cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
G81(P) Safety of “single checker” patient group directives for selected medications during initial nurse assessment in the emergency department (ed)

Aims Innovative ways to optimise ED patient flow, without sacrificing quality of care, are at a premium.2 Within our own paediatric ED, it was observed that inefficiency occurred whenever a triage nurse had to leave the assessment room in order to find a colleague to check the dose of a Patient Group Directive (PGD), including those for simple, over-the-counter medications. Doubt has been cast on the efficacy of double checking in all but high risk medications.2 We aimed to evaluate the safety of a “single checker” PGD process at triage for paracetamol (pain and fever), ibuprofen (pain and fever), oral rehydration salts (ORS) and topical 4% tetracaine gel (Ametop) to improve patient flow. Methods Single-checker PGDs were devised for the medications and indications listed above, to be used exclusively within the triage/assessment area by nurses who had completed PGD competency training. The process change was approved by the Trust Drug and Therapeutics Committee, after assurance that robust safety nets were in place (including the production of weight/dose tables for paracetamol and ibuprofen which were displayed in the assessment room). At launch, a 3 month audit (August–October 2011) was conducted, in which all single checker PGDs were logged. Subsequently, the hospital incident reporting system was reviewed for any medication errors associated with PGDs from ED. Results During the first 3 months of the use of single-checker PGDs, no errors in dose were identified. To date, no medication errors associated with ED PGDs have been identified within the hospital incident reporting system. Benchmarking data regarding the prevalence of this practice within EDs in the PERUKI network will be identified. Conclusion There were no drug errors with single checking by protocol of simple emergency medications at triage, within one of the UK’s busiest paediatric EDs. Further research is required to quantify the time and resources saved on the patient journey. References Sinclair D. Emergency department overcrowding – implications for paediatric emergency medicine. Paediatrics Child Health 2007;12:491–494 David U. Double checking: does it work? Can J Hosp Pharm. 2003;53:167–169
Open WiFi networks: Lethal weapons for botnets?

This paper assesses the potential for highly mobile botnets to communicate and perform nefarious actions using only open WiFi networks, which we term mobile WiFi botnets. We design and evaluate a proof-of-concept mobile WiFi botnet using real-world mobility traces and actual open WiFi network locations for the urban environment of San Francisco. Our extensive simulation results demonstrate that mobile WiFi botnets can support rapid command propagation, with commands typically reaching over 75% of the botnet only 2 hours after injection—sometimes, within as little as 30 minutes. Moreover, those bots able to receive commands usually have ≈40–50% probability of being able to do so within a minute of the command being issued. Our evaluation results also indicate that even a small mobile WiFi botnet of only 536 bots can launch an effective DDoS attack against poorly protected systems. Furthermore, mobile WiFi botnet traffic is sufficiently distributed across multiple open WiFi networks—with no single network being over-utilized at any given moment—to make detection difficult.
Hydrogels with enhanced mass transfer for transdermal drug delivery

The sonophoretic transport rates of monomeric insulin and vasopressin across human skin in vitro in the presence of a 20 kHz ultrasound field are shown to differ substantially depending on whether molecules enter the skin from a saline solution or from a viscous ultrasonic coupling medium (specifically, a methyl cellulose hydrogel or viscous sol). Theoretically, the reduction in sonophoretic transport caused by the hydrogels can be explained by boundary layers that form within the hydrogel owing to the relatively rapid rate of molecular transport across the (ultrasonically) permeated stratum corneum as well as poor diffusive mass transfer between the skin and gel. The results of in vitro experiments performed with an ac current accompanying the ultrasound show that the mass-transfer barrier posed by the hydrogel can be eliminated for both vasopressin and insulin by suppressing the diffusive boundary layers, indicating that relatively high rates of sonophoretic molecular transport across human skin are achievable when hydrogels are used as the ultrasound coupling medium as long as a method is used to induce molecular mixing within the gel.
Experimental fuel treatment impacts on forest structure, potential fire behavior, and predicted tree mortality in a California mixed conifer forest

Abstract Fuel treatments have been suggested as a means to limit the size and intensity of wildfires but few experiments are available to analyze the effectiveness of different treatments. This paper presents information from a replicated, stand level experiment from mixed conifer forests in the north-central Sierra Nevada that investigated how control, mechanical (crown thinning, thinning from below followed, rotary mastication), prescribed fire, and mechanical followed by prescribed fire treatments affected fuels, forest structure, potential fire behavior, and modeled tree mortality at 80th, 90th, and 97.5th percentile fire weather conditions. Fuels Management Analyst was used to model fire behavior and tree mortality. Thinning and mastication each reduced crown bulk density by approximately 19% in mechanical only and mechanical plus fire treatments. Prescribed burning significantly reduced the total combined fuel load of litter, duff, 1, 10, 100, and 1000 h fuels by as much as 90%. This reduction significantly altered modeled fire behavior in both mechanical plus fire and fire only treatments in terms of fireline intensity and predicted mortality. The prescribed fire only and mechanical followed by prescribed fire treatments resulted in the lowest average fireline intensities, rate of spread, and predicted mortality. The control treatment resulted in the most severe modeled fire behavior and tree mortality. Mechanical only treatments were an improvement over controls but still resulted in tree mortality at severe fire weather when compared with the treatments that included prescribed fire. Restoration of mixed conifer ecosystems must include an examination of how proposed treatments affect fire behavior and effects. Variation in existing stand structures will require solutions that are site specific but the principals outlined in this work should help managers make better decisions.
Evaluating the Impact of Performance Improvement Initiatives on Transplant Center Reporting Compliance and Patient Follow-Up After Living Kidney Donation.

With the changing demographics of the living donor population and increased regulatory oversight, it is important that transplant centers report outcomes accurately. The aim of our retrospective cohort study of 312 living donors who underwent nephrectomy between 2008 and 2013 was to evaluate the impact of living donor program performance improvement initiatives on: (i) transplant center program reporting compliance; (ii) patient compliance with postdonation follow-up and its associated factors; and (iii) overall financial costs to the transplant center. The effect of the initiatives (donation eras 2008-2010 and 2011-2013) on compliance at key reporting points (6 months, 1 year, 2 years) was analyzed using correlation coefficients, χ(2) and Fisher's exact tests. Multivariable logistic regression models tested the initiatives' effect on the likelihood of patient follow-up. The initiatives were associated with significant improvement in form reporting compliance (r ≥ 0.862, p ≤ 0.027; 1 and 2 year Fisher's Exact p ≤ 0.002) and patient follow-up (χ(2) p ≤ 0.009) with acceptable transplant center costs. Multivariable analyses demonstrated that donation era was consistently and significantly (p < 0.001) associated with increased likelihood of postdonation patient follow-up. Institution of performance improvement initiatives with dedicated program resources is financially feasible and leads to more accurate and complete form reporting and improved patient follow-up after nephrectomy.
Regulation of T Cell Receptor δ Gene Rearrangement by CBF/PEBP2

We have analyzed transgenic mice carrying versions of a human T cell receptor (TCR)-δ gene minilocus to study the developmental control of VDJ (variable/diversity/joining) recombination. Previous data indicated that a 1.4-kb DNA fragment carrying the TCR-δ enhancer (Eδ) efficiently activates minilocus VDJ recombination in vivo . We tested whether the transcription factor CBF/PEBP2 plays an important role in the ability of Eδ to activate VDJ recombination by analyzing VDJ recombination in mice carrying a minilocus in which the δE3 element of Eδ includes a mutated CBF/PEBP2 binding site. The enhancer-dependent VD to J step of minilocus rearrangement was dramatically inhibited in three of four transgenic lines, arguing that the binding of CBF/PEBP2 plays a role in modulating local accessibility to the VDJ recombinase in vivo. Because mutation of the δE3 binding site for the transcription factor c-Myb had previously established a similar role for c-Myb, and because a 60-bp fragment of Eδ carrying δE3 and δE4 binding sites for CBF/PEBP2, c-Myb, and GATA-3 displays significant enhancer activity in transient transfection experiments, we tested whether this fragment of Eδ is sufficient to activate VDJ recombination in vivo. This fragment failed to efficiently activate the enhancerdependent VD to J step of minilocus rearrangement in all three transgenic lines examined, indicating that the binding of CBF/PEBP2 and c-Myb to their cognate sites within Eδ, although necessary, is not sufficient for the activation of VDJ recombination by Eδ. These results imply that CBF/PEBP2 and c-Myb collaborate with additional factors that bind elsewhere within Eδ to modulate local accessibility to the VDJ recombinase in vivo.
STD Testing and Compliance with CDC and USPSTF HIV Testing Guidelines in a Regional Cohort of Emergency Departments

In 2003, the CDC estimated that 1 million people in the USA were living with HIV/AIDS, and 25% were undiagnosed. For many such patients the ED may be the only contact with the health care system. This study assessed compliance with CDC and USPTF guidelines for HIV testing in patients seeking evaluation for STDs in a regional cohort of emergency departments. 13927 patients patients underwent screening for STDs during the study period. Only 397 (2.85%) also received HIV screening while 107 (0.8%) received both HIV and syphyllis screening as per federal recommendations.
Strategy for Rapid Identification and Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing of Gram-Negative Bacteria Directly Recovered from Positive Blood Cultures Using the Bruker MALDI Biotyper and the BD Phoenix System

Decreasing the time to species identification and antibiotic susceptibility determination of strains recovered from patients with bacteremia significantly decreases morbidity and mortality. Herein, we validated a method to identify Gram-negative bacteria directly from positive blood culture medium using the Bruker MALDI Biotyper and to rapidly perform susceptibility testing using the BD Phoenix.
Decomposed predictive transform estimation

A novel design and implementation decompositions are found to arise for a minimum mean squared error (MMSE) linear predictive transform (LPT) estimator when certain symmetry conditions are satisfied by the first- and second-order statistics used to design the estimator. This results in a decomposed LPT estimator whose design and implementation computational effort is significantly less than that of the original estimator. >
Palmitoylation of a Conserved Cysteine in the Regulator of G Protein Signaling (RGS) Domain Modulates the GTPase-activating Activity of RGS4 and RGS10 *

RGS4 and RGS10 expressed in Sf9 cells are palmitoylated at a conserved Cys residue (Cys(95) in RGS4, Cys(66) in RGS10) in the regulator of G protein signaling (RGS) domain that is also autopalmitoylated when the purified proteins are incubated with palmitoyl-CoA. RGS4 also autopalmitoylates at a previously identified cellular palmitoylation site, either Cys(2) or Cys(12). The C2A/C12A mutation essentially eliminates both autopalmitoylation and cellular [(3)H]palmitate labeling of Cys(95). Membrane-bound RGS4 is palmitoylated both at Cys(95) and Cys(2/12), but cytosolic RGS4 is not palmitoylated. RGS4 and RGS10 are GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs) for the G(i) and G(q) families of G proteins. Palmitoylation of Cys(95) on RGS4 or Cys(66) on RGS10 inhibits GAP activity 80-100% toward either Galpha(i) or Galpha(z) in a single-turnover, solution-based assay. In contrast, when GAP activity was assayed as acceleration of steady-state GTPase in receptor-G protein proteoliposomes, palmitoylation of RGS10 potentiated GAP activity >/=20-fold. Palmitoylation near the N terminus of C95V RGS4 did not alter GAP activity toward soluble Galpha(z) and increased G(z) GAP activity about 2-fold in the vesicle-based assay. Dual palmitoylation of wild-type RGS4 remained inhibitory. RGS protein palmitoylation is thus multi-site, complex in its control, and either inhibitory or stimulatory depending on the RGS protein and its sites of palmitoylation.
Corrections to "Amplified spontaneous emission-application to Nd:YAG lasers"

In the above-named article, several typographical errors were made on page 104 in the fourth and sixth equations. These are corrected here.
Agent-based negotiation for shared QoS control in distributed cloud services

Agent-level negotiations between an application and a cloud service provider (SP) need to consider two complexities: i) inaccuracy of computational models in capturing the behavior of a cloud-based system made up of diverse components and resources; and ii) disparity in the goals and priorities of an application and the SP in exercising a cloud-based system. The paper suggests the use of trial actions by an agent to learn about the system behavior and the opponent agent goals, as part of an effective negotiation strategy. The trial actions allow searching, alternations, and improvements on the system QoS space, towards a larger goal of optimal QoS control.
The Determination of Major Oxide and Trace Element Concentrations in Eighteen Chinese Standard Reference Samples by X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry

Eighteen Chinese geologic reference samples (stream sediments GSD 9–12, soils GSS 1–8, and rocks GSR 1–6) were analyzed by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRFS) for major elements Si, Ti, Al, Fe, Mn, Mg, Ca, Na, K, and P, and by energy-dispersive XRFS for trace elements Ba, Ce, Cr, Cu, La, Nb, Ni, Rb, Sr, Y, Zn, and Zr. Major element analysis followed gravimetric determination of loss on ignition, and samples were prepared by fusion with Li2B4O7. A loose-powder sample preparation was used for trace element analysis. The results reported in this study are, generally, in good agreement with concentrations compiled by X. Xie of the Geochemical Standard Reference Group and the Institute of Geophysical and Geochemical Exploration (People's Republic of China).
Mediastinitis: Could your case be a candidate for candida?

Background: Candida mediastinitis is rare, but mortality has been reported as high as 50%. There are no clinical trials evaluating treatment of Candida mediastinitis and there are only a limited number of reports in the literature.
Temperate forest termites: ecology, biogeography, and ecosystem impacts

1. Wood decomposition in temperate forests is dominated by termites, fungi, and some species of ants and beetles. Outside of urban areas, temperate termite ecology is largely unknown, particularly when compared to tropical termites and other temperate organisms in the functional guild of wood-decomposing animals. 2. This review combines climate habitat modelling with knowledge of species physiology, behaviour, and community interactions to identify and prioritise future research on temperate termite ecology and biogeography. 3. Using a correlative climate model, the regional distributions of three common temperate forest termite species are shown to correlate with different aspects of climate (e.g. mean versus minimum monthly temperature), but that overall their distributions within temperate systems correlate more strongly with temperature variables than with precipitation variables. 4. Existing data are synthesised to outline how the subterranean, wood-nesting behaviour of most temperate forest termite species links their activity to an additional set of non-climate controls: wood type and tree species, soil depth, fungal activity, ant abundances and phenology, and competitive asymmetries among termite species. 5. Although fine-scale estimates of temperate termite abundances are rare, we provide upper bounds on their ecosystem impacts and illustrate how their regional abundances may influence forest structure and habitat availability for other organisms. 6. This review highlights that rigorous ecological studies in non-urban, intact ecosystems – with a particular focus on community interactions – are critically needed to accurately project future abundances, economic impacts, and ecosystem effects of temperate forest termites.
Dynamic Thermal Line Loading Monitor

Operating a reliable and safe power transmission system is the goal of BPA. In doing so, BPA usually does not attain maximum transmission capacity due to continuous loading thermal limits placed on the transmission system. Thermal limit being the highest temperature at which a line conductor can be operated without violating minimum ground clearance criteria. However, lines do not instantaneously attain their thermal limits. The time it takes a conductor to reach its thermal limit can be used to BPA's advantage (Figure 1). Instead of operating a transmission system to insure that a first contingency does not cause an overload condition, BPA can operate the system at higher current levels provided the conductor's thermal response allows adequate time for manual intervention.
Turnover Begets Turnover

Purpose: This study examined the association between turnover of caregivers and turnover of nursing home top management. The top managers examined were administrators and directors of nursing, and the caregivers examined were registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and nurse aides. Design and Methods: The data came from a survey of 419 nursing facilities and the Online Survey, Certification, and Reporting system. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to examine the association between turnover of nursing home top management and turnover of caregivers. Results: A 10% increase in top management turnover is associated (p , .05) with a 21% increase in the odds that a facility will have a high turnover rate of nurse aides and is associated (p , .05) with an 8% decrease in the odds that a facility will have a low turnover rate of nurse aides. A 10% increase in top management turnover is associated (p , .1) with a 30% increase in the odds that a facility will have a high turnover rate for registered and licensed practical nurses. Implications: This study provides preliminary evidence that the turnover of top managers may have an important influence on caregiver turnover in nursing homes.
Rare variant discovery and calling by sequencing pooled samples with overlaps

Motivation: For many complex traits/diseases, it is believed that rare variants account for some of the missing heritability that cannot be explained by common variants. Sequencing a large number of samples through DNA pooling is a cost-effective strategy to discover rare variants and to investigate their associations with phenotypes. Overlapping pool designs provide further benefit because such approaches can potentially identify variant carriers, which is important for downstream applications of association analysis of rare variants. However, existing algorithms for analysing sequence data from overlapping pools are limited. Results: We propose a complete data analysis framework for overlapping pool designs, with novelties in all three major steps: variant pool and variant locus identification, variant allele frequency estimation and variant sample decoding. The framework can be used in combination with any design matrix. We have investigated its performance based on two different overlapping designs and have compared it with three state-of-the-art methods, by simulating targeted sequencing and by pooling real sequence data. Results on both datasets show that our algorithm has made significant improvements over existing ones. In conclusion, successful discovery of rare variants and identification of variant carriers using overlapping pool strategies critically depend on many steps, from generation of design matrixes to decoding algorithms. The proposed framework in combination with the design matrixes generated based on the Chinese remainder theorem achieves best overall results. Availability: Source code of the program, termed VIP for Variant Identification by Pooling, is available at http://cbc.case.edu/VIP. Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information:Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Open Class and Closed Class: Sentence-Imitation Experiments on Intrasentential Code-Switching.

One of the most striking facts about exchange errors in speech is that open class items are exchanged, but closed class items are not. This article argues that a pattern analogous to that in speech errors also appears in intrasentential code-switching. Intrasentential code-switching is the alternating use of two languages in a sentence by bilinguals. Studies of the spontaneous conversation of bilinguals have supported the claim that open class items may be codeswitched, but closed class items may not. This claim was tested by two sentence repetition experiments, one with Japanese/English bilinguals and the other with Spanish/English bilinguals. The results show that the switching of closed class items caused significantly longer response times and more errors than the switching of open class items.
Cognitive Behavioral Group Treatment for Social Phobia: Comparison with a Credible Placebo Control

Forty-nine patients participated in a study comparing cognitive-behavioral group treatment (CBGT) for social phobia with a credible placebo control. CBGT consisted of exposure to simulated phobic events, cognitive restructuring of maladaptive thoughts, and homework for self-directed exposure and cognitive restructuring between sessions. Control patients received a treatment package consisting of lecture-discussion and group support that was comparable to CBGT on measures of treatment credibility and outcome expectations. At pretest, posttest, and 3- and 6-month follow-ups, patients completed assessments that included clinician ratings, self-report measures, and behavioral, physiological, and cognitive-subjective measures derived from a behavioral simulation of a personally relevant phobic event. Both groups improved on most measures, but, at both posttest and follow-up, CBGT patients were rated as more improved than controls and reported less anxiety before and during the behavioral test. At follow-up, CBGT patients also reported significantly fewer negative and more positive self-statements than controls on a thought-listing task following the behavioral test. Regardless of treatment condition, follow-up changes in clinician-rated phobic severity were significantly related to changes on the thought-listing measure.
Reflow soldering evaluation of lead free solder alloys

A quantitative dynamic solder wettability measurement was used to evaluate the effects of reflow processing on the wettability parameters associated with the nonlead bearing solders 96.5% Sn/3.5% Ag and 58% Bi/42% Sn. An experimental design approach employing full factorial experiments was formulated to investigate the solder wetting dependence of the reflow parameters, atmosphere, peak reflow temperature, time above liquidus, and metallization. Solder wettability was determined with respect to the final degree of spread and the extent of solder wetting onto the lands of surface mount components. The solder alloy composition of 96.5% Sn/3.5% Ag was found to exhibit better wetting characteristics than the 58% Bi/42% Sn alloy. This wetting behavior was enhanced under the reflow conditions of a nitrogen atmosphere and the use of a gold metallization. The wetting of the conventional 63% Sn/37% Pb solder alloy was improved over the comparatively processed 58% Bi/42% Sn alloy. However, the 63% Sn/37% Pb solder alloy displayed a greater sensitivity to reflow atmosphere than the 96.5% Sn/3.5% Ag alloy, which generally exhibited better wetting characteristics than the Sn/Pb alloy. >
Disability and receipt of clinical preventive services among women.

Background More individuals are surviving catastrophic injuries and living longer with persistent disability; however, their receipt of clinical preventive services is not well understood as compared with those without disabilities given the dual focus of care on both primary prevention and the prevention of secondary complications related to their disabilities. Methods Longitudinal analyses of 1999–2002 Medical Expenditure Survey (MEPS). Study sample consisted of 3,183 community-dwelling women aged 51–64 years and followed for 2 full years. Women with disabilities were defined as having reported any limitation in any area of activity of daily living in 2 years. Recommended clinical preventive services were defined as receiving the following at the recommended intervals: colorectal, cervical, and breast cancer; cholesterol screening; and influenza immunization. χ 2 tests and multiple logistic regressions were used to examine variations in use of clinical preventive services. Results Overall, 23% of the women in the study ( n = 835) were disabled. Disabled women, however, were less likely to receive mammography and Pap smears within the recommended intervals. However, disabled women were more likely to receive influenza immunization, cholesterol screening, and colorectal screening within the recommended intervals. Among the disabled, usual source of care and health insurance remained significant predictors of receipt of clinical preventive services across all types, Conclusions Disabled women were less likely to receive some of the cancer screening services, suggesting a need for targeted interventions to promote breast cancer and cervical cancer screening. Increased access to health care insurance and health care providers may also help.
Some practical applications of the use of scale independent elements for dynamic analysis of vibrating systems

Abstract Discrete deterministic methods such as finite elements offer great flexibility in analyzing the dynamic response of vibrating systems. However, these methods can easily grow beyond available computer resources as frequencies of interest grow higher. In this paper we present a new approach for the frequency domain dynamic analysis of structures. A theory is developed for the analysis of systems which are uniform along a single coordinate axis, but otherwise arbitrary in geometry and material composition. This approach, termed the scale independent element, is shown to be an accurate, efficient and general method for the analysis of vibrating systems. This technique extends the applicability of discrete deterministic finite element based modeling to higher frequencies and is capable of bridging the gap to frequency regimes where statistical energy methods become applicable.
Airborne along-track interferometry for GMTI

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Along-Track Interferometry (ATI) has been used extensively to measure ocean surface currents. Given its ability to measure small velocities (-10 cm/s) of relatively radar-dark water surfaces, there is great potential that this technique can be adapted for ground moving target indication (GMTI) applications, particularly as a method for detecting very slow targets with small radar cross-sections. Herein, we describe preliminary results from an ATI GMTI experiment. The SAR data described were collected by the dual-frequency NASA/JPL airborne radar in its standard dual-baseline ATI mode. The radar system imaged a variety of control targets including a pick-up truck, sport utility vehicles, passenger cars, a bicycle, and pedestrians over multiple flight passes. The control targets had horizontal velocities of less than 5 m/s. The cross-sections of the targets were not purposely enhanced, although the targets' reflectivities may have been affected by the existence of the GPS equipment used to record the targets' positions. Single-look and multiple-look interferograms processed to the full azimuth resolution were analyzed. In the data processed to date, all of the targets were observed by visual inspection in at least one of the four combinations of dual-frequency, dual-baseline interferometric data. This extremely promising result demonstrates the potential of ATI for GMTI applications.
Using ultrasound to understand acupuncture

For more than two millennia acupuncture has been a widely accepted method for the treatment of acute and chronic disorders in China. Now, acupuncture is becoming increasingly popular in the West and is routinely recommended for the treatment of pain and for relief from the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, substance dependency, and chronic disorders difficult to manage with conventional treatment. In order to understand the mechanism of acupuncture, ultrasound-based techniques are employed. Ultrasound constitutes an ideal medium for evaluating the biomechanical effects of needle manipulation on tissue. Ultrasound has the unique advantage of yielding both images of tissue morphology and biomechanical information. Inserting the acupuncture needle in vivo under sonogram visualization allows identification of anatomical details, i.e., tissue layers penetrated by the needle. Continuous ultrasound radiofrequency signal acquisition and processing during acupuncture needle movement permits quantitative tissue motion analysis at a varying distance away from the needle using off-line elasticity imaging techniques. Finally, in vitro high-resolution C-scan ultrasound imaging of animal tissue explants can reveal changes in microscopic tissue structure resulting from acupuncture needle manipulation. Imaging of the displacements occurring before and after rotation at a certain amount of revolutions of the needle allowed for the quantitative analysis of the extent of the tissue affected by the needle when it is rotated, as is the case in the clinical practice of acupuncture. It also allowed for temporal monitoring of the tissue behavior around the needle as a result of the type of needle manipulation. Ongoing investigations over a larger pool of human subjects correlating with biochemical and neurological as well as morphological effects are expected to shed important light on the applications of this technique to better interpret the effect of needling on subcutaneous tissues.
Land‐use history alters contemporary insect herbivore community composition and decouples plant–herbivore relationships

Summary 1. Past land use can create altered soil conditions and plant communities that persist for decades, although the effects of these altered conditions on consumers are rarely investigated. 2. Using a large-scale field study at 36 sites in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) woodlands, we examined whether historic agricultural land use leads to differences in the abundance and community composition of insect herbivores (grasshoppers, families Acrididae and Tettigoniidae). 3. We measured the cover of six plant functional groups and several environmental variables to determine whether historic agricultural land use affects the relationships between plant cover or environmental conditions and grasshopper assemblages. 4. Land-use history had taxa-specific effects and interacted with herbaceous plant cover to alter grasshopper abundances, leading to significant changes in community composition. Abundance of most grasshopper taxa increased with herbaceous cover in woodlands with no history of agriculture, but there was no relationship in post-agricultural woodlands. We also found that grasshopper abundance was negatively correlated with leaf litter cover. Soil hardness was greater in post-agricultural sites (i.e. more compacted) and was associated with grasshopper community composition. Both herbaceous cover and leaf litter cover are influenced by fire frequency, suggesting a potential indirect role of fire on grasshopper assemblages. 5. Our results demonstrate that historic land use may create persistent differences in the composition of grasshopper assemblages, while contemporary disturbances (e.g. prescribed fire) may be important for determining the abundance of grasshoppers, largely through the effect of fire on plants and leaf litter. Therefore, our results suggest that changes in the contemporary management regimes (e.g. increasing prescribed fire) may not be sufficient to shift the structure of grasshopper communities in post-agricultural sites towards communities in nonagricultural habitats. Rather, repairing degraded soil conditions and restoring plant communities are likely necessary for restoring grasshopper assemblages in post-agricultural woodlands.
Data acquisition and control using ETHERNET

We have developed a distributed computer control system to monitor and control a linear accelerator. This system consists of two PDP-11s and eight LSI 11/23s linked together with ETHERNET. The higher level systems (control consoles, etc.) use the RSX11M operating system, whereas the data acquisition and control is performed using the RSX11S operating system downline loaded from a central host computer. Locally written ETHERNET drivers are used to reduce the CPU overhead and therefore improve system response. The ETHERNET system permits remote file access by means of operator or program interaction, as well as supporting downline system loading. Control-system functions supported are supervisory control, closed-loop control, data monitoring, and data recording. 4 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab.
Drivers of Change in China's Dairy Industry--Implications for the U.S. and World Dairy Industries

This Discussion Paper consists of (a) background information on China's geography and economy (b) a description of the country's dairy industry in the mid-2000s (c) the drivers of change in China's dairy industry and (d) implications of these drivers for the U.S. and world dairy industries
Evidence for Fusion Between Cardiac and Skeletal Muscle Cells

Cardiomyoplasty with skeletal myoblasts may benefit cardiac function after infarction. Recent reports indicate that adult stem cells can fuse with other cell types. Because myoblasts are “fusigenic” cells by nature, we hypothesized they might be particularly likely to fuse with cardiomyocytes. To test this, neonatal rat cardiomyocytes labeled with LacZ and green fluorescent protein (GFP) were cocultured with unlabeled C2C12 myoblasts. After 3 days, we observed a small population of skeletal myotubes that expressed LacZ and GFP, indicating cell fusion. To test whether such fusion occurred in vivo, LacZ-expressing C2C12 myoblasts were grafted into normal nude mouse hearts. At 2 weeks after grafting, cells at the graft-host interface expressed both LacZ and cardiac-specific myosin light chain 2v (MLC2v). To test more definitively whether fusion between skeletal and cardiac muscle could occur, we used a Cre/lox reporter system that activated LacZ only upon cell fusion. When neonatal cardiomyocytes from α-myosin heavy chain promoter (α-MHC)-Cre mice were cocultured with myoblasts from floxed-lacZ reporter mice, LacZ was activated in a subset of cells, indicating cell fusion occurred in vitro. Finally, we grafted the floxed-lacZ myoblasts into normal hearts of α-MHC-Cre + and α-MHC-Cre − mice (n=5 each). Hearts analyzed at 4 days and 1 week after transplantation demonstrated activation of LacZ when the skeletal muscle cells were implanted into hearts of α-MHC-Cre + mice, but not after implantation into α-MHC-Cre − mice. These data indicate that skeletal muscle cell grafting gives rise to a subpopulation of skeletal-cardiac hybrid cells with a currently unknown phenotype. The full text of this article is available online at http://circres.ahajournals.org.
Citizen competence and its effect on citizen satisfaction with normative ideals in American democracy

Citizen competence—though not always referred to in those exact words—is a common and important topic in political science. This thesis proposes a definition of citizen competence that is heavily, though not entirely, contingent on a person’s effort in gathering political information. Using data from the 2012 ANES pre-election survey, an empirical analysis is also conducted. Forty hypotheses are tested using one-way ANOVAs to look at the correlation between citizen competence and citizen satisfaction with common normative ideals held regarding American democracy. Results indicate that there is strong support for the theory that citizen competence is correlated with citizen satisfaction of two normative ideals: 1) Government pays attention to what the people think and 2) the views of the people affect what the government does.
Research Trails and Science Policies: Local and Extra-Local Negotiation of Scientific Work

At any given point in the development of a scientific specialty, there exists some finite set of research topics which are seen as legitimate, interesting, and feasible by the members of the specialty. How do the members of the specialty achieve an allocation of their efforts across these topics? What does the aggregation of these individual decisions imply about the development of the specialty? To what extent are these consequences shaped by the activities of scientific ‘hierarchies’ (i.e., formal and informal organizational structures, policies, and leaders)? And might these consequences be shaped differently (and perhaps more effectively)?
Rapid force recovery in contracting skeletal muscle after brief ischemia is dependent on O2 availability

We tested the hypothesis that contracting skeletal muscle can rapidly restore force development during reperfusion after brief total ischemia and that this rapid recovery depends on O2 availability...
Parasitization of Spodoptera praefica Larvae in Hay Alfalfa

Partial life tables were utilized to assess the impact of parasites on larvae of Spodoptera praefica (Grote) in hay alfalfa in northern California. Of the 14 species known to parasitize immature S. praefica , only 5 were reared from hosts occurring in alfalfa. These were all generalists. The most prevalent parasites were Hyposoter exiguae (Viereck) and Apanteles marginiventris (Cresson). Apparent mortality of hosts due to parasitization was generally low and apparently independent of host density. Parasitization of S. praefica by Lespesia archippivora (Riley) is reported as a new host record. Relevance of the results to some aspects of biological control is discussed.
Accessing Ni(III)-thiolate versus Ni(II)-thiyl bonding in a family of Ni-N2S2 synthetic models of NiSOD.

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) catalyzes the disproportionation of superoxide (O2• –) into H2O2 and O2(g) by toggling through different oxidation states of a first-row transition metal ion at its active site. Ni-containing SODs (NiSODs) are a distinct class of this family of metalloenzymes due to the unusual coordination sphere that is comprised of mixed N/S-ligands from peptide-N and cysteine-S donor atoms. A central goal of our research is to understand the factors that govern reactive oxygen species (ROS) stability of the Ni–S(Cys) bond in NiSOD utilizing a synthetic model approach. In light of the reactivity of metal-coordinated thiolates to ROS, several hypotheses have been proffered and include the coordination of His1-Nδ to the Ni(II) and Ni(III) forms of NiSOD, as well as hydrogen bonding or full protonation of a coordinated S(Cys). In this work, we present NiSOD analogues of the general formula [Ni(N2S)(SR′)]−, providing a variable location (SR′ = aryl thiolate) in the N2S2 basal plane coordination s...
Recruitment of Light Chains by Homologous and Heterologous Fibrils Shows Distinctive Kinetic and Conformational Specificity

Light chain amyloidosis is a protein misfolding disease in which immunoglobulin light chains aggregate as insoluble fibrils that accumulate in extracellular deposits. Amyloid fibril formation in vitro has been described as a nucleation–polymerization, autocatalytic reaction in which nascent fibrils catalyze formation of new fibrils, recruiting soluble protein into the fibril. In this context, it is also established that preformed fibrils or “seeds” accelerate fibril formation. In some cases, seeds with a substantially different sequence are able to accelerate the reaction, albeit with a lower efficiency. In this work, we studied the recruitment and addition of monomers in the presence of seeds of five immunoglobulin light chain proteins, covering a broad range of protein stabilities and amyloidogenic properties. Our data reveal that in the presence of homologous or heterologous seeds, the fibril formation reactions become less stochastic than de novo reactions. The kinetics of the most amyloidogenic prote...
Comparing Frequency- and Style-Based Features for Twitter Author Identification.

Author identification is a subfield of Natural Language Processing (NLP) that uses machine learning techniques to identify the author of a text. Most previous research focused on long texts with the assumption that a minimum text length threshold exists under which author identification would no longer be effective. This paper examines author identification in short texts far below this threshold, focusing on messages retrieved from Twitter (maximum length: 140 characters) to determine the most effective feature set for author identification. Both Bag-of-Words (BOW) and Style Marker feature sets were extracted and evaluated through a series of 15 experiments involving up to 12 authors with large and small dataset sizes. Support Vector Machines (SVM) were used for all experiments. Our results achieve classification accuracies approaching that of longer texts, even for small dataset sizes of 60 training instances per author. Style Marker feature sets were found to be significantly more useful than BOW feature sets as well as orders of magnitude faster, and are therefore suggested for potential applications in future research.
Refining Communication Analysis

Communication analysis is efficient in deciding the equivalence between two different implementations of the same high level specification. When two implementations have communication signatures (i.e. execution covers) that are identical and finite, they are guaranteed to be synchronously equivalent to each other. Unfortunately, when two execution covers are different, or when one or both of the execution covers are infinite, the result of the analysis may be inconclusive. In the context of design exploration, the inconclusive result in equivalence analysis means that an implementation must be declared, possibly falsely, to be functionally different from the reference. If that implementation has a better performance characteristic than all the implementations that were declared to be functionally correct, it will still not be selected. If the negatives do turn out to be false, the final implementation is suboptimal.
Critical Consciousness Raising as an Element of Empowering Practice with Survivors of Domestic Violence

ABSTRACTMany practitioners who work with survivors of domestic violence (DV) attempt to raise survivors' consciousness about DV dynamics as well as about oppression they may encounter from the systems with which they interact. Such critical consciousness raising is one component of the “empowering practices” that many DV advocates aim to implement. Despite the significance of empowering practices for those working with DV survivors, the literature is not clear about the frequency with which practitioners engage in consciousness raising or how critical consciousness is related to psychological outcomes such as self-efficacy among survivors. To explore these effects, 98 women from two DV shelter programs in two midsized Midwest cities were interviewed shortly after they left the shelters about their experiences while accessing services. Women who reported that their advocates engaged in DV consciousness-raising practice also reported developing greater DV critical consciousness and self-efficacy while in sh...
Direct observation of electrically active interfacial layer defects which may cause threshold voltage instabilities in HfO 2 based MOSFETs

Recent studies have demonstrated that deep level defects very near the Si/dielectric boundary are important reliability problems in HfO2 based devices. In this study, we provide a partial identification of the chemical and structural nature of an electrically active center which is present in the interfacial layer of HfO2 based devices. The defect almost certainly involves an oxygen deficient silicon which is weakly coupled to a nearby hafnium atom.
A Pressurized Exploration of Intermetallic Chemistry.

The discovery of FeBi2 could lead to further investigation of other materials unobservable at ambient pressure.
Outcomes of Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant in Patients with Myeloid Leukemias Over 65 Years of Age. Rationale for Aggressive Therapy with Curative Intent.

Background: Improvements in supportive care and the use of reduced intensity conditioning regimens (RIC) have expanded the use of allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) to older patients with myeloid leukemia (AML, MDS, CML or other myeloproliferative disorders). No large single or multi-institutional study looking at outcomes of patients over the age of 65 has been performed, and the results of allografting in septuagenarians (>70 years of age) have not been reported. Rationale: To explore the long-term outcomes of allogeneic transplant in patients with hematologic malignancies over the age of 65 and determine the impact of age and other prognostic factors in this subset of patients. Patients and Methods: From 1/96 to 12/07 a total of 96 patients over the age of 65 underwent an allogeneic SCT for a myeloid leukemia. Patient, treatment characteristics and outcomes are summarized in the accompanying table. Outcomes: For AML/MDS patients in remission between 65 and 70 years of age the OS at 2 years is 54% (95%CI:27–75) and 21% (95%CI:1–59) for patients 70 years or older (p=0.3); for AML/MDS patients not in remission OS @ 2 years was 21% (95%CI:9–36) for patients between 65 and 70 years of age and 0% for patients 70 yrs or older (p=0.06). Conclusion: Allogeneic SCT can result in long term disease control in selected patients over the age of 65. Disease status at the time of transplant remains the most important prognostic factor for outcomes in this patient population. Patients over the age of 70 with AML/MDS in remission or with MPD can undergo allografting safely and achieve long term benefits, patients over 70 with refractory disease should be treated primarily on clinical trials aimed at improving outcomes in this patient population.