cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Lack of Maternal Glutamate Cysteine Ligase Modifier Subunit (Gclm) Decreases Oocyte Glutathione Concentrations and Disrupts Preimplantation Development in Mice

Glutathione (GSH) is the most abundant intracellular thiol and an important regulator of cellular redox status. Mice that lack the modifier subunit of glutamate cysteine ligase (Gclm), the rate-limiting enzyme in GSH synthesis, have decreased GSH synthesis. Nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase, an inner mitochondrial membrane protein, catalyzes the interconversion of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate; reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate is required for reduction of GSH disulfide. Previous work supports roles for GSH in preimplantation development. We hypothesized that Gclm-/- mice have increased preimplantation embryonic mortality and that this effect is enhanced by absence of a functioning Nnt gene. Gclm-/- females produced significantly fewer pups per litter than Gclm+/+ littermates. Numbers of oocytes ovulated in a natural estrous cycle or upon superovulation did not differ by genotype. Fewer uterine implantation sites were observed in the Gclm-/- females. Prepubertal Gclm-/- and Gclm+/+ females were superovulated, then mated overnight with a Gclm+/+ male. At 0.5 d postcoitum, Gclm-/- females had significantly lower percentages of zygotes with two pronuclei and higher percentages of zygotes with one pronucleus than Gclm+/+ or Gclm+/- females. At 3.5 d postcoitum, a significantly lower percentage of blastocyst stage embryos was recovered from uteri of Gclm-/- females than Gclm+/+ females. Embryonic development to the blastocyst stage, but not the two-cell stage, was significantly decreased after in vitro fertilization of oocytes from Gclm-/- females compared with Gclm+/+ females. The Nnt mutation did not enhance the effects of Gclm genotype on female fertility. These results demonstrate critical roles for maternal GSH in supporting normal preimplantation development.
Effective Split-Merge Monte Carlo Methods for Nonparametric Models of Sequential Data

Applications of Bayesian nonparametric methods require learning and inference algorithms which efficiently explore models of unbounded complexity. We develop new Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for the beta process hidden Markov model (BP-HMM), enabling discovery of shared activity patterns in large video and motion capture databases. By introducing split-merge moves based on sequential allocation, we allow large global changes in the shared feature structure. We also develop data-driven reversible jump moves which more reliably discover rare or unique behaviors. Our proposals apply to any choice of conjugate likelihood for observed data, and we show success with multinomial, Gaussian, and autoregressive emission models. Together, these innovations allow tractable analysis of hundreds of time series, where previous inference required clever initialization and lengthy burn-in periods for just six sequences.
Functional analysis of the connexin43 gene promoter in vivo and in vitro.

Abstract Connexin43 is the principal gap junction protein found in the mammalian heart. The regulation of connexin43 gene expression may be an important determinant of normal and altered cardiac development and electrophysiology. We constructed a series of chimeric luciferase reporter genes containing nested deletions from the human connexin43 gene (-2400 to -50 base-pairs, relative to transcription initiation). The transcriptional activity of the chimeric genes was assayed in several cell types and systems, including rat cardiocytes in vitro and adult rat heart in vivo . In both systems, high levels of luciferase activity required at least 175 base-pairs of 5′-flanking sequence. Constructs including 2400 base-pairs of upstream sequence increased activity two-fold in vivo , but not in vitro . Chimeric genes were also assayed in cultured cardiac non-myocytes. This population of cells accumulates significant levels of connexin43 mRNA when propagated in vitro and promoter constructs were correspondingly active. Elements within the proximal promoter may also confer tissue-specificity. Transfectional analysis of the SK Hep 1 cell line, which does not express connexin43, demonstrated reduced reporter gene activity, especially for the longest constructs. These studies begin to define the cis -acting elements of the connexin43 gene which regulate its strength and specificity of transcription.
Fulfilling Educational Aspirations Latino Students’ College Information Seeking Patterns

A nationally representative sample of high school students is used to examine where students go for college information and how those information sources affect the number of schools to which stude...
Sexual Harassment in the U.S. Military Reserve Component: A Preliminary Analysis

In this research, the authors use data from the 2004 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Reserve Component Members to test whether the presence of environmental harassment is equally predictive for the U.S. military reserve component as it has been for the active duty military. They also investigate the impact of deployment on reporting harassment. Women and those deployed outside the United States are more likely to report harassment experiences. Results support earlier findings showing that when there are very few reports of environmental harassment, there are proportionately few reports of individualized forms of harassment. When there are sizeable percentages of environmental harassment reported, there are notable percentages reporting individualized harassment experiences.
Current Approaches to Science Education Implications for Mainstream Instruction of Students with Disabilities

In this article, different curriculum approaches to science education are discussed with respect to characteristics of students with disabilities. Science education is an area of increasing national interest as well as one that a recent survey of teachers identified as a highly suitable subject area for mainstreaming. A cross-categorical perspective is presented on the characteristics that serve to limit mainstream success for students with disabilities. Four major domains of functioning are identified, including language and literacy, cognitive-conceptual development, psychosocial functioning, and sensory-physical abilities. Although functioning in each of these areas can be improved through special education methods, it can also be argued that mainstream curriculum approaches themselves, representing textbook-content approaches as well as activity-inquiry approaches, interact with these disability areas. A case is made that different curriculum approaches to science education can differentially facilita...
Radiative Transfer in a Dense Plant Canopy without Azimuthal Symmetry

An analytical expression for the intensity reflected from a dense plant canopy where all leaves are oriented at the same inclination and azimuth is derived. The intensity is obtained in terms of a generalization of Chandrasekhar’s H-function.
Epstein-Barr Virus Latent Membrane Protein 1 (LMP1) C-Terminal-Activating Region 3 Contributes to LMP1-Mediated Cellular Migration via Its Interaction with Ubc9

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1), the principal viral oncoprotein and a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily, is a constitutively active membrane signaling protein that regulates multiple signal transduction pathways via its C-terminal-activating region 1 (CTAR1) and CTAR2, and also the less-studied CTAR3. Because protein sumoylation among other posttranslational modifications may regulate many signaling pathways induced by LMP1, we investigated whether during EBV latency LMP1 regulates sumoylation processes that control cellular activation and cellular responses. By immunoprecipitation experiments, we show that LMP1 interacts with Ubc9, the single reported SUMO-conjugating enzyme. Requirements for LMP1-Ubc9 interactions include enzymatically active Ubc9: expression of inactive Ubc9 (Ubc9 C93S) inhibited the LMP1-Ubc9 interaction. LMP1 CTAR3, but not CTAR1 and CTAR2, participated in the LMP1-Ubc9 interaction, and amino acid sequences found in CTAR3, including the JAK-interacting motif, contributed to this interaction. Furthermore, LMP1 expression coincided with increased sumoylation of cellular proteins, and disruption of the Ubc9-LMP1 CTAR3 interaction almost completely abrogated LMP1-induced protein sumoylation, suggesting that this interaction promotes the sumoylation of downstream targets. Additional consequences of the disruption of the LMP1 CTAR3-Ubc9 interaction revealed effects on cellular migration, a hallmark of oncogenesis. Together, these data demonstrate that LMP1 CTAR3 does in fact function in intracellular signaling and leads to biological effects. We propose that LMP1, by interaction with Ubc9, modulates sumoylation processes, which regulate signal transduction pathways that affect phenotypic changes associated with oncogenesis.
Missing Data in Phylogenetic Analysis: Reconciling Results from Simulations and Empirical Data

existing theoretical framework (Wiens 2003b). Furthermore, many contradictory studies suggesting that missing data are not generally problematic for Bayesian and likelihood analyses (given some assumptions) were not addressed by LEA. Second, the sweeping negative conclusions of LEA are not necessarily supported by their results. LEA find missing data to be problematic primarily when using sets of invariant or saturated characters and/or when obvious rate heterogeneity is ignored. Their results do not support the idea that missing data generally lead to incorrect inferences about topology when informative data are analyzed with appropriate methods. We conduct new simulations under more realistic conditions, and these results show no evidence that missing data generally lead to inaccurate Bayesian estimates of phylogeny. In fact, we show that the practice of excluding characters simply because they contain missing data cells may itself reduce accuracy. We reanalyze the “manipulated” empirical example from LEA and find that, without these artificial “manipulations” of the data, their conclusions are not supported. We also analyze eight empirical data sets, each containing many taxa with extensive missing data. We show that these incomplete taxa are consistently placed into the expected higher taxa, often with very strong support. Overall, our results confirm previous simulation and empirical studies showing that taxa with extensive missing data can be accurately placed in phylogenetic analyses and that adding characters with missing data can be beneficial (at least under some conditions). We conclude by pointing out important areas for future research on the topic of missing data and phylogenetic analysis.
The prohormone proenkephalin possesses differential conformational features of subdomains revealed by rapid H-D exchange mass spectrometry

Active enkephalin and related peptide hormones or neurotransmitters are generated by proteolytic processing of inactive prohormone precursors. Little is known about the relative accessibilities of prohormone cleavage sites and conformations of subdomains that undergo proteolytic processing. Therefore, this study investigated the conformational features of the prohormone proenkephalin (PE) by rapid hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (DXMS). DXMS analyzes rates of hydrogen exchange of the polypeptide backbone of PE with deuterium from D2O (heavy water) by mass spectrometry, accomplished at sub-second and multisecond time periods. Results showed differential accessibilities of cleavage sites and adjacent subdomains of PE to the aqueous environment. Importantly, protease cleavage sites of PE with greater relative accessibilities correspond to sites most readily cleaved by processing proteases to generate active peptide neurotransmitters. For comparison, peptides derived from PE (by pepsin digestion) displayed greater accessibility to the solvent environment, illustrated by their higher rates of H-D exchange compared to that of intact PE protein. The more limited H-D exchange accessibilities of PE protein, compared to peptides derived from PE, indicate that PE possesses tertiary conformation. These results demonstrate that differential tertiary conformations of PE subdomains undergo ordered proteolytic processing to generate active enkephalin peptides for cell-cell communication in the nervous and endocrine systems.
Domains that Determine Quality of Life in Vascular Amputees.

Background Although patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI) commonly undergo major limb amputation, the quality of life (QOL) of this group remains poorly described. Therefore, we sought to describe which domains vascular amputees consider important in determining their health-related QOL. Methods We performed 4 focus groups in patients who had major lower extremity amputations resulting from CLI. They were conducted at 4 distinct centers across the United States to ensure broad geographic, socioeconomic, and ethnic representation. Results Of 26 patients (mean age, 64 years), 19 (73%) were Caucasian, 6 (23%) were African American, and 1 (4%) was Native American. Nearly, three-quarter of patients were men ( n = 19, 73%) and had a high-school education or more ( n = 19, 73%). Overall, 8 (31%) were double amputees and 17 (65%) had diabetes. Time since amputation varied across patients and ranged from 3 months to more than 27 years (mean, 4.3 years). Patients stated that their current QOL was determined by impaired mobility (65%), pain (60%), progression of disease in the remaining limb (55%), and depression/frustration (54%). Across 26 patients, more than half ( n = 16, 62%) described multiple prior revascularization procedures. Although most felt that their physician did his/her best to salvage the affected leg (85%), a sizable minority would have preferred an amputation earlier in their CLI treatment course (27%). Furthermore, when asked how their care might have been improved, patients reported that facilitating peer support (88%), more extensive rehabilitation and prosthetist involvement (71%), earlier mention of amputation as a possible outcome (54%), and the early discontinuation of narcotics (54%) were potential areas of improvement. Conclusions Although QOL in vascular amputees seems primarily determined by mobility impairment, pain, and emotional perturbation, our focus groups identified that physician-controlled factors such as the timing of amputation, informed decision making, and postamputation support may also play an important role. The assessment of patient preferences regarding maintenance of mobility at the cost of increased pain versus relief of pain with amputation at a cost of diminished mobility is central to shared decision making in CLI treatment.
Levels of Tolerance, Antibiosis, and Antixenosis Among Resistant Buffalograsses and Zoysiagrasses

The western chinch bug, Blissus occiduus Barber, has been documented as one of the most serious pests of buffalograss, Buchloedactyloides (Nuttall) Engelmann, and zoysiagrass, Zoysia japonica Steudel, grown for turf in midwestern states. Resistance to the western chinch bug has been identiÞed in both buffalograsses and zoysiagrasses. Choice and no-choice studies were conducted to determine the categories (antibiosis, antixenosis, and tolerance) of three resistant buffalograsses (PX3-5-1, 196, and 184) and three resistant zoysiagrasses (El Toro, Emerald, and Zorro). Antibiosis studies found no signiÞcant differences in survival, nymphal development, or fecundity among the resistant and susceptible buffalograsses or zoysiagrasses, indicating that antibiosis is not an important factor in the resistance. Based on chinch bug damage ratings, 184, 196, and PX3-5-1 have comparable levels of tolerance to the known tolerant buffalograss OPrestigeO, and Zorro was the most tolerant zoysiagrass. Choice studies indicated the presence of antixenosis in the buffalograss selection 196 and the zoysiagrass Emerald.
Effects of role model exposure on STEM and non-STEM student engagement

Studies examining factors (e.g., STEM stereotypes) that underlie the recruitment and retention of STEM students are critical as the demand for STEM professionals is rapidly increasing. This experimental study tested the effects of role model biographies that challenge common STEM stereotypes (i.e., STEM is for gifted individuals and for European American males) on 1035 STEM and non-STEM undergraduate students. Findings showed that role model exposure had positive effects on both STEM and non-STEM students’ interest in STEM as well as their perceived identity compatibility between the self and STEM. Role model exposure had a positive impact on academic sense of belonging among STEM and non-STEM students, and a positive impact on academic self-efficacy among STEM students, but not non-STEM students.
The psycho-behavioral correlates of a drive to be toned among female university students

Maladaptive psycho-behavioral concomitants of an increased drive for muscularity among men are well-documented (Pope et al., 1997). In recent years, media outlets aimed at women have promoted the idea that the ideal female physique is toned and strong, with sculptured abs. We suggest that the male drive to become muscular and the female drive to become toned are similar. However, less is known regarding the psycho-behavioral characteristics of women attempting to become toned. Our qualitative study examined women's beliefs and attitudes towards female muscularity. Twenty-two female university students ages 18 to 32 participated in focus groups addressing what it means for a woman to be toned and the physique enhancement strategies used by women today. Participants frequently indicated that being “in shape” is a feminine body ideal and being toned equates to empowerment and self-worth. Participants noted that weight-training and replacing meals with protein shakes or food supplements were typical physique enhancing strategies. We suggest that the drive to be toned can lead to women employing self-destructive physique enhancing strategies similar to those utilized by men who demonstrate an obsessive drive to become muscular. Therefore, researchers examining female body image concerns should be cognisant of muscle-enhancing attitudes and behaviors.
A model to explore the ability of SPECT imaging for diagnosis of coronary artery disease

1456 Objectives This study proposes a model to explore the ability of Cardiac SPECT imaging for stenosis detection of main coronary Arteries. Methods In this study, it is hypothesized that sensitivity of SPECT imaging for detecting mild to severe stenosis of LAD, RCA and LCX is uniform and is not function of type and location of the vessels. The hypothesis is tested using experimental results of 32 patients who had both coronary Angiography and myocardial SPECT. All patients had gone through the Angiography procedure no later than three month from the time of their myocardial perfusion scan( SPECT). A linear model is formed by three matrices construced from the following information: vessel coefficient, Gold standard results, and a set of flexible weights. The whole model is optimized by changing the values of the weight matrix in a simple trial and error procedure. Results Optimization results indicate that the weight matrix can meet the linearity criteria after 50 epochs for the proposed model. This implies that the proposed model is linear and also the sensitivity of the SPECT imaging for RCA stenosis detection (r=0.95, p Conclusions A linear model was proposed and optimized to check whethere SPECT imaging can detect Coronary Artery Diseases (CAD) linearly or not. In model optimization Angiography results were used as Gold Standard. Results imply that SPECT imaging can linearly but not uniformly detect CAD.
Reuse of molecules and of neural circuits

Reuse is well established in molecular evolution; some analogies from this better understood field may help suggest specific aspects of reuse of neural circuits.
The enthalpy of solution of low quartz (a-quartz) in aqueous hydrofluoric acid

An adiabatic solution calorimeter was used to measure the enthalpy of solution of the NBS Standard Reference Material No. 1654 (α-quartz or low quartz) for use as a reference standard for HF solution calorimetry. The enthalpy of solution of this material at a concentration of 5 grams in 1000 cm3 of 24.4 weight percent HF(aq) is -ΔHsoln(353.15K)=2362.2+1.1J⋅g-1. This value also applies to the enthalpy of solution of pure low quartz within the uncertainty limits given. The enthalpy of solution of quartz (in J · g-1) as a function of the temperature, T, of reaction in 24.4 weight percent HF in the range 298 to 358 K, is -ΔHsoln(T)=2275.0+1.586(T-298.15). Thus, the average ΔCp for the reaction over the range, 298 to 358 K, is - 1.586 ± 0.025 J · g-1 · K-1. As a function of the concentration of HF solution in the range, 18 to 30 weight percent, -ΔHsoln(353.15K)=2362.10+1.429(wt%HF-24.40)+0.069(wt%HF-24.40)2. From measurements of the enthalpies of solution of several samples of quartz and fused silica, the enthalpy difference between low quartz and silica glass at 298.15 K was determined to be 162.2 ± 4.9 J · g-1 (2.330 ± 0.070 kcal · mol-1).
Geriatric Nutrition: The Health Professional’s Handbook,

As the US population continues to age and live longer, it becomes readily apparent that health professionals need to have a clearer understanding of the health and nutritional problems of the geria...
Using apps and rules in contextual workflows to semantically extract data from documents

If smartly utilized, Big Data locked in unstructured sources, such as PDF documents, can yield unprecedented insights in solving tough business issues, optimizing business processes and improving customer relations. The challenge addressed in this paper is to unlock the value held in data plunged in unstructured document. We describe how a contextual workflow based approach is used to address, in a semantic and flexible way, various problems arising in processing data contained into documents. We present the MANTRA Smart Data Platform, which enables to turn Big Data into Smart Data by means of contextual workflows composed by smart-cloud applications (APPs for short). Among the others, the MANTRA Language APP executes MANTRA rules that are able to extract and annotate information contained in heterogeneous sources (raw text, PDF, HTML or other presentation-oriented document format). Such rules exploit syntactic and semantic expressions, visual and spatial features, and natural language capabilities. Real cases of applications are showing that the proposed approach is able to process a large amount of heterogeneous input documents, as well as extract and consolidate the information of interest.
Physical and emotional sibling violence and policy: An examination of Fox-Harding's child care value perspectives

Physical and emotional sibling violence has received minimal attention compared with other forms of familial violence. Policy related to addressing physical and emotional sibling violence is scant,...
A Gift to Goethe: The Aesthetics of the Intermediate Dominant in Schubert’s Music and Early Nineteenth-Century Theoretical Thought

Schubert is famous for his remote modulations, especially his third relations. He therefore has a reputation for harbouring an aversion to the dominant, both in terms of its function as a harmonic preparation for new keys and as a structural pole to the tonic home key. I turn to the history of theory to reveal a more nuanced history of Schubert’s attitude towards the dominant. In a revision of ‘Geistes-Grus’ (D. 142), a song he sent to Goethe in 1816, Schubert added a brief dominant-seventh chord to soften an abrupt modulation to a remote key. Such an insertion between remote keys was coined an ‘intermediate dominant’ by Schubert’s contemporary Anton Reicha and was understood to be a sufficient preparation for a new remote key. In four subsequent versions of ‘Geistes-Grus’, Schubert strengthened, rather than weakened, this intermediate dominant – only to remove it altogether in the final published version. I scrutinize Schubert’s use of intermediate dominants that, together with other techniques such as the use of silence, act as a harmonic cushion between abrupt third relations in a range of early multi-sectional songs and in the medial caesura-fill in the Unfinished and Great Symphonies. I compare Schubert’s compositional strategies with the theories of modulation and harmonic juxtaposition by his contemporary music theorists Anton Reicha and Gottfried Weber, and I argue that they share a strikingly similar aesthetic of the power of the intermediate dominant.
Effects of Submicron Confinement on Shallow Donors in GaAs-Ga1−xAlxAs Multiquantum well Structures

The nature of the free electronic states in GaAs-GaAlAs quantum well (QW) structures has been the subject of extensive investigation over the past few years and is by now relatively well understood. For a number of reasons, impurity states confined in QW structures are not as well understood, and not until very recently have experimental investigations been undertaken1. Variational calculations2–4 for Hydrogenic impurities are in general agreement in their predictions of substantial shifts in the energy levels of the impurities relative to the bulk values as the width of the QW approaches the effective Bohr radius of the impurities. The magnitude of the shifts depends on the width and depth of the QW, as well as the position of the impurity within the well.
Section 504: Implications for Physical Education Programs Instructional Responsibilities

Major responsibility for implementation of Section 504 lies with the general education teacher. This article addresses the physical education teacher’s role. Sample referral, group report, and general education intervention plan forms are provided. Considerations for possible physical education accommodations are addressed.
Subnoise Signal Detection and Communication

Radio frequency spectrum is one of the scarcest commodities in existence, with progressively increasing value. As a physical foundation of an untethered society, it now carries the majority of social, defense, and commercial interactions. All of these must reside within narrow, strictly regulated spectral windows allocated for cellular, military, navigation, and broadcast services. Band localization minimizes interference but also mandates that the entire cellular traffic be confined in less than one percent of the physical radio-frequency range. To defy this restriction and emit freely in any band, the signal power must be small to avoid interference with existing traffic. By spreading the signal over a sufficiently wide spectral range, the emission in any band can be maintained below naturally occurring noise. Unfortunately, the reception of a spectrally broadened, subnoise data channel poses a fundamental challenge: a fast, bursty waveform must be detected, separated from noise and reconstructed at rates exceeding gigahertz. Here, we show that a 20-MHz-wide signal can be spread by 300-fold, detected and reconstructed by a physical Fourier transform even when it is much weaker than the received noise. Rather than quantizing the 6-GHz-wide signal and computing its correlation with the decoding waveform, the signal was physically detected and reconstructed by coherently coupled frequency combs. By eliminating high-speed electronics from the receiver, it is now possible to access the entire radio-frequency range that extends beyond 100 GHz. We anticipate that new, band-unrestricted wireless services will emerge to maximize throughput, mitigate interference, and achieve a high level of physical security.
Self-interference polarization holographic imaging of a three-dimensional incoherent scene

We present a self-interference polarization holographic imaging (Si-Phi) technique to capture the three-dimensional information of an incoherent scene in a single shot. The light from the scene is modulated by a polarization-dependent lens, and a complex-valued polarization hologram is obtained by measuring directly the polarization profile of the light at the detection plane. Using a backward-propagating Green's function, we can numerically retrieve the transverse intensity profile of the scene at any desired focus plane. We demonstrate experimentally our Si-Phi technique by imaging, in real time, three-dimensional mimicked incoherent scenes created by a fast spatial light modulator.
Some Aspects of the Crystallization and Recrystallization of Vapor-Deposited Vitreous Selenium

Observations of the microstructural changes on metallographically prepared cross-sectional specimens of brominated vapor-deposited vitreous selenium, as well as free-surface specimens, as a function of heat treatment have been made. Comments on the microstructural mode of crystallization of vitreous selenium and on the recrystallization phenomenon of hexagonal selenium as observed are advanced.
Deuterium retention and blistering in tungsten foils

Abstract To investigate deuterium retention and the onset of blistering, deuterium was implanted in cold rolled tungsten foils at fluences ranging from 3 × 10 20 to 3 × 10 22 D/m 2 . Ion energies were 300 eV and 2000 eV in order to be below and above the tungsten theoretical damage energy threshold. While energy dependent phenomena were observed, blistering occurs regardless of ion energy. Both plastically and elastically deformed blisters were found, as manifest in before and after micrographs. The fraction of plastically deformed blisters did not saturate at the fluences used in these studies. However, the size of the largest blister that relaxed during TDS does saturate at ∼ 7 µm. A simple conceptual model is presented, which proposes that the deuterium released from elastically deformed blisters appears at ∼ 600 K in the thermal desorption spectra, which is consistent with large vacancy clusters.
Examining Sociodemographic Differences in Playground Availability and Quality and Associations with Childhood Obesity

Abstract Background: Parks and playgrounds are important environmental components for promoting healthy weight among children. The purposes of this study were to examine disparities in access to playgrounds and playground quality by multiple sociodemographic characteristics and the association of playground access and quality with youth weight status. Methods: Objectively measured height and weight were collected for all third to fifth grade youth (n = 13,469) in a southeastern US County. Detailed audits of all park playgrounds (n = 95) were concurrently conducted. Playground quality was measured by the presence of eight playground attributes (e.g., good condition and shade). Spatial (GIS) and statistical (multilevel logistic regression) analyses were used to determine access to playgrounds within a ½ mile network buffer, whether playground access and quality varied by the individual's gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and race/ethnicity, and the association between playground access and quality with yo...
N-Acylsuccinimides: twist-controlled, acyl-transfer reagents in Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling by N–C amide bond activation

The palladium-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling of N-acylsuccinimides as versatile acyl-transfer reagents via selective amide N-C bond cleavage is reported. The method is user-friendly since it employs commercially-available, air-stable reagents and catalysts. The cross-coupling is enabled by half-twist of the amide bond in N-acylsuccinimides. These highly effective, crystalline acyl-transfer reagents present major advantages over perpendicularly twisted N-acylglutarimides, including low price of the succinimide activating ring, selective metal insertion under redox neutral conditions and high stability of the amide bond towards reaction conditions. Mechanistic studies indicate that oxidative addition is the rate limiting step in this widely applicable protocol.
The Importance and Use of Electronic Health Records in Clinical Research

The electronic medical record (EMR) and electronic health record (EHR) are platforms utilized within both clinical care and clinical research settings to collect data ultimately used by a clinical research information system (CRIS) to support clinical research. This chapter will review the concepts of the EMR, EHR, CRIS; the architecture of an EHR; characteristics of data used by an EHR for both clinical care and for clinical research; and federal laws and documents that support the use of EHRs for clinical research and will conclude with a glossary of terms.
Immigration and the War on Crime: Law and Order Politics and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996:

The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) was a momentous law that recast undocumented immigration as a crime and fused immigration enforcement with crime contro...
Medicare Program Associated With Narrowing Hospital Readmission Disparities Between Black And White Patients

The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program has been associated with improvements in readmission rates, yet little is known about its effect on racial disparities. We compared trends in thirty-day readmission rates for congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia among non-Hispanic whites versus non-Hispanic blacks, and among minority-serving hospitals versus others. During the penalty-free implementation period (April 2010–September 2012), readmission rates improved over pre-implementation trends (January 2007–March 2010) for both whites and blacks, with a significantly greater decline among blacks than among whites (−0.45 percent versus −0.36 percent per quarter, respectively). In the period October 2012–December 2014, after penalties began, readmission improvements slowed for both races. Following a similar pattern, minority-serving hospitals saw greater reductions in readmissions than other hospitals did. Despite the narrowing of the two race-based gaps after announcement of th...
A framework for evaluating geographic disparities in energy transition vulnerability

The path towards decarbonization promises many societal benefits such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions and new technological innovation. The adverse effects of policies that are helping to facilitate the energy transition, such as price spikes or job displacement, however, are not evenly spread across the population, and some individuals and communities are more vulnerable to possible adverse impacts than others. Here, we adapt a framework for conceptualizing vulnerability from the climate change adaptation literature to the energy context. We construct the dimensions of the framework, provide an illustration using the case of the renewable portfolio standard, generate a vulnerability score measure and map vulnerability across US counties. Our analysis shows that this framework can be used to identify geographical disparities, and should be further developed in future research to provide deeper insights about a just transition. Positive and negative impacts of energy transitions will not be evenly distributed. In this Perspective, the authors present a framework to map geographic variation in vulnerability from energy policies that can be built on in future work to support just policy-making.
The molecular switch in troponin C.

Conformational changes in troponin C (TnC) associated with Ca2+-induced triggering of muscle contraction are discussed in light of the model proposed by Herzberg, Moult and James (J. Biol. Chem. 261, , 2638, 1986) and of our recent work on mutants of troponin C. The model involves a Ca2+-induced angular movement of one pair of α-helical segments relative to another pair of helices in the N-terminal domain. A disulfide bridge introduced into the N-terminal domain reversibly blocks the key conformational transition and the Ca2+-regulatory activity. Binding of troponin I (TnI) to the disulfide form of TnC is weakened owing to the blocking of its interaction with the N-terminal domain; however incorporation of the mutant into TnC-extracted myofibrils is not abolished. Introduction of a Cys residue in the C-terminal domain of TnC leads to disulfide formation between it and the indigenous Cys-98, with accompanying inhibition of regulatory activity attributable to interference with binding to TnI and, consequently, incorporation into the thin filaments. Evidence for movement of helical segments upon Ca2+-binding to TnC was obtained by measurements of excimer fluorescence and of resonance energy transfer with probes attached to Cys residues introduced by site-directed mutagenesis at suitable locations. Introduction of a disulfide bridge into calmodulin, another member of the super-family of Ca2+-binding proteins to which TnC belongs, abolishes its interaction with target enzymes. This suggests that the type of conformational change involving angular movement of helical segments that takes place in TnC is also involved in signal transmission in other Ca2+-dependent regulatory proteins.
How Should Physicians Manage Organ Donation after the Circulatory Determination of Death in Patients with Extremely Poor Neurological Prognosis

Organ donation after the circulatory determination of death (DCDD) accounts for a growing percentage of deceased organ donations. Although hospital DCDD protocols stipulate donor death determination, some do not adhere to national guidelines that require mechanical, not electrical, asystole. Surrogate decisions to withdraw life-sustaining therapy should be separated from decisions to donate organs. Donor families should be given sufficient information about the DCDD protocol and its impact on the dying process to provide informed consent, and donors should be given proper palliative care during dying. An unresolved ethical question is whether and how donor consent should be seen as authorizing manipulation of a living donor during the dying process solely for to benefit of the organ recipient.
An Introduction to Neural Networks

Artificial neural networks are popular machine learning techniques that simulate the mechanism of learning in biological organisms. The human nervous system contains cells, which are referred to as neurons. The neurons are connected to one another with the use of axons and dendrites, and the connecting regions between axons and dendrites are referred to as synapses. These connections are illustrated in Figure 1.1(a). The strengths of synaptic connections often change in response to external stimuli. This change is how learning takes place in living organisms.
Towards Malware Detection via CPU Power Consumption: Data Collection Design and Analytics

This paper presents an experimental design and algorithm for power-based malware detection on general-purpose computers. Our design allows programmatic collection of CPU power profiles for a fixed set of non-malicious benchmarks, first running in an uninfected state and then in an infected state with malware running along with non-malicious software. To characterize power consumption profiles, we use both simple statistical and novel, sophisticated features. We propose an unsupervised, one-class anomaly detection ensemble and compare its perfor-mance with several supervised, kernel-based SVM classifiers (trained on clean and infected profiles) in detecting previously unseen malware. The anomaly detection system exhibits perfect detection when using all features across all benchmarks, with smaller false detection rate than the supervised classifiers. This paper provides a proof of concept that power-based malware detection is feasible for general-purpose computers and presents several future research steps toward that goal.
Effects of serial phlebotomy on vascular endothelial function: Results of a prospective double-blind randomized study.

INTRODUCTION Blood donation has been proposed as a potential therapy to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease, but the effects of phlebotomy on vascular function in human subjects have not been well characterized. AIMS We conducted a prospective randomized double-blind study to determine the effects of serial phlebotomy on vascular endothelial function in the brachial artery. Eighty-four iron-replete, non-anemic subjects were randomly assigned to one of three study treatment groups: (a) four serial phlebotomy procedures each followed by intravenous infusion of placebo normal saline; (b) four serial phlebotomy procedures each followed by intravenous infusion to replete lost iron; and (c) four serial sham phlebotomy procedures each followed by intravenous infusion of placebo normal saline. Assigned phlebotomy procedures were conducted at 56-day intervals. We measured brachial artery reactivity (BAR, %) in response to transient oxidative stress induced by oral methionine with high-resolution duplex ultrasound imaging before and one week after the fourth study phlebotomy. RESULTS Before phlebotomy, oral methionine decreased BAR by -2.04% (95% CI -2.58%, -1.50%), P < 0.001) with no significant difference between groups (P = 0.42). After phlebotomy, the BAR response to oral methionine did not significantly change between groups (P = 0.53). Brachial artery nitroglycerin-mediated dilation did not change in response to phlebotomy. CONCLUSIONS Four serial phlebotomy procedures over six months with or without intravenous iron supplementation did not alter vascular endothelial function in the brachial artery when compared with sham phlebotomy.
Integrated Risk Management for Newsvendors with Value-at-Risk Constraints

We study a newsvendor problem with profit risk control using value-at-risk (VaR) constraints. When a firm’s demand correlates with the price of a tradable financial asset, both financial tools (der...
YY1 is a cis-regulator in the organoid models of high mammographic density.

Motivation Our previous study has shown that ERBB2 is overexpressed in the organoid model of MCF10A when the stiffness of the microenvironment is increased to that of high mammographic density (MD). We now aim to identify key transcription factors (TFs) and functional enhancers that regulate processes associated with increased stiffness of the microenvironment in the organoid models of premalignant human mammary cell lines. Results 3D colony organizations and the cis-regulatory networks of two human mammary epithelial cell lines (184A1 and MCF10A) are investigated as a function of the increased stiffness of the microenvironment within the range of MD. The 3D colonies are imaged using confocal microscopy, and the morphometries of colony organizations and heterogeneity are quantified as a function of the stiffness of the microenvironment using BioSig3D. In a surrogate assay, colony organizations are profiled by transcriptomics. Transcriptome data are enriched by correlative analysis with the computed morphometric indices. Next, a subset of enriched data are processed against publicly available ChIP-Seq data using Model-based Analysis of Regulation of Gene Expression to predict regulatory transcription factors. This integrative analysis of morphometric and transcriptomic data predicted YY1 as one of the cis-regulators in both cell lines as a result of the increased stiffness of the microenvironment. Subsequent experiments validated that YY1 is expressed at protein and mRNA levels for MCF10A and 184A1, respectively. Also, there is a causal relationship between activation of YY1 and ERBB2 when YY1 is overexpressed at the protein level in MCF10A. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Ciliation Index Is a Useful Diagnostic Tool in Challenging Spitzoid Melanocytic Neoplasms.

The loss of primary cilia on melanocytes is a useful biomarker for the distinction of melanoma from conventional melanocytic nevi. It is unknown whether ciliation status is beneficial for diagnosing spitzoid tumors—a subclass of melanomas that present inherently ambiguous histology and are challenging to classify. We evaluated the Ciliation Index (CI) in 68 cases of spitzoid tumors ranging from Spitz nevi and atypical Spitz tumors to spitzoid melanoma. We found a significant decrease in CI within the spitzoid melanoma group when compared with either the Spitz nevi or atypical Spitz tumors groups. In addition, we used a machine-learning–based algorithm to determine the value of CI when considered in combination with other histopathologic and molecular features commonly used for diagnosis. We found that a low CI was consistently ranked as a top predictive feature in the diagnosis of malignancy. Predictive models trained on only the top four predictive features (CI, asymmetry, hyperchromatism, and cytologic atypia) outperformed standard histologic assessment in an independent validation cohort of 56 additional cases. The results provide an alternative approach to evaluate diagnostically challenging melanocytic lesions, and further support the use of CI as an ancillary diagnostic test.
Cancer therapy cardiotoxicity detection: understanding the limitations of cardiac imaging

Patients with breast cancer who overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) are often treated with sequential anthracyclines followed by trastuzumab. This has led to significant improvements in mortality with an increasing number of breast cancer survivors. One of the major toxicity concerns with the use of both anthracyclines and trastuzumab is a decline in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), commonly referred to as cancer-therapeutic-related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD). Initial concerns from clinical trial results in patients with metastatic breast cancer treated with concurrent anthracycline and trastuzumab reported cardiotoxicity levels up to 27%.1 This led to stricter inclusion and exclusion criteria, with rather arbitrary LVEF cut-offs for the use of trastuzumab as adjuvant therapy. However, in later clinical trials, anthracycline and HER2 inhibitor treatment were separated into sequential therapy cycles rather than concomitant use. This strategy along with reduction in the cumulative dose of anthracyclines has been associated with a significant decrease in the incidence of cardiotoxicity. Based on the cardiac monitoring performed during the adjuvant therapy trials, it is now recommended that patients have serial LVEF assessment every 3 months while on trastuzumab. This leads to at least four echocardiograms for patients receiving adjuvant trastuzumab for 1 year and may be many more for patients with metastatic breast cancer receiving trastuzumab for years. The clinical trials used either nuclear multi-gated acquisition or echocardiograms for LVEF measurements; however, at present the general standard is to preferentially use echocardiography given its lack of radiation, portability, low cost and widespread availability. Although cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging has been considered the gold standard for LVEF assessment, and is often used as the standard in research studies evaluating the accuracy of echocardiographic derived LVEF, its lack of availability and relative higher cost limit its routine clinical use for cardiac monitoring. Several definitions of …
Robustness of Periodic Orbits of Impulsive Systems à la Poincaré

In this paper, we analyze the robustness of distinct periodic solutions of systems with impulse effects (SIEs) under uncertainty through the method of Poincare. We work with a class of disturbances that affect both the continuous and discrete update dynamics of the SIE, as well as the geometry of the surface governing state transitions. In particular, we show that in the absence of any disturbances, the fixed point of the corresponding Poincare map is locally asymptotically stable, if, and only if, in the presence of disturbances the periodic orbit of the SIE is locally input-to-state stable. This result generalizes the method of Poincare for periodic orbits to explicitly incorporate the effect of disturbances. Although our motivation for this work stems from the need to rigorously and conveniently analyze robust controllers for dynamically moving legged robots, the results presented here are relevant to a much broader class of systems that can be modeled as forced SIEs.