cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A native ground-nesting bee (Nomia melanderi) sustainably managed to pollinate alfalfa across an intensively agricultural landscape

The world’s only intensively managed ground-nesting bee, the alkali bee (Nomia melanderi Cockerell), has been used for >50 years as an effective pollinator of alfalfa (Medicago saliva L.) grown for seed in the western USA. Across a 240 km2 watershed in Washington, the 24 most populous of 56 nest sites found were annually surveyed for nesting bees for 8 years. Alkali bees multiplied 9-fold to 17 million females, the largest reported metapopulation of non-social bees. Several sites have remained populous for an unprecedented 50 years. The most populous nesting bed (1.5 ha) grew to 5.3 million nesting females (median = 278 nests/m2), the largest bee nesting aggregation ever recorded. This first-ever exhaustive landscape-level survey for any non-social bee reveals that even amid intensive conventional agriculture, a native bee can sustainably multiply to vast numbers, its nesting aggregations persisting for decades.
A barophilic response by two hyperthermophilic, hydrothermal vent Archaea: An upward shift in the optimal temperature and acceleration of growth rate at supra-optimal temperatures by elevated pressure

The influence of elevated hydrostatic pressure on the growth rates of two hyperthermophilic Archaea isolated from hydrothermal vent environments (strains ES1 and ES4) was investigated over their entire temperature range for growth. Thermococcus celer, a shallow marine hyperthermophile was included in the study for comparative purposes. For one strain (ES4), the pressure at the site of collection (22 MPa) caused an upward shift in the optimal growth temperature of about 6°C compared to growth at 1 MPa. Although the optimal temperature for ES1 was unaffected by 22 MPa, elevated pressure stimulated the growth rate at supra-optimal temperatures. The temperature range for growth for both organisms was extended upward 2°C at 22 MPa pressure. For both strains 22 MPa had little effect on growth rates at sub-optimal temperatures. Growth was observed at pressures as high as 89 MPa for ES1 and 67 MPa for ES4, but with these higher pressures the temperature range for growth was narrowed, and the optimal temperature was shifted downward. Growth of Thermococcus celer was slightly stimulated by 22 MPa at its reported optimal temperature of 88°C, but was inhibited by higher pressure.
Statistical speech segmentation and word learning in parallel: scaffolding from child-directed speech.

In order to acquire their native languages, children must learn richly structured systems with regularities at multiple levels. While structure at different levels could be learned serially, e.g. speech segmentation coming before word-object mapping, redundancies across levels make parallel learning more efficient. For instance, a series of syllables is likely to be a word not only because of high transitional probabilities, but also because of a consistently co-occurring object. But additional statistics require additional processing, and thus might not be useful to cognitively constrained learners. We show that the structure of child-directed speech makes this problem solvable for human learners. First, a corpus of child-directed speech was recorded from parents and children engaged in a naturalistic free-play task. Analyses revealed two consistent regularities in the sentence structure of naming events. These regularities were subsequently encoded in an artificial language to which adult participants were exposed in the context of simultaneous statistical speech segmentation and word learning. Either regularity was sufficient to support successful learning, but no learning occurred in the absence of both regularities. Thus, the structure of child-directed speech plays an important role in scaffolding speech segmentation and word learning in parallel.
A network-layer soft handoff approach for mobile wireless IP-based systems

Handoff is the process during which a mobile node (MN) needs to change its connectivity point to the wireless internetwork from one access node (AN) to another during an ongoing communication. If MNs are allowed to have two or more simultaneous connections to the internetwork through different ANs, then the handoff is said to be soft; otherwise, it is said to be hard. Traditionally, during forward-link soft handoff, multiple identical copies of each packet are simultaneously transmitted to the MN through the associated ANs. At the MN's physical-layer, the received signals are combined on a bit-by-bit basis resulting in improving the bit-error rate. However, this approach requires tight synchronization of the ANs involved in the soft handoff. In addition, as shown in the literature, the capacity often decreases due to the increase of the number of channels used by MNs during soft handoff. In this paper, we propose, analyze, simulate, and implement a soft handoff scheme called soft handoff over IP (SHIP) for forward-link that 1) overcomes the need for synchronization and 2) increases the capacity of the network. Through both analytic and simulation studies, we show that SHIP achieves significant performance improvements. We derive analytic expressions of the power-capacity relationship for two-dimensional (2-D) and one-dimensional (1-D) cell models. By comparing our scheme with the hard handoff, we empirically show that the capacity increases by about 30% and 20%, respectively, for the 2-D and 1-D cell models. Further, the simulation results show that SHIP saves up to 30% of the total power consumed by the ANs.
The Pythagorean Theorem: I. The finite case

The Pythagorean Theorem and variants of it are studied. The variations evolve to a formulation in terms of noncommutative, conditional expectations on von Neumann algebras that displays the theorem as the basic result of noncommutative, metric, Euclidean Geometry. The emphasis in the present article is finite dimensionality, both “discrete” and “continuous.”
PEPON: performance-aware hierarchical power budgeting for NoC based multicores

Targeting NoC based multicores, we propose a two-level power budget distribution mechanism, called PEPON, where the first level distributes the overall power budget of the multicore system among various types of on-chip resources like the cores, caches, and NoC, and the second level determines the allocation of power to individual instances of each type of resource. Both these distributions are oriented towards maximizing workload performance without exceeding the specified power budget. Extensive experimental evaluations of the proposed power distribution scheme using a full system simulation and detailed power models emphasize the importance of power budget partitioning at both levels. Specifically, our results show that the proposed scheme can provide up to 29% performance improvement as compared to no power budgeting, and performs 13% better than a competing scheme, under the same chip-wide power cap.
Abnormalities of the Osseous Structures of the Hip and Peri‐Articular Soft Tissues

This unit presents a basic protocol for detection and assessment of a large number of disorders arising in the bones of the hip or the surrounding soft tissues, including osteonecrosis, transient osteopenia, fractures, soft tissue injuries, and tumors. All of these disorders can be readily assessed without the use of a contrast agent. The evaluation of intra-articular structures, in particular the acetabular labrum, however, is probably best accomplished with the use of the direct injection of a Gd-chelate contrast agent into the hip joint. The protocol is presented for a 1.5-Tesla system for evaluation of disease in the region of the hip. Modifications for low-field (0.23 to 0.3 T) systems are also discussed.
Chemosensor-driven artificial antennal lobe transient dynamics enable fast recognition and working memory

The speed and accuracy of odor recognition in insects can hardly be resolved by the raw descriptors provided by olfactory receptors alone due to their slow time constant and high variability. The animal overcomes these barriers by means of the antennal lobe (AL) dynamics, which consolidates the classificatory information in receptor signal with a spatiotemporal code that is enriched in odor sensitivity, particularly in its transient. Inspired by this fact, we propose an easily implementable AL-like network and show that it significantly expedites and enhances the identification of odors from slow and noisy artificial polymer sensor responses. The device owes its efficiency to two intrinsic mechanisms: inhibition (which triggers a competition) and integration (due to the dynamical nature of the network). The former functions as a sharpening filter extracting the features of receptor signal that favor odor separation, whereas the latter implements a working memory by accumulating the extracted features in trajectories. This cooperation boosts the odor specificity during the receptor transient, which is essential for fast odor recognition.
Transformer Induced Instability of the Series Resonant Converter

It is shown that the common series resonant power converter is subject to a low frequency oscillation that can lead to the loss of cyclic stability. This oscillation is caused by a low frequency resonant circuit formed by the normal L and C components in series with the magnetizing inductance of the output transformer. Three methods for eliminating this oscillation are presented and analyzed. One of these methods requires a change in the circuit topology during the resonance cycle. This requires a new set of steady state equations which are derived and presented in a normalized form. Experimental results are included which demonstrate the nature of the low frequency oscillation before cyclic stability is lost.
A Characterization of Finitely Monotonic Additive Functions

Letf(m) be a real-valued, number theoretic function . We say thatf(m) is additive if f(mn) = f(m) +f(n) whenever (m, n) = 1 . If f(m) satisfies the additional restriction that f(p) = f(p2) _ f(p3) = . . ., then we say that f(m) is strongly additive . We denote the class of additive functions by .4. A function fEF .2/ is called finitely monotonic if there exists an infinite sequence xk -+ oo and a positive constant A, so that for each xk there are integers
Learning an Image Lexicon

In this work, we propose a methodology to train a classifier in learning the mappings between images and their corresponding class labels in words. We describe recognition as a process of annotating image regions with words. We consider this task as learning a lexicon for a short image vocabulary that will translate image regions to words. We consider images wherein only one conceptual object, such as 'building' is apparent in the entire image. Objects are manually cropped from other images. Then, we extract color descriptor in the L*a*b* color space, and texture features based on information obtained from the windowed image second moment matrix that provide us with three pieces of information about each pixel such as anisotropy, polarity, and contrast. A feedforward neural network with improved generalization is trained to learn the mapping between descriptors of the images and class labels. Our model is developed based on a dataset of 2800 images. Experimental results are illustrated to observe the strength and weaknesses of the model. We provide a comparison table that shows the supremacy of our methodology over other model
Quantity, quality and the welfare effects of US airline deregulation

In this paper we employ a method for estimationg quality-adjusted demand to calculate measures of the change in consumer suruplus due to US airline deregulation. The quality-adjusted estimates of the price elasticity of demand indicate that consumers are from 25% to 50% more sensitive to changes in air fares than unadjusted estimates would suggest. Changes in unadjusted consumer surplus overstate the net welfare gains from deregulation by roughly a factor of two, strongly suggesting that adjustments for quallity of service are essential to welfare analysis of regulatory changes in this industry
Electrogenerated Chemiluminescence. 76. Excited Singlet State Emission vs Excimer Emission in Ter(9,9-diarylfluorene)s

The electrochemistry and electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) of two ter(9,9-diarylfluorene)s, TDAFs, were investigated. The ECL from these new blue emitters produced by ion annihilation showed spectra with significant emission at longer wavelengths and was different from their fluorescence spectra. This was ascribed to the formation of excimers. Excimer emission was not observed in ECL during the reduction of the TDAFs with benzoyl peroxide (BPO) as a coreactant, where the ECL spectra were essentially the same as their fluorescence spectra, consistent with the requirement of ion annihilation for excimer production. Excimer emission is not seen in fluorescence, even at relatively high concentrations, because of the short lifetime of 1 TDAF*. The quantum yields, ECL, for the ECL by ion annihilation were 0.05% for TDAF-1 and 0.01% for TDAF-2. ECL with BPO as a coreactant produced 8% (TDAF-1) or 3% (TDAF-2) of the ECL intensity of Ru(bpy)3 2+ generated under the same conditions (0.5 mM TDAF or Ru(bpy)3 2+ /5 mM BPO).
WiMAX physical layer: Specifications overview and performance evaluation

The WiMAX technology has drawn enormous attentions from wireless communication industry in recent years. Its sophisticated physical layer (PHY) adopts such techniques as multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), which are fundamentally different techniques from the previous 3G mobile system. To help the readers gain the knowledge of some key components of the WiMAX PHY before referring the lengthy standard documentation, we provide a brief overview of the physical layer of the WiMAX standard IEEE 802.16–2009. A simulation system with LDPC coded MIMO-OFDM is also established to evaluate the performance of the WiMAX transceiver. Simulations show that the iterative receiver structure can achieve good performance.
Hyperacute Vasospasm After Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Cerebral vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage typically occurs 3–14 days after aneurysm rupture. We describe a series of patients who developed vasospasm within minutes of aneurysm rupture. This phenomenon, which we term, “hyperacute vasospasm,” has been reported in animal models of SAH, but hitherto has been poorly described in humans. Eleven patients were identified from an institutional registry who had aneurysmal rupture during catheter cerebral angiography between 1997 and 2009. We quantified the degree of vasoconstriction using vascular diameter index (VDI). The change in VDI (delta VDI or DVDI) was calculated by determining the difference in VDI before and after the procedure. We also examined the relationship between hyperacute vasospasm and delayed cerebral ischemia. Ten of eleven (91 %) patients with intraoperative aneurysm rupture had cerebral vasoconstriction within minutes of intra-procedural aneurysmal rupture. Six of eleven patients (55 %) with hyperacute vasospasm developed delayed cerebral infarction. Hyperacute vasospasm is likely common in patients with intraoperative aneurysm rupture and may be an unrecognized element of the natural history of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. In this limited series, there was an association between hyperacute vasospasm and delayed cerebral infarction.
SCUM Manifesto: The Argument for a "Male Misogyny"

By examining Valerie Solanas’s use of visual imagery, an abrasive ethos, and the ironic deployment of the symbolic SCUM (the Society for Cutting Up Men) in her 1960s’ SCUM Manifesto, this essay seeks to provide an understanding of an important radical feminist text of the women’s rights era.
CIRCULATION PATTERNS AND TEMPERATURE FIELDS ASSOCIATED WITH EXTENSIVE SNOW COVER ON THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT

Weekly snow cover areas, derived from the NOAA/NESS Northern Hemisphere Digitized Snow and Ice Cover Data Base, were correlated with weekly temperature anomalies across the United States and with weekly 700-mb geopotential heights over the North American sector. The correlations were computed for snow cover across the entire North American continent as well as the western and eastern United States for the winters 1966–67 through 1979–80. Extensive snow cover is associated with negative temperature anomalies across most of the continental United States. The strongest relationship occurs along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains from the Canadian border to the central Great Plains and reflects the southward movement of cold arctic air masses toward the Gulf of Mexico. An anomalous trough over the western part of North America is responsible for extensive snow cover in the winter. The surface storm track is displaced southward during winters with heavy snow cover, with cyclones occurring more frequently...
Evidence That Scabies Mites (Acari: Sarcoptidae) Influence Production of Interleukin-10 and the Function of T-Regulatory Cells(Tr1) in Humans

We performed experiments to determine whether an extract of Sarcoptes scabiei (De Geer) influenced cytokine expression by human T-lymphocytes. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from five sensitized donors and four donors without sensitization to scabies mites were challenged with a T-cell mitogen alone, with scabies extract (SS) alone, or with mitogen and SS together. Supernatants were analyzed for the cytokines interferon-gamma (IFNgamma), interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, and IL-10. No IL-2 or IL-4 was produced in response to scabies extract. Cells from both naive and sensitized donors produced large amounts of IFNgamma and IL-10. The lack of IL-4 but high levels of IL-10 suggests that IL-10 was likely secreted by type 1 T-regulatory cells, which were activated by something in the scabies extract. IL-10 has anti-inflammatory and immune-suppressive effects. It may play a key role in depressing the inflammatory and immune responses in humans so that clinical symptoms are not seen until 4-6 wk after a person becomes infested with scabies mites.
Quantitative estimation of lyo- and desmoenzymes in tissue sections with and without fixation.

1. Tissue sections eight microns thick were exposed to various experimental conditions used in histochemistry, and the effect upon the activities of esterase, the phosphatases, leucine aminopeptidase, s-glucuronidase, and arylsulfatase was determined colorimetrically. 2. Significant differences were found in the amounts of the lyo and desmo fractions of these enzymes. The desmo components were found to be for esterase, alkaline phosphatase, leucine aminopeptidase, acid phosphatase, s-glucuronidase, and arylsulfatase, ⅓, 2/3, 2/3, ½, ⅛, and ⅛ of the total enzymatic activity respectively. 3. Variations in the time and in the temperature at which diffusion was studied and of the pH and salt concentration of the solution into which the sections were placed, resulted in differences in the amount of enzymatic activity which remained in the tissue section. Some enzyme loss by diffusion was noted even after fixation of the tissue section. 4. The significance of the findings with respect to some of the concepts of localization of enzymes in tissue sections was discussed.
Selective elevation of urinary enzyme levels after extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy

AbstractUrinary enzyme testing has been used by many investigators to diagnose and monitor various types of renal injury. Three urinary enzymes, N-acetyl-beta-glucosaminidase, beta-galactosidase and gamma-glutamyl transferase were monitored in 17 patients before and after a single, unilateral extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy treatment. Stones were in the renal pelvis or calices except for 1 treated in situ in the proximal ureter. Urine specimens were collected before extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy and at 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 14, 21 and 28 days after treatment. N-acetyl-betaglucosaminidase and beta-galactosidase levels increased significantly after treatment (p less than 0.05). Gamma-glutamyl transferase levels increased after treatment but this was not statistically significant. All enzyme levels were highest on days 1 and 3 after lithotripsy and returned to baseline by day 28. Factors associated with post-treatment enzyme elevation included female sex, a lower pre-treatment creatinine clearance an...
A computational analysis of nasal vestibule morphologic variabilities on nasal function

Although advances in computational modeling have led to increased understanding of nasal airflow, not much is known about the effects of normal sinonasal anatomic variabilities on nasal function. In this study, three distinct variations in the human nasal vestibule airspace that have not been previously described were identified. Computational fluid dynamics modeling of nasal airflow profile in each identified variation of nasal vestibule phenotype was conducted to assess the role of these phenotypes on nasal physiology. Three-dimensional reconstructions of the nasal geometry in sixteen subjects with normal radiographic sinonasal images were created and each respective unilateral nasal cavity was classified as Notched, Standard, or Elongated phenotype based nasal vestibule morphology. Steady state, laminar and incompressible flow simulations were performed in the nasal geometries under physiological, pressure-driven conditions with constant inspiratory pressure. Results showed that at localized regions of the unilateral nasal cavity, average resistance was significantly different among nasal vestibule phenotypes. However, global comparison from nostril to choana showed that average resistance was not significantly different across phenotypes; suggesting that with normal anatomic variations, the nose has a natural compensatory mechanism that modulates localized airflow in order to achieve a desired amount of global airflow.
Frequency Selective Hybrid Precoding in Millimeter Wave OFDMA Systems

Hybrid precoding, a combination of analog and digital precoding, is an attempt to reach a compromise between complexity and performance. By exploiting more than one RF chain, hybrid precoding enables a millimeter wave (mmWave) system to take advantage of both spatial multiplexing and beamforming gain. A major challenge with hybrid precoding is its configuration in wideband systems. The reason is that the analog beamforming weights are the same across the entire band. In this paper, we propose a frequency selective hybrid precoding technique for a mmWave orthogonal frequency division multiple access system. We propose an algorithm to jointly optimize the wideband analog beamformers and the per- subcarrier digital precoders. We compare an upper bound with our solution and show that our optimized approach achieves good performance in terms of beamforming gain in the sense that it minimizes the loss caused by allocating multiple users to different subcarriers with a limited number of radio frequency chains.
Childhood obesity patterns and relation to middle-age sleep apnoea risk: the Bogalusa Heart Study

SummaryBackground Obese adults have a higher risk of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA); however, the relationship between childhood obesity and adult OSA risk is unclear. Objectives This study aimed to examine overweight/obesity (OW) in childhood and risk of OSA in middle age. Methods Childhood OW status was classified as never OW, weight cycling, persistent OW and incident OW. After 35 years of follow-up, high risk for OSA was determined by a positive score in ≥2 domains on the Berlin Questionnaire with obesity removed from scoring. Results At initial assessment, mean (SD) age was 9.9 (2.9) years, and 23.9% were OW. Overall, 25.7% had scores indicating a high risk for OSA. Compared with participants who were never OW, those with persistent OW and incident OW were 1.36 (95%CI: 1.04–1.77) and 1.47 (1.11–1.96) times more likely to be high risk for OSA, after adjustment for multiple risk factors and adult OW status. Participants with an OW duration of 1–4 years, 5–8 years, and 8+ years were 0.96 (0.44–2.09), 1.20 (0.70–2.04) and 1.52 (1.22–1.90) times more likely to be high risk for OSA compared with those who were never OW (P for trend: 0.0002). Conclusions These results suggest that childhood OW is associated with a high risk of OSA in middle age.
Clinical monitoring of smooth surface enamel lesions using CP-OCT during nonsurgical intervention.

Introduction Studies have shown that cross-polarization optical coherence tomography (CP-OCT) can be used to image the internal structure of carious lesions in vivo. The objective of this study was to show that CP-OCT can be used to monitor changes in the internal structure of early active carious lesions on smooth surfaces during non-surgical intervention with fluoride. Methods Lesions on the smooth surfaces of teeth were imaged using CP-OCT on 17 test subjects. Lesion structural changes were monitored during fluoride varnish application at 6-week intervals for 30 weeks. The lesion depth (Ld), integrated reflectivity (ΔR), and surface zone thickness (Sz) were monitored. Results A distinct transparent surface zone that may be indicative of lesion arrestment was visible in CP-OCT images on 62/63 lesions before application of fluoride varnish. The lesion depth and internal structure were resolved for all the lesions. The overall change in the mean values for Ld, ΔR, and Sz for all the lesions was minimal and was not significant during the study (P > 0.05). Only 5/63 lesions manifested a significant increase in Sz during intervention. Conclusion Even though it appears that most of the lesions manifested little change with fluoride varnish application in the 30 weeks of the study, CP-OCT was able to measure the depth and internal structure of all the lesions including the thickness of the important transparent surface zone located at the surface of the lesions, indicating that CP-OCT is ideally suited for monitoring lesion severity in vivo. Lasers Surg. Med. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Mixed Adenoneuroendocrine Carcinoma, Amphicrine Type, of the Small Bowel

Objectives: Amphicrine-type mixed adenoneuroendocrine carcinomas are exceedingly rare lesions of the gastrointestinal tract, comprising tumor cells simultaneously demonstrating both neuroendocrine and exocrine features. To date, only 14 cases of amphicrine carcinoma have been reported; here we report the first definitive case of amphicrine carcinoma in the small bowel. Methods: A 72-year-old woman who sought treatment for nonspecific abdominal complaints was found to have a duodenojejunal junction tumor and underwent radical surgical resection. Results: Morphologically, the tumor consisted of areas of moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma intermingled with areas characteristic of neuroendocrine tumor. The entire tumor showed strong, diffuse immunoreactivity for synaptophysin. Coexpression of exocrine and neuroendocrine features by neoplastic cells indicates bivalent differentiation, and therefore the tumor was classified as an amphicrine carcinoma of the small bowel. Conclusions: Demonstration of amphicrine carcinoma in the small bowel carries implications with regard to the common origin of exocrine and neuroendocrine cells in the gastrointestinal tract.
Polarizing and maintenance activities in two polydactylous mutants of the fowl: diplopodia1 and talpid2

In two polydactylous mutants, talpid 2 and diplopodia 1 , polarizing activity appears to be present only in the normal location in the posterior corner of the limb-bud. There is, thus, a preaxial extension of maintenance activity without an accompanying extension of demonstrable polarizing activity. Experiments involving apex exchanges between normal and talpid 2 wing-buds suggest that the movement of ‘maintenance factor’ per se from preaxial talpid 2 limb tissue into a normal apex does not occur.
Integration Approach&Performance In Cross-border M&As:The Role of Social Exchange Processes

Previous research tends to assign low cross-border M&A performance to strategic and financial factors. We compliment previous analyses by using social exchange constructs to explore the link betwee...
Financing Patterns in Transition Economies: Privatized Versus De Novo Private Firms

In this study, we employ Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) database to study 19,521 firms in 30 Eastern European and Central Asian countries for 2002-2014 to examine how firm financing patterns differ across the transition economies for privatized and de novo (originally) private firms and the relevant role of a country’s financial and institutional development. We use a broad spectrum of external finance sources, including bank, equity, supplier, and informal finance. Our results show that privatized firms in ECA countries finance a higher proportion of their investment from external finance, especially bank finance, and a lower proportion of their investment from informal sources in comparing to de novo private firms. We find a strong impact of country-level financial and institutional development on the use of external finance by firms. We also find that better financial and institutional development can level the playing field between privatized and de novo private firms in terms of the use of external finance.
Catalytic Behavior of Neodymium Complexes in the Polymerization of Polar Monomer

Polymerization of 4-vinylpridine was studied with poly(Sytrene-Acrylamde)-supported NdCl 3 complex catalyst The influence of Al/Nd molar ratio,concentration of catalyst, reaction time and temperature on polymerization of 4-vinylpridine was investigated The results show that the catalytic activity of polymer-supported catalyst is higher than that of the similar lower molecular system and simple rare earth chloride The activity of PSAM·NdCl 3 is influenced by the composition of PSAM·NdCl 3
Open Triple Neurectomy

Postherniorrhaphy chronic pain is a significant cause of morbidity following inguinal hernia repair. Patients with inguinodynia refractory to conservative treatment may be considered for operative remediation. Triple neurectomy remains the most definitive operative modality for addressing neuropathic causes of inguinal pain. A thorough understanding of groin neuroanatomy is crucial, and successful outcomes are dependent upon choosing patients with discrete neuroanatomic problems amenable to surgical correction. Open triple neurectomy involves segmental resection of the ilioinguinal nerve (IIN), the genital branch of the genitofemoral nerve (GFN), and the iliohypogastric nerve (IHN). Variations on this operation involve resecting the main branch of the GFN for patients whose original repair entered the preperitoneal space and resecting the paravasal nerves for patients with orchialgia in addition to inguinodynia. Triple neurectomy is successful in greater than 90 % of carefully selected patients with postherniorrhaphy chronic pain.
Optimal pulse penetration in Lorentz-Model dielectrics using the Sommerfeld and Brillouin precursors

Under proper initial conditions, the interrelated effects of phase and attenuation dispersion in ultrawideband pulse propagation modify the input pulse into precursor fields. Because of their minimal decay in a given dispersive medium, precursor-type pulses possess optimal penetration into that material at the frequency-chirped Lambert-Beer's law limit, making them ideally suited for remote sensing and medical imaging.
Quantitative Amino Acid Analysis in Insulin and C-Peptide Assays.

To the Editor: Standardization of peptide assays is challenging. Most commercial assays are standardized against WHO reference materials. Unfortunately, many of these materials are provided ( a ) with values that are not gravimetrically traceable to International System (SI)1 units and ( b ) as powders of unknown peptide content. In addition, for some peptides such as insulin and C-peptide, the most commonly used reference materials are no longer available. We recently developed an LC-MS/MS assay to simultaneously measure intact insulin and C-peptide (1). Here we describe rigorous characterization of peptide content of calibrators and controls, with the goal of mass-based standardization. We compare data from this approach to immunoassays that are standardized using the above-mentioned WHO reference materials. For our assay, we used human insulin WHO standard code 83/500 [National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC)] and C-peptide (Anaspec) in the calibrators, and human insulin from US Pharmacopeia (USP) and C-peptide from Bachem in the QCs (1). Insulin, provided by NIBSC and USP as bulk powders, was weighed before dissolution (1). C-peptide from Anaspec and Bachem was provided as 0.5 mg of dried powder in glass vials. All solutions prepared from …
Epithelial Na + Channels

Epithelial Na + channels (ENaCs) have a key role in the regulation of extracellular fluid volume and blood pressure. Over the two decades since the initial characterization of ENaCs at a molecular level, investigators have identified key structural features within channel subunits and have defined mechanisms by which hormones and other factors regulate ENaC activity. Mutations within ENaC subunits have been identified that result in a gain or loss of function, which have profound effects on blood pressure. The identification of Liddle syndrome mutations led to the elucidation of a network of proteins, including Sgk1, GILZ, and Nedd4-2, which have important roles in the regulation of ENaC activity. The high-resolution structure of ASIC1, in combination with functional studies, has provided new insights regarding the role of the extracellular region in the regulation of ENaC gating.
Distributed object recognition in smart camera networks

Distributed object recognition is a significantly fast-growing research area, mainly motivated by the emergence of high performance cameras and their integration with modern wireless sensor network technologies. In wireless distributed object recognition, the bandwidth is limited and it is desirable to avoid transmitting redundant visual features from multiple cameras to the base station. In this paper, we propose a histogram compression and feature selection framework based on Sparse Non-negative Matrix Factorization (SNMF). In our proposed method, histograms of the features are modeled as linear combination of a small set of signature vectors with associated weight vectors. The recognition process in the base station is then performed based on these small sets of transmitted weights from each camera. Furthermore, we propose another novel distributed object recognition scheme based on local classification in each camera and sending the label information to the base station and making the final decision based on majority voting. Experiments on BMW dataset affirm that our approach outperforms the state of the art in accuracy and bandwidth usage.
Fast algorithm for nonlinear signaling analysis

We develop a fast algorithm for the signaling analysis of nonlinear circuits. This algorithm only requires O(k) nonlinear simulations to assess the performance of a nonlinear circuit for signaling instead of the original 2m nonlinear simulations, where m is the bit number related to channel memory, and k is much less than 2m, which is also adaptively determined based on a prescribed accuracy. Simulations of nonlinear circuits involving both inter-symbol interference (ISI) and crosstalk have validated the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed fast algorithm.
Anodic Dissolution of Aluminum in the Aluminum Chloride-1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium Chloride Ionic Liquid.

The anodic dissolution of aluminum metal was investigated in the Lewis acidic chloroaluminate ionic liquid, aluminum chloride-1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride. The investigation was conducted on aluminum rotating disk electrodes as a function of potential, ionic liquid composition, and temperature. Two different dissolution mechanisms were realized. At modest overpotentials, dissolution takes place under mixed kinetic-mass transport control. However, as the overpotential is increased to induce higher dissolution rates and/or the ionic liquid is made more acidic, the dissolution reaction transitions to a potential-independent passivation-like process ascribed to the formation of a porous solid layer of AlCl3(s). At a fixed temperature and composition, the limiting passivation current density displays Levich behavior and also scales linearly with the concentration of AlCl4- in the ionic liquid. The heterogeneous kinetics of the Al dissolution reaction were measured in the active dissolution potential regime. The exchange current densities were independent of the composition of the ionic liquid, and the anodic transfer coefficients were close to zero and seemed to be independent of the Al grain size.
Tippling houses, rum shops and taverns: how alcohol fuelled informal commercial networks and knowledge exchange in the West Indies

Although historians have recently considered the important role that taverns and the consumption of alcohol played in the early modern world, less attention has been focused on more nefarious or du...
A Phase-2 Trial of Low-Dose Pomalidomide In Myelofibrosis with Anemia

Abstract 4109 Background: In a previous study, we reported safety and efficacy of low-dose (0.5 mg/d) pomalidomide and prednisone and pomalidomide alone (2 mg/d) for the treatment of anemia associated with myelofibrosis (J Clin Oncol 2009; 27: 4563). The current study examined the value of low dose pomalidomide alone (ClinicalTrials.gov No. NCT00669578). Methods: Persons with primary (PMF) or post-polycythemia vera/essential thrombocythemia (post-PV/ET MF) myelofibrosis were studied. The main eligibility criterion was RBC-transfusion-dependence or hemoglobin Results: Pomalidomide (0.5 mg/d) was given to 58 subjects (median age 68 y; 44 males). 46 (79%) were RBC-transfusion-dependent and 42, JAK2V617F-positive. Baseline disease-stage at time of study-entry according to the Dynamic International Prognostic Scoring System (DIPSS; Blood 2010; 115: 1703) was high-risk in 16 (28%) and intermediate-2 risk in 42 (72%). Cytogenetic findings were favorable in 46, unfavorable in 9 and not evaluable in 3. 46 (79%) had PMF and the remainder post-PV/ET MF. 49 (84%) patients completed ≥3 mo of therapy. Treatment was well-tolerated with no instances of thrombosis. There was grade-1 neuropathy possibly related to drug in 1 subject. ≥Grade-3 thrombocytopenia/neutropenia occurred in 2 subjects. There was an anemia response in 10 (17%) subjects including 9 who became RBC-transfusion-independent. Median response-duration was 8+ mo (range, 6–13 mo). 14 of 24 subjecst (58%) with platelets ≤100 × 10e9/L had a >50% increment. There were no spleen responses. Anemia response occurred only in subjects with JAK2V617F (24% vs. 0; p=0.03) but was not correlated with mutant allele burden (p=0.39). Anemia response in JAK2V617F-positive subjects was predicted by the presence of pomalidomide-induced basophilia in the 1st month of therapy (38% vs. 6%; p=0.02) or absence of marked splenomegaly (38% vs. 11%; p=0.05); response was not affected by cytogenetic risk-category (p=0.96) or WBC (p=0.27). Conclusions: These data suggest that low-dose pomalidomide is effective in the treatment for anemia associated with JAK2V617F-positive myelofibrosis, especially in the absence of marked splenomegaly. Response appears to be predicted by early drug-induced basophilia. Pomalidomide also appears to improve thrombocytopenia in most subjects with baseline platelets Disclosures: Mesa:SBio: Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding; Celgene: Research Funding; Incyte: Research Funding; Roche: Research Funding; eisai: Research Funding; telik: Research Funding.
Urban Education in North America: Section Editor’s Introduction

This introduction discusses some of the major themes that have emerged in the field of Urban Education in North America, particularly the United States and Canada, over the last decade. The essay begins with a critical discussion of the shifting definitions and conceptualizations of “urban” that is often racialized, and the connections of urban education to notions of place and space. Next, neoliberalism in urban education is discussed as an ideology and guiding set of policies and practices for school reform in North America. Providing examples of neoliberalism that have had devastating effects on communities of color and urban schools, a call to action is issued for scholar-activists in the field to mobilize and work in solidarity with community resistance movements. Finally, the essay ends with a preview of the six chapters included in the North America section and their connections to the larger discussions of (re)conceptualizing “urban,” neoliberalism, and their implications for greater equity.
Verification of control design and implementation for power supplies by FPGA-in-the-loop simulation

In many power electronic applications, building a power converter and/or a testing setup/facility for its evaluation can be expensive and time consuming. The development cycle in such applications can be accelerated by verifying the control design and implementation without building the power converter, i.e., by emulating the converter in real-time or non-real time simulations. In this paper, an overview of different approaches for verification of control design and implementation by emulating the power converter is provided. In addition, an FPGA-in-the-loop (FIL) simulation is presented to verify the control design and implementation for a gradient power supply for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applications. In FIL simulations, the control is implemented with an FPGA which operates in real-time, whereas, the power converter is simulated in Simulink which operates in non-real time. Therefore, for proper FIL simulation, the operation of the FPGA must be synchronized with Simulink. The communication between the FPGA and Simulink to achieve synchronization is described in details. Finally, the FIL simulation results are compared to results obtained with model-in-the-loop (MIL) simulation, where both power converter and control are simulated in Simulink.
From a ℤ2 topological insulator to a square ribbon: Tuning quantum spin Hall states and conductivity

By introducing a new type of strained lattice, one dimensional arm-distorted ribbons, we demonstrate the possibility of opening a bandgap from the originally gapless graphene nanoribbons in the ℤ2 topological class. Typically, a gap opens up due to time-reversal/twofold rotational symmetry breaking; however, our approach leads to a bandgap at the edge of the Brillouin zone while preserving the above symmetries. The calculated gap opening is due to a properly scaled extra hopping interaction, compared to the Kane-Mele Hamiltonian where this hopping is omitted since it is a third neighbor interaction in graphene. For square ribbons with a variable number of legs, we discuss Rashba-related spin-dependent transport properties in the presence and absence of a magnetic flux. In such ribbons, opposite spins travel in opposite directions along the edges, while the spin current in the center leg turns out to be smaller by at least an order of magnitude. In addition, the spin difference between the left and right (...
Calcite Growth Rates As a Function of Aqueous Calcium-to-Carbonate Ratio, Saturation Index, and Inhibitor Concentration: Insight into the Mechanism of Reaction and Poisoning by Strontium

Using in situ atomic force microscopy, the growth rates of the obtuse and acute step orientations on the {1014} calcite surface were measured at two saturation indices as a function of the aqueous calcium-to-carbonate ratio and aqueous strontium concentration. The amount of strontium required to inhibit growth was found to correlate with the aqueous calcium concentration, but did not correlate with carbonate, suggesting that strontium inhibits attachment of calcium ions to reactive sites on the calcite surface. Strontium/calcium cation exchange selectivity coefficients, Kex, are estimated at 1.09 ± 0.09 and 1.44 ± 0.19 for reactive sites on the obtuse and acute step orientations, respectively. The implication of this work is that, to avoid poisoning calcite growth, the concentration of calcium should be higher than the quotient of the strontium concentration and Kex, regardless of the saturation index. Previous analytical models of nucleation of kink sites on steps are expanded to include growth rates at...
Abstract PR07: Collateral sensitivity in chemotherapy resistance

The current 5-year survival rate across all cancers is only 68%. The ability of tumors to develop resistance to chemotherapy is a major factor keeping survival rates down. Understanding the evolutionary paths tumors take towards resistance will aid in creating drug regimens designed to avoid resistant tumor states. Research in bacteria suggests that a specific type of drug pair, where resistance to each drug confers sensitivity to the other drug, can slow evolution toward drug resistance. This drug pair relationship, termed collateral sensitivity, has not been systematically investigated in cancer. Here, using a preclinical Eμ-myc; Arf-/- murine model of Burkitt lymphoma we investigate collateral sensitivities in this malignancy. We derived resistant cell lines in vitro by treating the parental cell line with dose escalating concentrations of doxorubicin or cisplatin. We screened a subset of these resistant cell lines against a panel of drugs and found several collateral sensitivities conferred by doxorubicin or cisplatin resistance. We are currently investigating the mechanism of one of these collateral sensitivities. We plan to derive cell lines resistant to a variety of other chemotherapies to learn about collateral sensitivities across many chemotherapeutics. Collateral sensitivity is a promising avenue towards rationally designing combination therapies that reduce the emergence of chemotherapy resistant disease. Citation Format: Simona Dalin, Boyang Zhao, Michael T. Hemann. Collateral sensitivity in chemotherapy resistance [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Precision Medicine Series: Opportunities and Challenges of Exploiting Synthetic Lethality in Cancer; Jan 4-7, 2017; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2017;16(10 Suppl):Abstract nr PR07.
Segmented regression for spatio-spectral background estimation

We formulate hyperspectral target detection in terms of a local context by modeling the relationship of individual pixels with the annuli of pixels that surround them. A prediction of the center pixel in terms of the annulus pixels provides an estimate of the target-free pixel value, and this estimate can be used as a baseline against which a measurement of that pixel is compared. When the measurement is far from the baseline, that is evidence that the target-free hypothesis is incorrect — and that there is a target at that pixel. The predictor is adaptive to the image, and in this paper, we suggest making it more adaptive by segmenting the image into qualitatively different regions, and learning a new predictor for each region. We learn a new predictor for each segment, and attempt to optimize the segmentation so as to minimize the prediction error, overall. We apply this approach to some well-known hyperspectral datasets, and find that (as expected) the average prediction error is reduced and (less expected) that the “segments” that are discovered are spatially quite scattered, and (in the case with two segments) tend to group image pixels into edges and non-edges.