cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Obesity and osteoarthritis of the knee: hypotheses concerning the relationship between ground reaction forces and quadriceps fatigue in long-duration walking.

The principal risk factors of osteoarthritis of the knee are: age, obesity and gender. It is hypothesized that long-duration walking (e.g. 20 min) in the elderly obese will lead to quadriceps fatigue. Changes in the gait pattern due to fatigue will lead to altered knee kinematics at heelstrike and consequently decreased shock absorption. This scenario will result in an increased rate of loading and possibly an increase in the overall magnitude of peak ground reaction forces, both of which could cause articular cartilage degeneration. Obese females are at an overall higher risk of developing osteoarthritis than males. This gender discrepancy may be explained by the fact that females have a higher percentage of body fat content (lower proportion of lean mass) that may increase the rate of quadriceps fatigue. These biomechanical hypotheses can be examined by studying continuous periods of walking in which ground reaction forces, knee kinematics and electromyography data are recorded.
A carbon-free, precious-metal-free, high-performance O2 electrode for regenerative fuel cells and metal–air batteries

The development of high-performance and cost-effective electrodes for oxygen evolution and oxygen reduction is critical for enabling the use of energy storage devices based on O2–H2O chemistries such as metal–air batteries and unitized regenerative fuel cells (URFCs). Herein, we report a precious-metal-free and carbon-free O2 electrode synthesized via electrodeposition of manganese oxide (MnOx) on a stainless steel (SS) substrate followed by high-temperature calcination at 480 °C. The MnOx–SS electrode displays high oxygen reduction and water oxidation activities when tested in an electrochemical cell, comparable to that of a precious-metal based electrode, Pt/C–SS. Accelerated durability testing reveals the excellent stability of the MnOx–SS electrode compared to both the Pt/C–SS electrode and a carbon-based electrode with MnOx and Ni catalysts. This can be rationalized by the carbon-free nature of the MnOx–SS electrode which circumvents carbon corrosion at the high electrochemical potentials during water oxidation and O2 reduction. Integrating the MnOx–SS electrode as the O2 electrode into an anion exchange membrane (AEM) URFC produces round-trip efficiencies of 42–45% at 20 mA cm−2 over 10 cycles, and exhibits significantly enhanced durability compared to the carbon-based analogue. This work demonstrates the MnOx–SS electrode's potential for use as a high performance, scalable, precious-metal-free and carbon-free O2 electrode in AEM-URFCs and metal–air batteries.
Immunisation coverage in Lusaka, Zambia; implications of the social setting

This paper develops a conceptual framework for examining the process of immunisation and explores the sociodemographic determinants of vaccination in Zambia. About 300 mothers with children under 3 years of age were interviewed in urban Lusaka. The analyses suggest that sociostructural, as well as cultural, processes influence the attrition process and immunisation programmes should focus on the uniqueness of each stage. In addition, programmes to improve women's education and to reduce male gender preferences are needed.
Bridging the Stream of Commerce: Recommendations forLiving in the Post-Nicastro Era

II. LOWER COURTS AND J. MCINTYRE MACHINERY, LTD. V. NICASTRO: A DIVIDED RESPONSE 410 A. Stream of Commerce and Personal Jurisdiction: Unclear Directives from the Supreme Court 410 B. Handling Nicastro: How Lower Courts Are Managing 414 1. Limiting Nicastro to Its Facts 414 2. Nicastro Limited Overall Because of Justice Breyer’s Indecision .. 415 3. Adhering to the Kennedy Approach 415 4. A Fourth Approach: Examining the Volume of Goods Entering the Forum 416
NIPT and Informed Consent: an Assessment of Patient Understanding of a Negative NIPT Result

Since becoming clinically available in 2011, the use of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) to screen for fetal aneuploidy has continued to increase. However, it has been questioned whether the education of patients undergoing NIPT consistently meets informed consent standards. We sought to evaluate patients' basic understanding of NIPT, such as conditions assessed and accuracy. In addition, we investigated patient self-assessment of NIPT knowledge and satisfaction with the testing process. We distributed an anonymous paper survey to pregnant women during prenatal visits following a negative NIPT result. The survey assessed patient NIPT knowledge, gathered pregnancy-specific and demographic information, and allowed respondents to rank their basic understanding of NIPT and provide written feedback about the testing process. A total of 95 completed and 3 partially completed surveys were returned. Participants scored lowest on knowledge questions involving whether a negative NIPT result ensures a healthy baby or eliminates the possibility of Down syndrome. Most perceived themselves to have a good basic understanding of NIPT and two-thirds of the written feedback proposed no changes to NIPT administration. Overall, most patients appear satisfied with their understanding of NIPT and the testing process, yet they may not fully appreciate the limitations of this screening method.
Global gatekeeping : how Great Powers respond to rising states

Why do some shifts in power between states pass off peacefully while others result in conflict? Scholars have debated the implications of shifting power at least since Thucydides documented the rise of Athens in his History of the Peloponnesian War and the fear that this aroused in Sparta. Must the rise in power of a potential challenger lead to covetousness, enmity and conflict as Thucydides claims was the case in antiquity? Or can established and rising powers make common cause on the world stage? Most attempts to answer these questions have focused on the decision-making calculus of rising states or else have modeled abstract dyadic relations between two rational actors under conditions of shifting power. In this paper, I shift the analytic focus onto the decision-making of leaders in established Great Powers, examining the international and domestic-political circumstances under which states will acquiesce to or even promote the rise in power of another state and when they will instead seek to stymie the rise of a potential rival. The paper advances the notion that established Great Powers act as critical gatekeepers of world order. In the context of shifting power, established Great Powers are by definition materially stronger than their rising challengers — at least during initial phases of a power transition. As such, I argue that established Great Powers are able to apply their preponderant power — military, economic and diplomatic — in ways that shape the opportunity structures available to a would-be challenger. I provide a model to explain when and why an established state will see advantage in conciliating a rising state and when its leaders will instead opt for a strategy of containment. Empirically, I present four illustrative case studies of British and American responses to rising states, 1890-1990.
A Rule Management and Elicitation Tool for SWRL Rule Bases.

Rules are increasingly being used to represent knowledge in ontology-based systems on the Semantic Web. As the size of such rule bases increases, users face the age old problem in understanding and managing the complexity of the knowledge represented by the rules. To support rapid exploration of rule bases and meet the scalability goals of the Semantic Web, techniques are needed to provide simplified interpretations of rules as well as high-level abstractions of their computational structures. To address this problem, we have implemented a rule management tool called Axiome. Axiome was developed as a Protege-OWL plug-in and supports visual rule base exploration, automated rule categorization, rule paraphrasing, and rule elicitation functionality with the goal of facilitating the management of large SWRL rule bases.
The Acquisition of Syntax

them to go beyond the speech they have actually heard and practiced to the creation of lawful novelties. If new monosyllables are created, speakers of English will agree that stug is "better English" than ftug. Probably this is because they have a shared implicit knowledge of the initial consonant clusters that are acceptable in English. If this new word is to be pluralized, they will agree that stug/-z/ is better than stug/-s/. Probably this is because they have shared knowledge of a rule of regular English inflection. If the new word is first heard in the sentence: "Here is some stug" they will agree that a second sentence: "The stug is there" is more likely to be grammatical than a second sentence: "A stug is there." Probably this is because they have shared knowledge of the syntactic rules for the employment of mass nouns. The construction rules of which speakers have implicit knowledge are, in their explicit form, the grammar of a language. As these rules have been written down in traditional grammars, they constitute a collection of largely unrelated statements about such matters as the parts-of-speech, paradigms of conjugation and declension, the marking of gender, and the agreement of adjectives and nouns. Chomsky (I957) has shown that it may be possible to systematize traditional grammar into a mechanism for the generation of all the sentences of a language that are grammatical and none that are ungrammatical. Grammar becomes a theory for a range of phenomenathe sentences of a language-and also a program for generating sentencesa program that might be followed by an electronic device (Yngve, I96I).
Protein kinase-a directed antisense therapy of tumor growth in vivo : the antisense effects outlast antisense survival.

Standard chemotherapy for cancer usually is accompanied by systemic tox icity, reflecting the large number of cellular targets affected by the chemo therapeutic agent. in principle, an antisense oligonucleotide targeted at a gene essential for neoplastic cell growth should interfere with only that gene's expression, resulting in arrest of cancer cell growth.
The Meanings of Race Matter College Students Learning About Race in a Not-so-Postracial Era

Given the historical legacies of racial exclusion and disparities within U.S. higher education and contemporary manifestations of racial tensions on college campuses, this study explores the meanings college students make of race within a sociopolitical context often claimed to be “postracial” (i.e., one where race no longer matters). Based on interviews with a sample (n = 40) of undergraduates recruited from two U.S. West Coast public research universities, constructivist grounded theory methods allowed for an emergent understanding of how precollege experiences and campus contexts influenced race-related patterns in students’ experiencing of and learning about race. Such experiences contributed to six patterns of racial meaning (ancestry, culture, concept, embodiment, identity, power) that help explain how college students refute postracial claims and see race mattering (or not) on multiple levels.
Appraisals of and recommendations for managing intrusive thoughts: An empirical investigation

The present study investigated strategies for managing intrusive thoughts. Eighty undergraduate students read vignettes of intrusive thoughts - blasphemous, sexual, and violent - which varied in frequency of the thought (high or low) and who experienced the thought (self or other). Appraisal ratings of thoughts were completed and participants completed a response strategy survey where they indicated how much they would endorse various methods for dealing with the thoughts. Some response strategies were theorized to help with intrusive thoughts and some were theorized to be unhelpful. Measures of obsessive-compulsive tendencies were completed to determine relationships between beliefs and appraisals as well as responses to the intrusive thoughts. Results indicated the more distressing a thought was perceived to be, the more likely participants were to recommend unhelpful strategies. Conversely, the less distressing the thought was, the more likely participants were to recommend helpful strategies. Ratings of distress and patterns of responses were related to obsessive-compulsive beliefs as well. Findings are discussed in terms of their relationship to the cognitive behavioral model of OCD, intrusive thoughts, and how future work may serve to educate and reduce stigma related to these common yet distressing experiences.
A Rejectionist Constitutional Vision: Justice Thomas and Originalist Arguments

Justice Clarence Thomas applied his originalist approach to constitutional interpretation to argue against the recognition and protection of rights for imprisoned offenders. Thomas’s view of history precluded the protection of nearly all prisoners’ rights that other justices saw as applicable in corrections contexts. When Thomas learned that he had misinterpreted prison history, he revamped his historical approach to achieve the same rights-denying results by deferring to individual states. Thomas’s outspokenness provided a philosophical counterpoint to Justice Stevens’s expansive views on legal protections for convicted offenders. Thomas, along with Stevens, provided evidence of the importance of interpretive approaches and judicial philosophies as influences over Supreme Court decision making.
Molecular Basis for Inhibition of the Na+/Citrate Transporter NaCT (SLC13A5) by Dicarboxylate Inhibitors

The Na+/citrate transporter, NaCT (SLC13A5), is a therapeutic target for metabolic diseases. Citrate is an important signaling molecule that regulates the activity of lipid- and glucose-metabolizing enzymes in cells. Previous studies identified two compounds, PF-06649298 (compound 2: ) and PF-06678419 (compound 4: ), that inhibit human NaCT with high affinity, and one of the compounds demonstrated specificity relative to other SLC13 family members. Here we use molecular modeling and site-directed mutagenesis of hNaCT followed by transport characterization and cell-surface biotinylation to examine the residues involved in inhibitor binding and transport. The results indicate that residues located near the putative citrate binding site, G228, V231, V232, and G409, affect both citrate transport and inhibition of citrate uptake by compounds 2: and 4: V231 appears to distinguish between compounds 2: and 4: as inhibitors. Furthermore, residues located outside of the putative citrate binding site, Q77 and T86, may also play a role in NaCT inhibition by compounds 2: and 4: Our results provide new insight into the mechanism of transport and inhibition in NaCT and the SLC13 family. These findings should provide a basis for future drug design of SLC13 inhibitors.
One-Year Smoking Trajectories Among Established Adult Smokers With Low Baseline Motivation to Quit.

Introduction The majority of smokers do not intend to quit in the near term, making unmotivated smokers a key group to target in public health efforts. Although it is often assumed that continuing smokers will have stable rates of smoking over time, limited research has addressed this issue, particularly among smokers not seeking treatment. In the current study, the aims were to (1) characterize the trajectory of naturalistic smoking among unmotivated smokers and (2) examine relationships between naturalistic smoking trajectories and other smoking-related variables. Methods The study sample comprised 579 control-group (ie, untreated) smokers within a parent clinical trial, who completed a total of nine assessments over 1 year. Results Trajectory modeling identified four smoking trajectory groups: stable (72%), shallow decreasers (20%), steep decreasers (5%), and increasers (3%). Membership in the decreasing groups was associated with higher motivation to quit, greater history of quit attempts, and higher cigarettes per day. Females were more likely to be in the increasing versus stable group. Conclusions Findings provide needed information on stability and change in cigarette consumption over the course of 1 year among an untreated sample of smokers and identified baseline sociodemographic and smoking-related predictors of smoking trajectory group. Refining understanding of these groups is critical in updating population-based tobacco policy modeling efforts and informing cessation induction efforts that capitalize on naturalistic changes in smoking rate over time. Implications In the current study, we found that approximately 25% of smokers who endorsed low quit motivation at baseline reduced their cigarette consumption over the course of a year, while 3% increased their cigarette consumption and the majority of smokers (72%) maintained a stable pattern. Refining understanding of smoking trajectories is critical in updating population-based tobacco policy modeling efforts and informing cessation induction efforts that capitalize on naturalistic changes in smoking rate over time.
Neural Networks Approaches for Combinatorial Optimization Problems

Most of the engineering design problems and applications can be formulated as a nonlinear programming problem in which the objective function is nonlinear and has many local optima in its feasible region. It is desirable to find a local optimum that corresponds to the global optimum. The problem of finding the global optimum is known as the global optimization problem. Most such global optimization problems are difficult to solve. The main difficulties in finding the global optimum are that there are no operationally useful optimality conditions for identifying whether a point is indeed a global optimum, except in cases of special structured problems [33] and so it is computationally intensive to obtain the global optimum. Therefore, it is desirable and sometimes necessary to find a near global optimum in a reasonable time rather than obtaining the global optimum.
C-terminal phosphorylation regulates the kinetics of a subset of melanopsin-mediated behaviors in mice

Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) express the photopigment melanopsin and mediate several non-image-forming visual functions, including circadian photoentrainment and the pupillary light reflex (PLR). ipRGCs act as autonomous photoreceptors via the intrinsic melanopsin-based phototransduction pathway and as a relay for rod/cone input via synaptically driven responses. Under low light intensities, where only synaptically driven rod/cone input activates ipRGCs, the duration of the ipRGC response will be determined by the termination kinetics of the rod/cone circuits. Little is known, however, about the termination kinetics of the intrinsic melanopsin-based phototransduction pathway and its contribution to several melanopsin-mediated behaviors. Here, we show that C-terminal phosphorylation of melanopsin determines the recovery kinetics of the intrinsic melanopsin-based photoresponse in ipRGCs, the duration of the PLR, and the speed of reentrainment. In contrast, circadian phase alignment and direct effects of light on activity (masking) are not influenced by C-terminal phosphorylation of melanopsin. Electrophysiological measurements demonstrate that expression of a virally encoded melanopsin lacking all C-terminal phosphorylation sites (C terminus phosphonull) leads to a prolonged intrinsic light response. In addition, mice expressing the C terminus phosphonull in ipRGCs reentrain faster to a delayed light/dark cycle compared with mice expressing virally encoded WT melanopsin; however, the phase angle of entrainment and masking were indistinguishable. Importantly, a sustained PLR in the phosphonull animals is only observed at brighter light intensities that activate melanopsin phototransduction, but not at dimmer light intensities that activate only the rod/cone pathway. Taken together, our results highlight how the kinetics of the melanopsin photoresponse differentially regulate distinct light-mediated behaviors.
Soybean hull induced production of carbohydrases and protease among Aspergillus and their effectiveness in soy flour carbohydrate and protein separation.

Soybean hull consists mainly of three major plant carbohydrates, i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin. It is inexpensive and a good potential substrate for carbohydrase production because it is capable of inducing a complete spectrum of activities to hydrolyze complex biomass. Aspergillus is known for carbohydrase production but no studies have evaluated and compared, among Aspergillus species and strains, the soybean hull induced production of various carbohydrases. In this study, A. aculeatus, A. cinnamomeus, A. foetidus, A. phoenicis and 11 A. niger strains were examined together with T. reesei Rut C30, another known carbohydrase producer. The carbohydrases evaluated included pectinase, polygalacturonase, xylanase, cellulase, α-galactosidase and sucrase. Growth morphology and pH profiles were also followed. Among Aspergillus strains, morphology was found to correlate with both carbohydrase production and pH decrease profile. Filamentous strains gave higher carbohydrase production while causing slower pH decrease. The enzyme broths produced were also tested for separation of soy flour carbohydrate and protein. Defatted soy flour contains about 53% protein and 32% carbohydrate. The enzymatic treatment can increase protein content and remove indigestible oligo-/poly-saccharides, and improve use of soy flour in feed and food. Protease production by different strains was therefore also compared for minimizing protein degradation. A. niger NRRL 322 and A. foetidus NRRL 341 were found to be the most potent strains that produced maximal carbohydrases and minimal protease under soybean hull induction.
M13 Bacteriophage Biolaminates for Nanomaterials with Improved Stiffness

In nature, biomolecules guide the formation of hierarchically-ordered, lightweight, inorganic-organic composites such as corals, shells, teeth and bones. M13 bacteriophage has been used to mimic bio-inspired material development due to its rigid, nanoscale rod-like morphology. Liquid-crystalline monolayers of genetically engineered phage have been used to template crystallization of thin layers of inorganic and metallic materials. We have created thin films composed of engineered M13 phage capable of binding inorganic components. We employed both a dip-cast and a drop-cast film fabrication method on both smooth and rough gold, silica and glass casting surfaces to create thin films and 3D structures of various degrees of hierarchical order. We have found the engineered M13 phage and the inorganic mineral significantly affected both film morphology and the mechanical properties of the film. Similarly, film fabrication parameters such as solution chemistry, temperature, and pulling speed affected film properties. Using a calcium phosphate biomineralized 4E phage, film thickness increased linearly with the number of layers/dips in the phage solution. The stiffness of these composites (Young’s modulus) were >80 GPa for mineralized, multilayer films. These materials are an order of magnitude stiffer than the biological equivalent collagen. Stiffness, however, does not appear to increase in a multilayer film beyond a saturation point. Ultimately, we have developed a platform for phage-based bio-composites for developing high performance materials.
'Insanity is Smashing Up Against My Soul': Panetti v. Quarterman and Questions that Won't Go Away

In Panetti v. Quarterman, the US Supreme Court expanded upon and clarified its earlier decision in Ford v. Wainwright, barring the execution of persons with mental disabilities who do not have a rational understanding of the reasons for their execution. The Panetti decision, however, has a second holding that may be equally important: that the failure to provide a defendant an adequate opportunity to submit expert evidence in response to the report filed by the court-appointed experts thus deprived him of his constitutionally adequate opportunity to be heard. Both of these holdings leave open multiple questions that will likely be explored in subsequent cases (how severe does a mental illness have to be to qualify under this standard? how closely will the Court monitor the extent to which lower courts implement the new standard? To what extent does this decision augur a new level of comfort with expert testimony in other sorts of criminal proceedings?). However, the Court chose not to address the question that many observers had thought was at the core of the case: whether a defendant can be medicated so as to make him competent to be executed? Does the Court's decision to not confront this question mean that it will never deal with such a case? In this discussion of Panetti, I offer some possible answers to these questions.
Exploring regular expression comprehension

The regular expression (regex) is a powerful tool employed in a large variety of software engineering tasks. However, prior work has shown that regexes can be very complex and that it could be difficult for developers to compose and understand them. This work seeks to identify code smells that impact comprehension. We conduct an empirical study on 42 of pairs of behaviorally equivalent but syntactically different regexes using 180 participants and evaluated the understandability of various regex language features. We further analyzed regexes in GitHub to find the community standards or the common usages of various features. We found that some regex expression representations are more understandable than others. For example, using a range (e.g., [0-9]) is often more understandable than a default character class (e.g., [d]). We also found that the DFA size of a regex significantly affects comprehension for the regexes studied. The larger the DFA of a regex (up to size eight), the more understandable it was. Finally, we identify smelly and non-smelly regex representations based on a combination of community standards and understandability metrics.
Congenital Resection for Early-Onset Scoliosis

A 3-year-old child with a lumbar hemivertebra and significant torso imbalance is presented for evaluation and treatment. Imaging demonstrated a fully segmented hemivertebra and hemi-lamina at the same level. After discussing possible treatment options, a hemivertebra excision through a posterior-only approach using a three-rod technique was used. At latest follow-up, the patient had significant improvement of the curvature as well as compensatory curves and was doing well. A posterior-only hemivertebra excision using a three-rod technique allows for excellent deformity correction with acceptable complication rates in young children requiring surgery for progressive curves with significant truncal imbalance.
Abstract P1-01-15: Investigation of phosphoserine aminotransferase 1 and its role in breast cancer progression

Metastasis and endocrine resistance are two factors that complicate therapeutic intervention in breast cancer patients and lead to poorer overall survival. Metastasis is known to be responsible for 90% of cancer related deaths, and is especially prevalent in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC); while endocrine resistance can affect up to 50% of patients diagnosed with estrogen receptor positive breast cancer (ER+BC). Phosphoserine aminotransferase 1 (PSAT1) catalyzes the second step within de novo serine biosynthesis and increased expression of enzymes in this pathway have been linked to progression of breast cancer and poor clinical outcomes. Within our preliminary retrospective analysis of human breast cancer patients, we identified an inverse association with elevated transcript levels and poorer distant metastasis free survival, which, coupled to a previously reported correlation of PSAT1 with response to endocrine therapy in patients with ER+BC, we postulate that PSAT1 contributes to breast cancer progression through promotion of metastasis and/or endocrine resistance. To initially determine relevance for PSAT1, immunohistochemistry was performed to determine PSAT1 expression in human breast cancer patients. We found that PSAT1 expression is increased through breast cancer progression, with highest levels observed within metastatic conditions. To investigate the metastatic contribution of PSAT1, we silenced PSAT1 expression within the triple negative breast cancer cell line (TNBC), MDA-MB-231. While suppression of PSAT1 had no effect on proliferation, there was a significant decrease in the motility and invasion of these cells. In addition, decreased PSAT1 substantially inhibited lung metastasis following tail-vein injections of MDA-MB-231 cells in vivo. To investigate PSAT19s role in endocrine resistance, we used parental MCF-7 cells and an endocrine-resistant derivative cell line (LY2) and found that LY2-resistant cells exhibited higher PSAT1 expression compared to parental MCF-7 cells. Lastly, suppression of PSAT1 was able to sensitize the LY2 cells to 4-hydroxytamoxifen treatment. Taken together, these data indicate that PSAT1 may contribute to the progression of human breast cancer via either metastasis or endocrine resistance or both and could potentially serve as a viable target for new therapies. Citation Format: Metcalf S, Kruer T, Klinge C, Clem B. Investigation of phosphoserine aminotransferase 1 and its role in breast cancer progression [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2017 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-01-15.
Substrate specificity of alcohol dehydrogenases.

Alcohol dehydrogenases have important physiological fonctions. Thus, it is important to determine the substrate specificities of these enzymes. Usually, a variety of substrates are chosen for a survey, and the most reactive substrates are identified by steady-state kinetic methods. Ethanol is a good substrate for the liver and yeast enzymes and is certainly one of the most important physiological substrates. However, these enzymes have broad, indeed promiscuous, specificities, acting on primary, secondary, and cyclic substrates, even steroids and hemiacetals. Thus, we should ask which compounds are the “normal” or “natural” substrates, and what good, important substrates have not been discovered? Some of these substrates may be involved in the pathogenesis of alcoholism.
Consciencist Communication Theory: Expanding the Epistemology on Nkrumahism

This chapter develops a full-fledged Consciencist Communication Theory, thereby expanding the epistemology on Nkrumahism: that is, a revolutionary and Pan-Africanist ideology deeply and firmly entrenched in African culture and history. According to its originator, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Consciencism is “a philosophical statement … born out of a crisis of the African conscience confronted with the three strands of present African society … the African experience of the Islamic and Euro-Christian presence as well as the experience of the traditional African society, and, by gestation, (to be employed) for the harmonious growth and development of that society.” The chapter discusses the origins of Consciencist discourse, details of the postulates of the theory, the assumptions of the theory, examples of the various domains in which Consciencist-type communication has been employed, summary and conclusion, and limitations of the theory. While the ideological or philosophical studies on Consciencism can be said to include a communicative theoretical approach in a broader sense vis-a-vis both the analytical framework and the public policies deriving from the ideology, they do not, however, provide a technique for a systematic theoretical investigation of Consciencist-type communication. Thus, this chapter is the first scholarly work to proffer a theoretical approach that can be used to systematically investigate Consciencist-type communication.
An Overview of Pertinent Research

The presence of motion at a fracture site brought about by function and/or weight bearing in an injured extremity has been traditionally felt to be detrimental to healing. Surgical as well as nonsurgical methods of treatment have aimed at the elimination of such motion. Above-the-knee as well as above-the-elbow and spica casts have been designed to eliminate that motion and to prevent activity during the healing process. Similarly, internal fixation devices in the form of plates, external fixators, or nails have always been expected to play a similar role. Since functional fracture bracing is predicated on the belief that motion at the fracture site enhances osteogenesis, we will discuss the laboratory and clinical observations that we have made over the years to support our theses.
Real world assessment strategies that work

Most regional accrediting bodies (and ABET) now require outcomes-based assessment for successful accreditation. In SPSU's CS program, we have developed an assessment process that spreads the workload among the entire faculty with a minimum amount of effort from each faculty member. The process makes use of naturally occurring data in the classroom in addition to external validations. This workshop will cover proven successful assessment strategies that can be used at the assignment, class or program level. Materials will be provided to encourage participants to start thinking of how they can implement assessment into their own programs.
Thought Chart : tracking the thought with manifold learning during emotion regulation

The Nash embedding theorem demonstrates that any compact manifold can be isometrically embedded in a Euclidean space. Assuming the complex brain states form a high-dimensional manifold in a topological space, we propose a manifold learning framework, termed Thought Chart, to reconstruct and visualize the manifold in a low-dimensional space. Furthermore, it serves as a data-driven approach to discover the underlying dynamics when the brain is engaged in a series of emotion and cognitive regulation tasks. EEG-based temporal dynamic functional connectomes are created based on 20 psychiatrically healthy participants’ EEG recordings during resting state and an emotion regulation task. Graph dissimilarity space embedding was applied to all the dynamic EEG connectomes. In order to visualize the learned manifold in a lower dimensional space, local neighborhood information is reconstructed via k-nearest neighbor-based nonlinear dimensionality reduction (NDR) and epsilon distance-based NDR. We showed that two neighborhood constructing approaches of NDR embed the manifold in a two-dimensional space, which we named Thought Chart. In Thought Chart, different task conditions represent distinct trajectories. Properties such as the distribution or average length in the 2-D space may serve as useful parameters to explore the underlying cognitive load and emotion processing during the complex task. In sum, this framework is a novel data-driven approach to the learning and visualization of underlying neurophysiological dynamics of complex functional brain data.
New lymph node staging for rectal neuroendocrine tumors.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Current guidelines of the American Joint Commission on Cancer (AJCC) for rectal neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) classify tumor nodal status as N0/N1. This staging does not take into consideration the number of positive lymph nodes. The goal of this study is to determine how the number of positive lymph nodes affects the prognosis for patients with rectal NETs. METHODS The National Cancer Database was used to identify patients with rectal NETs who underwent rectal resection. Nearest-neighborhood grouping was used to classify patients by survival to create a new nodal staging system. RESULTS There were 687 patients with rectal NETs. There were distinct 5-year survival estimates for patients with N0 [81.8% (95%CI:77.1%-85.6%)], N1 (1-4 positive lymph nodes) [57.8% (95% confidence interval (CI: 51.2%-63.9%)] and N2 (≥5 positive lymph nodes) [32.6% (95%CI:25.1%-40.3%)] patients, P < 0.0001. Distinct 5-year survival estimates using the new nodal staging system was apparent for patients in the external validation set. After adjusting for predictors of survival in multivariable analysis, the new nodal stage remained an independent predictor of overall survival. CONCLUSIONS The number of positive locoregional lymph nodes is an independent prognostic factor in rectal NETs. The next AJCC edition should consider classifying patients with rectal NETs as N0, N1, and N2 to provide better estimates of survival for patients.
Atom Probe Tomography with Extreme-Ultraviolet Light

We have adapted an atom probe tomograph (APT) with an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) source. The EUV photon energies open a direct photoionization pathway unavailable in conventional near-UV APT. © 2019 The Author(s)
COLCHICINE ENHANCES myo-INOSITOL STIMULATION OF SECRETION BY RAT PANCREATIC TISSUE IN VITRO

SUMMARY: High extracellular concentrations (80–100 mM) of myo-inositol stimulate the release of pulse-labelled secretory proteins from rat pancreatic tissue slices if incubation in medium with 80–100 mM inositol is initiated anytime during 80 minutes following the pulse-labelling period (J. Biol. Chem. 251:5078, 1976). When tissue slices are pulse-labelled with [ 3 H ] leucine and then incubated in medium containing 100 mM inositol and 10 μ M colchicine, the addition of colchicine enhances the amount of label released in the presence of 100 mM inositol alone. By contrast, when pulse-labelled tissue slices are incubated in medium containing 10 μ M carbamylcholine and 10 μ M colchicine, the addition of colchicine decreases the amount of label released in the presence of carbamylcholine alone.
Causal mediation analysis of Subclinical Hypothyroidism in children with obesity and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Abstract Background Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is a common co-morbidity of obesity. Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH), also associated with obesity, may contribute to the dysmetabolic state that predisposes to NAFLD. Objective To assess the relationship between SH and NAFLD in children with biopsy-proven NAFLD compared to controls. Design and Methods In this retrospective study of children with biopsy-proven NAFLD and age-matched controls, the association of SH with NAFLD was assessed followed by causal mediation analyses under the counter-factual framework. Results Sixty-six cases and 4067 age-matched controls were included in the study. Children with NAFLD were more likely to be male (74.6 vs 39.4%, p Conclusions The association of SH and biopsy-proven NAFLD is demonstrated in children from predominantly Latino population. Further, a causal mediation analysis implicates an effect of TSH on NAFLD, independent of obesity.
Regulatory effect of antibody on the immune response.

Publisher Summary This chapter deals with the regulatory effect of antibody on antibody formation. It is possible to analyze those factors that influence the process of antibody synthesis. Certainly antibody, the end product of the process, is among the most potent and specific of inhibitors of antibody synthesis. That this inhibition results from the interaction of antibody with antigen neutralizing the immunogenicity of the latter seems likely, and the evidence for this is critically presented. The potential use of this mechanism is suggested by its effectiveness in the enhancement of tissue grafts, its use in the therapeutic prevention of anti-D antibody responses in mothers of Rh-incompatible fetuses, and its possible role in the induction of some types of immunological tolerance. The immune response represents a predictable series of events, characterized by the sequential appearance of several classes of γ-globulin antibody molecules and the expression of various cell-mediated immune reactions. One mechanism is described for regulating the concentration of immunoglobulin (IgG) in the circulation. The mechanism operates by increasing the catabolic rate of IgG when the serum concentration is abnormally increased as, for example, in multiple myeloma. Two mechanisms are described both of which regulate the immune response. These are alteration of antigenic stimulation and suppression of the immune response by passive transfer of specific antibodies prior to or shortly after administration of antigen.
RhoC and Rac1 GTPases in prostate cancer cell motility, invasion, and metastasis

1027 Prostate cancer (CaP) bone metastasis is a major clinical concern, as it is associated with intractable pain, bone fracture and paralysis. Therefore, an understanding of the mechanisms involved in CaP cell bone metastasis is key to development of novel treatments. The Rho GTPases are molecular switches involved in cell survival, motility and invasion. Increased expression of RhoC GTPase is linked to enhanced metastatic potential in several cancers; however, it has never been studied in CaP. In the current study we demonstrate that RhoC GTPase is expressed and active in human PC-3 CaP cells which are derived from a bone metastasis. Inhibition of RhoC with C3 exotransferase (a potent inhibitor of Rho but not Rac1 or Cdc42 proteins) or by expression of a dominant negative RhoC leads to increased IGF-I stimulated random motility on collagen I, but decreased in vitro invasion and in vivo metastases. The changes seen in the motile and invasive phenotype is due to increased and prolonged expression and activation of Rac1 GTPase. In addition, RhoC inhibition leads to a change in cellular morphology and expression of E- and N-cadherin, ZO-1 and vimentin, molecular markers of the epithelial to mesenchymal transition. Expression, activation and distribution of the focal adhesion proteins; focal adhesion kinase, paxillin, paxillin kinase linker are altered significantly upon RhoC inhibition but are not affected by Rac1 activation. These data suggest that expression of active RhoC is required for the invasive phenotype of PC-3 cells which may have significant implications for CaP bone metastasis.
Institutional Marfan syndrome surgical volume influences mitral valve surgical strategy in patients with Marfan syndrome.

BACKGROUND/AIM The goal of this study was to evaluate trends in mitral valve (MV) operations performed on patients with Marfan syndrome (MfS) and determine the influence of an institution's MfS and MV surgical volume on MV surgical strategy in the US. METHODS The Nationwide Inpatient Sample was queried from 1998 to 2011 and a total of 1126 patients with MfS were identified who underwent MV operations meeting our inclusion criteria. Linear regression was performed to assess trends of MV repair (MVr) rates over time. Patients were stratified into tertiles depending on the institution's annual MfS and MV surgical volumes. Multivariate analysis was used to determine the impact of institutional MV and MfS surgical volume on whether a patient received an MV replacement (MVR). RESULTS The MVR rate was 60% for the entire cohort. There was a decreasing trend of MVR rates during the study period (82% in 1998-99 vs 49% in 2010-2011, P < .05). Multivariate analysis revealed that patients operated on at high (odds ratio [OR], 0.65; P < .05) and medium (OR, 0.66; P < .05) volume MfS centers were less likely to undergo MVR when compared to lower-volume MfS centers. In contrast, MV volume was not a significant predictor of surgical strategy in this cohort. CONCLUSION The national MVR rate in the MfS population is higher than published reports. Data from this study suggest that MfS patients with indications for MV surgery should be referred to high-volume MfS surgical centers to have the best opportunity for MVr.
Thalamic activity patterns unfolding over multiple time scales predict seizure onset in absence epilepsy

The brain has a remarkable, yet poorly understood, capacity to perform rapid dynamic switching between different cognitive states. Absence epilepsy, characterized by sudden transitions to and from highly synchronous thalamocortical oscillations, provides a unique window to investigate rapid state switching. Here we explored the transition into seizures in detail using simultaneous extracellular unit recordings from the thalamocortical circuit in the Scn8a mouse, a validated murine model of absence epilepsy. We find that trial-averaged neural firing in the thalamus, but not cortex, was transiently elevated several seconds prior to seizure onset. However, we observed large single-trial variability in pre-ictal dynamics both within and across subjects, suggesting possible heterogeneous transition dynamics into absence seizures. To quantify the single-trial amplitude and temporal variability, we developed a statistical model, which revealed that individual seizures are preceded by low dimensional neural dynamics that vary in amplitude and time across seizures. Interestingly, the single-trial pre-seizure amplitude modulation uncovered by the model showed strong periodicity over trials, suggesting that pre-ictal dynamics may co-modulate with arousal state. To our knowledge, our results are the first characterization of single-unit pre-ictal firing dynamics across the thalamocortical circuit in absence epilepsy. Our results argue that seizure-monitoring devices may be able to capitalize on seizure-by-seizure changes in pre-ictal activity to better predict seizure onset, and that the thalamus may be a source of clinically useful pre-ictal signatures.
A Data Driven Detection and Locating of Cyber and Physical Stresses in Smart Grid based on State Correlations

Smart grids being complex cyber-physical infrastructures demand real-time monitoring of their dynamic states. Phasor measurement units (PMUs) are smart metering devices with a high sampling rate, which facilitate visualizing the dynamics of the states with the help of time series corresponding to the system’s parameters and attributes. This work shows the signatures of different cyber-attacks and some physical phenomenons on the PMU time series and their impacts on the correlation among the components’ states. A technique exploiting the instantaneous state correlation matrix (associated with any electrical attribute, i.e. bus voltage angle) is proposed for providing early alerts for attacks to the control center’s operators in real-time. The type of attack (cyber or physical) and the location of the component that is compromised by the attackers are also detectable by observing the instantaneous correlation matrix as an image.
Wind and obstacle motion affect honeybee flight strategies in cluttered environments.

Bees often forage in habitats with cluttered vegetation and unpredictable winds. Navigating obstacles in wind presents a challenge that may be exacerbated by wind-induced motions of vegetation. Although wind-blown vegetation is common in natural habitats, we know little about how bees’ strategies for flying through clutter are affected by obstacle motion and wind. We filmed honeybees, Apis mellifera, flying through obstacles in a flight tunnel with still air, headwinds or tailwinds. We tested how their ground speeds and centering behavior (trajectory relative to the midline between obstacles) changed when obstacles were moving vs. stationary, and how bees’ approach strategies affected flight outcome (successful transit vs. collision). We found that obstacle motion affects ground speed: bees flew slower when approaching moving vs. stationary obstacles in still air but tended to fly faster when approaching moving obstacles in head- or tailwinds. Bees in still air reduced their chances of colliding with obstacles (whether moving or stationary) by reducing ground speed - whereas flight outcomes in wind were not associated with ground speed, but rather with improvement in centering behavior during the approach. We hypothesize that in challenging flight situations (e.g., navigating moving obstacles in wind), bees may speed up to reduce the number of wing collisions that occur if they pass too close to an obstacle. Our results show that wind and obstacle motion can interact to affect flight strategies in unexpected ways, suggesting that wind-blown vegetation may have important effects on foraging behaviors and flight performance of bees in natural habitats.