cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Infarct architecture and characteristics on delayed enhanced magnetic resonance imaging and electroanatomic mapping in patients with postinfarction ventricular arrhythmia

Background Delayed enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DE-MRI) can be used for the exact assessment of myocardial infarct scar. Electroanatomic (EA) mapping can identify the subendocardial extension of infarcts and is used to identify and eliminate areas critical for postinfarction ventricular arrhythmias. Objectives The purpose of this study was to correlate DE-MRI with EA mapping in postinfarction patients with ventricular arrhythmias to assess myocardial infarct architecture and its relationship to postinfarction ventricular arrhythmias. Methods EA mapping during sinus rhythm was performed in 14 postinfarction patients (10 men; age 64 ± 10 years; ejection fraction 0.33 ± 0.12) referred for ablation of ventricular arrhythmias. All patients underwent prior DE-MRI. Both DE-MRI and EA mapping data were registered in three-dimensional space. Presence of scar and its transmurality as well as scar core versus gray zone were assessed on DE-MRI and correlated with EA maps; furthermore, the electrogram characteristics of the EA map were correlated with the DE-MRI. Results Scar areas as assessed by bipolar and unipolar voltages in the EA map both correlated well with the scar as defined by DE-MRI. The best cutoff value to differentiate subendocardial scar from normal myocardium was 1.0 mV for bipolar voltage and 5.8 mV for unipolar voltage. Areas with DE had distinct electrophysiologic characteristics compared with nonenhancing sites. All identified sites that were critical for postinfarction ventricular tachycardia (31/31) and premature ventricular complexes (5/5) were located within areas of DE, with most (71%) being located in the core area of the scar. Conclusions DE-MRI can accurately predict the EA characteristics of corresponding subendocardial locations. Critical sites of postinfarction arrhythmias were confined to areas of DE. The scar information on MRI can be selectively imported into an EA mapping system to facilitate the mapping and ablation procedure.
Frontal EEG Asymmetry and Regulation during Childhood

Previous research suggests an association between frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetries and both positive and negative emotion reactivity. Specifically, right frontal EEG activation is associated with emotions of negative valence in both infants and adults, whereas left frontal EEG activation is associated with emotions of more positive valence. Relatively few studies have examined such associations in children. Moreover, research on mechanisms through which emotion reactivity is related to frontal EEG asymmetries is sparse. As one possible mechanism, we hypothesize that regulatory skills and behaviors developing rapidly during childhood play a critical role in linking frontal EEG asymmetries to emotion reactivity in children. To test the research hypothesis, 25 children were followed from early-to-middle childhood at two different points in time with a 4-year interview interval. Results show that individual variations in a number of regulatory behaviors among children are significantly associated with frontal EEG asymmetries. Our results provide support for the possibility of frontal EEG asymmetry informing the study of the development of regulation in children. The discussion of the findings is centered on potential risk for and resilience to children's emotional reactivity and regulation.
Species Differences in Vasopressin Receptor Binding Are Evident Early in Development: Comparative Anatomic Studies in Prairie and Montane Voles

Monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) and promiscuous montane voles (Microtus montanus) exhibit remarkable differences in the distribution of vasopressin (AVP) receptors in the adult brain. This difference in receptor distribution is associated with species differences in the behaviors, including pair bond formation and paternal care, found selectively in the monogamous vole. To investigate a potential mechanism for this species difference in AVP receptors, the present study examined the ontogeny of receptor binding in the two species to determine whether the adult maps arose from a shared pattern in development. By using 125 I-linear-AVP, which is a selective high-affinity ligand for the V1a receptor, we found early appearance and transient expression of AVP receptor binding during postnatal development in both species. However, the ontogenetic patterns of regional AVP receptor binding were species specific. In the diagonal band, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and the central nucleus of the amygdala, prairie voles had higher AVP receptor binding at birth than montane voles, and this difference persisted with little variation into adulthood. In these areas, therefore, species differences in AVP receptor binding appeared to be determined primarily by genetic or prenatal factors. In the lateral septum, both species had low levels of AVP receptor binding at birth. Thereafter, the binding increased rapidly in montane voles, but it remained unchanged in prairie voles. In the cingulate cortex, AVP receptor binding in prairie voles showed a peak in early development with a subsequent decline and reached the adult level at weaning, whereas the binding in montane voles remained unchanged into adulthood. A similar but opposite pattern was found in the frontoparietal cortex, in which AVP receptor binding showed an early peak in montane voles but did not change significantly in prairie voles. These results demonstrate that 1) species differences in regional AVP receptor binding are evident in the early postnatal period and, in several areas, may be determined by genetic or prenatal factors, and 2) AVP may target brain areas differently in infant and adult prairie and montane voles and, thus, could exert differential effects on the organization of the central nervous system in the two species of
The Experimental Measurement of a Social Hierarchy in Gallus Domesticus: II. The Identification and Inferential Measurement of Social Reflex No. 1 and Social Reflex No. 2 By Means of Social Discrimination

Resume La discrimination sociale chez Gallus domesticus est identifiee comme elle est mesuree dans la Cage de Discrimination Social. Quand les discriminations sont dessinees contre la masse, il n'y a aucune indication que les discriminations sont plus que le hasard. Quand les discriminations sont dessinees contre le Reflexe Social No. 2, une relation paraǐt qui s'approche d'une forme lineaire. Quand les discriminations sont dessinees contre le Reflexe Social No. 1, le vrai caractere lineaire est approxime a la 36me semaine. Les analyses montrent que les discriminations mǎles pour les paires de mǎles sont dans une direction eloignee de la dominance, et que les discriminations femelles pour les paires de mǎles sont dans la direction de la dominance. La constance de ce trait chez les mǎles le rend possible de mesurer la discrimination sociale avec une grande exactitude. Puisque la reponse negative au plus dominant d'une paire approxime une vraie relation lineaire avec le Reflexe Social No. 1, il devient poss...
The spontaneous appearance rate of the yeast prion [PSI+] and its implications for the evolution of the evolvability properties of the [PSI+] system.

Epigenetically inherited aggregates of the yeast prion [PSI+] cause genomewide readthrough translation that sometimes increases evolvability in certain harsh environments. The effects of natural selection on modifiers of [PSI+] appearance have been the subject of much debate. It seems likely that [PSI+] would be at least mildly deleterious in most environments, but this may be counteracted by its evolvability properties on rare occasions. Indirect selection on modifiers of [PSI+] is predicted to depend primarily on the spontaneous [PSI+] appearance rate, but this critical parameter has not previously been adequately measured. Here we measure this epimutation rate accurately and precisely as 5.8 × 10−7 per generation, using a fluctuation test. We also determine that genetic “mimics” of [PSI+] account for up to 80% of all phenotypes involving general nonsense suppression. Using previously developed mathematical models, we can now infer that even in the absence of opportunities for adaptation, modifiers of [PSI+] are only weakly deleterious relative to genetic drift. If we assume that the spontaneous [PSI+] appearance rate is at its evolutionary optimum, then opportunities for adaptation are inferred to be rare, such that the [PSI+] system is favored only very weakly overall. But when we account for the observed increase in the [PSI+] appearance rate in response to stress, we infer much higher overall selection in favor of [PSI+] modifiers, suggesting that [PSI+]-forming ability may be a consequence of selection for evolvability.
The Grower-Controlled Pool of the California Rice Growers

Among current endeavors to improve agricultural conditions through better marketing methods, the experiment of the rice growers of California seems to hold so much promise as to deserve careful attention. The extent to which the marketing methods of the rice growers could be adapted to other commodities, particularly grain, is problematical. However, since rice like wheat and barley is sold on world valuations, methods which have proved adequate for rice may conceivably con-
The Philosophical Influence of the Sage Kings of High Antiquity, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, and Confucius on Chinese Management Thought

From the time of the early emperors, to present day managers, Chinese leadership and managerial practice has been influenced by social, political, and philosophical elites. Chinese managerial theory and practice has its roots in the ancient doctrines and philosophies of Confucius, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, and the Sage Kings of High Antiquity. This paper explores these historical roots in order to provide a better understanding of the managerial principles and practices of the Chinese.
DPS—The PMA Perspective

The continuing education paper by Parker et al. published in the September 1991 issue of American Pharmacy (p. 47) is a comprehensive and useful review of the Orange Book. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA) wishes to offer comments on the paper and on policies of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relative to multisource drug products.
Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka

A transfer of central governmental authority to regional governments is being tried in Sri Lanka in an attempt to resolve ethnic conflict. In November 1987, Sri Lanka established a system of provincial councils. This system will allow regional autonomy in the country's nine provinces. It is hoped that this council system will resolve complaints by the nation's largest ethnic minority, the Sri Lanka Tamils. The system falls short of being a true federal arrangement, however, because it leaves extensive power in the hands of the president and the national legislature. In addition, the plan is opposed by important groups in the society. The more militant Sri Lanka Tamil leaders have opposed the plan because it transfers too little power to the councils. Also, long-standing fears among the nation's largest ethnic group, the Sinhalese, have generated a violent response from militant members of this ethnic group. The government and moderate Sri Lanka Tamil leaders are now seeking to implement the provincial council system.
Formal Synthesis of Embedded Control Software: Application to Vehicle Management Systems

Motivated by the transition from federated to integrated architectures in aerial vehicles, we propose an automated methodology for the synthesis of correct-by-construction control protocols for vehicle management systems. We use linear temporal logic as the specication language for precisely describing correct behaviors of the system as well as the admissible dynamic behavior of the environment due to, for example, wind gusts and changes in the ight conditions. We apply the method in the context of dynamic power allocation among a number of subsystems of varying ight-criticality. The resulting power
Sentinel surveillance AIDS among female sex workers in Mile,Yunnan,2010 -2012

Objective To understand the prevalence of AIDS and other sexual transmitted diseases among female sex workers(FSWs) and related risk factors in Mile,Yunnan province,provide scientific evidence for the evaluation of AIDS prevention and control and development of intervention strategies.Methods Questionnaire survey was conducted among FSWs in Mile during June-July from 2010 to 2012 to collect their behavior information.Blood samples were taken from them to detect HIV and syphilis antibodies.Results Among 600 FSWs surveyed,those worked in hotel / nightclub accounted for 33.7%,in singing hall / beauty salon accounted for 51.7% and street FSWs accounted for 14.7%.The average client numbers of them in the past week were 12.01,14.67 and 28.88 respectively,and the condom use rates of them during the past month were 87.62%,84.19% and 56.82% respectively.The infection rate of HIV and the prevalence of syphilis in three group FSWs were 1.49%,2.26%,and 9.09%,0.50%,0.32% and 6.82% respectively.The prevalence of other STDs during the past year were 6.93%,4.52% and 19.32% respectively.Conclusion The low grade FSWs had more commercial sex than others in Mile,but they less likely to use condoms and had higher HIV infection rate and STD prevalence,indicating the necessity to conduct intervention and prevention constantly among them.
Motivational Factors Across Three Generations of Women Committed to Religious Life

ABSTRACTThis interdisciplinary (spirituality/psychology/sociology) study explores the motivation of women entering and remaining in religious life from 1,116 Roman Catholic Sisters who responded to an open-ended questionnaire. A noteworthy pattern was the tendency to cite inner call, which increased in recent generations while the tendency to cite Sisters example decreased. The vast majority of Sisters cited their commitment to God and their religious community as motivation to remain in religious life. The results indicate the importance for Sisters to live out their mission (nationally/internationally) through public service, faith formation, and as advocates by providing role models and inspiration for future Sisters.
Dynamic perturbation theory

In this chapter, we introduce and explain one of the fundamental tools in the study of dynamic critical phenomena, namely dynamic perturbation theory. Inevitably, large parts of Chapter 4 need to be rather technical. Complementary to the straightforward iterative method for the solution of non-linear Langevin equations presented in Section 3.2.3, we now describe the more elegant and efficient field-theoretic techniques. Yet both for the derivation of general properties of the perturbation series and for the sake of practical calculations, the response functional and the following elaborations on Feynman diagrams, cumulants, and vertex functions prove indispensable. As is the case with every efficient formalism, once one has become acquainted with the Janssen–De Dominicis response functional for the construction of dynamic field theory, and therefrom the perturbation expansion in terms of vertex functions, it serves to save a considerable amount of rather tedious work. For the purely relaxational O ( n )-symmetric models A and B, we derive the fluctuation-dissipation theorem within this formalism, and then systematically construct the perturbation series and its diagrammatic representation in terms of Feynman graphs. In order to reduce the required efforts to a minimum, the generating functionals first for the cumulants, and then, motivated by Dyson's equation for the propagator, for the one-particle irreducible vertex functions are examined. As an example, the relevant vertex functions for models A and B are explicitly evaluated to two-loop order. Furthermore, alternative formulations of the perturbation expansion are discussed, and the Feynman rules are given in both the frequency and the time domain. The results of this chapter provide the foundation for the renormalization group treatment in the subsequent Chapter 5.
“U.S. Pharmaceutical Gray Markets: Why Do They Persist—and What to Do about Them?”

This article illustrates how a traditional U.S. pharmaceutical industry supply chain operates, beginning with pharmaceutical compounds and ending at patient‐dispensing hospitals or pharmacies. Furthermore, to place the problem of U.S. drug shortages in historical perspective, a review of the annual volume of such shortages over the last decade is undertaken. Following this review of recent drug shortages is an analysis of the market forces and business decisions that drive the creation of a pharmaceutical gray market, its attendant “price gouging” and product integrity issues, and the alterations in the traditional pharmaceutical industry supply chain model. In response to persistent drug shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently been empowered by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government to actively address this issue. To reflect these FDA challenges, a thorough review of these new agency charges and responsibilities is undertaken. Lastly, an analysis of the results of recent FDA public policy actions on mitigating drug shortages, as well as recommendations tor market‐based solutions to the gray market problem that pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals and pharmacies could institute as industry‐wide standards of business practice, are discussed in the conclusion.
Why Regionalism? A Look at the Costs and Benefits of Regional Trade Agreements in Africa:

Countries were involved in regional trade agreements (RTAs) long before the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was established in 1947. In recent years, however, RTAs have proliferated, particularly in Africa. In this article, we examine the various reasons why African countries have chosen to engage in these agreements, particularly in light of the fact that they do not seem to be ‘trade creating’ in nature. As Jacob Viner made it popular in the 1950s, not all trade agreements lead to higher economic welfare for the nations engaging in them. In the case of African countries where there is a limited degree of variation in the goods that are produced, and infrastructure and trading systems are designed for intercontinental rather than intra-continental trade, RTAs may not necessarily lead to greater welfare. Our examination of RTAs does not yield a strong positive result that they are welfare-enhancing exercises. A greater care needs to be taken for future RTAs.
Lightweight detection of physical unit inconsistencies without program annotations

Systems interacting with the physical world operate on quantities measured with physical units. When unit operations in a program are inconsistent with the physical units' rules, those systems may suffer. Existing approaches to support unit consistency in programs can impose an unacceptable burden on developers. In this paper, we present a lightweight static analysis approach focused on physical unit inconsistency detection that requires no end-user program annotation, modification, or migration. It does so by capitalizing on existing shared libraries that handle standardized physical units, common in the cyber-physical domain, to link class attributes of shared libraries to physical units. Then, leveraging rules from dimensional analysis, the approach propagates and infers units in programs that use these shared libraries, and detects inconsistent unit usage. We implement and evaluate the approach in a tool, analyzing 213 open-source systems containing +900,000 LOC, finding inconsistencies in 11% of them, with an 87% true positive rate for a class of inconsistencies detected with high confidence. An initial survey of robot system developers finds that the unit inconsistencies detected by our tool are 'problematic', and we investigate how and when these inconsistencies occur.
Quality assurance of the UV irradiances of the UV-B Monitoring and Research Program: the Mauna Loa test case

The USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program (UVMRP) is an ongoing effort aiming to establish a valuable, longstanding database of ground-based ultraviolet (UV) solar radiation measurements over the US. Furthermore, the program aims to achieve a better understanding of UV variations through time, and develop a UV climatology for the Northern American section. By providing high quality radiometric measurements of UV solar radiation, UVMRP is also focusing on advancing science for agricultural, forest, and range systems in order to mitigate climate impacts. Within these foci, the goal of the present study is to investigate, analyze, and validate the accuracy of the measurements of the UV multi-filter rotating shadowband radiometer (UV-MFRSR) and Yankee (YES) UVB-1 sensor at the high altitude, pristine site at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. The response-weighted irradiances at 7 UV channels of the UV-MFRSR along with the erythemal dose rates from the UVB-1 radiometer are discussed, and evaluated for the period 2006-2015. Uncertainties during the calibration procedures are also analyzed, while collocated groundbased measurements from a Brewer spectrophotometer along with model simulations are used as a baseline for the validation of the data. Besides this quantitative research, the limitations and merits of the existing UVMRP methods are considered and further improvements are introduced.
Prices for Inputs Sold to Competitors

Situations often arise in which one firm sells an input to a second firm and then competes against the second firm in the market for the final product. The market for the input is called the upstream market, and the market for the final product is called the downstream market. Examples include local exchange companies selling long distance service to consumers and selling a service called access to long distance companies (Willig 1979, pp. 110–113; Baumol and Sidak 1994, p. 172), vertically integrated electricity companies selling electricity to consumers and selling transmission (and possibly distribution) to competing generators, a natural gas pipeline or local distribution company selling gas to consumers and selling transmission or distribution to other natural gas suppliers (Economides and White 1995, pp. 558–559), a railroad selling transport to consumers and selling trackage to a competing line (Baumol 1983, p. 24), computer manufacturers selling computers to consumers and selling computer chips to competing computer manufacturers (Ohmae 1991, p. 5), and certain Internet backbone providers selling Internet access to consumers and selling Internet hubbing to other Internet Service Providers (Brock 1995, pp. 1–2).
Bilayer Multi-Objective Optimal Allocation and Sizing of Electric Vehicle Parking Garage

The anticipated increase in electric vehicles (EVs) adoption necessitates the need for electrified transportation infrastructure to charge these vehicles. Although the EV parking garage can represent a good investment opportunity, it brings more challenges to the distribution system operator. Therefore, the allocation and sizing of the parking garage should be carefully planned. The planning process should take into consideration the economic aspects of the investor, as well as the technical aspects of the distribution system. In this paper, a bilayer Pareto multiobjective optimization problem is formulated to optimally allocate and size an EV parking garage. The optimization formulation tries to maximize the profits of the EV parking garage investor, as well as minimize the losses and voltage deviations for the distribution system operator. Dealing with these contradicting objectives simultaneously will results in a set of Pareto solutions. The results showed the different tradeoffs that might be induced while dealing with these contradictory objectives. A decision-making criterion based on statistics was used to decide on the optimal location and size of the parking garage. Sensitivity analysis to show the effect of the different objectives on the selection of the optimal size and location was also performed.
Comparison of Surface Mounted Permanent Magnet Coaxial Radial Flux Magnetic Gears Independently Optimized for Volume, Cost, and Mass

This study employs a genetic algorithm (GA) to optimize surface mounted permanent magnet coaxial radial flux magnetic gear designs using both 2-D finite element analysis (FEA) and 3-D FEA. Specifically, the GA optimizes different designs, which are all rated for a stall torque of 500 N·m and a gear ratio of approximately 5, to independently maximize volumetric torque density (VTD), torque per dollar (TPD), and gravimetric torque density (GTD). Maximum VTDs of 274 and 210 kN·m/m3 were obtained with 2-D and 3-D simulations, respectively. Including the space required to provide an axial buffer for leakage flux resulted in a maximum leakage adjusted VTD of 162 kN·m/m3. Maximum TPDs of 5.86 and 5.47 N·m/$ were obtained with 2-D and 3-D simulations, respectively. Maximum GTDs of 102.8 and 86.8 N·m/kg were obtained with 2-D and 3-D simulations, respectively. The results demonstrate that independently maximizing these three metrics leads to markedly different designs with widely varying performance characteristics. The most significant differences occur between the maximum VTD and maximum TPD designs, and the analysis includes a thorough discussion of the dominant design parameters driving this phenomenon. Finally, the impacts of end effects on the optimal design parameters are also illustrated to demonstrate that consideration of these 3-D effects leads to significantly different performance predictions and to different optimal design selections.
Chorionic Gonadotropin Synthesis and Gene Assignment in Human: Mouse Hybrid Cells

Chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a hormone of special interest in the field of human tumor biology. This glycoprotein hormone is secreted in vast quantities by the syncytiotrophoblast of the placenta during normal pregnancy. However, ectopic or inappropriate secretion of either or both subunits of hCG is a relatively common occurrence in tumors of non-placental origin1–4. Clearly, an appreciation of the control of hCG synthesis would be useful in determining the reason for the high frequency of ectopic synthesis of this tumor marker.
Microvascular Pressure Profiles in the Left and Right Coronary Circulations

Most of our knowledge concerning regulation of coronary vascular resistance has been based on measurements obtained from epicardial coronary arteries, and/or measurements of myocardial perfusion. A primary limitation of measurements obtained in this manner is that they cannot distinguish control mechanisms at different levels in the coronary microcirculation. Recently, technological advancements have enabled direct measurements of coronary pressures throughout the microcirculation in the beating heart. These advances have enabled documentation of the microvascular pressure profile in both the left and right coronary circulations during a variety of physiological and pharmacological interventions. The pressure profile can provide an index of vascular resistance, because the steepness of the pressure gradient reflects directly the vascular resistance of a particular vascular segment. The pressure profiles of the coronary micro-circulation exhibit several important characteristics. First, coronary arteries greater than 140–180 μm in diameter constitute approximately 20% of total vascular resistance. Second, vascular resistance in these relatively large coronary arterial vessels is due to active vasomotor tone, because it can be lessened substantially with the pharmacological vasodilator, papaverine. Third, small coronary arterioles less than 150 μm in diameter constitute the majority of coronary resistance. Fourth, resistance in these small arteriolar vessels is due primarily to active vasomotor tone, because the vasodilator dipyridamole will decrease resistance in this segment 12-fold. Fifth, the distribution of microvascular resistance in the left and right coronary circulations is similar. This paper discusses the techniques that have been developed to enable measurements of microvascular pressures in the beating heart, and implications of these measurements towards understanding regulatory mechanisms involved in the control of coronary vascular resistance.
Surface Oxide Softening of Body-centered Cubic Refractory Metals

The effects of surface oxide films on the mechanical behavior of single crystals of the body-centered cubic refractory metals Nb, Ta, Mo and W have been investigated. At low homologous temperatures T < 0.15 Tm, oxide films cause softening, i.e. reduced flow stresses and increased ductility, in all four metals. At higher temperatures, only film strengthening is observed. The results are well-explained by models that involve preferential generation and motion of edge dislocations from the film-substrate interface.
In Vitro Retroviral Vector-Mediated Transfer of the Rat Beta-Glucuronidase cDNA into Canine Fetal Liver Cells and Weanling MPS VII Bone Marrow Cells

A beta-glucuronidase cDNA was transferred into normal canine fetal liver cells and bone marrow cells obtained from weanling dogs affected with mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) type VII. The cells were transduced by direct cocultivation with a recombinant retrovirus-producing cell line, and by culturing the hematopoietic cells and vector packaging cells separated by a 0.45 μm filter in a dual-chambered cocultivation system. The weanling MPS VII dog bone marrow cells were also transduced in long-term cultures with high titer vector virus. Gene transduction was achieved in all fetal liver cells obtained from 24 and 35 day old dog fetuses, but not 55 day old fetuses. The post-natal bone marrow cells were transduced by each of these methods. The results indicate that early gestation fetal liver cells can be transduced in culture conditions without contaminating virus-producing packaging cells.
Diverse Plan Generation by Plan Adaptation and by First-Principles Planning: A Comparative Study

Plan diversity has been explored in case-based planning, which relies on the availability of episodic knowledge, and in first-principles planning, which relies on the availability of a complete planning domain model. We present a first comparative study of these two approaches to obtaining diverse plans. We do so by developing a conceptual framework for plan diversity which subsumes both case-based and first-principles diverse plan generation, and using it to contrast two such systems, identifying their relative strengths and weaknesses. To corroborate our analysis, we perform a comparative experimental evaluation of these systems on a real-time strategy game domain.
Improved Method for Inoculation of a Cell Suspension Into a Hollow Fiber Bioreactor

Monoclonal antibody (MAb) production was evaluated with three different murine hybridoma cell lines in a “mini” hollow fiber bioreactor. Optimized production rates between 17–25 mg/day could be achieved with medium consumption of 2 liters per week. Antibody product was harvested at 3–4 mg/ml up to five times per week. Bioreactor productivity was enhanced twofold when cartridges were inoculated by direct ultrafiltration of cells in their conditioned medium as opposed to centrifugation, resuspension and inoculation in a smaller volume of fresh medium. Control reactors were started by centrifuging 2–2.5 x 108 cells and resuspending in 3 ml of fresh medium with 5–25% fetal bovine serum (FBS) prior to inoculation into the 7 ml extracapillary space (ECS) of the bioreactor. Alternatively, the same total number of cells were inoculated into the ECS directly from up to 100 ml of conditioned medium by ultrafiltration. The twenty to sixty minute ultrafiltration procedure concentrates various serum and cellular growth factors and potentially better distributes the cells around the fibers. It resulted in the decrease of the lag phase from twelve to sixteen days to three to six days and surprisingly, increased rates of monoclonal antibody production throughout the course of runs of up to sixty days duration.
The association between disciplinary alternative school placement and youth outcomes: a meta-analytic assessment

The purpose of this study is to conduct a meta-analytic assessment of the effects of disciplinary alternative program (DAP) placement on student outcomes, including disciplinary sanctions, academic...
Abstract 899: Selective clearance of cells undergoing therapy-induced senescence in a model of triple negative breast cancer

Despite the ability of chemotherapy (and/or radiation) to eliminate the majority of tumor cells, some residual surviving cells may be able to escape cell death by entering into a prolonged senescence-based growth arrest. In addition to apoptosis, the majority of anti-cancer therapies induce senescence that has long been considered to be a favorable outcome of treatment due to its perceived irreversibility. However, accumulating studies in the literature demonstrate that therapy induced senescence may reflect one form of tumor dormancy and disease recurrence, when senescent cells are able to regain proliferative capacity. Tumor cells that escape dormancy often demonstrate an aggressive phenotype and are refractory to further treatment. Senescent cells are characterized by a specific (though often heterogeneous) secretory profile (Senescence Associated Secretory Phenotype or SASP), some components of which have been shown to promote tumorigenesis and may assist in neoplastic escape after therapy. In the current work, we evaluated the capacity of the BCL protein family inhibitor, ABT 263, to selectively clear breast tumor cells induced into senescence by doxorubicin. MDA-MB231-231 human breast cancer cells (a model of triple negative breast cancer) were induced into senescence upon exposure to a clinical concentration of the chemotherapeutic agent, doxorubicin (Dox). While a fraction of the MDA-MB-231 cell population underwent cell death, a large subpopulation entered into a state of prolonged growth arrest that lasted for several days, after which time the cells recovered proliferative capacity and formed colonies. At the time points when cells were arrested, prominent Senescence Associated β-Galactosidase staining marker indicative of senescence. In addition, tumor tissue collected from mice that received injections of Dox also were positive for β-Galactosidase staining. Cells induced into senescence and treated with ABT263 for 18 hours showed a significant increase in apoptosis and did not regain colony forming capabilities. We therefore postulate that senescence and escape from senescence may represent a form of tumor dormancy and disease recurrence, respectively. Consequently, if Therapy Induced Senescence is a deleterious outcome of treatment, it is of importance to identify strategies that might prevent senescent cells from neoplastic escape and induce cell death in order to completely eliminate residual tumors and thereby interfere with disease recurrence. Citation Format: Liliya Tyutyunyk, Tareq Saleh, David A. Gewirtz. Selective clearance of cells undergoing therapy-induced senescence in a model of triple negative breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 899.
H Atom Production and Reaction in the Gamma Radiolysis of Thermally Modified Boehmite

The correlation between the formation of H atoms and H2 was observed in the radiolysis of thermally modified boehmite (γ-AlOOH). Boehmite was pretreated by heating to 300, 400, and 550 °C, loaded w...
Composition as analysis: the meta-ontological origins (and future) of composition as identity

In this paper, I argue that the debate on Composition as Identity—the thesis that any composite object is identical to its parts—is deadlocked because both the defenders and the detractors of the claim have so far failed to take its philosophical core at face value and have, as a result, defended and criticized respectively something that is not Composition as Identity. After establishing how Composition as Identity should properly be understood and proposing for it a new interpretation centered around the novel notion of metaphysical information, I set forth a strategy to defend it that crucially rests on the indefinite extensibility of the domain of quantification. I eventually suggest that “Composition as Analysis” is a name that better reflects the content and theoretical proposal of the thesis that Composition as Identity is supposed to be.
Trade balance and policy complexity: explaining political elites’ focus on international trade at the domestic level

ABSTRACTThe attention international trade receives at the domestic level varies widely across countries as well as among political elites within the same country. When and why are political elites ...
CNVScope: Visually Exploring Copy Number Aberrations in Cancer Genomes

Motivation:DNA copy number (CN) data are a fast-growing source of information used in basic and translational cancer research. Most CN segmentation data are presented without regard to the relation...
Cellular fibroma masquerading as ovarian carcinoma

The presence of a benign pelvic mass, ascites, and an elevated CA 125 tumor marker level may mimic the presentation of ovarian adenocarcinoma. Two cases of ovarian cellular fibromas are reported to illustrate that the presence of ascites in association with an elevated CA 125 serum level may mislead physicians into a diagnosis of ovarian carcinoma. Although CA 125 is helpful for following patients after ovarian carcinoma has been diagnosed histologically, it has limited value as a screening test. Exploratory laparotomy with excision of the pelvic mass remains the only reliable and acceptable method available to achieve an accurate diagnosis.
Cancer Screening Tests and Cancer Diagnoses During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This cohort study describes the number of patients undergoing cancer screening tests and of ensuing cancer diagnoses during the COVID-19 pandemic in 1 health care system in the northeastern United States.
Arginine Metabolism, a Major Pathway for the Suppressive Function of Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells

Various mutations in cancer create a microenvironment surrounding the tumor, characterized by the presence of a chronic inflammatory infiltrate which facilitates the growth of the tumor cells, enhances angiogenesis and more importantly, inhibits any protective immune response. One of the most prominent inflammatory cells are the so-called myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), a heterogeneous population of immature myeloid cells that are potent inhibitors of T cell, NK cell, and dendritic cell functions. Recent findings in tumor-bearing mice and patients with cancer indicated that the increased metabolism of the nonessential amino acid L-Arginine by MDSC-producing Arginase I inhibits T-cell-lymphocyte responses. Here, we discuss some of the most recent concepts of how MDSC expressing Arginase I may regulate T-cell function in cancer and suggest possible therapeutic interventions to overcome this inhibitory effect. In addition, we discuss how metabolic limitation of L-Arginine can be used as a novel therapy to downmodulate T-cell responses in several diseases. Altogether, this chapter emphasizes the importance of the metabolism of the amino acid L-Arginine as a regulator of inflammation-linked diseases and also suggests the potential use of this pathway as a therapy to control unbalanced T-cell responses in autoimmunity and transplantations.
CYTOKINE ACTION IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AT PATHOPHYSIOLOGICAL VERSUS PHARMACOLOGICAL CONCENTRATIONS

Cytokines induce a variety of neurological actions.15 Cytokine action in the nervous system may present different profiles depending on the cytokine concentration or dosage. Pathophysiological and pharmacological analyses of cytokine neuroactivity have been assessed with an integrative approach organized through neurological → behavioral → cellular → molecular → genetical levels. Cytokine-induced anorexia represents an example of this integrative approach.
Expression of microtubule motor proteins in bacteria for characterization in in vitro motility assays.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes some of the bacterial expression systems in use, with emphasis on those that have been used to express microtubule motor proteins. It also examines protocols used to obtain active motor proteins from bacteria, assays that can be used for biochemical characterization of motor proteins, and in vitro motility assays. Expression of foreign proteins in bacteria has become a very powerful technique for obtaining large quantities of protein. The DNA sequence, encoding a protein (or a segment of it), is ligated into a unique restriction site in the expression vector with the initiating methionine in the correct reading frame. Standard cloning techniques are used to transform the ligated DNA into bacterial cells, select transformants carrying the DNA insert in the correct orientation, and transfer constructs into appropriate host cells for protein induction. The pET and pGEX bacterial expression systems have been used successfully for the expression of microtubule motor proteins. The pET system is useful for expressing either a nonfusion protein or a fusion protein with only 10 to 13 additional amino acids at the N terminus of the expressed protein. Expression of proteins cloned in PET vectors is under the control of a T7 promoter.
Visualizing operations on temporal data

An interactive data browsing environment designed specifically to support temporal manipulations is described. A formal system of temporal operations is combined with a visual system for interactive temporal data display. The basic temporal construct is a time line. For each of the basic time-line operations, the effects of each operator, including exceptions and boundary conditions, are defined. For each formal definition, a precise visual analog of the operation is given. A time-line browser, an editor for time lines, which implements this formalism is described and applied to biomedical data (e.g. diabetes patient data). >
REPRODUCTIVE FAILURE IN FAMILIES OF PATIENTS WITH IDIOPATHIC DEVELOPMENTAL RETARDATION.

1. The family histories of 30 patients with idiopathic developmental retardation were analyzed with respect to pregnancy records of nonaffected female kindred. Comparison was made with data from the family histories of 27 similarly ascertained control patients. 2. The mothers and maternal aunts of retardates were found to have abnormal pregnancy records, i.e., a markedly decreased reproductive rate and increased fetal loss (reproductive failure). Similar findings were not noted in the histories of the maternal grandmothers or other females in the families. 3. The comparison study suggests genetic factors as an influence on reproduction in the maternal families of retardates but their nature remains unknown. 4. The utilization of these findings in clinical genetic counseling is briefly discussed.
Is it a primary or metastatic melanocytic neoplasm of the central nervous system?: A molecular based approach

Primary melanocytic neoplasms of the central nervous system (CNS) are uncommon and must be distinguished from metastatic lesions as patients with metastatic disease carry a worse prognosis. Therefore, tools to aid in the diagnosis of a primary CNS melanocytic neoplasm would be of clinical utility. Primary CNS melanocytic neoplasms, including uveal melanomas have frequent mutations in GNAQ and GNA11, but are rare in cutaneous and mucosal melanomas. Additionally, primary uveal melanomas often exhibit monosomy 3 conferring an elevated risk of metastasis. We present a 63 year-old male with a melanocytic neoplasm in the thoracic spinal cord. Molecular studies revealed the tumor contained a GNAQ mutation and four-color fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) composed of chromosome enumeration probes for 3, 7, 17 and a locus specific probe for 9p21/CDKN2A yielded a normal result (i.e. two copies per cell), favoring a primary versus metastatic melanocytic neoplasm of the CNS. We report a case in which the combination of mutational analysis and FISH aided in identifying the origin of the neoplasm.
Input/Output of ab-initio nuclear structure calculations for improved performance and portability

Many modern scientific applications rely on highly computation intensive calculations. However, most applications do not concentrate as much on the role that input/output operations can play for improved performance and portability. Parallelizing input/output operations of large files can significantly improve the performance of parallel applications where sequential I/O is a bottleneck. A proper choice of I/O library also offers a scope for making input/output operations portable across different architectures. Thus, use of parallel I/O libraries for organizing I/O of large data files offers great scope in improving performance and portability of applications. In particular, sequential I/O has been identified as a bottleneck for the highly scalable MFDn (Many Fermion Dynamics for nuclear structure) code performing ab-initio nuclear structure calculations. We develop interfaces and parallel I/O procedures to use a well-known parallel I/O library in MFDn. As a result, we gain efficient I/O of large datasets along with their portability and ease of use in the down-stream processing. Even situations where the amount of data to be written is not huge, proper use of input/output operations can boost the performance of scientific applications. Application checkpointing offers enormous performance improvement and flexibility by doing a negligible amount of I/O to disk. Checkpointingmore » saves and resumes application state in such a manner that in most cases the application is unaware that there has been an interruption to its execution. This helps in saving large amount of work that has been previously done and continue application execution. This small amount of I/O provides substantial time saving by offering restart/resume capability to applications. The need for checkpointing in optimization code NEWUOA has been identified and checkpoint/restart capability has been implemented in NEWUOA by using simple file I/O.« less
Miniature Tissue Culture Technique with a Modified Plastic Microplate

Abstract Plastic microplates were modified to accommodate four glass microscope slides as surfaces for cell cultivation. Tissue cultures grown on these slides can be utilized for fluorescent-antibody and other cytological staining techniques.
The First Synthesis of a Diynone from Echinacea pallida

In order to provide an authentic standard and to generate pure material for biological testing, an efficient synthetic route to 1 was developed. This represents the first total synthesis of a major bioactive diynone from E. pallida.
Serotonergic neurotoxic lesions facilitate male sexual reflexes

Abstract The effects of the neurotoxin 5,7 dihydroxytryptamine (5,7 DHT) on the urethrogenital reflex was examined in anesthetized male rats. Both ICV and intrathecal administration of 5,7 DHT produced a marked depletion (92%) of spinal 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid (5-HT IAA) levels. ICV but not intrathecal administration of 5,7 DHT also caused a moderate reduction in 5-HT and 5-HT IAA levels in the medulla and hypothalamus (40–48%). No reduction in adrenergic levels were observed. In spinally intact, vehicle-treated rats the urethrogenital reflex could not be evoked. However, the urethrogenital reflex could be evoked in rats pretreated with either ICV or intrathecal 5,7 DHT prior to section of the spinal cord. These data support the hypothesis that 5-HT mediates the descending inhibition of male sexual reflexes.