cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Gender Differences in the Severity of CT Emphysema in COPD

Background The hallmark of COPD is airflow obstruction, but this can develop on the basis of airway disease, emphysema, or both. There are gender differences in the natural history of COPD, and these may in part be explained by differences in the pathophysiology of airflow obstruction. We aimed to determine if there are gender differences in the severity of CT emphysema among COPD patients. Methods Current and former smokers enrolled in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham were recruited at the time of an annual screening CT examination. We recorded demographics and smoking history, and subjects performed spirometry. Subjects were classified into modified (prebronchodilator) Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease stages, and their CT scans were analyzed to determine regional and total emphysema (defined as the percentage of low attenuation areas [LAA%]; Results A total of 396 subjects participated. Men had more regional and total CT emphysema at all stages of COPD than women (stage 0, 3.9% vs 2.4%, p=0.001; stage I, 7.0% vs 3.7%, p=0.015; stage II, 7.8% vs 5.5%, p=0.063; stages III/IV, 15.8% vs 8.7%, p=0.024). In multivariate regression analysis, only gender (p 1 /FVC ratio (p Conclusions At all stages of COPD severity, men have more CT emphysema than women. This difference in radiologic expression may in part explain gender differences in the presentation and natural history of COPD. The NLST (NCT00047385) is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov. Registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov; no.NCT00047835
Lack of the ubiquitin-editing enzyme A20 results in loss of hematopoietic stem cell quiescence

A balance between quiescence and proliferation is critical for proper maintenance of the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) pool. Although a lot is known about hematopoiesis, molecular mechanisms that control HSC quiescence remain largely unknown. The ubiquitin-editing enzyme A20 functions as a central regulator of inflammation and adaptive immunity. Here, we show that a deficiency of A20 in the hematopoietic system causes anemia, lymphopenia, and postnatal lethality. Lack of A20 in HSCs results in diminished pool size, impaired radioprotection, defective repopulation, and loss of quiescence. A20-deficient HSCs display increased IFN-γ signaling, caused by augmented NF-κB activation. Strikingly, deletion of both IFN-γ and A20 in hematopoietic cells results in partial rescue of the HSC phenotype. We anticipate that our experiments will facilitate the understanding of mechanisms through which A20-mediated inflammatory signals control HSC quiescence and functions.
Patterns of mitochondrial sorting in yeast zygotes.

Abstract Inheritance of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is usually biparental. Pedigree studies of zygotic first buds indicate limited mixing of wild-type (p+) parental mtDNAs: end buds are frequently homoplasmic for one parental mtDNA, while heteroplasmic and recombinant progeny usually arise from medial buds. In crosses involving certain petites, however, mitochondrial inheritance can be uniparental. In this study we show that mitochondrial sorting can be influenced by the parental mtDNAs and have identified intermediates in the process. In crosses where mtDNA mixing is limited and one parent is prelabeled with the matrix enzyme citrate synthase 1 (CS1), the protein freely equilibrates throughout the zygote before the first bud has matured. Furthermore, if one parent is p0 (lacking mtDNA), mtDNA from the p+ parent can also equilibrate; intracellular movement of mtDNA is unhindered in this case. Surprisingly, in zygotes from a p0 CS1+ x p+ CS1- cross, CS1 is quantitatively translocated to the p+ end of the zygote before mtDNA movement; subsequently, both components equilibrate throughout the cell. This initial vectorial transfer does not require respiratory function in the p+ parent, although it does not occur if that parent is p-. Mouse dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) present in the mitochondrial matrix can also be vectorially translocated, indicating that the process is general. Our data suggest that in zygotes mtDNA movement may be separately controlled from the movement of bulk matrix constituents.
Potential Public Health Impact of New Tuberculosis Vaccines

Developing effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccines is a high priority. We use mathematical models to predict the potential public health impact of new TB vaccines in highincidence countries. We show that preexposure vaccines would be almost twice as effective as postexposure vaccines in reducing the number of new infections. Postexposure vaccines would initially have a substantially greater impact, compared to preexposure vaccines, on reducing the number of new cases of disease. However, the effectiveness of postexposure vaccines would diminish over time, whereas the effectiveness of preexposure vaccines would increase. Thus, after 20 to 30 years, post- or preexposure vaccination campaigns would be almost equally effective in terms of cumulative TB cases prevented. Even widely deployed and highly effective (50%–90% efficacy) pre- or postexposure vaccines would only be able to reduce the number of TB cases by one third. We discuss the health policy implications of our analyses.
Post-production performance calibration in analog/RF devices

In semiconductor device fabrication, continual demand for high performance, high yield devices has caused designers to look to post-production tunable circuits as the next logical step in analog/RF design and test development. These approaches have not yet achieved the maturity necessary for industrial adoption, primarily due to complexity and cost. In this work, we develop a general model which systematically outlines several key observations constraining the complexity of performance calibration in analog/RF devices. Moreover, we develop a detailed cost model permitting direct comparison of performance calibration methods to industry standard specification testing. Our analysis is demonstrated on a tunable RF LNA device simulated in 0.18µm RFCMOS.
Shotgun Glycopeptide Capture Approach Coupled with Mass Spectrometry for Comprehensive Glycoproteomics

We present a robust and general shotgun glycoproteomics approach to comprehensively profile glycoproteins in complex biological mixtures. In this approach, glycopeptides derived from glycoproteins are enriched by selective capture onto a solid support using hydrazide chemistry followed by enzymatic release of the peptides and subsequent analysis by tandem mass spectrometry. The approach was validated using standard protein mixtures that resulted in a close to 100% capture efficiency. Our capture approach was then applied to microsomal fractions of the cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cell line IGROV-1/CP. With a Protein Prophet probability value greater than 0.9, we identified a total of 302 proteins with an average protein identification rate of 136 ± 19 (n = 4) in a single linear quadrupole ion trap (LTQ) mass spectrometer nano-LC-MS experiment and a selectivity of 91 ± 1.6% (n = 4) for the N-linked glycoconsensus sequence. Our method has several advantages. 1) Digestion of proteins initially into peptides improves the solubility of large membrane proteins and exposes all of the glycosylation sites to ensure equal accessibility to capture reagents. 2) Capturing glycosylated peptides can effectively reduce sample complexity and at the same time increase the confidence of MS-based protein identifications (more potential peptide identifications per protein). 3) The utility of sodium sulfite as a quencher in our capture approach to replace the solid phase extraction step in an earlier glycoprotein chemical capture approach for removing excess sodium periodate allows the overall capture procedure to be completed in a single vessel. This improvement minimizes sample loss, increases sensitivity, and makes our protocol amenable for high throughput implementation, a feature that is essential for biomarker identification and validation of a large number of clinical samples. 4) The approach is demonstrated here on the analysis of N-linked glycopeptides; however, it can be applied equally well to O-glycoprotein analysis.
Locoregional treatment outcomes for breast cancer patients with ipsilateral supraclavicular metastases at diagnosis.

Purpose: To evaluate the locoregional efficacy of multimodality treatment for breast cancer patients who present with ipsilateral supraclavicular (SCV) disease without systemic metastases. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the data from 71 patients with ipsilateral SCV involvement at presentation. SCV involvement in 16 patients (23%) was diagnosed by ultrasound examination only, without palpable disease. All patients were treated with curative intent using neoadjuvant chemotherapy, mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery (BCT), and radiotherapy. Results: The 5-year SCV control, locoregional control (LRC), disease-free survival, and overall survival rate was 90%, 77%, 30%, and 47%, respectively. Patients with persistent SCV disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy by physical examination had a lower rate of LRC (64% vs. 86%, p = 0.026), as did those with persistent SCV disease by ultrasound examination (66% vs. 96%, p = 0.007). Of those with a complete response of SCV disease by physical examination after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, those with persistently abnormal ultrasound findings had significantly worse disease-free survival (0% vs. 55%, p = 0.03). BCT was not associated with lower rates of LRC (82% for BCT vs. 76% for mastectomy, p = 0.80). Conclusion: Radiotherapy achieved excellent LRC after surgery for patients with ipsilateral SCV metastases who achieved a complete response of the SCV disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. For patients who achieved a complete response of the SCV disease by physical examination, ultrasonography of the SCV fossa may help assess the risk of disease recurrence. SCV involvement should not be considered a contraindication for BCT.
Religion and body weight.

OBJECTIVES: Relationships between religion and body weight were examined in a US national sample. METHODS: Data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), collected through telephone and postal questionnaires, were analyzed for 3032 adults aged 25–74. RESULTS: Religious denomination was significantly related to higher body weight in men after accounting for sociodemographic controls. Conservative Protestant men had a 1.1±0.45 higher body mass index (BMI) than those reporting no religious affiliation. Other religion variables that initially had significant relationships with greater body weight before adjusting for control variables became nonsignificant after smoking was controlled. No significant relationships between religion and body weight were present in women. CONCLUSIONS: Religious denomination was related to body weight in men. Other dimensions of religiosity showing a relationship with higher BMI appeared to be because of the lower rates of smoking among more religious individuals.
Kant as Philosopher of Science

Michael Friedman's Kant and the Exact Sciences (1992) refocused scholarly attention on Kant's status as a philosopher of the sciences, especially (but not exclusively) of the broadly Newtonian science of the eighteenth century. The last few years have seen a plethora of articles and monographs concerned with characterizing that status. This recent scholarship illuminates Kant's views on a diverse group of topics: science and its relation to metaphysics; dynamics and the theory of matter; causation and Hume's critique of it; and, the limits of mechanism and of mechanical intelligibility. I argue that recent interpretations of Kant's views on these topics should inouence our understanding of his principal metaphysical and epistemological arguments and positions.
Adolescent Sex Offenders: A Review of the Literature

Research over the past 20years indicates that adolescent sex offenders account for a significant number of child sexual abuse perpetrators. Studies indicate that this group has a variety of severe family problems, including neglect and physical and sexual abuse. Academic and behavior problems, psychopathology, and social isolation tend to characterize adolescent sexual offenders. The research also indicates that juvenile sexual offenders are a heterogeneous population with diverse characteristics and treatment needs. A number of typologies have been developed to classify various types of offenders, but more empirical research is needed. Because of the diversity of the population, careful assessment is needed before treatment plans are developed and implemented. Most treatment programs have been modeled after treatment programs found to be effective with adult sex offenders, but new programs are aimed more specifically at juveniles. Based on the research, recommendations are made with respect to important target areas for treatment.
Effect of Model Sorptive Phases on Phenanthrene Biodegradation: Different Enrichment Conditions Influence Bioavailability and Selection of Phenanthrene-Degrading Isolates

The sorption of organic contaminants by natural organic matter (NOM) often limits substrate bioavailability and is an important factor affecting microbial degradation rates in soils and sediments. We hypothesized that reduced substrate bioavailability might influence which microbial assemblages are responsible for contaminant degradation under enrichment culture conditions. Our primary goal was to characterize enrichments in which different model organic solid phases were used to establish a range of phenanthrene bioavailabilities for soil microorganisms. Phenanthrene sorption coefficients (expressed as log KD values) ranged from 3.0 liters kg 21 for Amberlite carboxylic acid cation-exchange resin (AMB) to 3.5 liters kg 21 for Biobeads polyacrylic resin (SM7) and 4.2 liters kg 21 for Biobeads divinyl benzene resin (SM2). Enrichment cultures were established for control (no sorptive phase), sand, AMB, SM7, and SM2 treatments by using two contaminated soils (from Dover, Ohio, and Libby, Mont.) as the initial inocula. The effects of sorption by model phases on the degradation of phenanthrene were evaluated for numerous transfers in order to obtain stable microbial assemblages representative of sorptive and nonsorptive enrichment cultures and to eliminate the effects of the NOM present in the initial inoculum. Phenanthrene degradation rates were similar for each soil inoculum and ranged from 4 to 5 mmol day 21 for control and sand treatments to approximately 0.4 mmol day 21 in the presence of the SM7 sorptive phase. The rates of phenanthrene degradation in the highly sorptive SM2 enrichment culture were insignificant; consequently, stable microbial populations could not be obtained. Bacterial isolates obtained from serial dilutions of enrichment culture samples exhibited significant differences in rates of phenanthrene degradation performed in the presence of SM7, suggesting that enrichments performed in the presence of a sorptive phase selected for different microbial assemblages than control treatments containing solid phase phenanthrene.
Intrusive thoughts, sensation seeking, and drug use in college students

The relationships between drug use, task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs), self-reported sensation seeking, retrospective self-reported personality characteristics, laterality, eye dominance, and allergies in college students who were diagnosed in childhood as having attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was investigated. Three groups (high- and low-activity and ADHD subjects) reported both spontaneous and deliberate TUTs during a vigilance task. Intrusive thoughts were found to be predictive of drug use/attitudes, but, to a greater extent, sensation seeking accounted for most drug-related behavior. Left-eye dominance was related to increased childhood hyperactive behaviors and to spontaneous TUTs. Of the three groups, subjects diagnosed as having ADHD had more spontaneous TUTs. These results are consistent with biological models.
The Sirtuin 2 microtubule deacetylase is an abundant neuronal protein that accumulates in the aging CNS

Sirtuin 2 (SIRT2) is one of seven known mammalian protein deacetylases homologous to the yeast master lifespan regulator Sir2. In recent years, the sirtuin protein deacetylases have emerged as candidate therapeutic targets for many human diseases, including metabolic and age-dependent neurological disorders. In non-neuronal cells, SIRT2 has been shown to function as a tubulin deacetylase and a key regulator of cell division and differentiation. However, the distribution and function of the SIRT2 microtubule (MT) deacetylase in differentiated, postmitotic neurons remain largely unknown. Here, we show abundant and preferential expression of specific isoforms of SIRT2 in the mammalian central nervous system and find that a previously uncharacterized form, SIRT2.3, exhibits age-dependent accumulation in the mouse brain and spinal cord. Further, our studies reveal that focal areas of endogenous SIRT2 expression correlate with reduced α-tubulin acetylation in primary mouse cortical neurons and suggest that the brain-enriched species of SIRT2 may function as the predominant MT deacetylases in mature neurons. Recent reports have demonstrated an association between impaired tubulin acetyltransferase activity and neurodegenerative disease; viewed in this light, our results showing age-dependent accumulation of the SIRT2 neuronal MT deacetylase in wild-type mice suggest a functional link between tubulin acetylation patterns and the aging brain.
Miniaturized patch antenna for RFID tags on metallic surfaces

The majority of commercial ultra high frequency radio frequency identification tags are based on the dipole antenna, whose performance degrades significantly when the tag is placed near a conducting surface. In this article, we present a radio frequency identification patch tag to operate on conducting surfaces. The antenna provides good bandwidth and return loss level at 915 MHz. It has a very small size on low dielectric material, without the need for shorting pins or walls, which significantly lowers the fabrication cost in mass production using monolithic microwave integrated circuits. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett, 2011; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26177
H/sub /spl infin// control of active magnetic bearings using artificial neural network identification of uncertainty

A novel approach is presented that couples the "hard computing" features of robust H/sub /spl infin// control with the "soft computing" characteristics of intelligent system identification, and realizes the benefits of both. Radial basis function networks (RBFNs) are used to experimentally identify linear parameter varying (LPV) dynamic models and uncertainty models associated with an active magnetic bearing (AMB) test rig. These models are used to synthesize robust H/sub /spl infin// controllers that are gain-scheduled with rotor setpoint. Experimental results confirm the stability robustness and exceptional tracking performance of these "intelligent robust " controllers.
Assessing Student Preconceptions of Sport Management Faculty Where Do Women and Latinos Stand

Latino individuals and women as a group have found it difficult to become established within the professorate. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine student preconceptions of Latino professors within sport management. The study was conducted within a sport management class (N = 102), utilizing self-categorization theory based on race and gender. Results indicated significant effects for both race and gender. This study provides an initial assessment of potential biases that may exist within sport management.
Data Access Performance in a Large and Dynamic Pharmaceutical Drug Candidate Database

An explosion in the amount of data generated through chemical and biological experimentation has been observed in recent years. This rapid proliferation of vast amounts of data has led to a set of cheminformatics and bioinformatics applications that manipulate dynamic, heterogeneous, and massive data. An example of such applications in the pharmaceutical industry is the computational process involved in the early discovery of lead drug candidates for a given target disease. This computational process includes repeated sequential and random accesses to a drug candidate database. Using the above pharmaceutical application, an experimental study was conducted in this paper that shows that for optimal performance, the degree of parallelism exploited in the application should be adjusted according to the drug candidate database instance size and the machine size. Additionally, different degrees of parallelism should be used depending on whether the access to the drug candidate database is random or sequential.
Source of Gravity Waves within a Vortex-Dipole Jet Revealed by a Linear Model

This study develops a linear numerical model to address the source mechanism of the gravity waves generated within a vortex dipole simulated in a fully nonlinear nonhydrostatic mesoscale model. The background flow for this linear model is obtained from potential vorticity inversion constrained by the nonlinear balance equation. The forcing imposed in the linear model is derived from an imbalance in the large-scale flow—that is, the forcing or imbalance in the vorticity, divergence, and thermodynamic equations, respectively. The response from the sum of these imbalanced forcings obtained from the linear dynamics shows well-defined gravity wave signals, which compare reasonably well in terms of location, phase, and amplitude with the gravity waves simulated in a fully nonlinear nonhydrostatic mesoscale model. It is found that the vorticity forcing, largely due to the advection of balanced relative vorticity, is the leading contributor to the gravity waves in the exit region of the vortex-dipole jet.
Improved confusion network algorithm and shortest path search from word lattice

We propose a novel confusion network (CN) generation algorithm with linear time complexity, O(T), which is capable of transforming a very large lattice into a confusion network with insignificant time. We further extend the confusion network concept to incorporate the case that a long word is split into short words. Finally, we develop a shortest path search algorithm that finds a sentence hypothesis from a word lattice to minimize the expected word error rate directly. The proposed algorithms are evaluated on the Switchboard task, where significant reduction of computation time was observed for the proposed confusion network algorithm as compared with a previously proposed confusion network algorithm, and improved word accuracy performance was observed for both the proposed CN algorithm and the shortest path algorithm as compared with one-best beam search decoding.
Using finite state automata to produce self-optimization and self-control

A simple game provides a framework within which agents can spontaneously self-organize. In this paper, we present this game, and develop basic theory underlying a robust method for distributed coordination based on this game. This method makes use of finite state automata-one associated with each agent-which guide the agents. We give a new, general method of analysis of these systems, which previously had been studied only in limited cases. We also provide a physical example, which should hint at the type of problems resolvable using this method.
Anesthesia for Tracheal Resection and Reconstruction

Tracheal resection and reconstruction (TRR) is the treatment of choice for most patients with tracheal stenosis or tracheal tumors. Anesthesia for TRR offers distinct challenges, especially for the less experienced practitioner. This article explores the preoperative assessment, strategies for induction and emergence from anesthesia, the essential coordination between the surgical and anesthesia teams during airway excision and anastomosis, and postoperative care. The most common complications are reviewed. Targeted readership is practitioners with less extensive experience in managing airway surgery cases. As such, the article focuses first on the most common proximal tracheal resection. Final sections discuss specific considerations for more complicated cases.
Discovering subpopulation structure with latent class mixed models.

The linear mixed model is a well-known method for incorporating heterogeneity (for example, subject-to-subject variation) into a statistical analysis for continuous responses. However heterogeneity cannot always be fully captured by the usual assumptions of normally distributed random effects. Latent class mixed models offer a way of incorporating additional heterogeneity which can be used to uncover distinct subpopulations, to incorporate correlated non-normally distributed outcomes and to classify individuals. The methodology is motivated with examples in health care studies and a detailed illustration is drawn from the Nutritional Prevention of Cancer trials. Latent class models are used with longitudinal data on prostate specific antigen (PSA) as well as incidence of prostate cancer. The models are extended to accommodate prostate cancer as a survival endpoint; this is compared to treating it as a binary endpoint. Four subpopulations are identified which differ both with regard to their PSA trajectories and their incidence rates of prostate cancer.
Molecular approaches to diagnosing nutritional physiology in harmful algae: Implications for studying the effects of eutrophication

Every year harmful algal blooms (HABs) cause serious impacts to local economies, coastal ecosystems, and human health on a global scale. It is well known that nutrient availability can influence important aspects of harmful algae biology and ecology, such as growth, toxin production, and life cycle stage, as well as bloom initiation, persistence and decline. Increases in the rate of supply of organic matter to ecosystems (eutrophication) carries many possible ramifications to coastal systems, including the potential for nutrient enrichment and the potential for stimulation of harmful algal blooms. Traditional studies on algal nutrition typically use either cultured isolates or community level assays, to examine nutrient uptake, nutrient preference, elemental composition, and other metrics of a species’ response to nutrients. In the last decade, technological advances have led to a great increase in the number of sequences available for critical harmful species. This, in turn, has led to new insights with regards to algal nutrition, and these advances highlight the promise of molecular technologies, and genomic approaches, to improving our understanding of algal nutrient acquisition and nutritional physiological ecology, in both cultures and field populations. With these developments increased monitoring of nutritional physiology in field populations of harmful algae will allow us to better discriminate how eutrophication impacts these groups.
Factors Associated with Postpartum Maternal Functioning in Women with Positive Screens for Depression.

Abstract Background: Functional assessment may represent a valuable addition to postpartum depression screening, providing a more thorough characterization of the mother's health and quality of life. To the authors' knowledge, this analysis represents the first examination of postpartum maternal functioning, as measured by a patient-centered validated tool aimed at ascertainment of functional status explicitly, and its clinical and sociodemographic correlates. Materials and Methods: A total of 189 women recruited from a large, urban women's hospital in the northeastern United States who both (1) screened positive for depression between 4 and 6 weeks postpartum and (2) completed a subsequent home (baseline) visit between October 1, 2008, and September 4, 2009, were included in this analysis. Multiple linear regression was conducted to ascertain which clinical and sociodemographic variables were independently associated with maternal functioning. Results: The multivariate analysis revealed independent assoc...
When Should Contract Law Supply a Liability Rule or Term?: Framing a Principle of Unification for Contracts

To demonstrate the need for a unified instrumental framework for deciding gaps and implying liability rules, Part II of this Article will first describe the competing visions of the role of law in contract gap-filling. Although each vision has expanded the ways in which we think about contracts and has offered more realistic models of bargaining, each still fails to offer a unified framework for deciding how courts should decide *1290 incomplete contracts. Part III of the Article outlines the methodological framework for unifying judicial approaches to law-supplied terms or rules. The framework will incorporate a: (1) realistic model of human behavior; and (2) a comparative net benefit framework to assess law-supplied interventions. Part IV traces the origin of the unifying comparative net benefit method to new institutional economics. Part IV analyzes how the failure to advert to the problems of uncertainty (and other bargaining impediments) has impaired the development of a complete comparative cost structure outlined in this Article and hampered the analysis of precontractual liability. Commentators compound these problems by employing overly restrictive cost/benefit analyses which fail to provide promisees with the optimal incentives to rely. Current analyses of reliance ignore the important issues of the problem of opportunistic expropriation of reliance investments. Accounting for these issues and applying the suggested methodology to reliance issues would improve results. Part IV applies the theory to several prototypical reliance cases. Part V explores two frameworks for dealing with incomplete contracts: a hypothetical bargain and penalty default rules. Since both approaches lack a comparative cost framework, neither can fully justify a law-supplied liability rule or term. Part VI applies the unified comparative net benefit framework to determine whether and in what fashion the law should intervene to protect the general contractor's reliance on a subcontractor's offer and concludes that the protections of Drennan should be modified using the framework outlined here. Part VII uses the unified framework to rationalize a myriad of cases of law-supplied interventions in contract. The section will address Professor Alan Schwartz's theory for explaining judicial strategies of intervention in incomplete contracts.Part VIII offers a final assessment of why a comparative net benefit framework matters and outlines its advantages.
Outcomes of acute versus elective primary ventral hernia repair

BACKGROUNDThe morbidity and mortality associated with acute primary ventral hernia repair have not been well described. We examined the rate of surgical site infection (SSI), hernia recurrence, and mortality in acute versus elective primary ventral hernia repair and identified predictors of morbidit
Optical properties of wurtzite- and zincblende-GaN films grown by RF plasma-MBE

Both wurtzite-and zincblende-GaN films have been grown on sapphire and MgO substrates, respectively, and examined by photoluminescence and x-ray analysis. GaN films were grown on suitably prepared Al2O3 and MgO substrates by molecular beam epitaxy employing a rf plasma discharge, nitrogen free radical source. The wurtzite-and zincblende-GaN films exhibited dominant near band-edge emission, the nature of which will be compared and contrasted for both phases in this paper. X-ray diffraction data for both phases will also be discussed.
Rotor turn insulation: Analysis and development

The work described here was carried out over several veal's. It resulted in the development of a Class F (155 °C) insulation system, as well as gained fundamental knowledge of turn insulation capabilities. The simulated service test described here was a basic part of this program and established itself as an outstanding tool for determining system performance. The detailed conclusions of this work were: 1. Bond strength of the insulation systems or their binders to copper was established as a means of estimating the systems' simulated service test performance. 2. The epoxy resins tested, with their high copper bond strength and compression resistance, proved to be excellent binders for rotor turn insulation and improvements over the phenolics, and polyesters tested.
Clinical Analysis of Serum TORCH Antibody Test in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Objective To analyse the TORCH antibody test in children with cerebral palsy(CP) so as to offer basis for preventing and treating of infantile CP.Methods TORCH-IgG test were carried out in 150 admitted cases with infantile CP aged from 1 month to 3 years old,while TORCH-IgM test for infantile CP aged from 1-6 months were perforned in this central from January to Decmber 2005.High risk factors,classi fication of CP,complications,head CT,brain auditory evoked potential(BAEP),electroencephalogram(EEG) and ophtalmology examination were analyzed and compared between positive and negative cases.Results There were 58 positive cases(positive rate 38.58 percent),among them,cytomegalovirus infection was the most common and toxoplasmosis was next to it.In the research of high risk factors,early born,jaucie,low birth weight were common ones orderly in positive cases while in negative cases,early,intercranial hemorrhage were common ones.In clssi fication of CP,spasmic hemiplegia were common ones in positive cases and spstive diplegia and hemiplegia are common ones in negative cases.Complications in positive cases were greater than those in negative cases,especially mental retardation was the most obvious cause.Abnormal rate of head CT,BAEP,EEG in positive cases were higher than those in negative cases.Conclusions TORCH infection is an important causes of infantile CP.The antibody detection of TORCH in the pregnants,newborns and infants shall be one of the important mea-sures adopted to prevent the occurrence of infantile CP.
Leveraging Evolutionary Search to Discover Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Cellular Automata.

Building self-adaptive and self-organizing (SASO) systems is a challenging problem, in part because SASO principles are not yet well understood and few platforms exist for exploring them. Cellular automata (CA) are a well-studied approach to exploring the principles underlying self-organization. A CA comprises a lattice of cells whose states change over time based on a discrete update function. One challenge to developing CA is that the relationship of an update function, which describes the local behavior of each cell, to the global behavior of the entire CA is often unclear. As a result, many researchers have used stochastic search techniques, such as evolutionary algorithms, to automatically discover update functions that produce a desired global behavior. However, these update functions are typically defined in a way that does not provide for self-adaptation. Here we describe an approach to discovering CA update functions that are both self-adaptive and self-organizing. Specifically, we use a novel evolutionary algorithm-based approach to discover finite state machines (FSMs) that implement update functions for CA. We show how this approach is able to evolve FSM-based update functions that perform well on the density classification task for 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional CA. Moreover, we show that these FSMs are self-adaptive, self-organizing, and highly scalable, often performing well on CA that are orders of magnitude larger than those used to evaluate performance during the evolutionary search. These results demonstrate that CA are a viable platform for studying the integration of self-adaptation and self-organization, and strengthen the case for using evolutionary algorithms as a component of SASO systems.
CD40 Stimulation Obviates Innate Sensors and Drives T Cell Immunity in Cancer.

Summary Cancer immunotherapies are more effective in tumors with robust T cell infiltrates, but mechanisms to convert T cell-devoid tumors with active immunosuppression to those capable of recruiting T cells remain incompletely understood. Here, using genetically engineered mouse models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA), we demonstrate that a single dose of agonistic CD40 antibody with chemotherapy rendered PDA susceptible to T cell-dependent destruction and potentiated durable remissions. CD40 stimulation caused a clonal expansion of T cells in the tumor, but the addition of chemotherapy optimized myeloid activation and T cell function. Although recent data highlight the requirement for innate sensors in cancer immunity, these canonical pathways—including TLRs, inflammasome, and type I interferon/STING—played no role in mediating the efficacy of CD40 and chemotherapy. Thus, CD40 functions as a non-redundant mechanism to convert the tumor microenvironment immunologically. Our data provide a rationale for a newly initiated clinical trial of CD40 and chemotherapy in PDA.
A non-target approach to identify disinfection byproducts of structurally similar sulfonamide antibiotics

There is growing concern over the formation of new types of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) from pharmaceuticals and other emerging contaminants during drinking water production. Free chlorine is a widely used disinfectant that reacts non-selectively with organic molecules to form a variety of byproducts. In this research, we aimed to investigate the DBPs formed from three structurally similar sulfonamide antibiotics (sulfamethoxazole, sulfathiazole, and sulfadimethoxine) to determine how chemical structure influences the types of chlorination reactions observed. We conducted free chlorination experiments and developed a non-target approach to extract masses from the experimental dataset that represent the masses of candidate DBPs. Structures were assigned to the candidate DBPs based on analytical data and knowledge of chlorine chemistry. Confidence levels were assigned to each proposed structure according to conventions in the field. In total, 11, 12, and 15 DBP structures were proposed for sulfamethoxazole, sulfathiazole, and sulfadimethoxine, respectively. The structures of the products suggest a variety of reaction types including chlorine substitution, SC cleavage, SN hydrolysis, desulfonation, oxidation/hydroxylation, and conjugation reactions. Some reaction types were common to all of the sulfonamide antibiotics, but unique reaction types were also observed for each sulfonamide antibiotic suggesting that selective prediction of DBP structures of other sulfonamide antibiotics based on chemical structure is unlikely to be possible based on these data alone. This research offers an approach to comprehensively identify DBPs of organic molecules and fills in much needed data on the formation of specific DBPs from three environmentally relevant sulfonamide antibiotics.
Active Cigarette Smoking in Cognitively-Normal Elders and Probable Alzheimer’s Disease is Associated with Elevated Cerebrospinal Fluid Oxidative Stress Biomarkers

Neurodegenerative diseases and chronic cigarette smoking are associated with increased cerebral oxidative stress (OxS). Elevated F2-isoprostane levels in biological fluid is a recognized marker of OxS. This study assessed the association of active cigarette smoking with F2-isoprostane in concentrations in cognitively-normal elders (CN), and those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and probable Alzheimer's disease (AD). Smoking and non-smoking CN (n = 83), MCI (n = 164), and probable AD (n = 101) were compared on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) iPF2α-III and 8,12, iso-iPF2α-VI F2-isoprostane concentrations. Associations between F2-isoprostane levels and hippocampal volumes were also evaluated. In CN and AD, smokers had higher iPF2α-III concentration; overall, smoking AD showed the highest iPF2α-III concentration across groups. Smoking and non-smoking MCI did not differ on iPF2α-III concentration. No group differences were apparent on 8,12, iso-iPF2α-VI concentration, but across AD, higher 8,12, iso-iPF2α-VI level was related to smaller left and total hippocampal volumes. Results indicate that active cigarette smoking in CN and probable AD is associated with increased central nervous system OxS. Further investigation of factors mediating/moderating the absence of smoking effects on CSF F2-isoprostane levels in MCI is warranted. In AD, increasing magnitude of OxS appeared to be related to smaller hippocampal volume. This study contributes additional novel information to the mounting body of evidence that cigarette smoking is associated with adverse effects on the human central nervous system across the lifespan.
Rewriting the Web with Chickenfoot

Publisher Summary Unlike desktop applications, Web applications are much more exposed and open to modification. This chapter describes Chickenfoot, a programming system embedded in the Firefox Web browser, which enables end users to automate, customize, and integrate Web applications without examining their source code. One way Chickenfoot addresses this goal is a technique for identifying page components by keyword pattern matching. Web automation includes navigating pages, filling in forms, and clicking on links. For example, many conferences now use a Web site to receive papers, distribute them to reviewers, and collect the reviews. A reviewer assigned 10 papers must download each paper, print it, and (later) upload a review for it. Tedious repetition is a good argument for automation. While integrating multiple Web sites, the simplest kind of integration is just adding links from one site to another, but much richer integration is possible. Techniques are developed through studying how users name Web page components and present a heuristic keyword-matching algorithm that identifies the desired component from the user's name. It describes a range of applications that have been created using Chickenfoot and reflects on its advantages and limitations.
Vulnerability in Writing

I’ve written about evoking emotions and emotional vulnerability in our readers. Now we’re going to concentrate on your own vulnerability as a writer. To get the sort of deep emotional terrain that moves your reader into your story, you have to be open to emotional vulnerability yourself. You have to be what Behar (1996) calls a vulnerable observer
The Canonical Equations

In the previous chapter, we examined the functions q and t0 fairly carefully. We looked at the critical values of their arguments and put together a preliminary description of a classification scheme for constructing some necessary conditions for successfully coupling modules. In this chapter, we complete the classification scheme. However, the most important step is the definition of canonical optical parameters, canonical ray tracing, and canonical aberration coefficients. This enables us not only to couple modules but to assemble strings of coupled modules in which certain third-order aberrations and primary chromatic aberrations are set, a priori, equal to zero. The work described in this chapter is based on the results of MERCADO [6.1,2] and ANDERSON [6.3].
Cost-effectiveness of transfacial gland-preserving removal of parotid sialoliths.

Objective Examine outcomes of transfacial gland-preserving removal of difficult parotid stones and compare the cost and operative time to traditional parotidectomy. Study Design Cost-effectiveness analysis and retrospective chart review. Methods Patients who underwent transfacial removal of symptomatic parotid sialoliths at a tertiary medical center from June 2010 to July 2015 were evaluated. Outcomes included operative technique, stone size, stone location, complications, and symptom relief. In addition, patients who underwent traditional parotidectomy for chronic sialadenitis were identified. The charges and times for both procedures were reviewed and compared. Results Forty-four patients underwent transfacial resection for symptomatic parotid sialolithiasis. Stones were most often located in the main duct and hilum (53.3%), with fewer intraglandular stones (46.7%). No facial nerve weakness was observed. Of those with follow-up, 33 (87%) patients reported at least partial resolution of symptoms. Overall transfacial technique charges were significantly less expensive (U.S.$) than parotidectomy (mean difference −8,064.09; 95% confidence interval [CI] −13,472.78 to −2,655.40; P = 0.033). Anesthesia charges (mean difference −2,997.85; 95% CI, −5,748.81 to −246.89; P = 0.035) and operating room charges (mean difference −4,793.91; 95% CI, −8,958.09 to −629.72; P = 0.028) were also less expensive for the transfacial technique. Finally, mean procedure time for transfacial removal of parotid stones was shorter than for parotidectomy (120.2 ± 49.9 vs. 178.4 ± 41.3 minutes, respectively; P = 0.002). Conclusion Transfacial gland-preserving removal of difficult parotid stones is a well tolerated and effective alternative to parotidectomy. Moreover, it is faster and less expensive than parotidectomy, maximizing both surgeon time and hospital resources. Level of Evidence 4. Laryngoscope, 2016
Leveraging modern DNA assembly techniques for rapid, markerless genome modification.

The ability to alter the genomic material of a prokaryotic cell is necessary for experiments designed to define the biology of the organism. In addition, the production of biomolecules may be significantly improved by application of engineered prokaryotic host cells. Furthermore, in the age of synthetic biology, speed and efficiency are key factors when choosing a method for genome alteration. To address these needs, we have developed a method for modification of the Escherichia coli genome named FAST-GE for Fast Assembly-mediated Scarless Targeted Genome Editing. Traditional cloning steps such as plasmid transformation, propagation and isolation were eliminated. Instead, we developed a DNA assembly-based approach for generating scarless strain modifications, which may include point mutations, deletions and gene replacements, within 48 h after the receipt of polymerase chain reaction primers. The protocol uses established, but optimized, genome modification components such as I-SceI endonuclease to improve recombination efficiency and SacB as a counter-selection mechanism. All DNA-encoded components are assembled into a single allele-exchange vector named pDEL. We were able to rapidly modify the genomes of both E. coli B and K-12 strains with high efficiency. In principle, the method may be applied to other prokaryotic organisms capable of circular dsDNA uptake and homologous recombination.
Advanced Activity-Aware Multi-Channel Operations1609.4 in VANETs for Vehicular Clouds

The Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) technology has been used in Vehicular communication to enable short-lived safety and non-safety applications based on Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communications over the Control Channel (CCH) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communications over the Service Channels (SCHs) in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs). With the under-utilized advanced computation, communication and storage resources in On-Board Units (OBUs) of modern vehicles, Vehicular Clouds (VCs) are used to manage coalitions of affordable resources in Vehicles in order to host infotainment applications used by other vehicles on the move. In this paper, we introduce an Advanced Activity-Aware (AAA) scheme for Multi-Channel Operations based on 1609.4 in MAC Protocol in Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE). The AAA aims at dynamically achieving an optimal setup of Control Channel Interval (CCHI) and Service Channel Interval (SCHI) by reducing the inactivity interval while maintaining a default Synchronization Interval (SI) between all vehicles. We evaluate the performance of our proposed scheme through real-time simulation of vehicular cloud load and VANET communications using NS3. The simulation results indicate that our proposed scheme increases significantly the throughput and reduces the average delay of uploaded packets of non-safety applications from the VC to the Road Side Unit (RSU) while maintaining a V2V communication for safety similar to that of the 1609.4 standard.