cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Activation of human macrophage sodium channels regulates RNA processing to increase expression of the DNA repair protein PPP1R10

Prior work demonstrated that a splice variant of SCN5A, a voltage-gated sodium channel gene, acts as a cytoplasmic sensor for viral dsRNA in human macrophages. Expression of this channel also polarizes macrophages to an anti-inflammatory phenotype in vitro and in vivo. Here we utilized global expression analysis of splice variants to identify novel channel-dependent signaling mechanisms. Pharmacological activation of voltage-gated sodium channels in human macrophages, but not treatment with cytoplasmic poly I:C, was associated with splicing of a retained intron in transcripts of PPP1R10, a regulator of phosphatase activity and DNA repair. Microarray analysis also demonstrated expression of a novel sodium channel splice variant, human macrophage SCN10A, that contains a similar exon deletion as SCN5A. SCN10A localizes to cytoplasmic and nuclear vesicles in human macrophages. Simultaneous expression of human macrophage SCN5A and SCN10A was required to decrease expression of the retained intron and increase protein expression of PPP1R10. Channel activation also increased protein expression of the splicing factor EFTUD2, and knockdown of EFTUD2 prevented channel dependent splicing of the retained PPP1R10 intron. Knockdown of the SCN5A and SCN10A variants in human macrophages reduced the severity of dsDNA breaks induced by treatment with bleomycin and type 1 interferon. These results suggested that human macrophage SCN5A and SCN10A variants mediate an innate immune signaling pathway that limits DNA damage through increased expression of PPP1R10. The functional significance of this pathway is that it may prevent cytotoxicity during inflammatory responses.
‘‘I Can Turn It on When I Need To’’: Pre-college Integration, Culture, and Peer Academic Engagement among Black and Latino/a Engineering Students:

Drawing on interviews with 38 black and Latino/a engineering students at a predominantly white, elite university, I use a cultural analytic framework to explicate the role of pre–college integratio...
In Utero Exposure to Alcohol Impairs Reactivity of Cerebral Arterioles and Increases Susceptibility of the Brain to Damage Following Ischemia/Reperfusion in Adulthood.

Background Maternal consumption of alcohol produces abnormalities in the developing fetus and can contribute to an increased incidence of many cardiovascular-related diseases. The first goal of this study was to determine whether in utero exposure to alcohol influences reactivity of cerebral arterioles in adult (12 to 15 weeks old) rats. The second goal of this study was to examine whether in utero exposure to alcohol increased the susceptibility of the brain to damage following an ischemic event in adult rats. Methods We fed Sprague Dawley dams a liquid diet with or without alcohol (3% ethanol) for the duration of their pregnancy (21 to 23 days). In the first series of studies, we examined reactivity of cerebral arterioles to endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS)- (adenosine diphosphate [ADP]) and neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS)-dependent N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA, and NOS-independent agonists in adult rats before and during application of l-NMMA. In another series of studies, we examined infarct volume following middle cerebral artery occlusion in adult offspring exposed to alcohol in utero. In both series of studies, we also determined the role for an increase in oxidative stress by feeding dams apocynin for the duration of their pregnancy. Results We found that in utero exposure to alcohol reduced responses of cerebral arterioles to ADP and NMDA, but not to nitroglycerin in adult rats. In addition, treatment of the dams with apocynin prevented this impairment in cerebral vascular function. We also found that in utero exposure to alcohol worsened brain damage following ischemia/reperfusion in adult rats and that treatment of dams with apocynin prevented this increase in brain damage following ischemia/reperfusion. Conclusions We suggest that our findings may have important implications for the pathogenesis of brain abnormalities associated with fetal alcohol exposure.
Tumors of the Paranasal Sinuses, Nasal and Cranial Cavities

Secondary cysts and tumors presenting as space occupying lesions in the orbit may originate from the nose and paranasal sinuses and the cranial cavity commonly include mucoceles, meningiomas, malignant epithelial neoplasms, and vascular malformations. The histopathological, clinical, imaging, and therapeutic aspects of these lesions are covered in this chapter with particular attention on nasal and paranasal tumors.
PAFR: Privacy-Aware Friends Retrieval over Online Social Networks

Online Social Networks (OSNs) are online services that people use to build social relations with other people. Friends retrieval over OSNs is an important activity among users. However, in existing friends retrieval solutions, user may leak private and sensitive information, such as personal data and friends relation. Traditional end-to-end encryption methods can protect users’ information, while it is not available for them to share contents with others. In this paper, aiming at preventing attack launched by the service provider, we propose PAFR, a Privacy-Aware Friends Retrieval scheme over OSNs. Inspired by private set interaction protocols, our scheme allows user to upload his encrypted contents to server, obliviously connect with others as friends, and retrieve friends with specific content. In addition, we design a dual-server model where two non-collude servers \(\mathcal {S}_1\) and \(\mathcal {S}_2\) perform secure sorting protocol to retrieve the ranked relevant friends without learning the underlying query and friends relationship. Compared with the approach with single server holding the whole knowledge of the OSN, each of them only has a part of the information make our scheme achieve a high level of privacy. Both security and performance analysis demonstrate that our scheme has both a very light user workload and a moderate server workload while being secure against user-server collusion.
Studies on permeability in relation to nerve function. IV. Effect of glutamate and aspartate upon the rate of entrance of potassium into brain cortical slices.

Abstract Rabbit cortical slices maintained in oxygenated Krebs-Ringer solution were exposed to 42K. The rate of penetration of this cation was determined and equilibrium between medium and the inside of the cell was noted to be attained in 35 minutes. Variations in pH of the external milieu between pH 5.0–8.0 did not affect the rate of 42K entry into the cortical cells. The presence of l -glutamate and aspartate in the medium likewise did not modify the rate of 42K penetration. The interpretation of the latter experiments offers some problems in view of certain results of previous workers, but several explanations are suggested.
Urban stormwater and crude oil injury pathways converge on the developing heart of a shore-spawning marine forage fish

Understanding how aquatic organisms respond to complex chemical mixtures remains one of the foremost challenges in modern ecotoxicology. Although oil spills are typically high-profile disasters that release hundreds or thousands of chemicals into the environment, there is growing evidence for a common adverse outcome pathway (AOP) for the vulnerable embryos and larvae of fish species that spawn in oiled habitats. Molecular initiating events involve the disruption of excitation-contraction coupling in individual cardiomyocytes, which then dysregulate the form and function of the embryonic heart. Phenanthrenes and other three-ring (tricyclic) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are key drivers for this developmental cardiotoxicity and are also relatively enriched in land-based urban runoff. Similar to oil spills, stormwater discharged from roadways and other high-traffic impervious surfaces contains myriad contaminants, many of which are uncharacterized in terms of their chemical identity and toxicity to aquatic organisms. Nevertheless, given the exceptional sensitivity of the developing heart to tricyclic PAHs and the ubiquitous presence of these compounds in road runoff, cardiotoxicity may also be a dominant aspect of the stormwater-induced injury phenotype in fish early life stages. Here we assessed the effects of traffic-related runoff on the embryos and early larvae of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii), a marine forage fish that spawns along the coastline of western North America. We used the well-characterized central features of the oil toxicity AOP for herring embryos as benchmarks for a detailed analysis of embryolarval cardiotoxicity across a dilution gradient ranging from 12 to 50% stormwater diluted in clean seawater. These injury indicators included measures of circulatory function, ventricular area, heart chamber looping, and the contractility of both the atrium and the ventricle. We also determined tissue concentrations of phenanthrenes and other PAHs in herring embryos. We find that tricyclic PAHs are readily bioavailable during cardiogenesis, and that stormwater-induced toxicity is in many respects indistinguishable from canonical crude oil toxicity. Given the chemical complexity of urban runoff, non-tricyclic PAH-mediated mechanisms of developmental toxicity in fish remain likely. However, from the standpoint of managing wild herring populations, our results suggest that stormwater-driven threats to individual survival (both near-term and delayed mortality) can be understood from decades of past research on crude oil toxicity. Moreover, Pacific herring embryos are promising sentinels for water quality monitoring in nearshore marine habitats, as in situand sensitive indicators of both toxic runoff and the effectiveness of pollution reduction efforts such as green stormwater infrastructure.
Imaging of fetal ventriculomegaly

Fetal ventriculomegaly is the most common central nervous system abnormality detected by prenatal imaging. It has a high association with other anomalies. Etiologies and prognoses for fetal ventriculomegaly range from normal outcomes to significant neurodevelopmental sequelae. In this paper, we review the development, terminology, pathogenesis, imaging and prognosis of fetal ventriculomegaly.
Impact of Sirolimus as a Primary Immunosuppressant on Myocardial Fibrosis and Diastolic Function Following Heart Transplantation.

Background Myocardial fibrosis is an important contributor for development of diastolic dysfunction. We investigated the impact of sirolimus as primary immunosuppression on diastolic dysfunction and fibrosis progression among heart transplantation recipients. Methods and Results In 100 heart transplantation recipients who were either treated with a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) (n=51) or converted from CNI to sirolimus (n=49), diastolic function parameters were assessed using serial echocardiograms and right heart catheterizations. Myocardial fibrosis was quantified on serial myocardial biopsies. After 3 years, lateral e' increased within the sirolimus group but decreased in the CNI group (0.02±0.04 versus -0.02±0.04 m/s delta change; P=0.003, respectively). Both pulmonary capillary wedge pressure and diastolic pulmonary artery pressure significantly decreased in the sirolimus group but remained unchanged in the CNI group (-1.50±2.59 versus 0.20±2.20 mm Hg/year; P=0.02; and -1.72±3.39 versus 0.82±2.59 mm Hg/year; P=0.005, respectively). A trend for increased percentage of fibrosis was seen in the sirolimus group (8.48±3.17 to 10.10±3.0%; P=0.07) as compared with marginally significant progression in the CNI group (8.76±3.87 to 10.56±4.34%; P=0.04). The percent change in fibrosis did not differ significantly between the groups (1.62±4.67 versus 1.80±5.31%, respectively; P=0.88). Conclusions Early conversion to sirolimus is associated with improvement in diastolic dysfunction and filling pressures as compared with CNI therapy. Whether this could be attributed to attenuation of myocardial fibrosis progression with sirolimus treatment warrants further investigation.
Regulatory Harmonization and Collaborative Governance: Exploring the Shared Micromobility Policy Practices for Post-pandemic Deployment

Local governments across the United States took vastly different approaches to the regulation of dockless e-scooter sharing, resulting in a patchwork of regulatory policies. While recent literature suggested, there is evidence of convergence amongst cities with similar characteristics, the extent of harmonized jurisdictional e-scooter policies had not yet been investigated. With the future of public and shared transportation already tenuous due to COVID-19, this paper investigates the different rules and regulations threatening the resurgence of fleet operations in neighboring jurisdictions. The research team first explored precedent and mechanisms for transportation harmonization at different levels of government, and second, studied the degree of harmonization of neighboring jurisdictions. The paper uses a comparative multi-case study approach of six neighbor pairs to uncover patterns of harmonization between neighboring jurisdictions. Findings indicate a convergence of harmonization between equal-sized cities appears more frequently than disparate cities, supporting previous research. Also, pairs in states which follow Dillon's Rule show alignment in the device, safety, insurance, and right-of-way policies, whereas home rule neighbors more frequently diverge from each other. These findings highlight the need to understand regional policy harmonization better. Submitted for presentation at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board and for publication at the Transportation Research Record journal
Design of an Affordable Socially Assistive Robot for Remote Health and Function Monitoring and Prognostication

To address shortages in rehabilitation clinicians and provide for the growing numbers of elder and disabled patients needing rehabilitation, we have been working towards developing an affordable socially assistive robot for remote therapy and health monitoring. Our system is being designed to initially work via remote control, while addressing some of the challenges of traditional telepresence. To understand how to design a system to meet the needs of elders, we created a mobile therapy robot prototype from two commercial robots and demonstrated this system to clinicians in two types of rehabilitation care settings: a daycare setting and a inpatient rehabilitation setting. We propose to introduce the prototype as a social and therapy agent into clinician-patient interactions with the aim of improving the quality of information transfer between the clinician and the patient. This paper describes an investigative effort to understand how clinicians who work with elders accept this prototype. Clinicians from each setting differed in their needs for the robot. Those in daycare settings preferred a more social robot to encourage and motivate elders to exerciseas well as monitor their health. Clinicians in the inpatient rehabilitation setting desired a robot with more therapeutic and treatment capabilities. Both groups wanted a robot with some autonomy that was portable, maintainable, affordable, and durable. We discuss these results in detail along with the ethical implications of increasing the robot’s autonomy and suggest additional requirements for achieving a smarter robot that can meet the clinicians’ social, health monitoring and prognostication desires.
Robustness Verification of Semantic Segmentation Neural Networks using Relaxed Reachability

This paper introduces robustness verification for semantic segmentation neural networks (in short, semantic segmentation networks [SSNs]), building on and extending recent approaches for robustness verification of image classification neural networks. Despite recent progress in developing verification methods for specifications such as local adversarial robustness in deep neural networks (DNNs) in terms of scalability, precision, and applicability to different network architectures, layers, and activation functions, robustness verification of semantic segmentation has not yet been considered. We address this limitation by developing and applying new robustness analysis methods for several segmentation neural network architectures, specifically by addressing reachability analysis of up-sampling layers, such as transposed convolution and dilated convolution. We consider several definitions of robustness for segmentation, such as the percentage of pixels in the output that can be proven robust under different adversarial perturbations, and a robust variant of intersection-over-union (IoU), the typical performance evaluation measure for segmentation tasks. Our approach is based on a new relaxed reachability method, allowing users to select the percentage of a number of linear programming problems (LPs) to solve when constructing the reachable set, through a relaxation factor percentage. The approach is implemented within NNV, then applied and evaluated on segmentation datasets, such as a multi-digit variant of MNIST known as M2NIST. Thorough experiments show that by using transposed convolution for up-sampling and average-pooling for down-sampling, combined with minimizing the number of ReLU layers in the SSNs, we can obtain SSNs with not only high accuracy (IoU), but also that are more robust to adversarial attacks and amenable to verification. Additionally, using our new relaxed reachability method, we can significantly reduce the verification time for neural networks whose ReLU layers dominate the total analysis time, even in classification tasks.
Child Welfare Administration and the Knowledge Problem: Centralization versus Decentralization

Paper discusses current status of US state child welfare administration, contrasting centralized (state-administered) and decentralized (county-administered) systems. Comparison includes both theoretical and empirical analysis and implications for policy are offered.
Examining the relationship between self-reported lifetime cancer diagnosis and nativity: findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011-2018.

Purpose Cancer incidence in the USA remains higher among certain groups, regions, and communities, and there are variations based on nativity. Research has primarily focused on specific groups and types of cancer. This study expands on previous studies to explore the relationship between country of birth (nativity) and all cancer site incidences among USA and foreign-born residents using a nationally representative sample. Methods This is a cross-sectional study of (unweighted n = 22,554; weighted n = 231,175,933) participants between the ages of 20 and 80 from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011-2018. Using weighted logistic regressions, we analyzed the impact of nativity on self-reported cancer diagnosis controlling for routine care, smoking status, overweight, race/ethnicity, age, and gender. We ran a partial model, adjusting only for age as a covariate, a full model with all other covariates, and stratified by race/ethnicity. Results In the partial and full models, our findings indicate that US-born individuals were more likely to report a cancer diagnosis compared to their foreign-born counterparts (OR 2.34, 95% CI [1.93; 2.84], p Conclusion A variety of factors may reflect lower self-reported cancer diagnosis in foreign-born individuals in the USA other than a healthy immigrant advantage. Future studies should consider the factors behind the differences in cancer diagnoses based on nativity status, particularly among non-Hispanic Blacks.
The Linguistic Legacy of Spanish and Portuguese: Colonial Expansion and Language Change

The historical spread of Spanish and Portuguese throughout the world provides a rich source of data for linguists studying how languages evolve and change. This volume analyses the development of Portuguese and Spanish from Latin and their subsequent transformation into several non-standard varieties. These varieties include Portuguese- and Spanish-based creoles, Bozal Spanish and Chinese Coolie Spanish in Cuba, Chinese Immigrant Spanish, Andean Spanish, and Barranquenho, a Portuguese variety on the Portugal-Spain border. Clancy Clements demonstrates that grammar formation not only takes place in parent-to-child communication, but also, importantly, in adult-to-adult communication. He argues that cultural identity is also an important factor in language formation and maintenance, especially in the cases of Portuguese, Castilian, and Barranquenho. More generally, the contact varieties of Portuguese and Spanish have been shaped by demographics, by prestige, as well as by linguistic input, general cognitive abilities and limitations, and by the dynamics of speech community.
APPLICATIONS OF INVERSE METHODS TO THE ANALYSIS OF REFRACTION AND WIDE-ANGLE SEISMIC DATA

The refraction inverse problem was initially investigated by Herglotz (1907), Bateman (1910), and Wiechert and Geiger (1910) who applied Abel transforms for the inversion of seismic travel-times in radially varying media. For smoothly varying media in the absence of low velocity zones, this formulation provides an inverse solution which includes ray bending. In the presence of low velocity zones, bounds on the solution can be obtained from discontinuities in the travel-time data. As an illustration of the inversion of refraction data in radially varying media, slant-stacked wavefield data are used to invert for velocity in the earth’s upper mantle. The inversion of wavefield data avoids the picking of travel-times, but requires good quality refraction data which is well sampled in offset. In laterally varying media, an inversion formulation using seismic attributes has been developed. Examples of seismic attributes include envelope amplitudes, instantaneous frequencies, and phase times of selected arrivals. Ray perturbation theory is used to compute the sensitivity of different attributes to variations in the model. To illustrate the inversion of seismic attributes in laterally varying media, attributes extracted from observed refraction data are used to invert for shallow crustal structure. Iterative inversions from smooth to less smooth models are used to progressively incorporate the longer wavelength features of the model.
Building spatial layout that supports healthier behavior of office workers: a new performance mandate for sustainable buildings.

BACKGROUND: The pursuit of efficiency and the permeation of communication technologies in modern workplace have increased prolonged sitting and physical inactivity among the white-collar workforce. Physical inactivity is a major risk factor for developing various chronic diseases and obesity. OBJECTIVE: This study intends to understand the impact of physical environment on both voluntary and imperative physical activity levels in an office building, and to collect evidence for design suggestions to encourage office workers’ activity level on a daily basis. This study examined how proximity from individual workstations to various shared service and amenity spaces in the workplace (e.g., meeting spaces, copy areas, kitchens, restrooms, elevators, and stairs) is associated with office workers’ physical activity level (e.g., sedentary and non-sedentary behavior) and their environmental and job satisfaction. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: To objectively measure physical activity, twenty-six office workers, in a three-story office building, wore accelerometers for three consecutive days at work. Environmental and job satisfaction of office workers was measured by a questionnaire. Proximity variables were measured using the floor plans of the subject building. CONCLUSIONS: Participants on average were sedentary for 80% of the time during the study. Proximity to several service and amenity areas was positively associated with step counts and job satisfaction.
ON FISHER INFORMATION INEQUALITIES IN THE PRESENCE OF NUISANCE PARAMETERS

The existence of a generalized Fisher information matrix for a vector parameter of interest is established for the case where nuisance parameters are present under general conditions. A matrix inequality is established for the information in an estimating function for the vector parameter of interest. It is shown that this inequality leads to a sharper lower bound for the variance matrix of unbiased estimators, for any set of functionally independent functions of parameters of interest, than the lower bound provided by the Cramer-Rao inequality in terms of the full parameter.
Evaluation and treatment of the elderly trauma victim.

This article examined issues in the care of the injured elderly patient. Past studies have documented variable potential for functional recovery in survivors of serious trauma in the elderly population, and trauma care for this subgroup uses health care resources at an exaggerated rate. Excessive health care costs arise from increased postinjury morbidity and mortality in the elderly population; factors that predict mortality include injury severity, advanced age, and complications. Recent work has focused on the frequency of preventable complications, particularly critical care management errors, in trauma patients of all ages. It appears that the impact of preventable complications on mortality may be greatest in the geriatric trauma victim. Current recommendations for care of these patients include aggressive treatment of all injuries according to standard trauma practice. Routine ICU admission with a low threshold for the institution of invasive monitoring to guide therapy is recommended for all geriatric trauma victims with moderate to more serious injury. The development of specialized management approaches for care of the injured elderly patient will result from ongoing study of this population, as research efforts provide more information about the physiologic and metabolic responses to injury in the elderly population. Language: en
Detection of articular pathology of the distal aspect of the third metacarpal bone in thoroughbred racehorses: comparison of radiography, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.

Objective To compare digital radiography (DR), computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for detection of pathology of the distal aspect of the third metacarpal bone (MC3) and to assess whether arthrography would improve detection of articular cartilage or subchondral bone cracking. Study Design Cross-sectional study. Sample Population Limb specimens from 17 Thoroughbred horses after catastrophic injury and 4 age-matched control horses. Methods Standard DR, CT, and MRI images of the metacarpophalangeal joint were acquired before and after iohexol injection. Pathologic features detected with imaging and on visual inspection of cartilage and subchondral bone of the distal aspect of MC3 were graded. Imaging observations were compared with pathologic abnormalities. Results Inspection revealed obvious changes in the cartilage and subchondral bone surfaces in Thoroughbreds. Both CT and MRI were superior to DR for detection of subchondral bone pathology. Cracking of cartilage was not detected by any imaging modality. Signal changes associated with cartilage loss and development of repair tissue were evident on MRI in 9/19 cases. There was significant correlation (P < .05) between subchondral bone pathology detected on both CT and MRI, and cartilage pathology on gross examination. Contrast arthrography did not improve the detection of articular cartilage or subchondral plate cracking. Conclusion Both CT and MRI are superior to DR for detection of subchondral bone pathology, but underestimate the extent of joint adaptation and pathologic damage. MRI was able to detect cartilage degeneration.
The Government as Active Shareholder

The U.S. government has acquired large shareholdings in companies like AIG, GM and others, essentially becoming "owner of last resort" through its defense of the "too big to fail" doctrine. I argue in this Congressional testimony that the government should adopt a pro-active stance in terms of exercising its voting rights to promote best governance practices. I am not advocating direct government intervention in the business operations of the firms in which it is a large shareholder. What I do recommend is the form of shareholder activism commonly exercised today by large institutional shareholders such as pension funds, and which is needed to ensure that the companies operate under the most effcient governance system. Minority shareholders benefit from the presence of a large blockholder because only the latter has the economic incentive to exercise voting rights in an efficient manner. Thus, the government is now in a unique position to improve ineffcient governance systems and practices. However, to have this positive effect, the government must take a pro-active stance on share-voting in accordance with the value-maximizing principle. I discuss four areas where the institutional investment community (as relatively large shareholders) in the U.S. recommends active voting to improve governance: (1) director election reform, (2) elimination of costly takeover defenses, (3) splitting CEO and board chairmanship positions, and (4) executive compensation ("say on pay").
Noise, task complexity and rated annoyance

Two experiments investigating rated annoyance as a function of noise and task complexity were conducted. Task complexity was defined operationally as the number of stimulus alternatives. In the first experiment, two groups of subjects performed an information reduction task either to the onset of one of four stimuli or to the onset of one of eight stimuli while continually exposed to noise. Ratings of the noise on a bipolar scale were obtained after completing the task. An analysis showed a significant decrease in annoyance as the number of stimuli increased. In the second experiment, four groups of subjects performed the task at the two levels of complexity used in the first experiment. However, for each level of complexity, one group of subjects performed the task while exposed to noise, while another group performed the task in the absence of noise. Ratings of the task on the bipolar scale used in the first experiment were obtained. A main effect for the occurrence of noise was the only significant finding. The implication from this experiment suggests that the noise was considered to be part of the task, and was included in the rating. The implications of these results for the application of the traditional noise and annoyance findings are discussed. Language: en
The histone methyltransferase EZH2 promotes mammary stem and luminal progenitor cell expansion, metastasis and inhibits estrogen receptor-positive cellular differentiation in a model of basal breast cancer

Mammary stem cells (MSCs) are the progenitor population for human breast epithelia. MSCs give rise during mammary gland development to estrogen receptor (ER)-negative basal cells and the ER- luminal progenitor (LP) population which maintains ER+ and ER- luminal cells. The MSC population is expanded and tumorigenic in some mouse mammary cancer models, and these tumor-initiating cells have been isolated from human breast cancers. MSC expansion is associated with aggressive biological behavior in human breast cancer. The LP population is tumorigenic in some mouse mammary cancer models, and is the progenitor population of basal breast cancer in humans. The enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is a methyltransferase which catalyzes lysine 27 methylation in histone H3 resulting in suppression of target gene expression. The histone demethylase JMJD3 opposes the activity of EZH2 by demethylating histone H3 lysine 27. EZH2 is a member of the polycomb group of proteins which regulates cell type identity. EZH2 expression was found to be increased in histologically normal human breast tissue among women with high breast cancer risk, and was elevated in ductal hyperplasia and ductal carcinoma in situ. EZH2 overexpression is associated with poorly differentiated and aggressive breast cancer in humans. However, the mechanisms by which EZH2 results in increased breast cancer risk and aggressive tumors are not completely characterized. Using in vivo transplantation of mammary cancer stem cells transduced with EZH2 or JMJD3 shRNAs, we demonstrated that EZH2 promotes mammary stem and LP cell expansion, metastasis and inhibits ER-positive cellular differentiation.
Biostratigraphy and structural setting of the Permian Coyote Butte Formation of central Oregon

Larger isolated outcrops of the limestones of the Coyote Butte Formation consistently contain younger over older faunas that range through most of the Leonardian Series of the Early Permian. The outcrops of the Coyote Butte Formation are interpreted as right-side up blocks probably introduced into the area as one massive exotic unit. The Coyote Butte Formation is very similar to the Lower Permian limestone near Quinn River Crossing, Nevada, and both are suggested to have a similar origin. The Coyote Butte Formation was probably introduced during a late-stage event to deforming Mesozoic oceanic sediments in Mesozoic time.
Vicious circles in inflammatory bowel disease.

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease can present with a bewildering array of disease manifestations whose overall impact on patient health is difficult to disentangle. The multitude of disease complications and therapeutic side effects result in conflicting ideas on how to best manage a patient. The aim of the study is to test the usefulness of influence diagrams in resolving conflicts centered on managing complex disease processes. Methods: The influences of a disease process and the ensuing medical interventions on the health of a patient with inflammatory bowel disease are modeled by an influence diagram. Patient health is the focal point of multiple influences affecting its overall strength. Any downstream influence represents the focal point of other preceding upstream influences. The mathematics underlying the influence diagram is similar to that of a decision tree. Its formalism allows one to consider additive and inhibitory influences and include in the same analysis qualitatively different types of parameters, such as diagnoses, complications, side effects, and therapeutic outcomes. Results: Three exemplary cases are presented to illustrate the potential use of influence diagrams. In all three case scenarios, Crohn's disease resulted in disease manifestations that seemingly interfered with its own therapy. The presence of negative feedback loops rendered the management of each case particularly challenging. The analyses by influence diagrams revealed subtle interactions among the multiple influences and their joint contributions to the patient's overall health that would have been difficult to appreciate by verbal reasoning alone. Conclusion: Influence diagrams represent a decision tool that is particularly suited to improve decision-making in inflammatory bowel disease. They highlight key factors of a complex disease process and help to assess their quantitative interactions.
Positive and Negative Hypothesis Testing by Cooperative Groups

In a rule induction problem positive hypothesis tests select evidence that the tester expects to be an example of the correct rule if the hypothesis is correct, whereas negative hypothesis tests select evidence that the tester expects to be a nonexample if the hypothesis is correct. Previous research indicates the general effectiveness of a positive test strategy for individuals, but there has been very little research with cooperative groups. We extend the analysis of Klayman and Ha (Psychological Review, 1987) of ambiguous verification or conclusive falsification of five possible types of hypotheses by positive and negative tests by emphasizing the importance of further examples following hypothesis tests. In two experiments four-person cooperative groups solved rule induction problems by proposing a hypothesis and selecting evidence to test the hypothesis on each of four arrays on each trial. In different conditions the groups were instructed to use different combinations of positive and negative tests on the four arrays. Positive tests were more likely to lead to further examples than negative tests, and the proportion of correct hypotheses corresponded to the proportion of positive tests, in both experiments. We suggest that positive tests are more effective than negative hypothesis tests in generating further evidence, and thus in inducing the correct rule, in experimental rule induction tasks with a criterion of certainty imposed by the researcher.
Understanding a Cultural Identity: The Confluence of Education, Politics, and Religion within the American Concept of Biblical Literalism

Almost 25 percent of Americans self-identify as biblical literalists and the concept has long been used in research. Studies of Bible views and their relationship with other social outcomes remain popular today; however, the measure is operationalized differently amongst these studies. This study describes how to best use categorical measures of biblical literalism. This is accomplished through a two-part analysis. First, the three most frequently used forms of Bible views are used as predictors to compare their similarity or dissimilarity in various models with identical controls. Second, we use generalized multinomial logistic regression to explore the differences between the response categories of a three-category nominal Bible view measure and various social and religious exogenous measures. We argue that biblical literalism should be operationalized as a nominal system of dummy variables, referred to here as received, active, and unreliable Bible views, and coding systems that do not do this may obscure important differences between the response groups.
The specification and testing of quantified progress properties in distributed systems

There are two basic parts to the behavioral specification of distributed systems: safety and progress. In earlier work, we developed a tool to monitor progress properties of CORBA components specified using the temporal operator transient. In this paper, we address the specification and testing of transient properties that are quantified (over both bounded and unbounded domains). We categorize typical quantifications that arise in practical systems and discuss possible implementation strategies. We define functional transients, a subclass of quantified transient properties that can be monitored in constant space and time. We outline the design and implementation of a tool for testing these properties in CORBA components.
Can technology stocks lead the S&P 500 higher?

The author suggests that the stock market might approach the bottom of its decline during the first half of 2009. And he believes that technology stocks, which have held their price better than the rest of the market, are likely to lead the market higher. But several developments may squelch that recovery—including the geopolitical situation and rising protectionism. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Hydroxybenziphthalocyanines: non-aromatic phthalocyanine analogues that exhibit strong UV-visible absorptions

The hemiporphyrazine variants hydroxybenziphthalocyanine and dihydroxybenziphthalocyanine can be generated via sequential Schiff base condensation reactions by using bis(diiminoisoindoline) benzene intermediates. These compounds are not aromatic due to the lack of conjugation across the benzene rings, yet these macrocycles exhibit striking absorption bands in the low energy region of the UV-visible spectrum.
Toward a revision of FORMAC

A survey is given of some of the new facilities that have been implemented in FORMAC in an attempt to overcome current deficiencies and move towards a more powerful system.
Strong stability problems for probabilistic sequential machines

The strong stability problem for a machine A and some behavioral equivalence ≡ is to characterize the input symbol transition matrices of all machines A′ formed from the input symbol transition matrices of A such that from any initial distribution A ≡ A′ . The strong stability problem is studied herein for the behavioral equivalences ≡ I (indistinguishability) and ≡ N ( N -moment equivalence). The concepts of strong stability transformation and error matrix are introduced to formalize the perturbations which are allowed in the input symbol transition matrices. Necessary conditions for the existence of any strongly stable transformations are studied using the concept of invariant error matrix. A strong stability transformation T is called “eigenstate behavior preserving” for an equivalence ≡ if for any distribution v over the states of A and any input symbol x (non-null) such that v·A ( x ) = v , we have the trajectory of distributions { v·T[ A ( x r )]}, r = 1, 2, ⋯ in A′ equivalent by ≡ to v in A′ . It is shown that strong stability transformations for ≡ I and ≡ N are eigenstate behavior preserving.
The effect of obesity on kidney length in a healthy pediatric population

Over the past decade, the percentage of children who are obese has rapidly increased. As weight has been shown to correlate strongly with the size of various organs, we have observed that obese children have larger kidneys than their normal-weight counterparts. This study sought to quantify this observation by establishing the normal limits of renal length for this population. We examined 204 healthy patients seen for benign hematuria between January 2000 and May 2008. Both right and left kidney lengths significantly correlated with age, height, weight, body mass index and body surface area in our obese patients (n = 59). Height was also found to be a significant predictor of kidney length, in the obese group, by multiple linear regression analysis and was used to create renal length nomograms for the obese pediatric population (P < 0.01). According to this analysis, obese patients had significantly larger kidneys than those of normal-weight patients (P < 0.01). By defining the normal limits of renal length for this group, unnecessary evaluation for nephromegaly will be avoided.
Field theory models for variable cosmological constant

Anthropic solutions to the cosmological constant problem require seemingly unnatural scalar field potentials with a very small slope or domain walls (branes) with a very small coupling to a four-form field. Here we introduce a class of models in which the smallness of the corresponding parameters can be attributed to a spontaneously broken discrete symmetry. We also demonstrate the equivalence of scalar field and four-form models. Finally, we show how our models can be naturally embedded into a left-right extension of the standard model.
MBE grown, visible, surface emitting harmonic generation lasers

Abstract Using an MBE grown GaAs/AlGaAs multilayer structure in a waveguide geometry, we show that an enhancement for surface emitting harmonic generation in excess of 10 million can be achieved. Based upon this effect, we propose a design giving monolithic surface emitting laser sources tuneable from red to blue in the visible spectrum.
Phospholipid and detergent effects on (Ca2+ + Mg2+)ATpase purified from human erythrocytes☆

Abstract (Ca 2+ + Mg 2+ )ATPase (EC 3.6.1.3) was solubilized from human erythrocyte membranes by detergent extraction with Triton N-101 (0.5 mg/mg membrane protein) and purified by calmodulin affinity chromatography. ATPase activity was assayed in mixtures of Triton N-101 and phospholipid, without reconstitution into bilayer vesicles. At low levels of phospholipid (5 μg/ml), the ATPase activity was highly sensitive to the detergent concentration, with maximal activity occurring at or near the critical micelle concentration of the detergent. With increased amounts of phospholipid (50 μg/ml), detergent concentrations greater than the critical micelle concentration were required for maximal activity. Detergent alone did not support ATPase activity. Sonicated phospholipid in the form of vesicles was equally ineffective. Activity seemed to be dependent on the presence of detergent/phospholipid mixed micelles. The acidic phospholipids, phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylinositol, as well as the commercial phospholipid preparation, Asolectin, gave activities five to eight times greater than the same amount of phosphatidylcholine. Mixtures of phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylcholine produced intermediate ATPase activities, with the maximal value dependent on the phosphatidylserine concentration. Addition of phosphatidylcholine to fixed concentrations of phosphatidylserine caused a rise in activity that was independent of the ratio of the two phospholipids or the total phospholipid concentration. Phosphatidylcholine may therefore be irreplaceable for some aspect of ATPase function. The number of phospholipid molecules present in mixed micelles at maximal ATPase activity was calculated to be near 50. This value implied that the hydrophobic surface of the ATPase molecule must be completely coated by a single layer of phospholipid molecules for maximum activity to occur.
Epithelial wounds induce differential phosphorylation changes in response to purinergic and EGF receptor activation.

Protein phosphorylation is a dynamic post-translational modification. Mass spectrometry–based quantitation was performed to determine the phosphoproteome profile of epithelial cells in response to injury, nucleotide, or epidermal growth factor. Phosphotyrosine enrichment used immunoprecipitation and immobilized metal affinity chromatography. Nucleotides released after scratch wounding activate purinergic receptors, leading to a distinct phosphorylation profile on epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) compared with its natural ligand. ATP induced a 2- to 15-fold phosphorylation increase over control on EGFR Y974, Y1086, and Y1148, with minimal phosphorylation intensity on EGFR Y1173 compared with the level measured in response to epidermal growth factor. Differential phosphorylation induced by epidermal growth factor or ATP was site specific on Src, Shc, phospholipase Cγ, protein kinase C, focal adhesion kinase, paxillin, and mitogen-activated protein kinases 1, 12, and 13. After wounding, the P2Y 2 receptor mRNA expression increased, and after knockdown, migration and Ca 2+ mobilization were impaired. To examine phosphorylation mediated by P2Y 2 , cells were cultured in media containing stable isotope-labeled amino acids, the receptor was knocked down, and the cells were stimulated. Mass spectrometry–based comparison of the phosphorylation profiles of control versus transfected cells revealed a 50-fold decrease in phosphorylation of EGFR Y974 and 1086, with no decrease in Y1173 phosphorylation. A similarfold decrease in Src Y421 and Y446 and paxillin Y118 was detected, indicating the far-reaching importance of the P2Y 2 receptor in mediating migration.
Intention to register as organ donors: a survey of adolescents.

Background—Little is known about factors that influence the intention of adolescents to register as organ donors. The identification of such factors has important implications for the development and implementation of educational programs and subsequent donor registration rates.Objective—To determine whether adolescents with an expressed commitment to becoming organ donor registrants differ significantly from nondonors on sociodemographic characteristics and factors influencing their decision.Participants—Four hundred forty-five adolescents visiting a Department of Motor Vehicles office for a permit or license (n = 153) or attending a driver's education course (n = 292) completed a semistructured interview and questionnaire.Results—Female (52.6%) and white (55.8%) adolescents were more likely to have favorable donation intentions relative to male (45.6%) and nonwhite (39.0%) adolescents (χ2 = 7.5, P = .02, and χ2 = 19.7, P = .003, respectively). Those with favorable donation intentions also endorsed signi...