongside updates on serotonin's mechanism of action in the central nervous system. The efficacy of lorcaserin in the management of obesity, its related comorbidities, and potential therapeutic applications are also discussed.Expert opinion: The future of obesity management requires a multimodal and personalized approach. The high medical complexity of patients warrants polypharmacotherapy to achieve their metabolic goals. Lorcaserin has proven efficacy and safety in the treatment of obesity and its weight-related comorbidities including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic kidney disease. New evidence elucidating its effects on dopaminergic pathways and on glucose homeostasis expands its prospective uses.
Systematics and Biogeography Reciprocally Illuminate Taxonomic Revisions in the Silkmoth Genus Saturnia (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae)

The Holarctic Saturniid genus Saturnia contains eight subgenera, though their taxonomic ranks have been in flux for decades. A prior biogeographic analysis with a six gene molecular phylogeny of Saturnia including 34 species and representatives of all but one subgenus supports distinct divisions that require taxonomic changes to accurately reflect their biology and phylogeography. In the current study, we add more publicly available COI sequence data to the previous dataset, and include all subgenera, which resulted in a dataset with approximately 67 species. Based on inferred phylogenies of the 34-species and 67-species datasets as well as the biogeographic analyses, we propose to elevate six subgenera to genus level: Agapema Neumoegen & Dyar 1894 stat. rev., CachosaturniaNaumann, Loffler & Nassig 2012stat. nov., Calosaturnia Smith 1886 stat. rev., Neoris Moore 1862 stat. rev., Perisomena Walker 1855 stat. rev., Rinaca Walker 1855 stat. rev. Additionally, we synonymize Eudia Jordan 1911 syn. nov. with Saturnia Schrank 1802 because it renders Saturnia paraphyletic, and confirm the previous synonymization of Eriogyna Jordan 1911 with Saturnia and of Caligula Moore 1862 with Rinaca Walker 1855. With these changes, molecular phylogeny and biogeographic analysis has informed taxonomy of a prominent, but poorly-understood group and revealed how the complex biogeography and active biotic exchange across the northern hemisphere has promoted diversification in previously unrecognized groups.
Impact of Sacubitril/Valsartan in Cardiac Reverse Remodeling in Ischemic vs. Nonischemic Cardiomyopathy

Purpose Guideline directed medical therapy with beta blockers, ACEi/ARBs, and aldosterone antagonists with the goal of affecting cardiac reverse remodeling (CRR) has previously been the cornerstone of management of patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). More recently, PARADIGM-HF demonstrated the superiority of sacubitril-valsartan to enalapril in reducing HF hospitalizations as well as cardiac and all-cause mortality. Other studies demonstrated that ARNI therapy may enhance CRR to a greater degree than ACEI or ARB therapy alone. To date, the degree of CRR in nonischemic vs ischemic cardiomyopathy treated with ARNI has not been studied. Methods A single-center retrospective chart review was performed assessing the effect of ARNI on echocardiographic parameters of CRR. Patients initiated on any dose sacubitril-valsartan from January 1, 2016 to October 1, 2019 were included. Baseline demographic and clinical information was collected. Serial echocardiograms performed at 3 month intervals following initiation of therapy were reviewed for markers of cardiac remodeling including ejection fraction (LVEF), left ventricular internal diameter end diastole and end systole (LVESD, LVEDD), and left ventricular mass index (LVMI). Results Of the 76 patients included in the analysis, 29 (38%) had ICM and 47 (72%) had NICM with a median age of 61.5. Both groups were treated with maximally tolerated doses of guideline directed medical therapy. There was no difference in the percentage of patients in each cohort treated with low, intermediate, or high doses of ARNI. Patients with ICM and NICM were treated with ARNI for an average of 1.7 years and 1.6 years respectively. In the ICM cohort, there was a statistically significant improvement in LVEF (P=0.004), but not in any other parameters of ventricular remodeling. In the NICM cohort, there was a statistically significant improvement in LVEF (P=0.007), LVESD (P=0.004), and LVMI (P=0.007). Conclusion Our data suggest that less LV remodeling occurs in ICM vs NICM following treatment with ARNI. A subgroup analysis of PARADIGM-HF demonstrated similar clinical outcomes in these two patient populations. Taken together, these findings raise the possibility that the benefit of ARNI therapy occurs through mechanisms in addition to reverse remodeling.
Latent Growth Curve Model Selection with Tabu Search.

The purpose of this research note is to introduce a latent growth curve reconstruction approach based on the Tabu search algorithm. The approach algorithmically enables researchers to optimally det...
Learning to be human again: Being and becoming in the home garden commons:

This study uses ethnographic narratives of a Santa Clara Valley community of urban gardeners gathered from 2012 to 2016 to investigate the lived realities and struggles of creating an actually exis...
When in doubt: the value of uncertainty for release success among incarcerated women

Reentry can be complicated and daunting, yet people leaving prison tend to be overly optimistic about their capability to remain crime-free. This optimism could be good—where a hopeful mindset coul...
Genetically Engineered Mouse Model of Brainstem High-Grade Glioma.

Summary Brainstem gliomas are aggressive tumors that are more prevalent in pediatric patients. The location of these tumors makes them inoperable, and currently there is no effective treatment. Recent genomic data revealed the unique biology of these tumors. The following protocol provides a method to incorporate these specific genetic lesions in a mouse glioma model. Using this model, the effects of these mutations in tumor progression and response to treatments can be studied within a relevant in vivo context. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Mendez et al. (2020) .
Understanding immunosenescence and its impact on vaccination of older adults.

Abstract Older adults are more susceptible to viral and bacterial infection, and experience higher incidence and severity of infectious diseases. Although vaccination is the most logical solution in preventing infectious diseases, primary vaccine responses in individuals aged ≥65 years-old fail to generate complete protection. This is presumably attributed to immunosenescence, a term that describes functional differences associated with the immune system and natural age advancement. Both the innate and adaptive immune systems experience age-related impairments that contribute to insufficient protection following vaccination. This review addresses current knowledge of age-related changes that affect vaccine responsiveness; including the deficits in innate cell functions, dampened humoral and cell-mediated immune responses, current vaccination schedules for older adults, and concludes with potential strategies for improving vaccine efficacy specifically for this age group. Due to an age-related decline in immunity and poor vaccine responses, infectious diseases remain a burden among the aged population.
Comparing lexical bundle use in EAP reading textbooks to lower-division university textbooks

Abstract This study employed a corpus analysis to describe differences in lexical bundle patterns between English for academic purposes (EAP) reading textbooks and lower-division university textbooks by focusing on three characteristics: (1) the frequency of occurrence of bundles, (2) the frequency of bundle structures (e.g., phrasal vs. clausal), and (3) the frequency of bundle discourse functions (e.g., stance, discourse organizers, and referential; see Biber et al., 2004; Biber, 2006). Results revealed that the corpus representing lower-division university textbooks employed more passive bundles, intangible framing bundles, and text deixis bundles. On the other hand, the corpus representing EAP reading textbooks contained more prepositional phrase bundles, anticipatory it bundles, and place bundles. A qualitative comparison also revealed that quantity bundles in the corpus representing lower-division university textbooks made reference to technical and academic calculations. These results show how the communicative purposes of EAP reading textbooks differ from introductory university textbooks, which can be used to inform EAP reading instruction.
Formal [4 + 4]-, [4 + 3]-, and [4 + 2]-cycloaddition reactions of donor–acceptor cyclobutenes, cyclopropenes and siloxyalkynes induced by Brønsted acid catalysis

Bronsted acid catalyzed formal [4 + 4]-, [4 + 3]-, and [4 + 2]-cycloadditions of donor–acceptor cyclobutenes, cyclopropenes, and siloxyalkynes with benzopyrylium ions are reported. [4 + 2]-cyclization/deMayo-type ring-extension cascade processes produce highly functionalized benzocyclooctatrienes, benzocycloheptatrienes, and 2-naphthols in good to excellent yields and selectivities. Moreover, the optical purity of reactant donor–acceptor cyclobutenes is fully retained during the cascade. The 1,3-dicarbonyl product framework of the reaction products provides opportunities for salen-type ligand syntheses and the construction of fused pyrazoles and isoxazoles that reveal a novel rotamer-diastereoisomerism.
Pituitary Tumor Surgery: Comparison of Endoscopic and Microscopic Techniques at a Single Center

Abstract Objective To understand the transition from microscopic surgery (MS) to endoscopic surgery (ES) on the pituitary across the United States, we assessed a single institution practicing both procedures to discern advantages and disadvantages for each. Patients and Methods Retrospective institutional chart review of 534 patients in a large practice over a 6-year period (January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2019) comparing a single MS neurosurgeon with a single ES neurosurgeon operating on the same days. Results In this series, 14% (n=75) of patients had a prior operation, there were no carotid artery injuries, the overall risk for a postoperative infection was 0.4% (n=2), and risk for a postoperative cerebrospinal fluid leak requiring treatment was 2.0% (n=11). Mean ± SD hospital stay was 1.3±0.04 days; readmission for any reason within 30 days occurred in 3.4% (n=18) of patients. The mean volumetric resection for MS was 86.9%±1.7% and for ES was 91.7%±1.3% (P=.03). There was a higher rate of notable events (P=.015) with MS, but MS had 16% lower cost and operative times were 48 minutes shorter than for ES (83±7 vs 131±6 minutes). The ES required substantially fewer postoperative secondary treatments such as radiation therapy (P=.003). Conclusion Pituitary surgery is a very safe and effective procedure regardless of technique. The MS has shorter operative times and overall lower cost. The ES results in increased volumetric resection and fewer secondary treatments. Both techniques can be valuable to a large practice, and understanding these niches is important when selecting optimal approaches to pituitary surgery for a given patient.
Productivity Versus Power: The Role of Law and Technology, (Mis)perceptions and Ideology

Power and productivity mediate economic outcomes across markets–both product markets and labor markets. We develop a neoclassical economic framework that combines productivity and power, and presents the balance between them as an equilibrium outcome determined by strategic investments–by firms, consumers and workers–in law, technology, (mis)perceptions and ideology. An actor’s choice of investment–most important, the choice between a productivity-increasing investment and a power-increasing investment–can be explained by the relative marginal return from the different investments. Whereas the incentives of firms and consumers and those of firms and workers are roughly aligned with respect to productivity-increasing investments, they are diametrically opposed with respect to power-increasing investments. Since investments affect surplus and thus the resources available for future investment, the model features multiple equilibria and path dependence. Policy intervention may be needed to shift the market from a bad equilibrium, with low productivity and adverse distributive consequences, to a more efficient and more equitable equilibrium. Policy intervention may also be needed to control welfare-reducing, power-seeking investments. While some degree of market power may be needed to support long-term efficiency, innovation and economic growth, firms will often seek excessive market power that will reduce overall welfare. Policymakers should strive to optimize power structures across different markets, e.g., by influencing the relative return from different power-increasing and productivity-increasing investments. The explanatory power of our theoretical framework is demonstrated through a series of detailed case studies–from the home broadband and net neutrality wars and the antitrust battles of Microsoft and now Google to the struggles between firms and unions during 19th century industrialization and the evolving story of Uber and the gig economy. Our framework informs ongoing debates in antitrust law, labor and employment law, intellectual property law, and consumer protection law, and in any other area of law that regulates, directly or indirectly, product or labor markets.
A Panorama of Phase Transitions

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a unified review of a wide variety of phase-transition results in the detection and exact support recovery problems for sparse signals. In order to emphasize ideas, the focus is on the simple case of a high-dimensional sparse signal observed with additive independent Gaussian errors. The classic phase-transition result for the signal detection problem obtained first by Yuri Izmailovich Ingster as well as very recent results on approximate support recovery are reviewed. The unified approach based on the four different risk functionals introduced in Chap. 2 yields a variety of phase-transition results, many of which are new. The optimality and sub-optimality of some popular support estimation procedures are also established. The chapter provides a concise and yet complete account of the phase transitions in the context of sparse signal detection and support estimation in high dimensions.
Radiated Noise Source Characterization Based on Magnitude-Only Near Field

Accurate noise source characterization is critical in increasing the accuracy of desense simulations. However, characterization of the emission sources in full-wave simulations often lacks accuracy. In this paper, a fast and accurate method to extract equivalent dipole moments of radiated noise sources is proposed. The proposed method uses the genetic algorithm to optimize the position and type of dipoles, and it also uses a back-and-forth iteration algorithm to retrieve phase based on the magnitude information of two observation planes with different heights. Compared with the traditional equivalent dipole extraction algorithms, this method can minimize the number of reconstructed dipoles and avoid the complicated and time-consuming phase measurement. This method is verified by comparing the measurement and simulation of coupled noise from an image sensor to a nearby cellular antenna.
Role of astrocytes in aging: late passage primary mouse brain astrocytes and C-6 glial cells as models.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the role of astrocytes in aging. Late passages of primary glial cells derived from aged mouse (18-month-old) cerebral hemispheres and also C-6 glial cells of early and late passages as models are used to study the changes in glial cells with aging. The findings reported in the chapter provides evidence that a variety of signals deriving from neurons, epithelial cells, mesenchymal cells or glial cells themselves, regulate the expression of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Observations on glial cells from aged mouse brain provided supportive evidence to the view that glial cells can express progenitor properties throughout the life span. Finally, it is reported that glioblastic glia cells can enhance neuronal phenotypic expression, whereas mature astrocytes do not, and more importantly, astrocytes from aged brain may have an inhibitory influence.
Creating Community through the Use of a Class Wiki

This study examines the use of a class wiki in a course offered to incoming freshmen at a college in central Pennsylvania. The wiki was used to supplement instruction in a classroom-based course. The study shows that the wiki was helpful in building community among incoming students, and also helped them to grow academically in the course. The class wiki also helped foster positive feelings toward the course as well as students' first semester at the college.
Familial Resemblance and Heritability

Familial resemblance, which arises when members within families are more similar than are unrelated pairs of individuals, may be estimated in terms of correlations (or covariances) among family members. The magnitudes of such correlations generally reflect both the extent of environmental sharing and the degree of biological relationship between the relatives. Heritability, or more appropriately multifactorial heritability or generalized heritability, quantifies the strength of the familial resemblance and represents the percentage of variance ina trait that is due to all additive familial effects including additive genetic effects and those of the familial environment. However, the traditional concept of heritability, which may be more appropriately called the genetic heritability, represents only the percentage of phenotypic variance due to additive genetic effects. Resolving the sources of familial resemblance entails other issues. For example, there may be major gene effects that may be largely or entirely nonadditive, temporal or developmental trends, and gene-gene (epistasis) and gene-environment interactions. The design of a family study determines which of these sources are resolvable. For example, in intact nuclear families consisting of parents and offspring, the genetic and familial environmental effects are not resolvable because these relatives share both genes and environments. However, extended pedigrees and twin and adoption study designs allow separation of the heritable effects and, possibly, more complex etiologies, including interactions. Various factors affect the estimation and interpretability of heritability, for example, assumptions regarding linearity and additivity of the effects, assortative mating, and the underlying distribution of the data. Nonnormality of the data can lead to errors in hypothesis testing, although it yields reasonably unbiased estimates. Fortunately, these and other complications can be directly modeled in many of the sophisticated software packages available today in genetic epidemiology.
A priori estimates for higher order multipliers on a circle

We present an elementary proof of an a priori estimate of Bourgain for a general class of multipliers on a circle using an extension of methods developed in our previous work. The main tool is a suitable version of a counting argument of Zygmund for unbounded regions.
The In/Visibility of Peace: Or 'When Did You Last Go to See a Peace Movie?'

American liberal public culture finds it hard to imagine peace, as is evident in the idealized version of public culture in the TV series The Newsroom and was also the case in the hit musical Hair. There is a persistent gap between the pacific ideals of liberalism and its militaristic practices. Each time liberalism sees peace it cannot help but envision war too. In the founding text of liberal peace theory, Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace,” the distance between peace as a moral idea and empirical reality is not bridged, leading Kant to justify war against non-liberals who appear as a threat to the security of civil peace. Michael Doyle’s pioneering essay in contemporary liberal peace theory acutely analyzes the distance between liberalism’s internal pacifism and its external bellicosity, but covers it by reducing rational ideas to empirical hypotheses, overlooking the inherent antimony in Kant’s theory. In liberal peace studies, David Cortright repeats the split between empirical reality and moral commitment in Kant’s text, endorsing a version of realist pacifism that practices the policing and pacification of post-conflict societies and non-liberals. In critical peace and security studies (Mac Ginty, Richmond, Dillon, Reid, Shinko) such liberal peace-building is analyzed as a technocratic, disciplinary, biopolitical, governmental peace of the victor that confuses peace with order. While no peace that is not also war is unimaginable on the liberal horizon, a Foucauldian notion of agonistic peace envisions peace as the practice of freedom.
Slope estimation for bivariate longitudinal outcomes adjusting for informative right censoring by using a discrete survival model: application to the renal transplant cohort

Patients undergoing renal transplantation are prone to graft failure which causes lost of follow-up measures on their blood urea nitrogen and serum creatinine levels. These two outcomes are measured repeatedly over time to assess renal function following transplantation. Loss of follow-up on these bivariate measures results in informative right censoring, a common problem in longitudinal data that should be adjusted for so that valid estimates are obtained. In this study, we propose a bivariate model that jointly models these two longitudinal correlated outcomes and generates population and individual slopes adjusting for informative right censoring using a discrete survival approach. The proposed approach is applied to the clinical dataset of patients who had undergone renal transplantation. A simulation study validates the effectiveness of the approach.
Financial incentives, professional values and performance: A study of pay-for-performance in a professional organization

Summary We investigated the effect of financial incentives on performance in a professional organization. Whereas agency theory treats tangible rewards such as money as a potentially powerful motivator for improving performance, the professional control perspective posits that the motivational effects of financial incentives will depend on the intended recipients attitudes toward the incentives relative to their professional values. The study setting was a large network of physician practices that adopted a financial incentive program to improve physician performance in the management of diabetic patients. Consistent with agency theory, performance did improve following the introduction of the incentive. However, consistent with the professional control perspective, physicians' psychologically based attitudes toward the incentive program regarding its impact on their own work autonomy and the importance of the performance goals moderated the effect of the incentive on performance. Study findings indicate that agency theory and professional control are complementary theoretical perspectives for understanding how professionals will respond to the imposition of performance-related financial incentives. In terms of practice, pay-for-performance programs aimed at professional organizations should be designed to take into account the values and goals of an organization's professionals to maximize the effect of financial incentives on performance. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Illuminating the global suicide-attack network

This article examines the contemporary phenomenon of suicide attacks by fusing network analysis and time-series econometrics. We find that a global network of militant organizations drives the reproduction of the suicide-attack phenomenon, and brokers within the network mark the primary perpetrators and diffusers of the tactic. The introduction of a fourth level of analysis of political violence demonstrates that network connections between organizations form a system that perpetuates suicide attacks. An organization-level analysis reveals that ideological congruence facilitates the establishment of network connections. As exemplified by the wide range of employers and targets, and moreover by the generation of an autogamous function, contemporary suicide attacks represent a unique sociopolitical phenomenon. Accordingly, organizations that use the tactic warrant a distinct classification.
Isolation and analysis of lipoproteins secreted by rat liver hepatocytes

Abstract A procedure has been developed for the small-scale isolation and characterization of lipoproteins secreted by cultured rat liver hepatocytes. The lipoproteins in the culture medium were separated into VLDL, LDL, HDL and a fraction with d > 1.21 on single-spin density-gradients. The lipoproteins were removed from the gradients by adsorption onto Cab-O-Sil, a hydrated colloidal silica. The lipid components were extracted from the silica with CHCl3/CH3OH and the apoproteins solubilized in a buffer that contained 2% sodium dodecyl sulfate and 6 M urea. The proteins were analyzed on 3–20% acrylamide electrophoresis gels that contained 1% sodium dodecyl sulfate. The two major rat-plasma lipoproteins, VLDL and HDL, were well separated by the gradients. The Cab-O-Sil was shown to bind 90–95% of the HDL and VLDL in the fractions from the gradient. The recovery of the lipid components was essentially quantitative. The recovery of the apolipoproteins was only about 60% but with very good precision. Over a 20 h period, the lipid phosphorus associated with secreted lipoproteins increased linearly. The secretion of apolipoprotein A1 and apolipoprotein E associated with HDL and apolipoprotein B associated with VLDL also increased as a nearly linear function with time. The secretion of apolipoprotein E associated with VLDL was linear only up to approx. 6 h. The availability of this procedure should greatly facilitate further studies on the characterization of lipoproteins secreted by hepatocytes and mechanisms that regulate lipoprotein synthesis and secretion.
The Glasgow-Blatchford Bleeding Score identified patients with upper GI bleeding who could be managed as outpatients

Source Citation Stanley AJ, Ashley D, Dalton HR, et al. Outpatient management of patients with low-risk upper-gastrointestinal haemorrhage: multicentre validation and prospective evaluation. Lancet...
A New Subspecies of Pentagramma triangularis (Pteridaceae)

Pentagramma triangularis (Kaulfuss) Yatskievych, Windham, & E. Wollenweber subsp. rebmanii Winner and M. G. Simpson subsp. nov. is a new subspecies endemic to south-central to southeast San Diego County, California, USA, and inland, northwestern Baja California, Mexico. It is uncommon on seasonally moist, granitic-derived or gabbro-clay substrates, distinguishable from other Pentagramma triangularis subspecies by the scattered white farina on the adaxial blade surface and lightly scattered along the stipe.