cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A SIMPLE OCCUPANT DYNAMICS MODEL

Abstract A simple, accurate, two mass, two-degree-of-freedom mathematical model has been developed to simulate lap belted vehicle occupants subjected to frontal collision loadings. This model was designed as a substitute for more complex models when only seat belt loads and head impact velocities are being studied. The model has been programed for digital computers and tested against the Cornell eleven-degree-of-freedom model for comparison. Differences in results between the two models were less than 5 per cent.
Conjugation of antibodies to gold nanorods through Fc portion: synthesis and molecular specific imaging.

Anisotropic gold nanorods provide a convenient combination of properties, such as tunability of plasmon resonances and strong extinction cross sections in the near-infrared to red spectral region. These properties have created significant interest in the development of antibody conjugation methods for synthesis of targeted nanorods for a number of biomedical applications, including molecular specific imaging and therapy. Previously published conjugation approaches have achieved molecular specificity. However, the current conjugation methods have several downsides including low stability and potential cytotoxicity of bioconjugates that are produced by electrostatic interactions, as well as lack of control over antibody orientation during covalent conjugation. Here we addressed these shortcomings by introducing directional antibody conjugation to the gold nanorod surface. The directional conjugation is achieved through the carbohydrate moiety, which is located on one of the heavy chains of the Fc portion of...
Properties of Perfluoropolyethers for Space Applications

The perfluoropolyether (PFPE) class of liquid lubricants has been used for space applications for over two decades. At first, these fluids performed satisfactorily as early spacecraft placed few demands on their performance. However, as other spacecraft components have become more reliable and lifetimes have been extended, PFPE lubricant deficiencies have been exposed. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to review the PFPE properties that are important for successful long term operation in space.
Dialogue management for an automated multilingual call center

The AMITIES project (Automated Multilingual Interaction with Information and Services) has been established under joint funding from the European Commission's 5th Framework Program and the U.S. DARPA to develop the next generation of empirically-induced human-computer interaction capabilities in spoken language. One of the central goals of this project is to create a dialogue management system capable of engaging the user in human-like conversation within a specific domain. The domain we selected is telephone-based customer service where the system has access to an appropriate information database to support callers' information needs. Our objective is to automate at least some of the more mundane human functions in customer service call centers, but do so in a manner that is maximally responsive to the customer. This practically eliminates all prompt or menu based voice response systems used at commercial call centers today.
Availability of trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine to parents of neonatal intensive care unit patients and its effect on the healthcare worker vaccination rate.

Background. Trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) is indicated for healthcare workers (HCWs); however, the vaccination rate in this population is estimated at 35%. We implemented a program for the administration of TIV, targeted at parents of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients. Objective. To determine the effect of availability of TIV to parents in the NICU on HCW vaccination rates. Design. Questionnaire survey after an intervention-based study. Setting. Tertiary-care neonatal intensive care unit. Participants. Physicians, nurses, and other NICU-based staff. Methods. For the 2005-2006 influenza season, parents of NICU patients were screened and administered TIV, if informed consent was obtained. As a consequence, TIV was available 20 hours/day to all staff. Previous vaccination history and comorbidities in HCWs were also assessed. Results. Of 120 neonatal HCWs, 112 (93%) were screened during the 2005-2006 season; 80 (67%) were vaccinated, compared with 49 (41%) prior to the implementation of this program ( P t test); 54 (45% of the study population, which includes senior neonatologists, fellow and resident physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, X-ray technicians and clerical staff) received TIV in the NICU, compared with the 17 (14%) of 120 HCWs the previous year; and 20 (46%) of 43 HCWs of the nursing staff were vaccinated in the NICU, whereas only 3 (7%) of 43 HWCs were vaccinated outside the unit. Attending physicians had the lowest vaccination rate, and most cited efficacy and/or side effects in their deferral. Nurses most often refused influenza vaccination because they had a fear of injection. Conclusions. Administration of TIV in the NICU is an effective means of increasing the vaccination rate among neonatal HCWs. To increase compliance with vaccination, educational efforts for nurses should emphasize the possibility of viral transmission to neonates as motivation for vaccination. Physician-directed efforts should include tolerability of vaccine side effects. Live attenuated influenza vaccine, administered intranasally, should be considered to increase vaccination rates among NICU nurses.
Effects of Friction on Precision Pointing Systems

This study compares and contrasts the tracking performance of a precision pointing system in which four models of friction are considered. An operational scenario is chosen which aggressively exercises the basic nonlinear characteristics of the friction models.
Power analysis and sample size estimation for RNA-Seq differential expression

It is crucial for researchers to optimize RNA-seq experimental designs for differential expression detection. Currently, the field lacks general methods to estimate power and sample size for RNA-Seq in complex experimental designs, under the assumption of the negative binomial distribution. We simulate RNA-Seq count data based on parameters estimated from six widely different public data sets (including cell line comparison, tissue comparison, and cancer data sets) and calculate the statistical power in paired and unpaired sample experiments. We comprehensively compare five differential expression analysis packages (DESeq, edgeR, DESeq2, sSeq, and EBSeq) and evaluate their performance by power, receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves, and other metrics including areas under the curve (AUC), Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC), and F-measures. DESeq2 and edgeR tend to give the best performance in general. Increasing sample size or sequencing depth increases power; however, increasing sample size is more potent than sequencing depth to increase power, especially when the sequencing depth reaches 20 million reads. Long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNA) yields lower power relative to the protein coding mRNAs, given their lower expression level in the same RNA-Seq experiment. On the other hand, paired-sample RNA-Seq significantly enhances the statistical power, confirming the importance of considering the multifactor experimental design. Finally, a local optimal power is achievable for a given budget constraint, and the dominant contributing factor is sample size rather than the sequencing depth. In conclusion, we provide a power analysis tool (http://www2.hawaii.edu/~lgarmire/RNASeqPowerCalculator.htm) that captures the dispersion in the data and can serve as a practical reference under the budget constraint of RNA-Seq experiments.
A Fast Algorithm for Reconstructing Motion-Compensated Blocks in Compressed Domain

Many advanced video applications require processing compressed video signals. For compression systems using the discrete cosine transform (DCT) with motion compensation, we propose an algorithm with adaptive low-pass filtering (ALPF) to reconstruct blocks with motion vectors in the compressed domain. Compared with the previous work, this algorithm is faster and reduces blocky artifacts caused by quantization.
In Vivo Detection of Dendritic Cell Antigen Presentation to CD4+ T Cells

Although lymphoid dendritic cells (DC) are thought to play an essential role in T cell activation, the initial physical interaction between antigen-bearing DC and antigen-specific T cells has never been directly observed in vivo under conditions where the specificity of the responding T cells for the relevant antigen could be unambiguously assessed. We used confocal microscopy to track the in vivo location of fluorescent dye-labeled DC and naive TCR transgenic CD4+ T cells specific for an OVA peptide–I-Ad complex after adoptive transfer into syngeneic recipients. DC that were not exposed to the OVA peptide, homed to the paracortical regions of the lymph nodes but did not interact with the OVA peptide-specific T cells. In contrast, the OVA peptide-specific T cells formed large clusters around paracortical DC that were pulsed in vitro with the OVA peptide before injection. Interactions were also observed between paracortical DC of the recipient and OVA peptide-specific T cells after administration of intact OVA. Injection of OVA peptide-pulsed DC caused the specific T cells to produce IL-2 in vivo, proliferate, and differentiate into effector cells capable of causing a delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction. Surprisingly, by 48 h after injection, OVA peptide-pulsed, but not unpulsed DC disappeared from the lymph nodes of mice that contained the transferred TCR transgenic population. These results demonstrate that antigen-bearing DC directly interact with naive antigen-specific T cells within the T cell–rich regions of lymph nodes. This interaction results in T cell activation and disappearance of the DC.
Supporting multi-party voice-over-IP services with peer-to-peer stream processing

Multi-party voice-over-IP (MVoIP) services provide economical and natural group communication mechanisms for many emerging applications such as on-line gaming, distance collaboration, and tele-immersion. In this paper, we present a novel peer-to-peer (P2P) stream processing system called peerTalk to provide resource-efficient and failure-resilient MVoIP services. Different from previous work, our solution is fully distributed and self-organizing without requiring specialized servers or IP multicast support. Particularly, we decouple the stream processing in MVoIP services into two phases: (1) aggregation phase that mixes audio streams from active speakers into a single stream; and (2) distribution phase that distributes the mixed audio stream to all listeners. The decoupled model allows us to optimize and adapt the P2P stream mixing and distribution processes separately. Specifically, we can adaptively spread stream mixing workload among resource-constrained peer hosts according to current speaking activities. We have implemented a prototype of the peerTalk system and conducted experiments in real-world wide-area networks. The results show that peerTalk can achieve lower resource contention and better service quality than previous common solution.
Simulating the Potential Effects of a Shelf-Tag Nutrition Information Program and Pricing on Diet Quality Associated with Ready-to-Eat Cereals

Previous research has shown that the Guiding Stars Program TM (GSP), a shelf-tag nutrition information system used in some supermarkets in the United States (US), increases consumer demand for ready-to-eat (RTE) breakfast cereals that the program considers more nutritious. Further, consumer demand for cereals is found to respond to price. Here we simulate potential changes in RTE cereal consumption predicted by estimated demand if a GSP or a 10% price manipulation were in effect nationwide in the US, and measure the impact on intakes of whole grains, added sugars, sodium, and calories. We find small effects for the GSP and somewhat larger ones for a 10% price intervention.
Fracture and mixed-mode resistance curve behavior of bamboo

Abstract Bamboo is a natural composite abundantly available in the world, and is a source of inspiration for design of new construction materials and structural composites for many applications. The microstructure of this Functionally Graded Material (FGM) evolves through its thickness in response to wind-induced stresses that arise in the plant during its lifetime. This paper presents the results of an experimental study on the structure and toughening mechanisms in Moso culm bamboo. The hierarchical and multi-scale structure of bamboo and the distribution of micron scale fibers are revealed via optical microscopy. Four-point bend fracture experiments are performed where the applied crack-driving forces are computed as a function of crack length. This experimental data are incorporated within a finite element framework in order to understand the fracture and deformation mechanisms of bamboo, and compute the Resistance-curves ( R -curve)s. The resistance-curve behavior is shown to be dependent on the orientation of the fibers. In cases where the fibers are perpendicular to the crack growth toughening is observed to occur via crack bridging. Intermediate shielding levels are observed when toughening occurs by crack deflection for crack growth along the fiber orientation.
The utilization of metal/metal oxide core-shell powders to enhance the reactivity of diluted thermite mixtures

Abstract When thermite mixtures combust considerable amounts of gas can be released which impedes their application in the field of joining. Diluting the thermite mixture with excess metal can lower the reaction temperature and thereby minimize mass ejection. However, increasing the degree of dilution reduces reaction efficiency. This paper demonstrates that the reduction of reaction efficiency is significantly less for the Al/NiO thermite system if the excess metal (Ni) is added using a fuel/core-shell mixture in which Al fuel particles are mixed with Ni/NiO core-shell particles. The use of Ni/NiO core-shell particles reduces the average distance for aluminum and oxygen intermixing by placing the fuel (Al) in direct contact with the oxide (NiO), separate from the diluent (Ni). Mixtures comprised of Al and Ni/NiO core-shell powders were fabricated, characterized, and compared to compacts fabricated using conventional Al, NiO, and Ni powders for dilutions up to 40 wt% Ni. The fuel/core-shell particle geometry increased combustion front velocities for all Ni dilutions. Mass ejection decreased uniformly for both particle geometries as the degree of dilution increased.
Protein–Support Interactions for Rationally Designed Bilirubin Oxidase Based Cathode: A Computational Study

An example of biocathode based on bilirubin oxidase (BOx) was used to demonstrate how density functional theory can be combined with docking simulations in order to study the interface interactions between the enzyme and specifically designed electrode surface. The electrode surface was modified through the adsorption of bilirubin, the natural substrate for BOx, and the prepared electrode was electrochemically characterized using potentiostatic measurements. The experimentally determined current densities showed that the presence of bilirubin led to significant improvement of the cathode operation. On the basis of the computationally calculated binding energies of bilirubin to the graphene support and BOx and the analysis of the positioning of bilirubin relative to the support and T1 Cu atom of the enzyme, we hypothesize that the bilirubin serves as a geometric and electronic extension of the support. The computational results further confirm that the modification of the electrode surface with bilirubin p...
Determination of serum zinc concentrations in normal adult subjects by atomic absorption spectrophotometry.

Serum zinc concentrations were determined repeatedly in 99 healthy young men by a simple automated atomic absorption spectrophotometric method. The mean serum zinc concentration of these normal subjects was 102 μ g. per 100 ml. (SD = ±17), with a calculated range of 68 to 136 μ g. per 100 ml. When determined on a day-to-day basis, 95% of values from a given individual were within 18 μ g. per 100 ml. of his own mean value.
Superoxide dismutase 2 overexpression alleviates maternal diabetes-induced neural tube defects, restores mitochondrial function and suppresses cellular stress in diabetic embryopathy

Pregestational diabetes disrupts neurulation leading to neural tube defects (NTDs). Oxidative stress resulting from reactive oxygen species (ROS) plays a central role in the induction of NTD formation in diabetic pregnancies. We aimed to determine whether mitochondrial dysfunction increases ROS production leading to oxidative stress and diabetic embryopathy. Overexpression of the mitochondrion-specific antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) in a transgenic (Tg) mouse model significantly reduced maternal diabetes-induced NTDs. SOD2 overexpression abrogated maternal diabetes-induced mitochondrial dysfunction by inhibiting mitochondrial translocation of the pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members, reducing the number of defective mitochondria in neuroepithelial cells, and decreasing mitochondrial membrane potential. Furthermore, SOD2 overexpression blocked maternal diabetes-increased ROS production by diminishing dihydroethidium staining signals in the developing neuroepithelium, and reducing the levels of nitrotyrosine-modified proteins and lipid hydroperoxide level in neurulation stage embryos. SOD2 overexpression also abolished maternal diabetes-induced endoplasmic reticulum stress. Finally, caspase-dependent neuroepithelial cell apoptosis enhanced by oxidative stress was significantly reduced by SOD2 overexpression. Thus, our findings support the hypothesis that mitochondrial dysfunction in the developing neuroepithelium enhances ROS production, which leads to oxidative stress and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. SOD2 overexpression blocks maternal diabetes-induced oxidative stress and ER stress, and reduces the incidence of NTDs in embryos exposed to maternal diabetes.
Prediction of Urban Water Demand with Couple Model Method

The paper aims to forecast city water consumption accurately,and offset the deficiency of grey and nerve network forecast model in water requirement forecast.We used minimum variance to couple grey new income replacement model and new income replacement BP nerve network model,namely,the grey nerve network.When we used the grey nerve network coupling model to predict water requirement in Shenyang,it showed that the average relative error was 0.144%;and when we used the same model to predict industrial water requirement in Shenyang,it showed that the average relative error was 0.19%.Thus,the simulative precision of this model is better than those of other models.In conclusion,the grey nerve network model can predict the water requirement in the city and reduce the unstable factors that influence the forecast.
WHSC1L1 drives cell cycle progression through transcriptional regulation of CDC6 and CDK2 in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

// Vassiliki Saloura 1 , Theodore Vougiouklakis 1 , Makda Zewde 1 , Kazuma Kiyotani 1 , Jae-Hyun Park 1 , Guimin Gao 2 , Theodore Karrison 2 , Mark Lingen 3 , Yusuke Nakamura 1, 4 , Ryuji Hamamoto 1 1 Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA 2 Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA 3 Department of Pathology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA 4 Department of Surgery, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Correspondence to: Vassiliki Saloura, email: vsaloura@bsd.uchicago.edu Keywords: WHSC1L1, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, CDC6, CDK2, H3K36me2 Received: February 12, 2016 Accepted: May 15, 2016 Published: June 07, 2016 ABSTRACT Wolf-Hisrchhorn Syndrome Candidate 1-Like 1 (WHSC1L1) is a protein lysine methyltransferase that is recurrently amplified (8p11.23) in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). In this study, we investigated the oncogenic role of WHSC1L1 in SCCHN. Using immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays of patients with locoregionally advanced SCCHN, we found that WHSC1L1 is significantly overexpressed in patients with SCCHN, and is associated with poor grade and heavy smoking history. Knockdown of WHSC1L1 expression resulted in significant growth suppression and reduction of H3K36 dimethylation (H3K36me2) in SCCHN cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis showed that WHSC1L1 and H3K36me2 are enriched in the gene bodies of the cell cycle-related genes CDC6 and CDK2 , implying that WHSC1L1 directly regulates the transcription of these genes. According to the importance of CDC6 and CDK2 for G1 to S transition, WHSC1L1 knockdown induced strong G0/G1 arrest which was rescued by introduction of wild-type WHSC1L1 but not by that of enzyme-inactive WHSC1L1. Our results imply that WHSC1L1 and its product H3K36me2 are essential for the transition from G1 to S phase in SCCHN cells and that WHSC1L1 could serve as a rational target for anticancer drug development for patients with head and neck cancer.
Laser action in strongly scattering media

In this work, we describe experiments performed on solutions containing 1 × 10-3 M to 5 × 10-3 M rhodamine 640 dye in methanol solutions containing 250 nm TiO2 (rutile).1,2 Adsorption measurements indicate that less than 1% of the dye can be accommodated on the particles ruling out surface area effects. Further the size parameter of these particles is too small to allow for any morphological resonances.
Cervix, Vulva, and Vagina

In the United States and other developed countries, remarkable progress has been made in the prevention and treatment of cancer of the female lower genital track. Cervical cancer is still the most prevalent of the lower genital tract cancers, followed by vulvar cancer and finally vaginal cancer, which is quite rare. Unfortunately, invasive cervical carcinoma remains one of the most common causes of cancer death for women in the developing world. On a global basis, cervical cancer remains a significant health problem, with 500,000 new cases occurring each year and an annual death rate of 230,000 worldwide.1 In the United States, approximately 13,000 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year and only 4,500 deaths due to cervical cancer. This stark contrast between the low number of cases in the United States and tragic number of cases in the developing world is primarily a reflection of the effectiveness of screening for and treating preinvasive cervical disease.
“Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Early trials demonstrated that renal artery denervation (RDN), delivered with a catheter in the renal artery, reduced blood pressure by reducing sympathetic tone in patients with hypertension, as measured by renal norepinephrine spillover and muscular sympathetic nerve activity [(1)][1]. SYMPLICITY
Moon patterns, sun patterns, and wave breaking in rotating granular mixtures: Research Articles

Granular materials, such as powders and sand, tend to segregate due to differences in particle properties. When a cylindrical drum is partially filled with particles of different sizes and rotated about its axis, this leads to radial segregation patterns in which the smaller particles concentrate in a radial core near the axis, and the larger particles near the outside walls of the drum. Under certain conditions, undulations in the radial core of smaller particles grow into radial stripes that extend toward the outer walls of the drum in a manner somewhat reminiscent of viscous fingering. The patterns are strongly dependent on the fill level and rotation speed of the drum. These observations can be explained by two spatially disjoint mechanisms: (1) a wave-breaking mechanism that promotes the growth of the stripes and (2) a filtering mechanism that limits the growth of stripes. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 10: 79–86, 2005
Neuropsychological Assessment of Driving Capacity

Clinicians are increasingly requested to make determinations regarding patients' driving capacity in the context of neurological injury/conditions and a growing cohort of older drivers. The capability to drive safely involves a number of cognitive, physical, and sensorimotor abilities that may be impacted by injury, illness, or substances that influence alertness. Neuropsychological measures are an important component of a multidisciplinary approach for evaluation of driving capacity. Clinicians should become familiar with measures that have the best predictive validity so they may incorporate a patient's neurocognitive strengths and weaknesses in decisions about driving ability.
Effective Breeding Size and the Adaptive Significance of color Polymorphism in the Cricket Frog (Acris crepitans) in Illinois, U. S. A.

A three year field study was conducted to investigate the adaptive significance of color polymorphism in the cricket frog, Acris crepitans, in Illinois, U. S. A. Effective population breeding sizes were determined at seven different locations. Population characteristics in Illinois were compared with those from Texas. The three color morphs appear to be of equal survival value for cricket frogs in Illinois. Although strong selection may occur in Texas, small effective breeding sizes suggest that chance plays a major role in determining color morph frequencies in Illinois.
Five Requisites for Human-Agent Decision Sharing in Military Environments

Working with industry, universities and other government agencies, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory has been engaged in multi-year programs to understand the role of humans working with autonomous and robotic systems. The purpose of the paper is to present an overview of the research themes in order to abstract five research requirements for effective human-agent decision-making. Supporting research for each of the five requirements is discussed to elucidate the issues involved and to make recommendations for future research. The requirements include: (a) direct link between the operator and a supervisory agent, (b) interface transparency, (c) appropriate trust, (d) cognitive architectures to infer intent, and e) common language between humans and agents.
Resistant Hypertension: A Refractory Disease or Refractory Patient.

See related article, pp 678–684 Adherence to lifestyle recommendations in concert with antihypertensive regimens provides the greatest reductions in blood pressure. Medication adherence, however, declines with number of prescribed agents and reduced communication time with the healthcare provider.1 The key to maximizing medication adherence is to ensure that the patient has confidence in the healthcare providers’ decisions and using single pill combinations, when possible. Resistant hypertension is a diagnosis of exclusion such that no secondary forms of hypertension can be implicated, and multiple medications are required to lower pressure toward goal.2 Hence, medication adherence in resistant hypertension is challenging. Medication adherence is also vital to ensure accuracy of the resistant hypertension definition; yet, it has long been suspected that medication adherence by most patients is less than optimal. This is further supported by several investigations that assess medication adherence by measuring urinary metabolites of blood pressure–lowering medications.3,4 In this issue of Hypertension , de Jager et al5 report results from the randomized open-label SYMPATHY …
Lipid metabolism in the bacteria.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses lipid metabolism in the bacteria. It is often implied that there is a single, major function for lipids in the bacteria. The diversity of the chemical structures of the various lipids suggests that this is not the case. In the animal cell and in many higher microorganisms, lipids, particularly glycerides, serve as an energy storage form. The fact that the major component of bacterial lipids, the phospholipid, is localized in the cell envelope supports the idea of lipids as primary structural components of the cell. The major function of the cell envelope or, more specifically, the cell membrane is to control the internal environment of the organism. The possibility that lipids are directly involved in active transport has stimulated much work in this field, although currently there is no conclusive evidence to support this idea. One of the most important functions of the lipid in cell membranes is to serve as a solid-state cofactor, providing a highly oriented, hydrophobic environment essential for certain enzymatic reactions.
The regulation of cyclooxygenase-1 and -2 in knockout cells and cyclooxygenase and fever in knockout mice.

Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production in immortalized, non-transformed lung cells derived from wild-type, cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1)-/- or COX-2-/- defiicient mice was examined after treatment with interleukin-1β (IL-1), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF), acidic fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and phorbol ester (PMA). Compared with their wild-type (COX1+/+/COX-2+/+) counterparts, COX-1-/- or COX-2-/- cells exhibited substantially enhanced expression of the remaining functional COX gene. Furthermore, both basal and IL-1-induced expression of cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2), a key enzyme regulating substrate mobilization for PGE2 biosynthesis, was more pronounced in both COX-1- and COX-2-defiicient cells. Thus, COX-1-/- and COX-2-/- cells have the ability to co-ordinate the upregulation of the alternate COX isoenzyme and cPLA2 genes to overcome defects in prostaglandin (PG)-biosynthetic machinery. The potential for cells to alter (and thereby compensate for) defects in the expression of specifiic genes (such as COX) has significant clinical implications, given the central role of COX in pathophysiology and the widespread use of COX inhibitors as therapeutic agents (Kirtikara et al. 1998).
Reframing Durkheim: How Task Specialization Versus Task Overlap Affect the Perceptions That Undergird Social Integration

This research reexamines Durkheim’s classic premise that the division of labor influences whether social integration is founded around collective perceptions of similarity versus mutual dependence. Utilizing a laboratory experiment to examine the division of labor on an interactional level, this paper tackles two questions. First, do task specialization and task overlap differentially encourage collective perceptions of ingroup similarity and mutual need? Second, do task specialization and task overlap differentially utilize perceptions of ingroup similarity and mutual need when developing social attachment? This research investigates whether task-overlapping teams are more likely to develop “mechanically”-based social integration than “organically”-based integration, and vice versa for task-specialized teams. Results show that while task specialization was more likely to foster “expertise-based” need for others, this perception did not produce feelings of social integration. Instead, task-specialized tea...
Determining an Optimal Mix of Hybrid Cloud Computing for Enterprises

The cloud computing market is currently crowded with public cloud service providers and private cloud manufacturers. While the current growth of cloud computing is driven by the surge of big data, data analytics, and social media applications, an investment in cloud computing has been challenging for corporate managers due to a lack of a proper decision model. This paper attempts to identify critical variables of cloud capacity decisions from corporate clients' perspectives and develops a mathematical model to aid in a hybrid cloud investment decision under probabilistic computing demands.
“Conceptual Construals” vs. Moral Experience: A Rejoinder

For Engelhardt, the parable of EmergiMedVan simply presents one dilemma (the allocation of critical-care medicine), which we then must resolve by rational analysis, whereas I, in the parable, wanted to look beneath the surface of our critical-care system to dimensions of attitude and culture where the task was not so much to call attention once again to a standard problem of bioethics as to find a massive interplay of moral puzzlements and give voice to them. For there are situations in which only a narrative can adequately probe the nature of a moral problem that might too easily be taken for granted in the customary, “case”-oriented, analytic approach.
Public Policy and Environmental Research and Development

The paper evaluates several potential public policies to increase research and development (R&D) investments with the goal of introducing innovations to reduce harmful industrial emissions. The policies—new pre-innovation taxes, more stringent emissions regulations, promotion of cooperative R&D, promotion of outside financing from other companies and from the public, diplomacy to encourage emissions regulations that are more uniformly stringent worldwide, promoting dynamic competition with appropriate antitrust policy, and promoting the dissemination of fundamental knowledge about emissions and of licensable emissions-reducing technology—are evaluated by using primary data from US industry to estimate a model of the environmental R&D investments of industry.
Ethical Issues Around Pediatric Death: Navigating Consent, Assent, and Disagreement Regarding Life-Sustaining Medical Treatment

Decisions regarding whether or not to pursue experimental therapies or life-sustaining medical treatment of children with life-limiting illness can be a significant source of distress and conflict for both families and health care providers. This article reviews the concepts of parental permission (consent), assent, and emerging capacity and how they relate to decision-making for minors with serious illness. Decision-making capacity for adolescents is discussed generally and in the context of emotionally charged situations pertaining to the end of life. Strategies for minimizing conflict in situations of disagreement between children and families are provided.
Novel robust control of a 7-DOF exoskeleton robot.

This paper proposes a novel robust control method for the control of a 7-DOF exoskeleton robot. The external disturbances and unknown dynamics in the form of friction forces, different upper-limb’s mass, backlash, and input saturation make robot unstable, which prevents the robot from correctly following the defined path. A new fractional sliding mode controller (NFSMC) is designed, which is robust against unknown dynamic and external disturbances. Fractional PID controller (FPID) has high trajectory tracking, but it is not robust against external disturbances. Therefore, by combining NFSMC and FPID controllers, a new compound fractional PID sliding mode controller (NCFPIDSMC) is proposed, which benefits high trajectory tracking of FPID and robustness of NFSMC. The stability of the proposed control method is verified by Lyapunov theory. A random noise is applied in order to confirm the robustness of the proposed control method.
Elucidating redox balance shift in Scheffersomyces stipitis’ fermentative metabolism using a modified genome-scale metabolic model

Scheffersomyces stipitis is an important yeast species in the field of biorenewables due to its desired capacity for xylose utilization. It has been recognized that redox balance plays a critical role in S. stipitis due to the different cofactor preferences in xylose assimilation pathway. However, there has not been any systems level understanding on how the shift in redox balance contributes to the overall metabolic shift in S. stipitis to cope with reduced oxygen uptake. Genome-scale metabolic network models (GEMs) offer the opportunity to gain such systems level understanding; however, currently the two published GEMs for S. stipitis cannot be used for this purpose, as neither of them is able to capture the strain’s fermentative metabolism reasonably well due to their poor prediction of xylitol production, a key by-product under oxygen limited conditions. A system identification-based (SID-based) framework that we previously developed for GEM validation is expanded and applied to refine a published GEM for S. stipitis, iBB814. After the modified GEM, named iDH814, was validated using literature data, it is used to obtain genome-scale understanding on how redox cofactor shifts when cells respond to reduced oxygen supply. The SID-based framework for GEM analysis was applied to examine how the environmental perturbation (i.e., reduced oxygen supply) propagates through the metabolic network, and key reactions that contribute to the shifts of redox and metabolic state were identified. Finally, the findings obtained through GEM analysis were validated using transcriptomic data. iDH814, the modified model, was shown to offer significantly improved performance in terms of matching available experimental results and better capturing available knowledge on the organism. More importantly, our analysis based on iDH814 provides the first genome-scale understanding on how redox balance in S. stipitis was shifted as a result of reduced oxygen supply. The systems level analysis identified the key contributors to the overall metabolic state shift, which were validated using transcriptomic data. The analysis confirmed that S. stipitis uses a concerted approach to cope with the stress associated with reduced oxygen supply, and the shift of reducing power from NADPH to NADH seems to be the center theme that directs the overall shift in metabolic states.
Fascia Iliaca Compartment Block Efficacy in Resource-poor Emergency Departments.

Author(s): St. Louis, Daniel; Iserson, Kenneth V.; Forget, Nicolas | Abstract: Introduction: Although the fascia iliaca compartment block (FICB) seems to be an ideal technique for femoral neck and shaft fractures occurring in resource-poor settings, it has been unclear how effective it is when used by emergency physicians (EP) with little training in the technique, using equipment, medications and methods that differ from those commonly available in developed countries. This series was designed to demonstrate that EPs in a resource-poor setting can provide effective analgesia for femur fractures with anatomic landmark-guided FICBs, clinician-compounded lidocaine-epinephrine (1:100,000), and a standard injection needle.Methods: Over a three-month period, patients ≥12 years old presenting to the emergency department with hip or femur fractures and a Likert visual analogue scale g4 had an EP-administered FICB. EPs used a standard intramuscular needle and a lidocaine-epinephrine solution they compounded at the bedside and located the injection site using only anatomic landmarks. EPs evaluated the patient’s pain level at 30 minutes and at two hours post-FICB. We also reviewed articles since 2016 that describe the FICB.Results: We enrolled a non-consecutive sample of 10 patients in the case series. Five had femoral neck (hip) fractures and five had femoral shaft fractures. All patients had a reduction in their pain levels after the FICB. On average, the block took effect about three minutes after injection. At 30 minutes all patients reported clinically meaningful pain reduction. The analgesic effect of the compounded agent lasted approximately 200 minutes. No adverse effects were reported. No published journal articles about FICB since 2016 were from resource-poor settings, and only one was from a developing country.Conclusion: This series suggests that the FICB is effective even when performed with the minimal materials that are usually available in resource-poor settings. Methods such as this, which use simplified clinical tests and techniques applicable in resource-poor settings, can assist global emergency medicine (EM). We can assist global EM by similarly finding methods to simplify useful clinical tests and techniques that can be used in resource-poor settings.
Correction to: Iran’s Multi-ethnic Mosaic: A 23-Year Perspective

The article Iran’s Multi-ethnic Mosaic: A 23-Year Perspective, written Mahdi Majbouri and Sanaz Fesharaki, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on November 2017 without open access. With the copyright holders decision to opt for Open Choice the copyright of the article changed on February 2019 to © UNU-WIDER 2019, and this book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the UNU-WIDER, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. If you remix, transform, or build upon this book or a part thereof, you must distribute your contributions under the same licence as the original.
Outcomes of men with recurrent M0 prostate cancer who defer androgen deprivation therapy until metastasis.

5016Background: Optimal timing and criteria for implementation of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in men with relapsed M0 prostate cancer (PCa) remains undefined. Early ADT induces the non-metas...
Sensory neuron subpopulation-specific dysregulation of intracellular calcium in a rat model of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy

The purpose of the present study was to test the prediction that the unique manifestation of chemotherapeutic-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) would be reflected in a specific pattern of changes in the regulation of the intracellular Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)]i) in subpopulations of cutaneous neurons. To test this prediction, we characterized the pattern of changes in mechanical nociceptive threshold associated with paclitaxel administration (2mg/kg, iv, every other day for four days), as well as the impact of target of innervation and paclitaxel treatment on the regulation of [Ca(2+)]i in subpopulations of putative nociceptive and non-nociceptive neurons. Neurons innervating the glabrous and hairy skin of the hindpaw as well as the thigh were identified with retrograde tracers, and fura-2 was used to assess changes in [Ca(2+)]i. Paclitaxel was associated with a persistent decrease in mechanical nociceptive threshold in response to stimuli applied to the glabrous skin of the hindpaw, but not the hairy skin of the hindpaw or the thigh. However, in both putative nociceptive and non-nociceptive neurons, resting [Ca(2+)]i was significantly lower in neurons innervating the thigh after treatment. The magnitude of the depolarization-evoked Ca(2+) transient was also lower in putative non-nociceptive thigh neurons. More interestingly, while paclitaxel had no detectable influence on either resting or depolarization-evoked Ca(2+) transients in putative non-nociceptive neurons, in putative nociceptive neurons there was a subpopulation-specific decrease in the duration of the evoked Ca(2+) transient that was largely restricted to neurons innervating the glabrous skin. These results suggest that peripheral nerve length alone, does not account for the selective distribution of CIPN symptoms. Rather, they suggest the symptoms of CIPN reflect an interaction between the toxic actions of the therapeutic and unique properties of the neurons deleteriously impacted.
FoodKG: A Semantics-Driven Knowledge Graph for Food Recommendation

The proliferation of recipes and other food information on the Web presents an opportunity for discovering and organizing diet-related knowledge into a knowledge graph. Currently, there are several ontologies related to food, but they are specialized in specific domains, e.g., from an agricultural, production, or specific health condition point-of-view. There is a lack of a unified knowledge graph that is oriented towards consumers who want to eat healthily, and who need an integrated food suggestion service that encompasses food and recipes that they encounter on a day-to-day basis, along with the provenance of the information they receive. Our resource contribution is a software toolkit that can be used to create a unified food knowledge graph that links the various silos related to food while preserving the provenance information. We describe the construction process of our knowledge graph, the plan for its maintenance, and how this knowledge graph has been utilized in several applications. These applications include a SPARQL-based service that lets a user determine what recipe to make based on ingredients at hand while taking constraints such as allergies into account, as well as a cognitive agent that can perform natural language question answering on the knowledge graph.
Essential Bioinformatics: Multiple Sequence Alignment

A natural extension of pairwise alignment is multiple sequence alignment, which is to align multiple related sequences to achieve optimal matching of the sequences. Related sequences are identified through the database similarity searching described in Chapter 4. As the process generates multiple matching sequence pairs, it is often necessary to convert the numerous pairwise alignments into a single alignment, which arranges sequences in such a way that evolutionarily equivalent positions across all sequences are matched. There is a unique advantage of multiple sequence alignment because it reveals more biological information than many pairwise alignments can. For example, it allows the identification of conserved sequence patterns and motifs in the whole sequence family, which are not obvious to detect by comparing only two sequences. Many conserved and functionally critical amino acid residues can be identified in a protein multiple alignment. Multiple sequence alignment is also an essential prerequisite to carrying out phylogenetic analysis of sequence families and prediction of protein secondary and tertiary structures. Multiple sequence alignment also has applications in designing degenerate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers based on multiple related sequences. It is theoretically possible to use dynamic programming to align any number of sequences as for pairwise alignment. However, the amount of computing time and memory it requires increases exponentially as the number of sequences increases. As a consequence, full dynamic programming cannot be applied for datasets of more than ten sequences. In practice, heuristic approaches are most often used.
Book review: Brian Schrag and Kathleen J. Van Buren, Make Arts for a Better Life: A Guide for Working with Communities:

Brian Schrag and Kathleen J. Van Buren, Make Arts for a Better Life: A Guide for Working with Communities. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018, 352 pp., $35. ISBN: 9780190878283 (pbk.); 978...
Injuries and associated risk factors of the shoulder and elbow among adolescent baseball pitchers: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Objective The purpose of this study was to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of the current literature surrounding risk factors associated with shoulder and elbow injuries among adolescent baseball pitchers. Methods Relevant studies were assessed for inclusion and retained from PubMed, EMBASE, SportDiscus, and CINAHL databases. Data was extracted from the retained studies and underwent methodological quality assessment and meta-analysis. Results The search resulted in 1238 studies identified with 10 ultimately retained for systematic review. Five studies including one case-control, two prospective cohort, and two cross-sectional studies met inclusion criteria for meta-analysis. This meta-analysis revealed that playing with arm fatigue was a significant risk factor (pooled odds ratio = 13.32, 95% confidence interval: 3.22–55.09). The other three risk factors (long competitive season, pitching for more than one team or league, and playing catcher as a secondary position) were not statistically significant. Conclusion Pitching with arm fatigue is a significant risk factor for shoulder and elbow injuries among adolescent baseball pitchers. Future efforts in assessment and mitigation of pitching with arm fatigue among this population may help to reduce the risk of arm injuries. Furthermore, investigations of additional risk factors in a more homogeneous population of adolescent pitchers may be warranted.