cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The physics of tablet compression. X. Mechanism of action and evaluation of tablet lubricants.

A study of theoretical aspects of tablet lubrication has been carried out in an attempt to elucidate the mechanism of lubricant action and the relationships that exist between chemical structure and lubricating properties. The results of this study indicate that the mechanism of lubricant action, as described for other systems, may be applicable to tablet lubrication. Thus, lubricants may generally be divided into two groups; the first known as fluid- (or hydrodynamic) type which is exemplified by hydrocarbons and the second, termed boundary-type lubricants such as the metallic stearate salts. There appears to be correlation between chemical structure and lubricant efficiency in the tablet-die wall system. The effectiveness of fluid-type lubricants appears to be related to the viscosity of the material used. In this system paraffin was more effective than liquid mineral oil. The evaluation of other classes of compounds revealed that metallic salts of fatty acids were generally the best lubricants while fatty acids, fatty alcohols, alkyl sulfonates, fatty amides, and certain polyvinyl and polyethylene glycol derivatives exhibited good lubricating properties. However, silicone resins, inorganic salts, proteins, carbohydrates, and many metal oxides displayed no lubricating properties. Included in the paper are the results of a survey in which 70 materials were evaluated as tablet lubricants.
Development of Fluorescent Film Sensors for the Detection of Divalent Copper

Monolayers of several peptide lipids at air−water and air−solid interfaces were prepared using Langmuir and Langmuir−Blodgett (LB) film techniques, and tested as fluorescent sensors for copper ions in aqueous phase. In one method, both the ionophore and the fluorophore were in the same molecule (lipid A), so intramolecular interaction was responsible for the fluorescence quenching of monolayers of this lipid. In the other method, ionophore and fluorophore were located on two different molecules (lipids B and C) so the intramolecular coupling does not exist; instead the fluorescence quenching was realized by a through-space interaction mechanism. Several experimental techniques, including πA isotherm, epifluorescence microscopy, and absorption and emission spectroscopies were used to study the different characteristics of copper ion effect on the properties of the lipid monolayers. Additionally, the fluorescence quenching properties of the Langmuir monolayers were found to be transferred to the one-layer L...
Force-Velocity Curves of Motor Proteins Cooperating In Vivo

Motor proteins convert chemical energy into work, thereby generating persistent motion of cellular and subcellular objects. The velocities of motor proteins as a function of opposing loads have been previously determined in vitro for single motors. These single molecule “force–velocity curves” have been useful for elucidating motor kinetics and for estimating motor performance under physiological loads due to, for example, the cytoplasmic drag force on transported organelles. Here we report force–velocity curves for single and multiple motors measured in vivo. Using motion enhanced differential interference contrast (MEDIC) movies of living NT2 (neuron-committed teratocarcinoma) cells at 37°C, three parameters were measured—velocity (v), radius (a), and effective cytoplasmic viscosity (η′)—as they applied to moving vesicles. These parameters were combined in Stokes’ equation, F = 6πaη′v, to determine the force, F, required to transport a single intracellular particle at velocity, v. In addition, the number of active motors was inferred from the multimodal pattern seen in a normalized velocity histogram. Using this inference, the resulting in vivo force–velocity curve for a single motor agrees with previously reported in vitro single motor force–velocity curves. Interestingly, however, the curves for two and three motors lie significantly higher in both measured velocity and computed force, which suggests that motors can work cooperatively to attain higher transport forces and velocities.
Tocqueville on Mores and the Preservation of Republics

The chapter Tocqueville originally intended as a conclusion for the Democracy in America of 1835 is devoted to the causes that maintain a democratic republic. His main findings concern the political role of “mores.” Conducting an implicit dialogue with Montesquieu and working from evidence available to no previous student of democracy, Tocqueville finds commercialism less supportive of democracy and mores (especially those connected with religion) more useful to democracy than his great predecessor had believed. Moreover, he draws attention to a “practical” form of “enlightenment” seen in the broad public internalization of democratic practice and norms. These discoveries did not lead to confident predictions about the republic's future, largely because much of what is useful in mores seems beyond direct political control. They did inspire his argument that modern democrats are best advised to make use of, rather than repudiate, the inherited mores. These mores, if adapted to new conditions, may help to support effective democratic practice.
Development of a training protocol to improve reading performance in peripheral vision

People with central-field loss must use peripheral vision for reading. Previous studies have shown that reading performance in peripheral vision can improve with extensive practice on a trigram letter-recognition task. The present study compared training on this task with training on two other character-based tasks (lexical-decision and Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) reading) which might plausibly produce more improvement in peripheral reading speed. Twenty-eight normally-sighted young adults were trained at 10° in the lower visual field in a pre/post design. All three training methods produced significant improvements in reading speed, with average gains of 39% for lexical-decision, 54% for trigram letter-recognition, and 72% for RSVP training. Although the RSVP training was most effective, the lexical-decision task has the advantage of easy self administration making it more practical for home-based training.
Evaluation of methods using ray's fluid thioglycollate medium for diagnosis of Perkinsus marinus infection in the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica

Abstract Accurate detection and quantification of parasite body burden are critical for understanding many aspects of host-parasite interactions. The standard assay for diagnosing Perkinsus marinus infections in Crassostrea virginica involves incubation of oyster tissue in Ray's fluid thioglycollate medium (RFTM), followed by iodine staining and microscopic examination for parasites. The original RFTM tissue assay is destructive and provides only a ranked level of infection intensity. A recent modification provides a technique to enumerate P. marinus after incubation in RFTM and determines total body burden. Application of this technique to hemolymph samples has provided a nondestructive assay. We provide a critical evaluation of these three assays. Data from previous studies were not adequate to critically evaluate performance of the tissue and hemolymph assays. Sensitivity and accuracy of these assays were therefore compared against weight-standardized body burden in Delaware Bay oysters over the course of a year. Determination of total body burden was significantly more sensitive than the other assays. Neither tissue nor hemolymph assays provided accurate estimates of individual infection intensities and were insensitive at low infection levels. The tissue assay was easier to use and slightly more accurate than the hemolymph assay, and both provided reasonable estimates of average infection level in the population. In summary, total body burden assessment is recommended when highly accurate measures of infection intensity or prevalence are necessary, the tissue assay is recommended for monitoring epizootics because of its simplicity and accuracy at the population level, and the hemolymph assay is only recommended when oysters must be kept alive.
A daily measure of positive and negative alcohol expectancies and evaluations: documenting a two-factor structure and within- and between-person variability.

Objective:Despite the documented importance of alcohol outcome expectancies in predicting alcohol use and related consequences, little research has explored within-person variability in expectancies. This article details the construction and psychometric analysis of a measure of alcohol expectancies specifically designed for daily assessment.Method:We developed a 15-item instrument to measure the likelihood of experiencing various outcomes from drinking, as well as the subjective evaluation of these outcomes. College students (N = 352; mean age = 19.7 years, SD = 1.26; 53.4% female) participated in a yearlong study wherein they completed three computerized interviews daily via mobile phones for 2 weeks in each academic quarter. Multilevel exploratory factor analysis was used to examine dimensionality at between-person and within-person levels, and generalizability coefficients were calculated to establish reliability.Results:Intraclass correlation coefficients were generally between .30 and .40, demonstra...
Pharmacologic doses of ascorbic acid repress specificity protein (Sp) transcription factors and Sp-regulated genes in colon cancer cells

Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) inhibits cancer cell growth, and there is a controversy regarding the cancer chemoprotective effects of pharmacologic doses of this compound that exhibits prooxidant activity. We hypothesized that the anticancer activity of pharmacologic doses of ascorbic acid (<5 mM) is due, in part, to reactive oxygen species-dependent downregulation of specificity protein (Sp) transcription factors Sp1, Sp3, and Sp4 and Sp-regulated genes. In this study, ascorbic acid (1-3 mM) decreased RKO and SW480 colon cancer cell proliferation and induced apoptosis and necrosis, and this was accompanied by downregulation of Sp1, Sp3, and Sp4 proteins. In addition, ascorbic acid decreased expression of several Sp-regulated genes that are involved in cancer cell proliferation [hepatocyte growth factor receptor (c-Met), epidermal growth factor receptor and cyclin D1], survival (survivin and bcl-2), and angiogenesis [vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors (VEGFR1 and VEGFR2)]. Other prooxidants such as hydrogen peroxide exhibited similar activities in colon cancer cells, and cotreatment with glutathione inhibited these responses. This study demonstrates for the first time that the anticancer activities of ascorbic acid are due, in part, to ROS-dependent repression of Sp transcription factors.
When does coevolution promote diversification

Coevolutionary interactions between species are thought to be an important cause of evolutionary diversification. Despite this general belief, little theoretical basis exists for distinguishing between the types of interactions that promote diversification and those types that have no effect or that even restrict it. Using analytical models and simulations of phenotypic evolution across a metapopulation, we show that coevolutionary interactions promote diversification when they impose a cost of phenotype matching, as is the case for competition or host-parasite antagonism. In contrast, classical coevolutionary arms races have no tendency to promote or inhibit diversification, and mutualistic interactions actually restrict diversification. Together with the results of recent phylogenetic and ecological studies, these results suggest that the causes of diversification in many coevolutionary systems may require reassessment.
Nucleated Pathways Involving Nanoparticles and Lipid Membranes

The interactions of nanoscale objects at the membrane interface play an important role in cell biology, medical therapeutics, nanoparticle toxicity and antimicrobial peptides. In particular, these objects---through thermal fluctuations---can insert into membranes and subsequently undergo many interesting processes as nucleated (rare) events. To tackle the challenging nucleation problem, we need a method that can overcome the long time scales associated with these rare events without constraining the system to an artificially chosen reaction coordinate. Towards this end, we combine the string method with a dynamical version of the self-consistent field theory to compute the minimum free energy paths for nucleated events involving membrane-particle systems. We show that under tensions well below the metastability limit of the membrane, and in the regime where nucleation can occur on experimentally relevant time scales, there can be multiple pathways involving the particle: (1) particle-assisted membrane rupture, (2) particle translocation, and (3) membrane rupture from a metastable pore with an inserted particle.
Acute renal effects of amphotericin B.

SummaryThe acute effects of intravenously administered AmB were studied in 19 dogs during a water diuresis and antidi-uresis. The decrease in CH2O cannot entirely be due to the decrease in GFR. TcH2O/ Cosm was unaltered, suggesting that the drug acts on the late distal tubule. The acute tubular effects may be due to alterations in tubular reabsorption of sodium and membrane permeability to water.
Marfan’s Syndrome in Pregnancy: Implications for Advanced Practice Nurses

Marfan's syndrome is a genetic disorder that often affects the cardiovascular, pulmonary, ocular, and musculoskeletal systems. When a woman with Marfan's syndrome becomes pregnant, the hormonal stresses and changes to the cardiovascular system can put the mother at risk for serious complications. Advanced practice nurses need to understand the maternal changes associated with Marfan's syndrome as well as the genetic factors involved in order to provide holistic care.
Effects of aging on glutamate neurotransmission in the substantia nigra of Gdnf heterozygous mice

Abstract Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) helps protect dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal tract. Although the cause of nigrostriatal degeneration is unknown, one theory is that excess glutamate from the subthalamic nucleus results in excitotoxic events in the substantia nigra (SN). Because dopaminergic degeneration is accompanied by a reduction in GDNF, we examined glutamate neurotransmission in the SN using a Gdnf heterozygous mouse model (Gdnf+/−) at 8 and 12 months of age. At 8 months, Gdnf+/− mice have greater glutamate release and higher basal glutamate levels, which precede the SN dopaminergic degeneration observed at 12 months of age. However, at 12 months, Gdnf+/− mice have lower basal levels of glutamate and less glutamate release than wild-type mice. Also at 8 months, Gdnf+/− mice have lower levels of glutamate transporter-1 and greater glial fibrillary acidic protein levels in the SN compared with wild-type mice, differences that increase with age. These data suggest that reduced levels of GDNF induce excess glutamate release and dysregulation of glutamate transporter-1, causing excitotoxicity in the SN that precedes dopaminergic degeneration.
The potential of latent semantic analysis for machine grading of clinical case summaries

Objective: This paper introduces latent semantic analysis (LSA), a machine learning method for representing the meaning of words, sentences, and texts. LSA induces a high-dimensional semantic space from reading a very large amount of texts. The meaning of words and texts can be represented as vectors in this space and hence can be compared automatically and objectively. Psychological theory: A generative theory of the mental lexicon based on LSA is described. The word vectors LSA constructs are context free, and each word, irrespective of how many meanings or senses it has, is represented by a single vector. However, when a word is used in different contexts, context appropriate word senses emerge. Current applications: Several applications of LSA to educational software are described, involving the ability of LSA to quickly compare the content of texts, such as an essay written by a student and a target essay. Potential medical applications: An LSA-based software tool is sketched for machine grading of clinical case summaries written by medical students.
Scanning electron microscopic study of long flexors in human fingers

A scanning electron microscopic (SEM) study of the digital long flexors of the human hand has provided a greater magnification and an increased resolution that facilitated the study, of the architecture and the correlation of their structure to their fintctional activity. The observations are comparable to reports based on gross anatomic and light microscopic studies previously reported by others.
Sensory Comparisons: The 2-Stage Triangle Test with Sample Variabilitya

SUMMARY The first stage of this test is the attempt to identify the odd member of a coded AAB or ABB triad formed of samples of two materials, A and B, that are to be sensorily compared. The second stage is a ranking decision on the selected item with regard to the specific sensory quality or to preference. When the materials, and consequently the samples, are heterogeneous, the sameness of the duplicates cannot be guaranteed, and a sampling distribution must be postulated before valid inferences can be made. A probabilistic model of the test is constructed. Experimental data on tenderness of poultry meats are shown to fit this model.
INTERNATIONAL PRICE COMPARISONS BASED UPON INCOMPLETE DATA

This paper is directed at the following question: given an incomplete set of price data relating to goods or services in some category of output for each of a number of different countries, what arithmetic should be performed on the prices to get a meaningful representation of the relative category price-levels of the countries? In the course of developing an answer to the question, some broader matters are considered and illuminated. A comparison of category price-levels for different countries is analogous to a commonly-encountered problem in many areas, that of ranking ordinally or cardinally in one dimension a group of “entities”—persons, households, firms, industries, etc.—on the basis of sets of measurements associated with the individual entities. It is this point of view which dominates the following presentation.
Scattering from structured slabs having two-dimensional periodicity

The problem of a plane wave incident on a structured slab is examined. To analyze the problem, an electric field integral equation (EFIE) is derived that has as its unknown the equivalent surface currents on the plates in the unit cell. The integral equation is discretized and solved approximately using the method of moments with subdomain basis and testing functions. The periodic Green's function is efficiently calculated using the Poisson summation formula. The interaction of the structure with the surrounding environment is described in terms of a generalized scattering matrix. Results are presented showing the reflection coefficient as a function of frequency for arrays of zigzagging strips and honeycomb slabs. >
Mid-IR plasmonics: near-field imaging of coherent plasmon modes of silver nanowires.

Chemically synthesized metallic nanostructures can exhibit a strong local optical field enhancement associated with their high degree of crystallinity and well-defined geometry-dependent surface plasmon resonances. The extension of the plasmon modes into the mid-IR spectral range (3−30 μm) is shown for micrometer-sized nanowires with high aspect ratios available in the form of pentagonally twinned Ag crystallites as grown by polyol synthesis. Using scattering-scanning near-field optical microscopy, the associated IR plasmon modes are identified, and their underlying spatial distribution and enhancement of the optical polarization density is measured via phase, amplitude, and polarization resolved optical vector-field mapping. The transition from dipolar to multipolar resonances is observed and described by modeling the Ag wires using a modified cylindrical waveguide theory. For 10.6 μm excitation, dipole antenna resonances are observed at a resonant length of L = λeff/2 with λeff ≈ 10.6 μm/(1.8 ± 0.5) ≈ 6...
Atomic Force Microscopy Study of Ivy Climbing Mechanism

This paper presents our recent discovery on ivy climbing mechanism and proposes a potential biology inspired climbing mechanism for nano-applications. Using atomic force microscope (AFM), we observed ivy secrets nanoparticles through adhering disks of the aerial rootlets to affix to a surface. The study suggests that nanoparticles play a direct role for ivy surface climbing. Weak adhesion and hydrogen bonding seem to be the forces for the climbing mechanism. This ivy secretion mechanism may inspire new methods for synthesizing nanoparticles biologically or new approaches to adhesion mechanisms for nano applications.
Biodegradation of Lignin by Laccase for Conversion of Biomass to Fuel: Analysis of Substrate Binding

Laccases play an important role in biodegradation of lignin, particularly by mediation with easily oxidizable phenolic compounds through a radical-catalyzed reaction. Such processes may potentially be considered for turning lignocellulosic biomass into fuel. In this work, in order to better understand effects of the phenolic compound bulkiness, binding propensity of six substrates that vary in steric hindrance was considered. Changes in binding affinity, also upon mutation, were analyzed for a range of laccases. The results reveal the potential for improved binding of various laccases and their mutations, to be considered in future work.
Behavioral dynamics of intercepting a moving target

From matters of survival like chasing prey, to games like football, the problem of intercepting a target that moves in the horizontal plane is ubiquitous in human and animal locomotion. Recent data show that walking humans turn onto a straight path that leads a moving target by a constant angle, with some transients in the target-heading angle. We test four control strategies against the human data: (1) pursuit, or nulling the target-heading angle beta, (2) computing the required interception angle beta (3) constant target-heading angle, or nulling change in the target-heading angle beta and (4) constant bearing, or nulling change in the bearing direction of the target psi which is equivalent to nulling change in the target-heading angle while factoring out the turning rate (beta - phi) We show that human interception behavior is best accounted for by the constant bearing model, and that it is robust to noise in its input and parameters. The models are also evaluated for their performance with stationary targets, and implications for the informational basis and neural substrate of steering control are considered. The results extend a dynamical systems model of human locomotor behavior from static to changing environments.
The feature extraction and recognition of EEG based on wavelet entropy and distance

The paper is based on the technique of brain-computer interface to investigate the EEG of different mental tasks. The wavelet entropy algorithm is applied to realize the feature extraction for the two mental tasks. The Euclidean distance discriminant is proposed to classify the two metal tasks efficiently and the result is perfect. The recognition rate is up to 96.97%. The research is valuable and significant in the realization of control and communication based on the mental tasks in BCI.
Use of pooled samples for the detection of Salmonella in feces by polymerase chain reaction

Many epidemiological studies of Salmonella rely on conventional bacteriological culture methods to detect Salmonella in fecal samples. These culture-based methods are inefficient for epidemiological studies in populations with a low prevalence of Salmonella. The objective of this study was to optimize a protocol that uses pooled Salmonella enrichment broth cultures of bovine feces and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection of the invA gene of Salmonella in feces. In one field trial, 196 animals were sampled, and all samples were tested by culture, invA PCR on individual samples, invA PCR on pools of 5 samples, and BAX PCR on individual samples. All assays showed a high agreement on individual samples (kappa $ 0.75). The invA PCR was run on each of 40 pools and detected 19 of 22 culture-positive pools .I n another field trial, 152 samples were taken from 4 dairies, and the invA PCR was performed on pools of 5 samples in addition to bacteriological culture of individual samples. Salmonella was detected in 5 of the 32 pools (7 total positive samples) by both PCR and culture. One pool was PCR-positive but culture-negative. Pooling did not dramatically affect the performance of the invA PCR; most of the culture-positive samples were detected, including all of the samples when there were 4 or more Salmonella colonies on the agar plate. Based on these field trials, invA PCR on pooled samples appears to be an efficient method of Salmonella detection as long as Salmonella loads are not extremely low.
Caveolin 1 inhibits HIV replication by transcriptional repression mediated through NF-κB.

ABSTRACT Caveolin 1 (Cav-1), the scaffold protein of a specific membrane lipid raft called caveolae, has been reported to suppress HIV-1 replication. However, the mechanism by which Cav-1 inhibits HIV replication remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the mechanism by which Cav-1 inhibits HIV replication at the level of gene expression. Our results show that Cav-1 represses viral gene expression and that this suppression involves the NF-κB pathway. We used several approaches in different cell types, including primary CD4 + T cells and macrophages, to demonstrate the role of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) in Cav-1-mediated inhibition of viral expression. A mutational analysis of the cis -acting element shows that the two NF-κB sites in the U3 region of the long terminal repeat (LTR) are critical for Cav-1-mediated inhibition of viral expression. In the presence of Cav-1, phosphorylation of IKKβ, IKKα, IκBα, and NF-κB p65 is dramatically reduced, while viral gene expression is suppressed. In addition, translocation of NF-κB p65 to the nucleus decreases substantially in the presence of Cav-1. Furthermore, significant inhibition of NF-κB activation and binding to target DNA are evident in the presence of Cav-1. These results establish evidence that Cav-1 inhibits HIV replication by transcriptional repression of viral gene expression and contributes to HIV9s persistent infection of macrophages.
The Measurement of Web-Customer Satisfaction: An Expectation and Disconfirmation Approach

Online shopping provides convenience to Web shoppers, yet its electronic format changes information-gathering methods traditionally used by customers. This change raises questions concerning customer satisfaction with the online purchasing process. Web shopping involves a number of phases, including the information phase, in which customers search for information regarding their intended purchases. The purpose of this paper is to develop theoretically justifiable constructs for measuring Web-customer satisfaction during the information phase.By synthesizing the expectation-disconfirmation paradigm with empirical theories in user satisfaction, we separate Web site quality into information quality (IQ) and system quality (SQ), and propose nine key constructs for Web-customer satisfaction. The measurements for these constructs are developed and tested in a two-phase study. In the first phase, the IQ and SQ dimensions are identified, and instruments for measuring them are developed and tested. In the second phase, using the salient dimensions of Web-IQ and Web-SQ as the basis for formulating first-order factors, we develop and empirically test instruments for measuring IQ and SQ-satisfaction. Moreover, this phase involves the design and test of second-order factors for measuring Web-customer expectations, disconfirmation, and perceived performance regarding IQ and SQ. The analysis of the measurement model indicates that the proposed metrics have a relatively high degree of validity and reliability. The results of the study provide reliable instruments for operationalizing the key constructs in the analysis of Web-customer satisfaction within the expectation-disconfirmation paradigm.
Rejoinder to Charles D. Tansey: Moving Toward a More Effective Small Business Administration

Former Small Business Administration (SBA) Deputy Administrator Charles Tansey defends the SBA’s record, countering criticisms appearing in the author’s August 2000 Economic Development Quarterly article. He defends the venture capital incentives contained in the SBA’s New Market Venture Capital program. Yet these incentives are based on a debenture financing scheme that failed when used previously to support venture capital investing in the SBA’s Small Business Investment Company program. Tansey defends the SBA’s record of expanding loan guarantees to minority business borrowers in the 1990s. These guarantees, however, have increasingly flowed to high-net-worth Asian immigrant borrowers rather than the minority groups most prone to have limited access to financing. The SBA is wedded to outdated strategies and concepts that have lost their applicability to 21st-century problems. A pragmatic rethinking of the agency’s financing mission is overdue.
Nurse Coach: Healthcare Resource for This Millennium

TOPIC.Nurse coach, a new role for nurses. PURPOSE.To describe the components, tasks, and interaction of a nurse coach model that is client directed as opposed to illness directed. SOURCES.Published literature and authors' experience. CONCLUSIONS.A nurse coach can provide a structure and approach to custom fit attainable behavior change.
Influence of cardiopulmonary bypass perfusion temperature on neurologic and hematologic function after coronary artery bypass grafting

Abstract Background and Methods . A National Institutes of Health-sponsored trial (1994 to 1998) randomized patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting that required three or more grafts to receive perfusion at either cold (20°C), tepid (32°C), or warm (37°C) temperature. The goal of the study was to evaluate morbidity, primarily neurologic dysfunction and secondarily hematologic factors. One thousand seven hundred seventy-seven patients were screened and 291 enrolled. Neurologic function was studied by a dedicated pool of blinded neurologists. A standard test battery termed the Mathew Scale using three subscales—cognitive function, elemental skills, and disability—was used to study central nervous system function. Hematologic function was assessed in 53 of the 291 patients with measurements of postoperative fibrinolytic potential. Results . All preoperative and operative data were comparable between groups. A decrease in Mathew Scale was seen in 69% of patient from before operation to immediately after operation. However, between the early postoperative study and the 1-month follow-up, 48% of patients had returned to baseline. There was no difference noted across temperature groups in any neurologic parameter of function. In all, 55% of the group were at or above their preoperative level at 1 month. Forty-nine patients suspect for cerebrovascular accident had a computed tomographic scan, but only 13 (4.5%) had a documented cerebrovascular accident (4 patients in the warm, 3 in the tepid, and 6 patients in the cold group). Fibrinolytic changes correlated with perfusion temperature documented that fibrinolysis was most active at 37°C. Thus, increasing perfusate temperature increases fibrinolysis, which was associated with reoperation for bleeding in 4% warm group patients, 1% tepid, and 0% cold group patients (0.1 > p >0.05). No other perioperative complications were temperature related. There were 4 deaths (1.4%) (1 in the warm group, 2 in the tepid group, and 1 in the cold group). Conclusions . (1) Persistent postoperative neurologic dysfunction at 1 month occurs in 36% of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting and is not related to a cerebrovascular accident; 2) perfusion temperature has no relationship to neurologic function after bypass; and 3) fibrinolytic activity is greatest at warm temperatures.
Mgr3p and Mgr1p Are Adaptors for the Mitochondrial i-AAA Protease Complex

By screening yeast knockouts for their dependence upon the mitochondrial genome, we identified Mgr3p, a protein that associates with the i-AAA protease complex in the mitochondrial inner membrane. ...
Lead-phase and red-stripe color morphs of red-backed salamanders Plethodon cinereus differ in hematological stress indices: A consequence of differential predation pressure?

Throughout the animal kingdom there are species that have two or more phenotypic forms or 'morphs', and many of these are amphibians. In North America, the red-backed salamander Plethodon cinereus can have either a red dorsal stripe or no dorsal stripe (lead-phase form), and evidence to date indicates the lead-phase form incurs a greater number of attacks from preda- tors. In a recent collection of 51 P. cinereus, blood smears of both color morphs (35 red-stripe, 16 lead-phase) were examined to obtain numbers of circulating leukocytes (via light microscopy), which can be used to indirectly estimate levels of stress hor- mones in vertebrates via a 'hematological stress index', which is the ratio between the number of two leukocyte types (neutrophils and lymphocytes). Our results showed that lead-phase salamanders tended to have greater numbers of circulating neutrophils and lower numbers of circulating lymphocytes than red-stripe morphs, leading to higher average neutrophil-lymphocyte ratios in lead-phase individuals. Since the salamanders were held (refrigerated) for 7 days before sampling, we cannot be certain if this ef- fect is a stress reaction to the captivity or the normal level for this morph. However comparison with two sets of related salaman- ders that were captured and sampled immediately indicates the red-stripe salamanders were either not stressed from the captivity at all, or their white blood cell distributions had returned to normal after 7 days of captivity. Taken together, our results indicate that lead-phase forms of P. cinereus have higher stress levels than the red-stripe forms, which may be a consequence of their higher exposure to, and/or attacks from, predators. They may also indicate that the lead-phase form is less-suited to captivity than the red-stripe form of this species (Current Zoology 56 (2): 238-243, 2010).
Disruptive behavior in children with Tourette's syndrome: association with ADHD comorbidity, tic severity, and functional impairment.

ABSTRACT Objective To examine the association of disruptive behavior with social, adaptive, and family functioning in Tourette's syndrome (TS) with and without comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method The sample included 207 children (144 boys and 63 girls) between the ages of 7 and 18 years. Forty-two children received a diagnosis of TS-only, 52 received a diagnosis of ADHD-only, 52 children had TS+ADHD, and there were 61 unaffected control children. Best-estimate DSM-IV diagnoses were assigned on the basis of structured interviews and clinical ratings. Dependent measures included parent and teacher ratings of disruptive behavior, parent ratings of social and family functioning, and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Results Children with TS-only did not differ from unaffected controls on the parent ratings of aggression and delinquent behavior or on the teacher ratings of conduct problems. By contrast, children with TS+ADHD were rated significantly above unaffected controls and similar to children with ADHD-only on these indices of disruptive behavior. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that aggression and delinquency scores added unique contributions to impairment in social and family functioning, controlling for age, gender, and diagnostic status. Conclusions Comorbid ADHD is highly associated with disruptive behavior and functional impairment in children with TS. When disruptive behavior problems are present, there is an additional burden on children's social and family functioning.
Bisphenol A Promotes Human Prostate Stem-Progenitor Cell Self-Renewal and Increases In Vivo Carcinogenesis in Human Prostate Epithelium

Previous studies in rodent models have shown that early-life exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) reprograms the prostate and enhances its susceptibility to hormonal carcinogenesis with aging. To determine whether the human prostate is similarly sensitive to BPA, the current study used human prostate epithelial stem-like cells cultured from prostates of young, disease-free donors. Similar to estradiol-17β (E2), BPA increased stem-progenitor cell self-renewal and expression of stem-related genes in a dose-dependent manner. Further, 10 nM BPA and E2 possessed equimolar membrane-initiated signaling with robust induction of p-Akt and p-Erk at 15 minutes. To assess in vivo carcinogenicity, human prostate stem-progenitor cells combined with rat mesenchyme were grown as renal grafts in nude mice, forming normal human prostate epithelium at 1 month. Developmental BPA exposure was achieved through oral administration of 100 or 250 μg BPA/kg body weight to hosts for 2 weeks after grafting, producing free BPA levels of 0.39 and 1.35 ng/mL serum, respectively. Carcinogenesis was driven by testosterone plus E2 treatment for 2 to 4 months to model rising E2 levels in aging men. The incidence of high-grade prostate intraepithelial neoplasia and adenocarcinoma markedly increased from 13% in oil-fed controls to 33% to 36% in grafts exposed in vivo to BPA (P < .05). Continuous developmental BPA exposure through in vitro (200 nM) plus in vivo (250 μg/kg body weight) treatments increased high-grade prostate intraepithelial neoplasia/cancer incidence to 45% (P < .01). Together, the present findings demonstrate that human prostate stem-progenitor cells are direct BPA targets and that developmental exposure to BPA at low doses increases hormone-dependent cancer risk in the human prostate epithelium.
Mathematical Models for Public Utility Rate Revisions

This paper reports on studies of mathematical models pertaining to public utility customer usage and rate revisions. An analytic treatment of the rate revision problem is presented; a report is then given of experimental investigations involving the use of the Gamma, Lognormal and Weibull distributions as models of customer usage under public utility rates.
Recent host-shifts in ranaviruses: signatures of positive selection in the viral genome

Ranaviruses have been implicated in recent declines in global amphibian populations. Compared with the family Iridoviridae, to which the genus Ranavirus belongs, ranaviruses have a wide host range in that species/strains are known to infect fish, amphibians and reptiles, presumably due to recent host-switching events. We used eight sequenced ranavirus genomes and two selection-detection methods (site based and branch based) to identify genes that exhibited signatures of positive selection, potentially due to the selective pressures at play during host switching. We found evidence of positive selection acting on four genes via the site-based method, three of which were newly acquired genes unique to ranavirus genomes. Using the branch-based method, we identified eight additional candidate genes that exhibited signatures of dN /dS (non-synonymous/synonymous substitution rate) >1 in the clade where intense host switching had occurred. We found that these branch-specific patterns of elevated dN /dS were enriched in a small group of viral genes that have been acquired most recently in the ranavirus genome, compared with core genes that are shared among all members of the family Iridoviridae. Our results suggest that the group of newly acquired genes in the ranavirus genome may have undergone recent adaptive changes that have facilitated interspecies and interclass host switching.
Borges y el texto clásico como institución: lecturas contra-canónicas del Quijote y la Commedia

Este ensayo busca mostrar la forma en que Jorge Luis Borges piensa el concepto de clasico en su obra ensayistica. En general, la posicion de Borges se podria definir como ‘contra-canonica’, como una voluntad por desacralizar al texto clasico a partir de ciertas estrategias discursivas. Entre estas estrategias se encuentran un sostenido enfasis en la capacidad transformadora de la lectura y el trabajo con la multiplicidad del lenguaje mismo, que hace imposible que un texto sea, a priori, ‘predeterminado’ y perfectamente coherente. A partir de las lecturas de Borges sobre el Quijote y la Commedia, es posible ver su voluntad por trabajar a los clasicos de maneras fragmentarias, parciales, incluso contradictorias, que se niegan a producir la imagen de textos monumentales y estaticos, para dar paso a lecturas irreverentes, creativas y dinamicas de las obras del pasado.
Clinically Applicable Monte Carlo-based Biological Dose Optimization for the Treatment of Head and Neck Cancers With Spot-Scanning Proton Therapy.

Purpose Our aim is to demonstrate the feasibility of fast Monte Carlo (MC)–based inverse biological planning for the treatment of head and neck tumors in spot-scanning proton therapy. Methods and Materials Recently, a fast and accurate graphics processor unit (GPU)–based MC simulation of proton transport was developed and used as the dose-calculation engine in a GPU-accelerated intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) optimizer. Besides dose, the MC can simultaneously score the dose-averaged linear energy transfer (LET d ), which makes biological dose (BD) optimization possible. To convert from LET d to BD, a simple linear relation was assumed. By use of this novel optimizer, inverse biological planning was applied to 4 patients, including 2 small and 1 large thyroid tumor targets, as well as 1 glioma case. To create these plans, constraints were placed to maintain the physical dose (PD) within 1.25 times the prescription while maximizing target BD. For comparison, conventional intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and IMPT plans were also created using Eclipse (Varian Medical Systems) in each case. The same critical-structure PD constraints were used for the IMRT, IMPT, and biologically optimized plans. The BD distributions for the IMPT plans were obtained through MC recalculations. Results Compared with standard IMPT, the biologically optimal plans for patients with small tumor targets displayed a BD escalation that was around twice the PD increase. Dose sparing to critical structures was improved compared with both IMRT and IMPT. No significant BD increase could be achieved for the large thyroid tumor case and when the presence of critical structures mitigated the contribution of additional fields. The calculation of the biologically optimized plans can be completed in a clinically viable time ( Conclusions By exploiting GPU acceleration, MC-based, biologically optimized plans were created for small–tumor target patients. This optimizer will be used in an upcoming feasibility trial on LET d painting for radioresistant tumors.
Political Advertising: A Neglected Policy Issue in Marketing:

The author considers political advertising as a policy question and presents a model to hypothesize some of its effects. Supporting data are used to discuss several policy issues and to raise addit...
α -cluster asymptotic normalization coefficients for nuclear astrophysics

Background: Many important $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-particle induced reactions for nuclear astrophysics may only be measured using indirect techniques due to the small cross sections at the energy of interest. One such indirect technique is to determine the asymptotic normalization coefficients (ANCs) for near-threshold resonances extracted from sub-Coulomb $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-transfer reactions. This approach provides a very valuable tool for studies of astrophysically important reaction rates since the results are practically model independent. However, the validity of the method has not been directly verified.Purpose: The aim of this Rapid Communication is to verify the technique using the $^{16}\mathrm{O}(^{6}\mathrm{Li},d)^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ reaction as a benchmark. The $^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ nucleus has a well-known ${1}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ state at an excitation energy of 5.79 MeV with a width of 28 eV. Reproducing the known value with this technique is an ideal opportunity to verify the method.Method: The ${1}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ state at 5.79 MeV is studied using the $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-transfer reaction $^{16}\mathrm{O}(^{6}\mathrm{Li},d)^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$ at sub-Coulomb energies.Results: The partial $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ width for the ${1}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ state at excitation energy of 5.79 MeV is extracted and compared with the known value, allowing the accuracy of the method to be evaluated.Conclusions: This study demonstrates that extracting the ANCs using sub-Coulomb $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-transfer reactions is a powerful tool that can be used to determine the partial $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ width of near-threshold states that may dominate astrophysically important nuclear reaction rates.
Pediatric spinal cord injury.

Although spinal cord injuries occur less frequently to children than to adults, the possibility of permanent functional loss in a young child is disturbing. It must always be assumed in the acute resuscitation of a critically injured child that a spinal injury has occurred. However, the child’s ultimate outcome can be influenced and permanent spinal cord damage prevented by appropriate pediatric care.
Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection Rates by Chronic Condition Groups in Children.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Affordable Care Act of 2010 mandated that Medicaid and Medicare adopt payment-reduction policies that document hospital-acquired conditions.1,2 Central line–associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) is one of the most prevalent, potentially preventable acquired conditions in hospitalized children.3–5 The epidemiology of CLABSIs in PICUs and successes in reducing CLABSIs have been well described.6–9 Although line days are a recognized way of measuring risk of CLABSIs, there is no method to identify line days in the hospital discharge administrative billing data used for public reporting. Insertions of central lines and the risk of CLABSI are likely to increase according to the complexity of underlying conditions. In the absence of documentation of line days in administrative data, stratification of patient populations by medical complexity could be a useful way to determine CLABSI risk. Currently there is no method in administrative data reports to measure the risk of CLABSI according to underlying conditions. Diagnostic-related groups methods may provide a severity index for an admission, but they may not identify the patient’s underlying conditions. Children’s hospitals care for children with many complex chronic conditions, a group that seems to be increasing more than any other category.10 We proposed to determine the rates of CLABSI in 3 similar children’s hospitals according to patient complexity groups by using the 3M Health Information Systems’ clinical risk groups (CRGs).11 CRGs have already been used and validated as a method to stratify patients into complex chronic condition groups in children’s hospitals and health plan administrative data.10,12 We explore whether such stratification can provide reportable rates of CLABSI that reflect populations at risk. We have divided our population into 2 age groups, <1 year and ≥1 year, because of a …