cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
“Hof” in pronormoblasts: pure erythroid leukemia mimicking plasma cell myeloma

![Figure][1] A 65-year-old man was diagnosed with plasma cell myeloma (PCM), status post cyclophosphamide-dexamethasone chemotherapy, autologous stem cell transplant (SCT), and lenalidomide maintenance. Seven years later, he developed therapy-related myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) with 1%
Incidence and Risk Factors of Perioperative Mortality in Pediatric ICU Patients.

Background There is a limited data of pediatric patients who presented to the intensive care unit (ICU) and undergo procedures under general anesthesia. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the mortality of this population and assess the risk factors associated with mortality. Methods Retrospective study of electronic medical records of pediatric patients who admitted to medical/surgical ICU and underwent produces under general anesthesia during the same ICU admission was performed. Incidence of mortality was obtained and risk factors associated with these mortalities were examined using Univariable logistic regression analysis. Results The mortality of pediatric patients who were admitted to the ICU and underwent procedures under general anesthesia was 12.6%, while the mortalities of patients without procedures under general anesthesia and patients who admitted to ICU for postoperative management were 3.5% and 0.4%, respectively. Higher ASA class, emergency cases, higher ventilator support, more inotrope requirement, positive microbe in blood stream, blood transfusion requirement, and general surgery or hematological procedures were highly associated with mortalities. Among them, positive blood stream infection was highest odds ratio (102.00, 95% confidence interval 9.78-1064.09). The profile of patients with positive blood stream infection showed that most of them had underlying immunological/hematological disorders. Conclusion In our institution, pediatric patients who admitted to the ICU and underwent procedures under general anesthesia demonstrated the highest mortality among other patients who admitted to ICU. Risk factor analysis demonstrated that patients with positive blood stream infection had highest odds ratio, and were highly associated with immunological/ hematological disorders.
On the Solvability of One Class of Two-Dimensional Urysohn Integral Equations

We study one class of nonlinear Urysohn integral equations in a quadrant of the plane. It is assumed that, for the corresponding two-dimensional Urysohn operator, some Hammerstein operator with power nonlinearity serves as a minorant in the sense of M. A. Krasnosel’skiĭ.We prove the existence of a nonnegative (nontrivial) and bounded solution for such equations.
Atomically Thin Heterostructures Based on Monolayer WSe 2 and Graphene

Heterogeneous engineering of two-dimensional layered materials, including metallic graphene and semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides, presents an exciting opportunity to produce highly tunable electronic and optoelectronic systems. In order to engineer pristine layers and their interfaces, epitaxial growth of such heterostructures is desirable. We report the direct growth of crystalline and monolayer tungsten diselenide (WSe2) on epitaxial graphene (EG) on silicon carbide. Raman spectroscopy, photoluminescence, and scanning tunneling microscopy confirm high-quality WSe2 monolayers, while transmission electron microscopy shows an atomically sharp interface, and low-energy electron diffraction confirms near-perfect orientation between WSe2 and EG. Vertical transport measurements across the WSe2/EG heterostructure provide evidence that an additional barrier to carrier transport beyond the expected WSe2/EG band offset exists due to the interlayer gap, which is supported by theoretical local density of states (LDOS) calculations using self-consistent density functional theory (DFT) and non-equilibrium Green’s function (NEGF).
RNA Sequencing of Intestinal Biopsies Expands the T Cell-Centric Paradigm of Steroid-Refractory Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Background Steroid-refractory acute GVHD (aGVHD) is a fatal disease with little known regarding its pathophysiology at the tissue level. We studied the gene expression profiles of onset and steroid-refractory aGVHD intestinal biopsies, including both supervised analyses of tolerance (indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase [IDO1]), repair factors (amphiregulin [AREG]), and immune cell composition, plus unsupervised analyses to define the transcriptome profile. Patients and Methods We performed ribonucleic acid sequencing (RNA-seq) on archival rectal biopsies from 22 patients with clinical stage 3-4 GI aGVHD (a) at the onset of GI aGVHD and (b) in the same patients at the diagnosis of steroid-refractory GI aGVHD, compared to 10 healthy controls at the University of Minnesota. We compared differential gene expression using Limma package, analyzed pathways using Enrichr®, and estimated immune cell composition using CIBERSORT®. Results Several immune- and damage-relevant genes differed between GVHD and normal samples. The mostly highly differentially expressed gene in aGVHD compared to normal was chitinase 3-L-1 (CHI3L1, fold-change 3.4, adjusted p=0.003), with known pathogenic roles in neovascularization, macrophage recruitment, and bacterial adhesion. The most significantly decreased gene in aGVHD was aquaporin-8 (AQP8, fold change -5.0, adjusted p Discussion While we observed distinctions between normal and onset aGVHD samples (increased CHI3L1 and decreased AQP8), we did not identify differences in T-cell driven inflammation in onset versus steroid-refractory aGVHD. Steroid-refractory aGVHD may be characterized by increased stress-induced MT expression, loss of host tissue tolerance signals, and accumulation of M2 macrophages. Our results expand the paradigm of T cell-centric therapies for steroid-refractory GI aGVHD and highlight new mechanisms for therapeutic exploration.
Benefit or Harm? A Study on Impact of Collusion on the Quality of Life among Palliative Care Patients.

Background: In India, roughly one-half of patients undergoing cancer treatment are unaware of their diagnosis or treatment. The intention of this study is to determine the prevalence of collusion and its influence on quality of life (QOL) among patients in palliative care settings. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 palliative care patients to assess the extent of knowledge about their diagnosis and prognosis. The caretakers and the treating doctors were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire to assess if diagnosis was revealed to a patient. QOL of the patients was assessed using the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer QOL Questionnaire-C30 questionnaire. Results: The prevalence of collusion was 37%, i.e., in more than one-third of the palliative care patients; caregivers restrained doctors from disclosing the diagnosis. The prevalence of collusion was less among patients with higher educational qualification (P = 0.027) and professionals (P = 0.025). Collusion was not associated with gender, type of family, place of residence, and socioeconomic status (SES). In multivariate regression, collusion (odds ratio = 10.53) was independently associated with poor QOL when adjusted for age, gender, place of residence, religion, educational status, family type, and SES. Conclusion: Collusion is fairly prevalent and it worsens the QOL among cancer patients. Since the main driver for collusion is the strong desire among caregivers to protect the physical and psychological well-being, the findings of the study could motivate the caregiver for a more open and honest communication.
The Purple Sea Urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus Demonstrates a Compartmentalization of Gut Bacterial Microbiota, Predictive Functional Attributes, and Taxonomic Co-Occurrence

The sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (order Camarodonta, family Strongylocentrotidae) can be found dominating low intertidal pool biomass on the southern coast of Oregon, USA. In this case study, three adult sea urchins were collected from their shared intertidal pool, and the bacteriome of their pharynx, gut tissue, and gut digesta, including their tide pool water and algae, was determined using targeted high-throughput sequencing (HTS) of the 16S rRNA genes and bioinformatics tools. Overall, the gut tissue demonstrated Arcobacter and Sulfurimonas (Epsilonproteobacteria) to be abundant, whereas the gut digesta was dominated by Psychromonas (Gammaproteobacteria), Propionigenium (Fusobacteria), and Flavobacteriales (Bacteroidetes). Alpha and beta diversity analyses indicated low species richness and distinct microbial communities comprising the gut tissue and digesta, while the pharynx tissue had higher richness, more closely resembling the water microbiota. Predicted functional profiles showed Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) Level-2 categories of energy metabolism, membrane transport, cell motility, and signal transduction in the gut tissue, and the gut digesta represented amino acid, carbohydrate, vitamin and cofactor metabolisms, and replication and repair. Co-occurrence network analysis showed the potential relationships and key taxa, such as the highly abundant Arcobacter and Propionigenium, influencing population patterns and taxonomic organization between the gut tissue and digesta. These results demonstrate a trend of microbial community integration, allocation, predicted metabolic roles, and taxonomic co-occurrence patterns in the S. purpuratus gut ecosystem.
Modulation of HMGB1 Release for Treating Lethal Infection and Injury

Sepsis refers to a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Its pathogenesis is partly attributable to dysregulated inflammatory responses orchestrated by innate immune cells (e.g., macrophages and monocytes) that sequentially release early (e.g., TNF, IL-1, and IFN-γ) and late (e.g., HMGB1) pro-inflammatory mediators. As a ubiquitous nuclear protein, HMGB1 is constitutively expressed and can be actively secreted in response to exogenous pathogen-associated molecular pattern molecules (PAMPs, e.g., ds-RNA, CpG-DNA, and endotoxin) or endogenous cytokines [e.g., interferon (IFN)-γ or IFN-β]. In addition to active secretion, HMGB1 can also be passively released from damaged cells following ischemia/reperfusion, trauma, or toxemia, thereby serving as damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP). Even during microbial infections, the PAMP-elicited inflammatory response may be accompanied by cell injury and DAMP release that further amplifies the cytokine storm to precipitate organ dysfunction. Here we discuss the evidence that support extracellular HMGB1 as a key mediator of inflammatory diseases and discuss the potential of several HMGB1-targeting therapies in animal models of lethal sepsis. Although microbial infection-induced sepsis is indistinguishable from sterile injury-elicited systemic inflammatory response syndrome, it may be more advantageous to develop strategies that specifically attenuate DAMP-mediated inflammatory responses without compromising the PAMP-mediated innate immunity.
Urologic management of the transgender patient

With growing social acceptance and increasing access, transgender care is at the forefront of medicine. Urologists, especially those of us dedicated to genitourinary reconstruction, stand to play a major role in the delivery of surgical care. The challenges of primary gender-affirming surgery include the lack of formal urologic training, the historically siloed method of delivery of care, and the relative lack of comparative research regarding optimal techniques.
Moderate potassium depletion Impairs cardiac mechanical function

It has been recognized for nearly a century that in various cardiac diseases, relaxation and diastolic function are impaired before contraction abnormalities become apparent (220-224). These early abnormalities in relaxation are commonly observed in several forms of hypertrophic and ischemic cardiomyopathy, and in other diseases including diabetic cardiomyopathy (225-231). In many such patients, hemodynamic abnormalities resulting in the clinical picture of heart failure are not due derangements of systolic function, particularly in the early stages of the disease. Instead, the functional defect may be due to active relaxation abnormalities. Many of the patient groups with demonstrated high risk levels for developing cardiac failure due to diastolic dysfunction are also at risk of developing moderate hypokalemia: the elderly, due to poor nutrition; the hypertensive, due to diuretic therapy; the African-American, due to dietary choices; and the diabetic.
IN VITRO STUDIES OF THE INSECT EMBRYONIC NERVOUS SYSTEM

Publisher Summary This chapter presents some in vitro studies of the insect embryonic nervous system. It attempts to gain information on the structural organization of the insect nervous system by making use of the tissue culture technique, which proved to be so valuable when applied to the vertebrate nervous system. The chapter describes a technique for culturing the intact parts of the embryonic nervous system of the cockroach Periplaneta americana in defined liquid media for periods of 1–3 weeks. The growth pattern and interrelationship between nerve cells, glial cells, and nerve fibers were studied in living cultures with the Nomarski interference microscope and in cultures fixed in toto and stained by a modification of the silver Cajal technique. These investigations strongly support the concept that glial cells have a trophic function in regard to nerve cells and nerve fibers and provide new information on the relationship between different constituents of the insect nervous system. These findings are considered in the light of previous studies of the same structures investigated in embryonic, nymphal, and mature specimens of the same insect.
Cyclic fatigue of reaction-bonded silicon nitride at elevated temperatures

Cyclic and static loading tests were performed on reaction-bonded silicon nitride from 1000–1400 °C in air. This porous, fine-grained material contained no glassy grain-boundary phase and exhibited no slow crack growth at room temperature. Under cyclic loading, the crack-growth behaviour at 1000 °C was similar to room-temperature results; however, at 1200 and 1400 °C crack-growth rates increased significantly. Under static loading, significant crack growth was detected at 1000 °C and increased with temperature. Most of the crack growth under cyclic loading was attributed to slow crack-growth mechanisms, but evidence of cyclic crack-growth mechanisms were also observed. Oxidation played a major role in crack-growth velocity at high temperature.
Enhancing the Resiliency of Cyber-Physical Systems with Software-Defined Networks

Numerous research efforts have focused on intrusion detection in industrial control networks, however, few of them discuss what to do after an intrusion has been detected. Because the safety of most of these control systems is time-sensitive, we need new research on automatic incident response. In this paper, we extend our work on leveraging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to automatically reconfigure an industrial control network to mitigate the impact of attacks, and to deceive adversaries.
Chapter 2 – Basic Parameters for Measuring Optical Properties

Publisher Summary The interaction of electromagnetic (EM) radiation is an effective and powerful tool for understanding and probing the electronic and vibrational states of condensed materials. Maxwell's equations that describes the propagation of EM waves are well established and accepted, and they serve as the underlying bases for the optical studies. No optical constants are contained in Maxwell's equations. This chapter summarizes the relations between the optical constants and the macroscopic equations for propagation through the material and the constitutive equations and the intrinsic microscopic parameters of the physics of the condensed state. A series of formulas are developed on the basis of these relationships that are useful in interpreting the optical measurements. The application of either the characteristic or the Fresnel matrices permits descriptions of the systems of varying complexity. The chapter also presents a small sample of the possible lamellar systems.
“Physical activity is beneficial to anyone, including those with ASD”: Antecedents of nurses recommending physical activity for people with autism spectrum disorder:

People with autism spectrum disorder are less physically active than are their peers. Nurses can play a key role in helping to promote such behaviors, but they do so sparingly. The purpose of this ...
Proton receptors regulate synapse-specific reconsolidation in the amygdala

During retrieval, aversive memories become labile during a period known as the reconsolidation window. When an extinction procedure is performed within the reconsolidation window, the original aversive memory can be replaced by one that is less traumatic. Our recent studies revealed that acidosis via inhalation of carbon dioxide (CO2) during retrieval enhances memory lability. However, the effects of CO2 inhalation on the central nervous system can be extensive, and there is a lack of prior evidence suggesting that the effects of CO2 are selective to a reactivated memory. The specific effects of CO2 depend on acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs), proton receptors that are involved in synaptic transmission and plasticity in the amygdala. Our previous patch-clamping data suggests that CO2 inhalation during retrieval increases activities of neurons in the amygdala that involve in the memory trace. In addition, CO2 inhalation during retrieval increases exchanges from Ca2+-impermeable to Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors. Thus, we hypothesize that CO2 selectively potentiates memory lability in mice when inhaled during retrieval of aversive memory. In addition, CO2 inhalation alters memory lability via synaptic plasticity at selectively targeted synapses. Alterations in spine morphology after CO2 and retrieval with a specific stimulus indicates that CO2 selectively enhances synaptic plasticity. Overall, our results suggest that inhaling CO2 during the retrieval event increases the lability of an aversive memory through a synapse-specific reconsolidation process.
Evaluation and Management of Patients with PPI-Refractory Heartburn

To use recent insights on the causes and treatment of PPI-refractory heartburn to formulate an effective approach to patient management. PPI-refractory heartburn results from 5 major potential mechanisms: (1) PPIs have not normalized esophageal acid exposure; (2) PPIs have normalized esophageal acid exposure, but there is reflux hypersensitivity in which persistent “physiologic” reflux events evoke heartburn; (3) the sensation of heartburn is caused by an esophageal disorder other than GERD (e.g., eosinophilic esophagitis, achalasia); (4) the sensation of heartburn is caused by an extra-esophageal disorder (e.g., heart disease, pancreaticobiliary disease); or (5) heartburn is functional. A systematic work-up that includes careful medical history, endoscopy with esophageal biopsy, esophageal manometry, and esophageal impedance-pH monitoring can distinguish among these mechanisms. A systematic work-up will reveal that GERD is not the cause of PPI-refractory heartburn in the large majority of cases. In the minority of patients for whom the work-up establishes that PPI-refractory heartburn is reflux-related, however, antireflux surgery is superior to medical therapy.
Targeted therapy of human leukemia xenografts in immunodeficient zebrafish

Personalized medicine holds tremendous promise for improving safety and efficacy of drug therapies by optimizing treatment regimens. Rapidly developed patient-derived xenografts (pdx) could be a helpful tool for analyzing the effect of drugs against an individual’s tumor by growing the tumor in an immunodeficient animal. Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice enable efficient in vivo expansion of vital tumor cells and generation of personalized xenografts. However, they are not amenable to large-scale rapid screening, which is critical in identifying new compounds from large compound libraries. The development of a zebrafish model suitable for pdx could facilitate large-scale screening of drugs targeted against specific malignancies. Here, we describe a novel strategy for establishing a zebrafish model for drug testing in leukemia xenografts. We used chronic myelogenous leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia for xenotransplantation into SCID zebrafish to evaluate drug screening protocols. We showed the in vivo efficacy of the ABL inhibitor imatinib, MEK inhibitor U0126, cytarabine, azacitidine and arsenic trioxide. We performed corresponding in vitro studies, demonstrating that combination of MEK- and FLT3-inhibitors exhibit an enhanced effect in vitro. We further evaluated the feasibility of zebrafish for transplantation of primary human hematopoietic cells that can survive at 15 day-post-fertilization. Our results provide critical insights to guide development of high-throughput platforms for evaluating leukemia.
Peeling back the layers: Investigating the effects of polyelectrolyte layering on surface structure and stability of oil-in-water nanoemulsions.

Abstract Hypothesis Layer-by-layer deposition of polyelectrolytes is a useful technique for modifying surface functionalities. For drug delivery systems, alternating layers of biopolymers coat nanoemulsions, which house and protect the cargo until the time and destination of delivery. Here, we investigate molecular factors contributing to the stability and interfacial properties of nanoemulsions prepared by a co-adsorption of polymers poly(styrene sulfonate) and polyethylenimine (PEI), and surfactant dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide. We hypothesize the interplay between electrosteric and hydrophobic effects upon multi-polymer co-adsorption contributes to both macroscopic and molecular-level interfacial properties of nanoemulsions. Experiments To probe interfacial layering properties, we use vibrational sum frequency scattering spectroscopy with ζ -potential measurements to determine the adsorptive behavior and molecular conformational arrangement of the polymer layers. Complementing these interfacial studies are dynamic light scattering experiments measuring the nanoemulsion size distribution and polydispersity index over a 30-day period. Findings Our light scattering, ζ -potential, and spectroscopic results of the nanoemulsion surface show that the duration of droplet stability and the degree of molecular orientation of adsorbed polymers can be tuned by surfactant concentration, PEI concentration, and pH. These results illustrate how molecular surface properties of multi-polymer coated nanoemulsions contribute to synergistic effects and droplet stability, enabling advancements in applications surrounding biopharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and food sciences.
Unmet Needs for Personal Assistance among Older Adults in Mexico: 2001–2015

Rapid aging and longer lives pose many health and social care policy challenges to countries in Latin America, such as Mexico. By 2050, 21.5% of the Mexican population will be 60 years or older, up from 10% in 2015 (Gonzalez, 2015). Data from the SAGE study conducted between 2007 and 2010 found that life expectancy at age 50 was 32 years for women and 29 for men (Chirinda & Chen, 2017). Of these years, women could expect to live ten years and men six years with a severe disability (Chirinda & Chen, 2017).
Evolution of accretion disc reflection spectra due to a Type I X-ray burst

Irradiation of the accretion disc causes reflection signatures in the observed X-ray spectrum, encoding important information about the disc structure and density. A Type I X-ray burst will strongly irradiate the accretion disc and alter its properties. Previous numerical simulations predicted the evolution of the accretion disc due to an X-ray burst. Here, we process time-averaged simulation data of six time intervals to track changes in the reflection spectrum from the burst onset to just past its peak. We divide the reflecting region of the disc within $r\lesssim50$ km into 6-7 radial zones for every time interval and compute the reflection spectra for each zone. We integrate these reflection spectra to obtain a total reflection spectrum per time interval. The burst ionizes and heats the disc, which gradually weakens all emission lines. Compton scattering and bremsstrahlung rates increase in the disc during the burst rise, and the soft excess at $<$3 keV rises from $\approx4$% to $\approx38$% of the total emission at the burst peak. A soft excess is expected to be ubiquitous in the reflection spectra of X-ray bursts. Structural disc changes such as inflation because of heating or drainage of the inner disc due to Poynting-Robertson drag affect the strength of the soft excess. Further studies on the dependence of the reflection spectrum characteristics to changes in the accretion disc during an X-ray burst may lead to probes of the disc geometry.
Six Ways of Looking at Fractal Mechanics

In this creative nonfiction essay, I traverse through permutations of “fractal mechanics” as a means of processing experiences of oppression and imagining revolutionary futures. I introduce fractal mechanics as a method for thinking through how “the institution,” broadly understood, travels and transmutes from physical structure localized in place to a set of internalized rule sets that bind themselves to transinstitutionalized “host bodies”—a NeoLiberation. Through a series of vignettes illustrating violent experiences of “inclusion,” I explore how the institution is reproduced in neoliberal constructions of inclusion, liberation, and justice. I then integrate critiques of liberation within neoliberal frames with crip imaginings of justice-in-relation to explicate how fractal mechanics can be understood not only as a method of oppression but also a method for revolution. I close with a series of imaginaries that encourage us to prefigure, or dream, a fractal politic of intercommunal connection.
Ex Vivo Model of Ischemic Mitral Regurgitation and Analysis of Adjunctive Papillary Muscle Repair.

Ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR) is particularly challenging to repair with lasting durability due to the complex valvular and subvalvular pathologies resulting from left ventricular dysfunction. Ex vivo simulation is uniquely suited to quantitatively analyze the repair biomechanics, but advancements are needed to model the nuanced IMR disease state. Here we present a novel IMR model featuring a dilation device with precise dilatation control that preserves annular elasticity to enable accurate ex vivo analysis of surgical repair. Coupled with augmented papillary muscle head positioning, the enhanced heart simulator system successfully modeled IMR pre- and post-surgical intervention and enabled the analysis of adjunctive subvalvular papillary muscle repair to alleviate regurgitation recurrence. The model resulted in an increase in regurgitant fraction: 11.6 ± 1.7% to 36.1 ± 4.4% (p < 0.001). Adjunctive papillary muscle head fusion was analyzed relative to a simple restrictive ring annuloplasty repair and, while both repairs successfully eliminated regurgitation initially, the addition of the adjunctive subvalvular repair reduced regurgitation recurrence: 30.4 ± 5.7% vs. 12.5 ± 2.6% (p = 0.002). Ultimately, this system demonstrates the success of adjunctive papillary muscle head fusion in repairing IMR as well as provides a platform to optimize surgical techniques for increased repair durability.
Using Functional Metrics to Facilitate Designing Collectively Exhaustive Mutually Exclusive Systems in the Context of Managing Return on Investment

Abstract The objective of this paper is to test two hypotheses in the context of managing return on investment (ROI): (1) that a meaningful functional metric (FM) assigned to every functional requirement could facilitate the design of collectively exhausting mutually exclusive (CEME) systems and (2) that parent functional metrics should equal the sum of their children. FM at every level can facilitate objectively improving a system as well as tracing the root cause of underperformance within a system. Three attempts at designing a quantitative CEME system are critiqued to support or refute the hypotheses. The design attempts increasingly feature FMs with each iteration. Examination of the design attempts supports the hypotheses, however it is unclear whether the hypotheses would prove true outside of the context of ROI. The possibility of incorporating physical metrics into every level of future designs is discussed. This paper is intended to lead to future work testing a metric based decomposition hypothesis.
A Quartet of Contemporary Poetries

AT A TIME WHEN 50,000 titles a year roll off the presses, one can expect any category of books ?weather almanacs, biographies of bridgebuilders, sex manuals ?to increase in the general number: a rising tide lifts all boats. But even so, the proliferation of new books about contemporary poets and poetry is a remarkable phenomenon of modern publishing. Once it was a rarity for a living poet to have an entire book devoted to his or her oeuvre. No poet before Browning was so honored, and even throughout the first half of this century the rule was to memorialize authors posthumously with career studies rather than analyze their work while they continued to compose. Some of this decorum was simply tact, but caution played its part as well. No critic wants to experience firsthand what some have undergone in recent years ? the spectacle of an eminent author rising up in indignation to announce that Professor X's boneheaded commentary on his or her work is flawed from beginning to end. There are several reasons for the change in fashion, but two deserve special notice. First, the needs of the profession ? succinctly summarized as "publish or perish" ?have relentlessly opened up new areas of research, just at a time when university presses have become more competitive in at tracting undergraduate and graduate readers likely to favor the twentieth century in general and contemporary literature in particular. Add to this the fact that postwar critical theory has helped to shape the themes and techniques of contemporary poetry (and vice versa), so that not only critics but anthropologists, historians, and philosophers find in new verse the apt est illustrations for their state-of-the-art conclusions about the relation of
Tolerating latency in replicated state machines through client speculation

Replicated state machines are an important and widely-studied methodology for tolerating a wide range of faults. Unfortunately, while replicas should be distributed geographically for maximum fault tolerance, current replicated state machine protocols tend to magnify the effects of high network latencies caused by geographic distribution. In this paper, we examine how to use speculative execution at the clients of a replicated service to reduce the impact of network and protocol latency. We first give design principles for using client speculation with replicated services, such as generating early replies and prioritizing throughput over latency. We then describe a mechanism that allows speculative clients to make new requests through replica-resolved speculation and predicated writes. We implement a detailed case study that applies this approach to a standard Byzantine fault tolerant protocol (PBFT) for replicated NFS and counter services. Client speculation trades in 18% maximum throughput to decrease the effective latency under light workloads, letting us speed up run time on single-client micro-benchmarks 1.08-19× when the client is co-located with the primary. On a macro-benchmark, reduced latency gives the client a speedup of up to 5×.
Mechanism of action of guinea pig liver transglutaminase. VII. Chemical and stereochemical aspects of substrate binding and catalysis.

Abstract Active ester (p-nitrophenyl ester) hydrolysis and transfer reactions catalyzed by transglutaminase have been studied at pH 7.5 and 0° in the presence of 50 mm Ca++. The initial velocities of appearance of two products of the reactions, p-nitrophenol and N-acylamines, were found to be consistent with a ping pong mechanism in which acyl-enzyme formed from active ester may react with water (hydrolysis) or with primary amine (transfer). This finding, in conjunction with previous evidence that the hydrolysis and transfer of transglutaminase-catalyzed glutamine substrate conform to this mechanism, gives strong support for an acyl-enzyme theory of transglutaminase action. The d and l antipodes of several active ester and amide (first) substrates and the d and l forms of the amine (second) substrate, alanine ethyl ester, have been employed as a means of detecting stereochemical dissymmetry within the active site of transglutaminase. Notable differences in the kinetic parameters of the reactions of the d and l antipodes of benzyloxycarbonyl(Z)-alanine p-nitrophenyl ester and those of Z-α-glutamyl(γ-p-nitrophenyl ester)glycine point up dissymmetric arrangements of groupings within the active center of the activated native enzyme. The differences in reactivities of d- and l-alanine ethyl esters in the transglutaminase-catalyzed transfer reaction of various first substrates, both ester and amide, indicate variation in the spatial arrangement of groupings within the amine site of the different acyl-enzymes. This is manifest as an acyl-enzyme-dependent preference for one antipode over the other. The almost absolute stereospecificity of transglutaminase toward glutamine substrate is evident in its strong preference for the l form of Z-glutaminylglycine. However, the enzyme displays substantial activity toward both d and l isomers of Z-α-aminoadipamylglycine (Z-homoglutaminylglycine). These findings provide a preliminary approach to an understanding of the spatial relationships between the substrate and the enzyme.
A comprehensive study of idistance partitioning strategies for k NN queries and high-dimensional data indexing

Efficient database indexing and information retrieval tasks such as k-nearest neighbor (kNN) search still remain difficult challenges in large-scale and high-dimensional data. In this work, we perform the first comprehensive analysis of different partitioning strategies for the state-of-the-art high-dimensional indexing technique iDistance. This work greatly extends the discussion of why certain strategies work better than others over datasets of various distributions, dimensionality, and size. Through the use of novel partitioning strategies and extensive experimentation on real and synthetic datasets, our results establish an up-to-date iDistance benchmark for efficient kNN querying of large-scale and high-dimensional data and highlight the inherent difficulties associated with such tasks. We show that partitioning strategies can greatly affect the performance of iDistance and outline current best practices for using the indexing algorithm in modern application or comparative evaluation.
Maternal Expressive Style and Children's Emotional Development

Maternal expressive styles, based on a combination of positive and negative expressive patterns, were identified at two points in time and related to multiple aspects of preschool children's emotional development. Mother–child pairs from 260 families participated when the children were 3?years old, and 240 participated again at aged 4?years. Expressive styles were identified at age 3 using cluster analysis, replicated at age 4 and examined in relation to children's emotional understanding, expressiveness and regulation. Three expressive styles were identified: high positive/low negative, very low positive/average negative and average positive/very high negative. Cluster membership was stable in 63% of families from age 3 to 4?years; no systematic patterns of change were evident in the remaining families. Expressive style was related to aspects of children's emotional expression at 3?years and to emotion expression and regulation at 4?years. Children's expressiveness and regulation at age 3 were also related to changes in mothers' expressive styles over 1?year. Identifying mothers' expressive styles provides a unique way to understand the potential role of the emotional climates in which preschool-aged children learn to express and regulate their own emotions
Cell Surface CD74–MIF Interactions Drive Melanoma Survival in Response to Interferon-γ

Melanoma is believed to be a highly immunogenic tumor and recent developments in immunotherapies are promising. IFN-γ produced by immune cells has a crucial role in tumor immune surveillance; however, it has also been reported to be pro-tumorigenic. In the current study, we found that IFN-γ enhances the expression of CD74, which interacts with its ligand, macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), and thereby activates the PI3K/AKT pathway in melanoma, promoting tumor survival. IFN-γ increased phosphorylation of AKT Ser473 and upregulated total cell surface expression of CD74 in human melanoma cell lines tested. CD74 was highly expressed in melanoma tissues. Moreover, the expression of CD74 on tumor cells correlated with plasma IFN-γ levels in melanoma patient samples. In our analysis of melanoma cell lines, all produced MIF constitutively. Blockade of CD74–MIF interaction reduced AKT phosphorylation and expression of pro-tumorigenic molecules, including IL-6, IL-8, and BCL-2. Inhibition of CD74–MIF interaction significantly suppressed tumor growth in the presence of IFN-γ in our xenograft mouse model. Thus, we conclude that IFN-γ promotes melanoma cell survival by regulating CD74–MIF signaling, suggesting that targeting the CD74–MIF interaction under IFN-γ-stimulatory conditions would be an effective therapeutic approach for melanoma.
Evaluation of PowerFLOW for Aerodynamic Applications

A careful comparison of the performance of a commercially available Lattice-Boltzmann Equation solver (PowerFLOW) was made with a conventional, block-structured computational fluid-dynamics code (CFL3D) for the flow over a two-dimensional NACA-0012 airfoil. The results suggest that the version of PowerFLOW used in the investigation produced solutions with large errors in the computed flow field; these errors are attributed to inadequate resolution of the boundary layer for reasons related to grid resolution and primitive turbulence modeling. The requirement of square grid cells in the PowerFLOW calculations limited the number of points that could be used to span the boundary layer on the wing and still keep the computation size small enough to fit on the available computers. Although not discussed in detail, disappointing results were also obtained with PowerFLOW for a cavity flow and for the flow around a generic helicopter configuration.
Some generalizations of Chirka’s extension theorem

In this paper, we generalize Chirka's theorem on the extension of functions holomorphic in a neighbourhood of S U (oD x D) where D is the open unit disc in C and S is the graph of a continuous D-valued function on D to higher dimensions, for certain classes of graphs S C D x Dn, n > 1. In particular, we show that Chirka's extension theorem generalizes to configurations in Cn+1, n > 1, involving graphs of (non-holomorphic) polynomial maps with small coefficients. 1. THE MAIN THEOREM This paper is motivated by an article by Chirka [1] (also see [2]) in which he proves the following result (in what follows, D will denote the open unit disc in C, while Dr will denote the open disc of radius r, centered at 0 C C): Theorem 1.1 (Chirka). Let 0: D -> C be a continuous function having sup cIq5(z)I 1. Rosay [3] showed that the theorem fails in general for higher dimensions. A natural question that arises is whether holomorphic extension to Dn+1r n > 1, occurs when the component functions of the Dn -valued map defining our graph are small in some appropriate sense (for instance, when the graph is a sufficiently small perturbation of a holomorphic graph). We are able to answer Chirka's question in the affirmative for the class of graphs described in Theorem 1.3 below. Before stating that theorem, however, we state the following proposition, which is a special case of Theorem 1.3. We highlight this as a separate proposition because of the clarity of its statement. Received by the editors May 1, 2000. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 32D15.
Rankine cycle machines for solar cooling

Research, development, and demonstration of Rankine cycle machines are outlined that use fluids heated by solar energy rather than by coal, petroleum, natural gas, or nuclear fuels.
Cytogenetics, gene fusions, and cancer

Cytogeneticists recognize that karyotypic abnormalities are associated with specific malignancies. In 1960, Nowell described the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph) and its relationship to chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Subsequent work in molecular genetics and biology has revealed that the Ph is a translocation that causes fusion of gene sites that code for the break cluster region (BCR) and the avian blastic leukemia (ABL) proteins. This so-called fusion protein is present in a large percentage of the patients who have CML. A related fusion protein is seen in about one third of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The BCR-ABL fusion protein results in increased tyrosine kinase activity. The mechanism of action is thought to be via signal transduction related to guanosine triphosphatase activating protein which interacts with a ras-p21 binding protein. Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is associated with the cytogenetic abnormality of t(15;17). This alters the promyelocytic leukemia (PML) and the retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARA) gene sites. Two fusion proteins are the result of this cytogenetic abnormality. They are termed PML-RARA and RARA-PML. Only one, the PML-RARA, is associated with APL. The PML-RARA chimeric protein has two zinc finger-like regions. It retains the ligand binding domain of RARA. The protein called PML has some similarities with a family of proteins which are thought to fuse to proto-oncogenes and to act as transforming proteins. The role of classical cytogenetics and the added capability of molecular biology has helped to elucidate some of the potential mechanisms for the development of cancer and provided additional understanding of neoplasia. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The Death Penalty: An American History

* Abbreviations * Introduction *1. Terror, Blood, and Repentance *2. Hanging Day *3. Degrees of Death *4. The Origins of Opposition *5. Northern Reform, Southern Retention *6. Into the Jail Yard *7. Technological Cures *8. Decline *9. To the Supreme Court *10. Resurrection * Epilogue * Appendix: Counting Executions * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index
Networks of bZIP protein-protein interactions diversified over a billion years of evolution

Differences in biomolecular sequence and function underlie dramatic ranges of appearance and behavior among species. We studied the basic region-leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors and quantified bZIP dimerization networks for five metazoan and two single-cell species, measuring interactions in vitro for 2891 protein pairs. Metazoans have a higher proportion of heteromeric bZIP interactions and more network complexity than the single-cell species. The metazoan bZIP interactomes have broadly similar structures, but there has been extensive rewiring of connections compared to the last common ancestor, and each species network is highly distinct. Many metazoan bZIP orthologs and paralogs have strikingly different interaction specificities, and some differences arise from minor sequence changes. Our data show that a shifting landscape of biochemical functions related to signaling and gene expression contributes to species diversity.
Additive and synergistic effects of fetal nicotine and dexamethasone exposure on cholinergic synaptic function in adolescence and adulthood: Implications for the adverse consequences of maternal smoking and pharmacotherapy of preterm delivery

Maternal smoking contributes to preterm delivery; glucocorticoids are the consensus treatment for prematurity, thus producing fetal coexposure to nicotine and dexamethasone. We administered nicotine to pregnant rats throughout gestation at a dose (3 mg/kg/day) producing plasma levels typical of smokers. Later in gestation, animals received dexamethasone (0.2 mg/kg). We assessed developmental indices for acetylcholine (ACh) synaptic function throughout adolescence, young adulthood and later adulthood, evaluating brain regions possessing major ACh projections and cell bodies; we measured choline acetyltransferase activity, hemicholinium-3 binding to the presynaptic choline transporter and nicotinic ACh receptor binding. In general, nicotine and dexamethasone, alone or in combination, produced regionally-selective increases or decreases in choline acetyltransferase activity but larger, consistent elevations in hemicholinium-3 and nicotinic ACh receptor binding; the patterns were indicative of ACh synaptic hyperactivity. Superimposed on these overall effects, there were significant disparities in temporal and regional relationships among the different treatments, notably involving effects that emerged later in life, after a period of apparent normality. This indicates that nicotine and dexamethasone do not simply produce an initial ACh neuronal injury that then persists throughout the lifespan but rather, they alter the developmental trajectory of ACh function. Most importantly, the combined exposure to nicotine + dexamethasone elicited greater changes than either of the individual exposures, involving both additive and synergistic effects. Our results thus point to potentially worse neurobehavioral outcomes of the pharmacotherapy of preterm labor in the offspring of smokers.
Short-Circuit Torques in Turbine Generators

THE PROBLEM of torsional resonance in turbine-generators is solvable by a number of different methods. Results of the present analysis serve as an approximate, independent check on these solutions. In addition, the effect of changing physical proportions of the unit may be evaluated from the curves.
The structure and appearance of winds from supercritical accretion disks. III - Thermal and spectral properties of supercritical winds. IV - Analytic results with applications

The thermal structure and emergent spectral properties of the supercritical winds outlined in Paper II are presented. Thermal emission due to free-free and Compton processes is considered, along with some nonthermal aspects, for the case when the photons are untrapped throughout the wind envelope. Useful figures and procedures for determining the injection region temperature, emergent spectral temperature, and rough spectral shape are outlined with some attention given to models with central objects of 1 M/sub sun/ and 10/sup 8/ M/sub sun/. A scenario is outlined where the central source of quasars is interpreted as a supercritical wind heated at its base on a nearly dynamical time scale.