cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Fast GFR decline and progression to CKD among primary care patients with preserved GFR.

Fast glomerular filtration rate (GFR) decline is associated with adverse outcomes, but the associated risk factors among patients without chronic kidney disease (CKD) are not well defined. From a primary care registry of 37,796, we identified 2219 (6%) adults with at least three estimated (e)GFR values and a baseline eGFR between 60 and 119 ml/min/1.73 m2 during an observation period of 8 years. We defined fast GFR decline as > 5 ml/min/1.73 m2 per year. The outcome measure was incident CKD (eGFR < 60 ml/min/1.73 m2). Clinical and demographic characteristics were compared using Chi-square and independent-samples t tests. Older age, African-American race, unmarried status, hypertension and type 2 diabetes were more common in both fast decliners and those who developed incident CKD (p < 0.0001 to < 0.05). Lower neighborhood socioeconomic status, current smoking and baseline eGFR 90–119 ml/min/1.73 m2 were associated with fast decline (p < 0.01), while baseline eGFR 60–74 ml/min/1.73 m2 with incident CKD (p < 0.05). In multivariate regression models, among fast decliners with mildly reduced baseline eGFR (60–89 ml/min/1.73 m2), older age was significantly associated with incident CKD [odds ratio (OR) 1.04; 95% CI 1.01–1.08], and among those with normal baseline eGFR (≥ 90–119 ml/min/1.73 m2), type 2 diabetes was significantly associated with incident CKD (OR 3.83; 95% CI 1.35–10.89). Among primary care patients without CKD, GFR is checked infrequently. We have identified patients at high risk of progressive CKD, in whom we suggest a closer monitoring of renal function.
The Costs of Waiving Audit Adjustments

We analyze the disposition of auditor-proposed adjustments to financial statements. Our analysis addresses concerns, expressed by regulators and others, that auditors and their clients fixate on quantitative thresholds and overlook qualitative factors in assessing the materiality of discovered misstatements. Using a large sample of PCAOB-inspected audits, we examine the frequency with which management records vs. waives auditor-proposed adjustments and whether waiving proposed adjustments detracts from financial reporting reliability. We find that waived adjustments are linked both to lower financial reporting quality measured by material misstatements and to incentives to meet/beat analyst forecasts; the latter finding suggests disposition decisions can be an earnings-management mechanism. We also find that current-period and next-period audit effort and fees are higher when management waives proposed adjustments. Our evidence points to both costly consequences and possible earnings management benefits of waiving seemingly immaterial audit adjustments.
Taking advantage of modern turbines

Wind facilities have generally deployed turbines of the same power and height in regular uniform arrays. Now, the modern generation of turbines, with customer-selectable tower heights and larger rotors, can significantly increase wind energy’s economic potential using less land to generate cheaper electricity.
Platyparnus, a new genus of Dryopidae from the Guiana Shield (Coleoptera: Byrrhoidea, Dryopidae)

Platyparnus gen. n. is erected to include three species of Helichus Erichson, 1847, from the Guianas of northern South America. Proposed taxonomic reassignments are Platyparnus bollowi (Hinton, 193...
A New Surgical Procedure for Revision of Ileal Conduit Stoma in Children

Abstract The etiology of hypertrophic keratotic peristomal lesions is discussed and a new simple, cosmetic and functional operative procedure for excision of peristomal keratosis and revision of ileal loop stoma is described. Thisadvancement (full skin and subcutaneous fat) triangular flap is also useful in the surgical management of other stomal problems, such as prolapsed bud, peristomal hernias and peristomal scarring. Postoperative use of the proper size and type of collecting device, and the importance of achieving sterile acid urine are stressed to prevent further stomal complications.
Elementary Methods for Ordinary Differential Equations of First Order

Whenever one seeks to analyze mathematically a problem arising in the “real” world, the first order of business is the selection of a mathematical “model” or formulation for the problem. That is, one must choose or invent some mathematical problem to represent the real problem.
Setting the Appropriate Mix Between Active and Passive Management in the Investment Tranche of a Foreign Reserves Portfolio

Among the crucial questions a central bank faces when establishing an investment tranche of a foreign reserves portfolio are (1) should the investment tranche be subject to active management? (2) If it should, what is the appropriate mix of active risk and benchmark risk that maximizes the achievement of foreign reserves objectives? This chapter aims to overview the first question by reviewing the sources of alpha suggested by Merton (Foundations of asset management goal-based investing the next trend. MIT Finance Forum, MIT Sloan, 2014) and defining their relevance in a central bank’s foreign reserves context. The second question is answered by suggesting that maximizing the expected value of the logarithm of wealth (Kelly criterion) is superior to other approaches such as that pioneered by Treynor and Black (Journal of Business 66–86, 1973) in selecting the portfolio mix between active and passive.
VoCaM: visualization oriented convolutional neural network acceleration on mobile system

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been widely investigated as some of the most promising solution for various computer vision tasks. However, CNNs introduce massive computing overhead due to their complex network computing flow, resulting in significantly reduced applicability and performance, especially in the mobile devices. Various optimization schemes have been proposed mainly based on both model compression and stacked external computing resources. While these schemes have been proven effective, methods which take into account mobile-specific context-aware optimization approaches have been largely overlooked. One such opportunity is the feasible CNN computing flow simplification to the under-test objects with distinguish features, which can be efficiently pre-analyzed inside the mobile sensor system. Hence, we propose VoCaM, a visualization oriented CNN acceleration framework on mobile devices for image classification tasks. VoCaM takes advantage of the mobile camera system, where the comprehensive pre-analysis can be conducted to reveal the color composition of the under-test images without incurring any additional overhead. Also, the visualization analysis of VoCaM reveals that, certain color-specific filters may have very trivial result impact when the under-test images have mismatching primary color components. Then a set of approximate computing methods is applied to these insignificant filters to replace the intensive convolutional operation, and greatly accelerate the computing process. With ignorable overhead, VoCaM can significantly optimize the computation load of the convolutional layers, with very small impact on the overall classification accuracy.
Endangered mothers or ‘anchor babies’? Migration motivators for pregnant unaccompanied Central American teens

As politicians grapple with global migration policies, traditionally sympathetic populations such as pregnant migrant women now evoke suspicion and fear, evident in US usage of the disparaging term...
Nitrous Oxide Fluxes from Agricultural Streams in East-Central Illinois

Indirect nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions account for the majority of uncertainty associated with the global N2O budget. Agricultural streams with subsurface (tile) drainage are potential hotspots of indirect N2O emissions from streams and groundwater. However, there are only a limited number of studies with direct measurements from stream surfaces. Research presented here represents the first study of N2O emissions from agricultural streams in Illinois, USA. We measured water chemistry data from 10 sites in three watersheds in east-central Illinois. Additionally, floating chambers and gas transfer velocity models were used to measure N2O fluxes from the stream surface at 4 of the 10 sites. Dissolved N2O concentrations ranged from < 0.1 to 7.46 μg N2O-N L−1. Floating chamber N2O fluxes ranged from 0 to 13.84 μg N2O-N m−2 min−1. We found strikingly different patterns of nitrate (NO3−) concentrations at sites downstream of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent. Data from sites not affected by the WWTP expressed seasonal variations of NO3− with elevated concentrations in winter and spring months when subsurface tile drains were flowing. Floating chamber N2O fluxes were strongly correlated (p value 0.001) with NO3− at sites not affected by the WWTP. All sites were correlated with flow (p value 0.01) and dissolved N2O (p value 0.02). Our data suggest flow and dissolved N2O are stronger indicators of N2O flux from stream surfaces than NO3− concentrations in agricultural watersheds. Furthermore, this study supports growing concerns of estimating N2O emissions using linear relationships between N2O and NO3−, such as those used in IPCC estimates.
A Purification and In Vitro Activity Assay for a (p)ppGpp Synthetase from Clostridium difficile

Kinase and pyrophosphokinase enzymes transfer the gamma phosphate or the beta-gamma pyrophosphate moiety from nucleotide triphosphate precursors to substrates to create phosphorylated products. The use of γ-32-P labeled NTP precursors allows simultaneous monitoring of substrate utilization and product formation by radiography. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) on cellulose plates allows rapid separation and sensitive quantification of substrate and product. We present a method for utilizing the thin-layer chromatography to assay the pyrophosphokinase activity of a purified (p)ppGpp synthetase. This method has previously been used to characterize the activity of cyclic nucleotide and dinucleotide synthetases and is broadly suitable for characterizing the activity of any enzyme that hydrolyzes a nucleotide triphosphate bond or transfers a terminal phosphate from a phosphate donor to another molecule.
Relationships between vegetation in student environments and academic achievement across the continental U.S

Abstract Recent studies suggest that vegetation in student environments can enhance academic achievement. Identified relationships vary, however, and our understanding of the links between urban nature and academic performance remains incomplete. This study broadens this understanding by investigating associations between vegetation and urban intensity in school attendance areas and high school reading and mathematics proficiency and graduation rates. We utilize a sample of schools from across the U.S. This study is the first to explore these relationships at this extent. We estimated relationships between these indicators of academic achievement and tree canopy cover, non-forest vegetation, agricultural vegetation, and urban intensity using negative-binomial, mixed-effects models. Models included indicators of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, poverty, and class size and state and ecoregion random effects to account for socioeconomic, political, and ecological factors that could influence achievement and vegetation abundance. We found no significant relationships between environmental variables and academic achievement indicators across the full sample. However, we did observe significant interactions between urban intensity and non-forest vegetation as well as between socioeconomic status and tree canopy cover. These interactions indicated a positive relationship between non-forest vegetation and graduation rate for schools in highly-urban settings, and a negative relationship between canopy cover and graduation rate for schools that serve primarily low socioeconomic status populations. These results indicate that the effects of some vegetation types on academic achievement vary with urban intensity and socioeconomic context. These findings also suggest that managing urban vegetation to support academic performance requires an understanding of population social and environmental context.
Blockchain-Enabled Peer-to-Peer Data Trading Mechanism

The emerging data-driven techniques have greatly increased the demand for effective data sharing infrastructure, which is our fundamental motivation in designing effective data trade paradigms. One of the critical challenges of data sharing is to achieve a good trade-off between the privacy and data utility. To address this challenge, in this paper we exploit the Blockchain techniques and contract theory to design a Blockchain-based peer-to-peer data trading mechanism. In our proposed mechanism, the data trading is supported by Ethereum Blockhain technique. To effectively capture and regulate the complex interaction between the data aggregators (AGG) and the data owners, we propose a contract theoretic approach to design the smart contract that is the essential component of Ethereum Blockchain. The performance of our proposed Blockchain-enabled data trading mechanism is evaluated.
PSA Doubling Time and Absolute PSA Predict Metastasis-free Survival in Men With Biochemically Recurrent Prostate Cancer After Radical Prostatectomy.

Abstract Objective To investigate the association of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values on metastasis-free survival (MFS) in men with biochemically-recurrent prostate cancer (BRPC) and PSA doubling time (PSADT) Methods In this report, we combined databases from the Center for Prostate Disease Research and Johns Hopkins University (CPDR/JHU). In the CPDR/JHU radical prostatectomy database (30,936 total patients), 656 men with BRPC (>0.2ng/ml) after prostatectomy and PSADT Results Metastasis occurred in 250 of 656 patients with BRPC (median follow up 5 years). PSADT 3.0 months, after adjusting for Gleason score. A PSA value ≥0.5 ng/ml significantly and independently increased risk of metastasis in patients with PSADT Conclusions In men with PSADT 7.5 months, PSA > 0.5 ng/ml, and Gleason score are independent predictors of MFS on multivariable analysis.
Lessons from the A2A Adenosine Receptor Antagonist–Enabled Tumor Regression and Survival in Patients with Treatment-Refractory Renal Cell Cancer

In this issue of Cancer Discovery, Fong and colleagues describe the encouraging observations of tumor regression, disease control, and survival of patients with otherwise refractory renal cell cancer with progressive disease after treatment with the conceptually novel oral antagonist of the A2A adenosine receptor (A2AR), ciforadenant. A2AR antagonists may represent the until now missing but critically important part of more effective immunotherapies of cancer, because they prevent the inhibition of tumor-reactive T and natural killer cells by blocking the immunosuppressive hypoxia-A2A-adenosinergic signaling, which represents an emerging immunosuppressive hallmark of tumors that are the most resistant to therapies.See related article by Fong et al., p. 40.
US college students’ perceptions of social determinants of health, health equity and racial health disparities:

Objective:Healthy equity (HE) implies the highest possible standard of health for all people while giving special attention to the needs of those at greatest risk of poor health, based on social co...
Moving beyond the model as a copy problem: investigating the utility of teaching about structure-preserving transformations in the model-referent relationship

An important research objective in modelling instruction is defining what students should learn about the model-referent relationship, as when unguided, they tend to errantly think of models as lit...
The impact of the number of tests presented and a provider recommendation on decisions about genetic testing for cancer risk.

Abstract Objective To determine how the method of presenting testing options and a provider recommendation can influence a decision about genetic testing for inherited cancer predispositions. Methods An online hypothetical vignette study was completed by 454 healthy volunteers. Participants were randomized to receive one of two survey versions which differed by genetic testing choice presentation. One group was shown three options simultaneously (no test, 5-gene or 15-gene), and a second group received the 15-gene option after choosing between the no test and 5-gene options. A preference-based provider recommendation was also incorporated. We examined the effect of these interventions on test selection. Results Participants in the simultaneous group were more likely to choose a genetic test than those in the sequential group (OR: 2.35, p=0.003). This effect was no longer observed when individuals who had selected no-test in the sequential group were told about the 15-gene test (OR: 1.03 p=0.932). Incorporating a provider recommendation into the hypothetical scenario led to more preference-consistent choices (χ2 = 8.53, p Conclusions A larger menu of testing choices led to higher testing uptake. A preference-based clinician recommendation resulted in more preference-consistent choices. Practice Implications The structuring of testing options and preference-sensitive recommendations appear to facilitate informed testing decisions.
Isolation and Characterization of Endotoxin from Cyanobacteria (Blue-Green Algae)

A Sewickley, Pennsylvania, epidemic of water-borne gastroenteritis of unknown etiology which occurred in 1975 was characterized by high concentration of Schizothrix calcicola (Cyanobacteria) in the corresponding drinking water system. As a consequence, the most common cyanobacterial contaminants of drinking water were tested for endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide - LPS) content. LPS was isolated and characterized from Schizothrix calcicola, Anabaena flos-aquae (UTEX 1444), Oscillatoria tenuis, and Oscillatoria brevis. The isolation was performed by using Westphal’s modified phenol-water extraction method. Subsequently, the glucan contaminating LPS was eliminated by enzymatic hydrolysis by cellulase. The resulting macromolecular substances were composed of a polysaccharide moiety and a lipid part. Contrary to Wang and Hill’s report that Anabaena flos-aquae A37 contains a polysaccharide without covalently bound lipid, Anabaena flos-aquae (UTEX 1444) contained a true LPS. No endotoxin could be isolated from the toxic strain Anabaena flos-aquae NRC-44-1 and preliminarily from Anabaena cylindrica.
Blogs and Other Emerging Digital and Physical Intersections Between the Spanish-Speaking World and Japan

The sixth and final chapter discusses blogs and other emerging digital and physical intersections between the Spanish-speaking world and Japan. I make a reference to blogs and bloggers whose thousands of users enter their universe with a simple click and whose work not only promotes the exchange of information digitally but has also positively contributed to the promotion of written content. The chapter briefly discusses Twitter and other social networks. Finally, it touches upon newly established bilingual schools that are contributing positively to the education of a new generation of bilingual or even trilingual Spanish speakers in Japan, who are already and will continue to develop their own multi-faceted and nuanced cultural production in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Polar in-plane surface orientation of a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal: Polar monodomains and twisted state electro-optics.

We show that surface interactions can vectorially structure the three-dimensional polarization field of a ferroelectric fluid. The contact between a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal and a surface with in-plane polarity generates a preferred in-plane orientation of the polarization field at that interface. This is a route to the formation of fluid or glassy monodomains of high polarization without the need for electric field poling. For example, unidirectional buffing of polyimide films on planar surfaces to give quadrupolar in-plane anisotropy also induces macroscopic in-plane polar order at the surfaces, enabling the formation of a variety of azimuthal polar director structures in the cell interior, including uniform and twisted states. In a π-twist cell, obtained with antiparallel, unidirectional buffing on opposing surfaces, we demonstrate three distinct modes of ferroelectric nematic electro-optic response: intrinsic, viscosity-limited, field-induced molecular reorientation; field-induced motion of domain walls separating twisted states of opposite chirality; and propagation of polarization reorientation solitons from the cell plates to the cell center upon field reversal. Chirally doped ferroelectric nematics in antiparallel-rubbed cells produce Grandjean textures of helical twist that can be unwound via field-induced polar surface reorientation transitions. Fields required are in the 3-V/mm range, indicating an in-plane polar anchoring energy of wP ∼3 × 10−3 J/m2.
Individual prediction of nonadherence to oral mercaptopurine in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia: Results from COG AALL03N1

BACKGROUND Poor mercaptopurine (6MP) adherence (mean adherence rate < 90%) increases the relapse risk among children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). 6MP adherence remains difficult to measure in real time. Easily measured patient-level factors could identify patients at risk for poor adherence. METHODS The authors measured 6MP adherence via electronic monitoring for 6 months per patient. Using data from month 3, they created a risk prediction model for 6MP nonadherence in 407 children with ALL (mean age, 7.7 ± 4.4 years); they used receiver operating characteristic analyses in the training set (n = 250) and replicated this in the test set (n = 157). RESULTS Age, race/ethnicity, 6MP dose intensity, absolute neutrophil count, 6MP ingestion patterns, and household structure were retained in the prediction model. The model yielded areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUCs) of 0.79 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.71-0.85) and 0.74 (95% CI, 0.63-0.85) in the training and test sets, respectively. The model performed better for those who were ≥12 years old (AUC, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.59-0.99) than those <12 years old (AUC, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.58-0.81). Using the predicted probability of nonadherence based on receiver operating characteristic analysis, the authors developed a binary risk classifier to classify patients with a high or low probability of nonadherence. The sensitivity and specificity of the binary risk classifier were 71% and 76%, respectively. Adjusted for clinical prognosticators, the risk of relapse was 2.2-fold higher (95% CI, 0.94-5.1; P = .07) among patients with a high probability of nonadherence in comparison with those with a low probability, as identified by the risk prediction model. CONCLUSIONS The risk prediction model identified patients with a high probability of nonadherence and could be used in real time to personalize recommendations and interventions in the clinic. LAY SUMMARY The vast majority of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common childhood cancer, are cured. The treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia includes taking an oral chemotherapy medicine (mercaptopurine) for approximately 2 years. Children who miss doses of this medicine (specifically children who take the medicine less than 90% of the time that it is prescribed) are more likely to suffer leukemia relapse. The authors of this article have measured mercaptopurine adherence with electronic bottle caps to determine characteristics of patients that predict nonadherence, and they have created a prediction tool that could allow physicians to identify and intervene with patients at high risk of nonadherence.
Optimal Design of Sustainable Ammonia-Based Food–Energy–Water Systems with Nitrogen Management

As the basis for virtually any form of nitrogen fertilizers, ammonia plays a vital role in agriculture; in addition, there has been an increased interest in its use as a carbon-free energy carrier....
Declarative Machine Learning Systems: The future of machine learning will depend on it being in the hands of the rest of us.

The people training and using ML models now are typically experienced developers with years of study working within large organizations, but the next wave of ML systems should allow a substantially larger number of people, potentially without any coding skills, to perform the same tasks. These new ML systems will not require users to fully understand all the details of how models are trained and used for obtaining predictions, but will provide them a more abstract interface that is less demanding and more familiar. Declarative interfaces are well-suited for this goal, by hiding complexity and favoring separation of interest, and ultimately leading to increased productivity.
Experimental Allergic Neuritis and Other Immunologically Associated Peripheral Neuropathies

In 1955, Waksman and Adams1 first observed that injection of homologous or heterologous peripheral nerve tissue in combination with killed tubercle bacillus and mineral oil would result in a peripheral neuropathy characterized by demyelinative lesions. These lesions were found only in the peripheral nerves, spinal roots, and ganglia and not in any part of the central nervous system; therefore, these authors proposed the term “experimental allergic neuritis” (EAN) in parallel with the better-known condition “experimental allergic encephalomyelitis” (EAE) produced similarly in the central nervous system by injection of CNS tissue.
Hyperkalemia and Residual Neuromuscular Blockade After Kidney Transplantation

A 55-year-old woman underwent cadaveric kidney transplantation complicated by postoperative hypotension which required repeat laparotomy and abdominal exploration. At the end of the second operation, the patient showed signs of mild residual neuromuscular blockade and so was extubated in the recovery room. Shortly thereafter, the patient developed hypoventilation and was reintubated. Further investigation also revealed hyperkalemia. Lessons discussed in this chapter include anesthetic considerations for chronic kidney disease, management of hyperkalemia, assessment of recovery from neuromuscular blockade, and extubation criteria.
Paired associate learning in the rat: Role of hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex, and parietal cortex

Rats were tested for their ability to learn a list of four paired associates (foods paired with spatial locations). In this task, rats display increased levels of correct orienting responses as a function of serial position of the paired associate within the list (temporal order function) when short inter-trial intervals are used between paired associates. Furthermore, the rats are more likely to use intramaze rather than extramaze cues. These data suggest that rats utilize a temporal strategy to remember a list of paired associates. After training in this task, new rats received medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, parietal cortex, or cortical control lesions and were retested. The data indicate that rats with cortical control lesions continued to display a temporal order function, whereas rats with medial prefrontal cortex lesions showed a reduction in the number of correct orienting responses and failed to demonstrate the temporal order function, suggesting that the medial prefrontal cortex might mediate the selection of temporal strategies. Rats with hippocampal lesions also showed a marked reduction in level of correct orienting responses, but they continue to display a temporal order function, suggesting that these rats can still utilize a temporal strategy, but may have difficulties in remembering the appropriate paired associate items. Rats with parietal lesions did not display any significant changes in their temporal order function.
C 3 E: a framework for combining ensembles of classifiers and clusterers

The combination of multiple classifiers to generate a single classifier has been shown to be very useful in practice. Similarly, several efforts have shown that cluster ensembles can improve the quality of results as compared to a single clustering solution. These observations suggest that ensembles containing both classifiers and clusterers are potentially useful as well. Specifically, clusterers provide supplementary constraints that can improve the generalization capability of the resulting classifier. This paper introduces a new algorithm named C3E that combines ensembles of classifiers and clusterers. Our experimental evaluation of C3E shows that it provides good classification accuracies in eleven tasks derived from three real-world applications. In addition, C3E produces better results than the recently introduced Bipartite Graph-based Consensus Maximization (BGCM) Algorithm, which combines multiple supervised and unsupervised models and is the algorithm most closely related to C3E.
Cannula-based computational fluorescence microscopy

We converted a solid-glass cannula into a high-resolution widefield fluorescence microscope. Calibrating the space-variant point-spread functions of the cannula and applying a nonlinear optimization algorithm to reconstruct object details enable this development. The resolution of our system is ∼1 μm, and fluorophore position is determined to a precision of ∼20 nm. Images of microglia from fixed slices of mouse brains at various post-natal development stages were also obtained.
Expression of a cDNA Isolated from Rat Brown Adipose Tissue and Heart Identifies the Product as the Muscle Isoform of Carnitine Palmitoyltransferase I (M-CPT I): M-CPT I IS THE PREDOMINANT CPT I ISOFORM EXPRESSED IN BOTH WHITE (EPIDIDYMAL) AND BROWN ADIPOCYTES (∗)

We set out to determine if the cDNA encoding a carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT)-like protein recently isolated from rat brown adipose tissue (BAT) by Yamazaki et al. (Yamazaki, N., Shinohara, Y., Shima, A., and Terada, H. (1995) FEBS Lett. 363, 41-45) actually encodes the muscle isoform of mitochondrial CPT I (M-CPT I). To this end, a cDNA essentially identical to the original BAT clone was isolated from a rat heart library. When expressed in COS cells, the novel cDNA and our previously described cDNA for rat liver CPT I (L-CPT I) gave rise to products with the same kinetic characteristics (sensitivity to malonyl-CoA and Km for carnitine) as CPT I in skeletal muscle and liver mitochondria, respectively. When labeled with [3H]etomoxir, recombinant L-CPT I and putative M-CPT I, although having approximately the same predicated masses (88.2 kDa), migrated differently on SDS gels, as did CPT I from liver and muscle mitochondria. The same was true for the products of in vitro transcription and translation of the L-CPT I and putative M-CPT I cDNAs. We conclude that the BAT cDNA does in fact encode M-CPT I. Northern blots using L- and M-CPT I cDNA probes revealed the presence of L-CPT I mRNA in liver and heart and its absence from skeletal muscle and BAT. M-CPT I mRNA, which was absent from liver, was readily detected in skeletal muscle and was particularly strong in heart and BAT. Whereas the signal for L-CPT I was more abundant than that for M-CPT I in RNA isolated from whole epididymal fat pad, this was reversed in purified adipocytes from this source. These findings, coupled with the kinetic properties and migration profiles on SDS gels of CPT I in brown and white adipocytes, indicate that the muscle form of the enzyme is the dominant, if not exclusive, species in both cell types.
Investigating the effectiveness of implementing the science writing heuristic on student performance in general chemistry

A two-semester longitudinal study investigated the role a laboratory instructional strategy, the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH), had on improving student academic performance in the lecture portion of the course. The SWH helps students do inquiry science laboratory work by structuring the laboratory notebook in a format that guides students to answer directed questions instead of using a traditional laboratory report. In this approach, students must make a claim (inference) about what was learned through the laboratory experiment and provide evidence to support that claim. Then, through reflection, students continue to negotiate meaning from the experiment(s) they conducted. The structure of a successful implementation of the SWH requires a student-centered learning environment. In this study, both students and instructors were rated on how well they implemented the SWH and inquiry. The more proficiently an instructor engages students to do inquiry and use the SWH, the more effectively students respond to learning. This approach helps women close the gender gap that exists at the beginning of the course and it helps students who enter the course with less chemistry knowledge than their peers learn chemistry during the second semester of the course when more difficult topics are studied.
Symbolic bones and interethnic violence in a frontier zone, northwest Mexico, ca. 500–900 C.E.

Although extensive deposits of disarticulated, commingled human bones are common in the prehispanic Northern Frontier of Mesoamerica, detailed bioarchaeological analyses of them are not. To our knowledge, this article provides the first such analysis of bone from a full residential-ceremonial complex and evaluates multiple hypotheses about its significance, concluding that the bones actively represented interethnic violence as well as other relationships among persons living and dead. Description of these practices is important to the discussion of multiethnic societies because the frontier was a context where urbanism and complexity were emerging and groups with the potential to form multiethnic societies were interacting, possibly in the same ways that groups did before the formation of larger multiethnic city-states in the core of Mesoamerica.
Group Theory and Crystal Field Theory

Publisher Summary The chapter describes crystal field theory that concerns with an attempt to calculate as much as possible about the behavior of solids on the basis of a known or assumed symmetry of the problem and with the simplifying assumption that the interaction between the ion or atom of interest and its nearest neighbors is electrostatic in nature. Some recent group theoretical developments have made the application of group theoretical methods to solid state physics much more convenient. At the same time, physical problems have become much more complex. These two trends have combined to revive interest in group theoretical methods. Thus, it has seemed worthwhile to present the fundamental ideas of group theory and their application to crystal field theory from an advanced point of view, taking into account recent developments and problems. This chapter is on principles and theoretical methods, rather than results. Several topics of special relevance to crystal field theory are discussed—namely, time reversal and the Kramers theorem, and the Jahn-Teller theorem. With these preliminaries taken care of, the discussion of crystal field theory is straightforward.
Does transformational leadership build resilient public and nonprofit organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of transformational leadership – broadly defined as an individual who is visionary, innovative, inspirational and sensitive to the needs of followers – on the level of organizational resiliency. Design/methodology/approach – This study employs multiple hierarchical regression analysis to test the causal relationship between transformational leadership and organizational resiliency by utilizing 112 respondents working in emergency management departments of local governments, fire and police stations, and nonprofit organizations in the Southeastern Economic Region of South Korea. Findings – The results of the analysis indicate that transformational leadership style has a positive and statistically significant effect on perceived organizational resiliency. The findings also indicate that elected officials such as mayors are more likely to focus on building organizational resiliency than appointed officials and nonprofit leaders. Originality/value –...
Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society.; Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I.

Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. Nadia Abu El-Haj .Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. vii. 352 pp., illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I. Donald Malcolm Reid .Reid. Berkeley. University of California Press, 2002. ix. 409 pp., illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index.
A Web Enabled Process for Accessing Customized Parametric Designs

Parametric design facilitates mass customization, concurrent engineering, optimization, and other product development integration processes used during preliminary and detailed design stages. Automated methods for regenerating and accessing parametric models can significantly reduce the time-to-market of new products. Applications that automate this process have inherent limitations based on the available features in commercial CAD systems. New technologies such as the component technology, used in conjunction with parametric and Internet-based design can eliminate current limitations of CAD applications based on Application Programming Interfaces. Joint educational/industrial examples will be used to illustrate where limitations have been reached with custom CAD applications built on commercial systems lacking the component technology. Furthermore, the CAD Services framework for the development of CAD and Computer-aided Manufacturing/Engineering (CAM/CAE) applications using the component technology will be discussed.Copyright © 2002 by ASME
The Dissemination of Efficacious Psychological Treatments

I concur with Dr. Garfield that therapist, client, and common treatment factors are important and are often likely to explain significant outcome variance. I disagree with him in terms of whether the existence of such other outcome predictors should lead to a decision not to disseminate efficacious treatments. The list of examples of empirically validated treatments by the American Psychological Association Division 12 Task Force was not an effort at minimizing the importance of such client, therapist, and common factors but rather an attempt to help disseminate what has been learned regarding treatments. The list of empirically validated treatments is fully compatible with an eclectic approach. I conclude with the recommendation that dissemination of empirically validated treatments is probably most successfully done through training programs.
Pectin/Starch/Glycerol Films: Blends or Composites?

Abstract The miscibility of pectin (P), starch (S), and glycerol (G) in films was investigated by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), tensile measurements, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and film dissolution studies. DMA revealed that P/S/G films exhibit up to three thermodynamic transitions prior to film degradation when heated. Transitions appear to be induced or enhanced by the addition of glycerol. The lowest transition occurred below −50°C, the second above room temperature and below 100°C, and the third above 100°C. DMA and SEM on P/S/G films containing starch solubilized for various lengths of time revealed that a tenfold difference in the particle size of starch produced no more than a 20% difference in the dynamic moduli. Tensile measurements revealed that changes in glycerol content or relative humidity induced greater changes in mechanical properties than time of starch solubilization (gelatinization). FT-IR spectra of P/S/G films revealed th...
Myopic Solutions of Markov Decision Processes and Stochastic Games

Sufficient conditions are presented for a Markov decision process to have a myopic optimum and for a stochastic game to possess a myopic equilibrium point. An optimum or an equilibrium point is said to be "myopic" if it can be deduced from an optimum or an equilibrium point of a static optimization problem or a static [Nash] game. The principal conditions are a each single period reward is the sum of terms due to the current state and action, b each transition probability depends on the action taken but not on the state from which the transition occurs, and c an appropriate static optimum or equilibrium point is ad infinitum repeatable. These conditions are satisfied by several dynamic oligopoly models and numerous Markov decision processes.
An FDA bioinformatics tool for microbial genomics research on molecular characterization of bacterial foodborne pathogens using microarrays

Advances in microbial genomics and bioinformatics are offering greater insights into the emergence and spread of foodborne pathogens in outbreak scenarios. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has developed a genomics tool, ArrayTrackTM, which provides extensive functionalities to manage, analyze, and interpret genomic data for mammalian species. ArrayTrackTM has been widely adopted by the research community and used for pharmacogenomics data review in the FDA’s Voluntary Genomics Data Submission program. ArrayTrackTM has been extended to manage and analyze genomics data from bacterial pathogens of human, animal, and food origin. It was populated with bioinformatics data from public databases such as NCBI, Swiss-Prot, KEGG Pathway, and Gene Ontology to facilitate pathogen detection and characterization. ArrayTrackTM’s data processing and visualization tools were enhanced with analysis capabilities designed specifically for microbial genomics including flag-based hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), flag concordance heat maps, and mixed scatter plots. These specific functionalities were evaluated on data generated from a custom Affymetrix array (FDA-ECSG) previously developed within the FDA. The FDA-ECSG array represents 32 complete genomes of Escherichia coli and Shigella. The new functions were also used to analyze microarray data focusing on antimicrobial resistance genes from Salmonella isolates in a poultry production environment using a universal antimicrobial resistance microarray developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The application of ArrayTrackTM to different microarray platforms demonstrates its utility in microbial genomics research, and thus will improve the capabilities of the FDA to rapidly identify foodborne bacteria and their genetic traits (e.g., antimicrobial resistance, virulence, etc.) during outbreak investigations. ArrayTrackTM is free to use and available to public, private, and academic researchers at http://www.fda.gov/ArrayTrack .
The mediational effect of affect regulation on the relationship between attachment and internalizing/externalizing behaviors in adolescent males who have sexually offended

Abstract Research has shown that adults who sexually offend frequently report perpetrating a sexual offense for the first time during childhood/adolescence; therefore in this preliminary study, we examine the possible covariates related to offending sexually in adolescents. For this study, 62 incarcerated adolescents at a correctional facility in Alabama completed self-report questionnaires regarding demographic information, internalizing/externalizing behavior problems, attachment, and affect regulation. The results of this study indicate that attachment is related to internalizing and externalizing behaviors, as well as, both adaptive affect regulation and maladaptive affect regulation. Through path analyses, this study was the first to test and find that affect regulation ability mediated the relationship between attachment and externalizing behavior; however, it did not mediate the relationship between attachment and internalizing behavior. Interestingly, maladaptive affect regulation appeared to have a stronger influence on problem behaviors than adaptive affect regulation for these adolescents. The findings from this study could help professionals identify more successful therapeutic interventions for these adolescents and consequently prevent later sexual offending and further negative, individual or societal outcomes.
A Physiological Model for Motion-Stereo Integration and a Unified Explanation of Pulfrich-like Phenomena

Many psychophysical and physiological experiments indicate that visual motion analysis and stereoscopic depth perception are processed together in the brain. However, little computational effort has been devoted to combining these two visual modalities into a common framework based on physiological mechanisms. We present such an integrated model in this paper. We have previously developed a physiologically realistic model for binocular disparity computation (Qian, 1994). Here we demonstrate that under some general and physiological assumptions, our stereo vision model can be combined naturally with motion energy models to achieve motion-stereo integration. The integrated model may be used to explain a wide range of experimental observations regarding motion-stereo interaction. As an example, we show that the model can provide a unified account of the classical Pulfrich effect (Morgan & Thompson, 1975) and the generalized Pulfrich phenomena to dynamic noise patterns (Tyler, 1974; Falk, 1980) and stroboscopic stimuli (Burr & Ross, 1979).
Carbohydrate tolerance, serum albumin and protein values of normal and “waster” marmosets (Callithrix jacchus)

The major objective of this study was to establish standard glucose and lactose tolerance curves for the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus). These data were utilized to establish criteria for detection of abnormal glucose tolerance and characterization of some aspects of the “marmoset wasting syndrome” which has been observed in this species. Glucose and lactose tolerance tests were performed on healthy animals and typical “marmoset wasters.” Eighteen normal animals were 18 to 36 months old and weighed 194–280 g. Six “wasters” were in the age range of 24 to 84 months and weighed 163–253 g. Seven experiments were carried out for each glucose tolerance test. In each trial it was observed that the serum glucose concentration (SGC) of the healthy animal after 90 min was two times higher than the pre-administration concentrations. The SGC returned to the pre-administration concentration within 150–300 min in animals administered glucose at dosages of 2 g/kg and 1 g/kg of body weight. However, at the dosage level of 5 g/kg body weight, the SGC of the animals tripled after 30 min and required 300 min to return to the pre-administration level. The 2 g/kg dosage level was chosen as typical. When similar experiments were conducted with animals identified as “chronic wasters,” all of the animals except one were observed to be inefficient in the absorption of glucose. When lactose was administered at a level of 4 g/kg, similar results were obtained. Normal and “waster” marmosets were also subjected to serum total protein, albumin and electrophoresis determinations in an effort to establish additional criteria that may be utilized in the identification of the “marmoset wasting” syndrome. Serum albumin was significantly higher in the “waster” marmosets 30 min following an oral administration of glucose than was observed in normal animals. Total protein values were not significantly lower in the “wasters” when subjected to the same tolerance test. The albumin level in normal animals was not affected by similar glucose tolerance tests. The electrophoretic patterns of serum protein for normal animals exhibited more bands than was observed in patterns of serum protein for “waster” marmosets. From these data, it seems logical that these diagnostic tests may be useful in developing a profile for the early detection of the “wasting” syndrome in marmosets.