cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Role of Incentives in Promoting Professional Responsibility

The concept of incentives is central to the field of economics. This chapter reviews the evidence on whether incentives can promote and sustain “professional behavior” among service providers in the health care and education sectors. While at first glance it may appear that “incentive-promoted professionalism” is an oxymoron, since professionalism in teaching and medicine often entails such (noble) values as concern for others, collegiality, self-regulation, willingness to sacrifice personal gain in the service of others, and commitment to quality improvements, a careful review of the literature suggests that there are many different types of incentives and certain types of incentives can play an important role in promoting narrowly defined modes of professional behavior among health care and education providers. The empirical evidence on whether financial incentives, such as pay-for-performance, promote professional responsibility among health care providers and educators is mixed. Some studies suggest strong effects, while others find weak effects and even negative unintended consequences. What comes through clearly, however, is that context matters. Where there is an overall enabling environment, financial incentives can encourage providers to improve the quality of services they provide. But where the overall environment is distorted, financial incentives may not work, or even backfire. The literature on incentives also suggests that incentive schemes must be carefully designed and implemented, with the full participation of physicians and educators at every stage of the process. Careful attention needs to be paid to the form of incentives that are used, the way provider performance is measured, the transparency of the incentive system, consideration of possible unintended consequences of the incentives, and the ease and cost of implementing the incentive system.
Adjoint-based aerodynamic shape optimization including transition to turbulence effects

Abstract The inclusion of transition to turbulence effects in aerodynamic shape optimization makes it possible to use it as a tool for the design of airframes with laminar flow. Modified Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) models that consider transition to turbulence have gained traction in the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) community. These models enable the computation of transitional flows without the need for external modules. In this work, we use a smooth version of the amplification factor transport (AFT) model, called AFT-S, to perform gradient-based aerodynamic shape optimization (ASO) of airfoils in subsonic and transonic flow conditions. We investigate the benefits of including transition effects into the optimization process and assess the impact of losing laminar flow when early transition to turbulence occurs due to surface contamination. Our results indicate that our design optimization approach yields lower drag airfoils when transition effects are considered. For the transonic case, the optimizer trades between shock wave strength and laminar flow extension to minimize drag.
Doing the Right Thing: An Analytical Model Examining the Interplay between Ethical Professional Conduct, Morality and Justice

This article explores the sometimes very difficult decisions that lawyers and practicing law students must make in balancing their obligations under the applicable Code of Professional Responsibility or Model Rules of Professional Conduct, their own moral code of conduct and their sense of justice. In Professional Responsibility and Legal Ethics courses, law schools often focus primarily on the "lawyer codes" that students must learn to practice 'ethically' and to pass the Multiple-Choice Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). However, circumstances sometimes arise in which lawyers must look beyond the legal ethics code to make complex decisions in determining what is the 'right' thing to do. I first propose an analytical model, using a series of questions and related issues, to explore and analyze what is the 'right' thing to do in a methodical, reasoned manner. Then, I apply the analytical model utilizing three examples or scenarios. The first example is from my own law practice experience involving the decision of whether or not to testify before a grand jury regarding confidences told to me by a client who was murdered by his wife, who was the subject of the grand jury proceeding. The second example involves law students whom I supervised representing an elderly Middle-eastern woman in political asylum removal proceedings whose story was not quite credible, but who likely would be arrested and killed by the government if deported and returned to her country of origin. The students struggled with the decision of how far they could push the ethical envelope in their representation of her. The third example is a Colorado case, In the Matter of Pautler, 47 P.3d 1175 (2002), in which a prosecutor deceived a murder suspect into believing that the prosecutor was a public defender in order to get the murder suspect to surrender to police. The prosecutor's actions resulted in disciplinary sanction.
A Topological Approach to Path Planning for a Magnetic Millirobot

We present a path planning strategy for a magnetic millirobot where the nonlinearities in the external magnetic force field (MFF) are encoded in the graph used for planning. The strategy creates a library of candidate MFFs and characterizes their topologies by identifying the unstable manifolds in the workspace. The path planning problem is then posed as a graph search problem where the computed path consists of a sequence of unstable manifold segments and their associated MFFs. By tracking the robot’s position and sequentially applying the MFFs, the robot navigates along each unstable manifold until it reaches the goal. We discuss the theoretical guarantees of the proposed strategy and experimentally validate the strategy.
Key Informant Perspectives on Somali Adolescent Tobacco Use: Contextualizing Influences and Prevention Opportunities:

IntroductionSomali American adolescent tobacco use has increased over the past decade amid a high prevalence of tobacco use among Somali American adults. While established adolescent tobacco use de...
The unimodality of pure $O$-sequences of type three in three variables

Since the 1970’s, great interest has been taken in the study of pure $O$-sequences, which are in bijective correspondence to the Hilbert functions of Artinian level monomial algebras. Much progress has been made in classifying these by their shape. It has been shown that all monomial complete intersections, Artinian algebras in two variables and Artinian level monomial algebras with type two in both three and four variables have unimodal Hilbert functions. This paper proves that Artinian level monomial algebras of type three in three variables have unimodal Hilbert functions. We will also discuss the licciness of these algebras.
Germination and net in vitro growth of peach, almond and peach-almond hybrid embryos in response to mannitol inclusion in the nutrient medium

Nine Prunus accessions were evaluated for germination and plantlet growth in an in vitro osmotic screening test using mannitol as an osmoticum. Embryos from diverse peaches, almonds and peach-almond hybrids were cultured in Woody Plant Medium, and in this same medium modified with the inclusion of 350 mM mannitol. Embryos were stratified in vitro for 60 days, induced to germinate for a two week period and then allowed to develop and grow for another 20 days prior to harvest. Fresh weights of both roots and shoots as well as percent germination were recorded at harvest. The main effects of nutrient medium, germplasm type (peach, peach-almond, almond) and specific Prunus accession were all highly significant (P = 0.01) with regard to fresh weight of roots and shoots. Embryo germination was affected significantly by the inclusion of mannitol in the nutrient medium and by the particular germplasm type (P=0.01 and P=0.05, respectively). Significant interactions of nutrient medium × Prunus accession and nutrient medium × germplasm type were also detected for both root and shoot fresh weights. Almond germplasm cultured in Woody Plant Medium with 350 mM mannitol produced significantly more roots and shoots than either peaches or peach-almond hybrids grown in the same medium. Peach-almond hybrid embryos were observed to germinate at a significantly higher frequency than peach embryos when averaged across both media. Results obtained in this study indicate a wide range of average plantlet fresh weight relative to the specific germplasm challenged in the osmotic screen.
INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEMPERATURE AND SODIUM CHLORIDE ON GROWTH OF LACTIC ACID BACTERIA ISOLATED FROM MEAT-CURING BRINES

Goldman, Manuel (American Meat Institute Foundation, Chicago, Ill.), R. H. Deibel, and C. F. Niven, Jr. Interrelationship between temperature and sodium chloride on growth of lactic acid bacteria isolated from meat-curing brines. J. Bacteriol. 85:1017–1021. 1963.—An elevation of the temperature limit for growth of some Pediococcus homari (Gaffkya homari) and motile Lactobacillus strains could be effected by the addition of sodium chloride to the growth medium. At the optimal temperature for growth, sodium chloride was stimulatory, and as the temperature of incubation was increased a mandatory requirement for sodium chloride was manifested. At the optimal temperature for growth (30 C), the highest sodium chloride concentrations were tolerated; as the temperature was increased, this tolerance decreased, although the optimal sodium chloride concentration increased. No other substances were found that would replace the sodium chloride requirement at higher temperatures of incubation.
Sequences transmission: coding in the frequency domain

Reliability in transmission of sequences is achieved by adding redundancy, thereby increasing “distance” between codewords. The word distance is in quotes, because distance can mean many things. Traditional error correcting techniques increase Hamming distance at a cost of decreased rates and and latency (added complexity). The coded modulation techniques introduced by Ungerboek [1] increase Euclidean distance without changing rates. When one has a more precise picture of the channel one can increase distances in non-Euclidean geometries which account for correlations in the noise [2, 3]. In the Fourier transform division multiplexing; (FTDM) schemes of Wienstein and Ebert [4], Peled and Ruiz [5], Mintzer and Howell [6], and Cocke and Greene [7], one again trades off between redundancy and rate in a fixed frequency band, but in a fundamentally different way.
Development of projection neurons of the mammalian cerebral cortex.

Publisher Summary This chapter summarizes the recent studies on the development of two distinct classes of efferent projection neurons in the mammalian cortex: the callosal and subcortically projecting. The cortex consists of six major layers which are distinguishable on the grounds of both cellular morphology and connectivity. The two major layer 5 efferent projection classes of the neocortex, the callosal and the subcortical, are distinct populations of projection neurons generated at the same time in development. The evidence suggests that the distinction between the two classes is determined early in development, either before or around the time that the neurons are generated. The projection class phenotype could be determined by cell-cell interactions such as those hypothesized to occur in the vertebrate retina. Alternatively, projection class could be determined by lineage dependent mechanisms. Lineage has been shown to be an important determinant of glial cell phenotype in cortex and is correlated with the differentiation of neurons into pyramidal and non-pyramidal morphologies. Only direct analysis of the role of lineage in determining cortical projection phenotype allows one to distinguish between these two mechanisms. These determination events are then played out during normal development as the two projection classes differentiate, elaborating their specific axonal and, later, dendritic phenotypes.
Macromodels for digital to analog converters

The authors extend the concept of a macromodel to include a class of digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The macromodel is applied to an 8-b DAC and the performances of the device-level model and the macromodel are compared using SPICE. The macromodel is shown to be faster by a factor of 20-30 and minimizes the convergence problems typically associated with SPICE. The differences between the device-level model and the macromodel are even more dramatic for larger-order DACs or when several DACs are used in the same VLSI circuit. >
Kinematics and Pathophysiology of Carpal Instability

The intricacies of normal and abnormal wrist kinesiology continue to be revealed as we transition from specific static sagittal and frontal (coronal) two-dimensional evaluations to dynamic “out of plane” (global) 3-diimensional analyses and from unloaded to loaded investigations. Image, study-design, and nomenclature standardizations will help to minimize, or even eliminate, misinterpretation and misunderstandings of carpal positions. We have learned that many of the daily activities of human wrist function are performed in the functional (mechanical) dart thrower’s coupled wrist pathway rather than in the anatomic sagittal and frontal planes. Forearm, wrist, hand, and articular contact position at the moment of impact; point of impact; columns; rows; individual carpal bones; amount, direction, and rate of the applied and resistance forces; individual bone and articular cartilage morphology and containment; and viscoelastic ligament properties and relative strengths, especially in the PCR, interact to provide various multiplanar global wrist motions and play a role in injury susceptibility. Each of these parameters allows some measure of integral static and continuous dynamic quantification for biometric analysis, comparisons, communication, and management of carpal bone and ligament injuries as we unravel the comprehensive three-dimensional geometrics of normal and abnormal carpal motion with and without loading. Our composite of information continues to accumulate.
NEMA testing of GE Discovery 710 PET scanner compared to a simplified protocol for routine testing of PET scanners

2157 Objectives NEMA testing represents the gold standard for acceptance testing. However, the phantoms involved are expensive and the protocol is time consuming. For years a simplified approach to useful testing has been used at UAB using a line source, cylindrical uniformity phantom (20 cm x 18 cm), and the ACR PET phantom. A complete PET NEMA phantom test kit was purchased as part of the acquisition of a new GE Discovery 710 PET scanner with time-of-flight. With the new state-of-the art scanner, there was interest in determining the scanner performance relative to the specifications and how the simplified testing procedure compares to the NEMA tests. Methods The NEMA NU2-2012 protocol was followed for spatial resolution, sensitivity, NEMA phantom Image Quality, and scatter fraction/count rate tests. The simplified test was used to obtain results of transaxial spatial resolution, relative sensitivity, deadtime correction for count ranges of +/- 130% of usual clinical count rate, relative scatter correction, and image contrast under clinical conditions. The presence of bone, air and water inserts in the ACR PET phantom also provide a relative measure of scatter correction and attenuation correction. This simplified protocol has been used on a number of different scanners representing different vendors and models over the years. The simplified tests were performed for initial acceptance testing and the full NEMA tests were performed afterwards. Results NEMA test results are presented along with comparison between the simplified and NEMA tests. Resolution compared favorably (4.6 and 5.2 mm at 0 and 10 cm, respectively). From the uniformity phantom images, it was observed that the sensitivity was higher than seen with other scanners; the actual measured value was 710 kcps/MBq. Contrast recovery values obtained with the ACR phantom were in good concordance with the NEMA phantom (80% at 22 mm and 70% at 13 mm). Conclusions The GE Discovery PET/CT 710 was found to exceed specifications and the simplified tests provided good estimates of expected performance.
Estrogen mediated cross talk between the ovary and pituitary somatotrope. Pre-ovulatory support for reproductive activity.

For 40 years, we have known that there is a 2-fold rise in serum GH during the reproductive cycle (Giustina and Veldhuis, 2000; Hull and Harvey, 2002: Frantz and Rabkin, 1965; Faria et al, 1992; Ovesen et al, 1998) and some of these investigators have called this the midcycle GH surge. While it does not have the amplitude of the mid cycle surge of luteinizing hormone (LH), it does provide pulses of GH that are higher both in frequency and in amplitude as the individual approaches ovulation (Frantz and rabkin, 1965; Faria et al, 1992; Ovesen et al, 1998).
Statistical algorithms for circuit synthesis under process variation and high defect density

As the technology scales, there is a need to develop design and optimization algorithms under various scenarios of uncertainties. These uncertainties are introduced by process variation and impact both delay and leakage. For future technologies at the end of CMOS scaling, not only process variation but the device defect density is projected to be very high. Thus realizing error tolerant implementation of Boolean functions with minimal redundancy overhead remains a challenging task. The dissertation is concerned with the challenges of low-power and area digital circuit design under high parametric variability and high defect density. The technology mapping provides an ideal starting point for leakage reduction because of higher structural freedom in the choices of implementations. We first describe an algorithm for technology mapping for yield enhancement that explicitly takes parameter variability into account. We then show how leakage can be reduced by accounting for its dependence on the signal state, and develop a fast gain-based technology mapping algorithm. In some scenarios the state probabilities can not be precise point values but are modeled as an interval. We extended the notion of mean leakage to the worst case mean leakage which is defined as the sum of maximal mean leakage of circuit gates over the feasible probability realizations. The gain-based algorithm has been generalized to optimize this proxy leakage metric by casting the problem within the framework of robust dynamic programming. The testing is performed by selecting various instance probabilities for the primary inputs that are deviations from the point probabilities with respect to which a point probability based gain based mapper has been run. We obtain leakage improvement for certain test probabilities with the interval probability based over the point probability based mapper. Next, we present techniques based on coding theory for implementing Boolean functions in highly defective fabrics that allow us to tolerate errors to a certain degree. The novelty of this work is that the structure of Boolean functions is exploited to minimize the redundancy overhead. Finally we have proposed an efficient analysis approach for statistical timing, which can correctly propagate the slope in the path-based statistical timing analysis. The proposed algorithm can be scaled up to one million paths.
Optical Spectroscopy Methods to Probe Key Spectral Fingerprints of Animal Bone

The chemical composition of different animal bones was studied using Raman spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy. Using a luminescence spectrometer, the fluorescence spectra from an excitation of 300 nm, 340 nm, 400 nm and 500 nm were investigated and showed the key molecular components of bone. After 300 nm excitation, 380 nm fluorescence was seen, consistent with the presence of collagen. After 340 nm excitation, 380 nm fluorescence was seen, consistent with the presence of collagen, the main organic material in bone. An excitation of 340 nm also showed a fluorescence of 450 nm, most likely due to the presence of NADH. After 500 nm excitation, 600 nm fluorescence was seen, most likely caused by porphyrins due to blood within the bone. Raman spectroscopy using a 785 nm laser was also performed. With these spectroscopic tools, the important features and components of bone can be studied.
Mini open and sub pectoral bicepstenodesis

Abstract The function of the biceps tendon in the shoulder remains controversial. This tendon can be a source of significant anterior shoulder pain that can lead to persistent shoulder dysfunction.
RESONANT ABSORPTION OF LASER LIGHT BY PLASMA TARGETS.

It is proposed that a resonant mechanism should cause significant absorption of energy from intense laser pulses in plasma targets, and that the energy should be deposited in such a way as to form a very non-Maxwellian high-temperature tail on the electron velocity distribution.
Utricular paresis and semicircular canal hyperactivity: a distinct otolith syndrome

AbstractConclusions: Although combined utricular and canal paresis has been described previously, this is the first report of canal hyperactivity associated with utricular hypofunction. Unsteadiness and swaying were the most common symptoms, and patients with shorter duration of symptoms also had positional vertigo. We propose that this syndrome is a variant of utricular dysfunction and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of peripheral vestibular disorders. Objective: To describe a syndrome of instability associated with utricular dysfunction and hyperactive caloric responses. Methods: The study comprised 11 consecutive patients exhibiting abnormalities of the eccentric subjective visual vertical test (e-SVV) and high responses during the caloric test of the videonystagmography (VNG). We carried out a review of symptoms, physical examination, and vestibular tests. Results: There was no gender predilection or obvious etiology. The patients’ main complaint included instability with linear sym...
Dealing with Unknown Variables in Policy/Program Evaluation.

Abstract A leading objection to the feasibility of applying benefit-cost analysis in evaluation is that one often cannot know the benefits, the costs, or the probabilities of their occurring for a given proposal. Threshold analysis involves handling unknown variables by converting relevant evaluation problems into questions as to whether a given benefit, cost, probability, or combination of these elements is more or less than a threshold. Above the threshold, the proposed program would be relatively profitable; and below the threshold, it would be relatively unprofitable. Applying that analysis may require the drawing of simple graphs to stimulate the minds of knowledgeable persons as to the range of the actual benefits, costs or probabilities. The approach can be applied when the benefits or the costs are either monetary or nonmonetary, and when the problems involve either go/no-go decisions or conflicting-choice decisions.
Regulation of extracellular pectate lyase in Erwinia chrysanthemi: evidence that reaction products of pectate lyase and exo-poly-α-d-galacturonosidase mediate induction on d-galacturonan

Abstract The process by which Erwinia chrysanthemi recognizes the presence of pectic polymers and thereby increases production of extracellular pectate lyase was investigated in vitro . The bacterium produced at least 20 times more extracellular pectate lyase during growth on d -galacturonan than during growth on glycerol. Several lines of evidence indicated that the induction of pectate lyase by d -galacturonan was mediated by reaction products (4,5-unsaturated digalacturonic acid and digalacturonic acid) released from the polymer by the basal, extracellular activities of pectate lyase and (or) exo-poly-α- d -galacturonosidase. The medium of cultures growing logarithmically on d -galacturonan contained factor(s) which diffused through dialysis tubing and stimulated pectate lyase induction in unadapted cultures simultaneously presented with d -galacturonan. The rate of pectate lyase induction during incubation with d -galacturonan was similarly enhanced by the addition of digalacturonic acid. At a concentration of 0·1 mg ml -1 , d -galacturonan failed to be taken up by unadapted bacteria, but both saturated and unsaturated digalacturonic acid were rapidly assimilated and both induced pectate lyase. Pectate lyase production in this phytopathogenic bacterium was also induced by isolated higher plant cell walls, but an oligogalacturonide lyase-deficient mutant that was poorly induced by d -galacturonan or its disaccharide derivatives was also poorly induced by isolated plant cell walls. Pectate lyase induction on isolated pectic polymers or plant cell walls appears to be a multienzyme, autocatalytic process in which oligogalacturonides generated extracellularly are converted intracellulary to the actual inducer.
Prolonged Radiographic Stabilization of a Metastatic Octreotide Scan-Positive Poorly Differentiated Neuroendocrine Tumor Using Octreotide Acetate Therapy Alone *

Pancreatic poorly differentiated neuroendocrine tumors (PDNETs) are a subtype of neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs) clinically distinguished by their much more rapid growth and immunohistochemically diagnosed by having a higher Ki-67 cancer cell staining percentage compared to their well or intermediately differentiated NET counterparts. While standard first line treatment for metastatic well or intermediately differentiated pancreatic NETs typically involves octreotide acetate therapy, here I report, to my knowledge, the first case of a patient with a pancreatic PDNET with radiographic stabilization of his disease with octreotide acetate use alone. Octreotide acetate was chosen after first establishing that, based on his octreotide scan, receptors might be targeted using the octreotide analog.
The application of linear programming to design problems

It is the purpose of this paper to bring to the attention of the chemical engineering profession a recently developed mathematical technique, called “linear programming”, which is exceedingly valuable in solving certain general problems connected with, inter alia, the efficient design of a chemical plant, and the discovery of an optimum production schedule which would maximize the profits of an enterprise. The general and more important features of linear programming will be discussed in the main body of this paper, while, in the Appendix, an illustrative problem of, it is hoped, general interest will be worked out numerically.
A comparison of four clinical techniques in the analysis of phonation

Summary The success of four clinical techniques for voice analysis were compared: videolaryngoscopy, videolaryngostroboscopy (VLS), electroglottography (EGG) for laryngeal adduction, and acoustic perturbation analysis. Two normal and 26 consecutive voice patients were studied. All four techniques were successful with the normals and 42% of the patients. There were difficulties for 23% of the patients for the stroboscopic technique, 46% for the EGG analysis, and 35% for acoustic analysis. These difficulties were due primarily to aperiodicity of the voice signals or, in the case of stroboscopy, to the inability to view the vocal folds because of hypertrophy of tissue. Videolaryngoscopy failed only once due to intolerance by the patient. For the 28 subjects, only three (11%) could not be analyzed by either VLS, EGG, or acoustic techniques. There was a moderate correspondence between VLS and EGG analysis for the estimate of glottal adduction. The results strongly suggest the complementary and overlapping interpretations of these measures and, thus, the usefulness of the battery for clinical voice analysis.
Analysis of C60+ and Cs+ sputtering ions for depth profiling gold/silicon and GaAs multilayer samples by time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry

Abstract Time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) depth profiles of several inorganic layered samples using Cs+ and C60+ primary sputtering ions of different energies are compared to evaluate sputter yield and depth resolution. A gold/silicon model system is employed to study interfaces between metals and semiconductors, and multilayers of AlGaAs, Al, and InAs in GaAs are analyzed to explore the ability of C60+ to analyze semiconductor interfaces in GaAs. Roughness measurements are reported to differentiate between different factors affecting depth resolution. The best depth resolution from all samples analyzed is achieved using 1 keV Cs+. However, C60+ sputtering has advantages for analyzing conductor/insulator interfaces because of its high sputter yield, and for analyzing deeper heterolayers in GaAs due to lower sputter-induced roughness.
DIFFUSE REFLECTION AND TRANSMISSION BY CLOUD AND DUST LAYERS

Radiative transfer in anisotropic phase function medium using Neumann solution, Romanova method and doubling method, noting probability distribution of photon optical paths
Mitochondrial DNA-like sequences in the nucleus (NUMTs): insights into our African origins and the mechanism of foreign DNA integration.

Nuclear mitochondrial DNA sequences (NUMTs) are common in eukaryotes. However, the mechanism by which they integrate into the nuclear genome remains a riddle. We analyzed 247 NUMTs in the human nuclear DNA (nDNA), along with their flanking regions. This analysis revealed that some NUMTs have accumulated many changes, and thus have resided in the nucleus a long time, while others are >94% similar to the reference human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), and thus must be recent. Among the latter, two NUMTs, encompassing the COI gene, carry a set of transitions characteristic of the extant African-specific L macrohaplogroup mtDNAs and are more homologous to human mtDNA than to chimp. Screening for one of these NUMTs revealed its presence in all human samples tested, confirming that the African macrohaplogroup L mtDNAs were present in the earliest modern humans and thus were the first human mtDNAs. An analysis of flanking sequences of the NUMTs revealed that 59% were within 150 bp of repetitive elements, with 26% being within 15 bp of and 33% being within 15–150 bp of repetitive elements. Only 14% were integrated into a repetitive element. This association of NUMTs with repetitive elements is highly nonrandom (p<0.001). These data suggest that the vicinity of transposable elements influences the ongoing integration of mtDNA sequences and their subsequent duplication within the nDNA. Finally, NUMTs appear to preferentially integrate into DNA with different GC content than the surrounding chromosomal band. Our results suggest that chromosomal structure might influence integration of NUMTs. Hum Mutat 23:125–133, 2004. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Naltrexone modification of drinking effects in a subacute treatment and bar-lab paradigm: influence of OPRM1 and dopamine transporter (SLC6A3) genes.

Background Naltrexone is moderately effective for the treatment of alcohol dependence, but there is great individual variability. The opioid receptor (OPRM1) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) asn40asp has been shown to alter alcohol and naltrexone response in animals and humans. In addition, the brain opioid and dopamine systems interact and might underlie drinking and craving. This study investigated the effects of the OPRM1 SNP and dopamine transporter (DAT) variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) genetic differences on drinking, alcohol effects, and naltrexone response under controlled conditions in nontreatment-seeking alcoholics. Methods Two hundred and sixty-five nontreatment-seeking individuals with alcohol dependence were genotyped a priori for the OPRM1 asn40asp SNP and post hoc for DAT (SLC6A3) 9 and 10 VNTRs. Asp40 carriers (n = 43) and matched asn40 homozygotes (n = 40) were randomized to naltrexone or placebo for 7 days before receiving a priming drink and limited-access alcohol consumption in a bar-lab setting. Effects of genotypes on natural drinking as well as drinking, alcohol effects, and response to naltrexone in the bar-lab setting were examined by genotype. Results There were no significant main effects of naltrexone or OPRM1 genotype, or any medication by OPRM1 interaction, on drinking variables. However, in individuals who had at least one DAT 9 VNTR, and who were also OPRM1 asn40 homozygotes, naltrexone reduced drinks/d consumed under natural conditions (p = 0.006), but not in the bar-lab. OPRM1 asn40 homozygotes (p = 0.028) and DAT 9 VNTR carriers (p = 0.032) had more stimulation to alcohol after the priming drink. Conclusions This study does not support a salient role for the OPRM1 asp40 alone in predicting drinking or naltrexone effects. However, although exploratory and in need of replication, it introduces the possibility that epistasis between the OPRM1 gene and DAT gene might need to be taken into account when examining differential genetic response to alcohol or medication treatment, especially in early-stage alcoholics.
Targeting 'high-risk' individuals.

It is not unusual for this journal to receive papers describing the epidemiology of an injury mechanism, and often endeavouring to identify risk factors associated with the outcome. In fact, we publish many such manuscripts.1–3 When discussing the motivation for a study or the implications of its results, authors will often state that risk factors they have identified could be used to ‘target’ injury control interventions towards individuals at particular injury risk. The rationale seems reasonable enough: find a demographic or behavioural marker that is associated with injury, and use this to direct limited or intensive prevention resources towards those at highest risk. But there are problems inherent in this approach that merit discussion. Of course, at some level, every program is targeted. Clinicians don't offer smoking cessation advice to non-smokers. Nor do we typically discuss child safety restraint with non-parenting adults. …
Achieving Program Equity: Are Markets the Answer?

This article suggests that one approach for meeting Clune's goals of program adequacy is to rely more heavily on market structures in school districts. Specifically, it is proposed that barriers to...
intracranial branch atheromatous disease : a neglected, understudied, and underused concept

Lacunar infarction remains a controversial entity. Although most neurologists and stroke experts accept the general principle that small deep infarcts can be caused by intrinsic lipohyalinotic narrowing of small penetrating arterial branches of the major cerebral arteries, some question or doubt the clinical applicability of this concept
Transformation of contrails into cirrus during SUCCESS

Three contrail systems were analyzed with geostationary satellite data to document the conversion of the contrails to cirrus clouds. Two unique contrails, a pair of figure eights and a NASA DC-8 oval, were tracked for more than 7 hours. A cluster of contrails from commercial aircraft lasted over 17 hours. The figure eights produced a cirrus cloud having a maximum extent of 12,000 km²; the commercial cluster reached an area of ∼35,000 km². The contrail-cirrus were thin with optical depths between 0.2 and 0.5. In all cases, cloud particle size increased as the contrails developed into cirrus clouds. The climatic impact of contrails will be greater than would be estimated if only linear contrails, those typically observed in satellite imagery, are considered. Additional research is required to obtain reliable statistics on contrail growth and lifetime.
In vitro detection of canine distemper virus nucleic acid with a virus-specific cDNA probe by dot-blot and in situ hybridization

Abstract A cDNA library was prepared from canine distemper viral (CDV) messenger RNA (mRNA) derived from Vero cells lytically infected with the Onderstepoort strain (Ond) of CDV. A 300 base pair insert was identified which, by Northern blot analysis and Sanger sequence data, was shown to be specific to the nucleocapsid gene. The nucleocapsid (NC) clone was radiolabeled with 32 P using nick translation and used to detect viral RNA in both dot-blot and in situ preparations of Vero cells lytically infected with Onderstepoort CDV (Ond-CDV) and immortalized mink lung cells persistently infected with racoon origin CDV (CCL64-RCDV). Dot-blot hybridization results paralleled immunofluorescent results in the lytically infected cells. In 18 persistently infected cell lines from the RCDV-CCL64 parental stock, 13 lines were positive and two were negative on both immunofluorescence and dot-blot hybridization analysis for CDV antigen and RNA, respectively. Viral nucleic acid was detected in these persistently infected cells, where as few as 1.9% of the members of a line were positive on immunofluorescence. A dot-blot autoradiographic signal was obtained in three lines which were negative for CDV antigen. CDV RNA was detected in both lytically and persistently infected cell lines by in situ hybridization, where decreasing probe length was important in increasing the sensitivity of this assay. Viral RNA was detected in over 90% of the lytically infected cells, where only 70% were positive for viral antigen by immunofluorescence.
Conjugate analysis of multivariate normal data with incomplete observations

The authors discuss prior distributions that are conjugate to the multivariate normal likelihood when some of the observations are incomplete. They present a general class of priors for incorporating information about unidentified parameters in the covariance matrix. They analyze the special case of monotone patterns of missing data, providing an explicit recursive form for the posterior distribution resulting from a conjugate prior distribution. They develop an importance sampling and a Gibbs sampling approach to sample from a general posterior distribution and compare the two methods. Les auteurs proposent des lois a priori conjuguees a la vraisemblance normale multivariee en presence d'observations incompletes. Ils decrivent une classe generale de lois a priori permettant d'incorporer de rinformation concernant des parametres non identifies dans la matrice de covariance. Ils analysent le cas special ou le patron des donnees manquantes est monotone; ils montrent comment calculer explicitement, de facon recursive, la loi a posteriori conjuguee. Ils expliquent aussi comment echantillonner d'une loi a posteriori generale, soit par la methode ponderee ou celle de Gibbs, et comparent les deux approches.
Ignition and flame quenching of flowing heterogeneous fuel-air mixtures

Abstract A model is described for the ignition of heterogeneous fuel-air mixtures that assumes that mixing rates and chemical kinetics are infinitely fast and that the sole criterion for successful ignition is an adequate concentration of fuel vapor in the ignition zone. From analysis of the relevant heat and mass-transfer processes involved, expressions for quenching distance and minimum ignition energy are derived that have general application to both quiescent and flowing mixtures. In the present investigation attention is focused on flowing mixtures, and minimum ignition energies are measured over wide ranges of pressure, velocity, turbulence intensity, equivalence ratio, mean drop size, and fuel volatility. The results obtained show very satisfactory agreement with corresponding predicted values, thus confirming the basic premise of the model.
Interpretation of Western blots of specimens from children infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1: Implications for prognosis and diagnosis

The current method of diagnosing human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection in adults is based on serologic detection of HIV-1 antibodies by means of an enzymelinked immunosorbent assay, with subsequent confirmation by Western blot immunoassay. The Western blot qualitatively measures the presence of antibody to a number of virus-associated proteins, including major group-specific antigen proteins, envelope proteins, and polymerase gene products. In the Western blot assay, proteins from a lysate of HIV-1 are separated according to size with the use of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The electrophoresed proteins are transferred to nitrocellulose paper and reacted with patient serum. The HIV-1 antibody from the patient's serum is then detected by an antihuman IgG antibody conjugated with an enzyme. When the nitrocellulose paper is exposed to substrate, a colored band will appear on the paper where serum antibody was bound to viral protein. Western blot immunoassays have recognized limitations: 32% of adults without antibody detected by ELISA, who are at low risk for HIV-1 infection, may have Western blot reactivity, resulting in an indeterminate interpretation. 1 Indeterminate Western blots also are obtained late in the course of adult HIV1 infection, when there is a loss of antibodies to core HIV-1 antigens, z, 3 In infants, the serologic diagnosis of HIV-1 infection is confused by the presence of HIV-1 antibodies transplacentally acquired from the mother. Of those infants who are offspring of H1V-1 seropositive mothers, but who are not
Set of two orthogonal adaptive cylindrical lenses in a monolith elastomer device

A microfluidic device that operates as a set of two adaptive cylindrical lenses focusing light along two orthogonal axes is designed, fabricated and characterized. The device is made out of a silicon elastomer, polydimethylsiloxane, using soft lithography, and consists of a few chambers separated by flexible membranes and filled with liquids of different refractive indices. The cylindrical lenses can be both converging and diverging; their focal lengths are varied independently and continuously adjusted between -40 and 23 mm by setting pressure in the chambers. Applications of the device to shaping of a laser beam, imaging and optical signal processing are demonstrated.
Moving object detection using spatial coherence

Moving object detection from videos is one of important problems in intelligent video surveillance. Our goal is to extract moving foreground objects from the background of a scene captured from a stationary camera. We propose methods to improve a background subtraction (BGS) algorithm effectively using the spatial coherence of foreground regions - spatial filtering and region-based BGS. The proposed spatial filtering is based on the spatial coherence around the pixel neighborhood. In the region-based BGS, pixel deviation values (from the background model) are aggregated in a region for region-wise detection. We demonstrate the improved performance using the proposed methods on several indoor/outdoor video sequences.
Three-Dimensional Method for Determination of Amniotic Fluid Volume in Intrauterine Pockets☆

Abstract Background: Although current ultrasound techniques provide a linear (amniotic fluid index; AFI) or two-dimensional area index of amniotic fluid (AF), these indices have limited correlation with actual AF volume. We sought to quantify the three-dimensional volume of ultrasound-identified AF pockets, as assessed by the AFI and two-dimensional area methods. The BVI 2500 (Bladder Volume Instrument 2500; Diagnostic Ultrasound Corp., Redmond, WA) has been used to quantify the volume of residual urine in the bladder. Instrument and Method: The BVI 2500 (Diagnostic Ultrasound Corp.) ultrasound uses a rotating 2-MHz transducer, computer-defined fluid interface, and computer integration of 12 cross-sectional images to calculate three-dimensional fluid volume. After providing written informed consent, 14 term pregnant patients (36–42 weeks) were evaluated using the BVI 2500 and an Ultramark 8 sector scan (Advanced Technology Laboratory, Bothell, WA). The largest vertical fluid pocket in each quadrant of the abdomen was identified with the sector scan, and vertical and horizontal measurements for AFI and two-dimensional area were recorded. Simultaneous AF volume measurements of each pocket were performed three times with the bladder volume instrument, and maximum values were used. Three-dimensional volume, two-dimensional area, and AFI values were compared by correlation analysis, with P ≤ .05 considered statistically significant. Experience: Among all patients, the average (± standard deviation) AFI was 7.6 ± 4.1 (range 1.5–16.4) cm, and the average two-dimensional area was 30.9 ± 21.1 (range 4.3–81.3) cm2. This corresponded to an average three-dimensional volume of 215 ± 134 (range 23–497) cm3. Three-dimensional volume correlated highly with both AFI (r = 0.9; P Conclusion: There are highly significant linear correlations of three-dimensional amniotic fluid volumes with AFI and two-dimensional area. The four pockets used in AFI determination account for only 50% of total AF volume. Three-dimensional determinations may aid in clinical assessments of AF volume.
Motor overload protectors on shipboard

At the present time, the bureau of Ships uses separately mounted-magnetically or thermally-actuated relays to protect a-c motors from overload, single-phase, and locked rotor conditions. With the advent of silicone-insulated motors requiring different overload relay characteristics, the development of relays operating on the actual motor winding temperature was undertaken.
Acoustic characteristics, early experience, and endocrine status interact to modulate female zebra finches' behavioral responses to songs

Female songbirds use male songs as an important criterion for mate selection. Properties of male songs are thought to indicate the male's quality as a potential mate. Song preferences in female zebra finches are known to be influenced by two factors--early auditory experience and the acoustic characteristics of males' songs. Studies often investigate song preferences by priming females with estrogen. However, estrogenic influences on song preferences have not been studied. We investigated the relative influence of early auditory experience, acoustic features of songs, and estrogen availability on song responsiveness in female zebra finches. Juvenile female zebra finches were tutored for 10 days with 40 songs per day with one of three acoustically different song types--simple songs, long-bout songs or complex songs. A fourth group of females was untutored. Aside from this brief song exposure, females were raised and maintained without exposure to male songs. During adulthood, females' behavioral responses to the three song types were tested under three hormone conditions--untreated, estradiol-treated and 1,4,6-androstatriene-3,17-dione (ATD)-treated (to lower endogenous estrogen). Based on the results of our study, four conclusions can be drawn. First, song responsiveness in female zebra finches is strongly affected by minimal early acoustic experience. Second, inexperienced female zebra finches are inherently biased to respond more to complex songs over other song types Third, although female zebra finches are inherently biased to respond more to complex songs, early acoustic experience may either reinforce or weaken this inherent responsiveness to complex songs. Fourth, estrogen selectively accentuates song responsiveness in acoustically-experienced female zebra finches.