cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Novel insight from transgenic mice into thyroid hormone resistance and the regulation of thyrotropin

Patients with resistance to thyroid hormone (RTH) exhibit elevated thyroid hormone levels and inappropriate thyrotropin (thyroid-stimulating hormone, or TSH) production. The molecular basis of this disorder resides in the dominant inhibition of endogenous thyroid hormone receptors (TRs) by a mutant receptor. To determine the relative contributions of pituitary versus hypothalamic resistance to the dysregulated production of thyroid hormone in these patients, we developed a transgenic mouse model with pituitary-specific expression of a mutant TR (Δ337T). The equivalent mutation in humans is associated with severe generalized RTH. Transgenic mice developed profound pituitary resistance to thyroid hormone, as demonstrated by markedly elevated baseline and non‐triodothyronine (T3)-suppressible serum TSH and pituitary TSH-β mRNA. Serum thyroxine (T4) levels were only marginally elevated in transgenic mice and thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) gene expression in the paraventricular hypothalamus was downregulated. After TRH administration, T4 concentrations increased markedly in transgenic, but not in wild-type mice. Transgenic mice rendered hypothyroid exhibited a TSH response that was only 30% of the response observed in wild-type animals. These findings indicate that pituitary expression of this mutant TR impairs both T3-mediated suppression and T3-independent activation of TSH production in vivo. The discordance between basal TSH and T4 levels and the reversal with TRH administration demonstrates that resistance at the level of both the thyrotroph and the hypothalamic TRH neurons are required to elevate thyroid hormone levels in patients with RTH.
Opinion: Make Banks Disclose their Trades

On April 28 2014, Bank of America announced that it had for years misreported its capital to regulators. The 2014 Bank of America debacle and the 2012 JP Morgan/London Whale scandal are seemingly fundamentally different, yet they are both symptoms of a basic flaw in bank accounting. Banks disclose surprisingly little about their trading activities. Two proposed improvements are to (1) require banks to disclose all realized gains and losses on trading securities even when the bank has previously recognized unrealized gains and losses on those securities. (2) Require detailed, disaggregated disclosures of gains and losses on individual trades that exceed a certain threshold.
Will algae produce the green? Using published life cycle assessments as a starting point for economic evaluation of future algae-to-energy systems

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has become an important tool for evaluating the environmental sustainability of proposed algae-to-energy systems. The rapidly evolving body of literature on this topic demonstrates several important lessons, which can be leveraged to evaluate the likely economic sustainability of future algae-derived energy sources. A review of previously published algae LCAs is presented alongside preliminary economic information for three different kinds of algae cultivation systems (open ponds, photobioreactors and algal turf scrubbers), to demonstrate the relevance of algae LCA lessons learned and also contextualize the discussion of LCA-based life cycle costing (LCC) as it pertains to algae. Particularly important LCC themes arising from examination of current algae LCAs include: the critical role of co-products, the need for enhanced uncertainty characterization and the possible benefits of a meta-analysis approach to standardizing LCA and LCC evaluation of algae-to-energy systems.
Just how long can we live

In June this year, United States President Clinton and British Prime Minister Blair jointly announced that the human genome had been sequenced. In another year or so, this information should be assembled into a much more useful form than that in which it now exists. The advances which will be made possible by the Human Genome Project and new genetic technologies may well extend the human life span still further.
Clinical utility of immunoscintigraphy in managing ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer spreads to multiple areas of the peritoneal cavity early in the course of the disease. Multiple small foci of tumor are not identified readily with standard preoperative staging procedures. A review of an immunoscintigraphy study of more than 100 women preoperatively staged with 111 In-labeled B72.3 (CYT-103) reveals that this technique has a low potential for serious side effects and it can identify miliary spread of ovarian cancer and extra-abdominal metastases. It has the potential to contribute favorably to patient management by detecting occult lesions, may define the extent of tumor as well or better than computerized tomography and may impact on surgical decision-making
Functional Impact of Ryanodine Receptor Oxidation on Intracellular Calcium Regulation in the Heart.

Type 2 ryanodine receptor (RyR2) serves as the major intracellular Ca2+ release channel that drives heart contraction. RyR2 is activated by cytosolic Ca2+ via the process of Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release (CICR). To ensure stability of Ca2+ dynamics, the self-reinforcing CICR must be tightly controlled. Defects in this control cause sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ mishandling, which manifests in a variety of cardiac pathologies that include myocardial infarction and heart failure. These pathologies are also associated with oxidative stress. Given that RyR2 contains a large number of cysteine residues, it is no surprise that RyR2 plays a key role in the cellular response to oxidative stress. RyR’s many cysteine residues pose an experimental limitation in defining a specific target or mechanism of action for oxidative stress. As a result, the current understanding of redox-mediated RyR2 dysfunction remains incomplete. Several oxidative modifications, including S-glutathionylation and S-nitrosylation, have been suggested playing an important role in the regulation of RyR2 activity. Moreover, oxidative stress can increase RyR2 activity by forming disulfide bonds between two neighboring subunits (intersubunit cross-linking). Since intersubunit interactions within the RyR2 homotetramer complex dictate the channel gating, such posttranslational modification of RyR2 would have a significant impact on RyR2 function and Ca2+ regulation. This review summarizes recent findings on oxidative modifications of RyR2 and discusses contributions of these RyR2 modifications to SR Ca2+ mishandling during cardiac pathologies.
Access, quality, and costs of care at physician owned hospitals in the United States: observational study

Objective To compare physician owned hospitals (POHs) with non-POHs on metrics around patient populations, quality of care, costs, and payments. Design Observational study. Setting Acute care hospitals in 95 hospital referral regions in the United States, 2010. Participants 2186 US acute care hospitals (219 POHs and 1967 non-POHs). Main outcome measures Proportions of patients using Medicaid and those from ethnic and racial minority groups; hospital performance on patient experience metrics, care processes, risk adjusted 30 day mortality, and readmission rates; costs of care; care payments; and Medicare market share. Results The 219 POHs were more often small (<100 beds), for profit, and in urban areas. 120 of these POHs were general (non-specialty) hospitals. Compared with patients from non-POHs, those from POHs were younger (77.4 v 78.4 years, P<0.001), less likely to be admitted through an emergency department (23.2% v. 29.0%, P<0.001), equally likely to be black (5.1% v 5.5%, P=0.85) or to use Medicaid (14.9% v 15.4%, P=0.75), and had similar numbers of chronic diseases and predicted mortality scores. POHs and non-POHs performed similarly on patient experience scores, processes of care, risk adjusted 30 day mortality, 30 day readmission rates, costs, and payments for acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and pneumonia. Conclusion Although POHs may treat slightly healthier patients, they do not seem to systematically select more profitable or less disadvantaged patients or to provide lower value care.
Non-plastic silty sand liquefaction, screening, and remediation

Abstract Assessing liquefaction potential, in situ screening using cone penetration resistance, and liquefaction-remediation of non-plastic silty soils are difficult problems. Presence of silt particles among the sand grains in silty soils alter the moduli, shear strength, and flow characteristics of silty soils compared to clean host sand at the same global void ratio. Cyclic resistance (CRR) and normalized cone penetration resistance (qc1N) are each affected by silt content in a different way. Therefore, a unique correlation between cyclic resistance and cone resistance is not possible for sands and silty sands. Likewise, the response of silty soils subjected to traditional deep dynamic compaction (DC) and vibro-stone column (SC) densification techniques is influenced by the presence of silt particles, compared to the response in sand. Silty soils require drainage-modifications to make them amenable for dynamic densification techniques. The first part of this paper addresses the effects of silt content on cyclic resistance CRR, hydraulic conductivity k, and coefficient of consolidation Cv of silty soils compared to clean sand. The second part of the paper assesses the effectiveness of equivalent intergranular void ratio (ec)eq concept to approximately account for the effects of silt content on CRR. The third part of the paper explores the combined effects of silt content (viz effects of (ec)eq, k, and Cv) on qc1N using laboratory model cone tests and preliminary numerical simulation experiments. A possible inter-relationship between qc1N, CRR, accommodating the different degrees of influence of (ec)eq, k, and Cv on qc1N and CRR, is discussed. The fourth part of the paper focuses on the detrimental effects of silt content on the effectiveness of DC and SC techniques to densify silty soils for liquefaction-mitigation. Finally, the effectiveness of supplemental wick drains to aid drainage and facilitate densification and liquefaction mitigation of silty sands using DC and SC techniques is discussed.
Predicting the Benefit of Statins in Patients With Diabetes Mellitus A Case of Perfect Being the Enemy of Good

The main goal of personalized medicine is to tailor medical decisions to the individual patient based on his or her predicted response or risk of disease. Although traditionally, the concept of personalized medicine has referred to genetic personalization, this also applies to traditional clinical and demographic factors, which may affect the balance of risks and benefits a patient is expected to derive from a treatment. Clinical trial results report mean effects across the study population, and subgroup analyses are inherently limited. As such, we often conclude that the benefits of treatment apply consistently to the entirety of the study population, and the practice guidelines and performance measures generally reflect these conclusions. However, multivariable models can sometimes effectively quantify the heterogeneity of treatment benefit. In this way, patients can be identified who are at most (and least) likely to benefit from a treatment; such information could provide critically important guidance to clinicians and patients for many day-to-day management decisions. While this is a noble goal, the number of risk models that are created far exceed those used in clinical practice. There are multiple reasons for this, including the use of variables that are difficult to collect in routine clinic practice, modeling outcomes that are not clinically relevant or actionable, lack of external validation or concerns about model performance, and simple technology limitations and the ability to integrate these models into clinical care. Importantly, for a model to be useful, it should (1) be accurate at estimating risk, (2) be able to separate patients into distinct risk categories, (3) be able to be used with available data at the time of decision making, and (4) exert a …
Seeing like a market

Socio-Economic Review, 2017, Vol. 15, No. 1, 9–29 doi: 10.1093/ser/mww033 Advance Access Publication Date: 8 December 2016 Article Article Seeing like a market Marion Fourcade 1, * and Kieran Healy 2, * University of California, Berkeley and 2 Duke University *Correspondence: fourcade@berkeley.edu; kjhealy@soc.duke.edu Abstract What do markets see when they look at people? Information dragnets increasingly yield huge quantities of individual-level data, which are analyzed to sort and slot people into categories of taste, riskiness or worth. These tools deepen the reach of the market and define new strategies of profit-making. We present a new theoretical framework for understanding their development. We argue that (a) modern organ- izations follow an institutional data imperative to collect as much data as possible; (b) as a result of the analysis and use of this data, individuals accrue a form of capital flowing from their positions as measured by various digital scoring and ranking methods; and (c) the facticity of these scoring methods makes them organizational devices with potentially stratifying effects. They offer firms new opportunities to structure and price offerings to consumers. For individuals, they create classification situations that identify shared life-chances in product and service markets. We dis- cuss the implications of these processes and argue that they tend toward a new economy of moral judgment, where outcomes are experienced as morally deserved positions based on prior good actions and good tastes, as measured and classified by this new infrastructure of data collection and analysis. Key words: classification, big data, technology, markets, institutions, morality JEL classification: A13, O33 Across institutional domains, tracking and measurement is expanding and becoming ever more fine-grained (Limn, 2012; Gillespie et al., 2014; Pasquale, 2015). We see it in everyday consumption, in housing and credit markets, in health, employment, education (Cottom, 2016), social relations, including intimate ones (Levy, 2015), legal services, and even into political life (Ziewitz, 2016) and the private sphere (Neff and Nafus, 2016). Sociologists studying the state, technology and the market have sought to describe and understand these trends in different ways. This article proposes a framework to analytically unify their con- cerns, and to grasp the implications of contemporary technological developments for proc- esses of inequality and stratification. C The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. V All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
Cancer immunotherapy: Wound-bound checkpoint blockade

Platelets delivering the immunotherapeutic antibody anti-PD-L1 to the site of surgically removed tumours reduce cancer recurrence and metastatic spread in mice.
Party Asymmetry in America: Organizational Change in the Democratic and Republican Parties

Scholars of American politics have long treated parties as functional (or dysfunctional) for the constitutional system, for the socioeconomic order, or for the actors who use them. Consequently, when the environment around them changes, we typically assume that the parties will change, too. This article questions these functionalist assumptions by demonstrating that over the last sixty years, the Democratic and Republican parties did not change reflexively in response to external stimuli, nor did they change at the same time, at the same speed, or in the same ways. As each party confronted its own challenges and worked to resolve its own structural and operational dilemmas, each followed an organizational trajectory of its own making. By treating parties as political institutions of significance in their own right, this article explains these striking asymmetrical patterns of organizational development and offers a new theory of party change.
Abstract IA28: Molecular pathological epidemiology of risk factors and CRC microbial and immune characteristics

Innate and adaptive immunity plays an important role during carcinogenesis and tumor evolution. Evidence indicates that modifiable factors such as aspirin use, physical activity, obesity, smoking, alcohol, diet, and gut microbiota can influence not only cancer risk and outcome but also the human immune system. In addition, tumor molecular pathology and immunity influence each other. Over the past years, molecular pathology and epidemiology has been united to develop the integrative field of molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE). Recently, we have further integrated cancer immunology and MPE, into a new model of “immuno-MPE”. Immuno-MPE utilizes the MPE research framework to test statistical heterogeneity of the differential associations with tumor subtypes, and can decipher the relations between risk factors and subtypes classified by immune response status. We conducted proof-of-principle studies utilizing two large U.S.-nationwide prospective cohort studies (the Nurses9 Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study). We have shown that plasma vitamin D level (Song M et al. Gut 2016), germline genetic variation (IBD risk allele rs11676348) (Khalili H et al. Carcinogenesis 2015), and marine omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid intake (Song M et al. JAMA Oncology 2016) are associated with altered risk of specific immune subtypes of colorectal carcinoma. We have also shown that tumor neoantigen loads (Giannakis M et al. Cell Reports 2016), CD274 (PD-L1) expression (Masugi Y et al. Gut 2016), and Fusobacterium nucleatum (Mima K et al. JAMA Oncology 2015) are associated with densities of CD3+, CD8+, CD45RO+, or FOXP3+ T cells or lymphocytic response (eg., Crohn9s-like lymphoid reaction, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, TILs) in rectal and colon cancer. Recently, we have shown that certain dietary patterns are associated with altered risk of colorectal cancer enriched with F. nucleatum, suggesting interactive carcinogenic roles of food, nutrients, and microflora (microbiome). The immuno-MPE approach can integrate tumor and immune data together with exposure risk factors and outcome. Immuno-MPE can not only give insights on how risk factors can interact with the immune system to modify cancer incidence, recurrence and survival, but also help develop strategies of immunoprevention and immunotherapy for precision medicine. Citation Format: Shuji Ogino. Molecular pathological epidemiology of risk factors and CRC microbial and immune characteristics. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Colorectal Cancer: From Initiation to Outcomes; 2016 Sep 17-20; Tampa, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(3 Suppl):Abstract nr IA28.
Agreement Among 4 Sampling Methods to Identify Respiratory Pathogens in Dairy Calves with Acute Bovine Respiratory Disease

Author(s): Doyle, D; Credille, B; Lehenbauer, TW; Berghaus, R; Aly, SS; Champagne, J; Blanchard, P; Crossley, B; Berghaus, L; Cochran, S; Woolums, A | Abstract: BackgroundFour sampling techniques commonly are used for antemortem identification of pathogens from cattle with bovine respiratory disease (BRD): the nasal swab (NS), guarded nasopharyngeal swab (NPS), bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), and transtracheal wash (TTW). Agreement among these methods has not been well characterized.ObjectiveTo evaluate agreement among TTW and NS, NPS, or BAL for identification of viral and bacterial pathogens in dairy calves with BRD.AnimalsOne hundred dairy calves with naturally acquired BRD.MethodsCalves were sampled by all 4 methods. Viral agents were identified by real-time RT-PCR, bacteria were identified by aerobic culture, and Mycoplasma bovis (M. bovis) isolates were speciated by PCR. Agreement among TTW and NS, NPS, or BAL was evaluated by calculating the kappa statistic and percent positive agreement. McNemar's exact test was used to compare the proportions of positive results.ResultsAgreement among TTW and NS, TTW and NPS, and TTW and BAL, was very good for identification of P. multocida, M. haemolytica, and M. bovis. For bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), agreement with TTW was moderate for NS, good for NPS, and very good for BAL. For bovine coronavirus (BCV), agreement with TTW was moderate for NS and NPS, and good for BAL. McNemar's test was significant only for BCV, indicating that for this pathogen the proportion of positive results from NS and NPS could not be considered comparable to TTW.Conclusions and clinical importanceThis study provides guidance for veterinarians selecting diagnostic tests for antemortem identification of pathogens associated with BRD.
BRAF/MEK Inhibitor Therapy: Consensus Statement From the Faculty of the Melanoma Nursing Initiative on Managing Adverse Events and Potential Drug Interactions.

Background BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy improves outcomes in BRAF V600E- and V600K-mutated unresectable or metastatic melanoma. However, these regimens are associated with adverse events (AEs) that may lead to unnecessary drug modifications and discontinuations or potentially serious sequelae. In addition, drug-drug interactions (DDIs) may result in AEs or altered therapeutic efficacy. . Objectives This article presents consensus statements to guide nurses in the prevention, recognition, and management of AEs and potential DDIs associated with BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy. . Methods Members of the Melanoma Nurse Initiative reviewed the current literature and clinical experience related to AEs and DDIs associated with BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy. . Findings The care step pathways provided for select AEs represent a proactive, comprehensive nursing care plan to support optimal patient outcomes. Recommendations are also offered for preventing and managing DDIs.
Effective algal harvesting by using mesh membrane for enhanced energy recovery in an innovative integrated photobioelectrochemical system.

Abstract In this work, an innovative design of integrated photobioelectrochemcial system (IPB) and an algal harvesting method based on polyester-mesh membrane (MM) were investigated. The algal growth/harvesting period of 6 days led to the highest surface biomass productivity (SBP) of 0.88 g m−2 day−1 and the highest energy generation of 0.157 ± 0.001 kJ day−1. The harvesting frequency of 3 times in an operational cycle (with three pieces of MM) enhanced the SBP to 1.14 g m−2 day−1. The catholyte recirculation for catholyte mixing resulted in a positive net energy production (NEP) of 0.227 ± 0.025 kJ day−1. Those results have demonstrated the benefits of both using mesh membrane and the new reactor design for algal collection with positive effects on improving IPB performance.
Orbital Hobnail Hemangioma

A 64-year-old woman presented with a 1 year history of progressive left proptosis and "blurry vision." Imaging studies revealed a left superior orbital mass distorting the optic nerve and superior rectus muscle. Excisional biopsy established the diagnosis of hobnail hemangioma. This report describes the first case of an orbital hobnail hemangioma, a lesion that more commonly presents in the dermis.
Economics of biofuels: Market potential of furfural and its derivatives

Abstract Production of biofuels from cellulosic materials continues to face major challenges in terms of economic profitability. Our research focuses on evaluating the economic potential of several major biochemical co-products derived from renewable fuel production that may help to overcome these challenges. In our thermal deoxygenation (TDO) process of renewable fuel production, furfural (a platform chemical) is produced in significant volumes. The quantity of furfural produced at commercial scale, however, will likely impact the national and world price of this industrial chemical. This will reduce its ability to play an important role in the total economic viability of the renewable fuel process. Thus, it is better to convert furfural to other products to have a smaller impact on market prices and, consequently, a higher profit margin for the renewable fuel process as a whole. In this paper we identify the furfural derivatives that have a considerable market size and can be derived from furfural in one or two steps of conversion. We then look at maximizing the profits of a multiproduct biofuel producer facing world demand curves that consider the effect of the producer's output on market prices. We solve the parameterized model using nonlinear optimization method under a variety of alternative assumptions and scenarios. Our results show that renewable fuel production can be made significantly more financially attractive through sales of furfural derivatives. A key issue to resolve is the elasticity and cross-elasticity of demand for our identified industrial chemical.
Impotence: are the newer diagnostic methods a necessity?

AbstractUntil recently our evaluation of impotent men included a psychiatric evaluation, and history and physical examination by a urologist to determine whether the impotence was organic or psychogenic. After the introduction of specific laboratory methods, such as nocturnal penile tumescence monitoring and penile blood pressure studies, clinicians relied heavily on these tools. We evaluated 33 impotent patients and compared the results of the laboratory methods to the initial diagnoses of the psychiatrist and the urologist to determine if the new methods would confirm our initial impressions or uncover different diagnoses.Thirteen patients were considered to have psychogenic impotence by the clinicians and only 1 patient in this group had evidence of organicity when the laboratory tests were used. Twelve patients were considered to have organic impotence by the clinicians and this was confirmed in 75 per cent of the cases by laboratory testing. Thus, clinical evaluation predicted the outcome of laborato...
Overcoming Communism's Dysfunctional Legacy: The Romanian Case

The paper develops the idea that post-communist societies are dysfunctional societies and applies this analysis to a study of contemporary Romania, 1989-2011. It looks at how the historical experiences of Romania both before and during communist rule created such a society, the development of Romania as a dysfunctional society between 1989 and 2002, and assesses the progress Romania has made in dealing with its legacy between 2002 and 2011 on the basis of several international
Passive and Active Tumor Homing Cytokine Therapy

Malignant diseases continue to be one of the deadliest afflictions facing mankind. Research and technology continue to improve the current conventional therapies of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, but cancer continues to be a perennial killer mainly due to metastatic tumors as well as residual tumors remaining after treatments. One area of treatment that has the potential to treat all of these tumors is immune modulation with cytokine therapies. Several cytokines have been tested in clinical trials with some being approved as clinical cancer therapies; however, the majority of these therapies fail because of cytokine-induced toxicities. To overcome the toxicity and improve the efficacy of these treatments, several models of tumor-targeted cytokines have been developed. To target the cytokines to the tumor environment, these strategies implement different methods ranging from passive targeting, which exploits the enhanced permeability and retention effect of tumors to active targeting with peptides and antibodies specific for ligands in the tumor environment. This chapter will review the history and progress of tumor-targeted cytokine therapies for the treatment of malignant diseases.
Complete Electric Field of Femtosecond Photon Echoes at Their Point of Origin

Three pulse scattering signals from solutions of the dye IR144 in methanol exhibit a positive chirp that varies with the delay between excitation pulses. Signal emission times, signal spectra, Wigner spectrograms of individual signals, and two dimensional electronic spectra correlating absorption frequency and signal frequency all suggest delayed echo-like signals do not exhibit a significant Stokes’ shift.
Supramolecular ABA Triblock Copolymers

Complex macromolecular architectures constitute an important field in contemporary polymer chemistry. Block copolymers belong to the most studied materials in this field and are subjected to manifold applications.
Taxonomy of Ectomycorrhizal Fungi

Early mycorrhiza researchers paid little heed to differences between fungal taxa or genotypes in host response. The common difficulty of duplicating experimental results was probably due in part to differences between the fungi involved. Now the importance of identifying fungi in experiments is widely recognized. Taxonomy thus is an integral part of mycorrhiza research. Taxonomy is a process of hypothesis testing. A Latin fungal name is a brief statement of hypotheses: 1) the species differs inherently from all other species previously described, and 2) it is more closely related to other species in the genus to which it is assigned than to species in other genera. Fungal taxonomy was originally based on macroscopic features. Microscopic and physiological features were subsequently added as important characters. Morphological, anatomical and physiological characters still provide the starting point for erecting and testing taxonomic hypotheses, but these have limitations for separating closely related taxa or revealing phylogenetic relationships. Now, DNA analyses provide powerful tools for more precise testing of taxonomic hypotheses.
Systemic vulnerabilities of the global urban-industrial network to hazards.

Systemic impacts such as global supply chain failures can spread among urban areas through social and economic linkages. Urban vulnerability to hazards has been studied from the perspective of individual cities, but global vulnerability to systemic impacts at the network scale has not been assessed. Here we analyze the structure of global industrial supply chains as a lens to examine how impacts might spread across the global system of cities. We generate a novel urban risk network that describes industrial flows among 1686 urban areas. In contrast to the prevailing view of the global urban system dominated by the largest, wealthiest cities, we show that the functionality of the network is evenly spread across urban areas. These findings suggest that the network is more vulnerable to multiple simultaneous hazards than to singular impacts to urban areas with the highest nodal strength. We also find that clusters of the most strongly connected urban areas transcend administrative boundaries, increasing the possibility for systemic impacts to spread transnationally. These results illuminate the potential for linkages between city-scale vulnerabilities to climate change impacts and systemic vulnerabilities that emerge at the global network scale.
Change in social support while participating in behavioral activation for PTSD

Objective Lack of social support predicts the development, maintenance, and exacerbation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Moreover, social dysfunction is associated with recurrent episodes of PTSD care, and detachment/estrangement from others is a strong predictor of suicidal ideation among those with PTSD. Thus, treatments to improve social functioning among those with PTSD are needed. Method Eighty veterans of recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan participated in a randomized controlled trial comparing treatment as usual to behavioral activation (BA) for PTSD, a treatment that focuses on reducing avoidance behaviors and increasing engagement in valued goals rather than explicitly confronting trauma memories. Results Mixed-model regression analyses revealed that, accounting for gender, baseline PTSD, and marital status, participants who received BA experienced greater improvements in the number of social supports from baseline to posttreatment compared with those in treatment as usual (F1,96 = 6.29, p = .014). Gains were not maintained at 3-month follow-up, and significant results were not found for satisfaction with social supports. Conclusions BA may facilitate an increase in the perceived number of social supports available to veterans with PTSD, but treatment adaptation may be necessary to maintain these gains and to increase satisfaction with social support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Kratom Use and Toxicities in the United States

Background Kratom is an herbal supplement containing alkaloids with opioid properties. This review was conducted to determine toxicities associated with kratom use in the United States in order to provide insight into its safety as a dietary supplement. Methods We conducted a retrospective review of kratom exposures reported to the National Poison Data System to determine the toxicities associated with kratom use. We also reviewed records from a county medical examiner's office in New York State to identify kratom-associated fatalities. Results A total of 2312 kratom exposures were reported, with 935 cases involving kratom as the only substance. Kratom most commonly caused agitation (18.6%), tachycardia (16.9%), drowsiness (13.6%), vomiting (11.2%), and confusion (8.1%). Serious effects of seizure (6.1%), withdrawal (6.1%), hallucinations (4.8%), respiratory depression (2.8%), coma (2.3%), and cardiac or respiratory arrest (0.6%) were also reported. Kratom was listed as a cause or contributing factor in the death of four decedents identified by the county medical examiner's office. Conclusions Kratom use is increasing and is associated with significant toxicities. Our findings suggest kratom is not reasonably expected to be safe and poses a public health threat due to its availability as an herbal supplement.
Targeted vs. General Education Investments Evidence from Special Education and English Language Learners in Boston Charter Schools

Using novel variation in special education and English language learner classification from admissions lotteries, I find that students can achieve large academic gains without specialized services. Enrolling in a Boston charter doubles the likelihood that students lose their special education or English language learner status, but exposes students to a high-performing general education program. Effects extend to college—charters nearly double the likelihood that English language learners enroll in four-year colleges and quadruple two-year college graduation rates for special education students. Results suggest that high-quality general education practices drive the gains and find no detrimental effect from reduced classification.
Causal modeling of substance use and mental health among male military veterans

Objective: In order to understand the intersecting effects of race/ethnicity and military service on substance use and mental health, this study maps the unique differences between military and non...
Update on Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is a minimally invasive approach to treat symptomatic severe aortic stenosis. The patient populations that have been shown to benefit from this procedure continue to grow with time. Techniques and technology in TAVR persistently advance with a continued trend toward improved outcomes for patients. In this review, we highlight the advances in vascular access, TAVR valve design, progress in reducing procedural complications, and emerging evidence in the field.
Summary data of home proximity to the nearest greenhouse (floricultural) crops and areas of greenhouse crops around various distances from homes in agricultural settings in Ecuador

Abstract This article presents data of 623 children (1156 observations) between 4 and 17 years of age living in floricultural communities of Ecuador from 3 examination periods (2008, Apr 2016, and Jul–Oct 2016) as part of the study of Secondary Exposure to Pesticides among Children and Adolescents (ESPINA).We present geospatial data of residential distance to the nearest greenhouse crop and areas within various buffer sizes around homes of participants which is data used in the original research article: Suarez-Lopez JR, et al. “Residential proximity to greenhouse crops and pesticide exposure (via acetylcholinesterase activity) assessed from childhood through adolescence”. These geospatial variables are related but different constructs of the potential for off-target drift of pesticides from crops onto homes nearby (via acetylcholinesterase activity) Understanding the associations between these distance and crop area variables is important as a growing number of investigations are using these constructs of off-target pesticide drift to characterize their associations with both exposure biomarkers and outcome measures. Geographic positioning of greenhouses and homes were obtained using GPS receivers and satellite imagery. Distances between homes and the nearest greenhouse edge, and areas of greenhouse crops within various buffer zones (0–150 m, 151–300 m, 310–500 m, 501–750 m, and 751–1000 m) around homes were calculated using Geographic Information System software. Beyond the dataset, we present demographic and anthropometric characteristics, and indicators of pesticide exposure of participants across categories of areas of greenhouse crops around homes for buffer sizes of 0–150 m around homes. We also present the distribution of areas of flower crops within various buffer zone sizes around children's homes and the correlation coefficients between household proximity to the nearest treated greenhouse crops and areas of flower crops within various buffer zones within 1000 m of homes.
In the Name of Liberty: The Argument for Universal Unionization

For years now, unionization has been under vigorous attack. Membership has been steadily declining, and with it union bargaining power. As a result, unions may soon lose their ability to protect workers from economic and personal abuse, as well as their significance as a political force. In the Name of Liberty responds to this worrying state of affairs by presenting a new argument for unionization, one that derives an argument for universal unionization in both the private and public sector from concepts of liberty that we already accept. In short, In the Name of Liberty reclaims the argument for liberty from the political right, and shows how liberty not only requires the unionization of every workplace as a matter of background justice, but also supports a wide variety of other progressive policies.
Stress, resilience, and coping strategies in a sample of community-dwelling older adults during COVID-19.

Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on perceived stress in older adults is critical to understanding how to best support elderly individuals navigating stressful situations, with the aim to lessen the impact of stressors on their brain health. Here, we collected measures on perceived stress, resilience, and behavioral coping strategies, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in a cross-sectional sample of 141 community dwelling older adults (mean age = 74.4 ± 8.4, 59% females) who were part of two longitudinal observational studies in Massachusetts, U.S. Our results indicate that participants demonstrated moderate levels of stress related to COVID-19 and showed relatively high levels of resilience. Higher resilience was associated with greater use of adaptive coping behaviors and less use of maladaptive coping behaviors. The use of maladaptive coping strategies was associated with more stress. Moreover, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that resilience was the strongest unique predictor of stress, thus, largely accounting for the observed coping-outcome associations. Individual differences in resilience levels moderated the effects of two coping strategies (planning and self-blame) on stress. Specifically, planning was associated with increased levels of stress for people with low resilience. In contrast, high personal resilience attenuated the negative effect of self-blame on their stress levels. Taken together, our findings suggest that resilience is critical for coping with stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future approaches for augmenting resilience could prove to be important potential interventions to help support older adults navigating stressful situations as well as lessen adverse effects on neurocognitive and mental health in the future.
Benefits of Increasing Information Accuracy in Variable Rate Technologies

Abstract Improvements in the sustainability of agricultural production depend essentially on advances in the efficient use of nitrogen. Precision farming promises solutions in this respect. Variable rate technologies allow the right quantities of fertilizer to be applied at the right place. This helps to both maintain yields and avoid nitrogen losses. However, these technologies are still not widely adopted, especially in small-scale farming systems. Recent developments in sensing technologies, like drones or satellites, open up new opportunities for variable rate technologies. In this paper, we develop a bio-economic modelling framework to assess the usefulness of different sensing approaches in variable rate fertilization to measure environmental heterogeneity at field level, ranging from satellite imagery to drones and handheld N-sensors. We assess the utility of these sensing technologies and quantify the effects on yields, nitrogen input and associated net returns using wheat production in Switzerland as our case study. Our results show that net profits increase when a high-resolution technology is applied to fields which exhibit higher spatial heterogeneity of soil conditions and lower spatial autocorrelation of different soil types. However, even with a high degree of spatial heterogeneity within a field, both the overall utility of variable rate fertilization and the absolute differences in the net returns between the technologies remain low. Our results suggest that the additional cost of using a drone that provides the highest resolution should not exceed 4.5 CHF/ha compared to the use of a standard N-sensor or satellite imagery. Thus, the adoption of variable rate technologies depends essentially on the additional economic and environmental effects they generate. Therefore, it might be necessary to implement specific policy measures, such as taxes on nitrogen in combination with subsidies. Moreover, specific technology providers, such as contractors, may play a vital role in technology uptake since the economic benefits might only play out at larger spatial levels.
Multi-Event Jettison Guidance Approaches for Drag-Modulation Aerocapture

Single-event, drag-modulated aerocapture has become a promising control scheme in the past decade. However, these architectures suffer from exhausted control authority post-jettison. Multiple drag-...
Proposed method of optical spin read-out in a quantum dot using the AC stark effect

We propose a method to read-out the spin-state of an electron in a quantum dot in a Voigt geometry magnetic field via cycling transitions induced by the AC Stark effect.
Race, Class, Space, and Memory at Wo-Chi-Ca: A Look at Radical Leftist Summer Camping

Summer camping is a common experience for many young people in the United States. From the 1920s–1950s many young people, both Black and White attended summer residential camps together. These leftist interracial camps flourished in the eastern part of the United States, with support from labor unions and the communist party. Eventually, social pressure and the red scare closed most of these camps. This historical case study describes the history and practice of one of these camps, Wo-Chi-Ca in New York. Bringing together primary data, interview data of past residents and staff, and secondary data about the camp, this study describes how the camps were created, what it was like to attend the camps, and the social and economic forces that eventually led to their closure.
Resonance Raman evidence for tyrosine involvement in the radical site of galactose oxidase.

Abstract Resonance Raman data are reported for the redox-activated form of galactose oxidase from Dactylium dendroides. Excitation within the red (659 nm) and blue (457.9 nm) absorption bands leads to strong resonance enhancement of ligated tyrosine vibrational modes at 550, 1170, 1247, 1484, and 1595 cm-1. The ring mode frequencies are unusually low, indicating a decreased bond order in the ring. The spectra clearly differ in both frequencies and relative intensities from those characteristic of known aromatic pi-radicals. Enhancement of tyrosine ring modes on excitation within absorption bands previously associated with the presence of the radical in the active site suggests that the ligated tyrosine residue is present in the radical site and may stabilize this radical species through formation of a charge transfer complex. A dramatically different Raman spectrum is observed for the N3- adduct of galactose oxidase, exhibiting a single strong 1483 cm-1 feature. The intense visible-near IR absorption bands for galactose oxidase may derive from transitions within a charge transfer complex between an aromatic free radical and a tyrosine-copper complex.
Biochemical characterization of ultrastructural localization of a major junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum glycoprotein (triadin)

Monoclonal antibodies were used to identify a 94-kDa protein that was greatly enriched in traids and junctional face membranes (9.3 +/- 0.2%) but not detected in the transverse tubular and nonjunctional sarcoplasmic reticulum membranes. The 94-kDa protein is a hydrophobic glycoprotein based on endoglycosidase H sensitivity, concanavalin A binding, and labelling with a hydrophobic probe. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the absence and presence of reducing agents suggests that this protein is present as a population of multimeric structures containing a variable number of the 94-kDa subunits. Immunofluorescent staining of serial transverse sections of skeletal muscle shows staining of all fiber types with preferential staining of type II fast fibers. Specific immunofluorescence staining in longitudinal sections of skeletal muscle is confined to the interface between the A- and I-bands where the triad structures are localized. Immunocolloidal gold labeling revealed the 94-kDa glycoprotein to be localized over a region of the junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum where the ryanodine receptor/Ca2+ release channel is localized. The distribution and high abundance of the 94-kDa glycoprotein in the junctional membrane suggest that it performs a structural or functional role in the storage or release of calcium from the junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum in skeletal muscle.
Use of a Mentored Creative Writing Project to Improve the Geology Education of Preservice Elementary Teachers

The Earth Science Storybook Project is being conducted with Brigham Young University's (BYU) Physical Science 110B (PS 110B) class, which is introductory geology for Elementary Education majors. Under the project, preservice elementary teachers in PS 110B are mentored by university geology faculty and geology graduate students as they author children's storybooks in earth science. The storybooks are then illustrated and made available to practicing teachers for classroom use. This is done by an interdisciplinary collaborative effort between the BYU Geology Department and the BYU Visual Arts Department, which is providing senior illustration students to illustrate the storybooks at a relatively low cost. The goal is to use the mentored writing experience as a means of improving geology content knowledge for preservice elementary teachers and fostering their positive attitudes and self-efficacy toward learning and teaching science. These goals are being assessed by (1) quantitative analysis of the PS 110B c...