cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
ETV1, 4 and 5: An Oncogenic Subfamily of ETS Transcription Factors

The homologous ETV1, ETV4 and ETV5 proteins form the PEA3 subfamily of ETS transcription factors. In Ewing tumors, chromosomal translocations affecting ETV1 or ETV4 are an underlying cause of carcinogenesis. Likewise, chromosomal rearrangements of the ETV1, ETV4 or ETV5 gene occur in prostate tumors and are thought to be one of the major driving forces in the genesis of prostate cancer. In addition, these three ETS proteins are implicated in melanomas, breast and other types of cancer. Complex posttranslational modifications govern the activity of PEA3 factors, which can promote cell proliferation, motility and invasion. Here, we review evidence for a role of ETV1, 4 and 5 as oncoproteins and describe modes of their action. Modulation of their activation or interaction with cofactors as well as inhibiting crucial target gene products may ultimately be exploited to treat various cancers that are dependent on the PEA3 group of ETS transcription factors.
Treatment and Prophylaxis of Disseminated Mycobacterium Avium Complex in HIV-Infected Individuals

OBJECTIVE:To review the pathophysiology, epidemiology, treatment, and prophylaxis of disseminated Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection in HIV-infected individuals.DATA SOURCES:A MEDLINE (January 1966–July 1997) and AIDSLINE (January 1980–July 1997) search of basic science articles pertinent to the MAC infection in HIV-infected patients.STUDY SELECTION AND DATA EXTRACTION:All articles were considered for possible inclusion in the review. Pertinent information, as judged by the authors, was selected for discussion.DATA SYNTHESIS:The organism, epidemiology, and pathophysiology of disseminated MAC are discussed for background. A review of clinical trials for the treatment and prophylaxis of disseminated MAC are presented, along with unresolved issues concerning these topics.CONCLUSIONS:The incidence of disseminated MAC has increased dramatically with the AIDS epidemic. The infection can lead to increased morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected patients. Treatment regimens for patients with a positive c...
Fast 3-D inductance extraction in lossy multi-layer substrate

A mixed potential integral equation (MPIE) technique combined with fast multi-layer Green's functions and Gaussian Jacobi high order techniques is used to compute the 3-D frequency dependent inductances and resistances in lossy multi-layered substrate. Compared to FastHenry, a multipole-accelerated 3-D inductance extraction program, the algorithm presented here is more accurate and faster for lossy multilayer structures due to two reasons. First, substrate and optional ground plane's lose and coupling effect are efficiently modeled by multilayer Green's functions, while the Green's functions are efficiently calculated via window-based acceleration technique. Second, Gaussian Jacobi-based high order techniques are used to capture the singularity of the current distribution at metal edges, leading to significant reduction of problem size and speed-up of computation.
Diversity of Toxic Shock Syndrome Toxin 1-Positive Staphylococcus aureus Isolates

Staphylococcus aureus isolates from women with nasal, anal, or vaginal colonization were evaluated for population diversity by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Cluster analysis of restriction patterns revealed diversity indices of 0.89 and 0.99 for toxic shock syndrome toxin 1-positive and -negative isolates, respectively. Toxin-producing strains were isolated more frequently from the nares than from other sites.
The Impact of a Prenatal Education Video on Rates of Breastfeeding Initiation and Exclusivity during the Newborn Hospital Stay in a Low-income Population

Background:Guidelines recommend prenatal education to improve breastfeeding rates; however, effective educational interventions targeted at low-income, minority populations are needed as they remain less likely to breastfeed.Objective:To determine whether a low-cost prenatal education video improves hospital rates of breastfeeding initiation and exclusivity in a low-income population.Methods:A total of 522 low-income women were randomized during a prenatal care visit occurring in the third trimester to view an educational video on either breastfeeding or prenatal nutrition and exercise. Using multivariable analyses, breastfeeding initiation rates and exclusivity during the hospital stay were compared.Results:Exposure to the intervention did not affect breastfeeding initiation rates or duration during the hospital stay. The lack of an effect on breastfeeding initiation persisted even after controlling for partner, parent, or other living at home and infant complications (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 1.05, 95...
Dysfunctional mitochondrial Ca2+ handling in mutant SOD1 mouse models of fALS: integration of findings from motor neuron somata and motor terminals

Abundant evidence indicates that mitochondrial dysfunction and Ca2+ dysregulation contribute to the muscle denervation and motor neuron death that occur in mouse models of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS). This perspective considers measurements of mitochondrial function and Ca2+ handling made in both motor neuron somata and motor nerve terminals of SOD1-G93A mice at different disease stages. These complementary studies are integrated into a model of how mitochondrial dysfunction disrupts handling of stimulation-induced Ca2+ loads in presymptomatic and end-stages of this disease. Also considered are possible mechanisms underlying the findings that some treatments that preserve motor neuron somata fail to postpone degeneration of motor axons and terminals.
Wetlands as an alternative stable state in desert streams

Historically, desert drainages of the American southwest supported productive riverine wetlands (cienegas). Region-wide erosion of cienegas during the late 19th and early 20th century dramatically reduced the abundance of these ecosystems, but recent reestablishment of wetlands in Sycamore Creek, Arizona, USA, provides an opportunity to evaluate the mechanisms underlying wetland development. A simple model demonstrates that density-dependent stabilization of channel substrate by vegetation results in the existence of alternative stable states in desert streams. A two-year (October 2004-September 2006) field survey of herbaceous cover and biomass at 26 sites located along Sycamore Creek is used to test the underlying assumption of this model that vegetation cover loss during floods is density dependent, as well as the prediction that the distribution of vegetation abundance should shift toward bimodality in response to floods. Observations of nonlinear, negative relationships between herbaceous biomass prior to flood events and the proportion of persistent vegetation cover were consistent with the alternative stable state model. In further support of the alternative-state hypothesis, vegetation cover diverged from an approximately normal distribution toward a distinctly bimodal distribution during the monsoon flood season of 2006. These results represent the first empirically supported example of alternative-state behavior in stream ecosystems. Identification of alternative stable states in desert streams supports recent hypotheses concerning the importance of strong abiotic-disturbance regimes and biogeomorphic mechanisms in multiple-state ecosystems.
Error models for long-distance qubit teleportation

A recent proposal for realizing long-distance, high-fidelity qubit teleportation is reviewed. This quantum communication architecture relies on an ultrabright source of polarization-entangled photons plus a pair of trapped-atom quantum memories, and it is compatible with long-distance transmission over standard telecommunication fiber. Models are developed for assessing the effects of amplitude, phase, and frequency errors in the entanglement source, as well as fiber loss and imperfect polarization restoration, on the throughput and fidelity of the system.
On context-based entropy coding of block transform coefficients

It has been well established that state-of-the-art wavelet image coders outperform block transform image coders in the rate-distortion (R-D) sense by a wide margin. An often asked question is: how much of the coding improvement is due to the transform and how much is due to the encoding strategy? A notable observation is that each block transform coefficient is highly correlated with its neighbors within the same block as well as its neighbors within the same subband. Current block transform coders suffer from poor context modeling and fail to take full advantage of intra- and inter-block correlation in both space and frequency sense. This paper presents a simple, fast and efficient adaptive block transform image coding algorithm based on high-order space-frequency, context modeling. Despite the simplicity constraints, coding results show that the proposed codec achieves competitive R-D performances comparing to the best wavelet codecs in the current literature.
Changing sources of nutrients during four million years of ecosystem development

As soils develop in humid environments, rock-derived elements are gradually lost, and under constant conditions it seems that ecosystems should reach a state of profound and irreversible nutrient depletion. We show here that inputs of elements from the atmosphere can sustain the productivity of Hawaiian rainforests on highly weathered soils. Cations are supplied in marine aerosols and phosphorus is deposited in dust from central Asia, which is over 6,000 km away.
Convolver-Based Optical Systolic Processing Architectures

Optical systolic processors perform rapid parallel multiplications of vector and matrix elements. These multiplications may be performed by convolving the digits of individual numbers. Current transducers (particularly acousto-optic cells) make time-domain convolution the method of choice. A time-domain convolver can operate in time-integrating or space-integrating modes. These two modes can be considered as variations of a basic multiplier unit. Starting with the basic multiplier, four matrix-vector and two matrix-matrix multipliers can be derived. Some of these processors are new, and some have been previously identified. Within this unifying framework the perfor-mance of all these processors may be analyzed, and design trade-offs may be identified.
Food Allergy: Transfused and Transplanted

The inadvertent transfer of food allergy from an allergic donor to an unsuspecting recipient by transfusion or organ donation is a relatively rare but intriguing event with potentially catastrophic consequences. Additionally, the development of food allergy in the recipient of a transplant from a donor who was not food allergic poses questions about why this occurs, why it is observed more frequently in some situations than others, and the mechanisms that may be involved. In this review, the transfer of food allergy by transfusion, bone marrow transplantation, and the transplantation of different solid organs is explored, and potential mechanisms in addition to the importance of careful monitoring are discussed.
Fractal Spheres as Molecules for Artificial Dielectric Metamaterials

The most common types of molecule geometries that have been considered in the past for artificial dielectric materials include simple dipoles and spheres. In this article we consider a fractal approach, combining aspects of both the dipole and sphere, resulting in an inclusion with a greater number of resonances as well as resonant behavior at lower frequencies than either their dipole or sphere counterparts of the same size. The results of this investigation suggest that the fractal sphere molecules allow an extension of the lower frequency band of artificial dielectric metamaterials and in some instances also provide multi-band response.
Microscratch analysis of the work of adhesion for Pt thin films on NiO

The adhesion of as-sputtered Pt thin films to NiO single crystals has been characterized by a continuous microscratch technique. In these experiments, a conical indenter was driven into a 1.2 μm thick Pt film at a rate of 15 nm/s, and across the sample surface at a rate of 0.5 μm/s, until a load drop was observed indicating that the film had delaminated. Using the width of the scratch track at the point at which the film delaminated from the substrate, the critical load required for delamination, and the area of the delaminated region, a model has been developed to determine the work of adhesion of the Pt/NiO system. This model uses an elastic contact mechanics approach to relate the stresses acting in a scratch experiment to the strain energy released during film delamination. Using this model, the work of adhesion and hence the interfacial fracture toughness have been determined to be 0.023–0.06 J/m2 and 0.07–0.11 MPa$\sqrt m$, respectively. These values are in reasonable agreement with those determined by other methods for metal-ceramic systems.
Liberalization, FDI, and Growth in Developing Countries: A Panel Cointegration Approach

Using a panel cointegration framework, the article explores the two-way link between FDI and growth for a panel of 23 developing countries. In addition, it investigates the impact of liberalization on the dynamics of the FDI and GDP relationship. A long-run cointegrating relationship is found between FDI and GDP after allowing for heterogeneous country effects. The cointegrating vectors reveal a bidirectional causality between GDP and FDI for more open economies. For relatively closed economies, long-run causality appears unidirectional and runs from GDP to FDI, implying that growth and FDI are not mutually reinforcing under restrictive trade and investment regimes.
Flight-Test Evaluation of the Tool for Analysis of Separation and Throughput

The tool for analysis of separation and throughput has been developed to predict the range of possible trajectories of aircraft performing any given continuous descent arrival and thereby determine the minimum target spacing at a metering point, such that there is a high probability of no separation violations thereafter. The resulting reduced need for controller intervention is expected to facilitate the implementation of continuous descent arrival. This tool includes a fast-time Monte Carlo trajectory simulator and a theoretically rigorous separation analysis methodology based on the probabilistic characteristics of trajectories. The tool was used to determine the target spacing for a continuous descent arrival flight test conducted in September 2004 at Louisville International Airport. Results of the flight test indicate that the 15-n-mile target spacing yielded a conditional probability of 69.6% for the continuous descent arrival to runway 35L, very close to the predicted value of 68.6%; and an overall total probability of 81.7%, which is between the predicted values of 79.6% and 85.0 % for the continuous descent arrival to runway 35L and 17R, respectively. The flight test demonstrated that, by using the tool as developed, continuous descent arrival can be efficiently implemented under moderate to moderately high traffic conditions, thereby achieving much needed environmental and economic benefits.
Cox proportional hazards models with frailty for negatively correlated employment processes

In promotion discrimination cases, individuals affected by discrimination may decide to retire earlier than otherwise. Two Cox proportional hazards models are used to describe the promotion process from non-retired employees and the retirement process, respectively. To account for a potential negative correlation between the two outcomes, promotion and retirement, frailty terms are introduced. Model diagnoses in the presence of unobserved frailty terms are difficult. Therefore, the robustness of the parameter estimates to the fitting of an unnecessary frailty or a frailty distribution or form different from the underlying one is examined. The data from a reverse discrimination case, Alexanderv.Milwaukee, are analyzed. The original finding of liability relying on a statistically significant coefficient for membership in the legally protected group (White-male) is shown to be robust to several choices of the frailty model. This provides further support for the court's decision.
Mitosis, Not Just Open or Closed

During cell division, eukaryotic cells must faithfully pass on their genetic material to the next generation during mitosis. It has long been known that lower eukaryotes and higher eukaryotes achieve this in strikingly different ways. Higher eukaryotes undergo an open mitosis in which the nuclear
Ruthenium Olefin Metathesis Catalysts Bearing Carbohydrate-Based N-Heterocyclic Carbenes.

Ru-based olefin metathesis catalysts containing carbohydrate-derived NHCs from glucose and galactose were synthesized and characterized by NMR spectroscopy. 2D-NMR spectroscopy revealed the presence of Ru−C (benzylidene) rotamers at room temperature, and the rate of rotation was measured using magnetization transfer and VT-NMR spectroscopy. The catalysts were found to be effective at ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP), ring-closing metathesis (RCM), cross-metathesis (CM), and asymmetric ring-opening cross-metathesis (AROCM) and showed surprising selectivity in both CM and AROCM.
Sources of error in computerized neuropsychological assessment

Computerized neuropsychological assessment has integrated slowly into research and practice since the introduction of the personal computer. Though initial integration of technology to the laboratory and clinical setting utilized specialized hardware and software, newer generation assessment tools are integrated with "off-the-shelf" operating systems. Further, neuropsychological assessment is beginning to find Internet-based application for remote assessment. As these applications are more broadly applied, it is essential to understand potential errors that can be created both in test administration and in reaction time measurement due to hardware and software interactions. In this article, user considerations are specifically addressed for resident and Internet-enabled assessment software. Potential hardware and software conflicts are defined and potential remediation is suggested. Computerized assessment is a valuable tool for neuropsychologists as long as it is used responsibly with an understanding of the potential technical complications.
A FRAMEWORK FOR MONITORING MULTIPLE-SPECIES CONSERVATION PLANS

The shift from single species conservation initiatives to multiple-species conservation plans has not been accompanied by parallel changes in methods to evaluate the success of these efforts, nor to provide managers critical information to employ adaptive management strategies. Layering single species approaches for monitoring multiple-species conservation plans is inefficient and may lead to management strategies that have unintended detrimental impacts on target and nontarget organisms. Alternative approaches, such as ecosystem monitoring, can also fail to provide adequate protection for listed species and so may not fulfill regulatory requirements. We propose a hybrid approach that employs conceptual and spatial data in an iterative process to create niche models for species and species associations within natural communities. Niche models are composed of testable hypotheses linking species occurrences to environmental parameters over multiple scales. During an initial data gathering period these hypotheses are evaluated, accepted or rejected, and modified as indicated by new data. Once niche models are corroborated, the focus of monitoring shifts to a greater emphasis on identified anthropogenic and natural environmental drivers of species occurrence and abundance. The focus on environmental drivers supplies managers with direct information as to how, when, and where to employ adaptive management strategies when natural variance in those drivers is compromised by anthropogenic stressors. We provide a specific example on the conceptualization, development, and implementation of our hybrid approach from a new Multiple-species Habitat Conservation Plan for the Coachella Valley, in the Colorado desert of southern California.
The Validity Of The Randomized Response Method In Tax Ethics Research

The survey questionnaire often is used to obtain data in research involving tax compliance and tax ethics issues. The use of the randomized response (RR) survey technique has been suggested for mitigating response and non-response biases in studies regarding sensitive issues. This study compares tax preparer responses using a traditional questionnaire to responses using the RR method. The results indicate that RR does not reduce response or non-response biases in the given decision context. Thus, tax preparers may not be good subjects for a randomized response methodology.
Equal Employment Opportunity and the Bridging of Job Ladders

Many personnel practices of public and private organizations have come under legal scrutiny for their potential discriminatory impact in recent years. Discriminatory practices in testing, in recruitment, in the provision of training opportunities, and in promotion practices have all been the subject of litigation (Wallace 1976; O’Farrell and Harlan 1984; Burstein 1985). Scholars have done several studies of the impact of the equal employment opportunity movement (EEO) on gender and racial inequality (Butler and Heckman 1977; Lazear 1979; Northrup and Larson 1979; Beller 1980, 1982b; Welch 1981; Borjas 1982; Abbott and Smith 1984; Leonard 1984; Smith and Welch 1984a; Burstein 1985; Smith and Welch 1986). The overall impact of EEO is still a matter of dispute. But policies that benefited women and minorities held the promise of widening the mobility bridge between the lower and the upper tier, even if these policies did not eliminate the tier boundaries that had formed. The reason for the connection between EEO and the structure of job ladders is obvious. Women and blacks were overrepresented in precisely the occupations that now form a recognizable lower white-collar tier in bureaucratized organizations.
Sleep in Patients With Pulmonary Disease

Sleep complaints are very prevalent in the patients with pulmonary disease. This review will examine sleep effects on respiration, explore ventilatory responses during sleep in normal individuals, and examine mechanisms of hypoxemia in patients with pulmonary disease. Sleep disorders in patients with obstructive pulmonary diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis (CF), asthma, and restrictive parenchymal disease will be reviewed. A diagnostic evaluation and management plan are also suggested for these patients.
Nitrogen Fixation and Assimilation

New crop plants suited to grow in semiarid environments will be fundamental to the future of agriculture. The interactions between nitrogen supply and water availability that determine yield and quality in crops grown in semiarid environments are being elucidated. Tools for analyzing the metabolic changes associated with enhanced nitrogen assimilation under drought have been generated. Here is summarized the crop and other plants that have altered NUE, yield performances, and metabolic profiles caused by in planta expression of 31 different transgenes generated in the past two decades. The change in nitrogen concentration has profound effects on plant metabolisms. The metabolic changes resulted in phenotypic changes that included increases in mean plant biomass production in dry soils, tolerance to the herbicide phosphinothricin, tolerance to both severe and mild water deficit, and resistance to rotting necrotrophs. Leaves, and grain had higher nutritional value and higher yield, indicating improved NUE and WUE by some of the transgenes. Therefore, in view of global climate change, continued efforts to alter nitrogen fixation and assimilation by transgenesis and mutation should be pursued through technology stacking.
Verbesserung der governance und Bekämpfung der Korruption: Die Sichtweise des IWF

Die Themen governance und Korruption stehen heute im Mittelpunkt der Debatte uber die Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik. Sie sind integraler Bestandteil der Wirtschaftsanalyse und der Diskussion uber die Wirtschaftspolitik. Dies gilt sowohl fur den IWF und die anderen internationalen Organisationen als auch fur die nationalen Regierungen.
Kernelization and enumeration: new approaches to solving hard problems

NP-Hardness is a well-known theory to identify the hardness of computational problems. It is believed that NP-Hard problems are unlikely to admit polynomial-time algorithms. However since many NP-Hard problems are of practical significance, different approaches are proposed to solve them: Approximation algorithms, randomized algorithms and heuristic algorithms. None of the approaches meet the practical needs. Recently parameterized computation and complexity has attracted a lot of attention and been a fruitful branch of the study of efficient algorithms. By taking advantage of the moderate value of parameters in many practical instances, we can design efficient algorithms for the NP-Hard problems in practice. In this dissertation, we discuss a new approach to design efficient parameterized algorithms, kernelization. The motivation is that instances of small size are easier to solve. Roughly speaking, kernelization is a preprocess on the input instances and is able to significantly reduce their sizes. We present a 2k kernel for the cluster editing problem, which improves the previous best kernel of size 4 k; We also present a linear kernel of size 7k + 2d for the d-cluster editing problem, which is the first linear kernel for the problem. The kernelization algorithm is simple and easy to implement. We propose a quadratic kernel for the pseudo-achromatic number problem. This implies that the problem is tractable in term of parameterized complexity. We also study the general problem, the vertex grouping problem and prove it is intractable in term of parameterized complexity. In practice, many problems seek a set of good solutions instead of a good solution. Motivated by this, we present the framework to study enumerability in term of parameterized complexity. We study three popular techniques for the design of parameterized algorithms, and show that combining with effective enumeration techniques, they could be transferred to design efficient enumeration algorithms.
Potassium-Induced Charge Transfer Effects in Oligo(-phenylene ethynylene)-Based Molecular Layers

Charge transport behavior in molecular monolayers based on oligo-(phenylene ethynylene)s (OPEs) shows distinct variations with substitutions on the OPE framework. Explanations of this dependence often center on the impact of the substituted group’s electron affinity on charge transfer effects. To examine these effects, we used ultraviolet photoemission to follow changes in the electronic structure of OPE-based thiol-linked self-assembled monolayers induced by charge transfer doping with potassium. The impact of OPE (C6H5–C≡C–C6H4–C≡C–C6H5–SH) versus −NO2-substituted OPE (NO2–OPE, C6H5–C≡C–C6H3NO2–C≡C–C6H5–SH) on the electronic structure modifications was compared for a range of K additions. Addition of less than 0.5 K/molecule to self-assembled monolayers produced rigid shifts of molecular levels by about 0.5 eV for both monolayers, with larger shifts at lower K addition for NO2–OPE. Continued addition of K leads to increased shifts for OPE, while saturation of the effect was observed for NO2–OPE. Incorpo...
FIELD MEASUREMENTS OF NATURAL AND SEXUAL SELECTION IN THE FUNGUS BEETLE, BOLITOTHERUS CORNUTUS.

Selection on three phenotypic traits was estimated in a natural population of a fungus beetle, Bolitotherus cornutus. Lifetime fitness of a group of males in this population was estimated, and partitioned into five components: lifespan, attendance at the mating area, number of females courted, number of copulations attempted, and number of females inseminated. Three phenotypic characters were measured-elytral length, horn length, and weight; there were strong positive correlations among the three characters. Selection was estimated by regressing each component of fitness on the phenotypic traits. Of the three traits, only horn length was under significant direct selection. This selection was for longer horns and was due mainly to differences in lifespan and access to females. The positive selection on horn length combined with the positive correlations between horn length and the other two characters resulted in positive total selection on all three characters.
Promotion of spleen lymphocyte and macrophage functions induced by neutral protease hydrolyzate of walnut protein

Walnut protein hydrolyzates were prepared with pepsin,trypsin,alkaline protease,papain and neutral protease. The effect of walnut protein and walnut protein hydrolyzates on proliferation of spleen lymphocyte,Interleukin-2(IL-2) secretion of spleen lymphocyte,phagocytic function of macrophage and NO production by macrophages were tested. These results showed walnut protein and walnut protein hydrolyzates promoted spleen lymphocyte and macropgage functions,and activity of walnut protein hydrolyzate was stronger than walnut protein. Among these hydrolyzates,the neutral protease hydrolyzate showed the most significant effect to improve spleen lymphocyte and macrophage function. It increased the proliferation of spleen lymphocyte,IL-2 secretion by spleen lymphocyte,macrophage phagocytosis and NO production by macrophages to 40.5%,50.1%,100% and 20.4%,respectively. These results suggest that neutral protease hydrolyzate of walnut protein can promote the functions of spleen lymphocyte and macrophage.
Numerical simulation of steam flooding in Chaoyanggou Oilfield

This paper studies the geology of steam flooding pilot area in Daqing Chaoyanggou Oilfield,optimizes steam flooding parameters by using STARS module of CMG software,and predicts development indices of different steam flooding schemes.The result indicates that steam injection rate shall not be less than 50t/d.Because low permeability reservoir requires high injection-production ratio,steam injection rate can be improved to 70t/d.The higher the bottom hole steam quality is,the better the development response will be achieved;continuous steam flooding has good development response;the development response of converting to water flooding after 5 years of continuous steam flooding is equivalent to that of continuous steam flooding.
Cervicothoracic Outlet Syndrome: Vascular Compression Caused By Congenital Abnormality Of Thoracic Ribs A Case Report

A patient with thoracic outlet syndrome secondary to an anomalous first rib forming a pseudarthrosis with the second rib is presented. A large infraclavicular mass was present which caused partial arterial compression and complete venous compression when the arm was abducted or flexed. This is believed to be the first report of venous occlusion associated with this particular bone abnormality.
Cytotoxicity of BMS-181174: Effects of hypoxia, dicoumarol, and repair deficits

The mitomycin C (MC) analog BMS-181174 (previously designated as BMY25067) has been shown to be active against a variety of solid tumors in mice. The activity of this compound against tumor cell lines resistant to MC and the different toxicity profiles of BMS-181174 and MC suggested that there may be significant differences in the metabolism and the mechanisms of action of these two compounds. Our studies with a mouse mammary tumor cell line (EMT6), a wild-type Chinese hamster cell line (AA8), and three repair-deficient Chinese hamster cell lines (UV4, UV5, and EM9) supported this concept. BMS-181174 was more toxic to all five cell lines in air than in hypoxia; in contrast, MC is more toxic in hypoxia. Dicoumarol (which increases the cytotoxicity of MC in hypoxia and reduces the cytotoxicity of this drug in air) did not alter the cytotoxicity of BMS-181174. This finding suggests that neither DT-diaphorase nor cytochrome b5 reductase is involved in the activation of BMS-181174. Studies with the repair-deficient cell lines suggest that DNA strand breaks are not important to the cytotoxicity of BMS-181174, and that cross-links and adducts may be the critical lesions; these studies also suggest that the lethal lesions produced by BMS-181174 are the same under aerobic and hypoxic conditions.
The Birth of Representative Government

The collapse of the Spanish Monarchy triggered a series of events that culminated in the establishment of representative government in the Spanish world. The initial step in that process was the formation of local governing juntas in Spain and America. Although the Spanish provinces made that transition easily, the American kingdoms faced opposition from royal officials, resident peninsulares , and their New World allies. Initially, neither the Spanish nor the American juntas had a clear vision of the nature of the government they would form. Most possessed vague notions of what they meant when, as the Ayuntamiento of Mexico declared, “in the absence … [of the king], sovereignty lies represented in all the kingdom.” Nonetheless, all the juntas asserted that sovereignty had reverted to the people. In practice, this meant that the elites of the provinces of Spain and the kingdoms of America assumed the mantle of the people. Moreover, since the act was taken in the name of Fernando VII, the assumption of popular sovereignty was provisional. When the king returned, presumably, sovereignty would revert to him. Convening a Parliament The provincial juntas of Spain administered their localities, whereas the Junta Central attempted to function as a national government. In the monarch's absence, however, Spanish legal tradition recognized the sovereignty of the representatives of the people – the cities, the tribunals, and other major corporations. Neither the provincial juntas nor the Junta Central – composed of two representatives from each Spanish province, two from Madrid as the capital, and, eventually, nine from America – fulfilled those requirements.
Epilogue: The Possible ‘Europeanization’ of the French (and British?) Nuclear Weapons

The combination of the process of nuclear disarmament and the process of European integration might lead to a new nuclear debate in Europe comparable with the Euromissile debate at the beginning of the eighties. The question is: what about the French (and maybe British) nuclear weapons in the case that foreign and security policy (including defence) will become mainly the domain of ‘Europe’ as the Treaty of Maastricht (1991) implies?
Hyperpolarized 129Xe for investigation of mild cystic fibrosis lung disease in pediatric patients

Abstract Background Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease which carries high morbidity and mortality from lung-function decline. Monitoring disease progression and treatment response in young patients is desirable, but serial imaging via CT is often considered prohibitive, and detailed functional information cannot be obtained using conventional imaging techniques. Hyperpolarized 129 Xe magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can depict and quantify regional ventilation, but has not been investigated in pediatrics. We hypothesized that 129 Xe MRI is feasible and would demonstrate ventilation defects in mild CF lung disease with greater sensitivity than FEV 1 . Methods 11 healthy controls (age 6–16years) and 11 patients with mild CF (age 8–16years, Forced Expiratory Volume (FEV 1 ) percent predicted >70%) were recruited for this study. Nine CF patients had an FEV 1 >85%. Each subject was imaged via hyperpolarized 129 Xe MRI, and the ventilation defect percentage (VDP) was measured. FEV 1 and VDP were compared between the groups. Results FEV 1 for controls was 100.3%±8.5% (mean±sd) and for CF patients was 97.9%±16.0% (p=0.67). VDP was 6.4%±2.8% for controls and 18.3%±8.6% for CF (p 1 (>85%), the mean FEV 1 was 103.1%±12.3% (p=0.57 compared to controls) and VDP was 15.4%±6.3% (p=0.002). Conclusions Hyperpolarized 129 Xe MRI demonstrated ventilation defects in CF patients with normal FEV 1 and more effectively discriminated CF from controls than FEV 1 . Thus 129 Xe may be a useful outcome measure to detect mild CF lung disease, to investigate regional lung function in pediatric lung diseases, and to follow disease progression.
FPGA-based low-complexity high-throughput tri-mode decoder for quasi-cyclic LDPC codes

This paper presents an FPGA-based implementation of a tri-mode decoder for decoding the cyclic (4095,3367) Euclidean geometry LDPC code which has minimum distance 65 and no trapping set of size less than 65. The implementation integrates three compatible decoding algorithms in a single decoder. The three decoding algorithms are the one-step majority-logic decoding (OS-MLGD) algorithm and two iterative binary message passing algorithms (IBMP) derived from the OS-MLGD algorithm, one based on soft reliability information and the other on hard reliability information. All three algorithms requires only binary logical operations, integer additions, and single-bit messages, which makes them significantly less complex in terms of hardware requirements than sum-product algorithm, with a very modest loss in performance. The implementation is based on the partially parallel architecture and is optimized to take advantage of the high-speed dual-ported block RAMs in a Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA. An optimization called memory sharing is introduced to take advantage of the configurable data width (word size) of the block RAMs to accommodate the 262080 edges in the Tanner graph of the (4095,3367) code. A technique is introduced to decode two codewords simultaneously to take advantage of the depth of the block RAMs. As a result, the proposed implementation achieves a throughput of 1.9 Gbps on a Virtex-4 LX160 FPGA and supports bit-error rate simulation down to 10−11 in a day or so.
Rate and Location of Scent Marking by Pikas During the Breeding Season

This study presents evidence that scent marking may play a role in breeding by pikas (Ochotona princeps). Pikas are small lagomorphs inhabiting talus slopes in montane regions of western North America. Individuals maintain territories which overlap to a variable extent. The breeding season extends from April through June and varies with specific location (Smith, 1980). Pikas have apocrine sebaceous cheek glands (Harvey and Rosenberg, 1966) and can discriminate individual cheek gland secretions (Meaney, 1982).
Bullying in the academy: understanding the student bully and the targeted ‘stupid, fat, mother fucker’ professor

Bullying within academia often focuses on peer bullying or the student victim. However, the student bully who targets professors is a neglected area of study yet just as destructive, demeaning, and...
Permanent His bundle pacing to replace biventricular pacing for cardiac resynchronization therapy.

Abstract Introduction Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) or biventricular pacing (BIVP) has become a common procedure for the treatment of ventricular dyssynchrony in patients with heart failure, particularly in those with bundle branch block patterns (QRS durations >150 ms) on the electrocardiogram (ECG). However, a large group of non-responders are made up of patients with dyssynchrony and QRS duration below 130 ms. Recent studies have introduced permanent His bundle pacing as another method for achieving normalization of the QRS duration even in a majority of patients with right or left bundle branch block pattern on the ECG. Hypotheses We hypothesize 1. Biventricular pacing, (BIVP) performed as the standard procedure for CRT is inherently abnormal, spatially, at the right and left ventricular apex, and temporally, in regard to the timing of normal activation of the interventricular conduction system. Corollary 1. Permanent, selective, His bundle pacing (PHBP) is the most physiological form of ventricular pacing which replicates the normal activation of the interventricular conduction system. Corollary 2. An appropriately powered, prospective, crossover trial comparing PHBP with BIVP will show that the former is associated with the same benefits in patients with heart failure and QRS durations >130 ms and would improve, rather than worsen, outcomes in heart failure patients with QRS duration
Epidemiology, Pathophysiology, and Natural History of Pulmonary Embolism

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a common and potentially deadly form of venous thromboembolic disease. It is the third most common cause of cardiovascular death and is associated with multiple inherited and acquired risk factors as well as advanced age. The prognosis from PE depends on the degree of obstruction and hemodynamic effects of PE and understanding the pathophysiology helps in risk-stratifying patients and determining treatment. Though the natural history of thrombus is resolution, a subset of patients have chronic residual thrombus, contributing to the post-PE syndrome.
The performance of public key-based authentication protocols

Kerberos has revolved over the past 20 years. Kerberos and its variants have been extensively used in a variety of commuting systems since 1999. Among them, there have been several techniques and protocols to integrate public key cryptography into Kerberos. Public-Key Cross Realm Authentication in Kerberos (PKCROSS) is one of these protocols. It has been proposed to simplify the administrative burden of maintaining cross-realm keys so that it improves the scalability of Kerberos in large multi-realm networks. Public Key Utilizing Tickets for Application Servers (PKTAPP) is another protocol that has been suggested to improve the scalability issue of PKCROSS. Performance evaluation is a fundamental consideration in the design of security protocols. But, the performance of these two protocols has been poorly understood in a large-scale network. In this paper, we present an efficient way to study the performance of PKCROSS and PKTAPP. Our thorough performance analysis of these two protocols shows that PKTAPP does not scale better than PKCROSS. In this paper, we report our recent results of when PKCROSS still outperforms than PKTAPP in multiple remote realms.
Over-the-Counter (O/C) and Some Prescription Drugs

Almost any substance has the potential for abuse (if we define abuse as the voluntary intake to the point of causing physical or psychological harm).1 As was discussed in Chapter 1, this potential is especially true if the drug has the capacity for altering an individual’s perception of his environment. In the present chapter, brief mention will be made of the misuse of some prescription drugs, including the antiparkinsonian medications, diuretics, and the antipsychotics. However, the focus of this chapter is on the over-the-counter (O/C) drugs.
Process and metrology developments in the production of immersion gratings

Silicon immersion gratings take advantage of the high index of refraction of silicon (3.4) to significantly improve the performance and reduce the volume of near-infrared spectrographs. The immersion gratings we discuss here are produced by contact photolithography. Lithography is followed by plasma etching of a silicon nitride hard mask, which defines the pattern for wet etching of the silicon v-grooves in potassium hydroxide that form the blazed grating. We have shown that interference fringes between the photomask and the polished silicon nitride on silicon substrate produce a phase error in the completed grating. With our standard process, the lines in photoresist formed during the lithography step have a slope with an additional “foot” at the base of the line. The thickness of this foot can vary and may be partially etched away causing a shift in the position of the line during etching. To reduce the effect of the foot, we have added a plasma etch step designed to remove the foot prior to completing the silicon nitride etch. We have also found that thinning the photoresist to better control the profile formed during contact printing and subsequent etching results in very uniform gratings over a 125 mm grating length. We will also describe a method to predict the phase uniformity at the patterning stage, which allows us to pattern and evaluate the potential grating before etching, saving both time and material costs.
New Yes/No Recognition Memory Analysis on the California Verbal Learning Test-3: Clinical Utility in Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s Disease

Objectives: The third edition of the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-3) includes a new index termed List A versus Novel/Unrelated recognition discriminability (RD) on the Yes/No Recognition trial. Whereas the Total RD index incorporates false positive (FP) errors associated with all distractors (including List B and semantically related items), the new List A versus Novel/Unrelated RD index incorporates only FP errors associated with novel, semantically unrelated distractors. Thus, in minimizing levels of source and semantic interference, the List A versus Novel/Unrelated RD index may yield purer assessments of yes/no recognition memory independent of vulnerability to source memory difficulties or semantic confusion, both of which are often seen in individuals with primarily frontal-system dysfunction (e.g., early Huntington’s disease [HD]). Methods: We compared the performance of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and HD in mild and moderate stages of dementia on CVLT-3 indices of Total RD and List A versus Novel/Unrelated RD. Results: Although AD and HD subgroups exhibited deficits on both RD indices relative to healthy comparison groups, those with HD generally outperformed those with AD, and group differences were more robust on List A versus Novel/Unrelated RD than on Total RD. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the clinical utility of the new CVLT-3 List A versus Novel/Unrelated RD index, which (a) maximally assesses yes/no recognition memory independent of source and semantic interference; and (b) provides a greater differentiation between individuals whose memory disorder is primarily at the encoding/storage level (e.g., as in AD) versus at the retrieval level (e.g., as in early HD). (JINS, 2018, 24, 833–841)
Latent Terrain Representations for Trajectory Prediction

In natural outdoor environments, the shape of the surface terrain is an important factor in selecting a traversal path, both when operating off-road vehicles and maneuvering on foot. With the increased availability of digital elevation models for outdoor terrain, new opportunities exist to exploit this contextual information to improve automated path prediction. In this paper, we investigate predictive neural network models for outdoor trajectories that traverse terrain with known surface topography. We describe a method of encoding digital surface models as vectors in latent space using Wasserstein Autoencoders, and their use in convolutional neural networks that predict future trajectory positions from past trajectory data. We observe gains in predictive performance across three experiments, using both synthetic and recorded trajectories on real-world terrain.