cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Tristetrapolin Binds to the COX-2 mRNA 3’ Untranslated Region in Cancer Cells

Consistent evidence of several types indicates that the inducible cyclooxygenase (COX-2) can promote the multi-step sequence of events that lead to colon cancer [1,2]. Levels of COX-2 are increased in 85-90% of human colorectal adencarcinoma [3]. It also is expressed in cancers of the stomach [4], esophagus [5], pancreas [6], prostate [7], lung [8], and breast [9]. Whereas it is clear that COX-2 plays an important role in the initiation of colon cancer, the mechanisms that lead to its over-expression have not been fully elucidated. COX-2 expression is regulated at the transcriptional level in response to cytokines [10] and oncogenic signaling pathways [11]. Also, post-transcriptional mechanisms have been shown to play a role in the regulation of COX-2 expression during carcinogenesis [12], and to increase [13] or decrease [14] COX-2 mRNA stability. The 3’ UTR of COX-2 mRNA contains 22 copies of a conserved AU-rich sequence element (ARE), the AUUUA pentamer. This pentamer, frequently located in or near a U rich region, has been associated with the regulation of the stability of a number of mRNAs, including those of proto-oncogenes and cytokines. A number of ARE-binding proteins have been identified, including HuR, AUF- 1/hnRNPD, TIA-1, and tristetraprolin, that can exert either positive or negative effects on stability, translation and subcellular localization of the mRNA [15, 16, 17].
Perspectives in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: From Hair to Eternity

Context: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common complex genetic disease. It is characterized by hyperandrogenism, gonadotropin secretory changes, polycystic ovarian morphology, and insulin resistance. The etiology of PCOS remains unknown, but modern genetic approaches, such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS), Mendelian randomization, and next-generation sequencing, promise to identify the pathways that are primarily disrupted. Evidence Acquisition: The literature on PCOS, including the author's research, is discussed. Evidence Synthesis: Recent genetic analyses are reviewed. Conclusions: Considerable progress has been made mapping PCOS susceptibility genes. GWAS have implicated gonadotropin secretion and action as important primary defects in disease pathogenesis in European and Han Chinese PCOS cohorts, respectively. European women with the National Institutes of Health and Rotterdam phenotypes as well as those with self-reported PCOS have some gene regions in common, such as chromosome 11p1...
A Computation-Efficient Framework for the Integrated Design of Structural and Control Systems

This paper proposes a new integrated design method to simultaneously optimize the coupled structural parameters and controllers of mechanical systems by combining decentralized control techniques and Riccati-based control theories. The proposed integrated design method aims at minimizing the closed-loop H2 norm from the disturbance to the system cost. In this paper, the integrated design problems have been formulated in the cases of full state-feedback controllers and full order output-feedback controllers. We extend the current linear time invariant (LTI) control system to a more general framework suitable for the needs of integrated design, where the structural design is treated as a passive control optimization tackled by decentralized control techniques with static output feedback, while the active controller is optimized by solving modified Riccati equations. By using this dual-loop control system framework, the original integrated design problem is transferred to a constrained structural design problem with some additional Riccati-equation based constraints simultaneously integrating the controller synthesis. This reduces the independent design variables from the structural design parameters and the parameters of the controller to the structural design parameters only. As a result, the optimization efficiency is significantly improved. Then the constrained structural design problem is reformed as an unconstrained optimization problem by introducing Lagrange multipliers and a Lagrange function. The corresponding optimal conditions for the integrated design are also derived, which can be efficiently solved by gradient-based optimization algorithms. Later, two design examples, an active–passive vehicle suspension system and an active–passive tuned mass damper (TMD) system, are presented. The improvement of the overall system performance is also presented in comparison with conventional design methods.
A performance prediction tool for general aviation flight management

A preliminary design is presented for a general aviation engine performance predictor to be used by pilots of intermittent combustion engine powered aircraft. The goal of this project was to design, prototype, ground test and flight test an engine performance predictor that will be usable in light aircraft to enhance flight safety and performance. This project was done in two phases. The first phase was to build and test a laptop based system using custom electronics only for the sensors. The second phase was to build and test a completely custom microcontroler based system with it's own graphical LCD that would fit in a standard 3 1/8 inch aircraft instrument hole. The use of current low cost electronic sensor technology was explored and emphasized in such a way that the design was economical to produce, light in weight, simple to use, and reliable. Both systems were tested and the data was compared to published data for the test aircraft This design project was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and incorporates analysis tools being developed from graduate projects at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, supporting the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Experiencing the impact of Marcellus Shale: a case study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to ascertain how people who are experiencing the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract gas, define it. A case study is done on the town of Canton in Central Pennsylvania. Design/methodology/approach – A combination of in-depth interviews and content analysis of town hall meetings in the area, and content analysis of articles in the local newspaper (Canton Sentinel) were used to get a sense of how the people who live in this area are experiencing the increase in natural gas extraction. The study attempts to use the notion of framing and interpretive methodology to make sense of how some people in a small town experience the process. Findings – The major finding is that those that benefit directly from the industry tend to have more positive evaluation than those that do not benefit directly. Even those that benefited directly had concerns about the environmental impact of fracking, however have not as yet developed an appropriate narrative w...
The Association Between Trabecular Bone Score and Lumbar Spine Volumetric BMD Is Attenuated Among Older Men With High Body Mass Index.

Trabecular bone score (TBS) has been proposed as a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) derived measure of underlying quality of trabecular bone; however, TBS is not considered valid for those with body mass index (BMI) >37 kg/m2 . Our objective was to determine the association between TBS and lumbar spine (trabecular) volumetric BMD (LS-VBMD) and to examine whether the association varied by BMI and body composition among older men below this clinical threshold. We used regression models to study 3479 men age ≥65 years enrolled in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) study who had TBS from spine DXA scans, LS-VBMD from central quantitative computed tomography, measures of trunk fat and lean mass from DXA, and BMI <37 kg/m2 . TBS was categorized as normal (n = 925), partially degraded (n = 1747), and degraded (n = 807). TBS was inversely related to BMI, trunk fat mass, and trunk lean mass (all p < 0.001). The relationship between TBS and LS-VBMD was nonlinear with magnitude of effect (slope of regression line using standardized variables) ranging from 0.07 (95% CI, -0.02 to 0.15) among those with degraded TBS up to 0.71 (95% CI, 0.54 to 0.89) among those with normal TBS. The relationship was still nonlinear after adjusting for age, clinical site, and either BMI, trunk lean mass, or trunk fat mass. The magnitude of effect relating TBS and LS-VBMD also decreased with increasing BMI (interaction, p = 0.090) and increasing trunk lean mass (interaction, p = 0.001), but not with increasing trunk fat mass (interaction, p = 0.224). In summary, the strength of the association between TBS and LS-VBMD among older men was variable and dependent on BMI and body composition, particularly trunk lean mass. The clinical utility of TBS among older men may be somewhat limited among men with high BMI or high trunk lean mass. © 2016 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Profiling Reactive Metabolites via Chemical Trapping and Targeted Mass Spectrometry.

Metabolomic profiling studies aim to provide a comprehensive, quantitative, and dynamic portrait of the endogenous metabolites in a biological system. While contemporary technologies permit routine profiling of many metabolites, intrinsically labile metabolites are often improperly measured or omitted from studies due to unwanted chemical transformations that occur during sample preparation or mass spectrometric analysis. The primary glycolytic metabolite 1,3-bisphosphoglyceric acid (1,3-BPG) typifies this class of metabolites, and, despite its central position in metabolism, has largely eluded analysis in profiling studies. Here we take advantage of the reactive acylphosphate group in 1,3-BPG to chemically trap the metabolite with hydroxylamine during metabolite isolation, enabling quantitative analysis by targeted LC–MS/MS. This approach is compatible with complex cellular metabolome, permits specific detection of the reactive (1,3-) instead of nonreactive (2,3-) BPG isomer, and has enabled direct analy...
Superior long-term activity for a Pt-Re alloy compared to Pt in methanol oxidation reactions

Abstract Pt-Re bimetallic catalysts have shown enhanced activity compared to pure Pt for reactions involving oxidation, but the origins of this improved activity are not fully understood. Methanol oxidation on a Pt-Re alloy surface and pure Pt foil was studied in a microreactor coupled to an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. For reaction at 60 °C, the Pt-Re alloy surface exhibits superior long-term activity over a 24 h reaction period compared to pure Pt. The initial activity of Pt is 10–15% higher than on Pt-Re; however, the Pt surface gradually loses activity after 10 h online, whereas the activity of Pt-Re does not diminish. Post-reaction XPS shows that more carbon accumulates on the Pt than on Pt-Re, and the improved long-term activity is attributed to a greater ability of Pt-Re to oxidize the carbonaceous intermediates that eventually poison active sites. Both Pt and Pt-Re surfaces have almost no activity for methanol oxidation until a minimum coverage of oxygen is achieved from O2 dissociation. A comparison with methanol oxidation studies on Pt and Pt-Re in a pressure regime that is 150 times lower than in this work demonstrates that more carbon and less oxygen accumulate on the surfaces during reaction at the lower pressures.
Circuit-Level Electrothermal Simulation

The scope of previous work on electrothermal simulation using network analysis techniques has been limited due to the lack of avalanche breakdown models which can efficiently describe the temperature dynamics [59, 58, 89]. For EOS/ESD, an accurate description of temperature-dependent device electrical behaviour including breakdown phenomena is of central importance. This chapter presents the fundamental aspects of circuit-level electrothermal simulation and their implementation in the newly developed circuit simulator IETSIM. In Section 7.1, the temperature-dependent device parameters of the device models used in SPICE [6] are reviewed. This section also discusses a generalization of Miller’s formula [72] to account for temperature-dependent avalanche breakdown phenomena. Section 7.2 presents an algorithm that enables circuit simulators to safely handle avalanche breakdown characteristics. Section 7.3 introduces a thermal model that enables efficient coupling of the thermal and electrical device phenomena for circuit simulation. With all of these elements in place, Section 7.4 introduces the electrothermal circuit simulator iETSIM.
Preliminary Report on Neuroanatomical Differences Among Reading Disabled, Nonverbally Gifted, and Gifted-Reading Disabled College Students

Regional comparisons (cortical surface area and thickness) were performed on a well described sample of adults with reading disability alone (RD), nonverbal giftedness alone (G), and reading disability and nonverbal giftedness combined (GRD). These anatomical results are considered in relation to behavioral and functional work previously reported on this sample. GRD-RD regional differences were found in both hemispheres and were more common than GRD-G differences. Regional differences were found in the temporal, parietal, occipital and frontal lobes. While these data are preliminary given the small sample sizes, they suggest future avenues of research on the neurodevelopment of atypical samples.
Synthesis and characterization of periodic polypeptides containing repeating - (AlaGly)xGluGly - sequences

We have expressed in E. coli a series of periodic polypeptides represented by sequence 1. Our objective has been an understanding of the role of chemical sequence in determining the chain folding behavior of periodic macromolecules. Molecular organization has been examined by infrared spectroscopy and ^1H and ^(13)C NMR methods and a preliminary model of the folded structure has been developed.
Development and Optimization of a High Titer Recombinant Lentivirus System

To enable simple and effective high titer recombinant lentivirus production, we examined key parameters for the generation of lentivirus including: transfection optimization, media change, incubation time and DNA vector selection. These results illustrate the importance of optimizing transfection processes for high titer recombinant lentivirus production.
The Financial Aid 'Stick' Against Illegal Downloading

Traffic has been terrible on my commute lately as 28,000 students are returning to the University of Pittsburgh campus. The same story is certainly true at thousands of other colleges and universities. Students will settle in to a cornucopia of high speed Internet options, such as broadband ports in dorm rooms, computer labs in many campus buildings, and ubiquitous wireless networking virtually everywhere. While Internet access is intended, and often used, to facilitate the learning process, a number of students will take advantage of the access to break out Limewire or another peer-to-peer network and enhance their MP3 or movie collections by illegally exchanging copyrighted materials.While there are disputes about the impact of illegal downloading on the entertainment industry (various studies have ranged from a 0% impact on sales to a 44% impact. One study that identified a 44% impact was later found to contain “errors” reducing the impact to about 15%.), illegal downloading continues to be a challenge for both copyright owners and universities. One report indicated the college students accounted for 1.6 billion illegal music downloads in 2006, and a similar report showed that half of all college students illegally downloaded music or movies. The entertainment industry’s response to this challenge has been a mixture of carrots and sticks.
Clinical Supervision and Management of U.S. Army Behavioral Health Technicians

For the past century, enlisted behavioral health technicians have played a significant paraprofessional role throughout the world in the provision of behavioral healthcare for the U.S. Army. This article reviews the background, training, and daily duty requirements of enlisted behavioral health technicians. Lessons learned for the training and supervision of enlisted behavioral health technicians are discussed, including active career engagement, using technicians with younger service members, and leveraging technicians who are licensed in other professional disciplines.
Updated report on incidence of infusion-site reactions associated with peripheral intravenous administration of fosaprepitant:

PurposeFosaprepitant (Emend®) is an antiemetic frequently used for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. We previously documented an overall 28.7% incidence of infusion-site r...
Where Have I Heard This Story Before? Identifying Narrative Similarity in Movie Remakes

People can identify correspondences between narratives in everyday life. For example, an analogy with the Cinderella story may be made in describing the unexpected success of an underdog in seemingly different stories. We present a new task and dataset for story understanding: identifying instances of similar narratives from a collection of narrative texts. We present an initial approach for this problem, which finds correspondences between narratives in terms of plot events, and resemblances between characters and their social relationships. Our approach yields an 8% absolute improvement in performance over a competitive information-retrieval baseline on a novel dataset of plot summaries of 577 movie remakes from Wikipedia.
Elementary Introduction to Quantum Groups

In this elementary survey we introduce and study basic properties of quantum groups — new mathematical objects emerged from the theory of quantum integrable systems. Their classical counterpart — Poisson-Lie groups — play a fundamental role in the theory of classical integrable systems. In the first two sections we briefly recall the basic facts from classical theory in such a way that the concept of quantum groups will appear quite naturally in the last two sections. In numerous remarks will indicate further references to this broad and rapidly developing subject.
Web Information Extraction and User Modeling: Towards Closing the Gap.

Web search engines have become the primary method of accessing information on the web. Billions of queries are submitted to major web search engines, reflecting a wide range of information needs. While significant progress has been made on improving the relevance of the results, web search process often remains a frustrating experience. At the same time, web information extraction has seen tremendous progress, such that knowledge bases of millions of facts extracted from the web are now a reality. Yet it is not clear how effectively these knowledge bases support common user information needs. We posit that a key for web information extraction to significantly impact the web search experience is to connect the extraction process with user modeling, particularly with automatic methods for inferring user information needs and anticipated interaction patterns. In this paper we overview some recent efforts for user modeling and inferring user preferences in the context of closing the gap between web information extraction and user modeling.
Modified Pelvic Exenterations

Surgical advances and the use of radiation therapy and chemotherapy have permitted modified (conservative) pelvic exenterations that preserve gastrointestinal, gynecologic, or urinary function to be performed safely and effectively in carefully selected patients with locally advanced rectal or gynecologic cancer. There are two main types of modified exenterations: anterior and posterior. When a total exenteration is required but the sphincters can be spared (the supralevator resection), several types of reconstruction are possible. Nonanecdotal, long-term information on their results is lacking, but some reports have described encouraging outcomes. Excellent surgical experience and judgment are essential to the success of these operations.
Biomarkers and Bone Imaging Dynamics Associated with Clinical Outcomes of Oral Cabozantinib Therapy in Metastatic Castrate-Resistant Prostate Cancer

Purpose: Cabozantinib is a multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor that demonstrated remarkable responses on bone scan in metastatic prostate cancer. Randomized trials failed to demonstrate statistically significant overall survival (OS). We studied the dynamics of biomarker changes with imaging and biopsies pretherapy and posttherapy to explore factors that are likely to be predictive of efficacy with cabozantinib. Experimental Design: Eligibility included patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer with normal organ function and performance status 0–2. Cabozantinib 60 mg orally was administered daily. Pretherapy and 2 weeks post, 99mTc-labeled bone scans, positron emission tomography with 18F-sodium fluoride (NaF-PET) and 18F-(1-(2′-deoxy-2′-fluoro-β-D-arabinofuranosyl) thymine (FMAU PET) scans were conducted. Pretherapy and posttherapy tumor biopsies were conducted, and serum and urine bone markers were measured. Results: Twenty evaluable patients were treated. Eight patients had a PSA decline, of which 2 had a decline of ≥50%. Median progression-free survival (PFS) and OS were 4.1 and 11.2 months, respectively, and 3 patients were on therapy for 8, 10, and 13 months. The NaF-PET demonstrated a median decline in SUVmax of −56% (range, −85 to −5%, n = 11) and −41% (range, −60 to −25%, n = 9) for patients who were clinically stable and remained on therapy for ≥4 or Conclusions: Early changes in imaging and tissue or serum/urine biomarkers did not demonstrate utility in predicting clinical benefit with cabozantinib therapy.
(En)trust me: Validating an assessment rubric for documenting clinical encounters during a surgery clerkship clinical skills exam.

Abstract Background The AAMC developed 13 Core Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for graduating medical students. EPA 5 is: Document a clinical encounter in the patient record. Our goal was to develop an assessment rubric and gather evidence to support its validity in measuring progress towards entrustability. Methods A rubric was developed for EPA 5. During the 2017 surgery clerkship, 57 students wrote a note for each of two standardized patient (SP) encounters. These notes were prospectively collected and assessed by two physician raters. Messick's validity framework was used to gather validity data. Results Inter-rater reliability with two raters was excellent, ICC = 0.86 (ICC 95%, confidence interval (CI) 0.80–0.90) for overall note score. Correlation between note items and SP checklists ranged 0.39–0.46 (p Conclusions There is initial reliability evidence supporting the use of our rubric for assessing progress towards entrustability of EPA 5.
Interactions of immediate and long-term action regulation in the course and complications of bipolar disorder

Immediate and long-term mechanisms interact in the regulation of action. We will examine neurobiology and practical clinical consequences of these interactions. Long-term regulation of immediate be...
Shape-memory polymers for vascular and coronary devices

This chapter discusses thermo-responsive shape-memory polymers (SMPs) and their design, applications, and strengths/limitations for vascular and coronary devices, with a specific focus on the history and development of endovascular stents and clot removal devices. This chapter then discusses future trends and new design considerations of SMPs to advance the development of vascular and coronary devices.
Systematic Assessment of Miranda Reasoning

The Supreme Court of the United States in Miranda could never have imagined the profound misconceptions that have arisen about the five components of Miranda warnings and the three prongs of Miranda waivers. Although virtually everyone can confidently recite “you have the right to remain silent,” some arrestees believe in the stunningly false dichotomy that unless they take their chances and talk they will be convicted by their silence. Similar to Miranda comprehension, this chapter utilizes a hierarchical model for Miranda reasoning that builds on arrestees’ basic appreciation of their rights as they apply to persons in general as well as to their own personal circumstances. Next, Miranda misconceptions are examined, with an emphasis on how these may impair Miranda reasoning—as just illustrated concerning the right to silence. In addition to avoiding misconceptions, Miranda reasoning requires the ability to consider both sides of a waiver decision in relationship to immediate and long-term self-interests. In particular, arrestees—who are typically unable to think beyond their immediate inclinations (e.g., stop the questioning at any cost)—may not have the capacity for rationally considering the long-term consequences in their thinking and decisions. Alternatively, impulsive or otherwise poor judgement should not facilely be equated with compromised Miranda reasoning. Intelligent waivers must be considered with regard for the totality of the circumstances.
Studies of the Hemopoietic Microenvironment. II. Effect of Erythropoietin on the Splenic Microvasculature of Polycythemic CF 1 Mice

The effect of erythropoietin on the splenic microvascular system of polycythemic CF 1 mice was studied using in vivo microscopic methods. Administration of a single dose (3 U) of erythropoietin resulted in an increase in the linear velocity of blood flow through the splenic sinusoids and a reduction in the number of sinusoids storing blood. This response was first seen 4-6 hr after injection; it persisted for 48 hr and was reduced markedly by 72 hr. By 120 hr the spleens were indistinguishable from controls. The response was specific for erythrogenic tissue, since no response was seen in the adjacent nonerythropoietic pancreatic tissue. The results suggest that the splenic microvascular response to erythropoietin may be indirect and may be mediated by the release of a vasoactive metabolite from the erythrogenic tissues surrounding the sinusoids. Erythropoietin-sensitive stem cells are suggested to be the source of such a metabolite.
Essay: A New Proposal for Loan Modifications

We propose a new three-pronged plan to address the recent harmful flood of foreclosures. Our plan would address the major barriers that inhibit the ability of third-party servicers to modify mortgages the way portfolio lenders are now doing with greater success. The plan provides greater compensation for servicers to perform their duties, removes legal constraints that inhibit modification, and addresses critical second liens that often get in the way of effective mortgage modifications. Our plan has more modest costs than competing plans and is likely to be the most effective while still protecting the rights of investors in mortgage-backed securities.
The topic of imprisonment in medieval literature. With an emphasis on Johann Schiltberger’s account about his 30-year enslavement in the East

One of the dramatic, if not traumatic, experiences in life has always been enslavement and imprisonment, that is, the loss of personal freedom, and this for many different reasons. Curiously, medie...
Not so fast! Limitations of processing speed and working memory indices as embedded performance validity tests in a mixed neuropsychiatric sample.

Validity indicators embedded within standard neuropsychological tests have received increasing attention as more efficient measures for sampling performance validity throughout an evaluation. This ...
Extended urbanisation and the agrarian question: Convergences, divergences and openings:

The question of urbanisation ‘beyond the city’ has generated a lively debate in the fields of urban studies and geography in recent years. This paper brings a key concept from this discussion –‘ext...
A qualitative assessment of return to sport in collegiate athletes: does gender matter?

INTRODUCTION Participation of female athletes in collegiate athletics continues to rise, but there remains a significant underrepresentation of this growth in the literature and lack of knowledge regarding the impact of gender on the college athlete experience. Our goal was to explore how collegiate female and male athletes perceive and approach return to sport after orthopaedic surgery. METHODS Semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with collegiate varsity athletes from a single institution who underwent orthopaedic surgery following injury with at least two years follow-up. Athletes were asked about factors influencing recovery, rehabilitation, and their return to or retirement from sport. Codes, categories, and themes were derived within and across genders. RESULTS Fifteen athletes (six females and nine males) were interviewed individually. Athletes shared similar experiences following injury, citing similar motivations driving them back to sport. Athletes stressed the importance of the athlete role to their identity regardless of gender. Our analysis revealed two gender-related challenges: male athletes commonly felt weight change was a barrier to successful recovery and often led to self-consciousness; while females expressed frustrations in lack of empathy from those they turned to for support. CONCLUSION Female and male athletes shared some common supporting and challenging factors in return to sport following orthopaedic surgery. The most important findings of the present study were the differentiated challenges male versus female athletes experienced. Female athletes found difficulty with interpersonal relationships and external support, while male athletes struggled internally with their own body image and changing self-concept. This qualitative study provides a nuanced look at the experience of varsity athletes returning to sport following surgery. An understanding of the gendered experiences of collegiate athletes is critical to ensure all athletes in this unique population are supported as they cope with injury and seek to return to sport.
Domain Adaptation via Image to Image Translation

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) has recently attracted a lot of attention from the computer vision community. In this chapter, we review a general framework for UDA, which allows deep neural networks trained on a source domain to be tested on a different target domain without requiring any training annotations in the target domain. UDA is a challenging problem, as it aims at overcoming the potentially large difference between source and target data distributions, which is known as the “domain gap.” Here we propose a general UDA algorithm by adding extra networks and losses that help regularize the features extracted by the backbone encoder network. To this end we propose the novel use of the recently proposed unpaired image-to-image translation framework to constrain the features extracted by the encoder network. We leverage three main ideas: (1) we require that the features extracted by encoders are able to reconstruct the images in both domains, hence, encoders provide pseudo-invertible nonlinear mappings, (2) we require that the distribution of features extracted from images in the two domains to be indistinguishable in the encoders’ output space (i.e., the latent space), (3) we require various cycle consistencies on source and target encoders and decoders. Many recent works can be seen as specific cases of our general framework. We apply our method for domain adaptation between MNIST, USPS, and SVHN datasets, and Amazon, Webcam and DSLR Office datasets in classification tasks, and also between GTA5 and Cityscapes datasets for a segmentation task. We demonstrate state of the art performance on each of these datasets.
Urban living influences the nesting success of Darwin's finches in the Galápagos Islands.

Urbanization is expanding worldwide with major consequences for organisms. Anthropogenic factors can reduce the fitness of animals but may have benefits, such as consistent human food availability. Understanding anthropogenic trade-offs is critical in environments with variable levels of natural food availability, such as the Galapagos Islands, an area of rapid urbanization. For example, during dry years, the reproductive success of bird species, such as Darwin's finches, is low because reduced precipitation impacts food availability. Urban areas provide supplemental human food to finches, which could improve their reproductive success during years with low natural food availability. However, urban finches might face trade-offs, such as the incorporation of anthropogenic debris (e.g., string, plastic) into their nests, which may increase mortality. In our study, we determined the effect of urbanization on the nesting success of small ground finches (Geospiza fuliginosa; a species of Darwin's finch) during a dry year on San Cristobal Island. We quantified nest building, egg laying and hatching, and fledging in an urban and nonurban area and characterized the anthropogenic debris in nests. We also documented mortalities including nest trash-related deaths and whether anthropogenic materials directly led to entanglement- or ingestion-related nest mortalities. Overall, urban finches built more nests, laid more eggs, and produced more fledglings than nonurban finches. However, every nest in the urban area contained anthropogenic material, which resulted in 18% nestling mortality while nonurban nests had no anthropogenic debris. Our study showed that urban living has trade-offs: urban birds have overall higher nesting success during a dry year than nonurban birds, but urban birds can suffer mortality from anthropogenic-related nest-materials. These results suggest that despite potential costs, finches benefit overall from urban living and urbanization may buffer the effects of limited resource availability in the Galapagos Islands.
Plication for Correction of Congenital Penile Curvature: With or Without Degloving?

ABSTRACT Introduction Previously, incisionless plication (IP) for correction of congenital penile curvature (CPC) has been performed after penile degloving via a circumscribing incision. Aim To describe our experience with non-degloving incisionless penile plication (NDIP) for correction of CPC and compare these outcomes with those of men who underwent degloving incisionless penile plication (DIP). Methods We conducted a retrospective review of men ≤ 45 years of age who underwent incisionless penile plication for correction of CPC between 2008 and 2020 at two adult tertiary hospitals. Patients underwent either NDIP, performed through a 2-3 cm longitudinal incision along the proximal-to-mid shaft opposite the point of maximum penile curvature, or DIP via a sub-coronal circumscribing incision. Main Outcome Measures Surgical and patient-reported outcomes were compared between the non-degloving and degloving groups. Results Among the 38 men (mean age, 26 years) who met the inclusion criteria, 25 underwent NDIP, including 6 patients with biplanar curvature (2 Ventral, 4 Dorsal, 6 Lateral). Thirteen patients underwent DIP, including 1 patient with biplanar curvature (1 ventral, 1 lateral). Curvature reduction was 50 ± 23 degrees for the NDIP group and 36 ± 10 degrees for the DIP group (P = .04). Five (20%) patients in the NDIP group and nine (69%) patients in the DIP group experienced a reduction in stretched penile length following plication (SPL) (P = .01). One patient in the NDIP group underwent an additional plication for recurrent curvature. Conclusion Both NDIP and DIP are safe and highly efficacious techniques for the correction of CPC. Kusin SB, Khouri RK, Dropkin BM, et al., Plication for Correction of Congenital Penile Curvature: With or Without Degloving?. Sex Med 2021;9:100462.
Response of photosynthesis to ocean acidification

© 2015 by The Oceanography Society. All rights reserved. All phytoplankton and higher plants perform photosynthesis, where carbon dioxide is incorporated into biomass during cell growth. Ocean acidification (OA) has the potential to affect photosynthetic kinetics due to increasing seawater pCO 2 levels and lower pH. The effects of increased CO 2 are difficult to predict because some species utilize carbon concentrating mechanisms that buffer their sensitivity to ambient CO 2 levels and require variable energy investments. Here, we discuss the current state of knowledge about the effects of increased CO 2 on photosynthesis across marine photosynthetic taxa from cyanobacteria and single-celled eukaryotes to marine macrophytes. The analysis shows that photosynthetic responses to OA are relatively small for most investigated species and highly variable throughout taxa. This could suggest that the photosynthetic benefits of high CO 2 are minor relative to the cell’s overall energy and material balances, or that the benefit to photosynthesis is counteracted by other negative effects, such as possible respiratory costs from low pH. We conclude with recommendations for future research directions, such as probing how other physiological processes respond to OA, the effects of multiple stressors, and the potential evolutionary outcomes of longterm growth under ocean acidification.
Natural products for pest control: an analysis of their role, value and future

Natural products (NPs) have long been used as pesticides and have broadly served as a source of inspiration for a great many commercial synthetic organic fungicides, herbicides and insecticides that are in the market today. In light of the continuing need for new tools to address an ever-changing array of fungal, weed and insect pests, NPs continue to be a source of models and templates for the development of new pest control agents. Interestingly, an examination of the literature suggests that NP models exist for many of the pest control agents that were discovered by other means, suggesting that, had circumstances been different, these NPs could have served as inspiration for the discovery of a great many more of today's pest control agents. Here, an attempt is made to answer questions regarding the existence of an NP model for existing classes of pesticides and what is needed for the discovery of new NPs and NP models for pest control agents.
Impact of internal and external environmental pressures on hospital inefficiency.

This study used stochastic frontier analysis to study variations in inefficiency in US hospitals. Cost‐inefficiency (i.e., differences between best practice and actual expenses) is assumed to be affected by ownership status, competition, regulatory pressure, and market demand conditions. The level of analysis is the hospital (n = 3,262) and data for 1994 were used. The market was defined as the county in which the hospital was located. A two‐stage approach was used in the analysis. In the first stage, translog cost‐functions were estimated. Outputs used in the cost function analysis include inpatient discharges, post‐admission days, outpatient visits, medical education, and case‐mix index. Following Jondrow's technique, inefficiency scores (i.e., the difference between predicted least costs and actual costs) were estimated. Inefficiency estimates were not sensitive to changes in assumptions about the distribution of the error term. In the second stage, the estimated inefficiency scores were used as dependent variables to test hypotheses about the impact of internal and external environmental pressures on cost‐inefficiency. Since the distribution of the estimated inefficiency scores was censored, Tobit equations were estimated. The second stage analysis found that measured inefficiency was negatively related with industry concentration (Herfindahl index), public payment policy, and unemployment rate and positively related with for‐profit status.
Concepts in Surface Science and Heterogeneous Catalysis

The development and application of surface sensitive techniques over the last two decades has greatly improved our understanding of surface phenomena at the molecular level. From this newly acquired vast data base new concepts have emerged and it is the purpose of this paper to review those that relate most directly to the chemical properties of surfaces. Concepts concerned with the structure of clean and adsorbate-covered surfaces, the nature of the surface chemical bond, the dynamics of gas-surface interactions, surface chemical reactions and catalytic processes are presented and illustrated with examples from the recent literature.
Health, Disease, Illness, and Death

Today we are, for the most part, spared the epic diseases of the past: scurvy, smallpox, cholera, and childbed fever. Among the giants of medical history must then be those who helped us understand the causes of these diseases, and find how they can be prevented: James Lind, Edward Jenner, John Snow, and Ignaz Semmelweis. In fact, in many cases the study of humanity seems to be the study of diseases, such as measles when introduced into an immunologically naive population. In the end, of course, we all face death and two remarkable giants—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Dame Cecily Saunders—have helped us understand this last chapter of life.
“Dream Child”: The Role of Poetic Dialogue in Homeless Research

This article represents the usefulness of artistic approaches to social science research. Following a brief introduction to the research context—an inquiry into the life experiences of homeless youth travelers—the author presents a poem that interweaves snippets of conversations audiotaped during the inquiry with lines of poetry that she has written in her reflections about the research process and with poetry written by a 17-year-old female traveler. She presents the poem as an example of the way that poetry has been used throughout this research project both to record research findings and to generate further conversations with research participants.
Stress analysis of a nuclear reactor grid plenum assembly and its application to the EBR-II

Abstract A structural model is presented to predict the stress and deformation of a nuclear reactor grid plenum assembly. The model consists of two circular grid plates on top of one another which are interconnected by a large number of tubes, a perforated cylindrical shell and a cylinder at the outer edge of the plates. During normal reactor operation and shutdown the grid plenum assembly is subjected to both external and internal loads, in which the external load is due to the dead weight of the subassemblies resting on the upper grid plate and the coolant pressure, while the internal load is due to the temperature gradient and irradiation swelling in the grid plates accumulated through the life of the reactor. The structure is divided into many annular regions implying an axisymmetric treatment. The solution of the structural system is obtained by solving the equilibrium equations of the individual tubes, plates and shells, and satisfying the compatibility condition at the boundary of each region. The swelling strain in the grid plates is treated analogously to that of thermal strain in the elastic region. The numerical results of the problem are obtained by means of a computer code which uses a matrix-inversion technique to solve the simultaneous algebraic equations involved.
Nature of the excited states of the rutile TiO2(110) surface with adsorbed water

We present an ab initio embedded cluster study of the ground and excited states for the rutile (1 1 0) surface with adsorbed water molecule. The calculated adsorption energies and geometries are compared with available experimental data. Upon photoexcitation,an electron–hole pair is created. We found that the electron is localized in the subsurface and thus cannot be directly involved in surface processes whereas the hole is localized on the surface oxygen atoms and enhances the radical character of the hydroxyl group. Our results support experimental suggestions that OH radical is the active species in photocatalysis on TiO2 surface. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Freshwater algal palynomorph records from Holocene deposits in the coastal plain of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Abstract More than eighty samples collected from the surface of fresh water marsh, salt marsh, peat land, fluvial surface sediments and Holocene lagoon deposits in the coastal plain of the State of Rio Grande do Sul were analyzed for freshwater algal palynomorphs. The identified palynomorphs are Botryococcus , Pediastrum , Zygnema , Spirogyra , and Mougeotia. Three morphological types of Botryococcus colonies and two morphological types of Spirogyra spores are described. Four palynomorph assemblages from the surface sediments are detected. The freshwater algal palynomorphs from Holocene lagoon sediments of transgressive and regressive stages, and associated marine palynomorphs and pollen and spores of vascular plants reflect sea-level oscillations and climate variations.
Catalytic defects in mutants of class II histidyl-tRNA synthetase from Salmonella typhimurium previously linked to decreased control of histidine biosynthesis regulation.

The expression of histidine biosynthetic genes in enteric bacteria is regulated by an attenuation mechanism in which the level of histidyl-tRNA serves as a key sensor of the intracellular histidine pool. Among the early observations that led to the formation of this model for Salmonella typhimurium were the identification of mutants in the gene (hisS) encoding histidyl-tRNA synthetase. We report here the detailed biochemical characterization of five of these S. typhimurium bradytrophic mutants isolated by selection for resistance to histidine analogs, including identification of the deduced amino acid substitutions and determination of the resulting effects on the kinetics of adenylation and aminoacylation. Using the crystal structure of the closely related Escherichia coli histidyl-tRNA synthetase (HisRS) as a guide, two mutants were mapped to a highly conserved proline residue in motif 2 (P117S, P117Q), and were correlated with a fivefold decrease in the kcat for the pyrophosphate exchange reaction, as well as a tenfold increase in the Km for tRNA in the aminoacylation reaction. Another mutant substitution (A302T) mapped to a residue adjacent to the histidine binding pocket, leading to a tenfold increase in Km for histidine in the pyrophosphate exchange reaction. The remaining two mutants (S167F, N254T) substitute residues in or directly adjacent to the hinge region, which joins the insertion domain between motif 2 and motif 3 to the catalytic core, and cause the Km for tRNA to increase four- to tenfold. The kinetic analysis of these mutants establishes a direct link between critical interactions within the active site of HisRS and regulation of histidine biosynthesis, and provides further evidence for the importance of local conformational changes during the catalytic cycle.
Joint Distributed Compression and Encryption of Correlated Data in Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose, formulate, and study a joint distributed data compression and encryption scheme suitable for wireless sensor networks where we adopt the structured encryption system of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) [9]. The distributed compression is achieved as per the Slepian-Wolf coding theorem, using channel codes. Core to achieving optimal compression in the joint compression and encryption is the preservation of correlation among different blocks of data despite applying cryptographic primitives. We establish that the correlation between sources remains unchanged when cryptographic primitives, namely key addition and substitution are applied. However, as a requirement of security in the encryption, any correlation between two inputs to a encryption system is removed with diffusion techniques. Compliance to the requirements of diffusion layer of AES cipher is achieved by designing the compression function so as to maintain branch number property. We establish the necessary and sufficient condition for achieving a compression function with branch number property and show that distributed compression using non-systematic Reed Solomon (RS) code can satisfy this condition.