cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Combined action of two transcription factors regulates genes encoding spore coat proteins of Bacillus subtilis

During sporulation of Bacillus subtilis, spore coat proteins encoded by cot genes are expressed in the mother cell and deposited on the forespore. Transcription of the cotB, cotC, and cotX genes by final sigma(K) RNA polymerase is activated by a small, DNA-binding protein called GerE. The promoter region of each of these genes has two GerE binding sites. 5' deletions that eliminated the more upstream GerE site decreased expression of lacZ fused to cotB and cotX by approximately 80% and 60%, respectively but had no effect on cotC-lacZ expression. The cotC-lacZ fusion was expressed later during sporulation than the other two fusions. Primer extension analysis confirmed that cotB mRNA increases first during sporulation, followed by cotX and cotC mRNAs over a 2-h period. In vitro transcription experiments suggest that the differential pattern of cot gene expression results from the combined action of GerE and another transcription factor, SpoIIID. A low concentration of GerE activated cotB transcription by final sigma(K) RNA polymerase, whereas a higher concentration was needed to activate transcription of cotX or cotC. SpoIIID at low concentration repressed cotC transcription, whereas a higher concentration only partially repressed cotX transcription and had little effect on cotB transcription. DNase I footprinting showed that SpoIIID binds strongly to two sites in the cotC promoter region, binds weakly to one site in the cotX promoter, and does not bind specifically to cotB. We propose that late in sporulation the rising level of GerE and the falling level of SpoIIID, together with the position and affinity of binding sites for these transcription factors in cot gene promoters, dictates the timing and level of spore coat protein synthesis, ensuring optimal assembly of the protein shell on the forespore surface.
β‐Carbolines from Japanese Sake and Soy Sauce: Synthesis and Biological Activity of Flazin and Yellow Substance YS (Perlolyrine)

The β-carbolines flazin (1) and perlolyrine (2, substance YS) occuring in Japanese sake and soy sauce were synthesized starting with the methyl ester of L-tryptophan or tryptamine, respectively. The inhibition of the monoamine oxidases A and B by 1 and 2 were determined and compared with the inhibitory effects of harmine and harmaline. β-Carboline aus japanischem Sake und aus Soya-Sauce: Synthese und biologische Aktivitat des Flazins und der gelben Substanz YS (Perlolyrin) Die β-Carboline Flazin (1) und Substanz YS = Perlolyrinis (2), die in japanischem Sake und japanischer Soya-Sauce vorkommen, wurden ausgehend von L-Tryptophanmethylester respektive Tryptamin synthetisiert. Die Hemmung der Monoaminoxidasen A und B durch 1 und 2 wurde im Vergleich mit Harmin und Harmalin gemessen.
Psychological Distress of Cuban Americans Affected by Restrictive U.S. Travel Policies

ABSTRACT We describe the mental health consequences of United States travel policies affecting Cuban Americans (CAs) with relatives in Cuba and discuss these policies in the context of U.S. domestic politics and the Bush administration's desire for regime change in Cuba. Policies put into effect in 2004 restrict CAs from visiting relatives in Cuba more than once every 3 years, narrowly define family whom CAs can legally visit, and limit the assistance they can provide their Cuban relatives. We share case reports based on qualitative interviews with 53 Cuban Americans that illustrate travel-related psychological distress (TRPD) experienced by CAs in response to the restrictions. We note the difficulties CAs experience in coping with TRPD and the need for political and mental health interventions to address this condition. TRPD is directly related to the government's violation of the human and constitutional rights of CAs to travel freely. It is the responsibility of the state to restore those rights. Human...
Advance Care Planning Tools That Educate, Engage, and Empower

The last 25 years have seen a substantial number of studies and commentaries questioning the value of health care advance directive documents. The weight of evidence suggests that they fail to have little effect on decision-making outcomes such as length of hospital stays, level of pain, or health care costs (Ditto et al., 2001; Fagerlin & Schneider, 2004; Fonk, Davidoff, Lutzow, Chesley, & Mathiowetz, 2012; Halpern, Pastores, Chou, Chawla, & Thaler, 2011; Teno et al., 1994, 1997). Evidence that decisions made with an advance directive are more in line with the patient’s values and wishes is mixed at best (Shapiro, 2012). However, more recent studies provide evidence that advance directives do result in somewhat greater concordance between treatment preferences expressed in directives and some outcomes such as treatment received and place of death, etc. (e.g., Degenholtz, Rhee, & Arnold, 2004; Hammes, Rooney, & Gundrum, 2010; Silveira, Kim, & Langa, 2010). The more optimistic outcomes in these studies result partially from a fundamental shift in the way we think about and use advance directives. In the mid-1990s, the national policy discussion about advance directives began to move away from a heavy emphasis on advance directive documents and toward an awareness that the quality of communication between the individual and those persons likely to be involved in health care decision making lies at the heart of effective advance care planning (Sabatino, 2010). The concept of “advance care planning” received a major boost in the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) 1997 report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. The IOM described advance care planning as follows:
A Review of “Architecture in uniform; Designing and building for the Second World War”

Jean-Louis Cohen begins his brilliant book with a quote from Adolf Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, who acknowledges his boss's goal for world domination. In addition to seeking “to exterminate th...
Separation of veins from activated brain tissue in functional magnetic resonance images at 1.5T

A feasibility study was conducted to segment 1.5T functional magnetic resonance images (fMRIs) into gray matter and veins using individual pixel intensity difference and temporal phase delay as two correlated parameters in 1.5T gradient echo images. The time-course of each pixel in gradient echo images acquired during visual stimulation with a checkerboard flashing at 8 Hz was correlated to the stimulation on-off sequence to identify activated pixels, and the temporal delay of each activated pixel was computed by fitting its time-course to a reference sinusoidal function. A histogram of the product of each pixel's intensity (in the activated image) and corresponding temporal delay could be fitted to a bimodal distribution, which was then used to segment the functional image into veins and activated brain tissue. The results show relatively good demarcation between large veins and activated gray matter using this method. >
SEMIPARAMETRIC BAYESIAN INFERENCE FOR DYNAMIC TOBIT PANEL DATA MODELS WITH UNOBSERVED HETEROGENEITY

SUMMARY This paper develops semiparametric Bayesian methods for inference of dynamic Tobit panel data models. Our approach requires that the conditional mean dependence of the unobserved heterogeneity on the initial conditions and the strictly exogenous variables be specified. Important quantities of economic interest such as the average partial effect and average transition probabilities can be readily obtained as a by-product of the Markov chain Monte Carlo run. We apply our method to study female labor supply using a panel data set from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Copyright  2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Analysis of impulse response measurements for PCS channel modelling applications

Impulse response measurements for personal communication services (PCS) were taken in the 1850-1990 MHz band in three outdoor macrocellular (cell radii of 5 km) environments: flat rural, hilly rural, and urban high-rise. The data were analyzed to provide information to assist in the development of radio propagation channel (especially tapped delay line) models for PCS applications. Analyses included number of paths, path arrival time, and path power statistics. Results of the analyses were found to be highly dependent on the threshold level used in processing. The urban high-rise cell showed a far greater number of paths than the rural cells for threshold levels 20 and 10 dB below the normalized peak of the power delay profiles. >
STAS: A Scalability Testing and Analysis System

Scalability is a crucial factor in performance evaluation and analysis of parallel and distributed systems. Much effort has been devoted to scalability research and several metrics are proposed. However, the lacking of an effective scalability analysis toolkit is still a major barrier for researchers to measure and analyze scalabilities. Isospeed scalability is a known metric and has been extended for general computing systems recently. This paper proposes an effective Scalability Testing and Analysis System, called STAS, and presents its implementation with isospeed-e scalability metric. STAS provides the facility to conduct automated isospeed-e scalability measure and analysis. It reduces the burden for users to evaluate the performance of algorithms and systems. Experiments have been conducted to verify the design and implementation.
Method for making selective lesions of the hippocampus in macaque monkeys using NMDA and a longitudinal surgical approach.

We describe a method for making selective lesions of the hippocampus in macaque monkeys, using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided stereotaxic approach in which the excitotoxin N-methyl-D- aspartic acid (NMDA) is injected at intervals along a single needle track that extends longitudinally through the rostrocaudal extent of the hip- pocampus. Procedures were conducted on six rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and were assessed with either in vivo MRI (n 3) or postmortem microscopic examination of the tissue after standard histological process- ing of the brains (n 3). Based on our extensive experience with the standard stereotaxic procedure in which ibotenic acid (IBO) is injected via the dorsal approach, we report that the new method provides a viable and potentially advantageous alternative to the standard procedure. First, the longitudinal approach combined with N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) injections increases the reliability and efficacy of hippocampal excitotoxic lesions, probably by limiting the leakage of injectant into the ventricles. Second, the present procedure led to more rapid postoperative recovery compared with that after the standard procedure. Third, because the new method requires fewer needle penetrations than the standard method, it most likely reduces the chances of infarction in extrahippocam- pal tissue. Finally, the new surgical approach may provide a mechanism for infusing agents into the hippocampus from a single cannula. Published 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. †
Networked Sensors for Cargo Screening

Sensors to monitor cargo are currently operated in standalone mode because of cost considerations, operational simplicity, and because potential benefits to having sensors share information do not appear to have been seriously considered in many cases. To identify situations where threat detection benefits offset networking costs (and where they do not), we describe a numerical algorithm for approximating the multidimensional integrals defining the false positive rates and detection probabilities for networked systems. The algorithm is sufficiently fast computationally to embed in optimization routines that search over sensor space (e.g., how to best augment an existing sensor network), as well as over threshold space (i.e., how to best determine alarm thresholds for the sensors) for both standalone and networked sensors. Results are applied to detection of elevated gamma and neutron counts. Circumstances under which networking is useful are characterized.
Adolescent Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Due to Functional Ovarian Hyperandrogenism Persists Into Adulthood

Background: Menstrual irregularity and above-average testosterone levels in adolescence may presage polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in adulthood but persist in only a minority. Prolonged anovulatory cycles in normal adolescents are associated with increased testosterone levels. Thus, questions have been raised about the accuracy of PCOS diagnosed in adolescents. Objective: The purpose of this study was to follow-up hyperandrogenic adolescents with features of PCOS to test the hypothesis that adolescent functional ovarian hyperandrogenism (FOH) persists into adulthood. Study Subjects: A series of adults previously reported to have adolescent PCOS, with most documented to have FOH by GnRH agonist or dexamethasone androgen-suppression test criteria, were recalled. Methods: Recall occurred >3 years after the initial diagnosis and at the age of >18.0 years. Respondents underwent examination, baseline androgen evaluation, and an oral glucose tolerance test after discontinuing oral contraceptive therapy. Result...
Computation of a storm surge at barrow, alska

The rise of the sea level during a storm surge at the coast of northern Alaska is computed by a method of numerical integration originally developed for the North Sea. Based on the most likely synoptic analysis of the storm cyclone over the Arctic Ocean, pressure gradients and wind stresses, as well as their variations with time, are obtained by grid points. The respective values at the open-sea boundary of the grid are also taken as time variatables. The numerical integration (by IBM 709) yields various curves for the changes of water level at the coast which are compared with actual observations. The computed fields of water transport are critically examined in view of the general character of the cyclone and the given distribution of water depth. The agreement between observed and computed heights of the storm surge is satisfactory.
Direct carrier modulation for wireless digital communications using an improved microwave-photonic vector modulator (MPVM) approach

This paper presents a demonstration of direct carrier modulation via the use of an improved microwave/photonic vector modulator (MPVM). This modulation approach is suitable for direct digital modulation of microwave and millimeter-wave signals and allows for tuning of the carrier frequency over wide bandwidths and dynamic reconfiguration of the modulation format. An all-optical control approach is used to achieve faster data rates and better carrier tunability than previously reported work in this area. Specifically, experimental results showing direct QPSK and 16 QAM modulation of carrier frequencies between 1.0 and 2.0 GHz with data rates to 8 Mbs are presented.
Power Control With Imperfect Exchanges and Applications to Spectrum Sharing

In various applications, the effect of errors in gradient-based iterations is of particular importance when seeking saddle points of the Lagrangian function associated with constrained convex optimization problems. Of particular interest here are problems arising in power control applications, where network utility is maximized subject to minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints, maximum interference constraints, maximum received power constraints, or simultaneous minimum and maximum SINR constraints. Especially when the gradient iterations are executed in a distributed fashion, imperfect exchanges among the link nodes may result in erroneous gradient vectors. In order to assess and cope with such errors, two running averages (ergodic sequences) are formed from the iterates generated by the perturbed saddle point method, each with complementary strengths. Under the assumptions of problem convexity and error boundedness, bounds on the constraint violation and the suboptimality per iteration index are derived. The two types of running averages are tested on a spectrum sharing problem with minimum and maximum SINR constraints, as well as maximum interference constraints.
The Impact of Electronic Medical records on improvement of health care delivery.

(2008). The Impact of Electronic Medical records on improvement of health care delivery. Libyan Journal of Medicine: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 4-4.
Effects of targeted papillary muscle relocation on mitral leaflet tenting and coaptation.

Background Ischemic mitral valve (MV) repair for patients with severe left ventricular dilation remains challenging. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy of papillary muscle (PM) relocation to restore physiologic MV function. Methods Fresh ovine MVs (n = 6) were studied in a left-heart simulator under physiologic hemodynamics. Ischemic MV disease was simulated by annular dilation and PM displacement. Initial valvular repair was performed with mitral annuloplasty; further PM displacement simulated progressive left ventricular dilation. Basal PM repositioning (Kron procedure), performed to alleviate leaflet tethering, consisted of relocating (1) both PMs toward the commissures; (2) both PMs toward the trigones; (3) the posteromedial PM toward the ipsilateral commissure; and (4) the posteromedial PM toward the ipsilateral trigone. Coaptation length and tenting area were measured using three-dimensional echocardiography as surrogates of MV function. Results Papillary muscle relocation as an adjunct to mitral annuloplasty statistically improved coaptation length and tenting area compared with the disease condition. No statistical differences in coaptation length and tenting area were observed between final repaired conditions and control conditions. No statistical differences were observed between commissural and trigonal repairs at any incremental repair step. Coaptation length and tenting area were plotted against PM distance; the data were fit to linear regressions. Conclusions In a realistic in vitro model of ischemic left ventricular dilation, apical-basal PM relocation, as an adjunct procedure to mitral annuloplasty, restored optimal MV closure. Trigonal or commissural traction suture location did not significantly affect the degree of restored coaptation. Linear relationships between PM positions and leaflet variables were established, which could be used to inform surgical repairs.
Ureteroscopic treatment of renal calculi in morbidly obese patients: A stone-matched comparison

Abstract Objectives. To report a matched comparison of morbidly obese (MO) patients and normal weight (NW) patients who underwent ureteroscopic (URS) treatment of renal calculi. Shock wave lithotripsy and percutaneous nephrostolithotomy may be precluded in MO patients, and URS treatment offers a minimally invasive alternative. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the charts of patients who underwent URS at our institution between 1997 and 2000. Fifty-four patients underwent URS treatment solely for renal calculi. Sixteen MO patients underwent 18 procedures. Thirty-eight NW patients, who underwent 39 procedures, were matched to the MO patients by stone location and size. Stones were categorized by location and size, less than 10 mm or 10 mm or greater. The factors and outcomes assessed were stone length, operative time, presence of a ureteral stent, success, and complications. Results. The overall success rate was 83% (15 of 18 procedures) for MO patients and 67% (26 of 39 procedures) for NW patients, but this difference was not significant ( P = 0.23). The difference in the success rate for renal calculi 10 mm or greater (100% versus 38%) approached significance ( P = 0.09). This may be related to other distinctions between the groups. URS treatment was often a salvage therapy in the NW group after other modalities failed. No significant differences were found between the other outcomes. Conclusions. URS treatment of renal calculi when matched for location and size is as successful and no more morbid in MO than in NW patients. URS treatment of renal calculi is a safe and effective first-line treatment for renal calculi in MO patients.
Duration of Lactation and Incidence of Maternal Hypertension: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

Never or curtailed lactation has been associated with an increased risk for incident hypertension, but the effect of exclusive breastfeeding is unknown. The authors conducted an observational cohort study of 55,636 parous women in the US Nurses' Health Study II. From 1991 to 2005, participants reported 8,861 cases of incident hypertension during 660,880 person-years of follow-up. Never or curtailed lactation was associated with an increased risk of incident hypertension. Compared with women who breastfed their first child for ≥12 months, women who did not breastfeed were more likely to develop hypertension (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.27, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.18, 1.36), adjusting for family history and lifestyle covariates. Women who never breastfed were more likely to develop hypertension than women who exclusively breastfed their first child for ≥6 months (HR = 1.29, 95% CI: 1.20, 1.40). The authors found similar results for women who had never breastfed compared with those who had breastfed each child for an average of ≥12 months (HR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.13, 1.32). In conclusion, never or curtailed lactation was associated with an increased risk of incident maternal hypertension, compared with the recommended ≥6 months of exclusive or ≥12 months of total lactation per child, in a large cohort of parous women.
GLOST KILN REFRACTORIES

Saggers for glost placing must give good life and avoid harmful secondary effects on the ware. Low thermal expansion is the most necessary property but, if carried too far, may cause the fault known as pin chipping. This defect, however, is compensated by low expansion in the pin itself. The system sagger-pin-ware should be adjusted to minimize tensile stresses in cooling.
A LONG-TERM STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF A 360 FEEDBACK PROCESS ON SELF-OTHERS' AGREEMENT AND PERFORMANCE.

The article discusses a proposition underlying the use of 360 feedback, which states that the comparison of self-evaluations of skills to those by others will aid individuals in seeing themselves a...
The Intestinal Immune Barrier

As the largest interface with the external environment, the mature intestinal epithelium has remarkable physiologic responsibilities. The intestine must function first as an organ of absorption and digestion while simultaneously protecting itself from the vast bacterial flora, array of food antigens, and physiochemical stresses caused by digestive and microbial products. Thus, the intestinal epithelium must be permeable to nutrients and fluids, yet remain impermeable to potentially injurious chemicals and pathogens. The intestine also must differentiate between commensal organisms whose growth is encouraged and enteric pathogens that need to be suppressed or eliminated. The single layer of cells comprising the intestinal epithelium is critical for maintenance of this dynamic barrier. The developing neonatal gut faces an additional daunting challenge of successfully negotiating the transition from a sterile lumen devoid of digestive and microbial metabolic products to the fully realized “bioreactor” of the adult gut. This review describes the unique structural features and elements of innate host defense elaborated by this dynamic tissue.
Effect of Colloidal Silicon Dioxide on Flowing and Tableting Properties of an Experimental, Crosslinked Polyalkylammonium Polymer

Glidants are usually incorporated in solid formulations to improve the flow properties of granules or powders. The possible mechanisms for enhancing flowability by glidants include reducing surface...
EPSP synthase inhibitor design II. The importance of the 3-phosphate group for ligand binding at the shikimate-3-phosphate site & the identification of 3-malonate ethers as novel 3-phosphate mimics.

Abstract Studies using alternate substrates, inhibitor product mimics and new derivatives of 4,5-dideoxy-shikimate-3-phosphate (ddS3P) are reported which indicate that the 3-phosphate group contributes significantly to substrate and inhibitor recognition at the shikimate 3-phosphate (S3P) site and that 3-malonate ethers will function as suitable 3-phosphate replacements for substrate and inhibitor binding to the S3P site of this enzyme.
Magnetic Susceptibility Effects in High Field MRI

In high-magnetic-field MRI, both valuable image contrast and undesirable artifacts associated with the magnetic susceptibility effects are significantly increased. The magnetic field distortion in and by the human body is described with computer modeling methods in the human head. The manifestations of the resultant image artifacts include signal loss, blurring, and geometric distortion and are dependent on imaging methods. The treatments of the artifacts in the specific imaging sequences are described and demonstrated with human studies at 3 and 7 Tesla and animal studies at field strengths as high as 14 Tesla. With these in vivo studies, the enhanced image contrast produced by the increased field strength and the improved image quality by the artifact reduction methods provide strong and stimulating evidence for exciting potential scientific applications of high field MRI.
Hybrid Dysgenesis in DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER: Sterility Resulting from Gonadal Dysgenesis in the P-M System.

Crosses between two types of strains, called P and M, characteristically give high frequencies of F1 sterility and other aberrant traits. Previous studies indicated that, in addition to the direction of the parental cross, many factors influence the manifestation of this phenomenon known as "hybrid dysgenesis."—The present study is concerned with the characteristics of GD (gonadal dysgenesis) sterility associated with the P-M system and its temperature dependence. Female sterility is accompanied by a complete absence of egg-laying, and this is not attributable to an inability to mate. Thus, it seems likely that sterility results from a defect in gametogenesis of hybrid individuals. This conclusion is supported by the morphological and cytological observations presented in an accompanying paper (Schaefer, Kidwell and Fausto-Sterling 1979).—A narrow, critical, developmental temperature range was found in which both female and male sterility rose sharply from a low level to a high maximum. The critical range was 27 to 29° for males, slightly higher than the range of 24 to 26° for females. Two other dysgenic traits, male recombination and transmission ratio distortion, were affected by developmental temperature, but temperature response curves were quite different from those for sterility. The temperature-sensitive stage for female sterility occurs during embryonic and early larval development.—GD sterility is compared and contrasted with SF sterility, another specific type of non-Mendelian sterility resulting from a different interstrain dysgenic interaction.
Faculty Development at One Midwestern Dental School: A Program Evaluation

Most dental school faculty members arrive on campus with a wealth of clinical experience but little to no teacher training. For the past two decades, there has been a call for schools to educate their faculty on a wide variety of topics including educational methodology and cutting-edge educational techniques through faculty development programs. Drawing on theories of general program evaluation as well as evaluation specific to educational programming, the aim of this study was to investigate outcomes of the Faculty Development Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry between 2007 and 2014. A mixed-methods research design gathered quantitative data via email survey sent to all eligible teaching faculty members; it received an overall response rate of 54% (N=51). Qualitative data came from open-ended survey questions and a focus group with seven volunteer faculty participants. The survey data suggested that the stated outcomes of faculty development were being met for all stakeholder groups with varying degrees of success. Focus group results indicated a need for a more formal new faculty orientation and better communication with all about the specific charge of faculty development within the school. Evaluation of faculty development activities in academic dental institutions is a necessary component of the ongoing improvement of dental education. Suggestions for future evaluations include the idea of collaborating with other dental schools to increase sample sizes, which would increase participants' perception of the level of confidentiality and make statistical analyses more robust.
Digital microfluidics chip with integrated intra-droplet magnetic bead manipulation

This paper demonstrates an integrated device combining both EWD droplet actuation and intra-droplet magnetic bead manipulation. Magnetic bead manipulation is achieved by using current-carrying wires acting as microelectromagnets. The current wire structure is capable of segregating and separating magnetic beads within a droplet. By adjusting the amount of current in the wire structure, high segregation efficiency within the droplet is shown and the separation of two kinds of beads is realized within a distance of 65 µm. The EWD droplet actuation function and the magnetic bead separation function can be operated independently, which provides flexibility when designing operation protocols. The current wire structure is embedded in an EWD electrode without affecting droplet actuation. The vertical structure of the device and its fabrication process are also the same as a normal EWD device. Magnetic bead segregation efficiency of 96.8 % was achieved for 2.8-µm beads that were collected over a distance of 65 µm during a 20-s current pulse. Droplet splitting is shown to allow complete separation of beads into one of the two daughter droplets. And, intra-droplet separation of 1- and 2.8-µm beads was demonstrated over an average distance of 65 µm. This experiment shows the feasibility of performing separation in droplets with a complex mixture of multiple beads, each having different magnetic contents.
Inheritance and Effective Dominance of Pyrethroid Resistance in the Horn Fly (Diptera: Muscidae)

In laboratory assays, pyrethroid resistance in the horn fly, Haemotobia irritans (L.), appears to be inherited as a single, autosomal, incompletely recessive gene, consistent with a knock-down (nerve insensitivity) type of resistance. Bioassays of heterozygous and susceptible flies on tagged steers suggest that resistance is also incompletely recessive under field conditions. Data indicate that effective residues of pyrethroids dissipate from treated cattle within 7 days after removal of tags.
The Genet Mission and the Development of American Political Parties

FEW diplomatic emissaries have left such a vivid imprint as Citizen Edmond Genet, the first minister sent to the United States by the French Republic. In the short span of seven months his activities stirred up a public storm of such magnitude that the domestic politics of the nation underwent a radical transformation. It is true that he was not solely responsible for this controversy, for prior to his arrival in April 1793 Americans had already been debating the extent of their commitment to the principles of the French Revolution and of their obligations under the Treaty of 1778.1 However, Genet by his very presence and by his conduct made it impossible to continue the discussion on an abstract level; policy decisions could no longer be postponed. The most remarkable result of the excitement which he generated was that the two rather amorphous political groups which had sprung up since 1791 now took on a more precise form, making it possible, as Thomas Jefferson noted, to assess the relative strength of each.2 Although the influence of the Genet Mission upon the evolution of party principles has been extensively investigated, the equally significant impact of his conduct on the development of party organization has not been fully appreciated. Under the stress of the crisis which he precipitated the two parties for the first time moved outside the narrow congressional base upon
Bidding for Hertz: Leveraged Buyout

In August 2005, The Carlyle Group and its partners (Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity) must finalize the terms of a bid to purchase the Hertz Corporation. The Ford Motor Company had put Hertz, a wholly owned subsidiary, up for sale in April 2005, and in June 2005, entered a dual-track process, which would result in its sale or an initial public offering (IPO). The case provides detailed pro forma projections for the transaction that allow students to examine the synergies of the deal and estimate a value and bid for Hertz. Students must consider whether their bid provides an adequate return to the sponsors, can produce in a higher value for Hertz than an IPO, and can best that of a rival bidding group. The case is appropriate for use in courses on corporate finance, private equity, or deal valuation. Because of the rich range of issues that can be considered, the case also works well as a capstone case or in a case competition. For instructors wishing to provide students an overview of the role and practices of private equity, we recommend combining the Hertz LBO case with its companion case, "Investing in Sponsor-Backed IPOs: The Case of Hertz" (UVA-F-1561). The Hertz IPO was announced in July 2006 just seven months after the LBO was completed. The two cases cover a wide range of issues that arise over the course of entry and exit of private equity investments.
Analysis of Common Diseases in Elementary Students in Yunlong District of Xuzhou from 2011 to 2014

OBJECTIVE To realize the common diseases prevalence in the pupils in Yunlong District of Xuzhou,and propose corresponding health care measures.METHODS The data were recruited from the annual healthy report of elementary students from 2011 to 2014.Statistical analysis was performed by Excel 2007 and SPSS 17.0.RESULTS The average detection rate of poor eyesight,dental caries,overweight and obesity and trachoma from 2011 to 2014 was 44.9%,29.3%,25.1%and 2.1%respectively.The tendency analysis showed that detection rate of poor eyesight,overweight and obesity increased by year(P0.05).Conversely,the detection rate of dental caries and trachoma decreased yearly(P0.05).The average detection rate of poor eyesight was the highest among pupils in urban schools,and dental caries rate was the highost in rural schools.Chi-square analysis showed that the average detection rate of poor eyesight,overweight and obesity were higher than rural school pupils significantly(P0.05),instead,the rate of dental caries and trachoma were higher in rural school pupils(P0.05).CONCLUSION Targeted health education measures for poor eyesight,dental caries,overweight and obesity should be carried out in urban schools and rural school according to their characteristics.
The Connecticut Open-Court Movement: Reflection and Remonstration

This article is part of a symposium on the effects of opening child abuse proceedings to the press and public. It analyzes a proposed Connecticut bill that would permit the press and public to attend child dependency proceedings without providing sufficient protection for abused children whose intimate abuse stories will be exposed to public view. It further presents an analysis between the strengths and weaknesses of presumptively open proceedings and those that are presumptively closed, but which provide judges on a case-by-case basis discretion to admit the press and/or public.
Smart Anomaly Prediction in Nonstationary CT Colonography Screening

To enhance the quality of economically efficient healthcare, we propose a preventive planning service for next-generation screening based on a longitudinal prediction. This newly proposed framework may bring important advancements in prevention by identifying the early stages of cancer, which will help in further diagnoses and initial treatment planning. The preventive service may also solve the obstacles of cost and availability of scanners in screening. For nonstationary medical data, anomaly detection is the key problem in the prediction of cancer staging. To address anomaly detection in a huge stream of databases, we applied a composite kernel to the prediction of cancer staging for the first time. The proposed longitudinal analysis of composite kernels (LACK) is designed for the prediction of anomaly status and cancer stage for further diagnosis and the future likelihood of cancer stage progression. The prediction error of LACK is relatively small even if the prediction is made far ahead of time. The computation time for nonstationary learning is reduced by $\text{33}\%$ compared with stationary learning.
Scripting Dissent: US Abortion Laws, State Power, and the Politics of Scripted Speech

Abortion laws offer a point of entry for “the state” to intervene in intimate clinical matters. In this article, I explore the various uses of scripts and scripting in state-mandated abortion counseling following the implementation of North Carolina's (2011) Woman's “Right to Know” Act. The law mandates that women receive counseling with specific, state-prescribed information at least 24 hours prior to an abortion. Drawing on interviews with abortion providers in North Carolina, I analyze how the meaning of scripting shifts across different clinical and bureaucratic contexts and show that abortion providers perceived themselves to be scripted by “the state” even though their words were not explicitly chosen by lawmakers. Thus, rather than viewing the law merely as a product of North Carolina legislative activity, I argue that abortion providers also help to create the law, and its social and moral power, by interpreting and enacting it. However, abortion providers also revealed creative strategies for “scripting dissent” from the law—that is, rejecting, challenging, or otherwise subverting the state's ideological message. This demonstrates that the linguistic force of the script stretches beyond its textual meaning to encompass the way it is performed within a particular context and how it is sometimes used for unexpected ends. [abortion, reproduction, biopolitics, the state, law, medicine, United States]
Indirect Cost and Revenue Functions

The indirect revenue function is characterized and its duality relationship with the indirect output distance function is presented. Similarly, the indirect cost function and its duality relationship with the indirect input distance function is given. In Section 5.2, various envelope results are reported including a cost indirect version of Shephard’s lemma and some additional shadowing pricing formulae. In Section 5.3, a nonparametric cost indirect revenue function is applied to cost benefit analysis.
Introduction to the special issue: Genres of digital documents

Purpose – To introduce the special issue on “Genres of digital documents.” While there are many definitions of genre, most include consideration of the intended communicative purpose, form and sometimes expected content of a document. Most also include the notion of social acceptance, that a document is of a particular genre to the extent that it is recognized as such within a given discourse community. Design/methodology/approach – The article reviews the notion of document genre and its applicability to studies of digital documents and introduces the four articles in the special issue. Findings – Genre can be studied based on intrinsic genre attributes or on the extrinsic function that genre fulfills in human activities. Studies on intrinsic attributes include classifications of genres as clusters of attributes, though these classifications can be problematic because documents can be used in flexible ways. Also, new information technologies have enabled the appearance of novel genres. Studies on extrinsic function include ways to use genre for education or information accesses, as well as the use of genre as a lens for understanding communications in organizations. The four articles in the special issue illustrate these approaches. Originality/value – The paper provides a framework that organizes the range of research about genres of digital documents that should be helpful to those reading this research or planning their own studies.
Risk of Recurrence and Mortality in a Multi-Ethnic Breast Cancer Population

Compared to non-Hispanic whites, African-American women tend to be diagnosed with breast cancer at an earlier age, to have less favorable tumor characteristics, and to have poorer outcomes from breast cancer. The extent to which differences in clinical characteristics account for the black/white disparity in breast cancer mortality is unclear. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the association of clinical, demographic, and treatment variables with total mortality and breast cancer recurrence by race/ethnicity in a cohort of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. To this end, we used data on 3890 invasive breast cancer cases diagnosed at a single medical center. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for the association of tumor characteristics and treatment variables with mortality and recurrence. Compared to white women, black women with breast cancer presented with tumors that had worse prognostic factors, particularly higher stage, lower frequency of hormone-receptor positive tumors, and higher frequency of comorbidities. Hispanics also generally had less favorable prognostic factors compared to non-Hispanic whites. Among estrogen receptor-positive cases, blacks had roughly a two-fold increased risk of recurrence compared to non-Hispanic whites. However, ethnicity/race was not associated with total mortality. Tumor stage, tumor size, and Charlson comorbidity index were positively associated with mortality, and mammography and chemotherapy and hormone therapy were inversely associated with mortality. In spite of poorer prognostic factors among blacks compared whites, race/ethnicity was not associated with total mortality in our study.
The effect of pembrolizumab in combination with CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

103Background: CD19-targeted CAR T cells show CR rates of 70-95% in B-ALL. Yet a subset of patients do not respond or relapse due to poor CAR T cell expansion and persistence. We hypothesized that PD-1 checkpoint pathway inhibition may improve CAR T cell expansion, function and persistence. Methods: Four children with relapsed B-ALL treated with murine (CTL019) or humanized (CTL119) anti-CD19 CAR T cells received 1-3 doses of the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (PEM) for partial/no response or prior history of poor CAR T cell persistence starting 14d-2mo post CAR T cell infusion. Results: PEM increased and/or prolonged detection of circulating CAR T cells in all 4 children, with objective responses in 2/4. It was well tolerated, with fever in 2 pts and no autoimmune toxicity. Pts 1-3 received CTL119 for CD19+ relapse after prior murine CD19 CAR T cells. Pt 1 had 1.2% CD19+ residual disease despite expansion with detectable CTL119 by D28 and received PEM at 2mo for progressive disease with decreasing circulat...
Electrical Stimulation of Neural Stem Cells Improves Stroke Recovery (P1.005)

Background: Neural stem cells (NSCs) improve functional recovery after stroke, but the optimal method and conditions for delivery remain elusive. Tissue engineered scaffolds offer a unique method to manipulate and improve NSC function. We have developed a novel NSC delivery system utilizing an electrically conductive polymer scaffold to improve recovery and further elucidate repair mechanisms. Methods: Human NSCs were seeded onto an electrically conductive polymer scaffold. Electrical fields were applied to the NSCs to electrically “precondition” the cells prior to transplantation. One day after in vitro stimulation, the polymer scaffold was implanted into a distal MCA occlusion rat model 1 week post stroke, and functional recovery was assessed weekly for 4 weeks post-transplantation using the vibrissae-paw test. Control groups included unstimulated NSCs on the polymer and polymer without cells. To assess how electrical stimulation altered the cells we did qPCR analysis of genes of interest in stimulated and unstimulated cells on the polymer, and on NSCs on a plastic petri dish. Results: AC preconditioned NSCs improved the rate of neurologic functional recovery compared to unstimulated NSCs on the polymer (p<0.05) and significantly improved recovery compared to DC preconditioned cells and polymer alone (p<0.01). Preliminary results demonstrate that VEGF-A, -B and thrombospondin (TSP) -3 gene expression were upregulated in AC preconditioned cells comparted to other groups. Conclusions: Our results show that electrically preconditioned NSCs enhance stroke recovery. Gene expression of the thrombospondins (a family of matricellular proteins thought to be involved with angiogenesis and inflammation) and VEGF (proteins critical to angiogenesis) were found to be modified by electrically stimulating NSCs, suggesting possible mechanisms for functional recovery. Disclosure: Dr. George has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bliss has nothing to disclose. Dr. Mehta has nothing to disclose. Dr. Hua has nothing to disclose. Dr. Sun has nothing to disclose. Dr. Steinberg has received personal compensation for activities with Medtronic, Inc. as a neuroscience strategic advisory board participant.
Phosphorylation Switch of Orco Shapes the Sense of Smell in Insects.

Neuronal adaption exists in all sensory systems. With continuous exposure to one stimulus, sensory neurons often raise their sensitivity threshold and thereby reduce their subsequent response to stimuli of the same intensity. This adaptation allows sensory neurons to extend the dynamic range of
Benefits and Barriers to Teaching Medical Students in an Ob-Gyn Clinic.

Introduction:As the US health-care system has evolved over the past decade, access to obstetric care in rural communities has declined, and there has been a challenge in retaining obstetrics and gy...
Investigation of RF de-embedding approaches for device characterization

Device measurements for characterization and modeling are typically performed on wafer with the devices embedded in a probing padframe. The parasitic elements associated with these padframes need to be removed from both the DC and RF measurements for accurate representation of the device performance. In this paper the effectiveness of various RF de-embedding techniques is analyzed for various padframe types and sizes. The difference between desired and de-embedded DUT S-parameters versus frequency is shown for both the Open-Short and TRL de-embedding techniques, and conclusions are made as to which de-embedding technique is more appropriate for a given padframe size and measurement frequency range.
VHA pharmacy use in veterans with Medicare drug coverage.

OBJECTIVE To determine how Medicare benefits affect veterans' use of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) pharmacy services. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective analysis of veterans dually enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration and Medicare healthcare systems. METHODS We used VHA and Medicare administrative data for calendar year 2002 to examine the effect of Medicare HMO pharmacy benefit levels on VHA pharmacy use. RESULTS In 2002, 64% of the VHA and Medicare dually enrolled veterans in our study sample received medications from the VHA. Use of VHA pharmacy services varied monotonically by the level of pharmacy benefits among Medicare HMO enrollees, with veterans enrolled in plans with both low and high pharmacy benefit levels significantly less likely to use VHA pharmacy services than veterans in plans with no pharmacy benefits (odds ratios = .83 and .53, respectively, versus plans with no benefits). Among VHA pharmacy users, enrollment in plans with high levels of benefits was associated with significantly lower annual pharmacy costs than enrollment in plans with no benefits or enrollment in traditional Medicare. CONCLUSIONS Our findings indicate that non-VHA pharmacy benefits affect both the likelihood and magnitude of VHA pharmacy use. This suggests that Medicare pharmacy coverage (Part D) may significantly reduce the demand for VHA pharmacy services, particularly in geographic regions previously underserved by Medicare managed care plans.