cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Do open-market stock repurchases convey firm-specific or industry-wide information? Evidence from REITs

This study examines the extent of firm-specific and industry-level information conveyed in open-market stock repurchases announced by REITs. We measure information revealed in open-market stock repurchase announcements using stock return and decompose the stock return into firm-specific, industry-wide, and market components. We find that the announcement period return is mainly attributed to the firm-specific component. However, long-term returns following the announcement are largely due to the industry return components. We also find that changes in profitability are not related to the announcement abnormal return. Our results suggest that the repurchase signal is about the intrinsic value of a REIT rather than the REIT’s future prospect. Moreover, the repurchase signal is fully incorporated into the pricing process at the announcement.
Improvement in racial disparity among patients undergoing panniculectomy after bariatric surgery.

Abstract Background A disparity exists in patients receiving panniculectomies. We evaluated this disparity and assessed if it persists once patients are integrated into the healthcare system through bariatric surgery. Methods All patients who received bariatric surgery (n = 2528), panniculectomies (n = 1333) and panniculectomies after bariatric surgery (n = 48) at the University of Pennsylvania between January 1, 2012 and March 1, 2017 were retrospectively identified. Demographic information and post-operative details were collected. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. Results 43% (n = 1087) of bariatric surgery patients were African-American compared to 25% (n = 339) of all panniculectomy patients and 52% (n = 25) of panniculectomy after bariatric surgery patients. The racial disparity among all patients receiving a panniculectomy was not present in patients receiving bariatric surgery beforehand (p Conclusion The disparity seen in patients receiving panniculectomies is not present when patients are integrated into the healthcare system through bariatric surgery.
Estimation of extreme survival probabilities with cox model

ABSTRACTWe propose an extension of the regular Cox's proportional hazards model which allows the estimation of the probabilities of rare events. It is known that when the data are heavily censored,...
A China Carved and Collected: Ningbo Whitewood Figurines in the Long Twentieth Century

How is the craft history of ordinary woodcarvers different from the political and economic history of elites and literati? This article tells a transnational history of Ningbo miniature whitewood figurines that were first collected by Western travelers as souvenirs from the 1870s to 1940s and then shipped to the West as export craft from the 1950s to 1980s. The examination of the makers, buyers, and collectors of these figurines reveals a dialectic process between carving and collecting. Focusing on both the making and circulation of these figurines, the article uncovers a new layer in modern Chinese history: with the political regime changing from the imperial state to socialist state, the carving and business practices of local artisans continued at its own rhythm. Less than three and a half inches tall, Ningbo whitewood figurines represent a miniature China carved and consumed on a global scale during the long twentieth century.
Measuring compliance with a maternal fetal medicine obesity protocol: a secondary analysis.

Background: Current trends in patient safety include protocolization of care with assumed compliance to the protocol by health care providers. In 2016, Schuster et al. found that implementation of ...
A survey of nonlinear robust optimization

Robust optimization (RO) has attracted much attention from the optimization community over the past decade. RO is dedicated to solving optimization problems subject to uncertainty: design constrain...
Comparison of Grenz ray and photodynamic therapy for field treatment of actinic keratoses on the forearm: A case series

Background Actinic Keratosis is an intraepidermal neoplasm that represents the second most common reason for dermatologic visits in the United States. Sustained clearance with existing therapies is highly variable. Objective To assess the effects of combination and monotherapy with photodynamic therapy (PDT), grenz ray therapy, and PDT with microneedling (microchannel skin system) for actinic damage of the dorsal forearms and hands. Methods Full ethics approval was obtained through a Human Subjects Committee. Four patients with diffuse actinic field damage on their forearms and hands were recruited for the study. The dorsal forearm and hand from the elbow to the metacarpophalangeal joint were divided into four equal sections. Section 1 was treated with PDT. Section 2 was treated with grenz ray. Section 3 was treated with PDT plus microneedling. Section 4 was treated with grenz ray and PDT with microneedling. Lesion counts were recorded with transparent grids, photographed and evaluated by the same investigator at baseline, 1, 2, 3 and 6 months. Results At month 6 post treatment, lesion counts, as a per cent reduction from baseline, were 91.7% in section 1 (PDT); 97.3% in section 2 (grenz ray); 92.9% in section 3 (PDT + microneedle); and 93.9% in section 4 (grenz ray + PDT + microneedle). Conclusion The greatest reduction occurred in the grenz ray monotherapy section and the second greatest reduction in the grenz ray, PDT, microneedling section. Further research on the efficacy of grenz ray therapy for field treatment of actinic keratosis of the forearms and hands is needed.
Novel late-stage radiosynthesis of 5-[18F]-trifluoromethyl-1,2,4-oxadiazole (TFMO) containing molecules for PET imaging.

Small molecules that contain the (TFMO) moiety were reported to specifically inhibit the class-IIa histone deacetylases (HDACs), an important target in cancer and the disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). However, radiolabeling methods to incorporate the [18F]fluoride into the TFMO moiety are lacking. Herein, we report a novel late-stage incorporation of [18F]fluoride into the TFMO moiety in a single radiochemical step. In this approach the bromodifluoromethyl-1,2,4-oxadiazole was converted into [18F]TFMO via no-carrier-added bromine-[18F]fluoride exchange in a single step, thus producing the PET tracers with acceptable radiochemical yield (3–5%), high radiochemical purity (> 98%) and moderate molar activity of 0.33–0.49 GBq/umol (8.9–13.4 mCi/umol). We validated the utility of the novel radiochemical design by the radiosynthesis of [18F]TMP195, which is a known TFMO containing potent inhibitor of class-IIa HDACs.
Efficacy of intercostal cryoneurolysis as an analgesic adjunct for chest wall pain after surgery or trauma: systematic review.

Background There is a critical need for non-narcotic analgesic adjuncts in the treatment of thoracic pain. We evaluated the efficacy of intercostal cryoneurolysis as an analgesic adjunct for chest wall pain, specifically addressing the applicability of intercostal cryoneurolysis for pain control after chest wall trauma. Methods A systematic review was performed through searches of PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library. We included studies involving patients of all ages that evaluated the efficacy of intercostal cryoneurolysis as a pain adjunct for chest wall pathology. Quantitative and qualitative synthesis was performed. Results Twenty-three studies including 570 patients undergoing cryoneurolysis met eligibility criteria for quantitative analysis. Five subgroups of patients treated with intercostal cryoneurolysis were identified: pectus excavatum (nine studies); thoracotomy (eight studies); post-thoracotomy pain syndrome (three studies); malignant chest wall pain (two studies); and traumatic rib fractures (one study). There is overall low-quality evidence supporting intercostal cryoneurolysis as an analgesic adjunct for chest wall pain. A majority of studies demonstrated decreased inpatient narcotic use with intercostal cryoneurolysis compared with conventional pain modalities. Intercostal cryoneurolysis may also lead to decreased hospital length of stay. The procedure did not definitively increase operative time, and risk of complications was low. Conclusions Given the favorable risk-to-benefit profile, both percutaneous and thoracoscopic intercostal cryoneurolysis may serve as a worthwhile analgesic adjunct in trauma patients with rib fractures who have failed conventional medical management. However, further prospective studies are needed to improve quality of evidence. Level of evidence Level IV systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Establishing a Legal-Ethical Framework for Quantum Technology

What is quantum technology? Quantum technology is founded on general principles of quantum mechanics and combines the counterintuitive physics of the very small with engineering. Particles and energy at the smallest scale do not follow the same rules as the objects we can detect around us in our everyday lives. The general principles, or properties, of quantum mechanics are superposition, entanglement, and tunnelling. Quantum mechanics aims to clarify the relationship between matter and energy, and it describes the building blocks of atoms at the subatomic level. Raising Quantum Awareness Quantum technologies are rapidly evolving from hypothetical ideas to commercial realities. As the world prepares for these tangible applications, the quantum community issued an urgent call for action to design solutions that can balance their transformational impact. An important first step to encourage the debate is raising quantum awareness. We have to put controls in place that address identified risks and incentivise sustainable innovation. Connecting AI and Nanotechnology to Quantum Establishing a culturally sensitive legal-ethical framework for applied quantum technologies can help to accomplish these goals. This framework can be built on existing rules and requirements for AI. We can enrich this framework further by integrating ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) associated with nanotechnology. In addition, the unique physical characteristics of quantum mechanics demand universal guiding principles of responsible, human-centered quantum technology. To this end, the article proposes ten guiding principles for the development and application of quantum technology. Risk-based Quantum Technology Impact Assessment Tools Lastly, how can we monitor and validate that real world quantum tech-driven implementations remain legal, ethical, social and technically robust during their life cycle? Developing concrete tools that address these challenges might be the answer. Raising quantum awareness can be accomplished by discussing a legal-ethical framework and by utilizing risk-based technology impact assessment tools in the form of best practices and moral guides.
Cell Survival and Cell Death at the Intersection of Autophagy and Apoptosis: Implications for Current and Future Cancer Therapeutics

Autophagy and apoptosis are functionally distinct mechanisms for cytoplasmic and cellular turnover. While these two pathways are distinct, they can also regulate each other, and central components ...
Placental CO2 Exchange

In the fetus in utero, carbon dioxide must be eliminated by diffusing across the placenta into maternal blood. Despite a number of studies on placental CO2 exchange, several vital problems relating to this process remain unsolved.
DNS of Boundary-Layer Receptivity to Freestream Sound for Hypersonic Flows Over Blunt Elliptical Cones

This paper studies the leading-edge receptivity of 3-D hypersonic boundary layers to freestream acoustic disturbances for Mach 15 mean flows over a blunt 2:1 elliptical cone. The wave modes induced in the boundary layer by the freestream disturbances are studied based on a numerical simulation of the Navier-Stokes equations and a locally parallel linear stability analysis.
Collective Principal Component Analysis from Distributed, Heterogeneous Data

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a statistical technique to identify the dependency structure of multivariate stochastic observations. PCA is frequently used in data mining applications. This paper considers PCA in the context of the emerging network-based computing environments. It offers a technique to perform PCA from distributed and heterogeneous data sets with relatively small communication overhead. The technique is evaluated against different data sets, including a data set for a web mining application. This approach is likely to facilitate the development of distributed clustering, associative link analysis, and other heterogeneous data mining applications that frequently use PCA.
Mechanism design for multi-agent meeting scheduling including time preferences, availability, and value of presence

We examine the benefits and limitations of mechanism design as it applies to multi-agent meeting scheduling. We look at the problem of scheduling multiple meetings between various groups of agents that arise over time. Each of the agents has private information regarding their tune preferences for meetings. Our aim is to extract this information and assign the meetings to times in a way that maximises social welfare. We discuss problems with previous attempts to design incentive compatible (IC) and individually rational (IR) mechanisms for the task. We focus on the problem of determining when agents are available. In particular, we show that when agents with general valuation functions are asked to supply their availability for meeting times, there is no IC and IR mechanism. Given this impossibility result, we show how the likelihood of violating IR can be reduced through agents expressing their value for the presence of others at meetings. We also show how requesting agent preferences for entire schedules helps to eliminate IC problems.
Neurospora 6-Phosphogluconate Dehydrogenase II. PROPERTIES OF TWO PURIFIED MUTANT ENZYMES

Abstract Mutations in two unlinked genes of Neurospora crassa, col-10 and col-3, lead to morphological abnormalities and variant 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenases (EC 1.1.1.44). The purified mutant enzymes have specific activities, 30 units per mg, similar to the wild type 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, but differ in kinetic parameters, isoelectric points, and thermolability. These properties of the heterocaryon 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenases are intermediate between those of the wild type and mutant enzymes. Since the morphology of the mutants is restored to nearly that of wild type in the heterocaryons, there is a correlation between the severity of the 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase and morphological defects. These results suggest that the col-10 and col-3 genes control the structure of Neurospora 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, and that the altered dehydrogenases are responsible for the mutant morphologies.
An inductorless 900 MHz RF low-noise amplifier in 0.9 /spl mu/m CMOS

A low cost 900-MHz RF Low-Noise Amplifier is implemented in a standard 0.9 /spl mu/m digital CMOS process. The design circumvents the use of both expensive external inductors as well as large on-chip inductors, by employing a gyrator circuit to emulate the inductors. This results in a high gain at RF of 20 dB, a tunable resonance frequency and a chip area of only 0.1 mm/sup 2/. At a 940 MHz center frequency, this fully balanced LNA exhibits -23 dB of S11, a 5.3 dB noise figure and an IIP3 of -8.6 dBm. It drains 12.5 mA from a 3.3 V supply.
Numerical Methods in Forward and Inverse Modeling of Geopotential Fields

Numerical methods play an important role in practical applications of the inverse theory. This chapter presents discrete forms of gravity and magnetic forward modeling operators. These operators are used as the engines of regularized inversion of the potential field data. A number of numerical examples illustrates an importance of selecting the appropriate model parameter weights and stabilizing functionals in the regularized inversion. The final section of this chapter presents a model study of 3-D inversion of synthetic gravity gradiometry data.
Silicon: Child and Progenitor of Revolution

Antoine Lavoisier, the pioneering French chemist who (together with Joseph Priestley in England) identified oxygen as an element and gave it its name, in 1789 concluded that quartz was probably a compound with an as-yet undiscovered but presumably extremely common element. That was also the year in which the French Revolution broke out. Five years later, the Jacobins accused Lavoisier of offences against the people and cut off his head, thereby nearly cutting off the new chemistry. It was not until 1824 that Jons Berzelius in Sweden succeeded in confirming Lavoisier’s speculation by isolating silicon. Argument at once broke out among the scientific elite as to whether the newly found element was a metal or an insulator. It took more than a century to settle that disagreement decisively: As so often, when all-or-nothing alternatives are fiercely argued, the truth turned out to be neither all nor nothing.
Parades, Pickets, and Prison: Alice Paul and the Virtues of Unruly Constitutional Citizenship

In recent years, constitutional scholars interested in “popular constitutionalism” have examined the role of citizens in interpreting and transforming the Constitution. This article analyzes the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment led by Alice Paul's Congressional Union and National Woman's Party (NWP). To evaluate the impact of Paul's unyielding campaign of wartime picketing and prison protests in convincing President Wilson to endorse the federal amendment and to work on its behalf, the article scrutinizes the relationship between Paul's more militant tactics and the conciliatory posture adopted by her rival Carrie Chapman Catt and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). The article offers an interdisciplinary analysis of Paul's strategy that incorporates the insights of research on American political development, social movements, and presidential leadership, and draws on the archival records of the NWP, presidential papers, and contemporary newspaper coverage. Paul's more contentious, unruly methods played a decisive role in obtaining the necessary congressional votes in the House and Senate during Wilson's second term. Paul refused to merely to play the role of the insider lobbyist. She instead perfected the an outsider strategy by appealing directly to voters and the public — first through parades, deputations, petitions, and other well-publicized events, and later through much more oppositional activities, such as anti-incumbent campaigns, pickets, and prison protests. Paul had an astute sense of the power of emotional appeals, and it was this feature of her outsider strategy that made the NWP such a formidable force in the suffrage movement. A kind of insider-outsider dynamic — with Catt eventually serving as the more cooperative suffrage leader, and Paul as the contentious outsider — appears to have been the crucial combination needed to gain Wilson's help in pushing suffrage through Congress in 1918-19. Paul's most controversial tactics — the picketing and protests in 1917 — were implemented with such ruthless determination that Wilson and other opponents in Congress began searching for a way to end the standoff. Paul's resort to civil disobedience may have appeared unruly to her political opponents and the public, but it was in reality a tactic, like all of her strategies, chosen and deployed after a careful consideration of its political impact. That Wilson gave Catt and NAWSA all of the public credit for the shift should not obscure the crucial role that Paul's campaign played in creating this pressure. Given this success, Alice Paul deserves more recognition as a leading exemplar of the transformative model of constitutional citizenship.
Phase and amplitude gradient method for the estimation of acoustic vector quantities

An alternative pressure-sensor based method for estimating the acoustic intensity, the phase and amplitude gradient estimation (PAGE) method, is presented. This method uses the same hardware as the standard finite-difference method, but does not suffer from the frequency-dependent bias inherent to the finite-difference method. A detailed derivation of the PAGE method and the finite-difference method is presented. Both methods are then compared using simple acoustic fields. The ability to unwrap the phase component of the PAGE method is discussed, which leads to accurate intensity estimates above previous frequency limits. The uncertainties associated with both methods of estimation are presented. It is shown that the PAGE method provides more accurate intensity estimates over a larger frequency bandwidth.
Bispectrum estimation of transient signals

A method is introduced for transient signal reconstruction based on bispectrum estimation techniques. The third-order cumulants of the noisy observation data are estimated first and an autoregressive model is then fitted in the sense of perfect matching between the third-order cumulant sequence of the model's impulse response and the estimated cumulants of the observation. It is demonstrated that the method is capable of reconstructing transient signals for environments in which the noise is color Gaussian with unknown autocorrelation function. >
System for the Investigation of the Bacteriophage-directed Synthesis of Diphtherial Toxin

Lytic corynebacteriophage betahv64(tox+) has been characterized, and methods for studying the expression of its tox(+) gene in nontoxinogenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae strain C7(s)(-)(tox-) described. During one cycle of viral growth there was a 1 million-fold increase in extracellular toxin. Both the conditions of the experiment and the use of purified phage, free from toxin, support the conclusion that all of the toxin was newly formed. This toxin was immunochemically indistinguishable from standard toxin produced by the PW8(r)(Pdi)(tox+) strain. Chloramphenicol was found to be an effective agent for synchronizing the initiation of viral growth. Once chloramphenicol was removed, intracellular toxin appeared and continued to increase throughout the latent period. Proflavine, added early in the latent period, blocked phage maturation without similarly affecting yields of toxin. Iron exerted a limited inhibitory effect on final toxin levels attained.
Exact solution for the stress concentration in a slot

Abstract A mixed boundary value problem for the stress concentration m an elastic layer weakened by a plane circular slot, which is under the action of normal stresses, is analyzed by reducing it to an initial value problem using the theory of invariant imbedding.
Medical and functional status changes among nursing facility residents: implications for dentistry.

This paper reports the results of a study that investigated changes in the medical and functional status of nursing facility residents over a 2.9-year period. Sixty-seven residents from 10 nursing facilities were included in the study, which demonstrated that the residents' medical and functional status deteriorated during this period. These changes adversely affected the residents' ability to receive recommended dental treatment, suggesting that early, definitive, and often aggressive treatment approaches be used in providing services to these individuals. Summary This study found that the health status of 67 residents of a long-term care facility declined markedly over a three-year period. Based on these findings, we recommend that dental care for institutionalized older adults be provided as soon as possible after problems are diagnosed, and that treatment planning should account for the likelihood that opportunities for the provision of care may decrease with time. However, in the treatment of individual nursing facility patients, the experience and professional judgment of the dentist will continue to be critical in determining an appropriate course of action.
Observations Following Four Years of Complete Circulatory Exclusion of the Right Heart

ince the discovery of pulmonary circulation the physiological importance of the right ventricular function has always been S debated. According to the general view, the pumping action of the right ventricle is essential to life. Dissenting opinions have been expressed [l, 3, 6-8, 19, 24, 251; however, the view that the right heart can be excluded indeed without the collapse of the entire circulation remained but a theory waiting to be proved. In recent decades, developments in the surgical treatment of certain congenital anomalies, as well as advances in the design of artificial hearts, have aroused renewed interest in this problem. Following the initial experiments of Carlon et al. [23 in 1949, we [lo, 13, 14, 16, 20-221 as well as others [4, 5, 9, 17, 18, 231 demonstrated that partial bypass of the right heart is a possibility. Later we showed [15] that animals can live for a short time with their right heart completely excluded from the circulation. In the following year, this period of survival was extended to several months [l 1, 121. This paper presents an experimental protocol in which complete bypass of the right heart was accomplished for a period exceeding four years.
A discrete model of a modified Burgers' partial differential equation

A new finite-difference scheme is constructed for a modified Burger's equation. Three special cases of the equation are considered, and the 'exact' difference schemes for the space- and time-independent forms of the equation are presented, along with the diffusion-free case of Burger's equation modeled by a difference equation. The desired difference scheme is then obtained by imposing on any difference model of the initial equation the requirement that, in the appropriate limits, its difference scheme must reduce the results of the obtained equations.
Dark matter in the finely tuned minimal supersymmetric standard model

We explore dark matter in the finely-tuned minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) recently proposed by Arkani-Hamed and Dimopoulos. Relative to the MSSM, there are fewer particles at freeze-out, so the calculation of the relic abundance simplifies. Similarly, the predictions for direct detection of the dark matter sharpen. There is a large region of mixed bino---higgsino dark matter where the lightest supersymmetric particle will be accessible at both the LHC and future direct detection experiments, allowing for a conclusive identification of the dark matter particle. Typical dark matter-nucleon cross sections are ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}45}\ensuremath{-}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}44}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{2}$. This model also possesses a novel region where the dark matter annihilates via an $s$-channel Higgs boson resonance.
Modelling and Simulation of a Simplified Demodulation and Detection Method for Zero-IF FSK Signals in Wireless Communications

AbstractM-ary baseband FSK modulated signals, which utilize M-set different frequencies, can be modelled as a set of complex rotating phasors. The received modulated signals can be detected by counting the speed and the direction of the complex phasor rotation. Conventional methods such as zero-crossing detection used this baseband FSK signal property. The detection approach presented in this paper is to count the number of quadrant crossing instead of zero crossing in a symbol period to demodulate FSK signals. Counting quadrant crossings acts as a noise filtering and improves the detection performance. The performance is improved further by using decision rules at fuzzy boundary and soft decision detection. The system modelling and simulation methods are illustrated in the paper. The performance comparison and improvement are shown by a 4-ary FSK signal example on wireless Rayleigh fading channels.
Stability of Like and Oppositely Charged Organic Ion Pairs in Aqueous Solution

To investigate the stability of ionic pairs in aqueous solution, polarizable continuum-model (PCM) ab initio molecular orbital calculations were carried out. Ion pairs formed from three organic ions, methylacetate, methylammonium, and guanidinium, were treated. The methylacetate ion pair forms a stable complex when the two methyl groups are in contact. When the charged groups of methylacetate and methylammonium are in contact, this pair does not form a stable complex in aqueous solution. When the methyl group of methylacetate is in contact with that of methylammonium, the ionic groups are far apart, and a stable complex is not formed, even though the complex involves a strong attractive electrostatic interaction. The guanidinium pair forms a stable complex in aqueous solution at all conformations investigated in this work even though a strong repulsive electrostatic interaction is present in this complex.
On-demand unstructured mesh translation for reducing memory pressure during in situ analysis

When coupling two different mesh-based codes, for example with in situ analytics, the typical strategy is to explicitly copy data (deep copy) from one implementation to another, doing translation in the process. This is necessary because codes usually do not share data model interfaces or implementations. The drawback is that data duplication results in an increased memory footprint for the coupled code. An alternative strategy, which we study in this paper, is to share mesh data through on-demand, fine-grained, run-time data model translation. This saves memory, which is an increasingly scarce resource at exascale, for the increased use of in situ analysis and decreasing memory per core. We study the performance of our method compared against a deep copy with in situ analysis at scale.
An Investigation of Microstructures in Cationic/Anionic Surfactant Suspensions by Cryogenic Transmission Electron Microscopy

Abstract Cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) has been used to image a variety of single and mixed cationic–anionic surfactant suspensions in water and in the presence of salt. A diverse range of microstructures have been observed, ranging from thread-like and spherical micelles in the single surfactant systems to spherical unilamellar vesicles, multilamellar vesicles, and bilayer microtubules in the mixtures. As the counterion binding strength is increased, the vesicles grow, pointing to a straightforward way by which vesicle sizes can be tuned. Size variations of the unilamellar vesicles, obtained from cryo-TEM are distinctly non-Gaussian. Formation of these vesicles in low concentrations of a divalent salt produces large aggregates, but does not destroy the bilayers.
Targeted imaging of matrix metalloproteinase activity in the evaluation of remodeling tissue-engineered vascular grafts implanted in a growing lamb model.

Objectives The clinical translation of tissue-engineered vascular grafts has been demonstrated in children. The remodeling of biodegradable, cell-seeded scaffolds to functional neovessels has been partially attributed to matrix metalloproteinases. Noninvasive assessment of matrix metalloproteinase activity can indicate graft remodeling and elucidate the progression of neovessel formation. Therefore, matrix metalloproteinase activity was evaluated in grafts implanted in lambs using in vivo and ex vivo hybrid imaging. Graft growth and remodeling was quantified using in vivo x-ray computed tomography angiography. Methods Cell-seeded and unseeded scaffolds were implanted in 5 lambs as inferior vena cava interposition grafts. At 2 and 6 months after implantation, in vivo angiography was used to assess graft morphology. In vivo and ex vivo single photon emission tomography/computed tomography imaging was performed with a radiolabeled compound targeting matrix metalloproteinase activity at 6 months. The neotissue was examined at 6 months using qualitative histologic and immunohistochemical staining and quantitative biochemical analysis. Results The seeded grafts demonstrated significant luminal and longitudinal growth from 2 to 6 months. In vivo imaging revealed subjectively greater matrix metalloproteinase activity in grafts versus native tissue. Ex vivo imaging confirmed a quantitative increase in matrix metalloproteinase activity and demonstrated greater activity in unseeded versus seeded grafts. The glycosaminoglycan content was increased in seeded grafts versus unseeded grafts, without significant differences in collagen content. Conclusions Matrix metalloproteinase activity remained elevated in tissue-engineered grafts 6 months after implantation and could indicate remodeling. Optimization of in vivo imaging to noninvasively evaluate matrix metalloproteinase activity could assist in the serial assessment of vascular graft remodeling.
Food deprivation and conditioned flavor preferences based on sweetened and unsweetened foods

In four experiments, rats’ preferences for flavors consumed under high deprivation versus low deprivation were measured. In Experiment 1, rats preferred flavors received in unsweetened food under high deprivation to flavors received in unsweetened food under low deprivation. This preference did not vary with amount of food used to deliver the flavors (1-g vs. 16-g wet mash). Sweetening the food (0.10% saccharin) eliminated this preference when 16 g of mash was received, but not when 1 g of mash was received (Experiments 2 and 3). Sweetening the mash even more (0.15% saccharin) eliminated the preference when 1 g of mash was received, as well as when 20 g of mash was received. We suggested that the reinforcing value of sweetness is reduced by increasing deprivation level.
Solute distribution and stability in emulsion-based delivery systems: an EPR study

Oil-in-water emulsions and related systems are often used to deliver hydrophobic solutes in foods, personal care products, and pharmaceuticals. Recent work has considered the use of crystalline lipid carrier particles (i.e., solid lipid nanoparticles, SLN) to control the availability of the solute; however, there is little direct evidence for the localization of small molecules in these systems. Alkanes (10 wt.% tetradecane or eicosane) containing the spin probe 4-phenyl-2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-3-imidazoline-1-oxyl (PTMIO, 200 ppm) were homogenized into sodium caseinate solution (1 wt.%) to produce fine or coarse droplets (0.2 μm or 1.3 μm, respectively) and cooled to 21.5 °C where eicosane is crystalline and tetradecane is liquid. Analysis of the resulting EPR spectra revealed populations of probe in two discrete environments (i.e., aqueous and lipid). PTMIO is largely hydrophobic with 77% and 70% present in the coarse and fine liquid lipid droplets (i.e., tetradecane droplets), respectively. In the solid droplets (i.e., eicosane), all of the probe was excluded from the droplets into the aqueous environment. In all cases, the mobility of the probe in both lipid and aqueous environments was affected by the droplet surface; thus, we hypothesize that the majority of the probe molecules are associated with the droplet interface. The PTMIO was reduced to an EPR-silent form by the addition of iron/ascorbate to the aqueous phase, and the apparent rate constant of the reaction was proportional to the fraction of the spin probe in the aqueous phase. Based on these findings, we propose that droplet crystallization excludes solute molecules from the droplet core to the aqueous environment where they interact with the droplet surface.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play an important role in a rat model of neuropathic pain

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are free radicals produced in biological systems that are involved in various degenerative brain diseases. The present study tests the hypothesis that ROS also play an important role in neuropathic pain. In the rat spinal nerve ligation (SNL) model of neuropathic pain, mechanical allodynia develops fully 3 days after nerve ligation and persists for many weeks. Systemic injection of a ROS scavenger, phenyl-N-tert-butylnitrone (PBN), relieves SNL-induced mechanical allodynia in a dose-dependent manner. Repeated injections cause no development of tolerance or no loss of potency. Preemptive treatment with PBN is also effective in preventing full development of neuropathic pain behavior. Systemic injection was mimicked by intrathecal injection with a little less efficacy, while intracerebroventricular administration produced a much smaller effect. These data suggest that PBN exerts its anti-allodynic action mainly by spinal mechanisms. Systemic treatment with other spin-trap reagents, 5,5-dimethylpyrroline-N-oxide and nitrosobenzene, showed similar analgesic effects, suggesting that ROS are critically involved in the development and maintenance of neuropathic pain. Thus this study suggests that systemic administration of non-toxic doses of free radical scavengers could be useful for treatment of neuropathic pain.
Deposition of Magnetic Nanoparticles Suspended in the Gas Phase on a Specific Target Area

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) suspended in the air were delivered onto a specific area under a magnetic field. The targeting efficiency and the collected mass of MNPs were studied for various physical parameters such as MNP concentrations, the MNP size, sampling flow, and the strength of magnetic field. A model to predict the delivery of MNPs onto a specific target area was developed for both stagnant air and horizontal air streams and demonstrated for experimental observations. Overall, the theoretically predicted targeting mass of MNPs reasonably agreed with experimental observations. The potential use of the resulting targeting method using the MNPs suspended in the air has been also explored for the delivery of secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) to a specific area. SOAs are created from ozonolysis of terpenes coated on preexisting MNPs and targeted using the device under horizontal air streams.
Current surgical results with low-grade brain arteriovenous malformations

OBJECT Resection is an appealing therapy for brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) because of its high cure rate, low complication rate, and immediacy, and has become the first-line therapy for many AVMs. To clarify safety, efficacy, and outcomes associated with AVM resection in the aftermath of A Randomized Trial of Unruptured Brain AVMs (ARUBA), the authors reviewed their experience with low-grade AVMs—the most favorable AVMs for surgery and the ones most likely to have been selected for treatment outside of ARUBA's randomization process. METHODS A prospective AVM registry was searched to identify patients with Spetzler-Martin Grade I and II AVMs treated using resection during a 16-year period. RESULTS Of the 232 surgical patients included, 120 (52%) presented with hemorrhage, 33% had Spetzler-Martin Grade I, and 67% had Grade II AVMs. Overall, 99 patients (43%) underwent preoperative embolization, with unruptured AVMs embolized more often than ruptured AVMs. AVM resection was accomplished in all pat...
Arterial and venous anatomies of the deep inferior epigastric perforator and superficial inferior epigastric artery flaps

Background:This study uses three- and four-dimensional computed tomographic angiography and venography to evaluate the microvascular anatomy and perfusion of the deep inferior epigastric artery perforator (DIEP) and superficial inferior epigastric artery (SIEA) flaps.Methods:Ten DIEP flaps harvested
Determinants of Ligand Binding Specificity of the α1β1 and α2β1Integrins

The α1β1 and α2β1 integrins are cell surface collagen receptors. Cells expressing the α1β1integrin preferentially adhere to collagen IV, whereas cells expressing the α2β1 integrin preferentially adhere to collagen I. Recombinant α1 and α2 integrin I domains exhibit the same collagen type preferences as the intact integrins. In addition, the α2 integrin I domain binds echovirus 1; the α1 I domain does not. To identify the structural components of the I domains responsible for the varying ligand specificities, we have engineered several α1/α2 integrin I domain chimeras and evaluated their virus and collagen binding activities. Initially, large secondary structural components of the α2 I domain were replaced with corresponding regions of the α1 I domain. Following analysis in echovirus 1 and collagen binding assays, chimeras with successively smaller regions of α1 I were constructed and analyzed. The chimeras were analyzed by ELISA with several different α2 integrin monoclonal antibodies to assess their proper folding. Three different regions of the α1 I domain, when present in the α2 I domain, conferred enhanced collagen IV binding activity upon the α2 I domain. These include the α3 and α5 helices and a portion of the α6 helix. Echovirus 1 binding was lost in a chimera containing the αC-α6 loop; higher resolution mapping identified Asn289 as playing a critical role in echovirus 1 binding. Asn289 had not been implicated in previous echovirus 1 binding studies. Taken together, these data reveal the existence of multiple determinants of ligand binding specificities within the α1 and α2 integrin I domains.
Measurement of women's autonomy according to women and their husbands: Results from five Asian countries

Abstract We illustrate the difficulty of measuring gender relations in surveys by comparing couple responses to survey items on the wife’s autonomy in various domains using data from 23 communities in India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. We employ an item response model to show that the level of women’s autonomy depends on whether wives or husbands are respondents and that the response categories do not have the same cognitive or semantic meanings to men and women. The disagreement between men and women varies across communities for reasons that are not easy to explain. The items also contain random measurement error that attenuates the correlation between spousal reports. We conclude that these survey questions are of limited utility for understanding differences in gender stratification across context.
Transition from compensated hypertrophy to intrinsic myocardial dysfunction during development of left ventricular pressure-overload hypertrophy in conscious sheep. Systolic dysfunction precedes diastolic dysfunction.

BACKGROUNDPatients with aortic stenosis have a period of compensated left ventricular hypertrophy but may eventually develop congestive heart failure. Previous experimental studies showed either normal myocardial contractility in mild short-term pressure overload or myocardial dysfunction with severe pressure overload. Transition from compensated left ventricular hypertrophy to myocardial dysfunction has not been experimentally demonstrated in an adult large animal. Controversial issues in pressure-overload hypertrophy include whether the left ventricular dysfunction is due to insufficient hypertrophy (afterload mismatch) or to intrinsic myocardial dysfunction and whether diastolic dysfunction precedes systolic dysfunction.METHODS AND RESULTSWe induced left ventricular hypertrophy (41% increase in left ventricular to body weight ratio) by gradually tightening a hydraulic constrictor around the ascending aorta in 9 chronically instrumented conscious sheep. Afterload (end-systolic stress) elevation remained...
Effects of mild food deprivation on the estrous cycle of rats

It has long been known that severe food deprivation disrupts the estrous cycle. One of the main problems with behavioral tasks that use food for reinforcement is the requirement that the animal be food deprived. This manipulation could be problematic in studies using female animals, since it may interfere with the estrous cycle of the animals. The purpose of the present study was to investigate: (1) the effect of mild food deprivation on four different strains of rats, (2) factors in the food deprivation procedure that could affect the estrous cycle, and (3) the possible effect of enriched diets during food deprivation on the estrous cycle. A comparison of the estrous cycle in four different rat strains revealed differences in the reliability of the estrous cycle even before the onset of food deprivation. Fischer, Long-Evans, and Sprague-Dawley rats all showed reliable cycle patterns. This was not the case for Brown Norway rats. During food deprivation, the cycle of the Fischer rats was disrupted, whereas the Long-Evans and Sprague-Dawley animals continued to cycle. Both the rate of weight loss and the percent of ad libitum body weight were related to cessation of the estrous cycle. However, enriching an animal's diet with sugar or oil additives delayed the disruption of the estrous cycle. Additionally, animals resumed cycling when returned to ad libitum weight levels. The present findings suggest that when animals need to be food deprived, preference should be given to using Long-Evans or Sprague-Dawley rats. If Fischer rats must be used, they should not be deprived below 90-95% of their ad libitum body weight. Strategies for future food deprivation studies are discussed, as well as a comparison of the effects of mild and severe food deprivation.
PREFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION OF MEMBRANE PHOSPHOLIPIDS WITH THE HUMAN ERYTHROCYTE HEXOSE TRANSPORTER

Abstract This study reports the results of an investigation to determine to what extent the influence of membrane lipids on the human erythrocyte sugar transporter protein activity (Caruthers, A. and Melchior, D.L. (1988) Annu. Rev. Physiol. 50, 257–271) is related to lipid/protein associations in the membrane bilayer. Differential scanning calorimetry was carried out on the human erythrocyte transport protein reconstituted into artificial bilayers formed from preselected lipids. It was found that the transport protein displays a preferential and in some cases strongly preferential affinity for specific lipid types. This association is a function of lipid head group, backbone and hydrocarbon chain length. It appears that the affinity of the transport protein for various lipids can correlate with the lipid's ability to influence transporter activity. This study further suggests that certain lipids (in this case sphingomyelin) can induce an oligomeric association of HEST monomers in the bilayer.
Clinical trial participation is associated with improved outcome in women with ovarian cancer.

Objectives: To determine the effect of participation in clinical trials on survival of women with ovarian cancer. Disease-specific factors and demographics were also examined. Methods: A total of 158 women were treated for ovarian cancer at a regional cancer center. All patients were offered treatment with surgery/chemotherapy and were screened at diagnosis for participation in clinical research. Progression-free and overall survival, as well as demographic- and treatment-related data, were recorded. Results: Fifty-three participated in clinical trials and 105 did not. On-study versus off-study subjects were similar in age (64.1 vs 63.5 years), ethnicity (87% vs 85% white), performance status (100% 0-1 Gynecologic Oncology Group scale), and urban versus rural lifestyle (58% vs 55% urban). Stage of disease, histologic subtype, and type/amount of therapy were also similar. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed superior overall survival for on-study subjects (median, 46 vs 25 months, 95% confidence interval, 1.0299-2.1505 months, P = 0.0343). A trend toward improved progression-free survival approached significance for on-study subjects (median, 23 vs 9 months, 95% confidence interval, 0.9545-2.0022 months, P = 0.0866). Conclusions: Women with ovarian cancer who participate in clinical trials at this institution have improved survival compared with those who are treated with standard therapies. No other factors examined were associated with treatment completion or survival. Further, participation in clinical research does not vary by age, ethnicity, urban versus rural lifestyle, or cancer stage or histologic subtype. However, disclosure of this information to potential clinical trial participants may represent an ethical conflict and should be carefully considered in light of existing ethical guidelines for human subject research.