cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Essential Role of Fetuin in the Serum-Induced Calcification of Collagen

The mineral in bone is located primarily within the collagen fibril, and during mineralization the fibril is formed first and then water within the fibril is replaced with mineral. Our goal is to understand the mechanism of fibril mineralization, and as a first step we recently determined the size exclusion characteristics of the fibril. This study indicates that apatite crystals up to 12 unit cells in size can access the water within the fibril while molecules larger than a 40-kDa protein are excluded. We proposed a novel mechanism for fibril mineralization based on these observations, one that relies exclusively on agents excluded from the fibril. One agent generates crystals outside the fibril, some of which diffuse into the fibril and grow, and the other selectively inhibits crystal growth outside of the fibril. We have tested this mechanism by examining the impact of removing the major serum inhibitor of apatite growth, fetuin, on the serum-induced calcification of collagen. The results of this test show that fetuin determines the location of serum-driven mineralization: in fetuin’s presence, mineral forms only within collagen fibrils; in fetuin’s absence, mineral forms only in solution outside the fibrils. The X-ray diffraction spectrum of serum-induced mineral is comparable to the spectrum of bone crystals. These observations show that serum calcification activity consists of an as yet unidentified agent that generates crystal nuclei, some of which diffuse into the fibril, and fetuin, which favors fibril mineralization by selectively inhibiting the growth of crystals outside the fibril.
Tracking across multiple cameras with disjoint views

Conventional tracking approaches assume proximity in space, time and appearance of objects in successive observations. However, observations of objects are often widely separated in time and space when viewed from multiple non-overlapping cameras. To address this problem, we present a novel approach for establishing object correspondence across non-overlapping cameras. Our multicamera tracking algorithm exploits the redundance in paths that people and cars tend to follow, e.g. roads, walk-ways or corridors, by using motion trends and appearance of objects, to establish correspondence. Our system does not require any inter-camera calibration, instead the system learns the camera topology and path probabilities of objects using Parzen windows, during a training phase. Once the training is complete, correspondences are assigned using the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation framework. The learned parameters are updated with changing trajectory patterns. Experiments with real world videos are reported, which validate the proposed approach.
A linear-time online task assignment scheme for multiprocessor systems

A new online task assignment scheme is presented for multiprocessor systems where individual processors execute the rate-monotonic scheduling algorithm. The computational complexity of the task assignment scheme grows linearly with the number of tasks, and its performance is shown to be significantly better than previously existing schemes. The superiority of the assignment scheme is achieved by a new schedulability condition derived for the rate-monotonic scheduling discipline. >
Transformed Drosophila Cells Evade Diet-Mediated Insulin Resistance through Wingless Signaling

The risk of specific cancers increases in patients with metabolic dysfunction, including obesity and diabetes. Here, we use Drosophila as a model to explore the effects of diet on tumor progression. Feeding Drosophila a diet high in carbohydrates was previously demonstrated to direct metabolic dysfunction, including hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, and insulin resistance. We demonstrate that high dietary sugar also converts Ras/Src-transformed tissue from localized growths to aggressive tumors with emergent metastases. Whereas most tissues displayed insulin resistance, Ras/Src tumors retained insulin pathway sensitivity, increased the ability to import glucose, and resisted apoptosis. High dietary sugar increased canonical Wingless/Wnt pathway activity, which upregulated insulin receptor gene expression to promote insulin sensitivity. The result is a feed-forward circuit that amplified diet-mediated malignant phenotypes within Ras/Src-transformed tumors. By targeting multiple steps in this circuit with rationally applied drug combinations, we demonstrate the potential of combinatorial drug intervention to treat diet-enhanced malignant tumors.
Cytosolic free magnesium modulates Na/Ca exchange currents in pig myocytes.

Objective: Cardiac Na/Ca exchanger (NCX) protein is up-regulated and intracellular free magnesium ([Mg2+]i) is significantly reduced in experimental heart failure. We asked whether changes in [Mg2+]i in a physiologically relevant range could alter the I NCX. Methods: The nickel-sensitive current was measured in voltage-clamped myocytes (Yorkshire pig; left ventricular) exposed to ramp pulses at 37°C in Tyrode's solution containing ouabain, nifedipine and ±Ni2+ (5 mmol/l). The intracellular free [Ca2+] and [Mg2+] concentrations were set at 50 nmol/l and 1.25 mmol/l (HiMg) or 0.13 mmol/l (LoMg), respectively, through pipette dialysis. Results: Reducing [Mg2+]i resulted in a significant increase in both outward and inward Ni-sensitive current without a shift in the reversal potential. This effect was not due to the inadvertent reduction of intracellular free [ATP] secondary to binding of ATP to Mg2+; reducing intracellular [ATP] in LoMg cells from 1.35 mmol/l to 0.18 mmol/l did not affect I NCX. The intracellular free [Ca2+] was raised from 50 to 200 nmol/l, resulting in augmented inward and outward current due to calcium activation. HiMg attenuated both inward and outward currents significantly compared to LoMg, suggesting that [Mg2+]i competes with [Ca2+]i at the allosteric regulatory site. Conclusion: Cytosolic free magnesium modulates the I NCX over a physiologic range independent of [ATP]i. Reduced [Mg2+]i in heart failure could contribute to altered calcium regulation of the NCX, contributing to the altered heart failure phenotype through enhanced NCX activity.
Effect of sweating and changes in blood flow on heating of human skin.

Summary and Conclusions1. Acetylcho-line-induced sweating decreases and atropine-induced inhibition of sweating increases heating effects of radiated heat energy. Increased blood content of tissues has a slight effect and increased blood flow a more pronounced effect on lowering the heating effect. 2. The effects of sweating appear to be due partly to vaporization of water at the skin surface and partly to a change in the thermal characteristics of the skin itself. 3. Increased blood flow through the skin raises the temperature and therewith increases the heating effects of low-energy, short-time radiation. However, the thermal characteristics of the skin are changed in a way to combat these heating effects. Therefore, the harmful effects of high energy and long term radiation are decreased. 4. Pain threshold is frequently measured as temperature elevation or as reaction time, and then it is markedly affected by changes in blood flow and rate of sweating. However, if it is studied in terms of tissue tempe...
Finite temperature micromagnetic modeling applied to spin valves

An approach to rigorously include equilibrium effects at finite temperatures in micromagnetic systems is introduced. Applications to patterned soft magnetic structures-show good agreement with experiments, qualitatively and quantitatively different from what is obtained using a standard zero-temperature micromagnetic approach. Examples of simulations of spin valve structures show large increase in magnetic noise, due to fluctuations in both reference and free layers, with reduced structure dimensions.
Poultry growth modeling using neural networks and simulated data

Poultry growth is usually modeled with the Gompertz model or another nonlinear statistical model using average BW data over certain periods of time for a given strain of birds under specific farm management conditions. Constant selection in the genetic pool, nutritional factors, and environmental concerns, however, make such models limited in their utility because of the difficulty of fitting the growth curve across time, bird strains, and other determining variables. Moreover, generating data for every strain of birds under continually changing variables is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. The current model addresses 2 objectives: to simulate data using published literature for different growth periods, and to develop artificial intelligence models with various neural network architectures. By breaking down the actual broiler growth data into 5-d intervals, with known means and SD, normal distributions were generated for broiler growth using @Risk software. These simulated data were then used to recognize data patterns and model growth curves by using various neural networks. Three neural networks, namely, BackPropagation-3 (3 layers of back propagation, with each layer connected to the previous layer), BackPropagation-5 (5 layers of back propagation, with each layer connected to the previous layer), and Ward-5 (5 hidden slabs with various activation functions, using NeuroShell 2 Ward software) were used in this research. Once the networks were sufficiently trained, they were exposed to actual growth data to predict broiler growth over the next 50 d. The Back-Propagation-3 neural network gave the best fitting line, with predictions fitting tightly to the actual data points. The R2 was 0.998, and nearly perfect. The R2 for the BackPropagation-5 and Ward-5 neural networks were 0.967 and 0.973, respectively. To test the approach further, the same methodology was applied in guinea fowl growth prediction, resulting in R2 of 0.96 both for the general regression and Ward-5 neural networks.
“Keep Your Eyes on the Prize”: Reference Points and Racial Differences in Assessing Progress Toward Equality

White Americans tend to perceive greater progress toward racial equality than do ethnic minorities. Correlational evidence (Study 1) and two experimental manipulations of framing (Studies 2 and 3) supported the hypothesis that this perception gap is associated with different reference points the two groups spontaneously use to assess progress, with Whites anchoring on comparisons with the past and ethnic minorities anchoring on ideal standards. Consistent with the hypothesis that the groups anchor on different reference points, the gap in perceptions of progress was affected by the time participants spent deliberating about the topic (Study 4). Implications for survey methods and political conflict are discussed.
Adenosine monophosphate-activated kinase α1 promotes endothelial barrier repair

The vascular endothelium responds to damage through activation of multiple signaling events that restore cell-cell adhesion and vascular integrity. However, the molecular mechanisms that integrate these events are not clearly defined. Herein, we identify a previously unexpected role for adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in pulmonary microvascular endothelial cell (PMVEC) repair. PMVECs selectively express the AMPKα1 catalytic subunit, pharmacological and short hairpin RNA-mediated inhibition of which attenuates Ca2+ entry in these cells induced by the inflammatory Ca2+-signaling mimetic thapsigargin. We find that AMPKα1 activity is required for the formation of PMVEC cell-cell networks in a prorepair environment and for monolayer resealing after wounding. Decreasing AMPKα1 expression reduces barrier resistance in PMVEC monolayers, results consistent with a role for AMPKα1 in cell-cell adhesion. AMPKα1 colocalizes and coimmunoprecipitates with the adherens junction protein N-cadherin ...
Three fallacies of digital footprints

“Digital footprints” is an attractive, useful, and increasingly popular metaphor for thinking about Big Data. In this essay, I elaborate on this metaphor to highlight three relatively basic fallacies in the way we tend to think about Big Data: first, that they contain information on complete populations, or “ N = all”; second, that they contain recordings of naturalistic behavior; and third, that they can be understood devoid of context.
Abstract 3983: Decreased Brain Swelling, Stroke- and Blood-Brain Barrier-lesion Volumes after Combination Treatment with Simvastatin and Tissue Plasminogen Activator in a Rat model of Embolic Stroke

Background and Purpose - Cytotoxic and vasogenic edema in acute stroke may lead to brain swelling. Acute treatment with tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) can increase blood-brain barrier (BBB) damage and vasogenic edema. Using a rat embolic stroke model, this study investigated the efficacy of simvastatin in combination with TPA to reduce brain swelling. Methods - One middle cerebral artery in young adult male Wistar rats (300 g) was embolized with a day-old fibrin-rich blood clot. The rats were divided randomly into 6 groups (N=6-8 per set): 1) Control; 2) Simvastatin (20 mg/kg; subcutaneous) at 30 min and at 24 h post-ictus; 3) TPA (10 mg/kg; intravenous) at 2 h post-ictus; 4) TPA at 3 h post-ictus; 5) Simvastatin plus TPA at 2 h; and 6) Simvastatin plus TPA at 3 h. They were injected with [ 14 C]α-aminoisobutyric acid and the brains processed for Nissl histology and quantitative autoradiography (QAR) at 48 h. Brain hemispheric and stroke lesion volumes from Nissl-stained brain sections and BBB lesion volumes from QAR images were measured using an image analysis system. Data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation of the ratios to the contralateral hemisphere volumes. They were analyzed by Student’s t-tests and significance inferred at P Results - Compared to controls, simvastatin and TPA treatments alone, combination treatment at both 2 and 3 h post-ictus was effective in reducing brain swelling, stroke- and BBB-lesion volumes (Figure). Treatment at 2 h post-ictus seemed to be more effective than at 3 h. Conclusions - These data suggest that simvastatin in combination with TPA may attenuate brain swelling in acute stroke and, thus, may be a viable adjuvant agent with TPA. Edema fluid formation and consequent brain swelling influnce the disease outcome and, moreover, can even be fatal. Therefore, efficacy and mechanisms of action of simvastatin in controlling them in stroke and other acute brain trauma deserve further investigation.
Pregnancy Following Super-Ovulation in the Mouse.

The daily transplantation of the mammalian anterior pituitary into the adult albino mouse or rat results in the development of a greatly increased number of ovarian follicles,1 and is followed by super-ovulation. The number of ova liberated by one ovary varies from 20 to 48, as determined by a study of serial sections of the uterine tubes.2Daily intramuscular transplantations of 2 mouse pituitaries into adult female mice, beginning the first day of the dioestrum, resulted in mating within 12 hours after the second treatment. The animals were killed on the ninth or tenth day of pregnancy. The number of uterine implantations found on the ninth or tenth day was between 19 and 29. Recovery of normal fetuses at this time has not been constant, because of failure of fertilization or implantation in some cases. Another group of similarly treated animals will be permitted to go to term.
The Reasons and Countermeasures of the Rising Cost in Production Enterprises

There are many reasons that influence the rising cost in production enterprises, at present, the main countermeasures of control the rising cost is to set up the ideas of paying equal attention to quality and beneficial re- sult; extend the market constantly based on the cost peculiarities in production enterprises; organize the production according to modern cost management, together with the concept of cost-benefit.
Long-Term Results with Renal Autotransplantation for Ureteral Replacement

AbstractFrom 1970 to 1984 renal autotransplantation was performed on 23 patients to replace all or a major portion of the ureter. The conditions necessitating ureteral replacement were postoperative ureteral injury in 16 cases, recurrent renal colic in 4, urinary undiversion in 2 and an atonic ureter in 1. Six patients presented with a solitary kidney and 1 underwent staged bilateral autotransplantation. After autotransplantation urinary continuity was restored by ureteroneocystostomy in 11 patients, pyelovesicostomy in 7, ureteroureterostomy in 2, pyeloureterostomy in 2 and ureterosigmoidostomy in 1.Postoperatively, there was no mortality and all but 1 of the autotransplanted kidneys functioned immediately. Two kidneys required removal postoperatively owing to bleeding. Currently, 20 patients are alive with functioning renal autotransplants at intervals of 1.5 to 14 years. The current serum creatinine level in these patients ranges from 1.1 to 2.2mg. per dl., which in each case is improved or stable comp...
Remote patient monitoring for improving outpatient care of patients at risk for sepsis

This work seeks to design and develop a remote monitoring platform for tracking indicators of sepsis with the goal of reducing hospital readmissions and mortality rates, and ultimately improving outpatient quality of care. Medicare reports spending $17.8 billion per year on avoidable readmissions, a leading cause of which is sepsis. Insufficient knowledge and improper training for postoperative care of discharged patients further enhances the importance of sepsis monitoring at home. Common indicators of sepsis include infection, elevated heart rate, elevated breathing rate, blood pressure, and fever. While these criteria can be easily tracked within the hospital, there exists no straightforward extension to the home setting because of the confounding effect of physical activity. Some of the challenges associated with remote monitoring for sepsis in discharged patients include the lower sensory quality of mobile biometric devices, the need to recognize activity in non-stationary patients, and the need to individualize the baseline criteria. In order to broaden the criteria to outpatients, this research considers the challenges of collecting and analyzing patient biometrics remotely using commercially available technology. As a result, we present a remote monitoring solution for early detection of sepsis in the outpatient setting.
Modeling and kinetic characterization of wastewater disinfection using chlorine and UV irradiation

Sewage disinfection has the primary objective of inactivating pathogenic organisms to prevent the dissemination of waterborne diseases. This study analyzed individual disinfection, with chlorine alone, ultraviolet radiation alone, and a combined disinfection process (chlorine-UV radiation). Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15442, Escherichia coli ATCC 11229, Salmonella typhi ATCC 14028, and Clostridium perfringens were selected to evaluate the efficiency of different disinfection processes. The aim of the present study was to characterize the kinetics of chlorine (as NaHOCl) consumption, to evaluate responses of these bacterial species to the chlorination, the ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and the chlorine/UV disinfection processes in secondary wastewater using a batch laboratory reactor. Another target of this work was to study the modeling of the kinetic of water disinfection by chlorination and/or UV irradiation. Two kinetic models (Chick-Watson and Hom) were tested as to ability to scale disinfection of these bacterial species by different ultraviolet and/or chlorine doses. The results of the kinetics of chlorine consumption showed that monochloramines and trichloramines were the most important forms of residual chlorine as compared to free chlorine and dichloramines. The kinetics of inactivation of all examined bacterial strains showed that the application of the model of Hom in its original form was not representative of this kinetics of inactivation. Modification of this model, considering an initial decline of bacteria during the contact of water with chlorine, improved the results of the model. By the same, results revealed that the involved processes of UV irradiation were too complex to be approached by a simplified formulation, even in the case of specific strains of microorganisms and the use of nearly constant UV radiation intensity. In fact, the results have pointed out that the application of the Chick-Watson law is known to be inadequate to describe microbial inactivation with tailing or shoulder behavior. However, the UV kinetic studies also revealed that the first instants of exposure (2 to 10 s) to a UV intensity of 5 to 8 mW.cm-2 appeared as the deciding factors in disinfection with UV irradiation. It was shown that the combination of chlorine with UV yielded additive effects on the inactivation of bacterial strains and spectacular disinfection efficiency at a short contact time and less dose. In contrast to most studies, UV irradiation alone and chlorine alone exhibited low disinfection efficiency in inactivation of tested bacterial strains.
Project HELP: a Remotely Delivered Behavioral Intervention for Weight Regain after Bariatric Surgery

Weight regain following bariatric surgery is common and potentially compromises the health benefits initially attained after surgery. Poor compliance to dietary and physical activity prescriptions is believed to be largely responsible for weight regain. Patients may benefit from developing specialized psychological skills necessary to engage in positive health behaviors over the long term. Unfortunately, patients often face challenges to physically returning to the bariatric surgery program for support in developing and maintaining these behaviors. Remotely delivered interventions, in contrast, can be conveniently delivered to the patient and have been found efficacious for a number of health problems, including obesity. To date, they have received little attention with bariatric surgery patients. The study aimed to evaluate a newly developed, remote acceptance-based behavioral intervention for postoperative weight regain. Patients at least 1.5 years out from surgery who experienced postoperative weight regain were recruited to receive the 10-week intervention. Participants were assessed at baseline, mid-treatment, post-treatment, and at 3-month follow-up. Support for the intervention’s feasibility and acceptability was achieved, with 70 % retention among those who started the program and a high mean rating (4.7 out of 5.0) of program satisfaction among study completers. On average, weight regain was reversed with a mean weight loss of 5.1 ± 5.5 % throughout the intervention. This weight loss was maintained at 3-month follow-up. Significant improvements in eating-related and acceptance-based variables also were observed. This pilot study provides initial support for the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a remotely delivered acceptance-based behavioral intervention for postoperative weight regain.
Joint effects of nutrient addition and enemy exclusion on exotic plant success.

Worldwide, ecosystems are increasingly dominated by exotic plant species, a shift hypothesized to result from numerous ecological factors. Two of these, increased resource availability and enemy release, may act in concert to increase exotic success in plant communities (Resource-Enemy Release Hypothesis, R-ERH). To test this, we manipulated the availability of soil nutrients and access of vertebrate herbivores, insect herbivores, and fungal pathogens to intact grassland communities containing both native and exotic species. Our results supported both conditions necessary for R-ERH. First, exotics were less damaged than natives, experiencing less foliar damage (insect herbivory and fungal disease) than native species, particularly in communities where soil nutrients were added. Second, fertilization increased foliar damage on native species, but not exotic species. As well as fulfilling both conditions for R-ERH, these results demonstrate the importance of considering the effects of resource availability when testing for enemy release. When both conditions are fulfilled, R-ERH predicts that increasing resource availability will increase exotic abundance only in the presence of enemies. Our results fully supported this prediction for vertebrate herbivores—fertilization increased exotic cover only in communities exposed to vertebrate herbivores. Additionally, the prediction was partially supported for insect herbivores and fungal pathogens—excluding these enemies reduced exotic cover as predicted, but inconsistent with R-ERH, this effect occurred only in unfertilized communities. These results highlight the need to consider the influence of multiple enemy guilds on community processes like exotic plants invasions. Moreover, this study experimentally demonstrates that resource availability and natural enemies can jointly influence exotic success in plant communities. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
(Re)constructing the Pipeline: Workers, Environmentalists and Ideology in Media Coverage of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Environmental protection is presumed to damper economic growth and media accounts of resource extraction often portray trade-offs between jobs and the environment. However, there is limited evidenc...
Cumulative effects of antiandrogenic chemical mixtures and their relevance to human health risk assessment

Toxicological studies of defined chemical mixtures assist human health risk assessment by establishing how chemicals interact with one another to induce an effect. This paper reviews how antiandrogenic chemical mixtures can alter reproductive tract development in rats with a focus on the reproductive toxicant phthalates. The reviewed studies compare observed mixture data to mathematical mixture model predictions based on dose addition or response addition to determine how the individual chemicals in a mixture interact (e.g., additive, greater, or less than additive). Phthalate mixtures were observed to act in a dose additive manner based on the relative potency of the individual phthalates to suppress fetal testosterone production. Similar dose additive effects have been reported for mixtures of phthalates with antiandrogenic pesticides of differing mechanisms of action. Overall, data from these phthalate experiments in rats can be used in conjunction with human biomonitoring data to determine individual hazard indices, and recent cumulative risk assessments in humans indicate an excess risk to antiandrogenic chemical mixtures that include phthalates only or phthalates in combination with other antiandrogenic chemicals.
A Burke-Schumann analysis of diffusion-flame structures supported by a burning droplet

A Burke–Schumann description of three different regimes of combustion of a fuel droplet in an oxidising atmosphere, namely the premixed-flame regime, the partial-burning regime and the diffusion-flame regime, is presented by treating the fuel and oxygen leakage fractions through the flame as known parameters. The analysis shows that the burning-rate constant, the flame-standoff ratio, and the flame temperature in these regimes can be obtained from the classical droplet-burning results by suitable definitions of an effective ambient oxygen mass fraction and an effective fuel concentration in the droplet interior. The results show that increasing oxygen leakage alone through the flame lowers both the droplet burning rate and the flame temperature, whereas leakage of fuel alone leaves the burning rate unaffected while reducing the flame temperature and moving the flame closer to the droplet surface. Solutions for the partial-burning regime are shown to exist only for a limited range of fuel and oxygen leakag...
Invariant Type-B characteristics of drag-reducing microalgal biopolymer solutions

The drag-reducing properties of polysaccharides from marine microalgae were investigated. They were compared to two drag-reducing additives studied extensively in the past, synthetic poly(ethylene) oxide, one of the most effective drag-reducing additives; and Xanthan Gum, another biopolymer often considered a model polymer for chemical and rheological research. Compared to Xanthan Gum, the most effective polymers from our microalgae show a higher drag-reducing efficiency in terms of necessary concentration to achieve a given level of drag reduction. In addition, they show a striking Type-B drag reduction behavior, which may be a very useful quality in most drag reduction applications, thanks to the independence of the drag reduction level on flow conditions such as velocity, shear stress, and tube diameter. With these polymers from microalgae we did not see evidence of Type-A behavior over the wide range of conditions studied (including pipe diameters up to 52 mm). Importantly, this suggests that the Drag Reduction coefficient in pipe flow for ideal drag-reducing solutions such as the polysaccharides investigated here is invariant at a given additive concentration of flow or solution parameters like ionic strength and can be used as a solution property to predict its drag reduction effectiveness over a wide range of conditions. On the contrary, Xanthan Gum showed evidence of both Type-A behavior in large diameter pipes and Type-B behavior in smaller ones. The polymers from microalgae also showed high resistance to degradation. Considering that these microalgae are very effective producers of polysaccharides (both extracellular and intracellular), they appear to be very promising additives for drag reduction applications.
The composition of T-cell subsets are altered in the burn wound early after injury.

Background Burn-induced inflammation leads to impaired immune responses resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. T-cells are central in the immune response and circulating CD4 and CD8 T-cells have been used to evaluate immune status; however, the role of these T-cell subsets in the burn wound is unknown. Methods Male C57BL/6 mice were subjected to a major 3rd degree scald burn or sham treatment. Twenty-four hours later, full thickness skin samples from sham mice and the burn wounds were collected and single cells were isolated and analyzed for αβ TCR, γδ TCR, CD3, CD4, CD8 and CD69 expressions by flow cytometry. Results The burn wound contained significantly greater numbers of T-cells than skin from sham mice, due to a profound infiltration of αβ T-cells. These infiltrating αβ T-cells were primarily suppressor T-cells with a CD8+ or CD8-CD4- phenotype. The 15-fold increase in CD8+ αβ T-cells caused a decrease in the CD4:CD8 ratio from 0.7 in sham skin to 0.3 in the burn wound. In contrast, the majority of the γδ T-cells in sham skin were CD4-CD8-, which decreased 9-fold in the burn wound. CD69 expression was suppressed on burn wound αβ T-cells, but increased on γδ T-cells in the burn wound. Conclusions The infiltrating burn wound αβ T-cells likely act to quell inflammation. In contrast wound γδ T-cells were activated with elevated CD4 and CD69 expression. Thus, these two distinct T-cell subsets likely differentially regulate the burn wound inflammatory response.
HIV-Associated Cardiovascular Disease: Role of Connexin 43

Chronic HIV infection due to effective antiretroviral treatment has resulted in a broad range of clinical complications, including accelerated heart disease. Individuals with HIV infection have a 1.5 to 2 times higher incidence of cardiovascular diseases than their uninfected counterparts; however, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. To explore the link between HIV infection and cardiovascular diseases, we used postmortem human heart tissues obtained from HIV-infected and control uninfected individuals to examine connexin 43 (Cx43) expression and distribution and HIV-associated inflammation. Here, we demonstrate that Cx43 is dysregulated in the hearts of HIV-infected individuals. In all HIV heart samples analyzed, there were areas where Cx43 was overexpressed and found along the lateral membrane of the cardiomyocyte and in the intercalated disks. Areas of HIV tissue with anomalous Cx43 expression and localization also showed calcium overload, sarcofilamental atrophy, and accumulation of collagen. All these changes were independent of viral replication, CD4 counts, inflammation, and type of antiretroviral treatment. Overall, we propose that HIV infection increases Cx43 expression in heart, resulting in tissue damage that likely contributes to the high rates of cardiovascular disease in HIV-infected individuals.
Hydrodynamics of mangrove-type root models: the effect of porosity, spacing ratio and flexibility.

Mangrove trees play a prominent role in coastal tropic and subtropical regions, providing habitats for many organisms and protecting shorelines against high energy flows. In particular, the species Rhizophora mangle (red mangrove) exhibits complex cluster roots interacting with different hydrological flow conditions. To better understand the resilience of mangrove trees, we modeled the roots as a collection of cylinders with a circular pattern subject to unidirectional flow. We investigated the effect of porosity and spacing ratio between roots by varying both the diameter of the patch, D, and inset cylinders, d. In addition, we modeled hanging roots of red mangroves as cantilevered rigid cylinders on a hinge. Force and velocity measurements were performed in a water tunnel (Reynolds numbers from 2200 to 11 000). Concurrently, we performed 2D flow visualization using a flowing soap film. We found that the frequency of the vortex shedding increases as the diameter of the small cylinders decreases while the patch diameter is constant, therefore increasing the Strouhal number, . By comparing the change of Strouhal numbers with a single solid cylinder, we introduced a new length scale, the effective diameter. The effective diameter of the patch decreases as the porosity increases. In addition, we found that patch drag scales linearly with the patch diameter but decreases linearly as the spacing ratio increases. After a spacing ratio of (), the force scales linearly with the free stream velocity, and the mean velocity behind the patch is independent of the Reynolds number and the patch effect disappears. For flexible cylinders, we found that a decrease in stiffness increases both patch drag and the wake deficit behind the patch in a similar fashion as increasing the blockage of the patch. This information has the potential to help in the development of methods to design resilient bio-inspired coastline structures.
Abstract 214: ARID1A and ARID1B dependent proteomics

Protein sub-units of the SWI/SNF nucleosome and chromatin remodeling complexes are frequently mutated in cancer. The ARID1A and ARID1B DNA interacting component are among these mutated proteins. Alterations in ARID1A have been reported in breast, colon, lung, kidney, pancreatic, bladder, cervical, ovarian and uterine cancers whereas ARID1B mutation is less common. Additional data suggests ARID1A mutant cancers are dependent on functional ARID1B and that targeting ARID1B may be a therapeutic strategy. However, ARID1A and 1B are often co-inactivated in aggressive un/dedifferentiated carcinomas of the ovary and endometrium suggesting tumor suppressive functions might exist not only in ARID1A but also in 1B. In this study, we examined the effects of restoring ARID1A or 1B in an undifferentiated endometrial adenocarcinoma cell line harboring inactivating mutations in both genes. ACI-98 cells derived from a stage IV undifferentiated endometrial cancer were found to lack expression of ARID1A and 1B protein. We subsequently identified two individual truncating mutations in ARID1A and 1B by genomic DNA and cDNA sequencing indicating no wild-type message was expressed. Restoration of ARID1A in ACI-98 cells using a Tet-on system revealed remarkable growth inhibition, however, ARID1B restoration showed only a moderate cell growth inhibition with cells taking on a flattened phenotype. Clones of ARID1A/1B restored cells were treated w/wo doxycycline (Dox) for 48h a time point prior to cell death or morphologic changes and protein changes catalogued using LC MS/MS. We identified 771 and 1168 differentially expressed proteins (z-score Citation Format: Yutaka Shoji, Kumiko Kato-Shoji, Kelly A. Conrads, Rusheeswar Challa, Brian L. Hood, Nicholas W. Bateman, Thomas P. Conrads, John I. Risinger. ARID1A and ARID1B dependent proteomics [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 214. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-214
Localized guided liquid simulations in bifrost

A guided liquid simulation [Nielsen and Bridson 2011] re-simulates a thin surface layer of an existing liquid simulation at higher resolution, or simulates just a thin layer near the surface of an animated input sequence produced e.g. by hand or by spectral wave methods. The movement of the simulated surface layer is guided by the underlying animation and this technique has been used to achieve high surface detail and art-directed water effects on several movies including "Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug" and "Tintin - Secret of the Unicorn". Despite the successful application of guided simulations in production, the method as originally proposed requires a fair amount of manual setup time and can be computationally costly in scenarios where the area of focus (such as a moving ship) covers a large and non-regular area over time. In this talk we present an outline of a novel set of algorithms facilitating localized guided simulations, where the guided simulation takes place only within a - possibly animated - local region specified by the user. We have implemented our algorithms in Autodesk Maya's procedural Bifrost framework and integrated them with Bifrost's adaptive FLIP solver. We demonstrate with several examples the benefits of our approach in terms of computational efficiency and ease of use. Additionally our tool was utilized by Moving Picture Company (MPC) to create high resolution art-directed water simulations on Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Weight change in older adults and mortality: the Multiethnic Cohort Study.

To investigate the association between weight change in older adults and mortality in a multiethnic population. We performed a prospective analysis using data on weight change between the baseline (1993–1996) and the 10-year follow-up (2003–2007) surveys in relation to subsequent mortality among 63 040 participants in the Multiethnic Cohort Study in Hawaii and California. The participants were African American, Native Hawaiian, Japanese American, Latino and white, aged 45–75 years at baseline, and did not report heart disease or cancer at either survey. During an average of 7.3 years of follow-up after the 10-year survey, 6623 deaths were identified. Compared with individuals whose weight remained stable (±2.5 kg), those who lost weight and those with the highest weight gain (>10 kg) were at increased risk of all-cause mortality, with the risks greater for the weight loss (hazard ratios (HR): 2.86; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 2.62–3.11 for >10 kg) than the weight-gain group (HR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.11–1.41 for >10 kg), thus resulting in a reverse J-shaped curve. Japanese Americans and Latinos had stronger associations of weight loss >10 kg with mortality than did African Americans, Native Hawaiians and whites. The increase in risk with weight gain >10 kg was greater for older (⩾55 years at baseline) than younger individuals, whereas the increase in mortality associated with weight loss was greater for the normal weight (<25 kg m−2 at baseline) participants and never smokers, compared with overweight/obese persons and current smokers, respectively. Our findings confirm the association between weight change and a higher mortality in a healthy, multiethnic population, with higher risks for weight loss than weight gain. On the basis of these observations, public health recommendation should focus on the prevention of weight loss, as well as weight stability within the non-obese range, for middle-aged and older adults.
Design of a Compensator Network to Stabilize Chaotic Tumor Growth

Tumorigenesis can be modeled as a system of chaotic, nonlinear differential equations. From the analysis of these equations in state space, a feedback compensator is designed to stabilize the system based on a desired response. The feedback array constants represent four transducer molecules which could be used for any tumor type that obeys the same dynamics as the model, reducing drug investment requirements for a wider range of cancer treatment.
In permanent crisis: ethnicity in contemporary European media and cinema, by Ipek A. Celik, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2015, 136 pp., £36.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780472052721

In Permanent Crisis: Ethnicity in Contemporary European Media and Cinema joins a growing number of publications about European cinema in the twenty-first century. Ipek A. Celik’s discussion of film...
The emotional valence and features of subliminal priming images impact conscious perception of face expressions

We investigated, in young healthy subjects, how the affective content of subliminally presented priming images and their specific visual attributes impacted conscious perception of facial expressions. The priming images were broadly categorised as aggressive, pleasant, or neutral and further subcategorised by the presence of a face and by the centricity (egocentric or allocentric vantage-point) of the image content. Subjects responded to the emotion portrayed in a pixelated target-face by indicating via key-press if the expression was angry or neutral. Priming images containing a face compared to those not containing a face significantly impaired performance on neutral or angry target-face evaluation. Recognition of angry target-face expressions was selectively impaired by pleasant prime images which contained a face. For egocentric primes, recognition of neutral target-face expressions was significantly better than of angry expressions. Our results suggest that, first, the affective primacy hypothesis which predicts that affective information can be accessed automatically, preceding conscious cognition, holds true in subliminal priming only when the priming image contains a face. Second, egocentric primes interfere with the perception of angry target-face expressions suggesting that this vantage-point, directly relevant to the viewer, perhaps engages processes involved in action preparation which may weaken the priority of affect processing.
Understanding how the message appeal of moral beauty influences advertising effectiveness under mortality salience

Consumers may be reminded of life mortality by some life events and media content. Mortality salience as a contextual factor has not been sufficiently investigated in the existing literature of adv...
The Intrinsic Wrongness of Trash Talking and How It Diminishes the Practice of Sport: Reply to Kershnar

In earlier articles I presented a moral critique of trash talking in sport, which I defined as ‘verbal insults and intimidation, designed to gain a competitive advantage’ (Dixon 2007, 2008). I gave...
Evolutionary Psychology and Sex Differences in Workplace Patterns

Differences in workplace outcomes – such as the “glass ceiling”, the “gender gap in compensation”, and “occupational segregation” – are often attributed primarily to social forces. However, biological sex differences with roots in our evolutionary history and mediated by sex hormones also play an important role.
The Long Noncoding RNA Landscape in Amygdala Tissues from Schizophrenia Patients

To date, most transcriptome studies of schizophrenia focus on the analysis of protein-coding genes. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as key tissue-specific regulators of cellular and disease processes. The amygdala brain region has been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. We performed unbiased whole transcriptome profiling of amygdala tissues from 22 schizophrenia patients and 24 non-psychiatric controls using RNA-seq. We reconstructed amygdala transcriptome and employed systems biology approaches to annotating the functional roles of lncRNAs. As a result, we identified 839 novel lncRNAs in amygdala. We found in amygdala lncRNAs are more subtype-specific than protein-coding genes. We identified functional modules associated with "synaptic transmission", "ribosome", and "immune responses" which were related to schizophrenia pathophysiology that involved lncRNAs. Integrative functional analyses associating individual lncRNAs with specific pathways and functions further show that amygdala lncRNAs are connected with all of these pathways. Our study presents the first systematic landscape of lncRNAs in amygdala tissue from schizophrenia cases.
The Impact of Web Metrics on Community News Decisions: A Resource Dependence Perspective:

This comparative case study of two community news organizations takes a Resource Dependence approach in assessing impact of audience metrics on news decisions, and on mechanisms underlying these de...
In Situ Transmission Electron Microsopy of Oxide Shell-Induced Pore Formation in (De)lithiated Silicon Nanowires

Silicon (Si) nanowires with a silicon oxide (SiOx) shell undergoing lithiation and delithiation were examined by in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Large pores formed in the nanowires during the delithiation cycle. We found that the oxide shell constrains the expansion of the Si nanowires during lithitation and then induces pore formation in the nanowires. We propose that the SiOx shell prevents the vacancies that result from the loss of lithium from escaping the Si core, leading to pore nucleation and growth. It is also possible that the difference in mechanical properties of the expanding and contracting Si nanowire and SiOx shell contribute to the observed pore formation. This in situ study reaffirms the need to directly observe structural changes that occur during cycling in battery materials, especially when modified by coatings.
Polarimetric Sar Distortions Induced by Topography: an Analytical Formulation for Compensation in the Imaging Domain

A novel look-angle function based formulation of the topography-induced backscattering matrix rotation is proposed in this paper. The proposed formulation is obtained by relying on a suitable cylindrical coordinate system and a suitable parametric representation of the illuminated surface. A concise functional form for the polarization orientation angle shifts, whose expression is given uniquely in terms of the partial derivative of the look-angle function along the azimuthal (or along track) direction, is derived. As a result, a unifying analytical approach for the calibration of polarimetric SAR data, which incorporates consistently within a common formalism both area-stretching radiometric compensation and polarization orientation angle shifts compensation, is developed. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated by using real polarimetric SAR data.
Representativeness and Bayes Rule: Psychological Perspective

Psychologists contend that people rely on particular heuristics to form judgments. This chapter describes key studies of a particular heuristic known as representativeness. Although there are others that affect financial decision makers, representativeness is the most prevalent heuristic because it plays a prominent role in financial forecasts. Proponents of traditional finance often criticize proponents of behavioral finance for a lack of rigor in applying psychological concepts. A review of key contributions in the psychology literature is conducted, describing the importance of representativeness in the economics literature. Representativeness involves overreliance on stereotypes, leading people to form probability judgments that systematically violate Bayes rule. This reliance also leads people to make predictions that are insufficiently regressive relative to the mean. Psychological experiments are discussed in which the language of signals is used. The impact of representativeness on judgments based on signals is analyzed. In each experiment, subjects receive information and are asked to formulate judgments. The information received is interpreted as a signal.