cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Information framing effects in social and personal decisions

Abstract Information framing effects are defined when the manner in which stimuli are labeled or framed affects their evaluation. Two experiments are reported in which level of personal involvement, as well as information frame, is manipulated. In Experiment 1 the incidence of cheating was rated higher by subjects receiving the statement, “65% of the students had cheated during their college career” than by subjects receiving the statement “35% of the students had never cheated.” However, subjects were not influenced by these statements when expressing the likelihood of turning in a cheater or changing their own answers on an exam. In Experiment 2 subjects who were told that a new medical treatment had a “50% success rate” rated the treatment as more effective and were more apt to recommend it to others, including members of their immediate family, than subjects who were told that the treatment had a “50% failure rate.” Results were discussed in terms of the robustness of the framing effect when external sources of information are necessary to an informed judgment. An “anchoring and adjustment” model was used to explain the observed framing effects.
Effect of fluid presence on the dynamic response of imperfectly bonded buried orthotropic cylindrical shells

Abstract In this paper the axisymmetric dynamic response of an imperfectly bonded fluid-filled orthotropic cylindrical shell, excited by a plane longitudinal wave, is considered. A thick-shell model including the effects of shear deformation and rotary inertia has been taken. Effects of imperfect bond between the shell/pipe and the surrounding soil have been included by considering a layer of an infinitesimally small thickness between the pipe and the soil. This layer possesses stiffness and damping properties against any axial or radial movement. The linear acoustic equation has been used for wave propagation in the fluid inside the pipe. It is found that under certain conditions the effect of fluid presence can become comparable to the effect of loose contact between the shell and the surrounding soil. Also, it has been found that the presence of fluid inside the pipeline alters the radial displacement of the shell more than its axial displacement, and sometimes its effect is greater on an imperfectly bonded shell than it is on a perfectly bonded shell. In general, however, the fluid effect is not found to be as important as that of the bond imperfection between the shell and the ground.
The effects of the cholecystokinin antagonist, proglumide, on gonadotropin release in the rat

Abstract Since cholecystokinin had manifest effects on anterior pituitary hormone secretion following its intraventricular injection in ovariectomized rats, we have evaluated the effects of the cholecystokinin antagonist, proglumide, to assess the physiologic significance of CCK in the control of gonadotropin secretion. Conscious rats of either sex were used following implantation of third ventricular and/or intravenous cannulae for the administration of proglumide. Blood samples were drawn from conscious animals at various times after the injection of the compound. In castrate female rats proglumide produced a small but significant increase in plasma LH whether administered by the intravenous or intraventricular route at the lower dose of 10 or 2 μg, respectively. The higher doses of 10 μg injected intraventricularly or 100 μg, injected intravenously failed to affect LH levels in these animals. In contrast there was a much larger increase in plasma LH in castrate males following intraventricular or intravenous injection of the lower doses of proglumide. Even after the higher doses, there was a slight increase in levels of LH by either route of injection. The results indicate that in the castrate animal proglumide can elevate LH levels by either route of injection but that the response is greater in castrate males than females. The reduction in response with the higher doses may reflect an agonist activity of proglumide. By contrast proglumide had no effect on plasma FSH except for a slight elevation observed following the intravenous or intraventricular injection of the lower doses of the compound in castrate males. The results favor a physiologically significant role of CCK in control of LH release in the rat. The results vary depending on the sex of the animal. Since CCK has no effect on the release of LH by the pituitary directly these interactions are presumably taking place in the hypothalamus.
Rapid Molecular Motion of Pyrene and Benzene Moieties Covalently Attached to Silica Surfaces

Remarkably large rotational diffusion rates have been determined for silica-attached 1-pyrene at the solid/air interface through time-dependent fluorescence anisotropy measurements. Diffusion rates D∥ and D⊥ were determined to be 4 × 106 and 2 × 106 s-1, respectively, by treating the motion of the attached moiety as an oblate ellipsoid of rotation. 13C NMR measurements on solid, silica-attached benzene-1-13C, acquired using conventional solution NMR methods, gave remarkable, high-resolution spectra. A lower limit for the rate of phenyl group motion was estimated to be 1.5 × 105 s-1, consistent with the fluorescence anisotropy data measured for silica-attached 1-pyrene. Molecular mechanics models for phenyl attached to representative silanol surfaces predict rotational barriers for phenyl rotations in the 2−5 kcal/mol range.
Hormone receptors in breast cancer: racial differences in distribution and survival.

The purpose of this study was to describe hormone receptor status and analyze the effect of receptors on survival from breast cancer. Comparisons were made between African–American and Caucasian racial categories. Breast cancer data from 1990 through 1997 collected by the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program were analyzed. Subjects were 993 Caucasian men, 12,303 African–American women, and 141,045 Caucasian women. The number of African–American men was too small to analyze separately (n = 93). In addition to analysis of estrogen and progesterone receptor status by sex and race, tumor and patient characteristics included age, stage at time of diagnosis, and tumor histology. The proportion of Caucasian men with hormone receptor positive tumors remained relatively high and stable for all ages. In women, the proportion of hormone receptor positive tumors increased with age, with African–American women having the highest proportion of hormone receptor negative tumors. Caucasian men had highest proportions of hormone receptor positive tumors in all histology and stage groups, while African–American women had lowest proportions of hormone receptor positive tumors in all stage and histologic categories. Survival for African–American women was significantly worse for each hormone receptor category. In multivariate analyses, race was a significant independent predictor of survival, but sex was not. Although reasons for differences in hormone receptor status by sex and race are unknown, several hypotheses are discussed with respect to differences in tumor histopathology and risk factors.
Chronic blockade of endothelin A and B receptors using macitentan in experimental renovascular disease

Background Emerging research has identified the endothelin (ET)-1 pathway as a potential target for novel renoprotective therapies. We recently showed that selective ET-A receptor antagonism in chronic renovascular disease (RVD) improves renal function and reduces renal injury. Although ET-A and -B have opposing roles, in some clinical situations they may induce similar effects. Thus, we hypothesized that simultaneous blockade of the ET-A and -B receptors would protect the kidney during RVD. Methods Unilateral RVD was induced in pigs. After 6 weeks, single-kidney function was quantified in vivo using multi-detector computer tomography. Pigs were subsequently divided into untreated (RVD, n = 7) or daily-treated with the dual ET-A/B receptor antagonist macitentan (RVD + macitentan, n = 6) for 4 weeks. At 10 weeks, in vivo studies were repeated, then pigs were euthanized and ex vivo studies performed in the stenotic kidney to quantify inflammation, fibrosis, microvascular density and remodeling. Results Four weeks of macitentan therapy modestly improved renal blood flow (29%, P = 0.06 versus pre-treatment) and showed protective effects on the renal parenchyma by attenuating inflammation and glomerulosclerosis, reducing apoptosis and tubular casts and improving albuminuria and cortical microvessel density. No overt adverse effects were observed. Conclusion Possibly by inducing a pro-survival renal microenvironment, macitentan increased renal microvascular density, promoted cell survival and decreased injury, which in turn improved stenotic kidney hemodynamics in our model. Our results further support the safety of using macitentan in patients with concomitant chronic renal disease and supported the feasibility of a new strategy that may preserve the stenotic kidney in RVD.
Central lobe energy in the far-field irradiance pattern of a 2-D array of coherent Gaussian sources

An expression is presented for the far-field irradiance pattern of a two-dimensional array of diode lasers. The fraction of the power that can be located in the central lobe is computed. (AIP)
Continuum regularization of gauge theory with fermions

The covariant-derivative regularization program is discussed ford-dimensional gauge theory coupled to fermions in an arbitrary representation.
Miscanthus biomass productivity within US croplands and its potential impact on soil organic carbon

Interest in bioenergy crops is increasing due to their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. We combined process-based and geospatial models to estimate the potential biomass productivity of miscanthus and its potential impact on soil carbon stocks in the croplands of the continental United States. The optimum (climatic potential) rainfed productivity for field-dried miscanthus biomass ranged from 1 to 23 Mg biomass ha−1 yr−1, with a spatial average of 13 Mg ha−1 yr−1 and a coefficient of variation of 30%. This variation resulted primarily from the spatial heterogeneity of effective rainfall, growing degree days, temperature, and solar radiation interception. Cultivating miscanthus would result in a soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration at the rate of 0.16–0.82 Mg C ha−1 yr−1 across the croplands due to cessation of tillage and increased biomass carbon input into the soil system. We identified about 81 million ha of cropland, primarily in the eastern United States, that could sustain economically viable (>10 Mg ha−1 yr−1) production without supplemental irrigation, of which about 14 million ha would reach optimal miscanthus growth. To meet targets of the US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 using miscanthus as feedstock, 19 million ha of cropland would be needed (spatial average 13 Mg ha−1 yr−1) or about 16% less than is currently dedicated to US corn-based ethanol production.
Trends in Digital Image Processing Research

We first review briefly the four major areas of image processing: computer graphics, efficient coding, restoration and enhancement, and pattern recognition. Then we discuss some general trends in digital image processing research.
Cold water immersion for the oedematous hand in stroke patients

One of the therapeutic effects of cold application is to decrease oedema through local vasoconstriction. The oedematous hand of the hemiplegic side in the stroke patient is common and usually due to the dependency and the lack of motor function of the hand, or as a result of reflex sympathetic dystrophy. The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of cold water immersion therapy for the oedematous hand by measurement of hand volume before and after the therapy. To determine the experimental error in measurement of hand volume, 13 normal subjects were tested as the control study, 10 times each, by measurement of the overflow of water when the hand was immersed. A water tank with a temperature control was designed to maintain a constant temperature during each experiment. The water temperature was between 49°F (9.4°C) and 52°F (11.1 °C) depending on the patient's tolerance to the cold. Hand volume was measured before and after immersion. The hand was placed into the cold water intermitten...
Nanoscale Probing of Voltage Activated Oxygen Reduction/Evolution Reactions in Nanopatterned (LaxSr1‐x)CoO3‐δ Cathodes

Bias-dependent mechanisms of reversible and irreversible electrochemical processes on a (La0.5Sr0.5)2CoO4 modified (LaxSr1-x)CoO3- surface are studied using dynamic electrochemical strain microscopy (D-ESM). The reversible oxygen reduction/evolution process is activated at voltages as low as 3 4 V and the degree of transformation increases linearly with applied bias. The irreversible processes associated with static surface deformation become apparent above 10 12 V. Post-mortem focused-ion milling combined with atomic resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy is used to establish the mechanisms of irreversible transformations and attribute it to amorphization of the top layer of material. These studies both establish the framework for probing irreversible electrochemical processes in solids and illustrate rich spectrum of electrochemical transformations underpinning electrocatalytic activity in cobaltites.
DNA (Cytosine-5) Methyltransferase Inhibitors: A Potential Therapeutic Agent for Schizophrenia

In this issue of Molecular Pharmacology, Kundakovic et al. (p. 644) present compelling evidence suggesting that the promoters for reelin and GAD67 are coordinately regulated. The regulation occurs at the level of DNA (cytosine-5) methylation. Moreover, the authors present evidence suggesting that pharmacologic inhibition of DNA methyltransferase results in reversal of methylation, loss of methyl-DNA binding proteins and relief of repression. Repression of both reelin and GAD67 has been implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Therefore, these results suggest that the reelin and GAD67 promoters are subject to continuous repression by DNA methyltransferase and that inhibitors of DNA methyltransferase represent a potential treatment for Schizophrenia.
WARLOC: A high-power coherent 94 GHz radar

This paper describes the development of a high-power, coherent radar system at W-band and discusses potential applications of radars with this new capability. Previous radars in this frequency band were limited by available power-amplifier technology to about 500 W of average power; WARLOC radar represents an increase in power, by 20 times, over previous coherent radars at 94 GHz. This performance improvement is possible due to the development of a gyroklystron amplifier specifically for this and future radars in this frequency band. The gyroklystron amplifier tubes deliver 100 kW peak power and 10 kW of average power at a center frequency of approximately 94 GHz. Other novel features of this radar include the use of highly overmoded waveguides and rotary joints for the transmission of power from the final power amplifier (FPA) to the antenna, and a high-power quasi-optical duplexer. The system uses a relatively large 1.8 m diameter (580-wavelength) Cassegrain antenna, which required the development of an antenna with an rms surface accuracy of 0.0025 in, to obtain long-range detection and identification of small objects. Test data show an antenna gain of 62.5 dB, confirming that the needed surface accuracy was achieved. Two mobile shelters house the radar system, permitting relocation to various test sites. WARLOC is presently operational at the Naval Research Laboratory's Chesapeake Bay Detachment facility, Maryland. It is being employed in radar imaging of airborne and surface objects, and in the scientific study of propagation effects and atmospheric physics phenomena.
Chlorophyll A fluorescence transient as an indicator of water potential of leaves

Abstract The ratio of the maximum (P level) to the minimum (O level) chlorophyll a fluorescence, measured at 685 nm, decreased from a value of about 4-1 as Nerium oleander plants were water stressed (water potential of leaves decreasing from −8 bars to −9 bars). Furthermore, this change was reversed to a large degree when water-stressed plants were re-watered. No measurable effect was observed on the O level. A similar relationship between the P/O ratio and the water potential was also observed in the leaves of Atriplex triangularis and Tolmiea menziesii. These data indicate that water stress inhibits the electron donation (or the water oxidation) side of photosystem II (PSII).
Backyard Protest: Emergence, Expansion, and Persistence of a Local Hazardous Waste Controversy

The toxic waste dispute that is the subject of this article points out one of the troubling ironies of the modem environmental movement. Many groups and individual activists who promoted a national response to the discovery of thousands of toxic waste sites over a decade ago are now leading the struggle to prevent government-sponsored cleanups. This case study examines the evolution and dynamics of one community's pollution controversy, and then attempts to explain the way in which marginalized environmentalists were able to redefine the toxics debate. Finally, it shows how heal resistence to waste cleanups may shape the next round of environmental policymaking.
A real-time control system for a mobile dexterous 7 DOF arm

This paper describes the design and implementation of a real-time control system with multiple modes of operation for a mobile redundant dexterous manipulator. The manipulator under study is a seven degree-of-freedom (DOF) arm from Robotics Research Corporation, mounted on a motorized platform. The manipulator-plus-platform system has 2-DOF for the task of hand placement and orientation. The redundancy resolution is achieved by accomplishing two additional tasks using the configuration control technique. The system allows a choice of arm angle control or collision avoidance for the seventh task and platform placement or elbow angle control for the eighth task. In addition, joint limit avoidance task is automatically invoked when any of the joints approach their limits. The system is robust to singularities, and also provides the capability of assigning weighting factors to end-effector and redundancy resolution tasks. The motion control algorithms are executed at 1.1 ms on two MC68040 processors in a VME-bus environment running the VxWorks real-time operating system. The paper describes the hardware and software components of the VME environment. Experimental results are also presented. >
Shrinkage of High-Calcium Limestones During Burning

The shrinkage characteristics of forty-three commercial high-calcium limestones, calcined at four different temperatures above the dissociation temperature, were studied by means of bulk-density measurements of the stones and their respective calcines. Chemical, spectrographic, and petrographic analyses could not be correlated with the shrinkage data
The Impact of Aging on an FPGA-Based Physical Unclonable Function

On-chip Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are emerging as a powerful security primitive that can potentially solve several security problems. A PUF needs to be robust against reversible as well as irreversible temporal changes in circuits. While the effect of the reversible temporal changes on PUFs is well studied, it is equally important to analyze the effect of the irreversible temporal changes i.e. aging on PUFs. In this work, we perform an accelerated aging testing on an FPGA-based ring oscillator PUF (RO-PUF) and analyze how it affects the functionality of the PUF. Based on our experiment using a group of 90-nm Xilinx FPGAs, we observe that aging makes PUF responses unreliable. On the other hand, the randomness of PUF responses remains unaffected despite aging.
Adenosine 3':5'-cyclic monophosphate-binding proteins in bovine and rat tissues

1. At least two classes of high-affinity cyclic AMP-binding proteins have been identified: those derived from cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinases (regulatory subunits) and those that bind a wide range of adenine analogues (adenine analogue-binding proteins). 2. In fresh-tissue extracts, regulatory subunits could be further subdivided into ‘type I’ or ‘type II’ depending on whether they were derived from ‘type I’ or ‘type II’ protein kinase [see Corbin et al. (1975) J. Biol. Chem. 250, 218-225]. 3. The adenine analogue-binding protein was detected in crude tissue supernatant fractions of bovine and rat liver. It differed from the regulatory subunit of cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase in many of its properties. Under the conditions of assay used, the protein accounted for about 45% of the binding of cyclic AMP to bovine liver supernatants. 4. The adenine analogue-binding protein from bovine liver was partially purified by DEAE-cellulose and Sepharose 6B chromatography. It had mol.wt. 185000 and was trypsin-sensitive. As shown by competition and direct binding experiments, it bound adenosine and AMP in addition to cyclic AMP. At intracellular concentrations of adenine nucleotides, binding of cyclic AMP was essentially completely inhibited in vitro. Adenosine binding was inhibited by only 30% under similar conditions. 5. Rat tissues were examined for the presence of the adenine analogue-binding protein, and, of those examined (adipose tissue, heart, brain, testis, kidney and liver), significant amounts were only found in the liver. The possible physiological role of the adenine analogue-binding protein is discussed. 6. Because the adenine analogue-binding protein or other cyclic AMP-binding proteins in tissues may be products of partial proteolysis of the regulatory subunit of cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase, the effects of trypsin and aging on partially purified protein kinase and its regulatory subunit from bovine liver were investigated. In all studies, the effects of trypsin and aging were similar. 7. In fresh preparations, the cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase had mol.wt. 150000. Trypsin treatment converted it into a form of mol.wt 79500. 8. The regulatory subunit of the protein kinase had mol.wt. 87000. It would reassociate with and inhibit the catalytic subunit of the enzyme. Trypsin treatment of the regulatory subunit produced a species of mol.wt. 35500 which bound cyclic AMP but did not reassociate with the catalytic subunit. Trypsin treatment of the protein kinase and dissociation of the product by cyclic AMP produced a regulatory subunit of mol.wt. 46500 which reassociated with the catalytic subunit. 9. These results may be explained by at least two trypsin-sensitive sites on the regulatory subunit. A model for the effects of trypsin is described.
Integration of multiple adaptive algorithms for parallel decision fusion

The Chair-Varshney rule for parallel binary decision fusion requires knowledge of the a priori probabilities of the hypotheses and the performance of the sensors (probabilities of false alarm and missed detection). In most applications, this information is not available. Five methods were developed so far for estimating the unknown probabilities. However, none of them is the best under all circumstances. We present an algorithm that selects the best of these five methods. The algorithm estimates roughly the value of the a priori probabilities and the sensor performance from input data, and seeks support from a data base that provides archival data from the five methods at this operating point. In simulation, the algorithm performed on average better than each one of the five existing methods operating alone.
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor gene expression is suppressed by using antisense RNA mediated by expression vector

AIM: To study the potential of using antisense RNA mediated by expression vector to suppress MIF expression. METHODS: MIF gene was sub-cloned into plasmid pcDNA_3 to construct MIF antisense RNA expression vector, pcDNA_3-antiMIF, which was identified by restriction enzyme digestion and DNA sequencing. By using lipofectamine 2000, plasmid pcDNA_3 and pcDNA_3-antiMIF were transfected into MIF expression cells, 293-MIF, separately. 60 h later, the 293-MIF cells were collected and used to determine the MIF mRNA expression by real-time quantitive PCR. Plasmid pcDNA_3-antiMIF was transformed into HUVECs, named HUVECs-antiMIF, to express MIF antisense RNA. HUVECs-antiMIF was screened by sulfate G418 and identified by PCR and RT-PCR analysis. Then the MIF expression vector, pSecTag-MIF, was transfected into HUVECs-antiMIF, and tie MIF mRNA expression in HUVECs-antiMIF was determined by quantitative PCR. RESULTS: Restriction enzyme digestion and DNA sequencing analysis showed that MIF antisense RNA expression vector, pcDNA_3-antiMIF, was constructed correctly. The results of quantitative PCR showed that MIF mRNA expression was suppressed by MIF antisense RNA at level about 32% (P0.05) in 293-MIF cells. The HUVECs-antiMIF, which expressed MIF antisense RNA, was obtained and identified by PCR and RT-PCR assay. The results of quantitative PCR revealed that MIF mRNA expression was also down-regulated by about 40% (P0.05) in HUVECs-antiMIF cells. CONCLUSION: MIF expression was suppressed efficiently by MIF antisense RNA mediated by expression vector, and the HUVECs-antiMIF was established to express MIF antisense RNA.
Modeling of lateral dynamics of a UAV using system identification approach

System identification of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for its mathematical modeling is an important step towards the automation of aircraft. A reliable mathematical model is also required for simulator design, aircraft crash analysis, studying the effects of aircraft modifications, preflight testing, stress distribution analysis and fatigue life appraisal etc. In this research work flight experiment was conducted for identification of lateral dynamics of a fixed wing UAV. Aircraft states were recorded during specifically designed flight maneuvers. After necessary preprocessing and bias removal, acquired data was further processed in Matlab System Identification toolbox for estimating lateral dynamics transfer functions related to aileron and rudder inputs. The black box identification based transfer function models were estimated using least square error estimation technique. The identification results present a reliable lateral model of the UAV with high level of confidence and goodness of fit between the actual system response and estimated model. The identified transfer function models can be used for various applications including heading controller design for an autopilot.
New chemosensory component in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): first-year results for measured olfactory dysfunction

The U.S. NHANES included chemosensory assessments in the 2011–2014 protocol. We provide an overview of this protocol and 2012 olfactory exam findings. Of the 1818 NHANES participants aged ≥40 years, 1281 (70.5 %) completed the exam; non-participation mostly was due to time constraints. Health technicians administered an 8-item, forced-choice, odor identification task scored as normosmic (6–8 odors identified correctly) versus olfactory dysfunction, including hyposmic (4–5 correct) and anosmic/severe hyposmic (0–3 correct). Interviewers recorded self-reported smell alterations (during past year, since age 25, phantosmia), histories of sinonasal problems, xerostomia, dental extractions, head or facial trauma, and chemosensory-related treatment and changes in quality of life. Olfactory dysfunction was found in 12.4 % (13.3 million adults; 55 % males/45 % females) including 3.2 % anosmic/severe hyposmic (3.4 million; 74 % males/26 % females). Selected age-specific prevalences were 4.2 % (40–49 years), 12.7 % (60–69 years), and 39.4 % (80+ years). Among adults ≥70 years, misidentification rates for warning odors were 20.3 % for smoke and 31.3 % for natural gas. The highest sensitivity (correctly identifying dysfunction) and specificity (correctly identifying normosmia) of self-reported olfactory alteration was among anosmics/severe hyposmics (54.4 % and 78.1 %, respectively). In age- and sex-adjusted logistic regression analysis, risk factors of olfactory dysfunction were racial/ethnic minority, income-to-poverty ratio ≤ 1.1, education <high school, and heavy drinking. Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity reduced risk of impairment. Olfactory dysfunction is prevalent, particularly among older adults. Inexpensive, brief odor identification tests coupled with questions (smell problems past year, since age 25, phantosmia) could screen for marked dysfunction. Healthcare providers should be prepared to offer education on non-olfactory avoidance of hazardous events.
Slotted ALOHA-type Fully Connected Networks in Jamming Part I: Unspread ALOHA

The throughput-delay performance of slotted, unspread ALOHA-type mono-hop networks is considered under different types of stochastic slot-synchronous jamming. Trade-offs and optimal values of certain parameters for both the communicator (user) and jammer are determined.
December Doldrums, Investor Distraction, and Stock Market Reaction to Unscheduled News Events

We examine how investor distraction during the December holiday season impacts the stock market’s reaction to salient firm-specific news and whether this response is different for scheduled versus unscheduled news releases. We find that the price and volume response towards unscheduled news, such as credit rating downgrades and 8-K filings, is significantly weaker in December compared to other months. In contrast, after addressing selection issues, we find no equivalent effect for pre-scheduled earnings news released in December. Consistently, we also find that both retail and institutional investor attention to unscheduled firm-specific news is lower in December, but not so for scheduled news. Moreover, larger firms, firms with higher analyst following, or higher institutional ownership, are less susceptible to this December distraction effect towards unscheduled news. Our results highlight how investor distraction during the December holiday season can lead to a muted market reaction to unscheduled, but salient, firm-specific news.
IGF2BP1 Protein Binding of Erythroblast Transcription Factor mRNA: A Cytoplasm-Localized Mechanism for Globin Gene Regulation

Pharmacologic and genetic regulation of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) remains a major goal for treatment of the beta-thalassemias and sickle cell disease. Recently, the let-7 microRNA heterochronic pathway of RNA-binding factors was shown to be developmentally correlated with HbF expression in humans. Experimental manipulation of the pathway components (LIN28, let- 7, and the IGF2 binding proteins) demonstrated moderate increases in fetal hemoglobin (around 15-35% HbF) with the exception of IGF2BP1, which caused a nearly complete reversal in gamma - and beta-globin gene expression resulting in HbF levels of 60-70% among cultured adult human erythrocytes. To further explore IGF2BP1 effects on HbF and erythropoiesis, lentiviral transduction of CD34(+) cells was performed with let-7 resistant expression of IGF2BP1 driven by the human SPTA1 gene (IGF2BP1-OE). Donor-matched control transductions were studied for comparison. For protein localization studies, confocal imaging of sorted cells was utilized. IGF2BP1-OE caused IGF2BP1 protein expression throughout the cytoplasm and localized to small granules. Granules were unevenly distributed and more abundantly observed in the perinuclear regions. Nuclear detection of IGF2BP1 protein remained at background control levels. We thus hypothesized that IGF2BP1 protein in these cytoplasmic granules may regulate globin gene expression by binding RNAs that encode epigenetic modifiers of the beta-globin locus. To test this hypothesis, RNA-immunoprecipitation (RIP) was performed using a RIP-certified anti-IGF2BP1 antibody. Next generation sequencing and qRT-PCR were used to determine the mRNA species bound by IGF2BP1. RIP-enrichment of BCL11A mRNA was identified (4.6 ± 1.2 fold compared to input sample), as well as mRNA encoding other modifiers of globin gene expression including KLF1 and ZBTB7A . Further analyses of BCL11A showed no significant changes in BCL11A mRNA levels among IGF2BP1-OE cells (control: 6.5.E+03 ± 3.8.E+03, IGF2BP1-OE: 4.1.E+03 ± 1.2.E+02, p=0.403). However, BCL11A protein detection was reduced to background levels by Western analysis compared to transduction control cell lysates. These studies suggest that RNA-binding and cytoplasmic compartmentalization provide IGF2BP1 with a mechanism for increasing fetal hemoglobin via post-transcriptional regulation of globin gene transcription factors. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Gender and racial differences in surgical outcomes among adult patients with acute heart failure.

Abstract Background Approximately three million U.S. adult women have heart failure (HF), increasing their risk of adverse perioperative outcomes. While gender and racial differences are reported in surgical outcomes, less is known about 30-day perioperative outcomes in HF patients. Objectives To characterize and compare gender and racial differences in 30-day perioperative outcomes in adults with new or acute/worsening HF. Methods The 2012–2013 American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database of surgical patients (n = 9458) with HF was analyzed. Logistic regression was used to adjust for gender and racial differences in baseline covariates. Results No gender difference in mortality (odds ratio = 0.922, 95% confidence interval = 0.0792–1.073, p = 0.294) was noted. Whites were more likely than Blacks to die 30 days after surgery (14% vs 9%, p Conclusions There was no gender difference in mortality. White patients with HF were more likely to die after surgery than Black patients.
Cpu scheduling for power/energy management on heterogeneous multicore processors

Power and energy have become increasingly important concerns in the design and implementation of today's multicore/manycore chips. Many methods have been proposed to reduce a microprocessor's power usage and associated heat dissipation, including scaling a core's operating frequency. However, these techniques do not consider the dynamic performance characteristics of an executing process at runtime, the execution characteristics of the entire task to which this process belongs, the process's priority, the process's cache miss/cache reference ratio, the number of context switches and CPU migrations generated by the process, nor the system load. Also, many of the techniques that employ dynamic frequency scaling can lower a core's frequency during the execution of a non-CPU intensive task, thus lowering performance. In addition, many of these methods require specialized hardware and have not been tested upon real hardware that is widely available, including the recent AMD or Intel multicore chips. One problem dealing with power/energy management for heterogeneous multicore processors is: Given a set of processes, each having identical default priorities, in a given task to be executed by a heterogeneous multicore/manycore processor system, schedule each process in this task to execute upon the CPU(s) in this system such that the global power budget is minimized, yet the performance gain of all processes is maximized, and the performance loss of all processes is minimized. Doing so, in a scenario where each process has a different (not necessarily unique) static or dynamic (but not necessarily the default) priority, without adversely affecting process completion order, as dictated by process priority is yet another problem. Finally, utilizing the cache miss/cache reference ratio and the number of context switches and CPU migrations as scheduling criteria are two other problems. This dissertation will elaborate upon these four problems, and will describe our four approaches to solving these problems.
El Niño. Clues from corals.

Biological records of past climate - such as tree rings and reef corals - are providing a longer-term view of the weather; including the unusual patterns of El Nino.
Structural analyses of living plant nuclei.

Plants have a long history as models used to study nuclear structures because of their large nuclei and easy handling. In fact, the nucleus was first described in orchid cells in 1833. Chromatin dynamics during mitosis were well described in the 1920s by observing live plant tissues. After the development of molecular biological technologies and in vitro culture systems in the 1950s, animal and yeast cultured cells have been used to study nuclear structures.
Vitellogenin as a Biomarker of Exposure for Estrogen or Estrogen Mimics

Vitellogenin, the egg yolk precursor protein, has become a popular biomarker for measuring exposure of oviparous animals to estrogen or estrogen mimics. Vitellogenin is normally produced by females in response to normal cycles of estradiol during oogenesis. The gene for vitellogenin is also present in the livers of males but it is normally silent. Upon exposure to estrogen or to an estrogen mimic, the gene is turned on and vitellogenin is synthesized. After synthesis, it is exported into the blood where, in males, it remains until it is degraded or cleared out by the kidneys. In females, vitellogenin is taken up by the developing oocyte through receptor mediated endocytosis. There are several assays in the literature for measuring vitellogenin levels in plasma. The easiest method is through antibody based assays including ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) or by western blot. Competition or sandwich ELISAs are the most sensitive assays and they can detect vitellogenin in plasma in the nanogram to milligram per ml range. This chapter discusses methods for purifying vitellogenin from plasma, generating antibodies, and performing assays to measure vitellogenin.
Book Review: Making Dystopia — The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism, by James Stevens Curl, Oxford University Press. 2018.

This is a review of the scholarly book “Making Dystopia — The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism”, by Professor James Stevens Curl. The book is severely critical of the Modernist movement in architecture, holding it responsible for the loss of historical, traditional, and vernacular building cultures. It goes further to associate the loss of other valuable aspects of culture with the erasing influence of modernist thought. The obvious transformation of the built environment influenced people subconsciously away from older compassionate, humane design practices, and towards a cold, inhuman industrialism. Today’s unsustainable Industrial-Modernism is not the inevitable consequence of a natural process of architectural evolution, while the Bauhaus was not an enlightened architecture school. Professor Stevens Curl’s work is an invaluable resource for academia, the public, and professional practitioners. It could help to trigger a massive re-orientation of the building industry, helped by forward-thinking legislators. An enlightened and interested public has to come to grips with what happened, and try and fix it for a better society in the future.
Emerging therapies for cartilage regeneration in currently excluded 'red knee' populations.

The field of articular cartilage repair has made significant advances in recent decades; yet current therapies are generally not evaluated or tested, at the time of pivotal trial, in patients with a variety of common comorbidities. To that end, we systematically reviewed cartilage repair clinical trials to identify common exclusion criteria and reviewed the literature to identify emerging regenerative approaches that are poised to overcome these current exclusion criteria. The term “knee cartilage repair” was searched on clinicaltrials.gov. Of the 60 trials identified on initial search, 33 were further examined to extract exclusion criteria. Criteria excluded by more than half of the trials were identified in order to focus discussion on emerging regenerative strategies that might address these concerns. These criteria included age ( 55 years old), small defects ( 8 cm2), multiple defect (>2 lesions), BMI >35, meniscectomy (>50%), bilateral knee pathology, ligamentous instability, arthritis, malalignment, prior repair, kissing lesions, neurologic disease of lower extremities, inflammation, infection, endocrine or metabolic disease, drug or alcohol abuse, pregnancy, and history of cancer. Finally, we describe emerging tissue engineering and regenerative approaches that might foster cartilage repair in these challenging environments. The identified criteria exclude a majority of the affected population from treatment, and thus greater focus must be placed on these emerging cartilage regeneration techniques to treat patients with the challenging “red knee”.
Acute Mental Status Changes and Over-the-Counter Medications in Older Adults

A 78-year-old female was brought to the emergency department due to altered mental status (AMS) by her son who noted an acute change. Her AMS was deemed likely secondary to hypercalcemia and digoxin toxicity precipitated by Tums overconsumption for abdominal pain. After clinical improvement, the patient shared that she took the Tums rather than ask her family for a ride to the doctor. This case highlights the importance of caregiver burden, geriatric syndromes, and the important role of consultants to help arrange safe discharge.
Development of an Intrinsic Skin Sensor for Blood Glucose Level with CRISPR-mediated Genome Editing in Epidermal Stem Cells

Biointegrated sensors can address various challenges in medicine by transmitting a wide variety of biological signals. A tempting possibility that has not been explored before is whether we can take advantage of genome editing technology to transform a small portion of endogenous tissue into an intrinsic and long-lasting sensor of physiological signals. The human skin and epidermal stem cells have several unique advantages, making them particularly suitable for genetic engineering and applications in vivo. In this report, we took advantage of a novel platform for manipulation and transplantation of epidermal stem cells, and presented the key evidence that genome-edited skin stem cells can be exploited for continuous monitoring of blood glucose level in vivo. Additionally, by advanced design of genome editing, we developed an autologous skin graft that can sense glucose level and deliver therapeutic proteins for diabetes treatment. Our results revealed the clinical potential for skin somatic gene therapy.
A Necessary Condition for Power Flow Insolvability in Power Distribution Systems With Distributed Generators

This paper proposes a necessary condition for power flow insolvability in power distribution systems with distributed generators (DGs). We show that the proposed necessary condition indicates the impending singularity of the Jacobian matrix and the onset of voltage instability. We consider different operation modes of DG inverters, e.g., constant-power and constant-current operations, in the proposed method. A new index based on the presented necessary condition is developed to indicate the distance between the current operating point and the power flow solvability boundary. Compared to existing methods, the operating condition-dependent critical loading factor provided by the proposed condition is less conservative and is closer to the actual power flow solution space boundary. The proposed method only requires the present snapshots of voltage phasors to monitor the power flow insolvability and voltage stability. Hence, it is computationally efficient and suitable to be applied to a power distribution system with volatile DG outputs. The accuracy of the proposed necessary condition and the index is validated by simulations on a distribution test system with different DG penetration levels.
Cavity Microwave Searches for Cosmological Axions

This chapter will cover the search for dark matter axions based on microwave cavity experiments proposed by Pierre Sikivie. We will start with a brief overview of halo dark matter and the axion as a candidate. The principle of resonant conversion of axions in an external magnetic field will be described as well as practical considerations in optimizing the experiment as a signal-to-noise problem. A major focus of this chapter will be the two complementary strategies for ultra-low noise detection of the microwave photons--the 'photon-as-wave' approach (i.e. conventional heterojunction amplifiers and soon to be quantum-limited SQUID devices), and 'photon-as-particle' (i.e. Rydberg-atom single-quantum detection). Experimental results will be presented; these experiments have already reached well into the range of sensitivity to exclude plausible axion models, for limited ranges of mass. The section will conclude with a discussion of future plans and challenges for the microwave cavity experiment.
Predictors of autologous stem cell transplant related mortality in older adults

16509 Background: Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is increasingly performed in older adults. Predictors of transplant related mortality (TRM) are not well established in this population...
Assessing Metabolic Intervention with a Glutaminase Inhibitor in Real-time by Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an aggressive hematopoietic disease characterized by glutamine-dependent metabolism. A novel glutaminase (GLS) inhibitor, CB-839, is currently under evaluation for treatment of hematopoietic malignancies and solid tumors. Our purpose was to measure cellular changes in AML associated with CB-839 treatment and to test the ability of hyperpolarized pyruvate for interrogating these changes to OCI-AML3 cells. Our results show that treatment with CB-839 interfered with the citric acid cycle, reduced the NADH/NAD+ ratio and ATP levels, reduced cell proliferation and viability, and reduced the basal and maximal respiratory capacities [oxygen consumption rate (OCR)]. We observed a reduction of the conversion of hyperpolarized pyruvate to lactate in cell lines and in a mouse AML model after CB-839 treatment. Our in vitro and in vivo results support the hypothesis that, in AML, glutamine is utilized to generate reducing equivalents (NADH, FADH2) through the citric acid cycle and that reduction in redox state by GLS inhibition decreases the rate of pyruvate to lactate conversion catalyzed by lactate dehydrogenase. We propose hyperpolarized pyruvate/lactate measurement as a method for direct monitoring of metabolic changes occurring in AML patients receiving CB-839. With further optimization, this method may provide a noninvasive imaging tool to assess the early efficacy of therapeutic intervention with GLS inhibitors.