cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Effects of Livestock Grazing on Forest Habitats

The presettlement landscape of the Midwest was a mosaic of prairie, woodland and savanna (Ebinger, Chapter 1, and Robertson et al., Chapter 2, this volume). Today, row crops and pasture dominate this landscape, and native vegetation occurs mostly as woodland along streams or on terrain too steep to plow. Although some remnants of native vegetation are protected in parks or nature preserves, these mostly occur as small and scattered islands. Although protected areas are central to strategies for protecting rare species and communities, a large land base is required to maintain regional biotas, ecological dynamics, and potential for range adjustment and evolution. (Noss and Cooperrider 1994). In the Midwest this land base of natural habitats is privately owned. For example, small, privately owned woodlands (including farm woodlands) account for about 70% of all land remaining in native vegetation in Illinois (Neely and Heister 1987, Iverson 1989). For this reason, privately owned woodlands, including those used for grazing, are a major element in long-term conservation in the Midwest, and farm activities that affect woodland habitat function deserve specific attention.
The Usefulness of Electromyography (EMG) in Botulinum Toxin Treatment of Cervical Dystonia

Electromyography (EMG) serves as a supplement to the clinical examination. Traditional EMG techniques, by displaying the electrical activity of muscle, permit precise localization and identification of muscles not easily palpated from the surface. A more recently developed EMG technique, Turns analysis, allows a quantitative assessment of muscle activity.
Adaptive overload control for busy internet servers

As Internet services become more popular and pervasive, a critical problem that arises is managing the performance of services under extreme overload. This paper presents a set of techniques for managing overload in complex, dynamic Internet services. These techniques are based on an adaptive admission control mechanism that attempts to bound the 90th-percentile response time of requests flowing through the service. This is accomplished by internally monitoring the performance of the service, which is decomposed into a set of event-driven stages connected with request queues. By controlling the rate at which each stage admits requests, the service can perform focused overload management, for example, by filtering only those requests that lead to resource bottlenecks. We present two extensions of this basic controller that provide class-based service differentiation as well as application-specific service degradation. We evaluate these mechanisms using a complex Web-based e-mail service that is subjected to a realistic user load, as well as a simpler Web server benchmark.
The Economics of Kenneth J. Arrow: A Selective Review

This article reviews Kenneth Arrow's seminal work in economics, giving special emphasis to his contributions to social choice theory and general equilibrium theory.
Let Me Tell You About Burning the Midnight Oil: A Gendered Effect on Status Conferral

We extend our knowledge of status by drawing on costly signaling theory. We propose that strategic boasts of sleep deprivation, defined as talking about one’s lack of sleep with the intention of en...
Ethics for Laboratory Medicine

BACKGROUND: Laboratory medicine, like other areas of medicine, is obliged to adhere to high ethical standards. There are particular ethical issues that are unique to laboratory medicine and other areas in which ethical issues uniquely impact laboratory practice. Despite this, there is variability in ethics education within the profession. This review provides a foundation for the study of ethics within laboratory medicine. CONTENT: The Belmont Report identifies 3 core principles in biomedical ethics: respect for persons (including autonomy), beneficence (and its corollary nonmalfeasance), and justice. These core principles must be adhered to in laboratory medicine. Informed consent is vital to maintain patient autonomy. However, balancing patient autonomy with the desire for beneficence can sometimes be difficult when patients refuse testing or treatment. The use of leftover or banked samples is fundamental to the ability to do research, create reference intervals, and develop new tests, but it creates problems with consent. Advances in genetic testing have created unique ethical issues regarding privacy, incidental findings, and informed consent. As in other professions, the emergence of highly contagious and deadly infectious diseases poses a difficult ethical dilemma of helping patients while protecting healthcare workers. CONCLUSIONS: Although many clinical laboratorians do not see or treat patients, they must be held accountable to the highest ethical and professional behavior. Recognition and understanding of ethical issues are essential to ethical practice of laboratory medicine.
Prognostic Understanding, Quality of Life, and Mood in Patients Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Background: In advanced cancers, patients9 prognostic perceptions influence their medical decisions. However, little is known about how patients with hematologic malignancies undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) and their family caregivers (FC) understand their prognosis. We examined prognostic understanding in these patients and their FC during hospitalization for HCT and its relationship with quality of life (QOL) and mood. Methods: We conducted a longitudinal study of patients hospitalized for HCT and their FC. At baseline (6 days pre-HCT), we used a 10-item questionnaire to measure patients9 and FC information preferences and perception of prognosis. We also asked oncologists to estimate the patients9 prognosis. At day-6, day+1, day+8 of HCT, we assessed QOL (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Bone Marrow Transplantation (FACT-BMT)), and mood (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale). We evaluated the relationship between participants9 prognostic understanding and their QOL and mood during hospitalization for HCT using multivariable linear mixed models. Results: We enrolled 97% of consecutively eligible patients undergoing autologous (n=30), myeloablative (n=30) or reduced intensity (n=30) allogeneic HCT. Most patients (80/90, 88.9%) and FC (41/47, 87.1%) believed that it is extremely or very important to know about prognosis. However, the majority of patients (66/85, 77.6%) and FC (33/46, 71.7%) reported an inaccurate and more optimistic perception of the patients9 prognosis compared to the oncologist (P Conclusions: The majority of patients and FC reported inaccurate and more optimistic perception of prognosis compared with the oncologist. Patients with an accurate perception of their prognosis had lower QOL, higher rates of depression, and worsening depression symptoms during hospitalization for HCT. Interventions are needed to improve prognostic understanding, while providing them with the psychosocial support they need to cope with this difficult information. Disclosures Off Label Use: Sorafenib for FLT3-ITD AML.
Marine biofilm bacterial community response and carbon steel loss following Deepwater Horizon spill contaminant exposure.

Steel marine structures provide foci of biodiversity when they develop into artificial reefs. Development begins with deposition of a biofilm. The effects of contaminants from oil spills on biofilm...
Gringolandia: lifestyle migration under late capitalism

A lot of research has focused on South-North international migration, but less on North-South migration. Matthew Hayes examines the impacts of lifestyle migrants who have recently migrated to Cuenc...
The Attending Mind

An ancient metaphor likens attention to an archer pulling her bow - the self directing her mind through attention. Yet both the existence of such a self, and the impact of attention on the mind, have been debated for millennia. Advancements in science mean that we now have a better understanding of what attention is and how it works, but philosophers and scientists remain divided as to its impact on the mind. This book takes a strong stance: attention is the key to the self, consciousness, perception, action, and knowledge. While it claims that we cannot perceive novel stimuli without attention, it argues that we can act on and experience the world without attention. It thus provides a new way of thinking about the mind - as something that can either shape itself through attention or engage with the world as it is given, relying on its habits and skills.
Carbon stock losses and recovery observed for a mangrove ecosystem following a major hurricane in Southwest Florida

Abstract Studies integrating mangrove in-situ observations and remote sensing analysis for specific sites often lack precise estimates of carbon stocks over time frames that include disturbance events. This study quantifies change in mangrove area from 1985 to 2018 with Landsat time series analysis, estimates above and belowground stored carbon using field data, and evaluates aboveground carbon stock changes after the 2004 Category 4, Hurricane Charley, in J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Two allometric equation methods yielding similar results were used to estimate aboveground carbon content in three mangrove species found in the refuge. Aboveground carbon contained 67 (SE = 2) MgC ha−1 with a total refuge estimate of 74,504 MgC in 2018. Sediment contained 259 (SE = 28) MgC ha−1 for a total of 288,008 MgC in the refuge. The initial reduction in mangrove area caused by Hurricane Charley was between 0.6% and 5.3%, equivalent to between 427 MgC and 3,599 MgC under three different scenarios of carbon loss. As a result of the hurricane, approximately 61 ha of mangroves were disturbed, of which 24 ha had recovered by 2018, with 37 ha (~3% of the pre-hurricane mangrove area) still not recovered 14 years after the event. The 37 ha of mangroves that have not recovered are located in a tidally restricted area of the refuge. A longer recovery time in this area will likely result in a greater loss of carbon storage than in the rest of the refuge.
The Frailty of the Strong Executive

This essay reflects on the contemporaneous empowerment of the executive branch under the Trump administration with regard to other branches of government, as well as the disempowerment of the nation's bureacracy. We argue that this combination leads to a simultaneously unfettered, yet feeble executive that has little oversight, yet is routinely ineffective. We explore how tensions in organizational and political theory with regard to private and public governance have presaged this administrative move. This essay concludes by discussing why elite actors might support such an unencumbered, yet ineffective executive.
An even-handed debate? The sexed/gendered controversy over laterality genes in British psychology, 1970s–1990s:

This article provides insight into the entwinement of the allegedly neutral category of handedness with questions of sex/gender, reproduction, dis/ability, and scientific authority. In the 1860s, P...
Eriksen's two-phase model of spatial selective attention: Physiological evidence of trial-mixing-dependent response inhibition.

The early work of Charles W. Eriksen and colleagues provided us with both the flanker task and the concepts of response competition and continuous flow. The model of the flanker task that Eriksen and colleagues developed also includes the idea that processing occurs in two phases and the specific claim that pro-active response inhibition is employed to prevent errors under certain conditions. We first replicated and extended the behavioral evidence that motivated this specific claim and then tested it using a variety of physiological measures. We verified the prediction of Eriksen’s Two-Phase Model of Spatial Selective Attention using the lateralized readiness potential and contingent negative variation. We also clarified a detail of the model using electromyographic activity and response force. We note that this contribution of Charles W. Eriksen has not received the attention that it deserves and that several recent models might need to be revised in light of Eriksen’s work.
Control System Diagrams

Experimental investigation and engineering work often involve forcing a parameter, which is otherwise undetermined or does not have the desired value, to track a reference to a specified degree of accuracy. A common approach is to use a feedback control system (FCS). The ideas involved are illustrated in Fig. 1.1 on p. 5. Some physical process is taking place in the system of interest, called theplant.Under ideal conditions, in the absence of control the output of the plant would be constant. In reality, because of changes in temperature and other environmental parameters, and because of noise intrinsic to the plant, the output changes with time. Generally, the overall plant output can be regarded as a sum between the “pure” (and steady) output and a disturbance. Because of the fluctuating disturbance, the plant output is designated asfree-running.In practice, the “pure” plant output cannot be measured independently of the disturbance. In fact, the only measurable quantity at the plant output is the free-running output, and therefore the distinction between the “pure” output, the disturbance and the free-running output is purely academic.
Deep Transfer Learning for Automated Intestinal Bleeding Detection in Capsule Endoscopy Imaging

Purpose: The objective of this paper was to develop a computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) tools for automated analysis of capsule endoscopic (CE) images, more precisely, detect small intestinal abnormalities like bleeding. Methods: In particular, we explore a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based deep learning framework to identify bleeding and non-bleeding CE images, where a pre-trained AlexNet neural network is used to train a transfer learning CNN that carries out the identification. Moreover, bleeding zones in a bleeding-identified image are also delineated using deep learning-based semantic segmentation that leverages a SegNet deep neural network. Results: To evaluate the performance of the proposed framework, we carry out experiments on two publicly available clinical datasets and achieve a 98.49% and 88.39% F1 score, respectively, on the capsule endoscopy.org and KID datasets. For bleeding zone identification, 94.42% global accuracy and 90.69% weighted intersection over union (IoU) are achieved. Conclusion: Finally, our performance results are compared to other recently developed state-of-the-art methods, and consistent performance advances are demonstrated in terms of performance measures for bleeding image and bleeding zone detection. Relative to the present and established practice of manual inspection and annotation of CE images by a physician, our framework enables considerable annotation time and human labor savings in bleeding detection in CE images, while providing the additional benefits of bleeding zone delineation and increased detection accuracy. Moreover, the overall cost of CE enabled by our framework will also be much lower due to the reduction of manual labor, which can make CE affordable for a larger population.
Representation of Women in Ophthalmology Receiving Private Industry Funding 2015-2018.

Abstract Purpose To report the representation of female ophthalmologists receiving private industry funding from 2015 through 2018 and compare to previously observed trends. Design Retrospective, comparative trend study Methods Setting: United States of America Study Population: U.S. ophthalmologists listed in CMS Open Payments Database Procedures: Data were reviewed for payments for research, consulting, honoraria, industry grants, faculty and speakers, royalties, and services other than consulting. Main Outcomes and Measures: Primary outcome measure was percentage of female representation compared to male in each sub-category of payment. Results The percentage of female, board-certified ophthalmologists who practiced in the United States ranged from 21.3% and 24.1%. The total number of reported ophthalmologists with industry ties ranged from 1,629 to 1,873 of whom between 17.2% and 19.4% were women. Women received significantly less industry compensation by than men in 2015 (median average $3273 vs $4825, p=.003), 2016 ($3600 vs $4750, p=.023), 2017 ($2493 vs $3500, p=.013), and 2018 ($2000 vs $3000, p=.011). Women remained underrepresented in receiving payments for research (ranging from 5.4% of total paid for research to 8.0%), consulting (11%-17.4%), honoraria (6%-14.9%), industry grants (4%-41.2%), royalties and licenses (0.1%-10.2%), faculty and speakers (11.6%-16.4%), and services other than consulting (8.4%-28.9%). Compared to 2013-2014, an increasing proportion of women received industry payments for consulting (P=.012), honoraria (P=.007), royalties and licenses (P=.019), faculty and speakers (P=.007), and services other than consulting (P=.007). Conclusions Female ophthalmologists remain underrepresented in terms of the percentage of women who receive private industry funding and dollar value of the funding.
Ordinary Care in Extraordinary Worlds: Murakami and Decentered Care in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a magical realist novel by renown Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami. The structures of the novel are integral to Murakami’s canon as they are found throughout his works. The novel’s focus on gender explores not only violence that women experience but also poses women in significant powerful roles. The relationships between men and women are framed as being struggles of power. This paper analyzes the protagonist, Toru Okada, and his relationship with his wife, Kumiko Okada, as a negotiation of care theory. Using Joan Tronto’s exploration of care as a societal motivator, I will examine how the care within the novel subverts traditional ideas of care. Toru and Kumiko have a relationship in which Kumiko is in control of their welfare, and her abandonment of Toru results with him struggling with guilt over whether he properly cared for Kumiko. The essay contends that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle demonstrates a version of care that is subversive. The care between Toru and Kumiko up-ends gendered views of care and posits care as something that is liberatory. Care is forceful, and it is that forcefulness which binds Toru and Kumiko together.
Legal Responsibility Among the Young and the Elderly

The decision of whether to hold someone legally responsible raises both philosophical and psychological questions. Philosophically, legal responsibility derives from either what someone did or who ...
Structure of Transfer RNAs: Listing of 150 Additional Sequences

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the structure of transfer RNAs: listing of 150 additional sequences. The structure of various tRNAs can be organized in a manner to yield common nucleotide “positions” in the cloverleaf structure of the most tRNAs. To achieve this, “subpositions” of residues 17 (17: 1, 17 : 2) and 20 (20 : 1, 20 : 2, 20 : 3) in the dihydrouridine loop and residue 47 (47 : 1, 47 : 2, etc.) in the variable loop are introduced. Using this numbering scheme, each tRNA yields a structure with common “invariable” or “conserved” nucleotide positions. The chapter discusses in addition to “sub positions,” “invariable” (A, C, G, or U), and “semi conserved” (R, which is A or G; Y, which is C or U; G or C) positions found in most tRNA sequences. tRNA sequences have been grouped according to their origins (sequences published in the earlier listing are indicated by sequence code numbers in italics). An Arabic number in parentheses after the sequence code indicates the number of different organisms having that common tRNA structure as referred to by the sequence code.
Design of signals with favorable correlation properties

In a wide range of communication environments, the optimum (matched filter) signal detector is a correlation signal detector. This motivates the search for sets of communication signals which are maximally distinguishable with respect to correlation. The rows of an n/spl times/n Hadamard matrix provide n mutually uncorrelated binary signals. For n>2, Hadamard matrices exist only if n is a multiple of 4, and it is conjectured that they exist for all such n. From Hadamard matrices, it is possible to construct not only orthogonal signal sets, but also simplex codes and bi-orthogonal codes. Applications to radar and sonar signals are discussed. >
Pharmacology and Emerging Clinical Application of RNA

In the living cell, the RNA is an important intermediate of genetic information transfer between DNA and protein. RNA is a single-stranded, flexible, and versatile biopolymer that incorporates many pharmacologically desirable traits of DNA and protein without some of their disadvantages. It is water soluble and nontoxic, produced by chemical synthesis as well as recombinant cloning, faithfully replicates the parental DNA sequence, can be converted to DNA or protein, possesses enzymatic self-cleaving activity, and makes specific RNA–RNA, RNA—DNA, and RNA–protein interactions. The biologically remarkable forms and functions of RNA, such as antisense RNA, ribozymes, RNA decoys, aptamers, and RNA interference, are rooted in this fundamentally unique combination of biochemical traits of the RNA. It is only recently that some of these properties of RNA have been exploited to interfere with or repair dysfunctional or harmful nucleic acids or proteins and to induce therapeutic gene products in a variety of pathological syndromes or infectious diseases. First and second generations of RNA drugs have indeed produced promising results, thus raising new hopes in bringing RNA therapeutics from the bench to the bedside. In this chapter, we first describe the basic features and discoveries of RNA that are relevant to its clinical usage, and then chronicle the emerging clinical applications of RNA. Keywords: Aptamer; Pharmacokinetics; PNA (Peptide Nucleic Acid); Ribozyme; RNA Drug; RNA interference (RNAi); Spiegelmer
In Recognition of the Sixtieth Birthday of Roger L. Fosdick

A symposium entitled Advances in the Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics of Material Behavior in honor of Roger Fosdick was held as part of the 1999 Joint ASME Applied Mechanics and Materials Summer Conference at Virginia Tech on June 27–30, 1999. The symposium was organized by Yi-Chao Chen as a vehicle for recognizing Roger Fosdick for his many significant contributions to this area on the occasion of his (then) recent sixtieth birthday. Contributors to the symposium were invited to submit full-length paper versions of their presentations for possible publication in a special extended issue of the Journal of Elasticity, edited by Donald E. Carlson. The results appear here in this complete volume. We are grateful to Roger’s friend and former student K.R. Rajagopal for the following remarks.
A mentoring program for women in the joint graduate biomedical engineering program of University of Memphis and University of Tennessee

Mentoring is significant personal and professional assistance given by a more experienced person to a less experienced person during a time of transition. Transitions from high school to university, from university to graduate school are difficult. Organizing and running mentoring programs in schools or in professional societies provide good recruitment and retention of female students in engineering. Biomedical engineering (BME) is the engineering discipline that has the highest percentage of female degree recipients and tenure/tenure-track teaching faculty. Thus there is a great potential for female role models, mentors and mentees in BME. Recently, I have a developed a mentoring program for women at the joint graduate biomedical engineering program of University of Memphis (UM) and University of Tennessee (UT). Currently we are following the book "Giving Much/Gaining More: Mentoring for Success" by Dr. Wadsworth for our meetings and activities to provide a support and discussion group, and environment to women in their transition time of the BME graduate studies. Our future goal is to expand mentoring to female students in our engineering school.
The Effects of Backdating on Earnings Response Coefficients

We investigate the effect of stock option backdating on the information risk of accused companies. This research provides evidence concerning the consequences that a change in this risk may have on equity values after discovery that companies participated in this questionable behavior. We compare the earnings' response coefficients (ERC) for companies charged with backdating for periods before and after it was revealed that these companies allegedly engaged in these activities. Our results indicate a significantly negative change in ERCs. This finding is consistent with the conclusion that the credibility of backdating company's earnings is lower after discovery of their backdating behavior. We also estimate the amount of company valuation losses that are based on the changes in the ERC. We find, on average, that a firm suffered approximately $22.6 million in valuation losses for the three quarterly earnings announcements in our post announcement period or an additional $7.5 million in costs of information risk for each quarterly earnings announcement. Although our estimate of the valuation losses ($2,441 million) from declined ERCs is small when compared to the Bernile and Jarrell (2007)$100 billion estimate of the equity loss that all backdating companies suffered, the economic magnitude of valuation losses related to changes in information risk appears to be significant for each firm.
Is Post-Kelo Eminent Domain Reform Bad for the Poor?

Since the Supreme Court decided Kelo v. City of New London in June 2005, some 35 states have enacted eminent domain reforms laws. In his recent Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy article, which I have been asked to comment on, Professor David Dana argues that most post-Kelo reform efforts are seriously flawed because they tend to forbid the condemnation of the property of the wealthy and the middle class for economic development, but allow the condemnation of land on which poor people live under the guise of alleviating blight. This, he claims, ensures that the reforms enacted in numerous states "privilege . . . the stability of middle-class households relative to the stability of poor households" and "express . . . the view that the interests and needs of poor households are relatively unimportant." I agree with Professor Dana that the problem of blight condemnations and its impact on the poor deserve greater attention, but take issue with his argument that post-Kelo reform efforts have systematically treated the poor worse than middle and upper class homeowners.Most of the states that have enacted post-Kelo reform laws have either banned both blight and economic development takings or defined blight so broadly that virtually any property can be declared blighted and taken. Several others have enacted reforms that provide no real protection to any property owners because of other types of shortcomings. Only nine states are actually guilty of allowing only the condemnation of blighted areas, narrowly defined. Even these nine flawed reforms are probably better for the poor than no reform at all. Such a law might benefit many poor people who live in non-blighted areas and are potentially vulnerable to economic development takings. Survey data suggests that the poor themselves overwhelmingly oppose economic development condemnations, suggesting that they are not much concerned about the expressive harms that worry Professor Dana. Finally, the exclusion of blighted property from the ban on economic development condemnations in some states is not necessarily explained by indifference to or contempt for the interests of the poor. It could also be the result of other factors, such as voter ignorance about the actual effects of blight condemnations.
Heterogeneous warming of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures over the last 1200 years

The relationship between the mean and spatial variability of Northern Hemisphere surface temperature anomalies over the last 1200 years is examined using instrumental and proxy records. Nonparametric statistical tests applied to 14 well-studied, annually resolved proxy records identify two centuries roughly spanning the Medieval Climate Anomaly as characterized by increased spatial variability relative to the preinstrumental baseline climate, whereas two centuries spanning the Little Ice Age are characterized by decreased spatial variability. Analysis of the instrumental record similarly indicates that the late and middle twentieth century warm intervals are generally associated with increased spatial variability. In both proxy and instrumental records an overall relationship between the first two moments is identified as a weak but significant positive correlation between time series of the spatial mean and spatial standard deviation of temperature anomalies, indicating that warm and cold anomalies are respectively associated with increased and reduced spatial variability. Insomuch as these historical patterns of relatively heterogeneous warming as compared with cooling hold, they suggest that future warming will feature increased regional variability.
Output impedance of high performance current mode dc-dc buck converters, with applications to voltage-regulator module control combinations

Voltage regulator modules (VRMs) comprising parallel interleaved buck converters can be controlled by current-mode methods to achieve low dynamic output impedance. A two-phase VRM is designed using both sensorless current mode (SCM) and peak current mode (PCM) control. SCM control for one phase provides a means of achieving low output impedance for the parallel converter system. PCM is used to control the other phase, without output voltage feedback, to enforce current sharing between the phases. In this configuration, SCM and PCM are exploited for their natural reference tracking capabilities: voltage and current, respectively.
Parallel dynamic programming

Recurrence formulations for various problems such as finding an optimal order of matrix multiplication, finding an optimal binary search tree and optimal triangulation of polygons assume a similar form. A CREW PRAM algorithm has been given to solve such dynamic programming problems. The algorithm uses O(n/sup 6//log n) processors and runs in O(log/sup 2/ n)time. A modified algorithm is presented which reduces the processor requirement to O(n/sup 6//log/sup 5/n) while maintaining the same time complexity of O(log/sup 2/ n). >
Better visualization inside the environmental scanning electron microscope through the infrared chamberscope coupled with a mirror

Clearances are tight inside the specimen chamber of the environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM), and it is difficult to see the relative positions of detectors and specimens through the viewport. For example, the relative placement of the energy-dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and the specimen is critical for attaining reasonable x-ray efficiency while protecting the detector window from damage. An infrared chamberscope and mirror attachment were added to improve the visibility inside the chamber.
Slings for Stress Urinary Incontinence in Men: An Update

Stress urinary incontinence is usually caused by iatrogenic injury during prostate cancer surgery. Most treatment options are surgical in nature and include periurethral bulking, artificial urinary sphincter, and male slings. During the past decade, innovations in male sling surgery have contributed to an increased interest in their use among treating urologists and their patients. Currently, male slings are most efficacious in men with mild to moderate stress incontinence, with no prior history of pelvic radiation, and without prior artificial sphincter placement. In this population, high efficacy rates and low complication rates are typically achieved.
A different type of maser star

A systematic survey of short-period, semiregular variable stars has been made resulting in the detection of six new water masers. Of the 14 short-period maser stars now known, nine are classified as SRb variables. All are very late spectral type SRb's, typically M7, while the overwhelming majority of normal SRb stars is M4 to M6. Their 2.2-11 micron color indices are among the lowest of any known maser stars. They are presumably less dusty as well. Four of the SRb stars and two of the remainder do not obey the correlation between period and velocity spread of the emission features that is found for the Mira and long-period, semiregular variables. Finally, high galactic latitudes dominate; 13 of the 14 are in excess of 13 deg, and nine of these are greater than 25 deg. These facts suggest that the short-period semiregular variables - particularly in SRb stars - may be a very different type of maser star than the Mira and long-period semiregular variables.
An Orientation to Vision Loss Program: Meeting the Needs of Newly Visually Impaired Older Adults

An Orientation to Vision Loss program was developed to meet the needs of individuals, and their families, new to the difficult experience of vision loss. Program components address: education regarding services and resources, issues around the emotional response to vision loss and adjustment, tips and ideas for daily functioning, and enhancing families' awareness of how the vision loss "looks." Peer counselors co-facilitate the experience. Evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive, with participants expressing satisfaction and recognizing value in their participation.
Velocity of contraction of skeletal muscle as a function of activation and fiber composition: A mathematical model

Abstract A mathematical model is developed to predict the velocity of contraction of three different cat skeletal muscles: lateral gastrocnemius, medial gastrocnemius and solues. The model predicts contraction velocity as a function of load ( P ), the fraction of total activation ( E ) and the fractional composition of slow fiber types ( X ). The model has been defined for two types of motor unit recruitment: ‘forward’ in which motor units are recruited from ‘slow’ to ‘fast’, and ‘backward’ in which motor units are recruited from ‘fast’ to ‘slow’. The utility of the model is discussed in terms of a computer program to maintain a constant velocity contraction in a set of muscles.
The role of soluble proteins in generating aqueous outflow resistance in the bovine and human eye

Abstract Previous research has shown that wash-out in bovine and primate eyes can be greatly reduced by perfusing with buffer containing 5–15% serum. It was suggested that protein diffusion from the iris root might raise the in vivo protein concentration in the trabecular meshwork to a level much higher than in the anterior chamber. In this study, we investigated the protein concentration in effluent from the outflow pathways in bovine and human eyes, its possible relationship to wash-out, and whether the reduction of wash-out was caused by a bulk protein effect. Bovine and human eyes were placed under silicone oil and perfused with buffer. Outflow facility was continuously determined while effluent was periodically collected from the surface of the eye, and the soluble protein concentration in the effluent was determined. Separate studies were conducted perfusing either albumin or γ-globulin through bovine eyes. Theoretical models were developed to study the transport of protein into the perfusion fluid. In the bovine eyes, the initial protein concentration in the collected effluent was approximately 1% that of serum, much lower than the 10–15% buffer in serum required to prevent wash-out. Furthermore, the rate of change of outflow facility showed a different dependence on perfused volume than did the protein concentration. Human eyes showed a much higher level of protein in the perfusate, that decayed over a much longer time period. A statistically significant correlation existed between outflow resistance and soluble protein concentration in both bovine and human eyes. However, modelling studies suggested that this correlation might be due to flow resistance setting the flowrate which then determines the protein concentration of the effluent. Separate experiments indicated that the decreased rate of wash-out caused by perfusion of 10–15% serum in buffer was not due to either albumin or γ-globulin alone. These results suggest that the reduction of wash-out observed in previous studies when serum proteins were perfused through bovine and monkey eyes was not due to the general level of serum proteins but may instead be due to interactions of a particular protein(s).
Reduction in dietary trans fat intake is associated with decreased LDL particle number in a primary prevention population.

Abstract Background and aims Increased trans fat intake has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). While the effect of trans fat on traditional lipids is known, it's association with LDL particle number (LDL-P), a novel marker of CVD risk, has not been established. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between trans fat intake and LDL-P over 1-year among individuals participating in a lifestyle intervention trial. Methods and results Family members ( N = 400, 33% male, mean age 48 ± 13) of patients hospitalized with CVD who participated in a 1-year randomized controlled primary prevention lifestyle intervention trial and had complete dietary data and LDL-P measures at baseline and 1-year. Change in trans fat as a percentage of total diet and mean absolute change in LDL-P at 1-year was assessed using multivariate adjusted linear regression models. At baseline, there was a significant positive correlation between dietary trans fat intake and LDL-P (Beta = 37, p = 0.04). For every 1 percent change in trans fat intake there was a 27 nmol/L change in LDL-P (Beta = 27, p = 0.04) over 1-year which was independent of baseline predictors and confounders (age, sex, smoking, statin use, waist size and physical activity; Beta = 30, p = 0.03). Conclusion A reduction in trans fat intake over 1-year was significantly associated with a reduction in LDL-P independent of potential confounders. Healthcare providers should reinforce the beneficial impact of a healthy diet, and in particular modifications in trans fat intake on improving lipid profiles.
Impact of high-level transformations within the ROCCC framework

Reconfigurable computers, where one or more FPGAs are attached to a conventional microprocessor, are promising platforms for code acceleration. Despite their advantages, programmability concerns and the lack of efficient design tools/compilers for FPGAs are preventing the technology's widespread adoption. The traditional compiler technology is microprocessor-based-systems-specific and needs to be customized and augmented to address the needs in reconfigurable computing. The challenges are several due to the resources and performance constraints for FPGAs being drastically different than those of microprocessors, and also that compiling for FPGAs requires laying the computation in space by a circuit rather than in time by a sequence of instructions.ROCCC is an optimizing C-to-VHDL compiler specifically targeting the reconfigurable computer platforms. ROCCC includes several high-level optimizations that parallelize and optimize the source code for minimized area and critical path length and maximized throughput. This article presents the effect of ROCCC's high-level transformations on the performance of the generated VHDL output. ROCCC utilizes: (1) several array access optimizations to eliminate redundant memory accesses, (2) procedure-level optimizations to achieve circuit area reductions of up to 88p compared to circuit areas generated from unoptimized codes, (3) loop-level optimizations to increase the throughput, and (4) transformations unique to certain classes of applications. The preceding listed features help ROCCC generate circuits with very large degrees of parallelism capable of very high computation rates.
South African Experiences with Identity and Community Conflicts

This article compares and contrasts two conflict interventions conducted during the difficult and dangerous period of political transition in South Africa in the early 1990s. Politicized ethnic violence was dividing black African communities, threatening the ongoing national negotiation process and the transition to democracy. In the Thokoza township east of Johannesburg, the structures and methods of the South African Peace Accord were unsuccessfully employed in an effort to prevent or mitigate ongoing violence. At the same time, in the Meadowlands section of Soweto, west of Johannesburg, a combination of processes grounded in alternative assumptions and methods allowed the community to take first responsibility for its own conflict handling and peacekeeping functions, ultimately transforming the local situation into a stable and nonviolent one. A case of using `action research' as an alternative strategy for engaging conflicted parties in dialogue and problem-solving, when they profess unwillingness to ...
Serum/Saliva Correlations for Theophylline in Asthmatics

Theophylline levels in mixed saliva (both stimulated and unstimulated) were compared with total and free (unbound) serum theophylline levels in 28 asthmatic outpatients using theophylline regularly. Stimulated saliva predicted both total and unbound serum theophylline concentrations within +/- 1 microgram/mL in 62.5% and 92.9%, respectively, of the samples examined. In addition, the total serum levels could be used to predict unbound serum concentrations to within +/- 1 mg/L in 100% of the cases that were examined. These results indicate that saliva levels predict the unbound serum theophylline levels with greater accuracy and precision than they predict total serum theophylline levels. In addition, total serum levels can be used to reliably predict unbound serum levels. The use of mixed stimulated saliva is recommended as a reliable non-invasive method for monitoring unbound serum theophylline levels. The therapeutic range for saliva, which corresponds to the accepted total serum concentration range of 10-20 mg/L, is approximately 5.6-11.3 mg/L.
Searching for determinism in observed data: a review of the issues involved

In this paper we present a review of advances made and problems still existing in the application of the theory of chaos and dynamical systems to time series. In particular we discuss issues pertaining the estimation of dimensions, Lyapunov exponents and nonlinear prediction from an observable. We analyze the problems and discuss proper ways to deal with them.
Uracil in DNA: consequences for carcinogenesis and chemotherapy

The synthesis of thymidylate (TMP) occupies a convergence of two critical metabolic pathways: folate metabolism and pyrimidine biosynthesis. Thymidylate is formed from deoxyuridylate (dUMP) using N(5),N(10)-methylene tetrahydrofolate. The metabolic relationship between dUMP, TMP, and folate has been the subject of cancer research from prevention to chemotherapy. Thymidylate stress is induced by nutritional deficiency of folic acid, defects in folate metabolism, and by antifolate and fluoropyrimidine chemotherapeutics. Both classes of chemotherapeutics remain mainstay treatments against solid tumors. Because of the close relationship between dUMP and TMP, thymidylate stress is associated with increased incorporation of uracil into DNA. Genomic uracil is removed by uracil DNA glycosylases of base excision repair (BER). Unfortunately, BER is apparently problematic during thymidylate stress. Because BER requires a DNA resynthesis step, elevated dUTP causes reintroduction of genomic uracil. BER strand break intermediates are clastogenic if not repaired. Thus, BER during thymidylate stress appears to cause genome instability, yet might also contribute to the mechanism of action for antifolates and fluoropyrimidines. However, the precise roles of BER and its components during thymidylate stress remain unclear. In particular, links between BER and downstream events remain poorly defined, including damage signaling pathways and homologous recombination (HR). Evidence is growing that HR responds to persistent BER strand break intermediates and DNA damage signaling pathways mediate cross talk between BER and HR. Examination of crosstalk among BER, HR, and damage signaling may shed light on decades of investigation and provide insight for development of novel chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic approaches.
Nonlocal model of dissociative electron attachment and vibrational excitation of NO

We present the results of an ab initio study of elastic scattering and vibrational excitation of NO by electron impact in the low-energy (0-2 eV) region where the cross sections are dominated by resonance contributions. The 3Sigma-, 1Delta and 1Sigma+ NO- resonance lifetimes are taken from our earlier study [Phys. Rev. A 69, 062711 (2004)], but the resonance energies used here are obtained from new configuration-interaction studies. Here we employ a more elaborate nonlocal treatment of the nuclear dynamics, which is found to remedy the principal deficiencies of the local complex potential model we employed in our earlier study, and gives cross sections in better agreement with the most recent experiments. We also present cross sections for dissociative electron attachment to NO leading to groundstate products. The calculations show that, while the peak cross sections starting from NO in its ground vibrational state are very small, the cross sections are extremely sensitive to vibrational excitation of the target and should be readily observable for target NO molecules excited to v = 10 and above.
High-precision laser and rf spectroscopy of the spin-rotation and hfs interactions in the X2Σ+ and B2Σ+ states of LaO

Abstract The spin-rotation and hyperfine interactions in the X2Σ+ and B2Σ+ electronic states of 139La16O have been studied using Doppler-free laser-induced fluorescence and molecular-beam laser-rf double resonance. Observations were made for several values of v and many values of N, allowing evaluation of the principal interaction strengths and their N and v dependences for both the X and B states. The results are compared with earlier results for the isoelectronic system 137Ba19F.
Modifications of Traps to Reduce Bycatch of Freshwater Turtles

ABSTRACT Mortality of freshwater turtles varies among types and deployments of traps. There are few or no losses in hoop or fyke traps set where turtles may reach air, including placement in shallows, addition of floats on traps, and tying traps securely to a stake or to shore. Turtle mortality occurs when traps are set deep, traps are checked at intervals > 1 day, and when turtles are captured as bycatch. Devices are available that exclude turtles from traps set for crab or game fish harvest. Slotted gates in front of the trap mouth reduce turtle entry, but small individuals still may be trapped. Incidental take of turtles is preventable by integrating several designs into aquatic traps, such as adding floats to the top of traps so turtles may reach air or an extension tube (chimney, ramp) that creates an escape route.
An extension of the exemplar-based random-walk model to separable-dimension stimuli

An extension of Nosofsky and Palmeri's (Psychol. Rev. 104 (1997a) 266) exemplar-based random-walk (EBRW) model of categorization is presented as a model of the time course of categorization of separable-dimension stimuli. Nosofsky and Palmeri (1997a) assumed that the perceptual encoding of all stimuli was identical. However, in the current model, we assume as in Lamberts (J. Exp. Psychol: General 124 (1995) 161) that the inclusion of individual stimulus dimension into the similarity calculations is a stochastic process with the probability of inclusion based or the perceptual salience of the dimensions. Thus, the exemplars that enter into the random-walk changes dynamically during the time course of processing. This model is implemented as a Markov chain. Its predictions are compared with alternative models in a speeded categorization experiment with separable-dimension stimuli.