cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Potentially Harmful Medication Use and Decline in Health-Related Quality of Life among Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Several scales to quantify the impact of potentially harmful medications (PHMs) have been shown to predict mortality and functional decline; however, the effect of PHMs on quality of life (QoL) has not been well-studied. The aims of this study were to investigate an association between PHM use and change in health-related QoL among community-dwelling older adults, and to compare the predictive capacity of PHM scales. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using prescription claims data and survey responses. A total of 426 community-dwelling adults aged 65 years or older who visited senior centers and had received prescriptions through a statewide prescription drug subsidy program were included. Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden (ACB), Drug Burden Index-sedative component (DBI-Se), Drug Burden Index-anticholinergic component (DBI-ACh), and the number of regular medications and Beers list medications were calculated from the claims data between baseline and 12 months. In addition, change in the EuroQoL five-dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D) between baseline and 6- and 12-month follow-up were measured as the main outcome. A linear mixed model was used for the analysis. After adjusting for covariates, both DBI-Se (coefficients − 0.076, 95% confidence interval [CI] − 0.131 to − 0.020) and DBI-Ach (coefficients − 0.095, 95% CI − 0.188 to − 0.002) significantly predicted a decline in EQ-5D index. The ACB, number of regular medications, and number of Beers medications did not have a significant association with EQ-5D changes. PHM measures incorporating dose revealed a better predictive capacity for QoL change. Reducing cumulative drug dose, as well as stopping medications, would be important for the well-being of this population.
Abstract 13850: Achievement of Target Systolic Blood Pressure for Lowering the Risk of Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events: From the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes Blood Pressure Trial

Background: Prior epidemiologic studies have documented deleterious effects of more intensive systolic blood pressure (SBP) lowering in persons with diabetes mellitus (DM). Yet, whether the risk of adverse cardiovascular events might improve, as a function of achieving target SBP goals, remains to be elucidated. Objective: To test the efficacy of achieving target SBP less than 120 mm Hg, or below 140 mm Hg (versus those unable to achieve target SBP), for offsetting the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). Methods: Data from the ACCORD BP trial were utilized, which comprised 4,732 (mean±SD age: 63±7 years; 2,258 [48%] women) persons presenting with advanced DM. Participants were randomly assigned to achieve either intensive ( Results: During a median follow-up of 5.0 (interquartile range: 4.2-5.7) years, 1,939 (82%) and 2,038 (86%) persons achieved SBP targets below 120 mm Hg and 140 mm Hg in each treatment arm, respectively. In total, 208 (9%) and 237 (10%) persons belonging to the intensive and standard treatment arms experienced the composite endpoint. Multivariable Cox regression analyses revealed no significant reduction in risk of MACE for those in the intensive treatment arm, who achieved a target SBP below 120 mm Hg. Conversely, those in the standard treatment arm who achieved a target SBP of less than 140 mm Hg displayed a substantial reduction in risk of MACE (HR = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.48-0.88, P =0.005), all-cause death (HR = 0.64, 95% CI: 0.43-0.94, P =0.02), and non-fatal stroke (HR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.26-0.87, P =0.02). Conclusion: Achieving a standard SBP goal between 120-140 mm Hg may prove useful for lowering the burden of cardiovascular risk in persons with DM, whereas achieving a target SBP
The Social Justice Reality of Public Administration Theory: Reflections on the 2017 Public Administration Theory Network Conference

This is a reflection piece on the 2017 Public Administration Theory Network’s Annual Conference in Laramie, Wyoming, in which I tie my personal struggle and newfound appreciation for theory to the ...
Utilizing Peptide Ligand GPCRs to Image and Treat Pancreatic Cancer

It is estimated that early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) could increase long-term patient survival by as much as 30% to 40% (Seufferlein, T. et al., Nat. Rev. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 2016, 13, 74–75). There is an unmet need for reagents that can reliably identify early cancerous or precancerous lesions through various imaging modalities or could be employed to deliver anticancer treatments specifically to tumor cells. However, to date, many PDAC tumor-targeting strategies lack selectivity and are unable to discriminate between tumor and nontumor cells, causing off-target effects or unclear diagnoses. Although a variety of approaches have been taken to identify tumor-targeting reagents that can effectively direct therapeutics or imaging agents to cancer cells (Liu, D. et al., J. Controlled Release 2015, 219, 632–643), translating these reagents into clinical practice has been limited, and it remains an area open to new methodologies and reagents (O’Connor, J.P. et al., Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 2017, 14, 169–186). G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are key target proteins for drug discovery and comprise a large proportion of currently marketed therapeutics, hold significant promise for tumor imaging and targeted treatment, particularly for pancreatic cancer.
Clinical Relevance of the Behavioral Stages of Change with the Efficacy of Multifaceted Interventions on the Drop-Out from Regular Medical Care in Patients with Diabetes—The Japan Diabetes Outcome Intervention Trial-2 (J-DOIT2)

Background: To examine the impact of lifestyle intervention by telephone (TSC) and face-to-face (FFA) according to the stages of lifestyle change (SLC) on the drop-out from regular medical care of diabetes Methods: Secondary analysis was performed on data from the Japan Diabetes Outcome Intervention Trial-2 large trial (J-DOIT2-LT), which was a 1-year, prospective, cluster randomized, intervention trial. 11 district medical associations were divided into two subregions (clusters), in which patients were registered, and then were randomized to an intervention group (TSC or FFA) or control group (CG). Lifestyle advisors reminded patients of medical visits to the primary care physician (PCP) and gave lifestyle advice by TSC or FFA. The CG received usual medical care. The outcome of this analysis was the drop-out rate from regular medical care. We estimated the HR and 95% CI of either TSC or FFA relative to CG according to the SLC (stage 1/2/3/4/5: pre-contemplation/contemplation/preparation/action/maintenance). Results: A total of 2,071 participants (mean age: 57 ± 6 years; 38% female) were studied. 1170, 616, and 285 patients were divided into CG, TSC, and FFA. In the stage 1-3 of diet, TSC (HR:0.47; 95% CI:0.27-0.82) and FFA (HR:0.20; 95% CI:0.07-0.55) were significantly associated with a low risk of the drop-out after adjusting for covariates. The similar association was observed in the stage 1-3 of exercise. In contrast, neither TSC nor FFA reduced the risk for drop-out in the stage 4-5 of diet. TSC (HR:0.12; 95% CI:0.02-0.95) but not FFA (HR:0.37; 95% CI:0.09-1.62) was associated with a low risk for the drop-out in the stage 4-5 of exercise. Conclusions: FFA could be more effective than TSC to reduce the risk for drop-out from regular medical care of diabetes at the stage 1-3. In contrast, TSC may be enough to reduce the risk for the drop-out in the stage 4-5. Disclosure R. Bouchi: None. M. Noda: None. Y. Hayashino: None. K. Yamazaki: None. H. Suzuki: None. A. Goto: None. T.A. Furukawa: None. K. Izumi: None. M. Kobayashi: None.
Teaching Science in Informal Environments: Pedagogical Knowledge for Informal Educators

Science educators in informal environments such as science centers and museums affect people’s learning experiences, as they create and implement the educational programs and exhibits to support science learning. The educators are the human interfaces between the institutions’ collections, the knowledge and culture that are represented, and the visiting public. Previous studies suggest that educators apply a range of strategies in their interactions with visitors that account for the learners’ levels of interest and understanding, and as such serve to scaffold the learning experience. However, it also appears that educators may not have an explicit understanding of how educational techniques may best be used. In addition, while educators have a diversity of knowledge and backgrounds resulting in arguably valuable varied expertise, such diversity may also be an impediment as staff do not share a common understanding and language for how they approach and talk about their work. We propose a common body of knowledge that can lead to a shared framework for practice, and provide the basis for pre-service and ongoing professional education among educators who teach science in informal environments. In this chapter, we discuss our six knowledge components underlying the pedagogical knowledge required for science education in informal environments that is shared with, but distinct from, teaching science in schools.
Model-Based Reasoning in Conceptual Change

This paper addresses how specific modeling practices employed by scientists are productive methods of conceptual change in science. Within philosophy, where the identification of reasoning with argument and logic is deeply ingrained, these practices have not traditionally been considered significant forms of scientific reasoning. Embracing these modeling practices as “methods” of conceptual change in science requires expanding philosophical notions of scientific reasoning to encompass forms of creative reasoning. I focus on three forms of model-based reasoning demonstrated in my previous work as generative of conceptual change in science: analogical modeling, visual modeling, and thought experimenting. The models are intended as interpretations of target physical systems, processes, phenomena, or situations. The models are retrieved or constructed on the basis of potentially satisfying salient constraints of the target domain. In the modeling process, various forms of abstraction, such as limiting case, idealization, generalization, generic modeling, are utilized. Evaluation and adaptation take place in light of structural, causal, and/or functional constraint satisfaction. Simulation can be used to produce new states and enable evaluation of behaviors, constraint satisfaction, and other factors.
Therapeutic Targets and Drugs II: G-Quadruplex and G-Quadruplex Inhibitors

Human telomeric DNA consists of tandem repeats of the sequence d(TTAGGG) and can form G-quadruplex DNA secondary structures. Compounds that can stabilize the intramolecular DNA G-quadruplexes formed in the human telomeric sequence have been shown to inhibit the activity of telomerase and telomere maintenance, thus the telomeric DNA G-quadruplex has been considered as an attractive target for cancer therapeutic intervention. This review will give an overview of the current understanding of structures and biology of G-quadruplex secondary structures formed in human telomere, and of the current progress in the development of anticancer drugs targeting the telomeric G-quadruplexes.
Synthesis of 2'-Deoxy-α-l-threofuranosyl Nucleoside Triphosphates.

α-l-Threofuranosyl nucleic acid (TNA) is an artificial genetic polymer in which the natural five-carbon ribose sugar found in RNA has been replaced with an unnatural four-carbon threose sugar. Despite a different sugar–phosphate backbone, TNA is capable of forming stable, antiparallel Watson–Crick duplex structures with itself and with complementary strands of DNA and RNA. This property of intersystem base pairing, coupled with the chemical simplicity of threose relative to ribose, provides support for TNA as a candidate RNA progenitor in the evolution of life. In an effort to evaluate the functional properties of TNA by in vitro evolution, engineered polymerases have been developed that are capable of copying information back and forth between DNA and TNA. However, the current generation of TNA polymerases function with reduced activity relative to their natural counterparts, which limits the evaluation of TNA as a primordial genetic material. Here, we describe the chemical synthesis and polymerase recog...
Abstract SY32-01: Knowledge management and decision support for commonly tested susceptibility mutations

Challenges: Germline testing for inherited genetic susceptibility to cancer has become cheaper and widely used. Multigene panels now routinely test 25 to 123 genes. Health care providers, including clinicians and genetic counselors, must interpret results, assess the risk of various cancers, and advise on clinical management strategies. Aside from a small number of well-known genes, clinicians lack simple and reliable tools to personalize prevention decisions for individuals who test positive. Evidence on the types of cancer associated with susceptibility genes, and on the magnitude of increased risks associated with a mutation, is emerging at a fast rate. However, a large number of combinations of cancer type and gene variant needs to be considered. No comprehensive databases exist, information is dispersed over a vast number of published studies, the quality of the studies is uneven, and the data presented are seldom directly applicable to precision prevention decisions, which require absolute risk estimates. Thus, when assessing cancer risks for mutation carriers, clinical practice can take little advantage of the impressive scientific advancements in this field. Approaches: This presentation describes ongoing work to develop tools that could facilitate the translation into clinical practice of research results that would otherwise be difficult to access, systematize, interpret, and convert into actionable knowledge. The long-term goal should be to develop a clinical decision-support system that allows a clinician to enter important factors about a patient with a mutation and immediately receive patient-specific absolute risk estimates. The foundation for the clinical decision-support system needs to be laid by systematically collecting and curating studies on gene cancer associations and, ideally, developing a public access knowledge base for researchers and health care providers. These steps need computational tools for efficient implementations of this plan and for sustainable long-term updating of the knowledge base and decision-support system. The ask2me.org project and the data science behind it are attempting to achieve some of these steps. This project will be used as an illustration throughout. Impact: Progress in this area will have a direct clinical impact by providing patient-specific absolute risk estimates. These risk estimates will, in turn, lead to more carefully personalized prevention and management for individuals undergoing susceptibility testing, and will help us optimize screening and behavioral interventions to reduce risk. Citation Format: Giovanni Parmigiani, Danielle Braun, Kevin S. Hughes. Knowledge management and decision support for commonly tested susceptibility mutations [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr SY32-01.
Depression in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has a high rate of psychiatric comorbidity. The prevalence of comorbid depression seems to correlate with higher functioning forms of ASD and increasing age. Adolescence is a time when youth struggle with identity and interpersonal relationships, and a diagnosis of ASD further complicates this process. Adolescents with ASD may be more aware of the social communication deficits that come with the diagnosis than children with ASD, and it is theorized that higher functioning adolescents may experience this more acutely. While this may be true, the lack of reliable rating and diagnostic scales for depression in individuals with ASD makes it difficult to accurately measure rates of depression among individuals with more severe verbal deficits. While some research has focused on the prevalence of comorbid depression in children and adolescents with ASD and on the associated risk factors, there is very little evidence guiding treatment, including no empirical studies on psychopharmacology for depression in this population. Available evidence exists only in psychosocial approaches to treatment at this time and is mostly limited to adult studies. Current evidence will be presented in this review, including prevalence rates of depression in youth with ASD, various risk and protective factors, the use of diagnostic rating scales, and treatment studies. The lack of evidence supporting various treatment approaches will be highlighted, including challenges specific to the treatment of depression in ASD, which are not addressed in the current treatment studies in typically developing youth with depression.
A Reduced-order Aggregated Model for Parallel Inverter Systems with Virtual Oscillator Control

This paper introduces a reduced-order aggregated model for parallel-connected inverters controlled with virtual oscillator control (VOC). The premise of VOC is to modulate inverter dynamics to emulate those of nonlinear oscillators with the goal of realizing a stable ac microgrid in the absence of communication, synchronous generation, or a stiff grid. To obtain a reduced-order model for a system of parallel-connected inverters with VOC, we first formulate a set of scaling laws that describe how the controller and filter parameters of a given inverter depend on its voltage and power rating. Subsequently, we show that $N$ parallel inverters which adhere to this scaling law can be modeled with the same structure and hence the same computational burden of the model of a single inverter. The proposed aggregate model is experimentally validated on a system of three parallel inverters with heterogeneous power ratings.
Playing Poison: Mary Webb’s Antidote to the Tom Shows

In this chapter, Crosby follows the battle over the poisonous woman into the ephemera of antebellum popular culture. She examines how fake, sensational “true crime” pamphlets and “Tom shows”—the wildly popular unauthorized dramatic adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—tried to squeeze Harriet Beecher Stowe’s medicinal poisoner back into old, misogynist, and racist frames, such as the Democratic poisoner. Crosby, however, observes that Stowe pushed back by partnering with Mary Webb, an actress of mixed African and Spanish ethnicity, to create their own dramatic adaptation, The Christian Slave, which further amplified Cassy’s heroic centrality and active homeopathic resistance to white male supremacy.
Developing a Comprehensive School Suicide Prevention Program

Suicide is the third most common cause of death for youth aged 14–19. School counselors need a school-wide prevention plan to address the mental and emotional needs of students experiencing suicida...
Perception of Control in Artificial and Human Systems: A Study of Embodied Performance Interactions

Robots in human facing environments will move alongside human beings. This movement has both functional and expressive meaning and plays a crucial role in human perception of robots. Secondarily, how the robot is controlled – through methods like movement or programming and drivers like oneself or an algorithm – factors into human perceptions. This paper outlines the use of an embodied movement installation, “The Loop”, to understand perceptions generated between humans and various technological agents, including a NAO robot and a virtual avatar. Participants were questioned about their perceptions of control in the various agents. Initial results with human subjects demonstrate an increased likelihood to rate a robot and a robotic shadow as algorithmically controlled, versus a human performer and a human-shaped VR avatar which were more likely rated as human actor controlled or split between algorithm/human actor. Participants also showed a tendency to rate their own performance in the exercise as needing improvement. Qualitative data, collected in the form of text and drawings, was open-ended and abstract. Drawings of humans and geometric shapes frequently appeared, as did the words “mirror”, “movement”, and variations on the word “awareness”.
Automated Facial Expression and Speech Emotion Recognition App Development on Smart Phones using Cloud Computing

Because emotions are such a significant and integral part of being human, understanding them and knowing how to react to the emotions of others is a fundamental requirement for successful social interaction. We recognize emotions primarily through speech and facial expression. The topic is gaining importance in academic research triggered by research in new techniques such as identifying emotions based on speech context. This investigates the relationship between emotions and the content of our speech. This paper proposes how emotion in speech and facial expression can be recognized in real time using a framework consisting of mobile phone technology backed by cloud computing. This functionality was developed and built into a mobile phone application. Currently, the application works on any Android smartphone to detect and identify emotions in real time. The results are expressed as a percentage of all the possible emotions, such as sad, happy, fear, surprise, anger and so on. The results of the experiment confirm that face and speech emotion recognition was conducted successfully using a smartphone. It was correct in 97.26% of instances when used with standard corpora: a.Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song (RAVDESS) b.the Surrey Audio-Visual Expressed Emotion (SAVEE)
A Real-Time Cardiac Monitoring using a Multisensory Smart IoT System

The Internet of Things (IoT) with smartphone technologies contains vast applications in solving the problems of heart diseases in patients needing care. With wireless sensors and smart devices, remote monitoring can identify the real-time physical status of heart patients during normal physical activities. In this research, we designed and developed an embedded sensory system with a low power communication module to discreetly collect electrocardiogram (ECG) and body accelerations using a smartphone in a common environment. A wearable sensor is utilized to monitor the ECG patterns and the smartphone's built-in sensors; specifically, we use its accelerometer and GPS sensors to measure the body acceleration and location information of the user. Experimentation and verification are conducted on a number of test subjects with different test scenarios including sitting, walking, jogging, and running. Using signal classification and machine learning techniques, we show that it is possible to design a multisensory system that allows accurate classification and authentic prediction of heart rate quality.
Osteoclast Activity: Bone Resorption/Polarization/Acidification/Proton Pumps/Chloride Channels

Abstract Bone resorption by activated osteoclasts occurs in three successive steps: attachment of the osteoclasts to the bone surface to form the sealing zone, bone mineral solubilization, and organic matrix degradation. In the last two decades, great advances have been made in understanding the mechanisms underlying osteoclast-mediated bone resorption. Mature osteoclasts on the bone surface become polarized, a process regulated by small G proteins, which leads to the formation of the sealing zone, which is the highly compact superstructure formed by podosomes. Integrins, which mediate both podosome formation and osteoclast-bone interaction, transduce pivotal signaling for osteoclast activation. Osteoclasts generate an isolated extracellular microenvironment between themselves and the bone known as the sealing zone surrounding the ruffled membrane to release hydrogen ions (H+) and chloride ions (Cl−) through the V-type ATPase proton pump and the CLC chloride channel into the resorption lacuna to reach an acidic pH which favors bone resorption. V-ATPase proton pump subunit Atp6i and chloride channels subunit ClC-7 are essential for osteoclast-mediated extracellular acidification. Cathepsin K was revealed to be the lysosomal protease that is essential for organic matrix degradation in bone resorption. In humans, mutations of Atp6i and ClC-7, and Cathepsin K lead to malignant osteopetrosis and pycnodysostosis respectively. In this article, we summarize recent advances in understanding the mechanisms of osteoclast-mediated bone resorption and signaling that regulates osteoclast activation, polarization, acidification, and matrix degradation. Further understanding of the mechanisms underlying osteoclast activation and the signaling that regulates osteoclast polarization, acidification, lysosome trafficking, and bone resorption will provide unprecedented therapeutic strategies to treat osteolytic diseases such as osteoporosis, periodontal disease, and rheumatoid arthritis.
How internal rotation is measured in reverse total shoulder arthroplasty: a systematic review of the literature.

Background Reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (RTSA) can lead to limited postoperative internal rotation (IR). We assessed how IR is measured and reported in the RTSA literature and examined the relationships between these measures and patient-reported ability to perform activities of daily living. Methods We searched MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for articles published in English from January 2000 through September 2018 that reported clinical outcomes after RTSA (minimum 12-month follow-up). We included studies reporting IR range of motion (ROM) and/or patient-reported functional outcomes related to IR. We identified 255 studies, 35% of which were excluded because they reported no IR outcome measures, leaving 165 studies for analysis. Results Studies reported 3 methods of measuring IR ROM: (1) vertebral level (VL) method (ie, the most proximal VL reached by the extended thumb with the arm behind the back), (2) degrees of IR with the arm abducted to 90°, and (3) degrees of IR with the arm in a neutral position. The VL measurement was reported in 89% of studies, but the methods of reporting this measure varied. Only 9% of studies reported functional outcomes related to IR. No study correlated clinical measurements of IR ROM with functional outcomes. Conclusions Measures and reporting of shoulder IR after RTSA varied widely. This variability makes it difficult to assess associations between postoperativce IR limitation and functional abilities. Standardization of IR measures and reporting is needed to allow meta-analysis of data related to this important outcome.
Putative biomarkers for predicting tumor sample purity based on gene expression data

Tumor purity is the percent of cancer cells present in a sample of tumor tissue. The non-cancerous cells (immune cells, fibroblasts, etc.) have an important role in tumor biology. The ability to determine tumor purity is important to understand the roles of cancerous and non-cancerous cells in a tumor. We applied a supervised machine learning method, XGBoost, to data from 33 TCGA tumor types to predict tumor purity using RNA-seq gene expression data. Across the 33 tumor types, the median correlation between observed and predicted tumor-purity ranged from 0.75 to 0.87 with small root mean square errors, suggesting that tumor purity can be accurately predicted υσινγ expression data. We further confirmed that expression levels of a ten-gene set (CSF2RB, RHOH, C1S, CCDC69, CCL22, CYTIP, POU2AF1, FGR, CCL21, and IL7R) were predictive of tumor purity regardless of tumor type. We tested whether our set of ten genes could accurately predict tumor purity of a TCGA-independent data set. We showed that expression levels from our set of ten genes were highly correlated (ρ = 0.88) with the actual observed tumor purity. Our analyses suggested that the ten-gene set may serve as a biomarker for tumor purity prediction using gene expression data.
Uterine Patterning, Endometrial Gland Development, and Implantation Failure in Mice Exposed Neonatally to Genistein

Background: Embryo implantation relies on precise hormonal regulation, associated gene expression changes, and appropriate female reproductive tract tissue architecture. Female mice exposed neonata...
Cardiac Imaging With 123I-meta-iodobenzylguanidine and Analogous PET Tracers: Current Status and Future Perspectives

Autonomic innervation plays an important role in proper functioning of the cardiovascular system. Altered cardiac sympathetic function is present in a variety of diseases, and can be assessed with radionuclide imaging using sympathetic neurotransmitter analogues. The most studied adrenergic radiotracer is cardiac 123I-meta-iodobenzylguanidine (123I-mIBG). Cardiac 123I-mIBG uptake can be evaluated using both planar and tomographic imaging, thereby providing insight into global and regional sympathetic innervation. Standardly assessed imaging parameters are the heart-to-mediastinum ratio and washout rate, customarily derived from planar images. Focal tracer deficits on tomographic imaging also show prognostic utility, with some data suggesting that the best approach to tomographic image interpretation may differ from conventional methods. Cardiac 123I-mIBG image findings strongly correlate with the severity and prognosis of many cardiovascular diseases, especially heart failure and ventricular arrhythmias. Cardiac 123I-mIBG imaging in heart failure is FDA approved for prognostic purposes. With the robustly demonstrated ability to predict occurrence of potentially fatal arrhythmias, cardiac 123I-mIBG imaging shows promise for better selecting patients who will benefit from an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, but clinical use has been hampered by lack of the randomized trial needed for incorporation into societal guidelines. In patients with ischemic heart disease, cardiac 123I-mIBG imaging aids in assessing the extent of damage and in identifying arrhythmogenic regions. There have also been studies using cardiac 123I-mIBG for other conditions, including patients following heart transplantation, diabetic related cardiac abnormalities and chemotherapy induced cardiotoxicity. Positron emission tomographic adrenergic radiotracers, that improve image quality, have been investigated, especially 11C-meta-hydroxyephedrine, and most recently 18F-fluorbenguan. Cadmium-zinc-telluride cameras also improve image quality. With better spatial resolution and quantification, PET tracers and advanced camera technologies promise to expand the clinical utility of cardiac sympathetic imaging.
13 – Grazing Intensity

Publisher Summary Grazing intensity refers to the amount of quantitative animal demand for forage placed upon the standing crop forage or forage mass, and to the resulting level of defoliation made during grazing. After several years of research some grazing intensity studies were found to include no stocking rate that resulted in overgrazing; in other studies, the stocking rate labeled as light proved to be the best stocking rate included in the study. Overgrazing refers to continued heavy grazing, which exceeds the recovery capacity of the forage plants and creates deterioration of the grazing lands. Aggressive nonforage plants on the site can be expected to magnify the deleterious effects of heavy grazing on the desirable forage plants because of differential defoliation levels and enhanced competition. The deleterious effects of heavy grazing may merely be masked by a series of favorable rainfall years and remain mostly invisible until triggered by severe drought. Undergrazing or nonuse does not generally result in damage to rangelands, although opportunities to favorably manipulate plant composition may be foregone. Grazing intensity has direct effects on livestock performance levels and on long-term economic returns to animal enterprises primarily based on grazing.
Lessons Learned From the First 10 Consecutive Cases of Intravenous Bacteriophage Therapy to Treat Multidrug-Resistant Bacterial Infections at a Single Center in the United States.

Author(s): Aslam, Saima; Lampley, Elizabeth; Wooten, Darcy; Karris, Maile; Benson, Constance; Strathdee, Steffanie; Schooley, Robert T | Abstract: BackgroundDue to increasing multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections, there is an interest in assessing the use of bacteriophage therapy (BT) as an antibiotic alternative. After the first successful case of intravenous BT to treat a systemic MDR infection at our institution in 2017, the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH) was created at the University of California, San Diego, in June 2018.MethodsWe reviewed IPATH consult requests from June 1, 2018, to April 30, 2020, and reviewed the regulatory process of initiating BT on a compassionate basis in the United States. We also reviewed outcomes of the first 10 cases at our center treated with intravenous BT (from April 1, 2017, onwards).ResultsAmong 785 BT requests to IPATH, BT was administered to 17 of 119 patients in whom it was recommended. One-third of requests were for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Mycobacterium abscessus. Intravenous BT was safe with a successful outcome in 7/10 antibiotic-recalcitrant infections at our center (6 were before IPATH). BT may be safely self-administered by outpatients, used for infection suppression/prophylaxis, and combined successfully with antibiotics despite antibiotic resistance, and phage resistance may be overcome with new phage(s). Failure occurred in 2 cases despite in vitro phage susceptibility.ConclusionsWe demonstrate the safety and feasibility of intravenous BT for a variety of infections and discuss practical considerations that will be critical for informing future clinical trials.
Normative Measurements of the Thyroid, Salivary Glands, and Tonsils on Imaging

This chapter reviews the normative measurements of the thyroid, salivary glands, and tonsils. The objective imaging criteria that can help identify abnormalities are reviewed, along with an illustrated guide depicting how the measurements are performed. In addition, examples of conditions associated with abnormal anatomical dimensions are depicted.
Externalizing Mental Images by Harnessing Size-Describing Gestures: Design Implications for a Visualization System

People use a significant amount of gestures when engaging in creative brainstorming. This is especially typical for creative workers who frequently convey ideas, designs, and stories to team members. These gestures produced during natural conversation contain information that is not necessarily conveyed through speech. This paper investigates the design of a system that uses people's gestures in natural communication contexts to produce external visualizations of their mental imagery, focusing on gestures that describe dimension-related information. While much psycholinguistics research address how gestures relate to the representations of concepts, little HCI work has explored the possibilities of harnessing gestures to support thinking. We conducted a study to explore how people gesture using a basic gesture-based visualization system in simulated creative gift design scenarios, towards the goal of deriving design implications. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the study, allowing us to ascertain what features (e.g., users' spatial frames of reference and listener types) of a gesture-based visualization system need to be accounted for in design. Results showed that our system managed to visualize users' envisioned gift dimensions, but that visualized object area significantly affected users' perceived accuracy of the system. We extract themes as to what dimensions are important in the design of a gesture-based visualization system, and the possible uses of such a system from the participants' perspectives. We discuss implications for the design of gesture-based visualization systems to support creative work and possibilities for future directions of research.
H3K27 demethylases are dispensable for activation of Polycomb-regulated injury response genes in peripheral nerve.

The induction of nerve injury response genes in Schwann cells depends on both transcriptional and epigenomic reprogramming. The nerve injury response program is regulated by the repressive histone mark H3K27 trimethylation (H3K27me3), deposited by Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2). Loss of PRC2 function leads to early and augmented induction of the injury response gene network in peripheral nerves, suggesting H3K27 demethylases are required for derepression of Polycomb-regulated nerve injury genes. To determine the function of H3K27 demethylases in nerve injury, we generated Schwann cell–specific knockouts of H3K27 demethylase Kdm6b and double knockouts of Kdm6b/Kdm6a (encoding JMJD3 and UTX). We found that H3K27 demethylases are largely dispensable for Schwann cell development and myelination. In testing the function of H3K27 demethylases after injury, we found early induction of some nerve injury genes was diminished compared with control, but most injury genes were largely unaffected at 1 and 7 days post injury. Although it was proposed that H3K27 demethylases are required to activate expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor Cdkn2a in response to injury, Schwann cell–specific deletion of H3K27 demethylases affected neither the expression of this gene nor Schwann cell proliferation after nerve injury. To further characterize the regulation of nerve injury response genes, we found that injury genes are associated with repressive histone H2AK119 ubiquitination catalyzed by PRC1, which declines after injury. Overall, our results indicate H3K27 demethylation is not required for induction of injury response genes and that other mechanisms likely are involved in activating Polycomb-repressed injury genes in peripheral nerve.
The safe zones for endoscopic proximal hamstring repair: a cadaveric assessment of standard portal placement and their relationship to major neurovascular structures.

PURPOSE To define the anatomical relationship of the major neurovascular structures to the standard endoscopic portals used in endoscopic hamstring repair. A secondary outcome was to determine the safest angle of insertion from each standard portal. METHODS Endoscopic portals were established in the 3 standard locations (lateral, medial, and inferior) and Steinmann pins inserted at various angles. Each hip was dissected and the distance between the pins and the pertinent anatomy measured. RESULTS The lateral portal placed the sciatic and posterior femoral cutaneous (PFC) nerves at greatest risk: direct injury to the sciatic nerve was seen in 11/30 (37%) of the lateral portals sited. A lateral portal with an approach at 60° was the most dangerous orientation with a mean distance of 0.36 ± 0.49 mm and 4.30 ± 2.69 mm from the sciatic and PFC nerves, respectively (p < 0.001). The 60° medial portal was the safest of all portals measured, at a mean distance of 67.37 ± 11.06mm (range, 47-78 mm) from the sciatic nerve and 58.90 ± 10.57 mm (range 40-70 mm) from the PFC nerve. CONCLUSIONS While currently described techniques recommend establishing the standard lateral portal first, this study shows that it carries the highest risk of injury if used blind. We recommend that the standard medial endoscopic portal is established first to identify the neurovascular structures and minimise iatrogenic neurovascular injury. The inferior and lateral portals can then be established created under direct vision. The lateral portal should be inserted in a more horizontal orientation to decrease the risk of nerve injury.
MaGNET: Uniform Sampling from Deep Generative Network Manifolds Without Retraining.

Deep Generative Networks (DGNs) are extensively employed in Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), and their variants to approximate the data manifold, and data distribution on that manifold. However, training samples are often obtained based on preferences, costs, or convenience producing artifacts in the empirical data distribution e.g., the large fraction of smiling faces in the CelebA dataset or the large fraction of dark-haired individuals in FFHQ. These inconsistencies will be reproduced when sampling from the trained DGN, which has far-reaching potential implications for fairness, data augmentation, anomaly detection, domain adaptation, and beyond. In response, we develop a differential geometry based sampler -- coined MaGNET -- that, given any trained DGN, produces samples that are uniformly distributed on the learned manifold. We prove theoretically and empirically that our technique produces a uniform distribution on the manifold regardless of the training set distribution. We perform a range of experiments on various datasets and DGNs. One of them considers the state-of-the-art StyleGAN2 trained on FFHQ dataset, where uniform sampling via MaGNET increases distribution precision and recall by 4.1% & 3.0% and decreases gender bias by 41.2%, without requiring labels or retraining.
Research Training in Social Work

From undergraduate to graduate course work, a continuum of training in research is supposed to undergird social work education. But does it? In this article, the authors review past practices and current trends in research education plus examples of research requirements from other disciplines. They define research scholarship, and explore conflicts regarding the import of research in social work and findings from recent studies of social work curricula. They discuss strategies for revitalizing research education and strengthening the continuum of research training in social work. These include eliminating redundancy in research curricula by diversifying master’s-level training and accelerating expectations for doctoral education.
Toleration and Diversity in New Netherland and the Duke's Colony: The Roots of America's First Disestablishment

This book chapter argues that the emergence of religious diversity and a polyglot community in New Amsterdam for the directors of the Dutch West Indies Company to allow for substantial religious toleration in New Netherland, despite the objections of Governor-General Petrus Stuyvesant and other leaders of the colony. Stuyvesant persecuted Quakers, Lutherans, Jews, and even Puritans, but in most instances, the directors of company overruled him. By the time the English took over the colony it was the most religiously diverse place in the New World. This history led to New York to become the first American state to reject the idea of an established church, and to write into its first constitution protections for religious liberty and a firm opposition to an official church.
A New Synthesis and Some Biological Properties of β-Hydroxy-α, ϵ-diaminopimelic Acid

Abstract β-Hydroxy-α, ϵ-diaminopimelic acid was synthesized by the condensation of γ-phthalimido-γ, γ-dicarbethoxy butyr-aldehyde and copper glycinate in aqueous alkaline solution followed by acid hydrolysis of the condensation product. The synthetic product contained all of the eight possible isomers. These were separated into four racemic pairs with the use of aromatic sulfonic acids as precipitants. One of the racemic pairs was found to support the growth of an α, ϵ-diaminopimelic acid-requiring auxotroph of Escherichia coli, strain 173-25, in a synthetic medium containing L-lysine but devoid of α, ϵ-diaminopimelic acid. It was also shown that cells grown on this racemic pair contained β-hydroxy-α, ϵ-diaminopimelic acid, but not α, ϵ-diaminopimelic acid, in the mucopeptide layer of the cell wall.
Rubella vaccine program: Its implications in obstetric practice

Abstract Questions concerning the ability of the rubella vaccine program to protect women from first trimester rubella infection underscore the need for serologic screening of all women in childbearing age for the presence of rubella antibody. Priority should be given to high-risk groups and consideration should be given to including this test in the premarital and pregnancy laboratory studies. Staff nurses of childbearing age and student nurses at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont were screened for the presence of rubella HI antibody. Of the staff nurses, 12 of 144 (8.3 per cent) had no antibody. Of 229 student nurses, 17 (7.4 per cent) had no antibody. Seventeen seronegative nurses were given HPV77W16 rubella vaccine and all seroconverted. Four noted transient arthritis and arthralgias of the hands and knees. Serologic screening of a private obstetric practice and of an entire high school proved feasible and revealed that 22 of 214 (10.3 per cent) pregnant women and 56 of 261 (21.5 per cent) high school girls lacked antibody. Immunization was recommended for nonpregnant seronegative women and for pregnant women only at the termination of pregnancy.
Traceband: A fast, low overhead and accurate tool for available bandwidth estimation and monitoring

Available bandwidth estimation techniques are being used in network monitoring and management tools to provide information about the utilization of the network and verify the compliance of service level agreements. However, the use of these techniques in other applications and network environments is limited by the long convergence times, accuracy errors, and the amount of overhead that they introduce. In this paper, we introduce Traceband, a hidden Markov model-based technique for end-to-end available bandwidth estimation and monitoring that improves these performance metrics and therefore promises to expand the use of these techniques in other scenarios. Traceband is evaluated and compared with Spruce and Pathload using Poisson and self-similar cross-traffic. Experimental results in a controlled environment with Poisson cross-traffic demonstrate that Traceband is as accurate as Spruce and Pathload but considerably faster, and introduces less overhead. Traceband's convergence time is demonstrated using bursty cross-traffic, as it is the only tool that accurately reacts to zero-traffic periods, which may be particularly useful for those applications that need to make decisions in real time. Using self-similar traffic, Traceband's mean accuracy and variability degrade with the Hurst parameter but it still performs within reasonable limits. A general and optional moving average algorithm is also introduced to solve these issues.