cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Utility of a modified components separation for abdominal wall reconstruction in the liver and kidney transplant population.

BACKGROUND Incisional hernia is a common complication following visceral organ transplantation. Transplant patients are at increased risk of primary and recurrent hernias due to chronic immune suppression and large incisions. We conducted a retrospective review of patients with a history of liver or kidney transplantation who underwent hernia repair to analyze outcomes and hernia recurrence. METHODS This is a single center, retrospective review of 19 patients who received kidney and/or liver transplantation prior to presenting with an incisional hernia from 2011 to 2017. All hernias were repaired with open component separation technique (CST) with biologic mesh underlay. RESULTS The mean age of patients was 61.0±8.3 years old, with a mean body mass index of 28.4±4.8 kg/m2, 15 males (78.9%), and four females (21.1%). There were seven kidney, 11 liver, and one combined liver and kidney transplant patients. The most common comorbidities were hypertension (16 patients, 84.2%), diabetes (9 patients, 47.4%), and tobacco use (8 patients, 42.1%). Complications occurred in six patients (31.6%) including hematoma (1/19), abscess (1/19), seroma (2/19), and hernia recurrence (3/19) at mean follow-up of 28.7±22.8 months. With the exception of two patients with incomplete follow-up, all patients healed at a median time of 27 days. CONCLUSIONS This small, retrospective series of complex open CST in transplant patients shows acceptable rates of long-term hernia recurrence and healing. By using a multidisciplinary approach for abdominal wall reconstruction, we believe that modified open CST with biologic mesh is a safe and effective technique in the transplant population with complex abdominal hernias.
Stepping over multiple obstacles changes the pattern of foot integrated pressure of the leading and trailing legs.

Abstract An efficient obstacle avoidance strategy when stepping over a single obstacle was reported in the literature – the total impulse of the leading and of the trailing legs are equal even though the kinematics parameters of two legs are different. However, does this efficient obstacle avoidance strategy exist when stepping over multiple obstacles? The study attempted to answer this question. Nineteen healthy young adults (25.84 ± 3.35 years) were recruited and performed multiple obstacle crossings when intervals between two obstacles were one-step, two-step, and three-step away, respectively. The dependent variables were foot integrated pressure (FIP) and other kinematic parameters – horizontal distance (HD, a heel-contact-to-obstacle distance of the leading leg/toe-off-to-obstacle distance of the trailing leg) and vertical distance (VD, toe clearance of both legs). A significant interaction among the effect of different legs, different intervals, and different obstacles on FIP, and kinematic parameters of HD and VD was found (p
Evaluation of Two Techniques: mFC AND mTEC for Determining Distributions of Fecal Pollution in Small, North Carolina Tidal Creeks

Most tidal creeks in North Carolina are closed or partially closed to shellfishing. These creeks often remain closed due to the inability to determine sources of fecal pollution. This study was designed for intensive fecal coliform monitoring of Futch Creek, N.C., to try and determine sources(s) of fecal pollution. Futch Creek is a mildly polluted tidal creek, with marginal levels of fecal coliforms and could potentially be reopened. Problems in interpreting levels of fecal coliforms and pollution risks are two fold and were extremely pronounced in this study. First, several environmental factors have been shown to influence levels of fecal coliforms. Therefore, effects of temperature, salinity, tidal cycles, and rain events on fecal coliform counts were examined. There were higher fecal coliform levels in the warmer temperatures. There was a strong inverse relationship with salinity, with highest fecal coliform counts in the 10–14 g L-1 range for both the mFC and mTEC counts with no apparent source of pollution. This trend was also observed in three other tidal creeks. Tidal cycles did affect fecal coliform counts with substantially higher counts during low tide and appeared to be more important than rain events. It is apparent that when evaluating several stations in a creek, samples must be taken during the same tidal cycle stage in order to have comparative data. Counts obtained using the mTEC method were consistently higher than mFC counts in all salinity ranges. Basic taxonomic tests were performed on fecal coliforms isolated from three salinity regimes: 0 g L-1, 10–14 g L-1, and 23–26 g L-1. The mFC method in the 10–14 g L-1 (45%) and 23–26 g L-1 (70%) salinity range had the highest incidence of false-positive counts (non E. coli). The mTEC method also had the highest incidence of false-positive counts in the 23–26 g L-1 (27%) and 10–14 g L-1 (24%), none as high as the mFC method. Therefore, the mTEC method appears to be the better of the two but is still not an ideal approach.
Mathematical Theory of Compressible Fluids

Publisher Summary This chapter presents mathematical methods that have been used for solving the nonlinear potential equation of two-dimensional compressible flow that is steady with respect to time. It discusses continuous subsonic flows that either remain everywhere subsonic or form a small local supersonic region wherein sonic speeds are only slightly exceeded so that no shock waves are present. The principal method is the use of the coordinate transformation that reduces the nonlinear second order differential equation in the physical plane to a linear differential equation in the hodograph plane having the velocities for its coordinates. As the differential equation is linear in the hodograph plane, it is easier to construct particular solutions by superposition and series expansions. However, the complete boundary conditions can be given explicitly only in the physical plane; consequently, a final exact answer still requires the solution of a nonlinear problem. Therefore, the methods considered should be of interest to all engineers working with nonlinear boundary value problems.
Potentially avoidable hospitalizations after chemotherapy: Differences across medicare and the Veterans Health Administration

BACKGROUND The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released quality measures regarding potentially avoidable hospitalizations visits in the 30 days after receipt of outpatient chemotherapy. This study evaluated the proportions of patients treated by Medicare-reimbursed clinicians and Veterans Health Administration (VA) clinicians who experienced avoidable acute care in order to evaluate differences in health system performance. METHODS This retrospective evaluation of Medicare and VA administrative data used a cohort of cancer decedents (fiscal years 2010-2014). Cohort members were veterans aged 66 years or older at death who were dually enrolled in Medicare and the VA. Chemotherapy was identified through International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision and Current Procedural Terminology (ICD-9) codes. CMS defines avoidable hospitalizations as those related to anemia, dehydration, diarrhea, emesis, fever, nausea, neutropenia, pain, pneumonia, or sepsis in the 30 days after chemotherapy. Following CMS guidance, this study compared the proportions of patients with potentially avoidable hospitalizations, using hierarchical generalized estimating equations. RESULTS There were 27,443 patients who received outpatient chemotherapy. Patients receiving Medicare chemotherapy were significantly more likely to have potentially avoidable hospitalizations than patients receiving VA chemotherapy (adjusted odds ratio, 1.58; 95% confidence interval, 1.41-1.78; P < .001). In predicted estimates, 7.1% of Medicare-treated veterans had potentially avoidable hospitalizations in the 30 days after chemotherapy, compared with 4.6% of VA-treated veterans. CONCLUSIONS Results indicate veterans with cancer receiving chemotherapy in the VA have higher quality care with respect to avoidable hospitalizations than veterans receiving chemotherapy through Medicare. As more veterans seek care in the private sector under the Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks (MISSION) Act, concerted efforts may be warranted to ensure that veterans do not experience a decline in care quality.
Tetanus in cattle

Tetanus (Clostridium tetani infection) is a potentially life-threatening neurologic disease affecting cattle. Clinical signs of tetanus are frequently unrecognized until advanced stages of the disease, when treatment and management of affected animals are difficult and prognosis is relatively poor. This case report demonstrates the successful early diagnosis and subsequent management of wound tetanus in a 13-month-old Holstein heifer. Primary clinical signs that led to an accurate diagnosis and early treatment included stiff gait, erect tail, and prolapsed nictitans. Intensive medical management yielded a relatively rapid improvement in clinical signs. The heifer calved and entered the lactating herd. Practitioners that observe the previously mentioned clinical signs in cattle should consider tetanus as a primary differential diagnosis and initiate aggressive medical management.
Efficient Preconditioners for Interior Point Methods via a new Schur Complementation Strategy.

We propose new preconditioned iterative solvers for linear systems arising in primal-dual interior point methods for convex quadratic programming problems. These preconditioned conjugate gradient methods operate on an implicit Schur complement of the KKT system at each iteration. In contrast to standard approaches, the Schur complement we consider enables the reuse of the factorization of the Hessian of the equality-constraint Lagrangian across all interior point iterations. Further, the resulting reduced system admits preconditioners that directly alleviate the ill-conditioning associated with the strict complementarity condition in interior point methods. The two preconditioners we propose also provably reduce the number of unique eigenvalues for the coefficient matrix (CG iteration count). One is efficient when the number of equality constraints is small, while the other is efficient when the number of remaining degrees of freedom is small. Numerical experiments with synthetic problems and problems from the Maros-M\'esz\'aros QP collection show that our preconditioned inexact interior point solvers are effective at improving conditioning and reducing cost. Across all test problems for which the direct method is not fastest, our preconditioned methods achieve a reduction in cost by a geometric mean of 1.432 relative to the best alternative preconditioned method for each problem.
The swept rule for breaking the latency barrier in time advancing PDEs

This article investigates the swept rule of space-time domain decomposition, an idea to break the latency barrier via communicating less often when explicitly solving time-dependent PDEs. The swept rule decomposes space and time among computing nodes in ways that exploit the domains of influence and the domain of dependency, making it possible to communicate once per many timesteps without redundant computation. The article presents simple theoretical analysis to the performance of the swept rule which then was shown to be accurate by conducting numerical experiments.
Fully Nonlinear Elliptic Equations and Applications to Geometry

In this paper we will describe some recent advances in the theory of fully nonlinear elliptic equations that are motivated by some basic geometric problems. For example, one can ask, when does a smooth Jordan curve inR3 bound a surface of positive constant Gauss curvature? The theme of this talk is roughly that such geometric problems often suggest the proper formulation of purely analytic partial differential equation (PDE) results. As an example, in 1984 [2] it was shown that the classical Monge-Ampere boundary value problem $$ \left\{ {_{{\text{ }}u{\text{ = }}\phi {\text{ on }}\partial \Omega }^{{\text{det }}{u_{ij{\text{ = }}\psi {\text{(}}x){\text{ in }}\Omega }}}} \right.$$ (*) , where φ, ψ, Ω smooth, ψ0 = infΩ ψ > 0, and Ωstrictly convex, always has a (unique) strictly convex solution\( u \in {C^\infty }(\Omega )\).
Analysis of Sensing Errors for Manufacturing Geometric Objects from Sensed Data

In this work we address the problem of manufacturing machine parts from sensed data. Constructing geometric models for objects from sensed data is the intermediate step in a reverse engineering manufacturing system. Sensors are usually inaccurate, providing uncertain sensed information. We construct geometric entities with uncertainty models from noisy measurements for the objects under consideration, and proceed to do reasoning on the uncertain geometries, thus, adding robustness to the construction of geometries from sensed data.
Inhibition of tumor growth by targeting the MDA5-IPS-1 pathway requires coordinated induction of cancer cell death and immune activation (TUM2P.891)

Melanoma differentiation-associated antigen 5 (MDA5), a cytosolic innate pattern recognition receptor for sensing double-stranded RNA, functions as a first line of defense against viral infection. Here we report that ectopic expression of MDA5, mediated by a replication incompetent adenovirus (Ad.Mda5), results in prostate cancer cell death and concomitant innate immune activation, e.g., production of type I interferons (IFNs). IFN-β promoter stimulator (IPS)-1, a downstream adaptor protein, is critical for MDA5-stimulated cancer cell apoptosis and type I IFN response. While MDA5-regulated IFN regulatory factor 3-IFN-β signaling cascade remains intact in nontransformed normal cells, these cells are less sensitive to MDA5-induced apoptosis compared with cancer cells. Intriguingly, intratumoral delivery of Ad.Mda5 preferentially remodels the tumor environment toward Th1 polarization, indicated by marked elevation of cytokine IFN-β, IL-12, and IFN-gamma. As a result, in situ overexpression of MDA5 leads to strong suppression of established mouse prostate tumors, which is associated with activation of natural killer (NK) cells and cytotoxic CD8+ T lymphocytes. Genetic ablation or antibody neutralization reveals that antitumor effect of MDA5 therapy depends on IPS1, IFN-β, and IL-12. Therefore, the intrinsic capabilities of ‘danger’ sensing MDA-5 in simultaneously promoting cancer cell death and immune augmentation may be exploited to develop novel cancer therapeutics.
The Jewish Question and Beyond: Universalism and Dialectic in the Confrontations of Marx, Zion and Intifada

The paper represents a consideration of the influence of G.W.F. Hegel’s dialectical method on Marx’s analysis of the debate over Jewish political rights in 19th Century Germany. As a follow on, I will consider how Marx’s analytical insights and perversions on “The Jewish Ques- tion” may provide us with guidance towards an enriched understanding of the currently confounded standoff be- tween the State of Israel and the Palestinian indepen- dence movement.
CHAPTER 6 – Capacitance

Capacitors, such as resistors, neither amplify nor increase voltage or current. However, they perform a unique function by storing an electrical charge. This has the effect of opposing any changes in voltage. This chapter introduces the physical and the electrical property of capacitors. Different types of capacitors can be manufactured by using various materials for the dielectric, such as paper, ceramic, Teflon, and air. Some of the common types are ceramic, paper, air, and electrolytic capacitors. Ceramic capacitors typically are manufactured in values from one picofarad up to thousands of microfarads and direct current (DC) working volts from 10 volts up to 5,000 volts. Paper, Mylar, and other tubular film-type capacitors typically have a band at one end of the capacitor. The lead closest to the band should be connected to the ground or the lowest potential point in the circuit; this provides rf shielding in high-frequency circuits. It also provides a safety factor for a technician. Some electrolytic capacitors use special metals called tantalum or niobium as the anode and are called tantalum or niobium capacitors. These capacitors have a larger capacitance in a much smaller size than other types of standard electrolytics.
Laboratory Test of a Non-Point Water Pollution Control Program: Monetary and Psychological Incentives

This paper reports the results of laboratory test of the performance of a non-point source (NPS) water pollution abatement scheme suggested by Pushkarskaya and Randall (2006). The scheme is based on voluntary participation in the non-point source pollution control program, and ties individual payoffs to collective performance of the farmers in the watershed. First, we formulate the set of predictions based on both monetary (traditionally used by economists) and psychological (usually studied by psychologists) incentives on how the contract will perform in laboratory in four different settings with undergraduate students as subjects. Then we test these predictions. The experimental data demonstrated that predictions based on both monetary and psychological incentives are very accurate. Specifically, the participation in the program was high, and on average players chose strategies that were close to pay-off dominant, which caused the overall efficiency of the contract to be sufficiently high. However, since the scheme created simultaneously incentives for spitefulness, free-riding, altruism and negative reciprocity the efficiency of a contract was influenced by the composition of groups in terms of players' social types in the settings with no uncertainty. However, in the settings with production and weather uncertainty present, the performance of the scheme was not sensitive to the composition of groups in terms of players' social types. All these results, however, were obtained in the lab with undergraduate students as subjects. At the end of the paper we provide a short discussion on what effects might still hold in the field.
La decisió artística i les seves condicions de producció: parlant amb un equip de rodatge

Em proposo destriar les condicions de produccio de la mirada televisiva. La meva tasca sociologica en estudiar les practiques i decisions artistiques rau en fer explicits els contextos socials d’aquesta activitat professional. Expliquem aquesta practica tant discursiva com pragmatica a partir d’una analisi de contingut tematic de 20 entrevistes a participants d’un rodatge televisiu. Amb l’aplicacio del programa ATLAS.ti, s’han definit les practiques socials que constitueixen el motor de reproduccio de la distincio social. Aquesta analisi qualitiativa m’ha permes concretar operadors teorics polivalents com son habitus i capital (Bourdieu, 1979; 1994; 1998), sovint massa ambigus per a ser emprats empiricament. La font de legitimitat de les decisions artistiques prove d’un tipus d’habitus artistic, que hem anomenat habitus televisiu. La dimensio relacional i instrumental del rodatge passa a un segon pla pels entrevistats. En definitiva, contractes de dependencia que s’amaguen mitjancant l’exercici de la violencia simbolica quotidiana configuren les identitats professionals del mon de la televisio.
Assessing the impact of the NIH CTSA program on institutionally sponsored clinical trials.

Objective To assess the impact of the NIH CTSA program on patient enrollment in clinical trials sponsored/collaborated by CTSA consortium institutions. Material and Methods Using publicly available clinical trial data at ClinicalTrials.gov, we identify positive trend changes in the number of patients enrolled in clinical trials performed at CTSA consortium institutions over the years before and after their respective CTSA award dates. CTSA consortium institutions were matched with similar non-CTSA institutions. Results As compared to matched non-CTSA institutions CTSA consortium sites noted an increase in patient enrollment after the CTSA awards. In particular, we detected a change-point, where a new enrollment trend emerged, 338 days after the CTSA award. No such trend was noted over the same period in the non-CTSA institutions. Conclusion Our analysis provides evidence that the NIH CTSA funding program made a positive impact on patient enrollment.
Echocardiography in the Diagnosis of Hypoplasia of the Left or Right Ventricles in the Neonate

Echocardiographic studies were performed on six patients with autopsy-proved aortic atresia and hypoplastic left ventricle and two patients with surgically proved tricuspid atresia and hypoplastic right ventricle. The findings were compared to those from the echograms of 50 normal newborns who served as a control group. The ultrasound measurements obtained in the normal newborns were as follows: mean right ventricular end-diastolic dimension, 1.3 cm (range, 1.0 to 1.7), mean left ventricular end-diastolic dimension, 1.6 cm (range, 1.2 to 2.0), mean left atrial dimension, 0.9 cm (range, 0.6 to 1.3), and mean left ventricular outflow tract dimension, 1.0 cm (range, 0.7 to 1.2). The mean velocities of closure of the mitral and tricuspid valves during passive filling of the ventricles were 53 mm/sec and 43 mm/sec. The ranges were 36 to 80 mm/sec for the mitral valve and 34 to 56 mm/sec for the tricuspid valve. In the patients with aortic atresia, the significant findings were a larger than normal right ventricular chamber (mean, 2.5 cm), a left ventricular chamber measuring less than 0.9 cm, and an absent or grossly distorted mitral valve echo. By contrast the patients with tricuspid atresia had very small right ventricular dimensions less than 0.6 cm, no demonstrable tricuspid valve echo, and a larger than normal left ventricle (mean, 2.3 cm). The above findings were diagnostic and were not confused with the normal newborn or other forms of congenital heart disease.
The uses of beauty

Confessions of a Technophile. By Lewis M. Branscomb. American Institute of Physics Press: 1995. Pp. 255. $29.95, £22.50. Distributed in the United Kingdom by Oxford University Press.
Studies on the effect of tolbutamide on insulin secretion.

SummaryRate of insulin secretion has been studied in dogs fasted for 24 hours and given an intravenous injection of 1 g sodium tolbutamide in 500 ml saline. Insulin was extracted from pancreatic venous blood and assayed by an in vivo bioassay method. The mean rate of insulin secretion for the 14 control dogs receiving only saline was 1.37 μU/ml/minute, and for the 15 dogs receiving tolbutamide was 1.56 μU/ml/minute. The results thus fail to demonstrate a stimulating effect of tolbutamide on insulin secretion. Administration of glucose, on the other hand, increased the insulin secretion rate in 8 dogs as much as 5 to 10 times that of the saline treated dogs.
Norepinephrine and serotonin in central autonomie nuclei in the spontaneously hypertensive rat and two normotensive control rats

Neurochemical analysis of norepinephrine and serotonin with high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (LCEC) in several microdissected central autonomic nuclei of 4 week old and 16 week old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY), and control normotensive Wistar rats (WIS), revealed some differences among these strains, but only one change that correlated with the hypertensive state. Norepinephrine levels in the 4 week old SHR were greater in the parabrachial nuclei and the dorsal motor nucleus of X than in the WKY, but levels in the WIS normotensive also were greater than in the WKY, and equalled levels in the SHR. In the 16 week old rats, no difference was noted between NE levels in the SHR and WKY strains, but levels in the locus coeruleus and parabrachial nuclei of the WIS were greater than in both the SHR and WKY. Serotonin levels in the 4 week old SHR and WKY rats did not differ, while levels in the paraventricular nucleus, locus coeruleus, parabrachial nuclei, and medullary raphe nuclei of the WIS rat were greater than one or both of these inbred strains. In the dorsal motor nucleus of X in 16 week old rats, serotonin levels were greater in the SHR than in either the WKY or WIS controls, suggesting one possible transmitter action that should be explored further for its potential relationship to the hypertensive state.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A derivation of the hydrodynamical equations for superfluid helium

A purely macroscopic and unambiguous derivation of the hydrodynamical equations for superfluid helium is presented. The existence of a condensate wave function is inserted in the beginning as an essential in the description of the thermodynamic state of superfluid helium, and the derivation is carried out in the frame in which the normal velocity is zero.
The influence of tidal marshes on upland groundwater discharge to estuaries

We investigated subsurface hydrology in two fringing tidal marshes and in underlying aquifers in the coastal plain of Virginia. Vertical distributions of hydraulic conductivity, hydraulic head and salinity were measured in each marsh and a nearby subtidal sediment. Discharge of hillslope groundwater into the base of the marshes and subtidal sediment was calculated using Darcy's law. In the marshes, fluxes of pore water across the sediment surface were measured or estimated by water balance methods. The vertical distribution of salt in shoreline sediments was modeled to assess transport and mixing conditions at depth. Hydraulic gradients were upward beneath shoreline sediments; indicating that groundwater was passing through marsh and subtidal deposits before reaching the estuary. Calculated discharge (6 to 10 liters per meter of shoreline per day) was small relative to fluxes of pore water across the marsh surface at those sites; even where discharge was maximal (at the upland border) it was 10 to 50 times less than infiltration into marsh soils. Pore water turnover in our marshes was therefore dominated by exchange with estuarine surface water. In contrast, new interstitial water entering subtidal sediments appeared to be primarily groundwater, discharged from below. The presence of fringing tidal marshes delayed transport and increased mixing of groundwater and solute as it traveled towards the estuaries. Soil-contact times of discharged groundwater were up to 100% longer in marshes than in subtidal shoreline sediments. Measured and modeled salinity profiles indicated that, prior to export to estuaries, the solutes of groundwater, marsh pore water and estuarine surface water were more thoroughly mixed in marsh soils compared to subtidal shoreline sediments. These findings suggest that transport of reactive solutes in groundwater may be strongly influenced by shoreline type. Longer soil-contact times in marshes provide greater opportunity for immobilization of excess nutrients by plants, microbes and by adsorption on sediment. Also, the greater dispersive mixing of groundwater and pore water in marshes should lead to increased availability of labile, dissolved organic carbon at depth which could in turn enhance microbial activity and increase the rate of denitrification in situations where groundwater nitrate is high.
Velocity gradients and relative depth perception.

The effectiveness of velocity gradients in providing relative depth information was assessed using random dot patterns translating horizontally. The gradients simulated two planes meeting at a horizontal line at the center, and subjects judged whether the center was the nearest or farthest part of the display. Accuracy increased with maximum dot speed, exceeding 90% in conditions combining the highest speed (10.4o/sec) and longer of two display durations (10 sec) with unrestricted fixation. Separate experiments examined a rotational component perceived in the motion of the planes and the latency in reporting a rigid organization of the displays. Possible reasons for the chance accuracy found by Farber and McConkie (1979) and alternative explanations of the effect of maximum dot speed on accuracy are discussed. A model is presented that accounts for the effects of dot speed and display duration on the accuracy of relative depth judgments.
Study of sodium saccharin co-carcinogenicity in the rat

A co-carcinogenicity experiment was conducted with female Sprague-Dawley rats in which the effects of short-term sodium saccharin dosing and initiation with a direct-acting carcinogen were examined in the urinary bladder. All initiated animals were administered 0.5 mg N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU) by instillation into the bladder at 8 wk of age. The animals were also given saccharin at one of four levels in the diet (0, 1.0, 2.5 or 5%) for 4 wk either (1) just before treatment with MNU (4-8 wk of age), (2) centred on treatment with MNU (6-10 wk of age) or (3) after MNU treatment (8-12 wk of age). Additionally, a group of animals was exposed to saccharin through the milk for 3 wk by dosing the mothers, starting on the day of parturition. The animals were held on control diet until interim killing of 20 animals per group at about 590 days of age, removal for morbidity, or terminal killing of the remainder of 60 animals per treatment around 780 days of age. A histopathological examination was made of the urinary tract and the relationship of saccharin dose to bladder tumour prevalence analysed statistically. A consistent increase (with very weak statistical significance) in tumour rate at interim killing, and for the pathology data overall, was shown by the 2.5% dose group given saccharin from 8 to 12 wk of age. Tumour prevalences of 47.6 and 40.7% v. control prevalences of 21.1 and 25.4% were observed for the two time periods (P values < 0.076 and < 0.0853, respectively). All groups given saccharin neonatally showed increased tumour prevalence for both time periods, but none of the differences was statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. No consistent increase in tumour prevalence was seen in the groups given saccharin from 4 to 8 or 6 to 10 wk of age; thus, these data suggest that saccharin does not act as a strong co-carcinogen in the MNU-treated rat bladder.
Effectiveness of N,N-Dimethylglycine in Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder:

N,N-dimethylglycine, a dietary supplement, has been reported to be beneficial in children with autism and pervasive developmental disorder. We examined the effectiveness of dimethylglycine in children with autism and pervasive developmental disorder in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Thirty-seven children between 3 and 11 years of age with a diagnosis of autism and/or pervasive developmental disorder were gender and age matched and randomly assigned to receive either placebo or dimethylglycine for 4 weeks. All children were assessed before and after treatment on two behavioral measures, the Vineland Maladaptive Behavior Domain and the Aberrant Behavior Checklist. Standardized neurologic examinations before and after treatment on 33 children showed no change. An overall improvement on all behavioral measures was observed for both the placebo and the dimethylglycine groups. However, the improvement among the children who received dimethylglycine was not statistically different from the improvement...
Guilt by Association

It's a favorite device of politicians who wish to smear a rival candidate. The late, unlamented Democratic Senator Joseph McCarthy employed it, successfully, against leftists whose careers he wished to destroy. The Republicans tried, unsuccessfully, to use it against Barack Obama. In its simplest form, it involves branding someone a Communist, or a terrorist, or a criminal, because they have family or friends, or possibly just casual acquaintances, who are Communists, or terrorists, or criminals. It's called guilt by association.
maybe We Should Enable More Uncertain Mobile App Programming

One of the reasons programming mobile systems is so hard is the wide variety of environments a typical app encounters at runtime. As a result, in many cases only post-deployment user testing can determine the right algorithm to use, the rate at which something should happen, or when an app should attempt to conserve energy. Programmers should not be forced to make these choices at development time. Unfortunately, languages leave no way for programmers to express and structure uncertainty about runtime conditions, forcing them to adopt ineffective or fragile ad-hoc solutions. We introduce a new approach based on structured uncertainty through a new language construct: the maybe statement. maybe statements allow programmers to defer choices about app behavior that cannot be made at development time, while providing enough structure to allow a system to later adaptively choose from multiple alternatives. Eliminating the uncertainty introduced by maybe statements can be done in a large variety of ways: through simulation, split testing, user configuration, temporal adaptation, or machine learning techniques, depending on the type of adaptation appropriate for each situation. Our paper motivates the maybe statement, presents its syntax, and describes a complete system for testing and choosing from maybe alternatives.
Prevalence of pigmentary disorders and their impact on quality of life: a prospective cohort study.

Summary Background Pigmentary disorders are commonly seen in dermatology practice and can have a negative psychosocial impact on patients. Objective This study aims to examine the prevalence of pigmentary disorders and their level of psychological and physical impact on patients. Methods A prospective cohort study involved a sample of 140 patients undergoing skin exams at a private dermatology practice in North Carolina. Patient demographics and pigmentary diagnoses were obtained, and participants were asked to fill out a skin discoloration impact evaluation questionnaire. Descriptive and frequency analyses were performed. Results Around 80% of the participants were diagnosed with one or more pigmentary disorders. About 47.3% of patients admitted of feeling self-conscious about their skin to some degree, 21.8% felt others focused on their skin, 32.7% felt unattractive because of their skin, 32.7% put effort into hiding pigment changes, and 23.6% felt their skin affected their activities. A limitation was the lack of diversity in the population studied (gender and skin type). Conclusions Pigmentary disorders such as melasma, vitiligo, and lentigo pose significant negative impact on a person's health-related quality of life. Hence, there is a need for effective treatments of pigmentary disorders based on their prevalence and effect on quality of life. Healthcare providers should consider the impact of pigmentary disorders on health-related quality of life and educate patients on possible treatments.
Knowledge-based segmentation and correspondence of vascular structures from biplane angiograms

A combined signal processing and knowledge-based approach was developed to graphically reconstruct the three-dimensional vascular structures from dual biplane angiograms. It was shown that the correct correspondence of segments between two orthogonal views of a simple tree model can be determined by use of a knowledge base containing a directed-graph representation of the tree structures a procedure of recognizing crossover points a requirement of consistency in connectivity and a constraint of coordinate invariance along the axis of view rotation. However the current system failed to handle errors in the segmentation caused by either the complexity of the vascular structures or the presence of noise in the images. The result suggested that the key to resolving ambiguities in the two-view reconstruction problem be the provision for extensive interactions among segmentation correspondence and knowledge base. An systematic analysis and a preliminary design of such a knowledge-based system were presented. 1.© (1990) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Characterization of active and inactive forms of rat hepatic 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase.

Abstract Rat hepatic 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase was purified to homogeneity using agarose-HMG-CoA affinity chromatography. Additional protein was isolated from the affinity column with 0.5 m KCl that demonstrated no HMG-CoA reductase activity, yet comigrated with purified HMG-CoA reductase on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels. This protein was determined to be an inactive form of HMG-CoA reductase by tryptic peptide mapping, reaction with anti-HMG-CoA reductase antibody, and coelution with purified HMG-CoA reductase from a molecular-sieving high-performance liquid chromatography column. This inactive protein was present in at least fourfold greater concentration than active HMG-CoA reductase, and could not be activated by rat liver cytosolic phosphoprotein phosphatases. Immunotitration studies with microsomal and solubilized HMG-CoA reductase isolated in the presence and absence of proteinase inhibitors suggested that the inactive protein was not generated from active enzyme during isolation of microsomes or freeze-thaw solubilization of HMG-CoA reductase.
Information Processing and Anxiety Sensitivity: Cognitive Vulnerability to Panic Reflected in Interpretation and Memory Biases

The relationship between panic and anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been well established. Further, cognitive theories of panic have received substantial support through demonstrations of cognitive biases toward threatening information. However, past research has produced mixed findings on whether AS is itself associated with biased information processing. To explore this question, the current study examined evidence for and relationships among attention (on a modified Stroop), interpretation (using the Brief Body Sensations Interpretation Questionnaire), and schematic/memory biases (on Implicit Association Tests) in individuals with high (N = 55) and low (N = 48) AS. Results indicated interpretation and memory biases favoring threat among the high AS group, but no attentional bias. Further, the memory bias was positively related to the interpretation bias and to measures of anxiety and panic, offering the first evidence for a schema potentially related to the development of panic. Findings are discussed regarding implications for cognitive models of vulnerability.
Adaptive sensor fusion with nets of binary threshold elements

A simple distributed-detection scheme whose probability of error can be calculated analytically is demonstrated, and it is shown that it corresponds to a two-layer network of binary threshold elements. The authors assume that the sensors and the fusion center are subject to sudden unpredictable changes in the environment that they survey and show how learning algorithms can be used in order to maintain good performance, in spite of these changes. They conclude with an example involving five unequal sensors which distinguish between two time-varying Gaussian populations of different means. >
Matching components of self-report and peer-nomination personality measures

Two common methods of measuring personality variables are examined with respect to the ways in which they control respondent biases. A form of the mental-test theory model is developed which makes explicit differences in score components that result from different methodological constraints imposed by the two methods. From the model, it is possible to specify the operations necessary to provide equivalent information from the two sets of data. Performance of these operations in an empirical test supports the model by producing generally higher correlations between the variables having score components which are more closely matched.
Rayleigh-Taylor Instability and Laser-Pellet Fusion

The Rayleigh-Taylor instability in laser-driven spherical implosions can be stabilized by convective flow and by the "fire-polishing" effect, but the size of the stabilization effect depends on details of the thermal conductivity near the ablation surface.
Status of Physics-Based Models in the Design of Food Products, Processes, and Equipment

This article is part of a collection entitled “Models for Safety, Quality, and Competitiveness of the Food Processing Sector,” published in Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety. It has been peer-reviewed and was written as a follow-up of a pre-IFT workshop, partially funded by the USDA NRI grant 2005-35503-16208. ABSTRACT: Modeling, in particular physics-based modeling, can be an important tool to food product, process, and equipment designers by reducing the amount of experimentation (thus reducing the time and expenses involved) and by providing a level of insight that is often not possible experimentally. Food processes involve unique physics and challenges compared to other types of materials processing such as polymers and ceramics. These include complex multiphase transport and multiphysics that are difficult to implement in the available software, and often drastic changes in material properties during processing for which data are unavailable. Such unique and challenging features have made it difficult to embrace modeling as a tool in the food industry. This article discusses, in the context of design use of models, the nature and the state of modeling of food processes, emphasizing the more complex scenarios in both modeling and material properties needed for the models.
Electromagnetic and CP violating effects as the origin of the departures from the exact ΔI = 12 rule

Abstract In the following we investigate the possibility that the departures from the exact ΔI = 1 2 rule in the B → B′ π decays can be explained with mechanisms other than the contributions of the 27-plet. We find model dependent indications that electromagnetic and CP violating effects may account for these departures. Experiments involve large errors, and we cannot test our conjectures with the available data. We also show that the Λπ phase shifts determined from the Ξ and Ξ 0 decays are not consistent with the time reversal invariance.
Why Counterattitudinal Messages Are as Memorable as Proattitudinal Messages: The Importance of Active Defense Against Attack

Three experiments were designed to clarify the mechanisms underlying Eagly, Chen, Chaiken, and Shaw-Barnes’s (1999) meta-analytic demonstration that attitudinally congenial information has typically not been more memorable than uncongenial information. Participants remembered congenial and uncongenial messages equally well, despite their disapproval of the uncongenial information. This null congeniality effect was obtained regardless of whether (a) messages pertained to abortion or gays in the military or presented information on both sides or only one side of the issue; (b) recognition or recall measures were administered soon after the message or 2 weeks later; and (c) participants were or were not activists on the issue, had stronger or weaker attitudes, had more prior knowledge of counterattitudinal (vs. proattitudinal) arguments, or did or did not have their attention constrained to the message. Process findings suggested that participants’ thoughtful counterarguing of the uncongenial messages enhanc...
Restructured Families: Issues of Equality and Need

The families of gay employees have recently come onto the corporate radar screen. The needs they have in common with the families of straight employees can foster connection. There are also tensions between gay and straight employees about the meanings of family, deeply rooted in the culture outside the workplace and some times so provocative that they appear only in indirect allusions. The case of a corporate redesign of benefits surfaces both the language of these commonalities and tensions and the underlying principles of equality versus need. Providing equal benefits for all families has the advantage of honoring equally the many ways the employees define a family, but the disadvantage of creating inequalities across families of different sizes and types. A need-based distribution has the advantage of respecting differences, but the disadvantage of requiring a way to evaluate and rank relative needs, which heightens tensions. The authors discuss how these trade-offs are voiced and played out.
Genetics of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is typically iatrogenic following the administration of gonadotrophins. Sporadic and familial cases of spontaneous OHSS have generated an interest in genetic mechanisms for OHSS independent of exogenous gonadotrophins. The genetic studies have addressed the genes and receptors for FSH and luteinizing/human chorionic gonadotrophin hormones. Mutations in the FSH receptor (FSHR) could be activating, leading to a predisposition to OHSS, or inactivating, resulting in sterility. Polymorphisms of FSHR have been investigated and, to date, 744 single nucleotide polymorphisms have been identified in the FSHR gene, of which only eight are located in the coding region, exons, with the rest being intronic. Ovarian response is dependent on FSHR genotype. Clinical studies on the p.N680S polymorphism of the FSHR gene have demonstrated the homozygous Ser/Ser variant to be less sensitive to endogenous or exogenous FSH in terms of oestradiol production. Polymorphism of the FSHR, Ser680Asn, in the FSHR gene is a predictor of the severity of symptoms in patients who develop OHSS. OHSS is characterized by leakage of intravascular fluids resulting in ascites and haemoconcentration. These pathological changes are mediated for the most part by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Targeting the VEGF system at different levels has been the focus of intense research for the prevention of OHSS.
Responses to Organizational Mandates: How Voice Attenuates Psychological Reactance and Dissent

Organizations sometimes create policies that restrict the decision freedom of their members. When doing so, they might create psychological reactance and dissent. This study examines whether providing voice into a decision can reduce the likelihood that those affected by the decision perceive it as imposing on their rights, can have negative emotional reactions to its adoption, and can want to engage in organizational dissent. Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to read scenarios in which a university committee decided to recommend that a university-wide, mandatory, comprehensive exit examination requirement be adopted after a student group either supported the requirement or opposed it. The results confirmed an indirect path between voice and dissent that flowed through perceived imposition on students’ rights and negative emotional reactions to the adoption of the requirement. The limitations of the study and implications of the results for theory and research are discussed.
On simulating networks of parallel processes in which simultaneous events may occur

The following resolutions were passed at the ASA X3.4 Common Programming Languages Subcommittee during the thirty-third meeting held February 20, 1964 at CEIR, Beverly Hills, California.