cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Preclinical and Early Clinical Development of Chemotherapeutic Drugs, Mechanism‐Based Agents and Biologics

Overview Over the past 10 years, the approach to drug development has changed considerably. Owing to the enormous increase in insights into the molecular biology of cancer cells, a largely empirical approach has been mostly abandoned and replaced with a biology-driven, hypothesis-based, and translational approach. Notwithstanding this dramatic development, the hierarchical sequence of clinical drug-development trials basically remained unchanged and is divided into three phases. This chapter provides an overview of the various steps of early clinical development with milestones of the drug-development process, the role of the National Cancer Institute, and the switch to mechanism-based drug development. It outlines challenges in the clinical development of these new agents and provides a fundamental understanding of the complexity involved in early clinical drug development. Keywords: drug discovery; National Cancer Institute; mechanistically based drug development; Phase I; Phase II; protein-engineered compounds; pharmacokinetics; pharmacodynamics; dose escalation; dose-limiting toxicities; maximum tolerated dose; combination trials
Vasopressin and blood pressure regulation

The vasoconstrictor actions of arginine vasopressin (AVP) have been shown to occur in concentrations much lower than previously thought. Pressor responses to AVP are a poor index of vasoconstrictor activity since, in contrast to other vasoconstrictor agents, the expected rise of pressure is offset by dose-dependent decreases of cardiac output. The mechanisms for this appear to be, in large part, modulation of the autonomic nervous system whereby AVP enhances vagal nerve activity and reduces peripheral sympathetic nerve activity. AVP enhancement of baroreceptor reflex gain is in part responsible for these changes in some species (dog and rabbit), but not in others (rat). The release of AVP appears to contribute significantly to the normalization of arterial pressure in volume-depleted and hypotensive states. The link between plasma AVP and hypertension remains unclear, but it appears likely that it has an important permissive action in the development of sodium-dependent forms of hypertension.
Cholesterol vehicle in experimental atherosclerosis: Part 15. Randomized butter and randomized lard

Abstract Randomized lard and butter oil were compared with native lard and butter oil for their effects on cholesterol-induced atherosclerosis in rabbits. In each experiment there was also a group fed corn oil. The diets contained 2% cholesterol and 6% fat and were fed for eight weeks. Randomization of either butter or lard had virtually no effect as regards their atherogenic potential when fed as part of a diet containing 2% cholesterol. The corn oil-containing diet was less atherogenic than any of the other fats.
North American Drought and Links to Northern Eurasia

This chapter provides an overview of the role of stationary Rossby waves in the sub-seasonal development of warm season drought over North America and subsequent downstream development of climate anomalies over northern Eurasia. The results are based on a case study of a stationary Rossby wave event that developed during 20 May 15 June 1988. Simulations with the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS-5) atmospheric general circulation model highlight the importance of the mean jet streams in guiding and constraining the path and speed of wave energy propagation. In particular, convective anomalies that developed over the western Pacific in late May (in the presence of the strong North Pacific jet) produce a predilection for persistent upper-level high anomalies over central North America about ten days later, leading to the rapid development of severe dry conditions there. There are indications of continued downstream wave energy propagation that reaches northern Eurasia about two weeks later, leading to the development of dry conditions over eastern Europe and western Russia, and cool and wet conditions over western Europe and central northern Eurasia. The results suggest that stationary Rossby waves can serve as a source of predictability for sub-seasonal development of droughts over North America and northern Eurasia.
Residual stress evaluation using shearography with large shear displacements

A newly developed optical method for the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of residual and live-load stresses is presented. The method utilizes shearography employing a large angle shearing prism which results in large shear displacements. The large angle shearing prism allows the surface speckle pattern to be referenced and mapped onto a remote, separately positionable, surface. Changes on the object surface are initiated between exposures by means of a spherical impression made into the surface. The impression is made by impacting a hardened ball into the surface producing local stresses approximately three times the magnitude of the yield stress for the material. The deformation pattern is recorded and related to the stress that was initially present in the specimen.
"The Foreign Language Effect" and Movie Recommendation: A Comparative Study of Sentiment Analysis of Movie Reviews in Chinese and English

Affect and sentiment uncovered from multi-lingual product reviews might provide richer and more valuable clues to the underlying consumer knowledge and preferences on the product across culture. In present study, the reviews of two movies with the same genre from IMDB and DouBan were analyzed. Preliminary results indicate that there is no substantially strong evidence supporting the 'foreign language effect' in our study, partly due to the limited data studied. In additions, the results revealed that both positive and negative emotions can be interpreted as an implicit and strong recommendation signal, which might in turn be valuable in making prediction on the popularity of a movie. However, due to the limited data, the significance of different emotion labels in affecting a predicted popularity of a movie is unclear.
Student cluster competition 2017, team Northeastern University: Reproducing vectorization of the Tersoff multi-body potential on the NVIDIA V100

Abstract This paper evaluates the reproducibility of an efficient and portable Tersoff potential calculation using LAMMPS, previously presented at the Supercomputing ’16 Conference. The original artifact description was used to reproduce the results on an AMD EPYC 7551, equipped with NVIDIA Volta V100 GPUs. Molecular dynamics simulations, in particular multi-body potential problems, can provide increased accuracy and support scientific discovery in the fields of computational chemistry and materials science. This paper evaluates the reproducibility of the study, in terms of portability and performance.
Efficient Modeling of Electron Transport with Plane Waves

We present a method to simulate ballistic quantum transport in one-dimensional nanostructures, such as extremely scaled transistors, with a channel of nanowires or nanoribbons. In contrast to most popular approaches, we develop our method employing an accurate plane-wave basis at the atomic scale while retaining the numerical efficiency of a localized (tight-binding) basis at larger scales. At the core of our method is a finite-element expansion, where the finite element basis is enriched by a set of Bloch waves at high-symmetry points in the Brillouin zone of the crystal. We demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our method with the self-consistent simulation of ballistic transport in graphene nanoribbon FETs.
Structural basis for activation of Dot1L methyltransferase on the nucleosome by histone H2BK120 ubiquitylation

Summary Histone H3 lysine 79 (H3K79) methylation is enriched on actively transcribed genes, and its misregulation is a hallmark of leukemia. Methylation of H3K79, which resides on the structured disk face of the nucleosome, is mediated by the Dot1L methyltransferase. Dot1L activity is part of a trans-histone crosstalk pathway, requiring prior histone H2B ubiquitylation of lysine 120 (H2BK120ub) for optimal activity. However, the molecular details describing both how Dot1L binds to the nucleosome and why Dot1L is activated by H2BK120 ubiquitylation are unknown. Here we present the cryo-EM structure of Dot1L bound to a nucleosome reconstituted with a site-specifically ubiquitylated H2BK120. The structure reveals that Dot1L engages the nucleosome acidic patch using an arginine anchor and occupies a conformation poised for methylation. Ubiquitin directly interacts with Dot1L and is positioned as a clamp on the nucleosome interacting region of Dot1L. Using our structure, we identify point mutations that disrupt the nucleosome-specific and ubiquitin-dependent activities of Dot1L. This study establishes a path to better understand Dot1L function in normal and leukemia cells.
Role of CCL19 and CCL21 chemokines in the response of ovarian tumors to platinum-based chemotherapy

1472 Ovarian carcinoma is the leading cause of death from gynecological malignancies and is most frequently diagnosed at an advanced stage. The current treatment for advanced stage ovarian cancer includes debulking surgery followed by platinum-based chemotherapy. Despite this approach yielding responses in 60–80% of patients with advanced-stage disease, the majority of ovarian cancer patients eventually relapse and become refractory to additional treatment. In most studies, the overall five-year survival of the patients does not exceed more than 30%. This warrants new strategies to improve both the duration of response and overall survival of patients with this disease. We have approached the problem of chemotherapeutic drug sensitivity/resistance in ovarian cancer by identifying molecular determinants of response using gene expression profiling. We examined a set of 44 human ovarian tumors from patients that either responded or progressed following treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy. The results indicated that increased expression of the chemokines, CCL18, CCL19 (Scya19, Mip3beta), CCL21 (Scya21, Exodus 2, 6Ckine,SLC), is associated with longer progression-free survival times. The quantitative RT-PCR and histochemical analyses revealed elevated expression of CCL19 and CCL21 in samples from longer progression-free survival patients. The chemokines CCL19 and CCL21 are known to attract immune effectors cells such as dendritic and T cells, besides having an angiostatic effect. To understand the role of CCL19 and CCL21 expression and its association with increased response and survival, we expressed these transgenes constitutivley in murine ovarine cancer cells (ID-8). We studied these transgene effects in vitro and in vivo using a syngenic murine model. The cell lines expressing chemokines, CCL19 (ID-8CCL-19) and CCL21 (ID-8CCL21), attracted more splenocytes as compared to control cells in a chemotaxis assay. In in vivo studies, ID-8, ID-8CCL-19 and ID-8CCL21 cells were implanted subcutaneouly in C57BL/6 mice and once tumor volume reached 1000mm3, mice were treated intraperitonially with cisplatin weekly for two weeks. Tumors in mice injected with control ID-8 cells returned to their original size in 30 days after cisplatin treatment, whereas mice with ID-8CCL-19 and ID-8CCL21 tumors were reduced to about 20% of their original tumor volume in that time period. This clearly suggests that these chemokines may play a vital role in increasing the cisplatin sensitivity and overall survival time and the efficient delivery of chemokines to the tumor microenvironment may be an effective strategy to treat advanced-stage ovarian cancer.
Powered muscle stimulators: an investigation into newly FDA 510(k) approved devices marketed for muscle toning and esthetic benefit.

Introduction: Powered muscle stimulators have been popularized in recent years due to their muscle toning effects. This study aims to describe marketing trends and reporting of adverse effects of p...
A hysteretic model for self-centering precast concrete piers with varying shear-slip between segments

Abstract Self-centering, precast, post-tensioned concrete, bridge columns can provide low-damage under earthquake loading and accelerated bridge construction. These columns can also be designed so that shear-slip occurs between precast segments to provide energy dissipation. This paper, first, presents experimental results of large-scale testing of pier specimens that can self-center and undergo shear-slip under cyclic lateral loading. In these tests, segment interface properties, which control shear-slip, changed as the silicone layer placed between each segment degraded during testing. Specimens with fresh silicone had more energy dissipation, lower stiffness, and higher residual displacements compared with the ones with degraded silicone. A hysteretic model is created to predict the global load-displacement behavior of piers under lateral loading by superimposing self-centering and shear-slip responses. Shear-slip measurements under both quasi-static and rapid cyclic tests were used to characterize the interface frictional properties to be used in hysteretic modeling. Friction coefficients of segment interfaces were also investigated under varying accumulative displacement, normal force, and shear-slip velocity. The proposed hysteretic model is validated using the experimental results. A parametric study was performed using the established hysteretic model to investigate the influence of friction properties of interface materials and initial post-tension forces on the seismic response. The results show that interface materials with lower friction coefficient will lead to enhanced energy dissipation, lower stiffness, and smaller self-centering capability. Selecting lower initial post-tension force decreases the stiffness. Finally, incorporating the hysteretic model in the Capacity-Demand-Diagram method, seismic response of piers with varying properties was predicted. The increase in friction coefficient and initial post-tension force consistently increases the maximum base shear demand. Increasing initial post-tension force decreases the peak displacement in most cases. Increasing friction coefficient can either increase or decrease the peak displacement.
Integrating Simulated Patients in TBL: a Strategy for Success in Medical Education

Successful use of team-based learning (TBL) and simulated patients (SP) in medical schools is growing. We hypothesized that integrating SPs into TBL would enhance the traditional TBL. From 2016 to 2018, we taught fourth-year medical students through an SP-TBL hybrid, utilizing an integrated SP interview. A 9-item evaluation was analyzed (n = 114). Students expressed favorable attitudes toward the SP-TBL hybrid with Likert-scale items (mean 4.26/5). Qualitatively, four positive themes emerged: (1) practice; (2) engagement; (3) SP use; and (4) feedback. Integrating SPs into TBL avoids disadvantages with both traditional TBL and OSCEs. Practice, engagement, and immediate feedback are advantages over traditional TBL.
Incidental discovery of isolated talonavicular coalition: Report of two cases

Tarsal coalitions may cause altered foot biomechanics leading to patient disability from osteoarthritis and other sequelae. While some types of coalition are common, isolated talonavicular coalitions are relatively rare. We present two cases of osseous talonavicular coalition that were incidentally discovered in adults and were most likely asymptomatic. Talonavicular coalition may have a hereditary component and may be associated with other anomalies, but many seem isolated, asymptomatic, and incidental.
Keeping it "organized and logical": after-action review for AI (AAR/AI)

Explainable AI (XAI) is growing in importance as AI pervades modern society, but few have studied how XAI can directly support people trying to assess an AI agent. Without a rigorous process, people may approach assessment in ad hoc ways---leading to the possibility of wide variations in assessment of the same agent due only to variations in their processes. AAR, or After-Action Review, is a method some military organizations use to assess human agents, and it has been validated in many domains. Drawing upon this strategy, we derived an AAR for AI, to organize ways people assess reinforcement learning (RL) agents in a sequential decision-making environment. The results of our qualitative study revealed several strengths and weaknesses of the AAR/AI process and the explanations embedded within it.
The Effect of Integration Stage on Multimodal Deep Learning in Genomic Studies

With recent advances in high-throughput sequencing, reading the human genome is not an arduous task anymore. The extensive collection of different types of omics data and possible causal relations between them have led the scientists to exploit specialized machine learning methods such as deep learning and perform integrative analysis of multi-source datasets. In this paper, we compare the performance of both generative and discriminative deep models based on their integration stage. First, we explain the architecture and mathematical point of view of these methods. Then we evaluate the performances of different models by applying them on two sets of cancer-related data to discover the effect of the integration stage on classification accuracy.
Assessing the validity of the Self-Report Webexec Questionnaire: Self-report vs performance neurocognitive inferences.

The Webexec is a self-reported neuropsychological measure, which previous research suggests is associated with personality and executive functions. Though the Webexec could be useful for brief neur...
Functional Hierarchy and Cooperation of EMT Master Transcription Factors in Breast Cancer Metastasis

Several master transcription factors (TF) can activate the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). However, their individual and combinatorial contributions to EMT in breast cancer are not defined. We show that overexpression of EMT-TFs individually in epithelial cells upregulated endogenous SNAI2, ZEB1/2, TCF4, and TWIST1/2 as a result of positive feedback mediated in part by suppression of their negative regulator miRNAs miR200s/203/205. We identified TCF4 as a potential new target of miR200s. Expression of ZEB1/2 strongly correlated with the mesenchymal phenotype in breast cancer cells, with the CD24-/CD44+ stemness profile, and with lower expression of core epithelial genes in human breast tumors. Knockdown of EMT-TFs identified the key role of ZEB1 and its functional cooperation with other EMT-TFs in the maintenance of the mesenchymal state. Inducible ZEB1+2 knockdown in xenograft models inhibited pulmonary metastasis, emphasizing their critical role in dissemination from primary site and in extravasation. However, ZEB1+2 depletion one-week after intravenous injection did not inhibit lung colonization, suggesting that ZEB1/2 and EMT are not essential for macrometastatic outgrowth. These results provide strong evidence that EMT is orchestrated by coordinated expression of several EMT-TFs and establish ZEB1 as a key master regulator of EMT and metastasis in breast cancer. IMPLICATIONS: The EMT program is orchestrated by coordinated expression of multiple EMT transcription factors, whereas ZEB1 integrates the EMT master regulatory network and plays the major role in promoting EMT and metastasis.
Engels and Gender

Engels’s Origin of the Family has become a classic of Marxist studies on the origins of the family and gender oppression, drawing wide discussion from feminist and Marxist circles alike. While it is an extremely important early work that attempts to chart a relationship between class and gender, it is marred at times by an overreliance on economic determinism. This was something that has been argued by many feminists, both Marxist and non-Marxists. Many of these attempted to rework Engels’ theory from a Marxist perspective. This chapter will assess the legacy of Engelsian feminism, both positive and negative, and suggests that Marx’s admittedly more difficult Ethnological Notebooks provide a more fruitful starting point for understanding the intersectional relationships between class and gender.
Voluntary healthier kids' meals policies: Are caregivers choosing kids' meals and healthier items for their child?

Background Children's fast-food consumption increases risks for obesity and other diet-related diseases. To address concerns, from 2010 to 2016 U.S. fast-food restaurants implemented voluntary policies to offer healthier drinks and/or sides with kids' meals. Objectives Examine the effectiveness of voluntary kids' meal policies. Methods Online repeated cross-sectional survey (2010, 2013, 2016) of U.S. caregivers (N = 2093) who purchased fast-food for their child (2-11 years) in the past week. Logistic regression examined associations between healthier kids' meal policy implementation and caregivers' purchases of kids' meals and selection of healthier sides and drinks. Separate models investigated caregivers' attitudes about McDonald's kids' meal items. Results Overall, 55% of caregivers reported choosing a kids' meal for their child, and approximately one-half of those caregivers selected a healthier drink and/or side. Healthier kids' meal policy implementation was associated with increased selection of healthier sides, but not healthier drinks or choice of kids' meals over higher-calorie menu items. Child's age, caregiver gender and visit frequency were significant in most models. Caregivers' perceptions that their child(ren) like healthier drinks and sides were positively associated with selection of those items. Conclusions Existing healthier kids' meal policies may not improve children's fast-food consumption. Public health initiatives should examine more effective alternatives.
Best and Worst External Viewpoints for Teleoperation Visual Assistance

A HRI study with 31 expert robot operators established that an external viewpoint from an assisting robot could increase teleoperation performance by 14% to 58% while reducing human error by 87% to 100% This video illustrates those findings with a side-by-side comparison of the best and worst viewpoints for the passability and traversability affordances. The passability scenario uses a small unmanned aerial system as a visual assistant that can reach any viewpoint on the idealized hemisphere surrounding the task action. The traversability scenario uses a small ground robot that is restricted to a subset of viewpoints that are reachable.
Cushing Syndrome

Cushing syndrome is the constellation of signs and symptoms caused by protracted exposure to glucocorticoids. The most common cause of Cushing syndrome in children and adolescents is exogenous administration of glucocorticoids. Presenting features commonly include weight gain, growth retardation, hirsutism, obesity, striae, acne and hypertension. Almost invariably, linear growth is severely diminished, a factor which may be useful in differentiating between childhood obesity and Cushing syndrome. Diagnostic approaches are based on distinguishing between adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-dependent and ACTH-independent etiologies, and consideration of the most likely diagnosis by age. Treatment modality is dependent upon etiology. After cure, important components of care include attention to linear growth, pubertal progression and body composition.
Human Identity and Bioethics

When philosophers address personal identity, they usually explore numerical identity: what are the criteria for a person's continuing existence? When non-philosophers address personal identity, they often have in mind narrative identity: Which characteristics of a particular person are salient to her self-conception? This book develops accounts of both senses of identity, arguing that both are normatively important, and is unique in its exploration of a range of issues in bioethics through the lens of identity. Defending a biological view of our numerical identity and a framework for understanding narrative identity, DeGrazia investigates various issues for which considerations of identity prove critical: the definition of death; the authority of advance directives in cases of severe dementia; the use of enhancement technologies; prenatal genetic interventions; and certain types of reproductive choices. He demonstrates the power of personal identity theory to illuminate issues in bioethics as they bring philosophical theory to life.
Influence of Laboratory Mixing Procedures on Volumetric and Mechanical Properties of RAP Mixtures

The primary goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of specific laboratory mixing procedures in simulating the production of plant-produced hot mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures with high reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) content. Three distinct methods for incorporating the RAP material into the mixing process were examined. The first method consisted of heating and mixing the virgin aggregate, virgin asphalt binder, and RAP material at the appropriate mixing temperature for the virgin asphalt binder. The second method consisted of superheating the virgin aggregates according to the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) recommendations, with the virgin asphalt binder heated to the appropriate temperature and the RAP material introduced dry and at the ambient temperature. Last, the third method was similar to the second procedure with the exception of adding the RAP material wet at the ambient temperature. Mixing temperatures were examined over the duration of the mixing process for each method. This provided insight into how effectively the virgin aggregate is transferring heat to the RAP material. Additionally, a short-term oven-aging analysis was utilized to determine the appropriate aging time in the laboratory to replicate the aging experienced by the plant-produced mixtures. Last, compacted samples were created for each mixing method, as well as for the plant-produced laboratory-compacted mixtures, to analyze the volumetric properties and mechanical properties using the dynamic modulus. Based on the data generated in this study, the most appropriate method was recommended to be instituted in the laboratory for mixing HMA mixtures containing RAP material because of its simplicity and its close results to the plant-produced mixtures.
CMS Tracker Services: current status and potential for upgrade

A report is given on the completed program of installation, connection and testing of the CMS Tracker services, culminating in the full checkout of the Tracker as an integrated system. Finally, in the context of future upgrades to the CMS Tracker, we report also on the potential capacity and constraints of re-using the current services.
Symposium on Larry Temkin’s Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning: Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning: A Précis

This article gives a brief overview of Rethinking the Good, whose impossibility arguments illuminate the difficulty of arriving at a coherent theory of the good. I show that an additive-aggregationistprinciple is plausible for some comparisons, while an anti- additive-aggregationistprinciple is plausible for others. Invoking SpectrumArguments, I show that these principles are incompatible with an empirical premise, and various Axioms of Transitivity. I argue that whether the “all-things-considered better than” relation is transitive is not a matter of language or logic, but the nature of moral ideals. If an Internal Aspects View holds, then many standard assumptions about rationality follow, including the Axioms of Transitivity, but not if an Essentially Comparative View holds. Yet many important ideals are essentially comparative. My results have important implications for the normative significance of economics, and require substantial revision in our understanding of the good, moral ideals, and the nature of practical reasoning.
Validation and determination of ice water content-radar reflectivity relationships during CRYSTAL-FACE: Flight requirements for future comparisons

In order for clouds to be more accurately represented in global circulation models (GCM), there is need for improved understanding of the properties of ice such as the total water in ice clouds, called ice water content (IWC), ice particle sizes and their shapes. Improved representation of clouds in models will enable GCMs to better predict for example, how changes in emissions of pollutants affect cloud formation and evolution, upper tropospheric water vapor, and the radiative budget of the atmosphere that is crucial for climate change studies. An extensive cloud measurement campaign called CRYSTAL-FACE was conducted during Summer 2002 using instrumented aircraft and a variety of instruments to measure properties of ice clouds. This paper deals with the measurement of IWC using the Harvard water vapor and total water instruments on the NASA WB-57 high-altitude aircraft. The IWC is measured directly by these instruments at the altitude of the WB-57, and it is compared with remote measurements from the Goddard Cloud Radar System (CRS) on the NASA ER-2. CRS measures vertical profiles of radar reflectivity from which IWC can be estimated at the WB-57 altitude. The IWC measurements obtained from the Harvard instruments and CRS were found to be within 20-30% of each other. Part of this difference was attributed to errors associated with comparing two measurements that are not collocated in time an space since both aircraft were not in identical locations. This study provides some credibility to the Harvard and CRS-derived IWC measurements that are in general difficult to validate except through consistency checks using different measurement approaches.
PR/RR interval ratio during rapid atrial pacing: a simple method for confirming the presence of slow AV nodal pathway conduction.

Method for Confirming Slow Pathway Conduction. Introduction: Although the AV conduction curve in patients with AV nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT) is usually discontinuous, many patients with this arrhythmia do not demonstrate criteria for dual AV nodal pathways. During rapid atrial pacing, the PR interval often exceeds the pacing cycle length when there is anterograde conduction over the slow pathway and AVNRT is induced. The purpose of this prospective study was to determine the diagnostic value of the ratio of the PR interval to the RR interval during rapid atrial pacing as an indicator of anterograde slow pathway conduction in patients undergoing electrophysioiogic testing. Methods and Results: The PR and RR intervals were measured during rapid atrial pacing at the maximum rate with consistent 1:1 AV conduction in four study groups: (1) patients with inducible AV nodal reentry and the classical criterion for dual AV nodal pathways during atrial extrastimulus testing (AVNRT Group 1); (2) patients with inducible AV nodal reentry without dual AV nodal pathways (AVNRT Group 2); (3) control subjects ≤ 60 years of age without inducible AV nodal reentry; and (4) control subjects > 60 years of age without inducible AV nodal reentry. For both groups of patients with inducible AV nodal reentry, AV conduction was assessed before and after radiofrequency ablation of the slow AV nodal pathway. Before slow pathway ablation, the PR/RR ratio exceeded 1.0 in 12 of 13 AVNRT Group 1 patients (mean 1.27 ± 0.21) and 16 of 17 AVNRT Group 2 patients (mean 1.18 ± 0.15, P = NS Group 1 vs Group 2). After slow pathway ablation, the maximum PR/RR ratio was 1.0 in only 3 of 27 patients with no relation to patient age. Conclusion: The ratio of the PR interval to the RR interval during rapid atrial pacing at the maximum rate with consistent 1:1 AV conduction provides a simple and clinically useful method for determining the presence of slow AV nodal pathway conduction. This finding may be particularly useful in patients with inducible AV nodal reentry without dual AV nodal physiology on atrial extrastimulus testing.
Weighing the Listener's Interest: Justice Blackmun's Commercial Speech and Public Forum Opinions

Justice Blackmun's commercial speech and public forum opinions reflect a distinctive balancing approach that takes seriously the listener's interests in receiving information and, sometimes, in not receiving information. The Justice consistently advocated this listener-oriented balancing approach throughout his tenure on the Supreme Court, and, contrary to the conventional wisdom, this approach proved to be substantially more protective of free speech than the more categorical approaches the Court ultimately adopted. Professor Dodge argues that Justice Blackmun's approach is preferable to the Court's current doctrine by examining two types of cases that current doctrine finds hard to handle: restrictions on protesters in public forums around abortion clinics and mandatory disclosure requirements for commercial speakers like cigarette warning labels and registration requirements for securities.
Market Definition with Differentiated Products: The Post/Nabisco Cereal Merger

Antitrust litigation has come to rely to a greater and greater extent on empirical methods. While the range of applications is quite broad, it is not unusual to observe multiple regression and other statistical methods being utilized in defining relevant markets and in predicting the price increases that may result from the strategic decisions of the merging firms. With respect to market definition, it is essential for the fact finder to assess buyer substitution patterns as effectively as possible. Historically, most of the relevant substitution evidence has come from indirect indicators related to seller practices marketing studies and the like. Increasingly, however, econometric methods have been used to supplement these indicators, often with determinative outcomes. State of New York v. Kraft General Foods, Inc. l is a prime example; Kraft was a fully litigated merger in which econometric methods played an important role. The court was presented with both direct and indirect evidence of the responses of buyers to changing prices, and econometrics made much of it possible.
Solar wind control of the polar-cap voltage

The results of using various models to predict polar-cap potentials are reviewed. Quantitative predictions of merging rate, and hence of polar-cap voltage, based on subsolar merging models are reviewed, and tests of dayside merging models and their results are reexamined. Predictions and tests of cusp merging models are discussed. Two new empirical formulas for the dependence of the asymptotic polar-cap potential on the IMF are presented, and predictions of the dependence of dayside and lobe merging voltages on the IMF are derived from the antiparallel merging hypothesis.
Issues on real-time object request brokers

For many applications such as command and control, telecommunications, and process control, it is critical that they meet timing constraints and ensure predictable computation. Furthermore, some of these applications are also distributed in nature and utilize distributed object management technology such as object request brokers (ORB) for interoperability. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate real time systems technology with distributed object management technology for many distributed real time applications. The article describes some of the issues that need to be investigated in order to develop real time data processing extensions to the common object request broker architecture (CORBA). In particular, issues on extensions to ORBs are given. A discussion of some real time services and applications hosted on real time ORBs is also provided. Finally, an overview of the work of the Object Management Group's Real time Special Interest Group is provided.
Hydrodynamic instabilities in inertial confinement fusion

The focus of the paper is on buoyancy-driven instabilities of the Rayleigh-Taylor type, which are commonly regarded as the most important kind of hydrodynamic instability in inertial-confinement-fusion implosions. The paper is intended to be pedagogical rather than research-oriented, and so is by no means a comprehensive review of work in this field. Rather, it is hoped that the student will find here a foundation on which to build an understanding of current research, and the experienced researcher will find a compilation of useful results. The aim of the paper is to discuss the evolution of a single Rayleigh-Taylor-unstable mode, from its linear phase to its late-stage constant-velocity bubble growth, with a brief consideration of the saturation of linear growth. The influence of other modes in invoked only in the short-range sense (in wavenumber space) of the Haan saturation model. Owing to limitations of space, the treatment of other instabilities such as Richtmyer-Meshkov and Kelvin-Helmholtz is necessarily very brief, and entirely inadequate as an introductory discussion. Likewise, there is no reference to the effect of convergent geometry, to long-range mode coupling, or to shape effects in three-dimensional growth. Furthermore, there is no reference to the large body of experimental research relatedmore » to hydrodynamic instabilities.« less
Assessing Fit Between Evidence-Based Psychotherapies for Youth Depression and Real-Life Coping in Early Adolescence

The modest efficacy of psychological interventions for youth depression, including evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs), suggests a question: Do the therapy components match the coping strategies youths find helpful when dealing with depressed mood? Answering this question may help strengthen treatments. We asked 105 middle schoolers across a range of depression symptom levels to identify the coping strategies they used when they felt sad (habitual responses) and those that made them feel better (perceived-effective responses). Habitual and perceived-effective responses were coded for resemblance to EBPs, and each youth's habitual responses were coded for their match to the youth's perceived-effective responses. Most perceived-effective responses (92.6%) matched EBP components (most frequent: Behavioral Activation); however, 65.0% of the EBP components did not match any youth's habitual or perceived-effective responses. Youths at higher depression symptom levels were significantly more likely than low-sy...
Mathematical modeling and simulation of lead acid battery

In this paper, a new systematic methodology for extracting a mathematical model of a lead acid battery is developed. The developed model is based on studying the battery electrical behaviors. Also, it includes battery dynamics such as the state of charge, the change in the battery capacity, the effect of the temperature and the change in the load current representing the battery dynamics. The developed methodology depends on online learning. The algorithm used for learning is the recursive least square (RLS). The use of learning fine-tunes the parameters of a mathematical model to emulate a real battery dynamics. Also, it enables the estimated model to cover wide band of ambiguity and nonlinearity included in the battery dynamics.
The Misguided Movement to Revive Fault Divorce

Many American states allow unilateral no-fault divorce without significant waiting periods, and typically these states also exclude consideration of marital misconduct in the determination of financial awards at divorce. In recent years these laws have come under increasing criticism in both political and academic debates. This article examines those debates. It surveys the available social science evidence on whether such pure no-fault laws increase divorce rates, considers the possible negative impact of proposals to reinstate waiting periods, and analyses three other arguments made for reforming pure no-fault laws: that fault rules are needed to deter bad or selfish marital behavior, to avoid unjust outcomes, or to prevent parties from shirking their marital responsibilities. The article concludes that there is little evidence that pure no-fault laws have any negative effects, considerable reason to believe that lengthened waiting periods do more harm than good, and both practical and principled reasons to be cautious about using legal sanctions to shape or affect marital behavior. Finally, the article briefly summarizes some proposals recently endorsed by the American Law Institute for reforming the laws of property division and, especially, alimony (renamed compensatory payments). It argues that an important virtue of these proposals – an improvement in the predictability and reliability of financial remedies at divorce – would be impossible to realize in a divorce regime that allowed consideration of marital misconduct.
Diagnostic biologique et traitement des affections de l'articulation temporo-mandibulaire

Les affections de l'A. T. M. sont multiples et ne doivent pas etre regroupees sous une fausse appellation de « syndrome algo-dysfonctionnel », qui interdit une approche biologique du diagnostic, indispensable au succes therapeutique.Des alterations morphologiques des surfaces articulaires resultant de remodelages tissulaires sont indissociables des dysfonctionnements mandibulaires et doivent etre mises en evidence avec des moyens d'exploration scientifiques.En rapport avec le caractere multi-factoriel de ces problemes, l'approche therapeutique doit etre le plus souvent multidisciplinaire.
Solid state carbon-13 NMR studies of silica-filled TBBS-accelerated, sulfur vulcanized, cis-1,4 polyisoprene

The network formation of silica-filled, TBBS accelerated sulfur vulcanization of cis-1,4 polyisoprene (Natsyn 2200) was studied by solid state 13C NMR spectroscopy, and equilibrium swelling measurements. Samples with varying silica levels at different stages of cure were analyzed. It was observed that silica retards the cure reaction, and results in an overall lower cure state. Silica also has an influence on the vulcanization chemistry causing an enhancement of the cis-trans isomerization, chain scission, and the formation of monosulfidic linkages. It was also determined that the polysulfidic linkages decreased as silica level was increased. Intermolecular crosslinks decreased, while intramolecular structures (including pendant side groups and cyclic sulfur structures) increased. Cross link density, as determined by swelling measurements, decreased as the silica level was increased.
Do Student Ratings of College Teachers Predict Student Achievement

Moderate but consistent positive correlations support the validity of ratings as predictors of performance.
Encapsulation of ATP into liposomes by different methods: optimization of the procedure

Different methods and conditions for ATP incorporation into PEGylated liposomes were compared in order to obtain a preparation with a maximized ATP content. Such a preparation may find the application for the in vivo treatment of ischemic tissues suffering from an insufficient ATP supply. Several different methods of liposome preparation and purification were used and HPLC was employed to determine the concentration of ATP in the liposomes. Thin lipid film hydration produced vesicles with the lowest ATP encapsulation (ca. 5 mol%). A pH gradient method yielded liposomes with ca. 10 mol% of ATP. Reverse phase evaporation and freezing-thawing methods resulted in a maximum entrapment of ATP on the level of 36–38 mol%. The freezing-thawing method was chosen for further investigation because of its simplicity and absence of a need to use organic solvents. The separation of the non-entrapped ATP by gel-filtration, centrifugation or dialysis yielded virtually identical liposomal preparations. The incorporation of...
A Geometric Approach to Density Estimation with Additive Noise

We introduce and study a method for density estimation under an additive noise model. Our method does not attempt to maximize a likelihood, but rather is purely geometric: Heuristically, we L2-project the observed empirical distribution onto the space of candidate densities that are reachable under the additive noise model. Our estimator reduces to a quadratic program, and so can be computed eciently. In simulation studies, it roughly matches the accuracy of fully general maximum likelihood estimators at a fraction of the computational cost. We also give a theoretical analysis of the estimator, and show that it is consistent, attains a quasi-parametric convergence rate under moment conditions, and is robust to model mis-specication. We provide an R implementation of the proposed estimator in the package nlpden.
Tamoxifen treatment and new-onset depression in breast cancer patients.

The authors conducted a retrospective cohort study of female patients diagnosed with breast cancer (BRCA), evaluating the risk of new-onset depression associated with tamoxifen treatment among those with estrogen receptor-positive (ER + ) tumors, versus estrogen receptor-negative (ER–) tumors, who were not receiving tamoxifen. A total cohort of 2,943 patients was identified. The hazard-ratio for new-onset depression in the tamoxifen group was nonsignificant. A post-hoc analysis revealed that chemotherapy and ER + status were significantly and independently associated with an increased risk for developing depression.
Interaction of the Twospotted Spider Mite (Acari: Tetranychidae) with Yield of Day-Neutral Strawberries in California

Yield of day-neutral strawberries, Fragaria × ananassa Duch (‘Selva’), grown in California were evaluated for 7 yr over a range of twospotted spider mite, Tetranchus urticae Koch, population densities. From 1988 through 1994, acaricide treated and untreated plots of Selva were established each fall in Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, CA. T. urticae population densities were calculated on a per midtier leaflet basis every 2 wk as the average number of motile T. urticae counted on 10 midtier leaflets sampled from each plot. Mite-days were calculated from these counts and summed for monthly intervals by using 15 March and 30 August as starting and ending dates, respectively. These calculations provide a standard index of T. urticae feeding pressure on strawberry plants among and within years. Yield loss resulting from T. urticae feeding in untreated plots versus plots treated with acaricides averaged 25%. T. urticae feeding had little or no effect on fruit size but caused a significant reduction in the number of berries produced per plant. The later T. urticae were first detected in winter or spring, the less yield was reduced during the peak fruiting months of June and July. Maximum T. urticae abundance was negatively associated with yield, and greater mite-day accumulations were associated with yield decline. Regression analysis indicated that the 0% yield reduction threshold averaged 30 cumulative mite days during any monthly period. This implies that detectible yield reduction caused by mite feeding occurs at population densities > 1 T. urticae per leaflet. However, late winter and early spring mite feeding resulted in greater yield reductions than mite feeding at equivalent levels of infestation in late spring and summer. Yield reduction resulting from mite feeding is cumulative at relatively low population levels throughout spring and damage resulting from mite feeding plateaus during summer.