cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Insertion of Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein in a Hinge Region of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus L Polymerase Protein Creates a Temperature-Sensitive Virus That Displays No Virion-Associated Polymerase Activity In Vitro

The RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of viruses belonging to the order Mononegavirales is part of a large multifunctional L protein that also catalyzes viral mRNA capping and cap methylation. The L protein of this diverse group of agents displays six blocks of conserved sequences. The precise relationship between these conserved regions and individual functions is largely unknown, except for "domain" VI that clearly encodes a viral mRNA cap methylase. The L protein of morbilliviruses (family Paramyxoviridae) was reported to tolerate insertion of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) in a region just upstream of domain VI. Recombinant viruses with this insertion grow well in cell culture but are highly attenuated in animal hosts. We show here that the L protein of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), the prototype of the Rhabdoviridae family, also tolerates insertion of EGFP at a similar site. The modified protein (L(EGFP)) and the resultant recombinant virus both demonstrated a sharp temperature-sensitive phenotype for polymerase activity, with reduced activity at 37 degrees C and no activity at 37.5 degrees C. Neither translation nor methylation of mutant virus transcripts was affected at 37 degrees C. Curiously, mutant virus grown at permissive temperature contained about threefold-less L protein than the wild-type virus did and displayed no virion-associated polymerase activity in vitro. These findings support the notion that a flexible "hinge" region separates the cap methylase domain of L proteins from upstream functions and open up a number of avenues for studies of L-protein function in the more-tractable VSV model system.
Serotonin and Vascular Responses

The vasoconstrictor properties of defibrinated blood and serum were first described over a century ago (1) and periodically thereafter (2, 3). Indeed, platelets were considered to be a likely source for this vasoactive, "adrena­ line-like" material over 70 years ago (3). The responsible agent, serotonin, was crystalized and its structure ultimately identified by Irvine Page and his coworkers in their early attempts to identify a vasoconstrictor in blood that might contribute to the pathogenesis of hypertension (4). That agent was angiotensin. In a recent essay, with the piquant title "The Neonatology of Serotonin," Dr. Page reviewed that early history (5), pointing out that "plas­ ma carefully prepared had no vasoconstrictor properties, but serum had. This clearly posed a problem for me. Any vasoconstrictor I isolated from the blood of hypertensives would always be suspect, because one could never be sure some unseen coagulation had not occurred. Platelets and their secretions are not easily controllable. " His interest primarily resided in serotonin's "nui­ sance value in the search of vasoactive angiotensin," but as he pointed out, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in serotonin, and "substances in the body that are nuisances to one person give tenure to others." Not that early interest in the cardiovascular effects of serotonin was lack­ ing. In Page's review in 1954, he cited 153 references (6), and only 4 years later, his update cited 530 more (7). During the following two decades, interest in the cardiovascular actions of serotonin continued but at a sub­ stantially lower level. This was not because serotonin's role had been de­ lineated. Indeed, a bewildering multiplicity of actions exerted by serotonin on blood vessels had been identified (summarized recently by Vanhoutte, 8).
Phthalic anhydride asthma

Summary A patient with occupational asthma caused by phthalic anhydride is described. Inhalation challenges under laboratory control produced immediate and delayed asthmatic responses. Repeat exposure to phthalic anhydride after treatment with cromolyn sodium showed inhibition of the late but not the early bronchoconstrictive, asthmatic response.
Archaeology and Culture History in the Central Niger Delta

David Brion Davis has long been recognized as the leading authority on slavery in the Western World. His books have won every major history award - including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award - and he has been universally praised for his prodigious research, his brilliant analytical skill, and his rich and powerful prose. Now, in "Inhuman Bondage", Davis sums up a lifetime of insight in what Stanley L. Engerman calls "a monumental and magisterial book, the essential work on New World slavery for several decades to come." Davis begins with the dramatic Amistad case, which vividly highlights the international character of the Atlantic slave trade and the roles of the American judiciary, the presidency, the media, and of both black and white abolitionists. The heart of the book looks at slavery in the American South, describing black slaveholding planters, the rise of the Cotton Kingdom, the daily life of ordinary slaves, the highly destructive internal, long-distance slave trade, the sexual exploitation of slaves, the emergence of an African-American culture, and much more. But though centered on the United States, the book offers a global perspective spanning four continents. It is the only study of American slavery that reaches back to ancient foundations (discussing the classical and biblical justifications for chattel bondage) and also traces the long evolution of anti-black racism (as in the writings of David Hume and Emmanuel Kant, among many others). Equally important, it combines the subjects of slavery and abolitionism as very few books do, and it illuminates the meaning of nineteenth-century slave conspiracies and revolts, with a detailed comparison with 3 major revolts in the British Caribbean. It connects the actual life of slaves with the crucial place of slavery in American politics and stresses that slavery was integral to America's success as a nation - not a marginal enterprise. A definitive history by a writer deeply immersed in the subject, "Inhuman Bondage" offers a compelling narrative that links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism. It is the ultimate portrait of the dark side of the American dream. Yet it offers an inspiring example as well - the story of how abolitionists, barely a fringe group in the 1770s, successfully fought, in the space of a hundred years, to defeat one of human history's greatest evils.
Felix Culpa: Luck In Ethics And Epistemology

: Luck threatens in similar ways our conceptions of both moral and epistemic evaluation. This essay examines the problem of luck as a metaphilosophical problem spanning the division between subfields in philosophy. I first explore the analogies between ethical and epistemic luck by comparing influential attempts to expunge luck from our conceptions of agency in these two subfields. I then focus upon Duncan Pritchard's challenge to the motivations underlying virtue epistemology, based specifically on its handling of the problem of epistemic luck. I argue that (1) consideration of the multifold nature of the problem of epistemic luck to an adequate account of human knowledge drives us to a mixed externalist epistemology; and (2) the virtue-theoretical approach presents a particularly advantageous way of framing and developing a mixed externalist epistemology.
Combinatorics on Large Cardinals

Our framework is ZFC, and we view cardinals as initial ordinals. Baumgartner ([Bal] and [Ba2]) studied properties of large cardinals by considering these properties as properties of normal ideals and not as properties of cardinals alone. In this paper we study these combinatorial properties by defining operations which take as input one or more ideals and give as output an ideal associated with a large cardinal property. We consider four operations T, P, S and C on ideals of a regular cardinal κ, and study the structure of the collection of subsets they give, and the relationships between them. The operation T is defined using combinatorial properties based on trees 〈 X , T 〉 on subsets X ⊆ κ (where α T β → α I , consider the property *: “every tree on κ with every branching set in I has a branch of size κ” (where a branching set is a maximal set with the same set of T -predecessors, and a chain is a maximal T -linearly ordered set; for definitions see §2). Now consider the collection T ( I ) of all subsets of κ that do not satisfy * (see Definition 2.2 and the introduction to §5). The operation T provides us with the large cardinal property (whether κ ∈ T ( I ) or not) and it also provides us with the ideal associated with this large cardinal property (namely T ( I )); in general, we obtain different notions depending on the ideal I .
Ozone hole deep but not deepest

Despite early reports of a record-setting depletion, the 1989 Antarctic ozone hole was not quite as persistent or long-lived as in 1987. The hole began to develop at the beginning of September, when temperatures dropped to −92°C to −93°C, more than cold enough for the formation of polar stratospheric clouds at about 17 km, in the heart of the ozone layer. Then, in the presence of sunlight, chlorine-bearing compounds derived from anthropogenic chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) reacted on the clouds and began to rapidly destroy large amounts of ozone. Because the temperatures were one to two degrees colder and ozone depletion slightly faster than in early September 1987, there were predictions that this year's hole might be the largest yet. In 1987 more than 99% of the ozone at altitudes of 14–18 km over Antarctica was destroyed. Dobson spectrophotometers that measure total ozone in a column of atmosphere showed that t h e overall depletion was 50% in 1987; background ozone levels vary between 250 and 300 Dobson units (DU), and the lowest levels recorded in 1987 were about 125 DU. Concentrations continued below 200 DU well into November.
The Structure and Strategy of Revolution: 1848 and 1948

A centennial celebration of the revolutions of 1848 would be uncalled for-certainly for American political scientists-if it were to be a mere memorial of past events. Yet, the proper-that is, meaningful-function of the historian is to serve as a "prophet looking backwards," who like the seer of biblical times confronts his people with the crucial issues and alternatives of their era by interpreting bygone experience in the view of the present-day challenge. "History is past politics," in the words of Freeman, and thus the task-master of today's decisions. Moreover the political choices of our time question anew the historical testimony and recreate for any era-alive to its unique calling-an ever new image of the past., 1848 is seen today in a new light as compared with the vista of the halcyonic era, only half a century ago.' Because, this is the age of revolution. Even our wars are fundamentally revolutions and the interwar periods merely an uneasy armistice between drastic, sweeping transformations. There is no island of peace left in a world at war, and the radical upheaval reaches every nation. The competing international ideologies of our time-Bolshevism, Fascism, even Demo-
TRPM7 channel is sensitive to osmotic gradients in human kidney cells

TRPM7 (transient-receptor-potential melastatin 7) is an ion channel with α-kinase function. TRPM7 is divalent-selective and regulated by a range of receptor-stimulated second messenger pathways, intracellular Mg-nucleotides, divalent and polyvalent cations and pH. TRPM7 is ubiquitously found in mammalian cells, including kidney, the responsible organ for osmolyte regulation, posing the question whether the channel is osmosensitive. Recent reports investigated the sensitivity of native TRPM7-like currents to cell swelling with contradictory results. Here, we assess the sensitivity of TRPM7 to both hypo- and hyperosmotic conditions and explored the involvement of the channel's kinase domain. We find that hypotonicity facilitates TRPM7 at elevated intracellular magnesium and Mg·ATP (3–4 mm), but has no effect in the absence of these solutes. Hypertonic conditions, in contrast, inhibit TRPM7 with an IC50 of 430 mosmol l−1. This inhibitory effect is maintained in the complete absence of intra- and extracellular divalent ions, although shifted to higher osmolarities (IC50= 510 mosmol l−1). TRPM7 senses osmotic gradients rather than ionic strength and this is independent of cAMP or not affected by cytochalasin D treatment. Furthermore, the kinase-domain deletion mutant of TRPM7 shows a similar behaviour to osmolarity as the wild-type protein, both in the presence and absence of divalent ions. This indicates that at least part of the osmosensitivity resides in the channel domain. Physiologically, TRPM7 channels do not seem to play an active role in regulatory volume changes, but rather those volume changes modulate TRPM7 activity through changes in the cytosolic concentrations of free Mg, Mg-nucleotides and a further unidentified factor. We conclude that TRPM7 senses osmotically induced changes primarily through molecular crowding of solutes that affect channel activity.
Isolation of the equine granulocytic ehrlichiosis agent, Ehrlichia equi, in tick cell culture.

The equine granulocytic ehrlichiosis agent, Ehrlichia equi, is closely related or identical to the human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE) agent. Both are suspected of being transmitted by ticks. We have successfully isolated E. equi in a cell line, IDE8, derived from a putative vector, the tick Ixodes scapularis. Peripheral blood leukocytes from an experimentally infected horse were inoculated onto IDE8 monolayers. Cultures were incubated in a candle jar at 34 degrees C in tick cell culture medium with NaHCO3 and an organic buffer [3-(N-morpholino)-propanesulfonic acid] (MOPS). Within 2 weeks, infected cells were detected in Giemsa-stained culture samples, and the organisms subsequently spread to uninfected cells in the cultures. E. equi was passaged serially by transferring a portion of an infected culture to new cell layers every 2 to 3 weeks. The identity of the organisms was confirmed by PCR using oligonucleotide primers specific for E. equi and the HGE agent and by immunocytology. Homologous equine antibodies and human anti-HGE convalescent serum recognized E. equi grown in tick cell culture. Electron microscopy revealed electron-lucent and -dense ehrlichia-like forms developing within host cell endosomes. E. equi passaged twice in tick cell culture retained infectivity and pathogenicity for the equine host, as demonstrated by intravenous inoculation of a suspension of infected tick cells and subsequent reisolation from peripheral blood, in fulfillment of Koch's postulates. The horse developed severe clinical signs, i.e., fever, inappetence, thrombocytopenia, icterus, and limb edema, typical of granulocytic equine ehrlichiosis, within 1 week.
Generations of Game Analytics, Achievements and High Scores

This paper poses the question, how has game recording evolved over the generations and how will it affect future generations of players and game developers who have access to the digital past? High scores have a history behind them and as generations of games have moved forward they begin to record much more than just scores. The present player generation can record complete replays of their entire gameplay performances and even play against other recorded player ghosts. As the future generations of gamers and developers take over they will have unprecedented access to the digital history archive as it becomes easier and easier to record and store the past. Deciding what to do with that past will be the next generation’s task as games move into the future.
Selected Contribution: Ambient temperature for experiments in rats: a new method for determining the zone of thermal neutrality

There is a misbelief that the same animal has the same thermoneutral zone (TNZ) in different experimental setups. In reality, TNZ strongly depends on the physical environment and varies widely acro...
Endothelial Insulin and IGF-1 Receptors: When Yes Means NO

Cardiovascular (CV) disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality and a major driver of health care costs in patients with type 2 diabetes. Observational studies suggest that insulin resistance and hyperglycemia independently predict atherosclerosis (1,2). However, recent clinical trials have been disappointing in that intensive glycemic control does not reduce the risk of CV events in individuals with diabetes (3). Consequently, it has been suggested that therapies targeting hyperinsulinemia and/or insulin resistance (e.g., metformin) may lead to CV risk reduction (2). In addition to its metabolic actions, insulin has important vascular actions that stimulate endothelial production of nitric oxide (NO), an anti-inflammatory and antiatheroslcerotic molecule (4). In turn, endothelial insulin resistance leads to diminished glucose disposal, endothelial dysfunction, and atherosclerosis. Strategies that ameliorate endothelial insulin resistance may simultaneously augment metabolic and vascular actions of insulin, thereby reducing CV risk. However, molecular mechanisms regulating endothelial insulin action are still unclear. Elegant studies from various laboratories have elucidated insulin signaling pathways that regulate NO production in the endothelium (4). Insulin binding to its receptor increases receptor tyrosine kinase activity and results in phosphorylation of insulin receptor (IR) substrate (IRS)-1 and sequential activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and 3-phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase (PDK)-1. PDK-1, in turn, activates Akt, which then directly phosphorylates endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) at Ser1177, resulting in increased eNOS activity and NO production (Fig. 1). Although less potent, IGF-1, like insulin, activates the PI3K-Akt-eNOS pathway and stimulates NO production in endothelial cells (5,6). FIG. 1. Relative distribution of insulin (INS) and IGF-1R …
Patient harm and preventable error in orthopedic surgery

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine released a report estimating that between 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical errors. The frequency of these errors has continued to rise, in addition to the significant patient morbidity and mortality, which give rise to a substantial economic burden. This study used the PubMed database to review the terminology associated with medical errors, the current prevalence of medical errors within orthopaedics, and strategies for prevention. Patient safety is of the utmost importance. Medical errors still occur and efforts should be focused to standardize care processes, improve error reporting, and promote a team based care process to a reduce harm and promote patient safety.
Regulation of Sugar Alcohol Biosynthesis

Although we have long known that sugar alcohols can be important primary photosynthetic products involved in storage and translocation, there has been very little information on gene expression or regulation of enzyme activities associated with metabolism of these compounds. Recent studies, however, indicate that sugar alcohol metabolism is probably as tightly regulated as is conventional carbon metabolism in sink and source tissues. Sugar alcohols have also been demonstrated to be associated with the development of tolerance to drought, salt, temperature, and related stresses, and there is quite limited, but increasing evidence of stress-related regulation of genes and enzymes associated with sugar alcohols. Moreover, several studies of plants transformed with a capacity for sugar alcohol biosynthesis now indicate that these plants have enhanced stress tolerance. All this has important implications for crop improvement and developing understanding of stress tolerance mechanisms in plants.
Measurement and modeling of glucose-6-phosphatase in pancreatic islets

In the beta-cells of the pancreas, glucose phosphorylation carried out by glucokinase is the rate-controlling step in glycolysis, and the kinetic characteristics of glucokinase govern to a high degree the dose-response relationship between glucose and insulin release. Because glucose-6-phosphatase (G-6-Pase) opposes the action of glucokinase, it may have a regulatory role in the release of insulin in response to glucose if the enzyme is present in the beta-cells. A number of researchers have reported finding high levels of G-6-Pase in islets, but quantitation of its activity remains controversial, mainly because of difficulties in solubilizing a particulate enzyme. Therefore a method developed to measure functional glucose phosphorylation activity in intact brain was applied (Chi, M. M.-Y., M. E. Pusateri, J. G. Carter, B. J. Norris, D. B. McDougal, Jr., and O. H. Lowry. Anal. Biochem. 161: 508-513, 1987), and the rates of accumulation and disappearance of 2-deoxyglucose 6-phosphate (DG-6-P) in freshly harvested islets were determined as a measure of glucose cycling. Islets were incubated in the presence of 30 mM 2-deoxyglucose (DG) for 60 min, and subsequently the incubation medium was replaced with medium containing no DG, but instead high levels of mannoheptulose as a blocker of phosphorylation. The content of DG-6-P in the islets was measured at strategic times during the protocol. As predicted by a mathematical model, DG-6-P accumulated in the presence of DG and decayed after its washout. Both of these results are consistent with islets containing dephosphorylation activity for this substrate. The kinetic curves were fit using a mathematical model, and the maximal G-6-Pase activity was estimated to be 0.13 +/- 0.005 micromol x g(-1) x min(-1). However, when the physiological effect of this amount of G-6-Pase activity was assessed by use of a model of glycolysis, it was found that the impact on glucose cycling and usage was insignificant. It was concluded that normal islets do contain measurable activity for dephosphorylating glucose 6-phosphate but that this enzymatic reaction does not play a role in glucose metabolism and sensing by the normal beta-cell.
A Brief Survey of the Field of Organic Evolution

Readers of the popular scientific magazines and papers of today are often confronted with the statement of the downfall of evolution; and, though this statement is usually not made in a way that carries conviction, there is a growing feeling among the educated public that behind all this smoke there is some fire. It is the object of this article to make clear the real grounds for this suspicion, and at the same time to give a brief survey of the present state of the theory of organic evolution.
The Strategy for Screening of Antitumor Drug Based on Blocking Viral Replication

Many kinds of viruses related to the occurrence of human malignancies.Some strategies,such as blocking the coalition and fusion of virus with target cell,interfering viral replication and expression,inhibiting enzymes which are associated with virus replication,will provide ways for the screening of antitumor drugs.
Spectral signature verification using statistical analysis and text mining

In the spectral science community, numerous spectral signatures are stored in databases representative of many sample materials collected from a variety of spectrometers and spectroscopists. Due to the variety and variability of the spectra that comprise many spectral databases, it is necessary to establish a metric for validating the quality of spectral signatures. This has been an area of great discussion and debate in the spectral science community. This paper discusses a method that independently validates two diﬀerent aspects of a spectral signature to arrive at a ﬁnal qualitative assessment; the textual meta-data and numerical spectral data. Results associated with the spectral data stored in the Signature Database1 (SigDB) are proposed. The numerical data comprising a sample material’s spectrum is validated based on statistical properties derived from an ideal population set. The quality of the test spectrum is ranked based on a spectral angle mapper (SAM) comparison to the mean spectrum derived from the population set. Additionally, the contextual data of a test spectrum is qualitatively analyzed using lexical analysis text mining. This technique analyzes to understand the syntax of the meta-data to provide local learning patterns and trends within the spectral data, indicative of the test spectrum’s quality. Text mining applications have successfully been implemented for security2 (text encryption/decryption), biomedical3 , and marketing4 applications. The text mining lexical analysis algorithm is trained on the meta-data patterns of a subset of high and low quality spectra, in order to have a model to apply to the entire SigDB data set. The statistical and textual methods combine to assess the quality of a test spectrum existing in a database without the need of an expert user. This method has been compared to other validation methods accepted by the spectral science community, and has provided promising results when a baseline spectral signature is present for comparison. The spectral validation method proposed is described from a practical application and analytical perspective.
Abstract IA47: Nonviral gene transfer to redirect T cell specificity

The administration of ex vivo engineered T cells is championed by academia and industry alike and has resulted in dramatic clinical responses. I will discuss how T cells can be engineered ex vivo using a transposon/transposase system for in vivo applications. We will discuss how this non-viral approach to gene therapy can be combined immunotherapy to redirect specificity and improve the effector functions of T cells manufactured for clinical trials. For example, T cells can be genetically modified to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) and T-cell receptors (TCRs) to redirect specificity for protein and carbohydrates antigens. I will reveal how the non-viral Sleeping Beauty (SB) system can be adapted and used to stably express CARs and TCRs to improve the therapeutic potential of clinical grade T cells. These clinical data serve as a foundation for additional genetic engineering to co-express transgenes to improve persistence as well as provide the opportunity for genome editing to eliminate undesired endogenous genes to improve T-cell potency. As genetically modified T cells achieve FDA approval and enter into the mainstream of clinical practice a central question remains how to broaden the number of recipients that can receive such immunotherapy. This anticipated need can met by the use of non-viral gene transfer which provides an avenue for academia and industry to develop distribution systems to widen the human application of next-generation T-cell therapies. Citation Format: Laurence Cooper. Nonviral gene transfer to redirect T cell specificity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR Inaugural International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; September 16-19, 2015; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(1 Suppl):Abstract nr IA47.
Framing Child Nutrition Programs: The Impact of Party and District Characteristics on Elite Framing*

Objective The objective of this article is to determine whether district characteristics impact the framing choices made by members of Congress. Certain frameworks may be more effective for creating policy change, and given that framing shapes the way humans conceptualize a problem space, framing should be a deliberate tool used in order to constrain the debate around certain problems. However, the actual details of debate shifts and issue framing often become a “black box” in theories of policy change. Methods The study uses content analysis of floor statements made over a 16-year period regarding the National School Lunch Program, the results of which are analyzed using a multinomial logistic regression. Results The results indicate that policy framing is highly dependent on district characteristics, but that language use itself does not appear to have changed significantly in the time period studied. Conclusions The evidence presented here indicates that legislators are, at least through floor statements, engaging in delegate representation of their district interests.
Use of Contraceptives for Older Women

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses currently available contraceptive options with the intent that they will be used for women over the age of 35 years. Combination oral contraceptives (COCs), containing both an estrogen and a progestin should be considered for those individuals over 35 years of age who do not smoke. The use of oral contraceptives in women who smoke cigarettes and are over the age of 35 is not recommended because of the reported increase in cardiovascular disease. The incidence is reported to be 400 cases per 100,000 women who smoke and are over the age of 35. The use of COCs in women with controlled hypertension or diabetes mellitus should be individualized. These medical conditions are felt to represent relative contraindications to the use of COCs. The contraceptive products that are available for young women are also available for women over the age of 35. However, the physician or health care provider should be aware of the fact that women over the age of 35 still have a pregnancy potential and take into consideration the woman's medical history, physical findings, and past contraceptive utilization before recommending or prescribing any of the contraceptive options.
Ultrafast Time-Resolved Hard X-Ray Emission Spectroscopy on a Tabletop

Probing electronic states on ultrafast timescales is critical for studies of chemical reactions. A tabletop method for performing time-resolved x-ray emission spectroscopy is presented and tested using a polypyridyl iron complex.
Evidence-Based Practices for Co-occurring Chemical Dependency and Mental Illness

Development of an integrated co-occurring disorder (COD) program in the community mental health center is essential for comprehensive care. Research shows that about half to two thirds of patients served by community mental health centers have ongoing or past substance use issues that profoundly impact diagnosis, treatment planning, and outcomes. Addiction is a chronic relapsing and remitting disorder that severely impacts the course, treatment and prognosis of mental illnesses and presents complex challenges for providers. Conversely, mental illness also impacts the course and treatment of the substance use disorder (SUD). Providers are in need of adequate training and supervision to work with this population and careful treatment planning with coordinated interventions is essential for success. Without the appropriate support, feelings of helplessness, therapeutic nihilism and burn-out will plague the mental health center staff. Clinicians unprepared to treat addictive disorders may avoid treating the COD patient, referring the individual to another treatment program, or alternatively make treatment demands that the individual cannot achieve. Better outcomes are possible and rewarding for both the participants and the providers by organizing effective interventions through practical evidence-based clinical approaches.
Preoperative Recipient Evaluation and Preparation (Kidney)

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has many causes and, if untreated, results in poor quality of life and a shortened life span. Kidney transplantation may increase both, making life more meaningful while increasing longevity. Unfortunately, however, CKD results in comorbid conditions. Therefore, preoperative evaluation to optimize health status before surgery is essential. This assessment will help determine which type of intraoperative monitoring to use and which anesthesia care plan is best.
Two-layered ensemble Kohonen nets for imbalanced streaming data

One of the dominant application areas of machine learning will be the industrial internet (Internet of Things), although most of the data will actually be confined to smaller internal networks and will not use the Internet. In this world of the industrial internet, streaming sensor data with rare events, such as machine or process failures and disruptions, will be the dominant form of data and it poses a particular problem for machine learning because its methods are generally not designed to handle imbalanced data. In this paper, I present a new classification algorithm for streaming imbalanced data that uses Kohonen nets at its core. To handle high-velocity streaming data, the proposed algorithm can be implemented on hardware to take advantage of massive parallelism. I provide an outline of the algorithm and some preliminary computational results.
Specialized Production of San Martín Orange Ware at Teotihuacan, Mexico

Specialized production forms an important component of the socioeconomic organization of ancient complex societies. Excavation provides critical information on the internal organization of production within a particular workshop and permits the recovery of features not preserved on the surface. In large settlements like Teotihuacan where modern occupation covers much of the ancient city, it is not feasible to fully excavate every suspected craft production locale. At Teotihuacan and in other complex societies, the use of surface indications to generate thematic maps permits discussion of the spatial relationships between economic and social units within the settlement. I use the surface collections made by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project and the partial excavation of one apartment compound and ceramic workshop in the Tlajinga district to consider the organization of specialized production in this neighborhood. I rely on the co-occurrence of ceramic production indicators to define likely workshops, using the surface collections from the excavated workshop as a reasonable indicator of production. Considering the evidence for vessel form specialization and dimensional standardization and previous ethnoarchaeological analyses of the excavated materials, Tlajinga district pottery production appears to have been maximally organized at the community level, with individual apartment compounds forming the basic production units.
Compressing the Gram Matrix for Learning Neural Networks in Polynomial Time

We consider the problem of learning function classes computed by neural networks with various activations (e.g. ReLU or Sigmoid), a task believed to be intractable in the worst-case. A major open problem is to understand the minimal assumptions under which these classes admit efficient algorithms. In this work we show that a natural distributional assumption on eigenvalue decay of the Gram matrix yields polynomial-time algorithms in the non-realizable setting for expressive classes of networks (e.g. feed-forward networks of ReLUs). We make no other assumptions on the network architecture or the labels. Given sufficiently-strong polynomial eigenvalue decay, we obtain fully-polynomial time algorithms in all the parameters with respect to square-loss. Milder decay also leads to improved algorithms. We are not aware of any prior work where an assumption on the marginal distribution alone leads to polynomial-time algorithms for networks of ReLUs, even with one hidden layer. Unlike prior assumptions (e.g., the marginal distribution is Gaussian), eigenvalue decay has been observed in practice on common data sets. Our algorithm applies to any function class that can be embedded in a suitable RKHS. The main technical contribution is a new approach for proving generalization bounds for kernelized regression using Compression Schemes as opposed to Rademacher bounds. In general, it is known that sample-complexity bounds for kernel methods must depend on the norm of the corresponding RKHS, which can quickly become large depending on the kernel function employed. We sidestep these worst-case bounds by sparsifying the Gram matrix using recent work on recursive Nystrom sampling due to Musco and Musco. We prove that our approximate, sparse hypothesis admits a compression scheme whose true error depends on the rate of eigenvalue decay.
Education isn’t everything (for infant immunity)

A deficit in tissue-resident memory T cell production helps explain virus susceptibility in early life.
The excision-generated effect of pterygium on the related corneal astigmatism

This herein-experimental study was purposely designed to understand the excision-generated effect of pterygium on the related corneal astigmatism (CA). This prospective study was conducted on 26 eyes of 18 patients (˂53 years old) with a primary-nasal pterygium that had attended Al-Diwaniyah Teaching Hospital, Al-Diwaniyah, Iraq during March 2016 to September 2017. The study involved 26 eyes that had different grades of pterygium (GP), 1 eye (3%) had GP I, 10 eyes (38%) had GP II, 9 eyes had GP III, and 6 eyes had GP IV. The astigmatism degrees vary with the GP. Preoperative means of astigmatism (PrMA) were 1.77+/-0.45 diopter (D) in GP I, 2.64+/0.77D in GP II, 3.65+/-1.53D in GP III, and 5.74+/-2.2D in GP IV. Interestingly, the degrees of astigmatism were decreased significantly post-pterygium removal. The PrMA, 3.45+/1.23, was reduced to postoperative mean astigmatism (PoMA) 1.71+/-0.99D. The preoperative mean of vision (PrMV), 0.5+/-0.4 was improved to 0.6+/-0.4. Corneal astigmatism was decreased after three months following the excisions. The current study concluded that the possible interference of these invasive tissues with the visual axis of the affected eyes. It also provides significant rates of visual improvements after performing these operations. In addition, visual acuity could be enhanced as soon as the surgical removals of these damaging tissues are done. Keywords: Astigmatism; Cornea; Excision; Pterygium
Compact image representation by binary component analysis

We propose binary component analysis (BCA) for compact image representation and apply it to fractional dimension reduction and Binaryface representation. BCA is similar to the widely used principal component analysis (PCA), but with the restriction of the base vectors taking binary values of +1 and −1, instead of real values. In a finite set of all binary vectors, the projection of the correlated data onto the binary components (BC) have the largest possible variances. BCA leads to fractional dimension reduction, where binary components successively reduce data variance. The top few BC's capture the largest variances, and each additional BC further reduces the variance by a fraction of the amount reduced in one dimension by PCA. BCA is applied to compact face representation as Binaryface and used for face classification.
Physician Responsibilities in a World of CAM

Introduction to the June 2011 issue of Virtual Mentor on the subject of complementary and alternative medicine.
Subthalamic Nucleus Deep Brain Stimulation with Microelectrode Recording Using a Frame

Potential surgical candidates with Parkinson’s disease (PD) are first preselected by a movement disorders neurologist, subsequently seen by multiple specialists, and ultimately rendered as surgical candidates through a series of discussions by each member of the multidisciplinary team during dedicated patient management conferences. Patients considered for a full presurgical evaluation are those with a clear diagnosis of progressive idiopathic PD and an adequate response to levodopa. The current state of surgery for movement disorders, particularly DBS, is in constant change. New technologies, in particular, neuronavigation, frames, and leads, fill up the neurosurgeon’s armamentarium with several options when providing care for these patients. This chapter provides a description of the indications, preoperative evaluation, targeting, and an overview of the technical nuances of DBS for PD, along with its complications.
CNS Relapse in Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia: Incidence, Management and Outcome

Abstract Abstract 1489 Background: A standardized approach to the diagnosis, prognosis and therapy of patients with APL and CNS involvement is limited by the rare nature of the complication. We report the incidence, risk factors, management and outcome of APL with CNS involvement at Stanford University and review the published cases in the literature during the prior three decades. Methods: Between 1983 and Jan 2012, 7 cases of APL with CNS involvement were identified at Stanford University and 65 in the literature during the same interval. All pts in the Stanford series received ATRA and anthracycline containing induction regimens followed by consolidation with anthracycline and cytarabine (7 pts), plus ATRA (5 pts), ATO (1 pt), or IT prophylaxis (1 pt). Five pts received maintenance with ATRA containing regimens in all cases (2 pts relapsed prior to starting maintenance). Median follow-up was 6 years. Results: Seventy-two relapses involving the CNS were seen after 1 to 50 months (median 8 months) and 61 (84.7%) occurred in CR1 with 8 (11.1%) in CR2, 2 (2.8%) in CR3 and 1 (1.4%) in CR4. Forty-seven (66.2%) were accompanied by bone marrow involvement, 14 (29.8%) molecular and 33 (70.2%) hematological. Median age was 35y with 9 pediatric pts (range 1.3 to 20y) and 63 adult pts (range 22 to 69y). Median WBC count was 28,100 cells/mm3 (range 1,100 to 162,000 cells/mm3) with 61.4% >10 and 6.8% >100 cells/mm3. PML/RARα isoform was reported in 29 pts with 37.9% bcr1, 3.4% bcr2, and 58.6% bcr3. Five pts presented with concurrent CNS-localized hemorrhage. Therapy included methotrexate (88.9%), cytarabine (80.6%), arsenic trioxide (ATO, 47.2%), and anthracycline (11.1%) containing regimens with 88.9% receiving intrathecal therapy. Eighty-six percent received cranial radiation with dose ranging 18 to 30 Gy. Autologous or allogeneic transplantation followed salvage therapy in 30.8% and 5.6% of pts, respectively. Fifty-four (75.0%) pts were salvaged successfully, including 88.2% of pts receiving ATO, however 18 (33.3%) pts later relapsed, 4 (22.2%) of which were salvaged with additional treatment. Conclusion: CNS relapse is a rare complications of APL with the majority of cases occurring in pts with WBC >10 cells/mm3, and in first CR. CNS relapse was frequently associated with concurrent bone marrow relapse and approximately one-third occurred with only molecular involvement. A preventative role of IT prophylaxis could not be determined due to only 1 pt receiving prophylaxis. A high percentage of pts salvaged with ATO achieved CR, supporting its therapeutic efficacy and ability to cross the blood brain barrier. Incorporation of ATO in first line therapy for APL may reduce the risk of CNS relapse. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Teacher labor markets: An overview

Abstract In recent decades, research has revealed the importance of teachers for student outcomes, as well as the extent to which access to high-quality teachers is inequitably distributed across students from different backgrounds. This chapter describes the methodological challenges confronting the study of teacher labor markets and the institutional features of these markets that influence that quality of teaching in public schools. We then describe three policy levers that have dominated teacher research and policy in recent years—teacher recruitment, teacher retention, and teacher development, each of which can potentially improve educational opportunities across student demographic. We close with research questions currently confronting policymakers and researchers.
Utilizing Google Trends to Assess Worldwide Interest in Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Commonly Associated Treatments

Examining the prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) across regions has been challenging given significant methodological heterogeneity. We aimed to perform a uniform assessment of the global burden of IBS using data from Google Trends, a novel, online tool. Google Trends measures popularity of a search term in a given week compared to popularity of all search terms in that week, calculated as relative search volume (RSV). We compiled data on the popularity of IBS and its treatments across 173 countries between 2014 and 2018. We compared Google Trends popularity for IBS with prior epidemiological prevalence data, while controlling for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and physician density. Of the 173 countries with Google Trends data, 137 countries also had data for GDP per capita and physician density. Worldwide popularity of IBS as a search topic increased from 79 to 89 (13% increase by RSV) over the 5-year period between 2014 and 2018. Country-specific change in IBS RSV ranged from − 35% (Nigeria) to + 64% (Pakistan). There was poor correlation between the Google Trends data and prior epidemiological data (0.08, Pearson correlation, p = 0.64). Popularity of the low-FODMAP diet increased the most among 8 common therapies (RSV 41 to 89, 117% increase). Google Trends is a novel tool that can complement traditional epidemiological methods in gastrointestinal disease. Future research is needed to assess its utility and accuracy as a measure of disease burden across different gastrointestinal diseases.
Developing Unique Insights From Narrative Responses to Bereaved Family Surveys.

Abstract Context Although bereaved family surveys (BFS) are routinely used quantitatively for quality assessment, open-ended and narrative responses are rarely systematically analyzed. Analysis of narrative responses may identify opportunities for improving end-of-life (EOL) care delivery. Objectives To highlight the value of routine and systematic analysis of narrative responses and to thematically summarize narrative responses to the BFS of Veterans Affairs. Methods We analyzed more than 4600 open-ended responses to the BFS for all 2017 inpatient decedents across Veterans Affairs facilities. We used a descriptive qualitative approach to identify major themes. Results Thematic findings clustered into three domains: patient needs, family needs, and facility and organizational characteristics. Patient needs include maintenance of veteran's hygiene, appropriately prescribing medications, adhering to patient wishes, physical presence in patient's final hours, and spiritual and religious care at EOL. Family and caregiver needs included enhanced communication with the patient's care team, assistance with administrative and logistical challenges after death, emotional support, and displays of respect and gratitude for the patient's life. Facility and organizational characteristics included care team coordination, optimal staffing, the importance of nonclinical staff to care, and optimizing facilities to be welcoming, equipped for individuals with disabilities, and able to provide high-quality food. Conclusion Systematic analysis of narrative survey data yields unique findings not routinely available through quantitative data collection and analysis. Organizations may benefit from the collection and regular analysis of narrative survey responses, which facilitate identification of needed improvements in palliative and EOL care that may improve the overall experiences for patients and families.