cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of open versus endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair in population settings: A systematic review of statewide databases.

Background Patient outcomes after open abdominal aortic aneurysm and endovascular aortic aneurysm repair have been widely reported from several large, randomized, controlled trials. It is not clear whether these trial outcomes are representative of abdominal aortic aneurysm repair procedures performed in real-world hospital settings across the United States. This study was designed to evaluate population-based outcomes after endovascular aortic aneurysm repair versus open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair using statewide inpatient databases and examine how they have helped improve our understanding of abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Methods A systematic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL databases was performed to identify articles comparing endovascular aortic aneurysm repair and open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair using data from statewide inpatient databases. This search was limited to studies published in the English language after 1990, and abstracts were screened and abstracted by 2 authors. Results Our search yielded 17 studies published between 2004 and 2016 that used data from 29 different statewide inpatient databases to compare endovascular aortic aneurysm repair versus open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. These studies support the randomized, controlled trial results, including a lower mortality associated with endovascular aortic aneurysm repair extended from the perioperative period up to 3 years after operation, as well as a higher complication rate after endovascular aortic aneurysm repair. The evidence from statewide inpatient database analyses has also elucidated trends in procedure volume, patient case mix, volume-outcome relationships, and health care disparities associated with endovascular aortic aneurysm repair versus open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Conclusion Population analyses of endovascular aortic aneurysm repair and open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair using statewide inpatient databases have confirmed short- and long-term mortality outcomes obtained from large, randomized, controlled trials. Moreover, these analyses have allowed us to assess the effect of endovascular aortic aneurysm repair adoption on population outcomes and patient case mix over time.
Seryl transfer ribonucleic acid synthetase from bakers' yeast. 3. The seryladenylate-enzyme complex and its interaction with transfer ribonucleic acids.

Seryl transfer RNA synthetase from bakers' yeast reacted with adenosine triphosphate and serine in the presence of magnesium to form a seryladenylate-enzyme complex which could transfer its seryl moiety to serine tRNA from yeast only in the presence of magnesium or other suitable cofactor. Spermidine was an effective substitute for magnesium in the transfer reaction. Serine-specific tRNA from yeast had a marked labilizing effect on the seryladenylate-enzyme complex to a greater extent than could be accounted for by the degree of transfer. Non-amino acid-accepting CpC terminal serine tRNA from yeast also had this property, but serine tRNA from Escherichia coli and a mixture of non-serine tRNAs from yeast did not.
A Thermal Direct Shear Device for Testing Polymer-Bonded Sands

This paper documents the customization of a direct shear apparatus to accommodate heat injection into a polymer-bonded sand (PBS) specimen while in the shear box (i.e., before, during, or after shearing). The system is controlled with an electronic microcontroller that is coded to enable tailored heat treatment protocols and data logging in the temperature range between 110°C and 160°C. The use of the system is exemplified with experiments aimed to characterize the strength of PBS specimens subjected to multiple heating—and thus multiple healing—cycles.
A Pregnancy Block Resulting from Multiple-Male Copulation or Exposure at the Tine of Mating in Deer Mice (Peromyscus Maniculatus)

Deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus are known to engage in multiple-male copulations in the field. Litters conceived in the field are known to be of multiple paternity (Birdsall and Nash, 1973). In a subsidiary analysis of data from several experiments, Dewsbury and Baumgardner (1981) found evidence that females mating with more than one male may have a decreased probability of pregnancy compared to females receiving similar amounts of stimulation from one male. Three experiments were designed to verify and explore this phenomenon.
Miscellaneous Neoplasms with Endocrine Differentiation

Many tissues whose primary functions do not include an endocrine role are associated with the development of neoplasms with neuroendocrine features. Among these are some tumors of the thymus, skin, larynx, prostate, breast, cervix, ovary, and testis. Neuroendocrine cells and hormone products can be identified in nonneoplastic cells in many of these tissues, while in others such as the larynx endocrine cells are not readily apparent in the normal tissues. Because endocrine cells can readily be found in many nonendocrine tumors, the production of hormones by many of the neoplasms discussed in this chapter may be considered as eutopic rather than ectopic hormone production. Neoplasms with mixed exocrine and neuroendocrine function, which include tumors with multidirectional differentiation, are also considered in this chapter.
Research Center Insights into Data Curation Education and Curriculum

The need for the data curator role is being recognized in new institutional settings as research funding agencies internationally extend data archiving mandates to cover more types of research grants. This paper identifies categories of skills required for data curator from the perspective of data professionals within an atmospheric and Earth system science research center. We illustrate how the data curation tasks performed within a research center environment range across a spectrum of required skills. We use this spectrum to discuss implications for data curation education more broadly.
Abstract P5-07-14: Chronic kidney disease in breast cancer treatment and survival

Background: Presence of chronic kidney disease (CKD Stages 3-5) prior to breast cancer diagnosis may increase the risk of mortality among women with invasive breast cancer. However, the evidence base is limited, and the magnitude of this mortality risk is unknown. Breast cancer therapy may also be altered by presence of CKD. We sought to understand the role of CKD in breast cancer survival, with particular attention to receipt of recommended treatment. Methods: All women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer from 1992-2016 in 18 SEER-Medicare sites (age 66 or older; n= 168701) were evaluated for breast cancer-specific mortality (BCSM) using multivariate Cox models, with estimation of hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). All analyses were adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, diagnosis year, tumor characteristics, and socioeconomic factors, and also for diabetes, myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure prior to diagnosis. Separate analyses were run according to receipt vs non-receipt of standard of care for breast cancer treatment (defined according to National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines. Results: Median follow-up was 63 months (26 months with CKD). Women with CKD were at increased risk of BCSM (CKD Stage 3: HR 1.2; 95% CI 1.0-1.5; CKD Stage 4 HR 1.7; 95% CI 1.3-2.2; CKD Stage 5/End Stage Renal Disease HR 1.5; 95% CI 1.1-2.1), compared to women without CKD. In analyses of any CKD, restricted to women who met NCCN guideline therapy recommendations, women had an elevated risk of BCSM regardless of whether they did (HR 1.6; 95% CI 1.1-2.1) or did not (HR 1.4; 95% CI 1.0-1.8) receive recommended chemotherapy, and whether they did (HR 1.6; 95% CI 1.1-2.3) or did not (HR 1.3; 95% CI 0.9-2.0) receive recommended radiotherapy. Discussion: Women with CKD have an increased risk of breast cancer mortality regardless of receipt of guideline-based treatment. CKD is underascertained in Medicare claims data, thus the reported results (likely underestimates) will be presented with sensitivity analyses. CKD may influence breast cancer outcomes due to associated systemic inflammation and comorbid conditions, as well as release of soluble mediators such as cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, and factors involved in remodeling of the extracellular matrix and epithelial-mesenchymal transition. As such factors involved in CKD progression also influence cancer, increased understanding may provide clues to ameliorate adverse outcomes in both disease entities. Citation Format: Deirdre A Hill, Christos Argyropoulos, Maria-Eleni Roumelioti, Mark Unruh. Chronic kidney disease in breast cancer treatment and survival [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2019 Dec 10-14; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-07-14.
A Lower Bound for Byzantine Agreement and Consensus for Adaptive Adversaries using VDFs

Large scale cryptocurrencies require the participation of millions of participants and support economic activity of billions of dollars, which has led to new lines of work in binary Byzantine Agreement (BBA) and consensus. The new work aims to achieve communication-efficiency---given such a large $n$, not everyone can speak during the protocol. Several protocols have achieved consensus with communication-efficiency, even under an adaptive adversary, but they require additional strong assumptions---proof-of-work, memory-erasure, etc. All of these protocols use multicast: every honest replica multicasts messages to all other replicas. Under this model, we provide a new communication-efficient consensus protocol using Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) that is secure against adaptive adversaries and does not require the same strong assumptions present in other protocols. A natural question is whether we can extend the synchronous protocols to the partially synchronous setting---in this work, we show that using multicast, we cannot. Furthermore, we cannot achieve always safe communication-efficient protocols (that maintain safety with probability 1) even in the synchronous setting against a static adversary when honest replicas only choose to multicast its messages. Considering these impossibility results, we describe a new communication-efficient BBA protocol in a modified partially synchronous network model which is secure against adaptive adversaries with high probability.
HIV/AIDS Research for the Future

Despite significant progress, several questions related to HIV infection remain to be addressed. Here, I provide my perspective on four key areas that need further research to inform curative and preventive measures against HIV/AIDS.
Predictive and Adaptive Failure Mitigation to Avert Production Cloud VM Interruptions.

This technical report is an extended version of our OSDI 2020 paper: Predictive and Adaptive Failure Mitigation to Avert Production Cloud VM Interruptions. Abstract: When a failure occurs in production systems, the highest priority is to quickly mitigate it. Despite its importance, failure mitigation is done in a reactive and ad-hoc way: taking some fixed actions only after a severe symptom is observed. For cloud systems, such a strategy is inadequate. In this paper, we propose a preventive and adaptive failure mitigation service, NARYA, that is integrated in a production cloud, Microsoft Azure’s compute platform. Narya predicts imminent host failures based on multi-layer system signals and then decides smart mitigation actions. The goal is to avert VM failures. Narya’s decision engine takes a novel online experimentation approach to continually explore the best mitigation action. Narya further enhances the adaptive decision capability through reinforcement learning. Narya has been running in production for 15 months. It on average reduces VM interruptions by 26% compared to previous static strategy.
Topological electronic states and thermoelectric transport at phase boundaries in single-layer WSe2: an effective Hamiltonian theory.

Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides in the distorted octahedral 1T' phase exhibit a large bulk bandgap and gapless boundary states, which is an asset in the ongoing quest for topological electronics. In single-layer tungsten diselenide (WSe2), the boundary states have been observed at well ordered interfaces between 1T' and semiconducting (1H) phases. This paper proposes an effective 4-band theory for the boundary states in single-layer WSe2, describing a Kramers pair of in-gap states as well as the behaviour at the spectrum termination points on the conduction and valence bands of the 1T' phase. The spectrum termination points determine the temperature and chemical potential dependences of the ballistic conductance and thermopower at the phase boundary. Notably, the thermopower shows an ambipolar behaviour, changing the sign in the bandgap of the 1T' - WSe2and reflecting its particle-hole asymmetry. The theory establishes a link between the bulk band structure and ballistic boundary transport in single-layer WSe2and is applicable to a range of related topological materials.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and total fluorine in fire station dust

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of over 4700 fluorinated compounds used in industry and consumer products. Studies have highlighted the use of aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) as an exposure source for firefighters, but little is known about PFAS occurrence inside fire stations, where firefighters spend most of their shifts. In this study, we aimed to characterize PFAS concentrations and sources inside fire stations. We measured 24 PFAS (using LC–MS/MS) and total fluorine (using particle-induced gamma ray emission) in dust from multiple rooms of 15 Massachusetts stations, many of which (60%) no longer use PFAS-containing AFFF at all and the rest of which only use it very rarely. Compared to station living rooms, turnout gear locker rooms had higher dust levels of total fluorine (p < 0.0001) and three PFAS: perfluorohexanoate (PFHxA), perfluoroheptanoate (PFHpA), and perfluorodecanoate (PFDoDA) (p < 0.05). These PFAS were also found on six wipes of station turnout gear. By contrast, the dominant PFAS in living rooms was N-ethyl perfluorooctane sulfonamidoacetic acid (N-MeFOSAA), a precursor to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) that still persists despite phase-outs almost two decades ago. The Σ24 PFAS accounted for less than 2% of fluorine in dust (n = 39), suggesting the potential presence of unknown PFAS. Turnout gear may be an important PFAS source in stations due to intentional additives and/or contamination from firefighting activities.
Mechanical stimulation enhances development of scaffold-free, 3D-printed, engineered heart tissue grafts

Current efforts to engineer a clinically relevant tissue graft from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have relied on the addition or utilization of external scaffolding material. However any imbalance in the interactions between embedded cells and their surroundings may hinder the success of the resulting tissue graft. Therefore the goal of our study was to create scaffold-free 3D-printed cardiac tissue grafts from hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (CMs), and to evaluate whether or not mechanical stimulation would result in improved graft maturation. To explore this, we used a 3D bioprinter to produce scaffold-free cardiac tissue grafts from hiPSC-derived CM cell spheroids. Static mechanical stretching of these grafts significantly increased sarcomere length compared to unstimulated free-floating tissues, as determined by immunofluorescent image analysis. Stretched tissue was found to have decreased elastic modulus, increased maximal contractile force, and increased alignment of formed extracellular matrix, as expected in a functionally maturing tissue graft. Additionally, stretched tissues had upregulated expression of cardiac-specific gene transcripts, consistent with increased cardiac-like cellular identity. Finally, analysis of extracellular matrix organization in stretched grafts suggests improved remodeling by embedded cardiac fibroblasts. Taken together, our results suggest that mechanical stretching stimulates hiPSC derived-CMs in a 3D-printed scaffold-free tissue graft to develop mature cardiac material structuring and cellular fates. Our work highlights the critical role of mechanical conditioning as an important engineering strategy toward developing clinically applicable, scaffold-free human cardiac tissue grafts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Discrimination and Substance Use: Examining the Moderating Role of Impulsivity among Racial-Ethnic Minority Adolescents.

Background: Research on substance use among racial-ethnic minority populations notes that discrimination experiences predict substance use outcomes. Individual-level factors, such as impulsivity, a...
Do clinical criteria based on PROMIS outcomes identify acceptable symptoms and function for patients with musculoskeletal problems.

BACKGROUND: Understanding how symptoms influence patient judgements of their health informs providers where to direct care. Patient reported physical outcomes (physical function, pain interference) and self-efficacy of symptom management (SEsm)) predict a patient's health state (i.e. patient acceptable symptom state (PASS)). However, it's unclear if therapist should consider a psychological outcome like SEsm separately or combine this outcome with other physical outcomes for clinical decisions. OBJECTIVE: To determine if patient reported outcome information system (PROMIS) SEsm scale when combined with PROMIS physical function or pain interference is able to accurately predict a patient's health state defined by PASS. METHODS: One hundred ninety-six patients (initial sample (n = 94) and separate sample (n = 102)) were surveyed by phone after care for a musculoskeletal problem. Patients completed PASS, PROMIS physical function, pain interference and SEsm outcomes. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) for determining PASS in the initial sample. Criteria for determining PASS developed from the regression analysis were applied to a separate sample to assess accuracy. Accuracy for PASS status were also assessed at 1-7 days and 45-60 days. RESULTS: Three combinations including SEsm/pain interference and SEsm/physical function showed significant OR's (<0.1) and varied from 2.5 to 4.2 for predicting PASS status. Criteria to predict PASS in the separate sample at 1-7 days and 45-60 days showed accuracies from 74.5% to 83.6%. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that utilizing SEsm in combination with common physical outcomes used to assess patients with musculoskeletal diagnoses improves prediction of a patient's acceptable level of symptoms and activity.
Two-Port Characterization and Transfer Immittances of AC-DC Converters–Part II: Applications

This two-part paper presents a general method to model three-phase ac-dc converters as two-port networks for power system stability studies. Part I of the work has developed the two-port network models and identified two types of transfer characteristics that are unique to ac-dc converters and important for system stability. Part II presents the applications of the developed models in stability analysis of different power systems that use ac-dc converters, including grid integration of converter-based generation from wind, PV and other renewable sources, grid-connected dc microgrids and dc distributed power systems, high-voltage dc transmission, as well as hybrid ac-dc power systems. While impedance-based stability analysis has been studied for each of these systems, the new two-port models, especially the transfer immittance models, make it possible and easy to formulate more complete system models to include dynamics and coupling effects that have been ignored or impossible to consider in the past. The methods to study the stability of each type of systems are explained and illustrated by case studies that also highlight the effects of coupling modeled by the transfer immittances on system stability. Each case study also exemplifies a practical stability concern in converter-based power systems.
Ruxolitinib in CMML: A Case Study of Innovative Trial Design in a Rare Cancer.

Alternative statistical designs cannot fully mitigate the limitations of traditional clinical trials in rare cancers. Creative study designs that integrate early clinical data and correlative outcomes from concomitant translational and laboratory models to evaluate the efficacy of druggable targets can potentially expedite access to novel therapies for these patients. See related article by Hunter et al., p. 6095
Surface modifications of plasma treated aluminum particles and direct evidence for altered reactivity

Abstract Aluminum particles (Al) inherently contain a natural oxide (Al2O3) coating that limits rates of diffusion-controlled energy release and can prevent complete conversion of the chemical energy available within an Al particle. Therefore, altering Al surface properties to reduce the oxide shell and/or transform shell chemistry are active areas of research. This study used atmospheric pressure plasmas to reduce the aluminum oxide shell, then examined the resulting changes in reactivity. Two plasma gas discharges were compared: argon (Ar) and helium (He). All plasma-treated particles were characterized using Powder X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). Results show Ar plasma treatment resulted in high concentrations of surface hydration, while He plasma treatment did not. Both plasma-treated Al particles show reduced oxidation barriers that result in increased reaction rate constants by an order of magnitude for oxidation reactions. The results further an understanding of the effects of surface modifications on reaction kinetics and energy release behavior of fuel particles.
EPR Spectroscopic Studies of [FeFe]-Hydrogenase Maturation.

Proton reduction and H2 oxidation are key elementary reactions for solar fuel production. Hydrogenases interconvert H+ and H2 with remarkable efficiency and have therefore received much attention in this context. For [FeFe]-hydrogenases, catalysis occurs at a unique cofactor called the H-cluster. In this article, we discuss ways in which EPR spectroscopy has elucidated aspects of the bioassembly of the H-cluster, with a focus on four case studies: EPR spectroscopic identification of a radical en route to the CO and CN– ligands of the H-cluster, tracing 57Fe from the maturase HydG into the H-cluster, characterization of the auxiliary Fe–S cluster in HydG, and isotopic labeling of the CN– ligands of HydA for electronic structure studies of its Hox state. Advances in cell-free maturation protocols have enabled several of these mechanistic studies, and understanding H-cluster maturation may in turn provide insights leading to improvements in hydrogenase production for biotechnological applications.
The influence of time domain reflectometry rod induced flow disruption on measured water content during steady state unit gradient flow

[1] Intrusive measurement techniques require placing a sensor within the sample, possibly changing the conditions under which the measurement is collected and thereby affecting the quality of the measurement. In this study we consider time domain reflectometry (TDR), which is an intrusive water content measurement method. TDR rods are impermeable, and thus water is forced to flow around the rods. In an unsaturated medium this changes the water content distribution in the vicinity of the rods, with the water content increased at the tops of the rods and decreased at the bottoms of the rods. TDR has nonuniform spatial sensitivity, with much higher sensitivity immediately adjacent to rods, in the regions that experience the greatest change in water content due to this flow disruption. Furthermore, the spatial sensitivity of TDR depends on the water content distribution within the sample volume. This raises the possibility that flow disruptions caused by TDR rods may affect the TDR-measured water content. In this study we are specifically interested in the effects of flow disruption due to TDR rods. Therefore we consider steady state unit gradient unsaturated flow in a homogeneous medium to eliminate spatial heterogeneity of water content due to soil heterogeneity and transient flow conditions. For common TDR probe designs in the wide range of soils examined, flow disruption gives rise to a water content measurement error that is less than 0.005 cm3 cm−3. This is smaller than the reported accuracy of the TDR method of 0.02 cm3 cm−3. As a result, we conclude that it is appropriate to ignore flow disruption caused by commonly used TDR probes when assessing sources of TDR measurement error.
Using earthquakes to assess lichen growth rates

Botanists make yearly measurements of lichen sizes that describe highly variable radial expansion of young, and old, hizocarpon subgenus hizocarpon that is a function of thallus size and age. Such ...
Mental Illness, Anti‐Psychiatry Perspective of

The anti-psychiatry perspective of mental illness is a general critique of psychiatry, based on the premise that mental health practitioners lack rigor in their diagnosis of mental illness. While psychiatry has been criticized since its early development in the mid-nineteenth century, these critiques received more attention from the general public in several developed nations during the 1960s, when several exposes of asylum practices were published. In the United States, this perspective developed into the anti-psychiatry movement, synchronized with other civil rights-based American social movements, eventually resulting in the closure of asylums and improved mental health patient rights. Patients themselves played a major role in agitating for psychiatric reform, eventually creating the mental health consumerism movement. Outcomes have been the growth of community-based mental health services, and a growing homeless, urban-based mentally ill community. Keywords: alternative medicine; doctor–patient interaction; institutionalization; medicalization; mental health
Ferredoxin- and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-dependent H 2 production from ethanol and formate in extracts of S organism isolated from "Methanobacillus omelianskii".

S organism ferments ethanol to acetate and H2 but grows poorly on ethanol unless the partial pressure of H2 is kept low, as when it is grown in combination with an H2-utilizing methanogenic bacterium. The present study shows that S organism contains an alcohol dehydrogenase and a formate dehydrogenase, both of which require nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) for activity. Hydrogen is evolved from NADH generated by these activities via a ferredoxin-dependent oxidation of NADH to NAD and H2. NADH:NADP oxido-reductase activity was also demonstrated. The relationship of these activities to the growth of S organism is discussed.
Lamellar ichthyosis, dwarfism, mental retardation, and hair shaft abnormalities: A link between the ichthyosis-associated and BIDS syndromes

There is an expanding list of syndromes that combine ichthyosis with neuroectodermal and mesodermal defects. We present the case of a young woman with the following features: lamellar ichthyosis, dwarfism, mental retardation, nail and dental abnormalities, unusual facies, poor sexual maturation, punctate cataracts, and hair shaft abnormalities. There were no neurologic or auditory defects. Hair examination revealed pili torti, trichoschisis, bright and dark bands with polarizing microscopy, and a low hair sulfur content. The patient did not have aminoaciduria or immunoglobulin abnormalities. We believe that this case is a link between the ichthyosis-associated syndromes and the group of syndromes that have in common abnormal hair with clean transverse fractures (trichoschisis) and low sulfur content. A more complete examination of the hair in other patients with ichthyosis and associated abnormalities will probably reveal more patients with this new syndrome.
Quantum transport equations

A quantum transport equation for the response of a « model » electron-impurity system to an electric field is derived for arbitrary frequency. The study is based on the introduction of equations of motion for the diagonal and off-diagonal elements of the density matrix of the electrons, interacting with randomly distributed fixed impurity centers. These equations are treated as changing on the same time scale and, further, both the diagonal and off-diagonal elements of the density matrix are driven by the external field. The transport equation may be reduced to a Boltzmann-type equation for slowly varying fields. If the external field changes rapidly, the results are different and, moreover, an explicit statement of the conductivity is possible. The treatment is restricted to weak scattering potentials.
Massively parallel device simulation using irregular grids

Partitioning, communication scheduling, and preconditioning algorithms are developed to implement a parallel linear solver for an irregular grid drift-diffusion device simulator. The parallel program is executed on a 64 node CM-5 and is compared with PILS running on a single processor. We obtain an average CPU time speed-up of 46.1X for each CGS iteration with no preconditioning, and a speed-up of 33.6X for the solution of the matrix. >
Propagation of Magnolia and Uriodendron Via Somatic Embryogenesis

The family Magnoliaceae contains an number of trees valued for both horticultural and forestry purposes. Some species, particularly in the genus Magnolia, are quite rare, and vegetative propagation by conventional means has been difficult. We have developed embryogenic regeneration systems for a number of rare Magnolia species, such as M. cordata and M. pyramidata, as well as for Liriodendron tulipifera and hybrids between L. tulipifera and L. chinense. All of these systems use the same basic protocol for culture initiation, which consists of culturing immature zygotic embryo or seed expiants at very early stages of development on a medium supplemented with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and benzylaminopurine (BAP) to induce repetitive embryogenesis. However, optimal treatments vary for somatic embryo production from cultures of each species. Some species must be maintained on 2,4-D in order to continue to proliferate as proembryogenic masses (PEMs). Others lose embryogenic capacity if maintained on 2,4-D and instead proliferate indefinitely via repetitive embryogenesis following transfer to hormone-free medium. Somatic embryogenesis has made possible the production of virtually unlimited numbers of rare Magnolia trees, some of which have produced flowers after only 2 seasons in the field. Somatic embryo-derivedhybrid Liriodendron trees have shown rapid growth rates and other signs of hybrid vigor. Of the species cultured to date, L. tulipifera, which has the ability to proliferate as PEMs in suspension culture, has the best potential for scale-up for mass propagation, using a size-fractionation/plating protocol. Field tests of thousands of somatic embryo-derived trees of this species have already been established, and transgenic trees produced from the PEMs following microprojectile-mediated gene transfer have maintained expression of two marker genes for over 3 years.
Enhancing the discovery and development of immunotherapies for cancer using quantitative and systems pharmacology: Interleukin-12 as a case study

Recent clinical successes of immune checkpoint modulators have unleashed a wave of enthusiasm associated with cancer immunotherapy. However, this enthusiasm is dampened by persistent translational hurdles associated with cancer immunotherapy that mirror the broader pharmaceutical industry. Specifically, the challenges associated with drug discovery and development stem from an incomplete understanding of the biological mechanisms in humans that are targeted by a potential drug and the financial implications of clinical failures. Sustaining progress in expanding the clinical benefit provided by cancer immunotherapy requires reliably identifying new mechanisms of action. Along these lines, quantitative and systems pharmacology (QSP) has been proposed as a means to invigorate the drug discovery and development process. In this review, I discuss two central themes of QSP as applied in the context of cancer immunotherapy. The first theme focuses on a network-centric view of biology as a contrast to a “one-gene, one-receptor, one-mechanism” paradigm prevalent in contemporary drug discovery and development. This theme has been enabled by the advances in wet-lab capabilities to assay biological systems at increasing breadth and resolution. The second theme focuses on integrating mechanistic modeling and simulation with quantitative wet-lab studies. Drawing from recent QSP examples, large-scale mechanistic models that integrate phenotypic signaling-, cellular-, and tissue-level behaviors have the potential to lower many of the translational hurdles associated with cancer immunotherapy. These include prioritizing immunotherapies, developing mechanistic biomarkers that stratify patient populations and that reflect the underlying strength and dynamics of a protective host immune response, and facilitate explicit sharing of our understanding of the underlying biology using mechanistic models as vehicles for dialogue. However, creating such models require a modular approach that assumes that the biological networks remain similar in health and disease. As oncogenesis is associated with re-wiring of these biological networks, I also describe an approach that combines mechanistic modeling with quantitative wet-lab experiments to identify ways in which malignant cells alter these networks, using Interleukin-12 as an example. Collectively, QSP represents a new holistic approach that may have profound implications for how translational science is performed.
Some Business Partnerships at Lyon, 1785–1793

The Archives du Rhone at Lyon contain a unique collection of eighteenth-century business records—partnership agreements, merchandise inventories, financial statements, and depositions concerning a variety of commercial houses. Working in these papers, one begins to acquire a clear and detailed idea of the character of French business enterprise, of how business was organized and carried on and commercial capital mobilized at the end of the old regime.
Solution properties of γ-crystallins: Compact structure and low frictional ratio are conserved properties of diverse γ-crystallins

γ-crystallins are highly specialized proteins of the vertebrate eye lens where they survive without turnover under high molecular crowding while maintaining transparency. They share a tightly folded structural template but there are striking differences among species. Their amino acid compositions are unusual. Even in mammals, γ-crystallins have high contents of sulfur-containing methionine and cysteine, but this reaches extremes in fish γM-crystallins with up to 15% Met. In addition, fish γM-crystallins do not conserve the paired tryptophan residues found in each domain in mammalian γ-crystallins and in the related β-crystallins. To gain insight into important, evolutionarily conserved properties and functionality of γ-crystallins, zebrafish (Danio rerio) γM2b and γM7 were compared with mouse γS and human γD. For all four proteins, far UV CD spectra showed the expected β-sheet secondary structure. Like the mammalian proteins, γM7 was highly soluble but γM2b was much less so. The heat and denaturant stability of both fish proteins was lower than either mammalian protein. The ability of full-length and truncated versions of human αB-crystallin to retard aggregation of the heat denatured proteins also showed differences. However, when solution behavior was investigated by sedimentation velocity experiments, the diverse γ-crystallins showed remarkably similar hydrodynamic properties with low frictional ratios and partial specific volumes. The solution behavior of γ-crystallins, with highly compact structures suited for the densely packed environment of the lens, seems to be highly conserved and appears largely independent of amino acid composition.
Relevance of Hardiness Assessment and Training to the Military Context

Hardiness is a pattern of attitudes and skills that provides the courage and strategies to turn stressful circumstances from potential disasters into growth opportunities instead. As such, hardines...
Analysis of NOx Formation in a Hydrogen-Fueled Gas Turbine Engine

A commercially available natural gas fueled gas turbine engine was operated on hydrogen. Three sets of fuel injectors were developed to facilitate stable operation while generating differing levels of fuel/air premixing. One set was designed to produce near uniform mixing while the others have differing degrees of non-uniformity. The emissions performance of the engine over its full range of loads is characterized for each of the injector sets. In addition, the performance is also assessed for the set with near uniform mixing as operated on natural gas. The results show that improved mixing and lower equivalence ratio decreases NO emission levels as expected. However, even with nearly perfect premixing, it is found that the engine, when operated on hydrogen, produces a higher amount of NO than when operated with natural gas. Much of this attributed to the higher equivalence ratios that the engine operates on when firing hydrogen. However, even at the lowest equivalence ratios run at low power conditions, higher NO was observed. Analysis of the potential NO formation effects of residence time, kinetic pathways of NO production via NNH, and the kinetics of the dilute combustion strategy used are evaluated. While no one mechanism appears to explain the reasons for the higher NO, it is concluded that each may be contributing to the higher NO emissions observed with hydrogen. In the present configuration with the commercial control system operating normally, it is evident that system level effects are also contributing to the observed NO emission differences between hydrogen and natural gas. ASME Turbo Expo 2008: Power for Land, Sea, and Air Volume 3: Combustion, Fuels and Emissions, Parts A and B Berlin, Germany, June 9–13, 2008 Conference Sponsors: International Gas Turbine Institute ISBN: 978-0-7918-4313-0 | eISBN: 0-7918-3824-2 Copyright © 2008 by ASME
Rates of Plasma Porphrin Disappearance in Fluorescent Vs. Red Incandescent Light Exposure

The rates of porphyrin disappearance in plasma specimens were assessed during exposure to standard fluorescent room lighting. Protoporphyrin half-life in specimens from patients with erythropoietic protoporphyria appeared to be less than 30 min under these conditions. Uroporphyrin-coproporphyrin mixtures in plasmas of patients with porphyria cutanea tarda were more photostable, with half-lives measurable in terms of hours. All plasma porphyrins could be protected for several days from similar photodegradation by performing all blood drawing, processing, and assay procedures under ordinary red-incandescent illumination, and by storage in the dark.
Isotope-Dependent Phonon Trapping at Defects in Semiconductors

Unexpectedly large isotope effects have been reported for the vibrational lifetimes of the H-C stretch mode of the CH2* defect in Si and the asymmetric stretch of interstitial O in Si as well. First-principles theory can explain these effects. The results imply that defects trap phonons for lengths of time that depend on the defect and sometimes on its isotopic composition. Some consequences of phonon trapping are discussed.
Asset Flow and Momentum: Deterministic and Stochastic Equations

We use basic conservation and microeconomic identities to derive a nonlinear first-order ordinary differential equation for a market system with a prescribed number of shares and cash supply (including additions in time). The equation incorporates the ideas of the niteness of assets and preference that is influenced by price momentum and discount from fundamental value. The concept of a 'liquidity value,' defined as the total cash in the system divided by the number of shares, emerges as a key price along with the fundamental value. In the absence of a clear focus on fundamentals, the price evolves into the liquidity value. This is consistent with the belief of some market analysts who feel that liquidity, or a large sum of cash available for investment, is a primary factor in moving asset prices higher. These equations can also be derived from the system of equations used in previous work by considering a closed system and taking the limit of short time-scale in the preference or transition function as well as some linearization. Finally, the full system of equations is generalized to include randomness. The resulting stochastic system is studied numerically. In particular, when the deterministic equations are complemented with randomness, the solutions generate a range of stochastic patterns, such as the head and shoulders with certain characteristics in common.
Pycnogenol reduces talc-induced neoplastic transformation in human ovarian cell cultures.

Talc and poor diet have been suggested to increase the risk of developing ovarian cancer; which can be reduced by a diet rich in fruit and vegetables. Talc is ubiquitous despite concern about its safety, role as a possible carcinogen and known ability to cause irritation and inflammation. It was recently shown that Pycnogenol® (Pyc; a proprietary mixture of water-soluble bioflavonoids extracted from French maritime pine bark) was selectively toxic to established malignant ovarian germ cells. This study investigated talc-induced carcinogenesis and Pyc-induced chemoprevention. Normal human epithelial and granulosa ovarian cell lines and polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) were treated with talc, or pretreated with Pyc then talc. Cell viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and neoplastic transformation by soft agar assay were measured. Talc increased proliferation, induced neoplastic transformation and increased ROS generation time-dependently in the ovarian cells and dose-dependently in the PMN. Pretreatment with Pyc inhibited the talc-induced increase in proliferation, decreased the number of transformed colonies and decreased the ROS generation in the ovarian cells. The data suggest that talc may contribute to ovarian neoplastic transformation and Pyc reduced the talc-induced transformation. Taken together, Pyc may prove to be a potent chemopreventative agent against ovarian carcinogenesis. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Cerebrovascular autoregulation is resistant to calcium channel blockade with nimodipine.

In normal baboons cerebrovascular resistance changed along with blood pressure to maintain blood flow constant. This ‘autoregulation’ was not significantly altered in animals treated with a dose of the calcium channel blocker nimodipine causing selective cerebral vasodilation.
Design and Validation of a Diffuse Optical Tomography System with Improved Spatial Resolution for Functional Brain Imaging

We describe a diffuse optical tomography system that combines frequency encoding with time-division multiplexing to enable overlapping measurements of brain activation. The observed improvement in spatial resolution is confirmed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Poisson reduction for nonholonomic mechanical systems with symmetry

This paper continues the work of Koon and Marsden [1997b] that began the comparison of the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations of nonholonomic systems. Because of the necessary replacement of conservation laws with the momentum equation, it is natural to let the value of momentum be a variable and for this reason it is natural to take a Poisson viewpoint. Some of this theory has been started in van der Schaft and Maschke [1994]. We build on their work, further develop the theory of nonholonomic Poisson reduction, and tie this theory to other work in the area. We use this reduction procedure to organize nonholonomic dynamics into a reconstruction equation, a nonholonomic momentum equation and the reduced Lagrange d’Alembert equations in Hamiltonian form. We also show that these equations are equivalent to those given by the Lagrangian reduction methods of Bloch, Krishnaprasad, Marsden and Murray [1996]. Because of the results of Koon and Marsden [1997b], this is also equivalent to the results of Bates and Sniatycki [1993], obtained by nonholonomic symplectic reduction. Two interesting complications make this effort especially interesting. First of all, as we have mentioned, symmetry need not lead to conservation laws but rather to a momentum equation. Second, the natural Poisson bracket fails to satisfy the Jacobi identity. In fact, the so-called Jacobiizer (the cyclic sum that vanishes when the Jacobi identity holds), or equivalently, the Schouten bracket, is an interesting expression involving the curvature of the underlying distribution describing the nonholonomic constraints. The Poisson reduction results in this paper are important for the future development of the stability theory for nonholonomic mechanical systems with symmetry, as begun by Zenkov, Bloch and Marsden [1997]. In particular, they should be useful for the development of the powerful block diagonalization properties of the energy-momentum method developed by Simo, Lewis and Marsden [1991].
Clinical usefulness of Epstein-Barr viral load in solid-organ transplantation

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA was quantitated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 25 healthy subjects, 105 asymptomatic solid-organ transplant (SOT) recipients, and 15 SOT recipients with symptomatic EBV infections by using a newly developed quantitative-PCR technique. Patients with symptomatic EBV infections had significantly higher (P 1,000 genome equivalents (GE)/0.5 μg of total PBMC DNA was 64.7% for symptomatic EBV infection, while the negative predictive value was 96.1%. In 19 of 32 (59.3%) asymptomatic SOT recipients, EBV DNA levels were consistently below 1,000 GE for as long as 18 months, while 10 of 32 (31.2%) patients had 1,000 to 5,000 EBV GE at least once during follow-up. In a minority of patients (3 of 32; 9.3%), ≥ 5,000 GE could be detected at least once during follow-up. Reduction of immunosuppressive treatment decreased EBV DNA levels by ≥ 1 log10 unit in patients with symptomatic EBV infections. Quantification of EBV DNA is valuable for the diagnosis and monitoring of symptomatic EBV infections in SOT recipients.
Asymptotic efficiency in estimation with conditional moment restrictions

Abstract In this paper, bounds on asymptotic efficiency are derived for a class of non-parametric models. The data are independent and identically distributed according to some unknown distribution F. There is a given function of the data and a parameter. The restrictions are that a conditional expectation of this function is zero at some point in the parameter space; this point is to be estimated. If F is assumed to be a multinomial distribution with known (finite) support, then the problem becomes parametric and the bound can be obtained from the information matrix. This bound turns out to depend only upon certain conditional moments, and not upon the support of the distribution. Since a general F can be approximated by a multinomial distribution, the multinomial bound applies to the general case.
Banking Regulation as a Solution to Financial Fragility

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the role of government regulation dealing with the risk that fragility of the financial structure may lead to a collapse of the system. Other papers presented at this conference deal with the possible sources of such a collapse—the payments system, international connections, or derivative securities—and with the likelihood that the system is fragile, and the extent to which private solutions maybe adequate to deal with the problem.