cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Interannual variations in the half‐yearly cycle of pressure gradients and zonal wind at sea level on the Southern Hemisphere

We outline the half-yearly oscillations in sea-level pressure gradients and zonal winds on the Southern Hemisphere by means of daily synoptic maps for several years. The pressure oscillation has amplitude peaks near 50° and the Antarctic coast, separated by a minimum along 60° where the phase changes from maxima in the extreme seasons in the south to maxima in the transitional season in the north. The zonal geostrophic wind consequently has a half-yearly wave with equinoctial maxima in the latitudes near 60°, and one with solstitial maxima north of 50°. We describe the interannual variability of the half-yearly oscillations in the pressure gradients and winds, and give examples of the oscillations during FGGE and the IGY. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0870.1984.tb00224.x
Soybean cultivation as a threat to the environment in Brazil

Summary Soybeans represent a recent and powerful threat to tropical biodiversity in Brazil. Developing effective strategies to contain and minimize the environmental impact of soybean cultivation requires understanding of both the forces that drive the soybean advance and the many ways that soybeans and their associated infrastructure catalyse destructive processes. The present paper presents an up-to-date review of the advance of soybeans in Brazil, its environmental and social costs and implications for development policy. Soybeans are driven by global market forces, making them different from many of the land-use changes that have dominated the scene in Brazil so far, particularly in Amazonia. Soybeans are much more damaging than other crops because they justify massive transportation infrastructure projects that unleash a chain of events leading to destruction of natural habitats over wide areas in addition to what is directly cultivated for soybeans. The capacity of global markets to absorb additional production represents the most likely limit to the spread of soybeans, although Brazil may someday come to see the need for discouraging rather than subsidizing this crop because many of its effects are unfavourable to national interests, including severe concentration of land tenure and income, expulsion of population to Amazonian frontier, and gold-mining, as well as urban areas, and the opportunity cost of substantial drains on government resources. The multiple impacts of soybean expansion on biodiversity and other development considerations have several implications for policy: (1) protected areas need to be created in advance of soybean frontiers, (2) elimination of the many subsidies that speed soybean expansion beyond what would occur otherwise from market forces is to be encouraged, (3) studies to assess the costs of social and environmental impacts associated with soybean expansion are urgently required, and (4) the environmental-impact regulatory system requires strengthening, including mechanisms for commitments not to implant specific infrastructure projects that are judged to have excessive impacts.
Identifying Psychological Attributes of Community-Oriented, Problem-Solving Police Officers

As community-oriented, problem-solving policing (COPPS) has become the accepted philosophy for law enforcement departments, the selection of officers who are attracted to service and problem solvin...
A Critique of Classical Test Theory

Examination of the methodological literature of the behavioral and social sciences indicates that measurement terms are used differently than in the natural sciences. The rationale for these depart...
In-situ stage development for high-temperature X-ray nanocharacterization of defects in solar cells

The vast majority of photovoltaic materials are highly sensitive to the presence of inhomogeneously distributed nanoscale defects, which commonly regulate the overall performance of the devices. The defects can take the form of impurities, stoichiometry variations, microstructural misalignments, and secondary phases - the majority of which are created during solar cell processing. Scientific understanding of these defects and development of defect-engineering techniques have the potential to significantly increase cell efficiencies, as well as provide a science-based approach to increase the competitiveness for the US PV industry on a dollar per installed kWh criterion. For the case of Cu(In, Ga)Se2 devices for example, the theoretically limit sits at 30.5% efficiency [1], thus, surpassing DOE's SunShot goals for cost-competitive solar power. However, to date, CIGS laboratory scale cells have been reported to achieve only 20.3% efficiencies and modules have not crossed the 15 % certified efficiency barrier. Recent reports have suggested that these record cells are limited by non-ideal recombination and, more specifically, by an increased saturation current that seems to originate from the particular defect chemistry at structural defects. In order to understand the severe efficiency limitations that currently affect solar cell materials, it is necessary to understand in detail the role of defects and their interactions under actual operating and processing conditions. In this work we propose to develop a high-temperature, in-situ stage for X-ray microscopes, with the capabilities of temperature and ambient control. Here, we provide insight into the design and preliminary testing at the Advanced Photon Source with beam sizes ≈100nm.
Collective behavior in cancer cell populations.

In recent years the argument has been made that malignant tumors represent complex dynamic and selforganizing biosystems. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that collective cell migration is common during invasion and metastasis of malignant tumors. Here, we argue that cancer systems may be capable of developing multicellular collective patterns that resemble evolved adaptive behavior known from other biological systems including collective sensing of environmental conditions and collective decision-making. We present a concept as to how these properties could arise in tumors and why the emergence of such swarm-like patterns would confer advantageous properties to the spatiotemporal expansion of tumors, and consequently, why understanding and ultimately targeting such collectivity should be of interest for basic and clinical cancer research alike.
Leading-process actomyosin coordinates organelle positioning and adhesion receptor dynamics in radially migrating cerebellar granule neurons

During brain development, neurons migrate from germinal zones to their final positions to assemble neural circuits. A unique saltatory cadence involving cyclical organelle movement (e.g., centrosome motility) and leading-process actomyosin enrichment prior to nucleokinesis organizes neuronal migration. While functional evidence suggests that leading-process actomyosin is essential for centrosome motility, the role of the actin-enriched leading process in globally organizing organelle transport or traction forces remains unexplored. We show that myosin ii motors and F-actin dynamics are required for Golgi apparatus positioning before nucleokinesis in cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs) migrating along glial fibers. Moreover, we show that primary cilia are motile organelles, localized to the leading-process F-actin-rich domain and immobilized by pharmacological inhibition of myosin ii and F-actin dynamics. Finally, leading process adhesion dynamics are dependent on myosin ii and F-actin. We propose that actomyosin coordinates the overall polarity of migrating CGNs by controlling asymmetric organelle positioning and cell-cell contacts as these cells move along their glial guides.
Law, Police, and the Pursuit of Happiness in the New American Republic

On 1 June 1779, Thomas Jefferson became the second governor of the state of Virginia. Shortly thereafter, he was elected to the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary where he pursued a series of educational innovations that he had unsuccessfully promoted earlier while engaged in his mammoth revision of the laws of Viriginia. The goal of Jefferson's proposed educational reforms was the creation of an educational system which would be a training ground for republican citizenship. It is therefore of interest that among the innovations he pressed on the College of William and Mary was the establishment of the first chair of law in North America—indeed the first chair anywhere after the Vinerian chair at Oxford. What is of greater interest, however, is that the chair that Jefferson pioneered was not a chair of law, as such, but a chair of “Law and Police.”
High Power-Supply-Rejection (PSR) Current-Mode Low-Dropout (LDO) Regulator

Modern system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions suffer from limited on-chip capacitance, which means that the switching events of functionally dense ICs induce considerable noise in the supplies. This ripple worsens the accuracy of sensitive analog electronics, such as ADCs, PLLs, and VCOs, etc. Without dropping a substantial voltage, point-of-load (PoL) low-dropout (LDO) regulators reduce (filter) this noise but only as much as their loop gains and bandwidths allow. This brief presents a 5-mA 1.5-μm bipolar current-mode LDO regulator that, with a higher bandwidth current loop, suppresses higher frequency noise by 49 dB (i.e., power-supply rejection) up to 10 MHz with only 68 nF at the output, which is 20 dB better than its voltage-mode counterpart.
Veracity in in vitro fertilization Web pages

Huang et al. described compliance of IVF websites against the American Medical Association online health information guidelines and reported that IVF websites scored poorly. We describe a protocol for IVF websites that would inform readers about truthfulness of the page, develop standards for page construction, and establish a review process.
Surgical Repair of Complete Proximal Hamstring Tendon Rupture

Background: Complete proximal hamstring tendon rupture is a rare injury associated with significant functional loss. Nonoperative treatment has proven inadequate in returning patients to their previous activity level.Purpose: We wanted to describe the outcome of primary surgical repair of the proximal hamstring tendon avulsion.Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.Methods: Between 1994 and 1999, 11 patients (4 women and 7 men) with an average age of 41.5 years (range, 21 to 51) had a diagnosis of complete proximal hamstring tendon rupture based on mechanism of injury, physical examination, and radiographic assessment. All underwent a single operation followed by standard postoperative physical therapy. At the latest follow-up (average, 34 months), patients completed a questionnaire regarding such outcome parameters as pain, function, leg control, stiffness, return to activity, and overall satisfaction.Results: Isokinetic muscle testing revealed an overall average of 91% return of hamstring muscle stren...
Fetal cleft lip repair in rabbits: Postnatal facial growth after repair

We have previously described a model for in utero cleft lip repair in rabbits. Cleft lip and alveolus (CL) were created in fetal rabbits at 24 days gestation (term, 31 days). In this study, postnatal maxillary growth was evaluated in three groups of animals: 1) unoperated controls, 2) unrepaired CL, and 2) repaired CL. The animals were killed at 4, 12, and 26 weeks after birth. Direct cephalometry was performed on dry skulls to evaluate premaxillary width, anterior maxillary length and width, and posterior maxillary width. The results of this study indicate that rabbits that undergo an in utero CL procedure, with or without repair, exhibit no significant decrease in maxillary length and width when compared with controls.
COPI-independent Anterograde Transport: Cargo-selective ER to Golgi Protein Transport in Yeast COPI Mutants

The coatomer (COPI) complex mediates Golgi to ER recycling of membrane proteins containing a dilysine retrieval motif. However, COPI was initially characterized as an anterograde-acting coat complex. To investigate the direct and primary role(s) of COPI in ER/Golgi transport and in the secretory pathway in general, we used PCR-based mutagenesis to generate new temperature-conditional mutant alleles of one COPI gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae , SEC21 (γ-COP). Unexpectedly, all of the new sec21 ts mutants exhibited striking, cargo-selective ER to Golgi transport defects. In these mutants, several proteins (i.e., CPY and α-factor) were completely blocked in the ER at nonpermissive temperature; however, other proteins (i.e., invertase and HSP150) in these and other COPI mutants were secreted normally. Nearly identical cargo-specific ER to Golgi transport defects were also induced by Brefeldin A. In contrast, all proteins tested required COPII (ER to Golgi coat complex), Sec18p (NSF), and Sec22p (v-SNARE) for ER to Golgi transport. Together, these data suggest that COPI plays a critical but indirect role in anterograde transport, perhaps by directing retrieval of transport factors required for packaging of certain cargo into ER to Golgi COPII vesicles. Interestingly, CPY–invertase hybrid proteins, like invertase but unlike CPY, escaped the sec21 ts mutant ER block, suggesting that packaging into COPII vesicles may be mediated by cis -acting sorting determinants in the cargo proteins themselves. These hybrid proteins were efficiently targeted to the vacuole, indicating that COPI is also not directly required for regulated Golgi to vacuole transport. Additionally, the sec21 mutants exhibited early Golgi-specific glycosylation defects and structural aberrations in early but not late Golgi compartments at nonpermissive temperature. Together, these studies demonstrate that although COPI plays an important and most likely direct role both in Golgi–ER retrieval and in maintenance/function of the cis -Golgi, COPI does not appear to be directly required for anterograde transport through the secretory pathway.
The Magnitude and Duration of Late Ordovician–Early Silurian Glaciation

Understanding ancient climate changes is hampered by the inability to disentangle trends in ocean temperature from trends in continental ice volume. We used carbonate “clumped” isotope paleothermometry to constrain ocean temperatures, and thereby estimate ice volumes, through the Late Ordovician–Early Silurian glaciation. We find tropical ocean temperatures of 32° to 37°C except for short-lived cooling by ~5°C during the final Ordovician stage. Evidence for ice sheets spans much of the study interval, but the cooling pulse coincided with a glacial maximum during which ice volumes likely equaled or exceeded those of the last (Pleistocene) glacial maximum. This cooling also coincided with a large perturbation of the carbon cycle and the Late Ordovician mass extinction.
Fatigue and Creep

In Chap. 12 we described the monotonic behavior of a composite under ambient temperature conditions of loading. There are many applications of composites where cyclic fatigue and high-temperature, i.e., creep conditions prevail. Accordingly, in this chapter we go further in complexity and describe the fatigue and creep behavior of composites. Fatigue is the phenomenon of mechanical property degradation leading to failure of a material or a component under cyclic loading. The operative word in this definition is cyclic. This definition thus excludes the so-called phenomenon of static fatigue, which is sometimes used to describe stress corrosion cracking in glasses and ceramics in the presence of moisture. Creep refers to time-dependent deformation in a material, which becomes important at relatively high temperatures (T > 0.4Tm, where Tm is the melting point in kelvin). We first describe fatigue and then creep of composites.
The Arp2/3 complex, UNC-115/abLIM, and UNC-34/Enabled regulate axon guidance and growth cone filopodia formation in Caenorhabditis elegans

While many molecules involved in axon guidance have been identified, the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which these molecules regulate growth cone morphology during axon outgrowth remain to be elucidated. The actin cytoskeleton of the growth cone underlies the formation of lamellipodia and filopodia that control growth cone outgrowth and guidance. The role of the Arp2/3 complex in growth cone filopodia formation has been controversial, and other mechanisms of growth cone filopodia formation remain to be described. Here we show that mutations in genes encoding the Arp2/3 complex (arx genes) caused defects in axon guidance. Analysis of developing growth cones in vivo showed that arx mutants displayed defects in filopodia and reduced growth cone size. Time-lapse analysis of growth cones in living animals indicated that arx mutants affected the rate of growth cone filopodia formation but not filopodia stability or length. Two other actin modulatory proteins, UNC-115/abLIM and UNC-34/Enabled, that had been shown previously to affect axon guidance had overlapping roles with Arp2/3 in axon guidance and also affected the rate of filopodia initiation but not stability or length. Our results indicate that the Arp2/3 complex is required cell-autonomously for axon guidance and growth cone filopodia initiation. Furthermore, they show that two other actin-binding proteins, UNC-115/abLIM and UNC-34/Enabled, also control growth cone filopodia formation, possibly in parallel to Arp2/3. These studies indicate that, in vivo, multiple actin modulatory pathways including the Arp2/3 complex contribute to growth cone filopodia formation during growth cone outgrowth.
Feline Idiopathic Inflammatory Bowel Disease: What we know and what remains to be unraveled

Practical relevance: Feline idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) denotes one form of chronic enteropathy that is immunologically mediated and characterized by persistent or recurrent gastroi...
The impact of routine Trans-oesophageal Echocardiography (TOE) in cardiac surgery

Trans-oesophageal echocardiography (TOE) has profoundly changed cardiac surgery and the role of the cardiac anaesthesiologist. It has been the driving force for a real-time diagnostic and decision-making partnership between cardiac anaesthesiologists and cardiac surgeons that has significantly advanced the safety and effectiveness of modern cardiac surgery. With the information provided by TOE, anaesthesiologists and surgeons may redirect the care of cardiac surgical patients to decrease morbidity and mortality. As a result, routine intra-operative TOE is an expectation in many cardiac surgical practices. While some colleagues continue to question whether TOE should be used routinely in all cardiac surgical patients, we believe that it is impossible to predict in which cardiac patients TOE will discover vitally important new information. Therefore, we recommend that in the absence of contraindication to oesophageal instrumentation with the probe, TOE should be performed in all cardiac surgical patients. With routine TOE use, TOE will have its greatest benefit.
Rev. of Autogenèses: Les brouillons de soi, 2, by PHILIPPE LEJEUNE

In the early 1970s, the French scholar Philippe Lejeune was one of the inspirers of the then-new scholarly field of autobiography studies. In recent decades, Lejeune has turned his attention to per...
Near-surface Velocity Estimation By Weighted Early-arrival Waveform Inversion

Early-arrival waveform inversion is by far the most theoretically accurate near-surface velocity estimation tool. It tries to estimate velocity by matching recorded early arrivals with observed early arrivals based on the finite-frequency wave equation (Pratt et al., 1998) . In practice, good waveform inversion results rely on several important factors. One of the most important factors is the ability of the inversion engine to generate wave phenomena that exist in the recorded data. Ideally, we would like to include and invert all the physical parameters in the inversion. However, because of such limitation as computational power, instability of inverse problem and quality and understanding of the available data, the acoustic wave equation is currently the most practical choice for the waveform inversion kernel. In this case, the objective function of conventional waveform inversion is insufficient to bridge the gap between the physics of the inversion engine and the physics of the recorded data. In this paper, I present a modified version of the conventional waveform inversion objective function to bridge the gap between the acoustic waveform inversion engine and the more complicated physics in recorded data.
Effects of a Dark Environment and Air Permeation with Synthetic Sex Pheromone on Mating in the Almond Moth

An average of 33% more almond moths, Cadra cautella (Walker), remained unmated during a 24-h period under absolute dark conditions compared to those moths mated under a light cycle with dim night illumination. Air permeation with synthetic sex pheromone carried out at various moth densities decreased the mean level of mated female moths at 24 h by 51%. When they were combined, darkness and pheromone effects appeared to be additive, suppressing mating by 85% after 24 h and 71% after 48 h. Both dark and pheromone effects were moth density dependent. Darkness combined with pheromone would enable practical population suppression at a moth density two to three times that possible with pheromone alone.
The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England

Acknowledgments Preface Introduction 1. 'Magical experiments': divining, healing and destroying in seventeenth-century New England 2. 'The serpent that lies in the grass unseen': clerical and lay opposition to magic 3. 'Entertaining Satan': sin, suffering, and countermagic 4. 'Sinful curiosity': astrological discourse in early New England 5. 'Insufficient grounds for conviction': witchcraft, the courts, and countermagic 6. 'Rape of a whole colony': the 1692 witch-hunt Epilogue Appendices.
STAINING LIPID IN CARCINOMA OF THE PROSTATE GLAND.

Although it has long been recognized that carcinomas of the prostate gland may contain lipid, the frequency and diagnostic significance of this finding have not been studied. Indeed, in establishing prostate as the source of a neoplasm of questionable origin, the use of enzyme histochemistry, and quantitative tissue analysis for acid phosphatase has been advocated. The former finding is not entirely specific, and the latter is often not feasible technically. I t has been suggested that lack of staining of mucin may be helpful in establishing prostatic origin of adenocarcinomas, but staining of mucin has been described in prostatic carcinomas. When a chance observation recorded intense lipidstaining in 2 well-differentiated prostatic carcinomas, a survey was performed.
Sulfation of Lower Chlorinated Polychlorinated Biphenyls Increases Their Affinity for the Major Drug-Binding Sites of Human Serum Albumin.

The disposition of toxicants is often affected by their binding to serum proteins, of which the most abundant in humans is serum albumin (HSA). There is increasing interest in the toxicities of environmentally persistent polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) with lower numbers of chlorine atoms (LC-PCBs) due to their presence in both indoor and outdoor air. PCB sulfates derived from metabolic hydroxylation and sulfation of LC-PCBs have been implicated in endocrine disruption due to high affinity-binding to the thyroxine-carrying protein, transthyretin. Interactions of these sulfated metabolites of LC-PCBs with HSA, however, have not been previously explored. We have now determined the relative HSA-binding affinities for a group of LC-PCBs and their hydroxylated and sulfated derivatives by selective displacement of the fluorescent probes 5-dimethylamino-1-naphthalenesulfonamide and dansyl-l-proline from the two major drug-binding sites on HSA (previously designated as Site I and Site II). Values for half-maxima...
A First Course in Fourier Analysis: Operator identities associated with Fourier analysis

The concept of an operator identity Introduction In the preceding two chapters we developed a calculus for finding Fourier transforms of functions on ℝ, T p , ℤ, and ℙ N , and the corresponding rules are succinctly stated in Appendix 3. Each of these rules involves a pair of function-to-function mappings, i.e., a pair of operators . In this chapter we will study these operators and the elementary relations that link them to one another. The change in emphasis will enable us to characterize the symmetry properties associated with Fourier analysis, to deepen and unify our understanding of the transformation rules that we use so often in practice, and to facilitate our study of the related sine, cosine, Hartley, and Hilbert transforms. Later on, we will use operators to describe fast algorithms for computing the DFT, to describe fast algorithms for computing with wavelets, to analyze thin lens systems in optics, etc. Operators applied to functions on ℙ N It is easy to illustrate these ideas when we work with functions defined on ℙ N , i.e., with functions that can be identified with complex N -vectors. From linear algebra we know that any linear mapping A : ℂ N → ℂ N can be represented by an N × N matrix of complex coefficients. In particular, the discrete Fourier transform operator F defined by the analysis equation is a linear operator that is represented by the N × N complex matrix The reflection operator R , defined by writing R f [ n ] ≔ f [- n ], n =0,±1,±2, …
Planned Treatment of Advanced Metastatic Disease with Completion Ablation After Hepatic Resection.

The aim of this study is to describe a modified treatment strategy with image-guided percutaneous ablation after hepatic resection as a completion method to surgical eradication of liver metastases (“completion ablation [CA]”). We conducted a retrospective analyses of patients who underwent CA within 180 days from the liver surgical resection to eradicate liver metastases present on the pre-surgical cross-sectional imaging or identified during intraoperative ultrasound that were not resected due to various reasons. Lesions treated with CA were evaluated for local tumor progression (LTP). Patients were evaluated for hepatic- and overall-recurrence-free survivals (hepatic-RFS and overall-RFS, respectively) and overall survival (OS). Sixteen patients (10 females; median age 55 years, range 28–69) underwent CA of 21 lesions (median size 8 mm, range 6 to 22). Indications for the use of CA were small future liver remnant in 10 (63%), inability to identify the lesion during surgical exploration in 3 (19%), and technical difficulty of resection in 3 (19%) patients. No liver-related complications were recorded following the surgical resection or the CA procedures. Primary and secondary CA efficacy rates were 95 and 100%, respectively. LTP was 0% at a median clinical follow-up of 27 months (range 4.0–108 months). Five-year hepatic-RFS, overall-RFS, and OS were 36, 16, and 51%, respectively. The use of CA as a complement to surgical resection is safe and effective. Such approach could potentially expand the surgical candidacy for patients with limited liver functional reserve and reduce postoperative morbidity and mortality in this selected patient population with more advanced disease.
Watching Proteins Wiggle: Mapping Structures with Two-Dimensional Infrared Spectroscopy

Proteins exhibit structural fluctuations over decades of time scales. From the picosecond side chain motions to aggregates that form over the course of minutes, characterizing protein structure over these vast lengths of time is important to understanding their function. In the past 15 years, two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy (2D IR) has been established as a versatile tool that can uniquely probe proteins structures on many time scales. In this review, we present some of the basic principles behind 2D IR and show how they have, and can, impact the field of protein biophysics. We highlight experiments in which 2D IR spectroscopy has provided structural and dynamical data that would be difficult to obtain with more standard structural biology techniques. We also highlight technological developments in 2D IR that continue to expand the scope of scientific problems that can be accessed in the biomedical sciences.
Security Integrated Messaging: A protocol for secure electronic mail

Although e-mail has proven to be a powerful medium for message and information exchange, the protocols currently in use have major security shortfalls. As more and more people have turned to e-mail as a means of communication, problems experienced by e-mail users have dramatically increased. Phishing, spam, and identity theft are just three of the problems people experience because of the insecure nature of current e-mail protocols. Furthermore, as the amount of confidential information transmitted over e-mail continues to rise, these and other problems will only get worse. Although many attempts have been made to patch the issues, none have seen great amounts of success. This is most likely due to a combination of the difficultly of implementing these security improvements, the absence of single standard for secure e-mail, and the general lack of understanding by most e-mail users. Security Integrated Messaging is a new protocol for secure message exchange, designed to solve these problems. This system uses several proven technologies, such as X.509 certificates, symmetric and asymmetric encryption, and digital signatures in order to provide confidentiality, integrity, and authentication to an e-mail-like system. This system represents a first step in revamping the way we communicate online in order to protect our digital information.
Stereotactic radiosurgery and immunotherapy in melanoma brain metastases: Patterns of care and treatment outcomes.

Abstract Purpose Preclinical studies have suggested that radiation therapy (RT) enhances antitumor immune response and can act synergistically when administered with immunotherapy. However, this effect in melanoma brain metastasis is not well studied. We aim to explore the clinical effect of combining RT and immunotherapy in patients with melanoma brain metastasis (MBM). Materials and methods Patients with MBM between 2011 and 2013 were obtained from the National Cancer Database. Patients who did not have identifiable sites of metastasis and who did not receive RT for the treatment of their MBM were excluded. Patients were separated into cohorts that received immunotherapy versus patients who did not. Univariable and multivariable analyses were performed using Cox model to determine predictors of OS. Kaplan–Meier method was used to compare OS. Univariable and multivariable analyses using logistic regression model were used to determine the factors predictive for the use of immunotherapy. Propensity score analysis was used to account for differences in baseline patient characteristics between the RT and RT + immunotherapy groups. Significance was defined as a P value ≤ 0.05. Results A total of 1104 patients were identified: 912 received RT alone and 192 received RT plus immunotherapy. The median follow-up time was 6.4 (0.1–56.8) months. Patients with extracranial disease (OR 1.603, 95% CI 1.146–2.243, P = 0.006), and patients receiving SRS (OR 1.955, 95% CI 1.410–2.711, P Conclusions An increase in trend for the use of immunotherapy was noted, however, an overwhelming majority of the patients with this disease are still treated without immunotherapy. Addition of immunotherapy to RT is associated with improved OS in MBM. Given the selection biases that are inherent in this analysis, prospective trials investigating the combination of RT, especially SRS and immunotherapy are warranted.
Characterization of mouse pericardial fat: regulation by PAPP-A.

Abstract Although implicated in cardiovascular disease, little is known about the fat surrounding the heart. In humans, epicardial fat is the visceral fat depot of the heart, which directly contacts the myocardium. This strategically placed fat depot is thought to produce bioactive molecules that could affect cardiac function. A major limitation in understanding the biology of epicardial fat is its restricted access in humans and its seeming absence in commonly-used experimental animal models. Although laboratory mice do not have epicardial fat per se, they do have a fat depot around the heart. In this study, we found that mouse pericardial fat has the molecular signature, small adipocyte size, and resistance to differentiation consistent with visceral fat. In addition, we show that mouse pericardial fat is regulated by pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A), a key modulator of local insulin-like growth factor bioavailability. PAPP-A is highly expressed in mouse pericardial fat at levels equivalent to those in mesenteric visceral fat and 10-fold higher than in subcutaneous inguinal fat (P = .0003). Cultured pre-adipocytes isolated from pericardial fat show 2-fold increased PAPP-A secretion compared to pre-adipocytes isolated from inguinal fat. Furthermore, PAPP-A knock-out mice fed a high fat diet for 20 weeks have significantly reduced pericardial fat (by 60%; P
Lymphocyte Activating Property of Human Leukocytic Pyrogen

Evidence is presented that human leukocytic pyrogen (LP) enhances murine thymocyte proliferation response to phytohemagglutinin (PHA). During several purifications the ability of LP to produce fever in rabbits coincided with the PHA enhancement in vitro. These data suggest that human LP is similar to or identical with lymphocyte activating factor (LAF).
Temporal Correlation in Phrenic Neural Activity

Neural activity which gives rise to eupnea fluctuates in a complex manner. Apparently “noisy” variations in activity of the phrenic nerve may display a fractal scaling relationship. Fractal scaling in eupnea is the consequence of physical and chemical processes acting over short time scales at the cellular level, and which are correlated with similar processes acting simultaneously over longer time scales. Specifically, variations in phrenic neural bursts may not be independent random fluctuations or entirely due to short-range influences4, but may exhibit temporal correlation indicative of fractal scaling. West and Deering20 have demonstrated that fractal processes are essentially unresponsive to error and very tolerant of variability in the physiological environment. In this view, eupnea with its concomitant stability to error from a broad spectrum of inputs must have the error-tolerant properties of fractals.
Advanced Phenotypic Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Methods

Phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing methods remain the gold standard for clinical microbiology laboratories due to their advantage of being standardized as well as their having been integrated with both pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic principles, which allows clinically relevant breakpoints and optimal dosing. The main disadvantage of phenotypic methods is the length of time that these require. Genotypic molecular methods thus have been developed that identify pathogens and resistance markers directly from clinical specimens; these methods are discussed in other chapters. Direct antimicrobial susceptibility testing means that the clinical specimen serves as the inoculum; generally, this means that genomic molecular methods are used to detect resistance genes. In contrast, rapid phenotypic susceptibility testing methods mean that detection of growth from a pure culture with a defined inoculum is determined more rapidly than can be done with traditional methods. Traditional phenotypic susceptibility test methods can be accelerated using several different approaches. In addition, novel approaches for phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing are being investigated as well. This chapter will address these advanced phenotypic susceptibility testing methods.
Recurrence of Maltreatment After Newborn Home Visiting: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objectives. To investigate whether a newborn home visiting program for primiparous adolescent mothers (aged 16–20 years at childbirth) reduced recurrence of child maltreatment in child protective s...
Studying ribosome dynamics with simplified models.

Abstract With the broad accessibility of high-performance computing resources, the significance of a molecular dynamics simulation is now rarely limited by hardware and/or software availability. Rather, the scientific value of each calculation is determined by the principles that underlie the theoretical model. The current review addresses this topic in the context of simplified models applied to large-scale ( ∼ 20–100 A) dynamics in the ribosome. Specifically, we focus on applications of the “SMOG” class of structure-based models, which can be used to simulate spontaneous (i.e. non-targeted) conformational rearrangements in complex molecular assemblies. Here, we aim to provide an entry-level assessment of the methods, which can help bridge conceptual and communication gaps between the experimental and computational communities. In addition, inspecting the strategies that have been deployed previously can provide guidelines for future computational investigations into the relationship between structure, energetics and dynamics in other assemblies.
A Review of the Ecology and Management of Black Turpentine Beetle (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

The black turpentine beetle, Dendroctonus terebrans Olivier is the largest pine-infesting bark beetle native to the southern and eastern United States. It generally reproduces in fresh stumps and bases of trees weakened or killed by other biotic or abiotic agents, although it can also infest and sometimes kills apparently healthy trees. Its numbers can build when large amounts of host material become available (typically through a disturbance), and black turpentine beetle-caused mortality at a local scale can become considerable. Here, we provide a complete review of the literature on this species, including its taxonomy, host, life history, chemical ecology, arthropod and microbial associates, and management options. We also provide original data on numbers of instars, acoustic signals, and pheromone chirality in this species. Our survey of the existing literature revealed that key biological characteristics of black turpentine beetles are known, but interactions with closely associated organisms, economic and ecological impacts, and improvements to monitoring and management practices have been only partially investigated.
μ and κ Agonists Inhibit Carbachol-evoked Release of Catecholamines and [Met]enkephalin from ex situ Perfused Dog Adrenals

ABSTRACT Activation of opioid mu and kappa receptors inhibited evoked but not basal release of catecholamines and [Metlenkephalin in the dog adrenal gland. Significant effects of these agonists on basal and evoked releases of neuropeptide Y could not be demonstrated.
Incorporating Uncertainty in the Physical Substructure During Hybrid Substructuring

In hybrid substructuring, a structural system is partitioned into a numerical substructure and a physical substructure. Typically, the physical substructure consists of a system component whose behavior is difficult to model while the numerical substructure consists of a computational model of the remainder of the system. Hybrid substructuring has previously been shown to be an effective method to quantify the effect of parametric uncertainties in the numerical substructure on the response of the system. This paper proposes and implements a methodology where the effect of parametric uncertainty can also be incorporated into the physical substructure. This idea is implemented in a series of small-scale Real-Time Hybrid Substructuring (RTHS) tests on a magneto-rheological fluid damper used to control a two degree-of-freedom mass-spring system. The physical current supplied to the damper is treated as a random variable. Using the RTHS test results, a metamodel of the system’s frequency domain behavior is developed using Principal Component Analysis and Kriging. This metamodel is then used to evaluate probabilistic system performance.
Equivalence-Enhanced Microservice Workflow Orchestration to Efficiently Increase Reliability

The applicability of the microservice architecture has extended beyond traditional web services, making steady inroads into the domains of IoT and edge computing. Due to dissimilar contexts in different execution environments and inherent mobility, edge and IoT applications suffer from low execution reliability. Replication, traditionally used to increase service reliability and scalability, is inapplicable in these resource-scarce environments. Alternately, programmers can orchestrate the parallel or sequential execution of equivalent microservices—microservices that provide the same functionality by different means. Unfortunately, the resulting orchestrations rely on parallelization, synchronization, and failure handing, all tedious and error-prone to implement. Although automated orchestration shifts the burden of generating workflows from the programmer to the compiler, existing programming models lack both syntactic and semantic support for equivalence. In this paper, we enhance compiler-generated execution orchestration with equivalence to efficiently increase reliability. We introduce a dataflow-based domain-specific language, whose dataflow specifications include the implicit declarations of equivalent microservices and their execution patterns. To automatically generate reliable workflows and execute them efficiently, we introduce new equivalence workflow constructs. Our evaluation results indicate that our solution can effectively and efficiently increase the reliability of microservice-based applications.
Positive Social Interaction by Spatial Design: A Systematic Review of Empirical Literature in Memory Care Facilities for People Experiencing Dementia:

Objective: The objective of this review is to outline a comprehensive set of possible design interventions focusing on spatial and environmental design factors influencing positive social interaction, which is one of the key aspects of quality of life (QoL) in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). Methods: This systematic literature review synthesized research evidence from seven databases (after the year 2000) spanning medical and health literature, environmental psychology, architecture, interior design, and evidence-based design literature. Results: The key spatial design characteristics of the facilities shown to affect positive social interaction were as follows: (a) The Physical Environment and Setting; (b) Accessibility, Legibility, and Layout; (c) Social Environment and Network; and (d) Staff-Resident Ratio and Care Philosophy. Conclusion: Several critical spatial design features of the facilities were identified. Spatial design interventions could influence the design decisions for future care facilities and provide designers the guidelines that are generalizable regardless of geographic location of the LTCF.
Scientific Literacy Practices from a Concept of Discourse Space: Focusing on Resources and Demands for Learning

Writing is a learning activity. Yet, writing is not a naturally obtained skill differing from speaking. Rather, writing is inherently a cognitive demanding task, thus required to be instructed. Traditionally, cognitive processes students engage in during writing have been discussed as localized phenomena that can be explained as an information processing at the level of the individual. In this chapter, drawing from dual processing theory and distributed cognition theory, I will discuss how writing can be seen as more socially dynamic representations and critical practices for learning sciences. First, I will discuss two fundamental assumptions for writing, cognition, and learning: (a) student engagement in cognitive processes always involves two forms of processing (construction and evaluation) not only interpersonally but also intrapersonally; and (b) participants in discursive practices collectively contribute to share, build, and develop both a local, dynamic cognitive system and a material environment which has flexibly evolved over time and eventually forms a culture of classroom so that each adopts individually and uniquely for their future practice and learning. Then, these two assumptions are exclusively discussed based on two elements, “resource” and “demand,” in a concept of discourse space. With supports of empirically investigated evidences, this chapter offers a useful guidance to further understand writing, cognition, and learning in a classroom context.
New technique for measurement of refractive index and thickness of polymer thin films

Prism coupling into optical waveguides is a Well-known technique tor determining refractive index and thickness of thin films. We show that it is not necessary to use an optical waveguide to obtain m lines and measure refractive index and thickness of thin films. It is possible to use films whose refractive index is less than that of the substrate and couple into radiation modes which contain information about the film. Although this quasi-waveguide is leaky, prism coupler measurement of the m lines provides a simple and elegant technique to determine film parameters.
Determining the Extent of Disease with Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Bone Marrow (BM-MRI) in Patients with Multiple Myeloma (MM).

Background: MM remains an incurable cancer. Treatment is often initiated with progressive increase in tumor burden and clinical symptoms. Tumor burden assessment is commonly done by disease stage, presence of lytic bone disease and beta-2 microglobulin (B2M). We investigated bone marrow imaging as a novel approach to quantify disease burden. In a separate report, we observed that MRI is more sensitive than BM aspirate/biopsy (BM-Bx) for assessing extent of marrow involvement in MM patients. In this study we validate that extent of marrow disease detected by BM-MRI correlates with the clinical stage, presence of lytic bone lesions, B2M and secretor vs. non-secretor status of MM patients. Methods: Extent of marrow involvement as evaluated by BM-MRI included sagittal T1 and fast spin echo inversion recovery sequences of the cervical, thoracic and lumbosacral spine and coronal T1 and fast spin echo inversion recovery sequences of the sacrum and pelvic bones. Clinical staging was done as per Durie-Salmon (DS) and the International Staging System (ISS) while lytic bone lesions were assessed by skeletal radiographs. Secretory MM was identified by presence of M-protein in serum or urine by electrophoresis. To study the statistical relationship between pairs of ordinal variables the test corresponding to the Spearman correlation was used and statistical relationship between nominal and ordinal variables was determined by the Wilcoxon or Kruskal-Wallis test. A 0.05 nominal significance level was used in all testing. Following staging system was defined for evaluation of the marrow involvement by BM-MRI: A (0%), B ( 50%). Results: We evaluated 170 consecutive patients (77 females and 93 males). Median age was 61 years (range 35–83). Advance stage disease (> stage 1) based on DS or the ISS criteria was observed in 47.6% (n=81) and 53.3% (n=77) patients, respectively. Lytic lesions were noted in 70.6% (n=120) patients and secretory disease in 85.9% (n=146) patients. Estimated Spearman correlation coefficient between BM-MRI involvement and DS stage was 0.2795 (p = 0.0006; 95% CI 0.1222, 0.4368) demonstrating a significant association between BM-MRI involvement and DS stage. This correlation with clinical stage remained significant using the ISS system (p = 0.0001). The correlation of marrow infiltration on BM-MRI was also significantly associated with the presence of lytic bone disease (p Conclusions: BM-MRI is novel approach to quantify disease burden in patients with MM. Our investigation in a large cohort of patients demonstrates that the extent of marrow involvement determined by this method correlates accurately with other conventional methods used to assess myeloma disease burden such as clinical stage, lytic bone disease or B2M. We therefore conclude that BM-MRI can be routinely used to determine disease burden in patients with multiple and can be effectively employed in monitoring response to therapy.