cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Who will establish a proper data model for family medicine and primary care

The policy brief in this issue 1 used recent data concerning published accounts of primary care workforce innovations to contrast the way questions were formulated and the grants and interventions designed for National Institutes of Health (NIH)–funded studies versus studies based on routine practice. The majority of NIH-funded studies focused on diseases, biomedical data, and adherence to requirements of the research design. In contrast, innovating practices typically focused on plausible solutions to practice problems, given local conditions and constraints. Critical contextual factors in practices were ignored in many NIH-funded studies. The practice-based, contextualized approach tended to yield results that were easier to implement and sustain in practice. To quibble about the precision of the contrasts is to miss the point of this brief, which contemporizes a persistent, stubborn problem for primary care as a function and family medicine as a discipline. Given the importance of expanding usable knowledge to improve practice, these findings matter. In the policy brief, Etz et al 1 recommend that the NIH alter some of its research policies to place higher value on contextual learning and change the way studies about practice innovation are evaluated, along with the measures they use to do so. This situation, a contest in which advocates “espouse competing understandings of reality and the nature of knowledge and struggle in various realms to achieve validatio n...f ortheir styles of reasoning,” 2 is not news in general or in family medicine and primary care in particular. 3-6 While research policymakers would do well to act immediately on this brief’s recommendations, perhaps family medicine and primary care should recognize again that instead of external factors, conditions internal to the discipline and primary care may play a dominant role in underachievement. 7 One serious inter
Principled disambiguation: discriminating adjective senses with modified nouns

Recent corpus-based work on word sense disambiguation explores the application of statistical pattern recognition procedures to lexical co-occurrence data from very large text databases. In this paper we argue for a linguistically principled approach to disambiguation, in which relevant contextual clues are narrowly defined, in syntactic and semantic terms, and in which only highly reliable clues are exploited. Statistical methods play a definite role in this work, helping to organize and analyze data, but the disambiguation method itself does not employ statistical data or decision criteria. This approach results in improved understanding of the disambiguation problem both in general and on a word-specific basis and leads to broadly applicable and nearly errorless clues to word sense. The approach is illustrated by an experiment discriminating among the senses of adjectives, which have been relatively neglected in work on sense disambiguation. In particular, the paper assesses the potential of nouns for discriminating among the senses of adjectives that modify them. This assessment is based on an empirical study of five of the most frequent ambiguous adjectives in English: hard, light, old, right, and short. About three-quarters of all instances of these adjectives can be disambiguated almost errorlessly by the nouns they modify or by the syntactic constructions in which they occur. Such disambiguation requires only simple rules, which can be automated easily. Furthermore, a small number of semantic attributes supply a compact means of representing the noun clues in a very few rules. Clues other than nouns are required when modified nouns are not useable. The sense of an ambiguous modified noun may be needed to determine the relevant semantic attribute for disambiguation of a target adjective; and other adjectives, verbs, and grammatical constructions all show evidence of high reliability, and sometimes of high applicability, when they stand in specific, well-defined syntactic relations to the ambiguous adjective. Some of these clues, however, may be hard to automate.
A multi-paradigm simulator for simulating complex adaptive supply chain networks

This paper introduces a multi-paradigm dynamic system simulator based on discrete time and discrete event formalism for simulating a supply chain as a complex adaptive system. Little is known about why such a diversity of supply chain structures exist. Simulating dynamic supply chain networks over extended periods using the multi-paradigm dynamic system simulator allows us to observe the emergence of different structures. The simulator is implemented using a software agent technology, where individual agents represent firms in a supply chain network. In this paper, we present an example scenario run on the simulator and the preliminary results that have been observed. This multi-paradigm tool provides a valuable investigation instrument for real life supply chain problems.
Estimation and inference in sets of Weibull samples

Menon’s method of estimation of the Weibull parameters is extended to the analysis of multiple samples of a common size. A methodology is developed for testing the equality of shape parameters among the populations from which the samples are drawn. When the shape parameters are judged to be equal, point and interval estimates of the common shape parameter are constructed. An analysis of variance approach is shown to be valid for testing the equality of scale parameters when a common shape parameter is hypothesized. A post hoc multiple comparison test is developed for assessing which scale parameters differ. Confidence intervals on a percentile may be set for any of the sample populations using the estimated common shape parameter. Tables of the percentage points of the distributions needed for testing hypotheses and constructing interval estimates were obtained by Monte Carlo sampling and are given for a useful range of sample sizes and number of samples. The result is a comprehensive, easily computed, me...
Ribosomal RNA Gene Silencing in Interpopulation Hybrids of Tigriopus californicus: Nucleolar Dominance in the Absence of Intergenic Spacer Subrepeats

A common feature of interspecific animal and plant hybrids is the uniparental silencing of ribosomal RNA gene transcription, or nucleolar dominance. A leading explanation for the genetic basis of nucleolar dominance in animal hybrids is the enhancer-imbalance model. The model proposes that limiting transcription factors are titrated by a greater number of enhancer-bearing subrepeat elements in the intergenic spacer (IGS) of the dominant cluster of genes. The importance of subrepeats for nucleolar dominance has repeatedly been supported in competition assays between Xenopus laevis and X. borealis minigene constructs injected into oocytes. However, a more general test of the importance of IGS subrepeats for nuclear dominance in vivo has not been conducted. In this report, rRNA gene expression was examined in interpopulation hybrids of the marine copepod Tigriopus californicus. This species offers a rare opportunity to test the role of IGS subrepeats in nucleolar dominance because the internal subrepeat structure, found in the IGS of virtually all animal and plant species, is absent in T. californicus. Our results clearly establish that nucleolar dominance occurs in F1 and F2 interpopulation hybrids of this species. In the F2 generation, nucleolar dominance appears to break down in some hybrids in a fashion that is inconsistent with a transcription factor titration model. These results are significant because they indicate that nucleolar dominance can be established and maintained without enhancer-bearing repeat elements in the IGS. This challenges the generality of the enhancer-imbalance model for nucleolar dominance and suggests that dominance of rRNA transcription in animals may be determined by epigenetic factors as has been established in plants.
Low energy plasmon peaks in the electron energy loss spectra of single-wall carbon nanotubes

Abstract Recent measurement of the momentum-dependent electron energy loss spectra (EELS) of single-wall carbon nanotubes revealed several low energy peaks in addition to the π plasmon π + σ plasmon peaks in the ranges of 5–7 eV and 21–24 eV, respectively. In the present Letter it is shown that the low energy peaks can be attributed to the plasmons associated with the collective azimuthal motion of the electrons on the surface of the nanotubes.
Race- and Sex-Specific Incidence Rates and Predictors of Total Knee Arthroplasty: Seven-Year Data From the Osteoarthritis Initiative

Objective To determine race- and sex-specific rates of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and to document independent effects of demographic factors on TKA incidence in a population with radiographically confirmed osteoarthritis (OA). Methods We used data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative, a US-based, multicenter longitudinal study of knee OA. We selected subjects with radiographic symptomatic OA at baseline and determined TKA incidence rates (ratio of TKAs to time at risk for TKA) over 84 months of followup. We used multivariable Poisson regression to identify independent associations between demographic factors and TKA utilization. Results During the study period there were 223 TKAs among 1,915 subjects for an incidence of 1.9% (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.7–2.2%). The overall rate was 1.9% (95% CI 1.5–2.3%) in men versus 2.0% (95% CI 1.7–2.3%) in women, and 2.2% (95% CI 1.9–2.6%) in whites versus 1.0% (95% CI 0.7–1.5%) in nonwhites. We observed a statistically significant interaction between sex and age (stratified at <65 and ≥65 years at end of followup), wherein male sex was associated with decreased risk of TKA for younger participants (relative risk [RR] 0.32) but not for older participants. Nonwhite race was associated with a decreased risk of TKA for both younger (RR 0.32) and older (RR 0.43) participants. Conclusion Our finding that nonwhites were less likely to undergo TKA than whites in adjusted analyses confirms racial differences observed in population-based studies and underscores the need for interventions to address lower use of TKA among nonwhites with OA.
Topology based packet marking

Recently, several schemes have been proposed for IP traffic source identification for tracing attacks that employ source address spoofing such as denial of service (DoS) attacks. Most of these schemes are based on packet marking (i.e., augmenting IP packets with partial path information). A major challenge to packet marking schemes is the limited space available in the IP header for marking purposes. In this paper, we focus on this issue and propose a topology based encoding schemes supported by real Internet measurements. In particular, we propose an idealized deterministic edge append scheme in which we assume that the IP header can be modified to include the marking option field of fixed size. Also, we propose a deterministic pipelined packet marking scheme that is backward compatible with IPv4 (i.e., no IP header modification). The validity of both schemes depends directly on the statistical information that we extract from large data sets that represent Internet maps. Our studies show that it is possible to encode an entire path using 52 bits
Constrained Matching is Type Safe

Temporally constrained matching in a persistent and declarative object-oriented system is introduced as a semantic alternative to the existing approaches to the covariance/contravariance problem. While the existing object-oriented type systems are based on subtyping, F-bounded polymorphism and matching, this language system is based entirely on inheritance, which is identified with matching. The type of matching used in this paper relies on the temporal constraint system. We prove that this constrained matching guarantees type safe substitutability even in situations where matching alone would not. This is possible only because the underlying formal system is semantically much richer than the paradigms of type systems. Its temporal constraint system can capture subtleties that go far beyond the level of expressiveness of object-oriented type systems. The temporal nature of the language and its distinctive orthogonal model of persistence make this language system successful in handling a variety of non-trivial applications.
Managing responsiveness of virtual desktops using passive monitoring

Desktop virtualization is a new computing approach to application delivery and management. It leverages OS virtualization and remoting protocols to provide users with remote access to virtual machines running in a centralized data center. It promises significant benefits in terms of improved data security, reduced management complexity, and more efficient and flexible resource usage. However, it brings a lot of management challenges typical for centralized systems, with performance and quality of service management being one of the most important. This paper proposes a management algorithm suitable for efficient resource allocation in virtualized desktop environments and takes application performance QoS features into consideration. It proposes a novel, non-intrusive method for application and remoting protocol agnostic desktop responsiveness monitoring. Moreover, it is based on studies of desktop workload usage which enabled us to discover and leverage workload patterns that can lead to increased efficiency both in terms of desktop responsiveness and resource usage. We have prototyped the system and discuss several case studies validating the approach and illustrating the most important features of the solution.
Rethinking Historical Trauma: Narratives of Resilience

There is significant variation in how people experience, emplot and intergenerationally transmit trauma experiences. Despite this variation, the literature rarely illustrates alternative manifestations or resilient responses to the construct of historical trauma. Based upon person-centered ethnographic research, this article highlights how a four-generation American Indian family contextualizes historical trauma and, specifically, how they frame their traumatic past into an ethic that functions in the transmission of resilience strategies, family identity, and as a framework for narrative emplotment. In conclusion, the author clarifies the distinction between historical trauma--the precipitating conditions or experiences--and the historical trauma response--the pattern of diverse responses that may result from exposure to historical trauma.
Analysis and comparison of the microbial community structures of two enrichment cultures capable of reductively dechlorinating TCE and cis-DCE.

Summary In order to study the effect of different chloroethenes (electron acceptors) on the bacterial composition of dechlorinating communities, two reductive dechlorinating enrichment cultures were developed that were able to reduce trichloroethene (TCE) and cis -1,2dichloroethene ( cis -DCE) to ethene using hydrogen as electron donor, respectively. The inoculum for the cultures was material from a methanogenic fluidized bed reactor (FBR), which was originally seeded with digester sludge and showed a stable capacity for tetrachloroethene (PCE) reduction to ethene for over six years. Molecular methods were used to determine and compare the microbial communities of these two enrichment cultures. A clone library of bacterial 16S rRNA genes was generated for each enrichment. The clones were screened into different groups by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis using two different four base pair recognition restriction enzymes. A total of 12 sequence types were identified by phylogenetic analysis of nearly complete 16S rDNA sequences ( ~ ~ ~ 1450 bp). The sequences were affiliated with six recognized phyla of the domain Bacteria: Firmicutes (low G + C Gram-positives), Chloroflexi (green non-sulphur bacteria), Actinobacteria (high G + + + C Gram-positives), Bacteroidetes (Cytophaga-Flexibacter-Bacteroides), Nitrospira and Spirochaetes. The results led to the identification of an organism closely related to Dehalococcoides ethenogenes to be the presumptive dechlorinator in both enrichments. Different electron acceptors affected the bacterial diversity and the community profiles of the two enrichments. Most of the sequences identified in our dechlorinating enrichments shared high similarities with sequences previously obtained from other enriched dechlorinating cultures and chlorinatedcompound-contaminated sediments or aquifers, suggesting these bacteria may have direct or indirect roles in reductive dechlorination.
Optimal slack-driven block shaping algorithm in fixed-outline floorplanning

This paper presents an efficient, scalable and optimal slack-driven shaping algorithm for soft blocks in non-slicing floorplan. The proposed algorithm is called SDS. Different from all previous approaches, SDS is specifically formulated for fixed-outline floorplanning. Given a fixed upper bound on the layout width, SDS minimizes the layout height by only shaping the soft blocks in the design. Iteratively, SDS shapes some soft blocks to minimize the layout height, with the guarantee that the layout width would not exceed the given upper bound. Rather than using some simple heuristic as in previous work, the amount of change on each block is determined by systematically distributing the global total amount of available slack to individual block. During the whole shaping process, the layout height is monotonically reducing, and eventually converges to an optimal solution. We also propose two optimality conditions to check the optimality of a shaping solution. To validate the efficiency and effectiveness of SDS, comprehensive experiments are conducted on MCNC and HB benchmarks. Compared with previous work, SDS is able to achieve the best experimental result with significantly faster runtime.
Race, Casualties, and Opinion in the Vietnam War

The wartime roles of race and public opinion represent contested issues in the growing literature on war and domestic politics, especially in studies of the Vietnam War. We develop a "modified sociotropic" approach that allows us to examine three sets of propositions about the influence of race on individual opinion of the Vietnam War. (1) The race of citizens affects their opinion. (2) The race of respondents influences their sensitivity to casualties. (3) A citizen is more sensitive to casualties from his or her own racial group and less sensitive to casualties of other groups. We test these propositions with data from eight pooled surveys of 6,300 Californians during the Vietnam War and racially disaggregated proximate wartime casualties. We find that African-Americans do not differ significantly from whites in their approval early on, but are significantly less likely to support the war in the latter stages. However, both whites and blacks largely react similarly to proximate casualties, whether or no...
Recovering Heritage and Homeland: Ethnic Revival Among Fourth‐Generation Japanese Americans

In recent years, fourth-generation Japanese American youth have been attempting to recover their ethnic heritage and reconnect with their ancestral homeland. This ethnic revival is a response to their continued racialization as “Japanese,” which has caused them to become concerned about their overassimilation to American society in an era of multiculturalism where cultural heritage and homeland have come to be positively valued. As a result, they are studying Japanese, majoring in Asian studies, living in Japan as college exchange students, and participating in Japanese taiko drum ensembles in local ethnic communities. Although this return to ethnic roots is a more serious commitment than the symbolic ethnicity observed among white ethnics in the past, it indicates that ethnicity remains involuntary for racial minorities, even after four generations. The case of later-generation Japanese Americans demonstrates that cultural assimilation does not preclude the continuation and active production of ethnic difference.
DSP implementation of a DRP™ -based low cost software-defined emergency radio

The Project25 (P25) standard was developed to serve the communication needs of emergency workers and the public safety community. Using a software-defined radio structure for emergency radio standard within the framework of an RF ASIC/SoC like Texas Instruments (TI) low cost Digital RF Processor (DRP™) chip is an important step forward to help the public safety community reduce hardware costs while achieving interoperability. In this paper, we highlight how this can be achieved using programmable digital signal processors (DSPs) which perform baseband processing.
Maternal Parenting Behaviors and Child Coping in African American Families

The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of three parental influences (i.e., socialization of coping, modeling of coping, and the parent–child relationship) on coping strategies of African American children, as well as child gender as a moderator of these associations. Participants were 83 African American children (mean age 11.2, SD 1.44) and their maternal caregivers (mean age 40.45, SD 9.55). Both children and parents completed measures of coping behaviors, parental socialization of coping, and maternal support. Regression analyses demonstrated that child reports of their mothers’ behavior were better predictors of child coping than mothers’ self-reports, with child reports of maternal support and socialization of coping predicting child coping. Results also revealed that child gender moderated the association between maternal parenting behavior and child coping. Specifically, maternal parenting behaviors were more important for girls’ coping strategies than for boys’ coping strategies. Our results add to the literature on the effects of parent–child relationships on children’s responses to stress.
COMPOSITE EXHAUST EMISSIONS RATES: SENSITIVITY TO VEHICLE POPULATION AND MILEAGE ACCRUAL ASSUMPTIONS

In the California Air Resources Board's newest model of mobile-source emissions, EMFAC 2002, vehicle population and mileage accrual data have been revised such that regional vehicle miles traveled (VMT) are calculated from vehicle population and accrual data [rather than directly, using metropolitan planning organization (MPO) estimates]. Calculated VMT is forced to match the MPO VMT estimate by scaling the mileage accrual rates and altering vehicle population data. Vehicle population and mileage accrual data also determine how VMT is allocated across the vehicle model years present in the vehicle fleet; thus, modification of these data also changes the fraction of the VMT associated with each model year in the vehicle fleet. Composite emissions rates were estimated based on various vehicle population and mileage accrual data. Small perturbations in age distributions and accrual data have a larger-than-expected impact on the composite emissions rates for light-duty automobiles. For example, total organic gas emissions varied by nearly a factor of 3 between the lowest and highest estimated emissions rates, and either emissions rate could justifiably be used in an inventory. Recommendations for VMT and accrual data in subsequent release of EMFAC 2002 are provided, giving preference to the methods used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Party systems and the dynamics of government support: Britain and Germany, 1960–1990

. This paper examines the impact that one feature of a country's institutional context -the party system - has on public support for governing parties in two West European democracies, Germany and Great Britain. Specifically, it argues that models of government popularity need to take politics and institutions into account, and need to do so in a systematic fashion. Using measures of party system fractionalization and public opinion data spanning the period from 1960 to 1990, the paper demonstrates that the effects of economic conditions on government support are mediated by the choices available to citizens to express discontent with the ruling party. The greater the effective number of parties in a system, the stronger the effects of macro-economic performance on support for the government.
Introduction to Statistical Inference

1. A sample is a subset of individuals derived from a given population. 2. Statistical inference relates findings from a sample to those in the population. 3. Generalizability refers to the scientific/practical relevance of the underlying population. 4. Factors that increase the likelihood that sample findings reflect those of the population: a. Large sample size b. Small population variation 5. 95% confidence intervals: (a) If a study is repeated indefinitely and a 95% confidence interval placed around each sample mean, then 95% of the intervals will contain the true population mean. (b) Can be calculated without knowing the true population mean. (c) Will be narrower when the sample size is large and the sample variation is small. 6. P-values: (a) Given a null hypothesis regarding the population, the p-value is the probability of observing the sample result, or a more extreme result, due to sampling variation. (b) Findings from a particular sample are used to make an inference about the true results in the population.
Resection is safe for patients with stage IIIA NSCLC undergoing multimodality therapy

Abstract Background Controversy continues regarding the optimal therapy for stage IIIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Improved survival has been shown in patients undergoing multimodality therapy that includes surgical intervention. Methods Stage IIIA NSCLC demographics, post-treatment survival, complications and survival rates were compared with stage I and stage II NSCLC. Results Mean age for patients from all groups was over 60 years ( p =0.66). They had similar BMI ( p =0.35) and the majority of the patients in all groups were females ( p =0.51). Lobectomy was the most used procedure in all three groups; 93% in patients with stage I NSCLC, 73% and 76% in patients with stage II and IIIA, respectively ( p p 24h; 3%) than patients in stage I ( p =0.032). Median hospital length of stay was 3 days for stage II and IIIA patients and 2 days for patients with stage I ( p Conclusions Pulmonary resection as an initial therapy or following neoadjuvant radiation and chemotherapy is safe for patients with stage IIIA NSCLC. Locally advanced disease does not confer increased risk of perioperative morbidity or mortality in our study population.
Asian Americans: Engaging Online

The Internet has rapidly become a familiar communications medium at the workplace, at home, and on the streets. Fortunately, this trend has not passed Asian Americans by. Notwithstanding substantial variance among subpopulations, it is fair to say that Asian Americans as a racial group are on average well-connected to the Internet. What then are the implications for Asian American civic engagement? This Chapter addresses that question, first, by examining how Asian Americans are currently using online communities, with special focus on ethnic-specific forms of Internet-mediated engagements. Next, it analyzes a specific aspect of political engagement - voting - which may soon be strongly influenced by the Internet. Finally, it explores how the increasing significance of computer-mediated communications might alter or disrupt how race operates both online and off, and what that might mean for Asian America.
Evidence for a novel binding protein to urokinase-type plasminogen activator in platelet membranes

Endogenous urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA) has been identified in platelet membrane, and platelets have been shown to take up exogenous high molecular weight u-PA from the ambient medium. In this report, the mechanism of the association of u-PA with platelets was investigated using recombinant, single chain u-PA. When gel filtered human platelets were incubated with radiolabeled u-PA, the u- PA was found to specifically and saturably bind to the resting platelets in a dose-dependent manner. Unlabeled u-PA and the amino terminal fragment of u-PA inhibited 125I-u-PA binding to platelets with a mean IC50 of 65 and 58 nmol/L, respectively. A single saturable binding site in intact resting platelets was found with a mean kd of 43 +/- 25 nmol/L and 2263 +/- 809 sites per platelet. In contrast to resting platelets, 125I-u-PA did not bind to thrombin-induced platelets. Western blotting studies, using a monoclonal or a polyclonal antibody specific for the u-PA cell-surface receptor (u- PAR), failed to show evidence of u-PAR in resting platelets, whereas, u-PAR was found at approximately 54 and approximately 48 kD on U937 monocytes, which served as a positive control. Ligand blotting of platelet membrane and of U937 cell proteins with 125I-u-PA revealed a u-PA binding protein of approximately 70 kD in the platelets and one of approximately 54 kD in the U937 cells. Complexion of u-PA with a platelet membrane protein was also shown by gel filtration of a mixture of u-PA and platelet membrane proteins. A u-PA complex was further shown by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay when microtiter plates were coated with platelet membrane proteins, and this complex formation was shown to be dose-dependent and saturable with an apparent kd of 17 nmol/L. It was concluded that platelet membrane contains a specific, high affinity u-PA-binding protein that is distinct from u-PAR.
Stretch-activated single-channel and whole cell currents in vascular smooth muscle cells

Mechanosensitive ion channels may play a key role in transducing vascular smooth muscle (VSM) stretch into active force development. To test this hypothesis, we recorded single-channel and macroscopic currents during mechanical stimulation of enzymatically dispersed vascular smooth muscle cells. Patch pipette suction activated a nonselective cation channel that was permeable to K+, Na+, and Ca2+. Whole cell stretch was accomplished using two patch-type micropipettes attached to the cell ends with suction. Stretch elicited a sustained depolarization with a magnitude similar to that observed in pressurized arteries. Under whole cell voltage clamp, stretch activated an inward current with a reversal potential near -15 mV. In another series of experiments, whole cell stretch failed to modify the current-voltage relationship for voltage-gated calcium currents. Thus, in VSM, both single-channel and whole cell data are consistent with activation of a nonselective cation channel by stretch. This mechanism may, in part, account for pressure-induced activation of intact blood vessels.
Surgical Case Logging Habits and Attitudes: A Multispecialty Survey of Residents

Objective The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education measures surgical residents’ experience in the United States by mandating that residents log each procedure in which they have participated. This system is the primary mechanism by which breadth and depth of surgical training are documented, and data are used for program accreditation and by individual program directors to assess resident preparedness. The study objective was to learn from residents across surgical specialties how this system is being used, and whether they believe these data are reliable. Design Investigators developed and administered a voluntary, 45-item survey. Resident demographic data, program details, logging behaviors, and attitudes were examined using descriptive statistics. Authors used multivariate logistic regression to assess respondent and program characteristics associated with logging habits. Setting The survey was administered at a large academic medical center. Participants All general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedics, urology, neurosurgery, otolaryngology, and plastic surgery residents were eligible. Of 126 surgical residents, 82 participated, yielding a response rate of 65%. Results Overall, 7.5% considered the case log system highly inaccurate, 28.8% somewhat inaccurate, 52.5% somewhat accurate, and 11.3% highly accurate. Nearly half (48.1%) use an incorrect metric to log their role as surgeon or assistant. Half logged monthly or less frequently. The longest time residents reported falling behind ranged from less than a week to more than a year, with about half (51.4%) reporting backlogs of 3 months or longer. Approximately two-thirds considered the system difficult to navigate (64.2%) and burdensome (68.8%). Departmental training and reminders to log were associated with high fidelity logging habits. Conclusions Inconsistency of logging habits and perceived lack of accuracy raise concerns about use of the system for assessing surgical preparedness or accrediting training programs. Academic departments playing an active role may benefit from more reliable data to guide improvements in surgical training.
Abstract 3432: p38 and Snail are critical for downregulation of E-cadherin during EMT in HNSCC

Objectives: To determine the roles of Snail and p38 in the inflammation-induced promotion of EMT in HNSCC. Study Design: A molecular biology study. Real-time quantitative RT-PCR, Western blot analysis, spheroid modeling, and immunohistochemical staining of human HNSCC tissue sections were used to determine how inflammation affects Snail and p38. Setting: An academic hospital laboratory. Subjects and Methods: Relative RNA levels were determined by RT-PCR, and protein expression was evaluated by immunofluorescence (IF) and in situ by immunohistochemical staining of human HNSCC tissue sections. Results: p38 kinase inhibitor treated, and p38 shRNA HNSCC cell lines demonstrated a significant upregulation in E-cadherin mRNA and a decrease in the mRNA expression of the transcriptional repressor Snail. p38 shRNA HNSCC cell lines show a less invasive phenotype in a spheroid model. An inverse relationship between p38 and E-cadherin was demonstrated in situ by immunohistochemical staining of human HNSCC tissue sections. p38 is required for the robust IL-1β induced E-cadherin downregulation and Snail upregulation. IL-1β increases p-p38 and has a more rapid and robust effect on p38 in Snail overexpressing cell lines. Conclusions: In gastrulation, it is a Snail-independent pathway in which p38 is required in the primitive streak to downregulate E-cadherin expression at the posttranscriptional level. Herein we provide the first report that p38 is required for the Snail-induced E-cadherin down-regulation and cell invasion in HNSCC. A Snail-p38 feedback loop jointly down regulates E-cadherin and drives a potent EMT in HNSCC. This newly defined pathway has important implications for targeted chemoprevention and therapy. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3432. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3432
Surveillance on status of schistosomiasis in Gaoyou part of the east line of South-north Water Diversion Project in 2006

Objective To explore the survey methods and control measures for schistosomiasis,and provide the scientific preventing and control basis for schistosomiasis after the east line of water distribution project working in Gaoyou part of the east line of South-north Water Diversion Project.Methods The 3 km range of water distribution line including Sanyang Rive and Grand Canal within the Gaoyou boundary were selected as study areas in 2006,and survey on snail distribution and schistosomiasis were carried out,and the corresponding preventing and controlling measure was also adopted.Results Through 1 year epidemic situation monitor,the oval situation of Gaoyou was shown that no case was found although there were snails.The area of snail habitat was less than 2% the area of history snail habitats,no infected snail and population and livestock was found,and two import cases were found using dipstick dye immunoassay(DDIA).The survival snails were killed using 4% powder of niclosamide ethanolamine salt,and the killing effect was good.Health education was carried out to provide the advantageous condition for mass prevention and treatment.Conclusion The measures adopted in study areas can effectively control the epidemic situation of schistosomiasis.After the project work,health education and survey on the high risk and floating population should be strengthen,and the society source should be used to control and kill the survival snails.
133 A CASE REPORT OF HEPARIN-INDUCED THROMBOCYTOPENIA AND THROMBOTIC THROMBOCYTOPENIC PURPURA OCCURRING CONCURRENTLY IN A PATIENT WITH SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS

Acute thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has been described in the literature. Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) in this setting is rare and difficult to diagnose. This is an interesting case report of HIT and TTP occurring in a patient with underlying lupus. A 28 year old female with SLE presented to our institution with complaints of weakness, fever, and confusion. She was severely anemic on admission with hemoglobin of 5 g and hematocrit of 15.9 g%. Platelets were 50 × 109/L, reticulocytes were elevated at 140 × 109/L and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) was 1172 U/L (normal 150-250 U/L). Total bilirubin was 2.7 mmol/L, blood urea nitrogen was 78 mg/dL with a creatinine of 4.9 mg/dL. Prior to this the patient had been doing well and was not on any medications. One month ago except for mild anemia her labs including platelets and creatinine were normal. Her von Willebrand cleaving protease (ADAMTS-13) was reported later to be 40% (range 44-250%). Peripheral smear on day 1 showed many fragmented red cells.TTP was diagnosed and plasma exchange started along with steroids. Over the next few days she had a good response to the therapy with normalization of her sensorium as well as lab values. However, her platelets dropped again from 140 × 109/L to 60 × 109/L on the eighth day of plasma exchange. This time she was asymptomatic with a normal LDH and absence of fragmented cells in the peripheral smear. As initially on admission she had inadvertently received a heparin flush and there was no evidence of infection, TTP or any medications causing this, HIT was suspected and later confirmed by the ELISA antibody test. The patient was started on argatroban and her plasma exchange was tapered off over the next few days. Her platelets rapidly improved on argatroban and she was started on concomitant warfarin. At this time the patient is being followed in the clinic and we plan to anticoagulate her for a period of at least 90 days. Clinical manifestations of SLE and TTP are often similar and difficult to differentiate. HIT in a patient with SLE and TTP is not well documented in the literature. A high index of suspicion in an appropriate clinical setting and early intervention are the key to avoid life-threatening complications.
Constitutive Expression of a Dominant-Negative TGF-β Type II Receptor in the Posterior Left Atrium Leads to Beneficial Remodeling of Atrial Fibrillation Substrate

Rationale: Fibrosis is an important structural contributor to formation of atrial fibrillation (AF) substrate in heart failure. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling is thought to be intricately involved in creation of atrial fibrosis. Objective: We hypothesized that gene-based expression of dominant-negative type II TGF-β receptor (TGF-β-RII-DN) in the posterior left atrium in a canine heart failure model will sufficiently attenuate fibrosis-induced changes in atrial conduction and restitution to decrease AF. Because AF electrograms are thought to reflect AF substrate, we further hypothesized that TGF-β-RII-DN would lead to increased fractionation and decreased organization of AF electrograms. Methods and Results: Twenty-one dogs underwent injection+electroporation in the posterior left atrium of plasmid expressing a dominant-negative TGF-β type II receptor (pUBc-TGFβ-DN-RII; n=9) or control vector (pUBc- LacZ ; n=12), followed by 3 to 4 weeks of right ventricular tachypacing (240 bpm). Compared with controls, dogs treated with pUBC-TGFβ-DN-RII demonstrated an attenuated increase in conduction inhomogeneity, flattening of restitution slope and decreased duration of induced AF, with AF electrograms being more fractionated and less organized in pUBc-TGFβ-DN-RII versus pUBc- LacZ dogs. Tissue analysis revealed a significant decrease in replacement/interstitial fibrosis, p-SMAD2/3 and p-ERK1/2. Conclusions: Targeted gene-based reduction of TGF-β signaling in the posterior left atrium—with resulting decrease in replacement fibrosis—led to beneficial remodeling of both conduction and restitution characteristics of the posterior left atrium, translating into a decrease in AF and increased complexity of AF electrograms. In addition to providing mechanistic insights, this data may have important diagnostic and therapeutic implications for AF.
Inherited disorders of amino acid transport in relation to the kidney

Cystinuria was first described in 1810. Since the initial description, a group of renal cellular transport deficit diseases has been characterized. The study of genetic diseases that create a specific aminoaciduria has expanded our knowledge of cellular structure, cellular transport, and intracellular concentration gradients. A review of the theories and experimental data obtained through investigations of the renal aminoacidurias are presented.
Pulmonary Vascular Distensibility Predicts Pulmonary Hypertension Severity, Exercise Capacity, and Survival in Heart Failure

Background— Pulmonary vascular (PV) distensibility, defined as the percent increase in pulmonary vessel diameter per mm Hg increase in pressure, permits the pulmonary vessels to increase in size to accommodate increased blood flow. We hypothesized that PV distensibility is abnormally low in patients with heart failure (HF) and serves as an important determinant of right ventricular performance and exercise capacity. Methods and Results— Patients with HF with preserved ejection fraction (n=48), HF with reduced ejection fraction (n=55), pulmonary arterial hypertension without left heart failure (n=18), and control subjects (n=30) underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing with invasive hemodynamic monitoring and first-pass radionuclide ventriculography. PV distensibility was derived from 1257 matched measurements (mean±SD, 8.3±2.8 per subject) of pulmonary arterial pressure, pulmonary arterial wedge pressure and cardiac output. PV distensibility was lowest in the pulmonary arterial hypertension group (0.40±0.24% per mm Hg) and intermediate in the HF with preserved ejection fraction and HF with reduced ejection fraction groups (0.92±0.39 and 0.84±0.33% per mm Hg, respectively) compared to the control group (1.39±0.32% per mm Hg, P <0.0001 for all three). PV distensibility was associated with change in right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF, ρ=0.39, P <0.0001) with exercise and was an independent predictor of peak VO2. PV distensibility also predicted cardiovascular mortality independent of peak VO2 in HF patients (n=103; Cox hazard ratio, 0.30; 95% confidence interval, 0.10–0.93; P =0.036). In a subset of patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (n=26), 12 weeks of treatment with the pulmonary vasodilator sildenafil or placebo led to a 24.6% increase in PV distensibility ( P =0.015) in the sildenafil group only. Conclusions— PV distensibility is reduced in patients with HF and pulmonary arterial hypertension and is closely related to RV systolic function during exercise, maximal exercise capacity, and survival. Furthermore, PV distensibility is modifiable with selective pulmonary vasodilator therapy and may represent an important target for therapy in selected HF patients with pulmonary hypertension. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: . Unique identifier: [NCT00309790][1]. [1]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=CLINTRIALGOV&access_num=NCT00309790&atom=%2Fcirchf%2F9%2F6%2Fe003011.atom
Coexistence in Wireless Networks: Challenges and System-Level Solutions in the Unlicensed Bands

The increasing popularity of wireless networks makes interference and cross-talk between multiple systems inevitable. This book describes techniques for quantifying this, and the effects on the performance of wireless networks operating in the unlicensed bands. It also presents a variety of system-level solutions, obviating the need for new hardware implementations. The book starts with basic concepts and wireless protocols before moving on to interference performance evaluation, interference modeling, coexistence solutions, and concluding with common misconceptions and pitfalls. The theory is illustrated by reference to real-world systems such as Bluetooth and WiFi. With a number of case studies and many illustrations, this book will be of interest to graduate students in electrical engineering and computer science, to practitioners designing new WLAN and WPAN systems or developing new techniques for interference supression, and to general users of merging wireless technologies.
Abstract 18430: Human Molecular Genetic and Functional Studies Identify TRIM63, Encoding Muscle RING Finger Protein 1, as a Novel Gene for Human Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Rationale: A delicate balance between protein synthesis and degradation maintains cardiac size and function. TRIM63 encoding Muscle RING Finger 1 (MuRF1) maintains muscle protein homeostasis by tagging the sarcomere proteins with ubiquitin for subsequent degradation by the Ubiquitin-Proteasome System (UPS). Objectives: To determine the pathogenic role of TRIM63 in human hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Methods and Results: Sequencing of TRIM63 gene in 302 HCM probands (250 Caucasians) and 339 controls (262 Caucasians) led to identification of two missense (p.A48V and p.I130M) and a deletion (p.Q247X) variants exclusively in the HCM probands. These three variants were absent in 751 additional controls screened by TaqMan assays. Likewise, rare variants were enriched in the Caucasian HCM population (11/250, 4.4% vs. 3/262, 1.1%, respectively, p=0.024). Expression of the mutant TRIM63 was associated with mislocalization of TRIM63 to sarcomere Z disks, impaired auto-ubiquitination, reduced ubiquitinylation and UPS-mediated degradation of myosin heavy chain 6, cardiac myosin binding protein C, calcineurin (PPP3CB), and p-mTOR in adult cardiac myocytes. Induced expression of the mutant TRIM63 in the mouse heart was associated with cardiac hypertrophy, activation of the mTOR-S6K and calcineurin pathways and expression of the hypertrophic markers, which were normalized upon turning off expression of the mutant protein. Conclusions: TRIM63 mutations, identified in patients with HCM, impart loss-of-function effects on E3 ligase activity and are likely causal mutations in HCM. The findings implicate impaired protein degradation in the pathogenesis of HCM.
FunnelCloud: a cloud-based system for exploring tornado events

ABSTRACTRecent research has shown an increase in the number of extreme tornado outbreaks per year. The characterization of the spatio-temporal pattern of tornado events is therefore a critical task in the analysis of meteorological data. Currently, there are a large number of available meteorological datasets that can be used for such analysis. However, much of these data are distributed across multiple websites and are not accessible in a central location. This poses a significant challenge for a scientist who is interested in exploring meteorological patterns associated with tornado events. This paper presents a novel system which uses cloud-based technology for integrating, storing, exploring, analyzing, and visualizing meteorological data associated with tornado outbreaks. The system employs a novel NoSQL database schema and web services architecture for data integration and provides a user friendly interface that allows scientists to explore the spatio-temporal pattern of tornado events. Furthermore,...