cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Iron-ascorbate-phospholipid mediated modification of low density lipoprotein.

Abstract LDL can be oxidized by a variety of agents to form a modified lipoprotein which is capable of being avidly metabolized by macrophages. While previous in vitro studies have focused exclusively on the oxidation of LDL, other lipids found in the atheroma are also subject to oxidation and its lipoperoxide byproducts may contribute to the process of LDL modification. To examine the relationship between the oxidation of phospholipids and the subsequent modification of LDL, we incubated 250 μM phosphatidylcholine with 10 μM ferrous sulfate and 50 μM ascorbic acid in 10 mM Tris (pH 7.0). After 18 h at 37°C, significant amounts of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were formed. The inclusion of LDL (100 μ protein/ml) elevated the TBARS and increased the eletrophoretic mobility of the lipoprotein. LDL treated with iron and ascorbate in the absence of phosphatidylcholine did not result in the modification of this lipoprotein. LDL that was incubated with phosphatidylcholine, iron and ascorbate was found to be metabolized by macrophages to a far greater extent than native LDL or LDL treated with phosphatidylcholine alone. Probucol (10 μM) inhibited the LDL modification process. These results demonstrate that while iron and ascorbate cannot oxidize LDL directly, the addition of phosphatidylcholine to these initiators of lipid peroxidation can mediate and lead to the modification of LDL.
Optimization of Iris, a Small Autonomous Surveillance UAV

A flying wing design, previously developed as a senior project, was optimized for endurance using a gradient-based algorithm. Chord, sweep, taper ratio, and wingspan were varied within the model while all other design parameters were held constant from the original design. The model was produced from a combination of basic equations for flying wing aircraft and was validated using the previous designs experimental results. These equations are presented and the design space is explored. The optimal design produced an aircraft with a smaller wingspan, but higher aspect ratio. This design increased predicted flight endurance by 15.5% and experimental flight endurance by 13%. The optimized design was constrained by material yield strength of the airframe structure and the aircraft static margin.
What is diagnosis? Some critical reflections

It is argued that the common definition of diagnosis as ‘the determination of the nature of a disease’ is misleading. Many diagnoses are not the names of disease entities. This finding reflects the integral relation of the diagnostic task to the rest of clinical reasoning. Diagnosis has no separate goal of its own, in particular it does not have the goal of determining the nature of a disease. Instead, diagnosis contributes to the general goals of clinical medicine. Any attempt to model diagnostic reasoning abstracted from the rest of clinical reasoning will yield an inadequate representation of diagnosis. Such a distortion of medical reasoning will blind us to whatever implications an adequate epistemology of medicine may have for an understanding of the relation between theoretical and practical knowledge in other contexts.
Stable Grand-Unified Monopoles with Multiple Dirac Charge

Magnetic monopoles with multiple Dirac charge are found to be stable in grand unified theories with symmetry breaking by an adjoint Higgs field under certain conditions. In the SU(5) model, the double, triple, quadruple, and sextuple monopoles are stable for a range of parameters in the Higgs potential. The effects of electroweak symmetry breaking on multiply charged monopoles are discussed. Evidence is also presented for the existence of a stable nonspherically symmetric quadruple monopole.
Effects of oral preload, CCK or bombesin administration on short term food intake of melanocortin 4-receptor knockout (MC4RKO) mice

We investigated whether either heterozygous (HET) or homozygous (knockout, KO) disruption of the melanocortin type 4 receptor (MC4R) gene alters post ingestive responsiveness of mice. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that hyperphagia in MC4RKO mice might be due to a deficit in processes that sustain intermeal intervals (satiety) and/or processes that terminate ongoing episodes of eating (satiation). To test satiety, mice drank an oral preload and then we monitored intake of a subsequent liquid diet test meal. To test satiation, we examined the effect of exogenous administration of cholecystokinin (CCK) and bombesin (BN) on the size of a liquid diet meal. Experiment 1 was comprised of two studies. In the first, we determined that the intake of all three genotypes following fasts of either 6, 12, or 24 h were comparable, and so chose 12 h deprivation for the subsequent studies. In the second, 12 h fasted mice were allowed to consume a fixed preload, approximately 50% of their expected mean intake and, following delays of either 30 or 60 min, were allowed to consume to satiation. Compared with no preload, the preload significantly reduced meal size comparably in all three genotypes. The reduction in intake was greater when the test meal was presented 30 compared with 60 min after the preload, again with no genotype differences in this decay of satiety. In experiment 2, we administered either CCK or BN and examined suppression of meal size after a 12 h fast. Mice were tested repeatedly with CCK-8 (2, 6, or 18 μg/kg ip) or BN (2, 4 or 8 μg/kg ip) with vehicle injection days intervening. The 30 min intakes of HET and KO mice were suppressed more than those of WT following either CCK or BN. These experiments suggest that diminished responsiveness to nutrients or gut satiety hormones is not responsible for hyperphagia in MC4RKO mice.
Developing Awareness of French Pragmatics: A Case Study of Students' Interactive Use of a Foreign Language Multimedia Program

Findings from a study that investigated students' reactions to the content of a hypermedia program indicated that pragmatic awareness can be developed in virtual culture contact situations. Students used Hymes' SPEAKING heuristic to analyze real-life interactions. Data showed that they noticed gestured and spoken pragmatic behaviors as well as contextual clues. The findings indicated that similar interactive software in combination with ethnographic activities may be more effective in culture teaching and learning.
Mitochondrial Oxidative Damage in Aging and Alzheimer's Disease: Implications for Mitochondrially Targeted Antioxidant Therapeutics

The overall aim of this article is to review current therapeutic strategies for treating AD, with a focus on mitochondrially targeted antioxidant treatments. Recent advances in molecular, cellular, and animal model studies of AD have revealed that amyloid precursor protein derivatives, including amyloid beta (A beta) monomers and oligomers, are likely key factors in tau hyperphosphorylation, mitochondrial oxidative damage, inflammatory changes, and synaptic failure in the brain tissue of AD patients. Several therapeutic strategies have been developed to treat AD, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antiamyloid approaches. Among these, mitochondrial antioxidant therapy has been found to be the most efficacious in reducing pathological changes and in not producing adverse effects; thus, mitochondrial antioxidant therapy is promising as a treatment for AD patients. However, a major limitation in applying mitochondrial antioxidants to AD treatment has been the inability of researchers to enhance antioxidant levels in mitochondria. Recently, however, there has been a breakthrough. Researchers have recently been able to promote the entry of certain antioxidants-including MitoQ, MitoVitE, MitoPBN, MitoPeroxidase, and amino acid and peptide-based SS tetrapeptides-into mitochondria, several hundred-fold more than do natural antioxidants. Once in the mitochondria, they rapidly neutralize free radicals and decrease mitochondrial toxicity. Thus, mitochondrially targeted antioxidants are promising candidates for treating AD patients.
Complex grammar in Williams syndrome

This study investigated knowledge of binding and raising in two groups of children with Williams syndrome (WS), 6-12 and 12-16-years-old, compared to typically developing (TD) controls matched on non-verbal MA, verbal MA, and grammar. In typical development, difficulties interpreting pronouns, but not reflexives, persist until the age of around 6, while raising is not mastered until about the age of 8 or 9. If grammar in WS is delayed, but develops in a fashion parallel to TD population, similar patterns of difficulties may be expected, although it has not been established whether the grammatical development is ever complete in the individuals with this disorder. Knowledge of the principle of binding which states that a reflexive must have a c-commanding antecedent, was found to be intact in all the participants, in line with previous reports in the literature. In contrast, children with WS younger than 12 showed a poorer performance on personal pronouns, like two groups of younger matched TD controls, suggesting a previously unreported delay in the acquisition of constraints regulating coreferential interpretation of pronouns. Both groups of children with WS showed an extremely limited comprehension of raised, as opposed to unraised structures. The revealed patterns indicate that, like in unimpaired populations, different aspects of grammar mature at distinct stages of language development in WS: reflexive binding is acquired earlier than constraints governing coreference. However, development of raising seems exceptionally delayed, and perhaps even unattainable, as data from several adults with WS studied in Perovic and Wexler (2006) show. If, as hypothesized by Hirsch and Wexler, the late development of raising is related in TD children to lack of maturation of the knowledge of A-chains or defective phases, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the even later development of these structures in WS is related to an even later (if ever) maturation of the knowledge of these grammatical forms.
Harmonic quantization noise in oversampled analog to digital converters

The authors study the quantization noise of oversampled low resolution uniform analog to digital converters (ADCs). For ease of analysis, the quantization noise of ADCs is often assumed to be white. This assumption does not hold well for low resolution ADCs, especially oversampled ADCs. A model of the power spectrum of the output of an infinitely oversampled uniform ADC is presented. Simulation results are compared to the theoretical model. >
Cognitive Profiles of Verbally and Mathematically Precocious Students: Implications for Identification of the Gifted.

Performance on tests of specific abilities commonly associated with intelligence was contrasted between 13-year-olds identified as extremely precocious (top 1 in 10,000) in either verbal or mathema...
Preoperative Bevacizumab Does Not Significantly Increase Postoperative Complication Rates in Patients Undergoing Hepatic Surgery for Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastases

Purpose Although bevacizumab (BV) increases survival rates when used with chemotherapy (CTX) in patients who have metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC), an increase in wound complications has been observed in patients who undergo surgery while receiving BV. We therefore evaluated whether neoadjuvant BV is associated with an increase in postoperative complications in patients undergoing surgery for CRC liver metastases. Patients and Methods Two subgroups of patients who received neoadjuvant CTX + BV (n = 81) or CTX alone (n = 44) were identified from a database of patients who underwent surgery for CRC liver metastases. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association of patient and tumor characteristics, neoadjuvant therapy, and operative factors with postoperative complications. Results Postoperative complications developed in 40 patients (49%) who received CTX + BV and 19 patients (43%) who received CTX. The median time from BV discontinuation to surgery was 58 d...
Identifying Top Java Errors for Novice Programmers

All freshmen at the United States Military Academy take an introductory programming course. We use a custom-built integrated development environment to help teach Java. During previous work, we implemented an integrated semantic and syntax error pre-processing system to help novice programmers decipher the otherwise cryptic compiler error messages in order for them to focus more on design issues than implementation issues. The syntactic errors that we checked were gathered by an informal survey of the current and former faculty members teaching the course. We noticed over the course of the year that there were discrepancies between the errors that the instructors had identified and the errors that the students were encountering. In response, we developed a real-time, automated error collection system that logged 100% of the Java errors in a central database that all users, students and faculty alike, encountered while using the integrated development environment over the course of a semester. This paper discusses the implementation and results of our system as well as the implications for novice programmers
Contextualizing Colonatus : The Origo of the Late Roman Empire

Building on recent scholarship concerning the ‘colonate of the late Roman Empire’, and focusing in particular upon the vocabulary used in the legal sources, this paper offers three propositions. First, the colonatus of the legislation was not a legal shorthand for the ‘colonate’ of modern historiographical debate. Second, the coloni of the legislation were not a discrete group of individuals subjected to a definable, articulated set of restrictions. Finally, it is not colonatus but rather the origo and the link it created between individuals and the land which is the key to the tax system of the late Roman Empire.
Herpes Simplex Virus Infections of the Central Nervous System: Therapeutic and Diagnostic Considerations

Herpes simplex virus infections of the central nervous system remain a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, in spite of safe and efficacious antiviral therapy. Advances in the treatment of neonatal herpes and herpes simplex encephalitis with acyclovir have improved outcome. The application of polymerase chain reaction has allowed for the prompt and specific diagnosis of herpes simplex virus infections of the brain. This review summarizes our current knowledge on the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of herpes simplex virus infections of the brain. Opportunities for the future will be defined.
Regional Vulnerability of the Developing Brain to Alcohol Exposure

These experiments were designed to look at regional vulnerability of the brain as a function of the daily dose and pattern of alcohol administration. Rat pups were given alcohol, using an artificial rearing technique, during postnatal days 4–10, a time period of brain growth which corresponds to that which occurs in humans during the third trimester. Alcohol was administered in 2 different paradigms: either continuously (with feedings every 3 hours) or condensed (with alcohol in 4 of 12 daily feedings). Regional weights, areal measurements or cell counts were recorded. With the condensed paradigm, a daily dose of 4.5 g/kg significantly lowered total brain weight and cerebellar weight, but a higher dose (6.6 g/kg) was needed to decrease brainstem weight significantly. Areal measurements revealed that continuous exposure to 9.8 g/kg/day reduced the hippocampus 26% and the cerebellum 15%, while the dentate gyrus was not affected. Following condensed exposure (6.6 g/kg/day), the cerebellum was reduced 23%, wh...
Antibody responses to H-Y minor histocompatibility antigens correlate with chronic graft-versus-host disease and disease remission

Minor histocompatibility antigens (mHAs) are known targets of donor T cells after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). In contrast, B-cell responses to mHAs have not been extensively characterized and the clinical significance of antibodies to mHAs is unknown. We tested 121 patients who underwent HSCT and 134 healthy donors for immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against 5 mHAs encoded by genes on the Y chromosome (DBY, UTY, ZFY, RPS4Y, and EIF1AY). Antibodies to at least one H-Y protein developed in 52% of male patients with female donors compared with 8.7% of male patients with male donors (P M HSCT). The presence of H-Y antibodies correlated with chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) by univariate (odds ratio [OR] = 15.5; P < .0001) and multivariable logistic regression analysis (OR = 56.5; P < .0001). Antibody response to Y-chromosome encoded histocompatibility antigens (H-Y antigens) was also associated with maintenance of disease remission (P < .0001). B cells may provide a new target for immune intervention in chronic GVHD.
Exposure to Racial Out-Groups and Implicit Race Bias in the United States

The industrialized world is becoming more ethnically diverse. Research in several disciplines has suggested that exposure to racial out-groups may be associated with more positive and more negative...
Rural Mental Health Services

Health and mental health care in America have come under increasing scrutiny during the last half of the 20th century from a vast array of stakeholders, including consumers, providers, employers, community leaders, policymakers, administrators, educators, as well as lawmakers at the state and federal levels of government. Proposals for national and state health care reform have been prompted, in part, by the need to control the rising costs of health care and to address the obstacles and inequities in accessing health and mental health services. Although the United States Congress did not pass major comprehensive health care reform legislation in the 1990s, significant health care initiatives (particularly in association with entitlement programs) have been proposed and implemented by various individual states.
Cortical Stimulation as an Adjuvant to Upper Limb Rehabilitation After Stroke

Recovery of upper limb function after stroke remains a clinical challenge in rehabilitation. New insights into the role of activity-dependent motor recovery have guided clinicians to develop novel task-oriented therapies that are effective in reducing functional limitations in hand use after stroke. A number of brain-stimulation techniques have been examined as therapeutic adjuvants applied to enhance functional outcomes. Cortical stimulation with the use of either noninvasive techniques or implanted technology has shown some promise as an adjuvant therapy but has yet to be supported in well-designed clinical trials. In this article, we review the physiology of neural plasticity and of cortical stimulation. Laboratory studies and early clinical trials of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, and epidural cortical stimulation are reported. Cortical stimulation may have a role in facilitating motor recovery after stroke, but a better understanding of the physics of cortical stimulation, biological response to stimulation, effective stimulation protocols, and proper patient selection is needed.
Multi-level finite element solution algorithms based on multiplicative and additive correction procedures

Owing to the failure of the finite element analyst to employ a properly refined computational model, the accuracy of preliminary finite element computations is often low. Thus, it is useful to introduce a computational procedure for improving the results obtained from a preliminary finite element solution. Such a procedure is presented in this paper. In this procedure the solution error components are decomposed into two parts. One of the error components is assumed to have a long period variation. The other component is assumed to have a short period variation. Multiplicative and additive correction procedures are introduced to iteratively eliminate the two error components. The multiplicative and additive correction procedures are implemented using multi-level solution techniques.
An Accurate and Flexible Trajectory Analysis

A new method for analyzing multi-segment trajectories is presented. The new method solves the equilibrium equations iteratively and in the same way for each type of segment. The method requires an aerodynamic model, a propulsion model, and the segment trajectory specified in altitude and velocity coordinates. No small angle assumptions are made in the equilibrium equations and the trajectories are always continuous. For a given point spacing of the trajectory, the numerical integration of fuel weight is more accurate than previous methods. Encapsulating the equilibrium equation solution allows the rapid development of new segment types. The benefits of this new method are assessed by comparing with current practice. NOMENCLATURE
Food Insecurity Works through Depression, Parenting, and Infant Feeding to Influence Overweight and Health in Toddlers

We used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort 9- and 24-mo surveys (n = 8693) and Structural Equation Modeling to examine direct and indirect associations between food insecurity and toddlers' overweight (weight for length), physical health, and length for age. There were significant effects of food insecurity on parental depression and parental depression in turn influenced physical health. There were also significant effects of food insecurity on parenting practices, which in turn were significantly associated with infant feeding and subsequently toddlers' overweight. There were no significant direct or indirect associations between food insecurity and toddlers' length for age. Our results show that food insecurity influences parenting, including both depression and parenting practices. Findings suggest parental depression is a stressor on parenting behavior that social policy should address to alleviate problematic child health outcomes. Findings underscore the importance of continuing and strengthening policy initiatives to ensure that families with infants and toddlers have sufficient, predictable, and reliable food supply.
Beet Western Yellows Luteovirus in Western Oregon: Pathosystem Relationships in a Vegetable-Sugar Beet Seed Production Region.

uring the 1980s, crisphead lettuce, butterhead lettuce, and spinach crops in western Oregon (Fig. 1) became increasingly damaged by beet western yellows luteovirus (BWYV) (5,8) infection (15), a previously insignificant problem in this area. Utilizing double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DASELISA) methodology (2), we identified potential BWYV inoculum sources in vicinities of affected lettuce and spinach fields (15) based on the known host range of BWYV (5–9) and prior agroecosystem investigations of BWYV in the Pacific Northwest (20,29,30,32–34,37,38). In current and prior (14,15) studies, we identified three principal subreservoirs of BWYV inoculum in the Willamette Valley: multiseasonal plantings of vegetable crops, biennial plantings of sugar beet seed fields (21), and numerous BWYV-susceptible weed species prevalent in this agroecosystem (14), including native, introduced, and escaped annual and perennial species. We also endeavored to understand beet western yellows (BWY) disease-cycle components in western Oregon and to document the presence and determine the effects of BWYV in representative western Oregon sugar beet seed fields (17). The incidence of potential aphid vectors on one or more of 30 western Oregon plant species or forms commonly infected by BWYV was also separately examined (16). The purpose of this paper is to present interactions within the BWY pathosystem that cause risks to BWYV-susceptible crops in western Oregon.
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

It was 1954. A 13-year-old girl became ill with fever, arthritis, a butterfly facial rash, diplopia, alopecia, and subcutaneous nodules (Fig. 5.1). Her urinalysis showed some protein and 20 red blood cells. A diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) was made, and treatment was begun with 50 mg of prednisone daily. There was a dramatic response, and she began to feel well. Her chart was filled with notes of concern about the potential fearsome side effects of prednisone and its merely palliative benefits. As soon as she felt a little better, her doctors would reduce the prednisone; she would promptly become ill again. During the 21 months she survived, she was continuously ill and was hospitalized 10 times for a total 220 hospital days before she died of renal failure.
Biochar Based Microbial Fuel Cell for Enhanced Wastewater Treatment and Nutrient Recovery

Waste-wood derived biochar was evaluated for the first time as both an anode and cathode material, simultaneously, in an overflow style microbial fuel cell (MFC) using actual industrial wastewater. Results show that the average chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal was 95% with a reduction rate of 0.53 kg·COD·m−1·d−1 in closed operation mode. The ammonia and phosphorous reductions from wastewater was 73% and 88%, respectively. Stable power production was observed with a peak power density measured at 6 W/m3. Preliminary contributions of physical, biological, and electrochemical COD removals were evaluated, and the results show such combined mechanisms give BC an advantage for MFC applications. Nutrient recovery data showed high levels of macronutrients adsorbed onto the spent biochar electrodes, and phosphorus concentration increased from 0.16 g·kg−1 in raw BC to up to 1.9 g·kg−1 in the cathode. These findings highlight the use of biochar as electrodes in MFCs to facilitate simultaneous wastewater treatment and power production with additional agronomic benefits.
Appearance of enzyme activity during metaplastic changes of the chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane.

SummaryChick embryo chorion undergoes a keratogenous metaplasia when the egg is fenestrated and the chorioallantois exposed to air. Normal chorion contains little histo-chemically demonstrable esterase or acid phosphatase. By contrast, the chorion of fenestrated eggs undergoes a squamous metaplasia and keratinization which is accompanied by a dramatic increase in activity of both enzymes. In this respect, the chorion is similar to epidermis in which esterase and acid phosphatase also increase strikingly prior to keratinization. Unlike the epidermis, these chorionic enzymes are not affected by prior hypophysectomy.
Significance of Studying Circulating Tumor Cells

Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC) are tumor cells released into blood. They are considered the pivotal component of the metastatic cascade and are being extensively studied only in the last decade or so. Understanding the biological and clinical impact of CTC is likely to reveal important information of the metastatic process and contribute to better management of cancer. We briefly discuss here the current clinical utility of CTC and their emerging clinical applications.
Evidence for common horizontal transmission of Wolbachia among butterflies and moths.

Wolbachia is one of the most widespread bacteria on Earth. Previous research on Wolbachia-host interactions indicates that the bacterium is typically transferred vertically, from mother to offspring, through the egg cytoplasm. Although horizontal transmission of Wolbachia from one species to another is reported to be common in arthropods, limited direct ecological evidence is available. In this study, we examine horizontal transmission of Wolbachia using a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) strains dataset and used Wolbachia and Lepidoptera genomes to search for evidence for lateral gene transfer (LGT) in Lepidoptera, one of the most diverse cosmopolitan insect orders. We constructed a phylogeny of arthropod-associated MLST Wolbachia strains and calibrated the age of Wolbachia strains associated with lepidopteran species. Our results reveal inter-specific, inter-generic, inter-familial, and inter-ordinal horizontal transmission of Wolbachia strains, without discernible geographic patterns. We found at least seven probable cases of horizontal transmission among 31 species within Lepidoptera and between Lepidoptera and other arthropod hosts. The divergence time analysis revealed that Wolbachia is recently (22.6–4.7 mya, 95 % HPD) introduced in Lepidoptera. Analysis of nine Lepidoptera genomes (Bombyx mori, Danaus plexippus, Heliconius melpomene, Manduca sexta, Melitaea cinxia, Papilio glaucus, P. polytes, P. xuthus and Plutella xylostella) yielded one possible instance of Wolbachia LGT. Our results provide evidence of high incidence of identical and multiple strains of Wolbachia among butterflies and moths, adding Lepidoptera to the growing body of evidence for common horizontal transmission of Wolbachia. This study demonstrates interesting dynamics of this remarkable and influential microorganism.
Impact of Neurosurgery Medical Student Research Grants on Neurosurgery Residency Choice

Background Recent decades have seen a rapid expansion of involvement of medical students in biomedical research during medical school training. Research within medical school has been shown to influence medical students with regard to medical knowledge, career development, and residency specialty choice. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of neurosurgery medical student research grants on neurosurgery residency choice and provide an insight on the demographics of grant awardees. Methods In this retrospective study, a search of award recipients was performed using data available on the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation websites. Searched years included the first cycle of American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation (2007) and Council of State Neurosurgical Societies/Congress of Neurological Surgeons (2008–2009) grant awards until the 2015–2016 cycle, which is the latest award cycle to date. Results The initial search yielded 163 research grants that were awarded to 158 students between the years of 2007 and 2016. Among the 163 grant recipients, 126 (77.3%) were men. Among the 88 recipients who entered postgraduate residency programs, 51% (45 of 88) matched into neurosurgery residency. When considering both neurosurgery and neurology residency programs, the percentage increased to 59.1% (52 of 88). Conclusions Neurosurgery grants for medical students are highly successful in producing future neurosurgeons with >50% of grant recipients matched into neurosurgery. Women are underrepresented in neurosurgery grants and neurosurgery residency programs. This situation can be improved by providing insight about the field early in medical school, perhaps through increased use of neurosurgery medical student grants.
Breed effects and heterosis in advanced generations of composite populations for birth weight, birth date, dystocia, and survival as traits of dam in beef cattle

Heterosis effects were evaluated as traits of the dam in F2 progeny of F1 dams and F3 and 4 progeny of F2 and 3 dams in three composite populations of beef cattle. Traits included birth weight, birth date, calving difficulty percentage, and survival percentage at birth, 72 h, and weaning for calves with dams of different age classes. Breed effects were evaluated for the nine parental breeds (Red Poll [R], Hereford [H], Angus [A], Limousin [L], Braunvieh [B], Pinzgauer [P], Gelbvieh [G], Simmental [S], and Charolais [C]) that contributed to the three composite populations (MARC I = 1/4 C, 1/4 B, 1/4 L, 1/4 H, 1/8 A; MARC II = 1/4 G, 1/4 S, 1/4 H, 1/4 A; and MARC III = 1/4 R, 1/4 P, 1/4 H, 1/4 A). Among calves with 2-yr-old dams, breed effects were significant for birth weight, birth date, calving difficulty percentage, and survival percentage at birth but not at 72 h and weaning. Calf survival at weaning was lowest for smallest (less than mu - 1.5 sigma) and largest (greater than mu + 1.5 sigma) birth weight classes and did not differ among intermediate birth weight classes. Calves with difficult births with 2-yr-old dams were significantly heavier at birth (39.6 vs 35.4 kg) and had significantly lower survival at 72 h (87.1 vs 92.2%) and at weaning (77.4 vs 85.1%) than calves with 2-yr-old dams that did not experience difficult births. Among calves with dams greater than or equal to 3 yr old and from dams of all ages, breed group effects generally were significant for the traits analyzed. Important breed group effects on dystocia and survival traits were observed independent of breed group effects on birth weight. Effects of heterosis were significant for birth weight for each generation of each composite population and for the mean of the three composite populations. Generally, heterosis effects for calving difficulty percentage were not significant. Effects of heterosis generally were significant for date of birth (earlier) for each composite population and for the mean of the three composite populations. Heterosis effects on survival to weaning percentage generally were positive but generally were not significant. Heterosis retained for birth weight, birth date, and survival percentage in combined F3 and 4 generation progeny of combined F2 and 3 generation dams did not differ (P greater than .05) from expectation based on retained heterozygosity. These results support the hypothesis that heterosis in cattle for these traits is the result of dominance effects of genes.
Mental Load in Monitoring Tasks

In this paragraph I will briefly give the background of the Aviation Safety Research Office at NASA Ames to provide the viewpoint from which I will make the comments that follow. The ASRO has been set up to define operating problems in today’s aviation system and to suggest solutions that can be implemented in a relatively short time; a typical time horizon is of the order of 2–5 years. Part of our organization administers the Aviation Safety Reporting System which solicits incident reports from users (controllers, pilots, etc.). This program is set up to identify situations requiring immediate action, e.g., a new operating quirk of a particular aircraft or class of aircraft; and to identify other problems through the accumulation of incident data, for example, the prevalence of altitude excursions. These data cannot be used to test hypotheses, but they may be used to formulate hypotheses which in turn may be examined by experimental programs. The research section of the ASRO consists of separately identified groups concerned with operational problems (crew procedures, communications, etc.), statistics, and, for want of a better name, behavioral research. The responsibilities of this latter group are to support research in the operational problems area with basic studies leading to models which can be used to predict behavior in the more complex setting. Current topics of interest are Allocation of control between man and automatic systems. Analyzing the effects of different crew procedures on system performance and system reliability.
IoT based manufacturing system with a focus on energy efficiency

Energy price has increased rapidly in recent years. As energy being the second greatest cost aside from raw material, factory owners have shown an increasing awareness of overall energy consumption, with a strong desire to have it reduced. The emergence technologies like solar, wind, and energy storage system have brought a significant saving potential for energy cost but also made it more complex for energy use and management. So far, some solutions have been purposed with a specific quantitative focus while others present general qualitative analysis. However, a quantitative solution with plug-and-play property has not been proposed. Here we discuss key requirements of such system and propose an architecture of manufacturing system that is based on Internet-of-Things (IoT) with a focus on improving energy efficiency through quantitative analysis and production planning. A production planning model has been constructed with various constraints concerning distributed energy resources as well as actual work conditions. The results show that implementation of such system introduce great saving potentials.
An Allosteric Gear Shift Mechanism in Eg5 Enhances Mechanochemical Coupling and Shifts the Force-Velocity Landscape

Microtubule motors control a diverse collection of physiologies, including cell division, organelle traffic, and microtubule dynamics. Fourteen kinesin family members are involved in mitosis. The best studied of these is Eg5, which is a poorly processive motor that can occupy a two head-strongly-bound state on the microtubule. It works primarily in ensembles of tetramers, cross-linking parallel and anti-parallel microtubules in the maturing spindle. Chemical ablation of Eg5 arrests mitosis. Proteomic screens have identified post-translational modifications as potential modifiers of Eg5 activity. We investigated a novel modification, acetylation of lysine 146 by mutating this residue in Eg5's α2 helix to a glutamine. Molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that modifications of this lysine disrupts critical ionic interactions between the α2 and α1 helices, increasing the allosteric coupling between the nucleotide binding site and Eg5's mechanical element, the neck-linker. We tested these predictions using structural kinetics measurements made by transient time-resolved FRET detection of neck-linker docking and switch-1 closure during ATP binding to rigor Eg5 attached to microtubules. We also investigated the mechanical consequences of this charge mutant by investigating processive motility of fluorescently labeled Eg5 dimers in the presence and absence of applied load. These tests show that the K146Q acetylation-mimic mutation increases the coupling between the neck-linker and nucleotide binding site, accelerates ATP driven neck-linker docking, tightens the force dependence of stepping, and increases processive run-length and stall force in the presence of load, all indicating that the modification enhances mechanochemical coupling in Eg5. After modification of this residue, Eg5 behaves much more like kinesin-1, a processive motor with head-head gating. We are investigating the physiologic implications for these changes.
Infectious Complications of Novel Multiple Sclerosis Therapies

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune demyelinating disease of the central nervous system most often characterized by clinical relapses and periods of remission. The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in disease-modifying therapies for MS. Fourteen FDA-approved immunomodulatory drugs are currently available, and more medications are in development. A growing number of reported opportunistic infections, including progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), highlight the serious complications of these new drugs and the need for specific screening guidelines. Using data from Phase II and III randomized controlled trials, case reports, drug manufacturing data, and clinical experience, we outline the most common and serious infections associated with novel MS therapies.
Emerging transcriptional landscape and putative therapeutic targets in young patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC).

605 Background: Patients younger than 50 yrs of age comprise roughly 10% of the total incidence of CRC, but the incidence in the younger population is increasing. Recent data suggest that younger patients are at higher risk of progression of disease and death from CRC. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate genomic differences between younger and older CRC tumors to generate hypotheses regarding potential differences in tumor biology that may explain worse outcome in young patients. Methods: To determine genomic differences in tumors from younger and older patients with CRC, a cohort of metastatic microsatellite stable CRC tumors was selected using tumors from 9 younger patients ( 70 yrs). Total RNA was extracted from tumor tissues and sequenced with Illumina HiSeq 2000. On average, 45 million reads were obtained from individual tumor samples. Sequencing reads were mapped to the reference genome using Bowtie; exon junctions were mapped using TopHat and transcri...
A multiobjective Markov chain Monte Carlo approach for history matching and uncertainty quantification

Abstract We present a probabilistic approach for integrating multiple data types into subsurface flow models. Our approach is based on a Bayesian framework whereby we exhaustively sample the multi-dimensional posterior distribution to define a Pareto front which represents the trade-off between multiple objectives during history matching. These objectives can be matching of water-cut, GOR, BHP and time-lapse seismic data. For field applications, these objectives do not necessarily move in tandem because of measurement errors and also interpretative nature of the seismic data. Our proposed method is built on a Differential Evolution Markov Chain Monte Carlo (DEMC) algorithm in which multiple Markov Chains are run in parallel. First, a dominance relationship is established amongst multiple models. This is followed by construction of the posterior distribution based on a hypervolume measure. A unique aspect of our method is in the parameter proposal generation which is based on a random walk on two arbitrarily selected chains. This promotes effective mixing of the chains resulting in improved convergence. We illustrate the algorithm using a nine-spot waterflood model whereby we use water-cut and bottomhole flowing pressure data to calibrate the permeability field. The permeability field is re-parameterized using a previously proposed Grid Connectivity Transform (GCT) which is a model order reduction technique defined based only on the decomposition of the grid Laplacian. The compression power of GCT allows us to reconstruct the permeability field with few parameters, thus significantly improving the computational efficiency of the McMC approach. Next, we applied the method to the Brugge benchmark case involving 10 water injectors and 20 producers. For both cases, the algorithm provides an ensemble of models all constrained to the history data and defines a probabilistic Pareto front in the objective space. Several experimental runs were conducted to compare the effectiveness of the algorithm with Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithms (NSGA-II). Higher hypervolume was constantly measured using our algorithm which indicates that more optimal solutions were sampled. Our method provides a novel approach for subsurface model calibration and uncertainty quantification using McMC in which the communication between parallel Markov chains enhances adequate mixing. This significantly improves the convergence without loss in sampling quality.
Dynamic Cache Reconfiguration in Real-Time Systems

Research has shown thatcache subsystem has become significant contributor in the overall energy consumption [78, 104]. Since different programs may have distinct requirements of cache configuration during execution, significant energy efficiency as well as performance improvements can be achieved by employing dynamic cache reconfiguration (DCR) in the system. Although reconfigurable caches are highly beneficial in general-purpose platforms [38, 156], it has not been well studied in real-time systems due to several fundamental challenges. The first important question is how to employ and make efficient use of reconfigurable caches in such systems. Determining the appropriate cache configuration typically requires time-consuming evaluation of different candidate configurations. Furthermore, any change in cache configuration on-the-fly may arbitrarily alter task execution time. In hard real-time systems, the benefit of reconfiguration is limited since both of these facts can make scheduling decisions difficult and eventually may lead to unpredictable system behavior. However,soft real-time systems offer much more flexibility, which can be exploited to achieve considerable energy savings at the cost of minor impact in user experience.
A critical review of PM10-mortality time-series studies.

Abstract While the mortality effects of particulate matter (PM) have been obvious during extreme historical pollution episodes (e.g., the London Fog of 1952), evaluating effects at more routine pollution levels has required the use of complex statistical modeling approaches. This paper critically reviews available time-series studies on PM10 mortality to provide a common basis for an evaluation of the PM10-mortality association. These PM10 studies confirm that an acute pollution-mortality association can occur at routine ambient levels, and suggest that such effects extend below the present United States air quality standards, especially for susceptible subpopulations. Furthermore, these new PM10 studies are consistent with the hypothesis noted in past studies that PM is a causal agent in the mortality impacts of air pollution. The relative risks (RRs) for PM10 mortality, however, were found to vary across studies. Variation probably was caused by differences in PM10 composition and in the PM10 averaging period employed in the analysis, as well as differences in whether other pollutants were considered simultaneously in the mortality-PM10 model. Overall, the RR estimates derived from available PM10-total mortality studies suggest a 24-h average, 100 micrograms/m3 PM10 acute exposure effect on the order of RR approximately 1.05-1.10 in the general population. Higher PM10 RRs were indicated for the elderly and for those with preexisting respiratory conditions, both of which represent subpopulations who appear to be especially at risk for the mortality implications of acute exposures to air pollution. A key research question remaining involves a determination of the component or components of PM10 (e.g., fine particles, sulfates, acid aerosols, or ultrafine particles) that are most important to the noted acute PM-mortality associations.
Anesthesia for Renal Transplantation: Donor and Recipient Care

There remains a shortage of renal allografts to satisfy an ever-increasing demand from patients with end-stage renal disease who need a kidney transplant. Renal transplant remains the preferred treatment for these patients. The anesthesia care team is directly involved in managing kidney donor patient allograft harvests and recipients in the operating room. In these cases it is always urgent to proceed to transplant as cold ischemia time increases, although the sense of urgency should not prevent needed medical evaluation of a symptomatic patient for a correctable condition. This chapter reviews end-stage renal disease etiologies and suggests plans to optimize existing comorbidities. Factors associated with outcome include three perioperative situations: donor – deceased or living; allograft ischemia time – warm or cold; and recipient management. Different classifications of renal donors, causes of renal disease, and outcome in renal transplantation are presented. A comprehensive overview of anesthetic management of both the renal donor and recipient is included.
Pick Matrices and Loewner Determinants

Let Z be a set of l points ζ1, ζ2,…, ζ l in the upper half-plane and φ(ζ) a function defined for the upper half-plane. Form the Pick matrix associated with Z and φ(ζ): $${K_{ij}}=\frac{{\varphi\left({{\zeta_i}}\right)-\overline{\varphi\left({{\zeta_j}}\right)}}}{{{\zeta_{i-}}{{\overline\zeta}_j}}}$$ which is obviously symmetric and of order l.