cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Invasive Aspergillosis: Serologic Diagnosis

Invasive aspergillosis is a common infection in immunocompromised patients, which, when untreated, is uniformly fatal. Although amphotericin B currently is the drug of choice for invasive aspergillosis, this agent is toxic and is, at times, not successful, particularly in immunosuppressed patients. Early treatment may improve survival (Aisner et al. 1977), but the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis is difficult to establish because cultures of blood and other body fluids are rarely positive. Serologic techniques have been used in an attempt to establish an antemortem diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis. Initial attempts by our laboratory (Marier et al. 1979) and by others (de Repentigny 1989) were directed at detecting antibody to Aspergillus. However, patients at risk for developing invasive aspergillosis often do not develop antibodies to Aspergillus, especially early in the course of their infection. Thus, aspergillus antibody has not been helpful as a diagnostic tool for not identifying invasive aspergillosis. Subsequent research in our laboratory, and others, has attempted to diagnose invasive aspergillosis on the basis of circulating aspergillus antigen. The intent has been to develop a reliable method that would establish an early diagnosis which would permit prompt antifungal therapy and an improved clinial outcome.
Postsurgical behavioral changes

Evaluation of postsurgical behavioral changes in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a complicated subject. Reasons for this complexity stem from the progressive nature of PD, its propensity to include neurobehavioral changes, and the variability in motor and nonmotor results that follow various types of surgical treatment. Studies of postsurgical behavioral changes also have not had the benefit of comparison with randomized, controlled, longitudinal follow-up of patients who have not had surgical treatment. Nevertheless, it appears that most modern-day lesioning and deep-brain stimulation (DBS) operations performed at experienced surgical centers are relatively safe from a cognitive perspective. Surgical interventions appear to involve minimal psychiatric morbidity in most instances. When neurocognitive declines are observed, they most often involve verbal fluency, regardless of the surgical technique and target. This decline in verbal fluency occurs more often after dominant hemisphere-sided operations and may persist for 1 year or more, independent of motor speech changes. Other selective changes have been observed in working memory, attention, and episodic memory, but only in a minority of studies and patients.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLICINOGENIC FACTORS E1 AND V AND AN F FACTOR IN ESCHERICHIA COLI.

Kahn, Phyllis L. (Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.), and Donald R. Helinski. Relationship between colicinogenic factors E1 and V and an F factor in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 88:1573–1579. 1964.—Colicinogenic factors are the genetic determinants for colicin production in enteric bacteria. An examination of the relationship of two colicinogenic factors, colE1 and colV, to the F factor of fertility in Escherichia coli revealed that the colE1 factor does not have the properties of a fertility factor, whereas the colV factor appears to possess a genetic determinant of fertility (Fv). Cells containing colE1 alone do not recombine with F− strains, whereas V+Fv+ strains can recombine, but at a lower frequency for certain markers than cells containing the F factor from E. coli. Strains possessing the colV factor can transfer the V+ and Fv+ properties to an F− recipient, whereas strains harboring colE1 alone are not able to transfer this factor. When a V+Fv+E1+ strain is used as a donor, recipients show Fv+ sexuality characteristics only if they also acquire the ability to produce colicin V. The colV factor is transferred at lower efficiency to F+ than to F− strains, whereas the transfer of colE1 is equally efficient to both. In addition, the V+Fv+F+ colonies isolated segregate V+Fv+F− and V−Fv−F+ cells at high frequency, indicating an incompatibility between the colV and F factors. Finally, under the conditions employed, acridine orange does not remove the colE1 factor, but will remove the colV factor from colicinogenic cells. In every case tested, the V+ and Fv+ characteristics are removed simultaneously by the acridine orange treatment.
Mucocutaneous Lymph Node Syndrome: Report of Two Cases Complicated by Gallbladder Hydrops and Diagnosed by Ultrasound

Two patients with mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome are presented. During the course of their illnesses, they developed acute abdominal pain secondary to hydrops of the gallbladder. The diagnosis and management of each case was facilitated by ultrasonography.
Trade policies and incentives in Indian agriculture : methodology, background statistics, and protection and incentive indicators, 1965-95

This paper describes the methodology for a series of background papers that measure incentives in India's agriculture. The first study on sugarcane and sugar shows that the domestic market has been isolated from world markets by extensive controls, but between 1965 and 1995 there was a significant downward trend in the ratio of domestic to international sugar prices. This paper is the first in a series of studies to provide background data and protection and incentive indicators for 13 major Indian crops, which have been estimated in connection with extensive research on Indian agricultural incentives. The general methodology of the studies is described in the first section of the paper. The second section of the paper focuses on sugarcane and sugar. It shows that between 1965 and 1994 real domestic prices of sugar and cane were quite stable in India, declining an average of 0.6 percent (sugar) and 0.3 percent (cane) a year. During the same 29 years the free market price of sugar fluctuated widely (expressed in Indian rupees) but in real terms increased about 1.3 percent a year. This contrast in trends reflects the real devaluation of the rupee after 1986 but meant that by the early 1990s, at world sugar prices of US 13-15 cents a pound or higher, India`s domestic prices were roughly equivalent to, or below, world reference prices. Because of the fluctuations in world free market prices, nominal protection of sugar and sugarcane production in India - as measured by differences between domestic prices and border reference prices - also fluctuated. Nominal protection was: High during low world prices in the 1960s and the mid-1980s. Negative when world prices were high in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Moderate to low by previous standards between 1989 and 1994. Incentives for cane production did not change much when allowance is made for the nominal protection of tradable inputs (principally fertilizers) or subsidies for the principal nontradable imports (canal irrigation, credit, and electricity for pumpsets). Incentives for cane production were somewhat higher in Uttar Pradesh than in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Half of Indian cane production is used by artisanal producers of gur and small-scale de facto unregulated producers of khandsari sugar. Because of India's complex regulatory system - especially in the important sugar-producing state, Uttar Pradesh - incentives are significantly higher for unregulated activities than for the modern sugar mill sector. Regulations subject sugar mills to controls that require them to: Sell specific quantities of their sugar production at low levy prices. Sell molasses production at a fraction (0.1 or less) of open market and border prices. Pay minimum prices (for specific quantities of cane) at above-free-market prices, except in years of cane shortages. This paper is a product of Trade, Development Research Group.
Signaling Specificity in Yeast

The signaling pathways in yeast that control mating and filamentous growth are extremely similar and share many of the same components, yet the signals almost never get mixed up. One reason, revealed in a Perspective by Elion and colleagues, is that activation of one of the proteins in the mating pathway leads to degradation of a key transcription factor that lies at the end of the filamentous growth pathway. Thus, even though some signal does leak from one pathway to another, the "insulation" is sufficient to prevent interference between two very different cellular programs.
Gastric acidification inhibits meal-stimulated gastric acid secretion after prostaglandin synthesis inhibition by indomethacin in humans

The effects of cyclooxygenase inhibition by indomethacin on gastric acid secretion were studied in 8 healthy men. Oral doses of indomethacin (200 mg), administered 15 and 2 h before testing, were known to inhibit prostaglandin synthesis by 90% in 3 of the subjects as determined by prostaglandin E2 generation assay on endoscopically obtained gastric mucosal biopsy specimens. Acid-induced inhibition of gastric acid secretion was evaluated in a randomized and blinded study in which acid output was measured for 2 h during basal conditions by aspiration, for the next 2 h by intragastric titration during distention with isotonic glucose, and for the following 2 h by intragastric titration during meal stimulation with peptone. The studies were done on separate days, and intragastric pH was maintained at either 2.5 or 5.5 after administration of indomethacin or placebo. Basal acid output was not altered by indomethacin treatment. Distention of the stomach stimulated acid output significantly to a similar degree in all groups, without affecting plasma gastrin. Meal stimulation increased plasma gastrin and acid output significantly more at pH 5.5 (47 +/- 12 pM, 13 +/- 2 mmol/30 min) than at pH 2.5 (30 +/- 8 pM, 6 +/- 2 mmol/30 min). No effect of indomethacin treatment was observed. It is concluded that the participation of cyclooxygenase products in the mechanisms by which acid inhibits the gastric phase of acid secretion in humans is likely to be minor. These results also cast doubt on an important physiologic role for cyclooxygenase products in the regulation of basal acid secretion or of acid secretion stimulated by distention or a peptone meal.
Nondestructive measurement of two-dimensional refractive index profiles by deflectometry

We present a method for calculating a two-dimensional refractive index field from measured boundary values of beam position and slope. By initially ignoring the dependence of beam trajectories on the index field and using cubic polynomials to approximate these trajectories, we show that the inverse problem can be reduced to set of linear algebraic equations and solved using a numerical algorithm suited for inverting sparse, ill-conditioned linear systems. The beam trajectories are subsequently corrected using an iterative ray trace procedure so that they are consistent with the ray equation inside the calculated index field. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method through computer simulation, where a hypothetical test index field is reconstructed on a 15 × 15 discrete grid using 800 interrogating rays and refractive index errors (RMS) less than 0.5% of the total index range ( n max -n min ) are achieved. In the subsequent error analysis, we identify three primary sources of error contributing to the reconstruction of the index field and assess the importance of data redundancy. The principles developed in our approach are fully extendable to three-dimensional index fields as well as more complex geometries.
Monoclonal antibodies reveal cell-type-specific antigens in the sexually dimorphic olfactory system of Manduca sexta. II. Expression of antigens during postembryonic development

Two classes of monoclonal antibodies specific to the olfactory system of Manduca sexta have been isolated: the olfactory-specific antibody (OSA), which specifically recognizes many or all olfactory receptor cells (ORCs) in both males and females, and the male olfactory-specific antibody (MOSA), which stains male-specific receptor cells (principally or exclusively sex-pheromone receptors present only in antennae of males; Hishinuma et al., 1988). In the investigation reported here, we examined the expression of the antigens during postembryonic development in order to correlate the presence of particular antigens with the status of differentiation of the ORCs or with their acquisition of particular functions. As assessed immunocytochemically, the OSA recognizes certain epithelial cells in the antennal imaginal disk of the fifth-instar larva. Later, during the first 70 hr of adult development, when differentiative cell divisions are occurring in the antennal epithelium to generate ORCs and the other cells that make up olfactory sensilla, no cells are stained. Immediately after this period of mitoses, the OSA immunoreactivity reappears exclusively in the ORCs, which begin to elaborate axons as an early event in their differentiation. On immunoblots, the OSA recognizes specific sets of molecules (distinguished on the basis of their apparent molecular weights): 53,000 and 59,000 Da antigens in the disk epithelial cells in the last-instar larva; 53,000, 59,000, and 66,000 Da antigens in the ORCs from 15 to 60% of metamorphic adult development; and 42,000, 59,000, and 66,000 Da antigens in the ORCs from 60 to 100% of adult development. The MOSA also recognizes a subset of the epithelial cells in the antennal disks in male and female larvae.
A novel redundant binary signed-digit (RBSD) Booth's encoding

This paper presents a novel redundant binary signed-digit Booth encoding (RBBE) for a multiplier, which directly generates the RBSD partial products and allows the use of Booth encoding for radix-4 and radix-8 without the need to generate any hard multiples. As for RBBE with higher than radix-8, the number of hard multiples is significantly reduced. Moreover, negation in RBSD requires only wire crossing of two bits of each digit and does not need any carry-propagate operation or sign-extension. Therefore, the generation of negative multiples or the multiplication of 2's complement numbers in RBSD form can be done without additional hardware. This leads to a faster and smaller size multiplier. A RBSD adder tree is used to accumulate these RBSD partial products and the result is in RBSD form. Although the carry-propagate addition is necessary for the conversion from RBSD to SB, this is not a disadvantage over a SB multiplier because the accumulation of SB partial products also requires the same carry-propagate addition to get the final result from the intermediate sum and carry at the last stage.
Monitoring access link capacity using TFRC probe

Accurate estimation of network characteristics based on end-to-end measurements is an important and challenging problem. With the increasing variety and sophistication of Internet access methods, the mobility of the users and the need for seamless handoff across them, monitoring access link capacity becomes critical for efficient multimedia delivery. In fact, this allows the multimedia server to properly adjust its sending rate to the rapidly changing access speed of the mobile client. This problem is challenging because most of the existing capacity monitoring schemes are active, like Pathrate (and therefore, introduce extra overhead on the bandwidth limited access link). Moreover, the access link is often asymmetric (e.g. ADSL, 1xRTT, etc.) thus preventing the use of round-trip monitoring schemes such as Pathchar and CapProbe. In this study, we propose and evaluate a passive, one-way link capacity monitoring tool called TFRC Probe. With TFRC Probe the source can monitor the forward direction capacity of both asymmetric and symmetric access links, and can rapidly and accurately adapt its transmissions rate accordingly. We validate TFRC Probe with both simulation and testbed experiments, and show that TFRC Probe is a very flexible tool that can accurately track frequent changes in access capacity.
Choroideremia associated with choroidal neovascularization treated with intravitreal bevacizumab.

PURPOSE To report a rare case of central vision loss in a patient with choroideremia. PATIENTS AND METHODS A retrospective, interventional case report. RESULTS A 13-year-old male with history of choroideremia presented with subacute loss of central acuity in his left eye. Examination and diagnostic testing revealed subretinal fibrosis secondary to a choroidal neovascular membrane (CNVM). A trial of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy with the injection of intravitreal bevacizumab was attempted. Mild improvements in acuity and anatomy were noted. CONCLUSION Choroideremia is a rare hereditary choroidal dystrophy that predominantly affects males in the first and second decades of life. Visual acuity is usually spared until later in life. CNVM is a rare manifestation of choroideremia with only a handful of case reports presented in the literature. This case is unique in that it is the first reported case that received treatment with intravitreal anti-VEGF therapy.
The Fiscal Impact Of Urban Expansion

(1975). The Fiscal Impact Of Urban Expansion. The Professional Geographer: Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 449-453.
Photosensitized deamination of sulfur-amino acids by flavin mononucleotide.

— S-Methylcysteine, methionine and cystine were found to be photochemically deaminated at a much higher rate than methionine sulfoxide, homomethionine and other non-sulfur amino acids in the presence of flavin mononucleotide. These data strongly support the view that the initial oxidation of those sulfur-amino acids by the photoactivated flavin is a one-electron abstraction from the sulfur atom followed by an intramolecular electron transfer from the carboxyl anion of the amino acid to the sulfinium radical, resulting in the decarboxylation-deamination.
Histologic study of eyes with transsclerally sutured posterior chamber intraocular lenses

We studied the postmortem histologic characteristics of two eyes that had undergone penetrating keratoplasty and transscleral suturing of a posterior chamber intraocular lens for bullous keratopathy. The eyes were studied three days postoperatively in a 79-year-old man with pseudophakia and six months postoperatively in an 83-year-old man with aphakia. We also removed a posterior chamber intraocular lens in a 73-year-old woman who had an epithelial downgrowth three months postoperatively. In the first two cases, only one of four haptics was successfully positioned in the sulcus. Histologic study disclosed a thin fibrous capsule surrounding the haptics at their attachment site, no inflammation around the transscleral portion of the suture, and exposure of a suture tip externally. In the third case, the intraocular lens fell back into the vitreous cavity after the fixation sutures were cut externally at the time of surgical removal. Stability of the lens in all three cases was primarily a result of intact transcleral sutures and not fibrous encapsulation or ciliary sulcus placement of haptics.
Dislocation Reduction of HgCdTe/Si Through Ex Situ Annealing

Current growth methods of HgCdTe/Cd(Se)Te/Si by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) result in a dislocation density of mid 106 cm−2 to low 107 cm−2. Although the exact mechanism is unknown, it is well accepted that this high level of dislocation density leads to poorer long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) focal-plane array (FPA) performance, especially in terms of operability. We have conducted a detailed study of ex situ cycle annealing of HgCdTe/Cd(Se)Te/Si material in order to reduce the total number of dislocations present in as-grown material. We have successfully and consistently shown a reduction of one half to one full order of magnitude in the number of dislocations as counted by etch pit density (EPD) methods. Additionally, we have observed a corresponding decrease in x-ray full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of ex situ annealed HgCdTe/Si layers. Among all parameters studied, the total number of annealing cycles seems to have the greatest impact on dislocation reduction. Currently, we have obtained numerous HgCdTe/Si layers which have EPD values measuring ~1 × 106 cm−2 after completion of thermal cycle annealing. Preliminary Hall measurements indicate that electrical characteristics of the material can be maintained.
Invasive Candida infections in the neonate

Advances in medical therapy have increased premature infant survival. A rise in Candida infections in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) has followed. Once considered a contaminant, Candida is now recognized as a major cause of mortality and morbidity within these units. We will examine what is known about the epidemiology, risk factors and end-organ involvement of Candida infections with a focus on invasive disease. In addition, diagnostic alternatives to traditional blood culture, experience with antifungal agents for prophylaxis and therapeutic options, including newer antifungal agents, will be presented.
Linear FPT reductions and computational lower bounds

We develop new techniques for deriving very strong computational lower bounds for a class of well-known NP-hard problems, including weighted satisfiability, dominating set, hitting set, set cover, clique, and independent set. For example, although a trivial enumeration can easily test in time O(nk) if a given graph of n vertices has a clique of size k, we prove that unless an unlikely collapse occurs in parameterized complexity theory, the problem is not solvable in time f(k) no(k) for any function f, even if we restrict the parameter value k to be bounded by an arbitrarily small function of n. Under the same assumption, we prove that even if we restrict the parameter values k to be Θ(μ(n)) for any reasonable function μ, no algorithm of running time no(k) can test if a graph of n vertices has a clique of size k. Similar strong lower bounds are also derived for other problems in the above class. Our techniques can be extended to derive computational lower bounds on approximation algorithms for NP-hard optimization problems. For example, we prove that the NP-hard distinguishing substring selection problem, for which a polynomial time approximation scheme has been recently developed, has no polynomial time approximation schemes of running time f(1/e)no(1/e) for any function f unless an unlikely collapse occurs in parameterized complexity theory.
Organically Bound Metals in a Solvent-Refined Coal: Metallograms for a Wyoming Subbituminous Coal

Fractions of a solvent-refined coal that contain organically bound species of magnesium, calcium, titanium, iron, copper, or zinc have been isolated. The fractions represent a wide range of chemical types and molecular size. Their isolation is a step toward speciation.
Opinions of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy Among Therapists in Southwestern Ohio

AbstractObjective: To determine the opinions of therapists about constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT). Method: A convenience sample of 92 therapists with at least 1 year of clinical experience working in outpatient and inpatient hospital and clinical neurorehabilitation settings was surveyed. Subjects completed a self-report questionnaire discerning their opinions of CIMT during their clinical staff meetings. The questionnaire described CIMT to participants using excerpts from a recently published trial of CIMT. Subjects then responded to various statements concerning their opinions of the protocol and supplied the rationale for their opinions. Results: Seventy-five percent of participants reported that it would be very difficult or difficult to administer CIMT in their clinics, and 83% felt that most clinics would not have the resources to implement CIMT. Additionally, more than 61% of respondents stated that managed care payers were either somewhat unlikely or very unlikely to reimburse for CIMT, ...
Feasibility of Integrating Multiple Types of Electroactive Polymers to Develop an Artificial Human Muscle

Electroactive polymers (EAPs) have been labeled as the future stakeholder for artificial muscle technology and machine actuation. The US Armed Forces have seen an increased population of service members suffering from loss of limbs as a result of conflicts overseas. Civilian populations have suffered as well, due to muscle tissue deterioration brought on by injury or disease. Many prosthetic limbs have been engineered with rotary actuation, but do not mimic fluid motion as human muscles do. Through the research of biomimetics, imitating nature and applying those techniques to technology, electroactive polymers have been found to produce the fluid-like characteristics of biological muscles as needed for precise artificial simulation. These materials exhibit common traits of biological muscle tissue regarding potential energy storage. When activated by an electrical voltage potential, EAPs can produce characteristics such as: bending/axial strain or changes in viscosity. One classification of electroactive polymers, Ionic EAPs, exhibit bipolar activation under low voltages and can be found in various physical states; solid, liquid, and gel states. These characteristics make Ionic EAPs the most attractive materials to be used in low energy or mobile applications, such as exoskeletons and implants. For high strain and large load applications, electronic EAPs can be used. Electronic EAPs require high voltages which induces high rates of strain and large deformations. To date, it appears that various types of EAP materials are being used individually, as opposed to integrated with other types. Biological muscles are made of many different proteins organized in an optimized geometrical structure which yields a more efficient response combined than achieved individually. The focus of the current project is to integrate multiple EAP materials in a designed mechanical system to produce a closer representation of a biological muscle. The status of this RIT project; to design, fabricate, and test an integrated EAP-based artificial muscle will be discussed along with the conceptual thinking for design obtained to date.© 2010 ASME
Asymptotic convergence in finite and boundary element methods: part 1: theoretical results

Abstract The following notes are devoted to a study on the notion of the asymptotic convergence for the Bubnov-Galerkin Method in context of both finite and boundary element approximations.
Angiotensin-(1-7) Does Not Affect Vasodilator or TPA Responses to Bradykinin in Human Forearm

Abstract —Studies in isolated vessels and rat models of hypertension suggest that angiotensin (Ang)-(1-7) potentiates the vasodilator effect of bradykinin, possibly through ACE inhibition. We therefore tested the hypothesis that Ang-(1-7) potentiates the vasodilator or tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) response to bradykinin in the human forearm vasculature. Graded doses of Ang-(1-7) (10, 100, and 300 pmol/min), bradykinin (47, 94, and 189 pmol/min), and Ang I (1, 10, and 30 pmol/min) were administered through the brachial artery to 8 normotensive subjects in random order. Thirty minutes after initiation of a constant infusion of Ang-(1-7) (100 pmol/min), bradykinin and Ang I infusions were repeated. There were no systemic hemodynamic effects of the agonists. Bradykinin significantly increased forearm blood flow ( P P =0.007, from 1.1±1.0 to 23.6±6.2 ng/min per 100 mL at 189 pmol/min), whereas Ang I caused vasoconstriction ( P =0.003, from 3.3±0.4 to 2.5±0.3 mL/min per 100 mL at 30-pmol/min dose). There was no effect of Ang-(1-7) on either forearm blood flow ( P =0.62, 3.3±0.4 to 3.5±0.4 mL/min per 100 mL at 300 pmol/min) or TPA release ( P =0.52, from 0.7±0.8 to 1.0±0.7 ng/min/100 mL at 300 pmol/min). Moreover, there was no effect of 100 pmol/min Ang-(1-7) on the vasodilator [ P =0.46 for Ang-(1-7) effect] or TPA [ P =0.82 for Ang-(1-7) effect] response to bradykinin or the vasoconstrictor response to Ang I [ P =0.62 for Ang-(1-7) effect]. These data do not support a role of Ang-(1-7), given at supraphysiological doses, in the regulation of human peripheral vascular resistance or fibrinolysis.
A procedure for the routine biological evaluation of urban runoff in small rivers

Abstract A rationale and stepwise procedure for the biological evaluation of urban runoff in small rivers is described. The protocol is predicated on the application of the Brillouin diversity index to collections of benthic macroinvertebrates isolated from artificial substrates in the course of a year.
TWEAK stimulation of kidney resident cells in the pathogenesis of graft versus host induced lupus nephritis

The cytokine TWEAK demonstrates potent kidney proinflammatory and proliferative effects. Recently, we have shown that interactions of TWEAK with its receptor Fn14 are instrumental in the pathogenesis of nephritis in the chronic graft-versus-host (cGVH) induced model of lupus. Fn14 is expressed by macrophages and resident kidney cells; we hypothesized that TWEAK binding to both cell types contributes to the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis. To address this question, we generated bone marrow chimaeras and compared the progression of nephritis during cGVH induced lupus in mice expressing Fn14 only on bone marrow-derived cells, versus mice displaying Fn14 only on non-bone marrow-derived cells. While Fn14 deficiency did not significantly affect autoantibody titers, Fn14 deficiency on bone marrow-derived cells did not inhibit nephritis initiation in mice with Fn14 sufficient non-hematopoeitic cells. Conversely, expression of Fn14 only on bone marrow-derived cells resulted in a delayed, milder disease course. To further explore the role of macrophages, we depleted macrophages during cGVH induction. Surprisingly, we found that macrophage depleted mice displayed significantly increased titers of anti-DNA antibodies and worse kidney disease. We conclude that the presence of Fn14 on resident kidney cells alone may be sufficient to initiate nephritis in this murine model of lupus.
Extreme Makeover Reference Edition: Restructuring Reference Services at the Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center

The Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, recently restructured its system for information service delivery by moving from the traditional one-desk model to a dual component model that is delivered from two service points in close proximity. Under the former system, services were solely delivered by reference librarians. The new system offers the same array of information services provided by a combination of librarians and library support staff who have received special training. The observed outcomes have been a higher quality of customer service delivery, an increased use of research consultation services, a more informed and engaged library staff, and increased opportunities for reference librarians to make campus visits. This article outlines the entire process from conception to implementation, including staff training requirements, statistical data, and future implications.
New Hadamard basis

A new basis that is similar to the Hadamard basis in sign sequency of the basis vectors is derived. The new basis may be useful for telecommunications in signalling across frequency selective fading channels and for signal processing in transform domain adaptive filtering.
The world through Glass: developing novel methods with wearable computing for urban videographic research

Google Glass was deployed in an Urban Studies field course to gather videographic data for team-based student research projects. We evaluate the potential for wearable computing technology such as Glass, in combination with other mobile computing devices, to enhance reflexive research skills, and videography in particular, during field research. The utility as well as the limitations of Google Glass are discussed, including its actual and potential application for teaching and data gathering purposes in the field. As such, this article constitutes one of the first instances of evaluating Google Glass as a social science research tool.
Hemodynamic Correlates of Clinical Severity in isolated ventricular septal defect

To test the hypothesis that the clinical assessment of severity in ventricular septal defect would be more related to variables which define tissue oxygen delivery than variables which define the left-to-right shunt, cardiac catheterization data from 40 children <3 years of age were assessed. Variables which were considered indicative of clinical severity included the need for digoxin and diuretics, resting heart rate, and severity of growth failure. Variables measured at cardiac catheterization, including those which related to oxygen transport, and assessment of left-to-right shunt, were considered independently. Patients receiving digoxin and diuretics were more tachycardic (142±18 vs. 111±26 beats/min, p<0.001) and had lower superior vena cava oxygen saturation (64±6 vs. 69±5%, p<0.01). Variation in heart rate (r 2=0.46) was best explained by oxygen consumption, hemoglobin concentration, cardiac index, and pulmonary vascular resistance. Variation in growth failure (r 2=0.15) was related only to the left ventricular forward stroke index. These data suggest that variables related to oxygen delivery, including oxygen consumption, hemoglobin concentration, cardiac index, forward stroke index, and superior vena cava oxygen saturation, are the major contributors to the clinical assessment of severity in ventricular septal defect.
Does pediatric orthopedic subspecialization affect hospital utilization and charges

In the current climate of health care reform, there is a perception that overspecialization is responsible for increased medical costs. Few studies support the premise that high-quality surgical subspecialization improves the cost effectiveness of care. The purpose of this study was to compare hospital utilization and charges between a pediatric hospital staffed by pediatric orthopedic subspecialists and a community hospital system for the care of closed femur fractures and slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) in a pediatric population. We reviewed hospital charges and length-of-stay (LOS) data for all children treated for closed femoral shaft fractures and SCFE between 1992 and 1994 within the Intermountain Health Care System (IHC). Within the IHC, there are 23 community hospitals and one children's hospital (PCMC). Patients were matched for age and injury severity. Four of six orthopedic surgeons at PCMC are pediatric orthopedists, but none of the community orthopedists has subspecialty training in pediatric orthopedics. For closed femoral shaft fractures (n = 334), the average hospital charges were less (PCMC, $4,943/Other IHC, $9,031), and length of stay was shorter (PCMC, 2.81 days/Other IHC, 8.91 days) when the child was treated at the children's hospital by pediatric orthopedic subspecialists. For SCFE (n = 63), the average hospital charges were less (PCMC, $2,824/Other IHC, $3,544) and the length of stay was shorter (PCMC, 1.13 days/Other IHC, 1.64 days) at the children's hospital. These data suggest that hospital utilization and charges were significantly decreased if the care was provided by pediatric orthopedic subspecialists in a children's hospital.
Complex modeling and analysis of workplace collaboration data

Complex networks arise everywhere. Online social networks are famous complex networks examples due to (a) revolutionizing the way people interact on the Web, and (b) permitting in practice the study of interdisciplinary theories that arise from human activities, at both micro (i.e. individual) and macro (i.e. community) level. The vast scale (Big-data) of online human interactions impose certain challenges, such as scalable indexing and efficient retrieval of social data, which are by their nature intertwined in multiple dimensions. In our research we focus on modeling such multidimensional data, mining their intra and inter dependencies to uncover hidden structures and emergent knowledge. In particular, we examine informal interactions at the workplace. Through extensive empirical analysis of corporate communication logs we study users' communication behavioral patterns, dynamics and characteristics, statistical properties and complex correlations between social and topical structures. Our modeling and analysis are not limited to enterprise social data, but are extensible and applicable to other domains, offering a unified framework of complex network modeling and analysis, accurately modeling multiple symmetric or asymmetric, explicit and hidden interaction channels between people.
The Impact of Benzodiazepine Use on Depression Outcomes Among Older Adults Beginning a New Antidepressant Treatment

Medication adherence. Prescribed AD and BZD medications were attained from pharmacy data from VA administrative databases. AD adherence was assessed using the validated self-report measure from the Brief Medication Questionnaire (BMQ) asking participants about their consistency in taking their daily medication in the week leading up to the interview. Consistent with prior studies we dichotomized adhering versus not adhering at four months based upon a medication possession ratio of >80% (such that participants who missed two or more daily doses were classified as non-adherent). Additionally, participants who never began their AD medication were also considered to be non-adherent. BZD use was assessed as prescribed versus not prescribed at baseline interview and taken from objective pharmacy data at the VA.
Quantum chemical and RRKM/master equation studies of isoprene ozonolysis: Methacrolein and methacrolein oxide

Methacrolein is a major product of isoprene ozonolysis, and methacrolein oxide is an important ozonolysis intermediate. We use CBS-QB3 and RRKM/master equation calculations to characterize all methacrolein formation pathways and all the unimolecular reactions of methacrolein oxide. Our predicted methacrolein yield agrees with experiment if we assume that all of the dioxirane formed from methacrolein oxide decomposes to methacrolein. The vinyl group of methacrolein oxide allows the species to cyclize to a dioxole with a reaction barrier lower than the barriers to either hydroperoxide or dioxirane formation. Two dioxole derivatives, 1,2-epoxy-2-methyl-3-propanal and 2-methyl-3-oxopropanal, should be measurable products of isoprene ozonolysis.
A new form of electric-field-dependent basis functions for the calculation of electric polarizabilities and dipole moments

Abstract An ab-initio molecular orbital theory of electrical polarization is presented in which the molecular orbitals are written as linear combinations of atomic functions which depend explicitly on the strength of a uniform external electric field. The wavefunctions in the presence of such a field are determined using self-consistent field perturbation theory. It is shown that the use of field-dependent atomic functions provides an efficient technique for the calculation of electric polarizability tensors. Polarizability tensors and electric-dipole moments calculated using both a minimal and a split-valence-shell basis set are compared with experimental results. Both polarizability-tensor components and dipole moments are seriously underestimated at the minimal bases-set level. The split-valence basis approach yields substantially better results; the calculated values at this level are in reasonable agreement with the corresponding experimental values. The experimental ordering of isotropic polarizabilities for a set of small molecules is duplicated quite closely by both the minimal and the split-valence-shell calculations.
In Memoriam: Urs E. Ruttimann (1938-1998)

On March 25, 1998, the scientific community unexpectedly lost a remarkable and most productive colleague. Urs E. Ruttimann, Ph.D., was one of that rare breed of individuals who makes solid and noteworthy contributions with little fuss and fanfare. His life and works are briefly reviewed.
USING QUALITATIVE DATA TO DEVELOP LOCALLY RELEVANT AND VALID QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT TOOLS: A CASE EXAMPLE OF TRUST IN ETHIOPIA

Purpose: To build a new measure of trust from the ground up that is valid and locally relevant. Background: Little is known about the influence of trust among health workers in low-resource settings. Trust may be particularly salient among health workers in developing countries such as Ethiopia where skilled health worker shortages have led to reliance on lower-skilled community-level health workers to provide services. Methods: Ethnographic data on the conceptualization of trust were collected through semi-structured interviews with 30 health workers in Amhara region, Ethiopia. Transcripts underwent thematic analysis to identify characteristics of trustworthiness. Respondents’ own words were used to build a 25-item trust scale which was subsequently pilot tested with 92 health workers. Cultural consensus analysis and Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) assessed the level of shared cultural knowledge within and between cadres of health workers. Results: Psychometric testing of the trust scale reveals strong internal consistency. Cultural consensus analysis and QAP provide preliminary evidence for the existence of divergent models of trust among health worker cadres. Conclusions: This represents a case example of how rapid formative work can lead to the development of a scale that is both valid and locally relevant. Next steps in the research involve assessing the association between trust and teamwork, and linking trust and teamwork with delivery of health services and outcomes. Funding: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Insights on Global Warming

The global temperature increase over the last century and a half (∼ 0.8°C), and the last three decades in particular, is well outside of that which can be attributed to natural climate fluctuations. The increase of atmospheric CO_2 over this period has been conclusively demonstrated to be a result largely of fossil fuel burning. The global mean temperature change that results in response to a sustained perturbation of the Earth's energy balance after a time sufficiently long for both the atmosphere and oceans to come to thermal equilibrium is termed the Earth's climate sensitivity. The purely radiative (blackbody) warming from a doubling of CO_2 from its preindustrial level of 280 parts-per-million (ppm) to 560 ppm is ∼ 1.2°C; the actual warming that would result is considerably larger owing to amplification by climate feedbacks, including that owing to water vapor. Increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) levels are estimated to have contributed about +3.0 W m^(−2) perturbation (radiative forcing) to the Earth's energy balance. Particles (aerosols), on the whole, exert a cooling effect on climate, with a total forcing estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007)1 as −1.2 W m^(−2), a value that is subject to considerable uncertainty. If the actual magnitude of aerosol forcing is close to the low end of its estimated uncertainty range, then it offsets a considerably smaller fraction of the GHG forcing and the total net forcing is at the high end of its range, ∼ 2.4 W m^(−2); at the other extreme, if the actual aerosol cooling is at the high end of its range, then aerosol forcing is currently offsetting a major fraction of GHG forcing, and the total net forcing is only ∼ 0.6 W m^(−2). To explain the actual global increase in temperature of ∼ 0.8°C, these two extremes have major implications in terms of the Earth's climate sensitivity. Climate sensitivity is determined by the strength of feedbacks, of which cloud feedback is the most uncertain. That the Earth has warmed and that GHGs are responsible is unequivocal; the Earth's climate sensitivity and the effect of aerosols complicate answers to the question: how much warming and how soon?
Brillouin MEMS and Microfluidic Optomechanics

I will describe our recent experiment in extending optomechanics to include the liquid phase of the matter and our demonstration of Brillouin cooling via three resonance enhancement. Article not available.
Tone excitation of a supersonic bounded shear layer

Passive acoustic excitation was employed to augment mixing in a bounded planar supersonic shear layer. It was found that acoustically reflective surfaces, both downstream and below the shear layer, were essential for this resonance excitation to occur, and an upstream acoustically reflective surface augmented this excitation. However, none of these surfaces directly contacted the shear layer. Based on total pressure measurements, as much as 100% augmentation in mixing layer growth rate was achieved with this passive excitation system even at pressure matched conditions. Shadowgraph images of the shear layer showed the presence of singular coherent large-scale structures, and the acoustic spectra measured below the shear layer indicated the presence of dominant frequency with overall high energy for the excited flow compared with a lower energy broadband spectrum for the unexcited flow. The results indicate that a combination of streamwise and transverse modes may be responsible for the excitation.
Dietary Fat and Human Obesity

Abstract When energy is in excess, the human body processes nutrients according to an oxidative hierarchy. Excessive carbohydrate and protein intakes are disposed of by increased oxidation. In contrast, excess fat intake does not promote its own oxidation in the short- and mid-term. This leads, in the long-term, to an increase in fat stores. Although increased adiposity represents the common response to increased fat intake, there are interindividual differences in lipid oxidation (probably genetically determined) that may protect from or predispose to obesity. J Am Diet Assoc. 1997; 97(suppl):S42-S46 .
663 MEAN CORPUSCULAR VOLUME (MCV) IN LOW BIRTH WEIGHT INFANTS DURING THE FIRST 7 WEEKS OF LIFE

663 MEAN CORPUSCULAR VOLUME (MCV) IN LOW BIRTH WEIGHT INFANTS DURING THE FIRST 7 WEEKS OF LIFE
Continuous Passive Motion, Early Weight Bearing, and Active Motion following Knee Articular Cartilage Repair: Evidence for Clinical Practice

Objective:To systematically review the literature regarding postoperative rehabilitation for articular cartilage repair: (1) does the use of continuous passive motion (CPM) enhance healing, and if ...
Modeling seasonal variation in bacteriophage removal in constructed wetlands using convection–dispersion equation

Abstract When livestock manure is applied to drained cropland, viruses in the manure can quickly move through preferential flow paths to tile drains. Contaminated tile drain effluent can then contaminate surface waters. Experiments were conducted to explore the applicability of constructed wetlands in treating tile-drainage. Tub-scale, two-stage, constructed wetlands were spiked with the bacteriophage P22 and the effluent was monitored to quantify removal. The convection–dispersion equation (CDE) was used to estimate convective, dispersive, first-order removal, and retardation parameters. Results showed a mean removal coefficient of 0.065 and 0.285 per day for surface flow (SF) wetlands and 2.67 and 5.36 per day for subsurface flow (SSF) wetlands in winter and summer months, respectively. SSF wetlands were 41 times more effective in winter and 19 times more effective in summer in removing bacteriophage than were SF wetlands. There was greater removal in warm than in cold weather. The P22 bacteriophage was not suitable as a biological tracer for evaluation of the hydraulic properties of the wetlands based on the minimum first-order removal rates of 0.04 per day.