cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Precipitation and stabilization of ultrafine particles of Fenofibrate in aqueous suspensions by RESOLV

Abstract A method of rapid expansion of supercritical solutions into a liquid solvent (RESOLV) was used to precipitate and stabilize ultrafine particles of a poorly water soluble drug, Fenofibrate (FNB). In order to control particle size and its distribution (PSD), which are greatly affected by the inevitable growth and agglomeration, supercritical solutions of FNB prepared in SC CO 2 at 100–200 bar and 333 K, were expanded in water with stabilizers using fine nozzles with diameters of 127–762 μm and length varying between 3 and 6 cm. Stabilizers such as Tween 80, Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS), Pluronic F-68, Hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC), and Sodium Alginate (SA) were used. Synergistic effect of SDS with polymeric stabilizers such as HPMC and Sodium Alginate was also examined. Co-precipitation of FNB with Poly (lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) was attempted to minimize particle growth and prevent agglomeration. Electrostatic stabilization compared to steric stabilization was found to be more effective in controlling PSD. FNB particles with sizes from 500 nm to 5 μm could be precipitated with the use of different stabilizers. Overall, SDS was found to be a better stabilizer resulting in almost 66% particles less than 1 μm, which remained stable after 24 h. Further, minor synergistic effects or PLGA co-precipitation or Sodium Alginate with SDS were observed. Finally, in order to increase practicality of this approach, multiple expansions of supercritical solutions of FNB in to a single collection sample were carried out to achieve higher particle concentrations of FNB in aqueous suspensions, albeit at the expense of increased particle size. However, even at high suspension concentration of 1.8 mg/mL, average particle size was under 3 μm, and stable after 24 h, comparing very favorably with other approaches to produce FNB suspensions with high drug loading.
Oxidation behavior of silicon nitride sintered with Lu2O3 additive

Kyocera SN282 silicon nitride ceramics sintered with 5.35 wt% Lu2O3 were oxidized in dry oxygen at 930–1,200 °C. Oxidation of SN282 follows a parabolic rate law. SN282 exhibits significantly lower parabolic rate constants and better oxide morphological stability than silicon nitride containing other sintering additives under similar conditions. The activation energy for oxidation of SN282 is 107 ± 5 kJ/mol K, suggesting inward diffusion of molecular oxygen in the oxide layer as the rate-limiting mechanism.
A charge-coupled device /CCD/ transit-telescope survey for galactic and extragalactic variability and polarization

We describe a new instrument and data handling scheme which will automatically carry out a photometric survey for variable objects to a limiting magnitude of about 20, and a polarimetric survey for objects which are 1% or more polarized, to a limiting magnitude of about 18. The instrument consists of a dedicated 0.76m, f/4.7 Newtonian reflector which is used as a transit telescope, and two area-format CCDs which are placed in the focal plane and clocked at the sidereal rate. An effective integration time on a point on the sky of about one minute is achieved by this technique. We discuss the photometric advantages of "averaging over" all spatially dependent noise sources when CCDs are used in this way. The system noise and dynamic range of the instrument are discussed assuming the use of RCA thinned, buried-channel CCDs. Two astronomical projects, the definition of a homogeneous, unbiased, sample of QSOs, statistically complete to about 20th mag, and the discovery of supernova outbursts on the rising branch of the light curve, are described. A list-oriented real-time data compaction scheme is proposed to allow easy management of the vast amount of data generated by this instrument.
One tool, one team: the marriage of test and operations in a low-budget spacecraft development

The Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate (AFRL/VS) and the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) are two organizations that have partnered on more than 85 missions since 1968 to develop, launch, and operate Research and Development, Test and Evaluation space missions. As valuable as these missions have been to the follow-on generation of Operational systems, they are consistently under-funded and forced to execute on excessively ambitious development schedules. Due to these constraints, space mission development teams that serve the RDT&E community are faced with a number of unique technical and programmatic challenges. AFRL and STP have taken various approaches throughout the mission lifecycle to accelerate their development schedules, without sacrificing cost or system reliability. In the areas of test and operations, they currently employ one of two strategies. Historically, they have sought to avoid the added cost and complexity associated with coupled development schedules and segregated the spacecraft development and test effort from the ground operations system development and test effort. However, because these efforts have far more in common than they have differences, they have more recently attempted to pursue parallel I&T and Operations development and readiness efforts. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the "decoupled test and operations" approach, used by such missions as C/NOFS and Coriolis, with the "coupled test and operations" approach, adopted by the XSS-11 and TacSat-2 missions.
The release of a leukotriene D4-like substance following myocardial infraction in rabbits

Abstract Myocardial infraction was induced in rabbits and 24–48 h later the hearts were removed and perfused in vitro with the coronary effluent superfusing a guinea-pig ileum. The formyl tripeptide (FMLP: 10–100 ng) induced the dose-related release of a substance which contracted the ileum, an effect mimicked by exogenous LTD4 (2–200 ng), blocked by FPL 55712 (2 μg/ml) and inhibited with BW755C (2 μg/ml) but not indomethacin (1 μg/ml). The delayed release of this LTD4-like material may suggest a role in the complications accompanying myocardial infarction.
A test for order relevance in a three-element serial learning task

Abstract Rats were trained in a straight runway on a simple three-element series of differing reward quantities. The first trial of the series ended with a two-pellet reward, and the second and third trials ended with a 12-pellet reward and a nonreward, respectively (2-12-0). All animals developed accurate anticipation of the terminal nonreward in the 2-12-0 series before it was rearranged for two test days during which the elements appeared in the order 12-2-0. The rats' anticipation of the terminal nonreward did not transfer to the reordered series, a result taken to mean that anticipation had been based upon interitem associations among memorial representations of the differing reward quantities. A second transfer test to 0-0-0, given after anticipation was reestablished to the 2-12-0 series, gave evidence that the ordinal position of the series elements was also a source of anticipation; the animals continued to run relatively slowly on the third trial in extinction. In neither transfer test was there...
TGF-Beta Downregulation of Distinct Chloride Channels in Cystic Fibrosis-Affected Epithelia

Rationale: The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and Calcium-activated Chloride Conductance (CaCC) each play critical roles in maintaining normal hydration of epithelial surfaces including the airways and colon. TGFbeta is a genetic modifier of cystic fibrosis (CF), but how it influences the CF phenotype is not understood. Objectives: We tested the hypothesis that TGF-beta potently downregulates chloride-channel function and expression in two CF-affected epithelia (T84 colonocytes and primary human airway epithelia) compared with proteins known to be regulated by TGF-beta. Measurements and Main Results: TGF-beta reduced CaCC and CFTR-dependent chloride currents in both epithelia accompanied by reduced levels of TMEM16A and CFTR protein and transcripts. TGF-beta treatment disrupted normal regulation of airway-surface liquid volume in polarized primary human airway epithelia, and reversed F508del CFTR correction produced by VX-809. TGF-beta effects on the expression and activity of TMEM16A, wtCFTR and corrected F508del CFTR were seen at 10-fold lower concentrations relative to TGF-beta effects on e-cadherin (epithelial marker) and vimentin (mesenchymal marker) expression. TGF-beta downregulation of TMEM16A and CFTR expression were partially reversed by Smad3 and p38 MAPK inhibition, respectively. Conclusions: TGF-beta is sufficient to downregulate two critical chloride transporters in two CF-affected tissues that precedes expression changes of two distinct TGF-beta regulated proteins. Our results provide a plausible mechanism for CFdisease modification by TGF-beta through effects on CaCC.
Induction of Tolerance through Mixed Chimerism

It has been known for many years that the hematopoietic chimerism that occurs after bone marrow transplantation carries with it transplantation tolerance for any other tissue or organ from the same donor. This phenomenon has been observed not only in numerous animal models, but also in humans. Thus, patients treated during childhood for leukemia by bone marrow transplantation from an HLA-identical sibling, who have subsequently developed renal failure and received kidney transplants from the same donors, have not required immunosuppression (Sayegh et al. 1991; Helg et al. 1994; Jacobsen et al. 1994). These cases, however, represent a very specialized situation, in which the transplants were HLA identical and in which complete replacement of the bone marrow was desirable in order to ensure ablation of the hematopoietic malignancy. In the more common situation for organ transplantation, donors and recipients are not HLA identical, and it would also not be desirable to completely replace all bone marrow elements, because immunocompetence depends on interactions between T cells educated in the thymus and bone-marrow-derived antigen-presenting cells in the periphery (Zinkernagel et al. 1980). Fortunately, for the induction of transplantation tolerance through hematopoietic chimerism, complete ablation and reconstitution are not required. The survival of even a small percentage of donor bone-marrow-derived elements, even transiently, has been found to be sufficient to allow tolerance of a simultaneously transplanted organ to be achieved (Fuchimoto et al. 1999). This phenomenon, in which both host and donor bone-marrow-derived elements coexist in the recipient has been termed “mixed chimerism” (Sykes and Sachs 1988). Unlike many other treatment regimens that have been successful in the induction of tolerance in rodents but not in large animals (Sachs 2003; Cosimi and Sachs 2004), induction of tolerance through mixed chimerism has been successful in mice, in large animals, and, most recently, in the clinic. Nevertheless, this transition from mice to the clinic has required numerous changes in treatment protocols, and the tolerance obtained has likely been achieved through more than one mechanism. In this review, we describe and compare the establishment of transplantation tolerance in mice, pigs, monkeys, and in the clinic, with an attempt to correlate the mechanisms involved in achieving tolerance with the nature of the tolerance that has resulted in each case.
The SENSE ghost: Field-of-view restrictions for SENSE imaging

Purpose: To describe a known (but undocumented) limitation in parallel imaging using simulation and experiment. This limitation consists of an artifact that appears when the imaging field of view (FOV) is less than the object size. This study demonstrates this artifact in the phase- and partition-encoding dimensions. Materials and Methods: One-dimensional simulations as well as in vivo experiments were performed with FOVs greater and less than the object being imaged. Full-FOV, reduced-FOV, and SENSE reconstructions were visually compared. Results: Image artifacts occurred when the final SENSE FOV was smaller than the object being imaged. This artifact, termed the SENSE ghost, was a residual fold-over/ aliasing artifact. Its location was in the central portion of the image rather than at the edges of the image. Conclusion: This image artifact results from an FOV being smaller than the imaged object. The SENSE reconstruction cannot unfold this additional fold-over, and will place it in a predictable image location based on the SENSE reduction factor. Knowledge of this artifact is necessary when prescribing SENSE acquisitions and interpreting the resulting
Concurrent and retrospective verbal reports as tools to better understand the role of attention in second language tasks

This study investigates how the use of think-aloud protocols, both concurrent and retrospective, can contribute to the study of the role of attention in second language acquisition. It is based on the analysis of think-aloud protocols produced by 74 first-year learners of Spanish during and immediately after a reading and multiple-choice activity. The activity consisted of a text with direct object pronouns and 16 blanks for which a choice of three possible antecedents was given. The key to making the right choice was attending to both form and meaning in the input. The data in the think-aloud protocols was classified into mentions of the pronouns in the text as well as references to gender and number agreement. The results showed that mention of the targeted structure in the think-aloud protocols was related to better performance on the task for second-semester students, but not for first-semester students. There was some difference in the results for the concurrent and retrospective protocols. The possible complementary nature of these two sources of data is discussed.
Settling Old Scores Potholes along the Transition from Authoritarian Rule

Under certain conditions both the opponents and supporters of an authoritarian regime can benefit from the peaceful liberalization of the regime. The literature on transitions to democracy emphasizes the role of negotiated deals (pacts) in facilitating transitions. Political deals are not legally enforceable contracts; they are subject to opportunism by one of the parties. I examine how punishment of the ex-ruler(s) by a successor government after power has been transferred renders a pact ineffective and prevents a peaceful transition. Political asylum can alleviate the punishment dilemma, but the host nation can have an incentive to renege on its protection. A military government retains the power to reintervene in politics after transferring power to civilians. The possibility of reintervention allows the military to ensure compliance by other parties and overcome the punishment dilemma.
Soil Moisture Retrieval Using L-Band Radar Observations

An algorithm for surface soil moisture estimation using L-band radar observations is introduced. The formulation envelops a wide range of land surface conditions based on three limiting cases defined in terms of end-members: smooth bare soil, rough bare soil, and a maximum vegetation covered soil. Parameterizations for these end-members are obtained using forward electromagnetic scattering models. Modulation due to soil surface roughness and overlying vegetation scattering effects between end-members are accounted using the radar vegetation index and the newly introduced radar roughness index. Hence, the retrieval algorithm developed here does not depend on ancillary vegetation or roughness information. The algorithm is tested with ground-based truck-mounted bare soil observations and observations from several airborne field campaigns that represent a wide range of surface conditions.
The Impact of Image-Guidance Systems on Sinus Surgery

Endoscopic treatment of diseases of the paranasal sinuses provides excellent visualization for minimally invasive surgery, and has evolved into a high-volume procedure with documented navigational risks to surrounding vital structures. Image-guidance systems use the data acquired during CT studies of the sinuses, which is processed through a workstation. Following a registration procedure, the coordinates of the tip of the surgical instrument being used are tracked and displayed in three views. The surgeon is then able to monitor the endoscopic work being done in the operative field and simultaneously document the precise location of the tip of the tracked instrument. Ideally, these systems will allow surgeons to accurately perform surgery with increased safety and improve long-term outcomes. Although the accuracies of these systems have been studied and reported [23,37], further large studies are needed to prove or disprove the impact of navigational systems on reducing surgical risk and improving surgical outcomes.Image-guidance systems employing optical and electromagnetic technologies have been clinically available for nearly 10 years, available during a time when there is an increased awareness of the risks of medical treatment and an emphasis on reducing errors. There is a need to prove that this technology, despite its added costs [39], ultimately improves safety and lowers the surgical risk of endoscopic sinus surgery. Only at that juncture can a mandate be made for including these systems in all procedures. There is universal agreement, however, that the use of this equipment can never bea substitute for surgical skill, training, or judgment.
Single cell genomics of bacterial pathogens: outlook for infectious disease research

Genomic sequencing from single cells is a powerful tool in microbiology and holds great promise for infectious disease research. Vast numbers of uncultivable species and pathogens that persist at low abundance in environmental reservoirs are now accessible for genomic analysis.
Is the association of maternal smoking and pregnancy-induced hypertension dependent on fetal growth?

Objective The risk of pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) is decreased by smoking, but the mechanisms remain unclear. Our objective was to determine whether this association is dependent on decreased fetal growth. Methods A population-based, retrospective cohort study in the United States was performed consisting of nulliparous women who delivered a singleton birth (n = 8,025,295) between 1995 and 2002. Fetal growth was defined as birthweight for gestational age and characterized as less than 1, 1-2, 3-4, 5-9, 10-19, …, 90 or greater centiles. Risk and relative risk of PIH before and after adjusting for confounders were estimated. Results Smoking was associated with decreased risk of PIH with up to a 46% decreased risk of PIH for growth-restricted babies (less than the 10th centile). This association, however, decreased with increasing birthweight centile and was nonsignificant at 20th or greater centile among heavy smokers, at 60th or greater centile for moderate, and 80th or greater centile for light smokers. Conclusion Smoking was primarily associated with decreased risk of PIH among growth-restricted babies.
Stacked inductors and 1-to-2 transformers in CMOS technology

A modification of stacked spiral inductors increases the self-resonance frequency by 100% with no additional processing steps, yielding values of 5 nH to 266 nH and self-resonance frequencies of 11.2 GHz to 0.5 GHz. Closed-form expressions predicting the self-resonance frequency with less than 5% error have also been developed. A 1-to-2 transformer consisting of 3 stacked spirals achieves a voltage gain of 1.8 at 2.5 GHz. The structures have been fabricated in standard CMOS technologies with four and five metal layers.
Formation of free radicals in photoirradiated cellulose and related compounds

Free-radical formation in various modifications of celluloses, namely, wood cellulose I, II, III, and IV, rayon cellulose, amorphous cellulose, cotton linters, and absorbent cotton, irradiated with ultraviolet light, has been studied by means of ESR spectroscopy at 77°K. Various types of free radicals were generated from these samples. The line shapes and the signal intensities of the ESR spectra depended greatly upon the degree of crystallinity, the lattice type, and the arrangement of molecules in cellulose. The effect of degree of crystallinity and the amount of sensitizer (Fe3+) absorbed revealed that photochemical reactions in cellulose occurred exclusively in the amorphous regions of the polymer. Free radicals formed in these samples behaved distinctively upon a warm-up process. Phenomena of radical migration and formation of new radicals were observed from the sensitized samples of rayon cellulose and amorphous cellulose.
Effect of diphenylhydantoin on pituitary-adrenal interrelations.

ABSTRACT This report describes the effect of short-term administration of therapeutic amounts of diphenylhydantoin (Dilantin) on the adrenal cortical function in 8 normal adults. The integrity of the pituitary-adrenal axis was evaluated by measuring alterations in the urinary excretion of 17-hydroxycorticosteroids after oral administration of SU-4885 (Metopirone). Adrenal cortical responsiveness was assessed by determining the increase in plasma 17-hydroxycorticosteroid levels following intramuscular ACTH gel. These studies were performed before and during diphenylhydantoin administration. Before receiving diphenylhydantoin, all 8 subjects had a normal plasma 17-hydroxycorticosteroid response to intramuscular ACTH, and an increased urinary excretion of 17-hydroxycorticosteroids following the administration of SU-4885. While receiving diphenylhydantoin, the effect of ACTH was unaltered in all 8 subjects, whereas 7 subjects now manifested an abnormal response to SU-4885. In 3, this was characterized by a la...
The sexual segment of Hemidactylus turcicus and the evolution of sexual segment location in squamata.

The kidneys of the Mediterranean Gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus (Gekkonidae), were investigated using light and electron microscopy with the primary focus placed on morphology of the sexual segment of the kidney. The nephrons of male H. turcicus are composed of five dis- tinct regions: 1) a renal corpuscle and glomerulus, 2) a proxi- mal convoluted tubule, 3) an intermediate segment, 4) a distal convoluted tubule, and 5) the sexual segment of the kidney/collecting duct. Female H. turcicus is similar but lack a sexual segment of the kidney. The sexual segment of the kidney is hypertrophied during the months of March through August, which corroborates previous reports of reproductive activity. During inactive months, the sexual segment of the kidney is nondiscernable from the collecting ducts. The sexual segment consists of tall columnar epithe- lial cells with basally positioned nuclei. Perinuclear Golgi complexes and rough endoplasmic reticulum are present. Secretory granules, which fill the apices of the epithelial cells, are electron dense and released into the lumen by a merocrine secretory process. Narrow intercellular canaliculi separate each epithelial cell and are sealed by tight junc- tions at the luminal aspect. Basally, leukoctyes are observed within the intercellular canaliculi and outside the basal lam- ina. Mast cells can be found just outside the basal lamina in close association with renal capillaries. The sexual segment of the kidney of H. turcicus is similar to that of three unre- lated lizards for which ultrastructure was investigated with secretion mode being the major difference Also, H. turcicus is similar to most other lizards in that complete regression occurs during reproductive inactivity, but differs in this trait from the skink, Scincella lateralis, and most snakes which display a hypertrophied sexual segment of the kidney throughout the entire year. Although some unique similar- ities appear during the optimization, no direct patterns or directions are observed, and only the molecular based phy- logeny resolves the ancestral condition of the Squamata as the sexual segment of the kidney being observed in the distal convoluted tubule, collecting duct, and ureter. J. Morphol. 272:802-813, 2011. 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Periventricular changes associated with spontaneous canine hydrocephalus.

Causes of canine juvenile hydrocephalus have been well documented. However, the effects of hydrocephalus on periventricular white matter have been only partially described. The present report shows that hydrocephalus-associated lesions of the periventricular white matter, i.e., formation of diverticula, clefts, and tears, are prevalent. Marked hydrocephalus was identified at necropsy in 20 juvenile dogs between 1990 and 1999. The severity grade was based upon a ratio of lateral ventricular dimensions to cortical thickness. All animals exhibited ependymal lesions consisting of attenuation, with or without abortive attempts of ependymal regeneration, and ulceration. In 10 dogs (50%), unilateral or bilateral periventricular diverticula and cleft formation in the region of the caudate nucleus were observed. The diverticula were formed at the caudal pole of the caudate nucleus, communicated with the ventricular lumen, and were associated with ependymal denudation. Loss of the ependymal lining probably contributes to a bulk shift of cerebrospinal fluid from the ventricular lumen to the periventricular white matter, leading to diverticulum formation. Clefts were observed within the parenchyma at the border of the internal capsule and putamen, consistent with an ischemic insult. Occasionally tearing with separation of the caudate nucleus from the subcortical white matter was found, representing unification of expanding clefts and diverticula. In one of the few clinically well-documented cases, tearing was correlated with a sudden decline in neurologic function, culminating in euthanasia. However, tears and clefts may exhibit a chronicity of several days, as indicated by the presence of astroglial scars along the lesion margins.
Evaluation of seven sediment toxicity tests and their relationships to stream parameters

A survey of sediment microbial activity and toxicity to Daphnia magna, Ceriodaphnia dubia, and Selenastrum capricornutum was conducted on two streams receiving numerous effluents in Ohio—the Little Scioto River and Dick's Creek. Microbial activity assays included alkaline phosphatase, dehydrogenase, β-galactosidase, β-glucosidase. Activity was compared to overlying water chemistry and revealed several statistically significant correlations. No macrofaunal assay toxicity was observed in Dick's Creek. Sediment toxicity was found at two stations in the Little Scioto River, and varied in degree and organism sensitivity with time of sampling. These results support earlier studies suggesting the need for multiple trophic-level assays in aquatic ecosystem evaluations of toxicant impacts.
Mathematical Model of Three Age-Structured Transmission Dynamics of Chikungunya Virus

We developed a new age-structured deterministic model for the transmission dynamics of chikungunya virus. The model is analyzed to gain insights into the qualitative features of its associated equilibria. Some of the theoretical and epidemiological findings indicate that the stable disease-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable when the associated reproduction number is less than unity. Furthermore, the model undergoes, in the presence of disease induced mortality, the phenomenon of backward bifurcation, where the stable disease-free equilibrium of the model coexists with a stable endemic equilibrium when the associated reproduction number is less than unity. Further analysis of the model indicates that the qualitative dynamics of the model are not altered by the inclusion of age structure. This is further emphasized by the sensitivity analysis results, which shows that the dominant parameters of the model are not altered by the inclusion of age structure. However, the numerical simulations show the flaw of the exclusion of age in the transmission dynamics of chikungunya with regard to control implementations. The exclusion of age structure fails to show the age distribution needed for an effective age based control strategy, leading to a one size fits all blanket control for the entire population.
Progress towards interaction-free all-optical devices

We present an all-optical control device in which coupling a weak control optical field into a high-$Q$ lithium niobate whispering-gallery-mode microcavity decouples it from a signal field due to nonlinear optical interactions. This results in switching and modulation of the signal with low-power control pulses. In the quantum limit, the underlying nonlinear-optical process corresponds to the quantum Zeno blockade. Its ``interaction-free'' nature effectively alleviates loss and decoherence for the signal waves. This work therefore presents experimental progress towards acquiring large phase shifts with few photons or even at the single-photon level.
Bringing Reactivity to the Aggregation-Volume-Bias Monte Carlo Based Simulation Framework: Water Nucleation Induced by a Reactive Proton.

The development of the aggregation-volume-bias Monte Carlo based simulation technique has led to recent success in studying rare nucleation events, but thus far, this simulation method has been limited to nonreactive systems. This work presents the first application of this technique to study a reactive system of relevance to atmospheric chemistry, i.e., formation of water droplets in the presence of a reactive proton, by combining this approach with a multistate empirical valence bond (MSEVB) description of the excess proton (or the hydronium). It was shown that the ability for the hydronium to share its charge with adjacent water molecules changes dramatically with the cluster size, especially when clusters are small and the distribution of the charge is affected by the presence of an interface, emphasizing the need to use this more sophisticated MSEVB model for such a reactive system. In addition, the simulation results obtained from this system are compared to those with nonreactive hard-sphere ions o...
Update on natural product--drug interactions

The interactions of natural products with drugs are discussed. Interactions between natural products and drugs are based on the same pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic principles as drug-drug interactions. Clinically important interactions appear to involve effects on drug metabolism via cytochrome P-450 isoenzymes, impairment of hepatic or renal function, and other possible mechanisms. Natural products that have been reported to interact with drugs in humans include coenzyme Q10, dong quai, ephedra, Ginkgo biloba, ginseng, glucosamine sulfate, ipriflavone, melatonin, and St. John's wort. In many cases, more research is needed to confirm these interactions and to determine whether other natural products may also interact with drugs. To effectively counsel patients about interactions involving natural products, pharmacists should be familiar with the most commonly used products and have access to information on more obscure products. In view of the less than stringent provisions of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, pharmacists should consult reliable, independent sources of information on natural products rather than rely on literature provided by manufacturers. Pharmacists should recommend only those products that are manufactured to high quality-control standards. Natural products can interact with drugs and with other natural products by the same mechanisms as drugs.
Initiating Palliative Care Sooner Is Better

Until recently, palliative care was synonymous with hospice care and as such was initiated when treatments were terminated because all alternatives are exhausted. In the past few years, early initi...
RESEARCH ON THE RULES AND CONTROLLING OF LANDSLIDE

The paper briefly sums up the research achievements of landslide classification,distribution rules, deformation mechanism,stability evaluation,prediction and forecast,survey and test,design theory,calcula- tion method,engineering measures and etc.Owing to meet the need of production practice in the past 50 years and these achievements are achieved under the leadership and organized by the Ministry of Railways.These a- chievements have formed a set of technique for landslide control.These techniques have undergone the check of practice and are effective for use.
Social Protection for the Poorest: The Adoption of Antipoverty Cash Transfer Programs in the Global South*

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) represent an innovation in social assistance policy by conditioning welfare benefits on recipients’ behaviors associated with human capital development. Although s...
Preparation of a New Type of Nitrite Ion-selective Electrode and its Characteristics

A new type of simple and sensitive nitrite ion-selective electrode based on the special tungstic acid hollow tube has been prepared. The linear response of the NO_2~- ion-selective electrode is over the range of 20 ng/ml to 5μg/ml for nitrite ion with a slope about 68 mV. The slope of the calibration graph remains constant for at least 0.25 a Characteristics of the ion-selective electrode, such as optimum pH value of the ionic strength adjustment buffer solution, selectivity, response time, internal resistance, electrode storage, drift and lifetime, have been systematically examined. A surprising success is the selectivity coefficient, K_(NO2)~(pot), NO3, as low as 2.8×10~(-5).
The Evolution of Contrast Ultrasound: From Diagnosis to Therapy.

This issue of the Journal features the groundbreaking work of Mathias et al. [(1)][1] in which they describe the novel use of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) to restore epicardial culprit artery patency and reduce microvascular obstruction, thereby salvaging myocardial tissue and preserving
Assessing variability of the 24-hour pad weight test in men with post-prostatectomy incontinence.

Purpose: Decision-making regarding surgery for post-prostatectomy incontinence (PPI) is challenging. The 24-hour pad weight test is commonly used to objectively quantify PPI. However, pad weight may vary based upon activity level. We aimed to quantify variability in pad weights based upon patient-reported activity. Materials and Methods: 25 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy were prospectively enrolled. All patients demonstrated clinical stress urinary incontinence without clinical urgency urinary incontinence. On three consecutive alternating days, patients submitted 24-hour pad weights along with a short survey documenting activity level and number of pads used. Results: Pad weights collected across the three days were well correlated to the individual (ICC 0.85 (95% CI 0.74–0.93), p<0.001). The mean difference between the minimum pad weight leakage and maximum leakage per patient was 133.4g (95% CI 80.4–186.5). The mean increase in 24-hour leakage for a one-point increase in self-reported activity level was 118.0g (95% CI 74.3–161.7, p<0.001). Pad weights also varied significantly when self-reported activity levels did not differ (mean difference 51.2g (95% CI 30.3–72.1), p<0.001). Conclusions: 24-hour pad weight leakage may vary significantly on different days of collection. This variation is more pronounced with changes in activity level. Taking into account patient activity level may enhance the predictive value of pad weight testing.
Popliteal Fossa Neural Blockade as the Sole Anesthetic Technique for Outpatient Foot and Ankle Surgery

Foot and ankle operations are being performed with greater frequency as outpatient procedures. Although the surgical procedure remains the same whether the operation is done in an inpatient or an outpatient setting, the anesthesia and postoperative analgesia are greatly affected when patients must be discharged soon after their operation. We have evaluated a regional anesthetic technique which blocks the sciatic nerve in the popliteal fossa and the saphenous nerve block at the knee. This was the sole anesthetic technique for both the operation and the immediate postoperative period. This technique appears to have several advantages: 1) Excellent anesthesia during the operation and for about ten hours postoperatively; 2) Use of a proximal calf tourniquet, and 3) Absence of systemic or local complications as might be seen with general, spinal or epidural anesthesia.
Antioxidant expression in experimental hydronephrosis: role of mechanical stretch and growth factors

We assessed whether levels of renal reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant enzymes are perturbed in rats following unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). The mechanism of catalase perturbati...
Segmentation label propagation using deep convolutional neural networks and dense conditional random field

Availability and accessibility of large-scale annotated medical image datasets play an essential role in robust supervised learning of medical image analysis. Missed labeling of regions of interest is a common issue on existing medical image datasets due to the labor intensive nature of the annotation task which requires high levels of clinical proficiency. In this paper, we present a segmentation based label propagation method to a publicly available dataset on interstitial lung disease [3], to address the missing annotation challenge. Upon validation from an expert radiologist, the amount of available annotated training data is largely increased. Such a dataset expansion can can potentially increase the accuracy of Computer-aided Detection (CAD) systems. The proposed constrained segmentation propagation algorithm combines the cues from the initial annotations, deep convolutional neural networks and a dense fully-connected Conditional Random Field (CRF) that achieves high quantitative accuracy levels.
Social Media and News Sentiment Analysis for Advanced Investment Strategies

The motivation of this chapter hinges on the growing popularity in the use of news and social media information and their increasing influence on the financial investment community . This chapter investigates the interplay between news/social sentiment and financial market movement in the form of empirical impact. The underlying belief is that news and social media influence investor sentiment, which in turn drives financial decisions and predicates the upward or downward movement of the financial markets. This book chapter contributes to the existing literature of sentiment analysis in the following three areas: (a) It provides a review of existing findings about influence of social media and news sentiment to asset prices and documents the persistent correlation between media sentiment and market movement. (b) It shows that abnormal news sentiment can be a predictive proxy for financial market returns and volatility, based on the intuition that extreme investor sentiment changes tend to have long and last effects to market movement. (c) It presents a number of approaches to formulate investment strategies based on the sentiment trend, shocks and feedback strength. The results show that the sentiment-based strategies yield superior risk-adjusted returns over other benchmark strategies. Altogether, this chapter provides a framework of existing empirical knowledge on the impact of sentiment on financial markets and further prescribes advanced investment strategies based on sentiment analytics.
5.07 – Performance of Aluminum in Research Reactors

This chapter is a review of the properties and performance of aluminum alloys during service in water-cooled research reactors. Typical applications are listed. The attributes and limitations of aluminum for reactor use are discussed. Fuel cladding and corrosion aspects are discussed. Development of radiation damage microstructure and changes in mechanical properties are outlined.
“The Spirit Will Speak for My People”: El Plan de Santa Barbara and the Chicanx Movement as a Project of Scripturalization

Fernando De Necochea had traveled widely, both intellectually and spatially, before becoming involved in the Chicanx movement, an involvement that led to his drafting a section of El Plan de Santa Barbara. The 1969 El Plan de Santa Barbara: A Chicano Plan for Higher Education, an educationally focused manifesto, grew out a conference but was crafted over several months by a committee. El Plan de Santa Barbara reveals how important—and contested—texts and scriptures could become as a utopian practice of fashioning mobile centers, making place, building community, and reinventing knowledge.
Perspectives on making big data analytics work for oncology

Abstract Oncology, with its unique combination of clinical, physical, technological, and biological data provides an ideal case study for applying big data analytics to improve cancer treatment safety and outcomes. An oncology treatment course such as chemoradiotherapy can generate a large pool of information carrying the 5 Vs hallmarks of big data. This data is comprised of a heterogeneous mixture of patient demographics, radiation/chemo dosimetry, multimodality imaging features, and biological markers generated over a treatment period that can span few days to several weeks. Efforts using commercial and in-house tools are underway to facilitate data aggregation, ontology creation, sharing, visualization and varying analytics in a secure environment. However, open questions related to proper data structure representation and effective analytics tools to support oncology decision-making need to be addressed. It is recognized that oncology data constitutes a mix of structured (tabulated) and unstructured (electronic documents) that need to be processed to facilitate searching and subsequent knowledge discovery from relational or NoSQL databases. In this context, methods based on advanced analytics and image feature extraction for oncology applications will be discussed. On the other hand, the classical p (variables) ≫ n (samples) inference problem of statistical learning is challenged in the Big data realm and this is particularly true for oncology applications where p-omics is witnessing exponential growth while the number of cancer incidences has generally plateaued over the past 5-years leading to a quasi-linear growth in samples per patient. Within the Big data paradigm, this kind of phenomenon may yield undesirable effects such as echo chamber anomalies, Yule–Simpson reversal paradox, or misleading ghost analytics. In this work, we will present these effects as they pertain to oncology and engage small thinking methodologies to counter these effects ranging from incorporating prior knowledge, using information-theoretic techniques to modern ensemble machine learning approaches or combination of these. We will particularly discuss the pros and cons of different approaches to improve mining of big data in oncology.
Assessment of the interaction of hyperbaric N2, CO2, and O2 on psychomotor performance in divers

N2, CO2, and O2 affected cognitive performance differently. Attention, memory, and planning were more affected by N2 than CO2. Motor tasks were nearly unaffected by N2. O2 at 0.925 ATA partially re...
Modelling experiments in scientific discovery

Investigating the character of scientific discovery using computational models is a growing area in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. Scientific discovery involves both theory and experiments, but existing discovery systems have mainly considered the formation and modification of theories. This paper focuses on the modelling of experiments. A general characterization of the nature of experiments is given and more specifically Galileo's motion experiments are examined. The STERN scientific discovery system has been used to model Galileo's investigations of free fall, and is introduced here. The system has an extensive representation for experiments and uses experiments to: (i) confirm existing hypotheses; (ii) find new hypotheses; (ii) enhance its own performance; and, (iv) make intractable hypotheses tractable.
Synthesis and characterization of a new and electronically unusual uranium metallacyclocumulene, (C5Me5)2U(η4-1,2,3,4-PhC4Ph)

Abstract A new uranium metallacyclocumulene, (C5Me5)2U(η4-1,2,3,4-PhC4Ph), was synthesized by both reaction of (C5Me5)2UCl2 with 1,4-diphenylbutadiyne in the presence of KC8 and by ligand exchange between (C5Me5)2U(η2-Me3SiC2SiMe3) and 1,4-diphenylbutadiyne. Full characterization of (C5Me5)2U(η4-1,2,3,4-PhC4Ph) is reported, including the solid-state structure. (C5Me5)2U(η4-1,2,3,4-PhC4Ph) displays an unusually detailed UV–visible spectrum, which is rare for uranium(IV) metallocene complexes.
Fracture line distribution of olecranon fractures

Purpose The association between specific olecranon fracture characteristics (e.g., displacement, fragmentation, subluxation) and fracture line distribution might help surgeons predict intra-articular fracture location based on fracture characteristics that can be determined on radiographs. We hypothesized that fracture mapping techniques would reveal different fracture patterns for minimally displaced fractures, displaced fractures, and fracture–dislocations of the olecranon.
Nuclear Off-site Emergency Preparedness and Response: Some International Legal Aspects

The accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, much like Chernobyl before, is a stark reminder of the critical role of off-site emergency preparedness and response (EPR) in nuclear accident management notwithstanding continuous improvements in nuclear safety worldwide. EPR is a matter of intrinsic international concern, not only between neighboring States, but globally as shortcomings in EPR anywhere tend to undermine confidence in nuclear safety everywhere. Post-Fukushima, EPR therefore has been a focal point of international regulatory attention which this Chapter sets out to describe in the context of nuclear accidents with radiological off-site effects. The Chapter first discusses the international normative setting for EPR, principally the IAEA-centered framework (including relevant conventions, safety standards, operational arrangements and services). It then addresses some of the major international public policy and legal challenges that have presented themselves in the aftermath of Fukushima: The drive to harmonize EPR and the intrinsic difficulties in reaching that goal; transboundary emergency notification/communication arrangements bilaterally, regionally and globally, that are insufficiently anchored to a firm legal basis; enhanced independent peer review and regular testing to ensure quality and reliability of EPR plans; and stronger State support for IAEA’s international emergency assistance mechanism. In summarizing how the international community—concerned States, international organizations, the nuclear industry and other stakeholders—has reacted to these issues, the author concludes that while EPR notionally remains, of course, a national responsibility, many of its key aspects are increasingly being ‘internationalized.’
Multi-agent team formation: diversity beats strength?

Team formation is a critical step in deploying a multi-agent team. In some scenarios, agents coordinate by voting continuously. When forming such teams, should we focus on the diversity of the team or on the strength of each member? Can a team of diverse (and weak) agents outperform a uniform team of strong agents? We propose a new model to address these questions. Our key contributions include: (i) we show that a diverse team can overcome a uniform team and we give the necessary conditions for it to happen; (ii) we present optimal voting rules for a diverse team; (iii) we perform synthetic experiments that demonstrate that both diversity and strength contribute to the performance of a team; (iv) we show experiments that demonstrate the usefulness of our model in one of the most difficult challenges for Artificial Intelligence: Computer Go.