cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Blockade of mTOR Signaling via Rapamycin Combined with Immunotherapy Augments Antiglioma Cytotoxic and Memory T-Cell Functions

The success of immunotherapeutic approaches targeting glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) demands a robust antiglioma T-cell cytotoxic and memory response. Recent evidence suggests that rapamycin regulates T-cell differentiation. Herein, we tested whether administration of rapamycin could enhance the efficacy of immunotherapy utilizing Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Ad-Flt3L) and thymidine kinase/ganciclovir (Ad-TK/GCV). Using the refractory rat RG2 glioma model, we demonstrate that administration of rapamycin with Ad-Flt3L + Ad-TK/GCV immunotherapy enhanced the cytotoxic activity of antitumor CD8(+) T cells. Rats treated with rapamycin + Ad-Flt3L + Ad-TK/GCV exhibited massive reduction in the tumor volume and extended survival. Rapamycin administration also prolonged the survival of Ad-Flt3L + Ad-TK/GCV-treated GL26 tumor-bearing mice, associated with an increase in the frequency of tumor-specific and IFNγ(+) CD8(+) T cells. More importantly, rapamycin administration, even for a short interval, elicited a potent long-lasting central memory CD8(+) T-cell response. The enhanced memory response translated to an increased frequency of tumor-specific CD8(+) T cells within the tumor and IFNγ release, providing the mice with long-term survival advantage in response to tumor rechallenge. Our data, therefore, point to rapamycin as an attractive adjuvant to be used in combination with immunotherapy in a phase I clinical trial for GBM.
Diagnosis and treatment of spontaneous canine brain tumors with a CT scanner.

Abstract Spontaneous brain tumors in 25 pet dogs were diagnosed and treated with a modified Cr scanner. Five or more weekly 9-Gy fractions resulted in marked clinical improvement in most dogs and a significant decrease in tumor size in many dogs without adverse effects from the radiotherapy.
Crustal geophysics and seismicity in southern California

The geographical distribution of the (1981–2005) seismicity in southern California forms a ±150 km broad zone adjacent to the Pacific–North America plate boundary, ranging from depths of ∼1–~30 km, with the bulk of the focal depths in the range of 2–12 km. The distribution of the seismicity that includes both mainshock–aftershock sequences and background events is affected by both static and kinematic geophysical parameters of the crust. The static parameters include heat flow, topography, crustal density, V_(p)/V_(s) ratio, hypocentral fault-distance and crustal thickness from receiver functions. The tectonic loading is represented by kinematic parameters such as the crustal shear strain rate field, and the dilatational strain rate field. In our analysis, we normalize the seismicity relative to the areal density of the range of values of each of the parameters. Most of the seismicity occurs in areas of average heat flow, low to intermediate topography, average Vp/Vs and high late Quaternary fault density, and forms seismogenic zones that extend through the brittle crust. The location of late Quaternary faults, often described as zones of weakness, influences the geographical distribution of seismicity more than any other parameter. Although above or below average crustal properties such as high heat flow, thin crust or very low V_(p)/V_(s) values exist, these properties only influence the spatial distribution of seismicity in a minor way. As an example, the Salton Trough area of low topography, high heat flow, high V_(p)/V_(s), high shear strain rate and thin crust has distributed seismicity within a thin seismogenic zone. Also, somewhat surprisingly, areas of high topography, low heat flow, low V_(p)/V_(s), low shear strain rate and thick crust have low seismicity rates but a thin seismogenic zone. We determine an empirical relationship between heat flow and crustal thickness to show how the ~400 °C temperature isotherm gradually deepens with crustal thickness and forms the base of the seismogenic zone for crustal thicknesses from 22 to 37 km. For crustal thickness ranging from 37 to 43 km, the ~250 °C isotherm forms the base of the seismogenic zone, suggesting that seismic faulting in these regions is confined to the top of the upper crust (12–14 km), and thus does not accommodate plate motion.
Highly efficient C-band circularly polarized rectifying antenna array for wireless microwave power transmission

This paper reports a new circularly polarized (CP) high-gain, high-efficiency rectifying antenna (rectenna) array designed in a coplanar stripline (CPS) circuit. The array can maintain a constant dc output voltage regardless of its broadside orientation. The array is etched on Rogers Duroid 5870 substrate with /spl epsiv//sub r/=2.33 and 10 mil thickness. High-gain dual rhombic loop antennas and a reflecting plane are used in order to reduce the total number of rectenna elements necessary to cover a fixed area. Each antenna has a CP antenna gain of 11 dB and a better than 1 dB axial ratio fractional bandwidth of 4.7%. The single element rectenna achieves 81% RF-to-dc coversion efficiency at 5.71 GHz and uses a CPS band-reject filter (BRF) to suppress the reradiated harmonics by more than 19 dB. At 5.61 GHz, using an array loading of 150 /spl Omega/, a 3 /spl times/ 3 rectenna array produces 0.86 W of dc output power with an RF-to-dc conversion efficiency of 78% and an axial ratio of 0.25 dB for an incident CP power density of 7.6 mW/cm/sup 2/.
A real-time, multimodal biofeedback system for stroke patient rehabilitation

This paper presents a novel real-time, multi-modal biofeedback system for stoke patient therapy. The problem is important as traditional mechanisms of rehabilitation are monotonous, and do not incorporate detailed quantitative assessment of recovery in addition to traditional clinical schemes. We have been working on developing an experiential media system that integrates task dependent physical therapy and cognitive stimuli within an interactive, multimodal environment. The environment provides a purposeful, engaging, visual and auditory scene in which patients can practice functional therapeutic reaching tasks, while receiving different types of simultaneous feedback indicating measures of both performance and results. There are two contributions of this paper - (a) identification of features and goals for the functional task, (b) the development of sophisticated feedback (auditory and visual) mechanisms that match the semantics of action of the task.
Spinal cord lesion with hypogonadism and gynecomastia; chromosomal sex.

Testicular atrophy accompanied by hypogonadism and at times by gynecomastia, has been observed to develop following traumatic transection of the spinal cord. Detailed reports, some featuring hormonal assays and testicular biopsies, have been published previously (1–6). The possibility of a neurogenic cause of the hypogonadal syndrome in such cases has been suggested (1, 3, 4). Hypogonadism has been seen occasionally in cases of degenerative disease of the central nervous system (7–9) and here, too, a neurogenic mechanism has been mentioned, although adequate information is not furnished in most of these reports. It is the purpose of this report to present a case of hypogonadism accompanied by gynecomastia in a man with a diffuse lesion of the central nervous system, including some of the hormonal and histologic studies which might help in elucidating the pathogenesis. Furthermore, an attempt has been made to determine the chromosomal sex, in view of the intersex hypotheses of gynecomastia.
Chronic drug infusion into the scala tympani of the guinea pig cochlea.

This research describes a unique, effective and inexpensive delivery system to provide discrete quantities of drugs on a chronic basis to the inner ear. The amount of the drug administered and specific timing of each administration are under investigator control. A micro-injection system mounted atop an animal's head is shown to permit repeated application of agents which effectively block neural responsiveness (tetrodotoxin) on a daily basis for periods up to 2 weeks. Cannulation of the inner ear and chronic delivery of control substances (artificial perilymph) do not affect function. This system may be used to administer drugs to other compartments of the body (e.g., the brain) on a chronic basis for neurophysiologic and neuropharmacologic investigations.
LARGE-SCALE TESTING OF TWO FLAT ROOF ASSEMBLIES INSULATED WITH CELLULOSE

A laboratory test using a large-scale environmental chamber has been carried out on two flat roof models fully insulated with cellulose fiber. These two models represent the most representative single-cavity flat roofs, built in Montreal between 1930 and 1970, being insulated as part of an energy conservation program. The insulating strategy consists of packing cellulose fiber in the cavity. The goal of the test program was to determine the risk of rotting of the wood structure and moisture accumulation in the roof assembly. The test was performed using real-scale huts that were exposed to 6 months of winter and summer conditions. Two roof assemblies were each divided into five roof cavities. The main variables were the mode of moisture transfer (diffusion only and diffusion combined with air exfiltration), type of vapor barrier, and air leakage paths. The construction of the huts and the monitoring plan are described. The results of the 6-month test program using seven simulated climatic conditions are presented. Wetting and drying curves for different parts of the assemblies as well as the levels of exposure to moisture are presented and analyzed.
Real time eye tracking for human computer interfaces

In recent years considerable interest has developed in real time eye tracing for various applications. An approach that has received a lot of attention is the use of infrared technology for purposes of eye tracking. In this paper, we propose a technique that does not rely on the use of infrared devices for eye tracking. Instead, our eye tracker makes use of a binary classifier with a dynamic training strategy and an unsupervised clustering stage in order to efficiently track the pupil (eyeball) in real time. The dynamic training strategy makes the algorithm subject (speaker) and lighting condition invariant. Our algorithm does not make any assumption regarding the position of the speaker's face in the field of view of the camera, nor does it restrict the 'natural' motion of the speaker in the field of view of the camera. Experimental results from a real time implementation show that this algorithm is robust and able to detect the pupils under various illumination conditions.
Case of vasculitis and sarcoidosis in a child with cystic fibrosis

The occurrence of cystic fibrosis (CF) and sarcoidosis is not previously reported in childhood. Hypergammaglobinaemia and immune complex deposition may contribute to granulomata formation in sarcoidosis. Following diagnosis of cystic fibrosis at 3 months old and despite standard CF management of daily nebulized colomycin, cefaclor, intravenous colistin and tobramycin this female patient became colonized with pseudomonas and by mid childhood had impaired pulmonary function with FEV1 67%, FVC 81% predicted. At 11 yrs, she developed episodes of rash, joint swelling and pyrexia. Skin biopsy: florid vasculitis affecting small and medium sized vessels. Colchicine 500 mg tds initially helped but aged 12 yrs, her renal function fell acutely with serum creatinine 197, urea 19.3, ACR of 20, and calcium 4.3. 1,25 OH Vitamin D levels high at 120 mmol/l and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) raised at 137 mmol/l. Renal biopsy: extensive interstitial nephritis with multiple foci of non-caseating granulomata and multinucleated giant cells. Renal angiography: small vessel vasculitis without microaneurysms. She had episodes of red, sore eyes. Conjuctival biopsy: non-necrotising epithelial granuloma. Sarcoidosis was diagnosed. A high resolution CT scan of the chest showed CF changes only. The hypercalcaemia and ACE responded rapidly to methylprednisolone. Her lung and renal function improved on maintenance azathioprine and prednisolone. By 6 months she was unable to wean steroids adequately without flaring. A report of mycophenolate use in a post-transplant adult cystic fibrosis patient encouraged us to try mycophenolate instead and she now remains in remission with improvement of her cystic fibrosis lung disease as well.
Chronic ethanol consumption causes alterations in the structural integrity of mitochondrial DNA in aged rats.

Chronic ethanol consumption adversely affects the respiratory activity of rat liver mitochondria. It causes increased cellular production of oxygen radical species and selectively decreases mitochondrial glutathione (GSH) levels. Here we show, using Southern hybridization techniques on total rat genomic DNA, that long-term (11-13 months) ethanol feeding, using the Lieber-DeCarli diet, results in a 36% (P < .05; n = 4) decrease in hepatic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) levels when compared with paired controls. UV quantitation of mtDNA isolated from hepatic mitochondria showed that chronic ethanol intake (11-13 months) causes a 44% (P < .01; n = 6) decrease in the amount of mtDNA per milligram of mitochondrial protein. No significant decline in mtDNA levels was seen in ethanol-fed animals maintained on the diet for 1 to 5 months. Ethanol feeding caused a 42% (P < .01; n = 4) and a 132% (P < .05; n = 3) increase in 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) formation in mtDNA in animals maintained on the diet for 3 to 6 months and 10 to 11 months, respectively. In addition, agarose gel electrophoresis revealed a 49% increase (P < .05; n = 3) in mtDNA single-strand breaks (SSB) in animals fed ethanol for more than 1 year. These findings suggest that chronic ethanol consumption causes enhanced oxidative damage to mtDNA in older animals along with increased strand breakage, and that this results in its selective removal/degradation by mtDNA repair enzymes.
A TATA binding protein regulatory network that governs transcription complex assembly

Background Eukaryotic genes are controlled by proteins that assemble stepwise into a transcription complex. How the individual biochemically defined assembly steps are coordinated and applied throughout a genome is largely unknown. Here, we model and experimentally test a portion of the assembly process involving the regulation of the TATA binding protein (TBP) throughout the yeast genome.
Designing insurance markets with moral hazard and nonexclusive contracts

We design competitive markets in large insurance economies with moral hazard, under the additional constraint that contracts may be nonexclusive. In particular, we consider the situation where contracts are verifiable and enforceable within a local market, but globally, i.e., across markets, they are not. Agents can buy (or sell) insurance contracts in multiple markets subject to a (global) budget constraint. Because of local exclusivity, at equilibrium firms make zero profits. Although equilibria are indeterminate, the incentive efficient contract may not be an equilibrium. However, with a Wilsonian or a forward induction refinement, we show that equilibrium is ‘third best’ efficient.
Essential elements to the establishment and design of a successful robotic surgery programme.

Introduction The application of robotic assisted technology has created a new era in surgery, by addressing some of the limitations of conventional open and laparoscopic surgery. To optimize success the incorporation of robotics into a surgical program must be performed with a structured approach. We discuss the key factors for building a successful robotic surgery program. Materials and Methods Prior to implementing a robotics program certain essential elements must be examined. One must assess the overall goals of the program, the initial applications of the technology and the time line for success. In addition a financial analysis of the potential impact of the technology must also be performed. Essential personnel should also be identified in order to form a cohesive robotic surgery team. These preparatory sets help coordinate the establishment of the program and help to prevent unrealistic expectations; while generating the best environment for success. Results Once the purchase of the robotic system has been approved a robotic surgery team is created with certain essential components. This staff includes: the surgeons, nursing staff, physician assistants, resident/fellows, program coordinator, marketing and a financial analysis team. This team will work together to achieve the common goals for the program. Conclusion Robotic assisted surgery has grown tremendously over the last half decade in certain surgical fields such as urology. The success of programs has been variable and often related to the infrastructure of the program. The key factors appear to be creation of a sound financial plan, early identification of applicable specialties and a motivated surgical team. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Populations of candidate black holes at redshift 7 or above

I will describe recent results on constructing samples of candidate active galactic nuclei (AGN) at or beyond redshift 7, probing several orders of magnitude fainter than the top end of the quasar luminosity function at redshift 6. These advances have been made possible by the advent of deep, wide multi-waveband surveys that enable the selection of samples of sources that are detected at radio or X-ray wavelengths but completely undetected at optical wavelengths to very deep limits. A variety of multi-band selection criteria are used to identify the high-redshift candidates and eliminate lower-redshift interlopers by means of extensive spectral energy distribution modelling. The resulting constraints on the numbers of high-redshift AGN at or above redshift 7 are used to examine the evolution of the AGN luminosity function at high redshift, and help understand the properties of the first supermassive black holes in the universe.
On the solutions of the Low equation

An alternative procedure is developed for examining the solutions of the Low equation. The ambiguities of those solutions that have a finite number of zeros are shown to satisfy the conditions derived earlier by Castillejo, Dalitz and Dyson. The method presented here has the advantage that it makes no special use of the positiveness of the cutoff function, and so can be used when this function changes sign. It is shown that the arbitrariness of the solution increases with the number of these sign changes, but that a completely negative cut-off function still satisfies the CDD conditions.
Detection of bursts in extracellular spike trains using hidden semi-Markov point process models

Neurons in vitro and in vivo have epochs of bursting or "up state" activity during which firing rates are dramatically elevated. Various methods of detecting bursts in extracellular spike trains have appeared in the literature, the most widely used apparently being Poisson Surprise (PS). A natural description of the phenomenon assumes (1) there are two hidden states, which we label "burst" and "non-burst," (2) the neuron evolves stochastically, switching at random between these two states, and (3) within each state the spike train follows a time-homogeneous point process. If in (2) the transitions from non-burst to burst and burst to non-burst states are memoryless, this becomes a hidden Markov model (HMM). For HMMs, the state transitions follow exponential distributions, and are highly irregular. Because observed bursting may in some cases be fairly regular--exhibiting inter-burst intervals with small variation--we relaxed this assumption. When more general probability distributions are used to describe the state transitions the two-state point process model becomes a hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM). We developed an efficient Bayesian computational scheme to fit HSMMs to spike train data. Numerical simulations indicate the method can perform well, sometimes yielding very different results than those based on PS.
Distributed simulation of multi-agent hybrid systems

Systems such as coordinating robot systems, automobiles, aircraft, and chemical process control systems can be modeled as interacting hybrid systems, where hybrid systems are finite state machines with continuous dynamics. The language CHARON and its simulator have been developed to model and analyze interacting hybrid systems as communicating agents. Simulations are widely used for the analyses of hybrid systems. The simulation of a complex system is, however usually very slow. This paper proposes four algorithms for distributed simulations of hybrid systems. The idea behind distributed simulations is to achieve a speedup by utilizing multiple computing resources. The agents of a modeled system are distributed over multiple processors to simulate the agents more efficiently. Since the state of the agent is affected by the input from other agents, they synchronize to update their local states. The challenge here is how to reduce the agent synchronization overhead. We present two approaches for resolving the problem: conservative and optimistic approaches. For the optimistic approach, we present three different algorithms for distributed simulations of hybrid systems, and compare them.
LINK: Location Verification through Immediate Neighbors Knowledge

In many location-based services, the user location is determined on the mobile device and then shared with the service. For this type of interaction, a major problem is how to prevent service abuse by malicious users who lie about their location. This paper proposes LINK (Location verification through Immediate Neighbors Knowledge), a location authentication protocol in which users help verify each other’s location claims. This protocol is independent of the wireless network carrier, and thus works for any third-party service. For each user’s location claim, a centralized Location Certification Authority (LCA) receives a number of verification messages from neighbors contacted by the claimer using short-range wireless networking such as Bluetooth. The LCA decides whether the claim is authentic or not based on spatio-temporal correlation between the users, trust scores associated with each user, and historical trends of the trust scores. LINK thwarts attacks from individual malicious claimers or malicious verifiers. Over time, it also detects attacks involving groups of colluding users.
Cellular Slime Molds of the Southern Appalachians

The occurrence and distribution of cellular slime molds were studied in relation to altitude of Southern Appalachian forest sites. Nineteen sites were sampled in seven forest types at elevations be...
Mechanical and Electrical Properties of Nanocrystalline and Epitaxial TiN Films

High-temperature materials such as TiN have been successfully applied as wear corrosion protection, decorative coatings, electrical contacts and diffusion barriers in electronic devices. However the poor toughness and ductility have limited some of these applications. To alleviate some of these problems, reduction of grain size can enhance grain boundary sliding and grain boundary diffusion related creep phenomena. We have investigated mechanical and electrical properties of TiN as a function of microstructure varying from nanocrystalline to single crystal TiN films deposited on (100) silicon substrates. By varying the substrate temperature from 25oC to 700oC during pulsed laser deposition, the microstructure of TiN films changed from nanocrystalline (having uniform grain size of 8 nm) to a single crystal epitaxial film on the silicon (100) substrate. The microstructure and epitaxial nature of these films were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Hardness measurements were made using nanoindentation techniques. Resistivity measurements were performed by van der Pauw method. The nanocrystalline TiN contained numerous triple junctions without any presence of amorphous regions. The width of the grain boundary remained constant 1 nm as a function of boundary angle. Similarly the grain boundary structure did not change with grain size. The hardness of TiN films decreased with decreasing grain size in nanoscale. This behavior has been modeled recently involving grain boundary sliding which is particularly relevant in the case of hard materials such as TiN. The dependence of resistivity of TiN as a function of the substrate temperature is discussed and correlated with hardness results.
Compact representations of partially coherent undulator radiation suitable for wave propagation

Undulator radiation is partially coherent in the transverse plane, with the degree of coherence depending on the ratio of the electron beam phase space area (emittance) to the characteristic radiation wavelength $\ensuremath{\lambda}$. On the other hand, numerical codes used to predict x-ray beam line performance can typically only propagate coherent fields from the source to the image plane. We investigate methods for representing partially coherent undulator radiation using a suitably chosen set of coherent fields that can be used in standard wave propagation codes, and discuss such ``coherent mode expansions'' for arbitrary degrees of coherence. In the limit when the electron beam emittance along at least one direction is much larger than $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ the coherent modes are orthogonal and therefore compact; when the emittance approaches $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ in both planes we discuss an economical method of defining the relevant coherent fields that samples the electron beam phase space using low-discrepancy sequences.
Investigation of plague hosts and vectors in Longlin county,Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

Objective To determine the population composition of rodents and fleas and investigate plague in the natural foci in Longlin county,Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region for formulation of prevention and control strategies. Methods The flea-carrying rate and flea index of rodents were calculated based on the number of fleas collected from caged rodents. The free flea index was calculated according to the number of indoor fleas captured on sticky paper. The mammals were then subject to etiological and serological tests to determine the infection rate. Results Rodents of eleven species(3 families with 2 orders) and fleas(6 species) predominantly Rattus tanezumi and Xenopsylla cheopis were found in the foci. The average rodent density,flea-carrying rate,flea index and index of X. cheopis were 3.24%,27.09%,0.95 and 0.74,respectively. The indoor free flea index was 0.046. Among 5398 cultured rodent specimens,10 strains of Yersinia pestis were isolated;two positive sera and 24 indicative sera were detected via indirect hemorrhagic assay(IHA) . Conclusion The optimum period for rodent control is April and October and the key period for plague monitoring is from February to October in the natural foci of R. tanezumi plague in Longlin county.
Identification methods for the related substances in compound products of chemical drugs

Nowadays there have been many problems in the research methods of the related substances of the compound drug products in the domestic researchers,including wrong ways for research and illogical determination of the threshold.In this article,we suggested that the related substances that belong to different main components should be researched and controlled,respectively.Several ways for the identification of related substances in the compound drug products has been discussed as well.
Stigma and the shaping of the pornography industry

Georgina Voss' Stigma and the Shaping of the Pornography Industry looks to the white-collar world of adult marketing – its distribution, sales, and technology development – to investigate how the s...
Setting the Scene: Problems of Cohesion, 1918–1938

Romania came out of the First World War with double its former population, territory and industrial capacity — 7.3 million Romanians had by 1919 increased to 16.2 million, but they still lived mostly on the land. The economy was characterized by agricultural overpopulation and low productivity per acre — about half that of Western Europe. The newly enlarged provincial Romania with its legacy of a different historical experience, coupled with the diverse ethnic mix of the significant minority Hungarian, German and Jewish populations which it contained, posed major problems of harmonization and consolidation which, in the brief interlude of the inter-war period, the country’s leaders had little time, capacity and will to address. A failure to solve these issues blighted the country’s progress towards modernization and the exercise of genuine democratic rule.
The Politics of Evolution: Metaphors for Competition

John McPhee, in trying to fathom the extraordinary age of the earth, speaks of deep time.1 The metaphor of depth describes a temporality so distant from the present that its very presence among us in rocks and fossils seems quite alien. By examining layered geological formations, analysts can interpret a past that is nonetheless present with us. ‘You begin tuning your mind to a time scale that is the planet’s time scale.’2 As we have seen in chapter 2, the narrative that astrophysical cosmology has told about the universe as a whole is similar. By looking into the night sky, astronomers begin at such a temporal distance that the presence of background radiation noise as a ‘present’ phenomenon, however measurable, seems thin. Nonetheless, deep time appears to us, narrowly discernible, as a past yet contemporary light.
The Witness-People Myth in History

The starting-point for any study of Christian texts must be the New Testament. As many have noted, the New Testament contains much to support the belief that the Jews have been rejected by God following their own rejection of Jesus. Indeed, the gospels of Matthew and John and the Epistle to the Hebrews contain many of the charges that ultimately made up the Christian teaching of contempt. Demonization of the Jews is anticipated in the statement attributed to Jesus in John 8:44 (“You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires”),1 an apparent admission of deicide is found in Matthew 27:25 (“His blood be on us and our children!”) and supersessionist theology is a leitmotif in Hebrews.
Disparities in the Use of Yoga: An Opportunity for Yoga Tourism Industry to Make a Triple Impact

Tourism is increasing globally and is predicted to grow. There is also a noticeable change in the motivation for tourism from hedonic to eudemonic self-realization oriented spiritual pursuits. As a part of this process, ‘yoga tourism’ is gaining popularity. However, this development is encumbered with disparities. Yoga tourism purportedly offers to assuage the adverse effects of stress and chronic diseases partially induced by modernity. These predicaments affect everybody uniformly, rather in some ways, worse for men and the low socioeconomic groups. Yet, only 15.8% of the yoga practitioners are males and tourism is mostly out of the reach of the low socioeconomic groups. The situation provides yoga tourism industry an opportunity. How to get started with yoga is a barrier for males and financial constraint is a major barrier for the low socioeconomic groups to undertake tourism or yoga. It is known that many female yoga tourists have a happy family/personal life. Yoga tourism industry can offer attractive financial and hedonic incentives (pull) to motivate them to bring along their male counterparts. On the other hand, social tourism (financially subsidized tourism for the disadvantaged) exists but does not enjoy much support due to lack of advocacy. Yoga tourism industry can spearhead an incentive driven advocacy movement to lobby charity organizations and government welfare agencies to support social (yoga) tourism. (1) This will open up the hitherto untapped huge male and the low socioeconomic groups market and (2) The event participation might help males and the low socioeconomic groups to overcome their respective barriers and introduce them to yoga practice. Apart from market growth and growth of yoga use, in a long run these developments have the potential to translate into substantial public health benefits in terms of reduction in stress, disease burden, health costs and loss of productivity
Induction of LIFR confers a dormancy phenotype in breast cancer cells disseminated to the bone marrow

Johnson et al. report that loss of leukaemia inhibitory factor receptor (LIFR) signalling reduces the expression of genes associated with dormancy in metastatic breast cancer cells, and promotes bone marrow colonization and osteoclastogenesis.
Politics and Agencies in the Administrative State: The U.S. Case

The pending American presidential election, culminating a period of extreme political partisanship in our national government generally, gives point to an essay on politics and agencies in the American regulatory state. In our two-party system, it has often been the case in recent times, including the last six years, that the President comes from one of our two major political parties and one or both houses of Congress are controlled by the other. All American agencies (including, in the American case, the so-called independent regulatory bodies) are associated with the President in the executive branch, yet dependent on the Senate for confirmation of their heads and other important officers and on the agreement of both houses for their budgets. So, with constitutional structure as a focus, one might ask what, if any, necessary structural relationship do bodies within the executive have to the legislature? Must there be a connection? What kind of a connection, and how assured? What, if any, work is excluded from their purview because it is necessarily the work of a legislature? Alternatively, one might ask, more descriptively: what are the actual relationships; how do executive and legislative politicians influence the administrative state, either before or after it takes action? These are large subjects for inquiry, whose dimensions can only be sketched here. More extensive treatment of these subjects and other matters can be found at length in the just published Third Edition of my Administrative Justice in the United States (Strauss 2016).
Effects of coplanar shielding for high field MRI

This work investigates the efficacy of “coplanar shielding,” in which copper shields are oriented concentric and coplanar to the RF coils rather than implemented as a full ground plane behind them. Following FDTD simulations to determine optimal shielding parameters, two coil geometries were constructed: a circular loop surface coil and a half-volume five-element receive array. Each was evaluated using bench measurements with and without coplanar shielding. Imaging, including accelerated SENSE imaging, was performed with the shielded and unshielded receive arrays on a whole-body 7T scanner. Results from modeled and fabricated coils showed good agreement with improvements in Q factors for all cases. Imaging showed substantial improvements in SNR and g-factors for the coplanar shielded array.
Pre-Clinical Development of Suberoylanilide Hydroxamic Acid (SAHA, Vorinostat ™) for the Treatment of Pediatric Acute Leukemias.

Acute leukemia is the most common malignancy of childhood and despite a good outcome for the majority of patients, a proportion of patients has high-risk features, and a very poor prognosis for ultimate cure. As such, novel approaches to therapy and new agents are clearly needed to improve the efficacy and quality of treatment available. We are investigating the utility of several histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) in the treatment of pediatric acute leukemias. Two HDACIs, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA, Vorinostat™) and MS-275, exhibited broad spectrum anti-tumor activity against a panel of 12 pediatric ALL and 8 AML cell lines representing different cell lineages and stages of development, with clinically achievable IC50 values of approximately 200–900nM. Both agents induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. However, SAHA and MS-275 had differential effects on cell cycle progression and differentiation. Treatment with MS-275 resulted in sustained accumulation of cells in G1 phase and cell line-specific changes in the expression of multiple hematopoietic differentiation markers, including HLA-DR, CD11b, CD13, CD33, and CD61. Differentiation of both AML and ALL cell lines was induced. In contrast, treatment with SAHA either had no effect on cell cycle distribution or caused a transient arrest in G1 phase, which was reversible within 24–48 hours. In addition, only minimal changes in the expression of defined hematopoietic differentiation markers were observed following treatment with SAHA. These data suggest that the anti-leukemia effects mediated by SAHA and MS-275 occur by different biochemical and cellular mechanisms. Consistent with this hypothesis, SAHA and MS-275 exhibited synergistic anti-leukemic activity in vitro in a sequence dependent-manner, with a mean combination index of 0.666 +/− 0.048 based on median effect analysis. Sequence-dependent synergy was noted in a variety of T-cell and pre-B cell lines, including cell lines possessing MLL translocations. Both SAHA and MS-275 exhibited synergistic interactions with drugs representing the topoisomerase II, DNA methyltransferase, and proteosome inhibitor classes based on median effect analysis and/or the universal response surface approach. Detailed data demonstrating the mechanism(s) of HDACI-mediated anti-leukemic synergy and sequence-dependence with these other agents will be presented.
Staying cool in the compact city: Vacant land and urban heating in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Abstract This study analyzes socio-spatial patterns in land surface temperature (LST) and vacant land across Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a city with an estimated 30,000–40,000 vacant lots and a history of increased mortality associated with extreme heat events. Urban sustainability planning efforts typically encourage a compact city to improve quality of life and reduce sprawl, yet these same characteristics contribute to surface heating and the urban heat island effect (UHI). City officials often aim to redevelop vacant lots into conventional, tax-generating uses (e.g. commercial, industrial, or residential development), but few studies consider the role of vacant land in urban heating. This study employs LST and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) metrics derived from Landsat 8 imagery acquired on August 7, 2014, data on imperviousness from the 2011 National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD), vacant parcels from the City of Philadelphia, and socioeconomic data on median household income and minority populations from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2009–2013 5-year estimates at the Census Block Group level. The results of this study indicate that neighborhoods with low socio-economic status are hotter and have more vacant lots than their wealthier counterparts. This study points towards the potential of green conversions of vacant lots for mitigating inequities in urban heating in the most socially and economically vulnerable neighborhoods across the city.
Minimizing Loss: Explaining Russian Policy Choices during the Ukrainian Crisis

Realist and liberal scholars of international relations offer very different interpretations of Russia’s decision to militarily intervene in Ukraine. While liberals describe the Russian actions as part of a new, more aggressive foreign policy resulting from increasing authoritarianism within Russia itself, realists view these actions as largely defensive; a reaction to persistent Western efforts to peel Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence. Applying insights from the foreign policy decision making literature to a close examination of events from late 2013 through the Russian military interventions in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine reveals weaknesses in both these explanations. Consistent with the realist view, Russian behavior does appear to have been motivated more by geopolitical interests than by the domestic politics considerations. However realist accounts underestimate the extent to which prior Russian policy choices, rather than Western efforts, contributed to the undermining of Ukraine’s political stability.
A High Performance C++ Generic Benchmark for Computational Epidemiology

An effective tool used by planners and policy makers in public health, such as Center for Disease Control (CDC), to curtail spread of infectious diseases over a given population is contagion diffusion simulations. These simulations model the relevant characteristics of the population (age, gender, income etc.) and the disease (attack rate, etc.) and compute the spread under various configuration and plausible intervention strategies (such as vaccinations, school closure, etc.). Hence, the model and the computation form a complex agent based system and are highly compute and resource intensive. In this work, we design a benchmark consisting of several kernels which capture the essential compute, communication, and data access patterns for such applications. For each kernel, the benchmark provides different evaluation strategies. The goal is to (a) derive alternative implementations for computing the contagion by combining different implementation of the kernels, and (b) evaluate which combination of implementation, runtime, and hardware is most effective in running large scale contagion diffusion simulations. Our proposed benchmark is designed using C++ generic programming primitives and lifting sequential strategies for parallel computations. Together, these lead to a succinct description of the benchmark and significant code reuse when deriving strategies for new hardware. For the benchmark to be effective, this aspect is crucial, because the potential combination of hardware and runtime are growing rapidly thereby making infeasible to write optimized strategy for the complete contagion diffusion from ground up for each compute system.
The Electrode – Principles of the Neural Interface: Axons and Cell Bodies

This chapter offers an overview of current knowledge on the interactions between permanently implanted stimulating electrodes and the nervous system. The interface between a permanently implanted electrode and the brain is a complex entity that can dramatically affect the functioning of the clinical device. The electric field generated by an implanted electrode is a three–dimensionally complex phenomenon that is distributed throughout the brain. Once the polarization has been transmitted to the ionic medium, it must transverse the brain's inflammatory response to the implanted electrode. Once the electrode is implanted, stimulus pulse applied, and electric field generated in the tissue medium, the next step is to characterize the neural response. The fundamental purpose of a neurostimulation device is to generate a desired clinical outcome without induction of stimulation-induced side effects. The stimulation effects at the site of the electrode are only the first step in that process. Changes in stimulation parameters can affect the types of neurons activated, and the volume of tissue over which activation will occur. The four primary stimulation parameters are the polarity, duration, and amplitude of the stimulus pulse, as well as the stimulation frequency.
Propaganda, Persuasion, or Journalism?: Fox News’ Prime-Time Coverage of Health-Care Reform in 2009 and 2014

The scholarly literature on Fox News has largely focused on the network’s ideological disposition, assuming Fox News to be a journalistic operation. However, a handful of scholars have challenged t...
Constant current power amplifier for MHz magnetic resonance wireless power transfer systems

This paper introduces the concept of constant current power amplifier (PA) for magnetic resonance wireless power transmitters, where the current output of the PA remains almost constant when the load impedance varies. The solution enables the wireless power transfer system to simultaneously support multiple devices and naturally supply the power demanded by receivers without feedback control. In this paper, the design methodology of such PA will be discussed in detail followed by a design example.
Introduction: Greening the Machine—Hollywood Takes an Interest in the Environment

This chapter lays the theoretical groundwork for the analysis of genre and landscape in succeeding chapters by making a case for contemporary cultural studies to include consideration of environmental issues through an examination of landscape as well as genre. The study of landscape permits the understanding that depictions of the natural landscape in popular Hollywood film conveys more about the “culture industry” itself than it does about environmental issues. Examining landscape through the lens of genre enables a cross-sectional analysis of Hollywood as well as a critical perspective, in that the underlying function of genre (with its commercial drive) is to soothe and flatten instead of spur into action. Finally, this chapter provides a brief description and layout of the chapters to follow, as organized by genre.
The chest radiologist's role in invasive breast cancer detection

Abstract Purpose To assess the ability of chest CT to identify patients needing further evaluation of the breasts. Methods IRB approval was obtained with a waiver of consent. Women with chest CT and mammogram within 12 months formed the cohort. A breast assessment and recommendation CT score (BARCS) analogous to mammographic BI-RADS was created and compared to the mammogram BI-RADS. Results BARCS and mammographic BI-RADS management recommendations were concordant for 77.1%. 11 invasive cancers were detected; all by mammogram while CT missed 2. Conclusion BARCS score should be studied in prospective trials. Chest CT might be the earliest opportunity to detect breast cancer.
Why not accounting and finance: An African American perspective

The authors investigated the role of influence factors and information sources why African Americans choose or do not choose a career in accounting or finance. The most important factor was career-...
Comparative two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) of human milk to identify dysregulated proteins in breast cancer

Breast cancer (BC) remains a major cause of mortality, and early detection is considered important for reducing BC-associated deaths. Early detection of BC is challenging in young women, due to the limitations of mammography on the dense breast tissue of young women. We recently reported results of a pilot proteomics study, using one-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (1D-PAGE) and mass spectrometry (MS) to investigate differences in milk proteins from women with and without BC. Here, we applied two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) and MS to compare the protein pattern in milk from the breasts of a single woman who was diagnosed with BC in one breast 24 months after donating her milk. Statistically different gel spots were picked for protein digestion followed by nanoliquid chromatography tandem MS (nanoLC-MS/MS) analysis. The upregulated proteins in BC versus control are alpha-amylase, gelsolin isoform a precursor, alpha-2-glycoprotein 1 zinc isoform CRA_b partial, apoptosis-inducing factor 2 and vitronectin. Several proteins were downregulated in the milk of the breast later diagnosed with cancer as compared to the milk from the healthy breast, including different isoforms of albumin, cholesterol esterase, different isoforms of lactoferrin, different proteins from the casein family and different isoforms of lysozyme. Results warrant further studies to determine the usefulness of these milk proteins for assessing risk and detecting occult disease. MS data is available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD009860.