cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Factors influencing hematopoietic spleen colony formation in irradiated mice. I. The normal pattern of endogenous colony formation.

Data pertaining to the endogenous mouse spleen colony system, 10 days postirradiation, are presented. The Do for visible colonies is 78 R, while that for 6 hr iron uptake over a range of 600–800 R is 50 R. The Do for spleen weight is 196 R and that for IUdR uptake is 193 R. These measurements increase with the age of the mouse. Hypertransfusion decreases spleen iron uptake and colony number. DF-32P and sodium sulfate-35S are not useful indicators of splenic hematopoiesis in this system. Visible hematopoietic colonies in the spleen are not produced by vinblastine, nitrogen mustard, methotrexate, or cyclophosphamide.
The bluntness of incarceration: crime and punishment in Tallahassee neighborhoods, 1995 to 2002

The relationship between crime and incarceration is vexed. Some scholars suggest that incarceration deters crime. Others suggest that incarceration can increase crime in certain situations by undermining the social fabric and making the environment more criminogenic. Most of the empirical work on the question is undertaken at an aggregate level (county, state, or national data). Yet, criminologists have long argued that the complex intertwining of crime and punishment is best understood at the neighborhood level, where the impacts of incarceration on social relationships are most closely felt. This paper examines the question using a panel of neighborhoods in Tallahassee, Florida for the period 1995 to 2002. I find evidence to support the contention that the high levels of prison admissions and prison cycling (admissions plus releases) is associated with increasing crime rates in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This effect is not found in other neighborhoods. Looking more closely at the issues of race and class, I find that while marginalized neighborhoods experience slightly higher crime rates, they are faced with much higher incarceration rates. In Black neighborhoods in particular, prison admissions are an order of magnitude higher in comparison with non-Black neighborhoods even though underlying crime rates are not very different.
The stimulation of vasopressin gene expression in cultured hypothalamic neurons by cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate is reversible

Previous studies have demonstrated that the number of vasopressin (VP) neurons present in primary diencephalic cultures can be markedly augmented by treatment with drugs that elevate intracellular cAMP. To evaluate the effect of this drug treatment on VP secretion by hypothalamic cultures and to determine if this represents a developmental phenomenon or a mechanism involved in the continuing dynamic regulation of the VP gene, we have exposed primary dispersed hypothalamic cultures derived from 14-day-old fetal Sprague-Dawley rats to forskolin (25 microM) and the phosphodiesterase inhibitor 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX; 500 microM), either continually or intermittently, for up to 39 days. Culture medium was collected throughout the culture period for VP RIA, and at the end of the culture period, cultures were stained immunocytochemically for neurophysin (NP). As reported by previous investigators, exposure to the drugs for 11 days resulted in an increase in the number of NP-positive neurons. The increase was sustained with longer periods of exposure up to 39 days. IBMX and forskolin treatment also resulted in detectable release of VP into the culture medium, which increased from 1.4 +/- 0.15 pg/ml at 11 days to 8.4 +/- 0.6 pg/ml after 32 days of drug treatment. The VP concentration remained undetectable (< 1.25 pg/ml) in nontreated cultures throughout this period. The effect on VP expression did not require immediate exposure to the drugs in culture, but did require the continuous presence of the drugs. Removal of the drugs from days 11-18 of culture resulted in an almost complete loss of NP-positive cells; however, reexposure to the drugs reinstated NP expression in a time-dependent fashion. The effect of IBMX/forskolin treatment on the expression of other neuronal markers was also evaluated. The treatment did not alter the total number of neurons, and there was no evidence of stimulation of oxytocin expression. There was a marked increase in the number and size of neurons stained immunocytochemically for tyrosine hydroxylase and a small increase in the number of cells staining for somatostatin. These results demonstrate that treatment with cAMP-elevating drugs markedly and selectively elevates VP secretion from dispersed hypothalamic cultures, but continuous exposure to the drugs is necessary to sustain the effect. These findings suggest that although cAMP is required in hypothalamic cultures for VP gene expression, it may also participate in the dynamic regulation of VP gene transcription in response to physiological challenges.
The techniques of elite male long jumpers.

A model was developed to identify the characteristics of long jumping technique that determine the distance of the jump. The performances of the finalists in the TAC (U.S. national) Championships were recorded cinematographically and the best trials analyzed. The results indicated that the relative lengths of the last two strides of the approach are poor indicators of success in the event. Maximum horizontal velocities were usually attained at takeoff into the third- or second-last stride and not exclusively during the second-last stride, as previously reported. None of the subjects had either a zero or upward vertical velocity of the center of gravity at touchdown of the foot for takeoff into the jump, contrary to an argument occasionally advanced. The greatest percentages of the variance in the distance of the jump were accounted for by the horizontal velocity at takeoff into the fourth-last stride, the change in horizontal velocity during the next support phase, the horizontal and resultant velocities at takeoff and the flight distance.
Learning from ambiguously labeled images

In many image and video collections, we have access only to partially labeled data. For example, personal photo collections often contain several faces per image and a caption that only specifies who is in the picture, but not which name matches which face. Similarly, movie screenplays can tell us who is in the scene, but not when and where they are on the screen. We formulate the learning problem in this setting as partially-supervised multiclass classification where each instance is labeled ambiguously with more than one label. We show theoretically that effective learning is possible under reasonable assumptions even when all the data is weakly labeled. Motivated by the analysis, we propose a general convex learning formulation based on minimization of a surrogate loss appropriate for the ambiguous label setting. We apply our framework to identifying faces culled from Web news sources and to naming characters in TV series and movies. We experiment on a very large dataset consisting of 100 hours of video, and in particular achieve 6% error for character naming on 16 episodes of LOST.
Desulfovibrio legallii Prosthetic Shoulder Joint Infection and Review of Antimicrobial Susceptibility and Clinical Characteristics of Desulfovibrio Infections

We describe a case of shoulder hemiarthroplasty infection with Desulfovibrio legallii. Antimicrobial susceptibilities of 36 Desulfovibrio isolates are presented. Metronidazole and carbapenems exhibited reliable activity, although piperacillin-tazobactam did not. Eleven previous cases of Desulfovibrio infection are reviewed; most arose from a gastrointestinal tract-related source.
A stereo machine for video-rate dense depth mapping and its new applications

We have developed a video-rate stereo machine that has the capability of generating a dense depth map at the video rate. The performance bench marks of the CMU video-rate stereo machine are: 1) multi-image input of up to 6 cameras; 2) throughput of 30 million point/spl times/disparity measurement per second; 3) frame rate of 30 frame/sec; 4) a dense depth map of up to 256/spl times/240 pixels; 5) disparity search range of up to 60 pixels; 6) high precision of depth output up to 8 bits (with interpolation). The capability of passively producing such a dense depth map (3D representation) of a scene at the video rate can open up a new class of applications of 3D vision: merging real and virtual worlds in real time.
Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on Emotion Regulation in Social Anxiety Disorder

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an established program shown to reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. MBSR is believed to alter emotional responding by modifying cognitive– affective processes. Given that social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by emotional and attentional biases as well as distorted negative self-beliefs, we examined MBSR-related changes in the brain–behavior indices of emotional reactivity and regulation of negative self-beliefs in patients with SAD. Sixteen patients underwent functional MRI while reacting to negative self-beliefs and while regulating negative emotions using 2 types of attention deployment emotion regulation—breath-focused attention and distraction-focused attention. Post-MBSR, 14 patients completed neuroimaging assessments. Compared with baseline, MBSR completers showed improvement in anxiety and depression symptoms and self-esteem. During the breath-focused attention task (but not the distraction-focused attention task), they also showed (a) decreased negative emotion experience, (b) reduced amygdala activity, and (c) increased activity in brain regions implicated in attentional deployment. MBSR training in patients with SAD may reduce emotional reactivity while enhancing emotion regulation. These changes might facilitate reduction in SAD-related avoidance behaviors, clinical symptoms, and automatic emotional reactivity to negative self-beliefs in adults with SAD.
Delayed recognition memory span in HIV-1 infection

We administered a spatial version of the Delayed Recognition Span Test (DRST), a working memory task performed abnormally by patients with basal ganglia disease, to a group of 96 HIV-seropositive and 83 seronegative subjects with a high prevalence of substance abuse. For comparison purposes, we also administered the Symbol-Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) and the Trail Making Test (TMT), measures which detect HIV-related mental slowing efficiently in gay men but are nonspecifically impaired in subjects with a history of substance abuse. As predicted, scores on the TMT and the SDMT did not discriminate the groups, but HIV-seropositive subjects had significantly shorter spatial spans (p < .007) and DRST total scores (p < .005). These effects could not be attributed to differences in age, education, estimated intelligence, or psychological distress, because the groups were well matched on these variables. The DRST is a promising measure of HIV-related cognitive dysfunction in substance abusers, who are often nonspecifically impaired on psychomotor tasks. These preliminary data also indicate that working memory function should be studied further in HIV-seropositive subjects.
Lysosomal drug sequestration as a mechanism of drug resistance in vascular sarcoma cells marked by high CSF-1R expression

Background: Human angiosarcoma and canine hemangiosarcoma are thought to arise from vascular tissue or vascular forming cells based upon their histological appearance. However, recent evidence indicates a hematopoietic or angioblastic cell of origin for these tumors. In support of this idea, we previously identified an endothelial-myeloid progenitor cell population with high expression of endothelial cell markers and the myeloid cell marker, colony stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF-1R). Here, we further characterized these cells to better understand how their cellular characteristics may impact current therapeutic applications. Methods: We performed cell enrichment studies from canine hemangiosarcoma and human angiosarcoma cell lines to generate cell populations with high or low CSF-1R expression. We then utilized flow cytometry, side population and cell viability assays, and fluorescence based approaches to elucidate drug resistance mechanisms and to determine the expression of hematopoietic and endothelial progenitor cell markers. Results: We demonstrated that cells with high CSF-1R expression enriched from hemangiosarcoma and angiosarcoma cell lines are more drug resistant than cells with little or no CSF-1R expression. We determined that the increased drug resistance may be due to increased ABC transporter expression in hemangiosarcoma and increased drug sequestration within cellular lysosomes in both hemangiosarcoma and angiosarcoma. Conclusions: We identified drug sequestration within cellular lysosomes as a shared drug resistance mechanism in human and canine vascular sarcomas marked by high CSF-1R expression. Taken together, our results demonstrate that studies in highly prevalent canine hemangiosarcoma may be especially relevant to understanding and addressing drug resistance mechanisms in both the canine and human forms of this disease.
The Impact of Two Curricular Models on Motivation, Engagement and Achievement in Physical Education

The purpose of this study was to compare motivation, engagement and achievement in two teaching conditions; one focusing on a skill-drill-game approach, and the second using Sport Education. Forty high school students were randomly selected to participate in either a Sport Education season or a Skill-Drill-Game unit. Post intervention measures of student enjoyment/interest, effort/importance, perceived competence, and pressure/tension were obtained for both groups. A daily gauge of engagement was obtained through pedometry. A pre- and post- intervention measure of aerobic fitness was used to assess achievement. ANOVAs indicated a significant difference between groups for effort/importance (p= .012) and enjoyment/interest (p= .005), but not for pressure/tension (p= .762) or perceived competence (p= .218). Three separate one- way ANOVAs indicated that the SEM group took significantly more steps than the SDG group during the introduction and skill practice phase of the season/unit, during the preseason/modified games phase, and also during the regular season/game play phase. ANOVAs indicated a significant difference between groups on both engagement (p= .005) and aerobic fitness (p= .048). The results of this study provide initial, but cautious support for the notion that participation in Sport Education moves students towards more autonomous forms of motivation, which in turn results in greater levels of engagement in classes. The results support Sport Education as a viable curricular model for teachers in order to promote engagement in physical education. The challenge now is to plan studies that formally test this notion, and also use more sophisticated measures of engagement that use both the dimensions of active involvement as well as emotional intensity and effort.
Reattaching Shadows: Dancing with Schopenhauer

In this essay I explore Schopenhauer’s position on dance, beginning with his brief, pejorative references to it in The World as Will and Representation , and then examining dance’s exclusion from his discussion of the arts there. Toward this end I then turn to Francis Sparshott’s essay on the neglect of dance in the history of aesthetics, considering his understanding of Plato’s valorization of dance, and his comment that Schopenhauer’s dance is the death-dance of Shiva. Seeking a stronger justification for Schopenhauer’s neglect and condemnation of dance in light of the opposite tendency in his Greek and Indian influences, I then suggest that Schopenhauer’s conception of madness as a form of disconnection closely linked to genius offers both a promising diagnosis for the problem of dance’s status and also a way of ameliorating it. Finally, I attempt this remedy by sewing together Schopenhauer’s conceptions of embodiment and music—reattaching its dancing shadow to his philosophy. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
Fiscal Fitness? Exercise Capacity and Health Care Costs.

There are many benefits of exercise. Observational studies have shown that regular exercise reduces all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Cohort studies, including extensive work from the Cooper Clinic, have reported a strong inverse relationship between greater exercise
Executional Elements in Banner Advertising: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Cross-cultural comparisons of information content in advertising have yielded inconsistent results, and cross-cultural comparisons of emotion content in advertising have been limited. Inconsistent findings are likely due to the impact of culture on coding itself. In particular, analysis of emotion content is problematic, given that emotion terms do not have universal meaning. As an alternative to traditional coding procedures, this study explores executional elements that can be objectively measured. Bio-informational theory suggests that certain stimulus properties (motion, color) produce visceral emotional responses. As antecedents of emotional response, these properties represent emotion content in advertising. Compared to banner ads from a Western culture, banner ads from an Eastern culture are found to use more animation, to have a higher mean number of frames in animation, and to use colors with higher levels of value and chroma. Future research is needed to explore cultural and other factors that p...
Towards an efficient vulnerability analysis methodology for better security risk management

Risk management is a process that allows IT managers to balance between cost of the protective measures and gains in mission capability. A system administrator has to make a decision and choose an appropriate security plan that maximizes the resource utilization. However, making the decision is not a trivial task. Most organizations have tight budgets for IT security; therefore, the chosen plan must be reviewed as thoroughly as other management decisions. Unfortunately, even the best-practice security risk management frameworks do not provide adequate information for effective risk management. Vulnerability scanning and penetration testing that form the core of traditional risk management, identify only the set of system vulnerabilities. Given the complexity of today’s network infrastructure, it is not enough to consider the presence or absence of vulnerabilities in isolation. Materializing a threat strongly requires the combination of multiple attacks using different vulnerabilities. Such a requirement is far beyond the capabilities of current day vulnerability scanners. Consequently, assessing the cost of an attack or cost of implementing appropriate security controls is possible only in a piecemeal manner. In this work, we develop and formalize new network vulnerability analysis model. The model encodes in a concise manner, the contributions of different security conditions that lead to system compromise. We extend the model with a systematic risk assessment methodlogy to support reasoning under uncertainty in an attempt to evaluate the vulnerability exploitation probability. We develop a cost model to quantify the potential loss and gain that can occur in a system if certain conditions are met (or protected). We also quantify the security control cost incurred to implement a set of security hardening measures. We propose solutions for the system administrator’s decision problems covering the area of the risk analysis and risk mitigation analysis. Finally, we extend the vulnerability assessment model to the areas of intrusion detection and forensic investigation.
An Essay on: Of Judges and Juries Revisited in the Context of Certain Preliminary Fact Questions Determining the Admissibility of Evidence Under Federal and California Rules of Evidence

2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the California Evidence Code (CEC) and the introduction of the California Bar Examination coverage of the CEC on the Bar for the first time. This essay compares the provisions of the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) and the CEC in dealing with the allocation of functions of judge and jury in the determination of preliminary fact questions. The differences are notable particularly in connection with who, judge or jury, decides the preliminary fact questions for admissions. The author argues that the CEC has it wrong, but the California Law Revision Commission has no interest in making any changes.
Parameterization of Boundary Layer Control Dimples on a Low Pressure Turbine Blade

Three dimple configurations were placed on a Pak-B turbine blade and studied to ascertain their relative effectiveness in reducing boundary layer separation at Reynolds numbers been 25k and 100k. The configurations included a single row at 65% of the axial chord with 2.22 cm and 4.44 cm dimple spacing, and a two-row configuration placing dimples at 65% and 76% of the axial chord, respectively, with 4.44 cm spacing in each row. The two-row case staggered the dimples such that upstream dimples were offset span-wise by 1⁄2 the dimple spacing from the downstream row. Experimental wake loss and boundary layer measurements were made on the modified blade and compared to the unmodified blade. No dimple configuration dramatically outperformed the others, suggesting that the extra complexity of multiple rows or close spacing may not be necessary. All dimpled configurations, however, showed a marked improvement over the unmodified case. Complimenting the experimental work, a computational investigation was performed on three similar dimple configurations. The computational work returned results in agreement with the experimental efforts.
Particle Coarsening in Multiphase Ternary Systems

Particle Coarsening in ternary, multiphase -multicomponent, systems is quite different than its binary counterpart in that the presence of one phase can affect the coarsening behavior of another. We have shown by analytic analysis and numerical simulation that the interaction between two coexisting phases depends on: solution thermodynamics, diffusivities, and equilibrium concentration differences between matrix and precipitate phases. Therefore, different ternary systems create different cross phase interactions which affect coarsening behavior. For example, spatial correlations between the two coarsening phases are a strong function of this interaction and can lead to spatial ordering between the two phases. Also, specific ternary systems can produce kinetic instabilities and pattern formation.
Effectiveness of using SPECT/CT to reduce operating room times in surgical parathyroid patients

2731 Objectives With the advancement of SPECT/CT capabilities as a method of acquisition, images produced are able to provide functional information from SPECT along with anatomical information from CT. Patients with hyperparathyroidism imaged pre-surgically using Tc99m Sestamibi, can benefit from CT resulting in an increased efficiency of locating abnormal parathyroid glands. Increased efficiency can lead to fewer instances of surgical failure and a decrease in the amount of time spent operating on patients. The disadvantages of using SPECT/CT acquisition are increased costs, longer scanning times, and increased radiation exposure. The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of SPECT/CT, versus using SPECT only, is an effective way of locating abnormal parathyroid glands in regards to a decrease in the amount of time spent in the OR. Methods A retrospective study of all patients who underwent a pre-surgical parathyroid scan between January 2011-October 2012 and October 2013-Dec 2014 were obtained and categorized into groups of individuals who received SPECT/CT (n=48) and those who received SPECT only (n=51). The amount of time each patient spent in surgery, from cut to close, was then obtained using electronic medical records and evaluated using a two-tailed t-test to look for a significant difference in mean surgical times between SPECT/CT and SPECT acquisitions. Results The mean surgical times were 146.4 minutes using SPECT/CT acquisition and 132.7 minutes using SPECT acquisition (P=0.4). Although acquisition using only SPECT showed a lower mean surgical time, these values showed no evidence of a statistically significant difference between means (P>0.05). Conclusions The use of SPECT/CT was not effective in locating parathyroid adenomas compared to the use of SPECT in regards to a decrease in the amount of time spent in surgery during parathyroidectomy procedures. However, even though there was no significant difference in the mean surgical times, SPECT/CT is still the preferred acquisition method for surgeons.
Bioengineering and serum free expansion of blood-derived γδ T cells

Abstract Background aims Cellular immunotherapy relies on several highly variable patient-specific parameters, such as ( i ) cell number before and after expansion, ( ii ) targeting of cells to tumors, ( iii ) cell survival and function after infusion, and ( iv ) on- and off-target adverse events. Cellular approaches such as the specific expansion of γδ T cells as opposed to αβ T cells are being pursued. γδ T cells are reasonable candidates for immunotherapy because they ( i ) possess intrinsic anti-tumorigenicity, ( ii ) require no priming, ( iii ) direct tumor killing via recognition of stress-responsive ligands, and ( iv ), as we now show, can be expanded to clinical cell doses in current Good Manufacturing Practice serum-free media (SFM). Methods γδ T-cell expansion was evaluated in several SFMs. Additionally, the expanded γδ T cells were evaluated for their transduction efficiency using lentiviral vectors (LV). Results Of the SFM cultures, robust expansion was only observed in OpTmizer supplemented with high-dose interleukin-2. γδ T-cell percentages and numbers were sufficient for clinical use. Using cells from several donors, transduction efficiencies ranged from 13 to 33%, which is similar to transduction levels observed using αβ T cells with similar multiplicity of infection. Discussion An optimized method of γδT-cell expansion and transduction was developed that can be tested in early-phase clinical trials. With appropriate elimination of the αβT cell-component, the absence of MHC-restriction affords the opportunity for use in the allogeneic setting with limited risk of graft versus host disease. Finally, the use of SFM provides clinically safer, widely applicable and potentially more efficacious cellular immunotherapy.
Aortobronchial fistula: a rare etiology for hemoptysis.

Aortobronchial fistula is an extremely rare cause of hemoptysis. Aortobronchial fistula occurs in patients who have a history of thoracic vascular surgery. Because its symptoms are nonspecific, a high index of suspicion is critical if the physician is to detect it. The results of imaging studies (e.g., plain films, computed tomography, and angiography) and bronchoscopy are sometimes, but not always, diagnostic--another reason the diagnosis is difficult. Left untreated, mortality in patients with aortobronchial fistula is 100%. Patients can be salvaged by a variety of techniques, including the placement of an endovascular stent. We describe the case of a 52-year-old man who came to us with hoarseness and hemoptysis, which proved to be underlying symptoms of aortobronchial fistula. He was treated successfully.
UNE NOUVELLE TECHNIQUE D'EXCLUSION DU MOIGNON URETERAL RESTANT ET REFLUANT EN CAS D'IMPLANTATION URETERALE ECTOPIQUE

Five children underwent successful electrofulguration of a distal refluxing ectopic ureteral stump. This was performed endoscopically in 4 girls and in one boy the stump was ablated during open surgery. The procedure, which is simple and safe, obviates the potential nidus for recurrent infection.
Effects of diet on plumage coloration and carotenoid deposition in red and yellow domestic canaries (Serinus canaria)

ABSTRACT Atlantic Canaries (Serinus canaria) are the most commonly kept caged bird with extensive carotenoid-based plumage coloration. Domestic strains of canaries have been bred for a variety of colors and patterns, making them a valuable model for studies of the genetic bases for feather pigmentation. However, no detailed account has been published on feather pigments of the various strains of this species, particularly in relation to dietary pigments available during molt. Moreover, in the twentieth century, aviculturists created a red canary by crossing Atlantic Canaries with Red Siskins (Carduelis cucullata). This “red-factor” canary is reputed to metabolically transform yellow dietary pigments into red ketocarotenoids, but such metabolic capacity has yet to be documented in controlled experiments. We fed molting yellow and red-factor canaries seed diets supplemented with either β-carotene, lutein/zeaxanthin, or β-cryptoxanthin/β-carotene and measured the coloration and carotenoid content of newly gr...
MO-A-BRB-01: TG191: Clinical Use of Luminescent Dosimeters

This presentation will highlight the upcoming TG-191 report: Clinical Use of Luminescent Dosimeters. Luminescent dosimetry based on TLD and OSLD is a practical, accurate, and precise technique for point dosimetry in medical physics applications. The charges of Task Group 191 were to detail the methodologies for practical and optimal luminescent dosimetry in a clinical setting. This includes (1) To review the variety of TLD/OSL materials available, including features and limitations of each. (2) To outline the optimal steps to achieve accurate and precise dosimetry with luminescent detectors and to evaluate the uncertainty induced when less rigorous procedures are used. (3) To develop consensus guidelines on the optimal use of luminescent dosimeters for clinical practice. (4) To develop guidelines for special medically relevant uses of TLDs/OSLs (e.g., mixed field i.e. photon/neutron dosimetry, particle beam dosimetry, skin dosimetry). While this report provides general guidelines for arbitrary TLD and OSLD processes, the report, and therefore this presentation, provide specific guidance for TLD-100 (LiF:Ti,Mg) and nanoDot (Al2O3:C) dosimeters because of their prevalence in clinical practice. Learning Objectives: 1.Understand the available dosimetry systems, and basic theory of their operation 2.Understand the range of dose determination methodologies and the uncertainties associated with them 3.Become familiar with special considerations for TLD/OSLD relevant for special clinical situations 4.Learn recommended commissioning and QA procedures for these dosimetry systems.
Mycobacterium avium Subspecies Paratuberculosis and Human Disease: Bridging Infection and Autoimmunity

Abstract Common to many inflammatory/autoimmune diseases is the concept of an ‘environmental trigger’. Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is the known infectious cause of Johne’s disease, an enteric inflammatory disease mostly studied in ruminant animals. For years MAP has been implicated in the similar Crohn’s disease in humans as well as sarcoidosis, a systemic granulomatous disease. MAP has more recently been associated with juvenile sarcoidosis (Blau syndrome), autoimmune diabetes, autoimmune thyroiditis and multiple sclerosis. While it may be intuitive to implicate MAP in granulomatous diseases where the microbe participates in the granuloma, it is more difficult to assign a role for MAP in diseases where autoantibodies are a primary feature. MAP may trigger autoimmune antibodies via its heat shock proteins (HSPs). Mycobacterial HSP65 is an immunodominant protein that shares sequential and conformational elements with several human host proteins. This molecular mimicry is the proposed etiopathology by which MAP stimulates autoantibodies associated with autoimmune (type 1) diabetes, autoimmune (Hashimoto’s) thyroiditis and multiple sclerosis. This chapter proposes that MAP is a source of mycobacterial HSP65 and acts as a trigger of autoimmune disease.
Microfluidic Channel Routing with Protected Convex Corners

This paper describes a novel design of microfluidic channel routing technology with well-protected convex corners. For a generic microfluidic channel routing, we have invented and demonstrated two innovative ideas: (1) a complete convex corner protection with which an indefinite overetching can be performed without damaging the convex corners at all and (2) channel crossings of two microchannels (carrying different liquids at different heights) that do not interfere with each other at the cross point. These micromachined 3D structures are made by photolithography on the surfaces of anisotropically etched grooves of silicon wafer.
Leukemias, Lymphomas, and Other Related Disorders

Leukemia and lymphoma are characterized by various chromosome abnormalities, including translocation, inversion, deletion and duplication, and variable genomic imbalances. Conventional cytogenetics, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and expression and genomic microarray are the specific techniques used to detect disease-related chromosome aberrations, genomic imbalances and gene mutations and deregulation. Detection of these genetic abnormalities is significant in clinical practice because many chromosome translocations, inversion and deletions, and gene mutations are associated with subtypes of leukemia and lymphoma. For instance, the t(9;22) in CML and ALL, t(15;17) in APL, t(8;21) and inv(16)/t(16;16) in CBF leukemia, as well as t(2;5) in ALCL. Moreover, chromosome abnormalities are one of the most reliable predictors of disease prognosis, and instruct treatment choice. Molecular studies have revealed the mechanisms of certain chromosome translocations and other abnormalities in leukemia and lymphoma, and have led to the discovery of gene and mutation specific therapeutic options. The detection of the t(9;22), characterization of the BCR/ABL fusion in CML, and the discovery of Imatinib have elegantly reflected the success of our research efforts in leukemia and other cancers. With many powerful techniques including microarray and next-generation sequencing, we will soon discover more genetic abnormalities and understand how various gene mutations and epigenetic deregulation cooperate to induce leukemia and lymphoma; these insights will eventually lead to personalized medicine.
An Indirect Deterministic Causal Sales Forecasting Model: Accuracy, Information, Conditional Efficiency, and Effectiveness

This paper develops a general indirect deterministic causal model (IDC model) for durable equipment. After the general model is introduced, an application is presented which models the sales for underground piping systems in the Petroleum Marketing Industry.
The Impact of Family Literacy on the Earnings of Illiterates: Evidence from Senegal

This paper investigates the extent to which the sharing of literacy knowledge within the household affects the labor force participation and the earnings of illiterate workers in Senegal. Controlling for selection bias, selective sorting, endogeneity and measurement error in the literacy variables, I find evidence that parental literacy and education do not capture all sources of external literacy benefits and that illiterate members also benefit from other literate members of the household. It also appears that rural workers and male illiterates tend to participate more in the labor market than their urban and female counterparts. The earnings of an illiterate female worker (or an urban worker) are, on average, 44% (or 37%) higher than the ones of another illiterate female (urban) worker whose family's ratio of literate to illiterate members is one point lower. This suggests that policies targeting isolated illiterate households, in both rural and urban zones, as well as illiterate women - who appear to be better recipients and generators of external literacy benefits within households - are likely to mitigate their vulnerability and, thus, to reduce the incidence of illiteracy and poverty in Senegal.
Gabapentin Add-On Therapy for Partial Seizures

The efficacy and safety of gabapentin (GBP) as add-on therapy in 237 children, aged 3 to 12 years, with refractory partial seizures were studied at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool, UK.
Bone strength estimates relative to vertical ground reaction force discriminates women runners with stress fracture history

Abstract Purpose To determine differences in bone geometry, estimates of bone strength, muscle size and bone strength relative to load, in women runners with and without a history of stress fracture. Methods We recruited 32 competitive distance runners aged 18–35, with (SFX, n = 16) or without (NSFX, n = 16) a history of stress fracture for this case-control study. Peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) was used to assess volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD, mg/mm3), total (ToA) and cortical (CtA) bone areas (mm2), and estimated compressive bone strength (bone strength index; BSI, mg/mm4) at the distal tibia. ToA, CtA, cortical vBMD, and estimated strength (section modulus; Zp, mm3 and strength strain index; SSIp, mm3) were measured at six cortical sites along the tibia. Mean active peak vertical (pkZ) ground reaction forces (GRFs), assessed from a fatigue run on an instrumented treadmill, were used in conjunction with pQCT measurements to estimate bone strength relative to load (mm2/N ∗ kg− 1) at all cortical sites. Results SSIp and Zp were 9–11% lower in the SFX group at mid-shaft of the tibia, while ToA and vBMD did not differ between groups at any measurement site. The SFX group had 11–17% lower bone strength relative to mean pkZ GRFs (p Conclusion These findings indicate that estimated bone strength at the mid-tibia and mean pkZ GRFs are lower in runners with a history of stress fracture. Bone strength relative to load is also lower in this same region suggesting that strength deficits in the middle 1/3 of the tibia and altered gait biomechanics may predispose an individual to stress fracture.
Polling one's friends: A graph theoretic view

Polling is an effective method to collect information from a population. However, pollsters are often concerned with unsatisfactory response rate. Incentive is sometimes used to boost response rate, but pollsters want to keep it low. In fact, when there is an underlying social network among responders, a pollster can elicit a high response rate while attempting to minimize polling costs via asking a friend of a user for the user's response to a poll. In this paper, we frame the problem as one that minimizes (i) monetary cost, the money it takes to elicit a response from a potential respondent, and (ii) querying cost, the number of different individuals queried, when polling users of a social network while maximizing the information collected. We consider a variety of graphs and compute the monetary and querying costs of some natural greedy polling algorithms. Our approach allows to conduct a detailed analysis and obtain, sometimes explicit, results on the cost of polling. Empirical results on both synthetic data and real social network data validate our analytic models. In particular, we find out that in the 1.46-billion-edge Twitter social graph, only 22% of the users need to be queried to get information about all the users, while monetary cost of our algorithm can be as low as 38% of that for the strategy to poll every user.
Current Evidence on the Socket-Shield Technique: A Systematic Review

The recently popularized socket-shield technique involves intentional retention of a section of the remnant root at the time of immediate implant placement, thereby preserving the buccal/proximal b...
Some induced seismicity considerations in geo-energy resource development

Abstract It is now well established that past and current geo-energy resource recovery operations associated with geothermal systems, oil and natural gas recovery operations, and long-term underground storage of waste fluids can induce earthquakes, some having magnitudes as great as 5–6. Injection into or removal of fluids from existing faults and highly stressed rocks associated with energy resource recovery and waste fluid disposal can generate the stress changes needed for fault rupture and slip along the fault plane. Important aspects of the present state of knowledge of induced seismicity, including causal mechanisms, characteristics of different energy technologies, hydraulic fracturing and waste disposal injection wells, carbon capture and storage, and assessing and managing the hazards and risks from induced seismicity are summarized in this paper. Induced earthquakes occur at shallower depths than natural tectonic earthquakes, and for a given magnitude event, shaking intensity is more severe in the epicentral region of an induced earthquake but dissipates more rapidly with distance than for a natural earthquake. In general, the greater the imbalance between the extraction and injection volumes at a site, the larger the magnitude of an observed induced earthquake. The likelihood of shaking of a given intensity at a given location can change with time for anthropogenic events in response to variations in source locations and fluid injection and withdrawal rates and volumes. Methods to account for these variations in seismic hazard and risk assessment are under development.
Mild and efficient synthesis of ω,ω-heterodifunctionalized polymers and polymer bioconjugates

This report describes the efficient preparation of ω,ω-heterodifunctionalized polymers and polymer bioconjugates under mild conditions using a recently introduced reagent, benzotrifuranone (BTF). Demonstrated is how BTF enables introduction of differentially “clickable” functional groups (e.g., alkenes and alkynes) to monomethyl ether poly(ethylene glycol) amine at ambient temperature using near-stoichiometric amounts of reagents, in contrast to conventional polymer heterofunctionalization approaches that may require high temperatures, significant excesses of reagents, and/or numerous synthetic steps. Showcasing the methodology is facile access to an ω,ω-heterodifunctional polymer bearing a fluorescent (coumarin) dye and biotin. Found, in addition to avidin binding by the polymer bioconjugate, is the unexpected disruption of avidin tetramer formation.
The ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: Teaching Strategies and the Coming Update (Abstract Only)

Have you used the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct in your teaching? Would you like to? Recent events are leading to increased interest in the Code: 1) The AP CS curriculum now includes "computing in context" as one of the six course topics. 2) The ACM has initiated an update of the Code, to be completed in early 2018. 3) There have been several court cases (Oracle v. Google is a recent example) and stories in the popular press (including in the New York Times) that have cited the Code. It is therefore increasingly important that students and teachers become aware of and comfortable with the Code. This BoF invites college and high school teachers to share assignments (or assignment ideas) that incorporate the Code, particularly outside of "the ethics class." We will also discuss proposed updates to the Code, and any items that are missing or anachronistic in the current Code. Representatives of the ACM Committee on Professional Ethics will collect this feedback and provide it to the Code 2018 Task Force.
An approach to couple velocity/pressure/void fraction in two-phase flows with incompressible liquid and compressible bubbles

Abstract A numerical approach to incorporate the compressibility of bubbles to a two-phase solver with incompressible liquid is presented. The scheme introduces a bubble mass density equation and the ideal gas law (though other thermodynamic relations can also be used) to compute the void fraction for use in the continuous phase equations. Pressure and velocity are strongly coupled on a collocated grid scheme by obtaining face velocities through nonlinear interpolation from nodal values using an algebraic equation. Tight coupling is achieved for pressure and void fraction by careful treatment of the bubble transport and compressibility terms in the resulting pressure Poisson equation. The novel proposed implicit strategy prevents numerical instabilities even at high void fractions and highly compressible bubbles. In addition, the proposed method can capture acoustic waves for void fractions between 0.1% and 90% with errors in speed of sound of less than 2% respect to the speed of sound of isothermal compressible bubbles and water mixtures. 1D, 2D and 3D numerical tests, including the bubbly flow around a surface ship, are performed to demonstrate robustness and range of applications of the proposed scheme. The approach is shown to be stable at high void fractions when other schemes fail.
Improving Questioning Skills in the Bilingual Classroom

A two-year, two-phase study was conducted which included the development and field testing of an interaction analysis instrument that focuses on language usage and discussion skills development. The first part of this paper presents background information related to interaction analysis instruments for use in linguistically/culturally different settings and a rationale for development of effective teacher questioning skills. The second part describes the study with emphasis on development of the Bilingual Discussion Skills Interaction Analysis Instrument, a self-paced, self-conducted form of observation and training. Nine student teachers in a Bilingual Education program used the instrument in the ten-week pilot project to code and evaluate their tape-recorded lessons. Findings indicated no measurable pre – or post – assessment difference in discussion skills although observable and self-reported improvement was noted. Language Usage results revealed that subjects did not record-code Spanish lessons to a ...
Massive deep vein thrombosis in a patient with antithrombin III deficiency undergoing ovarian stimulation for in vitro fertilization

Objective To present the first report of a thromboembolic complication in early pregnancy after ovarian hyperstimulation for IVF in a patient with AT III deficiency who was treated successfully and subsequently delivered a healthy male infant at 32weeks of gestation. Design Case report. Setting Hospital-based clinic for reproductive medicine. Patient A 28-year-old woman who consulted our IVF clinic with a 3.5-year history of primary infertility. Interventions Intravenous heparin therapy. Results The patient responded adequately to heparin therapy and was discharged home on SC heparin. A primary cesarean section was performed at 32weeks of gestation because of poor fetal growth and transverse lie. Conclusions We stress the importance of obtaining a thorough personal and family history before initiation of ovarian hyperstimulation. Measuring activity of AT III, protein C, and protein S in patients with a suspicious history of thromboembolic episodes occurring at an early age may lead to the implementation of appropriate prophylactic measures, preventing potentially life-threatening complications.
Do National Homicide Rates Follow Supranational Trends

Objectives:We explored supranational trends in national homicide rates. We searched for a global trend, regional trends, and trends specific to other theoretically relevant groups of nations. We al...