cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Advancing Women in Local Government: The Case of Illinois

Despite gains by women in many professional fields, the top level of local government management ranks continues to be populated primarily by man. The percentage of females serving as local government chief administrators has not increased since the 1980s. Little empirical research exists that attempts to uncover the reason for the gender gap. The purpose of this research is to identify some of the obstacles and barriers that affect a woman’s decision to advance her career in local government. Utilizing an online survey, the authors surveyed female chief administrative officers (CAOs), assistant CAOs, assistant to the CAOs, and deputy CAOs in Illinois. The survey results show that barriers such as a male dominated culture and time commitment to work life and family life are preventing females from achieving higher authority. Mentoring proves to be a positive solution to many of the barriers facing women in local government.
The TRPM7 channel kinase regulates store-operated calcium entry.

Key points Pharmacological and molecular inhibition of transient receptor potential melastatin 7 (TRPM7) reduces store-operated calcium entry (SOCE). Overexpression of TRPM7 in TRPM7-/- cells restores SOCE. TRPM7 is not a store-operated calcium channel. TRPM7 kinase rather than channel modulates SOCE. TRPM7 channel activity contributes to the maintenance of store Ca2+ levels at rest. Abstract The transient receptor potential melastatin 7 (TRPM7) is a protein that combines an ion channel with an intrinsic kinase domain, enabling it to modulate cellular functions either by conducting ions through the pore or by phosphorylating downstream proteins via its kinase domain. In the present study, we report store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) as a novel target of TRPM7 kinase activity. TRPM7-deficient chicken DT40 B lymphocytes exhibit a strongly impaired SOCE compared to wild-type cells as a result of reduced calcium release activated calcium currents, and independently of potassium channel regulation, membrane potential changes or changes in cell-cycle distribution. Pharmacological blockade of TRPM7 with NS8593 or waixenicin A in wild-type B lymphocytes results in a significant decrease in SOCE, confirming that TRPM7 activity is acutely linked to SOCE, without TRPM7 representing a store-operated channel itself. Using kinase-deficient mutants, we find that TRPM7 regulates SOCE through its kinase domain. Furthermore, Ca2+ influx through TRPM7 is essential for the maintenance of endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ concentration in resting cells, and for the refilling of Ca2+ stores after a Ca2+ signalling event. We conclude that the channel kinase TRPM7 and SOCE are synergistic mechanisms regulating intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis.
Religious People Endorse Different Standards of Evidence When Evaluating Religious Versus Scientific Claims

Recent research has begun to investigate the relationship between religion and science. However, it remains unclear whether religious and nonreligious people differ on the standards of evidence use...
Objective Measurement of Clinical Competency in Surgical Education Using Electrodermal Activity.

Objective Within the realm of surgical education, there is a need for objective means to determine surgical competence and resident readiness to operate independently. We propose a novel, objective method of assessing resident confidence and clinical competence based on measurement of electrodermal activity (EDA) during live surgical procedures. We hypothesized that with progressive training, EDA responses to the stress of performing surgery would exhibit decline, elucidating an objective correlate of clinical competence. Design EDA was measured using galvanic skin response sensors worn by residents performing laparoscopic cholecystectomy on sequential live human patients over an 8-month period. Baseline, phasic (peak) and tonic EDA responses were measured as a fractional change from baseline. Setting University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, an academic tertiary care facility. Participants Fourteen categorical general surgery residents and 5 faculty surgeons were voluntarily enrolled and participated through completion. Results Tonic fractional change (FC TONIC ) was highest in PGY3 residents compared with postgraduate year (PGY) 1 and 2 residents (7.199 vs. 2.100, p=0.004, 95% CI: 8.58-1.61 and PGY4 and 5 residents (7.199 vs. 2.079, p=0.002, 95% CI: 8.38-0.29). Phasic fractional change in EDA (FC PHASIC ) exhibited a progressive decline across resident training levels, with PGY1 and 2 residents having the highest response, and faculty displaying the lowest FC PHASIC responses. Statistical differences were seen between FC PHASIC faculty and PGY4 and 5 (3.596 vs. 6.180, p=0.004, 95% CI: 0.80-4.36), PGY4 and 5, and PGY3 (6.180 vs. 15.998, p=0.003, 95% CI: 3.33-16.3), as well as among all residents and faculty (13.057 vs. 3.596, p=0.004, 95% CI: 15.8-3.1). Conclusion Phasic EDA changes decrease with increasing clinical competence. For those participants with the lowest and highest levels of competence, tonic EDA changes are minimal. Tonic EDA changes follow an inverse-U shape with differing levels of clinical competence.
Relationship between Flower Opening in Six Cotton Cultivars and Their Progeny to Pollen Dehydration Tolerance

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) production in arid and semiarid environments routinely experiences elevated temperature and low humidity challenges that ultimately determine yield and producer profitability. The present study investigated the diversity of flower petal opening to determine if traditional genetics and breeding approaches could develop a more cupped or closed flower, thereby providing a more humid microenvironment around the dehisced pollen. Six cultivars with reported differences in pollen humidity sensitivity were used to evaluate the genetics of petal opening. Crosses between open flower cultivars generally resulted in F1 offspring with open flowers. Crosses between closed flower cultivars generally resulted in F1 offspring with closed flowers. Crosses between open and closed flower cultivars provided unique phenotypes depending on the cultivars used. The results from the F1 offspring suggested that the male parent influenced the flower shape of the offspring. In addition, analysis of F2 offspring from the bidirectional crosses suggests that a single dominant gene from the male parent ultimately influences flower petal openness. Using traditional breeding techniques, it may be possible to develop cultivars with either open or closed flower phenotypes, linking pollen development stability and mature pollen viability across a range of environments to stabilize and enhance crop yield.
Use of Reverse Radial Forearm Fascial Flap for Median Nerve Coverage

The reverse radial forearm fascial flap can be used to provide coverage for the median nerve in a variety of circumstances. This flap has utility for trauma coverage, recurrent carpal tunnel syndrome, as well as numerous other scenarios. The advantage of this flap is that it preserves the radial artery and has an overall more tolerable aesthetic appearance compared to the traditional reverse radial forearm flap.
Liquid cooled system for aircraft power electronics cooling

The shift to more electric aircraft presents many electronics packaging and thermal challenges. Innovation in both cooling and mechanical packaging concepts is needed to integrate the required equipment into the aircraft. Heat dissipations in electronics can be significant, and be beyond the cooling capability of existing Electrical Equipment (EE) bay capabilities. The location of electronics in an aircraft is based on usage of the equipment. This presents thermal challenges because these locations are likely difficult to cool. The cooling system must acquire heat at the electronics box and transport the heat to the ultimate heat sink for rejection. There are only two options for heat rejection: either ram/fan air, or fuel. Fuel has limited thermal mass and also quantity of fuel and hence thermal mass varies during flight phase. Amount of heat that can be transferred to fuel is thus limited. Almost all options ultimately reject their heat to ram/fan air. Liquid cooling facilitates large transport distances, high heat fluxes and accompanying size and weight reductions for electronics, yet ultimately rejects heat to air. The complexities of integrating a large liquid loop on a commercial aircraft are numerous but solvable. A successful solution requires an integrated system that is easy to maintain, pays close attention to detail, and is cost effective. This paper will provide an overview of the above systems and integration challenges.
Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Patients with Psoriasis: A Consequence of Systemic Inflammatory Burden?

Patients with psoriasis are at an increased risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) compared with the general population. However, the pathophysiology underlying this comorbidity and elucidation of effective treatment strategies are unclear. This review provides insights into the possible role of chronic, low-grade inflammation in the pathogenesis of NAFLD in patients with psoriasis. Both conditions are associated with increased levels of proinflammatory adipokines (such as tumour necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6) and hepatokines, and decreased levels of adiponectin, an anti-inflammatory adipokine. This imbalance in inflammatory mediators could result in insulin resistance and, thereby, facilitate the occurrence and progression of NAFLD in a multistep manner. All patients with psoriasis should, therefore, be considered candidates for NAFLD screening and managed accordingly. Given the common aetiology of inflammation between these conditions, it is hypothesized that biological therapies for psoriasis may attenuate the systemic inflammatory process and progression of NAFLD in patients with psoriasis.
Active Flow Control for Trailing Edge Flap Separation

Active flow control (AFC) in the form of sweeping jet (SWJ) excitation and discrete steady jet excitation is used to control the flow separation on an NACA 0015 semispan wing with a deflected, simple-hinged, trailing edge flap. This geometry has been the focus of several recent publications that investigated methods to improve the efficiency of sweeping jet actuators. In the current study, the interaction of the AFC excitation with the separated flowfields present at several flap deflection angles was examined. Previous studies with this model have been limited to a maximum flap deflection angle of 40°. The flap deflection range was extended to 60! because systems studies have indicated that a high-lift system with simple-hinged flaps may require larger flap deflections than the Fowler flaps found on most high-lift systems. The results obtained at flap deflection angles of 20°, 40°, and 60° are presented and compared. Force and moment data, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) data, and steady and unsteady surface pressure data are used to describe the flowfield with and without AFC. With a flap deflection of 60°, increasing the SWJ actuator momentum at the flap shoulder increased lift due to an increase in circulation but did not completely eliminate the recirculation region above the flap surface. AFC using the discrete steady jet actuators of this study increased lift as well but required more mass flow than the SWJ actuators and had a detrimental effect on lift at the highest mass flow level tested. PIV results showed that the angle between the excitation and the flap surface was not optimal for attaching the separated shear layer.
Factors Affecting Speech Reception in Background Noise with a Vocoder Implementation of the FAST Algorithm

Speech segregation in background noise remains a difficult task for individuals with hearing loss. Several signal processing strategies have been developed to improve the efficacy of hearing assistive technologies in complex listening environments. The present study measured speech reception thresholds in normal-hearing listeners attending to a vocoder based on the Fundamental Asynchronous Stimulus Timing algorithm (FAST: Smith et al. 2014), which triggers pulses based on the amplitudes of channel magnitudes in order to preserve envelope timing cues, with two different reconstruction bandwidths (narrowband and broadband) to control the degree of spectrotemporal resolution. Five types of background noise were used including same male talker, female talker, time-reversed male talker, time-reversed female talker, and speech-shaped noise to probe the contributions of different types of speech segregation cues and to elucidate how degradation affects speech reception across these conditions. Maskers were spatialized using head-related transfer functions in order to create co-located and spatially separated conditions. Results indicate that benefits arising from voicing and spatial cues can be preserved using the FAST algorithm but are reduced with a reduction in spectral resolution.
Market failure and intellectual property: a response to Professor Lunney

Professor Lunney's piece in this volume is interesting enough that I forgive him for misportraying my own work. In this short reply I will clarify my position, and then examine both the place of my market failure argument and the place of some of Professor Lunney's arguments within the future of Intellectual Property scholarship as a whole. Please see the complete abstract in the article.
Partner Violence and Sexual HIV Risk Behaviors Among Women in Methadone Treatment

To examine associations between recent partner violence and sexual HIV risk behaviors and their implications for HIV prevention among women in methadone treatment, we conducted structured interviews covering demographics, drug use, trauma history, partner violence, and sexual risk behavior with 147 sexually active women who were at risk of HIV infection. Almost one third (30.5%) of the women reported that they had been physically or sexually abused by a spouse or boyfriend during the previous year. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that after adjusting for potential confounders, recently abused women were less likely to report using condoms (OR = 0.41, CI = 0.17, 0.99) and more likely than non-recently abused women to report having contracted a sexually transmitted disease (STD) (OR = 3.6, CI = 1.6, 8.5), exchanged sex for money (OR = 2.4, CI = 1.1, 5.4), and having had sex with an HIV-infected partner (OR = 2.5, CI = 1.0, 6.1). The study findings underscore the importance of developing HIV-risk reduction strategies that target the specific needs of abused women in drug treatment.
A two per cent Hubble constant measurement from standard sirens within five years.

Gravitational-wave detections provide a novel way to determine the Hubble constant1–3, which is the current rate of expansion of the Universe. This ‘standard siren’ method, with the absolute distance calibration provided by the general theory of relativity, was used to measure the Hubble constant using the gravitational-wave detection of the binary neutron-star merger, GW170817, by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo4, combined with optical identification of the host galaxy5,6 NGC 4993. This independent measurement is of particular interest given the discrepancy between the value of the Hubble constant determined using type Ia supernovae via the local distance ladder (73.24 ± 1.74 kilometres per second per megaparsec) and the value determined from cosmic microwave background observations (67.4 ± 0.5 kilometres per second per megaparsec): these values differ7,8 by about 3σ. Local distance ladder observations may achieve a precision of one per cent within five years, but at present there are no indications that further observations will substantially reduce the existing discrepancies9. Here we show that additional gravitational-wave detections by LIGO and Virgo can be expected to constrain the Hubble constant to a precision of approximately two per cent within five years and approximately one per cent within a decade. This is because observing gravitational waves from the merger of two neutron stars, together with the identification of a host galaxy, enables a direct measurement of the Hubble constant independent of the systematics associated with other available methods. In addition to clarifying the discrepancy between existing low-redshift (local ladder) and high-redshift (cosmic microwave background) measurements, a precision measurement of the Hubble constant is of crucial value in elucidating the nature of dark energy10,11. Gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron-star mergers will enable precision measurements of the Hubble constant within five years.
Effect of Simultaneous Administration of Dihydroxyacetone on the Diffusion of Lawsone Through Various In Vitro Skin Models

Unprotected sunlight exposure is a risk factor for a variety of cutaneous cancers. Topically used dihydroxyacetone (DHA) creates, via Maillard reaction, chemically fixed keratin sunscreen in the stratum corneum with significant protection against UVA/Soret radiation. When used in conjunction with naphthoquinones a naphthoquinone-modified DHA Maillard reaction is produced that provides protection across the UVB/UVA/Soret spectra lasting up to 1 week, resisting sweating and contact removal. The aim of this study was to examine a simplified version of this formulation for effect on UV transmission and to determine if penetration levels merit toxicity concerns. Permeability was demonstrated for freshly prepared DHA (30 mg/mL) and lawsone (0.035 mg/mL) alone and in combination using a side-by-side diffusion apparatus at 37°C over 48 h across shed snake skin and dermatomed pig skin. These samples were then examined for effectiveness and safety. Concentrations were determined by HPLC and UPLC monitored from 250–500 nm. Lawsone flux significantly decreased across pig skin (20.8 (±4.8) and 0.09 (±0.1) mg/cm2 h without and with DHA, respectively) but did not change across shed snake skin in the presence of DHA. Significantly reduced lawsone concentration was noted in donor chambers of combined solutions. Damage was not observed in any skins. Darker coloration with greater UV absorbance was observed in skins exposed to the combined solution versus individual solutions. This study confirmed that combined DHA and lawsone provided effective blocking of ultraviolet light through products bound in keratinized tissue. DHA permeation levels in pig skin suggest further in vitro and in vivo study is required to determine the safety of this system.
The Tall Poppy Syndrome in Orthopedicsand Medicine

The Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) is a metaphor which symbolizes viewing a poppy field and noticing one poppy towering above the others; a penchant by an individual, group or society exists to cut down this tall poppy so that all are equal and uniform. A â€œtall poppyâ€ is defined as someone with fame, fortune, achievements or skills. The syndrome has been identified in many countries with their own metaphors or phrases since antiquity. The entity is relatively unrecognized in the United States perhaps because of the constitutional rights of the individual and capitalism which is based on meritocracy. Lack of recognition does not negate existence. Daily examples may be found in the industries of sport, business, entertainment and especially politics. TPS may be noted in medicine since antiquity as well. Nearly every new discovery, technique, or rivalry is a breeding ground for TPS. One of medicineâ€™s greatest rivalries occurred between Louis Pasteur (France) and Robert Koch (Germany) regarding the germ theory of disease. Their rivalry leads to denigrating each other privately, and at meetings which would also draw in other doctors often with a dose of nationalism for good measure. Envy was described as an early root of TPS especially in people with low self esteem [1]. The envier lacked what the tall poppy possessed and had the option to improve (good envy) or denigrate or cut down the tall poppy (bad envy). Further psychosocial studies have extended behaviors to include deservingness and resentment as well as others [2].
Transition to outpatient total hip and knee arthroplasty: experience at an academic tertiary care center.

Abstract Background Interest in outpatient total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has increased recently as part of value-based care and early recovery protocols. Outpatient pathways require significant paradigm shifts, are not used widely, and are mostly implemented at outpatient surgery centers or orthopedic specialty hospitals. In this article, we report on the outcomes of implementation of an outpatient arthroplasty protocol at a tertiary care academic medical center. Methods We performed a retrospective review on a series of 105 consecutive patients who underwent THA or TKA following our newly implemented outpatient arthroplasty protocol. We compared these patients to a group of inpatient arthroplasty patients from the same time period. Results Eighty-three of 105 (79%) patients were successfully discharged home on the day of surgery. Successful same-day discharge was predicted by early ambulation (P = .01), TKA over THA (P = .04), and shorter duration of surgery (P = .01). General anesthesia correlated with better early ambulation distances (P = .03) and a lower incidence of urinary retention (P = .049). The outpatient readmission and complication rates were 0.95% and 1.9%, respectively, whereas the matched inpatient rates were 3.7% and 2.9%, respectively. Conclusions Outpatient THA and TKA in a well-selected patient is feasible in an academic multidisciplinary tertiary care hospital, with complication rates approximating inpatient surgery. The findings reported here can be used to further optimize outpatient arthroplasty protocols.
Editorial: ITET: Instructional Design Practices in Teacher Education

Instructional design (ID) is the study of designing, developing, and assessing learning and teaching environments. With the advancement of online education, ID has once again become an important discipline for ensuring quality course offerings. At ITET, we do not believe that DBR, TPACK and instructional design are mutually exclusive concepts or that we should select one over another. The advancement of constructivist and, subsequently, connectivist paradigms influenced modern instructional design research significantly. DOI:10.2458/azu_itet_v6i2_czerkawski
SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF REAL-WORLD DRIVING BEHAVIOR FOLLOWING FOCAL BRAIN LESIONS

Many patients with circumscribed brain injuries, such as those caused by stroke or focal trauma, return to driving after a period of acute recovery. These persons often have chronic residual cognitive deficits that may impact on driving safety, but little is known about their driving behavior in the real world. Extant studies tend to rely on driving simulators or controlled on-road drives. These methods of observation are not able to capture the complexities of the typical driving environment, and may not accurately represent a driver’s usual behavior on the road. The current study used a video event-activated data recorder (VEADR) system to observe drivers with focal brain lesions in their normal daily driving environment over a three-month period. In the context of primarily safe driving behavior, we were able to document a number of relatively infrequent and hitherto unobserved high risk behaviors and traffic violations. These findings demonstrate the feasibility and value of sampling real-world driving in neurologic patient populations such as those with focal brain lesions, and highlight the critical importance of evaluating unsafe driving behaviors which may occur with insufficient frequency to be captured by relatively brief simulator or controlled on-road evaluations.
What Is an Eco-Informed Approach to Family Therapy?

This chapter identifies the epistemological issues that support an eco-informed approach to family therapy (FT). It examines why FTs should be at the forefront of connecting ecological issues with clinical practice, and it explains and critiques why this has not yet happened. The current perils our planet faces are identified and an argument is advanced for why we, as FTs and human beings, need to be concerned about these perils and committed to taking action to address them. This chapter lays out an eco-informed approach to family therapy that considers the influence of three factors: (1) a lack of contract with nature; (2) exposure to environmental trauma and toxicity; and (3) the link between all forms of oppression and exploitation that result in inequality and suffering.
3d Printed Glass Optics with Tailored Composition

Three-dimensional (3d) printing has opened the door to novel glass optics with tailored composition and structure. Glass optics with custom refractive index profiles have been prepared using 3d printing, and optical performance will be discussed.
Feedback-Based Informative AUV Planning from Kriging Errors

This paper presents a methodology to find a feedback-based plan for AUVs to visit important locations to estimate spatiotemporal fields. A model based on Kriging method is created containing predictions and errors in prediction. These errors are then used to develop a reward function that gives a high reward to a location with large error prediction and penalizes the energy consumption is created. A feedback plan is found using value-iteration based Markov Decision Model (MDP). The feedback plan helps adjust the paths or trajectories of AUVs in the presence of modeling errors and other forms of uncertainty due to the unpredictability of future states. Moreover, if the AUV deviates from its path during a mission, there will not be any need to re-plan since the plan will be calculated over the entire free space. Data were used from a mission at Big Fisherman’s Cover, at Santa Catalina Island, California, USA. Results show that the Kriging method can be used as a prediction model for several properties of the water in an oceanic environment. Furthermore, an optimal navigation policy was presented in the 2-D marine environment that generates the best possible action in the simulated policy from any location of the environment to the goal location.
Accuracy of smartphone application to monitor heart rate.

Background The use of smartphone applications to monitor heart rate has become increasingly popular. However, there is limited research available on the validity of these applications. The purpose of this study was to examine the accuracy of a free heart rate monitoring application on two smartphone platforms while at rest and during moderate intensity exercise. One heart rate monitor application was chosen for two different technological platforms. Methods Twenty-four adults aged 18 and older (six males, 18 females) were randomly assigned a platform. Two groups were formed based on the platform being utilized. Both groups were monitored using an electrocardiograph (ECG) and the smart phone application. Heart rate for each participant was recorded while seated before exercise, and during moderate intensity exercise on an elliptical machine. Measurements were recorded in one-minute intervals. Results Data was analyzed using correlations and t-tests between platforms. All data was analyzed for both resting and exercise heart rate averages. There was no significant difference in heart rate while seated, t-test (-1.33; P=0.197) nor exercise heart rate, t-test (-1.54; P=0.142) when comparing means of the two platforms to an ECG. Conclusions The applications chosen for both platforms to monitor heart rate were found to be fairly accurate, especially at rest. There are small user adaptations for monitoring heart rate, but heart rate applications provide a low-cost and efficient method for non-medical heart rate tracking. Future research should investigate the difference in accuracy for skin tone, ethnicity, race, hand size, and callosity of fingertips.
A 20 Year Retrospective of The Advanced Noise Control Fan - Contributions to Turbofan Noise Research

The Advanced Noise Control Fan (nee Active Noise Control Fan - ANCF) was utilized in the design, test, and evaluation for technical risk mitigation of most of the innovative fan noise reduction technologies developed by NASA over the past 20 years. The ANCF is a low-speed, ducted fan, testbed for measuring and understanding fan-generated aeroacoustics, duct propagation, and radiation to the farfield. It is considered a low Technology Readiness Level testbed. The international aeroacoustics research community employed the ANCF to facilitate advancement of multiple noise reduction and measurement technologies, and for code validation. From 1994 to 2016, it was located in the NASA Glenn Research Center’s Aero-Acoustic Propulsion Laboratory. In 2016 the ANCF was transferred to the University of Notre Dame where it is expected to continue to positively impact ducted fan aeroacoustic research and provide STEM support. This paper summarizes the capabilities and contributions of the ANCF to the field by documenting its history. Limited data is presented, focusing on a description of the configurations, goals, and objectives of representative ANCF tests. This provides an overview of the progress of aeroacosustic research as implemented on the ANCF, as well as a background for its continued usage.
Leukapheresis for the management of hyperleukocytosis in acute myeloid leukemia-A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background Up to 20% of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) present with hyperleukocytosis, usually defined as a white blood cell (WBC) count greater than 100 × 109 /L. Given the high early mortality rate, emergent cytoreduction with either leukapheresis, hydroxyurea, or chemotherapy is indicated, but the optimal strategy is unknown. Study design and methods For this systematic review and meta-analysis we searched MEDLINE and EMBASE via Ovid, Scopus, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and Web of Science from inception through March 2020 for multiarm studies comparing early mortality rates of patients with AML treated with leukapheresis and those who were not. The risk ratio (RR) of early death for patients who received leukapheresis vs patients who did not was estimated using a sum of the log-ratio of individual study estimates weighted by sample size. Results Among 13 two-arm, retrospective studies with 1743 patients (486 leukapheresis and 1257 nonleukapheresis patients), leukapheresis did not improve the primary outcome of early mortality compared to treatment strategies in which leukapheresis was not used (RR, 0.88; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.69-1.13; P = .321) without statistically significant heterogeneity between studies (Cochran's Q, 18; P = .115; I2 , 33.4%). Patients presenting with clinical leukostasis tended to be more likely to undergo leukapheresis (odds ratio, 2.01; 95% CI, 0.99-4.08; P = .052). Conclusion As we did not find evidence of a short-term mortality benefit and considering the associated complications and logistic burden, our results argue against the routine use of leukapheresis for hyperleukocytosis among patients with AML.
Chiral disulfonimides: a versatile template for asymmetric catalysis

Since the emergence of pseudo-C2-symmetric chiral phosphoric acids (CPA), much work has been done to utilize these systems in stereoselective, organocatalytic processes. Despite the success in this field, reasonably basic substrates such as imines are often required to achieve appreciable activation. In order to access a wider variety of potential reaction partners, many related organocatalysts with enhanced Bronsted acidity have since been developed. Chiral disulfonimides (DSIs) have materialized as one such powerful class of organocatalysts and have been shown to expand the list of potential substrates to include aldehydes and ketones via Bronsted, Lewis, or bifunctional acid activation. This versatility renders DSIs amenable to an impressive scope of reaction types, typically with remarkable stereoselectivity induced by asymmetric counteranion-directed catalysis (ACDC). This review serves to provide a complete analysis of the successful applications, mechanistic insights, and unmet challenges exhibited to date in DSI-catalyzed and -assisted processes.
Stem Cell-Derived Insulin-Producing Cells in 3D Engineered Tissue in a Perfusion Flow Bioreactor.

To circumvent the lack of donor pancreas, insulin-producing cells (IPCs) derived from pluripotent stem cells emerged as a viable cell source for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. While it has been ...
Judge Wood and the Human Side of Judging

In this short Essay, one in a series of short tributes to Judge Diane P. Wood in honor of her twenty-five years (and counting) of service on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, I describe Judge Wood's extraordinary approach to the law and the work of judging during her ongoing tenure on the bench.
Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) Implemented: Towards Reverse Engineering Consciousness with the Free Energy Principle and Active Inference

Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) is a synthetic model that attempts to unify theories of consciousness within the Free Energy Principle and Active Inference framework, with particular emphasis on Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). IWMT further suggests predictive processing in sensory hierarchies may be well-modeled as (folded, sparse, partially disentangled) variational autoencoders, with beliefs discretely updated via the formation of synchronous complexes—as self-organizing harmonic modes (SOHMs)—potentially entailing maximal a posteriori (MAP) estimation via turbo coding. In this account, alpha-synchronized SOHMs across posterior cortices may constitute the kinds of maximal complexes described by IIT, as well as samples (or MAP estimates) from multimodal shared latent space, organized according to egocentric reference frames, entailing phenomenal consciousness as mid-level perceptual inference. When these posterior SOHMs couple with frontal complexes, this may enable various forms of conscious access as a kind of mental act(ive inference), affording higher order cognition/control, including the kinds of attentional/intentional processing and reportability described by GNWT. Across this autoencoding heterarchy, intermediate-level beliefs may be organized into spatiotemporal trajectories by the entorhinal/hippocampal system, so affording episodic memory, counterfactual imaginings, and planning.
Building Dynamic Capabilities: Innovation Driven by Individual, Firm, and Network Level Effects

Following the dynamic capabilities perspective, we suggest that antecedents to innovation can be found at the individual, firm, and network level. Thus, we challenge two assumptions common in prior research: (1) that significant variance exists at the focal level of analysis, while other levels of analysis are assumed to be homogeneous, and (2) that the focal level of analysis is independent from other levels of analysis. Accordingly, we advance a set of hypotheses to simultaneously assess the direct effects of antecedents at the individual, firm, and network level on innovation output. We then investigate whether a firm's antecedents to innovation lie across different levels. To accomplish this, we propose two competing interaction hypotheses. We juxtapose the hypothesis that the individual, firm, and network-level antecedents to innovation are substitutes versus the proposition that these innovation mechanisms are complements. We test our multi-level theoretical model using an unusually comprehensive and detailed panel dataset that documents the innovation attempts of global pharmaceutical companies within biotechnology over a 22-year time period (1980-2001). We find evidence that the antecedents to innovation lie across different levels of analysis and can have compensating or reinforcing effects on firm-level innovative output.
Evolutionary insights into the microneme-secreted, chitinase-containing high molecular weight protein complexes involved in Plasmodium invasion of the mosquito midgut.

While general mechanisms by which Plasmodium ookinetes invade the mosquito midgut have been studied, details remain to be understood regarding the interface of the ookinete, specifically its barriers to invasion, such as the proteolytic milieu, the chitin-containing, protein cross-linked peritrophic matrix, and the midgut epithelium. Here we review knowledge of Plasmodium chitinases and the mechanisms by which they mediate the ookinete crossing the peritrophic matrix. The integration of new genomic insights into previous findings advances our understanding of Plasmodium evolution. Recently obtained Plasmodium spp. genomic data enable identification of the conserved residues in the experimentally demonstrated hetero-multimeric, high molecular weight complex comprised of a short chitinase covalently linked to binding partners, von Willebrand factor A domain-related protein (WARP) and secreted ookinete adhesive protein (SOAP). Artificial intelligence-based high-resolution structural modeling using the DeepMind AlphaFold algorithm yielded highly informative 3D structures and insights into how short chitinases, WARP, and SOAP may interact at the atomic level to form the ookinete-secreted peritrophic matrix invasion complex. Elucidating the significance of the divergence of ookinete-secreted micronemal proteins among Plasmodium species could lead to a better understanding of ookinete invasion machinery and the co-evolution of Plasmodium-mosquito interactions.
Telling Transitions At The Table: Re-Served Seats of Higher Learning?

This paper traces the transitions of first year students and other adults of the university as they partake in an intergenerational shared inquiry at a common table. My transformative research invites students, faculty, and staff to attend to (eat) and transform (digest) the moral and political encounters in successive becomings from their speaking positions at a common table. This dialogical partaking of words disrupts the market discourse of student as consumer and re-stories the university as a service organization where all organizational actors are consuming and being consumed. Eating together and telling transitions dissolve boundaries between service and knowledge, between students and other organizational actors, between serving and being served. To transform my writing into a service encounter, I re-present my research as the serving up of a multi-storied, multi-course meal at a common table. Bon appetit! Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. This article is available in The Qualitative Report: http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol6/iss1/2 Telling Transitions At The Table: Re-Served Seats of Higher Learning? by Dorothy Lander The Qualitative Report, Volume 6, Number 1 March, 2001
Cyclic AMP Mediated Modification of Cholesterol Traffic in Leydig Tumor Cells

The level of nonesterified cholesterol within MA-10 Leydig Tumor cells is regulated acutely by trophic hormones (Freeman, D. A., and Ascoli, M. (1982) J. Biol. Chem. 257, 14231-14238). In the present studies, we localize the site of this steroidogenic cholesterol to the plasma membrane and characterize the means by which this membrane becomes cholesterol-depleted. It is possible to detect the translocation of both newly synthesized cholesterol and cholesterol derived from lipoproteins from the cell interior to the plasma membrane. Stimulated MA-10 cells that are actively producing steroid hormones divert cholesterol from the normal intracellular or plasma membrane acceptor sites into the steroid biosynthetic pathway. Another important effect of steroidogenic stimulation is to cause internalization of plasma membrane cholesterol. Changes in cholesterol traffic in stimulated cells can be blocked by preventing the utilization of cholesterol for steroidogenesis. This later finding indicates that the changes in cholesterol transport induced by trophic hormones are consequences rather than primary causes of steroidogenic stimulation.
Auto-learning of SMTP TCP transport-layer features for spam and abusive message detection

Botnets are a significant source of abusive messaging (spam, phishing, etc) and other types of malicious traffic. A promising approach to help mitigate botnet-generated traffic is signal analysis of transport-layer (i.e. TCP/IP) characteristics, e.g. timing, packet reordering, congestion, and flow-control. Prior work [4] shows that machine learning analysis of such traffic features on an SMTP MTA can accurately differentiate between botnet and legitimate sources. We make two contributions toward the real-world deployment of such techniques: i) an architecture for real-time on-line operation; and ii) auto-learning of the unsupervised model across different environments without human labeling (i.e. training). We present a "SpamFlow" SpamAssassin plugin and the requisite auxiliary daemons to integrate transport-layer signal analysis with a popular open-source spam filter. Using our system, we detail results from a production deployment where our auto-learning technique achieves better than 95 percent accuracy, precision, and recall after reception of ≈ 1,000 emails.
Immunization activities of private-practice physicians: a record audit.

A record audit of the office immunization records of 13 private-practice Idaho physicians included 813 2-year-old children. Thirty-six percent had completed all the Public Health Service recommended immunizations for a 2-year-old child. Forty-four percent of the "active" patients (those seen by the physician within the previous 12 months) were complete as opposed to 8% of the "inactive" patients. In general, the children who received immunizations ions exclusively from their private physician were better immunized (38% complete) than those who received immunizations from both their private physicians and the health department clinics (22% complete). Despite the low percentage of overall completeness, the vaccine-specific immunization levels were at least as high as the levels computed from the National Immunization Survey. While the limitations of the study prevent application of the results to physicians in general, the data suggest that the inability to complete an immunization schedule, once begun, is a major weakness in the immunization activities of private-practice physicians.
Antisense that comes naturally.

Slowly, more information is emerging about the function of untranslated RNAs in regulating transcript maturation and splicing.
Error detection and correction in numerical computations

A simple analytical unified approach is described for error detection and correction in numerical computations. The computation process may be implemented by a computer program or memory or by a specialized digital or analog device. This approach does not depend on the form of representation or on the specific features of the implementation of a program or a device computing the given function and is based on algebraic concepts, such as transcendental degree of fielf extensions. The described approach results in a substantial reduction of the hardware overhead required for multiple error detection and correction, as compared to the check sum approach and other methods previously known.
Photometric Observations of the Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae

Currently at Harvard, we are engaged in a program for measuring multi-color magnitudes of the central stars of planetary nebulae. We plan to determine magnitudes of all favourable planetaries having central stars brighter than 16th photographic magnitude. The results, when completed, will give us improved information on (1) the amount of interstellar extinction for the individual objects, (2) the luminosities and colors of the central stars, (3) interstellar reddening corrections for spectrophotometric studies, and (4) the existence of variability among the central stars.
DOUBLE QUANTUM TWO-DIMENSIONAL FOURIER TRANSFORM ELECTRON SPIN RESONANCE :DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS

Abstract The first double quantum two-dimensional Fourier transform electron spin resonance (2D-FT ESR) experiments are reported. Extension of 2D-FT ESR to enable detection of the ΔM s = ±2transition enhances the capability of ESR in studying structural properties (i.e. distances in bilabeled molecules). A distance of 21 A was found for a poly-proline peptide, spin labeled at both ends, in agreement with earlier measurements using fluorescence energy transfer.
Effects of Translational and Gripping Force Feedback are Decoupled in a 4-Degree-of-Freedom Telemanipulator

Many high-degree-of-freedom haptic devices and teleoperator systems either do not have grippers or do not provide force feedback in the gripper degree of freedom (DOF). The purpose of this work is to determine the effect of gripper force feedback in relation to Cartesian (translational) force feedback on the execution of telemanipulation tasks. We developed a system for adding an additional DOF of grip force feedback on a 3-DOF Phantom haptic device master, as well as 6-DOF force/torque sensing on each "finger" of a coupled gripper on a Phantom haptic device slave. The internal (grip) and external (translational) forces were measured as users performed a soft peg-in-hole task with various DOFs of force feedback: (1) full force feedback, (2) translational force feedback only, (3) grip force feedback only, and (4) no force feedback. Results show that the level of force applied in the translational and gripping DOFs are decoupled for a 3-DOF telemanipulator with added grip force feedback. This is likely due to the decoupled dynamics of internal and external hand forces
Further study of “learned” activity in food-deprived rats

Twenty rats were maintained on a 21-h food-deprivation schedule in activity wheels for 35 days. Ten Ss had freedom to run right up to feeding time daily and 10 were blocked out of the wheels during the last hour before feeding to reduce any reinforcing effect of feeding on running. Wheel running increased significantly from the third to second hours before feeding in both groups, but there was no significant difference between groups. Food presentation was observed to be contingent upon being in side cages rather than upon running in Ss fed immediately after opportunity to ran. The findings did not support the hypothesis of Reid & Finger (1955) that increased wheel running prior to feeding is a function of reinforcement of running by subsequent feeding.
Assessing the Total Financial Performance Impact of Brand Equity with Limited Time- Series Data

One of the key challenges in empirically modeling the total impact of marketing assets on financial performance is the limited availability of marketing metrics data over time. The author presents an approach for estimating the total financial impact of marketing assets with limited time-series data and demonstrates the approach with an application to brand equity research. Consistent with prior research, the aggregate analyses indicate that brand equity, as measured by customer mindset metrics, positively affects current financial performance. In addition, the author documents brand equity's significant and much greater impact on the firm's future financial performance: at the aggregate, only a small portion of the total financial impact of brand equity is reflected in current-year profits, whereas the bulk of the profitability impact is realized in the future. Most importantly, however, the analyses document significant heterogeneity of these effects: in some industries, the entire direct impact is cont...