cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Tidal flushing and eddy shedding in Mount Hope Bay and Narragansett Bay: An application of FVCOM

[1] The tidal motion in Mt. Hope Bay (MHB) and Narragansett Bay (NB) is simulated using the unstructured grid, finite-volume coastal ocean model (FVCOM). With an accurate geometric representation of irregular coastlines and islands and sufficiently high horizontal resolution in narrow channels, FVCOM provides an accurate simulation of the tidal wave in the bays and also resolves the strong tidal flushing processes in the narrow channels of MHB-NB. Eddy shedding is predicted on the lee side of these channels due to current separation during both flood and ebb tides. There is a significant interaction in the tidal flushing process between MHB-NB channel and MHB-Sakonnet River (SR) channel. As a result, the phase of water transport in the MHB-SR channel leads the MHB-NB channel by 90°. The residual flow field in the MHB and NB features multiple eddies formed around headlands, convex and concave coastline regions, islands, channel exits and river mouths. The formation of these eddies is mainly due to the current separation either at the tip of the coastlines or asymmetric tidal flushing in narrow channels or passages. Process-oriented modeling experiments show that horizontal resolution plays a critical role in resolving the asymmetric tidal flushing process through narrow passages. With a horizontal resolution of 50 m, FVCOM reproduces the eddy field that is in good agreement in the intensity and spatial scale with the current measurement data.
Model-driven development: its essence and opportunities

This paper gives a short overview of model-driven development - an approach to software development in which high-level models play a fundamental role. First, the problems that plague current programming approaches are analyzed. This is followed by a short description of the essential features of model-driven development and the potential benefits that it can bring. The results achieved in industrial practice are reviewed briefly, followed by an analysis of current impediments towards greater levels of adoption of this approach and what needs to be done about to overcome them.
Rapid, simple colorimetric method for the determination of micro quantities of gibberellic acid.

Abstract Gibberellic acid reacts with acidic 2,4-dinitrophenyIhydra2ine to yield a product, presumably the 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazone of gibberic acid which, when treated with alcoholic potassium hydroxide, gives rise to a stable wine-red color the intensity of which is proportional to the amount of gibberellic acid present when measured at 430 or 540 m μ . The temperature of heating the gibberellic acid with acidic 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine is very critical. At 70° very little or no color development occurs. At 80° much longer periods are required for maximum color development on alkali treatment as compared to heating at 100°, where only a five-minute period of heating is necessary for maximum color development. The effect of several variables on the reaction was thoroughly investigated and conditions for reproducibility established. Indoleacetic acid, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and kinetin failed to give the typical wine-red color when heated at 100° for five minutes under identical conditions.
Using parasites to infer host population history: a new rationale for parasite conservation

Only one of the 5000 extant louse species (Phthiraptera) and no species of flea (Siphonaptera), parasitic helminth (Platyhelminthes), parasitic nematode (Nemata), mite, or tick (Acari) is listed as threatened by the IUCN, despite impassioned pleas for parasite conservation beginning more than a decade ago. Although they should be conserved for their own sake, past arguments, highlighting the intrinsic and utilitarian value of parasites, have not translated into increased attention by scientists or conservation managers, at least by the standard of listing for protection. Here, the use of estimated genealogies and population genetic patterns of parasites to illuminate their hosts’ evolutionary and demographic history is advocated. Parasite DNA generally evolves more rapidly than their hosts’, which renders it an underexploited resource for conservation biologists, particularly in cases where the hosts’ genealogy or degree of population genetic structure is difficult to measure directly. Moreover, parasite gene flow may occur during host dispersal irrespective of host gene flow, revealing host movement through space and time. Parasite ecology and evolution may thus become another tool for the management of endangered vertebrate populations. This will result in the recognition of new host records, parasite species and cryptic lineages, which will help lift the veil of ignorance with respect to parasite biodiversity.
PHYSICAL CHANGES OCCURRING DURING RE-PRESSING OF FIRE-CLAY REFRACTORIES*

In producing fire-clay refractories, maximum density is obtained by grain sizing, deairing, high-forming pressures, and high firing temperatures. In re-pressing stiff-mud ware, much of the density is lost when there is any appreciable difference in size between the cut blanks and the re-pressed piece. Data in this paper show that re-pressed ware is always less dense than unpressed pieces even under the best conditions. Grain size, moisture contents, degree of vacuum, and other factors having to do with forming procedure have little effect on the loss of density. High re-pressing pressures will reduce the extent of change, but it may be reduced to a minimum only by cutting the blanks to as near the pressed size as possible.
Matching familiar figures test: a unidimensional measure of reflection-impulsivity?

In an initial factor-analytic study using preschool children (42 girls, 44 boys), the errors and latencies on the Matching Familiar Figures Test saturated different factors. A second study (47 boys, 39 girls), employing the Kansas Reflection Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers, replicated this finding. In addition, the error (but not the latency) was associated with measures of gross-motor, fine-motor, and perceptual-motor coordination. The results suggest that error measures a maturational dimension of task-oriented attention for this age group.
Second national accessibility survey: librarians, patrons, and disabilities

– This study aims to determine the state of library services to people with disabilities in the USA since the last study conducted in 2008. Social capital theory provides a lens to reconceptualize equal access in a global context, and to offer insights on the effects of new information technologies for re-envisioning universal access. Strategic alliances with education and human–computer interaction researchers are proposed. , – Librarians serving the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS/BPH) were surveyed. Questions addressed clientele, services, technologies, career opportunities, leadership, library and information science (LIS) education and librarian demographics. , – Human resources, leadership, outreach and out-of-the-box solutions applying mainstream technologies are identified as major challenges to the future of information access for disabled persons through the NLS/BPH system. , – The survey was limited to librarians serving the NLS/BPH. A similar survey distributed in other nations could expand the possibilities of future research and collaboration. , – Information from this survey can aid information professionals planning delivery of information services to disabled patrons. Suggestions for shifting from special access to universal access philosophy ensure access for all. Results can also help LIS educators prepare graduates to serve an aging population that will challenge standard methods of information access and services. , – This study provides the current perspective of services to persons with disabilities compared to findings by the researchers in 2008. Since the first survey in 2008, the service has been updated through a national effort of digitization. This study is the first comparative study of the NLS.
Leadership Characteristics of Outstanding Seniors in a Land-Grant University College of Agriculture

Leadership is a concept that has always been a major component of Colleges of Agriculture. Undergraduate student have numerous opportunities to develop their leadership skills and abilities though formal coursework, collegiate organizations, and personal leadership activities. This ethnographic qualitative research study investigated the leadership characteristics of outstanding seniors in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) at The Ohio State University. The study utilized a semi-structured interview methodology. The objectives of the study were to 1) Determine the leadership development experiences of the outstanding seniors prior to their enrolling in college, 2) Identify the leadership development activities in which they participated during their undergraduate studies, 3) Identify their self-perceived strengths, weaknesses, and leadership influences, 4) Identify the personal and professional leadership goals. Results indicate that the outstanding seniors had significant leadership
Analysis of Red-Fluorescent Proteins Provides Insight into Dark-State Conversion and Photodegradation

Fluorescent proteins (FPs) are powerful tools that permit real-time visualization of cellular processes. The utility of a given FP for a specific experiment depends strongly on its effective brightness and overall photostability. However, the brightness of FPs is limited by dark-state conversion (DSC) and irreversible photobleaching, which occur on different timescales. Here, we present in vivo ensemble assays for measuring DSC and irreversible photobleaching under continuous and pulsed illumination. An analysis of closely related red FPs reveals that DSC and irreversible photobleaching are not always connected by the same mechanistic pathway. DSC occurs out of the first-excited singlet state, and its magnitude depends predominantly on the kinetics for recovery out of the dark state. The experimental results can be replicated through kinetic simulations of a four-state model of the electronic states. The methodology presented here allows light-driven dynamics to be studied at the ensemble level over six orders of magnitude in time (microsecond to second timescales).
INT–dehydrogenase test for activated sludge process control

Dehydrogenase activity assay of activated sludge using the redox dye 2-(p-iodophenyl)-3-(p-nitrophenyl)-5-phenyltetrazolium chloride (INT) was investigated. INT-dehydrogenase activity (INT-DHA) was directly proportional to INT dosage and inversely proportional to bio-mass concentration over limited ranges. INT dosages exceeding 2.5m/M were toxic to dilute activated sludge suspensions. INT-DHA was greatest near pH 9, whereas the peak oxygen uptake rate (OUR) occurred at pH 8. Both INT-DHA and OUR varied inversely with sludge age, but INT-DHA was the more sensitive of the two parameters to this variable. Consistently good and highly significant correlations between INT-DHA and OUR of chlorine stressed activated sludge were found at sludge ages ranging 2.2-7.0 days.
Solvation parameters for predicting the structure of surface loops in proteins: transferability and entropic effects.

A new procedure for optimizing parameters of implicit solvation models introduced by us has been applied successfully first to cyclic peptides and more recently to three surface loops of ribonuclease A (Das and Meirovitch, Proteins 2001; 43:303-314) using the simplified model Etot EFF( nr) i iAi , where i are atomic solvation parame- ters (ASPs) to be optimized, Ai is the solvent acces- sible surface area of atom i, EFF( nr )i s the AMBER force-field energy of the loop-loop and loop- template interactions with a distance-dependent dielectric constant, nr, where n is a parameter. The loop is free to move while the protein template is held fixed in its X-ray structure; an extensive conformational search for energy minimized loop structures is carried out with our local torsional deformation method. The optimal ASPs and n are those for which the structure with the lowest mini- mized energy (Etot(n,i)) becomes the experimental X-ray structure, or less strictly, the energy gap between these structures is within 2-3 kcal/mol. To check if a set of ASPs can be defined, which is transferable to a large number of loops, we optimize individual sets of ASPs (based on n 2) for 12 surface loops from which an "averaged" best-fit set is defined. This set is then applied to the 12 loops and an independent "test" group of 8 loops leading in most cases to very small RMSD values; thus, this set can be useful for structure prediction of loops in homology modeling. For three loops we also calcu- late the free energy gaps to find that they are only slightly smaller than their energy counterparts, indicating that only larger n will enable reducing too large gaps. Because of its simplicity, this model allowed carrying out an extensive application of our methodology, providing thereby a large number of benchmark results for comparison with future calcu- lations based on n > 2 as well as on more sophisti- cated solvation models with as yet unknown perfor- mance for loops. Proteins 2003;51:470 - 483.
Huckleberry Abundance, Stand Conditions, and Use in Western Oregon: Evaluating the Role of Forest Management

Huckleberries are major components of the understory vegetation in coniferous Pacific Northwest forests of the United States. Vaccinium species also have a long history of human use. However, little research has been done to ascertain how they respond to common forest management practices. We used data obtained from old-growth, young thinned, and young unthinned Douglas-fir stands in western Oregon to evaluate how forest management could potentially influence species abundance and product supply. Our analysis focused on three species: Vaccinium ovatum, V. parvifolium,and V. membranaceum. Results were variable, but indicate that overstory stand conditions and forest management can affect huckleberry species abundance. However, to assess fully the effects of forest management on these species, studies specifically designed to target areas where people harvest these products are needed. Measuring relevant product attributes such as commercial productivity is also critical.
Perioperative Follow-Up and Quality Maintenance

The global burden of surgical disease is increasing and low quality anesthesia care contributes significantly to this burden. The extent to which poor postoperative care contributes is unknown. Although inadequate numbers and poor training of anesthesia personnel, low and inadequate supplies and drugs, and lack of infrastructure are major barriers to improvement, implementation of medical knowledge may be the central problem that low and middle income countries (LMICs) have to overcome to significantly improve anesthetic and postoperative outcomes. Successful quality maintenance following short term interventions requires a change to the health care delivery processes within a facility/health care system and needs a setting of clearly understood goals. Team building among local providers in a facility that legitimizes those goals and data communicated to stakeholders frequently demonstrating progress will help ensure success. A long term commitment with return visits and frequent communication between a host facility and an external organization is a model that will have the best success for quality maintenance. Worldwide adoption of a reported perioperative mortality ratio that measures mortality both intraoperatively and in the 30 days following anesthesia and surgery could provide a yardstick by which quality improvement in anesthesia and surgical care might be compared country to country.
Role of MFG-E8 in the Brain

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI) attribute to significant morbidity and mortality in young as well as elderly people. Recent studies reveal intriguing features utilizing milk fat globule-epidermal growth factor-factor 8 (MFG-E8) as a potential therapeutic candidate against several brain diseases. Although MFG-E8 discovery, origin, expression, and its physiological functions at different organs and tissues have been well defined in the other chapters of this book, there is still an unmet medical need to clarify its role in the brain. Based on several remarkable findings published from our lab as well as others, the current chapter focuses on the novel roles of MFG-E8 against the development and pathogenesis of brain disorders that leads to generate novel therapeutic potential.
Abstract B47: The role of ZNF217 in the development of breast cancer chemoresistance

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths with an estimated 232,340 new cases and 39,620 deaths in 2013. Despite 93% of patients being diagnosed with local or regional stage disease, most patient deaths result from metastasis as a result of recurrent disease after the development of therapeutic resistance. Developing a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of therapeutic resistance is critical to help identify novel therapeutics that overcome metastasis, resistance, and death. We previously identified the transcription factor ZNF217 as a prognostic indicator for breast cancer patients. ZNF217 is overexpressed in breast cancer and numerous other cancers, and this overexpression promotes reduced survival, increased metastasis, and reduced response to therapy. We found that Znf217 overexpression promotes an increase in cancer phenotypes, including self-renewal capacity, invasion, and metastasis. We next determined if Znf217 overexpression in vivo contributed to chemotherapy resistance. We treated mice overexpressing Znf217 or vector with a combination therapy of microtubule inhibitor epothilone B, adriamycin, and cyclophosphamide (EAC). The mice that overexpressed Znf217 had increased tumor volume and decreased survival compared to control mice. Mice overexpressing Znf217, that were treated with EAC, developed a significant increase in tumor volume over control mice within 21 days of EAC treatment. This confirmed that mice overexpressing Znf217 developed resistance to the EAC chemotherapy. To overcome breast cancer chemoresistance caused by ZNF217 overexpression, we identified triciribine as a drug that kills cells that overexpress ZNF217. We found that triciribine treatment inhibited tumor burden in vivo in tumors that overexpressed Znf217 and also had synergy with doxorubicin in human xenografts. We now are confirming these results using patient-derived tumor xenografts to compare therapeutic response of human tumors with high versus low levels of ZNF217 expression. Utilizing animal models that overexpress ZNF217 will allow us to identify combination therapies that are able to overcome resistance. In addition, these studies will provide an ideal model system to search for mechanistic insight into the process of developing therapeutic resistance. Citation Format: Christopher Suarez, Sunil S. Badve, Laurie E. Littlepage. The role of ZNF217 in the development of breast cancer chemoresistance. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Precision Medicine Series: Drug Sensitivity and Resistance: Improving Cancer Therapy; Jun 18-21, 2014; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2015;21(4 Suppl): Abstract nr B47.
The Evolution of African Economies in the 21st Century: A Political and Institutional Explanation

This paper uses a new politico-institutionalist approach to analyze the evolution of African economies from 1980 to 2010. Africa, once considered the continent in permanent crisis (1979-1999, van de Walle, 2001), has become one of the worlds fastest-growing regions for the first decade of the twenty first century (Radelet 2010), resisting the 2007-2012 global financial and economic crisis better than the other regions. How and why has Africa, a continent presented as the home of failure, despair (The Economist, 2000), permanent crisis, or slow economic growth (Sachs, 1997; Collier 1999), with the worst economic performance for about two decades, since the end of 1970s, become one of the worlds fastest-growing regions at the beginning the 21st century? What explains the better overall economic performance for about two decades and dispersion between more successful and failing countries (or countries still in crisis)? Are the new economic trends sustainable? This paper conducts a contrasted, comparative analysis of 48 African countries, explaining the variations between successful and failed countries focusing on politico-institutional explanatory factors, such as the role of ideas (economic ideas/level of economic freedom), interests (political leaders/level redistribution), institutions (governance indicators, public administration, fiscal balance, government consumption, and investment) and inter-temporality.
The presence of hypotheses in the medical literature.

ABSTRACT Background Although hypotheses are believed to be crucial to the scientific method, they are not always reported in clinical studies. We hypothesized that the presence of a hypothesis in the medical literature would be associated with study type. Methods All articles published in four major medical journals in the first half of 2002 were reviewed and abstracted (n = 332). Results Hypotheses were explicitly stated in 23% and implied or inferable in 13% of studies; another 17% of studies without hypotheses reported sample size calculations; 46% of studies stated neither hypotheses nor reported sample size calculations. Randomized controlled trials reported hypotheses and sample size calculations 50% and 80% of the time, respectively, while other study types reported them much less often. Adjusting for journal, randomized controlled trials had 19.1 times (95% confidence interval: 9.4-39.1) greater odds of having stated hypotheses or sample size calculations than other study types. Conclusion Major medical journals have been very successful in encouraging authors to include sample size calculations in the reports of randomized controlled trials by making their presence a structural requirement for submission. However, stated hypotheses are rarer, and hypotheses and sample size calculations are even less prevalent in papers using other study designs. For some study designs, lack of these study elements may be related to vague guidelines. For others, such as observational and correlational studies, omission may be related to foundational disagreements about the scientific method.
Impervious Cover Variability in Urban Watersheds

An urban area inventory for watershed development conditions should be part of any comprehensive stormwater management plan, when the goal is to understand the…
Accommodating mestizaje on Nicaragua's Rio Coco: Miskitu activism before the sandinista revolution

This article examines the Miskitu peoples' efforts to gain equal rights in mid-20th-century Nicaragua through a discourse of citizenship within the larger ideological framework of Latin American mestizaje (interracial and intercultural mixing as the basis for Latin American identity in refutation of European and/or Anglo-American values). Specifically, it explores Miskitu recollections and reactions to Nicaraguan efforts to integrate them into the national identity through an indigenist programme known as the Rio Coco Pilot Project for Basic Education. Acknowledging Miskitu accommodation and even embracement of this assimilationist project provides an alternative interpretation of 20th-century indigenous social activism and validates an earlier Miskitu generation's achievements in advancing the cause of Miskitu social and political equality in Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast region before the era of multicultural autonomy.
The Effect of Chlorination on the Virus of Eastern Equine Encephalomyelitis in the Presence of Organic Substances

In previous publications1,2 the inactivating effect of chlorine on the virus of poliomyelitis was described. These findings, subsequently confirmed by others,3,4 directed attention to the survival of this infectious agent in the presence of chlorine concentrations greatly in excess of those ordinarily used for the protection of municipal water supplies. The possibility of water playing a part in the spread of poliomyelitis has been mentioned on several occasions, and extensions of the above investigations were unfortunately terminated at the outbreak of the war by the shutting off of the source of monkeys susceptible to this disease. Two problems seemed worthy of further investigation, namely, the influence of extraneous organic matter on the action of the chemical, and whether or not changes in the virus resulting from chlorination were reversible.
Development and prevalence of femoroacetabular impingement-associated morphology in a paediatric and adolescent population: a CT study of 225 patients.

We investigated the development of CT-based bony radiological parameters associated with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) in a paediatric and adolescent population with no known orthopaedic hip complaints. We retrospectively reformatted and reoriented 225 abdominal CTs into standardised CT pelvic images with neutral pelvic tilt and inclination (244 female and 206 male hips) in patients ranging from two to 19 years of age (mean 10.4 years). The Tonnis angle, acetabular depth ratio, lateral centre–edge angle, acetabular version and α-angle were assessed. Acetabular measurements demonstrated increased acetabular coverage with age and/or progressive ossification of the acetabulum. The α-angle decreased with age and/or progressive cortical bone development and resultant narrowing of the femoral neck. Cam and pincer morphology occurred as early as ten and 12 years of age, respectively, and their prevalence in the adolescent patient population is similar to that reported in the adult literature. Future aetiological studies of FAI will need to focus on the early adolescent population. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2013;95-B:598–604.
Study on Blasting Seismic Cumulative Effects of Road Tunnel and Its Surrounding Rocks

In this paper, the blasting seismic cumulative effects is explored and studied mainly for the cycling blasting in road tunnel engineering. The seismic wave and its particle velocity are used to account for and resolve engineering problems caused by blasting vibration. It is shown that the cumulative damage will take place in rock mass under the dynamic loads of blasting seismic waves after analyzing the characteristic of blasting seismic wave in propagation, energy, frequency and magnitude, and rock mass dynamic characteristic. It is pointed out that the faults in rock mass and the blasting seismic waves propagation affect each other. And there are some decline that different faults affect mainly different wave propagation. At the same time,fracture series in rock mass can be treated as a fault interface. It is confirmed that the area of particle velocity wave in rock mass can be used to explain and comment energy of blasting vibration in rock mass. The magnitude of the area of particle velocity wave changed with charges of explosives and distance correspond to the change of blasting seismic energy. Furthermore, it is also used to illustrate the change of characteristic of rock mass and attenuation of the blasting vibration energy in rock mass. Similarly, the effective unit area of particle velocity on unit charges and distance can be used to comment unit blasting vibration energy in rock mass. Here, the calculation methods of the effective unit area have been put forward. And the information of faults and its' developing state in rock mass can also be illustrated through comparing the magnitude of the effective unit area of particle velocity.
Stress singularities and transverse stresses near edges of doubly curved laminated shells using TSNDT and stress recovery scheme

Abstract A third order shear and normal deformable plate/shell theory (TSNDT) and a stress recovery scheme (SRS) are used to predict stress singularities near edges of doubly curved composite laminated shells deformed statically with tangential and normal tractions applied on the shell major surfaces. In fluid-structure interaction problems both tangential and normal tractions may simultaneously act on the fluid-structure interface. The accurate computation of all six stress components is important for ascertaining a structure's load carrying capacity. In the TSNDT the three displacement components at a point are expressed as complete polynomials of degree three in the thickness coordinate. The boundary-value problems are numerically solved by using an in-house developed finite element code. Results for six problems involving different boundary conditions at the edges and different surface tractions on the two major surfaces are presented. For each problem studied, the computed stresses at interior points located at a distance greater than 0.1% of the span from an edge are found to at most differ by 5% from those obtained by either analytical or numerical (with a commercial software) solutions of the 3-D linear elasticity theory equations. The order of the stress singularity near an edge and boundary layers close to bounding surfaces are well captured; the region of stress singularity extends from the edge only till 0.4% of the edge length. Advantages of using the TSNDT include considering general tractions on bounding surfaces and finding a reasonably accurate solution, including singular stresses near the edges, with considerably fewer degrees of freedom than those needed to analyze the corresponding 3-D problem.
Crystal structures of bis-[(9S,13S,14S)-3-meth-oxy-17-methyl-morphinanium] tetra-chlorido-cobaltate and tetra-chlorido-cuprate.

(9S,13S,14S)-3-Meth­oxy-17-methyl­morphinan (dextromethorphan) forms two isostructural salts with (a) tetra­chlorido­cobaltate, namely bis­[(9S,13S,14S)-3-meth­oxy-17-methyl­morphinanium] tetra­chlorido­cobaltate, (C18H26NO)2[CoCl4], and (b) tetra­chlorido­cuprate, namely bis­[(9S,13S,14S)-3-meth­oxy-17-methyl­morphinanium] tetra­chlorido­cuprate, (C18H26NO)2[CuCl4]. The distorted tetra­hedral anions are located on twofold rotational axes. The dextromethorphan cation can be described as being composed of two ring systems, a tetra­hydro­naphthalene system A+B and a deca­hydro­isoquinolinium subunit C+D, that are nearly perpendicular to one another: the angle between mean planes of the A+B and C+D moieties is 78.8 (1)° for (a) and 79.0 (1)° for (b). Two symmetry-related cations of protonated dextromethorphan are connected to the tetra­chlorido­cobaltate (or tetra­chlorido­cuprate) anions via strong N—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds, forming neutral ion associates. These associates are packed in the (001) plane with no strong attractive bonding between them. Both compounds are attractive crystalline forms for unambiguous identification of the dextromethorphan and, presumably, of its optical isomer, levomethorphan.
Outcomes of Albumin Use in the Treatment of Acute Hepatorenal Disorders: A Single Center Experience

Intravenous albumin is recommended for hepatorenal disorders (HRD), but individuals who do not recover renal function may be at a high risk for pulmonary edema. We reviewed outcomes by the amount of albumin infused in 93 patients not receiving dialysis at admission but being treated with intravenous albumin for acute HRD at our institution. Absence of renal recovery was defined as no decrease in serum creatinine and requirement of dialysis during hospitalization, and partial renal recovery was defined as a decrease in serum creatinine but not to prehospitalization levels. Associations of clinical factors including total albumin infused, presence of renal recovery, and oliguria with the development of pulmonary edema during hospitalization were determined using logistic regression. Of the 93 patients, 20 patients had complete renal recovery, 17 patients had partial renal recovery, and 56 patients showed no renal recovery. Most patients received 300–600 g of albumin. Overall, 47.3% of patients developed pulmonary edema (n=44), but the risk was 75% in patients with oliguria on presentation and no renal recovery versus 17% in those with no oliguria and complete renal recovery (P<0.001). In the logistic regression model, oliguria (3.32; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.12, 9.81) and no renal recovery (3.38; 95% CI: 1.24, 9.16) were each associated with higher odds of pulmonary edema after adjustment for covariates. No association was noted between total albumin infused and pulmonary edema. In summary, absence of renal recovery and oliguria in patients with HRD receiving intravenous albumin is associated with a higher risk of pulmonary edema.
The Challenges of Prognosis Near the End of Life

Nearly half of American internists in a large nationwide survey said they do not volunteer survival prognoses. Rather, they make such predictions—and quite reluctantly—only if patients ask. In fact, the more experienced the internists, the more likely they wait for patients to ask explicitly for those predictions. Some doctors surely hope patients never ask. Still, difficult as it is, addressing even bad prognoses openly and honestly may benefit dying patients and their doctors. It may summon latent courage that neither patients nor doctors knew they had. The question may also begin an especially meaningful dialogue between them. That dialogue may help patients clarify their end-of-life goals, cull out the unrealistic ones, and plan ways to accomplish the others. That dialogue may also help patients and doctors together anticipate decisions about withholding life-support treatments and making hospice referrals.
Sharp Wars are Brief

"Sharp wars are brief," Francis Lieber wrote in his code, encapsulating in four short words an entire ethical worldview that would ground his work on the law of war. Lieber believed that the over-regulation of war was dangerous because it risked prolonging the conflict, which in the long run was damaging to human affairs. For Lieber, as for Kant, the goal of war was to return to a state of peace, and anything that made the "return to peace more difficult" should be discouraged or outlawed. On the other hand, though, "sharp wars are brief" is a horrible argument and subject to abuse. It can be used to defeat almost any regulation of war, whether sensible or not. In this paper I wish to make three key claims. First, Lieber's conception of necessity stems directly from his philosophical claim that sharp wars are brief. Second, the Lieberian conception of necessity is not a relic of the historical past. Rather, it represents the basic structure of today's law of war. If one wants to know why today's law of war does so little to value the lives of combatants — while protecting civilians — one need look no further than the Lieber Code and its argument that sharp wars are brief. Finally, the third section of this chapter will critically evaluate Lieber's assertion and ask why the laws of war assign so little value to the lives of combatants. The paper will conclude with a very limited normative defense of this state of affairs, but the existing law will not emerge unscathed. I will suggest that even if Lieber is correct that sharp wars are brief, this insight still leaves open the question of their optimal level of sharpness, which we arguably have not yet reached. Reform is still permitted and indeed required.
A Critical Lens on Drawing the Body: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Size in Fashion Illustration Textbooks

Scholars have extensively studied representations of race, gender, body, and size in visual imagery circulating in the fashion system. Our study extends Reddy-Best and Kane's (2015) study and examines representations of gender, race, and the body in fashion illustration textbooks. We asked (a) what body sizes are present?, (b) do the illustrations have diverse racial representation?, (c) and how are bodies positioned?. This study is informed by intersectionality theory, in that we critically examined multiple subject positions in relation to systems of oppression (Shields, 2008). Using content analysis, we analyzed 3622 individuals in textbooks between 2006 and 2013. The fashion illustration texts are lacking mostly in racial diversity. Additionally, Black individuals were more often pictured with lighter skin colors continuing the issues of colorism. These findings highlight the reflections of racial hierarchies present in our society, and support the need for more diverse representations in fashion illustration texts.
Chile’s Pascua Lama: Where Water Is Worth More than Gold

In recent years, the expansion of mega-mining projects in remote regions of South America has politicized and internationalized conflicts over water, and given rise to regional coalitions of local farmers and indigenous communities who protest the socio-environmental threat posed by the use of water in mining projects such as the one at Pascua Lama. Further, the polluting nature of the chemical processes at Pascua Lama pose contamination hazards to watersheds, rivers and other water sources. Most of the news coverage took one of two predominant approaches: reports either presented the threat that the gold mine represented to the watershed as “business as usual,” or the narrative took on melodramatic tones with a focus on the social or political conflict that ensued. Journalistic norms and routines inherent in this dynamic have been found to contribute to an overexposure of official and elite sources.
Using Swivl Robotic Technology in Teacher Education Preparation: A Pilot Study

Based on requirements to promote for reflective practice, both CAEP and edTPA suggest adding a video component to clinical practice. This qualitative pilot study evaluated Swivl as that potential recording technological device for clinical practice. During a clinical practice cycle at a private university in the southeastern region of the US and in partnership with public school districts, teacher candidates piloted Swivl technology. Summative data were collected and researchers triangulated the data to identify emergent themes. Researchers discussed specific strengths and challenges in the use of the Swivl device and provided insights on the viability of this technology’s potential use in teacher education preparation.
Was there ever really a "sugar conspiracy"?

Over the past quarter-century, historical research has revealed how major industries from tobacco to lead to petroleum have meddled in science to conceal the hazards of their products. Drawing on secret industry documents, these studies have shown how special interests have used financial incentives to influence scientists, fabricate doubt, and delay regulation ( 1 ). Recently, similar allegations have been made against the sugar industry, with claims that prominent industry-backed researchers in the 1960s downplayed or suppressed evidence linking sugar and heart disease. Building on a newly popular narrative holding that the low-fat campaign of the 1980s was not based on solid science, these allegations have suggested that if not for the machinations of the sugar industry and its cadre of sponsored researchers, the history of U.S. dietary policy might have unfolded very differently. In this article, we argue that the historical evidence does not support these claims. Although we do not defend the sugar industry and cannot address every aspect of this history, we believe recent high-profile claims come from researchers who have overextended the analogy of the tobacco industry playbook and failed to assess historical actors by the norms and standards of their time. Our analysis illustrates how conspiratorial narratives in science can distort the past in the service of contemporary causes and obscure genuine uncertainty that surrounds aspects of research, impairing efforts to formulate good evidence-informed policies. In the absence of very strong evidence, there is a serious danger in interpreting the inevitable twists and turns of research and policy as the product of malevolent playbooks and historical derailments. Like scientists, historians must focus on the evidence and follow the data where they lead.
Teaching While Black and Male and Preparing Students for Urban Social Work Practice Matters

This article unpacks the pedagogical reflections of a Black male professor, bringing attention to issues associated with teaching while Black and preparing students for urban social work practice. The article asserts that contemporary forms of injustice cannot be understood without grasping critical historical analyses of race and racism in the United States. Ideas related to critical race theory, racial oppression, and social identities are explored. Finally, the article explicates the importance for students to become comfortable talking about racism and racial injustice in the context of working with clients.
Energy-Aware real-time face recognition system on mobile CPU-GPU platform

The Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) has expanded its role from an accelerator for rendering graphics into an efficient parallel processor for general purpose computing. The GPU, an indispensable component in desktop and server-class computers as well as game consoles, has also become an integrated component in handheld devices, such as smartphones. Since the handheld devices are mostly powered by battery, the mobile GPU is usually designed with an emphasis on low-power rather than on performance. In addition, the memory bus architecture of mobile devices is also quite different from those of desktops, servers, and game consoles. In this paper, we try to provide answers to the following two questions: (1) Can a mobile GPU be used as a powerful accelerator in the mobile platform for general purpose computing, similar to its role in the desktop and server platforms? (2) What is the role of a mobile GPU in energy-optimized real-time mobile applications? We use face recognition as an application driver which is a compute-intensive task and is a core process for several mobile applications. The experiments of our investigation were performed on an Nvidia Tegra development board which consists of a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU and a Nvidia mobile GPU integrated in a SoC. The experiment results show that, utilizing the mobile GPU can achieve a 4.25x speedup in performance and 3.98x reduction in energy consumption, in comparison with a CPU-only implementation on the same platform.
Quantitative Contribution of Six Major Transporters to the Hepatic Uptake of Drugs: "SLC-Phenotyping" Using Primary Human Hepatocytes.

Hepatic uptake transporters [solute carriers (SLCs)], including organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) 1B1, OATP1B3, OATP2B1, sodium-dependent taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide (NTCP), and organic anion (OAT2) and organic cation (OCT1) transporters, play a key role in determining the systemic and liver exposure of chemically diverse drugs. Here, we established a phenotyping approach to quantify the contribution of the six SLCs, and passive diffusion, to the overall uptake using plated human hepatocytes (PHHs). First, selective inhibitor conditions were identified by screening about 20 inhibitors across the six SLCs using single-transfected human embryonic kidney 293 cells. Data implied rifamycin SV (20 µM) inhibits three OATPs, while rifampicin (5 µM) inhibits OATP1B1/1B3 only. Further, hepatitis B virus myristoylated-preS1 peptide (0.1 µM), quinidine (100 µM), and ketoprofen (100-300 µM) are relatively selective against NTCP, OCT1, and OAT2, respectively. Second, using these inhibitory conditions, the fraction transported (ft ) by the individual SLCs was characterized for 20 substrates with PHH. Generally, extended clearance classification system class 1A/3A (e.g., warfarin) and 1B/3B compounds (e.g., statins) showed predominant OAT2 and OATP1B1/1B3 contribution, respectively. OCT1-mediated uptake was prominent for class 2/4 compounds (e.g., metformin). Third, in vitro ft values were corrected using quantitative proteomics data to obtain "scaled ft " Fourth, in vitro-in vivo extrapolation of the scaled OATP1B1/1B3 ft was assessed, leveraging statin clinical drug-drug interaction data with rifampicin as the perpetrator. Finally, we outlined a novel stepwise strategy to implement phenotypic characterization of SLC-mediated hepatic uptake for new molecular entities and drugs in a drug discovery and development setting.
"Look up!" Using easy words to explain how we learn hard words and other aspects of language, an interview with Lila Gleitman

Lila Gleitman is undoubtedly one of the world’s foremost experts on language acquisition and developmental psycholinguistics. Starting in the 60s, she rose to prominence by bringing experimental methods from psychology to bear on the questions raised by linguistics and philosophers of language, namely how children could learn the rules of a language when there is so much ambiguity both in the language and in the world surrounding them. She has done much work in this vein, focusing both on how children learn words that refer to abstract concepts such as think or believe , as well as how they acquire concepts when they lack certain inputs, such as in the case of blind or deaf children. Though her contributions and collaborations span many questions and problems in language acquisition, she is perhaps best known for proposing and showing that, from an early age, children are capable of using syntactic cues to learn the meaning of words, particularly verbs (especially those she describes as “hard words” because they are difficult or impossible to observe, like think ). Through this process, termed syntactic bootstrapping , young children would be able rely on the linguistic context in which the words appear to discover aspects of the meanings of words that they don’t know yet (e.g., Landau & Gleitman, 1985; Gleitman, 1990; Gleitman, Cassidy, Nappa, Papafragou, & Trueswell, 2005). More specifically, Lila and her collaborators proposed that syntax could serve as a “zoom lens” allowing language learners to figure out which part of the world is being talked about, which would then help them identify candidate meanings for novel words (e.g., Fisher, Hall, Rakowitz, & Gleitman, 1994). --- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31513/linguistica.2018.v14n3a22643
A CLASH OF VALUES: PUBLIC ETHICS AND THE B U S I N E S S OF GOVERNMENT

This article explores the ethical consequences of what Korac-Kakabadse, Kouzmin, Knyght, and Korac-Kakabadse (2000) refer to as “the continuous re-drawing of the boundaries of what constitutes ‘the public service.’” Within these reconfigurations, public administrators are recast as public entrepreneurs, adhering to a bottom-line script that is fundamentally at odds with the spirit and intent of public service. The authors examine the ethical dynamics of public service reform, and conclude with a call to reaffirm the core values of public administration in the face of competing business-driven practices.
Holocene, silty-sand loess downwind of dunes in Northern Michigan, USA

In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, sand dunes are widespread on the sandy floor of former Glacial Lake Algonquin, and many of the nearby uplands also have thin mantles of loess. Previous work concluded...
Multi-city street-sidewalk imagery from pedestrian mobile cameras: dataset

This paper presents TerraFirma, a multi-city dataset which captures street and sidewalk imagery from the pedestrians' perspective. Motivated by challenges in the realm of pedestrian safety, we present a diverse and extensive dataset that provides a foundation for the design and validation of pedestrian safety systems that rely on street-sidewalk imagery. The data was collected by 9 volunteers in 4 metropolitan cities across the world. Volunteers carried mobile cameras or smartphones in a texting position, such that the rear camera was directed to the ground in front of them. TerraFirma classifies images by the material used for street/sidewalk construction in each city. The detailed description of dataset accrual is accompanied by the public release of the dataset.