cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The mechanism and kinetics of the formation of UO2·90·6YO1·5

Abstract Above 1200°C four phases are present in the UO2Y2O3O2 system, namely; U3O3, a mixed oxide phase having the fluorite structure, a rhombohedral phase and Y2O3. The fluorite phase was found to exist between 30 and 72·5 mole per cent YO1·5. Between 74·5 and 81·0 mole per cent YO1·5 the fluorite phase and the rhombohedral phase co-exist. The ideal composition of the rhombohedral phase is UO2·90·6YO1·5 (85·7 mole per cent YO1·5). The rhombohedral phase is found between 81·0 and 87·7 mole per cent YO1·5, and co-exists with yttrium oxide between 87·7 and 95·6 mole per cent YO1·5. X-ray diffraction methods were used to determine the mechanism and kinetics of the reaction between UO2 or U3O8 and Y2O3 to form the rhombohedral phase. Between 1000 and 1100°C a fluorite phase having an approximate composition UO2·90·2YO1·5 is formed as an intermediate in the reaction with only a slow conversion to the rhombohedral phase. At 1200°C and above the formation of the rhombohedral phase proceeds more rapidly, going to completion in 8 hr or less at 1400°C. The X-ray diffraction data indicate good agreement with the Jander model for the formation of the rhombohedral phase. The reaction proceeds at least in part by diffusion of gaseous UO3 to the surface of the Y2O3 particles. Further reaction involves bulk diffusion of uranium through the surface layer. An activation energy of 91 kcal/mole was obtained for the diffusion process.
Aestheticism and the Marriage Market in Victorian Popular Fiction: The Art of Female Beauty

The thesis of Aestheticism and the Marriage Market in Victorian Popular Fiction is provocative and interesting. Culling five British popular novels from the 1860s through the 1890s, Hallum’s projec...
Boll Weevil: Square Ingestion and Utilization Studies

Laboratory-reared ♂ boll weevils, Anthonomus grandis Boheman, ate ca. 13 mg of squares per day though field-collected weevils ate only 10 mg per day; however, the field weevils were 9% more efficient in the utilization of squares. Laboratory weevils utilized 23% of nitrogen consumed. They digested 5.5 cal/day, which means that ca. 49% of the energy consumed was metabolized.
Optimized multidisciplinary system design for aircraft and propulsion systems

The optimized system design methodology for multiple disciplines is presented. Taguchi techniques, fuzzy logic and neural networks are combined to develop a user-friendly design tool, which can perform fastoptimized multidisciplinary system designs and analyses. Taguchi techniques are used to identify the input factors or parameters that are significant to the output of a system. From the Taguchi analysis, parameter significance index is obtained. This index is then used in a fuzzy inference system to find the optimum solution with multiple design objectives. Then, a compromised optimum solution is obtained at the multidisciplinary system level where the design objectives of the system as a whole are considered. Neural Networks are built to provide fast mappings for analysis and design. The application of this design methodology to aircraft and propulsion systems show significant improvement in optimizing the design objectives, and in predicting the system output in real time within reasonable accuracy.
Smoking, Screen-Based Sedentary Behavior, and Diet Associated with Habitual Sleep Duration and Chronotype: Data from the UK Biobank.

Background Sleep duration has been implicated in the etiology of obesity but less is known about the association between sleep and other behavioral risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Late results of coronary bypass in patients with peripheral vascular disease. II. Five-year survival according to sex, hypertension, and diabetes.

Norman R. Hertzer, M.D. Department of Vascular Surgery The Cleveland Clinic Foundation 9500 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Two hundred sixteen of a series of 1000 patients initially presenting for elective surgical treatment of peripheral vascular disease underwent coronary bypass as a staged or simultaneous procedure, while bypass was warranted but never performed in 35 others who were documented by angiography to have severe coronary artery disease (CAD). Myocardial revascularization was associated with an approximate 10-fold reduction in the early mortality of vascular reconstruction, and these differences were statistically significant among hypertensive patients (p=0.045) and non-diabetics (p =0.018). During a mean follow-up interval of 4.6 years, fatal cardiac events occurred in 3.7% of patients with normal coronary arteries or mild to moderate CAD, in 12% of those receiving coronary bypass, and in 26% of the group with severe, uncorrected CAD. The protection from cardiac-related death offered by myocardial revascularization was most apparent among men (p =0.023), hypertensives (p =0.05), and nondiabetics (p =0.031). Cumulative 5-year survival after coronary bypass in men (76%) and nondiabetics (78%) exceeded that for comparable women (60%) and diabetics (43%). Because of their low operative risk (0.7%), superior 5-year survival (81%), and few late cardiac deaths (6.3%) following coronary bypass, nondiabetic men appear to have the most to gain from a comprehensive approach to associated CAD preceding peripheral vascular operations.
Characterization of the Electric Field in Electrophotographic Granular Systems

Within all electrophotographic (or xerographic) copiers and laser printers are development systems where the image is reproduced. Usually these development systems contain 200 fum diameter metallic, magnetic balls called carrier particles. Attached electrostatically to these balls are 10fum diameter polymer particles called toner which eventually end up on the paper forming the black images given to customers. The process bywhich the toner leaves the carrier and ends up on the paper is driven by electric fieldsin the development system. These fields are determined by the applied voltage and the dielectric properties of the granular mixture of metal carrier balls, polymeric toner, andair. The average electric field is determined by the dielectric constant of this granular mixture. But on a microscopic scale that a toner would experience, i.e. 10 fum, the electric field has significant structure. This structure has been determined both experimentally and theoretically. For example, the electric field peaks underneath a chain of carrier particles (which are chained up by a magnetic field). Models of the development process clearly indicate that toner particles transfer from the carrier particles only when the toner particles are directly under a carrier chain, where one would expect the field to be a maximum. However, recently we have succeeded in showing experimentally that the value of the electric field that the toner particles experience is the average field, described by the dielectric constant. Theoretical questions concerning the calculation of the electric field in a granular system raised by this unexpected result will bediscussed.
Abstract 1529: Knockdown of cathepsin B and uPAR inhibits CD151 and α3β1 integrin-mediated cell adhesion in glioma

Glioma is a highly complex brain tumor characterized by deregulation of proteins and genes that play important roles in tumor metastasis. CD151, a member of the tetraspanin family of proteins, tightly associates with integrins and accelerates cell adhesion as a modulator of actin cytoskeletal reorganization. Cathepsin B and uPAR are both overexpressed in gliomas and postulated to play central roles in the mediation of glioma metastasis. In the present study, cathepsin B and uPAR were downregulated in U251 and 4910 glioma cells using siRNA plasmid constructs. We evaluated the involvement of CD151 and its associated signaling molecules in adhesion potential. Immunoblot analysis revealed efficient downregulation of cathepsin B and uPAR after siRNA treatments. In addition, siRNA treatments significantly inhibited glioma cell adhesion to laminin as compared to other extracellular matrix proteins. Brain glioma tissue array analysis revealed the expression of CD151 in several tumor samples when compared with normal brain tissue. Further, treatment of glioma cells with cathepsin B and uPAR siRNA led to the downregulation of CD151 and laminin-binding integrins, α3 and β1. Co-localization and immunoprecipitation experiments revealed that downregulation of cathepsin B and uPAR decreased the interaction of CD151 with uPAR/cathepsin B. Transcriptional suppression of CD151 and α3 and β1 integrins using siRNA significantly decreased glioma cell adhesion to laminin. In addition, downregulation of cathepsin B, uPAR, CD151, α3 and β1 significantly decreased the expression of N-cadherin and β-catenin. Studies on the downstream signaling cascade of uPAR/CD151 have shown that phosphorylation of SRC, FAK and Paxillin were reduced with knockdown of cathepsin B, uPAR and CD151. Treatment with the bicistronic construct reduced CD151, α3β1 integrin, N-cadherin and β-catenin expression levels in pre-established glioma tumors in nude mice as well as in tissue lysates. In conclusion, our results show that downregulation of cathespin B and uPAR alone and in combination inhibit glioma cell adhesion by downregulating CD151 and its associated signaling molecules in vitro and in vivo. This study may be useful in dissecting the pathways involved in tumor cell adhesion and for the identification of novel target proteins for therapeutic intervention of gliomas. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1529. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1529
Transfusion Medicine: Quality in Laboratory Diagnosis

Written by Quentin Eichbaum MD, PhD, Garrett S. Booth, MD, MS, Pampee S. Young, MD, PhD, 45 cases. 141 pages. New York, NY: Demos Medical Publishing. $50.00. ISBN: 978-1936287963. I found Transfusion Medicine: Quality in Laboratory Diagnosis to be a very useful tool for any transfusion service or blood bank laboratory. As one book in a series of books on diagnostic standards of care, the authors have done a thorough job of presenting commonly encountered errors within the transfusion service and with the ordering practices of patient care providers for immunohematology tests and blood component use. The intended audience for this book ranges from bench technologists in the blood bank laboratory to the medical director overseeing the lab and the patient care providers. I would highly recommend this book to all residents …
American Queerer: Norman Rockwell and the Art of Queer Feminist Critique

ABSTRACTDespite, or perhaps because of, the continued popularity of his work with U.S. audiences and the active circulation of his art in both material and digital forms, public memory regarding Norman Rockwell remains a site of contestation. For example, while some critics frame Rockwell’s work as reinforcing normative expectations regarding race, class, gender, and sexuality, others interpret Rockwell as a powerful advocate for social justice, particularly with respect to race. Analyzing the epideictic functions of an intertextual assemblage of Rockwell’s images, this article contributes to the ongoing debates about the ideological implications of his art. Specifically, this article argues that many of his paintings offer valuable resources for queer feminist criticism.
Aligning meeting recordings via adaptive fingerprinting.

This paper proposes a robust and efficient way to temporally align a set of unsynchronized meeting recordings, such as might be collected by participants’ cell phones. We propose an adaptive audio fingerprint which is learned on-the-fly in a completely unsupervised manner to adapt to the characteristics of a given set of unaligned recordings. The design of the adaptive audio fingerprint is formulated as a series of optimization problems which can be solved very efficiently using eigenvector routines. We also propose a method of aligning sets of files which uses the cumulative evidence from previous alignments to help align the weakest matches. Based on challenging alignment scenarios extracted from the ICSI meeting corpus, the proposed alignment system is able to achieve > 99% alignment accuracy at a 100 ms error tolerance.
A Prolegomenon on OLTP Database Systems for Non-Volatile Memory.

The design of a database management system’s (DBMS) architecture is predicated on the target storage hierarchy. Traditional diskoriented systems use a two-level hierarchy, with fast volatile memory used for caching, and slower, durable device used for primary storage. As such, these systems use a buffer pool and complex concurrency control schemes to mask disk latencies. Compare this to main memory DBMSs that assume all data can reside in DRAM, and thus do not need these components. But emerging non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies require us to rethink this dichotomy. Such memory devices are slightly slower than DRAM, but all writes are persistent, even after power loss. We explore two possible use cases of NVM for on-line transaction processing (OLTP) DBMSs. The first is where NVM completely replaces DRAM and the other is where NVM and DRAM coexist in the system. For each case, we compare the performance of a disk-oriented DBMS with a memory-oriented DBMS using two OLTP benchmarks. We also evaluate the performance of different recovery algorithms on these NVM devices. Our evaluation shows that in both storage hierarchies, memory-oriented systems are able to outperform their disk-oriented counterparts. However, as skew decreases the performance of the two architectures converge, showing that neither architecture is ideally suited for an NVM-based storage hierarchy.
Children and their hearts.

The key to successful management of the infant with serious heart disease is early recognition, careful transfer to a specialized center, and good diagnostic and surgical management. Good pediatric cardiac care also includes heart disease prevention, with recognition and management during childhood of risk factors associated with adult coronary disease.
The energy gap of clusters, nanoparticles, and quantum dots

Publisher Summary The energy gap between the valence and conduction band is of fundamental importance for the properties of a solid. Most of a material's behavior—such as intrinsic conductivity, optical transitions, or electronic transitions—depends on it. Any change of the gap may significantly alter the material's physics and chemistry. This occurs when the size of a solid is reduced to the nanometer length scale. Therefore, the science and the technology of nano materials need to take into account a band gap, which is different from that of the bulk. This chapter determines experimentally and theoretically the dependence of the energy gap for particles, which are reduced in size to the nanometer range. In addition, effects such as structural changes, lattice contraction, atomic relaxation, surface reconstruction, surface passivation, or strain induced by a host material can change the gap. For clusters of simple metals, two models are used for their description: the tight-binding model and the electron-shell model. They can lead to different band gaps for small clusters and different critical sizes for the cluster-to-bulk transition. For divalent metals, a band gap is expected to open with decreasing particle size because of narrowing and shift of energy bands.
Surface Modification of Textile Fibers and Cords by Plasma Polymerization

In this paper we report on the treatment of industrial fibers and cords by means of plasma polymerization techniques. Coatings of plasma-polymerized pyrrole or acetylene were deposited on aramid fibers, aramid cords and polyester cords. The equipment was a custom-built semi-continuous reactor operated on a pulsed DC glow discharge. The fibers and cords were tested for adhesion to various polymers such as tire cord skim stock rubber compounds and epoxy adhesives. Standard industrial pull-out force adhesion measurement techniques were used. The deposition conditions of the plasma polymer films were varied within wide limits. It was found that, in general, films deposited under low-power and high-pressure conditions performed better than films prepared under high-power and low-pressure conditions. For some systems pulsing of the discharge power improved the performance further. For all systems studied, the optimized plasma polymer surface modification outperformed current industrial standards. The plasma-polymerized coatings were characterized by various techniques and the excellent performance results are explained in a tentative model based on the molecular structure of the films. This structure was found to be strongly dependent on the discharge conditions.
Evaluating the mechanisms of erosion for coarse-grained materials

Efforts are currently underway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to perform a risk assessment of all dams and levees within their portfolio. The vast majority of that portfolio is earthen structures. Findings from the assessments have shown that the major risk drivers for these earth structures are related to erosion (internal and external), overtopping, poorly designed and constructed intrusions (such as pipe crossings), and other factors to a lesser degree (such as burrowing animals). Therefore, the USACE is currently investigating several of these failure modes with emphasis on internal and external erosion. This paper will highlight efforts to investigate surface erosion, which may lead to breach formation and growth, by use of laboratory scale model testing to understand and properly capture the physics of the problem. These data are informing improvement and development of numeral methods for use in ongoing risk assessments.
Neurobiological basis of individual variation in stimulus-reward learning

Cues in the environment can guide behavior in adaptive ways, leading one towards valuable resources such as food, water, or a potential mate. However, cues in the environment may also serve as powerful motivators that lead to maladaptive patterns of behavior, such as addiction. Importantly, and central to this article, there is considerable individual variation in the extent to which reward cues gain motivational control over behavior. Here we describe an animal model that captures this individual variation, allowing us to better understand the psychological and neurobiological processes that contribute to cue-evoked behaviors. When a discrete cue is paired with a food reward in a Pavlovian manner it acquires greater control over motivated behavior in some rats ("sign-trackers, STs) than in others ("goal-trackers", GTs). We review studies that have exploited this animal model to parse the neurobiological mechanisms involved in learning associations between stimuli vs. those involved in attributing incentive salience to those same stimuli. The latter seems to be dependent on dopamine and subcortical circuits, whereas the former may engage more cortical "top-down" mechanisms.
Quantitative interrogation of a fossilized carbonate sand body – The Pleistocene Miami oolite of South Florida

Exposures of the Pleistocene Miami oolite in South Florida provide excellent examples of preserved primary sedimentary features and subsequent diagenetic changes of a ‘fossilized’ ooid sand body that has been subaerially exposed in a tropical climate since its deposition during the last interglacial highstand – Marine Isotope Stage 5e. Using a robust airborne light detection and ranging digital terrain model and select outcrops, a detailed analysis of the morphologies and dimensions of the different portions of the Miami oolite was conducted. The sand body, extending 95 km north to south and approximately 15 km wide, consists of shoals (or bars) separated by tidal channels and is partly bounded on the ocean-facing side by a prograding barrier bar that collectively cover an area of approximately 1000 sq. km. Results of the quantitative interrogation of the Miami oolite are compared with those of previously published work from modern sand bodies on Great Bahama Bank including the Exumas, Schooners Cays and Tongue of the Ocean. Digital terrain models developed for these modern sand bodies on the Great Bahama Bank and the ancient Miami oolite were used as the basis for the definition of shoals, shoal crests (peaks) and channels which were examined with respect to their size, shape and orientation. The Exumas sand body is the best morphometric match when analysing the bars and the channels, and the Joulter Cays area is an analogue for the formation of the barrier bar and for burrow reworking of cross-bedding within stabilized sand shoals. The Exumas is a particularly compelling analogue for the Miami oolite with respect to length and overall visual comparison between the morphologies of the sand bodies, shoal (or bar) shape, number of tidal channels, channel length and width, and high areas parallel to the strike trend of the sand body (islands in the Exumas and possible islands as part of the Miami oolite barrier bar). Despite ca 115 kyr of subaerial exposure and meteoric diagenesis including karst, the morphology of the Miami oolite is still relatively intact to the point where it can be easily analysed and meaningful comparisons to modern systems can be made. The Miami oolite serves as a key reference example for comparison to Holocene sand units in the Bahamas – it validates the concept of comparative sedimentology and in particular emphasizes how results from the modern can improve the interpretation of a fossilized example.
The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire: How a Certified Election Still Turned Violent

Despite the certification of Cote d’Ivoire’s 2010 presidential elections by the United Nations Operations in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI), they resulted in the most violent of Sub-Saharan Africa, in the t...
Comparison of initial patient setup accuracy between surface imaging and three point localization: A retrospective analysis.

Purpose Historically, the process of positioning a patient prior to imaging verification used a set of permanent patient marks, or tattoos, placed subcutaneously. After aligning to these tattoos, plan specific shifts are applied and the position is verified with imaging, such as cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Due to a variety of factors, these marks may deviate from the desired position or it may be hard to align the patient to these marks. Surface-based imaging systems are an alternative method of verifying initial positioning with the entire skin surface instead of tattoos. The aim of this study was to retrospectively compare the CBCT-based 3D corrections of patients initially positioned with tattoos against those positioned with the C-RAD CatalystHD surface imager system. Methods A total of 6000 individual fractions (600–900 per site per method) were randomly selected and the post-CBCT 3D corrections were calculated and recorded. For both positioning methods, four common treatment site combinations were evaluated: pelvis/lower extremities, abdomen, chest/upper extremities, and breast. Statistical differences were evaluated using a paired sample Wilcoxon signed-rank test with significance level of <0.01. Results The average magnitudes of the 3D shift vectors for tattoos were 0.9 ± 0.4 cm, 1.0 ± 0.5 cm, 0.9 ± 0.6 cm and 1.4 ± 0.7 cm for the pelvis/lower extremities, abdomen, chest/upper extremities and breast, respectively. For the CatalystHD, the average magnitude of the 3D shifts for the pelvis/lower extremities, abdomen, chest/upper extremities and breast were 0.6 ± 0.3 cm, 0.5 ± 0.3 cm, 0.5 ± 0.3 cm and 0.6 ± 0.2 cm, respectively. Statistically significant differences (P < 0.01) in the 3D shift vectors were found for all four sites. Conclusion This study shows that the overall 3D shift corrections for patients initially aligned with the C-RAD CatalystHD were significantly smaller than those aligned with subcutaneous tattoos. Surface imaging systems can be considered a viable option for initial patient setup and may be preferable to permanent marks for specific clinics and patients.
Tail Attacks on Web Applications

As the extension of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks to application layer in recent years, researchers pay much interest in these new variants due to a low-volume and intermittent pattern with a higher level of stealthiness, invaliding the state-of-the-art DDoS detection/defense mechanisms. We describe a new type of low-volume application layer DDoS attack--Tail Attacks on Web Applications. Such attack exploits a newly identified system vulnerability of n-tier web applications (millibottlenecks with sub-second duration and resource contention with strong dependencies among distributed nodes) with the goal of causing the long-tail latency problem of the target web application (e.g., 95th percentile response time > 1 second) and damaging the long-term business of the service provider, while all the system resources are far from saturation, making it difficult to trace the cause of performance degradation. We present a modified queueing network model to analyze the impact of our attacks in n-tier architecture systems, and numerically solve the optimal attack parameters. We adopt a feedback control-theoretic (e.g., Kalman filter) framework that allows attackers to fit the dynamics of background requests or system state by dynamically adjusting attack parameters. To evaluate the practicality of such attacks, we conduct extensive validation through not only analytical, numerical, and simulation results but also real cloud production setting experiments via a representative benchmark website equipped with state-of-the-art DDoS defense tools. We further proposed a solution to detect and defense the proposed attacks, involving three stages: fine-grained monitoring, identifying bursts, and blocking bots.
The Ocean as an Environment

“The ocean environment can be described in terms of the density, temperature, and salinity of water; atmospheric conditions (barometric pressure, air temperature and humidity, winds and contaminants); tides and currents; and bottom topography, water clarity, and marine organisms. All of these factors interact to make an ever-changing and formidable environment for men and material. For the working diver these conditions become more rigorous with each additional fathom” (Battelle 1971).
The Role of Ghrelin in the Control of Energy Balance

Ghrelin is the only potent orexigenic peptide in circulation. It stimulates food intake and leads to positive energy balance, adipogenesis, and body weight gain. However, the physiological significance of ghrelin in the regulation of energy homeostasis is controversial, since loss of ghrelin function in rodents does not necessarily lead to anorexia and weight loss. In this chapter, we discuss the metabolic function of ghrelin and are highlighting recent findings including the discovery and function of ghrelin-acylating enzyme ghrelin O-acyltransferase (GOAT). Based on available published data, we conclude that ghrelin is a principally important endogenous regulator of energy balance, which however may affect both food intake and systemic metabolism via independent mechanisms. Importantly, ghrelin, when acylated by GOAT, might represent a key molecular link between the sensing of consumed calories and the neuroendocrine control of energy homeostasis. Thus, agents antagonizing the action of ghrelin may have therapeutic potential in the therapy of obesity.
Level III: Surfaces

We turn now from molecules and phases to the domain of surfaces — the domain of interfacial phenomena and of colloid chemistry. When we considered molecules on Level I, we thought of them as being exposed to similar molecules on all sides; when we considered phases on Level II, we thought of them as surrounded by more of the same phase or by associated phases. But now we come to the situation where some of the molecules which comprise the material are exposed to different molecules — alien molecules of gas, or liquid, or even solid. The boundary is traditionally called a surface if it separates a condensed phase from the air, and an interface if it separates the condensed phase from a liquid or a solid, but the same principles are involved in both situations. As before, we must consider the surface or interface not only in terms of structure and composition, but also in terms of morphology, condition, and behavior.
The Experience and Meaning of a Marianist Education Today: A National High School Study of Mission and School Culture

Focus groups conducted with students, parents, teachers, and alumni (N=540) at 13 Catholic Marianist high schools provided rich insights into the experience and meaning of the education provided at these institutions. While academic excellence was a common thread woven across meaning given by both parents and teachers, students and alumni articulated a meaning replete with images of belonging. That these schools valued persons holistically (rather than solely academically) permeated most groups. Using theories of organizational culture as the foundation, the relationship between missions and the meaning of life in these schools is discussed.
Abstract 019: A20 in Dendritic Cells Protects Against Hypertension by Inhibiting Dendritic Cell-Mediated T Cell Activation

The ubiquitin-editor protein A20 in dendritic cells (DCs) suppresses NF-κB signaling and inhibits their capacity to activate T cells by limiting DC expression of co-stimulatory molecules. We previo...
A Novel In Vivo Infection Model To Study Papillomavirus-Mediated Disease of the Female Reproductive Tract.

ABSTRACT Papillomaviruses exhibit species-specific tropism, thereby limiting understanding and research of several aspects of HPV infection and carcinogenesis. The discovery of a murine papillomavirus (MmuPV1) provides the opportunity to study papillomavirus infections in a tractable, in vivo laboratory model. MmuPV1 infects and causes disease in the cutaneous epithelium, as well as the mucosal epithelia of the oral cavity and anogenital tract. In this report, we describe a murine model of MmuPV1 infection and neoplastic disease in the female reproductive tracts of wild-type immunocompetent FVB mice. Low-grade dysplastic lesions developed in reproductive tracts of FVB mice infected with MmuPV1 for 4 months, and mice infected for 6 months developed significantly worse disease, including squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). We also tested the contribution of estrogen and/or UV radiation (UVR), two cofactors we previously identified as being involved in papillomavirus-mediated disease, to cervicovaginal disease. Similar to HPV16 transgenic mice, exogenous estrogen treatment induced high-grade precancerous lesions in the reproductive tracts of MmuPV1-infected mice by 4 months and together with MmuPV1 efficiently induced SCC by 6 months. UV radiation and exogenous estrogen cooperated to promote carcinogenesis in MmuPV1-infected mice. This murine infection model represents the first instance of de novo papillomavirus-mediated carcinogenesis in the female reproductive tract of wild-type mice resulting from active virus infection and is also the first report of the female hormone estrogen contributing to this process. This model will provide an additional platform for fundamental studies on papillomavirus infection, cervicovaginal disease, and the role of cellular cofactors during papillomavirus-induced carcinogenesis. IMPORTANCE Tractable and efficient models of papillomavirus-induced pathogenesis are limited due to the strict species-specific and tissue-specific tropism of these viruses. Here, we report a novel preclinical murine model of papillomavirus-induced cervicovaginal disease in wild-type, immunocompetent mice using the recently discovered murine papillomavirus, MmuPV1. In this model, MmuPV1 establishes persistent viral infections in the mucosal epithelia of the female reproductive tract, a necessary component needed to accurately mimic HPV-mediated neoplastic disease in humans. Persistent MmuPV1 infections were able to induce progressive neoplastic disease and carcinogenesis, either alone or in combination with previously identified cofactors of papillomavirus-induced disease. This new model will provide a much-needed platform for basic and translational studies on both papillomavirus infection and associated disease in immunocompetent mice.
The Nematode C. elegans. A Model Animal System for the Detection of Genetic and Developmental Lesions

The effects of ionizing and nonionizing radiation effects on cell reproduction, differentiation, and mutation in vivo are studied using the nematode C. elegans. The relationships between fluence/dose and response and quality factor and linear energy transfer are analyzed. The data reveal that there is a complex repair pathway in the nematode and that mutants can be used to direct the sensitivity of the system to specific mutagens/radiation types.
Comparative Effectiveness of Cartilage Repair With Respect to the Minimal Clinically Important Difference.

Background:Recent studies demonstrated a 5% increase in cartilage repair procedures annually in the United States. There is currently no consensus regarding a superior technique, nor has there been...
Semi-Supervised Learning Algorithm for Identifying High-Priority Drug–Drug Interactions Through Adverse Event Reports

Identifying drug-drug interactions (DDIs) is a critical enabler for reducing adverse drug events and improving patient safety. Generating proper DDI alerts during prescribing workflow has the potential to prevent DDI-related adverse events. However, the implementation of DDI alerting system remains a challenge as users are experiencing alert overload which causes alert fatigue. One strategy to optimize the current system is to establish a list of high-priority DDIs for alerting purposes, though it is a resource-intensive task. In this study, we propose a machine learning framework to extract useful features from the FDA adverse event reports and then identify potential high-priority DDIs using an autoencoder-based semi-supervised learning algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of using adverse event feature representations in differentiating high- and low-priority DDIs. Additionally, the proposed algorithm utilizes stacked autoencoders and weighted support vector machine for boosting classification performance, which outperforms other competing methods in terms of F-measure and AUC score. This framework integrates multiple information sources, leverages domain knowledge and clinical evidence, and provides a practical approach for pre-screening high-priority DDI candidates for medication alerts.
NINJA: an inducible genetic model for creating neoantigens in vivo

Abstract Mouse models with inducible neoantigens have been historically difficult to generate because of leaky expression of antigens in the thymus, which causes central tolerance in developing CD8 and CD4 T cells. Attempts to resolve this problem using existing genetic tools have been unsuccessful. We developed the iNversion INducible Joined neoAntigen (NINJA) mouse model that uses RNA splicing, DNA recombination, and three levels of regulation to prevent neoantigen leakiness and allow tight control over the induction of neoantigen expression. We describe the development of these genetic tools and their use for obtaining tumor cell lines with inducible neoantigen expression. Moreover, we show that the genetic regulation in NINJA mice bypasses central and peripheral tolerance mechanisms and allows for robust endogenous CD8 and CD4 T cells responses upon neoantigen induction in peripheral tissues. Thus, NINJA fills a long-standing gap in the field and will enable studies of how T cells respond to defined neoantigens in the context of peripheral tolerance, autoimmune diseases, and developing tumors.
AN UPDATED EXAMINATION OF COMORBIDITIES AMONG PATIENTS PRESENTING WITH ACUTE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION

A greater number of comorbidities is associated with higher hospital mortality rates. Knowledge of the full spectrum of comorbidities of myocardial infarction in the United States remains limited, especially for non-cardiovascular comorbidities. Using the latest National Inpatient Sample database,
Secondary Science Teachers' Pedagogical Design Capacities for Multicultural Curriculum Design.

While multicultural teaching strategies show promise in meeting the educational needs of ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students, science teachers often leave traditional prepar...
The Gut Microbiome: Human Health and Inflammatory Skin Diseases

The human microbiome is a rich environment consisting of bacteria, fungi and other commensal microorganisms of the gut, mucosa and skin. The functional role of the gut microbiome includes facilitation in metabolism of macronutrients, maturation of the immune system, and production of pro- or anti-inflammatory signaling molecules and peptides. The identification of these resident organisms has brought about a new understanding of disease processes. Nevertheless, more questions remain regarding the interactions within the microbiome, its interactions with the host, and its contributions to the pathophysiology of disease. The purpose of this review is to examine the existing medical literature to highlight the role of the gut microbiome in human health, also paying attention to its role in several inflammatory skin diseases, namely atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, and rosacea. (Ann Dermatol 32(4) 265∼272, 2020)
Application of NASA-Unified WRF model to carbon dioxide simulation- model development and evaluation

Abstract The NASA-Unified Weather Research and Forecasting model has been coupled with the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach biogeochemical model/Global Fire Emissions Database and the Parameterized Chemistry Transport Model (NU-WRF-CASA) to simulate CO2 transport and variability at fine spatial resolutions, which is anticipated to assist in better understanding the mechanisms and processes controlling carbon sources/sinks and in reducing uncertainty in carbon-climate interactions. NU-WRF-CASA is designed to operate in an internally consistent manner in which NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System Model, version 5, can be applied to drive the entire coupled modeling system. A 3-year simulation was carried out for North America to evaluate NU-WRF-CASA's performance under various regions and environmental conditions. Observational CO2 data from tower, flask, aircraft, and satellite measurements were used for model evaluations. The results showed that NU-WRF-CASA correctly distributed CO2 fluxes and reproduced spatial-temporal CO2 transport and variability reasonably well with overall bias within 1 ppmv.
Banking on community: The use of time banking as an innovative community practice teaching strategy

This article explores the use of a classroom-based, experiential time banking project as an innovative community practice teaching strategy. It presents a preliminary, qualitative evaluation of a s...
Price discrimination in political advertising: Evidence from the 2012 presidential election

In 2010, the US Supreme Court loosened contribution limits to Political Action Committees (PACs), sparking fears that big donors could exert outsize influence on elections by funding PAC advertising. However, PACs are potentially handicapped when buying advertising time; data from 2012 reveal that PACs pay 32% above regulated campaign rates. I estimate a model of demand for advertising by PACs, exploiting the misalignment of state and media market borders to address price endogeneity. I find that prices reflect willingness‐to‐pay for viewer demographics rather than media bias. The estimates further suggest that network‐owned stations discriminate more successfully than do local affiliates.
Cortical Button Fixation for Proximal Tibiofibular Instability: A Technical Report

Instability of the proximal tibiofibular joint (PTFJ) is a rare injury pattern than can affect high-demand athletes involved in twisting or pivoting movements on a flexed knee. Instability may produce painful subluxations during provocative activity and occasional neuritic symptoms from tethering of the common peroneal nerve at the fibular neck. There are several reports of reconstruction for symptomatic PTFJ instability; however, no optimal treatment has been elucidated in the literature. Use of a cortical button suspensory device for fixation of the PTFJ offers the advantage of stabilizing the joint without need for free graft harvest or rigid screw fixation. The present technical report illustrates the operative technique and the advantages, disadvantages, pearls, and pitfalls associated with this operation.
Mapping dynamic non-perennial stream networks using high-resolution distributed hydrologic simulation: A case study in the upper blue river basin

Abstract More than half of all streams globally are non-perennial, and thus dynamic due to their expanding and retracting nature. Field mapping in conjunction with observational data from gauges and/or in-situ loggers is a typical approach for studying non-perennial stream dynamics, but these approaches underrepresent their spatiotemporal variability. High-resolution distributed hydrological modeling promises to bridge this gap, thanks to advances in model physics, remote sensing, and computational power. As the first step towards this goal, we investigate the capability of distributed hydrologic modeling to capture stream dynamics in Upper Blue River Basin, OK. Coupled Routing and Excess STorage (CREST), a distributed hydrological model, is used to simulate spatiotemporally varied streamflow at 10-meter spatial resolution and daily time steps. USGS stream gauge data and in-situ state logger data are used to calibrate and validate the simulation at the watershed outlet and small headwater tributaries, respectively. Dynamic Surface Water Estimate (DSWE), a LANDSAT product is also compared with simulated water presence in high-order streams. Results show that the CREST model can capture low-moderate streamflow values at the watershed outlet with a log-NSE value over 0.7 in the validation period, while underestimating high flow values due to the daily time step. Also, the calibrated model can accurately estimate wet/dry status as monitored by in-situ state loggers in nine headwater catchments. The dynamic stream networks are mapped over 2510 stream segments using the CREST simulation. Non-perennial streams are the most dynamic in small headwater tributaries (contributing area
Multi-Output Capacity Measures and Their Relevance for Productivity

In this paper, measures of capacity are developed following those suggested in 1968 by Leif Johansen. By taking advantage of Shephard?s duality, both primal and dual multi-output measures of capacity can be derived. Having generalized the capacity utilization measures, the authors show how these may be entered into measures of productivity. In particular, it is shown how the Malmquist direct and indirect productivity measures are related to various measures of capacity utilization.
Selection for constrained peptides that bind to a single target protein.

Peptide secondary metabolites are common in nature and have diverse pharmacologically-relevant functions, from antibiotics to cross-kingdom signaling. Here, we present a method to design large libraries of modified peptides in Escherichia coli and screen them in vivo to identify those that bind to a single target-of-interest. Constrained peptide scaffolds were produced using modified enzymes gleaned from microbial RiPP (ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide) pathways and diversified to build large libraries. The binding of a RiPP to a protein target leads to the intein-catalyzed release of an RNA polymerase σ factor, which drives the expression of selectable markers. As a proof-of-concept, a selection was performed for binding to the SARS-CoV-2 Spike receptor binding domain. A 1625 Da constrained peptide (AMK-1057) was found that binds with similar affinity (990 ± 5 nM) as an ACE2-derived peptide. This demonstrates a generalizable method to identify constrained peptides that adhere to a single protein target, as a step towards “molecular glues” for therapeutics and diagnostics. Peptide secondary metabolites have a diverse range of functions. Here the authors present a method to design and screen a large library of modified peptides in E. coli against a target of interest.
Editorial Comment: Contrast-Enhanced T1-weighted Sequences in MR Enterography–Faster is Better

This Editorial Comment discusses the following AJR article: Comparison of Sensitivity Encoding (SENSE) and Compressed Sensing-SENSE for Contrast-Enhanced T1-Weighted Imaging in Patients With Crohn ...
Influence of micro polypropylene fibres on the fracture energy and mechanical characteristics of recycled coarse brick aggregate concrete

Abstract This study intends to measure the influence of micro polypropylene fibres (MPPF) on the fracture characteristics and mechanical properties of recycled coarse brick aggregates (RCBA) concrete. A total of 25 concrete mixes were produced, and slump, compressive, splitting tensile and flexural strengths, fracture energy, load-crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) relationship, microstructure, residual flexural strength, toughness were measured. RCBA were sorted from an old building devastation and substituted by natural coarse aggregates (NCA) at five contents in terms of mass: 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. In addition, MPPF were added at five contents: 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, 2% in terms of volume. Moreover, fracture surface analysis was also carried out and a new model was developed between the MPPF numbers and fracture energy. New formulas were also developed to predict the mechanical properties of concrete produced by various MPPF and RCBA contents. Results showed that 100% RCBA could be used as a substitute for NCA without a drop in mechanical properties of concrete when 2% MPPF were also added. In addition, the presented models with high accuracy could be utilized as useful tools to forecast the mechanical and fracture energy of concrete containing different RCBA and MPPF contents.
A review of natural products, their effects on SARS-CoV-2 and their utility as lead compounds in the discovery of drugs for the treatment of COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic lasting now for well more than a year, nearly 247 million cases have been diagnosed and over 5 million deaths have been recorded worldwide as of November 2021. The devastating effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on the immune system lead to the activation of signaling pathways involved in inflammation and the production of inflammatory cytokines. SARS-CoV-2 displays a great deal of homology with other coronaviruses, especially SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV which all display similar components which may serve as targets, namely the Spike (S) protein, the main protease (MPro) which is a chymotrypsin-like protease (CLPro) and RNA-directed RNA polymerase (RdRp). Natural constituents found in traditional herbal medicines, dietary supplements and foods demonstrate activity against SARS-CoV-2 by affecting the production of cytokines, modulating cell signaling pathways related to inflammation and even by direct interaction with targets found in the virus. This has been demonstrated by the application of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) experiments, assays of cytopathic effect (CPE) and in silico molecular docking studies that estimate binding strength. Glycyrrhizin, flavonoids such as quercetin, kaempferol and baicalein, and other polyphenols are the most common constituents found in Traditional Chinese Medicines that modulate inflammation and cell signaling pathways, and bind viral targets demonstrating valuable effects against SARS-CoV-2. However, the bioavailability of these natural products and their dependence on each other in extracts make it difficult to assess their actual utility in the treatment of COVID-19. Therefore, more can be learned through rational drug design based on natural products and from well-designed clinical trials employing specific doses of standardized combinations.