cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A primer on object-oriented measurement

Many object-oriented metrics have been proposed over the last decade. A few of these metrics have undergone some form of empirical validation, and some are actually being used by a number of organizations as part of an effort to manage software quality. There is evidence that using object-oriented metrics can be beneficial to conducting business and to the bottom line. This is encouraging, as estimates and prediction models using design metrics can be used to allocate maintenance resources and for obtaining assurances about software quality. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of object-oriented metrics, their use and their (empirical) validation. The focus is on static class-level metrics, since these have been studied the most.
Ethanol from Zymomonas, a bacterium

Thirteen isolates ofZymomonas were analyzed for their ability to tolerate increasing concentrations of glucose and ethanol. In medium containing 5.0% (v/v) ethanol, four isolates grew well in 15.0% (w/v) glucose. Six cultures tolerated at least 6,0% ethanol. Of all the isolates, 7 preferred glucose and 4 preferred sucrose as a sugar substrate. In a nutrient medium containing mineral salts and high concentrations of pantothenate and biotin ethanol production for 2 isolates was approximately 7.0%. Continuous stirring and growth factors were responsible for this increased ethanol production.
The analysis of optimization based controllers

Many control techniques employ online optimization in the determination of a control policy. We develop a framework which provides sufficient convex conditions, in the form of linear matrix inequalities, for the analysis of constrained quadratic based optimization schemes. These results encompass standard robustness analysis problems for a wide variety of receding horizon control schemes, including polytopic, structured, and measurement uncertainty for schemes with or without end constraints, observers, or input and output constraints. A simple example illustrates the methodology.
Quantitation of epidermal nerves in diabetic neuropathy

We describe methods to quantify epidermal nerve fibers (ENFs) in skin biopsy specimens from diabetic candidates for pancreas transplantation and control subjects. ENFs and the dermal-epidermal basement membrane were stained by immunohistochemical methods, imaged with a confocal microscope, and quantified using a neuron tracing system. The number of ENFs per surface of epidermis was diminished in diabetic subjects. ENF number and summed length of all ENFs per volume of epidermis examined were also decreased. Length and number of branch points of single surviving ENFs were similar in skin of control and diabetic subjects. The methods and results constitute a basis for continued study of the effects of the euglycemia that attends successful pancreas transplantation and the effects of therapy in patients with various types of polyneuropathy.
Geometric Fourier Analysis of the Conformal Camera for Active Vision

Suppose one intends to design an active vision system that should perform some artificial intelligence functions. For instance, it should recognize a planar object (or a three-dimensional object containing a piece of a planar surface) in a dynamic scene. Ideally, such a system should be built upon some data model representing visual inputs and algorithms storing, processing, and analyzing visual information that are well adapted to image transformations produced by different perspectives between planar objects and the imaging system. In spite of its importance, this problem remained unsolved until recently. In this article, building on the author's work, projective Fourier analysis for patterns is constructed in the framework of geometric Fourier analysis on groups and homogeneous spaces. It is done by identifying in the conformal camera the group $\mathbf{SL(}2,\mathbb{C)}$, which gives image projective transformations by acting through linear-fractional mappings on the image plane---homogeneous under th...
Incidence of Inflammatory Breast Cancer in Women, 1992–2009, United States

Background The annual incidence of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) in the United States reportedly increased during the last quarter of the twentieth century. We investigated whether that increase has continued into the twenty-first century.
A low-cost 8 to 26.5 GHz phased array antenna using a piezoelectric transducer controlled phase shifter

A new phased array antenna of wide bandwidth and good beam scanning angle has been developed using a low cost multiline phase shifter controlled by a piezoelectric transducer (PET) and a stripline fed Vivaldi antenna array. The multiline progressive PET phase shifter has a low perturbation loss of less than 2 dB and a total loss of less than 4 dB up to 40 GHz with a maximum phase shift of 480/spl deg/. The proposed phased array antenna consists of four E- or H-plane Vivaldi antennas, a PET phase shifter, and a power divider. The phased array shows a wide beam scanning capability of /spl plusmn/27/spl deg/ over a wide bandwidth from 8 to 26.5 GHz covering X, Ku, and K bands.
Guaranteeing synchronous message deadlines with the timed token medium access control protocol

We study the problem of guaranteeing synchronous message deadlines in token ring networks where the timed token medium access control protocol is employed. Synchronous bandwidth, defined as the maximum time for which a node can transmit its synchronous messages every time it receives the token, is a key parameter in the control of synchronous message transmission. To ensure the transmission of synchronous messages before their deadlines, synchronous capacities must be properly allocated to individual nodes. We address the issue of appropriate allocation of the synchronous capacities. Several synchronous bandwidth allocation schemes are analyzed in terms of their ability to satisfy deadline constraints of synchronous messages. We show that an inappropriate allocation of the synchronous capacities could cause message deadlines to be missed, even if the synchronous traffic is extremely low. We propose a scheme, called the normalized proportional allocation scheme, which can guarantee the synchronous message deadlines for synchronous traffic of up to 33% of available utilization. >
Therapeutic Inertia Is an Impediment to Achieving the Healthy People 2010 Blood Pressure Control Goals

Therapeutic inertia (TI), defined as the providers’ failure to increase therapy when treatment goals are unmet, contributes to the high prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension (≥140/90 mm Hg), but the quantitative impact is unknown. To address this gap, a retrospective cohort study was conducted on 7253 hypertensives that had ≥4 visits and ≥1 elevated blood pressure (BP) in 2003. A 1-year TI score was calculated for each patient as the difference between expected and observed medication change rates with higher scores reflecting greater TI. Antihypertensive therapy was increased on 13.1% of visits with uncontrolled BP. Systolic BP decreased in patients in the lowest quintile of the TI score but increased in those in the highest quintile (−6.8±0.5 versus +1.8±0.6 mm Hg; P P
Effects of Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita on a southeastern Louisiana herpetofauna.

Tropical weather disturbances are a major influence on coastal wetlands in North America. However, studies of their impact on biotic communities are rare. The abundance and species composition of amphibians and reptiles were investigated within levee, herbaceous marsh, and forested swamp habitats in southeastern Louisiana from 2002 to 2004 and again in 2005 to 2006. During the course of this study, three major hurricanes (Ivan, Katrina, and Rita) affected our study sites. This allowed us to opportunistically document the effect of major storm disturbances by comparing species richness, diversity, community assemblage, and abundance of amphibians and reptiles before and after hurricane events. We also used a previous study conducted in the same area during the late 1980's to assess long- term community composition changes. We documented the highest species richness in the forested swamp habitat (23 species), but the most diverse assemblage was found in marsh habitat (H 95 2.082). Overall, herpetofaunal diversity decreased and evenness increased in each habitat following hurricanes Ivan and Katrina/Rita. Drastic decreases in overall abundance of amphibians occurred, while the effect on reptile abundance varied with habitat. Reduced abundance of reptiles in marsh was recorded over the course of the study, while abundances in adjacent levee habitat increased, suggesting displacement of certain reptiles from the marsh to the levee. Significant saltwater intrusion was recorded in marsh and levee habitats, but not in the forested swamp. The hurricanes altered community composition and increased species evenness within each habitat, potentially affecting long-term community dynamics and species interactions.
Inertial and imaging sensor fusion for image-aided navigation with affine distortion prediction

The Air Force Institute of Technology's Advanced Navigation Technology center has invested significant research time and effort into alternative precision navigation methods in an effort to counteract the increasing dependency on Global Positioning System for precision navigation. The use of visual sensors has since emerged as a valuable and feasible precision navigation alternative which, when coupled with inertial navigation sensors, can reduce navigation estimation errors by approximately two orders of magnitude [1] when compared to inertial-only solutions. A key component of many image-aided navigation algorithms is the requirement to detect and track salient features over many frames of an image sequence. However, feature matching accuracy is drastically reduced when the image sets differ in 3-D pose due to the affine distortions induced on feature descriptors [2]. In this research, this is counteracted by digitally simulating affine distortions on input images in order to calculate more accurate feature descriptors, which provide improved matching across large changes in viewpoint. These techniques are experimentally demonstrated in an outdoor environment with a consumer-grade inertial sensor and three imaging sensors, one of which is orthogonal to the others. False matches generated by using the orthogonal camera are shown to degrade the navigation solution if change in 3-D pose is not accounted for. Using a tactical-grade inertial sensor coupled with GPS position data as the truth source, the improved image-aided navigation algorithm, which accounts for changes in 3-D pose, is shown to reduce navigation errors by 24% in position, 16% in velocity, and 35% in attitude compared to the standard two-camera image-aided navigation setup.
Automatic detection of retina disease: Robustness to image quality and localization of anatomy structure

The automated detection of diabetic retinopathy and other eye diseases in images of the retina has great promise as a low-cost method for broad-based screening. Many systems in the literature which perform automated detection include a quality estimation step and physiological feature detection, including the vascular tree and the optic nerve / macula location. In this work, we study the robustness of an automated disease detection method with respect to the accuracy of the optic nerve location and the quality of the images obtained as judged by a quality estimation algorithm. The detection algorithm features microaneurysm and exudate detection followed by feature extraction on the detected population to describe the overall retina image. Labeled images of retinas ground-truthed to disease states are used to train a supervised learning algorithm to identify the disease state of the retina image and exam set. Under the restrictions of high confidence optic nerve detections and good quality imagery, the system achieves a sensitivity and specificity of 94.8% and 78.7% with area-under-curve of 95.3%. Analysis of the effect of constraining quality and the distinction between mild non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy, normal retina images, and more severe disease states is included.
Expression of Distinct α Subunits of GABAA Receptor Regulates Inhibitory Synaptic Strength

Distinct α subunit subtypes in the molecular assembly of GABAA receptors are a critical determinant of the functional properties of inhibitory synapses and their modulation by a range of pharmacolo...
Will embryonic stem cells be a useful source of dopamine neurons for transplant into patients with Parkinson's disease?

Human embryonic stem (ES) cells entered the popular lexicon during the political debate of summer 2001 and the decision by President George Bush to allow federal funding for research on the 64 human ES cell lines that had been derived by the day of his speech. Before the policy decision, the National Institutes of Health did a comprehensive review of the field (http://www.nih.gov/news/stemcell/scireport.htm). Human ES cells come from preimplantation embryos, most of which are generated at in vitro fertilization clinics (1). Within days after fertilization, the embryo consists of a hollow sphere, the blastocyst, which contains a cluster of a few hundred identical cells called the inner cell mass that can eventually develop into a fetus. When removed from the blastocyst, these cells can be propagated indefinitely in specialized media (2). When the media are changed to allow differentiation, cells continue to divide and aggregate, forming embroid bodies. Although these cell clusters lack the organization of an embryo, they contain all tissue types including skin, muscle, bone, and neurons. Because ES cells can become any cell in the body, there is hope that they will lead to treatment for diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and heart failure. The problem is controlling cell growth and differentiation. If large numbers of ES cells are transplanted into an organ like the brain, they grow into every cell type and form tumor-like masses called teratomas, eventually killing their host. How can ES cells be restricted to produce useful cells without overgrowing? In their article in this issue of PNAS, Bjorklund et al. (3) have transplanted small numbers of partially differentiated mouse ES cells from embroid bodies into a rat model of Parkinson's disease and have shown that at least some of the cells become the dopamine neurons that are needed to reverse the Parkinson …
Role of MRI in prostate cancer detection

The standard approach for the detection of prostate cancer--prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening followed by transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS)-guided biopsy--has low sensitivity and provides limited information about the true extent and aggressiveness of the cancer. Improved methods are needed to assess the extent and aggressiveness of the cancer and to identify patients who will benefit from therapy. In recent years, there has been tremendous development of acquisition and processing tools for physiological and metabolic MRI techniques which play a potential role in the detection, localization and characterization of prostate cancer, such as dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI), diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI) and/or proton MR spectroscopic imaging ((1)H MRSI). The standard protocol for prostate MRI without the use of a contrast agent involves multi-planar T1 -weighted MRI, T2 -weighted MRI and DW-MRI. This review discusses the potential role of MRI in the detection of prostate cancer, specifically describing the status of MRI as a tool for guiding targeted prostate biopsies and for detecting cancer in the untreated and treated gland. In addition, future areas of MRI research are briefly discussed. Groups conducting clinical trials should consider the recommendations put forward by the European Consensus Meeting, which state that the minimum requirements for prostate MRI are T1 -weighted MRI, T2 -weighted MRI, DCE-MRI (which involves the use of a contrast agent) and DW-MRI with a pelvic phased-array coil and propose the use of transperineal template mapping biopsies as the optimal reference standard.
Seizures in supratentorial meningioma: a systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECT Meningioma is the most common benign intracranial tumor, and patients with supratentorial meningioma frequently suffer from seizures. The rates and predictors of seizures in patients with meningioma have been significantly under-studied, even in comparison with other brain tumor types. Improved strategies for the prediction, treatment, and prevention of seizures in patients with meningioma is an important goal, because tumor-related epilepsy significantly impacts patient quality of life. METHODS The authors performed a systematic review of PubMed for manuscripts published between January 1980 and September 2014, examining rates of pre- and postoperative seizures in supratentorial meningioma, and evaluating potential predictors of seizures with separate meta-analyses. RESULTS The authors identified 39 observational case series for inclusion in the study, but no controlled trials. Preoperative seizures were observed in 29.2% of 4709 patients with supratentorial meningioma, and were significantly predicted by male sex (OR 1.74, 95% CI 1.30-2.34); an absence of headache (OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.04-3.25); peritumoral edema (OR 7.48, 95% CI 6.13-9.47); and non-skull base location (OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.04-3.25). After surgery, seizure freedom was achieved in 69.3% of 703 patients with preoperative epilepsy, and was more than twice as likely in those without peritumoral edema, although an insufficient number of studies were available for formal meta-analysis of this association. Of 1085 individuals without preoperative epilepsy who underwent resection, new postoperative seizures were seen in 12.3% of patients. No difference in the rate of new postoperative seizures was observed with or without perioperative prophylactic anticonvulsants. CONCLUSIONS Seizures are common in supratentorial meningioma, particularly in tumors associated with brain edema, and seizure freedom is a critical treatment goal. Favorable seizure control can be achieved with resection, but evidence does not support routine use of prophylactic anticonvulsants in patients without seizures. Limitations associated with systematic review and meta-analysis should be considered when interpreting these results.
A Model of the Mixed Households in Yugoslavia

Mixed household is a semi-commercial farm earning income from several different sources, including possibly a job in the formal, urban economy. Mixed household has been recognized in development economics literature as an important economic agent, but it has not been a subject of much rigorous, modeling analysis so far. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature and develop a comprehensive model of economic behavior of a mixed household that takes into account its dual - consumer and producer - role and various constraints to its objective function. The model was motivated by the important role mixed that households played in Yugoslavia, especially during the period 1950-1989. The model yields a number of interesting theoretical predictions that can be used in empirical analyses and/or inform policy towards mixed households in developing countries.
Heller, Guns, and History: The Judicial Invention of Tradition

It is a widely accepted fact that the firearm mortality rate in the United States exceeds that of any comparable nation. This article explores why, from a historical perspective, the United States permits widespread private use of firearms and how gun violence has been framed as a product of cultural tradition. It is not the purpose of this article to question the historical existence of such violence, which is overwhelming, but to question its historical normativity – that is, to ask why our culture has permitted this violence. As a descriptive matter, such violence has become a tradition; as a normative matter, by contrast, it is very much an invented tradition. What is invented, that is, is not the fact of its existence, but rather its elevation to a normative status which distorts the past and grants this tradition constitutional acknowledgment. What once was a regrettable and embarrassing fact of life has become a widely accepted, and often admired tradition.
A black-box approach to energy-aware scheduling on integrated CPU-GPU systems

Energy efficiency is now a top design goal for all computing systems, from fitness trackers and tablets, where it affects battery life, to cloud computing centers, where it directly impacts operational cost, maintainability, and environmental impact. Today's widespread integrated CPU-GPU processors combine a CPU and a GPU compute device with different power-performance characteristics. For these integrated processors, hardware vendors implement automatic power management policies that are typically not exposed to the end-user. Furthermore, these policies often vary between different processor generations and SKUs. As a result, it is challenging to design a generally-applicable energy-aware runtime to schedule work onto both the CPU and GPU of such integrated CPU-GPU processors to optimize energy consumption. We propose a new black-box scheduling technique to reduce energy use by effectively partitioning work across the CPU and GPU cores of integrated CPU-GPU processors. Our energy-aware scheduler combines a power model with information about the runtime behavior of a specific workload. This power model is computed once for each processor to characterize its power consumption for different kinds of workloads. On two widely different platforms, a high-end desktop system and a low-power tablet, our energy-aware runtime yields an energy-delay product that is 96% and 93%, respectively, of the near-ideal Oracle energy-delay product on a diverse set of workloads.
Implicit and Explicit Sexual Motives as Related, But Distinct Characteristics

ABSTRACTA measure of implicit sexual motives—the implicit AMORE—was constructed employing the Affect Misattribution Procedure (Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). Subscales paralleled the 8 dimensions identified previously by the self-report measure of sexual motives, the explicit AMORE (Hill & Preston, 1996). Confirmatory factor analyses supported the proposed 8-factor model in slightly revised form, which was confirmed based on a second independent set of participants. Consistent with hypotheses, the implicit scales correlated with nonconscious erotica-viewing behavior for women in a laboratory setting. In contrast to explicit scales, implicit scales were unrelated to self-report ratings of likely sexual behavior. Finally, self-reports of aspects of sexual behavior were generally associated with the measures of implicit motives independently of corresponding explicit motives for both women and men. The results support the conception of implicit sexual motives as related, but distinct from explicit ...
Cyclical change continued

This introductory chapter outlines what a cycle is, what kinds of cycles are generally accepted, and how the contributions in this book fit the various cycles. Uncontroversial cycles are the negative, future, modal, and determiner cycles; these will be referred to as micro-cycles. More controversial are macro-cycles, i.e. cycles that shift a language from analytic to synthetic and from synthetic to analytic. These cycles are controversial partly because of the use of the terms analytic and synthetic, which will be discussed briefly. The introduction also includes a section on recent work, issues of debate, and on future directions.
Deletion of soluble epoxide hydrolase enhances coronary reactive hyperemia in isolated mouse heart: role of oxylipins and PPARγ

The relationship between soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) and coronary reactive hyperemia (CRH) response to a brief ischemic insult is not known. Epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) exert cardioprotective effects in ischemia/reperfusion injury. sEH converts EETs into dihydroxyeicosatrienoic-acids (DHETs). Therefore, we hypothesized that knocking out sEH enhances CRH through modulation of oxylipin profiles, including an increase in EET/DHET ratio. Compared with sEH+/+, sEH-/- mice showed enhanced CRH, including greater repayment volume (RV; 28% higher, P 0.05), but were decreased postischemia in both groups (P = 0.02, P = 0.04, P = 0.05, P = 0.03, respectively). Modulation of CRH by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) was demonstrated using a PPARγ-antagonist (T0070907), which reduced repayment volume by 25% in sEH+/+ (P < 0.001) and 33% in sEH-/- mice (P < 0.01), and a PPARγ-agonist (rosiglitazone), which increased repayment volume by 37% in both sEH+/+ (P = 0.04) and sEH-/- mice (P = 0.04). l-NAME attenuated CRH in both sEH-/- and sEH+/+ These data demonstrate that genetic deletion of sEH resulted in an altered oxylipin profile, which may have led to an enhanced CRH response.
Microwave arbitrary waveform generation using a direct space-to-time optical pulse shaper

Fourier transform optical pulse shaping [1] is now a well established technology for generating nearly arbitrarily shaped ultrafast optical pulses, with applications ranging from coherent control to high-speed communications. On the other hand, arbitrary waveform generation (AWG) capabilities for microwave electromagnetic signals are quite limited. Microwave arbitrary waveform generators could be important for a number of applications, including RF test and measurement instrumentation, secure and multiple-access wireless communications, and radar. Commercial AWG instrumentation is limited to the range below 1 GHz. The use of shaped optical pulses to drive a high-speed optical-to-electronic (O/E) converter offers the possibility to dramatically improve the state-of-the-art in microwave AWG. In previous work in our group, we used pulse sequences from a Fourier transform (FT) pulse shaper to drive a THz photoconductive antenna, resulting in generation of freely propagating phase- and amplitude-modulated THz radiation signals [2]. Another group recently used a wavelength-division multiplexing technique together with a series of optical fiber delay lines to produce a series of pulses suitable for generating a phase-modulated waveform in the low («6) GHz range [3]. Here we demonstrate for the first time to our knowledge microwave arbitrary waveform generation at center frequencies up to 50 GHz, thereby filling in the void between the previous results. Our work takes advantage of a novel direct space-to-time (DST) pulse shaper [4], which provides pulse shaping over a 100 psec temporal window, as required for waveform generation at tens of GHz.
The Basics of Protein Folding Physics

The professional mindsets of physicists and biologists have often been quite distinct, but they must be merged in understanding the basics of protein folding. Living systems are complex and heterogeneous. It is hard to separate their behavior from their history and genesis. For this reason, biologists often look with extreme care at every detail of a particular living system. Physicists have sought, however, to understand universal laws. Their faith in universality allows them to study simple systems and ignore most of the accidents of history. Even if the behavior of the system depends in a crucial way on its heterogeneity, physicists are likely to take a statistical viewpoint and discuss the behavior of average or typical systems. Proteins, as the simplest components of biological systems to have individual identities, must be viewed from both perspectives. Many of the features of protein folding dynamics are like those of any complex disordered polymeric system. On the other hand, proteins behave like engineered or selected systems in two ways: Their components, the amino acids, have been chosen from a family that genetically allows certain local structural organizations to occur. Thus most naturally occurring amino acids are capable of forming helices with repeating symmetry under the right condition [1]. Also, the side chains of the amino acids are used in proteins similar enough in size that, at low resolution, one can imagine packing them easily together in many combinations [2]. Thus many polymers made of these particular subunits could have interesting forms of local organization.
Improved Chen‒Stein bounds on the probability of a union

We improve the Chen‒Stein bounds when applied to the probability of a union. When the probability is small, the improvement in the distance from the lower to the upper bound is roughly a factor of 2. Further improvements are determined when the events of the union are either negatively or positively dependent.
Ethical Use of Tissue Samples in Genetic Research

Many centrally based cancer protocols have begun to address the ethical issues concerning tissue banking for genetic research. A multidisciplinary subcommittee of the Madigan Army Medical Center Institutional Review Board was established to determine the scope of the problem and offer a concise, user-friendly policy with guidelines on how to control and monitor the use of stored tissue for future genetic and molecular research. Our institution participates in 69 Southern Oncology Group or National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project protocols and 47 Children's Oncology Group protocols. Of these protocols, 22 of 69 and 36 of 47, respectively, asked for tissue to be stored for future biologic study. Only 4 of 69 and 3 of 47, respectively, deal with specific consent for future genetic/biologic research. The multidisciplinary committee developed a policy that dealt with the following areas: exempt status, waived consent, informed consent, deceased status, family studies, and information flow. An algorithm was created to establish a system of checks and balances concerning privacy, protection and an appeals process.
VARIABLE ACCURACY OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE WEARABLE HEART RATE MONITORS

Background: The accuracy of wrist-worn heart rate (HR) monitors is unconfirmed. We assessed accuracy of 5 wrist-worn HR monitors (Apple Watch, Fitbit Blaze, Garmin Forerunner 235, TomTom Spark Cardio, Scosche Rhythm+) during various types of exercise. Methods: Fifty volunteers completed exercise
5-Benzylidene-4-oxazolidinones potently inhibit biofilm formation in Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Investigation into the biological function of 5-benzylidene-4-oxazolidinones revealed dose-dependent inhibition of biofilm formation in Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). This structurally unusual class of small molecules inhibit up to 89% of biofilm formation with IC50 values as low as 0.78 μM, and disperse pre-formed biofilms with IC50 values as low as 4.7 μM. Together, these results suggest that 4-oxazolidinones represent new chemotypes to enable the study of bacterial biofilms with small molecule chemical probes.
Social influence on the response to drugs: IV. Stimulus factors

Rats were treated with saline or 2.0 mg/kg of amphetamine sulfate and one hour later observed in one of six stimulus conditions. The rat to be observed was placed in one compartment of an observation box that had been divided into two compartments by means of a wire-mesh barrier. The second compartment in one of the stimulus conditions contained no animal, in a second condition it contained a dead rat, or either one, two, three, or four live rats. In the situations where two or more stimulus rats were present, the rats treated with amphetamine spent significantly more time in behavior directed at the barrier separating them from the stimulus animals than did the saline treated controls. The maximum amount of barrier-directed behavior was shown by amphetamine treated rats when three stimulus rats were present.
The emerging role of cell-derived microvesicles in stem cell research and therapy

Recently there has been growing interest in cell derived microvesicles MVs or extracellular vesicles EV due to their vital roles in inter cellular communications and great potential of therapeutic applications The mechanism behind these roles involves encapsulation of bioactive molecules from MV producing cells and delivery to receipt cells nearby or at long distance through blood circulation Proteins mRNA miRNA or even certain phospholipids can be bioactive molecules in different MVs that transfer signals from producing cells to receipt cells and change their fate Stem cells can produce MVs which are able to enhance proliferation of target cells Among them MVs derived from mesenchymal stem cells are well studied and have been shown to have multiple therapeutic applications As an emerging area there are still more work needed to be done including but not limited to MV body distribution and pharmacokinetics before these existing biofunctions found in vitro can be translated to patients
Perioperative management in endoscopic endonasal skull-base surgery: a survey of the North American Skull Base Society.

BACKGROUND The objective of this work was to better understand variations in perioperative management in endoscopic endonasal skull-base surgery (EESBS) and to identify trends in management based upon the practice patterns of North American Skull Base Society (NASBS) members. METHODS A 29-question survey evaluating perioperative EESBS management was sent to all NASBS members. Responses were analyzed with descriptive statistics. Subgroup analysis was performed based on participant demographics. A Bonferroni correction was performed and a p value <0.01 was considered statistically significant for subgroup analysis. RESULTS Of 651 invitees, 116 responded (17.8%). Participants were primarily from the United States (81.0%), and practiced in academic centers (83.6%). The majority were neurosurgeons (55.2%) or rhinologists (27.6%). Most surgeons (83.6%) advocated use of preoperative intravenous antibiotics (96.6%) and image guidance in all cases (83.6%). Lumbar drains were not recommended for cases in which an intraoperative cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak was not anticipated (94.8%). Nasoseptal flaps (NSFs) were not recommended in cases without intraoperative CSF leak (84.5%), but were recommended in cases of high-flow intraoperative CSF leak (97.4%). While postoperative restrictions were highly variable, most providers recommended CSF leak precautions (89.7%), flying restrictions (94.0%), and driving restrictions (95.6%) regardless of intraoperative CSF leak status. Most experts also recommended that continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) be avoided for at least 2 weeks when an intraoperative CSF leak is encountered (81.9%). CONCLUSION Despite variation in perioperative management of EESBS patients, important trends were identified by this study. Further investigation is needed to standardize perioperative practice patterns in EESBS.
Strategies for assessing and fostering hope: the hope assessment guide.

Purpose/objectives To detail behavioral manifestations of hope and to present the Hope Assessment Guide with stage-specific nursing strategies to foster the development of hope. Data sources Previous research and a concept analysis of hope, including interviews with survivors of breast cancer, people awaiting heart transplants, breast-feeding mothers returning to work, and patients with spinal cord injuries. Criteria for inclusion included empirical validity of the conceptual framework, power of the autobiographic data to illustrate theoretical fit, and usefulness of the theory in assessing hope and devising clinical strategies. Data synthesis Behavioral manifestations within reported breast cancer experiences demonstrated theoretical fit. From this, the researchers extracted assessment factors and identified clinical strategies based on reported experiences and strategies found helpful at various stages of the hope development process. Conclusions The conceptual model provides structure for assessing and responding to developing hopefulness in a stage-specific manner. Implications for nursing practice By becoming aware of the processes of developing hope, nurses are better prepared to clinically assess this dynamic process and to devise highly individualized clinical interventions in cases in which hope needs to be supported or modified.
Hyperosmolar therapy is not associated with improved outcomes in patients with large Intracerebral Hemorrhage. (P2.257)

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the use of hyperosmolar therapy in patients with larger hematomas who might benefit from treatment targeting mass effect/edema. Background: Spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a significant cause of mortality. Design/Methods: Retrospective study of patients with primary ICH from 2012–2015. Inclusion criteria: ≥18 years, ICH volume ≥30cc, and presentation within 12 hours of symptom onset. Exclusion criteria: DNR/I within 12 hours of arrival. Patients were divided into those who received standard care or hyperosmolar therapy (mannitol or hypertonic saline). Primary outcome measure was good outcome as measured by modified Rankin Scale (mRS) Score 0–3 at discharge. The unadjusted and adjusted odds ratio (OR) of experiencing good outcome as well as its 95% confidence interval (CI) in hyperosmolar therapy group compared to standard care group was calculated by logistic regression model. Results: Of 103 patients, 51 received standard care and 52 received hyperosmolar therapy. (Age 63.4±14.8 vs 65.0±14.5, p=0.5955, respectively). There were no significant differences in important baseline characteristics: GCS (median 6 in standard care vs 4 in hyperosmolar therapy, p=0.065), presence of IVH (p=0.4090), location (p=0.7098) and median hematoma volume (51 cc standard care vs 64 cc hyperosmolar therapy, p=0.6329). In the standard care group 26.92% patients vs. 11.76% patients in the hyperosmolar therapy underwent hemicraniectomy (P=0.0518). Good outcome at discharge was seen in 13.5% of standard care vs. 2.0% of hyperosmolar treated patients (unadjusted OR 0.129, 95% CI 0.015–1.086, p=0.0599). After adjusting for platelet transfusion, the results were similar (adjusted OR 0.129, 95% CI 0.015–1.094, p=0.0604). Conclusions: We focused on the severest group of ICH patients with large hematoma and severe deficit on presentation. Our results are consistent with prior investigation and suggest that hyperosmolar therapy may not benefit patients with large ICH. Prospective study is needed as it is becoming common practice to use hyperosmolar therapy in ICH patients. Disclosure: Dr. Alam has nothing to disclose. Dr. Moser has nothing to disclose. Dr. Gonzales has nothing to disclose.
How Sweet It Is: Sugar Consumption and its Implications for Human Resource Management and the Work-Life Divide

Consumption of refined sugar in modern diets has been identified as a source of many modern illnesses, including emotional and mood disorders. Furthermore, workplace "cake culture" within organizations has institutionalized and ritualized the consumption of sugar. I outline the effect that sugar consumption has on stress, fatigue and mood, and propose that these effects will have deleterious consequences on individual-level health and wellbeing in organizations. I further propose that social contagion has a mediating effect on these interactions. Implications for human resource management (HRM) and the work-life divide are then discussed. The paper concludes with future research directions for scholars.
Examining faith-based collaboration in U.S. States’ suicide prevention guidelines

AbstractFaith-based communities (FBCs) are recognized by most states as key players within systematic suicide prevention efforts. The aim of the present study was to conduct a thematic analysis of ...
Benefits and Pitfalls of Jupyter Notebooks in the Classroom

Jupyter notebooks are widely used in industry and in academic research, but have only begun to make inroads into the classroom. The design of the Jupyter notebook is in many ways well suited for teaching subjects in information technology and computer science, but it is a tool that departs significantly from a standard text editor or integrated development environment, and thus carries with it several unique advantages as well as several surprising potential pitfalls. As use of Jupyter notebooks has grown, so has criticism of the notebook, for varied reasons: notebooks can behave in unexpected ways, they can be difficult to reproduce, they open up potential security issues, and they may encourage poor coding practices. A set of best practices to guide instructors and help addressing these concerns when using Jupyter notebooks in the classroom is currently lacking. This paper addresses the strengths and weaknesses of the Jupyter notebook for education, drawing on existing literature as well as the author's experience teaching a range of courses with Jupyter notebooks for over five years, and recommends a set of best practices for teaching with the Jupyter notebook.
Cancer cells optimize elasticity for efficient migration

Cancer progression is associated with alternations in the cytoskeletal architecture of cells and, consequently, their mechanical properties such as stiffness. Changing the mechanics of cells enables cancer cells to migrate and invade to distant organ sites. This process, metastasis, is the main reason for cancer-related mortality. Cell migration is an essential step towards increasing the invasive potential of cells. Although many studies have shown that the migratory speed and the invasion of cells can be inversely correlated to the stiffness of cells, some other investigations indicate opposing results. In the current work, based on the strain energy stored in cells due to the contractile forces, we defined an energy-dependent term, migratory index, to approximate how changes in the mechanical properties of cells influence cell migration required for cancer progression. Cell migration involves both cell deformation and force transmission within cells. The effects of these two parameters can be represented equally by the migratory index. Our mechanical modelling and computational study show that cells depending on their shape, size and other physical parameters have a maximum migratory index taking place at a specific range of cell bulk elasticity, indicating the most favourable conditions for invasive mobility. This approximate model could be used to explain why the stiffness of cells varies during cancer progression. We believe that the stiffness of cancer or malignant cells depending on the stiffness of their normal or non-malignant counterparts is either decreased or increased to reach the critical condition in which the mobility potential of cells is approximated to be maximum.
Archaeology of marronage in the Caribbean Antilles

The archaeological study of maroons in the Caribbean Antilles presents both opportunities and challenges. On small islands, runaways had few places where they could seek refuge from slavery and elude capture for long periods of time. Consequently, such sites were occupied briefly and have been difficult to locate and identify. The Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) had both short-term refuge sites and long-term settlements comparable to quilombos. Archaeologists have been most successful in their investigations maroons in Cuba and Jamaica. In Hispaniola, where I am working at the present, only a few cave sites and one presumed maniel (the local term for a long-term maroon settlements) have been studied. In this paper, I provide an overview of the archaeological study of maroons on the Caribbean Islands and my preliminary research to locate El Maniel de Ocoa, a major settlement of slave runaways for over a hundred years during 1500s-1660s.
Abstract MP53: Consumption Of Ultra-processed Food Is Associated With Risk Of Coronary Heart Disease In The Atherosclerosis Risk In Communities Study

Introduction: Ultra-processed food defined as food and drink products formulated through sequences of industrial processes, and generally contain non-culinary used additives. Previous studies have ...
Capitalism, Tribalism, and Democracy, 1500–1960

Together with print culture, the Protestant Reformation broke the hold of Catholicism on the western European imagination, preparing the way for “enlightened” reason. Despite its embrace of natural equality, the enlightenment qualified egalitarianism along racial and gendered lines. Nonetheless, notions of natural law begin to pervade European plays and operas and are evident in The Marriage of Figaro, by DaPonte and Mozart. Built upon the Cartesian dualism of nature and society, capitalism, Moore demonstrates, required the appropriation of nature into market relations from the start and led to increasingly complex world empires, from the hegemony of The Netherlands to the United States. Given its early reliance on coal to power industrial development, capitalism also opened up possibilities for working-class democracy and socialism. Since the French Revolution, however, the primary political effect of capitalism has been to energize the tribalistic affiliations of nationalism, evident in European and world wars from 1789 until 1945. In response, some dramatists, animated by revulsion against the Holocaust and atomic warfare and hopeful that the United Nations might be able to push for universal human rights, wrote socialist and allegorical plays after 1945. The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht, for example, pits the potential power of science against the nation-state, but continues to rely on enlightened reason for its political argumentation.
The dynamic battle for pieces of pie: Modeling party support in multi-party nations

Abstract When teams of rival politicians compete for public support, they are essentially playing a zero sum game where one party's gains tend to come from the losses of one or more of their opponents. Despite this, most analyses of party support across time model the dynamics associated with a single party's support. In nations where only two parties are competing for votes, this approach is fine. But in nations with more than two parties, much of the substance of what is going on in party competition is lost. In this paper we illustrate the usefulness of a modeling strategy proposed by Philips et al. (2015) for estimating and interpreting the causal relationships that shape trade-offs in party support as they evolve over time. We extend their work by modeling public support for four parties instead of three and by developing the ability to model dynamic changes in party characteristics. We estimate our models on monthly data from the United Kingdom and Germany.
What Is Dermatitis with Epidermotropism

Epidermotropism refers to the phenomenon of lymphocytes residing in the epidermis. This is in contrast to exocytosis in which lymphocytes move out through the epidermis. Exocytosis is often associated with spongiosis while epidermotropism is associated with clear halos around individual lymphocytes and generally lack spongiosis. While exocytosis and spongiosis are characteristic features of inflammatory disorders, such as eczematous dermatitis; epidermotropism is characteristic of mycosis fungoides.