cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Separation of conjoined thoracopagous twins joined at the right atria

A case of conjoined thoracopagous twins with a shared atrial myocardium who were successfully surgically separated is described. Twin B had hypoplastic right heart syndrome and was dependent on Twin A for oxygenation of her blood. The twins were surgically separated by dilating Twin B's ductus arteriosus with an infusion of prostaglandin E1 and creating an aortopulmonary shunt to increase her pulmonary blood flow; both twins survived the operation. However, 1 week after surgery Twin B had hepatic and renal failure and died.
The Relationship between Substance Use and HIV Transmission in Peru

Central Nervous System (CNS) disinhibition has been reported to underlie the vulnerability to alcohol dependence (AD) in individuals with a high-family loading of AD [1]. Maturational lag and defective myelination of particular brain regions, including the corpus callosum(CC), have been reported in these individuals [2]. Morphometric studies reported significantly smaller total CC, genu and isthmus areas in these individuals after controlling for age and intracranial area [3].
Other biologic toxin bioweapons: ricin, staphylococcal enterotoxin B, and trichothecene mycotoxins

The ideal biologic warfare agent is lethal, easy, and inexpensive to produce in large quantities, stable in aerosol for/with the ability to be dispersed over wide areas, has no effective treatment or vaccine, and is communicable from person to person. With the exception of the last characteristic, the biologic toxins (ricin, staphylococcal enterotoxin B, T-2 mycotoxin, and botulinum) possess all the properties mentioned. This article will discuss the first three biologic toxins, with an emphasis on particular points of interest to the dermatologist. Botulinum toxin will be covered in another article.
Environmental factors affecting outbreaks of winter saprolegniosis in channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus (Rafinesque)

. Previous studies have led to the development of a laboratory model for a disease termed ‘winter saprolegniosis’, locally referred to as ‘winter kill’, occurring in channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus Rafinesque, raised in commercial ponds in the southeastern United States. In the laboratory, the onset of disease was routinely brought about by a combination of two related factors: (1) a rapid drop in water temperature which induces immunosuppression in catfish; and (2) maintenance of low water temperatures (∼10°C), which favour the proliferation of an ubiquitous fungus of the genus Saprolegnia to produce high levels of fungal zoospores (≥5 spores ml−1). In this study, two commercial catfish ponds were monitored for over one year to determine if the above factors occurred in the field and could be correlated with outbreaks of winter saprolegniosis. It was noted that passages of severe cold weather fronts were able to drop pond water temperatures ≥10°C within 24h and that such decreases in water temperature were associated with immunosuppression of the catfish in the ponds. Furthermore, when Saprolegnia sp. zoospore levels were ≥5 spores ml-1, the immunocompromised catfish exhibited overt signs of winter saprolegniosis. If one of the factors implicated in the induction of disease was missing, fish in the ponds remained healthy. In addition, the onset of disease in the ponds appeared independent of pH and oxygen, total ammonia nitrogen and un-ionized ammonia levels. Collectively, these field results confirm the laboratory-based hypothesis concerning the aetiology of winter saprolegniosis in channel catfish.
Information science practice in a historical perspective: Preliminary findings of an oral history project

Related Work: Pozzi, Ellen, and Marija Dalbello. The New Jersey Chapter of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 1975-2005: A Historical Note. New Brunswick, NJ: NJ-ASIS&T, 2006. 9 p. This brochure was distributed at the 30th anniversary celebration of NJ-ASIST and presents a historical overview and chronology of NJ-ASIST. In electronic format, it is accessible from dLIST as http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1630/. The history complements the findings of the research study presented here.
Neuronal coding at subcortical auditory nuclei.

Abstract Monopolar macroelectrodes were implanted in the dorsal cochlear nucleus and inferior colliculus of four chronic adult cats and the frequency of neuronal discharge was analyzed during stimulation with human voices. The data showed that the unique patterns of neuronal discharge generated by a particular word tended to be very consistent even when the word was presented by a different voice such as a female rather than a male voice. This discharge pattern was found to be highly reliable between cats. In addition, identifying characteristics of each pattern were found to be very similar at both the cochlear nucleus and at the level of the inferior colliculus. Recordings from the geniculate body or auditory cortex did not exhibit the discharge characteristics found at lower auditory nuclei. The neuronal discharge patterns elicited by a particular stimulus may represent a mechanism whereby identical verbal stimuli are recognizable even though presented by different voices with varying input frequency.
The influence of geomagnetic activity on polar cap absorption

Polar cap absorption riometer data compared for Thule, Greenland and College, Alaska for determining geomagnetic activity influence
Spectra and structure of small ring compounds. Microwave spectrum of cyanocyclobutane

Abstract The rotational spectrum of cyanocyclobutane has been investigated in the region 18.0–40.0 GHz. Only A-type transitions were observed. R-branch assignments have been made for the ground state and the first three excited states of the ring puckering mode as well as the first two excited states of the out-of-plane cyano-bending mode. The microwave data are consistent with a bent equilibrium ground state for the ring with the cyano-group in the equatorial position. The dipole moment components were determined to be μ a = 4.04 ± 0.09 D and μ c = 0.92 ± 0.03 D with the total dipole moment, μ, having a value of 4.14 ± 0.09 D.
Accelerometer Placement for Angular Velocity Determination

An accelerometer placement scheme to determine the angular velocities and accelerations of a rigid body is presented. We show that the least number of uniaxial accelerometers required in a sensor array to uniquely determine the angular velocities in a moving frame is nine.
Thirty-Year Trends in Outcomes of Percutaneous Coronary Interventions in Diabetic Patients

Abstract Objective To characterize in-hospital and long-term outcomes after percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). Patients and Methods Patients who underwent PCIs were grouped by era: group 1, October 9, 1979, to December 31, 1989 (408 with DM and 2684 without DM); group 2, January 1, 1990, to December 31, 1996 (1170 and 4664); group 3, January 1, 1997, to December 31, 2003 (2032 and 6584); and group 4, January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2008 (1412 and 4141). The main outcome measures were in-hospital mortality, major adverse cardiovascular events, long-term mortality, composites of mortality with revascularization, and ischemic events. Results Patients with DM had significant declines in in-hospital adverse outcomes over time. These declines were similar to those observed in patients without DM. After adjusting for baseline risk, there was no significant change in the association between DM and in-hospital death or in-hospital major adverse cardiovascular events over time. The use of aspirin, β-blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, lipid-lowering drugs, and thienopyridines all increased over time. The effect of DM on long-term survival and survival free of revascularization did not change significantly from group 2 to group 4. However, the effect of DM on survival free of myocardial infarction and stroke was reduced significantly, from a hazard ratio (95% CI) of 1.71 (1.51-1.92) in group 2 to 1.39 (1.20-1.60) in group 4 ( P =.04). Conclusion Over 30 years, the improving outcomes in patients with diabetes who underwent PCIs have been similar to improvements in patients without DM. However, the risk-adjusted association of DM with long-term death, myocardial infarction, and stroke has decreased in the current era (group 4) compared with the bailout stent era (group 2).
A class of Lanczos-like algorithms implemented on parallel computers

The Lanczos algorithm is most commonly used in approximating a small number of extreme eigenvalues and eigenvectors for symmetric large sparse matrices. Main memory accesses for shared memory systems or global communications (synchronizations) in message passing systems decrease the computation speed. In this paper, the standard Lanczos algorithm is restructured so that only one synchronization point is required; that is, one global communication in a message passing distributed-memory machine or one global communication in a message passing distributed-memory machine or one global memory sweep in a shared-memory machine per each iteration is required. We also introduce the s-step Lanczos method for finding a few eigenvalues of symmetric large sparse matrices in a similar way to the s-step Conjugate Gradient method [2], and we prove that the s-step method generates reduction matrices which are similar to reduction matrices generated by the standard method. One iteration of the s-step Lanczos algorithm corresponds to s iterations of the standard Lanczos algorithm. The s-step method has improved data locality, minimized global communication and has superior parallel properties to the standard method. These algorithms are implemented on a 64-node NCUBE/seven hypercube and a CRAY-2, and performance results are presented.
Suicide as a Staged Performance

Abstract This article proposes that suicide can be viewed as a staged performance in which suicidal individuals create a dramatic event by the choices that they make for their suicidal act, such as which method to use, which location, what to wear, and what communications to leave for others. The choices that they make have psychodynamic significance and may, in some cases, provide clues to their impending act.
On "one of the few" objects

Objects with multiple numeric attributes can be compared within any "subspace" (subset of attributes). In applications such as computational journalism, users are interested in claims of the form: Karl Malone is one of the only two players in NBA history with at least 25,000 points, 12,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists in one's career. One challenge in identifying such "one-of-the-k" claims (k = 2 above) is ensuring their "interestingness". A small k is not a good indicator for interestingness, as one can often make such claims for many objects by increasing the dimensionality of the subspace considered. We propose a uniqueness-based interestingness measure for one-of-the-few claims that is intuitive for non-technical users, and we design algorithms for finding all interesting claims (across all subspaces) from a dataset. Sometimes, users are interested primarily in the objects appearing in these claims. Building on our notion of interesting claims, we propose a scheme for ranking objects and an algorithm for computing the top-ranked objects. Using real-world datasets, we evaluate the efficiency of our algorithms as well as the advantage of our object-ranking scheme over popular methods such as Kemeny optimal rank aggregation and weighted-sum ranking.
Ecological Unequal Exchange: International Trade and Uneven Utilization of Environmental Space in the World System

We evaluate the argument that international trade influences disproportionate cross-national utilization of global renewable natural resources. Such uneven dynamics are relevant to the consideration of inequitable appropriation of environmental space in particular and processes of ecological unequal exchange more generally. Using OLS regression with slope dummy interaction terms, we analyze the effects of trade upon environmental consumption, as measured by per capita ecological footprint demand for 2002, delineated by country income level. Based on data for 137 countries, analyses reveal low- and lower middle-income countries characterized by a greater proportion of exports to the core industrialized countries exhibit lower environmental consumption. The results contradict neoclassical economic thought. We find trade shapes uneven utilization of global environmental space by constraining consumption in low and lower middle-income countries.
A New Arthroscopic Technique to Determine Anterior-Inferior Glenoid Bone Loss: Validation of the Secant Chord Theory in a Cadaveric Model

Purpose The accuracy of a previously described method using the glenoid bare spot (GBS) as a reference point was compared with a new method using the secant chord theory (SCT), which relies on the circular geometry of the inferior glenoid to calculate bone loss. Methods In 7 embalmed cadaveric shoulders a digital image of the glenoid face was used to calculate the area of the best-fit circle of the inferior glenoid. Osteotomy templates from the 3-o'clock to 6-o'clock position were created to make a simulated anterior-inferior bone defect of 12.5% and 25% of the area of the circle. Measurements were taken with an arthroscopic probe from 2 simulated posterior portal positions (9 and 10 o'clock) by use of 2 techniques—SCT and GBS—in the intact, 12.5% loss, and 25% loss states. Results In the intact state, measurements showed a mean SCT loss of 4.1% and GBS loss of 4.4%. In the 12.5% loss state, mean percent bone loss with GBS was 23.1% compared with 14.8% with SCT ( P = .0001) at the 10-o'clock portal and 22.2% compared with 15.9% ( P = .006) at the 9-o'clock portal. In the 25% loss state, mean percent bone loss with GBS was 31.5% compared with 26.6% with SCT ( P = .002) at the 10-o'clock portal and 30.4% compared with 28.9% ( P = .48) at the 9-o'clock portal. Conclusions The SCT is shown to be a more accurate method of determining glenoid bone loss in an arthroscopic model; however, additional mathematic calculations are necessary. As shown in the intact state, there is an inherent small error of approximately 4% when arthroscopically determining bone loss. Clinical Relevance The technique may aid the clinician in quantifying glenoid bone loss and help determine when bone augmentation may be advisable.
Design of an exoskeleton for index finger rehabilitation

This paper presents a new exoskeleton with 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) for index finger rehabilitation. The device can generate bi-directional movement for all joints of the finger through cable transmission, which is required for passive and active trainings. With two prismatic kinematic joints in the design, it can accommodate to some extent variety of hand sizes. The kinematic relation between the device joint angles and the corresponding finger joint angles is simple which greatly simplifies the high level motion control. As the motor capability of patients may be different and the range of motion of the finger may change along with the rehabilitation progress, it is important to take the changes into consideration. And the preliminary experiment has shown that the proposed device is capable of accommodating to these varieties.
Academic achievement, technology and race: Experimental evidence ☆

Abstract Although a large literature explores the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students, very little is known about whether disparities in access to technology are partly responsible. Data from the first-ever field experiment involving the random provision of free computers to low-income community college students for home use are used to explore whether home computers are beneficial to minority students. I find that minority students receiving free computers achieved better educational outcomes than the control group that did not receive free computers. Minority students may have benefitted more from receiving free computers because of fewer alternatives for accessing home computers due to lower rates of computer ownership among family, friends, and relatives. Implications for the achievement gap and policy are discussed.
Revolutionary Passage: From Soviet Union to Post-Soviet Russia, 1985–2000 and How Russia Is Not Ruled: Reflections on Russian Political Development

Revolutionary Passage: From Soviet Union to Post-Soviet Russia, 1985–2000. By Marc Garcelon. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005. 313p. $23.95. How Russia Is Not Ruled: Reflections on Russian Political Development. By Allen C. Lynch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 276p. $70 cloth, $24.99 paper. Even a casual reader of the literature on postcommunist Russia will quickly realize that scholars who study that country face two main challenges. The first is doing research in a place where the course of events is hard to reconstruct, information is distorted or concealed, and relations of power are opaque. The second is to resist the temptation to make evidence from Russia fit preexisting intellectual agendas. Of these two challenges, the latter seems more formidable—even scholarly projects that enrich our factual knowledge may be led astray by the ambition to cast one's findings as a confirmation of pet grand theories. Lamentably, Marc Garcelon's book brings this quandary into sharp relief; reassuringly, Allen C. Lynch's book proves that it may be avoided.
Using Dreams in Family Therapy.

Dreams have apparently been viewed as individual phenomena with little to offer to systemic therapy. Current literature suggests that dreams are seldom used by marriage and family therapists. Yet, dreams can be powerful tools in bypassing resistance, in conceptualizingfamily dynamics, in identifying contextual variables that need to be considered, and in generating positive alternatives to the current dysfunction. Included are clinical examples that demonstrate the effective use of dreams in marriage and family therapy and a discussion of the interface between dream interpretation and systems therapy.
Combined nonparametric inference and state estimation for mixed poisson processes

Given independent, identically distributed copies of a mixed Poisson process N on a LCCB space E, i.e., a Cox process whose directing measure is of the form αm *, where α≧0 is a random variable with distribution σ and m * is a measure on E, we construct strongly consistent and asymptotically normal estimators of m * and the Laplace transform l σ. Methods are presented for estimating the directing measure of the (n+1)st process by combining the data for that process with estimates of appropriate quantities, the latter based on the first n processes. The case where different processes are observed over different sets is addressed.
The Chilean Military: Legalism Undermined, Manipulated, and Restored

ResumenEste art iculo sostiene que, en los ultimos treinta a nos, la inclinaci on por el constitucionalismo, el legalismoy el profesionalismo que caracterizaron a las Fuerzas Armadas de Chile fue sucesivamente erosionado,manipulado y restaurado. Durante el gobierno de Allende (1970-73) estos factores fueron minados por lainterrupcion del consenso politico y economico y por un aumento de la politizacion de las fuerzas arma-das. Entre 1973 y 1990 el legalismo de los militares fue manipulado por el general Pinochet para mante-nerse en el poder. Desde 1990 ha habido una vuelta lenta al profesionalismo que las caracterizaba en unpasado, influida especialmente por el encarcelamiento en 1995 del General Contreras en una c arcel civil,el retiro de la escena pol itica del General Pinochet en 1998 debido a su detenci on en Gran Breta na y porel “Nunca Mas” del General Cheyre en el 2003.AbstractThe article argues that, during the last 30 years, the commitment of the Chilean armed forces during the1960’s to constitutionalism, legalism, and professionalism has been successively undermined, manipulatedand restored. During the Allende government (1970-73) it was undermined by the breakdown of politicaland economic consensus and the increasing politicization of the armed forces. Between 1973 and 1990the legalism of the military was manipulated by General Pinochet in order to establish and maintain himselfin power. Since 1990 there has been a slow return to the earlier professionalism of the military, marked inparticular by the 1995 imprisonment of General Contreras in a civilian jail, the removal from the politicalscene of General Pinochet in 1998 because of his detention in Great Britain, and the “Never Again ” speechof General Cheyre in 2003.
Mosaic construction from a sparse set of views

This paper describes a flexible approach for mosaic construction from a sparse set of uncalibrated views. The observation, that in architectural environments the majority of lines is aligned with the principal orthogonal directions of the world coordinate frame, is exploited in different stages of the mosaic construction pipeline. In the first stage the vanishing points are automatically detected and used for partial calibration of the camera and estimation of camera's relative orientation with respect to the scene. This single view analysis enables efficient feature matching and alignment of multiple views. In the final mosaic construction stage the internal camera parameters are refined simultaneously using all available views. We point out some practical issues related to the conditioning of this self-calibration technique. While the approach described here can be presented in the context of rotational mosaics, the alignment and matching techniques are applicable for general displacements, where the constraints of man-made environments are present and the displacement between the views is large.
Digital loss-minimizing multimode synchronous buck converter control

A multimode control strategy for a synchronous buck converter operating over a wide load range, is presented. For heavy loads, the converter runs in fixed-frequency continuous conduction mode (CCM). At light loads, it enters discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) with synchronous rectification. At still lighter loads, synchronous rectification is disabled in DCM. At very light loads, the converter operates in variable-frequency pulse skipping mode. The synchronous rectifier (SR) timing is scheduled as a function of the load current, enabling appropriate transition among the modes. An on-line adaptive algorithm to optimize the SR timing, based on power loss minimization, is presented. This control strategy is particularly well suited for a digital controller implementation, since it uses sophisticated computations, while not requiring high analog-to-digital conversion rates.
A Perspective on the Challenge of Public Management: Environmental Paradox and Organizational Culture

Management in the public sector presents some unique challenges stemming from the paradoxical nature of the public administration environment. We probe the paradox using the concept of organizational culture to explore the consequences for public managers. Our analysis suggests that the public manager may indeed face a more complicated challenge than the business administrator, and that inadequate understanding of the culture of public administration is a key obstacle to managerial improvement in government.
Integration of filgrastim into chemoradiation for limited small cell lung cancer: A phase I study

Purpose: Recent studies document the value of early combined modality therapy of small cell lung cancer, but also indicate that early thoracic radiation adds to myelosuppression and can complicate further chemotherapy. Other studies indicate that simultaneous use of growth factors with thoracic radiation may be deleterious. However, temporal separation of growth factor use from cytotoxic therapy may allow dose intensity to be maintained/enhanced during combined modality treatment. We sought to integrate filgrastim into a novel chemoradiation regimen for patients with limited small cell lung cancer using an approach that separated growth factor administration from both chemotherapy and thoracic radiation. Methods and Materials: Twenty-seven patients with limited disease small cell lung cancer were enrolled in a Phase I trial of cisplatin, ifosfamide/mesna, oral etoposide, and thoracic radiation (1.5 Gy b.i.d. x 30 fractions days 1-19 cycle 1) ± filgrastim (5 μg/kg/day). Filgrastim was given on days 20-25 of cycle 1 after completion of radiation and following completion of oral etoposide in subsequent cycles. The primary end point was determination of maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of chemotherapy. Serial cohorts were treated with and without filgrastim. Results: Because of dose-limiting thrombocytopenia, primarily, and nonhematologic toxicity, the MTDs with and without filgrastim were identical (cisplatin 20 mg/m 2 i.v. and ifosfamide 1200 mg/m 2 i.v., both given days 1-3, and etoposide 40 mg/m 2 p.o. days 1-14). Filgrastim use shortened the duration of neutropenia at the MTD (median 4 vs. 7 days), but was not associated with a reduction in febrile neutropenia. Although growth factor administration did not allow dose escalation of this regimen, it did allow chemotherapy doses to be maintained at the MTD more frequently through four cycles of therapy. In the 24 evaluable patients, the overall response rate was 100% (71% partial and 29% complete). Conclusions: Despite careful attention to the timing of growth factor with chemoradiation, the administration of filgrastim with this regimen did not allow dose escalation. As in many other recent studies of hematopoietic growth factors given prophylactically with chemotherapy, the duration of neutropenia at the MTD was shortened and the need for dose reduction throughout treatment was reduced in patients receiving filgrastim at the MTD.
RANS Predictions of Turbulent Scalar Transport in Dead Zones of Natural Streams

Natural stream systems contain a variety of flow geometries which contain flow separation, turbulent shear layers, and recirculation zones. This work focuses on stream dead zones. Characterized by slower flow and recirculation, dead zones are naturally occurring cutouts in stream banks. These dead zones play an important role in stream nutrient retention and solute transport studies. Previous experimental work has focused on idealized dead zone geometries studied in laboratory flumes. This work studies the capabilities of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to investigate the scaling relationships between flow parameters of an idealized geometry and the passive scalar exchange rate. The stream geometry can be split into two main regions, the main stream flow and the dead zone. For the base case simulation, the depth-based Reynolds number is 16,000 and the dead zone is 0.5 depths in the flow direction and 7.5 depths in the transverse direction. Dead zone lengths and the main stream velocity were varied. These flow geometries are simulated using RANS turbulence model and the standard k–ω closure. Scalar transport in dead zones is typically modeled as a continuously stirred tank with an exchange coefficient for the interface across the shear layer. This first order model produces an exponential decay of scalar in the dead zone. A two region model is also developed and applied to the RANS results. Various time scales are found to characterize the exchange process. The volumetric time scale varies linearly with the aspect ratio. The simulations showed significant spatial variation in concentration leading to many different time scales. An optimized two region model was found to model these different time scales extremely well.Copyright © 2012 by ASME
3-hydroxyl-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor use in chronic liver disease: A therapeutic controversy

Objective To review efficacy and safety data of 3-hydroxyl-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors (also known as statins) in adult patients with chronic liver disease. Data Source A MEDLINE search (2005 to March 2011) was conducted with use of the keywords: statin, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, hepatitis C, chronic liver disease, and HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor. Study Selection and Data Extraction All articles written in English identified from data sources were evaluated and reviewed for inclusion. Original research and retrospective cohorts were included in this review. The references of articles that we identified were examined for any additional studies appropriate for review. Data Synthesis Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Reducing cholesterol levels has been shown to reduce the development of atherosclerosis and incidence of cardiovascular disease. The HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (also known as statins) are the most effective agents available in the management of hyperlipidemia and prevention of major cardiovascular events. The most common hepatic adverse effect associated with statin use is a transient asymptomatic elevation of serum aminotransferases in the first 12 weeks of therapy. Although the positive benefits of statin therapy are well recognized, the concerns of potential hepatotoxicity with statin therapy have limited use not only in the general population but also in patients with a history of chronic liver disease. Clinical trials in which the authors evaluated statin therapy in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, and hepatitis C virus demonstrated improved and/or normalization of aminotransferases and improved lipid levels without any reported adverse effects attributable to statin therapy. Conclusions Available clinical data suggest that statin therapy in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, and hepatitis C virus is a safe option in the management of dyslipidemia.
A virus-like particle vaccine platform elicits heightened and hastened local lung mucosal antibody production after a single dose.

Abstract We show that a model antigen, ovalbumin (OVA), can be chemically conjugated to the exterior of a small heat shock protein (sHsp) cage that has structural similarities to virus-like particles (VLPs). OVA–sHsp conjugation efficiency was dependent upon the stoichiometry and the length of the small molecule linker utilized, and the attachment position on the sHsp cage. When conjugated OVA–sHsp was delivered intranasally to naive mice, the resulting immune response to OVA was accelerated and intensified, and OVA-specific IgG1 responses were apparent within 5 days after a single immunizing dose, illustrating its utility for vaccine development. If animals were pretreated with a disparate VLP, P22 (a non-replicative bacteriophage capsid), before OVA–sHsp conjugate immunization, OVA-specific IgG1 responses were apparent already by 4 days after a single immunizing dose of conjugate in OVA-naive mice. Additionally, the mice pretreated with P22 produced high titer mucosal IgA, and isotype-switched OVA-specific serum IgG. Similarly, sHsp pretreatment enhanced the accumulation of lung germinal center B cells, T follicular helper cells, and increased polymeric Ig receptor expression, priming the lungs for subsequent IgG and IgA responses to influenza virus challenge. Thus, sHsp nanoparticles elicited quick and intense antibody responses and these accelerated responses could similarly be induced to antigen chemically conjugated to the sHsp. Pretreatment of mice with P22 further accelerated the onset of the antibody response to OVA–sHsp, demonstrating the utility of conjugating antigens to VLPs for pre-, or possibly post-exposure prophylaxis of lung, all without the need for adjuvant.
CLONING OF THE NOVEL HUMAN MYELOID-CELL-SPECIFIC C/EBP-EPSILON TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR

Chicken NF-M transcription factor, in cooperation with either c-Myb or v-Myb, is active in the combinatorial activation of myeloid-cell-specific genes in heterologous cell types, such as embryonic fibroblasts. In humans, similar effects were observed with homologous members of the CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein (C/EBP) family of transcriptional regulators, especially the human homolog of chicken NF-M, C/EBP-beta (NF-IL6). However, the NF-IL6 gene is expressed in a variety of nonmyeloid cell types and is strongly inducible in response to inflammatory stimuli, making it an unlikely candidate to have an exclusive role as a combinatorial differentiation switch during myelopoiesis in human cells. By using a reverse transcription-PCR-based approach and a set of primers specific for the DNA-binding domains of highly homologous members of the C/EBP family of transcriptional regulators, we have cloned a novel human gene encoding a member of the C/EBP gene family, identified as the human homolog of CRP1, C/EBP-epsilon. A 1.2-kb cDNA encoding full-length human C/EBP-epsilon was cloned from a promyelocyte-late myeloblast-derived lambda gt11 library. Molecular analysis of the cDNA and genomic clones indicated the presence of two exons encoding a protein with an apparent molecular mass of 32 kDa and a pI of 9.5. Primer extension analysis of C/EBP-epsilon mRNA detected a single major transcription start site approximately 200 bp upstream of the start codon. The putative promoter area is similar to those of several other myeloid-cell-specific genes in that it contains no TATAAA box but has a number of purine-rich stretches with multiple sites for the factors of the Ets family of transcriptional regulators. Northern blot analyses indicated a highly restricted mRNA expression pattern, with the strongest expression occurring in promyelocyte and late-myeloblast-like cell lines. Western blot and immunoprecipitation studies using rabbit anti-C/EBP-epsilon antibodies raised against the N-terminal portion of C/EBP-epsilon (amino acids 1 to 115) showed that C/EBP-epsilon is a 32-kDa nuclear phosphoprotein. The human C/EBP-epsilon protein exhibited strong and specific binding to double-stranded DNA containing consensus C/EBP sites. Cotransfection of the C/EBP-epsilon sense and antisense expression constructs together with chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter vectors containing myeloid-cell-specific c-mim and human myeloperoxidase promoters suggested a role for C/EBP-epsilon transcription factor in the regulation of a subset of myeloid-cell-specific genes. Transient tranfection of a promyelocyte cell line (NB4) with a C/EBP-epsilon expression plasmid increased cell growth by sevenfold, while antisense C/EBP-epsilon caused a fivefold decrease in clonal growth of these cells.
The 14-3-3 proteins of Arabidopsis regulate root growth and chloroplast development as components of the photosensory system

The 14-3-3 proteins specifically bind a number of client proteins to influence important pathways, including flowering timing via the photosensory system. For instance, 14-3-3 proteins influence the photosensory system through interactions with Constans (CO) protein. 14-3-3 associations with the photosensory system were further studied in this investigation using 14-3-3 T-DNA insertion mutants to study root and chloroplast development. The 14-3-3 μ T-DNA insertion mutant, 14-3-3μ-1, had shorter roots than the wild type and the difference in root length could be influenced by light intensity. The 14-3-3 ν T-DNA insertion mutants also had shorter roots, but only when grown under narrow-bandwidth red light. Five-day-old 14-3-3 T-DNA insertion and co mutants all had increased root greening compared with the wild type, which was influenced by light wavelength and intensity. However, beyond 10 d of growth, 14-3-3μ-1 roots did not increase in greening as much as wild-type roots. This study reveals new developmental roles of 14-3-3 proteins in roots and chloroplasts, probably via association with the photosensory system.
Do the reading disabilities of children with cleft fit into current models of developmental dyslexia

Abstract Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the reading problems of children with cleft fit models of developmental dyslexia. Design: The study compared children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate who had reading disability (n = 46) with those who did not have reading disability (n = 46). The children were matched for age, sex, and grade. The two groups were compared (t tests) on measures of verbal expression, phonemic awareness, and rapid naming. Also, regression analyses compared the relative relationships of these variables to reading disability. Participants: Children were selected from 154 patients originally screened. Results: Children with reading disability scored significantly lower on rapid naming and verbal expression, with no differences found on phonemic awareness. Rapid naming was shown to have the most significant association with reading disability. Conclusion: Children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate show symptoms similar to a naming-memory deficit mo...
Adolescent Brain Maturation

Introduction The teen years have long been noted as a time of dramatic changes in body and behaviour. Insight into the neurobiology underlying these cognitive and behaviour changes has been greatly enhanced by the advent of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which allows safe and unprecedented access to the anatomy and physiology of the living brain. Longitudinal MRI studies are beginning to map out the developmental trajectories of brain maturation and to explore the genetic and environmental influences on these trajectories in health and illness.
Understanding and leveraging virtualization technology in commodity computing systems

Commodity computing platforms are imperfect, requiring various enhancements for performance and security purposes. In the past decade, virtualization technology has emerged as a promising trend for commodity computing platforms, ushering many opportunities to optimize the allocation of hardware resources. However, many abstractions offered by virtualization not only make enhancements more challenging, but also complicate the proper understanding of virtualized systems. The current understanding and analysis of these abstractions are far from being satisfactory. This dissertation aims to tackle this problem from a holistic view, by systematically studying the system behaviors. The focus of our work lies in performance implication and security vulnerabilities of a virtualized system. We start with the first abstraction—an intensive memory multiplexing for I/O of Virtual Machines (VMs)—and present a new technique, called Batmem, to effectively reduce the memory multiplexing overhead of VMs and emulated devices by optimizing the operations of the conventional emulated Memory Mapped I/O in hypervisors. Then we analyze another particular abstraction—a nested file system—and attempt to both quantify and understand the crucial aspects of performance in a variety of settings. Our investigation demonstrates that the choice of a file system at both the guest and hypervisor levels has significant impact upon I/O performance. Finally, leveraging utilities to manage VM disk images, we present a new patch management framework, called Shadow Patching, to achieve effective software updates. This framework allows system administrators to still take the offline patching approach but retain most of the benefits of live patching by using commonly available virtualization techniques. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, we conduct a series of experiments applying a wide variety of software patches. Our results show that our framework incurs only small overhead in running systems, but can significantly reduce maintenance window.
Twenty Years of Proton Radiation Therapy at Loma Linda University Medical Center

The proton treatment center at Loma Linda is the first hospital-based proton facility in the world. Dr. James M. Slater spearheaded its development in response to the need to reduce normal tissue injury and unacceptable side effects. Loma Linda physicians treat a wide range of cancers and other conditions with protons; studies are ongoing to expand applications and realize the still-evolving potential of the modality.
Overview of the 2010 Census Alternative Questionnaire Experiment: Race and Hispanic Origin Research

The U.S. Census Bureau is committed to improving the accuracy and reliability of census results by expanding our understanding of how people self-identify their race and Hispanic origin. This commitment is reflected in numerous past Census Bureau studies that have been conducted on race and Hispanic origin reporting. The 2010 Census Race and Hispanic Origin Alternative Questionnaire Experiment (AQE) continues this long tradition.
Music Consumption as a Therapeutic Process: Subcultures at theConvergence of Affective, Cognitive, and Conative Conditions

This opinion article aims to highlight the critical role music consumption may play both at the individual and subcultural level simultaneously: it provides a means through which consumers enter into a therapeutic process that may culminate into the convergence of cognitive, affective, and conative conditions. Contrary to prior studies that concentrate on such conditions, largely in a mutually exclusive manner, this article aims to pave the way for a more holistic picture that may help us have a complex comprehension of the multifaceted music consumption phenomenon.
Role of endothelial carbon monoxide in attenuated vasoreactivity following chronic hypoxia

Chronic hypoxic exposure has been previously demonstrated to attenuate systemic vasoconstrictor activity to a variety of agents. This attenuated responsiveness is observed not only in conscious animals but in isolated vascular preparations as well. Because hypoxia has been documented to increase heme oxygenase (HO) levels and the subsequent production of the vasodilator CO in vitro, we hypothesized that the blunted reactivity observed with chronic hypoxia (CH) may be in part due to increased HO activity. In thoracic aortic rings from CH rats, cumulative dose-response curves to phenylephrine (PE) in the presence of the nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor Nomega-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA) and the HO inhibitor zinc protoporphyrin 9 (ZnPPIX) elicited increased contractility compared with CH rings treated with only L-NNA. Similar results were observed in rings incubated overnight with the HO-inducing agent sodium m-arsenite. In contrast, contractile responses in rings from control rats were unaffected by the HO inhibitor. Furthermore, endothelium-denuded rings from either control or CH rats did not exhibit an increase in reactivity to PE following ZnPPIX incubation. ZnPPIX had no effect on relaxant responses to the NO donor S-nitroso-N-penicillamine, suggesting that its actions were specific to HO inhibition. Finally, aortic rings exhibited dose-dependent relaxant responses to exogenous CO that were endothelium independent and blocked by an inhibitor of soluble guanylyl cyclase. The other products of HO enzyme activity, iron and biliverdin, were without effect on vasoreactivity. Thus we conclude that the attenuated vasoreactivity to PE following CH is likely to involve the induction of endothelial HO and the subsequent enhanced production of CO.
Russian Internet Users' Privacy: A Study of Attitudes and Behavior

There is no sufficient empirical data on Russian Internet users’ level of concern, their attitudes about online privacy, or their corresponding behavior. This research tries to remedy the shortage. As the study demonstrates, the level of privacy concern in Russia is rather mixed: users are divided equally on whether they feel worried or not about the confidentiality of their personal data online. They also don’t demonstrate a clear trust preference in online or offline environments as far as the protection of their data is concerned. Their level of worry about online privacy in the last year has significantly increased, and that increase could have been caused by media coverage of many recent privacy leaks.Factors like frequency of the Internet use, age, material status and education have an effect on users’ attitude and behavior. For example, despite a common perception that young people do not care about their privacy, there is evidence that the younger generation is not indifferent to their privacy and their identity. Users with a higher material status tend to feel less worried about their privacy, but at the same time they are more likely to take certain actions to protect their data. Finally, the paper suggests several regulatory and educational measures that would help users make informed decisions, and offers some ideas to businesses to adjust their data gathering practices.
Controls on nitrate-N concentrations in groundwater in a Missourian claypan watershed

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer applications have resulted in widespread groundwater nitrate-N (NO3-N) contamination in the U.S. Corn Belt. Goodwater Creek Experimental Watershed (GCEW) is an agricultural watershed in the claypan soil region of northeastern Missouri with a network of 96 wells at depths of 2.7–15.7 m. The objectives of this study were to (1) inspect the spatial and temporal variations of NO3-N concentrations in GCEW's groundwater, particularly with well depth at scales ranging from individual well, well nest, and field to the entire watershed during the period 1991 to 2004; (2) understand the processes controlling the variability of NO3-N concentrations in groundwater at various scales within GCEW; and (3) compare groundwater NO3-N concentrations in GCEW to other agricultural watersheds in the U.S. Nitrate-N concentrations were determined in more than 2000 samples collected from 1991 to 2004. Despite the low hydraulic conductivity of the claypan soils, considerable NO3-N contamination of the glacial till aquifer occurred, with 38% of the wells exceeding 10 mg L−1. Groundwater recharge by preferential pathways through the claypan appeared to be the primary mechanism for NO3-N movement to the aquifer. Changes in concentration with depth steadily increased to 8.5–10 m and then decreased with further depth. This pattern was consistent with decreased hydraulic conductivity in the Paleosol layer at 8.5–10 m, denitrification below this layer, and mixing of recent contaminated water with older uncontaminated water in the lowest strata. Only 19–23% of sampled wells exceeded 10 mg L−1 in nonclaypan agricultural watersheds over the continental U.S., suggesting that groundwater in GCEW was more susceptible to NO3-N contamination than nonclaypan watersheds. These results demonstrated that preferential flow through the soil and hydraulic conductivity of the subsurface strata controlled NO3-N transport in this claypan watershed.
Elbow rheumatoid elbow: surgical treatment options

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by peripheral polyarthritis. The elbow joint is estimated to be involved in 20 to 65 % of the patients with RA. The development of new pharmacologic agents and the adoption of early therapeutic interventions have translated into milder forms of polyarticular destruction. As a result, the traditional crippled rheumatoid patient has been replaced by rheumatoid patients with higher activity levels, higher expectations, and more demands on any reconstructive procedures performed. When nonoperative treatment is insufficient, surgery may be considered. Arthroscopic synovectomy has become the procedure of choice for rheumatoid patients with uncontrolled symptoms. Patients with more advanced joint destruction can be considered for elbow arthroplasty. Interposition arthroplasty may be considered for patients interested in avoiding the potential complications of elbow arthroplasty.
Failure of Wheat Germ Oil to Produce Neoplasms

SummaryA careful repetition of Rowntree's experiment in which ether extracted wheat germ oil was fed to rats failed to confirm his claim that intraperitoneal sarcomas can be induced in this manner.
Pseudocolus Fusiformis: Synonymy and Distributional Records

(1978). Pseudocolus Fusiformis: Synonymy and Distributional Records. Mycologia: Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 900-905.