cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A unified theory of presynaptic chemical neurotransmission

The mechanism of neurotransmission and its modulation involves the direct role of calcium on membranes, and calcium's ability to activate synergistically and simultaneously a host of interdependent enzymatic cascades in synaptic and coated vesicles and the presynaptic plasma membrane. Enzymatic products formed can either amplify or depress synaptic vesicle exocytosis and synaptic vesicle regeneration via the coated pit/vesicle system. Rate amplification produced by a series of parallel, multistepped, interconnected enzymatic cascades as well as the optimal geometric spatial orientation of synaptic vesicles induced by presynaptic structures is hypothesized to explain how neurotransmitter is released within 200 μsec upon calcium entry into the axon terminal.
Synchronous Growth of Escherichia coli after Treatment with Fluorophenylalanine

Treatment of exponentially growing Escherichia coli cells with the amino acid analogue, p-fluorophenylalanine (FPA), resulted in a decrease in the amount of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) present per cell. A minimum DNA content per cell was reached approximately 80 min after addition of FPA to the culture. After this time the DNA per cell rose to the level of the untreated cell. When an FPA-treated culture was resuspended in fresh medium containing no FPA 80 min after addition of the analogue, the increases in cell number and DNA became synchronous. Ribonucleic acid was synthesized immediately and continuously throughout the cell cycle, except during periods of DNA synthesis and cell division.
Effect of liquid‐packing surface interaction on gas absorption and flooding in a packed column

Gas absorption, pressure drop, liquid holdup, and loading behavior in a packed column have been investigated using packing materials almost geometrically identical but fabricated from three different materials (ceramics, Saran, and polyethylene). For the absorption of oxygen into sodium sulfite solution, observed values of the liquid-side, composite, overall mass transfer coefficient, KLa, were about 25% larger for the ceramic packing than for the polymeric packings. It was also observed that liquid loading occurs more readily in the case of the polymeric packing materials and it appears that the usual type of correlation is inadequate for predicting loading when polymeric packings are employed. In the case of liquid operating holdup no differences were observed from packing to packing. These observations are discussed in terms of the nature of the interaction between liquid and packing surface and it is pointed out how these phenomena may be fundamentally different from those of previous investigations, which relied upon surface-active agents added to the liquid.
Jackknifing the kaplan-meier survival estimator for censored data: Simulation results and asymptotic analysis

It is shown by simulation t h a t the (arc-sine transformation of the) Kaplan-Meier survival estimator for censored data can be usefully jackknifed to give conservative confidence limits for survival probabilities when samples are small (25 and 50). Mathematical demonstration of the asymptotic, large-sample, validity of the jackknife is included.
Identification of phosphorylation sites in GIT1.

G protein-coupled receptor kinase-interacting protein 1 (GIT1) was originally identified as an ADP ribosylation factor GTPase-activating protein (ARF-GAP) that binds G-protein-coupled receptor kinases (GRKs) and regulates membrane trafficking ([Premont et al., 1998][1]). Subsequent studies have
Preclinical to Clinical Translation of Tofacitinib, a Janus Kinase Inhibitor, in Rheumatoid Arthritis

A critical piece in the translation of preclinical studies to clinical trials is the determination of dosing regimens that allow maximum therapeutic benefit with minimum toxicity. The preclinical pharmacokinetic (PK)/pharmacodynamic (PD) profile of tofacitinib, an oral Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor, in a mouse collagen-induced arthritis (mCIA) model was compared with clinical PK/PD data from patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Preclinical evaluations included target modulation and PK/PD modeling based on continuous subcutaneous infusion or oral once- or twice-daily (BID) dosing paradigms in mice. The human PK/PD profile was obtained from pooled data from four phase 2 studies in patients with RA, and maximal effect models were used to evaluate efficacy after 12 weeks of tofacitinib treatment (1-15 mg BID). In mCIA, the main driver of efficacy was inhibition of cytokine receptor signaling mediated by JAK1 heterodimers, but not JAK2 homodimers, and continuous daily inhibition was not required to maintain efficacy. Projected efficacy could be predicted from total daily exposure irrespective of the oral dosing paradigm, with a total steady-state plasma concentration achieving 50% of the maximal response (Cave50) of ~100 nM. Tofacitinib potency (ED50) in clinical studies was ~3.5 mg BID (90% confidence interval: 2.3, 5.5) or total Cave50 of ~40 nM, derived using Disease Activity Scores from patients with RA. The collective clinical and preclinical data indicated the importance of Cave as a driver of efficacy, rather than maximum or minimum plasma concentration (Cmax or Cmin), where Cave50 values were within ~2-fold of each other.
Writing the Proposal for a Qualitative Research Methodology Project

Writing the proposal for a qualitative research methodology study is a double challenge because of the emergent nature of qualitative research design and because a methodology study entails describing a process to produce a process. How the authors addressed this challenge is shown in the annotated text of the grant proposal—“Analytic Techniques for Qualitative Metasynthesis”—funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. Appealing qualitative research proposals adhere to principles that engage writers and readers in an informative and mutually respectful interaction.
The ISPOR Lipid Conference: Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Modeling Issues

The previous issue of Value in Health presented several papers from the First General Session of the ISPOR Lipid Conference on current clinical understanding and controversies regarding choles­ terol, lipid therapy, and the cardiovascular disease process. This issue provides papers and commen­ taries from the Second General Session, discussing methodological issues in pharmacoeconomic as­ sessment and modeling of alternative lipid thera­ pies. Unfortunately, the earlier clinical controver­ sies did not go away. Moreover, since any two economists will produce at least five different opin­ ions [1] (Mike Barnicle has made us more careful about joke citations), new controversies were added as the conference turned to lipid economics. Assessment of lipid therapy outcomes and cost effectiveness is inherently complex and uncertain. This is in part because, thankfully, even high-risk patients are not inevitable victims of cardiovas­ cular disease (CVD). Annual patient CVD risks of 1-2% are high enough to qualify for high-risk sta­ tus. This means that clinical trials would be too large, too long, and too expensive to answer every possible question on the relationship between CVD disease risk, risk reduction with alternative lipid therapies, and long-term clinical outcomes, including quality-of-life changes and all-cause mor­ tality impacts. Lipid therapy means lifetime treat­ ment, but clinicians can't wait for a 50-year ran­ domized controlled clinical trial before deciding whether a specific medication should be prescribed. Thus, modeling is a necessary component of pro­ jecting the outcomes and the value of lipid ther­ apy. The key to valid and reliable modeling is the
Strange attractors, spiritual interlopers and lonely wanderers: The search for pre-Pangean supercontinents

Abstract The observation is made that there are very strong similarities between the supercontinents Columbia, Rodinia and Pangea. If plate tectonics was operating over the past 2.5 billion years of Earth history, and dominated by extroversion and introversion of ocean basins, it would be unusual for three supercontinents to resemble one another so closely. The term ‘strange attractor’ is applied to landmasses that form a coherent geometry in all three supercontinents. Baltica, Laurentia and Siberia form a group of ‘strange attractors’ as do the elements of East Gondwana (India, Australia, Antarctica, Madagascar). The elements of “West Gondwana” are positioned as a slightly looser amalgam of cratonic blocks in all three supercontinents and are referred to as ‘spiritual interlopers’. Relatively few landmasses (the South China, North China, Kalahari and perhaps Tarim cratons) are positioned in distinct locations within each of the three supercontinents and these are referred to as ‘lonely wanderers’. There may be several explanations for why these supercontinents show such remarkable similarities. One possibility is that modern-style plate tectonics did not begin until the late Neoproterozoic and horizontal motions were restricted and a vertical style of ‘lid tectonics’ dominated. If motions were limited for most of the Proterozoic, it would explain the remarkable similarities seen in the Columbia and Rodinia supercontinents, but would still require the strange attractors to rift, drift and return to approximately the same geometry within Pangea. A second possibility is that our views of older supercontinents are shaped by well-known connections documented for the most recent supercontinent, Pangea. It is intriguing that three of the four ‘lonely wanderers’ (Tarim, North China, South China) did not unite until just before, or slightly after the breakup of Pangea. The fourth ‘lonely wanderer’, the Kalahari (and core Kaapvaal) craton has a somewhat unique Archean-age geology compared to its nearest neighbors in Gondwana, but very similar to that in western Australia.
Towards Economically Viable Infrastructure-Based Overlay Multicast Networks

Internet-scale dissemination of streaming contents (e.g., live sports games) can be achieved by infrastructure-based overlay multicast networks, where multicast service providers deliver the contents via dedicated servers strategically placed over the Internet. Given the huge amount of data traffic, one of the major operation costs is the ISP cost for network access. However, existing overlay multicast protocols only consider network performance metrics in building dissemination trees without taking into account the potentially high ISP cost they may incur. This paper presents a scheme, Revenue-driven Overlay Multicast Networks (ROMaN), to assign users to different servers in order to maximize the profit derived from providing multicast services. ROMaN exploits the fact that ISP charging functions are concave by assigning users to the cheapest available servers, and dynamically adjusts the assignment to accommodate the churns of group membership. The evaluation shows that ROMaN not only can reduce ISP cost substantially, but also has shorter end-to-end delay due to smaller overlay size, and the longer a user stays in the group the better the service it will receive.
Therapeutic drug monitoring for either oral or intravenous busulfan when combined with pre- and post-transplantation cyclophosphamide

Busulfan (Bu)/cyclophosphamide (Cy) is a standard conditioning platform for allogeneic transplantation. We developed a strategy separating the Cy into two pre/post-transplantation doses (PTCy), providing myeloablative conditioning and single-agent graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis. We investigated the impact of Bu route on treatment-related toxicity for 131 consecutive adult patients. Busulfan was administered in four daily divided doses either orally (n = 72) or intravenously (n = 59) with pharmacokinetics on the first-dose and as necessary on subsequent doses to achieve a target area-under-the-concentration-curve (AUC) of 800-1400 μmol*min/L per dose. BuCy/PTCy with pharmacokinetics is well-tolerated with low treatment-related toxicity. Hepatic veno-occlusive disease incidence was 6% with two fatal events. Bu administration route in the context of BuCy/PTCy did not statistically impact hepatotoxicity, GVHD, relapse, disease-free survival, or overall survival. The BuCy/PTCy platform has a low incidence of treatment-related toxicity, including hepatotoxicity, in hematologic malignancies when using pharmacokinetics for a target AUC of 800-1400 μmol*min/L, irrespective of Bu administration route.
The Integration of Inventory Control in Materials Management

Inventories provide a rational approach to operations by aiding smooth flow, effective utilization of facilities, and efficient materials management, all to better serve customers.1 The various operations of both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing businesses are connected — from raw materials to finished goods — through the inventory control process. This allows each unit enough independence to operate efficiently. With adequate inventories, supplies can be ordered and shipped, and production runs can be made without excessive costs for setups and ordering. This allows more efficient handling of optimum-quantity lots. Various Japanese techniques of inventory control, such as the Just-In-Time and others, try to achieve these benefits without maintaining large inventories.
Emergency medicine and global health policy: history and next steps.

The transformation of global health and the specialty of emergency medicine are both relatively new phenomena. Over the last three decades, they have developed rapidly and in parallel. Utilizing a review of the recent changes of global health policy and practice, and a review of the changing nature and understanding of the global burden of disease and its intersection with emergency medical care, this paper attempts to demonstrate missed opportunities to support the development of emergency medicine on a global scale. This paper also seeks to highlight the need for improved alignment between the global burden of disease, global health policy–setting, and emergency medicine development. Emergency medicine is a relatively new medical specialty that, when implemented, provides rapid management of acute critical illness and injury. The specialty of emergency medicine allows health care providers to adjust their scope of practice to respond to both the immediate situation and the long–term needs of their community. It supports other branches of medicine by freeing them to practice their own specialized skill set, by providing emergent supportive care, and by serving as a directed gateway to the most appropriate levels of health care delivery. Regions that have weak or dysfunctional emergency medical services, or have not yet established emergency medicine as a specialty, are at risk for avoidable morbidity and mortality. The resulting impact on individual and population health creates an avoidable social and economic burden. Global burden of disease projections indicate that the developing world should expect more trauma and injury, higher rates of chronic illness, and changes related to urbanization [1]. Yet global health priority setting and funding allocations have failed to address the predicted increased need for emergency medical services. The global community has an opportunity and a responsibility to prioritize emergency medical care through policy changes and investment in education, awareness, and infrastructure to meet the needs of our evolving health care environment.
Evaluation of anxiety in procedure-naive patients during cervical and lumbar epidural steroid injection procedures.

Background and Objectives The lack of studies that identify patient and procedural risk factors for increased levels of anxiety during spine injections represents a major barrier to the development of safe tailored sedation practices. We measured and compared anxiety in procedure-naive patients undergoing a cervical or lumbar interlaminar epidural steroid injection to identify predictors of patient movement and vasovagal responses in the periprocedural period. Methods This prospective observational cohort study was conducted with injection-naive patients presenting for a routine cervical or lumbar epidural steroid injection. The primary outcome measure was the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) score. Participants also reported anxiety using the Numeric Rating Scale in the periprocedural period. The Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to compare STAI scores; Numeric Rating Scale values were compared using Friedman test. Post hoc tests were corrected for 12 comparisons using the Bonferroni method. Results We found no group differences in age, gender, marital status, Visual Analog Scale pain score, duration of pain symptoms, or utilization of health care resources for pain symptom management. The mean STAI score was 43 ± 8 in the cervical group (n = 140) and 44 ± 9 in the lumbar group (n = 140) (P = 0.35), a low level of anxiety. There were no between-group differences in anxiety at any point during the periprocedural period. A vasovagal response was identified in 10% of the cervical group and in 3% of the lumbar group (P = 0.04). Conclusions No group differences in anxiety were seen between cervical and lumbar groups. Anxiety levels were not associated with patient movement or vasovagal symptoms. Our results suggest that the practice of routine prevention or treatment of injection-related anxiety in the procedure-naive general population with a duration of pain less than 6 months and without a history of an anxiety disorder should be reevaluated.
Abstract CN07-03: Discriminatory accuracy from Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in models of absolute breast cancer risk

CN07-03 One purpose for seeking single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with disease is to improve models for projecting individualized disease risk. Seven SNPs have recently been confirmed to be associated with breast cancer. I used published estimates of relative risks and allele frequencies to calculate how much these SNPs could improve discriminatory accuracy measured as the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). A model with these seven SNPs (AUC = 0.574 ) and a hypothetical model with 14 such SNPs (AUC = 0.604) have less discriminatory accuracy than a model, the National Cancer Institute’s Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool (BCRAT), which is based on ages at menarche and at first live birth, family history of breast cancer, and history of breast biopsy examinations (AUC = 0.607). Adding the seven SNPs to BCRAT improved discriminatory accuracy to an AUC of 0.632, which was, however, less than the improvement from adding mammographic density. Thus, these seven SNPs improve the discriminatory accuracy of BCRAT only modestly. I used other criteria to compare BCRAT with a model that added the seven SNPs to BCRAT. These criteria included the proportion of cases in the portion of the population with the highest 90% of risk, the expected losses when using risk models to decide which women should be given a mammogram, and the expected losses when using a risk model to decide which women should take tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer. The seven SNPs provided very little improvement over BCRAT for any of these applications. Hundreds of SNPs would be required to achieve high discriminatory accuracy. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2008;1(7 Suppl):CN07-03.
A role for PYK2 in regulation of ERK1/2 MAP kinases and PI 3-kinase by ANG II in vascular smooth muscle.

Abnormal vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) growth plays a key role in the pathogenesis of hypertension and atherosclerosis. Angiotensin II (ANG II) elicits a hypertrophic growth response character...
Analysis on Epidemiological Features of Rubella in Shenyang City during 2004—2008

[Objective] To understand the epidemiological features of rubella in Shenyang City during 2004—2008, and provide evidence for rubella control.[Methods]Epidemiological analysis was performed on rubella cases reported in Notifiable Diseases Reporting System.[Results]The annual reported incidence of rubella was between 1.8/100 000 and 159.3/100 000. Most cases appeared during April and May. The age-median of cases were 11.0 years, 9.6 years, 17.4 years, 17.0 years and 18.3 years. The age distribution of peak incidence was 10~14 years, 10~14 years, 15~19 years, 15~19 years and 20~24 years. Rubella was not only harmful to the youth health,but also to the woman of child-bearing age with increasing trend.[Conclusion]The backward age shift of peak incidence of rubella is obviously. It is necessary to adjust control strategies and measures in order to control and prevent rubella and CRS .
Traumatic Events and Symptoms Among Mexican Deportees in a Border Community

ABSTRACTResearch on traumatic events experienced among Mexicans deported from the United States is scant. Using clinical interviews, this study assessed the frequency of traumatic events and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among 47 Mexican deportees in a U.S.-Mexico border community. The majority of participants (98%) reported having experienced one or more traumatic events (M = 9, SD = 5) and nearly half met DSM-IV-TR criteria for PTSD. Meeting criteria for PTSD was associated with a higher number of traumatic events. Results suggest that prevention, intervention, and policy efforts are necessary to improve the well-being of this understudied immigrant subgroup.
Reduced Order Models for Systems with Disparate Spatial and Temporal Scales

Simulations and parametric studies of large-scale models can be facilitated by high-fidelity reduced order models (ROMs). One of the methods to obtain these ROMs, which is of considerable current interest, is using linear subspaces obtained from spatiotemporal decompositions including proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and smooth orthogonal decomposition (SOD). Previous studies showed that SOD has advantages over POD in obtaining a lower dimensional ROM. However, in many dynamical models, the data matrices used in multivariate analysis can be ill-conditioned. This leads to non-optimal results with POD, since it only aims to find the subspace on which the data projection has the maximal variance. Therefore, POD is likely to overlook small-variance state-variables.
Abstract A072: Glucose metabolism and O-linked GlcNAcylation in the tissue repair function of Treg cells

Regulatory T (Treg) cells dampen immune responses to avoid excessive, deleterious inflammation in the context of autoimmunity, allergy, and infection. Treg cells also impede anti-tumor immunity. Therefore, modulation of Treg cell activity is of great therapeutic potential for treating many debilitating inflammatory diseases and cancer. Recent studies have suggested that in addition to their prominent immunosuppressive function, Treg cells have a distinct and non-redundant role in tissue maintenance and remodeling. These Treg cells exhibit a unique transcriptional signature represented by high expression of the EGF family member amphiregulin (Areg). Importantly, tumor infiltrating Treg cells highly express Areg. Since Areg is known to exert pleiotropic oncogenic activities, Areg producing Treg cells may be crucial for establishing the tumor microenvironment. It has been increasingly appreciated that lymphocyte activation and differentiation are coupled to specific metabolic pathways. Metabolic reprogramming is dictated by cytokine and growth factor signals, as well as the availability of nutrients. In addition, metabolic products provide substrates that can alter the functional status of a cell through posttranslational modifications (PTMs). Among the various nutrients, glucose is a key metabolic substrate for T cells. Aerobic glycolysis in activated T cells is required for the acquisition of full effector function. Treg cells in the secondary lymphoid organs and the tissue have distinct glucose availability and metabolic needs. We thus hypothesized that glucose sensing and glucose metabolism play essential roles in shaping the unique phenotype and function of tissue resident Treg cells. O-linked GlcNAcylation is a PTM dynamically regulated by glucose levels and controls the function of many proteins, including transcription factors that play key roles in T cell activation such as NF-κB, CREB, and NFAT. To understand the mechanism by which glucose metabolism controls the function of tissue-resident Treg cells, we began to characterize protein O-GlcNAcylation in Treg cells, and found that both human and mouse Foxp3, the master regulator transcription factor of Treg cells, undergoes O-GlcNAcylation. We are in the process of mapping the site of O-GlcNAcylation of Foxp3, and understanding the physiological significance of this PTM. Citation Format: Wei Hu, Nicholas Arpaia, Jesse A. Green, Ronald C. Hendrickson, Alexander Y. Rudensky. Glucose metabolism and O-linked GlcNAcylation in the tissue repair function of Treg cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Second CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; 2016 Sept 25-28; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(11 Suppl):Abstract nr A072.
Trajectories of relationship supportiveness after childbirth: Does marriage matter?

Abstract Relationship quality for married couples typically declines after the birth of a (first) child, as parenthood brings new identities, stresses, and responsibilities for mothers and fathers. Yet, it is less clear whether nonmarital relationship quality follows a similar trajectory, particularly given the greater selectivity of nonmarital relationships that persist over time. This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,459) with latent growth curve models to examine relationship quality (measured by mothers' perceived supportiveness about fathers) for married and unmarried couples over nine years after a child's birth. Findings suggest that marriage at birth is protective for relationship supportiveness over time, net of various individual characteristics associated with marriage, compared to all unmarried couples at birth; however, marriage does not differentiate supportiveness compared to the subset of unmarried couples who remain stably together. Also, unmarried couples who get married after the birth have more supportive relationships compared to all unmarried couples who do not marry—though less so when compared to couples who remain stably together.
The Convergence of Ministry, Tenure, and Efficacy: Beyond Speculation Toward a New Theory of Pastoral Efficacy

In recent years there has been increased interest in understanding the cultivation of effective pastoral ministry. Many theories have been postulated based on individual experiences, but what has been lacking is a robust body of comprehensive and rigorous research regarding the issue. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of long-tenured senior pastors of Christian churches with an eye toward the insights participants’ experiences could offer to pastoral education. Final analysis of the data affirmed current research on resiliency in pastoral ministry and extended previous research through the discovery that participants understood the convergence of ministry, tenure, and efficacy as a cyclical process sustained by the interconnected experiences of fidelity to the pastoral call and the cultivation of authenticity in community. This understanding forms the basis of a new theory of pastoral efficacy.
Algorithms for vertex-weighted matching in graphs

A matching M in a graph is a subset of edges such that no two edges in M are incident on the same vertex. Matching is a fundamental combinatorial problem that has applications in many contexts: high-performance computing, bioinformatics, network switch design, web technologies, etc. Examples in the first context include sparse linear systems of equations, where matchings are used to place large matrix elements on or close to the diagonal, to compute the block triangular decomposition of sparse matrices, to construct sparse bases for the null space or column space of under-determined matrices, and to coarsen graphs in multi-level graph partitioning algorithms. In the first part of this thesis, we develop exact and approximation algorithms for vertex weighted matchings, an under-studied variant of the weighted matching problem. We propose three exact algorithms, three half approximation algorithms, and a two-third approximation algorithm. We exploit inherent properties of this problem such as lexicographical orders, decomposition into sub-problems, and the reachability property, not only to design efficient algorithms, but also to provide simple proofs of correctness of the proposed algorithms. In the second part of this thesis, we describe work on a new parallel half-approximation algorithm for weighted matching. Algorithms for computing optimal matchings are not amenable to parallelism, and hence we consider approximation algorithms here. We extend the existing work on a parallel half approximation algorithm for weighted matching and provide an analysis of its time complexity. We support the theoretical observations with experimental results obtained with MatchBoxP, toolkit designed and implemented in C++ and MPI using modern software engineering techniques. The work in this thesis has resulted in better understanding of matching theory, a functional public-domain software toolkit, and modeling of the sparsest basis problem as a vertex-weighted matching problem.
Residual Damage in Silicon Implanted and Post-Annealed Silicon

TEM was used to study lattice defects in silicon wafers which were first implanted with 1016 Si ions/cm2 to produce an amorphous surface layer and then annealed to produce epitaxial regrowth. The effects of doping (n-type or p-type), ion energy and irradiation temperature have been studied. A highly damaged transition layer located between the amorphous layer and the undamaged silicon was observed in all samples. The density, distribution and characteristics of the lattice defects have been determined in the transition layer and the regrown layer. Some factors in controlling the recovery annealing of the implanted damage are discussed.
The Receipt of Government Food Assistance: Differences Between Metro and Non-Metro Households

This research investigated differences in households’ receipt of government food assistance through such programs as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; free and reduced school meals; and related local and/or federal programs. With panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation that span the Great Recession, differences in the receipt of government food assistance in metro and non-metro areas were identified. Longitudinal random effects models suggest that despite relatively similar levels of food insecurity in 2005 and 2010, a higher proportion of non-metro households received government food assistance. Results also suggest that this assistance gap widened post-recession when government resources were expanded. These results inform a continuing debate about the efficient allocation of resources intended to reduce food hardship disparities, and increase family economic well-being, in metro and non-metro areas.
An Application of the Reasoned Action Approach to Bystander Intervention for Sexual Assault

The high prevalence of sexual assault in US college campuses has led to a widespread implementation of bystander intervention programs aimed at preventing sexual assault. The current study examines...
Brachytherapy as a Treatment Option for Prostate Cancer: Overview and Nursing Considerations

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer-related death in men. A number of treatment options are available to men diagnosed with prostate cancer, including watchful waiting, hormonal therapy, surgery, and radiation therapy. Brachytherapy, a form of radiation therapy available for the treatment of localized disease, is the focus of this article. Brachy is a Greek prefix meaning “short.” Brachytherapy is treatment at a short distance. In the treatment of prostate cancer, it designates the use of radiation therapy in which radioactive material, in the form of “seeds,” is implanted directly into the prostate. A fundamental advantage of prostate brachytherapy over external beam therapy is that dose delivery can be increased with a sharp attenuation gradient beyond the target volume, thus sparing normal structures.
Real-Time Nanopore-Based Recognition of Protein Translocation Success

A growing number of new technologies are supported by a single- or multi-nanopore architecture for capture, sensing, and delivery of polymeric biomolecules. Nanopore-based single-molecule DNA sequencing is the premier example. This method relies on the uniform linear charge density of DNA, so that each DNA strand is overwhelmingly likely to pass through the nanopore and across the separating membrane. For disordered peptides, folded proteins, or block copolymers with heterogeneous charge densities, by contrast, translocation is not assured, and additional strategies to monitor the progress of the polymer molecule through a nanopore are required. Here, we demonstrate a single-molecule method for direct, model-free, real-time monitoring of the translocation of a disordered, heterogeneously charged polypeptide through a nanopore. The crucial elements are two "selectivity tags"-regions of different but uniform charge density-at the ends of the polypeptide. These affect the selectivity of the nanopore differently and enable discrimination between polypeptide translocation and retraction. Our results demonstrate exquisite sensitivity of polypeptide translocation to applied transmembrane potential and prove the principle that nanopore selectivity reports on biopolymer substructure. We anticipate that the selectivity tag technique will be broadly applicable to nanopore-based protein detection, analysis, and separation technologies, and to the elucidation of protein translocation processes in normal cellular function and in disease.
Early Treatment at a Referral Center Improves Outcomes for Patients with Acute Vascular Disease.

Background Patients with acute vascular disease frequently need specialized management that may require transfer to a vascular referral center. Although transfer may be medically necessary, it can delay definitive care and is an indicator of incorrect triage to the initial hospital. Regionalization of acute vascular care could improve patient triage and subsequent outcomes. To evaluate the potential benefit from regionalization, we analyzed outcomes of patients treated for acute vascular disease at vascular referral centers. Methods Using a statewide database capturing all inpatient admissions in Maryland during 2013–2015, patients undergoing noncardiac vascular procedures on an acute basis were identified. Patients admitted to a vascular referral center were stratified by admission status as direct or transfer. The primary outcome was inpatient mortality, and the secondary outcome was resource use. Patient groups were compared by univariable analyses, and the effect of admission status on mortality was assessed by multivariable logistic regression. Results Of 4,873 patients with acute vascular disease managed at vascular referral centers, 2,713 (56%) were admitted directly, whereas 2,160 (44%) were transferred. Transfers to referral centers accounted for 71% of all interhospital transfers. The transfer-group patients were older, had more comorbidities, and higher illness severities. Patients who were transferred had higher mortality (14% vs. 9%, P Conclusions Primary treatment at a referral center is independently associated with improved outcomes for patients with acute vascular disease. Direct admission or earlier triage to a specialty center may improve patient and system outcomes and could be facilitated by standardization and regionalization of complex acute vascular care.
A Transactional Model of Failure to Thrive: A Look at Misclassified Cases

In a previous study, we attempted to identify factors in the home environments of non-organic failure-to-thrive (NOFT) infants that distinguish them from similar infants living in poor socioeconomic circumstances (Casey, Bradley and Wortham, 1983). A case controlled design was employed. NOFT children were matched with normally growing control children on age, sex, race, family income, family size, maternal education, and marital status of mother. Findings from the study indicated that mothers of NOFT infants were less accepting (more punitive) towards their infants, less responsive to their infants, and less well organized in caregiving. On the other hand, NOFT infants were not living in less stimulating environments nor under generally more adverse or stressful circumstances.
Disjunctive Cuts for Nonconvex MINLP

Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) problems present two main challenges: the integrality of a subset of variables and nonconvex (nonlinear) objective function and constraints. Many exact solvers for MINLP are branch-and-bound algorithms that compute a lower bound on the optimal solution using a linear programming relaxation of the original problem. In order to solve these problems to optimality, disjunctions can be used to partition the solution set or to obtain strong lower bounds on the optimal solution of the problem. In the MINLP context, the use of disjunctions for branching has been subject to intense research, while the practical utility of disjunctions as a means of generating valid linear inequalities has attracted some attention only recently. We describe an application to MINLP of a well-known separation method for disjunctive cuts that has shown to be very effective in Mixed Integer Linear Programming(MILP). As the experimental results show, this application obtains encouraging results in the MINLP case even when a simple separation method is used.
What Is the FDA and What Does It Do

The FDA is a part of the Executive or Presidential branch of the U.S. Federal Government. It is one of 11 operating agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Among the HHS operating agencies best known to physicians, are the NIH (National Institute of Health), the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service Services). In broad terms FDA’s mission is to protect and promote the public health by regulating and supervising the nation’s food supply, tobacco products, dietary supplements, human and veterinary drugs, vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions and medical devices including electromagnetic radiation emitting devices. Of interest is that FDA does not regulate meat and poultry both of which are regulated by the Department of Agriculture (FDA was once part of the Department of Agriculture), water, except bottled water, and alcohol. As noted earlier, for doctors it is important to realize that FDA regulates medical products – not medical practices or the practice of medicine which is regulated by the states. Also as noted elsewhere, although FDA regulates the sale of instruments used in surgery, the surgical procedures themselves are not regulated by FDA.
Copyright, Control and Comics: Japanese Battles Over Downstream Limits on Content

Over the past decade, a national battle has raged over how much downstream control copyright holders should have over their products once they are sold to distributors, retailers and consumers. By and large, consumers seem to have won this battle as legal change and business innovation eroded downstream limits. Copyright holders have been unsuccessful in their attempts to roll back this erosion, and indeed have been further hampered by judges and antitrust enforcers who have bolstered the trend. This nation is not the United States; it is Japan. Despite strenuous objections by authors and publishers, the expansion of what Japanese consumers can do with the copyrighted comics they buy threatens to reshape the $5 billion domestic industry. For Americans, the Japanese experience is instructive in several ways. Unlike the American debate regarding downstream controls, the Japanese battle has not involved actual or alleged illicit copying. Instead, it appears that gains from price discrimination are motivating authors and the publishing industry. Additionally, a change in transaction costs made possible by business innovation appears to have undercut the ability of publishers to tailor prices. Also of significant interest, the erosion in downstream control has coincided with stunning growth of the Japanese comic medium as a worldwide export, a notable contradiction to the common assertion of the U.S. copyright industry that stronger copyright protection must necessarily yield more creativity.
Credit Risk, Credit Crunch and Capital Structure

A firm partially financed by debt is considered. The firm is subject to two types of shocks: macro-shocks modeled as a finite state Markov chain, and idiosyncratic shocks. The dynamics of the latter may depend on the state of the macroeconomy; the state of the economy is determined not only by fundamentals but the market sentiment as well. The lenders are competitive and debt is rolled over until the macro-state changes. If conditions improve, the firm has an incentive to pay off debt and issue new debt on more favorable conditions. On the other hand, if conditions deteriorate, then debt covenants allow lenders to require debt renegotiation. It is also possible that in some states, the firm cannot roll over the debt at all (credit crunch). We compare the credit spreads which the model in the paper produces with the spreads in a less flexible model (Hackbarth, Miao, and Morellec (2006)), where the coupon is chosen at debt inception and remains fixed thereafter, and study the dependence of the spread on debt maturity, the market sentiment and probability of a credit crunch.
Diagnosis and Management of Chronic FPIES

Chronic FPIES typically occurs in infants when the food trigger, cow’s milk- or soy-based formula, is ingested on a regular basis. Symptoms may initially include watery diarrhea, intermittent vomiting, and irritability but will progress to include failure to thrive, lethargy, and dehydration or even shock if unrecognized. Due to the nonspecific nature of these symptoms, the diagnosis of chronic FPIES can be missed early on in the course, and the diagnosis is definitively confirmed only through provocation of an acute FPIES reaction upon a supervised oral food challenge with the culprit food, following a period of days to weeks of food avoidance. The cornerstone of management is strict avoidance of cow’s milk- and soy-based formulas. Breastfeeding, extensively hydrolyzed cow’s milk formula, and elemental formula are preferred sources of nutrition. Due to the increased risk of acute FPIES to solid foods among infants with chronic FPIES, it is generally recommended that solid foods be introduced starting at age 6 months with a gradual progression from lower- to higher-risk foods. Consultation with a nutritionist can help ensure adequate nutrition and promote normal growth and development during the avoidance period. The time to FPIES resolution varies, but the prognosis is favorable with most children developing tolerance by school age.
Characteristics of Americans With Primary Care and Changes Over Time, 2002-2015.

This survey study assesses who has primary care in the United States and how this has changed over time.
Constructing complexity: collective action framing and rise of obesity research

Obesity has been at the forefront of the public health agenda in the United States since the late 1990s. Commonly considered a simple condition of excess for most of the 20th century, I argue that in order for scientific inquiry into obesity to be considered legitimate, an important transformation was required: obesity needed to be reconstructed as a complex condition, in need of multidisciplinary collaboration and significant, sustained research investment. Drawing on document analysis, in-depth interviews with obesity researchers, and ethnographic observation, in this article I show how the frame of complexity has been instrumental for obesity researchers carving out a legitimate area of scientific inquiry. I trace how complexity has been mobilized over the past 60 years, first during infrastructure building activities that occurred beginning in the early 1970s, as well as field expansion activities that institutionalized the frame during the 1990s and 2000s. While the complexity frame has largely been successful in attracting sustained investment in biomedical and public health research on obesity, it has differentially benefited researchers and those impacted by obesity.
CHEMOTHERAPY-BASED CONTROL OF SCHISTOSOMIASIS HAEMATOBIA. II. METRIFONATE VS. PRAZIQUANTEL IN CONTROL OF INFECTION-ASSOCIATED MORBIDITY

To determine the relative efficacy of metrifonate and praziquantel in controlling urinary tract morbidity due to Schistosoma haematobium infection, a random allocation treatment trial was performed among 1,813 school age S. haematobium-infected children from the Msambweni area of Coast Province, Kenya. Following baseline examination for infection, hematuria, proteinuria, and ultrasonographic urinary tract abnormalities, oral treatment with either metrifonate (10 mg/kg, repeated at 4 month intervals) or praziquantel (1 dose of 40 mg/kg) was given to infected subjects. Prevalence of morbidity was reassessed 12 months later for each treatment group. Results indicated equivalent patient improvement in response to either regimen: prevalence of hematuria fell from 75% to 17% after either praziquantel or metrifonate therapy. Similarly, prevalence of proteinuria was significantly reduced from 73% to 29% (metrifonate) or 27% (praziquantel) after therapy. Metrifonate and praziquantel caused similar reductions in bladder granulomata and bladder thickening; however, no reduction in hydronephrosis was noted with either drug. Analysis of outcomes in population subgroups defined by age, sex, pretreatment intensity of infection, or severity of pretreatment morbidity showed no consistent advantage for either drug. In this endemic area, both agents provide effective control of morbidity due to urinary schistosomiasis.
Does School Desegregation Promote Diverse Interactions? An Equilibrium Model of Segregation within Schools

This paper studies racial segregation in schools using data on student friendships from Add Health. I estimate an equilibrium model of friendship formation, with preferences allowing both homophily and heterophily in direct and indirect ties. I find that homophily goes beyond direct links: students also prefer racially homogeneous indirect friends, while there is heterophily in income. I simulate policies reallocating students across schools. Race-based policies have nonlinear effects on within-school segregation and other network features such as clustering and centrality. Policies increasing diversity through reallocations based on income have less impact on racial segregation.