cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Effect of dexamethasone on elevated cytokine mRNA levels in chemical‐induced hippocampal injury

An acute administration of the hippocampal toxicant trimethyltin (TMT) produced a specific pattern of neuronal necrosis in dentate granule cells with accompanying astrogliosis and initiation of a cytokine response within 24 hours. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the anti-inflammatory agent, dexamethasone (DEX), on the pattern of cytokine expression and neuronal degeneration occurring after an acute TMT injection. Dexamethasone (0.2 mg/kg or 10 mg/kg) was administered to 21-day-old male mice 1 hour prior to an injection of TMT hydroxide (2.5 mg/kg, i.p.). Mice receiving 0.2 mg/kg DEX received a second injection 6 hours after TMT. Twenty-four hours later, neuronal necrosis and astrogliosis were assessed and found to be similar in animals treated with TMT, either in the presence or absence of dexamethasone. Pretreatment with dexamethasone failed to prevent the neurodegeneration and astrogliosis. The TMT-induced injury response was represented in elevations of mRNA levels for the injury-associated host response genes glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), EB22/5.3, and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1). The combination of DEX and TMT produced increased elevation in mRNA levels for EB22/5.3 and ICAM, while GFAP levels remained the same as with TMT alone. The injury response from TMT was accompanied by elevations in mRNA levels for the cytokines tumor necrosis factor (TNF) α, TNFβ, and interleukin (IL)-1α. Treatment with dexamethasone prior to TMT resulted in significantly elevated levels of TNFα, TNFβ, and IL-1α as compared to TMT alone. These data represent the inability of glucocorticoids to downregulate the injury response in rat hippocampus following a systemic injection of TMT and suggest a stimulation and “priming” of hippocampal cells by dexamethasone. J. Neurosci. Res. 57:916–926, 1999.
Metal-metal bonding and interstitials in reduced rare earth metal halides

Abstract Exploratory research in recent years has shown that the rare earth elements in their highly-reduced halides exhibit a remarkable ability to undergo cluster formation, some as isolated units, and others as infinite chains or slabs containing double-metal layers. Only a few of the elements have been studied in any detail, principally scandium, yttrium and gadolinium. Many of these new compounds are uniquely stabilized by a second-period element bound within each cluster, e.g. in Sc7Cl12B, Sc5Cl8C, Y2C12C and LiyYClHx, although a few structures evidently represent true binaries, e.g. Sc7Cl10 and Y2C13. The known phases and their structures are briefly reviewed and some relevant information from extended-Huckel band calculations and UV photoelectron spectroscopy are noted.
Insulin receptor substrates mediate distinct biological responses to insulin-like growth factor receptor activation in breast cancer cells

Activation of the type I insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-IR) regulates several aspects of the malignant phenotype, including cancer cell proliferation and metastasis. Phosphorylation of adaptor proteins downstream of IGF-IR may couple IGF action to specific cancer phenotypes. In this study, we sought to determine if insulin receptor substrate-1 and -2 (IRS-1 and -2) mediate distinct biological effects in breast cancer cells. Insulin receptor substrate-1 and IRS-2 were expressed in T47D-YA breast cancer cells, which lack IRS-1 and -2 expression, yet retain functional IGF-IR. In the absence of IRS-1 and -2 expression, IGF-IR activation was unable to stimulate proliferation or motility in T47D-YA cells. Expression of IRS-1 resulted in IGF-I-stimulated proliferation, but did not affect motility. In contrast, expression of IRS-2 enhanced IGF-I-stimulated motility, but did not stimulate proliferation. The αIR-3, an inhibitor of the IGF-IR, was unable to affect these IGF-stimulated phenotypes unless IRS-1 or -2 was expressed. Thus, IGF-IR alone is unable to regulate important breast cancer cell phenotypes. In these cells, IRS proteins are required for and mediate distinct aspects of IGF-IR-stimulated behaviour. As multiple agents targeting the IGF-IR are currently in early clinical trials, IRS expression should be considered as a potential biomarker for IGF-IR responsiveness.
Remarks on integral-ISS for systems with delays

The notion of integral input-to-state stability (integral-ISS) is now recognized as a central concept in nonlinear systems analysis. In this work, we explore the Razumikhin approach to the integral-ISS property for systems with delays. The main idea is to treat the delayed state variable as a disturbance input. The results in this work extend the previous results on the Razumikhin method in the contexts of asymptotic stability and ISS to the context of integral-ISS.
Discovering trustworthy social spaces

Many future mobile services and applications will center on the social and community aspects of mobile societies. Interactions and connections between users in mobile networks are usually subject to the strength of the connections between the nodes, informed by historical events. This study proposes, implements and evaluates novel methods to dynamically measure the strength of social connections and similarity based on historical mobility behavior and encounter information. Through our protocol and application we investigate the feasibility of discovering known encountered devices, in addition to the opportunistic identification of potentially-strong new connections.We propose a set of 4 filters to rate and rank mobile encounters identifying users with similar behavior. We have developed and deployed ConnectEnc application on Android and Nokia N810 platform to measure the link between the scores of proposed filters and the existence (or lack) of social relationship with the rated devices. We find that a statistically strong relationship exists between our recommendation and social relationship with the devices rated by the users (for LVC, r=0.84, p
Screening for colorectal cancer.

A healthy 76-year-old woman presents as a new patient for primary care. She reports having one daily bowel movement and no rectal bleeding. She has no family history of colorectal cancer. She reports having negative stool-card tests during gynecologic examinations, most recently at 65 years of age. Would you advise this patient to undergo colon-cancer screening, and if so, what test would you recommend?
Use of Antidepressants in Medically Ill Older Patients

Major depression is common in older medical patients, and it can exert a deleterious effect on the treatment, course, and outcome of physical illnesses. Tricyclic or tetracyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and psychosocial interventions often play a role in the treatment of depressed medically ill patients, but well-founded doubts about the efficacy and the safety of TCAs in older, frail medical patients have developed. Based on a review of current knowledge about antidepressant use in these patients, the authors recommend the cautious use of TCAs in medically ill older patients until more data are available.
Cultural distance and valuation of multinational corporations

Abstract We examine the value impact of cultural differences that exist between the foreign subsidiaries and the headquarters of U.S. Multinational corporations (MNCs). We find a negative relationship between cultural distance and firm valuation. Specifically, in addition to the cultural distance index, which is a composite measure of cultural differences, most of the individual cultural attributes that make up the index have a negative effect on firm valuation. Our findings are consistent with the notion that cultural differences decrease firm value by imposing a barrier to the exploitation of internalization advantages. Our results remain robust when we use orthogonal cultural distance measures and various multivariate methodologies.
Improved expression and purification of sigma 1 receptor fused to maltose binding protein by alteration of linker sequence

Sigma 1 receptor (S1R) is a eukaryotic membrane protein that functions as an inter-organelle signaling modulator and chaperone. Here we report an improved expression of S1R in Escherichia coli as a fusion to maltose binding protein (MBP) and a high-yield purification. Variants with linking amino acid sequences consisting of 0-5 alanine residues between MBP and S1R were created and tested in several E. coli expression strains in order to determine the best combination of construct and host for production of active MBP-S1R. Among the linker variations, the protein containing a 4-Ala linker exhibited superior expression characteristics (MBP-4A-S1R); this construct was most productively paired with E. coli B834-pRARE2 and a chemically defined growth and expression medium. A 3-step purification was developed, including extraction from the E. coli membrane fraction using a mixture of Triton X-100 and n-dodecyl-beta-D-maltopyranoside identified by screening constrainted by retention of binding function, and purification by amylose affinity and gel filtration chromatographies. This procedure yields ∼3.5mg of purified fusion protein per L of bacterial culture medium. Purified MBP-4A-S1R showed a 175-fold purification from the starting cellular lysate with respect to specific ligand binding activity, and is stable during concentration and freeze-thaw cycling.
SEAC: review of three years of operation

Since September of 1950, the National Bureau of Standards has had SEAC, a digital-automatic computer, in almost continuous daily usage. It was originally conceived as an interim-computing facility for the use of the government until a more complete computing system could replace it. Consequently, in constructing the machine, it was intended to put into productive operation as soon as possible a minimal machine that could produce computed results. However, the machine proved quite reliable, and the experiments involved in its design were sufficiently successful that SEAC was expanded and kept in operation as a permanent tool at the National Bureau of Standards. It is the purpose of this paper to present some of the operating experience that has been obtained from the use of this computer and to indicate the ways in which component reliability and maintenance procedures have affected the amount of useful computation that has been obtained from SEAC.
Robotic fault detection and fault tolerance: A survey

Abstract Fault tolerance is increasingly important for robots, especially those in remote or hazardous environments. Robots need the ability to effectively detect and tolerate internal failures in order to continue performing their tasks without the need for immediate human intervention. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in robot fault tolerance, and the subject has been investigated from a number of points of view. Ongoing research performs off-line and on-line failure analyses of robotic systems, develops fault-tolerant control environments, and derives fault detection and error recovery techniques using hardware, kinematic, or functional redundancy. This paper presents a summary of the current, limited, state-of-the-art in fault-tolerant robotics and offers some future possibilities for the field.
A genetic algorithm for maximum-likelihood phylogeny inference using nucleotide sequence data.

Phylogeny reconstruction is a difficult computational problem, because the number of possible solutions increases with the number of included taxa. For example, for only 14 taxa, there are more than seven trillion possible unrooted phylogenetic trees. For this reason, phylogenetic inference methods commonly use clustering algorithms (e.g., the neighbor-joining method) or heuristic search strategies to minimize the amount of time spent evaluating nonoptimal trees. Even heuristic searches can be painfully slow, especially when computationally intensive optimality criteria such as maximum likelihood are used. I describe here a different approach to heuristic searching (using a genetic algorithm) that can tremendously reduce the time required for maximum-likelihood phylogenetic inference, especially for data sets involving large numbers of taxa. Genetic algorithms are simulations of natural selection in which individuals are encoded solutions to the problem of interest. Here, labeled phylogenetic trees are the individuals, and differential reproduction is effected by allowing the number of offspring produced by each individual to be proportional to that individual's rank likelihood score. Natural selection increases the average likelihood in the evolving population of phylogenetic trees, and the genetic algorithm is allowed to proceed until the likelihood of the best individual ceases to improve over time. An example is presented involving rbcL sequence data for 55 taxa of green plants. The genetic algorithm described here required only 6% of the computational effort required by a conventional heuristic search using tree bisection/reconnection (TBR) branch swapping to obtain the same maximum-likelihood topology.
Subunit Structure and Purification of Opioid Receptors

Considerable evidence indicates the existence of multiple types of opioid receptors. The three major types have been named mu, delta and kappa. The earlier evidence was based on pharmacological as well as membrane binding experiments. This paper will emphasize more recent studies using solubilized opioid binding sites. Several laboratories, including our own, have succeeded in separating kappa receptors from other types. A similar separation of mu from delta receptors has not yet been achieved. By crosslinking experiments with 125I- human beta-endorphin we have been able to provide strong evidence for differences in molecular size between the major binding components of mu (65K) and delta (53K) receptors. It is not yet established whether the difference resides in the protein or carbohydrate portion of these glycoproteins. These results suggest that the three major types of opioid receptors represent distinct molecular entities. An active opioid binding protein solubilized from bovine striatal membranes has been purified to apparent homogeneity. The major purification steps involve affinity chromatography and lectin chromatography on immobilized wheat germ agglutinin. The purified material gave a single band of molecular weight 65K Da on SDS-PAGE. Its specific activity for opioid binding was ca. 13,000 pmol/mg protein and its properties are those of a component of the mu receptor.
Energy states in quantum dots

We describe a procedure for calculating the electronic structure of semiconductor quantum dots containing over one million atoms. The single particle electron levels are calculated by solving a Hamiltonian constructed from screened atomic pseudopotentials. Effects beyond the single particle level such as electron and hole exchange and correlation interactions are described using a configuration interaction (CI) approach. Application of these methods to the calculation of the optical absorption spectrum, Coulomb repulsions and multi-exciton binding energies of InGaAs self-assembled quantum dots are presented.
Modeling Low-Velocity Impact Damage of Composite Sandwich Panels

Analytical solutions for the low-velocity impact damage of composite sandwich panels are found by considering systems of discrete masses, springs and constant-force dashpots. Equivalent spring and dashpot forces for the sandwich panel are derived from the static load-indentation response and adjusted with dynamic material properties of the facesheet and core. Predictions of the maximum impact force are about 15% higher than experimental values, which is the same order of accuracy that is obtained from the static load-indentation analysis. Damage initiation due to tensile failure by hemispherical-nose shape projectiles and shear failure by blunt projectiles are examined. Predicted tensile and shear failure loads are about 20% higher than experimental results.
Prime focus coma corrector for the MMT with off-the-shelf components

A small prime focus corrector for the new 6.5 m MMT telescope has been built using small off-the-shelf optical components. Its purpose is to aid in initial test of the primary mirror. At f/1.25 the paraboloidal primary is by far the fastest of any large telescope, and without correction the field and the plate scale are both inconveniently small. The corrector design is based on the Maksutov camera, with a concave spherical relay mirror and a refractive meniscus corrector to subtract the coma introduced by the primary mirror and balance out the spherical aberration from the relay mirror. The result is a 48 arcsec field at f/7 with 80 percent encircled energy within 0.25 arcsec diameter. The instrument includes a CCD with 500 by 500 20 micron pixels, a guide camera and provision for a fast wavefront sensor to measure mirror figure and atmospheric turbulence. The instrument was tested at the telescope before implementation of the active control of mirror support forces or the mirror air conditioning system. Nevertheless images with FWHM 0.53 arcsec were recorded.
The HERS Trial Results: Paradigms Lost?

The Heart and Estrogen/progestin Replacement Study (HERS) found no overall effect of 4.1 years of therapy with estrogen plus progestin for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease in postmenopausal women. However, within the overall null effect, a 50% increase in cardiovascular events was seen in the first year, followed by fewer events after 2 years of treatment in the hormone therapy group than in the placebo group. Understanding the cause of this pattern of early increase and late reduction in risk is key to interpreting the HERS results and reconciling them with the large number of observational and other studies of the cardiovascular effects of estrogen. There are two possibilities. One is that the HERS regimen of estrogen plus progestin has no effect on risk for heart disease, and the pattern of changing risk over time is simply the result of chance or confounding. The other is that the pattern of early increase and late reduction in risk is due to real but opposing effects of this regimen. Several lines of evidence support each possibility. Attrition of a susceptible cohort of women uniquely at risk for a cardiovascular complication from hormone therapy coupled with a gradually progressive beneficial effect due to lipid lowering and other factors is a promising potential explanation. The HERS results remind us of the need for clinical trials to evaluate both the benefits and risks of new therapies. They also illustrate how much more we need to know about the cardiovascular effects of hormone replacement therapy.
FROM SCHISMS THROUGH SYNTHESIS TO INFORMED OSCILLATION: AN ATTEMPT AT INTEGRATING SOME DIVERSE ASPECTS OF PSYCHOANALYTIC TECHNIQUE

There exists a conceptual bifurcation at the core of psychoanalysis. It has been viewed from differing vantage points and portrayed as subsuming various dichotomies (oedipal-preoedipal, conflict-deficit, one person-two person, classic-romantic, and so on). While each such conceptual pair has its own heuristic accompaniments, these dichotomies share a profoundly important element. They have divergent effects upon the analyst's mode of listening and the nature of his or her interventions. These and other related technical implications are the topic of this paper. With the help of three clinical vignettes and by coalescing the isolated voices of many distinguished theoreticians, the author attempts to elucidate and heal this split. This paper proposes three levels of increasingly sophisticated resolution of the technical divergence resulting from this schism. The paper recommends an informed oscillation between the two polarities of psychoanalytic technique, an oscillation that must remain in consonance with the patient's shifting ego organization. The paper concludes by highlighting the developmental bases for the proposed technical conceptualizations.
Stereochemistry of cobalt-catalyzed carbonylation of 2-oxazolines

Abstract The stereospecificity of the title reaction is studied using the (4 R ,5 S )-4-methyl-2,5-diphenyl-2-oxazoline and (4 R ,5 R )-4-methyl-2,5-diphenyl-2-oxazoline as the substrates. While the catalyst system containing BnCo(CO) 4 and BnCOCo(CO) 4 ( 1 ) was used initially, a convenient catalyst formulation generated from the commercially available Co 2 (CO) 8 and AIBN ( 2 ) has been found more effective than catalyst system 1 . The stereoselectivity in all cases favors inversion at the C(5)-position with diastereomeric excess up to >97%.
1110 URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS IN CEREBRAL PALSY PATIENTS

100 patients admitted to a children's rehabilitative hospital with a diagnosis of cerebral palsy had a careful review of their history of urinary tract infections (UTIs), a complete physical examination, and a screening urine culture (Uricult). Patients with >10,000 colonies/ml of the Uricult had their result confirmed by a repeat culture. 19 patients had a history of previous UTI(s), 63% of whom also had at least some daytime urinary incontinence. Of the 81 patients without a known previous UTI, 60% were incontinent of urine. 92 patients had Uricults obtained. 3 of these studies had >10,000 colonies/ml, all of which were confirmed on restudy. However, one of these results probably reflected contamination, giving a prevalence of UTIs of 2.2% at admission. Of the 89 patients with negative Uricults, (≤10,000 colonies/ml), 12 (13.5%) were known to have received antibiotics within the previous 7 days, 23 (25.8%) within the last 3 months. An antibiotic history was not available for 13 (7 day history) and 29 (3 month history) children, which means that the antibiotic use may be even higher than the rates obtained. In summary, screening Uricults done on 92 of 100 consecutive admissions uncovered only 2 UTIs in a population of children with cerebral palsy, a rate similar to the general population. However, the prevalence in this study may be lower than the prevalence of UTIs in the population of children with cerebral palsy at large due to the high level of antibiotic usage in the group studied. A history of UTIs was found in 19%.
Seebeck Coefficients of Lutetium Single Crystals

The Seebeck coefficients of lutetium have been measured along the [10\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}10] ($b$ axis) and [0001] ($c$ axis) crystallographic directions as a function of temperature from 8 to 300 K. These results are compared with the single-crystal Seebeck coefficients of yttrium and discussed in terms of the Fermi surface.
Seizures in acute childhood stroke.

Objectives To describe the risk of seizures in children with acute stroke and identify factors predicting their later risk of epilepsy. Study design Data for patients >3.5 years of age at a tertiary care children’s hospital with acute stroke were collected and reviewed. Results Seventy-seven patients were identified (mean age, 8.4 years); 21% had clinical seizures. An additional 10% of patients had a clinical seizure during the acute hospitalization. Status epilepticus was common in infants and patients with cortical strokes. Non-convulsive status epilepticus was captured only in patients with prolonged electroencephalograms and always within 24 hours of monitoring. Six months after their stroke, 24% of our patients had epilepsy, all of whom experienced seizures at initial presentation with stroke. Conclusion In our series of pediatric patients with stroke, most of the clinical seizures occurred within the first 24 hours of presentation and did not vary in stroke subtype. Status epilepticus was common, especially in infants. Epilepsy had a high likelihood of developing in the next 6 months in children with seizures in the first 24 hours of stroke onset. Prolonged electroencephalogram monitoring was useful in detecting non-convulsive status epilepticus, but not in predicting the risk of epilepsy at 6 months.
Thermal convection and nonlinear effects of a superfluid 3 He- 4 He mixture in a porous medium

The convective instability of superfluid3He-4He mixtures in porous media is investigated. The general hydrodynamic equations are derived and reduced to a single nonlinear equation for a scalar field. The superfluid mixtures in a porous medium have a constant4He chemical potential and behave essentially like a classical fluid in a porous medium. Two-fluid effects are calculated both at the onset of steady convection and the subsequent boundary of instability. The shift of critical Rayleigh number is about 1% or less at the onset of convection, but can be as large as 20% or more at the instability boundary for some regions aroundT ≈ 1 K. This two-fluid shift is quite large compared to the corresponding 0.001% shift at the onset of convection for bulk superfluid3He-4He mixtures.
Walden III: toward an ethics of changing behavior.

Behavior therapies are falling victim to their own success, not failures. The zenith of the movement can be dated with B. F. Skinner's messianic best seller Beyond Freedom and Dignity.l From that point on, the approach has come under increasing attack in the press and in the courts not for being ineffective, but for its presumed effectiveness and abuses. At this late date, it is a bit irrelevant to protest that the label has been misapplied willy-nilly to a variety of patently punitive and coercive practices. Behavior therapies now stand in danger of being virtually outlawed. Unavoidably, whatever the resolution of the current crisis, it will have serious implications for the practice of psychotherapy, however it is labeled. It is the contention of this paper that behavior modification procedures have been misrepresented by enthusiasts and misunderstood by opponents, that na?vet? about human behavior is the rule in the present debate, and that some sort of calm reconsideration is needed before we throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Can coverage of confidence intervals be used to judge the goodness of point estimators in finite population double sampling

It is shown that there exists no valid confidence interval under nonparametric double-sampling model. Hence the low coverage of the associated confidence intervals in some situations should not be used against the application of the regression estimator, because it is a universal phenomenon for all estimators.
Foamability of Liquid Particle Suspensions: A Modeling Study†

Recent experiments on the foamability of liquid particle suspensions (with a particle size varying from nanometers to micrometers in diameter and in the absence of any surfactants) have shown that the foamability correlates well with the degree of particle coverage at the air−liquid surface. Furthermore, these experiments have also revealed foam inhibition due to the aggregation or clustering of particles in the bulk at high particle concentrations. The present study is aimed at theoretically modeling the observed phenomena. Theoretical analyses based on Monte Carlo simulations and the integral equations of statistical mechanics are used to model the particle aggregation phenomena in the bulk. The radial distribution functions, which show the particle packing density, are analyzed to obtain the effective energy of interaction between the particles. The maximum in foaminess due to the adsorption of particles on the air−liquid surface and clustering of particles in the bulk is explained. The modeling result...
Exploiting spatial distributions for minefield detection in cluttered environment

Spectral, shape and texture features of the detected targets are used to model the likelihood of detections to be potential mines in a minefield. However, a large number of these potential mines can be false alarms due to the similarity of the mine signatures with natural and other manmade clutter objects which significantly affects the overall detection performance. In addition to the spectral features, spatial distribution of the detected targets can be used to improve the minefield detection performance. In this paper, spectral features and spatial distributions are used simultaneously for minefield detection. We use nearest neighbor distances of the detected targets to capture the spatial characteristics of the minefields. We investigate the spatial distributions and evaluate minefield performance for both patterned and scatterable minefields in a cluttered environment where the number of detected mines is many times less than the number of false alarms. For patterned minefields, performance for minefields with different number of rows at different mine false alarm rates is evaluated. For scatterable minefields, we evaluate the performance of minefields where potential mines are randomly and regularly distributed. In all cases, the false alarms are assumed to be spatially randomly distributed. The performance of the proposed detection algorithm is compared to the baseline algorithm using extensive simulated minefield data.
Chemical, nutritive and sensory characteristics of tomatoes before and after conventional and microwave blanching and during frozen storage

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of microwave blanching on chemical, physical and sensory characteristics of tomatoes prior to and after frozen storage. Tomatoes were blanched (4 min) using four treatments: conventional boiling water (BW), steam (ST), microwaved in a glass container (MW), and microwaved in boilable bags (MWB). The lowest moisture content occurred in MW-blanched tomatoes before (92%) and after (86%) frozen storage. These tomatoes had the highest reduced ascorbic acid (RAA) content and the highest RAA retention (> 23 mg/100 g, >91%) after blanching and after frozen storage. After blanching, MWB-blanched tomatoes were the lightest, while after frozen storage, ST-blanched tomatoes were the lightest. BW-blanched tomatoes had generally higher flavor, texture and appearance scores. This study demonstrated that though visual color and sensory attributes were highest for BW-blanched tomatoes, MW-blanched tomatoes retained more nutritive value in the finished product.
A History of the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium and its Model Curricula

With the support of a grant from the Sloan Foundation, nine computer scientists from liberal arts colleges came together in October, 1984 to form the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium (LACS) and to create a model curriculum appropriate for liberal arts colleges. Over the years the membership has grown and changed, but the focus has remained on helping to establish and maintain high-quality computer science programs in liberal arts colleges. In this report we discuss briefly the history of the group, the series of three curricula produced by LACS, and other contributions of the members to computer science education.
Contemporary geographies of exclusion III: To assist or punish?:

Processes of inclusion and exclusion raise profound questions. As scholars of exclusion, we need to determine where to train our focus; as citizens, we need to determine whether and how exclusion is deleterious. When exclusion is pursued as a form of punishment, it is most readily open to question. This review of recent literature makes clear that scholarship on exclusion is robust, multifaceted, and necessary.
The Heritability of Postpartum Depression

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a serious mood disorder that may carry life-long consequences for a woman and her family. Multiple risk factors for PPD have been identified, including psychosocial, situational, and biological stimuli, several of which are experienced by most, if not all, postpartum women. Given the commonality of these risk factors, it is unclear why fewer than 20% of postpartum women actually develop PPD. In this review, we suggest that different susceptibility to PPD among postpartum women may be explained by the presence or absence of genetic variants that confer increased risk. We review three categories of genes known to code for proteins associated with depression in the general population or proteins known to be affected by childbirth for their possible association with PPD, including genes related to central nervous system monoamine availability, proinflammatory cytokines, and brain neuropeptides. Only two studies are available in the literature to date specifically looking at polymorphisms in postpartum women as related to PPD; both are concerned with monoamine availability. These are discussed in further depth. Conclusions regarding the contribution of genetic polymorphisms to the development of PPD are mixed. Ultimately, the complexity of the disorder and the interrelationships among different genes thought to contribute to depression suggest that much more research is required to understand the heritability of PPD. The complexity of the disorder also suggests that epigenetic influences must be considered as well when discussing susceptibility.
Rural hospitals' experience with the National Practitioner Data Bank.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined hospital administrators' experiences with the National Practitioner Data Bank. METHODS: One hundred forty-nine rural hospital administrators completed questionnaires assessing their perceptions of the data bank. RESULTS: Nearly 90% of respondents rated the data bank as an important source of information for credentialing. Three percent indicated it had directly affected privileging decisions; 43% and 34%, respectively, believed the costs exceeded or equaled the benefits. Twenty percent reported changes that could decrease disciplinary action reports to the data bank. CONCLUSIONS: While the National Practitioner Data Bank is an important source of information to rural hospitals, it may, affect few credentialing decisions and motivate behavioral changes that could have a paradoxical effect on quality assurance.
Predicting single-species toxicity in natural water systems

A methodology is proposed to predict single-species toxicity in natural waters by using laboratory bioassay data which relate effect to a tissue concentration of toxicant or to injury accumulation. Such relationships should be independent of test conditions and therefore be transferable from lab to field. Data for endrin and copper are presented which illustrate relationships between tissue concentrations and mortality. A mathematical model of uptake and elimination of toxicants by fish is used to relate exposure concentration to tissue concentration and then to effect. Prediction of toxicity in a laboratory test in which the exposure concentration varies in time is presented as a first step in testing the methodology. Using a dose-response relationship determined from published data for zinc toxicity to rainbow trout in a constant exposure toxicity test, the survival time under time-varying exposure is calculated and compared to observed data. The model predicted survival times that were consistent with the observed times. Whole-body residue is used as the estimate of dose. A methodology for considering chemicals for which tissue concentration is not a useful estimate of dose is also presented. Diazinon-induced acetylcholinesterase inhibition data are used to demonstrate this methodology.
Pharmacotherapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration: clinical trials and the art of medicine

. In the most severe form ofthe disease, neovascular AMD, abnormalblood vessels known as choroidal neo-vascularization (CNV) grow beneath theretina. These neovascular vessels are fragileand leaky. As a result, subretinal hemorrhage,subretinal fluid and hard exudates develop.The patient experiences blurred vision, dis-torted vision and, so metimes, scotoma forma-tion. Without treatment, the lesion oftenprogresses to a disciform scar with furtherloss of vision. Neovascular AMD only affectsapproximately 20% of those with AMD butis responsible for 80% of severe visual acuityloss from AMD. In the USA alone, there arean estimated 1.75 million people withadvanced AMD, most of whom have exuda-tive AMD. This number is projected toincrease to 2.95 million by 2020
Theory of radio scattering from the aurora

A theory is presented here that explains certain phenomena observed in studies of radio scattering from the aurora. It is postulated that the signals which have been observed are scattered from the leading edges of rapidly advancing columns of ionization created by bundles of incoming auroral protons. Observed fading · spectra and the minimum range effect may be explained in this manner. The rate of advance of the ionized columns has been determined approximately and is of the same order of magnitude as Gartlein has found spectrographically. It is suggested that the columns are on the order of half a meter in diameter. Insufficient data are available to make extensive density calculations.
Global Mobility and Rising Inequality: A Cross-National Study of Immigration, Poverty, and Social Cohesion

With globalization, the world has become more interconnected and interdependent, with people, capital, and ideas rapidly migrating across borders. Yet, along with greater global interdependence and increased diversity within societies, economic and social inequalities have deepened, making poverty one of the leading global problems. To lessen poverty around the world, better integrate immigrant groups into societies, and enhance stability, both societies and education systems are dedicated to fostering social cohesion as a key objective. Yet, still little is known about the extent to which immigration and socioeconomic status are predictive of social cohesion. Using cross-national data from the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Study for 38 countries, this article further investigates the link between poverty, immigration, education, and social cohesion. Findings indicate that socioeconomic status is an important influence on social cohesion of immigrant students and that schools play an important ...
REINFORCEMENT MAGNITUDE : AN EVALUATION OF PREFERENCE AND REINFORCER EFFICACY

Consideration of reinforcer magnitude may be important for maximizing the efficacy of treatment for problem behavior. Nonetheless, relatively little is known about children's preferences for different magnitudes of social reinforcement or the extent to which preference is related to differences in reinforcer efficacy. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the relations among reinforcer magnitude, preference, and efficacy by drawing on the procedures and results of basic experimentation in this area. Three children who engaged in problem behavior that was maintained by social positive reinforcement (attention, access to tangible items) participated. Results indicated that preference for different magnitudes of social reinforcement may predict reinforcer efficacy and that magnitude effects may be mediated by the schedule requirement.
Changing boundaries and institutions in environmental governance: perspectives on sector management of the Northeast US groundfish fishery

Management through and by sectors has emerged as the primary mechanism for managing the Multispecies Groundfish Fishery in the Northeast United States. Sectors are cooperative associations of fishermen that in theory can pursue their own community-based goals but that in practice have tended to operate more like individual quotas. Based on interviews with groundfish sector managers, this paper examines the emergence of sectors as a new institutional form in the Northeast, and the rapid reorganization of the industry that has occurred in the wake of sectors. Some sectors have depended on existing relationships, particularly in sectors based on common ports, ethnicity, or kinship. But sectors also call on new sets of relationships and roles, such as the role of sector managers as important new bridges or “boundary agents” between government and industry. This paper reviews the differences and commonalities in the goals and objectives of different sector groups, the challenges and opportunities fishermen have faced adapting to the sector system in the context of reduced allocations, as well as the changing importance of different institutional forms in the management of the fishery. The sector system has been an experiment in decentralized and collaborative management, but in a context of increasingly privatized resources, rendering challenges and opportunities to fishermen in a rapidly changing socio-ecological environment.
THE EFFECTS OF SEMANTIC GROUPING ON LEARNING WORD MEANINGS

ABSTRACT Teaching words in semantic groups is a feature of a number of successful approaches to vocabulary instruction, including the program of research by Beck and her colleagues (e.g. Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982). A number of authorities have recommended that vocabulary words be taught in such groups. This study compares the effects of teaching words in either semantic groups or grouped randomly using techniques adapted from Beck et al. to fourth graders. Although the treatment had very strong effects, whether the words were grouped in categories did not affect students’ performance on either measures of the retention of definitions or the use of the words in context. In addition, both children in the random group and the semantic group had near‐perfect classification of the words. It was suggested, given rich and elaborate instruction, semantic grouping per se is not necessary.
Governance implications of the effects of stakeholder management on financial reporting

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test whether effective stakeholder management results in transparent financial reporting. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a linear model informed by stakeholder theorizing and established measures of stakeholder management, earnings quality, and earnings management. Findings – Organizations exhibiting effective stakeholder management have higher earnings quality and are less likely to engage in discretionary earnings management. Research implications – Future research should carefully sort out the meaning of different measures of earnings quality, should clarify cross-national institutional differences to reconcile contradictions in extant research, and should discover the underlying governance orientations that shape decision-making processes and outcomes. Practical implications – Governing bodies must take into account how underlying organization cultures shape governance regimes, which may determine the transparency with which organization actors interact with various stakeholder groups. Originality/value – This study establishes a positive link between effective stakeholder management and transparent financial reporting, suggesting that both may be artifacts of deeper underlying orientations toward accountability, transparency, and managerial discretion.
(Im)Possibility of Unconditionally Privacy-Preserving Auctions

We investigate how to obtain bid privacy in sealed-bid auctions. In particular, this paper focuses on unconditional full privacy, i.e., privacy that relies neither on trusted third parties (like auctioneers) or trusted fractions of bidders, nor on computational intractability assumptions (like the hardness of factoring). These constraints imply a scenario in which bidders exchange messages according to some predefined protocol in order to jointly determine the auction outcome without revealing any additional information. It turns out that the first-price sealed-bid auction can be emulated by an unconditionally fully private protocol. However, the protocolýs round complexity is exponential in the number of bits that represent a bid, and we show there is no more efficient protocol. On the other hand, we prove the impossibility of fully privately emulating the second-price sealed-bid (Vickrey) auction for more than two bidders. This impossibility holds even when relaxing various privacy constraints such as protecting just a single losing bid (while maintaining anonymity) or tolerating the revelation of complete information to a coalition of at least half of the bidders.
The effects of uncertainty on a ground water management problem involving saltwater intrusion.

Ground water is an important water supply source for many coastal communities. Significant ground water extraction can lead to landward migration of the saltwaterfreshwater interface, which can contaminate the water supply. It is therefore important to consider the potential for saltwater intrusion when developing a ground water management plan in coastal regions. An important tool in analyzing such problems is the numerical model which can predict water levels, ground water flow, and the location of the salt-water interface given a particular pumping regime. Such models require knowledge of hydraulic parameters for each aquifer. Imprecise specification of these parameters can lead to inaccurate results and it is therefore important to evaluate the effect of uncertainty in model parameters. Because the hydraulic conductivity of an aquifer is critically important for predicting the location of the saltwater- freshwater interface, it is a major source of uncertainty in ground water analysis. Here we investigate two types of uncertainty in the context of ground water management problems: (1) modeler’s uncertainty reflects inaccurate estimation of mean hydraulic conductivity, and (2) spatial variability reflects our inability to adequately characterize the spatially heterogeneous distribution of hydraulic conductivity at an appropriate scale for precise modeling. Both types of uncertainty are investigated by developing a ground water management problem based on a coastal aquifer on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The management problem seeks to minimize the threat of saltwater intrusion while meeting the water supply demands of the community. The two types of uncertainty are shown to have different and substantial effects on optimal management designs. These results illustrate the importance of considering uncertainty in determining ground water management solutions in a coastal aquifer environment.
Edge excitation geometry for studying intrinsic emission spectra of bulk n-InP

The shape of the photoluminescence line excited at an edge face of InP wafer and registered from the broadside is used to investigate the intrinsic emission spectrum. The procedure is much less sensitive to the surface properties and the carrier kinetics than the conventional methods used with the reflection or transmission geometry of photoluminescence. Our method provides a tool for studying the effects of non-equilibrium distribution of minority carriers in doped direct-band semiconductors.
Enzymatic Hydrolysis of the Chemical Warfare Agent VX and its Neurotoxic Analogues by Organophosphorus Hydrolase

Organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH) is a bacterial enzyme that hydrolyzes a variety of organophosphorus (OP) neurotoxins, including many widely used pesticides and chemical warfare agents containing P-O, P-F, P-CN and P-S bonds. It has extremely high efficiency in hydrolysis of many different phosphotriester and phosphothiolester pesticides (P-O bond) such as paraoxon (kcat3800s−1) and coumaphos (kcat = 800s−1) or phosphonate (P-F) neurotoxins such as DFP (kcat = 350s−1) and the chemical warfare agent sarin (kcat = 56s−1). In contrast, the enzyme has much lower catalytic capabilities for phosphonothioate neurotoxins such as acephate (kcat = 2.8 s−1) or the chemical warfare agent VX [O-ethyl S-(2-diisopropyl-aminoethyl) methylphosphonothioate] (kcat = 0.3s−1). This lower specificity for VX and its analogues are reflected by the specificity constants (kcat/Km values) for VX = 0.75 × 103 M−1 s−1 compared to 5.5 × 107M−1 s−1 for paraoxon. Different metal-associated forms of the enzyme demonstrated significantly ...