cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Topoisomerase I inhibitors: Review and update

This review presents a summary of preclinical and clinical data on the topoisomerase I (topo I) inhibitors that are under clinical development. To date, all of the topo I inhibitors that have been clinically evaluated are analogues of camptothecin, an extract of the Chinese tree Camptotheca acuminata. The therapeutic development of camptothecin was initially limited by its poor solubility and unpredictable toxicity. More recently, a number of water-soluble camptothecin analogues have undergone extensive evaluation and have demonstrated significant clinical activity. These include irinotecan (CPT-II), topotecan, and 9-aminocamptothecin (9-AC). Preliminary data are also reviewed on other camptothecin analogues (GG-211 and DX-8951f), on oral formulations, and on non-camptothecin topoisomerase I inhibitors. The topoisomerase I inhibitors have already demonstrated a broad spectrum of antitumour activity, most probably due to their unique mechanism of action and lack of clinical cross-resistance with existing antineoplastic compounds. The challenge for the next five years is to identify ways to integrate the topo I inhibitors into multidrug and multimodality therapies to achieve optimal antitumour effect, while keeping the side effects of these therapies manageable.
A Microelectronics-Compatible Process for Surface Micromachining of MEMS and MOEMS

Many fabrication steps for micro electromechanical and micro optoelectromechanical systems (MEMS and MOEMS) are carried out on specialized or highly customized tools that are not part of a standard microelectronics process flow. This paper presents a surface micromachining process for electrostatically-actuated MEMS devices using standard microelectronics tools, materials, and process conditions. The result should facilitate MEMS development in university laboratories with a microelectronics focus, and encourage the transfer of MEMS production to aging or underutilized industrial facilities. Aluminum structures, with silicon dioxide or silicon nitride dielectric layers, are built upon a silicon or glass wafer substrate. Shipley SC1827 photoresist provides a 2.7 μm thick sacrificial layer. The release etch is the critical fabrication step. This must be a dry process to avoid stiction, should be isotropic to minimize the etch time, and should be capable of large undercut distances to minimize the need for etch holes. Finally, the etch must be sufficiently selective to allow for the necessary release etch time without significantly impacting non-sacrificial structures. An O2 /CHF3 plasma etch has been developed to meet these requirements. Using this process we have designed, fabricated and tested structures with moveable mirrors suspended over multiple drive and sense electrodes.Copyright © 2005 by ASME
Do Smaller Forest Fragments Contain a Greater Abundance of Lepidopteran Crop and Forage Consumers

Habitat loss is often—but not always—correlated with diminishing levels of biodiversity. When species diversity does not vary across a gradient of patch sizes, species replacement may still occur in which some species are lost from smaller habitat patches and replaced by other species. In particular, matrix-dwelling species may become disproportionately abundant in smaller patches. In this study, I tested the hypothesis that the abundance of four crop and pasture grass consumers (Lepidoptera: Crambidae, Noctuidae) would be higher in smaller forest fragments compared with larger woodland sites in two ecoregions of Ohio. The two ecoregions differed in the dominant habitat type within the surrounding matrix and in the two most abundant matrix-dwelling moth species that were found in forest patches. In both ecoregions, smaller forests contained a significantly higher abundance of matrix-dwelling moth species, and patch area explained between 50 and 78% of the total variation in moth abundance. Because the total abundance of moths did not vary across the gradient of patch sizes in each ecoregion, the invasion of small forest stands by matrix-dwelling species may offset a reduction in the abundance of forest-interior moth species. If so, regional moth species diversity is predicted to become increasingly impoverished as small forest fragments and agricultural habitats converge in species composition.
The Centriole Cartwheel Protein SAS-6 in Trypanosoma brucei Is Required for Probasal Body Biogenesis and Flagellum Assembly

ABSTRACT The centriole in eukaryotes functions as the cell9s microtubule-organizing center (MTOC) to nucleate spindle assembly, and its biogenesis requires an evolutionarily conserved protein, SAS-6, which assembles the centriole cartwheel. Trypanosoma brucei, an early branching protozoan, possesses the basal body as its MTOC to nucleate flagellum biogenesis. However, little is known about the components of the basal body and their roles in basal body biogenesis and flagellum assembly. Here, we report that the T. brucei SAS-6 homolog, TbSAS-6, is localized to the mature basal body and the probasal body throughout the cell cycle. RNA interference (RNAi) of TbSAS-6 inhibited probasal body biogenesis, compromised flagellum assembly, and caused cytokinesis arrest. Surprisingly, overexpression of TbSAS-6 in T. brucei also impaired probasal body duplication and flagellum assembly, contrary to SAS-6 overexpression in humans, which produces supernumerary centrioles. Furthermore, we showed that depletion of T. brucei Polo-like kinase, TbPLK, or inhibition of TbPLK activity did not abolish TbSAS-6 localization to the basal body, in contrast to the essential role of Polo-like kinase in recruiting SAS-6 to centrioles in animals. Altogether, these results identified the essential role of TbSAS-6 in probasal body biogenesis and flagellum assembly and suggest the presence of a TbPLK-independent pathway governing basal body duplication in T. brucei.
The Reviewability of Denied Twombly Motions

This article argues in favor of permitting appellate review of a denied Twombly motion when a defendant appeals an adverse final judgment. With regard to denied summary judgment motions, the question of post-judgment appellate review has caused considerable confusion in the last few years. This article aims to prevent this confusion from developing with regard to denied Twombly motions and, in the process, to clear up the existing uncertainty with regard to appellate review of denied summary judgment motions. The critical step towards this goal is distinguishing between “mootness” and “forfeiture.” Because a denied Twombly motion is not rendered moot by subsequent proceedings in the district court, and because a defendant does not forfeit appellate review of a denied Twombly motion, appellate courts should assess the propriety of the denial of a Twombly motion in an appeal from a final judgment. This conclusion might appear, on first impression, outrageous. But it is the proper conclusion under existing rules governing the availability of appellate review.
Warm season temperatures and emergency department visits in Atlanta, Georgia.

Abstract Purpose Extreme heat events will likely increase in frequency with climate change. Heat-related health effects are better documented among the elderly than among younger age groups. We assessed associations between warm-season ambient temperature and emergency department (ED) visits across ages in Atlanta during 1993–2012. Methods We examined daily counts of ED visits with primary diagnoses of heat illness, fluid/electrolyte imbalances, renal disease, cardiorespiratory diseases, and intestinal infections by age group (0–4, 5–18, 19–64, 65+years) in relation to daily maximum temperature (TMX) using Poisson time series models that included cubic terms for TMX at single-day lags of 0–6 days, controlling for maximum dew-point temperature, time trends, week day, holidays, and hospital participation periods. We estimated rate ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for TMX changes from 27 °C to 32 °C (25th to 75th percentile) and conducted extensive sensitivity analyses. Results We observed associations between TMX and ED visits for all internal causes, heat illness, fluid/electrolyte imbalances, renal diseases, asthma/wheeze, diabetes, and intestinal infections. Age groups with the strongest observed associations were 65+years for all internal causes [lag 0 RR (CI)=1.022 (1.016–1.028)] and diabetes [lag 0 RR=1.050 (1.008–1.095)]; 19–64 years for fluid/electrolyte imbalances [lag 0 RR=1.170 (1.136–1.205)] and renal disease [lag 1 RR=1.082 (1.065–1.099)]; and 5–18 years for asthma/wheeze [lag 2 RR=1.059 (1.030–1.088)] and intestinal infections [lag 1 RR=1.120 (1.041–1.205)]. Conclusions Varying strengths of associations between TMX and ED visits by age suggest that optimal interventions and health-impact projections would account for varying heat health impacts across ages.
Semiotic Principles for Metadata Auditing and Evaluation

ABSTRACTMetadata auditing is a common practice used to assess quality by drawing on a selection of documents to create a representative sample of the corpus. This article examines common techniques involved in auditing and argues that underlying semiotic principles should be considered before remediation and transformation work are undertaken. This article provides an inquiry into the structural nature of metadata, records, and corpora to analyze the semiotic processes and boundaries that can affect audits. Suggestions for effective auditing practices are offered as well as what can be obfuscated when transformations are undertaken without concern for the sign-functions of metadata.
Are some strains of haemophilus influenzae resistant to antibiotics

H. influenzae is the principal cause of meningitis and acute epiglottitis in children. There have been recent reports of antibiotic-resistant strains of Haemophilus, including isolates resistant to ampicillin. During a period of 3 yr, isolates of H. influenzae from 73 cases of meningitis and 19 of acute epiglottitis were typed, and tested for sensitivity to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, trimethoprim and co-trimoxazole by a disc diffusion technique. All 92 isolates were identified as H. influenzae type b. Resistance to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim and co-trimoxazole was not encountered. Forty-two strains were also tested by a plate titration technique and all were inhibited by 0.5 μg ampicillin/ ml and by 1.0 μg chloramphenicol/ml, indicating full sensitivity to these antibiotics. Three strains of H. influenzae were resistant to tetracycline. These were isolated from a boy aged 11 mth and a girl aged 1 yr, both with meningitis, and a girl aged 2 yr with acute epiglottitis. The minimal inhibitory concentrations of the haemophili ranged from 50 to 75 μg tetracycline hydrochloride/ml. The possibility of successful therapy with tetracycline is precluded by such high degrees of drug resistance. Cross-resistance was demonstrated to docycycline, minocycline, oxytetracycline and rolitetracycline.
Phase-Matching on Attosecond timescales

We demonstrate a new phase-matching mechanisms in the XUV based on the interaction of single atoms with a laser pulse, increasing the conversion by >30.
Magnetic Couplings in Spin Frustrated Fe7III Disklike Clusters

Using a methodology based on noncollinear coupled-perturbed density functional theory [J. Chem. Phys. 2013, 138, 174115] we calculate the magnetic exchange coupling parameters in a recently synthes...
Development of Route Accessibility Index to Support Wayfinding for People with Disabilities

Wayfinding is a common task routinely performed by people traveling between unfamiliar locations, but can be a challenge for people with disabilities. In order to be able to travel safely and comfortably, people with physical disabilities depend on the accessibility of the built environment. It is through these accessibility elements that people who use wheelchairs can find their ways in unfamiliar environments. When used by people with disabilities, wayfinding and navigation services must contain accessibility data and support functions to utilize this data. However, while there are standards, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines, upon which accessibility data can be based or derived, currently there is no automated metric for evaluating the level of accessibility for pathways. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a Route Accessibility Index as a metric for evaluating a pathway’s accessibility and discusses its value in a wayfinding case study.
Growth and characterization of strain-compensated InAsPGaInP and InGaAsGaInP multiple quantum wells

Abstract We have shown that strain compensation is effective in increasing the critical layer thickness or the critical number of periods in a multiple quantum well (MQW) structure and in improving thermal stability. Compared with a strain-uncompensated InAs 0.4 P 0.6 InP MQW (1.3% strain) on InP substrates, strain-compensated InAs 0.4 P 0.6 Ga y In 1 − y P MQW in a p-i-n structure exhibits superior structural and optical properties, especially electroabsorption characteristics that is suitable for modulator applications at 1.3 μm. Strain-compensated In 0.3 Ga 0.7 As Ga y In 1 − y P MQWs on GaAs substrates exhibit better photoluminescence properties and are shown to be more thermally stable.
Rapid and accurate left ventricular surface generation from three-dimensional echocardiography by a catalog based method

Background: Quantitative analysis from three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography requires accurate reconstruction of left ventricular (LV) surfaces. This currently requires time-consuming manual image tracing. We describe and validate an alternative rapid method of generating LV surfaces. Methods: A 3D-image set is acquired using transthoracic scanning. Images from five standard echo views are displayed and border points selected where anatomic landmarks are well defined. A LV surface is reconstructed as a convex weighted sum of LVs from a catalog of 80 LVs. The intersections of the surface with the five views are presented on these images. The routine may be rerun until the LV surface matches the images. One LV surface is generated in 3 min ± 27 s. In 41 studies (19 normal, 15 previous infarction, seven cardiomyopathy) the volumes of the catalog-fit endocardial and epicardial surfaces were compared with volumes from surfaces reconstructed from full manual tracing. Results: Over a wide range of LV volumes and ejection fraction (EF), the catalog-fit results correlated closely to those from manual tracing: end-diastolic volume (194 ± 99 vs. 204 ± 110 ml, y = 0.93x, R 2 = 0.99, SEE = 19 ml, p < 0.001), end-systolic volume (122 ± 95 vs. 131 ± 106 ml, y = 0.92x, R 2 = 0.99, SEE = 13 ml, p < 0.001), EF (42 ± 16 vs. 42 ± 15%, y = x, R 2 = 0.99, SEE = 4%, p < 0.001) and mass (220 ± 88 vs. 204 ± 86 g, y = 1.1x, R 2 = 0.99, SEE = 24 g, p < 0.001). The endocardial catalog surface was generated from an average of 20 points and three computational runs for both end-diastole and end-systole. Conclusions: The catalog method of LV reconstruction from 3D-echo provides accurate measurement of volume, EF and mass. The speed of the method is a major advantage.
HoxA3 function during blood development

D development, hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) are generated in the major arteries of the developing embryos. Between E8.5 and E10.5 in the caudal domain of the aorta, specialized endothelial cells, referred as hemogenic endothelium, undergo to structural changes to become blood progenitors and some of them HSC. How those specialized endothelial cells are committed and what regulates their transformation into blood progenitors is mostly unknown. Runx1 transcription factor is essential for blood development and necessary to generate HSC from the vasculature. We have discovered that HoxA3, a gene exclusively expressed in the vasculature of the embryo, controls the endothelial to hematopoietic transition. HoxA3 is expressed in the aorta prior the release of blood progenitors. By using the ES cells differentiation system, we show that HoxA3 upregulation causes blockage of the endothelial to hematopoietic transition, maintaining the cells at the hemogenic endothelium stage.The arrest of blood development is carried out by downregulation of key transcription factor including Gata1, Gfi1B, Ikaros, PU.1, and Runx1. With epistasis analysis we found that HoxA3 repression of Runx1 is sufficient to block the entire blood development process. In fact we found that when Runx1 is expressed in hemogenic endothelium, it promotes blood development by a dual function: it activates blood related transcription factors, and represses endothelial related genes. As a result the hemogenic endothelium can further develop into blood progenitor cells. Michelina Iacovino, J Blood Disord Transfus 2013, 4:5 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-9864.S1.002
Bildungstheorie und Bildungsforschung, Bildung und kulturelle Basiskompetenzen – ein Klärungsversuch, auch am Beispiel der PISA-Studien

Der Beitrag geht von den unterschiedlichen Argumentformen aus, die unter dem Namen „Bildungstheorie“ und „Bildungsphilosophie“ anzutreffen sind, problematisiert deren Verstandnis und klart damit die Relation von „Bildungstheorie“ und „Bildungsforschung“. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird ein theoretisches Konzept von Bildung expliziert und belegt, dass Bildungstheorie auf empirische Forschung angewiesen ist. Konzentriert auf „Grundbildung“ und den Begriff „Kompetenz“ wird schlieslich aufgewiesen, dass deren Thematisierung in PISA und in der weiteren empirischer Bildungsforschung sich mit der Theorie von „Bildung“ nicht nur vertragt, sondern die Hintergrundtheorie dieser Forschungen darstellt.
Optical processing and computing

Optical techniques have been investigated for information processing since 1950's. This paper provides a unified view of different approaches to optical information processing and computing. Such a view serves to bring out interrelations (similarities and differences) between seemingly different topics and will thereby identify a common technological infrastructure for this broad discipline. The emerging technology of "Smart Pixels" is also discussed and a framework for organizing different "Smart Pixel" approaches presented.
Combining Density Functional Theory and Green's Function Theory: Range-Separated, Nonlocal, Dynamic, and Orbital-Dependent Hybrid Functional.

We present a rigorous framework which combines single-particle Green’s function theory with density functional theory based on a separation of electron–electron interactions into short- and long-range components. Short-range contribution to the total energy and exchange–correlation potential is provided by a density functional approximation, while the long-range contribution is calculated using an explicit many-body Green’s function method. Such a hybrid results in a nonlocal, dynamic, and orbital-dependent exchange–correlation functional of a single-particle Green’s function. In particular, we present a range-separated hybrid functional called srSVWN5–lrGF2 which combines the local-density approximation and the second-order Green’s function theory. We illustrate that similarly to density functional approximations, the new functional is weakly basis-set dependent. Furthermore, it offers an improved description of the short-range dynamic correlation. The many-body contribution to the functional mitigates t...
Television Station Automation

Television station automation has evolved over the years from rather humble beginnings into the highly sophisticated systems that exist today. Such systems are capable of controlling large amounts of equipment for the assembly and playout of content for multiple program channels and affect nearly every aspect of the on-air broadcast process. They provide functionality and reliability not previously possible, while also improving overall business efficiency. This chapter summarizes some of the developments that have taken place and introduces the technologies that comprise such systems in a modern broadcast plant.
Floods and society

Society is defined as a group of people who share versatile civilizational infrastructures. Floods are defined as the extremely high river flows or water levels of lakes, reservoirs, aquifers and estuaries. Experience demonstrates that flood dangers can be alleviated but can’t be completely eliminated. Coping with floods refers to all measures which society can undertake to alleviate impacts of floods. Three types of floods occur: natural floods, natural floods modified by humans, and floods generated by humans. Catchment size is an important parameter for floods, since unit area flow in floods of the same risk decreases with an increase of catchment area, influencing forecast, warning, response, defense and coping with floods. Three major groups of professional flood work are: obtaining information on floods and on their impacts, and coping with floods. Five groups of methods for determining flood characteristics are: frequency analysis, physically-based methods, regional methods, probable maximum flood, and historic and flood-related paleo-data methods. Assessment of flood impacts distinguishes direct and indirect flood losses. Various methods are available to calculate flood damage, leading to estimates of the average annual flood damage. Interactions between floods and society are complex, requiring sociological studies of behavior of individuals, groups and institutions. Societies in the past have acted in the following ways: defense of lives and property, decrease of losses and increase of benefits from floods, and attenuation of flood peaks by various measures. Four types of measures in coping with floods are: do nothing except education, non-structural measures, structural measures, and combination of structural and nonstructural flood mitigation measures.
A Numerical Procedure for Predicting Creep and Delayed Failures in Laminated Composites

A numerical procedure is described for predicting the viscoelastic response of general laminates. A nonlinear compliance model is used to predict the creep response of the individual laminae. A biaxial delayed failure model predicts ply failure. The numerical procedure, based on lamination theory, increases by increments through time to predict creep compliance and delayed failures in laminates. Numerical stability problems and experimental verification are discussed. Although the program has been quite successful in predicting creep of general laminates, the assumptions associated with lamination theory have resulted in erroneous bounds on the predicted material response. Delayed failure predictions have been conservative. Several improvements are suggested to increase the accuracy of the procedure.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor activation in the ventral tegmental area attenuates cocaine seeking in rats.

Novel molecular targets are needed to develop new medications for the treatment of cocaine addiction. Here we investigated a role for glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptors in the reinstatement of cocaine-seeking behavior, an animal model of relapse. We showed that peripheral administration of the GLP-1 receptor agonist exendin-4 dose dependently reduced cocaine seeking in rats at doses that did not affect ad libitum food intake, meal patterns or body weight. We also demonstrated that systemic exendin-4 penetrated the brain where it putatively bound receptors on both neurons and astrocytes in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The effects of systemic exendin-4 on cocaine reinstatement were attenuated in rats pretreated with intra-VTA infusions of the GLP-1 receptor antagonist exendin-(9–39), indicating that the suppressive effects of systemic exendin-4 on cocaine seeking were due, in part, to activation of GLP-1 receptors in the VTA. Consistent with these effects, infusions of exendin-4 directly into the VTA reduced cocaine seeking. Finally, extinction following cocaine self-administration was associated with decreased preproglucagon mRNA expression in the caudal brainstem. Thus, our study demonstrated a novel role for GLP-1 receptors in the reinstatement of cocaine-seeking behavior and identified behaviorally relevant doses of a GLP-1 receptor agonist that selectively reduced cocaine seeking and did not produce adverse effects.
Rationale and Design of a Statewide Cohort to examine efficient resource utilization for patients with Intracerebral hemorrhage (EnRICH).

Intracerebral hemorrhage is a devastating disease with no specific treatment modalities. A significant proportion of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage are transferred to large stroke treatment centers, such as Comprehensive Stroke Centers, because of perceived need for higher level of care. However, evidence of improvement in patient-centered outcomes for these patients treated at larger stroke treatment centers as compared to community hospitals is lacking. “Efficient Resource Utilization for Patients with Intracerebral Hemorrhage (EnRICH)” is a prospective, multisite, state-wide, cohort study designed to assess the impact of level of care on long-term patient-centered outcomes for patients with primary / non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage. The study is funded by the Texas state legislature via the Lone Star Stroke Research Consortium. It is being implemented via major hub hospitals in large metropolitan cities across the state of Texas. Each hub has an extensive network of “spoke” hospitals, which are connected to the hub via traditional clinical and administrative arrangements, or by telemedicine technologies. This infrastructure provides a unique opportunity to track outcomes for intracerebral hemorrhage patients managed across a health system at various levels of care. Eligible patients are enrolled during hospitalization and are followed for functional, quality of life, cognitive, resource utilization, and dependency outcomes at 30 and 90 days post discharge. As a secondary aim, an economic analysis of the incremental cost-effectiveness of treating intracerebral hemorrhage patients at higher levels of care will be conducted. Findings from EnRICH will provide much needed evidence of the effectiveness and efficiency of regionalized care for intracerebral hemorrhage patients. Such evidence is required to inform policy and streamline clinical decision-making.
Pesticide Residues in Fish

The chemical nature of our environment has been altered for the past 20 years by the addition of several hundred thousand synthetic chemical compounds. Some of these were used as pesticides although their general lack of specificity suggests that the term biocide may be more appropriate (Carson, 1962) The environmental persistence, accumulation, and effects (singular, additive, or synergistic) of these chemicals in the biosphere are poorly understood. As a beginning toward understanding the biological significance of this chemical alteration, we must determine if, how, and in what amounts these contaminating compounds or their residues are being incorporated into ecosystems. Only after these questions are answered, can we ask legitimate questions regarding the effects of these chemicals on living systems—individuals, populations, and communities. All of these contaminants or residues reach the aquatic environment. The persistence and low water solubility of many pesticides contribute to their concentration in fish tissues. Residue analyses may in themselves provide us with indications of the action and effects of pesticides on fish and their ecosystems.
Laryngeal inflammatory response to smoke and vape in a murine model

Abstract Purpose To build a murine model for tobacco smoke and electronic cigarette vapor exposure to characterize the inflammatory and immune responses in the larynx. Materials and methods In this pilot study, twenty-four wild-type C57BL/6 mice were divided into four groups: smoke, vapor with nicotine, vapor without nicotine, and air only. Following daily exposure for 4 months, larynges were dissected and processed with cytokine detection arrays. Each laryngeal cytokine level between the four different groups was analyzed statistically by using statistical analysis software (SAS) to calculate the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results IL-4 was the only cytokine found to achieve statistically significant different levels in this study, with elevated levels of IL-4 in the tobacco smoke and vapor with nicotine groups compared to the levels found in the vapor without nicotine and air only groups (p = 0.0418). While statistically non-significant, prominent findings revealed up-regulation of TGF-β2 and TGF-β3 in the smoke group, but near-normal levels of TGF-β2 and TGF-β3 and suppression of IL-10 in the vapor groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion The potential utility of the murine model is established for studying the inflammatory and immune effects of tobacco smoke and vapor on the mammalian larynx. IL-4 levels in mice larynges were significantly elevated in the tobacco smoke and vapor with nicotine groups.
Femtosecond Photoemission and Reflectivity Measurements of High Temperature Electron Dynamics in Solid Density Plasmas

The energy distribution of electrons photoemitted from a hot, solid-density plasma created by photoexciting a Ag surface with two collinear, p-polarized, 90 fs pulses was measured via photoelectron time-of-flight spectroscopy. At zero time delay the average photoelectron energy corresponds to several 105 K and drops to half this value when the time delay exceeds 180 fs. Time-resolved reflectivity studies, under similar excitation conditions, indicate electron heating is pulsewidth limited, but recovery caused by electron cooling and surface expansion occurs over several picoseconds.
Coordination of reach-to-grasp in physical and haptic-free virtual environments

Virtual reality (VR) offers unprecedented opportunity as a scientific tool to study visuomotor interactions, training, and rehabilitation applications. However, it remains unclear if haptic-free hand-object interactions in a virtual environment (VE) may differ from those performed in the physical environment (PE). We therefore sought to establish if the coordination structure between the transport and grasp components remain similar whether a reach-to-grasp movement is performed in PE and VE. Reach-to-grasp kinematics were examined in 13 healthy right-handed young adults. Subjects were instructed to reach-to-grasp-to-lift three differently sized rectangular objects located at three different distances from the starting position. Object size and location were matched between the two environments. Contact with the virtual objects was based on a custom collision detection algorithm. Differences between the environments were evaluated by comparing movement kinematics of the transport and grasp components. Correlation coefficients, and the slope of the regression lines, between the reach and grasp components were similar for the two environments. Likewise, the kinematic profiles of the transport velocity and grasp aperture were strongly correlated across the two environments. A rmANOVA further identified some similarities and differences in the movement kinematics between the two environments - most prominently that the closure phase of reach-to-grasp movement was prolonged when movements were performed in VE. Reach-to-grasp movement patterns performed in a VE showed both similarities and specific differences compared to those performed in PE. Additionally, we demonstrate a novel approach for parsing the reach-to-grasp movement into three phases- initiation, shaping, closure- based on established kinematic variables, and demonstrate that the differences in performance between the environments are attributed to the closure phase. We discuss this in the context of how collision detection parameters may modify hand-object interactions in VE. Our study shows that haptic-free VE may be a useful platform to study reach-to-grasp movements, with potential implications for haptic-free VR in neurorehabilitation.
Simple Phenolic Acids in Solution Culture II: Log P, Log D and Molecular Structure

In this chapter the author explores the potential roles of log P (hydrophobicity), log D (pH adjusted log P) and molecular structures of phenolic acids in modifying the behavior of cucumber seedlings (Cucumis sativus) treated with phenolic acids and/or phenolic acid mixtures in solution culture.
Assessment of Health Care Utilization for Dizziness in Ambulatory Care Settings in the United States.

OBJECTIVE Describe patient and physician characteristics, and physician recommendations for ambulatory care visits for dizziness in the US. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional analysis of visits for dizziness from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (2013-2015). SETTING Ambulatory care clinics in the US. PATIENTS 20.6 million weighted adult visits [mean age 58.7 (1.0)] for dizziness, identified using ICD-9-CM codes (386.00-386.90, 780.40). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Patient, clinical, and physician characteristics and physician diagnostic and treatment recommendations. Prevalence rates for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), unspecified dizziness, and other vestibular disorders were estimated, and descriptive statistics were used to characterize patients, physicians, and physicians' recommendations. RESULTS The prevalence rate for dizziness visits was 8.8 per 1,000 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.5, 10.3). Most visits were for unspecified dizziness (75%), made by women (65%), whites (79%), and were insured by private insurance (50%). Visits for dizziness were to primary care physicians (51.9%), otolaryngologists (13.3%), and neurologists (9.6%). Imaging was ordered and medication prescription was provided in 5.5% and 20.1% of visits. Physical therapy (PT) was used for a higher percentage of BPPV visits (12.9%), than for other diagnoses (<1.0%). Physician treatment recommendations for vestibular diagnoses varied by physician specialty. CONCLUSIONS A large percentage of visits had an unspecified diagnosis. A low number of visits for vestibular disorders were referred to PT. There are opportunities to improve care by using specific diagnoses and increasing the utilization of effective interventions for vestibular disorders.
The Meaning of Sleep Quality: A Survey of Available Technologies

Sleep is an important part of the human daily routine. Restoring sleep is strongly related to a better physical, cognitive, and psychological well-being. By contrast, poor or disordered sleep leads to possible impairments of cognitive and psychological functioning and to a worsened general physical health. In this context, understanding changes in sleep quality becomes a research imperative that leads to the need for the definition of what restoring or quality sleep means. This understanding of what “sleep quality” means requires a cross-domain investigation. It arises the need for a comprehensive study that offers a complete taxonomy of sleep monitoring systems, with a focus on sleep quality, and that gives useful insights about which combination of metrics, signals, and sleep variables is the best in relation to different categories of users. The proposed study is focused on systematically categorizing the methods and approaches for sleep quality understanding, with an emphasis on technological approaches, including wearable, on-bed, and actigraphy devices. It offers a systematic review for researchers who are interested in sleep quality identification tasks, and highlights strengths and weaknesses of state-of-the-art metrics and solutions in order to suggest the best choice for new potential research challenges in the field. Another important outcome of the proposed work is the study of the impact on the identified signal metrics and solutions of the different target user populations with their specific user requirements.
Numbed by Numbers

People don't ignore mass killings because they lack compassion. Psychological research suggests it's grim statistics themselves that paralyze us into inaction.
Predictability and Variability of a Dynamic Environment Impact Affordance Judgments

A crucial component of locomotion and mobility is the successful navigation of apertures (e.g., doorways, lanes, corridors). While much research has studied perceptions of action capabilities in a ...
Human Rights Guidance for Environmental Justice Attorneys

People of color in the United States face worsening environmental conditions and disproportionate environmental harms. Climate change is causing hurricanes to ravage our coasts with increasing intensity and frequency, tornados to sweep across our plains even in the “off” season, and severe flooding that threatens to wipe out entire towns. Moreover, people of color must disproportionately deal with heat and air pollution, toxic waste dumps, contaminants in drinking water, failing aged sanitation systems, negative health effects, and the lack of access to a true remedy, outside of their own pockets, for these injustices. While there is a robust environmental movement in the United States, widespread environmental racism persists. Focusing on recent developments in environmental human rights law, this article provides encouragement, guidance, and practical tips to environmental justice attorneys looking to add additional advocacy tools to their tool box to expand environmental human rights protections for people of color in the United States.
Brain Network Segregation and Glucose Energy Utilization: Relevance for Age-Related Differences in Cognitive Function

The human brain is organized into segregated networks with strong within-network connections and relatively weaker between-network connections. This "small-world" organization may be essential for maintaining an energetically efficient system, crucial to the brain which consumes 20% of the body's energy. Brain network segregation and glucose energy utilization both change throughout the lifespan. However, it remains unclear whether these processes interact to contribute to differences in cognitive performance with age. To address this, we examined fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging from 88 participants aged 18-73 years old. Consistent with prior work, brain network segregation showed a negative association with age across both sensorimotor and association networks. However, relative glucose metabolism demonstrated an interaction with age, showing a negative slope in association networks but a positive slope in sensorimotor networks. Overall, brain networks with lower segregation showed significantly steeper age-related differences in glucose metabolism, compared with highly segregated networks. Sensorimotor network segregation mediated the association between age and poorer spatial cognition performance, and sensorimotor network metabolism mediated the association between age and slower response time. These data provide evidence that sensorimotor segregation and glucose metabolism underlie some age-related changes in cognition. Interventions that stimulate somatosensory networks could be important for treatment of age-related cognitive decline.
A scalable estimate of the out‐of‐sample prediction error via approximate leave‐one‐out cross‐validation

The paper considers the problem of out‐of‐sample risk estimation under the high dimensional settings where standard techniques such as K‐fold cross‐validation suffer from large biases. Motivated by the low bias of the leave‐one‐out cross‐validation method, we propose a computationally efficient closed form approximate leave‐one‐out formula ALO for a large class of regularized estimators. Given the regularized estimate, calculating ALO requires a minor computational overhead. With minor assumptions about the data‐generating process, we obtain a finite sample upper bound for the difference between leave‐one‐out cross‐validation and approximate leave‐one‐out cross‐validation, |LO−ALO|. Our theoretical analysis illustrates that |LO−ALO|→0 with overwhelming probability, when n,p→∞, where the dimension p of the feature vectors may be comparable with or even greater than the number of observations, n. Despite the high dimensionality of the problem, our theoretical results do not require any sparsity assumption on the vector of regression coefficients. Our extensive numerical experiments show that |LO−ALO| decreases as n and p increase, revealing the excellent finite sample performance of approximate leave‐one‐out cross‐validation. We further illustrate the usefulness of our proposed out‐of‐sample risk estimation method by an example of real recordings from spatially sensitive neurons (grid cells) in the medial entorhinal cortex of a rat.
Open questions in transplutonium coordination chemistry

Over the past decade, momentous progress has been made in the characterization of late actinide compounds. Here the authors highlight how advances in spectroscopic and computational tools have developed our understanding of fundamental transplutonium bonding interactions, and discuss whether covalency and heterogeneity changes in 5f-orbital bonding could be harnessed in environmentally and industrially relevant systems. Over the past decade, momentous progress has been made in the characterization of late actinide compounds. Here the authors highlight how advances in spectroscopic and computational tools have developed our understanding of fundamental transplutonium bonding interactions, and discuss whether covalency and heterogeneity changes in 5f-orbital bonding could be harnessed in environmentally and industrially relevant systems.
Research Methods for Health Services Planning

Much of the effort involved in planning can be attributed to the research activities that support the planning function. The type and amount of research undertaken are dictated by a number of factors, including, among other things, the intended use of the findings. Even the most basic type of planning research is likely to require certain skills, substantive knowledge, and familiarity with multiple methodologies and perspectives. A major decision, thus, involves the assignment of responsibility for the research function. Planning research involves a number of distinct components that generally follow a certain sequence. With each component the intent is to collect data that can be converted into information as the basis for identifying solutions. The core activities involved in data analysis include describing, identifying, comparing, evaluating, monitoring, interpreting, and recommending. The research approach can be exploratory, descriptive, or causal. A distinction is made between primary research and secondary research, although the steps in the research process are similar regardless of the type of research being conducted.
Bahl Šahastan in the land of the K‘ušans: Medieval Armenian memories of Balkh as an Arsacid capital

This paper explores the medieval Armenian understanding of the city of Balkh as a capital of the Arsacid Empire. Medieval Armenian sources employ four strategies of remembrance: scriptural geography, genealogy, folk etymology, and origin stories. These strategies invest the city of Balkh as the source of power of both Armenian royalty and nobility, through their connections to the Great Arsacids. There are two main themes in the descriptions of Balkh. First, the Arsacids of Balkh consistently decimated Sasanian armies in ways that the Armenian Arsacids could not emulate. Second, Balkh emerges as a refuge for (usually Parthian) rebels against the Chinese and Persian Empires. This paper explores the significance of Balkh as a site of memory by placing Armenian constructions of the Great Arsacid past (with some potential echoes of Great Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian history) into dialogue with the history of the city as it appears in Arabic.
Six-Degree-of-Freedom Analysis of CubeSat Flight Performance in Very Low Earth Orbits

Aerodynamic forces significantly affect spacecraft operating in very low Earth orbits, especially CubeSats with limited control authority. Six-degree-of-freedom analysis is required to assess the i...
Antonio Altarriba’s El ala rota: remembering a woman hidden in ‘the back room of history’

This paper examines Antonio Altarriba’s presentation of his deceased mother’s life-story in the graphic novel El ala rota (2016) claiming that the author’s personal trauma of mourning reveals the c...
Treatment of Early-Stage Pulmonary Carcinoid Tumors With Hypofractionated Radiotherapy.

Purpose/objective(s) Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is standard for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer in patients who are inoperable or refuse surgery. Data are limited regarding definitive hypofractionated radiotherapy (HFRT) regimens for pulmonary carcinoid tumors. The only two published experiences consist of four and ten patients, respectively. We hypothesize that HFRT is safe and effective for definitive treatment of pulmonary carcinoid tumors. Materials/methods Records from a single healthcare system were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were eligible for analysis if they had undergone histologic confirmation of an early-stage (cT1-2, N0) typical or atypical pulmonary carcinoid tumor and had been treated with HFRT (> 2.2 Gy/fraction) for gross disease. Clinical, radiographic, and dosimetric characteristics were recorded. Overall survival (OS) was calculated with the Kaplan-Meier method. Results From 2008-2020, 10 patients (80% female) were treated with HFRT with a median follow-up of 29 months (5.1 - 145.1). Nine patients (90%) had typical histology; one patient with atypical histology remains alive almost six years post-HFRT. Median max tumor dimension was 1.5 cm (0.9 - 3.8). Five patients (50%) had central tumors per RTOG 0813. Five patients (50%) were medically inoperable, while the remaining five refused surgery. Nine patients (90%) underwent SBRT consisting of 4-5 fractions to 47.5-50 Gy (9.5-12 Gy/fraction); one patient underwent 60 Gy in 20 fractions and remains alive > 12 years post-HFRT. Thus, median BED10Gy was 98.2 Gy (78 - 105.6). On CT, three patients (30%) had stable disease, four (40%) had partial response, and the remaining three (30%) had post-treatment changes obscuring treatment response assessment. Of the four patients (40%) with pre- and post-HFRT metabolic imaging available (FDG-PET, 111In-pentetreotide scintigraphy, or 68Ga-DOTATATE PET), three had a reduction in metabolic activity and one had an increase in activity attributed to inflammation. Availability of pre- and post-HFRT laboratory markers (serum chromogranin A or urine 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid) was too infrequent to allow for meaningful analysis. There were no local, regional, or distant disease progressions or recurrences. Three patients (30%) have died, none from their carcinoid tumors. Five-year OS was 50% (95% CI 22.5-100). Two patients (20%) developed grade 1 pneumonitis. There were no definite grade 3+ toxicities; one patient treated with five-fraction SBRT developed atrial fibrillation two years post-HFRT with a mean and max heart dose of 6.5 Gy and 37.44 Gy, respectively. Conclusion Definitive HFRT appears to be a safe and effective treatment for early-stage pulmonary carcinoid tumors in this limited cohort. Prospective data with larger sample sizes are needed to further validate this approach, along with standardization of staging studies and post-treatment assessment.