cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Decline of Inflation and the Bull Market of 1982–1999

If stocks were severely undervalued in the late 1970s and early 1980s, then the bull market starting in 1982 was partly just a correction to more normal valuation levels. This paper tests the hypothesis that investors suffer from inflation illusion, resulting in the undervaluation of equities in the presence of inflation, with levered firms being undervalued the most. Using firm level data and a residual income/EVA model, we find evidence that errors in the valuation of levered firms during inflationary times result in depressed stock prices. Our misvaluation measure can be used with expected inflation to make statistically reliable predictions for real returns on the Dow during the subsequent year. Our model suggests that stocks were overvalued at the end of the 1990s.
Inactivation of human angiotensin converting enzyme by copper peptide complexes containing ATCUN motifs

The copper complex [KGHK-Cu]+ demonstrates catalytic inactivation of human angiotensin converting enzyme at sub-saturating concentrations, under oxidative conditions, with an observed rate constant k approximately 2.9 +/- 0.5 x 10(-2) min(-1).
Austerity versus Stimulus? Understanding Fiscal Policy Change at the International Monetary Fund Since the Great Recession

Since 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has become more open to the use of discretionary fiscal stimulus packages to deal with recessions, while changing its doctrine on the timing and content of fiscal consolidation. The article traces this evolution of the Fund's doctrine to staff politics, more diverse thinking in mainstream economics, and a careful framing of the message through the use of mainstream macroeconomic models. To map the changing contours of institutional views on fiscal policy through 2008–2013, the article undertakes a detailed content analysis of official publications from the Fiscal Affairs Department and the Research Department. The connection between these shifts and significant personnel shake-ups is demonstrated through an extensive biographical analysis of the authors of all IMF studies cited in the official reports of the two departments. The findings contribute to the emerging debate on the sources of intellectual and policy change in international economic organizations.
Integrating people and place: A density-based measure for assessing accessibility to opportunities

Mobile object analysis is a well-studied area of transportation and geographic information science (GIScience). Mobile objects may include people, animals, or vehicles. Time geography remains a key theoretical framework for understanding mobile objects' movement possibilities. Recent efforts have sought to develop probabilistic methods of time geography by exploring questions of data uncertainty, spatial representation, and other limitations of classical approaches. Along these lines, work has blended time geography and kernel density estimation in order to delineate the probable locations of mobile objects in both continuous and discrete network space. This suite of techniques is known as time geographic density estimation (TGDE). The present paper explores a new direction for TGDE, namely the creation of a density-based accessibility measure for assessing mobile objects' potential for interacting with opportunity locations. As accessibility measures have also garnered widespread attention in the literature, the goal here is to understand the magnitude and nature of the opportunities a mobile object had access to, given known location points and a time budget for its movement. New accessibility measures are formulated and demonstrated with synthetic trip diary data. The implications of the new measures are discussed in the context of people-based vs. placed-based accessibility analyses.
Radical cystectomy in patients with preexisting three-piece inflatable penile prosthesis

ABSTRACT Introduction Radical cystectomy with urinary diversion is the treatment of choice for muscle‐invasive, and certain populations with non‐invasive, urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. There have not been any reports to date on patients undergoing this surgery who have had previous placement of an inflatable penile prosthesis. Aim To present the outcomes of four patients with pre‐existing inflatable penile prostheses (IPP) with reservoirs within the space of Retzius who were subsequently treated with radical cystectomy for bladder cancer management. Methods After obtaining institutional review board approval, the demographic, clinical, and pathologic data were reviewed in the Johns Hopkins Cystectomy Database for patients who underwent radical cystectomy for bladder cancer from 1994 to 2012. A case series of four patients is presented who had a preexisting IPP and their post‐operative course and long‐term outcomes are reviewed. Results All four patients had radical cystectomy and ileal conduit urinary diversion with no intra‐operative or post‐operative complications. One patient was not sexually active and therefore had the reservoir explanted and not replaced. The other three patients had the reservoir removed prior to bladder extirpation and the tubing capped, with reservoir replacement in the pseudocapsule at the termination of the procedure. In one patient an omental flap was used to ensure separation between the reservoir and ileal conduit. The devices were all functional intra‐operatively and on follow‐up. Conclusions As erectile dysfunction is more commonly being diagnosed and treated with IPP insertion at younger ages, surgeons will increasingly encounter pre‐placed abdominal reservoirs when performing pelvic surgery. This case series of four patients undergoing radical cystectomy with prior‐placed IPPs reveals that the functionality of the IPP can be preserved while still performing oncologically sound extirpative procedures. Segal RL, Readal N, Pieororazio PM, Kutlu O, Schoenberg M, and Bivalacqua TJ. Radical cystectomy in patients with preexisting three‐piece inflatable penile prosthesis. J Sex Med **;**:**–**.
Methicillin-Resistant Staphyloccocus Aureus Heel Abscess: An Uncommon Emergency Department Diagnosis

Heel abscesses present as heel pain that progressively worsens, with associated tenderness and fullness at the heel pad. Radiological studies like computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, or ultrasound can help correctly diagnose a heel pad abscess. Generally, these patients require i.v. antibiotics and operative management to adequately drain the abscess. It is recommended to avoid incising the plantar aspect of the heel to minimize chronic post-drainage heel pain.
BEAM. An accelerator for speech recognition

BEAM is a hardware accelerator that has been designed and built for real-time execution of the SPHINX speaker-independent, continuous-speech recognition system and similar systems. SPHINX on BEAM is able to recognize sentences from a 1000-word vocabulary and a perplexity-60 grammar in about 1.3 times real time. BEAM does not use any custom integrated circuits. The architecture of the accelerator is described. Performance data are given and compared with those for other architectures. It is concluded that BEAM demonstrates how general-purpose technology can be used to build systems that are substantially faster than general-purpose systems. >
Scheduling for heavy-tailed and light-tailed workloads in queueing systems

In much of classical queueing theory, workloads are assumed to be light-tailed, with job sizes being described using exponential or phase type distributions. However, over the past two decades, studies have shown that several real-world workloads exhibit heavy-tailed characteristics. As a result, there has been a strong interest in studying queues with heavy-tailed workloads. So at this stage, there is a large body of literature on queues with light-tailed workloads, and a large body of literature on queues with heavy-tailed workloads. However, heavy-tailed workloads and light-tailed workloads differ considerably in their behavior, and these two types of workloads are rarely studied jointly. In this thesis, we design scheduling policies for queueing systems considering both heavy-tailed as well as light-tailed workloads. The motivation for this line of work is two-fold. First, since real world workloads can be heavy-tailed or light-tailed, it is desirable to design schedulers that are robust in their performance to distributional assumptions on the workload. Second, there might be scenarios where a heavy-tailed and a light-tailed workload interact in queueing system. In such cases, it is desirable to design schedulers that guarantee fairness in resource allocation for both workload types. In this thesis, we study three models involving the design of scheduling disciplines for both heavy-tailed as well as light-tailed workloads. In Chapters 3 and 4, we design schedulers that guarantee robust performance across heavy-tailed and light-tailed workloads. In Chapter 5, we consider a setting in which a heavy-tailed and a light-tailed workload complete for service. In this setting, we design scheduling policies that guarantee good response time tail performance for both workloads, while also maintaining throughput optimality.
Symbols, Frames, and Violence: Studying Ethnic War in the Philippines

This article examines the utility of opportunity theory, framing analysis, and symbolic politics theory in explaining the causes of ethnic war, focusing on the 1970s Mindanao case. Opportunity variables are present as expected, but process-tracing shows they do not operate according to the hypothesized mechanisms. The framing approach identifies several important dynamics. The resonance of frames was influenced by the salience of the issue highlighted, the narrative fidelity of the frame to preexisting cultural beliefs, the credibility of leaders proposing them, and processes of frame bridging. Symbolic politics theory offers the most complete explanation, embracing most of the alternative explanations’ insights while filling in their logical gaps. The symbolist analysis begins with group myths justifying hostility on both sides, the result of past Christian–Muslim warfare. Combined with fears of group extinction, opportunity factors, and hostile popular attitudes, these myths enabled group elites to manipulate emotive symbols to justify mobilization against the other group, creating a security dilemma spiral that resulted in the outbreak of war.
Minimally invasive resection of frontal recess/sinus inverted papilloma

Abstract Objective Inverted papilloma (IP) in the frontal recess/sinus poses a unique surgical challenge given the inherent difficulty in endoscopic visualization and limitations in access posed by the anatomic confines of the frontal recess/sinus. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of the minimally invasive endoscopic approach for resection of frontal recess/sinus IP. Study design Retrospective chart review. Methods Five patients with frontal recess/sinus IP comprised the focus of this study. Patient charts were reviewed for demographic data, tumor location and extent, histopathology, surgical treatment strategy, operative parameters (operative time, blood loss), recurrence rate, and follow-up. Results The average age was 55 years, and all patients were men. All patients underwent computer-aided endoscopic resection of histologically proven IP as the primary surgical modality. Adjunct approaches including endoscopic frontal trephination and modified endoscopic Lothrop were performed in 1 case each. No intra- or postoperative complications occurred in the patient group. No recurrences were noted by endoscopic and/or radiographic surveillance at mean follow-up of 16.8 months. Conclusions The minimally invasive endoscopic approach is effective for successful resection of frontal recess/sinus IP. Adjunctive open approaches or extended frontal drill-out approaches may be required to achieve complete tumor extirpation. Careful preoperative planning coupled with meticulous surgical technique are absolute requisites for successful management of these difficult tumors.
Mesoporöse Kohlenstoffmaterialien: Synthese und Modifizierung

Ihre grose spezifische Oberflache und ihre physikochemischen Eigenschaften machen porose Kohlenstoffmaterialien fur viele Anwendungen interessant. Die konventionellen Herstellungsmethoden liefern jedoch nur uneinheitlich porose Materialien, deren Porengrosenverteilungen, ganz zu schweigen von den Mesostrukturen, kaum zu steuern sind. Fortschritte bei anderen mesoporosen Materialien haben auch zur Entwicklung von Verfahren zur Synthese mesoporoser Kohlenstoffmaterialien mit extrem grosen spezifischen Oberflachen und geordneten Mesostrukturen gefuhrt, die als potenzielle Katalysatoren, Trennmedien und hochentwickelte elektronische Materialien in vielen Wissenschaftszweigen von Interesse sind. Die derzeit gangigen Synthesemethoden lassen sich in Harttemplat- und Weichtemplatmethoden unterteilen. Beide werden in diesem Beitrag gemeinsam mit Verfahren zur Funktionalisierung der Oberflachen der erhaltenen Kohlenstoffmaterialien vorgestellt.
A case of incontinentia pigmenti reactivation after 12-month immunizations

Incontinentia pigmenti (IP; Bloch-Sulzberger syndrome) is an X-linked dominant genodermatosis that can have several cutaneous, dental, skeletal, neurologic, and ocular manifestations, including retinal detachment, seizures, paralysis, developmental delay, hair loss, and abnormal dentition.1, 2, 3 Lethal for affected males in utero, IP presents overwhelmingly in females as a result of mutant X chromosome inactivation.2 Lyonization of the X chromosome is what contributes to the reticular or whorled vesiculobullous pattern pathognomonic for IP. Eighty percent of IP patients carry mutations in the NEMO gene, which codes for nuclear factor κB (NFκB) essential modulator.2 NFκB is crucial for the regulation of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced apoptosis.3 Reactivation is thought to occur when specific triggers (possibly infection, fevers, or vaccinations) reactivate pathways in residual mutant cells.3
DPPIV and Seprase in Cancer Invasion and Angiogenesis

DPPIV and seprase are Pro-Xaa cleaving enzymes that form complexes on invadopodia of activated cells, becoming potent ECM-degrading proteases5. The protease complex exerts its mechanism of action on the surface of tissue and cancerous cells that are activated for matrix invasion. Not discussed in this presentation, these peptidases have potential to process bioactive peptides, chemokines and pro-angiogenic peptides, which in turn regulate chemotaxis of leukocytes, endothelial cell sprouting, and the activation of specific cellular function. Here, seprase complexes are shown to be involved in the adhesion to and proteolysis of components of ECM that activate signal transduction for specific cellular activities, including the migration and invasion of stromal and tumor cells.
The cunning of recognition: Melanie Klein and contemporary critical theory

Ever since Freud introduced the idea of the death drive as a means of explaining the apparently inborn inclination towards aggression, psychoanalysis has been riven by the question of negativity. For social theorists who lean upon psychoanalysis, the question is even more acute: how should these theories interpret the persistence of misrecognition and violence within contemporary societies? Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition represents the most compelling attempt to address these questions within the so-called ‘third generation’ of critical theory, yet Honneth sidesteps or sublimates the most troubling aspects of the psychoanalytic legacy, displaying a quasi-Hegelian ‘cunning of recognition’ that sees human destructiveness as a purposive, experimental force within the psyche and the social. By rooting his theory in the work of D.W. Winnicott, Honneth avoids the ambivalent account of psychic and social life offered by object relations theorists such as Melanie Klein and Wilfrid Bion. However, I argue that Klein’s concept of ‘integration’ offers a more compelling orientation for social theory, insofar as it countenances the fragility of recognition alongside a desire for misrecognition. The turn to Klein and those directly influenced by her, such as Bion and Hanna Segal, has both theoretical and practical implications for contemporary critical theory. Theoretically it makes the case for reconnecting mainline critical theory – with its overtures to liberalism and deliberative democracy – with agonistic approaches to social life. Practically speaking it directs attention to the social and political spaces by which destructive impulses can be effectively articulated, held, and to some extent worked through. In particular, it offers a psychological and political defense of recent experiments in local, grassroots-organized truth and reconciliation processes.
Institutions for getting out of the way

In ‘Max U versus Humanomics: a Critique of Neoinstitutionalism’, Deirdre McCloskey tells us that culture matters – maybe more than do institutions – in explaining the Great Enrichment that some parts of the world have enjoyed over the past 200 years. But it is entrepreneurship, not culture or institutions, that is the proximate cause of economic growth. Entrepreneurship is not a hothouse flower that blooms only in a culture supportive of commercial activity; it is more like kudzu, which grows invasively unless it is cut back by culture and institutions. McCloskey needs to tell us more about the structure of the relationship among culture, institutions, and entrepreneurship, and thus to continue the grand project begun by Schumpeter.
Secondary Flow, Shear Stress and Sediment Transport

A mathematical modeling and computational technique is presented which is capable of treating and dealing with interactions among hydraulic variables is open channel flows, such as the distribution of primary flow velocity, channel cross section, discharge rate, secondary flow, shear stress, and sediment concentration. A shear stress formula is presented that can include the effect of secondary flow. The formula gives peak values of boundary shear that occur on the channel bottom near the corners and on the side walls. Such peak values of boundary shear are owing to the momentum transfer to the region by secondary flow. The simulation technique can be used as a decision-making tool in selecting engineering designs and controls for channel protections. The main role of secondary flow in sediment transport seems to be to transport sediments in the transverse direction, whereas the gravity brings sediments downward and the diffusion brings sediment particles upward. The vertical component of secondary flow seems to help gravity bring sediment down in most of the area in a transverse cross section of a channel.
Making a place in the city : place-making in urban informal settlements in Mexico.

Observers from a variety of disciplines agree that informal settlements account for the majority of housing in cities of the global South. Urban informal settlements, usually defined by certain criteria such as self-build housing, sub-standard services, and residents' low incomes, are often seen as problematic, due to associations with poverty, irregularity and marginalisation. In particular, despite years of research showing otherwise, policy and academic discourses continue to emphasise a division between the 'formal' and 'informal' city, meaning that informal settlements are often treated as outside 'normal' urban considerations. This thesis argues that the discursive construction of urban informal settlements in this way may contribute to their marginalisation, with material effects for residents, including displacement and eviction. Moving beyond static, binary characterisations of urban informal settlements, it aims to use a place-making approach to explore the discursive, spatial, social, cultural and political construction of place in this context, in order to unsettle some of the assumptions underlying these marginalising discourses. Research was carried out using a qualitative, ethnographic methodology in two case study neighbourhoods in Xalapa, Mexico. Mexico offers fertile ground to explore these issues. Despite an extensive regularisation programme, around 50 per cent of urban dwellers live in colonias populares, neighbourhoods with informal characteristics. The research found that local discourses reveal complex and ambivalent views of colonias populares, which both reproduce and undermine binary categorisations relating to 'informality'. In particular, local policies construct colonias populares in certain ways which may perpetuate their marginalisation, but also reveal the complexities of power relations affecting neighbourhoods within the city. However, it is a focus on residents' own place-making activities that hints at prospects for rethinking urban informal settlements. By capturing these messy, dynamic and contextualised processes that construct urban informal settlements as places, the analytical lens of place-making offers a view of the multiple influences which frame them. Informed by perspectives from critical social geography which seek to unsettle binaries and capture the 'ordinary' nature of cities, this thesis suggests imagining urban informal settlements differently, in order to re-evaluate their potential contribution to the city as a whole.
The Political Science Research and Teaching List

The Political Science Research and Teaching list (PSRT-L) is a moderated electronic discussion list on the Bitnet computer network (part of the internet). It deals with issues of interest to professional political scientists, both researchers and teachers. After three years in operation PSRT-L has grown to about 750 participants in 28 countries. Submissions from all sub-fields of political science as well as related disciplines are encouraged. A subscriber to the list can submit questions or comments merely by sending an electronic mail note to PSRT-L AT MIZZOU1 .MISSOURI.EDU. These notes are collected into digests which are then periodically re-posted to all subscribers. There are no costs associated with being a subscriber to PSRT-L once one has access to the network. PSRT-L is not intended to serve as a public forum for debate over current issues in politics as other lists fill that niche. Rather it is intended to provide an opportunity for political scientists to ask for advice, to present their ideas and ongoing research for discussion, to consider the directions in which the discipline is advancing, and to encourage the dissemination of new concepts in research and teaching. In addition, the list editors regularly post anouncements of job openings, other more specialized discussion lists, and upcoming conferences. A series of archival files are available to the subscriber of PSRT-L.
RESPONSIBILITY IN HEALTH CARE: SPANNING THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN LAW AND MEDICINE

One hears considerable criticism of health law today, and it comes from many quarters. Apparently, health law is not doing what others expect it to do. If the work of law includes apportioning responsibility for socially consequential actions, helping settle disputes, and ensuring a fair and orderly distribution of social goods, then health law should be concerned with matters such as: (a) the duties of physicians, hospitals, health insurers, and pharmaceutical companies toward their patients, especially in establishing which actions are obligatory (trying to cure, protecting confidentiality) and which ones are forbidden (the strong prohibition against harming the patient); (b) settling disputes about who will pay for health care, who can deliver care, or how to arrange for compensation when physicians or others make mistakes; and (c) fairly allocating health care under conditions of scarcity (including rules about what to do when an emergency room is full, for instance). 2 Health law is criticized for failing to do its job in each of
Biotic-Abiotic Interactions: Factors that Influence Peptide-Graphene Interactions.

Understanding the factors that influence the interaction between biomolecules and abiotic surfaces is of utmost interest in biosensing and biomedical research. Through phage display technology, several peptides have been identified as specific binders to abiotic material surfaces, such as gold, graphene, silver, and so forth. Using graphene–peptide as our model abiotic–biotic pair, we investigate the effect of graphene quality, number of layers, and the underlying support substrate effect on graphene–peptide interactions using both experiments and computation. Our results indicate that graphene quality plays a significant role in graphene–peptide interactions. The graphene–biomolecule interaction appears to show no significant dependency on the number of graphene layers or the underlying support substrate.
Theories of Memory and Aging: A Look at the Past and a Glimpse of the Future

The present article reviews theories of memory and aging over the past 50 years. Particularly notable is a progression from early single-mechanism perspectives to complex multifactorial models proposed to account for commonly observed age deficits in memory function. The seminal mechanistic theories of processing speed, limited resources, and inhibitory deficits are discussed and viewed as especially important theories for understanding age-related memory decline. Additionally, advances in multivariate techniques including structural equation modeling provided new tools that led to the development of more complex multifactorial theories than existed earlier. The important role of neuroimaging is considered, along with the current prevalence of intervention studies. We close with predictions about new directions that future research on memory and aging will take.
Detecting Pharmaceutical Spam in Microblog Messages

Microblogs are one of a growing group of social network tools. Twitter is, at present, one of the most popular forums for microblogging in online social networks, and the fastest growing. Fifty million messages flow through servers, computers, and cell phones on a wide variety of topics exchanged daily. With this considerable volume, Twitter is a natural and obvious target for spreading spam via the messages, called tweets. The challenge is how to determine if a tweet is a spam or not, and more specifically a special category advertising pharmaceutical products. The authors look at the essential characteristics of spam tweets and what makes m icroblogging spam unique from email or other types of spam. They review methods and tools currently available to identify general spam tweets. Finally, this work introduces a new methodology of applying text mining and data mining techniques to generate classifiers that can be used for pharmaceutical spam detection in the context of microblogging.
The Transitional Justice Gap: Exploring ‘Everyday’ Gendered Harms and Customary Justice in South Kivu, DR Congo

Feminist transitional justice (TJ) has greatly contributed to the study of justice in the ruins of war, notably around prosecuting wartime rape. At the same time, scholars have observed limitations to this research agenda such as externally-driven definitions gendered harms and how to address them. This paper explores two novel areas for feminist TJ research: ‘everyday gendered harms’ and customary justice. Based on a three month field study of baraza, a customary justice mechanism in parts of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, I explore three cases of ‘everyday’ harms against women: domestic violence, polygynous relationships and witchcraft. Through a substantive examination of these baraza cases, I highlight how studying the contextualised functioning of customary justice mechanisms provides new insights into different areas of feminist TJ scholarship, including women’s participation in the transition, justice for harms against women, and advancing gender equality. Additionally, this paper adds to the broader TJ literature by engaging with local TJ needs as they pertain to people’s everyday life in transition.
Effect of external stress on deuteride (hydride) precipitation in Zircaloy-4 using in situ neutron diffraction

Abstract In situ neutron diffraction is utilized to study the deuteride (hydride) precipitation behavior in a cold-worked stress-relieved (CWSR) Zircaloy-4 material upon cooling from 420 °C to room temperature with a 78 MPa external stress applied along the rolling direction (RD) of the material. Two banks detector capture the diffraction signal from two principal directions of the specimen, the normal direction (ND) and the rolling direction (RD). The evolution of deuterium concentration in zirconium solid solution along the two specimen directions is measured by studying the δ -(220) peak intensity, applying the Rietveld refinement method to the diffraction data and using the measured zirconium c-axis lattice distortion. The deuterium concentration is observed to be higher for zirconium grains in the ND than the RD. The terminal solid solubility of precipitation (TSSp) for deuterium in the solution is then described using the Arrhenius equation. It is observed that the applied stress reduces the energy term Q in the Arrhenius equation when compared with the unstressed Q values from the work of others. A model by Puls is applied to study the effect of stress on deuterium solubility, with polycrystalline hydride precipitation strain calculated using the Kearns factor representative of the studied material. The experimental result does not agree with the model prediction of Puls.
Motivations behind green consumption and the influence of environmental consciousness on consumer behaviour

This research aims to analyse the extent to which the motivation behind green consumption and the level of environmental consciousness influences intentions to consume green products and services. Explanatory and quantitative research was performed using an experimental methodology. The results reveal no significant influence on green consumption through social motivation (selfishness) compared with environmental motivation (altruism). Moreover, the greater the consumer's level of environmental consciousness, the higher their intention to use green products and services. Thus, it can be inferred that consumers with higher levels of environmental consciousness transform intention into behaviour.
Molecular Diagnosis of Thalassemias and Hemoglobinopathies: An ACLPS Critical Review.

Objectives To describe the use of molecular diagnostic techniques for patients with hemoglobin disorders. Methods A clinical scenario is presented in which molecular diagnosis is important for genetic counseling. Globin disorders, techniques for their diagnosis, and the role of molecular genetic testing in managing patients with these disorders are described in detail. Results Hemoglobin disorders, including thalassemias and hemoglobinopathies, are among the commonest genetic diseases, and the clinical laboratory is essential for the diagnosis of patients with these abnormalities. Most disorders can be diagnosed with protein-based techniques such as electrophoresis and chromatography. Since severe syndromes can result due to inheritance of combinations of globin genetic disorders, genetic counseling is important to prevent adverse outcomes. Protein-based methods cannot always detect potentially serious thalassemia disorders; in particular, α-thalassemia may be masked in the presence of β-thalassemia. Deletional forms of β-thalassemia are also sometimes difficult to diagnose definitively with standard methods. Conclusions Molecular genetic testing serves an important role in identifying individuals carrying thalassemia traits that can cause adverse outcomes in offspring. Furthermore, prenatal genetic testing can identify fetuses with severe globin phenotypes.
The Interplay between the Host Receptor and Influenza Virus Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase

The hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) glycoproteins of influenza A virus are responsible for the surface interactions of the virion with the host. Entry of the virus is mediated by functions of the HA: binding to cellular receptors and facilitating fusion of the virion membrane with the endosomal membrane. The HA structure contains receptor binding sites in the globular membrane distal head domains of the trimer, and the fusion machinery resides in the stem region. These sites have specific characteristics associated with subtype and host, and the differences often define species barriers. For example, avian viruses preferentially recognize α2,3-Sialic acid terminating glycans as receptors and mammalian viruses recognize α2,6-Sialic acid. The neuraminidase, or the receptor-destroying protein, cleaves the sialic acid from cellular membrane constituents and viral glycoproteins allowing for egress of nascent virions. A functional balance of activity has been demonstrated between the two glycoproteins, resulting in an optimum level of HA affinity and NA enzymatic cleavage to allow for productive infection. As more is understood about both HA and NA, the relevance for functional balance between HA and NA continues to expand, with potential implications for interspecies transmission, host adaptation, and pathogenicity.
In Memoriam: Robert J. Alexander (1918-2010): Pioneer Latin Americanist

Robert J. Alexander, one of the post- World War II pioneers in the study of Latin America and the Caribbean in the United States, died April 27, 2010. His was a remarkable career in terms of the quality and quantity of his scholarship and the depth and breadth of his social activism. Among his many accomplishments, he was one of the founders of the Middle Atlantic Council on Latin American Studies in 1979. He also served as President of MACLAS in 1987-88.
Thermodynamic modeling of the hybrid sulfur (HyS) cycle for hydrogen production

Abstract We have developed a comprehensive thermodynamic model for the ternary system sulfur dioxide + sulfuric acid + water based on a previously published thermodynamic model of the aqueous sulfuric acid system using the symmetric electrolyte NRTL (eNRTL) activity coefficient model. The eNRTL binary interaction parameters and the chemical equilibrium constants are regressed from experimental SO2 solubility data in aqueous sulfuric acid solutions. The model accurately represents all thermodynamic properties including vapor-liquid equilibrium, liquid-liquid equilibrium, calorimetric properties, and speciation over a wide acid concentration range, from pure water to pure sulfuric acid and pure sulfur dioxide, and temperatures from 273.15 to 393.15 K. The model should be very useful in supporting process research, development, and design of advanced water-splitting processes based on the hybrid sulfur (HyS) cycle.
Npas4 deficiency interacts with adolescent stress to disrupt prefrontal GABAergic maturation and adult cognitive flexibility

Healthy cognitive and emotional functioning relies on a balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This balance is largely established during early postnatal and adolescent developmental periods by maturation of the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system, including increased density of parvalbumin (PV) cells and perineuronal nets (PNNs). Genetic and/or environmental factors during adolescence can disrupt GABAergic maturation and lead to behavioral dysfunction in adulthood. The present study examined the interaction between chronic mild stress during adolescence and genetic deficiency of neuronal Per-Arnt-Sim domain 4 (Npas4), a brain-specific transcription factor that regulates inhibitory neurotransmission and that contributes to adolescent prefrontal GABAergic maturation. Male Npas4 wild-type (WT) and heterozygous (HET) mice were exposed to adolescent chronic stress and tested in adulthood for cognitive function using the attention set shifting task. When Npas4 deficiency was combined with adolescent stress, mice displayed impaired cognitive flexibility as observed by poor performance on the extra-dimensional set shift task. At the cellular level, adolescent stress increased the percentage of PV cells surrounded by PNNs in the PFC of adult WT animals, an effect that was not observed in HET mice. Additionally, Npas4 deficiency and/or adolescent stress dysregulated expression of certain GABAergic system markers. These results suggest that Npas4 mediates susceptibility to adolescent stress and subsequent cognitive functioning and inhibitory tone in adulthood. This shows a novel gene by environment interaction related to resilience vs vulnerability to stress, with implications for adolescent onset disorders like schizophrenia.
Complications with Early Onset Scoliosis

The surgical management of early onset scoliosis is fraught with a number of complications. In addition to medical complications associated with a heterogeneous group of underlying diagnoses, the potential for surgical complications is high given the paucity of spine/rib anchors and the competing effort to control deformity while allowing spinal growth. While the literature does not offer high level of evidence guidance on how to avoid complications related to implants, certain principles dictate that one should treat the entirety of the spinal deformity with a construct which is long enough to do so, utilizing dual-rod techniques for most deformities and whenever feasible, utilizing sufficient anchors to avoid early bone-implant failure. Risk factors for implant failure such as kyphosis and non-idiopathic diagnoses must be recognized.
Unitary PSL2 CM fields and the Colmez conjecture

Abstract We study certain unitary CM fields whose Galois closure has Galois group PSL 2 ( F q ) × Z / 2 Z . After investigating the CM types of these fields, we turn towards Colmez's conjectural formula on the Faltings heights of CM abelian varieties. We explicitly calculate the class functions appearing in the statement of the conjecture and then apply refinements of the recently proven average version to establish Colmez's conjecture in this case.
Improving the National Flood Insurance Program

This paper highlights factors that need to be considered for improving the National Flood Insurance Program in the USA to address the biases that lead individuals to not protect themselves against low-probability, high-consequence flood events. The errors that individuals exhibit in deciding not to purchase insurance or invest in loss reduction measures prior to a disaster can be traced to the effects of six biases: myopia, amnesia, optimism, inertia, simplification and herding. Along with two guiding principles for insurance, a behavioral risk audit can assist in designing a strategy using concepts from choice architecture coupled with economic incentives to encourage property owners in hazard-prone areas to purchase insurance and invest in cost-effective adaptation measures to protect themselves against future disaster losses.
High temperature superconductor (HTS) wires and tapes

Abstract: High temperature superconductor (HTS) wires and tapes have been an area of intense research, development and scaling up for manufacturing. Remarkable success has been achieved in overcoming problems with grain boundaries, anisotropy, and poor mechanical properties of ceramic HTS materials to fabricate wires and tapes. First-generation HTS tapes based on thermomechanical processing have been the workhorse of the superconductor industry, and several prototypes have been made for over a decade. Second-generation (2G) HTS tapes based on epitaxial thin-film deposition on highly-textured templates on flexible alloy substrates have been developed with numerous innovations in materials science, deposition processes and manufacturing equipment.
Video over Multi-hop CR Networks

In this chapter, we study the more challenging problem of video over multi-hop CR networks. As illustrated in Fig. 5.1, we consider an infrastructureless multi-hop CR network co-located with one or more fixed primary networks. CR users nonintrusively exploit white spaces in the licensed bands for streaming multiple videos.
Kidney Disease and Electrolyte Disturbances

Hypochloremic metabolic acidosis with increased anion gap points to classic metabolic disorders, e.g. methylmalonic acidemia. Renal tubular acidosis is hyperchloremic and there is no increase in anion gap; differential diagnosis is diarrheal disease. Urinary tract stone disease in pediatric populations should suggest an inborn error of metabolism. Renal Fanconi syndrome is the common result of several inherited metabolic disorders that cause renal tubular dysfunction. Renal tubular alkalosis is characteristic of the Bartter and Gitelman syndromes. Calcium excretion is decreased in Gitelman syndrome; it is normal or increased in the presence of defective genes, which cause Bartter syndrome.
Readability of Veterans’ Health Resources

AbstractThere are many veterans’ health resources. These resources provide much needed information to veterans, their loved ones, and caregivers. Online materials are available from a wide range of organizations including the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Oftentimes, veterans’ health information is written at an advanced reading level using complicated terminology and not the recommended fifth to eighth grade reading levels. This article will provide a list of these resources and a discussion of their readability in comparison to MedlinePlus.
The evolution of snow bedforms in the Colorado Front Range and the processes that shape them

Abstract. When wind blows over dry snow, the snow surface self-organizes into bedforms such as dunes, ripples, snow waves, and sastrugi. These bedforms govern the interaction between wind, heat, and the snowpack, but thus far they have attracted few scientific studies. We present the first time-lapse documentation of snow bedform movement and evolution, as part of a series of detailed observations of snow bedform movement in the Colorado Front Range. We show examples of the movement of snow ripples, snow waves, barchan dunes, snow steps, and sastrugi. We also introduce a previously undocumented bedform: the stealth dune. These observations show that (1) snow dunes accelerate minute-by-minute in response to gusts, (2) sastrugi and snow steps present steep edges to the wind and migrate downwind as those edges erode, (3) snow waves and dunes deposit layers of cohesive snow in their wake, and (4) bedforms evolve along complex cyclic trajectories. These observations provide the basis for new conceptual models of bedform evolution, based on the relative fluxes of snowfall, aeolian transport, erosion, and snow sintering across and into the surface. We find that many snow bedforms are generated by complex interactions between these processes. The prototypical example is the snow wave, in which deposition, sintering, and erosion occur in transverse stripes across the snowscape.
Community ecology as a framework for human microbiome research

The field of human microbiome research has revealed the intimate co-association of humans with diverse communities of microbes in various habitats in the human body, and the necessity of these microbes for the maintenance of human health. Microbial heterogeneity between humans and across spatial and temporal gradients requires multidimensional datasets and a unifying set of theories and statistical tools to analyze the human microbiome and fully realize the potential of this field. Here we consider the utility of community ecology as a framework for the interrogation and interpretation of the human microbiome.
Raman Spectroscopy: An Exploratory Study to Identify Post-Radiation Cell Survival

Resistance to radiotherapy has been an impediment in the treatment of cancer, and the inability to detect it at an early stage further exacerbates the prognosis. We have assessed the feasibility of...
Gefitinib resistance caused by a secondary mutation of the epidermal growth factor receptor

2637 Mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor gene conferring sensitivity to anilinoquinazoline EGFR inhibitors have recently been identified. Despite the typical dramatic tumor responses to such inhibitors, patients will eventually relapse with time and the mechanism of relapse has not been identified. A patient with advanced lung adenocarcinoma with a del747-752 EGFR mutation treated with gefitinib had a durable remission, but relapsed after 24 months of treatment. The DNA sequencing of exons 18-21 of his original specimen as well as his biopsy on relapse demonstrated persistence of the 747-752 deletion. The DNA sequence of his tumor biopsy from his relapse revealed a new, secondary C-to-T base pair change leading to a Thr-Met amino acid substitution at position 790. This amino acid change corresponds to one of the common bcr-abl kinase mutations conferring STI-571 resistance. Structural modeling suggested that this change would lead to the introduction of a bulkier amino acid side chain into a hydrophobic pocket of the ATP-binding site of the EGFR molecule. Further modeling also suggested that this substitution would lead to likely steric hindrance of either erlotinib or gefitinib binding due to the juxtaposition of the methionine side chain and the acetylene or chloride side chain of the anilino group of the respective inhibitor. Plasmid constructs were generated introducing this amino acid change into wild-type, L858R mutant, del747-753insS as well as del747-752 constructs. In transient transfection experiments, equal expression as well as phosphoprotein generation upon EGF stimulation between all the corresponding construct pairs (primary versus resistance mutant) was seen. While gefitinib completely inhibited EGF-stimulated phospho-EGFR generation of the non-resistance mutant constructs at concentrations of 2-20 nM, all four constructs carrying the Thr-Met substitution showed high level resistance to gefitinib with sustained EGFR phosphorylation at concentrations as high as 2 μM. A screen of commercially available EGFR inhibitors demonstrated that one of the screened inhibitors, CL-387,785, inhibited both the del747-752 as well as the del747-752 plus resistance mutant constructs with nearly the same potency with full inhibition observed at a concentration as low as 30nM. CL-387,785 is an irreversible, anilinoquinazoline inhibitor of EGFR. In summary, we have identified a novel, in vivo occurring mutation of the EGFR conferring gefitinib resistance and thereby describe the first resistance mutation in an oncogenic tyrosine kinase in a common epithelial cancer. We also demonstrate an alternative compound which can inhibit this mutant receptor, suggesting that drugs of this class might be useful in patients who relapse while on treatment with gefitinib.