cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
[keynote 2] Paving the way towards nfv: An infrastructure based approach

Summary form only give, as follows. Provides an abstract of the keynote presentation and a brief professional biography of the presenter. The complete presentation was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an initiative driven by the largest service providers (SP) to increase the use of virtualization and integrate intelligence into their network infrastructures. NFV leverages virtualization technology and operates network functions on standard servers to fundamentally decouple the customized and inflexible network hardware. Today, NFV provides a plethora of virtual network functions (VNFs), including gateways, mobile core, deep packet inspection (DPI), security, routing, and traffic management that can be combined to deliver the dynamic customized network service chains. Our exploration on both VM-based and container-based VNFs indicates that the service chaining can pose various challenges to NFV implementation on current commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) server. First, we observe that the NFV packet processing on COTS server exhibits a unique processing pattern - heterogeneous software pipeline, where the NFV traffic flows are processed by a variety of software components sequentially. On modern NUMA-based architecture, the end-to-end performance of NFV traffic flows can be severely affected by placing these heterogeneous software components inappropriately. We develop a thread scheduling mechanism that collaboratively places threads of heterogeneous software pipeline to minimize the end-to-end performance slowdown for NFV traffic flows. In the second part, we characterize the light-weight container-based VNF, which is expected to achieve shorter VNF provisioning time and lower resource overheads. However, we observe that the traffic flow processing in the shared host OS network stack involves a large amount of intermediate memory buffers and results in significant last level cache pollution. We propose NetContainer, a framework that achieves a fine-grained hardware resource management for containerized NFV platform. NetContainer exploits a cache access overhead guided page coloring technique to coordinately manage the inter/intra-flow cache access overheads.
Connecting rhythm and prominence in automatic ESL pronunciation scoring.

Past studies have shown that a native Spanish speaker’s use of phrasal prominence is a good indicator of her level of English prosody acquisition. Because of the cross-linguistic differences in the organization of phrasal prominence and durational contrasts, we hypothesize that those speakers with English-like prominence in their L2 speech are also expected to have acquired English-like rhythm. Statistics from a corpus of native and nonnative English confirm that speakers with an Englishlike phrasal prominence are also the ones who use English-like rhythm. Additionally, two methods of automatic score generation based on vowel duration times demonstrate a correlation of at least 0.6 between these automatic scores and subjective scores for phrasal prominence. These findings suggest that simple vowel duration measures obtained from standard automatic speech recognition methods can be salient cues for estimating subjective scores of prosodic acquisition, and of pronunciation in general.
Reference tracking in early stages of different modality L2 acquisition: Limited over-explicitness in novice ASL signers’ referring expressions:

Previous research on reference tracking has revealed a tendency towards over-explicitness in second language (L2) learners. Only limited evidence exists that this trend extends to situations where the learner's first and second languages do not share a sensory-motor modality. Using a story-telling paradigm, this study examined how hearing novice L2 learners accomplish reference tracking in American Sign Language (ASL), and whether they transfer strategies from gesture. Our results revealed limited evidence of over-explicitness. Instead there was an overall similarity in the L2 learners' reference tracking to that of a native signer control group, even in the use of lexical nominals, pronouns and zero anaphora - areas where research on spoken L2 reference tracking predicts differences. Our data also revealed, however, that L2 learners have problems with the referential value of ASL classifiers, and with target-like use of zero anaphora from different verb types, as well as spatial modification. This suggests that over-explicitness occurs in the early stages of different modality L2 acquisition to a limited extent. We found no evidence of gestural transfer. Finally, we found that L2 learners reintroduce more than native signers, which could indicate that they, unlike native signers are not yet capable of utilizing the affordances of the visual modality to reference multiple entities simultaneously.
Protein-protein interface: database, analysis and prediction

Protein-protein interaction plays a pivotal role in biological metabolism. It directs many cellular processes like signal transduction, DNA replication and RNA splicing, etc. Identification of protein-protein interaction sites is important to identification of protein functions, improvement of protein-protein docking and rational drug design. Experimental methods to identify protein-protein interaction sites are always time-consuming and costly, which calls for computational methods to be applied in this area. The research work focuses on three parts: (1) We have built a Protein-Protein Interface Database (PPIDB) which extracted 71, 486 protein-protein interfaces from experimentally determined protein complex structures in the current version of Protein Data Bank. It facilitates construction of well-characterized datasets of protein-protein interface residues for computational analyses. The database is accessible through the Web Interface http://ppidb.cs.iastate.edu and a set of Web services. (2) We have made a comprehensive analysis of protein-protein dimeric interfaces, which consists of thirteen physic-chemical properties. The results disclose that interface residues have side chains pointing inward; interfaces are rougher, tend to be flat, moderately convex or concave and protrude more relative to non-interface surface residues; interface residues tend to be surrounded by hydrophobic neighbors. (3) We have developed NB PPIPS, a Naive Bayes method to predict protein-protein interaction sites on protein surfaces. Trained over a non-redundant data set consisting of 2, 383 proteins and fed with sequence, evolutionary and structural properties, NB PPIPS achieves 60.7% recall and 34.6% precision in 10 fold cross-validation, which greatly improves over the baseline classifier that only utilizes protein sequence information. Attempts are made to apply the NB PPIPS in a two stage prediction of protein-protein interfaces when only protein sequence is known. Modeled protein structures are generated via homologue modeling and fed as inputs into NB PPIPS. The results show that good predictions are obtained only for well modeled structures. NB PPIPS is implemented as an online server to facilitate its usage. It is accessible at http://watson.cs.iastate.edu/nb_ppips.
Revisiting Mortimer’s Genome Renewal Hypothesis: Heterozygosity, Homothallism, and the Potential for Adaptation in Yeast

In diploid organisms, the frequency and nature of sexual cycles have a major impact on genome-wide patterns of heterozygosity. Recent population genomic surveys in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, have revealed surprising levels of genomic heterozygosity in what has been traditionally considered a highly inbred organism. I review evidence and hypotheses regarding the generation, maintenance, and evolutionary consequences of genomic heterozygosity in S. cerevisiae. I propose that high levels of heterozygosity in S. cerevisiae, arising from population admixture due to human domestication, coupled with selfing during rare sexual cycles, can facilitate rapid adaptation to novel environments.
From Primary to General Election: A Forecast of the Presidential Vote

Yogi Berra might have said it: the best predictor of an election is, well, an election. Not a trial-heat conducted by opinion polls, but a real election of voters going to the polls. In the U.S., at least, what is known as a “general” election is preceded by a “primary” election, and that has been the case for presidential contests since 1912. So is the voting in presidential primaries a leading indicator of the vote in November? Remarkably so, as it turns out. How well presidential candidates do in primary elections foretells their prospects in the November election with great accuracy. What is more, the use of primaries as a vote predictor makes it possible to include in the forecast model both the candidate of the incumbent party and the candidate of the party out of the White House. The forecast for 2004 uses candidate vote shares in primaries, not just a win-lose dichotomy as done in the model used to predict the vote in 2000 (Norpoth 2001).
Surgical management of clival chordomas in children

Objective: Describe the surgical management of clival chordomas in the pediatric population, with an emphasis on techniques of endoscopic endonasal surgery. Finding: Endoscopic endonasal approaches to the clivus provide access from posterior clinoids to foramen magnum. The clivus is divided into thirds (superior, middle, and inferior), each with corresponding vascular and neural structures. The abducens nerve is at greatest risk for injury due to spread of tumor within the interdural space to Dorello's canal. Despite decreased pneumatization of the sinuses in pediatric patients, the same techniques can be applied to this population. The contralateral transmaxillary approach enhances the ability to achieve a gross total resection when tumor extends laterally into the petrous apex. A multi-layer reconstruction with vascularized tissue minimizes the risk of cerebrospinal fluid leak. Conclusion: Endoscopic endonasal surgery can be safely applied to the pediatric population and provides the best opportunity for complete surgical excision for most tumors.
Preoperative Assessment and Management of Liver Transplant Candidates With Portopulmonary Hypertension

Pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) that occurs as a consequence of portal hypertension is termed portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Amon...
Bulgaria: Defeat and Nationalist Demobilization During the Peasant Era

This chapter explores the aftermath of the Bulgarian defeat in WWI and how it brought to light an exceptional and unique experiment in national humility, providing an example of why defeats in wars need not create a collective identity crisis, irredentism, revanchism, and subsequently aggressive foreign policies. This is an understudied and extremely interesting case because it is notably a ‘most likely case’ for radicalization: the breeding grounds of political radicalism were present but not the predicted outcome. Indeed, interwar Bulgaria experienced conditions similar to those of Germany and Hungary after WWI and yet did not experience the emergence of powerful revisionist/revanchist movements. The chapter demonstrates how, in the immediate aftermath of WWI, Bulgaria accepted its defeat, moved beyond the torments of humiliation, and embarked on a course of internal development and reconstruction and moderate, anti-irredentist, and anti-revanchist foreign policy.
Abstract 614: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivation and patient survival in head and neck cancer

There is building evidence that cytomegalovirus (CMV) may contribute to the development of solid tumors, however to date this has not been investigated in head and neck cancer (HNC). CMV is a highly prevalent, latent herpesvirus infecting over 50% of the population. CMV maintains latency in CD34+ cells, and recent work has demonstrated these latently infected cells preferentially differentiate into immunosuppressive monocytes. However, CMV is not solely immune suppressive as highly cytotoxic adaptive natural killer (NK) cells arise specifically in response to CMV reactivation. Here, we have investigated whether biomarkers of CMV reactivation are associated with patient survival in non-smoking HNC (n=184). CMV DNAemia was assessed using digital PCR, and a threshold of 1000 copies/mL serum was defined as reactivation; 22% of patients met this definition of CMV reactivation, however they did not have significantly worse survival than those without CMV reactivation (HR 1.5 (95% CI 0.7 - 3.0)). Monocytes that mobilize to the cancer site contribute to tumor-associated inflammation. Therefore, we explored whether a biomarker of inflammation, CRP, modified the association of CMV reactivation and HNC patient survival. In the absence of inflammation, there was no association between CMV reactivation and patient survival (HR 0.90 (95% CI 0.30 - 2.71)). However, those with both CMV reactivation and high inflammation had dramatically worse survival (HR 8.86 (95% CI 3.63 - 21.64)). These data are consistent with the recent report that CMV infected monocytes are immunosuppressive and suggest that stimulation of these monocytes to the tumor site may negatively impact patient survival. Future work should address the generalizability of this finding to other cancer types and determine whether CMV infected myeloid cells are present in the tumor microenvironment. Citation Format: Heather H. Nelson, Jeffrey S. Miller, DeVon Hunter-Schlichting, Rondi A. Butler, Karl T. Kelsey. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivation and patient survival in head and neck cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 614.
Multicommodity Multicast, Wireless and Fast

We study rumor spreading in graphs, specifically multicommodity multicast problem under the wireless model: given source-destination pairs in the graph, one needs to find the fastest schedule to transfer information from each source to the corresponding destination. Under the wireless model, nodes can transmit to any subset of their neighbors in synchronous time steps, as long as they either transmit or receive from at most one transmitter during the same time step. We improve approximation ratio for this problem from O~(n^(2/3)) to O~(n^((1/2) + epsilon)) on n-node graphs. We also design an algorithm that satisfies p given demand pairs in O(OPT + p) steps, where OPT is the length of an optimal schedule, by reducing it to the well-studied packet routing problem. In the case where underlying graph is an n-node tree, we improve the previously best-known approximation ratio of O((log n)/(log log n)) to 3. One consequence of our proof is a simple constructive rule for optimal broadcasting in a tree under a widely studied telephone model.
Establishing Radiolanthanum Chemistry for Targeted Nuclear Medicine Applications

We report the first targeted nuclear medicine application of the lanthanum radionuclides 132/135 La. These isotopes represent a matched pair for diagnosis via the positron emissions of 132 La and therapy mediated by the Auger electron emissions of 135 La. We identify two effective chelators, known as DO3Apic and macropa, for these radionuclides. The 18-membered macrocycle, macropa, bound 132/135 La with better molar activity than DO3Apic under similar conditions. These chelators were conjugated to the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeting agent DUPA to assess the use of radiolanthanum for in vivo imaging. The 132/135 La-labeled targeted constructs showed high uptake in tumor xenografts expressing PSMA. This study validates the use of these radioactive lanthanum isotopes for imaging applications and motivates future work to assess the therapeutic effects of the Auger electron emissions of 135 La.
The Effects of Cell Density and Intrinsic Porosity on Structural Properties and Adsorption Kinetics in 3D-Printed Zeolite Monoliths

Abstract Herein, we report the evaluation of dynamic performance of 3D-printed zeolite monoliths for CO2/N2 separation at 5 bar 25 °C. Monoliths with various cell densities (200, 400, 600 cpsi) and porosities (0.23–0.46) were printed and the effects of cell density, wall porosity, and inlet gas velocity on their separation performance were investigated. Dynamic breakthrough tests with 10% CO2/N2 revealed that increasing cell density gives rise to gas throttling, inadequate time for molecular mass transfer, and broad wavefronts. For 200 cpsi monoliths, upon increasing wall porosity from 0.23 to 0.46, the mass transfer zone (MTZ) length decreased from 0.40 cm to 0.07 cm at the feed velocity of 1.8 cm/s. The mass transfer coefficients estimated from modeling the breakthrough profiles were found to decrease steadily with both velocity and monolith cell density. In the macroporous samples, the best mass transfer coefficient was found to be 0.049 s−1 for the 200 cpsi monolith with kaolin binder substitution. Both increasing the plasticizer concentration and substituting a macroporous binder promoted mass transfer rate, however, the former method increased the number of zeolite-bentonite bonds around large surface defects during burnout and reduced the CO2 adsorption capacity by 27% from the other formulations. On the basis of adsorption capacity and kinetics, utilization of a macroporous binder was found to be the best method of developing 3D-printed zeolite monoliths because it could reduce intraparticle resistance without compromising adsorption capacity or mechanical integrity.
Revolutions and Insurrections: The North American Review and Haiti, 1821–1829

The New England based, conservative periodical North American Review published two reviews of Haiti, in 1821 and 1829. The reviews were starkly different in content and tone. This essay contextuali...
Prolegomena to a Timely Reading of Zen Master Hakuin: his Political Critique, Moral Attitude, and Social Engagement Against the Abusive Authority of the Tokugawa Shogunate

The purpose of this paper is to examine the political attitudes of Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) against the abusive power of the Tokugawa-shogunate’s authority. It first reconsiders briefly the received views of Hakuin as the reviver of the contemporary Japanese Rinzai Zen tradition. It suggests that the hitherto dominant interpretations of Hakuin as a powerful religious icon of the tradition have been crafted by Zen authorities to maintain a conservative, elite Zen system. It then examines and reevaluates Hakuin’s political critiques that have been heretofore overlooked by scholars and intellectuals, focusing on some of his neglected works, particularly the Hebiichigo as well as others. In particular, it considers his moral attitude, political critique of abusive power, and social engagement against political authority. Why has the established Zen hierarchy ignored these political aspects of Hakuin’s work? How can a new reading of Hakuin’s critiques of power be used to reexamine the course of the tradition’s history up to the present? How is it possible to map a new understanding of Hakuin that is appropriate for today? This paper explores not only the contents of these neglected treatises and the possible reasons these writings were suppressed, but more importantly, it locates the preCise meaning of Hakuin today.
Control Mechanisms in Standing while Simultaneously Receiving Perturbations and Active Assistance from the Robotic Upright Stand Trainer (RobUST)

In people with severe neuromotor deficits of trunk and lower extremities, rehabilitation of standing postural control is limited to rigid body support. To expand postural control training in standing, we have recently developed a Robotic Upright Stand Trainer (RobUST). In this study, we use RobUST to deliver body perturbations on the trunk while simultaneously providing direction-specific postural assistance on the pelvis. We study the effect that assist-as-needed forces has on postural imbalance on 10 able-bodied adults. We characterize postural imbalance with center of pressure (COP) variables such as excursion and root mean square COP. Surface electromyography (sEMG) was also applied to investigate muscle strategies. RobUST was designed for future training of participants with profound postural standing deficits. A common postural strategy, applied in such population, is to encourage the use of handlebars to maintain balance. Thus, we additionally investigate COP changes during trunk perturbations when ablebodied adults stood and held a handlebar. Results show that during perturbations, pelvic assistive forces decreased postural excursions and postural variability compared to quiet standing with no support. Interestingly, participants showed a similar level of postural stability, but with fewer muscle activity, with the use of an external fixed handlebar. Although, the maximum level of postural stability was observed when participants used the handlebar and received assistive forces. Our results show a significant promise of RobUST for future training of individuals with severe postural standing deficits.
Early Environmental Exposures and Contaminants: a Design Framework for Biospecimen Collection and Analysis for a Prospective National Birth Cohort

Identifying factors associated with disruptions in early neurodevelopment is imperative for promoting the health and wellbeing of children. We describe a design framework for biospecimen collection for the forthcoming HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study, which seeks to establish a large cohort of pregnant women throughout the USA and follow their children into middle childhood. Biospecimens and biological outcomes of interest, together with validated questionnaires and other measures, may help to disentangle the effect of prenatal exposures from social and environment factors that extend across the prenatal and postnatal periods, including early life adversity (ELA). Biospecimen selection is discussed across four domains of interest: (a) substance use exposure, (b) other environmental exposures, (c) genomics and epigenomics, and (d) other biological markers of neurodevelopment and putative moderators and mediators of developmental effects. HBCD biospecimen working group recommendations were based on nine guiding principles including utility as a biomarker to assess neurodevelopment; feasibility of collection during critical periods of exposure with a broad detection window; logistics and cost of specimen collection, storage, and transportation; cultural acceptability; minimal invasiveness; flexibility; high sensitivity and specificity; anticipated expertise and infrastructure at participating sites; and availability of informative alternative non-biological measures. The proposed essential and recommended biospecimens will need to be integrated with the recommendations from other HBCD working groups to ascertain overall burden for the research participants and families, feasibility of multi-modal collection at each study visit, cost, and implications for recruitment and retention, as well as any potential legal repercussions.
Molecular Origin of Compressibility and Shear Strength of Swelling Clays

Swelling clays are found all over the world, and the damage caused to the infrastructure in swelling clay areas is estimated to be about 20 billion dollars annually in the United States. Compressibility and shear strength are critical properties of soils that are necessary for the design of infrastructure. Our group has shown that molecular interactions between clay and fluids have a dramatic impact on the macroscale properties of swelling clays. The permeability of the clay increases about 500,000 times when the permeating fluid in the Na-montmorillonite clay is changed from polar fluid water to low polar fluid. This change results from clay–fluid molecular interactions as well as the differences to the microstructure caused by these interactions. In the current work, the compression and shear strength of the clay interlayer is studied by changing the polarity of the fluid in the interlayer and applying compressive and shear stresses using steered molecular dynamics. The results show the strong influence of normal stress as well as fluid polarity on compressibility and shear response of the clay at the molecular scale. The results demonstrate that clay–fluid molecular interactions play a crucial role in the macroscopic compressibility and shear strength of swelling clays.
The Role of Identity Development in the Acculturation to College

One aspect of college students’ lives that cannot be overlooked is identity development. During college, students often experience life changes and learn to understand their personal and social identities and where they fit into the university and later in society (Astin, 1975; Bowden et al., 2015; Fries-Britt, & White-Lewis, 2020). Students also develop their cultural and gender identities during the first year of college. Due to the academic performance gap, there is a need to understand racial and gender identities.
Comparison of CO2 and Produced Gas Hydrocarbons to Recover Crude Oil from Williston Basin Shale and Mudrock Cores at 10.3, 17.2, and 34.5 MPa and 110 °C

Carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon gases including methane, ethane, propane, and produced gas (69.5/21/9.5 mol ratio of methane/ethane/propane) were used to recover oil from rock samples collected in t...
Hospital Admissions from the Emergency Department and Subsequent Critical Care Interventions for Influenza during Pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to determine (1) whether obstetrical patients were more likely to be admitted from the emergency department (ED) for influenza compared with nonpregnant women, and (2) require critical care interventions once admitted. STUDY DESIGN Using data from the 2006 to 2011 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, ED encounters for influenza for women aged 15 to 54 years without underlying chronic medical conditions were identified. Women were categorized as pregnant or nonpregnant using billing codes. Multivariable log linear models were fit to evaluate the relative risk of admission from the ED and the risk of intensive care unit (ICU)-level interventions including mechanical ventilation and central monitoring with pregnancy status as the exposure of interest. Measures of association were described with adjusted risk ratios (aRRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS We identified 15.9 million ED encounters for influenza of which 4% occurred among pregnant women. Pregnant patients with influenza were nearly three times as likely to be admitted as nonpregnant patients (aRR = 2.99, 95% CI: 2.94, 3.05). Once admitted, obstetric patients were at 72% higher risk of ICU-level interventions (aRR = 1.72, 95% CI: 1.61, 1.84). Of pregnant women admitted from the ED, 9.3% required ICU-level interventions such as mechanical ventilation or central monitoring. Older patients and those with Medicare were also at high risk of admission and ICU-level interventions (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION Pregnancy confers three times the risk of admission from the ED for influenza and pregnant women are significantly more likely to require ICU-level medical interventions compared with women of similar age. These findings confirm the significant disease burden from influenza in the obstetric population and the public health importance of reducing infection risk. KEY POINTS · Pregnancy confers three times the risk of admission from the ED for influenza.. · Pregnant women admitted with influenza are significantly more likely to require ICU-level care.. · Influenza represents a significant disease burden in the obstetric population.
Deprescribing Blood Pressure Treatment in Long-Term Care Residents.

Abstract Objectives To evaluate the incidence of deprescribing of antihypertensive medication among older adults residing in Veterans Affairs (VA) nursing homes for long-term care and rates of deprescribing after potentially triggering events. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting and Participants Long-term care residents aged 65 years and older admitted to a VA nursing home from 2006 to 2019 and using blood pressure medication at admission. Methods Data were extracted from the VA electronic health record, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Minimum Data Set and Bar Code Medication Administration. Deprescribing was defined on a rolling basis as a reduction in the number or dose of antihypertensive medications, sustained for ≥2 weeks. We examined potentially triggering events for deprescribing, including low blood pressure ( Results Among 31,499 VA nursing home residents on antihypertensive medication, 70.4% had ≥1 deprescribing event (median length of stay = 6 months), and 48.7% had a net reduction in antihypertensive medications over their stay. Deprescribing events were most common in the first 4 weeks after admission and the last 4 weeks of life. Among potentially triggering events, a 50% increase in serum creatinine was associated with the greatest increase in the likelihood of deprescribing over the subsequent 4 weeks: residents with this event had a 41.7% chance of being deprescribed compared with 11.5% in those who did not (risk difference = 30.3%, P Conclusions and Implications Deprescribing of antihypertensive medications is common among VA nursing home residents, especially after a potential renal adverse event.
Management strategies for pediatric patients with tectal gliomas: a systematic review

Pediatric tectal gliomas generally have a benign clinical course with the majority of these observed radiologically. However, patients often need treatment for obstructive hydrocephalus and occasionally require cytotoxic therapy. Given the lack of level I data, there is a need to further characterize management strategies for these rare tumors. We have therefore performed the first systematic review comparing various management strategies. The literature was systematically searched from January 1, 2000, to July 30, 2020, to identify studies reporting treatment strategies for pediatric tectal gliomas. The systematic review included 355 patients from 14 studies. Abnormal ocular findings-including gaze palsies, papilledema, diplopia, and visual field changes-were a common presentation with between 13.6 and 88.9% of patients experiencing such findings. CSF diversion was the most performed procedure, occurring in 317 patients (89.3%). In individual studies, use of CSF diversion ranged from 73.1 to 100.0%. For management options, 232 patients were radiologically monitored (65.4%), 69 received resection (19.4%), 30 received radiotherapy (8.4%), and 19 received chemotherapy (5.4%). When examining frequencies within individual studies, chemotherapy ranged from 2.5 to 29.6% and radiotherapy ranged from 2.5 to 28.6%. Resection was the most variable treatment option between individual studies, ranging from 2.3 to 100.0%. Most tectal gliomas in the pediatric population can be observed through radiographic surveillance and CSF diversion. Other forms of management (i.e., chemotherapy and radiotherapy) are warranted for more aggressive tumors demonstrating radiological progression. Surgical resection should be reserved for large tumors and/or those that are refractory to other treatment modalities.
Nitrogen and Growth Regulator Effects on Shoot and Root Growth of Soybean in vitro

Effects of different nitrogen sources and growth regulator concentrations on expiants from soybean seed embryos [Glycine max (L.) Merr. cv. Braxton] were studied to identify reasons for the general lack of regeneration of soybean plants from callus. The nitrogen source supplied in the agar medium was critical to shoot growth. Ammonium stunted shoot growth unless high relative concentrations of nitrate were also supplied. However, stunting of shoots was reversible upon transfer to a medium more promotive to growth, i. e., low ammonium, high nitrate. Actively growing shoots were also adversely affected by a high ammonium concentration as indicated by cessation of apex growth and severe leaf senescence. A test of 4 diverse genera showed that ammonium/nitrate inhibition of shoot growth was neither limited to soybean, nor common to all legumes. Depressed pH of the medium due to high ammonium/nitrate ratios could not account for decreased shoot growth. While glutamine, substituted for ammonium, did not depress shoot growth, nitrate was still required for growth to proceed. Root initiation was prolific on all nitrogen combinations tested, but root growth was reduced by ammonium and promoted by nitrate. Glutamine had little effect on root initiation or growth.
Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa

Publisher Summary Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are two of the most commonly recognized eating disorders that encompass a variety of psychiatric disorders involving disturbed eating patterns and attitudes toward food and body image. Unhealthy weight control practices and intense body image distortion or disparagement are central features of eating disorders. The hallmark feature of anorexia nervosa (AN) is failure to maintain a minimally normal body weight. Bulimia nervosa (BN) is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating (eating large amounts of food accompanied by a sense of loss of control) and compensatory behaviors (for example, purging, fasting, or excessive exercise). Overlap among the symptoms of these disorders occurs in some individuals. Furthermore, individuals may engage in disturbed eating behaviors and/or indicate intense body image disparagement, but not meet full criteria for AN or BN. However, combining prevalence rates across various types of disorders reveals that up to 5 to 10% of women may be afflicted with a diagnosable eating disorder (AN or BN). Serious medical, psychological, and social consequences are associated with these disorders. The treatment of individuals with eating disorders often requires a multifaceted approach such as psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, nutritional counseling, and medical management involving members of several professional disciplines (for example, dieticians, psychologists, psychiatrists, and internists) and in various settings (inpatient, outpatient, day treatment, and residential). A sizable subgroup of individuals with either AN or BN do not adequately respond to established therapies, or do respond but subsequently relapse.
Psychiatric Illness, Psychotropic Medication, and Childhood Obesity

Publisher Summary Weight gain and obesity have become a critical issue for U.S. children. For those with psychiatric illness, obesity is an additional health burden with problematic sequelae. Although psychiatric illness and medication often have metabolic effects, it appears that the newer antipsychotic medications—used as primary treatments for pediatric autism, psychotic and bipolar disorders, and adjunctive treatments for others—are particularly likely to cause weight gain in some children. This chapter examines current research delineating the extent of psychotropic-associated weight gain in youth, with emphasis on second-generation antipsychotic medications as well as underlying mechanisms and pharmacogenetics. It also summarizes current data on pharmacological and behavioral treatments as well as future directions in research.
Modeling vocal interaction for segmentation in meeting recognition

Automatic segmentation is an important technology for both automatic speech recognition and automatic speech understanding. In meetings, participants typically vocalize for only a fraction of the recorded time, but standard vocal activity detection algorithms for closetalk microphones in meetings continue to treat participants independently. In this work we present a multispeaker segmentation system which models a particular aspect of human-human communication, that of vocal interaction or the interdependence between participants' on-off speech patterns. We describe our vocal interaction model, its training, and its use during vocal activity decoding. Our experiments show that this approach almost completely eliminates the problem of crosstalk, and word error rates on our development set are lower than those obtained with human-generatated reference segmentation. We also observe significant performance improvements on unseen data.
Human cysteine-rich protein. A member of the LIM/double-finger family displaying coordinate serum induction with c-myc.

Abstract We previously reported the structure of the placentally derived human cysteine-rich (h crp) cDNA and demonstrated that it encodes a highly conserved and widely distributed zinc finger-like protein. We now report that the expression of both the mouse and human crp genes is induced as a primary response to serum in quiescent Balb/c 3T3 cells and in human fibroblasts. The profile of this primary response is remarkably parallel to that of c-myc in the Balb/c 3T3 cell line. The structure of the 23.2-kilobase h crp gene demonstrates that it is a member of a gene superfamily encoding proteins sharing a highly characteristic 52-amino acid "LIM/double-finger" motif. The evolutionarily conserved structure of cysteine-rich protein, its structural similarity to a number of developmentally critical proteins, its distinctive tissue distribution, and its primary response to early events in the cell cycle suggest that crp plays an important role in cell function.
Magnetic Turbulence in the WIM

The turbulence in the Galactic magnetic field can be measured using Faraday rotation measures towards extra-galactic radio sources along with Hα emission measures from the Warm Ionized Medium in our galaxy. This has now been done for two 10° by 10° regions of the sky centered on (l,b)=145°, −20° (Minter & Spangler 1996), and 185°, +20°. I will present preliminary results for the 185°,+20° region.
Grid Generated He II Turbulence in a Finite Channel—Theoretical Interpretation

Up to six orders of magnitude of He II vorticity decaying over three orders of magnitude in time in the temperature range 1.2 K ≤ T ≤ 2 K can be described by a purely classical spectral model for homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. The He II vorticity is defined as ω = kL, where k is the circulation quantum and L represents the total length of the vortex line per unit volume, an experimental observable. The model accounts for the quantum effects by introducing a temperature dependent effective kinematic viscosity. In agreement with experimental observation, the spectral decay model predicts four different regimes of the decay of vorticity in a finite channel—they switch as the energy containing and dissipative Kolmogorov length scales grow during the decay, finally both being saturated by the size of the channel.
THE ATOMIC ABSORPTION CROSS SECTIONS OF LITHIUM AND SODIUM BETWEEN 600 AND 1000 A

The continuous atomic-absorption cross section of lithium and sodium vapors has been measured between 600 and 1000 A using photoelectric techniques. Curves and tables are presented of the atomic-absorption cross section versus energy from their series limits to 600 A. A comparison is made between these results and recent theoretical estimates. The conclusion is that theory and experiment are in poor agreement for sodium at photon energies above 7 eV.
Care transitions as opportunities for clinicians to use data exchange services: how often do they occur?

Background The electronic exchange of health information among healthcare providers has the potential to produce enormous clinical benefits and financial savings, although realizing that potential will be challenging. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will reward providers for ‘meaningful use’ of electronic health records, including participation in clinical data exchange, but the best ways to do so remain uncertain. Methods We analyzed patient visits in one community in which a high proportion of providers were using an electronic health record and participating in data exchange. Using claims data from one large private payer for individuals under age 65 years, we computed the number of visits to a provider which involved transitions in care from other providers as a percentage of total visits. We calculated this ‘transition percentage’ for individual providers and medical groups. Results On average, excluding radiology and pathology, approximately 51% of visits involved care transitions between individual providers in the community and 36%–41% involved transitions between medical groups. There was substantial variation in transition percentage across medical specialties, within specialties and across medical groups. Specialists tended to have higher transition percentages and smaller ranges within specialty than primary care physicians, who ranged from 32% to 95% (including transitions involving radiology and pathology). The transition percentages of pediatric practices were similar to those of adult primary care, except that many transitions occurred among pediatric physicians within a single medical group. Conclusions Care transition patterns differed substantially by type of practice and should be considered in designing incentives to foster providers' meaningful use of health data exchange services.
Design oriented analysis of package power distribution system considering target impedance for high performance microprocessors

This paper presents an efficient design methodology to realize the output impedance at the high performance microprocessor core equal to or less than the target impedance to reduce the mid-frequency core noise. Based on the frequency domain analysis of the lumped model of the package power distribution network (PPDN), a systematic method of estimating capacitance and associated parasitics of decoupling capacitors used in the distributed model of the PPDN is described. The simulation results of the analytical method show good correlation with the SPICE simulation results of the distributed PPDN model to reduce the output impedance at the core.
Fleeting Amyloid-like Forms of Rim4 Ensure Meiotic Fidelity

Berchowitz et al. establish that transient amyloid-like forms of Rim4, a yeast RNA-binding protein with a predicted prion domain, translationally repress cyclin CLB3 in meiosis I, thereby ensuring homologous chromosome segregation. These findings suggest that prion domains might enable formation of tightly regulated amyloid-like effectors in diverse functional settings.
Plasma Source Cavity Ringdown Spectroscopy for Environmental Applications: Detections of Elemental Mercury and its Stable Isotopes

Summary form only given. Plasma source cavity ringdown spectroscopy (P-CRDS) is a new spectral technique, in which the plasma source works as an atomization/ionization source and the CRDS serves as a sensitive optical detector. The P-CRDS, since its introduction for atomic and analytical measurements in 1997, has been demonstrated for elemental and isotopic measurements in environmental applications. Several elements, including lead (Pb), Uranium (U), Mercury (Hg), Strontium (Sr), U-235, and Hg isotopes, have been measured by the P-CRDS system based on different instrument configurations. With advancement of compact plasma sources and laser sources, the P-CRDS technique may be used to develop a field-portable ringdown spectrometer for elemental and isotopic monitoring in diverse environmental applications. In this talk, we will present recent progresses on measurements of elemental mercury and its stable isotopic components using the P-CRDS with two different compact plasma sources (MIP and Tube-shaped MIP). Future developments towards a portable P-CRDS-based mercury spectrometer are discussed.
Genes Can Point to Environments That Matter to Advance Public Health

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Fletcher and Conley on the relationship between genetics and the environment in disease development, one by Short et al. on the relationship between gender, genetics, and the environment in disease development and one by Boardman et al. on gene-environment interactions in disease development.
Inhibition of erythrocyte Ca2+-PUMP BY Ca2+ antagonists

Abstract Inside-out vesicularized membrane fragments from human erythrocytes were prepared to study the effects of various Ca 2+ channel entry blockers of plasma membrane Ca 2+ transport and (Ca 2+ + Mg 2+ )-ATPase activity concomitantly. Verapamil and diltiazem (0.01 to 5 mM) inhibited both (Ca 2+ + Mg 2+ )-ATPase activity and initial rates of 45 Ca 2+ net uptake analogously. In general, the parameter affected most by these drugs, using either Ca 2+ transport or (Ca 2+ + Mg 2+ )-5'-adenosine-triphospho-hydrolase (EC 3.6.1.3) ([Ca 2+ + Mg 2+ ]-ATPase) measurements, was the stimulation by calmodulin. However, the specificity and selectivity of inhibition appeared to be highly concentration and membrane preparation dependent. Verapamil and diltiazem inhibited the calmodulin-Ca 2+ transport concentration-effect relationship by changing its apparent affinity as well as the maximal velocity of the process. In a “white ghost” membrane preparation, bepridil inhibited calmodulin activation with a high degree of selectivity as opposed to its effects on calmodulin activation in the vesicular preparation. Nifedipine failed to exhibit any specificity and modestly inhibited basal and calmodulin-activated inside- out vesicular Ca 2+ transport and (Ca 2+ + Mg 2+ -ATPase alike. Our results suggest that verapamil, diltiazem and bepridil (0.01 to 0.3mM), but not nifedipine (1 nM to 0.01 mM), in relatively high concentrations can antagonize the calmodulin-stimulated Ca 2+ -pump, i.e. the ATPase as well as the transport process. The inhibitors differed with regard to potency, selectivity, and the type of inhibition they produced.
Processing of Reference and the Structure of Language: An Analysis of Complex Noun Phrases

Five experiments used self-paced reading time to examine the ways in which complex noun phrases (both conjoined NPs and possessive NPs) influence the interpretation of referentially dependent expressions. The experimental conditions contrasted the reading of repeated names and pronouns referring to components of a complex NP and to the entire complex NP. The results indicate that the entity introduced by a major constituent of a sentence is more accessible as a referent than the entities introduced by component noun phrases. This pattern of accessibility departs from the advantage of first mention that has been demonstrated using probe-word recognition tasks. It supports the idea that reduced expressions are interpreted as referring directly to prominent entities in a mental model whereas reference by names to entities that are already represented in a mental model is mediated by additional processes. The same interpretive processes appear to operate on coreference within and between sentences.