cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Regulatory Function of miR-200c on Inflammatory and Cell-Cycle Associated Genes in SK-LMS-1, A Leiomyosarcoma Cell Line

Uterine leiomyosarcoma is a relatively rare malignancy with high mortality due to metastasis and chemoresistance. Leiomyosarcomas share similar morphological characteristics with leiomyomas which are considered to have the potential of transformation into leiomyosarcoma. Accumulated evidence suggests that microRNAs acting as regulators of gene expression at the posttranscriptional level play key roles in diverse biological processes including cellular transformation and tumorigenesis. We hypothesized that miR-200c, whose expression is altered in leiomyomas, equally plays a key role in pathogenesis of leiomyosarcoma. Using SK-LMS-1 leiomyosarcoma cell line as an in vitro model here, we found that the level of expression of miR-200c was significantly lower as compared to isolated leiomyoma smooth muscle cells. Overexpression (gain-of-function) of miR-200c in SK-LMS-1 through direct interaction with 3'-untranslated region of IKBKB, IL8, CDK2, and CCNE2, respectively, resulted in suppression of their expression as determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analysis. Additionally, gain-of-function of miR-200c through inhibition of IKBKB expression resulted in decreased p65 transcriptional activity in IL8 promoter. Gain-of-function of miR-200c also increased SK-LMS-1 caspase 3/7 activity and inhibited their proliferation and migration. In summary, the results suggest that a progressive decline in miR-200c expression which alters transcriptional regulation of specific target genes that control nuclear factor-κB signaling pathway, inflammation, cell cycle, and migration, in part may promote development and progression of leiomyosarcomas, including their transformation from leiomyomas.
Fever and thermal tolerance in the toad Bufo marinus

Abstract 1. 1.|Bufo marinus injected with the pyrogen lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exhibited an average behavioural fever of 2.2°C expressed as an increase in mean selected temperature on a thermal gradient. Control toads injected with saline did not exhibit an increase in mean selected temperature. 2. 2.|The thermal tolerance (as measured by the critical thermal maximum, CTM) of pyrogen-treated toads increased significantly over that of saline-injected toads if both groups of toads were incubated at a febrile temperature (32°C) but not if they were incubated at a normothermic temperature (25°C). 3. 3.|The importance of permitting ectotherms to become hyperthermic in order to study the physiological correlates of pyrogen treatment is discussed.
Some comparative observations on the electrostatic and hydrodynamic behavior of bovine, human and monkey growth hormones.

Abstract The electrostatic and hydrodynamic properties of growth hormones isolated fron bovine, monkey and human pituitaries have been investigated. It was noted that these three hormones differ with respect to the radii of their electrostatic spheres and the dissociation constants of their tyrosine phenolic groups. From the amide content determined herein and previous data on amino acid composition, isoionic points for bovine, monkey and human growth hormones have been computed to be 7.0, 5.1, and 5.8, respectively; these values are in fair agreement with the experimentally determined isoelectric points. The differential ultraviolet spectrum of bovine growth hormone indicated the existence of a tyrosyl-carboxylate-ion hydrogen bonding. However, no significant differential spectrum was obtained with the human hormone.
Lymphatic pump treatment enhances immunity and reduces pulmonary disease during experimental pneumonia infection

Clinical studies have shown that patients given osteopathic lymphatic pump treatment (LPT) during pneumonia have enhanced clearance of the tracheobronchial tissues, shorter duration of cough, and shorter duration of total and intravenous antibiotic treatment and hospitalization. These studies suggest that LPT may reduce pulmonary infection by enhancing immunity; however, the exact mechanisms responsible for the clinical benefits of LPT have not been identified. The purpose of this study was to determine if LPT would enhance immunity and reduce pulmonary disease during chronic pneumonia. To determine if a single LPT would increase blood leukocytes, samples were collected from the jugular vein at baseline, immediately following LPT (n¼7) or sham (n¼7), and at 10, 20, 30 45, and 60 minutes post LPT or sham and analyzed for leukocyte concentrations. Consistent with reports in humans, LPT released approximately 4,000,000 more leukocytes into blood circulation 45 minutes after treatment compared to sham (p<0.01). Differential analysis revealed these were primarily lymphocytes. In a separate set of experiments, rats were intranasally infected with 5 x 10 5 colony forming units of Mycoplasma pulmonis. Twenty-four hours following infection, rats received either Sham (n¼8) or LPT (n¼9), under anesthesia, daily for days 1-4, and 7-10 post infection. Fourteen days following infection rats were euthanized, lungs were removed and analyzed for gross lesions and bacterial numbers, and blood samples were analyzed for leukocyte concentrations. During M. pulmonis infection, LPT reduced pulmonary bacterial numbers 4-fold, and lung lesions 13% compared to sham (p<0.05). Furthermore, LPT increased blood leukocyte numbers compared to sham (p<0.05). Specifically, LPT released approximately 1, 000,000 more lymphocytes and 80,000 more monocytes into blood circulation compared to sham. Collectively, these data suggest that during pulmonary infection, LPT increases circulating leukocytes that may traffic into the lung and kill bacteria, thereby reducing lung lesions. Ongoing and future studies will examine if LPT enhances leukocyte activation and recruitment into the lung. These data are essential to identifying the mechanisms by which LPT enhances immunity and clearance of pneumonia, and will provide scientific support for the clinical use of LPT. Funding for this project was provided by the American Osteopathic Association (Grant No. 06-11-547).
People Want—and Maintain—Fair Marriages: Reply to Ragsdale and Brandau—Brown

Following three studies that criticized our research on the link between equity and relational maintenance strategies (Ragsdale, 1996; Ragsdale & Brandau-Brown, 2004, 2005), we (2006) submitted an ...
Mapping interactions within the evolving science of science and innovation policy community

The Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP) program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) supports research designed to advance the scientific basis of science and innovation policy. The program was established at NSF in 2005 in response to a call from Dr. John Marburger III, then science advisor to the U.S. President, for a "science" of science policy. As of January 2011, it has co-funded 162 awards that aim to develop, improve, and expand data, analytical tools, and models that can be directly applied in the science policy decision making process. The long-term goals of the SciSIP program are to provide a scientifically rigorous and quantitative basis for science policy and to establish an international community of practice. The program has an active listserv that, as of January 2011, has almost 700 members from academia, government, and industry. This study analyzed all SciSIP awards (through January 2011) to identify existing collaboration networks and co-funding relations between SciSIP and other areas of science. In addition, listserv data was downloaded and analyzed to derive complementary discourse information. Key results include evidence of rich diversity in communication and funding networks and effective strategies for interlinking researcher and science policy makers, prompting discussion, and resource sharing.
A distributed predictive control approach to building temperature regulation

We study the problem of temperature regulation in a network of building thermal zones. The control objective is to keep zone temperatures within a comfort range while consuming the least energy by using predictive knowledge of weather and occupancy. First, we present a simplified two-mass nonlinear system for modeling thermal zone dynamics. Model identification and validation based on historical measured data are presented. Second, a distributed model-based predictive control (DMPC) is designed for optimal heating and cooling. The DMPC is implemented by using sequential quadratic program and dual decomposition. Simulation results show good performance and computational tractability of the resulting scheme.
Effects of translational nonequilibrium on vacuum plume expansions

The plume flowfield of a helium vent nozzle exhausting into a vacuum is defined by two techniques: the method of characteristics and the direct-simulation Monte Carlo method. The method of characteristics is shown to severely underpredict gas static temperatures due to the assumption of translational equilibrium inherent in the continuum formulation. Mass flow per unit solid angle is shown to be accurately predicted for this flowfield by the method of characteristics until the flow angle approaches within 10 deg of the maximum Prandtl-Meyer expansion angle. Improved treatment of the noncontinuum flow within the nozzle (near the lip) is postulated to have minor effects on the accuracy of this continuum method in comparison with translational nonequilibrium in the external flowfield. Possible treatment of translational nonequilibrium by the method of characteristics is discussed.
Using a Customer-Level Marketing Strategy to Enhance Firm Performance: A Review of Theoretical and Empirical Evidence

It is becoming increasingly apparent from the literature that marketers need to consider customer-level information when they generate a marketing strategy for the firm. In this article, the authors develop a customer-focused framework that uses a marketing strategy with an overall objective of maximized financial performance. This strategy is driven by seven customer-level marketing tactics and shows how actual customer data can be used to generate an actionable marketing strategy leading to optimal levels of profitability, customer equity, and shareholder value. In addition, the authors discuss a successful implementation of this strategy for several business-to-business and business-to-consumer firms and offer insights as to how to customize an implementation strategy for any firm, along with presenting potential challenges a firm may encounter during the implementation process. Several suggestions for future research are offered to explore and harness this newly available evidence.
Effects of lateral viscosity variations on long-wavelength geoid anomalies and topography

The effects of lateral variations in the earth mantle viscosity, due to temperature- or stress-dependent rheology, on the long-wavelength geoid anomalies are examined. Results from simple perturbation theory combined with findings from numerical models for convective flow led to a conclusion that the geoid due to the very longest wavelength convective patterns (l = 2,3) on earth is probably not seriously contaminated by lateral variations due either to temperature or stress dependence. Considerable contamination of the higher-degree geoid (l value of no less than 4) is to be expected due to lateral viscosity variations in phase with the fundamental convection scale length.
Understanding Academic Achievement among Children in Stephouseholds: The Role of Parental Resources, Sex of Stepparent, and Sex of Child

Plusieurs enquetes montrent que les enfants qui vivent dans une famille avec un beau-pere ou une belle-mere ont des performances scolaires moins bonnes que s'ils vivaient avec leurs deux parents biologiques. L'A. estime que ce domaine de recherche demeure inexplore. Il examine un certain nombre de donnees collectees en 1988 lors de l'enquete nationale americaine sur l'education. Il s'attache a savoir si les ressources des parents, dans ce cadre d'une famille avec un seul parent biologique, affectent la reussite des enfants et si le sexe du parent biologique exerce une influence en cette matiere
Molecular interferometric imaging biosensor to study molecular interactions

Molecular interferometric imaging (MI2) approaches the single-molecule limit for label-free direct optical detection. It is simpler, cheaper and more sensitive than surface plasmon resonance for dynamic studies of molecular interactions.
A new crime has been created: Ingestion of drugs during pregnancy

Have women assumed the status of a fetal container? Has the woman been stripped of her rights to bodily privacy? Wherein lies the power of the state to intrude into the activities of a pregnant woman? This article deals with the topic of pregnant women who use drugs and the issue of how far, if at all, the state can go in determining what a woman can/cannot do with her body when pregnant.
Delay composition in preemptive and non-preemptive real-time pipelines

Uniprocessor schedulability theory made great strides, in part, due to the simplicity of composing the delay of a job from the execution times of higher-priority jobs that preempt it. In this paper, we bound the end-to-end delay of a job in a multistage pipeline as a function of job execution times on different stages under preemptive as well as non-preemptive scheduling. We show that the end-to-end delay is bounded by that of a single virtual "bottleneck" stage plus a small additive component. This contribution effectively transforms the pipeline into a single stage system. The wealth of schedulability analysis techniques derived for uniprocessors can then be applied to decide the schedulability of the pipeline. The transformation does not require imposing artificial per-stage deadlines, but rather models the pipeline as a whole and uses the end-to-end deadlines directly in the single-stage analysis. It also does not make assumptions on job arrival patterns or periodicity and thus can be applied to periodic and aperiodic tasks alike. We show through simulations that this approach outperforms previous pipeline schedulability tests except for very short pipelines or when deadlines are sufficiently large. The reason lies in the way we account for execution overlap among stages. We discuss how previous approaches account for overlap and point out interesting differences that lead to different performance advantages in different cases. Further, we also show that in certain cases non-preemptive scheduling can result in higher system utilization than preemptive scheduling in pipelined systems. We hope that the pipeline delay composition rule, derived in this paper, may be a step towards a general schedulability analysis foundation for large distributed systems.
Quantitative Industrial Ecology & Ecological Economics

Summary This article presents a theoretical foundation for integrating three otherwise disparate areas of human thought and understanding: technology, ecology, and economics. The article presents the mathematical foundations for quantifying the biophysical (mass, energy, and informational) aspects of economic production systems and their interaction with natural systems. These mathematical relationships are required for the on-going ecological and economic design of technological production networks by enterprise management, thereby extending the scope and scale of quantitative engineering design from the domain of individual technologies to networks of technologies at enterprise, corporate, and industrial levels of technological organization. The analytical framework extends the practical utility of ecology, as an applied natural science, from passive environmental monitoring and prediction to active institutional participation in an informational feedback control strategy pursuant to economically abating the ecological risks of industrial growth, development, and modernization at local, regional, and global levels of ecological organization. And it provides the applied natural-science underpinnings and the informational feedback control institutions required to support economics as an applied social science. In this context ecological risk-control pricing is presented as a supplement to conventional economic policies at local, regional, and national levels of economic organization.
Epistemological Issues in the Study of Insight in People with Alzheimer’s Disease

Epistemological challenges that attend the study of the degree to which people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) manifest insight into their deficits are explored in terms of (1) the social dynamics of the situations that those afflicted confront in the process; (2) issues surrounding the use of discrepancy scores and interviews with those afflicted and their caregivers; and (3) problems surrounding the sorts of inferences that are made through the use of statistics in group studies. It is recommended that an understanding of and sensitivity to the personhood of the afflicted individual is of paramount import in interpreting his or her behavior in such situations, and that ignoring the individuality of those afflicted and their scores on assessment instruments in favor of statistical analysis of group data can result in grievous errors of interpretation of that data. Case examples are provided to underscore these points.
Detecting wheels of vehicle in stereo images

A method for detecting the wheels of a vehicle in stereo image pairs is presented. The method consists of two steps: geometrical transformation and circle extraction. The geometrical transformation uses the disparity values obtained from a stereo image pair to calculate the parameters of the plane containing wheels of the vehicle. These parameters are used to transform any elliptical wheels contained in the plane to circular ones which can be extracted by the circle extraction algorithm. The circle extraction algorithm consists of template matching and the Hough transform. In order to save computation and improve the results in the Hough transform, two constraints, the neighbor-region edge connectivity and the gradient direction of each edge point, are used to eliminate noncircular edge points. Experimental results show that these two constraints do eliminate noncircular edge points and preserve any circle embedded in edges. The final results show that the proposed method can detect and locate the wheels of a vehicle successfully. >
American Ethnogenesis and Public Administration

The categories that we have created in the United States to divide ourselves according to racial and ethnic characteristics are social constructions, not reflections of the natural world and as such are flexible and evolving. Yet we tend to regard and treat them as fixed, stable, scientifically grounded entities. In this way they become the basis for policy decisions and administrative actions. This article explores the characteristics of our current "racethnic" categories through the case example of the 1990 U.S. Census and raises questions about what features we highlight in creating these particular categories and what silences in public discourse are enabled by them The essay concludes with the implications for administrative practices of this public discourse on scientifically perceived "racethnicity" in two areas: the provision of client services and internal workplace diversity.
pilo, a gene required for glycosylation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa 1244 pilin

Nucleotide sequencing of a region downstream from the Pseudomonas aeruginosa 1244 pilin structural gene, pilA, revealed an ORF potentially able to code for a protein of M(r) 50,862. This ORF, called pilO, was flanked by a tRNAthr gene, which was followed by a transcriptional termination sequence. The tRNAthr gene and the termination sequence were nearly identical to sequences found immediately adjacent to the pilA gene of several P. aeruginosa strains. A 2200 base mRNA strand, which contained both the pilO and pilA transcripts, was produced from this region, while a 650 base transcript containing only pilA was present in a 100-fold excess over the longer transcript. Hyperexpression of the pilA gene in a PilO- strain resulted in normal pilus-specific phage sensitivity and twitching motility. The pilin produced by this strain had a lower apparent M(r) and a more neutral pl compared to that produced by a strain containing a functional pilO gene. This pilin failed to react with a sugar-specific reagent which recognized pilin produced by the strain containing a functional pilO gene.
Architecture of a programmable systolic array

The architecture of a simple but programmable linear systolic array tuned to support a variety of symbolic computations is presented. The system, the Brown Systolic Array (B-SYS) is currently being implemented in CMOS. B-SYS demonstrates that programmable processor arrays may be made fully systolic with no need for local program memory or global instruction broadcasting. Any hazards introduced by the systolic instruction stream can be avoided using a processing phase concept. The application of these ideas results in a basic cell that is both simple and flexible, making it possible to build massively parallel, programmable systolic arrays. >
Can information change public opinion? Another test of the Marshall hypotheses

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall offered his opinion regarding the utility of public opinion polls as a tool for assessing the "evolving standards of decency" regarding capital punishment. His arguments became known as the Marshall hypotheses and spawned a considerable body of empirical testing. The three Marshall hypotheses are: (1) support for capital punishment is inversely associated with knowledge about it, (2) exposure to information about capital punishment produces sentiments in opposition to capital punishment, but (3) exposure to information about capital punishment will have no impact on those who support it for retributive reasons. The results of previous tests of these hypotheses were somewhat mixed but supportive. None of these studies, however, examined the effects of change in knowledge levels with changes, if any, in death penalty attitudes and beliefs as needed for a more complete test of the Marshall hypotheses. The present study addressed this shortcoming. The results provided mixed support for these three hypotheses. That is, death penalty supporters were somewhat less informed than death penalty opponents; exposure to death penalty information and knowledge gains tended to be associated with attitudinal change in a directions suggested by these hypotheses; but, retributivists' attitudes toward and beliefs about capital punishment were not any more resistant to change than were the attitudes and beliefs of non-retributivists.
HYPOPITUITARISM AND DIABETES MELLITUS: EFFECT OF HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE

Although hypoglycemia and insulin sensitivity are characteristic of hypopituitarism, the association of hypoglycemia, diabetes mellitus, and pituitary insufficiency has not been previously described in a child. Studies in a 44-month-old male with these features and observations following human growth hormone administration are reported. The patient weighed 7 lb, 9 oz at birth and was 20 in. long, but he did not grow or gain weight as expected. There was a strong family history of diabetes mellitus. At age 17 months hypoglycemic seizures occured (blood glucose
Marsh, H., T. J. O'Shea, and J. E. Reynolds III. 2011. Ecology and Conservation of the Sirenia: Dugongs and Manatees. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 536 pp. Series: Conservation Biology No. 18. ISBN-978-0-521-88828-8

H. T. J. O'Shea Marsh, J. E. Reynolds III 2011.Ecology and Conservation of the Sirenia: Dugongs and Manatees. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 536 pp. Series: Conservation Biology No. 18. ISBN-978-0-521-88828-8 and ISBN-978-0-521-71643-7, price (hardbound), $135.00, (paper) $65.00. When I 1st began seriously studying mammals, there were almost no books (as distinct from technical monographs in serials) devoted to sirenians, except for Colin Bertram's (1963) In Search of Mermaids. Then came Hartman's (1979) landmark American Society of Mammalogists publication, around the same time as several workshop proceedings on manatees and dugongs and a surge of other primary literature. That surge has continued uninterrupted to the present day, and now there are several substantial books in English, with various scopes, emphases, and levels of technical detail, including Reynolds and Odell (1991), Zeiller (1992), Powell (2002), and Reep and Bonde (2006), in addition to extensive sirenian information in Reynolds and Rommel (1999), Twiss and Reeves (1999), and other more general works. Several of these are useful as reference works for professional mammalogists, or as texts for undergraduate or graduate courses, or both. But all of them are eclipsed in these roles by the present volume. Helene Marsh, Tom O'shea, and John Reynolds all stand in the 1st rank among the scores of workers who have contributed to our knowledge of the living sirenians during the past 35 years: Marsh as the longtime leader of dugong research in Australia and worldwide; O'shea as a former leader of the United States government's Sirenia Project in Gainesville, Florida; and Reynolds in several roles as a researcher on Florida manatees and other …
Dietary glycemic load and risk of age-related cataract

Background: Metabolism of many of the most commonly consumed carbohydrates in the United States results in a high plasma glucose response, which can be quantified by the glycemic load. Although hyperglycemia is a risk factor for cataract, there is no information on the potential effect of a high dietary glycemic load on the incidence of age-related cataract. Objective: Our objective was to prospectively examine the association between dietary glycemic load and incident age-related cataract. Design: We studied 2 cohorts—71 919 women and 39 926 men— aged 45 y who had no previous diagnosis of cataract, diabetes mellitus, or cancer and who were followed for 14 and 12 y, respectively, for the occurrence of cataract extraction. We calculated dietary glycemic load from data reported on multiple validated foodfrequency questionnaires and used pooled logistic regression models to estimate the association with incident cataract extraction. We performed analyses separately for each cohort and then calculated pooled estimates across cohorts. Results: During 980 683 person-years of follow-up, we confirmed 4865 incident age-related cataract extractions. After adjustment for age, cigarette smoking, body mass index, total caloric intake, dietary intake of lutein and zeaxanthin, and alcohol consumption, there was no significant relation of dietary glycemic load to risk of cataract extraction (P for trend 0.10). The pooled relative risk between the highest and lowest quintiles of dietary glycemic load was 0.95 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.11; P for heterogeneity by cohort 0.1). Conclusion: These prospective epidemiologic data do not support the hypothesis that a high dietary glycemic load, primarily a result of consumption of refined carbohydrates, increases the risk of cataract extraction. Am J Clin Nutr 2004;80:489 –95.
Abstract LB-339: MicroRNA modulators regulate oncogenes and tumor suppressors in glioblastoma

MicroRNAs, including miR-21, MiR-26a and miR-221/2, are potential key regulators of gene expression in glioblastoma, the most common and the most aggressive type of primary human brain tumor. Their activity is modulated by post-transcriptional factors that regulate mRNA processing pathways and by the abundance of their targets. Despite recent efforts to identify microRNA modulators, this mode of regulation is still poorly understood, and the repertoire and extent that microRNA modulators regulate gene expression in tumors and affect tumorigenesis remain unknown. We developed a genome-wide approach to identify glioblastoma-specific microRNA modulators. We identified hundreds of candidate modulators, including modulators that either activate or suppress miRISC-mediated regulation, and mRNAs that act as decoys and compete for microRNA binding in glioblastoma. Validation experiments were done in SNB19 cell line by measuring differential expression of mature microRNAs and their targets after ectopic expression or inhibition of predicted regulator proteins. 3′ UTR luciferase assays were used to establish the post-transcriptional nature of the regulation. Focusing on two known drivers of gliomagenesis and progression, we showed that PTEN is post-transcriptionally up regulated by WNT7A through miR-21 and down regulated by PALB2 through miR-106a, and that RUNX1 is post-transcriptionally down regulated by WIPF2 through miR-17–5p. Further, we showed that PTEN and RUNX1, which are widely considered functionally unrelated, act as decoys for one another by competing for a common microRNA-regulatory program: they post-transcriptionally regulate one another through their microRNA regulators. In addition, other modulators with prognosis-predictive genetic alterations act through common microRNA-regulatory programs to regulate PTEN and RUNX1 expression. For example, prognosis-predictive genetic alterations at the CTBP2 locus significantly alter both CTBP2 and PTEN expression in glioblastoma; siRNA-mediated silencing of CTBP2 resulted in a 30% reduction in the expression of PTEN 3′ UTR luciferase reporters. Our results demonstrate that microRNA modulators regulate the expression of key glioblastoma drivers, and that genetic alterations at microRNA modulators lead to aberrant post-transcriptional regulation of these drivers. Taken together, these results suggest that microRNA modulation plays a significant role in tumorigenesis and progression of gliobalstoma. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-339. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-LB-339
Aspects of the Modeling of Low Dimensional Quantum Systems

The mathematical modeling of low dimensional quantum systems is discussed in this chapter. In particular, the use of generalized functions in such modeling is illustrated in some detail, including applications of the Dirac delta function and its derivative (“delta-prime”) in determining quantum mechanical Schrodinger Green’s functions describing the dynamics of various low dimensional systems. The illustrations include quantum dots, wires and wells (and a superlattice) in various dimensions. Also, the one-dimensional “delta-prime” potential is shown to provide an impenetrable barrier.
Influence of deformation on transformation hysteresis effect of CuAlMn shape memory alloys

In order to study the wide transformation hysteresis effect of CuAlMn SMA, two kinds of alloys are described. One is alloy A, with the composition of Cu-Al10.61-Mn6.95 (w(B)/%), and the other is alloy B, with Cu-Al11.05-Mn6.81-Zn0.21 (w(B)/%). Martensitic transformation temperatures were determined by resistance measurements and the structure of alloys was determined by X ray diffraction analysis. It is found that alloy A is mainly composed of 18R martensite, whereas alloy B is mainly composed of 9R martensite. The transformation hysteresis of alloy B is much more greater than alloy A. Tensile experiments were carried out on specimens of alloy B. It was shown that the transformation hysteresis can be enlarged effectively through increasing the prestrain of specimens.
Effects of aspirin and an aspirin-acetaminophen combination on the gastric mucosa in normal subjects. A double-blind endoscopic study.

Abstract Coadministration or preadministration of acetaminophen with aspirin affords partial protection against aspirin-induced gastric mucosal injury in animals. Recently, it was reported that preadministration of acetaminophen in humans yielded similar protection. That study used pylorus occlusion, intravenous atropine, and exogenous acid, and thus may not have mimicked the usual clinical situation. We studied a clinical regimen, in 7 normal volunteers. We coadministered acetaminophen (1.95 or 2.6 g/ day) and aspirin (in a 1:1 ratio) and used gastroscopy to evaluate if there was gastric mucosal protection. Aspirin alone was used as a positive control. We found the expected significant increase in mucosal damage associated with increasing aspirin dose (p
A Practical Approach to the Diagnosis of Fungal Infections of the Respiratory Tract

Because mycoses are much more common than previously recognized, it is recommended that all clinical laboratories should offer basic mycologic services for the diagnosis of fungal respiratory tract infections. Fungal serologic tests are currently commercially available. However, other factors should be considered when interpreting these tests, as a negative result does not always rule out infection.
Interlude: rhythms of change in the post-war world

Let us pause for a moment to think about ways to grasp the timing of change during the half-century after World War II. A narrative of “triumph and failure,” of “hope and disillusionment” captures something of the time. It calls attention to the struggle for independence, the joy of seeing colonial rule end, and the subsequent despair at the inability of independent African states to sustain peace, democracy, and economic and social progress. The crisis that hit the Congo within weeks of independence in 1960, the coup that overthrew the pioneer of nationalism, Kwame Nkrumah, in 1966, and the Biafran war of 1967–70 mark political turning points. By the late 1960s Africa's leading intellectuals were calling attention to moral corruption and political passivity in the wake of earlier hopes. Some scholars began to argue that independence was an illusion: the new states of Africa were “neo-colonial,” politically sovereign, but economically dependent and culturally submissive. If the neo-colonial interpretation located power and blame in the west, others argued that the years after 1960 revealed a weakness in Africa itself, habits rooted in either African culture or the still-powerful mental grip of colonialism. The delayed freedom of Portuguese Africa in 1975 or Zimbabwe in 1979 suggested repeat performances: even intense mobilization for protracted armed struggle in these regions offered no better preparation for independence than the largely peaceful decolonizations of the 1960s. And some warn that the freedom of South Africa in 1994 may lead to similar disillusionment.
Winter bird use of harvest residues in clearcuts and the implications of forest bioenergy harvest in the southeastern United States.

Abstract Increased market viability of harvest residues gleaned for forest bioenergy feedstocks may intensify downed wood removal, particularly in intensively managed forests of the Southeast. Downed wood provides food and cover for many wildlife species, including birds, yet we are aware of no study that has examined winter bird response to experimentally manipulated, operational-scale woody biomass harvests. Further, little research has investigated avian use of downed wood following timber harvests. As such, our objectives were to: (1) evaluate effects of varying intensities of woody biomass harvest on the winter bird community and (2) document spatial associations between winter bird species and available habitat structure, including downed wood, in regenerating stands. In January and February of 2012–2014, we surveyed birds using a modified version of spot-mapping in six woody biomass removal treatments in North Carolina, USA (n = 4 regenerating stands). Treatments included clearcut harvest followed by: (1) traditional woody biomass harvest with no biomass harvesting guidelines; (2) 15% retention with harvest residues dispersed; (3) 15% retention with harvest residues clustered; (4) 30% retention with harvest residues dispersed; (5) 30% retention with harvest residues clustered; and (6) no woody biomass harvest (i.e., reference). We tested for treatment-level effects on avian relative abundance (overall and individual species), species diversity and richness, and counts of winter birds detected near (∼1 m from pile), in, or on branches of downed wood piles and calculated proportional avian habitat use of harvest residues and vegetation in regenerating stands. In 69 visits over three winters, we observed 3352 birds in treatments. In 2013, counts of birds detected in piles were greater in the no biomass harvest and 30% clustered treatments than the no biomass harvesting guidelines treatment. In 2012 and 2013 combined, mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) had greater relative abundance in the no biomass harvest treatment compared to the 15% dispersed treatment and was more often detected within 1 m of downed wood piles than in vegetation. We counted more winter birds in and near adjacent forest edge than in treatment interiors each year. Overall, we detected minimal treatment effects on winter bird relative abundance and no effects on species diversity and richness. Relative abundance of winter birds increased over time as vegetative cover established in regenerating stands. Our results suggest woody biomass harvests in intensively managed pine forests had no effect on the winter bird community, but winter birds used harvest residues. Further, vegetation structure and composition, rather than availability of harvest residues, primarily influenced winter bird use of regenerating stands.
Accuracy analysis of image-based respiratory motion estimation and compensation in respiratory-gated PET reconstruction

Reconstructed images from respiratory-gated frames of positron emission tomography (PET) data can be used to estimate the patient’s respiratory motion estimation. The estimated motion can then be incorporated into iterative image reconstruction methods for respiratory motion compensation. The objective of this study is to investigate two factors in the PET images that can affect the accuracy of image-based motion estimation: image noise and artifacts due to attenuation map misregistration. 4D XCAT (formerly known as NCAT) digital phantom and Monte-Carlo methods were employed to simulate realistic F18-FDG oncological PET data acquisition of two different noise levels. Hot spherical lesions of different sizes, contrasts and locations in the XCAT phantom were used to simulate tumors in PET imaging. Respiratory-gated PET data were then reconstructed using OS-EM methods with attenuation, uniformity and random coincidence compensation. Two kinds of attenuation maps were used: the attenuation map registered with every respiratory-gated PET frame and that averaged over the respiratory cycle. The image registration method with B-Spline non-rigid transform was applied to the above reconstructed images for motion estimation. The estimated motion was then used to warp the reconstructed images to a reference frame for summation. The recovered contrasts of the lesions were compared for the final reconstructed images from two noise levels using different methods. The results show that the artifacts in PET images due to attenuation map misregistration is another significant factor besides image noise which can affect the motion estimation accuracy.
Shared and task-specific muscle synergies during normal walking and slipping

Falling accidents are costly due to their prevalence in the workplace. Slipping has been known to be the main cause of falling. Understanding the motor response used to regain balance after slipping is crucial to developing intervention strategies for effective recovery. Interestingly, studies on spinalized animals and studies on animals subjected to electrical microstimulation have provided major evidence that the Central Nervous System (CNS) uses motor primitives, such as muscle synergies, to control motor tasks. Muscle synergies are thought to be a critical mechanism used by the CNS to control complex motor tasks by reducing the dimensional complexity of the system. Even though synergies have demonstrated potential for indicating how the body responds to balance perturbations by accounting for majority of the data set's variability, this concept has not been applied to slipping. To address this gap, data from 11 healthy young adults were collected and analyzed during both unperturbed walking and slipping. Applying an iterative non-negative matrix decomposition technique, four muscle synergies and the corresponding time-series activation coefficients were extracted. The synergies and the activation coefficients were then compared between baseline walking and slipping to determine shared vs. task-specific synergies. Correlation analyses found that among four synergies, two synergies were shared between normal walking and slipping. However, the other two synergies were task-specific. Both limbs were contributing to each of the four synergies, suggesting substantial inter-limb coordination during gait and slip. These findings stay consistent with previous unilateral studies that reported similar synergies between unperturbed and perturbed walking. Activation coefficients corresponding to the two shared synergies were similar between normal walking and slipping for the first 200 ms after heel contact and differed later in stance, suggesting the activation of muscle synergies in response to a slip. A muscle synergy approach would reveal the used sub-tasks during slipping, facilitating identification of impaired sub-tasks, and potentially leading to a purposeful rehabilitation based on damaged sub-functions.
Resilience and trauma: Expanding definitions, uses, and contexts

Resilience concepts have gained widespread use in scholarship and practice, yet definitions, measures, and uses of resilience remain complex and multifaceted. Resilience has been described as both an outcome and a process and has been used to refer to both individuals and communities. Scholars have
Comparison of two difficulty adaptation strategies for competitive arm rehabilitation exercises

This paper presents two different strategies for difficulty adaptation in a competitive arm rehabilitation game: a manual adaptation strategy and an automatic performance-based adaptation strategy. The two strategies were implemented in a competitive game controlled with an inertial-sensor-based home rehabilitation device. They were first evaluated with 32 pairs of unimpaired participants, who played the game with manual adaptation, automated adaptation, or no adaptation. Each variant was played for 9 minutes. Then, the manual and automatic adaptation were also tested by 5 pairs consisting of a person with arm impairment (due to neurological injury) and their unimpaired friend or relative. Throughout the game, motivation was measured with questionnaires while exercise intensity was tracked using the inertial sensors. Results showed that both manual and automatic difficulty adaptation lead to higher motivation and exercise intensity than no adaptation. Unimpaired participants showed no clear preference between manual and automatic adaptation while 4 of 5 impaired participants preferred automatic adaptation. For future use, we propose a combination of manual and automatic adaptation that should be evaluated with more impaired participants in longer multisession experiments.
System Demonstration Content Planning as the Basis for an Intelligent Tutoring System

CIRCSIM-Tutor v. 3 differs from many other ITSs in that text planning is an integral part of the system rather than part of a natural-language front-end. It contains a global planner whose fundamental goal i s "generate a conversation resulting in the student knowing " rather than "teach ." Constraints on the plan operators can be used to take a variety Of knowledge Sources into account, including the tutorial history, the domain knowledge base and a student model.
Mutated cancer autoantigen implicated cause of paraneoplastic myasthenia gravis.

Introduction Antitumor immune responses are postulated to initiate paraneoplastic neurological disorders when proteins that are normally restricted to neural cells are expressed as oncoproteins. Mutated oncopeptides could bypass self-tolerant T cells to activate cytotoxic effector T lymphocytes and requisite helper T lymphocytes to stimulate autoantibody production by B lymphocytes. Methods We investigated muscle-type nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antigen expression at transcriptional and protein levels in a small-cell lung cancer line (SCLC) established from a patient with AChR-immunoglobulin G (IgG)-positive myasthenia gravis. Results We identified messenger RNA transcripts encoding the 2 AChR α1-subunit isoforms and 7 alternative-splicing products, 3 of which yielded premature stop codons. Despite detecting native muscle-type AChR pentamers in the tumor, we did not identify mutant α1-peptides. However, we found α1-subunit-derived peptides bound to tumor major histocompatibility complex (MHC)1-protein. In a control SCLC from an antineuronal nuclear autoantibody, type 1 (anti-Hu)-IgG-positive patient, we identified MHC1-complexed Hu protein-derived peptides but not AChR peptides. Discussion Our findings support onconeural protein products as pertinent immunogens initiating paraneoplastic neurological autoimmunity. Muscle Nerve 58: 600-604, 2018.
Induction of B-cell tolerance by retroviral gene therapy

The primary immunologic barrier to overcome before clinical xenotransplantation can be successful is rejection mediated by preformed natural antibodies in the host, directed toward a single carbohydrate epitope Galα1-3Galβ1-4GlcNAc-R (αGal) present on porcine tissue, encoded for by the enzyme glucosyltransferase UDP galactose:β-D-galactosyl-1,4-N-acetyl-D-glucosaminide α(1-3)galactosyltransferase (EC [2.4.1.151][1]) or simply αGT. Although we have shown previously that a gene therapy approach could be used to prevent production of natural antibodies specific for αGal, the ability to induce and maintain tolerance after rigorous antigen challenge would be required if similar approaches are to be used clinically. Here, we demonstrate in αGT knockout mice (GT mice), which, like humans, contain in their serum antibodies that bind αGal, that the efficient transduction and expression of a retrovirally transduced αGT gene in bone marrow–derived cells induces stable long-term tolerance to the αGal epitope. GT mice reconstituted with αGT-transduced bone marrow cells were unable to produce antibodies that bind αGal after extensive immunization with pig cells. Furthermore, using ELISPOT assays, we were unable to detect the presence of B cells that produce αGal reactive antibodies after immunization, suggesting that such B cells were eliminated from the immunologic repertoire after gene therapy. Interestingly, after tolerance to αGal is induced by gene therapy, the antiporcine non-αGal humoral response changes from a predominantly IgM to an IgG response. This suggests that once the natural antibody barrier is eliminated by the induction of tolerance, the antipig response changes to a typical T-cell–dependent response involving isotype switching. Thus, gene therapy approaches may be used to overcome immunologic responses leading to xenograft rejection, and similar gene therapy approaches could be used to overcome autoimmunity. [1]: pending:yes
Post-percutaneous Nephrolithotomy Drainage

Percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) was established as a reliable treatment of large stone burden several decades ago. PCNL technique continues to evolve, with consistent goals of decreasing morbidity and maximizing efficiency and cost-effectiveness. One key aspect of PCNL that has been the subject of debate and investigation is the method of postprocedure drainage. In the chapter to follow we review these modifications including tube size and type, tubeless with various types of internal drainage, and the totally tubeless PCNL. We conclude with a summary of the hemostatic agents used in the PCNL tract instead of external drainage.