cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Distal Single Subcortical Infarction Had a Better Clinical Outcome Compared With Proximal Single Subcortical Infarction

Background and Purpose—Single subcortical infarction (SSI) may be classified as proximal SSI (pSSI) or distal SSI (dSSI) according to its location within the middle cerebral artery territory. Few studies have examined the differences in clinical outcome between the two. Our study investigated such differences in patients with pSSI or dSSI and examined their baseline characteristics and indicators for small-vessel disease. Methods—We prospectively enrolled 400 patients with SSI (208 pSSI and 192 dSSI) who had no middle cerebral artery disease on MR angiography. Data compared included clinical information, lesion size, prevalence of lacune and leukoaraiosis at baseline, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score and modified Rankin Scale score at discharge, and any deterioration during admission or recurrence of ischemic stroke <1 year. Results—In multivariable logistic regression analysis, dSSI was independently associated with patient’s history of stroke, admission National Institutes of Health Stro...
Dissonant themes in preservice portfolio development

Abstract This study examined the use of portfolio assessment to determine the extent to which student teachers are able to demonstrate INTASC principles in their teaching. More specifically, it looked at the role of perception and assumption by identifying inconsistency between university faculty and student teacher expectations and use of the portfolio. The study found that dissonance was prominent in four main areas: purpose, value, perception, and context. Among the factors contributing to the dissonance were lack of clarity of stated purpose for the portfolio, the student teaching environment, and uncertainty between formative and summative nature of the assessment.
The Volunteers of America: The Origins and Development of its Ideology

Les « Volontaires d'Amerique » est un mouvement ne en 1896 d'un schisme avec l'Armee du Salut dont on critiquait la structure autocratique basee en Angleterre et insuffisamment informee des realites des situations locales. Mouvement lie a la theologie du protestantisme evangelique, au programme social de l'Armee du Salut et a la tradition representative et democratique de la Constitution americaine
Postnatal ontogeny of GABAB binding in rat brain

The postnatal development of GABAB binding sites in rat brain was studied by quantitative receptor autoradiography using [3H]GABA under selective conditions. Binding levels peak at regionally specific times during the first three weeks of life and then decline to adult levels. GABAB binding peaked in the globus pallidus, vestibular and spinal trigeminal nuclei, and the CA3 region of the hippocampus at postnatal day 3; in the striatum, nucleus accumbens, inferior olive, septum, dentate gyrus and CA1 region of the hippocampus at postnatal day 7; in the neocortex and thalamus at postnatal day 14; and in the medial geniculate at postnatal day 21. Following these regionally specific peaks, binding decreased to postnatal day 28 levels. Further significant decreases in binding were observed in all regions examined between postnatal day 28 and adulthood. Comparisons of binding site pharmacology reveal equipotent displacement of GABAB binding by several competitive agonists and antagonists in postnatal day 7 and adult rat brain, indicating that immature and adult binding sites have similar pharmacological properties with regard to these compounds. The GABAB receptor antagonist CGP 54626A, however, inhibited binding more potently in the postnatal day 7 thalamus and neocortex than in these areas in the adult brain. The guanyl nucleotide analogue guanosine 5'-O-(3-thiotriphasphate) inhibited GABAB binding extensively in both postnatal day 7 and adult brain. The non-competitive antagonist zinc also inhibited GABAB binding at both ages and was more potent in postnatal day 7 brain than in adult brain. Saturation analyses reveal two binding sites with similar affinities in both immature and adult rat brain, indicating that postnatal modulation of GABAB binding reflects changes in binding site density rather than modulation of binding site affinity. While immature GABAB binding sites share most pharmacological characteristics with adult binding sites and appear to be coupled to G-proteins at an early age, their interactions with zinc and CGP 54626A suggest that GABAB binding sites in immature brain may have a distinct pharmacological profile. Our data suggest significant regional and pharmacological changes in GABAB binding during development. The implications of these findings are discussed with regards to a possible role of GABAB receptors in the development of the central nervous system.
Building Person-centered Medicine through Dialogue and Partnerships: Perspective from the International Network for Person-centered Medicine

Person-centered medicine is to a large extent relationship-centered medicine. This involves, first, the understanding that a dialogic attitude lies at the foundation of medicine for the person and therefore represents a commitment to promote this interactive and communicational attitude in all aspects of clinical care. It also involves pursuing the development of partnerships as a natural path and mechanism for constructing the reality and the future of this initiative and its organization. Most immediately, these considerations informed the selection of Collaboration across Specialties, Disciplines and Programs as the overall theme for the Third Geneva Conference on Person Centered Medicine. At the same time, one can usefully reflect on how such considerations have emerged from the work of medicine and health pioneers who perceived and placed the whole person in context at the center of our field. And how these ideas are being nurtured by current innovative work on clinical procedures and strengthened by the cooperation of many global medical and health organizations and a growing community of scholars.
STRESS-TENSOR OPERATOR FOR FERMION FIELD INTERACTING WITH CLASSICAL GRAVITATIONAL FIELD.

Abstract The interaction between a quantized spin - 1 2 fermion field and a classical gravitational field is studied. The S-matrix elements are expressed in terms of a functional integral of the vacuum expectation value of the fermion stress tensor (and the first quantized fermion Green's functions). The basic problem for such a system is to find an expression for the stress tensor operator that avoids paradoxes analogous to those examined by Schwinger in current commutators. This is solved to first order in the gravitational potentials by “spreading” the points in the usual stress tensor expression and introducing a modified version of the Mandelstam-De Witt path-dependent functions. The two-sided fermion closed loop (with gravitational vertices) is calculated and is explicitly seen to be conserved, invariant under gravitational gauge transformations, and Lorentz covariant.
Encountering Difference: Rembrandt’s Presentation in the Dark Manner

Rembrandt’s etching of The Presentation of Christ in the Temple of c. 1654 has long been understood to represent a radical break from the protocols of pictorial and scriptural tradition. The significance of this theological inflection, however, has yet to be investigated. This study locates Rembrandt’s dramatic reformulation of the biblical event within a distinctive historical and religious context by considering the artist’s involvement with Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel, the foremost Jewish apologist of the seventeenth century. In 1655 Rembrandt illustrated the rabbi’s messianic treatise, Piedra Gloriosa, a book which emerged from and was fashioned to appeal directly to a movement within Dutch Protestantism known as ‘philosemitism’. Philosemitic texts are shown to correspond theologically with Rembrandt’s transformation of the scene into a confrontation between the universalist message of the Christian Gospel and the authority and ceremonial of Jewish law.
Subspace Clustering Using Log-determinant Rank Approximation

A number of machine learning and computer vision problems, such as matrix completion and subspace clustering, require a matrix to be of low-rank. To meet this requirement, most existing methods use the nuclear norm as a convex proxy of the rank function and minimize it. However, the nuclear norm simply adds all nonzero singular values together instead of treating them equally as the rank function does, which may not be a good rank approximation when some singular values are very large. To reduce this undesirable weighting effect, we use a log-determinant function as a non-convex rank approximation which reduces the contributions of large singular values while keeping those of small singular values close to zero. We apply the method of augmented Lagrangian multipliers to optimize this non-convex rank approximation-based objective function and obtain closed-form solutions for all subproblems of minimizing different variables alternatively. The log-determinant low-rank optimization method is used to solve subspace clustering problem, for which we construct an affinity matrix based on the angular information of the low-rank representation to enhance its separability property. Extensive experimental results on face clustering and motion segmentation data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide and chlorofluoromethanes - Combined effects on stratospheric ozone, temperature, and surface temperature

The effects of combined CO2 and CFCl3 and CF2Cl2 time-dependent scenarios on atmospheric O3 and temperature are described; the steady-state levels of O3 and surface temperature, to which the chlorofluoromethane scenario tends in the presence of twice and four time ambient CO2, are examined; and surface temperature changes, caused by the combined effects, are established. A description of the model and of the experiments is presented. Results indicate that (1) the total ozone time history is significantly different from that due to the chlorofluoromethane alone; (2) a local ozone minimum occurs in the upper stratosphere about 45 years from the present with a subsequent ozone increase, then decline; and (3) steady-state solutions indicate that tropospheric temperature and water vapor increases, associated with increased infrared opacity, cause significant changes in tropospheric ozone levels for 2 x CO2 and 4 x CO2, without the addition of chlorofluoromethanes.
Deep upwelling and diffusivity in the southern central Indian Basin

Transport of the deepest water westward through a gap at 28°S in the Ninetyeast Ridge between the Central Indian Basin and the West Australia Basin is calculated from hydrographic data collected as part of WOCE Hydrographic Program section I8N. Zero reference velocity levels at mid-depth were chosen through consideration of water masses. The small transport of 1.0 Sv westward of water denser than σ4 = 45.92 kg m−3 through the gap must all upwell in the southern Central Indian Basin. Of this, 0.7 Sv upwells between the central and western sill sections, that is, close to the sill itself. Using the areas covered by the isopycnal, we calculate an average vertical velocity of 3.3 · 10−3 cm s−1 close to the sill and of 4.2 · 10−4 cm s−1 west of the sill. Associated average vertical diffusivities are 105 cm² s−1 close to the sill and 13 cm² s−1 west of the sill, in this bottom layer.
Compressed-Sensing-Enabled Video Streaming for Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

This paper presents the design of a networked system for joint compression, rate control and error correction of video over resource-constrained embedded devices based on the theory of Compressed Sensing (CS). The objective of this work is to design a cross-layer system that jointly controls the video encoding rate, the transmission rate, and the channel coding rate to maximize the received video quality. First, compressed sensing-based video encoding for transmission over Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) is studied. It is shown that compressed sensing can overcome many of the current problems of video over WMSNs, primarily encoder complexity and low resiliency to channel errors. A rate controller is then developed with the objective of maintaining fairness among different videos while maximizing the received video quality. It is shown that the rate of Compressed Sensed Video (CSV) can be predictably controlled by varying only the compressed sensing sampling rate. It is then shown that the developed rate controller can be interpreted as the iterative solution to a convex optimization problem representing the optimization of the rate allocation across the network. The error resiliency properties of compressed sensed images and videos are then studied, and an optimal error detection and correction scheme is presented for video transmission over lossy channels. Finally, the entire system is evaluated through simulation and test bed evaluation. The rate controller is shown to outperform existing TCP-friendly rate control schemes in terms of both fairness and received video quality. The test bed results show that the rates converge to stable values in real channels.
Chemical proteomics applied to target identification and drug discovery.

In the past decade, DNA sequencing of multiple organisms has provided us with our ﬁrst look at complete lists of protein prod-ucts expressed from a whole genome. The ﬁeld of proteomics is now challenged with the task of elucidating the cellular func-tions of these proteins in both normal and pathological pro-cesses (1–3). Several proteomic techniques, such as 2-dimensional gel-electrophoresis (4) and isotope-coded afﬁnity-tagging (5), provide a means to globally monitor changes in protein expres-sion levels. However, the abundance of a protein is not necessar-ily directly coupled to its activity. Most enzymes are mediators of biochemical transformations and are therefore highly posttrans-lationally regulated. Many are synthesized as zymogens, which are tightly regulated through enzymatic activation. Moreover, the activity of enzymes is altered by changes in pH and the presence of inhibitors. Thus, methods that allow direct quanti-ﬁcation of protein activities rather than simple abundance are required to uncover distinct protein functions in physiological and pathological events.A new research ﬁeld has been created to begin to address protein function at the level of regulation of enzyme activity. This new area has been given the name chemical proteomics, or activity-based proteomics, and makes use of small molecules that can covalently attach to catalytic residues in an enzyme active site (6–11). The selectivity of the chemically reactive group allows speciﬁc proteins or protein subsets to be tagged, puri-ﬁed, and analyzed. As a result, this technique is able to identify novel enzymatic proteins and has the potential to accelerate the discovery of new drug targets.
Full rotation gravitationally induced quantum interference experiment

We present here a preliminary description of second generation neutron interferometry experiments in which quantum interference is induced by the gravitational field of the Earth. The interferometer is mounted in such a way that it can be rotated a full 360 degrees about the incident beam. In situ X-ray experiments are also carried out to monitor the effects of bending of the perfect Si crystal LLL device. We are studying in detail the contrast variations as a function of rotation.
Data compression algorithms for energy-constrained devices in delay tolerant networks

Sensor networks are fundamentally constrained by the difficulty and energy expense of delivering information from sensors to sink. Our work has focused on garnering additional significant energy improvements by devising computationally-efficient lossless compression algorithms on the source node. These reduce the amount of data that must be passed through the network and to the sink, and thus have energy benefits that are multiplicative with the number of hops the data travels through the network.Currently, if sensor system designers want to compress acquired data, they must either develop application-specific compression algorithms or use off-the-shelf algorithms not designed for resource-constrained sensor nodes. This paper discusses the design issues involved with implementing, adapting, and customizing compression algorithms specifically geared for sensor nodes. While developing Sensor LZW (S-LZW) and some simple, but effective, variations to this algorithm, we show how different amounts of compression can lead to energy savings on both the compressing node and throughout the network and that the savings depends heavily on the radio hardware. To validate and evaluate our work, we apply it to datasets from several different real-world deployments and show that our approaches can reduce energy consumption by up to a factor of 4.5X across the network.
Comparison of Aromatic Dithiophosphinic and Phosphinic Acid Derivatives for Minor Actinide Extraction

A new extractant for the separation of actinide(III) and lanthanide(III), bis(otrifluoromethylphenyl) phosphinic acid (O-PA) was synthesized. The synthetic route employed mirrors one that was employed to produce the sulfur containing analog bis(otrifluoromethylphenyl) dithiophosphinic acid (S-PA). Multinuclear NMR spectroscopy was used for elementary characterization of the new O-PA derivative. This new O-PA extractant was used to perform Am(III)/Eu(III) separations and the results were directly compared to those obtained in identical separation experiments using S-PA, an extractant that is known to exhibit separation factors of ~100,000 at low pH. The separations data are presented and discussed in terms comparing the nature of the oxygen atom as a donor to that of the sulfur atom in extractants that are otherwise identical.
Single-Particle Self-Excited Oscillator

Electronic feedback is used to self-excite the axial oscillation of a single electron in a Penning trap. Large, stable, easily detected oscillations arise even in an anharmonic potential. Amplitudes are controlled by adjusting the feedback gain, and frequencies can be made nearly independent of amplitude fluctuations. Quantum jump spectroscopy of a perpendicular cyclotron motion reveals the absolute temperature and amplitude of the self-excited oscillation. The possibility to quickly measure parts per billion frequency shifts could open the way to improved measurements of e-, e+, p, and [overline p] magnetic moments.
DEPTH FOR COMPLEXES, AND INTERSECTION THEOREMS

This paper introduces a new notion of depth for complexes; it agrees with the classical definition for modules, and coincides with earlier extensions to complexes, whenever those are defined. Techniques are developed leading to a quick proof of an extension of the Improved New Intersection Theorem (this uses Hochster's big Cohen-Macaulay modules), and also a generalization of the “depth formula” for tensor product of modules. Properties of depth for complexes are established, extending the usual properties of depth for modules.
Evaluation of Computer-aided Strategies for Teaching Medical Students Prenatal Ultrasound Diagnostic Skills

Objective: To evaluate whether computer-based learning (CBL) improves newly acquired knowledge and is an effective strategy for teaching prenatal ultrasound diagnostic skills to third-year medical students when compared with instruction by traditional paper-based methods (PBM). Study Design: We conducted a randomized, prospective study involving volunteer junior (3rd year) medical students consecutively rotating through the Obstetrics and Gynecology clerkship during six months of the 2005-2006 academic year. The students were randomly assigned to permuted blocks and divided into two groups. Half of the participants received instruction in prenatal ultrasound diagnostics using an interactive CBL program; the other half received instruction using equivalent material by the traditional PBM. Outcomes were evaluated by comparing changes in pre-tutorial and post instruction examination scores. Results: All 36 potential participants (100%) completed the study curriculum. Students were divided equally between the CBL (n=18) and PBM (n=18) groups. Pre-tutorial exam scores (mean ± s.d.) were 44% ± 11.1% for the CBL group and 44% ± 10.8% for the PBL cohort, indicating no statistically significant differences (p > 0.05) between the two groups. After instruction, post-tutorial exam scores (mean ± s.d.) were increased from the pre-tutorial scores, 74% ± 11% and 67% ± 12%, for students in the CBL and the PBM groups, respectively. The improvement in post-tutorial exam scores from the pre-test scores was considered significant (p < 0.05). When post-test scores for the tutorial groups were compared, the CBL subjects achieved a score that was, on average, 7 percentage points higher than their PBM counterparts, a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Instruction by either CBL or PBM strategies is associated with improvements in newly acquired knowledge as reflected by increased post-tutorial examination scores. Students that received CBL had significantlyhigher post-tutorial exam scores than those in the PBM group, indicating that CBL is an effective instruction strategy in this setting. Key Words: Computer-based learning, prenatal ultrasound, diagnostic skills, 3rd-year medical students
The prolactin receptor in the fetal rat: cellular localization of messenger ribonucleic acid, immunoreactive protein, and ligand-binding activity and induction of expression in late gestation.

The cellular distribution and developmental expression of the PRL receptor (PRLR) in the late gestational fetal rat were examined by in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry, and radioligand binding. Antisense and sense strand RNA probes encoding the long and short isoforms of the rat PRLR were hybridized to tissue sections under stringent conditions. Messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding the two isoforms of the receptor was expressed widely in tissues derived from all three germ layers; these included various tissues not known previously to contain lactogenic receptors, such as the olfactory neuronal epithelium and olfactory bulb, trigeminal and dorsal root ganglia, cochlear duct, brown adipose tissue, submandibular glands, whisker follicles, tooth primordia, and proliferative and maturing chondrocytes of developing bones. Prominent expression of PRLR mRNA was also detected in the fetal adrenal cortex, gastrointestinal and bronchial mucosae, renal tubular epithelia, choroid plexus, thymus, liver, pancreas, an...
A MATLAB expert system for ground-based satellite operations

The use of expert systems as a means of providing satellite operators with a fast and reliable telemetry analysis tool has become increasingly widespread. We have developed a MATLAB-based expert system that is intended to provide production rule based telemetry analysis functionality to the operator while leveraging the power and available support for the MATLAB software package. The initial phase of this project involves the development of production rule methodology code, which can quickly and efficiently provide the satellite operator with the engineering data required to make command decisions. Our efforts have also focused on support capabilities for the expert system to include the ability to edit rules and update satellite specific threshold values. Initial code validation using archived telemetry from the Sapphire satellite has shown that the code functions as designed. A full test of the code during a live contact has yet to be accomplished. The flexibility of the MATLAB scripting language provides an expert systems platform that has a tremendous potential for evolving to include features like persistence-based reasoning and long term plotting
Light-Trail Networks: Design and Survivability

The light-trail architecture provides a novel solution to address IP-centric issues at the optical layer. By incorporating drop and continue functionality, overlaid with a lightweight control protocol, light-trails enable efficient sharing of network resources, support subwavelength traffic and minimize costs. In this work, we investigate network design and survivability issues in such networks in the presence of multi-granularity subwavelength traffic subject to nonbifurcation constraints. We first establish the NP-hardness of the light-trail routing problem by reduction from a Hamiltonian path problem. We propose three heuristics for light-trail network design and study their performance with limited network resources. We observe the effect of tunable and fixed transceiver equipment on network throughput. We observe that our heuristics yield excellent wavelength utilization under moderate to high loads even in the presence of heavily fractional traffic. We propose two additional heuristics for shared and dedicated protection and conclude that with only a modest amount of spare capacity, full protection can be achieved for all single link failures
Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Background Risk

In this paper, we focus on how the presence of background risks – from sources such as labour and entrepreneurial income – influences portfolio allocations. This interaction is explored in a theoretical model that is calibrated using cross-sectional data from a variety of sources. The model is shown to be consistent with some but not all aspects of cross-sectional observations of portfolio holdings. The paper also provides a survey of the extensive theoretical and empirical literature on portfolio choice.
THE ROLE OF HEAT CONDUCTION IN COOLING FLOWS

The role of heat conduction in the cooling flows of clusters of galaxies has been investigated by running a series of numerical hydrodynamic computations. It is found that flows with no source or sink develop a cold and dense condensing core inconsistent with X-ray observations, while including a sink for the cooling gas produces a gradual drop in temperature toward the cluster center in agreement with X-ray measurements. Heat conduction can suppress the accretion rate by a factor of a few to several, while larger reductions result in a nearly isothermal Intra-Cluster Medium.
A role for norepinephrine in the regulation of context-dependent ZENK expression in male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata)

Singing drives expression of the immediate-early gene ZENK in a context-dependent manner in certain nuclei within the avian song circuit of male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). ZENK mRNA expression is low when males are engaged in female- or maledirected song, but high during solo song. Neurotransmitter systems like catecholamines with diffuse projections to forebrain regions are good candidates for regulation of such context-dependent brain activity.We investigated whether the noradrenergic system regulates the dramatic switch in ZENK expression across contexts in male zebra finches. We systemically injected a noradrenergic neurotoxin N-(2-chloroethyl)-N-ethyl-2-bromobenzylamine hydrochloride (DSP-4) and found a marked increase in the resultant ZENK expression in area X of the medial striatum in male zebra finches singing directed song. ZENK protein expression in saline-treated males across different contexts mirrored the pattern of previously reported ZENK mRNA expression. We corroborated DSP-4 specificity via immunohistochemical procedures for tyrosine hydroxylase and dopamine-beta hydroxylase, which revealed decreases in norepinephrine synthesizing nuclei and certain song control nuclei. Based on these results we propose a mechanism by which the noradrenergic system usually downregulates ZENK expression in area X during directed song. By depleting this system we induced a disruption of this regulation and reversion back to the default situation characterized by an increase in motor-driven ZENK expression in the song circuit. These data demonstrate that the noradrenergic system (probably in concert with other modulatory neurotransmitters) plays an important role in the response of the brain to salient events that occur in the context of a natural behavior ) singing.
Software process improvement through the identification and removal of project-level knowledge flow obstacles

Uncontrollable costs, schedule overruns, and poor end product quality continue to plague the software engineering field. This research investigates software process improvement (SPI) through the application of knowledge management (KM) at the software project level. A pilot study was conducted to investigate what types of obstacles to knowledge flow exist within a software development project, as well as the potential influence on SPI of their mitigation or removal. The KM technique of “knowledge mapping” was used as a research technique to characterize knowledge flow. Results show that such mitigation or removal was acknowledged by project team members as having the potential for lowering project labor cost, improving schedule adherence, and enhancing final product quality.
On feedback in Gaussian multi-hop networks

The study of feedback has been mostly limited to single-hop communication settings. In this paper, we consider Gaussian networks where sources and destinations can communicate with the help of intermediate relays over multiple hops. We assume that links in the network can be bidirected providing opportunities for feedback. We ask the following question: can the information transfer in both directions of a link be critical to maximizing the end-to-end communication rates in the network? Equivalently, could one of the directions in each bidirected link (and more generally at least one of the links forming a cycle) be shut down and the capacity of the network still be approximately maintained? We show that in any arbitrary Gaussian network with bidirected edges and cycles, and unicast, multiple-access or broadcast traffic, we can always identify a directed acyclic subnetwork that approximately maintains the capacity of the original network. On the other hand, with multicast and multiple unicast traffic bidirected flow across links can be critical to maximizing the end-to-end capacity.
PHYVOS: Physical layer voting for secure and fast cooperation

Distributed wireless networks often employ voting to perform critical network functions such as fault-tolerant data fusion, cooperative sensing, and reaching consensus. Voting is implemented by exchanging messages with a fusion center or just between the participants. However, the communication and delay overheads of message-based voting can be prohibitive when voting is frequent. Additional overheads are incurred if voter authentication and vote integrity verification are required. In this paper, we propose a fast PHY-layer voting scheme called PHYVOS, which significantly reduces the voting overhead. In PHYVOS, wireless devices transmit their votes to a fusion center simultaneously, by exploiting the subcarrier orthogonality in OFDM and without explicit messaging. We show that PHYVOS is secure against attackers that attempt to manipulate the voting outcome. Security is achieved without employing cryptography-based authentication and message integrity schemes. We analytically evaluate the voting robustness as a function of PHY-layer parameters. We further discuss practical implementation challenges of PHYVOS related to multi-device frequency and time synchronization. Finally, we present a prototype implementation of PHYVOS on the USRP platform.
Excess Weight Loss and Cardiometabolic Parameter Reduction Diminished among Hispanics Undergoing Bariatric Surgery: Outcomes in More than 2,000 Consecutive Hispanic Patients at a Single Institution

Background Bariatric surgery has been established as the most effective long-term treatment for morbid obesity and obesity-related comorbidities. Despite its success, there is a paucity of data on the outcomes of bariatric surgery on Hispanic patients. Study design We performed a retrospective review of obese patients treated at our institute between 2008 and 2014. We identified self-reported Hispanic patients who underwent a laparoscopic gastric bypass (LGBP), sleeve gastrectomy (LSG), or gastric band (LGB) procedure. The primary end point was excess weight loss (EWL) at 6, 12, 24, and 36 months. Secondary end points included improvement of obesity-related metabolic parameters at 1 year. We performed a repeated measures analysis of variance to calculate statistical significance throughout our study time period. Results We identified 2002 Hispanic patients who underwent bariatric surgery (1,235 LGBP, 600 LSG, 167 LGB) at our institute from 2008 to 2014. Follow-ups at 6, 12, 24, and 36 months were 62.2%, 54.5%, 36.2%, and 19.8%, respectively. Mean preoperative BMIs were 47.0 ± 7.2 kg/m 2 , 46.1 ± 7.8 kg/m 2 , and 44.9 ± 6.0 kg/m 2 for the LGBP, LSG, and LGB cohorts, respectively. Excess weight loss was significantly more pronounced in the LGBP and the LSG groups than in the LGB group; this difference was accentuated over time (p Conclusions Bariatric surgery is highly successful in Hispanic obese patients. In the largest series to date, LGBP and LSG seem to yield more effective EWL and reduction of cardiometabolic parameters than LGB among Hispanics; however, outcomes are still markedly reduced when compared with those in non-Hispanic populations.
Ugly White Districts: What Should Sandy Do?

A case recently decided by a three-judge panel in the Southern District of New York, Rodriguez v. Pataki, where plaintiffs challenge the 2002 New York State Senate redistricting plan, presents a new kind of redistricting dilemma. Rodriguez raises the issue of what to do about bizarrely-shaped white districts that are constructed or preserved using race as an obvious motivation - apparently in violation of Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), which held ugly black districts to be violative of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause - but are adjacent to majority-minority districts that must be preserved in accordance with both Sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the laws forbidding dilution and retrogression of majority-minority districts. Here, I ask what Justice Sandra Day O'Connor should do about unsightly majority white districts that are drawn principally to maintain white majorities, even if such districts also help fashion adjacent majority-minority districts required by the Voting Rights Act.
Impacts of aqueous Mn(II) on the sorption of Zn(II) by hexagonal birnessite.

We used a combination of batch studies and spectroscopic analyses to assess the impacts of aqueous Mn(II) on the solubility and speciation of Zn(II) in anoxic suspensions of hexagonal birnessite at pH 6.5 and 7.5. Introduction of aqueous Mn(II) into pre-equilibrated Zn(II)-birnessite suspensions leads to desorption of Zn(II) at pH 6.5, but enhances Zn(II) sorption at pH 7.5. XAS results show that Zn(II) adsorbs as tetrahedral and octahedral triple-corner-sharing complexes at layer vacancy sites when reacted with birnessite in the absence of Mn(II). Addition of aqueous Mn(II) causes no discernible change in Zn(II) surface speciation at pH 6.5, but triggers conversion of adsorbed Zn(II) into spinel Zn(II)1–xMn(II)xMn(III)2O4 precipitates at pH 7.5. This conversion is driven by electron transfer from adsorbed Mn(II) to structural Mn(IV) generating Mn(III) surface species that coprecipitate with Zn(II) and Mn(II). Our results demonstrate substantial production of these reactive Mn(III) surface species within ...
Light Scattering Serves as Optical Signature for Detection of Positive Surgical Margins on prostate capsule

We employed light reflectance spectroscopy to quantify light scattering of prostate cancer on the gland capsules from ex-vivo human prostate specimens. Pathology results confirmed that light scattering is significantly distinct between cancerous and benign prostate capsule tissue.
New mTOR inhibitor for renal cell cancer.

Once-daily oral inhibitor of mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after failure of treatment with sunitinib (Sutent) or sorafenib (Nexavar).
METHOD TO INCREASE COORDINATED CONTROL SYSTEMS LOAD CHANGE RATE RESPONDED WITH AGC LOAD DEMAND

Focus on the problem of coordinated control systems load change can’t meet the need of AGC load change rate in south part of Hebei power grid,several factors that influence load change rate were analyzed.To solve this problem,the number of control signals between power plants and the grid dispatching center should be increased,the way that load demand send to CCS should be improved,for the power plants with supervision information systems,AGC control signals should be passed to the whole power plant rather than to one unit,by these ways load change rate may be improved greatly.
Comparasion of farmers' satisfaction with different compensation modes of rural land expropriation

This paper investigated the impacts of different compensation modes on land-expropriated farmers' satisfaction in China,using the survey data of three provinces distributed in the East,Middle and West part of China in 2013. The results indicated that after controlling the economic and time effects,the compensation payment under social security had a significant and positive impact on farmers' satisfaction;while the effects of compensation under cash paid in a lump sum and cash paid at some certain periods were not significant. Therefore,the social security mode obtained farmers' favor. Based on the results,it was concluded that in order to relieve the land conflicts,raising the compensation standard was necessary,and respecting farmers' opinions and promoting social security were also important in practice.
Study on the status of microbial technician resources in district centers for disease control and prevention in Beijing

Objective To explore and analysis the problems on microbial technician resources in Microbiological testing laboratories, and to provide suggestions and measures for the solution. Methods The data of microbial technician resources were collected from district centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) of Beijing in 2011. Literature review and field study were used for data analysis. Results Microbiological testing laboratories in suburban district CDC were short of highly educated personnel. There were only 12.50% laboratorians with Doctoral degrees and 28.57% with Master’s degrees in suburban district CDC. Compared with suburban and urban district CDC, more staff whose job didn’t match their specialty and fewer experts worked in suburban district CDC. Conclusion CDC should increase the introduction of staff with PhD or Master’s Degree and introduce more microbiological testing experts such as inspectors with senior professional titles. Meanwhile government should also increase investment for microbiological testing laboratory in CDC, especially in suburban district CDC. In order to improve the microbial technician resources and establish a high quality microbiological testing team, employing more highly educated professional staff should be enhanced.
Epidemiological Analysis on 125 Patients With Clonorchiasis and Control Measures

Objective To understand the situation and epidemiological characteristics of clonorchiasis in Zhaoqing City and to provide scientific basis for preventive and control measures. Methods The patient who had registered that carrying the Clonorchis sinensis eggs in the city were collected and analyzed. Results In the recent three years,altogether 125 patients with clonorchiasis were detected.Most of them were distributed near by the Zhujiang River where was freshwater fishes breeding;and more than 98% patients had a history of eating raw fish or shrimps. Conclusions Currently there are no countermeasure programs for prevention and control of the Clonorchis sinensis epidemic and the situation is severe.The prevention and control is important to initiate open active surveillance,detect and treat the infected patients and health education and behavior intervention for altering the habitual eat of raw fish and shrimps should be emphasized.
Transfer of Maternal Immune Cells by Breastfeeding: Maternal Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes Present in Breast Milk Localize in the Peyer's Patches of the Nursed Infant.

Despite our knowledge of the protective role of antibodies passed to infants through breast milk, our understanding of immunity transfer via maternal leukocytes is still limited. To emulate the immunological interface between the mother and her infant while breast-feeding, we used murine pups fostered after birth onto MHC-matched and MHC-mismatched dams. Overall, data revealed that: 1) Survival of breast milk leukocytes in suckling infants is possible, but not significant after the foster-nursing ceases; 2) Most breast milk lymphocytes establish themselves in specific areas of the intestine termed Peyer’s patches (PPs); 3) While most leukocytes in the milk bolus were myeloid cells, the majority of breast milk leukocytes localized to PPs were T lymphocytes, and cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) in particular; 4) These CTLs exhibit high levels of the gut-homing molecules α4β7 and CCR9, but a reduced expression of the systemic homing marker CD62L; 5) Under the same activation conditions, transferred CD8 T cells through breast milk have a superior capacity to produce potent cytolytic and inflammatory mediators when compared to those generated by the breastfed infant. It is therefore possible that maternal CTLs found in breast milk are directed to the PPs to compensate for the immature adaptive immune system of the infant in order to protect it against constant oral infectious risks during the postnatal phase.
TH‐AB‐BRA‐07: PENELOPE‐Based GPU‐Accelerated Dose Calculation System Applied to MRI‐Guided Radiation Therapy

Purpose: The clinical commissioning of IMRT subject to a magnetic field is challenging. The purpose of this work is to develop a GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo dose calculation platform based on PENELOPE and then use the platform to validate a vendor-provided MRIdian head model toward quality assurance of clinical IMRT treatment plans subject to a 0.35 T magnetic field. Methods: We first translated PENELOPE from FORTRAN to C++ and validated that the translation produced equivalent results. Then we adapted the C++ code to CUDA in a workflow optimized for GPU architecture. We expanded upon the original code to include voxelized transport boosted by Woodcock tracking, faster electron/positron propagation in a magnetic field, and several features that make gPENELOPE highly user-friendly. Moreover, we incorporated the vendor-provided MRIdian head model into the code. We performed a set of experimental measurements on MRIdian to examine the accuracy of both the head model and gPENELOPE, and then applied gPENELOPE toward independent validation of patient doses calculated by MRIdian's KMC. Results: We achieve an average acceleration factor of 152 compared to the original single-thread FORTRAN implementation with the original accuracy preserved. For 16 treatment plans including stomach (4), lung (2), liver (3), adrenal gland (2), pancreas (2), spleen (1), mediastinum (1) and breast (1), the MRIdian dose calculation engine agrees with gPENELOPE with a mean gamma passing rate of 99.1% ± 0.6% (2%/2 mm). Conclusions: We developed a Monte Carlo simulation platform based on a GPU-accelerated version of PENELOPE. We validated that both the vendor provided head model and fast Monte Carlo engine used by the MRIdian system are accurate in modeling radiation transport in a patient using 2%/2 mm gamma criteria. Future applications of this platform will include dose validation and accumulation, IMRT optimization, and dosimetry system modeling for next generation MR-IGRT systems.
Quantitative Measurement of Cationic Polymer Vector and Polymer-pDNA Polyplex Intercalation into the Cell Plasma Membrane.

Cationic gene delivery agents (vectors) are important for delivering nucleotides, but are also responsible for cytotoxicity. Cationic polymers (L-PEI, jetPEI, and G5 PAMAM) at 1× to 100× the concentrations required for translational activity (protein expression) induced the same increase in plasma membrane current of HEK 293A cells (30–50 nA) as measured by whole cell patch-clamp. This indicates saturation of the cell membrane by the cationic polymers. The increased currents induced by the polymers are not reversible for over 15 min. Irreversibility on this time scale is consistent with a polymer-supported pore or carpet model and indicates that the cell is unable to clear the polymer from the membrane. For polyplexes, although the charge concentration was the same (at N/P ratio of 10:1), G5 PAMAM and jetPEI polyplexes induced a much larger current increase (40- 50 nA) than L-PEI polyplexes (<20 nA). Both free cationic lipid and lipid polyplexes induced a lower increase in current than cationic polymers (...
PROTON NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE STUDIES OF SICKLE CELL HEMOGLOBIN

Both high-resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance and nuclear relaxation techniques have been used to investigate normal and sickle cell hemoglobins in solution at neutral pH. By choosing appropriate mutant and chemically modified hemoglobins, high-resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy allows us to assign several proton resonances to C2 and C4 protons of specific histidyl residues in the hemoglobin molecule. By monitoring these proton resonances as a function of pH, we have determined the pK values of these residues. We have found that there are differences in the chemical shifts and pK values of certain histidyl residues between normal and sickle cell hemoglobins in both deoxy and carbonmonoxy forms. By means of pulse proton nuclear magnetic resonance techniques, we have determined both spin-lattice and spin-spin relaxation times of the histidyl residues of normal and sickle deoxyhemoglobins. Our high-resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance results suggest that there are specific surface conformational differences between normal and sickle cell hemoglobins, and preliminary analysis of our proton relaxation results indicate that both spin-lattice and spin-spin relaxation times of the histidyl residues are valuable dynamic probes to investigate these differences.
Continuous Spinal Anesthesia: A Lost Art

Continuous spinal anesthesia is seldom used in clinical anesthesia because of the concern for postoperative neuropathy. However, it is an excellent anesthetic, especially in elderly patients undergoing lower extremity surgery. Recommendations for avoiding its complications are provided.
Energy in Chemical Systems: An Integrated Approach

“Energy” is a complex scientific concept central to all scientific disciplines. Here we describe three perspectives often used to address energy in the context of introductory college level courses: the macroscopic, which involves thermodynamic and mathematical treatments of energy and energy changes, the atomic-molecular, which relates to energy changes that result from bonding and intermolecular interactions, and the quantum-mechanical, which relates to energy quantization and provides the basis for understanding periodic trends, molecular structure, and electromagnetic radiation. A robust understanding of the role of energy within chemical systems requires that these three perspectives be integrated, but often they are separated into distinct sections of the course and are not explicitly connected. Moreover, prior instruction that does not explicitly address energy concepts at the molecular level almost certainly adds to student challenges. We suggest an alternate approach, illustrated by the new general chemistry course “Chemistry, Life, the Universe and Everything”, in which structure, properties and energy are presented as three interconnected learning progressions, and the treatment of energy is integrated. All three energy perspectives are explicitly addressed and related to each other in increasingly more sophisticated ways, so that students are led from the structure of the atom through to networked biological reactions, and the role that energy, entropy and Gibbs energy play in these systems.