cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Youth Study Recruitment Using Paid Advertising on Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.

Background The use of paid social media advertising for targeted study recruitment is an effective strategy in health research and evaluation, specifically to reach diverse youth participants. Although the literature adequately describes the utility of Facebook in recruitment, limited information exists for social media platforms that are more popular with youth, specifically Instagram and Snapchat. Objective This paper outlines a paid advertising approach using Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook to evaluate a statewide youth marijuana prevention campaign. The objective of this study was to compare recruitment metrics across Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook for two surveys documenting youth knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to retail marijuana in Colorado post legalization. In addition, the study assessed the feasibility of using Instagram and Snapchat as effective additions to Facebook for youth study recruitment. Methods A social media recruitment strategy was used to conduct two cross-sectional surveys of youth, aged 13 to 20 years, in Colorado. Geographically targeted ads across 3 social media platforms encouraged the completion of a Web-based self-administered survey. Ad Words and Snap Ads were used to deploy and manage advertising campaigns, including ad design, placement, and analysis. Ad costs and recruitment metrics (ie, impressions, link clicks, and conversion rates) were calculated across the three social media platforms. Results Over two 1-month periods, 763,613 youth were reached (ie, impressions), 6089 of them clicked survey links (ie, clicks), and 828 eligible youth completed surveys about knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to retail marijuana. Instagram converted 36.13% (803/2222) of impressions to clicks (ie, conversion rate) in the first survey and 0.87% (864/98982) in the second survey. Snapchat generated the most impressions and link clicks, but it did so with the lowest conversion rate for both surveys, with a 1.40% (1600/114,200) conversion rate in the first survey and a 0.36% (1818/504700) conversion rate in the second survey. Facebook maintained a consistent conversion rate of roughly 2% across both surveys, despite reductions in budget for the second survey. The cost-per-click ranged between US $0.25 and $0.37 across the three platforms, with Snapchat as both the most cost-effective platform in the first survey and the most expensive platform in the second survey. Conclusions Recruitment and enrollment outcomes indicate the use of Instagram and Snapchat, in addition to Facebook, may be a modern, useful, and cost-effective approach to reach youth with surveys on sensitive health topics. As the use of Facebook declines among youth, the use of more popular social media platforms can augment study recruitment for health research and evaluation efforts.
Does prehospital spinal immobilization influence in hospital decision to obtain imaging after trauma

Abstract Importance : This study highlights the unnecessarily high suspicion for cervical spine injury among study providers and shows that cervical CT scans were more likely in patients who arrived to the emergency department wearing a cervical collar, even when clinically cleared for suspicion of cervical spine injury by the emergency department provider. Objective : To determine if patients with a cervical collar were more likely to undergo cervical spine imaging than those who arrived to the emergency department without a collar. Design : Adult trauma patients at a level 1 trauma center over 4 months (n = 1,438) were stratified by acuity (1,2, or 3), mechanism, and known injury cephalad to clavicles, defined as pain, wounds, or hematomas. Cervical spine imaging findings were recorded. Results : 975 patients (67.8%) had cervical CT scans. Twenty-six (1.81%) sustained a fracture or ligamentous injury, all with known injury cephalad to clavicles. 161 (11.2%) patients without injury cephalad to clavicles all had a negative cervical CT. Category 1 patients with gunshot wounds with injury cephalad to clavicles were more likely to have CT if they arrived with a collar versus without (66.7% vs 14.3%, p = 0.027). Category 2 and 3 patients with injury cephalad to clavicles after motor vehicle collision (MVC) (88.2% vs 69.6%, p = 0.011), low energy falls (88.3% vs 59.4%, p Conclusion : Certain trauma patients were more likely to undergo cervical CT if they arrived wearing a cervical collar. No conscious patients without complaints proximal to the clavicles had cervical injury.
Acute appendicitis is associated with appendiceal microbiome changes including elevated Campylobacter jejuni levels.

Objectives To compare the appendiceal microbiomes and examine the prevalence of Campylobacter species in the appendices of adult subjects with confirmed acute non-perforated appendicitis and controls with healthy appendices. Design Archived samples of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded appendiceal tissues were obtained from 50 consecutive female subjects who underwent appendectomy for acute, non-perforated appendicitis, and 35 consecutive female controls who underwent incidental appendectomy during gynaecological surgery. Results 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that the relative abundances (RAs) of the major phyla in appendiceal tissues (Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria) were similar in both groups. Beta diversity was significantly different due to differences in Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria (p 0.05) were increased in acute appendicitis samples. RAs of unknown genera from families Burkholderiaceae and Enterobacteriaceae were decreased in appendicitis samples, and 14 genera were increased, including Neisseria, Acinetobacter and Campylobacter. Quantitative PCR revealed that levels of Campylobacter jejuni DNA, but not other Campylobacter species or pathogens tested, were significantly higher in appendicitis samples than in controls (p=0.013). Using a cut-off of 0.31 pg/µL, 40% of appendicitis cases and 6% of controls were positive for C. jejuni, indicating specificity of 93.7% (95% Cl 79.2 to 99.2), sensitivity of 40.9% (95% Cl 24.7 to 54.5), and OR of 10.38 (Fisher’s p value=0.0006, 95% Cl 2.3 to 47.4). Conclusions Our findings indicate that Campylobacter jejuni may be a significant cause of acute appendicitis. This supports earlier studies and suggests that targeted antibiotic therapies could be an alternative treatment for a subset of non-complicated acute appendicitis cases.
Effects of adapting to user pitch on rapport perception, behavior, and state with a social robotic learning companion

Social robots such as learning companions, therapeutic assistants, and tour guides are dependent on the challenging task of establishing a rapport with their users. People rarely communicate with just words alone; facial expressions, gaze, gesture, and prosodic cues like tone of voice and speaking rate combine to help individuals express their words and convey emotion. One way that individuals communicate a sense of connection with one another is entrainment, where interaction partners adapt their way of speaking, facial expressions, or gestures to each other; entrainment has been linked to trust, liking, and task success and is thought to be a vital phenomenon in how people build rapport. In this work, we introduce a social robot that combines multiple channels of rapport-building behavior, including forms of social dialog and prosodic entrainment. We explore how social dialog and entrainment contribute to both self-reported and behavioral rapport responses. We find prosodic adaptation enhances perceptions of social dialog, and that social dialog and entrainment combined build rapport. Individual differences indicated by gender mediate these social responses; an individual’s underlying rapport state, as indicated by their verbal rapport behavior, is exhibited and triggered differently depending on gender. These results have important repercussions for assessing and modeling a user’s social responses and designing adaptive social agents.
Real-time Sound Visualization via Multidimensional Clustering and Projections

Sound plays a vital role in every aspect of human life since it is one of the primary sensory information that our auditory system collects and allows us to perceive the world. Sound clustering and visualization is the process of collecting and analyzing audio samples; that process is a prerequisite of sound classification, which is the core of automatic speech recognition, virtual assistants, and text to speech applications. Nevertheless, understanding how to recognize and properly interpret complex, high-dimensional audio data is the most significant challenge in sound clustering and visualization. This paper proposed a web-based platform to visualize and cluster similar sound samples of musical notes and human speech in real-time. For visualizing high-dimensional data like audio, Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) were initially developed to represent the sounds made by the human vocal tract are extracted. Then, t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE), a dimensionality reduction technique, was designed for high dimensional datasets is applied. This paper focuses on both data clustering and high-dimensional visualization methods to properly present the clustering results in the most meaningful way to uncover potentially interesting behavioral patterns of musical notes played by different instruments.
A Distributed Real-time Scheduling System for Industrial Wireless Networks

The concept of Industry 4.0 introduces the unification of industrial Internet-of-Things (IoT), cyber physical systems, and data-driven business modeling to improve production efficiency of the factories. To ensure high production efficiency, Industry 4.0 requires industrial IoT to be adaptable, scalable, real-time, and reliable. Recent successful industrial wireless standards such as WirelessHART appeared as a feasible approach for such industrial IoT. For reliable and real-time communication in highly unreliable environments, they adopt a high degree of redundancy. While a high degree of redundancy is crucial to real-time control, it causes a huge waste of energy, bandwidth, and time under a centralized approach and are therefore less suitable for scalability and handling network dynamics. To address these challenges, we propose DistributedHART—a distributed real-time scheduling system for WirelessHART networks. The essence of our approach is to adopt local (node-level) scheduling through a time window allocation among the nodes that allows each node to schedule its transmissions using a real-time scheduling policy locally and online. DistributedHART obviates the need of creating and disseminating a central global schedule in our approach, thereby significantly reducing resource usage and enhancing the scalability. To our knowledge, it is the first distributed real-time multi-channel scheduler for WirelessHART. We have implemented DistributedHART and experimented on a 130-node testbed. Our testbed experiments as well as simulations show at least 85% less energy consumption in DistributedHART compared to existing centralized approach while ensuring similar schedulability.
Phytoplankton exudates and lysates support distinct microbial consortia with specialized metabolic and ecophysiological traits.

Blooms of marine phytoplankton fix complex pools of dissolved organic matter (DOM) that are thought to be partitioned among hundreds of heterotrophic microbes at the base of the food web. While the relationship between microbial consumers and phytoplankton DOM is a key component of marine carbon cycling, microbial loop metabolism is largely understood from model organisms and substrates. Here, we took an untargeted approach to measure and analyze partitioning of four distinct phytoplankton-derived DOM pools among heterotrophic populations in a natural microbial community using a combination of ecogenomics, stable isotope probing (SIP), and proteomics. Each 13C-labeled exudate or lysate from a diatom or a picocyanobacterium was preferentially assimilated by different heterotrophic taxa with specialized metabolic and physiological adaptations. Bacteroidetes populations, with their unique high-molecular-weight transporters, were superior competitors for DOM derived from diatom cell lysis, rapidly increasing growth rates and ribosomal protein expression to produce new relatively high C:N biomass. Proteobacteria responses varied, with relatively low levels of assimilation by Gammaproteobacteria populations, while copiotrophic Alphaproteobacteria such as the Roseobacter clade, with their diverse array of ABC- and TRAP-type transporters to scavenge monomers and nitrogen-rich metabolites, accounted for nearly all cyanobacteria exudate assimilation and produced new relatively low C:N biomass. Carbon assimilation rates calculated from SIP data show that exudate and lysate from two common marine phytoplankton are being used by taxonomically distinct sets of heterotrophic populations with unique metabolic adaptations, providing a deeper mechanistic understanding of consumer succession and carbon use during marine bloom events.*
Biosynthesis and Functions of Modified Nucleosides in Eukaryotic mRNA

This chapter focuses on the sequence-specific methylation of internal adenosine residues to form N6-methyladenosine. It talks about nucleosides modifications present in cellular mRNA; the nucleoside modifications present in virion RNA and viral mRNA are also be discussed because of the nearly complete overlap of the spectrum of modifications present. Lower eukaryotes such as yeast and Neurospora contain only cap 0. Collectively, these cap methylation events account for the presence of most of the nucleoside modifications in eukaryotic mRNA, namely, 7-methylguanine (m7G), all four 2’-O-methylnucleosides (Nm), and N6,2’-Odimethyl-adenosine (m6Am). Three modified nucleosides have been reported within internal regions of eukaryotic mRNA: N6methyladenosine (m6A), 5-methylcytidine (m5C), and inosine. A study examined short (20 nucleotide) synthetic RNA substrates and confirmed that the in vitro specificity closely paralleled the frequency with which sequences are methylated in vivo as originally described by Schibler. This study was extended by evaluating an additional two m6A sites in a similar fashion. Camper and his coworkers utilized an inhibitor, S-tubericidinylhomocysteine (STH), which is a structural analog of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) and a potent inhibitor of SAM-dependent methyltransferases. In this study, the effects of the inhibitor on cap methylation and internal methylation were closely monitored. Posttranscriptional modification of nucleosides within mRNA molecules is an integral aspect of premRNA processing. These modifications are characteristic of eukaryotic mRNA only; no equivalent nucleotide modifications have been found in any of the prokaryotic mRNAs characterized so far.
Performance of Modified Chlorine Contact Chamber

A field study on the effectiveness of perforated baffles in an existing cross-baffled serpentine flow chlorine contact chamber is reported. The object of the method studied was to increase the hydraulic efficiency and lower the required chlorine dose. A cross-baffled serpentine flow chamber was chosen because it is a common design. Tracer curves and disinfection efficiency were monitored on a modified and unmodified chlorine contact chamber simultaneously operating under equal conditions. Data generated from these field tests and batch reactor experiments were used to determine the efficiency increase achieved from these baffles, and to project the expected benefit of these modifications as an interim solution at municipal treatment plants.
M-PMV capsid transport is mediated by Env/Gag interactions at the pericentriolar recycling endosome

Cytoplasmic transport of Gag molecules to the site of budding is an important but poorly understand process in retroviral assembly. Our previous studies of Mason-Pfizer monkey virus showed that, for this retrovirus, Gag is assembled into capsids at a pericentriolar region and that Env is necessary for efficient transport out of the site. An Env requirement for cytoplasmic transport implicates vesicular trafficking in this process even though the capsids remain cytoplasmic and do not bud into intracellular compartments in the cells studied to date. We show here that the secretory pathway of the cell is not directly involved in Gag transport since the latter was not inhibited by BFA, nor did Gag colocalize with markers of the ER, Golgi, or TGN. Instead, colocalization was observed between Gag and endocytosed transferrin and with Rab11, suggesting that pericentriolar recycling endosomes play a critical role in this process. Mutants of Rab11 that inhibit efflux of transferrin from the recycling endosome also inhibited Gag transport. Our studies show that Env colocalizes with Gag at the pericentriolar assembly site, and provide evidence that Env must travel through this compartment in order to initiate export of the capsids from the site of assembly. Thus, for the first time, endocytic trafficking of a retroviral Env glycoprotein is linked to the efficient cytoplasmic transport of Gag.
Biomedical and ethnomedical practice in rural Zaire: Contrasts and complements

Abstract Some health care planners and scholars who work in developing countries have advocated the promotion of some form of cooperation, collaboration, or even integration of the medical services of biomedical practitioners with the services of local healers. This paper discusses issues that must be addressed in the consideration of such a possibility in a rural community in Zaire where the ‘dual use’ of medical resources is evident. After briefly outlining the characteristics of the biomedical and ethnomedical systems that now exist, the strengths and weaknesses of each system are evaluated and compared. In promoting cooperation between different types of practitioners, project planners, it is argued, should consider the strengths and weaknesses of each type of medical practice and should seek to improve the use of existing medical resources. The paper concludes by outlining a series of progressive stages of contact among practitioners that could lead to a system of mutual referral.
Numerical mode and boundary analysis of bifurcation phenomena in plasmas with stationary striations

A nonlinear phenomenon occurring in radio-frequency-excited inert gas plasmas with zero DC magnetic field results in the formation in plasmas of stationary striations induced by the onset of an instability. This instability has theoretically been found to depend on various bifurcation parameters that can be experimentally controlled. Some experimental results have been obtained and compared with theory. Striations have been observed in neon and argon under a wide range of operating conditions. Transition between modes caused by changes in the length, power or pressure exhibit hysteresis. The hysteresis in some parameter regions appears to be due, at least in part, to the flexibility of the boundary. Criteria have been obtained for the automatic localization of the plasma boundaries. A computer program has been written for the application of the same to digitized experimental runs and for the analysis of corresponding plasma modes. >
Information Literacy for GIS Curricula

Abstract Undergraduate GIS courses, regardless of parent department, frequently follow similar formats culminating with long-term, self-directed ‘capstone’ projects. Instructors usually acquire data for students, rather than having the students search for information from online repositories or campus libraries. While on the library side of life, librarian-led classroom sessions are unsatisfying for students and librarians, chiefly due to a lack of connection to important research-based assignments. A model is presented herein to train instructors to include information literacy components into courses, thereby increasing students' ability to work independently.
Automatic identification of comparative effectiveness research from medline citations to support clinicians' treatment information needs.

UNLABELLED Online knowledge resources such as Medline can address most clinicians' patient care information needs. Yet, significant barriers, notably lack of time, limit the use of these sources at the point of care. The most common information needs raised by clinicians are treatment-related. Comparative effectiveness studies allow clinicians to consider multiple treatment alternatives for a particular problem. Still, solutions are needed to enable efficient and effective consumption of comparative effectiveness research at the point of care. OBJECTIVE Design and assess an algorithm for automatically identifying comparative effectiveness studies and extracting the interventions investigated in these studies. METHODS The algorithm combines semantic natural language processing, Medline citation metadata, and machine learning techniques. We assessed the algorithm in a case study of treatment alternatives for depression. RESULTS Both precision and recall for identifying comparative studies was 0.83. A total of 86% of the interventions extracted perfectly or partially matched the gold standard. CONCLUSION Overall, the algorithm achieved reasonable performance. The method provides building blocks for the automatic summarization of comparative effectiveness research to inform point of care decision-making.
Gromov-Witten invariants of jumping curves

Given a vector bundle E on a smooth projective variety X, we can define subschemes of the Kontsevich moduli space of genus-zero stable maps M 0,0 (X,β) parameterizing maps f: P 1 → X such that the Grothendieck decomposition of f*E has a specified splitting type. In this paper, using a "compactification" of this locus, we define Gromov-Witten invariants of jumping curves associated to the bundle E. We compute these invariants for the tautological bundle of Grassmannians and the Horrocks-Mumford bundle on P 4 . Our construction is a generalization of jumping lines for vector bundles on P". Since for the tautological bundle of the Grassmannians the invariants are enumerative, we resolve the classical problem of computing the characteristic numbers of unbalanced scrolls.
Biology Is to Medicine as Psychology Is to Education: True or False?

The nature of the relationship between developmental and cognitive psychology on the one side and education on the other can be better appreciated by considering two other relationships between academic disciplines and areas of application and practice as source domains for an analogy.
A neonatal mouse model of intestinal perforation: Investigating the harmful synergism between glucocorticoids and indomethacin

ABSTRACTBackground:Early postnatal steroids and indomethacin in combination have been shown to increase the risk of spontaneous intestinal perforation (SIP) in infants with extremely low birth weight (ELBW), but the mechanism behind this synergistic effect is unknown.Materials and Methods:Based on l
PELAN: a pulsed neutron portable probe for UXO and land mine identification

There has been much work increasing the sensitivity of detecting metallic objects in soils and other environments. This has lead to a problem in discriminating unexploded ordnance (UXO) and landmines form other metallic clutter. PELAN is a small portable system for the detection of explosives. PELAN weights less than 45 kg and is man portable. It is based on the principle that explosives and other contraband contain various chemical elements such as H, C, N, O, etc. in quantities and ratios that differentiate them from other innocuous substances. The pulsed neutrons are produced with a 14 MeV neutron generator. Separate gamma-ray spectra form fast neutron, thermal neutron and activation reactions are accumulated and analyzed to determine elemental content. The data analysis is performed in an automatic manner and a result of whether a threat is present is returned to the operator. PELAN has successfully undergone field demonstrations for explosive detection. In this paper, we will discuss the application of PELAN to the problem of differentiating threats from metallic clutter.
Preliminary results of measurements of temperature- and salinity-variations in the Gulf Stream: March 1940

Repeated measurements of temperature and salinity over extended periods from anchored vessels have shown that significant short-period variations of oceanographic properties occur at fixed points in the ocean-space. The phenomenon, observed to great depths in the ocean-basins, arises because of internal vertical and lateral motions of the water-layers; in regions of not too strongly sloping isohaline and isothermal surfaces (as the western Sargasso Sea), vertical displacements dominate, whereas elsewhere (as the Gulf Stream) both lateral and horizontal displacements may be effective. Large diurnal temperature-variations have been recorded in the western Atlantic, where for considerable distances in all directions isothermal surfaces are only slightly sloping, and, as a result of scattered investigations, it is to be inferred that the phenomenon is of general occurrence and that somewhat corresponding results could be observed in all oceans. Thus, during 14 days of continuous observations at Atlantis station 3091 (about 110 miles northwest of Bermuda), 24 hourly temperature-ranges up to 2°50 were observed at depths of 800 meters, up to 1°45 at 1,000 meters, and up to 0°31 at 1,300 meters.
On Peer-to-Peer Location Management in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) have been gained importance for the inter-vehicle communication that supports local communication between vehicles without any expensive infrastructure and considerable configuration efforts. How to provide light-weight and scalable location management service which facilitates geographic routing in VANETs remains a fundamental issue. In this paper we will present a novel peer-to-peer location management protocol, called PLM, to provide location management service in VANETs. PLM makes use of high mobility in VANETs to disseminate vehiclesâ€™ historical location information over the network. A vehicle is able to predict current location of other vehicles with Kalman filtering technique. Our theoretical analysis shows that PLM is able to achieve high location information availability with a low protocol overhead and latency. The simulation results indicate that PLM can provide fairly accurate location information with quite low communication overhead in VANETs
Theory of liquid ink development in electrophotography

When an electric field is present across two different fluid dielectrics having a common plane boundary, some disturbances in the interfacial boundary are found to grow in time. The liquid ink development process is viewed as the result of varying instability of the oil-ink interface as a function of the differing field gradient in light and dark areas of the exposed image. In an analysis of the disturbances into normal modes, the theory relatest he effects upon instability due to potential difference across the oil, the surface tension, the respective viscosities of the oil and the ink, and the finite thicknesses of the oil, ink, and the photoconductor layer. The threshold potential difference for the onset of instability is also given.
Detection of the SiH2 radical by intracavity laser absorption spectroscopy

The silylene radical, SiH2, has been detected directly by absorption using intracavity laser spectroscopy under silane discharge conditions that produce silicon deposits. Rotationally resolved absorption spectra of the (020)+(000) and (010)-(000) vibronic bands in the A 1B1 ← X 1A1 transition of SiH2 have been identified. The pressure of SiH2 in these experiments approaches 20 mTorr. Other absorption lines have been observed including those associated with Ar I and Ar II transitions from the argon used to maintain the discharge and transitions from several electronically excited states of the H2 formed as a product in the de- composition of silane.
Optimal control of distributed systems with derivative dependent cost functionals

The optimal regulator of Distributed Parameter Systems with its cost functional involving time derivatives of distributed control vectors or state spatial and time derivative terms as well as the usual terms containing the control and state vectors has been analyzed by introducing augmented variables. A very significant result in modern control theory is that, for a linear, finite-dimensional, dynamical systems, the state feedback law derived from a quadratic performance index function minimization problem is linear. Generalization of the above result to a infinite-dimensional, distributed parameter dynamical systems with quadratic cost functional involving derivative terms is made possible from stability considerations. The state feedback law, realized by a linear distributed parameter dynamical system, has operator representations.
Empirical versus Model‐based Atmospheric Correction of Digital Airborne Imaging Spectrometer Hyperspectral Data

Abstract This paper reports the results of a quantitative comparison of empirical and model based atmospheric correction techniques for the radiometric calibration of a Digital Airborne Imaging Spectrometer (DAIS) 3715 hyperspectral image dataset. Empirical line calibration (ELC) and the radiative transfer based model Atmospheric CORrection Now (ACORN) were applied to transform the hyperspectral dataset from values of radiance to scaled percent reflectance. An additional spectral polishing technique called single spectrum enhancement (SSE) was implemented a posteriori to refine the transformation results. To evaluate the accuracy of the radiometric calibration techniques, spectra extracted from the processed images were analytically compared to spectral measurements collected in situ with a handheld spectroradiometer at 46 sample point locations. Average RMSE errors were as follows: ELC without SSE = 0.1415, ACORN without SSE = 0.0645, ELC with SSE = 0.0345, and ACORN with SSE = 0.0314. Based on the resul...
Ultrastructural findings in human nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

Ultrastructural examination of the hepatocyte in disease states has been an important research tool for many years [1]. Although eclipsed by techniques of molecular biology, electron microscopy (EM) remains a useful and insightful tool. EM can inform various aspects of fat metabolism in fatty liver disease, including alcoholic fatty liver, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Limitations of EM include small sample size, artifact introduced by variations in the technique of sample processing, laborintensive methods and a paucity of normal tissue controls in human studies [2]. However, refinements in technique and technology have evolved into reliable methodology, and EM offers an intriguing perspective on cellular physiology. In this article, we highlight key observations reported in human NASH, along with potential pathophysiologic correlations.
A Laboratory Controlled Study of Uptake of Copper, Lead, and Zinc in Crawfish (Procambrus clarkii) by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry

In a laboratory controlled study, the uptake of various concentrations of parts per million (up to a maximum of 100 ppm) of copper, lead, and zinc in crawfish was studied. All three metals were absorbed by the crawfish with (in general) an increase in metal concentration showing an increase in metal absorption levels. Copper and zinc reached an optimum at 32 ppm, and 52 ppm added, respectively, where as lead continued accumulation with increasing lead concentration. Higher concentrations of lead were absorbed compared to copper and zinc.
Efficient Two-Dimensional Blocked Element Compensation

Very large, two-dimensional, anisotropic arrays have been proposed to improve ultrasound image quality. Due to noncontiguous acoustic windows into the body, however, a significant portion of such an aperture may be blocked. Blocked elements result in high sidelobes in the point spread function, degrading image quality. To compensate for this, an object dependent method using multiple receive beams has been recently proposed. This method is effective in removing undesired sidelobes. However, previous results were for one-dimensional arrays where only lateral beams were used for estimation. With two-dimensional arrays, the distribution of blocked elements can change beam characteristics, both laterally and elevationally. In other words, receive beams must be formed in both directions for better performance. Although straightforward in principle, extension of the algorithm from one dimension to two increases computational complexity dramatically. Furthermore, the restricted elevational steering capability of anisotropic arrays also limits performance. In this paper, several computationally efficient algorithms for two-dimensional blocked element compensation are proposed and evaluated. It is shown that undesired sidelobes can be effectively removed using only a limited number of receive beams. Image quality can therefore be restored in the presence of blocked elements without significantly increasing hardware complexity.
Crystallographic and Mössbauer study of (Sc, Y, Ln) (Fe, Al)2 intermetallic compounds

Crystal structures have been studied in a series of alloys in the RFe2-RAl 2 system in which R includes Sc, Y, Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm and Lu. X-ray studies were made by the Debye-Scherrer method for arcmelted and annealed alloys. Earlier work had shown that where the composition is close to RFe2 or RAl2, the compounds are MgCu2-type (cubic) Laves phases, but that in a composition region intermediate between RFe2 and RAl2 the compounds are MgZn2-type (hexagonal) Laves phases. The present work defines the composition limits of the MgCu2- and MgZn2-type structures and reports the existence of a new MgCu2-type compound based on ScFe2. In general, the range of stability of the hexagonal compounds is shifted to higher aluminum concentration as the identity of the rare earth changes from Sm to Lu, although anomalous behavior is exhibited by Sc. When the regions of phase stability are depicted in a plot of volume per formula weight vs. composition, the phase boundaries between cubic and hexagonal phases are curved, but have similar shapes at both the iron-rich and aluminum-rich end of the diagram. The tendency to order into the Mg2Cu3 Si-type structure in the hexagonal phase has been studied by X-ray diffraction; various models of this ordering are treated. Both the cubic and the hexagonal phases have been studied by the Mossbauer effect with 57Fe. The hexagonal phases exhibit magnetic order at low temperatures but not at room temperature. At room temperature the cubic phases of Ho33AlxFe66−x are magnetic for x = 10 and nonmagnetic for x = 20 or greater.
A computational approach to the 2-torsion structure of abelian threefolds

Let A be a three-dimensional abelian variety defined over a number field K. Using techniques of group theory and explicit computations with MAGMA, we show that if A has an even number of Fp-rational points for almost all primes p of K, then there exists a K-isogenous A' which has an even number of K-rational torsion points. We also show that there exist abelian varieties A of all dimensions > 4 such that #Ap(Fp) is even for almost all primes p of K, but there does not exist a K-isogenous A' such that #A'(K) tors is even.
Growth Values of Proteins from Commercial Animal Products: 1. Commercial Meat and Bone Scraps

Abstract The need for nitrogenous feeds in the poultry ration has been recognized for many years. In 1898 Wheeler1 reported some work showing the value of proteins from animal products. Since that time many experiment stations have carried on tests comparing the value of the protein in various feeds, including animal by-products, in order to determine satisfactory sources of protein concentrates. Such experiments have been conducted with both growing chicks and mature birds. In 1915 Philips2 in a report on experiments for egg production with mature stock states: “Meat scrap, fish scrap, or skim milk greatly increases the efficiency of the grain and dry mash feed.” At the New Jersey Station3 it was found that when the mash portion of the ration contained 25 per cent of meat scraps there was an increase in egg production of pullets when compared with a ration in which the mash contained 10 per cent . . .
Acetylcholine synthesis by chick spinal cord neurons in dissociated cell culture

Abstract Acetylcholine (ACh) synthesis was examined in cultures of chick spinal cord cells to follow the development of the cholinergic neurons. The cells, prepared from 4-day-old embryonic chick spinal cords, were grown either alone in dissociated cell cultures (SC cultures) or with chick myotubes (SC-M cultures). ACh synthesis was measured by incubating the cultures in [ 3 Hcholine and using high-voltage paper electrophoresis to quantitate the amount of [ 3 H]ACh present in cell extracts prepared from the labeled cultures. The amount of [ 3 H]ACh synthesized in SC-M cultures was strictly proportional to the number of spinal cord cells used to prepare the cultures, and was linear with the time of incubation in [ 3 H]choline for periods up to 1 hr. Maximal rates of synthesis were observed with [ 3 H]choline concentrations in excess of 100 μ M . Such rates for 1-week-old SC-M cultures were approximately 10–20 pmoles of [ 3 H]ACh/hr/10 5 spinal cord cells. Studies on the stability of the intracellular [ 3 H]ACh revealed the presence of a major pool with a half-time of 20–30 min. A second, small pool decayed more rapidly. No detectable [ 3 H]ACh was spontaneously released from the cells, suggesting that most of the decay represented intracellular degradation. Development of cholinergic neurons as monitored by [ 3 H]ACh synthesis continued over a 2-week period in SC-M cultures and paralleled general cell growth. When examined at 1 week, SC-M cultures had about a 50% greater capacity for [ 3 H]ACh synthesis and 60% more choline acetyltransferase activity than did SC cultures. No difference was observed in the stability of the [ 3 H]ACh formed for the two types of cultures at 1 week, and no further difference was observed in the rates of [ 3 H]ACh synthesis at 2 weeks. Growth of SC cultures in medium containing different amounts of chick embryo extract (2–10%) or in medium with fetal calf serum (10%) instead of extract produced only small differences in the measured rates of [ 3 H]ACh synthesis. Thus chick spinal cord cells can undergo some of the early stages of cholinergic development in cell culture without sustained contact with skeletal myotubes, one of the normal postsynaptic target cells for the cholinergic neuron population. No absolute requirement for muscle factors was revealed under these conditions, although such factors may have been provided by other cell types in the spinal cord population or may have been present in other additions to the culture medium.
Cellular proteomes have broad distributions of protein stability.

Biological cells are extremely sensitive to temperature. What is the mechanism? We compute the thermal stabilities of the whole proteomes of Escherichia coli, yeast, and Caenorhabditis elegans using an analytical model and an extensive database of stabilities of individual proteins. Our results support the hypothesis that a cell's thermal sensitivities arise from the collective instability of its proteins. This model shows a denaturation catastrophe at temperatures of 49–55°C, roughly the thermal death point of mesophiles. Cells live on the edge of a proteostasis catastrophe. According to the model, it is not that the average protein is problematic; it is the tail of the distribution. About 650 of E. coli's 4300 proteins are less than 4 kcal mol−1 stable to denaturation. And upshifting by only 4° from 37° to 41°C is estimated to destabilize an average protein by nearly 20%. This model also treats effects of denaturants, osmolytes, and other physical stressors. In addition, it predicts the dependence of cellular growth rates on temperature. This approach may be useful for studying physical forces in biological evolution and the role of climate change on biology.
Assessment of children's health-related quality of life in the United States with a multidimensional index

OBJECTIVE. Using nationally representative data, we examined biological, medical system, and sociodemographic factors that are associated with health-related quality of life as measured by a multidimensional index that accounts for a wide range of child health domains. METHODS. Children aged ≥6 years (N = 69031) were drawn from the 2003/2004 National Survey of Children9s Health. A random 25% sample was used to create a 12-item index of health-related quality of life with a range of 0 to 100, based on the conceptual framework of the Child Health and Illness Profile. Bivariate and multivariable regression analyses were conducted to identify the unadjusted and independent associations of key biological, medical system, and sociodemographic variables with health-related quality of life. RESULTS. The index mean was 72.3 (SD: 14.5), median value was 73.7, and range was 11.1 to 99.9. Only 0.2% of children had a score at the ceiling. In multivariable regression analysis, the following variables were independently associated with lower health-related quality of life: biological factors (greater disease burden, severe asthma, and overweight status); medical system factors (unmet medical needs, lack of a regular health care provider, Medicaid insurance, or being uninsured previously during the year); and sociodemographic factors (older age groups, lower family education, single-mother family, having a smoker in the household, black race, and poverty). CONCLUSIONS. Health-related quality of life in the United States is poorest for children and youth in lower socioeconomic status groups, those with access barriers, adolescents compared with children, and individuals with medical conditions. A multidimensional health-related quality-of-life index is an alternative to conventional measures (eg, mortality) for national monitoring of child health.
Reply to Levine

The aim of this paper is to show that, though Levine frequently states that Divine Discourse is full of fundamental errors, he does little by way of proving his point. In particular, I defend the claim in Divine Discourse that divine speech is not a species of revelation. I rebut Levine's account of the significance of Biblical scholarship, defend my interpretation of Ricoeur and my remarks on entitlement.
Urinary excretion of diols derived from eicosapentaenoic acid during n-3 fatty acid ingestion by man.

Abstract Epoxides and fatty acid diols derived from arachidonate by the action of cytochrome P-450 appear in human urine and have biological activities. Dietary eicosapentaenoic acid gives rise to prostaglandins in vivo , but vascular effects of n-3 supplements do not all correlate with altered types or amounts of in vivo cyclooxygenase products. We investigated whether dietary eicosapentaenoic acid could also be metabolized by cytochrome P-450, by assessing the excretion of its vicinal diols. Utilizing gas chromatogrpahy/negative chemical ionization mass spectrometry, we have found that humans ingesting n-3 fatty acids excrete vicinal diols of eicosapentaenoic acid substantial quantities.
Sono synthesis and characterization of nano-phase molybdenum-based materials for catalytic hydrodesulfurization

Abstract Unsupported nano-phase MoS2, CoS, and CoS-MoS2 (Mo/Co mole ratio ∼6/1) materials were prepared in hexadecane by sonolysis of the corresponding metal carbonyls at ∼50 °C in high (>90%) yields as measured by the evolved carbon monoxide. Direct sonolysis of commercial micron-sized MoS2 in hexadecane did not result in nano-sizing. The TEM images showed that the synthesized MoS2 were aggregates of ∼20 nm mean particle diameter, CoS was ∼50 nm and the mixed-metal CoS-MoS2 could be viewed as a composite in which smaller MoS2 particles resided on the larger crystallites of CoS. The broad XRD peaks were consistent with nano-structured MoS2 and the sharp peaks were consistent with a more crystalline CoS-MoS2 species. The sharp peaks did not fit any single CoS pattern suggesting multiple phases. The XRD data showed that sonolysis did not alter the morphology of the micron-sized commercial MoS2 sample. In the HDS comparative activity study of dibenzothiophene, the synthesized nano-phase MoS2 exhibited more than an order of magnitude higher activity than its commercial micron-sized counterpart and the addition of Co further enhanced the activity. The HDS activity mirrored the temperature programmed reduction data. Interestingly, the nano-phase materials were less active for hydrogenation of 1-octene during the HDS study.
Trade Liberalization in Nepal: Has Liberalization Increased Welfare?

Nepal drastically liberalized trade in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and it currently has the lowest tariff rates in South Asia. Nepal is also a member of multiple regional trade and bilateral trade agreements and it joined SAFTA in 2008. An analysis of Nepal's economic growth, income inequality, and poverty, along with the problems of SAFTA reveal that liberalized trade has only brought modest gains to Nepal. These gains have slightly benefited Nepal's urban sector and the richest segment of the society, and have failed to be distributed across the population.
Influence of source, rate, and method of applicating controlled release fertilizer on nutrient release and growth of ‘Savannah’ holly

An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of rate of fertilizer application and method of application on the rate of nutrient release and growth of ‘Savannah’ holly (Ilex ×attenuata Ashe) using three controlled release fertilizers. The controlled release fertilizers used were Osmocote 17N—3P—9.9K, Sierrablen 17N—3P—8.3K, and High-N 24N—1.7P—5.8K, all 12 to 14 month formulations. The three fertilizers had different release rates as determined by leachate nitrate—N and electrical conductivity (EC) measurements. Topdressing of fertilizer had the greatest release rate at seven days after treatment compared to fertilizer incorporation which had the lowest EC readings at 120 days after treatment. Fertilizer source had no effect on the shoot growth of ‘Savannah’ holly. Growth index and shoot dry weight of ‘Savannah’ holly increased linearly as N rate increased from 0.9 to 2.1 kg N m−3. A significant linear relationship (R2 = 0.97, Nitrate—N = 409 (EC)) between nitrate—N and EC indicates that nitrate—N concentration can be estimated from EC readings when the pour-through method is used with multicoated controlled release fertilizers. The controlled release fertilizers used in this study provided adequate nutrient release rates for up to four months under outdoor nursery conditions during the months of June through October.
Feeding gastrostomy: A simplified technic

Abstract Simple tube gastrostomy is an acceptable procedure for temporary or permanent use. When performed with a Foley or Pezzer catheter, the feeding tube is easily retained and prevents spillage. The operative procedure is simple and is without significant morbidity and in our cases without mortalily. The patient's nutritional state can be maintained with gastrostomy feeding to a highly satisfactory degree. Closure is spontaneous on removal of tube. In these patients an excellent state of nutrition was maintained for periods up to thirty-six months. Those patients with cancer of the esophagus, larynx, etc., were able to return home and care for themselves, avoiding the parenteral fluids and attendant problems. It was believed that the life of many of these patients was prolonged considerably by this procedure.