cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The key Sinorhizobium meliloti succinoglycan biosynthesis gene exoY is expressed from two promoters

Bacterial exopolysaccharide, succinoglycan, plays an important role in eliciting infection thread formation, which is a key step in the establishment of Sinorhizobium meliloti–alfalfa (Medicago sativa) nitrogen fixing symbiosis. To understand the regulatory mechanisms that control production of succinoglycan, the expression of the key succinoglycan biosynthesis gene, exoY, was analyzed by constructing a set of nested deletions of the exoY promoter region. Two exoY promoters were identified based on the promoter activities and confirmed by direct detection of the transcripts. The expression from both promoters was induced in the exoR95 and exoS96 mutant backgrounds suggesting that both promoters are regulated by the ExoR protein and the ExoS/ChvI two-component signal transduction system. The identification of the exoY promoters provides additional avenue for further analysis of the role of succinoglycan in S. meliloti–alfalfa symbiosis.
The role of attention in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance.

Abstract The present study sought to test the hypothesis that the second factor (consisting of Failure-to-Maintain-Set and other scores) found in two recent factor analyses of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test reflects attentional function. The effect of color overlays (an experimental manipulation known to influence neural systems linked to attention) was examined in 17 normal control and 14 attention-disorded children (ages 8 to 12). Group and Color main effects were found for Factor 1 (which consists largely of measures of perseveration) and a Color main effect was observed for Factor 2. The Color effect for Factor 2 supported the contention that this factor reflects attentional processes. A hypothesis concerning the relationship between problem solving and attention on the WCST is offered and a means for testing it is discussed.
New Curing System Components

Abstract Asymmetric disulfides derived from dibutyldithiophosphoric acid and from 2-ethylamino-4-diethylamino-6-rnercapto-sym-triazine can be used in NR as nonreverting accelerators. A new accelerator, 2,2′-dithiobispyridine-N-oxide, behaves similarly. By using the appropriate combination of these accelerators with conventional benzothiazole based accelerators or with each other, scorch delay can be controlled and crosslinking rate can be increased. Significantly, reversion resistance can be greatly improved. These effects can now be achieved without any change in vulcanizate mechanical properties.
FIT: Identity theft education: Study of text-based versus game-based learning

Identity theft is an insidious crime that disrupts the lives of individuals and society across the globe. The focus of this paper is to present research results that examines two different methods to address identity theft education at the college level. One strategy is a traditional text-based model while the other is a new game-based approach. A comparison of the results of the study reveals that students who received information via the game-based module performed better on the post education survey than their counterparts who drew the text-based track; In addition, those who received the game-based direction remained in the educational unit longer and enjoyed the experience more.
Functional Response of Xylocoris flavipes to Angoumois Grain Moth and Influence of Predation on Regulation of Laboratory Populations

In a laboratory study, Xylocoris flavipes (Reuter) attacked eggs and larvae of Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier) but killed more early instars. The predator killed more prey as exposure time and density of prey increased. In a separate laboratory test, X. flavipes effectively reduced populations of Angoumois grain moths in small quantities of grain. The predator reduced the amount of damage to the grain because it killed the prey before it entered the grain.
Nature-driven photochemistry for catalytic solar hydrogen production: a Photosystem I-transition metal catalyst hybrid.

Solar energy conversion of water into the environmentally clean fuel hydrogen offers one of the best long-term solutions for meeting future energy demands. Nature provides highly evolved, finely tuned molecular machinery for solar energy conversion that exquisitely manages photon capture and conversion processes to drive oxygenic water-splitting and carbon fixation. Herein, we use one of Nature’s specialized energy-converters, the Photosystem I (PSI) protein, to drive hydrogen production from a synthetic molecular catalyst comprised of inexpensive, earth-abundant materials. PSI and a cobaloxime catalyst self-assemble, and the resultant complex rapidly produces hydrogen in aqueous solution upon exposure to visible light. This work establishes a strategy for enhancing photosynthetic efficiency for solar fuel production by augmenting natural photosynthetic systems with synthetically tunable abiotic catalysts.
Grief and Women: Stillbirth in the Social Context of India

Introduction Few in Western society would argue the potentially devastating impact of stillbirth related grief; but in many developing countries where stillbirth remains the highest in the world, perinatal grief is barely recognized as an issue. The purpose of this study was to explore how poor, rural central Indian women perceive and cope with stillbirths. Methods Seventeen key informant interviews and two focus groups (N = 33) with local health care providers, family members, and women who experienced stillbirth were conducted over a 1-month period in 2011 and then systematically coded for emerging themes using grounded theory methods to explore how women experienced stillbirth. Results Although usually never talked about and not recognized as an issue, perinatal grief emerged as a significant shared experience by all. The perceptions of stillbirth-related grief emerged in three major themes and bear evidence of gender and power issues and indicate that local social norms negatively factor heavily into their perinatal grief experiences. Discussion The findings in this richly textured study add to the limited literature regarding rural, central Indian women's experiences with stillbirth and factors influencing their resulting perinatal grief. In light of the void of recognition of this phenomenon in Indian society, a better understanding of the context in which poor Indian women experience perinatal grief will be a first step toward developing much needed culturally rooted interventions to positively impact the women's abilities to better cope with stillbirth in the context of their realities.
O-134 Nurses’ Compliance With Pain Assessment In The Paediatric Intensive Care Unit

Background and aims Compliance with pain assessment in Paediatric Intensive Care Units is not always perfect. We aimed to identify factors explaining compliance or noncompliance with pain assessment in PICU patients. Methods PICU nurses were asked 5 times to complete the same survey on pain management of the most critically ill child they cared for during the shift. Questions informed after the usefulness of pain assessment in this specific child, whether the nurse had assessed pain according to protocol, and any negative/positive impressions of the current shift. Relationships between compliance and these factors were evaluated with Fisher exact tests. Results Ninety-three nurses returned 1 to 5 surveys (response rate 77%), in total 407 surveys. The median working experience of the nurses (94.6% females) at the PICU was 8 years (2 to 33 years). Pain was assessed in 89.4% of 406 surveys. Most shifts were perceived as positive (82%), 10% as negative, 5% mixed and 3% as neutral. Assessment yes/no was not significantly related to a negatively or positively experienced shift (p = 0.82 and 0.81 respectively). In 30% of surveys nurses considered assessment not useful but this was not significantly related to assessment yes/no (p = 0.36). Conclusions Compliance to pain assessment was acceptable. Whether non-compliance is primarily related to patient factors or nurse factors needs to be further unravelled.
S10.16 The development of a chitin assay for the quantification of fungus

The recently published X-ray structure of the heat-labile enterotoxin from E. coli (1), and its complex with lactose (2), and the three-dimensional structure of the natural receptor GM1, derived from NMR (3) and molecular modeling, has enabled us to perform docking experiments using computer graphics in combination with energy minimization and molecular dynamics. A description of the binding surfaces and important binding characteristics, such as hydrophobic and hydrogen bond interactions, will be given. Only minor differences in conformation were found between the complexed molecules and the respective free molecules. Comparative docking experiments using various isoreceptors, for which binding data and three-dimensional models exist ((4) and references therein), explain the variation in toxin affinity found for these structures. 1. Sixma, T. K., Pronk, S. E., Kalk, K. H., Wartna, E. S., van Zanten, B. A. M., Witholt, B. and Hol, W. G. J. (1991) Nature, 351, 371 -377 .2 . Sixma, T. K., Pronk, S. E., Kalk, K. H., van Zanten, B. A. M., Berghuis, A. M. and Hol, W. G. J. (1992) Nature, 355, 561-56. 3. Acquotti, D., Poppe, L., Dabrowski, J., von der Lieth, C.-W., Sonnino, S. and Tettamanti, G. (1990) J. Am. Chem. Soe., 112, 7772-7778. 4./~ngstr6m, J., Teneberg, S. and Karlsson, K.-A. (1993) submitted.
Formation of C–C and C–O Bonds and Oxygen Removal in Reactions of Alkanediols, Alkanols, and Alkanals on Copper Catalysts

This study reports evidence for catalytic deoxygenation of alkanols, alkanals, and alkanediols on dispersed Cu clusters with minimal use of external H(2) and with the concurrent formation of new C-C and C-O bonds. These catalysts selectively remove O-atoms from these oxygenates as CO or CO(2) through decarbonylation or decarboxylation routes, respectively, that use C-atoms present within reactants or as H(2)O using H(2) added or formed in situ from CO/H(2)O mixtures via water-gas shift. Cu catalysts fully convert 1,3-propanediol to equilibrated propanol-propanal intermediates that subsequently form larger oxygenates via aldol-type condensation and esterification routes without detectable involvement of the oxide supports. Propanal-propanol-H(2) equilibration is mediated by their chemisorption and interconversion at surfaces via C-H and O-H activation and propoxide intermediates. The kinetic effects of H(2), propanal, and propanol pressures on turnover rates, taken together with measured selectivities and the established chemical events for base-catalyzed condensation and esterification reactions, indicate that both reactions involve kinetically relevant bimolecular steps in which propoxide species, acting as the base, abstract the α-hydrogen in adsorbed propanal (condensation) or attack the electrophilic C-atom at its carbonyl group (esterification). These weakly held basic alkoxides render Cu surfaces able to mediate C-C and C-O formation reactions typically catalyzed by basic sites inherent in the catalyst, instead of provided by coadsorbed organic moieties. Turnover rates for condensation and esterification reactions decrease with increasing Cu dispersion, because low-coordination corner and edge atoms prevalent on small clusters stabilize adsorbed intermediates and increase the activation barriers for the bimolecular kinetically relevant steps required for both reactions.
Statistical Evaluation of Shoreline Change: A Case Study from Seabrook Island, South Carolina

Seabrook Island is a barrier island approximately 28 km south of Charleston, South Carolina (SC). As a residential and resort area, Seabrook Island is important to the economic health of the Charleston, SC, region. Portions of Seabrook Island are impacted by accelerated erosion, which has been combated with engineered stabilization methods, inlet relocation, and beach nourishment. Despite stabilization attempts, localized erosion is continuing, leading to potential economic and ecological losses. We used the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) to determine long- and short-term erosion rates on the island, focusing on natural and anthropogenic changes to the beach. We assessed beach change by comparing historical aerial photographs and satellite imagery. The use of digital imagery allows for rapid assessment of the shoreline to highlight areas experiencing change, to monitor the impacts of structural controls, and to focus site-specific field investigations. Our results show that since 1939, Seabrook has experienced erosion up to 52.4 m/yr at the north end of the island near Captain Sams Inlet that is likely related to relocations of the inlet, accretion of up to 9.0 m/yr on Seabrook Beach because of nourishment of the beach, and relatively stable conditions near the south end of the island as a result of structural control and nourishments. This method of analysis is useful to support urban planning consistent with preservation of natural resources and thus may be suitable for application and testing elsewhere.
Spatial Panel VAR and Application to Forecast Influenza Incidence Rates of US States

In this paper, we propose a spatial panel vector autoregression, SPVAR(p), which generalizes the spatial dynamic panel data (SDPD) models with individual fixed effects to allow for multivariate vector observations and higher order lags. The regression residuals can be independently or spatial autoregressively (SAR) distributed. We investigate in the issues of identification and estimation via profile QMLE. We prove that the QML estimators are consistent and asymptotically normally distributed when both N and T are large. Then, we analyze the bias and bias correction. The finite sample performance of the profile QMLE is evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations. Information criteria and likelihood ratio test are used to select the lag orders and test the residual specifications in the SPVAR(p). The SPVAR(p) is then used to estimate and forecast the incidence rates of influenza like illness (ILI) in the United States. We combine weekly ILI incidence rate data by Google Flu Trends and the office of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into a vector measure for 48 US continental states, and then we use the vector observations to estimate the SPVAR(p) model, where the spatial weight matrix is the row normalized state geographical adjacency matrix. We use state population density, temperature, and precipitation as predictors. We find that SPVAR(p) achieves satisfactory in-sample estimates and out-of-sample forecasts based on Google Flu Trends and CDC ILI incidence rate data. The estimated SPVAR(p) is compared against univariate SDPD(p) model of Google Flu Trends ILI incidence rates. We also conduct an impulse response analysis of the dynamic diffusions of California flu shock.
Intro - High Performance Computing for 2015 HPC Annual Report

The recent Executive Order creating the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) recognizes the value of high performance computing for economic competitiveness and scientific discovery and commits to accelerate delivery of exascale computing. The HPC programs at Sandia –the NNSA ASC program and Sandia’s Institutional HPC Program– are focused on ensuring that Sandia has the resources necessary to deliver computation in the national interest.
Magnetic behavior of superatomic-fullerene assemblies

It has recently been possible to synthesize ordered assemblies composed of magnetic superatomic clusters Ni9Te6(PEt3)8 separated by C60 and study their magnetic behavior. We have carried out theoretical studies on model systems consisting of magnetic superatoms separated by non-magnetic species to examine the evolution in magnetic response as the nature of the magnetic superatom (directions of spin quantization), the strength of isotropic and anisotropic interactions, the magnetic anisotropy energy, and the size of the assembly are varied. We have examined square planar configurations consisting of 16, 24 and 48 sites with 8, 12 and 24 magnetic superatoms respectively. The magnetic atoms are allowed 2 or 5 orientations. The model Hamiltonian includes isotropic exchange interactions with second nearest neighbor ferromagnetic and nearest neighbor antiferromagnetic couplings and anisotropic Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interactions. It is shown that the inclusion of Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction that cause spin canting is necessary to get qualitative response as observed in experiments.
Comprehension monitoring strategies of nonproficient college readers

Abstract The purpose of this study was to describe how nonproficient college readers monitor their comprehension when challenged with the task of reading difficult expository text. Data sources were transcripts of think‐aloud sessions and retrospective comments from 20 subjects. Analysis involved classifying the units of data using the Gibson comprehension monitoring taxonomy. The results describe reading behavior in two ways: (a) as a global description of the word‐related, sentence‐related, and discourse‐related strategies used by nonproficient readers and (b) as a process description of how the readers monitor their comprehension when reading proceeds with ease and when problems in understanding occur. Such a description of reading behavior offers implications to help guide curriculum development and classroom instruction for college reading assistance programs.
Ethnic Differences in Osteoporosis After Cardiac Transplantation.

Cardiac transplantation is associated with a high risk of fracture. African Americans (AAs) are believed to have a lower risk of osteoporosis than Caucasians, but it is not clear whether they are also protected from osteoporosis resulting from the use of glucocorticoids and/or organ transplantation. We examined possible ethnic differences in 33 cardiac transplant recipients (16 AAs) in a cross-sectional analysis. In addition to bone mineral density and vertebral fracture assessment, we also compared biochemical variables, trabecular bone score, total body dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and disability. Overall fracture rates were low in both groups, with only 6 total subjects with fractures on vertebral fracture assessment or history of fracture. While T-scores were similar between groups, Z-scores were lower in AA with the difference reaching statistical significance when controlling for important covariates. The trabecular bone score was also lower in AAs than in Caucasians even when adjusting for age and tissue thickness (1.198 ± 0.140 vs 1.312 ± 0.140, p = 0.03). While AAs are generally thought to be protected from osteoporosis, our study instead suggests that AAs may be at higher risk of bone deterioration after cardiac transplantation and may need to be managed more aggressively than suggested by current guidelines.
Carbocation-π interaction: evaluation of the stabilization by phenylalanine of a biochemical carbocation intermediate.

Computational analyses, using primarily density functional theory, have been used to determine the stabilization associated with the carbocation–π interaction of a biochemical carbocation intermediate binding to a phenylalanine residue in an enzyme active site. Studies of complexation between t-butyl cation and ethylbenzene, and of a model of a carbocation intermediate with a phenylalanine in the active site of geranyl diphosphate C-methyl transferase, have afforded the first quantitative evaluation of the stabilization that can be provided to a carbocation by an aromatic residue in an enzymatic reaction. Describing the hydrophobic surrounding medium using a dielectric constant between e = 2 and e = 4, the calculated carbocation–π stabilization energy lies in the range of 10–7.5 kcal mol−1.
Timing of nicotine lozenge administration to minimize trigger induced craving and withdrawal symptoms

Abstract Introduction Smokers are often advised to use nicotine lozenge when craving or withdrawal symptoms occur. This may be too late to prevent lapses. This study assessed if nicotine lozenge use prior to a common smoking trigger can minimize trigger induced increases in craving and withdrawal symptoms. Methods Eighty-four smokers completed two laboratory sessions in random order. At one session, nicotine lozenge was given immediately after a stressor (to approximate current recommended use – i.e., after craving and withdrawal symptoms occur); at the other session subjects were randomized to receive nicotine lozenge at time points ranging from immediately to 30 min prior to the stressor. Withdrawal symptoms and urge to smoke were measured using the Minnesota Nicotine Withdrawal Scale and the Questionnaire of Smoking Urges (QSU). Results Relative to receiving lozenge after the stressor, a smaller increase in pre-stressor to post-stressor withdrawal symptom scores occurred when lozenge was used immediately (p = 0.03) and 10 min prior (p = 0.044) to the stressor. Results were similar for factors 1 and 2 of the QSU when lozenge was used immediately prior to the stressor (p Conclusions Administering the nicotine lozenge prior to a smoking trigger can decrease trigger induced craving and withdrawal symptoms. Future studies are needed to determine if such use would increase cessation rates. Clinicaltrials.gov # NCT01522963
News media, social media, and hyperlink networks: An examination of integrated media effects

Research typically focuses on one medium. But in today's digital media environment, people use and are influenced by their experience with multiple systems. Building on media ecology research, we introduce the notion of integrated media effects. We draw on resource dependence and homophily theories to analyze the mechanisms that connect media systems. To test the integrated media effects, we examine the relationships between news media visibility and social media visibility and hyperlinking patterns among 410 nongovernmental organization NGO websites in China. NGOs with greater news media visibility and more social media followers receive significantly more hyperlinks. Further, NGOs with a similar number of social media followers prefer to hyperlink to each other. The results suggest that both news media and social media systems are related to the configuration of hyperlink networks, providing support for the integrated media effects described. Implications for the study of hyperlink networks, online behaviors of organizations, and public relations are drawn from the results.
Comparing Fusion Models for DNN-Based Audiovisual Continuous Speech Recognition

Audiovisual fusion is one of the most challenging tasks that continues to attract substantial research interest in the field of audiovisual automatic speech recognition (AV-ASR). In the last few decades, many approaches for integrating the audio and video modalities were proposed to enhance the performance of automatic speech recognition in both clean and noisy conditions. However, very few studies can be found in the literature that compare different fusion models for AV-ASR. Even less research work compares audiovisual fusion models for large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR) models using deep neural networks (DNNs). This paper reviews and compares the performance of five audiovisual fusion models: the feature fusion model, the decision fusion model, the multistream hidden Markov model (HMM), the coupled HMM, and the turbo decoders. A complete evaluation of these fusion models is conducted using a standard speaker-independent DNN-based LVCSR Kaldi recipe in three experimental setups: a clean-train-clean-test, a clean-train-noisy-test, and a matched-training setup. All experiments have been applied to the recently released NTCD-TIMIT audiovisual corpus. The task of NTCD-TIMIT is phone recognition in continuous speech. Using NTCD-TIMIT with its freely available visual features and 37 clean and noisy acoustic signals allows for this study to be a common benchmark, to which novel LVCSR AV-ASR models and approaches can be compared.
Profiling of pluripotency factors in individual stem cells and early embryos

Major cell fate decisions are governed by sequence-specific transcription factors (TFs) that act in small cell populations within developing embryos. To understand how TFs regulate cell fate it is important to identify their genomic binding sites in these populations. However, current methods cannot profile TFs genome-wide at or near the single cell level. Here we adapt the CUT&RUN method to profile chromatin proteins in low cell numbers, mapping TF-DNA interactions in single cells and individual pre-implantation embryos for the first time. Using this method, we demonstrate that the pluripotency TF NANOG is significantly more dependent on the SWI/SNF family ATPase BRG1 for association with its genomic targets in vivo than in cultured cells, a finding that could not have been made using traditional approaches. Ultra-low input CUT&RUN (uliCUT&RUN) enables interrogation of TF binding from low cell numbers, with broad applicability to rare cell populations of importance in development or disease.
Structure Equations of Sprays

Sprays are special vector fields on the tangent bundle. All of the quantities defined by a spray live on the tangent bundle. In previous chapters, we treat them as quantities on the base manifold by choosing a reference vector. To find the internal relationship among various quantities such as the Berwald curvature, Landsberg curvature and Riemann curvature, etc., one has to go up to the tangent bundle. It seems that exterior differential method is quite useful in computation for this purpose. We will employ it to do some complicated computations.
The interaction of transportation and land use

This chapter examines the interaction of transportation and land use in rural areas. The spatial distribution of employment and population is complicated by many factors such as accessibility, income variance, prices, geographical characteristics, and government intervention. This analysis attempts, by using two-stage least squares, to isolate the impact on employment and household density of changing transportation cost as measured by accessibility.
TWO NON-STANDARD PARADIGMS FOR COMPUTATION: ANALOG MACHINES AND CELLULAR AUTOMATA

Serious roadblocks have been encountered in several areas of computer application, for example in the solution of intractable (NP-complete) combinatorial problems, or in the simulation of fluid flow. In this talk we will explore two alternatives to the usual kinds of computers, and ask if they provide some hope of ultimately by-passing what appear to be essential difficulties.
Decision Making in the Lab and on the Web

Publisher Summary This chapter provides case studies of experiential choices in laboratory that have violated implications deduced from these ideology. One of the things that decision scientists have not yet decided is how to represent the processes by which individuals make decisions when confronted with the simplest kinds of choices involving risk or uncertainty. These simple choices are decisions between gambles for cash in which the consequences are amounts of money and the probabilities are stated explicitly. There are three doctrine of the research decision making such as transitivity, consequence mono-tonicity, and coalescing. It is assumed that they are not only normative, but also theories that attempt to describe experiential choices. The problem behavioral decision scientists have is that they know people do not always make good decisions, and one knows that there is disagreement over what a rational person should do. They know that every action, or failure to act, may have infinite consequences.
Ultrasonic Spectral Analysis for Characterization of Composites

The attenuation of propagating ultrasound through heterogeneous materials such as fiber reinforced epoxy composites containing chopped fibers with random orientation is predominantly due to scattering from the fibers as well as from discontinuities such as pores and is consequently frequency dependent. In this paper, we determine the frequency dependent attenuation from the downshifted spectra of the transmitted broadband wavepacket. Such a technique, first used for medical ultrasound, can be very useful for characterization of acoustically very lossy composites, because spectral shifts for such materials can be particularly significant. Experimental results and analytical models are presented for the non-destructive characterization of such composites by this method.
Relationships Between State Medical Marijuana Laws and College Students’ Use of Marijuana/Other Drugs

This study examined the relationship between medical marijuana laws and student utilization rates, perceptions, and experiences. Participants were students in 37 states attending institutions of hi...
STAT3: An HMGA1 gene target involved in HMGA1-mediated leukemogenesis and possible therapeutic target

1032 Although the high mobility group A1 ( HMGA1) is an oncogene that is widely overexpressed in aggressive human cancers, the molecular mechanisms that underlie transformation by HMGA1 have not been clearly elucidated. HMGA1 encodes the HMGA1a and HMG1b protein isoforms, which function in regulating gene expression. To better understand how HMGA1 overexpression leads to neoplastic transformation, we looked for genes regulated by HMGA1 using gene expression profile analysis. Ninety-seven genes were differentially regulated by > 2-fold in fibroblasts overexpressing HMGA1a and 103 genes were differentially regulated by > 2-fold in fibroblasts overexpressing HMGA1b. Fifty-five of these genes were common to both the HMGA1a and HMG1b fibroblasts. From the list of genes up-regulated in cells overexpressing HMGA1a or HMG1b, the gene encoding the signaling molecule, signal transducer and activator of transcription or STAT3, was studied further because of its prominent role in malignancy. Here, we demonstrate that STAT3 is a critical downstream target of HMGA1. We show that HMGA1 binds to a conserved region of the STAT3 promoter in vivo by chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments. STAT3 mRNA and activated protein (phosphorylated STAT3) levels are increased in leukemia cells from HMGA1a transgenic mice. Activated STAT3 also recapitulates the transforming activity of HMGA1a in fibroblasts. Blocking STAT3 function induces apoptosis preferentially in leukemia cells from HMGA1a transgenic mice, but not in nontransgenic control cells. Moreover, blocking STAT3 function in human erythroleukemia (HEL) cells overexpressing HMGA1a also blocks colony formation in soft agar and cell motility. STAT3 mRNA is also increased in human acute lymphoid leukemia samples that overexpress HMGA1a , suggesting that this pathway is important in human lymphoid leukemia. Our results demonstrate that STAT3 is a direct HMGA1 target gene involved in HMGA1-mediated transformation and a potential therapeutic target in human lymphoid leukemia.
Artificial Intelligence with Big Data

Big Data has become a new source of opportunity among applications in Artificial Intelligence. Many design considerations exist in this relatively new field where parallel processing frameworks can be employed in a more economical fashion. Unlike traditional data sources, Big Data applications present their own unique challenges in order to appropriately harness the utility of open source frameworks including Apache Spark and design patterns predicated on the Directed Acyclic Graph. By embracing this new paradigm, parallel processing can be effectively leveraged to support development at a level of scale and performance that was not possible earlier.
A Practical Guide to Biofeedback Therapy for Pelvic Floor Disorders.

Biofeedback therapy (BFT) is effective for managing pelvic floor disorders (i.e., defecatory disorders and fecal incontinence). However, even in controlled clinical trials, only approximately 60% of patients with defecatory disorders experienced long-term improvement. The review serves to update practitioners on recent advances and to identify practical obstacles to providing biofeedback therapy. The efficacy and safety of biofeedback therapy have been evaluated in defecatory disorders, fecal incontinence, and levator ani syndrome. Recent studies looked at outcomes in specific patient sub-populations and predictors of a response to biofeedback therapy. Biofeedback therapy is effective for managing defecatory disorders, fecal incontinence, and levator ani syndrome. Patients who have a lower bowel satisfaction score and use digital maneuvers fare better. Biofeedback therapy is recommended for patients with fecal incontinence who do not respond to conservative management. A subset of patients with levator ani syndrome who have dyssynergic defecation are more likely to respond to biofeedback therapy.
Shoulder arthroplasty in patients with upper extremity lymphedema may result in transient or permanent lymphedema worsening

IntroductionUpper extremity lymphedema can complicate mastectomy, lymph node dissection, and radiation. The purpose of this study is to present the outcomes of shoulder arthroplasty in patients wit...
Gifts of wise women: A reflection on enduring ideas in nursing that transcend time

In this essay, I propose there are enduring ideas in the works of nurse theorists from the 1960s and 1970s that were valuable not only in the past, but in nursing today as well as in possibly shaping the future of nursing knowledge development. I identify these as gift ideas and draw on the work of Wiedenbach for the gift of dignity in nursing philosophy, and the gifts of dialogue from Orlando, behavioral systems from Johnson, context from Roy, self-care from Orem, and finally the gift of nursing science as emergent in understanding life processes from Rogers. Although the core of nursing knowledge may be elusive, the gift ideas mentioned in this essay provide some guideposts in articulating and developing that core in the present as well as in the future.
Levels of Cm 246 from the β − -Decay Sequence Pu 246 ( 11 days ) Am 246 m ( 25 min ) Cm 246

$^{246}\mathrm{Pu}$ produced by multiple neutron capture during an underground explosion was recovered and subjected to extensive chemical separations. $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ rays in the decay sequence $^{246}\mathrm{Pu}({\ensuremath{\beta}}^{\ensuremath{-}})\ensuremath{-}^{246m}\mathrm{Am}({\ensuremath{\beta}}^{\ensuremath{-}})^{246}\mathrm{Cm}$ were investigated by use of several Ge(Li) detectors. In all, 158 $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ rays were observed, up to 2.2 MeV. Of these, 114 were ascribed to the decay of $^{246m}\mathrm{Am}$. A decay scheme was deduced, including 37 levels. Bands in $^{246}\mathrm{Cm}$ have been identified with the following bandhead energies: $\mathrm{g}.\mathrm{s}.{K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}={0}^{+}$; 841.70 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}={2}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, octupole; 1078.90 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}={1}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, octupole; 1124.42 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}={2}^{+}$, $\ensuremath{\gamma}$; 1249.81 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}=({0}^{\ensuremath{-}}, \mathrm{octupole})$; 1348.89 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}={1}^{\ensuremath{-}}$; 1452.06 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}=({1}^{+})$; 1593.80 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}={2}^{(\ensuremath{-})}$; 1604.31 keV ${K}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}={1}^{\ensuremath{-}}$.
Training Transfer: Perceptions of Computer Use Self-Efficacy among University Employees

This paper investigated transfer of training influences on computer self-efficacy and self-efficacy of computer technologies of training programs that met individual and organization objectives of university personnel. Subsequent to training, an assessment of computer self-efficacy and self-efficacy of computer technologies of employees was necessary for determining their duration and training usefulness. A descriptive survey design was used to gather data from a population of 2,597 university employees. Results indicated employee self-efficacy levels remained stable for a 2 1/2 year period. In addition, select sub-scales of the variables previous classroom computer training and computer use required on-the-job predicted computer self-efficacy. Job type, frequency of computer use, and training responsibilities were also noted to influence the transfer of training process as it pertains to computer self-efficacy.
Diversity and abundance of carabid beetles in short-rotation plantings of sweetgum, maize and switchgrass in Alabama

This study compares assemblages of carabid beetles, potentially important regulators of herbivorous insect pests, in short-rotation plantings of sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.) with and without grass cover crops, maize (Zea mays L.) and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.). A total of 38 species were trapped during the summers of 1996 and 1997. The dominant carabid encountered was Harpalus pensylvanicus Latreille, a widespread omnivorous species; H. pensylvanicus was particularly prevalent in maize plots. Several other commonly encountered species were primarily associated with one plot type. Overall carabid activity was found to be similar in maize and switchgrass plots and much greater than that in sweetgum plots of both cover types. This may be related to the presence of more consistently available dense ground cover in these plots compared to sweetgum plots, a situation favored by most carabids, although both abundance and diversity were similar in sweetgum plots with and without cover. Diversity, as indicated by species richness and dominance levels, was greater in switchgrass than in maize or sweetgum plots, which were similar.
Domestication and feralization influence the distribution and phenotypes of escaped ornamental fish

Domestication has a dominant and increasing influence on the evolutionary trajectory of species, the extent of which may be influenced by advertent selection used to meet consumer demands of the ornamental trade. Ornamental species can have multiple varieties in trade, including those produced without advertent selection for color (i.e., inadvertent selection). Consumer demand for colorful varieties can have invasion consequences because demand is related to propagule pressure and color can exhibit fitness costs. However, domesticated varieties can also adapt to wild conditions through feralization, changing the phenotypes of feral populations. Our objective was to examine how domestication and feralization together influence the feral distribution and phenotypes of two highly domesticated, ornamental poeciliids. We first determined that colorful varieties exhibited higher trade availability and local production than the wild-type variety. Using a multi-year landscape-scale survey, we then determined that colorful varieties are common near sources of production but attenuated at increasing distance, replaced by the wild-type form. Wild-type varieties exhibited trait differences from ornamental varieties, which may affect fitness and result from feralization. Domestication to meet consumer demand influences feral distributions and phenotypes of escaped fish, but only in proximity to sources of production. Feralization influences relative capture rate of ornamental versus wild-type varieties, as well as the traits of captured fish. Thus, there may be a balance between propagule pressure, thought to increase with trade volume, and the pattern of domestication and feralization selection, which affects feral distribution and phenotypes.
Targeting epigenetic regulatory machinery to overcome cancer therapy resistance

Drug resistance, either intrinsic or acquired, represents a major hurdle to achieving optimal therapeutic outcomes during cancer treatment. In addition to acquisition of resistance-conferring genetic mutations, accumulating evidence suggests an intimate involvement of the epigenetic machinery in this process as well. Recent studies have revealed that epigenetic reprogramming, such as altered expression or relocation of DNA/histone modulators accompanied with chromatin structure remodeling, can lead to transcriptional plasticity in tumor cells, thereby driving their transformation towards a persistent state. These "persisters" represent a pool of slow-growing cells that can either re-expand when treatment is discontinued or acquire permanent resistance. Targeting epigenetic reprogramming or plasticity represents a new strategy to prevent the emergence of drug-refractory populations and to enable more consistent clinical responses. With the growing numbers of drugs or drug candidates developed to target epigenetic regulators, more and more epigenetic therapies are under preclinical evaluation, early clinical trials or approved by FDA as single agent or in combination with existing antitumor drugs. In this review, we highlight latest discoveries in the mechanistic understanding of epigenetically-induced drug resistance. In parallel, we discuss the potential of combining epigenetic drugs with existing anticancer regimens as a promising strategy for overcoming cancer drug resistance.
A Sparse Coding Approach to Automatic Diet Monitoring with Continuous Glucose Monitors

Measuring dietary intake is a major challenge in the management of chronic diseases. Current methods rely on self-report measures, which are cumbersome to obtain and often unreliable. This article presents an approach to estimate dietary intake automatically by analyzing the post-prandial glucose response (PPGR) of a meal, as measured with continuous glucose monitors. In particular, we propose a sparse-coding technique that can be used to estimate the amounts of macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, fat) in a meal from the meal’s PPGR. We use Lasso regularization to represent the PPGR of a new meal as a sparse combination of PPGRs in a dictionary, then combine the sparse weights with the macronutrient amounts in the dictionary’s meals to estimate the macronutrients in the new meal. We evaluate the approach on a dataset containing nine standardized meals and their corresponding PPGRs, consumed by fifteen participants. The proposed technique consistently outperforms two baseline systems based on ridge regression and nearest-neighbors, in terms of correlation and normalized root mean square error of the predictions.
Parallel Actors and Learners: A Framework for Generating Scalable RL Implementations.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has achieved significant success in application domains such as robotics, games, health care and others. However, training RL agents is very time consuming. Current implementations exhibit poor performance due to challenges such as irregular memory accesses and synchronization overheads. In this work, we propose a framework for generating scalable reinforcement learning implementations on multicore systems. Replay Buffer is a key component of RL algorithms which facilitates storage of samples obtained from environmental interactions and their sampling for the learning process. We define a new data structure for prioritized replay buffer based on $K$-ary sum tree that supports asynchronous parallel insertions, sampling, and priority updates. To address the challenge of irregular memory accesses, we propose a novel data layout to store the nodes of the sum tree that reduces the number of cache misses. Additionally, we propose \textit{lazy writing} mechanism to reduce synchronization overheads of the replay buffer. Our framework employs parallel actors to concurrently collect data via environmental interactions, and parallel learners to perform stochastic gradient descent using the collected data. Our framework supports a wide range of reinforcement learning algorithms including DQN, DDPG, TD3, SAC, etc. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework in accelerating RL algorithms by performing experiments on CPU + GPU platform using OpenAI benchmarks. Our results show that the performance of our approach scales linearly with the number of cores. Compared with the baseline approaches, we reduce the convergence time by 3.1x$\sim$10.8x. By plugging our replay buffer implementation into existing open source reinforcement learning frameworks, we achieve 1.1x$\sim$2.1x speedup for sequential executions.
How Specular are Polished Crystal Surfaces

In pure crystals at low (<1K) temperatures, bulk phonon scattering vanishes, and all scattering takes place at the surface. The fraction of phonons which are diffusely scattered, f, may be substantially reduced by polishing and cleaning. Here, we report measurements of heat conduction in samples with highly polished, specular surfaces (see also Klitsner and Pohl in these Proceedings), and will describe how to obtain f from the measured temperature drop ΔTe between two thermometers clamped to the crystal a distance d apart. A detailed treatment will be presented elsewhere[1]. We define the mean free path (mfp) 1 ≡ 3Q/CvA(dT/dx), where Q is the heat input, A is the sample cross-section, v the Debye speed of sound, C the Debye specific heat, x the distance from the top of the sample, and dT/dx is the temperature gradient. Figure 1 shows the data (with dT/dx=ΔTe/d). We see that l-1 depends on the sample length L, and in addition on the size of the clamps used to attach the thermometers to the sample. We will outline how to interpret this remarkable observation, and show that the three curves of Fig. 1 are consistent with nearly the same f once one accounts for the actual temperature profile along the surface of the sample and for the effect of the clamps on the measurement. Previously, CASIMIR[2] considered an infinitely long cylinder with f=1 and found l=2R=lC, where R is the sample radius.
Attenuating the negative effects of abusive supervision: The role of proactive voice behavior and resource management ability

While a large portion of the abusive supervision literature has examined the negative consequences of such perceived mistreatment, little research has examined individual-level characteristics capable of helping victims survive under such conditions. The purpose of this two-sample study, therefore, is to examine the factors that attenuate the negative affective and behavioral reactions stemming from perceived abusive supervision. Supported by recent extensions of the Job Demand–Control model (JD–C; Karasek, 1979; Meier, Semmer, Elfering, & Jacobshagen, 2008), we suggest that individuals who exhibit proactive voice behaviors and perceive that they are better able to manage their resources will experience less dissatisfaction, emotional exhaustion, turnover intentions, and reductions in work effort when faced with perceived supervisory abuse than those not demonstrating proactive voice and incapable of managing their resources. Cross-sample findings demonstrated support for our hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice, strengths and limitations, and avenues for additional research are discussed.
Psychoneuroendocrinology of Stress

Developmental psychology is rapidly becoming a neuropsychobiological field concerned with understanding how the genes we are born with, the experiences we have that modify gene expression, and the physiological responses in our brains and bodies all come together to write the story of our lives. Nowhere is the importance of a multilevel, multidisciplinary, genes-to-society perspective more apparent than in the study of stress and its role in development. This chapter focuses on a key stress-mediating system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, its development and regulatory processes, its effects on brain systems involved in emotion and cognition, and its interactions with other stress-mediating systems. The normative development of the HPA axis is described, along with the role of temperament as a moderator of stress responding and stress effects. The majority of the chapter summarizes evidence that the HPA axis plays a role in the biological embedding of experience during development, including questions about developmental plasticity and developmental programming in relation to poverty, prenatal stress, parental loss, risky family environments, and maltreatment. The role of the HPA axis in developmental psychopathology is also discussed. Future directions and fruitful areas of research are considered with each topic. Keywords: adaptive calibration; allostatic load stress; early adversity; HPA axis; resilience