cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Neuronal voltage-gated calcium channels Brief overview of their function and clinical implications in neurology

EA2= : episodic ataxia type 2; FHM1= : familial hemiplegic migraine type 1; HVA= : high voltage-activated; LVA= : low voltage-activated; PD= : Parkinson disease; SCA6= : spinocerebellar ataxia type 6; SNc= : substantia nigra pars compacta; SW= : spike-and-wave. Voltage-gated calcium (Ca2+) channels are a major source of Ca2+ influx and have a critical role in Ca2+ signaling in all cells. The nervous system expresses a number of different types of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels, each with unique cellular and subcellular distributions and specific physiologic functions. Studies in vitro or in knockout mice have provided insight into the function of the different types of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels. L-Type channels regulate neuronal excitability and gene expression; P/Q and N channels trigger neurotransmitter release, and T-type channels support neuronal rhythmic burst firing. Evidence from natural mutants, knockout mice, and human genetic disorders indicate a fundamental role of some voltage-gated Ca2+ channels in a wide variety of neurologic disorders, including seizures, ataxia, and neuropathic pain. There are several excellent reviews on the structural features, regulation, and function of the different types of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels1–5 and their implication in neurologic diseases.6–10 Only few salient concepts are emphasized here. ### Classification. Voltage-gated Ca2+ channels have been classified into 2 major categories on the basis of their threshold of activation by depolarization, high voltage-activated (HVA) channels, and low voltage-activated (LVA) channels (table 1). The HVA channels can be further subdivided, based on pharmacologic and biophysical characteristics, into L-, N-, P/Q-, and R types.1,2 View this table: Table 1 Main features of voltage-gated calcium channels ### Structure. All voltage-gated Ca2+ channels contain a pore-forming α1 subunit that determines their main biophysical and pharmacologic properties. There are 3 major families of α1 subunits—Cav1, Cav2, and Cav3—each consisting of several subtypes (table 1). The Cav1 family encodes L-type channels; the Cav2 family includes 3 different isoforms that encode P/Q- (Cav2.1), N- (Cav2.2), and R- (Cav2.3) …
Extraction of carotenoids from Phaffia rhodozyma: A comparison between different techniques of cell disruption

The yeast Phaffia rhodozyma is known for producing carotenogenic pigments, commonly used in aquaculture feed formulation as well as in cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and food industries. Despite the high production of carotenoids from microorganisms by biotechnology, their use has limitation due to the cell wall resistance, which constitutes a barrier to the bioavailability of carotenoids. Therefore, there is a need to improve carotenoids recovering technique from microorganisms for the application of food industries. This study aimed to compare mechanical, chemical, and enzymatic techniques of cell disruption for extracting carotenoids produced by P. rhodozyma NRRL Y-17268. Among the techniques studied, the highest specific concentration of carotenoids (190.35 μg/g) resulted from the combined techniques of frozen biomass maceration using diatomaceous earth and enzymatic lysis at pH of the reaction medium of 4.5 at 55°C, with initial activity of β-1,3 glucanase of 0.6 U/mL for 30 min.
Supercapacitor electrode materials: nanostructures from 0 to 3 dimensions

Supercapacitors have drawn considerable attention in recent years due to their high specific power, long cycle life, and ability to bridge the power/energy gap between conventional capacitors and batteries/fuel cells. Nanostructured electrode materials have demonstrated superior electrochemical properties in producing high-performance supercapacitors. In this review article, we describe the recent progress and advances in designing nanostructured supercapacitor electrode materials based on various dimensions ranging from zero to three. We highlight the effect of nanostructures on the properties of supercapacitors including specific capacitance, rate capability and cycle stability, which may serve as a guideline for the next generation of supercapacitor electrode design.
Succinct data structures

The world is drowning in data. The recent explosion of web publishing, XML data, bioinformation, scientific data, image data, geographical map data, and even email communications has put a strain on our ability to manage the information contained there. In general, the influx of massive data sets for all kinds of data present a number of difficulties with storage, organization of information, and data accessibility. A primary computing challenge in these cases is how to compress the data but still allow it to be queried quickly. In real-life situations, many instances of data are highly compressible, presenting a major opportunity for space savings. In mobile applications, such savings are critical, since space and the power to access information are at a premium. In a streaming environment, where new data are being generated constantly, compression can aid in prediction as well. In the case of bioinformatics, understanding succinct representations of DNA sequences could lead to a more fundamental understanding of the nature of our own "data stream," perhaps even giving hints on secondary and tertiary structure, gene evolution, and other important topics. In this thesis, we focus our attention on the important problem of compressed text indexing, where the goal is to compress a text document and allow arbitrary searching for patterns in the best possible time without first decompressing the text. We develop a number of compressed data structures that either solve this problem directly, or are used as smaller components of an overall text indexing solution. Each component has a number of applications beyond text indexing as well. For each structure, we provide a theoretical study of its space usage and query performance on a suite of operations crucial to access the stored data. In each case, we relate its space usage to the compressed size of the original data and show that the supported operations function in near-optimal or optimal time. We also present a number of experimental results that validate our theoretical findings, showing that our methodology is competitive with the state-of-the-art.
Molecular Temporal Bone Pathology: II. Ramsay Hunt Syndrome (Herpes Zoster Oticus)†

In 1907 J. Ramsay Hunt suggested that herpes zoster oticus resulted from a geniculate ganglionitis; however, many contemporary authors believe that this disorder represents a neuritis or polycranial neuropathy. Herpes varicella-zoster viral (VZV) DNA was identified, using the polymerase chain reaction, in archival celloidin-embedded temporal bone sections from two patients who clinically had Ramsay Hunt syndrome (herpes zoster oticus). The presence of VZV was confirmed by sequencing the PCR products. These experiments demonstrated that VZV genomic DNA was present in the geniculate ganglion of the side with facial paralysis and cutaneous recrudescence in both patients and in the clinically unaffected side in patient 1. In addition, patient 2 had a sudden hearing loss and was found to have VZV genomic DNA in sections from the affected side containing the spiral ganglion, Scarpa's ganglion, organ of Corti, and macula of the saccule. No VZV genomic DNA was identified in temporal bone sections from five patients with Bell's palsy and ten patients without evidence of otologic disease. In this study, the histopathology of these two cases yielded complementary information regarding the role of VZV in herpes zoster oticus. These data suggest that in patients with Ramsay Hunt syndrome, latent VZV is located in the geniculate ganglia and may be present in the auditory and vestibular primary afferent ganglia in some patients.
Angular correlations in the decay B' VV and CP violation

We study the exclusive decays of B mesons into a pair of spin-1 mesons. We look at the occurring asymmetries that could signal CP violation and estimate their relative size. We find that angular asymmetries are not significantly smaller than partial-rate asymmetries, and that their study can help disentangle the complicated dynamics of these decays.
Transient stability of the grid with a wind power plant

During recent years, the size of individual wind turbines has grown closer to 10 MW, and the size of wind power plants has increased significantly to 300 MW or more. This growing size of wind power generation requires that careful evaluation of transient stability of the overall grid should be undertaken. This paper attempts to investigate the impact of wind power plant penetration on the transient stability of the grid. Transient stability for different faults is investigated via simulation. A wind power plant with 22 turbines operated in variable speed mode will be used as the test subject of the study. As a comparison, we replace the test subject wind power plant with a conventional wind power plant (synchronous generator) and compare the results for the same faults.
From Atoms and Molecules to Information and Knowledge: New Driving Forces in Manufacturing

In the 40 years since Gordon Moore articulated his famous Moore's Law, enormous changes have taken place in all industries and particularly in the semiconductor industry. The first decade of Moore's Law, the 60's and early 70's was dominated by semiconductor process development, which gave the world the foundation devices that now empower the world through advanced communication and computation capabilities. The second decade, the late 70's and early 80's, was dominated by computer architects, who defined the memory and microprocessor devices that led to the personal computer industry. The third decade, the mid 80's to the mid 90's, saw device design as a core competency; as the ability to link millions and tens of millions of devices to make more sophisticated circuits led to vastly more sophisticated devices. The next decade, the 90's to the present time, was dominated by manufacturing, where making these great devices by the hundreds of millions became a competitive advantage, leading to advanced computing, communication and Internet capabilities. So what's next; what will emerge from this decade? The most significant attributes of the coming generations are the introduction of ever newer, lower cost, more sophisticated devices and the opening of new markets, particularly in emerging economies; consequently, there will be a major emphasis on the manufacturing domain as pressure continues to be competitive in price, quality, performance and in particular, delivery time. This paper discusses some of the major trends that will impact manufacturing, given these competitive product pressure; it seems to me that the most significant impact will be through sharing and leveraging of manufacturing-related knowledge, as process complexity increases and the work is more globally distributed. Maybe knowledge is power, but globally distributed shared knowledge is certainly GREAT power!
Cytokeratin staining for intraoperative evaluation of sentinel lymph nodes in patients with invasive lobular carcinoma.

Abstract Background Frozen section and intraoperative imprint cytology (IIC N ) are 2 methods used for intraoperative pathologic assessment of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs). The SLN evaluation of patients with invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) results in a relatively high number of false-negative results using either of these methods. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the added benefits that intraoperative immunohistochemical-cytokeratin staining (I CK-IHC ) can bring to IIC N in the evaluation of SLN in patients with ILC. Methods A total of 59 breast cancer patients with ILC underwent an SLN biopsy evaluated by our standard IIC N assessment in addition to I CK-IHC . The results of IIC N with I CK-IHC were compared with the final histopathologic assessment consisting of standard hematoxylin and eosin staining and additional cytokeratin staining of nodes. Results Intraoperative evaluation of SLN using IIC N and I CK-IHC correctly diagnosed the nodal status in 45 of 59 (76.3%) patients. On final histopathologic assessment, 31 of 59 (52.5%) patients were found to have positive nodes. Using I CK-IHC , 17 of these 31 positive cases (54.8%) were detected.Using IIC N alone, without the benefit of I CK-IHC , only 13 of 31 (41.9%) positive cases were detected intraoperatively. Conclusions For patients with ILC, I CK-IHC staining in addition to IIC N improves accuracy over using IIC N alone. In this study, I CK-IHC staining demonstrated a 12.9% improvement in the detection of SLN metastases in patients with ILC. Cytopathologists should consider employing I CK-IHC staining to evaluate the touch-imprint slides of SLN in ILC patients.
Voluntary and involuntary attention affect face discrimination differently.

Do voluntary (endogenous) and involuntary (exogenous) attention have the same perceptual consequences? Here we used fMRI to examine activity in the fusiform face area (FFA—a region in ventral visual cortex responsive to faces) and frontal–parietal areas (dorsal regions involved in spatial attention) under voluntary and involuntary spatial cueing conditions. The trial and stimulus parameters were identical for both cueing conditions. However, the cue predicted the location of an upcoming target face in the voluntary condition but was nonpredictive in the involuntary condition. The predictable cue condition led to increased activity in the FFA compared to the nonpredictable cue condition. These results show that voluntary attention leads to more activity in areas of the brain associated with face processing than involuntary attention, and they are consistent with differential behavioral effects of attention on recognition-related processes. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Optimal solutions in weakly coupled multiple decision maker Markov chains with nonclassical information

For Markov chains controlled by a team of agents there is no generally applicable method for obtaining the optimal control policy if the delay in information sharing between the agents is more than one-step. the authors consider such a problem for a Markov chain whose transition probability matrix consists of blocks, with the coupling between the blocks being on the order of epsilon , where epsilon is a small parameter. It is shown that if each block is controlled by only one agent, then it is possible to obtain policies arbitrarily close to the optimal control policy by making use of the fact that the coupling between the blocks is weak. The authors present a complete set of results for the finite-horizon case and discuss possible extensions to the finite-horizon case. >
Analysis of Semtex Explosives

Samples of the explosives Semtex H and Semtex A were analyzed to determine their composition and trace components. One Semtex H sample contained numerous impurities; the other Semtex H and Semtex A samples were unacontaminated. The results of these analyses underscore the need to analyze any explosives that are to be used for the evaluation of explosives vapor detectors.
Material Realities in the Basic Writing Classroom: Intersections of Discovery for Young Women Reading Persepolis 2

This essay focuses on how young women students in a first-year, first- quarter basic reading and writing course wrote about their connections to the process of identity development as portrayed in the graphic novel Persepolis 2: The Story of a Re- turn by Marjane Satrapi. While the circumstances of becoming a student in a required university-sanctioned remedial course in an urban Midwestern university differed greatly from Marjane's privileged education at a French lycee in Vienna, these women, not un- like Marjane, dealt with struggles against marginality and invisibility in a bureaucratic and unfamiliar environment. Exploring the correspondences of coming-of-age for both my students and the novel's main character, Marjane, I demonstrate the use of the graphic novel as a means for renegotiating students' agency and identity beyond fixed categories of gender, race, and class, as well as institutional definitions of the basic writer.
Chapter 4 Code Synchronization

A spread-spectrum receiver must generate a spreading sequence or frequency-hopping pattern that is synchronized with the received sequence or pattern; that is, the corresponding chips or dwell intervals must precisely or nearly coincide. Any misalignment causes the signal amplitude at the demodulator output to fall in accordance with the autocorrelation or partial autocorrelation function. Although the use of precision clocks in both the transmitter and the receiver limit the timing uncertainty in the receiver, clock drifts, range uncertainty, and the Doppler shift may cause synchronization problems. Code synchronization, which is either sequence or pattern synchronization, might be obtained from separately transmitted pilot or timing signals. However, to reduce the cost in power and overhead, most spread-spectrum receivers achieve code synchronization by processing the received signal.
Different Biologic Grafts for Diaphragmatic Crura Reinforcement During Laparoscopic Repair of Large Hiatal Hernia: A Six-Year Single Surgeon Experience

Background: Large hiatal hernias represent a challenge for surgeons. Biologic grafts are currently popular for the strengthening of crural closure during laparoscopic repair. This study is a retrospective review of crural reinforcement in laparoscopic repair of large hiatal hernias using various biologic grafts performed by a single surgeon in a rural community hospital. Methods: Eleven (n = 11) patients underwent laparoscopic repair of large hiatal hernia in a rural community hospital by a single surgeon from 2009 to 2015. Standard laparoscopic hiatal hernia repair was performed. Different biologic grafts were used for crural reinforcement, including “AlloMax”, “Permacol”, and “Acell MatriStem”. Perioperative data and outcomes of surgery were evaluated. Results: There were six females and five males, with a mean age of 55.4 years and a mean body mass index of 32.5. Eight patients had type III hiatal hernia, two patients had type IV, and one patient had type II. Mean operative time was 244.6 minutes, and mean length of stay was 3.3 days. Mean size of herniated stomach in the chest was 62%. Mean size of the hiatal defect was 7.7 × 6.4 cm. One perioperative complication (9%) included bleeding from left gastric artery. Early complications included shortness of breath (18%), parapneumonic effusion (18%), and early dysphagia (18%). Late complications included persistent gastroesophageal reflux (9%), gastroparesis (9%), and persistent dysphagia (9%). Radiological recurrence was 18% and clinical recurrence was 9% at mean follow-up of 15 months. Conclusions: Laparoscopic repair of large hiatal hernia could be safely performed in rural community hospitals. The choice of the biologic graft, if one is used, should be at the discretion of the surgeon. The cost and availability of the biologic graft are important in decision-making. J Curr Surg. 2016;6(1):6-13 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jcs287w
Socioeconomic factors and admission policies do not influence time to procedure or outcome in patients presenting with acute appendicitis

Admission policies or socioeconomic factors do not adversely affect time to theatre, outcome or follow up in patients undergoing appendicectomies.
Traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of traumatic death and disability In the US, a brain injury occurs every 7 s and results in death every 5 min ∼52,000 patients die from TBI each year TBI accounts for nearly one-third of all trauma-related deaths Common mechanisms include falls, motor vehicle accidents, and assaults In the US, most TBIs are related to motor vehicle accidents Estimate for annual financial cost of direct TBI medical care is ∼$50 billion
A Program of Training in Chemical Pathology for Residents in Pathology

We have developed a new program of instruction in chemical pathology for residents in pathology. The major features that differentiate this new program from its predecessor are: first, an emphasis on principles rather than technical details of biochemical analysis; second, didactic instruction and practical experience in laboratory management and administration; and, third, instruction in interpretation and selection of laboratory tests. The organization, content, instructional approaches and learning objectives are described.
The Duplication of Viewing Law and Television Media Schedule Evaluation

Patterns of television audience duplication (overlap of audiences between media vehicles) in the United States are found to be more complex than those in the United Kingdom. A new model of duplicat...
Hell to pay: Religion and punitive ideology among the American public:

Historically, religious frameworks—particularly conceptions of evil—have been tied to attitudes about criminal behavior and its corresponding punishment, yet views of transcendent evil have not bee...
C’mon, CAM

> “All who drink of this remedy are cured, except those who die. Thus, it is effective for all but the incurable.” > > — Galen > “I didn’t say it was good for you,” the king replied. “I said there was nothing like it.” > > — Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass > “What I tell you three times is true.” > > — Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark I’m a fan of Monday night football. A feature introduced in the past year or so has been “c’mon, man,” showing dramatically bad plays. Increasingly I’ve come to think about so-called “complementary and alternative medicine,” (CAM) this way1,2,3,4. It would make my “c’mon, man” list if I were compiling medicine’s (or perhaps more correctly, society’s) “do-overs.” Why? And is there really nothing currently that might be of interest? Let’s briefly examine certain recent literature about CAM and rheumatic disease, after which I will expand on my comments and elaborate. Briefly, type II collagen therapy has not emerged as clinically useful, despite a rationale to examine this5. Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F (the thunder god vine) appeared promising for rheumatic disease and was studied; while there was clinical benefit, side effects and costs precluded development for widespread use6,7,8. Intraarticular botulinum toxin was suggested for refractory pain following knee arthroplasty9, and has been reported for tendonitis10. Antibiotics may indeed have a role for some patients with Chlamydia-induced reactive arthritis11. Clarithromycin helped a patient with adult-onset Still disease12. Pulsed electrical stimulation remained disappointing for knee osteoarthritis (OA)13. Low-intensity ultrasound is being studied for knee OA14. Yoga15,16, tai chi17, massage18, and manipulation19 may help some patients with OA and back and neck pain. Classic Ayurvedic medicine can be formally studied20 … Address correspondence to Dr. Panush; E-mail: panush{at}usc.edu
Changing Uniforms A Study of the Perspectives of Law Enforcement Officers With and Without Different Military Background on the Effects of Combat Deployment on Policing

Most academic attention regarding military influence on policing has focused on critiques of the military model of policing and police militarization and has neglected to examine the relationship b...
Detection and inactivation of saxitoxin in skim milk.

In this study, saxitoxin dihydrochloride in skim milk was reacted with sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide to yield nontoxic 8-amino-6-hydroxymethyl-iminopurine-3(2H)-propionic acid (AHIPA), which was quantified by fluorescence spectroscopy using excitation and emission wavelengths of 330 and 425 nm, respectively. Samples of saxitoxin dihydrochloride (in 20% ethanol, vol/vol) were used as controls. The limits of detection of AHIPA, based on the concentration of saxitoxin prior to inactivation, were 5 and 10 μg/ml for the control and skim milk, respectively. These values are considerably below the concentration of saxitoxin that corresponds to the lethal dosage of 1 mg for an adult of average weight (70 kg). The inactivation of saxitoxin proceeded at a lower rate in skim milk than in the control, as its reaction rate constant was only 0.004 min−1 compared with 0.011 min−1 for the control. We were unable to detect AHIPA in 2% milk contaminated with saxitoxin because of possible interference from what we ...
Development of antioxidant additives in low carbon MgO-C brick

In order to improve the oxidation resistance of low carbon MgO-C brick,the effect of the addition of Al,Si and B4C on the oxidation behavior was investigated in the present work.The weight losses of samples during heating were determined by thermogrameter and the thicknesses of samples after oxidation test were measured.Moreover,the operational mechanism of the additives was discussed and an additive proposal for low carbon MgO-C brick was proposed.The results show that compared with Al and Si,the addition of B4C can improve the oxidation resistance of low carbon MgO-C brick efficiently.The low carbon MgO-C brick with B4C addition has excellent oxidation resistance.It is expected that this kind of brick has good slag resistance and thermal shock resistance,and it can meet the industrial requirement.
Logistic Regression in a Dynamic Bayes Net Models Multiple Subskills Better

A single student step in an intelligent tutor may involve multiple subskills. Conventional approaches either sidestep this problem, model the step as using only its least known subskill, or treat the subskills as necessary and probabilistically independent. In contrast, we use logistic regression in a Dynamic Bayes Net (LR-DBN) to trace the multiple subskills. We compare these three types of models on a published data set from a cognitive tutor. LR-DBN fits the data significantly better, with only half as many prediction errors on unseen data.
From Human Mobility to Data Mobility: Leveraging Spatiotemporal History in Device-to-Device Information Diffusion

Supporting mobile applications in densely populated environments requires connecting mobile users and their devices with the surrounding digital landscape. Device-to-device communications (without the support of an infrastructure) will play a critical role in facilitating transparent access to proximate digital resources. A variety of approaches exist to support device-to-device dissemination, yet very few capitalize on the contextual history of disseminated data itself to distribute additional data. We introduce a fully decentralized model that captures the causal history of shared information across a lifetime of device-to-device propagation. Our approach enhances each transmitted message with a spatiotemporal trajectory, a portion of the message's contextual history, which provides a window into the time-varying state of the network and the overall spreading behavior of the message. We benchmark the performance of spatiotemporal trajectories at a global level and demonstrate the practical utility of our constructs for making intelligent distributed routing decisions through two use cases. The first illustrates how locally-available contextual history may be used to make inferences about remote nodes' knowledge and thus direct routing of future messages. The second example uses trajectories from different types of data to identify commonly co-located data and devices, which can then be used as substitutable routing targets.
AWARD: Approximation-aWAre Restore in Further Scaling DRAM

DRAM further scaling becomes more and more challenging, making restore operation an serious issue in the near future. Fortunately, a wide range of modern applications are able to tolerate error or inexactness, providing a new dimension to mitigate the slow-restore issue. And thus, we can trade-off acceptable QoS loss in those applications to accelerate restore operations, and further to achieve performance and energy improvements. In this extended research abstract, we briefly explore DRAM restore-based approximate computing, and present a preliminary evaluation on impacts of quality-of-service (QoS) degradation and performance speedup. We show that restore-based approximate computing is a challenging work, and dedicated error correction/tolerance techniques are needed to balance QoS and performance.
The causes of death of emergency patients in Xi'an Children's Hospital from 2009 to 2010

Objective To analyze the change of disease spectrum and the direct cause of death in Xi'an Children's Hospital emergency patients in the past 2 years.Methods The cases of death in 130 emergency cases from 2009 to 2010 were retrospectively analyzed.Results The main causes of death in 2009 were pneumonia,congenital heart disease,asphyxia,neonatal pulmonary hemorrhage and intracranial hemorrhage.Meanwhile,The main cause of death in 2010 were pneumonia,asphyxia,viral encephalitis,congenital heart disease and neonatal pulmonary hemorrhage,which significantly changed compared with 2009.Major direct causes of death were found:respiratory failure in 25 cases (27.5％),heart failure in 17 patients ( 18.7％ ),shock in 17patients ( 18.7％ ),asphyxia in 16 cases ( 17.5％ ),and hernia in 16 cases ( 17.5％ ),Conclusion In order to reduce the mortality rate of emergency patients,we should strengthen health care,actively manage pulmonary infection,systemic infection,and shock,control heart failure,and prevent aspiration. Key words: Emergency; Death disease spectrum; Children
Characterization and reversal of Doxorubicin-mediated biphasic activation of ERK and persistent excitability in sensory neurons of Aplysia californica

Doxorubicin (DOX), a common chemotherapeutic agent, impairs synaptic plasticity. DOX also causes a persistent increase in basal neuronal excitability, which occludes serotonin-induced enhanced excitability. Therefore, we sought to characterize and reverse DOX-induced physiological changes and modulation of molecules implicated in memory induction using sensory neurons from the marine mollusk Aplysia californica. DOX produced two mechanistically distinct phases of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activation, an early and a late phase. Inhibition of MEK (mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/ERK kinase) after DOX treatment reversed the late ERK activation. MEK inhibition during treatment enhanced the late ERK activation possibly through prolonged downregulation of MAPK phosphatase-1 (MKP-1). Unexpectedly, the late ERK activation negatively correlated with excitability. MEK inhibition during DOX treatment simultaneously enhanced the late activation of ERK and blocked the increase in basal excitability. In summary, we report DOX-mediated biphasic activation of ERK and the reversal of the associated changes in neurons, a potential strategy for reversing the deleterious effects of DOX treatment.
Resource allocation based on imprecise information

The main objective of this work is to develop a methodology for risk management in a distributed system. Security is a very important issue when different users have potential access to operations of various databases of a system. There are benefits and risks involved in allowing these accesses overtime. Assuming that the probability of a user being hostile may be crisp or fuzzy is partially known, we implement fuzzy linear programming to maximize the benefits while keeping the loss under a certain fuzzy limit within the time allocation for each user. Furthermore, we develop an approach using fuzzy cognitive map to help estimate the probability of the user being hostile. In the paper, we use a specific model for simplicity in illustrating our methodology but the model can be extended to general problems of allocation of resources in a highly sensitive information distributed system such as online banking.
Achieving a healthy zoning policy in Baltimore: results of a health impact assessment of the TransForm Baltimore zoning code rewrite.

Objectives.The social determinants of health (SDH) include factors apart from genes and biology that affect population health. Zoning is an urban planning tool that influences neighborhood built en...
Bringing interactive visual analytics to the classroom for developing EDA skills

This paper addresses the use of visual analytics in education for teaching Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) skills. EDA is inherently a creative, knowledge discovery process that often takes place before formal technical statistical analyses. A challenge in teaching EDA is that there is often no right nor wrong way to conduct EDA, yet, given a dataset, some EDA can be more comprehensive or insightful than others, based on the kinds of insights made. Also, in the face of high-dimensional data, students are often limited by how they relate to the data and their technical skills for EDA. How can students make complex insights from high-dimensional data, if they do not have the technical skills to explore the data from multiple, highdimensional perspectives? In this paper, we use our own tool called Andromeda that enables human-computer interaction with a common, easy to interpret visualization method called Weighted Multidimensional Scaling (WMDS) to promote the idea of making complex insights. We present Andromeda and report findings from a series of classroom assignments to 18 graduate students. These assignments progress from spreadsheet manipulations to statistical software such as R and finally to the use of Andromeda. In parallel with the assignments, we saw students' cognitive dimensionality (CD) begin low and improve.
Lattice Functions for the Analysis of Analgo-to-Digital Conversion

Analog-to-digital (A/D) converters are the common interface between analog signals and the domain of digital discrete-time signal processing. In essence, this domain simultaneously incorporates quantization both in amplitude and time, i.e. amplitude quantization and uniform time sampling. Thus, we view A/D conversion as a sampling process in both the time and amplitude domains based on the observation that the underlying continuous-time signals representing digital sequences can be sampled in a lattice---i.e. at points restricted to lie on a uniform grid both in time and amplitude. We refer to them as lattice functions. This is in contrast with the traditional approach based on the classical sampling theorem and quantization error analysis. The latter has been mainly addressed with the help of probabilistic models, or deterministic ones either confined to very particular scenarios or considering worst-case assumptions. In this paper, we provide a deterministic theoretical analysis and framework for the functions involved in digital discrete-time processing. We show that lattice functions possess a rich analytic structure in the context of integral-valued entire functions of exponential type. We derive set and spectral properties of this class of functions. This allows us to prove in a deterministic way and for general bandlimited functions a fundamental lower bound on the maximum frequency component introduced by quantization that is independent of the resolution of the quantizer.
A General-Purpose Preconditioner for Method of Moments Matrices and a Novel Approach to Resolving the Low Frequency Breakdown Problem

This paper presents a general-purpose preconditioner for Method of Moments (MoM) matrices to speed up iterative solutions of the same. The proposed preconditioner is constructed by inverting a sparsified version of the impedance matrix, which is found to retain all the important singular values of the original impedance matrix. The preconditioner is shown to significantly reduce the number of iterations while using an iterative solver such as Generalized Minimal Residual (GMRES). We test the efficacy of the preconditioner for a variety of ill-conditioned MoM problems, including those arising from internal resonance and non-uniform meshing of multiscale problems. Additionally, we show that a further speedup of the convergence can be achieved, without compromising the accuracy, by using an alternative convergence criterion. Finally, the problem of ill-conditioning arising from the low-frequency breakdown problem is also examined, and a novel strategy for handling such problems is proposed as an alternative to using the loop-star basis function.
Progression of atherosclerosis versus arterial stiffness with age within and between arteries in systemic lupus erythematosus.

The progression of atherosclerosis versus arterial stiffness with age within and between arteries has not been defined. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a human model of accelerated arterial disease that may permit this determination. 76 SLE patients (69 women, age 37 ± 12 years) and 26 age-and-sex-matched controls (22 women, age 34 ± 11 years) underwent transesophageal echocardiography and carotid ultrasonography for assessment of atherosclerosis [plaques and intima–media thickening (IMT)] and arterial stiffness [increased pressure-strain elastic modulus (PSEM)] of the descending thoracic aorta and carotid arteries. Since IMT is highly associated with plaques, IMT was used as a marker of atherosclerosis to assess its progression in relation with age and PSEM. Aortic and carotid plaques, IMT, and PSEM were greater in patients than in controls (all p ≤ 0.05). Within the aorta and within the carotid arteries, the average percent increases per decade of age for IMT versus PSEM were similar in patients (8.55% versus 9.33% and 3.39% versus 2.46%, respectively) and controls (5.53% versus 6.60% and 4.75% versus 3.49%, respectively) (all p ≥ 0.58). However, in SLE patients, the average percent increases per decade of age for IMT and PSEM were higher in the aorta than in the carotid arteries (8.55% and 9.33% versus 3.39% and 2.46%, respectively, both p ≤ 0.03). In patients with SLE, atherosclerosis and arterial stiffness progress with age parallel to each other within arteries, but divergently between arteries with different anatomy and hemodynamics.
Isolation, Structure, and Total Synthesis of the Marine Macrolide Mangrolide D

The isolation, characterization, and total synthesis of the macrocyclic polyene mangrolide D is reported. A 16-step total synthesis relies on robust Suzuki and ring-closing metathesis reactions, and an iron-catalyzed hydroazidation of an exomethylene substituted tetrahydropyran as a key step for the synthesis of the appended 4- epi-vancosamine sugar. Although mangrolide D did not display antibiotic activity, this work should prove enabling toward the synthesis of the antitubercular tiacumicins which display a virtually identical macrocyclic backbone.
'RNA circles of influence' in Kaposi sarcoma.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are increasingly implicated in different biological processes. A recent report by Tagawa et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A [2018] investigates the circRNAs expressed following infection by Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV). We discuss the proposed biological functions of such circRNAs in enhancing or repressing virulence, as well as the possible utility of subsets of circRNAs in antiviral therapy.
Asymmetric copper-catalyzed

The asymmetric copper-catalyzed generation and subsequent [2,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement of sulfur ylides is strongly dependent on the structure of the starting allyl sulfide. A series of alkyl and aryl substituted allyl sulfides (2a−i) were reacted with ethyl diazoacetate in the presence of copper triflate (CuOTf) and a C2-symmetric bis-oxazoline ligand (5a−c). The degree of asymmetric induction ranged from 2.8% for allyl methyl sulfide (2a) to 60% for (1S,2S,5R)-(+)-allyl menthyl sulfide (2d). The enantioselectivity of the reactions was also dependent on the electronic nature of the sulfide; allyl phenyl sulfide (2e) gave a 14% ee, whereas allyl p-methoxyphenyl sulfide (2i) produced only an 8% ee. The stereochemistry of 2d and (1R,2S,5R)-(+)-allyl menthyl sulfide (7) was assigned on the basis of NMR spectroscopic experiments.
Comprehensive Analysis of Three-phase Three-level T-type Neutral-Point-Clamped Inverter with Hybrid Switch Combination

This paper comprehensively evaluates three space-vector-modulation (SVM) schemes on a novel three-phase hybrid-switch-based 3-level T-type neutral-point-clamped (3L-TNPC) inverter, regarding switching loss, neutral point balancing and EMI spectrum. The switching loss analysis based on the double-pulse test (DPT) are completed, revealing the loss characters of each switch in 3L-TNPC. Based on the loss and EMI characters, three kinds of SVMs are proposed, analyzed and compared. The optimal SVM is then selected based on comparison.
Disruption of the OLE ribonucleoprotein complex causes magnesium toxicity in Bacillus halodurans

OLE RNAs represent an unusual class of bacterial noncoding RNAs common in Gram-positive anaerobes. The OLE RNA of the alkaliphile Bacillus halodurans is highly expressed and naturally interacts with at least two RNA-binding proteins called OapA and OapB. The phenotypes of the corresponding knockouts include growth inhibition when exposed to ethanol or other short-chain alcohols or when incubated at modestly reduced temperatures (e.g. 20°C). Intriguingly, the OapA 'PM1' mutant, which carries two amino acid changes to a highly conserved region, yields a dominant-negative phenotype that causes more severe growth defects under these same stress conditions. Herein, we report that the PM1 strain also exhibits extreme sensitivity to elevated Mg2+ concentrations, beginning as low as 2 mM. Suppressor mutants predominantly map to genes for aconitate hydratase and isocitrate dehydrogenase, which are expected to alter cellular citrate concentrations. Citrate reduces the severity of the Mg2+ toxicity phenotype, but neither the genomic mutations nor the addition of citrate to the medium overcomes ethanol toxicity or temperature sensitivity. These findings reveal that OLE RNA and its protein partners are involved in biochemical responses under several stress conditions, wherein the unusual sensitivity to Mg2+ can be independently suppressed by specific genomic mutations.
Generating Light from Darkness

Summary A large fraction of the world's population still lacks access to electricity, particularly at night when photovoltaic systems no longer operate. The ability to generate electricity at night could be a fundamentally enabling capability for a wide range of applications, including lighting and low-power sensors. Here, we demonstrate a low-cost strategy to harness the cold of space through radiative cooling to generate electricity with an off-the-shelf thermoelectric generator. Unlike traditional thermoelectric generators, our device couples the cold side of the thermoelectric module to a sky-facing surface that radiates heat to the cold of space and has its warm side heated by the surrounding air, enabling electricity generation at night. We experimentally demonstrate 25 mW/m2 of power generation and validate a model that accurately captures the device's performance. Further, we show that the device can directly power a light emitting diode, thereby generating light from the darkness of space itself.
Modeling massive spatial datasets using a conjugate Bayesian linear modeling framework

Abstract Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related technologies have generated substantial interest among statisticians with regard to scalable methodologies for analyzing large spatial datasets. A variety of scalable spatial process models have been proposed that can be easily embedded within a hierarchical modeling framework to carry out Bayesian inference. While the focus of statistical research has mostly been directed toward innovative and more complex model development, relatively limited attention has been accorded to approaches for easily implementable scalable hierarchical models for the practicing scientist or spatial analyst. This article discusses how point-referenced spatial process models can be cast as a conjugate Bayesian linear regression that can rapidly deliver inference on spatial processes. The approach allows exact sampling directly (avoids iterative algorithms such as Markov chain Monte Carlo) from the joint posterior distribution of regression parameters, the latent process and the predictive random variables, and can be easily implemented on statistical programming environments such as R .
Systemic hypoxia led to little retinal neuronal loss and dramatic optic nerve glial response

Abstract Vision loss is a devastating consequence of systemic hypoxia, but the cellular mechanisms are unclear. We investigated the impact of acute hypoxia in the retina and optic nerve. We induced systemic hypoxia (10% O2) in 6-8w mice for 48 h and performed in vivo imaging using optical coherence tomography (OCT) at baseline and after 48 h to analyze structural changes in the retina and optic nerve. We analyzed glial cellular and molecular changes by histology and immunofluorescence and the impact of pretreatment with 4-phenylbutyric acid (4-PBA) in oligodendroglia survival. After 48 h hypoxia, we found no change in ganglion cell complex thickness and no loss of retinal ganglion cells. Despite this, there was significantly increased expression of CCAAT-enhancer-binding protein homologous protein (CHOP), a marker of endoplasmic reticulum stress, in the retina and optic nerve. In addition, hypoxia induced obvious increase of GFAP expression in the anterior optic nerve, where it co-localized with CHOP, and significant loss of Olig2+ oligodendrocytes. Pretreatment with 4-PBA, which has been shown to reduce endoplasmic reticulum stress, rescued total Olig2+ oligodendrocytes and increased the pool of mature (CC-1+) but not of immature (PDGFRa+) oligodendrocytes. Consistent with a selective vulnerability of the retina and optic nerve in hypoxia, the most striking changes in the 48 h murine model of hypoxia were in glial cells in the optic nerve, including increased CHOP expression in the astrocytes and loss of oligodendrocytes. Our data support a model where glial dysfunction is among the earliest events in systemic hypoxia – suggesting that glia may be a novel target in treatment of hypoxia.
Boron availability and uptake in huanglongbing-affected citrus trees on a Florida entisol

Florida sandy soils, particularly, Entisols are low in boron (B) and occasionally have B deficiency for citrus. A study was set-up at Citrus Research and Education Center, Lake Alfred, Florida, on ...
Student Education About Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Varies Between Regions of the United States

Daily, oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an effective and safe prevention strategy for people at risk for HIV. However, prescription of PrEP has been limited for patients at the highest risk. Disparities in PrEP prescription are pronounced among racial and gender minority patients. A significant body of literature indicates that practicing healthcare providers have little awareness and knowledge of PrEP. Very little work has investigated the education about PrEP among health professionals in training. The objective of this study was to compare health professions students’ awareness of PrEP and education about PrEP between regions of the US, and to determine if correlations between regional HIV incidence and PrEP use were present. Survey study. A cross-sectional sample of health professions students (N = 1859) representing future prescribers (MD, DO, PA), pharmacists, and nurses in the US. Overall, 83.4% of students were aware of PrEP, but only 62.2% of fourth-year students indicated they had been taught about PrEP at any time during their training. Education about PrEP was most comprehensive in the Northeastern US, the area with the highest PrEP to need ratio (4.7). In all regions, transgender patients and heterosexual men and women were least likely to be presented in education as PrEP candidates, and men who have sex with men were the most frequently presented. There are marked differences in education regarding PrEP both between academic programs and regions of the USA.