cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Steroid withdrawal in liver transplant recipients.

Because of troublesome side effects associated with steroid use, many transplant centers have tried to withdraw steroids from stable, solid organ transplant recipients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability to wean liver transplant recipients off steroids, depending on both their primary immunosuppressive regimen and their primary disease state. This was a retrospective, single-center review of steroid weaning in adult orthotopic liver transplant recipients. Based on primary immunosuppression, patients could be weaned off steroids similarly if they were taking cyclosporine or tacrolimus (53.9% vs 61.4%). When triple immunosuppressive regimens were compared with dual regimens, a difference was found in ability to wean patients off steroids (52.4% vs 74.5%, P = .001). When steroid weaning was stratified for primary immunosuppression and primary disease state, patients with autoimmune-mediated diseases (autoimmune hepatitis, sclerosing cholangitis, and primary biliary cirrhosis) were less likely to be weaned if they were receiving cyclosporine-based immunosuppressants (36.8% vs 62.2%, P = .03). In conclusion, it appears that a large number of liver transplant recipients can safely be tapered off steroids.
Stepwise Hydration and Multibody Deprotonation with Steep Negative Temperature Dependence in the Benzene ¥+ -Water System

We studied the stepwise hydration and solvent-mediated deprotonation of the benzene*+ cation (Bz*+) and found several unusual features. The solvent binding energies DeltaH on-1,n for the reactions Bz*+(H2O)n-1 + H2O --> Bz*+(H2O)n are nearly constant at 9 +/- 1 kcal mol-1 for n = 1 to 8. We observed a remarkable sudden decrease in the entropy of association accompanying the formation of Bz*+(H2O)7 and Bz*+(H2O)8, indicating strong orientational restraint in the hydration shells of these clusters consistent with the formation of cagelike structures. We observed the size-dependent deprotonation of Bz*+ in a cooperative multibody process, where n H2O molecules (n >/= 4) can remove a proton from Bz*+ to form protonated water clusters. We measured, for the first time, the temperature dependence of such a process and found a negative temperature coefficient of a magnitude unprecedented in any chemical reaction, of the form k = AT-67+/- 4, or in an Arrhenius form having an activation energy of -34 +/- 1 kcal mol-1. The temperature effect may be explained by Bz*+ and four H2O molecules needing to be assembled from gas-phase components to form the reactive species. Such large temperature effects may be therefore general in solvent cluster-mediated reactions.
Structure of Greyhound hemoglobin: origin of high oxygen affinity

This study presents the crystal structure of Greyhound hemoglobin (GrHb) determined to 1.9 A resolution. GrHb was found to crystallize with an α1β1 dimer in the asymmetric unit and belongs to the R2 state. Oxygen-affinity measurements combined with the fact that GrHb crystallizes in the R2 state despite the high-salt conditions used for crystallization strongly indicate that GrHb can serve as a model high-oxygen-affinity hemoglobin (Hb) for higher mammals, especially humans. Structural analysis of GrHb and its comparison with the R2-state of human Hb revealed several regions that can potentially contribute to the high oxygen affinity of GrHb and serve to rationalize the additional stability of the R2-state of GrHb. A previously well studied hydrophobic cluster of bar-headed goose Hb near α119 was also incorporated in the comparison between GrHb and human Hb. Finally, a structural comparison with generic dog Hb and maned wolf Hb was conducted, revealing that in contrast to GrHb these structures belong to the R state of Hb and raising the intriguing possibility of an additional allosteric factor co-purifying with GrHb that can modulate its quaternary structure.
Excess heat capacities of binary liquid mixtures determined with a Picker flow calorimeter

Abstract Excess heat capacities of mixtures of non-electrolytes were determined from measurements of volumetric heat capacity in a Picker flow calorimeter. A precision of ±0.02 J K−1 mol−1 was achieved for CpE, using a stepwise procedure. Results are reported for the following binary mixtures at 298.15 K: tetrachloromethane + benzene and + cyclohexane, n-heptane + ethanol, + n-propanol, and + toluene, and isooctane + benzene, and + toluene. In most cases our results are in reasonable agreement with results obtained from other types of calorimeters and with values derived from the temperature variation of excess enthalpies.
Cyclocryotherapy in the Treatment of Advanced Glaucoma

Cyclocryotherapy in the treatment of aphakic open-angle glaucoma (AO), aphakic angle-closure glaucoma (ACL), and neovascular glaucoma (NVG) was evaluated in 96 eyes of 96 patients. All patients had follow-up of greater than 12 months, with a mean of 29.0 +/- 2.1 months (+/- SEM). Intraocular pressure (IOP) was lowered to less than 21 mmHg in 76% of eyes with AO, 68% of eyes with ACL, and 55% of eyes with NVG. Patients with NVG lost vision more frequently (70%) than patients with AO (41%) or ACL (41%). Patients with NVG had a higher incidence of loss of light perception and phthisis bulbi than patients with ACL (P less than 0.015). In patients having visual field examinations (76/96), glaucomatous field loss was arrested in 71% of patients with AO and 65% of patients with ACL, compared to 29% of patients with NVG (P less than 0.025). There was a significant correlation between postoperative IOP less than 21 mmHg and preservation of visual field. Patients receiving initial 360 degrees cryosurgical treatment required fewer repeat treatments than patients receiving initial 180 degrees treatment (P = 0.004); complications were slightly more common in the 360 degrees group.
Bright Sunshine Duration in Relation to Precipitation,Air Temperature and Geographic Location

Bright sunshine duration (BSD) is of singular importance for estimating solar irradiance, and its data base is small in comparison. This paper reports a generic algorithm that captures global variation in monthly BSD data in relation to temperature, precipitation and geographic location. The algorithm depicts BSD in terms of reduction from daylength as a negative exponential function of standard station pressure, with the exponential reduction rate as proportional to the product of a series of multiplicative functions reflective of global generalities and regional idiosyncrasies. The algorithm is parameterized by regression fitting to monthly climate normal data for 729 stations worldwide. It accounts statistically for 85% of the variance in the BSD data, with a root mean square error of 1.0 hr, or 15% of the data mean. The data fitting tends to be least robust for tropical humid climates or for tropical and subtropical monsoonal Asia. The spatially-based algorithm projects with a reasonable accuracy 5-yr sequential monthly BSD data for five stations representative of the climate regimes in the conterminous United States: the absolute error is within ±1.5 hr for 70% to 93% of the 60 monthly mean BSD values for each of the stations.
Problem Solving and Game-Based Learning: Effects of Middle Grade Students' Hypothesis Testing Strategies on Learning Outcomes:

Targeted as a highly desired skill for contemporary work and life, problem solving is central to game-based learning research. In this study, middle grade students achieved significant learning gains from gameplay interactions that required solving a science mystery based on microbiology content. Student trace data results indicated that effective exploration and navigation of the hypothesis space within a science problem-solving task was predictive of student science content learning and in-game performance. Students who selected a higher proportion of appropriate hypotheses demonstrated greater learning gains and completed more in-game goals. Students providing correct explanations for hypothesis selection completed more in-game goals; however, providing the correct explanation for hypothesis selection did not account for greater learning gains. From the analysis, we concluded that hypothesis testing strategies play a central role in game-based learning environments that involve problem-solving tasks, thereby demonstrating strong connections to science content learning and in-game performance.
CHEMICAL CHANGES IN WHITE DEER LAKE (PENNSYLVANIA) BEFORE AND AFTER LIMESTONE APPLICATION

ABSTRACT The ice application of agricultural limestone (220 mesh, 5 tons/ha) to White Deer Lake in February 1985 followed four seasons of baseline data collection. Immediate chemical changes in the lake occurred for total alkalinity, specific conductance, calcium, Secchi depth, magnesium, and silica as the limestone continued to dissolve for nearly seven months. In October 1985 White Deer Lake began to exhibit clear patterns of re-acidification such as declining total alkalinity, and changes in specific conductance, calcium, and magnesium following the dilution of the treated waters after Hurricane Gloria. Reacidification continued through the summer of 1986. Monitoring continues at White Deer Lake.
Doing without schema hierarchies: a recurrent connectionist approach to normal and impaired routine sequential action

In everyday tasks, selecting actions in the proper sequence requires a continuously updated representation of temporal context. Previous models have addressed this problem by positing a hierarchy of processing units, mirroring the roughly hierarchical structure of naturalistic tasks themselves. The present study considers an alternative framework, in which the representation of context depends on recurrent connections within a network mapping from environmental inputs to actions. The ability of this approach to account for human performance was evaluated by applying it, through simulation, to a specific everyday task. The resulting model learned to deal flexibly with a complex set of sequencing constraints, encoding contextual information at multiple time scales within a single, distributed internal representation. Degrading this representation led to errors resembling those observed both in everyday behavior and in apraxia. Analysis of the model's function yielded numerous predictions relevant to both normal and apraxic performance.
Blood‐Brain Barrier Permeable Gold Nanoparticles: An Efficient Delivery Platform for Enhanced Malignant Glioma Therapy and Imaging

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) remains a formidable obstacle in medicine, preventing efficient penetration of chemotherapeutic and diagnostic agents to malignant gliomas. Here, a transactivator of transcription (TAT) peptide-modified gold nanoparticle platform (TAT-Au NP) with a 5 nm core size is demonstrated to be capable of crossing the BBB efficiently and delivering cargoes such as the anticancer drug doxorubicin (Dox) and Gd(3+) contrast agents to brain tumor tissues. Treatment of mice bearing intracranial glioma xenografts with pH-sensitive Dox-conjugated TAT-Au NPs via a single intravenous administration leads to significant survival benefit when compared to the free Dox. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that TAT-Au NPs are capable of delivering Gd(3+) chelates for enhanced brain tumor imaging with a prolonged retention time of Gd(3+) when compared to the free Gd(3+) chelates. Collectively, these results show promising applications of the TAT-Au NPs for enhanced malignant brain tumor therapy and non-invasive imaging.
Live Migration of Parallel Applications with OpenVZ

A parallel application can terminate or produce incorrect results when a computational node fails. As the number of components in large scale supercomputing systems increase and applications scale to use these resources, the mean time to failure decreases, and application failure becomes more likely. Traditional fault tolerance approaches to address this problem, such as check pointing, are failing to scale as system sizes increase. An alternative approach we explore in this paper is the use of VM based live migration to move a process from a failing node to a healthy one to reduce the fault rate experienced by an application. We investigate the use of an operating system-level virtualization environment based on OpenVZ to perform live migrations of virtual machines on which multi-processor parallel applications are running. We explore the correctness, performance, and reliability implications of this approach, and explore the additional overhead of using OS-level virtualized systems for fault recovery. Our results confirm that it is possible to efficiently live migrate virtual containers running a parallel application without affecting the correctness or completion of parallel applications running in a OS-level virtualized environment.
Methods to reduce the impact of intraclass correlation in group-randomized trials

This study reports intraclass correlation (ICC) for dependent variables used in group-randomized trials (GRTs). The authors also document the effect of two methods suggested to reduce the impact of ICC in GRTs; these two methods are modeling time and regression adjustment for covariates. They coded and analyzed 1,188 ICC estimates from 17 published, in press, and unpublished articles representing 21 studies. Findings confirm that both methods can improve the efficiency of analyses shown to be valid across conditions common in GRTs. Investigators planning GRTs should obtain ICC estimates matched to their planned analysis so that they can size their studies properly.
Variable conductivity and embolism in roots and branches of four contrasting tree species and their impacts on whole-plant hydraulic performance under future atmospheric CO2 concentration

Summary Anatomical and physiological acclimation to water stress of the tree hydraulic system involves trade-offs between maintenance of stomatal conductance and loss of hydraulic conductivity, with short-term impacts on photosynthesis and long-term consequences to survival and growth. Here, we study the role of variations in root and branch maximum hydraulic specific conductivity (ks-max) under high and low soil moisture in determining whole-tree hydraulic conductance (Ktree) and in mediating stomatal control of gas exchange in four contrasting tree species growing under ambient and elevated CO2 (CO2 a and CO2 e ). We hypothesized that Ktree would adjust to CO2 e through an increase in root and branch ks-max in response to anatomical adjustments. However, physiological changes observed under CO2 e were not clearly related to structural change in the xylem of any of the species. The only large effect of CO2 e occurred in branches of Liquidambar styraciflua L. and Cornus florida L. where an increase in ks-max and a decrease in xylem resistance to embolism (−P50) were measured. Across species, embolism in roots explained the loss of Ktree and therefore indirectly constituted a hydraulic signal involved in stomatal regulation and in the reduction of Gs-ref, the sap-flux-scaled mean canopy stomatal conductance at a reference vapour pressure deficit of 1 kPa. Across roots and branches, the increase in ks-max was associated with a decrease in −P50, a consequence of structural acclimation such as larger conduits, lower pit resistance and lower wood density. Across species, treatment-induced changes in Ktree translated to similar variation in Gs-ref. However, the relationship between Gs-ref and Ktree under CO2 a was steeper than under CO2 e , indicating that CO2 e trees have lower Gs-ref at a given Ktree than CO2 a trees. Under high soil moisture, CO2 e greatly reduced Gs-ref. Under low soil moisture, CO2 e reduced Gs-ref of only L. styraciflua and Ulmus alata. In some species, higher xylem dysfunction under CO2 e might impact tree performance in a future climate when increased evaporative demand could cause a greater loss of hydraulic function. The results contributed to our knowledge of the physiological and anatomical mechanisms underpinning the responses of tree species to drought and more generally to global change.
Incidence and diagnostic features of macroregenerative nodules vs. small hepatocellular carcinoma in cirrhotic livers

In Japan, the presence of a large regenerative nodule within a cirrhotic liver, referred to as a macroregenerative nodule or adenomatous hyperplasia, is thought to play a role in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma. These lesions, however, have received little attention outside of Japan. We examined 110 sequentially explanted cirrhotic livers for the presence of such nodules. By gross examination, 19 livers (17.3%) had 40 nodules (10 livers had more than one nodule) between 0.8 and 3.5 cm in diameter. By histological examination, 28 of these were macroregenerative nodules and 12 were hepatocellular carcinomas. Three of these hepatocellular carcinomas, however, appeared to have arisen in association with a macroregenerative nodule. We found that the architectural features of thickened cell plates, formation of trabeculae and loss of reticulin were usually very helpful in differentiating benign macroregenerative nodules from hepatocellular carcinoma. The incidence of macroregenerative nodules in our series was similar to that seen in the Japanese studies, and although we feel that they may play a role in the pathogenesis of carcinoma, we do not believe their presence is necessary for the development of hepatocellular carcinoma.
Automated Bidding for Media Services at the Edge of a Content Delivery Network

We investigate the problem of providing media services to multiple autonomous wireless users at the edge of a content delivery network (CDN) in a setting where wireless resources are priced based on real-time market demands. Our focus is on the multimedia service resource negotiation process, which is performed prior to the actual media transmission. We adopt the progressive second price (PSP) auction mechanism, which is used to determine the network resource allocation to the users and a corresponding tax for the consumed resources. Our interest in this negotiation mechanism lies in understanding a single user's (or agent's) ability to learn to improve its bids over time in order to increase its own utility in the face of time-varying resource valuations and contention for resources with other users. We pay particular attention to the implementation complexity and the information requirements of the agent's deployed learning rule, and we quantify the impact of these factors on the rule's ultimate performance (i.e., the cumulative utility achieved over time) and efficiency (i.e., the utility gained per unit of computation). These factors are especially important in the mobile video streaming context, where limited resources must be efficiently utilized, and where communication and computation overheads can significantly impact the quality of service experienced by the user.
THERMAL BEHAVIOR OF PRECAST PRESTRESSED CONCRETE THREE-WYTHE SANDWICH WALL PANELS

Precast concrete sandwich wall panels are often used for building exterior cladding and may also serve as bearing or shear walls. These precast concrete sandwich wall panels are commonly constructed of two wythes of concrete separated by a layer of thermal insulation. In these two-wythe panels, solid concrete regions which extend directly through the entire thickness of the panel are often provided for embedded hardware for lifting, handling, and connections, or to provide composite action. These solid concrete regions have a significant adverse impact on the thermal performance of the panels. This research was directed towards the development of precast concrete three-wythe sandwich wall panels with improved thermal and structural performance. A three-wythe panel has three concrete wythes and two insulation layers. All three concrete wythes are connected by solid concrete regions, and the connections between successive concrete wythes are staggered in location so that no concrete path extends directly through the entire thickness of the panel. This paper describes the thermal performance of precast concrete three-wythe sandwich wall panels. Possible panel configurations of the three-wythe panels are proposed, and their thermal performance is studied by estimating R-values using the finite element method (FEM) analysis. It was found that, in general, the thermal performance of three-wythe panels is better than that of two-wythe panels due to the increased thermal path length through the panel.
Lapatinib: An oral dual tyrosine kinase inhibitor for HER-2-positive breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the USA. A quarter of all newly diagnosed cases are characterized by overexpression of HER-2 which is associated with poor prognosis. In March 2007, lapatinib, an oral dual-tyrosine kinase inhibitor was approved in combination with capecitabine for metastatic HER-2-positive breast cancer that has progressed on prior trastuzumab therapy, and in combination with letrozole for postmenopausal women with HER-2 and hormone receptor-positive advanced breast cancer. In the future, lapatinib may play an important role in dual HER-2 blockade with trastuzumab and other targeted agents for women with HER-2-overexpressing breast cancer.
Temperature Dependent Intermixing At The V/Ge(111) Interface

High resolution core level photoemission results show the temperature evolution of the V/Ge(111) interface in the range from 300 to 600K. Three well-defined chemical environments are present for Ge at 300K (the first is the substrate and the other two are reaction products with overall shifts of −0.5 and −0.95 eV). Increasing the temperature enhances Ge outdiffusion, and a homogeneous reacted layer forms when deposition and measurements are done isothermally at 475K. The activation energy for this diffusion process is very low (5 kcal/mole), indicating the importance of grain boundary diffusion at reacting, heterogeneous interfaces.
A novel square root rate control algorithm for H.264/AVC encoding

Though rate control is not normalized in any video coding standards, it plays an important role in video coding/communication area. Rate control algorithms aim to achieve perceivable video quality in video communication applications under some real-world constraints, such as bandwidth, delay, buffer sizes, etc.
Towards secure identity management for the smart grid

The emerging smart grid incorporates modern information systems with traditional power delivery systems to achieve better control, efficiency, and reliability. However, it also brings potential cyber security risks into the essential power system. Therefore, we need a large-scale framework to address the basic security issues such as identity management in the smart grid. While public key infrastructures PKIs have been developed for large-scale distributed information systems, the existing PKI solutions cannot meet the unique requirements of the electrical power grid. In this paper, we first identify those unique requirements and discuss how the existing PKI trust models may be adapted to meet these requirements; we further evaluate the existing certificate revocation models; we then discuss various PKI adaptations for the smart grid. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Ineffective perturbations in a planar elastica

An elastica is a bendable one-dimensional continuum, or idealized elastic rod. If such a rod is subjected to compression while its ends are constrained to remain tangent to a single straight line, buckling can occur: the elastic material gives way at a certain point, snapping to a lower-energy configuration. The bifurcation diagram for the buckling of a planar elastica under a load is made up of a trivial branch of unbuckled configurations for all and a sequence of branches of buckled configurations that are connected to the trivial branch at pitchfork bifurcation points. We use several perturbation expansions to determine how this diagram perturbs with the addition of a small intrinsic shape in the elastica, focusing in particular on the effect near the bifurcation points. We find that for almost all intrinsic shapes"f.s/, the difference between the buckled solution and the trivial solution is O." 1=3 /, but for some ineffective f , this difference is O."/, and we find functions u j.s/ so that f is ineffective at bifurcation point number j whenh f;u jiD 0. These ineffective perturbations have important consequences in numerical simulations, in that the perturbed bifurcation diagram has sharper corners near the former bifurcation points, and there is a higher risk of a numerical simulation inadvertently hopping between branches near these corners.
Survivors of occipitoatlantal dislocation injuries: imaging and clinical correlates.

Object Although rare, traumatic occipitoatlantal dislocation (OAD) injuries are associated with a high mortality rate. The authors evaluated the imaging and clinical factors that determined treatment and were predictive of outcomes, respectively, in survivors of this injury. Methods The medical records and imaging studies obtained in 33 patients with OAD were reviewed retrospectively. Clinical factors that predicted outcomes, especially neurological injury at presentation and imaging findings, were evaluated. The most sensitive method for the diagnosis of OAD was the measurement of basion axial–basion dens interval on computed tomography (CT) scanning. Five patients with severe traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) were not treated and subsequently died. Of the 28 patients in whom treatment was performed, 23 underwent fusion and five were fitted with an external orthosis. Abnormal findings of the occipitoatlantal ligaments on magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, associated with no or questionable abnormalities on C...
The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885-1918 (Edwards)

This work is a book review considering the title The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885-1918 by Elizabeth Edwards.
Cost Allocation for Multip-Purpose Water Projects

Separable Costs-Remaining Benefits method of accounting depends upon benefits and alternate costs, meanings attached to singlepurpose alternate costs, specific and separable costs, joint costs and remaining project costs; concept discussed in relation to each other and to broad principles of cost allocation, use of project works, and formulation, and legislative history; allocation of costs to dams.
A Tentative Survey of Business Archives

preparation for the workshop sessions of the i960 annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, a questionnaire regarding business archives was distributed to 113 companies throughout the United States.1 The purpose was to discover ( 1 ) if business organizations feel a need for preserving their records of the past, (2) where business archives exist, (3) how the records are preserved, and (4) in what way they are used. The summary below is based on replies from the 5 1 companies that reported available material. Their average age was 129 years; the oldest company was formed in 1798 and the most recent in 1925. Histories have been written about 39 of these companies; and 5 others reported plans for compiling histories.
Marketing Intelligent Design: The Law and Intelligent Design

The Basics Intelligent design (ID) raises a number of legal issues. The most obvious is whether it can be taught and/or supported in public school science classrooms or whether doing so violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A related issue is whether the inclusion of disclaimers regarding evolution in science classes or texts violates the establishment clause. Additionally, ID advocates have urged that schools should teach the so-called weaknesses in evolutionary theory and methodological naturalism generally – weaknesses that often only exist in the minds of ID advocates and creationists. Another approach urged by ID advocates is to “teach the controversy.” The supposed controversy is between naturalism, especially evolution through natural selection, and supernatural possibilities, including Big D. Yet the legal debate over design does not end with these more obvious legal questions. Central to the ID movement's marketing strategy, and to its potential success on some of the issues mentioned earlier, is the notion that ID is being excluded from scientific fora that include not only classrooms but government funding and the scientific community more generally. Implicit in this argument is the notion that ID has a right to access these fora, and this raises two separate legal issues.
The Simplest Criegee Intermediate (H2C═O–O): Isotopic Spectroscopy, Equilibrium Structure, and Possible Formation from Atmospheric Lightning

A number of research groups have recently succeeded in producing the simple carbonyl oxides H2COO and CH3CHOO in sufficient quantity to observe them spectroscopically and to probe the kinetics of their reactions with NO2 and SO2. These latter studies provide evidence that the carbonyl oxides play an important role in the atmosphere, likely contributing to pollutant removal, aerosol formation, and planetary cooling. In this work, Fourier transform microwave and double-resonance spectroscopy are combined with theory to study five isotopic species of H2C═O–O, and a precise equilibrium structure is reported for this ephemeral yet crucial reactive intermediate. In contrast to the other investigations, which have exclusively produced H2C═O–O by halogen chemistry, passing a mixture of methane and excess molecular oxygen through an electrical discharge generates this isomer of H2CO2 with high selectivity, thereby suggesting that the molecule is produced in the direct vicinity of atmospheric lightning.
Isopropyl Alcohol, Other Ketogens, and Miscellaneous Agents on Thresholds for Electrical Convulsions and Diphenylhydantoin:

SummaryThe majority of certain compounds tried, and related in chemical structure to acetone, particularly isopropyl alcohol, were found to raise considerably the threshold for electrical convulsions in rats. Isopropyl alcohol increased the cortical depressant efficiency of diphenylhydantoin without demonstrable motor depression or narcosis. Some other alcohols and certain sugars and organic acids were ineffective. The possible significance of the isopropyl group (or isopropanol) for benefits from ketogenic agents in epilepsy and for developing new or improving old antiepileptic agents is discussed.
Essential Components in Discrete Groups

(1975). Essential Components in Discrete Groups. The American Mathematical Monthly: Vol. 82, No. 8, pp. 834-834.
Deletion of Men1 and somatostatin induces hypergastrinemia and gastric carcinoids

Background Gastric carcinoids are slow growing neuroendocrine tumours arising from enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cells in the corpus of stomach. Although most of these tumours arise in the setting of gastric atrophy and hypergastrinemia, it is not understood what genetic background predisposes development of these ECL derived tumours. Moreover, diffuse microcarcinoids in the mucosa can lead to a field effect and limit successful endoscopic removal. Objective To define the genetic background that creates a permissive environment for gastric carcinoids using transgenic mouse lines. Design The multiple endocrine neoplasia 1 gene locus (Men1) was deleted using Cre recombinase expressed from the Villin promoter (Villin-Cre) and was placed on a somatostatin null genetic background. These transgenic mice received omeprazole-laced chow for 6 months. The direct effect of gastrin and the gastrin receptor antagonist YM022 on expression and phosphorylation of the cyclin inhibitor p27 Kip1 was tested on the human human gastric adenocarcinoma cell line stably expressing CCKBR (AGSE) and mouse small intestinal neuroendocrine carcinoma (STC)-1 cell lines. Results The combination of conditional Men1 deletion in the absence of somatostatin led to the development of gastric carcinoids within 2 years. Suppression of acid secretion by omeprazole accelerated the timeline of carcinoid development to 6 months in the absence of significant parietal cell atrophy. Carcinoids were associated with hypergastrinemia, and correlated with increased Cckbr expression and nuclear export of p27 Kip1 both in vivo and in gastrin-treated cell lines. Loss of p27 Kip1 was also observed in human gastric carcinoids arising in the setting of atrophic gastritis. Conclusions Gastric carcinoids require threshold levels of hypergastrinemia, which modulates p27 Kip1 cellular location and stability.
Time-related effects of RU486 treatment in experimentally induced endometriosis in the rat

Objective To evaluate the time-dependent effect of the progesterone antagonist RU486 on experimentally induced endometriosis in the rat. Design Endometriosis was induced by implanting endometrium onto the peritoneal side wall. Size of the implants was measured before and after treatment. Participants Fifty-two adult female Sprague-Dawley female rats weighing 200 to 225g. Setting Departmental research laboratory of university hospital. Intervention Animals treated with RU486 or vehicle only for 2, 4, 6, or 8 weeks. Main Outcome Measures Size of the implant was measured before and after treatment; relative change in size of the implants was calculated. Results There was not a statistically significant difference between the treatment groups and the control groups. There was no regression of endometriosis in any of the treatment groups. Conclusions RU486 administered for 8 weeks in the rat model was not effective therapy for endometriosis.
Foundations of the Legislative Panopticon: Bentham’s Principles of Morals and Legislation

Bentham contributed to the development not only of moral philosophy, jurisprudence, and policy analysis, but also criminal law. This essay interprets his concepts of law and policy as explicated in his best known work, as foundations for his views on criminal law. These foundational concepts explain his view that criminal law should be expressed in a code consisting of offenses defined by reference to legally protected interests and culpable expectations of injury to those interests. In making this argument, the essay explores Bentham’s analogy of legislation to architecture and of the utility principle to the foundation of a building.
Bilayer amorphous carbon films synthesized by filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition

A bilayer film deposition process for synthesizing ultrathin amorphous carbon (a-C) films with structure and properties dominated by those of the sp3-rich bulk layer was developed in this study. This was accomplished by incorporating in conventional filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) deposition a low-ion-energy pre-deposition step (no substrate biasing) leading to the formation of an ultrathin (<1 nm) carbon layer and a post-deposition step of high-energy Ar+ ion sputtering resulting in film thinning. The thickness and cross-sectional structure of hydrogen-free a-C ultrathin films synthesized by this multistep FCVA process under optimum substrate bias conditions (−100 V pulsed bias voltage) were examined by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The bilayer a-C films synthesized under these conditions exhibit slightly higher sp3 fractions and interface and bulk layers significantly thinner and thicker, respectively, compared with single-layer a-C films of similar thickness deposited under the same FCVA conditions.
Massenmedien als Produzenten öffentlicher Meinungen — Pressekommentare als Manifestation der politischen Akteursrolle

In den meisten Medieninhaltsanalysen werden Kommentare aufgrund ihrer geringen Haufigkeit nicht gesondert von der Nachrichtenberichterstattung ausgewiesen. Die Meinungsauserungen der Medien selbst verschwinden damit in der Menge der von den Medien lediglich berichteten Themen und Meinungen anderer Akteure. Dabei geht die ausgepragte Konzentration auf die Primarfunktion der Informationsvermittlung von Medien haufig einher mit der Wahrnehmung von Medienmeinung als storende Einflussgrose oder als unerwunschter „Bias“ in der Nachrichtenberichterstattung. Damit wird ubersehen, dass Parteinahme und politische Positionierung nach dem Gebot der Trennung von Nachricht und Meinung (vgl. z.B. Schonbach 1977; Erbring 1989: 308ff.) nicht nur erlaubt, sondern sogar explizit gewunscht ist.
On-chip protection in precision integrated circuits operating at high voltage and high temperature

A new high voltage swing bipolar ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection device for enabling low leakage precision mixed-signal interface circuits (ICs) operating at high voltage (∼ 40 V to 60 V) and high temperature (∼125°C to 200°C) is presented. Under these operating conditions, parasitic structures in junction-isolated high voltage process technologies induce unexpected shift in the leakage current over time, leading to malfunction in the precision high voltage input/output interface circuit. A proposed device design addresses the low leakage targets at the mentioned operating conditions, while achieving the required ESD robustness of the high voltage interface for industrial applications.
Perceptual training yields rapid improvements in visually impaired youth

Visual function demands coordinated responses to information over a wide field of view, involving both central and peripheral vision. Visually impaired individuals often seem to underutilize peripheral vision, even in absence of obvious peripheral deficits. Motivated by perceptual training studies with typically sighted adults, we examined the effectiveness of perceptual training in improving peripheral perception of visually impaired youth. Here, we evaluated the effectiveness of three training regimens: (1) an action video game, (2) a psychophysical task that combined attentional tracking with a spatially and temporally unpredictable motion discrimination task, and (3) a control video game. Training with both the action video game and modified attentional tracking yielded improvements in visual performance. Training effects were generally larger in the far periphery and appear to be stable 12 months after training. These results indicate that peripheral perception might be under-utilized by visually impaired youth and that this underutilization can be improved with only ~8 hours of perceptual training. Moreover, the similarity of improvements following attentional tracking and action video-game training suggest that well-documented effects of action video-game training might be due to the sustained deployment of attention to multiple dynamic targets while concurrently requiring rapid attending and perception of unpredictable events.
Supervisory control for coordinating Volt/Var control devices on a distribution system

This paper proposes a computationally efficient method for supervisory control of Volt/Var control devices-voltage regulators and capacitor banks - on a distribution system. The method searches for the best control settings for these devices as the operating conditions change on the system in real-time. The objective of the supervisory control is that of a volt/var optimization - minimize the power losses on the distribution circuit while keeping the node voltages within the acceptable range. The method considers multiple voltage regulators and capacitor banks on a distribution feeder. The test results show the effectiveness of method in terms of providing the global optimal solution with fast computational speed.
Spectral Contributions to the Thermal Conductivity of C60 and the Fullerene Derivative PCBM.

We investigate the heat transport mechanisms responsible in driving the characteristic temperature-dependent thermal conductivities of C60 and PCBM crystals via molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the thermal conductivity of PCBM is “ultralow” across the temperature range studied in this work. In contrast, the temperature-dependent thermal conductivity of C60 crystals exhibits two regimes: “crystal-like” behavior at low temperatures where thermal conductivity increases rapidly with decreasing temperature and temperature-independent thermal conductivities at higher temperatures. The spectral contributions to thermal conductivity for C60 suggest that the majority of heat is carried by modes in the low-frequency regime (<2 THz), which is a consequence of intermolecular interactions. Unlike for C60, these modes are not responsible for heat conduction in PCBM due to the mismatch in density of states introduced by the addition of low-frequency modes from the alkyl chains that are attached to the fuller...
Overview of Human Thermoregulation

Abstract This paper presents a critical summary of present knowledge of human thermoregulation and indicates areas where definitive information is lacking. There are recent comprehensive review articles (1, 2, 3), so we have chosen to cite only representative papers which illustrate the various approaches which have been used in an attempt to elucidate the human thermoregulatory system. Since temperature regulation in the human encompasses a wide range of topics, the following subdivision is suggested as a basis for developing control mechanisms: a. normal short-term control; b. short-term reversible modifications due to fever, exercise, trauma, etc.; c. longer time scale modifying effects, such as hormonal action, adaptation, etc.; d. long-term irreversible neurological modifications. An experimentally confirmed signal-flow diagram for short term control perhaps could be extended to the other three conditions by effecting modifications in set-point, gain, etc.
Calcium and Chloride Cofactors of the Oxygen Evolving Complex - X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy Evidence for A Mn/Ca/Cl Heteronuclear Cluster

The oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) of photosystem II (PSII) in green plants and algae contains a cluster of four Mn atoms in the active site, which catalyzes the oxidation of water to dioxygen. Along with Mn, Cl− and Ca2+ are essential cofactors for oxygen evolution (1).
CRAXTriage: A coverage based triage system

Software is getting complicated due to the changing needs and flourishing development of software industry. To better improve software quality, we have to find the major reasons which cause the program crash. However, debugging by software developer is not an efficient method, especially in large software. Many automated tools are developed to enhance the fault localization efficiency and reduce the maintenance cost. Most researches focus on improving the software testing process, and the primary triage method is based on the stack-trace hash (e.g., smartfuzz, basic fuzzing framework and Failure Observation engine), and is unchanged for a long time. Therefore, we propose a new triage method based on binary block coverage. Our triage method is designed by analyzing the binary level coverage results, on every time the input causes the program crash. For the same crash input, we also use traditional stack-trace hash method to contrast the flaws with our method. Our experiment results reveal that our proposed method based on code coverage exhibits better triages in terms of the number of unique bugs identified and correct classifications of faults.
Examining the Usefulness of Student-Produced PSAs to Learn Advocacy in a Human Behavior and the Social Environment Course

Advocacy is a complex set of applications that applies knowledge of human behavior in the social environment to promote the rights of others. The purpose of this study was to explore the usefulness of student-created public service announcements (PSAs) to help BSW students learn cause-based advocacy. Our results suggest that assigning a PSA project supports competencies in cause-based advocacy, professional identity development social work, critical thinking, engagement with research-informed practice, and capacity to respond to contexts.
Early stage structural development of prototypical zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) in solution

Given the wide-ranging potential applications of metal organic frameworks (MOFs), an emerging imperative is to understand their formation with atomic scale precision. This will aid in designing syntheses for next-generation MOFs with enhanced properties and functionalities. Major challenges are to characterize the early-stage seeds, and the pathways to framework growth, which require synthesis coupled with in situ structural characterization sensitive to nanoscale structures in solution. Here we report measurements of an in situ synthesis of a prototypical MOF, ZIF-8, utilizing synchrotron X-ray atomic pair distribution function (PDF) analysis optimized for sensitivity to dilute species, complemented by mass spectrometry, electron microscopy, and density functional theory calculations. We observe that despite rapid formation of the crystalline product, a high concentration of Zn(2-MeIm)4 (2-MeIm = 2-methylimidazolate) initially forms and persists as stable clusters over long times. A secondary, amorphous phase also pervades during the synthesis, which has a structural similarity to the final ZIF-8 and may act as an intermediate to the final product.
Near shannon bound performance for low rate short block turbo codes

In this work we propose a coded modulation technique which combines QPSK and OFDM modulation with a low rate, short block systematic turbo code. We aim to achieve exceptional energy efficiency in extremely noisy environments, where moderate data rates and short messages are required. For this proposed model, the performance improvement is produced by a unique mapping of trellis structure error correcting code and spectral efficiency is achieved by exploiting OFDM modulation. The designed OFDM distributes systematic and parity symbols along all sub-channels symmetrically and adjusts their power distinctively to achieve superior bit error performance. Further, we utilize four-dimensional M-ary Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (4D-MQAM) for parity symbols which effectively increases the overall rate of the system while maintaining the same level of energy efficiency. The resulting performance of our designed system compared with the theoretical sphere packing lower bound indicates a very small gap (less than 0.5 dB) which means a substantially close approach to the Shannon limit.
Limitations of methods for measuring the concentration of human genomic DNA and oligonucleotide samples

We compared different methods (absorbance, fluorescent dye-binding, and digital PCR) for measuring the concentrations of human genomic DNA from cultured cells and absorbance measurements of a synthetic DNA oligonucleotide. NIST Standard Reference Material (SRM) 2082, a pathlength absorbance standard, was used to benchmark the absorbance measurements done with microvolume spectrophotometers and a microvolume plate reader. Control absorbance values were measured on a high accuracy spectrophotometer and a NIST calibrated pathlength cuvette. Measurements of the human genomic DNA sample were done with several types of fluorescent dye binding assays using different DNA calibrators. The fluorescent dye binding methods gave different results for genomic DNA depending upon the type of DNA calibrator and the fluorescent dye that was used. The human genomic DNA sample was also characterized by using six different droplet digital PCR assays (amplicons located on different chromosomes) to measure the average copy number. Conversion of the digital PCR data to copy numbers was sensitive to the droplet size used for calculations and conversion to mass concentration was dependent upon the molecular weight of the human genome used for the calculations. The results from the different methods were compared and the caveats for each measurement method were discussed.