cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Interaction of Viperin with Hepatitis C Virus Non-Structural Protein 5A Inhibits the Catalytic Activity of Viperin

Abstract The radical SAM enzyme viperin exerts a wide range of antiviral effects through both the synthesis of the antiviral nucleotide 3’-deoxy-3’, 4’-didehydro-CTP (ddhCTP) and through its interactions with various cellular and viral proteins. Here we investigate the interaction of viperin with hepatitis C virus non-structural protein 5A (NS5A) and the host sterol regulatory protein, vesicle-associated membrane protein A (VAP-33). NS5A and VAP-33 form part of the viral replication complex that is essential for copying the RNA genome of the virus. Using transfected enzymes in HEK293T cells, we show that viperin binds to both NS5A and VAP-33 independently and that this interaction is dependent on all three proteins being localized to the ER membrane. Co-expression of viperin with VAP-33 and NS5A was found to reduce NS5A levels, most likely by increasing the rate of proteasomal degradation. However, co-expression of viperin with VAP-33 and NS5A also reduces the specific activity of viperin by ~ 3-fold. This observation suggests that NS5A may have evolved to bind viperin as a strategy to reduce ddhCTP synthesis, thereby reducing possibility of the replication complex introducing this chain-terminating nucleotide during genome synthesis.
Self-Reported Mental Health and Mental Illness among University Music Students in the United States.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the self-reported mental health state of US music majors. The participants (n = 252) completed a researcher-designed online survey, includin...
Improving thyroid function monitoring in head and neck cancer patients: A quality improvement study

OBJECTIVE To investigate and improve compliance of thyroid function monitoring in head and neck cancer patients who received radiotherapy to the cervical region before and after instituting quality improvement interventions. METHODS Using the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) methodology, patients with head and neck malignancies who received radiotherapy to the cervical region from 2013-2015 were identified at a tertiary medical center. The status of the patients' thyroid monitoring and related characteristics were recorded. A quality improvement project was subsequently implemented by data sharing and providing feedback to practitioners involved in head and neck cancer care and creating a tracking database for all patients who received radiotherapy to the neck. After implementation of these interventions, data was collected on patients meeting the inclusion criteria from 2015-2017. RESULTS One hundred fifty-six patients met criteria pre-intervention and ninety-eight patients met criteria post-intervention. Compliance of thyroid monitoring went up from 34% to 80% after interventions (P < .0001). There was a significant increase in thyroid testing performed by radiation oncologists after interventions from 2% to 21%, while medical oncologists and otolaryngologists remained consistent in their compliance rates. CONCLUSION It is possible to improve compliance with evidence-based recommendations and improve the quality-of-care for head and neck cancer survivors through simple, cost effective interventions. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 2 Laryngoscope, 130:E573-E579, 2020.
Comparing Financial Socialization and Formal Financial Education: Building Financial Capability

Many individuals learn financial knowledge and skills in school (namely formal financial education) and through friends and family (e.g., family financial socialization). While the two channels have distinctive merits and limitations, little is known about how formal financial education and family financial socialization differ and interact when it comes to helping people gain financial knowledge and skills. Using data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study, we examined the association between formal financial education, family financial socialization, and financial knowledge. Results from regression estimates with interaction terms included indicated that both channels had positive associations with increased financial knowledge levels with different impact magnitudes, while together they seemed to have negative associations with increased financial knowledge. Our study suggests that each channel likely provides financial knowledge in different domains and has implications for future research and financial education policy.
A large air gap magnetic levitator for intra-arterial positioning of a clinical microcatheter: design, fabrication, and preliminary experimental evaluation

Radioembolization, a targeted treatment for advanced-stage liver cancer, is a medical procedure in which millions of radioactive microspheres (20–40 µm in diameter) are released into the blood vessels feeding liver tumors. These microspheres not only reduce blood flow to the tumors; their associated radiation kills the cancerous tissues into which they embed. While effective, this procedure also poses a threat to adjacent (non-target) healthy liver tissues. Recent research (both theoretical and experimental) has established a strong relationship between microsphere injection location (in the artery cross section) and the destination vessel, demonstrating the potential for specific vessel and tumor targeting. One such method for positioning the catheter tip, the subject of this research, is to use magnetic levitation. This paper (the second of a two-part series) details the design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of a large air gap magnetic levitator. This device, with a model-based sliding mode controller, is used to precisely position the microcatheter tip in a dynamically perfused arterial model cross section, allowing for microsphere injections from controlled locations within the cross section. Microsphere distributions were found to be significantly dependent on release location, and the large gap levitator is shown to be a viable option for catheter positioning.
Penetrance of Breast and Ovarian Cancer in Women Who Carry a BRCA1/2 Mutation and Do Not Use Risk-Reducing Salpingo-Oophorectomy: An Updated Meta-Analysis.

Background Use of risk-reducing Salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) substantially reduces the risk of ovarian and breast cancer for women who carry a BRCA1/2 mutation. It is important to adjust for RRSO use in the estimation of BRCA1/2 penetrance of breast and ovarian cancer. Methods We searched PubMed for penetrance estimates of breast and ovarian cancer from studies that genotyped individual patients and explicitly adjusted for RRSO use by censoring follow-up at the age of RRSO. We meta-analyzed penetrance estimates from 7 identified studies. We implemented the resulting penetrance estimates in a Mendelian risk prediction model as iplemented in the software package BRCAPRO, which we applied to estimate carrier probabilities in 2 BRCA cohorts. Results Penetrance estimates by age 70 years for breast cancer were 64.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 59.5% to 69.4%) for BRCA1 mutation carriers and 61.0% (95% CI = 48.1% to 72.5%) for BRCA2 mutation carriers, and for ovarian cancer they were 48.3% (95% CI = 38.8% to 57.9%) and 20.0% (95% CI = 13.3% to 29.0%), respectively. When integrated into BRCAPRO, our estimates led to good calibration and different estimates of carrier probabilities for some individuals when evaluating the models in 2 cohorts. Conclusions The report updates penetrance estimates for BRCA1/2-associated cancer. We report higher estimates than previously reported, which did not adjust for RRSO. Differential use of RRSO may partially explain heterogeneity in the currently available penetrance estimates. For some individuals, using our estimates in BRCAPRO may result in changes in estimated carrier probabilities, which warrants validation in future studies.
Cystoscopy with antibiotic irrigation during pelvic reconstruction and minimally invasive gynecologic surgery: A double‐blind randomized controlled trial

Aims After pelvic reconstructive surgery, the risk of postoperative urinary tract infection (UTI) is significant; intraoperative cystoscopy may contribute to this risk. Intravesical antibiotics are used in the ambulatory setting and may be applied to the surgical arena. Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy of antibiotic irrigation during intraoperative cystoscopy to prevent postoperative UTI. Methods This double-blind randomized controlled trial enrolled 216 women undergoing cystoscopy with elective surgery for pelvic organ prolapse, stress urinary incontinence, or laparoscopic gynecologic surgery at an academic medical center 2016-2019. Participants were randomized to cystoscopic irrigation fluid type: normal saline (control) or 200,000 U polymyxin B + 40 mg neomycin solution in normal saline (antibiotic). Patients and providers who treated UTIs were blinded. The primary outcome was treatment of UTI within 6 weeks postoperatively, defined as positive culture or treatment for a symptomatic UTI. χ2 and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed. Results We enrolled 216 women: 111 control (51.4%) and 105 antibiotic (48.6%). Mean age was 51.6 years. Groups were well matched in medical comorbidities and surgery type. Primary vaginal surgery was most common (n = 127, 58.8%). Overall, 10.7% of patients developed a postoperative UTI with no difference in incidence between groups: 9.9% of control (n = 11, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 4.0%-16.0%) versus 11.4% of antibiotic subjects (n = 12, 95% CI: 5.0%-18.0%), on χ2 (p = .718) and logistic regression analysis (adjusted odds ratio, 1.3; CI: 0.53-3.16; p = .569). Conclusion When cystoscopy is performed during elective pelvic surgery, use of antibiotic irrigation does not impact the rate of postoperative UTI.
Who’s Afraid of Multilingualism? Language and Intersectionality

This contribution to the special issue addresses questions of social justice in the field of applied linguistics through the optics of multilingualism and intersectionality and from the standpoint of language teachers and learners. In monolingualist ideology, the multilingual speaker is transformed from the normal condition to the linguistic other, especially those without a clearly identifiable L1 or whose L1 does not conform to their presupposed linguistic identity. Linguistic theory contributes to this result by assigning an almost mystic quality to the “mother tongue” and its “native speakers,” when these questions can be and are quite fluid in our multilingual world. This article suggests the need for paradigm shifts in three areas. First, the too-frequent focus on how to best promote learning in the target language needs to make way for how to best promote multilingual proficiency up to advanced knowledge of several languages. Second, it is time to demystify the “mother tongue” or “native” or “first” language. Finally, the field needs to conceptualize “non-native speaking” teachers for their essential qualities—their multilingual proficiency—to form a better valuation of their actual language teaching skillset.
Tablet-based patient educational interventions in care and management of complex movement disorders.

Patient education is an essential part of management of complex, disabling neurological disorders. Mobile web-based educational materials provide a novel and potentially valuable means to communica...
The Practice and Pedagogy of Carceral Abolition in a Criminal Defense Clinic

For many, carceral abolition might once have been considered irreconcilable with the goals of legal education. However, the energy produced by recent social movements focused on issues of race and the criminal legal system has helped to advance widespread interest in the long-standing work of abolitionists. While abolitionist thought has flourished in organizing and non-legal academic spaces, law students and legal scholars are increasingly considering how a carceral abolitionist perspective can inform legal education and practice. Abolitionists understand that the criminal legal process ineffectively uses state-sanctioned violence, surveillance, punishment, and exclusion to address, and counterproductively create, the underlying problems that produce violence and harmful behavior in our communities. Abolition focuses on dismantling our current carceral systems and finding completely new, restorative and collaborative ways of addressing harmful social behaviors. This Article examines whether abolitionist ethics fit into the practice and pedagogy of law school criminal defense clinics. It argues that although carceral abolition and the institutional role of public defense are an imperfect fit, criminal defense clinics should teach students how to effectively advocate for their clients through a lens of carceral abolition. Clinicians have an opportunity to expose students to practice that does more than just reinforce or merely critique the criminal legal system as it exists. Rather clinic students can explore ways to lawyer as “fellow travelers,” operating to actively shield individual clients from the weight of the state, while also supporting the efforts of organizers who are seeking to transform how we deal with social problems. The Article provides a brief introduction to abolitionist thought, explores the challenges and benefits of incorporating an abolitionist framework into defense clinics, and provides an approach for clinicians seeking to inform their teaching and practice with an understanding of carceral abolition.
THE ROLE OF INHERITANCE AND TAXATION ON WEALTH AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN BRAZIL AND THE STATE OF RIO GRANDE DO SUL

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the role of inheritance and donation on the distribution of wealth and income in Brazil and the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Although several scholars coming from branches of Social Sciences have already scrutinized the influence that slavery and colonial exploitation had - and still have - in the Brazil’s development, no work in the economic literature has thus far attempted to estimate Brazil’s current inheritance stock in monetary terms. With this in mind, this paper has three specific goals: i) to estimate, in accordance with an original framework, the inheritance stock of Brazil (and Rio Grande do Sul) and their flow with respect to national income and household disposable income; ii) to measure potential revenue through the application of a more progressive taxation of inheritance and donations based on inheritance stock estimates and iii) to simulate the distributional effect of reallocating these new fiscal resources. It is important to note, however, that the simulations presented in this paper are static exercises, and do not intend to capture general equilibrium or behavioral effects.
Role of Automatic, Conscious, and Unconscious Thought Processes in Complex Decision Making

A complex decision is any decision that includes choosing among options with numerous describing attributes. Certain decisions are fast, often guided with automatic thought processes, while other decisions are made with careful examination of all the factors. The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of automatic, conscious and unconscious thought processes in the context of decision making. Participants were psychology students aged between 19 to 28 years. The first experiment investigated the role of these three different thought processes on choosing a subjectively best apartment option and take-the-best (TTB) heuristic apartment option. The second experiment investigated metacognitive aspects of decision making, precisely to determine the differences in feeling of rightness (FOR) as well as the tendency to change the decision about the chosen apartment, depending on the activated thought processes. Different thought processes determined the choice of the subjectively best option. Participants chose the subjectively best option in the conscious thought condition more often than in the automatic or unconscious thought condition. However, there was no difference between conditions in choosing the TTB heuristic option. No difference was found between the automatic and unconscious thought condition concerning the metacognitive assessment of feeling of rightness, while the same increased equally in participants of both conditions after they were subsequently included in the conscious thought condition. The tendency to change responses after engaging in a conscious thought condition also did not depend on the initial condition. The study provided support for the importance of conscious thought processes in complex decision making present in everyday functioning and regardless of the field of human expertise.
A Bayesian Risk Approach to MDPs with Parameter Uncertainty.

We consider Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) where distributional parameters, such as transition probabilities, are unknown and estimated from data. The popular distributionally robust approach to addressing the parameter uncertainty can sometimes be overly conservative. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian risk approach to MDPs with parameter uncertainty, where a risk functional is applied in nested form to the expected discounted total cost with respect to the Bayesian posterior distributions of the unknown parameters in each time stage. The proposed approach provides more flexibility of risk attitudes towards parameter uncertainty and takes into account the availability of data in future time stages. For the finite-horizon MDPs, we show the dynamic programming equations can be solved efficiently with an upper confidence bound (UCB) based adaptive sampling algorithm. For the infinite-horizon MDPs, we propose a risk-adjusted Bellman operator and show the proposed operator is a contraction mapping that leads to the optimal value function to the Bayesian risk formulation. We demonstrate the empirical performance of our proposed algorithms in the finite-horizon case on an inventory control problem and a path planning problem.
Molecular design and fabrication of PIM-1/polyphosphazene blend membranes with high performance for CO2/N2 separation

Abstract New polymeric blend membranes for CO2 separation were synthesized based on insights from molecular dynamics simulation. A molecular-level structure-property relationship in polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIM) based blend membranes was investigated in detail computationally. Calculated local density profiles and energy of interaction of the blend membranes, composed of PIM-1 and various polyphosphazenes, showed that using the polyphosphazene with a higher concentration of ether side chains can improve the compatibility with PIM-1. Based on the findings of computational studies, blend membranes were experimentally fabricated from PIM-1 and polyphosphazenes with various polyether side chain concentrations. Polyether concentration in polyphosphazenes was correlated with the film properties and gas transport performance of the blend membranes. Blend membranes showed very high CO2 permeability (3100-5300barrer) and improved CO2/N2 selectivity (24–28), outperforming all other PIM-based blend membranes reported to date. Moreover, the CO2 permeability performance of the blend membranes was tested 566 h under real post-combustion flue gas from a coal-fired power plant, including CO2, N2, H2O, O2, SOx and NOx.
Effect of Pincer Methylation on the Selectivity and Activity in (PNP)Cobalt-Catalyzed C(sp2)–H Borylation

Cobalt complexes supported by a tetramethylated PNP pincer ligand (Me4iPrPNP = 2,6-(iPr2PCMe2)2(C5H3N)) have been synthesized and structurally characterized. Examples include cobalt(I)–choride, −me...
Design and Performance of an Adjustable Two-Dimensional Nozzle with Boundary-Layer Correction

A two-dimensional nozzle with boundary-layer correction to both the shaped and unshaped walls was designed with an adjustable throat to operate at the nominal Mach Number = 3.106 and a static jet pressure of 85 microns of Hg (0.0236 lb. per sq.ft.). The nozzle was evaluated in a low-density free-jet wind tunnel (No. 2) located at the Low Pressures Project, University of California, and met substantially all of the design conditions with the exception of the desired free-stream cross section. Experimental results verified that it would operate over a limited Mach Number range without producing observable disturbances to the uniform exit flow.
Healthy Life Expectancy for Selected Race and Gender Subgroups: The Case of Tennessee

Objective: To analyze healthy life expectancy (HLE) for major racial and gender subgroups, based on the diverse population of Tennessee and compared with the United States.Materials and Methods: We use life table methodology and the HLE calculation model of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), using two databases for 2001: NCHS National Vital Statistics Reports life tables and CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey.Results: For Tennessee, although average total life expectancy (TLE) is 73.6 years at birth, only 61.1 years of good health are expected. Substantial racial and gender differences are found in both TLEs and HLEs with black males having the lowest and white females the highest. Although females have longer TLE, they spend more years in an unhealthy state than males.Conclusions: The findings raise new challenges for researchers and health policy makers for accomplishing the dual goals of longer life expectancy and elimination of health disparities among population subgroups.
Recent developments towards optimality in multiple hypothesis testing

Abstract: There are many diﬀerent notions of optimality even in testinga single hypothesis. In the multiple testing area, the number of possibilitiesis very much greater. The paper ﬁrst will describe multiplicity issues thatarise in tests involving a single parameter, and will describe a new optimalityresult in that context. Although the example given is of minimal practicalimportance, it illustrates the crucial dependence of optimality on the precisespeciﬁcation of the testing problem. The paper then will discuss the typesof expanded optimality criteria that are being considered when hypothesesinvolve multiple parameters, will note a few new optimality results, and willgive selected theoretical references relevant to optimality considerations underthese expanded criteria. 1. IntroductionThere are many notions of optimality in testing a single hypothesis, and many morein testing multiple hypotheses. In this paper, consideration will be limited to casesin which there are a ﬁnite number of individual hypotheses, each of which ascribesa speciﬁc value to a single parameter in a parametric model, except for a smallbut important extension: consideration of directional hypothesis-pairs concerningsingle parameters, as described below. Furthermore, only procedures for continuousrandom variables will be considered, since if randomization is ruled out, multipletests can always be improved by taking discreteness of random variables into con-sideration, and these considerations are somewhat peripheral to the main issues tobe addressed.The paper will begin by considering a single hypothesis or directional hypothesis-pair, where some of the optimality issues that arise can be illustrated in a simplesituation. Multiple hypotheses will be treated subsequently. Two previous reviewsof optimal results in multiple testing are Hochberg and Tamhane [28] and Shaﬀer[58]. The former includes results in conﬁdence interval estimation while the latteris restricted to hypothesis testing.2. Tests involving a single parameterTwo conventional types of hypotheses concerning a single parameter areH : θ ≤ 0 vs. A : θ > 0, (2.1)
Texas public school library media specialists' perceptions of the use of the Internet in their schools

With the advent of the 21st century, technological innovations are transforming the face of education and the school library media center. One of these significant developments is the ability to communicate through the Internet. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of Texas public school library media specialists who are active Internet users about their utilization of the Internet, and how their efforts in implementing and supervising Internet access in their school library media centers impact the Texas public schools that they serve. A survey instrument of Likert items was developed that queried these public school library media specialists for their perceptions of Internet use in their schools. MANOVA was the chosen statistical measure for this study. An initial electronic mail-out to 1,232 Texas public school library media specialists (K-12) with Internet addresses were contacted to participate in this study. After a time frame of one month, 196 Texas school library media specialists e-mailed the researcher, confirming their willingness to be a survey participant. All respondents to this e-mail request participated in this study, and a second U.S. mail-out was sent containing the actual survey instrument. The researcher found that the use of the Internet by school library media specialists in Texas did not increase global collegiality from the viewpoint of the survey respondents. Survey respondents felt that an Internet acceptable use policy did not ensure student access to the Internet in Texas public school library media centers. The study examined the relationship between acceptable use policies and Internet censorship, and the researcher found no connection between these two elements from the perspective of the school library media specialist. The study found that school library media specialists believe that their training did improve their students' library research skills. Furthermore, the survey respondents believed that their Internet training improved student learning. Finally, the study found no connection between school size, based on the Texas Education Agency's school classification system, and student access to the Internet.
Mechanical Behavior of Nanostructured Materials

The symposium, ‘‘Mechanical Behavior of Nanostructured Materials,’’ was held during the 2009 TMS Annual Meeting from February 15 to 19 in San Francisco, California. The symposium focused on understanding the mechanical behavior of ultra-fine-grained and nanostructured materials in the form of bulk, thin films, and nanowires. There is a good mixture of advanced experimental as well as theoretical and computational presentations in the symposium. Topics presented include the following: (1) synthesis and microstructural characterization of nanomaterials; (2) nanomechanics; (3) fatigue and fracture of nanomaterials; (4) deformation, plasticity, and creep in nanomaterials; (5) mechanical and thermal stability; (6) advanced characterization techniques including in-situ techniques and advances in nanomechanical testing techniques; and (7) theoretical, computational, and analytical modeling of mechanical properties of nanomaterials. Numerous articles in this special issue report the important results and perspectives presented in this symposium.
Bioactivation by Phase‐II‐Enzyme‐Catalyzed Conjugation of Xenobiotics

Phase-II-enzyme-catalyzed conjugation of xenobiotics with endogenous cofactors leads to hydrophilic derivatives that, in most cases, functions in the elimination and detoxification of xenobiotics from the body. However, this process can also mediate their bioactivation to chemically-reactive and hence potentially toxic metabolites. The major conjugation reactions known to be involved in xenobiotic bioactivation are glucuronidation, sulfonation, acetylation, GSH conjugation, and acyl-S-CoA formation. Chemically-reactive metabolites of xenobiotics can lead to covalent binding to protein and/or nucleic acids which some cases leads to intrinsic and/or idiosyncratic toxicity and carcinogenicity. This chapter will cover the known mechanisms of xenobiotic bioactivation by phase-II-drug-conjugating enzymes. Keywords: glucuronidation; sulfonation; n-acetylation; glutathione; acyl-s-CoA
Nuclear quadrupole interaction at Te125 in monoclinic selenium

Abstract The quadrupole splitting ( QS ) at Te 125 in monoclinic Se is measured to be 11.33 ± 0.05 mm/sec. This interaction is attributed to a Te site covalently bonded to two Se near neighbors in the ring geometry. The isomer-shift ( IS ) and ( QS ) in monoclinic Se are found larger than in trigonal Se. These results are suggestive of a structurally dissimilar SeTeSe molecular unit in mixed rings and helical chains.
Flood-plain management program in Rapid City, South Dakota

Following the devastating flood of June 9, 1972, Rapid City, South Dakota, embarked on a flood-plain management program. A “flood-way” was delineated and all homes and motels, as well as most commercial establishments, were removed from the floodway. Almost the entire area inundated by the 1972 flood is now a beautiful park, illustrating that man can live in harmony with natural processes without spending vast sums of money for hard engineering structures such as dams or levees. From a national perspective, it is desirable to reserve flood plains for agricultural use. Unfortunately, many flood plains are being urbanized, which not only takes agricultural land out of production, but also gives impetus to dam construction that results in the inundation of more land.
Multibody Modeling and Simulation for Mars Phoenix Entry, Descent, and Landing

A multibody flight simulation for the Phoenix Mars Lander was developed that included high-fidelity six-degreeof-freedom rigid-body models for the parachute and lander system. The simulation predicted attitude and rate histories of all bodies throughout the flight. In so doing, a realistic behavior of the descending parachute/lander system dynamics was simulated that allowed assessment of the Phoenix descent performance and identification of sensitivities for landing. This simulation provided a complete end-to-end capability of modeling the entire entry, descent, and landing sequence for the mission. The simulation was used to predict the parachute and lander aerodynamic angles during entry and the response of the lander system to various wind models and windshears. Several different wind models were analyzed to determine which was most effective at exciting vehicle attitude dynamics. The simulation was used to drive a Monte Carlo analysis that provided a statistical evaluation of the performance capability of the Phoenix landing system.
Electric control of magnetization relaxation in thin film magnetic insulators

Control of magnetization relaxation in magnetic insulators via interfacial spin scattering is demonstrated. The experiments use nanometer-thick yttrium iron garnet (YIG)/Pt layered structures, with the Pt layer biased by an electric voltage. The bias voltage produces a spin current across the Pt thickness. As this current scatters off the YIG surface, it exerts a torque on the YIG surface spins. This torque can reduce or enhance the damping and thereby decrease or increase the ferromagnetic resonance linewidth of the YIG film, depending on the field/current configuration.
A Vibrational Spectroscopic Study of the Structure of Electroactive Self-Assembled Monolayers of Viologen Derivatives

Abstract : Surface Enhanced Raman and glancing angle FTIR are used to characterize the structure of self-assembled monolayers of viologen derivatives at electrode surfaces. Both techniques rely on the surface selection rules. These monolayers were found to have some degree of order, with the long axis of the viologen group found to be along the surface normal.... Surface-enhanced Raman, Electrochemistry, FTIR.
Beyond the thin client model for location privacy

Location privacy in emerging location-based applications has been the center of extensive research in the past decade. While a number of efficient models and algorithms have been proposed over the years, majority of them were designed assuming a thin client model of computing. As a result, the dependence on third party systems, or the requirement for significant upgrades to the application architecture, could not be eliminated. The state-of-the-art in current mobile devices is now comparable to traditional desktop systems five years ago, presenting us the opportunity to move beyond the thin client model. Motivated by this observation, we propose a novel architecture for performing location-based points-of-interest search, where the client device can locally determine the top results using a small amount of metadata from the server. Precise location data of the user is never transmitted outside the device. We demonstrate that the computational power required to efficiently execute the algorithms is within the capabilities of current mobile devices.
Postgraduate emergency medicine training in the United States of America

Objectives: To describe the structure of emergency medicine residency training to Australasian emergency physicians and emergency medicine educators. Method: This paper begins with an overview of general education, traditional medical education and residency training in the United States. Postgraduate emergency medicine training is covered in detail. Fellowships and the status of sub-specialty training is discussed. The Residency Review Committee mandates certain structural aspects of a postgraduate training program, including the Core Content and Core Curriculum. Criteria are being developed for sub-specialty certification fellowships. Fellowships in emergency medicine remain mostly informal. The scope of practice of emergency medicine in the United States is described, along with the interim compromises made necessary because of the shortage of trained emergency physicians. Summary: Emergency medicine as a medical specialty is gaining recognition. An international exchange of information about training programs should improve emergency medicine everywhere.
Transparent conducting oxide nanotubes

Thin film or porous membranes made of hollow, transparent, conducting oxide (TCO) nanotubes, with high chemical stability, functionalized surfaces and large surface areas, can provide an excellent platform for a wide variety of nanostructured photovoltaic, photodetector, photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic devices. While large-bandgap oxide semiconductors offer transparency for incident light (below their nominal bandgap), their low carrier concentration and poor conductivity makes them unsuitable for charge conduction. Moreover, materials with high conductivity have nominally low bandgaps and hence poor light transmittance. Here, we demonstrate thin films and membranes made from TiO2 nanotubes heavily-doped with shallow Niobium (Nb) donors (up to 10%, without phase segregation), using a modified electrochemical anodization process, to fabricate transparent conducting hollow nanotubes. Temperature dependent current–voltage characteristics revealed that TiO2 TCO nanotubes, doped with 10% Nb, show metal-like behavior with resistivity decreasing from 6.5 × 10−4 Ωcm at T = 300 K (compared to 6.5 × 10−1 Ωcm for nominally undoped nanotubes) to 2.2 × 10−4 Ωcm at T = 20 K. Optical properties, studied by reflectance measurements, showed light transmittance up to 90%, within wavelength range 400 nm–1000 nm. Nb doping also improves the field emission properties of TCO nanotubes demonstrating an order of magnitude increase in field-emitter current, compared to undoped samples.
The relationship of high school graduation exams to graduation rates and SAT scores.

The current study examined the effect of high school graduation exams on states' graduation rates, states' aggregated SAT scores, and individual students' SAT scores. Three data sources were used: One source identified states requiring a standardized test for graduation; the NCES provided state aggregated data on graduation rates for the class of 2002; and the College Board provided its 2001 SAT database for all test-takers. After controlling for students' demographic characteristics (e.g., race, family education and income, GPA and class rank), regression analyses revealed that states requiring graduation exams had lower graduation rates and lower SAT scores. Individually, students from states requiring a graduation exam performed more poorly on the SAT than did students from states not requiring an exam. The impact of high stakes tests' on students' motivation to stay in school and on the teaching of critical thinking skills (tested by the SAT) are discussed.
THE BREEDING OF ORNAMENTAL EDIBLE PEACHES FOR MILD CLIMATES. I. INHERITANCE OF TREE AND FLOWER CHARACTERS

THE RAPIDLY increasing population of Southern California has resulted in a great increase in suburban homes with relatively small planting space. Accordingly, dual purpose trees combining ornamental value with the production of edible fruit are much in demand. Double flowering peach trees are the most popular of the ornamental deciduous trees because of their rapid growth, great profusion of bloom and ease of culture. Unfortunately, most varieties bear small, fuzzy, clingstone fruits with unattractive skin color and rather bitter flavor. The one exception seems to be the variety Aurora which has a medium size white freestone fruit, which, though lacking in color, is comparatively free of bitterness. Occasionally other trees are reported but all so far found are small, unattractive in color, and at best only fair in flavor. In order to develop ornamental varieties with larger freestone fruits, having good skin color and flavor, hybridization of the best commercial peaches with double flowering varieties was begun in the spring of 1936. In this report, only the data on the inheritance of tree and flower characteristics found to be of importance in accomplishing this objective are presented. MATERIAL AND METHODS.-The Babcock peach was selected as the white-fleshed commercial variety, because it has a well-shaped fruit of excellent skin color and sweet flavor. It was crossed with the Early Double Pink and Early Double Red varieties in the spring of 1936. These varieties have a short chilling requirement and so flower very uniformly and abundantly after even our mildest winters. Their clingstone fruits are very bitter, small and fuzzy, with the skin completely lacking in color. The Babcock was used as the female parent in these crosses because of the relatively high percentage of flowers which set fruit. The Rio Oso Gem was selected as one of the yellow fleshed commercial varieties because it has very large, high quality fruit when grown in regions with sufficient winter chilling. The July Elberta was used as the other yellow fleshed variety because it has a medium large fruit of good quality, even in Southern California, mainly due to its chilling requirement being short enough to be satisfied by our mild winters. Both Rio Oso Gem and July Elberta were crossed to the ornamental
A simple example on informativeness and performance

We present in this note a simple example in which increasing informativeness leads to decreasing performance.
Degenerative changes in endothelial and smooth muscle cells from aging swine ductus arteriosus and venosus

Degenerative changes in endothelial and smooth muscle cells from fetal, 2-month-, and 6-month-old swine ductus vasculature were observed. In fetal ductus, a discontinuous internal elastic lamina and increased extracellular mucopolysaccharide deposition were initially noted. At 2 months of age, there was widespread fibromuscular intimal thickening, the appearance of modified smooth muscle cells, increased medial fibrosis, and the occurrence of cell debris and nuclear pyknosis. Early modification of smooth muscle cells was marked by increased occurrence of lysosomes, widely dilated rough endoplasmic reticulum, and Golgi bodies. Abundant aggregates of Weibel-Palade bodies occurred in early endothelial cell degeneration. At 6 months of age, after complete anatomical closure, there was abundant lipid vacuole production by degenerated medial smooth muscle cells. This study demonstrates that at various stages of occlusion, endothelial and smooth muscle cells from ductus vasculature exhibit morphological changes which are qualitatively similar to atherosclerosis.
Characterization and regulation of neurokinin1 receptors in primary cultures of rat neonatal spinal neurons.

Abstract Neurokinin 1 receptors are the primary target of substance P released from neurons during neural transmission, yet little is known regarding the regulation of neurokinin 1 receptors on neurons. 125 I-Bolton-Hunter-substance P was used in the present studies to determine whether primary cultures of rat neonatal spinal cord express neurokinin 1 receptors and, therefore, can be used as a model to regulation of neuronal neurokinin receptors. 125 I-Bolton-Hunter-substance P bound to a single site in neuron-enriched cultures with an affinity of 256 nM, which is comparable to its high affinity binding on adult rat spinal cord. Treatment of neuron-enriched cultures with 10 nM substance P resulted in a 47% decrease in 125 I-Bolton-Hunter-substance P binding at 24h which was due to a decrease in affinity of the receptor. However, at 48 h after treatment with substance P, 125 I-Bolton-Hunter-substance P binding increased by 44%. The increase in binding was due to a two-fold increase in receptor density. These changes occurred in the presence of 0.5 μ M tetrodotoxin, decreasing the likelihood that the changes in binding were secondary to the release of transmitters by substance P. Furthermore, substance P 1–7 , a metabolite of substance P that hm putative physiological effects, did not alter 125 I-Bolton-Hunter-substance P binding. These data provide evidence that neuronal neurokinin 1 receptors are under homologous regulation in primary cultures of neonatai rat spinal cord and suggest that a similar mechanism occurs in vivo . Furthermore, the data suggest that a decrease in affinity of the neurokinin 1 receptor may contribute, in part, to tachyphylaxis to substance P.
Beyond Exposure: A Person‐Oriented Approach to Adolescent Media Diets

Research on adolescents' use of sexual media has been dominated by a variable-oriented perspective, focusing on incremental effects of media exposure on sexual behavior. The present investigation examines the ways in which adolescents select and organize their television viewing. This study used cluster analysis to identify, validate, and describe distinct profiles of adolescent television use. Eight discrete clusters emerged, each with a unique profile of primetime viewing. To validate the cluster solution, participants' television viewing profiles were compared with their music preferences. The study then examined the sexual content consumed by adolescents in different viewing clusters. Content analysis of the most popular programs revealed that participants in all clusters were watching programs that were high in sexual content alongside programs that were low in sexual content. None of the clusters demonstrated an exclusive preference for sexual content.
A rank minimization algorithm to enhance semidefinite relaxations of Optimal Power Flow

The Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem is non-convex and, for generic network structures, is NP-hard. A recent flurry of work has explored the use of semidefinite relaxations to solve the OPF problem. For general network structures, however, this approach may fail to yield solutions that are physically meaningful, in the sense that they are high rank - precluding their efficient mapping back to the original feasible set. In certain cases, however, there may exist a hidden rank-one optimal solution. In this paper an iterative linearization-minimization algorithm is proposed to uncover rank-one solutions for the relaxation. The iterates are shown to converge to a stationary point. A simple bisection method is also proposed to address problems for which the linearization-minimization procedure fails to yield a rank-one optimal solution. The algorithms are tested on representative power system examples. In many cases, the linearization-minimization procedure obtains a rank-one optimal solution where the naive semidefinite relaxation fails. Furthermore, a 14-bus example is provided for which the linearization-minimization algorithm achieves a rank-one solution with a cost strictly lower than that obtained by a conventional solver. We close by discussing some rank monotonicity properties of the proposed methodology.
A combination Alzheimer's therapy targeting BACE1 and neprilysin in 5XFAD transgenic mice.

Accumulating evidence indicates that partial inhibition of β-site APP-cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1), which initiates amyloid-β (Aβ) production, mitigates Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-like pathologies and memory deficits in a battery of transgenic mouse models. However, our previous investigations suggest that therapeutic BACE1 suppression may be beneficial only if targeted on earlier stages of AD and encounter dramatic reductions in efficacy during disease progression. This study was designed to test the possibility that a combination approach, aimed at inhibiting BACE1 and boosting neprilysin (a major Aβ-degrading enzyme) activities, may be able to mechanistically overcome the limited efficacy of anti-Aβ therapy in advanced AD. After crossbreeding between BACE1 heterozygous knockout (BACE1+/−), neprilysin transgenic (NEP) and 5XFAD mice, we analyzed the resultant mice at 12 months of age when 5XFAD controls showed robust amyloid-β (Aβ) accumulation and elevation of BACE1 expression (~2 folds). Although haploinsufficiency lowered BACE1 expression by ~50% in concordance with reduction in gene copy number, profound β-amyloidosis, memory deficits and cholinergic neuron death were no longer rescued in BACE1+/− · 5XFAD mice concomitant with their persistently upregulated BACE1 (i.e., equivalent to wild-type control levels). Notably, neprilysin overexpression not only prevented Aβ accumulation but also suppressed the translation initiation factor eIF2α-associated elevation of BACE1 and lowered levels of the β-secretase-cleaved C-terminal fragment of APP (C99) in NEP · 5XFAD mice. Interestingly, these markers for β-amyloidogenesis in BACE1+/− · NEP · 5XFAD mice were further reduced to the levels reflecting a combination of single BACE1 allele ablation and the abolishment of translational BACE1 upregulation. However, since neprilysin overexpression was striking (~8-fold relative to wild-type controls), memory impairments, cholinergic neuronal loss and β-amyloidosis were similarly prevented in NEP · 5XFAD and BACE1+/− · NEP · 5XFAD mice. Our findings indicate that robust overexpression of neprilysin is sufficient to ameliorate AD-like phenotypes in aged 5XFAD mice. We also found that Aβ-degrading effects of overexpressed neprilysin can block deleterious BACE1-elevating mechanisms that accelerate Aβ production, warranting further study to test whether interventions moderately activating neprilysin may be useful for boosting the limited efficacy of therapeutic BACE1 inhibition in treating AD with established Aβ pathology.
Analytic approach to second-harmonic generation with depletion and diffraction

A mode-expansion method [R. Asby, Phys. Rev. 187, 1062 (1969)] is used to obtain an explicit expression for the conversion efficiency in the second-harmonic-generation process when the pump-depletion and the diffraction effects are included.
Location of semen collection and time interval from collection to use for intrauterine insemination

The location of semen collection (home vs. clinic) for IUI did not affect pregnancy rates in a general infertility population (633 IUI cycles from 335 patients), if World Health Organization guidelines for time from specimen collection to use were followed. The time interval from semen collection to IUI was not different between patients who conceived and those who did not (pregnant vs. nonpregnant, 70 ± 19 minutes vs. 73 ± 18 minutes).