cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fatigue characterization of GFRP and composite sandwich panels under random ocean current loadings

Abstract A comprehensive fatigue characterization of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) and composite sandwich panels under random ocean current loadings is presented in this paper. Two sources of randomness in ocean currents were considered in the calculation of fatigue load: one is turbulence in the ocean currents and the other is the wake flow behind the support structure of the turbine. Calculated random loading was applied to conduct fatigue tests on GFRP and composite sandwich coupons using a materials testing machine. Fatigue life of GFRP coupons followed a power function pattern with respect to number of spectrum passes, while that of sandwich panels was linear in semi-log scale. The failure modes, S-N curve, and the constant life diagram under constant amplitude test are also discussed.
SQL_2_HTML: Automatic Generation of HTML Database Schemas

The ongoing development of our relational database based system administration package, Simon, requires frequent reference to documentation that describes the existing database tables. To this end we have written a program that uses descriptive information stored in the database itself, to generate a WWW tree that documents each table in HTML, as well as an index page to tie the whole package together. This has made looking up table definitions simply a click or two away and has proven to be very useful. These HTML pages are now also being included in some of our program documentation of the Simon system.
Abstract 3077: Krüppel-like factor 5 and its connection to Sonic Hedgehog signaling in Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma

Aims: We sought to determine whether KLF5 was involved, at either phenotypic or functional levels, in the genesis and progression of Barrett9s esophagus (BE) to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), and whether this involvement was related to sonic hedgehog (SHH) signaling. In human adults, KLF5 is expressed in the less differentiated cells of the intestinal crypts, where its activity promotes cell proliferation, contributes to intestinal epithelial homeostasis, and is necessary for villus formation. KLF5 has been found to be highly active in a number of other cancer types, including gastric cancer; moreover, the known role of KLF5 in intestinal epithelial differentiation may contribute to metaplasia and dysplasia in BE and EAC development. We also sought to ascertain whether KLF5 activity was connected to the sonic hedgehog (SHH) pathway, since this pathway is already known to be highly active in BE and EAC. Methods and results: Quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) performed on RNA obtained from BE cell lines (GhTRT and QhTRT) and EAC cell lines (SKGT4 and OE33) revealed that KLF5 is underexpressed in BE cell lines and overexpressed in EAC cell lines relative to normal primary squamous esophageal epithelial cells (HEEpic). Moreover, qRT-PCR performed on clinical BE and EAC tissue specimens showed the same pattern, with downregulation in BE tissues and upregulation in EAC tissues (relative to matched normal esophageal control tissues). Next, we determined KLF5 functional effects in EAC in vitro. The EAC cell line SKGT4 was transfected with KLF5 siRNA, and WST-1 cell proliferation assays revealed significantly lower cell proliferation at 72 hours (p Conclusion: These tissue phenotypic and in vitro functional data identify KLF5 as a potential oncogene in esophageal adenocarcinogenesis. KLF5 is a potential therapeutic and/or chemopreventive target that can be evaluated in future studies of EAC or BE, such as with metformin, which is known to inhibit KLF5 activity. We also identify a potential new connection between KLF5 and SHH pathway activity in the development of EAC. This potential connection deserves further exploration in other malignancies, as well as in physiologic functions such as human development or adult stem cell maintenance. Citation Format: Christopher K. Ng, Yulan Cheng, John M. Abraham, Stephen J. Meltzer. Kruppel-like factor 5 and its connection to Sonic Hedgehog signaling in Barrett9s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3077.
Effects of diet forage:concentrate ratio and metabolizable energy intake on isolated rumen epithelial cell metabolism in vitro.

Crossbred wether lambs were used to assess the effect of altered forage:concentrate ratio and metabolizable energy intake on metabolism of substrates by ruminal epithelium using an isolated cell system. Lambs (n = 28; 20.1 +/- 3 kg BW) were assigned randomly to a factorial arrangement of dietary treatments consisting of either 75% forage or 75% concentrate fed once daily at either .099 or .181 Mcal ME x(kg BW(.75))(-1) x d(-1) for 52 d. After a 52-d feeding period, isolated rumen epithelial cells (IREC) were incubated in the presence of an oxidizable substrate with a single 14C label (acetate, propionate, butyrate, glucose, glutamate, and glutamine) at concentrations ranging from .1 to 50 mM, and substrate oxidation to 14CO2 or metabolism to beta-hydroxybutyrate (beta-HBA), acetoacetate, pyruvate, and lactate was determined. For all substrates, oxidation to CO2 was concentration-dependent and saturable within the physiological range. Differences in substrate oxidation to CO2 by IREC at specific substrate concentrations did not affect Vmax (maximal rate of substrate oxidation, nmol oxidized to CO2 x 1 x 10(6) cells(-1) x 90 min(-1)) and K(ox) (concentration of substrate at which half Vmax oxidation rate is achieved, mmoles/L) estimates for the dietary treatments. Production of beta-HBA from butyrate by IREC from the lambs fed 75% forage was not affected by ME intake; however, production was elevated by high ME intake of the 75% concentrate diet (diet x intake interaction; P < .02). Acetoacetate production from butyrate by IREC from lambs fed at high ME intake was greater (P = .001) than from those fed at low ME intake. Lactate and pyruvate production from glucose, glutamate, and propionate were generally unaffected by dietary treatment; however, rate of glutamine metabolism to lactate and pyruvate by IREC was increased with increased ME intake. The observed changes in metabolite production rates across groups did not affect the predicted Vmax and K(ox) parameter estimates. The estimated K(ox) values corroborate that VFA are the primary oxidizable fuels used by ruminal epithelial cells while illustrating that other substrates such as glucose, glutamate, and glutamine would not be expected to be oxidized extensively in vivo due to the high K(ox) relative to substrate concentrations in vivo. In conclusion, the capacity of isolated ruminal epithelial cells to oxidize substrates was largely unaffected by ME intake or dietary forage:concentrate ratio of the diet.
Robust fault detection of a class of uncertain linear parabolic PDEs

Robustness to uncertainties is one of the main challenges in model-based fault diagnosis. Robust fault diagnosis is a mature research area for Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) systems. However, robust diagnostics for systems modeledby Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) is significantly under-explored in existing literature. Spatio-temporal evolution of faults make PDE fault diagnosis more challenging, as compared to its ODE counterpart where the fault evolves only temporally. Furthermore, robustness to uncertainties, that is, distinguishing the effect of uncertainties from faults is another key design challenge in fault diagnosis. This paper presents a robust fault diagnosis scheme for a class of uncertain linear parabolic PDEs. The proposed scheme consists of two subsystems: (i) Residual Generator and, (ii) Adaptive Threshold Generator. The Residual Generatoris a PDE observer whose output error is treated as a residual signal. Ideally, the residual signal should be zero if there is no fault and non-zero otherwise. However, the residual signal is non-zero even under non-faulty conditions, due to the presence of uncertainties. To achieve robustness against such uncertainties, we design a novel Adaptive Threshold Generatorthat generates an adaptive threshold. Finally, we illustrate the proposed scheme via simulation case studies on battery thermal fault detection.
Terahertz-Conductivity in Biological Nanowire-Networks

Most proteins are electrical insulators or poor conductors. We present temperature resolved conductivity measurements on electrically conducting proteins. Temperature-resolved THz spectroscopy was used as a contact free method to measure the conductivity. We measured the conductivity of the wild-type pili as well as for two bioengineered pili.
Classification of Health-Related Social Media Posts: Evaluation of Post Content-Classifier Models and Analysis of User Demographics.

Background: The increasing volume of health-related social media activity, where users connect, collaborate, and engage, has increased the significance of analyzing how people use health-related social media. Objective: The aim of this study was to classify the content (eg, posts that share experiences and seek support) of users who write health-related social media posts and study the effect of user demographics on post content. Methods: We analyzed two different types of health-related social media: (1) health-related online forums—WebMD and DailyStrength—and (2) general online social networks—Twitter and Google+. We identified several categories of post content and built classifiers to automatically detect these categories. These classifiers were used to study the distribution of categories for various demographic groups. Results: We achieved an accuracy of at least 84% and a balanced accuracy of at least 0.81 for half of the post content categories in our experiments. In addition, 70.04% (4741/6769) of posts by male WebMD users asked for advice, and male users’ WebMD posts were more likely to ask for medical advice than female users’ posts. The majority of posts on DailyStrength shared experiences, regardless of the gender, age group, or location of their authors. Furthermore, health-related posts on Twitter and Google+ were used to share experiences less frequently than posts on WebMD and DailyStrength. Conclusions: We studied and analyzed the content of health-related social media posts. Our results can guide health advocates and researchers to better target patient populations based on the application type. Given a research question or an outreach goal, our results can be used to choose the best online forums to answer the question or disseminate a message.
DsOn: Ontology-Driven Model for Symptom and Drug Knowledge Extraction on Social Media

Social media has extensive content volunteered by drug users, who also mentions drug side-effects. Such mentions may indicate side-effects that are heretofore unknown to the medical professionals and researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and regulators. To study and monitor the drug and its potential symptoms and side-effects for epidemiological surveillance of drug trends, the research needed a higher level of knowledge extraction and improvement in domain knowledge. Our aim is to methodically classify the tweets that mention drug side-effects, and by applying our model we improved the medical knowledge extraction from our data-set. We crawled 7 million tweets related to marijuana concentrate and cannabis (known as marijuana) the tweet text mentioned about marijuana usage, marijuana consumption, the medicinal value of marijuana and symptoms or side-effects of marijuana. It is essential to identify the drug side-effects in the tweets in order to create a bag of words relating to each category of marijuana. This will assist us in the classification of tweets under different categories of marijuana-based on side-effects. We manually created multi-domain knowledge, modeled in DsOn(Drug and Symptom Otology), to facilitate the extraction of semantic parsing from people opinion on Social Media, through a combination of medical taxonomy dictionary, and semantics relationship based techniques from UMLS, PubMed, and DBpedia. Experiment results showed an improvement in recall from 0.14 (without ontology model) to 0.23 (with ontology model).
The double life of conductive nanopipette: a nanopore and an electrochemical nanosensor

The continuing interest in nanoscale research has spurred the development of nanosensors for liquid phase measurements. These include nanopore-based sensors typically employed for detecting nanoscale objects, such as nanoparticles, vesicles and biomolecules, and electrochemical nanosensors suitable for identification and quantitative analysis of redox active molecules. In this Perspective, we discuss conductive nanopipettes (CNP) that can combine the advantages of single entity sensitivity of nanopore detection with high selectivity and capacity for quantitative analysis offered by electrochemical sensors. Additionally, the small physical size and needle-like shape of a CNP enables its use as a tip in the scanning electrochemical microscope (SECM), thus, facilitating precise positioning and localized measurements in biological systems.
"She is the best female coach": NCAA Division I swimming coaches' experiences of sexism.

Sport participation for women and girls is at an all-time high in the United States, but women are still widely underrepresented in leadership positions and coaching (Acosta & Carpenter, 2014). Women hold approximately 50% of head coaching positions of women’s teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and only 18% of the head coaching positions of women’s swimming and diving teams (LaVoi & Silva-Breen, 2018). Numerous barriers have been identified through previous research on the factors that inhibit upward career mobility for female coaches. Semi-structured interviews were used to examine the career experiences of 21 current or former female swimming coaches at the NCAA Division I level. The theme of sexism in coaching was pervasive and identified in five different categories: (a) misidentification, (b) differential treatment, (c) isolation, (d) tokenism, and (e) motherhood. The sexism that female coaches experience hinders upward career mobility which can lead to career dissatisfaction and early exits from the field, contributing to the underrepresentation of women in the profession.
Abstract 17095: Association of Cigarette and Electronic Cigarette Use Behaviors With Levels of Inflammatory and Oxidative Stress Biomarkers Among United States Adults, Path 2013-2014

Introduction: Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use has increased rapidly in recent years; however, the cardiovascular risks of e-cigarettes remain unclear. Using data from the Population Assessme...
The Changing Landscape of Catholic Hospitals and Health Systems, 2008-2017.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY More than 600 Catholic hospitals operating in the United States face pressures for efficiency and effectiveness as well as compliance with demands of the Roman Catholic Church. They have responded to the pressures in various ways that have led to mixed models of organizational ownership and management. The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the status of Catholic hospital ownership and management, especially the strategic and structural features of the parent health systems. Longitudinal data (2008-2017) were acquired and analyzed using repeated-measures analysis. Descriptive statistics were prepared using cross-sectional matched pairing for 2008 and 2017 data. Of 4,253 hospitals studied, 534 changed ownership or management. More Catholic Church-operated hospitals, regardless of type of ownership (for-profit, not-for-profit, church), became decentralized to a greater degree over the 8-year period and took on more attributes of non-Catholic hospitals.The 21st century Catholic hospital is more likely to be partnered with a non-Catholic hospital or to be owned by a for-profit system than to be solely partnered with or operated by another Catholic system. Today's Catholic hospitals appear to be more similar to their non-Catholic counterparts. With the trend toward larger systems that comprise more diverse partners, an increase in lay oversight could lead to further movement away from Catholic identity and the original mission of a hospital. As systems grow in size but shrink in number, administrators must make difficult decisions about the type and scope of services offered as well as the partners they need to deliver their services.
Assessing Genetic Risk for IgA Nephropathy: State of the Art.

IgA nephropathy is the most common GN and has complex determination. The clinical presentation of IgA nephropathy is varied, as patients can have asymptomatic hematuria or have relapsing disease, leading to kidney failure. The primary pathogenic model for IgA nephropathy is a cascade reaction that
An evaluation of the experiences of radiography students working on the temporary HCPC register during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world's perspective and had a profound impact on all those residing in the United Kingdom, resulting in unprecedented changes being made to the education and training of healthcare students. Universities and practice partners had to respond quickly and work in close collaboration with their wider system partners, Health Education England and the Department of Health, to ensure the changes made within the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) emergency measures were implemented. The aim was to explore the experiences of final year diagnostic and therapeutic radiography students who joined the HCPC temporary register during phase one of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods This study was informed by a phenomenological approach, in which a purposeful sample of seventeen participants comprising of nine students, six practice educators and two academics were chosen to participate. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted to collect the data via a virtual platform. Results The results highlighted three themes, professionalism and transition to registration, benefits and challenges of working through a pandemic, and emotional impact. Students described how they gained confidence and competence during their time on the temporary register and suggested that professional bodies could consider curriculum changes to encompass a final transitional placement similar to their experience. They said they had been well supported but felt a sense of loss having been denied the normal rite of passage associated with completion of their course and graduation. Conclusion The results provide insight into how students, practice educators and academics transformed their practice to meet the necessary requirements whilst working during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. They highlight the importance of having good support mechanisms in place and the rewards and challenges for students joining their professional register early. Implications for practice Some consideration could be made to changing the curriculum in the future to allow for early temporary registration and paid Band 4 final placements for students working as assistant practitioners.
Utilization Impact of Cost-Sharing Elimination for Preventive Care Services: A Rapid Review:

Consumer cost-sharing has been shown to diminish utilization of preventive services. Recent efforts, including provisions within the Affordable Care Act, have sought to increase use of preventive c...
Problems: Arithmetic and Geometric Sequences and Series

In this chapter, the basic and advanced problems of arithmetic and geometric sequences and series are presented. To help students study the chapter in the most efficient way, the problems are categorized in different levels based on their difficulty levels (easy, normal, and hard) and calculation amounts (small, normal, and large). Moreover, the problems are ordered from the easiest problem with the smallest computations to the most difficult problems with the largest calculations.
Skull Base Osteomyelitis After Nasopharyngeal Cyst Excision.

We present a case of an 80-year-old male who developed skull base osteomyelitis after nasopharyngeal cyst removal. A review of the literature regarding complications after nasopharyngeal cyst remov...
Intravenous cyclophosphamide induces remission in children with difficult to treat steroid resistant nephrotic syndrome from minimal change disease.

Background Steroid resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS), while uncommon in children, is associated with significant morbidity. Calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs) remain the first line recommended therapy for children with non-genetic forms of SRNS, but some children fail to respond to them. Intravenous (IV) cyclophosphamide (CTX) has been shown to be effective in Asian-Indian children with difficult to treat SRNS (SRNS-DTT). Our study evaluated the outcome of IV CTX treatment in North American children with SRNS-DTT. Methods Retrospective review of the medical records of children with SRNS-DTT treated with IV CTX from January 2000 to July 2019 at our center. Data abstracted included demographics, histopathology on renal biopsy, prior and concomitant use of other immunosuppressive agents and serial clinical/laboratory data. Primary outcome measure was attainment of complete remission (CR). Results Eight children with SRNS-DTT received monthly doses (median 6; range 4-6) of IV CTX. Four (50%) went into CR, 1 achieved partial remission and 3 did not respond. Three of the 4 responders had minimal change disease (MCD). Excluding the 1 child who responded after the 4th infusion, the median time to CR was 6.5 (range 0.5-8) months after completion of IV CTX infusions. Three remain in CR at a median of 8.5 years (range: 3.7-10.5 years) after completion of CTX; one child relapsed and became steroid-dependent. No infections or life-threatening complications related to IV CTX were observed. Conclusions IV CXT can induce long term remission in North-American children with MCD who have SRNS-DTT.
Notes on Generalizing the Maximum Entropy Principle to Uncertain Data.

The principle of maximum entropy is a broadly applicable technique for computing a distribution with the least amount of information possible while commonly constrained to match empirically estimated feature expectations. We seek to generalize this principle to scenarios where the empirical feature expectations cannot be computed because the model variables are only partially observed, which introduces a dependency on the learned model. Extending and generalizing the principle of latent maximum entropy, we introduce uncertain maximum entropy and describe an expectation-maximization based solution to approximately solve these problems. We show that our technique generalizes the principle of maximum entropy and latent maximum entropy and discuss a generally applicable regularization technique for adding error terms to feature expectation constraints in the event of limited data.
On the window selection and the cross terms that exist in the magnitude squared distribution of the short time Fourier transform

The short time Fourier transform (STFT), a time-frequency representation, is linear by definition. However, the magnitude squared distribution of the STFT (the spectrogram) which signal processors often use to represent a signal is non-linear by definition. Therefore, in general, there exist cross terms in the spectrogram of a multi-component signal. The existence of these depends on (a) the nature of a multi-component signal, (b) the choice of the STFT analysis window and (c) the window length selection. This paper studies the effect of (i) the choice of the STFT analysis window, and (ii) the nature of signals to be analyzed, on the cross terms, in detail with representative examples. >
Confronting gender discrimination in the Mexican workplace: women and labor facing NAFTA with transnational contention.

Abstract This article focuses on the issue of gender discrimination in Mexico, in light of NAFTA since passed in 1993. A model of transnational contention from social movement theories is modified and used to analyze the integration of actions by Mexican, US and Canadian women's and labor group's actions, as they fight for Mexican pregnant workers' rights. Data from interviews with labor leaders, female legislators, political parties and feminist NGOs in Mexico and tri-national government documents are processed in a typology of transnational contention, revealing a high degree of integrated transnational and domestic efforts-which I argue is the basis for a growing women's labor movement in the region.
Cloning and analysis of a locus (mcr) involved in mitomycin C resistance in Streptomyces lavendulae

Abstract Two genes (mcrA and mcrB) from Streptomyces lavendulae that together confer resistance to mitomycin C were identified. This DNA appears to comprise a polycistronic operon with a drug-inducible leaderless mRNA. The deduced amino acid sequence of mcrA shows similarity to sequences of a special class of bacterial, plant, and animal oxygen oxidoreductases.
Hemin uptake in Porphyromonas gingivalis: Omp26 is a hemin-binding surface protein.

A 26-kDa outer membrane protein (Omp26) has been proposed to play a role in hemin acquisition by Porphyromonas gingivalis (T. E. Bramanti and S. C. Holt, J. Bacteriol. 174:5827-5839, 1992). We studied [55Fe]hemin uptake in P. gingivalis grown under conditions of hemin starvation (Omp26 expressed on the outer membrane surface) and hemin excess (Omp26 not expressed on surface). [55Fe]hemin uptake occurred rapidly in hemin-starved cells which incorporated up to 70% of total [55Fe]hemin within 3 min. P. gingivalis grown under hemin-starved conditions or treated with the iron chelator 2,2'-bipyridyl to induce an iron stress took up six times more [55Fe]hemin than hemin-excess-grown cells. Polyclonal monospecific anti-Omp26 antibody added to hemin-starved cells inhibited [55Fe]hemin uptake by more than 50%, whereas preimmune serum had no effect. [55Fe]hemin uptake in hemin-starved P. gingivalis was inhibited (36 to 67%) in the presence of equimolar amounts of unlabeled hemin, protoporphyrin IX, zinz protoporphyrin, and Congo red dye but was not inhibited in the presence of non-hemin-containing iron sources. Heat shock treatment (45 degrees C) of hemin-excess-grown P. gingivalis (which cases translocation of Omp26 to the surface) increased [55Fe]hemin uptake by threefold after 3 min in comparison with cells grown at 37 degrees C. However, no [55Fe] hemin uptake beyond 3 min was observed in either hemin-excess-grown or hemin-starved cells exposed to heat shock. In experiments using heterobifunctional cross-linker analysis, hemin and selected porphyrins were cross-linked to Omp26 in hemin-starved P. gingivalis, but no cross-linking was seen with hemin-excess-grown cells. However, cross-linking of hemin to Omp26 was observed after heat shock treatment of hemin-excess-grown cells. Finally, anti-Omp26 antibody inhibited cross-linked of hemin to Omp26. These findings indicate that hemin binding and transport into P.gingivalis cell mediated by Omp26.
Pulsed electrochemical detection in bioanalysis: chemical fingerprinting

Pulsed Electrochemical Detection (PED) is a revolutionary approach to the simple, sensitive, and direct detection of numerous polar aliphatic compounds, especially carbohydrates. This technique exploits the electrocatalytic activity of noble metal electrode surfaces to oxidize various polar functional groups. In PED, multi-step potential-time waveforms at Au and Pt electrodes realize amperometric/coulometric detection while maintaining uniform and reproducible electrode activity. The response mechanisms in PED are dominated by the surface properties of the electrode, and, as a consequence, members of each chemical class of compounds produce virtually identical voltammetric responses. Thus, the full potential is realized when combined with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This paper reviews the fundamental aspects of PED and details a novel approach to the chemical "fingerprinting" of natural products. Applications include the characterization of tobacco, peptones, and bacteria.© (2004) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
The role of the macrophage in apoptosis: hunter, gatherer, and regulator.

Clearance of cellular corpses is a critical feature of apoptosis in vivo during development, tissue homeostasis, and resolution of inflammation. As the professional phagocytes of the body, macrophages play a key role in this process. By recognizing emerging signals using several different receptors, macrophages engulf apoptotic cells swiftly and efficiently. In addition, the binding of apoptotic cells profoundly down-regulates the ability of the macrophage to produce inflammatory mediators by inducing the release of antiinflammatory mediators. Finally, macrophages may actually induce cell death in specific cells during embryogenesis.Abnormalities of apoptotic cell clearance may contribute to the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory diseases, including those of autoimmune etiology. It is also possible that certain malignant tumor cells co-opt the mechanisms for apoptotic cell clearance to avoid immune surveillance by subverting macrophage and dendritic cell responses.
RNA extracts with polyadenylic acid sequences transfer specific sensitivity for a low molecular weight antigen (MW 486)

Abstract RNA prepared from the lymphoid tissues of guinea pigs specifically sensitized to mono(p-azobenzene-arsonate)-N-chloroacetyl- l -tyrosine (ARSNAT) (MW = 486) was fractionated by oligo(dT)-cellulose affinity chromatography. Two fractions designated as I and II were eluted from the column. Fraction II, binding to the column and containing polyadenylic acid sequences, transferred ARSNAT or keyhole-limpet-hemocyanin (KLH) sensitivity to nonsensitized guinea pig peritoneal exudate cells (GP-PEC) in 14 experiments. Fraction I was unable to transfer KLH or ARSNAT sensitivity to GP-PEC. The amount of Fraction II needed to transfer ARSNAT sensitivity was 10 times less than previously reported. Synthetic nonlymphoid cell poly(A) tested in this system failed to transfer ARSNAT or KLH sensitivity to GP-PEC. Both Fractions I and II were inactivated by ribonuclease. The results suggest a possible messenger function for the poly (A)-containing RNA fractions.
Using Metaphors to Unpack Student Beliefs About Mathematics

This paper reports on an exploratory study of the mathematical beliefs of a group of ninth and tenth grade students at a large, college preparatory, private school in the Southeastern United States. These beliefs were revealed using contemporary metaphor theory. A thematic analysis of the students' metaphors for mathematics indicated that students had well developed and complex views about mathematics including math as: an Interconnected Structure, a Hierarchical Structure, a Journey of Discovery, an Uncertain Journey, and a Tool. Another prevalent theme revealed by the metaphors was that students believe perseverance is needed for success in mathematics. The data also suggest an impact of gender and tracking on students beliefs about mathematics. Creating metaphors for mathematics provided a catalyst for student reflection, class discussion, and qualitative data, which could aid program evaluation. Several areas for future research were identified through this exploratory study.
Potentially avoidable hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders

Abstract Background Individuals with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD) have more frequent hospitalizations than individuals without ADRD, and some of these admissions may be preventable with proactive outpatient care. Methods This study was a cross-sectional analysis of Medicare claims data from 195,024 fee-for-service ADRD beneficiaries aged ≥65 years and an equal number of matched non-ADRD controls drawn from the 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries in 2007–2008. We analyzed the proportion of patients with potentially avoidable hospitalizations (PAHs, as defined by the Medicare Ambulatory Care Indicators for the Elderly) and used logistic regression to examine patient characteristics associated with PAHs. We used paired t tests to compare Medicare expenditures by ADRD status, stratified by whether there were PAHs related to a particular condition. Results Compared with matched non-ADRD subjects, Medicare beneficiaries with ADRD were significantly more likely to have PAHs for diabetes short-term complications (OR = 1.43; 95% CI 1.31–1.57), diabetes long-term complications (OR = 1.08; 95% CI=1.02–1.14), and hypertension (OR = 1.22; 95% CI 1.08–1.38), but less likely to have PAHs for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)/asthma (OR = 0.85; 95% CI 0.82–0.87) and heart failure (OR = 0.89; 95% CI 0.86–0.92). Risks of PAHs increased significantly with comorbidity burden. Among beneficiaries with a PAH, total Medicare expenditures were significantly higher for those subjects who also had ADRD. Conclusion Medicare beneficiaries with ADRD were at a higher risk of PAHs for certain uncontrolled comorbidities and incurred higher Medicare expenditures compared with matched controls without dementia. ADRD appears to make the management of some comorbidities more difficult and expensive. Ideally, ADRD programs should involve care management targeting high-risk patients with multiple chronic conditions.
Melanoma cell invasiveness is promoted at least in part by the epidermal growth factor-like repeats of tenascin-C.

Tenascin-C (TNC), overexpressed in invasive growths, has been implicated in progression of melanoma, but the source and function of this molecule are not well defined. We found TNC expression at the front of invading melanoma cells, and that adding TNC to matrices enhances individual melanoma cell migration. As TNC is a multidomain protein, we examined the role of the TNC EGF-like (EGFL) repeats as these activate motogenic signaling cascades. We overexpressed a TNC fragment containing the assembly and EGFL domains of TNC (TNCEGFL). TNCEGFL-expressing melanoma cells had lower speed and persistence in 2D migration assays due to a shift in the adhesion–contractility balance, as expression of TNCEGFL delayed melanoma cell attachment and spreading. The less adhesive phenotype was due, in part, to increased Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) signaling concomitant with myosin light chain 2 and MYPT phosphorylation. Inhibition of ROCK activity, which drives transcellular contractility, restored adhesion of TNCEGFL-expressing melanoma cells and increased their migration in 2D. In contrast to the diminished migration in 2D, TNCEGFL-expressing melanoma cells had higher invasive potential in Matrigel invasion assays, with cells expressing TNCEGFL having amoeboid morphology. Our findings suggest that melanoma-derived TNCEGFL exert a role in melanoma invasion by modulating ROCK signaling and cell migration.
Confinement improvement with magnetic levitation of a superconducting dipole

We report the first production of high beta plasma confined in a fully levitated laboratory dipole using neutral gas fuelling and electron cyclotron resonance heating. As compared with previous studies in which the internal coil was supported, levitation results in improved confinement that allows higher-density, higher-beta discharges to be maintained at significantly reduced gas fuelling. Contrary to previous supported dipole plasma results which had the stored energy consisting in a hot electron population, a significant plasma stored energy is shown to reside in the bulk plasma. By eliminating supports used in previous studies, cross-field transport becomes the main loss channel for both the hot and the background species. This leads to a significant improvement in bulk plasma confinement and a dramatic peaking of the density profile. Improved particle confinement assures stability of the hot electron component at reduced neutral pressure.
What’s All the Fuss About? Facts and Figures About Bone Marrow Failure and Conditions

The epidemiology of bone marrow failure conditions is not well understood. Although several population-based studies conducted in the last two decades have generated a wealth of information, it is still very challenging to interpret disease incidence and prevalence, particularly due to changes in disease classification, misdiagnosis of patients, frequent underreporting and use of different referent populations to calculate rates. Despite these limitations, the available epidemiologic data have revealed significant ethnic, geographic and clinical differences in disease biology that have implications for prevention and treatment strategies. With advances made in targeted therapies facilitated by identification of molecular biomarkers and increased use of curative bone marrow transplantation approach, the natural history of these disease entities is already changing. The epidemiology of these diseases seems to be the next frontier as knowledge gained about the risk factors and pathobiologic correlates could significantly help in designing patient-specific therapies with improved outcomes.
Dynamic Data Distribution and Processor Repartitioning for Irregularly Structured Computations

Irregular applications comprise a significant and increasing portion of jobs running in parallel environments. Recent research has shown that, in parallel environments, both the system utilization and application turn around time improve when resources allocated to applications can be dynamically adjusted at run-time, depending on the workload. To realize this, at least some of the parallel applications in the system need to be dynamically reconfigurable. We have implemented the Distributed Resource Management System (DRMS) that supports the development and execution of regular and irregular reconfigurable applications in time-variant resource environments. In this paper, we discuss DRMS support for developing reconfigurable irregular applications and describe the dynamic data redistribution mechanisms in some detail. We also present performance levels achieved by the data redistribution primitives, using a sparse Cholesky factorization algorithms as a model irregular application. Our results show that the cost of dynamic data redistribution among different processor configurations for irregular data are comparable to those for regular data.
Influence of blood monocytes and lymphocytes on progesterone production by granulosa cells from small and large follicles in the pig.

The objectives of this study were 1) to determine the influence of lymphocytes and monocytes on progesterone secretion by porcine granulosa cells in culture, and 2) to compare the responses of granulosa cells obtained from small versus large follicles. Granulosa cells were cocultured with lymphocytes, monocytes, and unfractionated mononuclear cells in serum-free culture medium. Progesterone content of media and cellular DNA were determined after 6, 12, and 24 hrs of culture. Progesterone production by granulosa cells alone or in coculture with erythrocytes increased (P less than .001) up to 12 hrs and plateaued thereafter. Cells from large follicles produced approximately two-fold (P less than .01) more progesterone as compared to those isolated from small follicles. Cell numbers, as indicated by DNA, did not change with time in any of the cultures. Lymphocytes stimulated (P less than .05) progesterone production by granulosa cells from large follicles but not from small follicles. Similar results were seen when unfractionated mononuclear cells were cocultured with granulosa cells. Monocytes stimulated progesterone production by granulosa cells from both large and small follicles. Lymphocytes and monocytes influence steroid secretion by granulosa cells in the pig in vitro. These effects are not mediated through cell proliferation and are influenced by follicle size.
REVIEW OF PARALLEL TECHNIQUES AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR JAVA

This paper surveys the state-of-the-art parallel techniques for multiprocessor architectures, and studies its implication for Java programs, which are typically compiled at run-time. First, this paper overviews basic techniques of program parallelization in traditional static compilers, followed by a survey of successful parallelizing compilers. Then this paper introduces the latest research topics in this area, particularly focusing on the efforts of combining parallelizing techniques with Java virtual machines, including parallel compilation and parallel real-time garbage collection. Finally, this paper summaries the opportunities and challenges of parallelizing Java computing on multicore platforms.
Weak shocks and steady waves in a nonlinear elastic rod or granular material

Abstract Theories for a nonlinear elastic rod and a granular material are shown to be identical. Both cases admit shocks of two different types. Both also support steady waves, which may be either periodic or solitary waves.
IR spectroelectrochemical studies of the metal carbonyl dimers Mn2(CO)10 and [CpM(CO)3]2 (M = W, Mo). Cross-coupling and ligand substitution reactions of electrochemically generated organometallic radicals

Abstract Reflectance IR spectroelectrochemistry (IR SEC) has been used to study the electrochemical reactions of dinuclear metal carbonyl compounds. Reduction of the dinuclear metal carbonyl complexes by two electrons yields two equivalents of the corresponding monomeric metal carbonyl anions. Upon re-oxidation, the dimeric starting materials can be re-formed in almost quantitative yields. Reactions of the dinuclear metal carbonyls include metal-metal bond homolysis reactions such as electrochemical cross-coupling reactions between Mn2(CO)10 and [CpM(CO)3]2, where M = W, Mo. The ligand substitution reaction of Mn2(CO)10 and PPh3, which occurs only during the metal-metal bond homolysis reaction, is also described. The design of the anaerobic specular reflectance IR SEC cell used in these studies is also reported.
Transcriptome alterations induced by cigarette smoke.

Cigarette smoke alters the transcriptome of multiple tissues; those directly exposed to toxic products and those exposed to circulating components and metabolic products of tobacco smoke. In most tissues and organs that have been studied, the smoking transcriptome is characterized by increased expression of antioxidant and xenobiotic genes as well as a wide spectrum of inflammation-related genes, and potential oncogenic genes. Smoking is associated with an increased incidence of cancer in a number of organs both those directly exposed (lungs and airways) and those indirectly exposed (bladder, liver, pancreas). Individual transcriptomic responses vary, based to some degree on as yet to be clarified genetic factors, and likely how and what the individual has smoked. The complexity of individual responses to tobacco exposure and of smoking-related cancers in various organs is beginning to be revealed in transcriptomic and whole genome sequencing studies, of both tumors and cytologically normal appearing cells that have been exposed to cigarette smoke or its products creating a genomic “field of injury.” The recent application of next generation sequencing to defining the transcriptome alterations induced by cigarette smoke holds the promise of discovering new approaches to personalized prevention and treatment of smoking-related lung diseases in the future.
The Seminole Baptist Churches of Oklahoma: Maintaining a Traditional Community

The Seminole Baptist Churches of Oklahoma: Maintaining. Traditional Community. Jack M. Schultz. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999 vi. 260 pp., maps, photographs, figures, notes, references, index.
Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Attributes of Television

Preschool children’s visual attention to nearly three hours of a heterogeneous sample of children’s programing was examined in relationship to the presence of 37 simple visual and auditory attributes of television programs. A factor analysis of the attributes indicated that they were largely independent, with the exception of two factors, which were labeled “women and children” and “puppets.” Attributes and factors that were positively related to attention were the puppet factor, women and children factor, auditory changes, peculiar voices, movement, cuts, sound effects, laughter, and applause. Attributes that were negatively related to attention were adult male voices, extended zooms and pans, eye contact, and still shots. Other attributes had both positive and negative effects on attention depending on whether the child was looking at the TV at the time the attribute occurred. It is suggested that attributes are positive or negative to the degree to which they signal informative comprehensible content. Sixteen years ago McLuhan (McLuhan, 1964) suggested that the form of a message is a critical determinant of its impact. Nevertheless, research on children’s television viewing has concentrated primarily on message content rather than form. Recently, however, there has been a growing research interest in the formal properties of the television medium. This interest stems not only from McLuhan’s ideas, but also from a general growth of cog
The utility of Hoveyda-type catalysts in ADMET chemistry : Sterics versus electronics

Abstract The influence of the ligand sphere's electronics/sterics on catalytic activity was investigated at various temperatures for complexes of the type (L)(Cl) 2 Ru = CH( o - i PrOC 6 H 3 X) (L = H 2 IPr or H 2 IMes, X = NO 2 , Cl, H, CH 3 , OCH 3 ). Their kinetic behavior was evaluated under ADMET polymerization conditions. At all temperatures the steric hindrance brought about by the N -heterocyclic carbene H 2 IPr dominates any electronic effect as initial rates remain constant regardless of the X substituent. Nevertheless, complexes bearing electron donating groups seem to be more stable and result in higher DPs than complexes bearing electron withdrawing groups. In any case, catalysts containing larger NHC ligands are more efficient in ADMET chemistry than any modified Hoveyda–Grubbs catalyst. At 60 °C, the electronic factor becomes evident and the substituted catalysts exhibit significantly higher reactivity, resulting in the fastest initial rates ever witnessed in an ADMET reaction.