cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Questionnaire-Based Breast Cancer Prediction Models in the Nurses' Health Study.

Background: The Gail model and the model developed by Tyrer and Cuzick are two questionnaire-based approaches with demonstrated ability to predict development of breast cancer in a general population. Methods: We compared calibration, discrimination and net-reclassification of these models, using data from questionnaires sent every 2 years to 76,922 participants in the Nurses9 Health Study between 1980 and 2006, with 4,384 incident invasive breast cancers identified by 2008 (median follow-up 24 years; range 1-28 years). In a random one-third sample of women, we also compared the performance of these models with predictions from the Rosner-Colditz model estimated from the remaining participants. Results: Both the Gail and Tyrer-Cuzick models showed evidence of mis-calibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow P<0.001 for each) with notable (P<0.01) over-prediction in higher risk women (2-year risk above about 1%) and under-prediction in lower risk women (risk below about .25%). The Tyrer-Cuzick model had slightly higher C-statistics both overall (P<0.001) and in age-specific comparisons than the Gail model (overall C 0.63 for Tyrer-Cuzick versus 0.61 for the Gail model). Evaluation of net reclassification did not favor either model. In the one-third sample, the Rosner-Colditz model had better calibration and discrimination than the other two models. All models had C-statistics <0.60 among women age ≥70. Conclusion: Both the Gail and Tyrer-Cuzick models had some ability to discriminate breast cancer cases and non-cases, but have limitations in their model fit. Impact: Refinements may be needed to questionnaire-based approaches to predict breast cancer in older and higher risk women.
High-resolution virtual Frisch grid gamma-ray detectors based on as-grown CdZnTeSe with reduced defects

X- and gamma-ray detectors are increasingly becoming essential tools for science and technology in various fields. These detectors offer broad applications such as homeland security, nonproliferation, nuclear security, medical imaging, astrophysics, and high energy physics. All these applications demand high-resolution detectors operable at room temperature and available at a reasonable cost. CdZnTe (CZT) is the material of choice for this purpose; however, the material still suffers from intrinsic defects such as highly decorated subgrain boundary networks and a high concentration of secondary phases. These defects not only hinder the charge transport but also create a spatial inhomogeneity in the charge transport properties, subsequently causing substantial degradation in detector response particularly for relatively thick (>1 cm) detectors. Some of the material deficiencies suffered by CZT have been addressed by adding selenium into the CZT matrix. Selenium was found to be very effective in producing material that is principally free from a subgrain boundary network with the occasional appearance of subgrain boundaries with reduced secondary phases decorating these boundaries. The resulting quaternary compound CdZnTeSe (CZTS) showed excellent material quality mitigating some major deficiencies suffered by CZT. Virtual Frisch grid detectors were fabricated from the as-grown CZTS ingots, and they demonstrated high resolution spectroscopic grade. The excellent CZTS material contained very low defects and was found to potentially increase the yield of high-quality detectors as compared to CZT.X- and gamma-ray detectors are increasingly becoming essential tools for science and technology in various fields. These detectors offer broad applications such as homeland security, nonproliferation, nuclear security, medical imaging, astrophysics, and high energy physics. All these applications demand high-resolution detectors operable at room temperature and available at a reasonable cost. CdZnTe (CZT) is the material of choice for this purpose; however, the material still suffers from intrinsic defects such as highly decorated subgrain boundary networks and a high concentration of secondary phases. These defects not only hinder the charge transport but also create a spatial inhomogeneity in the charge transport properties, subsequently causing substantial degradation in detector response particularly for relatively thick (>1 cm) detectors. Some of the material deficiencies suffered by CZT have been addressed by adding selenium into the CZT matrix. Selenium was found to be very effective in producing m...
Informal Governance and Disaster Planning: The Case of Wildfire

This article provides both basic structure for engaging wildfire planning in WUI communities while arguing for the importance of utilizing informal governance structures in disaster planning. This is especially true in the smaller rural communities that often still predominate at the edge of urban areas. In such rural communities, informal governance structures can often have a significant role to play in whether disaster planning is successful, often more so than the formalized legal codes of the local government. The article briefly describes the crisis of wildfire in the WUI as development, especially in the West, encroaches further into wildlands and wilderness. The article then summarizes a traditional WUI wildfire planning process, which the authors have previously presented in greater depth in other articles. The bulk of the article, however, seeks to investigate and propose another layer of engagement: the informal governance structures of rural communities. The article does this by illustrating how informal governance structures can provide the missing link in disaster planning for rural communities. Local government in local communities can, in many cases, appear to have all the trappings of traditional large-scale government apparatuses. However, upon closer investigation, these rural local governments often struggle for relevance. In some cases, their planning and building codes are not enforced, judicial resources can be scarce for enforcement of civil matters, training of planning staff and commissioners is often non-existent. Codes in rural communities are often boilerplate and not tailored to local communities, and emergency response equipment is often a shell of what would be expected in an urban environment. The importance of these observations is not to diminish the governmental efforts of rural communities; rather, they illustrate the complicated mechanisms of local government that are challenging for small and resource-strapped locales to implement. Further, this section seeks to use sociological research to explore how rural communities can utilize informal governance structures in place of, and in support of, formalized local government. The article encourages agencies engaging in disaster planning to find ways to quickly evaluate and engage informal governance structures in rural communities. One approach would be to adopt something like the participatory rural assessment (PRA) technique for evaluating informal governance structures in developing countries. The article then returns to the importance of formal local government, even for those communities that culturally prefer informal local governance structures. Codes unattended can become weapons of development projects the community does not want, which can be problematic for disaster planning generally, and especially in the case of wildfire.
Lower-limb joint reaction forces and moments during modified cycling in healthy controls and individuals with knee osteoarthritis.

Abstract Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is a clinical problem affecting an estimated 27 million adults in the United States, with the only clear treatment options being pain management. Cycling is an integral component of exercise for individuals with knee osteoarthritis, while the joint reaction forces during cycling remain unknown. Methods Thirteen subjects with medial compartment knee osteoarthritis and eleven healthy subjects performed a cycling protocol with a neutral pedal and four pedal modifications. Six hundred muscle-actuated inverse-dynamic simulations (24 subjects, 5 trials in each of 5 conditions) were performed to estimate joint reaction force differences between conditions. Findings Subjects with knee osteoarthritis had many significant changes among them was a reduction in knee adduction-abduction moment by 45% (5° lateral wedge), 77% (10° lateral wedge), 54% (5° toe-in) and 58% (10° toe-in). Conversely the healthy subjects had no significant changes in the knee adduction-abduction moment for the lateral wedge conditions and the 5° toe-in but did decrease by 18% for the 10° toe-in condition. When comparing the cohorts across the different pedal conditions, the data showed many significant differences among the groups. Interpretation This study showed that while cycling in different pedal modifications, the knee osteoarthritis subjects had more beneficial changes in their knee adduction-abduction moment compared to the healthy subjects with the lateral-wedge modification resulting in the greatest impact on the subjects with knee osteoarthritis. Both groups had greater contact forces at the hip and ankle across pedal modifications compared to neutral. For the knee, subjects with osteoarthritis mostly decreased their knee contact forces but the healthy subjects mostly increased these forces with all pedal modifications.
Artificial Selection to a Nonlethal Cold Stress in Trogoderma variabile Shows Associations With Chronic Cold Stress and Body Size

Extreme temperature has been used as an alternative to chemical treatments for stored product pests for years. Resistance to heat or cold treatments has not been documented in stored product insects, but repeated use of ineffective treatments could lead to adaptive tolerance. Trogoderma variabile (Dermestidae) is a common pest of stored products, and the larval stage is highly resistant to cold and destructive. We artificially selected populations by inducing chill coma at four different cold temperature treatments: 3 and 5 h at -10°C and 3 and 5 h at 0°C. Recovery time was highly heritable after selection for seven generations for decreased recovery time (cold tolerance) and increased recovery time (cold susceptibility) at all time and temperature combinations. Three replicate populations for each time and temperature combination varied substantially, suggesting different mutations in each population were probably responsible for selected phenotypes. Body size decreased in populations selected for cold susceptibility compared with those selected for cold tolerance and survivorship to long-term cold stress increased in the cold-tolerant populations compared with the susceptible populations. After the cessation of the selection experiment, cold tolerance dissipated within four generations from the populations at -10°C, but was maintained in populations exposed to 0°C. Our results suggest that warehouse beetles can adapt to cold stress quickly, but in the absence of cold stress, the proportion of cold-tolerant/susceptible individuals is quickly reduced, suggesting that some of the mutations responsible for these phenotypes may be associated with fitness costs under normal conditions.
Understanding Health Care Utilization and Mortality After Emergency General Surgery in Patients With Underlying Liver Disease

BackgroundMortality and complications are not well defined nationally for emergency general surgery (EGS) patients presenting with underlying all-cause liver disease (LD).Study designWe analyzed th...
Benefits and Adverse Effects of Histidine Supplementation.

Histidine is a nutritionally essential amino acid with many recognized benefits to human health, while circulating concentrations of histidine decline in pathologic conditions [e.g., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD)]. The purpose of this review is to examine the existing literature regarding the benefits of histidine intake, the adverse effects of excess histidine, and the upper tolerance level for histidine. Supplementation with doses of 4.0-4.5 g histidine/d and increased dietary histidine intake are associated with decreased BMI, adiposity, markers of glucose homeostasis (e.g., HOMA-IR, fasting blood glucose, 2-h postprandial blood glucose), proinflammatory cytokines, and oxidative stress. It is unclear from the limited number of studies in humans whether the improvements in glucoregulatory markers, inflammation, and oxidative stress are due to reduced BMI and adiposity, increased carnosine (a metabolic product of histidine with antioxidant effects), or both. Histidine intake also improves cognitive function (e.g., reduces appetite, anxiety, and stress responses and improves sleep) potentially through the metabolism of histidine to histamine; however, this relation is ambiguous in humans. At high intakes of histidine (>24 g/d), studies report adverse effects of histidine such as decreased serum zinc and cognitive impairment. There is limited research on the effects of histidine intake at doses between 4.5 and 24 g/d, and thus, a tolerable upper level has not been established. Determining tolerance to histidine supplementation has been limited by small sample sizes and, more important, a lack of a clear biomarker for histidine supplementation. The U-shaped curve of circulating zinc concentrations with histidine supplementation could be exploited as a relevant biomarker for supplemental histidine tolerance. Histidine is an important amino acid and may be necessary as a supplement in some populations; however, gaps in knowledge, which this review highlights, need to be addressed scientifically.
Highs and lows: a behavioural and technical analysis

We find that turnover rises on n-day highs and lows and is an increasing function of n. We offer several explanations from the technical and behavioural finance literature for why traders might use these signals. Turnover is persistent following these events, and new lows provide abnormal returns for up to 6 trading days. ‘Technical analysis is about as useful as going to a fortuneteller, as far as I'm concerned. There is simply no evidence that these patterns mean anything…’ 1 (Burton Malkiel, 2003). 1 Interview in Portfolio, The National Association of Realtors, October/November 2003, available at: http://www.nareit.org/portfliomag/03sepoct/capital.shtml
Treatment outcomes of overactive bladder with combined therapies of botulinum toxin injections and oral agents.

Treatment options for refractory overactive bladder (OAB) following behavioral modifications and oral OAB medications remain limited. Up to 33% of women fail botulinum toxin injections (Amundsen et al. Eur Urol. 74(1):66–73, 7). This study evaluates the effectiveness of combining oral OAB agents with botulinum toxin in subjects who failed botulinum toxin therapy alone. This is a retrospective observational study. Eligible women were those who received botulinum toxin injections for OAB between 2013 and 2018 at one academic institution. Women were given the option of oral medications as add-back therapy following failed treatment with botulinum toxin alone. Treatment response was a subjective outcome, with subjects reporting being satisfied or unsatisfied. The primary outcome was the proportion of subjects who achieved satisfactory treatment response with the combination of oral OAB medications and botulinum toxin injections. A subanalysis was performed to further investigate any risk factors associated with poor response to combination treatment. Variables were analyzed using chi-squared or Fisher’s exact test and Student's t-test or Mann-Whitney U when appropriate. A total of 107 charts were reviewed. Forty-five (48%) women failed botulinum toxin alone as a treatment; 26 (29%) elected to try one or more oral OAB medications. Of the 26 women who received the combination treatment, 17 (65%) reported satisfaction and 9 (35%) remained unsatisfied. Risk factors associated with treatment failure were not identified. This is an initial report on adding back oral OAB meds to patients who have failed botulinum toxin injections suggesting there may be a role for add-back oral OAB medications.
Enabling highly reversible sodium metal cycling across a wide temperature range with dual-salt electrolytes

New rechargeable battery chemistries that can operate at lower temperatures than Li-ion batteries are necessary for emerging applications such as electric flight. Sodium metal anodes have shown high coulombic efficiency and encouraging cycling behavior for high-energy batteries at room temperature, but electrochemical behavior of sodium at low temperatures has rarely been explored. Here, we show that sodium metal anodes can be cycled with high coulombic efficiency down to −50 °C when using diglyme-based electrolytes with dual salts, which surpasses the low-temperature performance of graphite anodes in Li-ion batteries. This novel electrolyte shows low overpotential and an average coulombic efficiency of 99.0% over 50 cycles when tested at −40 °C, as well as promising performance over a range of higher temperatures. The high coulombic efficiency of sodium cycling at low temperatures is attributed to the formation of a uniform SEI that is rich in inorganic species, as revealed by cryogenic transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. These results are superior to lithium metal, which has exhibited relatively low coulombic efficiency at low temperatures in a variety of electrolytes. Our findings thus demonstrate the particular promise of sodium-metal-based batteries for use in cold environments.
Early-Stage Aggregation and Crystalline Interactions of Peptoid Nanomembranes

Fully synthetic peptoid membranes are known to mimic important features of biological membranes, with several advantages over other biomimetic membranes. A fundamental understanding of how the individual peptoid amphiphiles assemble in solution to form the bilayer membrane is key to unlocking their versatility for application in a broad range of processes. In this study, in situ X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics simulations are used to understand the early stages of assembly of three different peptoids that exhibit distinctly different crystallization kinetics. The in situ measurements reveal that the peptoids aggregate first into a nascent phase that is less crystalline than the assembled peptoid membrane. Anisotropic aromatic interactions are determined to be the dominant driving force in the early stages of membrane formation. These results provide key insights into how the peptoid assembly may be manipulated during the early stages of assembly and nucleation and growth.
Pre-Oxidation to Improve Liquid Metal Compatibility

Liquid metals represent an aggressive environment where selective degradation can attack structural alloys. Pre-oxidizing structural alloys, particularly those able to form alumina scales, have shown promise for Sn, Pb and Pb–Li concepts for fusion and fission applications. For Pb at 700 °C, a dramatic reduction in mass loss was observed for an alumina-forming austenitic (AFA) steel after pre-oxidation. Likewise, a ferritic FeCrAlMo alloy showed better compatibility in static Sn at 400–500 °C and flowing PbLi when pre-oxidized at 1000 °C to form α-Al2O3. Recent experiments with flowing PbLi at 675–700 °C has shown significant degradation suggesting that alumina-forming alloys are limited to ~ 650 °C in this environment. While the concept is promising, most experiments have been relatively short-term and long-term degradation mechanisms need to be evaluated.
Performance evaluation of mode choice models under balanced and imbalanced data assumptions

One common limitation faced in mode choice modeling is data imbalance. Mode choice models, such as logit models, may output biased estimations for alternatives with smaller shares and consequently ...
English Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction

English Corpus Linguistics is a step-by-step guide to creating and analyzing linguistic corpora. It begins with a discussion of the role that corpus linguistics plays in linguistic theory, demonstrating that corpora have proven to be very useful resources for linguists who believe that their theories and descriptions of English should be based on real rather than contrived data. Charles F. Meyer goes on to describe how to plan the creation of a corpus, how to collect and computerize data for inclusion in a corpus, how to annotate the data that are collected, and how to conduct a corpus analysis of a completed corpus. The book concludes with an overview of the challenges that corpus linguists face to make both the creation and analysis of corpora much easier undertakings than they currently are. Clearly organized and accessibly written, this book will appeal to students of linguistics and English language.
The Nutritional Requirements of Paramecium: Axenic Media

The exact nutritional requirements of Paramecium had to await the creation of precise, chemically defined axenic culture methods in which the medium, of course, is free of any other organisms save paramecia. Begun over 60 years ago, the earlier attempts at developing axenic cultures now appear relatively crude. For a review of these earlier studies, the reader is referred to Chatton and Chatton (1923a,b) Hall (1941), Lwoff (1923, 1925), Oehler (1921, 1922, 1924), A. W. Peters (1921), and Wichterman (1953b). Why were these early axenic culture methods unsatisfactory? Most were so complicated or unreliable that it would be exceedingly difficult to exactly duplicate a given procedure. Yet these pioneering efforts were necessary to show the direction or general areas where paramecia required the basic neutralities for life. The attempts to obtain a bacteria-free medium involved considerable experimentation—the substitution and replacement of chemicals or organic substances believed to be required for growth.
To Kill the Wild

Now he was there waiting with the others, and he had wanted to be for as long as he could remember; he had always imagined what it would be like there with them. Everything was the way he had imagined it would be, but there had been no killing yet. He had kept after his father to take him and finally his father had begun to listen, finally took him seriously, finally took him along, this time, this morning. It had been so close to his dreams ?f the way men should live?close to the wild, from the wild, honoring the wild. It fitted a whole for him, watching the men and the older boys coming back from a hunt, dirty and glorified, with a stiff deer on a pole, or dragging a bear, the blood all black-red by then, all of them smelling of the beast they had displaced, of sweat and gun powder, and sometimes of whiskey. Better these heroes than the heroes in books, is what the boy thought; they were part of the wild, wilder even than the stiff creatures they brought back, covered with mystery and the wild. The distant, fleeting hides of the now calm beasts now close enough to be touched, to be cold. Only a while before the wild was with its own and now his father and the others had chipped off some of it and brought it back to see, to make a feast: more than food, less than a tribute.
A sketch interface for mobile robots

In human to human communication, a hand-drawn route map is often sketched to show a desired navigation path. In this paper, we describe a PDA sketching interface that can be used to direct a mobile robot along a specified path. Because sketched route maps are not drawn precisely or necessarily to scale, we do not attempt to analyze precise path information, but rather qualitative route information is extracted. The paper focuses on the front-end sketch understanding and includes a description of the interactive features, such as deleting, moving, and labeling landmarks. Results of a user evaluation are also presented, in which participants report that the sketching interface was as easy as using pencil and paper by a 2:1 margin.
POLIOMYELITIS IN A HIGH RISK POPULATION: DO WE NEED TO IMMUNIZE THE NEWBORN?

While the incidence of polio has declined steadily in the rest of the United States since 1966, the incidence of polio in Texas has not followed this pattern and almost all these cases have been associated with type 1 poliovirus. In 1970, a total of 38 cases of paralytic disease in children were investigated in Texas, and in 22 Texas residents, type 1 poliovirus infection was confirmed. The majority of these cases occurred in South Texas and the lower Rio Grande Valley. Of the 38 cases investigated, 33 (87%) were children under 2 years of age. Immunization records on 36 cases showed that 35 (97%) had inadequate or no immunization against polio, and all but one of the children were Caucasians of Latin-American descent. Some areas of South Texas are representative of regions of the United States that not only have a high risk of poliomyelitis in infants due to type 1 poliovirus infection, but also present special problems for health personnel in immunizing those at risk. In areas such as these, newborn feedings of type 1 oral polio vaccine is suggested.
Building a Relationship between Medicaid, the Exchange and the Individual Insurance Market

The alignment of Medicaid and State Health Insurance Exchange (Exchange) policy and practice is a basic tenet of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Through both legislative provisions and implementing regulations, the ACA addresses this relationship.1 At the same time, the federal framework provides states with considerable discretion to flesh out the fuller dimensions of system interaction.Even as the federal framework is still evolving, this report examines the practical and conceptual factors that underlie the federal/state relationship. It describes dimensions of collaboration that could help establish a seamless continuum of coverage for those who may move between eligibility for Medicaid or for tax subsidies in the Exchange. Proposed regulations outlining eligibility determination obligations of state Medicaid agencies and Exchanges have been issued. Still to appear are regulations defining essential health benefits, but sub-regulatory policies were issued in a special federal bulletin on December 16, 2011. These will define the scope of essential health benefits to be offered by Qualified Health Plans (QHPs)2, which in turn also will define the coverage obligations of Medicaid “benchmark” coverage for newly eligible persons.
Beyond “getting drugs into bodies”: social science perspectives on pre‐exposure prophylaxis for HIV

Social scientists have much to contribute to the analysis of the real and potential contribution of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to HIV prevention around the world. Beyond just a matter of clinical efficacy and getting pills into people's mouths, PrEP raises a number of important social-psychological questions that must be attended to in order to translate biomedical and clinical findings into uptake of PrEP among enough people at risk of HIV infection to produce population-level effectiveness. PrEP is a dynamic phenomenon with "dialectical" attributes that invite both optimism and cynicism as a desirable and effective HIV prevention strategy. PrEP disrupts traditional notions of "safe" and "unsafe" sex; it confers on its users a level of agency and control not generally achieved with condoms; and it affects sexual practices and sexual cultures in meaningful ways. As these dynamics play out in different contexts, and as new modes of PrEP administration emerge, it will be important for social scientists to be engaged in assessing their impact on PrEP implementation and effectiveness.
Expression of radiation-induced mutations at the arginine permease (CAN1) locus in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the expression of resistance to the L-arginine analog, L-canavanine, after mutagenesis, is strongly dependent on the metabolic state of the cell. The frequency of mutations recovered after exposure to ultraviolet light or X rays was measured under a variety of culture conditions. The results indicate that the frequency of mutants recovered is determined by the following three factors: (1) The potential mutants still possess enough permease activity to take up some of the cell poison, and some are therefore killed before they can express the mutant genotype. The sensitivity is strongly influenced by the endogenous free arginine, which is in turn influenced by the growth medium. (2) The rapid decay of the permease molecules and the inability of the potential mutants to resynthesize this protein results in a rapidly increasing chance of expression when selection is delayed. (3) During the time when the permease activity is decaying, repair of the mutagen-induced damage appears to occur.
Combating PMD-induced signal fading in SCM optical systems using polarization diversity optical receiver

We have demonstrated a carrier fading free optical receiver for SCM optical systems using polarization diversity. Since a tunable optical delay line is not required in this setup, then this technique may be more practical than optical domain PMD compensation.
Free ECC: An efficient error protection for compressed last-level caches

Cache reliability is increasingly a concern as cache cell dimension shrinks and cache capacity grows. Conventionally, an extra, dedicated storage is appended to cache to store error correcting code. Recently, cache compression schemes have been proposed to increase the effective cache capacity of last-level cache (LLC), for which we found the conventional cache ECC design is inefficient. We propose Free ECC that utilizes the unused fragments in compressed cache design to store ECC. It not only reduces the chip overhead but also improves cache utilization and power efficiency. Additionally, we propose an efficient convergent cache allocation scheme to organize the compressed data blocks more effectively than existing schemes. Our evaluation using SPEC CPU2006 and PARSEC benchmarks shows that the Free ECC design improves cache capacity utilization and power efficiency significantly, with negligible overhead on overall performance. This new design makes compressed cache an increasingly viable choice for processors with requirements of high reliability.
Retro-VLC: Enabling Battery-free Duplex Visible Light Communication for Mobile and IoT Applications

The ubiquity of the lighting infrastructure makes the visible light communication (VLC) well suited for mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) applications in the indoor environment. However, existing VLC systems have primarily been focused on one-way communications from the illumination infrastructure to the mobile device. They are power demanding and not applicable for communication in the opposite direction. In this paper, we present RetroVLC, a duplex VLC system that enables a battery-free device to perform bi-directional communications over a shared light carrier across the uplink and downlink. The design features a retro-reflector fabric that backscatters light, an LCD modulator, and several low-power optimization techniques. We have prototyped a working system consisting of a credit card-sized battery-free tag and an illuminating LED reader. Experimental results show that the tag can achieve 10kbps downlink speed and 0.5kbps uplink speed over a distance of 2.4m. We outline several potential applications and limitations of the system.
Preferences for Life-Prolonging Medical Treatments and Deference to the Will of God

We defined and measured a dimension of religiosity frequently invoked in end-of-life (EOL) research—deference to God’s Will (GW)—and examined its relationship to preferences for life-prolonging treatments. In a 35-min telephone interview, 304 older men and women (60 +) were administered the 5-item GW scale, sociodemographic questions, three attitude items regarding length of life, and measures of two health indices, depression, and life-prolonging treatment preferences. The GW scale demonstrated internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = .94) and predictive and discriminant validity. Higher scores indicative of greater deference to GW were associated with stronger life-prolonging treatment preferences in poor-prognosis scenarios. Implications for the role of religiosity in medical decision-making are discussed.
Male involvement in the abortion decision and college students’ attitudes on the subject

Abstract College students’ attitudes concerning male involvement in the abortion decision-making process were investigated with the aid of 94 participants. A t test supported the first hypothesis that no significant difference exists between males and females regarding levels of male involvement. A t test also supported the second hypothesis that pro-life participants will endorse higher levels of male involvement. A Pearson correlation revealing no significant relationship between level of male involvement and number of religious worship services attended during the last month did not support the third hypothesis that more religious participants would endorse higher levels of male involvement. A multiple linear regression was used to investigate the research question, “Do gender, race, and religiosity significantly predict levels of male involvement in abortion decisions?” Regression results indicate that the linear combination of these variables significantly predicted level of male involvement.
Sodium Hydrogen Exchangers Contribute to Arenavirus Cell Entry

Several arenaviruses, chiefly Lassa virus (LASV), cause hemorrhagic fever (HF) disease in humans and pose a great public health concern in the regions in which they are endemic. Moreover, evidence indicates that the worldwide-distributed prototypic arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) is a neglected human pathogen of clinical significance. The limited existing armamentarium to combat human-pathogenic arenaviruses underscores the importance of developing novel antiarenaviral drugs, a task that would be facilitated by the identification and characterization of virus-host cell factor interactions that contribute to the arenavirus life cycle. A genome-wide small interfering RNA (siRNA) screen identified sodium hydrogen exchanger 3 (NHE3) as required for efficient multiplication of LCMV in HeLa cells, but the mechanisms by which NHE activity contributed to the life cycle of LCMV remain unknown. Here we show that treatment with the NHE inhibitor 5-(N-ethyl-N-isopropyl) amiloride (EIPA) resulted in a robust inhibition of LCMV multiplication in both rodent (BHK-21) and human (A549) cells. EIPA-mediated inhibition was due not to interference with virus RNA replication, gene expression, or budding but rather to a blockade of virus cell entry. EIPA also inhibited cell entry mediated by the glycoproteins of the HF arenaviruses LASV and Junin virus (JUNV). Pharmacological and genetic studies revealed that cell entry of LCMV in A549 cells depended on actin remodeling and Pak1, suggesting a macropinocytosis-like cell entry pathway. Finally, zoniporide, an NHE inhibitor being explored as a therapeutic agent to treat myocardial infarction, inhibited LCMV propagation in culture cells. Our findings indicate that targeting NHEs could be a novel strategy to combat human-pathogenic arenaviruses.
Genome Size in Beaufort Sea Coastal Assemblages of Arctic Ciscoes

Abstract Intraspecific variation in nuclear DNA content (genome size) was measured for the Arctic cisco Coregonus autumnalis by fluorescence flow cytometry with the fluorochrome 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI). Frozen erythrocytes from the domestic chicken Gallus domesticus were analyzed simultaneously with Arctic cisco samples, providing an internal reference standard. Mean DNA content for 140 Arctic ciscoes from seven sites along the Beaufort Sea coast of Alaska and Canada was 5.99 pg/cell. Sample variances and mean DNA content were significantly heterogeneous among coastal sites. A significant increasing linear trend in mean DNA content was found on a west-to-east cline along the Beaufort Sea coast. Intraspecific variation in genome size observed in this study was substantial, which indicates that genome size characterizations of species based on small samples from a single population may be grossly inadequate.
Constructing CAI to simulate controversies in economics

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and simulation programs may be easily designed to handle controversial issues where more than one point of view must be conveyed. This article describes how to c...
Superdeformed band in 148Gd: A test of shell effects in the mass-150 region.

A discrete superdeformed band was found in /sup 148/Gd, and was produced both in Ca- and Si-induced compound-nucleus reactions. It is the third band found in the mass-150 region and its properties provide the clearest indication that /sup 152/Dy is a ''magic'' superdeformed nucleus
Decision making using multiple models

Abstract Many real world business situations require classification decisions that must often be made on the basis of judgment and past performance. In this paper, we propose a decision framework that combines multiple models or techniques in a complementary fashion to provide input to managers who make such decisions on a routine basis. We illustrate the framework by specifically using five different classification techniques – neural networks, discriminant analysis, quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA), k -nearest neighbor (KNN), and multinomial logistic regression analysis (MNL). Application of the decision framework to an actual retail department store data shows that it is most useful in those cases where uncertainty is high and a priori classification cannot be made with a high degree of reliability. The proposed framework thus enhances the value of exception reporting, and provides managers additional insights into the phenomenon being studied.
Perception and use of a metropolitan greenway system for recreation

Abstract Greenway development efforts often give priority to corridor length and linkages as top selection criteria, but other factors are also critical in ensuring a successful network of greenways for recreation. On-site surveys of recreationists ( n = 2873) who used a diverse sample of 13 greenway trails in metropolitan Chicago showed that trail location relative to home strongly influenced how a greenway trail was used, who used it, how often it was used, and other factors. “Local”, “regional”, and “state” trails are distinguished on the basis of use patterns, preferences, and perceptions, with each trail type filling a unique role within a metropolitan greenway system. In contrast to some greenway planning strategies, study data suggest that from a recreational use perspective, local rather than regional trails should form the basic framework of a metropolitan system. Study findings also demonstrate how vegetation management, trail surfacing, maintenance, and other factors can affect use patterns and preferences. Location, design, and management decisions that incorporate trail user information can help metropolitan greenway systems achieve a broad range of recreational, social, and environmental goals.
On the topographical differences in the localization of certain enzymes in trigeminal ganglion cells of rat.

Es wird uber die topographische Verschiedenheit der Verbreitung diverser Enzyme in den Trigeminus-Ganglien von Ratten berichtet. Die Bedeutung der peripheren Verteilung von alkalischer Phosphatase und adenosiner Triphosphatase, der perinuklearen und allgemeinen Verteilung von Cytochrom-Oxydase, Succinodehydrase und saurer Phosphotase in den Neuronen wird besprochen, ebenfalls die Verteilung spezifisch cholinesterase-positiver Zellen und die cyclische Verteilung von 5-Nukleotidase in einigen Zellen.
Clinical outcomes for patients at high risk who underwent carotid endarterectomy with regional anesthesia.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the clinical outcomes for patients with carotid artery stenosis with advanced age, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerotic coronary vascular disease, and contralateral internal carotid artery occlusion who underwent carotid endarterectomy (CEA), using regional anesthesia, with the outcomes for patients without these risk factors. METHODS: A prospective series of 600 CEAs performed using regional anesthesia was analyzed. All patients were surgically treated under the direction of one neurosurgeon, in an academic medical center. Clinical outcome measures were any stroke, death, or cardiac morbidity within 30 days after surgery. All patients were monitored until a clinical end point was reached and/or 6 weeks had elapsed after surgery. The incidence of adverse clinical outcomes among the suspected high-risk patients was compared with the incidence for the entire series using contingency-table analysis (x 2 and Fisher's exact tests). RESULTS: Fifteen strokes (2.5%), three cardiac complications (0.5%), and two deaths (0.3%) occurred within 30 days after CEA. None of the suspected risk factors was associated with a significantly (P < 0.05) increased risk of perioperative morbidity or death. CONCLUSION: CEA using regional anesthesia can be performed for patients with advanced age, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerotic coronary vascular disease, and contralateral internal carotid artery occlusion, with acceptably low perioperative morbidity rates.
Caregiver burden in frontotemporal degeneration and corticobasal syndrome.

Background and Aims: Caregiver stress is often a serious problem when caring for a patient with frontal lobe dysfunction. Methods: <
Chaparrolide and castelanolide, new bitter principles from Castela nicholsoni

Abstract Three additional lactones, two of them new, have been isolated from extracts of Castela nicholsoni Hook. from which chaparrin, glaucarubol, glaucarubol 15-isovalerate and amarolide have previously been obtained. The structures and stereochemistry of the new lactones have been established. Chaparrinone has also been found in the plant.
Direct determination of the half-life of 187Re

Abstract We have determined the beta-decay half-life of 187Re to be (4.23 ± 0.13) · 1010 y, stated at the 95% confidence level. The method consisted of separating the daughter 187Os atoms from large sources of initially osmium-free rhenium. Yields were measured by the isotope dilution method using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Precision was gained through the use of two independent spike isotopes on each of five separate, large sources of rhenium. Because of the present lack of knowledge of other unrelated but equally important parameters, our value does not substantially narrow the range of uncertainty for the duration of galactic nucleosynthesis. However, the use of our half-life value to reinterpret the measurements of others on iron meteorites and chondrites suggests that iron meteorites might be 380 ± 160 million years younger than chondrites. Our half-life result may therefore have more profound implications for solar-system chronology than for galactic nucleosynthesis.
A scalable parallel method for large collision detection problems

This paper discusses a parallel collision detection algorithm. Implemented using software executed on ubiquitous Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) cards, the algorithm demonstrates two orders of magnitude speedup over a state-of-the art sequential implementation when handling multimillion object collision detection tasks. GPUs are composed of many (on the order of hundreds) scalar processors that can simultaneously execute an operation; this strength is leveraged in the proposed algorithm, which combines the use of multiple CPU cores with multiple GPUs. The software implementation of the algorithm can be used to detect collisions between five million objects in less than two seconds and was used to detect 1.4 billion contact events in less than 40 seconds. A spherical padding approach is used to represent surface geometries as large collections of spheres when dealing with collision detection between bodies with complex geometries. The proposed methodology is expected to be relevant in computational mechanics with applications in granular flow dynamics and smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), where the number of contact events ranges from millions to billions.
Hydrophobic guar gum derivatives prepared by controlled grafting processes–Part II: rheological and degradation properties toward fracturing fluids applications

Introduction of polyalkoxyalkyleneamide grafts to guar gum produces new water soluble guar derivatives as described in an earlier publication.10 In this paper, the rhelogical behavior of these products was explored in more detail at 25 and 65°C. In addition, the viscosity was measured at high temperatures (90 and 120°C) and pressure (150 psi) to partially simulate the down hole conditions of oil wells. Upon treatment with zirconium lactate, the cross-linked hydrophobically-modified CMG derivatives exhibited better high-temperature stability and higher gel viscosities than the corresponding CMHPG derivatives. The cross-linked gel viscosities indicate that gels will be capable of supporting a high proppant carrying capacity. To facilitate removal of the gels from the formation, the hydrophobically modified derivatives were treated with an enzyme breaker system which produced fragments capable of producing stable emulsions when extracted with toluene. Thus, the clean up process will be enhanced by emulsification of the gel fragments produced by the gel hydrolysis. The low viscosities of the linear derivatives, the rapid formation of high viscosity gels upon cross-linking and generation of emulsifiers during the gel removal suggest that these new derivatives are good candidates for fracturing fluid applications. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Modeling neighborhood effects on the growth and survival of individual trees in a natural temperate species-rich forest

Understanding the mode of tree interactions in mixed-species forest stands with high species richness is critical for modeling ecological dynamics and developing tools to support management decisions in such stands. Using stem-mapped data from a large permanent plot in a natural temperate species-rich forest in the southeastern USA, we developed individual-based spatially explicit diameter growth and survival models for each species group to quantify local neighborhood effects, in which tree growth and survival were assumed to be a function of initial size and neighbor competition indices. These models explicitly partition the competitive effects into the effects of different species groups of neighbors. This individual-based approach seems effective in detecting density-dependent relationships and understanding the ecological processes of the mixed-species stand. We found evidence for some density-related effects on the survival and growth in the plot. Among trees in the plot, the effects of con-group neighborhoods on growth were negative, and more prevalent; but only two cases of significant effects of con-group neighborhoods on survival were detected, one was negative, another was positive. The effects of hetero-group neighbors on growth and survival could be too weak to be detectable, significantly negative or significantly positive. The competitive effects among different species are unequal and asymmetric, and the identity of neighboring species is necessary in the analysis. Application of this modeling approach is helpful for investigating the complicated competitive relationships and thus improving our understanding the ecological processes of mixed-species forests with high species richness.
The frequent-flier dilemna: Should the employer or the employee be the beneficiary of these programs?

In the following discussion, we address the ethical dilemma of who should benefit from the many frequent-flier programs used by airlines. The issue of central concern involves whether the employer or employee are acting unethically when either of them choose to be the beneficiary from frequent-flier programs. Once this issue is decided, we then determine if the benefits outweigh the costs for the employer that either keeps the miles or, decides to let their employees enjoy them.