cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Alkalinity dynamics in an unacidified alpine lake, Sierra Nevada, California

Gem Lake, a small, unacidificd, high elevation lake in the Sierra Nevada, undergoes an annual cycle of low alkalinity (between 30 and 40 pcq liter-‘) during the ice-free season and high alkalinity (>240 peq liter-‘) in fall and winter. Both pH and alkalinity decrease drastically (up to one unit for pH and 200 peq liter ’ for alkalinity) during spring snowmelt, but chemistry of the snow, snowmelt, and runoff indicate that the declines in alkalinity are due to dilution rather than acidification. The hydraulic residence time in the lake incrcascs from about 135 d in winter to ~7 d during snowmclt; high alkalinity water is simply flushed from the lake and replaced by water with an ionic composition very near that of the snowmclt runoff. Increases in alkalinity in fall and winter can be accounted for by the rates of weathering in the watershed. A mass balance approach is used to reconstruct weathering reactions in the basin; it suggests that the lake receives both surface runoff, with the weathering products of the hydrolysis of granodiorite minerals to kaolinite, and deep water from subterranean circulation, with the products of granodiorite weathering to both kaolinitc and smectite. The relative importances of low alkalinity surface runoff and high alkalinity groundwater to the recharge of the lake are proposed as factors controlling the seasonal bicarbonate concentration of the lake.
Remote data checking for network coding-based distributed storage systems

Remote Data Checking (RDC) is a technique by which clients can establish that data outsourced at untrusted servers remains intact over time. RDC is useful as a prevention tool, allowing clients to periodically check if data has been damaged, and as a repair tool whenever damage has been detected. Initially proposed in the context of a single server, RDC was later extended to verify data integrity in distributed storage systems that rely on replication and on erasure coding to store data redundantly at multiple servers. Recently, a technique was proposed to add redundancy based on network coding, which offers interesting tradeoffs because of its remarkably low communication overhead to repair corrupt servers.Unlike previous work on RDC which focused on minimizing the costs of the prevention phase, we take a holistic look and initiate the investigation of RDC schemes for distributed systems that rely on network coding to minimize the combined costs of both the prevention and repair phases. We propose RDC-NC, a novel secure and efficient RDC scheme for network coding-based distributed storage systems. RDC-NC mitigates new attacks that stem from the underlying principle of network coding. The scheme is able to preserve in an adversarial setting the minimal communication overhead of the repair component achieved by network coding in a benign setting. We implement our scheme and experimentally show that it is computationally inexpensive for both clients and servers.
Mediating tourist experiences: access to places via shared videos.

The emergence of new media using multimedia features has generated a new set of mediators for tourists' experiences. This study examines two hypotheses regarding the roles that online travel videos play as mediators of tourist experiences. The results confirm that online shared videos can provide mental pleasure to viewers by stimulating fantasies and daydreams, as well as bringing back past travel memories. In addition, the videos act as a narrative transportation, providing access to foreign landscapes and socioscapes. Keywords: tourist experience, consumer-generated media, technology-assisted mediators, media- scape. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Ecophysiology meets conservation: understanding the role of disease in amphibian population declines

Infectious diseases are intimately associated with the dynamics of biodiversity. However, the role that infectious disease plays within ecological communities is complex. The complex effects of infectious disease at the scale of communities and ecosystems are driven by the interaction between host and pathogen. Whether or not a given host–pathogen interaction results in progression from infection to disease is largely dependent on the physiological characteristics of the host within the context of the external environment. Here, we highlight the importance of understanding the outcome of infection and disease in the context of host ecophysiology using amphibians as a model system. Amphibians are ideal for such a discussion because many of their populations are experiencing declines and extinctions, with disease as an important factor implicated in many declines and extinctions. Exposure to pathogens and the host's responses to infection can be influenced by many factors related to physiology such as host life history, immunology, endocrinology, resource acquisition, behaviour and changing climates. In our review, we discuss the relationship between disease and biodiversity. We highlight the dynamics of three amphibian host–pathogen systems that induce different effects on hosts and life stages and illustrate the complexity of amphibian–host–parasite systems. We then review links between environmental stress, endocrine–immune interactions, disease and climate change.
Efficient suboptimal rare-event simulation

Much of the rare-event simulation literature is concerned with the development of asymptotically optimal algorithms. Because of the difficulties associated with applying these ideas to complex models, this paper focuses on sub-optimal procedures that can be shown to be much more efficient than conventional crude Monte Carlo. We provide two such examples, one based on "repeated acceptance/rejection" as a mean of computing tail probabilities for hitting time random variables and the other based on filtered conditional Monte Carlo.
Restructuring a Hospital's Housekeeping Department to Improve Performance

The goal to decrease cost while improving efficiency and quality of service is a driving force in healthcare today. By redesigning and reassigning work, Poudre Valley Hospital was able to achieve this goal. This article describes the process of restructuring a central housekeeping department into patient care areas, the redistribution of work, and the outcomes that were achieved.
Work, Difference, and Social Change: Two Decades After Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital

On May 8–10, 1998, scholars and activists gathered at the “Work, Difference, and Social Change” conference hosted by the Sociology Department of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton. The conference marked the twentieth anniversary of the “New Directions in the Labor Process” conference. The focus in 1978 was on debates in labor process theory inspired by the publication of Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital. This became not only one of the most important books in contemporary Marxist scholarship but also a respected alternative to mainstream social-scientific analyses of work and industry. Contrary to prevailing perspectives of that time, which reflected the imperatives and interests of management, Braverman argued that work is systematically degraded. Employers strive to control and standardize the production process in order to maximize profit and to reproduce unequal (class-based) work relations. The conference brought together staunch defenders of Braverman as well as those who sought to move beyond the theoretical and methodological approach offered in Labor and Monopoly Capital.
Luminescence Quenching of a Phosphorescent Conjugated Polyelectrolyte

The photophysical and luminescence quenching properties of a platinum(II) acetylide-based conjugated polyelectrolyte, Pt-p, which features carboxylic acid solubilizing groups are reported. The Pt-acetylide polymer is water soluble, and it exhibits phosphorescence from a triplet π,π* exciton based on the conjugated backbone. The phosphorescence from Pt-p is quenched by viologens with different charges (MV+, MV2+, and MV4+), and in each case the quenching is dominated by a dynamic (diffusional) mechanism. Comparison of the Stern−Volmer quenching properties of Pt-p with those of a structurally analogous fluorescent organic polyelectrolyte leads to the conclusion that the amplified quenching effect, which is commonly observed for fluorescent conjugated polyelectrolytes, is not important for the platinum acetylide phosphorescent conjugated polyelectrolyte.
The effect of premorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder on neuropsychological functioning in individuals with acute mild traumatic brain injuries.

ABSTRACTIntroduction. Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a frequent, yet undertreated condition that typically manifests with transient neurological and cognitive symptoms that resolve over the course of several weeks. In contrast, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that presents initially in childhood but often persists into adulthood. mTBI and ADHD include overlapping symptomatology, making it difficult for clinicians to disentangle the sequelae of each condition when they co-occur in the same individual. We hypothesized that neuropsychological tests would be sensitive to preexisting ADHD in inpatients with acute mTBIs. Method. We retrospectively examined the medical charts of 100 inpatients, aged 18–40 years (96% Caucasian; 77% male) with mTBIs in an acute care setting, half of whom had self-reported the presence of premorbid ADHD, and half of whom were matched controls. We analyzed group differences across neuropsychological tests of attention, processi...
Learning to interpret natural language commands through human-robot dialog

Intelligent robots frequently need to understand requests from naive users through natural language. Previous approaches either cannot account for language variation, e.g., keyword search, or require gathering large annotated corpora, which can be expensive and cannot adapt to new variation. We introduce a dialog agent for mobile robots that understands human instructions through semantic parsing, actively resolves ambiguities using a dialog manager, and incrementally learns from human-robot conversations by inducing training data from user paraphrases. Our dialog agent is implemented and tested both on a web interface with hundreds of users via Mechanical Turk and on a mobile robot over several days, tasked with understanding navigation and delivery requests through natural language in an office environment. In both contexts, We observe significant improvements in user satisfaction after learning from conversations.
Feasibility Study of a Machine Learning Approach to Predict Dementia Progression

We conducted a feasibility study of machine-learning to predict progression of cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease (AD) among individuals enrolled in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Our approach uses diverse participant information including genetic, imaging, biomarker, and neuropsychological data to predict transition to dementia in three clinical scenarios: short-term prediction (half or one year) based on a single assessment (simulating a "new patient" visit), short-term prediction based on information from two time points (simulating a "follow up" visit), and long-term (multiple years) prediction (simulating ongoing follow-up with repeated opportunities for assessment).
Earth First! Activism: Ecological Postmodern Praxis in Radical Environmentalist Identities

Classical and conventional sociological theories cannot explain social-psychological dynamics in contemporary social movements. A synthesis of symbolic interactionism and New Social Movement theory...
Auger-Mediated Electron Relaxation Is Robust to Deep Hole Traps: Time-Domain Ab Initio Study of CdSe Quantum Dots

By slowing down electron–phonon relaxation in nanoscale materials, one can increase efficiencies of solar energy conversion via hot electron extraction, multiple exciton generation, and elimination of exciton trapping. The elusive phonon bottleneck is hard to achieve, in particular, due to Auger-type energy exchange between electrons and holes. The Auger channel can be suppressed by hole trapping. Using time-domain ab initio simulation, we show that deep hole traps cannot fully eliminate the Auger channel. The simulations show that the hole-mediated electron relaxation is slowed down only by about 30%, which is in agreement with the recent experiments. The Auger energy exchange and hole relaxation to the trap state occur on similar time scales. Hole trapping is slow, because holes themselves experience a weak bottleneck effect. The study establishes the fundamental mechanisms of the electron and hole relaxation processes with and without hole traps. It shows that more sophisticated hole trapping strategie...
The Language Handicapped Child and Education

This article presents the problems involved in definitive differential diagnosis of children with delayed language. It suggests the need to describe language, auditory, mental, and emotional functioning as opposed to depending upon specific diagnostic labels which may rely upon clinical bias. The classroom teacher is viewed as an individual competent to devise teaching methods applicable to the peculiar requirements of widely differing children and is encouraged to trust herself in the face of “experts.”
Management of Oncologic Emergencies

Publisher Summary Cancer therapy requires the management of hyperleukocytosis and tumor lysis syndrome (TLS), hypercalcemia, syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion/hyponatremia, superior vena cava syndrome and mediastinal masses, acute abdominal processes,and neurologic emergencies. Oncologic emergencies can occur as an initial manifestation of cancer, as a side effect of therapy, or at the time of progression or recurrence of the disease and arise as a result of metabolic and endocrine disturbances that result from malignancy or are secondary to therapy, or due to space-occupying lesions that can press on or obstruct vital organs and cause mechanical or surgical emergencies or due to pancytopenia secondary to bone marrow replacement or chemotherapy that may result in hemorrhage, anemia and susceptibility to overwhelming infection. Survival in children with cancer has increased dramatically during the past five decades. This progress is due not only to advances in specific oncologic therapies, but also to advances in supportive care and an improved ability to manage life-threatening complications.
Assessment Intervention Using the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test: A Clinical Illustration

Therapeutic assessment (TA) aims to affect change in a client, in part, through an in vivo intervention using any number of assessment methods during a planned assessment intervention session (AIS). To date, neuropsychological tests have not been widely used in AIS. We suggest that the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (RCFT) can be a helpful tool, especially when the assessment questions pertain to cognitive functioning, owing to its complexity and the fact that it taps several different cognitive functions. To illustrate this, we present the case of Mr. B, a 45-year-old man with a childhood history of neglect and abuse who was struggling with mood and cognitive complaints in the context of identifying a satisfying career. His performance on the RCFT had illuminated his cognitive style, and an AIS was built around observing and changing his approach to problem solving in the context of a supportive relationship. Based on the intervention, he was able to reassess his narrative of cognitive dysfunction, address his problems in organization, and practice using another person for support in problem solving.
LMP1 signaling pathway activates IRF4 in latent EBV infection and a positive circuit between PI3K and Src is required

Interferon (IFN) regulatory factors (IRFs) have crucial roles in immune regulation and oncogenesis. We have recently shown that IRF4 is activated through c-Src-mediated tyrosine phosphorylation in virus-transformed cells. However, the intracellular signaling pathway triggering Src activation of IRF4 remains unknown. In this study, we provide evidence that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) promotes IRF4 phosphorylation and markedly stimulates IRF4 transcriptional activity, and that Src mediates LMP1 activation of IRF4. As to more precise mechanism, we show that LMP1 physically interacts with c-Src, and the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase (PI3K) subunit P85 mediates their interaction. Depletion of P85 by P85-specific short hairpin RNAs disrupts their interaction and diminishes IRF4 phosphorylation in EBV-transformed cells. Furthermore, we show that Src is upstream of PI3K for activation of both IRF4 and Akt. In turn, inhibition of PI3K kinase activity by the PI3K-speicfic inhibitor LY294002 impairs Src activity. Our results show that LMP1 signaling is responsible for IRF4 activation, and further characterize the IRF4 regulatory network that is a promising therapeutic target for specific hematological malignancies.
A Dog's Life: Suffering Humanitarianism in Port‐au‐Prince, Haiti

In the Bel Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, most residents are dependent on humanitarian and foreign assistance for food, services, aid, and jobs. Yet, some residents feel that the conditions under which such aid is provided actively blocks their ability to live a life they find meaningful. In this article, I explore how some Haitians theorize this humanitarian condition through the figure of the dog, an animal that exemplifies, for Haitians, the deep history of violence, dehumanization, and degradation associated with foreign rule. I then contrast this with how foreign aid workers invoke the figure of the dog to illustrate their compassionate care for suffering others. Drawing on research among Bel Air residents and foreign aid workers in the years after a devastating earthquake destroyed much of Port-au-Prince, I show how the figure of the dog is central both to Haitian critiques of humanitarian aid and to the international humanitarian imaginary that responds to forms of suffering it deems cruel. [humanitarianism, suffering slot, anthropology of ethics, compassion and cruelty, Haiti]
The impact of population and economic decline: examining socio-demographic correlates of homicide in Detroit

This study examined the relationship between neighborhood social ecology and homicide in Detroit, Michigan. Additionally, the research examined the influence of recent population decline in Detroit on homicides through a focus on localized population change at the census tract level. The study findings reveal that the traditional social ecological predictors of crime continue to operate in similar ways to previous studies. However, when the population change variable is introduced to the model, the traditional social ecological predictors are no longer significant. This indicates that population change might be a driving feature of the high homicide rate in Detroit. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed.
Organization and molecular interactions of retinoschisin in photoreceptors.

Retinoschisin (RS), the product of the RS1 gene on the X-chromosome (Xp22), is a 24 kDa secreted protein which is expressed exclusively in the retina (Reid et al., 1999; Sauer et al., 1997) and pineal gland (Takada et al., 2006). In the retina, photoreceptors, bipolar cells, and ganglion cells synthesize RS (Takada et al., 2004). The structural features and functional implications of the 224 amino acid RS sequence include a N-terminus signal peptide (amino acids 1–23) and a 157 amino acid (amino acids 68–217) discoidin domain (Reid et al., 1999; Sauer et al., 1997). The signal peptide guides the secretion of mature RS across the plasma membrane and is cleaved off during the translocation process (Molday, 2007). Discoidin domains, which are highly conserved across species and found on the extracellular cell surface, are known to be involved in cell adhesion and signaling (Reid et al., 1999). Based on this structural feature, RS is believed to function as an adhesive protein in preserving the structural and functional integrity of the retina (Weber et al., 2002). A spectrum of missense mutations occurring throughout the RS1gene was found to interfere with one of the several steps in RS biosynthesis and secretion pathway (Molday, 2007; Wang et al., 2006). The loss of function mutations lead to a form of macular disruption and degeneration in males known as X-linked retinoschisis (XLRS) (Sikkink et al., 2006). XLRS patients exhibit a split or schisis and cystic-like spaces within the retinal layers that lead to early and progressive loss of vision. While there is no established treatment for XLRS, a recent study reported a reduction in foveal cysts and improvement in vision in XLRS patients who were treated with a topical form of dorzolamide, a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor (Apushkin and Fishman, 2006). Further, the feasibility of gene therapy as an approach to treating retinoschisis was also demonstrated in mouse model of XLRS (Molday, 2007; Zeng et al., 2004). Although these studies have advanced our
Cochlear implant histopathology

The microscopic examination of fifty-five serially sectioned implanted temporal bones has provided insight into what is being stimulated; and the changes that are the result of the insertion and presence of the implant. The ganglion cell bodies (neurons) are structures being stimulated (two laboratories have reported an inverse relationship of the number of neurons and performance). Insertion through the round window, verses a cochleostomy, produces the least fibrosis and new bone. Fibrosis and new bone do not affect the implant function unless they form in the scala vestibuli in the region of the ductus reuniens, and, block it; and produce cochlear hydrops resulting in a delayed low tone loss of hearing in hybrid implants. Animal models cannot be applied to humans because of the difference in size and myelination of the neurons.
Global Climate Changes and International Trade and Travel: Effects on Human Health Outcomes

There is now near-unanimous scientific agreement that greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities have increased global temperatures and changed the earth's climate. There is, however, no universal agreement on how rapidly, regionally, or asymmetrically the earth will warm; or on the true impact of global warming on infectious disease outbreaks and natural disasters and their inevitable public health outcomes. In addition, many other factors influence the emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases in a changing environment including international trade and travel, exotic eating habits, lifestyle and residential choices, host susceptibility, and microbial adaptation. The ultimate effects of climate changes and the increased distribution of pathogens by international trade and travel will not be limited to infectious disease outbreaks in immunologically naive populations but will also impact world food production and quality, air quality, drinking water availability and quality, immigration, urban relocation, and civil unrest. Despite the uncertainties in outcomes and their magnitudes, the active responses to climate changes in a global economy must include combinations of environmental, political, regulatory, socioeconomic, and public health measures.
Applications of the Problem Solving Inventory

This article discusses applications of the Problem Solving Inventory for counseling and managed health care, career and industrial/organizational issues, training, and academic performance.
Brain Microvessel Endothelial Cell Cultures as in Vitro Models to Study the Blood–Brain Barrier

The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is composed of several components that serve to restrict the passage of compounds between the brain and systemic circulation. The monolayer of endothelial cells comprising the brain capillary is one of the primary components of the BBB. To characterize the properties of this barrier, several in vitro models have been developed. The focus of this review is to present an introduction to the BBB and a brief history of the development of the in vitro models used to investigate the molecular and cellular significance of the barrier. Also presented is a description of the procedures associated with the isolation, culturing, maintenance, and properties of the three most utilized primary culture models: bovine, rat, and porcine. The relevance of the use of astrocyte cocultures with these models is also addressed. Finally, experimental applications of the bovine brain microvessel endothelial cell models and the future of the in vitro models are discussed.
Local Modulation of Noradrenergic Neurotransmission in Blood Vessels of Normotensive and Hypertensive Animals

Our concepts of adrenoceptors and their anatomical location has progressively changed since the initial classification by Ahlquist (1948) (see Table 1). Since that time evidence has been provided for the concept of subtypes of and s1- and s2 -adrenoceptorss Lands et al. (1967a,b); the discovery of presynaptic α - and s-adrenoceptors, Farnebo and Hamberger (1971); Kirpekar and Puig (1971); Langer et al. (1971); Starke (1971); Adler-Graschinsky and Langer (1975); Westfall et al. (1979), with the presynaptic α-adrenoceptor given the designation of α2 and the postsynaptic adrenoceptor α1, Langer (1974), the discovery of postsynaptic α2-adrenoceptors, Drew and Whiting (1979); Docherty et al. (1979) and Langer and Hicks (1984) and finally evidence for presynaptic α1-adrenoceptors, Docherty (1984).
Characterizing the Impact of Soft Errors Affecting Floating-point ALUs using RTL-Ievel Fault Injection

Strategies to detect, correct, or mitigate the impact of soft errors rely on errors injection experiments. For efficient evaluation, these experiments typically inject errors in software by sampling errors from a candidate distribution. Most often, these strategies randomly select and flip one bit in the output of an instruction. While single-bit flips may constitute a meaningful model for errors affecting hardware, the appropriateness of this model for software-based errors has not been studied. In this paper, we examine the manifestation of errors in the output registers due to errors affecting candidate instructions executed by floating-point arithmetic logic units (ALUs). We inject single-bit flips into the register-transfer level descriptions of floating-point ALUs and analyze the differences between anticipated and observed outputs when executing floating-point addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We choose the operands for these instructions randomly and from operands observed in five benchmarks. We observe a rich distribution of errors in the output and analyze their implications for software-based fault injection campaigns.
Chapter 21 – Assay Validation*

The use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) has expanded from biomedical research settings to clinical laboratories where test results are used to inform medical decision making. Some international, national, local, and professional standards require the validation of clinical tests prior to patient testing. Test validation establishes and documents the analytic performance specifications that describe attributes such as accuracy, precision, analytical sensitivity, and analytical specificity, among other characteristics. The validation process also establishes the cutoffs and other criteria that must be met by the quality control (QC) procedures used during patient testing. Although general criteria for clinical test validation have been well described in regulatory requirements and professional standards, their application to NGS has been challenging because of the unique nature of this technology. For example, the output from a typical NGS sequencing platform during a clinical analysis is thousands or millions of short sequence reads that must be aligned to a reference sequence and further analyzed to generate a reportable result. Metrics unique to NGS are used to describe the quality of these processes. Relating the quality metrics to accepted definitions of the analytic performance characteristics has been challenging. The capacity to validate a clinical test requires the development and use of reference materials to evaluate assay performance over large regions of the human genome, which represents a new paradigm. This chapter discusses the challenges and approaches to meeting regulatory and professional standards for test validation relevant to NGS and the development of QC procedures.
Radar-Vision Algorithms to Process the Trajectory-Level Driving Data in the SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study

Investigation of driver behavior is crucial to predicting roadway capacity and efficiently and safely operating the transportation network. Many studies have investigated and confirmed that imperfect human reactions and heterogeneous behavior impacts traffic flow. Historically, the findings from these studies have been limited in scope due to a lack of high quality trajectory-level driving data needed to develop, calibrate, and validate behavioral models. Despite the recent introduction of new data sources, such as those acquired through naturalistic driving studies (NDS), the scope of research questions have remained minimal due to substantial requirements for data processing. Therefore, to improve the usability of trajectory-level data, this paper contributes two algorithms for systematic data processing. The first algorithm identifies continuous segments with homogeneous driving states. The second algorithm estimates the event that caused a transition between two driving segments. The algorithms were developed using the SHRP2 NDS database; however, the logic is extendable to data collected from other instrumented vehicles. Verification produced 96% accuracy in predicting driving state and 92% accuracy in predicting state transition events. These algorithms are expected to increase the efficiency and reliability of radar data processing to enable research with a broader scope to inform practical decision-making.
Gender, Ambition, and Legislative Behavior in the United States House

This article investigates the role of gender and elections in shaping the size of legislators’ policy agendas in Congress. Despite the increase in women who hold elective office, perceptions of pol...
Massive hemorrhage following gastroscopy; probable example of Mallory-Weiss syndrome.

Gastroscopic examination was attempted in a 32-year-old male alcoholic who had experienced two episodes of major upper gastrointestinal bleeding following a bout of violent vomiting. The instrument could not be introduced beyond the cardia and no mucosal detail was visible. About two hours after gastroscopy another severe upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage occurred. At operation, two longitudinal tears in the mucosa of the cardia were found. Active arterial bleeding from the larger of the lacerations, 2 cm. in length and 3 cm. below the gastroesophageal junction, was present. These lesions could have been due to trauma from the gastroscope tip. However, it seems more likely that they represented tears secondary to vomiting such as those described by Mallory and Weiss.
Group B meningococcal outer membrane protein vaccine promote potent anti-viral effect

This report demonstrates a novel method to explore and evaluate the specific humoral/cellular immune response levels and immunoprotective effects of NMB0315 nucleic acid vaccine, recombinant protein vaccine and nucleic acid vaccine + recombinant protein vaccine in combination with mice, and to further explore the effective immunization method for NMB0315 vaccine. This route provides experimental basis. Nucleic acid vaccines [pcDNA3 1(+) / NMB0315] and recombinant protein vaccines (pET 30a / NMB0315) were prepared in large quantities, and immunologically or separately immunized female BALB/c mice were determined by nucleic acid priming protein boosting method. The specific humoral/cell immune response level, the in vitro bactericidal titer of immune serum, and the immunoprotective effect of the vaccine on mice infected with group B meningococcus were observed. Serum-specific IgG, IgG1, IgG2a and genital lavage fluids induced by NMB0315 nucleic acid vaccine group (pNMB0315 CpG), protein vaccine group (rNMB0315 FA) and combined immunization group (pNMB0315 CpG+rNMB0315 FA). The specific sIgA level reached the peak in the eighth week, and the A450 values were in vitro, and the in vitro bactericidal antibody titers of the nucleic acid vaccine group, the protein vaccine group and the combined immunization group were 1, 64, 1128, respectively. The immune protection rate of experimental mice were 70%, 95% and 80%, respectively. At 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks, the ratio of IgG2a / IgG1 in the nucleic acid vaccine group, the recombinant protein vaccine group, and the combined immunization vaccine group was less than 1.
Simulation of indoor and outdoor air quality and health impacts following installation of energy-efficient retrofits in a multifamily housing unit

Abstract Efforts to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the United States have led to widespread interest in energy-efficient retrofits in the residential sector. Weatherization retrofits, such as air sealing and insulation, lower residential energy consumption, resulting in reduced fuel and electricity-related emissions, improved ambient air quality, and avoided climate and health impacts. However, retrofits without adequate ventilation may worsen indoor air quality (IAQ) and lead to adverse health effects and costs that offset anticipated economic benefits. Building energy management and climate action plans often omit these potential consequences. This study presents a novel framework that quantifies health and energy costs and benefits related to residential energy-efficient retrofits. Energy savings from reduced consumption were estimated using historical energy prices. Reductions in ambient emissions of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) precursors were translated to avoided health impacts using health damage functions. Indoor PM2.5-related health impacts were estimated by applying PM2.5 concentration-response functions to changes in IAQ. Health impacts were monetized using health impact assessment techniques and compared to retrofit-related savings. For a modeled gas-heated midrise multifamily building in Boston, MA, weatherization retrofits without ventilation or filtration retrofits led to household health costs that far exceeded energy savings and population-level health savings, given increases in indoor PM2.5 concentrations (3.1 μg/m3 and 20.4 μg/m3 for standard and high-performance retrofits, respectively). In contrast, weatherization coupled with ventilation and filtration retrofits resulted in large savings. Overall, this study reinforces the need to quantify residential health impacts in assessments of energy-efficient retrofits.
Obesity is Associated with Worse Outcomes in COVID-19: Analysis of Early Data from New York City.

Objective The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has triggered a rapidly expanding global pandemic in which patients exhibit a wide spectrum of disease severity. Given the high prevalence of obesity in the United States, we hypothesized that the presence of obesity may play a role in the clinical course of patients with COVID-19. Methods This is a retrospective review of adult patients admitted with confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Demographics, clinical characteristics, laboratory data, and clinical outcomes were abstracted. BMI (kilograms per meter squared) was analyzed with regard to a composite outcome of intensive care unit (ICU) admission or death and intubation rate. Results About 770 patients were included (61% male, mean age 63.5 years). Patients with obesity were more likely to present with fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Obesity was also associated with a significantly higher rate of ICU admission or death (RR = 1.58, P = 0.002) even after adjusting for age, race, and troponin level. Conclusions Patients with obesity had an increased risk for critical illness leading to ICU admission or death compared with normal weight individuals. This study confirms that obesity is a major risk factor for COVID-19 disease severity, significantly impacting disease presentation and critical care requirements.
Costs Are Higher For Marketplace Members Who Enroll During Special Enrollment Periods Compared With Open Enrollment

More than 20 percent of Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange market (Marketplace) members insured by a large national insurer in 2015 and 2016 enrolled during a special enrollment period (SEP), defin...
BJP and Donyi-Polo: New Challenges to Christianity in Arunachal Pradesh and Northeast India:

Located on the disputed border with China, Arunachal Pradesh is the most remote of India’s northeastern states. Christianity is growing there—from 1 percent in 1971 to 30 percent in 2011—but that n...
An interview with Ronald E. Hellman, MD

Ronald E Hellman, MD is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Before his formal retirement in 2017, he was Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School...
Designing agricultural landscapes for arthropod-based ecosystem services in North America

Abstract Agricultural landscapes in North America have developed through complex interactions of biophysical, socioeconomic and technological forces. While they can be highly productive, these landscapes are increasingly simplified, causing biodiversity loss. As a result, ecosystem services associated with biodiversity are being dismantled. Agricultural landscape structure arises from collective decisions of farmers over long time periods, which are usually not intentionally coordinated beyond the farm scale. Regaining ecosystem services will require active efforts to intentionally redesign landscapes, in part based on ecological evidence about relationships between landscape structure and ecosystem services. Here we focus on services provided by arthropods and how to foster them at landscape scales. We first provide a brief history of how agricultural landscape structure in temperate North America developed and review the landscape-scale ecological drivers underpinning arthropod-based ecosystem services. We then propose ecological and social principles for designing agricultural landscapes, based on the ecological evidence we reviewed and on previous efforts in agricultural landscape design. Finally, we look ahead to discern prospects for putting agricultural landscape design into practice, including ecological, technological and policy opportunities. To reap benefits from arthropod-based services, future agricultural landscapes will need to increase in structural heterogeneity and diversity across multiple dimensions including crop, farmer and consumer diversity. A number of knowledge gaps persist, including how to design landscapes at spatial scales that are relevant to service providers, identifying areas of overlap or conflict between design for ecosystem services and for biodiversity conservation more broadly and navigating the social and political processes needed to implement landscape design.
Major Trends in Population Growth Around the World

The world's population continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace. The decelerating growth is mainly attributable to fertility declines in a growing number of countries. However, there are substantial variations in the future trends of populations across regions and countries, with sub-Saharan African countries being projected to have most of the increase. Population momentum plays an important role in determining the future population growth in many countries and areas where fertility is in a rapid transition. With declines in fertility, the world's population is unprecedentedly aging, and the numbers of households with smaller sizes are growing. International migration is also on the rise since the beginning of this century. The world's population is also urbanizing due to increased internal rural to urban migration. Nevertheless, there are uncertainties in future population growth, not only because there are uncertainties in the future trends in fertility, mortality, and migration, but also because there are many other factors that could affect these trajectories. International consensus on climate change and ecosystem protections may trigger population control policies, and the ongoing pandemic is likely to have some impact on mortality, migration, or even fertility.
Toward Textual Internet Immunity

Internet immunity doctrine is broken. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, online entities are absolutely immune from lawsuits related to content authored by third parties. The law has been essential to the internet’s development over the last twenty years, but it has not kept pace with the times and is now deeply flawed. Democrats demand accountability for online misinformation. Republicans decry politically motivated censorship. And Congress, President Biden, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Communications Commission all have their own plans for reform. Absent from the fray, however—until now—has been the Supreme Court, which has never issued a decision interpreting Section 230. That appears poised to change, however, following Justice Thomas’s statement in Malwarebytes v. Enigma in which he urges the Court to prune back decades of lower-court precedent to craft a more limited immunity doctrine. This Essay discusses how courts’ zealous enforcement of the early internet’s free-information ethos gave birth to an expansive immunity doctrine, warns of potential pitfalls to reform, and explores what a narrower, text-focused doctrine might mean for the tech industry.
Heart Valves and Vessels

For years, almost all valvular heart disease has been ascribed to chronic rheumatic heart disease. As a result, excised heart valves are frequently the most neglected specimens in the surgical pathology laboratory. Failure to pay appropriate attention to resected valves can be a disservice to the patient. Careful examination of heart valves not only will help in the clinical management of these patients, but may also help in the development of improved prosthetic heart valves.
Bone Marrow-derived Mononuclear Phagocytes Autoregulate Mannose Receptor Expression

Abstract This study extends our previous observation that surface mannose receptor expression by pure populations of CSF-1-dependent bone marrow-derived macrophages increases with time (Clohisy, D. R., Bar-Shavit, Z., Chappel, J. C., and Teitelbaum, S. L. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262, 15922-15929). We presently find, however, that the progressive enhancement of 125I-mannose-bovine serum albumin (125I-Man-BSA) binding per cell reflects cell number rather than duration of culture. In fact, macrophages plated at high density bind 8-fold more 125I-Man-BSA than do their low density counterparts, with no difference in receptor-ligand affinity. Furthermore, cells cultured at high density are ultimately subjected to lower levels of exogenously provided macrophage growth factor, and fewer are in interphase. By obtaining synchronous populations of quiescent bone marrow macrophages, however, we demonstrate that neither cell cycling nor attendant levels of colony stimulating factor-1 influence mannose receptor expression. Our next series of experiments established that density-related mannose receptor expression reflects removal, by marrow macrophages, of a "down-regulating" factor contained in culture medium. To this end, we treated mononuclear phagocytes with either macrophage- or control-conditioned medium and found that, via a fetal calf serum-residing protein(s), only control medium is capable of noncompetitively reducing 125I-Man-BSA binding in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, reconstituted 20-40% (NH4)2SO4-precipitable fractions derived from either sham-conditioned medium or fetal calf serum are capable of down-regulating mannose receptor expression. Alternatively, the same fraction obtained from macrophage-conditioned medium contains no such activity. Finally, initial characterization of the down-regulating factor reveals it to be acid-activable and trypsin-sensitive, yet resistant to heating to at least 80 degrees C, ribonuclease A, or freezing and thawing. We conclude that bone marrow macrophages up-regulate expression of their own plasma membrane mannose receptor by inactivating a noncompetitive, serum-residing inhibitory protein(s).
Safety of Newer Antiepileptic Drugs

To the Editor: Although Drs LaRoche and Helmers discussed many of the important safety issues for new antiepileptic drugs in their Scientific Review article, additional safety issues have arisen with topiramate and zonisamide since their initial approval. Some of these safety issues may be related to the ability of these drugs to inhibit the enzyme carbonic anhydrase. For topiramate, a warning describing a syndrome of acute myopia with secondary angle-closure glaucoma associated with treatment was added to the product labeling in 2001. It is important to note that although this adverse event is uncommon, prompt discontinuation of topiramate is imperative and appears to reverse the process. In 2003, a further warning was added for oligohydrosis, which is characterized by deficient formation and secretion of sweat that can lead to life-threatening fevers and heat stroke. This adverse effect may be more significant in children than in adults treated with topiramate and may be especially problematic in summer and in warm climates. A warning for metabolic acidosis was also added in 2003: topiramate use is associated with a hyperchloremic, non–anion gap metabolic acidosis and decreased serum bicarbonate levels. Some manifestations of chronic, untreated metabolic acidosis include bone loss and increased risk of fractures. Chronic metabolic acidosis can lead to growth retardation in children. The product labeling recommends baseline and periodic serum bicarbonate measurements during topiramate treatment. If metabolic acidosis develops and persists, then a dose reduction or discontinuation of topiramate should be considered. Regarding zonisamide, the authors stated that “in the pediatric population there have been rare reports of high fever secondary to hyperhidrosis.” We point out that similar to the situation with topiramate, the high fevers are secondary to oligohydrosis, not hyperhidrosis. Pediatric age appears to be a risk factor for zonisamide-induced oligohydrosis. Patients should be warned about the potential for oligohydrosis, particularly during summer and in warm climates. Additionally, literature reports have linked zonisamide to metabolic acidosis, which may be related to inhibition of carbonic anhydrase. Updates on drug-specific safety information can be obtained at http://www.fda.gov/medwatch.
Purification of Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase from the Cytosol Fraction of Rat Liver and the Immunochemical Demonstration of Differences between This Enzyme and the Mitochondrial Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase

Abstract Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (EC 4.1.1.32) has been isolated and purified from the cytosol fraction of rat liver to give a specific activity of 14 to 16 µmoles of bicarbonate fixed per min per mg of protein. The enzyme is homogeneous on disc electrophoresis and Sephadex G-100 chromatography and has a molecular weight of 74,500 with an isoelectric point of 5.04. Antibodies prepared in rabbits against the pure enzyme show identical titration curves against the cytosol P-enolpyruvate carboxykinase of liver and adipose tissue. A single continuous precipitation line is obtained on Ouchterlony double diffusion precipitation analysis when pure enzyme and the cytosol P-enolpyruvate carboxykinase of liver and adipose tissue are compared. On the other hand, the solubilized mitochondrial P-enolpyruvate carboxykinase of rat liver is not precipitated by the antibody to the cytosol enzyme. We conclude that the mitochrondrial and cytosol P-enolpyruvate carboxykinases are distinct enzymes, notwithstanding their uniform kinetic and physical properties.