cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Aspirin Resistance: An Evaluation of Current Evidence and Measurement Methods

Aspirin resistance is a poorly characterized phenomenon, whereby certain patients do not benefit from the antithrombotic effect of aspirin. The frequency of aspirin resistance is unknown, but estimates range from 5-60%. The mechanism of aspirin resistance also is unknown; proposed mechanisms are poor patient compliance, poor aspirin absorption, increased isoprostane activity, platelet hypersensitivity to agonists, increased cyclooxygenase-2 activity, a cyclooxygenase-1 polymorphism, and the platelet alloantigen 2 polymorphism of platelet glycoprotein IIIa. Aspirin resistance appears to be dose related in some patients and therefore may be overcome with high doses. Evidence indicates that aspirin resistance is a dynamic state, with significant intrapatient variability in aspirin sensitivity with time. To date, a sensitive and specific assay of aspirin effect that reliably predicts treatment failure has not emerged. However, several commercially available products are being marketed for this purpose without convincing clinical data. Despite a wealth of literature on the topic, aspirin resistance remains an enigma. Further investigation is needed regarding strategies to identify and treat patients resistant to aspirin.
Midwest Guardrail System Adjacent to a 2:1 Slope

A W-beam guardrail is often used to protect motorists from steep roadside slopes adjacent to high-speed roadways. Although previously designed systems have demonstrated acceptable safety performance, the long posts and half-post spacing have proven to be costly and introduce maintenance challenges. Using longer posts is more economical to users than having a system with posts installed at half-post spacing. Furthermore, the improved redirective capacity of the Midwest Guardrail System (MGS) provides the opportunity to eliminate the need for half-post spacing and thereby greatly reduces the cost of placing a barrier at the slope break point. A stiffened version of the MGS was developed for use adjacent to steep roadside slopes. The new design incorporates 2,743-mm (9-ft) long posts with 1,905-mm (75-in.) spacing. With the top of the W-beam mounted at a height of 787 mm (31 in.), this guardrail was successfully crash tested according to the currently proposed NCHRP Report 350 Update safety performance evalu...
Corporate investment in social responsibility versus dividends

Purpose – The paper aims to examine whether corporate investment in social responsibility takes away from expected dividends.Design/methodology/approach – The article builds two hypotheses that are tested empirically through the analysis of 17,670 US firm‐year observations covering the period 1991‐2007. The tests are conducted in both univariate and multivariate settings.Findings – The evidence supports the hypothesis that mature firms tend to invest more in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Specifically, firms investing highly in CSR tend to be larger, more profitable, and with greater earned (rather than contributed) equity. The evidence also supports the hypothesis that CSR investment does not subtract from dividends. Instead, CSR effort and dividend tend to increase together. Thus, CSR investment tends to be effected by companies who can afford it, and it does not lower value by lowering investors' expected payout.Practical implications – These results imply that spending resources on CSR does no...
The limits of economic globalization : Still another north-south cleavage?

Economic globalization has loomed, at least for some, as the world system's next crisis carrier. Globalization is said to accelerate economic growth rates, compel closer economic interactions throughout the globe, and trample on the distinctiveness of local cultures and sovereignty. While we accept the existence of economic globalization, our question in this article is whether it, or at least one important dimension of it, is truly a 'global' process. A number of cleavages that have characterized the global North and South in the past appear to be growing more acute. Globalization, predicated on a motor of global economic growth, should be expected to be less than universal if the pulsations and effects of global economic growth are less than universal across the global South and North. That being the case, our theory anticipates that one aspect of economic globalization, conceptualized here as economic openness to exports, and measured by the ratio of export value to economic output, will be more discernible in the global North, than in the global South. Moreover, trade globalization in the North should be positively affected by a rise in world economic growth and systemic leadership, whereas trade globalization in the South should be driven largely by Southern autonomous inertia and periodic economic crises. The empirical results largely support our theoretical expectations.
Couples Therapy With Borderline Personality Disordered Individuals

Couples who present for therapy with one person having borderline personality disorder (BPD) are a challenge for even the most seasoned couples counselor. Some have argued that couples counseling should not be attempted until the person diagnosed with BPD has completed successful individual treatment. However, there is a growing body of research addressing effective marital therapy with particularly difficult couples and also a research-based approach, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), used to work with borderline personality disorder. Linehan's DBT and Gottman's method for couples therapy form the foundation for the work conducted with these couples. A case study illustrates how these models are used.
Mitosis in the Rat Uterus during the Estrous Cycle, Early Pregnancy, and Early Pseudopregnancy

Mitotic activity was assessed in the endometrium and myometrium of the rat uterus during the estrous cycle, early pregnancy, and electrically induced pseudopregnancy. At proestrus there was pronounced proliferation in the luminal epitheliuni, the stroma, and in the myometrium. Glandular proliferation occurred only during diestrus. During progestation, epithelial proliferation occurred on the first2 days of diestrus and then ceased, while stromal mitosis began about 70 h after ovulation, reached maximal intensity during the 4th day of pregnancy or pseudopregnancy, and subsided gradually thereafter. A resurgence of mitotic activity began only in the vicinity of the implanting blastocyst late on Day 5 of pregnancy. Myometrial proliferation also occurred during progestation, on Days 4 and 5. The occurrence of mitosis in the stroma during the estrous cycle indicates that the cyclic corpus luteum secretes functionally significant amounts of progesterone.
Reduction of Phase Noise in Interferometry with State-Space Analysis

In radio mapping, one of the problems encountered is the random bias in the visibility estimate. The bias can be divided into two parts: (a) the positive bias due to the common sky background seen by all elements of the interferometer, and (b) the negative bias due to phase noise present in the system. The first kind of bias can be easily removed by subtracting the correlation between the signals at two interferometer sites when the source is not in the antenna beams from that measured with the source in the antenna beams. This bias will therefore not be considered here. In contrast, the second kind of bias is more difficult to remove. When the signal-to-noise ratio of the interferometer system is high, incoherent averaging techniques can be utilized in the fringe frequency or in the time domain (Clark et al., 1969; Moran, 1973).
Shamanism and Altered States of Consciousness

There has been a renewed interest in psychology and anthropology in the idea of altered states of consciousness. This paper begins by examining the meaning of this term and the extent to which such experiences are reported globally. The topic of shamanism is then discussed, first with respect to its social functions, and then to what is known about its psychological aspects (which is little). Far more is known about altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as they are expressed in meditation, trance and possession, and channeling, and a number of studies are reviewed, both of individuals and of groups, which illustrate the full extent of ASCs. The following section then goes more deeply into the stimulus situations that are associated with ASCs. This brings the discussion into drugs, attempts at altering the sensorium (music and imagery in particular) and recent technological innovations, peculiar to our time, which deliberately alter our usual state of awareness through feedback principles. In the final section, what is known about the physiology of ASCs is reviewed and also the extent to which these phenomena, including shamanism, are regarded as pathological. As a great number of people across the world utilize the healing aspects of trance, possession and shamanic practices, this aspect is discussed, and lastly the adaptive functions of ASCs are considered, with their context in the history of psychology.
Simultaneous measurement of bactericidal activity and glucose oxidation in the human granulocyte.

Summary. A new technique for simultaneously measuring phagocytosis-stimulated glucose oxidation and bactericidal activity in granulocytes is presented. This procedure provides a simple means for rapidly determining phagocytosis-stimulated glucose oxidation and allows for correlation of that variable with bactericidal activity on a single blood sample.
Halftoning-Inspired Methods for Foveation in Variable-Acuity Superpixel Imager Cameras

We compare approaches for generating binary control signals for variable acuity superpixel imager (VASI™) cameras. We foveate a set of images using control signals generated by various halftoning approaches and then measure their performance via figures of merit (FOMs). We find that two novel approaches provide superior FOM values but inferior bandwidth control, making them unsuitable for use with VASI™ cameras. Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion gives the best combination of FOM values and bandwidth control. Our contributions include a comparison of approaches, a lookup table method to improve bandwidth control, and two novel methods for binarizing VASI™ control signals. I. INTRODUCTION Our objective is to compare how different halftoning- inspired approaches perform at generating the binary control signals used by Variable Acuity Superpixel Imager (VASI™) foveating cameras, in the context of an automatic target acquisition and recognition (ATA/ATR) application. To accomplish this, we measure five objective figures of merit (FOMs) after foveating a small set of test images with a variety of halftoning-inspired approaches. VASI™ cameras have a number of characteristics that are attractive for the ATR application, but to use them the user must specify a binary control signal that defines the camera's pixel-by-pixel behavior. The translation from a continuous- valued desired resolution signal to a binary VASI™ control signal can be based on halftoning. It must be efficient to avoid lowering the camera's effective frame rate. It must also accurately achieve the target resolution - or equivalently a target bandwidth reduction, which we express as percentage of original bandwidth (PBW) - because this drives the frame rate achieved by the VASI™ camera.
Cumulative exposure to short sleep and body mass outcomes: a prospective study

Summary Short sleep duration is associated with excess body mass among adolescents and young adults. The mechanisms theorized to drive that association suggest that persistent exposure to short sleep should be associated with greater accumulations of body mass. We use prospective cohort data from four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (1994–2009; n = 14 800) to examine associations between cumulative exposure to short sleep throughout adolescence and early adulthood and obesity and elevated waist circumference outcomes. We compare several clinical and distribution-based standards of short sleep to assess which measures are associated most strongly with body mass. Cumulative exposure to short sleep exhibits dose–response associations with obesity and elevated waist circumference. Relative to respondents with no instances of short sleep, those who slept −0.50 standard deviations or less than the age and sex-specific average sleep hours in all four waves had 1.45 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.03, 2.04] times the odds of being obese and 1.45 (95% CI: 1.02, 2.06) times the odds of having an elevated waist circumference. Our findings suggest that cumulative exposure to short sleep during adolescence and young adulthood may play an important role in the etiology of obesity and elevated waist circumference during this important developmental period.
The haptic profile: capturing the feel of switches

The "feel" of a switch depends not only on the dynamics of the switch itself, but also on the motion and dynamics of the human hand that actuates it. We have measured dynamic quantities during human actuation of a switch. We present a graphical representation technique called the "haptic profile" which emphasizes aspects of the feel of a switch as it is actuated, while minimizing the variability due to human actuation. When designing new switches, it is important to have the ability to specify, measure, and then verify the haptic properties of a switch. In order to do so, quantitative measures are required; qualitative descriptors of the haptic experience are insufficient. In this paper, we discuss the motivation and an apparatus for collecting the necessary haptic data.
Assessment of stallion sperm membrane integrity using three different flow cytometric methods

An experiment was conducted to characterize the changes in sperm membrane integrity (SMI;%) and sperm motility (MOT;%) in extended stallion semen following cooled storage for up to 10 days. Three gel-free ejaculates from each of five stallions (n1⁄415) were diluted in INRA 96 extender (IMV Technologies, L’Aigle, France) to a concentration of 50 x 106 sperm/mL, and then subjected to cushioned centrifugation at 400 x g for 20 min in glass nipplebottom tubes. Following removal of supernatant, sperm pellets were resuspended to approximately 30 x 106 sperm/ mL in the same extender containing 10% (v/v) fresh, homologous seminal plasma derived by centrifugation of raw semen and filtration of resulting seminal plasma from the same ejaculate. Ten aliquots of extended semen per ejaculate were stored in an Equitainer II (Hamilton Research, Inc., South Hamilton, MA, USA) for 24 h, then transferred to a refrigerator set at 4 C for up to 9 additional days. Sperm membrane integrity was evaluated daily by flow cytometry (FACScan; Becton Dickinson, Mountain View, CA) using three different fluorescent staining protocols: Pisum sativum agglutinin and propidium iodide (PSA-PI); SYBR-14, propidium iodide, and JC-1 (SYPIJC); and SNARF-1, Yo-Pro1, and ethidium homodimer (SYE). Dimethylsulfoxide was required as a solvent for some fluorescent probes, but final concentration of dimethylsulfoxide was held at less than
Investigation Into The General Acceptance Of AACSB Ethics Standards

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has long required the integration of ethics into the accounting curriculum of accredited schools. Little research investigates how this requirement is implemented. We conduct a survey of accredited and non- accredited institutions to determine how ethics are integrated into the accounting curriculum. Results of this survey are of interest to individuals at accredited and non-accredited schools.
The reliability and validity of a wellness inventory.

Health was once defined as the absence of disease. The notion of health changed in 1947, when the World Health Organization defined health as a state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity? Further expansion of the definition of health has led to today’s use of the term "wellness." Wellness is the process by which one responsibly identifies areas of life in need of improvement and subsequently makes choices conducive to a more satisfying life style. TestWell, Wellness Inventory reportedly measures the extent to which lifestyle behaviors reflect potential risks and hazards. 2 However, evidence that TestWell was developed according to a research methodology or statistical test does not exist. The absence of a delphi panel, factor analysis, norm reference, or field test warrants investigations into TestWell’s utility among a variety of populations. Jones and Frazier -~ tested the hypothesis that wellness professionals possess high levels of both wellness and selfesteem. Total serf-esteem scores correlated with total TestWell scores (r = .59; p < .05). Jones and Frazier calculated a Cronbach coefficient alpha of .84 for TestWell. Owen4 sought to investigate the extent to which TestWell is a reliable and valid instrument for use with high school students. Owen calculated a Cronbach coefficient alpha of .90 for TestWell. Coefficient alphas of .67 or above were calculated for 9 of 10 subscales. Correlation coefficients between TestWell’s 10 subscales and the total TestWell score ranged from .42 to .74. All were statistically significant. The purpose of this study was to identify the extent to which TestWell is a reliable and valid instrument for use
Integrating NLP Tools in a Distributed Environment: A Case Study Chaining a Tagger with a Dependency Parser

The present paper tackles the issue of PoS tag conversion within the framework of a distributed web service platform for the automatic creation of language resources. PoS tagging is now considered a “solved problem”; yet, because of the differences in the tagsets, interchange of the various PoS taggers available is still hampered. In this paper we describe the implementation of a PoS-tagged-corpus converter, which is needed for chaining together in a workflow the FreeLing PoS tagger for Italian and the DESR dependency parser, given that these two tools have been developed independently. The conversion problems experienced during the implementation, related to the properties of the different tagsets and of tagset conversion in general, are discussed together with the solutions adopted. Finally, the converter is evaluated by assessing the impact of conversion on the performance of the dependency parser by comparing with the outcome of the native pipeline. From this we learn that in most cases parsing errors are due to actual tagging errors, and not to conversion itself. Besides, information on accuracy loss is an important feature in a distributed environment of (NLP) services, where users need to decide which services best suit their needs.
Electrophysiology and neuropharmacology of noradrenergic projections to rat PVN magnocellular neurons

Responses of electrophysiologically identified tuberohypophysial paraventricular nucleus (PVN) neurons were examined following electrical stimulation of the A1, A2, A6, and C2 catecholaminergic cell groups and of the ventral noradrenergic ascending bundle (VNAB). A1, A2, and A6 stimulation evoked primarily excitatory responses from the cells recorded, but C2 stimulation yielded a greater proportion of inhibitory responses. VNAB stimulation at low frequencies (0.5/5 Hz) excited the majority of cells tested, but high-frequency (50 Hz) trains of stimulation reversed the direction of response to inhibition for approximately half of the cells excited by single-shock stimulation. Only 5-Hz stimulation had any affect on blood pressure, causing a slight increase. Treatment with alpha-methylparatyrosine, to inhibit (nor) epinephrine synthesis, reduced the proportion of excitatory responses and prevented the response reversals following 50-Hz VNAB stimulation. Treatment with 6-hydroxydopamine also reduced the proportion of cells excited by VNAB stimulation. Iontophoresis of either norepinephrine or the alpha 1-adrenoceptor agonist l-phenylephrine increased the activity of most cells tested whilst the alpha 1-antagonist ergotamine reduced the activity of most cells tested and prevented excitation elicited by VNAB stimulation. The alpha 2-agonist clonidine excited all cells tested. The beta-antagonist propranolol increased the activity of the majority of cells and prevented inhibitory responses following 50-Hz VNAB stimulation. The results confirm a role for brain stem projections in regulating PVN neuronal activity and demonstrate for the first time that the VNAB provides excitatory input to the PVN, primarily regulated by alpha 1-adrenoceptors. The effects of propranolol on spontaneous activity, and on the inhibitory responses following high-frequency VNAB stimulation, indicate the presence of an inhibitory counterbalancing beta-adrenoceptor mechanism.
Americans in Paris: Why Judge Advocate Reservists with French Proficiency Should Attend the French Army Reserve Staff Officer Course

The French Army Reserve’s Superior-Level Staff Officer Course, or the Cours superieur des officiers de reserve specialistes d’etat-major (CSORSEM) is the only short-term (three weeks), multinational, combined arms, brigade-level, battle staff officer course in the world available to U.S. military officers. The CSORSEM is open to non-combat and combat support officers, including judge advocates. The CSORSEM is also unique because it is designed for reservists, although it is open to both reservists and active duty Soldiers. This article explains what CSORSEM is, how judge advocate reservists can apply and prepare for its final three-week stage, and how CSORSEM supplements judge advocates’ staff officer education through classroom instruction and simulated brigade-level exercises provided in a foreign context.
Are Audio Reserves Still Relevant in Libraries

Over the past decade, audio consumption experienced several significant transitions: from a paradigm of CD purchases to audio downloads to—most recently—a streaming model. In order for academic librarians to best support student needs, an understanding of their listening practices and preferences is essential. This study surveyed students in 11 music courses with listening assignments and examined their academic use of various music resources. Results indicated that most commercial streaming audio services enjoyed for personal use are not as appropriate for course study. The one exception was YouTube, which ranked as the most commonly cited resource for both personal and academic consumption.
Towards repurposing the yeast peroxisome for compartmentalizing heterologous metabolic pathways

Compartmentalization of enzymes into organelles is a promising strategy for limiting metabolic crosstalk and improving pathway efficiency, but improved tools and design rules are needed to make this strategy available to more engineered pathways. Here we focus on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae peroxisome and develop a sensitive high-throughput assay for peroxisomal cargo import. We identify an enhanced peroxisomal targeting signal type 1 (PTS1) for rapidly sequestering non-native cargo proteins. Additionally, we perform the first systematic in vivo measurements of nonspecific metabolite permeability across the peroxisomal membrane using a polymer exclusion assay. Finally, we apply these new insights to compartmentalize a two-enzyme pathway in the peroxisome and characterize the expression regimes where compartmentalization leads to improved product titre. This work builds a foundation for using the peroxisome as a synthetic organelle, highlighting both promise and future challenges on the way to realizing this goal.
Chromosome Studies of Pocket Gophers, Genus Thomomys. I. The Specific Status of Thomomys umbrinus (Richardson) in Arizona

The complexities of morphology and, hence, taxonomy of pocket gophers (genus Thomomys ) in southern Arizona are reflected by extreme interpopulation chromosomal variation in both T. bottae (2 n = 76) and T. umbrinus (2 n = 78). The variation consists of differing numbers of morphological types of chromosomes for nearly each population karyotype. The known range of variation in either species is less than the amount of difference between the two. A somewhat strict ecological separation exists between T. bottae and T. umbrinus in areas of sympatry or near sympatry, with the former preferring the more friable soils of the valley floors and mountain tops and the latter confined to the indurate soils of the oak zones at intermediate elevations. Chromosomal and ecological concordance support the interpretation that T. bottae and T. umbrinus are distinct species. Limited hybridization between the two species at one locality of sympatric contact, however, is known.
A note on a population model for breeding colonies

A discrete-time population model is presented which is specific to the characteristics of a breeding colony. It is intended to be a rigorous yet an easily applied model. The model is based on a female-dominated demographic system with constraints on colony size. Fecundity and survival probabilities are incorporated into a net reproductive rate which is age-specific and time and population size invariant. The model is applied to solve an optimization problem for a breeding colony of African Green monkeys and to examine a set of external constraints imposed on the colony.
Clinical Analysis of He-Ne Lasers Combined with Comprehensive Therapy in the Treatment of Amblyopia in Children

Objective To analyze and research the clinical effect of he-Ne Lasers combined with comprehensive therapy in the treatment of amblyopia in children. Methods 106 cases of amblyopia children treated from September 2013 to October2014 were selected and divided into two groups according to the treatment method, the control group(50 cases) received red light flashing method and fine eyesight training treatment, the observation group(56 cases) received He-Ne Lasers combined with comprehensive therapy and the method and effect of which were compared. Results In the observation group, the basic cure rates of mild, moderate and severe were 77.3%, 63.3% and 46.2% respectively, the basic cure rates at the age of4-7, 8-11 and 12-15 were 66.7%,58.0% and 20.0% respectively, in the control group, the basic cure rates of mild, moderate and severe were 55.0%, 46.4% and 40.9% respectively, the basic cure rates at the age of 4-7, 8-11 and 12-15 were60.5%,30.8% and 16.7%, the lower the degree of illness, the more obvious the effect, the younger the age, the more obvious the effect, the basic cute rate of central fixation(58.7%) was better than that of non-central fixation(10.0%), the difference was statistically significant, P0.05. There were no complications during the period of statistics and treatment. Conclusion He-Ne Lasers combined with comprehensive therapy in the treatment of amblyopia in children has obvious effects, and we should find it in time.
The Energy Landscape of the Mouse Cargome: A Mechanically Sensitive Family of Genes

Myocardin related transcription factor (MRTF) and serum response factor (SRF) co-regulate hundreds of genes across thousands of sites in the genome through the CArG box cis element (canonically CC-W6-GG). Their signaling can be pathological in pulmonary fibrosis where increased extracellular matrix stiffness drives nuclear translocation of MRTF - but how this increase in transcription factor concentration acts across the “CArGome” is not understood. We are using a high-throughput ‘seq’ based approach to identify the in vitro binding affinity of the various CArG permutations for SRF and for SRF-MRTF complexes. The power of this approach allows us to investigate all possible consensus (64 possible sequences) and single mutant (768 possible sequences) using traditional EMSA-based approaches. Additionally we aim to identify cooperativity effects between MRTF and SRF in a sequence dependent fashion. These sequence sets (consensus and single mutants) account for up to 70% of all naturally occurring murine CArG boxes and understanding this energy landscape will facilitate the development of thermodynamic models for understanding the gene specific, mechanically driven behavior of MRTF/SRF across the genome. These models may be useful in understanding a variety of soft-tissue fibrotic conditions and other pathological processes, like metastasis, that appear MRTF/SRF responsive.
TCR independent suppression of CD8+ T cell cytokine production mediated by IFNγ in vivo

CD8(+) memory T cells produce IFNγ within hours of secondary infection, but this is quickly terminated in vivo despite the presence of stimulatory viral antigen, suggesting that active suppression occurs. Herein, we investigated the in vivo effector function of CD8(+) memory T cells during successive encounters with viral antigen. CD8(+) T cells in immune mice receiving prior viral or peptide challenge failed to reproduce IFNγ during LCMV rechallenge. Surprisingly, this refractory state was induced even in memory cells that had not encountered their cognate antigen, indicating that the silencing of CD8(+) T cell responses is TCR-independent. Direct injection of IFNγ also suppressed the ability of virus-specific memory cells to respond to subsequent viral challenge. We propose the existence of a negative feedback loop whereby IFNγ, produced by memory CD8(+) T cells to combat viral challenge, acts - directly or indirectly - to limit its further production.
Understanding Structure, Metal Distribution, and Water Adsorption in Mixed-Metal MOF-74

We present a joint computational and experimental study of Mg–Ni-MOF-74 and Mg–Cd-MOF-74 to gain insight into the mixing of metals and understand how metal mixing affects the structure of the undercoordinated open-metal sites. Our calculations predict that metal mixing is energetically preferred in these materials. Recent experimental work has demonstrated that Mg–Ni-MOF-74 shows a much greater surface area retention in the presence of water than Mg-MOF-74. To probe this effect, we study H2O adsorption in Mg–Ni-MOF-74, finding that the adsorption energetics and electronic structure do not change significantly at the metal sites when compared to Mg-MOF-74 and Ni-MOF-74, respectively. We conclude that the increased stability of Mg–Ni-MOF-74 is a result of a M–O bond length distortion in mixed-metal MOF-74, consistent with recent work on the stability of MOF-74 under water exposure.
From cholesterol to consciousness

The nature of consciousness has been debated for centuries. It can be understood as part and parcel of the natural progression of life from unicellular to multicellular, calcium fluxes mediating communication within and between cells. Consciousness is the vertical integration of calcium fluxes, mediated by the Target of Rapamycin gene integrated with the cytoskeleton. The premise of this paper is that there is a fundamental physiologic integration of the organism with the environment that constitutes consciousness.
How are multifactorial beliefs about the role of genetics and behavior in cancer causation associated with cancer risk cognitions and emotions in the US population

Objective People who believe that cancer has both genetic and behavioral risk factors have more accurate mental models of cancer causation and may be more likely to engage in cancer screening behaviors than people who do not hold such multifactorial causal beliefs. This research explored possible health cognitions and emotions that might produce such differences. Methods Using nationally representative cross-sectional data from the U.S. Health Information National Trends Survey (N=2,719), we examined whether endorsing a multifactorial model of cancer causation was associated with perceptions of risk and other cancer-related cognitions and affect. Data were analyzed using linear regression with jackknife variance estimation and procedures to account for the complex survey design and weightings. Results Bivariate and multivariable analyses indicated that people who endorsed multifactorial beliefs about cancer had higher absolute risk perceptions, lower pessimism about cancer prevention, and higher worry about harm from environmental toxins that could be ingested or that emanate from consumer products (ps 0.05). Conclusion Holding multifactorial causal beliefs about cancer are associated with a constellation of risk perceptions, health cognitions, and affect that may motivate cancer prevention and detection behavior.
Exceptional Pyritized Cyanobacterial Mats Encrusting Brachiopod Shells from the Upper Ordovician (katian) of the Cincinnati, Ohio, Region

Abstract: Pyritized filamentous cyanobacteria have been discovered by scanning electron microscopy of Ordovician brachiopods from nineteenth century collections in the Natural History Museum, London. The cyanobacteria form mats on strophomenid brachiopods from the Cincinnatian Group (Upper Ordovician, Katian) near or in Cincinnati, Ohio. There is no additional stratigraphic or locality information. The cyanobacteria are found only on the concave exterior surfaces of dorsal valves. Most comprise uniserial, unbranching strands of cells that range from 5 to 9 micrometers in length and width. Some strands are up to 700 micrometers long and most are sinuous. There are no heterocysts or akinetes. The pyritic molds of some cells have a reticulate structure on their surfaces, with each unit a few hundred nanometers in diameter, interpreted as due to framboid microcrystal growth within an organic matrix. A few specimens show what may be extracellular matrix. These Ordovician microbes resemble cyanobacteria belongi...
The new Voteview.com: preserving and continuing Keith Poole’s infrastructure for scholars, students and observers of Congress

For the last 40 years, Keith Poole has developed and curated a trove of basic data and measurements related to the United States Congress. He has made these resources freely available through his widely-used Voteview.com website since 1995. At Poole’s Voteview.com, scholars, students, journalists, and the broader public could download gold-standard historical and current roll-call voting data, member rosters, NOMINATE scores, and measures and visualizations of party cohesion and polarization, among many other useful things. In this article, we describe how we are preserving and continuing these vast public-goods contributions through the new Voteview.com. Developed and housed at UCLA, the new Voteview.com carries on the creation of basic roll-call data infrastructure, including the assignment of Poole’s widely-used ICPSR number-like identifiers to new members, data on every roll-call vote ever taken, NOMINATE scores and other standard roll-call vote-based measures such as party-loyalty scores. In addition to serving as a platform for the continuation and dissemination of this basic data infrastructure, the new Voteview.com also provides powerful tools for exploring the history of roll-call voting, the US Congress, and American politics and political history through a simple search interface and interactive visualizations.
An Exemplar for Teaching and Learning Qualitative Research

In this article, we outline a course wherein the instructors teach students how to conduct rigorous qualitative research. We discuss the four major distinct, but overlapping, phases of the course: conceptual/theoretical, technical, applied, and emergent scholar. Students write several qualitative reports, called qualitative notebooks, which involve data that they collect (via three different types of interviews), analyze (using nine qualitative analysis techniques via qualitative software), and interpret. Each notebook is edited by the instructors to help them improve the quality of subsequent notebook reports. Finally, we advocate asking students who have previously taken this course to team-teach future courses. We hope that our exemplar for teaching and learning qualitative
Direct Writing with a Combined STM/SEM System

We review our work on the use of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) for the fabrication of nano-scale metallic wires. Our process is essentially a very localized chemical vapor deposition (CVD), where the organic precursor gas is broken with the electrons coming from the STM tip. This process has produced lines as narrow as 10 nm. We have also etched holes in silicon with diameters down to 20 nm. More recently we have built an STM inside a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The latter allows us to accurately align the STM tip with contact pads on the surface of the substrate. This has made it possible to measure the electrical properties of narrow nickel wires, which is the first four-point measurement of a structure made by STM. The work of other groups in this field will also be reviewed briefly.
Swelling of Gels and Diffusion of Molecules

The kinetics of swelling and shrinking of gels is studied. A new relation, in addition to the differential equation developed by Tanaka and Fillmore, is formulated to solve the kinetics of gels having arbitrary shape. The gel kinetics is described as a combination of the collective diffusion with finite rate and immediate relaxation of shear deformation. The relation demonstrates the fundamental differences between the gel kinetics and the molecules diffusion process. The difference is a direct result of the existence of the shear modulus of the gel network system. Some interesting details of our theory are further discussed.
Transformation of Vascular Endothelial Cells into Multipotent Stem-Like Cells: Role of the Activin-Like Kinase 2 Receptor

Vascular endothelial cells demonstrate remarkable plasticity and differentiate into other cell types during embryonic development and disease progression. This occurs through a process known as endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) in which endothelial cells acquire properties of mesenchymal stem cells, including multipotency. In this chapter, we will discuss current evidence of EndMT and its contribution to the generation of stem cell phenotype. We will describe the role of EndMT in generating fibroblasts or myofibroblasts in cardiac development, cancer and fibrosis, as well as EndMT-dependent formation of heterotopic bone. Finally, we will discuss the biochemical signaling mechanisms that control EndMT and strategies to inhibit this change in cellular phenotype.
Gene–Environment Interplay

Although the social and behavioral sciences were long divided over the relative sway of nature and nurture, an emerging field of inquiry, the study of gene-environment interplay, seeks to undermine these distinctions by looking at how these influences on social and behavioral outcomes are interdependent. This article provides a brief overview of three forms of gene-environment interplay: additive genetic and environmental effects, gene-environment correlations, and gene-environment interactions. A distinction is drawn between statistical genetic and molecular genetic models of gene-environment interactions. Finally, a variety of models of gene-environment interactions are described, and the limitations of current research on gene-environment interplay are briefly assessed.
Additional Benefits of Federal Air-Quality Rules: Model Estimates of Controllable Biogenic Secondary Organic Aerosol

Atmospheric models that accurately describe the fate and transport of trace species for the right reasons aid in the development of effective air-quality management strategies that safeguard human health. Controllable emissions facilitate the formation of biogenic secondary organic aerosol (BSOA) to enhance the atmospheric fine particulate matter (PM2.5) burden. Previous modeling with the EPA’s Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model predicted that anthropogenic primary organic aerosol (POA) emissions had the greatest impact on BSOA. That experiment included formation processes involving semivolatile partitioning but not aerosol liquid water (ALW), a ubiquitous PM constituent. We conduct 17 summertime CMAQ simulations with updated chemistry and evaluate changes in BSOA due to the removal of individual pollutants and source sectors for the contiguous U.S. CMAQ predicts SO2 from electricity generating units, and mobile source NOX emissions have the largest impacts on BSOA. The removal of anthropogenic...
IgE deficiency and prior diagnosis of malignancy: Results of the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

ABSTRACT Background Data on patients from tertiary-level health care facilities suggest that IgE-deficient (IgE Objective To investigate the association between IgE levels and diagnosis of malignancy in non–institution-associated patients using the 2005-2006 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cohort. Methods All individuals with available IgE levels and known prior diagnosis of malignancy were divided into 4 groups: IgE deficient (IgE, Results Of 4,488 individuals with data on IgE levels and malignancy status, 7.4% had a prior diagnosis of cancer. The rate of prior malignancy was significantly higher in the IgE-deficient group (12.6%) compared with individuals with high (6.7%, P = .04) and very high IgE levels (5.3%, P = 0.04). In the IgE-deficient group, only 3 patients had a diagnosis of malignancy within 3 years of IgE measurement. A mean (SD) of 10.3 (9.6) years elapsed between the time of malignancy diagnosis and IgE collection time; therefore, active neoplasm or recent chemotherapy was less likely to explain the very low IgE levels. Types of malignancies in the IgE-deficiency group included breast cancer (n = 6), nonmelanoma or unknown skin cancer (n = 3), uterine cancer (n = 2), cervical cancer (n = 1), lung cancer (n = 1), prostate cancer (n = 1), and hematologic cancer (n = 1). Conclusion In this non–institution-based cohort, IgE deficiency was associated with a higher rate of prior diagnosis of malignancies compared with individuals with high or very high IgE levels. Prospective studies are essential to better evaluate the association between IgE levels and risk of cancer.
The Case of Baby G

At 23-week gestation, an infant was born at the county safety net hospital. The parents were from Nigeria. After landing in the USA as refugees for the first time, the mother quickly developed premature rupture of membranes and preterm labor (likely related to the stress of the travel) and gave birth to the baby (we can call baby G) at just 23 weeks. The mother did not have any prenatal care in Nigeria. The child had three siblings ages 1, 3, and 5 years old. The entire family did not speak any English, and they were from a small ethnic community that spoke a dialect often unavailable via the interpreter line service in the hospital. The Nigerian physician on the hospital staff also needed the interpreter line to communicate with the family.
Filler-Associated Vision Loss

Soft tissue fillers continue to gain popularity in addressing volume loss and changes associated with facial aging. The rare but devastating complication from iatrogenic vascular occlusion can result in irreversible vision loss. This article discusses the complications of vision loss associated with fillers and reviews applicable treatment techniques and prevention methods.
Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I antibodies and transfusion support in paediatric HLA‐matched haematopoietic cell transplant for sickle cell disease

The relevance of donor-specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) antibodies in HLA-mismatched haematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) is known, but the importance of HLA antibodies in HLA-matched HCT is unclear. We hypothesized that HLA antibodies detected before HCT would cause platelet transfusion refractoriness during HCT and investigated this in a multi-centre study. Pre-HCT samples from 45 paediatric patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) undergoing HLA-matched HCT were tested for HLA class I antibodies. The number of platelet transfusions received before day +45 was compared between those with and without antibodies. Thirteen of 45 (29%) patients had a positive HLA class I antibody screen, and these patients received significantly more platelet transfusions than patients without antibodies (median 19 vs. 7·5, P = 0·028). This platelet transfusion association remained significant when controlling for conditioning regimen. Among alloimmunized patients, there was no association between the panel-reactive antibody and the number of platelet transfusions. Patients with HLA class I antibodies also had a higher incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD): 6/13 (46%) vs. 3/32 (9%), P = 0·011. Pre-HCT HLA class I alloimmunization is associated with increased platelet transfusion support and acute GVHD in paediatric HLA-matched HCT for SCD. Further studies are needed to investigate the pathobiology of this association.
The life-cycles of skin replacement technologies.

Introduction Skin Replacement Technologies (SRTs) emerged as skin alternatives for burns, large excisions or trauma. The original publications represent the available knowledge on a subject and can be modeled as a logistic S-curve which depicts the technology's evolution life-cycle. The Technology Innovation Maturation Evaluation (TIME) model was previously introduced to study the life-cycles of biotechnologies. Methods PubMed database was searched 1900-2015 to review relevant publications. All skin replacement or regeneration products on the US market were included. The TIME model was applied to assess evolutionary patterns for each technology. Results and discussion Three SRT clusters were identified: processed biologics technologies (PBT), extracellular matrix technologies (EMT), and cell-based technologies (CBT). Publications on EMTs and CBTs start decades after PBTs, however, are greater in number and follow an ascending trend. PBTs reached a plateau, suggesting near-senescence. The CBT curve was non-logarithmic and the TIME model could not be applied. The technology initiation point (Ti) for PBTs was 1939 and the establishment point (Te) 1992. For EMT, Ti was 1966 and Te 2010. Sixty-one products were identified (49 EMTs, 7 CBTs, 5 PBTs). PBTs appeared 11 years after Te and EMTs four years prior Te. Thirty-seven products in the EMT category, and one in the PBT category, were developed before Te. The most common FDA regulatory mechanism for SRT was found to be 510(k) followed by HCT/P 361. Conclusion Innovation is an indicator of the evolution of technology. The number of publications can be used as a metric of this evolution and the fact that the SRT field falls under such pattern demonstrates that SRT is an innovation-based industry. EMT is the most efficient cluster. Few products from SRT registered a commercial success, and from those that did, those technologies were generally found to be part of the most productive cluster, 1st in concept, conceptually simple, easily regulated and produced, cost and clinically efficient, reimbursable, able to solve a specific problem efficiently, had a platform technology design that allowed for further innovation and adaptation for other uses and, as found by application of the TIME model, appear prior to technology establishment.