cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
An Unsupervised Learning Approach for Analyzing Traffic Impacts under Arterial Road Closures: Case Study of East Liberty in Pittsburgh

AbstractThis paper adopts an unsupervised learning approach, k-means clustering, to analyze the arterial traffic flow data over a high-dimensional spatiotemporal feature space. As part of the adaptive traffic control system deployed around the East Liberty area in Pittsburgh, high-resolution traffic occupancies and counts are available at the lane level in virtually any time resolution. The k-means clustering method is used to analyze those data to understand the traffic patterns before and after the closure and reopening of an arterial bridge. The modeling framework also holds great potentials for predicting traffic flow and detect incidents. The main findings are that clustering on high-dimensional spatiotemporal features can effectively distinguish flow patterns before and after road closure and reopening and between weekends and weekdays. On arterial streets, clustering based on 5-min data is sufficient to eliminate potential distortion on measurements caused by signals. Either of the two, count or oc...
Omnisubjectivity and Incarnation

In her 2013 Aquinas lecture and a previous article (Zagzebski in Oxford studies in philosophy of religion. Oxford University Press, New York, 231–247, 2008), Linda Zagzebski argues for a new divine trait, that of omnisubjectivity. In brief, omnisubjectivity is God’s ability to know what it is like for each of God’s creatures to be themselves. This knowledge is not merely propositional but ascribes to God knowledge of the sort that one typically associates with a first-person perspective on the self. Zagzebski’s considered opinion about what grounds omnisubjectivity appears to be that it is grounded in simulations of creaturely experiences that God imagines. My answer is that God experiences your experiences in experiencing you. Getting clearer on the basis of omnisubjectivity provides some novel results for thinking about what it would mean on the Christian story for Christ to become incarnate and in particular, for how it could be that an incarnate deity could learn something new even if that deity is omnisubjective.
Analysis on the Scientific Connotation and the Times Value of the Civil-military Integration Development

On the Eighteenth Plenary Session of our Party,it stressed that we must insist walking on the road of the fusion of the military development the civilian development with Chinese characteristics,and this is the significant strategy chosen by our party in the new period.In order to implement our Party's mind thoroughly,and on the basis of expounding the historical process of civil-military integration development thought,the paper analyzes the scientific connotation of the thought from three visual angles,and gives the times value of the thought.
Investigating Bandgap Energies, Materials, and Design of Light-Emitting Diodes

A student laboratory experiment to investigate the intrinsic and extrinsic bandgaps, dopant materials, and diode design in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is presented. The LED intrinsic bandgap is determined by passing a small constant current through the diode and recording the junction voltage variation with temperature. A second visible wavelength emission method is used to determine the active bandgap for comparative purposes. The active bandgap data is used along with literature values to interpolate the ratio of elemental dopant atoms in the LED semiconductor. This work also discusses the fundamentals of bandgap theory, LEDs, and diode design and how these experimental measurements correlate to the diode structure and dopant material used to manipulate the bandgap energy and observed emission profile. Suggested questions are provided in the supplemental materials to help students further explore and understand the topic. While this laboratory experiment was created for upper level undergraduates, it c...
Hawthorne's contexts

Despite Hawthorne's reputation as a romancer who preferred to create a “neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land” (1: 36) and seemed intent upon liberating his tales and novels from the everyday world, he paid careful attention to historical settings for most of his literary works. He conducted his research, often reading extensively in historical sources, but he routinely changed facts to suit his imaginative purpose. He often sought historical distance as a way of dealing with volatile contemporary issues, such as slavery or women's rights. Regardless of a work's situation in history, however, readers must deal with a tension between historical moments. The Scarlet Letter offers the best case in point. Set in Puritan Boston between 1642 and 1649 (the years of the English Civil War), the novel owes a great deal to seventeenth-century sources, but the most interesting recent research has emphasized the book's treatment of nineteenth-century issues. A key challenge for readers often means figuring out how Hawthorne's use of early history helps him deal with more contemporary matters. Puritanism Puritanism and the history of early Massachusetts settlements – Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Salem – form one important context in which to understand Hawthorne's writing. Hawthorne read widely in seventeenth-century history, both English and American. Scholars such as Charles Ryskamp and Michael Colacurcio have meticulously connected characters and events in The Scarlet Letter and other works to the New England historical record.
Precedents of Injustice: Thinking About History in Law and Society Scholarship

In this essay I discuss how law and legal precedent present a false or eschewed construction of the past. The Chicago Haymarket Riot in 1886 and the subsequent trial of eight rioters in Spies vs. People provide a dramatic illustration of the lasting consequences of privileging some historical narratives and silencing others. Occurring as it did at the dawn of the “Red Scare,” the miscarriage of justice in Spies vs. People acts as a landmark precedent in a tradition within the United States of extra-judicial lawlessness that stretches from this case through 100 years of labor turmoil, two World Wars, McCarthyism, the Cold War, and up to the current War on Terror. Moreover, these instances of lawlessness and extra-judicial activity, while not written into legal records, nonetheless resurface again and again to form patterns of behavior that amount to what I call precedents of injustice, and which I argue are as integral to law as any formal legal precedents. By way of conclusion I urge all sociolegal scholars to remain attentive to the wider historical contexts which over time are repeatedly silenced through the institutionalized legal processes of denial and forgetfulness.
Towards a Multi-Variable Parametric Cost Model for Ground and Space Telescopes

Parametric cost models can be used by designers and project managers to perform relative cost comparisons between major architectural cost drivers and allow high-level design trades; enable cost-benefit analysis for technology development investment; and, provide a basis for estimating total project cost between related concepts. This paper hypothesizes a single model, based on published models and engineering intuition, for both ground and space telescopes: OTA Cost approximately (X) D(exp (1.75 +/- 0.05)) lambda(exp(-0.5 +/- 0.25) T(exp -0.25) e (exp (-0.04)Y). Specific findings include: space telescopes cost 50X to 100X more ground telescopes; diameter is the most important CER; cost is reduced by approximately 50% every 20 years (presumably because of technology advance and process improvements); and, for space telescopes, cost associated with wavelength performance is balanced by cost associated with operating temperature. Finally, duplication only reduces cost for the manufacture of identical systems (i.e. multiple aperture sparse arrays or interferometers). And, while duplication does reduce the cost of manufacturing the mirrors of segmented primary mirror, this cost savings does not appear to manifest itself in the final primary mirror assembly (presumably because the structure for a segmented mirror is more complicated than for a monolithic mirror).
The Technological Problem of Social Cost

The relationship between law and technology is both important and poorly understood. To be sure, certain aspects of the relationship are well studied. For instance, the use of law and policy to promote the development of technology, or to channel this development along more or less desirable paths, is the subject of longstanding, intense, and ongoing study. And much has been written about the process by which the law responds to exogenous technological shocks – how judges, legislatures, and agencies go about updating the law in response to the development of new technologies. But in these cases legal institutions generally wait for technological change to happen and then respond to that change. This article draws from economic understandings of the law to consider the relationship between law and technology. The basic theory offered can be stated concisely: technology defines the transaction costs that define what the law both can and should be. As developed by Coase, Melamed & Calabresi, and at least two generations of scholars since, transaction costs play a critical role in defining the law. As famously articulated by Coase, in the absence of transaction costs, it does not matter what the law is – parties will negotiate around any legal rules to achieve preferred outcomes; but, because there are always transaction costs, Coase tells us, we must be careful to design the law with them in mind, so as to minimize those costs. Transaction costs, that is, define what the law can and should be. This article adds that transaction costs are, in turn, defined, by technology – and that technological change can affect transaction costs, and therefore the law, in predictable ways.This relatively modest observation yields powerful results. Most important, it endogenizes the relationship between law and technology, shifting from one in which law adjusts to exogenous technological shocks to one in which legal and technological change can (and, this article argues, should) occur in tandem. It provides a law-relevant definition of technology, and describes the mechanisms by which technology affects the law. It offers insights into the operation of the law, including explaining that efficient law may require relatively inefficient technology. And it provides a framework for analyzing the relationship between law and technology and identifies ways in which this relationship may at times be antagonistic.
The Unfortunate Misinterpretation of Miss Follett

Mary Follett was both a woman in public service in myriad roles from social worker to presidential advisor and a female public intellectual giving voice to what would later be called a feminist perspective. Based on a forthcoming book, this paper summarizes the fullness of Follett’s thinking and discusses the manner in which she is frequently misinterpreted in the literature, arguing that these misunderstandings are due to a lack of awareness of, or ability to grasp, her underlying relational process ontology. Misinterpretations in both the management and public administration literature are considered, ending with a call for scholars in both specializations to reconsider their interpretations from a more in-depth understanding of her work.
The Influence of Extracellular RNA on Cell Behavior in Health, Disease and Regeneration.

An overview of the role of extracellular RNAs (exRNA) in the regulation of homeostasis, disease progression, and regeneration is provided herein. Several exRNAs have been identified as potential biomarkers for disease and disease progression. In addition, the potential of exRNAs as a therapeutic modality is discussed. Fibrotic diseases of the lung, liver, and heart, among other organs, share a number of identical exRNAs which play key roles in disease pathogenesis. Though regeneration is limited to only a few tissues in humans, small RNAs (e.g., microRNA) have been shown to be involved in the regenerative process of tissues such as liver and bone. The regulation of healing versus disease appears to be balanced by small RNAs. Because small RNAs are critical to health, they are being investigated as drug targets in multiple ongoing clinical trials. Preclinical studies suggest that promoting or blocking specific small RNAs can provide a novel therapeutic approach. exRNA can be utilized for both detection and treatment of disease. Natural and synthetic RNA carriers are being investigated as delivery methods for small RNA molecules. Current and future investigations are likely to lead to expanded applications for exRNAs.
Loss Function and Benefit Measurement

The allocation of funds by formula is a major use of data collected by statistical agencies. As stated, the original General Revenue Sharing (GRS) program distributed more than $30 billion from 1972 to 1976 to 51 state governments (including the District of Columbia) and nearly 39,000 local governments. The allocations were made over time in six or twelve month “entitlement periods”, with the total allocation in each entitlement period fixed (except for possible minor adjustments) by law. To determine the relative sizes of shares of the pie, GRS relied on formulas depending on values of data elements such as population, per capita income, and income tax collections. Appendix B describes the formulas in more detail.
Multiple-Cue Discrimination Learning in Children

Kindergarten, second- and fourth-grade children were trained on a simultaneous discrimination with either 2, 3, or 4 relevant and redundant visual cues. Test trials were given which measured the acquisition of choice responses to each of the relevant cues separately. The children, with the exception of one training condition, learned something about 2, often 3, and in some individual cases 4 cues, the number increasing with Ca and Ma. With an increase in the number of relevant cues, the amount learned about any one cue deceased and the number of cues about which something was learned was reduced for kindergarten and second-grade children. The results were discussed in terms of a limited capacity to utilize redundant information, which increases with developmental level.
Production of the Light Elements Lithium, Beryllium, and Boron by Proton Spallation of C 12

Cross sections for the production of the light elements lithium, beryllium, and boron by proton bombardment of $^{12}\mathrm{C}$ were measured for proton energies between 21.7 and 44.0 MeV. Time-of-flight methods were used to identify the masses of ions recoiling from a thin target into a semiconductor detector. The results are related to current models on the origin of these light elements, and are consistent with a suggestion that the $^{11}\mathrm{B}$/$^{10}\mathrm{B}$ isotopic ratio has remained unaltered at its formation value.
Improving phenolic bioactive-linked anti-hyperglycemic functions of dark germinated barley sprouts (Hordeum vulgare L.) using seed elicitation strategy

Sprouts of cereal grains, such as barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), are a good source of beneficial phenolic bioactives. Such health relevant phenolic bioactives of cereal sprouts can be targeted to manage chronic hyperglycemia and oxidative stress commonly associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Therefore improving phenolic bioactives by stimulating plant endogenous defense responses such as protective pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) during sprouting has significant merit. Based on this metabolic rationale, this study aimed to enhance phenolic bioactives and associated antioxidant and anti-hyperglycemic functions in dark germinated barley sprouts using exogenous elicitor treatments. Dark-germinated sprouts of two malting barley cultivars (Pinnacle and Celebration), treated with chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) and marine protein hydrolysate (GP), were evaluated. Total soluble phenolic content (TSP), phenolic acid profiles, total antioxidant activity (TA) and in vitro inhibitory activities of hyperglycemia relevant α-amylase and α-glucosidase enzymes of the dark germinated barley sprouts were evaluated at day 2, 4, and 6 post elicitor treatments. Overall, TSP content, TA, and α-amylase inhibitory activity of dark germinated barley sprouts decreased, while α-glucosidase inhibitory activity and gallic acid content increased from day 2 to day 6. Among barley cultivars, high phenolic antioxidant-linked anti-hyperglycemic bioactives were observed in Celebration. Furthermore, GP and COS seed elicitor treatments in selective doses improved T2D relevant phenolic-linked anti-hyperglycemic bioactives of barley spouts at day 6. Therefore, such seed elicitation approach can be strategically used to develop bioactive enriched functional food ingredients from cereal sprouts targeting chronic hyperglycemia and oxidative stress linked to T2D.
Finding nanostructures that reproduce colors with adaptive mesh search techniques

This paper presents a computational adaptive mesh refinement technique for designing photonic nanostructures with a specific perceived color. This inverse design method can be used for any color-based application of photonic structures, including pigment-free paints, anticounterfeiting materials, and reflective displays. The adaptive mesh refinement technique is efficient, and results are returned within seconds or minutes on a laptop computer, eliminating the need for cluster computing. This search method can be used for any well-characterized photonic structure and can even be adapted to accommodate fabrication constraints. In this work, the adaptive mesh search is applied to 1D, 2D, and 3D photonic structures, and the resulting designs are satisfactory matches with the desired colors.
Direct oral anticoagulants or warfarin for A fib

A recent study evaluated the effectiveness of 3 direct oral anticoagulants and warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation. So which agents came out on top?
Teachers' cognitive flexibility on engagement and their ability to engage students: A theoretical and empirical exploration

BackgroundStudent engagement is a cognitively complex domain that is often oversimplified in theory and practice. Reliance on a single model overlooks the sophisticated nature of student engagement...
Predicting corticosteroid-free endoscopic remission with vedolizumab in ulcerative colitis.

Background Vedolizumab is an effective therapy for ulcerative colitis (UC), but costly and slow to work. New clinical responses occur after 30 weeks of therapy. Aims To enable physicians, patients, and insurers to predict whether a patient with UC will respond to vedolizumab at an early time point after starting therapy. Methods The clinical study data request website provided the phase 3 clinical trial data for vedolizumab. Random forest models were trained on 70% and tested on 30% of the data to predict corticosteroid-free endoscopic remission at week 52. Models were constructed using baseline data, or data through week 6 of vedolizumab therapy from 491 subjects. Results The AuROC for prediction of corticosteroid-free endoscopic remission at week 52 using baseline data was only 0.62 (95% CI: 0.53-0.72), but was 0.73 (95% CI: 0.65-0.82) when using data through week 6. A total of 47% of subjects were predicted to be remitters, and 59% of these subjects achieved corticosteroid-free endoscopic remission, in contrast to 21% of the predicted non-remitters. A week 6 prediction using FCP ≤234 μg/g was nearly as accurate. Conclusions A machine learning algorithm using laboratory data through week 6 of vedolizumab therapy was able to accurately identify which UC patients would achieve corticosteroid-free endoscopic remission on vedolizumab at week 52. Application of this algorithm could have significant implications for clinical decisions on whom to continue on this costly medication when the benefits of the vedolizumab are not clinically apparent in the first 6 weeks of therapy.
Reviewing reservoir operations in the North American West: an opportunity for adaptation

Storage reservoirs are an important part of the water infrastructure in both the USA and Canada. Their operations are important not only for water supply but also for downstream aquatic and riparian ecosystems. Public agencies operate some of the most important water supply reservoirs in both nations: the federal Bureau of Reclamation in the western USA and the provincial Alberta Environment and Parks in Canada’s South Saskatchewan River Basin. This paper examines legal and policy issues affecting potential changes in reservoir operations as an adaptation strategy in the western USA and southern Alberta and considers the two agencies’ policies and practices on reviewing dam operations. Although both agencies appear to recognize the potential value of reviewing and revising their reservoir operating plans, neither makes a practice of doing so. Thus, there is no program to review the operations of water supply projects; by contrast, hydropower project operations have been reviewed and revised in both nations. The two agencies have similar approaches even though federal laws and institutions are important for reservoir operations in the USA, but have little influence in Alberta. Whether federal or provincial, these agencies have operated their projects primarily to benefit local interests.
Tocqueville on the Needs of the Soul

This essay revisits Tocqueville's distinctive liberalism by placing the needs of the soul at the center of his political thought. By the soul, Tocqueville means humanity's capacity for thought and ...
SYMMETRY CATCHES THE EYE

Eye movements of ten adults were recorded as they judged the aesthetic potential of the original and altered single and double symmetrical transformations of five structurally complex abstract compositions. It was found that when symmetry was present, both survey and examination fixations were concentrated along the axis of symmetry. When symmetry was absent, however, exploration was more evenly distributed to all areas of the stimulus array. Although symmetry influenced the spatial aspects of exploration, the number of survey and examination fixations used to explore the arrays was not influenced by the presence of symmetry. Results are discussed in terms of a two-step symmetry encoding model and Berlyne's theory of aesthetic behavior.
Quality Assurance and Validation

DNA testing is a multi-step, technical process that needs to be performed by qualified and properly trained personnel to ensure that accurate results are obtained and interpreted correctly. Community-wide quality assurance standards, laboratory accreditation and audits, regular analyst proficiency tests, and on-going continuing education, method and instrument validation, standard operating procedures, adequate controls, and reference materials along with secondary reviews by other qualified analysts all act as checks and controls on DNA results produced in forensic laboratories. These quality assurance measures help maintain good laboratory practice and produce accurate scientific results. Developmental validation by manufacturers and internal validation by forensic laboratories are important to demonstrating the reliability, reproducibility, and robustness of a technique and for establishing interpretation protocols. Interlaboratory studies and certified reference materials also play a role in quality assurance.
Site Survey for Wireless Communications Evaluation for New York Mercantile Exchange

The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) asked Texas Instruments (TI) to study and propose the implementation of a system to support commodities traders in the exchange trading pits. The system includes a custom hand held computer, an integrated wireless communications system, a wireless-to-wired network bridge, and a fault detection and recovery scheme. This paper summarizes the findings of a site survey on the trading floor at NYMEX both during off hours (“empty room” but with existing equipment) and during trading (hundreds of traders in constant motion present). The goal was to evaluate the system sensitivity and impact of the impairments in terms of friendly and external interferers. Using a spectrum analyzer and a tracking generator, we measured the real-time path loss and frequency response from the temporary access point to the hand-held computer. Measurements of the indoor propagation path loss at NYMEX show good correlation with theory. Due to the large number of metal structures and plasma displays there is significant multi-path throughout the room and, hence, very little shadowing. With a location 100 floors below the World Trade Center broadcast center, the NYMEX commodities floor is a particularly interesting environment from an external interferer standpoint (i.e. intermodulation suppression, adjacent channel rejection). In addition, the excessive trader activity and user density in a hyper-active physical environment places several constraints on communication system design.
Are abusive fractures in young children becoming less common? Changes over 24 years.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the proportion of fractures rated as abusive in children <36 months of age evaluated at a regional pediatric hospital increased over a 24-year period from 1979 to 2002. Fractures were chosen as an example of serious injuries in young children. METHODS: Medical records were abstracted for all children <36 months of age who were seen at a single pediatric hospital with a fracture during three time periods: 1979-1983, 1991-1994, and 1999-2002. After reviewing the abstracted and radiographic information, two clinicians (one an expert on child abuse) and two pediatric radiologists each rated the likelihood of abuse using explicit criteria and a seven-point scale from definite abuse to definite unintentional injury. Ratings were done independently; when disagreements occurred, the case was discussed, and a joint rating was agreed upon, if possible. The proportions of cases rated as abuse were compared over the three time periods, and logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (OR). RESULTS: In the early, middle, and late samples, there were 200, 240, and 232 children, respectively, with fractures. The proportion of cases rated as abuse decreased from 22.5% in the early period to 10.0% in the middle period and was 10.8% in the late period (p<.001). When comparing the odds of abuse in the middle and late groups to the odds of abuse in the early group (controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, type of medical insurance, and site of pediatric care), the adjusted ORs were .31 (95% CI=.15, .62) for the middle group and .45 (95% CI=.23, .86) for the late group. Thus, the odds of a given case being rated as abuse decreased by over 50% from the early period to the middle and late time periods. No statistically significant difference was found when comparing the odds of abuse for the middle group to those of the late group, OR: 1.46 (95% CI=.69, 3.08). CONCLUSIONS: The proportion of abusive fractures in young children decreased substantially from 1979-1983 to 1991-1994 and 1999-2002 at a major pediatric hospital. We speculate that this decrease may reflect early recognition of less serious forms of maltreatment and the availability of services to high-risk families. Language: en
Induction of melanocytogenesis in explants of Curassius auratus L the xanthic goldfish by dibutyryl-cAMP.

Abstract Di-butyryl-cAMP has been shown to induce the differentiation of melanoblasts into melanocytes in cultured explants of the caudal fin of the goldfish.
Tolerance of Proprotein Convertase Subtilisin/Kexin type 9 (PCSK9) Inhibitors in Patients With Self-Reported Statin Intolerance.

Background:Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors have been shown to lower atherogenic lipid markers in patients with statin intolerance; however, external validity of these findings is unclear in patients with self-reported statin intolerance.Objective:The objective of this study was to describe the tolerability of evolocumab and alirocumab in patients with self-reported statin intolerance. Secondary objectives were to describe their efficacy and obtainability.Methods:A retrospective chart review was completed and included adult patients with self-reported statin intolerance who were prescribed a PCSK9 inhibitor. Patient-reported side effects, laboratory values, and insurance information were collected for assessment of study objectives.Results:During the study period, 55 patients were prescribed PCSK9 inhibitor, 42 started therapy, and 34 had at least 1 follow-up visit. While myalgias occurred in 14.7% (n = 5) of patients, flu-like symptoms in 11.8% (n = 4), and fatigue in 2.9%...
Knockout of Gnrh2 in zebrafish (Danio rerio) reveals its roles in regulating feeding behavior and oocyte quality.

Abstract Many studies on Gnrh1, and the teleost Gnrh3, have elucidated the roles of these peptides in reproductive regulation. However, the role of the midbrain population of Gnrh, Gnrh2, has long been a mystery, despite its ubiquitous conservation in all jawed vertebrates except rodents. Previous behavioral studies in sparrows, musk shrews, mice, zebrafish, and goldfish show that Gnrh2 administrations both increase spawning behaviors and decrease feeding behaviors, suggesting a role of this peptide in metabolism regulation along with the canonical role in regulating reproduction. In order to more deeply explore the roles of Gnrh2, we used a cyprinid teleost, zebrafish, which has 2 forms of Gnrh, Gnrh2 and Gnrh3, to generate a knockout zebrafish line which contains a frameshift mutation and subsequent disruption of the coding for the functional Gnrh2 peptide. We examined differences in reproduction, feeding, growth, and mobility in this line, and discovered major differences in feeding and growth parameters, suggesting that Gnrh2 is a potent anorexigen in zebrafish. Additionally, there were no differences in mobility except for increased distances swam during feeding periods. There were no major differences in reproductive success, however, female gnrh2−/− zebrafish exhibited smaller oocytes and increased embryo mortality, indicating slightly decreased oocyte quality. Additionally, there were changes in the expression levels of many feeding, growth, and reproductive neuropeptides in gnrh2−/− zebrafish. Taken together, these findings suggest a role for Gnrh2 in controlling satiation in zebrafish along with a minor role in maintaining optimal oocyte quality in females.
Health benefits of yogurt among infants and toddlers aged 4 to 24 months: a systematic review.

CONTEXT Health benefits of yogurt are well documented in adults and older children, but less is known about the effects of yogurt in infants and toddlers (aged 4 to 24 months). OBJECTIVE The aim of this qualitative systematic review was to assess the effects of yogurt and fermented milk products on the health of infants and toddlers. DATA SOURCES PubMed was searched for English-language papers. No date restrictions were applied. STUDY SELECTION Randomized controlled trials, observational studies, and prospective cohort studies were included. Systematic or narrative reviews, conference abstracts, and dissertations were excluded. In total, 1624 abstracts were screened, of which 1614 were excluded. DATA EXTRACTION Full texts of the remaining 10 abstracts were independently reviewed by both authors, who reached consensus about relevance, methods, findings, quality, and conclusions of the included studies. RESULTS The included studies (published between 1987 and 2017) were heterogeneous with respect to sample size, study population, and type of yogurt used. Five of six studies showed a positive effect of yogurt consumption on infectious diarrhea. Two studies reported a positive effect on gut microbiota composition. Two cohort studies reported a positive effect on reducing the incidence of atopic dermatitis, one of which also reported a positive impact on food sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS Published evidence, much of it decades old, supports a health benefit of yogurt consumption in infants and children. New short- and long-term studies are needed to better evaluate the impact of yogurt consumption in contemporary settings.
An update on PTEN modulators–a patent review

Introduction: A multitude of cellular and physiological functions have been attributed to the biological activity of PTEN (Phosphatase and tensin homolog) such as inhibiting angiogenesis, promoting apoptosis, preventing cell proliferation, and maintaining cellular homeostasis. Based on whether cell growth is needed to be initiated or to be inhibited, enhancing PTEN expression or seeking to inhibit it was pursued. Areas covered: Here the authors provide recent updates to their previous publication on 'PTEN modulators: A patent review', and discuss on new specificities that affirm the therapeutic potential of PTEN in promoting neuro-regeneration, stem cell regeneration, autophagy, bone and cartilage regeneration. Also, targeting PTEN appears to be effective in developing new treatment strategies for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, macular degeneration, immune disorders, asthma, arthritis, lupus, Crohn's disease, and several cancer types. Expert opinion: PTEN mainly inhibits the PI3k/Akt pathway. However, the PI3k/Akt pathway can be activated by other signaling proteins. Thus, novel treatment strategies that can regulate PTEN alone, or combinational treatment approaches that can induce PTEN and simultaneously affect downstream mediators in the PI3K/Akt pathway, are needed, which were not investigated in detail. Commercial interests associated with molecules that regulate PTEN are discussed here, along with limitations and new possibilities to improve them.
Co-Transplantation of Autologous Umbilical Cord Matrix Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improves Engraftment of Umbilical Cord Blood in NOD/SCID Mice.

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is a viable source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation of children and adults undergoing treatment for hematological malignancies. However only 4% of adults 70kg and over have a UCB unit available which contains the widely accepted minimum cell dose of 1.5x10 7 mononuclear cells per kilogram. Co-transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells with mesenchymal stem cells may enhance engraftment and therefore decrease transplant-related morbidity and mortality from delayed leukocyte recovery associated with a low pre-transplant cell dose. Umbilical cord matrix (UCM) cells, found in the Wharton’s Jelly, were easily and reliably extracted from minced pieces of cord by culture in RPMI + 20% fetal bovine serum at 37° and 5% humidified CO 2 . UCM expand best in 20% FBS but can also be expanded in human serum, autologous serum, and X-VIVO10. Small (1–3mm) minced pieces of umbilical cord can be cyropreserved at the time of delivery in 10% DMSO solution. UCM cells exhibit a fibroblast morphology and express markers common to mesenchymal stem cells: CD73 (SH3), CD105 (SH2), CD 29, CD44, CD49b, CD117, CD166, STRO-1 and HLA-DR. UCM are negative for CD14, CD 19, CD34, and CD45. Morphology and cell surface marker expression is stable after greater than fifteen passages. UCM cells grown in culture were shown to produce more GM-CSF and G-CSF than similar numbers of adult bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, GM-CSF 178 pg/mL versus 77 pg/mL and G-CSF 82.6 pg/mL versus 7.9 pg/mL. NOD/SCID mice treated with anti-NK 1.1 antibodies and irradiated with 350 cGy were injected with suboptimal (1x10 4 ) numbers of cord blood CD34+ cells with and without 1x10 6 autologous UCM cells, extracted from the same umbilical cord as the cord blood CD34+ cells. Bone marrow was harvested at six weeks post transplant from both femurs and tibias and peripheral blood obtained via cardiac puncture. The percentage of human CD45+ cells in the bone marrow and the peripheral blood was assessed by flow cytometry. NOD/SCID mice transplanted with 1x10 4 cord blood CD34+ cells alone had 3.0% human CD45+ cell engraftment in the bone marrow and 3.6% human CD45+ cells in the peripheral blood, while NOD/SCID mice transplanted with 1x10 4 CD34+ cells and 1x10 6 UCM cells had an average of 27.3% human CD45+ cell engraftment in the bone marrow and 3.9% human CD45+ cells in the peripheral blood. These results indicate a trend towards improved engraftment in vivo with co-transplantation of suboptimal numbers of umbilical cord blood CD34+ cells and autologous umbilical cord matrix cells versus transplantation of suboptimal numbers of umbilical cord CD34+ cells alone.
Low-Temperature Specific Heats of Glassy Pd 1-x-y Si x Cu y Alloys

Measurements are reported of low-temperature specific heats in a number of binary and ternary amorphous Pd-Si and Pd-Si-Cu alloys. The results indicate that the linearterm temperature coefficient, $\ensuremath{\gamma}$, changes with electron concentration and shows a pronounced maximum near $\frac{e}{a}=1.6$. The glassy alloys are also characterized by a large ${T}^{5}$-term coefficient and a relatively low limiting Debye temperature. The hypothesis of a minimum in the density of states at the Fermi level within the glassy range has not been confirmed.
Hypotension in Chronic Methamphetamine User

Hypotension refractory to medical treatment occurs in a chronic methamphetamine user after induction of general anesthesia. An anesthetic machine malfunction contributes to the patient’s hypotension. Pharmacology of methamphetamine and its effects on patients under general anesthesia are discussed.
Curative therapies for Hepatitis C virus infection in patients with kidney disease

Through the discovery of direct-acting antiviral therapies over the last decade, Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been transformed from a highly morbid and potentially fatal chronic viral infection to a curable illness. HCV is common in patients with kidney disease and is a risk factor for progression of chronic kidney disease, is associated with higher morbidity and mortality in dialysis patients and leads to worse allograft and patient outcomes in kidney transplant recipients. Clinical trial and real-world data of direct acting antivirals in patients with kidney disease demonstrate extremely high cure rates and favorable adverse event profiles. This review covers the transformative effects of curative HCV therapies on patients with kidney disease including patients with chronic kidney disease, end-stage kidney disease, and kidney transplant recipients.
Effects of smartphone sensor variability in road roughness evaluation

Accelerometers embedded in smartphones have become an alternative means of measuring the roughness of roads. However, the differences in their sensitivity and sampling rates between smartphones cou...
Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (Hgps) And Application Of Gene Therapy Based Crispr/Cas Technology As A Promising Innovative Treatment Approach.

Background Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) also known as progeria of childhood or progeria is a rare, rapid, autosomal dominant genetic disorder characterized by premature aging which occurs shortly after birth. HGPS occurs as a result of de novo point mutation in the gene recognized as LMNA gene that encodes two proteins Lamin A protein and Lamin C protein which are the structural components of the nuclear envelope. Mutations in the gene trigger abnormal splicing and induce internal deletion of 50 amino acids leading to the development of a truncated form of Lamin A protein known as Progerin. Progerin generation can be considered as the crucial step in HGPS since the protein is highly toxic to human cells, permanently farnesylated, and exhibits variation in several biochemical and structural properties within the individual. HGPS also produces complications such as skin alterations, growth failure, atherosclerosis, hair and fat loss, and bone and joint diseases. We have also revised all relevant patents relating to Hutchinson-gilford progeria syndrome and its therapy in the current article. Method The goal of the present review article is to provide information about Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) and the use of CRISPR/Cas technology as a promising treatment approach in the treatment of the disease. The review also discusses about different pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods of treatment currently used for HGPS. Results The main limitation associated with progeria is the lack of a definitive cure. The existing treatment modality provides only symptomatic relief. Therefore, it is high time to develop a therapeutic method that hastens premature aging in such patients. Conclusion CRISPR/Cas technology is a novel gene-editing tool that allows genome editing at specific loci, and is found to be a promising therapeutic approach for the treatment of genetic disorders such as HGPS where dominant-negative mutations take place.
Service-Level Fault Injection Testing

Companies today increasingly rely on microservice architectures to deliver service for their large-scale mobile or web applications. However, not all developers working on these applications are distributed systems engineers and therefore do not anticipate partial failure: where one or more of the dependencies of their service might be unavailable once deployed into production. Therefore, it is paramount that these issues be raised early and often, ideally in a testing environment or before the code ships to production. In this paper, we present an approach called service-level fault injection testing and a prototype implementation called Filibuster, that can be used to systematically identify resilience issues early in the development of microservice applications. Filibuster combines static analysis and concolicstyle execution with a novel dynamic reduction algorithm to extend existing functional test suites to cover failure scenarios with minimal developer effort. To demonstrate the applicability of our tool, we present a corpus of 4 real-world industrial microservice applications containing bugs. These applications and bugs are taken from publicly available information of chaos engineering experiments run by large companies in production. We then demonstrate how all of these chaos experiments could have been run during development instead, and the bugs they discovered detected long before they ended up in production.
An Identification of Consumer Motivational Factors for Establishing Long Term Relationships with Retail Service Establishments

Motivations that influence consumers to establish long term business relationships with retail services are factor analyzed to explore the nature of their underlying dimensions. An exploratory factor analysis groups consumer motivations into ten factors, which interestingly reflect Maslow's (1954) pyramid of needs pattern. The relative strength of these factors seem to vary in terms of attracting consumer patronage as well as their relative effectiveness across various types of retail services. The results of this exploratory study are encouraging for developing this stream of research to assist retail services managers in the practice of relationship marketing. The author provides directions for future research.
Regularized canonical correlations for sensor data clustering

The task of determining informative sensors and clustering the sensor measurements according to their information content is considered. To this end, the standard canonical correlation analysis (CCA) framework is equipped with norm-one and norm-two regularization terms to estimate the unknown number of field sources and identify informative groups of sensors. Coordinate descent techniques are combined with the alternating direction method of multipliers to derive an algorithm that minimizes the regularized CCA framework. An efficient scheme to properly select the regularization coefficients associated with the norm-one and norm-two terms is also developed. Numerical tests corroborate that the novel scheme outperforms existing alternatives.
Small Random perturbation of dynamical systems with reflecting boundary

Consider a diffusion process in R d satisfying the stochastic differential equation .
Characterization of the phosphoglucose isomerase gene from crickets: an analysis of phylogeny, amino acid conservation and nucleotide composition

Although electrophoretic variation in phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI) is often detected in allozyme studies, the Pgi gene has rarely been characterized. Here, I present the cDNA sequence of the Pgi gene from two species of field cricket, Gryllus pennsylvanicus (U65475) and G. veletis (U65476), in which the PGI protein is suspected of being under balancing selection. Phylogenetic analyses support the conclusion that these sequences are truly cricket Pgi. The cricket amino acid sequences are compared to sequences from other taxa to determine conserved residues that may be essential for the function of the protein. Such analysis is necessary as there is no well-resolved structure of the PGI protein. In addition, the compositional bias of cricket Pgi is different from the other animal Pgi genes characterized to date.
Distribution of N-Acetylgalactosamine-Positive Perineuronal Nets in the Macaque Brain: Anatomy and Implications

Perineuronal nets (PNNs) are extracellular molecules that form around neurons near the end of critical periods during development. They surround neuronal cell bodies and proximal dendrites. PNNs inhibit the formation of new connections and may concentrate around rapidly firing inhibitory interneurons. Previous work characterized the important role of perineuronal nets in plasticity in the visual system, amygdala, and spinal cord of rats. In this study, we use immunohistochemistry to survey the distribution of perineuronal nets in representative areas of the primate brain. We also document changes in PNN prevalence in these areas in animals of different ages. We found that PNNs are most prevalent in the cerebellar nuclei, surrounding >90% of the neurons there. They are much less prevalent in cerebral cortex, surrounding less than 10% of neurons in every area that we examined. The incidence of perineuronal nets around parvalbumin-positive neurons (putative fast-spiking interneurons) varies considerably between different areas in the brain. Our survey indicates that the presence of PNNs may not have a simple relationship with neural plasticity and may serve multiple functions in the central nervous system.
Anomaly-sensitive dictionary learning for structural diagnostics from ultrasonic wavefields

This paper proposes a strategy for the detection and triangulation of localized anomalies, such as defects, inclusions, or damage zones, in solid and structural media. The method revolves around the construction of sparse representations of the structure’s ultrasonic wavefield response, which are obtained by learning instructive dictionaries that form a suitable basis for the response data. The resulting sparse coding problem is cast as a modified dictionary learning task with additional spatial sparsity constraints enforced on the atoms of the learned dictionaries, which provide them with the ability to unveil anomalous regions in the physical domain. The proposed methodology is model-agnostic, i.e., it forsakes the need for a physical model and requires virtually no a priori knowledge of the material properties. This characteristic makes the approach especially powerful for anomaly identification in systems with unknown or highly heterogeneous property distribution, for which a material model is unsuitable or unreliable. The method is tested against synthetically generated data as well as experimental data acquired using a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer.