cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
“I’m going to prove you wrong”: Responses to perceived discrimination among African American youth

Purpose – This study aims to explore perceptions of discrimination among ten African American youths as part of a larger qualitative investigation. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative methodology utilized the “Prove them Wrong Syndrome” as a theoretical framework. Individual interviews and biographical questionnaires were the primary sources of data collection. Findings – Four major themes emerged from data analysis: perceived discrimination from others, perceived discrimination from members of one’s own racial group, responses to perceived discrimination and buffers against perceived discrimination. Practical implications – Implications for educators including teachers, school psychologists and school counselors are discussed. Originality/value – This paper attempted to fill the void in the literature, as it explored the perceptions of discrimination among African American youth, their responses to perceived discrimination and the identification of buffers to compensate for negative experiences...
Are Entrepreneurs a Different Breed

Entrepreneurs are often thought to be risk-taking and patient individuals who, unlike non-entrepreneurs, are willing to forgo their existing resources for a chance of a future larger reward. Entrepreneurs are also thought to more motivated, reward driven, and overconfident than others. How reliable are these assumptions? To establish a correlation between individual characteristics and entrepreneurship, we developed an incentivized online experiment that consisted of three risk decision tasks, a time decision task, and a set of validated psychological questionnaires. We elicited individual risk attitudes and time preferences and found that our sampled entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs did not exhibit statistically significant differences in risk and time preferences. We also found that psychological personality traits correlated with both risk attitudes and patience: individuals who scored higher on drive were more risk seeking, and individuals who had higher IQ and those who scored higher on pessimism were more patient; in addition, intrinsic motivation was positively related to the likelihood of being an entrepreneur. Our results suggest that individual personality profiles can play an important role in explaining economic preferences and entrepreneurship.
An algorithm for expanding the TNM staging system.

Aim: We describe a new method to expand the tumor, lymph node, metastasis (TNM) staging system using a clustering algorithm. Cases of breast cancer were used for demonstration. Materials & methods: An unsupervised ensemble-learning algorithm was used to create dendrograms. Cutting the dendrograms produced prognostic systems. Results: Prognostic systems contained groups of patients with similar outcomes. The prognostic systems based on tumor size and lymph node status recapitulated the general structure of the TNM for breast cancer. The prognostic systems based on tumor size, lymph node status, histologic grade and estrogen receptor status revealed a more detailed stratification of patients when grade and estrogen receptor status were added. Conclusion: Prognostic systems from cutting the dendrogram have the potential to improve and expand the TNM.
Gentamicin Concentration in the Obstructed Urinary Tract

AbstractUrinary gentamicin concentration was determined in 14 patients with ureteral obstruction. Serum levels were in the therapeutic range. The average concentration of gentamicin in urine from the severely obstructed system was 6.7mcg. per ml. and the concentration in the partially obstructed or the nonobstructed systems approximated 90mcg. per ml. The defect in gentamicin excretion appeared to be related to the severity of the obstruction and was not the result solely of the concentrating defect or reduction in glomerular filtration rate.
Process evaluation of a preschool physical activity intervention using web-based delivery.

Abstract Background and purpose Preschool/childcare settings offer a practical target for physical activity interventions. Online learning programs have the potential for greater public health reach and impact. The SHAPES-Dissemination (SHAPES-D) project adapted the original SHAPES in-person intervention for online delivery to teachers. The purpose of this paper is to describe the implementation monitoring and process evaluation for the SHAPES-D project. Methods Nine preschools with 26 classrooms participated. A total of 41 teachers were trained via online learning to implement the SHAPES-D program in their classrooms. The dose received, completeness, and fidelity of implementation were assessed through website metrics, teacher surveys and interviews, and classroom observations. Results Dose received was adequate (73%). Observed completeness and physical activity enjoyment fidelity were high (100%), although moderate-to-vigorous physical activity fidelity and social environment fidelity were low (25% each). Overall implementation was high (91%). Discussion Results indicate that the online method of delivery is viable for dissemination. The online delivery system provides an easy method of monitoring dose received. This may be the first structural intervention to monitor dose received through web metrics. Conclusion The adaptation of an in-person intervention to an online delivery system increases the potential for dissemination of a successful program to increase physical activity in preschool settings.
Characterizing Data Provenance (Abstract)

When you see some data on the Web, do you ever wonder how it got there? The chances are that it is in no sense original, but was copied from some other source, which in turn was copied from some other source, and so on. If you are a scientist using a scientific database or some other kind of scholar using a digital library, you will probably be keenly interested in this information because it is crucial to your assessment of the accuracy and timeliness of the data. Data provenance is the understanding of the history of a piece of data: its origins and the process by which it travelled from database to database. Existing database tools give us little or no help in recording provenance; indeed database schemas make it difficult to record this kind of information. I shall report on some recent work that characterizes data provenance. It is based on a model for data, both structured and semistructured, which accounts for both the structure and location of data. Using this model, we can draw a distinction between "why provenance" and "where provenance". The former expresses all the data in the source databases that contributed to the existence of the data of interest; the latter specifies the locations from which it was drawn. In particular, we can take a query in a generic semistructured query language and use it to provide a formal derivation of both forms of provenance and to derive a number of useful properties of these forms. The work generalizes existing work on relational databases that is limited to why provenance. This is a report of joint work with Sanjeev Khanna and WangChiew Tan.
Engineering artificial communities for enhanced FTOH degradation

Fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOHs, [F(CF2)nCH2CH2OH]) are concerned environmental pollutants with perfluorinated carbon chains. FTOHs can be biotransformed; however, the extent, the pace of the defluorination, and types of metabolites produced vary depending on degradative microorganisms under different environment. In this study, we examined ways to increase the effectiveness of the FTOH defluorination process to less persistent major metabolites. Defined mixed cultures and bioaugmented microbial cultures were engineered to study their ability to biotransform 6:2 fluorotelomer alcohol [F(CF2)6CH2CH2OH]. The effects of carbon sources and the concentration of carbon sources were also examined. All experiments resulted in 5:2 sFTOH [F(CF2)5CH(OH)CH3] as the primary metabolite at the end point. The carbon sources resulted in different amounts of pathway utilization as well as overall changes in effectiveness. The best overall effectiveness was observed when cosubstrate carbon was kept at low concentrations. Pathway II was best utilized by the P. butanovora+P. fluorescens mixed culture, with lactate having a slight negative impact on pathway II utilization. Additional carbon to augmented activated sludge resulted in decreased 6:2 FTOH biotransformation by 60%. Enrichment cultures showed that shorter chain FTOHs are easier to degrade, with the n-octane enriched culture transforming 20% of 8:2 FTOH, 60% of 6:2 FTOH and 70% of 4:2 FTOH. The microbial communities of the enrichment cultures and the alkane hydroxylase gene were also examined to help understand FTOH biotransformation mechanisms.
Curating an Infinite Basement: Understanding How People Manage Collections of Sentimental Artifacts

Valuable memories are increasingly captured and stored as digital artifacts. However, as people amass these digital mementos, their collections are rarely curated, due to the volume of content, the effort involved, and a general lack of motivation, which can result in important artifacts being obscured and forgotten in an accumulation of content over time. Our study aims to better understand the challenges and goals of people dealing with large collections, and to provide insight into how people select and pay attention to large collections of digital mementos. We conducted an interpretivist analysis of forum data from UnclutterNow.com, where participants discussed issues they face in curating the sentimental artifacts in their homes. We uncovered a number of social, temporal, and spatial affordances and concerns that influence the ways that people curate their memories, and discuss how curation is closely tied to how people use storage and display in their home. In our study, we drew out and unpack "curation regimes" as patterns that people enact to focus the attention they are able to pay to the artifacts in their collections. We close with a discussion of the design opportunities for memory artifacts, which support and facilitate the curatorial processes of users managing digital mementos in everyday life.
Increased Sclerostin Secretion in Multiple Myeloma Results in Stimulation of Osteoclastogenesis and Inhibition of Osteoblastogenesis

Abstract Abstract 1819 Objectives: Osteoblasts (OB) and osteoclasts (OC), are an integral part of the bone microenvironment, and play a crucial role in myeloma growth and survival. Their imbalance results in osteolytic disease and elucidating the mechanisms underlying osteolytic lesions is important not only for the improvement of osteolytic bone disease but also for the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM). The osteocyte-secreted protein sclerostin, encoded by the SOST gene, is a potent inhibitor of osteoblastogenesis. It is regarded as a good target for osteoporosis treatment, but its role in MM remains to be determined. Our objective was to study the role of sclerostin in MM bone disease and determine if sclerostin directed strategies were a reasonable approach in MM. Methods and Results: Sclerostin concentration in patients’ blood plasma and MM cell line supernatant stimulated by IL-6, FGF-2, TNFalpha, BMP7 and TGFbeta was detected by ELISA (ALPCO immunoassays). Increased level of sclerostin was detected in MM patient plasma (n=20, median: 4.73 ng/mL, range: 1.5–19.5 ng/mL). Plasma concentrations were significantly higher (p Conclusions: These data demonstrate that increased sclerostin levels in MM patients inhibit osteoblastogenesis and stimulate osteoclastogenesis. Taken together, sclerostin may be good target to inhibit myeloma bone disease and help restore normal bone homeostasis. Disclosures: Raje: Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Novartis: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Millenium: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Astra Zeneca: Research Funding; Amgen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Acetylon: Research Funding.
Numerical analysis of computational-cannula microscopy.

Microscopy in hard-to-reach parts of a sample, such as the deep brain, can be enabled by computational-cannula microscopy (CCM), where light is transported from one end to the other end of a solid-glass cannula. Computational methods are applied to unscramble the recorded signal to obtain the object details. Since the cannula itself can be microscopic (∼250 μm in diameter), CCM can enable minimally invasive imaging. Here, we describe a full-scale simulation model for CCM and apply it to not only explore the limits of the technology, but also use it to improve the imaging performance. Specifically, we show that the complexity of the inverse problem to recover CCM images increases with the aspect ratio (length/diameter) of the cannula geometry. We also perform noise tolerance simulations, which indicate that the smaller aspect ratio cannula tolerate noise better than the longer ones. Analysis on noise tolerance using the proposed simulation model showed 2–3× improvement in noise tolerance when the aspect ratio is reduced in half. We can utilize these simulation tools to further improve the performance of CCM and extend the reach of computational microscopy.
Single Low-Dose Lipopolysaccharide Preconditioning: Neuroprotective Against Axonal Injury and Modulates Glial Cells

AIM Over 7 million traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are reported each year in the United States. However, treatments and neuroprotection following TBI are limited because secondary injury cascades are poorly understood. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration before controlled cortical impact can contribute to neuroprotection. However, the underlying mechanisms and whether LPS preconditioning confers neuroprotection against closed-head injuries remains unclear. METHODS The authors hypothesized that preconditioning with a low dose of LPS (0.2 mg/kg) would regulate glial reactivity and protect against diffuse axonal injury induced by weight drop. LPS was administered 7 days prior to TBI. LPS administration reduced locomotion, which recovered completely by time of injury. RESULTS LPS preconditioning significantly reduced the post-injury gliosis response near the corpus callosum, possibly by downregulating the oncostatin M receptor. These novel findings demonstrate a protective role of LPS preconditioning against diffuse axonal injury. LPS preconditioning successfully prevented neurodegeneration near the corpus callosum, as measured by fluorojade B. CONCLUSION Further work is required to elucidate whether LPS preconditioning confers long-term protection against behavioral deficits and to elucidate the biochemical mechanisms responsible for LPS-induced neuroprotective effects.
Understanding the Value of Individualized Information: The Impact of Poor Calibration or Discrimination in Outcome Prediction Models:

Background. Risk prediction models allow for the incorporation of individualized risk and clinical effectiveness information to identify patients for whom therapy is most appropriate and cost-effec...
Discovery of 1‐Hydroxypyridine‐2(1H)‐thione‐6‐carboxylic Acid as a First‐in‐Class Low‐Cytotoxic Nanomolar Metallo β‐Lactamase Inhibitor

VIM-2 is one of the most common carbapenem-hydrolyzing metallo β-lactamases (MBL) found in many drug-resistant Gram-negative bacterial strains. Currently, there is a lack of effective lead compounds with optimal therapeutic potential within our drug development pipeline. Here we report the discovery of 1-hydroxypyridine-2(1H)-thione-6-carboxylic acid (3) as a first-in-class metallo β-lactamase inhibitor (MBLi) with a potent inhibition Ki of 13 nm against VIM-2 that corresponds to a remarkable 0.99 ligand efficiency. We further established that 3 can restore the antibiotic activity of amoxicillin against VIM-2-producing E. coli in a whole cell assay with an EC50 of 110 nm. The potential mode of binding of 3 from molecular modeling provided structural insights that could corroborate the observed changes in the biochemical activities. Finally, 3 possesses a low cytotoxicity (CC50 ) of 97 μm with a corresponding therapeutic index of 880, making it a promising lead candidate for further optimization in combination antibacterial therapy.
Using Students as Standardized Patients: Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Standardized Patient Training Program

Abstract Background Standardized patients (SPs) are being used with increasing frequency in simulation-based learning experiences (SBLE) to enhance the complexity of scenarios, permit interaction with real patients, and provide students with an authentic real-world experience. However, the pool of available trained SPs may be insufficient or inadequately trained to meet the growing demand. Methods This project involved the development and implementation of an SP training at a school of nursing simulation center. Participants included 12 healthcare professions students and one community partner. Evaluation measures examined SP availability, utilization, and SP learner perceptions. Results The total cost for training the new SPs was $1500. In the first five months of the program (September 2016 to January 2017), the newly trained SPs provided 730 hours of SP service. Service encompassed twenty different low-stakes SBLEs for 862 student encounters during this time period. Survey results indicated that participants were satisfied with the educational strategies and felt confident performing as an SP. Conclusion Results, while limited due to the convenience sample and small sample size, provide support for the utilization of innovative approaches for training novice SPs.
Reflections on Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children's Drawings

“I wish I was far more attentive to the signals given by the wider culture, the mass media, peers and siblings, and even the materials and messages transmitted by parents…” Recently, as I watched m...
HIV protease inhibitor-induced cardiac dysfunction and fibrosis is mediated by platelet-derived TGF-β1 and can be suppressed by exogenous carbon monoxide

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. This risk is magnified by certain antiretrovirals, particularly the protease inhibitor ritonavir, but the pathophysiology of this connection is unknown. We postulated that a major mechanism for antiretroviral-associated cardiac disease is pathologic fibrosis linked to platelet activation with release and activation of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, and that these changes could be modeled in a murine system. We also sought to intervene utilizing inhaled carbon monoxide (CO) as proof-of-concept for therapeutics capable of regulating TGF-β1 signaling and collagen autophagy. We demonstrate decreased cardiac function indices, including cardiac output, ejection fraction and stroke volume, and prominent cardiac fibrosis, in mice exposed to pharmacological doses of ritonavir. Cardiac output and fibrosis correlated with plasma TGF-β1 levels. Mice with targeted deletion of TGF-β1 in megakaryocytes/platelets (PF4CreTgfb1flox/flox) were partially protected from ritonavir-induced cardiac dysfunction and fibrosis. Inhalation of low dose CO (250ppm), used as a surrogate for upregulation of inducible heme oxygenase/endogenous CO pathways, suppressed ritonavir-induced cardiac fibrosis. This occurred in association with modulation of canonical (Smad2) and non-canonical (p38) TGF-β1 signaling pathways. In addition, CO treatment suppressed the M1 pro-inflammatory subset of macrophages and increased M2c regulatory cells in the hearts of RTV-exposed animals. The effects of CO were dependent upon autophagy as CO did not mitigate ritonavir-induced fibrosis in autophagy-deficient LC3-/- mice. These results suggest that platelet-derived TGF-β1 contributes to ritonavir-associated cardiac dysfunction and fibrosis, extending the relevance of our findings to other antiretrovirals that also activate platelets. The anti-fibrotic effects of CO are linked to alterations in TGF-β1 signaling and autophagy, suggesting a proof-of-concept for novel interventions in HIV/antiretroviral therapy-mediated cardiovascular disease.
Conclusion and Future Directions

In the preceding chapters, we have presented the need for a science of public engagement, the reasons we focused on feature-process-outcome connections relating to deliberative engagement, and the basis for our targeting nanotechnology/synthetic biology as the policy area concentration of our research. In this chapter, we briefly summarize what we have learned and offer some suggestions for future studies that will further advance the science of engagement and deliberation. We also encourage the interested reader to access our data and other supplemental files in order to conduct additional analyses of the data we collected.
Understanding Quasi-Periodic Fieldlines and Their Topology in Toroidal Magnetic Fields

In the study of a magnetic confinement fusion device such as a tokamak, physicists need to understand the topology of the flux (or magnetic) surfaces that form within the magnetic field. Among the two distinct topological structures, we are particularly interested in the magnetic island chains which correspond to the break up of the ideal rational surfaces. Different from our previous method [13], in this work we resort to the periodicity analysis of two distinct functions to identify and characterize flux surfaces and island chains. These two functions are derived from the computation of the fieldlines and puncture points on a Poincare section, respectively. They are the distance measure plot and the ridgeline plot. We show that the periods of these two functions are directly related to the topology of the surface via a resonance detection (i.e., period estimation and the common denominators computation). In addition, we show that for an island chain the two functions possess resonance components which do not occur for a flux surface. Furthermore, by combining the periodicity analysis of these two functions, we are able to devise a heuristic yet robust and reliable approach for classifying and characterizing different magnetic surfaces in the toroidal magnetic fields.
Transfer learning for server behavior classification in small IT environments

Technology refresh is an important component in data-center management that needs to be properly justified because of its high cost and associated migration risk. The goal of this paper is to support the technology refresh decision process for small target IT environments with a statistical learning method that automatically identifies and ranks their servers with problematic behavior based on incident ticket and server attribute data. Since the IT environments are heterogeneous, in practice, a separate model is trained for each of them. To address the small sample sizes available for many IT environments, we develop a random forest transfer learning solution that leverages information from large IT environments in a selective manner. It trains a model for each target IT environment that uses properly derived resampling weights such that the distribution of the pool of all examples from the large accounts is matched to the target distribution of the small target IT environment. In this way, a tailored predictive model that uses the information available from many large IT environments provides good quality predictions for small IT environments. We demonstrate the superior prediction quality of our model on a large set of real data.
Central injection of oxytocin reduces food intake and affects hypothalamic and adipose tissue gene expression in chickens.

Abstract Oxytocin (OT) is a well-characterized neurotransmitter that participates in a wide range of physiological processes including the inhibition of food intake. The avian ortholog, mesotocin (MT), differs from OT by a single amino acid. Little is known regarding the function of OT in regulating energy balance in birds; thus, this study was designed to determine the effects of central OT injection on food intake and adipose tissue physiology in chicks. At 4-d post-hatch, broiler chicks were fasted for 3 h and injected intracerebroventricularly with 0 (vehicle), 0.63, 2.5, 5.0, or 10 nmol OT. Oxytocin decreased food and water intake during the entire 180-min observation period. The reduction in water intake was likely not prandial because chicks that were food restricted after OT injection also drank less. There was increased c-Fos immunoreactivity in several appetite-associated hypothalamic nuclei in OT-injected chicks at 1 h, including the arcuate (ARC), dorsomedial nucleus (DMN), lateral hypothalamus (LH), paraventricular nucleus (PVN), and ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH). OT treatment was associated with reduced hypothalamic corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) mRNA and increased cloacal temperature at 1 h post-injection. We then investigated appetite- and adipose tissue–associated effects of OT in chicks from lines that have undergone long-term selection for either low (LWS) or high (HWS) juvenile body weight. Central injection of OT decreased food intake in both lines with the magnitude of response greater in the HWS than LWS chicks. Adipose tissue abundance of fatty acid–binding protein 4, monoglyceride lipase (MGLL), MT, and perilipin-1 mRNA was greater in LWS than HWS chicks. Lipoprotein lipase, MGLL, and MT mRNAs increased in response to OT injection in LWS but not HWS chicks. In conclusion, central injection of OT induced anorexia, reduced water intake, increased body temperature, and was associated with activation of the ARC, DMN, LH, PVN, and VMH in the hypothalamus. The effects on appetite and body temperature may involve CRF signaling in the hypothalamus and lipolysis in the adipose tissue, respectively. There were differences in the appetite, and adipose tissue response to OT in body weight–selected lines of chicks supports that MT plays a role in energy balance regulation in chickens.
Trends in utilization and perioperative outcomes in live donor nephrectomies: a multi-surgical discipline analysis

We aim to analyze the trends in donor nephrectomy (DN) across three surgical disciplines—urology, general surgery, and transplant surgery, specifically to analyze the surgical techniques and perioperative outcomes. We reviewed all live DN reported in the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System database of New York State (NYS) from 1995 to 2015. Surgeons were grouped in their respective disciplines using their state license number and the American Medical Association masterfile. We analyzed the volume of DN performed by each group along with how the surgical approach is, such as open, laparoscopic or robotic. Perioperative outcomes assessed were length of stay (LOS), 30-day and 90-day readmission rates, and complication rates A total of 6803 DN were performed with urologists, transplant surgeons and general surgeons accounting for 42%, 29%, and 29% of them, respectively. Urologists performed a higher case volume with a mean surgical volume of 17.4 ± 6.5 per year (p < 0.0001). During the study period, case volumes for urologists and transplant surgeons trended upward, while those for general surgeons trended downward. Urologists also utilized a minimally invasive surgery (MIS) such as laparoscopy or robotic approach in a higher percentage of their cases (p < 0.0001). Regarding perioperative outcomes, general surgeons had a higher mean LOS (p < 0.0001), while transplant surgeons had higher rates of 30-day and 90-day readmission rates (p < 0.0001). There were no statistically significant differences in complication rates following DN among the groups. Urologists remain vital members of the renal transplantation team as they perform a majority of DN in NYS and are increasingly achieving them via an MIS approach when compared to their general and transplant surgery counterparts. Perioperative outcomes are similar amongst all disciplines; however, general surgeons have higher mean LOS, while transplant surgeons have higher readmission rates.
Second primary lung malignancy following head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS Analyze the characteristics of second primary lung malignancies (SPLMs) following an index head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). STUDY DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. METHODS The Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database was queried for all cases of HNSCC between 1973 and 2014 (N = 101,856). This population was compared to a standard population to assess relative risk for lung cancer, calculated as the standardized incidence ratio (SIR). Patients who developed SPLMs were extracted (N = 8,116) and compared to all other cases of lung cancer (N = 1,160,853) to assess histopathological differences. SPLM subpopulations divided by head and neck primary site were compared for lung cancer histology and time interval between cancer diagnoses. RESULTS Overall, 8.0% of HNSCC patients developed SPLMs (SIR = 4.22, P < .001), diagnosed an average of 6.7 years later. Patients with HNSCC of the supraglottis and hypopharynx were at the highest risk relative to a standard population, with SIRs of 8.10 and 6.34, respectively. When comparing SPLMs to all other lung cancers, there was no difference in the distribution of lung lobe affected, but SPLMs were significantly more likely to be of squamous cell carcinoma histology (42.0% vs. 21.0%, P < .001). Among head and neck subsites, lung cancers following larynx tumors had a significantly higher proportion of small cell histology, and those following oropharyngeal or hypopharyngeal tumors had significantly higher proportions of squamous cell histology. CONCLUSIONS Patients who undergo curative treatment of HNSCC are at high risk for developing SPLMs. Subsite-specific differences may help elucidate the degree of risk attributable to smoking, genetic susceptibility, human papillomavirus infection, or metastasis masquerading as an SPLM. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 4 Laryngoscope, 129:903-909, 2019.
An Efficient Approach for RNA Extraction from Boar Sperm and Seminal Plasma

Despite transcriptional silencing in mature sperm and cytoplasmic expulsion of RNA during the final sperm maturation process, thousands of RNAs have been successfully identified in ejaculated sperm. Although most of RNAs' function is still unknown, it is suggested that sperm RNAs have a vital biological role in fertilization and post-fertilization events. Nevertheless, the lack of accurate RNA isolation techniques and the resultant good quality sperm RNA has hampered the exploration of sperm RNAs function. Additionally, small non-coding RNAs are found in extracellular fluids including seminal plasma. These small RNAs may participate in cell to cell communication or intracellular and extracellular message transmission. Developing precise protocols to extract RNA from sperm and seminal plasma is critical to elucidate sperm physiology and paternal contributions to fertilization and post-fertilization events. A detailed procedure consisting of semen collection, separation of sperm and seminal plasma, extracting RNA from sperm and seminal plasma, and determining the quantity and quality of RNA for boar semen is presented here. This efficient protocol can be extrapolated to isolate RNAs from sperm and seminal plasma across mammalian species.
Modelling and prediction of financial trading networks: an application to the New York Mercantile Exchange natural gas futures market

Over recent years there has been a growing interest in using financial trading networks to understand the microstructure of financial markets. Most of the methodologies that have been developed so far for this have been based on the study of descriptive summaries of the networks such as the average node degree and the clustering coefficient. In contrast, this paper develops novel statistical methods for modelling sequences of financial trading networks. Our approach uses a stochastic block model to describe the structure of the network during each period, and then links multiple time periods by using a hidden Markov model. This structure enables us to identify events that affect the structure of the market and make accurate short‐term prediction of future transactions. The methodology is illustrated by using data from the New York Mercantile Exchange natural gas futures market from January 2005 to December 2008.
Small groups of investors and their private armies: the ascendance of private equity firms and their control over private military companies as further evidence of epochal change theory

ABSTRACTCompelling trends in international affairs, such as the rise of private military companies (PMCs) and the increasing fragility of many nation-states, have caused some observers to question ...
Introduction to the OpenGL shading language: conference workshop

In this workshop, participants will receive an introduction to the OpenGL programmable pipeline, and the OpenGL shading language (GLSL). Although not required, it would be beneficial for participants to have a prior working knowledge of OpenGL. The tutorial will include an overview of the OpenGL programmable pipeline, an introduction to the GLSL, and several examples of simple vertex and fragment shaders. It is hoped that participants will come away with a basic overview of shader programming in OpenGL and be able to make decisions about whether or not this subject can be incorporated into their graphics classes.
Epidemics, air travel, and elimination in a globalized world: The case of measles

ABSTRACT Although the United States (U.S.) declared measles eliminated in 2000, so long as measles circulates globally, continued importations will trigger sporadic U.S. outbreaks. The United States is highly connected to the rest of the world, and importations occur largely as a result of air travel by U.S. residents and international visitors. We developed a model to assess the risk of measles virus importation from Europe, Asia, and Africa through air travel. We projected 308 (95% prediction interval, 151-518) total measles cases imported from 66 countries during 2006-2015; 290 importations were reported. The model projected a spike in importation risk from Israel during October 2018, coincident with large, importation-triggered outbreaks in New York and New Jersey. Our model shows U.S. importation risk primarily originates from European and Asian countries. Models such as this inform preemptive actions to mitigate infectious disease threats, but only if we prioritize global surveillance and data sharing.
Characteristics associated with downward residential mobility among birthing persons in California.

Abstract Background Substantial research documents health consequences of neighborhood disadvantage. Patterns of residential mobility that differ by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) may sort non-Hispanic (NH) Black and low-SES families into disadvantaged neighborhoods. In this study, we leverage a sibling-linked dataset to track residential mobility among birthing persons between pregnancies and investigate baseline characteristics associated with downward mobility, including race/ethnicity, SES, and pre-existing health conditions. Methods We used a probabilistic linkage strategy to identify births to the same person between 2007 and 2015 (n = 624,222) and categorized downward residential mobility by quartile-level increases in neighborhood disadvantage. We defined strong downward mobility as a move from a neighborhood with very low (quartile 1) to very high (quartile 4) disadvantage and estimated the logit (i.e., log-odds) of strong downward mobility as a function of racial/ethnic, sociodemographic, and health characteristics of the birthing person and their first birth. We further explored the role of neighborhood housing affordability by examining changes in affordability from first to second birth by race/ethnicity. Results NH Black birthing persons show an over three-fold increased odds of strong downward mobility relative to NH white birthing persons (OR = 3.34, CI: 2.91, 3.84). To a lesser extent, Hispanic race/ethnicity, WIC receipt, low educational attainment, obesity, and infant preterm birth (PTB) also predict strong downward mobility. Examination of changes in neighborhood affordability indicate that over half of NH Black birthing persons move to a more affordable neighborhood, compared to less than a quarter of NH white birthing persons, before the birth of their second child. Results remain consistent across outcomes, measures of neighborhood SES, and modified log-Poisson models. Conclusion We find an elevated risk of strong downward mobility among NH Black and low-SES birthing persons. Future research may identify other factors (e.g., housing affordability) that generate downward residential mobility to identify interventions that promote neighborhood equity.
#Healthykidsquarantined: Supporting schools and families with virtual physical activity, physical education, and nutrition education during the coronavirus pandemic

When COVID-19 shuttered Michigan schools, 52 elementary and middle schools statewide were in various stages of implementation of comprehensive health programs, including the integration of physical activity, physical education, and nutrition education. To support the transition to a virtual learning environment, #HealthyKidsQuarantined was launched, providing virtual physical activity, physical education, and nutrition education curriculumand resources. Contentwas distributedweekly via e-mail to teachers and families alongside a daily social media campaign that disseminated resources to a national audience. Results identified significant content usage by schools (21,300 views/downloads) and engagement through social media (9,800 views/downloads). Teachers, students, and families expressed value in the health content provided, stating it was a support needed in a time of chaos. This study suggests that providing virtual health content may be a feasible way to sustain school and family investment in comprehensive youth health. Furthermore, by utilizing multiple dissemination strategies, virtual programming may be an effective mechanism to expand reach. © 2021 Human Kinetics, Inc.
Leveraging the electronic medical record (EMR) to predict patient reported financial hardship in cancer patients.

6594Background: Patient reported financial hardship (FH) in cancer care is a growing challenge for patients, their caregivers and healthcare providers. As treatment costs escalate, it is imperative...
Engagement without entanglement: a framework for non-sexual patient–physician boundaries

The integrity of the patient–physician relationship depends on maintaining professional boundaries. While ethicists and professional organisations have devoted significant consideration to the subject of sexual boundary transgressions, the subject of non-sexual boundaries, especially outside the mental health setting, has been largely neglected. While professional organisations may offer guidance on specific subjects, such as accepting gifts or treating relatives, as well as general guidance on transparency and conflict of interest, what is missing is a principle-based method that providers can use to assess non-sexual interactions with patients that transcend norms of practice. This paper attempts to offer an operational model for such assessment that considers not only the traditional emphasis on beneficence, but also incorporates concerns over entanglement and concordance.
A Retrospective: Michael M. Cernea (1934–)

‘Development anthropology is a contact sport,’ Michael Cernea likes to tell his students. His career, from junior researcher in the Romanian Academy of Sciences in the early 1960s to joining the World Bank in Washington D.C. in 1974 as its first-ever in house staff sociologist, and then advancing there successfully to the high level position of the World Bank’s Senior Advisor for Social Policies and Sociology is testament to this observation.
Increasing Risk Aversion, Habits, and Life-Cycle Investing

We derive the optimal portfolio for an investor with increasing relative risk aversion in a complete continuous-time securities market. The IRRA assumption helps to mitigate the criticism of constant relative risk aversion that it implies an unreasonably large aversion to large gambles, given reasonable aversion to small gambles. The model provides theoretical support for the common recommendation of financial advisors that older investors should reduce their allocations to risky assets and is consistent with empirical findings on the relations between age, wealth, and portfolios. Preferences for habits and IRRA preferences have some similar implications and are complementary assumptions.
Hypothesis for autoantigen presentation and T cell activation.

Investigators have appreciated for many years that autoimmune processes lead to the periductal fibrosis and acinar atrophy characteristic of Sjogren’s Syndrome. Some observations can be interpreted as suggesting that chronic, low-grade autoimmune phenomena account for qualitatively similar, but quantitatively less severe, changes regarded as age-related lacrimal gland atrophy (Damato et al., 1984). We wish here to review several lines of clinical and basic research which have produced new insights into cellular and molecular processes that might play critical roles in the initiation of such autoimmune phenomena.
Analysis of Ultimate Loads of Shallow Foundations

The paper presents a modern outlook of the problem of bearing capacity of shallow foundations, incorporating all major contributions to the subject, along with best available solutions and appropriate numerical values of bearing capacity factors and coefficients. It is shown that the greatest shortcoming of available theories lies in their unreserved assumption of incompressibility of the foundation soil. An attempt is made to formulate for the first time rational compressibility criteria for soils subjected to foundation loads. A set of tentative compressibility factors, to be used with the classical bearing capacity equation, are given. The paper includes an analysis of the effects on bearing capacity of roughness and vertical profile of foundation base, ground-water table, presence of adjacent footings and rate of loading.
Edge-Magic Total Labelings

An edge-magic total labeling on a graph G is a one-to-one map λ from \( V (G) \ cup E(G) \) onto the integers 1,2, …, v + e, where v = | V (G) | and e = | E(G) |, with the property that, given any edge xy, $$\lambda (x) + \lambda (xy) + \lambda (y) = k$$ for some constant k. In other words, wt(xy) = k for any choice of edge xy. Then k is called the magic sum of G. Any graph with an edge-magic total labeling will be called edge-magic. described.
Step Dances on Silicon

Atomic structures grow differently on different crystal surfaces of silicon. Low-energy electron microscope images now explain why.
Information effects and National Hockey League betting market efficiency.

Previous studies of the National Hockey League (NHL) betting market claim a general movement towards efficiency over the last two decades. These studies, however, assume a homogenous betting market with regards to the time of year in which bets are placed. Differences in available information—information effects—have been shown to distort the Major League Baseball betting market; they produce similar distortions when considered in the NHL market as well. As such, previous claims of market efficiency must be revisited in light of heterogeneous information.
DNA repair in primary cultures of rat hepatocytes.

This report describes a precise quantitative analysis of DNA repair in cultured rat hepatocytes following exposure to ultraviolet light, 2-acetylaminofluorene, and two of its more active derivatives, N -hydroxy-2-acetylaminofluorene and N -acetoxy-2-acetylaminofluorene. Hepatocytes were isolated from young adult male Wistar rats with the collagenase perfusion technique and maintained in short-term monolayer culture on collagen-coated plates in a serum-free modified Waymouth's medium. The nuclear [3H]thymidine ([3H]dThd)-labeling index of control cultures was less than 0.1%, but significant cytoplasmic labeling was evident in autoradiographs. Of the total acid-precipitable radioactivity present in control cultures following exposure to [3H]dThd, 54% of the 3H was found in protein, demonstrating the ability of these nonreplicating hepatocytes to catabolize [3H]dThd and reutilize the labeled metabolites. Ultraviolet light irradiation of the cultured hepatocytes resulted in a dose-dependent increase of [3H]dThd incorporation into DNA. That this represented nuclear DNA repair synthesis was demonstrated by detecting nonsemiconservative DNA synthesis (repair replication) with NaI isopycnic centrifugation and autoradiography. Hydroxyurea (10 and 100 mm) had only a small inhibitory effect, while both 1-β-d-arabinofuranosylcytosine (25 and 100 µm) and ethidium bromide (at 25 µm) dramatically inhibited the ultraviolet light-induced increase in [3H]dThd incorporation. Repair synthesis also occurred in response to treatment of the hepatocytes with 2-acetylaminofluorene, demonstrating their ability to metabolize this prohepatocarcinogen to a form capable of damaging DNA. N -Hydroxy-2-acetylaminofluorene and N -acetoxy-2-acetylaminofluorene were more effective in inducing a repair response. These results represent additional characterization of the primary hepatocyte culture system and demonstrate its potential for studies on mechanisms of carcinogenesis and as a potential screening system for environmental chemicals suspected of being capable of damaging DNA and causing cancer.
Scanning electron and light microscopic study of microbial succession on Bethlehem St. Nectaire cheese

St. Nectaire cheese is a semisoft cheese of French origin that, along with Brie and Camembert cheeses, belongs to the class of surface mold-ripened cheese. The surface microorganisms that develop on the cheese rind during ripening impart a distinctive aroma and flavor to this class of cheese. We have documented the sequential appearance of microorganisms on the cheese rind and in the curd over a 60-day ripening period. Scanning electron microscopy was used to visualize the development of surface fungi and bacteria. Light microscopy of stained paraffin sections was used to study cross sections through the rind. We also monitored the development of bacterial and yeast populations in and the pH of the curd and rind. The earliest stage of ripening (0 to 2 days) is dominated by the lactic acid bacterium Streptococcus cremoris and multilateral budding yeasts, primarily Debaryomyces and Torulopsis species. Geotrichum candidum follows closely, and then zygomycetes of the genus Mucor develop at day 4 of ripening. At day 20, the deuteromycete Trichothecium roseum appears. From day 20 until the end of the ripening process, coryneforms of the genera Brevibacterium and Arthrobacter can be seen near the surface of the cheese rind among fungal hyphae and yeast cells. Images
Kinesiology on a Small Budget

(1978). Kinesiology on a Small Budget. Journal of Physical Education and Recreation: Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 52-52.
Cellular aspects of corpus luteum function in the primate

The primate corpus luteum produces progesterone for a period of 14-16 days, at which time, in non-fertile cycles, steroidogenesis ceases and the tissue regresses. Studies completed in this laboratory have established that while luteinizing hormone (LH) is necessary to maintain luteal steroidogenesis, changes in LH secretion are not causal to luteolysis. The studies presented here demonstrate that luteal cell synthetic capacity, as reflected in steady-state levels of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) encoding steroidogenic enzymes, is maximal shortly after ovulation and steadily declines thereafter, independently of progesterone and LH secretion. In addition, the loss of luteal mRNA expression for steroidogenic enzymes following LH withdrawal occurs 24 h after the decline in progesterone levels. Finally, the detection of mRNA encoding vascular endothelial growth factor within the corpus luteum throughout the luteal phase in the subhuman primate may provide the first identification of a potential secreted, non-steroidal factor responsible for the vast degree of angiogenesis that occurs within the corpus luteum.