cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Kinetics of a naltrexone sustained-release preparation

A biodegradable sustained-release naltrexone bead preparation containing 70% naltrexone in a physical mixture with a copolymer of 90% lactic acid and 10% glycolic acid was evaluated in three male subjects. Each subject received a 10-mg iv dose of naltrexone HCl and a 63-mg dose by subcutaneous implantation of naltrexone beads. Kinetics of naltrexone estimated from the intravenous dose indicated a plasma clearance range of 3.1 to 3.4 l/min and a t½ range of 1.7 to 3.7 hr. After bead implantation, average plasma naltrexone levels were maintained at 0.3 to 0.4 ng/ml and naltrexol levels were at 0.4 to 1.0 ng/ml for a period of approximately 1 mo, during which urine naltrexone and naltrexol levels were about 20 to 30 and 70 to 200 ng/ml. It was estimated that approximately 70% to 77% of the dose was absorbed after bead implantation. There were no serious adverse effects other than tissue irritation in two of the three subjects. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (1984) 36, 704–708; doi:10.1038/clpt.1984.243
The cross-state distribution of federal funding in the USA: The case of financing academic research and development

This paper examines the distribution of federal academic research and development (R&D) funding in the context of fiscal federalism in financing academic R&D in the USA. The statistical results suggest that the distribution of federal academic R&D expenditures is primarily determined by states' research capacity. In addition, a state's political representation on congressional appropriations committees also has some significant but limited impact on its receipt of federal R&D support. The paper improves our understanding of fiscal federalism in supporting academic R&D in the USA, and provides empirical evidence related to the debate about the geographic distribution of federal funding of academic R&D. Copyright The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.
Relationship Education with Both Married and Unmarried Stepcouples: An Exploratory Study

This study highlights the experience of 356 adults who attended a 12-hour stepfamily relationship education course. Referred to as “stepcouples,” these adult participants were either remarried, cohabitating, or seriously dating someone who had children from a previous relationship. Self-report measures of relationship quality were gathered before the course began, at the end of the 6-week course, and 1 month later. Results from repeated measures analysis of variance suggest that stepcouples, regardless of their race or marital status, report that they benefit from stepfamily relationship education. For both white and Latino participants, reports of commitment increased and agreement on finances, ex-partners, and parenting all improved over time. Responses from semistructured interviews are included to illustrate participants’ perspectives. The similarity in outcomes, as well as the qualitative responses, point to research and practice implications regarding whether stepfamily education should be, or needs...
Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic studies of recombinant human betaine-homocysteine S-methyltransferase.

Betaine–homocysteine S-methyltransferase (BHMT) catalyzes a reaction essential for regulation of methionine and homocysteine metabolism and the catabolism of choline in mammalian tissues. Human recombinant BHMT (MW = 45 kDa) has been crystallized by the hanging-drop vapor-diffusion method at 294 K using ethylene glycol as the precipitant. The crystals belong to the monoclinic space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a = 109.190, b = 91.319, c = 88.661 A, β = 122.044°, and diffract to 2.9 A resolution on a local rotating-anode X-ray source. Rotation-function analysis and the Matthews coefficient, VM = 2.46 A3 Da−1, are consistent with a dimer in the asymmetric unit, suggesting that the active enzyme is a tetramer with 222 symmetry.
Quaternion number based vanilla recognition system for automating polination

Vanilla is the second most expensive spice worldwide. The high cost of vanilla has led to the problem of dangerous adulterated substitutes. Its high cost is attributed largely to the labor intensive hand pollination required where the melipona bee is not present. This article is the first known to present a machine vision system for the recognition of vanilla flowers and their stamen for pollination. We present a hypercomplex numbers based system. The present system is based on a rotational invariant basis more fitted to fast quaternion Fourier transform processing than Zernike Polynomial basis, and computer simulations. It could be used for other applications as well.
CD5 Instructs Extrathymic Regulatory T Cell Development in Response to Self and Tolerizing Antigens

Self-reactive T cells can escape thymic deletion and therefore some of these potentially autoaggressive T cells need to convert into regulatory T (Treg) cells to help control responses against self. However, it remains unknown how peripheral self-reactive T cells are specifically instructed to become Treg cells. We report that CD5, whose expression is upregulated in T cells by self and tolerizing antigens in the thymus and periphery, governed extrathymic Treg cell development. CD5 modified effector cell-differentiating signals that inhibit Treg cell induction. Treg cell conversion of Cd5(-/-) and CD5(lo) T cells was inhibited by even small amounts of interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-6, and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) produced by bystander lymphocytes, while CD5(hi) T cells resisted this inhibition of Treg cell induction. Our findings further revealed that CD5 promoted Treg cell induction by blocking mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) activation. Therefore CD5 instructs extrathymic Treg cell development in response to self and tolerizing antigens.
Evolutionary ecology of carnivorous plants

Abstract After more than a century of being regarded as botanical oddities, carnivorous plants have emerged as model systems that are appropriate for addressing a wide array of ecological and evolutionary questions. Now that reliable molecular phylogenies are available for many carnivorous plants, they can be used to study convergences and divergences in ecophysiology and life-history strategies. Cost–benefit models and demographic analysis can provide insight into the selective forces promoting carnivory. Important areas for future research include the assessment of the interaction between nutrient availability and drought tolerance among carnivorous plants, as well as measurements of spatial and temporal variability in microhabitat characteristics that might constrain plant growth and fitness. In addition to addressing evolutionary convergence, such studies must take into account the evolutionary diversity of carnivorous plants and their wide variety of life forms and habitats. Finally, carnivorous plants have suffered from historical overcollection, and their habitats are vanishing rapidly. A major focus of future research on this exciting group of plants should be directed towards strategies for their conservation and management.
Can local institutions reduce poverty? Rural decentralization in Burkina Faso

The authors present evidence that in Burkina Faso, certain high-performing local institutions contribute to equitable economic development. They link reduced levels of poverty, and inequality to a high degree of internal village organization. The structure of these high-performing local organizations means they can exist in a number of African countries, because they depend more on internal participation, rather than on nay one country's cultural assets. The authors find that: 1) Service-asset management groups (SAMs) - one of three local institutions identified in the study - have helped to significantly reduce inequality in participating households. SAMs are a fusion of long-standing development committees, and indigenous management councils that collectively manage community assets, such as water. SAMs have combined the productivity goals of growth, with the values of equity, and solidarity. 2) Current development approaches use growth as an initiator, assuming that surpluses will be used to benefit the poor. SAMs, and other local institutions in Burkina Faso, start with equity, and solidarity, and aim for a result of growth, and development. 3) Internal participation is essential for SAMs to function. Only locally anchored participation can power the realignments, and institutional revisions needed to scale up development action. SAMs, and other local institutions have launched their communities on equitable growth paths, and are reducing poverty with little, or no outside assistance, despite severe resource constraints. Their impact could be enormous if external development resources augmented their potential. World Bank programs, and policy interventions could build on local strength, and make their activities more sustainable by mapping local institutions to guide new initiatives in pro-poor investment, and using that mapping to formalize, and increase internal local participation - expanding nationwide by using a network of local institutions. SAMs, and other local institutions, could be the vehicle for ensuring transparency, and accountability. Working with the results of local activities, national policies could favor the development of indigenously based, but externally oriented local economies.
Comment on ‘The origin of transient cosmic ray intensity variations’ by S. P. Duggal and M. A. Pomerantz

Transient Forbush decreases in galactic cosmic ray intensity have generally been linked to interplanetary shocks and solar flares. However, Duggal and Pomerantz (1977) have concluded that the majority of transient intensity variations of galactic cosmic rays cannot be assigned directly to specific solar flares. The object of the present paper is to show that the observations of Duggal and Pomerantz are in fact consistent with the solar flare origin of most transient cosmic ray reductions (i.e., with the solar flare hypothesis). The consistency of the Duggal-Pomerantz observations with the flare hypothesis is demonstrated on the basis of a statistical model of modulation which reproduces the essential features of their observations. In response to the present analysis (by Parker), Duggal and Pomerantz have presented additional arguments to the effect that the majority of transient intensity modifications (not necessarily Forbush decreases) during the period 1964-1974 were indeed related to the central meridian passage of active centers rather than to any other visible solar feature.
A system for the analysis of seat support surfaces using surface shape control and simultaneous measurement of applied pressures

A system for the design and analysis of seat support and buttock tissue interfaces has been developed. It has the ability to control the seating surface shape while measuring the pressure applied to the buttocks by the surface. Pressures are measured over an 11/spl times/12 rectangular array of support elements using silicon pressure sensors mounted in a swiveling head atop each support element. Control of surface shape is mediated by selective linear translation of the support elements along their respective vertical axes. Closed-loop control of the system allows for the dynamic formulation of a support surface on the basis of programmable criteria. The system is intended to function as a research tool to facilitate the study of the relationships between support surface shape and interface pressure, and support surface shape and soft tissue distortion. The purpose of this paper is to present the system instrumentation and the rationale behind its design and development. The paper also presents the results of several tests to evaluate the accuracy and performance of the system. This evaluation included a pilot study on 10 able-bodied subjects. The results of these system evaluations indicate that the system is capable of making repeatable and precise measurements of pressure and surface element position and can formulate support surface shapes that satisfy specified optimization criteria.
2-Chlorodeoxyadenosine as initial therapy for advanced low grade lymphomas.

In order to evaluate efficacy and safety of 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine (2-CdA) as primary therapy of low grade non Hodgkin's lymphoma, a phase I1 trial of 2-CdA was initiated in patients with previously untreated advanced low grade lymphoma. Fourteen previously untreated patients with stage 111 and IV low grade lymphoma were enrolled. Patients received 2-CdA 0.1 mg/kg/d by continuous infusion for 7 days every 28 days, for 14 cycles of therapy (median 3.5). Results showed one complete response and nine partial responses for an overall response rate of 75%. Until now there have only been three responding patients who have had progressive disease. with a median follow-up time of I8 months. The major toxicity was bone marrow suppression and nine patients stopped therapy prior to a planned six cycles because of prolonged cytopenias, primarily thrombocytopenia. Fifteen of 50 cycles of therapy were associated with neutropenic febrile episodes and there was one septic death secondary to Listeriosis. It seems from thi...
Sport Psychology in the New Millennium: The Psychology of Athletic Excellence and Beyond

(2002). Sport Psychology in the New Millennium: The Psychology of Athletic Excellence and Beyond. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology: Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 137-139.
AND/OR graph representation of assembly plans

A compact representation of all possible assembly plans of a given product using AND/OR graphs is presented. Such a representation forms the basis for efficient planning algorithms that make possible an increase in assembly system flexibility by allowing an intelligent robot to pick a course of action according to instantaneous conditions. The AND/OR graph is equivalent to a state transition graph but requires fewer nodes and simplifies the search for feasible plans. Three applications are discussed: the preselection of the best assembly plan, the recovery from execution errors, and the opportunistic scheduling of tasks. A hypothetical error situation in the assembly of the four-part assembly is discussed to show how a bottom-up search of the AND/OR graph leads to an efficient recovery. The scheduling efficiency using this representation is compared with fixed sequence and precedence graph representations. >
Pancytopenia due to hemophagocytic syndrome as the presenting manifestation of babesiosis

We present a case of hemophagocytosis during infection with the intraerythrocytic protozoan Babesia microti in a 47-year-old splenectomized renal allograft recipient. After therapy with clindamycin and quinine a relapse responded to atovaquone; durable remission was not achieved until trimethoprim/sulfa was added. We postulate the severity of our patient's syndrome was due to splenectomy and chronic immunosuppression. Babesiosis should be considered when immunocompromised patients develop pancytopenia.
Postpartum Hemorrhage: A Review

Postpartum hemorrhage is a significant cause of maternal mortality. The etiologies and various management options available to the clinician are discussed below. Special attention is paid to the surgical and angiographic techniques used in the control of massive hemorrhage.
An iterative approach to the hand-eye and base-world calibration problem

In visual servoing applications using a position-based approach and an end-effector-mounted camera, the position and orientation of the camera with respect to the end-effector must be known. This information is frequently represented in the form of a homogeneous transformation matrix (HTM). For special "noise-free" cases, a closed-form solution for this calibration problem can be determined. However, in the real world, such a solution is not adequate and a least-squares approach or an adaptive algorithm must be used. In this paper, we describe a new algorithm that can simultaneously calculate the base-world and the hand-eye (camera to end-effector) HTMs. This method is robust to noise, and converges to a valid solution very quickly.
Computability of Design Diagrams

Designers draw diagrams to think about architectural concepts and design concerns. We are interested in programming a computer to recognize and interpret design diagrams to deliver appropriate tools for the design task at hand. We conducted empirical studies to find out if designers share drawing conventions when designing. In this paper we first discuss reasons to investigate design diagrams. Then we describe our experiment on diagramming for designing an architect’s office. The experiment results show that designers use different diagramming conventions when thinking about different design concerns. We discuss and report our efforts to implement a freehand drawing program.
Analytical methods for dynamic simulation of non-penetrating rigid bodies

A method for analytically calculating the forces between systems of rigid bodies in resting (non-colliding) contact is presented. The systems of bodies may either be in motion or static equilibrium and adjacent bodies may touch at multiple points. The analytic formulation of the forces between bodies in non-colliding contact can be modified to deal with colliding bodies. Accordingly, an improved method for analytically calculating the forces between systems of rigid bodies in colliding contact is also presented. Both methods can be applied to systems with arbitrary holonomic geometric constraints, such as linked figures. The analytical formulations used treat both holonomic and non-holonomic constraints in a consistent manner.
Confused by Weissella confusa Bacteremia

The recent [photo quiz][1] and [discussion][2] of Weissella confusa bacteremia by Vasquez et al. ([1][3], [2][4]) was interesting. The authors proposed several possible routes of infection and related factors, including line infection, dependency on total parenteral nutrition, and altered gut flora
The Scheduling of Lots on a Single Facility

Abstract The problem of scheduling the production of lots of n products on a single facility is treated with the objective of minimizing the combined costs of setup, inventory, and backorder over a specified planning horizon. The discussion extends one of Elmaghraby's models (4) by developing a branch-and-bound algorithm which incorporates a dominance rule, a global precedence relation, and several local precedence relations.
Impact of structure space continuity on protein fold classification.

Protein structure classification hierarchically clusters domain structures based on structure and/or sequence similarities and plays important roles in the study of protein structure-function relationship and protein evolution. Among many classifications, SCOP and CATH are widely viewed as the gold standards. Fold classification is of special interest because this is the lowest level of classification that does not depend on protein sequence similarity. The current fold classifications such as those in SCOP and CATH are controversial because they implicitly assume that folds are discrete islands in the structure space, whereas increasing evidence suggests significant similarities among folds and supports a continuous fold space. Although this problem is widely recognized, its impact on fold classification has not been quantitatively evaluated. Here we develop a likelihood method to classify a domain into the existing folds of CATH or SCOP using both query-fold structure similarities and within-fold structure heterogeneities. The new classification differs from the original classification for 3.4–12% of domains, depending on factors such as the structure similarity score and original classification scheme used. Because these factors differ for different biological purposes, our results indicate that the importance of considering structure space continuity in fold classification depends on the specific question asked.
Infrared and raman spectroscopy of carbohydrates. 3. Raman spectra of the polymorphic forms of amylose.

Abstract The Raman spectra of V a -, Vh h -, and B -amylose have been recorded, and are interpreted in terms of the proposed mechanism for conversion from the V- into the B-form. Lines occurring at 1263 and 946cm -1 with V-amylose shift to 1254 and 936 cm -1 on conversion into the B -form; at the same time intensity changes are observed for the lines at 2940 and 1334 cm -1 . These effects are consistent with the mechanism proposed for V→B conversion, involving an extension of the helix and changes in the intramolecular hydrogen-bonding. In addition, the spectra of amylose dissolved in aqueous salt solution and in methyl sulfoxide have been recorded. The results indicate that amylose does not adopt the V-conformation in methyl sulfoxide solution.
Mechanism of the quenching of the tris(bipyridine)ruthenium(II) emission by persulfate: implications for photoinduced oxidation reactions.

A revised mechanism for the oxidation of the excited state of Ru(bpy)32+ with the persulfate anion is described in this work. The formation of the precursor complex in the electron transfer reaction involves ion pairing between the metal complex in ground and excited states and S2O82-. The equilibrium constant for the ion-pair formation (KIP = 2.7 M–1) was determined from electrochemical measurements and analysis of thermal reaction between Ru(bpy)32+ and persulfate. It was found to be consistent with the calculated value estimated from the Debye–Huckel model. The analysis of rate constants for reactions between persulfate and various metal complexes indicates that thermal and photochemical reactions most likely proceed through a common pathway. Extremely high reorganization energy (ca. 3.54 eV) for the electron transfer obtained from fitting experimental data with the Marcus equation is indicative of significant nuclear reorganization during the electron transfer step. In view of these results the electr...
Premenstrual exacerbation of bulimia.

Abstract All ten women in this two-month self-report study, who met DSM-III criteria for bulimia, recorded increased binge eating in the premenstrual period as compared with the menstrual period. A similar exacerbation of bulimia has not previously been reported. The authors propose that behavioral treatment for bulimic patients take account of this variation in binge eating.
Glycosaminoglycans in ewe reproductive tracts and their influence on acrosome reactions in bovine spermatozoa in vitro.

Glycosaminoglycans (GAG) promote acrosome reactions (AR) in bovine and rabbit spermatozoa in vitro. Female bovine reproductive tract secretions contained GAG and the concentrations and composition of those GAG varied with different regions and stages of the estrous cycle. This study was designed to evaluate the types of GAG found in reproductive tract secretions of ewes at different stages of the estrous cycle and the ability of the secretions to promote AR. Ewes (n = 48) were slaughtered at 0, 12, 24, 36, 72 and 144 h following observations of standing estrus. Reproductive tracts were flushed with a modified Tyrode's medium (TALP: 7 ml) not containing calcium. Concentrations and composition of GAG in the tract were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Concentrations of GAG decreased anterior to the cervix: 2.28 to .74 mg/100 mg protein (P less than .05). Increases in heparin-like GAG during the estrual phase and chondroitin sulfate GAG during the luteal phase were noted. Bovine sperm were incubated in tract flushings standardized to contain 4 micrograms/ml of GAG and supplemented with calcium. Sperm incubated in estrual flushings for 9 h exhibited a higher incidence of AR than those incubated in luteal flushings or control, 50% vs 36% and 29%, respectively (P less than .0001). It is concluded that during the estrous cycle there were changes in concentrations and composition of GAG in ewe reproductive tracts and the potencies of those female secretions causing AR varied.
Influence of protein supplementation on site and extent of digestion, forage intake, and nutrient flow characteristics in steers consuming dormant bluestem-range forage

Four multicannulated Holstein steers (initial BW 424 +/- 16 kg) were used in a 4 x 4 Latin square to determine the influence of protein supplementation on forage intake, site and extent of digestion, and nutrient flow in steers consuming dormant bluestem-range forage (2.3% CP). Treatments were 1) control, no supplement; 2) 1.8 kg of low-protein supplement, 12.8% CP (Low-CP); 3) 1.8 kg of moderate-protein supplement, 27.1% CP (Mod-CP); and 4) 2.7 kg of dehydrated alfalfa pellets, 17.5% CP (Dehy). The Dehy supplement was fed to provide the same amount of CP/d as Mod-CP, and all supplements provided similar amounts of ME/d. Forage DMI was increased (P less than .05) by feeding Mod-CP and Dehy. Ruminal OM digestibility was 39% greater (P less than .05) for the Mod-CP and Dehy supplementations than for the Low-CP supplementation and control. Ruminal CP digestibility was negative for all treatments, and control (-326%) was less (P less than .05) than supplemented treatments (average -27%). Total tract OM digestibility was greatest (P less than .10) for steers fed Mod-CP and least for control steers; Low-CP and Dehy steers were intermediate. Total tract NDF digestibility tended (P = .15) to be less with Low-CP than with Mod-CP and Dehy. Duodenal N flow was greater (P less than .05) with Mod-CP and Dehy than with Low-CP and control. In summary, supplementation with Mod-CP increased forage intake, digestion, and duodenal N flow compared with Low-CP or control; however, the response was similar when Mod-CP and Dehy supplements were fed to provide equivalent amounts of CP and ME daily.
Economic obstacles to the optimal utilization of an AIDS vaccine.

AIDS: Demand continues to grow for an AIDS vaccine, spurred by President Clinton's ten-year goal for development of a vaccine and the expanded research program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There are difficult and complex problems associated with introducing a new vaccine into widespread use in at-risk populations. In the United States and Europe, the most important factors are effectiveness, route and ease of administration, and social acceptance. However, in much of the world, cost will be the overriding factor. All current worldwide vaccine programs are directed at children and pregnant women, rather than high-risk adults. There are also complicated pricing concerns, driven by U.S. Congressional directives ensuring that drugs are not sold more cheaply elsewhere than in the United States. Successful acceptance of an AIDS vaccine will require considerable funding and cooperation between many international governments and associations.
Mixed Agglutination of Leukocytes and Erythrocytes in Relation to Studies of Leukocyte Antigens

Serologic experiments are described in which was studied the agglutination of leukocytes from donors representing various ABO, Rh, and Lewis erythrocyte groups an certain canine blood groups, in the presence of corresponding antisera. Appropriate mixing of antisera with leukocytes and erythrocytes from donors of different groups was seen to produce clumping of leukocytes which did not conform to the reactions of the erythrocytes from the leukocyte donor. When viewed under phase microscopy, certain of these leukocyte clumps, which appeared homogeneous with ordinary light microscopy were found to be clumps of leukocytes mixed with ghosts of erythrocytes reacting with the antibody present. Factors contributing to this apparently immunologically non-specific clumping were the presence of complement-fixing, potentially hemolytic antibody and thermolabile components of serum. A possible relationship with erythrophagocytosis is suggested. These observations indicate that certain results of this and other "leukoagglutination" technics, which have been interpreted as demonstrating the presence of A and B antigens on human leukocytes, deserve re-evaluation and emphasize the importance of developing methods of preparing homogeneous leukocyte suspensions.
Location of an Intron in the Cytochrome b Gene Indicates Reduced Risk of QoI Fungicide Resistance in Fusicladium effusum

Pecan scab, caused by Fusicladium effusum, is most effectively managed using multiple fungicide applications, including quinone outside inhibitors (QoIs). However, QoIs have a high risk for resistance developing in phytopathogenic fungi. QoI resistance is generally associated with amino-acid substitutions at positions 129, 137, and 143 of the cytochrome b (cytb) gene. A substitution at position 143 confers complete resistance, while an intron immediately downstream of this position prevents the substitution. The objective of this study was to assess the risk of QoI resistance by characterizing a partial fragment of the F. effusum cytb gene. Sequence analysis of the 1,919-bp fragment revealed the presence of a 1,407-bp intron immediately downstream of position 143. This intron was identified in 125 isolates collected from 16 counties across the state of Georgia. No substitutions were identified at positions 129 or 143 but, in seven of the isolates, glycine was replaced with serine at position 137. The ubiquitous nature of the detected intron provided strong evidence that the G143A substitution may not occur in F. effusum isolates, although resistance could still develop through intron loss events or the selection of intron-lacking genotypes, or as the result of other mutations in the cytb gene.
Ewing’s Sarcoma Family of Tumors

Ewing’s sarcoma (ES) is second only to osteosarcoma as the most common primary bone tumor in children. The Ewing’s sarcoma family of tumors (EFT) includes extraosseous Ewing sarcoma (ES), peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumor (pPNET), and malignant small cell tumor of the thoracopulmonary region (Askin tumor). All these are considered manifestations of a single neoplastic entity with characteristic phenotypic and molecular features.
A Parallel Linear Algebra Server for Matlab-like Environments

Mathematical software packages such as Mathematica, Matlab, HiQ and others allow scientists and engineers to perform complex analysis and modeling in their familiar workstation environment. However, these systems are limited in the size of problem that can be solved, because the memory and CPU power of the workstation are limited. Obviously, the benefit of the interactive software is lost if the problem takes two weeks to run. With the advent of inexpensive "beowulf"-type parallel machines [4], and the proliferation of parallel computers in general, it is natural to wonder about combining the user-friendliness and interactivity of the commercially-available mathematical packages with the computing power of the parallel machines.We have implemented a system, which we call PLAPACK Server Interface ("PSI"), that allows a user of one of the supported mathematical packages to export computationally intense problems to a parallel computer running PLAPACK. The interface consists of a set of functions that the user calls from within the mathematical package. These functions allow creating, filling, querying, manipulating, and freeing matrix, vector, and scalar objects on the parallel computer. Both memory and CPU power scale linearly with the number of processing elements in the parallel machine. Thus, PSI allows the interactive software packages to break the bonds of the workstation to solve ever larger and more complex problems.PSI is not the first attempt to exploit parallelism from within interactive mathematical software packages. MultiMatlab [6] (from the Cornell Theory Center) and the MATLAB toolbox [5](from University of Rostock, Germany) are extensions of the Matlab intrepreter that essentially run on each node of the parallel machine. A similar product for Mathematica [10] is available from Mathconsult in Switzerland. Compiler-based systems such as FALCON [9] (from University of Illinois), Otter [8] (from Oregon State University) and CONLAB [7] (from University of Umea, Sweden) start with Matlab script files and use compiler technology to create explicit message-passing codes, which then execute essentially independently of the script's original interactive software platform. This list is not exhaustive, but should give the idea that there are many approaches to this problem. Our approach is most similar to the MultiMATLAB and MATLAB Toolbox approaches, with one important difference. In PSI, the third-party software (MATLAB, Mathematica, etc.) runs on a workstation, while the parallel computation is performed on a completely separate massively parallel machine. All parallel communication is handled from within PLAPACK.This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 gives a brief overview of PLAPACK and of the interactive mathematical packages. Section 3 discusses some implementation details of PSI. Section 4 shows what PSI looks like from a user's point of view. Section 5 details some measurements of PSI's performance on a parallel system. Finally, section 6 gives some concluding remarks.
Faults and flaws in the internet of things in manufacturing systems in small to medium enterprises: Panel discussion

Conventionally, the engineering design process has assumed that the design team is able to exercise control over all elements of the design, either directly or indirectly in the case of sub-systems through their specifications. The introduction of Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things means that the design team's ability to have control over all elements of a system is no longer the case, particularly as the actual system configuration may well be being dynamically reconfigured on the shop floor in real-time according to user context and need. Further, the integration of the Internet of Things with elements of Big Data means that information becomes a commodity to be autonomously traded by and between systems which might be commercially prohibited. This short paper will offer comment and generate discussion from the audience.
Stereotactic radiosurgery for brain metastases from malignant melanoma and the impact of hemorrhagic metastases.

Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a common treatment modality among patients with brain metastases, particularly from malignant melanoma. Our objective was to investigate the difference in local control, toxicity, and survival among patients with hemorrhagic and solid melanoma brain metastases. We collected demographic, treatment, local control, toxicity, and survival for 134 patients with a total of 936 intracranial melanoma metastases who underwent SRS between 1998 and 2015. Pre-radiosurgical diagnostic imaging was reviewed for evidence of hemorrhage (melanin-containing or clearly hemorrhagic). The cohort consisted of 92 men and 42 women with a mea age of 61.7 years (range 21.2–84.9) at the time of radiosurgery. Overall survival of patients with brain metastases from malignant melanoma was 42, 31, 12% at 12, 24, and 72 months from date of first SRS. At 6 months, 43% of the patients with hemorrhagic metastases had local tumor control compared to 83% of solid melanoma metastases (p < 0.001). No significant difference in toxicity was noted between the two groups. Factors that were significantly associated with time to local tumor progression on multivariate analysis include prior WBRT (HR 1.62, p = 0.003), prior chemotherapy (HR 0.69, p = 0.011), margin dose (HR 0.88, p < 0.001) and radiographic features of melanin deposition (HR 3.73, p < 0.001), or clear hemorrhage (HR 2.20, p < 0.001). Our findings demonstrate that hemorrhagic intracranial melanoma metastases are associated with inferior local tumor control when treated with SRS, as compared to solid tumors. These results highlight the importance of early radiosurgery among patients with melanoma brain metastases before hemorrhage occurs.
Identifying Conservation Priorities using a Return on Investment Analysis

Efficient prioritization of conservation activities is important because of the substantial threats facing biodiversity and the limited resources available to respond. Return-on-investment (ROI) analysis is an approach to conservation prioritization that explicitly considers the cost of the alternatives being evaluated. In the field of conservation, ROI analysis has been used to support the prioritization of conservation strategies, the identification of priority locations for conservation, and the allocation of resources across both strategies and locations. As well as improving the cost effectiveness of resource prioritization, the use of ROI analysis encourages transparency and accountability in conservation decision making.
Creep Cavitation and Crack Growth in Silicon Nitride

Cavities and microcracks occur in hot-pressed MgO doped and Y2O3 doped Si3N4 during high temperature creep. Specimens selected from static load experiments at 1200°C and 1300°C were examined by transmission electron microscopy. In the MgO doped Si3N4 an amorphous MgO · SiO2 phase, which bonded the grains, softened and cavitated readily at 1200°C leading to a creep exponent of 4.2. In the Y2O3 doped Si3N4 a crystalline yttrium-silica-oxynitride phase bonded the Si3N4 grains. Cavitation started at the triple junctions where these phases were present. Crack-like cavities also started at triple junctions and grew between the Si3N4 grains. The nucleation and growth stages of creep cavitation in both materials are related to failure mechanisms.
Key-Value Pairs Allocation Strategy for Kinetic Drives

The explosion in the amount of data with the development of internet and cloud computing prompted much research to develop systems to store and process this data efficiently. Therefore, NoSQL Databases emerged as a solution to be considered due to their flexibility and high performance. key-value object storage, one of the NoSQL Databases categories, is widely used in many Big Data applications, where it treats the object as a single opaque collection identified by a key. This collection may have different fields for each record. Recently, Seagate developed a new drive called "Kinetic drive". The kinetic drive is an independent active disk accessible by an Ethernet which enables the applications to directly connect to the drive via IP address without the need to pass through multiple legacy layers using the storage servers. It can also carry out key-value pair operations on its own. So in large scale data management, a set of kinetic drives can be used to exploit parallelism in satisfying user requests and solve the bottleneck caused by queuing of requests in the storage server which manages multiple HDDs/SDDs. On the other hand, Kinetic drive has a limited bandwidth and size. Therefore, in this paper, we develop a key-value pairs allocation algorithm for kinetic drives which takes into consideration the data popularity, limited size and bandwidth of kinetic drive to avoid queuing on the level of the drive, We also carry out performance evaluation that shows the performance of our approach in allocating the data in a near-optimal number of drives and minimizes the drives' index table.
Dynamics and Fractal Structure of Polymer Interfaces

Interdiffusion at polymer-polymer interfaces is analyzed using the reptation model proposed by P.-G. de Gennes for the dynamics of linear polymer melts. Correlated motion effects unique to the reptation model are explored by computer simulation and analysis of concentration profiles of symmetric amorphous interfaces at times less than the reptation time, T r and diffusion depths less than random coil diameter. Results are compared with the scaling laws for interdiffusion given by H(t)/H ∞ ≈ (t/T r ) r /4, where r = 1, 2, 3. The diffusion front of the highly ramified interface was analyzed on a square latice. The front was found to have fractal characteristics for t > T r but was not fractal for t < T r . A fractal diffusion front for a polymer/melt interface (polyimide/Ag) is demonstrated.
A practical guide to managing CT findings in the breast

While it is well accepted that CT is not an optimal imaging study to evaluate the breasts, findings on chest CT may be the first indication of an occult malignancy. The nonspecific appearance of breast findings and the lack of consensus guidelines for managing incidental breast findings may dissuade radiologists from thoroughly evaluating the breasts on CT. We review commonly encountered breast findings on CT and present an algorithm for managing incidentally detected breast findings.
Development and pilot study of simple suicide risk rulers for use in the emergency department

Abstract Background Many patients treated in the emergency department (ED) for non-psychiatric complaints have elevated suicide risk. Universal screening can detect occult suicide risk, but gold standard risk measurement tools, such as the Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSS), are too long and cumbersome for ED use. Objective To test the performance of seven novel 0- to 10-point suicide risk “rulers” against the BSS. Method 399 patients from three EDs completed seven novel risk rulers, traditional binary screening items, and the BSS. Using BSS criterion references, we tested the diagnostic performance of each risk ruler and examined correlations between the rulers and BSS scores. Results By varying thresholds on the risk rulers, high levels of sensitivity and specificity were obtained. A threshold of 3 on the “sadness” ruler gave 89% sensitivity for the BSS criterion reference, and a threshold of 1 on the “wish to be dead” ruler provided 94–97% specificity. Conclusion Our novel risk rulers may be an efficient way to detect risk and triage potentially suicidal patients, showing good concurrent validity with the BSS. Clinicians can obtain high sensitivity and high specificity using just two rulers. Further research should examine the rulers' ability to predict independent clinician risk ratings and prospective suicidal behavior.
Intranasal oxytocin and OXTR genotype effects on resting state functional connectivity: A systematic review.

Abstract Objective Evaluate effects of intranasal oxytocin (IN-OT) and OXTR genotype on resting state functional connectivity in the human brain. Methods We searched research databases for peer-reviewed empirical studies. Of 71 unique citations, 18 articles (13 IN-OT, five OXTR) met full inclusion criteria. Results Two studies examined effects on large-scale networks; most examined acute effects on amygdala connectivity with other social and affective regions. OXTR studies identified three polymorphisms (rs2254298, rs2268498, rs53576) having allele- and sex-dependent effects on prefrontal functional connectivity, and additive effects of OXTR risk alleles on reward circuitry. Age, sex, early life stress, and psychopathology emerged as potential moderators of both IN-OT and OXTR effects. Discussion IN-OT appears to modulate resting state functional connectivity in a manner similar to its effects on task fMRI, consistent with hypothesized models of IN-OT. However, conclusions are limited by the narrow range of neuroanatomical seed regions, and methodological and experimental design heterogeneity. Future studies should take into account individual differences. Findings may provide insight into mechanisms through which IN-OT impacts human behavior.
Modulating the Inflammatory Reflex in Rats Using Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Stimulation of the Vagus Nerve.

Abstract Tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) is linked to several chronic inflammatory diseases. Electrical vagus nerve stimulation reduces serum TNF-α levels but may cause chronic nerve damage and requires surgery. Alternatively, we proposed focused ultrasound stimulation of the vagus nerve (uVNS), which can be applied non-invasively. In this study, we induced an inflammatory response in rats using lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and collected blood to analyze the effects of uVNS on cytokine concentrations. We applied one or three 5-min pulsed focused ultrasound stimulation treatments to the vagus nerve (250 kHz, ISPPA = 3 W/cm2). Animals receiving a single ultrasound application had an average reduction in TNF-α levels of 19%, similar to the 16% reduction observed in electrically stimulated animals. With multiple applications, uVNS therapy statistically reduced serum TNF-α levels by 73% compared with control animals without any observed damage to the nerve. These findings suggest that uVNS is a suitable way to attenuate TNF-α levels.
Avoiding rash decisions about zoster vaccination: insights from cost-effectiveness evidence.

de Boer and colleagues present a cost-effectiveness analysis based in the Netherlands of two vaccines available for the prevention of herpes zoster. Zostavax® was the first vaccine available for the prevention of herpes zoster in older adults. A live-attenuated vaccine, Zostavax is not free of limitations, which include a relatively low efficacy that wanes over time and its contraindication among immunocompromised individuals. The recently available adjuvanted herpes zoster subunit vaccine Shingrix® overcomes some of these limitations. The herpes zoster subunit vaccine is more efficacious than Zostavax, and it can be administered to immunosuppressed individuals. However, the herpes zoster subunit vaccine is considerably costlier and requires a booster injection. In order to clarify the value of each vaccine, de Boer and colleagues compare the cost-effectiveness of no vaccination, and of vaccination with Zostavax or the herpes zoster subunit vaccine in four cohorts of older adults from the perspective of the Netherlands. Whereas neither vaccine was cost-effective under the willingness-to-pay threshold of €20,000 per quality-adjusted life year, the authors find the herpes zoster subunit vaccine to be cost-effective in some scenarios under a €50,000 per quality-adjusted life year threshold. Please see related article: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1213-5
Penalized Parabolic Relaxation for Optimal Power Flow Problem

This paper is concerned with optimal power flow (OPF), which is the problem of optimizing the transmission of electricity in power systems. Our main contributions are as follows: (i) we propose a novel parabolic relaxation, which transforms non-convex OPF problems into convex quadratically-constrained quadratic programs (QCQPs) and can serve as an alternative to the common practice semidefinite programming (SDP) and second-order cone programming (SOCP) relaxations, (ii) we propose a penalization technique which is compatible with the SDP, SOCP, and parabolic relaxations and guarantees the recovery of feasible solutions for OPF, under certain assumptions. The proposed penalized convex relaxation can be used sequentially to find feasible and near-globally optimal solutions for challenging instances of OPF. Extensive numerical experiments on small and large-scale benchmark systems corroborate the efficacy of the proposed approach. By solving a few rounds of penalized convex relaxation, fully feasible solutions are obtained for benchmark test cases from [1]–[3] with as many as 13659 buses. In all cases, the solutions obtained are not more than 0.32% worse than the best-known solutions.
The effects of competition and regulation on error inequality in data-driven markets

Recent work has documented instances of unfairness in deployed machine learning models, and significant researcher effort has been dedicated to creating algorithms that intrinsically consider fairness. In this work, we highlight another source of unfairness: market forces that drive differential investment in the data pipeline for differing groups. We develop a high-level model to study this question. First, we show that our model predicts unfairness in a monopoly setting. Then, we show that under all but the most extreme models, competition does not eliminate this tendency, and may even exacerbate it. Finally, we consider two avenues for regulating a machine-learning driven monopolist - relative error inequality and absolute error-bounds - and quantify the price of fairness (and who pays it). These models imply that mitigating fairness concerns may require policy-driven solutions, not only technological ones.