cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Therapeutic approach to the patient with irritable bowel syndrome

Abstract This article reviews briefly the evidence to support current therapies in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and the novel therapeutic approaches on the threshold of clinical application. Fiber is indicated at a dose of at least 12 grams per day in patients with constipation-predominant IBS. Loperamide (and probably other opioid agonists) are of proven benefit in diarrhea-predominant IBS; loperamide may also aid continence by enhancing resting anal tone, but there is no evidence that it results in pain relief. In general, smooth muscle relaxants are best used sparingly, on an as-needed basis, because their overall efficacy is unclear. The 5-HT 3 antagonist, alosetron, results in adequate relief of pain and improvements in bowel function in female nonconstipated patients with IBS. Psychotropic agents are important in relieving depression and are of proven benefit for pain and diarrhea in patients with depression associated with IBS. Further trials with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are awaited. Psychological treatments including hypnotherapy are less widely available but may play an important role in the relief of pain. In summary, current therapies targeted on the predominant symptoms in IBS are moderately successful. As the bowel sensorimotor and limbic system disturbances of IBS are more clearly understood, we should anticipate other pharmacologic approaches in the near future, including α-adrenergic agonists and 5-HT 4 agonists. New therapies directed at treatment of the syndrome, rather than relief of symptoms, are needed.
Is Racial Profiling More Benign in Medicine Than Law Enforcement

It might seem that racial profiling by doctors raised few of the same concerns as racial profiling by police, immigration, or airport security. This paper argues that the similarities are greater than first appear. The inappropriate use of racial generalizations by doctors may be as harmful and insulting as their use by law enforcement officials. Indeed, the former may be more problematic in compromising an ideal of individualized treatment that is more applicable to doctors than to police. Yet doctors, unlike police, should not attempt to ignore race altogether. Race and ethnicity are associated with the geography of disease, with social and cultural factors relevant to disease, and, to some extent, with genetic predispositions to disease. Moreover, greater attention to the distinctive health conditions of certain racial and ethnic groups is necessary to make up for past neglect. But it will be a tricky business to steer a middle course between a naive, reckless, or dogmatic color blindness and a stereotype-driven overreliance on race and ethnicity. In trying to steer such a course, the doctor can only hope for the day when a combination of more individualized genomic medicine and greater social equality will make it possible for her to pay less attention to race and ethnicity without detriment to her patients’ health.
Robin M. Williams Lecture, 1994: Taking society seriously

Civil society provides essential balance to the rising power of national states and market economies. Particularly in the United States, however, the economy and state are squeezing civil society, with negative consequences. One result is that market rationality supplants other moralities, with attendant changes in social practices. Examples are offered from education, health care, and federal tax policy. All three legs of the metaphorical social tripod of civil society, economy, and the state need to be strong. Institutions of civil society sustain individuals and societies, but require structural and cultural support if they are to complement and counterbalance the logic and practices of economy and state.
The uses of Aristotle's Rhetoric in contemporary American scholarship

In contemporary American scholarship, interpretation of Aristotle'sRhetoric has become the locus of sustained and sharp controversy. Differing views of theRhetoric and its significance have become tokens in a more general dispute about what rhetoric is or ought to be. This essay examines three central issues that have emerged in this larger arena of controversy: the relationship between Aristotelian and Platonic conceptions of rhetoric, the relationships among rhetoric, ethics, and epistemology in Aristotle, and the placement of rhetoric within Aristotle's system of arts and sciences.
Carcinosarcoma of the prostate. Report of 21 cases

Background. Carcinosarcoma of the prostate is an unusual malignancy characterized by adenocarcinoma intimately admixed with sarcoma. Methods. The authors reviewed the clinical and pathologic findings of 21 cases of carcinosarcoma of the prostate from the files of the Mayo Clinic. Results. Patient age ranged from 50 to 89 years (mean, 68 years). Ten patients (48%) had a previous diagnosis of prostatic acinar adenocarcinoma 2–73 months (mean, 33 months) before the diagnosis of carcinosarcoma, 8 of whom had received androgen deprivation therapy and/ or radiation therapy in the interim. The Gleason score of adenocarcinoma ranged from 7 to 10 (mean, 9; median, 9). The sarcomas consisted of osteosarcoma (13), leiomyosarcoma (5), fibrosarcoma (1), malignant fibrous histiocytoma (1), and rhabdomyosarcoma (1), and the grade of the sarcoma component ranged from 2 to 4 (mean, 4; median, 4). Adenocarcinoma was the dominant histologic pattern in 7 cases and sarcoma in 14. Immunohistochemical staining revealed cytoplasmic reactivity for prostate specific antigen or keratin in 16 of 16 cases in the adenocarcinoma component. The sarcoma component was positive for vimentin in 16 of 16 cases, actin in 8 of 16 (focal in 2), S-100 protein in 2 of 16, and desmin in 1 of 16. At the time of diagnosis of carcinosarcoma, 11 patients had metastases, including 4 with metastatic adenocarcinoma before the diagnosis of carcinosarcoma. Treatment varied, and nonsurgical therapy was ineffective. Sites of metastases included lung (10 cases), bone (7), brain (4), liver (1), and peritoneum (1). Follow-up ranged from 1 to 107 months after the diagnosis of carcinosarcoma (mean, 34 months; median, 10 months). Mean time to tumor progression was 23 months (range, 1-96 months; median, 18 months). Eighteen patients died of carcinosarcoma from 2 to 107 months (mean, 34 months; median, 9.5 months) after diagnosis. Five-year survival was 41%, and 7-year survival was 14%. Progression and survival were not affected by histologic pattern. Conclusions. Carcinosarcoma of the prostate is an aggressive malignancy, regardless of histologic type. Cancer 1995;76:1035–42.
Molecular interactions of SO2 with carbonate minerals under co-sequestration conditions: a combined experimental and theoretical study

Abstract We present a combined experimental and theoretical study investigating the reactivity between select and morphologically important surfaces of carbonate minerals with supercritical CO2 and co-existing H2O and SO2. Trace amounts of SO2 cause formation of CaSO3 in the form of hannebachite in the initial stages of SO2 adsorption and transformation. Atomistic simulations based on density functional theory of these initial steps indicate accumulation of water over the magnesium sites, and suggest depletion of Mg over the Ca from the mineral surface. Under co-sequestration conditions with wet scCO2, water is not likely to cause carbonate dissolution of a perfect surface, however, it stabilizes pre-existing low coordination oxygen atoms by creating surface hydroxyl groups on the CO2-defect sites. Formation of bisulfites (surface-SO2OH) occurs with a low barrier of ca 0.5 eV, estimated by the climbing image nudged elastic band method (CI-NEB). Estimates of the effective transformation rates are in the range of 4.0 × 101 to 4.0 × 104 s−1. The sulfur-containing species bind preferentially on surface calcium atoms creating the first nucleation sites. Molecular dynamics simulations also show dynamic tautomerization of the adsorbed bifulfites (s-SO2OH ⇌ s-S(H)O3), which is likely to slow down further oxidation to sulfates in less oxidative environments. From the same simulations, we extract local geometries of the resulting CaSO3H···OH species, similar to the crystallographic structure of hannebachite. Collectively, the experimental results and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations suggest potential of carbonate reservoirs for in situ chemical scrubbing of CO2 captured from fossil fuel sources, which could be stored permanently for sequestration purposes or extracted and utilized for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
Allocating the chains of consecutive additions for optimal fixed-point data path synthesis

Minimization of computational errors in the fixed-point data path is often difficult task. Many signal processing algorithms use chains of consecutive additions. The analyzing technique that can be applied to fixed-point data path synthesis has been proposed. This technique takes advantage of allocating the chains of consecutive additions in order to predict growing width of the data path and minimize the design complexity and computational errors.
Repair and fixation of potentially lethal damage (PLD) as demonstrated by delayed plating or incubation with araA in contact inhibited refed plateau-phase C3H mouse embryo 10 T1/2 cells grown in the presence of BrdUrd

C3H mouse 10 T1/2 cells showing strong inhibition of growth at confluency were grown under daily refeeding in the presence of BrdUrd (from 0 to 1 microM) and exposed to gamma-rays either while exponentially growing or in the plateau phase. An increase in radiosensitivity was observed in both growth conditions mainly reflected by a reduction in Dq. Greater radiosensitization was observed in exponentially growing than in plateau-phase cells, and 3-4 times higher BrdUrd concentrations were required in plateau-phase cells for similar potentiation in killing. This effect could not be entirely attributed to a reduction in BrdUrd incorporation since measurements with 3H-BrdUrd showed reductions in incorporation between only 17-47% in plateau-phase cells. The rate of repair of potentially lethal damage (PLD) as demonstrated by delayed plating was not affected by the incorporation of BrdUrd, but the amount of repair (measured as the relative increase in cell survival) was higher for BrdUrd-containing cells. Post-irradiation treatment of cells in the plateau-phase (no BrdUrd) with 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyladenine (araA) caused fixation of radiation-induced PLD. AraA treatment of cells grown in the presence of various amounts of BrdUrd also caused fixation of PLD, but resulted in survival levels similar to those observed with cells growing in BrdUrd-free medium. This result indicates that BrdUrd mediated radiosensitization cannot be observed when cells are prevented from repairing PLD by postirradiation incubation with araA. Based on these findings we propose that the mechanism of radiosensitization by BrdUrd incorporation might be, by increasing probability of fixation, mediated by the postirradiation progression of cells through the cycle, of a sector of PLD also sensitive to post-irradiation treatment with araA. For this sector of PLD the term alpha-PLD has been proposed.
Thermal and gravity stresses in hyperboloidal cooling towers

Abstract Nuclear power plants usually require particularly large cooling towers, the design of which necessitates detailed analyses of the structural behavior under thermal and mechanical loadings. Thermal stresses are obtained in this paper for a reinforced hyperboloidal cooling tower for a wide range of foundation constants. The temperature field in the tower is assumed to be asymmetric with a linear variation through the thickness of the tower and an arbitrary variation along the height. The effects of the weight of the tower are included. The reinforcing material is assumed to have an equivalent orthotropic distribution along meridional and circumferential coordinate lines, and it is taken to be symmetrically located relative to the middle surface of the tower. The partial differential equations of equilibrium of the tower are based upon thin elastic shell theory and utilize the Love-Kirchhoff approximation. Fourier expansions in the circumferential variable are used to reduce these equations to ordinary differential equations in the meridional variable. Numerical solutions to the ordinary differential equations are obtained by the finite element subdomain collocation method. Numerical results are presented for thermal stresses in the Beaver Valley Station cooling tower for assumed temperature distributions on the inner and outer tower surfaces. The results show that the difference in temperature distributions on the inner and outer tower surfaces gives rise to significant thermal stresses in the tower. An example of a hot spot on a cylindrical shell is also presented. The analysis is particularly applicable to reinforced concrete cooling towers with hot spots.
Calculation of the isotope effect on the triplet lifetime of partially deuterated naphtalenes

Abstract : Differences in triplet lifetime between alpha and beta deuterated naphthalenes are calculated in good agreement with experiment. The calculation is based on vibronic spin-orbit coupling involving sigma pi* and pi sigma* states together with CH out-of-plane bending modes. (Author)
Desolvation Costs of Salt Bridges across Protein Binding Interfaces: Similarities and Differences between Implicit and Explicit Solvent Models

The prevalence of salt bridges across protein binding interfaces is surprising given the significant costs of desolvating the two charged groups upon binding. These desolvation costs, which are difficult to examine using laboratory experiments, have been computed in previous studies using the Poisson−Boltzmann (PB) implicit solvent model. Here, for the first time, we directly compare the PB implicit solvent model with several explicit water models in computing the desolvation penalties of salt bridges across protein−protein interfaces. We report both overall agreement as well as significant differences between the implicit and explicit solvent results. These differences highlight challenges to be faced in the application of implicit solvent methods.
Airport related emissions and impacts on air quality: Application to the Atlanta International Airport

In the last decade, air traffic has increased dramatically with a significant increase in emissions. Our goal is to quantify the impact of aircraft emissions on regional air quality, especially in regards to PM2.5 and ozone. Here the focus is on Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport which is the busiest airport in the world based on passenger traffic. First, aircraft PM2.5 emissions are estimated based on the Smoke Number (SN) by using the ‘‘first order’’ method. The Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System (EDMS) is used for gaseous species. PM2.5 emissions are estimated once based on the characteristic SN and a second time using the mode-specific SN. Further, aircraft emissions are processed in two ways: (1) allocating the emissions at the airport itself, and (2) by accounting for flight paths, mode, and plume rise. When the more conservative emission estimates are used (i.e, the characteristic SN estimates allocated to the airport), results suggest that Hartsfield–Jackson airport can have a maximum impact of 56 ppb on ozone with a 5 ppb average impact over most of the Atlanta area. PM2.5 impacts are also estimated to be quite large with a maximum local impact of 25m gm � 3 . Impacts over most of the Atlanta area are less than 4m gm � 3 . The second set of emissions with detailed spatial allocation leads to a less intense ozone impact with a maximum of 20 ppb and an average of less than 1 ppb. PM2.5 impacts, in this case, are about 1m gm � 3 within a radius of 16 km around the airport. The difference in these two results shows the importance of how aircraft emissions are treated. The impacts on ozone and PM2.5 of ground support equipment at the airport are smaller compared to the aircraft impacts, with a maximum impact of 2 ppb for ozone and 9m gm � 3 for PM2.5.
Advanced process & product reliability development in fabless environment

In this paper, we discuss the methodology used between a foundry and a fabless FPGA component supplier for ensuring a high yielding, reliable FPGA product at an advanced technology node. It is shown that close collaboration between the fabless supplier and foundry in technology development and manufacturing is essential for success. We discuss historical reliability trends as well as reliability data from the latest 40nm technology, which today is the most advanced technology node for a FPGA in production.
The Periplasmic, Group III Catalase of Vibrio fischeri Is Required for Normal Symbiotic Competence and Is Induced Both by Oxidative Stress and by Approach to Stationary Phase

The catalase gene, katA, of the sepiolid squid symbiont Vibrio fischeri has been cloned and sequenced. The predicted amino acid sequence of KatA has a high degree of similarity to the recently defined group III catalases, including those found in Haemophilus influenzae, Bacteroides fragilis, and Proteus mirabilis. Upstream of the predicted start codon of katA is a sequence that closely matches the consensus sequence for promoters regulated in Escherichia coli by the alternative sigma factor encoded by rpoS. Further, the level of expression of the cloned katA gene in an E. coli rpoS mutant is much lower than in wild-type E. coli. Catalase activity is induced three- to fourfold both as growing V. fischeri cells approach stationary phase and upon the addition of a small amount of hydrogen peroxide during logarithmic growth. The catalase activity was localized in the periplasm of wild-type V. fischeri cells, where its role could be to detoxify hydrogen peroxide coming from the external environment. No significant catalase activity could be detected in a katA null mutant strain, demonstrating that KatA is the predominately expressed catalase in V. fischeri and indicating that V. fischeri carries only a single catalase gene. The catalase mutant was defective in its ability to competitively colonize the light organs of juvenile squids in coinoculation experiments with the parent strain, suggesting that the catalase enzyme plays an important role in the symbiosis between V. fischeri and its squid host.
Timing using temporal context

We present a memory model that explicitly constructs and stores the temporal information about when a stimulus was encountered in the past. The temporal information is constructed from a set of temporal context vectors adapted from the temporal context model (TCM). These vectors are leaky integrators that could be constructed from a population of persistently firing cells. An array of temporal context vectors with different decay rates calculates the Laplace transform of real time events. Simple bands of feedforward excitatory and inhibitory connections from these temporal context vectors enable another population of cells, timing cells. These timing cells approximately reconstruct the entire temporal history of past events. The temporal representation of events farther in the past is less accurate than for more recent events. This history-reconstruction procedure, which we refer to as timing from inverse Laplace transform (TILT), displays a scalar property with respect to the accuracy of reconstruction. When incorporated into a simple associative memory framework, we show that TILT predicts well-timed peak responses and the Weber law property, like that observed in interval timing tasks and classical conditioning experiments.
An Analysis of Decoding, Comprehension, and Story Text Comprehensibility in Four First-Grade Reading Programs:

This study focuses on the instructional approaches to decoding and comprehension in the first-grade basal reading programs published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1983), Houghton Mifflin (1979), Ginn (1976) (analytical phonics, meaning-emphasis programs), and S.R.A. Reading Mastery (1983) (a synthetic phonics, code-emphasis program). In addition, analyses were completed on the comprehensibility of matched and selected stories from each of the four programs. Results reveal that with the exception of consonant sound instruction and text-tied comprehension interactions, the programs vary considerably. Results of the analysts of comprehensibility show similar differences between programs. There remains little, if any, argument among researchers as to whether or not basal reading programs predominate elementary reading instruction. In the 1985 report of the Commission on Reading, Becoming a Nation of Readers (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985), it is asserted that"... basal programs 'drive' instruction . . . These programs strongly influence how reading is taught in American schools and what students read" (p. 35). If this claim is accepted, it follows that what is or what is not included in basal reading programs may determine when children are able, independently, to decode and process written text. The strengths and weaknesses of a program may become the strengths and weaknesses of its users. Given the likelihood of a strong relationship between content and what is learned, researchers and educators alike should begin to look more closely at the content of popular basal programs to identify what skills each program does and does not present specifically. This paper attempts a fine-grained content analysis of four popular first-grade basal series. The analysis examined decoding and comprehension instruction in teachers'
On K-Means Cluster Preservation Using Quantization Schemes

This work examines under what conditions compression methodologies can retain the outcome of clustering operations. We focus on the popular k-Means clustering algorithm and we demonstrate how a properly constructed compression scheme based on post-clustering quantization is capable of maintaining the global cluster structure. Our analytical derivations indicate that a 1-bit moment preserving quantizer per cluster is sufficient to retain the original data clusters. Merits of the proposed compression technique include: a) reduced storage requirements with clustering guarantees, b) data privacy on the original values, and c) shape preservation for data visualization purposes. We evaluate quantization scheme on various high-dimensional datasets, including 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional time-series (shape datasets) and demonstrate the cluster preservation property. We also compare with previously proposed simplification techniques in the time-series area and show significant improvements both on the clustering and shape preservation of the compressed datasets.
Local gradient, global matching, piecewise-smooth optical flow

In this paper we discuss a hybrid technique for piecewise-smooth optical flow estimation. We first pose optical flow estimation as a gradient-based local regression problem and solve it under a high-breakdown robust criterion. Then taking the output from the first step as the initial guess, we recast the problem in a robust matching-based global optimization framework. We have developed novel fast-converging deterministic algorithms for both optimization problems and incorporated a hierarchical scheme to handle large motions. This technique inherits the good subpixel accuracy from the local gradient approach and the insensitivity to local perturbation and derivative quality from the global matching approach, and it overcomes the limitations of both. Significant advantages over competing techniques are demonstrated on various standard synthetic and real image sequences.
The behavior of jet streams in potential fallout situations

It is shown from a case study that the splitting of jet streams into several branches, which is frequently observed over the United States on the leading edges of intense maxima, may be explained by conservation of potential vorticity within an atmospheric layer moving over an obstacle. Such an obstacle may be a large mountain barrier, such as the Rocky Mountains, or a slowmoving dome of cold air in the lower troposphere, as is typical for cold outbreaks associated with strong jet streams.
Interplay of I-TASSER and QUARK for template-based and ab initio protein structure prediction in CASP10

We develop and test a new pipeline in CASP10 to predict protein structures based on an interplay of I-TASSER and QUARK for both free-modeling (FM) and template-based modeling (TBM) targets. The most noteworthy observation is that sorting through the threading template pool using the QUARK-based ab initio models as probes allows the detection of distant-homology templates which might be ignored by the traditional sequence profile-based threading alignment algorithms. Further template assembly refinement by I-TASSER resulted in successful folding of two medium-sized FM targets with >150 residues. For TBM, the multiple threading alignments from LOMETS are, for the first time, incorporated into the ab initio QUARK simulations, which were further refined by I-TASSER assembly refinement. Compared with the traditional threading assembly refinement procedures, the inclusion of the threading-constrained ab initio folding models can consistently improve the quality of the full-length models as assessed by the GDT-HA and hydrogen-bonding scores. Despite the success, significant challenges still exist in domain boundary prediction and consistent folding of medium-size proteins (especially beta-proteins) for nonhomologous targets. Further developments of sensitive fold-recognition and ab initio folding methods are critical for solving these problems.
Automated interpretation of MS/MS spectra of oligosaccharides

Motivation: The emerging glycomics and glycoproteomics projects aim to characterize all forms of glycoproteins in different tissues and organisms. Tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is the key experimental methodology for high-throughput glycan identification and characterization. Fragmentation of glycans from high energy collision-induced dissociation generates ions from glycosidic as well as internal cleavages. The cross-ring ions resulting from internal cleavages provide additional information that is important to reveal the type of linkage between monosaccharides. This information, however, is not incorporated into the current programs for analyzing glycan mass spectra. As a result, they can rarely distinguish from the mass spectra isomeric oligosaccharides, which have the same saccharide composition but different types of sequences, branches or linkages. Results: In this paper, we describe a novel algorithm for glycan characterization using MS/MS. This algorithm consists of three steps. First, we develop a scoring scheme to identify potential bond linkages between monosaccharides, based on the appearance pattern of cross-ring ions. Next, we use a dynamic programming algorithm to determine the most probable oligosaccharide structures from the mass spectrum. Finally, we re-evaluate these oligosaccharide structures, taking into account the double fragmentation ions. We also show the preliminary results of testing our algorithm on several MS/MS spectra of oligosaccharides. Availability: The program GLYCH is available upon request from the authors. Contact: hatang@indiana.edu
Acoustic communication in territorial butterflyfish: test of the sound production hypothesis

Butterflyfishes are conspicuous members of coral reefs and well known for their visual displays during social interactions. Members of the genus Chaetodon have a unique peripheral arrangement of the anterior swim bladder that connects with the lateral line (the laterophysic connection) and in many species projects towards the inner ear. This morphology has lead to the proposal that the laterophysic connection and swim bladder system may be a specialized structure for the detection of sound. However, the relevant stimuli, receiver mechanisms and functions for these putative hearing structures were unknown because butterflyfishes were previously not recognized to produce sounds during natural behavior. We performed field experiments to test the hypothesis that Chaetodon produces sounds in natural social contexts. Acoustic and motor behaviors of the monogamous multiband butterflyfish, C. multicinctus, were evoked and recorded by placement of bottled fish into feeding territories of conspecific pairs. We demonstrate that territory defense includes the production of agonistic sounds and hydrodynamic stimuli that are associated with tail slap, jump, pelvic fin flick and dorsal-anal fin erection behaviors. In addition, grunt pulse trains were produced by bottled intruders and are tentatively interpreted to function as an alert call among pair mates. Acoustic behaviors include low frequency hydrodynamic pulses <100 Hz, sounds with peak energy from 100 Hz to 500 Hz, and a broadband high frequency click (peak frequency=3.6 kHz), which is produced only during the tail slap behavior. These results provide a biological framework for future studies to interpret the proximate function of the acoustico-lateralis sensory system, the evolution of the laterophysic mechanism and their relevance to butterflyfish social behavior.
Treatments for spit tobacco use: a quantitative systematic review.

Aims Spit tobacco use is prevalent in the United States and is associatedwith adverse health consequences. Health-care providers have neitherevidence summaries nor evidence-based guidelines to assist themin treating patients who use spit tobacco. Design We completed a systematic review of the literature to determinethe efficacy and safety of pharmacological and behavioral interventionsfor the treatment of spit tobacco use. Findings We found six randomized controlled trials testing pharmacological interventionsand eight testing behavioral interventions. Using random-effects meta-analyses,bupropion sustained-release (SR) increased point prevalence tobaccoabstinence at 12 weeks [odds ratio (OR) 2.1; 95% confidenceinterval (CI), 1.0–4.2]. Nicotine replacementtherapy with patch or gum increased point prevalence tobacco abstinenceat 6 months (OR 1.3; 95% CI, 1.0–1.6).Behavioral interventions increased long-term (6 month)point prevalence tobacco abstinence (OR 1.7; 95% CI, 1.1–2.9).Studies including an oral examination followed by feedback to thepatient had the highest treatment effect. Conclusions Behavioral interventions for ST users are effective for increasing STabstinence rates. Bupropion SR is probably effective and nicotinereplacement therapy may be effective. This evidence from randomizedcontrolled trials provides health-care professionals with informationnecessary to effectively treat spit tobacco use.
Cataract incidence and analysis of lens crystallins in the water-, urea- and SDS-soluble fractions of Emory mice fed a diet restricted by 40 % in calories

Restriction of dietary calorie intake is associated with life extension and with the delay of age-related disorders. Preliminary studies demonstrated that by feeding the Emory mouse a diet restricted by 21% in calories cataract and insolubilization of protein could also be delayed. To observe the effects of calorie restriction over prolonged portions of adulthood, Emory mice were fed the control diet (C) or a diet restricted by 40% in calories (R). Feeding the R diet was associated with delayed formation or progress of cataract over virtually the entire second half of life. At 11 months of age, bilateral grade 5 cataracts were present in 17% and 2% of C and R lenses, respectively. At 22 months of age, bilateral grade 5 cataracts were present in 90% and 18% of C and R lenses, respectively. The distribution of $aL, β-, and γ-crystallins in the water-soluble, urea-soluble, and SDS-soluble fractions indicates more similarities than differences between C and R lenses with a specific grade of cataract or of a g...
Who will Divorce: A 14-Year Longitudinal Study of Black Couples and White Couples:

The present study examines the early development of marriage for a representative sample of urban white couples and black couples. We are interested in predicting the stability of these marriages over the first 14 years of marriage. First, we assess whether objective social and economic conditions account for divorce over time. These factors focus on oppressive social conditions, lower status positions in society, and challenges of parenthood and family responsibilities. Next, we concentrate on perceived interactive processes between spouses that are critical for maintaining a relationship over time. We postulate that race, gender, and time act as contexts in which to understand the quality and impact of structure and the perceptions of interaction in predicting divorce. Results indicate that both race and education are critical to the risk of divorce over 14 years. Perceived interactional processes are also important to divorce, but often depend on the contexts of race and gender.
Supervising a family of hybrid controllers for robust global asymptotic stabilization

This paper describes an algorithm for achieving robust, global asymptotic stabilization in nonlinear control systems by supervising the actions of a family of hybrid controllers. The family is such that the regions over which they operate cover the state space in an appropriate sense. Moreover, their behavior is such that they can be scheduled to move the state of the system toward a desirable region, whether it be an equilibrium point or a compact set. In establishing our main result, we use the concept of "events" for hybrid systems and show that, under mild assumptions, stability of a system without events is preserved when a finite number of events are incorporated. The algorithm is applied to robust, global stabilization problems involving vehicle orientation, position and orientation of a mobile robot, and the inverted configuration of a pendulum.
Spatial Analysis and Temporal Simulation of Landscape Patterns in Two Petroleum-Oriented Cities

Rapid urbanization has been recognized as a critical process in urban areas. This research focuses on the comparison of landscape dynamics in two petroleum-based cities: Houston, TX, and Daring, Heilongjiang Province, China. Based on the multitemporal satellite images, a general trend of landscape change was revealed in these two cities: natural landscapes such as grassland and wetland were degraded into a more heterogeneous pattern, while the human landscapes such as residential area expanded and replaced other natural classes gradually. To further investigate the spatio-temporal process in these two petroleum-oriented cities, the Markov stochastic model was adopted to simulate their landscape dynamics. The results of this study provide evidence of the threatened natural landscapes and environment deterioration during the urbanization processes in two petroleum-oriented cities. This research also demonstrates that the integration of remote sensing and GIS model is an effective approach for comparing spatial pattern and temporal process of urban landscapes.
Influence of quaternary ammonium salts on cellulose modification

Current interest in cellulose chemistry is focused on two areas; a) development of cellulose solvents to provide direct methods for solution spinning and b) development of techniques to control distribution of substituents along the cellulose backbone. Homogeneous substitution,i.e., random distribution of substituents among all the anhydroglucose units in the chain,can be accomplished by initial dissolution of the cellulose substrate followed by reaction in a homogenious media.1 However,solutions of native cellulose are extremely viscous, so it is unlikely that substrate concentration levels high enough to allow commercially feasible production of derivatives could be employed.
T1 MAPPING AND QUANTIFICATION OF DIFFUSE MYOCARDIAL FIBROSIS IN PATIENTS WITH VENTRICULAR TACHYCARDIA

T1 mapping allows for accurate assessment of diffuse myocardial fibrosis. The relationship between diffuse fibrosis based on T1 mapping and ventricular tachycardia (VT) is unknown. Patients were referred for CMR evaluation of new-onset cardiomyopathy (CMP). 10 patients with a history of VT and 11
Discovery of the First α-Amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic Acid (AMPA) Receptor Antagonist Dependent upon Transmembrane AMPA Receptor Regulatory Protein (TARP) γ-8

Transmembrane AMPA receptor regulatory proteins (TARPs) are a family of scaffolding proteins that regulate AMPA receptor trafficking and function. TARP γ-8 is one member of this family and is highly expressed within the hippocampus relative to the cerebellum. A selective TARP γ-8-dependent AMPA receptor antagonist (TDAA) is an innovative approach to modulate AMPA receptors in specific brain regions to potentially increase the therapeutic index relative to known non-TARP-dependent AMPA antagonists. We describe here, for the first time, the discovery of a noncompetitive AMPA receptor antagonist that is dependent on the presence of TARP γ-8. Three major iteration cycles were employed to improve upon potency, CYP1A2-dependent challenges, and in vivo clearance. An optimized molecule, compound (−)-25 (LY3130481), was fully protective against pentylenetetrazole-induced convulsions in rats without the motor impairment associated with non-TARP-dependent AMPA receptor antagonists. Compound (−)-25 could be utilized ...
Detection of EV71 in children with hand-foot-mouth disease

Objective To analyze the age distribution and other epidemiological characteristics of EV71 infection among children with hand-foot-mouth disease(HFMD).Methods A total of 889 clinical HFMD patients were confirmed in Harbin from 2008 to 2010.The method of RT-PCR was used to detect EV71 in the samples of throat,stool and rectal swabs.The epidemiological data of patients were analyzed for gender,age distribution and endemic features.Results The positive rate of EV71 was 32.96%(293/889) in HFMD patients.EV71 was more frequently detected in boys(35.82%,197/550) than in girls(28.32%,96/339)(P0.05).The positive rate of EV71 was higher in children from rural areas(37.6%,182/484) than in children from urban areas(27.41%,111/405)(P0.05).Early summer was the epidemic season of EV71 infection.July had the highest monthly rate of EV71 detection(38.11%,93/244),followed by June(35.48%,55/155) and May(34.07%,46/135).Among HFMD children,the positive rate of EV71 was the highest for children aged 2 years(37.56%,80/213),followed by children aged 1 year(34.98%,78/223),children aged 3 years(32.77%,58/177) and children aged 4 years(32.69%,34/104).Conclusions EV71 was the major causation of HFMD among children in Harbin.Intervention measures should be taken to prevent the disease in early summer season,especially for young children in rural areas.
Reviewed on Public R&D Performance Evaluation Research

From public RD performance evaluation research status recently,it is found that the studies mainly focus on three parts: evaluation objects,contents( embodied in evaluation index) and methods. They are the starting point,the core and the tool of evaluation word. But focusing on the essential characteristics of evaluation objects are not well understood,the evaluation contents index representation remains to be more accurate,the evaluation methods need to be expanded and more comprehensive under the condition of feasibility. The three parts constitutes the standard evaluation system by matching and corresponding implementation.
Performance Promotion for POMDPRS Based on Monte Carlo Filter

Planning is a main research direction in artificial intelligence and has widely application background.POMDPRS is a continual planning system which combines the continual planning mechanism of PRS,the probabilistic distribution belief model and the maximum utility principle of POMDP,so that it gains stronger abilities of adapting to dynamic nondeterministic environments.However,belief updating is the bottleneck of planning performance in big state space.This paper introduces the Monte Carlo filter into POMDPRS to reduce the complexity of its belief updating,so that it can meet the requirement as a real-time system.
Noise Forecast and Optimal Control Design of Out-door Substation

In order to reduce the affect of substation noise on the adjacent environment,a code for substation ambient noise simulation and optimal control was developed.Through the overall analysis and calculation of noise sources,buildings,sensitive points,trees and some other obstacles,schemes of optimal planning,design and noise control of new substation were proposed.The method can improve the effect of noise control,reduce project cost,and avoid blindness and randomness in the process of noise control design.This work has application significance in engineering.
Fluoride Concentration in Commonly Consumed Infant Juices

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to measure the fluoride concentration in the most commonly consumed, commercially available infant fruit juices and to determine if a significant difference existed among various juice flavors and brands. METHODS Ninety samples of different flavors from three infant juice manufacturing companies were analyzed using the Taves microdiffusion method. The fluoride content in one serving juice container was calculated and compared to the recommended optimal daily fluoride intake. RESULTS Fluoride concentrations ranged from 0.11 to 1.81 ppm (mean=0.75+0.45 ppm) for all samples. A statistically significant difference in fluoride concentration among different manufacturers (P<.001) was found. Gerber juices contained higher fluoride amounts (mean=1.1+0.22 ppm) than Beechnut juices (mean=0.43+0.42 ppm) and Earth's Best juices (mean=0.34+0.13 ppm). CONCLUSION Fluoride was found in all tested infant juice samples, and concentrations varied among manufacturers and flavors assessed. Fluoride in all tested samples was below the recommended optimal daily intake. When taking other fluoride sources into consideration, infants six months old and younger who consume three times the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommended amounts of juice per day may be at risk of developing fluorosis.
Decentralized monitoring of distributed anytime algorithms

Anytime algorithms allow a system to trade solution quality for computation time. In previous work, monitoring techniques have been developed to allow agents to stop the computation at the "right" time so as to optimize a given time-dependent utility function. However, these results apply only to the single-agent case. In this paper we analyze the problems that arise when several agents solve components of a larger problem, each using an anytime algorithm. Monitoring in this case is more challenging as each agent is uncertain about the progress made so far by the others. We develop a formal framework for decentralized monitoring, establish the complexity of several interesting variants of the problem, and propose solution techniques for each one. Finally, we show that the framework can be applied to decentralized flow and planning problems.
Effects of suspension hypokinesia/hypodynamia on rat skeletal muscle.

The effects of suspension hypokinesia/hypodynamia (H/H) on properties of soleus and plantaris muscles of rats were studied. The objective was to compare the effects of this model to those of disuse atrophy. After 12 d of H/H, there were significant decreases in soleus and plantaris muscle wet weight and citrate synthase activity. Soleus muscle was affected to a greater extent than plantaris muscle. There was a significant decrease in noncollagen protein content of H/H soleus muscle. Triceps brachii muscles did not display significant changes in any parameters measured, suggesting that observed changes were not due to systemic factors. There was no significant change in the water content of H/H soleus or plantaris muscles. Suspension H/H causes muscle changes different from those secondary to limb immobilization, in which soleus and plantaris muscles are equally affected.
The Essential Nature of the State and Specific Identities in Aristotle’s Politics

Each science claims some object or related set of objects as its special province and essential unit of analysis. This object or set of objects is, in fact, what distinguishes each science from the others and demarcates its boundaries from the others. The essential unit of analysis of political science, in Aristotle’s view, is the state (polis) or the constitution (politeia). There are, to be sure smaller associations (family and village) and larger ones (confederations and nations). But these, though they may come before the scrutiny of the political scientist or theorist, will do so only incidentally, not essentially. They are non-essential to political inquiry because they do not fulfill the conditions of a true political association. In a preliminary way, one might say that they deviate from the true political association, the former by deficiency (both in terms of size and maturity), the latter by excess (primarily in terms of size).
Vertically aligned Pt nanowire array/Au nanoparticle hybrid structure as highly sensitive amperometric biosensors

Abstract In recent years, vertically aligned nanowires have been investigated in a range of sensor development for high sensitivity and selectivity detection. In this research, a novel 3D hybrid structure based on vertically aligned Pt nanowire array (PtNWA) coated with Au nanoparticles has been developed as highly sensitive electrochemical biosensors. The vertical Pt nanowire array has been prepared by an electrodeposition method within anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes; then a controllable electroless plating procedure was applied to deposit Au nanoparticles uniformly onto the surface of the Pt nanowires. Finally, glucose oxidase (GOD) enzyme was immobilized on the surface of Au nanoparticles with two widely used enzyme immobilization methods (1-Ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide/N-hydroxysuccinimide (EDC/NHS) crosslinking and glutaraldehyde crosslinking). This nanowire/nanoparticle hybrid structure resulted in higher density of Au nanoparticles than traditional 2D planar electrode modification method. The high density of Au nanoparticles could significantly increase the density of glucose oxidase enzyme immobilized, resulting in better sensing ability. The electron transfer could be enhanced by the 3D vertically aligned Pt nanowire array, leading to higher signal to noise ratio. The electrochemical performances under two different enzyme immobilization methods were studied. The results showed that the PtNWA/AuNPs/GOD sensor exhibited a sensitivity of 184 μA mM −1 cm −2 , a limit of detection of 15 μM, and high selectivity toward the detection of glucose, by using the EDC/NHS immobilization method. The storability and real sample tests have also been investigated. This novel nanowire array/nanoparticle hybrid structure, with appropriate enzyme immobilization, can be used as a platform for quantitative measurements of a variety of biomolecules.
Building Inclusive Undergraduate Teams

This paper describes a research project to encourage and enhance formation of undergraduate project teams with a focus on inclusivity. The project was developed by a team of undergraduate students working with a pair of engineering faculty. A survey including questions about team study groups was prepared and used to gather data about how engineering student teams are formed and how students perceive teams at different points as they progress through the curriculum. Interviews with junior/senior level students were filmed and the footage was used to build a composite video to serve as motivation to first and second year students. The video was presented in a second year dynamics class and the students were surveyed to understand the effectiveness of the intervention.The survey results indicate that nearly half of all junior/senior engineering students feel ethically charged to include other students in a study group, while only 32% of second year students feel ethically charged. This research is part of a larger effort to develop methods for merging engineering ethics and professionalism in the mechanical engineering curriculum.Copyright © 2016 by ASME
Generation, Gestation, and Birth: An Important Element in the Embryo Adoption Debate

Those who consider embryo adoption/rescue a licit means to save the lives of cryopreserved and abandoned embryos often have recourse to an analogy between gestation and wet nursing, claiming that s...