cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Demonstration of biofilm in human bacterial chronic rhinosinusitis.

BackgroundBacterial biofilms may explain why some patients with bacterial chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) improve while on antibiotics but relapse after completion of the antibiotic. In the human host...
Optical Emission Lines in Early-Type Galaxies

Small amounts of ionized gas are common in nearby E and SO galaxies, but the origin of this gas, and its relationship to the X-ray coronae, remain unclear. Both the presence of dust within the emission region, and the commonly-observed kinematical decoupling of gas and stars appear to argue against a cooling-flow origin for the gas. Thus if cooling flows operate in individual elliptical galaxies other than those at the centres of clusters, they appear to do so without observable effects at optical wavelengths.
Recent Developments in the Upper Pleistocene Prehistory of China

Although the past decade of Sino-American rapprochement has witnessed the intensification of interest among Western prehistorians in the archaeology of China, nonetheless, the Pleistocene cultural sequence of that country remains poorly understood by non-Chinese specialists.
The Economics of Higher Purpose

We develop a theory of how the intersection of business goals and the pursuit of "higher purpose" — something that produces a non-pecuniary social benefit valued by the principal and the agent — affects economic outcomes. Two types of principals — those pursuing only wealth maximization and those pursuing both wealth and a higher purpose — are considered. These are typically viewed as competing approaches to running organizations. However, the theory we develop, which shows that the pursuit of higher-purpose projects reduces labor costs and increases capital investments, highlights a potential complementarity between the principals pursuing a higher purpose and those exclusively pursuing wealth. The complementarity arises because the pursuit of higher-purpose projects by others can relax budget constraints for wealth-maximizing principals, and the presence of purely-wealth-maximizing principals may be essential for the higher-purpose-pursuing principals to obtain external financing. The absence of either type of principal may lead to a market breakdown involving no projects being undertaken.
EmotionX-AR: CNN-DCNN autoencoder based Emotion Classifier

In this paper, we model emotions in EmotionLines dataset using a convolutional-deconvolutional autoencoder (CNN-DCNN) framework. We show that adding a joint reconstruction loss improves performance. Quantitative evaluation with jointly trained network, augmented with linguistic features, reports best accuracies for emotion prediction; namely joy, sadness, anger, and neutral emotion in text.
Persistence of Gamma-H2AX Foci in Bronchial Cells Correlates with Susceptibility to Radiation Associated Lung Cancer in Mice.

The risk of developing radiation-induced lung cancer differs between different strains of mice, but the underlying cause of the strain differences is unknown. Strains of mice also differ in how qui...
PI31 is an adaptor protein for proteasome transport in axons and required for synaptic development and function

Abstract Protein degradation by the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) is critical for neuronal development, plasticity and function. Neurons utilize microtubule-dependent molecular motors to allocate proteasomes to synapses, but how proteasomes are coupled to motor proteins and how this transport is regulated to meet changing demand for protein breakdown remains largely unknown. We show that the conserved proteasome-binding protein PI31 serves as an adaptor to directly couple proteasomes with dynein light chain proteins (DYNLL1/2). Inactivation of PI31 inhibits proteasome motility in axons and disrupts synaptic protein homeostasis, structure and function. Moreover, phosphorylation of PI31 at a conserved site by p38 MAP kinase promotes binding to DYNLL1/2, and a non-phosphorable PI31 mutant impairs proteasome movement in axons, suggesting a mechanism to regulate loading of proteasomes onto motor proteins. Because mutations affecting PI31 activity are associated with human neurodegenerative diseases, impairment of PI31-mediated axonal transport of proteasomes may be the root cause of these disorders.
Diagnostic Value of 3-Dimensional Vena Contracta Area for the Quantification of Residual Mitral Regurgitation After MitraClip Procedure

Abstract Objectives The authors sought to define the feasibility and performance of 3-dimensional (3D) vena contracta area (VCA) measurement in evaluating total residual mitral regurgitation (MR) following percutaneous edge-to-edge clip (E-EC) mitral valve repair. Background Residual MR severity after percutaneous repair is not only a determinant of procedural success, but also a major prognostic factor. To date, no single echocardiographic method has been recommended for post-procedural MR quantification, with the evaluation currently relying on a complex, multiparametric appraisal. Method The authors performed a retrospective study of patients undergoing the E-EC procedure, for which baseline and post-repair 3D color Doppler transesophageal echocardiogram datasets were available. Total VCA was recorded as the sum of individual VCAs (if more than 1) and compared with an expert multiparametric appraisal of MR severity as the reference standard. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis was performed. Results 155 patient studies were available for review. Total VCA correlated with hemodynamic parameters and was significantly reduced after E-EC. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis demonstrated a VCA threshold of 0.27 cm2 for identification of ≥moderate MR, with good diagnostic accuracy (area under the curve 0.81) and a negative predictive value of 92%. Smaller VCA was associated with clinical New York Heart Association functional class improvement at 30-day follow-up. Conclusions Measurement of VCA is feasible using 3D color Doppler transesophageal echocardiography and provides reliable quantification of MR following E-EC transcatheter mitral valve repair.
Efficient NADH Regeneration by a Redox Polymer-Immobilized Enzymatic System

Given the high costs and stoichiometric amounts of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) required by the many oxidoreductases used for organic synthesis and the pharmaceutical industry, ...
Unified multivariate hypergeometric interpoint distances

ABSTRACTWe establish (a) the probability mass function (p.m.f.) of the interpoint distance (IPD) between random vectors drawn from the unified multivariate hypergeometric (UMHG) family of distribut...
Therapy preference scale: A novel questionnaire to understand patients’ preferences of cancer treatment.

e23179Background: Engaging patients in shared decision-making can help select an appropriate treatment for an individual and enhance patients’ experience and satisfaction with their care. This requ...
SDR-Fi: Deep-Learning-Based Indoor Positioning via Software-Defined Radio

Wi-Fi fingerprinting-based indoor localization has received increased attention due to its proven accuracy and global availability. The common received-signal-strength-based (RSS) fingerprinting presents performance degradation due to well-known signal fluctuations, but more recently, the more stable channel state information (CSI) has gained popularity. In this paper, we present SDR-Fi, the first reported Wi-Fi software-defined radio (SDR) receiver for indoor positioning using CSI measurements as features for deep learning (DL) classification. The CSI measurements are obtained from a fast-prototyping LabVIEW-based 802.11n SDR receiver platform. SDR-Fi measures CSI data passively from pilot beacon frames from a single access point (AP) at almost 10 Hz rate. A feed-forward neural network and a 1D convolutional neural network are examined to estimate location accuracy in representative testing scenarios for an indoor cluttered laboratory area, and an adjacent, covered outdoor area. The proposed DL classification methods leverage CSI-based fingerprinting for low AP scenarios, as opposed to traditional RSS-based systems, which require many APs for reliable positioning. Demonstration results are threefold: (a) A fast-prototyping SDR platform that passively extracts CSI measurements from Wi-Fi beacon frames, providing a genuine possibility for vendor network cards to provide such measurements, (b) two state-of-the-art DL classification methods outperforming traditional RSS-based methods for low AP scenarios, (c) a testing methodology for performance evaluation of the proposed indoor positioning system.
Segmentation and quantitative evaluation of brain MRI data with a multiphase 3D implicit deformable model

Segmentation of three-dimensional anatomical brain images into tissue classes has applications in both clinical and research settings. This paper presents the implementation and quantitative evaluation of a four-phase three-dimensional active contour implemented with a level set framework for automated segmentation of brain MRIs. The segmentation algorithm performs an optimal partitioning of three-dimensional data based on homogeneity measures that naturally evolves to the extraction of different tissue types in the brain. Random seed initialization was used to speed up numerical computation and avoid the need for a priori information. This random initialization ensures robustness of the method to variation of user expertise, biased a priori information and errors in input information that could be influenced by variations in image quality. Experimentation on three MRI brain data sets showed that an optimal partitioning successfully labeled regions that accurately identified white matter, gray matter and cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles. Quantitative evaluation of the segmentation was performed with comparison to manually labeled data and computed false positive and false negative assignments of voxels for the three organs. We report high accuracy for the two comparison cases. These results demonstrate the efficiency and flexibility of this segmentation framework to perform the challenging task of automatically extracting brain tissue volume contours.
When Buddha and Jesus Danced

Julia Kwan’s 2005 film Eve and Fire Horse offers a glimpse into the life of nine-year-old Eve Eng and her Chinese Canadian family in the 1970s. Capturing the tensions and possibilities of multireligious belonging within an Asian American context, the film provides an occasion to discuss key moments in the author’s own development as a scholar, as well as current challenges and future directions for the study of Asian and Asian American theology and religious studies.
Best practices for teaching and assessing critical thinking in information literacy online learning objects

Abstract Critical thinking is widely considered an essential outcome of higher education, and academic librarians may have a significant role to play in its promotion. Librarians often deliver information literacy instruction to students through online learning objects, like tutorials. If librarians value critical thinking as a component of their teaching, it is important that these tools solicit critical thinking in their users. This study uses a thorough literature review to develop a set of best practices for teaching and assessing critical thinking through online learning objects. Those best practices inform a rubric that can be used to evaluate how much an information literacy online learning object is following best practices for teaching and assessing critical thinking.
Minimally Invasive Scoliosis Correction in Parkinson Disease: Retrospective Case Series.

Background Parkinson disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the United States. In the context of the disability inherent to PD, the additional physical challenges and pain from scoliosis can be debilitating for these patients. However, the magnitude of surgery required to correct the deformity combined with the medical co-morbidities and frailty in this population of patients makes surgery very risky. Objective To investigate clinical presentations and outcomes of patients with PD that underwent minimally invasive long-segment fusion for scoliosis correction. Methods A retrospective chart review was performed over the years 2007 to 2017 for patients diagnosed with PD undergoing long-segment spinal fusion (5 or more levels) with the use of circumferential minimally invasive spine surgery techniques. Data including age, sex, race, medical co-morbidities, presenting symptoms, radiographic findings, surgical procedure, case history, and complications were collected from the medical record. Results Retrospective chart review revealed three patients that met the inclusion criteria. They included 2 males and 1 female, with a mean age of 68.7 yr (range 63-75 yr). Ability to maintain upright posture, return to activities of daily living, and visual analog scale (VAS)-back improved in all patients at 1-yr follow-up. Results were durable at 2-yr follow-up. No medical complications were observed. Conclusion The generally positive results suggest that minimally invasive technique could have significant benefits in this high-risk group of patients.
Lead Toxicity in Children: An Unremitting Public Health Problem.

Abstract Background Lead is a pervasive environmental contaminant. Lead accumulates in the body, impairing a molecular level various cellular processes. Lead exposure during childhood causes adverse and permanent neurodevelopmental consequences, sometimes even with “low” blood lead levels. Symptoms are frequently silent, making lead exposure an often unrecognized and underestimated threat for pervasive neurocognitive disorders. Methods We identified articles focusing on childhood exposure to lead and neurodevelopment via a search of the electronic database PubMed (National Library of Medicine), including journal articles published from 2007 to 2019. These articles were used to evaluate the effect of environmental lead exposure and analyze whether control efforts over the past decades have altered the prevalence of exposed children. Conclusions Children are still being exposed to lead despite evidence of the adverse impact of exposure, even for children with blood lead levels below the currently recognized threshold for intervention. Legislative and educational efforts have reduced lead exposure but are not being followed universally. Primary prevention and identification of high-risk populations are the best cost-benefit interventions to fight this public health problem.
Policing the Block: Pandemics, Systemic Racism, and the Blood of America

The Coronavirus Pandemic has altered the ways we use shared space fundamentally. Policymakers across the nation have enabled police to deploy the power of the state to limit unnecessary and dense u...
Determination of Critical Micelle Concentration from the Diffusion-Driven Dilution of Micellar Aqueous Mixtures.

Micellization is a phenomenon of central importance in surfactant solutions. Here, we demonstrate that the diffusion-based spreading of the free boundary between a micellar aqueous solution and pure water yields a one-dimensional spatial profile of surfactant concentration that can be used to identify the critical micelle concentration, here denoted as C*. This can be achieved because dilution of micelles into water leads to their dissociation at a well-defined position along the concentration profile and an abrupt increase in the diffusion coefficient. Rayleigh interferometry was successfully employed to determine C* values for three well-known surfactants in water at 25 °C: Triton X-100 (TX-100), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), and poly(oxyethylene)(4)Lauryl Ether (Brij-30). The dependence of C* on salt concentration was also characterized for TX-100 in the presence of Na₂SO₄, NaCl, and NaSCN. Accurate values of C* can be directly identified by visual inspection of the corresponding concentration-gradient profiles. To apply the method of least squares to experimental concentration profiles, a mathematical expression was derived from Fick’s law and the pseudophase separation model of micellization with the inclusion of appropriate modifications. While Rayleigh interferometry was employed in our experiments, this approach can be extended to any experimental technique that yields one-dimensional profiles of surfactant concentration. Moreover, diffusion-driven surfactant disaggregation is precise, noninvasive, requires single-sample preparation, and applies to both nonionic and ionic surfactants. Thus, this work provides the foundation of diffusion-driven dilution methods, thereby representing a valuable addition to existing techniques for the determination of C*.
Optimal Consumption and Investment with Capital Gains Taxes

This article characterizes optimal dynamic consumption and portfolio decisions in the presence of capital gains taxes and short-sale restrictions. The optimal decisions are a function of the investor’s age, initial portfolio holdings, and tax basis. Our results capture the trade-off between the diversification benefits and tax costs of trading over an investor’s lifetime. The incentive to rediversify the portfolio is inversely related to the size of the embedded gain and investor’s age. Contrary to standard financial advice, the optimal equity holding increases well into an investor’s lifetime in our model due to the forgiveness of capital gains taxes at death. Taxes play an important role in the decision-making process of individuals concerning their consumption and investment plans. The taxation of returns on financial assets alters the benefits of saving for future consumption and thus affects the trade-off between current consumption and investment. Moreover, the ability of investors to defer the taxation of capital gains alters the relative valuation of stocks and bonds and thus affects the optimal portfolio composition of investors. The deferral feature of capital gains taxes also affects the trade-off investors face regarding taxes and diversification. Investors would like to maintain an optimally diversified portfolio over time,
Implications of gallbladder cholesterolosis and cholesterol polyps

Abstract Background The clinical significance of cholesterolosis has not been well established but there are some provocative, if not robust, studies of the role it may play in the pathophysiology of pancreatitis and biliary dyskinesia, as well as hypercholesterolemia. Our aim was to take advantage of a very large cholecystectomy (CCY) database to support or refute these potentially important reported associations. Materials and methods A retrospective review of 6868 patients who underwent CCY from 2001–2013 was performed. Comparisons were made using the student t -test for continuous and chi-square analysis for categorical, variables. Results Among patients for whom the CCY was the primary operation, 1053 (18%) had cholesterolosis and 4596 did not. Compared to those without cholesterolosis, those with cholesterolosis were no more likely to have elevated cholesterol levels ( P = 0.64) nor low gallbladder ejection fraction ( P = 0.2). To evaluate cholesterolosis as a cause of pancreatitis, all patients with gallstones were eliminated, leaving 639 patients. Among these, not only was cholesterolosis not associated with more pancreatitis, but rather there was not a single patient with or without cholesterolosis who had pancreatitis. Conclusions Despite prior reports of associations between cholesterolosis and elevated serum cholesterol, depressed ejection fraction, and increased risk of pancreatitis, careful analysis of this current, larger data set does not support these associations. Any patient with stones or sludge, or with biliary dyskinesia, and appropriate symptoms, should be considered for CCY, with or without suspected cholesterolosis.
Reforma de mercado, (des)alineamiento programático y estabilidad del sistema de partidos en América Latina

Resumen es: Aunque los regimenes democraticos en America Latina desde la decada de 1980 han sido estables, los sistemas de partidos en la region continuan experiment...
Effects of the “Preparing for the Drug Free Years” Curriculum on Growth in Alcohol Use and Risk for Alcohol Use in Early Adolescence

Preparing for the Drug-Free Years (PDFY) is a curriculum designed to help parents learn skills to consistently communicate clear norms against adolescent substance use, effectively and proactively manage their families, reduce family conflict, and help their children learn skills to resist antisocial peer influences. This study examined the effects of PDFY on the trajectories of these factors, as well as on the trajectory of alcohol use from early to mid adolescence. The sample consisted of 424 rural families of sixth graders from schools randomly assigned to an intervention or a control condition. Data were collected from both parents and students at pretest, posttest, and 1-, 2- and 3 1/2-year follow-ups. Latent growth models were examined. PDFY significantly reduced the growth of alcohol use and improved parent norms regarding adolescent alcohol use over time. Implications for prevention and evaluation are discussed.
Another Birthday Attack

We show that a meet-in-the-middle attack can successfully defraud the Davies-Price message authentication scheme. Their scheme used message blocks in an iterated encipherment of an initial block, and it went through the message blocks twice, in order to prevent just such a "birthday" attack.
A New anti-collision protocol for RFID networks

The speed at which RFID tags are read is critical to many RFID applications. Tag collisions can increase the time to gather information from tags in RFID networks. These collisions are unavoidable; however the time spent on them can be reduced using an intelligent medium access protocol. In this paper, the authors present a unique anti-collision protocol that scans for collided and empty slots in an RFID network before querying for tag IDs. The new proposed protocol uses a modified version of the bit scan technique to scan for unsuccessful slots. By identifying these slots using a low overhead scan process, the penalty of collisions and empty slots during the query process is reduced and thus a better end-to-end tag reading time is observed.
Response of hydrology to climate change in the southern Appalachian Mountains using Bayesian inference

Predicting long-term consequences of climate change on hydrologic processes has been limited due to the needs to accommodate the uncertainties in hydrological measurements for calibration, and to account for the uncertainties in the models that would ingest those calibrations and uncertainties in climate predictions as basis for hydrological predictions. We implemented a hierarchical Bayesian (HB) analysis to coherently admit multiple data sources and uncertainties including data inputs, parameters, and model structures to identify the potential consequences of climate change on soil moisture and streamflow at the head watersheds ranging from low to high elevations in the southern Appalachian region of the United States. We have considered climate change scenarios based on three greenhouse gas emission scenarios of the Interovernmental Panel on Climate Change: A2, A1B, and B1 emission scenarios. Full predictive distributions based on HB models are capable of providing rich information and facilitating the summarization of prediction uncertainties. With predictive uncertainties taken into account, the most pronounced change in soil moisture and streamflow would occur under the A2 scenario at both low and high elevations, followed by the A1B scenario and then by the B1 scenario. Uncertainty in the change of soil moisture is less than that of streamflow for each season, especially at high elevations. A reduction of soil moisture in summer and fall, a reduction or slight increase of streamflow in summer, and an increase of streamflow in winter are predicted for all three scenarios at both low and high elevations. The hydrological predictions with quantified uncertainties from a HB model could aid more-informed water resource management in developing mitigation plans and dealing with water security under climate change. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Commentary on Understanding Pennzoil v. Texaco: Rational Bargaining and Agency Problems

pROFESSORS Mnookin and Wilson's analysis of the multi-billion dollar lawsuit between Pennzoil and Texaco is an imaginative contribution to the study of "bargaining in the shadow of the law."' This Commentary examines the authors' answer to the question of why Texaco and Pennzoil took so long to settle their dispute after the jury entered its verdict. In passing, it also considers their explanation of why the stock market apparently discounted the combined value of Pennzoil and Texaco by over $3 billion while the case was pending. For Mnookin and Wilson, the parties' failure to settle soon after the jury verdict in Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc.2 presents a challenge to economic theory. As they see it, "there is little reason to think that the parties or their lawyers had radically different assessments of the probabilities of possible outcomes." What is more, "for shareholders the costs of the continuing litigation were enormous." Mnookin and Wilson conclude that with the parties in substantial agreement on the outcome and extraordinary costs in prospect, "[t]he relevant economics literature suggests that the parties to the dispute should have settled quickly for some amount that permitted them to share the avoidable extra costs of the litigation." Yet the litigation was not settled for more than two years, after multiple appeals and a costly bankruptcy filing by Texaco. The authors attribute this apparent departure from profit-maximizing rationality to a conflict of interest on the part of Texaco's board of directors. Mnookin and Wilson contend that from the directors' perspective continued litigation was preferable, not because it benefited shareholders, but because it
Use of a Coronary Sinus Lead and Biventricular ICD to Correct a Sensing Abnormality in a Patient with Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia/Cardiomyopathy

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) are frequently offered to patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C). Yet ICDs in these patients may be complicated by poor sensed amplitudes resulting from fatty and fibrous tissue replacement of right ventricular myocardium. We present the case of a patient with ARVD/C who had inappropriate detection of ventricular tachycardia with a single-chamber ICD due to poor sensed right ventricular amplitudes. We discuss how the use of a bipolar coronary sinus lead and a biventricular ICD generator with a novel header configuration solved the problem.
Characteristics of the binding of RNA polymerase to template in mouse liver nuclei.

In whole nuclei isolated from mouse liver, the reaction of free RNA polymerase with the artificial template, poly (dA-dT), is temperature dependent. At assay temperatures below 37°C, the amount of free RNA polymerase (RNA polymerase not inhibited by actinomycin D) which can be measured is substantially reduced. However, if the nuclei are preincubated at 37 °C in the presence of template and then assayed at lower temperatures, substantial amounts of enzyme activity can be measured. The active complex (enzyme bound to template) is resistant to inactivation by heparin. This evidence is consistent with a two-stage model for binding of eukaryotic RNA polymerase to template similar to the binding of prokaryotic RNA polymerase to template.
Automated external defibrillators and simulated in-hospital cardiac arrests.

Objective To test the hypothesis that pediatric residents would have shorter time to attempted defibrillation using automated external defibrillators (AEDs) compared with manual defibrillators (MDs). Study design A prospective, randomized, controlled trial of AEDs versus MDs was performed. Pediatric residents responded to a simulated in-hospital ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest and were randomized to using either an AED or MD. The primary end point was time to attempted defibrillation. Results Sixty residents, 21 (35%) interns, were randomized to 2 groups (AED = 30, MD=30). Residents randomized to the AED group had a significantly shorter time to attempted defibrillation [median, 60 seconds (interquartile range, 53 to 71 seconds)] compared with those randomized to the MD group [median, 103 seconds (interquartile range, 68 to 288 seconds)] ( P P = .01). Conclusions AEDs improve the time to attempted defibrillation by pediatric residents in simulated cardiac arrests. Further studies are needed to help determine the role of AEDs in pediatric in-hospital cardiac arrests.
A six-component yield function for anisotropic materials

Abstract In classical flow theory of plasticity, it is assumed that the yield surface of a material is a plastic potential. That is, the strain rate direction is normal to the yield surface at the corresponding loading state. Consequently, when the yield surface is known, it is possible to predict its flow behavior and, associated with some failure criteria, to predict limit strains above which failure occurs. In this work a new six-component yield surface description for orthotropic materials is developed. This new yield function has the advantage of being relatively simple mathematically and yet is consistent with yield surfaces computed with polycrystal plasticity models. The proposed yield function is independent of hydrostatic pressure. So, except for such cases, strain rates can be calculated for any loading condition. Applications of this new criterion for aluminum alloy sheets are presented. The uniaxial plastic properties determined for 2008-T4 and 2024-T3 sgeet samplesare compared to those predicted with the proposed constitutive model. In addition, for 2008-T4, the predictions of the six-component yield function are compared to those made with the plane stress tricomponent yield criterion proposed by Barlat and Lian. Though rather good agreement between experiments and predicted results is obtained, some discrepancies are observed. Better agreement could result if the isotropic work-hardening assumption associated with the yield criterion were relaxed. Nevertheless, the proposed yield function leads to plastic properties similar to those computed with polycrystalline plasticity models and can be very useful for describing the behavior of anisotropic materials in numerical simulation of forming processes
Nephroureteral Stent on Suction for Urethrovesical Anastomotic Leak After Robot-assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy

Objectives Delayed urinary anastomotic leak after transperitoneal robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RALP) is an uncommon complication. After failure of conventional measures, we successfully managed this problem using a nephroureteral stent placed on intermittent suction. Methods A 62-year-old man with clinical stage T1c prostate cancer (Gleason 3 + 3) developed a persistent urinary anastomotic leak after RALP. Conventional measures, including catheter traction, passive drainage, and needle vented Foley catheter suction, failed. On postoperative day 6 a unilateral nephroureteral stent was placed on intermittent suction. Results Placement of one nephroureteral stent on suction device immediately stopped the urinary anastomotic leakage into the peritoneal cavity. Conclusions In case of a persistent urinary leak after RALP that fails conservative management, a nephroureteral stent on suction may aid to stop the anastomotic leak.
Differences in Perceptions of Child Sexual Abuse Based on Perpetrator Age and Respondent Gender

Child sexual abuse changes the lives of countless children. Child sexual abuse victims experience short and long term negative outcomes that affect their daily functioning. In this study, undergraduate students' perceptions of CSA were obtained using vignettes with an adult or child perpetrator and a general questionnaire. Results indicated participants receiving the child-on-child vignette were less likely to rate the vignette as abuse, saw the abuse as less severe, and assigned less blame to the perpetrator than participants reading the adult-on-child vignette. On a general questionnaire, male participants saw child-on-child abuse as less severe and more encouraged by society than did female participants. The information can be utilized by professionals in treatment planning and preventing revictimization at disclosure.
A Practical Application of Ocean Color Methodology to an Undergraduate Curriculum

Recently there have been newly launched ocean color satellites which target the coastlines at unprecedented scales. Science education curricula can benefit from the provision of small low-cost spectroradiometers and curriculum supplemental materials that can be incorporated in a “hands on” teaching approach to explain and demonstrate remote sensing reflectance principles. A lesson in which a progressive set of spectral measurements of familiar and unfamiliar objects and natural waters acquired by students using a small fiberoptic probe and spectroradiometer is presented. This lesson has a dual purpose. The first is to serve as a teaching supplement to high school science curricula while paralleling the National Science Education Standards (NSES) for NASA ocean color products, as well as other satellite ocean products such as GLI and MERIS. The second is to focus on the scientific goals of the graduate-school bound undergraduate student by providing a fundamental understanding of the principles of passive ocean color remote sensing that will perhaps nurture the interest of some students toward research involving utilization of NASA’s Earth science data products. We intend to have these spectroradiometers readily available for use by teachers in the Earth sciences through a publicly available technology library.
A new eight-node solid element

We present a new three-dimensional finite element, with the customary three displacement d.o.f. at each corner but no internal d.o.f. It passes the patch test and, for rectangular elemtents, exactly models pure bending. In numerical tests, the new element is found to be both accurate and efficient. It has the added advantage that its bending and twisting stiffnesses can be individually adjusted.
Method for creating consistent bitmaps in message-driven environments

Bit-mapped drawings are normally created by using the so-called "Paint Editor" through the provided image primitives. A set of operation tools are also available for interactive manipulation of primitive objects. Window-based operating environments, such as the IBM OS/2 Presentation Manager,1M provide an Application Programming Interface to send messages to modules that actually carry out bitmap generation. We observed that this message-driven architecture can facilitate the "capture and reapplication of user operations" for application programs. Therefore, it is possible to create a set of bit-mapped drawings that conform to certain properties through the same sequence of operations. Two applications are described in this paper. The first is the creation of fonts with a consistent typeface. The sequence of operations used in designing the typeface is automatically recorded. The user can then generate bitmaps of other characters with the same typeface by repeating the same sequence of operations. The second application is the generation of shadows of 3D objects. If a profile of an object is given, the shadow can be synthesized by bitmap manipulation primitives. When the same sequence of primitives is applied to different objects, shadows can be generated correctly.© (1990) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Two-cue learning by brain-damaged cats

Thirty-seven intact cats, 20 with lesions in posterior association cortex, 8 with ablations of auditory and 9 with ablations of visual projection cortex learned to approach a compound stimulus, noise plus lights, for food. Two different procedures investigated whether one or both elements had come to control the cats’ behavior. When the noise or light were presented singly, the group with auditory cortex damage was more successful on light trials; the other groups responded more frequently to noise. When noise and light were opposed by simultaneous presentation at different loci, the cats with injuries to auditory cortex preferred the visual stimulus. The other groups responded more frequently to noise. Lesions in the auditory cortex appear to reduce attention to discriminable acoustic signals, and to reverse cats’ ordinarily strong preference for auditory over visual cues. This result is consonant with views that postulate nonsensory functions for projection cortices. We speculate that similar results were not obtained from the cats with damage to visual cortex because of a ceiling effect. Removal of posterior association cortex had no discernible effect upon performance in this experiment unless the lesion included inferior temporal cortex. Thus the idea that the extramarginal cortex is critical for intermodality learning in a general sense was not supported.
Synthesis and unusual reactivity of N-tosyl-4,5-benzoazacyclodeca-2,6-diyne, yneamino-containing enediyne.

Substitution of the propargylic carbon for nitrogen in cyclic 10-membered ring enediynes results in at least 2 orders of magnitude enhancement of reactivity. The mechanism of cycloaromatization of aza-enediynes, however, switches from radical (Bergman) to polar, which proceeds by initial protonation of a reactive yneamine moiety. Ketenimmonium cation produced on this step undergoes intramolecular nucleophilic cyclization. Reaction is strongly catalyzed by acids and exhibits substantial kinetic isotope effect.
A Numerical Investigation of Premixed Combustion Within Porous Inert Media

A numerical investigation of premixed combustion within a highly porous inert medium is reported. Specifically, results of a numerical model using detailed chemical kinetics and energy exchange between the flowing gas and the porous solid are presented. The current formulation differs from prior models of this type of combustion in that multistep kinetics is used and a better description of the thermophysical properties of the solid is applied in the present model. It was found that the preheating effect increases strongly with increasing convectiue heat transfer and with increasing effective thermal conductivity of the solid
Rayleigh wave phase velocities in the Atlantic upper mantle

Phase velocity in the period range 30–130 s is measured for approximately 10,000 fundamental-mode Rayleigh waves traversing the Atlantic basin. In order to isolate the signal of the oceanic upper mantle, paths with >30% of their length through continental upper mantle are excluded. The lateral distribution of Rayleigh wave phase velocity in the Atlantic upper mantle is explored with two approaches. One, phase velocity is allowed to vary only as a function of seafloor age. Two, a general two-dimensional parameterization is utilized in order to capture perturbations to age-dependent structure. In both scenarios, phase velocity shows a strong dependence on seafloor age at all periods, with higher velocity associated with older seafloor. Removing age-dependent velocity from the 2-D phase-velocity maps highlights areas of anomalously low velocity, almost all of which are proximal to locations of hotspot volcanism. The age-dependent phase velocities for the Atlantic are not consistent with a half-space cooling model and are best explained by a plate cooling model with thickness of 75 km and mantle temperature of 1400°C. In contrast, age-dependent phase velocities for the Pacific basin determined by Nishimura and Forsyth (1989) can be fit reasonably well by a half-space cooling model with mantle temperature approximately 50°C warmer than the Atlantic. Comparison of Rayleigh wave phase velocity and fractionation-corrected Na concentrations in mid-ocean ridge basalts erupted at 87 axial ridge segments reveals a positive correlation coefficient that increases with period, as expected if along-ridge variations in mantle potential temperature are controlling both quantities.
SNAP-23 requirement for transferrin recycling in Streptolysin-O-permeabilized Madin-Darby canine kidney cells.

Fusion of recycling and transcytotic vesicles with the apical and basolateral plasma membrane domains of Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells requires theN-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor and is sensitive to botulinum neurotoxin serotype E (BoNT/E). BoNT/E is thought to selectively proteolyze the 25,000-dalton synaptosomal associated protein (SNAP-25), a protein found in neurons or cells of neuroendocrine origin. However, SNAP-25 is not found in MDCK cells. One possible target for BoNT/E in MDCK cells is SNAP-23, a newly described SNAP-25 homolog that is found in several organs including kidney. Currently, the function of SNAP-23 is unknown. We have reconstituted transferrin recycling in permeabilized MDCK cells to assess the role of SNAP-23 in the endocytic traffic of this protein. We find that: (i) SNAP-23 is expressed in MDCK cells and is found both at the basolateral plasma membrane and associated with apical and basolateral vesicles, (ii) canine SNAP-23 is cleaved by BoNT/E, (iii) transferrin recycling is N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor-dependent and BoNT/E-sensitive, and (iv) addition of either exogenous SNAP-23 or anti-SNAP-23 antibodies inhibits ligand recycling. Our observations suggest that SNAP-23 may be required for fusion of recycling vesicles with the basolateral membrane of polarized MDCK cells.
Mechanisms of slope failure in Valles Marineris, Mars

The trough system of Valles Marineris, Mars contains numerous landslides in the large relief exposures (up to 8 km) of basaltic wall rock and soft interior layered deposits (ILDs). Eleven landslides, including eight circular failures, were mapped in the ILDs. Two wall rock landslide complexes and four ILD landslides were modelled using limit-equilibrium slope stability analysis to evaluate the mechanisms of slope failure. Wall rock landslide complexes in the Ophir and Hebes Chasmata required artesian fluid pressures of at least 41% of overburden pressure or ground accelerations of at least 0.19 Mars g for failure. Agreement between modelled and observed failure surface geometries and the difficulty of generating artesian pressures at a regional topographic high indicate that ground shaking from Marsquakes or impacts most likely triggered the modelled wall rock landslides. Triggering mechanisms, such as ground acceleration or fluid pressure, were also necessary for most other landslides in Valles Marineris wall rock. Given minimum rock mass strengths, ILD landslides in the Hebes and East Candor Chasmata did not require triggering mechanisms; thus, landslides in ILDs may be a result of gravitational, fluid, or seismic loading.
Beam Spread And Point Spread Functions And Their Measurement In The Ocean

Some optical measurements may be greatly simplified by invoking the principle of reciprocity. The particular case of measuring point spread functions along long vertical paths in seawater is demonstrated, and the equivalence of this data to beam spread functions over the same paths is pointed out.
The gene structure and minimal promoter of the human agouti related protein.

The murine agouti related protein (mAGRP) is upregulated in obese and diabetic mice and stimulates hyperphagia when administered intracerebroventricularly (i.c.v.) or when overexpressed in transgenic mice. The human ortholog, hAGRP, has been isolated and has similar molecular and physiological properties. Here, we report the complete gene structure of the human AGRP gene and upstream regions with differential promoter activity. A polymorphism, A67T, in the third exon was identified but was not associated with obesity- or type 2 diabetes-related phenotypes. Putative binding sites for transcription factors were identified in the promoter of the gene including recognition sites for the signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs) that may potentially mediate leptin's action in the hypothalamus. The upstream non-coding exon had significant promoter activity in a periphery- but not so in a hypothalamus-derived cell line, suggesting that it might contain the minimal promoter required for expression of the short transcript of hAGRP in the periphery.
Effect of isoproterenol on QRS complex morphology during ventricular pacing: implications for pace mapping.

Abstract Ventricular pace mapping may be used to identify the site of origin of idiopathic ventricular tachycardia. Isoproterenol is often required to induce this type of ventricular tachycardia, but its effect on QRS morphology during pace mapping is unknown. Therefore, this study was performed to evaluate the effect of isoproterenol on QRS morphology during ventricular pacing. The study population consisted of 20 patients (mean age 38 ± 14 years) undergoing a clinically indicated electrophysiology procedure. Ventricular overdrive pacing was performed in trains of 12 stimuli at cycle lengths of 400, 350, 300, and 250 ms, first in the baseline state during an infusion of isoproterenol, and again after isoproterenol washout. Pacing was performed at the right ventricular apex in 10 patients, in the right ventricular outflow tract in 6 patients, and in the left ventricle in 4 patients. Visual evaluation revealed no apparent effects of isoproterenol on QRS morphology at any of the three pacing sites or at any of the pacing cycle lengths. It was concluded that QRS morphology during ventricular pacing is not affected by isoproterenol infusion. Therefore, in patients with idiopathic ventricular tachycardia, even if the induction of tachycardia requires infusion of isoproterenol, successful pace mapping may be performed in its absence.
The effects of direct fed microbials delivered through the feed and/or in a bolus at weaning on growth performance and gut health☆

Abstract Weanling pigs ( n = 188) were used in a 5-wk experiment to determine the effects of a bolus of direct fed microbials (DFM) at weaning and/or feeding DFM on growth performance and gastrointestinal histology. Dietary treatments were: 1) basal negative control (NC), 2) Trt. 1 + DFM in a bolus at weaning, 3) Trt. 1 + DFM in the feed for d 1–34, 4) Trt. 1 + DFM in a bolus at weaning, and in the feed for d 1–34, and 5) Trt. 1 + in-feed antibiotics (carbadox, 55 ppm). Dietary antibiotics (Trt. 5) improved ADG ( P P P P P P P